Rooted in Discipleship

Well, good morning Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? Good morning. I'm Pastor D.J. I'm the pastor here at Cross Church Phoenix. And if I haven't met you before, welcome in. Uh come find me afterwards. I'd love to chat with you, get to know you more. Um at this time, let's open our Bibles to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2 beginning at verse 6. And if you don't have a Bible, we have some in the seat back um in front of or around you, feel free to use that one. And if you don't have a Bible, that is yours. Take it home. It's our gift to you. You can highlight it, underline it, mark it up. Uh make that your Bible. And I do hope that you'll join us back again tonight 6:00 p.m. in here. Um one big happy family church one service will be great. Um we're going to have a time of worship and uh fellowship and then a mission report from Audrey who went to Mexico over the summer and uh time dedicated time of prayer. And uh and it'll be a it'll be a great time. So, I hope you'll join us. And even if you're new here, this is your first Sunday, if you want to come back church tonight, um you're welcome to join us. We are in our third week of our rooted and ready church life series. And we do this um once a year at Cross Church usually over the summer to kind of uh go over who we are and what we do as a church. And then after this, uh we have two more weeks. And then September 13th, we will kick off uh going through the book of Job, which I am very excited for. You're like, "Isn't Job the one about all the suffering?" Yes, it's that one. And I am super excited because uh I've just I've camped been camping there in my own uh reading and study, and I can't wait to just preach through Job. So, over the last 2 weeks, uh we looked at being rooted in worship and then rooted in community, and now we come to rooted in discipleship. Rooted in discipleship. And that will lead to our last 2 weeks. So, next Sunday we'll be ready for mission, and then September 6th, which our brother Ken Strolemyer will preach, uh ready for leadership while I am in uh the Philippines. So, uh pray for me as well. I leave uh I'll be preaching next uh Sunday, and then I leave on the 31st. I will miss one Sunday. I'll be back on the 10th of September. And so, be in prayer for uh I ask for prayers for myself and my family as well as uh our brother Ken who will be preaching on the 6th. Before the risen Jesus ascended into heaven, he gave his remaining disciples uh two basic commands in what we call the Great Commission. You've probably heard of it before. It's a well-known portion of scripture, and we camped on the Great Commission for a while here a few months back. But, he gave the disciples two commands. And those two commands in the Great Commission are number one, make disciples. That's the command. A lot of times we think it's the word go. It's an as you are going, make disciples. That is the command. And the second command is actually like fascinating to me. The second one in the Great Commission is remember. It's cool how we are commanded to remember that he will be with us as we make disciples. He says, go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them, and remember that I'm with you as you do it. The Great Commission does not simply say to go and make converts to Christianity. It doesn't stop there. Making converts is good and necessary, of course, but becoming a Christian isn't the end of the road. It is the beginning of your journey with the Lord in discipleship. And that's the difference between making, we would say, a convert to Christianity over making a disciple. A disciple isn't someone who just became a Christian, though that's the starting point. A disciple is a learner. A synonym could be a pupil, a student, someone who is being taught all the things that Christ commanded, right? That goes along with the Great Commission, "Teaching them everything I I have commanded you." A disciple is someone being taught with the goal of being able to make disciples themselves. And in the Great Commission, Jesus gives the basic elements of disciple making. He says, "Baptize them, those who come to Christ, baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and then teach them everything I commanded you." That's what it's all about. And that first-century command echoes down to today in the 21st century. Our mandate here at Cross Church and every other Bible-believing, Bible-preaching church is to make disciples. And we do that here by making Jesus known and creating a culture of discipleship here. We want to baptize new believers who hear the gospel and come to Christ and proceed to teach them everything we can about him. And that's how we make disciples. A church that makes simply converts but not disciples is actually technically not fulfilling the Great Commission. They might think they are because of big numbers. But if no disciples are being made, then the Great Commission is not being carried out. We don't want Cross Church Phoenix or Cross Church collectively to be a mile wide and an inch deep. So, along with being rooted in worship and community, we must also be rooted in discipleship. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. I thank you for your word. I pray God that you would help us. Your word says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask." And so, I ask. We ask for wisdom right now. Help us to understand your word. Help us to rightly apply your word to our lives. Pray that you would give us ears to hear what the Spirit has to say to the church at Cross Church, Phoenix. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, this time I want to invite you to stand as we read God's word together. Uh two verses this morning, Colossians 2:6 and 7. And if you're unable to stand, no worries. You could stand with us in spirit. Um we're simply honoring God's word. It's a heart posture, and we stand as a representative of that. But, if you're unable to, that is okay. Colossians 2, beginning at verse 6. And Paul is writing, and he says, "So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live." Some translations will say walk. Continue to walk in him. Being rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude." This is God's word. Amen. You can be seated. The first command in the entire book of Colossians is right here in verse 6. It is the words to walk. Continue to walk in Christ. That is it. The direct command in the passage. We are commanded to continue walking in Christ the same way we received him. And the way we received him is not technically talking about receiving salvation. I want to make this clarification. We receive Christ as our personal Lord and Savior when we come to him in in repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are saved Ephesians 2:8 and 9 by grace through faith. Yes, but what Paul is actually saying here in Colossians 2 is not as you've received salvation. Like um continue to walk in grace through faith because you received Christ by grace through faith. Though that would be true, that's technically not what he's saying. He's actually talking about continue to walk in him as you received the teaching about him. This is all about the receptive the reception of teaching about Jesus Christ. And I'll show you that a little bit more later, but he's not talking about salvation. He's talking about the teaching concerning Jesus Christ. And so number one and so our heading this morning if you have a handout, if not they're on the tables in the back. But our main heading this morning is the main command of the passage. How to continue walking in Christ. The rest of verses 6 and 7 is how that's done, how this plays out. How do we continue to walk in Christ? And the first thing Paul says is being rooted. And so that's our first point. Let's not complicate it, right? Rooted. Being rooted. And I have a little um sentence at after each one just to kind of for explanatory, but rooted number one rest in the salvation Christ has already accomplished. As you probably picked up last week or if you saw the sermon last week, I geek out on languages, um, biblical languages. I love the Greek and the Hebrew. And so, whenever I get the chance to, I like to see how this shakes out in the original languages. And it never ceases to amaze me how precise God's word is. At the beginning of verse seven, where Paul says being rooted, that those two words, one in the Greek, those two words are what call are what are called, um, the a perfect passive participle. And you say, I came to church, I'm having flashbacks and PTSD of like English grammar class. Uh, don't stop telling me grammar, I um, all perfect the perfect tense means is simply this, a completed action in the past that has ongoing results in the future or ongoing impact currently. Let me give you a quick example. I never want to be overly academic, um, but when I believe that we will benefit from it, I want to share this. So, in English, we miss this a lot because biblical writing, Hebrew and Greek, are are completely different languages and it's all about the ending of the word that tells you what kind of word it is. But, let me just give you an example. Uh, of the difference between the past tense and the perfect tense in the Greek speaking world. Hopefully, this will help. Okay. If I said, I lost my keys. Okay? I lost my keys. I may have them right now. They're in my pocket. But, at some point in time, I lost my keys. That means that at some point in the past, I lost my keys. I might have them right now, but in the past I lost them. Now, if we are walking out to the parking lot and I reach for my and I say, "Uh-oh, I've lost my keys." That means that though I still lost them in the past cuz I had to have lost them, right? It just happened. I lost my keys at some point. Though I lost them in the past, it has an ongoing impact on my current state, which in this case or in this example, it simply means that I can't get into my car at the moment. I could have lost my keys 10 times in the past. I don't know about you if I'm the only one. Um but you How many ti- Have you ever like lost your keys like 100 times before? I mean, you might have them right now. They're in your pocket in your purse, but you're like, "I've lost my keys many times before." But those events are in the past and it doesn't have any effect on you currently, especially if you got them right now, right? However, the perfect tense means that this happened in the past and it still has effect right now. I can give you another biblical example quickly. When Jesus quotes scriptures in the Gospels and he says, "It is written." Right? It is written and then he'll quote an Old Testament passage. Those are in the perfect tense, simply meaning this, that although a prophet wrote something in the past, what Jesus is saying when he talks like this is he's saying that its authority and its impact stands today right now. It's not just that someone wrote something in the past, but it has effects, authority right now. So, I'm saying all that to say this, okay? Being rooted is in the perfect tense. It's something that happened in the past but has effects on you today. You came to Christ, you're rooted in him, that should play out in a changed life right now. It's not just something that occurred to you before, but simply has no bearing on you currently. Not only is it in the perfect tense, but it's in what we could call the passive voice. Now, again, all all you need to know on that, um unless you're into this stuff, but the passive simply means this is something that happened to you. And I'm pointing these things out for a reason cuz I want you to see something. You're not the one who did the rooting. Okay? Being rooted happened to you. Okay? What Paul is saying is that when you became a Christian, you have been rooted. He's not telling us to keep trying to like root yourselves, like grab your root, stick it in the ground, keep trying to do He's not saying any of that. You've been rooted. By God. God did that to you. Is what he's saying. So, being rooted first simply means resting in the salvation that Christ has already accomplished. He did it, not you. You don't need to keep trying to root yourself. If you're in Christ, you are already rooted in him. And we can rest in that. Right? If you're in Christ, you are saved, that's it. Right? Nothing you do or we do makes you like more saved. You're saved. For those of you who are in Christ, you are rooted in him. And then that rooting that has happened to you has ongoing effects today, which are the next three things we'll see in the passage. Number two, built up. Built up. Growing in Christ through the word and discipleship. Now, just to continue our logic here, the word built up is in the present tense. So, something that happened in the past in the perfect has ongoing effects. What are those ongoing effects? That you are currently being built up in Christ. So, you were rooted in Christ and that affects you today. Being built up. You should be currently we ought to be currently building built up in Christ. If it's true If it's true that you've been rooted in Christ, it is also true then that you are currently being built up in him. And as we grow in Christ through the study of his word, being discipled, being taught the ways of Christ, being taught how to live for him, that's being built up in him. Discipleship is not like, you know, advanced Christianity for like the elite, right? Or discipleship's not just for like the pastor or the elder or the deacons or something like that. No, no, no. Discipleship is for everyone who comes to Christ. Every believer is a disciple. We may be at different stages, right, in our growth or in our walk with Christ, but every Christian is a disciple. And so, how do we grow through the word and discipleship? I want to give you two things, a personal and corporate. First, by cultivating Christian disciplines in your own personal life. Christian disciplines like personal devotions, Bible reading, prayer, maybe it's fasting, listening to worship, singing praises in your home. These are ways that we can uh, be built up in Christ through personal discipleship. Through growing, uh, in personal discip- Christian disciplines. My prayer is that Sunday is not just like the only day that Cross Church Phoenix members open their Bible. We worship and we are building up in him every day, Monday through Saturday as well as on Sunday, not just on Sunday. We worship and exalt Christ and obey Christ and his commands every day, not just on Sunday. Be in God's word daily. Maybe use a Bible reading plan or other devotional materials, but be in the scriptures daily. Prioritize Christian disciplines in your life. And then second, be active in corporate worship. This, right now. What's going on right now is corporate worship. Every act during this worship service is is worship, right? Worship is not just singing and we've been through this a few weeks ago. If you, you know, the rooted in worship and we talked about worship is, what it's not. It's more than singing. Everything, preaching is worship. Prayer, corporate prayer is worship and singing, of course, is worship. But be active in corporate worship. Don't neglect gathering with other believers. Hebrews says, "Don't neglect the gathering of yourselves together as is the habit of some." And he's talking about some people never come. And he's like, "Come to church." Cuz we are commanded to gather together and be in community, like we talked about last week, developing relationships with other believers. Come worship, come serve, come love other brothers and sisters in Christ. These are the ways that we are built up in him. There are some folks that I've talked to, not everyone, but some folks I talked to or who are feeling distant from God or distant from the church. And and they'll I'll get a call or something or a text and it's like, "Well, they've also haven't been here in a while." And you wonder why you're feeling distant. You've distanced yourself, but we're here and we love you, right? Keep coming. Come to church. And that leads us so being rooted and built up leads to number three, established. Established to reject teaching contrary to Christ and his word. Established. If you were to sit down and read all of Colossians, which I highly recommend, you could do it in 10 minutes flat. Uh it's four chapters. You can do this. We can do this. If you were to sit down and read all of Colossians, you'd notice a theme. And that theme is guarding against false teaching. Paul wants the Christians in Colossae to know sound doctrine and theology so well that they can spot false teaching when it comes. He wants their foundation on Christ to be so strong that they are not persuaded by false teachers to believe something that is not true. In fact, this is a major theme across the New Testament uh letters. After you get through uh the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you have the establishment of the church, Acts. By the time you get to Romans, all the way through Revelation, one of the running themes, there's a few, of course, Christ is the main one, but one of the major themes of the New Testament from Romans to the end is guarding against false teaching cuz it was so rampant and continues to be today. Paul writes about it, Peter writes about it. It is all over. It's in John's writings, James, Jude. It's all over the New Testament letters to the churches because it was that important. They needed to know Christ so well they can spot a false one. And there are many false Christs, John says. It'd be like this. And you probably heard this illustration before. But it works out, shakes out. How do you identify a counterfeit $20 bill? The best way to know if one is counterfeit is to know what a true one looks like really well. That is the best way. There's no need to know every single way that someone out there has counterfeit counterfeited a $20 bill and faked it. Because for one, sinful mankind will always find new ways to do it. So you won't keep track of all the ways that they've been able to do it. Identifying fake money is not best done by trying to memorize and figure out all the different fakes that have been made. And all the different ways it's been done. The best way is simple. Know a real one really well. That's the simplest way to do it. And anything that doesn't match a real bill is fake regardless of how it's fake, it's fake because it doesn't what? Measure up to the real one. The same with biblical doctrine and sound theology. We don't need to know all false teaching that has ever gone out into the world. Cuz there's all kinds of new ways man will what? Make new idols and new religions and new ways to try to reach God apart from Christ because that is the sinful condition. Man will always come up with new religions and new ways to be an idol worshiper. We don't need to know every single way. We must know sound doctrine or sound theology so well that we can reject anything that goes against it. We want to know we must know the real Christ of scripture so well we can reject a false Christ. So that when that Jehovah Witness or Mormon comes knocking on your door and says that they worship the same Jesus you do, you know they don't. And you can and you won't be persuaded by them. And you can say that the Christ that they have made up is not the Christ of scripture. This is so important. And notice what verses 6 and 7 are sandwiched with. Notice the surrounding context of verses 6 and 7. Verse 4, look at verse 4. Paul says, he's saying this so that no one will deceive us with arguments that sound what? Reasonable. Or some translations might say plausible. But these things sound reasonable. Heresy can be dressed up in real neat clothes and sound very reasonable. False teaching can be can be taught in a way that sounds really good and reasonable and logical. But it's still false. When when other religions come to your house and tell you they believe in the same Jesus, they'll use all the same passages to point out, you believe Christian that Jesus is the son of God, so do we. But the problem is they're using the same words but using a different dictionary. What they mean, what a Jehovah's Witness or a or a Mormon or anyone, what they mean when they say they believe Jesus is the son of God is not what the Bible says son of God means. They mean created being, the Bible means eternal son of God. Don't be persuaded. But what will they what will happen and make it sound really nice. Right? Like they believe what the Bible says about Jesus and it sounds reasonable, it sounds good until you dig in and ask questions and realize that it's not. Right? Um they'll say, "Well, Jesus is the son of God, but what that means is he's Satan's brother and he's created and blah blah blah." No, no, no, no, no. It is not in here. And this is the measurement, this is the standard that we measure all teaching against. Measure my preaching against it. Measure everything against the word of God. Look at Look at verse eight. So, we have verse four, look at verse eight. Right after Paul says to be established in the faith just as we were taught, what does he say? He overflowing with Thanksgiving and then what? Be careful. Be careful. Don't let anyone take you captive through philosophy or empty deceit based on human tradition, the elements of this world rather than Christ. So, this whole section is surrounded by caution and warning against deception and false teaching. And that's why we must be established in the faith so So know what truth is and we can reject teaching contrary to Christ and His word. And it leads to number four, an overflow of gratitude. Number four, overflowing, praising God for what He's doing in you constantly. Remember, all of this is how we do the command in verse six. This is how we walk and continue to walk in Christ. God roots us in Christ. We are presently being built up in Christ, which leads you to being established in the faith present as well, and culminates in gratitude that overflows with constant present thanksgiving to God. There's not much else to say here other than have you ever just sat down or walked around, whatever, right? Have you ever just thanked God for what He's done in you? Taken a you we could call it a walk of thanksgiving or or a sitting in gratitude if you want to sit and ponder, but have you ever just hung out with God and just said, "Thank you. Thanks for saving me. Thanks for rooting me in you. Thanks for building me up in you. Thanks for establishing me in you. Lord, thank you." I challenge you. If you've never done Just sit or go for a walk around the block and just call it a walk of thankfulness and thank God for everything He's done in your life. I want to close with this. 1 John chapter 2 verse 6, uh which goes along with everything here we're saying here. 1 John chapter 2 verse 6 simply says this, "Whoever says he abides in him," talking about Jesus, "ought to walk in the same in which he walk walked. Crossroads Phoenix, love you. If anyone in this room or watching online, right? Or watching in the future, anyone says he abides in Christ, the evidence of that, you say, "I abide in Christ." The evidence of that is whether or not you walk in the way that he walked. Discipleship doesn't happen on accident. We must be intentional in continuing to walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. And John and Paul and the others really, James, all of them are really um they they warn and caution about your speech not matching your heart. It is easy to say, "I walk in the light. I love Jesus." But if we go and live completely contrary to him and his word throughout the week, the Bible says, not Pastor DJ, the Bible says, "Watch out." We must be rooted in discip- in discipleship and rooted in Christ and walk in the way that he walked. We won't be perfect. I understand that we will struggle with sin. You say, "Well, Jesus, you know, he's got the one up on you because he's like, you know, God and I'm not." Yes, of course. But we would not ever be commanded to do something that we can't do in scripture. I believe that with all my heart. Bible says, "Be holy as I am holy." I believe that we can be holy. Not that we become gods or anything like that, but that you can live and pursue a holy right life. Bible says, "Pursue holiness. Pursue righteousness." Are you chasing after those things? Or living in in unrepented sin? May it not be. We will make mistakes, but it is it is about what we do when we do those things. When we mess up, what do we do? Do we get back on track, or do we just enjoy our sin all the more? This week, uh tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we have a pastor's retreat where we'll be talking about um the rest of what's coming in the fall and then into what 2027 holds for us um as a collective. And I'm excited because what we're emphasizing now is discipleship, and we're going to be introducing uh a discipleship pathway called rooted. Uh rooted discipleship, rooted pathway. I don't have all the answers as to what it looks like yet, but my goal will be to take the entire church through. The format uh still being worked out, but it's something that we need intentional discipleship of every believer in the church. So, more to come on that, but I want to reiterate what we've discussed up to this point over the last few weeks. And if you haven't been to a pizza with a pastor, um and even if you're new this morning, if you want to hang out with us, there should be plenty of pizza, and we go over a mission vision, and then our statement of faith, what we stand on. And uh I've told everyone that walks through these doors, I'm an open book. If you're like, "DJ, what does this church stand on doctrinally?" I'll tell you. Uh "What is your stance on this?" I'll tell you. Um I'm an open book, and in that that is the uh place where you we can talk through that and ask those questions. So, if you haven't been to pizza with a pastor, you can come today after second service. Um but being here, being at church is step one, yes and amen. Coming to pizza with a pastor is step two, yes and amen. And then being part of a Bible group. We have been harping on that, and they all kick off on the 13th, but I would encourage you to plug into a Bible group. And then when the rooted discipleship starts, I challenge all of us to be a part of that. But let's be rooted in discipleship. Amen. I want to invite the worship team to come back up as we close in a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for this morning and I thank you for your word. Just pray God that you would help us to rightly divide it, help us to understand it, and then apply it to our lives. For those of us who who just need to cultivate those personal uh Christian disciplines in our life, Lord. Those things that that you call us to do. Uh is is daily walking with you. Not just on Sunday, but every day. God, help those here who who may um be struggling to spend time in prayer with you or struggling to do their own devotions. Maybe uh uh reading a chapter or two of the scriptures each day. I pray God that you would impress upon their hearts their need um to to start. There's no better time to start than than now. Um Lord, we may have failed the Bible reading plan before. I have. Um or or been um just fallen behind, but it's no reason to stop. I pray God that we would pick those things right back up, Lord. And pray for those who are here that may not be rooted in Christ because they're not uh they don't believe. God, I pray for soft hearts. I pray God that they would see their need for you. They need. We all need salvation from sin. And through the completed, the finished work of Christ on the cross, we have forgiveness of sin. We thank you. And I pray God that you would work in the hearts of your people. If there's anyone who uh needs to chat afterwards about what it means to come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, I pray that they would uh come talk to talk with me or someone else that they trust about coming to know Christ. Most important decision ever to be made ever in eternity is not where we're going to go work or go to college or go to school or go here or there or the other. It is whether or not we will be in Christ. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand as we sing our last song.