Heart For Spiritual Growth | Pastor Adam Peterson

Hey, well, my name is Adam. If we have never met before, I have the great honor and privilege, alongside my wife, Rebecca, together we pastor and lead Rise Church, and we are so grateful to have you in the house today. Before we get moving and grooving with the service, we are so full in this room that we do have people sitting out in Overflow right now. I peaked during the last song. It was kind of loud in there, and so Overflow, we are so grateful for you. Come on, everybody in the room, let them know we're grateful for them. They're all like, hey, we showed up before you, whatever, but they don't know how good it is back there, so why don't we prop that door open in the back just so we can hear them on the count of three. Everybody in this room, stay quiet, and Overflow, I want you to make some noise to let everybody in this room know that you're ready to go today. Overflow, make some noise, one, two, three. Let's go, let's go. We are one church in two locations this morning, and online, come on. Hey, I'm going to invite our ushers to come forward at this point. We're going to transition right now into what we call a time of giving, where we are worshiping God with our finances. All right, and we got work to do, and that's okay. And so here's what we're going to do. We're going to pass the buckets as we do. I know so many of you have already given. You always have other options. You can tap to give. You can give through our app. You can give as the buckets are being passed, and I just want to say, as the pastor of Rise Church, it is just the joy of my heart that I don't have to get up here and beg for your money.

Isn't that awesome? Aren't you grateful that we don't just go, please, please, please? I talked to a friend of mine one time. He said, I grew up in a church where they would count the offering, and if they didn't have enough, they'd just run it again, all right? We have floated that idea a couple times, but we don't work like that. At the end of the day, everything that God is doing here is all God, but a lot of it is through the generosity of you, and so first and foremost, let me say thank you for giving. Thank you for trusting God in the area of your finances. As followers of Jesus, come on, guys, every area of our lives, we want to trust God, right? This is one of those hard areas, because if I give to God, then that means I don't get to keep it for myself, and what we just got to get to a place of one day in our lives is that God is a better provider than you are, and he can take care of you, and if he says trust me in this area, then you can trust that you can trust a trustworthy God, and so I want to shout out some people in the room today, not by name, but I want to celebrate. We're growing right now as a church, which is awesome, and growth pains are great and tricky because sometimes, because we're growing, we don't have room for everybody in the room, and so thank you again, Overflow, but let me just say this. A lot of the new people that are coming and jumping into our church, they are starting to give immediately, which is not always the case, and so I want to say thank you to everybody that's new, that's already jumping in. Some of y'all have been coming to our church for a while now, like years maybe, months maybe, and you have not yet trusted God in the area of your finances. No condemnation. You can keep coming. We're never going to make you give, but we would invite you to partner with us in what God is doing in and through our church, and so come on, let's go. Let me give a special shout out to anybody that's brand new to Rise Church. Come on. If this is your first time, church family, let them know.

We're grateful for you. We're grateful for you. If the person beside you didn't clap just now and you're new, just don't sit by them next week, all right? We are grateful for you, and you're here. We want to know that you're here. If that's the Lord, you can answer it, but you're here. We want to know you're here. You have two options. You can simply take your phone. You can tap it on that black circle. A digital link will pop up, and you can fill out your information there, or you can grab one of our blue new here cards at any point during the worship experience, and all we want to know is just like, we want to know that you're here. We want to kind of get to know you a little bit, and so when you exit today, you can't miss it. Look for the black tint that says new here on it. Some of our team will be there. They want to answer any questions that you have. They're not going to keep you long, but they do want to put a small gift in your hand. It's not crazy. It's fun. You're going to laugh, and then we'll send you on your way, but as a first time guest, we want to issue to you what we call the three week challenge, meaning you're here today. Give us two more Sundays, three Sundays in a row, because what we believe is this. After three Sundays, you're going to know if we're the church for you or not, and if we are, we would say welcome to the family. We're so grateful to have you. If we're not the church for you, you're like three Sundays. That's all I needed.

I'm out of here. We bless you to go find another amazing church in our city, and we thank you for your time that you have spent with us. If you're back today for the second or the third time, you're doing the three week challenge. Please, please, please stop by those same new-here tents, and when you do, let them know, I'm doing the three-week challenge. It's my second time, it's my third time. There's a different correlating gift to give you for each visit to our church. Still super fun, super cheesy, you're gonna love it, but we're grateful that you are here today. One announcement, then we'll jump into the message. Team Night is this Saturday night from four o'clock to six o'clock. This is for all the people that serve in our church, all the volunteers. We could not do what we do without you. You are the dream team. We are so grateful for you, and so do us a favor, if you have not already, register for this, which if you have not registered for Team Night, what are you doing? We have sent you like 10 emails and texts. Come on, sign up. We need to know that you're coming because there's food and other stuff that we're preparing for, and so please, please, please do that. If you're like, I don't know how to sign up,

come find one of our staff, ask somebody. We will get you signed up today, but we're grateful for you, dream team. This is a night to honor you, to celebrate you. I mean, three services, hundreds of kids, all these adult, like every, we couldn't do this without you, and so we're so grateful for you. It's gonna be a party. We're gonna eat. We're gonna play some games, and we are gonna pursue the Lord together to seek the Lord, and then the very next Sunday, so if you're a first-time guest, you definitely gotta do the three-week challenge because next Sunday, it's our birthday, and we're gonna party like it's our birthday. You know what I'm saying? We're gonna have fun. We're turning 13 years old. Here's how I like to say it every time a birthday rolls around for our church. Whatever number it is, it's 13 years of God's goodness, 13 years of God's faithfulness, where we just thank him for everything that he has done in our church, and so make sure you're here. Come early to the birthday party. I heard there's gonna be donuts. Let's go!

All right, today, we are in a, I don't know if one of my staff members is mad at me for saying that. I am so sorry, but we're doing it. It's donut. We're in a series called Heart for, nobody told me I couldn't say it, so that's, we're in a series called Heart for His House. At the end of the day, Rise Church is His house. At the really end of the day, you, if you're a follower of Jesus in here today, you are His house. He lives in you. If you're not a follower of Jesus, here's the really good news. God loves you so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for your sins, and he wants to have a relationship with you where he does live in you. And so, God, if you have a heart for our lives, we wanna follow after it, and so here it is. Theme verse for this series. David said these words in Psalm 122. I rejoiced with those who said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. This is David going, I was already planning on going to church. I was already planning on getting around the presence of God and the people of God, but then some friends of mine came along and said,

let's do it together. How many of you know we're better together? And so David was like, I was already going, but when we all said we were going, man, that's when I really started rejoicing. I'm so glad that you're at church today. If you're here by yourself, you don't have to sit by yourself. There are some people in here that would love to get to know you. Bring some friends with you. We're a family. And then Jesus himself said this. I, he was talking about himself, will build my church. And we're just trying to establish this, that Rye's church is his church. He's building it. Every good thing is because of you, Jesus. Let's go. And all the powers of hell for over 2000 years have tried to stop the church of Jesus Christ, but because Jesus is greater than the devil, it is moving forward. All the powers of hell will not conquer it. Can I get a better amen? Amen. Amen. Jesus said he's gonna build one thing. I wanna be a part of the one thing that he's building. Online family, I hope that you're amening louder

than the people in the room are right now. I can't hear you, but I'm grateful for you. Men and women in the correctional facilities, come on, make some noise wherever you are. We're grateful for you. Let's go. Today, we're talking about this, a heart for spiritual growth. The Bible would use the word discipleship. I love that we got to dedicate kids this morning in our church. Beautiful, right? They're adorable. Parents are looking all right, but the kids are cute as a button, right? And just so you know, we're doing different parents and kids every service. We're not making these parents stick around all day long. New kids, new parents, next service. But I love it because what we're doing is we're looking at these parents and going, hey, it's not easy raising kids. It is work. They're taking the best years of our lives from us, right? But it's worth it, isn't it? It's worth it. And you're not gonna wake up one day and your kids be 18 and go, how did we get here? You're gonna know exactly. how you got there and as a parent God has entrusted to you that beautiful life

of your child and the Jesus in you is gonna reflect and be poured out into them that's the spiritual growth and you're not gonna get it right all the time but the goal is this I want my kids to follow Jesus and God has placed me in their life to be the lead voice the lead role model to show them Jesus Christ and so come on parents don't parade your kid and march them up here today and then not bring them back to the house of God next Sunday and the Sunday after that to not lead them in your home let's go now the reality is these kids man they're just always around always needing something always wah-wah and about something hey may the grace of God lead you used to be that kid and thank you God for the godly people that helped us the godly grandparents aunts uncles moms dads friends people that came along our lives and let me just speak this because I didn't say this in the first service so this is for somebody in this service parenthood is in your heart but for some reason it hasn't happened yet and I'm so sorry and we're gonna stand in faith and we're gonna believe with you whether it's through supernatural birth that God does or through adoption like God is the God who will provide and if it's in your heart that didn't come from you that came from the Lord let's keep trusting let's keep believing can I get a good a man so we're talking about spiritual growth let's do a question this morning to get things going how many of you have a hard time following the speed limit suggestion sign that is out on the roads yeah yeah yeah yeah how many of you if I told you whatever roads you're going home today there is a cop that's gonna be shooting radar right there how many of you would say oh I know I would need to adjust my speed okay here's what I want to share with you spiritually speaking some of you the direction your life is going right now there's an adjustment that needs to be made because if you want to experience spiritual growth if you want more of God in your life you're gonna need to adjust the direction that you're going you're gonna need to adjust some things that you are welcoming into your life because that's never gonna happen if you stay on the course that you're on and so as a church we want to come alongside you and go man we want spiritual growth for all of you we want

all of you to become more like Jesus this is what we keep saying in our church less of us and more of him less of us and more of God in us and so we're gonna talk about two thoughts today very simple very quick we're gonna get right to the point the first one is this we want to be a follower of Jesus not just a believer and if you're a note-taker this morning I love you you're my favorite people in the world let's go note-takers get front-row seats in heaven but you're gonna need to get on it this morning because we're moving and grooving here we go believing is the starting point of a relationship with God you have to start with belief you cannot follow something you don't believe in believing is the starting point of a relationship with God following is the evidence here's the problem we live in the Bible belt everybody believes in God and it's easy to say I believe in God I believe in God I believe in God I believe in God yes that's the starting point the evidence of a believers life is that you actually follow him so let me say it like this well let me let Jesus say it like this John 8 Jesus said to the people who believed in him I love that you believe but you are truly my disciples you are truly my people you truly belong to me you are truly my follower if you remain faithful to my teachings so I love that you believe but what really makes you my follower is when you live out what this book says when you live out a life that is actually following and pursuing the things of God how many of you would say that you believe eating healthy is good for you some of y'all didn't even raise your hand on that when you're like I don't I don't know if I believe it you can believe that eating healthy is good for you but there's a difference in believing that eating healthy is good and actually doing it from time to time my wife will say I'm just going to target for one thing and I can believe that but the evidence would show that she does not always go for one thing so if she's going to target you better believe I'm going with her and you better believe I'm gonna hold her hand as we walk through the store not because it's sweet and adorable but we so I can keep an eye on everything that she's putting in the cart

Believing. Believing is the start. But we don't want to just say I'm a believer in Jesus. I want to actually follow Him with my life. Can we do a fun illustration? This is going to be so fun. It went over well in the first service. We'll see how it goes here. I, from a very young age, have always loved pickles. Any pickle lovers in the house? Yes. Love them. Dill pickles. Don't bring that bread and butter up in my house. That's nasty. If you have to call a pickle bread and butter, I don't even know. You know what I don't love? Cucumbers. Not a fan. Ain't got time for that. No taste. I'm going to take these home today. My wife and I are going to have a spa day. That's got cucumber in my eyes. A cucumber is not a pickle. It's not. But what a cucumber can do is say, but I believe. I believe. I believe I'm going to be a pickle. And the way for that to work, I'm just going to put myself right on top of the jar. I believe I'm just going to get around some other pickles. That'll help me become. The only way. For this cucumber to become a pickle. Is full immersion. In whatever this beautiful stuff is. That turns these cucumbers from death. To life. From darkness. To light. To gloriousness. And Jesus, I'm going to eat this whole jar when I get home. I go to church. Obviously I'm a believer. I'm a follower of Jesus. I go to church. I get around other Christians. That makes me a Christian. That makes me a follower of Jesus. Hey, let me take it a step further. I pray. I sing the songs.

I got baptized. None of that stuff makes you a follower of Jesus. It's a part of following. But that's not what makes you a follower of him. You know what makes you a follower of him? You actually follow him. You live your life surrendered to him. That doesn't mean you're perfect. None of us are. We are all going to make mistakes on our journey of following Jesus. It simply means this. I started believing in him. I used to reject him. But I put my faith in him. For the forgiveness of my sins. And then from that day forward. I said, God, I'm not going to do my own thing. I'm going to do what you are calling me to. And I'm going to live the way you want me to live my life. And I'm going to lay some things down. Because I don't need that in my life anymore. And that's not your best for me. I am surrendering to you. That's how spiritual growth works. It's not overnight. It's over time. You drop these cucumbers in here. And you pull them out 10 minutes later. They're not going to be pickles yet. But over time. You won't even know. Somebody grabbed me after the first service. And they said this. And once you become a pickle. You can never be a cucumber again. Praise God.

Who would want to be this? I got a whole cucumber in the back. It's going straight in the trash after this illustration is over. Because this is the glory. Jesus, would you change us? Change the texture of our lives. Change the flavor of our lives. Change everything about us. In the Bible, there's this book that's called James. James was the brother of Jesus. And for a lot of James' life. He did not believe that Jesus was the son of God. You wouldn't either if your sibling walked up to you and said. I'm God's son. But eventually James came around to it. And then he decided. I'm not playing around. And when you read the book of James. He is in your face. Very direct. And he says this in chapter 2 verse 19. You believe that there is one God? Good for you. Do you hear the tone of his voice? That's fantastic. Even the demons believe this. And they tremble in terror. See the difference between a lot of people and demons. A lot of people will say they believe in God, but the demons actually tremble before God.

A lot of people don't even tremble before God. Now I'm not saying we should be afraid of God, but there should be a holy fear where we go, you're God, I'm not. And I'm gonna stand before you one day and I'm gonna give an account of my life to you, that should start to shake some things up in me. Even the demons believe, but guess what? They don't follow. They did follow, they used to be angels in heaven, but they stopped following. Just because you believe doesn't mean you're a follower. So God, help our belief to actually shape how we live our lives. And may we hunger for the things of you. Thought number two, it's getting quiet in here, come on. We wanna be a follower of Jesus, not just a consumer. The consumer mindset says, what's in it for me? The follower mindset is, God, where are you taking me and how are you gonna use me? Where are you taking me and what are you gonna do in and through my life? Jesus changed my life, I was a consumer. I only thought about myself when he changed my life. Now I'm on this journey of following him and I realize there are other people that do not know the God that I know. There are other people whose lives have not been changed by the grace, mercy, and forgiveness of God. There are other people out in the world,

they think God either isn't real, maybe he's mad at them. God, because of what you've done in my life is so good, I wanna tell them about the God that has changed me. So now my mindset has to shift from being focused on me to God, what are you doing in and through me? That's what a mobilized church gets real dangerous. What if all of us just said, God, we're going out into our world and use me. How many of you know the world we live in is dark? You know what shines the brightest in the darkness? Light, and the light of a follower of Jesus. Come on, that's what people see, that's when they see him. In Matthew, Jesus comes along to the earliest, first disciples and he says, come and follow me and I will send you out to fish for people. Why does he use that language? Because the original first two guys he called were actually fishermen, they fished for fish. And Jesus is like, hey, you've been doing this your whole life, but if you come and follow me, I'm gonna give you a new purpose and I'm actually gonna call you out to go make an impact in other people's lives, we're gonna start fishing for some people. Can I give you a history lesson, just some fun facts? I would encourage you, go home and Google it, read this, this is very interesting. But in Jesus's day, there were guys called rabbis, which just meant teacher. And rabbis would recruit people to be their disciples.

And so a rabbi would go up and he would hand select who he wanted to be his disciple. And typically, he would go get the best of the best. He would go find somebody who graduated with a 4.0 GPA. He'd go, oh, you're the top of your class, I want you to come be my disciple because I don't have time to train you and get you, I need you to be ready to go. And the rabbi would teach his disciples how he lives. And he would say, watch how I teach, watch how I preach, watch how I do this, watch how I do that. Everywhere I go, you go, follow me and become like me. Jesus, one of the names he had was rabbi. And he goes and he handpicks disciples. But he doesn't get the best of the best, he gets the broken, the busted, the jacked up, the west side people. He goes up to a guy named Peter that did, these guys were actually dropouts. They probably had that 2.0 GPA or less, come on somebody. And Jesus looked at them and said, I want you to be my follower. I actually think that you can do what I do. And I want you to follow me. I want you to see how I teach. I want you to see how I lead. I want you to see how I love people. And I want you to imitate me. And I'm gonna pour my life into you. And then guess what?

I'm gonna use you to go change the world. That's crazy. Can we lean into this idea this morning that this was a terrible plan from Jesus? Jesus is like, I'm gonna live, I'm gonna train up you guys, and then I'm gonna leave and I'm gonna put you in charge. Jesus, that is an awful idea. We can't do this. And he goes, but if you follow me, you'll become like me. And then when you become like me, then you can do what I was doing. It's what I tell my staff all the time. My wife and I, we tell our staff, I want you to lead like I was in the room. Like if I was in the room. How would I respond to this situation? That's how I want you to lead. Because I can't lead every conversation. I can't lead every meeting. I can't lead every disagreement that happens in our church. But you can. And I wanna model for you how I would do it so that when you step in, that's how you, I don't want you to do it like you would do it. Please, for the love of God, don't lead the way you would do it. Do it the way Jesus would. Amen. With a heart full of love,

with a heart full of compassion. A heart that would speak the truth, because Jesus always spoke the truth, but he would do it with grace. We wanna become like Jesus. So there was this saying for rabbis back in the day. They would say this to the disciples that followed their rabbi. They would say this phrase, "'May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.'" They didn't have paved roads. Everywhere they walked was dirt. And the idea was this. Would you follow so close to your rabbi that every speck of dust he kicks up, you're covered in it because you're so close to him? That's the goal, guys. Jesus, would we follow so close to you that we are covered in everything that you're just kicking back so that our lives start to look like you? In the book of Acts, Pastor Jonathan, you can join me on the stage. In the book of Acts, it says this, that in a certain city is where the first followers of Jesus were called Christians. And a lot of people think that that term Christian, they actually meant it in a derogatory term, meaning, oh, you act just like that Jesus Christ guy. And what they meant as a derogatory term

was the greatest compliment that people could ever receive. Oh, you must be one of those Christians. You better believe I am. And I'm so grateful that you saw something in me that I can't produce. I'm so grateful that you saw something in me that is only possible because of Jesus. Like, may people say that about us. Like, honestly, if you lived your life the way you live it and you never told somebody that you were a Christian, would they know? Or do you look like everybody else, talk like everybody else? The apostle Paul comes along and he says these crazy words in 1 Corinthians, follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. That is a bold declaration. Paul goes, if you follow me, you're gonna see Jesus. Could we say that about our lives today? I could say, follow me, and I think you'll see Jesus 85% of the time. I might mess up from time to time, I definitely do. But I love this statement. This is Paul looking on going, follow me. It'd be like you looking and going, follow me. Follow me and I want you to watch how I love my spouse. Follow me and I want you to watch how I love and I lead my children. Follow me, I want you to watch how I love God's word. Follow me, I want you to watch how I pray,

how I seek the Lord. Follow me, I want you to watch how I worship God. Follow me, I want you to watch how I serve people. I'll keep going till you clap. Follow me, I want you to see how I handle my finances. Follow me. Because if you follow me, you're gonna see him. And what I'm telling you is this, that's what God wants for your life. That people could follow you and go, they didn't get it right all the time, but man, they love Jesus. And even when they didn't get it right, they owned it. They admitted their mistakes and they called upon the grace of God and they got back up and they kept going. That's the goal. So the question I would ask, and you're the only one that can answer it, nobody else can answer this for you, not even the person you're talking to right now. Listen, here's the question. Do you have a heart for spiritual growth? Like if we cut you open right now, would your heart hunger for the things of God? Would your heart desire the things of God or would we just see all the things that the world has to offer you? And let me tell you something right now, none of that stuff will satisfy you.

None of that stuff can be what God wants to be for your life. In God's heart for you, more of Jesus, less of you. So let me close with this idea. I'm about 90% close to getting this tattooed on my body somewhere. No tattoos at this point, I love the Lord. Okay, that's all I'm gonna say. But this phrase is something that just rolls in my mind and my heart constantly, constantly. and I've shared it before but you're probably gonna hear me share it a lot more around here it's this idea that the more I seek God the more I'm gonna find him and the more I find him the more I'm gonna love him the more I seek him the more I'm gonna find him he's not hiding but he is asking me to seek him and the more I find him the more my heart is gonna grow in love for him and then get ready for this you ready it's this beautiful thing because it's a circular pattern the more I seek him the more I find him and the more I find him the more I love him and the more I love him it's gonna make me want to seek him more and the more I seek him I'm gonna find him and then I'm gonna love him and I'm gonna keep doing this over and over and over that's the spiritual growth not overnight over time I didn't get here overnight like this is the Lord working in my life for 25 years I got a long way to go we all do the exact opposite is also true the less you seek him the less you're gonna find him and when you don't find him you cannot grow in your love for him and when you're not growing in your love for him you're not gonna seek him and you're not gonna seek him you're not gonna find him the spiritual growth starts from having a hunger for the things of God saying God I want you more than anything else and knowing that you're gonna stand before him one day and I don't know this to be true but in my heart I like to think in heaven when I stand before God he's gonna look at me one day and go everything the world had to offer you you chose me

see following God I'm not a believer because I believed in Jesus I'm a believer because I follow him and here's how it's gonna work some of you are a little bit closer than me I'm gonna follow him with my life and then one day my life's gonna be over and I'm just gonna keep following him for all eternity the exact opposite is also true you're not following him with your life one day your life is gonna go be over and that's the direction you're gonna keep going and God loves you too much to let you stay there every head bowed every eye closed God's presence is in this place moving in our hearts right now what I love about God is he always points us to Jesus he always points us to the love of Jesus Christ if you're here today and you've never given your life to Jesus you have never surrendered your heart to him to be your Savior you've never put your belief in him and you've never surrendered your life to him it's not an accident that you're here God loves you he wants a relationship with you with nobody looking around I'm gonna count to three and I'm just gonna ask you to shoot your hand in the air today is your day be bold about it nobody looking just me one two three anybody in the house today saying yes to Jesus amen come on yes yes come on so good you can put your hand down thank yes come on so good so good church family look at me look at me you are a part of a church who is being stirred by God to hunger for more of him and if you want come on listen if you want that in your life let's do it together okay none of us are super Christians all right we're just all jacked up cucumbers trying to become the greatest tasting thing in the whole world so let's go together look at me it's not just one pickle in there man that's a bunch of changed lives like that's what we want we want to do this thing to get I would I rejoiced with those who said man let's pursue the Lord together let's be a part of that one thing that Jesus said he's gonna build let's make it a point every Saturday night we go we're not gonna wait until Sunday morning to see if we're going to church we're going to church we're going hey not only we coming on Sunday come on somebody come on hey Wednesday night

prayer and worship we got rise students we got young adults we want you here listen it doesn't always work for your schedule I get it come when you can