Made For More | Your Purpose Is The Process | Jen DeWeerdt

All right, a little louder. Come on, let's hear it for all the moms. To all the moms and the mom figures in the house, happy Mother's Day. We love you so much. And we have a special gift for you. It's just our small way of saying we honor and we celebrate you today. Thank you for nurturing and loving and guiding us. And we're just so grateful and we love being able to celebrate you today. But I also want to just pause and acknowledge that I also understand that Mother's Day can also hold heartache because maybe your mom struggled in how to truly love you or perhaps you've lost your mom or you've lost a child. And today holds both beauty and grief. Just know that we're praying for you today as a church. And I also know that there are women joining us who you desperately desire to be a mom. And that dream hasn't come true yet or maybe your path to motherhood hasn't gone the way that you had expected. Just know that we're praying for not only God's comfort for you today, but also that hope would rise up in your heart. So today we honor all the mom hearts in this place, the ones who love and nurture and care in all kinds of different ways. We love you, we see you.

And so can we give it up one more time for all the moms and the mom figures? We love you so much. We are in this Made for More series and we are talking about finding your purpose. Why on earth are you here? Why do you have breath in your lungs? And the last two weeks we've talked about a couple things. First of all, we talked about how you were made for relationship with God. And then secondly, how you were made to be a part of God's family. And if you didn't get a chance to join us for those teachings, I encourage you to hop online and watch them, they're powerful and impactful. And here at City First, see we believe that each of us was made on purpose and for a purpose. God designed you, you are his workmanship or I love how the New Living Translation says it. It says in Ephesians 2 10s, for we are God's masterpiece. Everybody say masterpiece. Masterpiece, he has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things that he planned for us long ago. You are not a piece of work, okay? You are a masterpiece. You are God's Mona Lisa, you are intricately designed and beautifully knit together, Psalm 139 says that. But this scripture doesn't stop there. Yes, we are God's masterpiece,

but it says we are created anew in Christ Jesus. And this is incredible news, right? And that word created, when you look at the original meaning of that word, it means this, to completely change, to transform. You created anew, completely changed, to transform. That's what happens when we meet Jesus. And I wanna stop here because this speaks to the third reason that you were made. But before I tell you what that is, you might be thinking when you read something like that, okay Jen, you guys talk a lot about the new life we receive from Jesus when we decide to follow him. We even, we had experienced baptism, 137 people baptized. We talked about new life last week. And this scripture even says that we were made new. So you might be thinking, but when you made Jesus the leader and forgiver of your life, you know, the Lord and Savior, when you woke up the next morning, you still had some of the same struggles, right? You still got angry, you still had that vice. So what do we mean when we talk about being made completely new in Jesus? Well, in John chapter three, Jesus is talking to a Pharisee named Nicodemus and he was a religious leader. His name was Nicodemus and he is curious about Jesus, but because he's worried about what the other religious leaders and Pharisees might think

that if he's seen with Jesus, what they're gonna be thinking about him, he sneaks to Jesus under the cover of night. And the Bible documents in John that they have quite a lengthy and interesting discussion. And I wanna read just a snippet of that because it talks about this new life. It says, Jesus replied to Nicodemus, I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. What do you mean exclaimed Nicodemus? By the way, we would be exclaiming the same thing. What does that mean? How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again? Jesus replied, I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don't be surprised when I say you must be born again. Now, this passage is where that term born again comes from. You may have heard people have started following Jesus. I was born again. And I know that it's a little strange, okay? But it's honestly kind of a perfect Mother's Day scripture, right? We're talking about moms being born again. So Jesus is always taking, and I love this about Jesus, He is taking these spiritual kingdom concepts,

which can be hard for our minds to grasp, and then making them relatable to what we do know and understand. He's using a metaphor of birth here and spiritual life. See, when we receive Christ into our lives, we are born again by the Holy Spirit. We are given a new spiritual life. This is the new life. And in a moment, we are adopted into the family of God. In a moment. See, Jer and I have three boys, and I physically gave birth to all three of them. And in an instant, they were here. I had to labor a little bit, but in an instant, right? In an instant, they were given a name, Caden William DeWert, Connor Benjamin DeWert, Paxton James DeWert. And that moment changed everything. They had breath in their lungs, right? And we all have, I believe, a spiritual birth story. Once we've met Jesus, we have a spiritual birth story. How we came to Jesus. The moment we decided, I am no longer in charge, He is. And I'm receiving the free gift of forgiveness and grace. Guess what? In a moment, your life was changed. In a moment, you had a new spiritual life. How many of you can praise Jesus for that today? I mean, come on, I'm grateful for the new spiritual life. That's what happened when you were born again.

In a moment, things changed. But then what? Now what? Well, let's look at this metaphor again. After my boys were born into the DeWert family, they began a journey of growing up in the DeWert home. They weren't just born, and then that was it, right? My boys were both born into our family. It was both a moment and then a process. And the same is true of your life spiritually. Some theologians call this, and this is gonna be your, what you don't know you're learning today is you're learning theology, okay? That's what you're learning. And some theologians call this process, these two words, okay, a punctiliar process. We're gonna say that together, okay? I'll say it one more time so you can hear me say it. Punctiliar process, okay, let's say it together. One, two, three. Punctiliar process. Meaning this, your being born again into the family of God is marked simultaneously by a period and a comma. You are saved, period, done. The work of Jesus gives you a new life, but now you are in a process, and this is the comma. This is the third purpose that we are talking about, this process, and the best way, the simplest way I can describe it is this.

Our purpose is to become more and more like Jesus. More and more like Jesus. The goal isn't just for you to believe in Jesus, but to become like him. It's the process. First, you were made for a relationship, right? We talked about that. We were made to be a part of God's family, but then you were made to grow up in God's family. You were made to become more like Jesus. And learning to become more like Jesus is learning to take on the characteristics of his family or his kingdom, this new family that you were born again into. And I'm gonna share with you our key verse today. It's really short, and I'm gonna have, actually, us read it together, and I encourage you to write it down, because if I could sum up what the comma means, the process means, it is this, found in Ephesians chapter five, verse one. It says, and we're gonna say it together, okay, because I said we were gonna say it together. One, two, three. Therefore. Be imitators of God as beloved children. That word, imitators. Therefore, be imitators of God as his beloved children. That is the goal right there. You know, when my boys were little, we would talk with them about things

that the DeWert family does and the DeWert family doesn't do, all right? If I had a dime for how many times Jer and I have said, well, in the DeWert family, we fill in the blank, right? When they were little, it was simple things, which would maybe good for us even here today. In the DeWert family, we are kind. In the DeWert family, we don't hit. I said that one a lot with three boys. In the DeWert family, we use nice words. In the DeWert family, we share. And then as they got a little older, you know, we would say things like, and this is funny, I was actually talking to Caden about this one, or this week. I was saying, yeah, I was gonna say, in the DeWert family, and he literally quoted this when he goes, we don't quit. And I was all like, yes, did my job. Literally, it was already written down. I was like, yep, exactly. In the DeWert home, we don't quit. If we committed to something, you don't back out. You don't like basketball after two games, I don't care. You said you were signing up, and you're gonna do it. You don't have to play, listen, you don't have to play next year, it's fine. But you said you were gonna play this year, now your team's counting on you. So I'm gonna encourage you,

and I'm gonna tell you you're doing a good job. And I know you're losing a lot of games, and that's why you wanna quit. But we don't quit. And then another thing that was really important to us is that we are generous. In the DeWert family, we're generous. In the DeWert family, we give back to God. So even when they're little, the boys, I would give them, we gave them a weekly allowance of $5. But guess what, we gave them their weekly allowance in quarters. We gave them $5 worth of quarters, and we'd put them in a little jar, and immediately, we were like, take out 50 cents. Set it aside. Because that was their tithe. Even at a young age, with five bucks, we're like, that 50 cents, that's 10% of what you're making, that goes back to God. And they'd put it in their pocket, and I think they put it in the offering when they came to church. But I do know this, now they both have generous hearts. Because in the DeWert family, it's just who we are. In other words, they were characteristics that the DeWert family had that our boys were made aware of and then they were asked to imitate those. We were made to be imitators of Jesus. And when I was studying this word, imitate,

I found it interesting that the New Testament dictionary grouped the following words together, okay? Disciple, follow, imitate, after. Now, just like in, these would have been the original, the New Testament was written in Greek, and so obviously like American, like all of those words are not like right by each other in the dictionary, but it's the same in the Greek. But they grouped them all together, even though they weren't in alphabetical order. Because if you wanna know what a disciple of Jesus is, it means to imitate. It means to follow. Our purpose is to imitate Jesus. And this is good for all of us to remember, okay? Wherever you are at on your spiritual journey, it's good for all of us to remember because none of us have arrived, amen? Nudge your neighbor and say, you have not arrived yet. You haven't arrived. So as we are learning to be imitators of Christ, like the Apostle Paul states in that verse, I have a few thoughts that I want us to keep in mind, okay? The first one is this, God loves you as you are, but He refuses to leave you there. God loves you as you are, but He refuses to leave you there. Listen to me. Even if you are in here and you have never made Jesus the leader and forgiver of your life,

like I talked about just a few moments ago, you've never said, I'm not in charge anymore. Jesus is in charge. Guess what? Jesus loves you to the fullest extent that He can right now. Right now. No matter where you're at on your spiritual journey, but He also loves you too much for you to stay right where you're at. Loves you too much. I cannot tell you how much joy it brings me as a mom to see my kids in the process of growing. I can't tell you. Yesterday, for those of you who follow me on Instagram, yesterday we dropped my second son, he's 23 years old now, Connor, we dropped him off at the airport to fly to Thailand for a month to spend a month with Zoe on the mission field. And yeah, you can give Zoe a hand clap. Those of you who know Zoe, Zoe is not a girl. Zoe is a missions organization. Although, if there's a Zoe who's a good girl, then yeah, who loves Jesus, I digress. He is a great kid. Anyway, dropped him off at the airport to leave and on the way home, the drive home, do you know what I was reflecting on? Connor's process. Baby Connor. Child dedication.

Actually had that moment in my mind yesterday. Toddler Connor, grade school Connor, teenage Connor, God bless it, we made it. Now it's the young man Connor and I could not help, but honestly would just trace God's faithfulness through the process. And can I tell you, if I have that much joy in the process of seeing my kids grow, how much more the heavenly father in our new spiritual life. Yes, you, grace met you right there, but guess what? You're supposed to keep going. It brings me so much joy and even Paxton, our youngest, he was born with a disability. He didn't crawl till he was 18 months and he didn't walk till he was three years old. But here's the deal, I loved watching him in the process of learning and growing. I smiled, I cried sometimes, but man, did we celebrate when he hit those milestones. Right, man, did we celebrate. And as an earthly parent, I was engaged in the process. It was a joy. I wasn't like, geez, kid, get it together. I was like, what a joy to see Paxton take his first steps, to do the army crawl. And can I tell you, your heavenly father takes such joy in your process. You're meant to be in the process

and he is with you in the process. Second Corinthians chapter three, verse 18 says this, we are being changed into his image. Thank you, Jesus. With ever increasing glory, this comes from the Lord who is the spirit. We are being changed. See, grace meets you where you are, but growth takes you where you're meant to be. Grace met you right where you're at. And by the way, his compassions and mercies are new. Every day, meets you every day, but growth takes you to where you're meant to be. He loves you so much. He doesn't want you to stay there. And you were made for the process. The second thing I want you to keep in mind is this, is that Christ likeness or imitating Christ isn't automatic, it's intentional. It's intentional. You can't drift into the person you're destined to become. Do I have any gardeners here today? People, all three of you, three gardeners. Okay, the grocery stores ever go to a pot, we're in trouble. How silly would it be to think that I am going to reap a harvest that I don't plant? If I want carrots in my garden, I gotta plant carrot seeds. If I want cucumbers, I need to plant cucumber seeds.

And if you want spiritual fruit in your life, you have to be intentional about planting spiritual seeds. Spiritual growth won't happen by accident. It's not just gonna happen by accident. So here's just a few ideas, because here at City First, we like to be incredibly practical. Like what are some of the ways you're literally planting spiritual seeds in your life? Well, first, here's an idea, okay? First of all, schedule scripture before screens. Schedule some scripture time, reading the Bible before screens. There's these really cool apps right now where you can literally say, I don't wanna go on Instagram for 30 minutes, and you set the timer on your phone and it won't let you access that. Guess what? Do that instead, go to YouVersion, which is an app, a Bible app, and be like, I'm gonna spend 15 minutes reading scripture. There's all kinds of reading plans on YouVersion. You can download it. It's Y-O-U version. You can download that app. They even have these really neat guided prayers that you can do now where it kind of takes five minutes and you kind of reflect and pray and read the word. It's awesome.

So schedule scripture before screens. Second thing, idea, is this. Is turn your commute into a classroom. Whether that's a 10-minute commute or a 60-minute commute. I don't care. Some of you moms, you're in the car all the time. bringing kids from here to there, man instead of just jamming out to Beyonce, you know what, put some purpose behind that place that you are sitting in that car for so long. Turn on a podcast, grow a little bit. Those are, I mean, listen to the sermons, the past sermons, or go, I mean, there's so many ways to learn. So turn your commute into a classroom. The third thing is this, third idea is this, show up to grow up. Show up to grow up. If you want to grow up in your faith, you got to show up. You got to show up to church. You got to show up to life group. You're like, you guys talk about this all the time. We are the chief reminding officers, okay? That's our goal, and we're gonna say it because guess what, it is God's plan. We talked about it last week for you to be a part of God's family, and that happens in the house of God. If you want to grow in your faith, you got to show up in the house. See, when you plant intentional seeds, you will bear fruit. It's not you might bear fruit. You will bear fruit, and I love, this is a promise, okay? Psalm 1, 1 through 3. This is beautiful. It says, Oh, the joys of those who do not follow evil men's advice, who do not hang around with sinners, scoffing at the things of God, but they delight in doing everything God wants them to. And day and night, they are always meditating on his laws and thinking about ways to follow him more closely or ways to imitate him. They are like trees, hello, along a riverbank bearing luscious fruit with each season without fail, without fail. Their leaves shall never wither, and all they do shall prosper. Beautiful. It's not you might bear fruit. You will bear fruit. Here's the thing with fruit sometimes, though, and trees and growth, right? We don't see it right away, and then we get frustrated, and we're like, Oh, but you know what? There's trees that are in my yard that were planted

years ago, but not every year that I look at that tree that I do, I see magnificent growth. But after a few years, I'll look at an old picture and look at a tree and be like, Oh my gosh, that tree is huge. It's grown. Here's the deal. If you will plant yourself in the house of God, if you will plant, continue to sow spiritual seeds, you will see growth in your life. It's not gonna be over time. It is a process. It's a process. Don't become discouraged in the process. And the last thing I want us to keep in mind is this, is that you're not meant to reflect the world. You're meant to reflect Christ. You're not meant to reflect the world. You're meant to reflect Jesus. In other words, we don't imitate the world. We imitate Jesus. Galatians 2.20 says this, It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That's another verse that sums up the process. I don't live anymore, but Christ, Jesus, lives in me. Church, you're not here to blend in. You're here to stand out. Not to bring attention to yourself, but because Jesus lives in you, you will live different. See, we live in a world that's obsessed with blending in, fitting into the mold. And it's so interesting to me because there's people who think they're not fitting into the molding culture, but really they're fitting into the mold. But when we are in the family of God, we begin to take on the characteristics of his family. We weren't made to mirror culture. We were made to mirror Jesus. You know, a lot of the scriptures, even the one we just talked about in Galatians, was written by the Apostle Paul. And he didn't admire Jesus's life from a distance. He let Christ reshape everything in his life. And this means things like, for us, it means things like dying to your ego. That's hard. It means letting go of your own ambitions. It means seeking his approval, not the approval of man. Who cares what the world thinks? They're all miserable anyway. They're just trying not to look miserable. Right? Reflecting Christ looks a lot like this mirror that I brought at Walgreens at 645 this morning. See, a mirror doesn't create an image. It reflects one. It reflects one. It shows what it's pointed at. I'm looking at it right now, and I need to fix my makeup. But... I'm looking at it right now, and guess what's looking back at me? My reflection.

It's reflecting what it's pointed at. And the same is true in our lives. We're always reflecting something. The question is, what are you pointed at? Are you pointed at culture? Are you pointed at comfort? Are you pointed at the approval of other people? Are you pointed at yourself? See, whatever you're pointed towards is what people are going to see. But when we turn our life toward Jesus, when He becomes the one that we fix our eyes on, we start to reflect Him. Reflect Him, His grace, His strength, the fruits of the Spirit. Not because you're trying harder or because you're striving. See, mirrors can't try harder. They simply reflect what they're pointed at. I'm sorry, I was blinding some people in the back. This mirror, it can't try harder. It just is what it is. It's reflecting what it's pointing towards. The idea of becoming more like Jesus is a process. Listen, it's like the fruit I was just talking about. Like, let's say I plant a pear tree. No matter what I do, I can't look at that tree and be like, I want you to make pears. It's not my power that makes a pear tree create pears. It's the way God designed the world. You plant a pear tree, you get a pear. No matter how I use the force, I can't make it happen. Right? But you plant it, and it will grow. You plant it, and we were meant to reflect God. See, God is patient. I want you to hear this today, church. God is patient in our process. And guess what? It is the Holy Spirit that is working inside of us to change us. Yes, we have our part to play. Yes, we plant the seeds, but it's God's job to grow the fruit in your life. And that brings me such peace and such joy because I can't do it on my own. See, I like how it says it in the Amplified Version, Galatians 5, 22 and 23. This is the Fruits of the Spirit verse. It says this, but the fruit of the Spirit, listen to this, the result of his presence within us. So the fruit is the result not of your striving, not of your perfection, but it's of God's presence in us. The result is love, joy, peace, patience, not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting. Hello, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. See, when we do the things we've talked about today, we are giving his presence the ability to work inside of us. When we have this understanding, I'm not just meant to meet grace, but I'm meant to grow up in grace. You know, back to my boys. It's one of my favorite pictures. They're going to put it up when Caden and Connor were little. Don't do that. Make me cry. I love this picture because if I could show you a physical picture of what imitating Jesus looks like, this is it. You're just following after him. My kids, you know, in that picture, they're trying to step in dad's footprints that he already made. They're swinging their arms like dad.

They're imitating him. They're falling behind him. They're following him. See, this is a picture of the process, learning to walk, following behind the one we are following. We are following Jesus. This is our purpose. So stick close to him. Imitate him. See, salvation is the starting line. It's not the finish. It's not the finish. God's like, man, we got so much more to go. And he is so into your process. See, God just doesn't save us from something. He grows us into someone. Christ-like in heart, in mind, in action. So to close today, as you wrap up, I have a list of some of the shortcomings that humanity struggles with. They're going to put them on the back screen. There's 30 of them, actually. This is not an exhaustive list. There's more. This is just kind of a list of the things that we as humans, man, there's things that we struggle with. And in an honest moment, I think all of us would say that there are things on this list where we oftentimes fall short. I know. No, there are multiple things on this list where I fall short. I can get overwhelmed by all of the things that, the ways I want to change. You know, once we come to Jesus, sometimes, you know, before that, we're like, we're living like hell and we're all, we're fine with it, right? And then we get saved. And then all of a sudden we start to feel this condemnation, like we're not perfect enough. We're got to go. No, no, no. Listen, God is into your process. It's okay. It's okay. There's a lot of things that we need to deal with. Yes, we get it. But this is what I want us to do. Okay. And this is going to be difficult. Don't worry. The difficulty is not me having you stand up and acknowledge the thing that you personally

are struggling with right now. So I want you, this is going to be a difficult part, is I want you to just pick one that stands out to you right now. I know there's more. So I want you to pick just one. And what I want us to do in the next month, okay, month, I know that seems long, but it's going to go fast. Trust me. What I want us to do in the next month is just focus on that one thing, that one thing, write it down, write down that one thing somewhere. Maybe it's in your notes app. Maybe it's on a Post-it note once you get home, pen and paper, people. And this is what I want us to do, to start planting spiritual seeds to see growth in that area. Find verses about that area. It's so easy to find scripture now. If you're like, I want to find, I'm a bitter person. You say, how do scripture, Google it or chat GPT, it's scriptures on overcoming bitterness. It'll give you a bunch. Write them down and start, start putting them in your heart. I want you to pray about this thing, bring it to God, talk to him about it. And then I want you to be intentional with working on it. I want you to tell your friends you're working on it. Okay. So it'd be great exercise in some of our life groups. Go around and say, Hey, what are the things you struggling with? Because this is what we do in life groups. We're honest with each other. Tell your friends you're working on it and then say, Hey, be praying for me with this thing and let's just see what God does.

See when PAX was little, we would focus on one thing at a time. We weren't working on numbers and walking and we weren't working on writing and walking. When we were focused on growth with PAX, we were on one thing. And when it was walking, it was walking every day. We were working on walking and it was our joy to work with him on that, to cheer him on, to help him. And this is what I need you to know. God is with you. He loves you. And it is his joy to see you in the process. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much. God, I thank you for this truth, God, that you saved us in an instant. That we met your grace and we were given a brand new spiritual life. But then God, our purpose is to be in the process. And you love the process. You give us grace for the process. You give us strength for the process. You give us the ability to plant seeds in the process. And so I pray, God, as we walk into this next week, holding on to this one thing, I pray that you would help us. I pray that you would strengthen us and I pray that you would give us what we need for this journey. God, we love you. We thank you for your grace in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen. Let's give Jesus a huge hand clap. What an incredible message by Pastor Jen Dewar. For any individual that just took a moment to say that prayer for the first time, we just want to say we are so happy for you.

Congratulations on making one of the most important and impactful decisions that you can make for your entire life. We want to go on this journey with you. And if you made that decision, please take a moment and scan the QR code that's on your screen right now. And there's a few other things that you need to do. Firstly being to tell a friend or a family member about the decision that you just made. It's so important that you share this good news with other individuals. And as you're scanning that QR code, we have some resources for you. And these resources are going to help you take your next steps. And we want you to know that we're with you all the way along the way. You do not have to do this alone. That's right. Another great resource, like Cam said, is our new beginning resource. You can scan the QR code on the screen to download that and that's just going to help answer the what now questions. Another great thing that you can do is to jump into growth track. That is where you're going to get a chance to learn your gifts and talents, the purpose that God has for you. And so if you want to do that as well, you can scan the QR code or even go on the City First app to be a part of that. That's right. You know, we got an entire team that is here to pray for you for whatever you need, pray with you and for you. So if you guys need any prayers at all, please go to the City First app and put in a prayer We have a team of pastors and leaders who would love to just sit down and take some time and include you and so their Daily prayers. This is the thing you do not have to do this alone We hope that you guys had an incredible time with us If you enjoyed this message, please share it with some friends and go ahead and share the link with them And until then we will see you guys next week. That's right. See you later