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Our Goal: renewed hunger

The goal of this series is to see ourselves as we truly are, identify the areas that may be hard, rocky, or thorny, and start working with God’s help ( Philippians 2:13 ) to make it good soil. I want us to come out of this series with a renewed hunger and a revived sense of our need for growth! God wants to transform us from one degree to another and make us more like Jesus!

Becoming Aware - Poor in Spirit

This first step of evaluation and examination is important and vital to our spiritual growth because before we can grow deeper we need to become aware of our need (spiritual poverty), aware of our true state of being - we are naturally inclined to lie to ourself about how we truly are (self-deception).

Larry Crabb calls this step recognizing our “journeying reality” - the truth about where we are in our life of following Jesus. Remember, God meets us where we are, not where we pretend to be.

We take time with this step because this is where growth begins. Jesus said “blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the Kingdom of God.” (Matthew 5:3) Those that realize their “poverty” - their need for something/someone outside of themselves - are the ones who truly hunger. And “blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

Often we get comfortable and complacent in life (especially in our spiritual life) and this causes us to put God and growth on the sidelines.

Too often people come to Christ acknowledging their need but then live out the rest of their lives as if they were fine.

Always Growing

In this life we will never fully “arrive” (Philippians 3:12-13) , we will always have growth potential. But we will not realize this potential if we simply get comfortable with how things are and act as if though we have “obtained all this”.

Garden of the Soul

What I’d like for us to do is go on a walk with God through the garden of our soul and allow Him to venture into areas that may have become hard ground and break it up or clean out the rocky patches of ground or deal with the areas where thorns still grow.

Another image, is to take a walk through the “house of your heart” with God. In our physical homes, most of us have those rooms where we don’t let guests into because they are messy. We have that closet where we put all of our junk when unexpected company drops by. We also have those rooms in our heart. Those places that we’d rather keep secret. But God wants to go into those rooms. What we need to realize is that he doesn’t want to go into them to condemn us, rather he wants to help “clean” those rooms and put them in order.

Last week we asked the question “how’s your soil?” this week we are taking it further and asking “how’s your SOUL?” (where does God want to grow you? what areas are hard, rocky, or thorny that He wants to address and work on?)

This can be a tough question. It is easy to avoid the areas in our life that need to be changed and just simply “hang out” in the beautiful areas of the garden. Sometimes we will sense that God wants to go deeper, but we will try to pull Him away from that area, but that’s where He wants to be because He wants to change every part of us.

So the question remains: how do we get our soil to be good soil - available for God to work in (we’ll talk about this more next week)? And what are the things that are in the way of that seed going deep? We may have places of good soil, places in our life that God is working, but God wants to get to those hard places also. He wants to completely transform us - every area of our lives. He doesn’t want us to become comfortable and complacent, He wants us to be poor in spirit so that He can continue the work He started in us (Philippians 1:6).

How’s Your Soil? How’s Your Soul?

We may have hard places where the ground has become so tough that nothing can get through. This soil is full of pride and legalism.

• hard ground - Nicodemus
  • pride
  • legalism
  • hard hearted (Matthew 13:14-15)

We may have patches of rocky soil where the ground is shallow. This seemingly decent soil won’t let the roots go deep; it appears available but doesn’t want pain. We often want the good that God offers (eternal life, blessings, healing, prosperity), but we don’t want the work that a life of following him entails. Removing rocks from the soil is hard work, but that is the only way for the roots to be able to go deeper. God says to “work out your salvation, for it is God who is at work in you.” - Philippians 2:13 “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” - Acts 14:22

• rocks -
  • no pain (Acts 14:22)
  • no narrow road (Mt 7:13)

As we grow as disciples of Jesus we will likely find places in the garden where the thorns still grow. Hebrews 12:1 says to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles”. Just because we have chosen to follow Jesus does not mean that we will never face the temptation of sin in our lives. God’s seed cannot grow alongside of thorns. These thorns are the worries of life that surround us so easily.

• thorns - Rich young man
  • “what if’s” & “if only’s”
  • worries of this life
  • deceitfullness of wealth

What God desires of us is good soil. Good soil where his seed can grow and multiply and bring blessing both for us and others. Good soil where the roots can grow ever deeper and where there is no competition from thorns and weeds. Good soil is where God has free reign to make us more like Jesus and grow the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). The good soil is that undivided will - where we are surrendered to God and to His way and to His work. This is what God desires from us. God will help us in this process (Philippians 2:13, 2 Corinthians 3:18) but we must also do our part - which is to examine and identify.

• good soil - Peter
  • available
  • surrendered
  • “poor in spirit”
  • an undivided will

Discussion Questions:

1. What does it mean to be “poor in spirit”? Why does Jesus say this is blessed?
2. Do you think it is easy to ignore or avoid our need for God when we are “comfortable”? Why?
3. Read Galatians 5:22-23. What are the top 3 fruit that need growing in your life?
4. If God were to walk with you in the “garden of your soul”, what are some of the areas of growth? What are some of the areas that still need work (hard ground, rocky, thorny)?
5. On a scale of 1 - 10, where would you rate your “hunger” for God and for His transforming work in your life? How could you increase your hunger?
6. Have you ever felt like God wanted to work on a difficult area of your life? How did you respond?