As I was in the Word and browsing the Internet a bit, I was looking at how God's Word is moving throughout the world, and I was really shocked at what I found. God is doing amazing things! Being that I grew up in the U.S. and very rarely left the country, sometimes I forget what it is like in other places. God’s power is truly moving! God's Word cannot be changed. His word cannot be stopped! I see it going out in other countries and other places, and in some places in the U.S. too. It is just explosive! It truly is unbelievable to see God's power and God's Word.

As I was searching, I came across a YouTube video that really struck me about how God was moving. We are going to play that video now (watch video link above). As I'm sitting in my room and watching these videos and watching the power of God's Word, I’m seeing how unbelievable what God's word can do; it cannot be held back. Governments unite against it in various ways, such as destroying crosses under the auspices of ‘code enforcement’ and arresting Christians. They do everything they can to stop the Word of God, but the Word of God cannot be stopped, and it cannot be changed! It is going out, and it is finding good soil in people's hearts, and it is multiplying after itself. That is the power of God's Word throughout the world.

I watched another video of a pastor, and he began talking about China, and he was saying how unstoppable the Word was there. Then he began talking about the American church and how stoppable it really is. I began to think about that. He said if simple things happen, the church stops. If service times get changed, people decide, “that really doesn't work for me… I don't want to do that, I’m going to stop coming.” If the worship band perhaps is not so talented, or the drums are not pounding, then our feet stand still, and nobody wants to move to worship God. If the speaker goes long, people may not want to come and risk missing the Giants game that day. There are so many things that stop the American church from happening. Yet, I watch what the church around the world is experiencing as governments are uniting, jail times are being imposed, and bulldozers are going through, but the Word of God cannot be stopped! The Word will be found in the cave, on the farm, and wherever else it needs to go in order to multiply and do what it needs to do. It is amazing.

I began asking, “God, why is this? Why is it that the American church seems so slow to get started? Why is it that in so many places, the Word just doesn’t seem to have that explosive power?” The Lord began speaking to me, and He said, “You know what it is, Kris? It’s immaturity.” I said, “Immaturity?” He said, “Yes, immaturity.” Because the church is seen as a convenience instead of a privilege, people in America can remain as infants as long as they want. They can be baby Christians as long as they want. They never have to grow up, they never have to come into the things of God, and they never have to develop that deep relationship with the Lord. In places like China, their very freedom is in jeopardy, and yet, Christians cry out to God and say, “God, rescue me! God, be with me! God, I will stand on your Word even if it means anything could happen. God, I will be here with you.” You see, here in America there is such immaturity because we are not faced with that. The times of America are changing, and we see it happening every day. Pressure on the church in increasing, and things are going to be happening more and more. God was telling me that if we had the same obstacles that so many of these other churches face throughout the world, we would be forced to mature. We see this around the world, where people who come into Christ have to mature because they say, “God I can't stay as a baby Christian. I need to grow with You. I need to come in deeper with you. God, You have to be with me, and You have to rescue me.”

I look at my own life… I am not a child anymore, I have a child of my own. This week, I was really examining my life and saying, “God, is my maturity at the level it needs to be in my life?” I look at our pastors and their vision for what God wants to do, and they bring the Word continuously. Yet, is it really worth it if it starts and dies with them? Doesn't the Word need to grow? Doesn't it need to explode? Doesn't the seed that they are giving out need to take root inside of other people's hearts, so that the Word of God can go forward and grow, and so that we can have that explosive power that is seen all throughout the world? God is calling for the church to mature this day. He is calling for maturity from the church of God, from each one of us. It does not matter how long you have been here. If your new today, that is okay. If you have been here for a while, God is looking to mature us. He wants to bring us forward into new things. God wants to do that this day. This is the week of break out! I was praying, “God, may You break out in our lives in a new way!” Let the maturity rise up and come in.”

The Mature are Always Progressing

I am going to talk about maturity today, the first point being that the mature never stop progressing. They never stop moving forward. I look at my son. It is unbelievable how much has changed in a year, but there was a time where he could not move, and he needed my help. Then he began to crawl and he did not want me to pick him up. Then he began to walk, and I would have to hold his hand. Now, he is running, and when I try to hold his hand, he’ll sloop down real low and pull away from me. He does not want my help anymore. He feels that he is growing to a point now where he can do it on his own. There is a natural progression that happens inside of a child. We look for it. We look for and expect a child to mature. The older they get, the more they are eating. They are going to get bigger, their brains are going to grow, and they are going to start doing more and more things.

Why is it that we expect this with a child, but we do not expect it in our relationship with God? Why is it that we look intently at our children to see how they are growing, but when it comes to our relationships, we do not examine our hearts and say, “God, I need to mature today. The old is not okay anymore. You have to bring me into new things.” What does maturity look like? It is learning the voice of God, following the word, obedience being bred in your life. You stop worrying so much about your own things in your own life and your own problems, and you start to take on God's things, God's heart, God's church, and God's kingdom. We know how some parents like to go online and look step by step, week by week, to see exactly where their child is supposed to be progressing... Week 32, they should be doing this, week 56, they should be able to say this number of vocabulary words, take this number of any steps, have special connections with people, pinch their fingers, etc. The world has figured it all out, but yet in the church we say, “It's okay, you don't need to progress. It's okay, you can stay a baby Christian. You don't have to come into the Word. You don't have to learn obedience. You don't have to develop a relationship. It's okay, we can just sit back.” Yet, I look at these videos of the worldwide church, and I see these people crying. I see teenagers gathering together under the auspices of learning music to learn how to worship. I see people waving their arms and crying out to God, and I say, “God, this is what you are calling for from your church... not to stay the same week after week, but to be transformed, to be moving forward, to always be progressing.”

I Corinthians 13:11 states:

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

“I spoke like a child…” What is this saying? This is when we sound like the world, when our words do not match up to the Word of God. I spoke in last Sunday’s sermon about trying to be ‘right’ all of the time... never going to the Word, never picking up the Word, looking at it and examining our hearts with it. It is when we are constantly trying to defend ourselves. This is how we speak like a child. In this scripture, we also see, “I understood as a child, I thought as a child...” This means that our thinking does not line up; we think like children with a mindset that is so far away from God. Finally, the scripture states, “...but when I became a man, I put away my childish things.” This is the point when you begin to understand God. You begin to have some faith in your life that makes you move forward and take steps that you never thought you would have taken. It makes you put away your flesh and stop trying to defend yourself and, instead, go into the Word of God. God is calling for steps. He is calling for maturity. God is saying, “Do not remain a baby anymore! Put away the childish things and come into My Word, come into My Spirit! Let My Word take root inside of your heart, and may it grow up and mature.” If we are not doing that, we are living in ‘the yesterday.’

I remember when my baby started walking. I was downstairs with him and he took those first steps. I was so excited, I started screaming! I have a video of it, but I am not going to show you because my voice gets really pitchy and high, and I sound like Mickey Mouse. I was super excited, and I call to my wife, “Jess, get down here!” She comes flying down the stairs as if the house is on fire and says, “What's wrong?” and I say, “Watch this!” The baby took his steps, and it was so exciting. It was such a celebratory time in my house. We were laughing, and it was so joyous. Imagine, however, if a month later, or 6 months later, or even 5 years later, we are looking back, and nothing else has happened, and yet we are still just as joyous about that one time that my son walked. At some point it stops being exciting, and it starts to become worrisome. We begin to wonder if something might be wrong.

That is how we have to look at our walk. It is great that God has come through for us in the past. I know so many of us experienced God in different ways, such as the times you went to God and prayed, “God, You have to be there for me! You have to rescue me!” and He came down and did it. Perhaps you prayed, “God, I need a job,” and He gave it to you. Other times, you may have said, “God, I want to feel You,” and He came and gave His presence to you in worship. We have all experienced God in these ways; they are awesome and worth celebrating, and you should be so excited about them. But what happens next? Into what new thing has that pushed you? How has that progressed you into new things will Christ? How are you now throwing away the old man and coming into the new? How are you resolving to say to that sin that used to have a stronghold over you, “No more! I will not bend a knee to Baal! I will only bend a knee to God!” How is faith being bred in your life? God is looking to mature us and bring us into new things. It is great that we experienced them, but what is next? What has happened since? What is God bringing us into next?

God brings us from glory to glory. He brings us into the new. There has to be a point where these times that you meet with God breed something inside of your life, causing you to stop and say, “You know what, God? If no one else worships your name, if not one other person raises his hand in worship, if not one other person meets, gathers in your name, and reads your word, God, I will be the one raising my hand saying, “Here I am, God! Use me!” I will be the one standing in the gap saying, “God, I will not walk away from your name!”

We have to take responsibility over our walk. We have to move forward and progress into the new things of God; they should be breeding new things inside of your heart, new things that you never thought you would do before. If you were timid and afraid, you are now standing up proudly and boldly. If you had no faith, God is now moving you in faith. If you could not read the Word, God is making it come alive to you. That is the maturity of God, and this is what He wants to bring us into.

The Mature are on Solid Food

We see that the mature are always progressing, always moving forward. Secondly, the mature are on solid food. I know we have probably heard this many times, especially people who have been in church for a while. We know that we need to be on solid food, not on milk anymore. Think about a baby, or a child who has food allergies. I joke with my kids in youth group sometimes, where I would stop them every time they were about to eat something and say, “Hey! Are you allowed to eat that? Are you okay?” They would look at me and say, “Yeah, Kris, we are teenagers. We know what we can eat and what we’re not supposed to eat.” But we all know that when kids have food allergies, you have to be so careful about what you give them. Even when serving a full meal, parents have to pick out little bits of food that their children are not supposed to have. Why? They are afraid that their bodies are going to reject the food, that it will not sit well with them. So they must pick out bits and pieces.

God was showing me this week that this is what we do with the gospel. We pick out little pieces here or there. We take out this part or that, and we say, “Well, this probably won't sit well. They might be offended by this, and this, they might reject.” We take out these pieces of the gospel, and then we try to present it, but I tell you that by doing this, we are watering it down to such a point that it is becoming... water. God said He wants us to go on to milk and then on to solid food, progressing forward. He never said to start with water. Water might resemble milk in its liquid state, but it is empty calories. It is missing the nutrition and vitamins that enriches a child or an infant.

What is the purpose of milk? It is to fatten kids up and to give them the nutrients that they need so that if they were to get sick or something were to happen, they would be able to survive. It is to give them what they need inside of their bodies to get them past the first stage of their life. That is what God is calling for from the Word. That is what the gospel does; it goes in and it is about you, it talks about you, and it fattens you up and tells you about the sacrifice of God. It talks to you about the love of God, that He died on the cross for you, and it's amazing! I remember a time where I was lost and broken, and I didn’t know which way was up, and that gospel came, that milk came, and it filled me up. I will tell you that I would not have survived without it. As much as I thank God for bringing that to me and doing that in me, God is saying, “Don't stop there!” I thank Him even more for not leaving me there, for not leaving me on the milk, for not leaving me in the past, because God wants to bring us forward into new things.

Hebrews 5:12-14 states:

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the word of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

I think about what this verse is saying, how God wanted to take us off of the milk, off of the things that are about you. As great as those things are, and although they are necessary, it is not supposed to stop there. Churches are filled with Christians who are still on milk, who still want to hear about themselves, who still sin again and again and say, “God, you have to cover, you have to help, you have to do this.” It is like going around the mountain over and over again, never moving into the Promised Land, into what God has for us. He calls us to move into solid food. The scripture says that those who partake only of milk are unskilled in the word of righteousness. Think about that. Milk does not teach you to follow God, to lay it all down on the floor and say, “God, this is my spiritual act of worship. I will lay down my life at your throne. God, take me!” Milk does not teach you to say, “God, I sacrifice it all that I might know you!”  Milk doesn't say, “God, I lay it all down. I don't care about my flesh anymore. I just want to know you!”

Solid meat is what God is calling us to move into. In Hebrew, “solid meat” means sustenance for the mind. This is what changes the mindset of a man. This is what transforms your way of thinking and everything that you have come from. Some of us have come from really difficult situations that change the way we think, feel, and act. However, God is calling us to move off of all those other things and come into that deep relationship with Him that changes even how you think and feel. It changes your very heart. It teaches you obedience and faith and gives you comfort in the storm.

I am an Irish guy at heart. I still love my rice and beans- don't get me wrong- but at heart, I am a ‘meat and potatoes kind of guy.’ It is in my blood, I can't get away from it. When I read this verse and it talks about getting away from the old and coming into solid meat, I say, “Yes Lord, solid meat!” For me, an Irish guy, I think of how solid meat just hits the spot; it gives you sustenance. Milk sort of just goes through you, but what does solid meat do? It fills your stomach; it gives you sustenance. It gives you what you need to go on and move forward. That is what God is calling for. I challenge you today to come into something deeper with the Lord. I know we do not have to, and I know that right now, there is no government pressuring us to do so. I know that things could be really comfortable, but I challenge you today to let go of the old, to let go of the milk, and you say, “God, there must be more!”

The scripture in Hebrews also says, “...by use, have had their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Solid meat is when you take the word of God, and you chew on it. You meditate on it, and you say, “Lord, there has to be more than this. God, I want to dwell on this Word. God, what did this Word mean? I felt a kick inside of my heart when the pastor was speaking this word, God. Why? I don't want to just throw it off to the side. I want it to be a part of me!” We use the Word, we think on it, and we activate it in our lives. This word causes transformation and it causes power. When you use God's word like that, you become quick to discern good and evil. You become quick to know what is of God and what is not.

I was a dispatcher in the police department for many years. I would often attend trainings that always spoke about recognizing red flags. Recognizing red flags means listening to how people say certain things, the inflections in their voices, and certain phrases people use. I would sit through these trainings and in reality, there was one of 2 ways to take it. I could either walk away thinking, “That’s cool, I’ll have to keep that in mind and try to watch out for that.” Instead, I began to apply this training. With every phone call that I took, I began listen very intently, and I would ask myself, “Do I hear anything? Are there any red flags going on here?” And I would apply this every day I went into work. 99 percent of the time, there's nothing... but I remember one time, it was like three or four o'clock in the morning. I was exhausted, I was barely awake, and the 911 phone rings. I answer it, and it starts off just like every other call- just a false alarm, hit by accident type of thing. I went to go hang up the phone, and I kind of stopped and said to myself, you know what, he sounded a little weird. I stopped and I said, “Sir, is everything alright? Are you being held against your will?” You know what he said to me? He said, “Yeah, that's exactly right, the magazines will be in tomorrow! Just come on in, they'll be here!” I said, “Okay, I get it.”

It turned out that the cashier at 711 was being held up, and I almost hung up on him. But because I had applied that training, because I had used it every single day, my ear was quick to pick up when something was wrong. This is exactly the same with the word of God. We miss it, and we don't hear the word of God, and we don’t follow because we are not applying the word every single day. We're not moving on to solid meat; we're not taking it, meditating on it, chewing on it, and allowing it to activate powerfully in our lives! If we did, we would be so quick to hear the voice of God! Then somebody else like one of the kids could say a verse and it would hit my heart, and I’d say, “That’s God!” Or somebody else could say something else, and I’d know it wouldn't be.

I think of it all time, where so often in my life, God brought me a word, and I would say, “Alright Lord, I see how my life is not lining up to this.” I would go and I'd say, “God you have to do something different in me.” I would pray, and I'd rend my heart before God and say, “God, I can't live this way anymore!” And He would come, and He would deliver me every time. But you know what happened after that? Somebody else would walk into the church, and they would say, “Yeah, you know I kind of struggle with this, but it’s really not a big deal... it's really not sin...” and they would excuse it. And I would say, “Whoa, hold on a second.” You see when we use the word of God, when it causes transformation in your life, that's when you can go up to somebody and say, “Brother, let me stop you. Let me tell you about the power of God. Let me tell you about how the word of God rescued me. Let me tell you about what God's word can do! Let me tell you about how it's spreading, not just in China, but in my heart and everywhere around me! Let me tell you about how it's consuming my heart! I don’t have to live the same way I used to live, but God did something different inside of me.”

God is calling for us to move on to solid meat- where you take it, digest it, and it becomes a part of you. It soaks into your very bones and can never be taken away. We have to come off of the milk. We have to come off of the immaturity. God is calling us to mature into something new today.

The Mature are Multiplying

Finally, the mature are multiplying. We know that the mature are always progressing, the mature are not on milk- they move on to solid food, and the mature are always multiplying. Sociologists agree that we are in the most narcissistic age ever to exist... ever! And we are not talking as if there is a close second... there is a wide gap in between the ages past and the age that we are living in today. There was a study done about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) by the University of Alabama. They went and chose regular people at random and began to study them. They found that with people who were 60 years old and older, two percent suffer from this disorder. That is still a lot when you think of the population as a whole, but still a small percentage. However, when they studied people who were 30 years old or younger, they found that it jumped up to 10 percent. Think about that... in 30 years, we have jumped 8 percent into that much narcissism. We have come into that type of age, where one in 10 people suffer from that degree of narcissism. Then we consider what is going to happen in the next 30 years. What about the next 60 years? This age keeps going one way, where people are so consumed with themselves.

Imagine if you met your grandfather or grandmother when they when they were a teenager, and you said to them, “Look, this is how it's going to work in the future. Every single person is going to carry around a poster board, and they are going to walk around with it all day long... and that poster board is going to be all about them... no one else, just about them. It’s going to have pictures of them, it's going to have their names and nicknames, it's going to have their employment history, their relationship status, and all their friends and family. They're going to carry this poster board around with them all day long, and they're going to update it multiple times a day about every little thing that pops in their head: I'm having a Pepsi... I'm having a cheeseburger... and they're going to keep updating it every single day multiple times a day. Not only that, but they're going to expect other people to be looking at it throughout the day. And not only that, but you'll be considered an outcast if you're not caring around one of these poster boards… also known as “Facebook.”” We say “poster board,” since they wouldn’t have had the Internet yet… get it? (crowd laughs)

Think about that level of narcissism! What would your grandparents say to you? You're crazy! No one cares that much about you. No one cares to know what you’re eating for lunch every single day! There's no way that'll ever happen! There's no way it'll ever get to that level of narcissism! Yet, that is the world we live in.

We have a problem in the church. The problem is when we open up the word of God, and we start reading, the Bible tells us again and again, “It’s not about you.” However, everything that we're surrounded with in this culture, and every time we walk out of the doors of God, what happens? Everyone is saying, “It's only about you.” That is what we are running into. The church is not multiplying. The church is not maturing... why?! Because it’s about you. Because it’s about us. Because it’s about the man instead of about the God who died for us.

Watching this video of Chinese Christians, I see them running around, dancing, clapping, worshipping, speaking, crying, and the Spirit of God is falling on them. Yet, do you know what I did not see? A Bible. I looked into it and found that Bibles are a scarce commodity out there. So I said, “God, this doesn't compute in my mind. How is this possible? How is it that the word of God is exploding and multiplying in China, where new Christians are coming in and the word is being multiplied after itself, where godly fruit is coming forth again and again and yet… there isn’t a Bible to be found.” All of a sudden, the verses start to click and they start to make sense in my mind, where God says, “I will write the words on your hearts. They will no longer be written on tablets of stone, but they will be written on our hearts.” All of a sudden it makes sense to me. God, your word is alive! God, your word is active! God, your word is going out and producing a crop!

I look at that, and then I look at what we have here in America. A church on every corner. A Bible at any local Walmart within walking distance for $4.99. Multiple services on Sunday, depending on what time you want to wake up. Youth group and Bible studies throughout the week every single week. TV evangelists and Christian radio. We have all of this, yet I see very little true multiplication of the word of God inside of a man's heart. I see almost no impact of the word of God on our culture and our surroundings. How is it that we have all of that, yet the word is not multiplying? Yet, they have nothing; they can’t even get a Bible, yet the word is multiplying and growing and fruit is being born every single day. God, your word is amazing! God, your word can't be stopped!

You see, we forget when we live in this world every day, and it tells us that it’s all about us. We forget that it's not about us; that word of God is a seed and that seed is meant to go out, take root, and multiply. God has been speaking to me so much about Genesis 1:28 this week:

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)

I began to look up the meaning of these words. I said, “Lord, there has to be more to this verse.” And He began to show me. The word subdue in this verse is the Hebrew word “kabash,” and it means to enslave or subdue a hostile enemy… like a military term. The word, dominion in this verse is a royal word; it is ascribed to a king over his subjects. God is telling Adam he will have dominion over his subjects, like Solomon having dominion from sea to sea. Finally, the word moves comes from the Hebrew word “ramas,” and it means to creep, and it's ascribed to a serpent that slithers on the ground. I read this, and I began thinking, “God, show me what you're talking about here.” At this time, sin had not entered the world yet. God had just created Adam. Adam is there before God, and God blesses Him. This is more than just a regular blessing. This isn’t like when you sneeze and someone says, “God bless you.” I'm talking about a blessing that came and settled upon the very soul of Adam. It came down, and God spoke it to be. This blessing came forth, and it was a mantle that came upon Adam. And what does God say? He says, take this seed… take this blessing, take this mantle that I'm giving you. Go out, and let it multiply.

We think so often that Adam walked into the garden and got blindsided and was unprepared, as if he walked into the garden and all of a sudden, there was this snake talking him, and Adam thought, Oh, this is my buddy, I can kind of be friends with him. No! God prepared Adam. He said, There are going to be hostiles in the territory! There are going to be hostile enemies where you're going! You should go and subdue those hostiles! God not only tells Adam to subdue them, but He also specifically mentions the serpent that slithers on the ground. Then He says to go and take dominion over those things. As a king rules over his subjects, take dominion over that! Adam was meant to go and multiply that. That was supposed to go out into the whole entire world.

From father to son, and father to son, it was meant to go out; we were meant to live as people who had Satan underneath our feet. God said, Go and subdue them! Take dominion over them! Adam was supposed to walk into that garden, take ownership, and put that sin underneath his heel and crush it. He was meant to live above all of that stuff. But what did he do? Instead of taking dominion over it, he ended up being subjected to it. Adam, when sinned, now allowed Satan to take control. And this is what we are faced with today.

Thousands of years later, people live bound up with sin. They can't do anything. They’re stuck, and sin has control over their life. They don't know how they're going to go forward; they're wrapped up in bondage. Yet, God sees His Son, Jesus Christ, and He sends His Son down! His Son was that blessing! His Son was that mantle of authority that was given to Adam! He came down and on that cross, He subdued sin! He took victory over it, and now, He has dominion over every sin, over death, hell, and the grave!

Jesus Christ now comes into the heart of a man. We are meant to live like Adam was supposed to in the beginning- with sin underneath our heel, living above it, taking dominion over it, subduing the fleshy nature! Subduing the things that tell us it’s all about us! To put it under our heel, take dominion over it, and walk! And what did God say to Adam? Go out and multiply! God is calling us us to multiply... not just multiply some nice words, not just multiply some nice story, not multiplying being a good person… but multiplying the very Spirit of God that took dominion over sin, multiplying the Son of God inside of the heart of man, that His words would be written inside of our hearts. He is the one that takes the old man and throws it away, and the Spirit of Christ rises up. God is calling us to multiply!

This week, I was saying, “God, give me a word inside my heart. I want to bring it to the people.” You see, when God puts His words inside of somebody, even in a Bible study or wherever you are, those words go out, and that is the seed of God that goes out and is meant to find good soil inside of the heart. I thought about seeds. If you open up any fruit, whether it's an orange or an apple or whatever it is… if you slice it in half and open it up, what you find inside every time? Seeds. You see we forget. Seeds only come from fruit. Everybody wants to stand up and say, follow me! Everyone wants a congregation, everyone wants to stand in front of people and say, I do this and I do that... but how many of them are displaying the fruit of God in their lives? How many of them have patience, peace, obedience, and self control that is just flourishing in their lives? There is no seed, and there is no multiplication unless the fruit is being born.

We need to come into maturity today. I have this bush in front of my house, and every year, I tell my wife that if it doesn't bloom next year, I’m tearing it out. That’s it, I'm done. Every year, I say the same thing and it's still there. It reminds me of how Jesus saw the fig tree from afar and it looked leafy and it looked good, but when he walked up close, what did He find? No fruit. He said it was worthless, pointless. He cursed it, and it died. God is calling for us to mature. No plant in its infant stage produces fruit. It has to mature, it has to grow. It has to take root inside of the soil and grow up. This is what God is calling for from his church today! He is calling for the seed of God to take root inside of your heart. To find good soil, to grow up, to mature so that you may bear fruit, and that in that fruit might be the seed of God that can be multiplied out to the nations. We cannot multiply without fruit. We cannot give a seed unless the fruit of God is being born in our lives. My life, my son's life, my wife's life, our family's life is all because a seed came and took root inside of our hearts.

This word today is for those who say, I don't want to live like this anymore. At some point, we have to stop and say, God, I don't want to live in mediocrity anymore. I don't want to live the same way anymore. I don't want to live drinking milk every single day and going around the mountain every single week! God, there must be more! God, you're calling for something inside of our hearts! When Jesus gives the Great Commission, He says:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you...” (Matthew 28:18-20)

All authority... that mantle that God gave, that blessing. Go out make disciples. Baptize them... let the word take root. ...and teach them to obey... may it come forward and bear fruit. God is calling for the church to go forward today, to not be leafy trees but to grow up, to mature, to bear fruit this day. God is calling for something new from us. He is calling for us to be done with the old, done with the old ways. For many of us, we have been doing this a long time, but we have to stop and say, God, there must be more. You have to have something more for me this day, Jesus. I pray that you would search your heart. That there would be something inside of you that you would look to and say,

God there must be more. God, speak to my heart. I don't want to go around the mountain again, Lord. Father, I don't want anybody to have to tell me. I don’t want anyone to have a chase me. God, I don’t want to live my life with my mouth open where somebody pours the food in. But Lord, I want to take ownership over my walk today. I want to take ownership over my relationship with You this day and say God, enough is enough. Today is the day. Lord, grow me up. Today is a day of breakthrough, God. Bring me in Jesus! Bring me into the maturity that You are calling for.

There must be more than this, Jesus! You died on the cross not so that we can just live the same, not so we can just go around the mountain over and over again. You died so that we may enter the promised land, Jesus. God, bring us in this day. Bring us in this day, Lord, into your courts. I've been doing this a long time, God. The word can't start and die with the pastors, Lord. A vision can't just start and die with one person. It must spread. Lord, here I am! Here I am, Lord! Choose me. I will be the one to stand in the gap this day, God. I will be the one to advance your kingdom.

God, I’m busy- there's stuff going on- the house needs to be cleaned, the lawn needs to be mowed, our kids need to be driven everywhere, but at the end of the day, I want you Jesus! Nothing else matters, God. Take root, seed of God. There must be more. Take root, Jesus. Hallelujah to your name, God.

The word of God is like the sun, and we are plants. If you stand in His presence today, you can't help but grow. It just soaks into your soul, into your bones, and you can't help but to grow in His presence. God is calling for maturity today. I don't care if you've been here 50 years, if you've been in the church, if you you've read the Bible from cover to cover. The word of God needs to take root inside of our hearts. It needs to mature us, that we would bear fruit and be able to multiply this day. So as we go into this last song, I just pray that you would say, God, shine your presence down on me right now! Shine your presence, Lord, like the sun- that it would hit my face, God! For I know when a man stands in your presence, he can't help but grow.

We thank you, Lord Jesus, for your presence. We thank you, God, that you have graced us with your presence today. Be with us and let us grow this day, Jesus! Hallelujah! Praise your holy name, God!