On multiple occasions over the years, I've tried to have a little garden.
Nothing big or fancy, just some vegetables that we typically eat at our house.

My Memaw and Pepaw always had a big garden. One of the funniest things I remember about Pepaw is how every single year he said he's not farming anymore. but every year he'd have a garden bigger than the previous year.

I love the idea of being able to walk out the backyard and pick a cucumber or a tomato or some strawberries, based on what's happening with a certain supplier right now, to grow some lettuce that doesn't make you… well, you know.

But I have one fatal flaw when it comes to growing a small garden: I'm horrible at it. I don't know why I am, but I'm bad at it. I don't know why you can't just put a seed in the ground, water it, and then eat it several weeks later. I either water it too much, I water it too little, the soil is too this or not enough that, I'm just bad at it.

I've been known to kill ferns. In fact, one of the most heart-wrenching moments early on in my marriage was when somebody bought us a fern for our new house and within a few weeks, I killed it. Monique called it our Love Fern. And she is still upset that I killed it. Even mid-fight one day she said, “At least I didn’t kill our Love Fern.” That may not have happened…

Here's the way I look at it: Plants will grow ANYWHERE. Go to the most desolate place and there’s a shrub. In the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, “Life will find a way.” Those plants weren't dying because I was a bad farmer. They were dying because they didn't want it enough! After all, life should find a way, right? Weeds find a way to grow. Why can't my grape plant do the same?

Is that really how it works, though?

Today, the question I want to ask you a simply this: Do you really want to grow?

We say we do, but I don't know that we are always as gung ho about what it takes to grow. So we say yes we want growth, but I don't know that we are always as excited about what it takes to grow.

Do you really want to grow?
If you do, then, there are some things you're gonna have to understand upfront.

1. Your environment is important.
Plants can be finicky and the slightest little things can stunt their growth. Tomatoes require full sun and acidic soil. Carrot seeds will refuse to germinate if the soil is even slightly dry. Grapes require more than one grape plant or else they won’t pollinate. Soils need to have a proper mix, you need sunlight, the right amount of water. And don’t forget the earthworms and microbes.

I'm not trying to act like Farmer John over here, but the environment is very important if you're going to produce something, and that production requires you grow.

Many people try to grow in their relationship with God, but they try to do it in the same soil they met Jesus in. We have this experience with Jesus and it's revelatory and life-changing, and for the first time we feel like something is different, not just that he saved us from something but saved us for something, you know what I mean?

And what happens is we take that excitement and we leave that place and go back to our everyday lives and it's almost like the environment snuffs out the excitement and seed, the environment doesn't have what it takes to fuel that growth.

It is like in Matthew 13 with the farmer sowing seed. Matthew 13:5-6
5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
That soil and that environment kill the potential for growth.

Think about Moses.
He grew up in Egypt and had everything he could have imagined. Yet none of his purpose could be realized in that environment. He may have grown up, but he grew up as a weed in a field full of weeds. And he had a revelation of this once he began to notice how the Hebrews were being treated, knowing that he himself was a Hebrew. That's like that moment where you have a revelation of who Jesus is and all the sudden you realize who you are, and those realizations work together to help you understand that you are in the wrong environment.

So what happened with Moses? He tried to rescue one of the Hebrews and ended up killing a guard.

Exodus 2:15
15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

There were some people by that well who ended up being the family of the priest of Midian. This was somebody who served the one true God. Over the course of the next 40 years, Moses not only dwelt with that family in the desert, but he married one of the priest’s daughters and had kids. It is in this environment, where Moses encounters the burning bush, where God calls his life's purpose out of Moses.

Moses had to flee the comfort of Egypt to the hardship of the desert. He experienced a change in his environment.

Who am I talking to today?
You need a change in your environment. Once the environment around Moses changed, everything changed.

Some of you need to get into the desert. Into the uncomfortable. Out of the safety of what you've known your whole life. You need people around you who redirect your attention, refocus your vision, help create a space where you can encounter God

For Moses, that meant fleeing to Midian. Egypt was comfortable, but it was full of weeds and bad soil. Midian was exile, but it was the environment change Moses needed to fulfill his purpose.

I don't know what it looks like for you. Men, maybe you don't want to sit in a circle and talk about things you're struggling with, so staying home on Sunday nights might be comfortable for you. But what you need to do is to flee to the desert called The Overcoming Strongholds Class that meets on Sunday nights starting the first week of September. You need to change your environment, get uncomfortable, be willing to let your thoughts and beliefs be challenged. You just might find a burning bush there that will change everything.

And speaking of the priest and his family in Midian, if you’re gonna grow,

2. You will need tending.
Look on screen at some of these pictures and tell me if you can tell what vegetable it is. Banana, Apple, Watermelon, Carrots, Cabbage, Cucumber, Corn

The reason our vegetables look like they do today is not sorcery, it's someone taking the time and effort to produce something better.

Moses tried to rescue the Hebrew slave, but Moses wasn’t ready yet. He was trying to do it by force, in his own strength. That wouldn’t work. So God sends him into the wilderness for 40 years to tend sheep, to learn how to lead stubborn animals, to humble him. But also to surround him with people, especially Jethro, that priest of Midian, to tend the wild plant that was Moses into something God could use. Sometimes we need a Jethro in our lives more than we need air in our lungs.

Luke 5:1-20
18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus, 19 but they couldn’t reach him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.”

Sometimes we need help to get us where we need to be.

After David sinned with Bathsheba, Nathan, the prophet came to him and told him a story about a man who had an entire herd of sheep, but coveted the one sheep of a poor man. The poor man loved the sheep and treated it like his own kid. When a traveler came for a meal, rather than the rich man taking one of his own sheep from his vast heard, he took the lamb that belong to the poor man and cooked it.

2 Samuel 12:5-7
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” 7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”

Sometimes we need a person who is willing to confront us on our sin and demand we get our lives right again.

You are going to have wheat in your life and you are going to have weeds. And any good gardener knows that you have to take time and pull those weeds or else risk those weeds sucking all the nutrients away from the plants. Sometimes we need someone to pluck a weed we’re convinced was wheat.

There is not a single plant on earth that was able to grow and produce in isolation. Even if it is deep in the desert or high on a mountain, the seed needed the soil and the seed needed the sun and water.

Do you really wanna grow? Then you need somebody to help.

That person loves you, and they love God. They know you, and they know God. And they have your best interest in mind.

Let me give you one more thing today.

3. You will have to take responsibility.
While the seed is helped by the soil and the nutrients and the sun and the water, the seed does not need the soil and the nutrients and the sun and the water to tell it to grow. There is something in the seed that says, “I’ll grow or I’ll die.” There is built within the seed a tenacious fight to survive and produce.

What am I telling you today:
You have to want it more than anybody else wants it for you.

We talked about Nicodemus last week and so many times we've referenced the rich young ruler who both had the same problem: they just didn't want it bad enough. And what's even more amazing is that they didn't even know what "it" was. Sure, Jesus was asking them to walk away from the lives they had known. But they failed to understand that what Jesus was trying to produce in them was exponentially better then the possessions they owned, or the prestige and influence they had.

Jesus wanted to produce through them exponentially more than they had produced in their own power. But he could not make them say yes Lord. And he can't make you say yes Lord either.

Do you really want to grow? Then it's going to require a yes in your heart.
And that often time is accompanied by a no to your flesh. Your flesh is going to fight tooth and nail against what the spirit wants. But this is where you taking responsibility comes into play. You've got to want it!

Growing is hard and it can be painful and it requires discipline and initiative.
Don’t wig out about this verse but Jesus said in John 12:24
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.

If you are going to grow, it might mean some things in you are gonna have to die! Yes, some thoughts, yes, some beliefs, yes, some mindsets, but also sin, expectations, entitlement!

That seed goes into the ground and it dies, and because it's in the right environment with the right nutrients and the water and the sunshine, that seeded erupts into life, and begins the process of getting to a place where it can produce a plentiful harvest.

The seed is driven to grow. It takes responsibility for its own development.
Even a plant will begin to do things in order to sustain its growth. In a drought, leaves will begin to wither conserve water. A plant will literally bend to the right or to the left to absorb as much sun as it possibly can. It does whatever it takes to grow.

I'm talking about a plant that is here today and gone tomorrow. But you are a human being. You are a bought with the blood of Jesus child of God. There should be a stronger drive to grow in you than in that juniper bush at the front door.

Some of us have been waiting for the gardener to come in and tell us it's OK to grow or to initiate the process for us. That is not how growth happens or how it works.

You don’t need permission to grow. You just need a good environment, nutrients, light, water. These are your church family, discipleship opportunities, the Word, the Spirit.

So sign up for that Meetup. Start a DGroup. Join that serve team. Sign up for Alpha. Don’t leave today before you enroll in the men’s group or the women’s Bible study. Hang out with your church family throughout the week.

Ain’t hardly said a Bible verse in this point yet.
2 Peter 1:5
make every effort to supplement your faith

Philippians 2:12
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling

2 Peter 3:18
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
αὐξάνετε - This is an imperative, a command: YOU GROW

Do you really want grow?
Your environment matters. You need some tending. It is your responsibility.

At this church, we offer plenty of ways for you to grow and developing your relationship with God.

Some of those are Bible based.
Alpha - new session starts September 20th. yourfreedom.church/alpha
DGroups - yourfreedom.church/dgroups
Bible studies - Starting September 6th yourfreedom.church/meetups
Freedom Class - Next session in January
Youth - Sunday nights

Some of them are relational.
Meetups - Launching September 6th yourfreedom.church/meetups
Church family - hang out, play pickleball, eat a meal

Some of them are church related
Serve teams - yourfreedom.church/serve
Quarterly events for men and women, 50+, young adults

We have a bunch of ways to grow, but as hard as we work to prepare a place for a seed, It's up to the seed to grow.

Are you growing? And if not, why come?

What's keeping you from growing into what God wants you to be?

Maybe it's started with you not even having a relationship with Jesus to begin with. Jesus, I confess she was Lord. I believe you died in rose again. I repent of my sins. Save me.

Maybe there's some sin in your life that's been herbicide in you.
Maybe you're scared of being hurt.
Maybe you just haven't wanted it bad enough.

You're in good soil. I'm calling you deeper. It's time to grow. It's time to produce.

Let's ask God to help.