IT’S TIME TO GROW

Faith Speaks – IT’S TIME TO GROW

^15-16 God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.”

Ephesians 4:15-16 (MSG)

¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.”

Romans 10:17

GUIDING PRINCIPLE – The bible is the source for .

FOUNDATIONAL BELIEFS FOR GROWN-UP FAITH

• God all things including

“First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see.”

Genesis 1:1 (MSG)

• The moment entered the world we became .

“God commanded the Man, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don’t eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you’re dead.”

Genesis 2:16-17 (MSG)

“God said, “Who told you, you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?” The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.” God said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?” “The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.”

Genesis 3:11-13 (MSG)

• God provided a way to what became

“The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.”

Genesis 3:20-21 (MSG)

GROWN-UP FAITH

1. We take for our actions

“It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.”

Ephesians 2:1-4 (MSG)

        2. We move from to living

^“Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.”

Ephesians 2:5-6 (MSG)

        3. We accept God’s of grace.

“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”

Ephesians 2:7-10 (MSG)