Rooted in Christ: The Power of God's Word

1. "Without stress wood, a tree can grow quickly but it cannot support itself fully. It cannot withstand normal wear and tear and survive. In other words, the trees needed some stress in order to thrive in the long run. It's exactly what we've been talking about in our rooted series. We said that last week we've even learned that trees literally get stronger as they go through storms and times of stress." [27:07] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "The quickest way for you to figure out that you are loved is to open the word of God. As we dive in this morning, we're in our series called Rooted. We're talking about building strong foundations. We're talking about growing roots deep into who Christ is and what he has for us. What we're going to talk about this morning is that as we dig into those roots, as we try to figure that whole thing out, as we walk through those trials and struggles that we just prayed about because we're all that tree that needs that stress wood to be stronger, as we go through all of that, the best way in the world for us to grow and have roots deep into Christ is to spend time in the word." [43:06] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "If you want to make an impact for the kingdom, you've got to be connected to Jesus as your source. So I want us to talk through that with us because we've got to figure out what that means. But what it means, the easiest thing that I can say about that is we are called to stay in connection and fellowship with Jesus Christ as our Savior. That means that when you roll out of bed in the morning, the first thing you should want to do is connect with Jesus." [48:41] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you. Listen, that's a big passage and that is easily mistaken for us sometimes and we go, oh, well now I can just ask for whatever I want. Yeah, if you're remaining in him and his words are remaining in you. So as we learn that, what's going to happen is when we spend more time in God's word, our desires will be his desires and the things we're asking for are the things that he wants to do in us." [51:10] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "If you connect to Jesus, you will produce fruit. If you walk next to him, if you stay close to him, you will produce the fruit that he wants you to produce. You don't have to get up every morning and think, man, how am I going to, how am I going to be patient today? How am I going to be kind today? How am I going to produce the fruit of Jesus? And Jesus says, man, if you'll just stay really, really close to me, I'll handle that part. If you'll stay connected to the vine, the branch will do its job." [01:00:32] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we're wrong, and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work. We've spent as long as we need to spend claiming that we're called to do something that we don't know what to do when the directions are in the book that we're not reading." [01:03:10] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "The Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. If you want to know where you stand today, if you want to know how you're doing in your current situation, if you want to know what your answer is for this week, if you want to know how God's calling you to live in a certain area, in a certain way, in a certain situation, open His Word." [01:08:11] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "If Christians, the people that claim Christ, if just the Christians in our country today would simply open the Bible and start reading it, their world would be different. But the number of us that never, ever open it and read it, we have to change that. We have to change that. Today we have to change that. We have to find a way to fall in love with God's word so that we can have the weapons that we need to fight the battles that we have coming every day." [01:00:32] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "If you're willing to dive into the word of God and meditate on it and love it so much that you actually begin to delight in it and get joy from that and take moments into it, here's what he says. You'll be firmly planted by streams of water. How about that? You and I can be firmly planted by streams of water. Here's what that means. Firmly planted means you're not going to fall over quickly. Firmly planted means you're the tree in the yard that's not going to fall over as soon as the wind hits, but you've got people around you and you've got friends that you've grown roots with and you've even grown your trees together and you're stronger because of that relationship and that fellowship and you're firmly planted." [54:12] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "The enemy in this world is going to tell you you're worthless. The Word of God will not tell you that. The Word of God, will tell you you have value because He created you. The enemy will tell you that you can't do what He called you to do. And the Word of God says, absolutely you can and I'll equip you for every bit of it. The world's going to tell you that you're alone and you've got no hope in this deal and God's Word will tell you everything against that. God's Word will tell you what is true and we must learn to trust what we know is true more than what we feel." [01:04:48] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)