Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] If you will turn your bibles to first. Peter 510 eleven. We're going to read ten and eleven, and I've got several scriptures that we'll go through tonight. So it's a little all over the place, but that's just how the Lord works, so bear with me. But first, Peter 510 eleven. It says, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, establish, strengthen and support you after you have suffered a little while.
[00:00:30] And so I want to start by saying growth is a pretty scary thing to experience. I think we can all just agree to that. It's really hard to grow if you're not comfortable stepping out of your comfort zone.
[00:00:45] You obviously have to grow. When getting ready to evaluate certain areas of your life where maybe you've been standing still and you've been in a corner and you don't want to be seen, you probably need to step out of your comfort zone and grow a little bit.
[00:01:01] The definition of growth actually means of a living thing. It undergoes natural development by increasing in size and changing physically to progress and mature.
[00:01:15] And so a lot of us have experienced growth in different ways through our life. Maybe you started a new business last year, or maybe you become a first time mom. Maybe you started a new job or got married. Maybe you're a student and you have tried a new sport or hobby or you joined an academic team.
[00:01:36] Maybe you look at your life right now and you don't feel like you have experienced any growth in any capacity.
[00:01:44] And so I want to share just a quick, I've got two little stories I want to share, and we'll dive into my points, but on my wedding day, we planted this money tree. And if you don't know, money trees have three stems. Sometimes they can have more, but my particular one has three. If you don't know, I have a stepson and then my husband and me. So it's all three of us. And my mother in law, actually, she travels a lot, and she brought this back for us. I text her, I was like, hey, Lowe's and Fulton Dale doesn't have a money tree, but can you see if the lows where you're at has one? And so she found this one back with three branches and three stems. And so it just, it was symbolic to me and just to show that we didn't want to braid the cord of three strands. On my wedding day, I don't really know where the whole let's plant a tree together even started, or probably Pinterest, if I had to guess planning my wedding, I probably saw on there and was like, this is a unique idea. Let's do this.
[00:02:49] I was never really a plant person before my wedding, but if you've been to my house now, you know that there is a plant in almost every room, but that is because they are very symbolic to me. My husband makes fun of me because sometimes I even will hang eucalyptus on my shower head in my bathroom. And he thinks it's just the absolute most insane thing, and it probably is, but it makes me happy, so. But plants symbolize so many things to me, and I fully believe that after this service that plants are going to symbolize something very special to each of you two tonight. And so this money tree was symbolic on my wedding day because, like I said, it had the three stems that were intertwined, representing new beginnings and being intertwined as one family unit.
[00:03:35] We each dumped a pot of soil. There's a picture. On my wedding day, we each dumped a pot of soil into different planter, as you can tell, but that we even dumped water into it after we had dumped the soil around it. And the water represented Jesus Christ and how he would always fertilize the roots and bring new growth through our marriage and to our family, and that he would be the one to always sustain us. So if I'm honest, I really had no clue the impact that that tree would have on my life that day. But it's a running joke in our family that if something ever happens to this tree, we're not sure what maybe will happen to our marriage. So my husband really likes to. He'll be like, did you water the plant this month? And I'm like, no. Did you water it? And he's like, no. I'm like, well, someone needs to go water the plant. So. But I recently found myself cleaning up around this plant, and I actually had told some of the worship team this morning. I said, I don't know if this is a good thing, but after service, I went home and I rewrote everything that I had already wrote for tonight. And so that's just how the Lord works. And he spoke to me. But I found myself yesterday cleaning up dead leaves from around this pot. And it was in a different planter, it was not in this one. And I found myself having to repot it again because these branches, I had potted it into a bigger potential and the soil was too far up on these branches, and so it needed to be repotted for the third time.
[00:05:08] And so I had to prune the yellow leaves off which there's still a few on there.
[00:05:14] But as I was cleaning this up, it made me realize that, like plants, we as women need tender, loving care and to experience that new growth in our life that the Lord has for each of us. And so to point number one, it says we need tender care and time to experience new growth. So almost two years ago, I had actually repotted this tree as well into the bigger planter that I had spoke about.
[00:05:41] And so I realized that when I first repotted it two years ago that there were these little bugs that would show up around the stem at the bottom. And I didn't know what it was, but I got on Google and I realized that the soil had contracted a type of fungus and disease into where I had watered it too much. And it just, for whatever reason, I had put it out on my porch and to get sunlight, it was spring, and it had contracted bugs to the wet soil. And so I didn't know what to do. But like I said, I got on Google and realized they make, like, these plant traps. They're like sticky little things that you stick down into the roots. And so I had got one of those, and every day I would come home and it would be full of bugs. And so I continued to read on how to get rid of this disease, because, like I said, I just knew that this plant was going to die. And it was just one of those jokes. I did not need my husband to be able to be like, oh, yeah, she let our tree die. Like, it's all her. But. So I followed the directions online, and I isolated the plant.
[00:06:51] And then I realized that the infestation could spread to my other plants that I had in my house. So, like I said, I isolated it. I removed the sticky pad. Every day, I put a new one on it, and I gave it tender, loving care until there was no more flies into the soil. And I quickly noticed once the disease was gone from the tree, that it started to produce new growth.
[00:07:13] And so there hardly was anything, as you can tell, there's these little notches, and that's where the branches were that had all. I lost all the leaves, as the picture, before you could tell, there was leaves down here, and I lost all of them. And then as it grew taller from being in the other plot, I had to have something to brace this.
[00:07:34] And I can thank Adam for the zip tie on the plant. I love plants. I don't know how to take care of plants. So if you know, just let me know after this. But so after giving this tender loving care. It leads to my point number two. Like plants, after suffering for a little while, the Lord will uproot you and he will always produce new growth in a new environment.
[00:07:58] So I decided, as this tree, just like every real time in my life, that if I could give it some space, maybe it would grow, too. And it did. I set it near my kitchen window, away from all the other plants. I gave it time to acclimate to its new environment.
[00:08:15] I watered it weekly. Once a month, I fertilized the soil. And I realized that from a few things, from providing that tender care to this plant and those three things, if I wasn't going to look, I realized that this tree wasn't going to look like every other money tree should. And it was different, and I had to embrace it in a real life perspective. Your growth in this season that you're in is not going to look like everyone else's growth either.
[00:08:42] My other point for point number two is the tree stems were going to unravel. I didn't realize he put a zip tie on this. I had a bread tie on it. But when this is moved away from the branches, these, because they're no longer intertwined, they kind of just fall to a side.
[00:09:03] So I realized that as they unraveled, that that will happen when your tree weathers a storm, or in this case, it weathered a disease.
[00:09:13] And point number three, it leaves us with this. Its leaves are going to turn shades of yellows and greens and browns from old growth. Those leaves will fall off and die, but new growth will take place.
[00:09:28] So, like I said, to begin with, growth is scary. In the beginning, this tree was perfectly healthy. It was moved, it uprooted, it attracted a disease. Then one day when I walked into my kitchen, the Lord spoke to me. He said, your tree was near death, but it produced a shoot. And if you don't know what a shoot is, it looks like this, but it often comes from a stump.
[00:09:57] And so a baby green twig, a shoot come out of a stump. And in case no one knew what that looked like, there's your visual. But it says Isaiah eleven. One says a shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse. From him, a branch will bear fruit.
[00:10:16] So all of this to say is what you feed your plant to grow matters.
[00:10:21] And so I ask, what nutrients are you feeding yourself to grow a new shoot?
[00:10:28] This is point number three. The tender care that will sustain you and help you grow in this new year is going to take three things from you.
[00:10:37] The first one is Matthew four. Four is scripture. And it says, a man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of goddess. And so I want you to be real with yourself as I ask these questions tonight. Are you sustaining yourself with God's word? Are you experiencing, do you have a desire to experience new growth in your relationship with the Lord?
[00:11:00] And prayer is next. It's first, Thessalonians 517. It says, pray without ceasing.
[00:11:07] Are you providing tender care and sowing seeds through your prayer life? Talking to the Lord is the very thing that will help strengthen you, your soul, and it will give you new life.
[00:11:20] And then lastly is fellowship. And I want to talk about this one for a second, because this one really changed my growth in this church and just in life general outside of church. But it's first, it's Hebrews 1024 through 25. And it says, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.
[00:11:45] And so I want to ask, are you surrounding yourself with like minded christian women who are encouragers, leading you back to the very thing that our fresh living water.
[00:11:57] He is our fresh living water. And he will sustain you, and he will help you grow.
[00:12:02] But who you surround yourself with matters to my young girls. The company you keep matters to my older ladies, who you go to lunch with and who you go out with on a Friday night. It matters to my elders. The community still matters to you. Even when you're older, you can't shy away from the younger generation. We need you new mamas, your community, and your circle of friends. They matter when you're drowning in dirty diapers and your sleep schedule is off.
[00:12:35] God's word, prayer, and community is what helps us grow.
[00:12:41] And so, as I go into the end of this, tonight is short. But it's that way for a specific reason, because I know that the Lord truly wants to do something big tonight, like trees and plants. To experience new growth. We have to experience the pruning.
[00:12:59] And so, just like this plant. This is not my plant. I just want y'all to know, I did not. This is not mine. This was one that I just so happened. It's the way God works things out. And anyway, so this piece, Lily, it needs to be pruned. If you can see this in the bottom, it is all dead.
[00:13:23] And it's gonna take tender care.
[00:13:26] And I'm going to prune it a little bit, but it's going to take tender care.
[00:13:31] Let's see there's some more in there.
[00:13:35] Pruning leaf by leaf to expose the new growth. When I repot this, and there's a lot, there's a lot of dead in here. But as I said, as you take these leaves off and you prune, it's going to expose new, beautiful growth. Maybe not right now, we won't see that growth, but a month or two months we will.
[00:14:03] And so leaf by leaf, as I take it off to expose that beautiful growth, just like the trees pruning from time to time to remove the dead branches or areas where there's even overgrowth, you and I need to be pruned. We need to be reshaped.
[00:14:19] And through that, the Lord takes away. It says in John 15 two, Jesus says, every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that continues to bear fruit, he repeatedly prunes so that it will bear more fruit, even richer and finer fruit. It says, pruning is vitally important for us to grow in our walk with the Lord. I found that it's helpful to evaluate my life periodically and ask God to show me if there are things that need to be cut off from the root of, because maybe it's hindering my relationship with him.
[00:14:55] So ask yourself, as you're dragging around dead branches in your life, maybe it's a bad relationship or an old wound or a bitter attitude that's keeping you from enjoying the life that God has for you.
[00:15:10] Too many times we're afraid to give up what we know and what is comfortable, what's familiar for something new that we just can't see or understand. And the truth is that you can be miserable dragging those dead things around. And you can go through the pain, or you can go through the pain of letting God prune you.
[00:15:30] And even though it's uncomfortable, the best thing you can do is let God to prune you, because after the hard part's over, you will see some amazing results and growth.
[00:15:40] So even if we can't see that new growth now, we continue to hope that a shoot will pop up and healthy growth from removing the dead leaves in our lives will reveal a better version of who we are supposed to be in Christ.
[00:15:53] So, lastly, I want to talk about the roots.
[00:15:58] So it's deep. Roots anchor plants in the soil and they provide stability. And if you have ever seen, like, a root ball from a plant, you will know that that represents a strong foundation of Christ.
[00:16:15] And so even when you feel like you have been ripped from the soul. So if I pulled this pot this plant up out of this pot, you would see all the dirt fall around it, and you would see the roots just like this monstera. There's no soul in this picture. There's only water.
[00:16:35] And that water represents the living water of Christ that is going to sustain us. And I'll show you. I don't get water on my iPad and everywhere else, but these are the roots. And it takes no dirt to keep this alive. I have split this plant probably three times in the last three years just because I want to keep, I was telling Brittany earlier, I wanted to keep this one smaller for my kitchen island.
[00:17:05] And I have one of these in every room, just about in my home.
[00:17:11] But when we talk about roots, this specific thing, when it was just right in my face, just like that plant, it experiences new growth every single year, and it takes the living water to sustain that plant. And so if you don't get anything else for me tonight, maybe the three tips that I shared on how to grow our relationship, if you don't get anything else, I want you to know that it is Christ that sustains us, that will help us to grow in this new year.
[00:17:48] So it takes courage, like I said, and it takes courage to pray and to ask God into our hearts, but it's only by the grace of God that he can be the one to restore our heart heart and establish strong roots, to strengthen our faith and support us all the days of our lives.
[00:18:04] So if we go back to the first scripture that I shared, one Peter 510 eleven, it says, the God of all grace, who called you in eternal glory in Jesus Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen and support you after you have suffered a little while. And I think tonight that you have seen in some way, in some fashion, that there is support that is helping strengthen this plant. There's fertilizer in these pots, and there's water.
[00:18:34] And those are all the things that it takes for us to grow.
[00:18:38] And so it says, sometimes everything must change. We must find the tender love and care and prayer and life, community, and hunger for his scripture when we see that Christ truly is the center of it all, and he's the reason for everything and the source of life. So even in the seemingly bearing land that you may live in right now, he rises. The root and the branch. The alpha, the omega. The omega. He was never absent. He's always been there with you. He's never left you. And through every storm, in every circumstance, Christ is in every inch of growth that you need to experience in this new year.
[00:19:19] So I want to leave you with my last scripture. Katie read it earlier, and it says, I said, plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will have a harvest, a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.
[00:19:37] And then first corinthians three seven says, it's not important who does the planting or who does the watering. What is important is that God will make the seed grow. And so if you know that the Lord brought you here tonight and that he wants to transform your life for new growth, and that this word has spoke to you, maybe you have went through a dry season and you haven't been watered and you haven't had the tender care that has. We all need. Maybe that's you tonight.
[00:20:07] I want you to know that our prayer team is here. Our worship team, our worship ladies. They can come up. I hope they're back there.
[00:20:15] But this is a community. This church is a safe place, and we want to experience new growth in this new year. And I truly do believe that the Lord has such a significant plan in your life.
[00:20:28] And I know that he.
[00:20:30] Just because of what I have experienced this week, I know that that growth is so vital for you to experience. Maybe you don't experience it right now, but that seed is planted into your life, and that seed will grow.
[00:20:46] Or maybe you're in a season where you're like a stump, and you're like the scripture said, coming up out of the stump of Jesse. Maybe that's you tonight, and you feel like you have been just cut off right from the tree trunk and you have no source to get you through life, I want you to know that the Lord will sustain you, that you will experience that. Shoot. Grow up. Maybe not now. Maybe it's next season. Maybe it's two years from now. Don't give up. And don't stop watering and giving your plant tender care. So if you're here tonight, maybe you have major pruning to do.
[00:21:27] Please come and pray. Don't leave without talking to Jesus about the parts of your heart that you need and you know needs to be pruned. Maybe you haven't been living the way that God's word says to.
[00:21:41] I know that the Lord wants to move and help you ladies grow. And so these altars are open. Like I said, tonight was short and sweet.
[00:21:48] I know that the Lord wants to do big things, and so I want to step out of the way, and I want to open these altars up because I know that the Lord will sprout up a new sheep from old roots.
