Summary
This week’s message challenged the assumption that time spent following Jesus automatically produces maturity, asking whether we have years of real spiritual growth or one year of growth repeated over and over. Looking at the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8, the message showed how God’s word can be stolen, left without roots, or choked out by worry, riches, and pleasures, while good soil hears, retains, and perseveres. The challenge was to stay teachable, apply the small things Jesus has already shown us, and remember that God isn’t finished forming us yet.
Main focus
Time measures how long we’ve followed Jesus, but maturity reveals how much we’ve become like him.
Ice-breaker · Kick It Off With Something Fun
What’s something you’ve been doing for years that you’re still surprisingly bad at (cooking, golf, parallel parking, etc.)?
Take it deeper
- The message asked, “Do you have 25 years of spiritual growth, or one year of growth repeated 25 times?” Think of an area of life where you’ve grown a lot over the years. Is there an area of your faith where you feel you’ve stayed about the same?
- Read Luke 8:4-8 and 11-15. Jesus describes four kinds of soil: the path, rocky ground, thorns, and good soil. Which one do you most relate to right now, and why?
- Jesus names worries, riches, and pleasures as the things that choke out growth, whether that’s carrying every problem on our own, feeling either desperate or too comfortable with money, or numbing pain with small comforts. Which of these three competes most with your attention to God?
- The message said many of us are teachable in some areas but not others, and that the area we resist is often where God keeps nudging. When was the last time something in Scripture, prayer, or a conversation with a friend challenged you? How did you respond?
- It was said that most of us don’t need more information about God, but a few small things applied consistently over time. What’s one small thing you already sense God has asked of you that you could start putting into practice this week?
- “Time measures how long you follow Jesus; maturity reveals how much you’ve become like him.” What would it look like for you to be a bit more like Jesus a year from now, and what’s one step toward that you could take this week?