AUG 18 2019 | Dive Into Life S1E1 | A Deep Dive Into Abundant Living

Sea Change Church · Dive Into Life · "A Deep Dive Into Abundant Living" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · August 18, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

My name is Vicki Lundberg, and I help sometimes with worship, and I'm also, as much as I can, trying to go on one of the outreaches with Unity for Orphans once a month to the Siempre para los Niños. I work as an interpreter when I go. So I'm going to read the scripture. Genesis 2, 4 to 17, the tree of life. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth, and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no one to work the ground. But streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed.

The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden. From there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishan. It winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good.

Aromatic resin and onyx are also there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris. It runs along the east side of Asher. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

For when you eat from it, you will certainly die. The word of the Lord. Thank you, Vicki. Anyone else that wants to read, let us know. We love having people in the congregation, people that are serving, be a part of our upfront presence here at the church. Good to see you all. Back from vacation, 10 days in Northern California, and had never been north of San Francisco before. And we drove, it was amazing, from the Oregon border, I don't know if you've ever done that, all the way down to San Francisco.

What a stunning country. Unbelievable. And miles of nobody. Like, no one lives up there. I don't even know that. It is completely desolate. It's a pretty amazing place to go. Beautiful countryside. And if you want to peace out and you just want to chill, I recommend flying to Sacramento and doing that loop back down. Ended up in San Francisco and then came back home. We are beginning a new series on life. And I was going back and forth on teaching on grace.

I wanted to do a series called Grace and Grit or, you know, Grace and Duct Tape, because that was one of the sayings we say around here a lot. That's how we get by, grace and duct tape, you know. Kind of feels like my life on occasion. And more and more, as I looked at the needs of the congregation and talked to you and the needs of the world, I decided I want to talk about something that is hard to find, and that's life.

We live in a world that focuses a lot on death. The shows you watch, the movies, not you watch, but the shows that are out, the things that happen in society. There's a lot of death around. And if the church is going to corner the market anywhere, I think we need to corner the market on life. And I think we need to help people understand what it is to have abundant life. Jesus' whole pitch to people was, you are living, but I want to give you abundant life.

And as believers, it would be nothing is more attractive than joyful people living out of their normal existence in a life that is vibrant and verdant and beautiful and forgiving and gracious. And there's a lot of different things we can do to either allow life into our, to create more life and abundant life, but we can also close down life. I was with an Uber driver coming home from the airport, and I would love to write a book, or just a little quick book, of wisdom from Uber drivers.

Because I've been with a lot of Uber drivers. I've been using it more and more. And I have had such great conversations with amazing people. I met a man from Africa this week. He's been here since 1984. He was driving. And when we were speaking, I said, you know, what time do you get off? And it was 11.30. We got in late Friday night. And he goes, well, I'm getting off at 11.30. And I said, why? He goes, well, I don't like driving buzz people.

And I said, okay. Why don't you like driving buzz people? He goes, you know what? It's not good for my soul. He said, I get too angry, and it changes my personality. And I thought, that's a really interesting thing. Because so often we put together identity with personality. What I find is our identity is rock solid in who God has created us. But our personality can easily change according to what we allow into our life and what we don't allow into our life.

In the last 10 days, I've turned off all media for the most part. Didn't really watch any movies. Didn't take email. Turned off my texting and just drove and hung out with the family. And began to read the word of God and began to feel that life begin to flow from God's throne. It talks about in Revelations that the river, not like here in Genesis, doesn't flow anymore from Eden. It flows from God's throne through heaven.

It actually flows to a tree of life. So it's interesting if you want to read the Revelations passage at the end and compare it to this Genesis passage. You'll see how there is a garden once again recreated in Genesis. And God redeems the brokenness of the garden. Well, as we move into this, these four weeks that I'm going to be doing on life, I want to focus on how to give you really practical tools to make your life better.

To enjoy more moments. And our life is a collection of moments, right? And we have the ability to redeem those moments. Or sometimes we can start going down a rabbit trail of negative thoughts. And maybe you're a person like myself that can get on a thought and pretty soon it's two hours later and it's affected my personality and my day. Pretty soon it's two months later and I'm still being affected. And you make a left turn or a right turn.

And one of the things we want to do is take every thought, the scripture says what? Do you know what the word is? Captive. Making it obedient to whom? Christ. Pulling down every stronghold that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We want to do that and as believers we want to have tools to have the word of God in us and around us and surrounding us and letting our lives grow in a garden of God's rich abundance and fruit.

Now when I was on my trip, one of the things you'll see is they still have places you can rent DVDs up there. Which is interesting, like a video store. I hadn't seen those for a very long time. It's like the Smithsonian was checking it out. They were there out the front. And everywhere we stayed, these little Airbnbs still had DVD players. And so they had a whole bunch of movies. And I saw some movies there that really affected me and changed me in a lot of ways from the 1990s.

There was a big 90s collection up there. I mean, The Matrix was like the newest movie I saw in any of the places we stayed. And I don't know if you've been on a vacation, but sometimes you'll just throw a movie in and sometimes God will speak to you through these movies. And there were some movies that spoke to me. And back in the day, I really wanted to make sure that the redemptive quality of the movie was worth some of the stuff I would have to subject myself to watch the movie.

And so I'm very careful about what I try to let in to my eye gate or my ear gate because I know that it affects how I live. But a few of the movies I saw up there in this one box, I didn't watch them, but I saw them on the shelf. I was just kind of going through them. One was Good Will Hunting, which was an interesting movie for those that grew up and were around in the 1990s. Robin Williams was in that. Amazing performance.

It's about brokenness and redemption and finding out who you truly are and dealing with your demons. Another one I saw was Braveheart up there. Maybe you remember when you saw Braveheart. That was an iconic movie. Bambi. No, I'm just kidding. There was not Bambi. Every time I saw a deer up there, we kept saying, we hated Bambi. I hated Old Yeller. I hated Bambi. Any movie that makes me just sob as a kid, I don't want to watch.

I want happy movies. River Runs Through It. Maybe you saw that. River Runs Through It. Gosh, Brad Pitt was good looking back. You know what I mean? He's still good looking, but sorry. And then there's a movie that's based on a book by Stephen King. And the movie, the book by Stephen King was called Rita Hayward and the Shawshank Redemption. And in that movie is a story about Andy Dufresne. And Andy Dufresne was put into jail for a crime he did not commit.

And he spends 20 plus years behind the walls of Shawshank Redemption. And he's befriended by a man who played by Morgan Freeman in the movie called Red. And he had to do everything he could, Andy this is, to remain hopeful. And eventually he had to crawl out of the sewer pipes, if you remember, to come out to get away because he wanted to go to Mexico. And I won't give a spoiler alert. I guess after 25 years it is not really a spoiler alert anymore.

But read the book. He's sitting there and he's in the court. He's in the yard with Red. And he makes this statement. And maybe you remember it. And he says, you know, I want to go to Mexico. Is it too much to ask just to have a little piece of land to live on the beach? And it's called, I think he calls it San Guataneo in the movie. And Red says, these are just pipe dreams. These are just pipe dreams. Which is interesting because he crawls out of a pipe at the end.

And he says, these are just pipe dreams. And Andy says, well, maybe it is. But he says, you know, I got a choice. And I don't know if you remember what he says. But he says, you can get busy living or you can get busy dying. And that sentence, even when he said it, branded my soul. Because I even began to think about this idea of life, of what does it mean to live? And how do we have life beyond biology? The world right now bases life on biology.

I don't know if you know that. The believing faith community bases life on the breadth of life that comes from the power of God. And life is not maintained through biology. But life is maintained through God's orchestration of life. And the power of God working in society and creation. One of the reasons I'm not an atheist. And there's many reasons I'm not an atheist. Because one of the questions I had very early as a child.

Even probably 6th, 7th grade. As I began to think through some of these topics on the bus to Parkway Junior High School. I remember having this thought. What keeps it all going? What keeps the clock ticking? Where does the energy come from that keeps life going? Why doesn't it run out? Like if you've ever had a clock, you have to whine. Why doesn't it stop whining? Why doesn't the battery go dry? What keeps it alive?

And we as a faith community say it is the breath of life. What I want to do in this series is help you live beyond biology. We are not about biology. And what the world will tell you is if you can satiate your biology, you can have life. You can have happiness. You can have joy. Another dopamine hit. Another experience. Where the scripture says that life comes in knowing God. Jesus says I am the what? The way. The truth.

And the life. And what I want to do us as a church, I want us to grow as a community. Not because we have a growth plan. But because people look at us and say they are living a different way. That when you walk into somewhere, you can know immediately when somebody walks in where they are. Have you ever noticed that? Is it hard for you to notice that? You walk in and somebody walks up and they're impatient or they're behind you in a line.

You can notice it immediately. You can also notice a person that has margin in grace. And when you are living a life full of abundance, we have margin in grace. Let's get into the notes. Andy Dufresne says get busy living or get busy dying. That's the question for you. Are you living? Or are you just alive biologically? And how do we live beyond our own biology? Ultimately, the Bible is a guidebook to life. The thesis of God's word, it says in the notes, is that a rich, sustaining, and verdant life is only found in God.

And only offered to those who would seek it. And so the Bible, God creates life and life is alive. And biology is alive because of something that preempted biology, which is the power of God. But the scripture says if you are going to have abundant life, it offers it to you, but it also gives you a bargain. It also offers it at a cost. And that very cost is you giving up yourself and having life in God. In the faith community, we believe that life only comes through being in God.

You can be alive. And you can do things that make you feel alive. But then we get on an experience train where we're constantly looking for the next thing. We're constantly hoping for that next experience or that next, you know, ecstasy that will make us feel alive again. What makes us feel alive? Why? Scripture says if we are in God, you will begin to experience true life. Jesus calls it the super abundant life. I will give you life and I will give it to you what?

More abundantly. Let's look at verse 16. This is interesting because it shows that life is a choice. And the way that you live your life and what you choose to surround yourself with, the fruit that you choose to consume is a choice. And what you consume will most often determine the quality of life you have. Now, everybody, people in the fitness industry get this, right? Clean eating, clean living. Everybody understands.

And you look in our culture. It's really interesting. Our culture will tell you they're obsessed with eating really healthy, right? At least in California we are. Eating really healthy. And if you eat really healthy, your skin's going to be better. You're going to feel better. They have all these promises. It's like a snake oil salesman, but it's actually true, that comes and sells you. If you just do this one diet, this clean, fast, detox, you drink my juice, whatever this thing is, you are going to have life and you're going to live this clean life.

But then the society also says in regard to anything else in life, you can experiment in regard to sexuality, anything else in life. You can do whatever you want and it won't affect your quality of life. That's untrue. See, they will want one thing but not the other because the other cost. God says that there is a cost and it actually has to do with what you consume. Let's look at this verse. Verse 16. And I want you to think about your consumption.

What are you consuming? Because what you consume will often be, will affect the fruit in your life. Verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden. But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat from it, you will certainly die. There's multiple trees in the garden and there is a tree of life. And there is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which we know about.

And they ate from that. When I say life is a choice, it is interesting here in the scripture, if you look at it, that God, when he said, you are free to eat from whatever tree in the garden, any tree in the garden. That included the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I'd always read this before to say, you are free to eat from any tree, but you cannot eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's not what he says.

He says, you are free to eat from any tree, which includes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He gave them a choice to self-determine their quality of life, to self-determine the type of life that they would have. And he says, but I want to command you, you can do it, but I want to command you not to do it because I know what's good for you. Mankind chose to consume fruit from something God gave them the choice and God still gives you the choice.

And what they consumed wrote their destiny. That's really true. What you consume on a regular basis over these last 10 days, getting away from media cycle, email, all these different things, media, just media in general. For the most part. I think I did one Facebook post where kind of just threw it up there because my mom was like, how much is in pictures? I was like, good. I threw it up there. But what I realized is when I immersed myself in the word of God and got away from those things, life began to burst forth.

Charity became over, you know, criticism. I began to have hope as opposed to some areas where I might have despair. What you consume is up to you. And so God gave them the ability. And so I guess the first thing is to be very practical. What are you consuming? What is around you on a regular basis? And what you consume is really going to determine the fruit because life is about fruit. God says in this garden, go and be fruitful.

We talk over and over about that. And what kind of fruit are you seeing? You will know you're alive and living beyond biology if you look around you and you see fruit from your life. People are coming up to you and saying, hey, can we get a coffee? I want to speak to you because the last time we hung out, it really blessed me. Or you begin to see the things that you touch and that you do begin to bless other people and help other people.

One of the ways to know if you're alive is if what you are doing produces fruit. Fruit never produces inside of the tree. Fruit is something that is an outward expression. And a lot of times if we're only focusing on ourselves, it's going to look like you're producing fruit because you're getting things you want. But fruit is produced when other people are being blessed by what you have. We have the fruit of the tree of the garden.

Life is a choice. The devil knew this because in Genesis 3, 4, what does he say? You certainly will not die. That's interesting. When God creates a soul, souls are eternal. When God created a soul, he doesn't snuff them out. They are created for eternity. Souls don't end. This is something, it's really interesting. It's almost like playing with nuclear fission. When God creates a soul, one of the qualities of a soul is that they are eternal.

And so once God creates it, he doesn't, I don't know if he can't because we can talk about that whole, can God pick up a rock he can't, make a rock he can't lift. But souls are eternal. And the devil knew that they would not truly die. They would actually, he knew that souls are eternal and will live forever. But he also knew that the quality of life would be one that resembled death, even though the biology would not immediately die.

Once again, even the devil knew that there was a choice to how you were going to live. And I guess, once again, the question is, do you feel like you're living beyond biology? And what major changes would it take in your life to feel like you are living beyond biology and you're beginning to have more and more moments of abundant life? More and more moments. Like when you see the sky, it looks bluer and you actually notice that it's blue.

You actually notice people smile. When you walk into a store, you're not just trying to buy the thing you're trying to get or accomplish an errand, but people begin to come alive and you begin to give them the human dignity of smiling to them or asking them how they're doing or slowing down your life to produce fruit. We're on a mission with God to produce fruit. What is life? I want to talk about life here. Look in your notes.

It says, life. This is from Webster's. I always told me in college, never just say it's from Webster's, but I'm going to do it because it worked. Number one, the biological quality distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body. I want to say that we believe that that is one of the definitions, but biology is not what gives life. Life comes from God because God is life, and the faith community believes that life happens in the imagination of God long before conception.

It says, before you were formed, the Bible says what? I knew you. I knew you. We do not have an argument. We do not argue about life in regard to biology. If you were known in the mind of God, then you were a reality before conception. You were a reality in God's mind from eternity because if you were known by God and you were in his psyche, you were in his mind and in his emotions and in his heart, then you exist. And you exist not because of the decisions of man, but because of the decisions of God.

And so we believe in life far beyond the biology. And this is why we know that even when our physical body dies, the scripture says we will live in eternity forever. So we do not, as believers, we don't base life upon biology, although we understand that we are encapsulated in a temporal body. Does that make sense? Your definition of life, does it need to expand? The other thing that it says as the fourth definition in Webster's, as you go down, the one I read, it says that life is a spiritual existence transcending physical death.

I'd say it's a pretty good definition. That life is a spiritual existence that transcends physical death. We would also say that it precedes life. It precedes conception. That we believe that life is eternal and once God creates a soul, it exists forever. What is life? Life. Now, as I looked at the Bible, I realized we were up in the Redwoods. I don't know if you've been to the Redwoods. They had the tree you can drive through.

Now, I rented, which I told you I love to do, I rented the F-150 four-door King Ranch. 50 bucks a day. How cheap is that to rent? They told me because Uber is killing the competition, so all the rental cars are down. Just a little FYI, help you with travel tips. Sermons and travel tips. And so this thing had a massage chair for both the passenger and me. It had an air conditioner that blew into from the seats, the leather seats.

No, it was amazing. And so I drive to the area where you drive through the tree, and the lady looks at me, and she goes, that might not get to the tree. I'm like, you've been working here 20 years. You know if it's going to get to the tree or not. She goes, you're going to have to go find out for yourself. Ten bucks. So I give him my $10. Let's just say that the F-150 Super Cab King Ranch would not make it to that little tree.

God didn't make a tree big enough for the F-150. No, he did. But not that one. And I began to look at these trees. It is unbelievable the size and the grandeur. If you've been up there, it really makes you feel really small. If you want to look at life, it's interesting in the Bible how God uses the metaphor of a tree to understand life all throughout the Bible. Tree is dominant in the book of Genesis. It is in Psalm 1, it talks about a tree.

In Proverbs, it talks about a tree. As you go to Revelations, it talks about a tree. We'll talk about these quickly. But if you want to understand life, just do a Google search on the word tree in the Bible. Begin to read about what it means to be alive. We're going to look at a couple of these. But before we do, I have a couple of interesting thoughts that I can't preach on, but I just wanted to share with you. It's interesting.

Let us not forget that Jesus was crucified on what? A tree. Was that tree alive? It was dead. Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree. And Jesus was crucified on a dead tree, but he brought life back to that dead tree. And in heaven, you will see that a tree of life grows on both sides of the river that flow from the throne of God. It says the river of water, of living water, flows from the throne of God. Now, in Genesis, it flows from Eden.

But in heaven, it flows from the throne of God. And it actually says that the tree of life, as you'll see at the end of the notes, is on each side of the river, being nourished by the water that comes from the throne of God. In Psalm 1, when it speaks, as we'll see in a moment, it talks about if you follow and meditate on the precepts of God, once again, what you're consuming, what you consume is going to affect your personality greatly, and it's going to affect your fruit.

Psalm says if you are planted and you meditate on the word of God, you will be like a tree that is firmly planted by streams of water. And it says that your leaf will not wither. And it also says that you will bear fruit in season, and whatever you do will prosper. That is a powerful promise of God. You ever called him on that one? You ever try it? Begin to meditate on the word of God. It's about what we can do. So the first thing is Jesus redeems the dead tree.

So I don't know if you've thought about that. But he dies on a dead tree, and then all of a sudden we have the tree coming alive again. He loves to redeem stuff that was broke. And I don't know if you know that. I don't know if you've ever had God redeem something in your life. But it's been very interesting throughout my life as God has brought me full circle, even geographically, to certain places where I had bad experiences and redeemed the things that happened in those places in powerful ways.

I don't have time to speak about that today. But he loves to take your brokenness. He loves to take your worst first, meaning maybe it was the first time that something ever happened to you, but it was the worst thing that couldn't have happened to you. And he loves to redeem those things. And Jesus redeemed the dead tree by dying on that dead tree. And now a tree of life grows on both sides of the river that flows from the throne of God, which is a river of life.

Do you feel like that tree? And if not, are you consuming the water from God's throne, which is evident in God's word if you expose yourself to it, in worship, in thanksgiving, in charity? One of the things I wanted to do on vacation regularly is whenever I had a critical thought or some kind of thought that was negative, I wanted to redeem it, take it captive, and give a thought of charity or a word of charity in response.

It's one of the best ways to change your thinking. If you find yourself constantly having negative thoughts, take it and give an act of charity, an act of self-sacrifice, a positive thought, a charitable thought, and begin to redeem every thought, taking it captive. When the devil came to Jesus and Jesus was being tempted, Jesus, did he just come up with some ideas to tell the devil? No. What did he speak to him? He spoke scripture.

If you find your mind controlling you and your emotions controlling you, you have no control over your thoughts or your emotions anymore, begin to insert the word of God, taking every thought captive, making it obedient to Christ, and demolishing and pulling down every stronghold of the enemy. That we might set up and live according to the word of God. Genesis 2, it's about what you consume, coming in for a landing here.

And the Lord God commanded the man. Now this was a command. Doesn't mean you gotta follow it. That's the crazy thing about God's commandments, Chris. You know that? You don't gotta follow him. It's crazy. It's called free will. Self-determination. You have the ability to determine your quality of life. And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

For when you eat from it, you will certainly die. I've already hit this point enough, but once again I just want to ask you, what are you consuming? And what are you choosing to consume? What are you allowing into your eyes? Allowing into your heart? What attitudes are you allowing? Have you lost the ability to filter? I found times in my life where you get so overrun, you stop checking anybody at the gate anymore, that you're just being overrun with negative thoughts, or anxiety, or fear, or worry, and all of a sudden you've just stopped checking it.

Maybe it's time to go put a sentry back at the gate, the sentry of God's word, the sentry of the Holy Spirit, and begin to regulate what you allow into your life. Interesting how amazing, because I was listening, we had serious radio, I don't have a serious radio. It's like one of these talk shows, you know what I mean? Like Jimmy Fallon, you got a person there, that's you. I could talk to Chris. We had Sirius XM Radio, which I don't have, I don't pay for that, but they have 80s channel, and I tend to listen to a fair amount of 80s music, and so it was 10 days of 80s music.

You know, and you don't really listen to the lyrics that much until you get your 12-year-old in the car with you, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, that song, I just died in your arms tonight. How do I die into my arms tonight? That's weird. My daughter's like, that's kind of a weird song, Dad. It sounds kind of creepy, and I never thought about it that way, so what are you consuming? Dying in your arms tonight.

Sorry. Little Joe Brandy moment right there, singing. Next thing is, thank you. Whoa. I didn't know I could do that. It's like a human jukebox. They had one of those at the wharf. That's in Genesis. There's a tree in Genesis. What are you consuming? I'm going to say every day, you have a choice of what you're going to consume. What tree? Maybe change your tree. In Psalm, it's also there. So it's about where you're planted, where you're planted, where you're planting yourself, where you're putting yourself.

We have a small group season coming up, community group. When I got sober, I knew I needed to change a couple things. I needed to change my friend set, and I needed to change where I went. And my sponsor told me at the time, just fill your calendar with really good stuff. And so I just filled my life with God's stuff. I went on missions trip. I just filled it, overly filled it, because I had to get sober. I needed to survive.

It's about where you're planted. Psalm 1, verse 2, B through 3. But the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord. Now, I love that. We've spoken about it many times. Delight. David says he's delighted in the law. Do you delight in God's law? Who loves the law? You know, driving down the freeway that tells you something not to do. Don't drive over 55. Woo, love the law. Love it. Give me more of the badge. That's what I want.

Why did David love the badge? Why did David love the law? Because he understood that it kept him safe, and he understood the benefits of following God's law. And not only did he know the law, he meditated on the law to continue to get the word of God, find a piece of scripture, and consume that scripture until it fills you. Find those scriptures, that corpus of scriptures, those 10 scriptures, you know, that'll give you hope, that'll give you that Andy Dufresne moment of hope when you're behind the walls of destruction and persecution, and the army is on the outside, that knows that there is a brighter day, and that there is hope, and that you shall persevere.

Do you have those scriptures? And if not, if you want to have life, you can just listen to this sermon, or you can do the sermon. I try to create sermons with handholds on them so you can take them home, you know? Find some scripture and begin to base your life and meditate on the scripture. Consume the scripture, and watch it come alive in you. This will help you feel more alive than you've ever felt, or we can continue to consume the things of the world that distract us and that attract us, but rarely give us the life quality to make any change or to have any lasting fruit.

It's in the Psalms. Blessed is one who delights in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by the streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither. You'll see in Revelations in a moment. It's interesting when it talks about the leaf. I've always thought about the fruit, but I've never thought about the leaf. But it says in heaven that the tree of life has leaves that will give shade and bring peace to all of the nations.

It's not just about the fruit, but it's about having covering, a covering that shades you from the heat and brings peace. And if there's one thing that the church should do and can do, it is to not only bear fruit, but to have leaves, vibrant leaves that we can cover those that are broken, those that are disunified, those that are in the world that are hurting, and we can bring peace to all of the nations. This is the call of the church.

Jesus obviously is a stumbling block, it says, but we are not meant to be the stumbling block. A lot of times the church feels that they need to be the stumbling block. Jesus does a good enough job on his own being a stumbling block for people, saying I'm the only way to heaven, without you having to go be a stumbling block. A lot of churches get it wrong when they think we just gotta be like a sore thumb to someone, as opposed to being life-giving people.

They provide shade. Think about your family. Think about your wife. Think about your kids. Are you providing shade? Or have you removed the shade from one reason to another because you're a hard driver, or you're critical, and they no longer rest under the shade of your leaves? Your criticism, over and over, these different things that we do that removes the shade where our children cannot sit in comfort, our families cannot sit in comfort, our neighbors cannot sit in comfort.

The Bible talks about leaves in Psalm 1 and in Revelation. I wanna encourage you, this week is a prescription. Here's a little homework. Go read these scriptures with Genesis and read about trees. If you wanna know how to live, look at trees. God used these in the scripture. One more and we'll finish. It's about fruit. If you're alive, you will produce fruit, and you will know you are alive because you have fruit. How do I know that this congregation that we are a part of, we are a congregational church?

How do I know that it is alive because I see the fruit? If you go here, and you come here long enough, and you know people here in this church, you will see their lives changing for the better. And I realize over and over again that God is moving in such a powerful way in this community, and in this church, because I see the fruit. If you wanna know if something's alive, look at the fruit. We see that. Proverbs 11, 30 says, the fruit of the righteous is what?

A tree of life. Your fruit will produce more life for you. One of the things about the garden is it was self-sustaining. Man was meant to tend the garden. He didn't even plant the garden. Do you realize that? God created the garden. Man just tended it, and he didn't even have to work the ground. He tended it. It was after the curse that he had to work the ground. His life, the way in which Adam lived his life, and the way in which he was surrounded and the place he chose to live, the fruit just came to him.

He didn't have to work hard for the fruit. It was self-sustaining and abundant, and the way he lived his life produced more fruit that brought more life. Is the way you're living your life bringing you death, or is it bringing you more fruit? The fruit of your life will bring you life, and that life will produce more fruit, and that fruit will be marked with life, and on and on in an ongoing circle, in an ongoing cycle.

The Proverbs says, the fruit of the righteous life is a tree of life, and the one who is wise saves lives. The one who is wise saves lives. Your life, life is about abundance. Is it about producing fruit? And one of the callings to those that live fully alive is that you're not focused on yourself. You're saving other people's lives day after day in different ways, over and over again with a smile. My personality began to change as I unpacked this vacation, and I began to just see people.

I wasn't in such a hurry to get things done, and my 12-year-old came to me, and she goes, Dad, you know, by the end of the trip, she's like, we had to have another, I bought her a hot chocolate, but I had a long conversation. I'd get into these long conversations with people, and she goes, you know, Dad, this hot chocolate is worth that conversation, because she has to sit there and listen to them all, you know? She goes, I like that you're being really nice to people, and it was awesome that she saw that, and it was something that when I was doing this sermon series, getting ready for the sermon series, and change, you know, because on vacation, you change your life, like to the way that you wish it was when you were working, which is actually possible, and you start to see this fruit happen.

In Revelations 2.22, the final scripture, and we're done, so Chris, get ready. Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life. Mm. Sound like the garden? See, God's gonna redeem broke stuff. My wife says broke, not the right word to use it. Broke in is the way to use it. Broken stuff. As clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city, and on each side of the river stood the tree of life.

See, there was two trees in the beginning, remember? There was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and there was a tree of life. We got rid of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Jesus crucified it on the cross, the dead tree, and the one that led to death, and we replaced it now with another tree, a second tree of life, because with God, one tree ain't good enough when it comes to life, so he gave you two.

You see, now there is two trees once again in the city of God, and it is now two trees of life because death has been defeated. It says, in the Lamb of God down the middle of the great city, and on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Is that you? Could be. Depends on what you consume.

Depends on a choice. Do you want it? Depends on where you're planted. Depends on if you meditate on the law of God and beginning to pursue life in a desperate fashion. Do you want to live? Distraction feels like life. Netflix, for hours and hours, feels like life. It allows you to get away, and at least you're not being, you know, chased by your demons for two or twelve hours or whatever it is. But life, it takes effort to have abundant life, and it'll be the hardest thing you'll ever do.

It's easier to die than it is to live, and either get busy living, or we can get busy dying. Amen? Chris. Yeah, right on. So, this week, I want to begin a 30-day challenge to you to just change the channel for 30 days and start pursuing life. There's enough in these notes to set you on a course that could last in eternity because it's God's Word. But do you want life? And are you willing to change the channel? Are you willing to change the frequency you're on and pursue it?

It is so hard. So, I sat two days with nothing to do up there at this one place we sat, and I just sat. I went from chair to chair, and I just, everything in me just wanted to go to my computer and just numb, you know? Read some Shakespeare, read some, read the Bible. It was just two days. It was like a detox. And I was on a hike on like the second day of that, and all of a sudden, boom, things switched over. I don't know if you've ever done that in your life before, but this is a challenge to you a month now as we move into the fall to begin to harvest life, to begin to change, get up in the morning.

The first thing you go to, maybe it's God's Word. Begin to consume the Word of God and say, I want life. I want to be alive. I'm tired of chasing after death. The world calls it life. If you extend your hand, I want to bless you today. Lord Jesus, I want to bless this congregation, God. We want to pray for more life, God. We're coming in the end of summer, Lord God, in a time of fruitful harvest, and we want more fruit, God, in the lives of these believers.

I pray for the blessing of shade, that they can shade their partners, God. They've been critical, God, to apologize, ask forgiveness, and begin to give words of abundant life, words of hope. They've been angry, God. They've been worried and fearful, God. It is for freedom that they've been set free, God, and that, God, you would put them in the river of life, God, between those two trees of life, Lord God, and begin to consume the water that comes from the throne of God.

Bless them to know God and to know Him rich and abundantly. So I bless you with that. And if you don't know God yet, if you're here for the first time, I'm saying in your heart, I want to follow you. I want more of that. You come up to me and you talk to me afterwards and I want to help you know Christ and how to follow Him, teach you how to follow Jesus here. There's a lot of people doing it. I bless you now with abundance, turning off the negative things and you would be very convicted when God says that does not lead to life.

Any decision you make that does not lead to life and begin over and over to come to a crossroads and begin to follow the Spirit because it is the flesh leads to death and following the Spirit leads to life. God, we love you. We pray for life here now, for this fall, God, in abundance, life on our city, life on our homes, life on this corner, God, life in our nation. Change the dialogue, Lord Jesus. You bring your blessing on our nation, Lord God, and let it be a light to all other nations, Lord.

We cover you and we send you out now in an army, a furious army of God's love to change the world, change your hearts, change your life. In Jesus' name, amen.