JAN 29 2017 | Rooted S1E1

Sea Change Church · Rooted S1E1 · Adam Stadtmiller · January 29, 2017
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

I don't know if you've ever gotten to a point in your life where you realize that the person you were being is not who you truly are. And so one of the things you will know, and I was talking to a friend one time who's a climber, and I said, you know, I want to live on the top of Everest. And I was given this analogy, we're hiking. He said, you know, you actually can't live on the top of Everest.

They call it what? Do you know what they call it who's a climber? Austin would know in the back. They call it the death zone. They call it the death zone because there's no oxygen there. But you can go up there and ascend to those places, but you have to have somewhere that is a base camp. And so my friend said to me, he goes, it's okay to ascend to the top of the mountains, to live in radical moments of your life, but a life of radical living will put you in a place that is unsustainable.

That was a big word for me. That was a word that said maybe I need to find roots because I enjoyed living fast. I enjoyed living reckless. I enjoyed all those things that give adrenaline. And sometimes we can use faith, jumping out in faith, to be the next adrenaline rush for us. We use it. I have been, I wouldn't say anymore, but I have been an adrenaline junkie.

Now I do adult coloring so we can see that I've gone a long way. It's pretty good too, if you've seen it. So I was doing it yesterday and then the day before. I did some adult coloring, slow myself down. So this radical living. Now here's something that's really interesting. If you look at the Latin word, now I found this out as we were studying.

The Latin root for radical is radix. Maybe I'm not pronouncing it right. Is that right, Jimbo? Thank you, sir. It is Pastor Jimbo. Sorry about that. The Latin root for radix means, it means to be rooted. Wow. Think about that. When did you ever think about being radical as someone who is rooted? That they have a base. That they have something that they're connected to.

What I realized in this study this week was it's impossible to live a completely radical life with no roots. If that is true, you will be what they consider and call what? A free radical. Free radicals cause what? We've heard about it today in our prayer time. They cause cancer. I've got to say a lot of the ministry I did early on in life was good and God used it.

But I would say it was on the verge of precancerous melanoma in the way in which I was running that. I didn't want to be rooted. I didn't like that. It wasn't part of who I was. The question is then, is it the most radical life, one that is a free radical, we're just being radical for Jesus, or is the most radical wife one that has deep roots, that has the ability to produce fruit that goes beyond that?

I believe that we want to be rooted. And I have a new definition. To be radical means to be rooted. To be rooted with the right people, to be rooted in the right places, and to be rooted with the right content in front of your life. The things that you are consuming. Today we're going to talk about the things that create a radical life. A radical life is a rooted life.

And I want to encourage you all to be radical. But in order to do so, we need to be connected. And that's why it's so important to be here on a day like today, a Sunday today, because this is part of being rooted. The Bible talks so much about anchors. What are you anchored to? Where do you come back to when there's a storm in your life? Where is the place that you come back to?

I spoke in the series on Stealing Eden, when we talk about these ideas of love? Where is your love rooted in? When someone says, I want you to love and not hate, my first question is, okay, well where does love come from? Where do you find love? Where is it rooted? The question is, where is your life rooted? Is it rooted in relationships? And so here's three quick keys we're going to talk about being rooted today that is really going to give you an ability this week to reassess your life, to make a first month's resolution.

First of all, are you connected to the right company? The Bible talks so much about who you're connected to. Who's your go-to? Who are you surrounded with? Who are your peeps? Who is in your posse? Who is in your crew? You know, I'm just going off there like I'm a rapper. Number two, are you connected to the right things? Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting said to Robin Williams, these are your books?

He says, yeah, they're my books. He says, you read all these books? He goes, I've read in them. I love that answer. People say, have you read all these books? I've read in them. And he says, people, he says, they do all this reading but they're the wrong books. And I thought to myself, that's a, I mean, not that I agreed with him in that, but the question is, what are you consuming?

What is the content that you're consuming? Are you connected to the right things? The things that are most important to your life? And three, are you connected to the right places? I will say, if you're here today, it's a good sign that you're connecting yourself to the right places. There's a lot of other things in California, San Diego, you could do on a Sunday morning, but you decided to get up on a day you didn't have to go to work and show up here.

Why? Because you are receiving something here that is blessing you. And my job and my joy is that you walk away every single week feeling encouraged, blessed, and strengthened in the Lord. I don't know if you, well, I'll just continue on. I don't think I'm going to say that. Number one, connected to the right company. Let's look at verse one. I love this.

Starts out, Psalm one. I love the Psalms. Starts out with the, what's the first word of the Psalms? Blessed. Blessed. Blessed. I love this. Psalms are blessed. Blessed. To put yourself in the midst of blessing. Put yourself in the midst of blessing. Blessed is the one. That was a translation there. It said man, but it actually was mankind. This is one time where we need to change the gender pronoun.

Blessed is the one. Blessed is the one who does not, what? Walk with the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or take the sit in the seat of, or sit in the company of mockers. Now this is interesting. This is a blessing that does not come from doing. This is a blessing that comes from not doing something. Oftentimes you're blessed if you're generous. The scripture speaks about that.

If you're generous, wherever you sow, you will reap, and you can do things that incur blessing in your life. This is actually a blessing that comes from not doing something. It is antithetical, so to speak, in regard to an active blessing. It is a passive blessing that you are choosing not to put yourself in the company of these people. And just by not doing that, putting yourself near, putting yourself in proximity, putting yourself in earshot, and we'll talk about that because it has so much to do with who you are with, what they say.

Because words have the ability to not only come from the heart, like a deep fountain proverb says, but they go to the heart. It is a blessing that comes from saying, I will no longer be in your presence. Some believers, and I think myself included, feel that to tell someone and set up a boundary to say, you're not a healthy person and I choose not to be with you.

I love you, I want to bless you, but I'm not going to be near you. They feel that that's sin, like you're just giving up on them. I want to say, that is not sin. Actually, that's just health. And one of the things to do sometimes, if you're going to separate yourself from someone's presence, is to take the time that you were with them and turn it to prayer.

Because that way, you're still continuing to pour into their life, to care for that person, but to set up a boundary that says, I need separation. I wrote an article called Redemptive Separation. While I don't believe in divorce, I do believe in redemptive on occasion, when necessary. Read the article if you want to know more about it. In a thing called Redemptive Separation, where a relationship has become so abusive, there needs to be a time where you say, hey, I need to step out.

I'm not going to divorce you, but I need space. Because sometimes, space is grace. That sometimes, things have become so toxic, so difficult, that you can't even leave the toothpaste cap off the toothpaste without World War III happening, and there just needs to be some space. Have you ever, maybe you've been in a relationship, and I remember in relationships where you break up for a little while, but when you're apart, then all of a sudden you realize how awesome each other are.

Carrie went away for a month after nine months of being together, and she went away to Sweden, or Finland, to see her friend, and when she was there, there was some dude named Sven, or I don't know what the dude's name was, but nonetheless, some hot Viking guy, I don't know. And I went to this Youngline training thing, and it was all, it was like 200 co-eds from around the country, so I'm surrounded, and I was like 24, and we've been dating, and I'm like, am I going to marry that girl?

And she's off with Sven, and I'm in Florida with all these chicks, and I just remember the more I was there, the more I realized that's my wife, and I kept accidentally calling like at three in the morning, and the dad would wake up, because she was staying with her girlfriend, and the guy would be like, you called again at four in the morning? I did like three times.

Us being apart made me realize that I never wanted to be apart. There was some space that was needed to show, to bring clarity to the relationship, and so there are some ways in which you do that. I know this might sound a little odd to people that are married, but I say if you are going to do a redemptive separation, it needs to happen in the confines of having a counselor who's a part of it.

It needs to have a plan. It isn't just, hey, I'm going to bounce and go get my own apartment. It has to be set up with the end in mind that we are going to be back together, but right now, this is not safe. And so the same thing with our friendships. We need to look around at the people that we're surrounded. Do you have unhealthy people around you? I've told this story many times, but I got on the phone and one of the reasons I'm sober today is because I got on the phone the day after the last time I drank and I called my friends and I said, I am not going to be spending any more time with you.

And one of them, as I've said before, said to me, well, I'll see you on Friday night. Well, he did not see me on Friday night and I shut him down. I wouldn't have been sober. I don't know if I'd be alive, to tell you the truth, had I not been able to make that phone call. We are both friends now and I've said this multiple times. I ended up doing both of their weddings.

These were my running mates to Mexico. One is a guy that picked me out of the gutter on September 10th, 1989. God redeemed those friendships and I stood there and married both of them to their current wives. It was phenomenal to see God redeem that. But I had to say, I can't sit there and be a part of that any more. And so you see sometimes that there is a separation.

I've got to ask, when you separate, first of all, when we separate, I think I've heard, if you've ever gone to Alan on our 12th step, one of the things that it says, it says we don't need to detach with a hatchet. Does that make sense? Like it's like, ah, you know, you're out of my life. Crap! You know, I'm just, you know, you're just really volatile. You know, can you do it in love and say for the sake of this relationship, it matters enough to me to say that this needs to become healthy.

And if that isn't the ability to do that, sometimes we need to remove ourselves, is a relationship that you need to remove yourself, friend, especially ones that bring you down. Relationships either bring you down or they offer nothing to you or they increase you. There's a scale, they said, of relational model that is a zero, negative three, I don't know if you've ever seen this, it's a negative three to a positive three.

And it says, all of us, everyone, has people in our lives that are like, they're like a, you know, like a positive three. Like when you were with them, you go away, you feel great, you feel energized, you speak the same language, it's like, that's my boy, that's my girl, whatever it is. And then you have people that, and it basically has this skill. Now, this wasn't a Christian thing, this is just a psychologist.

It says, then you have people that are just, can you do business with them, they're zero, and you like them, and you shake hands, you high five. It says, then there's other people, and everybody it says has this. There's other people, like when you leave, you're like, oh my gosh, you know, they put these suckers on me and sucked all the life out of me. Like, you know, there's just nothing left, you know.

Scripture here says, talks about when it comes to life, that it says that people have the ability to snatch life from you. Why? When it talks about the people that you are separating yourself from, it is focusing in verse one of the Psalms here on what is coming out of their mouth. Do you see that? Because the people you spend time with, most of them are not mute.

Most of them speak, and they have something to say. If you want to live a blessed life, you want to increase the amount of people around you that speak words of encouragement. One of the things my mom does on a regular basis is she's constantly encouraging, you know, constantly telling you, you know, those positive people that you're surrounding yourself with that are bringing you hope.

And so look what it says here in the scripture. It says, blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or take seat in the company of what? Mockers. That's talking about things that are coming, death, they are spewing death out of their mouth. If you want to know the quality of the people you hang with or, let me just say this, the quality of yourself.

Because I wanted to change my friendship network when I was 19 years old and I realized that something had to change before those people would want to spend time with me. That was me. I was negative. I was, you know, the things that came out of my life, out of my mouth represented what was in my heart. And the scripture says, out of the heart, the mouth will come, will speak what is in a person's heart.

You don't have to spend much time with a person. This talks about a company of mockers. Let me say something about our culture today. We are living in a mocking culture. I don't know if you have seen that, but our culture loves to mock. Matter of fact, even regular news these days, because they're competing with sites that have no scruples or morals in order, because they're losing, if you just put regular news up, you're going to lose to a site that's willing to be unscrupulous.

You're going to lose. And so you'll see mainline newspapers, what have they begun to do? They've begun to use clickbait and they've begun to use mocking things. I want to say that mocking is death. If you see the words, just read the headlines. Actually, I encourage you not to read the headlines. But if you do, what you're going to see on a regular basis is death being spoken.

That these words of the mockers, you know, Thomas Akempis says this, and it's not in your notes, but I read it this morning as I was listening and doing some, just some spiritual reading this morning. He said, blessed is the one who shows a complete contempt for the world and all of its vanities. Not for the people of the world, but a complete contempt. You know one thing I want us to have a contempt for?

Not celebrities, but celebrity. I just really struggle with how much, especially Christians, love celebrity. Like somebody walks in here who's written a book and they're really well known, not here in particular, but you walk into church or different places and they just like, it's like Jesus walked in. You know what I'm saying? I want us to have a disdain, not for people, but for celebrity.

And if you're parenting with your children right now, I want to encourage you not to, and celebrity, cast down celebrity in all of its form. I think it's ridiculous that a movie star walks in and we give them all this, the Bible talks about this, giving somebody more attention, but then, you know, your tradesman walks in or your plumber or your stay-at-home mom and it's just like you just walk on by them and don't think anything of it.

It's valuing people according to the things that don't matter. And so we see that, that we have a contempt, a disdain for the things of the world and all the vanities. Do we want to have a disdain for that, to keep away from that type of company? That's number one. Are you rooted in friendships? Are you, where are your relationships? Who are the people you spend time, maybe you're in a job right now that just being there just kills you.

You need to find an exit plan. You need to begin to pray for an exit plan because it's toxic. When I say we need to detoxify ourselves sometimes from relationships and then once we're strong, we can go back out and spend some time and start reaching to those people again. Here's the second one. Second one, are you connected to the right things? In verse two, it says this, but those who's what?

What's the word there? Delight is in what? The law of the Lord. Who delights in the law? Isn't that ridiculous? Like, oh, don't cry, don't go over 55, don't go over 65. Oh, I just delight in the law. No one loves the law. Why does God give us a law? Because the law is meant to bless us and the law, if we follow God's laws, there's a love, it incurs a blessing.

See, people, one of the things the enemy wants to do is make God's laws look like God is just in to take all the fun out of life. I want to tell you what, if you live according to the laws of God, you're going to live a life, a blessed life. So why did David, it said, that he delighted in the laws of the Lord? He delighted in the laws of the Lord because he saw the benefit of them.

If you follow the laws of the Lord, it is going to be like storing up treasure in your life. You're just going to be adorned with blessing in your life. Not that you're not going to have difficult times in the midst of that, but you can still have blessing in the midst of difficult times. And so he says in verse 2 there, it says, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who does what?

He meditates on the law day and night. I want to say that meditation means to put something before yourself. David Levy here, Levy, Levy, I always get it wrong. He's one of my best friends and I can't get his name right. Is it Levy or Levy? Levy, got it. If it's, one of the things he says all the time is meditation is what you put before yourself. I want to say, what are you putting before yourself on a regular basis?

I will say this. So many of my retired friends, when I go into their homes, what do you think is happening? The TV's on and the TV, not all of them, but so many of them and I have a lot, that when I go into their homes there's a TV on and it's their favorite news program and it is just speaking constantly to them. I'll say, whatever you put in front of yourself is what you're meditating on on a regular basis.

I've got to ask, what are you meditating on? What do you delight in? Do you delight in the stock market? Do you delight in Facebook? Do you delight in what are these things that you actually find delight in? I hope I'm not going too close to the bone here because I have an issue with this as well. I am like, I like being a news junkie and I've had last year where I took a season, I'm going to be taking another 40 day season of no media where I'm not going to be watching the news.

I get up in the morning, I immediately want to watch the news even though I don't believe any of it. I just want to read it because it's entertaining. I don't believe any news. I seriously, I don't care what side of the aisle it's on, I just don't believe any of it. I believe that if I, if I watch, you know, the Bible and God's going to give me enough for that day to provide for that day.

But I got to ask, what's the number one thing, what's your go-to? Is it your phone? Is it your, your, your game app? You know, I got to call my wife out on that, on that bubble pop game. I mean, really? Nine hours of that? No, I'm just kidding. Spinning over the place. I guess the question is, and it's meant to be convicting and only you know the answer to it.

So I'm not trying to poke any buttons or push any buttons here. What do you delight in? What's your, where is your delight? I have to, I got to call myself out. I do not delight in the law of the Lord. I am not delighting in, I've been convicted in my own life is why I brought it up today. I don't remember the last time I sat and just worshiped the Lord on my own.

I used to do that regularly. Go for an hour and listen to worship music and just sit on the beach and just enjoy God's presence. I haven't done that for a long time. I haven't sat and meditated on the scripture for a long time. I haven't sat in God's presence for a long time. You know why? Because things are going too well at the moment. Now I had a nice two year season where I paid my dues, trust me.

So, but you know, I'm not going to feel guilty when things are going good. But I tend to not delight in the Lord when things are going well. I don't know, anybody else like that? What do you delight in? It incurs a blessing. What you put in front of yourself, if you want to be rooted, root yourself in the things of God. I want to say, challenge yourself.

If you're a Facebook person or you're a news person, take 30 days and whenever you're going to be on that thing that you delight in, take it and spend time, whether it be worship or with God in creation, just exchange it for 30 days and see what that looks like. And if that begins to grow roots, the scripture here, that's the second thing. One, who you spend your time with will either root you or uproot you.

What you put in front of yourself on a regular basis to delight in, because if it's in front of you all the time, you must be delighting in it. Then it says that will also root you or uproot you. And the final one is this. It says, connected to the right places. Verse three, that a person is like a tree planted by what? Streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does what?

Not wither. Whatever they do prospers. I love that promise. That if you root yourself in the right things, that whatever you do will prosper. Now perhaps it won't prosper according to the world's economy, but whatever you do will prosper. And I've actually found that in my life. The majority of things that I've put my hand to have prospered. I don't know why that is, if there's a secret sauce, but what I've tried to do is do what this, this is one of my favorite scriptures.

And the question is, where are you planting yourself? If you want to know a person's values, they say, look at two things, their checkbook and look at their day timer. Day timer was in 1986. Look at their day timer. Look at where they go. Where they put themselves. The fact that you're here today is a good sign. That you are planting yourself in a place that is going to give you nourishment.

Now, what I think is interesting in this is where you plant yourself has the ability to nourish you. Do you see what it says there in the scripture? It'll be like you planted yourself by streams of water. You know, if you were by a stream, it never needs to rain. You get that? You are no longer dependent upon the seasons of rain and dryness. Now granted, a stream can dry up, but the thought being that if a stream is running, that you have put yourself where there is a constant nourishment.

You know what I tend to do? I tend to go hang out in the desert for a while. Gotta go back. Go get some of that stream because I'm dying. You know, back and forth, back and forth. The thing is, can we plant ourselves in a place that brings continual nourishment? And I love that. Where are you planting yourself? Where are the places that you are going? It says, do the places you spend your time with nourish you or deplete you.

Now, final thing, and we're done. There's four things that come as a result of this connected, blessed life. And get ready, Chris, because I'm going to call you up in a second. I want to do that fun song again. Number one, the blessed life. Blessing, it talks about the results of being rooted lead to radical life change. If you were to receive these blessings in your life, let me tell you, your life would be radically changed.

Look at the blessings of doing these three things that we just said. It's pretty simple. Who you hang out with, the content you put in front of you, and where you go. Three things. Very simple. The Bible is not rocket science. It's simple. And it says these three things. Look what it says. It says that that person will have three, four blessings. And here are those blessings and we're done.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season. When was the last time you had a fruitful season? When was the last time? You know, fruit comes in seasons. When was the last time there was a fruitful season in your life? Where you just, fruit. Matter of fact, the amount of fruit, the abundant kind of fruit where there's enough to go around.

The Bible speaks about gleaning. Where your life has the ability to bless others with the excess of the blessing and the fruit. When was the last time you saw that in your life? This scripture here promises that if you do these things, you'll begin to see a harvest in your life. Next, your leaf does not wither. Do you feel dry? Or do you feel nourished?

Do you feel like you have sustenance in your leaf? Whatever they do prospers. Imagine that. If everything you do prospered. It doesn't say some. I'm just preaching the word. I'm not making this stuff up. It says whatever you do, whatever you do will prosper. Whatever. It doesn't matter what it is. Whatever. Not some of it. 5%. 32%. 99%. Everything you do will prosper.

I love that. And so, it's a vibrant life. A life that is rooted. And so, here's the question as we close. Where are you rooted? And do you need to maybe uproot and change it? This olive tree out the front that we have that we planted three years ago. Come on up, Chris. We're going to have to replant it because if you notice it's kind of going sideways after the rains and everything.

We're going to put our deck there. But we're going to have to uproot it and find a new spot for it. I've got to say, maybe it's time for some of you to make some radical life change. To get a shovel and to get some friends to help you and find some new friends, some new things to delight in, and some new places to hang out. And this isn't a bad place to start.

Amen? Let's stand. We're going to sing this song again. It's become one of my favorite songs in the last hour. And then I'm going to bless you and we're going to go bless karma with some Thai food. Let's sing, Chris. You're calling me over You're pulling me close With love you surround me You give me hope Yeah, yeah You're taking me deeper You're taking me whole With grace you redeem me Yeah, you restore my soul Now I'm made new Now I'm made new Because of you Because of you Yeah You hold my head up You remind me who I am You hold my head up I'm alive in you again I'm made new I'm made new You remind me who I am You hold my head up You hold my head up I'm alive in you again I'm alive in you again I'm made new I'm made new You are You are my salvation I will not fear You're the strength of my life I won't fear You are my salvation You are my salvation I will not fear You are my salvation You are my salvation You are my salvation You are my salvation You are my salvation The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life The heart of my life of my life The heart of my life