Rooted and Built Up

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth challenges us to think about what we’re looking at.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Set your minds on things above not on earthly things. What are you seeking? What are you setting your mind on? Earthly things or Christ? We become what we behold, and as we gaze steadfastly at Christ in His Word, we will be transformed into that likeness. What are you beholding? You have time for Facebook, but you don’t have time for His Book? What are you beholding? You become like what you behold.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co author of the Bible study Seeking Him, for Thursday, November 4, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Yesterday on Revive Our Hearts, we heard part one of a message Nancy shared with thousands of women at the recent conference Revive '21. We're going to hear the rest of that message in just a moment, but let me tell you just how impactful that conference was for women all over the world.

We heard from Kristie. She traveled from New Jersey with her husband and two daughters ages two and three. She wrote to us to say:

We left on Friday at 1:00 a.m. and arrived in Indianapolis at 12:15 p.m. It was a very tiring trip, [I can only imagine with two toddlers in the car!] especially for my precious husband who was willing to drive all night and take care of our daughters while I was at the conference. I can say that all the effort was worth it! I was very blessed, and I will never forget my first Revive conference. Lord willing, I hope to attend every conference and take more women with me.

That's from Kristie, one of our Monthly Partners. We've been hearing from women like that since the conference, almost a month ago.

Right now, let’s go ahead and listen to the second half of that message from Nancy as she helps us see the importance of being rooted and grounded in Christ. She’s in the epistle to the Colossians. Here's Nancy.

Nancy: Look at verse 3 of chapter 2:

In [Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. . . . So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught. (vv. 2, 6) 

The deeper the root, the stronger and more stable the plant will be, and the greater the ability to withstand storms and to discern and deal with deception. What you are rooted in will be revealed when the earth starts shaking around you, but don’t wait until you’re in a crisis to get grounded in Christ.

What does it mean, what does it look like to be rooted and grounded in Christ?

First of all, you have to be sure that you are in Christ, that you have been planted in Him. In chapter 1, verse 13, Paul says, “God has rescued us from the domain of darkness.” He picked us up out of that dark world, and He has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. You can’t be grounded in Christ if you’ve never been transferred into Christ. Have you been? Are you in Christ? Be sure you’re in Christ, that you’d been planted in Him.

Secondly, relentlessly draw nourishment from Christ. Roots draw nourishment from the soil in which they’re planted. So where are you planted, and where are you getting your nourishment for your mind and your soul? 

Paul talks about this in different ways throughout Colossians. Let me just point you to a few of them. In chapter 2, verse 6 he says, 

Continue to walk in Christ, being rooted and built up in Him. 

We’ve been placed in Christ. We need now to put down the roots of our lives deep into the soil of His love, His grace, His Word, and He will provide as we live in Him all the nutrients, the nourishment that our souls need.

In chapter 2, verse 19 he says, 

Hold onto Christ, the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together, grows with a growth from God. 

You can’t grow spiritually if you’re not getting your nourishment from Christ. Don’t let go of Him. He says, “Hold fast to Him.” You can’t grow without Him. You will never, ever get past your need for Christ. There will never come a time when you can live the Christian life on autopilot.

Look at chapter 3, verse 1. This is, again, drawing our nourishment from Christ. He said, 

Seek the things above, where Christ is. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (vv. 1–2) 

What are you seeking? What are you setting your mind on? Earthly things or Christ? We become what we behold. As we gaze steadfastly at Christ in His Word, we will be transformed into that likeness. What are you beholding? You have time for Facebook, but you don’t have time for His Book? What are you beholding? You become like what you behold.

Chapter 3, verse 16, 

Let the Word of Christ dwell richly among you, teaching one another, singing . . . 

Here’s the question: what do we talk about when we’re together? If people were to scroll through our social media feeds, what would they say matters most to us? Politics? Fashion? Food? Or Christ?

You see, to draw our nourishment from Christ means intentional, continual effort and choices to live in Christ, to hold onto Christ, to seek Christ, to let the word of Christ dwell richly in and among us.

Thirdly, and I’ll just mention this, ruthlessly deal with the weeds that threaten to choke out your faith in Christ. You have to draw your nourishment from Christ. Some of you are gardeners; you get all this stuff. You have to deal with the weeds that are never ending. 

Well, in heaven we won’t have any more weeds, praise God. But chapter 3, verse 5,

Put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. . . . Put away [everything that is not of Christ]: anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language, lying. (vv. 5, 8)

These are weeds! Paul says, “Don’t be content to live in a bed of weeds! Draw your nourishment from Christ, and then put to death everything that is not of Christ.”

I love watching sunsets. I have thousands of pictures of sunsets on my phone. Let me show you a recent one. This was outside our home one evening just a few weeks ago. Isn’t that amazing? Just a little phone camera. Listen, the sun makes for beautiful photos. But here’s another thing: the sun is also essential for life, and it’s central to our solar system. Without the sun at the center, the earth—our planet—would speed off into the universe aimlessly. As the temperature dropped, the most we could survive—depending on what source you look at—it might be several days, maybe a few weeks, but we would soon freeze to death. The sun has to be at the center to sustain and preserve life.

Now, for many years mankind, including scientists, thought that the earth was the center of the universe. That philosophy was called geocentricity—earth, geo; centricity, at the center. Then in 1543, a Polish astronomer named Nicolas Copernicus published a major work in which he proposed a radically new concept. Scientists refer to it as heliocentricity. What does helio mean? The sun! It means that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. The earth is not the center; the sun is the center.

Now, that view, which he published in the last year of his life, would not be widely received for more than a century. In fact, many religious leaders in that era were vehemently opposed to this concept. They condemned it as heresy. Copernicus was right about the sun.

Scripture asserts that Christ is the center of the entire universe. We cannot live without Him. Without Him, our world, our lives are left to spin out of control. Yet we foolishly think and live as if we were the center of our universe.

At the beginning of the fifth century, a young man who was about sixteen years of age was captured by Irish pirates and taken from his home in Britain to Ireland, where he was sold into slavery and assigned to tend sheep. During that time—he was lonely, he was desolate—he turned to God for comfort and eventually placed his faith in Christ. 

After six years of slavery he escaped, returned home to Britain to his family. But God kept a burden in his heart to see Ireland rescued from paganism that was engulfing the whole nation in that day. So eventually, he returned to Ireland as a missionary. His name was Patrick. Today, many know him as St. Patrick of Ireland.

Now, from Patrick’s writing, we learn that at times he was tormented by temptation. He also was tormented with guilt and shame from an apparent moral failure in his youth. He was haunted by the idea of being eternally condemned by God for his past sin.

Even as I say that, I know there are many women listening to me today who are haunted and tormented by similar thoughts.

Patrick’s efforts to bring Christ to the remotest parts of Ireland that had never been before reached with the gospel, were not met with great reception. They were frequently opposed. Many numbers of times he was imprisoned for months at a time for preaching the gospel. So he had this internal turmoil, fears, doubts, shame, guilt, and then he had this external opposition and adversity.

Through it all, whether dealing with his own sin and weakness or dealing with opposition from without, he learned to fix his eyes on Christ.

There’s a familiar prayer that’s been attributed to Patrick, and here’s just a portion of that prayer. 

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

This prayer has sometimes been called Patrick’s Lorica. That’s a Latin word that means “breastplate.” In the midst of opposition, temptation, and failure, this was Patrick’s strong, sure defense—not a rote prayer, but Christ, my breastplate of righteousness. Christ was his strong, sure defense, and Christ is our strong, sure defense. Christ, Christ, Christ—only Christ, always Christ!

So Paul said to the Colossians, “Remember what you were, remember the gospel, and remember Christ.” Remember what He has done for you, remember who He is—in you and for you today. Remember that your sin estranged you from God, but Christ has reconciled you to God by His death. Remember that you were once an enemy of God, but Christ has made you a friend of God. Remember that you were once under the wrath and the judgment of God, but Christ took that wrath on Himself so you could live in the blessing and grace of God.

If you’re plagued with shame, with guilt, remember that Christ bore that shame and guilt in your place on the cross. 

If you perhaps have grown up in the church, in a religious or Christian family, and you’re tempted to rely on your own goodness, remember that your only righteousness is found in Christ. 

When you feel the weight of trying to perform to please Christ, remember that you live only by faith in Christ, who is the only one who could ever please God. You don’t have to perform to please Him. 

If you’re being defeated by sinful patterns and responses, remember that Christ lives in you, and His resurrection power is able to overcome every sin that tempts you. 

If your heart is dry and thirsty, remember that Christ is the living water that satisfies. 

If you’re feeling anxious or discouraged, remember that Christ is your peace and hope.

If you’re feeling whiplash with this world in upheaval, in turmoil, remember that Paul says in Colossians 1 that “all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.”

How many things does He hold together? All things! Beyond what we can see and imagine—the planets, our solar system, the furthest-flung galaxies, the entire universe is held together by Christ and His Word. And He holds together the things that are smaller than we can imagine—every molecule, every atom, every proton, every neutron, every electron, and things that we can’t even imagine what they are. Who holds them all together? Christ. 

He holds all things together—the economy, the environment, the government. He holds you together when it feels that your world is spinning out of control—your marriage, your children, your job, your health. He holds you together. There’s not a single atom, not a single cancer cell, not a single tragedy, not a single concern on your heart that is outside of His control. He has the whole world in His hands.

There’s a simple song we sometimes sing that has a profound message. It reminds us of our constant need for Christ. 

In the morning, when I rise,
Give me Jesus.
When I am alone,
Give me Jesus.
And when I come to die,
Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus!
Give me Jesus!
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus.

Is that the cry of your heart? Is that the way you live? Or would you say it this way? “In the morning when I rise, give me coffee! Give me my phone! Give me a job I love! Give me better health! Give me more money in my checking account! Give me my therapist! Give me a break from these kids! And when I am alone, give me a good friend! Give me a husband! Give me a child! Give me someone I can talk to! Give me grandkids who call and check in on me!”

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with these things. But if you spend your life pursuing those things, then when you come to die, that’s all you’ll have. If you want to be assured of the presence and the peace of Christ, both now, in the morning, and when you are alone, and when you come to die, then in the morning when you rise (and let me say, young women, in the morning of your life), and when you are alone, and when you’re with family and with friends and with strangers, all day, every day, as Paul said, “Continue to walk in Christ, being rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith.”

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been showing us what it means to be grounded in Christ. She’ll be back in just a moment to pray.

At Revive Our Hearts, we want to help you not only get grounded, but stay grounded in Jesus. One way you can do that is with our new 2022 calendar. The theme is, Grounded. This calendar is beautifully hand-lettered, designed, and illustrated by the Revive Our Hearts team. I believe that each month, you’ll grow deeper into the soil of God’s truth though the quotes and the scriptures. I believe looking at this calendar will be a tangible reminder to enter the year ahead with a grounded and grateful heart—that no matter how shaky this world gets, God and His Word remain firm.

This month, we’d like to send you this wall calendar when you make a donation of any amount to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1–800–569–5959 and request your Revive Our Hearts calendar today. That’s 1–800–569–5959. Do you ever feel like you’re lacking purpose? Have you ever lost your sense of joy?

Tomorrow, Susan Hunt is going to remind you that your life has purpose to the very end!

Susan Hunt: My purpose is to become a part of the redemptive history; part of putting God's glorious grace on display in a broken world. It focuses me on the grand reality that the gospel is big enough, good enough, and powerful enough to make every moment of every season of life glorious and significant.

Now, putting it into practice has been shamefully and painfully slow, because it is a daily battle of dying to self. But being grounded in these truths really does clarify and simplify life, even as the wonder of it reorients me every morning as I wake and pray, "Lord, give me grace to glorify and enjoy You in whatever You ordain for me today."

Psalm 92 gives a poetic picture of the path of the righteous. It shows us how to glorify and enjoy God. It crescendos with the extraordinary promise that the path with get brighter and brighter. Psalm 92:12, "The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like the fig tree in Lebanon. They still bear fruit in old age."

What does it mean to flourish. It does not necessarily mean doing more. It means becoming more like Jesus. As counter-intuitive as it sounds flourishing is the progressive death of self and the growth of the life of Christ in us.

Dannah: I hope you’ll join us on the next Revive Our Hearts. Now, let’s pray with Nancy.

Nancy: Oh Lord, our world is shaking, and many of our personal worlds are shaking. Some of us think our world is not shaking, but by the time we get home, or next week, or next month, we’re going to find ourselves in a world that is upside down from anything we ever dreamed would be the case.

At our best, Lord, we are weak. We are vulnerable. We cannot stand firm on our own. So God, may we be rooted and grounded in Christ. And as we put our roots down deep into the soil of His love, His Word, His gospel, may we find in Christ and Christ alone all that our hearts need and long for. 

Oh Father, may our lives as women testify to our world of the beauty of Christ, the supremacy of Christ, the sufficiency of Christ, and the glory of Christ. Amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth encourages you to get grounded in freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

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