What Does It Mean to Be Grounded?

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says Jesus is all we need.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We have nothing and we are nothing apart from Christ. If we have Christ, we have everything we need for time and for eternity. You can never have too much of Christ.

Dannah: Welcome to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, coauthor of the Bible study Seeking Him, for Wednesday, November 3, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

The more time passes, the less stable the world seems. I probably don't need to rehearse the way things are shaking around us. Maybe your own world is shaking in a unique way. We need stability. We need to be grounded. Last month, thousands of women joined us, both in person and online, for the Revive '21 conference. Our theme was Grounded: Standing Firm in a Shaking World. Over the next couple of weeks here on Revive Our Hearts, we’re going to be reviewing some of the messages from that conference. Of course, we are going to start with our host, dear Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She kicked the conference off by reminding us of the importance of being “Grounded in Christ.” Oh, how it ministered to my heart; I know it will yours as well.  Here’s Nancy, from Revive '21.

Nancy: So we chose the theme: grounded. It was eighteen months ago in Monterrey, Mexico that we did a Grounded conference, just as the pandemic was shutting down the world. As Mary and Dannah and Robert and I left that convention center in March of last year, they closed the doors behind us, and that was the last convention there for a very long time.

So, as our hearts were being prepared for this conference, we said, “What should we call it? What should be the theme?” As we sought the Lord, we said, “We still need to be grounded”—Grounded: Standing Firm in a Shaking World.

What does it mean to be grounded? Well, you hear the word used in different ways. Sometimes you hear it as a punishment: “You’re grounded . . . ’til you’re twenty-three! You’ll never leave home again! Stay in your room!” It’s a punishment. It’s how a lot of people felt during the pandemic, right? We found ourselves grounded. We had to hunker down.

Then you remember we recently observed the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, when commercial planes were hijacked and crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. At that time, all U.S. planes were what? Grounded! Every plane that was in the air at the time had to land at the closest airport, and any planes that were on the ground waiting to take off had to stay—what? Grounded! So millions of people (maybe you were one of them) were left stranded at airports, unable to get to their destination. It was a huge inconvenience when those planes were—what? Grounded.

Now, there are some positive uses for that word. It’s not always a punishment. Have you heard of electrical grounding? Some of you are nodding your heads. Here’s what the dictionary says: 

Electrical grounding is the process of removing excess charge on an object by transferring electrical charges from a short circuit between this object and another larger object. 

Did you get that? (laughter) My third-grade teacher wrote a note on my report card to my parents. She said, “Nancy seems overwhelmed by our study of electricity.” (laughter) So I am not going to try to explain electrical grounding. But here’s what I know about it: it’s a safety measure. It’s something that helps protect us. It’s a good thing.

Grounded can also mean to be mentally focused, not distracted. My friend Becky Ellerman is here. I hope she won’t mind me pointing her out, but a few weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon she sent me a text. She said, “I just have to tell you this: I’m an Aggie.” For those of you who don’t know . . . well, never mind. She said, “I’m an Aggie. I’m listening to a defensive player interview, and the player was just asked, ‘How are you going to be able to face Arkansas today?’ And the player said, ‘We have to stay grounded, focused on what is right before us. Not look ahead, focus on what we need to do today.’” Grounded. Don’t get distracted, don’t look too far out; get grounded.

We say someone is grounded, and we mean that in a good sense. We talk about someone who is mentally and emotionally stable. They’re not going to be easily cratered by tough circumstances or swayed by negative influences; they’re grounded.

This weekend we want to explore what it means to be spiritually grounded, to be rooted, grounded in our faith; and how we can stand firm in a shaking world.

Now, can you think of a time in your lifetime when we have ever needed more to know how to be grounded? Talk about a shaking world. There are so many forces that are threatening to uproot us, to undermine our faith, to discourage us, to sway us. We have external threats, ways of thinking, philosophies that are counter to God’s ways, unrest and turmoil in our culture and in our world.

But it’s not just big, external stuff; it’s internal stuff. It’s personal pressures and problems that can really get us off-kilter. I got a text early this morning from a friend who was planning to be here today, but this week a teenage nephew took his life. Today she’s at the funeral, supporting the family of that young man.

I have another friend who was planning to be here. Three weeks ago her husband got COVID, and last week he was with the Lord. She never imagined these kinds of things would come to be.

I have another friend who’s watching the livestream from another country, and she recently shared with me about some deeply painful things that have been happening in her marriage, challenges in her marriage. How many moms and grandmoms are here today who are dealing with turbulent situations with grown children or grandchildren? It’s tough to stay grounded when your world is shaking. It’s tough to stay grounded when our world is shaking.

Here’s the thing: if we are not grounded, we are going to be tossed about, vulnerable to every storm and wind that comes along. But these are not new challenges that just started in 2020, 2021, or whatever 2022 brings. Believers of all eras have had to deal with hard things, with a shaking world, and they’ve had to learn how to stay grounded.

That leads me to say, I want you to open your Bible or scroll on your phone to the book of Colossians. I’ve been living in Colossians for the past several weeks. I wish we had all weekend to spend in Colossians. We won’t, but I want us to start there. So I want you to follow along.

The book of Colossians is to a church that was probably planted by a man named Epaphras, who shows up a couple of times in the book of Colossians. He was a friend and a disciple of Paul. Epaphras had visited Paul in Rome. He had told Paul about the faith, the hope, and the love of these believers in Colossae and the surrounding towns. But he’d also told Paul that there was some false, dangerous teaching that was creeping into the church and was catching these believers off guard.

Now, Paul wrote this letter to believers, most of whom he had never met personally. He didn’t know them, but he was concerned for their well-being. I’ve never met most of you (I wish I could), but I’m concerned. As I’ve been studying the book of Colossians, I’m concerned for our hearts, for our souls, for our spiritual well-being. I’m concerned for what Paul was concerned about for these believers, that they would remain steadfast and firm with the ground shaking around them. He wrote this letter to help them remain secure in the faith.

What did Paul do to encourage these believers whose world was shaking, in the church and outside the church? How did he encourage them? How did he protect them? I’ll tell you what he did: he pointed them to Christ. There are twenty-six direct references to Christ in these four chapters, and dozens more references if you include all the pronouns that refer to Christ—He and Him—dozens of references! I’d encourage you to go through your Bible, as I did again this morning, and just circle every reference to Christ or to Him and see how precious Christ is.

Listen to several of the descriptors of Christ that you’ll find as you go on that Christ hunt in the book of Colossians. I won’t give you the references, but I’m just going to start in chapter 1 and move through with a number of them.

Christ is: 

• The Son God loves, Paul tells us. He says in chapter 1, verse 14, “In Christ we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” 
• The image of the invisible God. Christ is God with a face, with a body. He’s the image of the invisible God. 
• He is the firstborn over all creation. We’ll talk about that in a little bit. 
• Everything was created by Him, through Him, and for Him, says Paul. He is before all things. 
• By Him all things hold together. 
• He is the head of the body, the Church. 
• He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. 
• The goal of all things in heaven and on earth is that Christ might come to have first place in everything. 
• He reconciled us to God through making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.

And that’s just the first twenty verses of the first chapter! It continues.

He says:

• Christ in you is the hope of glory. 
• In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 
• The entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ. 
• He is the head over every ruler and authority. 
• All the Old Testament Jewish religious festivals and practices were mere shadows of what was to come, and the substance to which they pointed was what? Christ. Not what, but who. 
• Christ is your life.
• Then chapter 3:11, Christ is all in all. Christ! 

Throughout the book of Colossians you see: 

• The uniqueness of Christ.
• The eternality of Christ. He always has been; He always will be. 
• The majesty and glory of Christ. 
• The exaltation of Christ. 
• The centrality of Christ. 
• The supremacy of Christ over every created thing. 
• The absolute reign and rule of Christ over every power in heaven and on earth. 
• The sufficiency of Christ. 
• The necessity of Christ. 
• The sacrificial death of Christ. 
• The redeeming grace and mercy of Christ. 

Paul says Christ is everything. He is all in all. He is our Creator; He is our Redeemer; He is our hope; He is our peace; He is our joy; He is our purpose. We have nothing and we are nothing apart from Christ. If we have Christ, we have everything we need for time and for eternity. You can never have too much of Christ.

I want to talk in this opening session, to lay a foundation for the rest of this conference, about what it means to be grounded in Christ and in the gospel of Christ.

Throughout the book of Colossians, Paul talks about the transforming power of the gospel of Christ. For example, if you look at chapter 1, verse 21, Paul says, “Once you were . . .” This is something he’ll do multiple times throughout the book. “Once you were . . . but now you are . . .” Verse 21: 

Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds, as expressed in your evil actions. But now He has reconciled you by his physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him. (1:21–22)

That is cause for worship, cause for celebration, cause for gratitude—which, by the way, is another theme in the book of Colossians: thanksgiving and gratitude all the way through. How could you not be grateful, how could you not be thankful if you are in this category? Once you were . . . but now you are reconciled. That’s cause for worship.

Now we come to the next verse, verse 23, which is our theme verse this weekend. “If indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, not shifted away” some of your translations say “you are not moved away” “. . . from the hope of the gospel that you heard.”

That verse has multiple angles, all of which are precious. 

First, it’s a word of assurance. You say, “How’s that an assurance?” It says, “If you remain grounded.” Well, what he’s saying is those who have been reconciled to God through faith in Christ (v. 22) will stay grounded, rooted, steadfast in Christ—not because we’re faithful to God, but because He is faithful. Christ holds fast to us. That’s why we will be faithful and we will hold fast to Him all the way to the end. That’s a word of assurance. If you’re in Christ, He will be faithful to keep you grounded.

But it’s also a word of warning. It’s possible to be familiar with the gospel, to profess to be a Christian, to hang out with others who believe the gospel, and whose lives have been transformed by it. It’s possible to look to everyone around you as if you are in the faith, but then to shift or move away from that gospel you once heard.

We’re hearing about many today who have grown up in the church. They have professed to be believers in Christ, and some of them now very publicly have shifted away from the hope of the gospel. They call it deconstructing the Christian faith. You look and you say, “That man was a pastor! That man was a Christian leader! And now he says, ‘I don’t believe any of this anymore’? He has moved away from the faith.” This is a word of warning.

One, that person may never have been in the faith; it just looked like it. But even for those of us who are truly believers this is a warning we need to hear, because the greatest danger in our lives is not a secular culture that denies Christ. The greatest danger for us as believers is not government overreach, serious as that can be. Our greatest danger is that we who have heard the truth, who have said “yes” to Christ, “yes” to the gospel, would shift, move away from Christ and from the hope of the gospel.

Think about it this way. What would you do if you were the enemy of God and you wanted to sabotage His people, you wanted to steal their joy, if you wanted to keep them worried and anxious, if you wanted to keep them defeated by sin? What would you do? I’ll tell you, you’d do exactly what the enemy of our souls does: you would seek to draw God’s people away from Christ and away from the simplicity and the purity and the magnificence of the gospel. How would you do that? 

Well, here’s one way you’d do it: you would distract them. Get them preoccupied with insignificant things, turn their attention toward anything other than Jesus. You’d get them to look to things and people other than Christ to satisfy them. You’d make people think that they need Christ plus—Christ plus other things, even good things. You’d get them giddy with delights other than Christ. You’d get them drinking at wells of pleasure that promise happiness, entertaining themselves to death, scrolling mindlessly and endlessly through their social media feeds, to distract them from Christ.

Then you would seek to diminish Christ—not that you can diminish Christ. He is great; He is magnificent; nothing will ever diminish Him. But He can be diminished in our eyes and in our thinking. 

• You would trivialize Christ to His people. 
• You would make Jesus appear to be smaller than their problems, less important than the cultural issues of our day. 
• You would make God’s people think that true power rests in the hands of political parties and political leaders and media commentators and influencers. 
• You’d get Christians arguing about masks, about vaccines. 
• You’d cause them to lose sight of Christ. 

You’d distract them, you would seek to diminish Christ, and then you would deceive them about Christ.

There was a study done last year on the state of American theology, and among those who were defined as evangelicals by belief, 65 percent affirmed the ancient heresy that “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” Sixty-five percent of people, what they said identified their beliefs as being gospel beliefs.

Three in ten of those who claim gospel evangelical beliefs said that Jesus was a great teacher, but He was not God. That’s not 30 percent of the whole population, that’s 30 percent of the people sitting in our churches! They said that Jesus was a great teacher, but not God.

See, the devil is deceiving people about who Christ is. So people are now asking within our Christian churches, within our Christian publishing industry, within Christian websites and social media sites, “Is Christ really the only way to God? Are those who believe other religions truly eternally lost? Is God’s Word true about everything, including sexuality and other controversial issues?” They’re seeking to deceive us about Christ.

Here’s another way the enemy deceives us about Christ and the gospel: he makes us think that the essence of Christianity is going to church, going to conferences like this one, reading Christian books, listening to Christian podcasts, giving money, doing good works. He makes us think that we can make a profession of faith and then go on living the same way as our life before Christ—the same habits, the same choices, the same language, the same values, the same priorities as when we were away from Christ. “Yes, you can just tag Christian on that. Now you’re a Christian. But you can keep sleeping with your boyfriend, you can keep—whatever.” There’s no transforming necessity. Paul says, “You once were . . . now you are.” But we get deceived, because we think we can be Christians and live like the devil, not live according to God’s Word.

Paul says in Colossians 2:4—scroll there if you’re following along— “I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.”

You may think, Well, other people—yes. People who aren’t grounded, they get deceived, but that could never happen to me. But look at how Paul describes these people that he’s concerned about. Look at verse 5. “I rejoice to see how well-ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ.” Paul is writing this letter to people who know the truth and people who have strong faith. To them he says, “I’m saying this so no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.” 

Look at verse 8. He says to these same people, “Be careful! Beware! Be on your guard that no one takes you captive.” This can happen to you. You can be deceived. So he says, “Watch out! Be on your guard!”

How can you be taken captive? Look at the rest of verse 8 of chapter 2. 

Beware lest anyone take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ. 

This way of thinking Paul is concerned about is hollow, it’s empty, it’s deceptive. It’s based on what’s natural.

How many times have we heard in the past two years: “Trust the science. Follow the science.” Think about that a moment. Science involves human inquiry, asking questions, trying to solve things you don’t understand. It’s the study of things that puzzle and mystify. 

So, humble scientists (there are a few) recognize that they have more questions than answers and that there are limits to their knowledge. Paul says those who make science their god will be deceived, because their thinking is based on the elements of this world rather than Christ. If your thinking, your life is based on anything or anyone other than Christ, you will not be able to stand firm in a shaking world. The antidote, the solution to being deceived, to being taken captive by the world’s thinking, is to be rooted and grounded in Christ.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, reminding us where our true stability comes from. Nancy spoke at our recent international conference, Revive '21. The theme was “Grounded: Standing Firm in a Shaking World.” That same theme graces the pages of our new wall calendar for 2022.

This month, the calendar is our gift to you as a thank you for your donation of any size in support of Revive Our Hearts. This is a beautifully-designed, thirteen-month calendar full of inspiring quotes and Scripture passages. Again, we’d love to send you one when you request it with your donation. To give, just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1–800–569–5959. 

Tomorrow, we’ll hear the conclusion of Nancy’s message from Revive '21. She reminds us of the importance of keeping Christ at the center of everything we do and are. Please be back tomorrow, for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth challenges you to be grounded in Christ and find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Him.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

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