We’re starting a new series today called Made for More.

No matter where you are with God right now, you need to know one simple truth: there is more. There is a better prayer life, Bible engagement, better relationships with God and his people, better moments with the Holy Spirit, there is more.

The reason is simple: it is because you were made for more.

We were made for more than the struggle with sin and a fallen creation. Anytime you start to wonder why God set up this system of life like it is with the pain and brokenness and disease and suffering, know that this is NOT the system he set up. The system we are in right now is the result for the fall of humanity.

So what is God doing about it? Jesus. With Jesus we have access to the system that was in God’s heart when he said, “Let there be light.”

John 10:10
I have come that they may have life and life more abundantly.

The world has nothing to offer but death. What Jesus is offering is life and life overflowing, beyond what you can contain, more than enough, more, more, more!

I don’t think I have to spend a lot of time today explaining this. I think deep down we know it. We know there is more because we feel it pulling at the core of us. It is something that tugs at us like a rope attached to the deepest part of our soul.

From the moment Adam and Eve bit that apple, the Father has been drawing us to him. But how. How can we embrace the “more” we’re talking about.

To start this series, I want to share the first step in the process of you tapping into the “more” we are talking about in this series. It all starts with you growing with God.

We all want the beauty and fulfillment of a relationship with God that is operating at its potential. I think deep down we long for that, we know we need that, but the biggest issue in us attaining that relationship isn’t the devil, it is us.

Do you REALLY want Jesus more than anything else?

I believe what happens is that we long for that, we want it, but the work it takes to have it causes us to struggle. We start praying and after a week the prayers don’t seem to be working. We start reading but we just get bogged down in the task. We try to lean in but one habitual sin derails us.

It is like starting a diet the week before you go on vacation. Hopeful turns to hopeless.

Do you really want Jesus more than anything?
Or do you just want the benefits of that relationship? Give me faith without the trial that develops it. Give me a thriving prayer life without having to push through.

We want the seen things in our relationship with God but don’t want to have to do the unseen things.

How does the unseen world matter to the seen world? Take marriage. You know someone with a marriage you envy? What you see is just a reflection of what is unseen. The only way you get to a marriage like that is working behind the scenes.

What happens in the unseen is as important as in the seen. Honestly, MORE important.

Let me explain it like this. Let’s use the Skyscraper Principle as an analogy.

The Chase building in Houston is the tallest in Texas. 1002 ft tall. 75 stories. Yet what you might not know is that the building has a foundation that goes 75 feet deep into the bedrock. You don’t get the 75 stories you do see without the 75 feet you don’t see.

When God wants grow us one layer up, he has to go one layer down.
We all want the up but we resist the down. We all want to go higher but are we willing to go deeper?

If we are going to embrace this deeper and more that we’re talking about, it requires consecration. Consecration is to be set apart for special purposes, to be holy. It is choosing to do what needs to be done in the unseen so that we can have what is seen. Consecration is letting God accomplish his will his way, not telling God what to do and how to do it. You might be demanding a boat when God is wanting to part the seas.

Consecration is complete surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. In financial terms: complete divestiture. If you want to go higher, you have to consecrate deeper.

5 Things that will propel you into spiritual growth.
How we can go deeper and embrace the more we were made for.

1. Stillness
“I willingly give up my activity.” Busyness doesn’t mean godliness.

Busyness is a top of the building thing. The part you see. Stillness is the bottom. The part you don’t. This is not to say activity is bad. But never stopping to be still and know God is. It keeps you in a spot where you’re getting just enough to be acquainted with him but not enough to really know him.

Psalm 46:10
Be still and know that I am God.

Are you being still enough to know that he is God?
There needs to be a moment every day where you give up activity and just spend time with him. Even Jesus did this.

Luke 22:39
Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives…

Jesus went OFTEN to a quiet place, a garden, a mountainside, to get one on one with his Father. This is mind boggling for so many of us. Why would Jesus need to do this? Because Jesus knew the only way to get closer, to hear his Father, to embrace the more, he had to get in a garden of stillness.

Where is your garden of stillness? You have to find that place where you can be still.

One of the main reasons you aren’t hearing God like you want is because the noise of the world is so loud. Every day, silence the world around you so you can know him more.

2. Surrender
“I willingly give up my will.”

When we make the decision to surrender, we give up our will. Stillness gives up activity, but surrender give us an opportunity to hear God clearly.

In the garden before Jesus went to the cross, he prayed in Luke 22:42
If you are willing, take this cup, yet not my will but yours be done.

The very thing that is keeping you from experiencing more in your relationship with God, or your spouse, or your family, friends, might just be the very thing you are refusing to surrender.

Is that thing worth a sub-par relationship?
And now we’re back to the question, “Do you really want Jesus more than anything?” Do you want him more than that sin? More than that right? That addiction? More than what you think you are entitled to? He betrayed me. She hurt me. God owes me for what he made me endure.

Refusing to surrender would have kept Jesus from the cross. Refusing to surrender is keeping you from more.

You may not have seen what you are facing coming or you might not expect what you are facing, but if you are going to have more, you are going to have to surrender more, and more quickly.

You might have surrendered but you often have to re-surrender. It is so easy to pick stuff back up, only to have to surrender it again.

What do you need to surrender to go deeper in your relationship with God?

3. Sacrifice
“I willingly give up my coulds.”

With every level we desire to go up, there are new levels of sacrifice.

There are liberties the Bible talks about. Things you “could” do. But every time you go up, God will call you to lay down those coulds. These are things that aren’t sinful necessarily, but that will hinder the next level.

1 Corinthians 9:4-6, 12, 15
Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.

Is there anything I have the right to do, but the Holy Spirit is asking me to lay it down? Not that it is sin, but that God is asking you to lay it down. I could eat that, drink that, scroll on that, watch that, but they do not help me grow to the next level. The show is good but it cusses a lot. The music is awesome but it is pretty raunchy. The food or drink is good but it is of no benefit.

I know you want to go to the next level. You want more of Jesus. If you don’t, that is not contentment. That is complacency.

You want to grow, but are you willing to sacrifice whatever God wants to get it? Even stuff that you think isn’t a big deal? Isn’t sinful? Stuff that you might not see as detrimental, but God does to your growth.

Are you willing to open your life up to someone so they can see what is really in your heart? Are you willing to surrender that pride and listen to correction? Are you willing to surrender your justice so you can forgive?

If you are not willing to surrender what God has asked you to surrender, you love being a slave to it more than being free from it. Real surrender is “I could, but God asked me to lay it down, so I am happy to.” This is what real freedom is! Being a slave to nothing!

What do you need to sacrifice to go to the next level?

4. Sanctification
“I willingly give up my impurities.”
When God is taking us to a new level, if he is going to trust us with a higher level, then there has to be a greater level up purity in us!

Sanctification is the process of being made holy. I’ve told people who struggle with immorality to go read the Bible in that moment of temptation, start praying out loud, etc. It is hard to engage in morality when you’re praying and reading the word! Why? Prayer and Bible engagement promote holiness in you. Like oil and water, holiness and impurity don’t mix.

We’re talking about building a pure foundation, strong and steady, and to build a foundation that can support the building God is creating of you, it has to be holy!

Be holy as I am holy!

You need a holy foundation, to be sanctified, because that foundation will be tested!

1 Corinthians 3:12-13
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

Don’t be surprised in your journey with God when he asks for greater purity in your life. We talk a lot of faith. We have faith that God will do this or that. But you have to be careful that you don’t have more faith for the growth you CAN see than you do for the foundation you CAN’T! If you can trust God to take you higher, you can trust him to help sanctify you as he builds your foundation.

Your heart. Your motives. Your thoughts. Your actions. What is God asking you to adjust so that sanctification can happen? How high you can go will be determined by how willing you are to embrace the process of sanctification. Allow the Fruit of the Spirit to guide you in this.

Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control

Do you need to repent of any of the following:
Not loving unconditionally
Not being patient
Not being kind
Not doing good
Being faithless
Not having self-control?

Pluck out the eye that sins. Jesus said cut it off! That might not literally mean to cut off your flesh, but it for sure means to deny your flesh the ability to sin. Sanctification is just a fancy Bible word for that process.

What impurities do you need to give up so that sanctification can happen in you?

5. The Spirit’s Power
“I willingly rely on the Holy Spirit’s strength.”

The first 4 are I will statements that you do. This last one is all about leaning on the power of the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:3
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

Whatever it is that you need to do so that you can embrace the more that you were made for can only be accomplished through the power and influence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the advocate, the helper, the literal power of God to help you do everything God is calling you to do. You might can be still for 30 minutes but the Holy Spirit is how you know God.
You might be able to surrender some things, but the things that are impossible for your flesh to let go of, the Holy Spirit helps you release them.
You might be able to sacrifice a few things here or there, but down laying everything requires divine power. You might be able to improve your behavior for a period of time, but true holiness can only be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you aren’t doing the first 4 you’ll have a really hard time recognizing and embracing the last one. That might sound like a catch 22, but it isn’t! Your ability to do the first 4 is limited, but when you invite the Holy Spirit into what you can do in your ability, you will find there is a supernatural boost to what you can do in your own might.

In fact, once you taste what life WITH the Holy Spirit is like, it makes life WITHOUT the Holy Spirit seem futile.

The more you embrace these propellants to growing with God, you realize your own ability is secondary. That encourages you to lean into him for the power you need, not just rely on your own ability.

Not my talent. Not my strength. Not what I know, Not how good I am at something. Not my gifts. Not my abilities. Only by his power.

If you are feeling weak in your walk, are you relying on your own strength or are you relying on the Holy Spirit? His power is never ending. Yours is not never ending. His has no limit. Yours has a limit. If you are feeling like you are at the end of your ability, maybe past your ability where you’ve started to burn yourself as fuel, it is evidence that you are living in your own strength and not the strength of the Holy Spirit.

You need to understand that if you are trying to do it on your own, you are doing one of a few things:
You think you can do it without him. You are on the wrong path and the Holy Spirit is distant. You past is speaking too loudly. You are simply being disobedient.

Galatians 5:25
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Zechariah 4:6
“Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord of hosts

Are you feeling a complacent blandness in your relationship with Jesus? Are you using your own strength or are you relying completely on the Holy Spirit?

I have a confession.
This is more than another sermon. This was, for me, correction. In the last 3.5 months, I have been operating in my own ability when it comes to the buildout. Prayer has been extremely difficult for me. Reading the Bible has been about feeding you on Sundays, not me every day. I fell into the trap of pushing to meet a goal rather than trusting God to come through.

But come through he did. In spite of my failures, his grace was sufficient and his faithfulness was constant even when mine wasn’t. I’m sorry. I relied on my own strength and it almost ended me.

Thankfully, God is still good and merciful because even when I wasn’t doing a good job with the things I told told you today, he still saw us through.

It didn’t mean he stopped working on our behalf. It just means I missed the more I was made for in the process.

I don’t want you to miss the more you were made for. But as much as I want you to experience everything God has for you, I cannot do it for you.

You are going to have to do the work to lay the foundation for the relationship you were made for with God, with your spouse, with everyone else.

So, I just want to give you an opportunity to transact with God. I asked you several questions in this message.
- Are you being still enough to get to know him?
- What do you need to surrender?
- What do you need to sacrifice?
- What impurities do you need to give up?
- What do you need to do so that you can rely on the Holy Spirit’s power?

I know you want to grow. I know you want to go to the Next Level. I know you want more. I’m asking you to take one step today. Just one step. You were made for more. It’s time to go after it.

Lets pray.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?