Made to Flourish #5 - Spirituality
Description
In this message from Genesis 1:26-28, Pastor Bryce Vaught reveals how we can truly flourish spiritually in three essential ways: by grounding our lives in God's truth, growing in unwavering trust, and cultivating authentic community with others. Discover how to break free from the lies that hold you back and step into the abundant spiritual life God designed you to live.
Summary and Application
Have you ever wondered what it truly means to flourish spiritually? In a world filled with chaos and brokenness, many of us long for the abundant spiritual life that seems just out of reach. In his recent message on Genesis 1:26-28, Bryce painted a vivid picture of God's original design for humanity and revealed three essential keys to spiritual flourishing.
From Chaos to Symphony
Bryce opened with a compelling analogy from his brief seventh-grade trumpet career, describing how chaotic noise transforms into beautiful harmony under a conductor's direction. This mirrors the Genesis creation account where God, "like the great first conductor, brings everything to a hush, and it's like all at once creation just bursts forth in this beautiful harmony."
Genesis 1:1 tells us that "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"—everything spiritual and physical. Yet the earth was initially "without form and void," full of chaos and darkness. God transformed this chaos into a flourishing creation, placing humanity at its pinnacle as image-bearers designed to "reveal God and to rule over creation."
Dallas Willard captured this calling perfectly: "To image God is to do what God would do in the way he would do it, and with the motivation he would have for doing it." This is our high calling—to flourish spiritually by reflecting God's character in every aspect of our lives.
But the fall in Genesis 3 shattered this harmony. When Adam and Eve chose to determine right and wrong for themselves rather than trust God, they introduced spiritual death—separation from God. As Bryce explained, "To be dead spiritually, it's not just that our spirits are inactive or asleep, they're very active. And the human spirit is longing to reconnect with something in this life that will give us purpose and meaning and value."
So how do we reconnect? How do we flourish spiritually in a broken world?
Key #1: Spiritual Life is Rooted in Truth
The enemy's primary weapon isn't violence or intimidation—it's deception. In the garden, "Satan works in that moment by deceiving them with a lie." He asked Eve, "Did God really say that you can't eat of this tree?" then boldly declared, "You will not surely die." Satan remains "the father of lies," and Bryce warned that "much of our worldview, much of our perception of reality... is really established on a false narrative."
The apostle Paul understood this danger, writing in 2 Corinthians: "I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds might somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ." Paul feared deception more than physical persecution because lies attack the very foundation of our spiritual lives.
But here's the good news: our brains can be rewired. Drawing from Craig Groeschel's book "Winning the War of Your Mind," Bryce explained how we can "identify the lies" and "slowly but surely rewire your brain with the truth of the Gospel and Jesus." When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus consistently responded with "it is written," grounding himself in God's truth.
Paul's exhortation in Romans 12 provides our roadmap: "Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be renewed in your mind." Spiritual flourishing begins when we replace the lies we've believed with the transforming truth of God's Word.
Key #2: Spiritual Life is Nourished in Trust
Truth leads to trust, but trust requires action. Proverbs 3 instructs us to "trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path." This sounds simple, but as Bryce noted, "our human broken nature is one of self-reliance, not God-reliance."
Even Paul learned this lesson through suffering. In 2 Corinthians, he wrote: "We have been afflicted and we got to the point where we even despaired of life itself. But that was to teach us not to rely on ourselves, but to rely on God who raises the dead." Through trials, Paul discovered that "we live by faith and not by sight."
But what is biblical faith? Drawing from Morland and Klaus's book "In Search of Confident Faith," Bryce outlined three components: knowledge (you can't believe what you don't know), mental agreement (accepting what you've heard), and commitment (following through with action).
Jesus perfectly exemplifies spiritual flourishing. "He flourished in every way possible as a human being could," demonstrating consistent joy, peace, patience, and self-control. If we want to flourish like Jesus, Bryce challenged us: "If there's a limit to how much you'll obey Jesus, if there's a limit to how much you'll actually begin to practice Jesus' way of life, there will be a limit to how much you'll flourish spiritually."
Key #3: Spiritual Life is Cultivated Through Touch
The third key might surprise you: community. From creation's beginning, God declared, "It is not good for man to be alone." Bryce emphasized that "it is impossible for humanity, for a human to flourish in any capacity in isolation."
Many people imagine spiritual flourishing as escaping to "some cabin in the woods" for solitary serenity. While Jesus did practice rhythms of solitude, "that was not his ultimate lifestyle." True spiritual maturity happens in community, where we learn to love, serve, and bear one another's burdens.
Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3:14-19 reveals this beautifully. He prayed that believers would "have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." Notice the phrase "together with all the Lord's holy people"—we need community to fully understand God's love.
As Bryce explained, "If you haven't experienced healing, the only way that you're going to know God as healer is to be in community with someone who's been healed." God designed the church as "an environment where we can spiritually flourish," equipping us through pastors, teachers, and fellow believers until "we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God."
The Hope of Resurrection
Even when we apply these principles—grounding ourselves in truth, growing in trust, and committing to community—we'll still face seasons of spiritual dryness. "We live in a broken world," Bryce reminded us, and "there's gonna be seasons where you just feel spiritually depleted."
But this isn't the end of the story. Paul declared in 1 Corinthians that because Jesus was resurrected, we too will be resurrected. "Upon his return, this mortal flesh will take on immortality. Everything that hinders us from flourishing in this age will be done away with, dead and buried forever, so that we can flourish in every way that we were created to."
Practical Application
As you reflect on this message about spiritual flourishing, consider these two questions:
1. Which lies have you believed about yourself, God, or your circumstances that are hindering your spiritual growth? Take time to identify these false narratives and begin the process of replacing them with biblical truth through regular Scripture study and meditation.
2. In what specific area of your life are you choosing self-reliance over God-reliance? Whether it's your finances, relationships, career, or health, how can you take a concrete step this week to trust God more fully in that area, even if it feels uncomfortable or risky?
True spiritual flourishing isn't about perfect circumstances or constant emotional highs—it's about being rooted in truth, nourished by trust, and cultivated through authentic community with God's people. As you apply these principles, remember that spiritual growth is a journey, not a destination, and God is faithful to complete the good work He has begun in you.
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Quotes
"To image God is to do what God would do, in the way he would do it, and with the motivation he would have for doing it" - Dallas Willard
Books
Winning the War in Your Mind by Craig Groeschel
In Search of a Confident Faith by J.P. Morland and Klaus Issler
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Opening Prayer
Would you pray with me as we begin? Father, thank you for this opportunity to gather together. We thank you for the story that you're writing in Micah and Pippa's life, their families' lives. God, we recognize, especially through this series, that you've created us to flourish.
Yet, because of things we've done, things that have been done to us, just the matter of fact of being a part of a broken world, we are far from flourishing. God, as we open your word, we ask that you would teach us. Give us insight on what it looks like to flourish in this life to your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Introduction: The Band Concert Analogy
I was reminded recently of my very real, but very brief music career. Britney might disagree that this was a real music career, because it was seventh grade and we had to choose between band or choir. There was no way I was singing in public, so I chose band and decided to pick up the trumpet. I played for a year. After that seventh grade year, if you continued in band, you ultimately had to miss a little bit of basketball practice, and basketball was more important in that season of life. So I gave it up, and so ended my very real music career.
But I remember that year, there'd be a couple points throughout the season where we would have a band concert with the seventh grade band. It just sounded awful. We would all gather in the gym, everybody warming up before it started—people getting their breath ready, trying to get in tune, drummers beating on the drums. It's just this chaotic noise.
Yet, at the time when it starts, the band director would walk out and get our attention and everything would come to a hush. Then he'd make a move, and all at once, we would join together to bring about this harmony. That may or may not have sounded decent, but we were together. You could tell that there was this song that we were playing, and it could carry you. That's what music does.
As I reflected back on that, I think that's such a unique picture of what we see in creation.
Creation: From Chaos to Harmony
Genesis 1:1 opens with these words: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"—everything spiritual and everything physical, everything material and immaterial. It says that the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
It's interesting that in the Old Testament, when you see this picture—these words of deep and darkness, the waters—that really is typically a picture of chaos. So we see in the beginning, God being outside of all, independent of anything in creation, creates the foundation for creation, but it's not habitable. It's dangerous. It's chaotic. It's full of this messy noise.
Yet God, like the great first conductor, brings everything to a hush, and it's like all at once creation bursts forth in this beautiful harmony. It's full of life and imagination and beauty. It beckons to have so much potential.
Humanity: Made in God's Image
At the pinnacle of creation, we see God creates humanity. Genesis 1 says that he created man in his own image and his own likeness. There's a bit of mystery here. What does it mean to be made in God's image and in God's likeness?
We've had different ideas throughout church history. People have questioned: Is that like an anatomical image? Do we represent God in that way? Is it based on our morality? Are we rational beings compared to every other creature? A.W. Tozer had this idea that to be made in God's image meant that you had the capacity to worship. But then you read throughout Scripture, it's like all creation worships God. Angels worship God. Yet humanity exists as a distinct, unique part of creation.
What many theologians have concluded, where we've landed throughout this series, is that to be made in God's image is really functional. To be in God's image is really about a revelatory and a ruling function. We were created to reveal God and to rule over creation.
One of the best examples I can think of is in Old Testament times when a king would conquer a foreign nation. That king wouldn't stay there. Instead, he would go back to his own homeland, but before he left, he would place a statue or some type of image within the conquered city so that everyone who looked upon that image would know who was really in charge. It's that way with humanity. We exist as a way to reveal to one another and to all of creation who God is and what he's like.
Dallas Willard said these words: "To image God is to do what God would do in the way he would do it, and with the motivation he would have for doing it." It's a high calling. It's a high standard. If we do what God does, the way he would do it, with the motivation he would have for doing it, then everything would flourish. Beauty would continue on, unending.
Yet, in order for that to take place, we need to know God. We can't image Him without seeing Him, without being in an intimate relationship with Him. That's what makes the fall in Genesis 3 so catastrophic.
The Fall: Death and Separation
In that moment when Adam and Eve eat from the tree, this isn't just a moment of curiosity or weakness. This is a decisive decision made on behalf of all humanity. They're making this decision because the tree of the knowledge of good and evil isn't just a magic tree that gives them superhuman knowledge. It is the right to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong.
In that moment, they've decided to no longer trust in who God is and what God says, but they take that right for themselves. From this point on, you see throughout the narrative of scripture that everyone just does what is right in their own eyes. It results in this experience of being dead and dying.
God tells them: "Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for in that day you will surely die." Yet in that moment, they don't die. They're still alive. So what does it mean that they died? Ultimately, death is separation. To die physically, your spirit is separated from your body. In that moment at the fall, humanity is separated from God—separated from God physically and spiritually.
Genesis 2:7 paints this picture that God formed man from the dust, and He breathed into him, making him a living being. This gives us insight that to be human is to be both physical and spiritual. There's a material and immaterial aspect of humanity. In that day, humanity died spiritually and began the process of dying physically.
To be dead spiritually doesn't mean our spirits are inactive or asleep—they're very active. The human spirit is longing to reconnect with something in this life that will give us purpose and meaning and value.
Three Ways to Flourish Spiritually
So the question is: If God created us to flourish spiritually, what does it mean to flourish spiritually? How can we do that? I want to go back to some points we see in the Genesis narrative and other things throughout scripture that give us insight into what it looks like to flourish spiritually.
1. Spiritual Life is Rooted in Truth
Going back to the fall narrative in Genesis 3, Satan is there and he's the one who tempts Adam and Eve to sin by eating of the tree. Yet he doesn't do that through threat or abuse or violence. He's not overpowering them physically in any way. The way Satan works in that moment is he deceives them with a lie.
He asks Eve the question: "Did God really say that you can't eat of this tree?" She responds that they can eat of it, but they'd die. Satan responds with: "You will not surely die"—an outright lie. Satan is the father of lies.
We know how complicated things can get when a lie is introduced into a situation or a relationship. Much of our worldview, much of our perception of reality, how we understand things, how we interpret our situations, how we relate with others is really established on a false narrative.
Jesus refers to Satan as the father of lies, and he continues to use the scheme he used in the garden as a way to deceive and work against people today. In Corinthians, the apostle Paul writes to the church: "I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds might somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ."
Here is the Apostle Paul, working to build the church from the ground up. The church is facing intense physical persecution, threat of death, and Paul's not worried about that. His fear is that the people of God, the followers of Christ, would be deceived by Satan. Because that's what he does—he deceives us and works against our minds.
Pastor Craig Groeschel, in his book "Winning the War of Your Mind," takes a deep look at how our brain works and how that relates to our behavior and spiritual life. One of the tactics he brings up is this rewiring principle. Our brains are designed to look for patterns and create neurological pathways that make it easier to recall things familiar to us.
When you go through a traumatic event or experience painful rejection, your mind will begin to think about that and ponder that, and eventually that becomes your natural way of seeing things. You'll begin to see rejection everywhere you look, even in places where it's not there.
But Craig Groeschel says this is actually good news, because your brain can be rewired. It's important that as we go through life, we identify the lies. You find those pain points in your life, figure out what lie they're built on, and slowly but surely rewire your brain with the truth of the Gospel and Jesus.
Jesus is the perfect example of this. Every time Satan tried to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus would respond with the words: "It is written." If we want to experience spiritual flourishing, it comes with setting our minds on the truth.
The truth that we were once enemies of God, separated from Him. Yet while we were still enemies, Christ died for us. The promise is everyone who would receive him would have the right to become a child of God. Christ always leads us in victory. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us, and we can have confidence that he who began a good work in us will be faithful to bring it to completion on the final day.
As we constantly work this truth in our mind, it renews and refreshes our spirits. Paul says in Romans 12: "I beg you, by the mercies of God, offer yourselves, your lives as a living sacrifice, holy and blameless, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be renewed in your mind."
If we want to flourish spiritually, it comes from identifying the lies we've believed that have tripped us up and kept us distant from God and replacing them with truth.
2. Spiritual Life is Nourished in Trust
The result of believing a lie is that it leads to distrust in relationships—distrust with people and it can cause us to not trust God.
In the book of Proverbs, part of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, most likely King Solomon is giving instruction to help us flourish. When you get to chapter 3, probably at the heart of Proverbs, he makes this comment: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path."
Part of what it looks like to flourish spiritually comes from an unwavering commitment to trust in God and not lean on your own understanding or experience. That's easier said than done, because our human broken nature is one of self-reliance, not God-reliance.
Even the apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians about going through a devastating season of life: "We have been afflicted and we got to the point where we even despaired of life itself. But that was to teach us not to rely on ourselves, but to rely on God who raises the dead."
He's getting to the point where he's possibly ready to lose anything, and he says even in that space, you can trust God. Paul learns this lesson that God allows affliction and suffering in our life partly as a way to teach us to lean and trust and rely on Him. In chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians, Paul says: "We're always of good courage, because we live by faith and not by sight."
What does it mean to have faith? Faith is essential to what it looks like to live with God, to flourish spiritually. Two men, Morland and Klaus, set out to discover what the Bible means when it talks about faith. They wrote a book called "In Search of Confident Faith" and say that biblical faith is made up of three components:
Knowledge - You can't believe in something you don't know about
Mental agreement - You have to have some kind of mental agreement with what you've heard
Commitment - You must commit to follow through with what you know and are believing
If you really want to flourish spiritually, Jesus is the answer. Because He's eternally God, but in the incarnation, He takes on humanity. The Bible says that He grew in favor of God and man, which means He flourished in every way possible as a human being could. The apostle Paul would go on to say that he was the image of the invisible God.
According to Dallas Willard's definition, Jesus did what God would do in the way he would do it with the motivation he would have for doing it. He flourished spiritually. His life was attractive. Children wanted to be with him. Sinners wanted to eat with him. Even in the most tense, dramatic situations, Jesus didn't lose his cool. He was consistently and fully bearing the fruit of the spirit—always full of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control. He had it together.
If as followers of Christ we believe that he flourished spiritually in every way, then trusting him means not just believing that he existed or that he did good things. Trusting him looks like actually aligning your life with the way he lived. You would begin to obey his standard of teaching and his practice of life. You would take on his ethical standard and his spiritual disciplines.
I get that a lot of times we hear some of Jesus's teaching and think it's out of date or doesn't fit our culture. But here's the thing: If there's a limit to how much you'll obey Jesus, if there's a limit to how much you'll actually begin to practice Jesus' way of life, there will be a limit to how much you'll flourish spiritually.
If we want to flourish in the way Jesus did, it leads to obedience and a willingness to take on his instruction. Part of his instruction and call, and even his rhythm of life, was participating in community.
3. Spiritual Life is Cultivated Through Touch
You hear "touch" and think, "If we're talking about flourishing spiritually, that's immaterial. What does touch have to do with it?" This goes back to the beginning, the creation narrative, where God creates Adam and places him in the garden. Up to that point, everything is good. Creation is good. The creatures are good. Adam is good. Sin has not entered the world. There's nothing broken.
Yet in that moment, God has this insight and says: "It is not good for man to be alone."
From the very beginning, we learn this important lesson: it is impossible for humanity, for a human, to flourish in any capacity in isolation.
I think for a lot of us, especially in our day, when we try to think of what it looks like to flourish spiritually, we picture that you have to get away from humanity, get out into the wilderness, find some cabin in the woods, and reach this level of serenity and calm and peace. That that's the only way to flourish spiritually.
Certainly, we did see Jesus practice a rhythm of getting away, being silent, and being with the Father. But that was not his ultimate lifestyle. If we're going to flourish spiritually, it takes place in the context of community.
The apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians, makes this insight about how the church functions in the world. We're presenting the gospel to the world, making known who Jesus is and what he's like to all of creation. This leads him to have a prayer for the Ephesians. In some translations, this prayer is titled "Prayer for Spiritual Strength."
Ephesians 3:14 says: "For this reason, I kneel before the father, from whom every family in heaven on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being."
So he's praying that God would strengthen each person—in other words, that they would flourish spiritually. It continues: "So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
That's not a personal pursuit. Paul prays that way because he realizes that apart from existing in community, there's a limit to how much we can know God and his work in the world. If you haven't experienced healing, the only way you're going to know God as healer is to be in community with someone who's been healed. The only way to really know the fullness of God is to be in community and in relationship with one another.
I've used this language in all the points: rooted in truth, nourished through trust, cultivated through touch. The idea of cultivating something is about preparing the environment for something that can flourish. What God has done in the church is create an environment where we can spiritually flourish.
Paul would later say in Ephesians 4 that Christ himself gave the church the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for the works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
I think for many of us, when we think of spiritual flourishing, we think of getting away from people. But the mark of flourishing spiritually and being mature is not how well you do in isolation. It's the fruit you bear even in the midst of community—relating with people, loving people, being patient with one another, serving one another, carrying one another's burdens. If we want to flourish, it comes from a commitment to being together with the people of God.
The Hope of Resurrection
I wish I could tell you that if you consistently renew your mind with truth, grow in your trust, progressively start to obey Jesus more and more, and make this commitment to community, then your spiritual life will just be on this upward trajectory for the rest of your life. But we live in a broken world. There are going to be seasons where you just feel spiritually depleted, where maybe your spiritual life has gone dormant through a season of winter.
The hope of the gospel is that things will not always be that way. At the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul is writing to this community where some people had begun to doubt the truth of Jesus' resurrection. Paul writes: "If Jesus hasn't been raised from the dead, we have no hope."
The good news of Jesus' resurrection isn't just good news for him—it's good news for us. Because he's been resurrected, we will be resurrected. He goes on to say: "You've heard that the first Adam was born and made into a living being. The second Adam has been made into a life-giving spirit."
Upon his return, this mortal flesh will take on immortality. Everything that hinders us from flourishing in this age will be done away with, dead and buried forever, so that we can flourish in every way that we were created to. That's the hope we have in Jesus.
Closing Prayer
Father, we love you. God, we thank you for the gift of Jesus. He has come into this broken world. He's taken on our sorrows, our grief, our sin. He was crushed on our behalf. Now he extends grace to us, that we would share in his life.
Your word says that you've given us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. You've given us a spirit of adoption that longs to be with you. So in this moment, we ask that you would just fill our hearts and our minds with your truth. Create a new trust for you. That we would walk in obedience. That we would walk with one another. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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