Introduction

This time of year is when I think about health the most—probably because I know VBS is coming up, and I’m going to have to try to dance in front of you all!

I’m well aware that I have a dad body, not a beach body!

Americans spend more than almost any other nation on health care—$4.3 trillion per year, or $12,900 per person.

• The US fitness industry revenue in 2021 was $33.25 billion.
• The US mental health industry revenue in 2021 was $33.25 billion.

We’re obssessed… do you feel like you’re more healthy as a whole now than you were in the past, when you were a kid?

When I started thinking & praying about where we should go after we wrapped up the series on Samuel, I first started thinking about mental health. But I quickly realized that it was impossible to deal with that one aspect of our lives without dealing with all the others, because they are so intertwined.

People are saved not as souls, but as wholes, and not for themselves alone but for what God longs to do through them.

Tom Wright

So this summer we’re going to be looking at how we can become more healthy in every aspect of our lives, how we can flourish.

1. God’s intends for us to flourish.

It was part of his original design.

God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28

In other words, flourish! What a job description!

This is the time of year that things grow (gardeners?)

Do you think God wants you, your family, our church to flourish this summer?

1. God’s intends for us to flourish.

2. Every place we don’t flourish can be traced back to the Fall.

Either the Fall or our fall.

Struggles…

• Spiritual
• Physical
• Mental
• Emotional
• Relational

How they’re all interconnected:

• are you more likely to “be angry and sin not” when you’ve had enough sleep?
• have you been so emotional over a broken relationship that you got physically ill?

1. God’s intends for us to flourish.
2. Every place we don’t flourish can be traced back to the Fall.

3. Jesus came to reverse the fall, providing a way for his creation to flourish again.

All of his creation

For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

Romans 8:19-21

Us, his new creations

Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Romans 8:23

1. God’s intends for us to flourish.
2. Every place we don’t flourish can be traced back to the Fall.
3. Jesus came to reverse the Fall, providing a way for his creation to flourish again.

4. Growing healthy believers flourish as they grow into who they will be.

Growing healthy believers—who we are, what we do.

Healthy things grow, healthy things multiply.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

James 1:17–18

We have not arrived, but we will one day.

Spiritual growth, by definition, means becoming more healthy, becoming more conformed to the image of his Son.

We look backward to what He has done, and look forward to what he will do.

What part of life are you not flourishing? Ask God to reveal why, steps to take to move forward, to flourish. It’s what he wants for you, it’s what will happen