If I'm not growing, I'm dying

Win: “If you are planted in the church you will grow.”

Will you: “Actively belong in a church family.”

Intro

Welcome online and patio

FW: Anyone here learning how to surf or tried learning to surf?

It’s a horrible process of drowning 90% of the way and then catching 1 wave. I’ve been trying to learn for 3 and a half years…

But one thing I hate about surfing is that I always have to be paddling.

You can’t just relax once you get out there, you have to paddle to stay in the sweet spot

Sometimes I just let my buddies catch waves and I just ride the along shore current to TJ for some tacos.

-Have you ever felt like you were drifting from God or stalled out in your faith.

Took a few steps backward, old habits, doubt, feel like God’s not there.

-We’ve all felt like we were drifting/stalled/far from God

-“This morning we are finishing our series built different, a study on the book of James by using James chapter 5 to answer the question, “how do I grow my faith”

-As we get going this morning please open your bibles up to James chapter 5, our title is “If I’m not growing, I’m dying.”

-The goal is to understand and commit to a way of living that allows for our faith to grow and not die.

Prayer

James 5:7–8 (NIV)

7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

1) Growing my faith requires participation and patience.

-Refer back to surfing

requires participation and patience

-Growing faith is learning the balance of when our participation or patience is needed.

Saint Augustine describes the balance of faith like this, “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”

-When have to be willing to act, but not fully dependent on our own provision.

-The curse of our age of information is when have a lot of answers at our fingertips. For the most part, we can solve the majority of our problems with a few hours on YouTube University.

-However, if we aren’t careful we can get tricked in to believing our first response to a problem should be trying to fix it before we burden God with it.

Amazon analogy

We have also been programmed to have answers instantly. We aren’t patient.

I blame amazon. There is no one same day delivery is good for our dependence on God.

Tennis wraps: “Just last night!”

-Our timeline might line up with God’s from time to time, but don’t be mistaken, God does not work on our time. If he did, He wouldn’t be God, we would be.

-Faith is a life long process, not a instantaneous event.

-In the same way, we have to patient with God, we need to also be patient with ourselves.

Philippians 3:13–14 (NIV)

13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

TS: I have not arrived yet, but I’m not where I used to be.

Pastor this moment

2) I have to trust God is at work, even when I don’t see it.

-The process of faith requires us to surrender control.

-You can’t say you trust someone or something without giving it control.

-As we begin to trust God more, or faith will grow because God always knows and has what’s best for us.

Philippians 1:6 (NIV)

6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Story: Plant

SD mom: tall stanley cup, vuori sweats, and drop you in target parking lot

Whoever planted this seed didn’t see the growth of this plant for sometime

They had to trust something out of their control was happening below the surface

Imagine if every morning they dug up the seed to make sure roots were growing, it would never grow

-Don’t give up on the seed before it has a chance to build roots.

-A plant’s safety against wind and other elements trying to rip it out is not it’s how tall it is but how deep it is.

-Deep only happens when we trust God outside of our own strength and control.

-A plant with shallow roots is easily uprooted and a Christian with a shallow faith is easily broken by the chaos of life.

TS: Strong roots also get stronger when they are connected to other roots.

Story about Channy at redwoods

First place I found myself in awe and wonder of God’s creation

One of the first times I remember tangibly feeling the Holy Spirit in creation

Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world

Able to grow as high as they can because of their root system is all connected

Even though redwoods are massive, they have tiny cones of about 1 inch long to spread their seeds around. They have appropriately large root systems, though, often extending 100 miles and intertwining with the roots of other redwoods. These underground networks spread out from their source—typically a dead tree—and end up growing in circular clusters, sometimes called fairy rings or cathedral trees.

TS: The reason we looked at the redwoods is because they are a model of how God designed us to be interconnected in a church community

James 5:13–16 (NIV)

13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

3) A thriving faith requires a church community.

-Our faith growing requires a connection and relationship to God first and most, but our ability to grow in tough times is made easier when we have people around us pushing us higher when all we want to do is go lower.

-Looking at the plant, the environment dictates how the plant will grow:

A plant needs the right soil, amount of water, sun, and pot for it to grow

Our faith is the same, with the right environment, we will grow

-We truly believe here at Daybreak that church isn’t just a service you attend, but a family you belong.

-Community isn’t what makes our faith grow, but it for sure helps in the process.

-A church community is intended to be there for all of life. If you’re in trouble, you’ll have friends to pray with you. If you’re celebrating you’ll have friends that truly understand why the moment is so significant for you because they were the one’s praying with you about it.

-Additionally we need people to hold us accountable to who God has created us to be. It’s easy to go your own way on your own, but it’s a lot harder to stay stuck or get too far gone with the right people in your life.

Close

Close your bibles and stand with me.

Transition to communion.

Don’t give up - you’re not where you want to be but you’ve come a long way. God’s patient with You, He’s working even when you don’t see it.

-Communion