5 Ways to Grow Your Faith - Summer Series pt. 9

When we sing those words, God has your way. When we sing, the words take control. I hope you mean it. We don't want to be made liars when we sing those words.

If you're new or if you're not somebody who really is like a music person, these moments where we we get into the music because we we know the words. We we feel God's presence. We just sit in that moment, wave like, God, what are you doing? And and sometimes it's it's easy for us. Like, all right, well, the songs we are just playing now or whatever, I'll just have to miss a moment.

Like, all right, listen to some of the sermons that we can in the next song. That way we can go, Oh, look, sometimes God just wants us to wait in that moment because he's not done.

He's still here. He was here when the song started. He was here during the announcements. He was here as you go in the driveway. He'll be here when we go eat after the service. Whether these moments where we watch and God might be working in somebody else. And we have to understand that when he is when we are aware that all that can wait because of me waiting means that somebody else is having a breakthrough or they're encountering God in a different way than I have encountered God, that I want to be obedient and make sure they get the fullness of that.

And so for some of us who are kind of more like type like, all right, with a song still, I'm like, it's time to get up there. It's like, God, sometimes like we need to wait, just like and I and for me, and I'm just trying to balance that moment of our life. The song wrapping up, Where are we at?

Like, What are you doing in this room? And so I'm really trying to our God, is it time or do I need a way just to play? Just wait. It was like almost, almost. Something's not done. Almost. And when he said almost, that's when somebody came up and was praying for somebody up here, it's already God. Thank you.

Thank you for telling me to wait. And I hope you saw that. Like, just because there's just nothing really happening. Something is happening even though you may not see it, sometimes we can see the fruit of it, too. I hope you meant those words. For God to take control and to have your way.

God let us be obedient. And that's Father. Let us be obedient in what you're asking us to do today, even if that means just sitting in your presence and nothing else. God, I pray that we are. We are attentive to what you wanting to do. God, that anything that we've got you brought in today isn't a hindrance to that, but that we can sit at your feet and just enjoy this moment.

Father, this might be the first time all week that we've met with you. And so I pray for our and I pray for those in this room. They get to enjoy every moment in that because they have that with God. I praise you, set me aside, Give me your words, move in this space. But everything to be said for your glory and for the edification of your people.

Now we praise you for our already being here and for giving us open eyes and open ears. And wages continue to do that. Protect us from distractions. Give us that intentional moment with you. Today we ask this in your name, in the Is it working? Oh, switch it. Uh, okay, cool. So I hope when I again that that that theme of just being obedient of having your God have your way take control.

If we, if you sung that I'm a challenge. You guys today we're going to have a little bit of a classroom style teach in a little bit and you're actually going to take part. And so if you want to go ahead and grab your notebook, open your notes app, if you have pen and paper or whatever, you need be allowed.

A lot of different scripture notes today and sometimes it's really good to hear these messages that are just like, Yeah, here we go. I'm empowered, I'm, I'm encouraged. There's this battle, that victory. And but sometimes we need just more of a tangible teaching of like, okay, how about something just a little bit more simple or something more concrete?

Like, it's great that I can metaphorically see God winning this battle, but sometimes we need that. Okay, well, what do I do with my faith? What does the Christian walk look like? And so for some of us, our Christian walk has been a month. For some of us, it's been ten years. For others it's been 60 years. And so, like, it's just good sometimes go back to the basics.

And so what we're talking about today is owning your faith. And what I mean by that, it's not necessarily like believing part of faith, but like the like the tangible now and piece of like, you know, we hear people like, oh, I'm part of the faith or I have the faith. Well, what is that? And so I'm gonna give you five different ways to own your faith.

And today, this morning here in worship, our rules are probably six ways. But we know how to worship at one church. We know how to sing. We know how to just pause in the moment and just give God the glory. We know how to do what we just did. And so I don't know if there's much else to teach on that.

And we just did a sermon series on it. So I was like, You know what, guys, thank you for that reminder. But he's like, You know, I think I've got it, though. We need to talk about the other pieces of our faith. And so our faith is a is kind of like a he likes NASCAR. Hey, I'm in good company because I don't like it either.

But so my brother, he grew up loving it and just yeah, it's only two left turns. Thank you. But in it there's this thing called drafting. And I don't know if anybody's car people. I think there's one in the back. Angel but drafting is this thing where you get up behind somebody and there's the image so you get it behind somebody because you're trying to limit the the friction or the tension of the wind in the front of your vehicle.

And so that image, I hope, does it justice. And you understand what drafting is. But sometimes we do that with our faith. And what I mean by that is that we will ride on the coattails of somebody else's faith, whether that's our spouses face, our parents, maybe even like our pastors or our our our brother. And we just we we don't actually ever take charge.

And so, like in NASCAR, do you have teams, even though it's a single car winner, like you have teams and they will work together. So in order for the team to win and get more points for so on and like they will push each other by drafting to get to the front. And if there's a opposing team behind you, they will try to block that way.

Your teammate can stay first, but sometimes you want to be first. And so to do that you draft and that way you can pass your teammate and take lead. And so in that when our in our face, sometimes we have to take it for ourselves. Drafting is beneficial for a time of watching somebody else is beneficial for a time.

We can lean on our on the faith of our parents because we grew up in church. We spent every Sunday and Wednesday nights at church or we we watch our friends, they get called into ministry or they're there telling people their coworkers about who God is. And to a point like that's enough because we are learning and growing and watching this.

What does faith look like? What does an active Christian look like? But there's a point where it's your turn because ultimately our faith is is, is my choice. And it's your choice. Like my my parents, their attendance every week is not going to get me into the presence of God at the end of my life. Your spouse, as much as I pray for you or you wake up and you watch them reading, that's not going to get you into that heavenly place.

It's your choice. It's your faith that you have to own. So like I said, we're going to do some classroom style teaching today. If your new found out. If I was new, I would not like today because I'm a pull you out of your comfort zone. But if we're going to grow in our faith and you want to own it, you've got to get out of that comfort zone.

And so the first thing I talk about is studying scripture so important is five ways to own your faith. Number one, study scripture we need so many stories. If you don't know, I'm just going to read a whole bunch of it, just this crazy stuff that happens sometimes. We read stories and in Scripture or this history and again, like I said last time I was up here, it's easy to look at the Bible and to read stories like like Harry Potter or Narnia or whatever, like, but no, these are actual things that happened is their actual encounters with God.

These are actual encounters with regular people. There's books. Some of these books are history that tell a narrative of what actually happened. There's poems. There's just like basically a Twitter feed of of wisdom. There's letters to groups of churches. And so these are all points where where God's encountered his people. And the real and some of that is weird stuff.

So it was a read a list here that I wrote down. All right. There's talking donkeys, there's massive floods, there's half angel, half human things. There's angels. Which angels aren't these like little pretty things with wings. They are these, like, massive, scary, weird looking creatures sometimes with a bunch of eyes, different animal. Like, it's just they're weird. They're not your little, like, precious moment Things.

Demons are thrown off cliffs into pigs. There's men who are teleported into heaven. The dead are raised, people are healed. A woman puts a stake through a man's temple. Like there's some violent, weird stuff. The ten plagues the river turns to blood. This one is just a very weird story. A man's killed and. And he's so fat that the sword swallows him.

And then he puts himself like. That's literally what Scripture says happens. And then we look at Jesus and he makes sure that people are always fed. You know, he provides food for the to the Israelites in the wilderness, manna from heaven, water from rock. There's a story about never ending fire and oil, water and rain, fish and loaves and God makes the sun say.

And still these are just pieces of what happens all throughout Scripture. And like one of those stories, if you don't know what you're like, where's that at? And you go find it? But there's just these amazing things. And and I hope that through your own study of scripture, you get to encounter God in those kind of kinds of ways and know in an alive, especially recently, like we've watched those, those crazy moments like, whoa, this is this is the guy that we've read about.

This is the crazy encounter that we've read about, and now we get to witness it. We get to see that powerful, miraculous moving God. It's not just the God of all that, the God of now. And he's doing it. But if you don't read Scripture, you don't know how to look for those moments. You don't know how to ask for those moments.

You don't learn who God is and what he's capable to do. So why is that Scripture you encountered God encounter God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and it's so important to look at these things because, like I said, we can look at it and like, Well, it's just this old text. It's not if you've got a second Timothy Chapter three, verse 16, it says, All scriptures breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work.

God has allowed these arrangements of these of these books. That's called canon. But he's allowed these books to be placed in this order for His glory and for the edification of God's people. And edification basically means the betterment or to make, to make better or to to grow or to build people up so they can be more like Christ and more like God.

So that way they can then help somebody else be more like Christ and be more like God and and come into his presence, know him, be saved and be disciple and such. So Scriptures breathes out by God and is profitable for teaching. The other part of why we need to read Scripture is because it all points to Jesus.

It all points to the purpose of why we have this book of who God is. And so this is in Luke chapter 11, verse 44. He says, Then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Then he open their minds to understand the Scriptures, and he said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem, everything the Old Testament points to who Jesus is, everything points to His fulfillment and what the what the restoration of God's people looks like.

We see in the narrative in Genesis, the Fall of Man. But then as we keep reading, we learn and encounter who God is. We learn His qualities, we learn his character. That's the second reason that we read Scripture. We learn his character because when we read the Scripture and we understand that, it all points to Jesus like Jesus, like you said in Luke, if we understand that, then we can see why he's so angry sometimes.

Why is there wrath? But in that we also see his grace and his forgiveness in the Old Testament to don't just think that God's this angry God in the Old Testament, He provides grace because in Solomon, the more he he allows his saves, that saves them for one, for one person is a man of Abraham. And he's like, Look, there's one person.

Are you really going to do this? God? There's going to be like one one reason that your goodness can save this place. Now he destroys it, but he saves some people. And in fact, throughout scripture we see this where God says, Well, you know what, your faithfulness, I'm going to provide this grace, your faithfulness. I'm a tell you some goodness because you've obeyed, but you don't know God's goodness.

You don't understand his faithfulness. If you don't read Scripture, we learn his forgiveness, his grace, his provision, and his sacrifice. We always see God's provision, even in the last last possible moment, we see God provide things I've just mentioned earlier, like the bread from heaven, the wine from water. We see his presence show up to people when they in just dire need.

We keep messing up, we keep messing up, but God still shows up. We learn his character, his goodness when we read Scripture. Another reason that we read Scripture is that it prevents false teaching. There's a lot of YouTubers and Tik-tok preachers be careful with who you watch and who you share. Even here on our on our platform, if there's something that said and you're like, Well, I don't know about that one, at least I know for me.

But I would say with our whole team, ask those questions like, Are you sure about that? We've got emails, you can come into our office like always ask your leaders about what's being taught, but you can't ask your leaders what's being taught. You can't question it. If you don't know Scripture yourself. You can't ride on the top hills of Tokyo, of what's coattails.

Sorry, you can't ride on that if you're only time in Scripture Sunday morning, if you're feeding off of what Scripture is posted on the screen. So the rest of the week, you got to get into it yourself. You have to own your faith. Some scriptures about force teaching. Matthew seven, verse 15 says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous.

Wolves First Timothy 6335. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for a quarrel about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth.

Imagining that God godliness is a means of gain. Romans 16. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles. Contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, avoid them for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.

If you're reading scripture, be naive. Keep an eye out. When you read scripture, you can you can then watch those people on YouTube, those mega-churches, the small churches, those may be crazy ones that you see on social media that somebody is shared like, is that really what God said? You can watch out for that. And as you do that, you will also gain discernment.

You will be able to know when somebody is saying something that's wrong or when they're saying something right, and you can affirm that. And like, look, that is good word. Just as much as we need to correct, we also need to affirm when when people are following God's word, they are making these new realizations. They are learning the character of God that is God's character.

Have that discernment. Lastly, you understand your salvation. There's a there's a saying of how we are. We are we are saved by God, but then we are also saved for something. Our salvation is not just for us. Once we are, once we are saved. And I don't even like that word because like that that term is not really in Scripture and in the manner that we use it.

So many times in the Western Christianity, like sometimes when we think, Oh, Jesus died for me, he saved me. That's it. At the end of the story, no one wants you to have that understanding. You then realize that it's no longer about you. It's for those other people in your life who then need to know that. And if we don't read scripture, we don't know that when you get saved at 13 years old, what have you done since then?

If you're 70, you or 14 years old? In the past year, we understand our salvation. When we read scripture, we understand what we are saved from. We understand the weight of that cross, the weight of his death, the way of that sacrifice and what that truly means. We can then really be humble. My God, thank you. I did this in that moment.

Please forgive me. And then when we go back and read scripture, there's nothing else like something else. Like, Oh, I used to do that to thank you guys for saving me. It's not just for use for other people, but you have a fuller understanding which should bring you more humility and conviction to understand and appreciate that grace, God's character.

Sam, I give you a couple minutes. And so this is the part that I said it was going to be probably something you don't like. So I'm just going to challenge you. But we just saying, take control, have your way, God. And so what I want you to do is you might need to move a little bit if you need to, but find somebody in your row or the rows behind you or in front of you.

I want you to just get into a group with at least one person you don't know, all right? You can sit beside each others front and back how you need to do it. So go get move and I'll tell you what's next. Give you, like, 30 seconds. If you don't need to move, just make sure you got somebody that you don't know.

All right? You're going to be with them for the rest of the service. Take your Bible, take your journal, your notes, notebook, pen. Like I said, today should be kind of a classroom teaching. I used to be a youth pastor, so we're going to do some things not just here on. All right. So we talked about the why, why do we need to study scripture?

So now we talk about the how how do we actually do this? All right. So this is an acronym that I'm gonna give you guys. It's soap. So AP Scripture, observation, application and prayer. And so the first one, pretty simple Read your scripture, read the read the passage that you're supposed to be studying and and go from there.

All right. When you read the scripture sometimes, like when we there's a lot of times when we open a chapter and it says, therefore, what I want to challenge you to do is before that, because you're like, well, what does this mean? Because therefore means there was something before that. All right? And so understanding the context of what you're reading.

All right. There's a very short scripture that says Jesus website that should make you go why and love previously. All right. And so don't just read scripture like, okay, cool. Like go to understand it. All right. So Scripture looking before and after it of what's happening. So Scripture. And then the second one observation, where does this take place?

Who is in this story? What has happened before and after? When you do these two things, when you look at the observation, you should be able to then just paraphrase or rephrase what has happened in this passage that you're reading. And so ask those questions, okay, who's in there? Who's in the outlines? What's the main, what's the main point?

So stuff that you learned like third grade English or whatever last or the third one application. All right, So this is where we go. Okay, What does this teach me about God? Be careful of going. What does this teach about me? What is this need? What do I have to learn from this? Because sometimes it's simply a passage as your only answer to me or God, is this God's character?

Is this Not everything is about you in Scripture and it's not intended to point to. This is what you need to do. It's going to point you to who God is and what He has to say and who He is. And from that we should then learn about what we need to do. But reading an immense group word of what was going through David and Goliath a couple of weeks ago.

And so like a lot of times we put ourselves as David and our enemy, you know, sin or coworker is Goliath, when really Jesus is David and Goliath is sin like that. That's the intent of that story. Now, we can you can look at it as your Goliath, our David. But that's not the point. The point is to point to Jesus and what he will overcome, but we still need to grow from it.

So we do ask those questions What does this teach you about God? But also what does this teach about my sin or my righteousness? What does this teach about Jesus of the Holy Spirit? What does this teach about humanity? In what ways does this passage apply to me, if any? What do I believe God is revealing to me?

What in my life needs changed, or what needs to have a different perspective? And then what steps do I need to take or what do I need to practice? And then the last one prayer is to ask. God revealed to me more revealed to me how I need to to apply this. Give me the strength to take the actions needed from what I just read.

And if it's confusing, just ask for wisdom. And he'll provide that himself. Or he'll provide a tool, or he'll provide a person to help you gain in that understanding. And before we get to our project, I want to give you guys some tools that we have on our website. We actually have just a ton a ton of resources for you guys to learn how to study scripture and just to grow in your face.

It's one church, NC dot net slash Bible dash resources. So like use that, but there's these tools that we can use. Of course your, your, your study Bibles, but then there's things like commentaries. Commentaries are other people's studies of the Bible. And so you may take Jesus website and they're going to write a whole like three chapters on that one verse.

And to fully understand of what that means in that time frame and what that means through that specific passage and where the word website is and every other piece of scripture. And so commentators are great resources. But I'll say this not every commentary is good and not every commentary is great, but not everyone's bad either. When we look at resources, that's what they are.

They are not God's word. They are resources from other sinful men and trying to understand. All right. And so when we read commentaries or we read and listen to other pastors, we have to understand and remember they are just as tough as I am. They may not get it right, but it doesn't mean I can't learn from them.

Okay, So just because somebody might say something that's like, I don't believe that there might still be something for you to learn in in that. And so in those resources, I mean, I've built the website, so like I make that disclaimer of we don't necessarily agree with everything, but these are tools for you to to expand and grow in your faith.

So you have commentaries and then you have a concordance. So basically this is where you literally can put up pull up the word clay, and it's going to tell you in its original languages where clay shows up in Scripture that way to know this is a tool that James probably uses all the time. I would tell you everywhere in Scripture where that word is, but use those when you have time, though I want to do right now is give you 3 minutes.

I know that's not any time at all. That's no time to do this. But I will give you 3 minutes to look at the scripture. I think it's mark six right? Maybe it's Mark seven. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Mark six, seven. There it is. 713. I'm gonna give you guys 3 minutes to look at it and do that soap method Scripture, observation, application, prayer.

So I'll get that timer up for you guys and then we'll move on to the next part. I hope you got a taste of just digging into God's Word a little bit with those tools. Maybe. Maybe we can go to lunch together and continue that study. If you want. But that last piece, prayer is so important and it's when you go into God's Word, always ask him, God, just show me.

Show me what it is you need me to learn, or just simply show me your presence. Show me who you are and let me meet with you. Even if it's just reading eight verses in that first piece. Five words on your face does that first one Scripture reading. And the second one is going be prayer, which I'll just if some of you I may have done this 3 minutes was nothing.

But that second one is prayer on your faith through prayer. It's so important because that's that's how we talk with God, Like we read scripture and that's where he speaks to us a lot of the times. But he also can speak to us in prayer. But it's also that moment where we get to talk to God. It's something very unique for the Christian faith because we don't have to go to a specific place.

We don't have to go to a temple, we don't have to perform this like specific sacrifice or whatever to simply just talk to him because he's already here. As we saying this morning, prayer is so important. I'm not going to read each one, but in Ephesians 618, it says to pray in the spirit at all times. It's part of the the armor of God, the Scriptures, what it says to pray in the Spirit at all times.

If first Thessalonians 516 through 18 says to rejoice, pray without seizing. Luke 18, verse one says, One day Jesus told his disciples to show up that they should always pray and never give up, suppress pretty important. And so one of the things that we get stuck in, especially from new believers or those who are a little bit more private in their faith, I don't know how to pray or I just pray when I just pray about myself.

I don't I don't need to pray out loud. I don't need to whatever. There is no special way to pray. Scripture does give us a Jesus says, Here's how you can pray. There is that. But what I've heard so many times when we ask people, like in small groups to pray like, Well, I don't know about that. I don't I don't pray like you do or I don't pray like the pastor does or I don't pray like this person.

You're not meant to. And so just simply talk to God and be honest. And that's that's the thing I remember when I was in when I was in college, when I first moved up here, I went to this worship night Bible study with a group of friends. And I, I was a little shocked. We shut up, we sang songs, we had dinner, and then, like, we had this moment of during the worship of just people were praying and something just threw me sideways.

And it so me, my buddy, when we when we hang out, we've gotten to this thing where we where we talk and joke in having a laugh or whatever and or sometimes it's serious and one of us will go, No, I'm not going to say that. Whether because it's mean or it's just well, I don't know if it's a time for that or just a bad thought.

Whatever. But then we challenge each other because like, well, you've already thought it, so you might as well say it. And it comes from this idea in Scripture where, like it says, if you've if you look at a woman with lustful hours, you've already committed adultery in your heart. If you look at your brother with hate, you've already committed murder in your heart.

And so in that if I start it, I might as well say it. And so we call each out, call each other out on it. And as I say, that to say is to be honest in your prayers, because when I was in college, this woman, she was just angry with God, like she was still trying to worship him and be in his presence.

But she was just angry with him to the point she was cutting them out. And I guess the first time I've heard the F-word in a prayer, I was like, Oh, my eyes opened real quick and went sideways like, Oh, and I had to really wrestle in that. But she was just so upset and so angry about a situation that that's that's that's all she knew how to express.

And so what I'm telling you was not necessarily cuss got out, but what I'm saying is that to be honest, like if you've already thought it, you might as well say it because he knows your heart, he knows your frustration, he knows your anger, even if it is at him. So be honest in your prayers with God, because he'd rather you be honest and lie about it.

I don't tell him Thank you for this situation. If you don't thank him at all, if you are just really trying to understand it and you got two points to say, thanks for his trial, be honest. And so how do we pray? There's another acronym for acronym for you guys. And it's S, AC, it's Adoration. Confess Thanksgiving and supplication.

And so in the Adoration, this is where you basically tell God who he is. It's not not the Thanksgiving part, but you just go, God, you are wonderful, you are loving, you are graceful, you are peace, God. You have shown up to me as provider and they have shown up to me as judge. I don't know if I'm thankful for that yet, but you, you God likes to hear about self.

God wants glory. It might sound prideful, but He gets that he created the world. So why doesn't he get the people he created? You, But he wants to hear about himself. And so just look at those qualities. And if you do, you can't necessarily do the adoration part. Great. If you aren't reading the scriptures. So the sex part is confession.

Confess your sins. God, I'm sorry for this. Please forgive me of this. You confess who you are in contrast to his goodness. Then you can do the Thanksgiving part, which tends to be a little bit of the part that we we tend to go to when we start praying. God, thank you for this. Thank you for this paycheck.

Thank you for this friend. Thank you for this thing you gave me. Like, those are the easy parts. So I don't know. So we need to go into that. And then the supplication. That's simply just saying, God, I need this or I want this. And that's one that probably everybody knows how to do when we go to God.

That's a genius. Sometimes we don't. God, you are this. You are this God. I'm sorry I did this. God, you this extra paycheck to fix the brakes of my car. I don't know how the parable is getting paid. My spouse is really just give them some more love or help me with patience. Those are the things we tend to go to and immediately got.

I need this. But sometimes in that supplication I want to challenge you is to not necessarily pray for the tangible things, but to pray for more of the internal things. God help me be more graceful to other people who aren't like me that help me to be more hungry for your word. God help me to be more just hungry for you.

Help me set aside the things that aren't of you. Those non tangible things that those heart issues that really matter. Like you're having that paycheck to get your bills paid matters. But to say it, it kind of does it. If you look at eternity like, what's the thing that really matters is your grace that you learn how to have that going to benefit another person so that they can meet Christ.

And maybe that's through having a power bill pays that way. You can invite them for dinner, but you'll get what I'm saying. How should we should pray, adoration, confess Thanksgiving and supplication? Somebody give you guys, uh, 3 minutes to you just ask to go to that prayer and you can in your you can pray out loud. You can pray in private.

However you want to do that. It's up to you guys. But we'll give you 3 minutes to pray in that way or practice it. So. All right. And all God's people said, Man. So the next part is really cool because we have to get to embody it a little bit today. So the third part of owning your faith is getting into his community.

This is a part of it, especially for your kids. They get to watch you pray and watch you read scripture and what should be in community. And so as we keep moving forward, just make sure that they're with you so that way they can learn these tools to they can watch and grow with you. And that. So getting them community, it's so important.

God himself as a community, God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit himself as a community. And even in Genesis, he says it's not good for man to be alone. And so, just like Crystal said earlier this morning, we can't isolate ourselves because we can't grow. We can't serve others. We don't learn if we are isolating ourselves from God's community. And so we get to do this a lot here at one church through meals, through small groups.

But you learn, you learn from others, and they're what you learn about God in those moments. But you also get stronger. You get stronger, you help others and you get helped. Ecclesiastes sees this as two or two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift the other up.

But woe to who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. If to lie together they keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? When we're lost? Somebody can come in and help find our way. When we're depressed, somebody can step in and say, Hey, you've got this. You're okay. Just make it one more day.

If you're just struggling with something, God may provide another person for you. There are there are special relationships that you get to have with people who are always going to help you. They're going to see that be the like I see in you. They're going see I see this thing in you, I see this in you. You're you're amazing at this.

I get we're coming from this, but maybe we need to grow you in this aspect of your of your character. We also learn about our gifts when we serve others. And you can't serve others if you're not in this community. And so we have tons of ways for you to join in service and small group here at one church.

And it doesn't even have to be within our church. But we have to walk for freedom. We have a hospitality team, connections, team worship. When you join in a group of community, they're going to be there. Oh, you sound really good. Maybe you need to sing or you just have this amazing way of prayer that's really honest. Do you want to be part of our prayer team or.

I love the way that chooses you. Say, Hey, everybody, you hug them every week that you see them. Do you want to be part of our Connections team? Like when you're not in community, people can't see those gifts in you and maybe you know those gifts, but most of the time we need somebody else to point those out in us.

And so again, you can't do that if you're not in the community. Thank you.

And one of the cool things about community, too, is and I'll just say that shows as a sign there's a special friendship in in Scripture with David and Jonathan. We talk, I think I've talked about before, but David is King David, who was the same one who defeated Goliath. He rose up and his best friend ends up becoming the king's son.

His name is Jonathan, and their friendship is special because Jonathan is willing to risk his life in order to make sure that David is able to fulfill his call as king. The King son risked his life to tell his friends, You're supposed to be king in that time, the king's family was to be killed. If a new king was coming in that way, there was no risk of a rebellion or a takeover from the previous courtship.

In community, there's risk, and sometimes that risk is on you. You may have to sacrifice things for the betterment of another person. And so I hope you have somebody who is willing to risk things for your betterment. All right. I hope you have a Jonathan in your life, but you can't have a Jonathan if you're not in God's community.

You.

So this next piece is the challenge, probably one of the more challenging parts that every every piece that we go through is a little bit harder, a little bit harder, and that is sharing your testimony or growing or not knowing how to disciple or how to share your story, how to evangelize, how do I actually tell somebody about Jesus owning your faith through Scripture, reading prayer, getting in his community, and then evangelism.

That's the scary piece for some people. It's the knocking on the door. Have you accept Lord Jesus as your Savior? But more likely, it's not necessarily that, and there's no shade on that. But God tells us to make disciples, not make converts. You can't be a disciple of somebody else if you're not a disciple of God. So if you're not reading Scripture, if you're not praying, if you're not God's community, how can you effectively disciple another person or make a disciple?

So there's a a model that I learned when I refer you to Christ. It's called three Story and it's made. It's made the gospel so easy and it makes sense. All right. Like there's these ABCs of the faith or the door to door. But a lot of people like they don't necessarily care about Jesus unless they know why it's matters to you.

And in the same way, like they don't want to hear from anybody who doesn't care for them. And so the third story is my story, your story, God's story. And so what you do is you ask the other person about some of the things in their life. What do you do for work? Tell me about a hard time you had here recently.

Tell me about an amazing time. What do you like to do for fun? Like is these easy questions. And as you ask these questions, you're to listen and to hear. Okay, where does my story connect here? Where, where, where do my pain points match their pain points? Where does those fun things that I love to do, where do they match with with theirs?

Maybe we both have kids. Maybe we both work at a at a mechanic or we've both lived in Georgia or whatever. Whatever connection there is. You're listening for that because once they're done sharing their story, you can then share your story and you're making those connections. You're building a case of This is why this person matters to me and why I matter to them.

And then you get to share God's story in that same piece. What did God do for you in that situation? So maybe that pain point is a divorce or that pain point is depression and having to see a counselor. And you can say, Well, here's what God did in that for me. Maybe it was a trip to Georgia to see Stone Mountain or something.

And you're like, Man, so cool. I've been there too. And here's what I learned. Maybe it was a camping retreat or a conference, or you can just talk about mountains and scripture because you've read scripture, prayed and got in this community. And you know, there's a lot of scripture about mountains. You find those those ways to make it easy.

And so when you share God's story, you talk about him and then say, Hey, God has this for you. He loves you, and he did it for you. Does that make sense? Yeah, I already did practice that. That wasn't as loud. So I give you guys a couple of minutes are going to practice that. That my story. Your story.

God story. So find that person that you sat with, that stranger and share. Share that story and then share God story. All right. I hear lots of laughter. So that's good. That's good. Share sharing. God's word can't be joyful. It should be joyful, especially for those of us who've walked with God for a season. Not everything about God.

It has to have tears. It's not always a like, Oh, he saved me from this. It could just be this amazing story and it brings laughter. All right. So the last piece here is five ways that on our face, scripture reading prayer, getting his community make disciples. And the last one is the probably the most difficult. And it's trust.

Trust is the hardest part, because we can do all those other things and we can do them all without trust, because we can we can study scripture like God, did you really do this? This has got to be made up. Whoever you are, whoever God you worked with, like they must have made this part of the story. This can't be true.

Or God, you're you read it like, well, God did it for them, but in a way, he's going do it for me. When we pray, sometimes we pray, and then we're like, I'm praying for this healing. But God, you don't you don't really heal like that anymore. Like there's doctors. We don't you don't do this instantaneous healing. I tell you, she does.

We've what? We've witnessed it at camp. When we get in community, we have to trust that there are people who have your good in mind now. They are sinful. So it doesn't mean that they're imperfect or that they're perfect. But we have to trust that God's working in them like he is and new in that God's community for you is.

Good. Whether it's been church hurt or just different issues that you've had, like sometimes trusting other people was hard. And you have to believe that God's provision for you is to provide you with people you can trust because they trust him. And then we have to trust that your testimony is good enough, that your story is good enough, that your ability to share it is good enough in order to help somebody else find hope in Jesus.

Too often when we doubt God's ability to use our story or to get past our fear of sharing who Jesus is, what we're saying this guy like, I don't trust that this is good enough. Like I don't have this amazing testimony or I'm just like, That's too dirty. I don't care. I can't share that. Even if you're to send it's testimony that that should be enough.

If you trust God with it. When we went to Alabama with Alabama the three months before the trip for very difficult for me, a lot of warfare and some of it wasn't even warfare. Some of it was just me because I wasn't placing my trust in what God was wanting to do. I was putting that trust in what I had seen before and in what makes sense and who was showing up, where the finances were coming from.

Our budget was tight and we had to buy a lot of sports equipment and it's not cheap. I learned basketball's not cheap. We had plans to partner with different churches and they would slowly, almost all of them back down for different reasons, whether they had another camp going on or they were just unsure of us. And we don't know who you are, so we're just going to whatever.

And we even had a we were planning to partner with another ministry and to do some work for them. And three days beforehand they found out we were working with a gentleman across the street and we're like, You know what, because you are working with him, we're not going to work with you. So even though we were coming to do some free work for him, the rent a car situation like every week for like three months, it was something new.

Well, this isn't happening. And so I'm sitting here like, how I know you've called us to Alabama. I know it. But why is everything keep going wrong? Even the three days before we left between a trailer that needed tags, that had a lock on it with the no key that was found out, it didn't have a spare because on the way home we had to put a new tire on it.

Like in the rental car situation was a mess. Like everything that could go wrong on this trip beforehand seemed to be going wrong. And it was just throw my hands like it doesn't make sense. God, why is it so difficult when we get down there? There's even more. There is warfare individually, but almost every person on our team and for and when we brought all in with us, that was we were trusting the guy was going to give us enough sleep and give him grace to to be peaceful and not be over tired because of the heat.

And on that first day we like I hope I'm not oversharing, but I about my wife in the bathroom crying because she was so exhausted from a crying baby and trying to keep up. We had people whose we had a lot of couples on our on our trip and God was trying to bring division between the couples. We had young people who were just fighting whether or not they were even supposed to be down there because of their past with somebody who instantly was like, You know what, I'm going to go on this trip.

I wanted to earlier I said, no, but I'm I go, I feel like I'm supposed to. And he shut up so late in the trip, he's like, I don't know what we're doing. And I still don't know why I'm here. Every day there was something we got there and it was storming all week from not literally 4 hours of camp thunderstorms from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m..

The guys didn't know we were where we were showering until like two days before the trip. There was a lot of what is happening. Everything that I had planned was gone and what God was trying to show me was that I could do all those things. But had I really trusted him with it, had I trusted that he was going to work in the budget, had I trusted that nine people and a baby were going to be enough to lead a sports camp, that I trust that even if other church partnerships don't show up, God was going to move.

Did I trust that the stories weren't going to come? I did it because I plan to VBS the night before and we ended up not using it. Thank God nothing made sense. So if you get our church plan emails and that's that's all I can say is none of it made sense because what God had to do was remind me when we prayed that first morning for camp, do you remember when we when you and your first missions trip to Mexico before you really knew who I was?

Did you remember how I stopped the rain? I had to be reminded of that by God. So that Monday morning when we went to pray, I was believing that he was the same thing. It was the same. God in 2008 was the same God today. And he was stop that rain. God you've called us here. I know is what are you going to do?

I have no choice. I can't stop the rain. So we hugged it up and we prayed in unity. And when looking at the forecasts all week, you saw the forecast of storms all day. That first day after we prayed, I literally watched it go every 30 minutes. It kept disappearing. Oh, it stopped raining at 930 and there was no more rain for the rest of the day.

That was at the beginning of the week. Our budget on paper, we went over budget, but God provided about $1,000 through individuals and church partnerships and strangers. We had somebody pay for groceries because they heard they they're like, Why do you have so much food? It was for chance of change. His mama was actually buying it and she was sharing about what was going on in the lady 100, $500 almost on groceries.

God provided. There was nothing I could do about that. I had to trust that he was going to do something even at the end of the week, we watched some amazing things happen. They were difficult. And as I'm trying to learn to trust God, I'm like, okay, do you really want me to do this? And it sounded stupid.

It was something as simple as like, okay, I need you to walk down this street. So I did. All right? And he said, Stop. All right. And then he told me to turn around. Wow. I just walk out of here as I'm not doing that. And I'm very I'm barefoot with a sleeve shirt on. So, like, I'm. It's late at night.

And it was like, I'm not. I'm not moving. This is stupid warrant. This has nothing to do with anything. It's literally I keep saying that because that's what I was telling him was this is stupid. Doesn't make sense. A car went by and because I'm barefoot, sleeveless in a town that doesn't know me, my arms will walk like I'm walking.

Not just standing here like a crazy person. And then I stops and another car came by and it's like, All right, it's time to go back. So I went through and what guy was doing is you want me to witness something? But I was very hesitant on it because I was like, That's that's not for me. I don't need to witness that.

That's for that. Those people on our team like that, that's for them. I'm I don't have anything to add to that. I'm I'm going to interrupt it. My own insecurities were telling me, no, you don't need to go over there. God, this is stupid. Why? And so I stopped.

I tell you about the cars because they they weren't random. The same two cars came back and no, the same two cars because I looked at the tags. They were the same two cars. And because this is stupid, I was going to keep walking and he pushed me back in that direction. He wanted me to walk him when I knew what he was telling me to walk to was ended, I walked back into the church and what I learned was that I missed an amazing blessing, something I'd been praying for for a long time.

I missed the blessing because I didn't trust God, because all week my idea of trusting God, it was, Does this make sense? None of it made sense. And at the end of it, I missed out on a blessing that would have benefited me greatly. It still does. I hear it about it. It does. I'm so glad it happened.

However, if I was obedient and just said, All right, God Corps, I'm gonna do that, you said to do it that simple. Trust. What did I miss on? So about three months ago, when things started hiccuping on the trip and things were just going haywire and nothing seemed to work, I wrote a scripture on my board, on my whiteboard.

I write my brainstorm on their right to do list, write questions to reflect to myself. And I wrote this scripture that's in red. You probably can't see it, but it's been sitting there since, I think April. Every day when I'm here, I see it, but I don't necessarily you don't necessarily read it for understanding. I was like, Oh, yeah.

I remember when he told me that I need to do that. Cool. And then move on. It's Proverbs three versus five, three, six if can pull it up, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean on your understanding in an Oreo ways of knowledge. Him and he shall direct your paths. I know that now. Still working on it, but it didn't matter how much I read Scripture, didn't matter how much I prayed, didn't matter how much I was in God's community, where I would share my story.

There were moments where I didn't trust God because I was trying to make it make sense. I was leaning on my own, understanding what. So if you want to own your own faith, that's it. That scripture, all it is. Trust him with your salvation. Trust him in his word. Trust them to answer your prayers, trust his people, trust that you have a story to help somebody else.

When I had no choice but to trust in him throughout that, and really in my own throughout my life, but specifically that we I had no choice but to give it to him and wait. Like I said, we got thousand dollars in donations, but we had a church to open their doors for us, for the guys in 6 hours, even though their family was staying there.

Like, we know you need a place here. Last minute, the rental car details were finalized very last minute and they gave us grace to do something that they said we weren't supposed to do. 7:00 Friday night before we leave, we finally get five without a hitch with a truck that matches the trailer. It took us seven stores and 4 hours where everybody had backed out the partnering and serving.

We had seven volunteers show up that week, two of which have visions and dreams and partnerships with organizations and dreams and ideas that God's given me for that community construction project I have back. Our house of our tree had fallen on near the house across the street. So we were able to do that for free because we didn't have much of a budget.

Not that I think that God should put a tree that somebody is house, but he provided something for us to be able to serve this community every day. We prayed for the rain to stop it. It God provided to women to sit with them, to help baby sit on it, to take care of food, provided a support system, a community that brought healing and unity and peace among couples there in our free time, which was created due to the rain that happened in the afternoons, the unknowns became little and little because God provided.

Saturday night we had a powwow with our team because it just was just it was a lot of disunity and a lot of fear and a lot of just the enemy using it through our powwow, we were able to learn about each other's weaknesses and strengths and how to look out for them. So that way the rest of the and in that I share some of this stuff at your pitch to them and apologize to them for not trusting God.

I also had to repent and apologize to God for not trusting him and like you, you have no choice but to do what you need to do to help. Help me get out of my head. Don't give me, don't give me trust. Give me faith. We had 40 different kids throughout the week and four of them was for the mercy of Christ.

So all because of his power and our team's ability to say, You know what? God, there's no option here but for you to move worship team if you want to come up in those things. There's five ways that on your face, how are you going to do that? Sometimes it's just that simple. Trust. Maybe it was during the activities that we did.

God, I don't. I don't know how to God. I don't know what to pray for. God help me believe your word. Help me believe that you have good people for me who want to support me and love God. Help me to share your word that my story's good enough that it's not too broken to not share.