Relate Community Church
Relate Community Church
Week 6 | Faithfulness
What fuels your daily decisions? Just as vehicles can run on different types of energy, our lives operate on either faith or sight. Pastor Sean challenges us to examine what's truly driving our lives and whether we're passing God's faithfulness tests.
The message unveils a sobering truth: while everyone claims to be faithful, true faithfulness is exceedingly rare. God isn't just casually hoping we'll develop faith—He's actively searching the earth for people whose hearts are fully committed to Him, people He can strengthen and bless. This isn't about God withholding favor but about preparing us to steward greater responsibilities.
Through a creative object lesson using different varieties of apples, Pastor Sean illustrates how we can test the fruit in our own lives. Are we passing the test of little things, where our private integrity shapes our public blessing? Are we acing the talent test by using our God-given abilities to serve others rather than ourselves? And perhaps most challenging, are we enduring the test of tough times with persistence rather than quitting when pressure mounts?
The most profound revelation comes through understanding fruit development. Just as the sweetest Honeycrisp apples require the most "chill hours" (time spent in cold temperatures) to produce their superior flavor, our faith often needs seasons of pressure and discomfort to mature. Many of us pray for God to remove difficulties, not realizing these very challenges are developing the faithfulness He seeks.
Stop running when circumstances get hard. Plant your feet where God has placed you and decide to be faithful—even when it's uncomfortable. Your spiritual fruit doesn't develop despite difficult seasons but often because of them. Let God find you ready and willing when He scans the earth for faithful hearts to strengthen.
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All right, we're all set. Thank you guys. Good morning everybody. Welcome to church. How many of y'all are glad to be here today? Man, it's good to be in a service that's awake. You guys have lots of energy. That feels good. Y'all look good. Tell your neighbor you look good. If they don't look good, don't lie to them. Some of y'all will just lie. All right, we're going to dive right in. I need all my time because I've got a message for you today that I think we just have to.
Speaker 1:From the beginning of the year, we've been challenging ourselves to stretch, to reach, to press in, to go further into what God has for us, and that's no exception for the summertime. We're not taking it easy. During the summertime. We are actually reaching for more, pressing for more, because I believe God has a high expectation of us. Sometimes we think that the bar of faith is low and that, oh God will be happy with it. God loves me, no matter what I do. That's fine. But God also has an expectation of you as a believer, as a child of God, as his follower, to grow, to mature, to do something, to produce, and fruit is a big part of that. What fruit are you producing? So today's going to be a little bit different than the last few weeks have been. But before we do that, I want to talk about it'll feel like a different subject, but I want to kind of set the tone by diving right in. First off, I want to say, if you are in this room, I want you to be a note taker. Your four studies show you're four times more likely to remember something if you write it down. So we are a note-taking church. We gave you notes on the way in, or some of you like to take them online. There's notes on the app that you can just get all the answers for. But we're believing God to be fruitful and so, with that said, I want to talk about a little bit of a different subject, to kick us off and lay a foundation for this idea of what it means to be full of faith or to have faithfulness as a fruit in our life.
Speaker 1:So how many of you guys drive a car that is fueled by gasoline? Raise your hand up real quick. How about you drive a car that is not fueled by gasoline? Maybe you drive a car that's fueled by electricity? How many we got any of those in there? We got a few of them in the room, all right. Maybe you drive a car that's fueled by electricity. How many of you got any of those? We got a few of them in the room, all right. Maybe you have a car that does a little bit of both.
Speaker 1:I drive a truck that's fueled by diesel and on kind of another hand, at the warehouse, I have a forklift that is powered by propane. So I have to change the propane tank and it runs on gas. I also have a forklift that runs on diesel and not too long ago I had a forklift that actually ran on two fuels, and you'll see the point I'm getting to in just a second. It ran on propane or it also ran on gasoline. You could kind of choose which. If you want to run on gasoline one day, or if you want to run on, I don't have any gasoline, I have propane, so I'm going to run on propane today. So I had to choose which fuel am I going to run on, and I think that idea that you can run on multiple kinds of fuel.
Speaker 1:My question to you is today, what is your life being driven by? It can be driven. The Bible gives us this very clear picture Before we dive into what faithfulness looks like. I want you to understand that your life, what drives you, you could be driven by faith. That's what God expects of us, that's what God wants from us. But so often it's very easy for us to sit down in the driver's seat of our life. We wake up in the morning and then I don't have a lot of faith today. I'll just switch back over to what ends up being. My life is driven by what I see, by the circumstances around me. I start doing all the math and I don't know, and so we start shifting more into. I start living by sight instead of by faith. As believers, we have to be the ones that wake up every day and say I'm going to live by faith, I'm going to let my life be driven by faith. Because faith everybody say faith is important. Everything with God depends on faith. Actually, in fact, there are a few. I wish I could.
Speaker 1:I could probably spend the rest of the service just giving you verses and references to what God thinks about faith, but I will say that the Bible is very clear that without faith, it's impossible Everybody say impossible to please God, meaning you cannot please. You could say well, god, I'm going to do this and God, I did everything for you. But if you didn't do it by faith, if you didn't do it in faith, with faith, it doesn't please him. It also says according to your faith, it'll be done for you. So you say a prayer, but if you have no faith, if you're living life and you have no faith, then it's almost like we're tying God's hands. God is able, god's all-powerful, god's sovereign. We talked about it last week. He's sovereign First Wednesday night. For those of you who were here every first, just a quick plug every first Wednesday night of the month we meet here and we go deeper. We talked about God's sovereignty and how he's still in charge. You can't take God's power away from him, but you can walk away from him. You can move yourself into a position where he's just going to let whatever happens happen.
Speaker 1:The Bible also says whatever is not a faith is. Y'all know what it is Sin Leads to death. That's why we should be reaching, clawing, clamoring for faith every day and setting our eyes on him. So you also have to know this that everything in the world, the whole designation, the whole the world, is designed to push you off your faith. The world is designed to stop you from living by faith. Hey, don't look at faith, don't think about faith. Look at what's around you. Everything around you is trying to say you don't need faith. That's not what I see. That's not the reality of your world.
Speaker 1:So a couple quick things about faith, a couple quick things about God. I'm going to give you three. You can write them down. They're going to happen real fast. The first one is this that God is looking for people of faith. 2 Chronicles 16, 9, one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible says for the eyes of the Lord run back and forth throughout the earth, throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him. He's seeking whom he may strengthen, whose heart is fully committed to him. So he's looking for somebody To me. He's looking throughout the whole earth, but he's looking up and down the aisles. Today he's looking from church to church, from house to house, from heart to heart. Where's my child? Where's my people? Where's somebody who's living by faith, whose heart is committed to me, who's living the way I want them to live, who I can strengthen, who I can pour into, who I can bless. That means God's looking for somebody to bless and most of us aren't positioning ourselves for it. We're just cruising through life seeing what happens.
Speaker 1:Number two faithful people are hard to find. I'm setting a foundation for faith real quick. As soon as we get through the foundation, I'm going to take you somewhere. But I need you to understand what faith is and put our feet firmly on what God believes and what God shows us about faith. So faithful people are hard to find. So if I was to ask around the room today, I'm sure I could come around to every single person and ask you to rate yourself on a scale of one to 10 to faithfulness Are you faithful or not? We would all say I'm faithful. I'm as faithful as I can. I've done everything I can. I've made mistakes, sure, but I always come back to do the best I can. I'm trying my hardest. Okay, can I just tell you that faithfulness is much more rare than we think it is. Oh, we all have the fruit of the Spirit right Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness Sure, it's there, it's in the list. It must be. I must have a little of it.
Speaker 1:Watch what the Bible says. Proverbs 20, verse 6 says Everyone talks about how faithful he is, but it is difficult to find someone who really is. I don't want to make you feel bad today. I don't want to make you convicted. The Holy Spirit can point you in your heart and just show you where you need to be, how you can realign yourself with where he has designed for you.
Speaker 1:One more Psalm 53 says God looks down from heaven at the children of man to see if a single one is wise and one seeks God. But all have proven faithless. Everybody say faithless. That's the thing about. If you're looking for something, it's either there or it's not. And if it's not there, then it's something else. It says all have been corrupted and not one of them always does right Guys. It's not there, then it's something else. It says all have been corrupted and not one of them always does right Guys, it's okay to struggle.
Speaker 1:We think God looks at us and he just oh, you know he's a good God and he understands what I'm going through, but still he expects God expects of me to be faithful. He's faithful and he's empowered me to be faithful. So it's not like he's asking, he's not asking me for something I can't be. He's faithful and he's empowered me to be faithful. So it's not like he's asking me for something I can't be. He's given me. He is giving me, transforming me into something that I could never be on my own. The last one is this Faithfulness is key to victory, and blessing 1 John 5, verse 4 says for every child of God defeats this world.
Speaker 1:If you're a child of God, he empowers you, he gives you what you need to defeat this world. How it says. And we achieve this victory through what you all starting to notice a pattern here. God develops faith in us. We grow in our faith, we produce this fruit and it empowers us. It gives us what we need to defeat the evil in this world and it empowers us. It gives us what we need to defeat the evil in this world. So it doesn't say that we defeat the enemy or the evil in this world by raising a bunch of money. Money's good. The Bible does not say that money's bad. Actually, a lot of times we just get to think well, I don't need a bunch of money, that wouldn't be good. No, money's just a tool. The root of evil is a bunch of money that wouldn't be good. No, money is just a tool. It's. The root of evil is the love of money.
Speaker 1:One more verse Proverbs 28,. Verse 20 says a faithful man will be richly blessed. How many of you want to be blessed? How many of you want to be favored? Listen, this is not a prosperity gospel. This is me saying that if we can get ourselves to where God wants us to be, my life is better. It's not trouble-free, it's not perfect, but I want to be the man that God made me to be the dad, the husband, the pastor, the person, and I want us to be the church that he designed us to be, that he's expecting when he's looking at churches and people and his children. He's saying I hope somebody will stand up and be the one that I want them to be. I want to say over here, god, if it's very rare and it's hard for him to find someone who's faithful, can it be us? Can we say God, let me be faithful. All right, Now for what you've been waiting for Today. Oh, no, no, no, no. We almost lost one. Here we go Today I brought apples.
Speaker 1:Some of you all already recognize a problem Apples. If you know me, you know I like apples. I eat about an apple a day, sometimes two. Sometimes I don't have two, so I just have one. That's usually the distinguishing factor, and I have a favorite apple. But we'll get to that my first.
Speaker 1:The point of this today is that I thought let's make this message a little bit different. If we're looking for fruit, there comes a point in your life where you have to start testing fruit. We're going to do a quick test, real quick. How do we test these apples? Okay, I hear a bunch of good answers. We can look at them, we can taste them, we could smell them. Maybe you probably have to cut them to smell them, because I smelled them earlier today and they all kind of smell the same. But just by looking the visual test, I can look at the fruit and say, hmm well, they're all different colors. We can see that this one's a little bit darker. This one is not even an apple. So I could tell that by looking it's green and you could tell me it's an apple. But I'm smart enough to know that this is not an apple. And you're smart enough to know that this is not an apple.
Speaker 1:First off, it doesn't look like any of these and if you're aware that this is a lime, then it's an easy test right. But the same thing happens all the time. We say, well, no, this fruit that I've been exhibiting in my life, that's faithfulness. Wait a second, I know what faithfulness looks like and that's not it. But that's if we're honest with ourselves. Otherwise, if we're willing to be dishonest with ourselves and just sit through the service oh, good message, pastor Sean, good job Then we would just say, okay, great bunch of apples here. But if we're serious about becoming who God made us to be, then we have to say this is not an apple and even though it looks kind of like an apple, it's the right size and shape and color for an apple. This is not an apple either.
Speaker 1:This one is a peach. And you might say, well, I like peaches better, I like my way better and I would prefer, you know, I like my version of faithfulness a little bit better than what the Bible says about faithfulness. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm trying to show you something we have to submit ourselves to God's will. I love the song that we sang earlier I surrender, but surrender is not really surrender until you have to surrender. Submission is not submission until you have to actually submit. You can say I'm submitted. I'm surrendered, but the whole time you can still be a peach or a lime.
Speaker 1:The point is getting down to start eliminating. Jesus had to cut some of the fruit, cut some of the branches, prune where it needed to be. If we're not producing fruit, or if the fruit's not right, or if it's the wrong fruit, we have to prune it. And that's hard, that's a very hard thing. So you might be sitting here today and the Holy Spirit might be tapping you on the shoulder saying hey, there's some stuff. I just I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm trying to make you better. I'm not trying to kill you. I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm trying to make you better. I'm not trying to kill you. I'm not trying to make your life worse, I'm trying to make your life better, to where you can be more productive, more fruitful.
Speaker 1:So if we look at them, we go to the next test. The easy test is these all have a little label on them. So I can tell you that this one is a Cosmic Crisp. How many fans of the Cosmic Crisp do we have? We got some Richie, my brother, back at the back. He's representing for Cosmic Crisp. Okay, how many fans of the Pink Lady do we have? Okay, all right. How about Granny Smith? Okay, all right. We got some Granny Smith fans, more than I thought we would have. Okay, we'll skip that one and come back to the golden delicious. Anyone First service said boo, I don't know.
Speaker 1:And now for the grand champion of all apples, the Honeycrisp apple by far. Thank you. If you've never had this apple, go buy one. If you've never had this apple, go buy one. I can tell you that this apple is juicier and tastes better than all these from my perspective. I've tasted it. I know I've tasted all these apples.
Speaker 1:So for me, if I did the test, I would know this is the fruit I want. In fact, I've tried to figure out how can I grow this in my backyard. I have apple tree, I have an apple tree and it's not a honey crisp apple. We have to figure out how to grow the fruit, and so that's quick test for those fruits. So today we're going to take a quick test for our faithfulness, for the fruit of the spirit that God wants to grow in us, and so I'm going to give you three quick tests and you're going to have to look at your own self. I'm not going to come around and ask you what the results of your test are. But if God is looking and God is judging and God is discerning who he can get behind and who he can support and who he can grow more fruit in, then we need to look at ourselves as well.
Speaker 1:So, the first test, first of three tests today the test of little things. If you've got your notes, you can write that in there. The test of little things. What does the test of little things do? First off, let me just say that the test of little things truly matters, matters way more than we give it credit for.
Speaker 1:In fact, sean, can you hand me a chair right here? This is a test of integrity, right? So if Sean put this chair up here on the stage and handed me a chair and said, hey, it's in good shape, you can sit on it, most of us would say, yeah, I've seen a chair before a bunch of times, I can sit on it. But let's assume that I've never sat on a chair before. Let's assume that I didn't know if I didn't trust this chair. I don't know. I don't know if I trust you, sean. I don't know where this chair came from. I better test that. What are we going to do? We're going to test it before I sit on it or stand on it. What am I going to do? I'm going to push on it. I'm going little test before I do a big test, and then, if I'm still not sure, I might sit softly before I sit all the way down, and then I then I'm willing to fully trust it.
Speaker 1:And God does the same thing for us. We test things in life. We take small bites before we take a bite of food that we've never had before. What are we going to do? We're going to smell it. Maybe we're going to look at it, see if it passed the first few small tests, and then we'll be willing to taste it. God does that with us. God says I want to trust you with more. God's not holding back blessing just because he doesn't think you deserve it. He's waiting on you to show that you're faithful enough to use it. And so he gives us a little bit.
Speaker 1:And if we can't pass the test of faithfulness in small things, then we don't get to even take the test of faithfulness in the big things. This test, what does it look like practically? When does this test hit you? Watch, it hits you when no one's looking. It hits you when you're in your bedroom and no one's looking. It hits you when you're somewhere and no one. The answer to your question doesn't even matter to anybody else but you and God.
Speaker 1:Luke 16.10 says whoever is faithful in small matters will be faithful in large ones. In other words, what happens in the small, it also happens in the large. Whoever is dishonest in small matters will be dishonest in large ones. So God tests us on a small scale to see what will happen on the large scale. Your public blessing will be determined by your private integrity. You want the big blessing, you want God's hand of favor on your life, and yet you continue to fail the little test, the test of little things.
Speaker 1:This happens all the time in front of us, with politicians, people who stand up on a public stage and they cheat on their wife, or they cheat on taxes, or they cheat on something, and they say, well, my private life doesn't matter. Well, actually it does, because we think if no one sees, it doesn't affect anybody, it doesn't hurt anybody, it doesn't hurt anybody. But wait a second. If you'll lie to your wife, you'll lie to anybody. If you'll steal from your kids and your family, people that you love, or the people that love you. What will you do to the people who don't even know you? That same verse in Luke goes on and says and if you're not faithful with other people's things, why should you be trusted with the things of your own? In other words, why would God give me and trust me with more of his resources if I can't be shown to be trusted with other people's things?
Speaker 1:I think practically that looks like apprenticeship. It looks like for decades and centuries, the world has worked on apprenticeship. If you were a shoemaker or a carpenter, or if you did any kind of job in a professional way, you go serve under someone else who did it. They'd show you how you'd work, you'd be faithful. Then, finally, when you could be trusted, you could launch off on your own. You know that we have a world where apprenticeship is disappearing in some places because people just I'm going to go start a business and what happens? They fail. I can do it. I can start a restaurant like any. I could do that better than anybody else. Have you ever run a restaurant before? Well, no, right. We think we can do anything, but we haven't been faithful in little things, so we jump off, we bite off more than we can chew.
Speaker 1:As a pastor, I've had to live this out. At 16 years old, started serving at my church and I got hired to work at our church. I had another job, but after school I'd come by the church and guess what my first job at the church was? They didn't let me preach. I didn't want to preach. They didn't say hey, you're 16. You're the pastor? No, they asked me to clean the toilet and I said, sure, I was willing to do anything. In fact, I didn't even know why I was there exactly. I was just like, okay, it's cool, I like being at the church, I'll do anything I can to help. And for years that's what I did. And then I became the youth pastor and then an associate pastor and served under several other pastors and ministries over the last 25 years, all before I became, all before we started our own church, all before this moment and there is an apprenticeship, a faithfulness that you have to show before God's willing to license you to do the things that you want to do, the things that you feel called to.
Speaker 1:There might be a thing that you are undeniably sure, I am sure that God wants. This is my purpose, this is my calling, but then there's also a pathway of faithfulness. There's a track that you need to run on to show God that you're trustworthy and to build success, and so we have to be faithful in the small things, with other people, we have to be faithful. It's showing that I can be faithful with other people's things as well as my own things. That's the first test, the test of small things. The second test how can we check our fruit? The second test is the talent test. The talent test. What is this testing for?
Speaker 1:This test is testing for whether or not you're going to be a person that is selfish or unselfish, whether you're living your life for you or whether you're living your life for others. Because whether you're living your life for others, because I promise you, god has a design for you, and the design that he has for you is that you are not living for yourself. In fact, what greater love can there be than someone who lays down their life for someone else, like my life? Jesus poured out his life for other people. He didn't do it for himself. So have you decided what kind of life you're going to live, full of faith, pouring out your talents and your life for other people. Are you going to live for yourself or are you going to live for something bigger, something greater, because faithful people don't live for themselves. Okay, I'm going to tell you a little secret. So get ready.
Speaker 1:The talent that God put in you and so some of you, you might think, well, I'm really good with numbers, I'm administrative that might be your talent or your gifting, that might be your natural ability. Some of you have a natural charisma you just connect with people. You're a connector, you network. Some of you have a natural charisma you just connect with people. You're a connector, you network. Some of you have a gift of encouragement. Some people in the room have an incredible gift for music.
Speaker 1:Can I tell you? Here's the secret the gifts, the talents that God has put in you. They're not for you. If you can check that box in your heart, your life will change. Who are they for?
Speaker 1:Somebody said it they're for other people. That means that what's in me the talents, the gifting, like before I was born, knitted in my mother's womb, god made me, crafted me with purpose and with talent, and he put those talents and gift things in the future that he designed for me. It's not for me. That's crazy. And yet we grow up and we think, well, let me collect all my talents and all my money and build my life and figure out what I can do for me, and we're working backwards. The talent test is whether or not you're going to use what God gave you for you or use it to make a difference in someone else's life. It's a simple test, but it's hard to pass a test you don't know you're taking.
Speaker 1:Next, let me say this I want to empower you to use your talents for other people, for our community, for the church, for the world around us. God so loved the world that he gave his only son. He loved the world so he sent Jesus for the world. So we pour out our lives for the world. So, as a part of empowering you and myself and all of us, we have a culture that was born out of really the first days of this church. Before we ever had a church service, we were serving. Before we ever had a meeting where we were, before we ever sang songs on a stage, before I ever preached a message, we were serving in the community, sweating, pouring up blood, sweat and tears. That's part of our culture and I need you to know.
Speaker 1:Next week, serve Day. Pastor Angela talked about Serve Day. Next week we'll be out in the community making a difference. Sign up for it in the foyer, get plugged in.
Speaker 1:Next Sunday afternoon another opportunity. Where's all the Dream Team members in the room? We've got some Dream Team members, people who have decided I'm going to live for something else, bigger than me. So next Sunday 6 pm we'll be here Dinner. What does that look like? It's not just so that we'll have more people on the team. It doesn't just grow the church. What it does is it takes what's in us. It says, okay, I'm going to use this, not for me, but for other people.
Speaker 1:So we look at personality, spiritual gifting, the experience that you've had in life. Connect all of those dots and figure out how can you use that to make a difference in someone else's life. If I can help you do that, I will, because the only way that we can serve God on this earth is by serving other people. The way that I pour out my life to the Lord is by coming and finding somebody who's in need. Jesus said whatever you've done unto the least of these, what You've done it unto me. So I'm going to go find the least of these. I'm going to search out and seek out and make my life about. How can I pour out my life and pass this test? Because if I don't use those gifts, maybe it's a gift of faith, a gift of worship. If I don't use those gifts, maybe it's a gift of faith, a gift of worship. If I don't use them, I lose them.
Speaker 1:If you're not actively taking what God gave you and using it for someone else, then what happens is it spoils. God's watching to see if we're going to use it effectively. If we do, then he multiplies it and gives us more. He says if you're faithful in small things, you'll be able to be faithful in large things, and more so in heaven. Otherwise, if that's not true and God just made us on this earth and says hey, I want you to give your life to me, why didn't? When we get saved? Why don't we just go right to heaven when we make a commitment to Christ? Why don't we just I want you to give your life to me, why didn't? When we get saved? Why don't we just go right to heaven when we make a commitment to Christ? Why don't we just. I've talked about this before but it'd be really easy for us to just get to heaven. We can figure that out. That would be a much different new believers class. That'd be us just end my life and I'm in heaven. That's not the point. The point is that we surrender our life to him, we live a life that's worthy and honoring him, and we live it for other people. For the time that we have left on this earth, we pour into other people. We serve other people.
Speaker 1:1 Peter 4, verse 10 says each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others. What does that look like for you? Faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms? There's some things that God needs for you to use for someone else. Some of you guys are doing that very, very well. I commend everybody in the room. Some of you guys are doing that very, very well. I commend everybody in the room. But I want God to look down at us and say those are my people, those are the ones I'm going to invest in, those are the ones that I'm going to continue to pour out into.
Speaker 1:1 Corinthians 4 says now it is required of those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. God has given us so much that we have to prove. That's the test part. We have to prove faithful, all right. So the test of little things, the test of talents and finally, here's number three already, the test of tough times. This is the one we never know. We're in this test. This is the test that sneaks up on us and we don't realize it's a test. We just realize, hey, things got really tough. But what does this teach me? It teaches me persistence. It teaches me to not quit. It teaches me to press in. It teaches me to put my feet down and get planted. Just make a decisive commitment. I'm here, you can't stop me. Faithful people don't give up. They keep going. Faithful people are committed and determined and diligent and they can't quit.
Speaker 1:In 2017, when we started the idea 21 Days of Prayer most of you know this story the Lord put it on my heart and in my heart. First week of 21 Days of Prayer, go and I want you to plant a church. Okay, I felt that in my heart and I was like, okay, I'm going to go tell Angela and then the two of us are going to go start a church. I went and talked to Angela and her first. Two of us are going to go start a church. I went and talked to Angela and her first response was not me, he told you that Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. The last thing she wanted to do was go plant a church. But you know what I didn't say. Well, fine, then I quit. I have thought about quitting before, but it wasn't at that moment, it was still too new. But what happened over seven years? It only took her seven days to finally jump in. You know what? I think you're right. And so we were a team, team and nothing could stop us.
Speaker 1:But I can tell you there were a lot of times in being portable. How many of you guys were around when we were portable, setting up, taking down, hauling stuff back and forth. We got people in the room who remember those days, and so for almost seven years we were sweating, have to bring multiple changes of clothes to church, change in the bathroom. Have you ever tried to change clothes in a movie theater bathroom stall? We used to call the family bathroom my office, so I'll be in my office.
Speaker 1:There were many times because we looked for a building. Every week you guys would come and tell me hey, I found a building we can use. It's an old Wendy's. I'm like we're not going to have church on a Wendy's or a Luby's or any other restaurant. We're not meeting in a restaurant. We looked at every building and every time I realized it's not going to work. It made me think how long can we do this? How long can? At what point do we say there's not a building? Well, I can tell you that many Mondays I was, I wanted to quit. We're done. There's no money, there's no building. How can we keep doing this?
Speaker 1:After COVID, during COVID, I thought I don't know, if we're, will we be able to come back? After COVID, I don't know. But I didn't want to quit. We kept the dream team. The faithful servers on our team kept showing up. Many of you kept continued to show up for church. Did you continue to show up for church?
Speaker 1:I remember at one point thinking the Lord asking me what happens if you're portable forever. Are you willing to carry? I asked you to start a church. Are you willing to be portable forever? My answer was yes. Okay, lord, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to be portable forever, but I'm willing Because I think there has to be part of us that says you're not going to stop me Unless God says stop, then I've been faithful.
Speaker 1:I want to read you 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16. It says that's why we never give up. Paul says that's why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. We have to continue to re-up our investment and our commitment and our dedication to persistence, and I'm not going to give up. Verse 17,. For our present troubles are small and won't last very long, but it doesn't feel like that when the trouble hits right, it feels like our world is shattered and I don't know if I can keep doing this, but truly, in light of eternity, it's temporary, it's small, it's the small test. It's a tough time. Sure, it's tough, it's crushing sometimes, but we've got to keep going, it says. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. Everybody say it will last forever. It will last forever. It will keep on going into the investments that we're making, that we're committing to, of our faith. When this life is over, they're going to continue to pour into more and more people. I hope this church outlasts me long after I'm gone.
Speaker 1:I'm hoping that the work we do on Serve Day is about more than just one weekend of the year, the offering that we put in the pan every week. It's not just about what we can do this week and keeping the lights on. It's about what we can do to change people's lives. It says so. We don't look at the troubles we can see now. Rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. That we're driven by faith and not by sight, for the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last how long? Forever.
Speaker 1:So if you're struggling today, if you're fighting a battle, if you're in a tough time that you just cannot see the end of and you feel like you're in a dark place, can I tell you, first, off, it's temporary, and second, it's just a test Keep fighting, keep pushing, keep pressing in, keep believing, keep hanging, even if you feel like you're on that last thread of your strength. Just know that you are strong in your weakness. It gives you strength. You can do this. You can make it. Touch your neighbor and say you can make it. Tell your neighbor you got this. We might not feel like it, it might feel like I don't have another minute in me, I don't have another hour, but we got to keep going because God's looking for us to be faithful. Last verse, galatians 6, 9. So let's not get tired of doing what is good, it says, at just the right time. We will reap the harvest of blessing if we do not give up.
Speaker 1:Last thing I want to share with you is this my honey crisp apple. I really, really thought I'm going to plant Honeycrisp apple trees in my backyard and I'm going to have the best apples anywhere and I'm not going to have to buy them for $2 a piece. And then I figured out something called the. There's a fruit tree chill time. This is crazy. If you don't know about this, let me tell you real quick the fruit tree chill time. So here's a chart. I know it's weird, just stick with me. This is the amount of time that a fruit tree has to spend in temperatures between 32 and 45 degrees A chill time. And the chill time determines how good the blooms are. It determines how good the fruit is, how productive it is in the next season, and if the fruit tree never achieves these hours of chill time, it won't produce any fruit. Why? Because something.
Speaker 1:Every year the fruit tree, apple trees go into a dormancy phase. So winter, summer, spring, fall, they fall into a dormancy. You know, all leaves fall off and they're just not producing anything. But in order for they'll come back and produce leaves, but they won't produce blooms and they won't produce fruit if they don't achieve the chill hours. And the chill hours is the we'll call it the stress and the pressure that creates it breaks dormancy. It breaks the tree out of dormancy while it's still frozen, still cold outside. It reaches that amount of hours. It's crazy that you would think that plants are keeping up with the hours and the minutes that they're spending, but it happens for all of these fruit trees, and farmers know it and they track it and they plant them in the right zones and the right climates so that they'll reach their chill zones and produce the most fruit.
Speaker 1:What I thought was truly amazing. I can do the test on my own and decide that this is the best apple. I can figure that out just by tasting it, feeling, looking at it. This is the best one of all the apples, this is the king of apples. But it's also very interesting to see that of the chill hours required for each of the apple trees. You see, I have an Anna tree in my backyard, an Anna apple tree. It only takes 200 chill hours. So we reach that in Houston, so it'll produce apples. But the reason I can't have this one is because we don't reach the amount of hours required. But if you go all the way down, actually the highest chill hours of all the fruit is the Honeycrisp. Apple takes up to 1,000 hours of chill. Isn't it amazing the correlation between how many hours of stress and pressure and uncomfort that it needs to break it out of dormancy to produce the highest level of flavor and sweetness.
Speaker 1:There's some things that God wants to do in you and you keep trying to pray away all of the uncomfortable things. You keep trying to say God, take this pressure away, I don't need this climate in my life, I'm just going to go over here, or I don't like this church and the things that they're saying to me right now. Pastor Sean, this message is making me uncomfortable. I will not see you next week, so we remove ourselves. But there's something that is something to be said for getting rooted and planted in a place that might not make you comfortable all the time, but it's what produces fruit. And so when God tells me to go this way, I'm going. And if God says, stand here, I'm standing, even if I'm uncomfortable or it gets cold or it gets hot or the wind starts blowing or people start telling me things I don't like to hear. If God wants me to be there, I'm going to be there because that's where the fruit comes here. If God wants me to be there, I'm going to be there because that's where the fruit comes.
Speaker 1:We have to get planted, we have to develop the blooms, we have to be where God made us to be and decide to be fruitful. So stop running away when it gets hard. Plant your feet and decide. I'm gonna be a faithful person. I'm gonna let the fruit of the Holy Spirit in me be faithfulness. I'm gonna let my family grow and be strong and pass the test of little things, pass the test of the talents and pass the test of the tough times.
Speaker 1:I want us to pray today. I want us to commit ourselves to more fruit this summer. Even if it means stretching, even if it means being uncomfortable, we're going to grow. We're going to put ourselves to the test. Would you stand up on your feet? I want to pray for you. We're going to pray and commit ourselves and we're going to worship for a moment before we dismiss. Pray and commit ourselves and we're going to worship for a moment before we dismiss.
Speaker 1:I know it's tough to say God test me. None of us want to say that, but today we're looking at our own fruit, and so let's commit ourselves to faithfulness and the fruit that he desires for us, so that, when he looks across the world, he sees us, for us. So that, when he looks across the world, he sees us ready and willing and faithful and eager to be his people, called by his name. Let's pray, dear God. We are so thankful for the many blessings that you give us, even in times of trouble, even when times get tough.
Speaker 1:Lord, we want to pass each of these tests. So let us be faithful. Let us be people of integrity, god. Let us be people who use our talents for others and not just for ourselves, and not be so self-focused that we are completely irrelevant to what you want to do in the world. Let us be a help and an aid to those who are struggling in our state, those who are struggling right around the corner from us, Even, god, those who are struggling in our state, those who are struggling right around the corner from us, even God, those who are struggling in our own homes, our neighbors, our friends, our family, the people we work with, the people in this church. God, let us lend aid, let us pour out our lives to be used by you, let us plant our feet where you want them to be planted, and let us grow in our faithfulness. In Jesus' name, we love you. Lord. Let's worship for a moment.
Speaker 2:He heard and he answered. That's why I trust him. That's why I trust him. I saw the lord and he heard and he answered. I sought the lord and he heard and he answered. I sought the lord and he answered. That's why I trust him. That's why I trust him. I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered. I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered. I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered. That's why I trust him. That's why I trust Him. That's why I trust in God, my Savior. You're the one who will never fail. He will never fail. He will never fail. I trust in God, my Savior, the one who will never fail. He will never fail. Come on sing. I sought the Lord never. That's why I trust him. That's why I trust Him. That's why I trust Him.
Speaker 2:I saw the Lord and he heard and he answered. I saw the Lord and he heard and he answered. I saw the Lord and he heard and he answered. That's why I trust Him. That's why I trust you. That's why I trust you, god. We trust you, jesus. You never fail. You will never fail. You will never fail.
Speaker 1:The reason that we can produce faithfulness it's not because we're good, it's because he's good. And the reason that he wants faithfulness is not because we can do it on our own, it's because he puts it into us, because we are his children, because his spirit is in us. He's more faithful than you could ever imagine. It's one of the most mind-blowing things about the fruit of the spirit is that when you think about love, we have this image of love. But what real love is can't fit into our brain. It can't, it can hardly fit. We can hardly imagine what real godly love looks like, because unconditional love, it's just. We don't have a baseline, we don't have a standard for what that is. We, we have an idea, sure, but all the fruit of the Spirit, god's faithfulness, is never ending. Spirit, god's faithfulness is never ending. Like every day, his mercies are new. It's not that God wakes up one day and he's feeling good about us today, and then tomorrow he's. I don't know about them. God loves you every day and he's full of faith when it concerns you. He wants the best for you and we achieve that best by coming into right relationship with God, coming into a right relationship with our Father. This is not joining a church. This is me saying God I want my life to be in you, I want to submit myself to you, I want to follow you, whatever that looks like. And so, in closing today, I'd love for us to say this prayer together. I won't call you out, I won't ask you to come forward, but I would love for you to say this prayer with me, right here in this room, or watching online. If that's you today and you've never surrendered your life to him, if you've never chosen to follow a loving father who believes and wants the best for you, maybe today's the day. All it takes is a simple confession of faith, a surrender of your heart, confession out of your mouth. The Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So you can start that journey of faith to follow him, right here, as we say this prayer. Would you just bow your heads, right where you are, and I would invite everyone in the room would you say this prayer with me. Dear Heavenly Father, today I give you my life and I choose to follow you. God, breathe life into me, take away my old life and give me a new one. Forgive me of my sin. Help me to follow you with all of my heart, with all of my soul, with all of my strength In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:Can you give a round of applause for everybody who said that prayer? If you did say that prayer, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of where we're going and what God's doing with us in this place and in this community. I love you guys and I'm looking forward to this evening. If you're coming to Pizza with a Pastor, or next Saturday for Serve Day, if you'd like to pray with someone before you leave, if you'd like to take someone by the hand and say a prayer of faith, you can come down to the front. The prayer team's gonna join me. Otherwise, you guys are dismissed. In the name of Jesus, we love you wall of heaven.
Speaker 2:I proclaim every weapon for the dead must break in the mighty name of Jesus. In the mighty name of Jesus, I know all the power of fear and darkness. Name of jesus, every key to every victory. Name of jesus I will not fear. I will not. It's the blood of Jesus Christ. I will not fear, I will not fear. There's an army of angels here. I'm protected on all sides by the blood of Jesus Christ. In the mighty name of Jesus, I pray, calling on the power of heaven. I proclaim Every weapon from the body it must break In the mighty name of Jesus. Must, must, must go every key to everything to me. I hope it's in the mighty name of Jesus. It's in the mighty name of Jesus. It's in the mighty name of Jesus. We thank you for spending a little bit of your life with us today and please be fruitful and be faithful in his faithfulness to you. Show it to others. Have a good day. Thank you, you.