Planting Seeds Of Faith

Sermon Outline

To beging today’s message I would like you to listen to 3 verses from scripture and see if you notice something

Read

John 1:41

John 1:43

John 1:45

One of the amazing things for me is the way God chooses to connect with us.

The way God chooses to connect with you and me.

Did you notice that in these three verses

God uses people,

ordinary people to put us into contact with Him,

His love

and importantly the future with Him

And also God uses you

to put others in contact with Him,

His love

and the future with Him

Think about all the people who have played a role or influenced your faith.

They maybe parents, a pastor, other members of this congregation or another congregation.

In my life there have been people who have said words of comfort.

There have been others who are great teachers and have opened up the scriptures

There have been others who have helped me see more clearly God’s perspective of life.

There have been others who have been constant reminders of how much God loves me.

There have been people who are great examples of faith not matter what is happening around them

I am thankful for many people, and that God continues to place people in my life who are constantly dropping seeds of faith.

What about you?

Who can you think of that has influenced and helped you with your relationship with God?

And not only are we called to receive seeds of faith,

God also calls each one of us to share these seeds of faith.

Not just once in a persons life, but ongoing.

When it comes to planting seeds of faith,

The best people for us to be doing this is amongst those people whom we are already in contact with.

A friends and family.

Now already I can sense some of you are uneasy.

I find talking about Jesus and us his love and approach to life in some ways the most difficult amongst those friends and family who are not Christians, who avoid church like the plague.

I have come to realise part of this is because I am often more concerned about having a good relationship with them on earth, than them joining me in heaven.

I am too worried how they will react.

But I have also realised that the seeds of faith I plant amongst them will take time.

I can think of two or three people who’s attitudes have changed to Christianity and God because I have maintained a relationship with them

Over time their attitude has altered from very negative to starting to be interested.

And today’s Gospel reading highlights some important things that help us plant seeds of faith in the life of others.

The first is to understand and see what experiences we have had with God.

In verse 45, when Philip found Nathanael he said, “we have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

This was Philip highlighting how the God of scripture was true in his life.

So understanding our experiences are not so much the supernatural stuff.

So how has the God of scripture been true in your life?

How has God affected your life?

How has God touched you?

Many people have particular verses of the bible that mean a lot to them.

Do you have any?

Another way is to use the Faith 5 approach that we handed out earlier.

It is a simple approach of seeing how God interacts with our lives.

At sometime of each day with your spouse, your partner, family members or a friend you sit down and

Begin a conversation by sharing a high and a low of your day.

It doesn’t have to be too major high or low.

One day my son said, my low for the day was having to clean up my room.

And the high he said was finding some missing lego pieces

Your highs and lows could be anything.

Low I was late for work, and a high I was able to complete everything I wanted to do today

Then you read a passage of scripture.

Now you may want to use the daily bible readings booklet we handed out or you may want to use the readings in the bulletin or some people choose a book of the bible and over time read through that.

Then you talk about what scripture is saying to your highs and lows,

Now at times through scripture God maybe giving you words of comfort

At other times words of guidance and direction

At other times he maybe saying hey you are on the wrong track