P.O.P. - Progression Over Perfection | The Great 8

Hi, my name is Bree, and today we're talking about what kind of church we are. So you may be wondering, what kind of church are we? We are a church that values progression over perfection, or another way we like to say it is POP, P-O-P. We believe that through theology, therapy, and community, God can turn trauma into triumph. As a matter of fact, in Colossians 2, 6-7 it says, And now, just as you have accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him. Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth that you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. It takes time to grow in your faith and in your relationship with God. Now, I know what culture says. Culture says things like, get rich quick, or how to be an overnight success, or how to 10X your business in 5 days. Well, the kingdom of God is very different. It takes time to mature. As a matter of fact, scripture tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature. I remember being a kid, and one of the things I really was excited about was learning how to drive. So I would get on my bicycle, I would act like I was putting my blinker on to turn the corner. I mean, I would do all the things you do in a car, but really, I wasn't driving a car at all because I wasn't mature enough to drive a car. And one of the things that I could not stand as a child is that I wasn't old enough or grown enough to be able to do that. It takes time to mature. So I want to give you three things that you can take with you as things that you can do to grow over time in your relationship with God and in your faith. The first thing is grace.

Do you know why we have to have grace for ourselves? Paul tells us in Romans 7, 15, I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. Paul is showing us here that every single one of us are going to do things that we actually don't want to do, or we know is not best for ourselves. So the only way as imperfect human beings that we can continue in progression is to give ourselves grace. We're going to mess up. I'm going to mess up. We're going to mess up. But grace covers all of our mess ups. The scripture tells us that where sin abounds, grace abounds even more, meaning there's more grace than you could ever work up in sin. I promise you, God has more grace for you than you ever even know it. The second thing is guardrails. Now Proverbs, it tells us to guard your heart above all else because it determines the course of your life. If you are going to grow in your relationship with God, you must put into practice some guardrails. Now, this means that there are certain things that we don't do anymore once we have a relationship with God. There are certain things that we don't say anymore, and honestly, there are certain people that we don't hang out with anymore because we are guarding what we consider now to be our most important relationship, most valuable relationship we have in our life. The other thing you want to do is guard your time with God. If you're going to grow in your relationship with Him, you must spend time with Him, and we do that through our spiritual practices. So that's through prayer, through scripture, through community. Even a day of rest that we call Sabbath is a way that we grow in our relationship with

God. So you must have grace, number one. Number two, you have to have some guardrails, and last but certainly not least, you have to have some guidance. This is why we believe theology, which is allowing the Word of God to guide us, therapy, which is allowing counselors to guide us, and community, which is allowing the friends and the family that God put in our life to help guide us also. One word to sum all this up is called accountability. In order for us to grow in our relationship with God, we must be held accountable. We need some accountability in our lives. In Proverbs 11 and 14, it says, Where there is no counsel, the people fall. But in a multitude of counselors, there is safety. What the scripture is telling us is that it's important for us to have guidance. This is not just something that's good for us, but the scripture tells us without it, we fall, and with it, we are safe. Remember that our roots determine our fruit, and it takes time, like any farmer knows, for those roots to grow down deep to see the fruit that you want to see in your life, because you can believe this. In Philippians 1 and 6, it says, And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. We take the steps, and God does the good work on the inside of us. Today, if you want to grow deeper in your relationship with God, progression over perfection, We want you to do something called Thirsty 30. It's 30 minutes a day where you spend 10 minutes in prayer, 10 minutes reading the Bible, and 10 minutes in worship. We believe that if you continue to do this over time, you're going to see your relationship with God grow exponentially. So remember, this is who we are.

We are a church that values progression over perfection, or POP. Go out and live a transformed life.