What's Big Starts Small

6 Ways to Grow Great Faith

Mike Novotny

• Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780764240034
• eBook ISBN: 9781493437412
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Does Your Faith Seem Stuck?

Do you ever feel like you're not growing in your faith the way you're supposed to? It turns out, there are forces working against you--threats to your faith--trying to keep you from flourishing in your relationship with God.

One of Jesus' parables--in fact, the one that gets the most space on God's sacred pages--deals with this very issue. It's the story about the sower, the seed, and the soil (Matthew 13). Just as a farmer doesn't toss seed on the ground to get rid of it, God never brings you into contact with his Word for no reason. A farmer wants fruit, and God wants to help you experience more joy, peace, love, etc.
 
This book is structured around the six threats Jesus lists in the parable of the sower and the seed--pride, pain, worries, wealth, wants, and not waiting--and the corresponding strategies to overcome them. If you're wondering why your faith isn't working in some aspects of your life, the message of this book may be what you've been looking for.

"Mike Novotny is one of those rare writers who is a real joy to read, and his new book, What's Big Starts Small, is no exception. If you've ever struggled with your Christian life or been frustrated with God, this is the book for you."--PHIL COOKE, PhD, media producer and author of The Way Back: How Christians Blew Our Credibility and How We Get It Back

Part 1: Your Potential and Jesus’ Parable

1
Exponential Potential

Up to Your Potential?

If you are reading this book,* I assume you have something in common with me: in the past year, you heard God’s Word. You went to church, read devotions at home, podcasted sermons, listened to Christian radio, or scrolled through Bible passage posts on social media. You might even be one of those rare people who did all the things on that list. In fact, you might be the rarest of Christians who does all those things every week!

If that assumption is correct, let me make a second assumption about you—I bet that you, like me, wonder why your faith isn’t all that great. I’m not talking about perfect faith—you are a saved sinner and not our sinless Savior, after all. I’m talking about great faith. Strong faith. Mature faith. The kind of faith that people notice and thank God for (Matthew 5:16). The faith that produces a pure life that wins over your non-Christian friends and family, not with your evangelistic words but with your extraordinary actions (1 Peter 3:1–2). The faith that gushes so much love that outsiders know that you must be a follower of Jesus (John 13:35).

I’m talking about the great faith that has no place for shame, self-loathing, or feeling alone since it trusts that God is for you, in you, and with you (Romans 8:31). Great faith that knows exactly what to do with a relapse, a spot of cancer, or a lifelong struggle with worry: run to the grace of your Savior, ask the Father for peace that goes beyond understanding, and rely on his Spirit to put sin to death (Romans 8:1–4). Great faith that casts all your anxiety on God because you have zero doubts that he cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Great faith that believes that it is more blessed to give money than to receive it, no matter what tax bracket you are in (Acts 20:35). Great faith that preaches biblical truth at your own depressed heart and commands your feelings to submit to the facts of your salvation (Psalm 42:5). Great faith that trusts that the Bible’s command about honoring your imperfect parents is not burdensome (1 John 5:3). Great faith that refuses to keep score in a relationship but instead makes you-first love its daily goal (1 Corinthians 13:5). Great faith that sees your children’s tantrums as opportunities to make better disciples and not simply as annoyances that make Mommy angry (Ephesians 4:31–32). Great faith that sees God’s face shining upon you despite all the messiness still within you (Numbers 6:25). In other words, faith that believes what God says and behaves accordingly.

Since “faith comes from hearing the message” (Romans 10:17), you would expect message hearers like us to have faith like this . . .

You got faith that great? (Just typing that last page made me feel un-great-er.)

So what happened? Why didn’t the Word you heard seem to work? Why didn’t “it is finished” finish your feelings of not being good enough for God? Why didn’t Christ’s “look at the birds” sermon keep you from looking at all the imaginary what-ifs you worry about? Why didn’t the sermon series on spiritual priorities re-prioritize your schedule to seek God first? Why does your spiritual maturity seem stuck in puberty?

If your answer is, “Because I am a sinner living in this demonically deceived world,” I would agree with everything except your logic. You are indeed a sinner who daily fights against your sinful nature (Galatians 5:17). And you are, lamentably, still in this world that tempts you in ten ways every two minutes (1 John 2:16). And the devil is still good at his job, lying with such subtlety that sin seems good in the moment (John 8:44).

But look back at your answer above. Your “because” lacks biblical logic, since it would disqualify any sinner from having great faith. But some Christians truly do have a more mature faith than others, proven by their ability to go through the same situations that we do yet respond in different ways. They battle the same flesh, live in the same world, and go to war against the same Satan, yet the outcome of their battles is notably different. Not perfect, but different.

I notice this difference all the time. Why was I the only person in the meeting who got defensive and made an honest discussion of an idea so unnecessarily awkward? Apparently, everyone else in the room found another path to take while I, prone as I am to wander, wandered away from humility and love. Why, on the soccer field, does my heart want me to be the best player instead of the best example of Christian love? Most of my teammates seem to handle defeat much better than I do, while I pout on the drive home and, the morning after, send an apologetic email for my sour attitude. Again.

Given my (1) occupation and (2) spiritual habits, you would assume I would be much better at these basic commandments. If I spent as much time with a guitar as I do with God, I would be a Gen X Jimi Hendrix. I read my Bible in the morning, podcast sermons while I shave, sing praises to Jesus while I drive to work, spend my entire workday with the Scriptures nearby (pastoral perk!), drive home with more podcasts, do a devotion with my family after dinner, and read Christian nonfiction until I turn out the lights.

Imagine if I spent an equal amount of time doing anything else. Block out that same time at the gym, and I would soon crush my current pull-up record.† If I immersed myself in an equivalent amount of Spanish, I would impress native speakers with my knowledge of the word for “pull-up.”‡

You get my point. On paper, I should be great at this Jesus thing, but great isn’t a great word to describe my less-than-flattering faith. Am I just being too hard on myself? Is my faith actually growing but in slow, steady, hard-to-see ways? Or am I right to think that after all those church services and all those quiet times, I should have a lot more spiritual fruit by now?

Do you ever feel this way? If so, there is some news you need to hear.

Bad News/Good News/Great News

I have bad news: Jesus said that we often fall short of our potential because our souls are under an all-out assault by those who hate God. Even though we might hear the Word, we have spiritual enemies that appear before church, during our devotions, and after our amens. To quote Jesus, these villains attempt to “trample on,” “snatch up,” “wither,” “scorch,” and “choke out” God’s truth before it does anything great in our lives.

In other words, counting your hours of hearing the Word to determine the greatness of your faith is no more accurate than counting the tomato seeds you spill in a parking lot to estimate how many ripe tomatoes you’ll get. Great faith doesn’t come from simply hearing the Word. It comes from planting the Word and then protecting it from its most common predators. To paraphrase Jesus, exponential faith only happens if we hear the Word, understand the Word, accept the Word, retain the Word, and persevere with the Word.

I have good news: Jesus told us the six specific ways that these enemies work, namely, through pride, pain, worries, wealth, wants, and not waiting. Our Savior, in love, snuck their playbook into one of his parables, affording us an incredible advantage to win more spiritual battles than ever before. Imagine if you were an NFL coach and somehow knew the play that your opponent was about to run. You would pay close attention and adjust accordingly because knowing your enemy’s tactics is a key to victory.

I have great news: God wants to help you. The God of power and love wants his Word to reach its potential in you and through you. As you read his Book, God will forgive you for falling short, end your “I can’t do this” pity party, and pick you up by his Spirit so that you can grow in faith, know Jesus even better, and love like never before. God wants that! Ponder that for a moment—God wants you to have great faith.

How do I know? Because every farmer wants fruit.

In the story we are about to study, Jesus compared our Father to a farmer. I’ve never met a farmer who simply wanted to get rid of seed without any desire for a future harvest. And I have yet to meet a God who simply wanted to get rid of his Word without any desire for a better you.

“Just go to church and get it over with,” God never once said.

“Check that ‘quiet-time’ box and get on with your day,” Jesus never once commanded.

“Just double-speed that worthless devotion,” the Spirit never once encouraged.

God wants his Word to work wonders in your life. That is the entire reason he brought you into contact with the Bible. Church services, worship playlists, and home devotions have never been the end game for God, because this Farmer is after fruit. Lots of it.

A more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, good, gentle, kind, faithful, and self-controlled you is what God wants (Galatians 5:22–23). A new you who can cast all your nighttime anxiety on him, be self-controlled in the face of clickbait news, and be content even when criticized is what God wants (1 Peter 5:7; Philippians 4:13). God wants to help you forgive what you can’t forget about your father, to let go of what you can’t control about your kids, and to know he delights in you even when you are postpartum depressed or despairing over your own sinfulness. Your growth is on the top of God’s to-do list.

Meditate on that when you find your seat next Sunday in church or when you listen to that Christian audiobook during your morning workout. The God who controls all things has brought you—out of all the billions of people on the planet—into contact with this particular passage—out of the tens of thousands of options—for one specific purpose: spiritual growth.

“How much growth?” you ask.

More than you imagine.

Your Exponential Potential

During a chilly February in the early ’80s, I was conceived. Since we are just beginning our writer-reader relationship, I will spare you the details, but, according to the science, my microscopic beginning created a six-foot, two-inch man who can dunk on a ten-foot rim.§

Isn’t that insane? If my calculations are correct, my mother’s egg grew 20,000 times its original size, an organic absurdity that is true, give or take a few inches, for billions of humans. Even LeBron James came from two things you could barely see!¶

If you didn’t know the science behind human development, would you ever believe the exponential growth that the average adult experiences? Exponential might sound like clickbait marketing jargon, but what other word fits a 20,000-times return on investment?

The same thing that happens with humans takes place in the garden. You would need an oversized laundry basket to carry the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title Page
• Books by Mike Novotny
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Part 1: Your Potential and Jesus’ Parable
• Part 2: The 6 Threats
• Part 3: Your Potential (Revisited)
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• About the Author
• Back Ad
• Back Cover