No matter how much we may want to shield and protect our children, we can't keep them from learning that our world can be a dark place. But another important lesson our children learn early on is how big of a difference a little light can be.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to let the light of Jesus shine through us into the darkness of this world.

It's easy to tell when a plant is growing. The stem will lengthen, branches will form, and eventually fruit will sprout. But how do you know if your faith is growing?

In church, we typically try to measure our faith by talking about how often we read the Bible, or how long we pray, or how frequently we attend church. But none of these things truly measure our faith. Just like a plant, or faith is measured by the fruit we produce.

Do you remember the first time you swung a baseball bat...did you hit a home run or strike out? What about the first time you rode a bike...did you go sailing down the street or fall into some bushes? Whenever we try new things we usually fail more than we succeed.

The same is true for our faith. Nobody has a perfect faith...so we all have to start where we are and keep working until our faith grows.

We live in a world that often tells us that we're not good enough. We hear it from car commercials. We hear it from our co-workers, we hear it from our own kids.

So, it is easy to believe that God feels the same way about us...that we're not good enough. But in this sermon, we'll see that not only does God believe we are good enough, God also calls us to do incredible things.

In a world filled with overwhelming problems, personal disappointments, and waiting that seems endless, it's easy to lose hope and want to give up. So how can we keep hope alive when we reach a point where we want to quit?

By maintaining a sense of gratitude and recognizing God's faithfulness, we can keep hope alive in the face of adversity and we can keep going when we're ready to quit.

Whether you're sitting in a drive-thru line at McDonald's or standing in line to check out at Target...nobody likes to wait. And the longer you have to wait to achieve a goal or accomplish a task, the more likely it is that you'll give up on it altogether.

So, if we want to keep going when we're ready to quit, we need to learn how to wait.

When you reach a point where you're ready to throw your hands up and quit, you're also in danger of compromising your character and doing something you'd never dream of doing - like lying, or cheating, or hurting someone else.

So how can you keep from compromising your character when you're ready to quit? You have to cling to God and remember who God made you to be.

There are times when it feels like everyone has given up on you...and, when that happens, it's hard to have faith in yourself. And when you lose faith in yourself, it's easy to want to give up.

But before you give up, you need to remember that God never gives up on us. And that, no matter what we're facing, God is with us.

Whether you've received a troubling diagnosis from your doctor, or hit a rough patch in your marriage, or reached your breaking point at work; we've all had times when we've been ready to give up.

But before you give up, you need to remember that you are still a child of God, and God will help you make it through because God still has good planned for your life.

There are times when we all feel resigned to the violence and hatred, pain and suffering, sorrow and despair that we see in our world. It can feel like these problems are too big to solve and there's nothing we can do about them.

But before we give up, we need to remember that we should never grow weary of doing good. So no matter how big the world's problems may be, there is still good that we can do.