Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Finishing What You Started | Noah Herrin | Build the Boat: Part 1

Episode Date: August 31, 2025

Feel stuck between where you are and where you want to be? The moments we feel like giving up are often the ones that matter most! Discover how to persevere and move forward with confidence in this message.NEXT STEPSHave you made the decision to follow Jesus? You might be wondering what’s next for you. We want to help! Check out these resources to ​​discover what saying yes to Jesus means: https://www.life.church/yesWe’d Love to Get to Know YouLife.Church isn’t just something you listen to—it’s a place where you can grow and connect. And we want to help you do that! Share a little about yourself and what resources would help you on your faith journey with this short survey: https://life.church/podcastconnect ABOUT THIS MESSAGEEver gone after a dream full of excitement, only to lose steam when progress slowed down? If you’ve wondered whether you should keep going, this message will give you a fresh perspective on the power of persistence.Find prayers to help you focus, practice self-discipline, and stay consistent: https://go2.lc/focus ABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.churchFind locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/appFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@life.churchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIG GROESCHELYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/craiggroeschelFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So I told you I've been married for about six years, and kind of a little bit of our story is we were dating, and I really wanted to tell Maddie that I loved her for the first time, but I was very nervous. It's that scene in the movie that we've all watched. Maybe you've seen it play out in your own life. Your heart is pounding. You're planning on saying it. You walk up to her, and you're like, Maddie, I got to tell you something. And she's like, what do you got to tell me? And you say, your parents are out of toilet paper in their spare bathroom. Because you get so nervous. And so long story short, my friends and I, Maddie's friends and her,

we all decide to take this group trip during that summer, our first summer together, to Hawaii. Okay, now this sounds very bougie. I promise it was a group on, all right? It was very cost-effective. And we go to Hawaii, and I'm picturing, man, what better place to tell the woman of your dreams that you love her than in Hawaii? Okay, I'm picturing me surfing up on a surfboard.

Coconut's in both hands. You know, acoustic music in the background. And what actually ended up happening is we get to Hawaii and I'm sleeping on a little pull-out couch. It's like our second morning there. And about 5 o'clock in the morning, I wake up to the sound of the glass door at the back part of our Airbnb opening up. I look over and I see my girlfriend Maddie walking towards the ocean. And so I take off running.

I jump out of this little pull-out couch, take off running after her, make sure she's okay. And she starts telling me, she says, oh, I ate some fish last night and I think it's not settling well. I just needed some fresh air. And it was like I heard the audible voice of the Lord say, this is your time. And so we start walking down the beach and it's beautiful. The sun is rising. the birds are chirping and just magical moment, truly. When we get to this little edge of beach and I stop her, I grab her by both hands. I stared into her beautiful blue eyes. And I said, Maddie, I love you.

I just felt this like instant relief. Like, I finally did it. And she looked back at me and my kind of average brown eyes. And she said, no, I think I'm going to throw up. And she ran to the bushes. Welcome to my life. A couple weeks later, I got down on Wendy and I proposed. And even though that happened in Hawaii, she said yes, come on, somebody.

Three kids later, six years of marriage. This is what I've learned in six years of marriage. It's that anybody can propose. But it takes a lot to wake up every single day and to choose each other in a marriage. What I've learned in 30 years of life is that it's easy to start something. but it's much harder to finish. That starting things is actually really easy, but as a follower of Jesus,

finishing things is biblical. And so we're absolutely called to start. We're absolutely called to take the step of faith, but what makes us unique is that we serve a God who didn't just start things he finished, and as we follow him, we're called to do the same thing. In fact, God's measurement of success could be boiled down to one word,

and it's the word faithfulness. Are you going to be faithful with what I've asked you to do? I don't know about you, but faithfulness is easy to preach sometimes and hard to live. Every January for the last six years, I've had the same New Year's resolution. It's I'm going to get ripped. And for the first seven, ten, maybe fourteen days, I'm doing it. I'm in the gym. I'm eating grass.

I'm waking up early. But around day 15, I'm back at Chick-fil-A. Because starting things is easy, but finishing things is hard. Noah, most Bible scholars believe, built this boat, built this art for around 120 years. Can you imagine doing the same exact thing for 120 years? The only way you can do that is if your measurement of success is the same as gods. It's the goal of my life is to do exactly what God told me to do today,

and tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'm going to do that same thing. And the next day I'm going to wake up and I'm going to have that same goal. And the next day, and then one day you look up and you go, wow, God did so much, but it could all be traced back to small steps of obedience. I came across this article in the New York Times. It was in the New York Times a few years ago. And the article was written about millennials and Gen Z, entering into the workforce. And the point of this article was to display some research,

some findings about what they were seeing, the trends that they were observing. And the big takeaway was that the average Gen Z and millennial adult will hold 14 different full-time jobs by the age of 31. Very high number of jobs. Now, they weren't sharing this research because they were trying to be critical of Gen Z or millennials. They were basically just trying to say, unlike any other time in human history, human beings are looking for the next best opportunity. If we can find something that pays better, we'll take it. If we can find something that leads to us having a better reputation, we'll take it. If we can find something that causes us to advance in our career, we'll take it. But as a follower of Jesus, we've got to be really careful that we don't approach following God in that way. Because God does not give opportunities. God gives assignments.

And there is a big difference between an opportunity and an assignment. An opportunity might bring your name fame, but your assignment will bring God's name fame. An opportunity might build your brands, but an assignment will build God's kingdom. An opportunity is all about maybe pleasing yourself, but your assignment is about pleasing God and serving others. I came to Life Church to tell you today, is not the day to give up your God given assignment for a man-made opportunity. Because when we get to heaven, we are not going to hear well done, my good and rich servant, well done my good and famous servant, well done my good and you are very successful servant. We are going to hear well done my good and faithful servant.

Faithfulness is our goal as followers of Jesus. Faithfulness. One of my favorite scriptures is Galatians chapter 6, verse 9. It says, let us not become weary in doing good. For at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. What I love about that scripture is it gives us one job. Everybody say one job. Come on, one job. Don't give up. Don't give up. If we don't give up on what God has asked us to do, it's God who does the heavy lifting. It's God who builds the boat. It's God who brings the harvest. When I was four years old, my parents signed me up for the first time for sports.

And they signed me up for baseball, T-ball, four years old, and my T-ball coach could not see the athletic promise in me that I could see. And so he put me in right field. Now, I don't know if you've been to any four-year-old T-ball games lately, but not many balls get hit to right field. So I'm out there, and after like the first or second game, not a single ball had been hit to right field. And so I'm complaining to my mom in the car. Mom, you should have signed me up for soccer. Mom, you should have signed me up for a sport that's not as boring. Nobody ever hits the ball to me. And my mom, she's one of those moms. She's like, if we sign up for it, you're going to be in that field, every single inning.

So she's giving me the talk, you know. Well, around game three, everything changed for me because they started giving away free snow cones after the game. I was immediately the biggest baseball fan. We get to the end of the season. I think it was like a five or six game sees him, and this little guy gets up to bat, and he really rips one. And by really ripping one, it like rolled into right field. And everybody's going crazy. They look into the right field area, only there was no right fielder. Because the right fielder in the middle of the fourth inning had walked around the fence and was standing in the snow cone line. This is a true story. My mom was sharing this story with my wife because she had never heard it and we're all laughing and my mom's like showing her photos, you know, the little baseball cards that they take your photo and put in.

And my mom's showing all the photos. My wife's laughing. And all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit convicted me in my parents' living room and said, Noah, how often do you do the same thing spiritually? Has God ever put you in a place? You believed he put you in that position when it was time to start. but some time passed and expectations didn't match reality. And all of a sudden, you start to question if it was God that actually put you in that place. And all of a sudden, you leave the place that God puts you, not because God told you to go, but because it didn't happen the way that you thought it was going to happen. What if today we just re-uped with God and we said, God, I'm realizing I don't need a position change,

I need a perspective change. God, if you haven't told me to leave, I'm just going to keep building. God, if you haven't told me to stop, I'm just going to keep sewing. God, if you haven't told me to quit, I'm not going to quit because you're going to bring a harvest if I keep showing up. I'm going to build the boat. I'm going to build the boat. I think what God is looking for in 2025 are some people who maybe they're not the most talented. Maybe they're not the most gifted. But their goal is the same goal as Noah. I want to be faithful with what God's put in my hand. Humor me for just a second.

I have a note in my phone called Best Bible Netflix Shows. Now, this is not a rating of Bible Netflix shows because there's not very many. This is if Netflix ever comes to me and says, we want to turn some Bible stories into Netflix shows, which one would be the best? I think the story of Noah would be the best Netflix show. Just picture the pilot episode, okay? Noah walks into the living room. I know this is ridiculous.

Just go with me for a second. Noah walks into the living room. Hey, babe. He's talking to his wife. Quit my job today. Oh. Why'd you do that, Noah? I'm going to build a boat.

All the married people. Let's just imagine that went great. Went great. What about like year five? Like what about when Noah said I'm going to build a boat? Like, what if his wife was like, is it going to be a fishing boat? Is that how we're going to pay the bills? And Noah's like, think more carnival cruise ship.

What about year 10 of that? Noah? You know those dinner parties we used to get invited to with the neighbors? with the tea and the crumpets, we just made it a British Netflix show. We don't get invited to those parties anymore. Because everybody thinks we're crazy. Because for 10 years, we've been doing something that doesn't make sense to anybody but us and the Lord. And for 10 years, we're just building the boat.

What about you're 20, you're 30, you're 40? Something that struck me as I was reading this week was nobody was celebrating Noah's faithfulness. There was nobody posting about Noah on social media. There was no news outlet that was saying, wow, look at what Noah's building. Which says to me, if I need someone to notice my faithfulness besides the Lord, I'm probably not going to end faithful. 40 years, Noah's got to keep building the boat. What about year 50, you're 60, your 70, you're 80? Just imagine the people in the town that watched as Noah did this. Noah, you crazy old man, you've been doing this for 80, 90, 100 years. Your kids are grown.

Everybody else has passed you by. You had all this promise. For what? And Noah's one hammer at a time. One nail at a time. Maybe you're watching this. Maybe you're here today and you're a new believer. Maybe this is your first time in church and you're like, is this guy about to try to sell me a boat? What is he talking about? I'm talking about the thing that God has uniquely wired you to do, that he wants to use you for his glory and for the good of other people to do. And this is what I know about boats. I know this. One, every single person has a boat God wants to build through their life. And number two, the boat is much bigger than you think. Because God does not build mediocre boats. Because God does not give mediocre callings. And so if you can build the boat on your own, it's probably too small. Where are a couple boats that maybe God's constant people.

Maybe you're watching this. Maybe you're listening to me right now. And the boat God wants you to build is the boat of your marriage. It was easy on year six when you were just having kids like we are. It was easy to go on date night. It was easy to pray with your spouse. It was easy to put them first. But somewhere along the way, those things started to go away. The date nights started going away. The quiet time started going away. And maybe God brought someone who's learning a ton about marriage and has no plans to write a marriage book to say, hey, today's the day to pick back up the hammer and build the boat. Maybe you're hearing you're single, and the boat that God is calling you to build is the boat of your singleness. You know, we were

having worship earlier, and you were worshiping. You're on the front row, but you made sure to raise your left hand. Like, hey, I love Jesus, but look at all the space on this finger right here. Because if you're honest, what you really want, maybe even more than God in this season is a spouse. And maybe the boat God's calling you to build is the boat of your singleness and going, you know what, you're going to bring the right person at the right time. But until then, I'm putting you first. I'm going all in with my relationship with you. Can you imagine what God could do with your extra time, with your extra resources if you just consecrated yourself to the Lord and said, I'm going all in with Jesus. How do you want to use me? Maybe the boat that God's calling you to build is the boat of Life Church.

Maybe you've been coming. Maybe you've been attending. Maybe you love the messages. You love Pastor Craig. you love the team, you love the people at your location, you love your campus pastor, you love the people that you see on the way in, but maybe it's time to go from being a spectator of life church to being a builder of life church. Hey, you know what? Instead of just coming, I'm going to ask how I can be a solution to a problem that we might have at my location. Hey, hey, do you need someone in kids? Hey, do you need someone on the host team? Hey, do you need someone in the parking lot? I want to be a builder of God's kingdom on this earth. I want to build the boat. I heard a great leader say one time that it wasn't that he was the best leader. He just

tend to stick with problems longer than the person beside him. As followers of Jesus, I think that that describes who we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be people who stick with problems longer than the person beside us. Why? Because we serve a God who stuck with a problem longer than anybody else was willing to stick with. The Bible says that while I was a sinner, Christ died for me, which means it was not the version of me that was all polished, it was not the version of me that showed up to church on a Sunday morning. It was the me that nobody else wanted. It was the me that was ashamed and broken and helpless that Jesus Christ stuck with and walked to a cross and paid the penalty for my sins. And so now we get to do the

same because we follow and serve that man who did it for us. I'm going to stick with problems. I'm going to keep building the boat, believing that God can do the miraculous through my life. I want to share a story about a boat that means a lot to my family. I'm one of two kids that my parents have, a little sister. Her name is Carson, and Carson is six years younger than me. And so I had moved out of the house. And basically, around the time that she was 13, 14 years old, she went on a mission trip to the country of Nicaragua. And it was her first mission strip she'd ever been on. She went over there to help with this this organization that feeds thousands and thousands of kids every single day who wouldn't get to eat otherwise. And while she's over there, she felt like she heard a word from the Lord saying

this is the boat that you're going to build. Now, God didn't actually say boat. That's just the title of my sermon. So I threw that in there. And so she comes back from this mission strip and she's so excited. She tells my parents. My parents are excited. My little sister in three months taught herself how to speak fluent Spanish on YouTube University. Crazy. She starts going back every single summer. Then all of a sudden, two years in, she's leading the trips full of 100 adults. She's helping doing the translating. She's doing part of the teaching. Like, when my parents introduced the two of us, they take like 10 minutes to talk about her. And then they're like, and this is our son. He lives in Nashville, very close to Broadway. I'm like, we started a church.

My little sister is amazing. She gets to the end of her junior year, and she hears about this college called Emmanuel College. And while she's learning about Emmanuel College, she felt like God said, you're going to go to Emmanuel College. They have this amazing missions program. You're going to go. You're going to get trained up. And then you're going to be a full-time missionary to the country of Nicaragua. And so she's so excited. She tells my parents, my parents get online. They look up Emmanuel College, and they find out it costs $40,000 a year. My parents are blessed, but there were some seasons of our life when we would walk by the ponds and the ducks would throw bread at us. And so my parents are like, okay, Carson, if God provides, then amazing, we'll know this was God's

plan, but if not, we'll come up with another option. But you're going to have to have a miracle financially. My little sister, she goes, God's got this. Three months go by, six months go by, nine months go by, not a single dollar of scholarship money had come in for my little sister. So one night they're at the dinner table and my parents start talking to my little sister and they're like, Carson, if God doesn't provide a scholarship in the next couple of weeks, we're going to have to find another route. We're going to have to go through another option. My little sister, she's super stubborn. She pushed her spaghetti to the center of the dinner

table. And she said, my whole life, you've told me that faith doesn't need a plan B. And now you're telling me something different. She said, can I please be excused from the dinner table? My parents were like, do we ground her? So they tell the story that my little sister, she goes upstairs into a room, and all of a sudden they hear my little sister weeping in her room, just weeping. She cried for four or five minutes, and then all of a sudden she stopped crying and she started singing Waymaker, Miracle Worker, Light in the Dark. My God, that is who you are. And then she sang it again and again. And my parents are downstairs at the dining room table. They push their spaghetti to the center of the table too and they start singing it downstairs.

This was on a Friday night. My little sister the next day was signed up to go to Emmanuel College's College Visitation Day where you go, you sign up for classes, you tour the dorms, you look at all the facilities. My parents were touring. They were like, do we go? Do we not go? We don't want to get her hopes up. They end up going. They'd end up going. do all the tours, they meet all the professors, she signs up for classes. And as they're leaving, like three hours at Emmanuel College, as they're leaving, this student comes running up to my little sister and says, Carson, is your name Carson Heron? My sister says, yeah, that's me. And the student says, will you, will you come with me? Will you follow? Someone wants to talk to you. And so my little

sister and my dad, they go around, they start following this girl, they go through all these offices. All of a sudden, they find themselves in the president of a Emmanuel College's office. They're sitting at the office desk, making small talk. All of a sudden, the president says, Carson, this is going to sound crazy. But last night at midnight, I got a phone call from the biggest donor of Emmanuel College. And he said at dinner time last night, the Holy Spirit interrupted he and his wife's conversation and told them that they were supposed to donate a full ride tuition for four years for an incoming freshman who wants to be a missionary. Catch this, at a Spanish-speaking country. He said, he pulled out a clipboard. He said, there's 400 incoming

freshmen. You're the only person that meets that criteria. He said, would you like to come to Emmanuel College for free? My little sister looked at my dad and said, told you. This is what I know about the God we serve, that if you pick up the hammer and say, God, I'm going to build what you called me to build. It's not you who does the heavy lifting. It's not you who does the building. It's the Lord who builds the house. It's the Lord who builds the boat. Maybe you're watching this and you're going, I don't understand how it's going to happen. Exodus 1414 says that you don't have to do anything. You just have to be still. It's the Lord who goes before you. Romans 838, if God is for me, who could be against me? Maybe you feel like you're too disqualified and too broken and too. hurting you've done too much. Second Corinthians 521, He who knew no sin, became sin, so that you and I could become right with God. God wants to build a boat through your life, and he doesn't use the best

boat builders. He uses those who pick up the hammer and say, I'm going to keep building and believing that God's going to do it. What could God do through your life? I think the number one reason that we don't build the boat that God's asked us to build is it's really easy. to turn our head to the left and turn our head to the right and look at the boats God's building in other people's life. As followers of Jesus, success is not me compared to you. Success is me compared to what God has asked me to do. So what does God ask you to do? What's the boat that maybe you need to start building for the first time? What's the boat that maybe you need to pick back up the hammer and re-up to the Lord? I'm going to build it today. I'm going to re-up and say, God, I'm back in on

what you've called me to do. I veered a little bit, but I'm back in. Can I pray for you? Jesus, I thank you for every single person right now who's making this decision to build the boat. God, we say yes. We say we're available. We say that we want to be faithful to what you've asked us to do. God, I pray that you would correct us when we need to be corrected about what success looks like, God, that you would just remind us through your Holy Spirit right now that you have a plan and a purpose for our life, and it's bigger than we could ask, think, or imagine. We just need to say yes. God, that we wouldn't grow weary and doing good, but we would believe that at the proper time, we're going to reap a harvest if we don't give up. God, I pray for the marriages, for the families,

for the vocations. God, I pray for the people who are going to start serving at our church, for the people who are going to start building at our church. God, I just pray that thousands and thousands and thousands of people will come to know you because of the boats that are going to be represented that are going to be built through this church. God, we love you. We promise to give you all of the praise and all of the glory for every single boat that's built. In Jesus' name, come on, if you believe it, can we give God praise one more time? Can we say amen? What a powerful word. I wonder how many of you have some area of your life that God's calling you to build. and what he's calling you to build is absolutely worthy of your faithfulness.

There's a quote, I wish I could tell you who said it, but it's something like faithfulness is obedience, long obedience in the same direction. I like that, long obedience in the same direction. And all of our churches, how many of you, there's something in your life, you know it's your marriage, is raising kids, serving Jesus in the church, it's being an evangelist, being enlightened,

this world. It's keeping your head down. It's building the dream, following the dream. How many of there's some area of your life you know God is calling you to extended faithful? Let's lift up your hand right now all over the room. You can type in the comment section. God is calling me to faithfulness. I want to pray for you, God, thank you for Pastor Noah's message. And God, God, give us the faith to keep building the boat. God, long before we ever see rain, we're going to honor you and build the boat. God, I pray for parents that are raising kids, give them the faithfulness, God, to keep on showing up and being faithful, discipling, and loving. God, for marriages that are hurting and they're showing up and continuing to love, God, would you be their strength, bring healing?

God, for friendships that we keep loving. For those that are far from God, God help us to keep loving them in a way that would draw them close to the life, the grace of your son, Jesus. God, give us just the faithfulness to keep serving you, keep showing up, keep using our gifts to make a difference in the church, keep loving those that may be far from you. God, give us long obedience in the same direction. As you keep praying today without looking around, if we could just sit down and have a conversation, I might ask you, like, where are you with God? Or like, are you serving God faithfully? Are you wholly devoted to living the things? things that Jesus taught, are you following Jesus in the way you treat people and the way you live? If you say, yeah, not exactly, I want to tell you about a God that is faithful. Our God is faithful. Scripture says, he's faithful and just, that if you confess your sins, he will forgive your sins.

Our God is that good. His son, Jesus, was faithful to the finish. Jesus came not to look for those that were found and righteous. He came to look for those that were lost and broken. And if you find yourself, maybe spiritually lost right now and broken, what I want to tell you is that Jesus came for you. What do you do to follow him? Well, you just take a first step toward a life of faithfulness.

And it's not that your first steps, your good works, or you're building the boat. It's what pleases him. It's your faith in who he is that pleases him. What we do is we simply recognize we're not walking with Jesus. And so we step away from our sin because we've all sin, and we put our faith in the faithfulness of God who said, Jesus is the son of God who died on the cross, three days later rose from the dead so that anyone,

and this includes you who calls on him, you'd be saved, you'd be forgiven, you'd be made new. How do you live a life of faithfulness for God where you take the first step of faith? And the first step of faith today is saying, my life is no longer my own. Jesus, I want to give it to you. Who is Jesus?

He is the righteous living, risen, son of God. And when you confess your sins to him, he forgives them and cleanses you and makes you brand new today. All of our churches, those of you online, how do you live a life of faithfulness for God? You take the first step of faith. We're going to confess our sins.

We're going to surrender our lives to the Lordship of Jesus. And when you do, not only does he forgive you, he makes you new, fills you with the power of the spirit of God to live for him. All of our churches, those online who say, that's me. I don't know him. I'm not living

for him. I don't have a peace with him. We're stepping away from our old life. A first step of faithfulness. Jesus, I give my life to you. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now today at all of our churches. Just lift your hands and say, yes, Jesus, I surrender to you today. And all of our churches that we have people all over saying, yes, Jesus, I surrender to you online. Type in the comment section, I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. Just type that in there. I'm surrendering my life to Jesus today at all of our churches as we celebrate new. life in Christ your first step of faith toward a faithful God who will always be faithful. Would you pray aloud? Pray Heavenly Father, forgive all of my sins. Make me brand new. Fill me with the

power of your spirit so I could know you personally, so I could hear your voice, so I could do your will. My life is not my own. I'm stepping out in faith to know you and to serve you and to build a boat whatever whatever you call me to build I'll build it all for you thank you for new life in Jesus name I pray could you celebrate and worship a faithful God who is always good