Faith-filled and Overflowing
Scripture: Selected Scriptures
Date: February 15, 2026
Speaker: Philip Kulishov
If you were to summarize the culture we’re building at Trinity Evangel Church, what would you put at the top of the list? Gratitude? Blessing? Jealousability? All Are Yours? Kuyperian Dispensationalism? All worthy candidates, but none hit the spot.
What is the thing that unlocks and leads to all the rest? What do we start every calendar week nourishing?
The proposed TEC rallying cry: Fide Vive - Live by Faith.
Faith enables gratitude. Faith begets blessing. Faith lives jealousably. It’s by faith that we can say “All are ours.” Faith is the summary of our Christian walk.
”For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.‘” - Romans 1:16-17
”Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1
Faith is the simple, strong, and single-minded surety that what God has told us we should expect, we will receive. No doubt. No wavering. A single, solid assurance.
That’s why James says the one who doubts is “like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind… he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
To doubt is to be double-minded, wanting one thing, but expecting another. If we are not living by faith, we are unstable in all our ways.
Our goal is to form stable kids who grow into sturdy adults. We are raising people to be sturdy and full of faith.
What we see in today’s culture is believers who are not stable and not sturdy, like chaff in the wind, blown in whatever direction the current mood drives them. When faith is lacking, people are either babies or bloats.
When faith is lacking, adults act like babies. They cower and quiver in the face of the slightest pressure.
The onslaught on the church through wokism, governmental overreach, the gay-Christian agenda, and compromising leadership is not a safe space for babies. Too many good men stare into the corruption with uncertain hesitancy - not because they don’t know what to say, but because they are double-minded. Good men are sinfully careful when cowardice, not confidence, lies at their bedrock.
Christians can barely handle the stress of normal dominion-taking efforts. Just taking responsibility for what’s in front of us - our own discipleship, our family, our kids, our church - is a crushing burden for those who are babies full of doubt.
The bloat is the confident dimwit, too sure of himself to learn from his own failure. King Solomon warned his son of the fool who can’t enter a room without thinking he’s the smartest one there.
This fool feels full of himself. But what he’s full of is arrogance-carbonation producing pride bubbles covering up his emptiness. One big burp and all is made clear - noise and stench and not much else.
The bloat has faith, but not with any substance. He simply believes in himself. But the “Believe in Thyself” philosophy is straight from the pit.
We don’t want our kids to grow up to be babies. We want them sturdy. We don’t want them to be bloats. We want them to have substance. If our aim is for them to live by faith, we are to build sturdy substance.
Parenting is an ongoing job with no quick-fix formula. But in building sturdy substance, two components we want to instill: Confidence and Competence.
Sturdiness comes from confidence - rooted and grounded, not blown by doubts or outside pressure. Substance comes from competence - real results, not just words.
At Jesus’s baptism, before any ministry, miracles, or teaching, the Father declared: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Attention: At Jesus’s baptism, “a voice came from heaven.” The Father was paying attention. A dad’s active presence means knowing his kids: their strengths, struggles, fears, and fortitude. This attention isn’t just for instruction and correction, but for the child’s security. “Dad is with me. I’m okay.”
Acknowledgment: The Father not only pays attention but identifies with the Son: “My Son.” A child’s identity is reinforced when dad acknowledges them, through encouragement, feedback, instruction, discipline, or reassurance. This means slowing down and actually talking to kids about their lives. Attention without acknowledgment isn’t sufficient.
Love: The Father’s acknowledgment includes “Beloved.” The foundational reality holding everything together. A father’s attentiveness and acknowledgment must flow from love. The confidence we’re building in our kids is rooted not in performance, but in dad’s love. Love changes how attention and acknowledgment look and feel.
Pleasure: Attention, acknowledgment, and love culminate here: “With you I am well pleased.” Kids sense when they’re a burden versus when they have dad’s pleasure. A hard-to-please dad is a familiar stereotype, but not what we see in our Heavenly Father. In Christ, God is well-pleased with us despite our instability. We reflect that fatherhood to our kids.
The Father’s pleasure precedes the Son’s performance.
Christ received the Father’s attention, acknowledgment, love, and pleasure before the wilderness temptation, before the ministry began. He didn’t earn it through work - he received it first, then went out to work.
Fathers reflect to their kids the pleasure of God the Father. In Christ, we have our Heavenly Father’s pleasure despite our instability. We are secure in that. We ought to reflect that fatherhood to our kids.
How do we raise confident adults sturdy in their faith? We are pleased with them, even when they’re unstable kids.
Character matters - but it’s measured by actions and results, not words and intentions. Too often, “character matters” justifies incompetence among Christians: “Sure, he’s not good at his job, but he’s faithful to his wife.”
This is a falsehood. You cannot choose character at the expense of competence. Real character produces real competence. Does high character demand valuing hard work? How is that demonstrated except by working hard?
You can’t be a good parent if you’re a lousy worker. Teaching our kids excellence demands that we excel ourselves.
”Competence” comes from Latin com (together) and petere (to strive) - literally, to strive together. To compete. To be competent means to compete and to win.
How do we raise winners? How do we train our kids for the competition?
”Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things… But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” - 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Through discipline. Through control. Through training.
Paul wants discipline so he wouldn’t be a bloat, full of sound words but no results. Paul is after real substance.
As the father’s pleasure leads to confidence, so the father’s discipline leads to competence.
”My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves… For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” - Hebrews 12:5-6, 11
The word “discipline” here (paideia) implies training an instructor provides - painful, but with a benevolent end. Training is not simply harm. Training always has purpose.
Fathers are to train their kids to carry responsibility. If that burden is heavy, teach them how to carry it. Many parents quickly relieve their kids of burden lest it hurt them, and in doing so, hurt them. Mothers are nurturing by nature, prone to relieve the burden. This is why fathers’ discipline is what children need.
The father must have the nerve to let his child remain under discipline, not to crush, but to train unto competence, unto substance, unto winning.
We want kids with substance that commits, endures, and wins. Substance that doesn’t tap out when things get difficult or tedious. Faithfulness can seem dull - it’s not always exciting. But substantive competence developed through discipline endures.
When the faithfulness of the competent is to the brim - when they are faith-filled - it overflows with abundant fruit, real results, visible good works.
Sturdy substance is faith-filled and overflowing.
To raise kids who live by faith, we raise them to be sturdy and have substance - confident and competent, faith-filled and overflowing.
How? Through pleasure and discipline.
Colossians 3:21 tells fathers not to discourage their kids, literally, not to make them “lose heart.” We want them to live by faith.
So do the opposite: instead of discouraging, give courage. Instead of making them lose heart, give them heart.
As parents, we’re not only to win the hearts of our kids. We are to give them a heart - fill it with sturdy substance, fill it with faith, so that it overflows with fruit. Instill the sturdy confidence that comes from our pleasure in them, and the substantive competence that comes from our discipline for them.
Don’t only go after winning your kids’ heart. Give them one.