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[00:00:24] Speaker B: I'm glad you are here, and especially those of you who are watching online. Thank you for that. We're in a series, as you know, on the fruit of the spirit. It is the desire of God to develop these qualities in the lives of all of his children. Someone, as well said, the greatest argument for Christianity is a Christian, and the greatest argument against Christianity is a Christian. And so we want to be people who let the light of God shine brightly in our life. And there are some things that are beyond our scope and scale to pull off. And this is one of the things that we cannot, in our own ability, make happen. This is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This is the work of God. The result, I should say, of the work of God in the lives of his people as we follow him in obedience and in submission. Each and every day he develops these qualities. Remember, we said the fruit of the spirit is really one fruit. Fruit of, not fruits plural, but fruit of the Holy Spirit. But it has nine different clusters, or you might think of it as nine different flavors. And each weekend we're taking on a different piece of that, a different flavor, and we're kind of expanding and talking about that so we'll know what it might look like in our life. Now, let me say, as I get into what I want to talk about this morning, that people in places who are at the center of Holy Spirit activity will also be people in places at the center of unholy spirit activity. You'll find in your life that anywhere God is at work building, the devil will be at work blasting. And the time you began to begin your journey with God and you began to follow the disciplines of Christ and you really began to serve him, and you give and you live and you do all that you can do for the Lord. Don't be surprised when all hell comes against you. It just will just going to happen. And I'm not wanting to alarm you, I want to forearm you so you can be prepared for that inevitable reality that once you are diligently pursuing God, that you can expect headwinds. They're going to be hard times.
Paul Harvey used to say the road, you know you're on a road, success to success when it's uphill all the way. And again, that's not to discourage you, but that's just to let you know one of the ways you know you're not running with the devil is when you're running into him. So there, I guess that'd be the good news about the bad news. But this morning, we're going to examine a little bit about this fruit of the spirit, and I'm going to talk about one of the qualities that God will develop in our life that will enable us to get through anything we find ourselves going through. And it's the quality of patience. In fact, if you'll look at our text again, in Galatians chapter five, verses 22 and 23, Paul said, but. But the fruit of the spirit. Now, remember, I said, that verse opens with the word, but because it stands in counter distinction to what he's previously been speaking on back up in verse 19, he's talking about the deeds of the flesh, and he's talking about the outworking of the natural product of our own flesh, our own desires, the heart that is cold and wavered from God. And he says, the deeds of the flesh are manifest. They're obvious. And he names them, and he lists them all as kind of a smorgasbord of sin that he just talks about. But then he now contrasts it. However. He's saying the fruit of the spirit is very different than the deeds of the flesh. The fruit of the spirit is love, and we talked about love. It is joy. We spoke of joy last weekend. We talked about peace. And this weekend we're talking about longsuffering are patience. In fact, there are at least four words in your Bible that are translated, but they mean the very same thing. They're translated very differently, but they mean the same thing. For example, some of your translations may have the fruit of the spirit is patience. And that's not a contradiction. That is a very accurate description. Patience. Patience is a great quality that God develops in our life. Patience is basically a divine enabling of our ability to wait. I don't know about you, but I get impatient from time to time. Do you? It is hard for us to learn how to wait. We're living in a world of instant everything. I mean, you have instant messaging now. You have this expectation that when you text someone, they should respond immediately, right? Especially if they're your child, they should respond immediately. And so it's even that way in business. We've talked about this before, when I started out in ministry nearly 50 years ago, we had something called letters. Letters.
And you would write them. Write them. And by the way, with something called cursive.
You would use cursive and you would write letters on paper with pen, or you would type them. Type them. And you would send them with an expectation that within a week you'll probably get a response. Right? You remember those days. And so you would send a letter and you'd wait. And then when someone would write you, you would have a little time to pray over your response, think about it, consider it, maybe even get some counsel on it, and then you might respond. But in this day of instant everything, now we have immediate response with our emails and our, you know, our social media accounts where there's an expectation in business that you should respond almost immediately. And sometimes the knee jerk reaction that you send is not the best reaction. Sometimes you need to wait. Sometimes you need to have patience so that you send the right response, so that you make the right decision. Because in life, the bigger decision is not the decisions we make that are between good and evil. Right? Those are no brainers. Everybody knows the difference between good and evil. The biggest decisions you and I will face in life are the decisions between good and best. What is good for you as opposed to what is best for you? Who is good for you as opposed to who is best for you. That's the big decision. So sometimes in order to make the right call, you need to learn patience. And patience is a quality, he said, that the Holy Spirit can develop in our life. So one of the translations here has it as patience. Another translation has it as long suffering. Long suffering. It's the same word. It's just translated in other places in a different way. What does long suffering mean? Think about long suffering this way as being long tempered. Long tempered as opposed to short tempered. Right. You get the idea again of patience. Short tempered. Long tempered. It's the idea, honestly, if you break it down, that it takes a lot to make you mad, that it's not impossible to make you angry, but it takes a lot. In fact, one of the qualities of our savior, when you read two, Peter three nine, the Bible says concerning Jesus, he is long suffering to us, not willing that any should perish. He didn't say many. He said any not, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So a quality of God is that it takes him a lot to get upset. It takes him a lot to become angry. And the only way you and I can have long suffering in our life. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. So I have patience. I have long suffering. Here's the third word. It is endurance. Endurance. Endurance is the idea of being able to bear up under something. Bear up under something. It means you're carrying a burden of some sort. And endurance is the ability to carry that burden successfully, to carry that burden efficiently. It is the ability to carry whatever it is that you're being asked to carry. And by the way, there are some burdens that we have to carry. I'll give you a verse in a moment ago. It's in the book of acts, or in a minute from now, it's in the book of acts, where he says, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit to lay no necessary burdens on us. To lay no, I'm sorry. To lay no unnecessary burdens on us. And the idea there was, Paul was saying that it is necessary our Peter was saying, it is necessary sometimes for us to carry burdens. It is necessary sometimes for us to be under the weight of something, because God is developing us. Think about endurance as resistance training. Right? When you're carrying weights or you're pushing weights, what you're doing is you're exercising your muscles. The weight that is coming down on the bar, you're pushing the weight up off of the bar. And in that resistance training, you're building muscle. Think about what prayer is. Prayer is a form of resistance training. You're pushing something out of you toward heaven, and it doesn't always mean that the burden is lifted. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will keep the burden on you because he's trying to strengthen you. And the quality that comes as a result is this quality called endurance. It is a product, a byproduct, I should say, of the Holy Spirit. Here's the fourth one. It is the idea of forbearance. Forbearance. Forbearance is to restrain or is to refrain from the enforcement of a thing. It is learning to be tolerant with people. It is learning to go the second mile with people. Listen to Colossians 312. Forbearing one another, making allowance for each other, learning to forgive one another. Now, again, that is a quality of the Holy Spirit. This idea of forbearance, and probably one of the best narratives, one of the best passages that I found to really underscore what I'm talking about this morning is a passage in Hebrews, because the book of Hebrews was designed to give people encouragement, to let them know there's better days coming, that God has a better plan for them. There's a better way to look at life than what you're looking at. Life and Hebrews is an encouragement to the people of God. When you look at Hebrews chapter eleven, he talks about two distinctive groups of people. He talks about people who were given the ability to escape the edge of the sword, people who were raised from dead back to life again, people who saw miraculous things happen in their life. You read all of these incredible stories of what we would call the heroes of our faith all throughout Hebrews. And then you get down to verse 30, down into that area of Hebrews eleven, and it will say this, and others, and others. Others didn't have a deliverance. Others had to go through persecution. Some of them had the faith to escape, and some of them had the faith to endure. Some of them were martyred. Some of them were put to death because of their beliefs in Jesus Christ. And yet both of these groups are hailed as heroes in the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter eleven. So I'm suggesting to your heart that sometimes God will lift a burden. Sometimes he will solve a problem, and sometimes God will allow the burden to remain and the problem to be sustained so that we can learn and we can experience this quality of endurance, of patience, of forbearance, of long suffering. Look at Hebrews chapter twelve. Remember, it comes right on the heels of chapter eleven that I've just described, the heroes hall of faith. And in Hebrews twelve, verse one, he says, therefore, now remember, when you study the Bible and you read the word therefore, always look and see what it's there for. The word therefore connects what he's just said with what he's about to say. Because you have this group of people who escaped, because you had this group of people who endured, and yet all of them are hailed as heroes of faith. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, I believe that to be people in heaven who are cheering on the things that go on here on earth, this great cloud of witnesses. Some interpret that to mean those heroes that were listed in chapter eleven are cheering us on. We have this idea that we're living in their legacy and their heritage. But regardless of how you see that, the point is we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. And because that's true, notice what he said. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that would easily ensnare us. And then notice. Now let's run with endurance. There's our word again. With patience, with forbearance, with long suffering. Let's learn how to run the race that you and I are running this morning with that quality, this race that is set before us. Now, notice he talks about two things. He talks about weights and he talks about sins. Now, weights are things that are necessary, as I said a moment ago, to build strength. The verse I gave you and kind of messed up the quote of it, there is acts 1528, when he said, the Holy Spirit will not lay any unnecessary burden on you. It's acts 1528. But the point is, there are some weights that are necessary if you've ever walked with weights in your hand, if you've ever had those ankle weights, that sometimes people will train with those things and you'll see them out walking and they're carrying weights. Well, they're preparing for probably a competition. Now, what you won't see anyone doing in a competition is carrying weights. In fact, they're going to be carrying as little as they can. Most of them are wearing as little as they can, but they're carrying as little weight as they can because they want to finish as quickly as they can, right? So you don't want anything to restrain you, to hold you back, but the weights are necessary for training. So he's saying there comes a time when you're competing in the race, you have to lay aside weights. Weights aren't necessarily sins. There may be things in my life, in your life that are holding us back, that are keeping us from being the best we could be for our Lord Jesus Christ, that are keeping our light from shining as brightly as it could for his name's sake. And so we have to discern, is this a weight? Is this something in my life that I need to lay aside so that I can run better, I can run more efficiently and more effectively. So he said, waits and sins. Then there are those sins that will bring us down. In fact, numbers 32, 23 says, be sure, be certain, your sin will find you out. And the Bible says, whoever covers their sin will not prosper. You know, the incredible thing about confession? Confession is agreement. When you confess or I confess a sin to the Lord, we're coming into an agreement with him. We're saying, you were right, I was wrong. I agree with you. Now, I admit this. I confess this before you. And here's the beautiful thing. Anything I uncover before the Lord, he in his mercy will cover. But anything I attempt to cover in time, he will uncover. You see how that works? So if we go before the Lord in honesty and we say, Lord, I confess, I repent, I acknowledge, I own this specifically, not generally this specifically. I own this. God has promised to forgive.
The Bible says he is faithful and just to forgive us of all sin. God will forgive it. But anything I uncover before God in confession and repentance, he will cover with his blood. But anything I attempt to cover, and I fail to confess it as his child, eventually he will uncover. And so what he's saying here is, you're gonna run effectively, and you're gonna run efficiently. And listen to this. If you're gonna make the finish, you have to deal with weights and you have to deal with sin. And once you've dealt with that, you have to run with perseverance, with patience, with endurance, with forbearance, long suffering. That's the tone of the run. That's how you're gonna have to run the race. And I believe with all my heart and soul there are three essential elements that will make, that will be necessary for us to finish our race strong. Number one, they're right here in Hebrews number one. Hebrews ten, verse 32. You have to stay focused. You have to stay focused. Paul said, I'm keeping my eyes on the prize, the prize of the calling of God in Christ Jesus. Hebrews 1032. Remember the early days. Remember when you first received light, when you stood your ground in great contest in the face of suffering? Paul said, you remember when you first came to Jesus, how excited you were, how focused you were, how passionate you were. You remember those early days. We call it first love.
That's true in a relationship. I talked about it a couple of weeks ago. If you're not careful, you get away from the basic things that you did to draw you to one another. And once you are together, you kind of abandon those things. And sometimes when the marriage gets a little stale and there's not a lot of passion in the relationship, sometimes it's not rocket science. You just have to go back to do what you did when you first met each other, start dating again. Just kind of reset the relationship, if you will. That happens with our relationship with God. In fact, in Galatians, chapter five seven, he says this. Paul said, you did run well. There was a time when you were a great runner who did hinder you. Somebody knocked you off course. Sometimes you go through an experience. Sometimes it's a disappointment in other people. Sometimes we put people on pedestals. They should never be placed on the best. Listen, the best any of us will ever be are sinners saved by the grace of God. And sometimes when someone hurts you or betrays you, or they do you wrong. You allow a who to knock you out of the race. I know people away from God. They're out of church. I'm not throwing at them. I'm just saying that nine out of ten of them in their stories, at least the ones they've shared with me, they had a disappointment with a person, they went through a divorce. They had some betrayal in their life, and it just. They spun out, and they just couldn't understand how that could happen. They were doing all the right things. And in spite of that, that happened to them. And I understand that those kinds of things happen in people's lives. And I've told you before, trouble that you and I face will do one of two things, inevitably. Number one, it will draw you closer to God, or it will drive you farther from him. And sometimes you do a little both. And so I'm suggesting you be careful putting people on pedestals. Be careful doing that. And in Paul's case, he said to the church at Galatia, you ran what you were doing. Amazing. Until a who hit your life. Sometimes it's not a who, it's a what. I've told you, like the doctor seuss theology here, it's not a who, it's a what.
It's a what. It's a thing. Something happened in your life. Maybe it was an illness, maybe a loss of a job, maybe a thing hit your world and it knocked you off course. So I'm just suggesting you, it is possible, as a runner, to get knocked off course. But one of the ways you endure the race is you have to stay focused on where you're going. You have to keep your eyes on the prize. I've shared this with the church before, but it just fit right here. For those of you that hadn't heard this, we had. He's in heaven now, but we had one of our members years ago who owned a trucking company, and he owned a number of these big semi trucks, and he would ship corn during certain times of the year up to Kansas during the harvest season. And he said, my drivers would drive through the night, you know, getting it up there. And he said, sometimes he said, you had to watch out for black ice. You know that term? It's that ice you can't see on the road? They just call it black ice. It's just. It's just all of a sudden, you're running on good pavement, and all of a sudden, you're not. And he said, I was driving late into the night, and he said, all of a sudden, he said, my trailer broke loose. He said, I looked in my mirror and he said, I see my trailer coming around. He said, I'm on the interstate, and thank God. He said, I'm not. There's not a lot of traffic out there. But he said, I knew if I didn't make the right decisions in the next few moments, I could jackknife my truck and I could die. And he said, so what I did was, he said, I keep. I kept focused on where I was going. I kept the power to the motor. And he said, soon my trailer pulled right around behind the truck. And when he shared that with me, he taught me a really important lesson in life, that when the wheels of your life start coming off and the trailer starts coming around and you're fearful that things are going to go south and you could lose it all, stay focused on where you're going, keep your eyes on the prize, keep the power to the motor, and realize those things will come back in line. And I think that's exactly what Paul was challenging. I believe Paul to be the writer of Hebrews, but I believe he was challenging the people there to look. Remember where you started. Remember how passionate you were in those early days of meeting Jesus, how focused you were, and you didn't let anything. You didn't let anything take you away from that passion. You see, again, we have an enemy. As I said when I started the message, any time a person is the place of a holy spirit activity, that person will be the place of unholy spirit activity. And if you want to look and see how the enemy will work in someone's life, if you want to know what he will do, look back in the Bible and see what he has done. Listen. The Bible says, two corinthians 211, in order that Satan might not outwit us. Listen to this phrase. We are not ignorant of his schemes. The devil is not an original. He will do things that he has done. Let me give you five quick tactics of the devil, and these are ways he tries to keep us from being focused. Number one tactic. Number one, he'll use discouragement. Discouragement. Nehemiah, chapter four, verse six. When they're back building the wall at Jerusalem, the Bible says in Nehemiah 46, they were discouraged. You know, when they got discouraged, when they were halfway finished. You ever been in the middle of cleaning out your garage, just trying to keep this thing real, and you got everything pulled out of your garage, in your driveway, and you just say, dear God, calgon, take me away. You know, I just. I just wished I were anywhere but standing in my driveway right now. How in the world did I, how did we get this much junk? How do we have this much clutter in our life? And halfway through the job can be the most discouraging point. That's exactly what happened in Nehemiah's day. The rubble was down. They were already removing all. They were halfway through the job and they wanted to quit. So I'm suggesting you, friend, when you get discouraged, you're vulnerable. The devil knows that. He seizes upon that, and he will use discouragement to get you to lose focus. Here's the second tactic, disappointment. Disappointment. You remember Elijah one? Kings 17? He didn't have the expectation that he thought he did. God didn't do what he thought he should do when he thought he should do it. And all of a sudden he's disappointed. You know what a disappointment is? It's a missed appointment. You have an expectation that God's going to do a certain thing, and he doesn't. He does a different thing, and all of a sudden you find yourself disappointed. And if you're not careful when you're disappointed, you'll lose focus. And so it's a tactic of the enemy to get us discouraged, to get us disappointed. Number three, disillusionment. Disillusionment. He'll get you disillusioned. He'll get you disillusioned with pastors, with churches, with other christian people. He'll get you disillusioned. John 21. Remember, John the Baptist was such a strong follower of Jesus. He was the forerunner, you know, the forerunner is a little boat that goes out ahead of the main ship to prepare the way to take the anchor to the shore. The forerunner gets there, they secure the anchor, and they help guide the ship to shore. Well, John the Baptist said, I'm the forerunner. I'm going ahead of Jesus. I'm preparing a crowd for him to preach to. And then he said, concerning his ministry, he said, I must decrease and he must increase. And, boy, that'll hit your ego. You have to realize it's not about me. It's about Jesus, and I have to decrease so that he can increase.
Let me tell you my role as a pastor. My role as a pastor is to not stand on top of God's word or in front of it. My job is to stand behind it and under it. The most important thing is not what I say. The most important thing is what does the Bible say? So I would weigh everything I say against what the Bible says. And if anybody's a liar, it'll be me. It won't be God's word, right? So trust his word, believe his word. His word is infallible, immutable. It doesn't change. It is powerful, sharper than a two edged sword. And so I'm saying sometimes he'll use disillusionment. John the Baptist here he is preparing the way he did exactly what he was supposed to do. His crowds decreased. Jesus crowds increased. And once his followers had become smaller, he was more vulnerable to the government, and they arrested him.
And now John the Baptist is in prison. And what he says in Matthew, he says to Jesus disciples when they come to check on him, he said, go ask Jesus, are you the messiah? Or do I start looking for another one? He threatened God.
I may just walk away, boy. God, you lose me, you've lost somebody, right? Isn't that crazy? How arrogant we can be?
And you know what, Jesus, how he responded to him. I love it. God is so merciful. Again, long suffering. He didn't thump him like a bug where he's bouncing off planets for a few hundred years. He didn't do. He could have. He didn't. Instead, he went back and he just said, hey, you go back and tell John the things you've seen me do. How blinded eyes are made to see, how deaf ears are made to hear, how the dead are made to life again. And he said, tell John, happy is the one who is not offended in me. Can I give you the Texas translation? He was saying, go back and tell John, John, you're going to be a lot happier if you don't get hacked off every time I do something you don't agree with. Trust me. That's kind of the Texas translation, but that's what he was telling him. But what was it that had John fouled up? Disillusionment. He was disillusioned. So let's put it together. Discouragement, disappointment, disillusion. How about distortion? How about, he'll get you, make things bigger than they actually are. See, the Bible says in, I'm sorry, nehemiah, chapter four, verse two, that the devil will either come at you as well. The devil will come at you two ways. He did this in Nehemiah. He'll come at you either as an angel of light or as a roaring lion. He'll either appeal and try to draw you into something or he'll try to frighten you, but he'll exaggerate the situation. Have you ever noticed things are worse at night when you're trying to sleep? All the problems just seem to close in on you. In fact, the psalmist said, weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. The devil is a master of distorting things.
Can I help you? Just. Just bring this right down. There's not a sin you've committed that he can't forgive. There's not a burden you're carrying that he can't lift. There's not a problem you're facing this morning he can't solve. God has never been caught at a loss. And the enemy will come at you and distort your problems and make you feel like no one has ever gone through what you're going through, and no one has the problems that you have. And that's just not true.
And so I'm suggesting it's a tactic of the enemy to use discouragement, disappointment, disillusionment, distortion. And number five. And finally, finally, dissipation.
Dissipation. John, chapter four, verse six. The Bible says Jesus sat down in a well and rested. You know why? He was tired.
Jesus was just as much man as though he were never God, while being just as much God as though he were never man. God incarnate. Carnass is flesh. God in flesh. You know why Jesus sat down at the well? He was tired.
You know what happens? Sometimes people just need to rest.
I've told you, there's nothing worse than when the upright get uptight. Sometimes you just need to. You just need to rest. You need to chill out, tone down, take a break, pause. And sometimes you get amped up. And the devil is the master at trying to get you off focus. And he will get you worn out and weighted down so you get wrought up. So stay focused. Secondly, and hurriedly, not only stay focused, but stay faithful. Stay faithful. Hebrews ten, verse 35. Look, do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly warded. You need to. Here's our word again. To persevere, you need to have patience. You need to have endurance, you need to have long suffering so that when you've done the will of God, you will receive the promise. What's he saying? Be faithful.
After you've done everything you're supposed to do, trust God, do everything someone has. Well said. Pray as though it all depends on God and work as though it all depends on you.
And after you've done everything you know to do and you've turned it over to him, then just wait. He said, you have need of patience. So after you've done the will of God, you'll inherit the promise. God's going to come through. He look, God is never late. We're late. No matter how prompt you are. We're not always exactly on time. We couldn't all walk through these doors this morning if we walked through at the same moment.
So we all work off of a little different time clock, a little different system. But look, Jesus works in the fullness of time. You read time and time again. God came in the fullness of time. Sometimes he would escape from the roman persecution because he said, I'm not afraid to die. It's not my time to die. He wasn't running because he was afraid they were going to put him to death. He came into the world to go to the cross to die. Jesus was never a victim on the cross. The Bible says in revelation, he's the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. He just said, I'm not ready to go. It's not time to go. And then in the right time, he willingly gave his life. In fact, at the cross, he said, into my hands, I commend my spirit. It is done, tetelestai. It is finished. It is done.
He knew that he was in control of the exact moment that he would lead this life. What am I saying? He's on time. How does that help you and me? He's never late in your life. You may look at your checkbook and say, woo, God, where are you? You may have had a debate with a mate on the way in here this morning going, Lord, where are you? You may be going through something with one of your kids, or you may be dealing something with your business. You may be. And you may be feeling like God is late. He is not late.
When you can see him working, he's at work. When you can't see him working, he's at work.
When you know what he's doing, he's doing something. And when you don't know what he's doing, he's doing something.
He that lives and sleeps, he who abides in the heavens, neither slumbers nor does he sleep. He watches over his own. He's at work. What am I saying? I'm saying, just stay faithful.
The Bible doesn't call us to be perfect. It calls us to be faithful. The Bible doesn't say, go out and be successful. The Bible says, go out and be faithful. Nothing wrong with success.
There's nothing wrong with striving to do your best. But one day, when we stand before God, the thing we want to hear him say is, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord, he rewards faithfulness. What will faithfulness do? Faithfulness will help us. It'll increase our confidence. It'll increase our ability to stay focused on him. Because faithfulness reminds me the God of yesterday. He's the God of today.
You remember when young David had the prospect of facing down Goliath in one Samuel 17? You remember what gave him such confidence? Why he stood so boldly that day? He stood because he had, in private killed a bear and a lion that attacked the sheep. And now in public, he was prepared to face Goliath. Your private moments of victory will prepare you for those public moments when your faith is challenged. God uses everything that happens into our life to prepare us for the next thing that's going to happen in our life. And God was using these experiences in that young man's life to prepare him for the next step. And I love when David stood before Goliath. You remember what he did when he called upon God? He didn't say, God, I want you to deliver Goliath into my hand so that all of Israel may know that there is a David in your midst. But he said, if you read it, one Samuel 17, he said, I want you to deliver Goliath into my hand so that all of Israel and the world will know that there is a God here.
His motivation was faithfulness to his God. Whether he lives or he dies, he's going to be faithful. So what do we do? How do we endure? How do we persevere? How do we stay with it and finish the race? You got to stay focused. You got to stay faithful. Here's the third and final thought. You have to stay fearless. You have to stay fearless. Hebrews, chapter ten, verse 38. My righteous one will live by faith. God said, my kids live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I'll not be pleased with him. If he's afraid and he runs from the challenge, God said, I'm not going to be pleased with him. But then he went on to say, we are not of those who shrink back. We're not of those who get destroyed, but we are of those who believed. And ultimately we are those who will be saved.
Man, what a challenge that is not to shrink back, but to face the difficulty of life head on. Believing God has a plan and a purpose, believing that he will not fail because he cannot fail. Believing the God of yesterday is the God of today, that he has a reason. So I'm going to stay focused. I'm going to stay faithful. I'm going to stay fearless. I'm going to believe God has a plan for me, and he will not fail me. Remember that passage in Isaiah 50, 417? We quote it a lot. No weapon formed against you will prosper. That's a great verse, but it didn't say no weapon wouldn't be formed against you. And it doesn't say, those weapons might not strike fear in your heart from time to time. He's just saying, the weapons that are formed will not prosper. Look at Isaiah 41, verse ten. Fear thou not, for I am with me. Don't be dismayed, for I'm thy God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will hold you up with my right hand of righteousness. God is saying, I got you. I got this. You're going to be okay. You need to trust me. There's absolutely nothing that'll happen to you that I don't permit it or cause it. You can trust in that you see courage. You really can't have courage without an element of fear. Have you thought about that? I mean, the only way a person can be truly courageous is there has to be something, that there has to be a fear element. Therefore, we wouldn't call it courageous. So being courageous means there's a fear factor involved, so we can be courageous. Right? I heard about a guy that he was bragging that he had cut the tail off of this man eating lion with his pocket knife. And they said, you did what? He said, man, I cut the tail off of a man eating lion with his pocket knife. And somebody asked, well, why didn't you cut the lion's head off? He said somebody had already done that.
Well, when you realize that God has gone before us and he's prepared the way and he's won the battle, we're just walking in his wake. We're just following him. And the more you believe in him, the more confidence that he gives you and the more you have the ability to face whatever you're going through, realizing God has a plan, it is not to destroy me. It is not to defeat me. It is to help me, ultimately to prosper, to move me forward. He can be trusted. He is worthy of my praise. He will not fail me. And that's not to say, as I close this morning, that's not to say you and I aren't going to encounter things that make no sense. That's not to say we're not going to encounter things that are hurtful and difficult to navigate through. All of that's true. What it is to say is in the midst of that, as I press into God. He begins to develop within me a quality of patience, of endurance, of long suffering, of forbearance.
He gives me the ability to get through what I'm going through, to come out on the other side giving him praise and giving him glory. To be able to say, my God has never failed. Can I tell you this morning, he won't fail you.
I don't know what you're going through today, but he won't fail you.
I don't know what burdens you came in here carrying. He's not going to fail you. It's not an accident you walked into the doors of this building this morning, or you're watching online at this moment. The God of heaven, if he wanted to say anything to your heart, it would be, I've got you and I've got this. And I will not fail you, whatever that is. He can be trusted. Put your faith in him. Put your trust in him. The Bible says the arm of flesh will fail. In men it will fail, but he will never fail. He will never fail you. If you fall anywhere, fall at his feet. Believe in him. Trust him with all that you are. Just say, Lord Jesus, this makes no sense. I'm trying to navigate it, but I choose to trust you and he will not fail you. Let's pray together.
Lord, thank you for your word. As Isaiah said, never returns void. Your word always accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent.
Lord, I pray through the power of your holy spirit that your word will resonate in our minds and hearts, that we'll walk from this room understanding that incredible quality of patience, endurance, perseverance, long suffering.
Help us, Lord, to determine this week to be. To be focused, to be faithful, to be fearless.
Believing, Lord, that you've got all of this in your hand. You will not fail. You cannot fail.
Encourage that person in this room, Lord, who's carrying that heavy load. Let them know, Father, that you have them and you have that.
Help them to cast all their care upon you knowing that you care for them.
Lord, I just pray this morning, if there's one watching and one in this room who's never trusted you as savior, that this might be the moment where they just humble their heart and they just simply say, Lord Jesus, with all that I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. Come into my heart, forgive my sin, be a reality in my life. Father, I pray that will be their prayer.
Watch over us as we go through our week, Lord, help us to be effective at bringing you honor and we'll give you praise for that. In Christ's name. Amen.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
