(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Good evening. Welcome to Steadfact Baptist Church. If we could please find our seats and grab our hymnals. Turn to page 145. It is well with my soul. If you would please grab your hymnals. Turn to page 145. It is well with my soul. Now when we get to the chorus and we say it is well, we want the ladies to go first and the gentlemen are going to follow after. So I need everybody to sing it as loud as they can, all right? On the chorus first. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. Ladies, gentlemen. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. Though Satan should my faithful trial should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. Let's lift it up on the last one. And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be signed. The clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend. Even so, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. This is Borrowed Heads for Word of Prayer. Lord, Heavenly Father, we just thank you, Lord, for gathering us here today safely, Lord. We just thank you and we love you, Lord, so much for being able to let us serve you, Lord. We ask that you bless the preaching tonight, Lord. Get everybody home safely, Lord. Thank you for the salvation that we've seen today, Lord. We love you. We thank you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. All right, if you would, turn your hymn to page 195. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. That's page 195, I will sing of the mercies. Now, we're going to go through the song twice, okay? I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. Forever I will sing. I will sing. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. Forever I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. I will sing. Will I make known Thy faithfulness, Thy faithfulness with my faith? Will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations? I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. Forever I will sing. I will sing. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. Forever I will sing. With my mouth I'll make known Thy faithfulness, Thy faithfulness with my mouth. Will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations? Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, lift your hand nice and high. We'd love to get you a bulletin. On the front, we also have our Bible memory passage, John 1, verse 42. Also, we have our service and soul winning times there. Is there any soul winning for the past few days that you didn't mention to your soul winning captain we can capture real quick just in case? Is that with the Gales today? Great. And then anything else outside of that? All right, you can still report that just to your soul winning captain. And then also on the right, we have our expecting ladies list. Continue to pray for them. We have a prayer list. On the back, we have the announcement about our soul winning marathon. September 24th, three point Louisiana soul winning marathon. Our Sunday Sundays on the 25th. And then our our conference October 6th through the 8th. Also, our Arlington soul winning blitz is the 29th. And so that's going to be on that Saturday. Just some soul winning around here. We have a couple other things that aren't in here that I do want to also just put in your memory. We have November 5th is the music recital. So that's going to be a Saturday afternoon. Also, we have it locked in. So our Matamoros trip is going to be November 10th, 11th and 12th. So it's going to be that next weekend. The 11th or the 10th, the 11th and the 12th will be going down there. And even if you don't speak Spanish, you're still welcome to come because we we have people that stay in Brownsville and go soul winning there. And so if you just want to come down and participate with us, we've almost always had people that still want to stick around and go into Brownsville. So that's fine. Or if you still just really want to go into Mexico, you can. We had some gringos go across the border last last time we were down there. And it's just fun. It's just fun going into Mexico and the food. Muy bueno. Okay, it's very good. And so like I said, yeah, if it's closed, it's going to be sad to my heart. But I think it'll be open because the food was so excellent. And I'm excited to go back down there and visit. And it's just a lot of fun. Plus, it's hard to find soul winning like foreign countries, you know, foreign country soul winning is just some of the best soul winning. And if you're able to speak Spanish, I highly encourage you to participate in something like that. Because there's nothing like going to these foreign areas, a lot more people are interested a lot more people want to hear. It's very receptive. And we always have a really good time to on top of that. So if you can make it, that is something to put down on your list. I think that's pretty much all I have. As far as announcements are concerned, we'll go ahead and go to our third song for the evening. 262. The light of the world is Jesus. That's page 262. The light of the world is Jesus. The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin. The light of the world is Jesus. Like sunshine at noonday his glory shone in the light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light is shining for thee. Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see the light of the world is Jesus. No darkness have we who in Jesus abide. The light of the world is Jesus. We walk in the light when we follow our guide. The light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light is shining for thee. Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see the light of the world is Jesus. The dwellers in darkness with sin blinded eyes. The light of the world is Jesus. The wash and his bidding in light will arise. The light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light is shining for thee. Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see the light of the world is Jesus. No need of the sunlight in heaven we're told. The light of the world is Jesus. The lamb is the light in the city of gold. The light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light is shining for thee. Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see the light of the world is Jesus. Please turn your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. That's 2 Corinthians chapter 6. As the offering plates go around, please turn your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. The Bible reads, we then as workers together with him beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation have I suckered thee. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation. Giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed, but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God and much patience and afflictions and necessities and distresses and stripes and prisonments and to molts and labors and watchings and fastings by pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well-known, as dying and behold we live, as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things. O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. You are not straightened in us, but you are straightened in your own bowels. Now for recompense in the same I speak as unto my children, be also enlarged. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship have righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness and what concord hath Christ with Belial and what part have he that believeth with an infidel and what agreement have the temple of God with idols for ye are the temple of the living God as God has said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them and be separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord almighty. Let us pray. Father we thank you for this opportunity to be here today and we just thank you for this great church. We thank you for our pastor and his family. We pray that you will please fill in with your Holy Spirit and help him to preach with boldness and power and I pray that we will take heed to what he gives us and help us to apply the principles that he has for us today in our Christian lives and we just thank you for all the souls that were won this weekend in the baptisms and we love you Jesus and we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. We're here in 2 Corinthians chapter number six and it's interesting when you read these chapters and you can pick out a lot of different pieces to the puzzle. We were in 2 Corinthians chapter number six this morning and we talked a lot about separation but the first part of this chapter is really interesting. It says in verse number one, we then as workers together with them beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain for he saith I have heard thee in a time accepted in the day of salvation have I suckered thee. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God and much patience and afflictions and necessities and distresses and stripes and imprisonments and tumults and labors and watchings and fastings by pureness by knowledge by long suffering by kindness by the Holy Ghost by love unfeigned by the word of truth by the power of God by the armor of righteousness on the right hand on the left by honor and dishonor by evil report and good report as deceivers and yet true as unknown and yet well known as dying and behold we live as chastened and not killed as sorrowful yet always rejoicing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing and yet possessing all things. Now if you thought that Ben went on long rants the apostle Paul here I mean man that is just like and that is an incredible list there you know he just says there's bam bam bam but you know what really strikes me when I'm thinking about this list is how it started and it starts in verse number four when it's talking about you know so proving ourselves and we're not supposed to have the ministry being blamed we're ministers of God notice how it starts in much patience in much patience and that's the title of my sermon this evening is in much patience and I don't know why but it's just like that phrase just really hits me especially because it's not just patience it's in much patience and I think sometimes we forget in the Christian life that God has his own timing and that often we have to go through much patience something that is going to take a lot of waiting and when we look at the next like clumping of words and associations you need a lot of patience when you're having to go through things like this afflictions necessities I mean what is a necessity what are the bare necessities it's not just a jungle book song it's we're talking about food we're talking about clothing we're talking about shelter he's saying at times they're having to go through such extreme circumstances where they don't even have their necessities distresses stripes what is stripes stripe is where they're being whipped they are being beaten with cords says also in an imprisonment that's not fun that's it takes a lot of patience to go through imprisonments and beatings and tumults and labors and watch things I mean they're they're having to constantly watch for the evil that's going to befall them you know in modern day we have things like security systems and and we have a lot of inventions that kind of help with this but especially in times past they would have to have certain men perform a night watch so you'd have four or five guys and they would take a chunk of time and so someone's got the 10 to midnight shift someone's got the midnight to two shifts someone's got the two to four shifts someone's got the four to six shift and they basically have to form night watches and they have to constantly be on the lookout for enemies for thieves for all kinds of stuff that can happen to them and that's got to be frustrating to have to constantly be going through these type of problems being in a perilous situation having people constantly needing to watch everything fastings so so we see just this this list is just an incredible list of all these different difficulties struggles things that christians are going to go through and I believe that's why it's so important to think about how you need much patience we're gonna have to go through this in much patience because sometimes when you're in the midst of a distress in the midst of imprisonment in the midst of laboring in the midst of watching in the midst of fasting it's hard to be patient now you say what is being patient pastor Shelley well if you look it up in a dictionary the first definition of being patient or patience is bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint now that's an interesting way to word it because oftentimes we think of being patient as waiting and complaining or waiting with a lot of work it's just like oh what is it going to happen that's not being patient being patient is just going through evil having something negative happening to you yet you're not affected you're not allowing that to determine your attitude your outlook your behavior and specifically your words think about this without complaint now the children of israel really struggled with this going through the wilderness they immediately started complaining they immediately were accusing god upset frustrated with the situation they weren't just walking through the wilderness being thirsty and just being fine with it and it often just makes me think of children children struggle with patience children as soon as they're thirsty mom i need a drink mom i need a drink dad i want a drink i want water i want water and it's just like dude it's you you had a sip five seconds ago you had the cup i gotta use the bathroom i'm hungry i want a snack i want you know kids are just not patient whatsoever as soon as they can complain they're ready to complain as soon as they're frustrated with something they're gonna let everyone know what's going on they can't experience any kind of pain any kind of just distress any kind of level of just uncomfortability just enduring hardship they just immediately have to complain be upset they can have a bad attitude you can tell to say oh someone needs a nap someone needs a sandwich right someone needs a snack someone needs whatever it's like they can't really just get through the difficulty and that kind of separates the difference between an adult and child but as i was thinking about that scenario i was thinking how often though is it that we are really in place of our children with god in the same type of scenario where we're going through difficulty and instead of just being patient we're constantly complaining or frustrated with god's timing you know when you're in the car it's like are we there yet are we there yet so you just asked five seconds ago and i said it's going to take an hour right and i think sometimes with us too we can have a difficulty we can have a problem in our life and we're kind of thinking like when is god going to solve this problem and we could have this childlike attitude and immature attitude not realizing that god's going to take care of it it's just going to be in his timing you know just like your parents always feed you children but it may not be exactly when you are thinking in your mind because you have no concept of time anyways children really don't understand time whatsoever time can go very quickly or very slowly for children it's all over the place and i think even for us in this world sometimes we struggle with god's timing we struggle with realizing like when is he going to do this when is he going to take care of this situation when is he going to fix this when is he going to destroy that person you know whatever thoughts you may have it's like how is how is it just taking this long it's we often have a childlike understanding and comparison to god and instead of getting frustrated complaining about it we should just simply just trust that he is going to take care of it now not i'm not saying let's trust the q plan i'm not saying we're trusting you know for the republicans to rescue us i'm not saying we trust don't i'm saying we trust the lord okay so don't don't get me wrong on what i'm saying but he is one that we can wait on he's one that we can be patient and endure and allow him to do his work now as i read the dictionary i just liked every one of these definitions of patient but the second one was manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain now forbearance forbearing is not doing something so essentially it's like someone egging you on to fight you and you just don't do it you're patient right they're just sitting there just like come on come at me man and you just or they're they're constantly trying to get you to just do something and you're just not willing to do it say something do something come over and you just patiently endure that that is what patience is like you're forbearing some kind of action some kind of activity some kind of response even under provocation or even under some kind of a strain the third one was not hasty or impetuous so someone who's patient is not going to just be really quick or or have to make a hasty decision or be violently quick it's going to be someone that takes their time the fourth one is steadfast despite opposition difficulty or adversity i really like that definition someone who is steadfast despite opposition difficulty or adversity that's what it means to be patient i like that and you know i believe that god in heaven has a sense of humor and if a church is going to call itself steadfast baptist church he's going to say well let's see you like that name all right let's see how much you like that name and you know what makes a church steadfast it's not having this up here it's not the the pamphlet it's not the handout it's not the card no it's someone who's steadfast despite opposition despite adversity despite difficulty you know i like the fact that going to church isn't even a little bit difficult because it just shows what you're made of right why wouldn't you want to have a little bit of difficulty a little bit adversity in your life and in the christian walk as opposed to just having it so easy and so simple all the time you know i could go to the gym and i could just live five pound dumbbells all day long just seemed like i crushed it just you know whoa yeah this isn't even hard guys but that's not that cool right everybody'd be like who's this weirdo you know coming in here like just like get some real weight man you know that doesn't make you look cool and look tough to just be able to do something real easy you know what makes you look uh cool or is actually awesome is that you're able to withstand a little bit of pressure you're with able you're able to withstand a little bit of difficulty a little opposition you're able to go through the things and still you're undeterred it's it's kind of the the testing phase of a product you know if you have a product out there they go through this performance section before they release it where they try to stress test it and see what it's really made of see if it can actually withstand the pressures of this world and and make ensure that it's not a deck of cards that it's basically just going to fall over at the smallest amount of difficulty or strain and you know our church praise god since it's built on a rock it can withstand quite a bit now we don't know at what level that that's true i would hope to the bitter end but you know honestly when we read this list some of these things we haven't even really experienced i mean who in here has been whipped for christ right recently who was in prison for christ recently right who was uh you know going through some of these things some of us have never experienced that may never experience that so we don't really know what that's like but under the threat of death under the threat of whippings under the threat of imprisonment how many people would still be steadfast but the people coming to that church you better know they're taking christianity for real you know it's not just a weak little thing to them and they're enduring it in much patience go if you would to luke chapter 21 go to luke chapter 21 let's look at some more places in the bible and it brings up the concept of patience and patience is a virtue patience is something that we strive towards what what's the definition of that again pastor shelly well it's being steadfast despite opposition difficulty and adversity but also while doing it you're not complaining while doing it you still have a good attitude while doing it you know it's one thing to endure it's another thing to endure without complaining because frankly if you're enduring and complaining we want you to go anyways we weren't that interested in you being part of the ride we were thinking like i wish that guy would leave already or quit it's like a complainer just makes everything worse you know complainers don't really help complainers just drag other people down with them so the the best is to endure sure but we want to endure without complaint and doing it calmly too not constantly freaking out not constantly worried and stressed and just like oh man when is it gonna be over oh how long is this gonna happen i don't know what's gonna happen it's like dude calm down you're not giving birth okay so you can calm down right and even even in those type of difficulties right someone is being patient it's one who's not just stressed about everything and all the future you know sufficient under the days the evil thereof we're supposed to just take it one day at a time not just get so over stressed and make things over complicated because a lot of times problems that we worry about in the future are never even a reality things we're always stressed about or worried about or afraid of never end up even being a real scenario and then it's like why were you worrying about that so much like people come up to me like what happens if i get fired for my job or going to your church and i'm thinking like i don't know it's gonna suck it's like is that as your have they said anything no okay why don't you just worry about it when it happens because look i know plenty of people that it's literally happened to i mean we've had people you know happened to us even in other church not this church i had someone recently call me and tell me this and it's it's frustrating i mean they literally get fired for going to our church and it's just like what in the world but at the end of the day you know most people i would say 95 of people in this room probably is never gonna even happen or is it really even a worry and it's it's frustrating to the people that it actually happens to when you're worrying about it and it didn't happen to you it's like you know talking to some guy that got his arms blown off and it's like what if my arms got blown off he's like well how about you get worried about it when it happens to you you know it'd be weird to complain to someone or stress to someone about something that they've actually gone through when you've never even gone through it like wait until it happens and then tell us about how much it sucked okay but don't tell me about all these future problems that you don't have because it doesn't really it doesn't really help the situation it doesn't help you it doesn't help your mentality you know the best thing to do is just dwell on the problems you have now and if you're really worried about that why don't you just worry with the people that it's actually happening to like go and be a a shoulder and bear another person's burden rather than constantly worrying and fretting about all these future things that haven't even happened like there's there's plenty of stuff to like be upset about that have actually happened and are happening to not worry about the things that could happen in the future you know it's just kind of a silly self-involved narcissistic type mentality and attitude and it really shows you you have no patience you don't even have patience for things that haven't even happened how are you gonna have patience when things actually happen or are real for you now in luke chapter number 21 it's also going to bring up this idea of patience it says in verse 17 and you should be hated of all men for my namesake but there shall not in hair of your head perish and your patience possess ye your souls now i love that he kind of puts two real extreme statements coupled together because the first statement's really extreme and ye shall be hated of all men for my namesake that doesn't sound very good that sounds intense and of course you know when it says things like this you have to realize that the bible is speaking in generalities right obviously you and me are going to hate each other what it's just saying in general people the world are going to hate you and yet verse 19 or i'm sorry verse 18 but there shall not in hair of your head perish so he's saying like somehow everybody's going to hate you but you're not going to get touched you're precious i mean some of you don't even really have to worry about this because you don't have any hair to perish anyways but for most of us that have some hair you know you don't even have to stress about that okay so but it also says in verse 19 and your patience possess your souls saying okay people hate you get over it who cares you know you can't really affect it you can't really change it it's not like well if i go to the nice church then they'll like me nah they'll still hate you too you know it's it's so funny people like oh well they they all why do they hate you so much well then why is it when they call me they say they want all christians and all evangelicals killed why is it when uh they have a drag queen event in rowan oak texas and the nicest christian so-called on the planet goes there there's like this sweet old man that's there and he's like praying for the protesters he's like praying for these sodomite just degenerate freaks and he's just like i love you and he's so kind and so nice they hate him and rail on him and falsely accuse him too i mean just the old like the the sweetest old man you've ever seen your entire life just saying like god bless you and i'm praying for you and i hope god does good unto you and he's just like cussing at him and saying that he's a an adulterer and his wife cheated on him and all this evil stuff that he's saying about him it's not like oh well they just hate said look they hate christianity they hate the fact that you're saved they hate jesus so much in their heart they're gonna just spew all of that vomit filth onto any christian good bad ugly tall mean nice whatever it doesn't matter okay so it's silly to sit here and think like well i i'm gonna escape that hatred you can't you can't do anything about it but then the bible says but there should not inherit your head perish so he's saying and again we're speaking in generalities most almost every christian is not going to be a martyr like the vast majority of christians are just not martyrs and because you're just not a martyr you're like literally worrying about a boogeyman that's just not even going to happen and so we just have to have patience to realize even though we have to go through all this hatred we're going to make it through think about moses and the children of israel then they have to go through a lot to get out of egypt and in fact for a while it's pretty dark there when pharaohs are crying them to work extra that sounds like in laborings and how about in stripes don't you think they got a few extra stripes during moses and all the plagues don't you think all the egyptians hated the israelites when they're in darkness and boils and the children of israel are having parties and having fun and all the light of course they were hating them of course they were despising them and you know it's the same today when all the people out here are so angry and sad and bitter and their lives are terrible i mean there's all those memes of those people that are like you know blackface they're all sad and crying like why are you so happy you know and all the christians are sitting here with kids they're just like we're having fun you know it's like all these people are just so bitter and angry and their lives are terrible and they're ruined by drugs and alcohol and adultery and fornication and stvs and monkey pox and it's like ah it's like ah you know we don't realize it but it's like god's just plaguing them i mean god is plaguing them with the stupidity with with all kinds of disease their relationships are train wrecks no one even likes them they're losing all of their money they're addicted to gambling and drugs i mean just all kinds of just evil is happening to them and they look at all these christians who have families and they're happy and they're having a good time and they're just so angry at you they're just so mad at you but didn't the children of israel just walk right out didn't not even a hair of their head perish didn't they literally spoil the egyptians didn't they just go right on through that red sea like nothing but you know in the moment it could seem just overbearing it could seem just the weight is just so incredible the stress the pressure the difficulty being lined up against the red sea having the egyptian army march towards you but then what happened god delivered them god rescued them how could you be calm in that situation because your patience you have much patience that god god brought me all the way here he's not going to just let me lie be lined up against the sea and killed he's got a plan for me somehow somehow this is going to make sense we know that all things work together for good to them that love god to them that are the called according to his purpose you know that verse is in the bible for a reason folks it's real it is real that somehow every single event of our lives the things that we're doing are somehow going to just work out for the better for some great moment to give so much glory to god and glory to christ i mean we don't understand it we don't see it we don't know how it all works but it's going to happen just like a little child has no idea how the parents are going to make dinner happen you know if you told a little toddler like my wife has got flour and milk and butter and all these things and then throws them in the fire like how is that going to taste good but it's amazing like her roles come out and you're just like how did you do that the kid couldn't do it he didn't understand the timing it may have felt like an eternity even though it was an hour and it's the same with us sometimes we're in the midst of it and we just see the flour and the the ingredients and the running around and the oven we're just thinking like what's going to happen i don't know but then when we we eat it we're going to be like wow it was all worth it wow it's so good and we were just stressed about something as a child you might think you're going to literally die but you didn't okay you're fine now go to romans chapter five go to romans chapter five i think we just need a reminder again of the god of the bible that i forget the story when the children of israel were trusting in god to rescue them and he just forgot to rescue them oops i forgot about that group oh didn't want to do it that day you kind of have two options with god either a he rescues you or b he literally fights against you himself okay there are parts in the bible where he's just like hey i'm going to come and fight you myself you don't want that right but there was not a there was not an option c of just god forgot one day or slept in or just allow them to get slaughtered for no reason like you have your purposeful martyrs but even them it's very purposeful yet the 95 of the time he's always delivering them he's always rescuing them it always works out in the end it's always good unto them so we as god's people need to have some patience with god and say you know what god's got this i don't get it i don't understand it doesn't make sense to me it's difficult there's some adversity there's some opposition but i'm gonna be steadfast romans 5 1 therefore being justified by faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ by whom also we have access by faith in this grace where we stand and rejoice and hope for the glory of god and not only so but with glory and tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope so notice as you go through difficulty you kind of go through this logical progression and in this progression when you go through tribulation it will build out patience because you have to have tribulation in order to be patient right if you're just having a good time that's not really patience going and riding on roller coasters and having fun is not needed for for patience you know watching your favorite movie doing your favorite pastime playing a sport that's enjoyable like golf or something you know not baseball that takes a lot of patience but you know you're you're watching something you're doing something that you enjoy you don't need any kind of patience because it's it's just fun and things that are fun time goes by like this i mean the activities that i really enjoy the things that i like i mean it seems to just fly by it's the things that are not fun it's the things that are difficult it's the things that are have adversity to them that sometimes make time slow down and you have to end up figuring out how to have some real patience in your life not complain about things you don't enjoy you know work can be like this there's times at work where it's not fun i mean yeah at times i enjoy my work and sometimes i enjoy and i'm talking like any kind of software development or even pastoring or these different activities sometimes it's just it's difficult it's not fun there's there's things you just have to get done they they definitely take more time at least it feels that way these are their slower type of activities but that's where you you gain the patience you start realizing okay this isn't fun but i'll get through it and then you just you just figure out a way to just endure you're not complaining you're calm about it you're forbearing any kind of response out of provocation and you're not hasty about it you're still just going to take your time and you're going to get a good job done you know a good employee is going to get the job done whether he likes it or not you know it's i i've never really seen a job description maybe there's out there there's some weird company okay but there's usually not in the job description you have to enjoy it while you're doing it you know it's like do i really care if you enjoy it or not i just want you to get it done right i mean the task is is like lay the brick i don't really care if you loved laying the brick or if you hated it did you lay it well did you do a good job in laying the brick did you do a good job hooking up the plumbing did you do a good job hooking up the electricity you know whatever your job is it really is more important that you get the job done than your exact emotions about it and sometimes it's even the same with god that god isn't necessarily so interested in you just always having the perfect emotion about things he rather wants you to just do it out of a heart of love towards him and of course love is not a word where you know sometimes we associate the word love with infatuation but often love is doing good to a person when they don't deserve it think about christ i mean isn't the ultimate picture of love going to the cross did christ really like that i mean what was christ's emotional state when in the garden of gethsemane when he's about to die he said i want to do anything else he's just like hey is there another option where's the other door okay the bible says despising the shame right he didn't enduring he wasn't going through the cross saying this is fun yippee this is the greatest day of my life he hated it he hated the pain he hated the grief he hated the nails being shoved into his hand he hated the nails going through his feet i mean i can't even imagine when i stub my toe it hurt so much i can't even imagine someone lining up a nail and shoving it through my feet that that was love but that wasn't he wasn't enjoying it he wasn't super excited about it he was dreading it as the bible describes and sometimes the work and the things we have to go through we're not i'm not like excited about it you know when i read the great tribulation i'm not thinking like whoa yeah on the run with my family everybody's trying to kill me and we get our heads chopped off i'm not just like yeah greatest time ever that doesn't sound cool it doesn't sound fun but you know what we just have to endure it anyways we have to go through with much patience and say well this is what god picked for me then go for it you know i'd rather have a lot of things even even this church right i would love for our church to to be different in theory like have a beautiful building and everybody loves us and it's just fun and everybody's turning he's just so excited and they're like oh i love steadfast baptist church when you knock on the door you know that sounds cool right to go to go out and you know they're like oh we love steadfast baptist church members do you have any we could hire you know we love the fact that you all actually work hard and show up and do a good job right we love your doctrine we love the preaching we love the king james bible here you know that would be cool i would like that that's what i prefer but you know if that's not what god ordained if that's not what god desired for us to do then i guess i must i better just have much patience because okay yeah some areas don't like it as much some areas are more reprobate than others some have bigger or smaller struggles but wherever we find ourselves we're just going to have patience go go to roman chapter 15 just flip the page a little bit you know i didn't pick where i was going to be born i didn't pick what family i was going to be in i didn't pick what language i was going to speak at first in my life you know a lot of us are here because of just circumstance god kind of put us in our own little environment in our own area you know all i can really do is control myself and my actions and that's where the patience comes into play instead of just getting frustrated with everything god's handed me all that god's dealt me i should rather just have a good attitude about the fact that i have an opportunity to serve him and even if i have to go through things i don't want to even if i have to endure stuff that i don't like things that are uncomfortable some pain at least it'll give me character and i can have patience and then that patience will help me in the future because it'll give me hope for the for the next challenge the next struggle the next difficulty to know i can get through that i can endure that again it is possible but in the moment it's not that enjoyable makes me think of the mighty men's conference doing the plank challenge at first okay i hated every second of it okay i mean planks started hurting about 10 seconds in i mean it's like already uncomfortable but you know the thing about planks it's not about really how strong you are in my opinion maybe it's a little bit it's more about just like how much pain can you endure because they just start hurting really bad after a while apparently the guy jared that came he doesn't the pain doesn't matter to him he was just doing it like as water you know he just has no problem but like for most of us it was it was awful and i kept thinking like i can't be the first person out i'm the pastor you know like come on like i gotta and and for whatever reason all the men did a great job and you know nigero's over here talking trash to us and pastor pastor thompson's talking trash on us like you can drop down you know you guys whatever they're like they're trying to put us through some adversity here and i'm sitting here thinking like oh man but i was like i know if i can just last and just get in just make it to the next level i'll be i'll be satisfied with that and so through much patience you know i barely made it on the other side but you know what i'm glad i went through all that pain all that evil because if i hadn't i wouldn't gotten to the next level and sometimes it's the same in christianity sometimes you have to go through a little bit of pain a little bit of awfulness to get to the next level how about childbirth i mean that's pretty awful i don't know i've just heard it you know i've seen it and heard it and it looked awful okay sounds pretty rough but isn't it good to get on the other side of that aren't your children worth it and you know of course in the moment it might be just like unbearable it might be so excruciating but it's another one of those things where once you get on the other side you're like wow i'm so glad i went through that and the same is going to be with the christian life there are going to be parts of your christian life that are painful ugly hurt are not fun you know what you will always think i'm so glad i'm i i endured it i'm so glad i just kept going i'm so glad i didn't get discouraged i'm glad i dealt with that in much patience look at romans chapter 15 verse number one we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification for even christ please not himself but as it is written there are approaches of them that reproach thee fell on me whatsoever things were written afford time were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope now the god of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to christ jesus that you may with one mind one mouth glorify god even the father of our lord jesus christ now what i want to point out is this sometimes you may not have actually ever had the real experience yet to have the hope you may not have actually gone through the difficulty that you're facing currently or the difficulty you may face in the future and what the bible is saying is that the scriptures themselves can give us that patience and can give us that comfort when we think about others who have gone through the same difficulty the same struggle you know none of us have gone through the passing of the red sea but reading that story can help us when we get our red sea challenge none of us have been thrown in the lion's den but if we were to go through evil such as daniel did we can be comforted and have patience when thinking about that story and of course this to me is just so incredible when we think about these verses the importance of the doctrine of preservation because what point would this even make if god didn't preserve the bible since it's written for us specifically i mean the stories of these great triumphs where god delivered his people are were not written during the time that they're going through it to help them they were written way after the fact to help us to encourage us to give us faith to say hey i want to be like abraham i want to be like isaac i want to be like jacob i want to be like jobe i want to be like daniel i want to be like the apostle paul and i want to see the same kind of faith in my life that they had and the bible is saying that these things were written for us you know the the epistle to the romans one of the later epistles written by paul so he's talking to you and me he's saying these scriptures are not just here to idolize men of the past to just look and say oh there was a daniel in the past cool story for him notice say there's going to be a daniel in the future and he's going to have his lines then there are going to be the abrahams and there's going to be the jobes and there's going to be the shadrach nishak and abednego's of the future and the scriptures were written to motivate them to encourage them to give them patience to give them comfort so that when we go through difficulty when we go through struggles we can say hey the same god that delivered them is going to deliver me hey the same god that showed himself mighty on their behalf is the same god that's going to show himself mighty on our behalf is the same jesus the jesus that walked with peter james and john is the same jesus that walks with me and my soul-winning partner when we knock on doors every single week when we go out there and we preach the gospel it's the same jesus that's still in heaven that's still sitting here with us while we have church it's still the same god the same bible the same jesus and we have the same power and we can have the same faith that great men had of the past to get through the trials tribulations adversities oppositions that we have and what an honor and a privilege that god would count us worthy to go through such things when did god ever put the weak christians through these type of challenges he never does he puts the best doesn't he he takes the best christians the best men of god and puts them up to the task he puts them against the jezebels of this world he gets them and puts them up against the hamans of this world against all of the pharaohs and all the false accusations and all manner of evil he tries to get them and puts them in those positions whereas so many people would look at a church like ours and say what's wrong with it i'm thinking what are we doing that's so right because we could have a lot of problems that have nothing to do with the bible right what if we were just all just fighting with each other and scandals and uh all kinds of financial issues where we're just being poor money managers and stealing and doing i mean churches get involved in all kinds of crazy things pastors going off with the secretary and the youth group ministers doing weird shady stuff and there's there's all kinds of financial scams in churches where people come in they'll bring their stupid insurance scam or they'll bring in their security scam i remember even my mom got caught in one of these one time where some guy came in he's trying to sell some mutual fund garbage or whatever we gave him a bunch of money in like two months we lost like twenty five thousand dollars or something like that you know these people just shady people coming in you know that's problems that i don't want to have you know problems for my preaching great problems for our doctrine great problems for our soul winning wonderful you know when i get calls every single week from these apartment manager carrons that are mad at you guys i'm just thinking like good job i'm not thinking like what's wrong with our soul winning program i'm thinking what's right with our soul winning program and i take i mean our google voicemail is much patience because we don't answer you know it's like we don't complain you know in fact it's just a badge of honor i'm thinking like man we haven't got a lot of voicemails in a while what are we doing wrong you know we need to get out there and start serving god i mean where's the apartment managers you know why am i not getting so many calls yeah we sometimes you have the wrong mentality when it comes to things i mean where in the bible is this great man of god not challenged not ever meeting some kind of great foe some kind of great evil so if we in our lives are going through a great evil a great challenge instead of looking at it like what's wrong we got to think like wow god is going to deliver us out of something awesome here god wants to see what we're really made of god wants to really test us he must he must think that there's something to us to our christianity to our church to actually put us to the test of course you're not going to stress test things that can't handle it right you're not going to take a little five-year-old and say all right here's a 400 pound dumbbell squat it you're not going to do that right you're going to get some kind of like a strong man and say like let's see if he can do it let's see how many plates this guy can do right that is how we should look at our lives when we're put to the test go to first thessalonians chapter one first thessalonians chapter one we could probably spend all day preaching about this because frankly it's just the whole bible but i want you to realize because it's the whole bible to grow in patience we need to grow in patience and we need to realize that us as a church we might be a church that needs much patience and i will be honest with you if there's if there's something i personally struggle with it's definitely patience i am by nature one of the most impatient people i've ever met and i've met myself okay it was a frustrating experience i'm just kidding i mean i am if you've watched me drive i'm impatient i can't i i can't stand anything slow everything slow just irritates the fire out of me just how slow it takes for my kids to get out of the car you know to get ready just every one of those things just drives me up the wall i can't stand people that are slow i even just many times when people are communicating with me and instead of just getting to the punch line they're just kind of like just kind of just talking and i'm just thinking like i'm just thinking my mind just say it just say it just say it just say it come on like i don't care i don't care just get to the point what is the point you know and i think that for the most part i do a good job of suppressing that i'm just saying internally it's a train wreck okay i am not a patient person and even in any project anything that i'm working on i mean i just want it done now i want to go let's get it done and so even when things have got sometimes it's hard for me because we have to we have to take our time we have to be patient we have to think okay why is god allowing this problem or this issue to persist for so long but that's where the patience comes into play and i have to grow in patience and i have to become better at this you know teaching your kids how to read wow that can be hard that can be very very challenging and i i really didn't even think i could ever think i don't think i could describe you how challenging it is then you actually go through it and you're just like i love you but you know you need to learn how to read buddy and this could be our lives in christianity where we're going through things and you're just you're having those feelings you have to learn how to overcome those feelings pass down those imaginations by realizing you know what god is smarter than me god has more wisdom than me god's timing is better than my timing and i just have to trust that he is going to handle it appropriately look at what it says in verse 13 is chapter one verse three remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope and our lord jesus christ and the side of god and our father so he's saying hey guys your patience of hope and our lord jesus christ you know we're supposed to be patient in him and look what it says in verse six and he became followers of us and of the lord having received the word in much affliction so this is a church that's identified as having gone through much affliction not every church is like that churches some churches have a light affliction some churches have much affliction i didn't determine which one of those buttons to press personally i would want the less affliction but from an from an ultimatum perspective from like a from an eternity perspective the bet the bigger the better right if you if you go to the gym in the moment i want the lighter weight but when i'm done with the gym i want i wish i'd done the heavier weight so then i can reap the benefits reap the rewards of having done more and getting bigger growth personal gains all the other stuff that's going on and to me the same as with christianity you know i only get to live on this earth one time would i rather just enjoy my entire life just every moment just every ounce i just squeezed every ounce out of it just all of it and i get just a little bit of rewards in heaven or just my life was hard and difficult and frustrating i didn't enjoy much of it but then i just have all these rewards in heaven well from an eternal perspective we know which button you should press but it's hard to sometimes in the moment it's hard to sometimes realize you say well i don't want to go through all that difficulty and all that evil well you know you can get a small reward then yeah so there's a lot of christians that pretty much have like almost no evil i mean they're just they go to the rich areas i mean well you you and i go to the rich areas and these hoas these gated communities we'll find safe people you'll find safe people that have a really nice house they've got a 401k they live a kush life they go to church on easter it seems like everything's great for them and they'll probably just die at 80 and it'll be wow that was fun but you know what the problem is when we get to heaven none of that riches and all that joy that they had and earth is coming with them and then they're gonna have a lot of embarrassment and shame when they stand before jesus christ and all their works are just burned up they have all this wood a and stubble and it's like look at this beautiful way oh it just burned and then it's like what where's the gold you know you didn't have any whereas other christians may have their life would have been a train wreck but then they have all this gold silver and precious stone laid up and they're gonna have a lot of rejoicing in that day they're gonna be pleased that they served the lord that they were what patient look you can have joy but if you have joy now you'll have suffering later if you suffer now you have joy later why would i do that patience is a virtue okay and god's gonna more greatly reward all the pleasures of this life aren't even worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed so why would i want to spend all of my bucks on stuff in this life that's not nearly as great rather than saving it up for spiritual rewards in heaven i only have so much time i only have so much effort first timothy chapter number six just flipped the page a few pages and our church you know i didn't pick whether or not this is going to be a lot of affliction or not and arguably even in the context of the bible it's still probably light affliction because have you ever read the new testament have you read about the churches in asia i mean they have to be faithful in death that's much affliction when half of you have been executed then i'll start saying that we legit are much affliction okay you know obviously there's still awful things that have happened to people in here and there's still difficulties and struggles that we've had to go through but it's still pretty far from the real bad stuff and and again you know we may get there i don't know maybe we'll never have that happen but i want us to have the right mentality regardless of what the future of our church is we want to have much patience for whatever we foresee and i don't believe that god is going to lighten that up i think god's going to constantly give us even bigger challenges and bigger oppositions and bigger adversities and more difficulty to really see what we're like because we've been doing a good job with what he's given us and why would he not just continually you know put us in the next hot water i mean think about joseph joseph sold into slavery starts doing good now he's in prison right so it keeps escalating and sometimes you know difficulties challenges evils trials temptations will escalate first timothy chapter 6 look at verse 10 for the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they've erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows but thou oh man of god flee these things and follow after righteousness godliness faith love patience meekness so we have to follow after patience now there's a lot of passages we could go through i want to go to second i'm sorry i want to go to psalms 27 i just want to go to psalms 27 here and see again that the bible reiterates this consistently now psalms it makes a lot of sense for this to be a theme in psalms and it's a pretty big theme in psalms patience and enduring these things because david himself had to go through a lot of adversity david had a multitude of enemies problems distresses and at points in david's life it got really dark uh david obviously has some triumphs in the midst of that he kills goliath and then now all of a sudden he's got in-law problems which that's pretty easy to have but you know his in-line problems are pretty bad when the father-in-law is trying to kill him and so he has to flee away from his father-in-law he has he leaves his wife so he's without his wife he's on the run he's being hunted down chased down he even goes amongst his brethren and his brethren even after rescuing them would betray him would turn on him and he has to constantly go around on the mountain and hide from saul he rebukes all multiple twice and saw still is relentless saw still on the hunt for him and then after going into the philistines happened to be on the run and going through all this evil he gets rejected even of the philistines and then he loses all of his his uh possessions he loses his new wives and children and goods and and it gets to the point where even his own men turn on him and you got to think like david has been going through all of these difficulties all of these struggles but in that moment of probably the lowest of his life he's been rejected by everyone everyone hates him everyone's turned on him everyone's against him he's lost everything he's down in the dumps the bible says that david encouraged himself in the lord and you say well how did he do that i believe the songs is a good picture him singing you know i'm just speculating but singing songs and when you are in the dumps when you are depressed when you're struggling mentally when you have issues and we all have issues for a multitude of reasons i'm i'm telling you psalms is your go-to book psalms is where you're going to find some comfort psalms we're going to find some relief and it's the best way to go about problems look at psalm 27 verse 11 teach me thy way o lord and lead me in a path plane because of mine enemies deliver me not over under the will of mine enemies for false witnesses are risen up against me and such as breed out cruelty so for david it's really difficulty because his enemies not only want him destroyed they want to cruelly destroy him they want to just they don't want to just kill david they want to torture david they want to hurt him in ways that are unimaginable and he's obviously a little bit afraid of it i mean you don't want just surrounded by people that are just wanting to kill you and hurt you and just do all manner of evil and and what is he saying he's deliver me not over the will of mine enemies he's like i don't want this to happen lord there's 13 i had fainted unless i had believed to see the goodness of the lord and the land of leaving so he's saying i was i was literally to the point where i just was done mentally done i couldn't handle it but i just i was reminded of what god had done for me already verse 14 wait on the lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen mine heart wait i say on the lord you know sometimes we want to quit we want to give up we just want to do we want to complain but david's saying hey don't do that just wait it's like how much longer just wait you know you're sitting there doing that plank and it's like how many more people are going to drop it's just wait just wait just keep waiting just keep waiting you know it's like how many more enemies pastor shelly just wait how many more lawsuits how many more you know what how many what it doesn't matter just wait and notice what the bible says be of good courage and he shall strengthen the heart not only does god want you to be able to overcome all this pressure and stress he wants you to be courageous during it he wants you to say you know what don't back down don't just cower don't just go and cry in a corner no just wait on god be patient be courageous just keep serving god just keep reading your bible just keep going to church just keep soul winning just keep being righteous keep having children keep teaching the bible keep doing that which is right and just say you know what god is going to take care of it hey i'm not careful to answer the nebakanezer hey we're not going to bow down to these statues that was courageous i mean when the guy's like i'm about to throw you in there it's like what do we say you know what do you think you know it's like hey we're not careful to answer we're never doing it we're never bowing down we're never going to back down we're never going to stop we're steadfast it's like ah when are you going to when you're going to stop preaching that pastor shelly never when are you going to stop reading that portion of scripture never when are you going to stop handing out those dvds never unless it's a new technology okay whatever it is hey when are you going to back down never we're not going to stop why would we stop god's on our side if god before us who can be against us but you know what it takes sometimes it takes some patience because you see you're like well but we're getting close to the red sea but they're marching after us but we don't have any weapons but we don't have any food but we don't have any shelter but all we have is this manna you know it's like that argument it makes me think of this it's like hey pastor shelly how do you know that's going to happen the only thing you have is this bible okay but it's it tastes sweet yeah i'm going to put all my faith in this i don't care what i see i don't care what happens oh but you just keep losing or trial or bigger problem okay but you know what i'm still trusting in this and i have comfort of the scriptures and i have patience and you know what i'm encouraged by the faith of the men in the bible because they went through such adversity and they just kept waiting on god they kept just saying you know what i'm just going to wait on him psalm 37 you know a lot of our evils a lot of our struggles in the moment it feels like eternity but then when you get over it when you go over the hump you realize that wasn't even that long that wasn't even that hard i was i was freaking out but it wasn't even that big a deal i should have gone harder you know that's the last thing you want to do when you go to a workout think like you know i could have done a lot better i could have done more you know you want to you want to leave thinking like i couldn't have done any more you know work out brother nick you can't do any more all right look at verse 28 for the lord loveth judgment now i have to just say i just love that phrase because you know what i love judgment but you know who loves judgment more than me god man i just you know what i just would love is people getting what they deserve in some cases right isn't there some people in this world you're thinking like you really need some judgment and some righteous judgment i mean i would think like you need it i want you to get it you know who loves that god loves it god loves god just loves giving people what they deserve and the only time you escape that is through his mercy and grace because you're saved if you're not saved you are not going to experience the absence of judgment you will get exactly what you deserve heyman got exactly what he deserved he got hanged on his own gallows those presidents that threw daniel lionsden got exactly what they deserved they were thrown in you know whatever it is that you deserve god's going to give it to you hey pharaoh you're throwing babies in the river let me throw you in your whole army in the river you know god god loves judgment are you forgetting that god loves it more than you yet we sit here and think like oh when are they going to get what they deserve they're going to get it those abortion doctors are going to melt like a snail in hell oh man they're going to get what they deserve oh man there are some people in our world that are going to get what they deserve and it's going to be awful it's going to be horrible for them but it's going to be so great to see the judgment and you know who loves it god loves it and forsaketh not his saints they are preserved forever but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off the righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever the mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgment the law of his god is in his heart none of his steps shall slide the wicked watch it the righteous and seeketh the slam that sounds familiar they watch you oh they can't stop watching you you own them we own them they couldn't stop watching us if they wanted to they would they would be would just be so sad if they couldn't watch us preach the bible i mean they're so addicted and it's just they can't help it they have nothing better there is nothing better to do there's nothing on tv that's worth it bible preaching is where it's at my friend verse 32 the wicked watch of the righteous and seeketh the slam the lord will not leave him in his hand nor condemn him when he is judged wait on the lord and keep his way and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land when the wicked are cut off thou shalt see it i have seen the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a green bay tree this sounds like the democrat party in america yet he passed away and lo he was not yeah i sought him but he could not be found wouldn't that be cool there's some people that i'm thinking like that needs to happen verse 37 mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is what peace but the transgressors shall be destroyed together the end of the wicked shall be cut off but salvation of the righteous is of the lord he is their strength in the time of trouble and the lord shall help them and deliver them he shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust them and you know i can't promise you anything physically speaking but i can promise you this spiritually there will be a day when all the wicked will be cut off and all of us will inherit the earth and all of us will have joy forevermore and these verses will be true no matter what happens physically and all you have to do is just just keep planking you say how long i don't know but you know what you'll as soon as you die you won't be able to do anyways you'll be done and you might as well just just have patience now what did paul tell him hey in much patience in much patience you know some some christians their life is going to be life full of patience you're just constantly waiting you're waiting with but it it'll eventually happen it'll eventually come go to first listening to five we're gonna finish the sermon okay i believe in our lifetime we're gonna see that fulfilled plenty of times but even beyond that of course it's for sure gonna happen from eternity's perspective it's no doubt you know i was thinking about the proverbs chapter 11 talking about just bringing the she's and you know we're gonna be rejoicing and and sometimes you think about that and i always put in this context of church how you're gonna bring your she with you you're gonna come rejoicing bring your she's with you but i'm like you know a lot of times we get people saved but they're not coming to church you know i don't think that verse is necessarily in context of church think about this though every single person you got saved in soul winning is definitely coming with you to heaven you i mean you may not see it here who cares but let me tell you something you are gonna bring your she's with you to heaven and some people are gonna get to heaven and have no sheaves and some people are gonna come to heaven and it's gonna be a just giant farmland i mean it's gonna be a giant harvest they're gonna have bales of sheaves that are coming with them and they're gonna be rejoicing yeah i mean you're gonna get to heaven you're gonna be like whoa and all these people coming with you that's gonna be more exciting than the you getting there by yourself and we may never see them at church you know it doesn't matter because they're definitely going with me to heaven right and you know it's we think about this life in a kernel sense it's like it's not about being a pastor an evangelist or missionary be a soul winner because you know when i get into heaven it's not like oh here's the pastor section here's the evangelist section no it's who is here's the soul winners you know that's what really matters the thing that's really important is that we're all soul winners and they're all reaching people and getting people saved and and bringing people with us and impacting people's lives i mean this is what really matters and every single person can do this man woman boy child all of us can be a soul winner all of us can bring sheaves with us all of us can do that which is important which is getting people saved first thessalonians chapter number five look at verse 14 now we exhort you brethren warn them that are unruly comfort the feeble-minded support the weak be patient toward all men some people in this room are not gonna it's gonna be harder for them to be patient that's what the bible is describing is weaker right in moments of distress moments of opposition moments of difficulty moments of adversity some of us enjoy that thrive on it some of us really struggle with that and it's okay because all of us are human but those of us that are strong instead of puffing your chest out and being like why aren't you strong like me why don't you comfort them why don't you help them that are going through evil why don't you be a shoulder to cry on why don't you be there to support them why don't you encourage them and motivate them and help them and be like christ in their life point out scripture to them drag them to the events that they need to be you know we as a church need to truly love the brethren and if you're so strong why don't you be strong for someone else because your strength is worthless on its own you know we're not here to just have a contest to flex in front of everybody you know let why don't you use your strength for a real purpose and actually help someone that needs it and come alongside other people and bless them when they're going through adversity going through difficulty and we will not escape difficulty the question is how are you going to handle it are you going to complain and get frustrated at god are you going to brag about it oh i'm so much better i can handle this or instead are you going to not complain have a good attitude and help those that are struggling but that's what paul wants us to do is when we go through the difficulties of our life deal with them in much patience let's close the prayer thank you heavenly father so much for the word that you've given us thank you for counting us worthy to go through difficulty and struggle and temptation and trial and i pray that as we go through this we'll be reminded of the promises in the bible we'd be reminded of the hope in the bible the the many characters that you use through characters that you use through the scriptures to help us realize that you're a faithful god that you you care about our difficulties and our struggles and you want to deliver us out of these adversities but you ask us to be patient you ask us not to complain you ask us to bear one another's burdens and to think about other people and i pray that as we go through the challenges of this week and and of the future that we'll be reminded of the scriptures and that we would bear it with patience in jesus name we pray amen all right in closing wood please turn your hymnals to page 363 wonderful words of life that's page 363 wonderful words of life sing them over again to me wonderful words of life let me more of their beauty see wonderful words of life words of life and beauty teach me faith and beauty beautiful words wonderful words wonderful words of life beautiful words wonderful words Wonderful words of life Christ the blessed one gives to all Wonderful words of life Sinner lives to the loving call Wonderful words of life All so freely given Moving us to heaven Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Sweetly echo the gospel call Wonderful words of life All for a pardon and peace to all Wonderful words of life Jesus, only Savior Sanctified forever Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life God bless