Patience In God's Dealings

For the past five, six years, we've been going up every week, once a week, to what used to be a place called Vision Quest, and now it's called Joshua House, but it's a recovery place for people who are trying to get free from drugs or alcohol or whatever sin that is in their life. But it's a Christian-based place. Before it used to be a First Nations-run place, but the Lord, He changed that, and there was an answer to prayer, and the Lord slowly over time built up a crew of men, let's say soldiers in the Lord who've willingly gone out of the way when the Lord has made them available and brought it available, that we've gone up and been able to share our testimony and share the Word of God with these men and give them hope. And the Lord loves these men so much that He gives them an opportunity to hear the gospel. We've watched men who are tormented by demons, who are tormented by evil spirits, we've watched them slowly get changed. I remember David came one time, and he sits right in the middle of them, and he loves on them, and I get encouraged by it because the men receive the love. I usually get up there, and knowing me, you guys know me well, I can preach, but sometimes I lack the love, and I'm thankful for brothers who the Lord has put together, that we can go up together, we can balance each other out. Some have love, some have the gift of this, some have the gift of that, but as a body when we're in cohesion and we have unity, it becomes a blessing to these men, and they receive the gospel. And every time you're there, they're so excited to see us. Every week, the moment we get in there, there literally is a loud cheer, like, yeah, you guys came, right? They're so happy that we're there, and they look forward to it. They always say, this is the thing that we look forward to every week. We can't wait until you get here. And so it's always a blessing, and I encourage you guys to make yourself available in those situations, because the Lord, He's given us a gift, and we want to make use of the gift that we have. Whether it be a word of encouragement for a sister, whether it be a blessing or a word of encouragement or exhortation to a brother, however we can, let us not forsake the assembling together as the day draws near, because we need to encourage one another more and more as the day draws near, lest we be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, lest we become overwhelmed with discouragement and depression, whether we lose focus on what's important in our life. It's good to have fellowship with brothers and sisters, because it reminds us of what our focus and our priority should be. Kara, can you sit down, please? Kara, can you sit down, please? Kara, can you go sit down, please? Thanks. But it's an encouragement, and that's where we have to draw from. We need to draw from the stream of Jesus. He is that ever-living well, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed. And it also says, he who believes in Him out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And when we have faith, guys, we're encouraged. I was encouraged by a song today. I asked, Tyler, what's a good song? And he said, faith is the victory. And you know what? Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. Whatever situation you're in, we need to have faith in Jesus, and we need to put our hope in Him. And He will encourage us. He will lift us up. He will be a blessing to us. And He will cause us to have life. He will reap life in our hearts. And we will have a bounce in our step, even though we go about the same, monotonous task, every single day, day in and day out. I want to read in Luke 14 here. It's something that I'm going to read to you. And I'm going to challenge me. The Lord gives an opportunity, especially even for these men, even for us here. We have the same opportunity that they have, but they get tested just as we get tested. Many of them hear the Word of God, they hear the Word of God. They start to count the cost. And then the tests come, because the Lord allows it, that our faith must be tested. And if your faith isn't being tested, then you should ask yourself if you're in the gospel, if you're not going through a trial and you're not going through a difficulty, you need to search your own heart and examine yourself. But if you are going through these things, then you know for certain, the Bible says, consider it joy when your faith is tested. I think of Sarah and how she had to follow Abraham. Abraham said, okay, honey, we have to pack up everything that we have here and we need to go to the promised land. Can you imagine how hard it would have been for her to do that? Well, the Lord hasn't shown me that. Well, I will trust you anyways. And she followed Abraham and Abraham led her to a promised land, a land that the nation of Israel would one day inherit. But she had to do it by faith. She had no child at the time. You know, nowadays when a sister has many children, they would consider that sister to be blessed. But Sarah had no children and she was the most blessed of all. Because she submitted to her husband, she followed him in that situation and the result of it was that the Lord rewarded her for her faith. She said, okay, I will come with you. And as Abraham went, did Abraham make blunders? Absolutely. Abraham went and when he went into the land of Egypt, he knew that his wife was beautiful. He said, this is my sister. You know, you could be how insulting that is if your husband says, this is my sister. Can you imagine that? And yet Abraham is the father of faith. He says, this is my sister. Can you imagine? If I was a wife, I would have been like, Abraham, slap you in the face. Like, come on, I'm your wife. No, this is my sister. And she ends up getting taken into his harem. And yet in that situation, she doesn't rebel. The Lord stands up for Abraham and he rescues him. And it's amazing that in that situation, she could probably have said, Abraham, you have no idea what you're doing. You have no idea. But Abraham humbles himself and he goes back to where he came from and he builds an altar to the Lord. And when he built that altar to the Lord, he made sacrifices unto the Lord. And he said, Lord, you are gonna be first in my life. No longer am I gonna run to the world for that provision. I'm gonna trust you in the place that you have me. And the Lord was with him at that time. And that was what faith is. That's what encouraged him. And that's what the Lord rewarded Sarah with. Said, okay, now I'm gonna give you a son. And she ended up having a son and his name was Isaac. And it was all based on a promise. And this is where our faith gets tested. Are you gonna rely upon the things that you see? Or are you gonna go by the direction and the word of God? Are you gonna trust the Lord and say, Lord, I'm trusting you that you're leading me and guiding me. I'm gonna believe in you and I'm not gonna go by what I see. I like what Randy shares sometimes. Faith does not come by seeing, my friends. If you're looking at something and you're looking at your circumstances and you're wondering, well, should I do this? Should I, I'm looking at what I should do. Should I make this decision at this time? Then you make the decision sometimes out of fear and not out of faith. But faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of God. And that comes from listening to a preacher. It comes from gathering together one brother in another and it builds your faith. And one man's faith is built up by another person's faith. And this is how we get encouraged in the Lord. We don't want to have that. Many times I've listened to preaching and it's just the same thing over and over again. I don't want that. I want my faith to be built up. I want your faith to be built up. And I want us to continue to grow and move forward in the Lord. As Sarah went with Abraham, it says that the two angels, one day Abraham was sitting outside of his tent. You know, I was at East Indian Wedding. They were all sitting outside the tent. And he said, come eat with me. Abraham was sitting outside of his tent and the three men walked up and he said, let's make them a meal. And the angel said, where is Sarah, your wife? They said, well, she's making a meal. It says that this time next year, Sarah will have a son. And it says, Sarah laughed. She broke down and laughed. And then, you know, she came out and the Lord said to her, why did you laugh? Can you imagine what a question? Why did you laugh? Oh, I didn't laugh. But yes, you did. He told them that. Because of that, that boy's name was Isaac. He named him after, but it's amazing that this woman in Hebrews 11 verse six, it says that that woman, not in 11 verse six, but in chapter 11, it says that this woman became, by her faith, she had a son. I was thinking, wow, that doesn't really exemplify great faith when you laugh at the promise that the Lord speaks to you. But it wasn't based on that. The Lord's word was his word. His word was his word. And he said, at this time next year, you're going to have a son. And because of his word, his word came to pass. I think of Mary in the same situation. Mary was given an opportunity. The angel appeared to her and said, you are gonna have a child. And she said, let it be as you say. And she had faith. She had a better response than Sarah, but Sarah was the one who had the great faith in Hebrews 11. She was the one who was enabled to have a child even after the time where you can no longer have a child. And it was because of her faith in the Lord who was able to call those things which are not as something that exists. He is able to do everything he can, or sorry, he's able to make the impossible possible. There is nothing impossible with the Lord. And that's exactly what he said to Mary. He said, Mary, there is nothing impossible with God, nothing impossible with him. And so some of you would say, wow, this situation that I'm in is bleak. I need to make a decision right away. You don't need to make a decision right away. I remember my journey in the Lord from the beginning to the end. And I remember for many years, I wanted everything to happen right away. I wanted things to change overnight. I wanted that great spiritual experience, but you know what? The Lord was totally opposite of that. One day we got invited to a Romanian church in Portland. So we went down to this Romanian church in Portland. And one day they wanted us to go see somebody. Perhaps they would have a word from the Lord. And I'm not into prophecies like that. I'm not into those things because many times they can direct people as to who you're gonna marry and this and that. I don't think that that's a good thing. And the Bible, it never talks about that in the new covenant, it never says those things. And so you need to be careful about those types of prophecies because they can lead you astray and cause you to put your hope in things that aren't from God. You need to be led by the spirit of God and the Lord needs to command it to you. He needs to speak it to you. So you have to be careful of these things. And it says you're supposed to test all the prophecies to see if they're from God. But there was one thing that that person said that actually did stand out to me. And it says, you can't always be in a hurry. Not everything comes at once. And that one thing stuck with me. I was like, I am always in a hurry. I cannot sit still and I'm always thinking about the next thing that's gonna happen to me. What's it gonna happen? And the person said, you need to be patient. Did you know that love is patient, but faith is also patient. Faith and patience go hand in hand and you need to be patient to wait on the Lord, to wait on the Lord for him to finish the work that he started. For seven and eight years, I was at a job where I made very little money, a very, very little money. And it was very hard for me. I owed $30,000 and I had to learn to be faithful with the little money that I had. I remember I lived on my sister's couch. And one week I had $20 for food for that week, $20 for food. And I said, Lord, why aren't you giving me more food? Why aren't you giving me more food? And the Lord said, you have to learn to have little because you spent your money foolishly in times past. You spent your money foolishly. My sister was away that week. So I went to the super store and we lived about five minutes away. And I said, okay, Lord, what can I get with this $20 that's gonna last me the week? I bought one loaf of bread. I bought about 10 slices of little ham, thinly sliced, because that was one piece of meat in my sandwich. I bought a tiny couple pieces of fruit. I only bought five pieces of fruit, one for each day. I didn't buy soy sauce, even though I love soy sauce. I had to put that on the altar and say, Lord, I'm gonna not buy it because I don't have enough. And I bought a tiny bit of broccoli. And that's all I had for the week was rice, broccoli, a piece of bread and some sandwich meat every single day for my lunch. That's all I had. And you know what, when I got home that night, I opened the fridge, there wasn't usually much in there, but there was a bottle of soy sauce. And I said, thank you, Lord, you provided for me. And the Lord taught me in that time to leave it in his hands. Two times that week, the Lord had brothers and sisters invite me over for supper. And the Lord met my need. He met my need because I trusted him. And I said, okay, Lord, but over time, throughout those seven to eight years, I worked and I worked and I made very little money, but the Lord was teaching me to be faithful with it, teaching me to be generous, to share with those who are in need, to be responsible with it. And I said, Lord, why doesn't my situation change? And you know what? It was during that time that I would say I walked closest with the Lord when I was in great need. Now, as I'm older and I have my own business, I have a little bit more than what I have. But you know what? As I find that you have a little bit more and you get ahead in life, sometimes you tend to forget about the Lord. You tend to forget about that dependency on him. And you rely more on the resources that you have rather than on Jesus. So let's not forget those hard times and let's not ask the Lord to change our situation right away. Sometimes the situation you're in is perfect for you. It's perfect for you because he's trying to teach you to depend on him at all times, to rely on him and say, Lord, why is my situation? Why do I have to go in this direction? I don't want to. It's a test of faith. And you need to trust the Lord and say, Lord, I know you have me right where I'm at for a reason because you're trying to teach me something about Christ. The Bible says whom I labor with you until Christ is formed in you. My friends, do you have Christ being formed in your life? I want Christ to be formed in me. But you know what happens is the Lord has to go to war with Dan. The Lord has to go to war with Dan until I surrender my will and I say, Lord, not my will, your be done. And that is when I see Christ being formed in my life. I see changes. In those times that I was there, the Lord formed a great character in my life. In those first eight years of working, making very little, trusting him to be responsible and relying upon him in those situations. And one day the Lord moved me out from that season, but he didn't release me until the time was right. And many of us are trying to get out of the situation we're in too soon. And we haven't learned to be patient. We must learn to be patient. We must learn to trust the direction that the Lord is leading us. We must learn to depend on him at all times and hold fast to the head. May the Lord bless you, may encourage you. And may we remember to trust him and have faith in him and he will reward that faith when we're patient. Let's be patient. Amen.