A Faith That Waits Patiently

Well, 10 years ago, God gave me a vision for a church. Okay? It was roughly 10 years ago. A different type of church. And my question is for you, where would you be without salt?

Where would you be if salt did not exist? And for some of you, maybe just visiting, you know, you're kicking the tires, or you've been here for a few weeks, maybe that's not clear to you yet. But for some of you, it's the most important thing that's ever happened to you. That God called me and Miranda. We had this little condo in Norfolk Avenue and just praying.

Praying that God would connect us with somebody. That God would help us be a part of him transforming someone's life. And the stories are here. The stories are here. And you have a story.

I have a story. I'm better off by virtue of Salt Church. I'm better off. What God has done in my life as a result of Salt Church is amazing. And I know for you, there's stories of transformation that have taken place.

There's stories of provision that have taken place. There's stories where I didn't even participate in church. I came to church and didn't participate. And I've learned the joy of serving. And there's all these great stories that people have as a result of Salt Church.

And maybe you have a story you want to share on video. We're going to put some videos together here soon. Because when the fall comes and we have people coming back to church. We want to share and show some of those videos and do some social media things too to let people know what God has done in your life. So I say that to say, would you be where you are without this church?

Would you be where you are if this church didn't exist? And I think for many of you would say, I don't know where I would be without this church. I don't know where I would be without this family. I don't know where I would be without that person that is a part of my life that I connected with, without that teaching that you gave, Pastor, that day. That day when that worship song was playing and I felt the touch of the Spirit on my heart and on my life.

I don't know where I would be. So here's what I'm leaning into today. The last point I want to make about this transition, about where we're going, is that it's a time for us as a family to pull together. It's a time for us as a family to be in this together. It's a time for us to put our heads together, to put our resources together, to put our finances together.

This is what the church is all about, right? Is to do this together. Because the vision that God gave me doesn't stop here. It's great to see what God has done. Me and Dave were just talking when he was in the house when we were just starting in that little condo, how there was nobody there.

And he wasn't quite sure, right? He said, I'm not sure if this thing's going to take off. There's like five people in this house and we're trying to figure out how to do this, right? But there was a heart. There was something in my heart.

But he would tell you today that there's no doubt about it. And for me, there's no doubt about it that God has something big. God has something greater. And God's getting ready to do something. And we feel like it's going to happen.

And God's getting ready to transition us to a new place. A place we can call home and we can reach more people. We're going to see bigger crowds. We're going to see more people come to Christ. We're going to see a lot more hearts change.

And God, it's no mistake what's going on here. So here's what I want to encourage you to do. Beyond your regular tithes and offering and your faithful givers, and praise God for that. For a church our size, you guys rock it. Y'all are amazing, okay?

But we have a building fund set up. And if you feel led, we've got about close to $70,000 raised so far, praise God, for our own building. But some of you have it in your heart to give. And you can go online and give. You can give in the box, or you can connect with us on another day about your giving.

In fact, here's the deal. Let me just share this. I had a phone call come in last night because I've asked other churches to pray for us. And we found out we're losing this facility and we didn't know where we were going. And honestly, guys, there's been a lot of stuff here.

Are you hot today? You're hot. We've asked 20,000 times for there to be AC running in this place, and it's just not getting done. So we realized that there's a lot of things that—there's reasons we should move, right? There's reasons that we don't want—you know, you probably came here as a new guest, and you're like, I don't know if I want to come back to this church because of the heat.

Trust me, I'm trying. And we've had to move around and work around. So I realized that this just—we knew that this wasn't going to be a long-term solution anyway. But what this is doing is forcing us to consider our own permanent location, a building. And if you have it in your heart to give—and getting back to my story, I went on a rabbit trail there.

But getting back to my story, somebody called me last night. They don't go to our church. They don't know much about our church outside of me and my vision and my heart. And they've offered to give us a significant amount of money, $10,000, to go towards our building. Amen?

So God's up to something. God's doing something. So maybe you're a $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 giver. Maybe you're a $100 giver. But if we as a family can come together, we can see a building come to fruition.

We can see a place somewhere where we can minister to more people. We can be strategically put in—like, God has not—we've changed five locations since COVID, guys. We've bounced around a whole lot. Some people are like, I just can't take this bouncing anymore. But let me tell you this.

Don't give up. And I'm going to talk about that today, waiting on the Lord and not giving up, waiting patiently on the Lord and the act of faith of waiting patiently. But let me say this. Let me say this, that God's promises—we sang about this. God's promises are not forgotten, right?

And he's going to fulfill his purpose, and he's going to fulfill his plan. And we believe that what he started, he's going to take much, much further. And we believe that with all of our hearts. So lean in. Let's be a family.

Let's do this together. I believe that God is going to do great things. Amen? Because a little bit of salt goes a long way. And we want to do things that not only for us, for now, but we want to see the future generations change for the glory of God through this ministry.

We want to see this church go way beyond me, way beyond anybody that's here today, that God would just continue to be faithful through this ministry and change lives and change hearts for the future. And also, we are open to location ideas. We are open to, if you're a business person or maybe you're somebody who knows some people, connect with us. We've got Dave and Christina that are working together to search for something and put some things together. And we would love to connect with you and find out what you have.

Raise your hand over there. He's kind of, he's kind of working, working the system. He was out yesterday looking at buildings and looking at different properties and seeing what's, what's, what we're capable of doing. So if you're somebody who can help out in that area, we would love to hear from you. So let's, let's wait patiently on the Lord.

And, and let me, let me just say this last thing. I know I'm going long and I'll make my message really short about waiting, but I lied there probably, but you know, some of you are waiting for me to get started. And you're like, how long are you going to keep going, Leon? But Joseph, think about the story of Joseph and the promised land that, that God had promised Israel. That the people of Israel were in a famine.

And we were in a famine. We just came out of a famine, really. This COVID crisis. And we didn't have anywhere to go. And God brought us to these different places.

And they weren't the ideal places, right? We, we, we've been to three or four different places, but he brought us out of the famine and he brought us in and we were here for a while. But remember that after Joseph had passed away, after he brought his family in and they had fed them and they had taken care of them and they had made them prosperous. What happened? Generations had passed away and they had forgotten about Joseph.

But God had not forgotten about his promise for a promised land. So he wrote, he rose up Moses to take the people from slavery. So in this situation, I feel okay. So the hotel's not for us. We were brought in for a season.

We could have been out on the street, but they had us here for a couple of months. You know, we had this place for a couple of months. We had FFX for a couple of months. We had the holiday in for a couple of months. We had Mocha for, for a few months.

I mean, we had, but God, but God sought it to move us forward so that we can inherit the promise that he has given us the promised land. And he brought Moses up. And he brought Moses up. And today we are people who are being brought up out of where we are into the promise that he has given us. So we're moving forward in that promise.

So be with us. Let's do this together. Let's walk this out together. So have praise God. Thank you.

So let me just share with you something real quick about waiting. How many of you like to wait? And we've been waiting and I've been waiting. You've been waiting. What kind of feelings come up when you hear the word wait?

How, how about when I, when I say, you know, patience, what kind of feelings come when you, when I say patience, practicing patience. And some of you are, uh, are, are, are here and, and you're like Leon during my, my speech just a second ago, you were like Leon, when are you going to get to the message? Because you're already thinking about what you want to do and where you want to go. And you've been moving around in your seat and you're ready to go. And you got to, you got this to do, you got that to do, but you don't know how to wait.

And you don't know how to be patient, but there is a practice, act of faith in waiting patiently. And James talks about this act of faith. And, and, and, and what we're going to talk about is when is it, when is it, how do we wait patiently on the Lord? All of us, um, have spent a great percentage of our life waiting. In fact, Amazon has created companies and, and now we got Uber Eats and all this other stuff.

And you guys are paying bukus of money because you hate waiting. You hate going out. And it's hard when you go to a restaurant because you seem to have to wait for everything, right? You have to wait to be seated. You wait for a menu.

You wait for your food. And then you wait for the check. And, uh, the person who's waiting on you happens to be the waiter. And you're the one waiting, right? Is what's going on.

And we all hate that. But even deeper for many of us, we've been waiting for God to deliver on a desire, on a prayer, on a dream, on a promise for a very, very long time. And we can feel we are doing all the right things. We can feel that we're living the right life and we're, we're, and we're praying about it and we're doing all those things. But waiting is so hard and it's really difficult to wait.

And sometimes the greatest step of faith is to take a time and wait on God. Your greatest step of faith is when you take time and wait on the Lord. It takes a lot more faith to wait than, than be impulsive. Okay. It doesn't take a lot of faith to be impulsive.

It doesn't take a lot of faith to jump and do something, but it takes a lot of faith to wait. So today I want to talk about the act of waiting, the art of waiting patiently on the Lord. And I want to take you to the book of James, who is all about faith. The whole book is about operating in faith. And, and he talks about farmers.

He talks about prophets and he talks about Job in this particular passage. So if you're with me today, James chapter five, verse seven and 11, we're going to go through this. And let me just read this real quickly to prepare you. Be patient, my friends, until the Lord comes back. Remember how patient farmers are as they wait for their valuable crops to mature and ripen.

They also wait patiently for the spring and fall rains to do their work. You too must be patient. He says, don't give up because the Lord could arrive at any time. He could come back at any time and don't complain. Don't complain while you're waiting, especially against each other or God will judge you.

And remember that the real judge is standing at the door. Okay. That's what he says. And another example of patience is a faith is, is, is the face of suffering in the face of suffering is God's prophets who spoke God's truth in hard times. So today we are honored.

We honor them for their patient endurance when they suffered unjustly. And then he says, then remember the example of Job, Job continued to patiently trust God while enduring great pain. But we know how God fulfilled his purpose for Job and that his plan for Job ended in good because the Lord always treated us with tender compassion and mercy, merciful kindness. So let's look at the when, the what, and how to practice the faith of waiting patiently. He shows us a when and a what and a how in this scripture.

So when is it, when is waiting patiently an act of faith? Let me give you three things real quick on that. When circumstances are out of our control, it's an act of faith. And in most things, our circumstances are out of control. And he uses the example of farmers.

He talks about, be patient, my friends, until the Lord comes back. Remember how patient farmers are as they wait for their valuable crops to mature and ripen. They also wait patiently for the spring and fall rains to do their work. You too must be patient. Don't give up because the Lord could arrive at any time.

So look at the farmers. There's no overwrite crops, guys. Some of you are farmers. Ricky, you farm for a while. There's no overnight crops, are there?

Nope. Yeah. He helped farmers. Okay, so he helped farmers. He says there's no, there was a lot of work.

There's a lot of time put into it. There's a lot of waiting. It doesn't happen overnight. There's tilling. There's water.

There's fertilizing. You have to wait. And there's uncontrollable factors. You know, you can't judge the weather. You can't judge the economy.

You can't figure out, you know, the labor prices at the time. I mean, there's all kinds of things that go in and it takes faith to wait on those things. And even though we know something is uncontrollable, we try to control it. How many of you try to control the uncontrollable? How do you try?

You try to control the uncontrollable? You know how you know that? Because you worry. I worry. I worried this weekend when I found out that we didn't have a place next week because I want to control the uncontrollable.

It was out of my control, but I want to control the uncontrollable because it's dumb not to control the controllable, right? But when things are out of our control, we worry and we're attempting to control the uncontrollable when that happens. The second thing is when the truth is unpopular. We need to practice faith, patiently waiting on the Lord when the truth is unpopular. Because sometimes as a follower of Jesus, we're going to have to say things that are truth.

We're going to have to say things. I'm going to have to preach things. I'm going to have to share things that are truth. And they're unpopular. And people aren't going to want to hear it.

They're going to deny it. They're going to not want to have anything to do with what truth is. And they get upset when you speak the truth. They get angry when you speak the truth. And in today's culture, it's easy to hide the truth.

I mean, they believe a lot of things that aren't true. And we believe a lot of things that aren't true about ourselves, right? And that's what culture tells us. But we need to speak truth. That's why James goes on and says another example of patience in the face of suffering is God's prophets who spoke God's truth in hard times.

And today, we honor them with their patient endurance when they suffer unjustly. So we honor them today. So the duty of a prophet is to get people to change their ways. It's to get people to change their behavior. That's the idea of a prophet.

And that's not popular. If you don't want to be popular, be a prophet. If you want to be popular, you do not need to be a prophet. And they were not popular. They were misunderstood.

They were maligned. And prophets comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. That's what they did. And prophets would tell it like it is. It should be and it could be.

They tell what it could be. And people didn't like prophets. And prophets had to practice patience. And in some sense, we as believers, some of us have the gift of prophecy and we believe in that. But for all of us, there's a sense of us wearing and bearing the truth, even when it's not popular.

Pastors have to be patient, you know, with people when they tell the truth. So we speak truth and love, love everyone and be patient with everyone. We have to. We have to. Have you ever tried to change someone's mind that didn't want to change?

You ever tried to do that? But it's not easy. So what do you do when you try to help bring change to a friend, help bring change to your children, to your spouse? You wait patiently. You be patient with them.

You love them and you walk it out with them. The word patience has this Greek word. It comes from this Greek rendering called microthumos, which comes from thermometer. That's where we get the word thermometer out of microthumos. And what that means is it takes a while to get hot.

Just like a thermometer, it takes a while to get hot. It takes a while for people to change. It takes a while for that. So you have to be patient. Patience produces change.

And if you want to be successful with people, you have to learn to be patient. And when we are waiting, we are frustrated, we are not seeing results, we don't grumble. In fact, he goes on in the next part of the scripture and says, Don't grumble at your brothers and sisters or God will judge you. Remember, the great judge is coming. He's standing at the door.

He's waiting for you. So we don't grumble either. And number three, we practice patience when pain is unbearable and unexplainable. And we need to practice patience even when there's physical pain, when there's emotional pain, and when there's questions in life that we just can't answer that are unexplainable. And James uses the story of Job to get to this because when we learn in scripture about Job, one of the oldest books, the oldest book in the Bible, we learn that he lost everything.

He lost his children. He lost his crops. He lost his financial means. He lost everything. He was even inflicted with a painful disease.

His own wife told him, why don't you curse God and die? That's not a way to support somebody that's going through something. He lost everything, and he didn't understand. But he was a godly man. We can't understand.

He was a godly man. He lived for God. He did all the right things. And in the background, Satan. See, we don't know what's going on.

Job didn't know what's going on. And sometimes in our situations, we don't know what's going on. But in the background, we get a little reality check of what's going on in the spiritual realm when Satan goes to God. And he says, you know, have you considered? God tells Satan, because Satan's saying, you know, I'm going, I'm messing up the earth.

I'm going to and fro, and I'm doing my thing. You know, I'm doing, I'm putting sin here. I'm doing this, and I'm doing that. He says, well, have you considered my servant Job? And he says, let me at him.

I'll do whatever. And I promise you, he will fail you. And God said, okay, do your thing. You can do whatever you want to to him, but do not take his life. And Job was victorious because he was a godly man.

And he understood that there was something bigger than even he understood. And you may be going through something right now. Maybe you're going through a place, and even when the pain is unbearable and unexplainable, we wait. Job waited patiently. He trusted God.

And so we see the end of the story. And that's why he says, remember Job, how he waited patiently, and he goes on and on. So we see the end of the story because God gave him back double everything that he had lost. We see the end of the story. But in our lives, we don't see the end of the story.

And it's a lot harder when we don't see the end of the story. But we see the end of the story. But Job didn't at the time and had no explanation. In fact, for 37 chapters, Job didn't hear from God at all. How many of you have been praying to God?

Why can't I hear God? Why can't I hear God? He's been silent, man. I go through seasons. I've been through a season just recently where, God, where are you?

Why can't I hear you? For 37 chapters, he did not hear from God. God said nothing to Job. And so it is with us. But God finally spoke, and Job trusted.

He endured. And God rewarded him. And for us, there's a lot of unfair things that might happen to you. And happened in the world. There's injustice, there's violence, there's pain.

There's all these things. But that's when we need to practice the art of waiting patiently. Waiting patiently on the Lord. The second part is, what should I remember while I'm waiting? Okay?

So we talked about the when, now we're talking about the what. So what do I do when I'm waiting? James tells us, he says, remember that God is in control. You've got to always go back to that point, that truth, right? God is in control.

And we don't know what's happening in the world and how long it will go on. But we know that God's in control. And we can always go to that. In fact, there's three scriptures in James says, Be patient, my friends, until the Lord comes back. 5-7.

Be patient, stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. 5-8. Don't complain. The judge is ready to come. James 5-9.

Three times he talks about the Lord's return because he's trying to communicate to us that there's something bigger going on. The Lord is returning. The Lord is coming back. Everything's going to be okay. He has everything under control.

The overarching story you may not be able to see. You may not be able to understand. But God has a story. It's not cyclical. It's a timeline.

And there is a beginning. There was a beginning. And there was God. And there is an end. And it will be God and his people.

And his people will be with him forever. And there is an end. Because it's ultimate proof that God is in control. James is showing us that God is most certainly in control. I love how the Phillips translation says it.

Rest your heart on the ultimate certainty. We were just singing about confidence. You know, confidence. I'm confident. His promises.

It will come true. We can be confident. We can be confident that the promises that he has given us, every promise that we have in the word of God will come to fruition. Secondly, we remember God rewards patience. He rewards patience.

James 5.11 says it like this. We consider blessed those who have persevered. There's pay and patience. There's payback and patience.

It pays to be patient. And there are all kinds of blessings in life that you can receive through patience. It builds your character. It helps you avoid mistakes. You can reach certain goals that you may not have been able to reach.

You learn to honor others. You have happier relationships through patience. There's all kinds of benefits. That's why Galatians 6.9 says it like this.

Paul says, let us not get tired of doing what is right. For after a while, we will reap a harvest of blessing. What? If? If we don't get discouraged and give up.

But a lot of us don't make it past the if because we get discouraged. We give up. We're going through seasons where we just don't feel God. We don't hear from God. We don't understand God.

We don't know why he's here. Not hearing our prayers. He's not doing what he's supposed to do. And we start to give up. We start to loosen up.

We stop going to group. We stop going to church. We stop reading our Bibles. We stop praying. We start trying to tap into things that we think will give us what we need and what we want.

And how and we miss out on the blessing that is soon to come. So we should persevere. And there's blessings not only in earth, but we can be hopeful for those heavenly blessings that are coming. And we think of angels in the clouds and blah, blah, blah, and singing forever. That sounds really boring to a lot of us, but that's not heaven.

Heaven is everything that you could possibly want. Everything you could possibly need. He's going to come back and restore everything. This earth is going to be heaven one day and his people are going to live with him and he will be their God and we will be their people. It's going to be a beautiful thing.

Everything that you enjoy in this life. But oh yeah, Jesus will be everything. Jesus will be in the middle of it. It's going to be amazing. So the next time you think about giving up, because here's the deal.

Jesus said it, blessed are you when men insult you and persecute you and say all things against you and evil against you for my name and say, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. That's what he said. When they do that, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Why would he say that? Because great is your reward in heaven.

You got heavenly rewards. And when you get hurt, when something happens to you, somebody does you wrong and your strongest desire is to retaliate. I want to get even with them. I want to get justice. Look, look, look, we wanted like, there's, there's some things that happen with this facility.

We wanted to get justice for it because we were, we were unfairly being pushed out of here. But you know what? When we would do that, that next time you think that, you know what I thought? Is it worth giving up my eternal reward? I'm aiming for a reward in heaven.

I'm not aiming for, for anything right now. I want justice. I want to, when, when something's said falsely against me and as a pastor here, here, let me just be transparent with you. It hurts when you hear things about me. When I hear things about me coming through the grapevine, that is not true.

Does not represent me at all. It's not who I am. I've never did that or never said that or whatever it might be. There's, there's, there's things that have been said about me and I'm willing to accept that as a pastor. I knew that coming into this.

I get misjudged. I get falsely represented all the time. I have doubts. I second guess things from time to time. And, but, but, but what good would it do to defend myself?

What good would it do? I could defend myself. I could go all the way and defend myself, but you know what I do instead? I remain silent. I remain silent.

I wait on the Lord. I wait patiently on the Lord because the end result is what is in here. What's happening in here. And that results in, and those who know me best and those who, who around me most know my heart and God know more importantly knows my heart. And that's who I'm trying to please.

I'm not trying to please anyone else. I'm trying to please. I'm just trying to please God. I started Salt Church and to please God. He gave me a vision.

He gave me a dream, but more than anything, it was to please God because there were you out there. There were others out there that needed to know Jesus Christ and needed a little bit of salts to change their life. And thirdly, remember, this is not the end of the story. God is still working behind the scenes. This is not the end of the story, guys.

This is not the end. This is not it. I said this about this church, just because we're transitioning again. This is not the end of the story. Thank God it's summer.

We got a lot of opportunity and flexibility summer to do some things that it could be in the middle of the winter where you couldn't be outside, you know? Thank God for that. But it is not the end of the story because God's delay. It's not God's denial, okay? Some of you are in the delay, the season of delay.

I really am hungry for this, Lord. I really have been praying about this for a long time. But that doesn't mean he's denying you. I love how Phillips Brooks, he's an old pastor from 100 years ago. He was pacing around his office back and forth one day and his wife comes in and says, he says, Phillip, what are you doing?

He says, because I'm in a hurry and God isn't. And it's so true. I'm in a hurry and God isn't. Some days, you know, you just have those times. Why is God not in a hurry?

Have you ever been there? I mean, the most difficult room to be in is in the waiting room of God. It's bad enough to be in a waiting room in general, right? But in the waiting room of God, it's really hard. And remember the farmers, they don't see the crops.

They're growing under the ground. They don't know. But it's a waiting season. The rain, the sunshine, the things happen underground that we can't see. See, God's doing things that we can't see.

God is at work within you to will and to do his good pleasure, according to scripture. He's working and he's willing things in you. You cannot see right now that you don't, that you have no clue what he's doing. Just like the crops coming under the ground, you don't see all the things, the minutia and all that that's happening with all the chemicals and all the, all the, the rainwater and all the things that happen there. You don't know what's going on there.

You can't see that, but it comes. The crop is coming and it's going to happen. And they live with that expectation. Finally, let me give you the how, how do I trust God during a delay? So how do we do that?

That's, that's always, I'm, I'm, I'm delayed. God's delayed. I don't hear from God. I'm waiting on God. How do I, how do I trust God during this time?

What do I do during this time? Well, let me give you the farmer, the prophet and Job's example real quick. The farmer said they wait expectantly. They expect the crop to come, right? They don't sit around and like, well, it may or may not come.

No, they're, they're preparing, right? They're preparing. They're getting, they're getting the crop. They're, they're getting ready for the crop. They're, they're putting the things in order.

And so that when the harvest comes, they're prepared for it because they expect the harvest. That's why the psalmist says, I wait expectantly trusting God to help for he has promised. I wait expectantly. I live with expectation. I know that God has something bigger.

I know that God has an end to this. I know that God has an answer to my prayers. I know that. So I wait expectantly. I begin to prepare.

Some of you are there. You've been waiting on God, maybe to heal your marriage. You've been waiting. Or to solve your financial situation or to heal that hurt or, or to, uh, reach your loved ones. You've been praying for a long time for your brother, sister, your daughter, your, your son to, to, to find Jesus.

You've been praying for a long time. So the question is for you, do you really expect God to deliver? Do you have the faith to expect God to deliver? Are you living with expectation for that? Are you giving up?

Are you living with expectation? What is it that is showing your expectation? What is it preparing? You need to be preparing just like a pregnant woman prepares for a child. She's getting the nursery together.

And, and, and I was at, uh, Justin Jenkins, Justin, you're probably online watching today. I was at his house a few weeks ago. He says, Hey Leon, come in here before they had their baby, they just had a baby. He shows me his room, Ricky, you were there. We were showing his room.

He's like, look at this. Look, he's so excited. And they're all prepared. And they got the things hanging up on the wall. They're prepared for that child to come because they expect that child to come in the same way.

We need to be prepared and expecting, preparing ourselves for what's to come, preparing ourselves in the time of waiting, waiting patiently. We live with expectation. And sometimes we think we are waiting on God, but you know, God's waiting on us. God's waiting on us to prepare. God's waiting on us to be ready.

He says, you're not ready yet. So I'm giving you time to prepare. So start preparing and live with that expectation. That's why Isaiah said, no one who waits for my help will be disappointed. No one who waits for my help will be disappointed to like the prophets.

We need to wait without complaining, wait without complaining. Ooh, it's easy to start complaining when it gets along. And Lamentations says it like this. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good to wait quietly.

We need to keep quiet. Right. And James advises us and I did a whole series on that. So you can go back and listen to that about our mouths. But he advises us to keep our mouths closed and stop grumbling because self-pity just kills the waiting period.

Right. And it's hard to be quiet when you're frustrated. I get it. That's human nature. We get frustrated.

We get, we get angry. We grumble, we whine. But think about it. When you grumble and whine, you start your day grumbling and whining. And at the end of the day, you're grumbling and whining.

It just leaves you tired. It leaves you frustrated even more. It doesn't do any good. So God's like, you know, show up and shut up. You know, just wait on me.

Show up. Be with me. Listen to me. And verse 12, this isn't a part of the scripture that I'm sharing with you today. But if you go on to verse 12, he says, and some people start swearing and act unrighteous, right?

And sometimes when you're waiting, you start swearing. You start acting unrighteous. And where does that get you? Nowhere. Just a foul mouth and, you know, trash.

That's all that does. You're not living righteously. So what do you do when you're frustrated and can't do anything about it? What do we usually do? We usually take it out on the people that are closest to us.

That's what we usually do. That's where we grumble and complain. We start blaming everybody else because you're thinking through, why am I here? Why am I waiting? Why?

Well, God's not giving me an answer. Maybe it's because so-and-so isn't praying hard enough for me or believing in me or whatever. Maybe it's because this person's not here. Or this person's done this. Or why I'm here is because of that person in the past.

And we point the finger and all that good stuff. So our family and friends take the flack because we blame other people. So instead, we just need to be quiet. When we're waiting, be quiet. Seek impatiently.

That's faith. That's how faith works. And then finally, like Joe, we wait confidently. We wait confidently. Micah 7-7 says, I wait confidently on God.

I wait confidently on God. There's a confidence in waiting. How many of you, you like to be confident in a lot of things, and you are confident in a lot of things, but how confident are you in waiting? How confident are you in waiting? Waiting on God.

How, like, you like to, you come out, you buck up, you walk out, you got confidence when you're on the street, you got confidence when you're in the gym. I picked on the gym rats last week. You're kind of, you know, you're bucking up in the mirror and you're doing all, you know, and you're confident in those areas, but you're not so confident when God comes in and doesn't answer your prayers. And how many of you are confident? Nothing is more frustrating than waiting and chronic pain and whatever you might be going through.

But here's what Job was going through. He had chronic pain. He not only lost everything, he's hurting physically. And here's what he says, if a man dies, can he come back to life? I will wait for better times.

I will wait till this time of trouble ends. And Job, that first part gets me, if a man dies, can he come back to life? He's like, he's like answering his own question. Yes, yes, of course. So, so I trust in God because I know he can come back to life.

And what's interesting about this is this is the oldest book in the Bible and he had not yet witnessed resurrection. He didn't see Jesus. He was living way before Jesus. He saw types and there was types and shadows of Jesus all in here. So he sees resurrection already.

He already understands it because he has a close relationship with God. He understands who God is. And, but he sees better times. He sees that there will be an end. He sees He sees that there will be a resurrected body.

This gives us a hint of a resurrected life. That God is all about resurrecting things back. Making things new. Restoring things. Renewing things.

Transforming things. He sees this. And he knows that there's an end to this. So how do you express confidence in God? Be still.

Show up. Shut up. Get before him. Focus on him. Because here's what Isaiah says.

Those who wait on the Lord. Let me just. Those who wait. I love this scripture. Because look, listen guys.

Years ago, I got this message from a prophetic woman. It was a professor of mine in seminary. And she said, wait, Leon, wait. Wait. And I've shared this before.

She gave me. And I'm not a wait guy. I hate waiting. Hate waiting. I hate it so bad.

I want things to get to where they need to be quick. And those of you who work closest to me know that. How do we get there? How do we get there quick? What to, you know, I don't, I don't, you know, I'm just terrible about that.

But she said, wait. And I'm like, wait, what? I already spent three years at seminary. Do I need to spend any longer? You know, like, like I'm getting ready to graduate.

It was like my last class getting out. She says, wait, no, I don't want to wait. But what I found is those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. Those who wait on the Lord. See, I have to learn the art of waiting because if I don't know the art of waiting, I am weak.

I cannot make it through. I cannot. My personality doesn't demand that. My personality thinks strength comes by getting to where I need to be. Maybe it's the man nature in me.

Guys like to get it done. I don't know what it is. But I want to see results. I want to see numbers. I want to see these things.

But if I don't stop and wait, then I will be defeated. I will be defeated. Those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary.

This is a warrior we're seeing here. They will walk and not faint. Guess what? The greatest warriors in the world are those who can wait. You want to be a warrior for Jesus?

You want to be a Christian warrior? You want to be strong? You want to be confident? You want to be expected? You want to be all those things?

You need to wait on the Lord. And if you are tired, if you are fatigued, if you are drained, you can recover by waiting. Wait. Wait. Wait on the Lord.

Because remember that He is in control. What do you do when you wait? Remember that He is in control. He rewards those who are patient. And there is an end to the story.

And there's something going on behind the scene. That's how you wait. Even when you can't see it, He's working. And even when you don't know it, it's like that song. You know, we've been singing that Leland song.

Even when I don't see it, you're working. Even when I don't feel it, you're working. He's working. That's what He's doing. He's working behind the scenes.

He's working. And while you're waiting, you need to worship. While you're waiting, you need to worship God. You got to just lift your heart up. Say, I'm just, you know what?

I'm in a waiting season. I don't see the results right now. I'm praying. But you know what? I'm going to run.

Because what makes the devil get mad? What makes the devil get angry? What makes the enemy get angry is when I worship him. When I worship him. When I give him the glory, no matter what.

Because he doesn't know what's going on in my heart. The devil can't read your heart. Only God knows your heart. He sees your emotions. He sees what you're doing.

But you know what? When he's throwing something at me, when he's throwing that weapon at me, it doesn't prosper because you know what I do? I worship. I worship God because he sees me worshiping God. He sees me honoring God.

He sees me going after God. I'm not going after that. I'm going after God. And he sees those things. So while you're waiting, you need to worship.

And that gives us strength. And instead of complaining, we need to worship. Instead of complaining, we just worship. So my question for you as I end this message, and Andrew, you can come up, what's going on in your life? What are you going through right now?

Now, what do you need God to do? Maybe it's financial. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's uncertainty. Maybe it's health.

Maybe it's physical pain. So everybody's going through something. Guess what, guys? You're not alone. You think you're alone.

You're not. We're all going through something somewhere in some situation. I mean, when you have no finances, that's a terrible place to be, right? But when you're going through chronic pain, that's a terrible place to be as well. Everybody's going through something.

So what are you going through? And what do you need to do? You just need to give God control. You need to give God control. You need to understand that He's going to reward you in your patience by patiently waiting.

You're going to come on the other side. You're going to be like, oh, God, I'm so glad I waited. Because if I didn't wait, I would have made a bad, poor decision. I would have chosen wrong path. But I stopped and waited.

It's like making plans for your life, making goals. What do you do? You don't just tackle it right away because you'll make poor decisions. You strategize. And that's what you're doing with God.

You're allowing God to be a part of the control process. You're not in control. God's in control. Let Him be in control because He knows what's best. Follow your steps and He rewards those who are patient because they waited and know.

That regardless of how you feel, He is working, He is working, He's working in your life, He's working on your heart, He's working on your character, He's working on your integrity, He's working on your purity, He's working on all those areas in your life so that you could be prepared to be that person that He has prepared for, that place that He has prepared for you to be at. You're not ready yet, so wait. Wait patiently and watch what He does. Let's pray together. Father, we wait.

We wait patiently. We're encouraged in our waiting. We're strengthened in our waiting. We're honored to wait. God, help us to see that there is a plan, that you are actually working in the background.

And if any of us have a heart that is drawn away from who you are and what you're doing, that you would call us back and let us know. You are, in fact, working and you're doing things underneath. And the things that we cannot see, the things that we don't know are happening for our better, for our good, for your glorious purpose, and that we are going to be rewarded. And in due season, in due time, we're going to reap. We're going to reap a crop.

We're going to have a crop. And then, like the prophets, though they were not much to be thought of, we are going to stand on truth. And we are going to be unpopular, but ultimately, we're going to be popular to you, Lord. That's our desire, because you come through. And then, like Job, we may lose everything, but we can continually trust you.

You may take everything away from us, but we can continue to trust you, because that's where our strength lies. God, make us change our hearts, change our lives. Distractions that have called us away from you. Take away the distractions that have called us away from your glorious purpose for our lives. For some of you here today, in that same spirit of worship, every eye closed, every head bowed in this place, the Spirit of the Lord is here, and He's turning hearts back towards Him.

Word says He draws people's hearts, draws people to Him. Perhaps He's drawing you here today, and you know He's been, and maybe you're far from God. Maybe you don't have a relationship with God today. Maybe that's you. Scripture says, and 2 Peter says, the Lord isn't being slow in keeping His promise to return.

Instead, He's waiting on you. He's waiting on you, so being patient with you, because He doesn't want anyone to be lost or perish, but that all would come to repentance in half. He's been waiting on you. So today, this is your day. He's calling you home.

Come home to the Father. Do this by simply believing He is a good Father. So if you would just pray that with me. Lord, I believe that You are the Son of God. You died on the cross for my sin, and I believe that You are a good Father.

I believe, Father, in heaven, that You gave Your Son for me, and that He rose again from the dead. I believe, and I believe He can live in my heart today. So come into my life, Lord. Change me. Transform me from the inside out.

I believe in You, and give You the praise in Your name.