Patience

Summit today, we have a very, very special guest, Pastor Brian Loretz. Pastor Brian is the pastor of Preaching and Mission at Trinity Grace Church in New York City.

I've known Brian for quite some time. He is an anointed and gifted leader, and he's one of the key visionaries and prophets of the multicultural development in the American church. So as we continue to grow in the area of diversity, I'm very eager to hear what Pastor Brian has to say for our church today. I've wanted to have him here for quite some time. So at all of our campuses, would you please join me in welcoming Pastor Brian Loretz? Well, thanks a lot, Pastor JD, for that gracious introduction, although I had to chuckle a little bit.

So we just moved from Memphis, Tennessee to New York City, and I'm looking at Pastor JD and all those books he had in the background. And I had about as many of them. Keyword there is had because my wife kind of said those aren't going to fit in our 1200 square foot apartment. So I had to get rid of them.

Unbelievable. But hey, that was the cross I had to pick up to follow Jesus. I guess I could spin it that way, however you want to spin it. Anyways, if you've got your devices, please meet me in James chapter five. I know I'm driving the production guys crazy because I gave them another scripture, which we covered in the first service. But at the end of the first service, I just sensed the Holy Spirit wants me to talk about something completely different to you guys than when I talked about in the first service this evening. So we're going to give you guys just a fresh word, not popping anything in the microwave, but something new that I really believe that God has on my heart to speak to this service specifically about that's found in James chapter five.

If you're new here, let me just say the search is over. If I were you, this is a great church to join. And I say that in all authenticity. I absolutely love, love, love the Summit Church, love Pastor JD and the way God is using him all over our nation and world for the cause and fame of Jesus Christ. Everywhere I go, whenever his name comes up, and I say this in all seriousness, it is just said with a sense of pride the way God is using him in a very catalytic way. And this is what God's doing here is absolutely, absolutely special. We're on the other side leading a church called Trinity Grace Church where we're helping to not only give holistic leadership, but specifically to take this large church and to see it diversify so that it becomes more of an expression not just of New York City, but of our future kingdom multi-ethnic reality.

So that's why we're there and we're excited. Bryce Quinton, who's 14. He's my most adaptable child. Miles, who's 12. Introvert, classic middle child, very compassionate. He's my most thoughtful child. And then Jayden, my youngest. He's the biggest child whose spiritual gift is eating and food.

The boy just lives in the refrigerator. In fact, I got it worked out already what I'm going to say to him when hopefully he'll come to me in his 20s and go, Dad, I met this girl. She's the bomb. How do you know if she's the one? I already know what I'm going to say to him. Son, if you can look into her eyes the way you look into my refrigerator, she is the one. All right?

You know, put a ring on it. Anyway, so that's our tribe and I'm excited and just stoked to be with you all. Again, if you have your devices, click on your Bible apps. Meet me in James chapter 5. I want to lift up about four or five verses to you beginning in verse 7. James writes, Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being, here's that word again, patient about it.

Until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, here it is again, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Verse 9, James is going to show us that patience isn't just physical. It actually has to do with our attitude as well when he says, Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.

Behold, the judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering, here's that word again, and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained, synonym for patience, steadfast.

You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Father, as I sat there at the end of service, I just really felt that this was the word you wanted for the 5.30 crowd tonight. So, I just step out on faith and I ask in the name of Jesus that you would speak to our hearts. I believe, Lord God, that you have sovereignly decreed that all of us here today would be here on this day to not only worship and esteem you, but to receive from you, Lord God, a specific word from you. So I pray that you would warm our hearts and deepen our affections for you. I pray for that person who's here who does not know you, who does not know what it means to be in relationship with you. I pray that your gospel would be proclaimed and that you would lovingly draw that person to faith in you.

So that in, Lord God, that I'm available to you, use me for your honor and glory, I pray in Jesus' name, amen and amen. One of the most annoying things that can ever happen to an oyster is to have lodged within its shell a tiny grain of sand. Now, most of the times when this happened, the oyster is able to locate this grain of sand and to expel it from its midst. It finds the grain of sand, locates it, boom, removes it, oyster is good. But there are those rare occasions, maybe one out of 100 times, when that oyster, try as it may to expel that grain of sand from within its premises, just can't seem to do it.

It works and it tries with all of its might, with all of its energy, with all of its effort to expel this grain of sand, and it's just at a real loss. And whenever this oyster has found itself in a situation or a circumstance, here it is almost at your neighborhood, that it can't change. I'm trying to change it. I can't change it. This oyster will find itself irritated and frustrated and exacerbated and every other kind of non-redemptive aided.

Just can't do it. So now this oyster will do the only thing it can think to do to provide itself with a semblance of relief. The oyster says, I can't get rid of it, so let me embrace it. And it'll start to coat this grain of sand over and over and over again with a liquid substance that we all know ends up being something we pay top dollar for called a pearl. You do know at the end of the day, a pearl is nothing more than the fruit of a frustrated oyster.

If there was no frustration, if there was no irritation, if there was no exacerbation, if there was no patience, there would be no pearl. I come all the way from New York City to tell this 5.30 crowd this evening, I want you to know God is trying to make a pearl out of your life. God wants to lift you up as a pearl of great price. He wants to put you on display. In fact, in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10, Paul would write, for you and I are God's workmanship. He's writing in Greek, Greek word for workmanship, poiema, from which we get the English word poem. We are his masterpiece. He wants to put us on display.

And right there, that's some shouting stuff. I mean, if I was in a chocolate church, we'd be going in right now. But I get it.

I'm with vanilla people. I ain't ripping on you. You know, you got to contextualize. Y'all's amen is a little bit more cerebral.

It's like, hmm. That's going to make me preach longer, by the way. You do know that. I don't know if you're getting it. So if you want me to preach faster, you need to say amen or preach it, brother.

And she got to go to the club at seven. And when you're ready for me to land the plane, say bring it on home. We'll bring it on home. But see, here's what I want you to understand. We love to hear, yes, he wants me to be a pearl. Pearl me, Jesus. Show me off. We want the destination.

We just don't want the process. If I can mix my metaphors here, I need you to get this. You don't get to God's delivery room of blessing without taking a pit stop at his waiting room called Patience. And so we sit here and we go, Joseph, that wonderful patriarch, Joseph. Yes, we want his seat. Second in command in Egypt.

Yes, that's what I want. What a pearl. But now look at the grains of sand he had to endure, being betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery by his own family, lied on by Potiphar's wife, forgotten about and left in jail.

I wonder how many nights in which he just cried himself to sleep. These are grains of sand, the patience. And then finally, at some point, God says, you're ready. Oh, we look at Moses. We say, yes, we want to be like Moses, legendary liberator and lawgiver. We love Moses. Give me Moses.

Really? Before God elevates him, 40 years tending sheep on the backside of the dusty plains of Midian, 40 years wondering if God had forgotten about him, 40 years of ambiguity in the wilderness, 40 years of waiting. And we love David. Oh, that sweet psalmist of Israel, second king, God's chosen servant who leads Israel into her golden age. Yes, we love David. We love him. We esteem him. I want his seat.

Really? From the time he's anointed king, 1 Samuel 16, until the time he ascends the throne, 2 Samuel Chapter 1, most scholars tell us 15 years of waiting go by. 15 years running for his life. 15 years hanging out in caves. 15 years in one episode he faints acting like a madman.

15 years dodging spears from a deranged saw. 15 years grains of sand until finally God says, pearl of great price. You do not, Brian LaRitz, you do not get to God's delivery room of blessing until you first take a pit stop in his waiting room called Patience. And that right there is an un-American sentiment because this is a fast food generation who wants God's blessings without the process.

That's why we've got so many people in our lives where we go, whatever happened to so and so? Translation, too much, too soon. God doesn't want to microwave you. He wants to slow cook you. And the way he does it is patience. One of the worst things that can ever happen to you is to get too much without the character infrastructure to handle the load of success.

That'll crush you. So here comes James. One of the things that I love about James is you read his letter that he writes. What distinguishes James's letter, among others, from various other New Testament letters, is the proliferation of what we would call in Greek construction imperatives. An imperative to speak English is simply a command. James's letter is filled with one command after another command after another command. And as our text opens up right out the gate, James opens up with the command.

Here it is. He begins by saying, be patient. James, when he says be patient, he ain't given us tweetable advice. He is not giving us something to contemplate. He is not recommending.

He is not suggesting. He is absolutely grabbing us by the collars and he's saying, Brian, I know you want to get there quickly. I know you want to hurry up and see this church change. I know you want to hurry up and see one of your sons who you don't know if they even have a relationship with God.

Walk with the Lord. But I am in a process of doing something. You can't get there quickly. Be patient. Now, James is going to teach us a little bit of the anatomy of patience. From there, we're going to learn something of the analogies of patience. And then we'll end with the aim of patience.

Let's begin by looking at the anatomy of patience. The Greek word, and James is writing in Greek, the Greek word patient is a compound word. Patient is the word macro-thumas. Thumas is the root word. It's from that word thumas that we get words like thermometer. It's the idea of anger.

Macro means long or large. So literally, watch this now. Be patient, macro-thumas, means to be long or slow to anger. Watch the implication. This word be patient, which means to be long or slow to anger, assumes that I am in a situation where I am tempted to be angry. Y'all missed this.

D.A. Carson in his wonderful book, Scandalous, says the foremost theologian, professor at Trinity in Deerfield, Illinois, D.A. Carson says the reason why most Christians don't pray for patience is we are smart enough to know that the very prayer for patience implies that I will be placed into a circumstance I do not like. You don't learn patience sitting in an air-conditioned, cushioned pew environment. You don't learn patience by taking it in school. You don't learn patience on your coldest side. You only learn patience by going through life's tough times. So the anatomy of patience begins with adversity.

If you have no adversity, you'll never be a pearl. So what patience assumes is I am in the midst of something I do not like, and my Ph.D. can't get me out of it. My relational network can't change it. The money in my bank account can't fix it. I'm in it. And in the midst of being in it, and you can't fix it, James says, be patient. Be patient. Have you ever been in a situation where you didn't just have a problem, but I don't know about you, when problems come to my address, they never come by themselves.

They always bring their aunties and uncles and cousins and have a nice little Have you ever been there? A buddy of mine called me not too long ago, and as soon as I heard his voice, I knew something was wrong. And as the conversation progressed, he just talked to me about his mother, who they just found out, she's got a radical, aggressive form of breast cancer, and they've got to go in and do a double mastectomy. And on top of that, they found tumors wrapped around his spinal cord, and he's got a delicate surgery.

And on top of that, his house was on the market, and at the 11th hour, right when they were supposed to close, the deal fell through, and I heard it in his voice, I got one nerve left. Have you ever been there? Ever? Ever been there? Ever been there? Keep living, as my grandmother used to say.

And you will find yourself in situations that you can't get out of. I love it. Here's the shouting stuff, though. Look at the text. James says, be patient, therefore, brothers, don't miss it, until My, my, my. Stop right there. Be patient, dot, dot, dot, until.

You missed it. James says, be patient. You're in a situation you don't like. You're in a situation you can't fix. But hang in there, because no matter how bad your situation is, God says it's got an until on it. And what that until means is, as they used to say in the old Negro spirituals, trouble don't last always.

Now, I'm not going prosperity theology on you. I'm not saying your situation will end the way that you want it to end. James just says it will end. In other words, there's only two places in the universe where you will not need patience. Hell, because there are no exit signs, and heaven, because there is no adversity. But everywhere in between, you need patience, but James says, whatever it is you're going through, it will end.

Now, this brings up a question. The question on the table, though, is, what exactly is patience? I'm in it, and I can't get out of it. What does patience look like? Is patience passive resignation? All right, can't do nothing, so I'm just going to sit here.

No. James now goes in the anatomy of patience from going from adversity to now he talks about patience as being active waiting. Watch it. He says, verse 7, be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Now he gives us an image of what patience looks like. He says, see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and late rains. He says, if you want a picture of patience, look at the farmer. The farmer never comes to his field and says, waiting on you, God, do something.

I'm waiting. James says that's not patience. Instead, what the farmer does is he does everything he can, sunup to sundown. He digs and he plows and he seeds and he weeds and over and over and over again, knowing that at the end of the day, he's going to do all that he can, but unless God does his part by sending the rain, so that the picture he's painting of patience is not passive resignation, but active waiting.

If you want a biblical example of this, look at Paul. It's amazing to me that many of the letters he writes are what we would call prison epistles. He's incarcerated. Talk about a waiting room.

Talk about a situation you can't change. What does Paul do when he sits down in prison? Is he like, no, God, I'm waiting on you. Why don't you do what you did in Acts chapter 16 when me and Silas were in jail? Just go ahead and bust us out of here.

No, he doesn't do that. He says, you know what? I'm here and I'm thinking about these churches. Hey, Praetorian Guardsmen, do you mind if I borrow a pen and some paper?

I want to write some letters. While he's there, he not only writes these letters, but if you read these letters, Paul is always saying, hey, I want you to know to the people he's writing to that since being in jail, I'm praying for you, so that in this situation he cannot change. He writes and he prays. But then in Philippians chapter 1, he blows my mind, because here he is in jail and he says in Philippians chapter 1, thank you for the gift, but I want you to know that since being here, the gospel has gone forth throughout the whole Praetorian Guard. In other words, Paul says, I've been chained, one guardsmen on either side, and I realize something, I ain't going anywhere and they ain't going anywhere, and since we're stuck, I might as well do something and maximize my situation, so I turn to the right and I say Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and to the left I say Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Paul is an expert on maximizing his situations. What is patience? It is not passive resignation. It is not throwing up your hands.

It is saying I'm going to make the most in this situation, even though I cannot change the situation. My little boy, 2010, got diagnosed with hyper eosinophil syndrome, a blood disease. Don't have time to explain it to you. Every single month we took a trip to St. Jude's Children's Hospital, where at any given moment we could have been told that he's got cancer. Five years. They told us his blood disorder has no cure.

It will be with him for the rest of his life, and most of the times if it doesn't turn into cancer, it will turn into lupus. Five years. On my knees every night with my son praying. God heal, worshipping God.

I've been there. There's times I didn't even feel like praying. There's times there was a yeah right in my spirit as I prayed. But God calls us.

Even when the situation, I have no control over it, I can maximize it by being in my own waiting room and making the most out of it, by giving God praise and begging him to do something in it. Then my boy gets healed. January 16th of this year the doctors at St. Jude's scratched their heads and said, we can't explain it, it's gone.

Hear me? That ain't the punch line. That ain't the punch line. The punch line is not whether or not he got healed. God is still good. The punch line is my son coming to me this summer saying, Dad, one of the closest times I've ever felt to God is every night when we got on our knees and prayed to him and begged him to do something.

God shows up in the waiting room. He shows up in valleys in a sweet way that he doesn't necessarily do on mountaintops. You do know that the bulk of the food found in the agricultural world is not found on the mountaintops.

It's found in the valleys. What my son was saying is the truth. That more than prayer changing things, prayer changes me. There's something that happens in the waiting room. Paul, in the anatomy of patience, or rather James, says that patience doesn't just assume adversity.

It's not just active waiting, but it's also everything to do with your attitude. Verse 9. Do not grumble. You read these words, and if you've got a Jewish background like many of James' readers, the first thing that hits your mind is the Exodus event. God's saying to the people, I'm moving you from Egypt. I'm setting you into the promised land. I've got good things in store for you, but a six-week journey turns into a 40-year debacle.

Why? Because they murmur, murmur, murmur, grumble, grumble, grumble. What the nation of Israel models for us is that you can be patient in your body, but impatient in your spirit. Just don't grumble.

Don't murmur. In fact, this verse takes us back to chapter 1, verse 2, where out the gates, James says, Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. James speaks to us in our attitude. He says, no matter what it is you're going through, have joy.

Because as long as there's Jesus, there's joy. Now, I know what I'm about to say is going to not endear me to you, but, hey, we're in the NFC South together. I'm a big Atlanta Falcons fan, huge Falcons fan. Grew up down south, grew up in Atlanta, loved the Atlanta Falcons, loved the Dirty Birds, which means I'm used to waiting.

Patience. You know anything about the Atlanta Falcons, man? The pinnacle of my experience as an Atlanta Falcons fan happened in 1998, when behind Jamal Anderson and our Dirty Birds, man, we made it to the NFC Championship game.

I was in California at the time. And I remember so excited for my Dirty Birds as they were about to play. The Minnesota Vikings, I even worked into my benedictory prayer at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena.

God bless the Dirty Birds. Go before them, lead them, guide them, be with them. Well, they won the game. Of course, James was going to say that the prayers of the righteous availeth much. And we made it to the Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos. And I guess I wasn't living holy that week because we lost, but that's okay. Next year, 1999 was going to be our year. We were going to win it all.

And I was talking a lot of trash. We're going to win it all, win it all, win it all. That's us.

Dirty Birds are going to do it. And then one of our first games, Monday night game against the Dallas Cowboys. I'll never forget it.

Jamal Anderson, our star running back, cuts, blows out his knee, end of our season. Man, folk was calling my house. I didn't even know. Pastor, what happened to your Dirty Birds? Talking junk to me.

And I'm going, shouldn't we do church discipline on you? I mean, who are you? He's talking trash. 1999 was a rough year, rough year. Talk about adversity, rough year. And I got depressed. But in 1999, I had a good idea. Down in the dumps over my Dirty Birds, I decided to pick up the phone in 1999 and call NFL Films and ask them to send me the highlight clips of the 1998 Atlanta Falcons. So in 1999, when I would find myself frustrated with the Atlanta Falcons and turning the game off with 14 minutes and 12 seconds left to go in the first quarter, I would take the 1998 highlight clip in 1999, watch the highlight clip of who they were in the past, and allow that to give me some joy in the present. I'm just trying to say, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ and struggling for joy in the present, you ought to have some nothing but Jesus highlight clips. And you ought to be able to reflect on the goodness of God and what He's done for you and allow that to give you some joy in the present. Don't grumble. God's been too good.

The fact that you're breathing, inhaling, and exhaling is a sign of His mercy on your life. Be patient. What is the anatomy of patience? It's adversity.

It's active waiting. It's our attitude. But now he goes to the analogies of patience. He says, as an example of suffering and patience, brothers, verse 10, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

He says, look at the prophets. My youngest son, Jaden, is a basketball. He's a nut.

He's a basketball nut. He absolutely loves it. Kid's pretty good.

I actually call him my retirement plan. Kid can ball. He's got written on his wall, my wife and I, we just found it the other day, the top 10 colleges he wants to go to. He's 10 years old.

He's just kind of envisioning. Everything's about basketball. And if you walk into his room, here's what you'll see. Posters. There's LeBron James. Posters. There's Kobe Bryant. Posters. There's Michael Jordan in his room. I've walked into the room and I've caught Jaden on his bed just looking at these posters and drawing inspiration. Verse 10, James says, you've got some posters when it comes to patience.

They're called the prophets. When you're struggling with patience, when you're in the middle of something and you're going, I can't fix this. I'm struggling with patience with my wife. I'm struggling with patience with my finances.

If one more person tells me I'm over-employed, I'm going to punch somebody in the nose. I'm struggling with patience with school and burning the rim at midnight oil. I'm struggling with patience in this season of singleness that I'm in. She ain't half as cute as me, but she's getting mad. I'm struggling with patience. James says, you've got some posters.

Can I give a few of them to you? One poster is Ezekiel. God says, Ezekiel, I want to use you as a picture of my covenant faithfulness to Israel, of my patience with them. Here they are for years just running after, whoring after other gods, and yet I'm patient with them. So here's what I want you to do, Ezekiel.

Strip down naked, wear your loin cloth, and lay on your left side for 390 days. Don't move. Patience. Another poster is Hosea. God says to Hosea, my people don't get it. I'm patient with them.

Here they are, whoring after other gods, breaking their covenant with me, but I'm patient with them. So here's what I want you to do, Hosea. Go to the other side of town. I want you to marry this girl named Gomer. Now, I'm going to warn you, she's going to break your heart, but when she leaves, don't you let her go.

Go back and get her the same way I go back and get my people. Patience. You got another poster. This is the Michael Jordan of patience. It's right here in the text. Will you look at it with me? He says, verse 11, behold, we consider those blessed who remain, synonym for patience, steadfast.

Here it is. Here comes Michael. Here comes number 23 in patience. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job. You think you're going through something?

The economic downturn of 2008 had nothing on the economic downturn of Job chapters one and two. Loses everything. Covered from head to toe with boils. Goes to a funeral, not just with one casket holding one of his kids, but ten caskets holding ten of his kids. In the middle of all that, he's got a wife chirping in his ear, curse God and die, and he responds, shall we take good from the Lord and not take evil? And in the middle of all this, in Job chapter 19, he blows my mind. Job chapter 19, I love it. Job chapter 19, he says, covered from head to toe with boils, sitting in ashes from scraping the skin off of his body. Here he is in Job chapter 19 grieving over his kids. He has the audacity to say in Job chapter 19, I know my redeemer lives.

Now, this blows my mind. He says, I know he lives in the midst of not feeling it. He feels discouraged. He feels depressed. He feels beaten down, but he says, I know he lives.

If you get nothing else, I say, get this. When going through life's difficulties, always let what you know trump how you feel. It says, if Job's saying, I feel depressed, but I know he lives. I feel discouraged, but I know he lives. I feel down, I know he lives. Don't you buy the lie of Satan when going through life's difficulties that God ain't good.

He's good. That's the Michael Jordan of patience. And now our text ends by the aim of patience. He says, you have heard of the steadfastness of Job.

Here it is. And you have seen the purpose of the Lord. James is saying, Brian, when you go through what you go through, what you go through is not happenstance.

Your trial, Brian, is not off the rack. It's custom made. That what you're going through has a purpose to it. It's tailor made for you.

It's custom made. I've had to hold on to this promise. That God in his sovereignty is up to something, that he's up to is fashioning a pearl out of my life. But in order to get there, the sovereign God, who intricately made and created me, knows what I can and can't handle and places just enough on me so that it doesn't crush me, but I can look to him for relief in the middle of it.

It's got an aim. It's what you're going through. If your neighbor went through exactly what you went through, they may have committed suicide. But you're still here. God is up to something.

Don't you forget that. My mama growing up, she had an annoying hobby. Cross stitching. Anybody here cross stitch? Cross stitching simply involves taking a piece of fabric and weaving in and out of that fabric some threads. Now, I call this annoying because I was a little boy when my mom first embarked on this hobby, and she would sit there on the sofa there in her home in College Park, Georgia, and she'd sit there on the sofa and do it, and I would sit at her feet.

And I would be sitting at her feet watching Mama cross stitch, but from my vantage point, I was looking at it from the bottom up. And when you look at cross stitching from the bottom up, it makes no sense. It has no rhyme or reason to it. There is no pattern.

There is no rhythm. All you see are chaotic, dangling, jumbled threads. I remember looking at it from my vantage point from the bottom up going, Mama has lost her mind. And I remember being a little boy going, Mama, Mama, what are you doing?

It doesn't make sense. What are you doing? And Mama in her wisdom said, Sit down next to me, son, with a smile on her face. And when I sat down next to Mama, no longer seeing things from the bottom up, but seeing it from the top down, what I now saw was not chaos but order. I now saw a pattern and a rhythm being stitched together.

I now saw an image being formed. The problem with humanity in this side of heaven is we only see things from the bottom up. And seeing it from the bottom up, we're going, God, do you care? Do you know? Do you see?

It makes no sense. But God is saying tonight, sit on my lap. I'm up to something in your life. I'm up to something through the pain. I'm up to something through the divorce. I'm up to something through the bankruptcy.

I'm up to something in your life. I see. I hear. I know. I care.

Be patient. What you're going through is not me being mean. Sometimes I think we humor God with our prayers, like we're informing him. It's as if God is saying, Holy Spirit, did you know that? He sees, he knows, and he cares. That's why Matthew chapter 6, he says three times, don't be anxious about your life. He says, you need to know not a single sparrow falls to the ground, not one, without me knowing about it.

It's what we would call in rhetoric an a-fiorci argument, an argument from lesser to greater. He says, if I can see and know and care for sparrows, how much more so do I not see and know and care for you who have been made in my image? I want to pray. I have in my gut that this word tonight was a 5.30 Saturday night, July 18th kind of word. If you're here tonight and you're going, man, that's me, I'm in the middle of something right now. The same word I need to store up.

I don't need to put this word on layaway. I'm in it right now, and I don't even know what the it is. But if you're going, I just need some prayer for patience because what I'm going through right now, I'm going through it right now.

Would you stand to your feet? I'd love to pray for you. You're going through it right now.

You're just going through it right now. And I don't know what the it is, but you are in it right now. It could be something that's relational.

It could be something that's financial. I don't know what it is, but God knows what it is, and let's just call on God. I want to encourage you, those of you who aren't standing, feel free. Feel free to extend a hand towards a person next to you who is. To feel free to stand with them, with the body of Christ, however the Spirit of God moves you. But I don't want to be the only person here right now praying for our brothers and sisters who are standing up. Pray with me in the Spirit realm. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray right now for your kids, your children who are standing. Who are standing because they're saying the word that I heard tonight describes where I am right now.

I'm in the middle of something. God, it could be something related to their kids. It could be something related to a job or the lack thereof. It could be something that's financial. It could be something, Lord God, as it relates to just the season of life they're in.

It could be something health-wise. I don't know what it is, but I call on the sovereign God who does know. God, you are the all-seeing God. That's what theologians call your omniscience. You are the all-knowing God. You know it all.

There's not a single thing that happens in the universe that surprises you. We rest in that truth tonight, Lord God. But, Lord God, we also need to know that not only do you know, but you care. You care. You care.

In the opening chapters of Exodus, Lord God, as your people are in bondage, your word says that you yourself, you have heard their groans, that you see, that you care, and that you're sending your servant Moses down to do something about it. You care about the financial burden. You care about the lump on the breast. You care about that child out in the far country. You care about the marital stress. You care about the separation. You care about the infertility. You care. Father God, we preach that to ourselves, and we bind the enemy who would seek to have us believe you don't care. That is a lie from the pit of hell.

You care. You rest in that. Father God, we do pray that you would step in, and we do pray that you'd get us the job. We do pray, Lord God, that you would remove that lump.

We do pray for healing in our bodies. We do pray for the restoration of that marriage. We do pray you'd bring that wayward child back home.

We pray, we pray, we pray. God, do it. God, do it. But Father, not only do we pray that you would change things, but as we wait, would you change me?

Would you take that grain of sand and turn it into a precious pearl? Let me ask you for that in the name of Jesus. Amen. And amen.