When Everything Shifts, God Doesn’t: Choosing Trust Over Control

We press into Psalm 31 during a volatile new year and name the hope that holds when nothing else does. Trust becomes a practice: doing the next right thing, waiting well, and learning to say with David, my times are in your hands.

• confidence rooted in God’s goodness and sovereignty
• the four-part pattern of the Christian life
• growth forged in valleys rather than peaks
• pain with purpose versus pain without meaning
• active waiting: trust in the Lord and do good
• daily dependence and “enough for today”
• ordered steps, willing surrender, and maturity
• church life updates, baptisms, families, hunger for Scripture

Transcript

A New Year, Uncertainty, And Psalm 31

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back, friends, to the Faith Work Podcast, where we believe we have a biblically based faith that actually works in real life for real people. Here with Tyler Edge, I am Jonathan Locklear.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

So, John, this past Sunday, we spoke about and you were talking a lot about Psalms 31 and with this new year coming up on this new year, right? We're only a few days into it now, and there's a lot of uncertainty, there's a lot of nerves, there's a lot of who knows what this next year holds, and in addition to some excitement. What your main focus was is that we can have confidence in putting it in God's hand for this year. We may not know what this year holds, but He does. So can you kind of give just a short little summary of what it is that you were focusing on and talking about and encouraging people towards this past Sunday?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Well, look what has happened just in the first five, six days of this year. There's been an extraction from Venezuela. We've had trade deals, tariffs have gone up and down, the stock market hit an all-time high. It won't last. We've had, I've got a funeral this coming Sunday. We've got one also on Saturday. Real life. It's just up and down. It's crazy. No one knows. But the beauty of the Christian is the exclusivity of our whole. It is a it's a club where we alone can say, regardless of what comes, I can remain confident and assured and content. Because God is with me, regardless of what

Confidence In God’s Goodness And Sovereignty

SPEAKER_01 1:27

happens in the White House or in the state house or in my house. God is good. And that's really the thrust of Psalm 31, the main text being verse 15. My times are in your hands, and what a comfort that is. It is absolutely like I said, it's exclusive to the Christian, but I don't know what people do in terms of an evolutionary worldview. If there is no God in whose hands your times are, if everything is an accident, no wonder we are the most medicated, suicidal, depressed, anxious group of people ever in the world. Well, we've been just, you know, for generation upon generation, you're an accident, somehow uh, you know, a slew of slime exploded in space. And no, there is a God intentionally who made you on purpose and for a purpose, and he's in charge of everything. He is perfect, he has your best interests at heart, therefore, in a world that you cannot control, you can relax because my times are in his hands. And it all comes down to the goodness of God. If I believe God is good, then I can relax confidently and comfortably being in his hands where he's in charge. I'm not in charge, but he is sovereign over everything. And I even said it Sunday, God doesn't cause everything that happens in our lives, but there's great comfort in knowing that he allows everything. Yeah, and he knows all it. And he didn't miss it. Right. He didn't go, oops, no surprise. I didn't see the Maduro thing coming. Oh, you know, I didn't this and that. It's like, no, he's in charge of it all. Nothing got by, nothing surprised him. Everything surprises us. But the Bible says he neither slumbers nor sleeps. He is good all the time. And if those things are true, and I know that they are, I can relax.

The Christian Roller Coaster: Four Movements

SPEAKER_01 3:16

My times are in his hands.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, well, one of the things that you said, kind of out of the structure of your sermon there was the Christian experience is a roller coaster, right? That was one of the things that you said there, sure, which is wonderful. Well, life is, but yeah. Life is a roller coaster, the ups and downs. But you had the four things there. You said there's the deliverance that we need, there's the sin that we must hate, there's the despair that we feel, sure, and there's the delight that we pursue. So you kind of gave this almost this roadmap or this pattern that the Christian tends to follow. Can you explain a little bit, a little bit more of that? And then also could you explain what you think that we as Christians sometimes fail to do when it comes to those things? Do we do well in response to this? Well, I think we do well the older we get. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

It's easier for older Christians who've walked with God for a longer period of time. Faith is a muscle that grows when you use it. And if you have to use it over 25 years, 35, 45 years, well, you're gonna get better at it. And so it's easier. I just was talking about my grandfather in in the other room over there just before I came in here. And the guy said, Man, he just is not rattled by anything. I said, Well, he's 90, he's been walking with God since he was 20. He's seen some things, and so he's got this great advantage of having trusted the Lord for you know 60, 70 years. And so he's learned. And so, yeah, things come up. He just trusts God. God's been good, and so he learns to trust him. David is the same way. David in this Psalm 31 says, starts off, In thee, O Lord, I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed, deliver me in thy righteousness. He immediately is asking for deliverance, deliver me, bow down your ear, deliver me, verse 2, speedily, be my strong rock. He's in need. And then it's almost like he walks away from his journal for a day or two, and things get better. There's some days I'm just more desperate than other days. Go to verse 9, and he's the same thing again. Back into this. Oh God, have mercy upon me. Oh Lord, I am in trouble. My eyes are consumed with grief. And that's how life is. It's up and it's down. We would love for it to all be ups. No one really grows while things are up. God is in the business of growing us in, to borrow David's phrase from Psalm 23, in the valley of the shadow of death. That's where the real development happens. But let's be reminded, God is there as well. He's in the valley of the shadow of death. He's in the funeral home with us when we're there. He's he's there when we are dropping our loved ones off at rehab. He's there when we hear our parents screaming in the next room and you're pretty sure divorce is eminent. He's there when your boss tells you, hey, look, it's not you, it's us, we're having to downsize. He's there for all of it. And all of it is in his hands and under his control and in his purview. Therefore, we can relax. Whether the roller coaster goes up, yay, I love that. Wonderful. And when it goes down, God's good. Maybe even more so on the down days, right? We notice it more, or we at least we see, like David, our need more. But yeah, there's there's ups, there's downs. That's part of the Christian

Growth In The Valleys, Not The Peaks

SPEAKER_01 6:20

life. That's how we have to have a faith that works. Not just for the when I'm healthy and wealthy and happy and things are going well. No, I need a God who's faithful when things are difficult, man, when when life is a wreck. And I'll tell you what, if if it doesn't work on those days, it doesn't work at all. If our faith doesn't work on the days when we need it, then what good is it? And I'm telling you, the Psalms are a great place to go. In despair, there is hope. That's like a great summary of the Psalms. In despair, God is there.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

And we see it caught that is good. We see it constantly. With David all the way through out, he's going through all these different things. It's almost never the same thing. There's always something different going on with him. But I see the ups and the downs constantly. What you said a minute ago is is encouraging to me, and I think it's important. And you hear it a lot, but I feel like sometimes don't people don't understand it. But as a Christian, when there's a purpose to the pain that we're going through, right? There is that growth, that opportunity to grow our faith. Absolutely. There's a wonderful quote uh from Charles Spurgeon, and he says, I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages. Right. I love that quote, right? Exactly. This wave, this trial, this thing that is overcoming me. And as long as it crashes me back against my father, right? Returns me to where I need to be, it was worth it. Exactly. Beautiful quote that is. Yes. And so there is that purpose. And as you were talking about earlier, people who don't know Christ, people who don't believe in him, people who just simply haven't had an experience with him, haven't gone to him. Is there a purpose? Right. I mean, it's just it's just suffering at that point.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Here's the thing all of life is suffering, whether you're a Christian or not. Okay, I'm sorry, everybody's gonna hurt. Right. However, there's only a promise for the believer. There's this great phrase in in the Psalms that says he captures all of our tears in a bottle, but like none of it escapes him, and none of it is wasted. There's a beautiful passage, end of 2 Corinthians 4. He says the Apostle Paul's talking about grief and trouble and sorrow. He just gets done talking about we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed, uh, we are perplexed but not in despair. He finishes that chapter, it's in 4.16, it says, For which cause we faint not. But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Like who else can say that except someone who's in con in touch with a living God? Yeah. The outside's dying, the inside is flourishing. And then he says, For our light affliction is but for a moment. Like light? Look at Paul's affliction. Not one of those were light. But he says, in comparison to glory, it's light. And then he also calls it brief and is but for a moment. In comparison to eternity, that is so true. Like, like I know you're hurting, I know you're struggling. I just want you to have some perspective here. It is not forever. This will be brief. I counseled a young couple this week about their child who's loud in church service, and it's hard to keep the kid in church service. I said, Look, I know it. And that's I said everybody's had kids. We we understand. We have a loud church, we got kids everywhere. It's a beautiful, healthy thing. I said, This is gonna be a short window in your life. In the same way you bring a newborn home and you're not sleeping, you think if I don't get some sleep, I'm gonna die. It's gonna be brief. And one day you're gonna look back and go, Oh, those were sweet days. It's brief. Our light affliction is brief, but for a moment, and it is working for us. End of verse 17, 2 Corinthians 4. It is working for us a far more and exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So it's doing something, it's not wasted because God is in charge of it. It's developing us. I mean, you can say I can go through life and it can either just hurt or it can hurt for a reason, hurt for a purpose. Right? Nothing gets built unless it gets broke down.

Tears, Perspective, And Eternal Weight Of Glory

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Like that's a law of nature. You go to the gym, you work out, you have to tear the muscle down, then you feed it, then you rest it, and then there's development, but never until there's the breaking down. Yeah, nothing good happens on easy days.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Right. You said there, well, in the verse, right, that it's basically it's working for us something better, right? So as a Christian, however, there needs to be an appropriate response, doesn't there, when it comes to those times of trials for something good to come of it? For example, if if I'm in trials and my reaction is to run away from God or to you know to scoff at God or to be angry with him, that might not be the appropriate reaction there. So what as a Christian, what should my reaction be in those moments if I want there to be a good that comes from it or a benefit from that?

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Well, first of all, you have to trust that the Lord is good, like he has your best interest at heart. That that has to be. If he's cruel or absent-minded, we're in trouble. Yeah, he's none of those things ever. There's no evidence for that at all. I would recommend Psalm 37. It says, fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither like the greener. Like, don't worry about them. Verse three, here's the application. Here's what we should do: trust in the Lord and do good. So on the difficult days, what am I doing? Doing the next right thing. Yeah, I'm doing the thing that makes sense. I'm doing my Bible study, I'm praying, I'm serving my wife and my children, I am loving my neighbor, I eschewing evil, I'm not partaking in that stuff, and I'm waiting. Trust in the Lord and do good. We're waiting on God, like further in that in the Psalm 37, verse 34. Wait on the Lord and keep his way. Same, same way of saying that in a different way. Wait for God, but it's not a passive waiting, it's an active waiting. There are difficulties. What are we doing? We're waiting for it to get better. I'm trusting God until that happens. Something's gonna happen. The clouds are gonna break, sun is gonna shine. I'm gonna come through it. This is true, but man, I need to be actively doing the will of God in my life. The the macro will, the big will. What? Love people, trust God. Love God, love people.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

What does it mean as well? Because we talk about, and I think this is important to talk about, and we could talk about this for hours, truly, but we'll try to keep it short here. But what when we talk about that that God has the best in mind for us, yeah. That's something that gets taken a lot and gets twisted a lot, meaning like, oh, everything's gonna just get better, right? And things are gonna be even even better afterwards, the benefits are gonna be great and stuff. But for some people, I mean, you don't think we're talking about poll, right? I mean, sometimes it never does get better until he drew his last breath. He lives with the father in eternity. It's a very difficult ministry. So so what does that look like? Because I would never want to tell somebody, right? And we would never do this, but that hey, things things are tough, but God has the best in mind for you, and it it's just gonna it's just gonna get better, right? What does that mean in a practical sense? Because to me, what I've always said is that might just be minded towards the eternal, right? Like what you were pointing out a second ago. Yeah, where he said it's temporary, yeah, in comparison to eternity. So what is that what is that comfort there? Is God offering a comfort of I have the best in mind for you, but but what that means to God is you know, you're gonna look more like Christ, that there's gonna be purpose to this, maybe something good is gonna come out of it, or does it also possibly mean that look, in comparison to eternity, this is gonna be absolutely nothing?

SPEAKER_01 13:35

I think both of those things, something good is gonna come from it. Even if it leads

Responding Rightly To Trials

SPEAKER_01 13:39

to your physical death here on earth, it's gonna make you more like Christ. This is the batting circle warm-up. This is batting practice, this is the dress rehearsal. This is not what life is. Life happens in heaven. Yes, life happens in in when we stop breathing here. That's when we really begin to live in heaven. Right. And so the idea is to form us into the image of his son, uh, to be made in his likeness. That's why Paul says, and this is like super counter-cultural, Paul says, I am crucified with Christ. People are like, I don't want to join your club. That sounds awful. Well, this is what it is it is growing closer to Christ through difficulty. And yeah, God is a good father. You got kids, I got kids. We know what that means to be a good father. We don't pit it a lot, but we know what that means. It means this at the very least. At the very least. God's not cruel. Yeah, I've never seen my kid you bring me a lunchable thing and say, Can you open this for me? And I go, forget you, man. You know, grow up. Figure out yourself. That would be so cruel. Jesus said it like this you have a good father in heaven and you know what it's like to be a father. How many of you, if your kid asks for a fish or a sandwich, you would give him a snake or a rock. Right, right. That's cruelty. That's not who God is. So this is what we can know. Is God of there? Yes. Is he available? Yes. Is he kind? Yes. Does he love me? Yes. Does he have my best interest at heart? Clearly. He's too uh quote my father. He's too kind to be cruel. And he's too wise to be mistaken. Therefore, regardless of what's happening, I know it's in my best interest. God hasn't maybe caused it. I don't think God's not giving people cancer. But does he allow it? He sure does. He sure does. In his infinite wisdom, yes, he allows it. And his ways are higher than my ways. I don't understand all of that. We don't, right? But this is this is where we are called to trust him.

unknown 15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

He's better than you are. He's nicer than I am. By the way, you can be a bad parent by removing all difficulties from your children's life. That's true. If you never let your kid touch the ground, they'll never learn to walk. If you pick them up every time they fall, they'll never learn to get back up. Yes, am I gonna open the lunchable? Yeah. But I'm also gonna teach my kid to open the lunchable. So at some point I go, you know, you try it first, and then I'll help you if you can't. I'm here for you. Yeah. But man, we gotta like be intentional about growing, and this is the truth about God. He is more concerned with our growth than he is with our comfort level.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

That's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

And so, yeah, is it difficult when it's quiet and it's just hard and it's miserable and valley the shadow of death kind of thing? Yes. But I also heard an old man say one time, you know, the teacher is always quiet when they hand out the test. The teaching is over, we're not giving any more lecture and instruction. Take the test. But I don't like it. Where are you? And it's quiet, and you go, Oh, God has abandoned me. No, this is a testing time. Life is a test. Yeah, everything in life is a test. Yeah. Your wife, your kids, your job, your body, your health, your finances, everything is a test.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

And the teacher's quiet. Yeah. And the thing about the teacher, too, right, is that a teacher has prepared you before the test as well. That's right. That's the important part of it. Yeah. A lot of times when God puts us in these things, He has prepared us for it. He's given us the things that we need. He's given us the teachings. He's given us His word, right? Okay, so now how what are you going to do here? How are you going to deal with this? Right. Exactly. Yeah. And it's a faith that works. And I think that's where that growth comes from as well in those moments, right? Okay, you're in this, what do you do now? Has there truly been growth there? Has there been learning? Has there been devotion to God? What do I do now, Father? Well, I've showed you already,

God’s Best: Formed Into Christlikeness

SPEAKER_00 17:18

and how are you going to do it?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

When I ask people, what was the time in your life where you grew the closest to the lore's? What was the time in your life you grew more in maturity? Nobody ever tells me about a good time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

It's always adverse.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Nobody ever says, Oh, it was wonderful. We just hit the lottery. Married my dream girl. Sickness now. Exactly. No, it's it's when my parents split up, it's when sickness came. It's when difficulty arose. And we come to know something about God in those moments that we otherwise didn't know that we needed, and so we didn't pursue. Yeah. Man, sometimes life puts us on our back in this roller coaster, and we are reminded. By the way, it's an everyday thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

It's an everyday thing. I was thinking about talking to you about this the other day. We say we need things like courage, peace, wisdom. And I think God gives us enough for the day.

unknown 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

He's faithful. I would love for him to go, here's all the courage you're ever gonna need from here until heaven. And you just write me a check and all the courage. But it's not about having it, it's about him. Yeah. And so he's like, here's enough for today.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

See you tomorrow morning. Yeah. And because he wants that relationship. It's like this dependency that I'm oblivious to. Sure. I don't need him. I'm okay. I can do my own thing. He's like, see you tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, I know my sinful heart and my sinful nature, right? If he gave me enough that I wouldn't need to go back to him, I wouldn't. Sure. Give me this day, my daily bread, right? Is the prayer, which I mean, I think there's so much to that. Because if it was give me my weekly bread, then I'd be all right. I'm gonna see you in a week. That's right. And it's just that's so true. And that's it's so convicting in my own life, too, you know, to know in my heart that's how I would be, right? If things were always good, if I never was needful for anything, I would not return to him. That's just who I am. I'm a sinful person, right? And so once again, going back to that quote, right? That kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages. Praise God for that wave, that thing of it, that thing that he uses, right? Whatever it is that God wants to throw in my life that's going to bring me back to him, I need to praise God for that, even through the tears. That's right. And I mean, that's a big part of it too, is never really knowing or we don't have the whole big picture like he does, right? I was thinking earlier when you were talking about you had we have children, and if you have children, you don't understand. But there's also times it's not the lunchable, but they come up to me at nine in the morning with a can with candy. They go, Hey, can I have this? And I go, No, you can't. It's gonna make you sick, right? It's gonna be awful for your body. And they go, How could you? This is what I need. This is what will make me my best synthesis. You're horrible, you're a hateful father. And I'm like, whatever you say. But but I'm doing that because I see the big picture. And I can see this is not what you need right now. There's something else, right? Right. And I think we have that with God, where we have the naive idea that, hey, Lord, I know what I need, and I'm just gonna kind of tell you, right? And you can give the thumbs up here. And he's going, That's not even close to what you need. Right now. Well, fine, whatever. I guess you know best, you know. But it's that reaction, it's that response as the Christian, isn't it? Am I gonna go, okay, Lord, you do ultimately know what's best for me. And if you're closing that door, I'm walking right by it, that's fine. Or am I trying to knock that door down when he's closing it?

SPEAKER_01 20:13

And that's really what I was trying to do Sunday. Because that's what the Bible does. We just want to say what the Bible says. I want people to leave out of here and honestly, genuinely, from their heart of hearts, say, My times are in your hands.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Like say it to yourself a hundred times until you begin to believe it.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

And then say it a hundred more times until you begin to desire it. Yes. Yeah. I want my times in your hands. I don't want to be on my own. I don't know what I should be eating at nine in the morning. I want the candy. But let me be in your hands. Let me be in your care. Let me be in your tutelage. You know, you can teach me.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Yes. Yeah, that's tough, isn't it? I mean, Psalm 31, 15, right? We talked about a lot. But my times are in thy hands. So, practically speaking, right? I'm listening to this. I want to know what that looks like for Tyler for me to say, Father, my time is in your hands, and just to give it up to him. What does that look like practically as opposed to me just saying it? What do I what does that what do I do?

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah, well, it's it's day by day. Yeah, it's mornings when we wake up. Well, here's the thing

Daily Dependence And Enough For Today

SPEAKER_01 21:14

it is that way regardless, but we should put our times in God's hands. We should actively get up in the morning and say, Lord, thank you for the day. I'm yours today. I don't know where I should go. I don't know what I should do. I don't know what I should say, who should I speak to? But I want you to be involved intimately in every decision of my day. Show me, show me. And God is faithful to do that. Yes. I think there's a real connection here because, like, spoiler alert to the listener, you are in God's hands.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Whether you're right or not.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Let me ask you this. Do you want to be in God's hands? Do you desire that? Do you want to submit yourselves to that? Or like all the rest of us in the whole world, do you want to be God? Do you want to be God in your life? And we go, Well, yeah, I kind of I kind of do everybody. Well, here there's one God and He ain't you. Okay. So we need to get on His program and get in His hands. There's another scripture that says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord that delight in His way. God will direct your skipped if you delight in His way. But if you resent His Godship, if you resent His Lordship, if you resent His authority in your life, I don't know that He's interested in that. The Bible says in James 1, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously, liberally. Well, when you realize that you're in need and you say, God, I need, well then he's there, man. But until you realize your need, I don't see that in the scriptures. It's when the great need arises that God goes, Cool, we're done doing your thing. How about we do your time in my hands? Let's try that now. And the apostle Paul learns it. Moses learns it. Moses learns it in his stages of his life. He was 40 years old when he left Egypt. Seemed like his life was a wreck. 40 more years backside of the desert, working for his father-in-law Jethro, marries a lady. Then at 80 years old, God goes, I have a job for you. Speaks to him out of the burning bush. His times were in God's hands. You'd think 80 years old, that's when he started his job. That's incredible. And so we should say, Lord, and it all comes down to the authority of God. You're good, you're capable, you're competent. Shame on me for not trusting you. But I want to say today, I voluntarily desire to have my time in your hands, my steps hoardered by you. Because I delight in you. I delight in you. And I think the more you walk with God, the more you learn to delight in Him. These things become more readily easy. They become more second nature the more of a mature Christian that you become. And I think that the younger Christians should really strive for this, desire for this. And you can you can skip a lot of the line here and a lot of the trouble if you will learn God is sovereign, God is good, God is faithful, he's not cruel, he is kind, he knows things you don't know, he's trustworthy, he's earned our trust. Therefore, we should gladly place our times in his hands. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And it all comes down to the faith, right? We keep talking about that, the faith. You know, I mean, if I don't have faith in him or a good faith or a strong faith, then I'm not going to put my trust in him, right? Right. If I don't know who he is, all those things about him, his character, all the promises that he's made, he's kept

Practicing “My Times Are In Your Hands”

SPEAKER_00 24:25

all of them, right? That I'm going to struggle to put my faith in or my trust in him. I told you before, me personally, I was really good about faith and all things except one thing. My kids of money, I was fine, but my children, right? Everything about them, their health, their spirituality, all of that to say, okay, Father, they are completely yours. Man, I was, I was struggling, right? And then something that took many months of tears and all these things. And by the grace of God, you know, it's it's figured out. All glory to him. But yeah, I had to acknowledge that myself, right? Tyler, you're you're lacking the faith right now. That's why there's no trust. That's why you're not willing to give this up. And I think this really speaks to what you're saying here. Every single morning do I wake up and do I go, Father, I trust you, right? I know that whatever you're going to do is going to be the absolute. Right. Can I say that? Do I truly believe that, right? But that day by day, what you said there, that's so very helpful to me. Uh, because sometimes I think we take it outside of that. Okay. I just need to give them my faith. And starting now, I got to do it forever, right? And then a week and a half goes by, and I go, Oh man, I'm kind of forgetting about this, right? I'm trying to take things into my own. Every morning I wake up, right? Give me my daily bread, take it from me. I don't want it. You're better, and please have you.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

You're better. It's day by day, it's learned. It's learned little by little. I also want to encourage listeners too. Some of them are young Christians. Be gracious with yourself. Okay. These things are learned. You look at some of the great Christians of the faith. It's like also keep in mind they've been doing this for 50, 60 years. Yes. Okay. So it's like I said, you can skip a lot of the line just by taking me at my word here. He's good, he's kind, he's competent. He's he's probably gonna. I mean, if you're like me, you're gonna have to learn all some of these hard lessons on your own. Yes. I prefer it not. Just take my word for it. God is good, yes, and you can trust him with your times in his hands.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah, John, would you please go ahead and actually before we close here in prayer, I'd like to ask you, because I like to ask you this each time, what's something right now that you are encouraged by, be it in the church, personal life, what's something right now that's encouraging?

SPEAKER_01 26:19

We've got young families. I see, I just met Sunday night with 12 awesome prospective members and young fathers really fire me up. These they're very serious about the scriptures, asking them why are you coming here to our church? Because we weren't being fed at our other church. We were not here for a show. I said, I said, if you ever see a smoke machine in the church, I said, just know the building is on fire.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

If they're smoking or those fire, they're faultless.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

We come to give you God's word and they love it and they're excited about it. And so I'm not trying to entertain anybody. No. What fires me up as a pastor is people hungry and thirsting for God's word. Yeah. And because that's what we can give you. That's what we that's what we offer. So I'm very thankful seeing strong masculine men, I'm seeing feminine wives submitting to their husbands' leadership, and then beautiful children under this umbrella. And I just think, man, this is the makings of well, a great and healthy family. And that I'm very excited about it. So we've got some of those coming up. We've got some more baptisms first of next month, baby dedications, and I praise God for it. So the church is still growing. It's a good time right now. Yeah. I'm very thankful. I love that. John, would you please close this on a word prayer? Father, our times are in your hands. We thank you that they are safely and confidently and comfortably there. Lord Jesus, would you lead us with your tender hands of mercy? We get ahead of ourselves so often we forget. We get our eyes on the things of the world that are, you know, so prevalent, powerful. It'd be easy for David to get his eyes on the size of Goliath. Lord, help us to keep our eyes on you and your capabilities and your unchanging nature,

Ordered Steps And Willing Surrender

SPEAKER_01 28:07

your omnipotence, your omniscience, your omnipresence. Thank you, Father, for my brother here. Bless him and his family, bless our church, and we pray it for your glory and for our good in Jesus' name. Amen.