7/12/2026 Sunday morning service

week 6 Romans Tribulations produce perseverance

Transcript

Copy

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Every week I forget the offering. We always say we don't have an offering if you want to play here. So I'm gonna do a prayer real quick. Heavenly Father God, we come before you this morning and we thank you, God, for this opportunity you have given to us together in this place of worship for you, Lord. We exalt thee, God. We now come to the portion of our service where we worship with our tithes and our offerings. Lord, I pray that you bless those that give, bless those that don't, God, that um their funds go longer, their cars drive longer, their washers dry, uh, washers wash and their dryers dry longer, God. We just give you praise and glory. Uh take the offering and stretch it, God, that we could uh meet the needs of this community. In the name of Jesus, we pray, amen. Alrighty. So today, we're gonna continue our sermon series in Romans today, once they get back through here. All right. I'm gonna tell you something this morning that sounds absolutely, you drop some. I'm gonna tell you this morning something that sounds absolutely backwards. The Bible says that we should rejoice in our sufferings. Did y'all know that? The Bible says we should rejoice in our sufferings, not just and endure them as we go through them and not just survive them as they happen, but actually the Bible says that we need to rejoice in our sufferings. If somebody told you that on a Monday morning after your car wouldn't start, your kid was running a fever, your boss moved up a deadline, that you were uh expected to have something turned in, you probably would want to take the Bible and throw it at them instead of rejoicing in the suffering that you're about to go through. Because honestly, that sounds like it's a little bit cruel. It doesn't sound like it's something that you would rejoice over. But stay with me this morning because uh at the end of the message you're going to see that rejoicing and suffering is one of the uh most freeing truths in all of Scripture. And you ask me, how could rejoicing and suffering do that? Well, in the book of Romans, we started back in chapter one at the beginning, and what we studied about in chapter one was Paul's bold declaration that I am not ashamed of the gospel or its name, uh, because it is the power of God for salvation of everyone who believes. All right? The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. So we've walked through then the bad news in chapters one, two, and three, uh, that all of us, every single person that's ever lived except Jesus Christ Himself, every single person that draws a breath has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's from me all the way to the back doors of the church. Everybody in this room, at some time or another in your life, you sinned and you've fallen short of the glory of God. So where we land today is chapters one through four asked a question. How can a sinner be made right with a holy God? How can we as sinners that walk this earth be made right before a God who is so holy that we can't even look upon his face because of his holiness? Uh, that's what we're going to look at today. Chapter five is going to answer that question. Okay, God, I'm saved, because chapters one through four, we went through the fact that we're sinners and how to be saved, how to be justified. So today, okay, God, I'm saved, but why is life still so hard? Why is life still so hard? Because I'm saved. That's what we're looking at. We're gonna go into Romans chapter five. We're gonna be looking at verses one through eleven. And Paul is about to take something that feels like the enemy: tribulations, trials, disasters, suffering. And he's going to show us that in the hands of God it becomes a tool. Our sufferings actually become a tool. Now, it's not a punishment. I've heard people say before, what sin did you commit that this has come upon you? That's not necessarily the truth. All right? That is not necessarily the truth. Something that's actually building something inside of you, a tool that can be used to increase your character, to increase your perseverance, is talked about in Romans chapter 5, and that is pain and suffering. So look at verse 1 with me. Look at verse 1. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the first thing you need to realize. Once you become justified, once you are saved by giving your heart to Jesus, you become justified. Now it says therefore. So we're going to look at that word, therefore. Anytime you see the word therefore in Scripture, you have to ask yourself, what's it there for? Right? Anytime you see therefore in Scripture, you need to ask yourself, what is it there for? So Paul just spent four chapters proving that we cannot earn our righteousness. We can't clean ourselves up. We just can't do it. We cannot be good enough to make it to heaven. But through faith in Jesus Christ, we are declared righteous. Justified is a legal term. It means that the record's been wiped clean. You've been justified. Your record's clean, all right? The judge has ruled in our favor, and there's no appeal coming from the other side because Jesus has already paid for your punishment in full. That is some good news this morning. And because of that, verse one says that we can have peace with God because we have been justified through faith. And not just peace of God, uh, because everybody once in a while experiences a calm feeling. I don't know why, but I feel calm today. Every one of us from time to time feel that. But peace with God means that you can walk in peace no matter what you're going through. The war for you is over. We were enemies of God, and Paul says back in verse 10 that we're not just tolerated now by God, but we are actually at peace with God. We're reconciled and we are part of his family. So verse 2 keeps on going. Through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. Now, church, we didn't just get forgiveness. When we became uh, when we were saved, when we became justified, when we became righteous, we didn't just get forgiveness. We gained access. We gained access to God Himself. We got standing. We got a seat at the table when we became saved. And Paul says something that should make your heart leap here. It says, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. We boast in the hope of the glory of God. We've got hope, guys. We've got real hope. Now, I'm not talking about, I hope it doesn't rain on our cookout. Which, if it was today, I'm sorry, but it's going to rain on your cookout. We don't have hope that when the back to school bash happens, that we have a good turnout and that everything goes well. That that's earthly hope. That's offering a fact that it could or it couldn't. But we're talking about hope that is given from God Himself. Hope with capital letters, a confident expectation that God is going to finish what he started, and one day we are going to have glory when we walk down the streets of heaven. That's a wonderful hope. That is a hope you can count on. So far, so good, right? Peace, access, and hope. This is the good part of today's sermon. All right? That's the part where everybody says, Amen. All right. That's the good part of the sermon. But then Paul does something that has probably confused Christians for 2,000 years. Let's look at verse 3. And not only so, but we also glorify in our sufferings. In our sufferings. Now that's hard to do. Hold on a minute here, Paul. You just told me that I must have peace with God, and then you told me I have hope and glory. And now you're telling me in my suffering and in my tribulation, I'm to have hope in those two. Paul is not talking about some light inconvenience here. The word used for tribulation here is thalipsis. That's the Greek word, thalipsis. It's a word that literally pictures being crushed under pressure. Crushed under pressure. The grapes are being pressed or the wheat is being ground in between two millstones. That's the type of tribulation of suffering that we're talking about. He's not the only one who says this. Jesus told his disciples in John 16 and 33. He said, In this world, yeah, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. So even Jesus tells us that in this world we will have trouble. I was, I put a Facebook post up the other day, and I don't know if any of you saw it or not. I think Julie did. I think Julie answered it. Um and I put uh I put in there um what would you ask God if you could ask God? Any question, and he would answer you within 15 minutes. And people were uh they took that kind of like on a on a on a tribulation side. Why do good people die young? Why do kids have to die? Why they were asking all these things. Why do I have to face cancer? Why they were asking all of those. I don't sin is the answer. That's the only thing. Not sin in you, but the sin of the world. When Adam and Eve back in the Garden of Eden introduced sin into the world, that introduced bad things. All right? That introduced bad things. And because of that sin that moves on from generation to generation to generation, there is sin in the world. It might not be your sin, but it is sin in general that causes the bad things. That's what causes them. Satan is your enemy, he is a liar, and he will try his best to destroy you. That's where bad things come from. And you see, God is a gentleman, he doesn't force his way onto anybody. If you're not asking him, if you're not talking to him, then what's he, I mean, what's he gonna do? He's not gonna force himself onto you, he's not gonna force situations to change. He we have free will in this world. So it tells us, you will have trouble. Jesus didn't say you might have trouble, or if you're unlucky, you might have some trouble. He says you will have trouble. So right off the bat, it rains on the just as much as it does the unjust. It rains on us all equally. James says it even more directly in James chapter 1, verses 2 and 3. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. The testing of your faith produces perseverance. So here we have Paul, Jesus, and James all agreeing on something that our culture today absolutely does not agree on. Trials are not evidence that God has abandoned you. Trials are not proof that you did something wrong. Trials are actually the raw material God uses to build something in your life that cannot be built any other way. Cannot be built any other way. Now hold on to that thought because Paul's about to walk us through exactly how that works, step by step. It's like a chain. It's like a chain. Have you ever worked with a chain, this happens, and when this happens, it causes this to happen, and when this happens, it causes this to happen. That's the chain that we're going to look at today. It starts with a word that most of us would rather just skip past. In verse 3, it continues and it says, Because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Suffering produces perseverance. Now let's be honest, nobody signs up for tribulation. Nobody gets up in the morning and says, God, pour it on. Everything that can happen bad today, throw it at me. I'm ready. We don't do that. We don't get up expecting for it to happen. We don't sign up for it. So what we pray is that the trials and tribulations will be removed. God, this is going on in my life. Can you please take care of it? God, this is going on in my life. Can you please take it away? That's how we pray. We pray for the storm to pass. We want the diagnosis to have been wrong. We want the marriage to be fixed overnight. We want the job to finally come through by Friday. But here's the thing about the tribulation. For a believer, it's not optional. Tribulation for a believer is not optional. It's not a sign that you've fallen out of favor with God. In fact, Scripture is full of God's most faithful people walking through the fire. They don't skirt around it, get delivered from it. They walk through the fire. Think about Abraham for a minute. God promised him a son. He promised him a son, said he's going to be the father of many, many, many people. All right? God promised him a son. Abraham then had to wait 25 years. 25 years. 25 years of watching his body get older. 25 years of watching Sarah's body get older. 25 years wondering if God had forgotten the promise. But Abraham kept believing he got his perseverance strengthened. Perseverance. Think about Moses. Moses was 40 years, 40 years in the wilderness at Midian. He tended sheep after he thought he was going to be Israel's deliverer in his 30s. He ended up tending sheep. 40 years of what looked like wasted time. But God, he was doing something in the waiting. He was building Moses' character. How about David? Anointed king as a teenager, and then he was chased through caves and wilderness by King Saul for over a decade before he actually got the crown. He was promised, you're going to be the next king. Ten years then, he had to run and hide from the present king before he was elevated to that position. That's not a quick testimony. That is a long, grinding, excruciating amount of tribulation that these men had to go through before they got the promise that they were offered. So I want you to think about Paul now, the very man that wrote Romans, Paul. Think about him, all right? By the time he wrote 2 Corinthians, here's what I can list off about Paul. Five times he was ripped, whipped with 39 lashes. Three times he was beaten with rods. Once he was stoned and left for dead, he was in three shipwrecks. A night and a day he drifted at sea. Alright? A night and a day. Constant danger from robbers, from his own countrymen, from Gentiles in the city, in the country, at sea, from false believers. How many of us have ever had endured that type of tribulation? Right? My tribulation. Sometimes I broke my fingernail this morning playing the piano. Oh, that was horrible for me. And we think that that's just a bad tribulation that we're going through. But look at what Paul went through in his tribulation. Paul isn't teaching us theory in the book of Romans. What he's teaching us comes straight out of the fires that he himself has been in. Here's what's remarkable Paul didn't just survive all of that, he endured it in such a way that it produced something inside of him. That's the key word in verse 3, perseverance. The Greek word is hoop-mone. Hoop-amone. All right? Hoop-amode. And it doesn't just mean gritting your teeth and getting through something. It actually means to remain underneath it. You remain underneath it. Let me explain what I mean. You don't escape the pressure, but you remain faithfully under the pressure until it works. Until it works. You don't try to find a way out. You endure it through to the end to see what it can produce inside of you. So Paul's own life becomes the proof of what he's teaching us in the book of Romans. He didn't write suffering produces perseverance because he was in a comfortable office and thought that they sounded like good words. He was actually out there living it. He was actually out there living it. Perseverance is something that is forged in you, something that is tested, something that could only be produced in one way, and that's you remaining faithful underneath the trial. Then Paul leads right into the next link in the chain. Because if you stay faithful long enough under pressure, something begins to happen inside of you. Perseverance doesn't just get you through the trial, it starts producing character inside of you. You don't just get perseverance, you get character. That perseverance makes Character. Verse 4 says perseverance and it says character. You see that? And perseverance, character. Alright? So let's get something cleared up. I need you to understand. Krispy Kreme donuts do not build character. Okay? Crispy Kreme donuts do not build character. Sitting on your couch eating that warm glazed donut, watching whatever show that you're binge watching, that does not produce perseverance. Right? It doesn't do it. And it definitely doesn't produce character. So if that's how you're trying to produce your character, you need to change your game plan. That doesn't work. If character could be built through comfort, we'd all be spiritual giants by now. We would all be spiritual giants because let's be honest, most of us in today's culture are experts in comfort. We're experts in how we're comforted. I go home, I turn on the air conditioner. If it's the winter, I turn up the heat. I've got my blankets. I walked home. Brian, yesterday, he uh he comes home from work on Saturdays, and when he got home, I walked in the house with Dunkin' Donuts. And he said, I can't believe you brought those Dunkin' Donuts in this house. You know I'm gonna eat them. I said, Well, that's what I brought them for, was for you to eat them. But the thing is, comfort. We all try comfort. That's what we want is comfortable. We come in church, is it the right temperature? Me, I was cold over at the piano. I'm hot now. Okay, it's because I'm up and I'm talking. But the thing is in churches today, people will get mad and quit over the temperature of the church. If they're not comfortable, they leave. That's sad, people. Build your perseverance in your character, endure for God for a minute because he wasn't comfortable when he offered Jesus Christ for you. He wasn't. He wasn't. So, character is not built through comfort. We'd all be spiritual giants. Character isn't built by easy seasons in your life. Character is built when you are under pressure. Think about it. If you want to run a marathon, how many in here want to run a marathon? Oh, there's a few of you that want to. Guys, no, I will be in the comfort of my house watching you. Okay. Yeah, John will be right there too. We'll have a party. We'll cheer them on. But how many want to be in the marathon? And I got your hand raised. Now, here's the thing: you don't train by sitting on the couch eating those donuts, right? Or hope that your legs decide that they're going to work on race day. It doesn't just work that way. You don't get up and say, all right, legs, let's go. Take me through that race. It doesn't work that way. You train by running when your legs are screaming for you to stop. You push through it. You don't stop halfway through it and say, Well, that's enough today. My legs are saying no. So I'm going to sit down. When you are under the pressure of training, you push through it. When you are under pressure in life, don't try the easy way out for comfort. Let God teach you something as you go through it. Let your perseverance develop character in you. You train by pushing through mile 16 when everything in you wants to quit. Everything in you wants to quit. The endurance that you built in training is what produces the strength or the character that actually will get you across the finish line on race day. And be with me, guys. That's what we want. When we cross that finish line, we want to have persevered and stood for Christ. We don't want to have to look at God in the face on judgment day and said, hey, it wasn't comfortable. I couldn't do it because it made me jump out of my comfort zone and it hurt me for a little while. That's what you need to do is persevere until it develops your character. Until it develops your character. Think about teaching a kid to ride a bike. All right, now I'll do that one. Teaching a kid to ride a bike. There's a moment, and you know this moment if you've ever done it, when you let go. There's a moment when you let go. Because they wobble, sometimes they fall, they get skinned knees, tears, the whole thing. And as a parent, you don't want your kid to cry. But if you held on to the bike forever, how would they ever learn to ride it? How would they ever learn to ride it? If you take away the struggle and you take away the very thing then that was building the character, that was building the ability. So if I take away my hand from the bike, they might fall a few times. They might skin their knee. It might hurt my feelings. But for both of us, that is good because if I don't ever take my hand away, they'll never have the ability. If you don't ever go through trials and troubles and suffering in this life, you will never know what it's like to build the perseverance to make it through the next one. You'll never know. Paul understood all of this on a deep level. Paul had been through trials and Paul had been through tribulations, so he knew. So turn with me or follow along on the screen. We're going to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. We're starting in the middle of 7B. Y'all, I'm sorry, that's my phone. Actually, that's the alarm telling me someone's walking around my house. Let me turn that. My dogs will get them. Okay, so halfway through 12, 7B, going through 10. This is Paul speaking. I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for when I am weak, then he is strong. When I am weak, he is strong. Now, note, he didn't share it on Facebook and play the role of the victim. He didn't do that, right? Nor did he spread it all over the church and call it a prayer request. Because we have people that do that, right? That's why we don't take prayer requests out loud here, is I don't want a gossip session. That's not a person with godly character that does those things. Paul had walked far enough down this road of tribulation, of perseverance that he had arrived at general character. He wasn't the same man he used to breathe out threats against people. He used to murder the Christians of the church. But now he's arrived at genuine character. The years of pressure, the beatings, the shipwrecks, the thorn in his side that he couldn't get rid of. He didn't have bitterness for it. He didn't despair over it. What he had was some character, a settled, tested, proven trust in God that could not have existed if he did not go through the pressures. So here's where it gets even better. Because character that's been tested and proven doesn't just sit there. Once you gain that character, it starts producing something that you can't manufacture any other way. Character that has been proven through fire then starts to produce hope. It produces the hope. You see the chain? Perseverance, character. Then we have hope. Not wishful thinking or crossed fingers, but actual, real, confident, unshakable hope. And that's where we're going next. Verse 4 finished the chain. And she had it up just a minute ago, if she can go back to it. And perseverance, character, and character, hope. That's when verse 5 gives us this incredible promise. And hope does not put us to shame. Because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Now, we need to be really clear about something here because our culture uses the word hope so casually that it's almost lost its powerful meaning that it should have here in the Bible. Okay. Proverbs 13, 2 describes a different kind of hope language. Proverbs, here we go. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Now, that is a kind of hope that keeps getting pushed off, delayed, disappointed. That's the hope that leaves you exhausted because you hope for it for so long. Guys, used to, and and I'm not going to point anybody out because I don't like to point people out, especially if it's your first time here. But yesterday we had signups, and I, every person that came through the door, hey, here's what we've got to offer. Here's what we've got to offer because I feel like I need to tell people about Jesus Christ. So I kept saying, here's what we've got to offer. Now, through my life, I have said that so many times. I cannot count the number of people that have said, All right, I'll be there Sunday. At first, I used to get my hopes up. Uh, yeah, I've got 40 new people saying they're coming Sunday, and I'd watch that door, and not one would come. Not one would come. That's hope deferred. I put my hope in it, it didn't happen. All right. Today, it happened. All right? I had people come in today. So that is the kind of hope that makes you rejoice. All right? That's the kind of hope that you have that Jesus Christ is coming back for you. It is not deferred hope. Deferred hope makes the heart sick. Alright? And I've done went over like I hope it doesn't rain on the back to school bash. That might be hope deferred. You never know. We could have a tornado. Who knows? The way this church has a record of what we do. And for those of you that don't know what we're talking about, so we had a lock-in on New Year's this year. And all the youth were in here in the lock-in. Jenny's grinning at me. All the youth were in, I don't know, Nalu's back here somewhere. They were all in here and we were having a blast, and all of a sudden, uh we got news that there a shooting had happened up here on Market Street, and we needed to lock down. So here I've got all these kids up in the sanctuary. We uh have John on chairs sleeping at the back door so that no one can get in. We've made sure this is the only other way in here, so we've got that locked. Kids were hollering, I'm hungry, and I'm like, I'm sorry, you gotta sit in the sanctuary today. Um we were trying not to tell them what was going on because we didn't want panic to ensue. Then, fast forward to a few weeks ago, we had Bible school. And at Bible School, it had gone really good, and we were about to start our movie outside. All right, it's about 8, 15-ish or so. We're all outside. We've got we've got this big movie screen, brand new. That was our first time we were going to use it. And we had it set up outside, and I'm sitting there and look around, and here comes Jiles County Sheriff. And he pulls up back here behind a church and he gets out and he says, Who's in charge that I can speak to? So I walk over there and he said, We have a man on the run and we think he's possibly armed. Can you please get your kids inside? So here we go again. Come on, kids, come on, kids, let's get inside. I think we can watch this movie sooner if we're inside. And these kids were like, but let me get my pillows, but let me get my blanket, but let me get my chair. I'm like, no, no, we'll get those for you. Let's get in the building. If one thing this church has, it's an extension she plan for anything that might happen during our events. We have gotten good at that. We've gotten good at that. So, parents out there, don't worry about sending your kids to an event here because we have practice keeping them safe. We have practice keeping them safe. So I said all of that. Um hope deferred makes the heart sick, but we can guarantee that Jesus Christ is gonna come back. He's gonna come back. That goes on to say, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. And that's the rest of that verse. I don't know if you've copied the rest of that verse or not. That one we were just in, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. The rest of that reads, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. That's what Jesus Christ is. That's the kind of hope that Paul's describing when he talks about this chain over in Romans 5. It is the opposite of hope deferred. It's the opposite. It does not put us to shame. Hope that will never leave you disappointed because it's not based on wishful thinking. It's not, it's based on a promise that will 100% be revealed. It will be revealed. A proven track record of God Himself that's never failed. That's what it is. So this is where Romans 8.28 gives us the anchor for all of it. Romans 8.28. Did I go off script? Oh, sorry. I do that. My mom used to say I babble in my head. Um, there it is, Romans 8.28. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Notice that it doesn't say that all things are good. It doesn't say all things are good. Trials aren't good. Cancer's not good. Losing a job isn't good. None of that's good. But God works in those things and he makes the tribulation turn into perseverance, turn into character, turn into hope. God always works in our situations to those that love the Lord, and he turns our situations to good. Now, here's what I want you to catch. Hope doesn't just sit there being confident. Hope, then, to finish out the chain, turns into appointments. What do you mean, Pastor Carla, by appointments? Well, in Acts chapter 16, Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas are in Philippi, and they've been arrested, they've been locked up in shackles, and they're down in the prison cell, and they've been beaten with rods, they're in the inner cell, and that's about as low as you can get. That's some tribulation right there. If you think about that happening to you, being in shackles, thrown in the inner cell after you've been beaten by a rod, that's pretty unimaginable. And then verse 25 of Acts chapter 16 says I'm giving hope it'll work out. Acts chapter 16, verse 25. Acts 16, verse 16. Acts 16, verse 25. It says, About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And all the other prisoners were listening to them. Now, honestly, if you had just been beaten and thrown into shackles, pushed into the inner cell and the prison door locked, would you sit down and start singing hymns and praising God? Most people wouldn't. I'd probably be crying, right? But what they did because they had persevered and it had developed character. And their character made them have the hope of Christ. They knew whether they lived or died, they were winners. So what they did, it turned into an appointment. And they started singing hymns and praising the Lord. And they didn't just survive that moment. Their hope was so real that it overflowed into worship through the imaginable pain. So what happened was an earthquake. The doors flew wide open, their shackles fell off, and the jailer who is responsible for making sure they're there, he thought they got away. So he raised up his sword. He was going to kill himself. Why? Because back in those days, they were going to execute him anyway. If a prisoner got away, the one on guard got executed. So he figured he'd just go ahead and do it himself, his way. And he had raised his sword to kill himself. And Paul saw him and he said, Don't harm yourself. We're here. Don't harm yourself because we're all still here. And that jailer fell down and he was trembling. He fell before them. And you know what he said, sirs? What must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? So the perseverance that built the character, that produced the hope, gave them an appointment. And because of that day, because of what they did in that jail cell, not just the jailer, but his whole household was saved. It turns into appointment. Now you be you might be thinking, Pastor Carla, that's a great story, but in my opinion, I'm not getting beaten with rods. I'm just trying to get through Tuesday. Alright? I'm not getting beat. I just want to make it through the day. Let me tell you something. You're standing at the checkout line at the grocery store, it's been a long day, and the person in front of you is on the phone. They're clearly upset, and you catch a piece of the conversation that they're having, something about a diagnosis or a job loss, or or maybe a relationship that's fallen apart. So normally you just look back down to your phone and keep scrolling. All right? None of my business what they're going through. But what if, because God has been building something in you during your trials and suffering, you feel a nudge to just kind of say something a little simple. So, hey, I don't mean to intrude, but I couldn't help but overhear part of your conversation. Are you doing okay? Can I pray with you? All of a sudden, your hope just turned into a divine appointment. A divine appointment. Let me tell you something that happened to me at work just Friday. And guys, God works. He does. I got hello? All right. So I've been lazy this week. Sometimes I just get tired and I don't want to do anything. I didn't want to work when I was at work. I didn't want to study when I was at home. I didn't want to plan anything. I had to put up a post that we were having signups yesterday, and I didn't even want to do that. God, I have to. We told them last month. Maybe they'll just remember. I was tired. I didn't want to do anything. I was being lazy. I wasn't persevering through my tiredness. I was giving in to the comfort. Alright? So I started feeling guilty, and Thursday night, me and God had a long conversation. And I told him, I said, God, I don't know what's gotten into me this week, but I haven't wanted to do anything. I haven't wanted to work. I haven't wanted to study. I haven't. It took me until uh Thursday to even type out a sermon. All right. I just I wasn't in the week. I just didn't want to be in that week. I said, please help me start fresh when I wake up in the morning. I want to be an encouragement to somebody tomorrow. I want to have a zeal for work tomorrow. I want to be able to minister to people tomorrow, like a pastor should. And then I said my goodnights and I went to sleep. So I get up and I go to work the next day. And I'm sitting there at my office, typing away, and I hear the lady in the office beside me, and she starts just breathing so heavy. And I thought, what is she doing? So I haul her over there and I said, Angie, you okay? She said, Carl, I'm having an anxiety attack. And I said, Oh, Angie, I am so sorry. What can I do for you? And she said, There's nothing you can do. She said, These just come on randomly. I don't know what causes them, but I just have to sit here and try to get through it. So she started crying. So she got up and she went to the bathroom, and I sat there for a second, and I almost started doing what I was doing again, and then I thought, no, what can I do? So I ended up typing out a prayer real quick on the computer, and uh uh and some words that she could repeat to herself. And of course, y'all know I'm a social worker, so I had to throw the therapist in there too. And I gave her five ways to ground herself, and and I gave her some breathing exercises, try this, try this. And then I had some mints that I had gotten for Christmas, and they've just been sitting on my desk, and they're called blessing mints. And on each of them is a scripture on the outside. So I just reached in there and grabbed a mint and pulled it out, and it said, In my distress, I will call upon the name of the Lord and he will hear me. And I thought, perfect. So I went over there, she wasn't back yet. I laid that in the mint on her desk. And I went back and I started doing my work. Well, I heard her walk back behind me. Um, and she was going back to her desk, and in a few minutes she said, Carla, did you put this over here? I said, Yes, ma'am. I said, I did. I wanted you to know you're not alone, that God's with you. She has a tendency to listen to music during the day. She puts it low so it doesn't bother us, but she normally listens to like country, she likes hip hop, she likes weird stuff, okay? I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying I just it's not my cup of tea. So, but when she turned that radio back on, she had on worship music. I've never heard her play worship music before. And inside what I felt was that was a divine appointment that that woman's gonna remember. And now when she starts having those anxiety attacks, she's gonna remember to call on the name of Jesus and turn on worship music. That's because I persevered instead of trying to get out from under my laziness, that built some character, which gave me hope, which I was able to pass on to her the next day. That's how God works. That's how God works, and that's what I want for each and every person in this room. That's what I want. Verse six. Moving on. Romans. I'm back to the text. Romans six. You see, at just the right time when we were powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Then go on to verse 8. Skip seven, jump to eight. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Church, his timing was perfect. His timing was perfect. So if his timing to die for us was perfect, do you not doubt, don't doubt, that he can take your trial and your perseverance, and your your perseverance will turn to character, and your character will turn to hope. And then you'll start getting some of those divine appointments, right? So if you will stand with me. Start the music. Y'all, I can't be a piano player and uh uh do the altar call at the same time. So for now, if you guys play the piano, be sure to tell me. I want to talk to two different people this morning because I feel like there's two different people that are specifically listening for me and what I'm saying. And by people, it could be an individual, it could be more than one. First, maybe you're here today and you've never actually trusted your life to Jesus Christ. Never done it. You've never come to a place where you said, God, I know I'm a sinner and I can't fix myself. Can you fix me? I give my life to you. I believe that Jesus died for me and I'm trusting in the hope that He alone gives me. Or maybe you're a believer, but you're just tired. Like I was this week. You're just tired. You're tired. Maybe you got a diagnosis, maybe your marriage is suffering a little bit. Maybe it's a job situation or a wayward kid, a grief that just won't lift. Right now, in ways that you can't see, God is producing perseverance in you. And I want to invite you, if that's you, to come forward and the prayer warriors will be praying for you. Let's move right now. If that's you, come on to the front. Brian, can you come here?

SPEAKER_00 53:31

We're gonna close an announcement. Uh Tuesday night is Tuesday, Tuesday night is uh the outreach program with charity. Um Wednesday night we have uh men's uh men's with John uh with Mark back there and then the and uh women's and then we have Carson and Ruby, I don't know who all doing the youth on Wednesday nights. Uh Friday night we have celebrate recovery. Uh this week will be the, I think this is gonna be the third Saturday this coming week. Uh we're gonna be doing Operation Lifeline. Uh anybody that can come down and help pass out the food, we would we really need help doing that, so we invite everybody to come down and give a hand with that. Um anything uh any other thing I haven't covered for an hour. And uh that starts at six o'clock. All righty. Well, uh John, could you close us in prayer?