It Is Well | Patience - Pastor Scott Silcox

We hold joy and sorrow in the same week and still trust God’s hand on the page. We slow down long enough to let the Holy Spirit help us interpret our pain so patience can do its full work.

• A child learning to read as a picture of how we rush past meaning
• A week of wedding celebration alongside deep grief
• Psalm 139 and the conviction that God authors our days
• Punctuation as a metaphor for spiritual patience and divine timing
• Structure that brings clarity when life feels chaotic
• Rhythm that slows us so transformation can sink in
• Boundaries that protect purpose and pull out destiny
• Pauses that reveal intention and prevent misreading suffering
• James 1 and the hard command to count trials as joy
• The comma in Jesus’ words to the thief as a picture of destiny

Transcript

Welcome And Opening Story

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Welcome to the Rock Family Sermon of the Week. For more information about our church, please visit the FoxFamily. Now join us for a message from Pastor Scott Zilcox.

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And yet there's a lot going on this week. I've just had a busy week. I don't know about you, but it's been a busy week. It's been a lot going on. I had this interesting thing happen the other night, though, and I just kind of want to start off with this. Anybody ever had the privilege of trying to teach your kids how to read? You guys know what I'm talking about? I remember this. My dad used to take me and work with me, my mom. And I just, honestly, I was reading to get done with it so that I could go back to playing. That was kind of my whole premise in life. If I could just read it as fast as I could, as quick as I could, and this the faster I could get to the things I was actually interested in. In the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to work with Evie in reading. And so it's not been very consistent. That's probably my fault, right? And you'll see why here in just a second. But the times where I do actually get to sit down and go through books with her, and it's so sweet. Christian talks about being able to go through uh the books that you created, Pastor Henry, and it's so odd the leave book, and she loves it. Uh well, I actually have to read this because you know she's getting graded on it, and so we're going through it. I'm like, all right, babe, let's read, let's go through it. And we're we, I don't know what the book is. I think it was like Pete the Cat. And it was like, see, Pete the Cat. You are cool, Pete the Cat. Wear the red shirt. I like it. No, wear the yellow shirt. It's better. You're gonna be so cool, Pete the Cat. It's really things like this repetitive over and over and over. And yet she would just read it, Pete the Cat, read, and just no, no pause, no break, no anything. And it felt like we were reading a crossword puzzle. It was just just you know you know what I'm saying? And at some point, you're just like, you're inside, like, all right, let's get a rhythm about this already. Instead of just one, like, I love Pete the Cat, Pete the Cat loves me, we wear green things. It's like ridiculous, right? This this matters because, first of all, it just it's annoying to have to go through that. It's just super annoying to have to go through that because you have to stop and say, no, no, pause, stop right here. There's emphasis here, right? Pete the cat is trying to accomplish something. We don't just run through it. How are we gonna know what Pete the Cat is supposed to be doing if we just read words and we don't put the emphasis where it needs to be, right? I never did find out what Pete the Cat was up to in that book. We don't know exactly what he was trying to accomplish. I know that he was cool and he was a cat, and people wanted him to wear things at school. That's all I know. But I don't know how it ended because I couldn't make it through it. I finally was just like, I don't even care about Pete the Cat. Look, let's figure something else out to do. But how many

A Week Of Joy And Loss

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know that this is oftentimes the way we walk through life? Uh I'll give you an example. This week is a crazy week because I've had kind of like two extremes. I got the privilege of being in a wedding, which is like the first time in years, right? Usually I'm on the other side officiating the wedding, but I actually got to be in one of my best friend's weddings this weekend, and it was beautiful, it was amazing. It was an answer to prayer. This guy, we've been praying for years that he would find his wife. I'll tell you what, when you can finally come to the end of a season of intercession, isn't that beautiful? I mean, I'm serious. I'm serious. Like I just sat there like everybody else was just happy. I was exhausted. I'm just in the corner, like, that took way longer than I was expecting. But he did it. And one Daniel Acreage has been married off and fantastic. Son of the house, amazing, amazing man. And unfortunately, in that same spirit of busy and go, uh, we also celebrate the life of a matriarch of our house who went on to be with Jesus. Pastor Mom passed away this week. And I'll be honest with you, it has not been an easy week to walk through anything else other than thinking about who she is, who she was, and what she means to this house. And uh I got this, I got this thing. I don't know if you know what this is. Maybe put it in front of me and you can zoom in on it. Yeah, little baby Jesus. I mean, it's not a baby Jesus, but it's a baby Jesus. You know, it's Jesus loves you. And uh this is pretty special because if you've been any time with Pastor Mom in the last year or so, you've gotten one of these. Um I was oh I'm sorry. I went uh to be with Pastor Dad uh the day I heard of the news. I spent a few hours with him in his home. Before I could even get up uh to his place, I ran into some of those working at uh his facility, and it was pretty awesome because they all had their Jesus. It was all out and ready. This Jesus thing has followed me for months. In fact, at Easter, I was at Easter lunch, and I was going down the little bar at my house where you put, you know, there's this, and there's the green beans, and there's the ham, and then there's the little baby Jesus is posted up on one of the dishes. And I realized my parents had been getting a bunch of these as well. My dad's probably got two or three. Yep, he's got his in his pocket today. And what's cool about this is this was just a tool for Pastor Mom to express and give an open door of communication and dialogue about who Jesus is and what he means to you and how he sees you, how he views you. Special time. And I got to think I can almost sit here. Yeah. Um I got to thinking about this this week with all of the things going on and all the emotions, it's kind of hard to realize that in the same week there's huge celebration and a huge amount of sorrow. Right? All in the exact same week. And then I've I've I've as I reflect on that, I I mentioned this to you today because I want you to think about this. It is possible, it is possible for there to be extremes in any given week. There is great joy and great sorrow, and yet we know this, God is still in control. Right? He is still very much in control. And and I say this because I want to use kind of this original story I started with as just kind of like idea, just to kind of get started.

Patience Through Punctuation

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Oh, we're doing this series. Um to kind of kick off part two of our series where we're gonna be talking about uh an idea that I think is interesting, patience or punctuation. Pretty interesting that Pastor Brian, I was like, I looked over at my wife, like, what are we doing? You know, we are in tune in the spirit when he talked about their question marks in the room. I'm gonna be talking a little bit about that today and the idea of what punctuation actually is. What does it mean? How many know that words are just are just information unless you add punctuation? And what I mean by that is this early on when they begin to transcribe their hearts, their feelings, the author's intent, the original scriptures, they write those in words, but there was never punctuation because reading the the script or or that that was written down was actually not supposed to be done in private. It was supposed to be done orally. It's supposed to be done in front of people. Now, why would that matter? It matters because the person who has learned the language and is reciting it would then add the narrative or the creativity or the rhythm or the facial expressions that would help indicate what the author's intent was. Does that make sense? It wasn't until years later to we have all this manuscript, all this writing, and we realize that we got to start figuring out a way to communicate what the what the ears and the what the eyes could see, but the ears now. Do you follow what I'm saying? I uh the the the eyes were able to see it when it was displayed, but now we're reading on our own. We've got to be able to identify when do we pause, when do we break? When do we add emphasis? Pete the cat. Pete the cat. He wore black. Right? Just blah. Reading the book. When you don't understand how to put the emphasis in the right place and how it matters to the end. And so I want to talk about punctuation for just a second, but I'm gonna use it as a way for us to better understand what it means to have patience. How to be patient when you're sitting in the in-between of what you think should be happening and what is actually happening, and if you're not careful, you'll blow right through it. And in doing so, you have you have the propensity, if you're not careful, to move beyond what God is actually trying to teach you. Because he's trying to develop something in us. Let patience have its perfect way. Right? There is a there is something that he's developing us. We talked about this last week, about our faith being developed, right? Through perseverance. This is very much along that line. And it says, How are we to be patient as believers and what are we to be looking for? I'll use this scripture here just to make a point that what God is already doing is writing his story on your life. And this is where we see it, Psalms 139, 15 and 16. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Come on, touch your neighbors, say, your days have already been ordered. This is important. This is important because I think I think if we're not careful, you might be in this room today and you may not recognize this. You might think you're writing your story. You might be believing that everything you're doing is everything about you. Your world is all, everyone just revolves around my world. I'm making my life, I'm making my story, I'm getting my truth. But here I'm here to tell you that when you have a revelation of Jesus Christ, you understand He's been there from the very beginning. He's actually in His forming of you, He knew and already wrote on the pages of your life. Now, if that is true, this has been my prayer the last couple of days. If that is true, and God has actually pinned who I am and what I'm going through, He knows, many of us don't want to believe this, that God would actually allow what's happened in my pages. Yeah. Ask Job. Try my son. And we don't like to preach like that because we just want to know him as redeemer of all the bad mistakes we've made. Or maybe, just maybe, if we'll compase for a second, he already knew what I would be facing. If that's true, I thought about this today. I prayed this actually the last couple of days, specifically again this morning. God, if that's true, then you also have prepared the appropriate emotion to have. If that's true that you wrote that, then you've already, through the blood of Christ and the grace that is on my life through the Holy Spirit, has already provided with me a way to respond appropriately. And that also was a choice. What will we do with it, right? We know this. He knows our story. He's already written it. Let's go to this.

Structure That Calms The Chaos

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There's four things in punctuation that I think are critical for us to know. Why it exists, what it's there to do, and how does that matter to you? And we'll start with number one. It's really this it creates structure. It creates structure. Whenever you read, if you do not have punctuation, it's just like it was originally one giant run-on sentence. It's information, but it doesn't bring about the transformation or the power that it's supposed to have because you're just reading it just to have context clues. But the truth is punctuation helps bring more clarity to it. Order can be followed. This is a truth we need to walk away from. In order for us to have a life that can be and is worth being followed, it needs punctuation. Barry, I can give you a list of words, but boy, when you tell a story with that, with where you kind of lean back on that back leg. See, just that right there tells me, get ready. Get ready. Mayor Barry, Mayor Barry's got something to say. He he are you gonna hit me? Are you gonna hit me with a good story? And he gives me, I'm gonna tell you what, who I bumped into at the gas station the other day. Always about who he's witnessed to, or how many fish you caught. Legally, he's definitely within the amount that he's supposed to have in Gunnersville. So just in case you get out there and get stopped again. Uh just kidding. Right? There's there's there's expression that is needed. So it creates structure. How about this? Organized thoughts bring clarity to chaos. The reason we're talking about punctuation in using it as a metaphor this morning as a life under Christ, that when there is not structure in your life, if there is not discipline in your life from the walk with the Lord, it becomes and feels more chaotic. Things that happen tend to tend to weigh on you heavier than they probably should. And I would venture to say it's because we don't know how to read what Christ is doing in our life. It reads like confusion. It reads like, like you said, Brian, like a bunch of question marks. Like every single thing I hear from him just feels like a question mark, like a question mark. Or maybe you're one of those incredible people who maybe your life reads like an exclamation mark about every other word. And how me know, that's that gets tiresome. See, one one of the things about punctuation is that it is created to give you a rhythm of reading. So that the truth that you're trying to pull from it actually sinks in and becomes something that transforms you. Oftentimes we get in a in a race to read through our word and not let it transform us. I can see this is going over extremely well.

Rhythm Slows Us For Growth

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It controls rhythm, number two. Emphasis. Uh uh requires restraint. Emphasis requires restraint. Anybody ever been uh or maybe you're married or uh related to somebody who tells a story at 900 miles an hour? Come on, don't look at them right now. But they're but you you know you know this person who just who at some point now has talked so much that everyone just got it's white noise in the room. You nobody's even listening to that ant that's sitting over in the corner and has not put a period on it yet. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? There are people in our home, in our family, that have that problem who will go unmentioned, and I am not looking at them, although they're both over there. One's upstairs and one's downstairs, but I'll let you decide who that is. People who just tell stories and don't know how to come to a conclusion. Where does it end? Yes, I we were talking about this, but now we're talking about this, and now we're talking about this, and I don't know how any of those work together. And it becomes you just having to interpret. This is someone or something, this is what happens when we don't have rhythm. It's like listening to music that's just off. Or like this. Have you ever had to listen to a rendition of a song by somebody else and it was just off? You know, where we've all gotten used to listening to the one song and then they do a rendition of it, and you're just like, ugh. Mmm. And it feels like a workout more than just enjoyable. And I has anybody ever, I do the, I listen to a lot of music, and and I like, I actually love covers of music, which I think is really good. It's just most of those are terrible compared to the original that went out, right? And then there's that rare time where someone grabs it, makes it better, and you're just like, that's amazing. But more times than not, it's that kind where it just feels like like a real clunky, like, ooh, that was that hurt to listen to, right? I physically feel sore after it, right? This is what happens when we don't control the rhythm. Without slowing down, nothing, nothing sinks in. Maybe asking yourself, like, why why why are we talking like this? Because we're we're learning about patience. It is patience that slows you down long enough to allow the Holy Spirit to do his complete work in you. When we live in a society that has zero, zero boundaries, who is telling you faster is always better, who's telling you that you don't have to stop and to actually care about what it is that you're doing. You just can run through life and you're gonna be great. The truth is, is this is not the Christian life. In order for your life and your walk with the Lord to really have substance and meaning, it's gotta have some rhythm. It's gotta have some pace. Now, don't confuse that with lazy. Some of you have too much pace. Some of you in your Christian walk are are still claiming a Sabbath like every other day. I'm encouraging you, hey baby, just do enough work to earn the one Sabbath that you do get. And then what we've done is we we, if we're not careful, we can sink back and just relax into that. Just think we've arrived somewhere. But I'm just telling you, there's more that God wants to do in your life. And and he's working on a rhythm in our life. Why? Because I want what's happening in this life to transform me to the good. I want, I want the grace that that I'm walking this out with to transform, to perfect in me the patience I need. We're gonna talk about this in James. James 5. If you want to go back, you can look at that as well. Verse 7 on. And you just talk about what James is talking to a group of people who are being persecuted. And he's talking about early Christians, he's saying, hey, listen, just lock in. Count it all joy. We're gonna talk about that in just a second. But also this idea persevere, keep pressing in, let patience have its complete work. This is what we're doing. In order for that to happen, it's got to go through an idea of rhythm. How about number three?

Boundaries Give Life Meaning

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It establishes meaning. Punctuation establishes meaning. And meaning requires what? It's like a bad word. We don't want to say boundaries. But boundaries matter. Alright, I'll give you an example of how I know boundaries matter. First of all, we just got out of a crazy awesome, fun soccer series, uh, soccer season. It was amazing. Uh boundaries are weird there, right? You can be out of bounds, but the ball is in bounds. And that's a weird thing because a guy who plays basketball is just kind of like you're in or you're out. It's just the boundaries. When you start thinking about athletes, Some of the greatest people in the world that we uh think are amazing, that are are like and I want to just get like I I don't want to get in the debate, Jordan or LeBron, but I'm just saying. Which one do you guys want to use? What demographic are we in here? Uh-huh. As yeah, as I thought. Since we're in church, we'll use King James. I think so. That seems appropriate. That seems like amazing as LeBron James is, as amazing at what he's accomplished on the court, as amazing at what he's able to do when he gets the ball in his hands. The truth is, is that the only thing that matters is if he does it within the boundaries. It doesn't matter. You can't have the scoring record if you're not in bounds. Oftentimes we we tend to think that boundaries are to restrict us. But I'm here to tell you what the word is and who the who God has given to us through the Holy Spirit is to set a boundary around us to guide and direct us. And so many times we just dismiss that and try to say, well, we'll just do it on our own. But I'm here to tell you that in order for you to really establish meaning in this faith walk, you're gonna have to get more comfortable with the boundaries that he places around you. The boundaries that he places around us are not meant to harm you, but they're to pull out your destiny. The boundaries are not to restrict you from having a good time, they're to make sure that when you have a good time, it counts. It matters, it has lasting impression. I sent a text to the Nelson family today just to love on them. I was praying for them early, early this morning. And I was explaining to them, I said, how cool is it that today, here immediately following this service, uh, we'll be releasing everybody, and we're gonna be doing a celebration of life service this afternoon here. I said, but just a thought that had come to me today, and I got real excited in my living room early this morning, and I got to thinking about how cool is it that today we're gonna celebrate Ruth Nelson and in a way just to testify that the devil lost again. Like he just loses again. Then, as I'm just getting excited about that idea, it's like, yeah, today we will testify of a faithful woman, of an incredible child of God, of an amazing mother, an amazing friend, an amazing wife, an amazing mentor, an incredible woman of God. And as God Himself, as Christ pulls her close, isn't it interesting that today or just a couple of days ago, she will exchange all of her crowns, and in return, she'll get another reason to worship. She'll exchange everything that she's done, and in return, she'll get another opportunity to lift up his name in a new way. She joins a heavenly song. And I'm gonna tell you, today is a day of celebration. Does it hurt? Yes. Do I understand the divine pause in this sentence, in this book? No. I don't have answers for that. When it fell, when it didn't fall. Why not later? Why not earlier? The only way for me to have the kind of faith to walk out what Christ is building in me and in you as a believer and those who are even searching this morning, I don't even know what you're talking about, Scott. I'm telling you, the first step is just to believe in Jesus. Give him an opportunity to give you this perspective. But for many of us in this room, we've been faithfully following the Lord, but I would say sometimes we're trying to do it outside of the boundaries that he's placed in our life. And what happens when that happens? Without stops, everything runs together. Without borders, without something, some boundary, my life begins to look like one giant run-on sentence. Can anybody relate? Anybody ever been there where you just felt like my life just feels like one run-on Pete is cool, Pete the Cat book. Repetitive things, rhyming things, but none of them really adding up. I I know this for many of you sitting in this room. You can look back over your life and you're you're confused to why you don't have more right now. Why not this opportunity? And how did I miss that? And and am I gonna miss something in the future? And there's there, you've got more punctuation about every other word. God exclamation mark. Where are you? Comma. Come back. Period. Do you love me? Circle, yes or no. The things that we say to the Lord, right? It's just it's it's funny that when the pressure is applied, we find out how our story really is being written. Let me say it like this. When the pressure is applied, oftentimes we find out how it's being interpreted. How are you interpreting what God is doing? How are you interpreting the divine pause in your life today? How are you determining? Is it a period or is it ellipsis? That's the dot dot dot. If you know me, you know me at all. The people that know me the best know this. I literally cannot text without a dot dot dot. I can't do it. Am I lying? I I have to do the dot dot dot. I just have that because the thoughts are coming so fast. And the idea of the dots are, hey, there's more to it, and I'm gonna try to crunch this down. This this is this is sort of like every Sunday morning is a dot dot dot. Like I have way more to say than you have time to listen to. Dot dot dot. Right? It's gonna feel like every week is that way for me. But I just love it. The ellipsis, there's more to come. Is it is there a chance that what God is doing right now, if you're not careful, you'll misinterpret it? You'll call an ending when maybe it is just a comma. Maybe you think it's question marks, but he's saying there's more to come. Da, da, da. How are you interpreting your life? Well, in order for it to have meaning,

Pauses Reveal God’s Intent

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we know this. Requires boundaries. What's the fourth thing? It reveals intention. Right? It reveals the intention. Understanding requires what? In order for us to best, look, in communication, the best way for us to make sure you understand what we're talking about is when we as parents to our kids give the creative pause. You might add that with, do you understand? Like in anybody, uh, I mean, I'm I'm getting real good at car speeches. I'm just really good at car speeches. I I just feel like I've just locked that one in. That's just my place to hold court. You know, I got everyone here, we're all buckled in. Let's turn off the radio. There's dad's got some stuff he'd like to talk about, right? There's nowhere you're gonna go unless you toss yourself out on the road and I like my chances, right? But in that moment, I will go. You know, I will dot dot dot that conversation. I'm got stuff to say. But then I will do what? I need to pause because I see something. You're blanking out, you're staring out the window. Right? You're singing a song that's not on the radio. I need to pause. For what? Clarification. Are you understanding what I'm talking about? Uh yeah. Yep. Got it. Usually followed by two or three more questions. Well, then tell me what I just said. See, we gotta test them. You gotta test them. You can just assume they got it. Why is this important? Because of this, right? What's the intent of dad's heart? What was I originally, what am I trying to say? Because here's the truth. What you may be saying with your life may not be what others are hearing. What you may be saying with your your devotion to the Lord, what your direction just may not be as clear as you think it is. Punctuation allows us to get there. Punctuation allows us to get clarity, and understanding requires pauses. It needs to pause for reflection. What is the author's intent? Not every word can be a shout. I wrote that because I don't know, that just came to me while I was saying this. Like it feels like not every word can be this just declaration. And I think we live in a society, and I would say in a Christian culture, that wants you just to declare your way out of the pause. If you'll just declare more, then you won't have to deal with the suffering because that's not what God wants you to deal with. And yet it's in the suffering where you're formed. Then fast forward, we get into a place where we're unformed or deformed. Oh, I'm talking to these people over here, not them. Deformed, meaning that there are things and and and situations in your life that have gotten more authority, and you created a belief system around it, and it's deforming what he paid for. See, without proper punctuation, without the proper interpretation, it's possible that pain can have its effect in your life, but it never produces purpose. That pain could show up and be lost. Pain could show up and not bring purpose, but it could bring depression. That's all about interpretation. I hope I'm making sense to you guys here. Let's look at it from here.

Count It All Joy In Trials

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James 1, 2 through 8. My brethren, count it all joy. I I'm just gonna just full, full stop tell you, I don't, I'm confused about this. This is not this is not a scripture I enjoy. This may be one you appreciate, and God bless you. You know, but it but for guys like me, this this is this is just off in a lot of ways. It just starts off. James is off. I'm just saying. James just gets off to a bad start right out of the gate. Because he's he knows who he's writing to are people who are being killed for their faith. It is his opening statement. Count it all joy! I I don't want to die. Most people don't want to die. That's not a happy event. But here he is, count it all joy when you what? Fall into various trials. That's so hopeful. You know, uh the the the the the the Christian reading of it now would be like uh uh count it all joy when God uh uh uh uh causes you to avoid all trials. God count it all joy that when you said yes to Jesus, trials no longer exist. Doesn't count it all joy when everything goes your way the way you wanted it. Count it all joy. How many know that's not happening? Is that happening for everybody here? No? No, no, because James understands something that he's trying to get the reader to understand is that what you are asking for is altogether supernatural. You can't count it all joy in your flesh. You can't even approach this statement without the Spirit of God to give you the grace to do that. There's nothing in your natural man that will actually go along with this. And in fact, if you don't know Christ in this room, you're saying to yourself, you're like, you guys are nuts. I knew you guys were nuts, but I mean I'm just here to confirm. Well, you'd read this that way, like, you're out of control. I'm not, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna step into trouble with joy. Right? And yet, God's call to us, his advice through his messenger, indicates that this is exactly what he's asking us to do, knowing that what? The testing of your faith produces what? What are we at? We're constantly asking for patience. Am I I'm asking for patience? Anyone else ask for patience? No. This usually comes from people that that have watched like the God movie when uh what's his name says, does he give you patience or reasons to have patience? What was that one? You remember that? Yeah, Evan Almighty. This isn't Evan Almighty stuff. We're just talking about day-to-day. Look, you have a spouse. If you have a spouse, you're asking for patience. And you've been asking for patience for a while. Secretly, quietly, just you and the Lord. You don't think Britt prayed for patience daily when she realized she married someone she'll have to raise? Lord, give me patience. Anybody got kids? How many hundreds of thousands of times have you prayed for patience? Lord, give me patience. I know they're a gift. But can we exchange this gift? Right? There are times where you're just like, help me. Patience. I was on a flight to Iceland. I went with my sister. I was without a child at this point. I was, I think we were married, newly married, I think. And I was on this flight with my sister. She brought her brand new baby on that flight. From the first start of the engine on the tarmac, the tears begin to flow. Six hours. Six hours on a flight. Anybody been on a flight with a crying baby? Anybody, be honest with yourself, are looking down the line when people are loading up and just check, oh thank God there's no child. Wait, there's more people coming. Oh God, there's no children, thank goodness. You know, like it's weird how people will get this way. They're looking down there, and then when one gets on on the on the on the flight, they come in, it's like, oh God, where are they gonna sit? I've got an extra seat. This is where you spread out and you put things around. You act real busy and almost like you care about children when they come closer to you, like so cute. And when they pass you, they're like, you're like, get to the back. Those people want to hear a crying baby. Six hours I sat there and I walked up and down holding my niece. The most, I mean, just excruciating six hours. And like all kids, they stop as soon as you land. They land and we're done. And seen. You know, it's like here, like my God, these people want to throw us off this plane. How many know? Six hours of praying for patience and God to intervene. Patience is a normal prayer for us, and and so when we say that, we're praying for it. It's only established in my testing. I would say we spend equal parts time praying for patience as we do not to be tested. I want patience, but I would like not to be tested for it, please. I'd like to be graded on the curve. Right? I know there's some real saints in here, and that's why I hang around most of y'all, right? Y'all are really, really great, and then I have a couple of losers in here too that were friends. I'm just kidding. Just kidding, Sean. I'm kidding. The greatest guy I know. Oh, it says it's it's it's what we want. We just don't want to be tested for it. I don't have to go through anything to earn what he's trying to produce in me. Right? And I'm just gonna say we have to get comfortable again in interpreting the story a little bit better and understanding what he's trying to produce in us. Why? Because it says that you may be perfect and complete. Anybody else read that and immediately feel like I'm never going to be perfect? Come on, there's there's that, there's no, thank you, Dee. It's like there's that time in us where it's just like when you use words like perfect, it's like I know he's not writing about me, because if he knew, he knows. God knows. I'm not perfect. I'm like far from it. And yet, in this passage, and James is trying to help him to understand, is there's a perfection of patience. There's something you can get that's uniquely through Christ. Laying hold to what he paid for on the cross and then being being full of joy in advance of what you're gonna face. Most of the time we just don't know how to preload our expectation. Anybody tracking with me on that? When we talk about God gives us both the grace to have the emotion to respond to, that that takes prayer. I I say it like this with when Christ was what kept Christ on the cross was not him on the cross. He made the decision in the garden to stay on the cross. He he made up his mind there. He didn't wait till he was on the cross and be like, oh, let me, I I forgot a couple things I needed to pray. No, he solidified the destiny there in the garden. How how how often do you submit your life before the Lord before you ever get into a situation where you have to respond? This is like we say things like this we're God willing, that we will never see divorce in our family. We're not deciding that when all hell breaks loose. We're deciding that before we ever have our first disagreement. We're deciding that this is a covenant we're keeping before the Lord. This wasn't my decision alone. I am married in a covenant relationship with her that exemplifies what it means to be in one with Christ. And because we understand that, we're not in it for our feelings. Although it's a pretty nice, you know, I'm just saying. It's a good benefit, but that's not why we're together. Right? Does that make sense? Okay. And he says this may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. I don't know about you, but I get excited with the idea that there is a place I can be in him where patience can be pressed upon me in such a way that I lack nothing, Terry, nothing. Well, that's that's a big statement because that that means no matter what comes my way, no matter what I'm facing, that if I'm in the right spirit, understanding exactly what he's trying to do, and that may not, how many know this? Just because you don't understand where you're at in the story, maybe because you don't understand the divine pause, doesn't make it not real and not still him. My my understanding is not what is is is at work here. It's me trusting that what we were saying just a minute ago, the the author of my life has determined something for me. Does that make sense? So let me get to this.

Courage Under Suffering And Loss

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Viviya Perpetua. She is 22 years old. She's recently born again, baptized. She just had a baby. Her and her servant are taken into custody and they're imprisoned for their faith. They refuse to back down. They refuse to just denounce Christ. It's that simple. Denounce Christ, and you can have your baby, your life, all of those things again. Her servant, girl that was with her, that was got arrested with her, Felicia is her name there, and she actually has a baby in the prison. And they simply said, All you have to do is denounce Christ. All you have to do is say, You're you're done. She began to write in her story letters all about her experience in prison and her distance between her daughter and her child. It was actually a son. So we can just be a family again. 22 years old. I think about the sacrifices that we hear stories like this. We hear stories of people who were martyred for their belief, and in fact, this is exactly what happened. She ends up being brought into the arena. And here's a weird one. This is just kind of the disgraceful kind of like approach to this. They throw her in arena and then and unleash a mad cow. This is essentially what you see there. With one simple purpose, to say this is what it means for women to stand for their faith. So to release cows in there to trample on them. I think sometimes when we think about what we go through, sometimes it pales in comparison to what we see. But the truth is that what is being what is happening, what God is putting his finger on for us today is to recognize, is that there's something in us worth dying for, and that something is Jesus. That story, that life, that book that is being written, those pages, you're facing things every single day. Disappointment, frustration. I think about this story, and I think about moms, and Christian talked about this miscarriages that have happened. We've had that experience ourselves. How to rebound from that? How do you rebound from that kind of loss? How do you rebound from the loss of a twin sister for me, for a daughter for you? How do you rebound from that? Too young. Why isn't my story written like I want to read it? Why am I having to deal with punctuation in ways and in areas that just seem unfair? Why why I I'm not telling you a story that isn't isn't felt by many, many people in this room. Questions and worries. Where does it fit? Um as well. And uh how it came to be. When you understand that story, you understand how rich, how amazing, how how divine, really, how supernatural. That you have to be in a place so connected with the father to be able to articulate those kind of words. Under such huge, huge, insurmountable weight of loss. All of his girls get lost in a tragic accident. They're gonna sing that because I've asked our teams to sing this every week for the next four weeks. Because I think it's a great way for us to anchor ourselves. To remember that suffering is not something that is unique to one individual, but it is actually the call to the believer. It's part of our faith journey. And what I mean by that is in our suffering, he is made more glorified and more seen when we walk through suffering in a way that we allow him. It's an invitation. You have to you have to invite him into it to bring clarity and interpretation to the story. I'm gonna tell you why it matters. Interpretation matters, punctuation

The Comma That Changes Destiny

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matters. Where it lands matters. How it lands 100% matters. Got an example. All right? Just one. And I I could give you a hundred of these. But I think this one is interesting. So I think it relates to all of us, and we all know the story well. But it's this one here. And Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. You guys remember the story? What is that? Right? It's the cross, the thief on the cross. Jesus' response to him. I want you to notice something. See where that comma is? If that comma gets shifted on one other side of this today, it has a totally different meaning. Why does punctuation matter in your life? Because it could read like this, and Jesus said to him, Assuredly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. Or the first one, and Jesus said to him, Assuredly I say to you, today. Why does that pause matter? Because the first one indicates there's actually purpose and promise and destiny attached to it. The other one is information. And it's all about where the comma sits. Where is the divine pause? Is the pause in, hey, I'm just letting you know today, because it's today, it's information. Hey, there's a paradise that you can get to. I'm just letting you know, I'm informing you. Or I've already prepared something for you. You will be with me today. Today. I'm so thankful for the divine pauses in my life. Some of you are in this room and you're in a comma season. Trying to figure out in your story where is God putting a divine pause in your walk today? Some of you are in question mark season, as Pastor Brian mentioned earlier. Feels like every single time I've got nothing but questions about where I'm at. And he's right, God is not afraid of that. But I would also argue that he has not just put an entire book of question marks in your life that he doesn't intend to bring clarity to. Your prayer today is, God help me to interpret my story better. You're not going to be able to do that through pain or through your hurt or frustration. The best interpreter of your story is the Holy Spirit. This is where it originated. What was his original and intent for your life? Yeah, but you don't understand. You don't understand this and the decision I did this and I did that, and I'm doing this. Question mark, question mark, question mark. Where are you here? And where's my family? And where's this? And why did this happen to me? And you can live like that from question to question. Or you can ask the Holy Spirit to show you how to punctuate your story better. What does he see? He's not mad at the questions, but he does want to bring clarity. He absolutely doesn't want to leave you in that state. Maybe for some of us we're feeling a period of a season. That's hard. It's hard. It's hard because nobody wants something that's really good to come to an end. May feel like, man, I just, I, you know, Pastor Scott, I feel like I'm getting too old. Or I've already done all I can do. And I feel like everything in my life seems like it's just coming to a close. And I would just encourage you to not get in front of the Lord. Not get in front of the Lord. Don't, don't, don't lead with everything that's happening around me is to close out my life. Maybe, just maybe, it's just to create another sentence. Maybe it's just to continue on. That maybe there is a direction he has for you beyond that period. But I can tell you, there are people here. I'm so glad we didn't stop on a period, Dee. Oh, I'm so glad we didn't stop on a period because there was a time where the doctor said it was a period. The nurses said it was a period. We could have hung there. We could have hung there on Dee, who was about to die. We could have hung there. We could have stayed there. And we could have mourned you at the period. Or we can ask for another interpretation. See, that in my natural sense, we can't get there, but Holy Spirit says there's more. There's more. If you're not careful, if you're not careful, you'll start to interpret a season like a loss of son. That happened. Most painful thing. I can't imagine. I've never lost a child. I can't imagine the pain of losing a child. I've lost one. I have, I shouldn't say it that way, but not an adult child. I can't imagine the pain. I can't imagine the question. I can't imagine. God, why? Why this? Why? I can't imagine the finality of what that is. And yet, I feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit to encourage you to not stay there. Don't use that moment and then and just reflect into everything else or project into everything else. Then if he couldn't do that, then he's probably not gonna do this. If you start to lead and start to interpret it wrong, you'll miss out that maybe, maybe, just maybe, God is giving the dot dot dot. You saw the one and you just wanted to close it, and God's saying, wait, I've got more to say on that. There's healing that he wants to give you in that. There's a revelation of who he is that is wrapped up in the dot dot dot. But if you are insistent that it's a closure, maybe it's not a closure. Maybe it's an invitation to hear the rest of the story.

Prayer Wall And Final Charge

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Would you stand to your feet? You sing it today? Awesome. We're gonna sing a song. It is well today. Things I want to note to you. I know that everyone's got places to go, and I need you to clean out and clear out here pretty soon. Not in a bad way. We just gotta get ready for a celebration of service, man. There's people driving here from all over. This place is gonna be full to celebrate Pastor Mom today. I think of people like Ruth. This is kind of funny. Last week, Christians preaching, Pastor J. I'm sitting right there. And if you know anything about Miss Ruth, uh she cannot lie. And usually it's with her face. You know, I'm telling you, she can't. It's everything, everything she's thinking is she just wears it right here. And I just loved it, and I couldn't get my phone up fast enough, and man, I regret. Oh, wanted to get my phone up fast enough for this, but I I debated, and this is a lesson. Don't, don't, you know, the Lord was telling me it was dot dot dot. And I was thinking it was a period. I wanted to get her on camera as she tried to understand Christian Lake last week. It was the greatest. I went to pull up my phone and I thought it's disrespectful. I think I'm gonna need this. No, Christian needs to see it. No, it's Pastor Mom, just enjoy it, and that's what I did. I just leaned over and just watched her taking him in. Pure laughter, pure joy, massive confusion. At one point, just like that kind of like, uh, I'm not sure, but I think he's gonna be okay. Right? I think people like Ruth Nelson who realizes a lot's changing in my life, but maybe I can just use this plastic Jesus to keep the conversation going. I know this seems silly, but this this is wildly simple. And also deeply convicting. Because I make more excuses not to finish living out all that he has provided for me, to tell the story, to declare his goodness, because it seems a little inconvenient, and she just hands this out. And all of a sudden, people can be transformed. Why? Luke, why? Because she's pure-hearted, she loves the Lord, she's under authority with her husband, just lives submitted, and then she walks out and she just with a great big grin, beautiful smile. Have I given you one of these? Yeah, I got 19 of them. But I've said no every time. No, I don't think so. Let me have it. This happens to be my favorite, the orange one. Come in red, blue, yellow. Just thought you ought to know. Simple way not to put a period on a season that seems like is over. There's room and opportunity. I don't know where you're at today. We have an opportunity in the back. There's a wall that we have created and it has prayer request cards on it. A wailing wall, if you will. I would encourage you at some point today, on your way out, whatever need and thing that you're going through that you think is so insurmountable, I would invite you to trust the Lord with it. One way we're doing that in a physical expression is to write that down on a card, and I want you to put it onto the board. And we're gonna use that board to be a point of contact for prayer. Where this congregation, over the next few weeks, the staff, the prayer nights, we're gonna put our focus on seeing God move on your behalf through some of your toughest and most difficult situations. We're gonna partner and carry along with each other the burdens of the believer. You're not meant to do it alone. Some of you are here in isolation today. Some of you have slid in and you feel like you aren't seen, nobody notices you, nobody even knows you're here, you're hiding in the back corner up in the balcony somewhere. Can I tell you, Jesus knows you're here? And he has an answer for every question mark in your life. He has a question for you today. Since you like questions so much, who will you serve? Your problem or the one who can solve it? His name is Jesus. And like the thief on the cross, he wants to move the comma to the proper place. You're not here to hear again for the hundredth time that he loves you. You're here to move the comma so that you can walk into destiny, so that you can walk into purpose. It is well. It's not something we say because everything is perfect. It's a posture that we hold. It's a posture that we hold, knowing that he has got our next page in mind, our next sentence in mind, and that he will give us the interpretation we need to faithfully walk out for what? Patience is trying to be perfected in us. And I want him to do the full work. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

We hope and pray. This message was encouraging and join us live on our website or Facebook on Sundays at 9 and 11 a.m. You can stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram.