Faithful God - Week 3: Faithful to His Promises

You know the word faithful means true to one's word, true to one's character, true to one's nature.

And what better word to describe the most high God?

Our God is a faithful God.

And we want to take some time in this series to remind you that whatever you're going through, whether it's difficulty from your past, difficult seasons, or even a storm that you may be facing, our God is a faithful God.

So I want you to buckle up, get your notebook out, be ready to take some good notes to be reminded of the fact that no matter what the situation calls for, your God is ready and equipped just for that.

And also don't forget, it is school time.

It is time for kids to get back in school.

And if you have not yet figured out the right place for your child or your grandchild, we'd love to have you take a look at Impact Christian Academy, our pre-K through 12th grade school that really is designed to help nurture kids in the academic subjects, but also develop Christian character in their hearts as well.

Go to ICAjacks.com for more information.

And now let's get ready for the Faithful God.

All right, let me dive into this word.

I got a really good word today.

And if you're just joining us, over the last few weeks, we've been in a series that we started called Faithful God.

I literally prayed to ask the Lord, what do we need to hear during this season?

And I sense the Lord saying that we need to be reminded that no matter what you're dealing with, no matter what you're facing, no matter what you're going through, our God is a faithful God.

In fact, say it out loud, say, My God is the faithful God.

Say it like you mean and say, My God is the faithful God.

Now turn to somebody next to you, say, hello, friend.

I need you to know you're sitting in the right section today.

Because my God is the faithful God.

Now turn to the one on the other side, say hello, second choice.

I need you to know that my God is the faithful God.

Now, if you really believe that, come on, give him a shout of praise in this place.

Come on, you can do better than that.

Give him a shout.

And so we've been looking at this reality that our God is a faithful God.

And when we say that, what I'm really saying is this listen to this, you can depend on him.

When we say he's faithful, what I'm really saying is that he will do what he promised he would do.

What we're really saying is that God will perform the commitments of any covenant he's made.

If God has made a covenant, you can count on him that he will fulfill his end of that covenant.

And if we really believe that, how many believe that God is faithful?

Say it again.

Come on, lift your hands.

You believe he's faithful.

Watch this.

I know you're raising your hand.

I know you're making that confession because I asked you to, but if you really truly believe that God is faithful, he will keep his word, he can be depended on, then watch this.

It ought to create something in your internal system, and it ought to create something called rest.

If I really truly believe that God is faithful, you can depend on him, you can count on him to do what he said.

Even when situations seem difficult, even when I get bad news, even when things seem to not be working out like I thought they would, I can still have rest because when I don't know my future, I do know who holds my future.

And so the reason why we can rest is because we know he's faithful.

So we looked at week number one that God is faithful in every single season.

He's not just faithful in the beginning of our walk with him, he's not just faithful in the challenging seasons, he's faithful in every single season.

Whatever season of life you are in right now, I need you to know that God is faithful.

As your child gets ready to head off to college for the first time, you need to know God is still faithful.

He's a God that was with him in preschool, he's a God that was with them in elementary school, he's a God that was with them in middle school and high school.

Come on, he's a God that knows how to go off to college with them as well.

He's faithful in every single season.

Then last week I came back and taught you this: that God is faithful through the storm.

I'm glad that he doesn't, you know, launch us out.

And then when the storm hit, leave us and then pick us up on the other side.

He's faithful right there in the middle of the storm.

And then today I want to talk to you about this.

God is faithful to his promises.

If he promised it, then you can believe that God is faithful to his promise.

Now, I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand because uh I can imagine every one of us in here would probably raise our hand to this one.

But I would imagine that every one of us in here could say that you probably had some experience in your life where somebody promised you something and then didn't keep their word.

You know, they promise you, I'll be there for you, I got you.

You know, you my dog, man.

You've been you're my day one.

I've been with you.

I promise you, man.

If ain't nobody on your side, I got you.

And then when you turn around and actually need it, they were nowhere to be found.

We've probably all experienced that.

Sometimes it happened intentionally, sometimes it happened accidentally.

But regardless of why it happened, how it happened, if you find that situation happening enough times where somebody promised you something and then doesn't do what they said, it'll create a situation inside of you where you become skeptical.

And in fact, if it happens enough, you'll go from being skeptical to pessimistic, maybe even cynical, and you'll start to assume that everybody around you is gonna do the same thing and not keep their word.

In fact, if you don't watch it, you get to the place where you start doing this, you start bracing for disappointment.

You have a hard time getting excited, have a hard time believing that anything's gonna work out for your favor, and you start bracing, you don't even let yourself get too excited about things going right because in your mind, any minute now, the shoes are gonna drop.

And things are probably gonna go south.

But here's the problem with that.

If we don't watch it, we can start to project the disappointment we've gotten from people onto God.

If we don't watch it, we can start to take the skepticism, we can start to take the cynical mentality, we can start taking that pessimistic view that we have because our dad let us down, our mom let us down, our cousin let us down, our best friend let us down.

If we don't watch it, we can start to project that onto God.

And even though we say all the right stuff in church, we sing all the right songs, declaring and we can depend on him.

We can find ourselves in the back of our mind bracing to see that.

Well, what if God doesn't do what he said he'd do either?

And the thing I want you to understand is all throughout the Bible, the Bible repeatedly reminds us of this fact right here.

God is unlike anybody you've ever known in your life.

Oh, you miss a good place to shout.

Amen.

I'm not sure who let you down, I'm not sure who hurt you, I'm not sure who didn't come through.

But the Bible keeps on telling us over and over that God is unlike anyone else you've ever known in your life.

In fact, there are four things I want to give you about God, and I promise you they're gonna make you shout as I read these.

Number one is this God cannot lie.

That was kind of a shout, a little bit of a boo.

I heard a oh, whoa.

Maybe you didn't hear.

Let me say it again.

God cannot lie.

That was a little baby shout.

Let me give you another chance.

The God you serve, the one you just declared is faithful.

Come on, the one who said that he'll never leave you, he'll never forsake you, the one that said that he'll heal your body, the one that says he'll supply your every need according to his riches and glory.

Come on, the one that set the sun in this place and the moon in this place, the one that hung the stars, come on, the one that has his word wrapped up and that sustains this earth.

Let me say share something with you about your God.

He cannot lie.

Notice I didn't even say he does not lie, he cannot lie.

When he speaks, it becomes truth, whether it was or not.

Something else about your God that'll make you shout, he cannot fail.

Here's another one, he cannot forget.

Here's a fourth one, he cannot change his mind about his character.

He established, I am that I am, and he still is to this day.

2 Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 3 says, But the Lord is what?

2 Thessalonians 3:3

I can't hear you, but the Lord is what?

Come on, say it like you mean, but the Lord is what?

Faithful, he will make you what?

Can anybody here use a little strength from God?

Anybody feel a little bit weary?

Maybe you can lose use some strength.

I want to I want to ask you to do this.

Everybody here, lift up your hands.

Let's just take a moment to receive strength from God.

Come on.

Just let God do a download into your heart, into your mind, into your body, and to your spirit.

Come on, lift up your hands and receive it.

In the name of Jesus, I speak the strength of God.

I declare you will no longer operate in your own strength, you're no longer operating your own power, you're no longer operating your own wisdom.

But God has promised and he cannot lie.

He promised he will make us strong.

He promised that he will strengthen us with his might.

So I command God's strength to be infused into your spirit, infused into your mind, infused into your body, infused into your cell.

I command your body to be healed whole and well from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet, because the healing power and strength of Almighty God is flowing into you right now from the top of your head to the soles of your feet.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Praise God.

The Lord is faithful, he will make you strong.

Watch this, and he will guard you from satanic attacks of every kind.

That means no matter what kind of devil tries to come against you, God says, I got you.

He's like, get back, step back.

I got this.

You don't even have to deal with this one.

That means it doesn't matter when they're attacking you at work and when they're scheming against you, when they're plotting against you, when they don't like you, when they're demonstrating racism or sexism or ageism against you.

It really doesn't matter who's against you.

Because here's the thing if God is for you, who can be against you?

I heard one preacher say this way if God is for you, it doesn't really matter who's against you.

Come on, God on your side makes a majority.

And the Bible says he will protect you from satanic attacks of every kind.

Here's a quote for you: God does not merely make promises, he keeps them because keeping his word is part of who he is.

It's his nature, his character.

Hold on to this right here.

If you're going through something difficult, hold on to this.

Because God's character is faithful, his promises are trustworthy.

He may not fulfill them according to our timeline or even with our desired details, but he always fulfills them according to his perfect wisdom.

My grandmother used to say, He may not come when you want him, but he's always on time.

And the truth of the matter is this, hear me out, God always, hear me out, he always fulfills everything he's promised.

Let me tell you something.

Sometimes we get a little bit frustrated with God, we look at a little bit bent out of shape.

And sometimes it's because we're trying to believe him for something he didn't actually promise us.

Don't shout me down because I'm preaching so good.

I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the person sitting next to you.

Sometimes we have a bad habit of deciding what we want to do, what business we want to start, who we want to date, what job we want to take, and then we come along and ask God to bless it.

I'm not talking, I'm talking about the person next to you.

Don't look at them, I'm talking to them.

We have a bad habit of just expecting God to let us dream up whatever we want to dream up.

Watch this without consulting him, without seeking his face, without asking him for direction.

And then we get mad when things don't work out the way we prescribed in our head.

And if we don't watch it, we can ascribe to him a lack of faithfulness.

When the truth of the matter is, God is not obligated to do everything we can think of.

He's obligated to do everything he promised he would do.

Sometimes we claim something that God never actually promised.

See, the Bible promises us his presence, his wisdom, his forgiveness, his strength, his healing, his provision, his ultimate good and eternal life in Christ.

But listen to this not every desire or dream we come up with is a biblical promise.

Which is why it's important for us to study, to show ourselves approved, so we can be a workman who knows how to rightly divide the word of truth.

It's important to know what God has promised and what he's not promised.

It's also important to know what the limits of our authority are.

See, I have authority in my life.

I have authority in my garden.

I don't have authority in your garden.

Even with my kids, I have three have three adult children.

I have a 19-year-old son, a 22-year-old son who's getting ready to be 23 next week, and a 24-year-old daughter who'll be 25 in a couple months.

I don't have a full authority over their lives.

Now, because they live under my roofstill, I have a measure of authority.

But I don't have full authority, which means, watch this, my prayers over their life don't work the same as they did when they were 10 years old and 12 years old.

Don't get me wrong, I can cover them.

But they watch this, as adults, they have the right to kick away from my prayers.

Can I just set some parents free in here?

Sometimes, hear me out.

Sometimes you can want more for your kids than they want for themselves.

Come on, don't leave me out here by myself.

You know I'm preaching good.

Any parent that is in their good mind and has a right heart, you watch this.

You want your kids to have even better than you had.

I don't want my kids to do as well as well as I've done.

I want my kids to stand on my shoulders and go up higher.

But here it here's the thing.

I told my kids this is they were young, the life they live today is not portable.

You know what I mean by that?

You don't get to take this life and just take it with you to your next life as a grown-up.

If you want to live as an adult the way you lived as a child, then you're gonna have to do what your parents did to get the life you were able to be blessed with.

And here's the frustration for some parents you want your kid to live the kind of life you dreamed of them living, but sometimes their decisions are taking them down a pathway where they don't get to have the full benefit of what they experienced as a child because they won't make the same decisions you made.

Can I say something to you, mothers, that are that may really shock your system?

Sometimes the reason why your kid, when they've been raised in the things of God and they're having a tough time coming back around to where they should be, sometimes because you're making life a little too easy for them.

Don't you run up here?

I felt that.

I felt that.

Sometimes you're making it too easy for them.

See, sometimes the thing that gets a kid to finally turn around and come back to the foundation of what they've been raised in in Christ, is they finally hit rock bottom and they realize these decisions are not working out like I envisioned in my mind.

You go back and read the story of the prodigal son.

The prodigal son, you remember he took his inheritance and said, I'm out of here.

He went and spent all of his money living a wild life, doing whatever he wanted to do.

Well, he didn't turn around and come back to his father's house because the Holy Spirit woke him up in the middle of the night.

He didn't go to a prayer meeting and just say, you know what?

I need to go back home.

The reason why he came back home is he hit bottom and he was out there feeding the pigs, and he looked at what the pigs were eating, he said, Man, that look kind of good.

He got tired of eating pig food, and he said, I had it better back in my dad's house.

Well, watch this, mama.

Watch this.

If he's hit rock bottom and he's eating pig food, but you keep sliding them for lay mignon, come on, somebody.

Huh?

He keeps getting arrested, but you keep sending him money to pay his car bill.

Huh?

He keeps losing his job because he can't pass the drug test, and you buying him a bag of piss from the little local spot.

Did he say that on stage?

Yeah, I just said that.

You you keep you keep giving the money to buy, you know.

See, some sometimes, sometimes what causes him or her, I'm not making it sexist, what causes that child to finally realize that the God mom and dad taught me about is the way to go, is that they follow their own God for so long that it takes them down a dark path.

And they realize I had it better when I was doing things the way I was taught.

All I'm trying to say, I know it's tough, I know it's tough, mama and daddy, to watch your child struggle, but sometimes the turnaround is in the struggle, when the struggle is caused because their decisions are not the same as God.

I'm preaching better than you're saying amen.

All I'm saying is you can't say God is not being faithful because that kid hasn't turned around as you've been praying for when you might be standing in the way of God really being able to finally get their attention.

Can I get an amen, somebody?

Give me a better amen.

So here's a few things we need to know about the promises of God.

Number one is this God's promises are always rooted in his character.

God's promises are always rooted in his character.

Numbers chapter 23, verse 19 says this God is not human that he should lie.

Numbers 23:19

He's not a human being that he should change his mind.

Does he speak and then not act?

Does he promise and then not fulfill what he said?

Now, the word of the Lord, I love this verse here.

And many of you, if you've been in church at all in your life, you probably have heard this quoted at some point.

God is not a man that he should lie.

He's not like the son of man that he should repent or change his mind.

In other words, when God speaks and you can count on him, he will do what he said.

This is a powerful verse.

How many of you would agree it's a powerful verse?

Let me tell you what makes this verse even more powerful.

This verse was actually spoken by a guy named Balaam.

Now, Balaam was the kind of a local shaman, a local, you know, spiritual guide, a local seer, a local prophet, but not a prophet that was listening to Jehovah the Most High God.

And he was hired by a guy by the name of Balak.

Now let me tell you what was going on.

Israel was heading toward the promised land.

And if I can say it is where they were kicking buttons, taking names.

Every nation they run into contact with, they're defeating them.

And the word is getting out about Israel.

They're heading toward their promised land.

And if you are in there where you are in trouble.

Well, Balak hears that Israel is heading in his direction.

He knows he's not powerful enough for his army to defeat their army, not because they're so well trained, but because God is on their side.

So there's something that happens when the blessing is on your life.

Come on, when the blessing is on your life, it doesn't matter who's trying to come against you.

So, so so Balak realizes that the blessing is on Israel, and he realizes we can't defeat Israel on our own.

So he hears about Balaam, this medicine man, this shaman, and he hires him to come and curse Israel.

If I can get this guy to come and curse them, then maybe the power that their God has on them, it'll wane.

So Balaam's on his way.

He lives about 350 miles away.

So that's like Miami.

He's he's making his way up toward where Balak is, and he's riding his donkey.

And he's on his way riding his donkey, and he gets to this place where an angel, a big, huge angel, comes and stands in the middle of the road.

Now Balaam can't see the angel, but the donkey can see the angel.

And the donkey, like, man, I don't want to die.

So the donkey goes off the side of the road.

Well, now Balaam can't see the donkey, so he gets mad.

He gets off and beats the donkey.

The donkey gets back at the donkey and says, So donkey goes off the road again.

Happens three times.

Three times Balaam beats the donkey.

And finally the Lord opens the donkey's mouth and allows him to speak in a language that Balaam can hear.

Now I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said this.

He's like, cuz.

He's like, I ain't sure what's going on.

We've been down a long time.

I ain't never sold you out like this.

Anytime you said go forward, I went forward.

You gots to know it's something up there ahead that's making me take this detour.

And then God opens up Balaam's eyes and he's able to see the angel too.

When he finally makes it to where Balak is.

Remember, Balak is paying him to come and curse Israel.

And what God spoke to him and said, You can go to Balak, but when you get to Balak, you tell you say out of your mouth what I tell you to say out of your mouth.

So he gets there, he's supposed to curse Israel.

He takes him on top of this one mountain, and instead of him cursing Israel, he pronounces a blessing.

Balak says, I didn't pay you to bless him, I paid you to.

Curse them.

He takes him to another mountain.

He opens his mouth and blesses Israel.

Four times he opens up his mouth and instead of cursing Israel, he blesses Israel.

Can I tell you something?

When God has blessed your life, it doesn't matter who tries to curse you.

Come on.

That's why I tell you all the time don't get caught up fighting all these little dumb battles that don't really mean anything.

If the Lord is for you, it doesn't matter who's against you.

And in the middle of all that, it is Balaam who opens up his mouth and says, God is not a human that he should lie.

He's not a human being that he would change his mind.

Does he speak and then not act?

Does he promise and not fulfill what he said?

See, it's God's character, it's his nature to keep his word.

Malachi 3.6 says this.

He says, I am the Lord and I do not change.

James 1.17 says a similar thing.

He says, the father of the heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows.

I wonder what does that mean?

It calls God the Father of the Heavenly Lights.

You know what the heavenly lights are, right?

The lights that are in the heavenly realm, that's the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets.

God, he is the father of those heavenly lights.

And what he says is he doesn't change like the shadows that shift from those heavenly lights.

You know what he's talking about.

If you're standing outside and you're in the sunlight and you turn around and look at your shadow, how many know if you stand there for 30 minutes, your shadow's not going to be in the same place?

You stand there for 30 minutes, you're going to have to look and find your shadow because the sun has shifted and your shadow shifts with it.

You stand there for another hour and a half, you turn, your shadow's gonna be in a different spot.

All day long, you have to keep searching for your shadow because the heavenly lights shift.

And what God is saying is, I'm not like those shifting shadows that come from the heavenly lights.

What he's saying is, hey, I'm right where I told you I would be.

You don't have to keep looking to see, am I still there?

You don't have to keep checking over your shoulder to make sure I haven't left you.

What God is saying is, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I'm not gonna change out on you, I'm not gonna treat you differently, I'm not gonna make you think I'm with you, then change my mind.

Even when you blow it, I'm not gonna leave because you messed up.

I knew you were gonna mess up before you ever messed up, and I still decided to be on your side.

So he's saying, You can count on me, then I'm not gonna change.

Now, I don't know about you, there's been some seasons in my life where I felt like God changed up on me.

I know what the Bible says, I know he doesn't change, but there have been some seasons where I felt like he changed.

And what I had to realize is that God doesn't change, but he deals with us differently as we mature.

The more we mature, watch this to whom much is given, much is required.

Especially when you go to a church like this.

Can I tell you, going to a church like this is dangerous in a good way.

It's dangerous to the devil because you have enough word on the inside of you, you don't just get bullied and punked out anymore.

But it's dangerous on the other side that God doesn't step in and just keep rescuing you like you're just some little emotional baby.

When you're sitting up in a church where every week you're being taught the word of God, you're getting the meaning, the Greek, the Hebrew, you're getting illustrations that make it count in your heart.

God's not gonna let you still be treated like a little gaga goo goo infant, like he did when you first got started.

When I first got started, when April took me to her church word of faith, man, and I was blown away by the word.

I learned that you can stand and trust God and use your faith to believe God.

And when I'd hit a tough time and I said, Lord, I need a word from you, I'd open up the Bible and I'd just do this to put my finger.

And it would say, I am the Lord your God, I will ride with you upon the high place.

When you go through the waters, I will be with you, I will save you in the midst of your difficult situations.

Now we praise the Lord, hallelujah! Well, now, years later, after God has watched me sit up in church and get tall of this word, after I've taken all these notes, after I've shouted Amen at the goodness of God, I've sang all these worship songs.

He's not gonna keep treating me like that.

Then when I got a little bit older, I tried to pull that same thing.

I need a word from God.

I'd open up the Bible, I'm expecting to get a good, nice word of encouragement, and it would say, Thou son of a wretched whore.

What?

Why, God's not gonna let you get away with the childish needs you had before.

Now that you started to mature.

Now he's expecting you to having done all the stand there for.

Now he's expecting you to don't get weary in your well-doing.

He's expecting you now to go back to the word for yourself.

You don't need to stick your finger in there and find a random word.

Go back and pull out all those notes and go ahead and restudy what I've already taught you.

Go ahead and dig out that series on healing and go back over it again.

Why?

Because he knows there's enough on the inside of you.

I mean, we know that with our kids.

You don't treat your 23-year-old kid the same way you treat your 23-month-old kid.

23-year-old, my almost 23-year-old son sit on the front row right here.

But when he was 23 months, if he had an accident and pooped on himself, I wasn't happy, man, but I would come clean it up.

At 23 years old.

I'm taking him to the hospital now.

He need to go get checked out.

Something wrong when you're 23.

Come on, somebody.

What am I saying?

If we treat our kid, we didn't change.

But if we treat them differently when we know they have matured, and we hold them accountable for fixing some things on their own, how much more does God treat us differently when he knows we've grown up and it's now time to act like we've grown up?

Amen.

I said, Amen.

Listen to this.

God's promises are only as dependable as his character, and his character has never failed.

Second thing we know about God's promise is this waiting is not wasted.

Waiting, the time we spend waiting is not wasted.

Can we be honest and say this?

That one of the greatest frustrations in this Christian life is having to sit around and wait.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we just prayed and every prayer we pray got answered immediately?

Me walk in and I need a raise in Jesus' name.

Oh, praise God.

You walk in and work in that little evil lady at the front desk, I bind you in Jesus' name.

And she's gone.

You're like But the problem is we pray, we know we got a promise from God, and then we have to go through this process of waiting.

And the frustration comes when we're waiting and our mind is going tilt on us.

We're struggling to believe what God has said in that waiting period.

But the thing we got to understand is that there's a difference between when God promises and when the fulfillment happens.

You look in the life of Abraham, Abram, and in Genesis 12, God promised Abraham, I'm gonna make a mighty nation come out of you.

At a time he had no children, God didn't say, I'm gonna give you a child.

He said, I'm gonna make a nation come out of you.

You can't have a nation come out of you unless you have a child.

He was 75 when God promised him that.

He was 100 years old when Isaac, his son, is now finally in front of him.

Now you hear somebody, I heard the other day, you hear somebody say, It took God 25 years to bring that promise to pass.

Yes and no.

It was 25 years before he saw the fulfillment of it, but it didn't actually take God 25 years.

It took God 24 years to get him to finally believe the promise.

And when God got him to finally believe it, it only took one year before it happened.

I wonder what could happen if God finally got you believing and trusting he's a faithful God.

See, for 24 years, Abram was scared that if I went down to Egypt, they're gonna kill my wife, they're gonna kill me and take my wife.

So he started lying.

For 24 years, he found another solution and had a baby with Hagar named Mishmael.

For 24 years, he was struggling to believe God.

And finally, when he's 99 years old, he hasn't heard a word from God in 13 years, from what we can tell in scripture.

God shows back up and says, I'm El Shaddai.

Then he says, We're gonna we're gonna do this covenant thing a little bit differently.

I've been doing all the work.

This time you're gonna do some work.

This man is 99 years old, he's been known as Abram for 99 years, and God tells him to go down to the DMV and change his name.

You 99.

And you show up and say, I want to change my name to Abraham.

What does Abraham mean, the father of a great multitude?

What is God trying to do?

He's got to change his words.

If God's ever gonna change your life, he's gotta get you to change your words.

You gotta stop talking about how broke you are and how sick you are and how nothing seems to go your way.

You gotta put it to words of God in your mouth, and you start declaring what God has said.

The Lord is with me, come on, the Lord is for me, the Lord is on my side.

Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.

No weapon that is formed against me shall prosper.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

The Lord shall supply my every need, not according to this economy, which means it doesn't matter how high the gas prices go, God's got enough money to keep filling your tank.

He had to change his words first.

After he changed his words, the next thing he told him to do is I want you to go circumcise yourself.

Wow, he said, I want you, I want you to be reminded every time you feel that pain in your lower region.

I want you to be reminded that you got a covenant with God.

So this dude walking around.

But with a change of name and with his mind on the covenant, what took God 24 years was able to happen in one year.

I wonder what could happen by this time next year.

If God could just get your words right, if he can get you to stop saying the wrong thing, if he can get you to stop talking like your coworkers, if he can get you to stop talking like a Republican or stop talking like a Democrat, if He can get you to stop talking and repeating all the dumb stuff you hear everybody on social media saying.

I wonder if God can just get you to put his words in your mouth and keep your mind on the covenant.

I wonder what miracle could happen to your life by this time next year.

Look in the life of Joseph, man.

God said, I'm gonna exalt you to leadership.

I'm gonna have your brothers and your father gonna bow down and acknowledge your leadership.

Sounds good, but it took him 13 years before it happened.

In the meantime, he ended up in a pit, he ended up in slavery, he ended up being falsely accused, he ended up in prison before he ever made it to the palace.

Just because God promised it doesn't mean it's not gonna be a process to get there.

You look at the life of David.

David, he's minding his own business.

Samuel comes along and anoints him, says, You're gonna be the next king of Israel.

You know how honored that is?

You're the youngest of your brothers, they don't even recognize you, you just take care of the sheep.

And God comes and says, You're gonna be next king of Israel.

But what he didn't tell them is it's gonna take 15 years before it actually came to pass.

What he didn't tell them is in the meantime, Saul's gonna try to kill you, you're gonna have to run for your life, you're gonna spend a lot of time living in dark caves, you're gonna have people betray you, you're gonna have your wife taken away from you, but eventually, if you still are around, you're gonna see the fulfillment of what God says.

See, both Abraham, Joseph, and David, they were all very different people in their maturity by the time they got the promise than they were when God made the promise.

I want you to consider this.

Listen, many times God's delay isn't about the need to further develop what he promised us.

Sometimes it's about his need to further develop us for what he has in store.

Sometimes we think we're ready, but that process of waiting is what gets us truly ready.

Ecclesiastes 3.11 says, God has made everything beautiful in its time.

Not our time, but in its time.

See, God's got a right time for everything.

We gotta learn how to make sure we stay around so we can see his timing.

See, the thing about God is that God knows how to get the blessing to us.

God knows how to manifest in us and for us exactly what he has planned for us.

God knows how to ensure that what we're standing and believing him for, it comes to pass.

And don't you just love it when you pray for something and it seemed like that thing showed right away?

Come on, give God a shot for those right-away blessings.

But you know what gets frustrating is you got two people sitting in the same church, listening to the same word, worshiping the same God, praying for the same thing.

One of them gets an answer seemingly right away, and the other one it seemed like it's taking forever to get their answer.

Well, if you don't watch it, we can get to the place where a little jealousy starts to kick in.

If you don't watch it, you can start to say, well, you know what they do to deserve this.

And I've been here just as long as I've been here since Merrill Rose.

And I ain't get got the thing I've been praying for yet.

And then they didn't they just prayed for.

Come on, she just got to the church, and you you see on Facebook she engaged.

If you don't watch it, the devil says she ain't even that cute.

And you can hear in the background a little pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, a little pop, pop.

And and and and what he's praying for, what she's praying for, it seemed like it's happening right away.

The thing I'm praying for is not happening right away.

And you can hear that sound that says it's done, and you can smell the aroma of their blessing.

Ooh, and their blessing, look at that.

The steam of their blessing fills the temple, and the thing you believe in God for hasn't happened yet.

Come here, Reg.

And he gets a chance to walk away with that blessing.

Go on, sit down right there next to your wife.

And he got his blessing, and she ain't got no blessing.

They both been praying the same amount of time.

He's enjoying his blessing, he's testifying about his blessing.

But you see, the thing is, sometimes God can manifest your blessing quickly.

And sometimes, let me just be honest, sometimes we manifest our own blessing quickly.

Sometimes while you're supposed to be waiting on God, God didn't bless you, you blessed yourself.

That relationship wasn't from God, you pop, pop, pop that one.

That job, you, you pop, pop, pop that job.

And if you don't watch, you sitting right next to that person, you've been doing the exact same stuff, feeling a little bit frustrated because what you prayed for hasn't happened yet.

Your man hasn't showed up, your job hasn't happened, your ministry hasn't taken off.

But what you don't understand is sometimes God is able to bless somebody else quickly.

Sometimes they bless themselves quickly, but when God's got something for you that is real, sometimes it takes a little bit longer for it to marinate.

Sometimes it takes a little bit longer for you to see that God's got something cooking in the crock pot of your life.

And when it's in the crock pot, it takes a little bit longer.

See, over here in this crock pot, you need to understand God's been stirring something up for you.

God's been whipping something up for you.

And what you need to realize is when God is whipping it up, He got a dose for you.

And when He starts pouring out, He don't pour out a little bit.

He's gonna fill your cup until it overflows.

And even though it might not have happened quickly, when you know God is working on you, you can be patient because here in this crock pot is not a little popcorn.

This is Pastor April's special chili.

Come on, somebody.

It's been cooking since yesterday.

You didn't know it was cooking, but she was putting ingredients in it.

She was stirring it up, she was preparing it.

So when you got to church today and Mr.

Popcorn was sitting next to you, you can come and receive the chili of the Lord.

And I got news for you.

God's cooking something up with your name on it, too.

God is working on something with your name.

It may not happen quickly, it may not happen instantly, but it is happening.

The angels of God are working on it.

The heaven is making it happen.

You gotta keep praising God until you see the fulfillment of what you know he has promised because he's faithful to do what he said.

Give God a shout and a praise.

Come on, give him a shout.

Give him a shout.

Here's my last point right here.

You gotta hold on even when you can't see it.

Temptation is to quit, temptation is to give up, the temptation is to get frustrated, the temptation is to get stuck looking at what you can see.

Hebrews 10 23 says, Let us hold on.

How should we hold on?

Unswervingly.

You know what it means to swerve like a car going down the back and forth.

Let us hold on unswervingly to the hope that we profess.

Why should we do that, God?

Because the one who promised is what?

He's faithful.

Why should I hold on, but I let myself get blown left and right?

Because the one who made the promise, he's faithful.

See, we hold on without swerving, not because the circumstances look good, not because things feel like they're turning around, not because my look has got to change eventually, not because I've done so much good, things have gotta work out in my favor.

We hold on, hear me out, without swerving, because the one that made this promise to me is faithful.

The one who said it, man, he can be trusted.

That's the reason why you don't let yourself get blown to the left and the right, man.

See, listen, our confidence is not in visible evidence, but it's in the invisible God.

Which is why we make this declaration.

We live our lives by faith, not by sight.

When you trust in God, say it out loud, say don't swerve.

Tell your neighbor, say don't swerve.

What do you mean by that, Pastor?

Let me tell you, that means don't let yourself get overly concerned by bad news, and don't get overly excited by good news.

Keep your eyes on the promise and the promise keeper.

Years ago, man, when we stood and believed God for our daughter's healing, if you're new here, I'll tell you real quickly: our daughter was diagnosed with sickle cell disease when she was born.

The SS, they could say it was the worst variant.

And this real cold doctor with no bedside manners, man.

It's my my first child.

I walk into this doctor to get these results from this little test that they had done, and he just read me all the stuff that was gonna happen to our daughter and how bad it was gonna be, and all the stuff she would never be able to do.

And I wish I could tell you I spoke life and I said the word, God's Goddess, but I broke down.

I was devastated.

Came home and told my wife she was devastated.

And I came to church that weekend because I still had to preach, didn't get to take time off to lick my wounds.

And so I preached the message to everybody else, but it was really to me.

And the sermon was called Winning in the Fight of Your Life.

And I had to go back and remind myself of how you fight when you get bad news, man.

We got together in faith.

We decided we were gonna take communion every day.

Not to be religious, but we were swerving.

We had all these images in our head about what's gonna happen to our daughter, and we were swerving.

So taking communion every day was our way to get our mind back on the covenant.

Got our confession right, and we got our mind on the covenant.

We did that for two years until we finally got to a place where we both felt like I think we're good.

The miracle is this: we went for 14 years, and our daughter never had one sign or one symptom of sickle cell disease.

Not one sign.

Now we didn't tell anybody else about the diagnosis except for our two best friends, Joel and Patricia Gregory, and we told Marilyn Hickey.

That's it, nobody else, not even our parents and siblings, not because we didn't trust them, but we couldn't afford to have anybody else's fear.

Start to pollute our hearts, man.

14 years.

Watch it.

We didn't even tell her she had been diagnosed with this at birth.

14 years walked in a miracle.

In fact, her pediatrician told us, she said, You do realize this is a miracle.

Because I've been practicing for 35 years.

I have never seen this in my life.

When I turned 44, I met my dad, my biological dad, for the first time.

Some of you have heard me tell that story.

Also met my biological sister.

Found out my sister had a daughter who had also been diagnosed with sickle cell disease.

Unfortunately, she had had all the symptoms, been in and out of the hospital multiple times.

My sister had done the research and found out that bone barrow transplant was a curative measure for sickle cell disease.

Well, watch this.

I'm trying to tell you, don't swerve for good news or bad news.

We met her, she told us that, and we kept a stone face.

Didn't say, Praise God, didn't say, well, let me tell you our story.

Didn't say, Well, can you give us the information?

And it wasn't like we were trying to be prideful.

I didn't want to take my faith out of God and now let my guard down and start trusting these doctors.

After hearing that great news, and my niece had the transplant, the bone marrow transplant was completely cured.

But even after knowing them, it took a whole year, and it wasn't until God spoke to our hearts and said, I want to finish your miracle this way.

That we finally told her.

And they told us what happened, walked us through the process.

We decided we're going the bone marrow transplant route.

The short story is this my daughter had the bone marrow transplant, had none of the symptoms that they say she's gonna have from the chemotherapy, came out on the other side 100% healed, holding well in Jesus' name.

But the point I'm making to you is this when you're standing and believing God, you ain't got time to hear what everybody else is saying.

That's why Jesus walked in and threw all the doubters out of the house.

I got time to listen to your crap.

If you can't believe with me, then don't talk to me.

And I'm telling you today, no matter how difficult your situation is, he's the same faithful God who will do what he said.

Give him a praise in this place.

Woo! Now I'm over my time, but I still want to do something.

We're getting ready to head into a small group season.

And the small group leaders in this church are the people that help us pastor this church.

I want to pray for you.

If you're a small group leader or you're contemplating leading a group this year, would you stand up right there at your seat, real quickly, quickly?

I'm asking our director of small groups, Pastor Damon Green, to come and pray a blessing over your life for the wisdom and grace you need to help lead your group.

Come on, stretch your hands toward these small group leaders.

Small group leaders, go ahead, lift your hands up to receive of the Lord.

Father God, we just thank you right now for these who have committed themselves to serve alongside our pastors as under-shepherds of your people, whom you purchased with your very own blood.

Father, we pray that you speak to the hearts of our past and future small group leaders, encouraging them that they can take part in this ministry to your people.

Father, we thank you that this shall be the greatest small group semester we have ever seen.

We declare salvations, healings, lives restored, relationships restored, addictions broken in the name of Jesus.

Father, may your grace rest upon each and every small group leader.

Grace in their homes, in their finances, in their relationships.

As they sow seeds of service into the lives of others, thank you that they shall reap a harvest.

And Lord, we just lift up our hands and give you praise and glory for all that you'll do in the lives of our church family because of these small group leaders.

In Jesus' name.

Come on, give God some praise.

Amen.

Amen, amen.

Hey, we would be remiss if we heard a message like faithful God and not give people a chance to get to know that faithful God that maybe don't know him.

That's a great message, but if you don't have a relationship with him, it's hard to even fathom that God is faithful.

But I could tell you he was faithful first.

Romans 5 8 says God commends his love toward us.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And so maybe you're in here today and you don't know God like that.

You don't know him to be faithful.

You thought you had to get things right, you thought you had to leave uh like the prodigal and come back home before the Father would show you love, before Jesus would save you.

No, you just have to say yes today.

And if that's you, I want to pray for you.

But we don't want to embarrass you, we don't want to call you out.

We're not gonna have you raise your hand, anything like that.

In just a second, I'm gonna ask everybody to bow their head.

And if that's you, if you want to say yes to Jesus today and I can pray with you, it'd be my privilege.

I'm gonna ask you to reach in the seat pocket and grab a say yes to Jesus card.

Looks just like this.

If you're in the overflow, they're in there as well.

If you're online, just do what they tell you online.

And we want to pray for you today.

And uh it's that simple.

You you say yes, he's already taken the first step, and he'll take the next step after that.

So everybody bow your heads for me.

Close your eyes.

Again, it's a moment between you and God, and I'm gonna count to three.

And on the count of three, if that's you, and you want me to say that prayer with you today, just lift that white card up so I can see who you are, and then you can put it right back down.

One, two, three.

Who am I praying for today?

Who am I praying for?

Thank you, thank you.

Who else?

Who else is lifting their hand?

Thank you.

Who needs prayer?

Thank you, thank you over there.

Thank you.

I see you to my right.

What about in the overflow room?

Just slip your hand up.

Our ministers in there just want to know who we're praying for.

Amen.

We're not gonna call you to the front or anything.

We're just gonna pray with you right there at your seat.

Anyone else?

Thank you, thank you.

I want everybody to pray this prayer out loud so nobody feels isolated.

Say, dear Jesus, thank you for faithfulness, thank you for your faithfulness.

Ask you to save me, cleanse me, heal me, make me new.

I surrender my life to you for the rest of my days, and I will receive your faithfulness and your goodness towards me.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Did you just make a decision for Jesus?

Welcome to the family.

We're so excited.

Trust me, we're clapping for you, and we believe that you've made an important decision today.

We'd like to help you on your journey.

So if you'll follow the directions that are on screen, there is a free book you can download.

It's gonna take you five to ten minutes of your day for the next seven days.

But our pastors have put together some amazing resources that we believe will help you on the journey ahead.

If you don't want it, nobody's going to email you, text you, bother you, anything like that.

We just want to make sure you are successful in your walk with Jesus.

Now, let me tell you, one of the things you should consider is baptism.

And if you're in the Jacksonville area, we do baptism after our first weekend service every month, and you can just scan the QR code that's on the screen, sign up for that.

I'd love to be a part of that journey with you, um, or any of our ministers would.

If you don't live in town, we do believe you should find a Bible teaching church and at least go get baptized, even if you're still going to watch our service.

But download that book, it's free.

We're excited for your journey ahead, and we can't wait to be a part of that.

Now, this is a part of the service where we also demonstrate our generosity.

If you're just checking this out today, you don't feel any pressure to give.

But for those of you, this is your church, you know that we are generous is one of our core values.

And so you can give online or you can give through our app, which I really like.

You have the Apple Pay option right on our app.

Just go to your Google store or your Apple store, download the We Are Impact app.

It's also a great way to study notes that um come from the sermons that you watch on here.

And there's a lot of events on there as well.

But you can give through that app.

It's super easy, and we're just grateful that you partner with us week after week.

Well, we're so excited you joined us today.

Hope you have an amazing weekend, and we'll see you next time.