”Faith is Always Tested” // Genesis 12:10-20 // Lakeview Bible Church

Hey there, Lake View. A little bit of a

different Sunday, but uh what we thought

would be an abundance of caution and uh

wisdom. Uh we are meeting not together

as a church family, but around the city

uh in our homes this weekend. And so uh

a little bit of announcements. one is uh

if there's anything that you all need

over however this weather goes, please

jump on the connect card, just go to the

website, click on that, let us know.

Happy to help in any way we can if

something does pop up. Uh and if you are

checking out this video because you

clicked on it on that Sunday morning

when you're stuck at home because of the

ice, uh go ahead and reach out. would

love to know that you're there and be

able to help you in whatever God has for

you this season. Uh the second thing I

want to mention is I had planned to

mention something about our kingdom

investment uh a really fun update uh but

I'm going to wait till next Sunday uh to

do that while we're all uh hopefully non

icereated at home but uh that we get to

share that news together. Uh you will

not want to miss uh the update that I

have. So, uh, in, uh, the description

with this video, you'll also find a few

other things. Uh, you'll find a few

songs that we picked out that you can

worship at home together with your, uh,

family or if you're with your friends,

maybe in your apartment, you can do

that. Uh, as well as we included a, uh,

a brief description of what, uh, at home

worship could look like or worship as a

family. So, we have that resource for

you to be able to follow along and uh

maybe in uh incorporate some elements as

you uh experience uh this a little bit

unique Sunday um together. So, I'm going

to pray and we're going to dig into

Abraham and the Bible in chapter 12. So,

if you have your Bible handy, you can go

ahead and grab that. But, let me pray

and we'll dive in. So, Father, thank you

uh for your grace in all things. Thank

you for this time together. I pray your

blessing as we interact uh with your

word uh through technology and we're

grateful for that. But I do pray your

blessing uh across our church and

everyone who's watching that you would

um in these moments uh meet them where

they're at and that this would be

profitable uh for them. Give us eyes to

see, ears to hear, speak to us by your

spirit in Jesus name. Amen.

uh we uh are digging into and continuing

our series in Abraham. And last week we

looked at the idea that um faith leads

to blessing or faith precedes blessing.

And today um we're going to look at a

different aspect as we watch Abram's

life continue to unfold as he follows

God in that your faith will be tested.

Your faith will be tested. So, let me

get into that with uh a bit of a story.

Uh general in the sense that um I love

doing uh premarital counseling and

engaging with couples that are engaged

and looking forward to marriage. I've

got a couple weddings that I'm going to

do uh on the calendar coming up late

spring, early summer, and I really enjoy

it. And one of the things I always do is

I sit down with couples is, you know,

they're over the moon, right? In love,

can't wait to be married. and you know

all big eyed and they're just a blast to

be around and uh they know because

they're not you know naive for the most

part uh that marriage is also going to

be work at some level but I I always

like to press that point just a little

bit and I usually do it by looking at

the to be groom I look at the guy and I

say hey you've probably heard you know

that marriage is hard you know marriage

is a lot of work um you probably think

when you hear that something like, "Oh

yeah, marriage is hard." Like you have

to do if I just said, "Hey, drop down

and and and do a 100 push-ups like right

now. Just boom." You're like, "Yeah,

that would be hard, but I think I could

I could grind it out." Uh, and I always

I say to the guy, I'm like, "Yeah, it's

more like if I asked you said, "Hey, I

need you to drop down and give me a

thousand push-ups, and you are not

allowed to leave the ground until you're

done." Like, it's more like that. And

the guy usually looks back at me and he

kind of gets what I'm saying and it kind

of swallows hard like, "Okay." And then

that's a proper motivation as they press

into the premarital counseling and and

the process that we're going to we're

going to take them through. The other

conversation that I tend to have and the

reason why I have that first one at the

very beginning is that a lot of couples

when they hit a rough spot later on in

marriage, they [clears throat] haven't

really believed that marriage is

difficult. And what they sometimes do is

in the moment of the difficulty, they

say, "hm, I wonder if I made a mistake."

that the

fairy tale that they thought they were

entering into isn't actually what's

transpiring and they think they made a

mistake in who they chose and that's

actually the problem when really they

should have just realized like oh this

is the hard this is the thousand

push-ups that I was really getting into.

There's a very similar thing that

happens in our walk with God. What I

mean is some people will say is they're

like, "Hey, I've come to faith in Jesus.

I'm walking with God. Um, it's going

great, but then difficulty comes and

then trial comes." And they're like,

"Wait a minute. I thought God was good.

I thought God was for me. Why is it that

this trial or this difficulty or this

challenge is in my life?" And they say,

"Hey, God, at some level like what

gives? I'm trying to obey." And yet

instead of uh having the difficulty

not happen, it actually happens. Um they

have two problems in that moment. One is

the fact that the trial itself is a

challenge, but they're also wrestling in

that moment with maybe their perception

of God and if he's holding up his end of

the bargain. The thing I want us to

realize as we get going and start to

talk about this idea of your faith being

tested is that it pretty much always

will be as you walk with God. I'll say

it this way that living a life of faith

means God will take us into difficulty,

not around it.

He's going to take us into difficulty,

not around it. And that as we look at

Abraham's story today, that's what we're

going to see. That actually when you and

I say yes to God, when you and I

exercise faith in him, don't expect it

to be a smooth path all the way. Yes,

it's going to be awesome. Just like

marriage, marriage is awesome in a ton

of ways and there are seasons where it's

difficult. Here's a question. What is

God doing in the difficulty? Why is it

that God is testing our faith? That's

what I want to get into. Because if

you're going to say yes to him, if like

Abraham, God says go and you go, well

then testing's going to come. So again,

open your Bibles. We're going to be in

Genesis 12. We're going to be picking up

the story in uh chap uh verse 10, and

we're going to see this first truth.

1 Peter 1 6 and 7 says it this way. In

this you rejoice, though now for a

little while, if necessary, you have

been grieved by various trials, so that,

notice this, the tested genuiness of

your faith, more precious than gold that

perishes, though it is tested by fire,

may be found to result in praise and

glory and honor at the revelation of

Jesus Christ. So the New Testament

writer Peter, the apostle, the disciple

says, "Hey, look, testing's going to

come." And so in that your faith is

going to be strengthened which is what

God is getting at. But the first like

principle that we need to found

ourselves on is the fact that it will be

tested. It will be tested. So again

Genesis 12 verse 10.

Genesis 12:10

So God's word says now there was a

famine in the land. So Abram went down

to Egypt to sojourn there for the famine

was severe in the land. Now, not many of

us have experienced famine, food

deprivation of this sort. So, to get a

kind of grip on what Abraham's dealing

with, the challenge before him is if you

could imagine, right, uh, the economy

has gone bad, your job is gone, your

business is gone, the bills are piling

up, the mortgage is passed due, the

pantry is empty, you've actually gone

down to the food bank in order to get

food already. You've repeatedly gone

down to the food bank and eventually the

food bank is empty. You come back to

your house, the foreclosure notice is on

the door and you look down your street

and all your neighbors are in the same

boat. There is no other place to go for

Abram. He has Sarah. He has his nephew

Lot. He has a large think of

agricultural business with um servants

and livestock. and all of that is in

jeopardy. He has nowhere to go. So

somehow he gets it in his head that he

is going to go down to Egypt because

right now he's still in that wilderness

desert area of the Ngev and now southern

Israel.

And at some level I have to imagine

Abraham's like God like why didn't you

just leave me back in the Euphrates

River Valley in where there was plenty

of food. So for Abraham, I imagine that

he goes, "Oh, I know of another even

closer river valley where there's

possibly food." And so he heads to the

Nile. He heads to Egypt. And here's a

satellite image of the Nile River Delta.

And you can see in a desert region

how lush the river delta is and why

Abraham or Abram is going there. Um

interesting about the Nile River Delta,

one of the most fertile places on the

planet has some of the most thickest top

soil on the planet. But he says, "All

right, I'm going to go there because

there's food."

Verse 11.

When he was about to enter Egypt, he

said to Sarah his wife, "I know that you

are a woman beautiful in appearance. And

when the Egyptians see you, they will

say, "This is his wife. Then they will

kill me, but they will let you live."

Now, on the face of it, like we don't

even have a category for what's

happening here. Not one time have I ever

moved or you've ever moved. and you've

been concerned that your spouse would be

in any way in jeopardy by the local

government authorities the same way that

Abram is here. But culturally, here's

what's going on. The Egyptians of the

time were known, historians, scholars

will tell you some of the most

promiscuous

people uh and culture that has ever

been. Later on in the book of Genesis,

you'll see Joseph in his story. And as a

slave servant in a Egyptian official's

house, the wife of the official

propositions him over and over and over

again like it's a normal thing. The

other thing historians will tell you is

that the pharaohs of Egypt were some of

the worst offenders. That their herums

were the largest. It was a bit of a

who's the biggest king around to have a

huge herum and everything that went

along with it. So Abram knows culturally

that's what's going on. So that's what's

in his head as he heads there and he

looks at the situation and he looks like

Sarah. Sarah who's obviously, as the

text says, pretty attractive.

But what's God doing in all of this?

Like, isn't God over the weather? Isn't

God over crop yields? Isn't God over the

situation that Abram's in? Why is it

that God sets this up such that because

God knows ahead of time how Abram's

going to decide and that he's going to

go down to Egypt? What's he doing?

Another New Testament passage that's

super helpful.

This is James chapter 1.

James 1 · chapter mention

James writes, "Count it all joy, my

brothers, when you meet trials of

various kinds, for you know that," here

it is again, "the testing of your faith

produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full

effect, that you may be perfect and

complete, lacking in nothing."

That the testing of your faith, the

testing of Abram's faith, the testing of

my faith is actually meant to produce

something. It's meant to produce

strength. It's actually supposed to do

something. And the reason why our faith

will be tested is because well, when

things are easy, when things are

comfortable, man, there's no growth that

happens there. There's no growing there.

Growth happens, strengthening happens.

When, like Abram, you're scared, you're

tired, you don't know what is going to

happen, you don't know how it's going to

go. And it's those moments where the

testing is coming so that when the

circumstances are difficult, they're not

a reason for us to question God, but

like, hey, what are you doing? But like

James, like Peter, like Abram's story to

go, okay, God, you're testing me for a

reason. You're trying to strengthen me.

And in those moments, our faith, as

James unpacks, actually produce

something very good. That's what God is

doing. That's why the testing. Now, uh

maybe a a practical story will help. A

friend of mine at Lake View, uh early on

in his professional career was working

at a company, if I named it, you would

know it. Fortune 100 company. And what

this company did working with other big

companies is I'll just leave it vague.

They helped other companies with their

finances.

And so he worked as a consultant

in other businesses helping them with

their balance sheet.

He gets an email one day from one of his

customers that he was working with and

there was a discrepancy about the

invoice that they got. And so he looks

at the invoice and he's like, "Yeah,

you're right. Those numbers don't add up

to what we've been doing and what you

agreed to." So, he takes [snorts] the

invoice into his company's billing

department.

He says, "Hey, look, this is what I've

been doing. Here's the invoice that my

customer got. Like, can you explain it?"

And let me just say, he did not get a

great answer.

And so, he realizes in that moment that

he's going to have to go have a

conversation with his boss about what

seems to be a not so great practice in

how they're billing their customers.

And he tells me as he's going in to have

this meeting with his boss and he knows

what he needs to address, he calls his

wife ahead of time and he says, "Hey

babe, uh, here's the conversation I'm

about to go into and I may not have a

job

at the end of this meeting."

And yet he walks in and has the

conversation.

That's the kind of thing that will

happen and your faith will be tested.

where the pressure is on and the

question in your own heart and mind is

what do I do?

And hopefully the answer is continue to

trust God with what he has for you. So

that situation may not have happened to

you, but maybe it's something

provisioned in general where things are

tight financially and the pressure is on

to maybe cut a corner yourself

personally. What do you do? Or maybe

it's in a group of friends and the group

of friends are encouraging you because

they're doing it something that you know

you know you shouldn't do. students. Has

this ever happened?

What are you going to do? Are you going

to do what you know you shouldn't? Or do

you go along with the peer pressure that

you're feeling?

Others of us, you'll be in relationship

with difficult people. People who drive

you nuts.

PEOPLE THAT YOU'RE LIKE, "OH, I CAN'T

believe I have to have this person as a

neighbor or a co-orker or another family

on the team that my kid is a part of."

And you [clears throat]

will you treat them a certain way or

will you trust God that okay, I can

treat them better than I'm being treated

and move forward that way? Or how about

this situation where you are in a group

of people and they are talking about

someone who isn't there in not the best

terms.

Will you in that moment join in the

gossip in the disparaging or will you

defend the absent party? See the reality

is our faith is going to be tested time

and again in many different ways. The

question is, will it produce that

steadfastness?

Well, as we turn back to Abram's story,

he doesn't do a great job. And the

reality of it is in his imperfection, we

learn a very important thing, which is

our faith will be tested

and it will fail at times. It will fail

at times. Look at verse 13. We're going

to see Abram's solution to his problem.

This is what he says.

talking to Sarah his wife, he says, "Say

you are my sister, that it may go well

with me because of you and that my life

may be spared for your sake." When Abram

entered Egypt and the Egyptians saw that

the woman was very beautiful and when

the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they

praised her to Pharaoh and the woman was

taken into Pharaoh's house. So, okay,

Abram says like this is the solution he

comes up with. He's like, "Okay, Sarah,

you're going to say to them, you're my

sister." Which is a halftruth,

a full lie, but it's a halftruth because

she is this half sister. We're going to

get to Genesis 20 in a few weeks. And

you're going to find out in verse 12

that they have the same dad, but they

have different moms. So, technically,

Abram's right sister. Um, but what's

more the issue here is Abram's not

really thinking about Sarah.

He's certainly not thinking about the

promise that he just got earlier in

Genesis 12 where it's through him and

Sarai that amazing blessings are going

to come and he's putting that promise in

jeopardy. What's Abram thinking about?

Abram's thinking about Abram.

And if you're a husband, you're looking

at this story and you're like,"I would

never do this." And you're probably

right. If you're a wife and you're

engaged in this story and you read what

we just read, you're like, "Oh my gosh,

if my husband ever pulled anything

remotely like this, I know I could

probably speak for my wife." She would

say, "I'm gonna save Pharaoh the trouble

and I'm going to murder you myself

just for that idea."

But what's interesting

is as the text says it, it actually kind

of plays out the way Abram thought and

they do see Sarai.

Pharaoh does take her into his herum and

um there he is in Egypt in this

situation.

But here's the question. Why did his

faith fail?

What was going on?

What happened to Abram that this is the

solution he comes to? Well, one of the

things that you'll notice in this

paragraph that's absent from the

paragraph before it is there's no

mention of worship. There's no stopping

to build an altar. There's no calling on

the name of the Lord. There's no prayer.

What I think is happening is what Abram

was doing earlier which is continually

repeatedly as a rhythm is he was always

looking to God every step of the way

always looking to God always turning his

gaze to him. He doesn't do that here.

He's taken his eyes off of God and he's

placed his eyes on his problem on the

challenge on the difficulty and that's

why his faith failed.

There's another story very similar in

the New Testament

where the disciples are in a boat.

They're on the Sea of Galilee. They're

in a storm. They're scared and they look

off in the distance in the fog and the

rain and they see a figure and it turns

out to be Jesus walking towards them on

the water. Now, if you remember the

story, Peter sees this and he gets it in

his head and he says, "Hey, Jesus, would

you command me to come to you on the

water?"

And he takes his first couple steps out

of the boat after Jesus says, "Come on."

And this is what happens.

Talking about Peter. But when he saw,

notice where he's looking. When he saw

the wind, he was afraid and beginning to

sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me." So

Peter is doing great when he's focused

on Jesus. He's like talking to Jesus.

He's taking steps towards Jesus, but

there's challenge and difficulty and his

faith gets tested. And what does he do?

He takes his gaze off of Jesus and he

goes, "Oh man, it's really windy. Man,

those waves are bad. And then he starts

to sink. And then this is what Jesus

says. Jesus immediately reached out his

hand and took hold of him, saying to

him, notice, "Oh, you of little what?"

Faith, "Why did you doubt?"

His faith was strong.

When he was looking at Jesus, his faith,

notice, wavered when he took his eyes

off him.

So what happens often in our lives when

we don't respond amidst the challenge,

amidst the difficulty the best way we'd

like to is often we've just taken our

gaze off of Jesus. Why? Because only

continuing to look at him, continuing to

look at the father is the way that you

and I our faith actually gets strong.

And now to put the two thoughts

together. As the testing comes, as the

stretching comes, as the challenge

comes, we grow our faith stronger by

looking at him. And God grows our faith.

Your faith will be tested and it will

fail at times, but the good news is that

in our testing, notice, God remains

faithful. God remains faithful. Look at

verse 16.

And for her sake, it's referring to

Pharaoh.

He dwelt or dealt with dealt well with

Abram.

And he had sheep, oxmen, male donkeys,

male servants, female servants, female

donkeys, and camels. Um the word there

that talks about um all of

what he just been given is a is an

illusion to what was happening

culturally. What I mean is um Abram

again he's pretending to be the brother

uh and his sister so his family member

is taken as a wife of Pharaoh and

culturally what you would do is that

family would receive a dowy and since

this is the richest man in the land

Abram gets a big dowy from Pharaoh

that's all the sheep and oxmen and all

the servants and all the rest the reason

why this happens, why he quote blesses

him is because of that.

And then verse 17 says, "But the Lord

afflicted Pharaoh and his house with not

just plagues, but great plagues because

of Sarai, Abram<unk>'s wife." So Pharaoh

called Abram and said, "What is this you

have done to me? Why did you not tell me

that she was your wife? Why did you say

she is my sister so that I took her for

my wife? Now then, here is your wife.

Take her and go. And Pharaoh gave men

orders concerning him, meaning don't

touch him. And they sent him away with

his wife and all that he had.

How did Pharaoh know that those plagues

were because of Sarah? Here's what I

think. Here's the best guess because

notice

they afflicted Pharaoh and his house

with great plagues.

What's probably happening is Pharaoh is

suffering whatever the plague is. His um

servants are, the other women in the

herum are, but Sarah isn't. And so

Pharaoh is looking around, everyone's

sick or everyone's suffering, and

there's Sarah and she's just fine. And

so in that moment, he sees that and he

goes, "Oh, something's up with this new

woman I brought into my herum." And he

puts two and two together. Now, we're

going to unpack this a little more in a

second, but can you think of another

time where plagues affected Egypt

and the Jews, the Hebrews were taken

care of

while the Egyptians suffered.

Hold that thought.

the bigger piece here

and what I think Abram is supposed to

see in God's goodness to him because we

read this and we're like, man, it kind

of doesn't make sense that God's being

good to Abram when Abram's not doing so

great.

Is I think at some level God is trying

to show Abram, Abram, I have ways to

solve problems that you can't conceive

of.

He's like,"Abram,

uh, I have ways to protect you. I have

ways to protect my promises to you that

you can't like you don't even have a

category for

because if Abram had known that God

could do like all that he's doing now,

maybe his faith wouldn't have failed."

and what God is doing in the midst of

your testing and my testing because the

testing doesn't last indefinitely.

The testing is for a season. The testing

comes then God does something relieves

the testing and you move into the next

season. And when we pass the test and

our faith gets strengthened and God

brings a blessing, again what he said

previously in Genesis chapter 12, he

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

usually does it in a way that we could

not have manufactured on our own. And

what God is doing, because he's got to

grow Abram up in order to be the carrier

of these promises, he has to have a

faith that can handle it. And so he's

growing him through situations like this

just like he's growing you and I in

situations where he's like, "Hey, I have

something for you, but your current

level of faith isn't strong enough." So

the testing comes strengthening and then

the next season. We started out talking

about my conversations with newly

engaged couples as they pray for or they

prepare for marriage. The other

conversation that I tend to have a fair

bit is with couples who later on in

their marriage journey are in a tough

spot and they need a hand. And what I've

noticed over and over again is that

those couples who will just take God at

his word and just stick it out and get

through the difficulty and fight through

the struggle and fight together for

their marriage. Man, I I tell you it

it's not a 100% of the time, but man, it

it tends to get better in time. And then

recently I came across two studies that

bore this out. One from BYU and the

other study out of Great Britain. The

BYU study said this studying marriages

as they went through not just difficulty

but the span of a marriage lifetime.

This is what they found. They found that

marital enjoyment actually improves

over the years for couples that stay

together.

They found that although, check this

out, marital happiness tends to decline

slightly in the early years of marriage,

which you can kind of understand after

the honeymoon period and newly married

couples kind of get into their rhythms,

right? Man, super enjoying marriage and

then they kind of settle out and it's

kind of like, oh, we do have some things

we disagree on and we do have some

things that we need to work out. and

then it kind of settles out and then

after that it improves

after about 20 years for most long-term

couples. So what the study showed is it

kind of goes down and then just

up and to the right over time.

And notice this, this is what they say.

and the experience of discord,

disagreements,

arguments

actually lessened consistently over

time. Their summary, the long-term

outlook for most marriages is upbeat

with happiness remaining high and

disagreement and discord declining.

The study out of the UK, it showed that

twothirds

of unhappy, struggling couples who

stayed together through the hard season,

check this out, became happy again

within five years.

In contrast

to those people who ended up choosing

divorce

were actually unhappier after their

divorce than they were in the struggle

of the marriage.

What God is saying over and over again

in your life in my life is if you stick

it out I will remain faithful.

If you continue to allow the testing,

allow the difficulty, allow the struggle

to do its good work and to produce

steadfastness

and strength in you, good things happen.

So if your faith is being tested in your

finances, say hold on, God remains

faithful. If you are being tested in

your marriage, hold on. God remains

faithful. If you are being tested in

your career, hold on. I promise you, God

remains faithful. If you are being

tested in your singleness,

hold on. I promise you, God remains

faithful.

If you are being tested with your

friends,

hold on. I promise you, God remains

faithful.

If you're being tested in your family,

hold on. I promise you, God remains

faithful.

So, like you, like Abraham,

you will be tested.

Sometimes you'll fail,

but God will always remain faithful.

The reason why, and here's where we'll

close,

God remains faithful because he's doing

more than we can imagine.

He's doing more than we can imagine.

Here's what I mean.

If we were to kind of just like ascend

up from the text like we're all in the

details, we've unpacked these verses,

but then climb up say to 30,000 feet and

look big picture what God is doing. What

would we see?

We'd see a pattern that's going to

repeat as we move through the Bible.

Here's what I mean. I've already kind of

teased this a little bit, but think

about the story we just read, Genesis

12, and what we're going to see as we

move along in the story of God's people

in the Exodus.

Both stories, you see a famine in the

land.

You see in both stories the people of

God having to flee to Egypt.

You see, and you saw it here, that

there's this thing where man, we're

going to kill, there's an illusion in

chapter 12 to killing the males and

allowing the females to live. That's

going to show up in the Exodus again.

You'll notice very clearly plagues on

Egypt and the Hebrews are protected.

You can see here in a sense, Abram

plunders Egypt as he leaves. That's the

exact same thing you're going to see

with the people of God as they leave

Egypt

in both places. The people who are in

the difficult situation are delivered

and they both head out into the

wilderness.

Why the similarities?

Well, the author of Moses or excuse me,

the author of Genesis is Moses and he's

writing this story to the people of God

as they're preparing to enter the

promised land.

And what he's trying to do is many

things. He's trying to explain to them

their history and how did the world get

here, right? That's the early pages of

Genesis. And he's trying to show how God

worked with their original patriarch and

[snorts] how he worked with Abram so

that they would look at Abram's story

and be like, "Wow, that's the exact same

thing that happened to us."

And as God continues to work with Abram,

and he doesn't write Abram off for his

mistakes in Genesis 12, he continues to

lead him. He continues to do good to

him. He continues to God does be good to

his promises

because ultimately God is the one who

maintains his promises. It's not you and

I. It's not Abram. Why? Because Abram's

going to fail again just like you and I.

And what God is trying to communicate to

his people through Moses as they enter

the promised land is the same thing that

God is trying to talk to you and I about

which is I can fulfill everything I've

promised to you. Just trust me.

Hear my voice. Obey what I'm saying. And

have faith.

Why? Because he is doing far more than

you can imagine.

in your current season, whether you're

right now you're like, man, I am facing

a huge faith trial.

He's saying, "I'm doing more than you

can imagine. I promise." And what's

happening to you now in the season of

difficulty and challenge that could

cause you to go like, "Okay, God, not

fair. I don't know why you're doing it.

You're not being good to me."

instead is the place where God is going

to meet you and he's going to build you.

He's going to work with you.

And just like you're seeing in Abraham's

life, there's actually blessing that's

coming.

So my hope is that for you, for me, for

Lake View, that we would continue to be

a people that when our faith is tested,

it produces the good things that God

intends.

And the more that we stick it out with

him, that's exactly what's going to

happen. So, let's pray. So, Father,

thank you again for this morning. I pray

your blessing over my brothers and

sisters. Would you continue to walk with

us and do good in us and through us as

you continue to grow us by faith? And we

ask it in Jesus name. Amen.