"Trust Is a Journey" By Brother Andy Giebler March 26th,
2017 Amen, amen. Don't stop on my account. You may be seated. I tell you, Parrish is gracious enough to give me a minute, and I'm sitting here, thinking, “All right, stop, I got something to share.” You ever get one of those moments? But, then I realized, there's something bigger going on here. Something much bigger. So, I'm going to stop and pray about it. We're going to bow our heads. God, Almighty, thank You for this time of worship, and thank You for this time of pouring out of Your Spirit. I thank You for this time of just loving us. God, bless our hearts, our minds, our eyes and our ears; open up our understanding as we attend to Your Word. We ask these things in Jesus' name. I tell you what, I was taking notes on what everybody was sharing, and I was thinking, “Do I really need to preach?” But, I'm going to, because God gave me a couple of things. And I don't say that arrogantly; I say that humbly. We had this time of worship at our men's retreat—and we could have this anywhere—and, like I said, I was itching to come up here, and God just spoke to me and said, “There's something bigger going on,”—we had some times of prayer. We would stand and be praying for somebody, and the person who was praying would be done, and, nobody moved. It wasn't like everyone was wondering, “What's next?” No. Because it wasn't just about the one person standing over, praying, it was about the group of people that were there, the men, all of them together. Bill shared, all the voices just kind of came into one when we were praying over. That's God. When God just says, “Hey, I'm not done, here.” And, there's a lot of pieces that God showed me, and one thing I've seen, it's not about any one individual. A lot of times, we'll come up here and pray, Parrish and I and some of the ministers will stand up here and pray with people. And we're doing that because we're ministers, and it's what God called us to do, but it's more than that; it's God, coming in, while we're praying. We're talking about trust. And you guys hit on some trust pieces, too. Damien, you said some things that I'm going to come back to. Do you trust God enough to lay it out, when you know you don't want to hear the answer? Do you trust God enough to say, “God, I need help with this,” or, “I need to know, you know, which way to go with this. What should I do?” And, another couple of Scriptures they referenced... In one of the studies, Parrish talked about, “No more!” And, we're talking about our trust and our faith. I want to go to Mark chapter nine. I kind of want to paint some pictures, tell some stories. Where's my guitar? Other reminders. I'm taking my time, kind of slowing down, a little worked up from worship, here. Starting at verse twenty, no, seventeen:
Mark 9:17-20 And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not. He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.
First of all, when you bring something before God, there's a fight. It says the spirit that was in this young man threw him on the ground. He was wallowing, foaming. And, that's the turmoil we feel sometimes when we come before God, because we've started to take that step of trusting Him, “God, I'm going to bring this to You.” Because it's a fight. Sometimes we don't want to go through that fight. Sometimes, you know it's going to be a battle. “I need to start doing this. I need to let this happen in my life,” and there's a battle. Sometimes we know that battle's coming. Do we trust God enough, to bring us through that battle? Do we trust Him enough just to say, “Yes, God?” To say, “I know it's going to be a battle, I'm going to say yes to You?” Do we have that desire? Is it important enough to say, “Yes, I know it's going to be a battle, but You're bigger than the battle, God.” Back to the Scripture:
Mark 9:21-22 And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.
The father's at the point of saying, “I don't know what You can do, if anything.” And that's the point where I wonder, “Am I limiting God when I come to Him?” “God, if You can do anything, whatever it is.” In our humanness, sometimes, you know, we don't like to ask for help. You know, if I'm short on my paycheck, and I'm asking somebody for help, “Just whatever little bit you can do.” I'm just asking for the bare minimum to get by. I don't want to be a burden. And that's what the father says, “If you can do anything.”
Mark 9:23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
So, He just opened the door right there. He said, “All.” He didn't say, “Bare minimum,” He didn't say, “Just a little bit,” He didn't say, “Oh, maybe I can heal him just enough for right now, just so you can get him home, so he's not an embarrassment, just so you can have a little normal life for five minutes.” No. He said, “...all things are possible to him that believeth.” That's when, I have to believe, that the light comes on, because the father replies:
Mark 9:24-25 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.
So, not only did Jesus say, “Get out!” He said, “No more.” It wasn't a matter of, “Okay, you can come out of him, but you can come back later.” No. He said, “No more,” and that's where we're at. That's where I need to be, sometimes. Bill even shared this: He shared another time a brother had—and I'm not picking on Bill, this is just an example, and there's many of us that could have been there. He's giving me a thumb's up—a brother saw him in service and prayed for him, and immediately that pain left him. Now, this was months ago. But, Monday morning—I don't think it was even Monday morning, it was at the end of service, the pain was back, because he didn't claim it. Let that sink in. That's what God asked Bill, when he was sitting there, “There's people here, gathered around. Do you want something? Ask.” And we've heard it many times, and I'm excited about where we're at as a congregation. And, Parrish and I have been praying about this: What do we need to do? What do we need to combine? We've got people who are doing stuff. What do we have to do? What am I putting on the altar and not saying, “No more!” and then picking up the next week? I'm really getting down to the crux of trust. Do I trust God enough to leave it there? Do I trust God enough to say, “I don't need this any more.” We get in the habit of living with something. “I live with this addiction.” Men, we have addictions of seeing things. I'm just going to be plain: Men like to look at women. And it can become an addiction in your mind. People—and I'm not going to be so naive—women have that same—they have their own lusts, if they allow that. But, it manages ??? the big picture. And, you know what? We can live with it, and say, “Okay, I know I'm just a man. I can deal with it.” Or, I can say, “God, take this away from me because I want to draw closer to You.” It's not just a matter of “I want this taken away,” it's, “I want this taken away because it's in between You and me, God.” Whether it's drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, any kind of dependency. And I don't want to leave it, you know, on those, because it could be a lot of things. Gambling, spending money, going out and—you know, sometimes people have impulsiveness, and we say, “Oh, it's this disease.” “It's this condition.” Okay, I believe that there's conditions that exist, and our medical community wants to give you a drug, give you a medication, send you to therapy; we've got the best therapy that there is. But, you've got to trust God to say, “Yes.” You've got to trust Him to give it to Him. And, this is something that's been burning in me for a long time. God's given me a Scripture; I'm going to get to it yet. Because we're limiting Him. There's a whole religious world we live in. We live in a society, and people ask the question, “Why so many churches?” And I'm not going to be arrogant enough to say we're the only one that teaches something right, and everyone else is wrong, but, there's a lot of different messages, a lot of different doctrines out there, a lot of different things that people allow. You know, you see people—and it could be here—in church, and then you see them getting ready to go to the club the next week, getting ready to go out to the bar, getting ready to go hang out with their friends who've got nothing to do with God. I'm not talking about the place, I'm just talking about where we get our fellowship. I can't—if I'm getting my fellowship with people that don't love God, I put something between me and God. Do I trust God enough to let Him pick my friends for me? All right, I'm going to stop meddling for a minute; read a Scripture. I may come back to it. Trusting God. Trusting God's a journey. We look at Abraham, and we proclaim his faithfulness and the things he went through, the fact that he was seventy-five years old, as God called him out—His name was Abram—and said, “I'm calling you out of your land. Leave the place that you know—Oh, and on top of that, you're going to be a mighty nation. Okay, you're seventy-five years old, you don't have any children, and you're going to be a mighty nation. Like,” He said, “the sands of the sea.” I'm going to read a little. Let's look at Genesis twelve. And, sometimes we skip just to the end of it, to the point where, okay, he's got a son, and God tells him to go sacrifice the son. And, the faithful Abraham trusted God, and said, “I'll do whatever you say.” But, there's a whole chunk of stuff in between there, in those twenty-five years.
Genesis 12:1-5 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
So, that's the first thing: God says, “Get up, “ I guess, “Pack your bags, and go somewhere. Go to the land of Canaan.” He doesn't know where he's going. And He says, “I'm going to make a mighty nation out of you.” Here it says, “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great...” So, that's the first thing. And, we're going to skip over to Genesis fifteen, verse one. So, Abraham doesn't quite do everything in the proper way we would think. Abraham has doubts. In fifteen, he revisits the promise again. I'm going to read one through six:
Genesis 15:1-6 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, [here he has this little question: “I don't have any kids. How am I going to be this mighty nation?”] and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
So, here, Abram's trying to help God out a little bit. “Okay, You haven't given me a kid. What about those born in my house of my servants? That counts, right?” God says, “No, that's not how I'm doing this.” So, we're talking about faith. We're talking about trusting in God. And, I'm going to get to a point in a little bit. We see here that he needed a little help understanding that. And, sometimes, that's where we're at. But God comes back, and says, “No, this I show I'm going to do it.” And then He says we need to trust Him. And, the reason I'm going to this is, the big picture is, he's still seeking God. He's not standing in the corner, “I don't get this,” and going off, doing his own devices. He's still, in the midst of this, “God, I want to help You out with this. You know, You said this, which seems kind of odd, and, God, I know You made me a promise...” But he's still having a conversation with God. And that's where the importance lies. Trust is a journey. Sometimes we don't see things. Sometimes God gives us little pieces at a time. Sometimes He shows us a vision, and it may be years before it comes to pass. And those are times when we can be like Abram and say, “Well, God, I can do this.” “No. Be patient. It'll come to pass.” And then He gives him the vision. “Tell me if you can number the stars in the sky. That's your seed.” Then, we'll look at Genesis sixteen. Abram—he's still Abram; He hasn't changed his name yet—now Abram's wife tries to help out.
Genesis 16:1-3 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.
So, the wife's getting involved, and, now we have a child. God's still not happy. Abraham and Sarah now are both trying to help God out. Do we trust Him enough to let Him work things out? But, there's still communication with God, here. We look at Genesis seventeen:
Genesis 17:1-3 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,
Again, He revisits that promise that He gave him.
Genesis 17:3-8 And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
And it goes on to tell of the covenant that He gives to him. And I'm going to skip down to fourteen, no, fifteen:
Genesis 17:15-19 And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
And, again, they're trying to help out God. God says, “This is My plan.” And that's the trust. We have to say, “Okay, God, I'm going to wait on Your plan. I'm going to wait on Your calling. I'm going to wait on Your strength. I'm going to wait on the things that You're going to put on my heart. I'm going to wait on the things that are there.” And, sometimes, it's a matter of saying, “God, okay, what am I missing? What am I not doing? What am I holding back on?” And, as he goes through all this, there's a piece I left out of there. Even in all this, he deceives people. He went into Egypt when they had a famine, and says, “If anyone asks, you're my sister.” And, because of what he did, Egypt was cursed. Because, you know, they're looking at his wife; they don't know. But, they're looking at this fair maiden, and, all of the sudden, they want his wife, and God cursed Pharaoh and his land because she was married to him. Abraham caused it. He said, “Okay, I'm fearing for my life . You know they might kill me to take my wife away from me, so, we'll just say you're my sister.” So, do we trust God enough to claim the things He's given us? Or, do we want to kind of hide behind things, and, do things out own way? The point I'm making here is, sometimes we want to say, “God's given me this; I need to claim this. But, I'm embarrassed about it. I'm worried about it. I might lose my job. I might lose friends over it. I might lose a position over it. So, if I'm losing these things, I'm just going to put this aside and I'm not going to claim it right now. I'm not going to share my faith. I'm not going to share my testimony. I'm not going to live it in front of people like I should, because I'm afraid of what people might say. Do you know other people can be cursed because of that? People will miss their blessings because you're hiding what God gave you; you're not trusting in God. People will lose out on what God has for them. What did we talk about? We talked about being a watchman, too. Part of our retreat; talking about, if you sound the trumpet, and they listen not, well, it's on them, but, if I see the enemy coming, and I don't sound that trumpet and they die in their sin, well, their blood's on my hands. Back to Abraham. Then we'll look at the end of it, which is:
Genesis 22:1-5 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.
See, he already trusted God. He said, “I'm going to go worship,” knowing what God told him to do.
Genesis 22:6-13 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
Imagine what Isaac's thinking after all that. He's laying there on that wood, and he knows the God of his father is someone he's now going to obey without any question, because he trusted God. And, Damien, I know you were talking about your son, but, as a father, how could you even think of that? But, the things that we do for our family. And, it may not be that extreme, but—and I heard your dedication to it, and it kind of reproved me a little bit. What am I doing in front of my children? What am I doing, in the privacy of my own home, where am I slacking off? I heard you, you said, “I'm stepping up.” And, our children, they could pay the price if we don't, if we don't stand up and say, “This is what I'm going to be faithful to.” And this is the ultimate example, for a mere mortal, to, you know, offer your own child. But, it wasn't that he was going to actually do it, it was the fact that he was going to stand there and say, “Whatever it is. God, You gave it to me, it's yours.” And God says—in the beginning of the Scripture, it says, “testing him.” “Tempting him.” He wanted to see. He was never going to let him do it. But, I bring that up as an extreme, because what, far less—and our children are probably the most valuable possessions in our lives. So, what do I have, that's not even close to the value of my children, that I haven't trusted God with? Pastor Paine talked about it a few weeks ago: Our money. Do I trust God with my money? And this isn't—I'm not passing a plate today. We have the box back there like we always do, but that's not what that's about. Do I trust God with my money? Do I trust him enough to say, “God, You'll give me more.” Because, we have that big of a God. Do I trust Him enough to say, “God, I'm going to give what You put on my heart to give? Not give foolishly, but, what You'd put on our hearts to give.” Or, you know, Damien, you talked a lot about trusting Him in different areas. Do I trust God enough just to ask Him? You said you were with a couple of brothers, and you had to have faith just to lay this out, because you didn't want to hear what God had to say. You knew, already. But, how many times do I just fail to put it on the altar because I'm afraid to hear it? You know? The simple example, our children: When they're asking us for something that they know is a pretty good idea, they're going to ask us. If they know the answer's not going to be favorable, they go try to ask it in a sneaky way. Try to ask for something just a little bit on the side of it, and try to sneak their way into it. Why? Because they know the answer. Or, whatever the answer is, they don't want to hear it. The beautiful thing with God is, many times we think we know the answer already, but we ain't got a clue. Sometimes, we're looking at a situation, we're looking at this amount, or this great big, paleolithic monstrosity of something, “What am I going to do with that? How do I deal with that?” And, if we just trust God, God can do things that we can't even imagine. The Bible talks about faith as a seed of mustard, mountains move; just that simple. Our God is that big. Talking about trust. Do I trust Him enough? And I think I could list a whole bunch of things, but, just leave it open, because I don't want to let anybody off the hook with something. I don't want to let myself off the hook. If I trust God enough to... And that can be in our prayers, “God, what is it I haven't trusted, I haven't put before You? What is it that I've kind of stuck in my pocket and said, 'That's mine.'” And, you know what? I know I've heard preachers preach this message, over the years, and the more I study this, the more I learn, the more I listen to God, it's taken on a whole different meaning than listening to Him, it's a matter of living, saying, “God, what do You want?” One more passage. We're going to go to Luke chapter five. This is another one of those that was part of one of our studies over the week-end. One of the exercises we did, we took—what was it, nine or ten of us in the room? And, Parrish gave us each a topic, and said, “You've got twenty minutes, put together a five-minute Bible study.” And it was about, “How can I take this time to give five minutes to give out this topic? To take this elevator pitch.” You know, if I only have thirty seconds to give my pitch, can I do it? Can I share with somebody that needs something? I'm going to back to Luke. Back to trust. Let me back this up a little bit, give a little background. So, Jesus has been teaching, and He's in the boat, teaching. And He's with Simon. After He's done teaching, He looks at Simon, “Let down your nets.” And Simon's a fisherman. Simon knows about fishing. He knows that Jesus probably doesn't know anything about fishing, or doesn't have any reason to believe that He does. And Jesus said, “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.”
Luke 5:5 And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless [nevertheless. We've been doing this all night, Master, but, nevertheless] at thy word I will let down the net.
Even though I know better. And, when he had done this, they didn't catch just a couple of fish...
Luke 5:6-7 And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
You think that opened up some eyes there? I know it opened up Simon's.
Luke 5:8-9 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken:
Sometimes God has to do something that big. Sometimes God has to—we have to say, “Nevertheless, at Thy word...” No matter what it is, no matter how silly I think it is. Because, I've talked to a lot of brothers and sisters in this room that said, “God said to do this, and I didn't want to do that. It didn't make any sense.” But, you know, when we do it, when we say, “Okay, God, nevertheless, at Your word.” I just took a turn on that. Nevertheless. Some of you are saying, “Well, God's never done that for me.” At Thy word. What does it take to hear the Word of God? Yeah, I'm talking about this (holding up his Bible), but I'm also talking about, do I trust God enough to be on my knees? Do I trust Him to let my mind go to something spiritual when I have a break? To let my conversation go to something spiritual, when I have a conversation with somebody. At Thy word. If you and I are faithful enough to let God's Word into our hearts at that point, that's when God speaks to us. That's when God shows us things. If I'm not—if I don't hear from God, whose fault is that? At Thy word. Faith and trusting in God, taking the time to listen to God, and taking the time to take it all in. And that's a big piece of what I, you know, had a lot of ideas rolling around in my head for what to talk about his Sunday, and this just put the exclamation mark on a lot of that, this week-end. Walking in God's spirit. Trusting in God. Taking Him at His word. Taking Him at face value. “God, You said do this.” Now, something else that I felt this week-end: There was more than one spirit. No, I'm not talking about ghosts flying around the room or anything. I'm talking about more than one voice in my head, when one voice was saying, “Do this.” But, the fact that I'm seeking the face of God, I knew which voice to listen to. I knew, by watching my brothers, by working with Parrish. There was one group where one voice said, “Go do this,” in the middle of a prayer, and something withstood me, and said, “No, that's not for you.” But that's when Parrish came and prayed. Did the exact same thing that something was saying for me to do, on the other hand saying not to do. But, the more we seek God, the more we trust Him, and, the more we take time to get into His Word, there's nothing... You know, people have read this Book from cover to cover for years and missed the Truth out of it? So, what makes the difference? It's God's Spirit. Yeah, there's a lot of history, a lot of things to go back and research, and follow timelines, get the right definition for the word, those are important, I don't discount those. But, there's some things, when you get into this Word, when you take the time to say, “God, I'm looking for Your answers,” because God's Word here (pointing to the Bible), and God's Word here (pointing to his heart) will never contradict each other. If you're finding something contradictory in the Scriptures, maybe you need to find yourself on your knees a little more. Maybe I've got to say, sometimes, “God, what are You trying to show me, here?” And that's how we can look at Scriptures, and get the same thing out of it. Because we're serving the same God. Do I trust Him enough? And, as we sat in a circle of men, I'm looking at the men, and thinking of ministry, and how things are, and I realized that, yes, there needs to be a unity, here. Has to be. But, if I don't have this unity, first (gesturing between himself and God), this is just an organization. This is just a group of people, coming together, having a Bible study, you know, we're reading this book, we're teaching our children something good. We're having bake sales. We're having car washes. We're raising money. We're taking our kids, and having something fun. If this isn't first (again gesturing between himself and God), that's all it is. Now, those things I just named off are important; we need to do those things, because those are part of where we minister, but that can't be all it is. That can't be all it is. When I hear of a bowling outing, where people are coming and getting blessed, because people shared, that's when I know that's happening. Because, it wasn't just, “Hey, I had fun bowling!” No, “Somebody shared with me.” “I saw fellowship happening.” “I saw godly fellowship.” It wasn't just crazy, worldly conversations, it was godly fellowship. I'm really excited about the fact that I'm seeing all these things, and I want to give props on our women's retreat, because the women came back on fire. Those that went, came back, and go things they didn't know they we going for. And the guys were the same way. We're all in the same boat, because, I'll just put it all together. We took our time out of our yearly maintenance, and it was a good thing, and we came away with things that we didn't know we could go and get. We came away with things we'd forgotten about. We came away with things in our lives that God is going to use to draw us closer to Him. I could call the rest of you guys up here and we could have a whole 'nother message to preach on this, but I'll refrain. I just want to encourage us: Don't get weary. God has spoken to people's hearts, here. Not me; I'm just the messenger speaking into a microphone; God's the One speaking to your heart. Don't be weary in your well-doing. There's many of you that we've seen prophecy over. And, just as Abraham went twenty-five years before—and he was already, technically, too old for children when God gave him the promise in the first place. It was twenty-five years later when God finally let him have the promise. That's not God being slothful, that's just God's timing. And I went through all that with Abraham, the ups and downs, because that's where we're at. Sometimes we doubt God. Sometimes we say, “God, I know You said we're going to do this. I know You said that this is going to happen, but when's it going to happen?” And I try to help God along. But, the big picture I want you to take away is that there was a conversation with God; it wasn't just grumbling, it wasn't complaining, it was a conversation with God the whole time.
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