Sunday Thoughts - 4/5/09

I’ve been wrestling with Isaiah 40:31 since our church anniversary. “But they that wait on the Lord, He shall renew their strength, He shall mount them up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not get weary, and they shall walk and not faint.” This verse has become my verse for 2009. And on last week we preached “Trusting God Who Controls Everything” – Genesis 14 as well as in our Wednesday Night Bible Study we studied James 5:7-11 of which I title How to be Patient. And so yesterday, I preached James 5:7-11;

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.
also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Topic: Trusting God’s Perfect Timing

Thesis Statement: You can handle life’s difficulties when you trust that God’s timing is perfect.

Here are three (3) ways you can trust God’s perfect timing when life deals you a bad hand:

I. Focus On The Return Of Christ – v. 7a

Point: The time will come when all suffering and injustice will soon be over.

* The Return of Christ provides hope for the Believer
* The Return of Christ encourages the believer that trouble don’t last always

II. Focus On Your Work – v. 7b–9

Point: Wait patiently on God with great expectations.

How should we wait patiently on God?

* Persevere in hard times – v. 7b-8
* Stop complaining – v. 9

III. Focus On The Faithfulness of God – v. 10-11

Two examples are given of people who waited patiently on God.

- The Prophets
- Job

What does the example of the prophets and Job teach us?

- Blessing don’t come easy all the time
- Because blessings don’t come easy doesn’t mean you’re not blessed
- God blesses a persons endurance with divine favor

Final analysis: God will not let you down!

I pray the members of FGMBC were blessed yesterday by the message. I am confident that these messages over the recent weeks have been needed encouragement for our church.

Two Hispanic men came to our church yesterday and one expressed a desire to be saved. Many Hispanics are not used to our way of doing church so rather than coming up he blurted out, “I want to be delivered from smoking.” I quickly asked him to come up for prayer and told him I wanted to talk to him after service. Thank God for planted seed!

I went to a service for one of the sons of the church who celebrated 3 years of pastoral ministry. One word, interesting! I don’t know how to explain it.

This week will be pretty busy getting ready for Resurrection Sunday, bible study, work, Aysia’s track meets, and so forth and so on. God give me strength.