This week I was spending time with God during my quiet time, and God took me to a scripture in Isaiah 64. At this point, the people of Israel have turned against God, and God has withdrawn Himself from them and handed them over to their sin. They come to a place where they repent, and they talk to God in Isaiah 64:12: "After all this, Lord, must you still refuse to help us? Will you continue to be silent and punish us?"

I think sometimes we come into a place like this. We're trusting God for so many things. We're like, "God, I need to see You move in our lives." And we get to this place where we're like, "God, are You still so silent?"

It's funny, because God responds in 65:1, and as I read this, it cut me, because there are some things in my life where I'm saying, "God, what are You doing in this area?" This is what it says: "The Lord says, 'I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, "Here I am, here I am!" to a nation that did not call on my name.'"

I wonder how many times we come into a place where we're like, "God, I feel like You're so far away. God, You're so silent." But I wonder if so many times God actually isn't holding back. It's just that we haven't let Him in. There are some experiences in our lives where God is saying, "If you'll just give that to Me... I was always there. I was ready to help, but no one asked."

What if we came to a place where we just said, "God, I give it to You. The stress I feel in my life, I give it to You, God. The thing that's happening at my job, I give it to You. The anxiety I feel about my kids, Lord, I give it to You. The friends who have run away from You, I give them to You, Lord. The thing I'm experiencing in my family, God, I give it to You. The thing I'm experiencing in my work, God, I give it to You. I've been trying to do this by myself. And in this moment, God, may You come and do what only You can do. May You come and move. I'm not going to do this by myself. If You don't go with me, I don't want to go. I'm not going unless You go with me."

He was there. He was saying, "All you need to do is call on Me. And if you call on Me, I'm faithful. I'm just, and I'm going to do the thing I promised." So Father, we give today to You, Lord. There are parts of our lives that are unsurrendered, Lord. We surrender them to You, and we pray that You will have Your way. In Your name we pray. And everyone who believes that, say amen.

Faithfulness is our foundation

Y'all can go ahead and grab your seats. I love you guys. I'm so thankful for you. We're continuing our series called Life by the Spirit, and we're in week seven. We're almost there. Today we're talking about faithfulness. Can someone say "faithfulness"?

If you're new here, what we're learning in this series is that the proof of our relationship with God is actually in the fruit we produce. We can come into this place and say, "I'm a Christian. I go to church." But then we leave, and if people don't see the fruit, our fruit betrays us. There actually has to be proof of our relationship with God. Have you ever met someone, and all of a sudden they quote a scripture, and you're like, "Oh my gosh, 10 minutes ago I would never have said you were a Christian"? Why? Because their fruit didn't match their profession. There was no proof. So what we're learning in this series is that the fruit of the Spirit is proof. It needs to be our evidence.

We're also learning that we can't do this by ourselves. You can't produce fruit through effort. It has to be something the Holy Spirit does inside of us. So we're studying the seventh fruit, which is faithfulness. Our theme verse is Galatians 5:22: "But the fruit of the Spirit is..." In other words, the result of having the Holy Spirit in your life is that people will look at you and say, "Man, I like that person, because they're full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness." That's our word for today. "They're just so faithful. You can count on Brad. Why? He's faithful. You can count on John. Why? He's faithful. You can count on Kelly. Why? She's faithful." Anyone want to be called faithful, so that people say, "If they say it, they're going to do it"? "Gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." We need the Holy Spirit to help us with these things.

We're also studying the fruit of the Spirit because these are our values. As a church, we said, "We're not going to create our own set of values. Our values are going to be God's values." The way we say it at Spirit is this: faithfulness is our foundation. Can someone say "foundation"?

I love that so much, because we're saying faithfulness is part of who we are. It's our foundation. You say you're going to be there, you're going to be there. You say Spirit's going to show up, we're going to show up. Even yesterday, we had a bunch of our Dream Team show up, and y'all, we served over 550 people. We gave them gifts. We gave them food. Why? Because we said we were going to do it. And if we say we're going to do it, we're going to do it. Why? We want to be found faithful.

But it's not only my foundation because it's who I am. It's our foundation because Jesus, when He is described in Revelation 19:11, His very name is Faithful. His very name is True. So when I say faithfulness is my foundation, what I'm saying is God is my foundation, because He is faithful. I will not build my house on sand. I'm going to build it on the rock, so that when storms come, when wind comes, and everyone else is falling, I'm going to be standing, because faithfulness is my foundation.

What do you do when God seems silent?

As I was praying about this, I was like, "Okay, how are we going to talk about faithfulness?" Because every time I've heard something on faithfulness, it's "You need to be faithful in the small things." And I love that. I think that's exactly what we need to be doing. We need to be trustworthy. If we say we're going to do it, we need to do it. Faithfulness is developed when no one's looking. That's so valuable.

But as I was praying, I felt like what God really wanted me to speak about today is not only faithfulness in the little things, but faithfulness in the big things. Because I think there are some people in this room who are in a place where you want to give up. God told you to do something, and you've been following Him, and you're in this place where you're like, "God, I just don't see You coming through for me. God, I'm trying to do this whole Jesus thing. I'm trying to be faithful in my marriage. I'm trying to be faithful in my workplace. But no matter what I do, I'm in this place, and Lord, You're not there. This addiction is not going away. I'm trying to do everything, but in this moment I don't feel You. I don't see You. I can't track You." And I feel like God wants to encourage you today.

If you have your Bibles, open up to 1 Kings 18. As I was praying, this is what I felt I was supposed to share with you about faithfulness. While you turn there, let me give you some context. You're about to meet a guy named Elijah. When you meet him, the nation of Israel has been in a drought for three years. Elijah was the one who declared the drought to King Ahab, and now King Ahab wants to kill him. So he's afraid for his life. He's running for his life.

It's funny, because the reason this drought happened was that the Israelites were serving the god Baal, little-g god Baal, the storm god. He was the god they would serve to bring rain, the god they would serve to bring crops. So God is like, "You want to serve that god? Great. I'm going to shut down the sky. Oh, you think he's going to bring rain? Watch this."

That challenges me, because it makes me think, what are some of the areas in my life that God is shutting down because I haven't brought Him into that space? He's shutting it down because He's like, "No, the reason I'm shutting it down is that I'm actually trying to do something. I'm trying to show you, and I need you to surrender that thing to Me. I need you to come back."

So it's in that place that God comes and speaks to Elijah. In 1 Kings 18:1 He makes a promise: "After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah: 'Go and present yourself to Ahab.'" Remember, he's running for his life. He's terrified. And God is like, "No, I know I told you to tell him there's going to be a drought. Now I want you to tell him something else. Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will," say "I will," that's a promise, "send rain on the land."

So Elijah goes and presents himself, and he's like, "Gather 450 of your prophets and 400 of your wife's prophets." They go up to Mount Carmel, they prepare these sacrifices, and they say, "We'll see whose God is God. Let's pray. The God of the universe will answer with fire." Which I think is epic. So these 850 prophets start yelling and screaming and doing the whole thing from morning until evening. And Elijah starts mocking them. Tell me the Bible's not great. Elijah is like, "Where's your god? Maybe he's on the toilet." Literally, go read it. "Maybe he's relieving himself. Maybe he's hard of hearing. Maybe you need to yell louder." Eventually Elijah's like, "Okay, y'all, stop it." And he prays a single prayer. God immediately answers with fire. And then they kill all 850 prophets.

And it's the next verse that got me. Elijah just had his greatest victory. He presented himself to a king who wanted to kill him. Verse 41: "And Elijah said to Ahab, 'Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.'"

Let me tell you something. There was no sound of heavy rain in that moment. Elijah didn't see it. He didn't hear it. But he said it because he believed God is faithful. And if God says there's going to be rain, there's going to be rain. Have any of y'all ever been in a place where God tells you to do something, and you're able to step forward because you know He's faithful? You're like, "I know He's going to do it, because He said it."

But here's what's interesting. He says, "Go, because I hear the sound of rain." And it says, "So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees." In his greatest moment of victory is his greatest moment of vulnerability.

As I was praying for you this week, I just felt like there are so many people who come in here like this, because you followed what God said. He was like, "I want you to be faithful in your marriage. I want you to step out. I want you to go ahead, because I promise I'm going to take care of you. I promise everything's going to be okay." So you go and do the thing. God is going to send rain. And then you look, and what do you see? No rain. "God, I thought my marriage would be fixed by now. God, I thought my job would be different by now. Lord, I thought Your promises would come to pass by now."

Elijah is in this place, vulnerable, and he says to his servant, "Can you go check if there's rain?" So the servant goes, comes back, and says, "There's nothing there." "Can you go check again?" He comes back. No rain. "Check again." No rain. "Check again." And I wonder at what point, when God didn't seem to be coming through, Elijah started to doubt.

I feel like God sent me here today to talk to anyone in that place, where the enemy is trying to convince you to give up. He's trying to convince you to step down. He's trying to convince you not to be faithful. You're in this place, and he's saying, "It's not going to work. You misheard God. God told you to do it, but it's wrong. He's not coming through." And you're saying, "Go check again. Go check again."

I can't tell you how many times in my life God has told me to do something, and I followed, and God said, "I'm going to do this," and I'm like, "Great, it's going to happen this way." And it doesn't happen that way, and my head is between my knees, and I'm saying, "Can you go check if He's going to come through for me? Because I don't see it. I can't feel it."

I remember when I first came to America. God told me, "Go to America. You're going to do ministry there." I was like 19. I'm like, "Here we go. This is awesome." I sold everything and moved with two suitcases. That's all I had. I did an apprenticeship program at a ministry. And at the end of that program, I had to update my license plate. So I went to the DMV, which is awful. I'm already having a bad day. And they were like, "Hey, the license plate's going to be $46." And I remember saying, "Thank you. Thank you so much." And I walked outside, got into my car, checked my bank account: $12. And I remember crying, because I was like, "God, I thought You said... God, when You promised, I thought I was just stepping into it. Why has it not happened? Why does it not look the way it was supposed to look? Why is it not coming through the way I think You need to come through?" I was like, "God, I just needed to know if You would catch me. And in this moment, it feels like You're not."

I feel like there are people here, and the enemy is trying to convince you to lay down your faithfulness. And if anything, I just pray that God is going to come today and give you the strength to stand.

What is faithfulness in the Bible?

Can we talk about it? What is faithfulness? Let me quickly give you a definition, because you have to understand that throughout the Bible, faithfulness is always tested. Look at Moses. "You're going to deliver the Israelites." What comes right after that? A test. Look at David. "You're going to become king." What happens right after that? Surprise, surprise: a test. Gideon. What's going to happen? You're going to be tested. Every single time. Noah: tested. Joseph: tested. Paul: tested. Jesus: tested. Every single time.

Here's the definition of faithfulness: assurance, reliability, dependability, steadfast commitment. And I love this one: that which can be believed. Which means this: if God said it, and He is your foundation, it doesn't matter what it looks like. If God said it and you stand on His Word, you can believe it. If He said it, He will always come through. Why? It's who He is.

Let me show it to you. 2 Timothy 2:13: "If we are unfaithful..." I love that the Bible starts with my weakness, because y'all know we try to be faithful, and the second we try, we fail. But I love this. It's not dependent on my faithfulness, because it says, "If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is." So we ignore God, and He's like, "I'm still here." We're medicating, and He's like, "It's okay. I'm right here." We run away from Him, and then we turn around, and He's right there. Why? He was always with you. It's who He is.

The Bible keeps saying it. Psalm 145:13: "The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does." Joshua 21:45: "Not one of all the Lord's good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled." If He says it, you can believe it.

The challenge for us is that God doesn't do things in straight lines. Oh, I wish He did. But He doesn't. He says things, and I'm like, "Great, I know what You said. I'm just going to step into it." And it's like, "Nope, we're going to do the squiggly thing." "Plant a church." Great, that's going to happen. "No, you're going to be deported." What? "God, I signed up for that. I didn't sign up for this. God, I signed up for my marriage to look like that, and now I have to walk through this. God, I followed You because You said that, and now it looks like this."

Every time in the Bible, you find people whose faith was tested, and they were full of faith. They were faithful. Hebrews 11 is the great hall of faith. I love it. This just fired me up as I read it today. "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith," say "by faith," "we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

You have faith. Why? Because you're in this room today. You believe God created all of this. Did you see Him create it? No. So what is that? Faith. You have confidence in something you did not see.

And it continues. "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark." "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." By faith Sarah was promised a baby, and she was old. Like, old old. "This ain't going to happen." But by faith she believed that God would be faithful, and if He says it, He's going to do it. "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice." And it continues: by faith Jacob, by faith Joseph, by faith Moses.

And then it says, "I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength." Don't you want that to be said of you? Weakness turned to strength. "And who became powerful in battle." They were faithful.

It says they faced flogging and chains and imprisonment. "They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised," talking about Jesus, whom we have.

And then it says, "Therefore," somebody say "therefore," "since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses," since we're surrounded by people who were so faithful, "let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners," in other words, think about Him who was faithful through opposition, and here's why, "so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

You want to quit? Just think about Jesus, who persevered through it all, and as a result we have life. Think about the great people in Hebrews 11 who persevered, and because of that, we are here. We get to experience the gospel. Why? Because people were faithful.

I wonder who God wants to help who is on the other side of your faithfulness. If one of those people had failed, if one of them hadn't been faithful, we wouldn't be here. Who is God trying to help? He's saying, "I just need you to stick it out. I need you not to give up. I need you not to turn around. I need you not to quit." There's something He wants to do in your life.

How does the enemy try to steal your faithfulness?

You have to understand that more than anything, what the enemy wants to do is destroy your faithfulness. If there's one thing he can take from you, it's your faithfulness. You're like, "He's trying to take my joy." Yeah, he's trying to take your joy, because joy is your strength, and if you lose your strength, you can come to a place where you won't be faithful. "He's going to destroy my peace." Why? Because then you can start doubting God, and in that moment you can become unfaithful. Everything in him is aimed at one thing, and it's your faithfulness.

And I just need to tell someone today: don't give up. Remain faithful. God wants to do something in your life. Yes, remain faithful in the small things. That's great. Yes, remain trustworthy in the small things. But remain faithful to your calling. Remain faithful to the thing you said yes to.

With the time left, I want to show you three ways the enemy tries to steal your faithfulness, the tactics he uses to convince you to give up, because if he can rob you of this, he can rob you of everything. And I want to show you how you can overcome it. What's crazy about the enemy's tactics is that they're always the same. You see them all throughout Scripture. He does the same thing over and over again.

I think the best place you see it is Matthew 4. In Matthew 3, Jesus gets baptized, and God says, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." By the way, if you've never been baptized: first Sunday of every month. December. Congratulations, you're getting baptized. No, I'm serious. We need to follow Jesus in everything. Whether it's one person or 10 people, it doesn't matter. We're going to do it because God said it.

Jesus gets baptized, and immediately He's led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, where He fasts for 40 days. At the end of that, Satan comes and starts trying to test His faithfulness. He tries to get Him to give up. And you see the tactics so clearly.

1. Distraction

One of the first things the enemy is going to try to do is distract you. He'll try to get you to think about something else. He'll get you to a place where you're like, "Do you remember when it wasn't this hard?" "Man, your marriage is kind of... Do you remember? Maybe you should just try something else." He'll try to distract you. "Do you remember when it was easier? Look over there. That's better. Check it out."

He comes up to Jesus. Matthew 4:3: "The tempter came to him and said, 'If you are the Son of God,'" casting doubt, "'tell these stones to become bread.'" He tried to take His focus off the Father and onto what? Bread.

Let me say it this way: the enemy knows your bait. What did he tempt Jesus with? Bread. After fasting for 40 days, what did Jesus need? Bread. He didn't offer Him a condo. He didn't offer Him money. He didn't offer Him fame. He offered Him bread.

So right now you're struggling with your faithfulness in your marriage. You're like, "Man, I just feel like my wife doesn't hear me." And all of a sudden, at the office, another woman hears you. It's a trap. "God, I'm going to work on my anger." That very day, the whole of I-10 is like, "It's my mission to take you out." "I'm going to work on my sobriety." All of a sudden you're in that group of friends. The enemy knows your bait. And what's he trying to do? Distract you. Because if he can distract you, he'll destroy you.

And I love Jesus, because Jesus doesn't take the shortcut, which is what Abraham did with Hagar. He was like, "I'm just going to do this myself." Jesus doesn't do that. "Jesus answered, 'It is written,'" say "it is written," "'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" That is faithful. "I'm not going to let my needs sustain me. I'm going to let God's promises sustain me."

2. Distortion

If he can't distract you, he'll try to distort the truth. Distortion is always the way he redefines what God has already made clear. "Are you sure that's what the Bible says? Are you sure that's the way it works?"

Verse 5: "Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 'If you are the Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down. For it is written...'" Y'all, Satan knows the Bible. He's like, "Oh, You're going to quote Scripture at me? Great. I'm going to quote Scripture back. It is written."

The challenge is that sometimes the enemy knows the Bible better than we do. So when he distorts the truth, we don't even recognize what's happening. We're like, "Yep, that's what it says. I guess that's the case."

But Jesus sees it. Satan says, "It is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" He takes the scripture out of context. We see it all the way back in Genesis: "Did God really say?" to Adam and Eve. "Hey, Elijah, did God really say He's going to bring rain? Because you look dumb right now." "Abraham, did God really say...?" "Did He really say to be generous? You have bills and a bunch of things going on." "Did He really say to stay pure? No one else is doing it, so why are you?"

"Jesus answered him, 'It is also written: "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."'" Jesus responded with, "It is written." And so often we're unable to do the same, because we don't know what is written. We have to get into our Bibles.

We talk about the First 15 all the time: five minutes in worship, five minutes in the Word, five minutes in prayer. Someone texted me this week and said, "I'm doing the First 15." I'm like, "Great." And they're like, "Everything is changing," because they're making God's Word a priority again. Can you do more than that? Sure. But start there. He's going to try to distort the truth. We have to know the truth so we can live the truth, because it will change everything in our lives.

3. Destruction

If he can't distract you, if he can't distort the truth, then he's going to try to destroy you. Verse 8: "Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 'All this I will give you,' he said, 'if you will bow down and worship me.'" Just compromise your worship this once, and all of it is Yours.

He was offering Him the crown without the cross. A kingdom without obedience. The result without faithfulness. And let me just say, whenever the enemy offers us something, it will always be a counterfeit. It's going to feel like the thing you want. "Jesus, don't You want a kingdom? I'm going to give You a kingdom." It's always a counterfeit. Whenever we sell out our faithfulness and run off to something else, it will never work.

"Jesus said to him, 'Away from me, Satan!'" Somebody else needs to say that. "'Away from me, Satan! For it is written: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only."'" If we compromise our worship, it will destroy our calling.

How do you stay faithful to God?

So the enemy is always going to try to distract, distort, and destroy. What do we do?

1. Remember God's faithfulness

One of the biggest things we can do as Christians is remember. Just remember. What was the sin the Israelites committed over and over? They forgot. God would be faithful, and they would forget, and then pain would come back, and then they would repent and remember, and everything was great, and then they would forget again, and the pain would come again. The cycle is exhausting.

But can we come to a place where we say, "Man, God, I remember Your faithfulness"? Because you weren't supposed to be here right now. That accident should have killed you. But you're here. Why? Because God has a plan He's still bringing forth. But so often we get to a place where we forget.

We have to remember His character. He's never failed you. We have to remember His past provision. If He carried you then, He can carry you now. We have to remember His promises. They don't expire when your circumstances change. We have to remember the moments He came through, because when you didn't see a way, He made a way.

I love this in the Bible. In 1 Samuel 7:12, God gives them victory, and it says, "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, 'Thus far the Lord has helped us.'" He built a memorial called Ebenezer. Some of you need to build some altars, so that when you're walking and the enemy tempts you to be unfaithful, you can come back that way and remember the faithfulness of God in your past, and know that if He's been faithful, He can be faithful again. If He did it then, He can do it now. If He healed their marriage, He can heal mine. We have to remember God's faithfulness.

One of the ways I do it is a journal. Confession: I have a "God did" journal. One column is everything God has said. The second column is the time He came through. So when I'm doubting something He said, I have a history of all the times He spoke and was faithful to His promise. I will not forget. I'm not going to be someone who forgets. I'm going to remember.

I'm going to be like David. 1 Samuel 30:6 says, "David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him." That's a bad day. "But David found strength in the Lord his God." Another translation says he encouraged himself in the Lord. How are you encouraging yourself? Are you at a place where you're able to look back and just be thankful for His past faithfulness? He can do it again.

2. Remove the lies

The second thing you have to do is remove the lies. Every failure of faithfulness in Scripture began with a lie. Adam and Eve: "Did God really say?" Israel: "We can't take this land." Elijah: "I'm the only one left." Peter: "I don't even know Him." If the enemy can't destroy your calling, he's going to distort your thinking. We have to come to a place where we remove the lies.

As I was praying, I felt like there are some lies some of you have been believing, lies God never said. One of them is this: "God is done with me." You think you're too far gone. But the Bible says in Philippians 1:6, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion." Not might. Will.

Number two, a lie: "It shouldn't be this hard." Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble." Not might. Will. "But take heart! I have overcome the world." This wasn't supposed to be easy. Your calling is not supposed to be easy. But on the other side of it is beauty. God is trying to do something in your life.

Another lie is this: "If I don't see progress, it means nothing is happening." And the truth is this: God does His best work underground. A seed grows under the ground before you ever see it. A foundation is set before the walls ever go up. Clouds form before rain comes. I don't know what you're waiting on. I don't know where you're struggling with your faithfulness. But you need to replace that lie with the truth. You've got to rehearse the truth. And you've got to refuse to partner with the lie anymore.

That's not what God says. He speaks a better word. The enemy says, "You don't have the strength." Yeah, but my God says, "Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world." So back off. Away from me, Satan, because that's a lie. "It's too late for you." Nope. God says He makes all things new. "This won't change." Nope. Nothing is impossible with God. Sometimes we just have to stop partnering with the lies of the enemy. We've got to remember. We've got to remove the lies.

3. Re-up your yes

And the last thing, and I think some of you need to come to this place: we just have to re-up. Because you made that commitment. You said, "God, I'm going to do it." And yeah, you didn't know it was going to be as hard as it is. I don't know where you're struggling to be faithful, but there was a time when you said, "God, I surrender. I give it to You." And now you're battling that thing. How about we just re-up?

The first time Paige and I came to Phoenix, we went to Papago Park. I love that place. I remember standing at Governor Hunt's tomb, which is a weird place to be. And it just started raining out of nowhere. It wasn't supposed to rain. Everyone said to us, "I think you guys brought the rain." And I remember seeing a rainbow, and that rainbow ended in Chandler. And I remember God spoke to us and said, "It's Chandler."

And yo, we moved out here with a two-week-old. What were we doing? We moved out here with a two-week-old and didn't know a soul. And it was hard. There were times I was like, "Man, did I make a mistake? I really felt like I heard God." And I had to go back to Papago Park and say, "God, my yes is still on the table. God, this is hard, but my yes is still on the table. It may not be as easy as I thought, but my yes is on the table."

You're committed to your marriage? Sometimes you just need to go back to where you made that commitment and say, "God, my yes is on the table." When you stepped out and did that thing, whatever it is, you're saying, "God, my yes is on the table." For some of you, it's going to be this moment right now, as you say yes to God. "My yes is on the table. I'm re-upping. I'm recommitting. I will be faithful. And when no one else is faithful, I will stand. When no one else believes, I will. When no one else sees it, I'll see it."

Go check again. Go check again. Go check again. Because if He said it, it's going to happen. "There's no rain." Great. Go check again. And then the servant says, "A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea." And Elijah says, "Run. The rain is coming."

Pressed into light

Jesus was tested in His faithfulness not only by the devil in the wilderness, but also in the Garden of Gethsemane right before He was crucified. The Garden of Gethsemane was the easiest way to escape from Jerusalem. Jesus could have kept going, and He would never have been crucified. And Gethsemane is an olive grove. Remember, we went there a couple of years ago. It's crazy, because the root system that existed in Jesus' time is still the root system that exists today. The trees that shaded Jesus are the trees that can shade you.

You need to understand a few things about olives, because it's so significant that this happened there. Olives have to endure. For an olive to grow in that area, it needs the refreshing wind from the Mediterranean and the storms and winds from the desert. What does that mean? In life, you're going to have hard times and you're going to have good times. The good times are your refreshing. If you're here and you're like, "My life is great," awesome. Soak it in, because there are also going to be times of perseverance and endurance. And both are beautiful.

The olive has to endure. And then it has to be prepared. It's plucked. It's salted. It's soaked. It's salted again. It's soaked again. And then it's pressed. The place of the pressing. And when it's pressed, its most valuable form comes out: oil, which they would use for light.

And our Savior, in that olive grove, decided to be faithful when He could have run. He endured, and He was pressed. He was crushed. And He was transformed into the most beautiful light. And now we have the ability to do the same thing. The pressing in your life, the area where the enemy is trying to make you doubt and be unfaithful, God is pressing you through it so you can be transformed into your most valuable form: light. You're more effective in your ministry and more effective in your witness when you've gone through hard things.

So I don't know what's pressing you. I don't know where the enemy is trying to get you to give up on your faithfulness. But can you just re-up today as we pray for the fruit of the Spirit? Can you come to a place where you say, "God, today's my day. I said yes, and I'm saying it again, because I know You can do something powerful. You can do something faithful"? He's still faithful. He's still God. And if He said it, He's going to do it.

Can I pray for you? Father, I want to thank You for today. Lord, I want to thank You for every single person here. God, I want to thank You that You are so faithful. Great is Your faithfulness. What a God You are, Lord. I don't know where everyone's struggling. I don't know where the enemy is trying to tempt them, where he's trying to distract them, where he's trying to distort the truth, where he's trying to destroy them. But God, I pray that in this moment You will help us remember, that You'll help us remove the lies, and God, that You'll help us re-up and say, "I'm recommitting. I will be faithful when no one else will be faithful. I will have this fruit of the Spirit, because, Holy Spirit, You're working it in me." Lord, may You minister. May You do what only You can do.

With your heads bowed and eyes closed: there may be some people here today who have never taken the step of giving your life to Jesus. Jesus, who was in that olive grove, who decided to be crucified, who remained faithful because He thought of you. The Bible says that if you believe in your heart that Jesus was real, that He was killed and raised from the dead, and you confess it, you will be saved. If you don't have a relationship with Jesus, today's your day. Today's your moment.

I want you to just whisper this prayer with me. The prayer doesn't save you. Jesus does. But we're going to confess. Just whisper and say: "Dear Jesus, I believe that You're the Son of God. I believe that You're the Savior of the world. I believe You came to this earth and You died on a cross for me. And Lord, right now I make You my Savior. I make You my Lord. Change me from the inside out. Help me to be faithful. We love You. We praise You. In Jesus' name. Amen."