If you have your Bibles and your notebooks today, go ahead and take them out. We are in week four of a series called Life by the Spirit. Say "life." Life by the Spirit. What we're learning is that there is a life God has called us to live, an abundant life. And that life is marked by the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. That is the life God wants us to live.

What we're learning in this series is that the fruit we produce in our lives is actually proof of our relationship with God. It's not enough just to say, "I'm a Christian." We would have to say that a whole lot less if we actually showed that we are Christians. That's the entire idea: the proof of our relationship with God is the fruit we produce in our lives.

And I think so often, where we as Christians mess it up is that we think it's outside in. We think we just need to work on the fruit, and try, and use willpower, and if we try hard enough, eventually we're going to change. But what the Bible teaches is that it's never outside in. It's always inside out. If you really want to make a change in your life, it's not going to come from willpower and trying harder. It's going to come through a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

That's what Jesus teaches us. In Matthew 23:25 He's talking to the Pharisees, and Jesus is brutal sometimes. He says, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean." What is He saying? He's saying, "Allow the Holy Spirit to change you. Abide in Me." If we abide in Jesus, if we abide in the vine, the Bible promises that we will bear much fruit. So if we're not bearing fruit, the question becomes, how is your abiding?

So we're learning in this series that as we are led by the Holy Spirit, He's the one who produces fruit in us. Sometimes we come up with all kinds of excuses: "I'm just not loving. I just don't love people that much." Well, it's a good thing we don't have to identify with our sin. We identify with who? Jesus. Because as long as we're identifying with our sin, we'll never be set free from the things we're struggling with. "Brad, I'm just not that joyful." Well, it's a good thing joy is not a feeling. It's a choice. It's something you put on. So we can't just say, "No, I'm not going to bear this fruit." If we are following Jesus, that's exactly what needs to happen in our lives.

So we've been learning about the fruit of the Spirit. Our values here at Spirit are the fruit of the Spirit. We learned about love, and the way we say it here is that love is our motivation. We learned about joy, and the way we say it here is that joy is our strength. You're going to need strength in this life so the fruit can be produced in you, and for that to happen you're going to need joy. Last week we learned about peace. The way we say it here is that peace is a posture. Did anyone have a better posture of peace this week?

Patience is a practice

And today, y'all came to church. This was the week everyone was like, "I'm going to skip that week." If there was ever a week to skip, it was this one, and y'all are here. So give yourselves a hand. Because this week we're talking about that word so many of us love: patience. The way we say it here is that patience is our practice.

How many of you know patience is a practice? You don't just get patience. You have to go get patience. Patience doesn't just happen. Patience comes through a beautiful process every single one of us loves, and that process is called waiting. Anyone love to wait in the building? Oh yeah. Not a single one of us loves to wait.

Our theme verse, Galatians 5:22, says the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience. Isn't patience hard? Isn't patience awkward? Isn't waiting awkward? I don't know about y'all, but waiting is so awkward. How many of you love to wait? Yeah, none of us. Not a single one of us loves to wait.

I don't like to wait. There's nothing about me that likes to wait. I don't like to wait in lines. I don't like to wait at Starbucks. Mobile order is the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't like to wait in traffic. I mean, Phoenix traffic. My gosh. The I-10. It's like at 5:00 all of a sudden the Holy Spirit's like, "I'm out," and everyone just goes crazy. People are honking horns, showing hand signals, saying life-giving things like, "You should come to church with me." That's not what they say. They say all kinds of things, right? And then all of a sudden at 6:30 the Holy Spirit comes back and He's like, "Peace, be still," and everything's fine. We hate waiting.

I don't understand traffic. I'm from South Africa. In South Africa we ride elephants everywhere. That's not true. Guys, we have cars, okay? I see y'all hitting each other: "Oh my gosh, I thought they had elephants." No.

What are you waiting on?

But I really believe this today. As I was praying about patience, I really believe God sent me on assignment to talk to anyone in this room who is waiting. I don't know what you're waiting on. For some of you, God has spoken things into you. He has given you dreams. He has given you desires. He has given you promises. And you're in this place wondering, "Will I ever do the thing God called me to do?" Some of you are even trying to step out and do that thing, and every time you do, the enemy says, "Be quiet. Sit down. You will never do anything great for God." And we're in this place, and we're just waiting.

Some of us are waiting for our marriages to be restored. Maybe we still love each other, but we're like, "I just don't know if we like each other anymore." Divorce is getting thrown around, and we're like, "God, will You ever restore this relationship?" Maybe it's not that for you. Maybe it's something at work. Maybe it's anxiety: "God, will this anxiety ever leave me? Will my confidence ever come back? Will my kids ever come home? Will my kids ever return to You?"

Some of you are like, "Brad, I'm single. That's what I'm waiting on. February 14th is coming. Am I going to have to watch The Notebook by myself yet again?" Some of us are waiting on a relationship. Some are in a relationship waiting to get engaged. Some are engaged waiting to get married. And some are married waiting on a kid. Here's what I know: I don't know what you're waiting on, but give me enough time and I'll hit every single person in this room. Because the one thing I've realized in my life is this: we're all waiting on something. Every single one of us is waiting on something.

And my question today is this: if we're going to wait, what do we do in the wait? What do we do if we're waiting on God? David experienced this. In Psalm 13:1 he says, "How long, Lord?" And I think so many of us feel that. "How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?" Do You even see me? "How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?"

So many of us feel that, and we're like, "Man, waiting can be so hard." Not only is it hard, it's awkward. Waiting is awkward. Puberty awkward. The whole thing about it is just awkward. Even when we were silent at the start, people were shaking in their chairs.

So what happens is we start moving out of position when we're waiting. Has God ever just told you, "Hey, I need you to be here. Stay here. Stay faithful. This is where I need you to be"? And we're like, "Yes, Jesus," and we start sliding. It's like when I was growing up and my mom said, "Brad, wait." "Yes, ma'am." And that's exactly what we do with God. God's like, "Hey, I'm going to promise this to you. There's this desire, this dream. I'm going to give you this dream. I just need you to wait for it." And we're like, "God, I'm going to come over here." He's like, "No, no, no. Don't touch it." "Jesus, it's fine. It's me. I know what I'm doing." "No, no, no. Don't touch it." "It's going to be fine." "Don't do that."

And you're like, "God, why? Why do I have to wait? I thought You said we'd be there by now. I thought the dream would have happened by now. I thought my healing would be here by now. God, why do I have to wait? No one else has to wait."

Did Jesus have to wait?

Jesus did. And if Jesus had to wait, so do you. Pop quiz: was Jesus any less God at five? No. Ten? No. Fifteen? No. Twenty? No. Twenty-five? No. Thirty? No. He waited 30 years for three years of ministry, for three hours of glory. And if Jesus had a wait, so do we. Luke 2:52 says, "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." Jesus had a wait, and so do we.

James 1 talks about this. It says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Could it be that the waiting season you're in right now is actually a preparation season, producing in you the fruit of perseverance so that we can stand before God mature and complete?

Waiting isn't punishment. It's preparation.

The problem, though, is that we all have a negative connotation with waiting, because our entire lives, waiting was never good. "Oh, you want to drive? You have to wait until you're 16." "Oh, you want dessert? You have to wait." If you were in trouble, did anyone's parents say this? "You wait until your dad gets home," or "You wait until your mom gets home." It has a negative connotation. And the challenge is that whenever we start talking about patience, everyone kind of tenses up, because we don't have a great experience with it.

My prayer today is that I can actually flip your perspective on patience, so that you'll see it not as punishment but as preparation. That you can come to a place where you're not saying, "Oh no, God, please don't bring patience into my life. Please don't make me wait." Instead you can say, "No, God, make me wait, because I know that in the waiting You are preparing me for something greater."

And if you don't believe that, just look at your Bible. Who are all the people in the Bible who had to wait? Abraham, the father of faith. God comes to him and says, "You will have a son," the thing he desired more than anything. And do you know how long it took? Twenty-five years of waiting. He even tried to take matters into his own hands and produced Ishmael. Why? Because he was unwilling to wait. What season in our lives are we about to fail because, like Abraham, we're unwilling to wait? Twenty-five years he waited.

And not only did Abraham have to wait as God was developing faith in him, Moses had to wait. Check this out in the Bible. Moses knew that at some point God was going to use him to free the Israelites from slavery. Acts 7:23 says this: "When Moses was forty," say "forty," "years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not." Moses tried to take it into his own hands, and then he had to run, and he was in the wilderness by himself for 40 years. Say "forty."

So at 40 he tries to do this thing himself, and then he runs away for 40 years. Then God speaks to him through the burning bush and says, "Go free My people." Now he frees these people, and what was supposed to take about 14 days to get to the Promised Land ends up taking how long? Forty years. Moses was in the wilderness by himself for 40 years. That wasn't punishment. That was preparation. Because now, when he's leading the Israelites, he has learned what it is to be prepared in that season and to have full dependence on God. You see it? Waiting isn't punishment. It's preparation.

Joseph. God tells him as a kid, "The nations will bow to you." And he does something silly. He goes and tells his brothers. Here's the thing: I'm a younger brother. Don't do that. It doesn't work. He goes and tells his brothers, "Hey, by the way, y'all are going to bow to me at some point," and they throw him in a pit. So God gives him a dream, and then he goes from a pit, to being sold into slavery, to Potiphar's house, to prison. Pit, slavery, prison, pain. "God, why did You speak to me? I thought You said this was going to happen. Why am I in this place?"

But 13 years later we see the fulfillment. In Genesis 50:20 he's talking to his brothers when they come and beg him for food, and he is now the prime minister of all of Egypt. He says this: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."

Patience is not a curse. It is a gift. Patience is not a setback. It is a setup. Patience is not punishment. It is preparation.

Why is patience so important?

And not only is it all those things, it's critical. Say "critical." Patience is critical. What I love about the fruit of the Spirit, and I'm seeing it for the first time, is that all the fruits are actually interconnected. We all want love. But in order to have love, we need joy. Why? Because joy is our strength, so we're going to need joy for all the other fruit. And when the Bible defines love in 1 Corinthians 13, it says love is what? Patient. So here we have love. Here we have joy, which we need for everything else. And here we have patience, which is how the Bible defines love.

And here's the thing about patience: patience is the fruit you need for all the other fruit. Because how does God develop fruit in us? Through a process. And what does a process take? Oh boy. A process takes one thing: patience. So if we can unlock patience, we can start waiting effectively for everything else God is trying to do in our lives.

But we don't like it. We love love. We love joy. "I've got the joy, joy, joy." Peace: "Oh, give me some peace." Patience: "Uh-uh. I don't want any patience." None of it. And it's because culture actually teaches us not to be patient. How many of you have an Amazon Prime account? Best thing that ever happened to me. Why do I need to go shopping when I can have it delivered to my door today? Netflix. Kids these days don't know how good they have it. We had to wait until Sunday night at 7:00 p.m. We'd miss the intro because we forgot about our favorite show. Now it's just, "All eight seasons."

What's happening is that culture is actually working patience out of us, and patience is one of the main things we need in order to develop Christlike character. We need patience more than anything, but we live in a world that is the antithesis of patience. We don't want to do it. Why do I need to save up to buy something I can't afford, when I can put it on my credit card and buy something I can't afford right now?

What does patience mean in the Bible?

So what is patience? Let me define it real quick, and then I want to teach you how to have it. When we read it in Galatians, it says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and patience. The word there is makrothumia. Try to say that. Say makrothumia. That's the Greek word for patience. It's also translated forbearance, or long-suffering. It comes from two root words: makros, which means long, and thumos, which means anger or passion. So it literally means long-tempered, the opposite of short-tempered. And there are two definitions for it.

The first one is this: being able to bear it when someone provokes you. You ever had someone provoke you, and everything inside of you wants to give them the hand slap of the Holy Spirit? We try to spiritualize it: "Bless you, brother." That's what we want to do when someone provokes us. But patience is actually long-suffering. It means, "I am going to wait. I'm going to be patient with you. I'm going to delay judgment. Even when I'm provoked, I can wait."

And the challenge is that so often we don't want to do it, because we see patience as weakness. Patience is not weakness. It is restrained strength. Don't mistake my lack of anger for weakness. No, no, no. It's actually strength. When someone provokes you and you don't fight back, you are not weak. In that moment you are so strong. That's what patience is.

The second definition is this: the state of remaining tranquil while awaiting an outcome. In other words, it's remaining peaceful while waiting. Which is why we need peace. A lot of us aren't being patient. We're just complaining. When we wait without peace, that is not patience. Patience is when I can wait on God, filled with peace, because I'm trusting that He's doing something on my behalf.

Why does God make us wait?

So here's what I want to talk about today. I didn't want to speak on patience. I was like, "God, no." Because every time you preach on something, God makes you walk it out, and I just don't want to walk out patience. It's the hardest thing. And the reason it's so hard for me is that it's the fruit God has made me walk through more than any other.

A lot of you may know our story. When I was 18, I knew God told me that one day we would plant this church. I'm 33 now. We've been waiting for 15 years. I thought I'd be married at 21. I got married at 25. And then I was like, "Great, now we're going to do ministry. We're going to plant this church." We got married, went on our honeymoon, came back, and I got deported. Someone's like, "What?" Coming back from our honeymoon, they took me into a room and asked, "Who is this?" And I'm like, "It's my wife." And they said, "There are some complications with your visa. We're going to send you back. It's going to take two weeks." It took two years that we were separated. Waiting. "God, I thought You said—" Wait.

Eventually God came through, two years later, and then we were like, "Okay, let's start a family. Let's get ourselves back together." We got pregnant, miscarried, and then went through three years of unexplained infertility. Waiting. Waiting. Time and time again, God has put us through seasons of waiting.

I don't know about y'all, but sometimes I get to this place where I'm like, "God, why did You even give me this dream, only to make me wait?" Anyone else feel that way? "Why did You promise something to Abraham only to make him wait 25 years? Why couldn't You wait 25 years, and then tell me and make it happen at the same time? Why do You give us dreams we can't walk into? Why do You speak about healing when I'm not healed? That's not fair. Why do You always make me wait? Why me?"

There are a couple of things I want you to understand about why God makes us wait, and then I want to help you have patience.

1. The promise anchors you in the process

The first thing we need to understand is that the promise actually anchors you in the process. When God gives you a promise, when He gives you a dream and then makes you wait for it, it anchors you while He's working things out within you. Think of Joseph. If God hadn't given him a promise, he would have quit in the pit. And some of you are in the pit of life right now, and you can't see the thing God has called you to do. You're like, "God promised me this thing, but I'm not walking in it." Could it be that the promise is anchoring you while God is trying to work things out within you? It anchors us in the process.

Abraham too. If he didn't have the promise of the Promised Land, he would have settled in Haran. He wouldn't have gone where God called him to be. Psalm 119:49–50 talks about the promises of His Word: "Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life." God will promise us things. He will speak to us about things. He's going to give us dreams and passions. And so often, that promise is going to anchor us while we wait for the thing to be worked out within us.

2. Waiting tests and strengthens your faith

The second thing we have to understand is that waiting tests and strengthens our faith. Isaiah 40:31 says this: "But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." God doesn't test our faith to weaken it. He tests our faith to strengthen it.

Romans 4:20, talking about Abraham, says this: "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith." Waiting allows strength to come within us. "And gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." Without delay there is no development. Without tension there is no transformation. I've found so often in my life that God shows us the destination and then uses the journey to shape us. Waiting actually strengthens us.

3. Waiting exposes what's in your heart

The third thing is that the promise exposes what's in our hearts. When God promises you something, you come to a place where you have to decide: do you love the gift more than the Giver? Do you love the promise more than you love Him? Sometimes God delays fulfillment not to deny us, but to detox our hearts from pride, hurry, and self-reliance.

I remember when I was going through that waiting season, I had a mentor say this to me: "Brad, pride is a dagger pointed at your own heart, and when the enemy is ready, he will push you into it." And she said, "I need you to blunt the dagger." That can only happen through process. That can only happen through waiting.

It'll test your identity. "One day God's calling me to do this thing. I'm going to be this thing." Yeah, but when you're waiting ten years and you don't get to step into what God has called you to, who are you then, man? It'll test your gratitude. It is so hard to be grateful while you're waiting. Some of us are like the Israelites, going through this entire 40-year journey, and it's actually getting delayed because of our complaining.

But then we have someone like David, waiting on the thing God called him to do. God says, "You're going to be king," but he doesn't get to step into it. And he writes things like this: "The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil." David doesn't complain. He praises.

It'll test your identity. It'll test your gratitude. And it will test your character when you're waiting on that thing and someone else gets put in that position. Have you ever had to serve someone else who is stepping into the thing you thought you should step into? You want some character development? That is what's going to do it.

4. Waiting builds partnership with God

But here's the beautiful thing about waiting: it actually builds partnership. The promise is always going to build partnership with God. I think of Paul, when God says, "You're going to go to Rome. I have a dream for you." And he starts going, and he gets shipwrecked, thrown in prison. Everything goes wrong. But he's able to encourage himself in the Lord: "No, no, no. God has spoken about the things He has for me." It builds partnership with God.

How do you wait on God with patience?

So here's the question for the last couple of minutes: how do we wait? How do we have patience? If patience is the fruit that leads to the other fruit, if patience is what we need, how do we build it in us? Okay, y'all ready to learn how to have patience? Who wants to have patience? Yeah, we want to have patience. If you have your notepad, take it out. We're going to write out how you're going to get patience. I'm going to give it to you. It's so easy. Other fruit, hard. Patience, easy. I've got the cheat code. Watch me go.

1. Wait

Point one. How do we develop patience? We've got to wait. So easy. All you've got to do is wait. But we hate waiting. Yet in order to develop patience, waiting is the way. Why? Because patience always requires a process. Say "process." If you pray for patience, "God, give me patience," what God is going to give you is a process. Because everything God does, He does in process. It is the pattern of God.

Take a look at Abraham. There's a promise, and then there's a what? Process. Take a look at Jonah. There's a promise, and then there's a process. Joseph: promise, process. Noah: promise, process. Moses: promise, process. God is always going to give you a process. Process, or "pro-cess." I don't know how we say it here. It's one of them. Praise God.

One of my favorite channels is HGTV. I love everything on that channel. Extreme home makeovers. Y'all love it. And I was trying to figure out why I love it so much. Why do I love watching these homes be transformed? I realized that I really love watching things go from really, really bad to really, really good really, really quick. What I'm saying is, I like seeing the result while avoiding the process. But then I get so confused when my marriage doesn't work that way. I get so confused when my life doesn't work that way.

So often we're trying to skip the process. But when you skip the process, you forfeit the promise. Every time in the Bible someone tries to skip the process, they forfeit the promise. God will always do things in process. How is a baby formed? Process. How does a tree grow? Process. In all things, God is trying to give us a process.

How many of you have a 16-year-old son? Someone older than 16? Okay, great. Yes, hand over there. What's your son's name? Talon. Amazing. Imagine I said, "Welcome to Spirit Church. We're so thankful you're here today. We're giving Talon a car." You'd be like, "Wow, I love Spirit Church. This is amazing. What a great gift."

Anyone have a kid under five? Yes. What's your kid's name? Felix. Okay. Imagine the same thing. "Congratulations. Welcome to Spirit Church. We are giving your under-five-year-old, Felix, a brand new car and putting him on the I-10 when the Holy Spirit's like, 'I'm out,' and people are saying all the things and doing all the things." Y'all would be like, "I don't like this church. This is a bad church."

Here's the challenge: it's the same gift. So what does God understand that I don't? He knows that a gift given too soon is no longer a gift. It is in fact a curse. And sometimes God is waiting to give you the thing because He's trying to prepare perseverance and strength in you. Every story in the Bible, that's what we see. So if that's the case, can't we get to a place where we say, "If I'm waiting, He must be working"? Instead of hating patience, instead of waiting and worrying, we can say, "I receive it, and I want it." You see how that flips your perspective? We have to wait. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Wait."

2. Trust

The second thing we have to do is trust. I think so often, when we're not actually willing to wait, it's because deep down in our hearts we don't trust God. We think, "If I gave God control over this issue, He's not going to come through." So everything inside of us is trying to keep it in place. But we have to be able to trust Him in everything. Romans 8:28 says this: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

If we doubt the goodness of God, we will struggle with waiting. But if I know He is good and He has my best interest at heart, I can trust Him even when I can't track Him. I can trust His heart even when I can't see His hand. And if we don't trust, we need to say, "Father, forgive me. Lord, show me Your goodness." We have to think back on how He's been good to us before and realize that if He was good then, He can be good now. We have to wait. We have to trust.

3. Work

And the third one is that we have to work. Sometimes we think waiting is passive. Waiting is not passive. Waiting is proactive. I've seen it with people looking for jobs. They're like, "Ah, I'm just praying God's going to give me a job one day." And I'm like, "What did you do?" "I'm watching Netflix." Netflix is not going to produce a job. Let me just say that. I've got a prediction: it's not going to produce a job. When you don't have a job, you have a job. Your job is what? Finding a job.

Sometimes we over-spiritualize things: "I'm just going to wait. One day God's going to bring my Prince Charming." No, no, no. We don't just wait. We work. So here's my question for you: how can you be preparing now for what God is calling you to then?

I remember being in South Africa, and I was like, "God, what am I supposed to do with this? I can't speak. What am I supposed to do?" And I was like, "Wait, I've just got two years. I guess I'll write sermons. I guess I'll pray." I decided to be proactive in that season, so that when God allowed me to step into what He had for me, I'd be ready.

This waiting season is not just for you to wait. There is something God is trying to do within you. So you have to say, "God, what are You trying to build in me? What character trait are You trying to develop?" "I'm just waiting for the right one." Well, spend time becoming the right one. Spend time working on the things God is trying to do within you. Because if we're in a process, it means He is trying to process something out of us and put something in us. But we have to work. Waiting is proactive.

I love Ecclesiastes 11:6. It says this: "Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." What's it saying? Even while you're waiting, start working. Even while you're waiting, start preparing, because you never know what is going to bring the breakthrough you need. We see that with Ruth and Boaz, where Ruth decides to put herself at Boaz's feet, and she ultimately gets married. She didn't hide. No, no, no. She was proactive. She did something. So how's your waiting? How's your trusting? How's your working?

4. Worship

And the final thing is this: while we wait, we have to enter into a place of worship. Even when we don't understand, we say, "God, You're still good. You are still God, and You are good at being God."

I'm so thankful for the season God took me through. I'm so thankful for the sermons no one will ever hear. I'm so thankful for the words no one will ever read, because it was in my waiting season that God showed me how close He was. And I realized that my entire life I've never been waiting for God. I have been waiting with God. You're not waiting for Him. You're waiting with Him, while He's working out the fruit He needs to work out.

And it's not going to come through complaining, and it's not going to come through fighting. It's going to come through submission to God. The Bible calls Him Immanuel. What does that mean? God with us. He's with us in our waiting.

You're not waiting for God. You're waiting with God.

But we have to come to the place where we say, "Holy Spirit, I know I'm waiting, but what would You have me do?" Is it your trusting that you need to work on? Is it that you're trying to shortchange the process, and God is saying, "Hey, I just need you to wait"? Is it that you need to be working, actually doing something? Or do you just need to enter into a place of worship while you wait, and say, "Lord, I need You. Father, give me strength"?

As we do that, He builds patience in us, which is what we need for every other fruit. And there will come a time when the things He's promised us will happen. The things He actually promised, not the things we think He promised. Why can we withstand suffering as Christians? Because we know the promise of salvation and the promise of eternal life. The promise is what gives me faith to stand in the face of trial. So what are you waiting on today? And what is God calling you to do? I'd love to pray for you. Can we all close our eyes and bow our heads?

Father, I want to bring before You every single person in this place. Lord, I don't know what they're waiting on, but Father, I thank You that You do. And Lord God, I just pray that today You'll reveal to them the step they have to take. Whether it is waiting, whether it's trusting, whether it's working, or whether it's just worshiping, Holy Spirit, show us. We love You. We love You.

I also want to take a moment here at the end of our service, like we always do. There may be some people here, and what I need to say is maybe you've been waiting for God, but God has actually been waiting on you. Maybe you're here today and you don't even know this God we're talking about. You've never given your life to Jesus. He is not Lord of your life. Let me just say this: waiting is impossible when we don't have a future hope, and that hope is found in Jesus, that one day we get to spend eternity with Him.

If you're here and you do not know Him, He loves you. He died for you, and He would love to have a relationship with you. The Bible says every single one of us has made mistakes. But God in His wisdom sent Jesus, who came to this earth. He died on a cross, and He rose again. And the Bible says He rose so that we may have life, life eternally. If you're here and you don't know anything about this life, your next step is to give your life to Jesus.

So we're going to pray a prayer, and if you're here and you're like, "Okay, Brad, I'm ready. I want to give my life to Jesus," we want to give you that opportunity. If everyone can close your eyes and bow your heads, we're all going to pray it for the benefit of those praying it for the very first time. It's the most important thing we do every Sunday. Repeat after me. Just say, "Dear Jesus, I believe that You're the Son of God and the Savior of the world. I believe You came to this earth, Jesus, that You died on a cross, and You were raised to give me life. And right now, Jesus, I make You my Lord. I make You my Savior. In Jesus' name."