Guarding The Seed When Life Gets Loud

The hardest spiritual moments are usually the quiet ones: delays you can’t explain, prayers that feel unanswered, and the creeping sense that you’re stuck. We sit with that tension and talk about patient endurance, not as grim survival, but as the way God turns truth into something real in us. Starting in Luke 8, we walk through the parable of the sower and ask the uncomfortable question: what actually happens to the Word of God after we hear it? 

We dig into how the “cares of this life” can crowd out spiritual growth even when those cares are legitimate responsibilities. We talk about guarding the seed, protecting tenderness, and learning to judge our experiences in the light of revelation instead of letting our past write the final script. Then we move to James 1 and the shocking invitation to “count it joy” when faith is tested, because endurance grows maturity, and maturity looks like Christ-likeness, not just productivity. 

Along the way we share stories of breakthrough and healing that happened when we felt nothing, and we explore why faith is required for endurance but joy is tied to cultivating relationship with the Holy Spirit. If you’ve been trying to stay faithful without becoming miserable, this one gives you a language and a practice for the long road. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Scripture Setup

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Hi everyone, I'm Ben. And I'm Logan, and we're the Robins. Welcome to the Resting Place podcast. I've got a few things in my heart I'd like to share. It's been It's been over a month, I think, since I shared with the group, probably at this point. It's been a little while. We had Lou last week, which was incredible. Absolutely incredible. And hopefully we'll have Lou again here soon. If you want to get ready, we're gonna go right away to Luke 8. 4 through 15 will be our verses in Luke 8. And then we've got James 1. If you want to kind of get prepared there, we'll go to James 1. And we'll look at 1 through 8, but I may not read all of 1 through 8. And then Luke 1 as well, because why not one more time in Luke 1? I had something come to me in worship that I'm also going to try to fit in here, and I think it I think that it makes sense inside of the context that I'm gonna be sharing on, but this is not one of my favorite topics, what I'm going to be talking about today, although, yeah, I can I could probably safely say it's not one of my favorite topics. We're gonna be talking about patient endurance today. And everybody left. I I I I pastor the smallest church in America, and I just ran every last one of the smallest crowd in America out the door. We'd be close. We'd have to be close. Keep them keep them coming back with faith-filled messages and and powerful worship, and then I get up here and we're gonna we're gonna go on endurance. Lennon had something to share. The prophetess just shared her word, so yes and amen. In the in the New Testament. There's no doubt about it. In the in the early church, they would have elders that would sit and judge prophetic words when people would give them. They'd they'd judge the word and they would take a consensus on whether they felt that it was the heart of Yahweh or not, the word that was shared, and if it was, they would receive it, and if not, they would not receive the word. And I felt a stirring when she said pizza, and I received that word. So the prophetess spoke

The Parable Of The Sower

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and she was she was feeling the fire. So Luke 8, verse 4, and it says this. One day Jesus told a story to a large crowd that had gathered from many towns to hear him. A farmer went out to plant his seed. As he scattered it across his field, some seed fell on a footpath, where it was stuck where it was stepped on and the birds ate it. Other seed fell among rocks and it began to grow, but the plant soon wilted and died for lack of moisture. Other seed fell among thorns that grew up with it and choked out the tender plants. Still other seed fell on fertile soil. This seed grew and produced a crop, and this is a very famous passage. This seed grew and produced a crop that was one hundred times as much as had been planted. So the hundredfold return that all of us love so much, and that many televangelists have used to rob old women of their social security checks. Hundredfold, sow that seed. And when he had said this, he called out, anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. I love how Jesus just does this. He releases a mystery from the heart of the Lord and then doesn't bother explaining it. He doesn't take time to break it down and say, hey, this is what this actually means, and this is how you should apply it to your life. He just said, No, if you have ears to hear, you should hear. And then we're moving on to the next thing. If you have ears to hear, hear it, and then I'm we're moving on. Next either next topic, next village, bring me the sick, whatever it was that he was doing. He did things so interchangeably, and he does this. This was a profound mystery to everyone that was listening, and how I know that was a profound mystery to everyone that was listening is this. In verse 9, his disciple his disciples asked him what the parable meant. These men were the closest to him. They were the ones that spent nights around the campfire with him. They when they were out in the country, they they camped with him, when they were traveling, they traveled with him, they shared everything with him. And when he spoke, they would have greater insight into his heart than you know the crowds that had gathered from all of the towns would, for instance. And he releases a mystery and they come to him later. Hey, uh, that thing about the seed, could you tell us what that means? I know you won't tell all of them, but could you enlighten us, please? As we're your disciples, and we're supposed to be able to do the things that you do. We maybe should understand the things that you say. So in that culture, disciples of a rabbi were expected to be able to do the things the rabbi did. That's why the father brought his son, who often cast himself into the fire and water, and said, Hey, I brought this boy, I brought my boy to your disciples, and he was upset. The reason he was upset, he says to Jesus, I brought my son to your disciples, but they were not able to heal him. And I have seen you heal people or heal heal other people's sons, or you know, fill in the blank there. And he says, Your disciples were not able to do this, they should have been able to do that. Disciples were those that the rabbi, the rabbi who brought his disciples in, would say, These are my mature disciples, they can do the things that I do. That's why exorcists would just have disciples that performed exorcisms, because he would teach them how to perform exorcism. So they would want to know. It would make sense to me that they would want to know some of the mysteries that Jesus was sharing so that they would be able to expound or that the revelation would be able to impact their heart at a deeper level, and it would cause incarnational truth to take root in their lives. The really interesting thing that, and there are many interesting things, but one of the interesting things about requiring your disciples to be able to do the things that you do is that truth had to be incarnational to them. And when I say incarnational, it had to be alive in their hearts. It had to be something that was birthed into being inside of their lives. It could not just be that they heard things and moved to the next thing. Part of the problem with the culture of church that we have today is we have fans and not disciples. Now, I don't have fans, but other ministers have. Other ministers have fans. Not me. No, no, not me. I'm talking about everyone else. No, but seriously, it's very easy to hear someone who carries great revelation and to fall in love with that revelation and become, for lack of a better term, this is the term that I have for it, the language that I have for it. You we become fanboys for this person and we carry their water and we love everything about them we give, and that's good and right to give. But the whole point of revelation is that it would become incarnational, not that it would stimulate our minds, that it would stimulate the very spirit man on the inside of our being, and that something new would start to come out of our start to come out of our spirit man that was not previously there because of the revelation seed that they planted. That takes time, that takes care, but I believe that's something that they had right in that culture was they travel with that man, they should be able to heal like that man. They travel with that man, they ought to be able to walk on water like that man. I should be able to bring my son who cast himself into the fire and water, and they ought to be able to drive off the spirit that is tormenting my son. That is good and that is right. And I believe that's something that as the days continue, that as the days continue, we're gonna begin to begin to see a lot more of. We're gonna begin to see a lot more of that of that. Being able to do the things that the Lord has required of us. So they come to him and say, Hey, would you please explain to us the mystery of the sower? And Jesus says this you are permitted to understand the secrets of the kingdom of God, but I use parables to teach others so that the scriptures might be fulfilled. When they look, they won't really see, and when they hear, they won't understand. This is the meaning of the parable. The seed is God's word. The seeds that fell on the foot on the footpath represent those that hear the message only, hear the message only to have the devil come and take it away from their take it away from their hearts and prevent them from believing and being saved. So they hear it and they don't guard the word, and the word is stolen from them. So there's a real responsibility on the hearer to guard the truth that is deposited in them. So we begin to take thoughts captive when thoughts, when we hear truth, when we hear revelation, when we know that we have heard revelatory truth from heaven, and we have thought processes, we have stray thoughts that come into our mind, or even things that we have proof in where our life has gone one direction our whole lives, and the revelatory truth that we have heard flies in the face of what we have experienced in our life. We have to then guard that revelatory truth in order for that to bring what the word says, a harvest in our lives, or the language that we're using, become incarnational in our lives so that we can see that truth from him become real to us. Bill Johnson has this beautiful quote that says, Faith must be measurable. Must be measurable. Faith must be measurable. I believe revelation ought to become measurable in our lives. In my life, revelation needs to become measurable in my life. So we take thoughts captive. When we receive revelation and thought processes start to come against it, we take those thoughts captive and judge them in the light of the truth, not in the light of our experience. Our experience is not always the truth. It's reality. It has happened. It shouldn't be that we pretend that it's not something that we've experienced in our lives, but it should be something that we hold in the light of the revelation from Abba. And we judge that in light of it. And if we have experienced things that fly in the face of the revelation that has come to us, we judge the experience in light of that revelation. And if there's mystery there, if we don't understand why we've gone through that, we ask the Lord to bring the healing that's needed. We ask the Lord in his kindness to come and to if you if

Revelation Must Become Incarnational

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we to come and to bring the healing that's needed in order for us to be able to take hold of that revelation and let it become incarnation to us. Let it become something real, let it become something that sprouts forth and does the thing that heaven has designed it to do. And what is the thing that heaven has designed revelation, truth to do for us? Make us like him. So when I say I'm gonna get distracted if she keeps talking because she's cute. Revelation is designed to bring Christ-like attributes to becoming incarnational in our lives. And there's a better way to say that, but revelation is designed to bring Christ-like attributes and make them incarnational in our lives. Because we've all been predesigned. We've been predestined. Calvin got it right, we have been predestined, just not in the way that he says. We've been predestined to be conformed into the image of Christ. We're always on a daily basis being transfigured into the image of Christ. And when the Lord brings revelation truth to us, what he's doing is he's giving us one of his attributes in seed form, and he's causing that to bring forth incarnational things from heaven into our lives. But we have the responsibility to guard it. We do. We have the responsibility to guard it. All right. The seeds on the rocky soil represent those who hear the message and receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they believe for a while, then they fall away when they face temptation. The seeds that fell among thorns represent those that hear the message, but all too quickly the message is crowded out, and this one is probably the most subtle. This right here is the most subtle, I think. The seeds that fell among thorns represent those who hear the message, but all too quickly, the message is crowded, listen to that language, crowded out by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, so that they can never grow into maturity. And I think the big one there, at least for me, the big one here, is riches and pleasures. We all understand, okay, there's things we like, there's things we want, etc. I don't think you'd be coming to church here if that were the issue, if riches and pleasures, if the riches and pleasures of this life were the big temptation. If that was the issue, you'd be going somewhere else, I think. But the cares of this life crowd out the truth of the word of God and do not give enough room for the seed to take root in our hearts. And so, in hearing, we have good intention, we have a right heart, we receive the word. The word takes root, it begins to grow. And as soon as it starts to become incarnation, what happens is our anxieties, our cares, and the legitimate responsibilities that we have. And this is why it's subtle. Our responsibilities are often legitimate. It's often a legitimate responsibility that's crowding out the revelatory truth of the word of God. And because they're legitimate, it becomes very easy to just go ahead and take care of the responsibilities that we have been given and give no care to the seed. So you're gonna care for something. You're going to care for something you are. You're either going to care for the cares of this world or you're going to care for the seed. You cannot place your care on both. I'm not talking about shirking responsibility. This is where the nuance comes into play because this this piece is subtle because it's so nuanced. It's not just a black and white. Well, you can't care at all about your responsibilities. Well, you're gonna end up without a house. You're gonna end up with no roof over your head and your light, your lights turned out. That's not the Lord, even in scripture says that I have designed you to reign in life as kings. But the way to reign in life as kings is to place our care on the seed and out of a full heart, careful, take care of the responsibilities of our lives. So we're taking care, we're taking our care, our intention. We're taking our care, our intentional effort, and we're placing it on the seed and guarding that seed. And what that will do is safeguard that seed, that revelatory truth that the Lord wants to become incarnation in our lives. What it will do is it will safeguard from safeguard that from being drowned out by the many responsibilities that we carry. So you can be caring for the seed while also doing your responsibility. It's the posture and position of our heart that the Lord uses to guard the seed. And we position our heart in such a way as to put water on the seed that he has given us and not allow the responsibilities that I carry to drown out what he's trying to grow in my life. I get that backwards very frequently. Justifiable. Because after all, we're just being responsible. Have to be done. They have to be. There's there's no way we cannot do it. We've got to do it. The posture of heart, and I believe one of the things that gets robbed from us that is a requirement to care for the seed of the word, one of the things that gets robbed from us when the cares of this life begin to crowd out the seed is we lose tenderness. We lose the tenderness we once had in our heart, and the seed of the word requires a tender heart to tend to it. It requires soft hands, it requires someone who's willing to hear the subtle nudge and say, I've got to stop for 30 seconds and realign my heart because the path I'm walking on right now in my heart is causing me to lose the incarnation that I feel growing in me. And I'm gonna take 30 seconds and talk to the Lord about how I can get my heart repositioned in order that I don't let the cares of this life choke out the thing he's doing in me. This is the pathway to maturity. This is the pathway to Christ-likeness. Go ahead, Lucy. There's no doubt about it. No, no, it can't be. It takes care. Science shows that plants grow better when you sing to them. There's there's real science, and it probably responds to them too. No, science shows that it's of course, of course she does, Lou. Well, science, there's scientific evidence to show that plants respond to singing. And when you talk, when you to say kind things to them, they bloom, they open up. There's there's evidence to show that it works. Yes, exactly right. Yes, like human beings. Well, I say that to say David would sing to his soul. David didn't just talk to himself, he sung to himself and would say to things, say things to his soul, like, Oh my soul, why are you downcast? And begin to sing the song of the Lord over himself, and in doing that, was guarding the seed that the Lord had put on the inside of him and bringing that thing back into health when he began to feel it go, began to feel his heart go down a path he did not want it to go down. So I've not even got to the place that I'm trying to get to. So I need to continue to move forward. And so they never grow into maturity when they're crowded out. So our job is to make sure that the seed of the Lord is not crowded out in our heart, even by legitimate things. It does not mean that we shirk responsibility or do not fulfill the things that we said that we would. It means that we position our hearts to care for the seed in the middle of those things. I remember hearing Corey Russell one time say, This works,

When Responsibilities Choke The Word

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this thing works, this praying in the spirit thing works in the third shift in a factory the same way that it works here in a worship service. And if it doesn't, it's not real. It works the same way in the middle of our responsibilities. We can begin to lift our heart up to the Lord in the middle of doing what we're doing and being busy. Brother Lawrence is a beautiful example of that. He found the Lord in washing dishes. We talked about it the last time I shared. He found the Lord to the point that people would come to watch him wash dishes, and they had to walk. There were no cars. They're walking or they're riding horses or in a cart or perhaps a mule, and they're coming to watch watch the man wash dishes. We can find the Lord in the middle of doing our very busy things that we're doing, but it does require intentionality. So bless God for that. All right, last one. And the seeds that fell on good soil. Here we go. This is this is what we all want. We're good soil. The seed that fell on good soil represent honest, good hearted people. Honest, good-hearted people who have good intentions, who hears who hear God's word, cling to it, and patiently produce a harvest. With patience, produce a harvest. And we know that he was talking about a hundredfold harvest, far more than was ever sown into him. But even Yeshua, in his explanation to the to the disciples, good-hearted people who have pure motives receive the word into the good soil of their hearts. And all that they had to add to their heart, they're clinging to the word, but they're also patiently producing a harvest. It requires at times in the kingdom, and this is maybe the least fun thing that is just true, it requires in the kingdom patience to bring the truth of God's word to reality in our own worlds. And I'm trying to think the best way to say that, but I think maybe, maybe this is a good way to explain it. He gives us a lot of seeds and says, Become like my son. And it requires patience and care to grow those seeds so that we can produce a harvest. So I want to turn to James 1 real quick. All right, James 1. We'll start in two. We'll just skip the introduction. Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. This is this is just James is the worst. So James, the brother of Christ, consider it great joy. Consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. That word endurance is can be used interchangeably for patience. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. That word perfect, one of the definitions for the Greek word that they use there is mature. So when your patience has fully developed, you will be completely mature, lacking nothing. That's another way to say this. Another way to say this would be you will be fully mature, lacking nothing. Man, that is a profound thing for him to say. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect, you'll be mature and complete, needing nothing. If you need wisdom, this is such an interesting shift he takes here. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure this is interesting, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Waver for a person with divided loyalty is unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. Thanks, James. I feel so encouraged. James is good for encouragement. Oh, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. This is actually this is actually the most encouraging passage of Scripture, if we can see it correctly. If we can see this correctly, this is the most encouraging passage in all of Scripture. Because James says this when you come under temptation or testing, when you come under delay, when you come under interruption in the direction that your life is headed, can consider it an opportunity for what? Consider it an opportunity for great joy. Why is he saying that this could be an opportunity for great joy? For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance or your patience has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you'll be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. When we come into these moments where we're stopped or there's a delay or there's something awry that we can't quite figure out, it's uncomfortable, it's challenging, we don't understand it, it can be very stressful, but if we can see it appropriately, it's great. This this passage is very encouraging. Why? Because maturity in the life of the believer, maturity in our lives, means we're being we're being conformed into the image of Christ at a greater degree. He says, considered an opportunity for great joy. How could there be great joy? Because Yahweh, in his kindness, is opening the door of his heart and saying, I want you to come close because there's some things about my heart that I'm going to show you in the middle of this that you can learn no other way. It's uncomfortable, it's challenging. For me, it is very frustrating at times to not understand why things are going the way that they are going. To be feel like you're completely missing, like, what is going on? Did I miss something? What is that, Lord? What's happening? Have I missed your voice? Did you abandon me finally? Did you do the thing that I've been afraid that you would do for all of my life and finally have enough of me and say, I'm not going to have my hand on his life, and you just go down the drain of really bad thoughts, and it gets worse the farther down the drain you get. And the Lord, the entire time, is saying, I am working endurance in you, because that endurance will bring you, son. You'll be fully developed, fully complete, lacking nothing, and all of creation is waiting for your maturity. For we know with certainty that creation has been held in bondage until the revealing of the sons of God. And creation waits on tiptoe for the revealing of the sons. So we embrace, we embrace these. That's why James is saying this. He said, I found a pathway into

James On Joy Through Testing

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knowing God in ways that I couldn't know him otherwise. When it's challenging, when it's hard, when it's I don't understand what's going on, when it's not going as fast as I would like it to go, I, James, have found this to be my pathway to greatest joy because in him is my greatest delight. And if I can know him at a higher level, I can be in the middle of the circumstances that I have that I have hated for years. I can be in the middle of it. But if I'm in the middle of it with him and I can find my delight in him, what happens is I find my highest joy in the middle of my longest delays, and I find my highest joy in knowing him. And I come into a state of such maturity that when I walk back into these scenarios, all of a sudden things begin to shift. Things begin to move at the sound of my voice because it's responding to Christ in me, not me. And he's working himself into me in the middle of the delay, in the middle of the hold, in the middle of the it's going to be a little bit longer than I want it to be. He's working himself into us in these moments. And while he's working himself into us, it does not have to be agony. Where we put our focus will determine if our patience being tested is agony or joy. And James, in this passage, is just telling us the truth. Jesus said himself, temptate trials will come, storms will come. It's one of the very few times he's clear. Lord, will now be the time to establish the kingdom. Well, it's not for it's not for you to know the hour of the day, but the Father in heaven knows the hour and the day. All right, thanks, Jesus. That was clear as mud. That's awesome. Thanks for that. Love that. People are still arguing about when whether they're still arguing about what Jesus said on the mount to his disciples when he said, This generation will not pass away until they see the second coming of the Son of God. Oh, what's he does he what's he talking about? Is he we're still arguing about that because it's so clear? But he was very clear about trials, he was very clear about storms. I wish it was kind of the other way. He was very clear about the other fun stuff and less clear about the stuff that's hard. And he James in the middle of this is saying, guys, in the middle of it, if we can shift our focus, we don't have to deny reality. Things are hard, things are challenging, things can be unfair, they can be persecution, they can be fill in the blank, it can be as bad or however. But James is saying, guys, if you'll see this correctly, this is an invitation into the heart of the Father. It's the hardest time, it's the most challenging thing. It's the opposite of what you want to do. Yeah, like likely, likely, likely when you're in the middle of that. Likely in the middle of that, when the Lord asks you to use your faith, you're not going to feel like you've got much to offer him. And this is why Paul said, I rejoice when I'm weak, because in my weakness, he's able to be strong. The most profound miracle I've ever seen, I did not feel a single thing while it was happening. There, listen, there have been times, there have been times where I know the Lord's healing people. I know he is. I we pray for him, and I'm like, it's done. It is my God, it's done. You feel the power of God course through your body. And it's like, there's no way in the world that sickness is staying in that person. You come to find out later, yes, exactly right. They got healed. Of course they did. You knew it when it happened. The two most profound things I've ever seen the Lord do, I didn't feel a thing. Three, three most profound things. I'm remembering things as I go. The three most profound things I've ever seen the Lord do, I didn't feel a thing while it was happening. Not a thing. I didn't one of them, I had such little faith. I was like, dear God, seriously? Seriously, this is the thing? Really? Like I was kind of mad at the Lord for bringing the person who needed breakthrough. I was like, why you just take them to somebody else who's got something going on in their ministry? Take them to somebody else who's who the Lord is using in a powerful way. Keep them away from me. Good God. I drove here in a 97 Crown Victoria that's got that's got a hole in the gas tank. I don't think you want them talking to me. I'm obviously not the man of power. So send them to somebody else in the Lord. Just did such profound things in those moments because when we're at our end, when we're at our end, he's able to be strong. Healed a woman who had a week to live with thyroid cancer. And she wasn't even in the meeting. Her daughter was there. I remember I remember it like it was yesterday. I preached the worst message I've ever preached in my whole life. I still remember how bad it was. It was one of those moments where you just get so humbled in the middle of it. You're like, dear lord, please get me out of here. I want to, I'm the one speaking, and I want out of here. I can't imagine what these people listening are thinking right now. And I just gave a real simple altar call for people needing healing. And this woman comes up, brings a friend, and this little girl's bawling. She's obviously in high school, and I'm like, what is happening? Maybe her boyfriend broke up with her and she just needs some help. That'll be, you know, something easy. And uh she says to me, My mom got sent home today and told she's got a week left to live. She's got a tumor on her thyroid, and uh, we need a miracle. And we came here, and I'm like, oh boy, I'm saying swears at myself in my head for how bad that I that I spoke just now. Not swearing per se, but you know, I'm I'm pleased with myself. And the Lord healed that woman when we prayed. That tumor dissolved, and they took her back to the doctor nine days later, and they couldn't find it. Couldn't find dissolved completely off her thyroid. Another time there's a baby who had been born without a brain center. One of his brain centers was totally undeveloped, wasn't there. He couldn't do anything. He laid around and had seizures all day long. His arm was shriveled up like this. Couldn't, couldn't, I mean, he's a new baby. He's just a few months old, so there's not a lot going on anyway, but his mom was told he's not gonna live very long, and the quality of life he is going to have is going to be terrible. He'll have seizures every day of his life until eventually he dies. He'll never walk or talk. You'll never watch him be married, you'll never watch him run around and play, you'll never have any normal growth markers with this boy. That brain center is not there in his brain, and he'll never be normal. And uh woman brought him to a meeting at a small ministry in Kentucky that I was at. I just grabbed him and walked around and prayed in the spirit. Didn't feel a thing happen. Not a thing. Walked around for 10, 15 minutes praying for him, wanting his hand to straighten out and his arm to straighten out. Didn't happen. And I was like, all right, well, I've done all I can. And I handed him back to his mom, and I didn't find out for another six weeks, but he never had another seizure. They took him to the I didn't know it when she said this. Had I known this, it would I would have freaked out. I didn't know he was born without a brain center till several years later. She said his brain scan came back normal, and I was like, oh, that's cool. His brain scan came back normal. That's awesome. I didn't know that his brain scan coming back normal meant the Lord had fashioned a brain center in his brain while we were brain formed. So it's just didn't feel a thing. Lord healed a blind woman, I didn't feel a thing. Till she told me her vision was half back, and then I was like, oh, something's happening. Yeah. It's true. Oh yeah. Of course. Go ahead, Luke. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's exactly right, Luke. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Oh yeah. There's no going around it. It's a universal truth. This is this one's not subjective. I don't think right now. It's upside down. The end result of patient endurance in the life of the believer is less about arriving at a destination or producing a product that can be marketed or sold. Rather, endurance is designed to bring us into what James calls perfection. The word translated perfection, one of its definitions is maturity. Patient endurance brings us into maturity. And maturity in our lives is Christ-likeness. Remember, the whole logic of the incarnation is that the Father, Son, and Spirit wanted to share their life with us. The whole logic of the Incarnation is that the Father, Son, and Spirit wanted to share their life with us. Endurance is not about production. Endurance is the pathway to the intimate

Profound Miracles Without Feelings

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knowledge of God. It's about knowing him and in knowing him, becoming like him. It's about knowing him in the the Greek term as gonosco. That's the word they use for knowledge. It's intimate knowledge. It's an intercoursing of two individual beings that become become unified. We're in Christ. We know him in an intimate way. And in knowing him, becoming like him, it's the only path for his truth to become incarnational in our lives. It is the only path. It is the only path. It is the only path for his truth to become incarnational in my life is through patient endurance. And in giving our lives to this to this path, our lives become something precious poured out on the feet of Jesus. Because there are very few that will actively walk this path. This is why he says the path is narrow. The path is narrow and few there be that find it. The path is narrow and few there be that find it. It's interesting to me that James shifts almost immediately and begins to talk about faith after talking about patient endurance because faith is a requirement in order to have patient endurance. You must be in faith in order to have patient endurance. You cannot have patient endurance outside of faith, because what that will become is something different than what the Bible calls patient endurance. That will become just getting beat up. That will become just getting good at getting the mess beat out of you and life throwing you around. The faith side of this guards the seed even when we don't feel like we're doing a good job guarding the seed. Man, the faith side of this thing keeps that seed alive even when it feels like the seed is dying. In order for a seed, like a like a uh, you know, something useful like a pepper or a tomato, yeah, tomato's a real good one. That's a good one. In order for a seed to produce a tomato, that seed goes into the ground. And no matter how much you care for that seed, no matter how well you guard it or perfectly you water it, that seed has to die. It has to. There's something called a germ inside of the seed that germinates. In the process of germination, that germ eats that seed. That seed has to die and it becomes food so that the germ can spring roots downward and begin to grow the thing that it was designed to grow. When James says, count it all joy when you come under temptation or you find yourself in a delay, he's saying take heart, because the good seed of the word of God is germinating in your life. The process of germination requires patient endurance. And it does, listen, it can, it's challenging, but this is why I've been talking about holding the truth in both hands and finding life there, right? Yeah, it's challenging and it's hard, and I don't know what to do. And I'm finding my highest degree of joy in him all at the same time. So there's challenging things, but we don't have to be those that are cast down and depressed. We can be those that walk in joy in the middle of the things that we don't understand. And the way that we do that is we hold both truths in both hands, the reality of what's going on and the truth of God's word, and we hold them in both hands. We don't pretend like reality's not happening and live in some other universe. That's not real joy, that's delusion. We find ourselves in joy by grabbing hold of reality and attaching it to the live wire of the truth of the kingdom and allowing the kingdom to course through our hands so that the reality that we're holding on to with the other hand begins to be transformed by the kingdom flowing through us. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are the pathway, we are the gateway of the kingdom into the earth. And the way that we bring the kingdom into our lives as we grab hold here and use our faith and don't ignore reality, expose it to the kingdom. And that's hard and it's challenging, and it's no, it's not always fun. But the end result is that the kingdom comes through me and transforms that thing. That is the end result. Faith is a requirement in order to have patient endurance. And I began to ask the Lord, how do we do this and not be miserable? How do we fight the good fight and not just be he gave me the answer? He did, he gave me the answer. I began to ask him, Lord, how do I be less of a jerk to my family? How do I how do I be kinder to everyone around me, not just a jerk? How do I how do I do it? Because I'm not so good at it. I get I'm not so good at it. How do you help me? Please help me, sir. I need help. You said in James that I could ask and you wouldn't get mad at me if I asked, no matter what it was. So I need help here. This is where I need help. And the Lord spoke to me. He said very clearly, very clearly, and I'm gonna turn to Ephesians 1. This is the answer. And it's not it's not, guys, it's not profound. This is not like I'm not about to I'm not about to show you this mind-blowing thing that will be like, oh my god, I can't believe I've never seen that before. Wow, so good. I'd have them if I could do that. I can't do that. We're gonna look at Ephesians 1 11, then I'm gonna read a couple more verses. I'll start at nine. God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. And this is the plan. At the right time, he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ, everything in heaven and on earth. Everything will be subject to the authority of Christ. There will be no more outliers, there will be no more questions, there'll be no more wondering. It will all be subject and under the authority of Christ.

Faith While The Seed Dies

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Everything in heaven and on earth, furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God. For he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan. I'm just gonna keep going. It makes more sense in context this way. God's purpose was that we Jews who were who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. And now you, Gentiles, he revealed another part of his plan that it wasn't just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles also. And now you, Gentiles, have also heard the truth, the good news that God saves you, and that when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit. He identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God's guarantee. The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised, and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so that we would praise and glorify him. So I began to ask the Lord, how do we do this and not bring misery on ourselves and everyone around us? And his answer was very, very simple. The Holy Spirit and cultivating your relationship with Holy Spirit is the secret to joy while you walk this pathway. Cultivating your relationship with Holy Spirit is the secret to joy while you walk the hidden pathway of patient endurance. It's like bringing a lamp to a cave that there's no light in, and that lamp gathers everybody around. Cultivating a relationship with Holy Spirit is the pathway. Jude teaches us that in order to build ourselves up in our most holy faith, we must pray in the Holy Ghost. And I've already said that in order to have patient endurance, we must have faith. We must. Faith is the staying power on this pathway. It's the thing that keeps us there. And Holy Spirit is the one who brings joy. He's the one who brings joy, he's the one who Jesus, you've run into them. I've I run into every once in a while, I'll run into someone that I know. I know by God what's going on in their life, and it's not great. It's not ideal. And I run into them, and that and running into them brings conviction to my spirit. There's a look in their eye that they have, that they have found him in the middle of it. And the house can be burning down around them. And they're handed, man, they're hand in hand with Jesus in this. I'm watching them be conformed into his image. This is the whole of it that we would be like him. This is the whole of it that we would be like him. And it requires that we have patient endurance. But patient endurance does not mean enduring hell. Patient endurance means finding the secret to joy and cultivating our relationship with Holy Spirit. And when we don't know what to pray, we begin to pray in an unknown language. In that unknown language, what it does is it churns the soil. It's like a cultivator run across the field. It begins to churn up the hard ground and begins to expose what's soft to the light of day. Paul said at the end of his life, Oh, that I may know him and be conformed into his image. Be united with him in his sufferings and share in his glory. Oh that I would be just like him. Oh, that I'd be like him. And every time, every listen, every time I know she's got a huge ministry and she's famous, but this woman is watching people get chopped up with machetes. Every time I listen to Heidi Baker, I'm just like, I'm just I don't know Jesus at all. I don't know him. I don't know, I don't know who she's talking about. I don't know that guy. I I know somebody else. I don't know him. Because she's watching people get chopped up with machetes. Her dear friends and tells it smile, and it's it's the most shocking thing. It's the most shocking. Her friends have been killed with. Machetes in brutal ways by by Muslim extremist groups that are just rampaging in northern Mozambique. And the government's not strong enough to drive them out, so they just kind of have to live with them. That's why it matters what form of government you have. Let me say something. That's why it matters what form of government you have. You don't want to find yourself in a scenario where there are groups that are strong enough to terrorize people, and your government that one of its only legitimate uses is to protect its people, can't even help you. But she just, in the middle of just extreme, extreme circumstances and typhoons and Ebola outbreaks and all manner of things that go on in the third world, just built a university to bring education to the people of Mozambique. One of the first universities in that nation, built by a little old woman and her husband. And I sat, I sat this week just watching something short from her. It brought such conviction. She just said, you know, wanted to be a missionary all my life. I wanted to live in the third world with people. I wanted to suffer with people. That's what I wanted because I thought it brought glory to God and I wanted to bring glory to God. It was in my heart. So I was a missionary and I was busy and I was doing the work of missions. And I for 20 years did the work of missions with a smile, and I starved and I suffered and did it all with a smile. And in 20 years of doing that, I told the Lord, I'll always serve you and I'll always love you, but I'll never do missions again. He said, I was exhausted and overwhelmed and had nothing left to offer. And she said, You know what the secret for what we're doing here is? The secret for what we're doing here is that I found him in the secret place. And I give myself to that. And as I give myself to that, everything else that has happened has been a result of that. She's guarding the seed. She was given a promise by Yahweh that he would give her a nation. I've heard that story more times than I can count. Heidi, do you want the nation of Mozambique? Yes, Lord, I want the nation of Mozambique. And she's out in the spirit for seven days. And then the next 18 months were absolute hell. She got diagnosed with what was it, MS she got diagnosed with, and they told her she'd die if she went back. And she said, if they have to send me back in a wheelchair, I'm going back. Sometimes that's what guarding the seed looks like is just come hell or high water. I'll

Holy Spirit As The Joy Key

SPEAKER_00 46:20

be faithful to the word of God. And it wasn't like it was overnight success when they got there. Got back and she gives the word of the Lord to people and the first 20 blind people. She's you're gonna heal the blind and open deaf ears and the first 20, for I don't know if it was 20, the first 10, I think, blind people that she prayed for, none of them got healed. She just kept going, man. And in the middle of it, she's saying, I found the key to joy in patient endurance. That's what she was saying. I found the key to joy in patient endurance through cultivating my relationship with Holy Spirit in a place no one else can see. All right, I'm about done. I'm talking about endurance and I'm crying. I don't I don't know what my deal is. Jeez, get it together. I asked, I was going through scripture and you know looking at what I might be able to uh looking at what I might be able to use as examples in the New Testament, you know, people that with patient endurance received the reward the Lord had promised them, right? They came into the fullness of what God said. Uh Zechariah is certainly one, but I want to share, I want to share this. Luke 2, verse 8. That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them, Don't be afraid, she said, I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior, yes, the Messiah, the Lord, has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David, and you will recognize him by this sign. You will find a baby wrapped in snugly strips of cloth lying in a manger. Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast by a vast host of the armies of heaven, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased. I love that the announcement the angels made is God's pleased with all of you. I love that that's the announcement that they brought because they were under the impression God was displeased, and that's why they had their sacrificial system was to appease his wrath. And the angels saying, Already, before Jesus had a chance to make a Pharisee mad by saying the Father is pleased with you, the angels are already telling them, He's pleased with you. He's pleased with you, and that's why he sent his son. God, it's such a difference. He's pleased with you, and that's why he sent Jesus. He's not angry and looking to appease his wrath. No, he's pleased and he loves you, and that's why he sent Jesus. When the angels returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, Let's go to Bethlehem, let's see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about. They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph, and there was the baby lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened, and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherd's story were astonished. But Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. Another translation says she treasured these things in her heart. But Mary treasured all of these things in her heart. And you can see with this example, and there are other examples through scripture here, that this woman who is so revered by all of Christianity and more by the Orthodox and Catholic sects of our faith, but I think even we have lost some of the awe we ought to hold her in. She treasured these things in her heart. How could she endure the loss of Joseph, the raising of a son, the losing of a son in the temple, first of all, who's supposed to be the son of God, and you lose him for three days? Good luck. Like that's uh I don't know. That's the most terrifying thing in the world. The angel came and said, Hey, his name's gonna be Jesus. It's gonna be the Son of God, he's gonna save his people, sit on the throne of his father David, and she lost him. One of the first stories, I love that that's one of the first stories we get we get recorded in the life of Jesus, so that Mary and Joseph lose him. As soon as he gets big enough to have his own mind, they completely blow it and lose him. I just it makes me feel better. It makes me feel better. It just does, it makes me feel better. They they were they were human too. Good, thank God. And then watching Jesus be crucified and in the middle of all of it, staying faithful to the Lord. She guarded the seed in her heart. She said she treasured these things in her heart. It's just another way of saying she cared for that seed. She pondered it and she cared for it, and she, hallelujah, believed the word of the Lord. And then the last one, we know the story of Zachariah so well. We know I'm not gonna turn there. I was gonna, I was gonna do it, but Lou gave me a look like he might come over that chair at me if I did. So I don't I don't want him doing Randy Savage off the top rope and dropping an elbow on me. That would be a sight, though. That would be a sight. Maybe I do want that. Maybe I should make us turn there. That would be a even if I got knocked out, that would be a man, that'd be a sight. I'd man, I could go to heaven happy if I saw that, I think. Zachariah says he's righteous, careful to obey all of the law, but he doesn't have a child and he's very old, and his wife is very old and she's unable to conceive. And when the Lord came looking for a man to raise a son who would see something the religious leaders couldn't see, and make an make an announcement that all of creation was waiting for, he found his friend Zechariah, who through patient endurance knew the Lord well enough that the Lord could pull him to himself for nine months and teach him some things about his heart that no other man on earth could receive. Think about that. The Lord for nine months shut Zechariah's mouth and pulled him to himself and revealed the secrets of his heart that would let John later see Jesus and say that's him. There's a kindness to that man that lets man that lets me

Mary And Zechariah As Models

SPEAKER_00 52:05

know he's Messiah, he's taking away the sins of the world. That's the one. There was no other man on earth that could have done that. Zachariah, the one the Lord chose for that destiny to raise that son, the greatest man born of a woman, chose a man who through patient endurance had learned some things about the father's heart that would allow him to go the transfiguration, the transfiguration of learning the Lord's heart well enough that his son could say no to the priesthood, go to the wilderness, and recognize Jesus. So it's Father's Day, and I guess, fathers, be like Zechariah. And through patient endurance, let's learn the ways of Yahweh and let's cultivate our hearts through relationship with Holy Spirit so that we find joy in the middle of patient endurance.