So can you please turn with me to Romans 8?
I'm going to give you a chance to turn there because I want you
to see it in your own Bible so you can see I'm not lying to
you. It's the truth.
If you don't have your Bible yet, open your phone app so you
can highlight it so you can go read it again this week.
Romans 8 verse 16. The Spirit himself testifies
with our spirit that we are God's children.
Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and Co
heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order
that we may also share in his glory.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth
comparing with the glory that will be revealed in US.
Lovely topic to get to preach on the first time you preach.
Hey, I'm going to talk a bit about suffering today and I
think in the in the last few weeks Taryn and Chad and Mitch
have spoke so beautifully about our adoption in Christ.
Hey, how we are children of God. How everything of Romans 8 has
been bracketed by this, no condemnation and no separation.
And I mean, it's amazing. I feel like this beautiful
platform has been laid for us as Christians to know that no
matter what we hear from the pulpit, we have this foundation
to stand on that everything that's preached.
Then when we start preaching about the things that we need to
do to mature as Christians, that we don't go back to condemnation
and we don't go back to separation.
But we actually that's settled. You know, if it's not settled
for you yet, go listen to the preachers that have been
preached for the last two months.
And, and I'm and I'm asking you that when you listen to what I'm
saying today and you feel that little voice condemning or then
you just say no, no, no, no, no, actually it's bracketed by no
condemnation and no separation. So we actually want to walk,
want to talk about maturity maturing in our walk with God
today. And I think that we've heard, so
Mitchell referred to this very briefly in his sermon last week
when he spoke about our inheritance, what our
inheritance means, and that one of our inherent or part of our
inheritance is suffering. And I know some of you might
think today, you know, like that's a part of the inheritance
you can keep, you know, like put it back in there, you know, and
divide it again amongst the other siblings.
You know, it's fine. I'm, I'm good, I'm good without
that part. But I'm hoping today that as I
share with you what God's been sharing with me about suffering,
that I'll actually be able to change your mind about
suffering, that I'm I'm able to change the way you see suffering
and the way you view suffering. And that I can give you a new
lens today that when, when those challenging times come and they
will come, that you'll be able to actually look at it with a
different with a different view. So I think if if we read that,
if I can read that verse again in in verse 17 where it says
that if we if indeed we share and so as we cohee with Christ,
if indeed we share in his sufferings in order order that
we may also share in his glory. I think that obviously that
Scripture will be fulfilled in full one day when we get to
heaven. Obviously one day when we get to
heaven, we will share in his glory even as we share in some
of the suffering here. But I firmly believe that in
part we can already live in that year on earth now year in the
year. And now I believe that Scripture
is not only for one day when we get to heaven.
I believe that we that the glory of God should be shining through
us because that is our testimony to the world.
I believe that us as Christians should be able to go through
tough times and go through suffering in a way that brings
glory to God. And people should look at us
when we go through tough times and they should be like, there's
something different about you. Why are you going through this
difficult time like this? And I believe that can be one of
the most powerful testimonies to unbelievers is the way we as
believers walk through suffering.
And if we if we walk through suffering exactly the same way
the world does, full of bitterness and unforgiveness and
negativity, what kind of a testimony does we have?
How do we show the gospel to the world?
How do we show them something different?
So my journey with God about the developing AI, call it
developing a theology of suffering, started a few years
ago when we were actually preaching in three CI through
the book of Acts. And as we preached through the
book of Acts, I was reading the book of Acts.
And, and you know, I think all of us in life, we'd love for
everything to go well all the time, wouldn't we?
We'd love for everything to just work out all the time.
You know, everything will just be the way we wanted it to be.
And, and I started realising that, you know, if you read the
book of Acts, that's not how it was in the book of Acts, you
know, and I mean, those were the disciples, Those were the people
who walked on earth with Jesus. And I started to realize that if
we ever want to mature as Christians, we need to develop
an understanding of how suffering fits into the gospel.
Otherwise everything, something, every time something bad
happens, our wheels fall off and we question whether God loves us
and whether we love him and whether we should be doing this.
We need to actually, if we want to mature, we need to have
understand how suffering fits into the gospel.
So as I was reading the book of Acts, I realized that we have an
amazing example in the book of Acts of how it actually works.
And so brace yourself, put on your seat belt.
I'm going to give you a quick rundown summary of the whole
book of Acts. Are you ready for it?
So here we go. Listen quickly, listen quickly,
I'll speak fast. Acts 1 Jesus is taken up to
heaven and Matthias replaces Jesus.
Acts 2 they filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter, Peter preachers
and 3000 people are saved. Whoo Hoo, Acts 3 Peter heals the
lame beggar. Awesome.
Acts 4 Peter and John is thrown in jail.
Oh, the number of men who believed grew to 5000, and the
believers shared everything and there was no needy among them.
Awesome. And now as the Sephora lie and
die, more believers are added to their number daily.
The apostles are arrested and put in jail.
The Lord opens the jail doors. The apostles are flogged again.
The number of disciples were increasing.
Acts 6. They appointed men to take care
of the widows and the orphans. The word of God spread.
Priests became obedient to the faith and Stephen has ceased.
Acts 7. Stephen is stoned.
Acts 8. Persecution breaks out and the
church scatters. They preached everywhere they
went. Simon gets saved.
Philip meets the Ethiopian and he is saved and baptized.
Acts 9. Saul gets saved.
Guess what? Guess who wrote Romans 8?
Saul gets saved. Acts 9.
The Jews want to kill him. So I think he had some
understanding of suffering when he wrote Romans 8.
But the church enjoyed a time of peace and increased in numbers.
And Nias is healed. Everybody who lived in leather
and Sharon turned to the Lord. Dawkas is raised from the dead.
Hallelujah. Many people believed in the
Lord. Acts 10.
Peter has a vision and goes to Cornelius's house, and the Holy
Spirit pours out on the Gentiles for the first time.
Acts 11. The gospel is preached in
Antioch. A great number of people are
believed, and Barnabas is sent to Antioch.
Acts 12. James is killed, Peter is in
jail, the Angel opens the jail door, Herod dies, and the word
continues to spread. And then I got to Acts 13 and
God literally stopped me in my tracks in Acts 13.
And, and God really just, you know, when you read a verse and
you, I've been reading the Bible from when I was 16 years old and
you're like, how have I not seen this verse before?
I've read through the Bible so many times.
And I'm so when I got to Acts 13, I actually stopped and I
went and I counted. And you know that there's 26
times in the book of Acts where it talks about all these great
things happening to disciples, the church growing, people
getting saved, people getting raised from the dead, people
getting healed, lame people walking for the first time.
I mean, that's awesome. That's the kind of life I want
to live, you know, and, and I think if when those things
happen, that'll encourage us to keep doing this, you know, let's
keep serving God. Let's keep going for the gospel.
It's amazing. But do you know there's 21
places in the book of Acts where they are flogged, thrown in
jail, stoned, shipwrecked, killed.
And this is part of part of their story.
And you can imagine when you read that you think like, but
how does this work? No matter how much good they
were doing, they were still suffering.
Things were still, these things were still happening to him,
like, how does that work? And this started this whole
whole thing in my mind of, of suffering.
And then I got to Acts 13 verse 48 and Acts 13 verse 48 to 52.
It says when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and honored
the word of the Lord and all who were appointed for eternal life
believed the word of the Lord spread throughout the whole
region. But the Jewish leaders incited
the God fearing women of high standing and the leading men of
the city. They stirred up persecution
against Paul and Barnabas Paul that wrote Romans 8 and expelled
them from their region. So they shipped the dust off
their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium and the
disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.
I mean, come on, come on. Did you read that?
Is that what you do when you go through suffering?
Are you filled with joy and the Holy Spirit?
When the Jewish leaders, which is the religious leaders of
those times? So basically Stephen and Rory
and all the leading men of the city, all the big businessmen
and the big guys and this and the God fearing women actually
chase you away and say food sack, get out of my city.
Is that your reaction? Are you filled with joy and the
Holy Spirit? Because I tell you, that
certainly is not my reaction when I go through difficult
times and you know, this didn't happen.
It doesn't say they were filled with joy in the Holy Spirit when
5000 got saved or when someone got raised from the dead.
They were actually filled with joy in the Holy Spirit after
they went through a very, very challenging situation, a very
difficult situation. And you see, the only way we can
do this, the only way we can be filled with joy and the Holy
Spirit when we go through suffering is if you understand
how suffering fits into the gospel.
Beautiful. So as I mentioned, the big part
of my understanding of suffering, I'm started with my
journey as a mother and a wife. Now don't.
It's not like you think. It's not because I suffer as a
mother and a wife. It's actually because it's
actually because I've seen how God has developed my character
and my husbands character and my children's character through
through this journey of, of doing life together as a family.
And so, you know, as a parent, I think, I think all of you who
are parents here today can agree with me that as a parent, we
always want everything to go right for our children.
Isn't it like that? We want them to get A's for
every subject. We want them to always make a
team. We want them to be friends with
everybody. We want them to be invited to
every birthday party because that's that's what we want for
our kids. But you know, one day God spoke
to me so clearly about through through Romans 5, as I was
thinking, I'm praying for my kids and obviously feeling their
pain. And God spoke to me so clearly
out of Romans of Romans 5 verse 3 to 4.
And it says, not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings
because we know that suffering produces perseverance,
perseverance, character and character hope.
And I felt God say to me, so clearly, you want your children
to live with hope. Don't we all?
We want our kids to have hope. You know, this world feels so
hopeless sometimes. It's hard to get into
university. It's hard to find a job.
It's hard to find a life partner that's actually, you know, going
to going to love them in the way they they need to be loved.
And, and we want our kids to have hope.
But you know what, where does hope come from?
You know, let's put that scripture up again.
Let's backtrack a little bit. Where does hope come from?
So hope comes from character. You want your kids to have hope.
They need to have godly character to have hope.
Where does character come from? Character comes from
perseverance. Do you allow your kids to
persevere? Or do you help them get out of
their difficult situations every time?
Do you make excuses every time they struggle with something and
they quit and they give up? And where does perseverance come
from? What produces perseverance?
Suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance character and
character hope. Recently I also read another
verse in in James one verse 2 to 4.
It says it's a very similar verse and it says considerate
peer joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face
trials of many kinds, because you know that suffering pretty
that testing of faith produces perseverance.
Let perseverance finish its work that you may be mature and
complete, not lacking anything. What are we going after today?
We're going after being mature Christians.
Where does it come from comes from perseverance and
perseverance come from the testing, the trials that we face
every day. And so do you want to have an
easy life or do you want to have godly character?
What is what is the goal as Christians?
Where where is the goal? Where are we going with this?
You know, and I felt God said, you know, and I want to say to
you today, what do you need hope for today?
Do you need hope for your marriage today?
Very good girl. Do you need hope for your job
situation today? Do you need hope for your
children today? What do you need hope for today?
Where does it come from? You knew when you're facing a
difficult situation and you need hope for it, You just say, God,
what are you busy doing in me? What are you busy doing in my
character? Develop perseverance in me, God,
so I can walk through this time with you.
I can learn to be more like you, Jesus.
That's where it comes from. So as I look back on my own
children's lives and it's lovely to be a pastor's child because
your, your stories always get used as examples for church
preachers. I apologize in advance to my
kids, but we have two kids. They're 21 and 2323 years old
now. Amazing, amazing children.
They are really just, they're such a blessing to us.
But they've been through some stuff, they've had to face some
things. And when we moved to Pretoria,
is it 10 years ago now? I think 10 years ago, my kids
were in grade 6 and grade 8. And I'm not going to go into
details of that, but through a whole series of things, we, we
decided to put them in Afrikaans schools for the first time in
their life. They'd been in English schools
their whole life. And this wasn't easy.
It was quite an adjustment. And, and I think more so for my
son, who's more of an introvert than my daughter, who's just
friends with everybody and the dog and everything else.
So it was, it was, it was a bigger adjustment for him.
And, and so, so, and he also arrived in the school in grade
6. Now, for those of you who have,
who've had kids, that's quite a difficult year.
You know, everybody's vying to be prefixed and play first team.
And it's quite a difficult year to come into school and make
friends. And even more so for a child
who's that one friend child who only wants that one deep friend.
And so he got into school and he was there for a couple of
months. And then the hockey coach came
to me and she said to me the Northerns Trials for hockey
actually happened before the season starts.
It starts already. And the hockey coach identifies
a few boys to go there. And they had the first practice
and she didn't realize actually what a good hockey player my son
was. So she said, actually the
Northerns trials are over. They're having the final trials
on on Saturday, but she wants to try and see if she can get Jaden
to go and play. He probably won't get chosen
because I haven't really seen him, but she'd like to just get
him to at least go and have the the experience is it will we
will be OK. And we like, well, you know
what? So we were preparing him because
we'd moved here from Namibia where you play 4 matches in a
year and then the season's over because that's the amount of
schools that they are to play against.
So he had very actually had very little experience playing
hockey. And so she organized.
We went on the Saturday at Ritz. What's that?
Ritz Fontaine, Ritz Fontaine. I mean, absolutely horrible.
The gross is like this and in Namibia they play on sand
because there is no grass. And so, so it was, it was, it
was a very interesting experience.
But he played 2 short little games.
And then the next week we were notified that, oh, by the way,
he's made northern. So we were just like, OK.
And so when we went to the to the evening where they now
actually anointed, announced these teams, anointed the teams
they, they, he was actually chosen for the northern side
team and actually chosen as the captain of the northern side
team. And this was so amazing for him
to help him with this transition in Pretoria.
I just saw how God, suddenly people knew who he were.
He was noticed, people made friends with him.
And this was just such an incredible blessing.
Wasn't about the Northerns for us, we just not those kind of
type of people. But it was just about how this
actually helped him with this transition to actually get into
the school and make friends and all of that.
Then the next year off he goes to Northerns trials again.
And guess what? He doesn't even make the C team.
And everybody was up in arms. The coach was upset, the parents
at school were upset. The parents of the people who
played northerns with him the previous year were upset.
And we were just like, you know what?
It's not important. And now I saw God do something
so deep in my son that year. I saw God teaching him that
actually, he can still love his hockey even if he doesn't make
make northerns. I saw God teach him that he was
still just as good at it even though he didn't make northerns.
I saw God actually taking a little boy of 13 and actually
making sure that his identity is not in his hockey before he goes
to high school. And you know, I saw God do so
much more in my son that year not making northerns than he did
the previous year when he was the captain of the 18.
And, and you know, he went into high school and in high school
he had many ups and downs with his hockey.
He made northerns again the next year in grade 11, he got chosen
for the first team and at the preseason tournament he saw his
ankle ligaments completely had to have it surgically replaced.
Now for any of you who have kids who are very much into sport,
for some kids when they get chosen for first team and
something like that happens, it can be absolutely the end of
their world. And I saw my son go through
this. So OK, because this whole
identity wasn't established in his hockey.
And then we had the where it's surgically replaced and we went
through the whole rehab. And in grade 12, he got chosen
for the first team again. And at the 1st preseason
tournament, you ripped that ligament out, the one they
replaced the year before. So you had to have a second
operation and, and put the and, and do the ligament replacement
again. And you know what?
He didn't flinch. Everybody kept saying to me, is
your son OK? And I'm like, he's so OK because
of a very unfair and difficult situation God put him through
when he was 12. When he was 12, God actually
taught him that his identity is not in his hockey, that he
actually is not OK or good good enough because of the way he
plays hockey. And I'm so grateful for God for
that. And you know, we could have
interfered with the process that God was doing, but we actually,
we actually trusted God that he was in control.
So as part of our pre marriage course that myself and Eugene
does, we always talk about the purpose of marriage.
What is the purpose of marriage? And you know, the youngsters,
the eyes always go this big when we tell them, you know, that the
purpose of marriage is not to make you happy.
What you know, if you think the purpose of marriage is to make
you happy, good luck. But you know that actually the
purpose of marriage is to make you holy.
The purpose of marriage is to make you holy.
Because actually God uses us. God uses us to build each
other's character. And you know what?
When we become holy, we become happy.
Because when I treat my husband in a godly way with godly
character, and he treats me in a godly way with godly character,
then happiness comes, you know, but the purpose of marriage is
not to be happy. God uses our difficult times in
our marriages to actually develop our character, to make
us look more like Jesus. That's the purpose of it.
Very good girl. So we have to become mature
Christians. And I love a little cliche,
sorry. Forgive me if you don't.
But I always say to my kids, you know, smooth seas don't make
good sailors. You know, we want to grow in our
walk with God. Smooth seas don't make good
sailors. How many of you have ever felt
God really developing your character in the times where
everything was just going so well?
Yeah, he can do it. But it's usually in the times
that it's tough that God really develops our character.
And so good girl, I want to read this.
This what I wrote here because I said we have to be able to like
the apostles in verse in verse 52, walk through challenging
times in our lives filled with joy and the Holy Spirit because
we trust a good Father who is sovereign and promises in his
word that he makes all things work together for the good of
those to love him. And I truly believe this is the
key to living life and life in abundance even when our
circumstances are not perfect. You know, the Bible says that we
should have life and life in abundance.
So how do we have life in abundance in this broken world
that we have where all these things are happening that are so
difficult to understand and deal with?
Actually, I believe the key of that is actually having an
understanding. So for those of you who know me,
I'm a very practical person. So I'm like, God, this is great,
fantastic. You've now shown me that
suffering is a part of life and it's good for us.
But now what do I do when I'm suffering?
Like give me some tools, you know, left brain dominance.
You know, I want my three steps, three steps to living in
abundance in terms of suffering. And you know, I, I, as I
mentioned earlier, I've always loved reading the word of God.
And every time that I've faced a difficult situation in my life,
that's where I turn to, I turn to the word of God.
And I can honestly tell you, if you take my Bible and you see
how many verses are underlined in there and there's little
things written in the size, you'll see that this is the
verse God gave me when I prayed about whether I should marry
Eugene or not. And that's the verse God gave me
when I prayed about whether I should should go study OT or
not. And that's the verse God gave us
when we prayed about whether we should go to Namibia or not.
Because that's actually how I live my life.
When I face a difficult situation or when I have to make
a big a big decision, I ask God to speak to me in his word.
Eugene always jokes and says I'm God's blue eyed girl because God
always gives me scriptures. But you know what if God's given
you a scripture, when that tough time hits, that's what you hold
on to. You know when God's, when God
gave you a scripture to say this is the man you want to marry
when you go through a difficult time.
I'm not wondering whether I made a mistake.
God said, this is the man I need to marry.
So what are we going to do to get to the good times again?
How are we going to walk through this?
How am I going to change? How are we going to how are we
going to learn how to love each other better?
If God gave you a scripture, you can hold on to that in the
difficult times. And so I said to God, OK God, so
now you've shown me that suffering is good for us.
What do we do when we suffer? And I and I thought God give me
Romans 12 verse 12 and Romans 12 verse 12 says be joyful in hope,
patience in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Very good girl. Be joyful in hope, patience and
affliction, faithful in prayer, in prayer.
Recently I read a very similar verse in one Thessalonians 5
verse 16 to 7. I love God's word.
Isn't it just amazing how you feel?
I was like, oh wow, this one is almost the same.
It says rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all
circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
How many of you have you said, if only I knew what God's will
for my life was. You want to know what God's will
for your life is? Rejoice always, pray continually
give thanks in all circumstances for, for this is God's will for
you in Christ Jesus. Not actually that hard.
It's actually in the Bible. And so I felt God give me 3
handles and #1 is be joyful and hope or rejoice always.
You know that I decided a long time ago that I am going to be
joyful. I am going to be happy.
I've just made a decision. I am going to live with joy.
Why not? Because I'm one of those fake
people. You know.
I know. I know someone who every time
you ask them how are they, they go.
I'll take truth. Always.
Well. And it irritates the living
daylights out of him because it doesn't go always well with
anybody. Sorry.
My bad. Did I just say that out loud
inside boys? Yeah.
Sorry, someone did one say to me, you're not a typical
pastor's wife, are you? My bad.
But but you know what? It doesn't go always well with
anybody, you know, And I'm not talking about being fake and
pretending that everything is well when inside you're actually
struggling and going through a difficult time.
I'm just saying it says be joyful in hope.
So what is our hope in? My hope is in Christ.
So if my hope is in Christ, I can be joyful even when I go
through difficult circumstances because my hope is not set on my
circumstances or my suffering or the situation I'm facing.
My hope is set on Christ and Christ is in control and He's
sovereign and He promises He will make everything work
together for the good for those who love Him.
So I choose to be joyful, whereas my husband always says I
don't sing in the shower because I'm happy.
I'm happy because I sing in the shower.
So I loved being joyful is a is a choice As Christians, we
should be joyful. We should not be looking like
we're sucking lemons when we're Christians.
So so my hope isn't him and therefore I can be joyful in
difficult circumstances. So I'm going to give you a short
little testimony of my own life here.
When I come from a family that has a family history of
depression. And so my grandfather had
depression his whole life and had to be on medication.
My mum's had depression her whole life and have had to be on
medication and it's a chemical imbalance.
And so it, it's, yeah, I'm not going to go in there.
I, I, I want to just say before I share this, I'm not saying
today, don't go on medication. Please don't hear what I'm not
saying. I'm not saying don't leave your
medication if you're on medication.
I'm just, I'm just telling you a story about my life and my walk
with God with, with depression. And, and so when I was, when I
was at my final year at varsity, I'm 21 years old, I really
started to struggle with depression and I was walking
with God already. And I said to God, God, if I
have to go onto medication, I will because I understand it has
a place. And I understand that my
grandfather's been on medication his whole life and my mom has
had to have medication. And my mom's had actually had an
incredible testimony of how even on medication, God's walked with
her and taught her how to deal with her depression.
Because you know, the medication doesn't take the depression
away. It just it just makes you able
to actually deal with it. And how God's helped her over
the years actually in a beautiful testimony how God's
taught her over the years to to deal with her with her own
depression. And I said to God, if I, if I
don't have to go on medication, I prefer not to go.
If you can give me something to, to help me deal with this
without it, then, then I will. If I have to go on, I will.
And, and once once again, one day I was reading my Bible and I
was reading Isaiah 61 verse 3. And it says that it's obviously
talking about Jesus, but it says to control, to console those who
mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy
for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of
heaviness. And I felt God say to me, what
does that say? Did it give you for the spirit
of heaviness, the garment of praise?
What is a garment, something you put on?
If I have 10 jerseys in my cupboard and I'm standing here
and I'm cold, am I going to get warm?
I have to go and put it on. I have to take my jersey and put
it on. And it says God's given us a
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
So I felt God said to me, when you start feeling that spread of
heaviness, start praising me. Now for those of you who've ever
felt depression, that is the last thing you feel like doing
when you're feeling depressed is praising God.
Isn't it like that? And you know, I started just
doing it. I started just walking and I
just go, God, I praise you. I praise you because you are
worthy to be praised. You are the alpha and Omega.
You are worthy to be praised. You, you actually Jesus, I
praise you because you died for my sin and it would be dead
inside of me. I'd really, I mean, it's fake,
you're faking it. You don't feel it.
You just say it because you believe it, not because you're
feeling it. And I'd start, I'd start
praising God. And as I praise God, I'd feel my
spirit start rising up. And you know what, I think all
of us would love to come to the front after the service for the,
for the, for the pastor to pray for us and God to set us free
from our depression and anxiety like that.
I mean, that's the dream. And I, I really believe God can
do it, but you know that most of the time he doesn't.
So this became a walk for me and, and, and I had to do this
over many years, actually over quite a few years, every time I
started feeling depressed, I would do it.
I would start praising God and saying, God, I praise you, I
praise you, you're worthy to be praised.
And I, and I'd fight my depression with, with the
garment of praise. And then one day probably I, I
don't know, because, you know, when something happens, you
don't always realize until quite a bit later it's happened.
But probably, you know, maybe 10 years later, actually, actually
I can't remember the last time I've had to do that.
I can't actually remember the last time I've had to actually
put on that garment of praise for that spirit of heaviness.
And I can honestly say to you, it's it's 25 years later now is
that I've never, ever struggled with depression again.
Yeah. And then and you're, I mean,
like all of us, I've been down. I've been down because of
situations I'm going through or difficulties I'm facing.
I'm not saying that I've been so happy, Hallelujah, all the time
I've been down. I've had sometimes that I've had
just that I've never felt depressed again.
I've never gone to that place of depression again.
But it wasn't an instant overnight zapped by the Holy
Spirit. It was a walk with God and, and
being obedient and applying what God showed me what to do.
You know, I was just listening to the songs.
Did you did you take notice of some of the songs we were
singing today? I mean, have you ever noticed
that you can come into church feeling so down or anxious and
then in worship, you're just like, you don't, You're like,
wow, I feel so much better, you know, and, and some of the songs
we were singing today said I traded my sorrow for something
to sing. Where do you think that lyric
comes from? You know, one of the other ones
said, I'll praise you when I feel it and I'll praise you when
I don't. You know, we sing these songs,
but we don't do it. You know, in our in life, I'll
praise you when I feel it and I'll praise you when I don't
because that's actually a weapon you've given me God to, to
actually fight the spirit of heaviness.
It's the garment of praise. And so I choose to be, to be, to
be joyful. I choose joy because my joy
isn't God. You know, part of choosing joy
is like 1 Thessalonians 5 sees that, that I have to be that I
have to be thankful. Give thanks in all, give thanks
in all circumstances. So we know we don't only give
thanks when things are going right.
We give thanks when things are not going right as well, because
we're not facing it alone. God is with us, He's with us,
He's protecting us. He's walking this, this journey
with us. And we always have something to
be thankful for. If you, if you struggle to be
joyful, do yourself a favour, go buy yourself a little book.
And every morning when you wake up, before you do anything else,
before you make your first cup of coffee, write down 5 things
you have to be thankful for and see what God does in your
spirit. When you actually start focusing
on what you have, what you have to be thankful for, rather than
focusing about everything that's wrong in your life.
So, so point #1 be joyful. I choose to be joyful, I choose
joy. Point #2 be patient in
affliction. We're so good at patience.
Hey, my patience is based on my trust in God.
It's not based on my circumstances.
And you know what? I've decided that I will not
make plans to get out of my own suffering.
I'm not going to make plans to get my children out of their
suffering or out of the tough things they're facing.
I'm not going to take the consequences of their choices
away. I'm not going to make plans to
make sure they're so protected they never have to face anything
difficult. I'm actually going to allow God
to be God and do what He needs to do.
And I said, God, I'm going to trust you and I'm going to be
patient until you show me what to do or what you say.
What do I do? What do I do while I wait, while
I'm patient? Point #3 be faithful and pray.
Be faithful and pray while we waiting, while we choosing joy,
while we patient and we waiting for God to speak.
We pray. And you know, I think Rory's as
often spoken about how he prays scripture and, and Stephen
actually spoke about it the other day, how he's actually
changed the way he prays. But that's something that God
has really changed in me over the over the last couple of
years is the way I pray. And I, I love praying and, and
I, and I've always been someone who pray and I, I, I always
joke, I say, I've got my permanent prayer list and then
I've got my other one. And so the permanent prayer list
is this list of people I pray for every day and, and it's
family members who are unsaved and, and situations that I pray
over every day. But I found that sometimes when
I've prayed through that whole list, I can feel quite anxious.
You know, it's like I start, I get up in the morning, I read my
word, I pray through this list. And now I've just actually
saturated my mind with all the things that are all the people
who aren't saved, the people whose marriages are in trouble.
And I actually feel quite anxious.
And so I did the same thing. I started praying scriptures and
I'm almost done. But I wanted to just give you a
few examples quickly of how I, how I pray now.
And so, so I've got a little bookie and it's got, it's got
the people. I've pray for his names at the
top. And then I pray scriptures over
them. And so I'll start with myself
first. You know, one of the scriptures
I pray over myself every day is Ephesians 4 verse 29, which says
God, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of my mouth, but
only what is helpful for building others up according to
their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
As you can see, I have a mouth, you know, it's a ghost.
You know, the petrol works a bit better than the brakes.
And I'm so, so, so I wake up in the morning and I say, God,
please don't let any unwholesome talk come out of my mouth today.
Please, Lord, help me that I will say things that will build
others up. Do I always get it right?
Nope. But do I have better success
when I do this than other times? Definitely.
One of the scriptures I pray over my husband every day comes
out of Psalm 20. It says, may the Lord answer you
when you're in distress. May the name of the God of Jacob
protect you. God.
I say, God, if my husband needs help today, will you answer him?
Father God, will you protect him wherever he goes?
May you send your help from the sanctuary and grant you support
from Zion. Lord, if he needs help today,
will you send it to him? Will you send godly men to help
him? If he needs help today?
Then it says, may you remember all your sacrifices and accept
your burnt offerings. May He give you the desires of
your heart and make all your plans succeed.
God, will you see the sacrifices He made and will you?
Will you make His plans succeed today?
And will you give him the desires of his heart?
May we shout for joy over your victory and lift up a banner of
the name of of our God. May the Lord grant you all your
requests. God, will you help my husband
today. That's when he's finished doing
what he needs today that actually your name will be
lifted up like a banner. That's that's a scripture.
I pray over him. And I've got a 21 and a 23 year
old For those of you have kids those ages, it's real stuff gets
real. And and this is one of the
scriptures that I've been praying every day over my kids
for, for, for quite a few years now.
And it's entitled to, it says for the grace of God has
appeared that offers salvation to all people.
It so the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness and
worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright and
godly lives in this present age. And I go, God, you know what
this age look like. You know what this world looks
like this present age. God, you chose to put my kids in
this world right now in this present age.
Will you will you, will you actually give them such a
revelation of your grace that it will teach them to say no, no to
ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled,
upright and godly lives in this present age.
And I prayed over them every day and then other scriptures as
well, specifically for each child.
And so that's when I walk out of my prayer closet.
When I've done that, I feel encouraged, I feel built up.
I feel that God's got this, He's got this.
He's walking with them. And I don't walk out of there
full of anxiety in that situation.
So I'll send with, I'll end with one of my another cliche
favorite sayings today. And it says the same sun that
melts the wax hardens the clay. I'm going to say it again, the
same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.
What are you going to allow your suffering to do to your heart?
The same sun that melts the wax, hardens the clay?
Are you going to allow your suffering to cause bitterness
and unforgiveness and make you negative scrunched or prune one
day? Or you're actually going to
allow your suffering to build godly character in you, to
create perseverance in you, and help you to live with hope in
Jesus name.