Well, hi y’all.
I’ve got a couple of brothers.
Both my younger brothers, one is my baby brother.
His name is Jonathan, but we call him John John and my baby brother does what baby brothers do when they come to your house as adults, they go straight to your refrigerator.
That’s what John John does. And so he was at my house not long ago, he came over, he went straight to the refrigerator.
He started foraging through it and as he forged through my refrigerator, he was reminded of something that he wanted to tell me.
So he’s giggling, kind of laughing as he remembers this story about my niece, his oldest daughter who is four.
Now, her name is Kelsey. She is a precocious sassy, little curly headed little girl.
I don’t know where she got any of that from. And Kelsey now she’s four. Yes.
But John John said, listen, I gotta tell you something that happened when she was four.
I mean, I’m sorry when she was two.
He said when Kelsey was two, she used to come to the refrigerator when she was hungry.
The big box in the kitchen that had the food in it.
She would point at the big box with the food and say eat.
He said I would then go and grab my little two year old, take her over to her booster seat that was at the uh you know, positioned in the chair at the kitchen table.
I put her in the booster seat.
She would then commence to throw a temper tantrum and cry a river of tears and get totally ticked off about the fact that now she was far removed from the big box that had the actual food in it.
So she would wiggle her way out of the seat.
Stop her way back across the kitchen floor to the big box that had the food in it, point at it and say eat.
So he said, then I would go pick her up and I would take her back over to the booster seat at the table, sit her down.
She would throw a temper tantrum cry, a river of tears wiggle her way out of the chair, walk back over to the big box with the with the the food in it and say eat.
So I would pick her up and I would take her back over to the booster seat, sit her down in it.
She would throw a temper tantrum and we went through this over and over and over again.
And she, he said to me, Priscilla, you know I’m laughing now while I tell you this story.
But just so, you know, at the time, it wasn’t funny, the kind of patience I had to put into training this girl to realize that, that I was her daddy and that I loved her.
And that where I was putting her was actually the place she needed to be to receive what she was asking me for that.
She was throwing a temper tantrum because I in my understanding of the the best environment for her to be in that I was placing her in that environment and she was refusing it and she was fighting against me.
But but I knew where I was putting her was the best place for her.
So I’m giggling, you know, and I’m laughing as he’s telling me this story about little Kelsey.
I mean, I was just laughing my head off and the Holy Spirit right there in the kitchen stopped me in my tracks and said, Priscilla don’t laugh too long or too hard because honey, that would be you Priscilla, you’re the one he spoke to my heart that I’ve got to be patient with because you throw a temper tantrum.
When I put you in a place you don’t particularly prefer to be.
You’re the one who often chooses to ignore my voice or rebel against my directions or, or Priscilla just choose to go your own way.
You’re the one who does that. And Priscilla just like John.
John had to be patient with his girl, I need you to know that, that I have to be patient with you as my child.
I wonder if there’s anybody in the room that knows exactly what I’m talking about.
And so right there in the kitchen, I just started saying thanks, thanks God for being patient with me.
Thank you that when I have made mistakes or missteps or maybe it wasn’t a mistake or a misstep, I have just blatantly chosen to go my own way.
Thank you Lord, that you have been patient with me.
It occurs to me as we are talking about this, this sense of knowing and being known how yesterday we looked at through the incredible teachers, the Lord gave us, we looked at this concept of knowing who we are in Christ and coming into a realization of our identity in Him.
And then today, knowing the importance of legacy and being deliberate and focused about leaving that legacy and knowing our purpose and knowing our calling and being focused on it and consistent in our walk, Christ.
It occurred to me that in these huge overarching concepts that if you’re anything like me, you realize how much further you have to go to be all that God has called you to be that there is a gap between where you are right now and some of the things you’re beginning to sense God wanting to change or rearrange or rest steer in your life as you become focused on these concepts that we’re studying this, this weekend and looking at this weekend together and I just wanted to for a few moments, offer you encouragement that no matter how far removed you feel like you might be from whatever goal you’ve been convicted about even just over the past 24 hours, no matter how much more you feel like you need to go home and do differently or reconfigure or reshape or Reprioritize in your life and in your leadership and in your ministry and your company, no matter what you feel like you need to change or how far off the mark you are.
I want you to know today and be encouraged that God has enough patience to walk with you to help to grow you, that your friends might not have enough patience.
Your spouse might have not have had enough patience to wait for you to change or get better in that area, your mama, your daddy, they might not have had enough patience for you, but there is one.
Listen to me. I’m so grateful because he’ll never leave us. He’ll never forsake us.
He hangs with us while we change.
He’s in it for the long haul with you and me and I’m so grateful about it.
Patience, long suffering. I’ve been thinking about this concept of patience.
Excuse me, because I am naturally an impatient person.
Can I just get one somebody to be a witness in here?
I mean, I just like stuff to kind of get done.
You know, I just want it complete.
I’m the kind of person that when we have a problem, I have come up with a solution in the very first five minutes that we ever had a problem.
It might not be the best solution, but we got a solution to work with.
And when you are a naturally impulsive, impatient person and you’re ready to get to the bottom line the way the Lord hones patience in our life because for human beings, patience is a characteristic that has to be matured and honed in us.
It’s got to be worked on a little bit.
The way he works on it in our lives is that he puts us in scenarios where we have to wait.
So he causes you to be married to someone, help me, Jesus, help me, Lord married to someone who takes 24 48 72 hours to make a decision.
So, you know, when we have a problem, I’ve come up with a solution.
But uh my man’s gotta think about it fast on it.
Go in the prayer closet on it, ask wives counsel about it, Lord have mercy.
And then y’all know when he finally does come up with a solution.
It is the exact same solution that I had. The first five minutes we ever had the problem.
Honestly, if I am to be honest, most of the time Jerry has come up with a better solution because he’s thought through all the consequences.
He’s looked down the line. He is really patiently uh taken pains with what’s the best decision in the matter.
And so the Lord sets me in a scenario where I have to hone the skill of patience.
The reason why you sit next to that coworker on your job.
I’m talking about that one that if she says one more thing to you, you gonna knock her out.
Anybody got one of those.
The reason why he does that and has allowed that is because in that scenario, you are honing the skill, the characteristic of patients.
So since patience is something in our lives that we got to just plain old flat out work on somehow, we’ve put that same dynamic on God.
We feel like that since patience is so difficult for us that God must have trouble with it too.
And since we get irritated when that kid keeps asking us the same question 9, 10, 11 times after we already said no, the first two times that we feel like because we get irritable in situations like that, that God must also get irritable with us somehow.
And that because our patience runs thin and because we can easily become irritated in scenarios like that, that God must be the same with us.
And that when we have a question 10 times and when we’re like Gideon and need confirmation of God’s will that, that somehow God.
God is fed up with us and done with us and is irritated with us.
But you need to know that that patience is not a characteristic in, in God and our God that needs to be honed or trained or matured or developed my friend.
You cannot wear God out. He doesn’t need a good map before he can handle our lives.
He is God. He is full, complete uh comprehensive, everything you need. God already is.
And so I’m here to tell you today that no matter how far off the mark you think you could be in your marriage or in that ministry or in your leadership style or how you want to shift and change things as you continue and I continue to mature and develop and in, in our lives that God, God’s got your back.
He can hang with you through the process, through the change. In fact, He’s committed to hanging with you.
And so as you and I discover our purpose and our calling our identity, be deliberate about leaving a legacy, knowing what it is that God has for us.
I want to encourage you on this concept of God’s patience with us as we make this journey.
If you’ve got your Bible with it, if you actually still use, use the Bible with paper pages like I do, or if you got your iphone, your ipad, any manner of I would you just get to first Timothy because there’s just a little teeny passage of scripture that for a few minutes, I thought I would share with you because it is one of the clearest places in scripture where Paul talks about God’s patience.
I’ve fallen in love with this little passage because I needed to be encouraged in this area of knowing that God is with me for the long haul that he is slow to anger and great empower.
And Paul is talking to this young leader, his name is Timothy.
And he wants to tell him many things in this letter that he’s writing to this young guy who’s starting out in his ministry, starting out to leave the legacy that he will leave.
And of all the things that Paul the apostle wants to make sure that Timothy knows for sure by the time he gets to the end of this letter, in fact, one of the primary things that he wants to write about in the very first chapter is pinpointing and zeroing in on for Timothy, the grand, great patience of God.
He wants this. That’s got to know Tim. Listen, you’re going to make mistakes along the way.
Everything isn’t going to run as perfectly as you would hope that it would, you’ve got a journey ahead of you.
But I want you to know right here at the onset of the journey that you’re on. That God’s patience.
His grace is sufficient for you.
First Timothy chapter one verse 16 says this and yet for this reason, Paul says, I found mercy in order that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ might demonstrate here.
It is his perfect patience. What kind of patience is it?
His perfect patience as an example of those who would, for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.
Paul says, listen, the patience that God has isn’t just a good patience and it’s not just a great patience, it is absolutely 100% perfect.
Which means when you get to the furthest reaches of the extremes of the long suffering nature of God, even at the furthest reaches, there is not one little bit of imperfection.
You can’t wear it out, you can’t go over it or under it or escape it or get around it.
His patience is complete. It is perfect and it’s got you covered. His patience is perfect.
And Paul says just in case you’re not sure, look at me, Paul says, I’m a demonstration of how perfect it must be because I am the foremost.
He means the chief of all sinners. He’s basically saying you ain’t done nothing. I haven’t already done.
You haven’t gone anywhere that, that you shouldn’t be going, that I haven’t already gone.
Your eyes haven’t seen anything that mine, haven’t seen your ears, haven’t heard anything.
Mine haven’t already heard your hands haven’t done anything.
You have not dug a pit for yourself that is deeper than the one I have already dug for myself.
And Paul says, I’m telling you if he had enough patience to reach down in my pit and pull me out of that thing, I promise he’s got you covered.
Paul says I’m a demonstration of the patience of God.
He says, when I look in the mirror, I see proof of the fact that God’s patience is extravagant and limitless and boundless and, and totally for me and not against me.
God’s patience is perfect. Now, I love that Paul didn’t give us like, you know his sin resume.
He didn’t give us the details of why he says I’m a demonstration of the patience of God.
He just says I am. He doesn’t give us all the details on his sin resume.
And I’m so glad that he didn’t give us the details of his sin resume.
Because if we did have the details of his resume, we might be so distracted looking at the details of Paul’s sin resume that we forget that we actually don’t have time to be looking at anybody else’s resume because we got a resume of our own.
Anybody know what I’m talking about.
We don’t have time to concentrate on the details of what somebody else has been delivered from because honestly, if I were to take this little microphone and just start passing it around this room, we’d be in here well into 2014 going over all of our own details on our own sin resumes anybody in the house been delivered from anything, anybody.
So I’m glad we don’t get, get, get a chance to even get distracted by Paul’s sin resume because we’ve got our own sin resume.
And honestly, when we think about it, Paul is not the only person that is a demonstration of how perfect God’s patience must be.
Because if we look in the mirror, we are a demonstration of how perfect God’s patience must be.
The very fact that you and I are in this room today convene together.
Listen, even if the person that brought you here got you here kicking and screaming like you’re still sitting in the room and you don’t even know how you got here.
You’re just trying to figure out what what has happened. How did this happen?
You need to know that even if you’re shocked before the foundation of the world, Jeremiah 15 says he had this on the schedule of your life, my friend, you have been divinely set up.
You were meant to be here.
And so God’s patience with us, drawing us, wooing us, calling us to himself and calling us and allowing us to be in scenarios like this one.
Even when we didn’t even purpose it, our planet, this already speaks to the patience of God demonstrated in our own lives.
I love this verse because it starts with the words for this reason, for this reason, it’s kind of like when you see at the beginning of a verse, the word, therefore, any time you see, therefore in scripture, you need to see what it’s there for because it is there for a reason.
And when you see a passage that starts with, for this reason, you need to kind of backtrack a little bit because that means Paul has already listed some reasons that he’s trying to point your attention to.
So I thought for just a few moments, you and I could look at what his reasons were for why he came to this conclusion in verse 16, that God’s patience is so perfect and that he’s a demonstration of the patience of God.
I wanna know what the reasons are and I want to share them with you because they are simple and yet the implications of them, the, the encouragement we get from them is so profound and will launch us confidently into this journey that you and I are going to be on after we leave catalyst that we won’t be walking on eggshells in our relationship with God wondering if, if we just do one more, more wrong thing or one more misstep that it might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and God might be done with us for good.
This will free us up to live fully and abundantly because we will know we cannot wear out the patience of God.
So I want to see what the reasons are anybody want to see what the reasons are with me?
Maybe so glad. Verse 15 is the first reason.
It’s a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world.
Here it is to save sinners, to save sinners.
Paul says, in case you were wondering whether or not God has enough patience to help you in your journey, to help you make the changes you need to make, to uh help you to get out of a pit you’ve dug for yourself.
In case you were wondering whether or not God can handle the past year of your life or the past six weeks of your life or the past five years of your life.
In case you were wondering, Paul says, would you never forget that if he had enough patience and long suffering to make sure that you came to be in relationship with him through his son, Jesus Christ.
If he had enough patience for that, that he’s got your life covered.
Now, I’ve been thinking about this, this idea of the salvation that God gives us.
And I can’t say it any more clearly than, than um our speaker just said to us, Reggie Joyner.
I can’t say it any better. I loved it so much.
He said that God could have just fixed everything with a word out of his mouth right after the garden.
He could have just fixed it all.
But the fact that he took century and millennia to woo and to call and to build a relationship with His people, speaks to the long suffering nature of God.
I want you to consider the fact that since the beginning of time, there has been a war in the heavenly for your soul and for my soul.
And God has painstakingly waited and wooed that even if you and I weren’t looking for him, the hound of heaven has come looking for us.
He is patient toward us. He desires relationship with us.
Listen, the fact that you and I are physically alive and born, especially in this day and age and generation where there has never ever been a time in history for the church of Jesus Christ, where you could call together a gathering of young leaders and 15,000 of us would just show up so that we could dig into God’s word and learn how to be the leaders that God has called us to be in women’s ministry in particular.
There has never been a time in history before where you could walk into a Christian bookstore.
And there be so many Bible study resources that are available specifically geared for women and written by women that is, that has never happened in the history of the world.
And here you and I, we get to be alive in the generation of catalyst in the generation of, of time when you can go on and on, on the radio.
When you can hear traditional Christian music or you can hear more contemporary Christian music or you can go to a church that’s stationed on pretty much any corner you can find in certain areas of our country.
And here’s somebody teaching the good news of Jesus Christ.
Don’t, you know, we’re blessed to live in this day and age and generation and it’s not by chance my friend that you’re here.
It’s because God miraculously positioned your existence in this time and this age and generation. It’s not by chance.
Even if you were a surprise to your mama and daddy, you were not a surprise to God.
He did not go. Oops. How did that one get through the cracks?
Yeah, I mean, I want you to think about it.
Your great great grandfather with the seven billion plus people that are on the planet.
He just happened to find the woman that should be your great great grandmother.
The two of them came together and had your uh your great grandfather, then your great grandfather with the seven billion people that are on the planet.
He just happened to find the woman that should be your great grandmother.
They came together and had your grandfather, then your grandfather with the seven billion plus people that are on the planet.
He just happened to find the woman that should be your grandmother.
The two of them came together and your daddy and then your daddy with the seven billion plus people that are on the planet.
He just happened to find the woman that should be your mother.
And then the two of them came together and this is a little graphic of all the millions of sperm.
The exact right one joined together with your mother, mother’s egg to create you.
There ain’t nothing chance about all that my friend God constructed that he maneuvered things so that you and I would be alive in this day and age.
It’s a miracle that you and I are here. It’s a miracle.
But if you think it’s a miracle that you were born, think of how much more of a miracle it is that you were born again.
Since the beginning of time, there has been a war for your soul.
I want you to think about how much God has gone through to be in relationship with you.
I want you to picture it like a chessboard, a divine chessboard in the heavenly, the enemy is on one side.
God is on the other and both of them are vying for your soul. God makes the first move.
He creates Adam and Eve and he creates them in a perfect relationship with himself in a perfect environment.
But the enemy he’s got to move to and he slithers into the garden and he causes sin to enter into the hearts of mankind so that Kane kills Abel and murder proliferates across the scenario.
The perfect scenario that God had created and it seems like the enemy has one but our God not to be outdone.
He has another move and he causes Adam and Eve to come back together again.
Adam and Eve give birth to a baby named Seth. Seth gives birth to Enoch.
And Genesis chapter four says that when Enoch was born, everybody began to worship God again.
But the enemy not to be outdone, he makes another move.
He causes sin to enter back into the hearts of mankind so that it proliferates across the whole world and the whole world has to be destroyed.
It looks like God has won or the enemy rather has won, but God not to be outdone.
He makes another move. He finds this guy named Noah. He says, Noah, build an ark.
Noah says build a what he says build an ark because it’s going to rain and no one just obeyed even though it didn’t make sense to him.
And because of that mankind was preserved, but the enemy makes another move.
He causes rebellion again to seep into the hearts of mankind.
It proliferates across the earth and it’s everywhere, seeping into the hearts of mankind and across the planet.
But God makes another move and he goes to this little town called er and he raises up this guy named Abram and he changes his name and changes his purpose and changes his destiny and says, I’m going to send you to a brand new place and make a brand new people out of you.
And the nation of Israel will be marked by my, my power and my presence and my name and my favor.
And, and so it looks like God has the upper hand as his people emerge, but the enemy makes another move and he causes God’s people to go down into Egypt land.
And for 400 years, they are enslaved and it sure looks like the enemy has won this time.
But our God never to be outdone. He makes another move.
And he raises up this little baby boy named Moses and Moses is raised as the prince of Egypt.
And at the right time, God sends Moses to go to Pharaoh to say, let my people go.
And after 10 miraculous plagues and 40 years in the wilderness, they finally come into the promised land but the enemy not to be outdone.
He makes another move. He causes now God’s people to turn their back on Yahweh, the one true God and begin to worship idols.
By the time you get to the end of the Book of Judges, the last line in the book of judges says this, everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes.
Kind of sounds like America in the year 2013, doesn’t it? But our God not to be outdone.
He makes another move and he raises up this little moa girl named Ruth Ruth has tragedy in her life.
But at the right time, she meets this kinsman redeemer, remember?
And the two of them come together and they have this baby named Obed and Obed gives birth to Jessie and Jessie gives birth to a little baby boy named David.
And with that one move, the enemy doesn’t even know that the checkmate is already on the way.
He doesn’t even know.
And by the time the old Testament closes, there are 400 years of silence.
God is on one side of the, the, the historic chess board and the enemy is on the other and all of history waits to see who’s gonna make the next move.
The Old Testament closes and then the New Testament opens and God makes a move that the enemy still to this day has never had a response for enter Jesus Christ.
Basically, God said, I’m tired of this back and forth.
I’m gonna come down here and take care of this myself and he did all of that for you, for your soul and for my soul.
If you’ve ever questioned whether or not God has enough patience to handle what happened in the last six weeks of your life or the last year of your life or the last five years or 10 years of your life or your whole life.
If you’re wondering whether or not God can use you after where you’ve been and what you’ve done and the decision you’ve made, listen to me if he can handle the past few millennia, making sure y’all would be in relationship with each other.
I’m telling you he has got your lifetime covered, got it covered. Amen.
Paul says, never question the patience of God. He saved you, didn’t he?
But then that’s not all Paul says, it’s not just because he saved me.
But look at the beginning of verse 13, he says, even though I was formerly, somebody say, formerly, formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.
Yet I was shown mercy. Paul gives us three things off of his resume.
He says, OK, I’m not gonna give you the whole deal, but I’ll give you three things off of my resume.
These are the three things that, that described me before I came to relationship with Jesus Christ.
But before I write these three things on my resume, Paul says, I need to put a huge title at the top of my resume and the title is formally, he says, before I write any of this stuff, I want you to know that these things are who I used to be.
They are not who I am anymore.
Paul says, if you’re wondering whether or not God has enough patience for you, would you remember not only that he saved you, but that He can change you.
Salvation is your justification, but changing you changing me. That’s our sanctification.
That is the process by which we are made into the image of Christ Jesus and guess what other people physically that are in our lives?
They might not stick with us while we change.
But there is one who is our sancti fier and will walk with us as we come into this, knowing that, that we’re being called and commissioned to here at Catalyst.
God is with you for the long haul while you change my friend, he sticks closer than a brother.
He’s the one that is precious Holy Spirit in you.
In fact, not only is his spirit with you while you change, but did you know that one of the job descriptions of the Holy Spirit is to change you?
Like you don’t have to change yourself. The Holy Spirit does the changing for you.
Second Thessalonians 1 13 that he actually sanctifies you.
In other words, it is his business to make you and I look more like Jesus, that’s his job description because I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but trying to change yourself from the outside in is hard and it’s exhausting but change from the inside out.
Like if you and I get to the end of our time together when this conference is over.
And if we just say, OK, Lord, gosh, I’ve written down all these things.
There’s so much I need to do.
There’s a legacy I want to leave and I need to change my life to, to enhance that Lord and zero in on that.
And God, there’s a purpose in calling that I want to discover.
But, but God, I’m not going to try to change myself from the outside in.
I’m going to yield to your spirit whose job description it is to change me from the inside out.
That’s the kind of change that lasts. Have you ever wondered how popcorn pops?
Somebody say yes, I’m so glad you wanna know.
So inside every little kernel of corn there is a microscopic dot of water.
So when you take a microwave bag of popcorn and you put it inside the microwave, you are not putting it inside the microwave so that it can heat up the shell of the corn.
You are putting it inside the microwave because all of that heat heats up the little microscopic dot of water that is inside the kernel of corn.
So what happens is as the microwave heats up that microscopic dot of water, it creates more and more steam and the steam gains more and more pressure and the pressure becomes so hard and so heavy on the inside of that curl of corn that as it heats up, it finally presses against the shell so hard that the shell has to pop.
So now the corn looks completely different on the outside, not because you did anything to the outside, but because you just heated up what was on the inside.
This is what happened when the spirit of God is in you and you know, the spirit of God is in you, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, right?
So as you heat up the work of God’s spirit on the inside of you by yielding to the voice of the Holy Spirit and connecting with believers like this and being in the word of God and being on your knees and developing relationship with Him.
As you heat up the Holy Spirit on the inside of you.
The work his work in you, presses and presses against the shell of your life until eventually you, you pop and guess what?
You look completely different now on the outside than you ever did before.
Not because you work so hard on the outside, but because God was working so diligently on the inside of you and his influence now is seen on the outside of you.
Paul says, if you’re wondering whether or not God has got enough patience to take you from point A to point B would you remember that He saved you and that He is changing you?
And if nobody else hangs with you, he’s got your back. one of my sons.
Um gosh, he’s getting ready to be 11 now.
But when he was five, you know, his first tooth was coming out and he was so excited.
He had become so excited about this tooth because we had told him, you know, OK, so the tooth fairy is gonna come when your teeth start falling out and you get a little treasure when you put the tooth under your pillow.
And so he could not wait.
I mean, he’s like wiggling the thing trying to get it out and he finally gets it out on that day, that one day it finally falls out.
He was so excited. That kid has never been excited to go to bed in his whole life.
But that day, I mean, he ran for the bed, dove in bed, put his tooth under there.
He was trying to go to sleep. He was trying his best to go to sleep.
He kept looking under the pillow to see if anything was happening.
He finally fell asleep and then about three AM in the morning, my husband who is the um £250.06 foot three tooth fairy that I sleep next to every night he got up, went upstairs, he exchanged, exchanged the tooth for a treasure.
I knew when Jackson got up in the morning because it was just chaos upstairs.
I heard thumping and screaming and excitement and he ran downstairs and he had his two fists clenched closed.
He said, mom, the tooth fairy came and he opened up one hand and it was a package of gummy bears, his favorite little snack and the other hand was $5.
Oh no, he didn’t.
So after Jackson bounded out of the room, my husband saw the expression on my face and he said, Priscilla don’t worry.
He said, do you remember last month at the time last month was Jackson’s fifth birthday?
He said, do you remember that?
All the family members came over and they all brought cards and they all had $5 bills in them.
He said, you remember we took all those $5 bills and we put them in a birthday drawer.
He said, well, this morning at three AMI went right inside that birthday drawer and I got one of them $5 bills and put it right underneath his pillow.
Dave Ramsey should be proud of us.
That is good financial stewardship right there is what that is.
So I watched my boy get excited about treasure.
That was really already his. Can I tell you what this whole conference is about?
It’s not about giving you more treasure, my friend.
It’s just about encouraging you to open up the drawer and pull out the treasure.
That is really already yours.