When, GOD, When, Part 3: Patience Please! | Dr. Mike Woods, Sr. | 3-17-24

Higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power. Our God, our God. Oh, we celebrate his wonderful name. We celebrate your wonderful name, Lord. Into the darkness you shine. Out of the ashes we rise. There's no one like you. There's no one like you, Lord. None like you. We sing our God. Our God is greater. Our God is stronger. Lord, you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power. Our God, oh, our God, our God is greater, our God is stronger. Lord, you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power. Our God, he's our God. Hallelujah! He's worthy to be praised. We're singing about it. We're not —think about the Lord, how he saved me, how he raised me, how he healed me with the Holy Ghost, how he healed me to be— it's when I think about the Lord, how he picked me up, the Lord turned me around, how he placed my feet— Holy ground, it makes me want to shout. Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely, you're lovely God. Your word You're so worthy, God. You're wonderful. You're wonderful. So here I am. I worship you, Lord. I bow before you, Lord. Oh Lord, just to say you're mine. You're mine, Lord. Hallelujah, Lord. You're altogether lovely. You're worthy of all the praise. Praise. You're worthy of all the worship, Lord. You're so worthy, Lord. Hallelujah, hallelujah, Lord. You're worthy to be worshiped. You're worthy to be praised. You're worthy.

Honor your name. We honor your name. We lift up our hands Lord and honor your name. We, we, we honor your name. Hallelujah! We honor your name. We lift up our hands, Lord, and honor your If I would put a title on today, I will call this Patience Please. Just look at somebody, say patience. We live in a world full of impatient people. Everybody wants things really fast. Matter of fact, the world moves very fast. I mean, when the microwave was first introduced, we thought that was fast because you could just stick something in the microwave, you'd be eating in 10 minutes. You take a whole dinner— it might kill you because it's so high in sodium and all that, you do too much of it. Glory to God. But you can eat it in 10 minutes. The reality is most of us are too connected We, through social media and the internet, has made us believe— I'm talking about we can do things through the internet faster than a microwave ever could do with our life. And there are people that really believe that they can just do what they want to do because the internet gives them opportunity to get in front of their phone and preach. They get— they try to have podcasts and blogs, and they really should be sitting somewhere quiet learning and not saying anything because they don't know what to say. And you can tell that when they're talking. Some, some of the stuff I say, I'll be like, why don't you just shut up? Really, just shut up, sit down, learn something, and when you're ready— are you hearing this?— God will bring you forth. Just look at somebody and say, patience, please. We got more people that want to prophesy and and be an apostle and be a pastor with no patience. I'm a matter of fact, you can become a bishop online. I can take you to the website right now. Just pay $50, they will send you a bishop certificate. That's real quick, right? Glory to God. Don't necessarily make you a bishop because you paid for it. Trust me, there are people who are paid to be called. They show up in church that preach every Sunday because they get a check every week. It's good business for them because they, they moved in a level of impatience and really didn't wait on their purpose. The Bible said them that teach, wait on teaching. Them that prophesy, wait on prophesy. Them that serve, wait on serving. Which means get to a place where you're qualified to do it. I've trained a lot of leaders in my day, and the ones that sat as learners, they are very successful, powerful people. Glory to God. The reality— and I can just only talk from my own experience— I took the position of the learner. That's why I met— I'm still a learner. I know what I know because I am a learner. So I gotta be a learner. It takes patience to learn. Let's just jump in this space. Just know somebody ever said patience, please. All right, let's go to Hebrews 6:12. Thank you, baby, I heard you real loud. I need that kind of participation. Glory to God. Hebrews 6:12. Let's start right here. The Bible says that you be not slothful. Let's, let's just start right there and break that down. The word slothful here— here we go— is a word, nothros, N-O-T-H-R-O-S, in Greek. And what this word means, it means to be lazy, it means to lack diligence, it means to be indolent or languid. Now let me— just in case you don't know what insolent or languid is, but insolent means that you have no desire, like I just was talking about, to learn, to know more. Watch this, you're slow to pick up a book. Whoa, you buy a book and lay your hands on it and say, in the name of Jesus, I absorb this knowledge. What I'm telling you right now That knowledge is not going to jump in your head. You got to open the book and read it. Indolent people have no desire to become better. Are y'all hearing this? Oh boy, they're sluggish, they're slow and lazy, they're dull, have no fire, no life, never happy. That's— this is slow. Watch this. They sleep a lot. A languid person. I love this word. Say languid. Come on, say it again. Say languid. As I was waiting on my baby. Say it one more time. Languid. I love it. You— she just learned the word today and don't even know it. She ain't know that word before today. What's this language means? That you make a deliberate choice to be stuck. And maybe there's nobody here, maybe somebody will watch this later, but it makes no sense to choose stuck when you don't have to be stuck. You can make decisions that literally will prepare your life forward if you choose to. The scripture here says don't be slothful. And when it comes to patience, the reality is you have to learn that you— because the opposite of being slothful is being diligent. The scripture says the diligent soul shall be made fat, not fat in weight, but the word fat There in Hebrew, in the scripture in Deuteronomy, means that you'll be fat, rich. That means that if you're diligent through hard work and learning, riches— watch this— will start looking for you. It isn't you look for them. Money will look for you. So he says, that you be not slothful. Let me keep reading Hebrews 6:12. But followers— say followers. I love that little girl, that little boy, little girl, little boy. Glory to God. I thought it was a little girl, it was a little boy. And y'all let the little white boy outshot y'all. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Glory. Say, that's a good thing, that's a good thing, good thing. We're on the right, we're on the same team. Glory to God. Say this with me again. Say imitators. Say followers. So those two words are congruent because the word follower there in Greek is mimetes, is where we get the word memes. So y'all know that word because you have become accustomed to sharing them. So a meme is something that you take a portion of something, you create something that's theatrical, comedic, and it, it, it tells a story. But it imitates someone else. In this day and time, most time I mean imitate someone's failure. Well, God said that's what I want you to do here, is be an imitator. So it's all right really to imitate, but this is who he wants you to imitate. He wants you to imitate them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. So you shouldn't be mimicking or imitating anyone that ain't inherited the promises. You should want to duplicate your life after someone that's walking in the promises of God. You should want to be— I mean, you should want to see your life excel to a level where you're experiencing the manifestation of God in your life be just like the person you're looking at, and even beyond. Watch this. So let me break this down. He said, first of all, I want you to be a follower or imitator of them who through faith and patience— all right, I got to go back through this. This is a crash course in faith. The word faith is pistis in Greek, and it means to have total confidence, total reliance total dependence, to resolve that you will trust what you cannot see over what you see. Guess what? Without this, you can't please God. Hebrews 11:6 says, without faith, it's impossible to please him. You can go to church, you can pray, You can speak in tongues, you can prophesy, you can go through all those motions, but if you have no faith, you cannot bring pleasure to God. So what he says is, I need you now to resolve that I'm going to model my life after those that move in faith. If you can't find nobody on earth that you trust is moving in faith, it's plenty of them in the Bible. Hebrews 11 got a Hall of Fame of faith. So the Bible says you imitate those who through faith— not through their trust in their own system, not through their trust in their flesh, not through trusting in other people to do things for them— but trust those, imitate those that who lean on God as their resolve. Because watch this, God has no respect of person. And if they're walking by faith— oh my God— and God is blessing them through walking by faith, he'll do the same thing for you. The only difference is they chose to go from faith to faith and were not slothful and be stuck at one level of faith. I've even had people tell me, oh, this is my faith, this is just where I'm at. The devil is a liar. And what they're in the same sentence say, they're going from glory to glory. The two things are synonymous. It's impossible to go from glory to glory and not go from faith to faith, right? Amen. If you go from glory to glory, your faith is going to increase, because in every dimension of glory you're going to see something God does that you didn't see at the last dimension of Amen. Amen. Yeah, we got to grow up. Yeah, see, we go to church and we have good church. Yeah, we have a lot of fun. We've learned how— watch this— to mean church. Yeah, we know how to sound, we know the right music. I'm so glad we're going through this season where we'll have a musician. When we moved to 12:30, our musician couldn't come no more because we were doing 3:30. He could come and we're just gonna be patient. But God sent us another one. You know what God is teaching us? How to lean into him and to not go through the motions and have a service that actually can be filled with glory without props. Amen. Amen. It's a lot of props at church. Oh my God, some people don't feel like they can have church without a Hammond B-3 and drums. Right. And, and guess what? Most pastors, this is the first thing they're gonna buy because they need that to have church. But all I'm telling right now, all we need to have church is God. Not saying those things aren't important, but what I am saying, we got to reprogram our focus. Yeah, he's the thing we ought to be looking for. Yeah, he's the thing we ought to be seeking instead of all these props and memes so we can feel like we had church because we did it like like everybody else. We didn't go from glory to glory and faith to faith. See, faith— glory to glory happens inside of the church and outside of the church. Faith to faith happens in the church and outside the church. These things have to translate into our life. Oh boy. He says, I want you to be an imitator of them who through faith— wait a minute, conjunction and Patience. Oh boy, here we go. This word, this Greek word, means to be a person that perseveres, or perseveres, a person that will endure against all odds, a person that decides no matter what the enemy throws at me, against all odds, I'm standing with God. So that's what you got to do— have some people in your corner, some people around you that's not so quick to give up. Yeah, amen. Oh boy, I can't personally walk with people who give up quickly. I can't do it. All I got for them is to help them to endure. I can't hang out with them, I can't be around them long, because at the end of the day, what you're going to end up doing is pulling me where you are. Yep. Okay, you ain't got to say nothing, I know it's true. Yeah, if you're an eagle, you can't run with chickens. Yeah, you just can't, right? Because if you're an eagle— eagle soar, they do everything in the air. Chickens live on the ground, and if you're an eagle, you gotta condescend every time to get on the chicken's level. And what you've got to do is find you some eagles that's soaring. Yeah, some eagles that want to go where you're going. Some eagles that have made up their mind: where I am now is not where I'm gonna be. Yeah, I'm telling you right now, where I am now is not where I'm gonna be. Glory to God. God's been good to me, but I'm telling you, this ain't the end. Glory to God, there is more. And you know, it's because I've surrounded myself with eagles that fly higher than me. Yeah, yeah, amen. And I seek to imitate not them, their faith. Yeah. And watch this, their flight pattern. And watch this, eagles are very patient. Glory to God. Watch this. You can't even condescend to— for you people that condescend to make love to people who are chickens, stop making love to chicken heads and chickens. And y'all can't speak nothing here, you— because you gotta condescend to do that. Eagles even make love in the air. They fly to high altitudes and connect. and they make love in a downfall, and then when they're done, they keep flying, never touching the ground. They eat in the air. They'll see what they want to eat in the water, scoop down, get it out the water, and fly up and tear that fish up in the air. They don't spend time on the ground. Touch yourself, say, I'm an eagle. Say this: I have faith and patience. Watch this. To inherit the promises. So to inherit a promise means that the promise is already prepared. The promise is already yours. It means you're an heir of God. The Bible says you're a joint heir with Jesus Christ. You are heir to everything Jesus had. Has. But in order to get what he has, I gotta have faith and patience. Glory to God. Because when he moves in, guess what? He moves in with everything. He didn't just show up to save you so you could shake a little bit and speak in tongues. It's almost— oh my God, yeah, my grandmama This is funny, for real. My grandma— this true story, and this is how some church folk are. Just stay with me the whole story, but this is what came in my mind. Look at my grandmother. You know, Grandma— my grandma was one of the grandmas that kept everything in her bra. She kept money in her bra, keys in the bra. Like, what's, what's, what's going on in there? And I remember one day, 6 years old, said, Grandma, can I have some candy? You got some candy? She pulled peppermint out her bra. First thing I look, I got in my hands, I want that kind of candy. You said you want some candy? Well, eat that candy. I put the candy in my mouth and I'm like, oh, this don't taste good. This tastes like Tussy. You remember Tussy? Y'all, you got pretty old if you didn't— you know what Tussy is? That's the kind of deodorant we had. It wasn't no roll-on. You put your finger and you put on your arm. That's what everybody wore. And I'm like, this, this tastes like Tennessee. And, and, and I'm saying to myself, Grandma need to get a wallet. She need a pocketbook. She— this stuff is stuck in her bra. I don't know how long that peppermint was in my grandmama's bra. Had to be in there a few days. And, and that's how many church folk are. They're stale like that peppermint. Because we're stuck in this mold where we think our relationship with God is just all about jumping, shout, speaking in tongues, spitting, blowing bubbles— watch this— likes and clicks. But really it's about inheriting something that belongs to us. We're stuck in a circle that makes us believe the way it's always been is the way it's going to be, when in reality that's not the truth. There is more, people. I need you to touch yourself to say, there is more. I said, I'm getting ready to inherit the promises through faith and patience. Man, I love that white brother. God have mercy. Glory to God. Just say, faith and patience is mine. Yeah, go to James 5:7. We're gonna move through this. Patience, please. Just patience. James 5, verse 7. Glory to God! I hope y'all learning something so far. James 5:7. Jesus. James said, be patient therefore, brethren. First of all, this is not for people— he ain't talking to people that's not saved. He said, brother, that word of brethren is adolphos in Greek, which means those who I have company with, those who serve the same God I serve, those who are in the faith. He says to them, be patient, brethren. So as people of God, hear me, we got to learn to be patient. That's right. Again, we got to have patient endurance. We have to trust that God's not going to leave us where we are. I told you last week that he's coming to get you. I'm telling you right now, no matter what you're going through, he's coming to get you. I'll tell you, he's not gonna leave you where you are if you trust him. He's gonna show up with his long arm and his strong hand and pull you out. Thank you, Lord. I need you to shout, he's coming to get me! I mean, and there's no place you can be that's too far away that God cannot rescue you. I'm telling you now, he's coming to get you. Thank you, Lord. And you just got to decide, God, I'm gonna stand still and see the salvation of God. I'm gonna wait patiently until you show up. That's what he says. He said, be patient therefore, brethren, as you and I, until the coming of the Lord. I just gotta tell you one more time, he's coming. And I ain't talking about in the rapture, I'm talking about in your situation. I'm talking about right where you are right now. He is coming. He's going to show up. Your praying is not in vain. Hallelujah. Your fasting and your giving and your living, it's not in vain. He is coming. And I know it may seem like he's forgotten about you. It may seem like you're in over your head. You may seem overwhelmed. Maybe they— for the people in here Maybe somebody that's watching me is going through something where they need God to show up. When I came today to announce to somebody, he is coming. You just gotta keep the faith, accept his timing. As a matter of fact, can I prophesy to you? He ain't just coming, he's already on the way. It's a difference when somebody tells you, I'll be there at such and such time, and they ain't left yet, but your expectancy increases. Oh, y'all ain't got to help me here. When I travel a lot for business, I take a lot of Lyfts and Ubers, and many times when you call the Lyft, it'll tell you, we're looking for your driver. And I realize while they're looking for the driver, I got a little time to waste. Glory to God. And they just looking for your driver, looking for your driver. And finally they tell me who the driver is, and it tells me he will be there in 5 minutes. My whole attitude changes, cuz now I need to meet this car in 5 minutes to pick me up, because he's not just coming now, he's actually on the way. Can I tell you you something. God ain't just coming, he is on the way. He heard you when you prayed, he heard you when you called him, he heard you when you asked the last time. Oh my God, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible says, ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be open. You asked, you seeked, and you have knocked. God says, I am on the way. I wish I had 2 people that believed it. I wish I had one person that's been praying and really got some expectation of God to show up for your business, to show up for your family, to show up for your house, to show up in your money. I'm telling you, he's on the way. He's on the way. He's on the way. He's on You just be out there waiting. He about to pull up. Oh God, I'm telling you right now, God's about to pull up on you. And when he pulls up, he's going to be carrying blessings, he's going to be carrying favor, he's going to be carrying honor, he's going to be carrying breakthrough, he's going to be carrying healing. I'm telling you, God is about to pull up. Oh my God, I tell you, high five somebody and tell them God about to pull up on you. You just need to go outside, get ready. He's coming, he's on the way. He has not forsaken you. Delay is not denial. I know it's been delayed, but you have not been denied. He's on the way. Oh my God, I'm preaching better than y'all saying amen. I'm about to lose it here. Watch this. He says, uh, he says, be patient therefore, brother, not to the coming of the Lord. He says, behold, the husbandman waited for the precious fruit of the earth. What does he say? He says, when the farmer, who is the husbandman, sows a seed, he sows a seed with expectation. Did I just put some collard greens in the ground? I just put some tomatoes in the ground. I just put corn in the ground. And he expects that harvest to come up. Can I tell you something? What you have sown, it's coming up again. It's gonna come back to you, but it won't come back as a seed. It's gonna come back as fruit of the earth. It's going to come back as fruit in your life. The Bible says he sows and he waits for the fruit and have long patience for it until he received the early and the latter rain. Can I tell you something? Nothing proves your faith in God like waiting on his timing with a good attitude. See, I, I, I can't get with people that say I'm waiting on God, they got a bad attitude about it. Something wrong with that because you really don't believe. You, you wait. Yeah, well, God show up when he want to. But people that know God's coming for real, that have faith in the fact that I've sown in— oh my God— in season, and I've given my life to God, and I've done what I'm supposed to do, and I'm waiting in faith— those people rejoice. Because they know it's coming. And guess what he says? He said, you'll receive the early and the latter rain. We know the Bible talks about rain. It is— he's talking about prosperity, he's talking about increase. He said, I'm gonna give you the early rain, which is stuff you missed that you should have got, and you missed it because you weren't in faith. But God said, if you get in faith, I'm gonna even return to you the early rain that you missed, and then I'm gonna give you the latter rain that I promised you. So I just need you to get in faith. I need you to get impatient. Let's get out of a hurry. Just let somebody say, patience, please. I think maybe go to Ecclesiastes 7 and 8. I'm just flowing through this. Glory to God. Just say it again. Say patience, please. Patience, please. Touch yourself and say it. Say patience, please. Patience, please. Watch this. The Bible said better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. He said, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. The greatest enemy to patience is arrogance. It's pride. People get arrogant and start trusting in theyself. They start trusting in their own way. And start trusting in their systems. That's arrogance at its best. But he says, you're looking at where you are, but here's the promise: better is the end of a thing. I know it's tough right now, but better is the end of a thing. That's hope. Thank you, Lord. That's hope. It may be tough in the beginning, like starting the ministry and planting churches, or starting a business, or starting in a new marriage. God says in the end of this thing, it's gonna be better. Somebody say better. Better. Because you know what, when you don't understand that better is coming You will move in your flesh and you'll mess up the end because you chose to move in the flesh. You chose to get out of faith. You chose to get in a hurry. You chose to move in arrogance. The Bible said being patient in spirit is better than being proud in spirit. Why? Because Michael, arrogance— here we go— leads to aloneness. Arrogant people who are too proud to repent. And there are some narcissistic people who never see themselves and will always blame you. Oh Lord. For where they are. They always find a way to make it your fault. That's narcissism. And the deception of narcissism leads them to believe— oh boy— that they are never wrong. That's right. But that kind of arrogant narcissistic behavior Let me tell you what it does. It leaves you by yourself because nobody wants to be around that. And watch this, nobody deserves to live that way, especially in things like— for you single people and for married people that's in here watching— when you're married. So single, when you get married, you're already married. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of us this endurance to deal with the idiosyncratic ways, not of the other person, but yourself. You have to learn to be patient with your own stuff and pray about it and work on it. But if you ain't changing and don't want to change, don't want to learn, don't want to be different. Nobody wants to continue to cash that check over and over again. Oh yeah, listen, because that, that's a— that's, that's something God even does. God rejects the proud. So when you got God in you and you got people that too proud and to admit that, hey, I was wrong and repent. That ain't a marriage you, you want, because you're gonna have problems. That person needs deliverance from being narcissistic because they think they're okay. Watch this. Marriage is the collision of two imperfect people. That's what happens when you show up in marriage at the altar. There's two imperfect people standing there, and their histories collide. They're now colliding, all of their good things and bad things. Here's the struggle with love: when you fall in love with somebody, you only see the good. And the question you should be asking when you meet somebody Can I love them through this? Not do I love them, but can I love them through that? The moment you see their idiosyncratic ways, can you love them through that? Because if you can't love them through their idiosyncratic ways, you don't need to be with them. Okay, I'm just telling you, you, you, you need to be able to stand even when they come. That's what love does. Because guess what God does when he looks at you? He said, I love you in spite of. That's right. Amen. And marriage should be a reflection of how Christ loved the church. That's right. I asked the couple who have been married 62 years, what did it take? The woman said, just took a whole lot of forgiveness and love. She said, I love him, so whatever happened, I forgave That's why we're still here. The man said, you have to realize, son, that in every marriage there's wronging and forgiving. I don't know why I'm right here, but in marriage you got to be patient. You can't be arrogant. He says you're gonna get wronged, and if you want to stay married, you're gonna have to forgive. Bottom line. And if you can't do that, don't sign up for marriage. Don't stand up before God and everybody else and say, 'For better or for worse.' Right. Who are you to define the worst? Oh yeah, yeah, but that's what we say now. But now people write their own vows, they leave that out. We going to just adjust all that. You get poor, I'm gone. We write vows like, for better, for richer, till I get tired of you, do us part. But that's not marriage. Marriage is a covenant that says eternally we're one. When I married my wife, I knew I had issues, but I knew she hadn't too. So at the end of the day, I had to make up in my mind, can I love her through that? And she had to decide, can I love this negro through that? And people have to be called to you, okay? They have to have a grace to be patient with your growth, right? Amen. Because otherwise they'll get arrogant and act like they're the perfect one in the marriage. And they'll end up by themselves. Okay, arrogance leads to aloneness. Watch this, aloneness, because you off course now, leads to abortion. You abort the original intent for your life, God's purpose, God's plan, because purpose has to be fulfilled in isolation. So you're by yourself and you now abort what God planned. You put it aside. Oh, got to get out of here.

I believe it will, cuz, cuz what happens is abortion—

or since if the doctor who does abortion thought about it, what would his life be like? He wouldn't have a life with somebody more than him. He probably performed that, right? You have to think about this when you start thinking about your life purpose. When you're moving in arrogance and you're by yourself because of that arrogance, and you start dismissing the plan of God, then guess what you do? You become an adventurer. Arrogance. You start taking risks with your life. Now, you ever see somebody start 15 businesses, none of them work? Every time you speak to them, they got a new idea. Oh man, you doing something else? Because they don't abort the original thing. They forgot who they were. And through arrogance and to stay relevant to other people— watch this— they call it keeping up with the Joneses. They become an adventurous to try to please people instead of living for the audience of one, pleasing God. So all of that ends up in adultery. Adultery is not sexual unfaithfulness to a married person alone. Adultery means you now are satisfied by something that doesn't belong to you. Oh. You can be— watch this— in the wrong marriage, satisfied by something that wasn't originally yours, because maybe you married out of convenience. Oh God, so maybe it's— maybe it's for somebody watching. And God says you gotta correct that. And remember, it started with Because if it's an arrogant thing to marry someone because it's convenient for you, because they can pay my bills, they can help me get on my feet, and then you got to pray the whole marriage to love them. Oh, this ain't my first marriage, so I've been there. I haven't been in marriage praying to love the person I was with. God, I don't want to get out of this, but just help me love them because I woke up in the crying game, y'all. I woke up, I woke up in— I don't know what that was. Jesus Christ. It's funny how you, you could be married and you know you out of sync with someone and you still trying, but the whole time they're trying to make you feel guilty for what they're doing to themselves. Wow. Because they're not even trying to make the marriage work because they're on cruise control. They're not contributing anything. Okay, I didn't mean this to become a marriage thing today. Wow. And I made the wrong decision because I had just come out of one thing and was hurt, and I met this lady that was just— look, she looked safe. I'm like, she ain't gonna never hurt me. She ain't gonna never leave me. I'm gonna just raise her up and train her. To be everything I needed to be. Wrong answer. That was mine, but that wasn't God's plan. That's right. And I made an arrogant decision to get in the marriage, and the only good thing came out of it was my son. The reality is you got to be careful who you say I do to. And you got to be humble in that. And I'm using marriage, I guess, today because Christ is our bride. Yeah, come on now, we're his bride. Yeah, he's a husband, man. We're the bride of Christ. The church is the bride. So we can't be so arrogant to not choose his way of doing things, right? So we don't end up being satisfied by something he didn't plan. Working a job he didn't plan, hanging out with people he didn't plan. That's all adultery. Let me move, let me move. So being patient is better than being arrogant according to this text. People in a hurry— I mean, some women think they're operating at 70% joy. Boy, if I can just get a husband, I'll be 100%. I'll be 100. I just get a man, then the first pair of pants that smile right. It's the lady on TikTok, got a whole— she don't went viral talking about this. I watched 20 seconds of us. I ain't watching no more, but I saw these videos. Millions of viewers have watched this foolishness. This. That's all rooted in her impatience. She talking about what he did, but she was impatient. She didn't pray. She wanted what he was presenting. Oh Lord, y'all, y'all send this to her because everybody agree. Oh child, yeah, they just trying to give her TV deals and all this stuff. That was a lie. It's her fault too. He was wrong for lying, but she was wrong for not praying. Y'all know what I'm talking about. This, this lady that— this— y'all know what I'm talking about, right? She married this dude that kept saying he was all this and he want none of it. Well, he fooled you because you were in the flesh. You wanted everything you were presenting. You should have been somewhere on your knees asking God. Absolutely. Come on now, show me. Let me move. Go to James 1:4. This last scripture for real. Glory to God. Don't miss it. Joyfully-yam, you stay around me long enough, I'm gonna tell you. That ain't it. I'm gonna tell you right quick. Nope, just— you want me to tell you, don't bring him around me. I'm telling you, glory to God. Watch this. This is how important patience is. The scripture says, let patience have her perfect work. So there's that word again, hypomone, which is patience. That's endurance, that's steadfastness. So you gotta let patience work in you till nothing will move you, nothing will make you move before God speaks. Are y'all hearing this? When you're really patient, you will wait until God says yes. Are y'all hearing this? And if God says no, you'll say no and keep waiting. So he says, let patience have her perfect work. The word perfect there is teleios in Greek, which means mature. So you must be patient until maturity becomes perfected in your life. Oh God, until you complete— watch this— until you're ready. He said let patience perfect you. Let it get you ready. If you work with patience, it'll get you ready for life. It'll get you ready for business. It'll get you ready for marriage. It'll get you ready to have children. Oh my God, it's more people that parenting is forced on these days that ain't ready. Good God. The reality is you gotta let patience have its perfect work. But I'm talking about in the context, not what you're doing. That's necessary. Your work is a result of parents who wasn't ready, right? That's right. Are y'all hearing this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. These children are available to you because these parents didn't let patience have its perfect work. That's right. Oh Lord, help us today. Good God, watch it. He said, let it have perfect— that you may be perfect. So that patience have its perfect work, let it grow in you, let it become perfected in you, mature in you, that you can be teleios, complete. Touch yourself. Say, I want to be complete. See, this is why we have all these incompletions, these marriages, because we don't grow up. I'm so glad when I got married this time, I waited, I prayed. I had so much stuff thrown at me. I mean, I need the catchers mitt to catch all of the crap. I'm like, Jesus Christ. But I'm so glad I prayed through all of that. Because at the end of the day, it took maturity to do that. Because I could have married for hips and fingertips and weed. Y'all ain't got to say nothing because it was a lot of that being thrown at me. But I had to slip past all of that stuff and realize what God had for me. It took maturity to do that. It says wanting nothing so you can be perfect, entire. So he wants you to be complete— that's kalyos— complete and mature. Entire, which is a totally different word. Entire is halos in Greek, which literally means that he wants you to God, be sound in mind. You know, he wants your mind to be sound. So patience will give you a sound mind. It'll give you a well-balanced, intelligent man. So ain't no excuse for lack of knowledge when knowledge is available. You just have to choose to learn it so you can have soundness of mind, so you can be entire. I heard— I hear people say, oh, I'm just me, this is who I am. But listen, you can grow. There's more. You can increase. Not saying you gotta change your personality, but all of us have room for entirety. But there has to be a continuity in patience that produces entirety. Oh, say that. Say, I want to be entire. Say it again. I want to be entire. Yeah, my white boy, come on, son. You're helping me, boy. I love it. I love that little fellow. Glory to God. So I'm closing. Once we accept God's Here we go. He said, we're— this— the scriptures tell us basically we're content, we're satisfied with what he shows up with. The reason you've been discontent with the things that walked in your life, whether it was a man or woman, whether it was a job, whether it was a business you started, because perhaps, just perhaps, it was born out of impatience. It was born out of necessity. And when things are born out of necessity and not purpose, they get stale real quick. They lose fulfillment fast. But you got to accept his time so you can be content. You want— because contentment, it's a great blessing. It's a blessing to be satisfied with who you are and where you are. People who are unsatisfied always try to get more than they're ready for. Y'all heard me say this before if you've been listening to me any time, that many times what we'll do, we'll have an external reach that's greater than our internal capacity. What that comes from is incontentment. You reach for something you're not ready for because you're unsatisfied with something about you. And here's the crazy thing: you have the unmitigated gall that when you reach for it and get it, and then it ain't what you thought it was, to blame what you picked when it wasn't their fault. You picked You picked it out of impatience. I'm almost done. Listen, most of the time people believe getting what they want when they want it, it's going to leave them feeling blessed and satisfied. But guess what? It doesn't. Getting what you want never leaves you blessed, never leaves you feeling satisfied. God have mercy. I can remember a time in one of my former marriages, I would, you know, I would tell my wife, look, you don't know— it's arrogance— you don't know no more than me. You ain't been nowhere but church, home, and school. I did this, I did— and that's, that's arrogance, first of all. The reality is I will argue to get my way. I was speaking a certain way to get my way, but I always felt terrible after because I was moving out of dissatisfaction with me. I'm just being transparent so I can help you. And Holy Spirit would often tell me, you think you won, but you didn't. You lost. And eventually I end up losing them because again, arrogance leads to loneliness. You just gotta check yourself. It's okay. Maybe it ain't all him. Maybe there's something in me I need to change. Let me just, let me just tell you something. I'm close with this. You take this how you want. If 15 people call you a jackass, everybody ain't lying. I mean, just take it like you want. I'm just telling you, if 15 people said jackass, jackass, jackass, jackass, jackass, somebody telling the truth. What you need to do instead of getting offended, stop and look at you. And see where you're incontent. Where you're incontent with God, his plan, incontent with yourself, and correct those things. Watch this. Patience. Dissatisfaction is cured to patient endurance. You wait long enough, eventually it changes. And, and what I love about God, especially in this day and time, he just looking for faith. I said this last week in the earth, and he look for obedience. The moment you get in there, he accelerates everything else. Stuff start happening so fast. The Bible said it happen so fast it'll make head swell. One thing on top of the other, it'll blow your mind. But you got to get in faith. That's the promise. Amen.