 Amen. So keep your place there in Romans chapter 5. That's what we're going to be looking this evening. I'm going to preach through three verses this evening in Romans chapter 5. And I'm going to do something giving you, since it's our two-year anniversary here at Holfast Baptist Church, I was doing some just some reflections over what I would preach tonight. And these three verses came to mind. And I really like these three verses. If you're a church member here, you know I really like these three verses. I'm going to spend most of the time on the first one. But look down at Romans chapter 5. And look at verse number 3. Let's read through the three verses. And let's just take a look at this for a minute. Look at the Bible says in Romans chapter 5. It says, not only so, but we glory in tribulations also. So the first two verses, we're talking about how we're saved, we're justified by faith. You know, we're not saved by anything that we do. We're justified by faith. Trusting only in Jesus Christ alone. We're saved. We're saved forever. Nothing that we do can get us saved or keep us saved. The Bible is now saying, but not only that, not only we justify through Jesus, through faith in him, but it says we glory in tribulations also in verse number 3, knowing that tribulation worketh patience. I'm going to read the next two verses. And patience, experience, and experience hope, and hope make it not ashamed because the love of God has shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. I'm going to spend most of my time this evening looking at the third verse that I read first here where it says, we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience. And we're going to look at this word patience in the Bible and look at, you know, what is required for patience. Now the thing you need to understand about this word patience in the Bible, when the Bible is using the word patience here, it's not talking about the, you know, when we think of the word patience, you know, today, we think of waiting in line at Six Flags or, you know, watching a bobber at the lake or something like that, right? That's not what this word means in verse number 3 of Romans, verse number 4 of Romans. What patience here means is talking about the ability, the ability to endure tribulation is what this is talking about this word in Romans chapter 5. In John chapter 16, you say, what is, what is tribulation? What is tribulation? John 16, Jesus says, he says, in the world ye shall have tribulation. So tribulation is something that we get from the world. Tribulation is trouble that comes to us through the world around us, through the people, you know, when we talk about the world and Jesus says, but you know, I have overcome the world in John 16. So he's talking about trouble that's coming to the Christian from the world, from people in the world. It's, it's the ability, this patience and in Mark chapter 13, you know, talking about Mark chapter 13 is a parallel passage to Matthew chapter 24 where Matthew 24 talks about great tribulation. In Mark chapter 13, a parallel passage, it calls that tribulation affliction. So this is what tribulation is. Tribulation is trouble from the world or affliction from the world, meaning people that are doing things to you, they're afflicting you. It's not God giving you tribulation, it is the world giving you tribulation and Jesus is just trying to prepare us for that and that's what the Bible is trying to do in Romans chapter 5. So tonight we're going to look at this patience, what this means, we're going to look at this patience that comes from the sin of man, this tribulation that comes from the sin of man and patience, this word that says how, how we can deal with this, how we could glory in it. You know, the ability to deal with the sin of man on top of us. It's, look, tribulation is difficulty in your life due to persecution, that's what tribulation is. And patience is the ability to handle that. So tonight I want to give you three character traits and these are all going to be character traits that you have or you don't have and if you don't have them you should work on getting them. But I want to give you three specific character traits that are prerequisites to patience. That you will need, look, if you want to have patience to start this process that the Bible is talking about in Romans chapter 5, 3, 4 and 5 and you don't have patience, you won't get to experience and you won't get to hope. So I want to give you three things, three character traits that you need to have in context of our two years here at Holt Fast Baptist Church. I'm going to get a little personal with you tonight but, you know, that's, I guess that's my perspective, I can do that. I'm going to get a little personal with you tonight and give you three things that I've learned that are character traits to having patience. Pre-requisites and I'm going to use reflections over the last two years since it's our anniversary this weekend. The first one is this, turn to Proverbs chapter 17. Turn to Proverbs chapter 17. Look at it, patience, the ability to endure tribulation, the ability to go through affliction in our lives from the world and we're looking at three things that we need as Christians to be able to have that patience. All right, the first one is this. Look at Proverbs chapter 17. The first one is this. I'll just tell you what the first one is. The first one is loyalty. The first one is loyalty. Now I have always felt this way. I have always felt very strongly even before I was saved about loyalty. I've always felt that it was very important for a person to be loyal but the Bible backs this up. Look at Proverbs 17 in verse number 17. I always thought when I was younger, I mean before I was even saved, when I was younger and I had friends and you find yourself in a tight spot and if I had a friend where I found myself in a tight spot and that friend did not help out and was not loyal to me and my friends in that case, look that person wasn't my friend anymore. That's how serious I took loyalty in my life. Of course, we're talking about godly loyalty. We're not talking about being loyal to friends that sin and things like that but we're talking about just having the character trait of loyalty. Look at Proverbs 17 in verse number 17. The Bible says a friend loved it at all times and a brother is born for adversity. Now look at Proverbs 18, 24. So the Bible says there, I'm just going to take the first part of that verse where it says a friend loved it at all times. Look at verse number 24 of Proverbs 18. The Bible says in Proverbs 18, 24, a man that have friends must show himself friendly and that makes sense. If you're not friendly, you're not going to have friends but look at the last part of this verse. It says when there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. So the Bible here is saying if you put these two verses together as far as the loyalty of a friend, the Bible is saying that friends stick close all the time. Friends stick close to you. Now turn to James chapter 2. The last two years in ministry has really taught me that loyalty is vital to this Christian life. It is an absolute requirement for patience, for the ability to be able to endure tribulations in your life. Now Matthew 26, I'm just going to read it for you. Of course we're talking about loyalty to God as well. I mean loyalty to God is a given. As a matter of fact in Matthew 20, you're going to James chapter 2, Matthew 26, 35. The disciples they pledge loyalty to Jesus where Peter says, Peter said unto him, though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee, likewise also said all the disciples. Of course, then Peter denied Jesus three times. But loyalty to God is super important in our lives. But the Bible also teaches that loyalty to your brothers and sisters is also important. Actually turn to Jeremiah chapter 9. I think I messed you up a little bit there. Turn to Jeremiah. You're going to keep your place in James chapter 2. But turn to Jeremiah chapter 9. I'll prove it to you right here. Jeremiah chapter 9. Jeremiah, this poor prophet of Judah that no one ever listened to. No one ever, you know, agreed with anything he said. He was just afflicted his entire life by what? By the world, by the nation of Judah. Everything that he preached was the word of God and people just treated him badly for it. They threw him in prison for it. They tried to kill him for it. You know, nobody listened to him one time even though he was right on everything. Look at Jeremiah chapter 9 and look at verse number 2. We're talking about loyalty to our brothers and sisters, our friends. Look at verse number 2 of Jeremiah chapter 9. The Bible says, oh that I had in the wilderness, this is Jeremiah speaking, oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men that I might leave my people and go from them. He's talking about what's wayfaring men are traveling men. He's like, though there would be some place in the wilderness that would take me that I could go and hide, that I could go and stay in this place and lodge, why? Why does he want to run off and hide in some cabin in the wilderness? Look at the rest of the verse. He says, and I might leave my people and go from them. Why? He says, for they be all adulterers and assembly of treacherous men. Look, the opposite of loyalty is treachery is what the Bible is saying here. There's just people that were just treachery. They're just causing all kinds of treachery to Jeremiah. He wanted to run off and hide in a cabin and it's compared to adultery but doesn't that make sense? Doesn't that make sense? Look, turn back to James chapter 2 and let's just get a little bit more context about this. The opposite of see because what people will do in their life is they will spiritualize treachery. They will be a treacherous person that can't be loyal to anyone and they will spiritualize it by just saying, oh I'm just being loyal to God and not men when they're just spiritualizing just wicked treachery. Look at James chapter 2 in verse number 15. We're talking about loyalty. The Bible says this, it says, if a brother or sister be naked in destitute of daily food and one of you saying to them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled, notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit? See, the Bible here is saying if there's somebody that needs somebody, if there's a friend that's coming to you and needs something and you just say, hey I hope that all works out for you and you do nothing to help them, it's like you're not profitable to that person. That's the whole point of James chapter 2. The whole point of James chapter 2 is just that your faith is not profitable to anybody if it doesn't have anything that you're actually, if it's just talk. If you just keep that belief and that salvation to yourself and there's no works that come out of it, yeah you're saved but it doesn't help anybody else. It doesn't profit anybody else. So see folks, a man, the Bible is basically saying and I'm trying to tell you here that if a man has no loyalty, what good is he as a man? Think about Jeremiah chapter 9 of verse number 2. What good is a husband that has no loyalty to his wife? You say, oh no, loyalty to God. Of course loyalty to God. What a man that is not loyal to his wife. What good is that man? What good is a man that does not have the character trait of loyalty? What is a prophet? Who does he prophet? Talk literally means nothing. That's what the Bible is saying here. Now you're all thinking you're saying is this a sermon on how you need to be loyal to your pastor and loyal to your church and all these things? No, because I'm going to give you the answer to this and I'm going to give you the context of what I'm talking about tonight, talking about my loyalty, talking about how important it is that I have found in the ministry that I have the character trait of loyalty. The pastor I'm talking about from my perspective tonight. Everybody should have this character trait of loyalty in their Christian life, especially the pastor. I mean, the last couple years God has really driven this home for me. And you know, I think kind of like, you know, like I said, you know, my personal thoughts on it, I kind of try to reflect on things happen and look back on things. And personally, I think that part of it was, was God was saying, hey, you preach this all the time. Let's see it, buddy. That's where I believe a lot of it came from for me. And that's what I took away from a lot of it. You see, let me just give you an example. There were times in the last two years, especially, especially the first year of this church, where being a pastor was not a joyful experience. Being a pastor was, it was, it was not fun for me. Or my family, for that matter. I mean, I might be getting a little too personal with you tonight, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna be straight with you. There's times when thoughts creep into your head. I'm not saying these thoughts are good. I don't give in to these thoughts at those times. But when being a pastor is not fun, when being a pastor is not joyful at the time, there's thoughts that creep in that say, why are you doing this? There's thoughts that creep in that say, you don't need this. Look, I know where those thoughts come from. Why would you do this to your family? Why would you put yourself through this? But you know, it always came down to this for me, loyalty to God and loyalty to people. That's what it came down to for me. You see, it's about, of course it's about loyalty to God, but you can serve God. You don't have to be a pastor, folks, to serve God. You know, but what it came down in the, it came down to in those situations for me was loyalty to these people. It was loyalty. Look, because these people need a pastor. These people need a church. The people in Sacramento need a church. And if they didn't have a loyal man up there, they wouldn't have one. The people in LA need a church. The people in West Virginia need a church. The people in Phoenix need a church. Tempe need a church. Everywhere needs a church. You know what? There's not a lot of people that have a church like this. And without that loyalty, you know what these kids, these kids need a church. These kids need a pastor. They need a place that they can come that has a shelter from the wolves. And without a loyal, that's what kept me going. It didn't matter that it wasn't fun. And it wasn't joyful. These parents, these parents need edification. These parents need instruction. These parents need reinforcement. There is a, folks, there is a world out there trying to kill your family. You say that sounds pretty serious, like kill my family? Is that like a real thing? Hey, when they're trying to teach your boy that he's a girl, that's the death of your family. You better understand, you better understand that you're in a war. You don't go and lead your family and walk into a fight and not even know you're in a fight. There is people out there that want to abuse, confuse without a loyal leader. None of it is possible. You know what it's about? You know what it was about when things weren't joyful? For me, it was about the family with a child in the hospital. They need a pastor. No matter how those things turn out, those people need a pastor. You know what it was about? It was about people going through treatment of a serious disease. It's not about how joyful things are. But that's how important. Like you say, oh, this is going to be a sermon on loyalty. Every Christian needs the character trait of loyalty, even the pastor. Loyalty is a must or you will fail in the Christian life. A man that's not loyal, that does not have this character trait of loyalty is a worthless man. I know pastors that have gotten themselves physically ill from stress and pressure put upon them. But you know what? Those are loyal men. Those are loyal men and those people that they lead are blessed by those loyal men. It's not about joy and just being happy all the time. Loyalty is a must for patience or you will fail. You will not be patient. You will not make it through if you are not a royal person. Turn to 2 Timothy 2. We're looking at three things tonight that are prerequisites that are necessary to have patience. What is patience? Patience is the ability to make it through tribulation, affliction. Look at 2 Timothy 2. Look at character traits. The first one is you should be a loyal person. Look, you should be loyal to God first, always. You should not. I'm not talking about having a buddy that no matter what he does gets in to sin. You're loyal to him. That's not what I'm talking about. Talking about, as the Bible says, you're a loyal person and loyalty is super important in this Christian life or you will not have patience. Look at 2 Timothy 2. Look down at verse number three. The second trait is this. The second character trait is this, the ability to endure hardness. Look at verse number three of 2 Timothy 2. The Bible says, Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You know what that is saying? It's saying the literal ability to go through hardness. Hard things, things that are hard, things that are not easy to go through. The ability to do that. Turn to Galatians chapter six. Galatians chapter six. Look at verse number nine. It's saying the ability to just have painful, stressful, difficult things happen to you. Go through those things and not stop. Look at Galatians chapter six. We get a little bit more context on this. It says in verse number nine, let us not be weary and well-doing. For in due season we shall reap if we what, faint not. So the first one is loyalty. The second one is the ability to endure hardness with what? Without stopping. Without fainting. The Bible is saying you need to be able to get through hard things without, you know, look. The Bible doesn't say you're never going to feel bad. The Bible doesn't say you're never going to be down. You're never going to be depressed. You're never going to be, you know, stressed out. It's just saying when you get weary from those things, you should not faint. You should not stop. You should be able to endure that. That's a character trait. You say, I don't know. I'm not very good at that. You know, I have an analogy for this and it may seem like a silly analogy, but I really feel like it fits. I go out fishing a lot and I've taken a lot of people fishing with me. And you really get to learn a lot about people when you're out in the middle of the ocean fishing. I've learned that there's two types of sick that people get. You know, I mean, people get sick. And look, you can't control getting sick. It's just something that your brain does to your stomach and your toast. But there's two types of people out there. There's the first type of person that they get, they get sick and they lie on the bottom of the boat and they're done. And then there's a type of person where they get sick and they just, they keep going, though. They're sick. I mean, they're sick. But they keep going. Brother Alex, I asked if I could kind of tell a little story about him. Brother Alex, I think it was the first time he ever been fishing. He came out and he got sick. And I wasn't really even aware of how sick he was. But Brother Alex, we're out fishing and he's not feeling great. And he hooked into the biggest to this day ling cod that I have ever seen in my life. And just a little bit about myself here. I am not the best person to be standing next to you when the big buck walks out of the woods when the big fish comes up. There's a saying that we have when we're fishing is when you can see color. And that's when, when you're pulling the fish up. And it's the first, it's the first glisten of the fish in the water. And he was pulling this fish in. And we knew it was something. I had the gaff ready and I was ready to go. We knew it was something significant. And then I saw the first color of the glistening of this fish. And I mean, you know, I freaked out a little bit. And I turn, I look at Alex and he's, I'm not, he is, he is, he is vomiting at the time. And I just, like I said, I'm not the best person to be standing next to you in times like this. But I basically told him this was a big fish. And he was reeling this thing in. And he was just, his eyes were kind of rolling back in his head. And I just, look, you need to be a man now. You need to continue. And I mean, it was probably about that, about that volume. And I was just, I was hauling out. And you know what he did? I just told him, you need, now is the time in your life where you need to suck it up. And he did. He is literally throwing up while he's reeling in this fish. And I don't care. I'm just like, we'll clean up the mess later. Just keep going. And he reeled, and this is the picture that I show people. When people are like, are you guys catch fish out there? I'm like, what do you think of that? It's the picture. It's the picture that the commercial fish and at the dock were holding this thing up. And they were like, but he kept going. But you know what? This is also the same. But see, it's a character trait. It's not like he just wanted to fish. It's a character trait that he had because this is a guy that just beat cancer. That just went through a battle of his young life. And then he went fishing. See, the character trait was already there. The ability to endure hardness. It is a super important character trait that the Bible is calling out. And we need it in our Christian life. Like, I don't know. I'm weak. You need to get stronger in this Christian life. Faint not. And you know what? It doesn't say that you're not going to get sick. People get sick. You can't control yourself out there. You just get sick. It's some people stop and some people don't. That's the difference. That's the Bible. The Bible says we're not... This is not Joel Osteen's church, as Pastor Jimenez was saying this morning. The Bible does not say that you're never going to have hardship in your life, that you're never going to have pain in your life, that you're never going to have suffering in your life. As a matter of fact, Jesus told us, I tell you these things so you may not be offended. These things are going to happen. You're going to have financial hard times. You're going to have hard times in your family. What's going to happen? The key is fainting not. Some people will faint. And some people won't. But guess what? If you look back at Galatians 6 and verse 9, if you faint not, what does it say? It says if we faint not, in due season we will reap. And let me tell you something. We are reaping here. In year two of Old Fast Baptist Church, look, this second year was our due season. I didn't even preach an anniversary sermon the first anniversary. It was more just like let's get through this thing. But we're reaping now. We never had more baptisms, never had more growth. We've got new families. You know what I like? You know what I like? We got the most new soul winners that we've ever had. Now marriages. You know what my favorite thing is though? New Christian growth. That's my favorite thing. Seeing new Christians grow in their faith. Seeing people discover what the Bible actually says and grow. It's my favorite thing as a pastor. That gives me joy. You say is there no joy? No, there's a lot of joy as a pastor. I didn't mean to be all depressing in the first few minutes. But the point I'm trying to get you to understand is we are reaping now, but it did not come for free. It did not come without trials. It did not come without difficulty. You know, and look, I know, I know that people got weary. Look, nobody, whenever you feel like, man, there's just a lot of drama, I'm getting weary from this drama. Nobody hates the drama more than your pastor in a church. But if we endure these things, we will reap and we're reaping. And it's exciting. But it didn't come without trials. See, it's like the feeling you get after you run a long distance. You run a long distance and then you're done and you just feel so good. Like it can only be possible if the long distance was run to feel that good. I mean, it's, I was talking with many of the young men. I mean, I was talking with the young men and a couple dads for the last week or so, lots of different people in town. And I noticed, I noticed kind of an application to this. You know, it's really exciting for me to see the paths that young men are finding that are just, they're separate from the go to college, get $120,000 in debt and work at McDonald's. You know, it's so nice to see homeschoolers, Christians, Bible-believing, saved people throwing the status quo off and finding successful, successful ways. But you know one thing that I realized was common, and I even said this to Brother Andrew when you were out souling yesterday. You know, he was talking about, you know, path that he's on. And I talked to a couple other young men the days before about paths that they're on. And the thing that you need to understand is really what it comes down to is if you want to be successful as a young man, this is kind of a side mini sermon, if you want to be successful as a young man, all you need to do is really two things. You need to find something that is hard and something that takes you years and years and years and years to learn. And you need to get on that path. And what? You need to not faint off that path, just like the Bible is teaching us. And then you know what? You're going to be okay. You're going to make it. You're going to make a living. You know, you're going to go and you're going to get something where you learned years and years and years. A kid's dad was telling me, he's like, you know, he needs to learn to think on his feet and use his hands and then we'll take him up a notch to this, up a notch to this machine and up a notch to this. That's how you do it. And you know what? That doesn't happen in two months. That doesn't happen working in McDonald's that you can teach someone how to do in a week. It's years and years and years and years of hardness, hard things. And then you're going to be fine. You're like, but it's hard. Yeah, it has to be hard. Why? Because if it's not hard, then if there's no valley, there's no peak. It's supposed to be hard. This is why, this is why drugs and alcohol is so destructive. Because what are people trying to do with drugs and alcohol? They're trying to get the peak without the valley. They're trying to get the joy without the work. They're trying to just get that feeling for free. Nothing is free. They may enjoy, as Pastor said this morning, they may enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season, but really what they will do is destroy. They'll destroy themselves and they'll destroy they're not an island, everyone around them. Because they're trying to get it for free. They want the feeling without the run, the peaks without the valleys. It doesn't work that way. We must endure the valleys to have true, godly joy at the peaks. So you know what this means? We should appreciate the valleys. You notice how in Romans chapter 5 and verse number 3 that we read that first verse, it said we glory in tribulations. They're happy. They're happy in those tribulations. We need to appreciate the bad times. You're like, you're crazy. Appreciate the bad times. When you get out of the bad times and everything is good, never forget the weariness that you felt. Number one, it'll make you appreciate the situation you're in. I mean, I appreciate the hard times that I've gone through in my life. I mean, those are gems that I carry around with me because they make me thankful for the good times. And that's what God says we should be. Thankful in everything. And while you're weary, you also know while you're in those weary times, you also know that it will only be for a time. The problem, again, the problem is people quit in the weariness. They lay down on the trail. They stop reeling and throw the fishing pole in the water. Or what's even worse is maybe they never get on the trail in the first place for even fear of weariness. But guess what? They're going to miss all the peaks. Turn to Psalm 37. Psalm chapter 37. So number one, we see that loyalty, godly loyalty, is super important in the Christian life for patients. Number two, you must have the ability to endure hardness, hard things, do hard things, endure hard things without fainting, without stopping in your Christian life. That is a prerequisite, those two things for patients. What is patience? The ability to handle tribulation. Look at Psalm chapter 37. I love this one. This is the verse of the week on the front of your bulletin. The Bible says this. It says Psalm chapter 37. Look at verse number seven. The third point, the third character trait that you need to have to have patience to endure tribulation or affliction in your life is you need to have the ability to rest in the Lord. You say, what do you mean by that? Look at verse number seven where the Bible says, notice how this verse, there's a certain word in here that we're talking about tonight. Look at verse number seven where it says, rest in the Lord and patiently wait for Him. That is such a beautiful verse right there. The Bible here is saying that patience goes with resting in the Lord. What does that mean? Notice how it says, it doesn't say on the Lord, it says in the Lord. You know, there's certain constants in this Christian life. There's certain constants that it doesn't matter where you are in this Christian life. It doesn't matter if you're at a peak, if you're at a valley, if you're going up a hill, going down a hill, it doesn't matter because the Bible says that there's certain constants in your Christian life. The Bible is very clear about that. What is the constants of your Christian or your spiritual life? Well, church, as a matter of fact, in Romans, in Hebrews 10, 25, it says, you know, not for sake the assembling of ourselves together, so much the more when you see the day approaching. It's talking about, you know, when things get bad, when we start getting into the end times, into what's going to happen, tribulation, that it's more important to be in a good church. These are constants. You should be reading your Bible. You should be studying your Bible. You should be in the Bible daily, whether you're through good times or bad times. You should have a prayer life, whether you're going through good times or bad times. You should be teaching your children the Bible and, you know, Deuteronomy 6 in the morning and the evening, when you wake up and when you lie down. These are constants. These are things that you don't have to just measure how things are going for you. The Bible is saying, you should, no matter what is going on, you should be doing these things. I mean, the Christian life is simple. It may not be the easiest thing at times, but it is simple. I mean, these are constants that always, no matter what difficulty you're going through, these things are constants. But you know what? It's tough for people. It's tough for people to keep that spiritual life going when difficult times come. As a matter of fact, I mean, just somebody is going through tough financial times and they're just like, I just need to, I just can't go to church anymore. I just need to work more now. I just need to do that and then I'll get over this. People, they give up the spiritual stuff. Like the first thing is the spiritual stuff goes. But the Bible says, rest in the Lord. This is the person who's saying, you know, whose life is, what people will do is like, people's life is just falling apart. I mean, the world is falling apart around them and they completely, they're going through something hard. They're doing nothing that they should be doing and they're just like, I'm just waiting on the Lord. I'm just waiting on the Lord. No, you're supposed to rest in the Lord and wait patiently. You're supposed to be in the Lord. I mean, these are people that don't know the difference between God's chastisement and tribulation. Like God's chastising them because they're not in the Lord. They're like, I'm just waiting on the Lord. I'm like, no, you're being chastised because you're not in the Lord. But at least if you're in the Lord, you won't have to decide, you won't be confused. You won't be confusing chastisement with tribulation. This is rest in the Lord. You won't be able to make that mistake. Be patient. Rest in the Lord. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter seven. Ecclesiastes chapter seven. So the three character traits that we talked about so far are loyalty. For patience, for the ability, you know, you can't be a patient person according to what the Bible defines as patience if you're not loyal. You can't be a patient person if you can endure hardness without fainting. And you can't be a patient person if you don't rest in the Lord. If you don't stay in the Lord even through the difficult times in your life. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter seven. So in conclusion this evening, I just want to show you the importance of patience. This is a great verse in Ecclesiastes, but I want to show you a word that pops up in this verse. Look at verse number eight of Ecclesiastes chapter seven. The Bible is saying better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. The Bible is saying it's better. So this is for all of you people that have, you know, maybe got saved later in life and you're just looking back and you're like, I can't believe I used to go to that church. I can't believe I used to do those things. I can't believe I used to have those friends. Hey, forget it. The end's better. God doesn't even remember your sins. Just move on and let's go. Let's put our hands to the plow and move forward together. God doesn't even remember all that stuff back there. And the end is better. Ending is better. Nobody cares how you started a race if you win the race. Oh, he jumped off the blocks and he fell on his face and scraped up his nose. He looked like a total goofball, but then he smoked everybody. Nobody cares how you started. It's ending better. But then look at what the next part of the verse says. It says the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. You know what that's saying? It's saying the patient will end well. You're saying, how do I end this Christian life well? You be patient, which means you need to be loyal. You need to be able to endure hardness and you need to be able to rest in the Lord no matter what's going on in your life. You will keep those spiritual constants going in your life. You know what? If you can't keep your spiritual life going in the easy times, you will never make it through the hard times. Think about this. I'm telling you for sure there's peaks and there's valleys coming in your Christian life. And you're like, you know what? I can't even do it when things are going well. You have no chance because you know what you do? You know what? You get that thing going. You get that training down. You get that muscle memory down. And when the hard times come, you just rinse and repeat. You just do what you know you're supposed to do. That's it. You're like, I don't feel like it. You shouldn't be ruled by your feelings. I mean, your emotions shouldn't rule you. The end is the better thing. That's why patience is so important. Go back to Romans chapter five now. If you want to end well, you need the patience. You need the loyalty. You need the ability to endure. You need the ability to keep your spiritual life going at any time. And if you can't do it in the easy times, you will never make it through the hard times. And the hard times are coming. So what does that tell you? That tells you that some people's Christian lives, not talking about their salvation, but that tells you that some people's Christian lives, their days are numbered. Why? Because they can't even make it in the easy times. Or maybe they can make it through the easy times. When things get tougher and tougher, then they drop off. This is why you see this. This is why you see people in it for a year, two years, three years, and then they're done. This is why they can't endure hardness. They have no loyalty. They have no, they have no what? They have no patience to endure these things. Look at Romans chapter five. Let's read verse number four now. Now that we have patience, you're like, I'm going to get these character traits, and I'm going to have patience. Look what the Bible says. It says, and patience, experience, and experience, hope. So if you get patience, along with patience comes these other two things. The patience is the ability to go through it and not stop. And you're like, what do I get from that? You know what? I get experience. And let me tell you something. Let me give you another little personal note. I started out two years ago. I had zero experience as a pastor, none. And I knew that, but you know what? I got some experience now. And it was important for me to have the patience to go through some of the things that we went through, and I appreciate the experience that I have from that. I mean, it's again, those are gems in my pocket, that experience. And guess what comes from experience? Hope. You say, what do you do with the hope? Look at verse five. This is what you do with the hope. Hope make it not ashamed. You say, what does that mean? Well, Pastor Jimenez, he kind of brought it up a little bit this morning. Hope make it not ashamed. You get that patience, the ability to go through it, that gets you experience. You get hope from that. And pretty soon, you don't care so much what people think anymore. Pretty soon, it doesn't bother you what the world thinks about what you believe, how you raise your family, how you've kicked off the status quo that everybody else is stuck in. It just doesn't bother you. Why? Because you have that experience. And from that came this hope that just makes you not ashamed. You know that a lot of people in this world, a lot of Christians, a lot of saved people would be horrified, incredibly ashamed to walk down a street with a Bible in their hand. I don't know if many of you can, if some of you can maybe remember when you had that feeling. We're walking, I'm going to walk down a sidewalk in public with a Bible. Are you joking? But you know what, hope make it not ashamed. But you know you got to get through a little bit of tribulation first. You get through some tribulation. You got to have some people maybe persecute you a little bit, maybe a lot. You got to make it through that, not faint, not be weary and faint and fall over. You just got to just kind of like, just keep walking. You just got to get through it. And then your experience, and you know what the beauty of experience is, is you know you can do it again. You have that experience and you're like, yeah, that happens again. I mean, I don't really want to do that again, but I know I can. And that gives you hope. And look, it makes you not ashamed. You just don't care what people think. As long as we're in the Bible, as long as it's easy to say, it's easy to say that you shouldn't care, you know, about what people think, about how you're raising your kids, about you know, what you believe on the gospel. You shouldn't care about these things. But you know what? I mean, a lot of people, they say those things, but they do care. But you have to get to that point and the only way you get to that point is going through these valleys and not falling over. So I appreciate everything about the experience of the district, even when it wasn't joyful. I mean, I kind of like was trying to like do that tongue-in-cheek at the beginning, because like this isn't, I'm not in, I never even went into the ministry to be joyful all the time. That's just, that's just, I mean, have you never read the Bible? What in the world? You want to go to the ministry, you're like, you shouldn't be in love with joy. I'm trying to scare you off. But I mean, look at the prophets. I mean, nobody loved the prophets. And you know, when they did listen to the one prophet, you know, he was depressed and angry. Let's continue in verse number five. It says, hope make it not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts and by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. It's talking about, you know, the love of God is shown to us in our hearts. It's made known to us in our hearts, and we care about what God thinks more than anybody else. So look, that is the beauty of this two-year anniversary to me, when I read these three verses. I mean, you just look at, you look at the reaping of just this weekend. I think we ended up with 29 salvations just in the last two days. I mean, you look at the, the salvations that a church like this will get every week. It's not just this weekend. We'll go out and, and we were, we're not ashamed here. We'll go out and walk down the by, down the street with our Bibles every single week, multiple times a week here, and we will never stop ever. Because we have the hope and we're not ashamed. None of that could have happened without loyalty from you and from me. Without the enduredness from me and from you. Without, you know, the idea that we're going to go through tough times, but we're going to go through those tough times while remaining in Christ here. While continuing to do what we know the Lord Jesus Christ wants us to do. It's not hard. It's tough today. Go to church. That's what I do. You know what I can tell you this? There were some really unjoyful times, but I never, I never didn't love walking through the doors of this church. I just love it. I just love it. I walk through the doors of the church with my daughter every Sunday morning, and I just, I just, there's no feeling like it. I love it. And I will always love it until I'm dead, no matter what's going on. Because I mean, I rest in the Lord. I rest in the Lord knowing that we're doing, we're doing what we're supposed to do as Christians here on this earth with our stupid, short little lives. Whether they last another five minutes or another 50 years, we're doing what Jesus Christ wants us to do. I mean, is there anything better than that, than knowing that? You know that, and you will sleep like a baby every single night, no matter what you're going through. You'll rest, I mean, literally, that's literally rest in the Lord right there. It's when you're doing stuff that you know Jesus doesn't want you to do. That's when we have a problem in this Christian life. I love this church. I love the people in this church. I love the people from all the different churches that are here. Verity Baptist Church, Sure Foundation, First Works Baptist Church, all the different churches that we all go to all the time. We are serving the Lord Jesus Christ with our life. I don't care what anybody thinks. I don't care what we have to go through. I don't care what kind of ridiculousness that happens. We're just going to keep doing the constants, keep doing what Jesus Christ wants us to do. Ultimately, that's what it's all about. Let's have some tacos, let's buy our heads and have a word of prayer.