Building Through Hard Times

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Father. Let's get into this.

You know, it's our culture here that we're going to pray every time we get ready to get started in the word. We're going to honor the body of Christ. When we do this, we make the devil real mad. The moment we started praying for pastors and churches, the devil got real scared. You want to know why? That's because he knows he's losing. So he tries to divide the body before he takes his loss. But it's okay. We're going to stay on assignment.

The Reality of Building

We are in this build series. This is the year of build for us. Today we're teaching on building through hard times. I need you to know that it rarely will be easy to build. Life almost never goes exactly as planned, right? You can make a plan, but it still takes God's hand to see a thing through.

My great uncle, he dropped out of school in the third grade. He said, "Man can make a plan, but God can discipline." It's almost like I don't know what he's saying, but I know what he means. That man can make a plan, but somewhere you're standing in God's will and realizing your plan didn't automatically line up with his will. And when it gets difficult and when it gets hard, you still have to be able to build.

I'm assuming that if you came to this church, you really came here because you wanted to grow, not because you wanted to be entertained. The fact that you are here is because you genuinely want your spirit man to be better.

Mike Tyson had this quote: "Everyone's got a plan on how they're going to win until they get punched in the mouth." The question is, can you still walk out your plan through the pain? Can you still walk out your plan through the hard times?

Learning to Live In Spite of Life

We're teaching from 1 Thessalonians 3:1. There's a backstory here where Paul is trying to check in on the believers in Thessalonica. He's worried and nervous because he hasn't heard from them in a while. He's hearing that they're going through all kinds of attacks. Being their apostle and pastor, he's nervous because he knows if the enemy weighs on you too much, you want to quit.

Let's be real here. We're going to be transparent. Don't act like you ain't never got to the point where you was getting ready to quit. Sometimes you can go through stuff enough and you're like, you know what? I quit. I'm leaving this church. I'm leaving this family. I'm leaving this relationship. This is what happens when our feelings interrupt our faith.

Paul is nervous with the believers in Thessalonica. He's like, "Man, if I don't check in on these guys, I'm worried that they may fall to the wayside." So in 3:1, he says, "So when I could stand it no longer, I couldn't stop worrying and I couldn't get to you. We thought it was best to be left by ourselves in Athens. And we sent Timothy, who is our brother and coworker in God's service and spreading the gospel of Christ to strengthen and to encourage you in your faith."

Paul sent Timothy where he himself couldn't make it. He couldn't get there. He said, "All right, just because I can't get there, that doesn't mean that there's an excuse that we don't check on y'all. Because I can't show up physically, that's not an excuse for me not doing the assignment that God gave to me."

The biggest lesson that I'm in right now is this: we need to learn to live an in spite of life and not a because of life. To live in spite of life and not a because of life.

Two people can go through the exact same pain and come out with two different resolves. There are some people who live a because of life and there are others who live in spite of life.

There's some of us who say, you know what, well, my parents weren't in my life. My dad wasn't there. And because of that, that's why I struggle with parenting. And because I didn't have the proper examples, that's why I'm struggling to be the right kind of parent. I use what I went through as an excuse on why I can't be better. I'm living a because of life.

But when you turn to living in spite of life, it's like I didn't even have a good father, but here I am being an amazing dad to my kids. My mama was not half the mama what I've been able to be to my kids. Yeah, I didn't have proper nourishment in my home, but I make sure my kids got everything that they need because I'm not going to use my trauma as an excuse to not be better. I'm not living up because of life. I'm choosing to live in spite of life.

Some people go through divorce and say, "I'll never love again. After what I went through, I ain't never doing that. I learned my lesson. I'm never going back." And there's others of us that say, "After this, I know how to be better the next time. I get the luxury of a second chance. I know how to be better."

There's many of us who say, "I tried to start a business. It failed. Lost all my money. That's it." Well, news flash, we all did. And so, either I'm going to say, "Well, because I failed the first time, I'm going just go back and get a job at this factory"—that's living the because of life. But in spite of life, says, "Even though it failed the first time, I believe that God is a God of second chances. I believe that God can still do exceeding abundantly above all that I could think, dream, or imagine if I put my faith in him."

Yeah, you can experience a lot. I experienced a lot of trauma in my childhood, but my trauma is not an excuse for me to remain broken. My trauma is proof that I am an overcomer. It's proof that I'm better than what I experienced.

The Pain and the Promise

In verse three, Paul says, "I did this so that no one would be unsettled by these trials, for you know quite well that we are destined for them." He's sending Timothy to check on them because he doesn't want them to be unsettled. He's saying, "You should know quite well that we are destined for trials."

Paul was a bit worried as he's writing to the church because he's like, "I'm afraid that some of y'all are becoming unsettled in what you're going through." Let's be real. Some of us can look a little unraveled sometimes. You're not as steady as you look because you can be seated but not planted. You could be still but not anchored. You're not actually trusting in God. You're just remaining here because you have nowhere else to go.

Attacks have the ability to reveal who isn't as settled as they pretend to be. When attacks come, they're there to expose who's actually settled and who's shaking. Who's actually with you and who's just been floating along as long as you were in the same current.

If you want to know who a person is, watch how they move when the fights start. That's one of the things that I learned when I was a little boy. I used to fight all the time on the playground. You were talking crazy in school, bro. Trust me, I'mma see you in recess.

You got some people that be with you and it's always that one person talking tough with you. "Yeah, we gonna get him. He better not mess with my boy. I got my boy back." And then the fight start and you ain't tripping cuz it's two of y'all but three of them. But you're like, "Bro, I take two. You take one. We straight." And ain't until you get punched in the back of the head and you realize your boy done left to play with some toys, that you don't know who a person is until the fights start.

You never judge your friendship based on how much you laugh together. Friends stay when laughter stops. You never judge your friends based on how much you laugh together. Friends stay when the laughter stops. If you're only my friend as long as we're giggling, we're not friends. Friends are born through adversity.

Dr. Martin Luther King said it this way: "The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience, but how he stands during times of controversy and challenge." I don't judge no man by how he act when everything is good. I wait to see your character on how you stand when everything is bad. Who are you when things are going terribly wrong? Are you still a man whose character shows? Are you still a man or a woman who can stand flatfooted and say, "I know who I am in God"?

In verse four, it says, "In fact, when we were there with you, we kept telling you that you would be persecuted or that we would be persecuted, and it turned out that way, as you well know." This means they knew the trials were coming.

Here's what's profound: you can know that a trial is coming, but still that does nothing to stop the pain you must go through in the trial. You can know that you're getting ready to go through something. You can speak about it, praise about it, but that still does not negate the emotions of going through it.

We see it with Jesus. He lives 33 and a half years knowing he's going to die. For the last three and a half years of his life, he prophesies it. "Tear down this temple, and in three days, I'll build it back up again." He raises Lazarus from the dead. He raises a boy from the dead in the middle of his funeral. He is moving like a powerful Son of God.

But still, when it came time for him to die, he had some emotions. Prophecy is different than standing in the emotion of what you prophesied. You can say all day, "I'm trusting in God." But trusting in God and feeling abandoned while you're trusting is two different things.

We see Jesus even at that place trying to escape the cross, asking God three times, "Let this cup pass. Please let this cup pass. I don't want to do it. I don't want the pain." Because even though I could see the picture of what I was going to go through, I did not expect it to feel like this.

For those of us who got a relationship with God, yeah, I knew I was going to go through some stuff, past, but then nobody warned me of the feelings. Yeah, I knew some people were going to leave, but nobody warned me of who the people were going to be.

Sometimes the only way to get out of pain is to get through it. I tell people all the time when they want counseling, "Pastor, I've been going through a lot and I want to get out of this," and I'm telling you there's no way out but through. You keep looking for an escape and the escape is right in front of you. You got to keep walking.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take off fear. I fear no evil because God is with me.

These are lessons, and one lesson that nobody told me is that the pain and the promise are not sold separately. It's a package deal. The pain and the promise are not sold separately. They have to come together.

You can't be anointed without a Judas. You can't be anointed without being betrayed. And you can't be anointed without being crucified. They all have to come together. That if you're going to be anointed, if you're expecting the promise to come, the promise always comes with the pain. The two are a tandem deal.

I know that you will want promise without pain. But in order to get promise without pain, you got to die. Heaven is the only place you get promise with no pain. As long as you are living here when you're expecting God to push you or to thrust you into your promise, you have to know that moving in the will of God means stuff got to die off of you.

He said it this way in John 15:2: "The father is the vine dresser. He is the farmer working the great vine. Jesus says, I am the vine. Now there's two types of people that are in me. Two types of people in this church right now.

He said, "There's one type that's in me but producing nothing. They're connected to the vine, but they aren't giving anything back to the vine. They don't feed the people that come to the vine. They're only taking nourishment from the vine." Now he says, "But the father does in those situations, he takes those people and he cuts them off."

So I need you to know that everybody that walks away didn't walk away. Some are cut off.

There's a second group of people that are producing. Now this is powerful. He says the second group are producing real fruit. And some of y'all are for real about your faith, about your assignment, about your calling. You're producing real fruit. And guess what happens to you? You get cut too.

You reading the scripture like, "Wait a minute. Help me, Jesus. They got cut for not producing. I get cut for producing." Here's the difference: they get cut off, you get cut back. They get cut off, you get cut back.

Getting cut back means that God has to prune you because promise with no pain produces pride. I need you to stay with me. Promise with no pain produces pride. And God knows if you keep producing fruit and I don't prune you, the outside of that branch starts to get hard. And once it gets hard, nutrients can't flow through it. So no more grapes are able to grow on it.

So if I want you to keep producing, I got to keep cutting the layer of you that produces pride to keep you in the place of humility. And some of you, it's not that God is angry with you, but God is so proud. He got to cut you to keep you growing. He's so proud he got to cut you to keep you going.

You'll learn in this process that the amount of people that you need to forgive on the way to promise is crazy. The amount of people you need to forgive on the way. Nobody told me the road would be easy. You would be amazed at how often you got to forgive different people and the same people.

Isn't it profound that the Bible says that God will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies? I want you to think about it this way. How many times do you sit to eat with your enemies? If we were to be honest, never. I don't remember the last time I invited an enemy out to Golden Corral or Cheesecake Factory.

And God started showing this to my heart. What if I were to tell you that you sat to eat dinner with your friends and when God prepared the table, he exposed who were your enemies? Some of y'all missed it. God prepares the table before you in the presence of your enemies. But most of you will never invite an enemy to the table, but somehow they keep eating with you. How does this happen? Because you invited your friends to the table. And it took food to expose who was actually on your side.

It took both of y'all needing to eat to expose who was your friend and who was your enemy. Sometimes you need the table in front of friends to see who's actually on your side. Judas turned to an enemy as long as there was food on the table. 30 pieces of silver turned a disciple to a fault. It will happen every single time that you will learn this, that these are the things that you got to overcome. The friends that you got to forgive.

You will learn that some people are not friends. If people aren't pouring into your life, they're not your friend. If you come to the table with only an appetite, you're not my friend. You got to bring something, too. You can't just keep showing up to the table with only an appetite. You know those freeloaders, the people that show up to Thanksgiving with nothing but leave with three plates. You ain't make no dressing. You didn't make no yams. You didn't make no mac and cheese. But you and all eight of your kids walking out with plate.

Faith and Love: The Two Essentials

In verse five, Paul says, "For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. And I was afraid that in some way the tempter had tempted you and that our labors might have been in vain."

Paul was afraid. He's like, "I'm afraid that the devil's attacks were actually pulling people away from God." He was nervous. He said, "I'm afraid that the tempter has shown up and that man, all the work and all the prayer and all the fasting that we did for you guys, I'm wondering if that stuff is in vain."

The reality is the enemy can and has pulled you away from God through temptations and attacks. It's not only just in the Bible, it's also happening today that the enemy pulls us away through temptations and attacks. You can be right in the church and still far from God because the enemy is pulling you through temptations and attacks.

Every temptation is an attack and every attack is a temptation. Every temptation is an attack on your faith, an attack on your relationship with God, an attack on the connection and the obedience that God has put in your spirit. Every time you're attacked, the enemy is giving you an offer. Here's my offer letter to leave your company and to come join the enemy.

Every time you're attacked, you start thinking, "Man, if it's going to be this hard, do I just walk away? Do I find a different route?" And sometimes it isn't leaving God. Sometimes it's simply you leaving what God told you to do and leaving where God told you to be and not realizing you're walking in disobedience already.

Being closer to God has nothing to do with location, but everything to do with your heart posture. You don't got to be in the church to be closer to God, but your heart does have to be broken to truly submit to him. It has nothing to do with you showing up. It has everything to do with what's showing up in your heart. What is being revealed in your heart, it's the reality of having to get over yourself to walk and talk like Jesus. Getting over yourself.

Trust me, I've been there. Sometimes you got to get over yourself, your own thought processes, and your own feelings. Like forgiving people, you can get tired of that. That doesn't mean you got to stop, but you can get tired.

Do you want to be real about something? Have you ever had the thought like, "I'm just tired of healing. I'm tired of having to always heal from somebody else's damage"? Healing in general is cool, but when you got to keep healing from the same people, you got to keep forgiving, it just gets old. And you get so tired and so tired and so tired until eventually you die. And God is like, "That's the goal." The goal is for you to pick up your cross daily and to kill your flesh and to walk as Jesus wants you to walk.

In verse six, it says, "But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you have always pleasant memories of us. And that you long to see us just as we also long to see you."

They were still building through the hard times and the attacks of the enemy. They were still building, and there were two things that I love this verse exposes that they had to master in order for them to continue building. And we're going to need to master these same two things for us to build this year. The two things they mastered were faith and love.

You got to know that carrying the hand of God and the favor of God means you are a target and people are going to attack you and try to kill you. Now, what are you going to do about it? Here's the reality. What am I going to do about it? I need to master these two things: the shield of faith and the sword of his spirit, which is love. For God is love. I need to master faith and love.

Faith is powerful. When you look at Hebrews 11:6, most people quote Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." But to be honest, that verse speaks to me, but not as loud as Hebrews 11:6.

Because Hebrews 11:6 says, "And it is impossible to please God without faith." It's impossible to please God without faith. This is why because anyone who wants to come to him must first believe he exists. And number two, that he rewards you for seeking him and doing it his way.

I need you to know you are never losing when you do it God's way. I know your feelings may be losing, but your faith is growing every single moment. You never lose when God tells you to be quiet and let them keep talking. I know your feelings don't like it, but I promise you, you're not losing. God is just building up your reward in heaven. God is allowing the enemy to get as loud as he can so that when he shuts him up, the silence is so beautiful.

You must first believe that he exists and that he rewards you for seeking him. Faith is the currency of the kingdom of God. Faith is how you get an exchange from heaven. Faith is how you buy stuff from God. God is touched by your emotions, but he's moved by your faith. How you get stuff out of heaven is through faith. It's the currency.

The United States has the dollar. The United Kingdom has the British pound. Mexico has the peso. France has the euro. And heaven has faith. When I want to buy something here, I need a dollar. If I go to Mexico, I need a peso. When I go to heaven, I need faith. I can't get anything from a God who I don't have faith in. Why serve God and not believe he'll actually move? That's crazy to me. I might as well quit. I got to trust that God will grow me.

And the only way for my faith to grow is to face nearly impossible situations. I know you're like, "I want to grow in peace." Well, you got to live in storms. There's no other way. I want to grow in forgiveness, then more people need to hurt you. Are you listening to what I'm saying?

I want to grow in my faith. Well, if you want to grow in your faith, you got to keep facing stuff that looks like you can't win. And while standing in front of the mountain, you say, "Be removed and be cast into another part of the sea." You got to keep facing impossible situations to know that my God is the God of the impossible. My God is the God of the impossible.

I hope it gets hard so I can trust a bigger God. I got to trust that God is greater than my circumstance. It takes real trust, real faith to trust God when you face things that have failed in front of you. You got to trust God when things fail.

That was me when I was trying to purchase this church. Y'all don't know, but I got laughed out of certain banks. Went in with our portfolio. Drove hours to meet with them. They said, "We'll be able to help you. Young man, come talk to us." I come in on my portfolio and they give me water. I'm excited cuz, you know, I done did my research. I know we got a little bit of money in the bank. I'm like, "Yeah, we getting ready to show out."

And to sit there for an hour to have somebody play in my face. I walked out crying, not because I'm sore, but because I was so angry and I couldn't punch them. Sit there. Tears coming down my eyes. My fist had the Arthur fist the whole time. And I'm frustrated. And now I've been telling the church and my leaders, God said we going to buy. And I've been laughed out of banks.

But I had to keep trusting God that even though it looks like it's impossible, I serve a bigger God. Yeah, I may be crying right now, but I serve a bigger God. Yeah, it may seem impossible right now, but I serve a bigger God. And we kept looking. We kept standing in faith and all of a sudden God connected us with a bank all the way in Denver who flew here in the week and said the deal is done.

Banks told us we weren't old enough. But God said, "I need you to keep trusting me. I can grow you even in infancy. I can expand you even when everybody else is saying you cannot expand."

They grew in faith. And the other one they grew in was love. Now watch this. This is powerful. The most powerful verse in the Bible for love to me isn't John 3:16. I love that verse. It's so good because it brings us into Jesus. But the verse that checks me and has always checked my love is:

1 Corinthians 13:7 says, "Love never gives up. Never loses faith. It's always hopeful and endures through every circumstance."

If you want to make it, you need more than faith. You need love. Be real and say, "Man, that's hard." Because faith never gives up. Never. It doesn't matter what you go through, you endure because you know what you're doing it for. You know who you're doing it for. Love is the propeller of your faith.

Standing Firm

In verse seven of 1 Thessalonians 3, it says, "Therefore, brothers and sisters in all our distress and persecution, we were encouraged about you because of your faith."

Paul is like, "You know what? Even though we dealt with all of this stuff, the thing that encouraged me," and it's the same thing as a pastor to be totally honest right now, the thing that encouraged me the most is to watch people go through and say, "I'mma keep trusting God." I get shot right there because the enemy will do whatever he can to get you to lose your faith in God, your faith in your purpose, your faith in your promise, your faith in your assignment. But it encouraged the Apostle Paul and it encourages me to see you continue to trust God even in the face of difficulty.

If you're going to build through difficult times and through the attacks, you got to get this resolved. There's one thing you need to hold on to all year: Regardless of what happens, I'm not going to quit. I want you to write that down. Don't just praise about it. Pray about it. Regardless of what happens, I'm not going to quit.

I'm doing a good work and I can't come down. Regardless of what comes my way, I'm going to remain steadfast and unmovable in the work of the Lord.

That you can at least say that you're not going to give up on God because God didn't give up on you. I'm telling you, I know what it's like to feel like God should give up on me. I made enough mistakes that if he gave up on me, he would be justified. But he remains steadfast over us, covering us every single day.

I'm challenging you today that if you're going to build through attacks, can you at least give God the same faithfulness he gave you? That God, as many times as you showed up for me, it would be unfair for me to give up on you. As many times as you've moved in impossible situations for me, it would be unrighteous for me to stop trusting you to move again.

And even though my feelings may be hurt, my faith is strong. And I trust God that you will continue to move in every impossible situation. And I realize that when I break up impossible, I'm really saying I'm possible. That I'm possible. That it's possible for me to stay in the hand of God and not lose my way. It's possible for me to say regardless of what I'm facing, as long as I stay in his face, I'll be good.

God, this is my only prayer, Lord God, that we will be steadfast and unmovable even through the attacks. I pray, Lord God, that we don't just praise about it, but that we pray about it. That we be grounded in knowing, God, that we are going to face difficulty, that we are going to face hard days, that we are going to face hard times, but we've learned to trust in you. But more than trust, God, give us the faith we need and the love we need to keep building. Even when it gets hard and it seems impossible, in the face of dark times, help us to stand flatfooted, chest out, and to say, "For God, I live and for God, I die. And my whole life is submitted to you, Jesus. May we know you even in the valley. May we not only expect the mountain tops, but may we walk with you through the valley. May our faith overcome our fear because we know that you are with us. We know that you are still here. In Yeshua's name we pray."