Work and Wait Like the Farmer | My Job Depends on Ag

In the second part of the "My Job Depends on Ag" series, this sermon addresses the often-dreaded spiritual discipline of waiting. We frequently try to avoid praying for patience to dodge trials, but trials are inevitable. The question isn't if we will wait, but how. Using James' analogy of the farmer, we see that waiting is not passive; it is an active, expectant dependence on God for a harvest we cannot control.

Scripture References

• James 5:7-11: "Be patient then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits... patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains."
• Psalm 27:14: "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
• Isaiah 40:31: "But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength..."
• 2 Timothy 2:3-6: Paul uses the soldier, athlete, and the hard-working farmer as examples of perseverance.
• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: "Love is patient... love always perseveres."
• Mark 4:26-29: The parable of the growing seed, illustrating the slow, mysterious nature of Kingdom growth.

Key Points

1. Waiting is Active, Not Passive James points to the farmer who waits for the rains. For a first-century farmer, this wasn't leisurely; it was survival. His life depended on conditions outside his control. Similarly, waiting on God is an active posture of looking to Him as our source, surrendering our need for control.
2. Why We Wait
   • To kill entitlement: Waiting cures the "Veruca Salt syndrome" ("I want it now!").
   • To look to God: Waiting shifts our focus from the thing we want to the One who provides it.
   • To develop character: Patience is essential for spiritual maturity.
3. Hurry is the Enemy of Love First Corinthians 13 begins with "Love is patient" and ends with "Love perseveres." If we cannot wait, we cannot love. Hurry makes us incapable of connecting with God and others. Patience is simply the ability to wait with a heart of peace and hope.
4. The Kingdom Grows Slowly Jesus' parable of the seed (Mark 4) shows that Kingdom growth is often mundane, slow, and invisible. While we love "Pentecost moments," most growth happens through small, daily acts of obedience—prayer, listening, and faithfulness over time.

Conclusion

Waiting is not forever. James reminds us to be patient until the Lord's coming. Jesus, the ultimate Farmer, patiently suffered on the cross to forgive our impatience and secure our future. Whether He breaks through in this life or at His return, the wait will end. Until then, we are called to practice "slowing"—deliberately placing ourselves in positions where we must wait—to cultivate a heart of patience.

Calls to Action

1. Shift Your Perspective: View waiting not as a nuisance but as "patience practice"—an opportunity for your heart to grow.
2. Practice "Slowing":
   • Drive in one lane at the speed limit and use the time to pray.
   • Listen to people without your phone in your hand.
   • Take deliberate breaks from technology.
3. Pray for Patience: Stop avoiding it. Ask God for the grace to wait well.
4. Receive Prayer: If you are in a painful season of waiting, come forward for prayer to receive strength to persevere.

Transcript

Be patient then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You to be patient and stand firm because the Lord's coming is near.

Don't grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The judge is standing at the door. Brothers and sisters is an example of patience in the face of suffering. Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. You may be seated.

Thanks, Micah. My name is Glenn. I work here at Radiant. It's good to be with you guys this morning. We're in the middle of a series on agg that Travis started a few weeks ago, and, I wanted to start by asking you guys a question. Have you ever heard this before? Don't pray for patience, because God will give you something to be patient about.

Okay? So I can tell by your reaction that you guys have heard this before. I'm glad it's not just me. So in my 20s, I heard this a lot, and I don't know how this thing started. I mean, maybe it started off as a joke, and then it became real because it was very real for my friends. And I, at the college I went to, I mean, we would we would warn each other not to pray for patience.

This was a truism like, we don't pray for patience. We all know what happens when you pray for patience. And, I took it very seriously. Never prayed for patience. One time and all my 20s. And looking back, I thought, man, we we thought we had found a loophole. Like, if I can just not pray for patience, then God will be obligated to not give me additional trials that will then give me more patience.

So we thought we had found this divine loophole that would guarantee an easier life. And by the time I was about 30, I looked back and I thought, man, this is not working. My life is not easier at all. I did not spare myself any hardship by not praying for patience. So I don't think that was the best idea.

The truth is that we're going to have to wait in this life. We're going to have to wait. We're we're going to need patience. The real question is, how are you going to wait? Are you going to wait with patience? And the way the Lord wants you to wait. Are you going to wait with impatience without character?

Like I said, we're in this. This series called My Job depends on AGG. And one of the questions that Travis has been asking is, is our spiritual life. Is spiritual growth more like a factory or more like a farm? You know, is it more like Amazon Prime or is it more like agriculture? The slow and steady growth of crops like which is it more like?

And the answer is, is obvious. And that's why we're doing this series on on agg and so I wanted to look at this passage that Micah read for us again in the first couple verses. James, he encourages us to be patient and stand firm. I'll read it again. He says this. Be patient then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming.

See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop. Patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You to be patient and stand firm. Because the Lord's coming is near. I love this. I love that he encourages us to be patients. And of all the occupations of all the examples he could have drawn from. He tells us to look to the farmer, says yeah, to take a take a page out of the farmer's book, learn from the farmer and be patient like the farmer.

And so I was thinking about this. Well, what did what did that look like for a farmer back then? You know, a first century farmer in Israel, or one of the surrounding nations? Like, what did that look like? For one of those farmers to be patient. And I found this, in a commentary on James. And I think it helps a little bit with what it looked like.

This is Peter David's, and he says for the Palestinian farmer, the crops were literally his life. After the sowing, he waited for the spring or the later rains, which is march through April, to ripen the crop. All this time, his food supplies were getting lower. It was not uncommon for food to be rationed, and the children to be crying from hunger during the month or two before harvest.

But with his life in his hands, he had to wait for conditions outside his control. And I thought that, brought it to life a little bit. I, I don't know, all of the 21st century farming techniques. And so I'm just going to stay away from that because I'm not I'm not the best person to speak into that.

But this is what James was referring to when he was telling us to, to emulate the patience of the farmer. He's talking about the farmer who after the the sowing process, there's the waiting process. And in those last few months before the harvest, things would get really tight. Things would get really difficult where they were literally waiting for their livelihood.

There were waiting for their survival, for the crops to come about. And so this is the kind of patience that that James is talking about, not something passive, not just sitting around watching TV, but like you're watching, you're waiting. And all of your life, all of your survival depends on what God or in the farmer's mind. Nature. Nature running its course.

But ultimately what God will do or not do. This is the kind of waiting that we're encouraged to do. What makes this hard? And even the last part of that quote, you know, the farmer's waiting for conditions outside his control. That's really the crux of why we hate waiting. I don't know anyone who likes waiting. I don't like waiting.

I was with my family last night in a family friend. And, family friend with me was asking what I'm preaching on, and I'm like, oh, waiting. And patience. She's like, hate that. And I'm like, so does everyone. Like, that's everyone's response. Like, no. And no one's like, I love to wait. Yes. Give me an extra hour in line or whatever.

And it's it's the control aspect. Like, we we lose control when we're waiting, whether it's a serious kind of waiting, like the farmer or it's something more trivial, like we encounter every single day, like our screen is buffering or where the line is longer than we want, like we're out of control. We just want things to be in our control.

An author, Mark of Verona, wrote a whole book on waiting, and he says this. He says, underneath our disdain for waiting is our longing for control. I thought that diagnosed it pretty well. So what's the deal? If you've read through the Bible, what's the deal with all of the waiting passages? There's so many. Like God seems to really care about this.

There's constantly encouragements and verses about waiting. So here's a here's a small little sample. There's way more than this. But Psalm 27, verse 14, in the in the ESV says this. Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. So he says it twice. Like if you didn't get it the first time, he says it again.

No, I'm saying wait for the Lord. And then secondly, Psalm 37, verse seven, he says, be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Kind of makes it even harder that way. Not just wait, but wait patiently for him. And then Lamentations, everyone's favorite book says, the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. And most of us would disagree with that last line like, no, this is not good. Waiting is not a good thing. It's bad usually. And then this is my my, my, my favorite one. The last one. Psalm 40, verse one. I have the MSG version.

That's the message. The way Eugene Peterson translates it is I waited and waited and waited for God. And I thought, that's that's real. That's the way it feels a lot of times. So why, why so much waiting? Why? Why so many encouragements to wait besides the fact that we're naturally bad at it? But what? What happens? Why? Why does God care?

I think I think a few things here. One is that, and this is obvious, but waiting teaches us to not be spoiled. How many of you guys remember Veruca Salt? Okay, what did she say? I want it now. Yes, exactly. And so this is the opposite of the patient attitude. It's the Veruca Salt syndrome. You know I want it now, daddy.

I want it now. This is the opposite of patience. And this is what we turn into. If we never have to wait. Imagine the child who never has to wait for anything. That is what they turn into. And so it might be helpful to just picture the opposite of the person who never waits. It's Veruca Salt. That's that's where we're at.

And I just thought that, you know, in a society that's becoming more and more technological and it's trying to get faster and faster in every way. And and in some ways we appreciate that. But in a lot of ways, we are, as a society, turning more into Veruca Salt, like every little bit of waiting just agitates us and aggravates us.

Secondly, waiting in the Bible teaches us to look to God. So this is a this is a way that waiting in the Bible is different than just how we normally use the word waiting. Usually when we're talking about waiting. We're talking about waiting for something. I waited for somebody to call me back. I waited for the food to be ready.

But in the Bible, it's always waiting on God. Why is that? Well, because from the Bible's perspective, anything that's worth having is ultimately from the hand of God. Every good and perfect gift is from God and God's sovereign. And so if we're waiting on something that we actually need, then we are, in fact, waiting on the Lord. The only kind of waiting that matters is waiting on the Lord.

And so waiting from God's perspective. It teaches us to lift our eyes to the one who really is in control. The one who is in charge of everything. So instead of just, keeping our eyes on that thing that we want, now we lift our eyes and go, God, you're. You're the one in control. I'm. I'm actually waiting on you.

And it changes our heart posture. It puts it into a place of prayer. Isaiah 40, verse 31. This is a famous passage about waiting. One that I love. Isaiah 40, verse 31 says, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint. And this is so in the in the poetry of Isaiah. This is a really powerful picture of the promises that come to those who don't just wait for stuff or things, but who actually wait on the Lord. You're going to be strengthened on the inside. You're going to rise up on the wings of eagles.

You're going to run. I mean, these are all pictures of being restored and revived and renewed on the inside. And who doesn't want that? You know, as we enter into a new year in 2026, who doesn't want these these pictures from Isaiah, the rising up on the wings of eagles, running and not growing weary. Just being alive on the inside.

Who doesn't want that for 2026? So to wait on God means to remember his good character when we're tempted to doubt it. Because what happens when you're actually waiting for a long time? The enemy comes in and he says, see, God is not good. See? God's distant. He doesn't care. But when you're waiting on the Lord, you go, no, no, no.

He cares. He keeps his promises. He's faithful. Okay. Lastly, what is waiting? Do at develops patience and Christlike character within us. So what is patience? Patience is my definition. Patience is simply the ability to wait for God with a heart of peace and hopefulness. I know it's like way easier said than done, right? Simply waiting with a heart of peace and hopefulness.

So while I was reading all these passages on waiting and books on waiting this week, now I realized that I ran out of one of my my medicines that I take for, the chronic Lyme disease is like this herbal medicine that I can't get on Amazon, which I hate it whenever I can't get something with Amazon Prime, I got an order from the doctor, so I order it and, you know, day goes by and I realize I haven't gotten a receipt in my email yet, like, what's going on here?

So I call again the next day and I'm like, hey, did you guys get a chance to process that order? And the secretary, is she goes, I don't think so. I go, oh, when will you do that? She she said it. Like I said, it is the most normal thing to to have not processed my order. I was like, oh, when, when do you think you will process the order that I placed yesterday on the phone with you?

She's like, I don't know. Let me check. Can you, can you hold? I was like, sure. I've been holding since yesterday, but I will hold more. And so I'm like on the phone and she comes back and she goes, you know what? We don't have it, you know. Oh. That's cool. I have to call back. And I didn't say that part, but I was like, oh, I have to call back and find this out.

I was like, when will you guys have it? And she goes, I don't know. Well, we'll order it and then it will get to us and then we'll ship it out to you. So probably like next week sometime it's like, okay, thank you. Hung up. Ordered the same thing from another doctor somewhere else. So now I have two orders that are coming.

Whichever one comes first. But this is like this is a picture of us waiting. We hate it. And I'm going to be okay. Like my my medicine is going to get here on time and it's going to be all right. But really, it was just a week. But for us these days, like, man, if it doesn't get here in two days on Prime, like, you're dead to me.

Like, don't don't look at me. That that was my attitude towards this doctor's office. Like, who do you guys think you are? Like, not processing my order less than 24 hours. I was very offended. So we need to learn. We need to learn from the farmer. Here's another. Here's another passage. Second Timothy two three through six. Paul says this.

He says, join with me in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor's crown except by competing according to the rules. The hard working farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.

So Paul points us to three occupations. Okay. And as we're tracking, you know, he might be like, okay, first look at the soldier sacrifices his life, he's dedicated. And we're like, yeah, Veterans Day soldiers. Like, we're into this like, this is very inspiring. And he's like, okay, next one on the list, athletes. We're like for sure athletes. We love athletes, man.

They they're they're so good at what they do. Like man they're just like the finest human specimens of strength and agility. Like we're into this Paul. And he's like, okay, next one on the list. Get ready. This is the climax. Okay. He's like, look to the farmer. We're like, oh, that's cool. The farmer, that's not that's not quite as inspiring to watch.

The farmer. You know, last night I said we were at dinner, we were at Planning Mill in the middle of our meal. The whole place just erupts and everyone's just yelling and cheering. I'm like, what is going on? We look at the TV. Somebody just scored a touchdown. You know, they just broken through, scored a touchdown. It was awesome.

Gave us some excitement. I was just thinking what if it what if it was like live action of a farmer on the field, like we're a planting mill? The farmer walks out. You know, the announcers like he's up. It's early morning. What is that? Is that a is that a weed or is that a crop? Is that the first bud we're going in for a close up.

It goes for the close up. The farmer walks over. It's the first crop of the harvest. You know, the planting mill goes wild. Yeah! Woo! It's not going to happen, right? When's the last time a farmer was on the cover of GQ? I never I googled it, never. Okay. When was the last time a farmer was on the cover of time magazine?

1978. I googled that, too. It's been almost 60 years. I think it's time. What do you guys think? Central Valley farmer on the cover of time. Come on. So the point is not to undermine the value of the soldier, the athlete. It's that as a society now, we just kind of put farmers in the back corner. They're just like, yeah, just like, get us our food so it can come to save more and we can buy it.

Like we don't really care about the process anymore because the process isn't as exciting. It's not as fast. It's we're not going to cheer for it in the middle of our dinner. But in Paul's mind, he he he ends with it. I just love that. Like that in Paul's mind, this is the climax of of it's not just waiting.

It's working. It's both. The farmer is a hard worker and he's a hard waiter. And those two things are really hard to come by. We have more examples of people who work hard and that's so valuable. But what about the person who will work hard when it's time to work hard, and then knows how to wait when it's time to wait?

That takes spiritual maturity, and that's why he ends with the farmer, because we need that kind of mindset now just to drive this home, because I know some of us are still like, I. I still don't think that patience is a virtue, you know, like, I still think that waiting is lame and I want to get rid of it as much as possible.

I want to say one more thing. First Corinthians 13 is the famous passage on love in the Bible, and I just want to read it, because I think there might be a couple things that we haven't caught before. First Corinthians 13 four through seven says, love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast.

It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Now I want us to notice that it ends with this picture of perseverance. I mean, what is perseverance?

The ability to wait. The ability to have patience with hope and faith. And then how does the passage start? Love is patient. And so the first and last descriptors of true love, according to the most famous passage on love, is patience. Related. And so what I want to say is that if you don't know how to have patience, you don't know how to love.

We value love, but we don't value patience. But the two are related in God's mind. Remember, the love of the Bible is not the sentimental, sappy love of the movies, but it's something a lot deeper, a lot more long lasting. A lot more gritty. And it involves patience necessarily. Patience is the ability to slow down. This is something that, John Mark Comber writes about the ruthless elimination of hurry, which is a book I really recommend.

But he says this about hurry and about just the speed at which we live our lives. He says this hurry and love are incompatible. All my worst moments as a father, a husband and a pastor, even as a human being, are when I'm in a hurry and I. I appreciate that connection because we don't often think of hurry as the enemy, but often, very often hurry is the enemy.

And we can't love because we're moving too fast. It's impossible to love when we're always, always moving fast. That's a famous quote from the psychologist Carl Young. Actually, he says that hurry is not of the devil. Hurry is the devil. And that's just a pretty in-your-face helpful comment about the need to slow down if we if we want to truly love, if we want to truly wait the way the Lord wants us to, we may need to slow down.

I want to read this last and read this last passage here, Mark 426 through 29. This is from. We started with James with the metaphors shared with James. Continue to Paul. And now we're with Jesus. And this is what Jesus says. He says, this is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground night and day.

Whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain. First the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come. End of story. And I, Jesus is just so funny because sometimes I just think, what if you were there listening to this like he tells this story.

A farmer goes out, sows the seed crops, comes up. All right. It's all guys to later like, wow. Cool story. Thank you. That was boring. Does that apply to our lives at all? And I taught a class in the parables a couple of years ago. And what we found was that these simple stories have layers of meaning, just depth of revelation, so much to it.

And so there's so much we could say about this. It's it's a story about the, the mystery and the and, the invisibility of God's work, that what God's doing is often underneath the soil and invisible to the human eye. But it's happening. It's a story about man's partnership with God that we do our part. But then God does what only he can do.

But the part I wanted to point out is that this is also a story about how Kingdom expansion is usually mundane and slow. Usually we we always love the the the day of Pentecost type moments, right where there's the suddenly where God breaks in the prayers answered, the Spirit's poured out. I love that I want more of that.

But most of the time the kingdom of God is working through small acts of obedience. You spending time with Jesus every day. Maybe you don't feel it. You sharing your testimony with a friend, you listening to your kids or watching them for the 20th time as they jump on the trampoline? You know, like these little acts of love and obedience.

This is how the kingdom grows. Most of the time. Okay, so what does this look like? I want to end with what does this look like in real life? If it's not already clear, I think I think it looks like three things. And the first one is that mostly it just looks like a perspective shift. And you've already probably gathered that so far this morning, but mostly it looks like a perspective shift.

Like maybe the waiting that I dread and try to avoid all the time. Maybe it's actually beneficial. What if what if my perspective shifted? And what if I looked at all of these waiting moments as patients practice ways that my heart can grow in love, ways that I can slow down and connect with God and people more? What if that's how I started looking at all of these slow moments?

This is this is exactly what James says at the beginning of his book. He says, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. You. You can't count on all joy unless you know that these times of waiting are doing something.

But when you know that you can't, you can go, okay, praise God you're doing something awesome on the inside. The second thing is we can pray for patience. There's no loophole. Let's just do it. I mean, come on, we're not going to avoid any trials. It didn't work. Okay? I'm exhibit letter A of the person who it didn't work for.

So if you're going to have the suffering in the trials anyway, then we might as well pray for patience, because that's what we want, and that's what we need. And then the last thing we can practice, something that some authors have started to call slowing. Okay. Before you groan at this too, this is not like the sloth on Zootopia, okay?

This is not like talk slower. Be annoying when you're driving in front of somebody. You know, that's not what's slowing is this is this is what. This is how John Ortberg defines slowing. He says slowing is cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place ourselves in positions where we simply have to wait. Okay, well, here's some examples of that.

I got really excited about this this week. I've been doing very good at it, but here's some examples. When you're driving instead of which is what I normally do like, you know, I get off on, you know, I get off from the ACRs, freeway, and I come all the way down to central Visalia. I mean, it's like a three minute drive on the freeway, if that.

I switch lanes, like, four times, you know, like getting around people. And then I just make it in time to get off in the central Visalia exit. Okay, what if this is revolutionary? What if we stayed in one lane? Okay. What if we drove the speed limit? Okay, stay with me. Okay. Same lane speed limit. Okay. And then with all that extra energy, we usually use, like, darting around.

What if we prayed? What if we just slowed down a little bit and put our thoughts on on God? It's just a thought. Okay, here's here's another one. Here's another one. Practice of slowing. How about, listening without a phone in your hand? Okay, so how often do we all experience this and do this? Okay. You're talking to somebody.

You go, Yeah.

What? Yeah, totally. I know right?

Now, when that happens, do you feel. Do you feel loved by that person? Do you feel valued? But that's normal, right? Can you imagine Jesus doing that? Imagine Jesus walking the earth and being like, what was that, Peter? My gosh. Pharisees are texting me right now like, I know. Yeah, we'll we'll be there in a second, okay?

No, no, no, Jesus is not going to do that. Listening. This this requires us to slow down, to actually listen to somebody, to actually hear them out. It requires the phone being aware. Hey, eye contact, slowing down. You're connecting with somebody. This quote from David OG's burger, I think it's been quoted here from the stage before, but I just want to quote it again because I love it.

It says being heard is. Sorry I skipped one. Micah. The David OG's burger quote it says being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. Oh well, you guys get the point. Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they're almost indistinguishable. The more you listen, the more you're actually loving.

Okay, here's a last example of of slowing is to just take wholesale breaks from your phone. Like just phone in the other room for hours at a time. I mean, as much as possible, like, as much as you can physically handle until your hand starts shaking, you know, and you need you need to grab it. But just be aware that almost everyone I know, including myself, is more addicted to having their phone on them at all times than they realize.

And the average person when you say this like take a break from your phone is like done. Like, yeah, I'll do that tomorrow, you know? But as soon as they do it and the longer they do it, they realize, no, I need to check this and I need to look at this like so we all underestimate the the digital addiction that we're going through.

And that's why we're going to go on a digital fast as a church in a couple of months. So yeah, I get excited. So we'll talk more about that. But that's going to be an awesome opportunity to slow, to slow down, to learn how to love and to develop patience. All the things okay. Last thing. Because I didn't want to end this as much as I love it.

I didn't want to end this on just like, tips and tricks. I wanted to end with, our gaze upon Jesus, the Patient one, because the gospel is not try harder. The gospel is that Jesus has made a way for us so we can live a supernatural life, and we can live a grace filled life. And if you remember the very first verse that we started with, what did it say?

James five verse seven says this. Be patient then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. Here's the good news for the believer in Jesus, waiting never lasts forever. It it doesn't last forever. Jesus comes, he comes, he. Sometimes he comes in this life and it's awesome. He answers the prayer. He breaks through. He brings the healing. And that's what we want.

But even if he doesn't, if it's one of those situations that just stretch on, then he will still return and make everything right. Either way, the waiting doesn't last forever. And so here's the thing. Jesus was the ultimate farmer. He was the ultimate. So seed sower, the truth bringer, the one who was fully God. And he became a human and patiently suffered for 33 years on this life for our sake, especially in his last few hours on the cross, he patiently suffered on the cross.

So we could be forgiven for all of our bad waiting, for all of our lack of patience. We could be forgiven of that. And then he would go on to rise from the dead and pour out the spirit so we could live new lives so we could actually have the fruit of the spirit, which includes patience. This is the good news, and the waiting won't last forever.

Jesus will come. So let's stand together. We're going to take communion and we're going to have a prayer team in communion. We're going to celebrate what Jesus, the Patient one, did for us on our behalf. And if you if you are feeling this this morning and feel like, man, I, I need patience, I need perseverance for what I'm dealing with.

Then get prayer. Ask for prayer. We're going to have a prayer team who would love to to minister to you and pray with you. So God, we look to you this morning. We ask for you to come and meet us today right where we're at.

And we praise you, Lord, that are are waiting is meaningful to you. And then it counts with you. And we just ask you to help us. In your name, Jesus. Amen.