Glorious Way Church

Our Covenant Keeping God: A Biblical Pattern | Claire Buntrock

• Claire Buntrock

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In this episode, the speaker fires up your faith with one big message: don’t give up—God is a covenant-keeping God.Walking through the Davidic covenant (from Solomon’s temple dedication to Isaiah’s prophecy) and its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus, they unpack an “unbreakable pattern” seen all through Scripture: God gives a promise, the situation looks impossible, faith cries out, God intervenes in an unexpected way, and the promise is fulfilled. Along the way, you’ll hear how to respond in each phase—ears to hear, a mouth to speak, faith to cry out, consecration when God’s way doesn’t match yours, and praise when it comes to pass—plus real-life stories of God’s faithfulness in marriage and healing that bring the teaching down to street level.

SPEAKER_00:

Dig into the word tonight, and I want my have my goal tonight, my heart is that you would be so encouraged that you would never ever give up. No matter what you're going through, uh the situation is never hopeless because our God is a covenant-keeping God. And so we are gonna go through the biblical pattern of how exactly he makes his promises and how he keeps his promises every single time. And uh and when you see and realize the uh the big picture of how God does this, then it will give you strength to go through uh hell at high water no matter what. Uh because I tell you, we have a if you just read the word every day, you will get a steady diet. Uh of if if God gave a son to Abraham, then he'll keep his covenant to you. If God brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea and delivered them out of slavery, then he'll keep his covenant with you. If God uh He promised David to never have a uh to always have a son on the throne forever and ever, and he and he kept that covenant, then he'll keep his promise to you. Um so actually, and then and then during this Christmas season, of course, we're gonna apply that to the birth of Jesus and what a fulfillment of the covenant that is as well. Uh so I'm I'm gonna keep it fresh tonight for you, and I'm gonna keep it, make sure that you can apply it in your life. I'm gonna show you how this pattern is something that you can apply, how I've applied it in my life, how it is over and over again a completely unbreakable pattern because our God is an unbreakable God. Amen. And so let's go through it. Um, I'm gonna start just I could start with any of the covenants. I remember last time I ministered to y'all, I talked about some of the covenants. You know, there are seven covenants throughout the Bible, seven different ways that God uh promises something and and uh to mankind, and then how he fulfills that. Uh, we talked about the Abrahamic covenant. We talked a little bit about this God's covenant with Adam, God's covenant with Noah uh not long ago. Uh but tonight I'm going to talk about God's covenant with David and uh and how God fulfilled that. And my inspiration for this is recently we were just in, we were just praising the Lord here in church, and we sang that Judy Jacob song, No God Like Jehovah. How many of y'all know that song? There's no God like Jehovah. And so then my mind just went to uh my mind went straight to 2 Chronicles 6, and I'm gonna read that. Um, I remembered when Solomon was dedicating the temple. Now, Solomon is David's son. Um, David had many, many sons. That is a family nightmare, but he had many sons, and uh but Solomon was the chosen one to carry on the lineage of David through the throne. And Solomon uh remember he carried out David had promised God that he would build a temple to because right now that the children of Israel were still worshiping God in a temporary tent. And God said, How can we worship God in a tent when you know, and and there are people who have houses built in the land? I'm gonna build God a house. And and then, of course, God said, No, David, I don't want you to do that. You're you're a man of blood, you're a man of war, but I'll let your son do it. So then Solomon builds the temple, and when he's dedicating this temple, um, the glory of the Lord comes. Uh the the priests are there, they're bowing their faces to the ground. And in 2 Chronicles 7, um actually 6, 14 through 17, Solomon says, He, Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven or on earth like you who keeps your covenant and shows mercy to your servants who walk before you with all their hearts. There is no God like you in heaven and earth who keeps covenant and shows mercy. Everybody say, Who keeps covenant and shows mercy? What an awesome God! And so he does that to his servants who walk before him. And then Solomon reinforces God, you have kept what you promised your servant David, my father. You have both spoken with your mouth and fulfilled it with your hand. I love that. What God speaks with his mouth, you can count on it that he will always fulfill it with his hand. And God make every single one of us just like that, where when we say something, we are gonna do it with our hand. If we say it with our mouth, we'll do it with our hand. But even though man would let us down, and even though we sometimes let ourselves down, God will never fail. What he speaks, he will make it good. And so Solomon is reminding God how awesome he is praising God. And you've God, you've fulfilled it with your hand as it is this day. Therefore, verse 16, Lord God of Israel, now keep what you promised your servant David, my father, saying, You shall not fail to have a man sit before me on the throne of Israel. Only if your sons take heed to their way and they walk in my law as you have walked before me. And now, O Lord God of Israel, let your word come true, which you have spoken to your servant David. And so the original promise was actually given in 2 Samuel 7, 16. I'll just say that just to give it credibility, we won't go back and read that. But God spoke it, and then Solomon, there's something to learn here about prayer. There's a bonus we can pull out of here, that even though it was a done, did even though Solomon knew that God had spoken this to David, and everybody had reminded God of it, and and God knew and Solomon knew, he is still reminding God of what the covenant said, and he is still asking him to perform his word. And so we still have a part to play when when God promises something, we still reinforce his words in prayer. Um, okay, so and then it occurred to me, we're all still in church right here. I'm getting this download while we're singing that there's no God like Jehovah. And I'm thinking, yes, God, he's so good, he keeps his covenant, he shows mercy. He what he what he has filled, what he has said with his mouth, he has spoke, he has done it with his hand. But wait a minute. There was a long, long time when there was no son of David sitting on that throne. In fact, it was 600 years that that throne was empty. And it looked like God lied. And I can imagine that everybody in the world who remembered what that promise was to the Israelites thought that's not real. God must be a liar. He didn't mean that. He failed. Have y'all ever felt like God failed? It looked like in your situation that God had promised something to you, and it looked like it failed. There was no heir to the throne. After Israel, so Solomon, and then there were some more generations after Solomon, but they degenerated. They got farther and farther from God. They did not keep their side of the covenant, and they got farther and farther from God. They stopped hearing the prophets. Instead of listening to and heeding what the prophets spoke from the mouth of God, they started killing the prophets. They started, uh, like Jeremiah, they threw him in a pit. They didn't want to hear what he had to say. They said, No, you're not that's not from God. That's too hard for us to hear, that's too inconvenient. And they stopped listening to the voice of God. And so there it looked like God's promise died. But then 600 years later, here comes Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, who is. Let's read it in in Isaiah 9. Unto us a child, this is and actually this promise is given hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. But it says, Unto us a child is born, verse 6, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders, and his name will be called. Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and of the increase of his government and his peace, there will be no end. Listen to this, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice. From the time this time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. So Jesus' birth, hundreds of years later, was a fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. God's covenant promised to David that there would not fail to be a son of David to sit upon the throne forever and ever, that he would establish that throne in righteousness forever and ever. And even though it looked like it died, God found a way to bring it back around. And so there, so I got to thinking this is a pattern. It sounds like Jesus on the cross to me, doesn't it? It sounds like the Israelites at the Red Sea. It sounds like the Abraham not having a child. It sounds like all of these patterns throughout history. Um every barren woman that cried out to God, and then God gave and Samuel's mom, and and Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mom, and all of the people of God who cried out when things looked dark and it looked like God's promise died and they kept it anyway. So there I so I there's a pattern. Here's the pattern. Number one, God promises it. Number two, the promise becomes impossible, or looks like it is, and there's just no way it could ever happen by man. With man, it is impossible. So God promises, looks impossible. Number three, somebody cries out to God. Somebody cries out and reminds God of that promise. Somebody grabs a hold by faith. Number four, then God intervenes in a crazy way that nobody would have ever dreamed up or ever imagined. Something completely unexpected and mind-blowing. God finds a way in and his light comes into that darkness, explodes it, and then finally, boom, number five, that promise is fulfilled. It's a pattern and it is so unbreakable. Here's what um, so I I've discovered this and I started kind of writing it down, and I thought, you know what? Surely someone else has thought of this before. Let me ask Grok what is I so I asked AI, y'all, don't tell anybody. It's our secret. Um, and this is what Grok Grok said, Grok 5. God always keeps his word, usually by letting the promise die first and then raising it to greater glory. And then it also had a great intro, and I didn't write all that down, but the intro was basically this is a pattern, it's unbreakable, it is always held true throughout the Bible, and therefore you can depend on it in the future. It will always hold true in the future, and so it is uh really cool when um Grok recognizes the Bible's true. Um, but it's a pattern, it's unbreakable, and so it's it applies. And if you look back in your own life, you'll see many times that it applies in your life, and I can see where it applied in my life. I'm gonna go ahead and apply it. Well, first of all, let's just kind of break through the here's the five things and what you need during each phase. And you can kind of figure out where you are in this. Maybe you're believing God for something, maybe He there's a promise, because we're never done with this. Notice that it is a cycle because God's always, He's always activating something in you, He's always calling you from faith to faith, from glory to glory. You're never done serving God, you're never just on ice, you're never just resting on, yay, God did something great. It's never, no, he's never done because there's another thing. There's another thing. And even with these different, there's seven different covenants, and they keep getting better. It was that deal with Adam, but then, oh, he lost everything. Well, there's a redeemer coming. And then there was that thing with Noah, and then I'm gonna put a rainbow in the sky, and I'm I'm gonna, and then there was that thing with Moses, I'm gonna send a deliverer for the people of Israel, but I'm gonna just cover the sin, you know, and that was okay. But then uh it and so it just kept getting better until Jesus came and wiped away all the sin and restored us to fellowship with God. So the the it's faith to faith, glory to glory, keeps getting better. So the pattern is we're gonna keep going around this mountain, but we're gonna go. If you're going around a mountain, if you've ever hiked, you know, you start out low on the mountain and you start seeing the same scenery, but each time you go around the mountain, you're a little higher up and a little higher up. Don't get bored. You're getting a higher up. Amen. Faith of faith, glory to glory. So in each phase, okay, so when he first promises it, what do you need? When you first have a promise from God, you better have ears to hear the promise. You better have those ear. He who has ears to hear it, let him hear what the Spirit of the Lord says. Um, don't be dull of hearing. When you read your word, ask God, hey Lord, help it come alive to me. Because you know what, in the Bible, many times when God made a promise, you know, the earth shook, there was a big cloud, there was an earthquake, there was um, there was an angel Gabriel that appeared with a horn. I mean, it was spectacular. And what we have now is we have the Holy Spirit on the inside of us. It can be much more subtle, it requires more faith, honestly. But it's every bit as real. God's promise is every bit as real when the Holy Spirit speaks a scripture to you, when you're reading your word and then and it jumps off the page to you, you know that that is God. It is every bit as valid as the angel Gabriel standing there in splendor and telling you, chere, thou shalt. You know, it is every bit. And so, um, but we have to have ears to hear. So God, when he promises, let's have ears. Then, number two, when the promise looks impossible, um, you know, you have these people of God, you know, God's promise that there's going to be a redeemer that comes through these his people, the Jews. Oh, wait, everybody hates them. Oh, they're enslaved in Egypt. Oh, they're spoken of against, they're they're mistreated, they're abused. You know, it looks like the promise died. How can it, how can God bring anything good out of that? Well, we better have we better remember the promise and better have a mouth to be speaking the promise. God said, What did God say during that time when it looks impossible? What did God say to you? And we better have a mouth. We have ears to hear it, and let's have a mouth to talk about it and speak it in the face of the circumstance that looks contrary. Number three, then and when we're in phase three, now we've got to cry out to God because man, we're still suffering down in there, and the promise looks dead, but we're gonna cry out to God. And what do we need then? We're gonna have faith. We're gonna not cry out in misery, not cry out in self-pity. No, there is a cry of faith that comes deep. I mean, when the when the people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt, um, their cry came before God's ears. And that's when he went and spoke to Moses in the burning bush. The cries of the slaves in is in in Egypt when they were trying to make more and more bricks, and the Egyptians said, Now we're not even gonna supply the straw. You're gonna have to go find your own straw, and you're gonna have to make your bricks, and you're gonna have to, and it's you're gonna have to make just as many, and the quota is still just as high, and whip, whip, whip. But their cry of faith came up. God, you promised. God, you promised. Okay, so then when you're in number four, what do you need? Number four is when God is intervening, and it always looks completely different than what you have imagined all the time you've been praying. You had this idea in your head about what exactly God, how was God gonna do it? He was gonna do it just like he did in Miss Irma's testimony because I like what he did for her. He's gonna probably do it just like that for me. Probably not. Oh, he's probably gonna do it the way he did it last time because I remember I've been through this before, and probably not. But when God intervenes, what do we need then? We need consecration. God, it's not gonna be my way, it's your way. Not my will, but your your will. And uh, and Isaiah 55 is my one of my favorite scriptures for that. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts. My ways are higher than your ways. And and so that just remember that you might not be having like your brain cannot fathom the thing that God is doing. And so we just have to have that prayer of consecration like Jesus in the garden. Like Jesus in the garden who said, Lord, if the cup can pass, you know, I don't I don't really want to go to the cross, I don't really want to give up my body and have it be broken. If there's any other way to redeem mankind, Lord, lay it out. Yet, nevertheless, not your will but my, not my will but yours, not my will but yours. And and and so that's that prayer of consecration that we have through that time uh when God is doing it. He's already started to do it, but it doesn't look like what it's supposed to in our mind, and we've got to consecrate. And then finally, when the promise is fulfilled, girl, you have a heart to praise. Have a heart to praise, and um um so I'm gonna walk. There are so many examples I could walk through, but let's just apply this pattern uh because this was part of my regular reading today. I know it is the Christmas season, and everyone else in the world is watching Hallmark movies, but I don't have a Hallmark channel. So what I do is read Luke 2, but I actually didn't even mean to read it because of Christmas, it was just in my regular reading. I'm reading Luke 1, Luke 2. It's about the story of Jesus' birth, and I'm so inspired. I'm on cloud nine because I see this pattern again playing out in Mary, and so let's watch, let's let's see how it applies. Number one, so um Mary is just she's a good little uh Jewish girl, she's devout, you know she's a woman of the covenant, you know she's praying for Messiah like everyone. Person in synagogue. She's they're they're they're reading about Messiah. They're familiar with the prophecies about Messiah. She maybe she kind of felt like something was stirring or whatever, but she was just being faithful to what she did know. She didn't know everything. But you can ask, are you faithful what with what you do know? And um, and then so she that then so there was a promise. Number one, that God had given a promise, Messiah was coming, he was going to come through the land, through the land of Israel, through the people of the Jews, and they're all in their land, and the people are together, they're an identifiable people group, and you know what? Turns out she's of the lineage of David. Turns out her fiance, Joseph, he's also of the lineage of David. Different line, they're not cousins. It's okay. Um, I wonder if she knew that. I bet she did. But she had a promise in general that Messiah was coming. It was not specific to her yet. Uh, but oh, the Jews were very oppressed by the Romans. It was a very hard time to be Jewish. They were under the heel on the boot. I mean, later Herod came and killed all the children. He had there were just despots and tyrants ruling the land, and and your life was not assured to you tomorrow. Um, it did not look like a convenient time. Also, Mary had this fiance, Joseph. She had a certain plan about the way it was going to happen. And then here comes the angel Gabriel. Um let's lie, but I skipped number three. Number three is somebody cries out. I don't know who was crying out for the Messiah because I don't think it was the Pharisees and I don't think it was the Sadducees. I think they were why like to look like they wanted Messiah to come, but when it came down to it, we saw their fruit, right? They did not really want the Messiah. But remember, um, remember when in Luke 2, when they finally dedicate Jesus at the temple, there are two people that come out of the woodwork. Two people. One number one is Simeon. He's an old man. And Simeon, I believe he was crying out for Messiah. Because when he sees and recognizes in verse um Luke 2, 29, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all the peoples. He's just looking on an eight-day-old baby, but he says, I have seen the salvation of God. So I believe he was one of those people crying out. Then you had the prophetess Anna. I named my child after this woman. Um, and then she also uh she would not depart from the temple but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in at that instant, she happened to be there right when they were bringing in eight-day-old Jesus and dedicating him in the temple. And she gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of him to all those who looked on for looked for the redemption of Jerusalem. She had been, that woman had cried out. And Messiah answered, I believe the cries of people like that. Not the Pharisees and Sadducees, not the people who were supposed to know, but the real believers, people like that. They were crying out. Are we crying out for the move of God right now? Well, they were crying out for Messiah to come. Are we crying out for Messiah to come again? Who are the real believers right now? So, anyway, these people, so it fits the pattern. There is a promise, but it looked impossible. There were people crying out, and then God intervenes in this what? What in the world? Here comes the here comes the angel Gabriel in Luke 1, 26. Now, in the sixth month, the angel set Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary. So Mary was not excited to see the angel, it was a fearsome sight. Sometimes when God calls you to do something, it is something way bigger than you ever imagined. You know you can't do it in your own strength. Something has to give. And the angel told her, Don't be afraid. I mean, I wonder if he had the voice of many waters. I wonder what his voice sounded like when he spoke to her, and yet he said, Don't be afraid. That sounds like an axymoron to me. I don't know who could not be if an eternal being like that spoke from the presence of God. Majestic. Then he said, Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and he and shall call his name Jesus, and he will be great. He will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. There is that promise again. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. In his kingdom there will be no end. Mary said to the angel, How can this be? Have you ever asked God, how in the world? I don't even know a man. I've got Joseph over here, but I'm not allowed to touch him. And the answer is always, Well, the Holy Spirit. How shall these things see? The Holy Spirit. How shall this promise be fulfilled? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore, that Holy One that is born of you shall be called the Son of God. And so it was a, you know what? This was an inconvenient. This is a glorious, awesome. You know, this woman now realizes this young girl. She may be, some people say she might be 16, some people say she might be 14. But she's young. And yet, and she realizes I am going to carry the Christ child, and I am going to be a pregnant woman in Israel with no husband yet. It's very inconvenient. Because the Mosaic law for a pregnant woman with no husband, it was not, it was the death penalty. It wasn't, you weren't going to just walk around and strut around and or you were going to hide somewhere. I mean, this is very inconvenient. Gloriously inconvenient. You're going to carry the Christ child, but you're going to be a pregnant single young lady. It never, never looks like what you thought in your mind. And it does, it does disrupt your schedule. You know what? It made Joseph, think about Joseph, made him kind of mad, made him kind of upset. He doesn't know how to handle that. Sometimes God's plan interrupts your plan, interrupts all the people in your life and all of the way you had imagined. And Mary just had to be like, be it unto me according to you have what you've spoken. Lord, let it be just like you said. Are you consecrated? Are you willing to bear the reproach of what God has? Sometimes it's not glamorous at the in the moment. But then when it was fulfilled, before it was ever even, before she even gave birth, listen to the song of Mary and Luke. This is one of my favorite. Talk about a praise song. Luke 1, 46, Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior. She she, when the promise, even before it's fulfilled, she's already praising God. She's already saying, she's already seeing God's manifold wisdom in action. He has regarded the lowly state of his handmaid servant. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me. Has he done great things for you? And holy is his name, and his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation, and he has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. This child isn't being born to a queen. This is a humble woman. This is a young girl. God has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he sent empty away. And he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and to his seed forever. So he already fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant. He's fulfilling the Davidic covenant. He is fulfilling all the covenants in one child, and it all happened through Mary because she submitted. It follows the pattern. What's your own pattern? Where are you in your pattern? I can I just look over my life. I have a lot of times when God did this for me. I was a single church lady. I graduated from college. I passed up some opportunities, but I knew God wanted me to get married, but there were just no opportunities anymore. And years went by, and more years went by, and more years went by. And it looked impossible not only, not only for me to meet someone, but to actually, I mean, I had a good life. Um I had a high standard. For me to love a man, like enjoy his personality, think he's funny, like I was in this pattern where every guy was boring, every guy was the same, every guy was, oh my gosh, I have to do this again. Okay, well, here's what, you know, when I was five years old, this happened, and here's my life story, and here's my goals and aspirations. And uh, you know, every every date was like I felt like a speed dating trial, you know, and I just did not, it did not look like God was gonna ever do that, but I knew it was God's plan for me to get married. It looked impossible. I cried out to God, I cried out to God. I wore out multiple pairs of running shoes um just on the pavement, crying out to God and running miles and miles and miles. I trained for a marathon. I ran 26.2 miles, I ran miles crying out to God, talking to the devil, talking to myself, talking to God, calling in his promise. And um, and I cried out to God, and and then he fulfilled it. He brought me He brought me a scruffy sailor who was younger than me, who um, you know, it but it was God on the outside. Not everybody looked at us and said, Y'all are the perfect couple. Um, but it was it was absolutely ordained by God. And that that knowing that has gotten us through so many things and always will. God ordained it for us. And then when God fulfilled it, we see we look back and go, well, that's what he did. That's what he did. And so many times I tell this story, I I ask this, I'm in my, I'm in my I'm in my mode, you know, my speed dating mode, and I'm like, okay, my friends have introduced us, and I'm just gonna find out if this guy is a real Christian because most of them aren't. Most of them just want to tell you what they think you want to hear. And so I'm gonna ask this guy, okay. Well, all right. I'm you work your soundboard at the church. That's good. You're a volunteer at the church. Well, that's great. Well, do you have a favorite scripture? What's your, you know, what are you living by? He that goes to the sea and ships, who does business in great waters. These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. I said, What? What's that scripture? Well, that was our first founding scripture of our church. And uh and I knew right then, uh, I didn't admit it yet, but I knew right then that God had ordained that that would be that was my promise. That was my fulfillment. God did that for me because I knew I needed supernatural guidance. He knew I needed supernatural guidance, and I got it. And he is faithful to me. He made a promise, and God is faithful to me. He is faithful to you, he will not give up. I look at my mom's illness just because you know, some of the promises of God in history. Do you understand? Sometimes the fulfillment is partial. You know, God made God anointed David king. Remember, he sent the Samuel the prophet to pour a horn of oil over David and say, You're gonna be the king. And then he was hunted down by Saul. Remember that? Hunted down by the real king was Saul at the time, and Saul wanted to kill David. Again, looks impossible. David's crying out to God the whole time, begging him to spare his life. And he gets through all of that, and and then he's only partially the he's only the king over part of the kingdom. It wasn't until I think seven years later that he becomes king of the whole kingdom. So sometimes there's a partial fulfillment, and we just got to be faithful and know that God's got it covered, and he's gonna bring you through the whole fulfillment. And when it all gets done, the ultimate thing is it's gonna be way better, way better than you imagine. It's Ephesians 3.20 again, now to him who's able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all that you ask or think, according to the power that works in you. You, the power works in you, and so he God's doing this stuff, but he's doing it through you, and now uh it's mind-blowing, it's beyond. Second 1 Corinthians 2, 7 says, But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained. So when you're going through that dark time where it looks impossible, that's because there's hidden wisdom. If God just put it on the top shelf and you just picked, then the devil would pick it off too. He has to hide the wisdom so the devil does not steal it from you. You are a person of faith. You can know that God has a plan and he will reveal it to you as you need to know. And so we're following that plan, and it's hidden not from you, but it's hidden for you. So 1 Corinthians 2 said, He's ordained, it's the hidden wisdom ordained before the ages for our glory. Do you know there are things ordained for you before the ages that are there for you and they're hidden for you, and you just hadn't found them yet. And all this time that promise looks impossible, but it is cooking the whole time. You just hadn't lifted the lid on the pot. Because this ordained for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. God is trying to hide the wisdom so that it's gonna confuse the devil so bad, and he'll mess up. He'll think he has you, but then you will slip away from his grip, and God will turn the whole thing around into something so amazing, nobody could have believed it. Higher than your thoughts, higher than your ways. But as it is written, I has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it even entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed them to us through his spirit. Stay connected to the Spirit, He will lead you, He will help you know which pot to lift the lid on, when to lift it. Ooh, the rice isn't ready yet. My rice wasn't ready yet tonight. James had to put it on for three more minutes. Then he lifted the lid and it was ready. It was good. It was coconut rice, it was good. I thought it was good. But God has something really good. He's cooking for you. He never stopped cooking. So, my mom, we have a promise. It's a general promise to all believers, but um, he's delivered for her from her eyes from tears and her feet from falling. He is in the Psalm 91, uh, with long life, he satisfies her and shows her his salvation. Now there is a curse of short life in my mom's family. She's had two sisters die very young in their 20s and 30s. Um she's had many uh hardships in her family and in her genetics or whatever. None of that. We have the DNA of Jesus. We've been baptized into his kingdom and in his family. And um, and so she has a promise that she's got long life, and 78 isn't long enough, and she's not satisfied. Um, but we all see the things that she's had to go through, and it looked impossible that she would have good health. It looked like we lost our mom, not fit not entirely. I mean, she's still alive, her health is okay, but her mind looked like it was gone. Her mobility looked like it was gone. Um, she needed full-time care, and it looked really dark. It looked impossible that God's promise would be fulfilled. But I so appreciate my dad standing and just believing, and he'll preach out of that. Um, he'll preach out of what's real, you know. People live through real things, and he'll just preach out of that. And um, and it looked impossible, but somebody's been crying out to God, somebody's been reminding God of his promises. Y'all have helped, y'all have prayed for her, she prays, we pray, and God is intervening in the craziest way. Did I think that my mom, you know, was gonna have eight months of intense, you know, in-home care or you know, she went to a care home for eight months, and she needed every bit of that. She needed time, she needed care full time. And um, and then dad brought her out of that because she didn't, she wasn't happy there. So he took a step of faith. Well, I'm gonna bring her home. I don't think any of us knew how we were gonna handle that, manage that. Um, but he brought her home and she began to improve. Her coordination got better. More and more days are like, that's my mom. She's back. Um, her personality, she jokes, she has she knows everybody and all and always has that, especially y'all, if y'all come to her. Anyway, and she began to come to church more often and more, and just things are coming together. And I believe that it will be unto us, even it was as it was spoken. It will be blessed as she who believed. There shall be a fulfillment of those things spoken to her by the Lord. So you can be in the middle. You can be at the very beginning. Did God promise you something amazing? Well, praise him for it. Don't get discouraged. You will have a fight ahead. You will have a fight ahead. It's in the pattern. But don't be surprised. Something good is always, always cooking in God. Never, never drops his promises. He never, he never breaks his covenant to us. He keeps covenant and shows mercy. And so you can depend that he will keep his covenant to you. Do not ever give up on our God. He is an awesome covenant keeping God. He is faithful.