The Bible says this, and of course Paul writes this in the church. He says in verse number four, for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience, I know you're getting nervous there, patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of peace, or the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus. We're going to talk tonight on the simple thought of three things needed in 2020. Three things needed in 2020. They're not the only things, but three things that we need in 2020. Let's pray. Father, we ask you, Lord, once again for your help. I pray, God, that you guide my mind and my speech and my actions. I pray, God, that you fill me with the Holy Spirit. Help me to preach the life-changing Word of God. Help me, God, to say exactly what needs to be said. I'm nothing more and nothing less. I pray God to help somebody that might be hurting and going through a hard time. I pray God to clear somebody's mind so they can think more clearly and hear your voice when you speak to their inner man. I pray God that soul that's disturbed tonight, that one that's wounded in their spirit, that one God that needs some direction, I pray God should give it tonight. That one that needs encouragement, help somebody, and that God will thank Him. And then God, if there's anything else I've left out, yes, sir, meet that greatness where God may help me. For it's in your son's name we do pray, Not a weak Jesus, but mighty Jesus. Amen. Amen. Maybe you've seen it. Three things needed in 2020. And now as I read and studied in chapter 15 of Romans, it's amazing how Paul mentions some things that I believe will help us in 2020. Now of course, he wrote this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago, but yet it still applies today. And what Paul is saying here will help all of us, that's every single person, to deal with the things we're facing in 2020. COVID-19, we've got the racial tensions, we've got all types of things, a financial crisis, we've got job issues, family stuff going on. A lot of things are happening in 2020 and a lot of folks can't wait to step into 2021. But you know what? Whether it's 2020 or 2021, these things here can help us as we go forward in life. The number one thing These are the only things, but the number one thing I want to show you, number one, I know it makes us nervous, but we need this, the God of patience. The God of patience. The Bible says in verse number five, now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus. So number one, I'm a God of patience. We see the source of patience. The Bible says the God of patience. And that word of here is used to indicate a distance or direction from. So who is coming from? It's also used to indicate the source. So the source of this patience, the direction that it comes from, is God. And that word patience also means endurance. And we need endurance. We need patience. But what hit me was something else more than that was this, the subjects. of patience. Who is this patience directed to? I said, well now, Paul, what you talking about? Paul says in verse five, now the God of patience and consolation, watch it, grant you to be what? Like-minded. Like-minded, watch it, watch it, one toward another. according to Christ Jesus. That word another means mutually. In other words, he's saying I want you to have the same patience that I have toward you, but I want you to have it toward each other. My soul. And y'all know God's patient with us. I mean, even today, we have done some jacked up stuff, some messed up stuff, but God was patient with us and he didn't come down with a hammer. Instead, God gave us mercy and God gave us grace. And he said, I want y'all to be like-minded. And what that tells us is this. If God is asking us or commanding us to do something, that means that he will enable us to be able to do it. Here's the question. Are we being mutually patient with one another? How is our patience level? I was at Walmart. You always find stuff at Walmart. But I was up at Walmart and this one lady was going through and the lady's just doing her job. You know, she came through there, and she checked her receipt, and then she went, and she was, and I'm like, lady, chill out. She's trying to figure out why me and why not everybody else. If in your buggy, you got a lot of items that are not in bags, they are going to check your receipt, okay? It ain't got nothing to do with you personally. Chill out. OK? She's just doing her job. And why would they want her? Slow down. I came through there. I had my receipt out. And she told me to go ahead. Talks here. And I got a meal. Okay, that was loose. She ain't gonna check my receipt for a gallon of milk, everything else was in the bag, amen? But what happens is, people are impatient with one another. And the God of patience tells us to be patient with one another. Look what he says here. He said, verse five, now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to who? Christ Jesus. Wow. And you know he had patience. Oh yeah. And brothers and sisters, because you and I are saved, brought forth, born again, and redeemed, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And I think the last time I checked, that's a part of the Florida Spirit. You see, you see, you see, you see, I appreciate it. Let's say that. Go to, go to Galatians and look at chapter number five. Galatians in chapter number five. Now watch this, now this is gonna help the Mullins family greatly with Ginny Lynn, amen. And Ginny Lynn, baby, just be patient with them, okay? They're older, and so just be patient with them, okay? You just stay focused. Now watch what it says here. In Galatians chapter number five, look at Galatians chapter number five, and look what the Bible says here. Take the five, yeah, yeah, yeah. He says, verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit. This is what the Spirit produces. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such hate. There is no law. There's no law against these people. Look at what the Bible says here. Peace and what's the next word? Long suffering. That word long suffering also means peace endurance. Same word. So in other words, how long suffering are we toward each other? And a lot of times, we can be short with one another, especially with those in our own household. We can be so short, we have a long suffering with other folks, but what about the people at your own house? What about, now y'all that's doing that e-learning and all that, patience, baby. You need patience, amen? You can't figure out how to get here to go there, and teach, oh, we're gonna take a break for an hour, or lunch for an hour. You gotta be, fine. He don't go nap on a brick for an hour. I mean, he, that boy, he's something else. But anyhow, but anyhow, I better move on. All right, all right, but listen, let me just say something. He says, the God of patience. So if we're going to have patience one to another, it's going to come from God. He is the source, and the subject of patience is other folks. But now the second thing we need, not only do we need patience in 2020, but the second thing I think is very important, the only important, we need hope. We need hope. Romans 15 verse 13. So we see number one, the God of patience. Then number two, we see the God of hope. Look what the Bible says, same chapter, we're never gonna read this chapter. All these things Paul put in chapter 15. Drop down to verse 13. Paul said this, now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in what? Hope. through the power of the Holy Ghost. Let's bring it down. So here we go. Number two, the God of hope. We need hope in times like this. For some folks, they can't see no hope whatsoever. It's almost as if, man, COVID-19 is going to be here forever, and it probably will. But nonetheless, though, hey, you can still have hope. God will give us Victory and victory comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. I know the way things are going right now I'm like man. There's no hope. There's no hope. I don't pay my double travel if y'all ever watch that you never watch it Just put in there where he said we'll never make it and sometimes that's how it feels like in 2020 We're never making we're never gonna make it, you know, but guess what? We're going to make it Let me show you how I watch me sit now the God of hope the first thing we see here is It's almost repetitious. The starting point of hope. The Bible says, now the God of hope. That's where it starts at. Now that word hope here means expectation. Watch this now. Or confidence. Expectation. also confidence yeah the god of hope the god of expectation the god of confidence god wants us to have confidence and he is the one that will give us this confidence he is a starting place the starting point of this confidence but now watch what happens when you have hope this is where it supplies to you and i the bible says now the god of hope fill you with all joy and peace. When you and I have hope, when you and I have confidence, when you and our brothers and sisters have expectation, it fills us with joy. Now that word feel means to supply, it means to cram, it means to fill up. Now, in about 20 minutes, we'll be dismissing from here. And then we're going to leave here, the majority of us, and we're going to go down these two doors. As we go down these two doors, we're going to walk down the hallway in the middle. And we're going to go into a place called the Fellowship Hall. And there in the Fellowship Hall, there is going to be something called food. Amen. And many of us will fill up on that food. What we've got tonight? Tonight, we've got masticoli. We've got masticoli, cream beans. Yeah. Desserts? Caramel crack. Take the caramel crack. Yeah, it's caramel crack. Yeah, it's about like that. Y'all need to eat that stuff. But you know what? We're going to fill up. We're going to cram stuff. Someone's going to leave five pounds heavy. But you know what? The same thing God wants to do for us with joy. He wants to fill us up with joy. He is not one to be filled up with misery and meanness and madness and all that kind of stuff, but he wants us to be filled with joy. Know what the Bible says? I ain't making this stuff up. The Bible says this. The Bible says that a God of hope, from where hope comes from, fill you. with joy and peace. So in other words, he said he would give you joy and peace in believing. Why? That ye may abound. When you've got joy, when you've got peace, then you will abound in what? Believing. This stuff's so elementary, y'all. He said that word here, abound, means to be in excess. It means to increase. How many of y'all would like to abound or increase in hope? five people. Pray the Lord for the five. Listen, listen. But the other y'all, hopefully y'all want something too. But listen, when you're bound in hope, that means this. If they cut your lights out, you're not going, oh Lord. No. You say, hey, they'll come back on. They've been off before. Now some of y'all have never had that blessing. But hey, they've been off before. They're going to come back on. Okay. I mean whatever you're going through when you know that God can give you victory in the midst of that situation and you have hope and expectation like man I'm good. I can smile with joy knowing that I have victory. Brother Brett, the water heater went out last weekend? Sunday morning. What a great time for your water heater to go out. Sunday morning. But you know what he did? He didn't say, Preacher, you won't be there today. I said, Preacher, you mean he came here to stay? No, no, no, they did come here, but praise the Lord, there's two showers downstairs. And you know what they did? They brought the family down here, they used the two showers, and many of us, I find out for the first time in my life, that they even had this situation. But they could have came in here, they could have been like, this don't make no sense. Yeah, homecoming, jubilee, all this gonna go out and then what happens, what happens next, our bread? Carnival shop. Home. That's how you know it's jubilee. Listen, listen, things are happening, but it's, well he didn't fall apart in front of me, he made it in the house. But my plans don't, but I, but I mean, it's just that, you know what, this is gonna get taken care of. It's gonna, did I get the word? I appreciate it. We don't get too close to them. No, they'd be fine. They're fine, okay. But nonetheless, listen, when you and I are bound in hope, then all that stuff that's happening doesn't affect you the same way. And God is the one that will give us that hope. God is the one that will increase that hope. And when it's our bounding, you're talking about joy, you're talking about peace, we forget that in a second. But when you have all those type of things, you can go to sleep at night and rest. Last night, I went to sleep, Brother Phil. I slept well. I appreciate you had no problems. I got all kinds of problems. But I slept well. Because of what? Because of who God is. And God wants us to sleep well. That leads to the third thing. The third thing. So we see three things that help us. Number one, the God of patience. Also, secondly, the God of hope. But then also something else. Ooh, ooh, ooh. I can't miss this, y'all. I got to go back. Read verse 13 again. Verse 13. Through the power of the Holy Ghost I And that's how we sustain hope. So we see the starting point of hope is God. The supply of hope brings joy and peace and abundance and hope. But then the sustain of hope comes through the power of the Holy Ghost. And every single person here that is saved, blub blub, born again, and redeemed, you have the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. He lives inside of you, and He is the one that will give you that hope. It's through Him, it's by Him that you, the power of the Holy Spirit, the ability, the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit that you have hope. That's the third thing. So we see the God of patience, the God of hope, and the third thing is this, I'll touch on it a little bit, is the God of peace. We need also peace like this in 2020. Look what the Bible says in Romans 15, verse 33. The Bible says this. of chapter 15. Now, the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Now, that word peace means rest, it means quietness, it means security. Alright, picture what's going on here. Alright, look at the first one. Rest. God wants you to have rest. rest Helps to refresh us Not enough rest some of y'all don't Cause you'd be cranky in the morning preach, but if you get enough rest Man, you can wake up tomorrow morning and be ready to go Well, God wants to give you that peace and that peace is connected with rest then a second word I mentioned there was something called quietness When there's no quietness, there's an uproar. But when God gives you peace, he gives you quietness. But when you don't have quietness, it's all, everything's going crazy. But when you have quietness, it's just like that. Oh man. Today, I went to the gym early today this morning. I think about 7, 38, something like that. I went to the gym, and man, I got to listen to some, man, I listen to some songs, man, it gets to hitting at your heart. Man, I'm sitting there, they probably thought I was in pain from trying to lift weights, because I had them tears coming out of my eyes. But Ms. Bobbie, there wasn't no pain tears, man, there was joy tears. Man, I'm listening to that song, man, and it's just speaking to my heart, speaking to my soul. But you know what it's bringing to me on the inside? It's bringing me quietness, bringing me quietness, that peace, that quietness. When's the last time? You had that quietness in your spirit, in your soul. God wants to give that to us. But the devil don't want you to have it. No, you need to stay mad. You need to stay ticked off. You need to bust somebody upside the head, you know? I'm sorry, Brad can't tell this, though. But Brad did tell me this. He said, you know what? He said, I feel sorry for the next team we're playing. Amen. He's going to have them boys hitting some balls. That's why we play football, y'all. Let me try to get this stuff out, amen. Why do you think Billy plays golf? When Billy sees that little ball around there, he look at a problem. Wham! Let it go! It's gone, amen. I remember some of his best days, man. He hit that ball all over the place, amen. Well, you know what? God wants to give us that quietness. God wants to give us that peace. Really, really wants to give us that peace. But then there's something else. Quietness, rest. This is the third one. Oh, this is a good one here. It's called what? Security. They say, who is they? I have no idea. They say most women want that security. They like having that security. Well, you know what? We all need that security, especially when we're going through some stuff. And God will give you that peace that gives you security. It gives you, we joke with Billy. Now, I'm telling you, Billy's house is hooked up now. But I'm gonna tell you right now, that joke is Fort Knox. It's locked down. I mean, he got cameras everywhere. And I mean, he got, listen, for all y'all thieves, don't go by there. I'm telling y'all right now. Listen, listen, because you know what? He got stuff. I mean, but you know what? He sleep good at night. He got security. Jamie sleep better at night. But you know what? You can sleep good at night. Because you have security. In fact, everything is alright. When God gives us that peace, guys, then he gives us that security as well. Because you know it's going to be okay. It doesn't matter what the enemy says, what the enemy does, it's going to be okay. Whatever the issue is, whatever the problem is that you're dealing with right now in 2020, it's gonna be all right. And God wants to give you, give it to you, give you that type of peace that brings rest, it brings quietness, and it brings security. And these three things, I believe with all my heart and my soul, that Paul put here in chapter 5, 15, on the initiation of the Holy Ghost, is our things that you and I need in 2020. Who does not need patience in 2020? Who does not need hope in 2020? Who does not need peace in 2020? Well, you know what? You have all three of them, and they come from God. I've got one question, two questions tonight, and we're done. My first question is this. You have to ask this question for yourself. Do you need patience, hope, and peace? Do you need patience, hope, and peace? Here's my second question. Are we in need of something else? Maybe we're in a position to have need of tonight. But if there's something else that you have need of, here's my statement, then let's come and ask God. The Bible says this, you have not because you ask not. Let's ask and then we'll see. Let's seek and then find. Let's not and I thank you for your precious word. And I pray God to somehow, someway, to encourage all of us tonight. Father, give us strength, give us Lord, anticipation of your presence, of the victory that flows from heaven. But also the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us. And Father, perhaps some of our brothers and sisters tonight, maybe we'll come and talk to you for a few moments about some things that might be on their minds and their heart and their spirit tonight. I pray God they come and bring those things to the altar. I pray God they bring them before your throne. Perhaps there's some folks that know something