Encontrando la libertad | Por favor, tenme paciencia | El Pastor Kyle Rodgers

Hello, City First Church, a big round of applause. It's an incredible day to be in the house of God in the whole town of Janesville, Cape Coral. God behind the bars, thank you. And well, the people who are sitting next to you, say hello. No, to that neighbor, not to the other. A high five there to everyone. Well, if we haven't met, my name is Kyle. And before we start the next step of our series, I want us to talk about Convoy of Hope, an organization that is how we can help people who are in need. And if there is someone in a disaster or something, this organization helps them. So ask God what he wants you to be able to do or how he wants you to be able to help for this. And well, amen, amen. We are in this week, number two, to find freedom, right, to be free. And we are looking at different aspects of our lives where we are waiting to see how we can be ready to do what God wants us to do in this next chapter of our lives. And well, if you were to give a title to today's message, I would say, please be patient with me. Turn to the person next to you and say, please. Let's see, turn around and say, please be patient with me. Please be very patient with me. There's a scripture today that I want us to see from Isaiah chapter 43. This is God speaking in tongues.

And why do you know this? Because God says it. In Isaiah, he says, this is what God said through this voice, right? He says, let's read 43, 16, 19. And he says, I am the Lord who opened a way through the waters and made a dry path through the sea. I called upon the mighty army of Egypt with all their chariots of war and horses, I plunged them under the waves and they drowned. Their life was extinguished like a smoking match. He says the following, but forget all that. It's nothing compared to what I'm going to do. Well, I'm about to do something new. Look, I've already started. Don't you see? I'll make a way through the desert. I'll make rivers in the earth, arid and swampy. I like when God says these things. He says these declarative things because when God makes this declarative, this doesn't hold on to you. This is something he's promising. And sometimes in our future, I think I've learned and praying that it increases you today. So to move out of,

as we're walking into the future, it's going to require a decision on our part and a depending power of God, right? It requires that we want to change. What I do know is that going forward, going forward in our past, stopping defining ourselves for what we did in the past, there's a question that we have to ask ourselves. What do you do when the weight of what happened starts to weigh up with God's work in your life? All right, stay there with me. Stay right there. When the weight of what happened in the past starts to weigh up with what God wants to do in your life, with God's work in your life, no matter where you are, no matter how you're on your faith day, I know that at least there's a space in your life where the work that God wants to do is in conflict with what you've been through and you're trying to get out of that hole, so to speak. Isaiah is talking about what God is saying and God is speaking, right? To life and to the lives of that time and to the lives of now. And he gives this declaratively. He says, forget your past. Now is the time to go to the next path that we want to do.

And it doesn't depend only on you. It depends on me, says God. It's dependent on you, God. That you and I have an opportunity to decide which hand is going to decide in whose hands are we going to have our past. This changes how we move forward because when your past sits in God's hands, when your past sits in God's hands, God helps you to build the platform with him to have a relationship with him. When your past sits in God's hands, it causes destruction, chaos, confusion, and large levels of feeling bad, right? And well, how can we get out of our past? How can we get out of our past? How can we go forward? This discourages us, but how can we go forward from a past? Going forward from your past requires that you give it a name to what happened. And I don't know, maybe something happened and you know something happened and it was so traumatic or well, it hurt me a lot, but what I've understood is that in order for me to overcome myself and we were looking for Facebook, we had to deal with what happened. So imagine, it's like Facebook. We have that place where I say,

let's see, where do we have mutual friends? I've brought, right, mutual friends and you're maybe navigating with friends to be a mutual friend for you and a person. Maybe a mutual friend for you and a person is the pain, right? Maybe another mutual friend's failures, you could say. The only thing that we have in common is failures because you felt like you weren't enough when you mattered. Maybe there's a sin that you can't, it's a problem. It doesn't make us bad, it makes us human. And when you have, when you have a problem that we're fighting against a sin, it makes us human. Maybe it's the great Zen Goddess, when you have regret for saying the wrong thing because we did or said the wrong thing or the wrong thing to the person. Well, this is popular in our culture, feeling hurt in the church. You were hurt in the place that you should have healed. That conviction, right, that if someone knew who I was, they would leave me. Maybe it's betrayal. Maybe it's like, one of my best friends that likes to pop up is the old you, the self that you keep trying to outrun. I had a moment the other day where I'm from the south side of St. Petersburg in Florida, you had to develop a thick skin, you had to come back, you couldn't, across the country, you know what I'm talking about.

You know what I'm talking about. You didn't have to be strong, right? There's not a lot of people here that understand me. Well, I was competing with a team and I forgot that I was 41 years old and someone was half my age and I don't know if it was you or me, but when I compete in a sport, I forget that I'm a pastor and I leave that in the parking lot. Don't leave just because I said that. So I brought a little tripod from the south side of St. Petersburg and I had to go back and, why? Because it's just, I'm sorry, I forgot. Suddenly the old you tries to get out. Maybe it was unhealthy cycles that weren't healthy or the community of your family taught you to have these unhealthy cycles. And you know what? You find yourself in the middle of this. I don't know, I don't know what space you're in, where you're in your past, where you're going to show up. But my favorite way to navigate the past is to say, please be patient with me. Be patient with me. In the house, we say, God ain't done with me yet. I'm in the process. And part of that process requires active steps to train who we were to become who God has created us to be. Paul talks about this in Corinthians, in the church of the city of Corinth.

And this port city had a very diverse ethnicity in the community. For example, historians say that if you try to equate that to a city, you recognize, for example, Vegas. What goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas. That's the way it was always, unless you're on Snapchat in Corinth. And it's true, this city of Corinth stays in Corinth. And Paul makes this very similar to Las Vegas, all that was going on. He says in Corinthians 10.5, we destroy arguments that have lost the obstacle of arrogance that prevents people from knowing God. We take that thought of God and teach people to obey Christ. Paul references here that when people are patient with you, God's being patient with you, while you're learning to be patient with yourself, requires a very intentional gesture that you have to capture all the thoughts that go on in your mind. Because the things that are going to cause the most harm in your life in the long run is that you have thoughts that are constantly in your mind. trying to get us in trouble or get us back to being who we were in the past instead of who God wants us to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pick for all Jaysils, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Paul says, God is not going to automatically

free you out of everything. There's an active participation that's required by you that's called the book of Revelation and it requires you to take every thought. Let's see, it's war language, it's aggressive. This is, I grew up in the 90s when you could still hit kids in public. This is what my childhood reminded me of. My mom was the queen of the castle and she had three kids and she got how to do things. I don't know if they say it here in the church but at home she did something that we say in English, snatching you up, which gives you pow pow for saying it like that, right? Imagine if we were in the grocery store and we were going to the wrong hallway and I wanted some donuts and she'd pull you and she'd take us out of there, right? I was crying in the church one day. Imagine, and you know, you can't be in the church with that person who makes you laugh. I'll explain and you can imagine what my mom would say to me if she made me laugh in the church. It's like God's hand falls, well, it fell on top of mom's hand and I'm like, oh, wow, it took us out of where we were. Yeah, if you understand, you understand those moms of that time, right? That they took you out of mom's hand. I'm still an adult and I still got the memories

of my mom's hand. Here we go. I'm just saying it because now as followers of Christ, there isn't, there isn't, now we're not capturing those thoughts like mom was capturing us to educate us. And we let those thoughts stay in our head for a long time. Let those thoughts right here from mom come into your life. You are not responsible for the thoughts that come into your life. So if you are responsible for what you do with those thoughts when they show up. And I came here to encourage somebody in this room, watching live, maybe what's going to motivate you to take a step that's going to help you take one step away from your future is to know that God has a way for you to capture those thoughts. When the past torments, the past wants to knock on your door. When the conflict wants to be in your marriage, start pulling them out, start pulling those thoughts out or they tell you you ain't enough of somebody. You are the apple of the eyes of God. You are the apple of their eyes. Someone in their satisfaction says, well, I'm going to capture those thoughts and I'm going to snap some thoughts off and bring them captive. You know what? I say, let's see, let's see.

And even so, I tell you, you still got to be patient with me. Because learning to capture those rebellious thoughts, oh, it's a process. And you know what? Sometimes when you lose and then you win, it feels weird. When you're used to being the victim, the victory feels impossible. It feels impossible. Well, Kyle, in this process, where do I direct my thoughts? Where do I direct my thoughts? Well, I'm going to give you my opinion. We're going to do this all again. We're going to do this chapter four as a self-meditation. He said, I'll see you doing your best by filling your minds and meditating on what is the best, the whole, rendition, the authentic, and telling what is the best. The beautiful, not what Pablo says here is not, ours, what Paul does first, he gives us a list of ways where we can redirect our thoughts ours is a life-giving process. One that aligns with what you're seeing right now, or what you're seeing later, or what you're seeing later. It doesn't mean we put our heads in the sand and act like wild stuff is happening in our lives. It doesn't mean wild stuff is happening in the house doesn't mean wild stuff has to be happening inside of us.

Paul was put in a prison cell and although he's not a prisoner with a body, he's not locked up in his cell, he's not locked up in a room, he doesn't have to overanalyze his circumstances. No, he's deciding to put his mind, regardless of the chaos around him, he's going to remain where God is with those honorable thoughts. I mean it like that. I can, I can practice what happened and continue to do it. or I can learn that I'm making progress. I can keep practicing what happened, remembering what happened, or I'm going to learn who God wants me to be through this, right? You can leave two people in the same situation and they'd have two different perspectives. Sometimes I'm afraid, no, I'm worried, rather I'm worried that people have perspectives of what happened. Let's see, talk to me, David. The problem is the same giant comes to the same nation for 40 days, 40 nights, and they say the same insults. Every person who's been to war is afraid. But there's a young man who's been to war and he killed a lion and he really just brought a sandwich to his brothers and he sees a Philistine coming without circumcision and Goliath

and he's already afraid of everyone. Everyone saw a nine-foot giant and David said, I've already hit a lion, a bear, and God himself who helped me with that is going to help me with you. You can keep remembering what happened or who God is doing to you in the process. Who are you now in the process? The Bible gives us many pictures and I'm thankful for what we can be when we get closer to being who God wants us to be and when he says we have to leave the past and we're not of the past. Look, you're breaking generational chains in your family, in your community. You're breaking financial, spiritual, relational, marriage ceilings. I came to talk to you. I didn't come to bring my words relationally, maritally, in 2 Corinthians chapter five. It says so. Now, don't bring my own words. If someone is, let's see, say it. Say it with your heart. If someone is in Christ, the new creation is entering. You see what it says, right? It says, Christ has become a, right? If someone is in Christ, Christ has become a new person. The old life has passed, a new life has started.

Of course, I'm like, I don't have time to delve into this concern of his word. I need to go through some pieces of this. So hang out on the block where you're sitting right now. Come on, pull your seat up to the cooker and let's talk just for a second. Paul called her a new person. He says, you are a new life, a new identity. You are a new creation. You are a new identity. But here we go. Just because you have a new identity, doesn't mean that you don't operate in that new identity. So for many of us, we grew up with an identity that we adopted, right? And when you hear this portion, when you hear this portion, it's kind of like what Paul is referencing here to the schooler to the schooler. And then Paul is referencing here, to the schooler to the person that they are. And then the child goes to be who they are. They are the person that God created. How to be the person that they are. And the first night that our first child came to our house was one of the worst nights in the history of me being a dad. Now that they are better, that they are older, right? You guys aren't judging me, don't judge me. Uh-uh, I've been in therapy, I don't feel judged anymore. Come on, y'all not judging me.

Okay, all right, all right, uh-uh, uh-uh. I wasn't too much therapy. I don't feel good. I don't feel good. Listening to the baby scream, crying at two and a half in the morning. I'm going to say it so you don't say it. The first night that my first son came, baby, four and a half hours, and it took us a while to know why he was crying. But the first night I was hungry, I gave him something to eat. No, he didn't calm down. I thought he was cold, I covered him. No, that wasn't it. I gave him a bath. I felt like he was hot. I took off his underwear and his clothes. It didn't work either. Four hours in the day, I realized that the reason why they were crying the way they were crying is because they were afraid of their hands. The reason why they were screaming like they were crying was because they were afraid of their hands. For 30 years, I've been teaching these two puppets right here. They haven't been around long. They're all holding person, but still. You have to be patient with the whole person. You got to be patient with yourself. Kyle, for 30 years,

Why do you keep saying rude things to people? Because you haven't been here long enough. Because you haven't been reading the word where their words, the words of God replace yours. Let's see, I was praying for you this week. Maybe you've only been following God for three years. And you say, Kyle, I have to stop a lot of things. But I think I want you to know that God wants you to stop those things. But I want to tell you today that no, there are things that you have to stop today. But I believe I want you to know that you just got to feel like you're stopped. Start to see yourself in the mind, who are you connecting with? Start to see how much you love him. Talk about love. The more you love Jesus, the more you're going to want to do things better because of the relationship you have with him. Not because you have to focus on what to stop or what habits to stop, but because you're going to focus on who God wants you to be because he made you image and likeness of him. Because you're going to start to see yourself how God wants you to see yourself. And you're going to make a new creation, that identity where you put yourself in front of him and he tells you, you are a son or daughter of God. Students, this is going to change who you go out with because that person who tells you you're handsome, handsome, you're not going to fall for that anymore.

Let's see, did I come to the right place to talk today? This is going to change what you talk about in your life groups. Don't look back at anyone. Let's see, you've been to those meetings and the same person comes six weeks with the same story. One person, okay, I can keep evangelizing today. Don't look back at anyone. Listen to me. What? You do it. You choose. That's what he does. But that's not what's happening. You have to make that decision. Okay, that's what's happening, but it's not going to be what's going to happen. Move your story forward. Change the trajectory of your story because as a son or daughter of God, you're a new family, a new creation, but now you have to learn to grow. My dad used to say that. My dad used to say that. My house, my rules. But now, for many years, it was a threat. My dad used to say that. Until I remembered that what he was saying was, I was establishing order. For years, I heard him say that. I was remembering that there are a lot of things

that go out of this direction, but I, in my house, we're going to serve God. He's reminding me that there is plenty that happens outside of this address. But as for me in my house, we're going to serve God. But I, as we move forward, instead of getting angry at people, I made a decision. I don't have a personal responsibility to change the opinion of who I am. Instead of arguing with people, I made a decision a long time ago. I do have a personal responsibility for changing the opinion about who I'm becoming. I do have a personal responsibility for the fruit that's coming out of my life. I have a personal responsibility for the fruit that I'm producing. I don't produce other people, but I produce myself right now. You don't give me an apple and tell me it's an orange. You want people's opinion about you. You might have to give me an apple. It doesn't lie. You don't give me an apple and tell me it's an orange. You want people to be patient. You want people to be loving. You want people to be impacted with joy.

But the character of the fruit is going to change. Patience. Forgiveness. I want to motivate you as a follower and believer of God. When you walk in with joy and nothing like, oh la la, blessings, blessings. No, no, no. Can I just encourage somebody as a believer and follower of Jesus, when you walk in with joy and nothing like, oh la la, blessings, blessings. Yes, yes, in that Zoom call, we'll talk later when the meeting is over. No. No, bring joy. How do you bring joy? And you're anchored to the joy that never ends, which is Jesus. And what's the difference between joy and, well, what's going on? What's going on? Happiness is temporary, but joy lasts. Because people resort to alcohol or drugs or the club because joy lasts, but happiness is temporary. But when you have joy, the God characteristic of joy is there because you're turning on joy because you're wanting to be like God told you you can be. Who God says you are is the first thing that should matter in your life. Ooh, I feel the spirit of God pushing me right now.

Who God says you are, despite all the dysfunction that exists in your life, if God doesn't change the opinion of you despite all the dysfunction that exists in your life. And that is God doesn't change the opinion of you. This is the shortcoming or weakness. When you read the Bible, when you read the Bible correctly, you're going to find that your dysfunction you're going to find your dysfunction in the Bible somewhere. Well, you're going to drop 20 when you're driving home from what I just said. And how many times in the Bible there's problems, there's problems, and you're going to know that those problems, there's nothing that can separate you from who God wants you to be creating and molding. Adam, what did he do? He didn't obey. Noah got drunk. Jonah ran. Moses killed a man. Abraham was very old. Rahab was a prostitute. Lazarus was dead. Peter was very angry with Job. Peter was very angry with Job. David cheated on him, so to speak. Miriam was a prostitute. Jacob was a deceptive. Gideon was insecure.

The other was impatient, depressed, arrogant. Thomas was doubtful. But you know what? God, even with all this, God still used them. And if God used them, guess what? God is still using you. If he used these people, God is going to use you too. Tell him, God is going to use you. Turn to another person. God is going to use you through your dysfunction. God is going to use you through the problems of the family, of the addictions. The past is already changing God at this moment. God is going to use you. Listen to me, I'm almost done. God will use you through your addictions, through your past that's now been changed. And so God will use you as well. Here we go. I'm almost done. We talked about the friends in common a while ago. Do you remember? Everyone has a cousin. When you put your past in God's hands, he starts molding things for your well-being. When you put your past in God's hands, he starts putting things around you. We just got to put our grief, right? And our pain in God's hands. And we just get to putting God's presence around us.

So we understand that God is the great comforter when you bring his presence. When you bring your failures in God's hands, you start having credibility. Because when you live a life, you don't start trusting people anymore. They're quiet. I'm going to switch sides because they're not talking to me. You say, well, if God sees in you and tells you his story of what God took from you, and that failure gives you credibility when it's in God's hands. And when you have a sin or a problem in a sin, it starts a consistency. Your sin starts, put it in God's hands, right? Not by your own power, but by God's hand, right? Let's continue here. Not by your willpower, but by God's willpower. When you bring what you regret, God changes it. The hours and the time that you lost for doing what you did. You think you're lost, but you're already in God's hands and he's changing it. When you have a pain in the church, when you have a pain in the church, as you start to have a relationship with God, you separate his name from the name that they didn't know how to use. And he's going to sit with you in the process while you build it and you start trusting him.

He's going to take away your shame and he's going to give you dignity because you know, you know, you know who you are. He'll take away your shame and he'll give you dignity. When he sees who you were first, he's still going to take away your shame. When you give him your patterns, your cycles, the old you, when you give him the cycles that are not healthy, he'll start to make a legacy, a legacy of God. You guys might be seeing this later, but the faster you take it out of your hands and you put it on him, the sooner you see him watching later, the sooner you see him watching later. You start to take the direction of the future that God wants in you, Jeremiah. I know the plans that I have for you. They're plans for good and not for evil, to give you a good future with hope. They're plans for good and not for evil. They're plans to give you hope. I don't take drugs, but I read the scriptures. I don't do drugs, but I do scripture. As a Hebrew, when you really take possession of the word of God, nothing's going to separate you from this. Maybe this week, something's coming that's going to make you want to remember the past. A person, maybe, that you're working with. Ah, you remember, you just remembered that person from the job that pushes the buttons. I'm from the hip hop generation. They're going to make you lose your mind,

like the song to Lose Your Mind, Up In Here, Up In Here. I'm from the hip hop generation. They're going to make you lose your mind. Up in here. When I'm in the moment when my mind is trying to remember my past and my emotions are everywhere, I have this list on my phone, three songs, to give God everything I don't need anymore and only takes about three songs. For me to hand over what I need to God. I know that praise is a very powerful tool. It's a weapon. Because I believe that worship is a weapon. Now, it's not just a declaration, but using that praise is really a weapon. It's the expression that we have in our past and amplifies the voice of the Father in our future. It's hands to stop the stuff that doesn't belong to you. It's to really give God the stuff from them that doesn't belong to you anymore. So this moment, but for most of us, is over. And when we're asking for worship as a weapon, it's giving God all that the past simplifies as a weapon in the day and time in which we are in the moment, we can turn that there to the past and amplify what they're wrong about you. Worship has a way of missing the volume.

When we're praising God, we're praising the volume of the voice and it awakens the volume of the voice in a way that drowns out the voice of our father in a way that drowns out the voices that are unnecessary, that don't have to be in our minds. This isn't something you just get from somebody on the social networks or from someone on the history of Instagram. This is the word without a filter of God, that when repeatedly and consistently they're in your life, it begins to give you life and inject you with life so that you can have a better tomorrow. There's a scripture, I like it, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to read you 13 scriptures right now because I think there's a power in declaring the word of God. Listen to me for a moment, I've got to get out of your way, but there's something great about listening to a sermon. There's something great about listening to a sermon, but even the best sermon, you're listening to someone else's perspective. But when you read the word of God and you declare it, in loud volume, you're seeing the perspective that God wants you to have at that moment and what he wants to communicate to you. Psalms 103 shows us how to use and command our soul and mind or emotion, will, thoughts, feelings, and images, how to control our mind, our soul, our thoughts. It says, bless the Lord, all of my soul. Oh, bless the Lord in me, bless the Lord in my soul.

Oh, bless the Lord. Bless the Lord in me. Bless the Lord in my soul. Bless the Lord in my soul with all my heart. Oh, may the Lord with all my heart, may He heal all I do for me. And forbid all the kind things He did for me, and forgive me of my sins. And lose me from theAir of Death And be CPRabout. May God show compassion to those who fear him. It is a passage of scripture that your soul needs today. If it is, please take 15 seconds in this moment and thank God. Show your soul that you have control, that you are who God says you are. And your praise will always come first and will be able to cut everything. Let us declare this song to God. ♪ All your thoughts, Lord, get up and praise the Lord ♪ ♪ So I throw up my hands and I praise you again and again ♪ ♪ For all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, and I know it's not much ♪ ♪ I'm nothing else but for a king, except for a heart singing ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, oh hallelujah ♪ ♪ Come on my soul, come on my soul, and don't you get shy on me ♪ ♪ Lift up your song, you've got a lion inside of those lungs ♪ ♪ Get up and praise the Lord ♪ One more time, declare it today. ♪ Come on my soul, and don't you get shy on me ♪

♪ Lift up your song, you've got a lion inside of those lungs ♪ ♪ Get up and praise the Lord, we'll praise you forever, Lord ♪ ♪ So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again ♪ ♪ For all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ And I know it's not much, I'm nothing else but for a king ♪ ♪ Except for a heart singing hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ Let's play some music. Hallelujah. With heads bowed, with eyes closed, I don't want to leave a powerful moment like this to give an opportunity to those who want to take a relationship with God. Many of us in all the localities, we've already made this decision, and we know this is the greatest decision you could ever make. But the only thing it requires is that with the word of your mouth, that you truly believe it, and you can start a relationship with God today and forever. City First, I'm going to ask that we all pray together so that no one feels alone. Jesus, I need you. I tried and I failed, but today I give you my sin. I receive your forgiveness. I give you my life and my past. I receive your leadership. I receive the God of my life and the king of my heart today and every day that comes, in the name of Jesus. And we all say amen, amen. A big, big round of applause.