Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2005 : July 17, 2005

Theme: The Fruit of the Spirit -- Patience

Church year occasion: Pentecost 9

Why is it that when you have nowhere to go and nothing in particular to do, that everything goes right? Suppose you're going to Wal-mart to pick up an oil filter for the car. You're in no hurry. The lights are always green; the traffic is light and flows smoothly; the checkout lanes are almost all empty. But when you're in a hurry, like on the way to work or getting infant's Tylenol for your child with a 104 degree temperature, suddenly every light is red, traffic is going nowhere, and every checkout lane at Wal-mart has 6 people in it. And even when you get in the express lane for 10 items or less, someone in front of you has 17 items, three of which need price checks over the PA system, and the person is paying with a check -- and they don't even get their checkbook out, not to mention start writing the check, until after everything is totaled. We need patience to deal with it all.

A hundred years ago, you could expect to receive a letter in the mail to be delivered in three weeks. Today we have instant email messages and chat rooms and camera phones. How did people heat up their cold coffee before microwaves? Once you go to broadband for internet access, it's amazing how slow dial-up is.

Why do I bring all these things up? Just to show that we live in a frenetically-paced society where the thing called "patience" is almost no longer part of anyone's vocabulary anymore. But it's still part of St. Paul's vocabulary. In Galatians 5:22, he lists "patience" as the fourth fruit of the Spirit. But when Paul and other Bible writers encourage Christians to have patience, they're not encouraging you to sit calmly at a red light or to keep yourself from screaming at someone's extreme lack of speed at the checkout counter. The Biblical term patience doesn't have a true English equivalent. In the King James Version, it was translated as "long-suffering." The patience described and encouraged of every Christian in the Bible is a God-given fruit of the Spirit which enables people to suffer long under some very trying circumstances. It's the ability to put up with some very difficult people and/or situations without breaking down and giving up. It's the general willingness to try to understand the disturbing events that our heavenly Father allows to enter our lives and to deal with them accordingly.

In every sermon in this series so far, we have looked into the life of Jesus to find living examples of fruits of the Spirit -- and that's no coincidence. We look in the same place to find the perfect personification of patience. He came as a suffering servant -- to serve, not to be served. Just think of how patient he had to be to serve us. Suppose you're trying to teach your son about how dangerous it is to touch a hot burner. So what's the first thing he does? Touches a hot burner. Now usually a child will learn quickly not to touch something that is red hot because it will hurt. But suppose you are trying to teach a child that just doesn't learn. Every time you tell him not to touch the burner, he does it anyway. You tell him this day after day, and day after day he keeps touching the red hot burner. Eventually, you'll start pulling your hair out trying not to go crazy.

Now think of Jesus dealing with sinners. Recall how patiently he dealt with the religious leaders who were leading his chosen people away from him and into the clutches of Satan. Recall how he patiently dealt with social outcasts of his time, always ready to spend time with them and serve them. Remember -- this is the almighty God, the Creator of all things, whom the entire heavens cannot contain. Yet they laughed at, mocked, and ridiculed him. Eventually they killed him. God didn't reveal his limitless power when he calmed storms and raging seas with just a word or when he even raised the dead back to life. After being subjected to injustice and false accusations, beatings and cruel torture, having nails pounded into his flesh and with the weight of his body hanging on those nails, the Almighty God showed just a portion of his limitless power and patience when he said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing."

If it wouldn't be for the long-suffering patience of our God in dealing with us difficult human beings, where would we be? Long ago the human race would have perished in its pride and perversion. Just look at your own life. We can probably all identify with periods of time when we were particularly rebellious and ungodly. Maybe in high school, or those college days of parties, drinking and what we called "good times." Maybe the early years of our married lives when we were trying to be caring and understanding to our spouse, but we failed miserably. And that still happens in our married lives today. Maybe it's when we don't show that patience that God wants us to have in the face of adversity and trial. We need to be constantly reminded that God is working his will in our lives, strengthening our faith through adversity, and developing a greater reliance on him instead of on ourselves. The patience that Christ showed in his life is the exact fruit of the Spirit which God now wants to cultivate in our lives. But quite often he finds so little of it. Where would we be if it hadn't been for God's patience? We would be headed away from God for eternity -- it's as simple as that.

That's why it's so important to see what the patience of God led him to do. In living and dying for us, Jesus was able to pay for all the times we haven't been patient with others -- our spouse, our children, our friends, our God. In living and dying for us, Jesus was able to take his perfect patience and credit it to our account, as if we had always been as perfectly patient as he was. In living and dying for us, Jesus was able to drown all our impatience in the depths of the sea so that those sins are gone forever. In living and dying for us, Jesus was able to give us the certain hope of eternal life in heaven and a right relationship with our God right now as we live our Christian lives. Everything that Jesus did for us gives us peace with God, and it gives us the ability through the working of his Spirit, to produce the fruit of patience as we live our lives that aren't always very easy and can be downright miserable at times.

There are a number of places which call for special patience in our lives. One is in trials and suffering. Sometimes God allows something in our lives where we just can't see how it can be for our good. But that's exactly what God promises -- that everything will work together for our good. We simply need to trust in the Lord and know his way is right.

Another place is in marriage. When two sinful, selfish people are thrown together into the same house, and are expected to get along, it's tough. When our partner, Christian or not, doesn't exactly make us sing for joy because of their actions, we can still deal with them in patience because of the patience God has shown to us.

Raising children is another area where we need to show extreme patience. They are precious, precious gifts from God. But they are children. They will be uncoordinated enough to spill their milk twice at one meal. Be patient. Their attention span will be very short. Be patient. Their ears may appear to be plugged to the extent that they hear nothing that comes from your mouth. Be patient. They are children. Every parent needs to pray for the ability to judge between what is plainly the result of being a child, and what is sinful rebellion and disobedience. God asks us to deal with the disobedience and rebellion, sometimes harshly. But he asks us to be patient with them because they are children.

Another area is evangelism. We know the importance of trust in Jesus and of telling others about Jesus and his loving forgiveness, his life and death in our place. So we tell people...and nothing happens. They don't come to church or join a Bible class...they don't seem to do anything. We get impatient and quit. We no longer tell them about Jesus or invite them to church; we avoid all talk about the subject. Be patient. I remember a story about a woman who persistently and patiently asked a neighbor to join her in coming to church. She asked almost every week -- and not for a few weeks, but for 15 years! Finally the neighbor said, "Okay, I'll come with you just this once, just so you stop pestering me!" God worked on that heart that Sunday and eventually the woman didn't need to invite her neighbor anymore because the neighbor became a Christian and a member. We live in a world of microwave ovens and the world-wide web -- instant results and gratification. But how many times doesn't the Bible say, "Wait on the Lord"?

I read the story of a man in a supermarket wheeling a small child in a grocery cart. The kid was yelling, screaming, crying -- generally behaving like a kid. The man kept saying, "Albert, be patient, be calm, don't get excited." One lady was watching. Finally she approached the man and said, "My goodness, I admire your patience in dealing with little Albert." He looked at the lady and said, "Lady, I'm Albert." Good point, isn't it? May the patience God has shown to us lead us to patiently bear with the people in our lives, the difficulties in our lives, even the pain in our lives. It's not easy, but it's a beautiful testimony of the faith that fills our hearts when we can show people the fruit of the Spirit called patience. Amen.