Be the Light- pt 4 patience

When some of you realized that we would be preaching about patience today, you may have strongly considered skipping service. I know that I have been told all my life not to pray for patience or the Lord will send trials and struggles to teach it to me, so what in the world could a whole sermon do?

I am kidding of course, but let’s be honest. The deeper we get into these fruits and gifts the more you will notice they are very rare in our day.

We live in a culture of hurry. Our lives are spent rushing from one thing to the next. Depays, even minimal ones, spiral. (Talk about flight delays and the sprint to my flight in Atlanta)

Bu hurry costs us a lot. We miss people, and opportunities. Further, it increases our anxiety and makes us short with people.

It leads to snap judgments and assumptions that make it difficult for us to see people as Imago Dei rather than problems to be overcome or enemies to see get their just desserts.

When you look at Proverbs 15:18, you can see the natural result of this lack of patience every day.

“Slow to anger” is actually better translated “he who is patient.”

When we can become patient we will find ourselves in less conflict, experiencing more peace, having more joy, and living in the love of Jesus- because we have TIME to do these things.

So this morning I want to look at the way God has told us to cultivate patience, so we can experience this fruit in our lives.

Turn with me to Psalm 37.

This psalm of David starts with a command and a promise. We are not to sit around and be drawn into worrying about the actions of people beyond our control.

Psalms 1–72: An Introduction and Commentary The Quiet Spirit (37:1–11)

The advice, Fret not yourself, or in terms of the Hebrew verb, ‘do not get heated’, is virtually the refrain of the opening passage (1, 7, 8); and the whole of verse 1 is found again in

One of the enemies of patience is trying to manage others rather than trusting them to the Lord.

Think about this for a moment. If I am trying to fix someone else, what is my attitude? Why don’t you just do this my way! And the slower they are to agree, much less be actively against us, the shorter we get with them.

A lack of patience leads to anger or even worse, we envy them- and seek to become like them.

So what do we do instead?

Vs 4-6 tell us.

Patience is built through leaning into Jesus and being obedient with our own lives, no matter what others do.

Psalms 1–72: An Introduction and Commentary The Quiet Spirit (37:1–11)

An obsession with enemies and rivals cannot be simply switched off, but it can be ousted by a new focus of attention; note the preoccupation with the Lord himself, expressed in the four phrases that contain his name here. It includes a deliberate redirection of one’s emotions

Check it out

Trust- do good

Dwell- befriend faithfulness

Delight- receive

Then when these practices are in places, we commit fully to what God wants and trust Him.

The end result is righteousness- in us.

Patience comes when we are more concerned with our own walk than the actions of others. That does not mean we are indifferent to sin or injustice or evil. It means we are obedient in engaging how God wants us to engage and trust Him for the outcomes.

Psalms 1–72: An Introduction and Commentary The Quiet Spirit (37:1–11)

It is both theological and psychological wisdom, not only because the aggrieved person is no longer turned in on himself, but because God’s own way is to overcome evil with good; in any case ‘the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God’

And when we can do this, we will find rest.

Look at vs 7-9.

Verse 7 is powerful- when we are being obedient we can rest. “Be still” is a command. To do nothing.

Impatience has to ACT.

Exodus 14:14 “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.””

“Be silent/still”

Church we cannot experience this kind of victory without patience.

Patience implies the outcome does not depend on us.

And that is why it is hard, because we are constantly told that the whole thing is on us.

Sabbath fights against that lie. Rest. Wait. Be patient.

Now here’s the bigger issue. We are not just to be patient with a lost and broken world- who may not know better- but with one another as well.

Turn to Ephesians 4:1-3.

Paul has quit preaching and gone to meddling.

You mean I have to be patient with these Christians who just can’t seem to act right.

Yep.

Even the ones that act like fools?

Yep.

Why?

Because Jesus said so.

Because the unity of the Body is more important than our petty squabbles.

Look, let’s be honest. Sometimes proximity makes it harder to be patient with one another.

(Travel styles)

But one thing we know the more we are together is that some of the things that rile us up about one another are ALSO the things that Jesus uses in that person in other contexts for His glory.

Patience acknowledges that my way is not always the best way.

And it is driven by, look at vs 2, love for one another.

We practice patience with one another when we love unconditionally- we see that person as Imago Dei.

The Epistle to the Ephesians: A Verse-by-Verse Exposition 1. Unity in Diversity in the Body of Christ (4:1–16)

Mutual patience and forbearance are not graces which come readily or naturally; but those who have learned to appreciate gratefully God’s patience and forbearance with them will desire to show the same attitude to others. Paul is, in effect, urging his readers to cultivate the graces that were seen in perfection in Christ, and to love one another as he had loved them.

Finally, what about God?

Turn with me to 2 Peter 3:8-9.

We lose patience with God, because we think He is slow.

1, 2 Peter, Jude 2. The Lord’s Timing Is Different from Ours (3:8–10)

The Lord does not reckon time as humans do. What seems agonizingly long to us is a whisker of time to him

Can you imagine the early believers who expected Jesus to ascend and descend in their lifetimes?

1, 2 Peter, Jude 2. The Lord’s Timing Is Different from Ours (3:8–10)

If the passing of time does not diminish God in any way and if he transcends time so that its passing does not affect his being, then believers should not be concerned about the so-called delay of Christ’s coming. The passing of a thousand years, after all, is like the passing of a single day to him. Bigg nicely captures the idea: “The desire of the Psalmist is to contrast the eternity of God with the short span of human life. What St. Peter wishes is to contrast the eternity of God with the impatience of human expectations.”

Some of them start dying and they are wondering what happened.

Persecution gets worse and then wonder where is Jesus?

They are driven from Jerusalem and their homes, and still no Jesus.

We are no different. Just different trials.

God is not slow. He is patient. He has a plan. And that plan is focused on an end goal- that all the people who He plans to save meet Jesus.

1, 2 Peter, Jude 2. The Lord’s Timing Is Different from Ours (3:8–10)

Peter explained why the coming is delayed. God is patient with his people. Notice that the verse says “patient with you” (eis hymas). The reason for his patience is then explicated. He does not want “anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” The idea that God is patient so that people will repent is common in the Scriptures

And He is not in a hurry.

Church if you are in to Jesus, you are in to waiting. And that means we all need patience.

And that is good, because without God’s patience so many of us would not know Him.

(Gospel presentation)

Where is the Lord working on you this morning to be patient?