Patience
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
In the show Community, Annie takes a psychology class and needs to recruit her friends to take part in an experiment. Abed volunteers and, along with a room full of other people, is told to wait; the study will begin in just another five minutes. But hour after hour of she comes in telling everyone that the test is still isn’t ready. “Just another five minutes!” The real experiment is to measure their patience. How long will a person wait before they explode into a rage and storm out? And one by one the people do just that - except for Abed who patiently waits in that room for over 24 hours, waiting for so long that the people running the experiment have their own meltdown and scream at him to leave so they can go home.
Annie blames Abed for ruining the experiment, “Why didn’t you leave? Didn’t you get mad?”
“Oh, I was livid. But you’re my friend, and you asked me to stay.”
Patience, the ability to wait things out, is praised as a virtue. And in a world full of alternatives, instant gratification, where there’s always something else going on, it seems to be less and less important. Why wait for anything when you have a thousand other things you could distract yourself with?
But patience isn’t optional for the Christian. If we have been filled with the Spirit, then one of its fruits is patience. If we’ve been raised with Christ and put on his character, then we’ve put on patience.
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
As we’re to be holy, compassionate, kind, humble, and meek - we’re also to be patient. Patience is a testimony of God’s active grace in our lives.
So the lessons is simple
What patience is
Why it’s important
How we can cultivate it
What Patience Is
What Patience Is
Patience goes beyond the ability to be bored for a long time. That’s how we usually think of patience.
You need patience while waiting at the doctor’s office
You need patience at the DMV
You need patience on Christmas morning because dad says he’s not getting up a single minute before 6 o’clock
The patience that Paul has in mind goes beyond being bored. It’s being able to keep calm and endure while being provoked. We often see the words for patience also being translated as long-suffering and endurance.
I like to think of patience as the long fuse that burns slowly. You don’t have to run away when the fuse is lit, that bomb isn’t going off for a long time.
Think of the kind of patience that God showed Israel during the wilderness. Every speed-bump that Israel runs into turns into an accusation against God.
You brought us to the Red Sea to kill us!
You brought us out to the wilderness to die of thirst!
You brought us out in the wilderness to starve to death!
Moses has been on MT. Sinai for 40 days! Let’s make our own gods!
How much patience do you have when every good thing you do is flipped around and cursed? How patient can you be before you explode?
With God’s example we can start to see why patience is so important for us. Because if we’re not going to be patient as God is then we’re going to be giving up a lot more.
Why it’s Important
Why it’s Important
If we’re not patient, we and others are going to suffer because of it.
Think about those fruits of the Spirit for a moment:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Love, joy, and peace are three things that we always want - but we’re always going to need patience to have them.
Think about the last time you were feeling impatient.
Do you really feel the love for your kids when you need to tell them to find their shoes for the third time?
Do you feel joy when when you’ve been waiting at the restaurant and the server is bringing out everyone’s food but yours?
I think we’ve all felt the peace of rush hour when you’re already late for work
Think of Paul’s famous description of love in 1 Corinthians 13. You can likely quote part of it:
4 Love is patient
Impatience
Impatience
Now think about what life is like when we don’t bother with patience. What does the impatient person look like?
Here’s what’s going through my head when I start getting impatient: We’re wasting precious resources here, my time, and my attention! I could be doing so many other things, and as we wait longer and longer, the list of better things we could be doing grows and grows until the fuse runs out and bomb explodes.
When I’m being impatient the only person I’m loving is myself.
We’re wasting my time
We’re wasting my attention and resources
When I’m being impatient I’m giving in to my anger, and giving up my godliness
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
When I’m impatient I’m giving up on people.
I won’t suffer your failures
I won’t suffer the ways you’ve hurt me
So I won’t suffer this relationship anymore
When I’m impatient I might just give up on God Mark 13:13
13 And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
We see the sad effects of impatience all the time.
Someone gets impatient waiting for a spouse, so they get hitched with an unbeliever and abandon the faith
Someone gets impatient for their success and pushes God and his people to the margins - making them less and less important as the years go by
Someone gets impatient over the church not doing what they want when they want it to happen - so they go to another church and run into the same problem, and jump to another and run into the same problem, and so on and so on…
The Solution: Patience
The Solution: Patience
But what if we added patience to all of that?
If impatience leads to anger and conflict
18 A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but one slow to anger calms strife.
And if impatience is giving up:
32 Patience is better than power, and controlling one’s emotions, than capturing a city.
Patience is peace.
Patience is power.
Cultivating Patience
Cultivating Patience
So we have what patience is, and why it’s important. How do we get more of it?
First, let’s get in the right mindset.
One of our passages on patience was Colossians 3:12, and we should put it in context:
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
This patience doesn’t just come from some inner grit or fortitude. It’s something that we have because we’ve put on Christ.
Everything her in verse 12 flows from Colossians 3:1-4
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
You have been raised with Christ, and we are looking forward to something better.
A resurrection mindset is a patient mindset.
What is at the root of impatience? Lack of time.
We have no time to be waiting in line
We have no time to waste on people who hurt us
We have this one life only so we’re going to maximize our time by running to whatever gives us the most satisfaction now
The resurrection changes that. The resurrection means that God isn’t giving up on people and neither should we.
I can be patient in an evil world.
No matter how much I suffer through it and miss out on things, that’s ok. I have more than this life. I have an eternal life of glory in the presence of God waiting for me!
9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Why do you see people waiting in line for concert tickets or the latest iPhone? Because they consider all the suffering of camping on a sidewalk worth it. What’s the suffering down here compare to that heavenly bliss?
Because of the resurrection I can be patient with people.
God raised me from my sin and death! If God’s patience transformed me, can’t it do the same for others? The patience Paul writes about in Colossians 3 is further defined for us:
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
How long will you tolerate someone’s failures? How long will you suffer their offenses before giving up?
Well, how long did God suffer you and your sin?
Impatience is a mark of the world. Because this life is all they have, it’s all they will be concerned about. Our patience is our strength to keep looking to God during all times we would rather rage.
Application
Application
So here’s a suggestion on how we practice that patience, something you can do literally as you’re driving out of the parking lot.
Drive the speed limit.
If the sign says 25 then you drive 25. Not 26, not thirty, not “There’s no cop so who cares?”
When you get on the freeway, you just settle right into that 65 MPH and put it on cruise control. Someone going 60 and you have to speed up to pass them? Just enjoy the ride instead.
