Fruit of the Spirit: Patience (pt 1)
This transcript is from a sermon by Tim Keller on the topic of patience, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit. Keller discusses the importance of patience, defining it as the ability to suffer without retaliation, particularly in the face of delayed gratification. He emphasizes that impatience is a serious issue, as it stems from a lack of trust in God’s wisdom and timing. Keller uses the analogy of a farmer waiting for the autumn and spring rains to illustrate the need for patience in waiting for God’s timing. He also highlights the dangers of impatience, such as self-pity, which can lead to sinful behaviors. Keller provides practical advice on cultivating patience, including remembering God’s patience with us and recognizing His majesty and sovereignty.
Introduction: Keller introduces the topic of patience, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit. He emphasizes the importance of understanding and cultivating patience in our lives.
Definition of Patience: Keller defines patience as the ability to suffer without retaliation, particularly in the face of delayed gratification. He explains that impatience often stems from a lack of trust in God’s wisdom and timing.
Impatience with God’s Schedule: Keller uses the analogy of a farmer waiting for the autumn and spring rains to illustrate the need for patience in waiting for God’s timing. He emphasizes that impatience with God’s schedule is the primary problem, as it leads to impatience with people and situations.
Dangers of Impatience: Keller highlights the dangers of impatience, such as self-pity, which can lead to sinful behaviors. He explains that impatience cuts us off from the blessedness of knowing God, as it is essentially a different religion where we demand that God serve us.
Cultivating Patience: Keller provides practical advice on cultivating patience, including remembering God’s patience with us and recognizing His majesty and sovereignty. He encourages us to trust in God’s wisdom and timing, even when it is difficult.
Action Items
- Remember God’s patience with you and how much He has endured for your sake.
- Recognize the majesty and sovereignty of God, and trust that His timing and plan are perfect, even when it is difficult to understand.
- Avoid self-pity and impatience, which can lead to sinful behaviors and cut you off from the blessedness of knowing God.
- Cultivate a patient heart by submitting to God’s schedule and trusting in His wisdom, even when gratification is delayed.
- Treat others with patience and graciousness, remembering how much patience God has shown towards you.
What does the Bible mean when it talks about the fruit of the Spirit? How can we cultivate the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control in our lives? Join us today as Tim Keller teaches on the fruit of the Spirit.
Please turn to James chapter 5, and tonight we’re talking about patience. And we’re going to read chapter 5 verses 7 to 16. Patience. I just realized, you know, that if I was going to write a discipleship course for New Yorkers on how to get the gospel into your life after you have made a commitment to Him, I began to realize that the old problems, you know, the typical discipleship course starts with maybe, oh, I don’t know, Bible study and then fellowship and then prayer and then evangelism and so on. I think I would have to make sure that in the first two lessons there was one lesson on sex and another lesson on patience, if I was going to write one for New Yorkers.
Let’s read James chapter 5 verses 7 to 16, goes like this, be patient then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming, see how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too be patient and stand firm because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The judge is standing at the door. Brothers is an example of patience. in the face of suffering. Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we considered, blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. Above all, my brothers, do not swear, not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, or you will be condemned. Is any one of you in trouble? Pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? Call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Let’s end our reading of God’s word right there.
One of the biggest differences between A converted person and a merrily religious person is that real Christians, converted people find that they become aware of the inwardness of sin. Decent people, generally religious people, regular people, all have an understanding of sin. Only the most pathological person really doesn’t believe in sin. But when we think of sins in general, we think of the outward things. We think of lying and we think of violence and we think of impurity and so on. But the Bible explains to us the essence of sin is in attitudes, heart attitudes. And when you read Galatians 5 and other places, we see constantly that it’s things like envy and jealousy, things like prejudice and bias, things like selfishness and pettiness and backbiting and impatience, which God sees as the essential attitudes that show what sin is. And of course the violence and the impurity and all those things are just external symptoms. It’s the eruption of the volcano, but the lava is stuff like impatience and pettiness. And that’s the reason why God can say in such strange things, such a strangely strong statement, verse 12, verse 11, as you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered, and it says, wait a minute, yeah, that’s right, as you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered, the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. Verse 9 is what I was looking for, don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. And what it’s saying is impatient is worthy of the judgment. Grumbling. God’s condemnation falls on the grumblers. Well, you say why? So what do you think murder is? It’s just, it’s just grumbles. were planted and watered and fertilized and cultivated. What do you think murder is made of? It’s made of grumbling. What do you think insanity is made of? In many cases, if it’s not physiologically based, it’s made of impatience. And this is why this passage, as we’re looking at the fruit of the Spirit each week, this passage on impatience is so important. Because when we talk about the fruit of the Spirit, we think of love. When we think of joy, when we think of peace, self -control, humility, all these things we’re going to be looking at, which are the fruit of the Spirit. They all seem like they’re in a higher league than patience. Patience. Heck, everybody gets impatient. And yet, we see how important it is. We see that it’s at the root of things. And that’s why we’re going to be looking at it. Don’t grumble, or you will be judged.
Now, let’s take a look at the passage, first of all. We’re going to do what we’ve been doing each week. Let’s look at a passage on the subject of this particular fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is patience. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to turn around and look at the definition, the opposite, the counterfeit of it. We’re going to look at an outline coming to understand what the patience is. Now, number one, take a look here. Verse 7 and 8 tells us about impatience with God, which is the primary problem when we think of impatience, we tend to think of impatience with people, impatience with red lights, impatience with subways, impatience with bosses, impatience with lovers, impatience with spouses. But actually, as we’re going to see, ultimately the reason that kind of impatience is so bad for the soul and so bad in general is because underneath it’s an impatience with God, if we would be willing to admit it. That’s what it’s made of. Look at verse 7 and 8, be patient, brothers, till the Lord’s coming, see how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is, for the autumn and spring rains. You too be patient and stand firm.
Now, first of all, the word patience in the Bible, the Old King James Version is a better translation because the Greek word patience that comes up here in many other places, a word macrotumos, and the word macro, of course, means large or long, and tumos means anger. There’s two words that are usually used in the Bible for anger. One is tumos, T -H -U -M -O -S, and the other one is orgae. And orgae is also translated anger or wrath, but orgae means a settled opposition to somebody, whereas tumos means an emotional blaze, a flare up. And macrotumos simply means a long blaze, or it means it takes a long time, it takes a lot to get your dander up. That’s literally what it means. It takes a long time before you lash out. Patience means working with delayed gratification. Patience means to suffer or to take it without lashing out. And you see, when you’re in a situation that you’re troubled or there’s a problem on you or there’s a pressure on you or something’s not happening that you want to happen, then there’s always this temptation to lash out. And when you lash out, you’ve come to the end of your patience. So a patient person is someone who doesn’t lash out. Now, how can you lash out? Well, you’re not supposed to lash out in hand to hurt people, of course. You don’t slug them. But, but, you know, a lot of us have got that down, right? Okay, then there’s… You can also lash out with your tongue to hurt people, to gripe, to complain. You know, when you started to do that, in the Bible’s understanding of it, you’ve lost your patience. You’re lashing out. It’s not as bad as hitting the person in the nose, but it’s… It maybe is as bad it depends on the person depends on you So you may not lash out with your hand but you may lash out with a tongue to gripe or complain or if you don’t lash out with a tongue you may lash out with The heart and brood and essentially say to God whether you know it or not your schedule stinks That is still lashing out You’re still lashing out You’re not lashing out at anybody in particular maybe holding it and just may come from a family that it keeps a stiff upper lip You’re still lashing out Actually, what’s happening is you’re lashing out inside and it’s bad for you internally. It’s bad for you emotionally. It’s bad for you physically So you know a patient person is someone who takes it takes the late gratification Without lashing out with the hand without lashing out with the tongue without lashing out with the heart and without lashing out with the will Because you see what happens when things aren’t going your way is You may decide I’ve got to take matters into my own hands I’m never going to get into the program. I’m gonna have to cheat I’m never going to get the kind of spouse. I really want so I’m just going to have to cut corners here You see lashing out with the will means actually to flee to what Dave Palestine who was teaching at the seminar yesterday. We did on stress what he calls false utopias You’re working real hard to do things right and it’s not going well because God’s schedule is not your schedule So what happens? Well the raise You thought would be here by now isn’t You thought you’d have a raise by now and you don’t you thought you’d have a promotion by an IV further in your career But you’re not you’re not there you thought that that you’d be married by now But you’re not you thought you’d be still married by now and you’re not God’s schedule isn’t your schedule.
What happens when His schedule is not your schedule and you’ve been delayed your gratification, you’ve been delayed your gratification and you start to lash out with hand, no, you start to lash out with heart, no, yes, and then you start to lash out with your will. And when you lash out with your will, you say, I deserve a break today. And you begin to escape. You say, I’m going to do something about this. I can’t have this, so I’ll have this. I know it’s wrong. I know it’s not the right thing, but at this point, if you lash out, if you lose patience and you lash out with your heart, that’s called self -pity. And self -pity will really set you up to do almost anything. There’s an awful lot of little seeds in your life, awful things that have been planted there over the years. You’ve got the potential to be pretty cruel. You’ve got the potential to be pretty perverse. You’ve got the potential to be pretty self -indulgent. But they’re there. And you have some control over those parts of your personality until they’re like little seeds in there, until you start to throw a lot of self -pity on them and almost anything can sprout if you lay enough of that self -pity on it. And self -pity is lashing out with the heart. A patient person deals with a delayed gratification by not lashing out with the hand, with the tongue, with the heart, with the will, is willing to submit to God’s schedule, even though you should have a raise by now, you should be healthy by now, but you’re not. You should be married by now, but you’re not. And the reason that, the model that Paul, not Paul, but James gives us here, excuse me, James, we’re talking about for a change.
The model that James gives us is a farmer, and it’s an extremely interesting model. He says here, see how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and the spring rains. Now, for a Palestinian farmer, there were really only two rains that had to come. And the autumn rain, you couldn’t plant till the autumn rain hit because that was what, after this long, very, very hot summer, it’s the autumn rain that even created enough moisture, put enough moisture in the soil so you could even plant. You know, you had to wait, and of course, there was always the danger of being impatient and saying, I’ve got a plant, I’ve got a plant. Where’s the autumn rains? We’ve got a plant, and go ahead and plant. Nothing will come up at all. But there was another temptation, and it was more subtle. It’s one thing to say, well, I can’t plant. Look, the ground is nothing but dust. I mean, you know, you can usually withhold your temptation. You can resist that temptation. But if you have planted and up everything has come, but the spring rains don’t come. The reason the spring rains were there was because if you harvested before the spring rains, your harvest would be almost nil. It was the spring rains that made the grain swell up and fill out. And the great temptation was to say, these rains are never going to come. These rains are never going to come. We got to cut our losses. You know, we could lose everything if we don’t go out there and at least gather what we’ve got. And if you gather what you’ve got, you’re going to have just a fraction of what you really ought to have. And if you just were willing to wait and wait and wait for those spring rains, but what if they never come? Do you see the model? You see? A lot of us are in those same circumstances.
Right now, Hebrews 12 says that when we get delayed gratification, those are called trials. It’s called discipline. And Hebrews 12 says, all discipline, all trials are for the moment extremely painful, but later they yield the peaceful harvest of righteousness for those who are being trained by them.
If when Gratification is being delayed. If the things that you insist you need to live, there’s a spring rain that’s got to come and it’s got to come and it’s not there yet. And you insist, I can’t live without these things if you stay put, if you don’t lash out with the will and run to false utopias, if you don’t lash out with the heart and just start to water all that self -pity around in there, if you don’t lash out with the hand or the tongue, if you stay put, if you trust God, if you submit to His will, there will be a rain.
That’s what Hebrews 12 says. It may not be the rain you think. It may not be that those needs will be met the way you think they would be met or you imagine there will be a rain and there will be a harvest of righteousness. Some beautiful things will grow in you. Patience will grow in you. It’s a rare jewel.
What is patience? It’s graciousness in the face of delayed gratification. And when you see a patient person, you know you’ve seen something rare. That sort of thing can only grow if you stay put and if you refuse, you see, if you refuse to rush the spring rains. The model is the farmer. Only if you stay put will you really get the harvest. A lot of us, a lot of us are saying, you know, the perfect one, of course, that we talk about constantly, for many of you, is the spring rain of marriage, right? And you say, when is the rain going to come? And I can’t live without that rain and you’re getting tempted because, you know, there’s a whole lot of little things the Bible says about who you should marry and how you should be married and how you should relate to people before you’re married. And you’re going to be very, very tempted to go out there and bring in the harvest. I’ve got to cut my losses. It’s not everything I wanted, but it’s better than nothing. It’s not better than nothing. It’s not better than nothing. It’s worse. It’s less than nothing. Because what you’ve got is you don’t have enough. of God. You don’t have the blessing that God gives, and you don’t have this promise. If you’re obedient to Him, the rains will come. It just may not be that the moisture gets there the way you think. You know, you’re looking for a thundercloud and maybe suddenly there’s an irrigation ditch filling up that you didn’t look at. You don’t know how the water will get there, but it will get there. You don’t know how the harvest will come in, but it will come in. That’s why James is able to say, see how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop. See how patient He is for the autumn and spring rains.
You too be patient. And what? Stand firm. And there’s really no shortcut to this incredible graciousness that grows in the parts of people who are willing to be obedient to God and stick with His schedule. And not say, I’ve got to be disobedient. I can’t help it because His schedule is something I can’t take. 1 Samuel 13 is a terrific example. In 1 Samuel 13, it’s a place where Paul, pardon me, where Saul, King Saul, had received a lot of booty in a…he had raided and conquered, I think, another kingdom. And of course, even though he was the king, he was forbidden by law to offer sacrifices. Only a priest could offer sacrifices to God, not a king. And he was waiting around, I guess it was for Samuel or someone to come who was authorized to do the sacrifices. And Samuel didn’t come, and Samuel didn’t come, and Saul says, we can’t stay here forever. I’ve got a king to run. We’ve got to get going. We’ve got an army to move out. And he offered to sacrifice himself. And Samuel shows up and he says, Saul, what’s happened? And Saul says, well, the Lord commanded that we offer sacrifices, so we did. And Samuel says, but not that way. Not the way in which you’ve done it. Yes, you were commanded, but you had to wait. What did you do? You cut the corner. You disobeyed the law of God. You said, yes, the means justifies, the ends justify the means. And Samuel says, no, disobedience is never justified, even though your schedule wasn’t my schedule and wasn’t God’s schedule. And Saul turns around to Samuel and says, I’ve really sinned, haven’t I? Samuel says, yes, today God has taken the kingdom away from you. You know, Samuel walks away and Saul grabs Samuel and tears a piece of his cloak. And Samuel says, just as you tore my cloak, so the Lord’s torn the kingdom away from you today. Why? Impatience. Because you see, impatience, a little thing leads to much bigger things. The self -pity, the pride, the self -centeredness, saying, look, God, you don’t know what you’re doing. Your schedule stinks. I know what I’m doing. And what that is cosmic treason. It’s setting yourself up and saying, listen, I’m overthrowing you, not over the whole universe, just over my little part. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. doesn’t mean you haven’t still overthrown him.
I mean, I really don’t think, you know, I don’t think one state of the union could have said, look, hey, we’re going to secede. We’re going to create our own militia. We’re going to kill anybody of any federal representatives. We’re not really trying to overthrow the president of the entire United States. We just want to overthrow the president so he no longer has any kind of jurisdiction over our state. I don’t really think, frankly, that the rest of the government would buy that. They’d say, oh, of course, that’s no threat. Of course they wouldn’t say that. You can’t say, Lord, I’m not going to overthrow you as king of the universe, just my part. And that’s what impatience is. And it’s a serious thing. And the sort of things that will grow in your heart as a result of that are not to be mentioned.
Now, because of impatience with God, you have impatience with people. Verse 10, brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. I put down here, if you have learned to be patient with God, you will be allowed to be patient with people. Your patience with people is dependent on your patience with God. Because you see, it’s people who basically are the way in which God is showing you what your schedule is. His schedule is for your life. It’s a stupid boss that’s trying to destroy you professionally that has kept your career from really going where it ought to go. And yet, you know darn well that God didn’t have to give you a boss like that. And you know, when it comes right down to it, that the reason the boss is there and the reason your schedule, your career is behind schedule, is because for some reason, God in His wisdom has decided to keep you back. Now, that doesn’t mean, by the way, the boss isn’t guilty. It doesn’t mean he’s a pawn or a puppet. And if he’s being or she is being absolutely unscrupulous and very wicked in many ways, it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t hold that person responsible for that. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do everything you can to get out from under his or her clammy hands. None of that. And yet, the fact is, the Bible tells us that our times are in the palm of his hand. And if that’s true, then we realize that as we’re angry at God, we’ll be more angry with our boss. And if we are less angry with God, we’re able to say, Lord, I’m going to do something about this man. I know that he doesn’t please you, and I know that I’ve got to get out from under. On the other hand, I also realize, if I believe what the Bible teaches, my times are in your hands, that my life is not on plan B, that I really can’t totally muck my life up in spite of all the things that I’ve done to do it. I realize that all things work together for good to them that love God. And when you work on your patience with God, you’re going to find that the boss, though as somebody you need to overthrow and get him out of your life, not God out of your life, nevertheless, you’re going to be able to handle emotionally the boss if you’re able to admit the lordship of God over your situation. And so in patience with people, patience with people flows out of patience with God. And the symptoms of impatience with people I put down here on your handout are scorn, put downs, cutting humor, coldness, sneering, gossip. And whenever you deal with the lay gratification with those things, you’re actually being impatient. And what you’re doing, those things are all made of self -pity. And self -pity will kill you if you let it go. Because it waters the worst in you and brings all kinds of weeds and thorns up out of your heart that really ought to be wiped out.
Lastly, the danger, verse 11. The danger of impatience, I’ve really been talking about that all along, where James says, As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered, for you heard of Job’s perseverance. Well, we’ve talked about this all along, but in a nutshell. The word blessed is extremely, an extremely strong word in the Bible. Blessedness in the New Testament is the equivalent of shalom or peace in the Old Testament. And it means total and complete fulfillment that comes from an intimate relationship with God. He says here, in verse 11, we consider those blessed who endured, those who were patient. It’s a strong statement. Patience, how do I say it? God makes a beeline for the patient heart. He loves the patient heart. He’s at home in the patient heart. Whereas impatience cuts you off from God. It cuts you off from the blessedness of knowing God. Why? Because impatience is basically a different religion than the one you’ve got. Because in impatience, what you’re essentially saying is, I want God to serve me and I want to have to tell him what has to be done. Now, that’s a different religion. That’s a religion which we call paganism. See, the pagan religions where we had all these little details. deities running around. There was a mountain god and there was a water god and there was a house god and there was, I don’t know, a gutter god, I suppose. There was gods all over the place and what you had to do is you manipulated them. I mean, they knew that they had you over a barrel, so you had to give them food or you had to sacrifice a child or something like that. You manipulated them. You gave them what they wanted in a bargaining relationship so they would give you what you wanted, but essentially you didn’t serve them. You did whatever you could to get them in a position where they had to serve you. That’s paganism. Impatience is paganism. Impatience, therefore, cuts you off from the real god. It cuts you off from the real god because he is not going to deal with a person who is saying, come here, when I want you, do this and do it now. You don’t talk to anybody like that. who you have a modicum of respect for in this life, and here you are in your impatience doing that with the living God of the universe, the one to whom the Milky Way is a speck of lint, and you’re a speck of lint on the speck of lint. And he’s the one who comes and says, I love you, I give myself to you, I have poured, I have emptied heaven of its greatest treasure, my son, for your sake. And now I ask that you would serve me and trust me the way you trust an earthly father. I mean, you know, just trust me the way you trust an earthly father, and they make all kinds of mistakes. And as you grow up, you trust an earthly father, how much more should you trust your heavenly father and live? That’s what he asks. And instead, we’re snapping at him, we’re snapping for him, that’s why patience cuts you off from blessedness, it’s a whole different religion. It’s a religion in which you get God to serve you, and Christianity is a religion in which you acknowledge that you’re there to serve him.
Now, take a look here at the definition opposite, I’m just going to, I’m going to, I’m going to orient you to the rest of the sheet, but they’re pretty important. Number one, here’s our definition. On the basis of this text and all the rest of the things the Bible says, patience is suffering without retaliation. But don’t forget, retaliation is not just against people, retaliation means also in your heart against God, right? And self -pity is one of the ways in which you retaliate, striking out with your will or striking out with your heart in brooding. Macro -tumos simply means to suffer greatly or for a long time. It just means to delay your response. The old English word is very descriptive, long suffering. Patience is the ability to take it. Can you take it? That’s what a patient person is. Secondly, down here under definition, keep this in mind, patience is not indifference. And the reason I have to point that out is a patient person can be quite angry. There are people that look impatient when you’re just lethargic and you’re just phlegmatic. You look patient, but you just don’t give a rip. And that’s not… not the same thing at all. That’s a counterfeit of patience. You see, a patient person can be quite angry with somebody who is hurting himself and others. In fact, a patient Christian will be deeply concerned to helpfully correct somebody who’s doing wrong. You will do it. You see, an indifferent person may look patient and say, it’s none of my business. But what that means is I don’t want to get involved. It’s a lazy way out. You look very patient, but what you’re really saying is, that’s not my problem. That’s your problem. It’s none of my business. That attitude, which some of us have really done very well, either we’ve learned it from other people or it’s just in our temperament, is not patience. It’s indifferent, and indifference is a mild form of hate. It’s a way of saying, I don’t really want to deal with you. If you don’t mind, just get out of my life, see? That’s why I put down here indifference, in the end, is a kind of hatred. That’s why Cain said, when God comes to Cain and says, what happened to Abel? And of course Cain’s murdered Abel. And Cain looks up at God and says, is that my problem? Am I my brother’s keeper? And it’s out of a murderous heart that you hear that kind of indifference. And you see, indifference like that, where you just don’t care with people. The reason you can be patient with people, the reason it doesn’t bother you that people are doing this or that around you, you say, I don’t care. You shield yourself. You cut yourself off from those people. That attitude is a murderous attitude. And it comes out of a murderous heart. Anger is not the opposite of patience. Revenge or indifference is the opposite of patience. If you love somebody, you can get mighty angry at them. And that’s all right. You get angry at them and say, look what you’re doing to yourself. Look what you’re doing to other people. You want to do something about it. So patience is not the opposite of anger. Patience is the opposite of revenge, anger, or indifference. And by the way, if you’re a patient person, when you come and correct somebody who you love, or out of a concern for the truth, out of a concern for him or her, I put down here that your correction, you can tell whether your correction is arising out of a patient heart or out of an impatient heart. Very important. Is my rebuke, is my admonition arising out of a patient or an impatient heart?
Now, by the way, the trouble with the Christian heart is it’s both. And you’ve got like a vat of patience and a vat of impatience in there. And they’re mixed around. And that’s why you can never have perfectly pure motives in this. But you have to look at yourself and say, if I’m going to have patient love and correction, it will be courteous. You’ll say you’ll speak to a person in a respectful tone of voice, number one. Number two, you will not ask rhetorical questions to humiliate. One of the worst things you can do to somebody is come up to them and say, why did you forget that? Now, you know, that’s a rhetorical question. You are not asking for information. You know what the, there’s only one way to answer that question, and that is because I’m a jerk. Whenever you ask a why question, it’s a rhetorical question. That is not a rebuke or a correction that comes out of patience. It’s coming out of impatience. You’re trying to put the person in his place or her place. Why did you do this thing? You won’t seek to make the person feel small. It will really seek change. That’s patience. Okay. The opposite of patience, we said, is selfish anger.
Here’s some forms of impatience kind of quickly. Impatience with God’s schedule and plan for your life. We’ve already talked about this, but read this right here. Do you believe what John Newton says, John Newton, the great hymn writer, that says, everything is necessary that he sends, and nothing can be necessary that God withholds? Now, see, consider this. If you can’t affirm that statement, you don’t really believe in a God who is infinite in wisdom, power, and compassion all at once. If you believe in a God who is infinite and perfect in wisdom and power and compassion, you have to believe that statement. Otherwise your God falls short of really being God. And I won’t go into any more detail about that, but even the people, even the philosophers, even the skeptics and the unbelievers who say, I refuse to be patient with a terrible God like we must have. But Albert Camus said, if there is a God, basically he’s a devil. Look at all the suffering that’s happened in the world. I refuse to be patient with his wisdom. I shake my fist, Camus said at one place. I shake my fist at the injustice of the world and the injustice of God. But you know, the odd thing about that is, how can you shake your fist at an unjust God? Where do you get your standard of justice? Where in the world do you get any idea of justice? If God isn’t just, then it’s just a matter of, then your sense of justice is just, you know, it’s a feeling. It’s a matter of your digestion. It’s something that you’ve just come up with out of nothing. You can’t shake your fist at heaven without actually appealing to a higher heaven still. And where is that? And that’s the reason why you really can’t say, God, you don’t know what you’re doing. How do you know better than God? Do you believe in a God who is infinite in wisdom and power and compassion? If you do, then you have to say, everything is necessary that He sends. Nothing can be necessary that He withholds. And when you grasp that that’s a God and you look at a God like that in the face, then and only then can you be patient.
On the back, I need to finish up. You can read the rest. I just wasn’t able to get to it. But under cultivation, let me finish this way. How do you develop a patient heart? You know, it says here, I put down here two things. You want a patient heart? Remember this. Number one, you have to remember God’s patience with you. You have to realize to the degree you understand that every day you tax God’s patience, every single day, to that degree you’re going to be able to be patient with Him and with the people around you. It’s as simple as that. You have to take a look and see Jesus Christ being patient, taking the blows, taking the thorns, taking the lashes, taking the nails. Why? For you. I mean, that’s patience. Now what is he asking of you? He’s asking that when you’re in the checkout line, and obviously the person who’s the cashier is being an absolute jerk and being really silly, and you desperately need to get in and out of there, and you’re going to be 15 minutes late, 20 minutes late, it’s going to be embarrassment that when you get up to that place, you treat him or her graciously. That’s all. That’s not a nail in the hand. That’s not a crown of thorns. Jesus says, look at the patience that I have had for you. Why can’t you be patient for me? Why can’t you show graciousness? Think of how I, what I took, surely what you’re taking isn’t that much. See, that’s the first thing.
And then secondly, you’ve got to remember the majesty of God. I’ll close with this. One day, a couple years ago, I was visiting up here in New York, and I was seeing a very important person who I was very glad to even get an audience with him. He was a very prominent person, a very influential person, a very powerful person, and I was just delighted that he would even see me. I wanted to talk to him about church planning in New York. I needed to know the people he knew and so on. So I went up and saw him around three o ‘clock, and I had an appointment at four o ‘clock with somebody else. And when I got there at three o ‘clock on the nose, the secretary came out and said, I’m sorry, but he, there’s an emergency, you know, teleconference call that he’s on with people from, you know, I don’t know, from Pakistan and London and Africa and Nairobi and Hong Kong, and he just can’t get off yet. Well, I said, of course, you know, here’s a teleconference call that’s costing a billion dollars an hour, and why should he so? I said, fine, that’s fine. So I waited, he didn’t get out of there until 4 .30. I wasn’t even in a position to call the next person I was supposed to see. And you know what, instead of, it was really interesting, it was fine with me. You know, I just, I was just so delighted that he would even see me. And when he finally came out, I said, oh, don’t worry, there was nothing to it. And then I, you know, because you see, if a really important person makes me wait, somebody that I’m just so delighted that I’m even in his life, I can take it. Don’t you realize that every time you wait, it’s God who makes you wait. It’s not your boss, it’s not that stupid woman, it’s not that stupid man, it’s not that stupid parent. It’s not that stupid cashier, it’s God. Is he important enough? Isn’t his love for you, isn’t the fact that you are in his life and he is in your life, isn’t that, doesn’t it make it all worth it? You know, why is it that I, and so would you, if you, in your particular industry, in your particular field, if there was somebody that you met that was so important and so powerful and so influential that was willing to come see you and spend an hour with you, you would wait like that too. You know that. You wouldn’t be a bit put out if somebody of that importance make you wait, would you? You’d just be so happy to see them. It’s God himself who always makes you wait. And if you know that, and if you know who he is, you can be patient. Let’s pray.