Patience

Sermon on patience to the Church at Market Street February 2 2020

Communion Service 1 Cor. 11:23-26

Scripture: 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

I have been taking us through a “sermon series” on the “Fruit of The Spirit” When Jesus was ready to leave this earth, HE talked about sending one greater than He, through which more could be accomplished.

Also, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin-through the life of the believer-when the believer bears fruit.

I told you that we are the Church that meets at Market Street. I told you that when we believe that Jesus is the Christ-the Son of the Living God and we are obedient to Him-we receive the gift of the Holy Spirirt.

The Holy Spirit plays many roles in the Christian’s life, and in this series we are talking about the Good fruits that God wants us to bear and how we can join the Holy Spirit working in our lives to accomplish the bearing of GOOD Fruit

Patience in the lives of Christians can actually hold the door of salvation open to non-believers, just as God is long suffering with us-so should we be patient.

Hopefully, we will exercise patience in a way that brings Honor and Glory to our God.

Patience-makrothumia- literally translated long to suffer-slow to anger. Something generally we are not.

People are not very patient are they?

Particularly in our society, I think we honor the type “A” personality who is aggressive and takes charge, because he is the one who gets the job done. Quite frankly, that kind of personality is not very patient-

Many of us pray like this: Dear God, please grant me patience. And I want it right now.

I remember the story of the young father who came to the minister and said, “ I need God’s help to be patient with my wife, with my kids, with the people at work”; he said “could you pray for me.” The minister started, “Dear God, please bring this young man through many different situations and trials, suffering and tribulation into this man’s life…STOP the young man yelled I want patience not more stress.

Patience has to be developed and it happens when we are disciplined to exercise patience and we yield to the Holy Spirit who is indicating to us that our present situation is a prime place to exercise patience.

I promise you if you pray for patience God will give you people and put you in places that you can get plenty of practice time developing your patience.

We learn patience by practicing being patient, when we understand that God is transforming us into His image as He gives us trials and situations in which we can practice our patience.

You see our lives on earth are merely preparation for perfection; it is just training on how we will live forever in heaven. Boot camp is tough, but it can save the recruits life.

JONI EARECKSON TADA wrote:

Christians do you understand you are in boot camp of the army of the Lord? What you are going through at this current time is because you are in the Potter’s hands, the refiner’s furnace and He is making you into the image of His Son, IF you will allow Him to.

I just read that Joni had a clean bill of health after suffering with cancer treatment, but then in 2018 the cancer came back- What did Joni do- she exercised patience. Patience with the doctors, the nurses, the chemo-therapy, patient with everyone and every procedure.

The times we find ourselves having to wait on others may be the perfect opportunities to train ourselves to wait on the Lord.

I hope we can do better than these people did:

I love this story:

A man’s car stalled in heavy traffic just as the light turned green. All his efforts under the hood to get the car started failed, & a chorus of honking horns behind him made matters worse. He finally walked back to the first driver behind him & said, "I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to get my car started. If you’ll go up there & give it a try, I’ll stay here & honk your horn for you."

Or how about this story- An elderly man is stalled at the traffic light- the light turns green and the lady behind him is flicking him hand gestures and screaming obscenities out of the window. A police officer pulls up and puts her in hand cuffs. Astounded she asks,” why are you arresting me?’