Opening illustration: This past week I read about a first-grade teacher who was having a difficult day. It had rained that entire day and the children couldn’t go out for recess, so they got more and more restless and hyperactive as the day wore on. The teacher couldn’t wait for the bell to ring at 3 o’clock. About 2:45 she saw it was still raining, and so she decided to start getting the kids ready for dismissal. She sorted out their boots and raincoats and started helping get them on. Finally, they were ready to go, all except for one little boy whose boots were just too small for his feet. There were no zippers or straps, and it took every last ounce of strength she had to get them on.
When at last she did get them on, she straightened up with a sigh of relief. That’s when the little boy looked down at his feet and said, “Teacher, you know what? These boots aren’t mine!”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but being the good teacher she was, she smiled bravely and started taking them off. And they were harder to get off than they were to put on. She yanked and tugged until finally the boots were off. That’s when the little boy smiled at her and said, “They’re not my boots, but they’re my sister’s, and I got to wear them!”
“As God’s chosen ones,” Paul says, “clothe yourselves with patience.”
When we’re clothed with patience, we can absorb life’s irritations and annoyances. We can absorb them the way a good thick towel absorbs splatters and spills.
Let us turn to James 5: 7 – 11 and see what patience is all about.
Introduction: Longsuffering / Patience, (Hosea 2:19-23; Psalm 33:20; Matthew 27:14; Romans 5:3; 12:12; Galatians 5:1; Colossians 1:11; James 1:3-4,12; 5:10-11), is showing tolerance and fortitude toward others, even accepting difficult situations from them, and God, without making demands or conditions. Patience allows us to endure a less than desirable situation to make us better and more useful and even optimistic and prudent. Hence, its other name is longsuffering. It allows us to put up with others who get on our nerves, without losing other characteristics of grace.
Opposites: Impatience, annoyance, intolerance, worry, fear, and distrust are the opposites of Patience. These prevent us from seeing, as our Lord wants us to see, that all things will work for His good in the end (Rom. 8:28). We should hang on, place our trust in Him, and not let the temporary things of life bother or distract us from our purpose and call.
1. Defining Longsuffering / Patience: [Long-tempered]
Old Testament meaning: The Hebrew word translates into longsuffering / slow to anger / try the patience of [long & short] used in the OT quite a bit.
New Testament meaning: The Greek word for patience is makrothumia, which is a combination of two words. Makro means “long” and thumia means “temper.” Long-tempered. We all know people who are short-tempered: people who lose patience quickly and blow up in anger. Patience has to do with having a fairly long fuse, being able to absorb life’s annoyances without exploding in anger.
Both the OT & the NT words for patience indicate that this virtue has two legs ~ endurance and perseverance. Patience is not a desperate waiting in doubt, but a hopeful waiting in confidence.
It’s interesting to note that when Paul talks about what life is like outside of Christ, he describes it as an angry life. In the verses just before today’s reading, Paul says that outside of Christ what you find is “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language” (Col.3:7-8). You find gossip and quarrels, strife and dissensions. You find split churches and broken marriages and fractured friendships. Lots of short tempers and lots of anger.
That’s life outside of Christ, Paul says. It’s angry life. Its confrontational politics and caustic talk shows. It’s aggressive Little League parents and out-of-control sports fans. Its vengeful movies and violent music. It’s accusatory e-mails that appear to have been sent from a flamethrower.
“Get rid of such things,” Paul says (Col. 3:8). Take off all those angry old clothes, and put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with patience.”
2. The Source of Patience:
It is not difficult to trace the source of biblical patience in God’s children. 1 Corinthians 13: 4 states, "Love suffers long and is kind." As noted above, patience is directly associated with love and hope. Here in the "love chapter," Paul lists patience first among love’s works. Romans 5: 5 adds that "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit."
This makes it evident that God’s patience stands behind His children’s patience as its source and pattern and as a link in a chain. Because the Bible lists it with the fruit of the Spirit, it is less a virtue achieved than a gift received. It comes with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we reproduce it.
However, since we are beings of free choice, we are still obligated to God to activate it, exercise it and use it as a witness that God lives in us. To this end, Paul writes,
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. (Colossians 3:12-13)
"Put on" is literally a dressing term. Used as an idiom, it can also mean to assume the office, manner, character, disposition or perspective of another. We must "put on" Christ, meaning we must conduct our lives as closely to the way He would were He in our position. We are to practice His way of life because it is eternal life - the way God lives His life. It will help prepare us for His Kingdom, and it enables us to glorify Him here and now.
Patience is a vital part of the process that enables God to work over a long span of time, if needed, to produce in us other important aspects of His image so that we "may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." God is the Source, and His Spirit the means of this very valuable fruit.
3. Patient with those around us:
This takes the most active work of the three as we are constantly with people who can irritate, annoy, and exasperate us. God’s Word includes many direct exhortations to be patient and slow to anger. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 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. (Colossians 3:12-13) Thessalonians 5:14 tells us to be patient to the idle, fainthearted, and weak.
Sometimes it’s annoying strangers we have to absorb. Like the guy down the block whose dog barks all night. Or the driver poking along at 45 miles per hour in the left lane of the freeway. Or the person ahead of us in the 15-item express line at the grocery store, the person who puts 19 items on the belt, chats with the clerk, fishes for a checkbook only after everything has been rung up, and then argues about the bill.
Sometimes it’s people in our own family. It’s our nearest and dearest who really try our patience. C. S. Lewis says it well: “When two humans have lived together for many years, it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other.” You know what he means, don’t you? It’s not that your spouse does anything all that wrong. It’s just that he raises an eyebrow in a certain way that drives you crazy. It’s the way she takes forever to tell a simple story.
“As God’s chosen ones,” Paul says, “bear with one another. Clothe yourselves with patience.”
Proverbs 15: 18 shows us the consequences of being impatient. “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.” Ecclesiastes 7: 9 says, "Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.” I am sure that we do not want to be taken as fools.
Illustration: According to a traditional Hebrew story, Abraham was sitting outside his tent one evening when he saw an old man, weary from age and journey, coming toward him. Abraham rushed out, greeted him, and then invited him into his tent. There he washed the old man’s feet and gave him food and drink.
The old man immediately began eating without saying any prayer or blessing. So Abraham asked him, "Don’t you worship God?"
The old traveler replied, "I worship fire only and reverence no other god."
When he heard this, Abraham became incensed, grabbed the old man by the shoulders, and threw him out his tent into the cold night air.
When the old man had departed, God called to his friend Abraham and asked where the stranger was. Abraham replied, "I forced him out because he did not worship you."
God answered, "I have suffered him these eighty years although he dishonors me. Could you not endure him one night?"
4. Trials of Patience:
Patience is an aspect of love built on the pillars of endurance and perseverance; we realize that it is an essential virtue for living in a fallen world on a cursed earth.
Hebrew 11 lists some heroes of faith and demonstrates their great patience while others showed impatience.
Examples: Noah build the Ark in 120 years; Abraham & Sarah waited beyond their years of being able to procreate to give birth to Isaac; Moses let the Israelites for 40 years in the desert ~ lost his patience a number of times and suffered for it; King David.
We are directed to stand firmly on the two legs of patience ~ endurance & perseverance.
Illustration: A young man, a Christian, went to an older believer to ask for prayer. "Will you please pray that I may be more patient?" he asked. The aged saint agreed. They knelt together and the man began to pray, "Lord, send this young man tribulation in the morning; send this young man tribulation in the afternoon; send this young man...." At that point the young Christian blurted out, "No, no, I didn’t ask you to pray for tribulation. I wanted you to pray for patience." "Ah," responded the wise Christian, "it’s through tribulation that we learn patience."
5. Consequences of Impatience:
Unfortunately, we live in a society that all too often doesn’t know how to wait. Our generation has become the “I want it now” generation. We’ve become so accustomed to immediate self-gratification that we have lost our appreciation for the gift of patience. We tend to live like children looking forward to Christmas a fact noted by Irish poet Mary Tighe: “O how impatience gains upon the soul when the long promised hour of joy draws near. How slow the tardy moments then seem to roll.”
List of some common consequences of impatience:-
• Moses ~ short-temper, couldn’t enter the Promised Land, later did.
• Abraham ~ couldn’t control having a child through another woman, brought trouble to his seed and the contemporary world.
• Pre-marital sex ~ loss of the ultimate best in pursuit of an immediate pleasure.
Illustration: Charlie wrote about his experience as a kid growing up in the American south and planting peanuts. Because peanuts are tubers that grow on the roots beneath the ground, you cannot see how well they’re developing. So being an impatient kid, he decided to dig them up to see how they were doing. Well, they were doing fine. So he shoveled them back into the hole and tamped the ground firm. A month or so later, he went to harvest them. How disappointed he was. Many of the peanuts had died and the rest were shriveled and misshapen.
That’s how it is with pre-marital sex, Charlie wrote. In fact, that’s a picture of the consequences that follow virtually every impatient act.
Luke 21: 16 – 19 tells us “You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 "And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake.
18 "But not a hair of your head shall be lost. 19 "By your patience possess your souls.”
6. Rewards of Patience:
• Leads to earthly benefits ~ Job’s story
• Provides us a better end than the present ~ Job’s story
• Allows us to bear fruit from seeds of faith
• Wins the approval of God
• Makes us a good example for others
• Perfects our character
• Provides health for our soul
• Gives us hope ~ Abraham’s story
• Provides us with God’s power
• Enables us to inherit God’s promises
Conclusion: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” – as men and women who have been saved and kept by God’s grace – “clothe yourselves with patience.” Put it on like a godly garment. “Patience fits people who have died and risen with Christ. Patience is part of the family uniform of the people of God.”
Patience is an essential aspect toward maturity and growth as a Christian, yet it is not a fun thing to obtain. We, as fallen humanity, do not like to wait, especially in our fast paced, and fast food society. We may cry out to God and ask that He give us Patience, NOW! Yet, if He did, would we have it? It is not likely, as it needs to grow through difficulties so it can build and improve. It is not something we get off the shelf of a bookstore.
Patience will allow us to receive and participate in God’s love as it builds loyalty and faithfulness, as in the life of Hosea. It will take us beyond our comfort zone into an area we do not want to go. Yet, when we do, we are better and more able to be used by God and to be available for others. Without Patience, we cannot be used effectively in the lives of others, as they will seem repugnant to us, and we will be callous and unsympathetic towards them. Patience will allow us to manage anger and problems, and to wait on God’s timing. Patience will allow us to forgive (Rom. 5:8), as Christ forgave us and has Patience with us. Patience will allow us to endure and go on, even when we do not feel like it. It will see the hope that is ahead, when the clouds of our lives and experiences block its view from our sight. Patience will allow us to cling to Christ no matter what happens. Patience is hanging on to what is good. When we are impatient, we will miss a lot in life, especially in our relationships, because we will give up too easily. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and form you in His time!
Remember, the Fruits of the Spirit are not options! There is no law on earth against them.
