The story is told about the man who prided himself on being exceedingly punctual. He followed a very precise routine every morning. His alarm went off at 6:30 AM. He rose briskly, shaved, showered, ate his breakfast, brushed his teeth, picked up his briefcase, got into his car, rode the ferry across to the downtown business area, got off the ferry, walked smartly to his building, marched to the elevator, rode to the seventeenth floor, hung up his coat, opened his briefcase, spread his papers out on his desk, and sat down in his chair at precisely 8:00 AM. Not 8:01 AM, not even 7:59. Always at 8:00 AM.
He followed this same routine without variation for eight years, until one morning his alarm did not go off, and he overslept fifteen minutes. When he did awake, he was panic-striken. He rushed through the shower, nicked himself when he shaved, gulped down his breakfast, only half-way brushed his teeth, grabbed up his briefcase, jumped into his car, sped to the ferry landing, jumped out of his car, and looked for the ferry.
There it was, out in the water a few feet from the dock. He said to himself, "I think that I can make it," and he ran down the dock towards the ferry at full speed. Reaching the edge of the pier he made an enormous leap out over the water and miraculously landed with a loud thud on the deck of the ferry. The captain rushed down to make sure he was alright.
The captain said, "Man, that was a tremendous leap, but if you would have just waited another minute, we would have reached the dock, and you could have walked on."
We are now entering the holiday season with the challenge of gift selection and buying that requires us to travel to stores whose parking lots, and the drive to get to there, try our patience. I recently came across a saying that I think would make a great bumper sticker for us to place on our cars. - "Don’t give up. It took Noah six months to find a parking place."
Ah, patience! We find it in short supply these days. We seek it in the grocery store line, at the ATM, when we hook-up to the Internet, when we are late for class or school or work, when we are trying to get to church on time, when have to go to the bathroon, and I mean really go, and there is a long line.
We do a better job of practicing impatience that patience. We have those smartaleck signs in our car windows that indicate our great impatience with drivers of other vehicles and what we believe their chief character defects to be.
We scream at our computers when they take so long to start-up or suddenly slow down. We yell at our children to slow down when they are going bonkers and yell at them to speed up when they are going at a snail’s pace.
We are in such a hurry these days. Why is patience in such short supply?
We have been looking at ways the past five weeks that Satan uses to try and trip us up. We have seen how pride, jealousy, disappointment and or resentment, and complacency can cause us problems and make it difficult to have a right relationship with God.
Today we are going to study a passage in the life of someone whose tragic story holds for us a lesson about impatience and its effects on our relationship with God, and with others, as well. It’s the story of King Saul and the episode that we are examining is found in the 13 chapter of I Samuel and we will begin with verse 5 and read through verse 14.
(READ THE PASSAGE)
Now according to the text of my Bible, it says in verse 1 that Saul reigned as King of Israel for 42 years. I am not clear as to when the event that we have just read took place, but most likely it was early in his career and I am struck by the fact that this moment of impatience had both immediate and long term consequences on his life, his authority, and his relationships for as we read in verses 13 and 14 Samuel declares that instead of his reign being the start of a great lineage of Israelite kings, the honor would go to someone else because God was wanted someone after His (God’s) own heart. Why was it hard for Saul to wait on Samuel?
Maybe this paraphrased thought from Howard Whitman can give us an answer: Life is compsosed of waiting periods. The child must wait until he is old enough to have a bicycle, the young woman until she is old enough to drive a car, the medical student must for her diploma, the husband for his promotion, the young couple for savings to buy a new home. The art of waiting is not learned at once.
I am reminded of an unforgettable verse of scripture that includes the word wait, Isaiah 40:31, "But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. The will walk and not faint."
Then I hear that word run in that verse and another verse comes to mind, the last part of Hebrews 1:1 "Let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us."
And then the word endurance jumps out at me and I think of 2 Peter 1 verses 6, 7, and 8, " Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genunine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
That word self-control is an important word and I think of Paul’s list of some important targets in Galatians 5:22 and 23, "But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control."
There is also another verse in which the word endurance appears that is important for us to hear this morning, James 1: 3 and 4, "For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurace is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.
What are some other words that mean the same thing as endurance? I checked a thesaurus to find other words that meant the same thing and here is the list of words: staying power, survival, stamina, fortitude, continued existance, and . . . patience.
And all of this has to do with learning how to wait. The Isaiah passage indicates what the benefits of waiting are - strength, help, and spiritual stamina.
Waiting is a spiritual issue and Saul had to wait for Samuel, but he did not. And he paid the consequences for his impatience.
I want us to return to the 2 Peter passage and take a closer look at it. It is verses 6 - 8: "Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone." What does it mean?
1. If we make the choice to know God, that is to have a personal relationship with Him based on the forgiveness that we recieve and accept through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection then that moves us toward self-control as evidence of our committment to and relationship with Jesus Christ.
Why is self-control important?
It is evidence of a changed life. Instead of living by and through our impulses we live by and through the spirit and power of God. So, our behavior changes and when our behavior begins to change, it has an impact on our relationships. People begin to see the difference in our lives. We are under new management.
2. Now self-control will lead us to patience endurance and patient endurance leads to godliness. Why is godliness important?
Godliness is the evidence of God in our lives that comes as we demonstrate patient endurance through the practice of self-control in our lives.
3. Godliness then leads to love for other Christians and then love for everyone. But, why is love important?
Love is the greatest evidence of our both our committment and obedience to God. In fact, Jesus, in response to a question about what is the greatest commandment said, "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And your neighbor as yourself."
4. Finally, we become productive and useful followers and servants of Jesus Christ. In other words, our personal Christian faith works.
People see a difference in our lives. They see our self-control, they see our patience at work, they see and perhaps even experience the love in our hearts and souls. They see that this thing called Christianity really does work.
Which leads me to ask this question, "Can impatience and love really exist together in the same heart?"
When we turn to I Corinthians 13:4 the very first word Paul uses to describe love is patient. He then goes onto describe love as kind, not irritable, rejoices when the truth wins out, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Sounds to me like patience.
In fact, let’s look at what Paul says love is not, "jealous, proud, rude, demanding, irritable, keeps a record, is glad about injustice." Sounds to me like impatience.
Let me ask the question again, "Can impatience and love really exist together in the same heart?" No it really can’t.
Patience is a character quality. And the tension, the battle between being patient and impatient, is a character issue.
Christianity has to do with a change in our character, in our nature, that takes place as a change in our relationship with God takes place. And I think that one of the best descriptions of our life apart from God is impatience.
One of my favorite authors is Patrick Morley. And one of my favorite quotes from him is the phrase "the gospel of addition."
The point that Morley makes is that so often we think of adding God to our lives instead of subtracting sin out of them. God and sin cannot co-exist together its, either one or the other.
Saul made the wrong choice and the tragedy is that he paid dearly for it for the rest of his life.
He went "mad" at certain points in his life. Depression set in. Rage was expressed at those closest to him. He died a tragic death. But, that wasn’t God’s will for him. God wanted to honor and bless Saul. But impatience proved to be his downfall.
Saul lacked self-control. He lacked patient endurance. He lacked godliness. He lacked love. And his life showed it.
Saul made a choice between giving in or growing up. He choose giving in. Giving into temptation.
We face the same choice - every day of our lives. Satan always, almost daily, presents us with the same choice - the temptation to give in, to yield to our impatient impulses, and surrender ourselves to that which damages our relationship with God and others.
God’s desire is for us to grow up. To allow the Holy Spirit to plant and harvest the fruits of His spirit in our lives. To help us develop and practice self-control, patient endurance, godliness, and love. As we make the choice to do so, we grow, we move forward, our faith begins to work and people begin to take notice.
The young man excitedly entered his father’s study waiting for his college graduation gift.
He had had his eye on the bright red sports car at the car dealer down the street.
Cost would be no object for his dad. For you see, he was a wealthy man.
The young man stood before his dad and his father, who was also a very devout follower of Christ.
Dad was concerned about his son, he was concerned about the values he was choosing to live by. So he decided to give him a gift that he felt would teach the son what really is important in life.
A beautifully wrapped box was presented to the son who eagerly tore the wrapping paper off.
His excitement turned to dismay and then to anger when he found a beautiful leather Bible in the box.
"This is what I get?!" the son demanded. "How could you do this to me?"
Angrily he tossed the Bible on the father’s desk and stormed out of the room.
Years later, the son, now a middle aged man, was going through the items in that study the day after the funeral of his father.
He came across that Bible. Still in the box.
He opened the box and pulled out the Bible. As he opened it, something fell out of it.
The son bent down to pick up what had fallen and discovered that it was set of car keys to that red sports car that he had wanted so many years before.
Be open to God this morming and allow Him to do His work in your life. Amen.
