OPEN: How many of you like to put together jigsaw puzzles. Diana and I have always doing that… although we’ve not done it nearly so much since we’ve had kids. Sometime ago, I ran across the following article:
“Everything I needed to know about life, I learned from a jigsaw puzzle.”
1. Establish the border first. Boundaries give a sense of security and order.
2. When things aren’t going so well, take a break. Everything will look different when you return.
3. Working together with friends and family makes any task quicker and more fun.
4. The creator of the puzzle gave you the picture as a guidebook
5. Don’t force a fit. If something is meant to be, it will come together naturally.
6. Perseverance pays off. Every puzzle goes together bit by bit, piece by piece.
7. Anything worth doing takes time and effort. A great puzzle can’t be rushed.
APPLY: One of the things that seems to be repeated in those observations is: when you put a puzzle together, patience is the key. Unless you’re putting together one of those children’s puzzles with only 8 pieces, you’ll rarely put a puzzle together overnight. In fact, it will usually take you several days to a couple of months.
BUT if you are NOT patient you may end up trying to force pieces in where they don’t belong. You might find yourself being increasingly unhappy even when you make a little progress. And you may find yourself getting so frustrated you’ll either walk away from the puzzle altogether, or tear it all up and put it back in the box. Patience is the key!
I. Here in Galatians, God tells us that one of the most noticeable marks of a spirit-led Christian is patience.
A mature Christian is a patient Christian
And the less patient you are… the less mature in Christ you are.
Now God isn’t talking here about our level of patience when putting a jigsaw puzzle together.
Nor our patience when we have to wait in line at grocery store or Post Office.
Nor is He addressing our need for patience when some jerk pulls out of front of us as we’re driving down the road, and nearly causes an accident.
We should be patient in all those situations. I certainly am (I paused to let the audience chuckle). But as important as it is for us to be patient at times like those, there is an even more important situation in which God desires us to be patient.
In Galatians, God is telling us that we MUST be patient with our Christian brothers and sisters.
The church in Galatia had some serious problems… one of which was that there were people in the church that couldn’t get along. Look again at Galatians 5:15 “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
There were people in that church who were engaged in back biting and sniping at one another. They might not have done this to each others’ faces. More likely they did behind one another’s backs. But the point remains that they Paul knew they were “biting and devouring each other.”
So, Paul tells them they have to make a choice to make:
1. They could be led by God’s Spirit
2. Or they could wallow in sinful behaviors of the flesh
Then Paul goes on to describe those “sinful behaviors”. And he says that they are obvious:
“sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”
Then he goes on to say
”I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21
This church had problems. Problems like sexual immorality and drunkenness. And they had problems with infighting, hatred, discord, dissensions, and factions. And he says he’d warned them before about these behaviors.
But then Paul goes into detail about how being led by the Spirit entirely different proposition. He talks about the fact that a church ought to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness etc.
Paul described what every church really knows it should be inside:
A church that is a place where people Love one another
Where they work at creating an atmosphere of Joy
Where they promote Peace between each other
Where they are Patient with one another
And on, and on, and on…
This morning I want to focus on our need to be patient with one another.
The Greek word here “Makrothumi” means “Slow to anger” (makro SLOW, thumos= ANGER)
Or, as the KJV puts it “Longgggg – suffering”
ILLUS: I recently read the story about a kindergarten teacher who was helping one of the children put on their puts.
They worked together to push and pull and tug… and it seemed like she’d never get those boots on him. The boots just didn’t seem to want to go on. They FINALLY got the 2nd boot on when the little boy looked up and said, ‘Teacher, they’re on the wrong feet.’
She looked and sure enough, they were. It wasn’t any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on—this time on the right feet.
He then announced, ‘These aren’t my boots.’
She literally bit her tongue and controlled herself as she asked, ‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’
Once again she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off.
… and then he said, ‘They’re my brother’s boots. My Mom made me wear them.’
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She mustered up the grace and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again.
Then she said, ‘Now, where are your mittens?’
He sweetly looked up at her and said: ‘I stuffed them in the toes of my boots…’
Now, that is LONGGG suffering. That is patience in the presence of repeated frustration.
AND why was that teacher willing to show such patience?
Because - this little boy was only a Kindergartner. He didn’t know any better than what he did. He wasn’t trying to be rebellious or mean spirited. He was just immature.
In the church you’re going to find lots of people who are young in their faith. They’ll have less maturity than you’d expect them to have. But unless they’re being rebellious or mean spirited, God calls you and I to be patient with them.
In the church… if a member, or group of members is mean spirited or rebellious, that calls for discipline. And (in the church) whose job is it to bring about discipline? That’s right, the Elders and the preacher. God puts this in the hands of the Elders because they are family men who have proven that they know how to raise their kids to honor God. That includes discipline. But even when they discipline members of the church, Elders must be gentle and show PATIENCE.
WHY? Because the church is made up of many different kinds of people.
They have many different backgrounds and degrees of faith.
Because that is true, Ephesians 4 advises us to “…be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:2-6)
God’s objective is to take people from many different walks of life - people who have struggled with many different kinds of sins - THEN save them and join them together… like they were pieces of a puzzle. His goal is to take these people of various shapes and sizes and colors and fit them together to form a glorious picture of unity that can impress even the most jaded skeptic or critic.
Ephesians 4:15-16 tells us that our goal should be to speak… “the truth in love, (so) we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together (kind of like pieces of a puzzle) by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
II. Now the problem is patience DOESN’T come naturally to most of us.
Galatians says that true patience comes by allowing the Spirit of God control me. If I walk with the Spirit of God… I will eventually become a patient person
Galatians 5:25 tells us Galatians “… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, PATIENCE… If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Galatians 5:22 & 25
If I’m going to be the patient person God wants me to be then I need to allow God’s Spirit to train me.
SO… how does God’s Spirit train us to be patient?
1st He does so by reminding me that God has had to be patient with me.
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul writes: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:12-14)
The Spirit reminds us in Romans 2 that it’s “…the riches of his kindness, tolerance and PATIENCE, (that) leads you toward repentance…” Romans 2:4
The Bible tells me that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
So, now, I have a quiz for you? Since the Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory… I want a show of hands. How many of you here today are IMPERFECT people? (everyone raised their hands).
God is patient with YOU… and ME. If He weren’t patient with us, none of us would literally have a prayer. Because God loves us and is patient with us He forgives us - even though we have sinned.
Thus, when people in the church irritate us, cause us to become annoyed, or rub us the wrong way… we need to imitate God by:
“Bear(ing) with each other and forgiv(ing) whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive AS THE LORD FORGAVE YOU.” (Colossians 3:14)
Now, why do we get irritated with the people around us? Because they aren’t perfect people.
We sometimes forget that the longer they’re in the church… the longer they’re in the presence of Jesus the “cleaner” their hearts will get and the more like Jesus they’ll become.
But, because we forget this, we often grow impatient with that “cleaning process” that other Christians have to got through… and we don’t want to wait on God to bring about those changes.
ILLUS: I once read the story of 2 bachelors who were talking one day, and their conversation drifted from politics to sports to cooking.
One of them said, “I got a cookbook once, but I could never do anything with it.”
The other one said, “Too much fancy work in it, huh?”
You first one said, “No, that wasn’t it. The problem was that each of those recipes began the same way - ‘Take a clean dish.’”
The reason other people irritate us is that there’s a spot on their lives that’s not clean enough for us. And often that spot in their lives needs to be addressed…
How?
Well, Jesus said “…first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:5
In other words we first need to examine our own hearts to make sure the reason we’re irritated with our brothers and sisters in Christ isn’t because of self-righteousness, judgmentalism or haughtiness. If we don’t do that first, we’ll end up beating our brothers and sisters to death with the plank that in our own eyes while we try to remove the specks out of theirs.
But, now notice, Jesus does expect us to remove those specks… particularly if they are causing damage to our fellow Christians. That doesn’t come naturally to most people. When we’re irritated with someone else, we have a tendency to clam up and just simmer in silence… OR we’ll talk to someone else about our irritation, perhaps in the hopes that THEY will talk to the one who so annoys us. But Jesus doesn’t go in for 3rd party interventions:
Jesus said: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” (Matthew 18:15)
If you have a problem with anybody in this church… what are you supposed to do?
1. EXAMINE YOUR OWN HEART 1st
2. GO TO THEM
3. TALK TO THEM
Now, I’m not addressing this issue because I think that we have a problem here. In fact, this is one of the gentlest, most loving congregations I have ever encountered. This is a place where people can feel safe. That has a lot to do with the leadership here. And it has a lot to do with the fact that most of you know how to love like you should.
But even in the best of churches, we need to be reminded of the need to be lovingly patient with one another. That’s why, several times during my ministry with this church I have asked you to take a vow before God. A vow that if you have a problem with anyone in this congregation, you won’t talk about them behind their backs. I would like you to take a vow that if someone upsets you here – whether it’s the elders, staff, Sunday School teachers, or the little old lady who sits in the back – you will gently go to them rather than talk about them with others.
If you’re willing to take this vow before God, I’d like you to stand right now (or if you can’t stand, raise your hand).
CLOSE: Remember… God’s objective is to take people who come in many shapes and sizes and fit us all together into one body for His glory.
ILLUS: The story’s told about a dad who’d come home late one night. He’d had a hard day at work and all he wanted to do was sit down and relax. He picked up the evening paper and headed for his favorite easy chair by the fireplace.
About the time he got his shoes untied - plop! - into his lap dropped his five-year-old so.
"Hi, Dad. Let’s play!"
The man loved his boy dearly, but he really needed to rest a while. But how could he disappoint his son’s need to play with him?
Just then, his eyes fell to a picture on the front of one of section of newspaper. There had been a recent space mission and the newspaper carried a huge picture of earth. Suddenly an idea occurred to him, and he asked his son to fetch a pair of scissors and some transparent tape.
Quickly, he cut the picture of earth into various shapes and sizes.then handed the pile of homemade jigsaw puzzle pieces to him.
"You tape it all back together, Danny, then come on back and we’ll play, okay?"
So the boy scampered off to his room and dad breathed a sigh of relief. He suspected that with such a jumbled mass of puzzle pieces, the boy would be tied up for 20 or 30 minutes. But in less than ten minutes the boy bounded back with everything taped perfectly in place.
Stunned, the father asked: "How’d you do it so fast, Son?"
“Aw, it was easy, Daddy.” The boy turned the picture over and pointed to a picture of a man on the back of the sheet. “When you put the man together, the world comes together."
That’s our goal in the church to put people together in the church in such a way that we build the kind of congregation God wants us to be. A church that is a praise and a proclamation of the power of God.
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
The Unknown Quality of Love = Galatians 5:22-5:25
Plugging the Leak in your Joy = Galatians 5:22-5:25
The Prescription for Powerful Peace = Philippians 4:1-4:9
The Puzzle of Powerful Patience = Galatians 5:13-5:26
God’s Idea of Kindness = Luke 6:25-6:42
The Tree Of Goodness = Galatians 5:22-5:23
Getting A Booster Shot Of Faith = Galatians 5:22-5:23
