The Fruit of Patience
Download MP3Alright. If you have a Bible, we're actually gonna look at a number of places, but, you could pick either Galatians 5, first Corinthians 13, or James 5. You choose. We're gonna go over all of them. Galatians 5, first Corinthians 13, and James chapter 5.
Jeffrey Heine:We're actually gonna be looking at a, a topic this morning. We're gonna be looking at the topic of patience, In particular, patience with one another. Next week, we're gonna look at Psalm 42 that deals more with patience with God, but in particular, we'll look at patience with one another this morning. We'll begin reading in Galatians chapter 5 verse 22. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.
Jeffrey Heine:Against such things, there is no law. 1st Corinthians 13 beginning in verse 4. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.
Jeffrey Heine:It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. James chapter 5 beginning in verse 7.
Jeffrey Heine:Be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth being patient about it? Until it receives the early and the late rains, you also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another brothers, so that you may not be judged.
Jeffrey Heine:Behold, the judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers take the prophets who spoke in the name of the lord. This is the word of the lord. Thanks be to God. If you would pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:Father, we do come and we wait before you. We wait to hear from you that you might implant your word deep in our hearts. And that through your spirit, you would grow that word. Lord, I pray at this time that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered Alright. So you you have an important presentation that you have to give in the morning.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a presentation you've been working on now for weeks. You're super stressed about this presentation because you really need it to go well. If it goes well, there's positive life changes in front of you. Maybe better work hours, better pay. If it doesn't go well, well there's even the possibility of losing your job.
Jeffrey Heine:Because of the stress that's there, well, you've been cranky. You've been short-tempered with with those that are closest to you. You've been irritable around them. You haven't really listened to them because as they're talking, all you're doing is is thinking about your presentation. Honestly, you've been downright rude and inconsiderate.
Jeffrey Heine:The presentation comes. You crush it. You knock it out of the park. So the question is, was all that hard work worth it? Was it?
Jeffrey Heine:Or how about this scenario here? You really just want to, this night, finally have a healthy, nutritious, and good tasting meal, and you want this for your family, but your kids keep bothering you. Alright? They they keep just asking you all these questions. They they wanna come in and use the counter space and do art projects there.
Jeffrey Heine:And so you find yourself being rude and demanding to them. But finally you get that perfect dinner fixed, and you lay it on the table, and you say eat and enjoy. This is a Instagram worthy dinner. Was it worth it? Let me ask you, in those scenarios, what defined you?
Jeffrey Heine:Was it the big presentation? Was it the dinner? Or was it the smaller interactions that you had leading up to both of those things? Let me ask you. How did God evaluate you during all of that?
Jeffrey Heine:What did he see as important? That's an important question for us. You see see we tend to evaluate our lives by looking at the big moments. It's those moments that define us. How do we do in our exams?
Jeffrey Heine:How do we do on that job interview? How did our thanksgiving dinner look? How did our home group go? But really, it's those small choices leading up to each one of those things. That's what defines who we are.
Jeffrey Heine:That's where we can look and we can see our identity. We can even think about this concerning the church here. What happens in the car coming to church and actually leaving church is more defining as to who you are than what actually happens in this room at this time. And the reason it is this way, is because the important question that we find over and over again in the new testament is this, are you being conformed to the image of Christ? Are you beginning to look more and more like Jesus every day?
Jeffrey Heine:We looked at this as we were studying through the book of acts, and we saw how God is more concerned about the process than the product. He's more concerned about your faith and more concerned about your character than anything you achieve. God looks at what we would call fruit. He looks at the fruit of our life and he says that's where I want you to grow in these areas of fruit. As a spirit filled Christian, you are called to grow in fruit not to grow in achievements.
Jeffrey Heine:And so the question we have is, is the fruit of God growing in our lives? That's what matters. God's not impressed by whatever great work we think we are doing. However, he does delight when he sees love, joy, peace, and patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. These fruits of the spirit growing up in your life, that's what delights him.
Jeffrey Heine:And those are the things we need to look at. Those are the things I need. So one of the reasons I'm preaching on this is because I need to hear this. Because let me be honest with you. If you are pa a pastor of a growing church, there is not anyone who is asking you about your character.
Jeffrey Heine:They're asking you about your gifts. How are you doing this? They're they're looking at your achievements, but but there's nobody looking and saying, how are is the fruit of the spirit, how is that growing in your life? But that's what God looks at. Are we becoming conformed to the image of Christ?
Jeffrey Heine:So what I would like for us to do this morning is just to focus on one of these characteristics of the fruit of the spirit. I know that there is many, but I want us to focus on just one, patience. And you might be asking, why of all of them are we going to look at patience? For a few reasons. First off, a lot of those other fruits of the spirit, the characteristics there, those are usually preached on.
Jeffrey Heine:We hear often about those, but we rarely hear a sermon on patience. 2nd, patience is a virtue that is rapidly declining in our culture. Study after study is going to show you that we are increasingly becoming an impatient people. How long are you willing to wait for instance, for a web page to load up? Before you move on.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, seriously. How many of you will wait more than 10 seconds for a web page to load? How many of you will wait 5 seconds for a webpage to load before you move on? We are an impatient people. The Boston Globe actually did a study and it reported that 25% of people gave up at 5 seconds.
Jeffrey Heine:You are worse than most of the people out there, alright? I was grilling a pork tenderloin the other day, and I could not remember. I'm I'm grilling this. I'm like, is it done? Is it not?
Jeffrey Heine:What's the what's the temperature supposed to be? Now in the past, you know, to figure out what the temperature is actually supposed to be, I would've had to go through all the cookbooks and try to find one that's on grilling pork tenderloins, and and read that this is the safe temperature, you do it. You know, that would have taken some time. I would have done that, but thank goodness we don't have to do that anymore. We just just we could pull out our phone and just either ask Siri or or just, say, you know, type in pork temperature and instantly it's going to come up and so I got out my phone and I did that and I hit it and the bar just kinda went and stopped.
Jeffrey Heine:And I waited and waited at like for an eternity. Like 3 seconds. And finally I was like, I'm sure the pork's fine. And I just went ahead and I served it. And that's that's where we've become in our culture.
Jeffrey Heine:We just lose patience. We think everything needs to be instant. I mean, seriously, how many of you order something on Amazon, and if it's not 2 day delivery, it's 3, you're like, oh, come on. 3 days. Some of us now get mad that it's a 2 day delivery.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, don't they have those drones? Shouldn't they like hit that there and like drop it at at my doorstep now? You even see kids losing their temper at Alexa. Yelling, Why are you so slow, Alexa? If you really wanna see somebody lose their temper, write them a check.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright? I've had somebody come in. You know, we we have food delivered to our house a lot for different meals, and I didn't have a tip. And I said, hey. Let let me write you a check.
Jeffrey Heine:And the guy goes, don't worry about it. I'm like, no. No. I mean, like, I'll I'll write it $20. He goes, it's not worth it.
Jeffrey Heine:And he just got out. Like, literally, it's not I'm gonna write it for 20. Not worth it. So so we're losing patience as a culture. The the final reason I I want us to look at patience, though, is that patience is commanded of us everywhere in scripture.
Jeffrey Heine:The new testament is just loaded with verses on patience. You'll begin to notice that now. For instance, Ephesians 4. Paul says, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness with patience bearing with one another in love. Colossians 3, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
Jeffrey Heine:1st Thessalonians 5. And we urge you brothers, admonish the idol, encourage the faint hearted, Help the weak. Be patient with everyone. Gosh. To me, this is 2nd Timothy 4.
Jeffrey Heine:Preach the word. Be ready in season and on of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience. Luke 8, story we're familiar with when Jesus gives the parable of the soils and the seed going on the soils. Well when you finally get to that good soil in which people hear the word of God and they receive it, we actually read that that soil is for those who hear the word of God and receive it and bear fruit with patience.
Jeffrey Heine:I never noticed that before. But it takes patience for the gospel to bear fruit in our lives. Those are just a small That's a small sampling of the many scriptures that are out there that deal with patience. It's not a minor topic. And then, of course, we have 1st Corinthians 13, which we just read.
Jeffrey Heine:It's Paul's epic chapter on love in which he gives this beautiful description of love and the first word he says is love is patient. Why does Paul list patience first in that list? There's actually a reason for it. There's a reason he doesn't mention kindness or or not taking into account a wrong suffered or anything like that first. He lists patience first for a reason because patience is the characteristic that is needed to let all of those other things grow.
Jeffrey Heine:To let all of those other things actually develop. Perhaps it'd be helpful for us to define patience. I've heard it defined this way. Patience is what you admire and the driver behind you and you hate and the driver in front of you. And there's actually that's probably a pretty good definition of patience.
Jeffrey Heine:If you have a older Bible translation, you might have the word long suffering. Long suffering. Patience is the ability to suffer for a long time. Sometimes we translate the word perseverance. Sometimes it is steadfastness.
Jeffrey Heine:Both of those carry with it that that connotation, that idea of suffering for a long period. Longer than we would normally want. I like to think of patience as this. Patience is the bridge that we have to anger. Patience is a bridge that we have to anger or to unkindness or to irritability or to loss of control.
Jeffrey Heine:Which is why we often talk about patience in terms of length. I am short on patience right now. I'm running out of patience right now. Kind of like the bridge is shortening. I'm coming to the end of it.
Jeffrey Heine:And when I get to the end of this bridge, I'm going to get angry. I'm going to become irritable. I'm going to become unkind. But we're to be patient, long suffering. It's not that we never get to anger.
Jeffrey Heine:It's just that we are slow to it. Actually, slow to anger is another way that the Bible defines patience. Once again, not saying you never get angry, but there is a slowness to getting there. Alright. So how do we grow in patience?
Jeffrey Heine:First we need to understand that this is actually something that we grow in. Alright? The reason I say this is important for us to understand because that is not how the world deals with impatience. Christians think that the way to deal with impatience is to grow in patience, but the world thinks that the way to deal with impatience is to eliminate the need for it. The world tries to eliminate as many situations as possible that will require patience.
Jeffrey Heine:If you are impatient with your slow internet, what do you do? You get faster internet. I mean, that's the solution. If you're impatient with how long it takes to cook, we just find faster meals, instant grits, frozen pizzas. Any other parents just kinda throw protein bars at their kids in between soccer practices?
Jeffrey Heine:I don't. I mean I mean if y'all do. I mean, so these judging eyes. If you're impatient with a relationship and where it's going, well, just move on to another relationship. That's how we deal with it.
Jeffrey Heine:Everything except for texting. We actually grow in patience with texting. Something that would take a 10 second phone call. Which covers like 30 texts. That's the only exception to the rule.
Jeffrey Heine:So the world's solution to impatience is to just get rid of the need for patience. But as we know, this is a very short term solution. Everybody here was once really happy with dial up internet, but there's there's no way you'd be happy now. You begin to lose patience. That right there is such an interesting phrase, lose patience.
Jeffrey Heine:Have you noticed we don't talk about any of the other virtues that way? We don't lose kindness. You don't lose goodness. You don't talk about losing joy even. But we talk about losing patience.
Jeffrey Heine:Here's the deal, we don't even take responsibility for it. Don't make me lose my patience. You're responsible for me losing my patience. We We don't talk that way about anything else. Don't make me lose my car keys.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, it's it's on it's that's on us. What is it about patience though that we blame another person for when we lose it? We don't do that with any of the other virtues. We don't talk that way about anything else in life, but we talk about that with patience. It's actually very revealing.
Jeffrey Heine:We don't actually lose patience. What we do though is we lose the props, the supports that we've been using to hold up and cover over our impatience. That's what we lose. In Colossians 1, Paul prays that we would be strengthened for all endurance and patience. He says patience requires an inner strength.
Jeffrey Heine:Impatient people are weak. Patient people have to be strong. Impatient people, they rely on these external props to hold up their fragile hearts. They depend on things like tight schedules. Things being on time.
Jeffrey Heine:Kids being able to find their shoes. No more than 2 people in a line at Walmart. They have to have the drive thru be faster than it would be than if you went inside and you got a meal. But if those things fall, if those props, if those supports crumble, their impatience is revealed. They lack the inner strength required for patience.
Jeffrey Heine:So how do we grow in this? How do we grow in patience? How do we get this inner strength that's required? Do we just work at it? Do we just practice patience?
Jeffrey Heine:You've probably heard that phrase before. You need to practice patience. Something we have to exercise. I I've read a number of articles that talk about ways you could practice patience. Let me just give you a few.
Jeffrey Heine:Of course there's the just count to 5 slowly. There's the, get 25 quarters and just lay them out in front of your desk. And every time you get to the office just slowly stack them in groups of 5 for no reason other than to develop patience. Another one was to get out a deck of cards and go through them just looking at each card one at a time. For no reason.
Jeffrey Heine:Just to develop patience. Any of y'all wanna do that? Any like Are y'all gonna do that tomorrow? There are many more and honestly I I'm not kidding. I got impatient reading them.
Jeffrey Heine:Maybe that was part of the way I could have practiced it, but but I failed. I I didn't have the inner strength required for that and so I I gave up and I moved on. But here's the deal, practice is not what is necessary for us to become a patient people. Repentance is what is necessary for us to become a patient people. It's repentance.
Jeffrey Heine:Impatience is a sin problem. And we should actually be thankful for those moments when we lose our patience, therefore we lose our temper, because in that short outburst that just kinda springs up, that short outburst, we actually gain this insight as to what's really going on in the dark recesses of our heart. Think of it when you lose your temper, it's like a flash of lightning and it just illuminates the things that we've been keeping deep and hidden in there. Perhaps, even hidden from ourselves. And it all bursts out in a moment.
Jeffrey Heine:And so we actually need to be thankful for those times. Don't ask others to be thankful for those times you're impatient, but it does give you an incredible insight as to what's really going on in there, and also gives you insight of what are the external props that have been covering over my impatience? What are some of the idols that I'm holding on to? When that flash of lightning hits, the sins that we see are selfishness and pride. The root sin of all impatience is pride, selfishness.
Jeffrey Heine:When we are impatient, we are saying, my way, not yours. I know what is best. I know how it should be going. I know the best path forward. And so impatience just reveals how selfish your heart is.
Jeffrey Heine:But even more than this, it reveals your pride. I want you to think of something that makes you impatient. Think of whatever that is and then ask yourself why is it that that thing makes you impatient? It's because you pride yourself on doing that very thing that you are now waiting on. You pride yourself on doing that very thing that you are now waiting on.
Jeffrey Heine:If if you are a forgetful person, you are not impatient with another person's forgetfulness. If you are chronically late to things, you are not impatient with other people who are late. If you have a hard time understanding something, you don't get impatient with somebody who is slow to learn. But if you pride yourself on always being on time, never forgetting anything, being a quick learner, then you have got a short bridge to anger. I can become quite impatient.
Jeffrey Heine:For me, it's it's with laziness. Laziness is is when that that lightning bolt hits me. If I see an eye roll from a child or a sigh When I asked them to pick up their shoes. Like like I've asked them to move heaven and earth to do something. I've just I've literally just said, would you would you put your shoes where they belong?
Jeffrey Heine:Slowly move forward there. I get incredibly impatient. Incredibly impatient when that happens. And the reason is that my anger is so short there that the bridge towards anger is so short. It's because I pride myself on hard work.
Jeffrey Heine:That's where I find my self righteousness. It's where I find my value. It's where I find my identity. Now, working hard is good. Working, there's nothing wrong with with working hard, but it's not why God loves you and your righteousness cannot be built on that.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not the source of your righteousness. And so my impatience towards laziness reveals the pride I have there. I'm also impatient with people who cannot make decisions. I just think just make a decision. It doesn't matter where we eat.
Jeffrey Heine:Just just make a decision. Or and and and it drives me so crazy. Once again, it's that flash of insight. What do you pride yourself on? Well, I pride myself on my decisiveness.
Jeffrey Heine:I can instantly assess the situation. No. This is what we're supposed to do right. And I base my righteousness upon that. And I look down on others who can't do that.
Jeffrey Heine:I need to repent of that pride. Here is the source of that pride. The source of the pride is this. You don't see God's grace as necessary in that area of your life. Has anybody ever told you this when you've lost patience with them?
Jeffrey Heine:They've said something, hey, I'm trying the best I can. Could you please show me a little, what's the word, Grace. Could you please just show me a little grace? That is so profound because grace is what's missing in our lives in that moment. Our understanding of grace is really at the heart of impatience.
Jeffrey Heine:Patience grows in us when we believe that God's grace is necessary for every good thing in our life. Impatience grows when we believe that we are fully capable of achieving those things apart from God. So if you are always kind and considerate of others, if you are always wise, if you can easily understand and grasp things the first time you hear them, and you believe that all of that was due to God's lavish grace upon you, then you will be a very patient person to those who don't have those same qualities. When people are slow to these things, they're gonna think that's that's okay. You know, I couldn't do those things apart from God's grace in my life.
Jeffrey Heine:However, if you believe that you are kind and you are considerate, that you're intelligent, you grasp things easily, and all of that is due to your own strength of will, you are gonna be incredibly impatient towards other people. Your bridge to anger is gonna be short. You're gonna think, what's wrong with you? I could do that. Why can't you?
Jeffrey Heine:It didn't take me any time to learn this. I only hear that only had to hear that once before I picked up on it. And our pride there becomes the reason for our lack of patience with a person. We don't see God's grace in our lives as necessary. As a matter of fact, your pride is in direct proportion to your lack of patience.
Jeffrey Heine:Your pride is in direct proportion to your lack of patience. As much as you demand an immediate response from someone is in direct proportion to the amount that you take credit for doing that same thing yourself. It's why pastors need extraordinary patience. Paul was right when he said I have to teach. I have to exhort with great patience.
Jeffrey Heine:Because how can I preach and teach things like the fruit of the spirit or things like that If I think I actually got those things from my own will? But if a pastor understands the grace of God in his life, every good thing he owns is due to God's grace. Well, then he becomes so patient in your teaching and preaching to others. So how do we grow in this patience that's required of us? We repent of our self centeredness, and we repent of our pride, and we look to Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:The gospel is the cure for our impatience. Think of how patient Jesus was with His disciples. I mean teaching and living with them for 3 years and yet they still didn't get it? I mean Jesus is like, no. Alright guys, huddle up.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. Here here's the house gonna all play out. I'm gonna go be crucified, I'm gonna die, and then I'll rise again in 3 days. All right? He walks away, like, what did Jesus mean by that?
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus comes back and says, okay guys, I don't know if you understood the first time, but I'm gonna die, I'm gonna rise again, That's gonna I mean it's gonna happen, and they're like what do you mean by that? This just happens over and over, yet Jesus was extraordinarily patient with them, And he has been equally as patient with us. Think how often you have taxed God's patience through your sin and unbelief. Think of all the times you have doubted His provision for you, yet he has an impeccable record of taking care of you. Or all the times that you've doubted God's love, yet you know the cross and you can see love on perfect display on the cross.
Jeffrey Heine:And yet in a situation like, well I just don't know if he really loves me. Pretty much, you could describe the theme of the Bible as God being slow to anger to sinners. He's slow in anger to us, and praise God for that. Can you imagine if God had your patience? What would that look like?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, if if God had my patience, I mean, if I wasn't smited the first time, you know, that I did something wrong, maybe maybe I I, you know, I can be kinda patient and allow somebody to hurt me 3 times, but after that, you know, lightning bolt would go down, alright? But God doesn't have my level of patience. He is slow slow to anger. Jen Wilkins, she wrote about patience in her book, in his image, And she says this, I like her description. She goes, Patience basically comes down to math.
Jeffrey Heine:And God is really good at math. She says that, We lose patience because we wrongly assess how long something will take and how much it will cost us. And that's why we say things like, I didn't think it'd take this long. And so we lose patience. Or I didn't think it'd cost this much.
Jeffrey Heine:And we lose patience. We're we're really bad at math at assessing a situation, and therefore we lose patience. But God is really good at math. He looks at our lives and he sees exactly how long it's going to take. He knows exactly how long it's gonna take for us to be conformed into his image and it's gonna take to eternity.
Jeffrey Heine:And actually when we begin to be patient, it shows that we understand that we will live forever. And we actually have this room to where we are hoping in the next life. But God knows how long it's gonna take for us to be conformed in His image. He's not surprised by our slowness. God's not looking down at me and going, oh gosh, I didn't know Joel would take that long.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, I mean, honestly, I thought it would just take a few years and like, this is just going on and on and on. I think I'll smite him. You know, like, he's he's not he's not like that. God looked at me and he knew exactly how long it would take for me to be conformed into his image. And he also knew how long it would cost.
Jeffrey Heine:It would cost his son. He knew the cost and he paid the cost. He wasn't surprised by it. He knew exactly what our sin and disbelief would cost him, and it was gonna be a great cost. It was gonna be the cost of his son Jesus, who paid it in full.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus is good at math here. In 1st Timothy 115, Paul says that he is the chief of all sinners. He doesn't say was, he say says he is the chief of all sinners. And he said, God decided to save him in order to display his perfect patience as an example for us. God looked at Paul and he says, I know how long this is gonna take.
Jeffrey Heine:Oh my gosh. And I know the cost it's gonna take. But hear me, I can save even Paul. I can be incredibly patient even towards someone like this. And I'm doing this so every one of you can take heart that I will be patient with you.
Jeffrey Heine:I am slow to anger. And when we look how God has been patient to us and slow in his anger to us and how he has paid the cost for us, Our hearts are melted. We are humbled. Pride is removed. And when pride is removed, patience can grow.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray with me. Lord Jesus, I pray that You would make us increasingly a patient people, so we can reflect more fully the character of Jesus. So I ask that through your spirit, we would grow in that area. We would grow in that fruit, all for our joy and for your glory. And we pray this in your sweet name, Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen.
