Wholesome Relationships IV, the Fruit of Patience

Follow along with me, and you'll need your outline definitely today, yeah. Need your outline today. In fact, Dolfo, if you'll go back and get me another bulletin real quickly, please. Good. Thanks. Okay, thanks. I just want to mention that I'm glad our God reigns, I just wish it wasn't so much on Sundays. Hard to get everyone moved around. Well, let's read it together, please. Galatians 5, 22 and 23, and I provided it for you in the overhead. If you don't have a Bible today, you can read with us from that. Here we go. I want you to read it with conviction today, because this is an important promise. This is the basis of this whole series we're doing on wholesome relationships, health food for wholesome relationships. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. And today, in our fourth message in this series, we're going to talk about patience. Now, I have the privilege of planning these series of messages, and to occasionally ask different individuals to help me in the preaching of these messages. I try to manipulate the topics so that I wouldn't have to preach this one. I wanted Jeff or Scott or Lee or, you know, bring in Malcolm Smith or somebody to talk about patience. You know, having me speak on patience is like having William Refrigerator Perry speak on the ultra-slim-fast plan, or Madonna on modesty, or Bill Clinton on foreign policy. Just thought I'd throw that in there. I mean, that's just not who I am. You know, I'm the guy that installed a turbocharger in my microwave. I'm on a quest for the two-minute oil change. I loved it recently when the cleaner that I go to to help keep my laundry in order, now, when he sees my car pull up, goes back and gets my order out and has it on the rack when I pull in. The first time he did, I said, how'd you do that? He said, well, I saw you. I mean, that's perfect. Now, if I could just get the fast food people to do that, we'd have a wonderful time. But before I go on repenting publicly, how many of you would help me out and say, hey, this isn't my strongest area either, huh? Amen. In fact, you know, I thought about putting the altar call right now. I thought this would be the time to bring everyone up and confess it. I was sharing with someone the other day what I was going to be talking about, and they said, you know, I don't have a problem with patience on my job, but as soon as I get home at night, that's when things just break loose. And, folks, this problem, I mean, it's pervasive. It is out there. Just the other day, I think it was on Monday, Carol and I were doing some errands, and we went to the bank. I walked in to do, you know, one little simple transaction. There was eight people in line. I said, this isn't for me. I got in the car, went around the drive-through. Pretty clever. Unfortunately, the drive-through teller was over there, helping to try to get the line down. So I'm watching as these eight people, and there was one guy at the first little teller window, kind of hunched over the counter, and he just did transaction. And I was watching the people behind him, you know, two, three, four, five minutes. I'm just watching. And first they were fidgeting. Then they were stone cold. Then you could see their temperatures rising. It was like 180, 190. And finally, you know, they started laughing, because eventually they had to break the ice of this stone. And this guy's just there. When he finally moved up, they cheered. I'd never seen that before. Another guy got down. And I wish I could tell you, like USA Today has told us about alcoholism, infidelity, and bankruptcy, that it's a genetic problem. They have, by the way, said those three things. I understand that someone's trying to... And wouldn't you wish that someone could develop a patient's pill? That you could just pop in right at the moment that you felt your temperature. It'd have to be fast acting. But no such thing seems to be on the horizon. This is a serious problem. Many scriptures alert us to the fact that if we're not careful, patients can undo us, or inpatients. Proverbs 14, 29. Anger causes mistakes. 22, 29, 22. A hot-tempered man starts fights and gets into all kinds of trouble. 15, 18. Hot tempers cause arguments. 14, 17. People with hot tempers do foolish things. All true. I was reading yesterday's newspaper. David, if you'll hand it to me, please. The local news record. The inside story was about one of the serious consequences of impatience and loss of control. Talking about the shaken baby syndrome. I don't know if you saw this yesterday, but how parental loss of control can literally cause serious damage, sometimes even death in little infants. And they give a whole list of different things that are indicators of that kind of thing. And don't put your hand up, but how many times did you want to shake your little kid when they wouldn't stop crying? In fact, I'll just go and tell you right now. You want to know one of the most interesting little applications of this whole message? Are the parents, and particularly moms that are here today, of young children. Many of whom, not many, but several of whom over the last year have come to me and said, I have a real problem. I've never had a problem with losing my temper until I had two or three little ones in my house. I mean, it can be really difficult. So the first cost, if you will, if we put this up on the overhead, of impatience, the first cost, Roman numeral one, the first cost of impatience is personal damage. I mean, literally, things can break apart. Some of us have had embarrassing moments because of impatience. Some of our kids have been embarrassed for us because of our impatience. Damage can take place, literally. Some of us have said something or done something that we deeply regretted in a moment of impatience and hot-temperedness. The second cost is an interesting one, one you might not really fully gather right out of the gate, and that is that anger and hot-temperedness can lead, literally, to depression. Did you know that repressed anger is the number one cause of depression? I had a person probably six months ago sitting in my office saying to me, I am so depressed, I don't want to get up. When I do get up, I want to go back to bed, or I try to think of a way that maybe today would be my last day on the earth. And the more I listened, the more I recognized they weren't just feeling bad, they were angry. They were angry about something that they hadn't been able to resolve, and the only way to deal with it was to push it way down in there. And by the way, many times that kind of deep anger is really the second emotion that somebody feels. Anger that spews out and anger that gets repressed, many times it's because something else that hurt even more deeply was just unavoidably confronted in our lives. And so a mom of three kids waits for her husband to come home for hours, five nights in a row, he's late finally, and the fifth night she stands at the door and says, well, it's about time. And she rants and raves and says, you might as well just go on and pay your hotel bill and leave again, because that's what you're going to do anyhow. But really, what's that anger all about? She's lonely and she's feeling abandoned. And sometimes it's just easier to deal with anger than it is that other deeper emotion. Anger really is the second emotion that we come to. And by the way, it really helps you from time to time if you can identify that when you're facing some kind of a confrontation with anger. The third thing that I see as a result, a cost, is broken relationships. You see, if that anger isn't processed, things begin to happen that can destroy relationships. I could go on so long here. I just don't know how many times I've seen this happen. I've seen impatience, the inability to hang in there, finally leading to somebody losing a love. A young man in his late 20s in our church fell in love, so he thought, with someone else who he really wanted to get married to in a hurry, because he felt, man, we've waited long enough, let's do it. And he began to push the relationship along. And I said, you know, you ought to just give time here, because the other person wasn't quite as ready as he was. I said, why don't you back off and just be a little bit patient, and let things go. He said, well, I just think this is right. I mean, I'm ready to go. And so he pushed it and pushed it, until finally his fiancée said, I can't deal with this anymore. And they lost the relationship. And I've seen it lots of different ways. But the place that I see it most is in our families. I mean, that's where most impatience and temper and anger really have the greatest damage, isn't it? That's when the little missiles start flying out of our mouth that we wish as soon as we launch them, we could pull them back in, but we can't. And that's when the parent says to the little boy, why don't you hit the ball? I've been doing this all afternoon, and you can't hit it yet. And that's when the mom says to the little daughter, you know, if that's the kind of help you're going to give me in the kitchen, just go on and get out of here. I can do better myself. You know, you know what I mean. And relationships get really stressed because of it. Look at Proverbs 11.29 on your outline, would you? It's right there on your outline, I think. Let me fumble around and get mine here. It says this. It says this. The fool who provokes his family to anger and resentment will finally have nothing worthwhile left. Powerful, isn't it? Number four, the fourth thing that I see is fractured faith. Now for the cool heads that are here right now kind of smugly saying, hey, not my problem. And there are some of you who are blessed with a certain ability just to kind of keep cool all the time. I have to also point out that there's an application of this whole message that has to do with patience with God. You see, some of us have been stressed to the max in our understanding of why God has been so long in coming through for us. We wonder, where's God when I've been calling out to Him? Why hasn't God come through? I'm tired of waiting, Lord. And inwardly, we're beginning to doubt whether or not God really cares at all. And I know this because I've talked to different ones of you and I've had conversations about God's delays in our lives. We want it to be like David wrote in Psalm 102, verse 2. In that day, David says, I call, answer me speedily. Psalm 102, verse 2. I'm in trouble, hear me speedily. The Hebrew word for speedily means right now, hurry up in this very hour. David was saying, Lord, I put my trust in you, but please hurry. And then David Wilkerson, who I believe has learned an awful lot about waiting on the Lord, says this. God is in no hurry. Gosh, isn't that true? How many times did Jesus run from one miracle to the next? You never see it. He doesn't jump at our commands. In fact, at times, you may wonder if he'll ever answer. You cry out, you weep, you fast and hope, but days go by, weeks, months, even years, and you don't receive even the slightest evidence that God is hearing you. First, you question yourself, something must be blocking my prayer, some hidden sin, maybe I am asking amiss, or perhaps my faith is too weak. You become perplexed, and over time, your attitude toward God becomes something like this. Lord, what do I have to do to get this prayer answer? You promised in your word to give me an answer, and I prayed in faith. How many tears must I shed? Now, folks, you may not have said those words, but I know that scores of you have thought those thoughts, and you've kind of lost patience with God. So I'm not sure which of the costs you're paying lately. Maybe all of them. Maybe only one. What is the cause? What is the cause of impatience in our life? Let's take a look at this. Well, let me give you the definition. Maybe this will help you. The definition of the word patience in the Bible is, and we have this on the overhead, macrothumo. Now, all of you wordologists there, you see two specific Greek words there, don't you, Steve? Two Greek words. Macro, which means what, everyone? Big, right, or huge, or long, and thumo, which means heat. See it? And basically what it's saying is patience means long-fused. Patience means I have a long fuse before I explode. I asked our construction people to get me a real long fuse, and it's kind of hard to get those things because they're kind of controlled substances, as it were. So I made one up. This is a long fuse. This is a person who has patience. It takes a long time to burn this all the way down before something really happens. This is where many of us live. This is macrothumo. This is having a short fuse. Now, you know what's interesting about anger? Anger in the Bible is not in and of itself wrong. In fact, if you read carefully, there's a number of scriptures that say the Lord demonstrates anger. But the Bible says he's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. One of the interesting applications of this, we don't have time to turn there, but maybe jot down, John 2, verses 14 through 17, Jesus walked into the temple, and he saw some stuff happening that he didn't like. He saw men exchanging and bartering and using money and selling animals and doing all kinds of stuff. And so he went down, and he said, what are you doing with this? And when they didn't respond, he took a whip of cords. I mean, what happened then? I mean, he drove them out. He just said, get out of here. And he was angry. And the Bible calls that righteous anger. So it isn't that expressing anger is always wrong. In fact, it really has to do with how long is your fuse. That's the real issue. Whether it has to do with, you know, your family and the people that are close to you, or whether it has to do with your patience with God, the question is, how long is your fuse? Is it long? So that when you finally do express, it's under, in a sense, it's a controlled anger. It's an appropriate anger. Or is it short? So that what happens is you blow up. Boom. That's the real question that we face. That's the difference between a person who has patience and a person who has impatience or anger. And dear ones, it isn't easy. I have to tell you, I've heard people say, well, just, you know, there's a simple formula to controlling your anger. An ABC formula. You know, acknowledge that you're angry, back up and see why you're angry, and then just confess that you're angry. And I want you to know, when you back your car out over the rake that you left out and you ask your 10-year-old to put away, and your tire goes boom, and you think, what was that? And then you realize it's the rake you asked your 10-year-old to put away. You don't have time to, you know, I'm angry right now. I like to want, just why am I angry? I just want to confess that I'm angry. What do you do? And you go through this thing, right? There isn't any little formula here. And the last thing that most of us do is say, oh, praise you, Lord. Praise you for the rake and for the $80 tire I'm going to buy. I just want to praise you. I mean, it's not that easy. In fact, I was told that there's literally a chemical release that happens when something like that takes place in our life. And this chemical is driving us to do and act in some way. So it isn't a matter of just shutting it down, but it is a matter of lengthening that fuse so that that burn that's happening there takes a lot longer to reach the keg, if you will. And during that period of time, you can begin to take a look at what's going on so that you might express anger appropriately. And by the way, you can control it, can't you? Anyone here ever been in a real battle with someone in your home? Let's just make it up. It would never happen. Most of you, of course. But you're going back and forth. And all of a sudden, the phone rings. And you go, hello. You want to talk to Carol? Sure. Honey, for you. Yeah, I know why you're laughing. You see, folks, under the cause of patience, ultimately, impatience... Now listen, this is the real meat here. The cause of patience and bursts of anger and short-fusedness is a fundamental lack of trust. That's really what it is. Rather than trust that God does have it under control, we seek to exert control. Rather than demonstrate a confidence in God's sovereignty in our circumstances, we seek to manipulate them so we can be sure that those circumstances are going the way we think they should. Impatience is nothing more than taking over for God. Hello? Now, we don't think about it in those terms, but that's what it is. Many illustrations in the Bible. Do you remember when Saul was told that Samuel was going to come and give an offering about 1 Samuel 17 or something? He said, I'm going to come and we're going to exalt the Lord together. And Samuel was delayed in coming and Saul finally said, hey, we've had these victories. We're just going to go ahead and offer to the Lord now anyhow. What he basically showed in his impatience was that, God, it's not going the way I think it should nor the way that I supposed it would, so I'm going to go ahead and take over and I'm going to play God. And what did Samuel say when he got there? Not a good thing, Saul. In fact, you're going to lose the whole kingdom over this. That's a powerful story. If you don't know, you may want to look it up later and read it. It's a powerful story of what happens when we play God, when we get in a hurry to make things happen for God. We don't usually understand that delays many times are God's ordained pauses to bring about something that only He can do. I'm convinced on your outline that there are two reasons why God delays His answers to us. And this goes particularly to that point number four, those of you who have a struggle with your faith. Number one, it's to prepare the stage for Him to do something that only He can do. If you've been waiting on God and He hasn't come through and you're anxious maybe to do it yourself, it may just be because God is preparing to do what only He can do. So don't get in the way of God, but just wait for Him. Great story that you can read about later as well. In 2 Kings 6, around verse 33, you'll see the story of how God came and defeated the enemies of the people of Israel, even though they had thought God had forgotten about them. The Lord said, just wait and I'll take care of it. And the second reason why I believe God allows us to wait and have some delays in our answers is to shape our character. And there's so many scriptures that talk about it. So many times I read that God says, rejoice in those times of delay because it's in those moments that I'm doing what only I can do. Romans 5, verse 3 and 4. We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces patience and patience character and character produces hope. So what we really demonstrate in our patience, dear ones, in our anger, our temper, is a fundamental lack of trust. Trust in the hand of God overseeing our life, trust in the power of God to intervene and trust in the timing of God to provide for us. Well, you're saying, all right, I know, I agree. That's right. I need to change. So what do I do about it? Let me close with this. What's the cure for impatience? Use. All right. I already warned you. There's not a formula here. So this is going to be sort of a process. Are you ready for it? Number one, worship the Lord. You see, if you begin to recognize God's perspective in your life, a whole lot begins to happen. And dear ones, if I can just maybe encourage you a little bit here, the best thing, if you find yourself struggling with patience and having a short fuse, what you can ask the Holy Spirit to do, and this is a fruit of the Spirit, is to show you just how patient God has been with you. And I want you to know one of the most convicting things that I face in my impatience is the fact that I know that God many times would have been justified just to go right ahead and step on me. But he's patient and slow to anger. And so, Lord, I worship you for that. You're abounding in steadfast love. Let me read you this. Just jot down Psalm 86, verse 15. But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. And dear ones, that means then also that I can worship him for the fact that he does have things under control and nothing's going to get away from God. I'm going to know God isn't waking up today surprised by circumstances. Jeremiah 32, 17. Ah, sovereign Lord, you've made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing. Everyone say that. Nothing. Everyone say it. Nothing is too hard for you. And so I can worship you. Day by day, worship the Lord for his patience towards you. You know, ultimately, by the way, any character flaw, anything that is less than what Jesus would have in our lives is just an evidence to me that we haven't received. It is. Most people fall short because they haven't learned to receive from God. And once you receive the patience of God in your life, things begin to change. And that needs to be a daily exchange. Day by day, as we were saying earlier. Short fuse people who come face to face with a long fuse of God toward them, worship him, and find in the midst of his presence that God mysteriously seems to lengthen their own fuse. The second thing you can do is to wait on him. Now, that's not the same thing. Worshipping is proactively demonstrating your love. Waiting on him is to listen to him while he fills in for you the blanks in your life. David says in Psalm 40 in verse 1, I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry. Habakkuk 2 verse 3, For the revelation awaits in appointed time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay. Dear ones, I want to recommend something. In your morning quiet times, I'm not a great journaler. I mean, I don't stand up here and say I've learned how to really effectively journal. But every day, every day, I seek to write down something of what the Lord has spoken to me about that day and about my life. And I can't tell you the number of times that God's given me in those waiting moments a perspective on a relationship, a circumstance, a problem that I wouldn't have had otherwise. And I'm convinced that it's in the context of waiting that God gives a supernatural grace. Best illustration I can think of happened about six or eight months ago. I was with a group of pastors from the whole Pittsburgh area out on a prayer summit. We went out to Ligonier. And I was there for the whole day. And we'd sought the Lord from early in the morning all day long. We were praying. And late in the evening, late afternoon, about 5 o'clock, I called the office just to check in. We were getting ready for dinner. And there was some unusual kinds of stirring going on in the office. And finally, I forget who got on the phone, but someone got on and said, Jay, we've got to tell you something. One of the employees accidentally got all disoriented and rammed a truck into the portico and knocked it down. And there was a long silence, kind of like right now. I think they're kind of waiting to see if the receiver would, like, thermonuclear explosion. First thing I said was, is he okay? They said, well, he was shaken up, but he's okay, I said. Then there was another long silence. I said, well, stuff happens. I mean, that's just the way it is, okay? No big deal. Now, it was a big deal. I just want to submit to you, I might have had a different reaction had I just been in sort of a normal mode. But instead, I mean, I just had, and I know everyone on the other end of the phone is like, what's wrong with him? I mean, you see, you know, I don't want to give the impression I'm walking around with a bat. That's not it. But you know what? I found being with God all day made it kind of, you know, I thought, boy, I wonder if God can handle that portico problem. Well, he did. He sold the whole building. I mean, that solved that problem. Amen? Now it took some working out and, you know, things, but God has it under control. You say, well, that's all great. I can understand worshipping the Lord and I can understand wedding. But I still need help in those moments. And by the way, you know, when I walked off the platform last week with Jeff, and Jeff was finishing his message on peace, he said, next week you're talking about patience. He said, good luck. Hope you have a good week. Because he and I, and all of us who bring the Word up here have discovered that whatever you're preaching on, you're going to have to live. And I had my moments this week. I had, you know, I had one this morning. What do you do right in the midst of the battle? Let me just share with you, in conclusion, the third thing, whisper. Whisper the name of Jesus. And that isn't always easy to do, but I want you to know, if you can just get His name on your lips, something begins to turn around. Powerful stuff happens. Just get His name on your lips. Jesus, I need help right now. I find there's a contradiction between the name of Jesus and a short fuse. And when I find the ability just to whisper that name, just to get it on my lips, some things begin to happen. I mean, I just, I experienced it earlier today. When I whisper His name, I find that God helps me just get it into perspective real quickly. The second thing I find is, when I whisper His name, demon powers and folks, they're out there, demon principalities can't ride in and try to make something worse. How many of you find that what happened after you lost it was worse than what you lost it over? Did I say that right? That's right, isn't it? Why is that? Because demonic activity, and by the way, just a little note for all of you who are at least a little bit in touch with this, in two months, two months from today, Charles Craft from Fuller Seminary, wonderful intellectual but spiritually sensitive man is going to be here for a weekend seminar on understanding how demons operate from a rational point of view. It's going to be a powerful weekend. He wrote the book, Defeating Dark Angels, which I think is one of the best sort of manuals for understanding that activity that's out there today. He says, I've discovered the demons will ride in. I mean, we'll open the door for them and let them in. And they'll take a situation that couldn't be all that bad and suddenly make it a whole lot worse. I don't know if you've... I've discovered that lots of times. And so in that book, I mean, he tells many different stories about just how he deals with that. He says this, I live with the assumption that Satan and his followers are anxious to harass me. They're constantly looking for ways to either induce things to go wrong or to piggyback on things that are already wrong. So if I'm snared in an argument, caught in heavy traffic, feel like I'm being cheated, or frustrated in search for something lost, all of which, by the way, would probably cause some impatience in us. All these things signal to me to command evil spirits to get out of my affairs. Sometimes I say the words out loud, sometimes in my spirit. Either way, the enemy hears what I say and he obeys. You see, when you say the name of Jesus, Satan is not able to get in and make those situations worse. The third thing that I find is this, when I speak his name, it reminds me that no matter how bad the situation, no matter how many tires I blow out or how many lamps I replace or whatever, there's always resurrection power available in any situation. And so I can whisper that name and right away, I'm already seeing God work all things together for good because I love him. I've got a ways to go in this one. Fortunately, despite your holy appearances right now, so do you. And I think together we may become a lot more godly. Let's stand and pray.