Patience 1 – 5/18/08  Dennis Mullen

                  Today’s lesson is on patience.

            I don’t know about you, but some of my biggest tests with patience happen over the dumbest things.  Waiting an extra two minutes in line at the bank.  Choosing the slowest line at the grocery store than counting each person leaving the store ahead of me who got into another line AFTER me!  (I always feel like they’re looking back and laughing at me!) 

            Teaching the elementary school kids on Wednesday night for the past two years has given me a shot at learning patience in a new way for me.  Sometimes the kids come in wired and energetic, ready for action (which is new for me - adults rarely come to church that way) and I want to harness that energy and channel it into learning, but that is hard and it requires patience (and even teaches patience when I’m open to learn).  Adults - parents, teachers, youth leaders at church - have to be wise enough to practice patience when almost anything else seems more natural.  When I was in sixth grade, I went to a youth camp, and there was this counselor, a guy in his 20s that all of us boys identified as a really cool guy.  He was teaching us about the ropes course one morning and we were acting up and having a good time, and all the sudden he just totally lost it and blew up at ME - the smallest, most innocent, least threatening guy in the camp!  I don’t blame him.  I was probably doing something irritating while he was trying to talk.  I’ve done the same with kids. But the problem is, whatever else we were doing that day is long forgotten and I remember being embarrassed, even humiliated, by this guy because of a lack of patience.  Patience in teaching, and parenting - patience wisely stewarded - is an expression of love.

            Today and next week, I’m trying something new, which will affect some of you in a positive way.  In here, we’re covering the same topic and some of the same Scriptures as the kids will cover in Jr. Church and in their Sunday night youth groups.  IOW, if you happen to have kids in K-5 and they’re in Jr. Church (the 9a program) and/or Sunday night (6p), you’ll both be hearing a lesson on the same topic from the Bible (though, of course, I’ll be simplifying it for your benefit).  That gives you the opportunity to engage them in discussion about it on the drive home or at the dinner table this afternoon, or at a family prayer time you might have before bed.  In fact, the take home sheet that they usually get is in YOUR bulletin today for that purpose.

            What they’re learning about is patience.  Actually, today is their third lesson in a four-part series on it, and I hope to stay with them through at least next week.

            The definition of patience presented to the kids:  “Waiting until later for what you want now”.  That’s a specific kind of patience we adults often call delayed gratification.  It’s very important to learn that when you’re young, and to keep learning it when you get older.  Delayed gratification is the kind of patience that keeps me from buying everything I want today, borrowing the money if I have to.  Delayed gratification says that if we have a cherry pie in the fridge, I eat one piece after supper, and then put it away and don’t touch it again until the next night (still working on that).  Delayed gratification is the kind of patience that understands God’s will to keep sex and marriage together.  Delayed gratification is the kind of patience that Jesus appeals to when he talks about being faithful now, being generous with what you have and even living simply so others can simply live - all because you have treasure in heaven.

            Delayed gratification.  Patience.  Waiting until later for what you want now.  Last week for the kids, the bottom line was:  “If you don’t wait, it could cost you.”  Today:  “If you don’t wait, it could hurt others.”

            A good general definition of patience.  Waiting on God when YOU are ready to move.  Israel had to learn it, not just as individuals, but as a nation.  400 years of slavery, waiting for deliverance.  40 years of wandering in the wilderness, waiting for God’s judgment to be fulfilled against a rebellious generation before they could enter the Promised Land.  Finally, with the death of Moses, a new day dawned, and it was time to go.  But they couldn’t just walk in.  There was a war to fight.

            Joshua was now the leader of Israel, and he sent two spies to check out the land, especially the city of Jericho (because each city was a battle of its own).  So these spies went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

            I guess they weren’t very good spies because it says that they were spotted and identified immediately.  The king of Jericho was told, "Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land."  So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: "Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land."

            But Rahab was cunning.  She knew who these men were and she had in mind to press an advantage with them, so she hid them on her roof, buried them under some stalks of flax that were up on the roof to dry.  So she told the king’s men:  "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.  At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don't know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them." So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.

            Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, "I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.  We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone's courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.  Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death."

            The spies swore by their own lives that if Rahab kept quiet and helped them escape, she and her family would be spared.  The deal was this:  Tie a scarlet cord in your window.  Anyone you care about, get them inside your house, because that scarlet cord will be your symbol of salvation.  Anyone who sees it will identify you as a friend, and anybody in your house will be spared.  If someone goes out into the street, their blood is on their own head.

            So Rahab let them down by a rope through her window which happened to be a window in the city wall (a major security hole of course), and the spies fled to the hill country and spent three days there in hiding until they were sure that the soldiers from Jericho had given up looking for them.  Then they returned to Joshua and said:  "The LORD has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us."

            Because of this incident which was an act of simple faith on Rahab’s part, she was pretty well thought of in the NT:  In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?  James 2:25 

            The story of Rahab and the spies has a lot of good lessons in it - on bravery, on God’s judgment, even on the relationship of real faith and action - Rahab didn’t just SAY she believed in the God of Israel.  She knew that if she didn’t do something, she would perish along with everyone else in Jericho, so her faith was meaningless until she took some action and even identified herself as a believer by hanging that red cord in the window.

            But what does it have to do with patience?

            For the little guys and girls in Jr. Church, maybe the toughest part of the story is picturing those guys lying still under those stalks of flax for hours at a time.  If I was teaching Jr. Church today, I’d probably have them all lie still under flax for 45 minutes just to get the lesson across.  Or maybe the hardest part is thinking about those spies, loaded up with good news, not being able to run straight back to Joshua, but having to hide out in the hills for days until they were sure that their enemies had gone home.  Both of those acts required extreme patience, waiting till later for what you want now, and it’s easy to see how the big idea comes into play too:  “If you don’t wait, it could hurt others.”  A failure in patience on the part of these spies would have been failure of the mission.  The spies would have been killed, their families would have been grieved, and Joshua would have been left wondering what happened.  Patience...waiting...without it, you might hurt someone.

            Where is this most applicable in your life?  For me it’s definitely at those times when I’m irritated or downright angry and I want to lash out at someone and tell them what I REALLY think...only what I REALLY think isn’t what I REALLY think, just what I happen to think when I’m angry and don’t see clearly.  Parents face this temptation a lot, the temptation to throw patience out the window and get really angry.  But we face the same temptation at work, or at dinner with uncles and grandparents and cousins who can’t seem to get it together, and even in church when some opinionated brother spouts off for the fourth time today in Sunday School.  That’s why we need reminders like this one in Colossians 3:12-14 -  12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.  Patience means waiting for the anger to subside before dealing with someone.  If you don’t wait, it could hurt others.

            Another time I need patience is when I try to teach people the Word of God, and they just don’t listen.  They either get distracted by other things, or they hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest (leaving with the very same prejudices they came in with) or they just don’t seem to get it.  If you teach Sunday school or lead a youth group, you may have the same frustrations.  After that six-week study on purity, you learn two weeks later that one of your best students is having sex with his girlfriend, a different girlfriend than the one last year.  Or after a whole VBS built around the sins of the Rich Young Ruler, you find that every kid’s heart’s desire is a xBox and an nVy. 

            Many of us who teach or preach want to use such rejection as the excuse to shake the dust off our feet (as Jesus told the disciples to do once) and quit (which he never told them to do), but I’m convinced that there is a more appropriate passage for those frustrations, and it is 2 Timothy 4:1-5 - 1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

            That’s all one paragraph in the NIV, but I often hear it separated into two conflicting ideas - one being to Preach the Word, and the other being that the time will come when people won’t put up with sound doctrine.  Those things go together and patience is the glue that keeps us sticking at it when it is least being heard and obeyed. 

            Patience is waiting till later for what you want now...when what you want now is to quit.  If you don’t wait, it could hurt others. 

            That brings us to the reason for it.  How many of us are here in God’s house, listening to God’s Word, trying to live as Christians because of someone’s patience?  All of us.  This church wouldn’t be here without those who waited patiently for it and worked patiently on it until it came about in 1965.  These Bibles wouldn’t be here for us to read without tens of thousands who worked patiently on them, and who patiently endured persecution from those who didn’t want the Bible to spread. 

            How many of us are here because of a Sunday School teacher didn’t give up on us our or rowdy class, but prayed patiently and worked patiently and maybe never saw a real harvest, but did it out of love of the Lord?  For me it was, in addition to teachers, a praying grandmother, who was for many years the only active Christian in my whole family.  She didn’t give up because it took awhile, but with great patience she kept at it, and certainly it would have hurt us if she hadn’t been able to wait patiently.

            But the most important case of patience for all of us is described by Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15-17 - 15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. 17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

            Now just consider these simple lessons.  Patience is waiting until later for what you want now.  And if you don’t wait, it could hurt others.  What God wants is us, as his children.  From our perspective, some of us made him wait a long time.  What if he were one to give up? 

            So you see, as is often the case, our reason for treating others with patience begins with the fact that this is how God treats us, and how he HAS treated us since before we were aware of him!

            And now, one of the greatest and most important virtues we can live and teach...is to return the favor.  So many of our sins come because we refuse to wait till later.  He has promised joy and life.  But we can’t wait for him to deliver, so we’ll take the shadows, the poor copies, the type of pleasure or riches that end up costing more than we could imagine.  And so, this: 

    JAS 5:7 Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near.

            Is there something you need to wait for?

            Something that, if you jump into it now, it’ll hurt someone?

            Something that you need to trust God with for a bit longer?

            Turn it over to him now in this moment of silent prayer.

 Psalm 27:14 Wait for the LORD;
       be strong and take heart
       and wait for the LORD.     

Morrison Hill Christian Church
P.O. Box 59 - 1008 E. Race St.
Kingston, TN  37763   (865) 376-5205