I think the basic place to start this morning as we talk about this idea of patience is to make an important and unfortunate, I suppose, observation, and that would be this. If you take a list of all of God's favorites, take a look at a list of all of God's favorites in the Bible, and look how much they suffered. That is an essential truth that really guides our understanding and expectations for the Christian life. Look at God's favorites, and look at how much they suffered. Look at how much he allowed them to suffer. And, you know, if we can figure out this morning kind of what's behind that truth, well, I think that'd be a pretty good use of our time.
What's going on there has to do with patience, and specifically God's priority that each of his people learn how to be patient.
I don't know if you've noticed, but life doesn't come with a fast-forward button. You can't skip the hard parts. I'm glad it doesn't come with a fast-forward button, because my wife would accidentally sit on it in an important part of the movie. But you can't skip the hard parts, and the question is kind of like, well, okay, fair enough, but why are there hard parts at all? And once again, this has to do with the value that God places upon patience.
Now, I like to, when I can, give you kind of a biblical overview of a theme like this, something so integral to the Christian life, and I want to just share with you kind of like three categories for patience that you'll find in the Bible. And the first one I'll just call farmer patience. The second one I'll call brother patience, and the third I'll call sufferer patience.
What is farmer patience? Farmer patience is the unique one on the list in some respects, because it is a positive patience. It's not necessarily reactive. Farmer patience is essentially this idea that you do good things, and in the short term, you have nothing to show for it. You have to wait for the seeds that you planted to grow, and in the meantime, you have to keep planting more seeds. Patience, a good verse for farmer patience. There's a lot of verses about patience in the New Testament in particular. Many of them are referring to farmer patience. And one of the best ones that I know, one that I quote to myself all too often, is Galatians 6, 9, where Paul says, let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So this is the kind of patience, this farmer patience, this is the kind of patience you need to work in anonymity, without being recognized, to work in a situation that may be beneath your potential or your capacities. This is the kind of patience you need to read your Bible day after day after day, when frankly, on some of the days that you do read your Bible, you experience really crummy things. It's not evident to you that this reading your Bible thing is paying off in the short term. This is the kind of patience you need to read a book, to stick to a diet, to raise a family.
The second kind of patience that we see in the scripture is what you might call neighbor or brother patience. And this one is reactive. It's the patience that is expressed, that needs to be expressed, when other people's sins, weaknesses, quirks, so forth, irritate you, or offend you, or even hurt you. I found an old letter between C.S. Lewis and his brother, and both of them were talking about this elderly Anglican priest that they knew, who talked too much. And they were just talking to each other about, you know, so what? We're called to be patient. This is a brotherly patience. A good verse for this would be Colossians 3, 12 through 13, where Paul instructs the Colossians, Brother, patience is a bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. This is the kind of patience you need in traffic, the kind of patience you need to stick in a church over a long period of time, the kind of patience you need in marriage. Anywhere where you're rubbing elbows with other fellow sinners, you need this brother-slash-neighbor patience.
6 · Defines sufferer patience as the endurance required when unforeseen calamity strikes
The third category of patience we find in the scriptures is the patience of a sufferer. This is the kind of patience that you need when circumstances are hard, and they just kind of hit you out of nowhere. A simple verse for this would be Romans 12, 12, Be patient in tribulation. You need sufferer patience when you get sick. It's always interesting to see some of you high output, high energy people get sick for a while. See all the existential torment you go through, having to hold still for a bit. This is the kind of patience. I saw that. I saw that, ladies. This is the kind of patience you need when you get sick. This is also the kind of patience you need when you get persecuted. It's something that's hit you that you just have to sit through. This is the kind of patience you need when a famine hits the land. This is the kind of patience you need when you miscarry.
7 · Pivots from taxonomy to Joseph narrative
So those are the three kinds of patience, I think, generally in the Bible. I might have missed a kind, but I believe that relatively sums up the categories. Here's the thing. One of the primary lessons we learn from the story of Joseph is that you and I cannot live the life God wants us to live until we learn these three forms of patience. That's a primary lesson that we take away from the story of Joseph.
8 · Opens the Joseph narrative by establishing his diligent work ethic in shepherding and the unjust outcome—nearly killed and sold into slavery despite doing excellent work
Let's just talk about the story of Joseph and see all of this patience at work. Farmer patience, not growing weary and doing good. Brother patience, bearing with people who have failed you. And sufferer patience, handling the unforeseen calamity, the hard thing. Well, the first thing we see in the story of Joseph is that he is doing the humble work of shepherding while having a dream, two dreams that God gave him, of him ruling over his family. We'll return to these dreams later on. You know, I don't think I'd ever noticed this before, but when you read chapter 37 carefully, you'll see that it's actually probably only Joseph out of all the brothers who are doing a good job. Joseph's probably the only one who's doing a good job. I won't support that right now. You can go back and read chapter 37 and see if you agree. He took his job seriously. He did it excellently. And for his troubles, he nearly winds up being killed by his brothers. Then he is sold into slavery.
9 · Narrates Joseph's journey to Egypt as a slave, emphasizing the existential crisis point where diligent effort yielded only suffering and the real threat of death
Now, the Bible says that he's carried down into captivity to Egypt. And think about that for a moment. Chapter one of the Joseph story is diligence, work ethic, effort. Chapter two of the Joseph story is being bound and thrown into some kind of cage or being forced to walk while being bound all the way down to Egypt. And here's where the temptation to grow weary and doing good could come. It's just making this long journey down to Egypt. By the way, people routinely killed their slaves. I think one of the things to notice about this story is not that the brothers wanted to spare Joseph's life. They just didn't want his blood directly on their hands. Tom Holland's book, Dominion, has wonderful treatment of how slaves were handled in the ancient world. And the truth is that they were just disposable. So the most likely outcome in selling Joseph was death. Eventually. And so Joseph's really being walked down into a foreign land. And he's got a moment to reflect and to see this actual true observation. I was diligent and faithful and worked hard. And it got me nowhere.
10 · Narrates Joseph's second cycle of diligent work in Potiphar's house followed by unjust punishment
Now he arrives in Potiphar's home. And we see this farmer's patience emerge again. He goes right back to doing excellent work. Even though the last time he did excellent work, it got him into trouble. And so though his previous efforts had only yielded trouble, he goes back and does good work again. And once again, he winds up being punished for being a good guy. For being faithful. It's easy for him to see at this stage that there's a trend developing. When I try, I lose. So he winds up in prison. It's the end of chapter 39.
11 · Narrates Joseph's third cycle of faithful effort in prison, now adding brother patience as he serves the cup-bearer who then forgets him
And we see him there in prison resisting two opportunities to find discouragement and despair. We see him there in prison doing what he had done the previous two times. Working his rear end off. Being diligent. Being faithful. Exercising farmer's patience. In the midst of that effort, he extends kindness to two of Pharaoh's servants who had wound up on the bad side of the king and were in prison with Joseph. And he helps those guys out too. And says to the one, hey, just remember me when you get out of prison. Because you'll probably get out of prison in the next couple days. Joseph has some hope. It appears that his long story of suffering has come to an end. Because in a few days, the Lord has shown him, he will be released. Not Joseph, but one of the prisoners. And in that release, Joseph assumes he himself will also be released. But guess what happens? The one to whom he showed kindness forgot about him.
12 · Theological analysis of Joseph's triple temptation: cynicism about work, people, and God
So if you look at all of the people that Joseph has served so far, you see ingratitude, jealousy, absent-mindedness, forgetfulness. And once again, you could imagine Joseph thinking, well, look what all of this faithful effort has brought me. It's brought me nothing. Because people are terrible. And now he's getting blackpilled. Not only on work, but also on people. And also on God, potentially. But God kind of puts this supernatural force field over his heart. God protects him from what is the most likely outcome. And that would be bitterness, despair, resignation, impatience, and so on and so forth.
13 · Narrates the resolution of Joseph's story—20 years from enslavement to vindication
And so eventually, two years after he was forgotten about, two more years in prison, he winds up being sprung out by the Lord's providential care. And then what kind of job is he given? He's given a job that won't pay off for seven years at the most. He's given a job to acquire. He's essentially given a job to do what he himself has done. And so that's his sort of story. We see now that Joseph, if we add it all up, all the timelines that I consulted show that Joseph was in Egypt for 20 years before he could clearly see God's plan. Egypt had plenty of food because of God's plan. Joseph's brothers were saved because of God's plan. Joseph himself was elevated to the position he dreamed about years prior, where he was indeed the leader of his whole family.
14 · Draws the theological conclusion from Joseph's narrative
And throughout this whole period, Joseph is living all of these categories of patience. He learns how to suffer and not grow bitter. He successfully evades what is essentially attitudinal cancer. Attitudinal cancer being owning victim status as a primary explanation for one's identity. And he had good reason to put that name tag on and own it. But the Lord, again, the Lord's protecting him. I don't want to credit Joseph. Right? I want to credit the Lord and show you the miracle the Lord is doing, not only in providential circumstances, but honestly, those providential circumstances would come to naught if God didn't also consistently work in Joseph's heart. He has to do both things in order for this story to turn out like it ought to. And the point in recounting that story is simply to say that without patience, without these three forms of patience, Joseph would not have become who he became. Likewise, you and I are laden with potential, but that potential will come to very little if we do not learn patience. These three forms of patience.
15 · Pastoral aside addressing the theological tension between sovereignty and human responsibility
Let me just talk a little bit more about potential for a minute. So, some of you know I'm a Calvinist. That means that I believe that God is sovereign over all things. And I got there because of the Bible. I read the Bible when I was 16 years old, on the back porch of my parents' house, on a sunny day. I read through Romans in a single day. I read through Ephesians that same day. And I didn't come from that particular theological background, and I certainly didn't know that there was even a name for what I was adopting, but I just came to the conviction that God is sovereign over salvation in what now I know is a monergistic way. I got that from the Bible, but I also got something else from the Bible. What I do matters. What I do matters. And like the stewards in the parable of the talents, I'm responsible for taking what God has given me and doing what I can in his strength to maximize the return of his investment in me. And so when I talk about potential, don't let your belief in sovereignty turn into fatalism or determinism. You have potential that God gave you, and as far as we can see in the word of God, you are responsible for what you will do with that. And the reason why I bring that up is to say this. The main reason patience is needed is for you to live up to all that you could be.
16 · Establishes the dual purpose of human existence—bearing God's image and building a world—then proves that patience is essential to both
Let me explain it this way. You exist for two things. You exist for two things. Number one, you exist to bear the image of God. And number two, you exist to build a world. What do I mean by build a world? I mean to be a ruler and subduer, take dominion, be fruitful and multiply. Each of you is a part of a particular little world that God has given you that you're called to animate, to decorate, to maximize, and so on and so forth. So what do I mean by potential? This is who you were created to be. You were created to be an image bearer and you were created to build out a world. Just like Joseph built out a little world, a little microcosm of God's kingdom, if you will. And the reason why I say that you need to have patience to reach your potential is in part because you can't successfully reflect God unless you are patient. What do we know about God? What are we going to see time and time again in the book of Exodus about God? Well, look at Exodus 34, 6. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed to Moses, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That might be one of the most quoted passages in all of the Old Testament. Page after page, we see God's steadfast love proclaimed, his patience. Now, remember, you're created to reflect God into the world. You're created to bear the image of God. God is patient, and so you must be patient. In order for you to fulfill your potential as an image bearer, you must learn patience. In fact, Paul tells us in 1 Timothy that he believes that he was saved simply to reflect the patience of God. 1 Timothy 1, 15. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. My argument would be this. You were literally saved to teach other people that God is patient. You were literally saved to bear the patient image of God in a world that is full of gaps between your effort and your achievement, that is full of people rubbing you the wrong way, that is full of irritating situations, that is full of calamities and tragedies.
17 · Theological reinterpretation of what Joseph provided his brothers
Now, think about this. When we see what Joseph provided his brothers, we tend to think, well, yes, God worked all this so that his brothers wouldn't starve to death. Yes and amen. My proposition is that they were theologically already quite malnourished. We can see that in their behavior. And my proposition is is that the best thing that Joseph provided the brothers was a proper view of God who works all things according to the good of those that love him. In the last kind of concluding moment of this story, Joseph says to his brothers who are terrified that he will retaliate, Joseph says, do not fear for am I in the place of God? As for you, you met evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. See, yeah, he fed them food, but he also fed them spiritual food. He showed them something about the nature of God that I think they really had forgotten. And I believe that when we see in Exodus that the Jews just keep getting bashed in Egypt and they just keep making babies. I'm not sure those two things are just coincidental. I think a particular theological vision was imparted to them through Joseph about the way that God works so that they endured the suffering in a way that they thought to be most strategic. And that is, let's just plant more seeds. The Joseph seed wound up saving us. Let's just plant a lot of seeds. That's probably the best thing we can do right now.
18 · Restates the dual purpose thesis and explicitly rejects the minimal Christian life
So, when I mean potential, one thing I mean is is that you are an image bearer of God. God is patient, therefore you must be patient. The second thing I mean is is that you are called to create a world. You are called to rule and subdue, to be fruitful and multiply, not merely to simply exist from weekend to weekend, from fun thing to fun thing. You're called to build like this incredible little microcosm of the kingdom of God.
19 · Applies farmer patience to legacy-building
And you can't do that without patience. Unless you have farmer patience, you won't be able to successfully navigate the gap between effort and outcome. And if you can't navigate that gap, you're toast. You're not going to build anything. There is always in things worthy of being built a gap between the seed planted and the thing harvested. There's that old saying, great men plant seeds for trees the shade of which they will never sit under. You're called to make a big thing. You're called to build a legacy. And you can't do that living from one cheap dopamine hit to another.
20 · Applies brother patience to legacy-building
number two. You can't do this unless you have brotherly patience. I see a lot of men buying in to this idea of farmer patience and of building a world, but these men have never learned to significantly, consistently overlook the faults of their fellow saints. And so, in any kind of effort like this, a legacy effort, you need friends, you need allies, you need brothers. And if you can't learn how to rub elbows with fellow sinners and be patient, well, you're not going to build anything.
21 · Applies sufferer patience to the inevitable destruction and loss that accompanies kingdom work
And not only that, but you need sufferer patience because sometimes the thing you built will be destroyed. Sometimes you will live the little microcosm of Job. And here's where that can go wrong. Very often, people in that moment, when the sickness hits, when the suffering comes, they self-sabotage. They overreact, they act out against God, and wind up tearing down the very thing God was doing in their lives.
22 · Previews the Exodus series by framing Israel's wilderness wandering as a 40-year case study in failed patience
As we turn to the book of Exodus in a couple weeks, we're going to find people who kept self-sabotaging for lack of patience. Fundamental plot line of the book of Exodus, a journey that only needed to take a few weeks took 40 years. Why? Impatience. Grumbling. Dissatisfaction with God in difficult circumstances.
23 · Signals transition to conclusion and reiterates the central claim: patience is non-negotiable
Now, let's start wrapping this up and first observe one thing I hope you'll see, and that is patience is an essential virtue. patience is not like the basket weaving elective in school, right? Like, patience is not an elective. God will not let you graduate until you have taken this course. Patience is not an elective. It is an essential virtue. You can't do the Christian life without it because the Christian life is basically two things. Reflect the image of God who is patient and build stuff patiently.
24 · Illustrates that lack of skill is not disqualifying if the heart is willing
Now, my guess is is that some of you are going to be kind of discouraged by this. Let me tell you a cool story I heard a few weeks ago and I made sure I saved it to share with you today. I like watching military-type podcasts where special operators and so forth talk. I and the average Navy still have a lot in common. You always offend me with your heartiness of laughter. Anyway, so I was watching this podcast and coolest story ever. This just blew me away. I guess early on, and this is true of a lot of special forces actually, but in the SEALs, one of the first things you do, you have to do is you have to swim I don't know, 50 meters or something like that. Sort of just give the instructor some sense of how good of a swimmer you are. And so guys would jump in and they'd swim the 50 meters and back and forth and get out. One guy jumps in and goes, sinks right to the bottom and he grabbed something when he jumped in some kind of weight and he walked the whole thing and then back again the length of the pool and then back again. He throws the weight up out of the pool gets up out obviously is almost dead and gasping and the instructor says why did you just do that? And he said sir I don't know how to swim. and the instructor said you joined you're trying to get into the Navy SEALs without learning how to swim. And the guy said I really want to be a SEAL sir. And the instructor said you know what we can teach you how to swim. You see that the heart of that guy was overwhelmingly in favor of trusting and like committing and so on and so forth.
25 · Applies the SEAL illustration directly
So here's the thing if you have lack of patience which to be honest we all we all have had or or do have a lack of patience you're going to have to learn how to swim. This isn't an option. This is just going to have to be a part of your life. The other option is waste and destruction. So you're going to have to learn this. The good news is is that God looks at you like he would look at that SEAL candidate and say I'll teach you how to swim man like that's okay.
26 · Answers the opening question
Now remember we started this we started this conversation by asking okay so what we see God's favorite people and we look at all he put them through. And it's like well why is that? Well the first observation is you have to learn patience to successfully do this Christian thing and the second one is that the only way you can successfully learn patience is through problems. Pain. The only way a person learns patience is through pain. We don't learn patience if we don't have problems. a very important thing that I always want to underline and try to do whenever someone's suffering is simply this. Time and time again Jesus teaches us that God is the perfect father his reflexive inclination to us because we are clothed in Christ is to show us only good. When he allows various trials into our lives he is only doing so because there are certain blessings that we cannot obtain without those trials. Patience is a necessary virtue and is only communicated through pain. It's the only way it comes. Patience is a necessary virtue problems are the necessary school. The kid who needs to learn how to swim to be a seal has to get in the water. You in order to learn how to be patient have to have problems. What's God doing with all these people that he loves and causes them to suffer he is teaching them patience.
27 · Establishes the Promise-Pain-Fulfillment pattern as a recurring biblical phenomenon (Joseph, Abraham, David)
I mentioned that we'll talk about this the dreams of Joseph. There's this interesting phenomenon especially in the Old Testament where a patriarch is given a dream of glory and then there's a massive gap between the dream and the fulfillment. And what's in that gap? pain. Right? That's the three things. Promise pain fulfillment. What's God doing there? That's how Joseph's whole story was. He received these delusions of grandeur which were really promises from God. He received these promises of God and then went through 20 years of suffering and setbacks with these sort of haunting memories of this was supposed to turn out a different way. What's God doing with that? Joseph's story is just one of many in the Bible that followed that pattern. Abraham's story is the same way. He receives a promise that he would be the father of many nations and then what do we have kind of the next development? his wife is infertile. It's like God why did you tell me this only to make me walk through a seemingly insurmountable obstacle? In 1 Samuel David's just happy being a shepherd you know killing giants in his spare time you know David's just happy being a shepherd. He's brought in by Samuel and anointed his king. Did he become king right away? There's a massive gap between the promise and the fulfillment. What's going on here? Why does God do this? Because patience is a necessary virtue of those who will rule well. And so whenever God looks upon a person and says I want you to reflect my glory to the world I want you to build a little world for yourself. unto me he says and you're going to have to learn how to be patient.
28 · Traces extensive typological parallels between Joseph and Jesus, demonstrating that the Promise-Pain-Fulfillment pattern finds its ultimate expression in Christ
You know the Joseph of chapter is a boy. He's a boy with potential. The Joseph of chapter is a man and a man that has patience. the beginning of the David story is a boy with potential. He has to go through the trials of Saul to become qualified to do the thing God promised he would do through him. And in some mysterious sense this story of the gap the promise and fulfillment story is most manifest in the life of Jesus. I don't want to leave the story of Joseph without reminding you of all the similarities between Joseph Old Testament and the son of Joseph Jesus in the New Testament. Both were uniquely beloved by their fathers to the point where their kin developed a murderous jealousy. Both were stripped of their special cloaks. Both were sold by a man named Judah. Judas is just a Greek word for Judah. Both were sold for silver. Joseph was exchanged for 20 pieces of silver. Jesus was exchanged for 30 pieces of silver. Both were bound. Both were condemned with two other criminals. Jesus is next to two criminals, one of which perishes, one of which gets eternal life. Joseph's prison story is he and two other criminals, one of which perishes, one of which lives. Both entered slavery to fulfill the plan of God. Joseph did so non-voluntarily, Jesus did so voluntarily. Philippians 2.6, we all know this one, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. The word for servant there is slave. So Joseph's ordeal is kind of a metaphorical death. The pit, the prison, they all sort of paint this picture of you're never getting out of this one. And Jesus' ordeal, of course, involved literal death and his pit was the grave. The fundamental is simply this. Both men suffered so that in God's providence, these men's enemies might be saved. And friends, we do need saving.
29 · Diagnoses impatience as the root of multiple sin categories—anger, anxiety, addictions, grumbling, ingratitude, relational conflict
It's, please lock back in if you've drifted a little. so many of our sins have to do with impatience. This is the source of much of our anger, of much of our anxiety, and I'm convinced that many of our addictions have one purpose. We think it's kind of a chemical fast-forward button. to get out of the discomfort, the disquietude, as someone might say. We've all figured out these little tricks that we can use to feel like time speeds up. Sleep, video games, alcohol, whatever. So many of our sins have to do with impatience. Our grumbling and our ingratitude are almost always fruits of impatience. Indeed, much of our most acute relationship difficulty flows from impatience. It's really a bad thing. I think our culture kind of we give each other a pass for this. This is not a pass kind of thing. This is a real root to a lot of real problems in most people's lives.
30 · Marshals Puritan authority (Thomas Boston) to intensify the seriousness of impatience
Puritan Thomas Boston said, this is a fire kindled by the devil, speaking of impatience, this is a fire kindled by the devil, by striking a proud man against firm providence. It often sends out its hellish smoke and passionate expressions of the mouth, scorches others by the sinful deeds it puts on them, for such are as madmen throwing about firebrands, arrows, and death. It makes a man an enemy to himself, and flies up against God, accusing him of injustice, folly, and cruelty. Impatience is not a small thing, guys. It's really a huge block. Your impatience, as Thomas Boston says, is causing you to work against yourself and against God. Your need to hit the dopamine button with buying something you don't need, it's not doing you any favors, it's not learning how to be an image of God. It's not going to build you the life that God wants for you.
31 · Grounds the gravity of impatience Christologically
And that is why Jesus had to endure the cross, endure just being another synonym for patience. It's not a coincidence that the key feature of Jesus' crucifixion was endurance. Think about it, there he hung and he suffered with every possible provocation and temptation to just hit the fast forward button. The people were scoffing, the disciples were fleeing, and his physical body was screaming at him. everything was saying to him, you are the son of the most high. These mere mortals don't have a fast forward button, but you do. Call upon the angels and end this now. But the Bible says he endured the cross. He endured it.
32 · Issues direct application: repent of impatience
So friends, the first step to becoming more patient is to repent of your impatience. Repent of it. Recognize your impatience as a sin. A sin against God that often flows into sin against even your own future and certainly against your family, your neighbors, so forth. Repent of this sin. And if you're having trouble believing that impatience is a sin, look to the cross and see a gruesome Savior suffering for it. This is the answer anytime you struggle to see anything as a sin. Look at a gruesome Savior suffering for this thing you struggle to see as a big deal. Because at the cross it's undeniably a big deal.
33 · Answers the opening question definitively
Christ was crucified in part to give us evidence that impatience is a sin. So we started this sermon by asking, okay, look at the favorite people in the Bible, why do they suffer so much? Who's God's favorite? Jesus is God's beloved son. And he sent him to the cross to endure the punishment you deserve for your impatience.
34 · Applies the gospel—both forgiveness and freedom are secured through Christ
forgiveness for you. He has come and suffered to secure forgiveness for you for all of the times you've grumbled, all of the times you've sinned, all of the times you've manufactured some other way out of what needed to simply be faithful, quiet, waiting upon the Lord. And in addition to forgiveness, Jesus has also secured for you real freedom from impatience. Friends, when this service is over, you're going to go back out into a world full of pain. Difficult people, a constant delay between your efforts and the outcome of those efforts, sickness, persecution, loss. Understand this, not only are you forgiven for your impatience, but the very same patience that Jesus Christ displayed on the cross is now yours. The Bible says that every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places is yours in Christ Jesus. The very patience that kept Jesus enduring is now available to you through the Holy Spirit. His perfect patience, His perfect peace is yours in Christ Jesus.
35 · Pastoral prayer confessing corporate impatience, requesting God's transformative work through the Holy Spirit, and looking to the cross for both forgiveness and freedom
So what I'd like to do before we take communion is I'd like to pray for you. I just get the sense that this is one of those sermons that a lot of people are going to recognize themselves and ask me later, were you talking to me? Yes, your wife called, I was talking to you. But in all seriousness, I want to pray for you. I wrote out the prayer, I hope you don't get distracted by me reading it. Would you just bow your heads and let's pray and ask God for patience? Lord Jesus, we now see that patience is an essential virtue without which we can't be who you created us to be. And we now understand why you let us suffer. When we meet various kinds of trials, it produces steadfastness. patience. And this steadfast patience has to have its full effect in us so that we may be perfect and complete and lacking in nothing. So Lord Jesus, I just stand before you and before these people. We're all, I suppose, reluctant enrollees in the school of pain and in the school of patience. None of us would choose it. but you, according to your fatherly love, bring about seasons of suffering because this is the way we learn. So Lord, we confess our impatience to you, which is downstream of an overly high view of ourselves and an insufficient view of you. We confess that to you, Lord. We are an impatient people. We repent of our impatience. We don't want to be impatient. We don't want to grumble and to fidget under your mighty hand. So we repent of it. We want to be like you and we want to build a life that pleases you and blesses the world. And we know that we can't do this without patience, Lord. So great God, we do the thing you've commanded us to do. We look to the cross. We look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who endured the cross for our sake. And there we see the blood of Christ flowing to win our forgiveness and we see the blood of Christ flowing to win our freedom from impatience. So Lord, I just pray for myself and for these people that through your Holy Spirit you would give us peace that passes understanding. Lord, you say that we the church are a light on a hill. What could stand out more right now than people with peace manifesting in patience? Lord, make us patient people. Please, Lord God, replace our impatience with peace. Let us trust you. Let us be still and know that you are God. In the name of the author and perfecter of our faith who endured the cross, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we pray. Amen.
36 · Communion liturgy applying the sermon to the Table
Now as you come up for communion today, let me read to you what Paul reminds us related to this observance. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Brother, sister, would you come and partake of this glorious reminder of Christ's all sufficient care for you? If he gave you himself, how will he not also freely give you all things? When you come and partake of this table, thank God for the forgiveness of your great impatience. but also thank God that in Christ it's very likely you can look back even in the last five years and see God's been working on me and he'll continue to work on me. So come and partake of this example of the Lord's faithfulness.