Exercising Patience

Thank you, Mrs. Evans. That was beautiful. I've been known to stumble over my words, sometimes commenting on special music, but I thought sometimes you hear a song that you hear and you've known, and it's like a whole new song. That was great. If you'll permit me, allow me an indulgence today. I want to begin with a story from my youth. It's not one I'm particularly proud of. It's actually one that when I tell it, it makes me feel a little bit ashamed.

But most people are pretty forgiving since it's an incident that occurred when I was only 12 years old, so not the worst shame in the world. It occurred at—I was going to say one of—I think it was the first YOU track meet in Central Ohio, because it was when I was 12, and I know YOU was a pretty new thing back then. Now, I've mentioned before that I'm a runner. I've been running distance for a long time, and maybe I've mentioned it more times than I ought, but we know there are some good analogies that we can draw from distance racing.

Being a Christian sometimes is like a distance race like a marathon. Now, when I was 12, I was not ready for a marathon, but I did think that I was somewhat of a distance runner. So at that track meet, I entered the two-mile run. Now, there were only five people entered, and at a big track meet, your team scores points—the first six finishers score points.

So all I had to do was finish the race, and I was going to help my team. But that's where the shame comes in. I started at a pretty moderate pace. I'd run a little distance before, so I didn't burn out early, but eight times around that track, it's a long ways for a scrawny 12-year-old kid.

After the first mile, I started slowing down quite a bit. My legs started getting heavy, my lungs were burning. By the sixth lap, my eyes were watering and started getting blurry. And in my head, there was a distant voice that was sort of my own, asking, why in the world did you ever want to do this?

What would it matter if you just stopped running? And you know that idea caught hold, and it started growing. Until, without me ever consciously thinking it through and making a decision, I sort of just knew that the next time I come around to the front, you know, to the starting area where the crowds were, I would stop.

I'd had enough. I thought I'd done all I could do. So I neared, you know, what is the finish line, because that's where all the people were. I stumbled down to a walk, and then I started making my way off the track. Suddenly, a lot of people started shouting, trying to encourage me, you know, I'd stop, keep going. And I remember one fellow in particular. He was a much larger fellow than me, even though he was only a couple years older. He was a good friend of my sister's. And he came out, and he was yelling, but not chewing me up, but encouraging me, almost begging me to keep going.

And that's the part of the story that I remember the most clearly. I'm looking at my notes, but this is pretty clear in my head. I remember him coming out there, and I heard words coming out of his mouth, but I was so tired and dazed, you know, didn't register fully. But later on, I didn't realize what he was telling me. I had already won, already run, seven laps out of eight. He kept saying, there's only one more to go. You can push yourself. You can do it. Finish the race. But I didn't. I let fatigue and frustration cloud my thinking. I didn't realize at the time how close I really was to the finish.

And so I didn't finish. I was a quitter. That's not a fun thing to have to say, even about something that happened that many years ago. You know, after I had gotten off the track, it didn't take that long for my head to clear enough for me to start feeling pretty embarrassed at what I had done. I had quit. I had not run the race to the end. And within a few moments of me leaving that track, as I started to realize what was happening and I had a little rest, I thought, I wanted to get back on and go finish.

I really wanted to. But what was done was done. I couldn't. You know, I had disqualified myself when I left the track. Now, fortunately, there would be other races. I made myself a personal promise, not long after that, that I would never drop out of a race again without finishing.

Now, barring, of course, if I was badly injured or there was a sniper shooting at us, there are some exceptions you have to make. But I said, I'll never quit just because I'm too tired or don't have what it takes. And the next year, the YU Track Week came around and they let me register for that race.

And I did finish. But I'll tell you, an even bigger race came 13 years later. More than twice as old as I was when I was 12 and dropped out of that race, I ran my first marathon. My goal in that race was to run the entire way. You know, I'd already set in my mind there's no way I'm not going to get to the finish line, but my goal was to not walk any of it.

But, you know, as I was going along, my legs got heavy. My lungs started burning. You know, after about 20 miles or so, I remember my eyes started watering and getting blurry. But I remembered back to the race when I was 12. And I remembered that older boy, you know, running down the streets of Los Angeles, I could see his face and him telling me, don't stop, you've got that little bit more to go.

And that's one of the things that helped, because I also remembered the shame that I had felt when my head cleared enough to realize what I'd done. I remembered that promise that I'd made to myself. And I didn't stop running. So, I'm still feeling a little ashamed when I tell the story about the YU Track Week.

But I'm, you know, I feel, I think, the proper type of pride or pleasure in my accomplishment for that race when I was 25. Now, it wasn't anything earth-shattering. I wasn't anywhere near winning the race. But for me, I just wanted to get to the end. As I said, we can draw spiritual analogies. If you want to turn to Hebrews 12.1, or you might know this Scripture so well, you don't have to turn there, and I'll read it. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with patience.

Or the New King James says, endurance, the race that's before us. Now, he's not talking about a two-mile race, or a marathon, or any other physical race. He's talking about our life as Christians. And he says, let's run with patience all the way to the end. I think we instinctively understand that. As Christians, we see that what we're doing, developing character and preparing for God's kingdom, and sometimes is like an endurance race, and we need stamina.

We must not quit. Now, I think the comparison, and sometimes translation, I'm going to talk a little bit about words here. Because when I was running at the age of 12, I didn't think of, you know, lay aside the weight and run with patience. Patience? But if it had said, run with long suffering. Now, I thought I knew what long suffering was after seven times around the track. And as I said, you think I'm skinny now.

You should have seen me at 12. Not enough muscle on those bones to keep them running that long. Now, that makes you think. Are they, you know, if one word makes more sense in a certain situation, are they different? Are they very much different? I tend to use them interchangeably. Patience, long suffering. Now, we know in Galatians 5, 22, if you want to turn over, it's just a few pages. And I will admit, one of the reasons I spoke on this subject is because I thought, well, with Pentecost here this weekend, all of the fruits of the Spirit are good subjects to cover.

And here it lists, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, and of course, also kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Long suffering then comes from God's Spirit in us. Does that make it better than patience? No? Or do we get it differently? And I'm posing these questions, and I'm going to delve into that a little bit. I'm sure, you know, maybe they are the same thing. If they're not, they're both important. We have to be patient. We have to be long suffering.

So, because this is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and I've gotten in discussions, boy, for people who like to argue about words. Is it fruit singular or fruits plural? Well, fruit can be a plural word, but they're aspects, things that come from the Holy Spirit. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that tomorrow, but let's talk about long suffering, about patience. Now, even before I did any research on this subject, I had some clear ideas of some lessons I thought would be worth talking about.

And of course, I'll acknowledge many of you have been in the Church as long or longer than I have, and through experience you've learned patience and long suffering. So, I don't think I'm going to tell many of you much that you haven't learned and experienced on your own, but I will say, when I looked into the wording, I gained some new insight and some things I hadn't had no idea of before.

And I learned some of that from looking into definitions. In Hebrews 12.1, which we just read, where it says, run with patience, or in some translations, endurance, the Greek word there is hupomine. Hupomine, if you want to jot it down, the strong concordance number is 5278. And, you know, it's spelled with funny-looking Greek letters, or in English, h-o-p-o-m-e-n-e. Don't worry, I'm not giving a quiz later on the spelling or anything like that. But the definition in the lexicon for that is patience. Best translation, patience or endurance, or constancy.

Interestingly, there's a secondary definition that refers to all of those things, but also hopeful and cheerful. I think that's more important in some situations than other, the endurance with cheerfulness. Now, there's a version of the same word which was used by Jesus Christ when he said in Matthew 24, 13, those who shall endure to the end will be saved. Those who will hupomine endure, certainly enduring to the end can require patience.

And, of course, think of my example when I was 12 years old. Running seven laps out of an eight-lap race is not enduring to the end. So, as I said, when I read some of those scriptures, I'll bring that to memory to make it a little more personal. So, all this is well and good. There's a Greek word. It has this meaning. So, I'll tell you, I looked at the Greek word that's translated into long-suffering in Galatians 5.22, and my countenance fell. I was sitting at my kitchen table doing research, and I said, ah, it's a different word.

Oh, man! I had so many connections I was going to make. The Greek word there is macrothumea. Macrothumea. And, once again, you might not want this, but the Strong's number is 3114. Interesting, though, I checked the lexicon. What's the definition for this? It means patience. It means long-suffering or endurance, or it could also be translated forbearance. Now, if you're like me, you say, wait a minute, those are all the same definitions that you just gave for hupomine.

Two very different sounding words, but pretty much the same exact definition. Now, why is that? Well, the brief lexicon that I was using didn't give me any insight, so I pulled my Unger's Bible dictionary off the shelf. If I keep this up, you'll know every book that I have. Although I didn't get Connor's children's book off, I do like to refer to those sometimes, but Unger's gave me some insight that I'd never realized before. I find it very interesting. It says the two words, they have the same meaning, but they can be used in different situations.

Hupomine is used in referring to being patient or long-suffering in regard to things, or to the state of the universe, or the situation. Jesus used hupomine, that word, in Luke 21, 19, where he said, by your patience, possess you your souls. By your patience with what? With the state of the universe. He was speaking of trials and tests, and especially, of course, he was talking about the end time. When the world is a mess, when many people suffer, we have to exercise hupomine, patience with the way things are.

And here's the difference then. Macrophumia is used to refer to being patient or long-suffering with people. When people are being exasperating, when someone's doing something that's driving you nuts or testing your patience, that's when you're exercising macrophumia. It's still being patient, but it's specifically towards a person rather than just the state of things.

Paul used that in Colossians 3, verse 12. Let's turn over there. We're nearby. Colossians 3, 12. Colossians 3, 12. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, that's macrophumia, bearing with one another, forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so also you must do. So when we're patient and forbearing with one another, we're exercising patience towards people. And that's something we should do, because as he just mentioned, God does that with us.

Matter of fact, let's turn to Romans 9 and see specifically that. Romans 9, verse 22. Romans 9, 22. As I said, macrophumia, patience with people, is a trait that God has. It says here, What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering macrophumia, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? Now, vessels of wrath there is a metaphor for people that aren't yet converted who are going to suffer because they're not yet called. We can also see it if we return to 2 Peter 3, 15, but I'll just read it because it's short.

It says, Considering that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, God willingly exercises macrophumia, patience with people. The Bible never refers to God exercising hupomine, patience with things or the state of the universe. And the reason is actually when you think about it, it's kind of obvious and I thought was kind of neat because God doesn't have to be patient with things or the state of the universe.

He makes it what it is. And the example I thought of is if God wanted to play baseball and it was raining, he wouldn't have to say, Oh, I got to be patient until it stops raining, my game's rained out. He'd make it stop raining. Now, that might seem a silly example because he's God and I don't think, you know, the rain wouldn't have started in the first place and maybe he could play in rain. But the interesting thing is you can say, Well, God doesn't have to exercise patience with people.

He could just make them do what he wants to do. Ah, but he doesn't. Because God doesn't want to make us do things. He wants us to develop character and to learn to do things the right way because we want to. And for that reason, he's patient with us. He exercises that type of patience with people because he doesn't want to just make us do the right thing. He wants us to grow and develop to where we want to do the right thing. You know, we're growing and developing and he's helping us, therefore, to develop the fruit of the Holy Spirit within us.

And of course, as we become more like God, we can do that with people as well. You'll turn it over to 1 Timothy. See an example of that. 1 Timothy chapter 1 in verse 16. That's what Timothy is before Hebrews. 1 Timothy 1 and verse 16. However, for this reason I obtain mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show all long suffering. So Paul is saying Jesus Christ showed long suffering in me as a pattern, as an example, to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life.

So God gives us a template to follow. He sets the pattern. He gives us the example. And God is macro-themaial with us, and we in turn need to be patient with others. If you'll turn it over a couple pages to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy 3 and verse 10. He says, But you have carefully followed my doctrine. He's writing to Timothy saying, You followed my doctrine, my teaching, my manner of life, my purpose, my faith.

He's saying, You, Timothy, followed my way of doing things and my teaching. My purpose, faith, long suffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, what happened to me. And he goes on from there. But I think Paul here, this is a more detailed way of saying what he said in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 1, where he said, Imitate me as I imitate Christ. He's telling Timothy, I set you this example, which includes long suffering, macro thumia. So we want to do these things. And considering these words meanings clearly show that we need to have patience and long suffering in many aspects of our life.

I thought, well, what aspects do we have to do that? And what ways do we have to show patience with people? Well, I could briefly touch on some of them, and I think these are ones we instinctively know.

We've seen two ways that we need to exercise patience through the Greek words. We do have to be patient with things. You know, if it's raining and we want to go outside and play, we have to be patient. And I've learned some of us are more patient with being able to go outside and play than others.

We also, of course, have to be patient with people. And that's where we get tested the most. What kind of groups of people do we have to be patient with? Well, the first comes up is our family.

I thought it was interesting. Now, who it is in your family that you have to exercise the most patience towards often depends on where you are in life. You know, when I was eight years old, I needed to be patient with my older sister, because I thought, boy, she's pushing me and pushing me. But when I got older, I looked back and I realized it was much more often the other way around.

I was testing her patience much more. And fortunately for me then and ever since, it turns out that back then she was a pretty patient person and she has been all her life. Most people, you go through that as children, you exercise patience with your siblings or whatever. Eventually, most people marry, and then they learn that for the rest of their lives, they have to exercise patience with that one person.

And I've said, I think, in my opinion, God separated us. And I think Mr. Shoemaker said something similar to that, we have each exemplified traits of God, male and female, so that when we're together, we're most in God's image. I think he made that to help us learn about his nature. But also, he made it so we're different and we have to learn patience with each other. And I'm guessing all the married people, most of you are sort of looking at me that way. And those of you who aren't married, you'll learn.

Now, and I want to give credit to my wife, because I've often complained about, oh, we're running late. She was ready 10 minutes before I expected her to be today to come to services. But I could tell a story. As we pulled in, she said, oh, services are at 11? I thought they were at 10.30. Now, since she doesn't get to come up here and speak, I'm sure she can tell you lots and lots of cases where she has to show extreme patience with me, and all of you who are married can.

That's an ongoing thing. And then, of course, oh, yeah, I want to cite a couple of scriptures. I wasn't going to turn there, but remember 1 Peter 3.7. We must dwell with them with understanding. That understanding is going to come more as we exercise patience and learn. And Paul wrote in Ephesians 5.21, for men and women to be submitting to one another in the fear of God.

That requires long suffering, and doing it builds long suffering. They go hand in hand. It's a cycle. The more you exercise patience, the more you have patience. And what I was going to say, of course, most couples eventually will have children, and then the patience really begins. And I don't have to elaborate on that. I'll say, for those of you that are younger, you might be thinking, yeah, but what about showing patience to your parents? You do.

You have to be very patient with your parents. But just consider that as a partial payback for what they went through with you when you were too young to remember. When you woke up in the middle of the night crying, or... Anyways, I could get into a lot of stories.

I'm not sure if I expressed a couple weeks ago if Connor had a fever, and so we were up with him several times in the night. Good for building patience. Let's leave there and look at a couple other groups for whom we have to exercise that macro-thumia. One is our co-workers or other people we contact who have not been called out into the Church, who don't know God's way, don't have His Spirit. And we have to face it. Most people in this world operate with a very different system of beliefs and standards than we do.

Your co-workers may at some times deliberately insult and irritate you, or it might seem that way. I've found that people who drive on Route 104 are all scheming together to strip me of any patience I ever had. Now, I'm saying that in jest, but you've had that experience. You're driving down the road, you're running late, and it's my fault I'm late usually, and I want to drive 65, and the person in front of me thinks 50 is fine. The speed limit is 55. You don't have to go the limit. Well, we have to exercise patience. And remember, we read already Romans 9.22.0 just refer back.

God endures with much long suffering those who are not yet now called. The whole New Testament seems to be telling us we need to do that also. He set an example for us to follow. And with that said, I'll say a little bit more about the other group, and that is those who are now called, our spiritual brethren.

Now, you might say, wait a minute. They're called. They have God's spirit. They do things right. We'll never have to be patient with our brethren, right? To that, I have a one-word answer. Ha! It seems the opposite is much more often the case for reasons I'll address, but let's turn to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, and we'll read the first three verses of that chapter. I haven't done that in a while. I used to practice being able to do that.

Ha! It's a real burst from the lungs. And I don't know what it's like coming through a microphone. If it's bothering all of you in Pressensburg, sorry about that. And Athens. Ephesians 4, verse 1, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love.

That one another is your brethren here, with long suffering bearing with one another, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. In essence, Paul is saying that we need to be patient and put up with one another to keep the Church, the body of Christ, together. And sometimes, if that's the only reason, say, I want to keep the Church together, I've got to put up with people. We've got to be patient. But I'll make a note of it, and this will harken back to my thoughts when I was young.

All those people with whom you think you're showing so much patience might be like me and my sister when I was eight. They're showing a lot of patience towards you without you realizing it. Just as I was so patient with my ten-year-old sister when I was eight, and later I realized I was the real brat.

So we have to show patience with each other. It goes back and forth. And maybe I don't have to expound on that a lot more, just to say that it isn't enough to just say, be patient. If I stopped here, I might be like that passage in James where the person goes to someone who's hungry or ill clothed and says, be warmed and filled, and then I walk away.

You know, you need to give them the things they need for the body, and we need to learn how to become patient. I can just say, be patient, but how do we do it? Well, I hope you're ahead of me in realizing one of the things we need to do is we develop and we exercise patience by exercising the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit within us. That is, God's essence, His power working through us, will help us develop some of His character traits. Of course, we read Galatians 5, 22. That tells us long suffering is a fruit of the Spirit. That is, it's a result of the Spirit.

It's one of the products of it, along with love, joy, peace, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and temperance. I wrote them down. I used to have that memorized, and I always get through the fifth one, and I start thinking, well, what was it? Self-control, temperance, gentleness, or kindness? There's other ways to do it. As a matter of fact, let's turn to Romans 15.

Romans 15. We see an admonition along those lines.

Fingers are turning more slowly today. That might be okay for all those days when I've had too much coffee. Romans 15 and verse 4. Whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we, through the patience and the comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.

That's interesting. There's two important things I wanted to bring out here. One, as we said, our connection with God by His Spirit helps us to think and act more like Him. He grants this to us. You know, His Spirit being in us will automatically help make us more like that. But we also, as we see here, we have God's Word. We have the Scripture. That's going to make a big difference. Remember, Jesus Christ talking to His disciples said, the words that I speak are Spirit and they are life. God's Word is a spiritual thing. It makes a difference in us. And the Bible is full of stories, especially the Old Testament, that gives us examples of learning patience that we can learn from. Now, I like Mr. Frank McCrady, the pastor in Dayton, has a phrase for this. He calls it OPE. OPE means Other People's Experience. Now, some people say, experience is the best teacher. And he says, that's right, but other people's experience is the best teacher. The second best teacher is your own experience. The reason for that is, usually when it's your own experience, you do something wrong and you suffer for it and you learn the lesson. So, I want to actually talk about that second best teacher a little bit first and then go to look at some of, you know, the OPE, the Other People's Experience. I lost track of where I was in my notes. Now, the Bible says that a powerful way to develop patience is through our own suffering. Well, we're here in Romans. Let's turn back to chapter 5. If you don't have this memorized by now, you probably will soon, because I don't, I didn't intend to, but it seems like I've been reading it in just about every sermon I give lately. Romans 5 and verse 3. Not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance. Or, and then that's the New King James, the Old King James, says tribulations produces patience. Patience. We get that through tribulation, through suffering, and perseverance then character, character, hope. And that hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. So this not only is a major way to gain patience, but a good reason why we should want to do it. It's going to give us character, and we need that to become God's children. So every time we're suffering, we learn something the hard way, it's okay. We're getting better and stronger from it. You could say the experience of life generally is going to make us more patient. It does in at least certain ways. I can think of one example, and I was actually talking to Connor about it this morning over breakfast because, you know, he was eating some toast. I made myself some oatmeal, and you know, and it was steaming hot, and I pulled out it, and I'm blowing on it. You know, I found for him, and this, I guess every little kid does this, they see something they want. They want to take a bite. They put it in their mouth, and it's too hot. And ah, sometimes they spit it out, and they start crying. Well, they weren't patient enough. But you know what? I've done that. I'm not criticizing him for doing it. Probably most of us have, but if you do it a couple times, you start thinking, ah, I see that steam rising off there. I'm going to be patient. I'm going to wait until that stuff cools down. I'm going to blow on it, and then I can eat it.

You know, you could say the fact that I've burned my tongue a time or two made me a more patient person. Now, that's such an elementary, simple example, but I hope we all realize there are other bigger things in life that, you know, it works that way. Let's turn to James chapter 1.

James 1, and we'll read verses 2 through 4.

We've been reading in James a lot, but it's important. Matter of fact, it's interesting, in the in-home Bible studies, the subject of patience came up a number of times, and I'd already planned the sermon, so I thought, well, it must be something important God wants us to think about. And this echoes what we just read in Romans. He says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, and let patience have its perfect work. Or that could be translated its perfecting work, or its finishing, its maturing work, that you may be perfect. And I'm saying that because the Greek word translated perfect also means mature or complete. So patience is something that makes us complete and mature spiritually, especially, and that you may be complete lacking nothing. Of course, complete and lacking nothing certainly means mature or grown up.

And God, through trials, through having our faith tested, as unpleasant as that may be at the time, it's building patience, and that makes us complete. It makes us more like God. So this is, again, like I said, it's the second best teacher. It's our own experience. But I find it interesting, Paul used the word macrothemia, patience with people, when describing the patience we get from the Holy Spirit.

And he used hypomania, patience with things, when he described the patience we gain from experiencing trials. It made me wonder, and I'm not sure if that's what Paul had in mind, but I thought, is it possible that we can learn enough from our own experience through suffering and learning, you know, and dealing with people?

We can learn to have patience with life and just the situation in the universe. As I said, you know, if a baseball game gets rained out, you'll learn from experience that eventually the sun will come out and dry up all the rain and the itsy bitsy spider climbs up the speck. I wasn't planning that, but I thought, yeah, the sun's drying up the rain.

That's what happens. But I wonder, does he use the word for patience with people in connection to getting it from the Holy Spirit? Because people are so exasperating that our experience isn't enough.

We need the Holy Spirit to be patience with people. Now, that's just speculation on my part, not a doctrine, but it's interesting. I know we can gain long suffering, you know, through all things through the Holy Spirit. And I've seen that experience through life's trials can build patience with us. Though, sadly, some people have trouble doing learning those lessons. There's always some people that just, you know how it is, they bang their head against the wall and bang their head against the wall and, you know, eventually God's going to put the Spirit in them and then they'll learn if they didn't learn it the other way.

Now, many of us have learned patience from experience. Maybe you've lost a job over the Sabbath, and other people who have, and you endured the trial. You exercised tupomine and eventually got another job. All of us have gotten sick and then gotten better. And we learned that being sick doesn't feel good. But after you've had a cold and it lasts maybe a few days and you blow your nose a lot and you feel miserable and you get better, you understand that, you know, and I'm not talking about, you know, fatal diseases, which sadly happen.

I mean, the run-of-the-mill thing, you get sick, you feel bad for a while, you get better. You learn to be patient through those things, and also you learn to be more understanding when someone else is going through it. You know, if you've got someone in your family or a friend who, you know, sniffly and they feel miserable, you say, yeah, I know what that's like, I've been through it. Of course, I think, of course, God is planning for us to do that in a large scale in his family when we become spirit beings and we're dealing with humans.

And I think that's one of the reasons God calls people from all different kinds of backgrounds who've gone through terrible trials. They're going to be able to help people who lived their whole lives and didn't understand and suffered. And sometimes they'll need someone to put an armor on the shoulder and say, I know what that's like, but believe me, you'll get through it. We're going to make it better. Now, maybe this seems petty by comparison, but I had a note thinking of when I was 12 years old and dropped out of that race, I suffered pain in the race itself.

And of course, at the end of that seventh lap, I thought, I just can't do it anymore. And I quit. But the fact that I suffered pain and then pretty quickly got better made it so the next time I was in a race and I felt that same kind of pain, I thought, wait a minute, I can keep going.

And of course, I was able to do that. I was able to get in races and finish. That's just a physical example. We go through emotional type things. This brought to mind, and this happened several years ago. You know, I've been working summer camp for years, so I always bring examples, partly because so many of my friends I met there.

But once I remember I was talking to a friend from camp about two younger people we knew who had started dating. And you know, it's one of those things, it sounds gossipy, but it wasn't as gossipy at the time as it sounds.

But you know, she was, well, I'm not sure how well they're getting along. And she explained that the girl we're talking about wasn't treating the guy as well as we should. And not bad stuff, but just, you know, being a little immature. And as we were talking, I said, you know, she's kind of young.

Has she ever had her heart broken? And my friend said, I don't think she has. I said, that'll make a difference. When she gets older, and she goes through a little heartache, and I mean, I see a lot of people nodding, you kind of know, once you've had a little heartache, it makes you treat people a little differently. Because you grow up through it. Now at the time, it feels horrible.

But you know, and I could be wrong. I'd like for it, nobody to ever feel that feeling. But my thought is, before you fall in love with the person that you're going to be married to and spend the rest of your life, it's good if as a teenager or in your early 20s, you have a little bit of that feeling of heartbreak. And I don't want to wish that on anybody, but it makes you better able to appreciate really falling in love and making it work.

That's why it's better if it happens when you're young, you know, because you probably weren't going to marry that person. Fine, I shouldn't say probably. Sometimes that happens. And I'm going out on a limb speculating. And I should say, I don't mean that devastating trauma where something horrible happens, but you know, when you're 15 and suddenly she decides she doesn't like you anymore, and I'm saying she because that was me, you know, she decided whoever the she was at the time, I don't remember, but boy, you feel like your life is coming to an end.

But it doesn't come to an end. And you pick yourself up, and later you feel better, and the next she that comes along, you appreciate her a little more, you're nicer to her, and you know, and if it doesn't work out, you kind of know, okay, I understand, you know, and you become a better person, you know. And that's the way it is when we suffer through sins that we bring on ourselves.

Now, God doesn't want us to go through the suffering, but He wants us to learn lessons. Okay, enough of that. Let's turn back to that other people's experience I wanted to address. I'm looking at the clock. We might end a little early today. I hope nobody's terribly disappointed. Now, might give Mrs. Call a heads up, though, if we do end early. I know we've got a lunch coming on. Should I talk slower?

Well, what we noticed about developing patients through experience, you'd think that our senior members, speaking of lunch, you know, and I had this in mind when I thought about this, you would think the older people in the congregation would have all the patients you'd ever need, wouldn't you?

And many of you do have a great deal of patience. So if I say you'd think that, but it's not the case, believe me, I'm not saying, boy, you older people, you got to get it together and listen to us young kids. I don't mean that. But what I want to say is, you know, sometimes it's not. And it'd be a tragic mistake, especially when we're looking at spiritual matters. It'd be a tragic mistake for older, more experienced Christians to take things for granted that they shouldn't and perhaps lose patience. One of the most important things to remember about exercising patience is that we need it the most when we don't know how long we'll need it for. I wasn't sure how to string that sentence together, but do you know what I mean? If you don't know how long you have to endure, that's when you really need patience. Because, face it, if you're in a bad trial and you say, this trial will be over two weeks from Sunday, you can buckle down and say, okay, I can get through for two more weeks. But if you just have no idea, it's tougher. You need the patience more.

Once again, looking back to that race when I was 12 years old, I endured a fair bit of suffering to get all the way to the end of seven laps. I was nearly to the end of the race, but to be honest, I had lost count. I didn't know how much further I had to go. My brain was in a haze and my eyes were watery, and so I stopped with only one lap left. I didn't realize how close I was.

Now, I don't want to be presumptuous and say that this great lesson I learned as a 12-year-old is going to teach all of our seniors, but I hope the concept you can carry through. And it makes an easy illustration to relate to much larger things. And one of the examples I want to turn to is that of Abraham and Sarah. Now, they are rightly considered heroes of the Bible. Abraham, the father of the faithful. And I've heard others say, and I've said myself, Sarah can be called the mother of the faithful. What an example! They exercise faith, righteousness. But there was a time when they had suffered long and then lost patience, temporarily, albeit. And I think maybe because they didn't know how close they were. Let's go back to their story in Genesis, starting in Genesis 12. This is a story we well know, but I want to review parts of it again with this in mind, this idea of not knowing how close you are to the end. Now, it starts off here when, well, there's speculation whether God had contacted Abraham before or perhaps Abraham's father, but this is the first record we have of it. Genesis 12.1 says, The Eternal said to Abram, Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I'll show you, and I'll make you a great nation. I will bless you. Make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. As we said before, he's promising a two-fold blessing we sometimes call race and grace. Your descendants are going to be great and powerful, and we know that built into this promise is the Messiah is going to be descended from you. And he says, I'll bless those who bless you and curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. And we know Abraham and Sarah and their whole family obeyed, and they went out. He left and went into a land that he didn't know and traveled. Now, they had trials, but they had a pretty good life, too. Abraham, he took his nephew Lot with him, and they were so wealthy and blessed. They couldn't even live together. They had too much livestock, so they had to separate. But for years and years, they had no children. Though God kept telling him, he said, your descendants are going to be like the stars in the sky. They're going to be like the sand on the seashore. You can't number them so many. And I wonder, sometimes Abraham and Sarah must have thought, well, how are we going to have so many? We don't even have one! Now, don't we have to start somewhere? And if you'll turn ahead to chapter 16, finally Sarah talks to Abram and says, we've got to take matters in our own hands. You know, God's promising these things, and maybe I'm the one not working things out. So let's do something different. Genesis 16, now Sarai, Abram's wife, had born him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid sermon whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, now the eternal has restrained me from bearing children. Please go into my maid. Perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram heated the voice. Now, well, we could speculate all kinds of things. Abraham, did you think twice about this? Or maybe he said, well, God keeps talking to me, telling me I'll have all these children.

So we know, you know, he did this. If we look across to verse 15, so Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram named his son Hagar, whom Ishmael had born. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him. So he was 86. We read just a little bit earlier that when God called him, he was 75. Now probably, we can allow for probably a nine-month pregnancy. So Abram was probably 85 when Sarai came to him with his plan and said, hey, you know, let's have children through Hagar. That made me think 10 years. Abram and Sarai had exercised patience. They waited and waited and said, okay, God, we're doing what you say. And after 10 whole years, they stopped waiting and said, now we're going to do something else.

Now, we know the family suffered some trouble and heartache because of this decision. You know, Sarai had a problem with Hagar. Then later with Ishmael scoffing when Isaac finally comes along. We know God finally did give Abraham and Sarah a son together, which we know now was his plan all along. Now, I'm going to speculate a little. I've often wondered, did God have planned in mind, did he have it in mind perhaps to bring Isaac along sooner than he actually did?

But then Abram and Sarah decided to have kids through Hagar and he said, well, I've got to wait until this baby grows up and is old enough to be sent out on his own because I want Isaac to have all the attention. Now, as I said, I'm speculating. I don't have scripture to say that's what God had in mind. You know, maybe God all along said, when Abram's a hundred years old, that's when they're going to have a baby. And so I think, oh man, bad enough having a baby when you're like, you know, almost 50. What about a hundred? You know, so I said it's speculation, but that comes to mind because of me finishing seven eighths of a race and then dropping out and really regretting it. You know, what if God was waiting until Abram was 87 years old and then he was going to have Isaac? And he said, oh, now you're going to have to wait. You know, when I dropped out of that race, I did finish another two-mile race a year later. But you know what? If I hadn't dropped out, I could have finished a two-mile race three minutes later, maybe four or five if I really walked. But it wouldn't have been a whole year before I had that satisfaction. You know, and I don't know, maybe if Abram and Sarah had said, okay, we're going to wait for God, maybe they wouldn't have had to wait 14 years, maybe it would have been one or two, maybe, you know, as I don't know. But I know for all their good traits temporarily, they stopped exercising patience. And it cost them. Even if it wasn't a longer time scale, they had difficulties in the family. And, you know, that's not much fun.

So they should have continued exercising patience. So should we. Whether you're 75 years old, Abram was when he called, whether you're 85 years old, whether you're 100, never lose patience and waiting for God to fulfill his promises. He will. He never fails. He doesn't always do it only when we want. And that brings to mind in the in-home Bible studies we were reading in the section of James where it says, if anyone is sick, call for the elders and the prayer of faith will save him and God will raise him up. And sometimes you get anointed and God's not raising me up. And we turn to John 644 where Christ said, you know, if any believe, you know, none can come to me except the Father draw him and I'll raise him up at the last day. You know, God will fulfill his promises. Sometimes he has in mind that it's going to be much later than you planned, but he never fails.

The one person that can fail in this situation is you or me. You know, we can fail.

But it's also good to remember. Remember that definition of hupomine? I said, had a secondary definition of including cheerfulness. We want to remember to exercise patience cheerfully when we can't. Not grumbling. Why am I have to wait? I don't like to wait. You know, we don't necessarily wait. But God wants us to exercise patience so that we can be cheerful and remember whatever condition we're in to be happy. And we can learn a bit about that from a person who cited in Scripture as an example of patience. James 511. Actually, I'll just read this to you. As I said, we've read it in the in-home Bible study several times. It says, we count them blessed to endure, who exercise hupomine. You've heard of the patience of Job. That's a metaphor almost, the patience of Job. How patient was Job? Well, let's turn to the book of Job. I do want to turn there. We can see God himself said some pretty good things about Job. And God, you know, he doesn't say things just to make someone feel good. He says things that are what they are. Job 1, and we'll read in verse 8.

The Eternal said to Satan, this is one of these occasions earlier, it says, all the sons, you know, basically the angels came before the throne of God, and God allowed Satan to come, probably because he wanted to address this with him. The Eternal said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There's none like him on earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil. So he wasn't citing any fault in Job. God didn't say, boy, he's great in every way, except he's not very patient. No, apparently he was very patient. Now Satan chimes in as a wall. He's only being good and worshiping you because you provide him so much. You protect him, you give him all these blessings. You take away what he has, and he'll curse you to your face. So God gave him permission. I'm not reading it because we know the story. He said, okay, you can take all that he has, just don't touch his body. And Satan acts just like that, goes and kills his children, takes away all his property. And here's Job sitting with nothing.

But Job looks, he says, well, I came naked into the world. I'll go out naked, blessed be the Lord. And let's look across to chapter 2 and see the state that Job is still in. Has he lost patience?

This is the second time all the angels come before the throne of God, and the Eternal says to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there's none like him on the earth, a blameless and an upright man who fears God and shuns evil, and still he holds fast to his integrity. See, he's being patient. He's holding fast, although you incited me against him, to destroy him without cause. So God's holding him up. Look, he's still doing everything right, even through all he's suffered. Now Satan now accused him. He says, well, you break down, you touch his body, skin for skin, you afflict his soul and he'll curse you to his face. So God said, okay, I'll test you on that. He's in your hand, just spare his life. Satan went out right away, struck him with boils all over. And I've been stressing to ride away because it occurred to me, you know, when we think of the evil, satanic, demonic world, we don't have to fear them because if they could hurt us, they would have already. They would have destroyed each of us, but God sets limits. They're not allowed. So it's not our power that's going to save us from them. His power protects us.

Because if that weren't there, boy, they'd be honest.

Like White on Rice is the saying goes. I don't know why that came to mind.

Okay, so let's move on to chapter 2 and verse 9.

So then even his wife is wondering how he can do this. He's sitting on an ash pile, scraping the boils that he has from head to foot. And his wife says to him, to Job, do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die. She goes, give up on God. He's not taking care of you. And Job says, you speak like one of the foolish women speak. Shall we indeed accept good from God? And shall we not accept adversity? And all this Job did not sin with his lips. He never said anything wrong. Job really was patient. And James has said, you've heard of the patience of Job. Boy, look what he's going through, and he's still holding fast his integrity.

But you might have noticed we're in the second chapter of a pretty long book. A lot more time would pass, and things would happen. And I'm not going to read. You might wonder, how can he say he's going to finish if we're going to go through the whole book of Job? I'll summarize a little bit. Even though it's a fascinating study when you think in terms of what it's getting at, and they discuss, you know, what happens is four of Job's friends come to mourn with him. Three close friends and then an associate that we don't meet till near the end of the book. And as they first appear, they're in stunned silence. They sit and don't say a word for nearly a week. And then in Job 3, Job begins the conversation or the discussion. Job 3 in verse 1, oh, it goes back here.

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And he spoke, and he goes on and gives a long diatribe. And what follows is an exchange of discourses in three rounds. Doesn't that sound scholarly? I like to say that exchange of discourses. But what will happen is Job will speak and go for a while, and then one of the friends will answer him. And Job will answer that, and a second friend will come in and answer. Then Job will talk back to him, and the third friend will answer. So, and that whole cycle happens three different times. And through the course of it, the friends are asserting to Job that he needs to repent. He must have done something wrong to be suffering this way. And Job is answering, I haven't done anything wrong. I'm obeying God.

I'm a good guy. He's letting me suffer unjustly. And that's where it starts coming in. There's where Job is having a problem. Job seems to be okay with most of this, although he starts losing his patience. He begins to accuse God of not treating him the way he deserved because of that righteousness. Now, as I said, it might seem that Job was losing patience with God and with the universe. So maybe, macroth uny and hupo meaning. Let's turn to chapter 21 because we know for sure he was losing patience with the people there in front of him because he says so. That's why I wanted to read this. Job 21 in verse 4.

As for me, is my complaint against a man? If it were, why should I not be impatient? Look at you guys. Why should I be impatient? But he says, look at me and be astonished. Put your hand over my mouth. And even when I remember, I'm terrified. And trembling takes over. He says, look at the state of me. It's shocking. And then he goes on and says, why did the wicked live and become old, yet become mighty in power and their descendants are established and with them in their sight? He's basically saying, these evil people seem to be doing pretty well. And look at what's happening to me. So he's, as I said, beginning to verge on accusing God. Let's turn to chapter 23, and we'll see that.

Job 23.

And there, the upright could reason with him. And I would be delivered forever from my judge. Basically saying, if I could go and talk to God and set him straight and let him know what's going on, he'd realize that this is out of whack. He's not doing things right. Now, even here, I'm not sure that lack of patience was Job's main problem, but you can see he's not being real patient. And perhaps better patience might have helped him to avoid the real problem. Now, the way I express it, Job was losing his cool because he made the mistake of thinking that his righteousness, his obeying God's law on doing these things, earned him blessings from God. That God was obligated to him. Job is often called self-righteous. And that's one way of expressing it. I prefer to say it this way. He had not come to realize that even the best of his own righteousness didn't make God owe him anything. Even if we do, and I say him, even if we do everything absolutely right according to God's law, does he owe us? Well, apparently not. Let's turn to chapter 35. Because I'm not going to, as I said, read all of this. We know in the end God would come and speak to Job.

And he said, who is this that's speaking things he doesn't understand? Did you create the earth? Can you do this or that? And basically showing how much greater he is than Job. But God was, in some ways, reaffirming something that Elihu had already been inspired to say. And I like this passage. That's why I turned to it, instead of the God's words.

And I don't want to say that God's words aren't good enough. But I think the summary comes first, and it says it the way I'd like to explain it. Job 35, Elihu answered and said, do you think this is right? Do you say that my righteousness is more than God's? And he said, Job, let me get this straight. Are you saying you're doing things right and God isn't? For what advantage will it be to you? You say, what advantage will it be to you?

What profit than more than I have sinned? In other words, are you saying that it doesn't matter if you sin that it's not any good for you? So I'll answer you and your companions with you. And it's almost, I don't, well, they were outside, I think, already.

But if we were in here, he might say, come outside. Now, look up there. Look at the clouds. Look at the heavens and see those clouds. They're higher than you. And by implication, how much higher up is God? And he says, if you sin, what do you accomplish against Him? If you sin, are you hurting God? If your transgressions are multiplied, what are you doing to Him? Are you hurting God? Are you saving Him that hurt when you don't sin?

If you're righteous, what do you give to Him? Or what does He receive from your hand? Your wickedness affects a man such as you and your righteousness, the Son of Man. You're saying, okay, God is up there whether you're good or bad. It's not affecting Him. Now, the one thing that's left out of there, it means affecting Him directly. But God is emotionally affected because He loves us and cares for us. When we're bad, it hurts Him emotionally because He loves us. But He doesn't need us to do good to save Him from hurt.

And He doesn't, you know, when we're doing right, we're not saving Him, you know. Like, if I do something really wrong and mess up my life, it's going to hurt Sue and Connor. Because, you know, I'm bringing the money into the household, for one thing, and there's lots of other ways it'll hurt. You know, if you break the laws and the traffic, you know, you might hurt someone because you might run a red light and kill them.

None of that hurts God. You know, look at the clouds. He's way above them. So it's important... I'm losing track there. Yeah, when Job finally got that point, he was humble. Eventually, as we see in verse chapter 42, I'm going to say, I think he regained his patience when he was humbled. Job 42 and verse 5... This is a section we've read a number of times. Job is talking back to God. I don't mean talking back.

He's answering God. And he says, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear. Now my eye sees you. Job is saying, now I see where I am in relationship to you, God. And he says, therefore I abhor myself.

I repent and dust and ashes. Or the King James, the originalist, says, sackcloth and ashes. God, okay, now I see. I'm nothing. And the end of the story then matches... Remember, I read from James 5.11. You've heard of the patience of Job. And it goes on to talk about the end intended by the Lord, that he's compassionate and merciful.

That's the end goal of God, is to show compassion and mercy. And he does, if we'll look across the page here in Job 42 to verse 12. It says, now the eternal blessed the latter days of Job, more than his beginning. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of ox. Basically, God gave him double of everything else he had. And he had a new set of children. Of course, the original children would come up in the resurrection.

I should say, will come up. So, you know, I don't want to say if you lose someone in your family getting a new one, it's not like getting a new puppy.

But the originals that died will have their chance, and Job understood that. We turned to the book of Job to understand about the resurrection. He knew, he said, if a man dies, will he live again? All my days, I'll wait until he calls and I'll answer. So Job knew he'd see those first seven children again, but he also had the pleasure of having seven children that he could raise, and who would bring him grandchildren and all that.

This is important. These lessons are important to remember when we're striving to exercise patience. Usually, in some trial, God, in the end, does want to bless us. As I said, we might not know how long do we have to go through this. Job had been suffering and suffering, and finally, he's like, God's not treating me right? He lost his patience. We don't want to be like that. Because God wants to give us those blessings.

Not because he owes us. No matter how righteous we are, we don't earn those blessings, but God loves us. He wants to give us these things. And there's where I've been thinking about that. No matter what the blessings, and many times when I'm praying to God to heal someone, sometimes my first reaction is, God, this person is so good. They serve. They do all this. And that might be true. But then I stop and say, well, God, do it for your love's sake, for your mercy's sake.

Because we don't, even the best of us, don't deserve healing. We don't deserve to find a new job or whatever it is we're appealing to you for. But because you love us and you're a loving Father, do it for your namesake. We see that come up in scriptures many times. And sometimes I think thinking like that can help us with our patience. Job suffered long, but he kept thinking he deserved better. And maybe that thinking that he deserved something better was what made him lose his patience.

So if we learn that lesson from him, that we don't deserve anything better, whatever state we're already in is better. We've all sinned and earned the death penalty. But God is wonderful and good and loving. He wants to give us a good life, and he wants to give us eternal life. If we keep that in mind, it should be a little easier to be patient, to not stop when we're in trials. Even if we don't know how much further it's going to be. You know, it's often all not... That didn't sound right. It's often not all that difficult to be patient early on in a trial, right? It's like, oh, I've got this... Well, I'm going to be patient. But it's when it drags on, and when there's no end in sight, you know, we might lose patience. We might be tempted to quit. Don't quit.

It's funny, if I had to summarize this whole sermon in two words, that would be it. Don't quit. Don't quit a race, especially when you might have already run 7-8ths of it. Don't be like the scrawny 12-year-old who got blurry and fuzzy and lost track of where he was. Think of the blessings God had in mind for Job, the ones he had in mind for Abraham and Sarah. And think of the blessings that he has in mind for you. You might get fuzzy, and as I said, your eyes watering, your legs are heavy, and your lungs burning, in a spiritual or emotional sense, but we want to keep burning in there. As I said, when I ran that marathon, I thought of that fellow, that friend of my sister, who's coming out on the track, and I remember his face, but the words weren't registering. But later on, I knew what the words were, and the next time I was in a race, when I got all fuzzy-headed, I thought of that, and I said, I'm not going to quit. And like I said, that's a juvenile example, but I hope it makes it concrete that whatever trial we're going through, we want to keep in mind that the finish is there, and God's going to bring us to it. But we have to keep moving. Don't ever quit. Instead, be long-suffering. Be patient. God makes it possible. We have God's Holy Spirit, and that's one of the major lessons that we're going to discuss tomorrow when we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, that God pours out His Spirit on us. It's available in us. Therefore, we can be patient by God's power, not our own. We can have the fruit of the Spirit. We can be long-suffering.