Patience Is a Spiritual Force, Not Just Waiting Quietly

Sermon outline

Patience is a spiritual force given to every believer at the new birth, and you develop it intentionally by letting love rule your heart, correcting yourself quickly and learning to wait.

1. Patience is a spiritual force, not a personality

   Patience is not something some people are born with and others are not. Every born-again believer received it at the new birth and must develop it. Satan wants you anxious and impatient so you abort what God has for you; impatience has cost people ministries and jobs, and caused road rage and needless deaths. The Holy Spirit produces the fruit, and The Message describes patience as a willingness to stick with things. Patience works with love: waiting while complaining is not patience.

   Illustration: A friend who would come and help you, but complain the entire time he was waiting.

   “Patience works with love.”

   • Galatians 5:22-23

2. Through faith and patience we inherit the promises

   Faith and patience always go together. Abraham was promised a son at about seventy-five and waited twenty-five years, yet did not stagger at the promise but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God. You launch out in faith, and patience is the vehicle that carries faith to the manifestation; without it you throw in the towel. While you wait for healing, a home or a job, keep thanking God and speaking the scriptures.

   Illustration: Your patience will be tested at home before school each morning, in traffic, in a queue, or when the restaurant gives away the table you booked for your family. The only church some people will ever see is you.

   “Patience becomes a vehicle that takes faith to the promised land.”

   • Hebrews 6:12
   • Romans 4:20

3. Let patience have its perfect work

   James says to let patience do a thorough work so that you are perfect and complete, lacking nothing; you will not be irritable or snappy in the marketplace. The Message calls tests from all sides a gift, because under pressure your faith life is forced into the open. Peter promised to go with Jesus all the way and then denied Him three times; he did not know what was in his own heart until pressure came.

   “When pressure comes, your faith will show its true colours.”

   • James 1:2-4
   • Luke 22:54-62

4. Number one: let love rule your heart

   Love, joy, faith and patience are interconnected, like a car that needs a key, fuel and a battery to go. Love is patient and kind, not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. God has shown us patience every time we failed in the same area, and His love has already been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, so we do not pray for love, we develop it. Often the love of God constrains you from sending the message or email, and the problem works itself out.

   Illustration: Ask someone for a gap in traffic, and when they will not give it, all the signs come out: the works of the flesh, outbursts of rage.

   “We gotta be loving enough to overlook certain offence.”

   • 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
   • Romans 5:5
   • 2 Corinthians 5:14
   • Galatians 5:19-21

5. Number two: correct yourself quickly

   When you miss it, get out as quickly as you got in. Keep scriptures on patience and love with you and speak them aloud, and if you have hurt someone through impatience, go to them, be honest and apologise. The kingdom is not like school, where a child who fails repeatedly is pushed up anyway. Walking in God's patience means not snapping at people, not making critical remarks, assuming the best of others, being kind to the new waiter, and not giving up on new believers.

   “You can fail a thing ten years and still not have passed.”

6. Number three: learn to wait

   A fast-paced society produces get-rich-quick scams that skip the process. The word long-suffering means endurance, not suffering sickness or poverty, because God tempts no one with evil. Faith comes by hearing the word; patience is developed through tests and trials. Natural patience runs thin, but the spiritual force of patience endures, so ask the Holy Spirit to grow you in that area.

   Illustration: If the recipe says thirty minutes, you cannot take the cake out at fifteen and expect to enjoy its full benefit.

   “Patience is developed through tests and trials. That's the only way.”

   • James 1:13
   • Romans 10:17

In this message