Free Will, Love, and Divine Providence

Let's bower heads and pray, Father God, as we open

up your word, we invite your spirit's presence. We asked

that the Holy Spirit would make your words come through

and and bring your message forth in Jesus name it.

Pray Amen. Have you ever waited for something for a

long time, It just seems like it's interminable, like no

matter what, it is just never going to happen. When

you're a kid, maybe it's that final school bell and

freedom is about to ring, and it just never seems

like it's going to come. You may have experienced that

as an adult. There's other things, you know. One of

the things that I had to.

Wait for for a long time was a wife.

For twenty years, I was wanting to get married, but

I never met anybody. And then on online I happened

to have a conversation with somebody in Botswana. And at

that time I knew nobody in Botswana. I knew people

from South Africa, I knew people from Zimbabwe, I didn't

know anyone from Botswana. And I met tend and we

started talking and eventually we decided we were going to

get married. We had a problem and and I know

because in Sabsuo class Jillil shared uh sark Kilil, my

dad Khalil shared a little bit of the story. They

can maybe relate that when you have this international gathering,

sometimes there are some immigration challenges.

And so after Tendy.

And I got engaged in Botswana, I came back to

the United States and we had to figure out how

we were going to get Tendy here, and we consulted

with an immigration lawyer who presented with us with the plan.

We started working that plan. Everything was going along as expected.

Until I don't know if you've ever had that until, but.

You might have heard of something called COVID, and it

just so happens that in Tendee's part of the world,

that's where the amicron variant was discovered.

And when it was.

Discovered, the first thing in the United States did was

imposed a travel ban. So Tendy was was planning she

was going to come on a student visa and and

she she'd applied for her visa. Everything was in order,

and right as she submitted her application, the band came in.

The US embassy was closed, and what can we do? Well,

of course, we took it to God in prayer. The

church prayed, and the clock was ticking. School started in January,

the application and the band came in, I think it

was November, end of November, and so all of December,

what's going to happen? What's going to happen? You know,

we should have been buying plane tickets by now, but

obviously those of you who've traveled internationally, you know it's

wise to buy a plane ticket before you have visa

in hand, right because you never know. And so we

can't buy the plane ticket. We don't know what's going

to happen. There's that deadline that's looming. And I'll tell

you what, it was not easy to be patient.

I have been.

Waiting for so long, twenty years before I met Tendy,

and then now we were engaged, and we were so

close to that finish line, and there's this travel ban.

But we prayed and we prayed, and you know, God

hears prayers, and suddenly the ban was lifted. It was

just a few days before Tendy had to be in

the United States, and Tendy immediately called up the end

seeing they gave her the royal treatment. They told her

we've already before she had her interviewed they said, we've

already printed your visa. That never happens. That does not happen.

But God worked things out, and in a matter of

days she had to move out of our apartment. In

faith and all these things. She quit her job in faith,

and in a matter of days she was on a

plane coming to the United States. Have you ever waited

for something for a long time? If you have waited,

you're not alone. I'm thinking of the story in the

Bible of Abram, and we're going to use our Bibles

a lot today. One of the things I like for

us to do is see things for yourself. So when

I announced Bible passages, I don't have them pre found,

and I did not arrange any any slides because I

want you to see them for yourself. So as I announced, pastors,

I want you to take out your Bibles or your

devices and find them. And we're gonna start off in

Genesis chapter twelve. Genesis chapter twelve, beginning in verse two.

This is the start of the story of Abram.

Genesis chapter twelve, beginning in verse two. Actually, I'm gonna

begin in verse one. Get the context. Now, the Lord

said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred

and your father's house to the land that I will

show you, and I will make of you a great nation.

And I will bless you and make your name great,

so that you will be a blessing. I will bless

those who bless you, and him who dishonors you. I

will curse, and all the families of the earth. You

and ye knew all the families of the earth shall

be blessed. So Abram went as the Lord told him,

and went with him. Abram was seventy five years old

when he departed from Haran. I want you to put

yourself in in abram shoes. So he's traveled, he's left

his home and or spent some unknown period of time

in Haran, and God is telling him, go somewhere. I'll

tell you that I I'm not gonna tell you now.

Abram.

He's seventy five years old by this time. This is

not the time that most people make major moves. Usually,

when you make a major move, you do it when

you're younger. But Abram, he's seventy five years old, and

God makes a promise. He says, I'm gonna make of

you a great nation. The problem, of course, is that

Abram doesn't have any children.

That's quite a problem.

Well, time passes, many years pass, Abram still has no children.

Let's go to Genesis fifteen. His great desire was yet

unmat Genesis fifteen, beginning of verse one. After these things,

the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

Fear not, Abram, I am your shield. Your reward shall

be very great. But Abram said, O, Lord God, what will.

You give me? For I continue childless?

And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus said, behold,

you've given me no offspring, and a member of my

household will be my heir. And behold, the word of

the Lord came to him. This man shall not.

Be your heir.

Your very own son shall be your heir. And he

brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number

the stars. If you're able to number them, then you

said to him, so shall your offspring be. And he

believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

God made a promise. Abram believed that promise God credited

to him as righteousness. Years past, and still that promise

went unfulfilled. In fact, at one point about roughly ten

years after God's initial promise. You may remember that Abram

and his wife Sarah conspired to implement God's covenant for him,

and so Abram had a son, Ishmael by the Sarahi's servant, Hagar.

But that was not God's promise. That was Abram getting

ahead of God. God had a promise, Abram was still

to wait. Thirteen years later we come to Genesis chapter

twenty one, So now we're about twenty five five ish

years after God's initial promise. Genesis twenty one and beginning

of verse two.

Actually verse one.

Again, the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, And

as the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised,

and Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his

old age at the time of which God had spoken

to him. Abraham called the name of his son who

was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And

Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old,

as God had commanded him. Abraham was one hundred years

old when his son Isaac was born to him, and

Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who

hears will laugh over me. And she said, who would

have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children. Yet

I have borne him a son in his old age,

twenty five years of waiting. Our scripture reading was e Galatians.

The fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness,

self control, results of the Holy Spirit in your life.

And I've been thinking.

About that, and so we're going to look at one

of those aspects that's mentioned.

We don't have time to mention all of them, but

we're gonna look at one of them.

And you might not be surprised to find out that

we're talking about patience. Now, I'm a former English teacher,

and as a former English teacher, I always like definitions

of words that can be an important thing. What does

patience mean? And in fact, if you compare different Bible

translations done over different periods of time, and even maybe

sometimes different regions of English spoken to different parts of

the world, there may be some different concepts that people have.

So the word for patients and that fruit of the spirit,

it's a Greek word that's macrothumia, macrothumia. So I thought, well,

how do we define that word? And I found a

definition that I love I'm going to read it to you.

This word has two main directions of meaning. It describes

the spirit which will never give in and which, because

it endures to the end, will reap the reward. Its

meaning can best be seen from the fact that a

Jewish writer use it to describe what he called the

Roman persistency, which would never make peace under defeat. In

their great days, the Romans were unconquerable. They might lose

a battle, they might even lose a campaign, but they

couldnot conceive of losing a war, and the greatest disaster,

it never occurred.

To them to admit defeat.

Christian patience is the spirit which never admits defeat, which

will not be broken by any miss fortune or suffering

by any disappointment or discouragement, but which.

Persists to the end.

But Makrothumia has an even more characteristic meaning than that.

It is a characteristic Greek word for patience with people.

Chris System defined it as a spirit which has a

power to take revenge, but never does so. Lightfoot define

it as a spirit which refuses to retaliate. Makrothumia is

a spirit which bears insult and injury without bitterness and

without complaint. It's a spirit which can suffer unpleasant people

with graciousness and fools without irritation. So we're going to

look at a few areas of patience today, and we're

gonna start off with God's patience because if it's the

fruit of the spirit, that means it originates with God.

So you're gonna get a lot of exercise turning from

one passage to another. We're gonna start off in first

timith the chapter one one Timothy chapter one, and we're

going to read Paul's the Apostle, Paul's Experience one Timothy

Chapter one, and we're going to begin reading in verse twelve.

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus,

our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to

his service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and

insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted

ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed

for me with the faith and love that are.

In Christ Jesus.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving a 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.

Paul a persecutor, an enemy of the Church, somebody who

many people might.

Have wanted to destroy.

He says that God displayed his perfect patience toward him,

that patience that brought about Paul's conversion, that brought about

Paul's ability to lead others to Jesus. And you know,

Paul wrote about half of the New Testament. Imagine if

God had not been patient with Paul. God's patience was

quite amazing. And it's not only Paul. In fact, if

we go a few books later to Second Peter, there's

just one other passage here that some of you may

know very well, but I want to read it again,

Second Peter three and verse nine.

Second Peter three and verse nine.

Peter writes this, the Lord is not slow to fulfill

his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,

not wishing that any should perish, but that all should

reach repentance. Have you ever wondered why God can seem slow.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus hasn't returned yet? Have

you ever wondered why God maybe hasn't slapped down that

person who gets on your nerves. The Bible says God

is patient toward us because his goal is to save

every single person. Unfortunately, we know from other scripture that

not every person will accept that gift of salvation, and

it's too bad, but it won't be because of any

lack of patience on God's part. God's patience is amazing

Isaiah thirty. We read this this morning in our sabstacle class.

And by the way, for those of you who don't

make it at nine thirty in times for sabstacle, you're

missing out.

You really should make an effort.

I think it's great, Isaiah thirty and verse eighteen. Therefore,

the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore

he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the

Lord is a god of justice. Blessed are all those

who wait for him. The Lord waits to be gracious

to you. How long has God had to wait for you?

Now?

I know we have a wide variety of people here.

There are some people who have attended church their entire lives.

There are some people. There might be somebody here who's

here for the first time.

I don't know. There could be a variety.

There are some people who have considered themselves Christians for

a long time. There are some people who would are

recent converts. There might be someone here who doesn't consider

themselves a Christian yet again, I don't know how long

has God waited for you, whatever, whatever that is. Aren't

you thankful that God is patient? Aren't you thankful that

God's love means that He's not gonna pull the plug

until every single person who will accept him has done so.

But God's patience is not static. I'm not sitting here

twiddling his thumbs. God's patience is an act of patience,

and we're gonna read a passage about that in Matthew sixteen.

It's turned with me there Matthew chapter sixteen. And this

is not a passage you might think of as being

about patience, but we're going to see how it actually

is related. Matthew chapter sixteen, beginning in verse fifteen. The

setting here is Jesus is asking his disciples who is

he Matthew sixteen, beginning of verse fifteen. Now, when Jesus

came into the district of Cesarea Philippi, he asked the disciples,

who do people say that the son of Man is?

And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah,

and others Jeremiah or one.

Of the prophets.

He said to them, but who do you say that

I am?

Simon?

Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the

Living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona,

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.

But my Father, who is in heaven, I tell you

are Peter. And on this rock, which rock that's that's

that's the rock of Peter's confession of Jesus. On this rock,

on this confession, I will build my church and the

gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, there

was a time when I thought that what that meant

was that God's Church, based on this foundation, was there

statically as as the enemy tried to attack it, and

it was standing firm. But that's not the image that

Jesus has in mind. You see, this is the gates

of This is hard of the church. This is God's

patience reward his saints movie actively actively attacking the very

gates of Hell, actively snatching souls from the clutches of Satan.

The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it, because

when God is trying to trying to rescue sinners, anyone

who is willing can be rescued, and there's nothing the

enemy can do to stop it. That is God's patience.

It's not patience of doing nothing. It's patience of doing everything,

everything that can be done. God's patient persistence will ultimately

bring victory.

Now, in case you're.

Wondering why I'm making this comparison, let me give you

a little bit of a background.

To do this.

We need to introduce a book that was written between

the time that the Old Testament and New Testament were written.

You know, there's about one hundred, sorry, about four hundred

years roughly in that time period, and in this particular time,

Judah Judea were under it was under control of Greeks,

and they were facing persecution, and ultimately the Jewish leaders

rebelled against under leadership of a guy named Maccabee, Judas Maccabee,

and a book was written describing this this scene, the

history there it's called First Maccabee is now it is

not scripture, but it is interesting history and and the

author of this book describes why why this Judas guy,

why he admired the Romans, and the way he just

the way it's just written here is by planning and persistence.

They that's the Romans subjected the whole region of Spain,

all although it was very remote from their own. They

also subjugated the kings who had come against them from

the far corners of the earth, until they crushed them

and inflicted on them severe defeat. The rest paid tribute

to them every year. You see, according to the writer

of First Maccabees, it was the Makrothumia again that we're

we re using that the Romans used. Because of the

Roman patience and persistence, they became conquerors of the world.

That's why they would not admit defeat.

But they kept going. You see, God doesn't give up.

God does not admit defeat. God's patience is persistent. And

since God doesn't give up on us, we can see

that there's a close connection between patients and endurance. Let's

go to Revelation chapter fourteen. Revelation Chapter fourteen, and in

this passage that deal is with God's end time people

Revelation fourteen twelve. It talks about this Revelation fourteen and

verse twelve. Here is a call for the endurance, or

some translations say patience of the saints, those who keep

the commandments of God and their.

Faith in Jesus.

And even though it's not the same Greek word, he

has not march with thumia. It's a different one, but

it's the same similar concept in the case of Abram

that we started with. We saw that Abraham was patiently enduring.

He is sticking with it. We see that God is

patience toward us, and it leads us to the next

idea of patience in our patient persistence, and that is

patience with others. So let's remember again our definition. Makrothumia

is a spirit which bears insult and injury without bitterness

and without complaint. It's the spirit which can suffer unpleasant

people without graciousness, and fools without irritation. I found in

a in a Greek dictionary this explanation in the.

Greek Greco War.

In the Greco Roman world, patience was not always considered

a virtue as strength and immediate action were often valued. However,

in Jewish and early Christian thought, patience was seen as

a reflection of divine character. The concept of makrothemia was countercultural,

promoting a lifestyle of endurance and forgiveness rather than revenge

or immediate justice. I don't know how often you think

of patience as being the opposite of revel, but that's

kind of an idea that you find when we talk

about the fruit of the spirit being patience. You know,

when I was a kid, there was there was someone

I knew who came from a family of kind of troublemakers,

and the family slogan was, I don't get mad, I

get even.

Is that patience? Right?

Let's look and said what the Bible says, First Thessalonians

chapter five. First Thessalonians chapter five, and we're going to

read verse fourteen. First Thessalonians chapter five and verse fourteen.

And we urge you brothers, admonish the idol, encourage the fainthearted,

help the weak, be patient with them all.

Treat others with patience.

Now, by the way, notice it doesn't say that we

ignore everything that's not right. The first thing we read

there was to admonish the idol. Okay, there's a time

for correction. But it says no matter whether we're admonishing

the idol or encouraging the faint heart of helping the weak,

to be patient, to be patient with everybody. In fact,

if we go to Ephesians chapter four, we get this

messages taken even farther Ephesians chapter four, beginning of verse

one Ephesians four, I still hear some pages turning Ephesians four,

beginning of verse one. I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord,

urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the

calling to which you've been called, with all humility and gentleness,

with patience with one another in love. This calling to

which we've been called a calling to live godly lives,

are calling to live in relationship with Jesus, a calling

to be saved into His kingdom. A key part of

that is being patient toward others. Now, of course, that's

all well and good, that's that's that's all theory. You know,

we know we should be should be patient. But you know,

if you've ever lived in the real world, you know

that's not always easy. You know, sometimes there's that person

who gets on your last nerve and they do it

over and over again. How are you patient with such

a person? How can we practice patients when we're driving

down the road and someone cuts you off and slams

on the brakes. How can you practice patience when somebody

says all sorts of things about you that they shouldn't say.

Because that's the real world. We seen what the Bible says,

we know what it should be. We got to talk

about the real world. You know, there's a reason that

patience is listed as a fruit of the spirit.

Because.

I can if somebody does somebody don't like, I can

grit my teeth and not say anything. Does that mean

I was patient? Who knows what I'm thinking in my head?

Who knows what I'd like to say? But the fruit

of the spirit, the starting point is that patience comes

from the Holy Spirit working in our lives and changing

us and maturing us. The only way that we're able

to live the life that God wants us to live,

the life that's the best life for us to live,

is by living in daily connection and relationship with God

and inviting the Holy Spirit to come in here and

change us. And you know, sometimes the Holy Spirit points

out things that are wrong in our lives, and we

have a choice. We can either stick to our guns

or we can say I confess, help me to change.

We have a choice.

But the Holy Spirit working in our lives. That's the

start of patience. There's another thing.

That we can do.

And this is something that I've heard so many people

say it's a bad idea, But it's not a bad

idea some of you, I think you know what I'm

gonna say, pray for patience. I don't know how many

of you have ever said or heard someone say, never

pray for patients because you.

Don't know what kind of trials you're going to experience.

You know what, if those trial If God needs to

bring trials in order to teach me something, bring it

on because God is a good God. Now does that

mean I want trials? Of course not. Do I know

what God's going to do? No, I don't know what

God's going to do. I'm not God. Only God knows

who knows what's going to happen in the future. But

what I do know is that if God says that

patience is part of my calling, that's something maybe I

should pray for more of and however God chooses to

bring that about in my life, I know that in

the end it's going to be for the best. So

don't be afraid to pray for patience. Don't be afraid

of it. And then another practical step is this, when

you start to feel that impatience, you start to feel

like you want to just get back at somebody. When

that happens at that moment, send up a quick prayer.

Sin doesn't like to be around prayer. Have you noticed

Sin doesn't like that. Send up a quick prayer, and

then focus your mind on something positive, because sometimes we

can get our brains in this rut of all this

negativity and just going going going negativity. But instead think

of a Bible verse, sing a song of faith. Don't

focus on that thing that's getting under your skin, and

you will find that whatever it is that's bothering you

will start to lose its significance in your mind. When

I was much younger, my family and I were part

of a church that was a very conflicted church. And

by conflicted, I mean if there was any opportunity for disagreement,

there was gonna be a fight about it. If there

was no opportunity for a disagreement, there was still gonna

be a fight. This was It was quite something I've

never seen anything before or since.

And in this church.

That was a church where I was baptized, and after

I was baptized, I was elected to a church office.

I think I was a junior deacon if memory serves

me correctly. There was a long time ago. I don't

remember exactly, but when the new officers took office, the

pastor decided that they should do an orientation for all church,

all new church officers. And so the first board meeting

of the new officer cycle, they invited not only the

board members, but everybody who was elected to any office

in the church to all come to this board meeting

and have an orientation. So I was there, and my

parents were there, they were officers, and a lot of

people were there, and there was a certain a certain

contingent of this church who chose that as the opportunity

to air their grievances against the pastor, and they took

over the meeting and started leveling false accusation after false accusation.

And because my family was in the know about things,

I knew they were false. A lot of people didn't

know what was going on, and I was shocked, like

what's going on? And the pastor he didn't know what

to do. And normally, when someone goes off topic, you

can just go okay, okay, we're gonna get wrapped back

on topic.

But what do you do when somebody is launching personal

tax after you know at you do?

You try to shut them up? What do people think?

What do you do? But there was there was one

elderly lady in the church. She was the church clerk,

and she had some understanding of patients. She didn't lose

her temper, she didn't shout, but she assertively spoke up

and interrupted the troublemakers and she said, we need to pray.

One of the troublemakers retorted, we don't need to pray

right now, we need to keep doing this.

She didn't argue.

She got down on her knees, slowly and painfully, and

she started praying. Well, the troublemakers whoever were saying all

the things, they had the decency to shut up during

her prayer, and she prayed for a long time. That

was a situation that needed a long prayer. When she

finished praying, the troublemakers stormed out of the room, and

the meeting resumed and went back on to what the

agenda was and continued on as it was as it

was planned. After that, several church members who had been

on the fence in this conflict. They didn't know, they

didn't know what was going on. Several members came up

to the pastor and told him, we had no idea

what you were going through.

You can count on our support from now on.

All of this took place because of one woman's patience.

Not the quiet patience, but the persistent patience. I don't

know what your relationship was with with patients. Some people

naturally have more patience than others. But wherever you are,

I encourage.

You to take some.

Time with God and work out with Him where you

need to be. Our last Bible verse is in Psalm

thirty seven. Psalm thirty seven. It's some great final advice

Psalm thirty seven, verses seven and eight. Be still before

the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself

over the one who prospers in his way, over the

man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger and

forsake wrath. Fret not yourself. It only tends to evil,