The Patience of God: A Garden of Growth | June 2 2024

Hello and welcome to Trinity Sermons. Here at Trinity Church, St.

St. Louis, we're a group of ordinary people who in our own time are learning to love Jesus,

live like Jesus and lead others to Jesus. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Today

we are continuing our sermon series on the fruit of the spirit and Rob will be talking

to us all about patience. We hope you enjoy the sermon and God bless.

Good morning. A reading from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 28, beginning at the 21st

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

verse. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother

or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you not seven

times, but 77 times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle

accounts with his servants. As he began to began the settlement, a man who owned him,

10,000 bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered

that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

At this, the servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I

will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him and cancelled the debt and

let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed

him 100 silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me, he

demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, be patient with me and I will

pay it back. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until

he could pay the debt. When the other servant saw what had happened, they were outraged and

went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant

in, you wicked servant, he said, I cancelled all your debt because you begged me to. Shouldn't

you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger, his master handed

him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay back all he owed. This is how

my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister

from your heart. Trinity, this is the word of the Lord.

Well, good morning, everyone. So a few weeks ago, I shared with you some pictures of our

vegetable garden that we have at home. Some of you were wondering, oh, how's that vegetable

garden going, Rob? And I'm very happy to report that things are coming along. I showed you

some of the beets and the beans and the peppers and the peas. And I want you to know that

I've been using my trusty watering can every day to water that garden. And day after day,

I'm doing that. By the way, do you guys know, do you know what you call a watering can with

a hole in the bottom? A watering can't. A watering can't. Yeah. No. But anyways, to

be honest with you, I actually was hoping for things to grow just a little bit faster.

I'm getting a little bit impatient. So for example, this is what the peas looked like

maybe two weeks ago. And yes, the peas now look like this. So they have grown. They've

grown probably from about six inches to maybe 12 inches. But still, I thought, oh gosh,

shouldn't it happen faster? Shouldn't it grow faster? And I was growing a little bit impatient.

And so what I did is I went down to Canadian Tire and did what every good gardener does.

You get the gardener's secret weapon, Miracle Grow. Miracle Grow. These blue crystals that

have all this good stuff for plants. Basically, what you do is you take a scoop of it and

it said, put one scoop in your watering can, mix it all up, and put it on your plants.

Well, because of course, I'm a little bit too impatient, I said, I'll put like 20 scoops

in there. And so I'll put a whole bunch in there, stir it all up. And I poured that on

the peas. And I went to bed. And I was actually wondering, does this stuff actually work?

I have to tell you, the next morning when I woke up, I was actually really, really surprised

to see what was out there. Because there was this massive, massive pea stalk that went

all the way up into the sky. There's a whole long story I won't tell you. But I went up

the stalk and there was a giant phi pho phum and all this stuff. I won't go into it now.

But actually, no. No, I'm telling you a lie. That didn't happen. The truth is you cannot

just put some chemical in water and have overnight growth just like that. Growing stuff takes

time. Miracle grow can only do so much. And there's no miraculous way to speed it up.

Well, the same is true in our spiritual lives. We've got to learn to be patient with what

God is growing in us. And so we're continuing today our teaching series called Organic,

where we're looking at the fruit of the spirit. Here's the real miracle. Here's the real miracle

grow. And that is that God has put his Holy Spirit into our hearts, into our lives. And

it is growing. It is growing and transforming us and changing us from the inside. And what's

it growing? It's growing these kind of fruit. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Now today we're

going to talk about which one? Patience. That's right. Patience. And for two good reasons.

One, it takes patience to grow all of these fruits of the spirit in our lives. And two,

you can see that patience is in fact one of the fruit that we need to grow. We all need

to learn to grow this. And I do say all of us, because whether you're a parent with kids

or whether you're married and you need patience with your spouse, maybe in a big family, you

need patience with each other. At your workplace, I think some workplaces are held together

just because people struggle and strain to be patient with each other. Even in a church,

especially in a church, we need patience with each other. Very interesting to look at what

the Greek word is. The original word is for patience. Paul said that one of the fruit

of the spirit is macrothumia. And macrothumia is basically two words. One means long and

the other means tempered. So people who are patient have a long temper. We all know people

who are impatient and they have a very short temper. They're always getting angry. They

fly off the handle. And if you tell them, hey, calm down, don't be so, so angry, they

just get more angry, it seems. But then there are other people who are long tempered. They

are patient and they somehow are able to control that temper. Even when they may have a good

reason for getting angry at someone or they may have the right to lash out, they don't

do it. And we need to develop that patience in our life for two big reasons. One is that

we're always facing hardships. And secondly, we have to deal with relationships. So for

example, can you endure hardships with patience? When will I find a job? When will the house

sell? Well, when will it stop raining? When will we get out of debt? When will I finally

be well? When will my friend be healed? Life is full of hardships like that that require

patience. But also life is full of relationships that require patience. Why is he so annoying?

Why is she so picky? Why are they always trying to control my life? These people, there's

lots of people in our life who we need a ton of patience with. And if you find yourself

in the midst of life's hardships, you know, blowing up or in the midst of relationships,

really kind of losing your cool, then what you need to do is you need to figure out how

to grow the fruit of patience in your spiritual garden. And it is no wonder that we are impatient

people. There was an old saying that says that man is a product of his environment.

And one of the reasons that we are so impatient is that we live in an environment that is

so impatient. Everywhere we go, every day, it feels like our world is like watering us.

Imagine this. Imagine this is a watering can filled with impatience. It's watering that

impatience all over us. And if we're a product of our environment, that means if we are flooded

in that impatience, then guess what grows up in us? An impatience just grows in us.

In fact, there's a wise old saying that someone once said that was whatever flows in your

life grows in your life. Actually, I had to stop that up this week. It's not a wise old

saying. But the idea is this, that if we are constantly being doused with impatience in

our world, then guess what starts to grow in us? Impatience. So let's say, for example,

you are constantly under pressure at work. The boss is always pressuring you at home.

Your family's always pressuring you. Or you put pressure on you. You're always putting

pressure on you. Guess what starts to grow inside of you? You start to grow impatient

because what flows into your life grows in your life and you become a product of the

environment that you are in. Or what about the people that you hang out with or the people

you live with? If you grew up with a father who was constantly flying off the handle,

losing his patience, or a mother who was so critical, it was so fra- they're constantly

impatient and they're following you around every day and they're soaking you with their

anger and soaking you with their hostility and soaking you with their impatience. Guess

what starts to happen in you? You start to become impatient. You start to model your

behavior after theirs. There's this plant that's growing in you because what flows in your

life is going to grow in your life. Or heck, you just need to step out the doors into our

society at large and you will see that there is a pace to life that just promotes impatience

in us. Whether it's on demand TV or fast food or speed dating or the self checkout line

at the grocery store. I can't wait two minutes in line. I'm going to go over there and I'm

going to check out on my own and then you end up taking twice as long anyways. But we

live in this culture that is constantly dousing us, dousing us, dousing us with impatience.

And that of course gets into us and it grows impatience within us because what flows in

your life grows in your life. Now that sounds like really bad news. Of course it does sound

like bad news, but actually hidden in that bad news is the good news. Which means this,

that if what flows in our life grows in our life and if we're the product of our environment,

then why can't we change our environment? And why can't we change the thing that is

flowing into our life? In other words, what would happen if we put ourselves under a different

watering can? If instead of being doused by all the pressures and people and the pace

of life, what if we put ourselves under a watering can of peace and tranquility and

patience and we let God's patience flood our life and fill our souls? What kind of fruit

would grow in us then? That's the question we want to tackle today. And what we're going

to, where we have to start is this, is that God is both the model of patience and the

source of patience in our life. Do you know the Bible says in first John that God is love

and then it says over here in first Corinthians that love is patient. So if God is love and

love is patient, then you know what that means that God is patient. It doesn't mean that

God acts patient. It doesn't mean that God sometimes feels patient. It means that God

by his very nature is a patient being. And the Bible bears this out because we read things

like the Lord is compassionate and gracious and the Lord is macro thumia, slow to anger,

has a long temper, abounding in love. Or once when the prophet Joel was speaking to God's

people and they were all worried God was going to lose his temper on them, he says, no, no,

no, listen, return to the Lord your God. Return because he relents in sending calamity. He

is patient with us. Or in Peter's letter, Peter wrote this, with the Lord a day is like

a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. And so the Lord is not slow in keeping

his promise, but is say it with me, patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but

everyone to come to repentance. Or today, how about today? The story that Kyla just

read for us is the story of a servant who owes his master an incredible amount of money.

In fact, it's laughable. The astronomical sum that he owes is something like 60 million

days wages or something like that. It means you could work your whole life for several

lifetimes and still never have paid off this debt. Anyways, the servant goes to the master

and he says this, he says, please, please, please be patient with me. He begged, he begged,

he said, I'll pay back everything, which is a total lie because nobody can pay this back.

And then the servant's master, what did he do? Did he say, that's it, you're done for?

No, he took pity on him and he canceled the debt and let him go. We are supposed to see

ourselves in this story. We are supposed to see ourselves as the servant. We're supposed

to see God as the master, meaning that we, you and me, we have been forgiven a debt that

is greater than we can possibly imagine. And that is because God is more patient than most

of us imagine. God is supremely patient with us. Read the first few books of the Bible

and you'll see a picture of God following his people around with a watering can of patience

day after day, year after year. Israel said, we want to go and do it our way. We want to

do our thing. We're heading off in this direction. And God didn't get angry and blow them up

or yank them out and throw them in the compost. He says, no, I'm going to keep following you,

calling you back, pouring my patience into your life. So he sent prophets and he sent

messengers and he sent teachers and rulers and kings and judges and all that to try to

draw his people back to him. Ultimately, he sends Jesus and on the cross, Jesus brings

all of us back to God. But why? It's because God is patient. He's patient with them. He's

patient with you. He's patient with me too. And personally, I have to say, I am far more

impatient when it comes to my life than God is. So many times I look at my life and I

see all the mistakes I'm making and I see all the ways I'm still not like Jesus so far

to go. And I can say, oh my gosh, God, when are you going to give up on me? Or God, why

don't you make this happen faster in my life? And we may even wonder whether God will, in

fact, just give up on us altogether because we often want to give up on ourselves. But

God constantly just waters us with patience. He forgives me. He forgives you. He always

gives us a fresh start and a new beginning. And so this is the starting point for any

discussion about patience. God is patient. Whatever is going on in your life, whatever's

going on in your marriage or in your work or in your finances or in your faith, God

has not given up on you. God is patiently waiting for you, patiently working with you.

It's not like you'll eventually reach some limit and God will say, oh, you've exceeded

the limit of my patience and now I'm going to come down on you in judgment. It doesn't

work that way. Rather, God is watering can in his hand and he is constantly providing

the patient watering, waiting for you to be transformed and changed and to draw back to

him. In fact, the Bible actually tells us that God's patience is our salvation. It's

because God is patient with us and keeps calling us back that we have any hope of growing toward

him, going with him and becoming like him. God is patient. But here's the great news.

That's good news. But the great news is when we douse ourselves in God's patience, guess

what starts to grow in us, what flows in us, grows in us. And what starts to grow in us

is a patience of our own. We start to develop patience as we soak in God's patience. And

actually, not just one plant, but three little plants of patience start to grow in us. I'll

explain what I mean. The first thing that we will see start growing in us when we dwell

on God's patience is that we become more patient with others. The more we're aware that God

has been so patient with us, then you know what? We're more able to put up with the annoying

things that other people do, the irritating things that they say. Sometimes even when

people hurt you or they ignore you or they're unkind to you, we'll find ourselves not fighting

back like we used to, but we'll be patient. And we'll also start to realize, you know

what? It probably takes a lot of patience to live with me as well. So there's this change

that starts to happen in us and it makes us more patient with other people. And we definitely

need this, especially in our digital age, when people impatiently are always texting

something or posting something or impatiently commenting or commenting on a comment. There

are some people who it just feels like they cannot wait to get their two cents in. They

cannot wait to get their word in, even if that word is harmful or hurtful to other people.

But there is hope. There's hope even for us digital natives that God's patience can grow

in us so that we are patient toward others. And I do want to say this. We especially need

patience in a church, especially in a church. Because when you think about what is a church,

it is this group of people who come from different backgrounds with different ideas, people who

are at different places in their spiritual journey. In a church especially, you've got

people who think that they like this, they don't like this, or I dislike this. It can

be really hard. Just because we're part of a church doesn't mean that we're not going

to get frustrated with each other. And so actually what happens is church becomes like

a mini greenhouse in a way where we learn to be patient with one another. I know I appreciate

your patience with me, with my foibles and screw ups and my mistakes and all my dad jokes

and the times I criticize cats. I have tested your patience to the limit. I know that I

have. But that's what church is. We learn patience right here. There's an old saying

that goes, you know, to dwell in love with the saints above, oh, that would be glory.

But to dwell below with the saints we know, oh, that's a different story. Right? So just,

I think the whole story that we read this morning comes down to this one sentence. Right?

You know, Peter asked Jesus, Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister?

And first of all, you should know that when he says my brother or sister, he's probably

talking about people in the synagogue or people in the church. How many times should I forgive

the people in my church? Should I forgive them seven times? He thinks he's being really

generous here. Jesus comes and says, no, not seven times, 77 times. In other words, stop

keeping track of how many times you're going to forgive them and just forgive them. God

says, I have stopped keeping track of the number of times I have forgiven you and you

need to stop keeping track with others as well. And that sounds super, super hard, very

difficult to do. But remember, remember it's only possible when we realize how patient

God has been with us. Right? Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant? Why?

Because I had mercy on you. Right? God's patience rains down on us every day. And as it does,

it starts to grow within us, a patience of our own. But that is not the only plant that

starts to grow in us. Also what grows in us is a patience with ourselves, ourselves. Right?

As God's patience floods our soul, right beside that one plant where we're growing more patient

with others, we start to become more patient with ourselves. See, God asks us to love our

neighbor as ourself. So why wouldn't we be patient with our neighbor as with ourself?

We often treat ourselves in ways we would never treat our neighbors. And we say things

to ourself that we would never say to the people that we love most. For example, have

you ever said these kinds of things to yourself, to yourself? I can't believe you still struggle

with that. When are you just going to get over it? You're still the same person that

you were before, aren't you? Nothing has changed. You're so stupid, you keep making the same

mistake again and again and again. We say this stuff to ourself. But when we're impatient

with ourselves, it doesn't actually help us grow. It doesn't actually help us change.

In fact, quite the contrary. Francis de Salle says, have patience with all things, but chiefly,

have patience with yourself. Don't lose courage when considering your own imperfections. Often

we are our own harshest critics. We're impatient with our growth. But remember, remember, spiritual

growth is not like it doesn't happen miraculously overnight. You don't wake up one morning and

all of a sudden you have matured completely and all of your mistakes and weaknesses have

been instantaneously cured. It takes time to mature. And God, thanks be to God, is patiently

watering our lives even though we make mistakes over and over again. He keeps forgiving us

as he keeps growing us. And God's timing is perfect. He knows when we're going to be ready

for whatever the next step is, whenever we're ready to grow. He who began the good work

in you will see it to completion, will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

So just trust that God's watering can is at work in your life, nurturing you steadily

and slowly and be patient with yourself. Okay. So what do we got? As God's patient pours

into our life, we all of a sudden we find ourselves being more patient toward others,

more patient toward ourself. But thirdly, and finally, we also develop a patience back

toward God waiting for God and waiting on God is one of the hardest things in the human

life. Have you ever found yourself asking questions like God, how long God, how long

till you fix this problem? How long till you heal this sickness? God, how long till do

I have to suffer? Why is this happening to me? When will you ever answer my prayers?

God, when, when we often struggle being patient with God because we have our own ideas of

how things should go and what the timeline should be. And why isn't God getting on with

my timeline and my plan for my life? And what it really comes down to is impatience with

God means we have a lack of trust for God. Right? Do you really trust that God has your

best interests in mind? Do you really trust that God has a plan? Do you really trust that

God is good and that God will see you through and that his timing is good and that redemption

will happen eventually? Being patient with God is so, so hard. You know, the Bible is

full of people wrestling for this. Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart and wait for

the Lord. Trusting God means believing that his perfect timing is happening and even if

it doesn't seem to align with our own. In the book of Romans, Paul has this long, long

kind of argument, but it comes down to this. He says, for in this hope we're saved, but

hope that is seen is no hope at all for who hopes for what they already have. But if we

hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently. Inpatience with God, we trust

that something is happening. Even if we can't see it, even if we don't understand it, God

is doing something underneath the soil. The seed is germinating and growth is occurring.

So let me just wrap up and sum up what this is all about. It begins with God's patience,

which is poured out on us. Okay. Every day, some of you, God has been patiently waiting

for you for years, waiting for you to take that step of faith, waiting for you to say

yes to him, waiting for you to place your trust in him or to have faith in him. And

you keep saying, I'm not ready yet, or I got to sort this part of my life out, or I got

to clean up my act first. God says, no, don't, don't wait. Don't wait another day. Right.

I am patiently waiting for you. Come to me now, pray that prayer now, make that decision

now. God is patiently waiting for us always. And as we soak in God's patience, what happens?

We develop a patience for others. And so I have to ask the question, who is it in your

life that right now is driving you just a little bit crazy? Can you be patient with

them? Can you forgive them and stop counting how many times you've forgiven them? Listen,

if the relationship is toxic, you may need to let it go and walk away. But for most relationships

and most situations, we just need to exercise patience and remember the debt that God has

forgiven you is way larger than whatever they have done to you. And then as we develop patience

with others, we start to develop more patience with ourself. And I got to ask the question

again, is there something that you are struggling with? And right now you have been giving yourself

a really, really hard time about it. Try being patient with yourself, right? Because change

doesn't happen overnight and growth takes time. There's no miracle grow for the spiritual

life. No beanstalk, right? Don't beat yourself up if you don't get it figured out the first

time or the second time or the third time. And finally, as all these things grow, we

ultimately develop a patience for God. It's OK to wrestle with God, to say, why God, how

long God, when God? Because when you're asking God these questions, you know what? It means

you're in relationship with God and that is always where you want to be. But remember,

remember we don't have to know how everything is going to turn out and understand everything

in order to trust God first. Just wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait

for the Lord. He will continue to grow all these things in your life in this perfect

timing if we're patient. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Thanks so much for tuning in today and we hope that you enjoyed the sermon. Today's

sermon was taken from the June 2nd, 2024 service at Trinity Church, Streetsville in Mississauga,

Ontario.

God Bless.