Proactive Patience

Amen.

As a parent, if you are a parent, you more than likely will bear witness with what I'm about to say.

But I'm a father, and as a father, I live with this feeling that I'm doing my absolute best to try to be a great dad.

But I'm well aware of the fact that I'm a human being with a lot lots of blind spots and weaknesses, and I myself am a work in progress.

And so while I'm doing my best to parent my children, I sort of live with this feeling that I with my blind spots, I'm probably screwing some things up, and I'm hoping and praying that I'm not screwing them up too bad, right?

Because here's the bottom line: you you teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are.

And so it doesn't matter how many mantras you have, and you can you can certainly hang the Ten Commandments on the wall at your house, and uh you you can have all these slogans, but the bottom line is you can talk a big game.

Who you are will ultimately come out, and that's gonna make the biggest impact.

And of course, we know, again, not to heap shame on anybody, we're human beings, and so we're learning things and we're growing, and in that process of doing so, simultaneously you're trying to help these little blank canvases become decent citizens.

And you don't want to mess it up too bad, although you know you kind of are, and it is what it is because it's a blind spot, okay?

The fact that it's a blind spot means you're blind to it.

If I knew what it was, I'd I'd do something about it.

But I, you know, it's happening.

I live with the same feeling as a pastor and as a teacher that, you know, I'm trying to disciple folks, but at the end of the day, I'm a disciple.

And there's some things, you know, 10 years ago I was pretty dogmatic about.

There's some things 20 years ago I was sure I knew.

I was positive.

I stood flat-footed and I declared it to be, you know, infallible.

And yet there are some things uh over time I start to go, yeah, I wonder about that.

Life experience has a way of, if you'll handle it right, creating wisdom, which will cause you to question things, and you look back and go, how good of a job am I doing?

I I think there are some time, some areas in our church that were very healthy and that we're growing, but I try to be as analytical without getting discouraged on what I could do better.

And so what I'm gonna do today is I'm gonna talk to you about something that I don't think I've done a particularly good job of up to this point.

And I'm hoping today that I'll correct or at least begin to correct some of the errors of my leadership.

Um, how's that for an intro?

So if you're like, why did I bring my friend today?

You know, should have brought him last week, all right?

Or next week.

Come on back next week.

Um I think I've probably gone years at a time without preaching on patience.

It just felt like a waste of time to preach on patience.

I mean, why waste a good message on patience when you could talk about being productive?

Why waste a good message on patience when I could infuse you with a sense of urgency?

Why waste good time and content on patience when we don't have time to be patient?

We gotta make hay by yesterday.

We got places to go and people to see and things to do.

I I look at my life, and my life has certainly not been marked by patience.

If the hundred people who knew me best filled out five words that best described me, I'm pretty confident patience wouldn't show up anywhere in that list.

Just being honest with you.

It wasn't that I set out to not preach on patience, it just I don't know, instinctively, just didn't.

Why would I do that?

I mean, I guess it is a fruit of the spirit, but you know, whatever.

Patience.

You know, people come out of the world and they come into the church and they come out and they're frantic and they're anxious and they're worried and they're stressed because the news cycle's changing, like everything's changed, there's all this stuff going on.

And then they come to church, and instead of finding people who are cool, calm, and collected and patient, they find people who are even more frantic than they are just with Bible verses.

I mean, I can get you to really panic with some good Bible verses.

And it's just we're not marked by patience.

I don't, I think if the body of Christ, if people filled out the top five words, I don't think patient would be anywhere in there.

We're in a series right now we're calling uh we're calling destination addiction.

Destination addiction is a term that was coined by Dr.

Robert Holden.

He's a psychologist.

He wrote it in 2011 and he started to notice a pattern uh among folks that are coming in full of anxiety and stress, people whose bodies are beginning to break down because biologically you're not designed by God to live in a constant state of fight or flight.

Your endocrine system isn't meant to work like that.

Okay, those chemicals aren't meant to be an IV drip.

It's supposed to be kind of a quick thing to help you out.

But when you live in that state, it will cause you to develop autoimmune diseases.

Your body will start devouring your own organs.

It's bad for you.

God didn't want you to live like that.

But he found that people are the people were coming in pattern where they were always anxious and they're thinking about the future.

And he he was finding this, noticing that folks uh are addicted to a destination.

Once you live for a while, you'll find that there's a certain hill that you think at the top of that hill is happiness, fulfillment, joy, and it's going to really last.

And you get to the top of that hill and you get sort of a hit of adrenaline, and it feels really good, but the new car smell wears off.

And of course, there's another hill right just over there that has that same promise at the top.

And if you just keep scaling these mountains and hills and you get to the top, how many do you have to get to the top before you realize the new car smell always wears off?

But people don't think that way, and so we tend to stay addicted to the next hill or the next thing.

And so, you know, he found these people are marked, um, they're marked by the fact that they don't want to commit to anything because they're always looking for someone or something that's a little bit better than what they have.

They truly expect that the next great victory will bring a deeper, greater level of gratification and fulfillment than all the previous ones, and they keep living there.

And so what they're doing is they're deferring their joy, they're deferring their peace and their happiness and their contentment into the future, and they never have it in the present.

We we got to do something about this, and I want to talk to you.

And unfortunately, I think I've been a contributor oftentimes with my evangelistic urgency and the fact that you know we're a battleship and and pushing people, and yes, there's there there's productivity and being proactive, but but proactivity, being proactive and being patient are not antithetical.

You can be proactive and patient.

So it's not wait on the Lord, and when you wait on the Lord, you gotta be patient.

No, it's when you have to anticipate and move right now that you can still do so with a sense of patience.

So, what I want to do is I want to I want to talk about patience today.

I'm gonna give you some scriptures, but I'm actually, I want to kind of look, I want to look not just at the scripture, but around the scripture, because you don't you you want to look not only at the evidence but the circumstantial evidence.

So I'm gonna give you some of that today from the Bible, and then and then I'm gonna take you eventually to a Philippians 1.

So if you have your Bible, you can get to Philippians 1, you can be ahead, and I'm gonna get there in just a moment.

I want to start with Jesus.

I want to start with Jesus, and I want you to think not only of what he said, but I want you to think of his demeanor.

I want you to think I want to give you a few facts about Jesus.

Uh, if we look at the book of Luke, which is a gospel account, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the accounts of Jesus' life.

Luke describes Jesus' birth.

So he's born, he's a little child, and then it jumps right from there.

Next paragraph, he's 12 years old.

And when he's 12 years old, Jesus demonstrates the fact he's a prodigy.

So he's in the temple, and he's in the temple with a grown man's understanding of the law.

And to the point that he's baffling folks.

Alright, these people who have spent their lives trying to digest the law.

Older men that are in there are marveling.

This 12-year-old, who is this kid?

He has wisdom and understanding way beyond his years.

He's a prodigy.

So Jesus is holding court in the temple with teachers of the law and rabbis and the whole deal.

And you would think that this would be the guy who would plunge right from there into productivity at age 12, but he doesn't.

The gospel writer skips then 18 more years.

And he doesn't start his ministry, he doesn't start his career until he's 30.

So for 18 years, Jesus works as a carpenter, or probably better described as a contractor.

He's building homes and he's building things.

And this is probably why help you decode some of Jesus' language, right?

Later on, he says, uh, when he's trying to help the disciples understand spiritual things and spiritual development, he says, I will build my church.

I will build, well, Jesus was a builder.

So he's using that analogy to help draw a comparison to this thing that you know is tangible to this thing that's a bit intangible.

And so he says, I'll build my church.

If Jesus had been a farmer, he probably would have said, I will plant and grow my church.

But he was he was a carpenter, he's a builder.

So for 18 years, he's building things.

He's not baptizing anyone, he's not uh doing any miracles, he's not teaching anything, he's doing that.

Then for three years, about three years, Jesus then does his ministry.

And what's crazy about this is you would think he's behind.

You'd think he's underachieving his potential.

Bro, at 12, you were ready.

You were already a genius at 12.

They were already blown away by you.

You should have broken the record as the earliest guy to get in there and do the thing.

And yet Jesus had 18 years of patience.

In fact, his own mom tried to get him in early.

You remember the water into wine thing, his first miracle?

Jesus didn't want to do that.

They're at the wedding, they've run out of wine.

Jesus' mother's like, Take care of this, son.

And he's like, Mom, my time has not yet come.

I'm not ready.

Then he goes ahead and obeys his mom, which is another message.

That's a different sermon for a different day.

Come back, Mother's Day, we'll talk about that.

But think about this now.

Jesus is more patient than everybody around him.

Even in this really shrunken down timeline of his three years of ministry, it seemed like everybody was in a bigger hurry than Jesus.

His disciples were in a big hurry, the crowds were in a big hurry, people wanted to make him king.

They wanted, and Jesus keeps saying stuff like, My time has not yet come.

It's not time for that yet.

Let's wait.

How is this man so under control?

When it feels like he's been delayed so long, he maintained patience in the midst of his proactivity.

I'll keep going on you for a minute.

When he's getting ready to leave, in the book of Acts, chapter 1, verse 8, he gives the great commission.

Acts 1:8

And he says, This, watch this.

Acts 1 and 8.

He says, Okay, guys, uh, here's some vision for your life.

By the way, when we're talking about destination addiction and the fact we don't want to do that, we're not saying you shouldn't think about the future, and we're not saying you shouldn't have vision for the future.

Jesus does give them a vision for the future, but look at this.

He says, You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you'll be my witnesses.

Look at this, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

I never thought about this until this week.

But I was thinking about this and I thought, it's interesting Jesus didn't say, You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth by the end of the year.

That would have been a smart goal.

You know what I'm talking about?

Y'all don't know this S M-A-R-T goal?

Specific, measurable, artistic.

Attainable, responsible, realistic, responsible, realistic, and time bound.

Alright?

We don't set goals with no time.

Win! By win! We have deadlines around here.

Otherwise, we're just gonna be doing this forever and you never get it done.

It's kind of weird.

The Great Commission isn't a smart goal, apparently.

Don't look at me like that.

I didn't write it.

Acts 1.8.

Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth by the end of the year.

We don't hear that.

He didn't say that.

It seems that Jesus expected to have a level and a measure of patience.

I'm gonna keep working on you because I know you think I'm speaking crazy stuff right now.

But I'm gonna give you a little bit more.

Have you ever thought about the fact there's no documentation in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John that Jesus seemed in a big hurry to get his book written?

There's nothing.

There's no John, make sure you write this down.

John, did you see what I just did?

I just fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish.

Did you write that down?

Show it to me.

Give me a second draft.

That wasn't very good.

You can do better than that.

Rewrite that once you go.

There's nothing, by the way, in Acts 1.8, Jesus' parting words, you'll receive power of the Holy Spirit, ends of the earth, end of the year, and get the book out now.

Get the book out as quickly as you possibly can.

He doesn't do that.

In fact, if you look at the the datings of the gospels, when are they written?

The most aggressive timeline of the writing of the first gospel is 15 years after the resurrection.

The most aggressive.

Most of them have them dated between 50 and 60 years after the resurrection, with no sense of urgency given by Jesus.

I say this, not to not to in any way downplay or diminish the weight and the value of the Holy Scripture.

All I'm saying is, I think Jesus was more patient than you and me.

In fact, the whole idea that Jesus came as the Messiah in an age, in an era where communication was slow, travel was slow on foot, animal, really slow boat with no motor.

If Jesus had come back now, he could have hit send, constant contact, all your email list.

He could have worked with big data, they could have got it done.

He could have blogged to the ends of the earth, lightning speed.

He could get on a jumbo jet.

He didn't do any of that.

He came in an era that things took time.

And he didn't seem like he was in a massive hurry.

And yet I have pit stains every day.

Maybe I've done a disservice to myself, my family, our church, the people around me to just talk urgency, urgency, urgency without rounding it out with a more robust conversation and a better, bigger prayer of Lord.

Would you help me to be simultaneously proactive and productive with a sense of calm and peace?

By the way, there's um it's an interesting uh book I got a hold of recently.

It's called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, the unlikely rise of Christianity during the Roman Empire, and I'll summarize it for you.

It's basically talks about how in the first 300, first three centuries, right, after Jesus' ascension, that the early church fathers in the early church were actually had a reputation for patience.

Their messaging was patience.

The reason the church grew, it wasn't even because of evangelistic urgency in the sense you would think, which is we got to get everyone to believe this, believe this, everybody believe this, repeat after me.

There wasn't that.

It was actually not so much even what they taught or what they said, but who they were.

And in a frantic world, they were a tremendous amount of peace and patience.

And even their discipleship processes were slow.

It wasn't 101, 201, 301, 401.

By the end of the month of November, you too can be a mature disciple.

There was an expectation that these things take time.

Have you ever sat with like a really wise veteran person?

Someone with some life experience or a little bit older?

Have you ever shown up, because I I've got a lot of these folks in my life, I have a lot of mentors in my life who I come to with my frantic worries and my frustrations.

And I show up to them and I'm, oh, and I can't, I just can't figure it out.

I can't figure out why I can't get more of this and less than that.

Why can't I do this?

Why can't?

And you know, it's like it's like a it's like clockwork.

Every last one of those wise folks goes, slow down, my man.

Some things take time.

You can get married in 30 minutes, but developing a great marriage takes a lifetime.

Be patient with her, be patient with yourself, be patient with your team, be pay, be patient.

Patience marks the life of mature people, and it's not antithetical to being proactive.

We can do the both at the same time.

And so these early church fathers, they were proactive, they were helping people in need.

They were showing up uh for the poor and the hungry, and they showed up as who they were.

And what started to happen was instead of them going and trying to make everyone repeat after them or believe everything they believe, it was the demonstration of their lives.

And of course, if you've ever been in need, it's a bad place to be.

And somebody comes and helps you out, it's a really good feeling.

And not only are you thankful to them, but you're like, you know what, once I get out of this and I get past this, I'm gonna help somebody else too.

So what happened?

It started to swell and grow.

And people are like, you know, I want to, I want to figure out, I want to get closer to you.

I want to learn about you.

I want to, you think different, you act different.

And so with that, now the movement started to grow in a time that to be a Christian was often met with persecution.

And yet it started to grow, not because of what they said, but because of who they are.

You think of things like Jesus, right?

When he says, Come to me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I'll give you a better reason to be frantic.

I'll give you some peace and some rest.

Which, by the way, back to the fruit of the spirit thing, Galatians 5.

Paul talks about the fruit of the spirit.

And I think sometimes we get this a little inverted.

Like, you know, it's easy to look at that list if you just came to a cold Galatians 5, 22, 23, fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, would be in their kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

You'd look at all these traits and you'd think, yeah, I want to be that.

And so you'd start with that and then go, okay, Holy Spirit, help me be that.

But I think it's actually, I think it happens more naturally than that.

It's okay to have the knowledge first, but I think it's like what I said earlier.

If you asked a hundred people who knew you best to give five words that describe you, it would be enlightening.

You'd get it back, you'd compare all the data, and you'd go, man, this word showed up 97 times.

And then there's a few outliers here, there are a few deviations, but for the most part, you know, there's a theme here that's emerged as who I am as a person.

And I think that's how the fruit of the spirit actually works.

It's not that you can pretend to be patient, it's that it actually naturally emerges as a quality of somebody who's walking in the spirit, who's full of the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, that you would get these words back to, man, so you're loving, you're joyful, you're peaceful, you're patient, you're kind, you're good.

These words would come out.

And so I think as a church and as a Christian, I think we need to look at ourselves and go, are we walking in proactive patience?

I'm gonna give you, let's get to uh Philippians 1.

I'm gonna give you three things, three things to think about or to work on as it comes to living in proactive patience.

And I'm gonna give it to you uh from Philippians 1.

It's all gonna be in there.

Uh Paul, Paul writes the book of Philippians.

Of course, he's introduced to the Philippians in the book of Acts.

So in the historical narrative of Acts, it's the famous story where Paul and Silas are in prison.

They've been imprisoned, and in the inner dungeon in the middle of the night, they're singing hymns and whatever, and the miracle happens, the earth shakes, and the chains come off and the door flings open.

That's the origin of the Philippian church.

That's where they, these are the people that they met then and they began a uh a Jesus community.

So now Paul, once he left there, he is all he seems to be in prison all the time.

So now he's back in prison in a different place, and he's writing a letter.

Letter to the Philippians while he's once again in prison.

And it says in Philippians 1, 3 through 8, look at this.

He said, I thank my God every time I remember you.

I thank my God every time I remember you.

Three things that I want you to take away and to run your life kind of through this and go, Am I doing this?

Three things that I think will help us to live in patience, even as we're proactive and not get caught up in destination addiction.

The first thing is this you have to pause and look back.

You have to pause and look back.

Paul says, I thank my God every time I remember you.

I thank my God every time I remember you.

One of the things about the future is often we're thinking about it, and so we just keep wanting to get there, wanting to get there.

How would I keep myself in my present from just living and deferring all my joy to the future?

Well, part of it is actually developing a discipline to look back.

So he's Paul is going, man, I remember, I remember how this church started.

I remember when I was in chains and the miracle happened.

I remember how we met.

I remember these stories.

And of course, you could make the mistake of swinging the pendulum so far to the past that you spend your whole life not in destination addiction, but in, you know, retroactive addiction, right?

You're always living in your past.

You know, it's a rear view mirror you glance in, but you got to do it.

You have to, you have to discipline yourself instead of getting so hung up there that I look back into the past and I'm thankful for what God's done.

In fact, Paul will write later.

He'll say this, he'll say this.

Here's how you deal with anxiety.

Don't, don't, don't let anxiety take over you.

He said, Don't be anxious for anything.

Pray about everything.

Tell God what you need and thank him for what he's done.

You need something from God or you're hoping for something better.

He said, one of the things you do in that process is discipline yourself in the moment to thank him for what he's done, to look back at the hand and the faithfulness of God.

And it's one of the ways that we combat against living my whole life there is we look back.

Look what he says.

He says, I thank God every time I remember you and all my prayers for all of you.

I always pray with joy.

Well, look what's happening.

He's in prison.

He's incarcerated in a place that it would be very easy to start thinking about how bad you want to get out.

And he said, but somehow in verse 4, he said, because of this looking back and this prayer for you, he said, now I'm filled with joy.

Of all places, this is really kind of a this I think is a dramatic example because of all places you would be tempted for destination addiction.

Prison would be that place.

Paul's here.

He's like, you know, here I am in prison again.

I'm back here again.

And it would, how easy would it be to start thinking this?

God, if you get me out of here, I'll be so productive.

God, if you get me out of here I long for a better place with better people.

I want to get to a better place with better people.

And Lord, if you could get me out of this prison, I'd really make a difference.

Lord, if you get me out of this prison, I'd experience so much peace.

And yet, what's he doing?

He's looking back at the faithfulness of God.

He's looking back at his affection for the Philippians and where they've been.

And in the moment it said, it caused him to have joy even behind bars.

He said, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Don't read that too fast.

Don't miss this.

Paul is demonstrating a healthy relationship to the past, present, and future.

I have joy when I remember good things.

He said, I'm confident in the present that he who began a good work in you in the past will carry it through to completion.

It's not that he had no vision for the future.

It's not that he had no expectation for the future.

It's that he put the future there, but he didn't defer his joy to the future.

He said, in fact, today I'm confident that we're gonna get there.

I'm confident that if God wants it to happen, it's gonna happen.

I'm confident better days are on the horizon.

He said, but I'm I begin, he goes, I I my relationship to the present is influenced by me pausing and looking back.

Verse 7, he said, It's right for me to feel the way about you that I do, since I have you in my heart, and whether I'm in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you sharing God's grace with me.

Verse 8, look at this.

He said, God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

So Paul shows us there.

His affection for them was so great, it would have been easy to get sucked into.

I just want to be with them.

I just want to be in Philippi.

I just want to be out of here.

But he does not do that.

He encourages himself in the moment, he looks back at the past, but he doesn't allow his affection for those people to get him to go, if I can get in a better place with better people, then I'll be happy.

And friend, I want to encourage you to learn that lesson.

I say this not in a condescending way, because I know some of y'all are in toxic environments.

And I know some of y'all are around people that require all nine fruit of the spirit.

All nine.

All nine.

Lord, help me today.

I need the lens fruit farm of the spirit in my life.

I need all, I need all of it, Lord.

I need all of it, Lord.

I don't, okay, I'm I'm about to lose it, Lord.

Lord, you know me, God.

You know me better than I know myself.

I don't think I can take it anymore.

I understand that, but I just want to caution you from thinking that if you get to a better place with better people, somehow you're gonna be happy and you're gonna be so much more fulfilled.

Paul didn't wait on that.

He didn't wait on that.

And I think we have to discipline ourselves in the moment to look back.

When you're frustrated that you're not further along, stop and think about how far you've come.

When you're frustrated you're not further along, stop and think about how far you've come.

Hey, I know I'm talking to some people, you feel like you should be further along.

I thought I'd be further than this by this age.

I've been in this career this long.

I thought I would already be there.

We should be further.

We've been married this many years and we're still arguing about that.

We're still doing this.

I'm 50 years old.

Why am I still acting like that?

Why am I still feeling this?

You feel like you should be further along.

And yet I want to encourage you, instead of getting so caught up in that, to stop, to stop, pause, look back, and when you're frustrated, you're not further along, look at how far you've come.

If you were in a shouting mood today, I would say, when you're frustrated that you're not where you want to be, thank God you're not where you used to be.

If you were in a shouting mood today, I would say, hey, when you get frustrated that you're not who you want to be yet, that you thank God that I'm not who I used to be then.

I've come a long way.

And so Paul somehow found joy, even though he's back in prison because he was able to pause and look back.

The second thing is this produce what you can where you are.

Produce what you can where you are.

This is proactive patience.

You're not necessarily doing the work you want to do, you're not doing the work you hope to get to.

You don't have the job you want yet.

But produce what you can where you are.

Now, just with that in mind, look at these verses.

Philippians 1, 12 through 14.

We're in the same text.

He said, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that everything that's happened to me here has helped to spread the good news.

For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I'm in chains because of Christ.

And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God's message without fear.

Can you see the layers of this?

Paul's in prison and he's writing encouraging letters to people on the outside.

Have you ever showed up to like a sick friend or family member and they're in the hospital and they're in the hospital bed and they got tubes coming out of their nose and ears, and they, I mean, they're sick, you know, they're they might be getting treatments and uh, you know, they they have cancer or or they're there's something that's they're in a really bad way, they're hooked up to an IV, they're in there, and and you go in, and they start encouraging you.

I've seen people on their deathbed praying for the nurse.

God's got a plan for you, sister.

I'm gonna pray for you.

God's got a plan for you, brother.

The nurse is walking out like I think I'm encouraged.

Paul is in prison writing things.

He who began a good work in you is gonna carry it through to come.

The people on the outside.

They're on the outside, they're free as a bird.

And Paul's here in prison.

Going, I'm confident of this one thing.

He who began a good work is gonna carry it through to completion.

Don't you lose heart?

God's got his hand on your life.

And then he said, This don't worry about me.

I'm being plenty productive here.

I'm not waiting to get out and someday get productive.

He said, Here's why I got the I got the guards right there.

I got them right there.

These guards, these people walking around, I got them right there.

He said, and these other inmates, it's a good thing I showed up.

It's a good thing I showed up today.

I said, man, the boldness in this place, it's starting to really swell.

We're starting to get some good air here.

Cell block E is on fire right now.

God's using me to do some big things.

See?

You may not be doing the job you want, but be productive where you are, where you can be.

And so Paul is here in cell block E doing his thing.

He's encouraging people on the outside.

He's building up his fellow inmates, he's encouraging the enemy.

People not like him, people like him, and people a long way away.

He said, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna live in destination addiction.

Someday when I get there, I'll no, I'm gonna be productive right here, right now.

The third thing is this if you're gonna be proactively patient, prepare.

You gotta prepare for what's next.

Look at this.

Philippians 1, 20 through 26 says, I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but I'll continue to be bold for Christ as I have in the past, and I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die.

For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.

I'm not trying to be morbid here, but if I live, you know, I can I can do more fruitful work for Christ.

So I really don't know which is better, you know.

I'm sort of torn between two desires.

You know, I long to go to be with Christ, which would be far better for me because I wouldn't have to deal with all this crazy stuff.

But verse 24 says, for your sakes, you know, I kind of have a hunch.

I'm gonna be around for a while.

I actually think it's you know, it'd be better to live because I can help you guys and I could do more fulfilling work and all that good stuff.

And knowing this, I'm convinced I think I'm gonna remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith.

And when I come to you again, we'll have even more reason to take pride in Christ Jesus because of what he's doing through me.

Paul had a vision for the future, he had a vision for the future, but he was not deferring his joy and gratification and productivity and all of that to when one day maybe they find some exculpatory evidence and get me out of here.

I'm not waiting to come back not guilty.

I'm not waiting for the door to fly open.

I'm gonna do my thing now.

I'm gonna be fully immersed in the present.

I have a hunch God's got a good plan when I get out of here.

I have a hunch that God's gonna take me out.

But even if I die here, I'm not gonna die longing for something else, being somewhere else.

I'm not waiting on better people in a better place.

I'm gonna bloom where I'm planted right here.

So he's overcome with a sense of patience and calm.

Calm.

Proactive, not frantic.

Proactive, not panicked.

Patient, patient.

I end with this.

When I was in college, I had my roommate uh lived in Biloxi, Mississippi, which is on the Gulf Coast.

So I I you know live, I went to school in Texas, lived in Ohio.

So I went went home with him to stay, and he had this speedboat, and it was I'd never been on a speedboat, and we go through all these tributaries and go out in the golf and all this.

And um, so it's the end of the semester, getting ready ahead in the summer.

I'd planned to spend two weeks with him and his family before I went back up to Ohio.

And I um uh we had done our exams, and I'm just uh I've got an issue of procrastination, so I had put off my study and my finishing my papers the last minute, so I had, you know, caffeine and no dos and Jesus, and I was able to get it all done.

And uh, but I did two all-nighters, the week of exams, two all-nighters, I didn't sleep.

And so I'm I'm coming off of two all-nighters, and and we packed up our dorm room, we were done with all of our tests, all of our papers.

And he looks at me, he goes, If we leave right now, we can be on the water by 10 a.m.

I was like, That's a great idea, let's go.

So we hop in our cars, he's driving his car, I'm driving mine.

And because I'm on my third all-nighter of the week, I am so tired.

I start nodding off at the wheel.

Okay, I'm in the, you know, in the side.

I um, but my pride wouldn't let me pull over, because I'm like, well, he's not pulling over.

I'm not gonna be the weak link, you know.

And so I keep doing it.

And it got so bad, I started hallucinating.

No joke.

I don't know if any of you ever been there.

I I had stuff stuff was coming out of me out of the clouds and stuff like that.

And so I finally waved him over.

I'm like, I'm not dying today, dude.

So I pull over and I'm running laps around the vehicle trying to get my blood pump in.

I make it to Biloxi, Mississippi by the skin of my teeth.

Okay, I barely get there.

We finally get there at whatever time, and he's like, All right, man, we're here.

You want to go on the boat?

I was like, nope.

I want to go to bed.

I want to go to bed.

And as I thought about this destination addiction, I thought, man, what what a picture, what a metaphor.

Because I think so often we go, I'd be so much happier in the boat.

I'd be so much happier on the water, I'd be so much happier at 10 a.m.

that we can't even rest, we can't even sleep, we can't even, you know, put it off.

I'll get there when I get there.

A sense of patience.

So what do we do?

We put ourselves in life-threatening positions.

I could die here today, dude.

I could not off over here.

Some of you are putting yourself.

I say this in love.

I'm not trying to beat you down.

I'm in your corner.

Some of you are in a position right now, you're putting your health in danger.

You're putting the people you love, your marriage, your kids, your family, your friends, the people who love you and you love them, you're putting them in danger because you're frantic.

You're so afraid.

You're you're pushing everything in the future.

You can't even look at the people in front of you.

You can't embrace today.

And so you're nodding off at the wheel.

You're gonna die here.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

Or you're gonna make it there and you're gonna finally get to the destination and be so stinking tired.

I can't even go out on the boat.

Come on.

Come to me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I'll give you a better reason to be frantic.

No, I'll give you rest.

Your life should be marked by patience.

Patience, patience.

Come on.

We the world, the world comes to church, they should feel patience, they should feel peace.

Okay, they got enough.

There's enough happening in the news cycle for people to be frantic.

Even as we're proactive and we attack problems and we march ahead and we move forward, we do so with a calm.

It's a fruit of the spirit.

Patience.

May that mark our lives, our families, and our church.

I invite you to stand up on your feet.

Let's take a moment.

Let's allow the Holy Spirit to be doing that work in our hearts right now to transform us, to renew our minds, and to cause these really important things love, joy, peace, and patience to come to the surface.