Patience Peace and Productivity

“Patience – Peace – and Productivity”

Preached by Rob Sinclair

Sunday Morning – 2/15/15

Introduction:

1. “Rob’s Schedule” (Very regimented and calculated)
2. We as Westerners are very much regimented by the clock – And being so regimented, it affects the way we think about and cultivate patience in our lives.
3. We can see how we are so regimented by time by simply looking at other cultures.

1. Most of us here would probably grow very impatient with some African cultures who are not so “time oriented.”

2. Because they live miles away and are likely on foot, we couldn’t start this service at 10:30 in Africa. And because it takes so long to congregate, it doesn’t make sense to just worship for one hour before dismissing!

1. But OUR view of time is linked to our ability to master moving from point A to point B in a specified period of time.
2. In fact, we gauge how productive we are by the amount of work accomplished in a set period of time.

1. For some, time is cheap. They’re not busy and don’t care to become so.

2. For others, time is expensive. The larger the amount of work to be accomplished, the more valuable and “expensive” their time becomes.

1. When we encounter various delays in our day-to-day lives, we get irritated because we have a “sense of” or “illusion of” absolute control over our own movements.
2. These delays serve as excellent reminders that we are not always in control.
3. Not only are we actors in this world, but we are constantly acted upon by others.
4. Because of this, we need patience – and it’s difficult to cultivate patience when our lives are constantly regimented by the clock.
5. Ultimately, a lack of patience leads to a lack of peace.
6. So let’s look at the character of patience first…

Body:

1. Character of Patience

A. In the New Testament, patience is often translated as “long-suffering”

1. We’ve all experienced a “short temper” or at least know someone who has one.

2. We don’t really have a word in today’s world that means “long temper.”

3. The closest we can get to a “long temper” would be “long suffering” and/or “patience.”

4. It literally means “to remain tranquil while awaiting an outcome” – “to bear up under provocation without complaint.”

B. The noun form of “patient” refers to one under the care of a health professional.

1. It’s not just a character trait…

2. In the Middle ages, anyone who was suffering patiently was a “patient.”

3. So, what “being patient” and “being a patient” have in common is that both require that a person come to terms with yielding control to another.

4. Rather than simply viewing yourself as an actor, in both instances one has to come to grips with being acted upon.

C. Patience has its root in God’s character.

1. The Old Testament constantly refers to God as being “slow to anger.”

a. Psalm 103:8 – “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.”

b. Nahum 1:3 – “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power…”

2. Scripture rarely portrays God as having a hair-trigger temper – and this makes the few exceptions where God seems to take action a little quicker that much more serious.

3. God’s patience represents a willingness on His part to yield control.

a. This seems odd doesn’t it? The almighty yielding control?!

b. But His very act of creating us represents this willingness to yield His control – He gave us free will!

i. He gave His creation the option to go its own way!

ii. This is the same idea with parents, is it not? Parents learn rather quickly that their children are not just extensions of themselves, but distinct beings capable of going their own way.

D. God’s patience does have a purpose!

1. His patience is not restraint for the sake of restraint.

a. READ 2 Peter 3:8-9, 14-15 – “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance…Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation…”

b. His patience leads us to repentance and salvation, but this is not to say that there is never an end to His patience. He is slow to anger, but He does get angry.

2. Remember that Paul admonished the Jews who were at one time God’s chosen people – “Do you despise the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” – Romans 2:4.

3. The apostle even uses Himself as an example – “…I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost (of sinners), Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.” – 1 Timothy 1:16

E. God’s requirement of OUR patience also has a purpose!

1. It’s not patience for the sake of patience.

a. Christians are called to be patient with others for the sake of others!

b. Paul notes that God’s active love, the kind of love that seeks the good of another, is patient and endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4, 7)

c. In his letter to the Romans in chapter 15, he tells us that ‘…we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.’

d. That takes time, doesn’t it?

e. Have you ever blown an opportunity with someone because you weren’t patient with them?

2. Do you see the connection between Patience and Peace here?

F. One’s willingness to be wronged and to absorb wrongdoing patiently without retaliating brings peace!

1. Colossians 3:12-15 – “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.”

2. This is not beyond a person’s control – we can do this!

1. Cumbrances to Patience

A. Segmenting and Regulating Time

1. Did you know that humans have not always had the hour, minute, and second?

a. Time used to be linked to the natural order of things like the rising of the sun, the phases of the moon, the seasons of the year.

b. Time was centered around people and their own mundane activities.

2. Ironically, this mundane activity eventually called for the regulation that killed it.

a. The mechanical clock was developed in the West by Benedictine monks as an aid to their rigorous schedule of prayer and work.

b. This invention paved the way for viewing time ANOTHER way that wasn’t seamless anymore.

c. NOW, time became a resource, something to be segmented, scheduled, and managed.

3. There are advantages to regulating our lives by the clock.

a. Things do tend to be more productive when people are assembled at the same time.

b. Teaching a classroom of students would be difficult if the teacher said, “Let’s get together sometime after breakfast.” Instead of at 8:30.

4. The problem is that extreme regulation leads to a kind of bondage to the clock and therefore a lack of peace.

a. The clock was intended to be our tool, but it has the potential to become our master.

b. Did you know that most people admit that they know what day and time it is by what program is on T.V.?

5. You will have more peace in this life if the clock is not always regulating you.

B. Hoarding Time

1. Remember, with the clock, time is a resource! It belongs to you!

2. I naturally think of my time as my own – I control it! I choose who and what I spend it on.

3. Just look at the way we use “time terminology”

a. We spend time, buy time, save time, waste time, manage time, and invest time.

b. With such a view, how can we learn to experience time as a gift?

4. With such a view, people who interrupt us while we are spending or investing time become unwanted intrusions.

a. They’re stealing our time!

b. It’s not theirs to take but they’re taking it!

5. Can we really hope to be patient with people as long as we view time as our own?

6. What if the Good Samaritan viewed time this way?

a. Would the man that was stripped and beaten have lived if the Samaritan saw him as an unwelcome intrusion?

b. “When he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.”

7. That man was a patient man.

C. Exalting Productivity

1. Productivity: A quantifiable amount of work achieved during a specified length of time.

2. The more work per unit of time, the greater the productivity.

3. Few virtues are more exalted in Western society than productivity.

4. It is the key factor in measuring our worth in this world.

5. Once this fact is realized, the question then becomes “What do you have to show for your time?” (Tangible? Paycheck, good grades, a nice meal?)

6. Don’t we feel terrible when there have been demands placed on our time and then we feel like we don’t have anything to show for it?

7. With the tangible being the standard, how does that make people feel who have jobs that don’t show tangible results? (What about the stay at home mom? – is she wasting her time by “spending” her time on her children?)

8. What about my growth as a Christian? Is that a tangible thing that I can simply check off my to-do-list?

a. How will I view this aspect of my life in a culture that only counts the tangible and measureable results?

9. How do we view our “time spent” at worship?

a. Are we being productive?

b. How can we joyfully engage in worship if we are continually mindful of all the other more productive things we could be doing with our time?

c. Do you feel productive coming here? Listening to me? To Mike?

d. You’re not going to necessarily have tangible results when you leave here.

e. We’re not going to hand you a certificate when you leave that says, “I’ve been certified as patient.”

f. There are so many benefits to worship!

i. Encouragement!

ii. Strength!

iii. Observing the Lord’s commands!

g. We should not be focused on the tangible

h. If we are, we won’t be peaceful people!

D. Going Faster

1. Our culture has put a premium on speed.

2. And all the devices that have been invented to help us get faster have only allowed us to begin thinking that we can keep doing more.

3. There won’t be an end if you keep desiring to go faster.

1. Cultivating Patience

A. Remember God’s Example

1. At the heart of the Christian story is a God who is patient

2. We can be patient because God has set the standard and has put it in us to be so also!

3. He’s a God that works slowly and diligently to create a people who will love and obey Him.

4. He’s a God who takes His people through the wilderness for forty years to teach them about dependence and trust.

5. He’s a God who puts on flesh to devote thirty years in preparation for a ministry that would forever change man’s relationship to Him.

6. He’s a God that moves at a spiritual speed – which is sometimes at a ‘full-stop’  Remember when Jesus lost His mobility and was nailed down?

B. See Time Differently

1. The church is called to have a different view of time.

2. See time as God’s!

3. Don’t see it as yours! That is what’s going to make time “scarce.”

4. See your existence as a time to show the world Jesus!

5. Be freed from the tyranny of believing that your ultimate destiny or joy is tied to how you “spend” your time and how fast you can do it.

6. Jeremiah 10:23 – “I know, O Lord, that a man’s way is not in himself, nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.”

7. Proverbs 16:9 – “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”

8. 1 Peter 2:21  Christ left us an example so that we might follow in HIS steps.

9. You are most productive when you are doing what Christ did and acting the way He acted.

C. Practice Patience

1. Just like any aspect of Christian growth, you’re not going to wake up tomorrow morning and suddenly be patient.

2. It will take a conscious effort!

3. It will take prayer!

D. Know that you can do it!

1. Colossians 1:10, 11 – “…bear fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience…”

Conclusion:

1. Even though it may not be admired by our society as a whole, God requires us to be patient with others.
2. See others as those you must encourage and strengthen, bearing their burdens.
3. Instead of “spending” or “investing” your time in them, devote your time to them!
4. The Good Samaritan did!
5. He put on that heart of patience, compassion, and gentleness…
6. It’s what Christ did when He hung on that cross.
7. You can do it too…