Patience can play a transformative role in our faith, life, and personal development. Instead of quickening outcomes in our own strength, patience embodies the beauty of partnering with the Holy Spirit.
We'll walk through the trials and tests of characters like Joseph, to understand how God uses difficult situations for building character, patience, and maturity. We can show love to God through our patience, just as He patiently loves us.
Together, we'll learn how to extend grace, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, even when dealing with difficult people (and we all know a few!). We'll delve into how we can be more patient with ourselves, overcome sin and temptation with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Patience can play a transformative role in our faith, life, and personal development. Instead of quickening outcomes in our own strength, patience embodies the beauty of partnering with the Holy Spirit.
We'll walk through the trials and tests of characters like Joseph, to understand how God uses difficult situations for building character, patience, and maturity. We can show love to God through our patience, just as He patiently loves us.
Together, we'll learn how to extend grace, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, even when dealing with difficult people (and we all know a few!). We'll delve into how we can be more patient with ourselves, overcome sin and temptation with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Hey, what up? It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church. Welcome to our podcast. I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. Enjoy the message. We're always going to be waiting on something. You're waiting on stuff right now. I'm waiting on stuff right now. Patience gets the wrinkles out. Patience gets the wrinkles out. We're going to explore that a little bit today.
Speaker 1:I remember when my wife and I got engaged, we were still in college and we still had two years. We had to wait before we could finally get married. And then, once we were married, we had to wait to get pregnant, and then we had to wait while she was pregnant and we were waiting to start a church and I was waiting to get through seminary, and then there was all kinds of more waiting. We were waiting for the right training and waiting to start a church, and then we did, and then we were waiting to get any good at it at all, and then we were going to different trainings and conferences and seminars and just waiting year after year. God, like I'm excited You're letting me do a little bit, but I don't get to do everything that I want to do. And I had people that I now know that would just skyrocket man, like they just were launched in and like thousands of people are coming to their church on like day seven. And now I've lived long enough to see some of them, regrettably, maybe because they shot so high, so quick. There were some character things that didn't really get taken care of on the front end and then when they fell, it was a great fall, a very public fall, very discouraging, hard to get up from, kind of a fall, and I was thankful that there was more foundation laid for me.
Speaker 1:Patience gets the wrinkles out. If aliens were to visit our planet today and we were to introduce them to some famous partnerships, we might bring up Batman and Robin or Bart and Homer or Ben and Jerry's, but we'd have to be sure to bring up you and the Holy Spirit. It's a partnership from day one. That's what God always wanted. He wanted the Holy Spirit of Jesus living in the temple of God, which was always meant to eventually be mankind. That's what he wanted, and he wanted this spirit of Jesus, the love that Jesus shows to everybody. He wanted us to partner with the spirit to show that same love, to be a light, to be the Jesus that people see on earth His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control flowing out like a river to everybody as we partner with him. He doesn't just do it on his own. I know a lot of time we want God to just do stuff and he does do stuff, but a lot of time he wants to invite us into partnership and do it together. There's something connecting about doing stuff together.
Speaker 1:So we've been in this nine series. We've been hovering right here in Galatians 522. For now we'll get to 23 eventually. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives Love, joy, peace, patience that's what we're going to hang today.
Speaker 1:Here's a definition of patience Patience usually it's translated long suffering in the New Testament or perseverance. It means to have a long temper, it means to have a slow fuse. Here's one way to think about patience. Remember that patience isn't the waiting, it's a great attitude. While we're waiting, it's a delighted great. That's fine kind of an attitude. See, patience is the power to enjoy the journey. Joy, the long term thing. That's what patience is, and you know, you really can enjoy life very long, even if you have joy for a minute, even if you have peace for a minute.
Speaker 1:If you don't have patience, something's going to come. And now I don't have any joy because I don't have that, and then you just stumble right out of joy because you didn't have any patience. Isn't that how it works? So often Patience can get very, very tested, and that is a lot of what we're going to talk about today. See, patience doesn't really grow unless it goes through tests Tests on waiting on God and tests on being long suffering with others. That's how it grows. When we're patient, we're like, hey, man, I'm going to be the same right now, and then, if the thing doesn't come, I'm going to be the same again. And then, if it doesn't come, I'm going to still be the same, no matter what happens. If inpatience tries to tell me well, you can't have it, patience is going to respond and say it doesn't matter, don't need it right now. If I needed it, I would have it. Patience is related to pride, and pride says I need it right now and patience says God knows the best time. God knows the right time. God will get it done when it's supposed to get done.
Speaker 1:And so we're all waiting on stuff I mean you're probably waiting on. Some of you might be waiting on a relationship, maybe your first real potential mate. Others of you you're waiting on your mate. You have to get better like you thought they were. Some of you might be divorced and you're waiting on a new beginning. Some of you might be waiting on a baby. Some of you might be waiting on a job transition. Some of you might just be so busy. You're just waiting and waiting and waiting for life to slow down so you can finally have some margin. And we're waiting. We're always waiting. Some of us are waiting for independence, to get out of the house, to get out from under the parental rule. Some are waiting for their kids to be the success that we know they can and will be. But we're still waiting. There's still a time to wait. So that's what we do. We wait, and some of us.
Speaker 1:You're with people every day that test your patience. Maybe they mistreat you, maybe they're just. They just get under your skin, man, they're just. Ah, I can't handle you right now. That's how they are. And you, every day, you dread walking in there because you have to look at them. Here's the problem, man. Impatience, dude, is bondage. Impatience keeps us unhappy. You can't be happy if you're impatient. Patient says, hey, um, it's not that I need everything to go my way, I can trust God with his way, whereas impatience and pride See, when you're really prideful, dude, if someone hurts your feelings, you might be upset for five days or five months Because that's just. You're just. You're just impatient, you just haven't gone, you haven't passed the tests yet.
Speaker 1:If you're impatient when someone doesn't act the way that you want them to, when, when, when they don't be who you decided they should be, you get angry and onry and your fuse gets short. When, really, why should they be who you want them to be? What makes you think that your version of them is a good one, like how you doing with you? God has a plan for them and patience just says you just be on your own plan, baby. You just go ahead, it's alright. It's alright, I don't need to have an opinion about that. That's an anointed phrase for some people today. I don't need to have an opinion about that. There's plenty for you already to have your opinion about. You don't need an opinion about that. Here's what goes wrong for all of us, though.
Speaker 1:When we get impatient many of us whether you're a Christian, whether you're exploring things of faith maybe you're coming back to things of faith. Whatever it is, when something's not going our way, we do, it's natural, we try to engineer a way. How do I get this to? Let me just get it, let's do it, let's figure out a way, and often there are hacks and there's easy things to do, but there's sometimes when God is not letting us get that thing yet, and so we get into what the Bible calls it's kind of an old phrase works of the flesh. It's when I'm trying to do something that I think is even positive, but I'm doing it only in the strength and the wisdom of people, or I'm trying to even becoming initially reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. We try to, instead of go through Jesus, we're trying to just be good and hope that God will. Well, god will accept my goodness. Actually, you'll never have enough goodness, and you'll never. You've already got too much badness. You've got to come through Jesus. That means you're not coming through the works of the flesh, you're coming through the finished work of Christ. That's how you reconcile to God through Christ. But even when you've done that, we still try to do stuff in the flesh. So here's a scenario that I see, and you've seen this. Probably Some of you have been a part of this.
Speaker 1:I see a girl, she meets a boy and she's like well, I love Jesus and he almost loves Jesus, he's willing to be around and she knows the spirit of God is saying don't move forward, don't marry that dude. And yet she's like but I'll bet, if I just persevere, I'll kind of talk God into it. And that's what it is. That's the works of the flesh and most of the time that hurts them. And anytime we do anything like that, it hurts us. So when we're being told be patient, don't take the easy way, don't take the shortcut, don't get this now, wait for it. Let's just all pay attention, because the one who loves us most and has our best in mind, see, he's got something so awesome for us that if you could see it right now, you'd be like oh, I so want his version, but you can't see it. So you're like I want my version. That's works of the flesh, that's how we get into that and it's super nasty.
Speaker 1:Abraham and Sarah. That's what they did. Okay, so God promises them Abraham, you're going to be the father of many nations. And he's looking at his wife Now they're getting a little bit older and he's like I'm not even the father of one person, much less many nations, which would necessitate an entire land of promise for us to go into. And so they get an idea. Sarah's like well, not working with me, but I got this servant girl, hagar. Why don't you just get with her? And then her baby will be my baby. That will help God do his thing. Now we can see how dumb that is. I mean, we know, but for some reason they didn't think it was dumb at the moment.
Speaker 1:So they go ahead and they do the works of the flesh, and then God says now, that's not the one, wait for me to bring it. Well then, a generation, two generations later, jacob, him and his mom, rebecca, they're trying to like okay, they need to get the birthright promise, esau had it. If you don't know these people, that's right, man, you'll get, you'll pick it up. Esau had the birthright. And so they're trying to connive and come up with a way let's trick everybody into God having to give the blessing to Jacob. Anytime you're thinking about, I can engineer this so that God has to, baby, give up now, go to bed, because that ain't gonna work. But that's what they're doing. They're trying to bring about a positive, but they're trying to bring it about in their own wisdom that can't see all ends and their own strengths.
Speaker 1:We all get into works and we get really frustrated. We can't be happy. Are we hearing this? We can't be happy. If we're not going to be patient, there's always going to be something to be unhappy about. So, since patience is actually one of the hardest in my opinion, hardest ways to love it's hard to be patient with God and it's really hard to be patient with people we just gotta get good at it, because patience isn't going anywhere. It's going to remain a test that we need. Are we hearing this? Yeah, so we need to get good at it. So that's what we're gonna do today.
Speaker 1:I know that you want this. I want this. I want to be a transformative agent. Wherever I am, I want to be an influence on people. I want people to benefit because I was around, whether it's on a work team, whether it's just in the train station, wherever it is. I want people to benefit because I was around. You want that. So we're gonna talk about how to partner with the spirit of Jesus, these fruit coming through us, so that we can be a transformative agent of love. Here's number one we have to be patient with God. We have to be patient with God.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about Joshua. Joshua was the protege of Moses From the time he was probably even before he was a teen. He's following Moses around because he wants to be like Moses. Well, he follows Moses around for like 40 years almost, and then finally he's promoted and he's the leader of the nation of Israel. And now it's time for a bunch of hullabaloo, reasons why we're not gonna talk about it. Now it's time for them to go into the Promised Land, but even that, it takes seven years for them to get in it and get control of it. So if I'm Joshua, 47 years about I've been patiently waiting to finally do what I think God has called me to do. 47 years, man, that's a long time. Why does God take so long?
Speaker 1:Well, deuteronomy 7, 22 says this the Lord, your God, will drive those nations out ahead of you, little by little. You'll not clear them well at once, otherwise the wild animals would multiply too quickly for you and, in other words, there'll be too much chaos. You're not gonna be able to handle it. Also, god leads us little by little because pride creeps in if it happens too fast. We're like I did it. I'm good, I figured it all out. It might have been total luck and you didn't really figure it out, but now you're getting a little puffed up and so God says let's go little by little. So you can be very clear it wasn't you, it was you partnering with me and I'm the one who did it. Come on somebody Now.
Speaker 1:In contrast, abraham contrast Jacob and Rebecca contrast them with Joseph. So, joseph, it seems to me that Joseph did not try very hard to do things in the works of the flesh, except for, maybe, at first. So, joseph, remember, he's the guy with the Technicolor Dreamcoat. He's got all these dreams when he's a teenager. He's like here's what's gonna happen, y'all gonna be bowing down and working for me, and his brothers don't like that, and so they essentially just sell them, make them a slave. So for 13 years he's some version of a slave, until he's in the basement of the basement, just in a dungeon, just rotting, just waiting for God to bring about this dream that he had when he was just a kid. And he's waiting and one day, like he mentions, hey, mention me to the king because he helped some guy down there. But that's about it. I think it's okay to check sometimes like hey, can we get out of this now? Like that's okay. But he really didn't do much else. And this is what the Bible says about it Psalm 105, 16, 19,. Commenting on that, he called God, called for a famine on the land of Canaan, cutting off its food supply. Then he sent someone to Egypt, ahead of them, joseph, who was sold as a slave. They bruised his feet with fetters and placed his neck in an iron collar.
Speaker 1:Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph's character. Until the time came, oh, dear heart, the time did come. The time does come. There comes a time when it's time now. But until then he tested Joseph's character. And that's what he does with you and me. Why is he taking so long? Because he's testing us. And when we say test, we don't just mean like trying to get us to fail, but trying to get us to pass, trying to get us through it.
Speaker 1:The Holy Spirit builds patience in us over a long period of time. Stage by stage, step by step, little by little, he's building this reservoir of patience in us. Now what we wish is that we just already had the patience. Can I just be born with the patience? Then it would be easy. Now it has to be formed, we have to learn how to do it, and so, for that reservoir, it feels like it's just like a very slow drip coffee, like it's like a drop a day, like it's just you're just slowly getting more and more. And what God really wants, he doesn't want just a little cup, he doesn't want just a little pot, he wants an entire cement truck filled with patience for us to tap whenever we need it. Oh, that's fine, I got patience. Nope, I'll be okay. I got patience. No, nothing bother me, I got patience. Even when it does bother me a little bit, I still got patience.
Speaker 1:I did some study this week and I researched trees. There's trees, there's species of trees that live on coastlands, that their roots are uniquely strong because they're so used to the wind batting them around that their roots have to get stronger. And some of us you've been battered around by life Like why am I always battered around. Could it be that the Lord has kept you in certain places because he wants to test your character and make your roots strong and give you a reservoir that you can always tap into of patience? James 1, 3, talking about trials and patience, says for you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
Speaker 1:But here's where it gets difficult. Psalm 41,. I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry. I waited patiently. Then he turned to me and heard my cry. But when I'm just kind of having a fit and like, well, god, I'm God, I'm God, I'm God, why aren't you going, and so on and so on and so forth, when we're getting into that stuff, that's not waiting patiently. He's like I can wait. God's patient man, he can wait. I'll wait till you're patient so you can get your heart right, and then I will answer. I'll hear your cry.
Speaker 1:Maturity only comes by growing in patience, by your stead. Here's Luke 21, 19. By your steadfastness and patient endurance, you shall win the true life of your souls. You'll win the true life of your souls. By endurance, steadfastness, patience, you'll win the true life Meaning there's a piece of your soul that doesn't really come alive until you can get a lot of the flesh out of the way, then, oh my gosh, I'm living on a different level.
Speaker 1:But every time we try to go to a new level or ask to go to a new level, the Lord has to bring us through fresh, hard stuff. Is this helping anybody today? Yeah, I hope so. Hey, I know that God is bringing some of you through some real difficult situations. I know that there's new people, new stuff, new changes that are coming at you. Can I just lovingly encourage you, hey, man, be patient with God. He's gonna get you through. He's gotten you through the other stuff. He will get you through this stuff. He knows what to do and is your best end in mind. See, patience with God gets the wrinkles out. Patience with God trusts God's how and trusts God's when. I wanna know when and I wanna know how. And God says I ain't telling you that you just be patient and I'll get you there on time. We have to do this.
Speaker 1:So when we're in works of the flesh we have to do this other kind of Bible-y phrase we have to die to self Doesn't mean we literally die. It means we embrace a form of death, like a death to what I want. I embrace the pain of not getting my way, but as I embrace that pain, I actually get healed. I get healed of self-centeredness. I get healed of not being other centered. I get healed of always needing things to go my way and I get a closer walk with Jesus Christ. That's what happens.
Speaker 1:But we can also hurt ourselves if we're trying to go too fast. Proverbs 14-12 says this there's a way that appears right, appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. Dude, if we just reflect on that for a second, there's a way that appears right to men and women. It looks to you and me like, oh, that's totally what it is, that's what they thought about bloodletting once, that's totally what we do, but it ends in death. It's not where we're supposed to go. There's things that are intuitive to you and I that God says that's actually none of what it is. And so if we're impatient and we erase toward a thing that we're like this is right, we can hurt ourselves even though we're trying to help ourselves.
Speaker 1:I've got this kid that may or may not live at my house and when that person has pizza, okay, it's like out of the oven and in like three minutes it's like trying to get in his mouth and you can watch this human burn himself. Okay, he's trying to eat this stuff fast, but it's also like you can see like tears coming up in his eyes and oh my gosh. And we're like, hey, man, you just don't have to go that fast, like it'll be just as good. And yet for some reason there's a desire I gotta get this now, even though it's hurting me. And that's how we are. Sometimes You're trying to eat the pizza so fast. Baby, slow down, enjoy the thing. Geez, come on. But when we go in our own wisdom and our own timing, we end up hurting ourselves.
Speaker 1:God uses the iron. This is the Carter family iron. Not everybody in the Carter home knows how to use it, but even those who do don't necessarily like to use it. But man, it's really good at its job. It gets really hot and the heat goes on. The wrinkles in the clothes and those wrinkles slowly disappear. Now it is hot and sometimes the trials that we're in, they feel hot. We're waiting on God. Can I remind you, god's getting the wrinkles out.
Speaker 1:Patience. When we choose patience, he's getting the wrinkles out. He's like well, the only thing that's keeping you from this is impatience. Those are the wrinkles. Just choose patience and everything gets flat, everything gets smooth, everything gets clear. This is gonna come back to you at some point.
Speaker 1:You're gonna have to choose to die to self. You're probably gonna be someplace. You're gonna be in traffic or something. Okay, you're gonna be looking around. There's cars everywhere and you are going like one mile an hour and your flesh is beginning to boil and you're like gripping the steering wheel harder and like what's going on? What are they doing? And when you're doing that, just remember the test, because, baby, the truth is you ain't getting out of there now. You might as well just sit back and chill acts, because just look around you and say, well, praise God, this is my next half an hour or hour. This is where I'm gonna be. I might as well get some of the wrinkles out, I might as well grow. I can't get out of it. And that's with other situations, larger situations. It might take five more days, it might take five more months, it might take five more years, but, baby, there ain't no way to get out of it and when we finally give over to it. It doesn't need to be my way. That's often actually when God brings it through, when we just let God help us get over it, die to it, don't need it, and then you might get past it. Come on, somebody, trust God's timing for the best result.
Speaker 1:Ecclesiastes 311,. I love this one. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He's made everything beautiful in its time, not out of its time, and in its time, not my time. There is a time God says this thing you don't like, that's ugly and nasty. I've got a plan for when it'll be the time for that thing to all resolve and be beautiful and great. But God says it's my time, it's only beautiful in my time. You don't want the non-beautiful version.
Speaker 1:There's a tree called the Century Plant. It's, I think, more literal name is Agave American. You can Google it and you'll see this tree. It stays six feet tall for 20 to 30 years. Six feet tall, that's all it is. You're just looking at it. This is a tree. It's six feet tall, year after year, after year after year, and then it hits whatever year, that is, between 20 and 30. And it grows up to 30 feet, boom.
Speaker 1:Why did it have to wait? I don't know. That's how God made those trees. We ask why do I have to wait? I don't know. But can you consider? There's some things in your life, baby. They're Century Plants, they're Agave American trees. They're waiting. They're under the surface right now. They're getting ready, they're getting all the fuel together and pretty soon they're gonna pop right up and everyone's gonna stand back like holy cow where did that come from? And you're like dude, I've been waiting on this thing for years and my roots have been planted. I'm. It's finally here for you. For them, it was almost instant.
Speaker 1:We just gotta get that patience and you know, patience is one of the greatest ways we can show love to God. This is we've already read this verse, but let me read it in the message. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you can become mature, well-developed, not deficient in any way. Patience with God gets the wrinkles out. Is there anything you need to decide to not get impatient with Any trials, that you need to be like all right, everybody sell down, let's just keep going.
Speaker 1:So we have to be patient with God and then we have to be patient. We have to have God's patience with others. God's patience with others Remember, the fruit of the spirit is God's spirit. He's not saying go do this. He's saying access me and we'll do it together and I'll bring patience through you. So when I'm being patient, he's not even asking me to just be patient on my own. He's saying come to me and get my patience, learn about the way I'm patient with people and then together we'll help demonstrate the patience of Jesus to a watching world. We've got to look at our model. Patience takes the strengthening of God and it's even kind of weird to think of. God wants to like, live patience through me. Yeah, that's exactly what he wants to do. He doesn't want you to do it alone and he doesn't want to do it alone. He wants to do it in partnership with you and I.
Speaker 1:Now there's a lot of things you and I are gonna have to be patient with for people. But patience with people also gets the wrinkles out. Okay, so there's gonna be weaknesses that you're encountering right now in people you don't like them. There's gonna be faults you don't like them. It's hard to be patient with that thing. There's gonna be just personality issues. They just I don't know where it is man. It's just their personality. It's just irritating to be around them and you need to access the patience of God for that person.
Speaker 1:What about this? You got anybody who's really kind of overinflated in their confidence right now and it's bugging you. Or maybe they're just people of mood swings a back and forth and you're like, oh why, why? You're gonna need the patience of God for them. That's what we need. What about people that you're just like man? They just make foolish decisions all the time. Well, maybe some of the decisions you made once upon a time were not all that bright. Maybe some people were patient with you. So maybe you need to be patient with some other folks. What about people that change your minds all the time? There's a lot of think this or this or this, and you're like could you just make a decision please? We need to be patient with those folks. Maybe they're at a new season. Even their relationship to you is changing. They're moving on, they're getting older, they're into a different stage than they were, and I just kind of, oh my gosh, we ought to re-orbit this thing and do it a little bit different you got to be patient with that, because they're figuring out and you're figuring out. Sometimes people just have I mean, this is the truth, man people just have sin issues that are they're not even necessarily trying to do it, they're just doing it. It's their recurring thing and we just got to say I'm going to be patient with that. I don't need to resolve that, fix that right now.
Speaker 1:What about when people call you at really weird times Am I the only one that this happens to? Or they text you like in the middle of the night are you up? What about people who maybe embarrass you on social media? They just say stuff that is like why did you pull me into this? I don't want to be in this. What about people who they tell you the same story the second and third time and, like we've already talked about this man or my favorite, the people that are just kind of meandering with their story? Okay, they don't really even know where they're going. They just start talking like let me tell you a story, and then you're getting at all these things and I'm like I want to take a red pen and just start x-ing things out. This is not related. You don't need to tell me that this makes no sense. They're just meandering in their conversation. Don't anybody think I'm thinking about you, because it's not you. They all go to another church.
Speaker 1:But it needs patience. It needs God's patience, instead of just cracking them across the jaw to just say, bless God, I'm going to keep loving you, I'm going to keep praying for you, I'm going to keep giving you gifts, I'm going to do whatever I need to do for me to get the wrinkles out, because you, my dear person that is killing my flesh, is helping me get the wrinkles out. How many just want to get the wrinkles out? Let's just get them out, man. Let's just do it. Now a couple more tips.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people are not ready for us to always be telling them what they're doing wrong, and you've probably seen this. You probably had somebody in your life at some point. They're just riding you. There was always someone. Well, you're doing that wrong. Did that help you? No, so you might see some things that people are doing wrong. But that's why we have the Holy Spirit, because it is a thing like as a church, we do hold each other accountable. There's a time to go and be like, hey, what's up with this. But there's also a time to just listen and wait. Let the Spirit of God do the work first. Let Him get in there, and then we'll bring up what we should bring up, and maybe nothing at all, because maybe they're just in a season where, baby, what they need is grace. They just need a whole lot of love. Like they know it's wrong, they're trying Just give them some grace.
Speaker 1:Colossians 3-12,. I mean, this scripture says it better than anything I've said. Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender hearted, mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Here's your bonus tip Be patient with yourself. Some of us, man, we got to get that down. You are living under a beam of shame and it is not helping you and you just get frustrated with yourself and then you try harder and that doesn't work, because that's works of the flesh. It's not crying out to Jesus to help you do it. I love this text in Ecclesiastes 7-20. Certainly there's no one so righteous on earth that he always does what is good and never sends. That's grace in the Old Testament from God to you, you think, hey, man, look, sin is bad and that's why we needed to cross, but it's okay, like I love you and you're going to make mistakes.
Speaker 1:John Kelvin, one of the most famous theologians in all of history, he wrote about this. He wrote about the fact that sin, even when we come to Christ and trust him, we are forgiven and we are what's called justified, we're legally declared right with God in his sight, despite all of our sin, because our sin is now legally on Jesus. That's true. But then he leaves remnants of sin in until we go to heaven. There's things that humblest John Calvin said it this way In regenerating his people or when they come to Christ.
Speaker 1:God indeed accomplishes this much for them. He destroys the dominion of sin and neither longer slaves. You can now not sin by the power of the Holy Spirit, by supplying the agency of the Spirit, which enables them to come off victorious from the contest. Sin, however, though it ceases to reign, ceases not to dwell in them. Accordingly, though we say that the old man, that's the person we were, is crucified and the law of sin is abolished in the children of God, the remains of sin survive, not to have dominion, but to humble them under the consciousness of their infirmity.
Speaker 1:Sometimes God leaves us making mistakes, having some failures, because he just wants us to remember hey, man, you still need me. You're not a super angel. You're going to have that sin still in your members until finally, one day you're going to die and you're going to like step out of your body and see it lying there and you'll be like good riddance. I'm not going to need you again because sin is trapped there and not coming with you. That's a dope promise. Yo, you'll never hurt anybody again. Then your sin will never trip you up again, it'll never grieve the heart again. That's the promise that comes to us because of Jesus Christ. He's the one that does that for us.
Speaker 1:As we close down today, I want to invite you. Maybe you need a fresh spirit filling. You need the Spirit of God. You need to come to him and say, hey, jesus, I'm not patient. You know the issue. I need a fresh anointing from Jesus to fill me and give me power. Now you can do that right at your chair. You can do that right online. Wherever you're at, you can just cry out to him right now.
Speaker 1:Sometimes there's a power in coming down to the steps right here and just kind of kneeling and saying, god, I'm coming to Jesus, not to stairs, I'm coming to Jesus. You're imagining Jesus there, but you're asking him to fill you and give you a fresh anointing. You might even be near somebody that you're like. I know they know how to pray. I'm going to ask them to pray for a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit in me. Whatever you got to do, can I just remind us we're not going to be patient if God doesn't give us the patience Patience with God, patience with others and then, finally, patience with ourselves. So I'm going to pray, the worship band is going to do their thing and while they're doing their thing, feel free, you can go anywhere in the room, come down, you don't have to do anything, you can just sit there and be chill and watch. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're so thankful for your word. We're so thankful that you give us power to do what we can never do. We're thankful for the perspective of your word that tells us not everything is random, not everything is just frustrating, that there's purpose behind our trials and that you're trying to grow us up into great, great oak trees that are constant and stable in season and out. So, father, I pray for everyone that is going through something with you where they really just need patience. I pray you download it to them today. Everyone who's got some kind of sandpaper person in their life is just irritating the heck out of them. Now. Would you give them Holy Ghost, love and patience to demonstrate the personality of Jesus toward that very person and God, for those that are way too hard on themselves, they're really playing the role of the accuser sometimes. Would you give them new perspective to see themselves first as a creature that is loved by their Heavenly Father, who has taken their burden entirely on the cross In Jesus' name, amen. It's because of you that this is possible. You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit Fierce Church for more information.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this podcast, why not subscribe? Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or whatever. You would share such things. Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it. Don't give up. Hang on to Jesus. He won't let go of you. Jesus loves you so much and we love you. I hope someday we get to meet in person. Thanks again for listening.