SPEAKER_00: I love when Adam plays that song.
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: We got some announcements this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We start women's Bible study uh next week, as well as our Kids Summer Fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, those are really fun.
SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
SPEAKER_00: Kids, were there any other announcements?
SPEAKER_00: Benton?
unknown: Let's go.
SPEAKER_00: If you are here for the first time and you're wondering if we're a church of Scientology based on our you know, we're not.
SPEAKER_00: We're just uh a body of believers who really love VBS.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the best week of the year, and so you have come on the first day of it.
SPEAKER_00: So we are glad uh that you could join us uh and look forward to tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you're able, oh actually I actually do have a real big announcement.
SPEAKER_00: Uh going on a sabbatical, uh June 23rd.
SPEAKER_00: I think many of you are aware of that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm very appreciative and thankful uh for the session uh for allowing me, granting me the opportunity to go.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful for all of you for allowing me uh to go as well.
SPEAKER_00: I think what's really humbling about it uh is when I've talked to many of you, you you don't make me feel like I have to justify going.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you're all extremely supportive, uh, and that that means a great deal.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going on it because I'm overworked, right?
SPEAKER_00: You all work very hard.
SPEAKER_00: You all can make a case for being overworked.
SPEAKER_00: I heard in a podcast one time, and this kind of I feel like explains it well.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine if you were a paramedic, and every call that you went on, you had a personal relationship with that call.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe just the emotional toll it would take over years to always having an emotional investment in something that might be traumatic or just difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I felt like that kind of accurately portrays maybe uh where I am a little bit emotionally, um, is just emotionally kind of tired.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's been a wonderful, I've been here since 2014, right?
SPEAKER_00: So wonderful 10 years.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm happy uh to take two months uh to kind of recharge.
SPEAKER_00: And I get two questions.
SPEAKER_00: First one is how much golf am I gonna play?
SPEAKER_00: Uh and not really as much as you would think.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's pretty subjective, but um because the members here at our church, they've graciously uh provided us some opportunities to travel.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we'll be traveling a lot for the first six weeks of it.
SPEAKER_00: We will basically not be in Birmingham.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then the last two weeks when our kids start school, we will be back in Birmingham, uh, but you still won't really see us around.
SPEAKER_00: But uh we're we're looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the second part is what am I gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what am I trying to accomplish?
SPEAKER_00: And the simplest way I can put it is, and this is kind of what this sermon is off of this morning, is being present in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: I am horrible at being present in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go ask my wife for evidence of that, but um I'm always constantly thinking about something else, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or reaching out to someone else, or do something that needs to be done rather than maybe in the moments enjoying time with my family, uh, or even just time with maybe when I'm with one of you all, right?
SPEAKER_00: Just the constant distraction of going and doing and being somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm excited for the next two months to just try and be present in the moment and to slow down uh and just and to enjoy, uh enjoy time with the family.
SPEAKER_00: So those are uh you know the main goal.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, like I said, I'll need a lot of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh my family will need a lot of prayer and resting.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of feels like those people who are like posting maybe on Instagram, like, oh, we just have so much going on for a vacation.
SPEAKER_00: But uh we would really love your prayers uh as we endeavor on this.
SPEAKER_00: So with that being said, if you are able, please stand for the reading of the word.
SPEAKER_00: It's from 1 Timothy 12 through 17.
SPEAKER_00: I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service.
SPEAKER_00: Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me and with the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.
SPEAKER_00: But I received mercy for this reason: that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life, to the King of the ages, immortal and visible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Early on he tells a story about his mentor, John Ortberg, uh, talking with Dallas Willard.
SPEAKER_00: Dallas Willard is a professor, and he's kind of written numerous books kind of about spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: And uh John asked, What must I do to become the me I want to be?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Dallas Willard responded kind of with like a long pause.
SPEAKER_00: He said he always had a long pause, and he said, You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.
SPEAKER_00: And then John responded, Well, that's great.
SPEAKER_00: What else?
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing else.
SPEAKER_00: Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.
SPEAKER_00: You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.
SPEAKER_00: That hit me right in the face.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, hurry comes in seasons, right?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes maybe you feel a little more hurried and rushed than others.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in our season, especially with kind of EBS coming up, we kind of feel hurried.
SPEAKER_00: But what I realized is when I feel hurried, right?
SPEAKER_00: My prayer life suffers.
SPEAKER_00: My mindfulness of the Lord suffers, right?
SPEAKER_00: My genuine love for others suffers because I'm focused on me.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm in a hurry, it's about me and what can be done for me to get to point A to point B or accomplish what I'm whatever I'm trying to do.
SPEAKER_00: So that quote hit me real hard.
SPEAKER_00: And then it got me thinking.
SPEAKER_00: What do we usually say when someone asks how we're doing?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're good.
SPEAKER_00: We're just busy.
SPEAKER_00: I know you're like, I don't want to say it.
SPEAKER_00: We're just busy.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, I understand in some essence that that's just a pleasantry, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's just kind of something we say because it's relatable, it's kind of like talking about the weather, right?
SPEAKER_00: But then there's other aspects of it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you really feel busy?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really feel hurried?
SPEAKER_00: When I was teaching this Sunday school class series, this last one we're doing it off of Kevin DeYoung's book, Crazy Busy, and I just realized like I am really busy because my life doesn't show a lot of gratitude to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: When you're hurried, when you feel rushed and busy and overwhelmed, how often do you feel grateful?
SPEAKER_00: How often do you feel like you express gratitude to the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it took me like six weeks teaching that Sunday school class to come up with that.
SPEAKER_00: And then when I was working on this sermon, I read a quote or a research from a journal of psychological science, which said, research found that the degree of patience exhibited was directly related to the amount of gratitude an individual felt.
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of read that and I was like, well, there you go.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm gonna preach on.
SPEAKER_00: But this isn't a sermon about, hey, you need to just scrap your schedule, right?
SPEAKER_00: You need to just after work, go home till bed.
SPEAKER_00: If it's school, when school's over, you go home.
SPEAKER_00: On the weekend, you stay home.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what this is about.
SPEAKER_00: This is not clearing your schedule, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was very, his day was very full.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to associate this with like being lazy.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a difference, right, between being full, right?
SPEAKER_00: Feeling called to do what the Lord has called you to do and being busy, which distracts us from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So today, this is a kind of a one-off sermon, like I said, things I've been thinking about as I go into my sabbatical of the importance of patience and its relationship to gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: And how gratitude leads to worship, right?
SPEAKER_00: And worship leads to joy.
SPEAKER_00: And so, kind of that sermon title, like, are you patient enough in your life to be grateful?
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're gonna look at today.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you feel rushed?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you feel hurried?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you always feel pressured to go and do?
SPEAKER_00: In that last Sunday school class, we asked that question, and what kind of came up was this pressure of should.
SPEAKER_00: I should be doing things.
SPEAKER_00: I should go and do that, I should be there.
SPEAKER_00: And we realize as a congregation, you're we're all very high-functioning, high accomplishing, right, high achieving individuals.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Many of you have accomplished a lot.
SPEAKER_00: So, and part of that means, because you're high functioning, you have the capacity to do more.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You know I can do more, I can handle more, I can get it done.
SPEAKER_00: How much of that pressure do you put on yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Because think about it.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone had the pressure of feeling I should do, it would have been Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You think of like God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: When you read scripture, you know, they never feel rushed, they never feel hurried, it's always measured, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's always intentional.
SPEAKER_00: I think about uh the creation, right?
SPEAKER_00: He spent six days creating everything.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if if my Amazon package is in here in three, like I'm getting upset, right?
SPEAKER_00: He took six days.
SPEAKER_00: What happened in the garden right after Adam and Eve sin?
SPEAKER_00: Right, Genesis 3.8.
SPEAKER_00: It says they hear him, and he's walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
SPEAKER_00: He's not running after them.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like an action movie, right?
SPEAKER_00: Where it's like slow-mo and they're about to eat the apple, and God is just kind of trying to run in and scream, like, stop, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, he's calmly walking.
SPEAKER_00: It's immense patience.
SPEAKER_00: When Moses is like, Who are you?
SPEAKER_00: Who do I say that you are?
SPEAKER_00: What he announces I'm steadfast.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the first things he says.
SPEAKER_00: I I'm patient.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a patient, loving God.
SPEAKER_00: Or Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: The son.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you I I thought about this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: For 30 years, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus kind of lived just a private life.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so much so that the people in his hometown were like, when he kind of was revealing himself as a side, were like, that's just the carpenter's son.
SPEAKER_00: Like, there's nothing special about him.
SPEAKER_00: But can you imagine at some point the pressure, the social pressure he started to feel when people are like, You've been God the whole time?
SPEAKER_00: Like, we could have used that, you know, like could have helped me here, right?
SPEAKER_00: Could have plowed that field a little, you know, like all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: But for 30 years, what did he do?
SPEAKER_00: He patiently endured life.
SPEAKER_00: And he lived like us, right?
SPEAKER_00: So they could sympathize with us.
SPEAKER_00: Or in John 11, when Lazarus is sick, does he just run off and say, guys, we have to go?
SPEAKER_00: What does it say?
SPEAKER_00: He waited two days.
SPEAKER_00: Two days before he went there.
SPEAKER_00: And then what's Martha's response?
SPEAKER_00: If you'd have been here, he wouldn't have died.
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's not like we just necessarily live in a culture that probably has more pressure of hurrying and doing.
SPEAKER_00: He felt it immensely.
SPEAKER_00: But he didn't succumb to it.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He was never distracted by his schedule.
SPEAKER_00: It was always, I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing because the Lord has called me to it.
SPEAKER_00: And I rest in that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why he comes off as patient and not frazzled and not anxious and not stressed.
SPEAKER_00: Corey Ten Boom says, if the devil can't make you sin, he'll make you busy.
SPEAKER_00: How true is that?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because busyness is a distraction.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we are separating out you having a full schedule and doing things you need to do versus are you thinking about things that you're doing that are distracting you from the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Because again, I know when I get busy, I get distracted for my walk from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Michael Ziggorelli, who's a Charleston Southern University professor, did a survey of over 20,000 Christians and kind of the obstacles of growth.
SPEAKER_00: This was his conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: Christians are assimilating to a culture of busyness, hurry, and overload, which leads to God becoming more marginalized in Christian lives, which leads to a deteriorat with God, which leads to Christians becoming even more vulnerable to adopting secular assumptions about how to live, which leads to more conformity to a culture of busyness, hurry, and overload, and then the cycle begins again.
SPEAKER_00: Does that not describe our culture?
SPEAKER_00: We wonder why the church as a whole in the West is deteriorating, is becoming more like the culture.
SPEAKER_00: Is it perhaps because Satan was like, I don't need to tempt you with just necessarily lots of sinful things.
SPEAKER_00: I just need to distract you enough from my word that you'll forget it.
SPEAKER_00: That you'll just be too busy to remember who I am and what I've called you to do.
SPEAKER_00: And then you'll just slowly kind of melt together into doing what you think is right in your own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Romans 12, 2 says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes we've got conformity to this world, it's like, well, I just don't want to do that sinful behavior.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe part of the conformity of the world is us filling up our lives with distractions, of things pulling us away from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Realizing that being the new person that we are and the new mind that we have, like we can discern.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want me doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Is this something I should do?
SPEAKER_00: And I get it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like half my life right now has been dedicated to six-year-old baseball.
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to Andy McMacon about it today.
SPEAKER_00: And my son loves baseball and we love to play it.
SPEAKER_00: And so I understand the pressure of my my child loves this.
SPEAKER_00: So why would I not want to do it for them?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Why would I not want to give them as many opportunities to enjoy things that I enjoyed or that they're good at throughout?
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm not saying you scrap all that.
SPEAKER_00: But I am saying at what point do we discern what is and isn't the will of God and things that point us to Him, that make us more like Him.
SPEAKER_00: Are we modeling a conformity to culture that says go, go, go, do, do, do?
SPEAKER_00: And then when you have time, think about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When your schedule permits, yes, Jesus needs to be in there.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Is that what we model to our coworkers?
SPEAKER_00: Is that what we model to our neighbors?
SPEAKER_00: Is that what we're modeling to our children?
SPEAKER_00: Right, Philippians 4, 5 and 7.
SPEAKER_00: Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
SPEAKER_00: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Your reasonableness.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Your reasonable a bit of that Greek word kind of has this like gentle and kindness and kind of these patient undertones.
SPEAKER_00: What does your reasonableness say to people when they ask, why aren't you doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, are you signed up for this?
SPEAKER_00: Or why are you doing this?
SPEAKER_00: What is the reasonableness of the response?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Is it?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, we're, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we are doing that.
SPEAKER_00: You know why we're doing it?
SPEAKER_00: It was a great opportunity with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We feel like it really draws us to him.
SPEAKER_00: Or, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: We said no to that.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot going on on our plate right now.
SPEAKER_00: We're too distracted.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't something we thought was edifying or would build us up as a family.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This just gospel patient reasoning of we don't need that right now.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Sabbath, right?
SPEAKER_00: The Sabbath is there to show people our reasonableness and why our lives look different and why they show more patience, and why they show more steadiness and steadfastness to rest.
SPEAKER_00: It's really, I mean, again, as hard as it seems to think back then, and I always think of when they're in the wilderness, right in Numbers 15, uh, the guy goes out and he picks up sticks on the Sabbath and they stone him.
SPEAKER_00: And when you kind of read that, right, just on the surface, it makes it sound like, well, that was really harsh.
SPEAKER_00: They're in the wilderness, they need firewood.
SPEAKER_00: He's doing something honorable, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now he there's more to that.
SPEAKER_00: You look at the context, it was a very rebellious act.
SPEAKER_00: He was intentionally doing it to say, I don't need the Lord, right?
SPEAKER_00: It it was a justifiable uh punishment uh for the sin.
SPEAKER_00: But you still think about that, right?
SPEAKER_00: To truly rest in a gregarian culture.
SPEAKER_00: But now we're not in a great culture, but we're in a culture of I expect you to respond, to be able to do something that I ask work wise, right?
SPEAKER_00: For you to continue to go and pursue whatever life endeavors you.
SPEAKER_00: Need to do.
SPEAKER_00: We feel that pressure.
SPEAKER_00: But yet the Sabbath is there, right, to help show this culture, our reasonableness to everyone that the Lord is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to be anxious about what I might or not feel like I should have accomplished in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: we all want more patience.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the chief center of impatience.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the hard part.
SPEAKER_00: I only think about patience when I'm impatient.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Which only comes from difficult situations.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Difficult situations are what show your lack of patience.
SPEAKER_00: But if we start getting kind of a little deeper into this, these difficult situations, how much of it is a lack of patience, but how much is it also tied to maybe it's a little lack of faith and trust in the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you think about work.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, we got to get this done.
SPEAKER_00: This has to be finished.
SPEAKER_00: I need this on time.
SPEAKER_00: Or else what?
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I might lose my job.
SPEAKER_00: Then we're going to be homeless.
SPEAKER_00: Then we're not going to be able to, right?
SPEAKER_00: You spiral.
SPEAKER_00: You spiral like the worst possible things that can happen.
SPEAKER_00: But again, how much is that really again?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying the need to not be a hard worker and to be diligent and to finish task on time.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I think you all understand that.
SPEAKER_00: But if your mind starts going to just the utmost, your life's going to spiral out of control.
SPEAKER_00: You're not showing a faith and trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: There's a disconnect there.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm not saying you're not mindful of consequences when things aren't finished when they're supposed to be, but when your faith and trust is ultimately back in the Lord, of look, he's put me here, he's equipped me to be able to do this.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get it done.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: There's more of a patience that comes from that.
SPEAKER_00: When you think of Israel, right?
SPEAKER_00: It was seven weeks from when they walked out the front door of Egypt to Mount Sinai.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Seven weeks isn't that long.
SPEAKER_00: What happens?
SPEAKER_00: Moses goes up for 40 days and 40 nights.
SPEAKER_00: And then it uses the language when they saw that Moses was delayed in coming down.
SPEAKER_00: They ran to Aaron and they said, Up, make us an idol, make us a God that can go before us.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of remarkable that you have delayed, right?
SPEAKER_00: They're in patience.
SPEAKER_00: Like, where is he?
SPEAKER_00: Why hasn't he not come down yet?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This impatience, this lack of trust.
SPEAKER_00: And then it's they run to Aaron, hurry up, get up, make us a God to go before us.
SPEAKER_00: You can see how maybe you're starting like if it's sometimes just blaming other people for your impatience, how much is it possibly tied to just a genuine lack of faith and trust and the Lord's providence and sovereignty in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Patience is also a display of love.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You have probably heard 1 Corinthians 13, right?
SPEAKER_00: The way of love read countless times at weddings.
SPEAKER_00: When you start in verse 4, you'll remember love is patient and kind.
SPEAKER_00: Love does not envy or boast, is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Love bears all things, it believes all things, it hopes all things, and it endures all things.
SPEAKER_00: When you're impatient, are you ever rude?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Do you insist on your own way when you're typically impatient?
SPEAKER_00: I do.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are irritable when you're impatient?
SPEAKER_00: All the time.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you resent the people who have caused the situation for you to be impatient?
SPEAKER_00: Every time.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Every time.
SPEAKER_00: You're not loving in those moments.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's a bigger deal.
SPEAKER_00: Impatience is a bigger deal than just being annoyed by someone else causing your schedule not to run as you expected.
SPEAKER_00: It means you're not being loving.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the first thing it's describing is love is patient.
SPEAKER_00: And here's part of that.
SPEAKER_00: When it finishes with, it bears all things and endures all things.
SPEAKER_00: How much of your impatience is that you just keep forgetting that we live in a fallen world with fallen people?
SPEAKER_00: I get, for whatever reason, I've been here 41 years and I still haven't figured it out that you know what?
SPEAKER_00: We live in a sinful world and that causes problems.
SPEAKER_00: But for me, I'm like, I shouldn't have to suffer through this.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna make me wait 15 minutes Chick-fil-A for my nuggets?
SPEAKER_00: You want me to go park in the parking lot?
SPEAKER_00: I just went through the drive-thru not to park in this parking lot.
SPEAKER_00: Cannot stand, we're like, hey, go park over there.
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's all you know I was ordering chicken.
SPEAKER_00: It's all you got out on the menu.
SPEAKER_00: I forget.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying waiting for your nuggets of Chick-fil-A is suffering.
SPEAKER_00: That is a huge virtual problem.
SPEAKER_00: Um Jesus Christ knew before the creation of the world he was going to suffer.
SPEAKER_00: And it's why he was perfectly patient.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, nothing ever frustrated him.
SPEAKER_00: Think about his life when he's doing ministry.
SPEAKER_00: All of the people continually impeding him, getting in his way, lying about him, trying to undermine him, trying to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: That seems like things that would make me pretty impatient and irritable.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't act like that because he realizes I'm here to suffer.
SPEAKER_00: You're here to suffer.
SPEAKER_00: What's a powerful witness to people?
SPEAKER_00: It's countercultural is you being patient.
SPEAKER_00: You being patient with the waiter, you being patient with your coworker.
SPEAKER_00: Because that doesn't happen anymore.
SPEAKER_00: What happens in sports now?
SPEAKER_00: If you're a coach, you didn't win the first season, you're out.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: If you're a quarterback, you didn't win the first few games, you're out.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: But when you, understanding that things are going to be hard, endure all things, and you bear all things, it allows you to be more patient and loving.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to our actual passage.
SPEAKER_00: This was that was not a 25-minute introduction.
SPEAKER_00: This one.
SPEAKER_00: And starting in verse uh 14, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
SPEAKER_00: But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Scott Hubbard, who's an editor for Desiring God, said, in Christ, your life tells a story of divine patience.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, your life tells a story of divine patience.
SPEAKER_00: Think how much patience gets tested with your own children.
SPEAKER_00: Now imagine Christ, God the Father, and all of his children.
SPEAKER_00: And if you know you're like me, I absolutely live a life that could bring irritation and impatience.
SPEAKER_00: And what did he do?
SPEAKER_00: In you, in your sinfulness, in your rebellion, in your hard heart, and your stiff neck, he displayed his perfect patience for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's countercultural to be patient, right?
SPEAKER_00: For people to see the kindness and the gentleness.
SPEAKER_00: It shows Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because he didn't remove himself from us.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, he hasn't said, I've tried with you, I've tried with you, and I've tried with you.
SPEAKER_00: You've promised me, you've promised me, you promised me.
SPEAKER_00: You keep failing, you keep failing, you keep he doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say it's over.
SPEAKER_00: He keeps drawing us to himself.
SPEAKER_00: He keeps revealing himself to us.
SPEAKER_00: Because this patience is eternal.
SPEAKER_00: When I think of Ephesians 4.32, right?
SPEAKER_00: It says, forgive each other just as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like you could also insert patience.
SPEAKER_00: Be patient with your life and others, just as God in Christ Jesus has been patient with you.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to this final kind of point in the sermon title, Are You Patient Enough in Your Life to Be Grateful?
SPEAKER_00: To have gratitude?
SPEAKER_00: You know, in that psychological journal, when it said, hey, we've done this research and we said there's a direct correlation between people who are patient and grateful, that's a secular journal.
SPEAKER_00: How much more should people be able to see that in our lives as believers?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I noticed you just don't feel so scattered.
SPEAKER_00: You just seem real patient and calm and steadfast and deliberate.
SPEAKER_00: What's that all about?
SPEAKER_00: It's the patience the Lord has bestowed upon me.
SPEAKER_00: It's my willingness to endure like he endured for me.
SPEAKER_00: It's the absolute faith and trust that I have that my life is in his hands.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to chase things to make myself happy.
SPEAKER_00: See, here's the thing: it's not circumstances that determine our gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: You can just read the Beatitudes and realize that it's not circumstantial.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
SPEAKER_00: Those don't sound like great circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed means happy, right?
SPEAKER_00: Joyful.
SPEAKER_00: So it's now it's saying, well, grateful, happy are those regardless of their circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: It never says, happy is someone, blessed is someone, grateful is someone who continues to pursue things that they're going to make themselves grateful for.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say that because it's not circumstantial, because your gratitude is actually who you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not circumstances, it's who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're in Christ, right?
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Patience is one of them.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to look for things to fill up your life to continue to make yourself be grateful.
SPEAKER_00: You already have it.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the witness to other people who are continually to fill their lives with as much as they can to figure out what will make me happy.
SPEAKER_00: What's going to make me finally satisfied?
SPEAKER_00: It's not that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stop trying to chase every activity or invitation because you think you need it to do it, to be happy, or guarantee a better future for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: See, actually, when you think like that, it makes you a more impatient person because you start realizing all those things you're pursuing aren't actually giving you what you want.
SPEAKER_00: And you become irritable.
SPEAKER_00: You become impatient.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't I feel better?
SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd feel better after this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still angry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still frustrated.
SPEAKER_00: I thought if I just could have this for a minute or just a break or whatever, it doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: It causes more impatience.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Which distracts is less gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Let's realize because of Christ's patience with us, that he is bringing his work to completion.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's coming.
SPEAKER_00: That's the real joy.
SPEAKER_00: Real life-sustaining joy is found in your daily acknowledgement that you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's the gospel that you're forgiven, that you're justified, that you're loved more than you can comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: Let's all be patient enough to remember that so that we can be grateful and worship Christ for his atoning and securing our future inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, it is uh it's really convicting to preach things that I myself struggle with mightily.
SPEAKER_00: It's shocking how impatient I am, which just shows my lack of trust and faith in you.
SPEAKER_00: It shows my lack of desire to love others or to love you.
SPEAKER_00: It shows how often I actually think that I need certain things to actually make me grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've forgotten none of that is true.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful, Father, that my gratitude is found in you and what you've already accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: It is not on some whimsical future event that I want, but what you've already secured before I was even born.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for showing patience in me and in us when we don't deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that your spirit dwelling in us, Father, would allow us to endure suffering, hardships, and do it with patience, do it with love, do it with trust, do it with gratitude, so that in all circumstances we can worship, glorify, and take joy in you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.