The Virtue of Patience -- Galatians 5:22 (December 11 2022)

Advent as a Season of Waiting

We have said that Advent is a season of waiting, of anticipation, of longing, of expectation. And during these four Sundays of Advent, we're waiting on Christmas. It's just two more weeks, kids. I can remember being a kid, many Christmas Eves as a kid, being so excited for Christmas morning.

And it feels like it's just never gonna come. Felt like I just couldn't wait, but I had to. Because no matter how excited we are for something, no matter how much we want for something or another to happen, and we want it to happen just this very instant, there's still 60 seconds to the minute, still 60 minutes to the hour, and we can't speed it up.

Waiting requires patience. And Advent is a season, is a time for us to cultivate patience in our lives. So this morning I want to preach on the virtue of patience. So if you have your Bible, you can turn to Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians chapter 5. We're gonna use the whole Bible's teaching on patience throughout the Scriptures this morning for our sermon. But I want to root it in Galatians 5 .22. I want to root it in 5 .22 where Paul lists out the fruit of the Spirit.

And he gives us this in the context of having listed out the works of the flesh immediately prior. He's contrasting life in the flesh versus life in the Spirit. And so let me read from Galatians chapter 5 beginning in verse 19.

Just gonna back up to 19 for context. We're gonna focus in there on 22. And God's Word says this. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the things like these.

I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. This is the Word of God to us this morning. And what we see here in verse 22 is that the fruit of the Spirit is patience.

And that patience is the fruit of the Spirit tells us a few things. First of all it tells us that God is the fountainhead of patience. He is the source of patience. God is patient. Second thing it tells us is that patience is not the default of man.

Our factory setting and our corrupted state is not set, not dialed in to being patient. Patience is something that the Holy Spirit works in us. It's a fruit of the Spirit's work. And the third thing it tells us is that believers, those who are filled with the Spirit, believers are to be patient.

We're commanded to be patient. And not only are we commanded to be patient, we're equipped to be by the Holy Spirit who fills us. And who bears the fruit of patience. And when we're patient we imitate God.

And we're conformed to His image. Romans 8 says we're conformed to the image of His Son Jesus. So that's our outline for this morning. We're going to look at God and man and restored man. The patience of God, the impatience of man, and the patience of restored man.

Or we might say believing man. So first the patience of God. Let's see this morning that God is patient. How do we know this? Well, there's some things that we can know about God just from looking at the world that He made.

By looking at creation. Because God reveals Himself in limited ways, but very true ways, real ways, He reveals Himself through nature. That is we can look out at the world and we can know some things about God.

We can't know everything about God from nature. We can't know God savingly from nature, but we can know some true things. And we can know them truly. So Romans 1 tells us that through creation people know that God exists.

And that He's powerful and that we ought to give Him thanks. And I believe we can also look out at nature and we can see that God is patient.

The Patience of God Revealed in Creation and Scripture

So think about it.

Think about how long it takes for a tree to grow. Trees don't just sprout up real quick, do they? Or think about how long it takes for orchards to start producing fruit once you plant them. Or think about erosion in the Grand Canyon and how the Colorado River over years and years and years has just cut that canyon a little bit at a time.

Think about rock formations over time. Or think about how long it takes for plant matter to break down and form into coal. And then think about how long it takes for coal under the pressure of the earth to turn into a diamond.

Now God could have just made diamonds instantly. He could have just made them outright, but instead He chose to use these long processes. You see, God is in no hurry. And from these things we can learn that God is patient.

Think about the earth. Somewhere between 6 ,000 and 10 ,000 years old. Now God could have told a quick story of humanity and the earth, but He's chosen to tell a 10 ,000 year story. He could have defeated Satan finally way, way, way back in the garden.

But He didn't.

He could have perfected the earth and in an instant, right after Adam had sinned, He could have restored everything.

But He didn't.

He's letting this thing play out. He's letting this story play out over the long haul. Over a long period of time. Because you see, God is in no hurry. He is patient in bringing about His good purposes.

And so we see this in creation. God is good to us though. He doesn't leave us only to figure out things from nature, from looking at the world. He's also given us His Word in the Holy Scriptures. Where we explicitly see the patience of God.

We can see it in a logical deduction from a few verses in the New Testament. And so 1 John 4, 8 says, God is love. And 1 Corinthians 13, 4 says, love is patient. And so it's just a simple syllogism, right?

If A equals B, B equals C, then that means A must equal C. If God is love and love is patient, God must be patient. Or we could see it in Exodus 34. It says, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He's long-suffering, He's patient. And we see that same verse, that same phrase is all over the Old Testament. I picked one verse, I could have picked probably a half a dozen or a dozen of them. God is slow to anger, He's long-suffering.

His people throughout, we see if we read the Scriptures, His people are disobedient. They do all sorts of things to displease Him. Yet His anger is not quickly kindled against them. He's slow to anger, giving His people opportunity to do what?

To repent.

To turn from their sins. We could think of Nehemiah 9, verse 30. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear.

Many years!

God is patient. Or we could think of Romans 9, verses 22 and 23. What if God, desiring to show His wrath and make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy,.

Which He has prepared beforehand for glory.

And so here we see something of God's divine purpose in putting up with evil. He is patient with it in order to make the riches of His glory known. In other words, there's something more valuable than getting something done fast.

The glory of God.

We could also think of 2 Peter 3, verse 9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness. But He is patient toward you. Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Here we see that God is not being slow, but not just ending things now. He's being patient. And again, the reason for His patience is He is giving time and opportunity for people to turn from their sins and be saved.

Romans 2 tells us this patience is God's kindness. Or do you presume the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. God's patience in judging sin and sinners is His kindness.

A kindness that is meant to lead people down the path of repentance and turning from their sin. And it's interesting to note here the connection between patience and kindness. Is there in Romans 2? Is there in Galatians 5, verse 22 that we read?

When Paul lists out the fruit of the Spirit, he puts patience and kindness next to one another. The fruit of the Spirit there in Galatians 5, these aren't nine different fruits. It doesn't say the fruits of the Spirit, it says the fruit of the Spirit.

These nine attributes together make the fruit of the Spirit. That is, they are all interconnected. They are all of one piece. It says all the work of the Spirit in us. And so patience is kindness. And to be patient is to love.

And to be faithful and gentle and to be self-controlled. It requires self-control to be patient, does it not? These things are all together of a piece. And God is the fountainhead and source of all of it.

It's the fruit of the Holy Spirit of God. He is the standard of patience. He is patience par excellence. God is patient and let us be thankful that He is, that He is patient with us.

Because we're in need of it, right?

God is patient and let us praise Him for it. But man, man is impatient. So let's look now at the impatience of man. You could say that impatience is the foundational sin of humanity. That in the fall of Adam, when he ate from the tree that God had forbid him to eat from, that the sin there was impatience.

Now some people might say the foundational sin there is pride. But vices like virtues are also all wound up together. For the prideful are usually impatient and the impatient are usually prideful. They all kind of go together.

It's all of a piece. But I want to show you Adam's impatience this morning. God forbid Adam from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 .17. But in Genesis 1 .29, God had said that He gave them every tree with seed in its fruit for food.

So this would include the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So how do we square that? What gives? I think the solution is that the prohibition in Genesis 2, the prohibition against eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was temporary.

You see, the tree of knowledge has to do with judicial wisdom. The wisdom it takes to rule, to make right judgments. It's a kingly tree. And Adam, he was to mature into eating from the tree. He was to pass tests and grow up into it.

He had to qualify for it. But it would have been his to eat in time. It was not his to eat right then, as Genesis 2 makes clear. And so what we see when Adam ate from it, he grasped for this tree too early, before it was time.

That is, he was impatient. If he had obeyed God, then when he was allowed to eat from the tree in time, he would have been transferred from one degree of glory to another. But instead, he tried to glorify himself through covenant breaking, impatience, rather than receiving that glory from God, through covenant keeping, faithfulness and obedience.

And the results were disastrous. Instead of advancing in glory, he was degraded. Such that he, his wife, and all who would come from them, descend from them, would wither and die. Let's fast forward in the Bible just a little bit to the story of King Saul.

King Saul, he's an Adam figure. And a lot of King Saul's story is a recapitulation of the Adam story. He too was impatient and the kingdom was taken from him. The story comes to us in 1 Samuel chapter 13.

Saul, he was waiting at Gilgal for seven days, the time that was appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come within that time. So the people, they were beginning to scatter. And the Philistines, well they could attack at any moment.

So Saul got nervous, maybe he got fearful, but he got impatient. And so he offered himself something he was forbidden to do. And as soon as he was finished making that unauthorized offering, here comes Samuel.

What have you done? Samuel asked. Now Saul gave his excuses. But the fact is, he had become fearful and unbelieving, and thus he became impatient. And Samuel said to him this in 1 Samuel chapter 13. You have done foolishly.

You have not kept the command of the Lord, your God with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom shall not continue. Saul lost the kingdom, because in his impatience he did what he was not authorized to do.

We could also think of the prodigal son, who wanted his inheritance just right then. But he was not yet mature or ready for it,.

And so he promptly went and squandered it.

We could also look at the temptations that we face. The temptations and sins in our own lives, we can see how impatience is often entangled with those sins. Think about fits of anger. Is it not impatience with others that fuels our outbursts?

Or what about theft? One steals because he is not patient enough to work for the thing that he desires or craves. Or what about poor work that cuts corners? Impatience drives poor craftsmanship. Or we could think about a perennial temptation, especially for young men and women, sexual temptation.

Like the tree in the garden, the prohibition against sex is temporary, that is, until marriage. So premarital sexual activity then is the same sin as Adam's. It is grasping too early for the good and glorious thing that God intends to give you at the appropriate time.

A good thought exercise is to go back to Galatians 5 and see the works of the flesh, and see how impatience is often connected with those sins, and how it leads to some of those sins. Go back and look at Galatians 5 sometime and just think about what's the relationship between impatience and the fits of anger, impatience and the envy, the impatience.

So far we've seen that God is a God of perfect patience, and that man is corrupt in impatience. But we are to be like God. We are in Christ to become conformed to His image. We are being restored in Christ.

So that means we are to be patient. Let's now look at the patience of restored man, the patience of believing man. We can learn who we are to be in Christ by looking at the instructions and commands of Scripture.

For the Scriptures, they present to us a vision of the good life, a vision of how life that cuts with the grain of reality, that fits with how God has made the world for how God intends for us to live.

The Patience of Restored Man

And so let me just give a quick survey of some of the teaching of the Scriptures on patience. Romans 12, 12, Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer.

There's a command.

Even in hard times, if you're facing tribulation, be patient. Ephesians 4, 1 and 2,. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.

So there we see God's instructions for us when we're dealing with people who are hard to deal with. We've got to bear with them in love, with patience. Ecclesiastes 7, 9,. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.

Or James 1, 19,. Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. It requires patience. Galatians 6, 9,. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.

Be patient in doing good. Psalm 37, 7,. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Fret not yourselves over the one who prospers in His way, over the man who carries out evil devices. No, be still before the Lord and wait for Him.

What does waiting require?

Patience.

I want to apply the Bible's instructions that we've heard here on patience to various situations that we might face as believing men and women, as restored men and women, who are restored in Christ. The first is that restored man is patient with other people.

Notice that several of the verses I read had to do with being slow to anger, or with restraining our lips, or with bearing with another person. This is because other people, if you live in close proximity to other people long enough, you'll find this out, other people, they sometimes annoy us.

Or provoke us. Or cause problems for us. Or cost us time and money. Or any other number of things. And if you can't think of other people who have done that to you, you know what that means.

You're the person.

But we can all think of where we've had, it's difficult being in relationship at some level. Maybe within family, within a work environment, within a school environment, whatever it is. The church environment.

And the temptation is to burst out in anger. Maybe to smart off, mouth off at them. But restored man,.

He's patient.

With his own children. With his co-workers.

With his family members.

With his church members. With his neighbors.

Or whoever else it might be. The exhortation to us this morning is to be patient. And not lash out in anger. Restored man is patient when it comes to sanctification. Now sanctification has been the process of growing in godliness.

The process of being conformed to the image of Jesus. The process of being restored. That's what sanctification is. It's the process of putting off sin and putting on Christ. Putting on virtue. This is a life long pursuit.

And if it's a life long pursuit, what does that mean it requires?

Patience.

We need patience for others who may not be changing quite as quickly as we want them to change. Their stubborn habits keep resurfacing. And we keep having to deal with them. Again and again and again.

And we keep having to forgive them. Again and again and again.

We need patience.

Or maybe we need patience for our own sanctification. For our own stubborn habits. I don't mean here that we excuse our sin in the name of patience. Rather I mean that we don't give up in the fight against our sin.

We don't give up in the fight against our stubborn habits. We persevere in that fight for holiness. Because God is holy. I love the way one pastor described the Christian life. He said, it's a long obedience in the same direction.

It's a long obedience in the same direction. In fact it's a life long obedience in the same direction. It's what following Jesus is. Therefore it requires patience.

Perseverance.

And endurance. We also see that restored man is patient in trials. Be patient in tribulation, Romans 12, 12 says. For, as Romans 5 tells us, suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character.

Character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame. Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Who has been given to us. Suffering is productive. Tribulation trials are productive.

They produce endurance.

That word endurance there is the same word that in other places in the New Testament is translated as patience. Suffering produces patience. And it requires it. Probably because it requires it. Our various trials teach us patience and they make us patient.

So maybe you're going through a trial right now. Maybe you're going through a trial where you or a loved one has a serious medical illness.

And it's wearing you down.

Or maybe you have some broken relationships in your life.

And it's wearing you down.

Or maybe it's financial difficulty. Or some other trial that you are going through. I want to encourage you this morning to hold on and hold fast. Wait on the Lord and hope in Him. That's what we saw last week in Isaiah chapter 8.

Wait on the Lord and hope in Him. Hold on and hold fast to Christ. Your suffering is not in vain. Your trials are not in vain. Your tribulations are not in vain. Rather your suffering is productive for your character.

Producing steadfast endurance. And the result of it is hope. Hope that does not put us to shame. Because of God's love. And remember the promise of Christmas. That God is Emmanuel.

God is with us.

God is with you in your suffering. Christ took on human flesh and came into this world. Full of trial and tribulation and suffering. And He did it to deliver us from it. God is with us. And with His mighty right hand He will uphold you in your time of difficulty.

Just hang on. And be patient. Be patient in trials. And then lastly, restore man is patient in doing good. Galatians 6 and 9 said, Do not grow weary in doing good. So I think first of trying to do good in society.

The walls of western civilization are crumbling. And we have a lot to do to rebuild in the ruins. This is not an overnight project.

Or we can think of our church.

As we rebuild the people and ministries of this church. We have a lot of work to do and it's not an overnight project. I think of overnight projects. I think when we lived in Turkey. There were these apartment buildings that would go up on unoccupied land.

People didn't buy the land to build the apartments. Nobody was there. They would just go build on it overnight. They were called gecekondus. Which literally means in Turkish, it means night built. There was a loophole in the law that made it legal.

That if you built at night. And I forget the exact wording of it. But basically if you did it at night. You could legally build an apartment building on land that wasn't yours. But as you can imagine.

Buildings that go up quickly under the cover of darkness. Are not exactly up to code. And not of enduring quality. Here's the thing. We don't want to build a gecekondus society. And we don't want to build a gecekondus church.

We want to build up to code. That is according to God's word. We do not want to cut corners. We want to build to last. And that takes time. And that takes effort over time. And that takes effort over time in the face of opposition.

Think of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. And Sanballat and Tobias. Coming and trying to get him to come down off the wall. He had to endure over time in the face of opposition. And we'll have to do the same thing.

And that means we need endurance and perseverance and steadfastness. All New Testament words that can be translated also as patience. Educating and training a new generation of children requires patience.

Building or rebuilding institutions requires patience. Undoing sinful patterns and habits requires patience. Here's the thing. Weeds grow fast. Oaks take decades. You can microwave a hot pocket, but you really ought to slow cook your Christmas roast.

In other words, the best things in life take time and diligence.

They take patience.

And so how do we get from the impatience of corrupted man to the patience of restored man?

We follow Christ, not Adam. We follow Christ.

Remember Adam? When he was tested at a tree, he sinned by grasping too early what would have been his end time. Now I want you to think about the story of Jesus. Where he's tempted in the wilderness by Satan.

And Satan, he took him to a high mountain and he offered him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. If he would just fall down and worship Satan, Jesus refused.

See, here's the thing.

All the kingdoms of the world and their glory were already going to belong to Christ.

Just not yet.

Just not yet. Like Adam, Jesus first had to go through an ordeal in the garden and a test at a tree. In other words, to win his kingdom, the kingdom and glory of all the world, Jesus would have to suffer.

And so in the garden of Gethsemane, sweating drops of blood, Jesus prayed, Not my will, but thine, Father. And then he went to the tree, the cross, where he was crucified. And by his cross and his resurrection, he was given a dominion and glory and kingdom over all the peoples of the earth.

Revelation 11 says it like this, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. You see, Satan offered Jesus a shortcut where he could supposedly bypass the suffering of the cross.

But unlike Adam, who impatiently grasped for glory through covenant breaking, Jesus patiently kept covenant. He patiently obeyed the will of his Father, and he won salvation and glory for us all. And so all who trust in him are being remade and restored in him by his Spirit.

And the fruit of the Spirit is patience.

Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, we ask that you would give us patience. And toward that end, Father, I pray that you would work in us love and joy and peace and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and self-control.

Father, I pray that you would call to our minds your providence and your loving care, especially when we are going through trials and tribulations and sufferings, that you would remind us of your goodness, you would remind us of your power, you would remind us of your providence, and you would remind us of your patience, and that you would make us patient.

And when it seems like we just can't bear it anymore, Father, give us the grace and the strength to press on in faithful obedience just a little bit longer. Give us this grace, we pray in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.