Patience： The Core Of All Virtues — Sandeep Poonen

We are in a you know, there's flooding going on and there's been some pictures that I saw recently about People who've had to evacuate their homes their rooms are all flooded and they are carrying tubs with them to leave their homes and We've people have had fires and there was a situation once in Colorado where?

The fires were coming very close to somebody's in the church's house. And we were calling them and they were in Another country and we were calling them and saying what do you want us to get you got one hour?

They're in another country. Think about it. Think about your home. You're all here. So what somebody called you and said you got 15 minutes or you want to grab out of your home? Everything is going to be burnt up.

Faith, Hope, and Love That Last Forever

Interesting discussion to think about but that's what people have to do when rooms of houses are being flooded. All that you can't leave behind. All that you just cannot leave behind and there's this verse I want to start with the 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13.

This you cannot leave behind. You know, they've always you've heard that expression. You've never seen a U-Haul following a hearse. Have you heard that expression? You'll never see a U-Haul following a hearse.

A hearse is a funeral vehicle. But you never see a U-Haul following it because you can't take it with you. The dead man can't take any of the U-Haul stuff with him, right. So you never see a U-Haul following a hearse.

What can you take with you can't take your money? Can't take your clothes. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13 tells me what I can take with me and so it's extremely important for us to Prepare to take the things that we can take with us as we're going through this life.

And it says here. But now these three things abide. They'll last forever and if you read it in the context of 1 Corinthians 13, he talks about prophecy. They'll End up going away tongues. They won't last forever.

But these three things will abide. Faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love. So I wanted to show a little bit of slides to help us follow along on These three virtues faith hope and love.

And you know the Living Bible Tells it this this way the three things will last forever. Faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love. So when I think about these three virtues, it's easy for me.

For many times to think about these virtues as three discrete virtues faith hope and love. It's not yet up. Okay, just take your time. So these three virtues can come up faith hope and love and I can think of them as being discrete.

This is faith. This is hope and this is love and I need to work it out together like those three pictures in there. But what I've seen through studying scripture that they're actually connected. So you can go to the next slide where it kind of shows you those three virtues.

I Don't know if it's an actual Venn diagram or whatever it is. But I have a point to make through this faith hope and love because through scripture. I also see that there is a something in the yellow.

There's something that faith Hope and love all share in common. So when I think I want to grow and grow in faith. When I want to say I want to increase in hope when I say I want to increase in love. I The starting point is to see that I'm work increasing in the one in the yellow and the next slide tells you what is in The yellow this is in the yellow Patience and let me show you some verses that prove that this is not based on theory.

Patience as the Link Between Faith and Endurance

Confidence comes from God's Word one Faith faith. How why do I say patience is so connected to faith? There may be a few verses that come to your mind. It's with faith along with patience Hebrews 6 12 that we inherit the promises but the verse that I'll show you here is James chapter 1 verse 2 through 4 and That's the next slide.

It shows you in faith. The connection between faith and patience another word for patience is endurance or perseverance and these are verses that you should remember and as I've Meditated on these verses.

I've started to see wait patience is bubbling up out of all three consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials because These trials is really not God punishing you not God saying he's angry at you.

Not because something your boss did or your father did or your mother did or your culture did no. Every trial every fiery trial has been ordained by God allowed by God as a testing of my faith. That's the reason.

So let me set aside any thought that this is a punishment from God. No, every trial is a testing of my faith. I'm taking faith with me. I'm gonna take faith to heaven. So I must embrace this testing of my faith because I don't want to go To heaven and find that my faith was the size of a penny.

I would love for my feet to be the quality of a diamond. Trials come and say let me tell you on this earth What the testing of your faith is because you're gonna take your faith to heaven with you. You're not taking your money with you.

You're gonna take your feet with you. And here's what faith produces. What these are trials attacking your faith produces endurance and Let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and and complete.

So it's almost as if the trials come and What God is trying to say is I want to Strengthen your patience your endurance and once you're fully perfectly Enduring and patient you're perfect lacking in nothing.

So patience and endurance is so critical to faith. Let's move on next slide to hope. Romans chapter 8 is a passage. We also have memorized Romans chapter 8. For if we hope for what we do not see With perseverance with perseverance with patience with endurance with perseverance.

We wait eagerly for it here again. Hope is being tied to perseverance. If you tell me you have a Christian hope you better have patience. If you tell me you have Christian faith you better be saying I've got patience it dig you can't separate the two and In the context Romans chapter 8 verse 22 for we know that all creation suffers and groans.

The pains of childbirth just talking about groaning and then the next verse says not only creation we ourselves. We are the first fruits of the Spirit we grown within ourselves yearning eagerly. To be adopted as sons the redemption of our body.

So we also have a groaning inside of us difficult situations life fiery trials and. Then he says in that context in the context of prayer prayers that have not yet been answered in the context of sicknesses that have not yet been relieved in.

The context of financial difficulties that have not been shown in answers yet in all of those contexts. You have hope Romans 8 24 for in hope we have been saved. For who hopes for what he already sees, but if we hope for what we do not see have perseverance.

Show me you have hope not because you're seeing something great, but because you have perseverance and you're waiting eagerly for it. In scripture, I see that there are two words in the Greek for patience.

There's a word that's used for faith and hope and they've got on and it's helped me. I'll tell you why because it's both a lot of faith and hope is taught in the context of patience as it relates to circumstances.

So the Bible is telling me when you deal with all of these circumstances. Situations in life make sure that the quality of your faith and your hope are increasing. That means that as I deal with all my circumstances God says don't lose your faith.

When I deal with falling when I thought I shouldn't fall God says don't lose your faith and don't lose hope. As we are trying to be perfect as God is perfect. We have this hope that we purify ourselves as we are pure so we hope and we have faith as it relates to our Circumstances and then the third one is love.

Love Is Patient and Kind Toward Others

There's a different word when the Bible talks about love and patience because now it's talking about dealing with people. We don't have to have faith in people. We don't have to have hope in people. But we have love.

Towards people we have faith and hope in our calling in God in the context of circumstances. But we have love towards people. As I said, let me repeat it again. We don't have to have faith in people. They may let us down.

We may not need to have hope in people, but we must love People it's directed towards others that we have love. What is the first word if your children were to ask you daddy mommy describe love. How would you describe love?

Would it would you have said love? Dear child of mine you want you want me to explain love to you. Let me tell you the first thing patient. Well, that's what the Holy Spirit told us. Well, I want to give you the clearest definition of love.

I'm gonna tell you love is patient the very first characteristic of love. Very unlike what the world will tell you. Oh, I love you. I'm gonna marry you five years later. Patience ran out real quick. Often is the case.

It's so Contradictory, so when I tell my children, I love them. I'm telling them as a Christian. I love them. I'm gonna be patient with you. When I tell my wife I love her and I promised my life I'm gonna love her till death do her part.

What I was telling her was I'm gonna be patient with you. And if you want to go to a second one, I'm gonna be kind. And there's a lot of work we can do just with those two words in our marriage relationships.

I mean, I won't buy you chocolates I won't buy you flowers, but I'll be patient and I'll be kind. And I want you to say when you love me You're gonna be patient with me and you're gonna be kind with me.

How much different our marriages would be if we would just work on those two words if as the Holy Spirit prescribed it in Scripture Towards the ones we love we be patient towards them and we be kind but number one word is patience.

Patience as the Core of All Virtues

And I find that in all these three words faith hope and love I find that the number one word that is in that Venn diagram. The very center of that is patience. I've called that the core the core of all the virtues.

It's not the greatest of all the virtues because God said the greatest is love. Because love takes all my faith in God takes all my hope in God in all of its circumstances and then says I'm gonna love You God and I'm gonna love people.

That is why we know in 1 Timothy 1 the goal of our instruction is not faith, but it's love. From a sincere faith. It has to result in love all of the formulas of the Christian life all the paradigms all the philosophies all the Methodologies that we study about must all result in let me show you the love I have For my brothers and sisters and how do I show my love?

I'm patient Towards them I'm kind Towards them and there's one Corinthians 13 has a lot of virtues which we can start we can meditate on. But all of these things all of your victory over sin all of your struggles or triumphs all of that should result in well.

Then show me your love. And it's good to think about these things as we see other people Grabbing all their belongings and buckets and saying that's all is my life. I'm gonna grab every child. You got one backpack everything.

You're never gonna see everything else behind one day an angel is gonna come and knock on our door and say times up time to come home time to meet your father up in heaven and You'll tell the angel. Can I have one minute to pack?

Angel may give you a minute to pack. You'll say look, but there's only three things you can carry with you. Your faith your hope and your love. Back whatever you got your faith in God in all of your circumstances.

Your hope that you would be like Jesus and all these circumstances and the love you got towards other people. Let's inspect our backpacks. That's what we're carrying with us dear brothers and sisters.

These tragedies that happen these things that happen where people have to have their lives uprooted. So it may have happened to some of you but these are reminders to us of our heavenly kingdom and to inspect our Storage units our backpacks to say angel when you come I'm gonna grab my backpack with me and it's gonna be my faith.

Hope and love my faith in God my faith in who God is. My hope not in myself my hope that God is gonna Redeem me from this earth and I'm gonna be adopted as a child of God and in that in mean the meantime I'm groaning and Suffering the pains of childbirth, but I my faith will not fail.

That's what Jesus prayed about Peter that Christ will be a hope of glory and above all that love Will increase so that we it can cover a multitude of sins. I want to show a little video That really blessed me.

Patience Requires Determination Toward Christlikeness

It's a two-minute video on Patience. I think you'll get the message even as you watch it. So let's can we stop that back and let's show that video some of you may have seen it. The message is obvious, but I just want to kind of let that sink in.

It's you can find it on YouTube. I want to show the next slide if you go back to the next slide. I'll show you a couple of Points that I wanted to make about this right associated with patience is a Determination and as a Christian.

This is not just a feel-good video because This is not something that is unique to the to the Christian faith a lot of people will say well. This is a symbol about how life should be should never give up.

But I want us as Christians to understand how our patients should be aligned in Determination. Dear brothers and sisters 1 John chapter 3 verse 1 through 3 tells us how? What we must not give up on remember this person was climbing stairs towards a goal and We should not think that we're just here to just keep falling and getting back up and it doesn't matter where we end up.

No God has set a destination for us and God wants us to progress and For whatever for in if that picture works for you. The staircase is a picture of progress Towards a goal and 1 John chapter 3 verse 1 through 3 is the progress and the determination.

With which we must hold up patience. See how great a love the father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us because it did not know him.

Beloved now we are children of God and it has not appeared. What we will be like we will know this that when he appears we will be like him. That's the goal because he says this whoever verse 3. Everyone who has this hope fix that we will be like Jesus Purifies himself as he is pure.

So that's a picture of the climbing the staircase. We must recognize that God is wanting us to climb up the staircase which is a picture of us seeking to be pure and Let me be very clear in my life because if in saying this because it was incredibly important to me.

Being pure does not being does not mean being free from sin. Being pure does not mean being free from sin being pure Means being full of faith hope and love two very different things. They're connected but very different.

I can be freed from sin, but be empty of faith hope and love and it's useless. Paul said that 1 Corinthians 13 chapter 1 if you had all kinds of things, but you didn't have love it's meaningless. It's empty.

It's nothing So pure as Jesus is pure. The goal of our instruction is love. Pure as Jesus is pure is Lord. Jesus. I want to love like you loved and we can meditate on the love of Jesus to know how Much we have to go to climb up the staircase.

It's not freedom from sin because that's what we tend to get bogged down by pulled down by. I sinned here. I sinned there. Bounce back up, but the goal is love Lord Jesus, I want to love you and love other people like you did.

You were an oven and you showed us how you loved us. But then you came on earth and you showed me how to do it. I want to have a determination. That that's my goal and that's it's in that context that I embrace patience.

Freedom From Failure Through Perfect Love

Which is bouncing back up off of that trampoline. Mat and the other word relating to that is freedom. I loved as he started walking. There was a little bit of tentativeness, but then when he fell and he realized that there was a trampoline there.

There was a freedom and a joy. Whether he fell or whether he was climbing 1 John chapter 4 verse 18. I put the wrong person. There's no 1 John 4 19. 1 John 4 18 that there is no fear in love. Because perfect love casts out all fear.

That doesn't mean that we don't fear God. But we don't fear falling. He's able to keep us from falling. But he's also able to be an advocate to us when we sin. 1 John chapter 2 verse 1 and. So we must have a freedom in our walk.

That is a freedom from failure. Because our identity is secure. Behold what manner of love God has showed you he says you're my child and I pity the children who are growing up. So afraid and so tentative in their own homes.

Some of you may have but I hope that we as parents don't raise our children so insecure and so fearful of making a mistake. Going anywhere near that vase let alone drop it because they're so afraid. We must have that freedom of the children of God.

We've been set free from corruption so that we can live with the freedom of the glory of the children of God. This is a determination and a freedom and a Joy that should accompany our work in our patience.

God's Eternal Love as the Trampoline of Grace

I actually saw this first on Twitter. I'm not on Twitter much, but I saw this so somebody pointed me to this on Twitter and I never respond on Twitter. I don't it's not my calling at least so far. But I felt the need to respond to the person who tweeted this and I said the key question and you can you can go To the next slide because this was the key question to me.

What is your trampoline to me? That is everything. What is the trampoline is what makes the difference and actually I tweeted I responded that person and that person Responded or somebody has responded saying well, it's your family.

It's your culture. It's different things like that. It's the ones who you know, love you. We got to do better than that because the closest of friends can fail us and I feel better people than us. Closest of family can fail us and I feel better people than us.

The trampoline I feel must be eternal. And thankfully our trampoline is eternal and that's the next slide. This is the trampoline that must keep. Getting us to bounce back up. God's Eternal it has to be eternal because it never fails.

There's no time limit to it. There's no limit to it. And I must find that love that is eternal. Every human being can fail us but God's eternal love for us demonstrated in Jesus Christ. Revealed to us to Jesus Christ is the trampoline.

I don't think it was intended that cross may have had a different purpose for that person. I don't think the person's a Christian who's performing it to it, but the cross slipped in there. So we could use it as a good picture the cross is there.

That's what is our trampoline to bounce back up from and dear brothers and sisters that That truth runs very deep more than it runs wide. The cross of Christ can be though. I know Jesus died for me in a cross as I said, it's not a wide concept.

It's a deep truth that I have to meditate on and as we've heard Philippians chapter 2 there's a great love of God in where God became man and man became a Servant and Man became a criminal in Philippians chapter 2 the humility of Jesus as he kept going down and down.

Because he loved us for us he did these things that becomes the trampoline to not be afraid of falling. To be determined to go towards the top and to press on to be like Jesus our hero. Perseverance. Endurance patience.

Carrying Faith, Hope, and Love Into Eternity

Dear brothers and sisters. I hope it's a simple message that you can remember. I hope you'll remember that video. I hope you remember that trampoline. What is the trampoline in your life? You may think your family's and it should be there for children, but you'll discover as you grow older.

There's a much better much more secure that we have as an anchor. Unshakeable. I'm immovable trampoline. And there's the trampoline of God's love if we're struggling with patience. We're struggling with endurance.

Let's grow in that we're going to be taking us taking it with us faith hope and love and let us Remember that patience is at core. It's that get up muscle. It's the muscle to get back up. When we fall down God will carry us through to the very end.