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Hello and welcome to Trinity Sermons. Here at Trinity Church, St.

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St. Louis, we're a group of ordinary people who in our own time are learning to love Jesus,

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live like Jesus and lead others to Jesus. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Today

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we are continuing our sermon series on the fruit of the spirit and Rob will be talking

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to us all about patience. We hope you enjoy the sermon and God bless.

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Good morning. A reading from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 28, beginning at the 21st

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verse. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother

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or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you not seven

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times, but 77 times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle

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accounts with his servants. As he began to began the settlement, a man who owned him,

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10,000 bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered

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that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

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At this, the servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I

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will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him and cancelled the debt and

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let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed

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him 100 silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me, he

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demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, be patient with me and I will

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pay it back. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until

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he could pay the debt. When the other servant saw what had happened, they were outraged and

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went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant

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in, you wicked servant, he said, I cancelled all your debt because you begged me to. Shouldn't

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you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger, his master handed

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him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay back all he owed. This is how

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my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister

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from your heart. Trinity, this is the word of the Lord.

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Well, good morning, everyone. So a few weeks ago, I shared with you some pictures of our

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vegetable garden that we have at home. Some of you were wondering, oh, how's that vegetable

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garden going, Rob? And I'm very happy to report that things are coming along. I showed you

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some of the beets and the beans and the peppers and the peas. And I want you to know that

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I've been using my trusty watering can every day to water that garden. And day after day,

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I'm doing that. By the way, do you guys know, do you know what you call a watering can with

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a hole in the bottom? A watering can't. A watering can't. Yeah. No. But anyways, to

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be honest with you, I actually was hoping for things to grow just a little bit faster.

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I'm getting a little bit impatient. So for example, this is what the peas looked like

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maybe two weeks ago. And yes, the peas now look like this. So they have grown. They've

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grown probably from about six inches to maybe 12 inches. But still, I thought, oh gosh,

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shouldn't it happen faster? Shouldn't it grow faster? And I was growing a little bit impatient.

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And so what I did is I went down to Canadian Tire and did what every good gardener does.

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You get the gardener's secret weapon, Miracle Grow. Miracle Grow. These blue crystals that

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have all this good stuff for plants. Basically, what you do is you take a scoop of it and

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it said, put one scoop in your watering can, mix it all up, and put it on your plants.

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Well, because of course, I'm a little bit too impatient, I said, I'll put like 20 scoops

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in there. And so I'll put a whole bunch in there, stir it all up. And I poured that on

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the peas. And I went to bed. And I was actually wondering, does this stuff actually work?

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I have to tell you, the next morning when I woke up, I was actually really, really surprised

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to see what was out there. Because there was this massive, massive pea stalk that went

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all the way up into the sky. There's a whole long story I won't tell you. But I went up

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the stalk and there was a giant phi pho phum and all this stuff. I won't go into it now.

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But actually, no. No, I'm telling you a lie. That didn't happen. The truth is you cannot

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just put some chemical in water and have overnight growth just like that. Growing stuff takes

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time. Miracle grow can only do so much. And there's no miraculous way to speed it up.

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Well, the same is true in our spiritual lives. We've got to learn to be patient with what

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God is growing in us. And so we're continuing today our teaching series called Organic,

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where we're looking at the fruit of the spirit. Here's the real miracle. Here's the real miracle

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grow. And that is that God has put his Holy Spirit into our hearts, into our lives. And

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it is growing. It is growing and transforming us and changing us from the inside. And what's

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it growing? It's growing these kind of fruit. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,

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patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Now today we're

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going to talk about which one? Patience. That's right. Patience. And for two good reasons.

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One, it takes patience to grow all of these fruits of the spirit in our lives. And two,

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you can see that patience is in fact one of the fruit that we need to grow. We all need

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to learn to grow this. And I do say all of us, because whether you're a parent with kids

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or whether you're married and you need patience with your spouse, maybe in a big family, you

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need patience with each other. At your workplace, I think some workplaces are held together

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just because people struggle and strain to be patient with each other. Even in a church,

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especially in a church, we need patience with each other. Very interesting to look at what

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the Greek word is. The original word is for patience. Paul said that one of the fruit

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of the spirit is macrothumia. And macrothumia is basically two words. One means long and

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the other means tempered. So people who are patient have a long temper. We all know people

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who are impatient and they have a very short temper. They're always getting angry. They

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fly off the handle. And if you tell them, hey, calm down, don't be so, so angry, they

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just get more angry, it seems. But then there are other people who are long tempered. They

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are patient and they somehow are able to control that temper. Even when they may have a good

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reason for getting angry at someone or they may have the right to lash out, they don't

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do it. And we need to develop that patience in our life for two big reasons. One is that

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we're always facing hardships. And secondly, we have to deal with relationships. So for

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example, can you endure hardships with patience? When will I find a job? When will the house

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sell? Well, when will it stop raining? When will we get out of debt? When will I finally

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be well? When will my friend be healed? Life is full of hardships like that that require

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patience. But also life is full of relationships that require patience. Why is he so annoying?

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Why is she so picky? Why are they always trying to control my life? These people, there's

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lots of people in our life who we need a ton of patience with. And if you find yourself

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in the midst of life's hardships, you know, blowing up or in the midst of relationships,

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really kind of losing your cool, then what you need to do is you need to figure out how

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to grow the fruit of patience in your spiritual garden. And it is no wonder that we are impatient

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people. There was an old saying that says that man is a product of his environment.

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And one of the reasons that we are so impatient is that we live in an environment that is

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so impatient. Everywhere we go, every day, it feels like our world is like watering us.

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Imagine this. Imagine this is a watering can filled with impatience. It's watering that

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impatience all over us. And if we're a product of our environment, that means if we are flooded

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in that impatience, then guess what grows up in us? An impatience just grows in us.

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In fact, there's a wise old saying that someone once said that was whatever flows in your

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life grows in your life. Actually, I had to stop that up this week. It's not a wise old

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saying. But the idea is this, that if we are constantly being doused with impatience in

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our world, then guess what starts to grow in us? Impatience. So let's say, for example,

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you are constantly under pressure at work. The boss is always pressuring you at home.

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Your family's always pressuring you. Or you put pressure on you. You're always putting

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pressure on you. Guess what starts to grow inside of you? You start to grow impatient

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because what flows into your life grows in your life and you become a product of the

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environment that you are in. Or what about the people that you hang out with or the people

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you live with? If you grew up with a father who was constantly flying off the handle,

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losing his patience, or a mother who was so critical, it was so fra- they're constantly

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impatient and they're following you around every day and they're soaking you with their

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anger and soaking you with their hostility and soaking you with their impatience. Guess

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what starts to happen in you? You start to become impatient. You start to model your

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behavior after theirs. There's this plant that's growing in you because what flows in your

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life is going to grow in your life. Or heck, you just need to step out the doors into our

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society at large and you will see that there is a pace to life that just promotes impatience

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in us. Whether it's on demand TV or fast food or speed dating or the self checkout line

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at the grocery store. I can't wait two minutes in line. I'm going to go over there and I'm

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going to check out on my own and then you end up taking twice as long anyways. But we

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live in this culture that is constantly dousing us, dousing us, dousing us with impatience.

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And that of course gets into us and it grows impatience within us because what flows in

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your life grows in your life. Now that sounds like really bad news. Of course it does sound

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like bad news, but actually hidden in that bad news is the good news. Which means this,

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that if what flows in our life grows in our life and if we're the product of our environment,

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then why can't we change our environment? And why can't we change the thing that is

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flowing into our life? In other words, what would happen if we put ourselves under a different

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watering can? If instead of being doused by all the pressures and people and the pace

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of life, what if we put ourselves under a watering can of peace and tranquility and

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patience and we let God's patience flood our life and fill our souls? What kind of fruit

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would grow in us then? That's the question we want to tackle today. And what we're going

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to, where we have to start is this, is that God is both the model of patience and the

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source of patience in our life. Do you know the Bible says in first John that God is love

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and then it says over here in first Corinthians that love is patient. So if God is love and

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love is patient, then you know what that means that God is patient. It doesn't mean that

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God acts patient. It doesn't mean that God sometimes feels patient. It means that God

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by his very nature is a patient being. And the Bible bears this out because we read things

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like the Lord is compassionate and gracious and the Lord is macro thumia, slow to anger,

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has a long temper, abounding in love. Or once when the prophet Joel was speaking to God's

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people and they were all worried God was going to lose his temper on them, he says, no, no,

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no, listen, return to the Lord your God. Return because he relents in sending calamity. He

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is patient with us. Or in Peter's letter, Peter wrote this, with the Lord a day is like

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a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. And so the Lord is not slow in keeping

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his promise, but is say it with me, patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but

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everyone to come to repentance. Or today, how about today? The story that Kyla just

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read for us is the story of a servant who owes his master an incredible amount of money.

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In fact, it's laughable. The astronomical sum that he owes is something like 60 million

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days wages or something like that. It means you could work your whole life for several

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lifetimes and still never have paid off this debt. Anyways, the servant goes to the master

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and he says this, he says, please, please, please be patient with me. He begged, he begged,

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he said, I'll pay back everything, which is a total lie because nobody can pay this back.

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And then the servant's master, what did he do? Did he say, that's it, you're done for?

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No, he took pity on him and he canceled the debt and let him go. We are supposed to see

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ourselves in this story. We are supposed to see ourselves as the servant. We're supposed

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to see God as the master, meaning that we, you and me, we have been forgiven a debt that

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is greater than we can possibly imagine. And that is because God is more patient than most

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of us imagine. God is supremely patient with us. Read the first few books of the Bible

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and you'll see a picture of God following his people around with a watering can of patience

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day after day, year after year. Israel said, we want to go and do it our way. We want to

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do our thing. We're heading off in this direction. And God didn't get angry and blow them up

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or yank them out and throw them in the compost. He says, no, I'm going to keep following you,

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calling you back, pouring my patience into your life. So he sent prophets and he sent

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messengers and he sent teachers and rulers and kings and judges and all that to try to

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draw his people back to him. Ultimately, he sends Jesus and on the cross, Jesus brings

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all of us back to God. But why? It's because God is patient. He's patient with them. He's

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patient with you. He's patient with me too. And personally, I have to say, I am far more

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impatient when it comes to my life than God is. So many times I look at my life and I

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see all the mistakes I'm making and I see all the ways I'm still not like Jesus so far

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to go. And I can say, oh my gosh, God, when are you going to give up on me? Or God, why

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don't you make this happen faster in my life? And we may even wonder whether God will, in

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fact, just give up on us altogether because we often want to give up on ourselves. But

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God constantly just waters us with patience. He forgives me. He forgives you. He always

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gives us a fresh start and a new beginning. And so this is the starting point for any

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discussion about patience. God is patient. Whatever is going on in your life, whatever's

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going on in your marriage or in your work or in your finances or in your faith, God

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has not given up on you. God is patiently waiting for you, patiently working with you.

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It's not like you'll eventually reach some limit and God will say, oh, you've exceeded

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the limit of my patience and now I'm going to come down on you in judgment. It doesn't

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work that way. Rather, God is watering can in his hand and he is constantly providing

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the patient watering, waiting for you to be transformed and changed and to draw back to

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him. In fact, the Bible actually tells us that God's patience is our salvation. It's

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because God is patient with us and keeps calling us back that we have any hope of growing toward

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him, going with him and becoming like him. God is patient. But here's the great news.

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That's good news. But the great news is when we douse ourselves in God's patience, guess

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what starts to grow in us, what flows in us, grows in us. And what starts to grow in us

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is a patience of our own. We start to develop patience as we soak in God's patience. And

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actually, not just one plant, but three little plants of patience start to grow in us. I'll

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explain what I mean. The first thing that we will see start growing in us when we dwell

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on God's patience is that we become more patient with others. The more we're aware that God

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has been so patient with us, then you know what? We're more able to put up with the annoying

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things that other people do, the irritating things that they say. Sometimes even when

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people hurt you or they ignore you or they're unkind to you, we'll find ourselves not fighting

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back like we used to, but we'll be patient. And we'll also start to realize, you know

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what? It probably takes a lot of patience to live with me as well. So there's this change

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that starts to happen in us and it makes us more patient with other people. And we definitely

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need this, especially in our digital age, when people impatiently are always texting

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something or posting something or impatiently commenting or commenting on a comment. There

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are some people who it just feels like they cannot wait to get their two cents in. They

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cannot wait to get their word in, even if that word is harmful or hurtful to other people.

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But there is hope. There's hope even for us digital natives that God's patience can grow

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in us so that we are patient toward others. And I do want to say this. We especially need

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patience in a church, especially in a church. Because when you think about what is a church,

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it is this group of people who come from different backgrounds with different ideas, people who

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are at different places in their spiritual journey. In a church especially, you've got

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people who think that they like this, they don't like this, or I dislike this. It can

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be really hard. Just because we're part of a church doesn't mean that we're not going

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to get frustrated with each other. And so actually what happens is church becomes like

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a mini greenhouse in a way where we learn to be patient with one another. I know I appreciate

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your patience with me, with my foibles and screw ups and my mistakes and all my dad jokes

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and the times I criticize cats. I have tested your patience to the limit. I know that I

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have. But that's what church is. We learn patience right here. There's an old saying

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that goes, you know, to dwell in love with the saints above, oh, that would be glory.

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But to dwell below with the saints we know, oh, that's a different story. Right? So just,

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I think the whole story that we read this morning comes down to this one sentence. Right?

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You know, Peter asked Jesus, Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister?

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And first of all, you should know that when he says my brother or sister, he's probably

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talking about people in the synagogue or people in the church. How many times should I forgive

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the people in my church? Should I forgive them seven times? He thinks he's being really

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generous here. Jesus comes and says, no, not seven times, 77 times. In other words, stop

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keeping track of how many times you're going to forgive them and just forgive them. God

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says, I have stopped keeping track of the number of times I have forgiven you and you

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need to stop keeping track with others as well. And that sounds super, super hard, very

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difficult to do. But remember, remember it's only possible when we realize how patient

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God has been with us. Right? Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant? Why?

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Because I had mercy on you. Right? God's patience rains down on us every day. And as it does,

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it starts to grow within us, a patience of our own. But that is not the only plant that

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starts to grow in us. Also what grows in us is a patience with ourselves, ourselves. Right?

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As God's patience floods our soul, right beside that one plant where we're growing more patient

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with others, we start to become more patient with ourselves. See, God asks us to love our

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neighbor as ourself. So why wouldn't we be patient with our neighbor as with ourself?

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We often treat ourselves in ways we would never treat our neighbors. And we say things

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to ourself that we would never say to the people that we love most. For example, have

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you ever said these kinds of things to yourself, to yourself? I can't believe you still struggle

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with that. When are you just going to get over it? You're still the same person that

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you were before, aren't you? Nothing has changed. You're so stupid, you keep making the same

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mistake again and again and again. We say this stuff to ourself. But when we're impatient

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with ourselves, it doesn't actually help us grow. It doesn't actually help us change.

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In fact, quite the contrary. Francis de Salle says, have patience with all things, but chiefly,

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have patience with yourself. Don't lose courage when considering your own imperfections. Often

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we are our own harshest critics. We're impatient with our growth. But remember, remember, spiritual

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growth is not like it doesn't happen miraculously overnight. You don't wake up one morning and

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all of a sudden you have matured completely and all of your mistakes and weaknesses have

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been instantaneously cured. It takes time to mature. And God, thanks be to God, is patiently

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watering our lives even though we make mistakes over and over again. He keeps forgiving us

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as he keeps growing us. And God's timing is perfect. He knows when we're going to be ready

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for whatever the next step is, whenever we're ready to grow. He who began the good work

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in you will see it to completion, will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

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So just trust that God's watering can is at work in your life, nurturing you steadily

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and slowly and be patient with yourself. Okay. So what do we got? As God's patient pours

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into our life, we all of a sudden we find ourselves being more patient toward others,

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more patient toward ourself. But thirdly, and finally, we also develop a patience back

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toward God waiting for God and waiting on God is one of the hardest things in the human

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life. Have you ever found yourself asking questions like God, how long God, how long

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till you fix this problem? How long till you heal this sickness? God, how long till do

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I have to suffer? Why is this happening to me? When will you ever answer my prayers?

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God, when, when we often struggle being patient with God because we have our own ideas of

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how things should go and what the timeline should be. And why isn't God getting on with

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my timeline and my plan for my life? And what it really comes down to is impatience with

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God means we have a lack of trust for God. Right? Do you really trust that God has your

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best interests in mind? Do you really trust that God has a plan? Do you really trust that

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God is good and that God will see you through and that his timing is good and that redemption

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will happen eventually? Being patient with God is so, so hard. You know, the Bible is

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full of people wrestling for this. Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart and wait for

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the Lord. Trusting God means believing that his perfect timing is happening and even if

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it doesn't seem to align with our own. In the book of Romans, Paul has this long, long

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kind of argument, but it comes down to this. He says, for in this hope we're saved, but

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hope that is seen is no hope at all for who hopes for what they already have. But if we

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hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently. Inpatience with God, we trust

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that something is happening. Even if we can't see it, even if we don't understand it, God

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is doing something underneath the soil. The seed is germinating and growth is occurring.

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So let me just wrap up and sum up what this is all about. It begins with God's patience,

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which is poured out on us. Okay. Every day, some of you, God has been patiently waiting

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for you for years, waiting for you to take that step of faith, waiting for you to say

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yes to him, waiting for you to place your trust in him or to have faith in him. And

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you keep saying, I'm not ready yet, or I got to sort this part of my life out, or I got

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to clean up my act first. God says, no, don't, don't wait. Don't wait another day. Right.

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I am patiently waiting for you. Come to me now, pray that prayer now, make that decision

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now. God is patiently waiting for us always. And as we soak in God's patience, what happens?

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We develop a patience for others. And so I have to ask the question, who is it in your

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life that right now is driving you just a little bit crazy? Can you be patient with

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them? Can you forgive them and stop counting how many times you've forgiven them? Listen,

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if the relationship is toxic, you may need to let it go and walk away. But for most relationships

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and most situations, we just need to exercise patience and remember the debt that God has

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forgiven you is way larger than whatever they have done to you. And then as we develop patience

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with others, we start to develop more patience with ourself. And I got to ask the question

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again, is there something that you are struggling with? And right now you have been giving yourself

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a really, really hard time about it. Try being patient with yourself, right? Because change

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doesn't happen overnight and growth takes time. There's no miracle grow for the spiritual

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life. No beanstalk, right? Don't beat yourself up if you don't get it figured out the first

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time or the second time or the third time. And finally, as all these things grow, we

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ultimately develop a patience for God. It's OK to wrestle with God, to say, why God, how

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long God, when God? Because when you're asking God these questions, you know what? It means

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you're in relationship with God and that is always where you want to be. But remember,

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remember we don't have to know how everything is going to turn out and understand everything

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in order to trust God first. Just wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait

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for the Lord. He will continue to grow all these things in your life in this perfect

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timing if we're patient. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Thanks so much for tuning in today and we hope that you enjoyed the sermon. Today's

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sermon was taken from the June 2nd, 2024 service at Trinity Church, Streetsville in Mississauga,

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Ontario.

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God Bless.