“Welcome to church. May I take your order, please: one prayer, one song, one sermon. How would you like that? Short, sweet, hold the judgment. Do you want that supersized? Got it. We’ll have that out in 30 minutes.” You laugh, but haven’t you noticed how preoccupied we are with fast: fast-food, fast divorce, and yes, even fast church--the quicker the better. Everything is measured in speed.
The fastest man on wheels—763 mph; the fastest man on foot—9.5 seconds for 100 meters; the fastest mobile network—5g. You can download a whole movie in 6 seconds instead of 7 minutes. We don’t have much time with things in the slow lane. We don’t have much patience with people either like one monk in the mountains.
There once was a monk who recognized his problem with patience. So, he decided to do something about it. He retreated deep into the woods, high up a mountain, far away from civilization. Then one day, a traveler came across him. Amazed to cross paths with another human being living so far away from the rest of the world, he asked the monk why he was there all by himself?
The monk said, “To learn patience, my son.” The traveler asked, “How long have you been up here?” “Seven years, my son.” Stunned, the traveler asked, "If there is no one around to bother you, how will you know when you are patient?" Annoyed, the monk went Kaboom. "Look, sonny, I’ve had about enough of you and your #$@!% questions. You’ve got about two minutes to ‘git on out of here. Now git.” (The monk was obviously from around these parts.) He was on a fast track to a short fuse. Few good things happen when you go there. Can you say “Kaboom!”
What if God was a “fast track to a short fuse” God—a Kaboom God? Where would be the opportunity for grace? When would there be time to change? I can hear the Kaboom conversation of that God and man now: “You’re back on the bottle again? Kaboom! You’re on probation for what? Kaboom! You joined a “neo” what? Kaboom! But thank God, God is a patient God. The Greek word for patience is macrothumia: (macro: long), thumia (tempered). Instead of blowing up, God chills and forgives. He’d rather be with us than against us. As the kids would say, He is “Kool like that”. We need to be “Kool like that as well.
Why do you need to practice patience? Because it is one of the nine qualities of the Fruit of Spirit that God expects every believer to live out in their Christian walk. It does the Body of Christ good. Those qualities include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Turn to 2nd Peter 3:9. We’ll see in detail, and in other Scriptures, that God is long on fuse and slow in judgment. His patience gives us all time and grace to change.
As part of our summer series: Got Fruit—It Does a Body Good—we will inspect patience. First, it does a body good because it is God’s way to give us time to change even if it means going through tough times to strengthen our relationship with Him. Second, patience gives everyone the opportunity for change—even the most despised. We have two old school, Old Testament” dudes—Job and Jonah—to help you see who you need to be when it comes to patience: “Kaboom” like the monk or “Kool like that” like God?
First, patience does a body good because it is God’s way to give us time to change even if it means going through some tough times to strengthen our relationship with Him. We see the purpose of God’s patience in 2 Peter 3:9:
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9
God’s promise is His judgment of sin, but His purpose for patience is grace, to give us a chance for change, to have a stronger relationship with Him like He did with Job. You know the story of Job. He was a righteous man, a blessed man. He had a relationship with God, but it wasn’t as strong as it should have been. So, God allowed Satan to take away Job’s blessings: wealth, health and family. Then He allowed Job’s “so-called friends” to raise the question: “What did you do, Job?” It eventually revealed Job’s inner man.
Inside Job was self-righteousness and arrogance. Job blamed God and questioned His justice. But God had a few questions of His own for Job. Look at Job 38:4 and 40:8.
4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Job 38:4
"Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Job 40:8
God was asking Job, “Are saying I am wrong and you are right Job? It’s easy to mistake your self-righteousness with God’s righteousness. It happened to Job, and it can happen you. Sometimes God will allow trouble to reveal your true self and your relationship with Him:
That bankruptcy can reveal a overself-reliance rather than a deeper dependence on God.
That life-threatening physical biopsy can reveal a compromised spiritual health that needs a check-up.
That untimely death of a personal friend can open your eyes to the need for a closer walk with that friend who sticks closer than a brother—Christ.
Job came out of his devastating losses of wealth, health and family with a changed heart. He repented and God blessed him with double all that he lost. More than that, he gained a stronger relationship with God. People like to talk about the patience of Job, but it is also the patience of God at work, not to Kaboom us, but to bring us strength—strength that comes from waiting on God according to Psalms 27:14.
14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. Psalm 27:14
God is not a “Kaboom” God, wishing that any should perish. He is a macrothumia God—a God long on fuse. He gives us time even if it takes going through tough times to strengthen our relationship with Him. God is “Kool like that”. His patience does a body good.
Patience also does a body good because it gives everyone time to change no matter the person—even the most despised. Jonah did not want to preach to Nineveh because he knew God’s patience would extend grace to his enemy. When Jonah wanted Kaboom, he knew God was slow to anger—"Kool like that”. We see that in Jonah 4:2:
2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore, I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Jonah 4:2
You know the Jonah story. God commissioned the prophet to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria and "cry against it." They were the arch-enemies of Jonah’s people, God’s people. The Assyrians were not nice folk. They skinned their captives alive; they tacked their skins on the city wall to send a message: Don’t mess with us.” They burned children alive, cut off the limbs of the old. They enslaved everyone else. So, for those reasons and more, Jonah said, (in the fashion of George ’41), “Not gonna do it, not gonna do it.” Knowing that God is long on patience and deep in grace, that he would forgive the Ninevites if they repented, he said I’m not going.
So, Jonah hopped a ship to Tarshish. But the ship hit a storm. He confessed he was the reason for the storm. He was tossed overboard, then swallowed by a great fish. He spent three days in its belly until he relented to go to Nineveh and preach. Can you say: You can run but you can’t hide.” The fish vomited him up. Jonah picked himself up, and reluctantly preached to the Ninevites. "You got forty days, then judgment’s coming. They didn’t need 40 days. They repented and were saved, much to Jonah's annoyance.
To stress the key point of this message, lets revisit why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh? Look at in Jonah 4:2b again:
…thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repent thee of the evil. Jonah 4:2
In a word: macrothumia. God has a long fuse, and a short memory. If you repent, He will forget and forgive, even the worst you’ve done and the worse any one else has done to you—the people you despise. So, let me ask you: who are your Ninevites? Who can’t you stand to sit next to in heaven as it is on earth? Who would you rather see “Kaboomed” than receive God’s long-fuse, slow to anger, “Kool like that” grace?
Can’t stand blue states; blue states, can’t stand reds? Sorry, God’s patience is bi-partisan. If the Ninevites God’s vote, we all get voted in.
Can’t stand blacks; black, whites; browns, yellows? Sorry, God’s patience is color blind. If Nineveh gets in, we are all in the rainbow.
Can’t tolerate the intolerant? Sorry, God’s patience is wishful: “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” If the Ninevites live, we all live.
Jonah had to see it for himself, the patience of God. He sat on a hill outside the city, under the shade of a plant that God’s patience provided. He did not rejoice to see that 120,000 were saved. Instead, he showed more passion for his own comfort when the shade tree wilted away, leaving him to the scorching sun of his own short sightedness.
Church, you can’t run from your call to be the church of all people. Be patient even with your own discomfort with people you are at odds with. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness. He will judge whom He will judge on His own time. But He is patience toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Patience does the Body good—all the Body. All means all, even the Ninevites.
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CONCLUSION
Patience does a body good because it is God way to give us time to change even if we have to go through troubling times. Job went through the loss of wealth, health, and family. But God’s patience gave him time to change from a weak relationship with God to a truer, stronger one.
Second, patience does a body good because it gives everyone time to change no matter the person—even the most despised. Jonah had to learn the hard way that all are covered by the shade of God’s amazing grace. He is willing to wait for all. If He is willing to wait for the Ninevites, then He willing to wait for us all. All means all.
Some people are “Kaboom” people like the monk who hid in the mountain, short on fuse, fitted for an explosion that will only take down their mountain, and them with it. But then there are some who are “Kool like that” people, like God, when it comes to patience. They’d rather see inclusion than explosion, who have no problem with the slow lane if it means we all get in so we can all sing:
Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, When we all get to heaven…we'll sing and shout the victory!
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