-Transcript-
00:27 Amen, welcome to the program. Welcome to the cafe. My name is Pastor Clark Covington.
00:32 Pastor of Heartland Community Baptist Church here in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, and host of KJV Cafe. Today we are looking at being patient.
00:45 You know, we live in a world where everyone wants everything at the tap of an app.
00:49 Tap of an app. Think about that. You know, we live in a world where especially, really everybody, but especially the younger generation, they have things on demand.
01:03 I mean, you need a hairdryer, you press a few buttons and boom, it’s at your door. You need car insurance, press a few buttons and it’s done. I mean, with the phone, it’s really opened up an instant gratification that really didn’t exist many years ago.
01:17 I remember being in public school and being in a very young age. We’d go to the library and if you wanted to find a book in the library, you’d actually have to go to the card catalog and pull out the drawers and sort through those little index card looking things. It could take a while to find one book.
01:32 Now you could search the book online, you could probably access the book online, you could have the book mailed to you overnight, you could download it, you could print it, you could turn it into audio, you probably can make it into a video. It’s incredible.
01:48 All within just a couple of taps and as you see the speed at which things are happening that has developed, I believe, a lack of patience in our society, especially among those younger folks.
02:00 I’m not saying that crass or mean, I’m just saying from my observation, they look very nervous if things aren’t coming right away.
02:09 Before cell phones, if somebody was out of the house, they were out of the house. And now you see these kids texting almost near fluid, like constantly, you know, I don’t even know what they’re writing, but the texting is all the time.
02:28 Imagine telling them, okay, that doesn’t exist anymore. And you can call someone, but you’ll have to find out when they’ll be back because they’re gone all day. They would fall over, we’ve been gone all day.
02:36 So in this world of instant gratification, God is calling us to be patient. Jesus Christ himself says in Luke 21:19, in your patience, possess ye your souls. In your patience, possess ye your souls.
02:56 Now what does it mean to possess? Have as belonging to one, to own, okay? You own it. And so what God is saying here, Jesus Christ himself in Luke 21 is that latter part of the book of Luke.
03:09 Jesus is speaking before his passion to the disciples about both what will happen in the latter days to those in Jerusalem, as well as what we could see here in the last days.
03:21 And what Jesus is saying is, if you’re patient, you’re going to overcome, you’re going to overcome the temptations of this world as Christ has overcome. And you will own that never dying soul in a way that when you’re in heaven, you’ll receive great reward for it.
03:41 You won’t fall, right? You won’t lose your soul, lose possession of it to Satan and end up in hell because you were impatient and you decided not to believe, you know?
03:56 For example, like for someone to be saved, a lot of times you got to walk them through scripture.
04:02 You got to take them down Romans road. And man, we were doing soul winning some years ago before COVID and it was rough. It was rough going, man.
04:11 We’re getting doors slammed in our face, people practically yelling at us. And now in their defense, maybe there was people that were coming to their doors before.
04:20 I don’t know, but didn’t really have a chance to get the whole Romans road out or even to get them to come to church or they wouldn’t go.
04:29 And that lack of patience could have hurt their chances with the Lord because it could be used as testimony against them. Only God knows. But great victories are not achieved instantly.
04:37 The idea of patience, what does patience mean? The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.
04:49 The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. So the Lord has not come back yet.
05:03 And things in this world don’t look like they will in the new Jerusalem. And God has waited. He’s been long suffering so that many could be saved to enter into his kingdom.
05:21 Because one day the Bible tells us he’s going to come back and separate the sheep from the goats, those that are going to heaven, those that are going to hell. Heaven’s a real place. That’s beautiful.
05:30 Hell’s a real place. And that is an awful place that nobody wants to go. But both of them are real places and God is not playing.
05:35 He’s not mocked. He’s coming back soon. I believe we’re at the end of the end of the end times.
05:40 Amen. That’s my personal belief that he could come back any day. You know, trust me, you can ask my family.
05:46 There’s times where I’ve thought this is it. I mean, I’ve just looked outside and said that this is going to be it. It’s going to be it.
05:51 I mean, that’s how close I believe we are to the end. Yet we’re not at the end. So we are to have patience until the Lord returns.
05:57 We are to have patience until all the rights are made wrong. And this was written here again for the disciples as well as for us.
06:09 And the idea is overcoming by courage in waiting, by developing a wanting nothing mentality.
06:14 So we’re going to overcome this life by being courageous in not compromising. James 1:2-4, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.ut let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
06:43 You see here in James is telling us, you know, rejoice when all these bad things are happening and you’re tempted to do this, that and the other that God doesn’t want you to do.
06:49 Your faith is being tried and that is working patience within you.
06:53 Because you are, as our definition tells us, you’re built up that capacity to accept and to tolerate this delay or this trouble or this suffering without getting all out of whack, right?
07:04 It takes courage not to do anything. The fruit of this courage is developing a dependency on God. And this is hard and it takes a lot of faith in turning to God.
07:11 But the fruit is very good. Amen. You know, if we’re patient, if we wait on the Lord, we’re blessed.
07:16 Amen. Isaiah 40:31 says, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles.
07:24 They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. You know, we see Paul writing in the scriptures about how he’s dying every day so that others could live, could have life.
07:36 The idea is he’s dying to self and he’s being persecuted and he’s being marginalized. He’s being tortured. Look at all that he went through, shipwreck and whippings and he could have died.
07:50 He did die at one point and I believe he got to go to heaven for a season, but God made him alive again. Amen. And Paul went through all of this turmoil so that others could be saved.
07:59 Paul had great patience. That’s the kind of patience we’re being urged to have in James. Amen.
08:06 The idea that we’re not using force to meet force. I mean, think about the world. What does the world want to do when things don’t go their way? They want to push back against the tide.
08:15 They want to have revenge. This world is all about getting their pound of flesh, having revenge. And here in Luke, Jesus is saying, this is a red letter text.
08:23 Jesus himself is saying, in your patience, possess ye your souls. Hey, you know what? You hold on tight. You trust me.
08:30 You wait on me. You look for me. You steadfast, stay close to me.
08:35 You don’t compromise. You don’t join the world. The Bible says, though they go hand in hand, they shall not go unpunished.
08:39 The world has this narrative that just because something is popular makes it right. You know, it’s popular to vape and it’s awful for you. It’s popular to gamble and it’ll rid you of all your money.
08:44 It’s popular to drink and alcoholism is rampant. Amen. It’s popular to do a lot of things that are awful and wicked.
08:56 And by the way, a lot of these things are also legal. And so the world wants to tell you if it’s legal, it’s okay. Or if it’s popular, it’s okay.
09:02 And the Bible says, no, be of a sober mind. Amen. Be diligent with what God’s provided for you.
09:07 Amen. Be set apart from the world. Amen.
09:12 That you won’t, the world won’t get you because they don’t get, they didn’t get Jesus. Amen. The light came into the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.
09:22 Amen.Psalm 62:5, my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him. You know, we are to wait upon the Lord and I know preachers and I’ve used this as well.
09:34 The idea of waiting as like a waiter would serve someone. And I agree with that. We are to serve God.
09:39 But also too, we are to simply be still and know that he is God. We are to wait on God. You know, I can think of times in my life that I might’ve got ahead of God.
09:43 And I hate that because I want to be lockstep in the center of God’s will. And I believe that in order to do that, you need time alone with God in prayer and Bible reading. Fasting is another good one.
10:00 You do these things. You’re reading the Bible. You’re praying, you’re fasting.
10:03 You’re getting that quiet time alone with the Lord. Maybe it’s early in the morning. Maybe it’s late at night.
10:08 Maybe it’s the middle afternoon. Maybe it’s all three. And you’re spending time with God and God is showing you his will.
10:20 And that will oftentimes is for us to be patient. You know, we can ask God for patience through prayer because we can’t be patient on our own. It goes against our nature.
10:27 It goes against our flesh. If you see a little kid and how impatient they are, that’s kind of a picture of the flesh, right? That we lack patience. I remember being a little kid and I was sitting with my dad at the computer and I was like, would this guy hurry up?
10:45 And now our oldest son, I remember he was sitting with me at the computer a couple of years ago and he was just tapping his fingers and he was looking around and he was just so impatient.
10:57 And it reminded me of some years ago being by my father and the same exact thing. I mean, and the whole point is naturally we’re very impatient. We’re not patient, impatient, excuse me, impatient.
10:58 And so we have to pray to God. And the example I’ll give is like traveling through a dark forest at night. And you live out in the country like we do.
11:08 It gets real dark. There’s no streetlights out here. Amen.
11:11 Unless you pay for one at the utility company. Most people don’t do that. So it’s just dark, dark, dark.
11:14 And you know, if you were to walk down a trail and you had a destination you’re trying to go to and you didn’t have any help and it was really dark at night, chances are you’d get lost. I know I’d get lost. And so you need to ask for guidance.
11:25 You need someone to help you. That’s an expert at that trail that maybe even has a light to light up that trail. And that expert is God himself, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
11:35 As we go to him, because he’s the great mediator, we pray by the working of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ, the mediator to God, the father who has all knowledge.
11:46 He created everything. He created that forest you’re trying to get through.
11:51 He created that curvy road, that windy road, that Valley and that mountain that you’ve been in. He created all those things. Is he not able to help you get through it?
11:58 He’s more than able, but do we have faith to seek him? The Bible says it’s impossible to please God without faith.
12:03 The implication is if we have faith, then we do please God. And so we need to have faith and pray and say, God, can you please help me be patient?
12:14 Because the fruit of being patient is God himself blessing us in this life and the next. That is the fruit of being patient.
12:20 Amen. We need to know our state. We need to know our time.
12:24 I’ll close with this. A man had been making cleaning supplies for many years. And he was making a cleaning supply that was very strong and unique.
12:33 And it was for gymnasiums and schools and stuff. And I don’t know that it was that popular, but he was making it year after year after year. When coronavirus hit, he went on Facebook and he made a post.
12:45 He said, I thank God in heaven for preparing me all these years, because now I know that this is why he’s called me to do this.
12:51 And that product was very useful in disinfecting large gyms and so forth. And killing the virus for students and young people.
12:58 And we see in that a picture of patience. If he had gotten ahead of God, if he had just quit and given up, then all that fruit from that activity there from that business would have gone away.
13:08 And all the fruit of the testimony in heaven would have not been there.
13:14 The reward in heaven for being faithful and trusting God would not been there. And so we need to be faithful. I can give you other examples.
13:21 The men that set the wooden pillars for the Ark, the massive wooden pillars for the Ark were Amish men who had worked in construction. And their specific line of construction was working with massive wooden structures. And that’s what they were experts.
13:31 And that’s what they were masters in. And they said to some of the founders of the Ark, it was like God was preparing us all this time to work on this particular project,
13:39 which was a testimony to God and a salvation experience for many to go there and to hear the gospel and be saved.
13:48 You’re not saved by going to the Ark, but you’re saved when you hear the gospel presentation and you accept Christ into your heart.
13:56 And they give that there often at the Ark. And so we see two examples of patience and I can give you so more. But what we need to do is trust God and ask him for patience in our life.
14:04 And that God will in due time give us that patience to help overcome this world. And so that we could receive what he has for us in this life and the next. And that is a beautiful thing.
14:19 And that is not of the world. It’s of God. And we need to ask God to help us to possess our souls through having patience.
14:24 I thank you for listening. Tune in next time.
14:28 Take care. God bless and amen.