-Transcript-
00:36 Amen, Glory to God. Welcome to the cafe today. Hope you’re having a wonderful day, wonderful week.
00:42 Man, I’m so thankful that you joined us today. What a blessing to be here. Today we’re talking about a godly principle that we need more of.
00:50 We need so much more of this and that is patience. Are you a patient person? Come on now, be honest. God sees your answer.
00:59 He knows your heart. Amen. Are you a patient person? It’s very hard.
01:04 I’d say even though I guess at times we all can exhibit patience, it’s hard to have it continually. And when we think of patience, we often think of being tested and tried. And that is true.
01:22 That will oftentimes test our patience. Imagine a little baby that’s been born and doesn’t want to sleep at night. For parents out there, you know that after a few weeks or months or even years of that kind of behavior, your patience just seems to evaporate.
01:38 Any runners listening today? You know, if you run and by the looks of me, you probably wouldn’t think I’m a big runner, but I’ve run a little bit here and there. And I remember there was a 5k I think it was. And I was living in South Carolina near my dad and my dad was gonna run in it.
01:58 My dad told me you get a t shirt and there’s bagels I think when you finish and those two things were good enough. It was good enough incentive at that time, a t shirts and some bagels and I want to challenge myself and, and I had been running at that time pretty consistently in South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina has got good weather and so forth. So outside running and so forth, I was ready to go a little bit.
02:20 But as I ran that race, after about a mile, I realized that you really need kind of to be not putting it in full gear too soon, because you’re excited and you want to keep pace with everybody. But it’s kind of a long race longer than you might think. And as you go, and you’re in the crowds and everything, you can kind of psychologically get down on yourself if you see people passing you and so forth.
02:44 And if you keep running, and it’s not over yet. And I give that example. And by the way, I finished and I got a t shirt and bagels and it was worth every step.
02:51 Amen. But I give that example, because in Hebrews 12:1-2, we see Paul writing about this, I believe Paul wrote Hebrews, I think that’s kind of the common notion, though it’s I guess not fact, but Hebrews 12:1-2, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with such was so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience, the race that is before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God, Hebrews 12, saying, you know, wherefore seeing you know, Hebrews 12, one through two, think about this, the beginning of Hebrews 12. And in the old days, Bible times, and as these letters came in, these epistles came in, as my understanding, they didn’t really have chapters, the chapters were added later on.
03:44 So what was going on Hebrews 11, that’s the Hebrews Hall of Fame, Amen. And those that lived for the Lord, boldly, and some lived happily ever after, but many of them were martyred for the Lord and suffered greatly for the Lord and put their lives on the line for the Lord. And here in Hebrews 12, we see, wherefore seeing we also are compassed with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience, with patience, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
04:27 You know, when I give a altar call, or I’m talking about the cross, I oftentimes will mention, I’ll follow through. It’s not just Jesus dying for our sins. It’s not just the fact that he was resurrected three days later, not just the fact that he was seen by over 500 as he walked the earth 40 days and 40 nights.
04:42 But I’ll also mention that he set it up to heaven and that he’s at the right hand of the Father today. Because for some reason, it’s important for me to know, I guess, or for me to explain the full picture here, that Christ is alive and well, amen, that Christ is in heaven, that Christ is a living God, that when we pray, Christ hears our prayers, Amen. And what does that mean? That means that Jesus Christ ran a race.
05:05 He had patience and perseverance. He despised the shame, and yet He was obedient as He was humiliated, and He was physically abused, and He was mocked and ridiculed. And everything you could do to the living God was done to Him, Amen.
05:24 And as He drank of that bitter cup of sin, he did it all out of love for you and for me. And the beauty of the cross, understanding it’s a free gift, all we have to do is accept it. Basically, in a nutshell, we have to humble ourselves, realize that we aren’t perfect.
05:40 And those prideful people, they can’t go to God’s heaven because they won’t admit they have a need for a Savior. And we have to realize our need, realize our sin debt, realize that only Christ Jesus could pay it, and that it’s already been done, it’s past tense, it’s been done. And in future tense, we will be in heaven with the Lord, Amen, for those that accept what Christ has done on the cross.
06:00 Oh, how good God is. But in this day and age, how easy is it to be patient in running that race? Because again, what is the implication? As I mentioned, in the intro, I was running and I had to calm myself down. Why? Because I didn’t want to stop.
06:15 The implication is if we’re not patient, we’ll quit, we’ll want to stop. And God does not want us to stop. He wants us to finish the race.
06:22 He knows how much we have in our tank. He knows what we’re able to endure. And He wants us to go ahead and endure it for Him, to be good soldiers of the cross, to be a living sacrifices for Him.
06:33 And yet Hebrews 12, calling us to be so patient is so hard to do in a world that is full of what? Instant gratification or impatience. Think about the world we live in today. Has there ever, I mean, I think back to the old agricultural days here in North Carolina, agriculture was and still is a very big deal.
06:57 And I think about the days where people would have to plant a crop and wait for it to grow to have food that would be in that crop, you know, and they’d have to can and pickle things in the summer to get through winter. And how much patience they must have had to survive, amen, to live off the land. And now we live in an instant gratification world.
07:15 We don’t need to go plant something and wait three or four months for it to grow or longer. We can just go through the drive-thru. We can just go through, not even the drive-thru, we just pick up our cell phone and punch some buttons.
07:28 My oldest son plays tennis, Amen. And some of the players in this team were on their phone and they ordered food to the tennis court. They ordered food to the tennis court through their phone.
07:40 I don’t think my coach would have been too happy if I did that when I was a kid, but we didn’t have that, amen. I’ll age myself a little bit, but most kids at my age didn’t really even have cell phones. It tells you how old I am.
07:50 But look, instant gratification with food, with entertainment, right? You want to watch a show back in the day, you’d have to look up the cable guide. You get the TV guide, the paper TV guide, right? You say, when’s this show going to be on? And you’d watch it. Now you just search it up on YouTube or Netflix or Amazon.
08:11 You watch it instantly. We have on-demand entertainment. We have drive-thru restaurants.
08:18 We have cell phones, which allow us to talk to anyone at any time. Again, I remember a time when you had the old rotary phones and you had the cord attached to it, Amen. And you know what? Wherever that phone was mounted or put, that’s where you sat and that’s where you talked, Amen.
08:29 And now, I mean, oh, forget it. If you were out and about, you know, and you need to make a phone call, you better hope there was a pay phone there and that you had quarters or something or a calling card. And now with cell phones, anyone can talk to anyone at any time.
08:44 Instant gratification everywhere in this life. And yet here we have this mandate from Paul, really, this exhortation that we should be patient in running the race, that we should not live in a way that we demand everything all at once, you know, that we want to have our heavenly blessings here on earth. It may not be that way.
09:05 Again, if you look at the preceding chapter, Hebrews 11, many there didn’t receive a reward, even Abraham, he wasn’t able to see all that God was going to do with his seed, with his progeny. But God calls us to be patient as we run the race through the apostle Paul in the scripture. And we need to be patient in being a witness, which can be very difficult, you know, especially in the ministries that we’ve had.
09:32 We’ve not seen just big flashes of revival and people being saved and tons of baptisms. We haven’t seen that in our ministry, which is, I guess, on August, it’ll be three years old in total. The one the Lord called me to start.
09:51 We haven’t seen that great fruit from being a witness. Now, the Lord has allowed us to see some fruit. It’s certainly enough to thank Him so much for it and say, you know what, if that’s all the fruit we get, it’s well worth it.
10:19 Amen. But we are to be patient in our witness, not understanding what one seed we plant may actually blossom later. And all the ways that maybe we, again, you think of the idea of supporting a mission, how being patient, you’re saying, I’m going to give some resources that I have to this mission.
10:19 And that mission may end up doing something great. And then you have a part in that. But you have to be patient to understand that when you give, it may take time before things work out the way God wants them to work out.
10:30 You have to trust God. Use faith. Imagine that.
10:35 Be patient as you use your gifts in the ministry, the gifts that the Lord has given you. Be patient. You know what? You may have a great voice and you may sing and you may sometimes feel like no one recognizes how amazing that voice sounds or that no one’s being saved or no one’s renewing their life to Christ right away.
11:01 Be patient because the Lord is going to do something with your gifts. Be patient as we edify the saints, as we lift each other up. Be patient, understanding that many are burdened down and that it’s going to take time for wounds to heal and for battles to be won and for the Lord to do what he wants to do.
11:16 Be patient in loving others, even when, again, our instincts for gratification or in that case vengeance may want us to not love others. We need to above all love others as Christ has commanded us and that, by the way, will show God that we love him and that we understand that he loved us because we were unlovable. So it’s a beautiful circle there.
11:31 Be patient in order to maintain a pure and clean testimony. You know, when do testimonies get soiled and ruined? Oftentimes in impatience and impatience. Be patient and be patient to live like Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith.
11:49 If Christ was patient, we need to be patient. If Paul exhorts us to be patient, we need to be patient. How patient was Paul, by the way, in all that he endured? We need to realize that our prize, our reward is in heaven and that we on earth are running a race and it is a spiritual battle and we need that Armor of God.
12:05 And at the same time, to carry this through, we need to run that race. And as we get tired and as we face affliction and as we face problems, we need to exert great patience. And that comes from trials, by the way.
12:19 The Bible tells us that that builds patience. And we need to continue to have faith in God because that patience eventually will lead to greater faith. And we need to continue to turn to God and ask God for that patience to endure what he’d have us to endure, to go through what he’d have us to go through so that we can be a great witness for Him.
12:38 What blessings could we miss out on if we just weren’t patient with Him? And I’m preaching to you and I’m preaching to me today too. I get excited about things that God puts on my heart and I want to do them right away, like today. And sometimes I have to be patient.
12:55 Sometimes the Lord, I’ll pray for a verse and the Lord will give me, be still, be still and know that I am God. Well, okay, Lord, I wasn’t the one I was hoping for, but Amen, that’s in the Bible. And sometimes we need to be patient and watch what God does.
13:07 Remember, our job here is to live for Him, to love Him and to give Him the glory. And sometimes the way we can do that is be patient and let him work in his time. Because as you, especially you get into the book of Job, as you see how God is sovereign over everything, and he kind of rebukes Job a little bit saying, do you have any idea how the water is going here and there and the ocean and the animals and the mountains and all? We don’t know all that God has planned and how he’s orchestrated it.
13:34 Let’s be patient and let’s continue to fight the good fight. Continue to live like Christ because Christ was so patient and so wonderful and so beautiful and so lovely. Can we be like Christ today and ask God for patience and exert patience and show God that we get this, that we understand we’re in a race and we’re going to keep running until we finish.
13:53 No matter how tired we get, we’re going to keep running that race. Amen. And when we finish that race, when we see the Lord, we’ll be able to say, Lord, we did it.
14:03 We were patient as you called us to do. Amen. What a day that’ll be.
14:06 I thank you so much for listening. Take care. Be patient.
14:10 God bless. And Amen.