Patience: Your Secret Weapon for Daily Triumph
Here’s a summary of this week’s sermon:
Patience: Your Secret Weapon for Daily Triumph
In today's fast-paced world, the quest for instant gratification seems to overshadow the virtue of patience. Yet, patience remains one of the most powerful tools at our disposal, a quiet force that can dramatically reshape our daily lives and lead us to personal triumph.
During a recent sermon, we delved deeply into the theme of patience, exploring its profound impact not only on our spiritual health but on our everyday experiences.
The Nature of Patience
Colossians 3:12, urging us to "clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." This imagery of clothing isn't just a metaphor; it's a call to action. It suggests that patience, like a garment, can be chosen and worn in our daily interactions. But why choose patience?
Patience is often misconstrued as passivity or a resigned acceptance of delay, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Patience is an active engagement in life, but from a place of peace rather than reactivity. It is the ability to endure, not because we are passive, but because we are anchored in a larger, hopeful perspective on life.
Patience as a Reflection of Divine Character
Patience is not merely a human endeavor but a reflection of the divine character. In Exodus 34:6, God describes Himself as "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." If this is how the Creator himself chooses to interact with His creation, then surely this is a sign that patience is powerful.
From the Old Testament to the New, we see a God who patiently works through and with humanity, despite our many flaws and repeated failings.
The Practicality of Patience in Daily Life
In the workplace, in our homes, and in our leisure, patience can radically alter our interactions and the outcomes of situations.
For instance, consider the daily annoyances or the more profound challenges at work or home. Approaching these situations with patience can turn conflicts into opportunities for growth and understanding. Patience allows us to view problems through a lens of compassion, leading to more effective and sustainable solutions.
Patience and Endurance
In our lives, this kind of patience can be transformative. Whether dealing with personal setbacks or broader societal issues, patience gives us the strength to endure and to persist, not aggressively, but with a steadfast spirit that is open to seeing the eventual unfolding of a greater good.
The Call to Cultivate Patience
As we reflect on patience's role in our lives, remember it is not about eliminating the immediate challenges or frustrations but about transforming our responses to them. By adopting patience as a daily practice, we open ourselves to a myriad of triumphs—personal, professional, and spiritual.
In essence, patience is your secret weapon for daily triumph, not because it removes obstacles, but because it equips you to face them with a grace that leads to victory.
So next time you find yourself rushing through life or facing a challenge, choose patience. It might just be the key to unlocking a day of triumph.
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Matt Edmundson: We meet
online together to catch up and discover more about the amazingness of Christ. You can also subscribe to our podcast called What's the Story, where we deep dive into stories of faith and courage from everyday people. More information about all of these stories All these things that I've mentioned can be found on our website at www.
crowd. church or you can reach us on social media at crowdchurch.
If you're new to Crowd or new to the Christian faith and would like to know what your next steps to take are, why not head over to our website, www.crowd. church/next, [00:01:00] for more details.
And now, the moment you've been waiting for is here. Our online church service starts right now.
Dan Orange: Welcome to Crowd Church. It's great to be back. And I'm joined,
Anna Kettle: Anna. Here I am. We're still getting used to this flicking backwards and forwards thing right now. It's like a big reveal. Who's it going to be?
Yeah, it's who is it? They should know if they were here last week, because we already told them. But, yeah, hi everyone. Happy Sunday afternoon. wherever you're joining us from
Dan Orange: yeah we're just saying if you join us from Liverpool or England it's actually warm
Anna Kettle: yeah it feels like we finally got summer or at least a day or two of it
Dan Orange: yeah
Anna Kettle: it's like a bank holiday we've got an extra day off work and it's sunny everyone's like quick out let's get a barbecue
Dan Orange: Thank holiday and sun,
Anna Kettle: but it's feels like in all seriousness, it feels like a surprise because even on Thursday, I was checking like Thursday, Friday, I was checking the weather [00:02:00] forecast and it said like rain all weekend and then suddenly lo and behold, it's like quite nice.
So yeah, we all feel like, I think the whole of the UK is in a happy mood this weekend. It
Dan Orange: does make things, it does make things good. Yeah, it does. It
Anna Kettle: makes life a little bit easier, doesn't it?
Dan Orange: And Liverpool are winning 4:0 at the moment as well, which I'm sure Matt Crew would be very happy about.
He's a big Liverpool fan, I think. Yeah, I believe
Anna Kettle: so. Not the only one in Crowd Church, but yeah, probably the biggest one.
Dan Orange: So what have we got today?
Anna Kettle: So today we're gonna have a talk coming up in a minute by none other than Dave Connolly. He's very cool and he's going to be speaking on, Dave's going to be speaking on patience.
He's carrying on our series about becoming whole and he's going to be speaking on patience. So I'm looking forward to that.
Dan Orange: Yeah, I think it'd be a great tour. And then next week, we've got Matt, he's going to be continuing [00:03:00] the talk, the series as well. And he's talking on kindness. So sorry, when I keep looking over there, it's because I'm looking at Anna, but it looks like I'm just looking off camera.
This is weird, isn't it?
Anna Kettle: Because we used to be on camera together, like side by side. And now we're not.
Dan Orange: We are in the same room. Yeah.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. Can you tell by the blue background? It doesn't work. Anyway. Yeah, I think so. Shall we just move on to the talk? Yes. Before we make any more fools of ourselves.
Dan Orange: I think so.
So as always. Any questions, please just send them in and we will endeavour to answer them afterwards. You can contact us via Crowd Church on Instagram, on YouTube, however you listen to it. Just pop it in the comment and we will get back to you. So here we go. Without further ado, without more waffling on, let me find the right button.
Anna Kettle: Well done. We will waffle on while Dan finds the right button. Here
Dan Orange: we go.[00:04:00]
Dave Connolly: Welcome. We're going to continue in our series looking at the fruits of the Spirit, and today I want to focus in on patience. If you've got your Bibles to hand, maybe you want to open up Colossians chapter 3, verse 12. Colossians 3, verse 12, says this. Clothe yourselves with compassion and Kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Love, joy, peace. These first three on Paul's list of the fruits of the Spirit sound very spiritual. They are the kind of things that good Christians ought to have and display. But when it comes to patience, we're coming to something which is more to do with What we're like, how we live, what we're like at home maybe, what we're like in the workplace, [00:05:00] or indeed, what are we like when we take our leisure and our playtime.
Patience as a fruit of the spirit means, on one hand, the ability to endure, for a long time, the kind of suffering and opposition that may come our way. And on another hand, the ability to endure the weakness and the flaws of others, including other believers. Before we continue to go on thinking about patience as a quality we should display, let's first of all think about patience as a quality of God.
Maybe we would not immediately think of the patience of God as an aspect of the Old Testament. Usually, this God of the Old Testament is often understood to be angry distant. But the very first description that God gives himself in Exodus 34, verse 6 [00:06:00] is this, is when he says to Moses, that his name is the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love.
Slow to anger is of the character of God. And when we look at the history of the Old Testament, and indeed the whole of Scripture, the Bible is a long story of God's patience over many centuries and many generations for With first the Israelites, and then with us, and the world he has made. We read the words of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 53 verse 12, where he says this.
He tells Israel how God had borne their sins, like a burden that he had to carry. In fact, he says he had carried Israel himself from the cradle to the grave. And [00:07:00] actually, the word in the Old Testament, which loosely translates as to forgive, is the word to bear, or to carry. That is to say, when God forgives, it is because he chooses to bear our sins himself, which of course is exactly what Jesus did on the cross.
The Old Testament shows God's incredible patience. And when the New Testament goes on to speak about the patience of Jesus, as he bore the injustice of the cross, it shows us, through Jesus, practically, how we can exercise patience. Here's what Peter says about the suffering and patience of Jesus. And we read it in 1 Peter.
Chapter 2, verses 21 to 24. To this you were called, [00:08:00] because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hailed their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats.
Instead, He entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. When I think about patience I think about it in two ways. Fiercely. The patience of endurance of suffering is very clear in the Bible that God's people do and will suffer.
Even now around the world, [00:09:00] millions of Christians are suffering hatred, discrimination, imprisonment, and often martyrdom because of their faith in Jesus. We need to pray for them daily as they go through this. We may know several people in our own lives who are also enduring hardship, and this can be very difficult.
Secondly, we also need to remember that patience means patience with others. And that is when we choose to bear with others, rather than cutting them off because they annoy us, or let us down, or do wrong to us. It is a choice to forgive. To forgive someone, rather than to hold a grudge. It means choosing to overlook something that was hateful, or unkind rather than picking a fight and getting even and that kind of patience is [00:10:00] often hardest for us in our everyday lives.
It can be difficult to have the patience to put up with others Not to mention, sometimes the patience they may need to put up with us. But that is what the Bible asks of each of us, and it is what we are called for, even when we are misunderstood, misinterpreted, and when we're treated unfairly. That's really when patience is tested, and that's when it really counts.
The Apostle Paul knew a thing or two about being misunderstood and about being mistreated. He wrote in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 2 this, Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. When it comes to patience, I'll be first to admit that I [00:11:00] am probably not the most patient of people.
I still haven't fully figured out what is more challenging. Patience with others or patience with God, but patience in both can be hard to navigate, and this is partly the answer. Because to be patient with others requires choosing to think about others feel. And this, psychologists have suggested, does not come naturally to us as human beings.
We naturally have a tendency to think about us and how we are affected by a situation rather than automatically think about others. We have to work harder. We have to think more about this. We have to think about others. To be patient with God means to see things from God's perspective, [00:12:00] which again is not always natural to us as human beings.
Sometimes it's not even clear whether it is God we are waiting on. Sometimes it's simply unclear which road we should be taking and whether God wants us waiting or waiting. Or doing something else, especially when we might feel that there's no guarantee that God will meet our desires or our needs, especially in the way that we want him to.
No matter where we find ourselves on the journey of patience, know this, that even in hard things, God is at work on our behalf and for our good. That's comforting. To be patient means to choose to stand with God where He is and not in the circumstances where we are. Thankfully, through prayer, [00:13:00] we are able to access that space with ease by simply asking God to hold our hand and illuminate our path.
And as we do that, our hearts are being transformed from glory to glory. As we draw to a close today, can I leave you with some thoughts? Patience is the capacity to tolerate challenges or delays without getting upset. Most of us would love to have more patience in our life, but it's not always that easy.
Patience is the topic of many Bible studies, many counselling sessions, and the subject of many prayers, because life can push us towards reaction, and frustration, and disappointment. We may find ourselves praying for more patience when we've been at some of the following [00:14:00] points. When we've been waiting on the Lord to give us clarity in our lives.
Praying for a long time for God to change our situations or circumstances. Or when we've been waiting on God to answer prayer for the salvation of one of our loved ones. Or when losing our temper with others, or when we've been growing weary with the pressures of life. No matter what leads us to desire more patience, the Bible offers excellent guidance.
As we look at the Word of God, we can explore how to become more patient, and what it means to have patience, for example. You could read in Romans 12, verse 12, Be joyful in hope, Patience in affliction, Faithful in prayer. Or in [00:15:00] 9, Let us not become weary in doing good, For at the proper time we will reap a harvest, If we do not give up.
And again in Romans 8 verse 25, But if we hope for what we do not yet have, We wait in vain. For it patiently. Then there's Ephesians 4, verse 2. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Hebrews 10, verse 36. For you have need of patience, that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.
In those verses, there is great promise, great hope, And there is clear direction for us. [00:16:00] Let them inspire you. I read a quote not so long ago from a guy called Jerry Bridges which said this, Patience does not ignore the provocation of others. It simply seeks to respond to them in a godly manner, it enables us to control our temper when we are provoked, to seek to deal with the person and his provocation in a way that tends to heal relationships rather than aggravate them.
It seeks the ultimate good of the other individual, rather than the immediate satisfaction of our own aroused emotions. I can identify with that, can you? God bless you, my friends.
Dan Orange: Thanks, Dave. I feel like, we here, we know Dave in person, he's a friend, but when he talks, [00:17:00] I just know him a little bit more. I love listening to him.
Anna Kettle: Yeah, I know there's a lot in that talk, wasn't there? It's just, yeah, a lot of content in a short time. I think patience is quite, it's just always a challenging subject, isn't it?
Because it's hard. Like I think, especially in our culture, patience is hard. Like we were talking this morning because my son was watching YouTube and then an advert came up and he was getting so angry. He couldn't skip through the advert fast enough to get back to what he wanted to watch. And I was like, you have no idea.
Like when we were kids, you had to watch five minutes of adverts every like 15 minutes of TV, like it was just the norm. And I just, I don't know, more and more life is getting faster and faster. And because so technology and our digital age is making us, everything's more and more instant, isn't it?
And patience is just not something that we like to do or we're good at doing. And I think you can see it. You can see it in our kids more than us. I think it's hard, isn't it? We want everything instant. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: I [00:18:00] think one of the, when I read like biographies of christians from, not even that long ago, perhaps 50, 60 years ago.
In fact, even a, not a Christian this week, I've listened to the biography of Matthew Perry, who was an addict. It's very interesting that he dated Julia Roberts and they dated by fax because it was before text. Even back then, that wasn't very long ago, just that slowing down just slightly with so instant with emails and texts and everything.
That it is a big jump, isn't it? To go just wait. I wrote in the notes when Dave was talking so many times wait, God's timing, waiting. Those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. Wait, that's.
Anna Kettle: It doesn't come natural to us, does it? Because we just want everything now.
But I love that definition that Dave gave at the end, that patience is the ability to tolerate hardship or waiting. And [00:19:00] I think that's it, isn't it? It's the resilience, the ability to tolerate that, accept that waiting is part of life and that hardship is sometimes part of life too. And that actually, it's that ability to navigate those seasons of life well when they come.
Dan Orange: Yeah, absolutely. And interesting, Dave said as well he doesn't know if sometimes whether it's patience with others we need or patience with God. Yeah, I thought that was good. Yeah, sometimes, often we're waiting for others. We think what's wrong with them?
Why aren't they doing things with God? You had a great saying that you mentioned. Yeah,
Anna Kettle: my dad always says this one. So he always says, I remember him saying it a lot when we're kids. If you could buy anything for God, if you could buy God one gift, it would be a watch because God never does anything in like our time scales as quickly as he'd like him to move when we're like praying or waiting for things to change.
And I think, yeah, there is an element of that, isn't it? We'd all love God to work to human time scales, but the reality is he usually doesn't.
Dan Orange: Yeah he's got the whole picture [00:20:00] hasn't he, so he sees everything and we're there. Thinking it revolves around us.
Anna Kettle: But it's interesting, isn't it? That combination that he was talking about, like he said, Dave said, I don't know if I find patience with God harder or patience with people.
And I thought, yeah, that's interesting. I wonder what do you, what do you find harder, Dan? Patience with God or patience with other people?
Dan Orange: I think, yeah. I think I'm a good combination. And then there's also patience with myself as well, isn't there? Why Dan? Why didn't you do this? Why did you take so long to twig?
When God sometimes God has answered, sometimes he has said it and we've just taken such a long time really just to just twig to what he's saying. Yeah. Matt's just put in the comments. Yeah, it's a very important point to Matt, that I took the liberties of being able to speak on camera.
Yeah,
Anna Kettle: it's a bit mean. [00:21:00]
Dan Orange: We love him for it.
Anna Kettle: Someone's got to support Manny. Anyway, moving on from football I, I don't know, I feel like I think they're both hard and you're right. Sometimes it's patience with yourself, isn't it? Like when you're like, oh, we're still here. Like you feel like, have I not learned this lesson?
God? Yeah. I feel like sometimes you can be going around in circles. I feel like I've learned that one. Have I still got more to learn about patience? And yeah, it can be frustrating, but I don't know. I always feel like one of the main challenges for me is that God is so patient with us.
Thanks. And that's one point that I was thinking of when Dave was talking, but I just think, because I was thinking, why is patience so important? But it's we should be patient with one another because God is so patient with us. And yeah, there's that Bible verse, isn't there? I think it's in 2 Peter 3, where he says God is patient with us, like wanting none to perish and to give everyone time to I just think, yeah, God [00:22:00] isn't in a hurry for us to come to him like he is, but he doesn't rush us.
He gives us time and in the same way, I think we should be like, yeah, generous and like patient with one another, definitely.
Dan Orange: And I'd never put patience and enduring the cross together really in that way. And when Dave was speaking, he was talking about people mocking Jesus as he was carrying that cross and he was on the cross and being mocked.
And there's an old hymn that talks about, he could have called 10, 000 angels to destroy the world and just to set him free. That patience wasn't just the, he is the God of the earth and he let people physically abuse him and let people shout at him, let people belittle him, if you like.
And that. Yeah, I'd never linked it just to being patient and knowing this is for your good. I'm doing this [00:23:00] now. You don't know it now, but I'll be patient that in time you can get to, you can get to know me more.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. And I think that's the other part of patience that Dave was talking about really, wasn't it?
That patient endurance through suffering. And we quite often think of patience, like in a time sense Oh, I'm waiting for somebody. I've got to be patient. I'm queuing. I'm waiting for something to happen. I'm praying, I'm waiting for an answer. We don't, I don't know about you, but I don't always think about patience so much in that kind of context of patient endurance through suffering.
And I think actually that's what Jesus demonstrates most through his life, isn't it? Like that kind of suffering on the cross, that's that kind of,
Dan Orange: and that patience is a choice. It's something you actually do. It's not just something that gets put upon you. I have to wait. We can choose to wait and we can choose to that patience and it's a gift from God.
So it's one of the gifts. That's why we're doing this talk. So it must be something that God can give [00:24:00] more of to us.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. So do you think you can like pray and ask God for more patience for a situation or maybe for a person or just something that you've got to endure or like when you're going through a hard season, you can say, God give me more patience to just endure this well and to get through it.
I think so.
Dan Orange: I believe so. And I think God gives us a little, he does help us on that way. He might not, the complete answer might not come along,
Anna Kettle: but
Dan Orange: we might get a testimony, a story of things that have happened that are encouraging us, things, little things that have changed or brought us on or that situation is getting closer.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. Yeah, it's challenging, isn't it? I feel like patience is not something I regularly pray for more of, and I probably should. I'm not an especially patient person as my husband will be the first to tell you, but. Yeah, I feel like that's something that even just listening to this talk tonight challenges me quite a lot.
Like how often do [00:25:00] I actually ask for patience, just even in everyday stuff?
Dan Orange: Yeah, and I don't think it even has to be that long a wait. I was reading just, I think it was just yesterday about when a man came up to Jesus and he asked to be healed and Jesus spat on the ground and put some clay in his eyes.
And I might be getting a too. Miracles mixed up with the clay. And he said, can you see? And said I see people like trees walking. So his vision was there, but wasn't quite there. And that could be, for us, that might be something God says, I'm doing something. It's not done yet. And then Jesus said, he prayed and his vision was restored completely.
And that might've only been, seconds, but there was something there that was that I'll ask, and I'm going to ask again, I'm not just going to jump straight ahead.
Anna Kettle: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It's a really good point. I noticed in the comments, Matt said, I have, I struggle having patients with my neighbours.[00:26:00]
And I think, yeah, that's a really practical example, isn't it? Anyone who find difficult for whatever frustrating reason, neighbors, work colleagues. Yeah, people we live alongside every day who just like maybe rub us up. Yeah, it's the hardest when
Dan Orange: You can't physically get away from someone.
Yeah, that can be really tricky. Yeah, we'll pray for you, Matt. Pray for more patience. For more patience and also for answers to that as well. So it's not just increasing patience, but increase in a better of that situation to help.
Anna Kettle: Yeah Dave's watching in actually and he's just written patience requires us to put our trust in God while we are waiting.
Yeah, that's absolutely right, it's about that trust in God. That's part of where the patience comes from, doesn't it? Knowing that God is good and God is going to come through. And, that maybe doesn't happen in the timescales we want to see, or even in the way we want to see always.
[00:27:00] But it's that trust in God that says, God has this covered, so I can wait. Yeah,
Dan Orange: exactly. Yeah.
Anna Kettle: Yeah.
Dan Orange: It's great, isn't it? It's great to have a God that is overall who understands us. So it doesn't just
sometimes Jesus when he was talking to disciples, you could see that he said, why? Why? Why haven't you got this yet? But yet he still gave more parables and he still gave examples. He didn't give up on them. And he doesn't give up on us.
Anna Kettle: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. So tell us what have we got on next week then, Dan.
Dan Orange: Matt Edmundson is going to speak on kindness next week and he's presenting as well with his wonderful wife, Sharon. So it will be the Edmundson show. It makes
Anna Kettle: a difference from it being the Dan and Anna show, which we've had for the last [00:28:00] couple of weeks, so we've had enough of us. No, that will be good, even though it's double Edmo.
Dan Orange: It's double Edmo, but it'll be good.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. Kindness is like another one of the fruits of the spirit, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: So if you want to get in contact with us this week, please just, however you want to make that contact, go to crowd. church, there's WhatsApp there, we're still getting prayer requests in.
We've had some great answers to prayers, God doing a work and still, there's still lots to, to do, but it's that patience as well. People have seen things happen yeah, and we love praying for you. And what's the story if you want to hear? Yeah, what's the story? The real life answers to prayer and patience.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. I was going to say, actually, what's the story podcast. So we do a midweek podcast and I've just recorded one recently with a lady called Katherine Gantlett. And I think that went live last week. And she talks about patience and waiting. She waited for a [00:29:00] long time for children. And yeah, just a really great example of patient endurance through suffering.
And yeah, if you're interested in more of that subject, then check out that podcast. Cause I'm really, there's loads of great stories on that and I'm biased cause I've recorded some of them, I love doing that podcast cause I just meet so many inspiring people who just live out in their everyday life and, in a million ways.
So yeah, there's so much good content on that. Podcast guys, so do check it out.
Dan Orange: Thanks very much, Anna. Thanks very much for joining us and we will see you next week. God bless you.
Anna Kettle: Take care, guys. Have a good week.
Matt Edmundson: Thank you so much for joining us here on Crowd Church. Now, if you are watching on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button, as well as that little tiny bell notification to get notified when we The next time we are live.
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So if you haven't done so already, be sure to check www. crowd. church, where you can learn more about us. As a church, more about the Christian faith and also how to connect into our church community. It has been awesome to connect with you and you are awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear and hopefully we'll see you next time.
That's it from us. God bless you. Bye for now.