KINGS | Week 2 | Full Service

But I'm a I'm a big technology buff. I love keeping track of techno technological advances, where things are headed. I always tell my friends that I'm like, you know what, if technology was ever like, you know, get a chip or whatever and you can like pay with your wrist, I might do it.

Just to just to be able to do it. But all jokes aside, technology's really cool because it's taken us so far in society and we've been able to get some really awesome things about it. And one of the things that I love is something Amazon has done. They have been the forward thinkers in reducing the amount of time we wait for something.

They've revolutionized delivery and packages and ordering things with the Prime and getting it in two days. They've even gotten it to the point where there's some things I can order at 08:00 in the morning and I can have in my hand between two and 5PM. And I don't even have to leave my bed for that to happen. It's wild.

And so as technology has advanced, we've continued to see the time in which we wait for things just seems to be reduced again and again and again. There's industries out there making millions of dollars on this. You look at the self tanning industry. Why go outside

and go through the work of getting a tan and being outside for twenty minutes and then going inside and then twenty minutes and then going inside and so you don't get burned when you can just put some self tanner on and you get that golden brown right away. You just shower, get it all rinsed off and you look great.

This The industry and the technology that has taken us in this advancement of reducing the amount of time that we wait for things, It has stopped us from having to be very patient. And while none of these things I think is inherently bad, I do wonder what has it done to you and to me in our expectations on life

When it comes to things that we do have to wait for, when it comes to moments in time where we do need to be patient, when there is no quick fix, there is no get it now, what does that do to our expectation? And when it's not met, what begins to come out of us?

And so as we spend some time talking today, we are going to really just spend a moment looking at this big thought. And the big thought is this, is that patience is the fruit, not the root.

And if that's true, then impatience is also the fruit, not the root. When we're looking at our outward expression of whether we are patient or we have patient moments or we're impatient with people or others or situations, it is more of the fruit than anything else of something that is going on much deeper within.

And the question becomes for you and for me, if you're in this room, you call yourself a follower of Jesus, are we doomed to always be fighting against culture and fighting against this pervasive thought that we should be able to have everything now and not have to wait for it very long?

Are we doomed to just fight against that forever? Or is there a world where we can actually be transformed into people of patience? That we no longer become people who are just trying to be patient, trying our very best, giving everything we have, but instead, we are actually people of patience.

I believe the latter is more true than the former. I believe that the pages of scripture and life with Jesus actually invites us into the kind of life where we can become people of patience, not just people who try to be patient.

And so I'd love to pray for us, and we're gonna get right into it. Alright? So let's bow our heads and let's pray. Dear Jesus, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this church, for these people, for this time in which we get to worship you together in a community.

I pray that as we open your word that you would challenge our hearts, that you would begin to show us where maybe, just maybe, you still have some work to do, and that we would be ready to open ourselves up to your transformational power. We love you. You're amazing. In your heavenly name, amen.

So I recently just started redoing my kitchen cabinets, And I had like a three day period where I didn't have to go to work. I had just the tail end of a vacation time that I had taken. And I was like, know what? I'm gonna knock these out in three days.

Funny is right because nothing takes three days when it comes to any kind of house project. I thought I could knock it out, and so what's been what I thought was gonna be three days has been, like, three, four weeks, and it's still going on right now. And I got to the point where I got the base of the cabinets done. All of that was good. And then I just had the doors and drawers.

And with, your kitchen and everything, when you take the doors and drawers off of the bottom and the top, it just exposes everything that's in them to the world. Well, I have a two year old daughter who loves to run around and just get into things, and so having the bottom doors and drawers not on just is not good. You got that sink one where underneath it is everything that says keep out of reach of children.

That was in reach of my child. And we me and my wife are like, we gotta get this done. And so there was one fateful Tuesday night where I came home and I told my wife, hey. The moment I get home, I'm getting these cabinets done. Like, know you've been watching our daughter all day and everything, but we gotta get these cabinets done. So the moment I get home, I get to work. And she's like, okay. Sounds good. So I get home and I'm like kinda game planning it all out. I had already sanded all the doors and drawers. Everything was ready for paint.

I was like, okay, I can do this. I'm spraying them, so I need a spray room and everything like this. And so I was like, I knew exactly what I needed to do. So I started working on everything, and I was just going through my process. I was putting cabinet doors on. I was spraying them. I was waiting for it to dry. And the thing with paint is you do have to wait for it to dry.

That's like the worst part of the whole thing. That's where the old saying comes from. It's like watching paint dry. It is boring. It is awful, and it really tests your patience. And so I got through the primer, and then I put the first coat on, and I knew it needed a second coat. And every single one of those layers,

the minimum amount of time that the paint can said to wait was two hours.

Now any contractor or anybody who works with paint in the room knows that that is very generous. That is like the bare minimum that someone can say to wait for it to dry before you do anything else for them to not get sued and lose a lot of money. So

I was like, okay, two hours. So I did the two hours with the primer. I did the two hours with the the first coat. And by the time I was done with that, I looked at the clock and it was 02:30 in the morning.

So I was tired and I was like, oh my gosh, this is taking way longer than I ever thought it was going to. And periodically throughout the process, I would kinda just touch the paint after like an hour or so just to see like, is it really two hours or do they just say two hours? Can I get away with a little sooner?

And every now and then, it'd be like it'd be like, okay. This is decently dry. Like, if I was really careful, I think I could position this thing where I needed to be to paint it and not have to wait the full two hours. And so by the time I got to that final coat, it'd be like 02:30 in the morning, I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna wait the hour. So I look at my watch and I'm like, okay, it's been about an hour and I go to grab the first door, the first panel.

And I've got gloves on because I don't like paint on my hands. It's really gross. I could never be a contractor. It just it wouldn't work for me.

And I go to just kinda crane game this thing where I just like squeeze my arms together, don't grab it or anything, just kinda like move it over. But when I did that, the sides were still very, very wet.

And they started like, door tried started to slip right out of my hands. And when something's about to slip out of your hands, your natural reaction is just to grab that thing. And so I grabbed that thing, and all my fingerprints and everything just ruined the entire

coat of paint that was on there. And I was so frustrated with myself because I knew I was gonna have to fully redo that one

because I'm a perfectionist, and I have to do it that way. And so what ended up would have taken only a handful more hours, ended up taking a significantly more amount of hours, and I didn't go to bed till, like, five, 05:30 o'clock at night or in the morning at night.

In the morning. And I had to be right back here at 08:00 in the morning. So it was a rough day for me. Now on the outside, you look at that and you're like, man, Caleb, you were impatient. You should have followed the at least the minimum two hour rule and it would have fine and you probably would have gotten done maybe like an hour or so earlier and all this stuff,

but you wanted to cut corners and you got a little impatient. Yes. Very true. But if you were to take a step back and begin to peel the layers back,

we begin to see that maybe just maybe my impatience with waiting for paint to dry wasn't just a moment of impatience, but there was a lot underneath building up to it. I was stressed. I wanted to make sure I got this done. I didn't wanna go to bed till it was done. I didn't want my wife and daughter to have to worry about not having the cabinets done. You begin to peel the layers back and there was so much that just drove that decision to be like,

alright. I'll wait not as long as I'm supposed to.

And when it comes to our moments, well, that's a funny example. We all have moments of impatience that we're not proud of. Moments where we snapped at our spouse or we snapped at our kids or we've lost it on the road and we get frustrated with other drivers around us and our impatience just flows out of us. And

what I want to do is I wanna look at two two men in the bible named King Saul and King David. We've been in this series. Bill kicked it off last week called Kings, where we're really comparing and contrasting King Saul and King David.

Because King Saul was Israel's first king and King David was Israel's second king. King Saul doesn't have much to be remembered by, has no saying behind his name or anything, but we have King David who is widely known and regarded as a man after God's own heart. We do not see that in the description

and descriptors of history when it comes to King Saul. But for some reason, King David gets the line, a man after God's own heart. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at a couple stories in here about them,

about King Saul, about King David. So if you have your Bibles, I'd love for you to open up to the book of one Samuel. One Samuel is found in the Old Testament.

If you don't know much about the Bible, that's okay. Kind of the big synopsis of it is there's an Old Testament and then there's a new testament. So you got these two really big sections. The old testament all is all about the coming of this man named Jesus,

the Messiah. It's setting the stage for Jesus to arrive on the scene, and that's the old testament. And when it comes to the New Testament, we've got Jesus, his death, his burial, his resurrection, what we celebrated just a couple weeks ago at Easter, and the establishment of the church as we know it today. And so we're in that former part. We're in the Old Testament where the stage is still being set for a messiah to come to save God's people.

And that's where we pick up the story is in this moment where the Israelites are asking for a king. They want someone to rule them. They're in this moment where they're currently being ruled by God, but that seems to not be enough for them. And so they tell the prophet of their day that they would like a king and God says, okay, I'll give you a king. And the prophet's like, dude, come on, God. Why are gonna give him a king? You know that's not gonna be good for him. And God's like, the people want the king? He can have the king. And so God tells Samuel, hey,

I'm gonna send this guy Saul to you and he's gonna be the king and you're going to anoint him and you're going to tell him everything that's going to unfold for him to be the king. That's kinda where we pick up the story in King Saul's life. So again, if you have your Bibles, one Samuel chapter 10

and we're gonna read verse eight. What's about to happen is Saul is about to have an encounter with Samuel. Samuel is about to tell Saul for the first time that he's going to be the king of Israel. And he's going to give Saul some instruction

on, hey, this is what's gonna happen. This is what you can expect. And at the very end, he tells them something extremely clear. He tells them he's going to do something and wait for Samuel to arrive. And that's what we're gonna read right here. I want us to hold on to this part. One Samuel chapter 10 verse eight.

If you have your bibles, please please do your best to get there. If you got the bible app on your phone, get it open and in front of you. I truly believe this right here, the word of God is the thing, the primary way that Jesus transforms us into becoming more like him. So if we can have the word of God in front of us while it's being taught to us, it is that much more powerful. So one Samuel chapter 10 verse eight.

It says this. It says, then go down to Gilgal ahead of me. This is Samuel talking to Saul. I will join you there to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. You must wait for seven days until I arrive and give you further instruction. How many days does Samuel tell Saul to wait for him? Seven.

And what does he tell him to wait for? Further instruction.

That is the instruction from Samuel, the prophet of God at the time, telling Saul, hey, you're gonna have this happen, this happen, feel free to read through it on your own time and kinda get the whole picture of the story. But Samuel was just like, hey, this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen. Then when you're at this place called Gilgal, you're gonna be getting ready for battle, but I want you to wait seven days for me to get there, and then we will go from there. And it makes it very clear, and that is what God has commanded of you, Saul, as the future king of Israel. And so if we just turn one page, while we turn one page, we're actually fast forwarding in history about two years. So about two years of time goes by from

Samuel telling Saul, hey, you are going to be waiting for me at this battle when you're in Gilgal. Okay? And you would think, okay, two years, maybe he forgot.

Just so you know, and we will read here in a moment, Saul does not forget the instruction that Samuel gave him. It is very forward thinking and in his mind, he knows what's expected of him. And that's where we pick up the story. Just two years later,

Saul is in Gilgal, and they're getting ready for battle, and he's waiting for Samuel. So just a couple pages over, we're in chapter 13 starting in verse seven.

It says this. It says, meanwhile, Saul stayed at Gilgal, his men were trembling with fear. Saul waited there seven days for Samuel, as Samuel had instructed him earlier. But Samuel still didn't come.

Saul realized that his troops were rapidly slipping away, so he demanded, bring me the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, and Saul sacrificed the burnt offerings himself. Just as Saul was finished with the burnt offering, Samuel arrived.

Saul went out to meet and welcome him, But Samuel said, what is this you have done?

Saul replied, I saw my men scattering from me. You didn't arrive when you said you would, and the Philistines are at Michmash ready for battle. So I said, the Philistines are ready to march against us at Gilgal, and I haven't even asked for the Lord's help. So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering myself before you came.

How foolish, Samuel exclaims. You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. Had you kept it, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.

But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people because you have not kept the Lord's command. Woah. You read that story and at first glance, you're like, oh my gosh. This is like brutal. Saul has a moment of impatience,

seemingly justified because Samuel didn't even arrive when he said he was gonna arrive. He was late and he hadn't gotten there yet. So Saul just goes, you know what? Maybe I'll just take things into my own hands, give the offering to the Lord so that we can go fight the Philistines.

It could you think maybe, man, that just doesn't seem to warrant the response from Samuel. It seems like the the I'm so sorry. I lost the word. I was on a roll. Anyway, lost it. It seems that what Saul did just didn't match up with Samuel's response.

But as we begin to peel the layers back and as we begin to look at the life of David and Saul together, we begin to see that Saul's moment of impatience is not just a moment of impatience. There is something deeper within. The root of Saul's actions

are what we are to look at. So the first thing we can kinda look at and see in Saul's life and in this moment and even in his excuses in talking to Samuel is that he had the fear of man. Saul had the fear of man in him. We see this most clearly in verse

11 where in his kind of response to what have you done, Saul says, I saw my men scattering from me and you didn't arrive when you said you would. And the Philistines are at Michmash ready for battle. Just a few verses before, he says that the troops were rapidly slipping away.

They were trembling in fear. They were going to Saul and getting

scared. They were ready to leave. They were all going separate places. They knew that the battle was imminent and that they weren't ready for it. And so Saul in his fear of man and with them trembling and scattering away, he said, I'm going to do this thing that I know that I was asked not to do. And I was told to wait for further instruction

and wait for Samuel to arrive.

But instead, he bent to the losing of his army. He was more concerned with the loss of his army than he was with obeying the command of God. When we take a step back and we begin to look at what's going on in the heart of Saul, it wasn't just a moment of impatience. There's so much more.

Just like for you and me, any moment we show impatience with people around us, our friends, our family, there's a lot more to it than just the impatience itself. The second thing we noticed is that Saul served himself.

We see this in verse 12. It says, so I so I said, this is Saul talking, the Philistines are ready to march against us at Gilgal, and I haven't even asked for the Lord's help. So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering myself before you came. He is so filled with himself

that he needed to do this, that he needed to be the one to save his army. He needed to be the one to give the offering so that they could go fight the battle. One commenter I was reading recognizes that Samuel

or Saul believed that giving an offering to the Lord just meant they could win the battle. David knew that offering to the Lord was good and pleasing to him. You see, as we continue to peel the layers back, we begin to see that Saul was not just being impatient. He was in direct defiance in not obeying

the command of God and what Saul had said. And so when you begin to peel the layers back, you start to look at Samuel's response and his heartache and the brokenness within to see the man who is the king of Israel leading God's army, God's nation, God's people is a man who is not after God's own heart.

But as we fast forward just a handful

of chapters, we're gonna go all the way to chapter 26. So if you have your bibles, turn a few pages over to 26, bible app. You just it's just great. Technology is great. Don't have to turn pages. You just press buttons. And so the hard thing with stories and jumping 13 chapters, especially

in the Old Testament, is there is so much that happens within those 13 chapters. So if it is something you'd like to do this week, read through it and see what all unfolds.

But I'm gonna give you the kind of summary of it. What happens in this time period is, you know, Saul gets told that he is not going to be the king. Like, you'll be a king for a period of time, but it will be taken away from you and it will be given to someone who is after God's heart. Someone who is not going to bend to the will of man. Someone who is not going to serve himself. Someone who will do the exact opposite.

And so in order for that to happen, that took some time. And so Samuel

was told to go find this next person who was gonna take over the kingdom. And so he goes and finds this man named David. He was a boy at the time, 12 years old. And he goes to their their household and tells David, hey. You're going to be the next king.

And it's like, woah. Could you imagine being a 12 year old boy and being told you're being the king of a nation? That'd be quite jarring. But then Samuel leaves and says basically says, hey. Just wait. It'll happen when it happens. And so David's like, okay. So he goes back to tending the sheep. And his life,

he just continues to follow whatever God puts in front of him and does it well. He finds himself employed by Saul. He's working for Saul. He's right there with him going into battles and doing things. And over time, David begins to be seen as more of a mighty warrior and leader than Saul himself. And as we've already seen, Saul does not have a heart after God's own heart. He actually has a heart for himself

and who he is and his kingship and his rule over the nation. So he gets very jealous when the people of Israel start seeing David as the leader, start seeing David as someone worth following. So in his jealousy, there's a few times where he picks up his spear and he chucks it at David while he's playing his harp.

It's I I don't know why David didn't quit his job, but he didn't and he stayed. And so the story just keeps going and Saul gets more and more angry, just mad,

furious. And you begin to see his heart just show more and more and more. And the fruit of what's actually happening within him just continues to show. And he gets more and more frustrated. He tries to kill David. Eventually, David has to go on the run.

And Saul is hunting him. And at one point, Saul goes to relieve himself to take go to the bathroom in a cave. And David's, like, behind him in that cave. It was just happenstance.

David could have killed him. He'd be like, this is the time that I kill this guy who's trying to kill me, and then I take the throne and lead the nation of Israel, which was promised to me years ago.

But he doesn't do it. He cuts off a piece of his robe. He actually feels really bad about that. And he tells Saul. He's like, Saul, I could have killed you. You can stop hunting me. I'm not gonna hurt you. I have no desire to hurt you. And in a moment, Saul seems like he's like repentant

and that he is like feeling really bad about the fact that he's been going after David and he tells David, like, man, I see why God has chosen you to be the one to take over. It makes sense. You're a better man than me.

You're more patient than me. You're more kind than me because I would have never done what you've done. If I was behind you in a cave, I would have killed you, is what Saul is saying. And so it seems that it's done and Saul's heart is changing.

But that was two chapters ago in verse 24 and what we're about and here is what we are about to read in 26. So one Samuel 26 starting in verse one. Are we there? Perfect. Now some men from Ziph came to Saul at Gabeth to tell him, David is hiding

on the Hill Of Hecla, which overlooks Jeshammon. So Saul took 3,000 of Israelites Israel's elite troops and went to hunt him down in the wilderness of Ziph. 3,000 elite troops to go hunt down David.

Saul's on a mission. Saul camped along the road beside the Hill Of Hakkaleh near Jeshumon where David was hiding. When David learned that Saul had come after him in the wilderness, he sent out spies to verify the report of Saul's arrival.

David slipped over to Saul's camp one night to look around. Saul Saul and Abner, son son of Nir, the commander of his army, were sleeping inside a ring formed by the slumbering warriors. Hear that description. Where is Saul? Where is his commander in chief? They are in the center of a ring of 3,000 of Israel's elite troops.

Who will volunteer to go with me? David asked Amalek, the Hittite, and Abishee, son of Zariah, Joab's brother. I'll go with you, Abishee replied. So David and Abishai went right into Saul's camp and found him asleep with his spear stuck in the ground beside his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying asleep around him. Pause.

David, future king of Israel, is in the center of Israel's army looking at the man who's been trying to murder him, to kill him, to end his life. Time and time again, this man that he's looking at is the one who has wreaked havoc on his life. And he's asleep, and he's just standing there. In this moment,

it would not be surprising to think that this is finally the time that David kills Saul, takes the throne, and leads Israel to victory. But listen to how this unfolds.

Verse eight, God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time, Abishai whispered to David. Let me pin him to the ground. With one thrust of the spear. I won't need to strike twice. The person David is with just looks at David and goes, oh my gosh. Can you believe this? The guy who's been

going after you, trying to kill you, the guy who once he dies, you will become king. That guy, you could end it now and you could have kingship now. You can be the king of Israel now. You no longer have to wait.

And he even says, hey, like, it there's no how does this happen? It must be time. He says, I'll do it for you. David, you don't even have to touch him. I'll do it. Listen to the words of David in his response. No, David said, don't kill him. For who can remain innocent after attacking the Lord's anointed one?

Do you hear the words David uses? The Lord's anointed one. One of the biggest differences and the first things we notice in the comparison between Saul and David, Saul and the man after God's own heart, is that while Saul had the fear of man, David had the fear of God.

He was not going to touch or lay a hand on the one that God had anointed as the king of Israel. The reverence and the honor and the respect can only be found in someone who is widely known as a man after God's own heart. You peel back the layers.

This isn't just David being like, no. I'll be patient. We don't have to kill him. I'll just wait. While that is there, the patience to wait and to not do wrong and to not touch the anointed one of God, all comes from what's deep within David, the root of who he is.

The next thing that happens in verse 10, it says, surely, the Lord will strike Saul down someday, or he will die of old age or in battle. The Lord forbid that I should kill the one he has anointed. But take a spear and the jug of water beside his head, and let's get out of here.

This could be regarded as one of the dumbest things anybody's ever done. If you just look at it at face value, you're like, that dude's trying to kill you. He's got an army of 3,000. You have a chance to kill him, you didn't take it.

But yet, David walks away and says, absolutely not. The second thing we notice in the compare and contrast between Saul and David is that David served God.

David was not concerned with self. David was not concerned with when he was going to become king. He knew it was all in God's hands. He says it again and again and he just says, I will wait for him to die of old age. I will wait for him to just die in battle. He basically says, I serve the Lord God and I will not touch his anointed one. I will not touch the one he has put over the Israelites

and the nation of Israel. If God wants Saul to not be the king, God does not need David to do it. So while it does look like a moment of just like sheer patience and just wow, honoring and respecting God, you peel the layers back and he's got just a heart rooted in honoring the Lord God, in serving God, not himself,

and having the fear of God, not of man. This is what the life of David is marked by. I

was reading one commenter and he was saying, if we can share in David's sin, the fact that we are broken and flawed people because what I do not want to mistake is that David was a very flawed human. He had issues and difficulties. And later in his story, he makes some decisions and he sins against God.

And there's some things that happen because of it. But yet, in the midst of David's entire reputation and the life he lived, he is widely regarded as a man after God's own heart. So if we can be imperfect and we can share in David's sin and know that we're imperfect, then we can also share in his heart.

You and I have the very capacity to be men and women after God's own heart, that our lives can be marked by being people who are after the heart of God, that we serve Him, not ourselves,

that we have the fear of God in us, not the fear of others and bending to their will, but that we move in the direction of God and honoring Him. You and I have the very capacity to become people of patience, not just people who try to be patient.

If you go to the New Testament, you don't have to go there or anything, but there's in Galatians chapter five, the apostle Paul kind of writes out these characteristics, these character traits of what it looks like when we follow Jesus, when we give our life to Jesus, what becomes of our humanity.

And in Galatians five twenty two, it says this. It says, but the holy spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness,

faithfulness, and self control. There is no law against these things. This is how I know that patience is the fruit, not the root. This is how I know that you and I literally have the capacity to become people of patience, not just people who try to be patient. We do not walk out of this room today going, I'm going to be more patient.

I'm gonna tie my shoes tight and I'm gonna go out through the door and I'm going to be patient with my kids. I'm gonna be patient with my spouse. You can try that for a day. You can maybe get away with a week.

But life will continue to go and if all you are trying to do is just become more patient by just buckling down and trying really hard, pretty soon that will fail. So if that's the case, what is it going to take for you and I to become people of patience? Because I truly believe it's possible.

I truly believe that in and through the person of Jesus, it is possible to display what we see the apostle Paul write, that we can have the fruit of patience. And it's going to have to take the root.

We are going to have to look at our innermost being. We're going to have to look at where we're at in our life and our following of Jesus. Because if we don't look there, we will just try and try and try, and we will fail and we will fail and we'll get frustrated with ourselves. But if we go after the root,

we open ourselves to being transformed by the spirit of God. Now here's the reality. It's not easy. There is no quick fix to becoming people of patience.

It's actually kind of ironic. You have to be patient to become a person of patience. You have to exercise patience in your walk with Jesus, with yourself and your journey. You have to be able to do that and you will begin to see over time patience becoming something that you are, not something that you try to do. It's not always easy. You won't always get it right.

But we're gonna just spend a few moments getting really practical because what I don't want you to do is walk out of here and go, oh, man. How do I how do I do that? If it is literally possible for us to become people of patience, how do I do that? Well, it's not going to be you waking up tomorrow and saying,

be patient today. It's going to be the slow work of rooting yourself in Jesus, Rooting yourself in a life of following Jesus and taking on the way of life he lives. It's going to be a journey and a process, but it's gonna be a wonderful and beautiful one. And I'm telling you right now, it is so much better

than just trying really hard. It is so much more rewarding and joy giving than it is to just try to do something really hard. So let's get to it. I had a friend of mine help me spend some time really honing in on just three kind of practical things that we can do as followers of Jesus to actually become people

of patience.

That you can introduce these kinds of things into your life and over time, you will literally see yourself become more patient. You won't get as mad and frustrated at the disruptions of life. CS Lewis says that how we handle interruptions in our life will tell us who we really are. So a good litmus test for your progression in life in the kingdom, life with Jesus, is you start to look at the fruit of your life and you see is patience coming through. If impatience is coming through, then you have a little bell going off in your head saying there might just be some place where the spirit of God still has to get in there and transform me. And so how do I open myself up to the spirit of God coming into my life and attacking the areas in which I do not look like Christ?

The first one is silence. There's this ancient practice called silence where we just talk less. Oh, we could do so well to just speak less. Scripture tells us that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

If we would just listen more, keep our mouth shut a bit, and just hear what other people have to say, to quietly listen for the will of God, to listen for his voice, to quiet our space and our days. This could easily happen when you're driving and you hit traffic and you feel yourself getting a little frustrated.

And let that be the reminder that goes, let me just turn off the radio. Let me just sit in traffic and in silence.

How wonderful that is for our soul and in our ability and our progression towards becoming people of patience. The second thing, scripture.

Getting the word of God. Of course, this is a part of it. I truly believe that God is using his word as the primary way to make us more like him. As the word of God gets into us, we begin to look more like Jesus.

When we look at the life of Jesus, he shows patience in ways that we can only hope to get to, but I truly believe we have the possibility to get there. Let the scriptures get into you. There's this wonderful quote by John Ortberg that says this. It says, the goal is not for us to get through the scriptures.

The goal is to get the scriptures through us. How many times have we found ourselves wanting to do a bible reading plan or get down and say, I'm gonna read the bible every day and if I miss it, you get frustrated with yourself and you're like, man, that's not the point of it. The point is to get the word of God into you.

If you've been here for a little while, we've been going through the bible in a year. There's a bible reading plan on the bible app called bible in a year and you can read through it. And the the joy of that is you are putting a practice in the place where you're taking in scripture.

The difficulty with that is if you were not careful, we get really mad when we miss it. Or we get really frantic when we're about to be too far behind and we go, oh my goodness, I gotta read the bible. Honey, put the kids. Get them quiet. I gotta read this.

That's not the point. The point is to get the scriptures in you. So if you miss a day, don't get frustrated. Don't get mad. Have patience with yourself. Jesus has patience with you. He loves you even every time you mess up, you get it wrong, you show a little impatience.

Be patient with yourself. Let the scriptures get through you, and you will literally see your life change for the better. The last thing the first two are kinda like you can do them on your own. The last one is community. Be in community. You will learn patience really quick getting into community.

You get around people and start doing life with people. You will learn patience really quick, or you will learn that you are a very impatient person and that Jesus has a lot of work to do on you. People will do that for us. That's why community is so vitally important.

If you don't have a group of people around you that you can trust and do life with, it is difficult. It is a struggle. And I truly believe without it, we cannot experience the fullness of the kingdom of God that we see on the pages of scripture. Be in community. They'll teach you to be patient.

It'll show you where you're impatient. It'll show you where you need to have work done, And it will open yourself up to the transformational work of the spirit. So those are the three things that kind of like if you want to talk about like things you can practically do,

any one of those three can be wonderful in your journey of becoming a patient person, not just someone who tries to be patient.

And so as we close, I'm gonna invite anybody who wants to. This is invitation only. You do not have to, but I'm gonna invite you to put your hands like this as we pray. What this does, this is really just a bodily expression of waiting on the Lord, being patient

with God, being ready to receive whatever it is God has for us. It is nothing more, nothing less than just a bodily expression of that. But if you don't wanna do it, don't do it. That's okay. It's an invitation only.

And as I pray, I'm going to ask that you also be thinking about what might God be putting on your heart, your soul to to do and to practice in becoming a person of patience. What could it be? Where in your soul, where in your heart does Jesus, his spirit still need to do some work? So let's pray. Dear Jesus,

may we lift this time up to you? I pray for everybody in this room that you would be stirring in their hearts and their minds what it is you still need to do work in, and that you will give them the wisdom and the guidance to be more in tune with you, that they would have a heart after you,

and that as we pursue you and we follow you, that we will see the transformational work of your spirit in us. Thank you so much for who you are. Thank you that you gave your life on the cross for us so that we could experience the joys of life,

that we could experience the kingdom of heaven on earth as it is in heaven. We love you. You're amazing. In your heavenly name, amen. Amen.

Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.