Skip to main content

Ask Rewind

Sign in to ask Rewind about this sermon — answers are grounded in the actual transcripts.

The study, discipleship, and teaching platform built on your church's own preaching.

Product

How it works
Pricing
What's new
Churches on Rewind

Solutions

For churches
For teaching teams
For groups
For seminaries
Agency partners

Company

About
Contact

Legal

Trust & your data
Terms
Privacy
How we use AI
Accessibility

© 2026 Rewind

KINGS | Week 2 | Full Service · Rewind

Rock Point Church

71 min

Pastor Caleb McMains · Apr 24, 2023 · 4 min read · 71 min listen

The big idea

Quoting the message: Patience is the fruit, not the root, end quote. — becoming truly patient requires transformation deep within, not just trying harder to act patient.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 6Patience and impatience are fruit, not the root — outward behavior reveals something deeper going on inside us.
Point 2 of 6King Saul's impatience at Gilgal exposed a heart marked by the fear of man.

Point 3 of 6Saul's actions also revealed a heart that served himself rather than God.
Point 4 of 6David's refusal to kill the sleeping Saul revealed a heart marked by the fear of God, not man.
Point 5 of 6David served God rather than himself, trusting God's timing instead of forcing his own path to the throne.
Point 6 of 6Galatians 5 confirms patience is a fruit the Holy Spirit produces in us, not something we manufacture by trying harder.
Take it into your week
Transcript

Ask Rewind about this message

Sign in to ask Rewind about this message

Scripture in this message

1 Samuel 10:8
1 Samuel 13:7
1 Samuel 26:1
Galatians 5
Galatians 5:22

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Caleb McMains · Apr 24, 2023 · 71 min watch · 2 min read

KINGS | Week 2 | Full Service

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

1 Samuel 10:8
1 Samuel 13:7
1 Samuel 26:1
Galatians 5
Galatians 5:22

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Quoting the message: Patience is the fruit, not the root, end quote. — becoming truly patient requires transformation deep within, not just trying harder to act patient.

Followers of Jesus are not doomed to just try harder to be patient — through life with Jesus, we can actually become people of patience. Impatience, like patience, is a fruit that grows from something deeper in the heart, so real change means going after the root, not just managing the fruit.

Key points

1
1Patience and impatience are fruit, not the root — outward behavior reveals something deeper going on inside us.
Pastor Caleb opens with his own late-night cabinet-painting mishap, where impatience with drying paint looked like a simple lack of self-control but was really driven by stress, pride, and a desire to protect his family from disruption. He uses this to introduce the big idea that our moments of impatience point to something rooted much deeper than the moment itself.
2
2King Saul's impatience at Gilgal exposed a heart marked by the fear of man.
In 1 Samuel 10:8, Samuel commands Saul to wait seven days at Gilgal for further instruction. Two years later in 1 Samuel 13, Saul's troops are trembling and scattering, and rather than wait for Samuel, Saul offers the sacrifice himself. Pastor Caleb shows that Saul's excuse — his men were slipping away — reveals he was more concerned with losing his army than obeying God, meaning his impatience was really the fear of man ruling his heart.
3
3Saul's actions also revealed a heart that served himself rather than God.
Pastor Caleb points to Saul's own words in verse 12, noting Saul believed offering the sacrifice himself would guarantee winning the battle, treating the offering as a tool for his own success rather than genuine obedience. This, layered with the fear of man, cost Saul the kingdom, as Samuel declares God has already sought out a man after His own heart.
4
4David's refusal to kill the sleeping Saul revealed a heart marked by the fear of God, not man.
In 1 Samuel 26, David sneaks into Saul's camp with Abishai, who urges him to kill Saul and take the throne he was promised. David refuses, saying no one can lay a hand on the Lord's anointed one, showing that his patience wasn't just self-control but reverence for God rooted deep within him.
5
5David served God rather than himself, trusting God's timing instead of forcing his own path to the throne.
David tells Abishai he will let the Lord strike Saul down in His own timing rather than seize the kingdom himself, showing David understood that if God wanted Saul removed, God didn't need David to do it. Pastor Caleb notes David was a flawed man who later sinned greatly, yet is still called a man after God's own heart — meaning ordinary, imperfect people can share both his sin and his heart.
6
6Galatians 5 confirms patience is a fruit the Holy Spirit produces in us, not something we manufacture by trying harder.
Pastor Caleb reads Galatians 5:22 to show patience listed among the fruits the Spirit produces, not a trait we white-knuckle into existence. Simply resolving to 'be more patient' might last a day or a week, but real, lasting patience requires the root of our life to be transformed by Jesus.

Application

Pastor Caleb frames the charge as pursuing the root, not just managing the fruit, through three practical habits: silence, scripture, and community.

Practice silence
Talk less and listen more — when frustration rises, like sitting in traffic, turn off the noise and let silence quiet your soul before God instead of venting impatience.
Let scripture get through you
Don't just aim to get through a Bible reading plan for the sake of finishing it; let the words actually shape you, and be patient with yourself on days you miss it.
Get into community
Do life with a trusted group of people who will show you where you're impatient and open you up to the Spirit's transforming work.
Look to the root, not just the fruit
Instead of just trying harder to act patient this week, ask Jesus to show you the deeper fear, pride, or self-reliance driving your impatience, and open that up to His transformation.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Sign in to ask Rewind about this sermon

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“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”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“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”
From the transcript
“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”
From the transcript
“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”
From the transcript
“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”
From the transcript
“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”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

Before we can talk about patience, we need to talk about what impatience actually is. Pastor Caleb's opening move in this sermon was disarmingly simple: impatience is fruit, not root. When you snap at someone in traffic, when you force a decision that wasn't yours to force yet, when you feel that rising pressure to just make something happen — that outward moment is not the whole story. It is a signal pointing somewhere deeper. King Saul was told plainly by Samuel to wait seven days before the battle. The command was clear. The timeline was set. But as the days ticked by and his army began to scatter, Saul did not pray. He did not sit still. He acted — and in doing so, revealed what was really driving him underneath. Most of us can relate to that more than we'd like to admit. The circumstances that make us impatient — the slow process, the unresolved relationship, the unanswered prayer — are rarely the real problem. They are pressure applied to something that was already there. This week, the invitation is not to perform patience better. It is to look honestly at what lives underneath the moments when you run out of it. That kind of honesty, brought before God, is exactly where transformation begins.

For reflection

Think of a recent moment when you felt genuinely impatient. What deeper fear, desire, or unmet expectation was that impatience pointing toward?

Pray

Pray for the courage to look honestly beneath your impatience rather than simply managing it on the surface.

Day 2

What makes Saul's story so sobering is that the failure in chapter 13 was not a surprise test — it was a known one. Back in 1 Samuel 10:8, Samuel had already told Saul exactly what to do: go to Gilgal, wait seven days, and Samuel would come to offer the sacrifices and give instructions. Saul had been given the boundary in advance. He simply chose not to stay inside it when staying became costly. That detail matters. Saul's impatience was not born in the moment the army started deserting. It was born in a heart that had never fully settled into trusting God's word over its own judgment. The pressure just surfaced what was already there. Pastor Caleb pointed out that Saul's core problem was the fear of man — he was watching his army, watching his circumstances, watching what he stood to lose — and that watching crowded out his ability to wait on God. When we orient our inner lives around what others think, what we might lose, or what we need to secure, any delay feels like a threat. God's Word to Saul was not cruel. The seven-day wait was not arbitrary. It was an invitation to trust. Today, consider whether there is a waiting season in your own life where God's instruction is already clear — and what it would look like to simply stay inside it.

For reflection

Is there an area of your life where God's direction is already clear but waiting feels too costly? What would it look like to trust that instruction today?

Pray

Pray for a heart that chooses to hold God's word over the pressure of circumstances or other people's expectations.

Day 3

Saul's explanation after he made the unauthorized offering is worth sitting with slowly. He said, in effect, 'I forced myself.' He framed the act as something difficult, even reluctant — but the offering itself was a sacred act of devotion to God, and Saul had just stripped it of that meaning entirely. In his hands, it became a tool. A strategy. A way to hold his army together and press forward into battle. Pastor Caleb made the observation that Saul was serving himself, not God. He was using the language and the forms of worship while being driven entirely by self-preservation. That is a quietly devastating thing to consider — not as a verdict on Saul, but as a mirror. It is entirely possible to go through the motions of devotion while the actual goal is to get what we want faster. Patience, when it is real, is an act of worship. It says: I trust that God's timing is better than mine, and I am willing to lay down my preferred outcome and preferred schedule at His feet. That kind of patience can only come from a heart genuinely oriented toward God's glory rather than its own security. Today's reflection is not about guilt. It is an honest question worth bringing to God: am I waiting on You, or am I using spiritual activity to try to manage my way to the outcome I want?

For reflection

Have you ever gone through the motions of prayer or worship while really just trying to move God toward your preferred timeline? What does honest waiting on God look like for you right now?

Pray

Pray for a heart that offers devotion to God freely, not as a means to get what you want more quickly.

Day 4

The contrast between Saul and David that Pastor Caleb drew is striking. By the time we reach 1 Samuel 26, David has been running from Saul for years. He has been hunted, slandered, and stripped of the life that was rightfully promised to him. And then, in the dark of night, he finds Saul completely defenseless — asleep, spear within reach. His own men tell him God has delivered the enemy into his hand. David does not take the shot. He refuses. And the reason he gives is entirely God-centered: Saul is the Lord's anointed, and it is not David's place to remove him. This is patience that is genuinely hard to explain apart from the fear of God. David was not naive about what Saul had done. He was not passive or resigned. He was a warrior who could have acted decisively and justified it completely. But his heart was oriented differently than Saul's. Where Saul's inner compass pointed toward self-preservation, David's pointed toward honoring God — even when honoring God was costly. The fear of God, in the biblical sense, is not terror. It is a settled reverence — an inner acknowledgment that God is God and I am not, that His ways are right even when they are slow, that He can be trusted to do what only He should do. That kind of reverence produces patience that willpower never could.

For reflection

Is there a situation in your life where you are tempted to take matters into your own hands rather than waiting for God to act? What would it look like to hold that situation loosely, the way David did?

Pray

Pray for a reverent trust that God is moving in the situations you cannot control, even when His timing feels impossibly slow.

Day 5

David's words to Abishai in 1 Samuel 26:10-11 reveal something important about how a God-centered heart actually processes injustice. He does not say Saul is innocent. He does not pretend the situation is fine. He says, essentially, 'The Lord will deal with him — either his time will come, or he will fall in battle, or God will strike him. But that is the Lord's to do, not mine.' Pastor Caleb noted that David was trusting God to handle Saul's removal in His own time. That is a deeply practical act of faith — not passive resignation, but an active decision to stay in your lane and let God be God in someone else's. One of the most exhausting forms of impatience is the kind directed at people — when someone has wronged us, when a relationship is not moving toward reconciliation fast enough, when we keep waiting for someone to see what they've done or change the way they should. David's example does not resolve all the complexity of those situations. But it does offer a posture: bring the grievance to God honestly, and then release the outcome to Him. Servanthood — real servanthood — means we are not primarily trying to secure our own vindication. We are trying to love God and love people well, and trusting that God sees the rest. That orientation is what produces patience toward people who are difficult to be patient with.

For reflection

Is there a person or relationship where you are waiting for justice, change, or reconciliation? How might you bring that honestly to God and then release it to Him?

Pray

Pray for the grace to trust God as the one who sees, judges rightly, and acts in His own time — especially in relational situations you cannot resolve yourself.

Day 6

When Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, patience is there — and its placement alongside love, joy, and peace is not accidental. These are not spiritual achievements unlocked by the most disciplined believers. They are fruit. Fruit grows. It is produced by something outside itself — by sunlight, water, soil, and time. A tree does not strain to produce an apple. It grows one because it is rooted in what it needs to thrive. Pastor Caleb made this the hinge of the whole sermon: patience is not manufactured by willpower. It is produced in us by the Holy Spirit as we root our lives in Jesus. That reframes the entire project. The question is not 'how do I become more patient?' The question is 'what is my inner life actually rooted in?' This is genuinely good news, because it means patience is available to you — not because you are particularly disciplined or spiritually advanced, but because the Spirit who produces it actually lives in you. The work is not to try harder. The work is to create the conditions — silence, Scripture, community — where the Spirit's work in you is not constantly interrupted or crowded out. If you have felt like patience is just not your personality, this passage is an invitation to reconsider. It may not be your personality yet. But the Spirit is not limited by your personality.

For reflection

When you think about becoming a more patient person, do you instinctively reach for discipline and effort, or do you reach for dependence on the Spirit? What would dependence actually look like in your daily rhythms?

Pray

Pray for a deeper awareness of the Holy Spirit's presence and work in you — and for the willingness to cooperate with what He is already doing.

Day 7

This week began with an honest look at what impatience reveals and ends with the same question it started with — what is my life actually rooted in? Saul's story and David's story are not just ancient history. They are a map of two different inner lives, and both are available to us. Pastor Caleb's challenge was straightforward: stop white-knuckling your way to patience and start tending the root. That means three things, practiced in ordinary daily life. Silence — even five minutes in the car with the radio off, letting your soul quiet before God rather than feeding the noise. Scripture — not as a box to check, but slowly, personally, letting it get through you rather than past you, without guilt when you miss a day. Community — real, life-sharing relationships with people who know you, because people will surface your impatience faster than any other environment and open you up to the Spirit's work in ways you cannot manufacture alone. None of these is complicated. None of them is a performance. They are simply ways of keeping your roots in the right soil. Over time — not all at once, but genuinely over time — you will find that patience is no longer something you strain to produce. It is something you are becoming, because of Who you are rooted in. That is the Spirit's work, and He is faithful to finish it.

For reflection

Looking back at this week, which of the three rhythms — silence, Scripture, or community — feels most underdeveloped in your life right now? What is one small, specific step you could take this week to tend that root?

Pray

Pray for faithfulness in the small, daily rhythms that open you to the Spirit's work — and for trust that God is producing in you what you cannot produce in yourself.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message takes a fresh look at patience — not as a character trait we work up, but as something that grows out of who we are on the inside. Before we dive in, what's one word that comes to mind when you hear the word 'patience'?

Discussion questions

1
In 1 Samuel 13, Saul is facing a shrinking army and a delayed priest, and he steps in to offer the sacrifice himself. What do you think is driving his decision in that moment — and what does Samuel's response reveal about what God was actually looking for from Saul?
2
In 1 Samuel 26, David has Saul completely at his mercy and even his closest companion is telling him this is God's doing. What does David's refusal to act reveal about what he believed about God in that moment?
3
Pastor Caleb drew a contrast between Saul's fear of man and David's fear of God as the root difference between their two responses. Based on what the sermon showed from these two stories, how would you describe the practical difference between those two orientations?
4
Paul lists patience among the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. What does it mean for patience to be a fruit — something produced in us — rather than a discipline we perform on our own?
5
Pastor Caleb challenged us to tend the root through three rhythms: silence, Scripture, and community. Of those three, which do you think people most often skip — and why might that one be worth a second look?
6
Pastor Caleb suggested that community might surface our impatience faster than anything else. How might that actually be a gift rather than just an inconvenience — and what could it look like for a group like ours to take that seriously together?

Pray together

Ask God to deepen the roots — a surrendered heart, a quieted soul, and openness to His Spirit's transforming work

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Sign in to save this message.

Go deeper

Continue the series

KINGS

Week 2 · 6 messages

Where these passages are preached

1 Samuel 10 1 Samuel 13 1 Samuel 26 Galatians 5

Explore related topics

Fear of God Holy Spirit Transformation King Saul and David Patience Spiritual Disciplines

Related sermons

Evidence of Eternity | Week 5 | Message
Pastor Bill Bush · Aug 25, 2025
Shares scripture
Distorted | Week 7 | Message
Pastor Bill Bush · Jul 22, 2025
Shares scripture
Go Tell It | Week 2 | Sermon
Pastor Bill Bush · Dec 16, 2024
Shares scripture
KINGS | Week 1 | Full Service
Pastor Bill Bush · Apr 17, 2023
Shares scripture
GENESIS | Week 7 | Full Service
Pastor Daniel Goulding · Feb 20, 2023
Shares scripture
Galatians | Week 4 | Bill Bush | Full Service
Pastor Bill Bush · Aug 8, 2022
Shares scripture

Powered by Rewind · make your church's Rewind →