Patient Endurance

9/21/1995

There’s a phrase that’s come into my mind as you’re talking about this thing. It’s another passage, and there’s really quite a few that talk about suffering and dealing with that aspect of the life that He has called us to.

In 2 Cor. 1, verse 3 it says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”

But that phrase “patient endurance,” I think there’s something really, really special where about the attitude that we are meant to have when some of the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives as it says in this chapter. There’s kind of a way to kick against them, and then there is something that I think is very, very much in the heart of God and the spirit of God, something called patient endurance. That we didn’t really ask for this suffering, it wasn’t our idea and we didn’t plan it this way, this was never our goal. We started out to be a Christian…when we started out to go down this path last week or whatever, that it turned out this way or maybe just, “I don’t know why this happened, but I’m just in this inner turmoil in suffering right now.” And there’s just an attitude to approach that, with that this passage describes as “patient endurance.”

That there is a patience with it instead of “God, I want this to be over with real soon.” It’s patient and it will endure. It’s “God, I really don’t deserve any better than this and this is hard, but I can do it patiently. And I trust you, you are my Father and I know this is part of the walk, this is part of the life Your Son lived, and this is part of the same life that I want to join Him in. If this is what it means, then I’m with it, I’m with You in this. And produce in me whatever needs to be produced in me. You brought this for a reason. If there’s some sin, I want to understand it. If there is something you want to change in me, I want to understand it. Perhaps I don’t understand it, perhaps I can’t link this effect to some ‘sin cause,’ so to speak. I’m not suffering, I don’t think, because I’ve committed XY or Z sin and this is my discipline for that. But somehow or other it’s upon me and it wasn’t my idea but I want to deal with it patiently. I don’t even want it to be lifted until whatever it is that you need to produce in me is produced.”

That’s patient endurance of suffering that I think is precious in God’s eyes. Instead we’re like the little child that’s kickin’ and screamin’, that “No, No, No!” going to the doctor’s office to receive a shot. Kicking and screaming and fighting and fussing. But what God wants to see is patient endurance, patient endurance.

It really made me think of another…there’s this whole theme we talked about it last night and then again tonight. It just made me think of another passage. It’s kind of a potentially a different way to view the Christian life. It’s a famous passage, Ecclesiastes 3. Consider this as it relates to the life of a disciple, to a person who is walking by faith and not by sight as he is pursuing the life of Jesus as an individual as well as with His people:

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, A time to kill and a time to heal, A time to tear down and a time to build, A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, A time to embrace and a time to refrain, A time to search and a time to give up, A time to keep and a time to throw away, A time to tear and a time to mend, A time to be silent and a time to speak, A time to love and a time to hate, A time for war and a time for peace.”

Any of those that seem violent that we can look to like “a time for war, a time for peace. A time to hate”; that God calls us to hate sin. I remember we listened to a tape one time where Winkie Pratney was talking about how every sin is really a perversion of something good that God put in us. Even violence, all the violence that takes place in the world. God made us to fight, He built us to fight, He built us to fight against the powers of darkness, He built us to fight against sin in our own lives. He wants there to be something in us that wants to fight back. He’s made us that way. It was His idea, it was His design, and then when that good thing that God put in us gets perverted and twisted, it ends up in bloodshed – so much of the evil that takes place in the world. But “a time to hate” can be a good thing. Ok, God put that inside of us to hate sin, to hate the things that stand opposed to God. That’s okay, those are good things that God has placed them there.