Show Notes
PATIENCE VS. HURRY
2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
JAMES 1:2-4
5-7 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, but oddly, when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed on where he was for two more days. After the two days, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”
JOHN 11:5-7 (MSG)
17-20 When Jesus finally got there, he found Lazarus already four days dead. Bethany was near Jerusalem, only a couple of miles away, and many of the Jews were visiting Martha and Mary, sympathizing with them over their brother. Martha heard Jesus was coming and went out to meet him. Mary remained in the house.
21-22 Martha said, “Master, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died…
“I want a shortcut to life - I was raised on the microwave and VISA and Amazon Prime and instant messaging and TV and on demand. The world at my fingertips. I want it all, and I want it all right now. But there are no shortcuts to life. You can’t microwave character. It’s more like a tree that you grow slowly, one season after another. There are summer-like seasons where you can pluck joy off the limbs, where your life is dripping with growth and abundance. And there are winter seasons, where life feels slow and empty. The best trees are the ones that stay rooted and just keep at it.”
JOHN MARK COMER
OUR CULTURE CELEBRATES HURRY
Hurry Sickness: a behavior pattern characterized by continual rushing and anxiousness.
2. A malaise in which a person feels chronically short of time, and so tends to perform every task faster and to get flustered when encountering any kind of delay.
3. A continuous struggle and unremitting attempt to accomplish or achieve more and more things or participate in more and more events in less and less time.
Burnout: a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands.
- Every single person has to rest. You’ll either rest because you chose to or you’ll be forced to slow down through burnout.
The average age of burnout in America is 32.
GOD IS NOT IN A HURRY.
15 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. 16 But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners.
1TIMOTHY 1:15-16
“God is more concerned with your long-term character than your short-term happiness. And he’s more willing to sacrifice the one to get the other.”
JOHN MARK COMER
- HURRY REACTS
- HURRY BLURS OUR JUDGEMENT
29 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” 31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
GENESIS 25:32-34
“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”
DALLAS WILLARD
“For many of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.”
JOHN ORTBERG
Patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.
Hypomone (patience): steadfastness, constancy, and endurance; in the NT, it is the characteristic of a man who is not swerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings
BIBLICAL PATIENCE IS NOT WAITING, IT’S TRAINING.
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
- PATIENCE RESPONDS PRAYFULLY
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
- PATIENCE TRUSTS THERE’S A PURPOSE
4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
JAMES 1:4
- PATIENCE SEES PEOPLE
- Because God will never be able to use people who are too busy for people.