FOTS: Patience and Goodness—Isaiah 40: 27-31; Jas. 1: 19-27
Having tested positive this week for COVID, has left me a complete bundle of nerves. All the fears and dread of the past two years have come washing back over me. I was incredibly terrified and guilty to have been in public while potentially sick, even though there were no early warning symptoms. And there’s also the mindless hours of waiting, shut up at home, unable to go out and go about life. It's funny now, but I nearly rolled out the seat of the doctor’s office when my doctor left and came back in the room with multiple masks, goggles, and a face shield after testing me for flu and COVID.
In the midst of all this fear, worry, irritation, and general bad attitude, there was this sermon needing to be written—two fruits of the spirit to be considered: patience and the goodness. Both are hard lessons. Both are fruits of the spirit that show up when you’re going through a hard time. And both are powerful reminders of how God is present and working through our lives in both good and bad. Let us look at both fruits of God’s spirit: patience and goodness.
For years we have probably heard the old saying, “Patience is a virtue.” The Bible is filled with references to waiting and patience from the Psalms to the stories, to the gospel lessons and parables. All throughout the Bible, people have been instructed to wait patiently for God. Patience may be a great virtue, but it’s also super annoying. James tells us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Isaiah also talks about patience in a roundabout way, calling on Israel to trust in God (or wait up on the Lod) to find strength and soar like eagles. We are told that God never grows weak or weary. But here’s the problem: I do, and I know so do you at times.
Wait for the surgery to happen. Wait to hear on the test or diagnosis. Wait to hear from the wayward loved one who lives a troubled life. Wait on that promotion. Wait on relief from financial troubles. Wait on that school acceptance letter. Wait, wait, wait. Patience is a virtue. God may never grow weak and weary, but we do, and whether we admit it or not, it tests our faith to wait on God. One of you told me years ago, “Never pray for patience, because God will surely teach it to you.”
Why is patience so virtuous? The truth is that patience and waiting are a reminder that God is in control of the worst situations. There may not be a good reason, but there is a holy God, always with us, who oversees the problem. Pastor Paul Tripp writes, “God’s often-repeated declaration [not to] leave us sits on the pages of [the] Word like a protection against the lies to which suffering makes us susceptible.” Patience reminds us that we have a God who has the power to deliver now as well as the power to deliver into forever and all of time.
What is on the other side of all that patience and all that waiting for the Lord that we do? The goodness of God that is waiting there is a bit harder to define. It is found in God’s mercy. It is found to be unfailing. It is found in God forgetting our wrongs, providing us refuge, and guiding to a safe resting place. A powerful Old Testament example is God liberating the Israelite people from slavery and making an everlasting covenant with them wherein God says in Numbers 10 that good is promised to Israel. This goodness of God promised in an everlasting covenant.
The power of this goodness is found in the story of the three Hebrew children in the furnace who defy the wicked intentions of the king saying that even if God does not save them and they are destroyed in the fire, they will never forsake God and worship the king’s idols. The goodness of God is seen in the example of Paul, who wrote in Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” This goodness of God works for us.
In James, we see a glimpse of God’s goodness in verse 27, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for the orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” It’s the words of “I Must Tell Jesus” where we her the cry, “In my distress he kindly will help me. He ever loves and cares for his own.” But James goes a step further. Even as God hears us and shares that work of goodness, so must we listen and do. If you only listen to God, you forget. If you do what God says, it sticks with you.
What good is a covenant with Israel if it doesn’t transform them into the people God meant for them to be? What good does it do us to study God’s word if we never put it to practice? You see if God’s goodness was just a theory, it wouldn’t be any good at all. One of my readings on goodness took me to the writings of Kasey Hitt who blends Christian faith and meditation into a form of prayer. She writes that every morning she says the same personal covenant into the mirror: “I have the mind of Christ. My mind is full of goodness. I choose goodness today in my thoughts, words, decisions, and actions.” Speak words that produce this fruit.
Patience and goodness. Both are tough fruits of the spirit. Patience calls upon us to live in both uncertainty and trust at the same time—not knowing the future but believing in a God who holds the future in the palm of the hand. Goodness often is layered into patience requiring us to ever be mindful that in the dire situations God works for our good. It was a covenant with God’s people in the ancient times, and it is a covenant with us sealed upon a cross and proven by an empty tomb.
So, how do we live in patience and remain convinced and assured of God’s goodness? Listen to God, live God’s Word, and always be in prayer to draw upon God’s strength. As the hymn says, “Some through the water, some through a flood, some through the fire, but all through the blood. Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song, in the night season and all the day long.” Goodness may come in a card, a bowl of soup, loving texts, emails, and words of encouragement. Sometimes it comes as we go through the flood and fire. But in the end as we wait and live in patience, God’s goodness will be there. God’s goodness never fails, delivered to us on the cross as a promise for all of eternity.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/398346805508952