LIFE Podcast Show

Intro: Welcome to the Life podcast, where we offer real hope to real people dealing with real life. We filter our thoughts through God's thoughts and our ways through God's ways. We pray. You're blessed by this podcast. Enjoy the show.

Dez: Welcome back. This is the Life podcast show, living intentionally for eternity. People, I am back. Your boy, Des. How has it been? How has it been? Happy to be back with you all today. We have quite a bit to talk about, so I'm gonna get straight into it. Here at the life podcast. We like to filter our thoughts through God's thoughts. And we like to filter our ways through God's ways. And we like to filter our perspectives through God's perspectives. I've been thinking, doing a lot of thinking. Again, patience, as one says, what one has said is a virtue. Patience is virtue. Or as my aunt likes to say, if you pray for patience, God gives you a test. Patience is something we need these days. We need patience. I need patience. You need patience. We need patience. But patience comes with a cause, a great cause. In order to gain patience, you need wisdom. Wisdom sees things from the end to the beginning. God is wise. God has wisdom. I think because God is wise, he can therefore be patient. Because wisdom is truth, revealed truth, applied truth, practice and wisdom lets you know that what's going on right now isn't all there is to ever go on. There's something else coming on the other side. So I think that's why God can be so patient, because he's wise in all his understanding. His understanding is perfect. So when he sees a problem, he has the wisdom to assess it. He has the wisdom to look at it from every way, every possible outcome, and he knows the end. That's why he can be patient. We're not privy to such attributes. Right? That's an intrinsic attribute of God. Intrinsic attribute of God, which means he can't share that attribute with anyone else. That's his and his alone. So we have to learn patience through suffering, through trials. And I think that's okay if we embrace it. If we embrace it. And as soon as you talk about something like that, a test is usually coming right behind it. So let's think through some things real quick. Our life point today is coming from James one. It says, dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If you need anything. Ask our generous father and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking, but when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver. For a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. That's James one, two through eight, and then verse twelve. Saint Augustine of Hippo once said, patience is the true companion of wisdom. Patience is the true companion of wisdom. I think similar to another podcast I recently put out. Um, I think it was on kindness. Yeah. Patience is another fruit of the spirit lacking within Christ, Christ's body. Um, these days, I believe so. We, we live in an immediate gratification world. And sometimes, even though the convenience of that could be promising, often it makes us stagnant, selfish, childish, and impatient. Just think about it. When you order something from Amazon, the item is here the next day, maybe even the same day, maybe even overnight. The items are here quickly. They come quickly. When you go to chick fil a, you get beside yourself, irate, perplexed. If you have to wait longer than two minutes. I give chick fil a a lot of grace. Honestly, I ain't gonna lie. Cause they always fast. So if they slow, it's like, it's okay. But if it's McDonald's, you like, bro, need to be like chick fil a anyway. You beside yourself? I don't drink coffee, but I heard it's the same thing with Starbucks. Well, lastly, you know, one thing that I've really been struggling with recently, and it's dealing, it's nagging at me that I'm dealing with this as much as I am, but it's driving. When I'm driving and I approach a red light, I automatically, almost subconsciously reach for my phone and start scrolling. Did anybody else do that? I mean, immediately, like, I don't even think about it. And it really concerns me that it's so subconscious that I made it such a habit that I don't even have to think about it anymore. I wish I could do that with, like, praying and reading the word. It just becomes so natural. It's like breathing. But bad habits die hard, I've heard. So I've had to implement mind altering devices to consciously change that horrible habit. But all of those things reveal what is really happening at our heart level. Jesus constantly says, from the abundance of the heart, we say and do things. These examples may just reveal what is happening at a heart level. I've been struggling with this over the past years, just patience in general. I think being a fairly new husband, a father, schoolteacher and podcaster has tested my patience in ways I did not imagine at all. There have been times when I needed to step away from podcasting and other extracurricular activities to ensure that I'm faithful to the main priorities in life. I was often confronted by many men in my life in church that God has given men orders to fulfill in an orderly manner. Manner. God has given men orders to fulfill in an orderly manner. That being said, God is first, wife is second, children are third, work is fourth, and everything else after that is extra, literally. Again, in order to do that faithfully, one needs to develop patience because you will be frustrated with yourself. You're going to be hoping that you can do better at times. You're going to be hoping that you can be more faithful over the few things. You're going to struggle with your attitude and your anger and your impatience. And I think you have to pray and ask God for wisdom and insight so that you won't blow up or you won't be so impulsive with whatever it may be that you can live a life of understanding. Your wife, right? Not exasperating your children, working hard unto the Lord. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it to the glory of God like that. That takes patience because we're sinful and we usually only look out for ourselves. So your job, you have to work unto the Lord, but you're working for someone else. You're purporting their mission in the world. Your wife, you have to live with her in an understanding way. You have to be selfless. You have to love her like Christ loved the church, your children. You have to give yourself up for them. You have to constantly think about them and what they need. And God, you lay down your life for him. You pour out your life like a drink offering, as Paul said, and then you're last. You think about yourself last. But how different is that from the world where it's all about you? Now, I'm not saying don't. I mean, forget about yourself totally. But what I am saying is it's not about you. And that takes great humility and patience to learn that over time. So I don't want to beat anybody up. I just think over time, as they said with men, men are like fine wine. They get better with time because we struggle, because we have this pride, we have this know it all attitude, this boastfulness, this desire to be great, which can be good, but you need patience, and the Lord needs to constantly work on that through trials and temptations. Not saying that God tempts us, but he uses those temptations to build patience with us, to build self control. And that's been really hard adjusting to, honestly, if I'm being honest. But before moving forward, let's nail down a definition of biblical patience. In my opinion, biblical patience is the faithful endurance of difficulty, trials and suffering. No matter the situation or circumstances regarding things and people, we cannot control or change in our power. It is a deep trust in God's sovereignty over our lives and the world, believing that he causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. For them, it is a joyful waiting in expectation, in anticipation of spiritual growth in our souls and of seeing God's promises performed in our lives and the world. It is a joyful waiting and expectation in anticipation of spiritual growth in our souls and of seeing God's promises performed in our lives and the world. My pastor told me once that in Greek, because Lord knows. I do not know the Greek at all. The word. The word patience paints a picture of a man working out and enduring the burden of heavy weights for a long period of time. Yeah, I think that's a good. That's a good picture. What y'all think? Can I ask y'all a question? Can I ask you a question? Think about this for a second. Do you like waiting? Is waiting something you get up for in the morning? Like, man, I can't wait to wait today. Do you look forward to waiting now? Even though Maverick city song wait on you has millions of views on YouTube, it doesn't necessarily mean people like waiting. I think they just like the tune. It's just a nice beat. Those people can sing like crazy. But patience is all about waiting. When you read hebrews eleven, you see a lot of waiting. God promised Abraham a son, but Abraham had to wait. You know, I was reading this morning that Isaac was 40 when he married Rebecca, but then he didn't have Esau and Jacob until he was 60. 20 years. Rebecca prayed 20 for 20 years. And God said, I'm gonna give you a son. But it took 20 years for that to happen. That's crazy. God promised Noah he would flood the earth. But Noah had to wait 120 years for that to be fulfilled. God promised Israel land flowing with milk and honey, but they had to wait for that to be fulfilled. I mean, some of that was through their disobedience. So I don't know if that's a good example, but they still had to wait. God promised that he would deliver Abraham's descendants from Egypt rule and power, but it took 400 years for him to do so. 400, that's a long time. That's long the United States been in existence. God promised humanity a savior, and they had to wait. Jesus promises to return, and we christians are waiting for that. Waiting is the name of the game for christians, and that requires patience. The book of Hebrews even goes on to say that some even died in faith without seeing what God promised them. Why, you may ask? The text says all these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us so that they would not reach perfection without us. That's Hebrews 11 39 40. Again, patience is deep. Trust in God's sovereign rule over the affairs of the world, his church and his people. The Bible shows when people are patient and patiently endure trials, it works out well for them. Joseph, Paul, Ruth, Esther, Daniel and many other psalmists prove that point. But the opposite is just as true. When we do not humbly accept the truth in gods sovereign rule and do things our own way, it leads to peril. Even though God can redeem any situation. Think of the likes of Moses striking the rock, Abraham having a kid with his wife slave David committed adultery of another mans wife, or Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. Those situations proved the devastating fate of not trusting and waiting patiently for God. But thanks be to God, when men fail, Christ prevails. Again. When men fail, Christ prevails. We have a second Adam. Praise be to God. He patiently endured every trial and suffered well, trusting in the promises of God and fully committing his ways to the Lord. One Peter says this about him and how he serves as an example for us. This is what it reads for God called you to do good, even if it means suffering. Just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned nor ever deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when he was insulted nor threatened revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God who always judges fairly. He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin. And live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away, but now you have turned to the shepherd, the guardian of your souls. That's one. Peter 221 25 suffering and enduring under heavy trials in hard circumstances situations requires the Lord's and the Holy Spirit's help and power. Because we have the Holy Spirit, we have the power to endure patiently anything that comes our way. He produces the fruit of the fruit. I'm sorry. He produces the fruit of patience in our souls to help us sit under the heavy weight that life presents to us. Difficult people require patience. Difficult marriages require patience. Difficult children require patience. Difficult circumstances require patience. Difficult bosses require patience. Difficult churches require patience. Traffic long lines, the freaking DMV I hate it so much. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. And the doctor's office require patience. Enduring this world requires patience. Romans eight says, yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against his will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join gods children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. Lastly, to show the folly and frustration of impatience, let me give you an illustration. Lets say one day I decided to take up horticulture, which is the nurturing and cultivating the plants, and decided to grow a plant in my house. And I go to the store like Lowe's, get the plant, bring it home and put it near a window where there's a lot of sunlight if the plant is supposed to reach a new height or reach a high height. And after one day of watering it and being exposed to light, I wake up and see that it has not grown an inch. In a fit of rage, I start clobbering the plant, I mean wailing on this plant, punishing that joint, cutting the plant, throwing the dirt on the ground, kicking and stomping on it. And then I grab the remains of the plant, drive it back to Lowe's, and demand to speak to the manager. When a manager approached, I tell him. When he approaches me, I tell him why I'm so frustrated with this plant and how it did not do what he said it would do. I consulted YouTube videos, I read books and everything, and the plant did not grow as fast as they said. I'm so frustrated and fed up and I demand my money back. He may look at me, perplexed, and ask, well, what type of plant did I buy? And I tell him and he says, oh, I see your problem. It must be miscommunication. The plant that you bought needs months, and it takes months to grow to its expected height. It requires deep roots to grow, so it needs a lot of water and a lot of sun exposure. It takes even more patience. Then he looks at me and says, sorry for the confusion. If you're in such a rush for that plant to grow, maybe you should go to home goods and get a fake one. Just skip. Rush the process. Don't trust the process, just rush the process. If not, what you need, sir, with all due respect, is patience. Patience, patience, young grasshopper. Or in a simpler illustration, it would be supremely silly for me to expect my two year old daughter to overnight grow to the same height, weight and intellect as my seven year old daughters. It would be foolish for me to demand her to grow against her will. It would be selfish, asinine, and downright mean for me to demand growth from someone that needs a tremendous amount of time and patience to reach its intended goal. It is me, not my daughter, that needs patience. If she is healthy, normal, and has no medical issues, in due time she will grow again. Dont rush the process. Trust the process. But you need patience. He also needs wisdom. Think about this. Jesus compares the kingdom of God to many things that start with small beginnings but have a big return. He speaks of the parable of the mustard seed, a tiny seed that can make a giant tree, or how you must become like little children to enter the kingdom of God, or the parable of the yeast. But one of my favorites is the parable of the wheat and the tares. If you know the story. A farmer had a field and planted good seeds, but enemies came in and planted weeds among the wheat while the workers slept. Once it was discovered what happened, the workers asked the farmer if they should uproot everything and start over. But the farmer said, no, no, no. You dare not do such a thing. Let the wheat and weeds grow together so that you do not destroy the wheat along with the weeds. That's smart, right? You take up everything. The good is going to be gone with the bad. You don't want that. Let them grow together, and in due time, with patience, when the harvest comes, we will separate the wheat from the weeds. And that illustration was saying, false converts with true converts. But God is saying, look, both is going to be in a true church, can be a church that preaches the truth, lives the truth, sings the truth, prays the truth, preaches the scriptures, praise the scriptures, sings the scriptures, right, encourages one another in scriptures, but it's still going to be false converts among those people because Satan is going to plant weeds. He's going to make weeds grow up amongst the wheat. But God is saying, no, no, no. We're not going to take those people out or uproot the whole church because we have some weeds. No. In due time, when a great harvest comes and the harvesters comes, we'll separate it. Then, as RC Sproul says, the goat can come to our services, but we're not going to change them. We're not going to change the menu for them. Goats can come to our services, but we're not going to change the menu for them and not feed the sheep. That's what Jesus is getting to. But all this requires patience. Can't rush the process. Got to trust the process. So what Augustine said earlier, patience is the true companion of wisdom comes full circle. If we want to be wise, we need patience. And in turn, we need to ask God for wisdom, which is truth applied or seeing things rightly, and be able to apply things rightly, that will produce in our souls patience and deep trust in our God who rules all things. I pray that blesses you. This has been the life podcast show, you know. We like to filter our thoughts through God's thoughts. We like to filter our ways through God's ways. And we like to filter our perspectives through God's perspectives. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening. If you can, please go to Apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever you listen to this on, please leave us a five star review. Click those five stars. That really helps to show. Right now I have about 14 ratings. We can get it to 20 in the next month. That'll be great. Small progress is better than no progress. I just need it for, I guess, self confidence to keep going. If you can leave a comment, anything you need to say that's positive, that would be great on either one of those platforms. I really do appreciate it. I'm thankful for you all and I pray you have a great weekend.