Sermon preview, week of September 18, 2024
Elect Patience
This Sunday’s order
- Sunday
- Reading
- Psalm 103:6-14
- Preaching
- Kendall Ellis
The readingPsalm 103:6-14
This is the sermon preview of sermon four of nine in the preaching series Elect Spiritual Fruit. To watch a recording of this message, visit FBCM’s livestream page.
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.,”, from Psalm 103:6-14 (NIV)
Read Psalm 103:6-14
6The LORD executes righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed. 7He made known His ways to Moses,
His deeds to the people of Israel. 8The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. 9He will not always accuse us,
nor harbor His anger forever. 10He has not dealt with us according to our sins
or repaid us according to our iniquities. 11For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him. 12As far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 13As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. 14For He knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are dust.
Berean Standard Bible, public domain
Are you the tortoise or the hare?
In this classic Aesop fable, a tortoise and a hare embark on a race. You likely remember reading this tale in elementary school. The hare is obviously faster than the tortoise. The tortoise doesn’t even refute this fact, so the idea of a race is absurdly comical. Yet–spoiler alert–the tortoise wins the race!
What’s fascinating about this story is not necessarily who wins, though that is a surprise for a room of first graders. But the real point of the story is how: slow and steady wins the race.
The image of the slow and steady tortoise is the essence of what patience looks like to me. Admittedly, my natural disposition is much closer to the hare. I like to zoom, zoom, zoom from here to there. If a project takes too long, there’s a high chance I’ll “take a break” and never finish it. There’s a stack of close to 10 books on my nightstand with bookmarks ⅔ ways through because I couldn’t make it to the end fast enough. The patience isn’t there–not with myself, and at times, not with others either.
But slow and steady wins the race.
Psalm 103 is a song of David where he worships God for his patience. This holy and righteous God would be justified in growing tired with us wishy-washy humans. This omnipotent God could easily grow bored with helpless Israel, leaving them to their own despairing devices.
But slow and steady wins the race. As it turns out, God shows the picture of perfect patience way before Aesop’s tortoise. God models a patience that is slow to anger, and abundant in love. In God’s patience, he meets ignorance with revelation; sin with gracious forgiveness; and helplessness with compassion.
Sanctification in the Christian life is no doubt a direct result of receiving patience from a loving God. And at the same time, as the Holy Spirit cultivates the fruit of patience in our own life, He will use it to transform the world around us.
It’s slow and steady work. But as Paul wrote to us in the New Testament, we know that God has already won the race. We need only to persevere patiently to the end.
Reflection Questions
- Who is someone that you think reflects the fruit of patience?
- How does knowing God models perfect patience help you trust God?
- Are you more naturally like the tortoise or the hare? How do you think that natural disposition affects how you live out God’s patience in your life?
