======================================================================== PATIENCEļ¼š THE CORE OF ALL VIRTUES by Sandeep Poonen ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of faith, hope, and love as eternal virtues that we can carry with us through life and into eternity. It explores the interconnectedness of these virtues and highlights patience as a core element that ties them together. The message encourages believers to focus on growing in faith, hope, and love, anchored in God's eternal and unchanging love symbolized by the trampoline of His grace. Topics: "Faith", "Hope", "Love", "Patience" Scripture References: 1 Corinthians 13:13, James 1:2, Romans 8:24, 1 John 4:18 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of faith, hope, and love as eternal virtues that we can carry with us through life and into eternity. It explores the interconnectedness of these virtues and highlights patience as a core element that ties them together. The message encourages believers to focus on growing in faith, hope, and love, anchored in God's eternal and unchanging love symbolized by the trampoline of His grace. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ We are in a, you know, there's flooding going on and there's been some pictures that I saw recently about people who've had to evacuate their homes. Their rooms are all flooded and they are carrying tubs with them to leave their homes and people have had fires and there was a situation once in Colorado where the fires were coming very close to somebody's in the church's house and we were calling them and they were in another country and we were calling them and saying, what do you want us to get? You got one hour. They're in another country. Think about it. Think about your home. You're all here. Suppose somebody called you and said you got 15 minutes. What do you want to grab out of your home? Everything's going to be burnt up. Interesting discussion to think about, but that's what people have to do when rooms of houses are being flooded. All that you can't leave behind. All that you just cannot leave behind. And there's this verse I want to start with the 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13. This you cannot leave behind. You know, they've always, you've heard that expression. You've never seen a U-Haul following a horse. Have you heard that expression? You'll never see a U-Haul following a horse. A horse is a funeral vehicle, but you never see a U-Haul following it because you can't take it with you. The dead man can't take any of the U-Haul stuff with him, right? So you never see a U-Haul following a horse. What can you take with you? Can't take your money. Can't take your clothes. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13 tells me what I can take with me. And so it's extremely important for us to prepare to take the things that we can take with us as we're going through this life. And it says here, but now these three things abide. They'll last forever. And if you read it in the context of 1 Corinthians 13, he talks about prophecy. They'll end up going away. Tongues, they won't last forever, but these three things will abide. Faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. So I wanted to show a little bit of slides to help us follow along on these three virtues, faith, hope, and love. And you know, the living Bible tells it this way. Three things will last forever. Faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. So when I think about these three virtues, it's easy for me for many times to think about these virtues as three discrete virtues. Faith, hope, and love. It's not yet up? Okay, just take your time. So these three virtues can come up, faith, hope, and love. And I can think of them as being discrete. This is faith, this is hope, and this is love, and I need to work it out together. Like those three pictures in there. But what I've seen through studying scripture, that they're actually connected. So you can go to the next slide where it kind of shows you those three virtues. I don't know if it's an actual Venn diagram or whatever it is, but I have a point to make through faith, hope, and love. Because through scripture, I also see that there is something in the yellow. There's something that faith, hope, and love all share in common. So when I think I want to grow in faith, when I want to say I want to increase in hope, when I say I want to increase in love, I want to increase in all three completely. But at least the starting point is to see that I'm increasing in the one in the yellow. And the next slide tells you what is in the yellow. This is in the yellow. Patience. And let me show you some verses that prove that. This is not based on theory. Confidence comes from God's word. Faith. Why do I say patience is so connected to faith? There may be a few verses that come to your mind. It's with faith along with patience. Hebrews 6.12 that we inherit the promises. But the verse that I'll show you here is James chapter 1 verse 2 through 4. And that's the next slide. It shows you in faith the connection between faith and patience. Another word for patience is endurance or perseverance. And these are verses that you should remember. And as I've meditated on these verses, I've started to see, wait, patience is bubbling up out of all three. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, because these trials is really not God punishing you, not God saying he's angry at you. Not because something your boss did or your father did or your mother did or your culture did. No, every trial, every fiery trial has been ordained by God, allowed by God as a testing of my faith. That's the reason. So let me set aside any thought that this is a punishment from God. No, every trial is a testing of my faith. I'm taking faith with me. I want to take faith to heaven. So I must embrace this testing of my faith because I don't want to go to heaven and find that my faith was the size of a penny. I would love for my faith to be the quality of a diamond. Trials come and say, let me tell you on this earth what the testing of your faith is because you're going to take your faith to heaven with you. You're not taking your money with you. You're going to take your faith with you. And here's what faith produces. These are trials attacking your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete. So it's almost as if the trials come. And what God is trying to say is I want to strengthen your patience, your endurance. And once you're fully, perfectly enduring and patient, you're perfect, lacking in nothing. So patience and endurance is so critical to faith. Let's move on. Next slide to hope. Romans chapter eight is the passage we also have memorized Romans chapter eight. For if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, with perseverance, with patience, with endurance, with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. Here again, hope is being tied to perseverance. If you tell me you have a Christian hope, you better have patience. If you tell me you have Christian faith, you better be saying, I've got patience. You can't separate the two. And in the context, Romans chapter eight, verse 22, for we know that all creation suffers and groans, the pains of childbirth. Let's talk about groaning. And then the next verse says, not only creation, we ourselves, we are the first fruits of the spirit. We groan within ourselves, yearning eagerly to be adopted as sons, the redemption of our body. So we also have a groaning inside of us. Difficult situations, like fiery trials. And then he says in that context, in the context of prayer, prayers that have not yet been answered in the context of sicknesses that have not yet been relieved. In the context of financial difficulties that have not been shown in answers yet. In all of those contexts, you have hope. Romans 24, for in hope we have been saved. For who hopes for what he already sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, have perseverance. Show me you have hope, not because you're seeing something great, but because you have perseverance and you're waiting eagerly for it. In scripture, I see that there are two words in the Greek for patience. There's a word that's used for faith and hope. And it's helped me, I'll tell you why. Because a lot of faith and hope is taught in the context of patience as it relates to circumstances. So the Bible is telling me, when you deal with all of these circumstances, situations in life, make sure that the quality of your faith and your hope are increasing. That means that as I deal with all my circumstances, God says, don't lose your faith. When I deal with falling, when I thought I shouldn't fall, God says, don't lose your faith and don't lose hope. As we are trying to be perfect, as God is perfect, we have this hope that we purify ourselves as we are pure. So we hope and we have faith as it relates to our circumstances. And then the third one is love. There's a different word when the Bible talks about love and patience, because now it's talking about dealing with people. We don't have to have faith in people. We don't have to have hope in people, but we have love towards people. We have faith and hope in our calling, in God, in the context of circumstances. But we have love towards people. As I said, let me repeat it again. We don't have to have faith in people. They may let us down. We may not need to have hope in people, but we must love people. It's directed towards others that we have love. What is the first word? If your children were to ask you, Daddy, Mommy, describe love. How would you describe love? Would you have said, love, dear child of mine, you want me to explain love to you? Let me tell you the first thing, patient. Well, that's what the Holy Spirit told us. When I want to give you the clearest definition of love, I'm going to tell you love is patient. The very first characteristic of love, very unlike what the world will tell you. Oh, I love you. I'm going to marry you. Five years later, patience ran out real quick. Often is the case. It's so contradictory. So when I tell my children, I love them. I'm telling them as a Christian, I love them. I'm going to be patient with you. When I tell my wife, I love her and I promised my life, I'm going to love her till death do her part. What I was telling her was, I'm going to be patient with you. And if you want to go to a second one, I'm going to be kind. And there's a lot of work we can do just with those two words in our marriage relationships. I mean, I won't buy you chocolates. I won't buy you flowers, but I'll be patient and I'll be kind. And I want you to say, when you love me, you're going to be patient with me and you're going to be kind with me. How much different our marriages would be if we would just work on those two words, if as the Holy Spirit prescribed in scripture towards the ones we love, we be patient towards them and we be kind. But number one word is patience. And I find that in all these three words, faith, hope and love, I find that the number one word that is in that Venn diagram, the very center of that is patience. I've called that the core, the core of all the virtues. It's not the greatest of all the virtues, because God said the greatest is love. Because love takes all my faith in God, takes all my hope in God in all of its circumstances. And then says, I'm going to love you, God, and I'm going to love people. That is why we know the goal of our instruction is not faith, but it's love from a sincere faith. It has to result in love. All of the formulas of the Christian life, all the paradigms, all the philosophies, all the methodologies that we study about must all result in, let me show you the love I have for my brothers and sisters. And how do I show my love? I'm patient towards them. I'm kind towards them. And there's 1 Corinthians 13, there's a lot of virtues which we can meditate on. But all of these things, all of your victory over sin, all of your struggles or triumphs, all of that should result in, well, then show me your love. And it's good to think about these things as we see other people grabbing all their belongings and buckets and saying, that's all is my life. I'm going to grab every child. You got one backpack, everything. You're never going to see everything else behind. One day an angel is going to come and knock on our door and say, time's up. Time to come home. Time to meet your father up in heaven. And you'll tell the angel, can I have one minute to pack? The angel may give you a minute to pack. You'll say, look, but there's only three things you can carry with you. Your faith, your hope, and your love. Pack whatever you got. Your faith in God, in all of your circumstances. Your hope that you would be like Jesus in all of your circumstances. And the love you have towards other people. Let's inspect our backpacks. That's what we're carrying with us, dear brothers and sisters. These tragedies that happen, these things that happen where people have to have their lives uprooted. Something may have happened to some of you, but these are reminders to us of our heavenly kingdom. And to inspect our storage units, our backpacks. To say, angel, when you come, I'm going to grab my backpack with me, and it's going to be my faith, hope, and love. My faith in God. My faith in who God is. My hope, not in myself, my hope that God is going to redeem me from this earth, and I'm going to be adopted as a child of God. And in the meantime, I'm groaning and suffering the pains of childhood, but my faith will not fail. That's what Jesus prayed about Peter. That Christ will be our hope of glory. And above all, that love will increase so that it can cover a multitude of sins. I want to show a little video that really blessed me. It's a two-minute video on patience. I think you'll get the message even as you watch it. So, can we stop that deck and let's show that video. Some of you may have seen it. The message is obvious, but I just want to kind of let that sink in. You can find it on YouTube. I want to show the next slide. If you go back to the next slide, I'll show you a couple of points that I wanted to make about this. Associated with patience is a determination. And as a Christian, this is not just a feel-good video because this is not something that is unique to the Christian faith. A lot of people will say, well, this is a symbol about how life should be. You should never give up. But I want us as Christians to understand how our patience should be aligned. In determination, dear brothers and sisters, 1 John 3 verse 1-3 tells us what we must not give up on. Remember, this person was climbing stairs towards a goal and we should not think that we're just here to just keep falling and getting back up and it doesn't matter where we end up. No, God has set a destination for us and God wants us to progress. And if that picture works for you, the staircase is a picture of progress towards a goal. And 1 John 3 verse 1-3 is the progress and the determination with which we must hold up patience. See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not appeared what we will be like. We will know this, that when He appears we will be like Him. That's the goal because He says this, whoever, verse 3, everyone who has this hope fixed that we will be like Jesus purifies himself as he is pure. So that's a picture of the climbing the staircase. We must recognize that God is wanting us to climb up the staircase which is a picture of us seeking to be pure. And let me be very clear in my life because in saying this because it was incredibly important to me, being pure does not mean being free from sin. Being pure does not mean being free from sin. Being pure means being full of faith, hope and love. Two very different things. They're connected but very different. I can be freed from sin but be empty of faith, hope and love and it's useless. Paul said that in 1 Corinthians 13 chapter 1. If you had all kinds of things but you didn't have love, it's meaningless, it's empty, it's nothing. So pure as Jesus is pure, the goal of our instruction is love. Pure as Jesus is pure is Lord Jesus I want to love like you loved and we can meditate on the love of Jesus to know how much we have to go to climb up the staircase. It's not freedom from sin because that's what we tend to get bogged down by, pulled down by. I sinned here, I sinned there. Bounce back up but the goal is love. Lord Jesus I want to love you and love other people like you did. You were in heaven and you showed us how you loved us but then you came on earth and you showed me how to do it. I want to have a determination that that's my goal and that's it's in that context that I embrace patience which is bouncing back up off of that trampoline mat and the other word relating to that is freedom. I loved as he started walking there was a little bit of tentativeness but then when he fell and he realized that there was a trampoline there, there was a freedom and a joy whether he fell or whether he was climbing. 1 John chapter 4 verse 18. I put the wrong verse in there. It's not 1 John 4 19. 1 John 4 18 that there is no fear in love because perfect love casts out all fear. That doesn't mean that we don't fear God but we don't fear falling. He's able to keep us from falling but he's also able to be an advocate to us when we sin. 1 John chapter 2 verse 1 and so we must have a freedom in our walk that is a freedom from failure because our identity is secure. Behold what manner of love God has showed you. He says you're my child and I pity the children who are growing up so afraid and so tentative in their own homes. Some of you may have but I hope that we as parents don't raise our children so insecure and so fearful of making a mistake going anywhere near that vase let alone drop it because they're so afraid. We must have that freedom of the children of God. We've been set free from corruption so that we can live with the freedom of the glory of the children of God. This is a determination and a freedom and a joy that should accompany our work and our patience. I actually saw this first on Twitter. I'm not on Twitter much but I saw this somebody pointed me to this on Twitter and I never respond on Twitter. It's not my calling at least so far but I felt the need to respond to the person who tweeted this and I said the key question and you can go to the next slide because this was the key question to me. What is your trampoline? To me that is everything. What is the trampoline is what makes the difference and actually I tweeted I responded to that person and that person responded or somebody has responded saying well it's your family, it's your culture, it's different things like that. It's the ones who you know love you. We got to do better than that because the closest of friends can fail us and they fail better people than us. Closest of family can fail us and they fail better people than us. The trampoline I feel must be eternal and thankfully our trampoline is eternal and that's the next slide. This is the trampoline that must keep getting us to bounce back up. God's eternal, it has to be eternal because it never fails. There's no time limit to it. There's no limit to it and I must find that love that is eternal. Every human being can fail us but God's eternal love for us demonstrated in Jesus Christ revealed to us through Jesus Christ is the trampoline. I don't think it was intended. That cross may have had a different purpose for that person. I don't even think that person's a Christian who's performing it but the cross slipped in there so we could use it as a good picture. The cross is there. That's what is our trampoline to bounce back up from and dear brothers and sisters that truth runs very deep more than it runs wide. The cross of Christ can be, oh I know Jesus died for me in a cross. As I said it's not a wide concept. It's a deep truth that I have to meditate on and as we've heard Philippians chapter 2 there's a great love of God in where God became man and man became a servant and man became a criminal in Philippians chapter 2. The humility of Jesus as he kept going down and down because he loved us for us he did these things. That becomes the trampoline to not be afraid of falling to be determined to go towards the top and to press on to be like Jesus our hero. Perseverance, endurance, patience. Dear brothers and sisters I hope it's a simple message that you can remember. I hope you remember that video. I hope you remember that trampoline. What is the trampoline in your life? You may think your family's and it should be there for children but you'll discover as you grow older there's a much better, much more secure that we have as an anchor unshakable, immovable trampoline and there's the trampoline of God's love. If we're struggling with patience, we're struggling with endurance, let's grow in that. We're going to be taking it with us. Faith, hope and love and let us remember that patience is at core. It's that get up muscle. It's the muscle to get back up when we fall down. God will carry us through to the very end. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/h0hq7Ak2vL4.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/sandeep-poonen/patience-the-core-of-all-virtues/ ========================================================================