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Overcoming Impatience By Wayne Mack

This tape has been prepared to help you to understand and implement practical directives
that will assist you in developing a more meaningful and useful life for God.
I suggest that you listen to the tape at least two times.
As you listen, write down the main points as well as the most important scripture references
and principles stated by the speaker.
Having done this, reflect on what has been said.
Ask yourself, do I agree with what has been said?
If so, why do I agree?
If not, why don't I agree?
Ask yourself, how does what has been said apply to me?
Write down how you think the truth presented on the tape applied to you.
Ask yourself, in the light of what has been said on this tape,
how am I failing in specific ways?
Write down these ways.
How do I need to improve in specific ways?
Write down the specific ways in which you need to improve.
Ask yourself, what should I or can I do immediately to put what I have just heard
into practice in my life?
How do I need to change?
How will I change?
Write down your conclusions and observations.
If you are presently involved in counseling, bring your observations and decisions and
conclusions with you to your next counseling session.
Be prepared to share your observations and conclusions honestly with your counselor.
If you have any questions that you would like to ask, write them down and bring them with
you to ask your counselor.
Philippians 4 and verse 5 is our text of the evening.
We read, let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.
The Lord is near.
Some time ago, I had a woman who came for counseling.
When she came into my office, I asked her why she had come and what's your problem.
She said to me that she had come because she was a very impatient woman, very irritable woman.
She said that she was irritable with her husband, she was irritable with her children, she was
irritable with everyone.
She wasn't really a very nice person and she wanted to do something about it.
Now that woman was very honest in acknowledging her irritability and her impatience.
Now I want to ask you tonight, do you have a problem with irritability?
Do you have a problem with impatience?
Maybe you say, I'm not very irritable, I'm not very impatient.
Maybe we should ask your husband or your wife or your children or your neighbors or perhaps
the people with whom you work, but let's do something even better than that tonight.
I want to give you, at the very beginning of our study together, an IQ test.
Now when I speak of an IQ test, and this is where you'll need your pens and your pencils,
I'm not talking about an intelligence quotient test, I'm talking about an impatience quotient test.
Because you see, your impatience quotient is really more important than your intelligence quotient.
Your intelligence quotient won't affect your productivity and your relationships with people
and your success as a Christian nearly as much as your impatience quotient will.
Now I want to give to you about 25 questions, and I want you to answer these questions honestly before God.
But before I give you those questions, I want to define for you what I believe it means to be impatient.
Now when I speak of impatience, I'm not speaking of a person who gets annoyed,
but seeks to handle their annoyance in God's way.
I believe it's possible for a Christian to get annoyed and not to sin,
because he handles that annoyance in a godly way.
I think there were times when the Lord Jesus was somewhat annoyed, and yet he never sinned.
When I speak of impatience, I'm talking about someone who gets annoyed,
and then as a result of his or her annoyance, avoids or neglects people and responsibilities.
A wife who gets annoyed at her husband, and so she withdraws and she pouts,
and she just refuses to cooperate. That's simple impatience.
I'm talking about a person who gets annoyed but refuses to admit it.
Me annoyed? I'm not impatient. I'm not irritable. Is anything wrong? Nothing.
I'm talking about a person who gets annoyed and then becomes bitter and seethes inside.
I mean, you look at the outside, everything looks just fine, but there's knots in that person's stomach.
They're just seething on the inside. That's sinful impatience.
I'm talking about a person who gets annoyed and then says something nasty or says something critical.
I'm talking about a person who gets annoyed and then wants to return evil for evil.
Oh, they'd like to, you know, just give it back to the other person.
And I'm also talking about a person who gets annoyed and actually does return evil for evil.
You see, the Lord Jesus in Matthew 5 said that you commit murder not only when you stick the knife in a person's back,
that's actually doing the evil. He said you commit murder also when you get angry with your brother without a cause,
and when you say perhaps even internal, you fool, or Rekha, you worthless fellow.
Now, that's what I mean by impatience. Now, you know what impatience is,
and now I want you to take the test and answer these 25 questions for yourself.
All right, here's question number one. When driving an automobile and someone cuts you off, how do you respond?
Are you annoyed and say something critical or nasty? Are you annoyed and you seethe and become bitter inside?
How about that one?
Question number two. When you fail to perform as you would like to perform, how do you respond?
You know, you have your standards and you have your aspirations and you don't quite measure up.
Do you get irritated and impatient and hard to get along with?
When you fail to use your time or resources as you should, you know, you had a lot to do on that particular day,
but instead of using your time wisely, you wasted your time, or you had a lot of things to purchase,
and instead of using your money properly, you used it improperly. How do you respond then?
When you ask someone to do something and he or she refuses to do it, how do you respond?
When you have someone who borrows something from you and then misuses it or doesn't return it, how do you respond?
When you are in a hurry and no one else is, how do you respond?
When you want to be serious and others want to joke around, they don't want to get down to business, how do you respond?
When you have a lot to do and no one seems to care or offer to help, how do you respond?
When you've agreed to meet someone at a certain time and he or she is a half hour late and doesn't apologize, how do you respond?
When you've tried to do a good job and then get criticized by someone, how do you respond?
When someone blames you for something that you haven't done, how do you respond?
When someone makes fun of you, how do you respond?
When you make a suggestion and your idea is ridiculed, how do you respond?
You thought you had the greatest idea in the world.
You suggested it to your husband or someone else and they pooh-poohed it, they kind of made light of it, how do you respond?
When you were responsible for something and others who should have cooperated did not cooperate, how do you respond?
When your children or your parents were disrespectful and unconcerned about your welfare and your problems, how do you respond?
When your children had runny noses, dirty diapers, and were unusually crabby, how did you respond?
When your teachers or supervisors or parents or neighbors expect more of you than you can do, how do you respond?
When you're working against a deadline and don't see how you can get your work done on time, how do you respond?
When you're tired or sick or facing danger, how do you respond?
When others violate your code of ethics, you're sure that something's right, you're sure that something's wrong.
When someone violates your code of ethics or your standards or they do not think or act as you think they should,
do you become annoyed and do some of these things which evidence sinful impatience?
When others do not measure up to your expectations, maybe it's a wife, a husband, or children, or someone else in the church, or someone else in the job,
you know, you have certain expectations and they don't measure up, how do you respond?
When someone else gets the credit or the position or the appreciation that you think you deserve, how do you respond?
When a friend knows what you like or what you want but then doesn't do it, how do you respond?
When others try to boss you around and run your life, how do you respond?
When others who should do not consult you or include you in their plans, how do you respond?
Now, answer those questions and if you answered them honestly, I think you'll have a pretty good indication of whether or not you have a problem with impatience or irritability.
I've had some people who have taken this test and they've come up to me afterwards and said, I flunked.
I didn't realize that I was as impatient or irritable as I evidently am and perhaps that's your response tonight.
You know, if each of these questions represents four points or 25 questions, you need to have all 25 of them answered no.
I don't respond in an impatient way to have 100%, but if each of them is worth four points, you'd only have to miss on eight of them and you'd be scoring 68%.
And I would suggest that if you scored yourself impatient on one to nine of these questions, you've got a mild problem with impatience.
If you scored yourself as being impatient on 10 to 15 of these questions, you have a moderate problem with impatience.
If you scored yourself as having been impatient on 16 to 20 of them, you have a serious problem and if you scored yourself as being impatient on 21 to 25 of them,
you've got a king-sized problem with impatience and you're not a very nice person to be around and you need some help and you need to do some changing pretty quickly.
Now the Bible says in Philippians 4 and verse 5, let your forbearing spirit be known to all men, the Lord is near.
Now in the light of this little IQ test that we've taken, are you a forbearing person?
How do we become forbearing people? How do we overcome the problem of impatience, which is a very common problem among Christians, unfortunately?
Well I want to suggest to you tonight that there are several steps to becoming a patient forbearing person.
First of all, if you would overcome the problem of impatience, you must recognize that you are always responsible for your impatience.
Now many times we want to blame our irritability or impatience on someone else or something else, I'm tired, that's why I'm impatient or irritable.
Or it's muggy outside and oh it's so hot and it's so humid and that's why I'm impatient.
Or you don't know the boss for whom I work, that's why I'm impatient.
Or you don't know my wife or you don't know my husband or you don't know my children, that's why I'm impatient.
No, the Bible says you are always responsible for your irritability for your sinful impatience.
You can't blame your irritability on someone else.
Now I had a very impatient, irritable man who came with his wife for counseling.
They were having some serious marriage problems and I asked him who was responsible for his irritability and he said my wife.
If she wasn't the kind of person that she is I wouldn't be impatient like I am.
I said oh your wife is responsible for your impatience, well then who's responsible for her?
He said she is.
You see he wanted to blame her for his impatience and he wanted to blame her for her impatience as well.
He didn't want to accept responsibility for any of it.
But in our text the Lord says let your forbearing spirit be known to 50% of the people in the world, right?
What does it say, 75% of the people in the world?
It says let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.
Now it's not very difficult for us to be forbearing with some people.
The people who agree with us.
People who see things exactly as we see them.
The people who are just like we are.
Who always cooperate with us.
It's not very difficult for us to be forbearing with them.
But it's more difficult, in fact it's very difficult for us to be forbearing with somebody who doesn't cooperate with someone who does many of the things that we mentioned in the IQ test that we took.
And yet our Lord says let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.
He says there's never an excuse for your sinful impatience or for your sinful irritability.
You know in Luke the ninth chapter our Lord comes into the region of Samaria with his disciples and the Samaritans did not receive him very well.
Scripture says they did not receive him because he was journeying with his face toward Jerusalem.
And when his disciples James and John saw this they said Lord do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?
Let's deal with them Lord.
They got impatient.
They were irritable and they wanted to rub these people out.
And the next verse says he turned and he rebuked them.
Say you don't know what spirit you're of.
Now he didn't excuse them for their irritability.
He didn't say well fellows in the light of the way we've been treated I can see why you'd want to deal with them in this way.
No he turned and he rebuked them and he held them responsible for their irritability and impatience.
In the very next chapter we have the account of Martha who's so busy serving, preparing a meal for the Lord.
And scripture says she was distracted.
She became irritable in other words with all her preparation.
Oh she had so much work to do.
She became so impatient.
She became so irritable.
She didn't think it was right what was happening.
And she came up to Jesus and she said Lord do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone?
Then tell her to help me.
Now she was upset with her sister Mary.
She wasn't only upset with her sister Mary she was upset with the Lord.
She said don't you care.
Come on Lord get on the stick here and tell her that she should get out in the kitchen and help me.
And what did the Lord say?
Did he say to her well Martha I can understand why you feel the way you feel.
Martha you know Mary has been remiss and negligent and I can see why you're impatient and irritable.
No he turned to her and he said Martha, Martha you're worried and bothered, upset, impatient about so many things.
He said you're irritable, you're impatient and you're responsible for it.
And so before we'll ever overcome the problem of irritability and impatient we've got to recognize that we are responsible for it.
As long as a husband blames his irritability on his wife he'll never overcome it.
As long as a wife wants to blame her irritability upon her circumstances she'll never overcome it.
As long as we want to blame our irritability upon our environment we'll never overcome it.
I can't change my wife.
I can't change my environment in its entirety.
The only person I can change and the only person for whom I am responsible according to the word of God in a direct fashion is me.
For every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
And so to overcome impatience we must accept responsibility for our impatience regardless of what our circumstances are.
Our Lord says we can be forbearing people.
Secondly, we must recognize that if we are Christians we can overcome impatience.
You know it's one thing to say I'm responsible for my impatience and it's another thing to say I can overcome it.
Sometimes people will admit that they're impatient but they won't admit that they can do anything about it.
They say well that's just the way I am.
I was born that way and they want to blame their impatience and their irritability upon heredity or upon genes.
And if you blame it on heredity if you're born that way well you can't change the way you were born.
If it's a matter of genes you can't change your genes and so they're just popping out.
They're just trying to excuse their irritability and their impatience.
But the Bible won't allow us to do that.
For in our text of the evening the Lord said let your forbearing spirit be known unto all men.
And he's certainly suggesting that it can be done.
He's saying you can have a forbearing spirit in the midst of all kinds of circumstances.
You've got to let it happen.
Now it's important to notice that our text is in a context.
It isn't just hanging out there in the middle of the air.
It's found in the context of the book of Philippians.
Now the basic reason why people become impatient is because they're sinners.
Before the fall of man there was no sinful impatience.
And I suggest to you that in heaven there will be no sinful irritability.
There will be no sinful impatience.
We become irritable because we are sinners.
I had a couple come for counseling about three or four years ago.
And they came in and I asked them why they had come.
And the woman said, he hit me.
We're here because he punched me in the mouth.
And she didn't like that at all.
And then she turned to me and she said, why did he do that?
Why did he hit me?
And she wanted some deep psychological explanation for him hitting her.
I said to her, do you really want to know why he hit you?
She said, yes.
I said, he hit you because he's a sinner.
She said, oh, I know that, but come on, why did he hit me?
I said, do you really want to know why he hit you?
She said, yes.
I said, it's because he's a sinner.
Now, some people want to have some, as I said, deep psychological explanation.
They want to say, well, heredity is to blame.
Or it's the example of my parents that's to blame.
It's my temperament.
You know, there are some people who are of a choleric temperament.
That's the way we're born.
Or it's my environment or it's my circumstances.
That's why I hit people or that's why I'm impatient or irritable.
Now, those may be some of the circumstantial causes
of one person having a tremendous problem with impatience or irritability,
but that's not the basic reason why people are irritable or impatient.
You see, each of us as sinners learn different ways of expressing our sinfulness.
Some people have a greater problem in the area of sexual temptation.
Why do they have a problem in the area of sexual temptation?
Well, basically, it's because they have a sinful heart
and they learn to express that sinful heart by desiring illicit sex.
Other people may have a greater problem in the area of lying.
All of us are liars.
The Bible says that.
We don't like to admit it, but the heart is deceitful above all things in death.
We're wicked, but there are some people who are greater liars than others.
Why is that so?
Because they learn to express their sinfulness in the area of lying
more than others, and there are some people who are more irritable and impatient
because they learned a lifestyle and a pattern of expressing their sinfulness
in irritability and patience.
Most of us have some problem with irritability,
but some have a greater problem with it.
Why are people irritable?
Well, it's because they're sinners.
You know, an unregenerate man has three basic problems.
First of all, he has a bad record.
All has sinned and come short of the glory of God.
That's a great problem.
But unregenerate man has another great problem, and that is he has a bad master.
In John 8, Jesus said,
You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.
And you know Ephesians 2, which says,
We walk according to the course of this world,
and the course of this world is under the domination of the prince of the powers of the air,
the spirit that now works, and the children of disobedience.
So unregenerate man has a problem of a bad record.
He has a problem of a bad master.
But he has a third problem.
He has a problem of a bad heart.
Because the heart of an unregenerate man, according to Jeremiah 17 and verse 9,
is deceitful above all things and inoperably wicked.
And the Bible says that our hearts are darkened,
that we are in rebellion against God.
Ezekiel says that before we become Christians
and God works that work of regeneration in us,
we have hearts of stone.
So here's an unregenerate man.
Why does he do the things he does?
He does the things he does because he has a bad record.
He has a bad master.
And he also has a bad heart.
So when a person becomes a Christian,
when a person sees himself lost and undone
and knows that he needs a savior,
and sees that the very savior he needs is Jesus Christ,
who died on the cross,
who shed his blood that we might have everlasting life,
forgiveness of sins,
when a person comes to that place where he comes to Jesus Christ
and receives him as savior and Lord,
God does something about each of his problems.
He cancels out his bad record.
He forgives us of our sins.
He does something about our bad master
because Colossians 1 says we're translated out of the kingdom of darkness
into the kingdom of his dear Son.
And he also does something about our bad hearts
because Ezekiel says he takes out the heart of stone
and he puts in us a heart of flesh.
He puts in us new desires, new capacities,
a new potential, a new direction in life.
And so the basic solution to the problem of irritability and impatience
is to become a Christian,
to receive the forgiveness of sins,
to receive a new master,
to receive a new heart.
Oh, but you say, I know of a lot of Christians,
people who really are Christians who are still irritable and impatient.
Yes, that's true.
And we're going to deal with that in just a minute.
But the basic requirement for really becoming a different person
is to become a Christian.
And our text says, let your forbearing spirit be known to all men the Lord is near.
For the Christian the Lord is near.
Now that may mean one of two things.
Some commentators suggest that this phrase, that the Lord is near,
is referring to the second coming of Jesus Christ,
the imminent return of Jesus Christ.
And thank God he's coming soon.
A day is with, a thousand years is with the Lord as a day
and every age of Christians is to be looking forward to the soon return of Jesus Christ
when he'll right all wrongs.
We can be patient because we know Jesus has come.
We don't need to straighten out everything.
We don't need to get vengeance.
We don't need to take revenge.
Our Lord is coming and when he comes, he'll straighten everything out.
So that encourages us as Christians to be patient.
But I think that this phrase, the Lord is near,
may also mean that Jesus Christ is present now.
He's available now.
He's accessible now.
Right now he is a very present help in the time of trouble.
Right now he is our refuge and strength.
You see, I can't overcome my own irritability and my own impatience.
I don't have that strength.
I can't crank up old Adam's will and make me different.
But I don't need to because the Lord is near.
How near is he? He lives in me.
When I came to Jesus Christ, when the Spirit of God regenerated me,
he came to live in my heart.
And because Jesus Christ resides in my heart,
and if you're a Christian, he resides in your heart,
he's that near, near so very near to God, nearer we could not be.
We're in the person of his Son.
We are as near as he.
And Jesus Christ is near to us.
He lives in us.
Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.
I can't do it, Lord.
I know you can, but I live in you.
And by my power, you can be patient.
You can learn to be forbearing.
That's the hope we have,
to be forbearing no matter what our problems or troubles may be.
And so secondly, if we're going to become forbearing people,
we must be real Christians.
Jesus Christ must live in us.
But then thirdly, to overcome the problem of impatience,
we must discover the biblical alternative to impatience.
Now, folks, we were born sinners.
And because we were born sinners,
we learn sinful patterns and habits of life.
God created us with a habit capacity.
That habit capacity is neither sinful or holy.
It's just a habit capacity.
And it all depends on what habits we develop.
You know, I developed a habit at a very early age of walking.
And because I developed a habit of walking,
I don't have to get up in the morning and say,
Now, let's see, what do I have to do to walk?
Oh, yeah, I put this one foot here,
and then I put this one foot here,
and I move out like that, one foot after another.
I don't have to learn to walk all over again every day
because I have a habit capacity
and because of that habit capacity,
I learned to walk a while ago,
and now I just get up and go and never even think about it.
That wasn't true at one time.
Man, it was really tough for me to walk when I was a little guy.
But I formed a habit, so now I walk very easily.
Well, what happens in the natural realm
also happens in the nonphysical realm.
We form habits and patterns of responding.
You know, a kid, when he's young,
he gets in a tight spot,
and he learns to get out of a tight spot by being a bully,
and he learns that being a bully works.
He gets his own way,
so he grows up forming a pattern and a habit
of simply getting his own way by being a bully.
Well, he grows up, and his wife opposes him.
How does he overwhelm his wife?
He becomes a bully again, and he pushes her around.
He doesn't stop and think,
Now, let's see, the way that I should overcome my wife
and get my own way is by yelling and shouting
and overpowering her.
No, it's become a pattern and habit with him,
so he just does it instinctively and naturally.
He grew up also forming a habit and a pattern
of becoming impatient and irritable in certain situations.
Now we've become a Christian.
Jesus Christ comes to live in us,
and when we become Christians,
all of these old patterns and habits automatically fall off.
Right? Wrong.
We're Christians.
We have a new potential.
We have a new capacity.
But because we have practiced simple patterns
and habits of life for so long,
we continue to respond in a simple way.
So what do we have to do?
When we become a Christian,
we have to take a good look at ourselves,
check ourselves out by the word of God,
examine ourselves to see where our patterns
and habits of thinking and speaking
and reacting and living are according to the word of God
and where they're out of accord with the word of God,
and then we must replace these simple patterns of life
with biblical patterns of life.
Now, in the Bible, change is always a two-factored process.
Change is never a one-factored process.
Now let me explain what I mean.
And I'm convinced that there are many Christians
who never change because they don't understand
this tremendous truth.
They realize that they're doing something wrong,
so they say, well, I've got to stop doing that.
And so they grunt and rip their teeth and say,
I'm not going to do that anymore.
I'm not going to do that anymore.
I'm not going to yell.
I'm not going to scream.
I'm not going to punch my wife.
I'm not going to do some of the nasty things.
So they just rip their teeth,
and they say, I'm not going to do it.
And it isn't long before they find themselves back
doing the very same thing over again.
Finally, they say, I can't be any different.
I can't change.
That's the way I've always been.
I guess that's the way I'm going to be
for the rest of my life.
And why did they fail?
Well, one reason they failed is because they didn't realize
that change is a two-factored process.
The Bible not only commands us to put off things,
it commands us to put on things.
And you will never really put something off
unless you replace it with something else.
The Bible doesn't speak of a negative kind of holiness
where we simply don't do some things.
The Bible speaks of the positive kind of holiness
where we are doing the right things.
And that's the picture we have in Ephesians chapter 4
where Paul says, put off the old man, put on the new man.
Paul says, putting away lying, not period,
speak every man's truth with his neighbor.
Don't just put away falsehood.
Don't just put away lying.
Speak the truth.
So in every situation where previously
I would have spoken a lie,
at that moment I must decide to speak the truth.
I must get rid of this sinful pattern and habit of life.
I learned that pattern and habit.
And now for a time I must deliberately practice the new pattern
even when it's hard.
You know, my wife asked me a question
and my natural response would be to just evade the truth a little bit
because I'm afraid of her reaction
so I don't tell her exactly the facts as they are.
That's what I may have been tempted to do for a long period of time.
That's what I may have done.
Now I need to begin to practice Ephesians 4.25.
In every situation like that I need to tell the truth
until telling the truth becomes a habit
and telling the truth becomes a practice to me.
It will not happen just automatically.
It won't come floating out of the air.
I won't wake up some morning and whoop.
All of a sudden all of these old sinful patterns and habits are gone.
No, it will happen only as I discover what the biblical alternative is
and then put that biblical alternative into practice
until doing it the biblical way becomes a habit and a pattern with me.
God does not merely say in Philippians 4 and verse 5,
stop being impatient.
Rather, he says, let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.
The emphasis is on the positive.
It's not on what we shouldn't do, but rather it is on what we should do.
God doesn't merely say stop thinking the worst.
Rather, he says, start thinking the best.
He doesn't merely say stop being a striker and a brawler.
He says start being a peacemaker.
He doesn't merely say stop thinking about what others can do for you.
He says start thinking about what you can do for others.
You see, you've completely replaced the sinful pattern with its opposite positive quality.
He doesn't merely say stop being rigid and inflexible.
He says yield to others whenever you can without forsaking biblical principle.
He doesn't say merely stop thinking about how bad your situation is.
He says start thinking about what God is going to do to change you or your situation.
He doesn't simply say stop making others adjust to you.
He says start adjusting to others if possible.
He doesn't simply say stop being nasty in the way you respond to mistreatment
or irresponsibility on the part of others.
Rather, he says, be gentle when you confront or when you oppose others.
He doesn't merely say stop being resentful and vindictive.
He says start being forgiving.
He doesn't merely say stop condemning others for failure.
He says remember that you also have failed.
He doesn't merely say stop desiring the worst for people who fail you.
He says start desiring the best for these people.
And what I'm saying is that we must come to the place
where we decisively commit ourselves to follow the biblical course of action
whenever we're tempted to impatience.
My friend's godliness is never an accident.
It's never the result of chance.
It's always the result of choice.
God and yours.
In Psalm 57 and verse 7, the psalmist said, my heart is fixed.
My heart is fixed.
What was he saying?
He was saying I made a resolution.
I have decided.
I have come to a commitment.
My heart is fixed.
None of this wishy washy business for the psalmist,
leaving the door open just a crack in case he changes his mind.
He said, no, I made a decision.
My heart is fixed.
And he says it again.
My heart is fixed.
What decision had he come to?
He said, I will sing, and I will give praise.
What do you mean?
Well, you know, what the psalmist meant was this.
He meant that I've come to the place where I am resolving that regardless
of what happens to me, regardless of my circumstances,
regardless of my difficulties, even if I don't feel like it,
I'm going to sing, and I'm going to give praise.
Now, you'll never do that unless you decide to do it.
He committed himself.
He said, if I wake up tomorrow morning, and tomorrow morning I feel down in the dumps
and I don't feel like singing and I don't feel like praising,
I'm still going to do it anyway.
My heart is fixed.
If I go through the day and I have all kinds of difficulties and problems
and things don't go as I desire them to go
and my wife isn't treating me the way I'd like to be treated
and my kids aren't treating me the way I'd like them to treat me
and my boss isn't treating me the way I'd like to be treated,
I'm still going to sing, and I'm still going to give praise
because that's what God wants me to do.
And so the psalmist committed himself to follow a biblical course of action
even if he didn't feel like it.
And what I'm saying is that if I want to overcome impatience,
if I want to become a forbearing person,
if I want to overcome any sinful pattern in my life,
I've got to come to the place where I say, Lord, my heart is fixed.
My heart is fixed.
This is what I'm going to do the next time I'm tempted to do the wrong thing.
And with many of my counselors, I have them fill out what I call a commitment to change form
in which they write down on a piece of paper something like this,
desiring to be a better Christian and a better husband, wife, whatever,
with the help of God my Savior.
I commit myself to, and I have them list the things that they commit themselves to,
and I challenge this is a vow before God.
Be very careful. Think about it carefully.
And then after they have committed themselves,
I have them sign their name to make it so tangible, so real, so vivid,
that they know this isn't just a, well, I hope so, or I think so, or perhaps or maybe,
but they want to change so much that they're going to commit themselves to it
and actually sign their name and then let somebody else check up on it.
I say if you really want to change, you've got to commit yourself to change.
You've got to commit yourself to follow a biblical course of action.
And there are many Christians who are not changing
because they really have not come to the place where they have said,
it doesn't matter how I feel, it doesn't matter what anyone else does,
this is how I'm going to respond, this is how I'm going to react in that situation.
Now, having committed oneself to a biblical course of action,
that would mean the next time I'm driving down the highway, for example,
and someone cuts me off, instead of seething and becoming bitter inside
or saying something nasty, that nitwit, you idiot, or whatever,
instead of doing that, the next time that happens,
I'm going to say, Lord, you're a sovereign God.
You had all that in control. You want to teach me patience.
What an opportunity to learn how to love people when they mistreat me.
Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to learn some patience.
I'm going to respond by being long-suffering in time.
That's what it means.
And then having made that commitment,
it means that you will deliberately practice biblical obedience
when tempted to impatience until the Lord develops a new pattern of response in your life.
In Hebrews 5 and verse 14, Scripture says that our faculties are trained by reason of practice
so that we might discern between what is good and what's evil.
2 Timothy 3 and verse 16 talks about being trained for the purpose of righteousness.
2 Timothy 4 and verse 7 says discipline, train yourself for the purpose of godliness.
Now, what's training?
Well, training is doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again
until finally it becomes a habit.
It becomes natural for you to respond in that particular way.
Now, I've said this is why many Christians never do get over many of their problems.
They come, they hear the word of God on a Sunday, and they go home and they say,
I've got to be different. I've got to change.
So they try on Monday, and on Monday it's blood, sweat, and tears, and it's all so hard to do it.
And by the time Monday evening rolls around, they're just tired and I'll never change.
Look at how difficult it is.
They give it just a half-hearted effort on Tuesday, and by Tuesday evening they're so discouraged
because it's so hard that they just slip back into their old patterns.
I remember, oh, it's 23 years ago now when I went to Wheaton College.
So I went in 1953, I was there in 1957, I played football, and we had training camp.
And training camp was a time when we did the same thing over and over again.
You know, for over three months we did the same exercise.
Side straddle hops, push-ups, rocking on our stomachs and so forth.
We went through the same routine every night.
We ran around that football field again and again until there was a pathway worn.
We'd run wind sprints almost every night.
We'd hit the blocking sled.
We'd tackle the tackling dummies.
We'd run through the same plays over and over again.
You know what they called that?
They called that training.
Training is doing the same thing over and over and over again
until it becomes natural for you to do it.
How do you become godly?
You aren't zapped out of the sky.
You become godly as you train.
You become godly as you practice biblical obedience,
as you're deliberately trusting in the Lord Jesus, trusting in the Holy Spirit.
And these two things aren't contrary to one another.
Faith and works aren't enemies. They're friends.
You're saved by grace through faith alone.
You're not saved by a faith that is alone.
Because James 2 says faith without works is dead being alone.
And if you have a living faith, it will manifest itself in works.
And if I really believe on the Lord Jesus, if I really trust in his Holy Spirit,
if I really believe that the Lord Jesus is present to change me,
then I'll move out trusting in him,
believing that he'll be there to help me to be patient.
When I'm tempted to be impatient and I'll strike out,
determine that in the nitty-gritty situations of life,
I'm going to react, I'm going to respond, I'm going to live, I'm going to speak,
I'm going to think as Jesus Christ wants me to live, think, speak, and act.
Because he's present. He really is.
He's present to help me.
And so we can become patient people as we practice biblical obedience.
On one occasion, we had a man who came for counseling who hated red lights.
Oh, he hated red lights with a passion.
He'd leave home in the morning, and by the time he arrived at work,
he would be beside himself because of the red lights.
And then he'd leave work in the evening, and by the time he got home,
he was fit to be kind.
When he'd come up to a red light, he would sit there and he would grip the wheel.
He would rock the car back and forth.
He would inch forward if he was behind someone else at the red light
and that person didn't immediately speed away.
He would honk his horn and he would yell.
And he got himself into a terrible state every morning and every evening.
This was a terrible inconvenience.
It got so bad that, you know, by the time he got to work, he wasn't fit to be around.
He'd spout off at his boss, he'd spout off at other people, and it was affecting his work.
And, of course, then he would start out for home and the red lights would keep him stirred up
and he'd come home and he wasn't fit to be around his wife or his children.
And he realized that this was really a problem, so he came for counsel.
We said that he had to repent of his sin, the sin of impatience, the sin of irritability.
We also said that he was going to have to learn the biblical alternative.
He was going to have to commit himself to the biblical alternative
and then put it into practice until he learned a new way of responding to red lights.
So we suggested that he should plan ahead.
What was he going to do the next morning when he came to a red light?
Well, he was going to ask God to turn what was happening to him, that red light, into a blessing.
We told him that he should discipline himself to think upon the red light
as a relaxation break in the driving routine.
We told him that he should give God thanks for that red light
because he kept order so that cars weren't bumping into one another.
We told him that when he came to a red light, he should, instead of sitting there
and gripping the steering wheel and pressing down the accelerator,
he should put his hands down into his lap and lean back and deliberately make himself smile.
And then we told him to write out a three-by-five card,
and on that three-by-five card he was to put these words.
Remember, at relaxation breaks, thank God, smile and relax.
At first, this man frequently slipped back into his old patterns,
became impatient, became irritable with red lights, but he persevered.
And because he persevered, it soon happened that relaxation at red lights
became the rule rather than the exception.
That man was changed.
It's a simple little thing.
Who gets upset over red lights?
Little things, but it's usually the little foxes that spoil the vines.
You know, it isn't usually the great big things that break us down.
It's a lot of little things, and the reason we break down with the big things
is because we've been breaking down with the little things all along the way.
Well, this man conquered by the grace and power of God,
this problem of impatience at red lights.
He put on a holy response instead of a sinful response,
and the result was he became a different man at work,
he became a different man at home as well.
You see, he practiced and practiced and practiced
until a new way of responding became a habit.
And I suggest to you that if you want to become a forbearing person,
you must be a Christian.
Come to Jesus Christ. Trust in him.
Let him deal with your bad record.
Let him deal with your bad master.
He can handle him. You can't.
Let him deal with your bad heart. He can change it.
And then trusting in the power of Jesus Christ.
Submit yourself to a biblical course of action,
and implement that biblical course of action day after day, hour after hour,
minute after minute, until the Lord Jesus develops in you
different responses to potentially irritating circumstances.
My friends, we can't escape the potential for irritation and impatience in our world.
This is a present evil world.
There will be all kinds of occasions and opportunities for you to become irritable.
You can't escape them.
But what you can change is the way you respond and the way you react to them.
And as you change in those circumstances,
your life will be more of a testimony and more of a witness for Jesus Christ.
And you'll be demonstrating to the world the very power of the gospel, the power of God.
The world doesn't want to hear about power.
You know what it wants to hear about?
It wants to hear about the power of the gospel in you.
It wants to see the power of the gospel as it's manifested in our lives.
And I'll tell you, one of the reasons I'm convinced that many Christians lack boldness
and their witness for Christ,
and one of the reasons that many unsaved people don't want to hear us when we talk about Christ,
is because the power of the gospel is not seen in our lives.
I'm a little timid about talking to somebody else about a powerful God and a powerful gospel
if I know there are all kinds of bad habits and patterns in my life
that haven't been broken and haven't been changed.
There are doubts in my mind.
If it couldn't change me, how can I stand up and say it can change a drunk?
It can change a dope addict.
It can change somebody who's a homosexual or whatever.
If I don't see it really working in my own life,
and I've seen many of my councilees
develop a boldness in their witness
without even being exhorted to do it
as they saw their own lives being changed,
as they felt the power of the gospel and saw the power of the gospel in their lives,
they got a boldness to share it with others because they knew it worked for them.
It would also work for others.
Well, scripture says electrical bearing spirit be known unto all men.
May the Lord work in us and grant to us a change in this area
in order that others might see the power of the gospel in us.