Texts: Exodus 34:5-6 and 2 Timothy 3:10-16.
Beloved
in Christ, I don’t know who coined the phrase, but I love it: “God is always
fashionably late.” He doesn’t show up exactly when you think you need Him, but
sometime afterwards. Add to His tardiness the fact that God works sideways. You
think that you know exactly how He is supposed to handle a particular
situation, but He doesn’t. He does something you don’t entirely want Him to do.
Only in retrospect do you discover that He has given you something better than
you had originally want.
It
takes a lot of patience, therefore, to be a Christian. But, to be fair, it also
takes a lot of patience to be God. Therefore, before we look at the reading
from 1 Timothy, which tells us Christians how to be patient, let us look first
at the passage from Exodus, which tells us how God Himself is patient.
A
little bit of context is necessary. The LORD God was not completely unknown to
Moses at this point. He had first appeared to Moses through a burning bush. He
had repeatedly given instructions as the plagues unfolded against the
Egyptians. He had commanded Moses and the Israelites to march through the Red
Sea. He had thundered from atop Mount Sinai, as the whole area was covered in a
thick cloud of smoke. And then He had invited Moses to spend forty days with
Himself on Mount Sinai. If anyone should have known God, it was Moses. But
Moses had been sent back to the Israelites because they had built a golden calf
and began worshipping it. Moses had put a stop to all that nonsense and prayed
for God’s mercy. God had heard him and not blotted out the Israelites. It was
only after this experience that Moses at last asked to see the LORD God in all
His glory. The LORD had said that was humanly impossible, but nonetheless He
promised to show as much of His glory as Moses could handle.
That
was why “the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with [Moses] there.”
And whenever the LORD comes, He never stands silent. Thus, He did more than
just descend and show off His glory. He proclaimed loudly who He was: “The
LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in
steadfast love and faithfulness.” You could say that all of those
phrases are really God’s name. Yes, He usually goes just by “God” or “the
LORD,” but you really need the full expression to understand completely who He
is.
In
His name we see hints of His great patience. First of all, He is described as “merciful
and gracious.” Someone who is merciful bears with someone who is
weaker. Someone who is gracious bears with someone who is less deserving. God
is both. He pities us in our weakness, and He pities us trapped by our sin.
Neither form of patience is easy. It is not easy to bear with people who aren’t
as fast as we are or who need extra help. It is especially not easy to bear
with people who are defiantly sinful. And yet He does.
The
LORD God adds that He is “slow to anger.” People like to
criticize God for His judgment upon people, especially in the Old Testament but
also in the New Testament. But you have to admit that God has an awfully long
fuse, much longer than ours. We would have given up on the Israelites as soon
as they had built a golden calf, especially when we had just told them to do no
such thing. We wouldn’t have patiently borne with the sins of the Amorites for
seven centuries, but would have blotted them out immediately. In fact, we would
not have allowed the world to have grown so corrupt over the millennia, but
would have abandoned the project long ago.
Finally,
God describes Himself as “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
He is so steadfast in love and so faithful that He cannot help being patient.
He is more committed to our cause than even we are. But it isn’t that God is
merely patient, just biding His time until He can give us our just desserts.
No, He loves us despite our insolent treatment of Him, despite our love of sin.
Therefore, He did more than just put up with us. He atoned for our sin. He sent
His beloved Son to earth, to be mistreated and crucified by us, all so that we
could be reconciled to Him. So God has a level of patience that far exceeds
ours.
And
yet we too ought to be patient with one another, even as God was patient with
us for Christ’s sake. In the reading from 1 Timothy we are reminded of the
importance of being patient, especially when things are going badly. Paul
talked to Timothy about all the things that might have tried his patience: his “persecutions
and sufferings” that didn’t happen in only place but in several: “at
Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra.” Far from thinking that these awful
sufferings were unique to him, he knew that “all who desire to live a
godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors
will go on from bad to worse.” In other words, to be a Christian
requires patience.
One
of the things that allowed Paul to be patient is that he could boldly and
truthfully confess: “The Lord rescued me” from all those trials
and tribulations. It wasn’t that he never suffered, but that he survived them
and went on to thrive elsewhere. As we go through various bad experiences that
test our patience, it helps us to remember that God is delivering us. If we
face opposition for our faith, God will not let their stratagems prevail
against us, for He has promised that the church will break down the gates of
hell. If we have people who mistreat us for no particular reason, we know that
God will keep us from being overwhelmed by them. We have the testimony of the
psalmists, who cried out to God frequently because they were oppressed by
evildoers, but in the end they were delivered. If we suffer from some physical
affliction that tries our staying power, we know that God in the end will
vanquish disease and death when Christ returns in glory.
What
helps us to grow more patient is to get to know God better. That is why Paul
pointed Timothy to the Scriptures. Yes, Timothy was supposed to imitate Paul’s
behavior and had done so. Paul commends him for doing so. There certainly is a
place for us to learn from godly brothers and sisters who have lived longer and
more deeply in the Christian faith. But Paul also pointed Timothy to the
Scriptures. Not only did they lead Timothy to faith in Christ so that he could
be saved, but they also could daily help Timothy with “teaching…reproof…correction…and
training in righteousness.”
We
grow in patience as we are taught more about God and learn who He is and what
He has done for us and what He expects out of us and why. But this is no idle
knowledge. It strikes home a lot of times for us as “reproof,” as
admonition, as we are shown just exactly how impatient we have been with one
another and with God. But we should bear this reproof patiently, for it works
godly sorrow and repentance. Then the Scriptures unfold for us the “correction,”
all that God has done to forgive our sins and get us back into His good graces.
And then there is “training in righteousness” that naturally
follows, as we learn to be more patient from Him who excels in this virtue.
Beloved
in Christ, may you follow the examples of the saints who have gone before us
and, above all, of our Lord. And may you also delve deeply into the Scriptures
so that you might know the God who is patient with you and then grow in
patience with Him and others. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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