Dr. Charles Stanley: When you
trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, immediately the
Holy Spirit came into your life to seal you as a child of God. That's the reason we know that
we are eternally secure. It is His work and not our
conduct that makes us acceptable to God. And in the process of doing so,
when I think about that, I think about the fact that the Holy
Spirit sealed us and equipped us to do whatever He's called us
to do. Many people will live out their
life in church, baptized early in life, heard lots and lots of
sermons, and will never understand that God never
intended for them to live the Christian life. He didn't, He intended for them
to allow the Holy Spirit who lives within them to live out
the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, we are not only equipped
to the salvation, He's equipped us to do whatever He's called
us to do, whatever He's--whatever He has made us to
be and made us to do. So, when you think about your
life and you think about the challenges you face, remember
this: that you are already empowered by the Holy Spirit to
live and to face any situation, any circumstance of life. He didn't just save us and let
us get along the best we can. So, when you think about your
life, and you think about things you face, when you face
difficulties, would you say that you're a patient person? And the truth is, all of us
probably have areas of our life that it's difficult for us to
stand by or hold back what we think or what we'd like to do. But patience is a gift from God,
but it isn't something we work up. It is a gift of God through the
Holy Spirit. When you were saved, He sealed
you as one of His children, and He began to release in your
life, if you'll allow Him, the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy,
peace, patience; and so that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about this whole
issue of how essential it is that you and I experience God's
patience in our life because it affects every single thing
we do. Timing is absolutely essential
in almost every area of life. And so, when we have the Holy
Spirit living within us, sometimes He's going to say,
"Mmm-mmm-mmmm-mmm, no." Or He may say, "Not now." Or He may say, "Tomorrow,"
or whatever. But God gave us a compass: the
Holy Spirit. He gave us a sense of direction
in the Holy Spirit so that you and I would not have to go
through life just making up our mind and making decisions that
oftentimes we would regret. So, I want to talk about this
whole idea of patience, and because the Scriptures says
that's a gift of the Spirit. So how many of you know you're
saved, raise your hand. All right, hold them up now. You know you're saved? All right, how many of you know
that you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you? Well, the same ones should
raise your hand, because if you got saved, then you have the
Holy Spirit there. And one of His primary
objectives is to enable us to walk patiently in our Christian
life. So, listen to this, Psalm
twenty-seven verse fourteen, "Wait for the Lord, be strong
and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord." Well, why would he say that? Because to wait for the Lord,
sometimes we have to be strong and we have to take courage. Because sometimes pressures are
there for us to make decisions in our life. Husbands and wives, families,
business, whatever it might be. He says wait. In the thirty-seventh Psalm in
the seventh verse he says three times, "Rest in the Lord," in
this passage, "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him, do
not fret." So, I would ask you, how many of
you fret? Well, I've got five honest
people here this morning. Well, why do we fret? We fret because we don't feel
the freedom to move ahead, or we don't feel the freedom to buy
this or go there or do that or have this relationship. And so, we fret because we don't
have God's approval, but God doesn't give us His approval
because it's not best. The fortieth Psalm says, "I
waited patiently for the Lord, And He inclined to me and heard
my prayer." Look at that, "I waited
patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me." He bent to--He heard what I was
talking to Him about, and He answered my petition. So, patience is very important
in every aspect of life. So, how would you define
patience, if somebody said, "Well, explain--just define
patience for me." What would you say? It's the quiet, uncomplaining
endurance under stress or annoyance, or long-tempered. So ask yourself the question:
are you quiet and uncomplaining when things don't go your way? And let me give you the simplest
definition of patience. Listen to this: patience is the
will to wait. That's all you need to know. Patience is the will to wait. That is, situations come our
way, we have to make decisions; and yet, there are times when we
don't know what to do, or times when God gives us a check in our
spirit, and we have to make a decision. Will I wait for God's direction,
or will I not? Most people don't want to wait. They want God to act on their
timetable. Think about this, we would
acknowledge that God's omniscient, He knows everything. We would acknowledge that He
knows all about us. We would acknowledge that He
knows what's best for us. And yet, we come to those
situations where God tells us to wait and we don't want to wait. And so, we come up with all the
reasons why we shouldn't have to wait. We look at other people and they
have this, and they have that, and why should we have to wait? Because God in His infinite love
and power for us knows that at certain times in our life,
certain things don't fit. That is, God created us to do
what? To live for Him, to serve Him,
and to reflect Him. He created us to live out the
life that He's placed within us. Whenever I want something He
doesn't want me to have and I insist on having it, I'm being
impatient. Whenever we push God, "Well,
Lord, I've waited long enough, it's time for me to have what I
want." Watch this, God is your greatest
protector. When He says no, listen, don't
think about it as God rejecting you, it's God doing what? Protecting you. When God says no, it's a word of
protection. We oftentimes think, "Well, God,
if You loved me, You'd let me have this, that, and the other." It's the will to wait. Now, doesn't mean that you won't
get angry sometime. All of us, probably at times,
have said, "Well, Lord, why not now?" When God says no, He has a
divine, specific reason for saying no that is to our
benefit. And so, oftentimes we say,
"Well, I don't know why we have to pray about this, this is a
simple thing." And here's what I've discovered
over the years, that oftentimes, those simple little things is
oftentimes a trap, a trap Satan lays out before us. Because God has a will for our
life, He has the best plan, and He knows exactly how to enable
us to walk through that plan. If I insist on having what I
want before I should have it, or who I want before I should have
it, or whatever it might be, then I'm just asking for
trouble. And this is why many people are
in trouble financially, they're in trouble in their marriages,
they're in trouble, all kind of circumstances, situation, in a
business, whatever. Because instead of waiting to
ask for God's direction and waiting, they got to have it
now. We have a whole society of
people that are so sexually-oriented because
they've got to have it now. Got to have it now. And as a result, we have a
society that's so corrupt in so many ways, and much of which is
because nobody wants to wait for what they want. If you have to get in debt over
your head and know you can't ever pay it off, but you got to
have it now, you do it anyway. They live in bigger houses for
six months or a year and can't stay in there. They buy a big car, can't keep
it very long. They buy clothes and take them
back after they've worn them three months. And on and on they go. And so, they make decisions that
are not God's decisions. So, ask yourself the question:
would you say that you are a patient person? Now, just think about it a
moment. Would you say that you're a
patient person? That is, that you calmly
tolerate the delays that God places in your life when He
says no. You come to Him for something
that you believe is the will of God for your life, you ask Him
about it, and yet, watch this, here's what happens. You ask the Lord about it and
you don't hear anything. And you ask Him about it and you
don't hear anything, and so you say, "Well, God hadn't--well,
must be okay because God didn't tell me I couldn't." Don't ever go that route. If you say, "I'm going to do
this because God hasn't told me I shouldn't," what about waiting
for God to tell you that you should? And so, we can manipulate the
Word, and we can manipulate circumstances in order to
justify our own desires when oftentimes they are handicaps
in our life. They're the seeds of destruction
in our life because we're not willing to wait for God. Listen, would you agree that God
loves you? Would you agree to that, say
amen? Well, some of you do, some of
you don't. God does love you, and let me
ask you a question. You love your children? Come on, now. Do you love your children? Okay, if they ask you for
something that you know that's going to hurt them, do you want
to give it to them? Well, why do you expect God to
do that? You ask God for something, and
sometimes God says no. Then here's what you do. Oftentimes people say, "Well,
I'm gonna get in the Scriptures, find out what God says," I've
heard this so many times. And so, they'll go in the Psalms
and the Proverbs or somewhere, and they'll look around, they'll
find a passage that says, let's see here, now they'll look and
look and look and they'll say, "Well, surely, God must be
saying something to me." And they'll find them a verse
that says that they can interpret that God says yes, and
they say, "God told me I could do it." That's not the way God operates. Listen to this, when you were
saved, the Holy Spirit sealed you as a child of God, lives
within you twenty-four hours a day. One of the primary purposes,
having written your name in the Lamb's Book of Life, having
sealed you as a child of God forever. He lives within you to direct
you. To give direction for your life. "The fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, and patience." That's part of what He does in
our life. So, you have within you the
absolute truth, the right compass, the one who's going to
give you the right direction every single time you ask Him. That's who He is. Because God knows how
complicated life is. He didn't just leave us here
apart from the Spirit. He told His disciples, He said,
"Sit down in the city of Jerusalem, until you be endued
with power from on high." "You can't live out the life
I've given you without the Holy Spirit." And so, that's exactly what
they did. They waited till He came and
entered them. When you were saved, the Holy
Spirit came into your life, sealed you as a child of God. You're always a child of God,
you can't be lost. Once sealed by the blood of
Jesus, you can't be lost. But you can certainly mess up
your life by not listening to the Holy Spirit who came to live
within you to give direction and guidance and clarity at every
single aspect of your life. So, when you think about that,
and you think about situations and circumstances that you face,
and you ask yourself the question: am I willing to calmly
accept whatever God says? We don't question God on the one
hand until we want something really bad. And then we say, "Well now, God,
what about so and so?" Now, think about this, you have
the privilege to ask God about everything, everything. Does God care? Yes. Is He willing to answer? Yes, He's that kind of God. He's given you the indwelling
person of the Holy Spirit in order to give direction, protect
you, keep you from making wrong decisions, giving you patience
and guidance and direction in every circumstance of life, if
you listen to Him. God loves you enough to give you
clear direction. Should you marry this person or
should you not? You don't make a decision by
looking at them. You don't make a decision by
hearing about them. You don't make a decision about
what family they came from. You don't make a decision about
any of those things, you make a decisions, what's the will
of God? You say, "Well, is God
interested in who I marry or what I do and look?" Yes, He is. Because He's interested in all
of our relationships. He's interested in our
relationship to Him primarily. And if I keep that relationship
right, I'll have my other relationships right in life. So, patience, patience is
critical. Listen to what He says, "The
fruit of the Spirit," that is, you can expect the Holy Spirit
to express Himself in the following ways: "Love, joy,
peace, patience." So that you have the One living
within you, willing to direct you in every circumstance
of life. So, let's think about it for a
moment. What's required of us to have
patience? We have requirements, and I've
been a Christian for seventy-three years. And you know what? God has never misled me. Have I always made the right
decision? No, I haven't. But you know what? Every single time if I made a
wrong decision, I had to face it. God, You tried to get my
attention, I wasn't listening. And after a while, you learn
that never pays, and you follow His will and you walk in His
ways. So, what requirements do I have
in my life if I'm going to be patient? First of all, I've got to have
faith in God. I have faith in God to believe
that He will direct me every single time, whatever I need,
whatever direction, because He promised to do so. Second, I must have the spirit
of obedience. If I have an obedient spirit, I
choose to obey God. I may falter in that by missing
it somehow, but the Holy Spirit is there to enable us to give us
guidance, to do what? To follow Him. Then, of course, here's what's
happening. The discernment of God's timing. The Holy Spirit will show us
when. Oftentimes, we will ask Him for
something that's not His will at the moment. It's not His plan right now, but
His plan later. And what we have to do is be
wise enough to say, "Okay, God, if it's not Your will or if it's
not Your will now, give me the grace to wait until You give me
permission to have or to go with whatever it might be." Then, if I'm going to be
patient, I've got to love God. If I don't love God, I'm not
going to be patient. If I don't love Him, I want
it now. If I don't love Him, I want
things to work out the way I want them when I want them. And yet, if I'm going to be
patient, I've got to love Him. In other words, if I love Him, I
will be patient. If somebody says, "Well, I love
God, but." No, there's no but. If I love Him, I will be
patient. If I don't love Him, I don't
trust Him, I won't be patient. So, ask yourself the question:
would you be considered by your husband, your wife, your
friends, people you work with, do they see you as a patient
person? Now, there're only two answers. Yes or No. Yes, they do.
No, they don't. And that's because of your
conduct, your conversation, and your character around them. If love myself, if I love
things, if I love other people more than I love God, I'm going
to satisfy myself. But God wants the best for His
children. There's not a single person who
can say, "Well, God doesn't want the best for me." Yes, He does. "Well, if He did, He'd-a given
me her or him or this or that." No, the reason He didn't give
you that's because He does love you. Because God's love for us has no
limitations. And that love is so powerful
that God will say no. When He knows that what we want
is not of Him, He's going to make it known to us. Now, when you pray and you ask
God for something and God gives you this uneasy feeling. And you say, "Well, you know,
well, that's just my feelings." Let me ask you a question: what
do you expect God to do when you ask Him for something and He
says no? What do you expect Him to do,
go...or go...? In other words, what does God
have to do to say no? Should it not be the impression
of your heart? Should it not be that you're
listening to Him, and you have this very uneasy feeling? If you want to know how God says
no, a very strong uneasy feeling. Sometimes even a scary feeling
if it's that critical. That critical, He will give you
a scary feeling if you're heading in the wrong direction. Why? Because He wants the best for
us. And I think about people, if we
love God, we want to obey Him. And many people love God until
He requires of them something they don't want. Or deprives them of something
they do want. And I think about all the people
who get married who never asked for God's leadership. Never asked for God's guidance. They make big purchases, not
after asking God. They make relationships not the
will of God, but they make relationships that fit them for
the moment and say, "Well, you know, God understands." God is living within us for our
own good, and to give us guidance and direction in every
aspect of life. Think of anything that you ask
God about that He won't answer. He may not say yes, but if you
ask the Lord for direction, God will give you direction for your
life because He loves us unconditionally, and He sent the
Holy Spirit to make His answers very clear. And He's waiting for us,
oftentime, to ask Him, "Lord, what should I do about this? What--how--which direction shall
I go in this? Should I buy this or should I
not? Should I date this person or
should I not? Should I get in this business or
should I not?" In other words, God is always
available to give clear direction for our life. Now, we read all kind of
promises to answered prayer. "Trust in the Lord with all your
heart, lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge
him, He'll direct your path." We read that and do what? Because God doesn't direct us
the way we want to be directed, we just ignore the passage. Watch this carefully, you
cannot, as a follower of Jesus, follow the Word of God only at
times when you're looking for something that agrees with you. You know, people say, "Well, I'm
gonna find me a passage." Well, you can find a passage,
what about the one that talks about God oftentimes turning a
strong hand against us? Our heart is to be bent toward
Him. We're to listen to Him. For our own good, we listen
to Him. The fruit of the Spirit is
patience: willing to wait long when necessary. So, you ask yourself if that's
true. Now, it takes courage to be
obedient to God. It takes courage to be patient
because sometimes--and I can think back in my life at times
when I thought, "Well, Lord, I'm coming to the edge over here,
and if You don't do something soon, I'm gonna fall off the
edge." What? Do you know who's on the other
side of the edge? Almighty God. You're not going to fall off the
edge. There are times when God will
let us get very, very close to what we think is an ultimate,
unchangeable desperation, but He's always there. He's a God of love, of
direction, guidance, and counsel in our life. It takes courage to trust Him;
and, simply said, I have to be determined to wait. Now, I could give you a lot of
illustrations of people over the years that I've counseled to
wait about something they were going to purchase, wait about
something in their marriage, wait about something about their
children, or young people about decisions they're making about
college, and so forth. Every single time that I can
recall when a person heard godly counsel and chose to do it their
way, it never ended the way they intended. You know what? Because God wants the best
for us. And He says, "I will guide you
and teach you in the way which you should go." Watch this, we started off by
saying patience is the fruit of the Spirit. It's a gift from God, which
means that you have within you the capacity to make wise
choices. The fruit of the Spirit is
patience. The Spirit of God will exercise
patience in you, for you, to you, through you in your behalf
because that's the will of God for us, that we follow His will,
walk in His way. And God knows that there are
difficult times and difficult situations that we face, and
sometimes we don't know what to do. He's there to show us what
to do. If you're a follower of Jesus,
if you're a Christian, if you've trusted God in your life as your
Savior, you have within you the ultimate, ultimate, ultimate,
ultimate Counselor for every single solitary situation in
life. He will direct you. God would not withhold truth
from you. He's not going to withhold wise
counsel from you. If you don't have wise counsel,
it's because you've not asked Him. He's--why? Because He loves you
unconditionally. He wants the best for you no
matter what. So, the fruit of the Spirit is
patience. That is, we have it within us if
we'll listen to Him. So, ask yourself the question:
if patience is the will to wait, do I have the will to wait? I don't know what you're facing
in life, but you don't have any peace about it. You don't know why you don't
have any peace about it. Are you willing to wait? And oftentimes, your question
is: well, how long have I got to wait? Until God in His wisdom and love
tells you what to do. That's how long you wait. And so, if you're sitting here
today and you're planning on marrying somebody and you don't
have any peace about it, you don't want to hear this. You're getting ready to buy the
house and you know in your heart you can't afford it, you don't
want to hear this. And I can just go right down the
line because patience is not a--it's not a popular subject. You know why? I'll tell you why, because we
want what we want when we want it, how we want it, that's it. And when we can't have it, we
don't want anybody telling us why we can't. I understand that. Jesus had the same thing when He
talked. People didn't want to hear some
of the things He said, but that's okay. So, let's think about it for a
moment. Why do we say that patience is
essential to experiencing God's best? Number one, it's essential to a
life of obedience to God. If I'm going to obey God, I got
to listen to Him. I must hear Him and I must obey
Him. If I'm going to obey God, I must
be willing to give up my own personal desires and opinions at
times in order to do what He says. That's God loving me. Watch this, whatever you're
going through, and you're praying about it, and God says
no to you, watch this, when He says no to you, what is He
saying? Here's what He's saying: I love
you. God's no is I love you. And somebody says, "Well, no,
when God says no to me, I get angry." No, when God says no, He's
saying I love you. Then think about this: it's
essential to building a good relationship with other people. That is, patience. If you're going to have good
friends, you have to be patient with them, and I don't need to
tell that if you're married, you have to have patience with each
other. Wherever you work, you have to
have patience. It is not only a gift of God,
it's a requirement to be able to get along in life with your
children, with your husband, with your wife. If you live with somebody who
has no patience, that is a very, very difficult situation. All of us need to express
patience, and all of us need to be able to express that patience
toward other people because other people make mistakes. Sometimes, when somebody will
tell me, "Well, I've prayed about this and God said yes,"
when I know God's Word, He would never say yes to that. So, what do you do?
You turn them off? No. You do your best to help people
understand. When you see, for example, one
of your children or grandchildren heading in the
wrong direction, what do you say? Do you say nothing, or do you
try to counsel them for what you know as an adult is a wise
decision? If you just say, "Well, they'll
get along the best they can." God has given you wisdom. He's given you counsel in life
to give to other people. And so, we're to share God's
direction and share illustrations in our own life
with other people who are facing things. We can all get impatient if
we're not careful. But you notice something? Impatience never cures anything. It doesn't. You have within you the Holy
Spirit who will give you clear direction about anything in your
life you're concerned about. Anything! Any relationship, whatever it
might be. And think about this, timing is
so very important. Timing is important in sports,
important in finances, important in relationships, important in
war, important in photography. Timing is very important. God is always there within you
as a follower of Jesus. Have your Holy Spirit within
you, there to give you clear direction in any and every
circumstance of life if you're willing to wait for Him. "Wait upon the Lord." Does He give you clear direction
immediately? Oftentimes He will, but a major
decision in your life, you may have to wait until God tells you
what to do. Are you willing to wait? Do you treasure the wisdom of
God? Do you value the wisdom of God? Do you prize the wisdom of God? Do you desire the wisdom of God
enough to wait until He makes it very clear what you should do? And I've seen so many people
make decisions that they knew they shouldn't have made. But here's what I hear
oftentimes: "Well, I waited for three months. Well, I waited for six months. I waited for two weeks. I waited and waited and waited. Nothing ever happened, so." So what? "So I did my own thing." God loves us. He only wants the best for us. When God says wait, here's what
you listen to: "I'm loving you." That's what He's doing. He's loving us when He tells us
to wait. Remember we said it's
simply--patience is simply the willingness to wait. And when we wait, we see God at
work. And oftentimes, I've watched
this in my own life. Having to wait and wait and wait
about something, and then watch God finally bring it to a
conclusion. Over and over and over again, my
response has been, "Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, thank You, dear God,
that I waited. Thank You, Jesus, that I didn't
step ahead of You." Most people today probably are
unhappy because they have refused to wait upon God for
direction about something in their life. Many of them don't even know
that they can ask Him. Many of them do not believe that
He would answer them. And yet, they're living in this
haphazard frame of reference that I got to make up my mind
about this, make up my mind about that, what should I do
about this? Listen, the last thing you want
to do is ask somebody who's in trouble what you ought to do
because that's not where you're going to get a good answer. Or if you want to live a godly
life, you don't ask somebody who's living an ungodly life
what you ought to do. You ask someone who's living a
life of obedience to God if you need to ask someone. But listen to this, don't forget
this, God Almighty is willing to speak to you personally, either
through His Word or through somebody else or through the
circumstance. He's willing to show you what
you should do. You don't have to live in doubt
and fear and uncertainty, making decisions, sort of
scatterbrained decisions. "Well, here's what I'm going to
do, and I hope it'll work out." I would never say that. "I'm going to make this
decision, and I hope it works out." No, God is clear enough that you
can be absolutely certain, and until you're certain, don't
move. Lot of people are in deep
trouble today because they didn't wait. How many times have I talked to
people who are married who've said to me, "I knew I shouldn't
have done that." Why did you do it? "Well," they'll give me some
reason. Or, "I made this decision in my
life and I never thought about asking God." What I want you to see is one
simple thing: God loves you, He created you, He has a purpose
for your life. You may not know what the
purpose is. You may have lived two-thirds of
your life, never even asked God about anything. But I'm telling you, He loved
you, He saved you, He has a purpose for your life, a plan
for your life, and He will make it clear if you will ask Him and
relax. Don't push Him. In other words, you say, "Well
I've waited two weeks." That's long enough. That's long enough from your
finite mind. It's not long enough. Watch this, let me ask you a
question: is God perfect? Say amen. congregation: Amen. Dr. Stanley: Well, is He
late? congregation: No. Dr. Stanley: Then why don't
we wait for Him? If we say He's perfect and He's
not late, then if I'm waiting, I'm on time. I'm waiting till God says this
is the moment. I'm telling you with all of my
heart, you can never lose. Never, never. Now, if I were about twenty-five
years old and telling you that, you'd forget it. I can tell you at eighty-five
you never lose. And I've been in some of the
toughest situations, very difficult situations, traumatic
situations. Never, never, never, never lose
waiting upon God. And I can remember one occasion. And the pressure was on from
every direction, and I thought, "Well, Lord, I've lived this
long trusting You. I'm going to trust You now. Not--I'm not budging until You
tell me to budge." Worked out perfect. That's the way God works. He--you see, just because you
don't feel God's love doesn't mean He doesn't love you. And I know there's some people
sitting here, and you think, "Well, I don't feel God loves
me. If He doesn't love me, why would
He direct me?" He does love you. He will direct you, but you have
to surrender to Him. The willingness to wait. Are you willing--well, listen to
this. Are you willing to wait for
omniscience, all-knowing God? Are you willing to wait for
omnipotent, all-powerful God? Are you willing to wait for this
all-loving God to give you direction and guidance for your
life? You can never go wrong listening
to Him, obeying Him, trusting Him. You can never go wrong. Then why not? Trust Him, listen to Him, wait
for Him, and watch to see what happens. Well, if you've never trusted
Jesus as your Savior, none of this'll work, won't work. And so, I'll simply say this to
you: you will struggle through life and make many mistakes and
end up in a disaster without Christ in your life. But if you're willing to ask Him
to forgive you of your sins, surrender your life to Him, you
have this awesome, eternal, omnipotent asset, the Holy
Spirit giving guidance, direction, and perfect timing,
if you'll listen to Him. And I would encourage you if
you're not saved, never trusted Christ, settle this issue and
let the Lord Jesus Christ become the master of your life, life's
going to change. Listen, don't live a life
outside the will of God because to do so is live outside the
blessing of God. Father, we love You and praise
You and thank You that You never make a mistake, always perfect. Your timing is perfect to the
second. We pray the Holy Spirit will
speak to every single person here, that we all examine
ourselves afresh and anew about the degree of patience we have
or do not have. You know who's seated right
here, right now, who's facing a decision this afternoon,
tomorrow, or sometime this week, or before the week is over,
major decision in their life. God, I pray that You'll give
them wisdom enough to wait until they hear clearly from You what
they should do and to be confident that You will always
give them clear guidance in everything. We love You and we praise You
for it, Father, in Jesus's name. Amen.
