Sermons

Introduction:

There is a story that Alfred, Lord Tennyson once invited a Russian nobleman to his estate to do some hunting. The nobleman went off by himself one morning and returned later in the day. "How did you do?" asked Tennyson.
"Not too well," replied the nobleman. "I shot two peasants."
"You mean two pheasants," Lord Tennyson said with amusement. "We pronounce it with a ph. Pheasant."
"No," the nobleman said, "I mean two peasants. They were insolent to me, and so I shot them." The story is outrageous, of course. You don't shoot someone just because they are insolent to you. Do you?
The story is told a Philadelphia man who killed a driver who cut in front of him on the expressway. The murderer explained that traffic had slowed as it was being funneled into a single lane. He claimed that he had waited in line for more than a quarter of an hour to enter the flow of traffic. Just as he was about to do so, another car passed him on the shoulder of the highway and cut in front of his automobile. As though that were not enough, the driver laughed and made an obscene gesture at him. It was too much for him to handle. When traffic later stopped because of congestion, he removed a gun from his glove compartment, got out of his car, walked up to the side of the car of the man who had taunted him and shot him to death. The injustice of what had happened was bad enough, but being laughed at and taunted was more humiliation than he could tolerate.
This morning we are going to talk about patience, the fourth Fruit of the Spirit. Patience means being slow to anger. Patience being able to forgive. Patience means placing our focus on what is truly important. And patience is something that we work on, that we grow over time.
We can't say to God, "Give me patience...now!"