Better to Give

Better To Give

On Saturday morning a bunch of children teamed up with Mrs Hooper, Mrs Birch, Mrs Sprigg and myself for “Tidy Narembeen Day”. Actually, it was only from 9 – 10:30am, but “Tidy Narembeen Hour-and-a-half” doesn’t have the same ring to it!

Even though I was a bit of a stress-case leading up to it, I’ve got to say that it was a lot of fun teaming up with the kids to tidy up the main street area as well as fundraise for our tree-planting project next term. I loved the enthusiasm of the young people as they launched themselves into their various tasks, and the support from people down the street – even on a fairly quiet morning – was fantastic. We were able to raise roughly $140 from sales of drinks & snacks.

The primary purpose was to provide an opportunity for the children to do something good for their world in a local sense – we are going to move to a global project later in the year. There are many ways that people can get involved in doing good things for their community through service clubs and local projects, and groups like these are always in need of more volunteers.

According to a news.com.au report on June 27 (based on figures from the 2006 census), about one in five Australians over 18 years of age do volunteer work. W.A. was the worst performing state, with only 16.8 percent of people volunteering (in defence of the bush, this was mostly due to Perth’s low return of 15.1%)!

In my experience, doing voluntary work has been very enriching personally – it provides a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction to have made a contribution to your community or to people further away, and it is a great experience to work alongside people for a good cause. The hardest time to be a volunteer is when it feels like you are going it alone.

In our marketing-driven society it seems that people are being trained to expect more and give less. Jesus goes against the grain and says “It’s better to give than receive”. That sounds like a load of rubbish, but when I think of some of the happiest times of my life, they are often times when I was working together with others for something worthwhile.

The main exception is when people do something because someone needs to do it, but no-one else will. We certainly need people to step up in these situations, but it doesn’t feel so good to be a volunteer when it feels like the effort is being dragged out of you. The best way we can help these people rediscover the joy of giving their time and energy is to get in there alongside them and give them a hand!

What are you passionate about? What are you good at? What times are you most available? What new skills would you like to develop? What are some areas of need in our community? Who would you like to get to know better? These are all things to think about when choosing how to be involved as a volunteer.

Mike Birch

Sermon - Being Patient With Everyone

Being Patient with Everyone

1 Thessalonians 5:14ff

22/07/07

Last week we examined the first part of 1 Thessalonians 5:14 which talks about dealing with difficult people in the Church. We found that instead of reacting against such people, distancing ourselves from them or criticising them; we are to come alongside them and help them in the most appropriate manner. We are to warn those who are out of step with God and the church because of laziness or a rebellious attitude. We are to encourage those whose timidity holds back their growth and service. We are to help those whose weakness causes them to struggle with sin or other causes of bondage.

Today the focus shifts from difficult people within the Church to people generally. All people. We are told in the final part of verse 14 that we are to “…be patient with everyone.”

Today we are going to get stuck into the topic of patience, to find out what it is, why we so often struggle with it and how we can grow in it.

What is Patience?

Patience is the ability to put up with pain, troubles, delays, difficulties, hardship, etc without complaint or ill temper. It is the good-natured tolerance of difficulty or delay.

Now, notice that we are to be patient with everyone. Every person that you are in contact with will cause you delays or difficulties at some point. Everyone will need your patience. There are 2 reasons in particular that we need patience:

1) We are all sinful. Whether deliberately or accidentally, we will all do things that are wrong which have a harmful effect on each other. We will fail to listen, we will fail to communicate well, we will fail to care, we will fail to live up to our promises or obligations and so on. Our sinfulness causes difficulties to those around us.

2) We are all different. A lot of the times that we rub each other up the wrong way is not because of sin but because of our differences. God has made us all unique, and He has done so on purpose. As a result of our unique design we have different preferences, different ways of seeing things, different priorities and so on. Because we are different that means we can never have things our own way. Things don’t happen the way we want them to, at the speed we want them to. We have difficulties and delays.

Now, a lot of times that we feel impatient with someone, we jump straight to reason number 1! It’s because someone is doing something wrong. It’s because someone has some sort of failing in their lifestyle or in how they communicate or in their understanding of some subject.

In my experience, far more often reason number 2 is actually the cause of my impatience or the impatience of others. It’s not because someone is wrong or evil, but because they are different that causes me to feel impatient with them.

Have you ever noticed that people tend to naturally gravitate towards others who are as similar as possible to themselves? That’s because we get less irritated by people who are like us! People even choose what local church to belong to based on the similarities they have with others there.

God has actually designed the Church much better than that. He knows that we need certain differences in order for us to be caused to grow and also to be effective in what He is calling us to do. We are to work together as a body, not all be the same type of body part.

However living together and working together with people who are different requires much patience. But how do we develop patience? This morning I am going to examine 3 spheres of our being – mind, heart and spirit – and how each of these play a role in developing patience.

Sphere 1 – The Mind: We need Wisdom.

Proverbs 14:29

A patient man has great understanding,

but a quick-tempered man displays folly.

When we feel impatient we believe that it is the other person’s fault that we feel that way. Our focus is on what they are doing wrong, or on the way that their behaviours and attitudes are affecting us that we don’t like.

Whether we are patient or impatient is actually less about those around us and more about our own maturity. Mature people can tolerate all sorts of irritating or hurtful people and situations, whereas immature people are inflamed by just about anything.

Let me give you an illustration about the importance of understanding. A friend was recently telling me about a holiday he’d taken, which involved hiring a car in France. He had arrived in a particular town and needed to get to the tourist centre to organise some accommodation. Time was precious, as it was already nearly 5 o’clock. He parks in a carpark and is trying to lock the car so that he and his wife can walk over to the tourist centre before it closes, and that’s where the difficulties begin. Pressing the button on the remote control, the car doors lock, but just to be sure, he went around to check the boot, and found that it was unlocked. He pressed the “lock” button again, and found that now the boot was locked. Just to be sure, he went back to check the doors, and found that they were now unlocked! For the next few minutes he became increasingly frustrated as he tried various combinations of presses on the remote control only to discover that something always remained unlocked! The car manual is in French so that was no help whatsoever!

Eventually he stopped and had a think. Something occurred to him as a possibility. He stepped back from the car. Pressed the “lock” button on the remote control, and then threw the remote control over to his wife who was waiting a little distance away. Then he went and checked the doors and the boot, and found that they were all locked. Understanding had dawned! Just holding the remote near the door or boot was sufficient to unlock it. Every time he went to check whether something was locked or not, and stood too close or held the remote too close, the boot or door which had already been locked, was then unlocked.

If he had already known that, he would never have become so frustrated or been delayed for so long. Understanding can be very helpful.

It is the same with people. Understanding people can prevent a lot of frustration.

I find the more I understand about myself and other people, the less angry I get when they rub up against me in ways that I don’t like. The more I understand the better equipped I am to live harmoniously and work effectively with others. However we need to recognise that knowledge is different to understanding.

Just because I know certain things about myself and others doesn’t mean that I will apply that knowledge well. It doesn’t mean that I will act with great understanding in any given situation. Knowledge is a bit like a tool – you can use it well, use it badly or not use it at all!

It’s very easy to learn a lot about personality types and communication styles and other topics that can help your understanding of yourself and others, yet be no more patient or wise in how you relate to other people.

There’s a great saying which is found in 1 Corinthians 8:1, which says: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” That leads us to the second essential ingredient of

Sphere 2 – the Heart: We need Love

1 Corinthians 13:4a

“Love is patient”

When our focus is on ourselves, the result is that we will react badly toward those who cause us pain or inconvenience. When our desire is to love others, we are less conscious of our own needs or desires, and more conscious of the needs and desires of others. We learn that love covers over a multitude of sins, because what matters is not how people fail us or inconvenience us; but on how we can bless other people.

Love understands that relationships are costly, but that the cost is worthwhile.

Knowledge by itself can be used to help or hurt. It can be used to manipulate others for our own purposes. It can be used to judge. It can be used to dismiss and belittle. Love comes along and gives good motives to how knowledge is used.

It is very easy to say “I love you”. It is easy to say as a Christian “I love others”. What does that love cause you to do? When James wrote about faith, he basically said that faith without action is useless. “I will show you my faith” he says “by what I do” (James 2:18).

The same principle is true of love. It’s easy to claim to love, what matters is what we do about it.

What are you doing to love others – even those you find most irritating? The ones who strain your patience. The Bible stresses the importance of showing hospitality to each other, worshipping together, encouraging one another, helping one another, bearing one another’s burdens and so on. This doesn’t just apply to those you feel most comfortable with, it applies to everyone.

I have seen many cases where people have harboured resentments or reacted angrily to others. I have seen groups divided over issues or incidents. Very often I have tried to explain things to people in ways that help them to be more patient and accepting of one another, but the truth of the matter is that most times, a lack of knowledge or even understanding is not the biggest problem – the biggest problem is a lack of love. Probably I need to spend less time trying to help people understand our differences and more time saying “Hey, those differences are there, and they make life tough for us sometimes, but let’s love each other anyway. Let’s not focus on those things so much, but really work on loving each other as best we can.”

Many times because people have been unable to come to agreement on things there has been an angst that remains between them. Love says that even if we don’t agree or even understand where another person is coming from or why they do what they do, we can still live together and work together. We can happily submit to one another in love, instead of getting uptight with each other and competing for who gets their way. Love is patient.

Sphere 3 – the Spirit: We need Spiritual Vitality

Galatians 5:22

But the fruit of the Spirit is…. patience…”

When we are experiencing life through the Holy Spirit, patience is one of the things that we will naturally exhibit. It is something that God Himself will produce within us. It is the fruit of spiritual vitality – which just means spiritual life.

You see, God is perfectly wise – there is no limit to His understanding and knowledge. He is perfectly loving – His very nature is love. The result of this is that among all of the other wonderful characteristics that God possesses, He is patient.

God’s patience is incredible. If you are like me sometimes you question God’s patience. “Is it possible that God still wants me in His family? Is it possible that God still lives in me and wants to use me after what I’ve done and how I’ve let Him down?”

Sometimes we think of how people in our lives have responded to us when we have hurt them or let them down, and we think that God is like that.

But God is perfectly patient. Being patient doesn’t mean that He is indulgent. You can be patient with someone while at the same time disciplining them for example. God even has the ability to be patient and angry at the same time, but that is a topic for another day!

In 1 Peter 3, the Apostle Peter is writing about the second coming of Christ, and how it was not happening as quickly as people expected. By way of explanation, he says that God “is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (1 Peter 3:9).

When you stop and think about how difficult it must be for God to tolerate the existence of evil in a world He created as good. Evil which required the sacrifice of His son. Evil which continues to offend Him and cause such pain to those He loves. When you realize how much pain this causes and the fact that He patiently endures it for the sake of His love for people who are yet to accept His salvation; then you begin to understand the patience of God.

He continues to allow rebellious humanity to shake it’s fist at Him and to treat His creation with contempt when He has the power to stop it in an instant.

Now think about how you have treated those who offend you. Those who irritate you. Those you find hard to live with and work with. Think about those people who you avoid. Think about those you resent. Those you remain angry with. Those you treat badly.

If you are spiritually alive, you cannot treat people this way. Those feelings and attitudes cannot live inside you when the Holy Spirit is in charge. If those things are there, it points to a lack of understanding, a lack of love, and a lack of spiritual life.

Conclusion

Being impatient with people is not due to a problem with others, it is a problem with us. Whether it’s being inflamed by other people’s sinfulness or just their differences; if I am impatient or resentful that is a problem with me, not them.

1 Thessalonians 5:14 says “be patient with everyone”. As you grow in wisdom, in love and in spiritual vitality, you will discover that by the grace of God you will be able to consistently obey this command, no matter how difficult your circumstances or the people around you are proving to be.