1 Timothy 1:15-17 The Gift of Patience

‌Ask any teacher, parent, coach, any person who has ever been faced with training children, patience is required! Why? Because kids do not understand what they do not understand until you teach them. And there are times where even though they know nothing, they think they know everything. We assume we have patience until we are tasked with teaching a young person, or group of young people, who believe themselves intellectually superior to our expertise in the field we are training them. Even if that field is trying to get them to eat their vegetables. With every refusal to simply do as they are asked, our patience is tried a little further.
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Imagine how God feels. He obviously knows more about our physical, psychological, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual makeup than we ever could. He understands where every single molecule came from, He is the one who put them there! Yet when He says, “don’t eat that fruit,” our response is to listen to a talking snake (Gen. 3). Lest we believe that we are somehow smarter than Adam and Eve, I imagine every person reading this has taken part in things that are far more obviously bad for you in the past day than a piece of fruit from a tree in the middle of paradise. The same God who said that also said don’t go to bed angry, or look at another in lust, or want what your neighbor has, or indulge in the sin of gluttony. God tells us over and over again to not get caught up in the pursuit of worldly treasures yet we run after the things of this world daily, and ignore the things of God. We just think we need patience.
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Christmas shows us just how much patience God has given to us in our sins. Think of how quickly your patience runs out for those you are in charge of training, imagine how long ago your patience would have run out in dealing with your constant back talk and ignoring the Lord if you were Him. This is something the Apostle Paul never got over. In our passage for this morning Paul confesses that when it comes to being shown patience, God showed him more than anyone else. Paul never forgot who he was without Jesus. Without Jesus, Paul was a murdering self-righteous monster who hunted down those who were following the Savior. Without Jesus, Paul worked harder than anyone else to stop God’s plans. He says the reason that God chose to show him mercy to prove to the rest of us that God has enough patience to save us. If He could show a man like Paul mercy then there is hope for the rest of us.
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Jesus was born to save sinners. That is why He came, not for good, respectable people, but filthy rotten sinners. We are not good people on our own. To believe this is to be as Paul was without Jesus. Paul was as good and respectable as a human could be before he met the Savior. God had told him that he was indeed a sinner but Paul thought he knew better than the One who made him. He was wrong and so are you if you believe you do not need Jesus to save you and forgive you for your sins.
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You are also wrong if you believe that you are too sinful for the Lord to save. Do not argue with the One who made you today. Trust His judgment, He knows more than you will ever know about you.
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Take HIs free gift of mercy and thank Him for His gift of patient salvation in Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas!