Loving Like Jesus | Small Group Lesson 4: Love Is Patient

What would you give to radically improve, even transform what matters most in your relationships? You can thrive in your

career, acquire wealth, or build an excellent reputation. But if your relationships aren't thriving, nothing else matters. Let's explore and begin to practice six foundational principles, including how to give your relationships the highest value, love as Jesus loves you, and communicate from the heart so we can walk a practical path for fulfilling God's intention in all our relationships, especially the difficult ones.

We're now over halfway through our forty day journey exploring what it means to love like Jesus. And by now, especially if you've been reading through the relationship principles of Jesus, you might be realizing just how much of a lifelong journey this actually is. That's why the apostle Paul says we need to run with endurance, the race set before us. This isn't just a forty day sprint. It's a lifelong marathon.

If you're anything like me, running often feels like suffering, but with a finish line. To love like Jesus will need to practice long term endurance, loving through patient suffering all the way to the finish line. That's the line from first Corinthians we're focusing on this week. Love is patient. A couple phrases later, Paul will say love is not easily angered.

And that really flushes out for us what it means for love to be patient. In the Greek, the word for patience here is macrothumia. You can hear two parts in that word. Macro, meaning long or big, and thumos, which refers to temper or passion. So literally, to have a long temper.

Not short-tempered. To have a long fuse, not a short fuse. Someone with a macrothumia kind of love takes a long time to boil over. They're like the slow cookers of emotional response. Real patience is the capacity to restrain anger and suffer long, to bear with someone for the sake of love.

One of the clearest pictures of God's patient love can be found in the Old Testament book of Exodus. If you know Moses' life story at all, you may know Moses had a track record of impatience, of boiling over quickly. I mean, early in his story, we see him take justice into his own hands and kill an Egyptian man. But as Moses grows into the first leader of the nation of Israel, the Lord draws him into greater patience. We see this especially when God gives Moses the 10 Commandment tablets on the mountain.

While Moses is up there, the people down below are already breaking the covenant they've just entered into with the Lord. They build a golden calf and worship it and call it the God who brought them out of Egypt. The shocking betrayal of the true God. God sees it and says to Moses, now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. This is a perfect righteous anger that God expresses, but it's also an invitation for Moses to intercede on Israel's behalf.

Moses is moved to plead, turn from your anger. Remember Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, those God had promised to love and bless forever. Moses even asks that he himself be condemned if it will save Israel from receiving justice for their wrongs. And we're told then that God relents from his anger. Now, the testimony of scripture teaches us that God is not a man, that he should change his mind.

He holds perfect knowledge. So we know something deeper is going on here. This moment reminds Moses to slow down, remember God's promises, step in with patience and mercy as the Lord does. This moment turns Moses into a picture of Jesus. Now you may recall when Moses goes back down the mountain, scripture says that his anger burned hot and he threw down the 10 Commandment tablets and broke them.

Just like that, became the first person to break all 10 Commandments at once. But when he goes back up the mountaintop, the Lord makes a new set of tablets, patiently, just like the first we're told. And he reveals himself to Moses there with a wonderful phrase that echoes throughout the rest of scripture. The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. Two important sides to the patience of God here.

He's abounding in love that is loyal and merciful, patient, slow to anger. The other side is justice. God promises he will by no means clearly guilty. So God's patience is not weakness. It's not denial or disinterest.

It's wholly restraint. He will bring perfect justice. But in the meantime, he offers extravagant mercy. So for us too, patient love doesn't just let everything slide forever, but patient love trusts that perfect justice is on the way. It trusts God's promises and waits on the Lord.

And that perfectly loving patience and justice of God is fully embodied in his son Jesus Christ. So think of the scene in the New Testament in John eight. Religious leaders catch a woman in adultery and form an angry mob. Bring her out and throw her at Jesus' feet demanding justice. They say the law says she should be stoned.

What does Jesus do? He kneels down and starts writing in the sand. He gives them time, time for their anger to cool, time for mercy to enter the room. And then he stands up and says, Let the one who's without sin cast the first stone. Jesus invites them to examine their own hearts, consider what justice would look like for themselves.

He creates space for humility and repentance. It's as if he asked them as he did in the Sermon on the Mount, why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and ignore the plank in your own? Don't we still do that today? Criticize others for the very flaws that we carry? It's like interrupting someone to complain about how often people interrupt.

When the crowd reflects on this, one by one they all leave. And then Jesus, was without sin and did have the right to condemn her, patiently says to her, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. That is macrothymia. So what does it look like to grow in this kind of patient long suffering love?

Here are four quick ways we can learn to guard our patients this week. Number one, guard your response. We can get into all sorts of trouble when we react impulsively. Like Moses, we can turn into incredible hulks of rage if we aren't careful. Proverbs twenty five twenty eight says, If you cannot control your anger, you're as helpless as a city without walls open to attack.

If you're impatient, you're defenseless. Pastor Scott reminded us early in the series, love is spelled T I M E, so give it time. Pause, pray, and ask the spirit to lead you into a patient response. Guard your response. Number two, guard your relationships.

You will become an angry person if you hang out with angry people. That's what the Bible says. Proverbs twenty two twenty four, do not make friends with a hot tempered person. Do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared. You may find yourself in an angry mob like the one in John eight.

Turns out bad moods are more contagious than the common cold. So spend time with people who grow you in grace rather than feeding your frustrations. Guard your relationships. Number three, guard your thoughts. Anger always starts out in our thoughts.

Proverbs four twenty three says, be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life. So notice, are you rehearsing anger in your mind? When you feel wrong, do your thoughts replay it on loop as you justify your anger? Or are you taking every thought captive? As Paul urges us, whatever is true, whatever is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

Guard your thoughts. And finally, number four, guard your rest. Pastor Terrence taught us about the hat check. If you're hungry, angry, or tired, you're not primed for patience. Your defenses will be down.

So guard your rest. So here's the invitation for this week. Be patient like Jesus, slow to anger, abounding in love. Be slow to anger not because sin doesn't matter, but because justice isn't yours to carry alone. The Lord will bring perfect justice in his way, in his timing.

So you don't have to point out every flaw, you don't have to defend yourself in every argument, You don't have to hulk out. The same God who was patient with you calls you to extend that kind of love to others every day as you suffer along while running this race with endurance, looking forward to the crown that awaits you at the finish line. Pray you'll have fruitful discussions with your groups today. Remember to be patient with each other, and we'll see you next time. Be blessed.