How-to on patience, endurance

The answer to how you come to the place where you glory in tribulation is “the same way you come to the place where you glory in our future in heaven,” explains Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church.

“When Paul says, ‘We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope,’ the key word there is KNOWING.

“Tribulation in Bible terms is trouble, pressure, strains, difficulties, hardships, afflictions, problems, disappointments. Being justified with God we have peace, access and the hope of glory, but justification can’t give you patience.

“What gives you patience is God working in your life, taking tribulation and developing and producing in you persistence, patience, fortitude, steadfastness; that unwavering endurance.

“That’s what patience is! It’s that keeping on, keeping on, keeping on and keeping on and the way you get that, folks, is to be able to know some things about trouble when it comes into your life. That knowledge produces that persistence. It produces the stamina for the endurance.

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“You and I as saved people will never have any endurance—we’ll never be steadfast, unmovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord— if we don’t have some pressure to come up against to teach us endurance. The things that come into our lives, God brings those things into His WORKING in us and He wants to produce patience; that capacity to endure.

“James 1 says, ‘Knowing this that the trying of your faith works patience.’ You see that? ‘But let patience have her perfect work.’ He says, ‘I want you to be a whole Believer. I want you to be mature. I want you to let patience do that maturing work in your life.’

“That stimulus that hits the details of your life, they come and God says, ‘Now I’m going to show you something.’ How are you going to respond to that? The purpose of that stimuli is to try your faith. You’re to respond in faith, as God tells you to respond.

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“Are you going to stay with God’s Word and work out the problem, the difficulty, the issue according to the way God says to work it out and do it by faith, or are you going to revert to human viewpoint?

“Are you going to delve into the wisdom you’ve gained in your worldly dealings and answer a problem to solve a problem that way? That’s the issue. He said, ‘I’m going to try you out.’ These things come and they read your meter. They find out where your heart is.

“The trial doesn’t stop you, but rather you gain confidence. ‘Experience works hope . . . ’ That is, once you get some patience, you stay with the Word and do what God tells you to do and stick with it and then pretty soon you see, ‘Hey, I’ve got some experience handling that thing.’

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“If my car breaks down, I take it to someone who has some experience with the thing. I want a doctor who’s got some experience with my health problem, that kind of stuff.

“You know how a mechanic gets experience? Working on broken cars, facing trouble. As that experience comes, you get hope. You get experience when you find out, ‘Hey, there is hope! God does work in these things!’ and then that gives you boldness.

“Paul says, ‘And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.’

“Faith is to believe what God says to YOU. You’ll never have faith if you don’t have God’s Word to you and that’s why you’ve got to ‘rightly divide’ it. That Book rightly divided is absolutely essential for faith, because you can’t rest in something God didn’t tell you to do, because if God didn’t tell you to do it, it’s unbelief. You’re not going to force God to do something He isn’t going to do and it’s an evil thing to try to.

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“When God said to Abraham, ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains,’ was Isaac Abraham’s only boy? No, he had Ismael.

“You know, that’s a real lesson there about what that term ‘only begotten son’ means. That doesn’t mean it’s the only one period, it means it’s the one who’s the darling of Abraham’s heart. The unique son. The special son. You know what God told Abraham? He said, ‘Take that knife and put it up right next to the darling of your heart and cut it away.’

“You know what I’ve found out about the Lord? That’s what He does. What I know from God’s dealings with me is God’s going to try your faith. He’s not going to try it on some peripheral issue out yonder, either. It’s not always going to be flat tires and whether or not you’ll respond, ‘Glory to God!’

“When it’s the flat tire it’s easy, but when it reaches in there and gets that ‘darling,’ that thing that your heart loves and beats in tune with, that's the closest to you, and it reaches in there and it grabs THAT, then you say, ‘But, Lord, that’s the promised seed! Lord, what you taking that away for?! What’s going on?! Aren’t you anymore going to do what you told me you’re going to do?!’

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“I know something about how God’s going to deal with you. James 1 says, ‘Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.' It's going to happen, if it hasn't happened already.

“God reaches right in there for that darling of your heart and asks, ‘Are you going to put that on the altar, too? Is there going to be anything between you and me; anything dearer to you than I am? Anything more precious? Are you going to trust me or are you going to trust me just so far?’

“Paul says, ‘When that comes, it’s by faith that Abraham went up that mountain and took that boy.’ Folks, faith obeyed what God told it to do. I can’t emphasize that enough. Faith obedience. Faith is hearing what God says and living and acting as though what God said is true and that’s all there is to it.

“There are seven steps down through that passage in Genesis 22 that show the determined steps of Abraham’s obedience to what God told him. By faith, Abraham was in persistent, considered, determined obedience. You say, ‘Well, what in the world was Abraham’s faith resting on?!’ It rested on God’s promise.

“Almighty God had told him, ‘And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.’

“Abraham understood the issue of resurrection and everlasting life, and the most basic promise given to Abraham was the issue of everlasting life, so it’s no wonder when you see Abraham and Isaac go up that mountain, ‘Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.’ ”