And the title of the message this
morning is Fruitful Patience. Fruitful Patience. Again, looking at the prayer
of the Apostle Paul. Which we can see, I've preached
on this for several weeks now, this is full. This is not an
empty prayer, but it's full. Because the Holy Ghost has moved
on the Apostle to write this prayer. This is the Holy Spirit
of God as He would move on the Apostle to pray for this church,
even so this was for our benefit. our benefit. And the Apostle
says in verse 9 of Colossians 1, he said, For this cause we
also, since the day we heard of it, of their faith, their
love and hope, do not cease to pray for you, to desire that
you might be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all
wisdom and spiritual understanding. Again, looking at this prayer
for the church of Colossae, he is desirous that they be filled
with knowledge, the knowledge of God's will, His eternal will,
His immutable will, His sovereign will. But he also desires that
this knowledge of God's will should be applied to their hearts
in wisdom and spiritual understanding. Why is this? Because knowledge
alone yields pride. Knowledge alone yields pride. But when taught by the Holy Spirit
in the heart, it will yield humility. When the gospel is taught aright,
when grace is taught aright by the Holy Spirit, it will yield
not pride, but humility. Thus, in this humility, Paul
asks God for the grace that they should, in verse 10, walk worthy
of the Lord unto all pleasing. That they should walk worthy
of the Lord. This is always the result of
humiliation. When God the Holy Spirit humbles
a man, this is the result. He will walk worthy. of the Lord
unto all pleasing. It is the desire of every person
who is saved by the grace of God to walk before our Lord in
humility, recognizing we are nothing and He is everything. This is what it is to walk worthy
of the Lord. It is to walk by faith, not by
sight. It is to walk in love, not only
for God, but love for the brethren. This is to walk in humility as
the result of such knowledge applied by the Holy Spirit. To know that we are saved by
grace. Therefore, believers, let us
order our conduct accordingly. As Paul said in Philippians 1,
as becometh the gospel. We should order our conduct as
becometh the gospel. The saints of God seeing we are
nothing but sinners saved by the grace of God, through the
one offering of Jesus Christ, we should in our conduct and
conversation be the most forgiving and gracious people. You recognize
that, that we should be the most forgiving and gracious people?
We should be the most kind people, recognizing the kindness of God
upon us. We should be kind. We should
be kind. We should follow in the steps
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who went about doing what? Good. Christ went about doing good. This is what the knowledge of
the will of God that is taught by the Holy Spirit in humiliation
should cause us to order our conduct so as to follow our Lord
in doing good. Doing good. You remember in Titus
3, we went over this Wednesday. This is just a recap from Wednesday.
In Titus chapter 3, he tells us that this salvation was by
the grace of God. We were cleansed and regenerated
by the Holy Spirit. By the grace of God, not according
to our works. And he tells Titus, this I will
that you affirm constantly. What? The gospel. That you preach
this over and over and over to my people. For what purpose?
that they might be careful, diligent to maintain good works. Good works. We are never, ever, ever, ever
to trust in our works. Never. Never for one moment as
you're doing any good deed among men are you ever to trust it.
You'll fall. It will not be good enough. Whatever
it is that you've done that you think is good, it's not good
enough. You don't trust it. We don't
trust in our works to make us acceptable before God. Because
this has truly already been done in Christ and by the power of
the Holy Spirit in the new creature. We are acceptable before God. We're not trying to make ourselves
acceptable with God. We are acceptable. Remember,
we have been accepted in the Beloved from the foundation of
the world. When Christ redeemed us, He accepted
His offering, and by accepting Him, He accepted us. And when
in the new creation He has given us that righteous nature, we
are accepted. So these good works are not to
be accepted, but rather because we are accepted. That's what
we do it for. Because we are, we're thankful.
Be sure of this, if you are saved by the grace of God, if Christ
is truly your Savior, if Christ is your Savior and
your faith is a gift of God, There will be a faithful display
of God's work in our life. There will be evidence. There
will be evidence. In other words, what Paul is
saying in our text, he says that you might walk worthy unto all
pleasing. What is that? That's doing good. That's following after Christ.
Listen what it yields. Being fruitful. being fruitful in every good
work. Fruitful! This is what God's
people will be. They will be fruitful. Not a
question. It's a fact. They will be. Go over to Genesis chapter 29.
I want you to see in this man Jacob's prophecy. 49, Genesis
49. if I didn't say that. Genesis 49 and verse 22. Here Jacob is giving the prophecy,
not necessarily blessings because some of his children didn't receive
blessings. He's just telling them what's
going to be. And he says this of Joseph in
verse 22. He said, Joseph is a fruitful
bow. Joseph is a fruitful bow. Now, this word bow means son,
branch. You remember the Scriptures talking
about Christ being the root and the offspring or the branch of
David. Well, this is a bow, it's a branch,
but it's also a son. He said Joseph is a fruitful
son. Here, Joseph is a type of every
believer in Christ. Consider Joseph's birth. Wasn't
Joseph's birth a miraculous birth? His mother was barren. And yet,
here comes this fruitful son. Out of what? A barren womb. Isn't that where we come from?
A barren nature? Isn't that our birth? Isn't our
birth miraculous in that the Lord Jesus Christ quickened us
from the dead? This is a picture of every believer.
We are the children of God, born from a barren nature, raised
from the dead, from darkness to light. And Joseph was a fruitful
and faithful son. And even so will every believer
in Christ be a fruitful and faithful son. Jesus said this, I am the vine,
and you are the branches. Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, listen, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth
fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Thus,
in the church, listen, in the church there is always a mixture. There's always a mixture. There
are tares and wheat, goats and sheep, lost and saved. There's always been this. These that bear no fruit are
the same as those who hear the word on stony and thorny ground. They are false professors and
will soon be cut off and gathered and burned. But every true believer that
bringeth shall bring forth fruit. And Jesus said this, some 100,
some 60, and some 30. In other words, there's different
measures of fruit that are going to be brought forth by believers. But you know what they have all
of them in common? Is that they all bear fruit.
Every one of them. Every one of them. And this is
the fruit which we bear, even the fruit of the Spirit. What
are the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance,
faith. All of these, most of these are
mentioned in Galatians chapter 5 for us. But faith, consider
this, faith is a fruit of the Spirit. Do you believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ? Well, yeah. That's a fruit. That's a fruit. Do you not see
that it bears fruit? That you have faith? That's a
fruit of God the Holy Spirit. What about love? Do you love
Christ? How do I know if I love Christ?
Do you love the brethren? That's easy to answer. John goes
through all this. He said, how can you love Him
who you've not seen if you can't love somebody, one of His seed
that you can see? And so, this is a fruit. You
love the brethren? That's a fruit of the Spirit
of God. What about peace? Where's our peace? Did Jesus
Christ not make peace with God by the blood of His cross? You
bet He did. What does this blood do for me?
It gives me peace in my heart. When I think of the blood of
Christ and what it's done, it yields the fruit of peace in
my heart. I'm fruitful. Fruitful. Humility, meekness, kindness,
a desire to grow in these graces. Do you not desire to grow in
these graces? Yes, we do. Believers desire
to grow. And all of this redounds to the
glory of our God. In the Trinity of His persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose perfect, immutable, eternal
work and purpose is the salvation of our souls. And what will the
Holy Gardener do when He comes to collect this fruit of His? What will He find? What will He do when He finds
such fruit as faith, hope, love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance? When these fruits are abounding,
what is the gardener of heaven going to do? Jesus said He will
prune it. He will prune it. He will cut
it back. He plucks away the dead leaves
that prevent the sun and rain from falling on the good ones.
Isn't that what you do with dead leaves in your garden? If you
have a garden, never seen one. You got dead leaves. If they're
covering the fruit, the fruit is not receiving the nutrients
it needs. You pluck those things away.
It is draining nutrients from the root that should be going
to the fruit. You pluck it off. That's what
He does. And so our God prunes us. who are plants of His heavenly
vine, that we should, what? Flourish. That's what Psalm 92,
verse 13 says. Those that are planted in the
house of the Lord, listen, shall flourish in the courts of our
God. How does He cause us to grow
in these graces? He prunes us. These are truly dead works of
the flesh that should be discarded, seeing they have no value to
God, but only cumber us down. Listen, Joseph is a fruitful
bow. That's not a question. That's a statement. Believers,
you shall be fruitful to your God. Does that give you comfort?
Because this is just something God has willed. You shall be
fruitful in every good work. You shall be. But how then shall
this fruit grow? Only through trouble. Only through trouble. J.C. Philpott
said this, we are surely poor judges of fruit as regard ourselves. We're just poor judges. Many
a dear saint of God, in whom the eyes of others can see rich,
ripe clusters hidden, it may be, by the leaves of profession,
mourn and sigh daily, saying, My leanness, my leanness, woe
unto me, as they examine themselves in
the sight of God." Isn't that what you say? When you examine
yourselves to find this fruit, what do you find? Nothing. You
can't find fruit if it hits you in the face. You couldn't see
it. You couldn't be a good judge of it. Now, you're a good judge
of it in others. But I tell you, you're a poor
judge of it in yourself. When you look inside, what did
Newton say? When I look within, all is vain
and wild. That's all I see. Leaves of profession
that need to be plucked away. That's all I see. They say, my
leanness, my leanness. And as the gardener comes and
looks under the leaves to find rich clusters, we take up our
leaves of profession and say, do I bring forth fruit? Do I live to the praise of God? Is my walk worthy of the Lord? Then our carnal minds begin to
sink low and so little in spiritual mind to lift us up, we are ready
to faint. When I talk about fruitfulness,
when you start looking inside, and you've done that already,
you begin to sink. You begin to sink. I know that's
the case because when I'm studying this, what do you think I'm doing?
I'm sinking. I'm sinking when I'm studying.
You mean I'm bearing fruit? Where is it? I can't find it.
I can't find it. Yet with all our complaints of
our barrenness and fruitlessness, we are in the sight of God as
a fruitful bow. You are, you are a fruitful bow. Why? Christ has made you such. Christ has made you fruitful.
You are a fruitful bow because you abide in the vine. And the
vine is the cause of the fruit. Thus we rejoice in Christ the
vine and such fruits of grace, for He is the well." Notice in
this, in Genesis, he said, Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful
bough by a well. By a well. Whose branches run
over the wall. You not see here a well and a
wall? What is it that gives the fruit
nourishment but the well? and what supports the fruit,
but the wall. Is that not Christ, our strength? It is Christ, our strength. Christ
is the strength, the nourishment of our fruit, the cause, and
the support. Rejoice in Christ the vine, believer,
for such fruits of grace come from the well of His strength.
That's what Paul said, that you should be strengthened with all
might. Who has all might? Not you. Not you. Oh, weak, flimsy vine. You have no fruit. You can't
bear the weight of your own fruit. But Christ is your strength.
And by Him, you will yield this fruitfulness. Oh, the joy of
our salvation is this. Listen, believer, the whole is
of God. You want to find any joy in your salvation, you better
get a hold to this. It's all of God. It's all of
Him. It's all of God. being confident
of this very thing, that He that hath begun a good work in you
shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. John 6, 29. This is the work of God that
you should believe on Jesus Christ. This is the work of God. And of this fruit, Paul says,
Jesus is both the author and finisher. Do you worry that you're gonna
stop believing? Well, I do. I have that trouble
all the time. Matter of fact, my faith is altogether
unbelief. I just can't even see how it's
possible to be faith. It's so weak, it's so small.
But I know this, because Christ is the author of it, He surely
will be the finisher of it. This fruit will endure. It will. The fruit of faith. We are His,
what? Workmanship! Created in Christ
Jesus unto good works. Listen, which God hath before
ordained that you should walk in them. This fruit has already
been ordained to grow. And now, see how God will produce
this fruitfulness. Go back to your text. He says
that you might walk worthy unto the Lord, being fruitful in every
good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened
with all might according to His glorious power. Listen, unto
all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. How is God going
to produce this fruit that He promises? Trouble. Do you desire to grow in the
grace and knowledge of God? Do you desire it? Do you want
it? Listen what you're asking for.
Trouble. This is how God does it. Through much tribulation, much
trouble, many trials. Back over in Genesis chapter
49, it also says that Joseph was a fruitful bow, he's by a
well, he's supported by a wall, but then it says, the archers
have set their arrows against him and hated him. God says of Joseph, the archers
have sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him. Joseph
was a fruitful son, was he not? You remember his account. He
was a good son, loved by his father. Do you suppose that a
good child, that that wouldn't be a blessing, to have a good
child? I know it would be. Who doesn't want a good child? But do you think being a good
child would shield someone from trouble? You'd think it would.
You'd think everybody would like a good son. Hey, look at my good
son! Everybody looks at him, and what
do they do? They're jealous, and they hate him. That's exactly
what happened to Joseph. He was a good son! And what,
instead of good times and joy, It brought hatred and jealousy
from his brothers. His brothers treated him cruelly,
despised him, and even so, listen, believer, as you bear fruit unto
your God, it will not cause men to love you, it will cause them
to hate you. Hate you. Despise you. You walk worthy of Jesus Christ,
believer, and I tell you, you'll be shot at. The quiver of Satan and the world
are full of arrows to shoot at us. And listen, truth be told, we
are a very large target. You don't have to look at me
very long to find out my sin. You don't have to look very long.
You want to shoot at me, you can find plenty to shoot at. Surely the arrows of trouble
and grief shoot at us daily. These arrows surely cause us
to fear and question our own salvation and interest in Christ.
But you, believer, take heart in Christ. You are in Christ. For listen, the bow of Joseph,
the bow of Joseph abode in strength. That's what the prophecy said.
Though they shot at him and hated him, his bow endured in strength. Satan, believer,
will accuse us, the world will hate us, and the flesh will always
oppose us, and there will be no ceasefire, no truce, so long
as you live in this body. You expect one, you're deceiving
yourself. You want a time of happiness
with yourself and the world, you are living in a fantasy world. That's not going to happen. Don't
be deceived. This warfare never ends. There's
no reprieve. There are times of restoration. There are times when the Lord
gives us elims. Remember, they went through that
desert, Israel did, and God brought them to those twelve palm trees
full of whales. But that didn't last long because
they went right from there to the wilderness of sin where they
got bit by the serpents. You see, it's not a long time
we spend in prosperity. We spend most of our days, believer,
in trouble. In trouble. And what fruit will yield from
such trials and troubles? Paul prays that these be fruitful
in the strength of God unto all... Listen. Patience. Patience. And longsuffering. Patience. What do these troubles yield
us, believer? The pearl of patience. Patience. Go to James chapter
5. Patience. James chapter 5. And beginning in verse 7, down
through verse 11, that we are exhorted three times in these
few verses concerning patience. He says this in verse 7, Be what? Patient. Brethren, Unto the coming
of the Lord, behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit
of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the
early and the latter rain. Be patient. As a farmer who plants
a crop must be patient and wait for the fruit. And what is he waiting for in
the middle? From the time he plants it to
the time it grows out and the corn comes out, what is he waiting
on? They didn't have sprinkler systems.
They didn't have any way to irrigate their farms in this way. What
did they have to wait on? The former and the latter reign. Who provided that was God. So
they were patiently waiting on God to provide. And so what are
we to do in the time that the seed is planted? Until the time the Lord Jesus
Christ comes, the fullness of that fruit, what is we to do?
We're to wait on the former and latter reigns of God. We're to
wait on God and be patient. Verse 8, be ye also patient. Establish your hearts, for the
coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Be patient. And then he said
in verse 11, Behold, we count them happy, which endure. Have
you heard of the patience of Job? Does the Lord give us this threefold
exhortation to be patient even because we are in much need of
it? Isn't that right? Do you not
need patience? Have we not been most efficient
in this grace of patience? And been by our impatience, we
have wasted and missed great opportunities to glorify our
Lord and Savior. Impatience. Impatience has robbed
us of many a blessing. The psalmist says many are the
afflictions of the righteous. But the Lord delivereth him out
of them all. Affliction. Affliction is that
fire which God means not to destroy us, but rather to burn the dross,
to refine our souls to greater manifestations of His grace. And surely by this affliction
He will display the pearl of patience. Our patience in the fire causes
the graces of God to become more dear to our hearts. The more we are apt to wait on
our God, the more, by this grace of patience, we can see more
manifestations of His great power and glory. When I was a young man, I was
a very poor plumber. My dad owned a plumbing business
and we had to work in it. And I was the worst plumber that
ever lived. You would never want me to work
on your plumbing. But when we did this, I had to
solder a copper pipe. You take a copper pipe, you put
the fitting on it, but you'd have to clean the pipe, and then
you'd put this flux around the pipe and in the fitting. And
then you would put the fitting on, and then you would put a
torch to the pipe and the fitting. And then when it was hot enough,
you would put the solder on the pipe and it would suck, it would
draw it into the fitting so that the fitting wouldn't leak. But
what happens when you take the fire away too early? The solder
doesn't always take and you have a leak. You see what impatience
does. If the fire is removed too quickly,
then the graces are not drawn in to the heart. Impatience robs us of the full
benefits of God's graces. Therefore, believer in James
5, he tells us, you've heard of the patience of Job. Haven't
you heard of his patience? He reminds us of what this man
Job endured. Surely Job was a man like we
are. Job was no super-Christian. He
was a man just like you. And God set upon this man great
afflictions in order to do what? To display his patience. Really,
consider what if God never put those things on Job. Would you
have ever heard of Job? Would you ever be able to benefit
from his patience? No. God did this not only for
Job, but for you. Have you heard of the patience
of Job? Have you heard how that Job endured great afflictions? Let us see that these two are
indispensable and inseparable afflictions and patience. You
can't have one without the other. This man Job lost all his property,
his wealth, his children, and he lost it all at once. Lost
everything. Without warning, without cause,
it was all gone. Have you experienced anything
close to that? No. This man lost all of his
children at one time. A wind knocked the house down and
all of his children were dead. His health was touched so that
the boils covered from his head to his feet so that every nerve
in his body was exposed to pain. so that nowhere he could move,
nothing he could do to escape the pain of his body and his
heart, his wife and his friends turned on him. They turned on
him, pierced his soul with cruel and cold affections. Yet herein
is hope for us who have not been made to feel such loss as he
has. He endured, so can we. Does that not give you some comfort
to know that He endured? That He, a man like you, endured?
That He had patience to wait on His God? You too may have
patience to wait on your God. Is it not comforting to know
that Elijah was a man of like passions as we are? Is that not
comforting to know? That's why God put it in the
book. In His greatest affliction, Job
said this, I know the way I take. When he has tried me, I shall
come forth as gold. You see Job's patience? You see
how he waited on God? He knew this. He said, I know
the way I'm going. I'm going to glory. And this
way, God's led me down this path. And God's trying me. And when
he's finished, Job says, I know what's going to happen. I will
become as pure as gold. Job looked not at his suffering,
but at his sovereign God who was the source of all his trouble.
And he patiently waited, he patiently trusted that no matter his pain,
no matter his affliction, God will deliver him. He says, My Redeemer liveth and
shall stand in the latter days upon the earth, though after
my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God.
If Job endured such troubles impatiently waiting upon God
and His Redeemer, should not we do the same? Should we not wait on our God
to deliver us? Is that your nature? To wait
on God? What do you want to do when you
get into trouble? You want to get out. And you don't care how you do
it. You want out. That's the natural man. May God
strengthen us in the inner man to sit still, shut up, and wait. Wait how? By faith. Knowing God shall deliver us. When? When it best suits us. The righteous suffer much affliction,
but God delivereth them out of all our distresses. Let me ask you, believer, are
you in affliction? Is God unreasonable to ask you
to be patient? No, look at what he says here. He said, You've heard of the
patience of Job and have seen the end. Didn't you see the end
of Job? Now, you saw Job. You saw all
of his trouble, but you also saw the end of Job. What was
the end? The end of the Lord. What was
the end of the Lord? His very pitiful and tender mercy. This is always the end. This
is always the result. Pitiful and tender mercy. God
says, I know my thoughts of you. Thoughts of good and not of evil. To give you what? Unexpected
end. Unexpected end. I've read the back of the book.
Haven't you? I know how this is going to turn
out. Don't you? Don't you know how it's going
to end? Now, you may not know much about the middle, but I'll
tell you what, you know the end of it. Therefore, you should
patiently wait. Establish your hearts. Set your eyes on God. And fix
them on Christ. And you may endure with joy. your afflictions You have afflictions
do you not desire to endure them with joy Yes, yes, yes, then look to Christ
and you shall because the end you know the end of this You know God's purpose All things, all things, all things work together for good to them that love God, to them
who are called according to His purpose. Therefore, we may endure
our sufferings with joy because, listen, God is ruling over all
our troubles. I like what Spurgeon called Satan. He said, that dog of hell may
snarl and growl, but he can never break the chain and collar of
omnipotence. If Satan is on you, it is because
God has let his chain little. But you be sure who holds the
chain. And when it is not to your benefit,
he will pull the dog from you. Isn't that great? Isn't that
special? Doesn't that cause you to have
joy even in the midst of your troubles? That's patience. That's patience. Waiting on God. Waiting on God. And friends,
let patience have her perfect work. Don't, by your impatience, miss
the opportunity to glorify your God by being patient. Wounded, weary, suffering saint,
God is ruling over all your afflictions. Therefore, you may endure no
matter how long the trial may last. Even because our patience
by which we endure is not according to our strength, but underneath
are the everlasting arms that embrace us, that hold us, sustain
us, God is thy refuge and thy strength. And I'll ask you this, how could
we ever expect to receive more of the graces of God except we
endure much affliction? Romans 5, it says this, Therefore,
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into
this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. Not only so, but we glory in
tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh what? and patience when it's had its
perfect work. What does it work? Experience. Have you not always found God
to be faithful? Which one of you believers can
raise your hand and say God has not been faithful? If you know God at all, you know
that's not true. God has always been faithful.
That is my, not only my knowledge, but that is my experience. So tribulation, work of patience
and patience, what? Experience. And experience generates
what? Hope! I have hope. I have an expected end coming.
The Lord Jesus Christ will return and he will receive me unto himself,
that where he is, I'll be also. I have an expected end. And hope maketh not ashamed.
And I'm not ashamed to tell you. I'm not ashamed of this gospel,
are you? Not a bit ashamed. I'm ashamed at myself, but I'm
not ashamed of him. Not ashamed of Him. Affliction. Impatiently born will not bless
us. If we kick at God's providence
and murmur against God's rules, surely it is inconsistent with
faith in a sovereign God, is it not? You in trouble? Are you kicking? Is that not
inconsistent with faith? You bet it is. Stop. Stop kicking. Stop murmuring. Patiently wait on my God. And
in due time, He'll exalt you. He'll deliver you. Let us hear
the pearls of this prayer of encouragement. Be patient. Long-suffering. And how are we
to do this? With joyfulness and thanksgiving. God moves in a mysterious way,
his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the
sea and rides upon the storm. Deep and unfathomable minds of
never-failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and does
what? Works his sovereign will. You fearful saints. Fresh courage
take. These clouds you so much dread
are rich in mercy and shall break. In what? Blessings on your head. So what do you do? Wait. Wait. Be patient. Look to your God. in your affliction he is a very
present help when in trouble where we spend most
of our days he's present help in trouble may god bless us to
you