Connected in Community By Longsuffering
Connected in
Community By Longsuffering
In any relationship, there are certain behaviors that allow that relationship to mature, growing
more intimate, more secure as time goes one. There are behaviors that connect
us and connected we thrive, connected we survive.
Last time we
learned that love connects us in the body of Christ, connects us to each other.
Love is respecting the other person and seeking to meet their need as the opportunity arises often at the cost of personal sacrifice. We learned Jesus
modeled that love that we are to love one another with. Love is the basis for all the other
connections that bind us together in Christ. Love keeps us together.
We are going to
explore another behavior that keeps us together. The behavior that strengthens
the unity of any relationship is longsuffering. Longsuffering is a great
empowerment given to us by the Holy Spirit. Longsuffering keeps us together. In
the body, we don’t ever want to be a recipient of longsuffering but we certainly
are expected by the Lord to extend it to others.
Longsuffering is an
older word. I haven’t heard it used in a conversation in recent times. If you
have ever read the bible in the King James Version you will have come across it.
2 Peter 3:9
(KJV)The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness;
but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that
all should come to repentance.
Modern translations
and paraphrases take that word longsuffering (makrothumia) and render it as
patience. I think the word patience, at least the way we commonly use it today,
fails to convey to us the depth of what is trying to be communicated. Longsuffering deals with how you handle
problems with people. Longsuffering overrides the desire to smack someone on
the side of the head who from our enlightened perspective desperately needs it.
It’s the ability to hold your temper coupled with the ability to keep on loving
them.
There are people in
the Church, members of the body, brothers, and sisters in Christ who just don’t
seem to get it. Longsuffering helps us to continue to nurture them until they
do get it, whatever it may be. We see this modeled by Jesus.
Longsuffering keeps
on trying with people who don’t get it.
Matt 23:37 (MSG)
"Jerusalem!
Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God's news!
How often I've ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks
under her wings, and you wouldn't let me.
Jerusalem refers to
the place where the chosen of God live. Jerusalem’s Children refers to the
Jews, those who should have recognized and accepted Jesus as Messiah but
instead rejected. “How often I have
ached to embrace” is the action of longsuffering, there is compassion for those
who don’t get it.
Jesus demonstrated
longsuffering as he was dying on the cross for those who didn’t get it.
Luke 23:34 (MSG)
Jesus prayed,
"Father, forgive them; they don't know what they're doing."
In both these
incidents Jesus wants the best for people. But the people refuse. Even in his suffering
Jesus still wants them to be able to get it.
Sometimes
longsuffering gets very direct, it definitely confronts, seeking to correct,
longsuffering is not passive.
Luke 22:36-38 (MSG)
Get ready for
trouble. Look to what you'll need; there are difficult times ahead. Pawn your
coat and get a sword. That was written in Scripture, 'He was lumped in with the
criminals,' gets its final meaning in me. Everything written about me is now
coming to a conclusion." They said,
"Look, Master, two swords!"
But he said,
"Enough of that; no more sword talk!"
Here the disciples
miss the point of what Jesus is trying to tell them. The immediately take the
literal meaning of “pawn your coat to buy a sword.” They don’t get it. Rather
emphatically Jesus tells them Enough! Longsuffering corrects, it doesn’t let
things slide.
Longsuffering doesn’t
retaliate against people who don’t get it.
Luke 9:53-55 (MSG)
“…the Samaritans
learned that [Jesus’] destination was Jerusalem, they refused hospitality. When
the disciples James and John learned of it, they said, "Master, do you
want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate
them?" Jesus turned on them:
"Of course not!"
Culturally it is a
huge insult to refuse hospitality. Two of Jesus’ inner circle want to
retaliate, to get some revenge. They
have been following Jesus for almost 3 years and they don’t get it. Longsuffering
doesn’t retaliate and longsuffering makes it possible to use such a circumstance
to teach what is right. “No,” we are not raining fire down because of their
rudeness.”
There have been
times when I just want to lay the smackdown on somebody for not getting it.
Longsuffering helps me not to be offensive with people who don’t get it.
Longsuffering
allows you to take disappointment in other's behavior in stride.
John 6:63-67 (MSG)
The Spirit can make
life. Sheer muscle and willpower don't make anything happen. Every word I've
spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making. But some of you are
resisting, refusing to have any part in this." (Jesus knew from the start
that some weren't going to risk themselves with him. He knew also who would
betray him.) He went on to say, "This is why I told you earlier that no
one is capable of coming to me on his own. You get to me only as a gift from
the Father."
After this a lot of
his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. Then Jesus
gave the Twelve their chance: "Do you also want to leave?"
People have the
great ability to disappoint. It happens all the time in the Church, It
shouldn’t but it does. It’s the grace of longsuffering that hopes, if not
today, then maybe tomorrow they will get it.
Longsuffering
allows you to deal with exasperation at another’s behavior.
John 14:8-10 (MSG)
Philip said,
"Master, show us the Father; then we'll be content."
"You've been
with me all this time, Philip, and you still don't understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can
you ask, 'Where is the Father?' Don't you believe that I am in the Father and
the Father is in me?
Philip, you still
don’t get it! Ok, let's try again—that’s longsuffering.
People! One Pastor
said, “Ministry would be great if it wasn’t for people.” Friends look around the room, see all the
folks here, most are your brothers and sisters in Christ, some are on the verge
of becoming a member of the family of God, others are here just kicking the
tires to check things out, but look around. The only person that is normal in
this room is you. Everyone else is a shade off, they are some degree of weird.
Longsuffering is what keeps you going in such a group. Sometimes in the family people want to fight
you, they are always opposed to the things you are for. Then there are folks constantly clamoring for
your attention, they consume, they consume your time, talent and treasure if
you allow it. Some seem to have the spiritual gift of complaining or a schedule
that prevents them from helping out. Some always have something for you to do. It seems like you’re always helping them,
they perpetually seem like they just don’t get it.
The writer of
Hebrews looked out at the folks in his fellowship and said:
Hebrews 5:12-14
(MSG)
By this time you
ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down
with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby's
milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners,
inexperienced in God's ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some
practice in telling right from wrong.
In the best
possible fellowships, those local congregations of the body, there are people
who will drive you nuts. It’s a given. There will always be an EGR—a person who
requires extra grace to work with. Do you have an Extra Grace Required person
in mind? Grace is the desire to be and
the power to do. When dealing with those brothers or sisters that just don’t
get it, that extra grace comes in the form of longsuffering.
Longsuffering keeps
you in the game with people who don’t get it. The Holy Spirit’s empowerment
makes it possible for you to lay down your life for those who don’t get
it. Longsuffering doesn’t turn you into
a doormat or a person easily taken advantage of, no instead you have the power to
lovingly correct inordinate behavior. When people really tick you off you find
you don’t retaliate. You realize for now they just don’t get it so you can
handle the disappointment and the feelings of exasperation when they don’t meet
expectations. You continue to love on them in hopes that one day soon they will
get it.
If you are
wondering what folks need to get when they don’t get it, you already have one answer. Everyone in the
body is to love, and too often people don’t get it that being a lover is
what they are supposed to be. Relationships work best when both parties are
committed to loving each other. If you’ve got that down, you’ve got it. If
there is no judgment in your heart, no condemnation for others, you’ve got it. If
you are encouraging one another, admonishing one another, and building one
another up, hey, you’ve got it. There is teaching one another, listening to one
another, counseling one another, carrying another’s burden, weeping with those
in grief, rejoice with the one, these types of behaviors demonstrate the you
have got it. Getting it is helping
others in their journey of becoming more like Jesus. Getting it is being the ambassador of the Kingdom of God that you have been empowered to be.
Getting it is being salt and light in a world that needs Jesus. Friends,
getting it, is about being like Jesus.
Carlo Carretto was
not a theologian, priest or pastor, yet he still had a keen insight into the
things of God. He wrote: “How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love
you! How you have made me suffer, and
yet how much I owe you! I should like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your
presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand
sanctity. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more
compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous,
more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your
face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms. No. I
cannot free myself from you, because I am you although not completely.
You and I are the
Church and in Carretto I see his expression of longsuffering. We strive to get
it as we continue to help those who don’t get it. That attitude, that behavior,
keeps us together, keeps the body healthy and vital and thriving.
I praise God for
his longsuffering because I have discovered that I “don’t get it” way too
often. If God gave up on me in those
times when I did not do His will, I would be headed to an eternity without God.
I thank God that He doesn’t treat me as
I deserve.
Psalms 103:8-11
(MSG)
God is sheer mercy
and grace; not easily angered, he's rich in love. He doesn't endlessly nag and
scold nor hold grudges forever. He doesn't treat us as our sins deserve, nor
pay us back in full for our wrongs. As
high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his love to those who fear him.
I thank my brothers
and sisters who by actualizing the power of the Holy Spirit when I fell short
of their expectations extended to me longsuffering by confronting me, listening
to me, encouraging and just plain not giving up on me. It’s easy to avoid and disregard
someone, to write them off, but to do so is to damage the body. No instead they
did the hard thing, they did what scripture says we are to do.
Ephesians 4:1-3
(KJV)
I therefore, the
prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith
ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing
one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace.
Thank God for
brothers and sisters that get it and don’t treat me as my sins deserve.
Longsuffering in
the body should be freely and frequently dispensed. God empowers you to give it
away and God empowers you not to need to receive it. Do you get it?
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