The Apostasy of Impatience - Ask Pastor John

Video from Desiring God

The Apostasy of Impatience - Ask Pastor John

Audio Transcript

"The vanity of self-image is what we looked at last time. Today we look at impatience. An older man who faithfully listens to the podcast writes in to us with this question: “Pastor John, hello! Can patience, though a fruit of the Spirit, ever be faithfully lost? That is, can a Christian — who sincerely loves God and walks in obedience — find their patience wearing thin, or even seemingly gone, and still remain within the bounds of spiritual faithfulness?

“We understand patience not merely as a human virtue but as a grace, a manifestation of the Spirit’s life within us, a quiet but powerful testimony to the reality of Christ in the soul (Galatians 5:22–23). It is, by nature, enduring. Yet life often stretches us far beyond what we imagined we could endure. There are times, even in our most earnest devotion, when the behavior of another wounds us repeatedly, or when a particular hardship persists for months or years, grinding away at our resolve. At times, the waiting itself — whether for healing, resolution, clarity, or deliverance — becomes a wilderness of its own and we find ourselves crying out in that moment, not from rebellion, but from exhaustion: ‘How long, O Lord?’”

No Easy Answer

My first response to this question is that it is beautifully written. Serious thought went into the question and how to put it into words, and I appreciate that. My sense from listening carefully is that there is a beautiful soul behind the beautiful words and, I dare say, a sorely tried soul. There’s no simple answer to the question, “Can a Christian — who sincerely loves God and walks in obedience — find their patience wearing thin, or even seemingly gone, and still remain within the bounds of spiritual faithfulness?”

There’s no simple answer to that. Of course, I’m tempted to say that the answer is easy — “Yes, yes, that’s possible. We all stumble into impatience, and through repentance and confession we find forgiveness.” But that’s not a satisfactory answer because patience and impatience are not simple things. They are complex. So, let me try to explain what I mean by this complexity and why the answer is not simple.

There are two words for “patience” in the New Testament. One is makrothymia, which means “long-suffering.” You can hear “long-suffering” in the word macro. The fuse is long before the firecracker goes off. The other word is hypomonē and means “bearing up under” — “endurance,” “fortitude,” “perseverance.”

When you do a word study (which I did to get ready for this) and look up all the uses of those two words, what you find is that there are at least six different answers to the question, “Long-suffering before what?” You ask, “Does long-suffering have an end?” Yes, it probably has an end. Before what? Or enduring until what? And depending on how you answer those questions, the issue of impatience will be more or less serious or dangerous.

Six Circumstances

So, here they are. Here are the six instances of answering the question, “Long-suffering before what?”

Number one, be long-suffering before you get angry. “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20). So, long-suffering until what? Until you get angry. Don’t get angry quicker than you should.

“There’s a limit to anger-free patience, and there’s a limit to relationship-enduring patience.”

Number two, be long-suffering before you forsake the Christian faith. Hebrews 6:12: “Be . . . imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Or Romans 8:24–25: “In this hope [the hope of redeemed bodies] we were saved. . . . But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it [that is, we wait for our salvation in the end with new bodies] with patience.” Or James 5:7: “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.” Or Mark 13:13: “[He] who endures to the end will be saved.”

Number three, be long-suffering before you stop doing good. Romans 2:7: “To those who by patience in well-doing [in doing good] seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” Or Galatians 6:9: “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap [eternal life], if we do not give up.”

Number four, be long-suffering before you return hurt for hurt or evil for evil. Second Timothy 2:24: “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil.” Or 1 Peter 2:20: “If when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.” Or 1 Corinthians 4:12–13: “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat.” Or Romans 12:19–20: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. . . . If your enemy is hungry, feed him.”

Number five, be long-suffering before you cease to forgive another. Colossians 3:12–13: “Put on then . . . compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and . . . forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you.” Be long-suffering before you cease to forgive.

Number six, be long-suffering before you leave a relationship. First Thessalonians 5:14: “Admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” And yet, Titus 3:10: “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him.”

So, now you can see why there cannot be a single simple answer to the question, “Can a Christian — who sincerely loves God and walks in obedience — find their patience wearing thin, or even seemingly gone, and still remain in the bounds of spiritual faithfulness?” Because the answer is going to be no in some tests of patience and yes in other tests of patience.

Impatience Costs Souls

So, for example, if someone says, “My patience has given out, and I will no longer forgive you,” or “I’m done returning good for evil. From now on, it’s tit for tat, evil for evil, eye for eye. You better watch out,” or “My patience has given out, and I will no longer seek to do good. It doesn’t pay. I’m giving up. I’m out of here,” or “I’m no longer going to be patient and hold fast to my faith while I wait for the coming of the Lord. I don’t think he’s coming, and I’m done with this Christianity thing. I’m going to deconstruct. I’m done. I’m out of here” — I would say in all four of those cases, we dare not cease to be patient. You lose your soul. It will cost you your soul if you cease to be patient in those four kinds of ways.

If we will no longer forgive as we’ve been forgiven, if we will no longer return good for evil, if we will no longer do good, if we will no longer endure the hardships of this life without giving up on Christ, we will be lost. Patience in those cases is absolutely essential. You can’t give up.

Limits of Patience

But it’s not the same with anger and leaving a relationship. Jesus looked around on the hard-hearted critics who cared nothing for the crippled, and he was really angry and grieved in his heart (Mark 3:5). And so it is with Christ’s people. We are warned to be slow to anger since it’s often a sign of sinful impatience. I need to be told, “Piper, be slow because you’ve got a hair trigger.” But it’s not always wrong to be angry. “Be angry and do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26).

So, patience has a limit in some cases. And with relationships there are limits. Paul says, “I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler — not even to eat with such a one” (1 Corinthians 5:11). So, there’s a limit to anger-free patience, and there’s a limit to relationship-enduring patience.

One last thing: Patience is not a chipper thing. The very words make that plain — “long-suffering” and “endurance” are not chipper words. So, when our friend asks, “What if we find ourselves crying out — not from rebellion but from exhaustion — ‘How long, O Lord?’” (Psalm 13:1), I certainly do not hear sinful impatience. I hear painful endurance. It sounds more like Jesus in Gethsemane than Job in rebellion." from the Transcript

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John.