"Imitate those who through faith and patience inherit
2. WHY FAITH AND HOPE NEED PATIENCE
"Imitate those who through faith and patience inherit
what has been promised" (Hebrews 6:12). Patience Is an Act of Faith The New Testament makes the connection between patience and faith very clear. For example, we find that time and again in his epistles the apostle Paul connects patience and faith as essential qualities of the Christian life. We see this connection in his letter to the Thessalonians where he writes: "we ourselves boast of you … for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure" (2 Thessalonians 1:4 NKJV). While Paul could have written either "patience" or "faith" in this context, he mentions both. This is because the two qualities interact in many ways and often cannot be separated.
Consider the involvement of patience and faith in the suffering the Christian may have to endure. Just as he commended the Thessalonians for exhibiting these qualities under persecution, Paul affirms that "we glory in tribulations … knowing that tribulation works patience" (Romans 5:3 KJ2K). James also tells us to "count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience" (James 1:2-3 NKJV). And Peter makes the same point: "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that … your faith ... may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:6-7).
We can see from these verses that suffering refines our faith, making it stronger (as mentioned by Peter), and also produces patience in us (as mentioned by James and Paul). It is to the degree that we develop both patience and faith in situations like this that we are strengthened and endure, and it is that endurance which is ultimately necessary to succeed in the Christian life (see, for example, Matthew 10:22; 24:13).
There are many other ways faith and patience interact. Without patience we would not wait for God to help us, change us, or fulfill his many promises to us. In that sense, impatience with God can be a lack of faith or a faith that is short-lived – and faith that only lasts for a while is ultimately not faith at all. Faith without patience produces Christians who
may start off well, but who eventually falter and fall away or burn out (Mark 4:17). On the other hand, patience without faith produces individuals who experience suffering but do not learn and grow from it in the way God intends.
As the book of Hebrews confirms, we need both qualities in our lives if we are to "imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised" (Hebrews 6:12). Simply put, patience needs faith and faith needs patience. Patience is itself an act of faith, and developing this important quality helps strengthen our faith!
Patience Makes Hope Possible As Christians, we need hope in our lives just as we need faith, and hope is also connected with patience. Patient Christian hope helps us to keep on going despite adverse external circumstances. It is also important because we often need both patience with ourselves and hope when we look at our path to overcoming.
It's easy to become discouraged when we fall down and do not do as well spiritually as we truly want to do. But we need to be patient in the hope we have been given (Philippians 1:6) – with the understanding that what God expects from us is not ongoing perfection, but ongoing progress. That is part of humbly accepting God's incredible patience with us. "I was shown mercy," the apostle Paul wrote, "so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life" (1 Timothy 1:16). Certainly, there are times for impatience with ourselves (see the Afterword at the end of this book), but more often than not, we need the patience that comes from the hope God gives us when it comes to continued growth.
We can more fully understand this by looking at what Paul wrote regarding the relationship between hope and patience. The apostle shows the connection nowhere more clearly than in his great epistle to the Christians in Rome – which is sometimes called the "Epistle of Hope" (see, for example, Romans 15:13). But the inspiring words on hope found in Romans are tied repeatedly to the need for patience. We see this at its most basic level in what Paul says about the nature of hope itself: "if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" (Romans 8:25). Of course, we can hope for something and not wait for it patiently, so Paul
is stressing the need for patience in positive and effective hope – the kind of hope that helps carry us through the Christian life.
The apostle also makes the connection between these qualities by showing that hope is the end result of the "chain reaction" he describes in Romans that begins with patience, and that we already saw above in relation to faith: "tribulation works patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope" (Romans 5:3-4 KJ2K).
In the same way, Paul tells us, patience and hope interact through the recorded examples of other believers: "For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope" (Romans 15:4 NKJV). These examples from Romans all show us how important patience is in both supporting hope and being supported by it.
That is doubtless why, in his second letter to Timothy, Paul places patience – just as he does with hope in 1 Corinthians 13 – firmly between the qualities of faith and love: "You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance" (2 Timothy 3:10). Paul makes the connection between patience and hope even clearer in his words to the Thessalonians: "remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father" (1 Thessalonians 1:3 NKJV).
Faith, Hope, and the Patience of the Saints The biblical stress on the need for patience to underlie faith and hope is not limited to the writings of Paul, however. The apostle James tells us: "Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near" (James 5:7-8).
James compares the patience of a farmer waiting for harvest to the patience we must have in our hope for Christ's return. This patience in waiting for the second coming becomes a major theme of the later books of the New Testament and, perhaps understandably, it is found most clearly in the final book of the Bible – the book of Revelation. In fact, Revelation mentions patience more than any other single book in the Bible, and much of what it has to say on the subject is about patience in suffering and persecution.
After a brief introduction, John begins his account: "I, John, your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ …" (Revelation 1:9). With these words, John affirms that patience in suffering is a hallmark of those who hope for the kingdom of God – the very kingdom that he goes on to describe in the book's climactic chapters.
We should also notice the fact that in the letters to the seven churches recorded in the second and third chapters of Revelation, Christ specifically commends several of the churches for their patience. John speaks repeatedly of "the patience of the saints" (for example, Revelation 13:10 NKJV), and in a fascinating verse John links our patience with the very core of Christian experience: "Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (Revelation 14:12 NKJV). In other words, patience is necessary for both our belief and our behavior – the sum total of Christian life.
In this chapter we have looked closely at how the Bible links patience to our beliefs – our attitudes of faith and hope. In the next chapter we will look at the more practical side of the patience equation – the way in which patience is necessary and ties into every aspect of our behavior.