The Christian Cheat Code

How many of you know the name William Carey? Does that ring a bell? If you do, you know he is recognized as the founder of modern missions. If you do not know that name, let me share a little bit about him. He was a shoemaker who became a schoolteacher, who then became a Baptist pastor, who finally became a missionary to India. He sailed for India in 1793, initially settling in Kolkata. Once he arrived, he faced strong opposition from non-Baptist missionaries. Can you believe that? We Baptists get no respect, right?

During his first year in India, his wife Dorothy suffered a mental breakdown from which she never recovered. She spent the next fourteen years in a state of perpetual insanity, often displaying violent rage toward anyone and everyone. Early in his ministry, William managed an indigo factory to fund his missionary work. While running the factory, he learned Bengali and Sanskrit and attempted to oversee a fledgling missionary society in India. He labored for the first seven years without a single convert. Many of his missionary colleagues died on the field. Several of his children died there as well.

The mission operated a printing press. Many Indian languages had never been put into print before, so they had to hand-carve the punches for the type. But in 1812, a fire completely destroyed the printing press, print shop, and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth—an astronomical sum at the time—of materials and equipment, including irreplaceable manuscripts, Bible translations, and dictionaries that Carey had spent years creating.

So his missionary endeavors for many, many years were characterized by countless difficulties and setbacks, and yet he persevered. He spent forty-one years on the mission field in India without a single furlough. His life, when I think about it, represents very clearly the Christian virtue of patience.

In the Bible, whenever Christian characteristics are listed, patience is nearly always included. Perhaps the most familiar example is the fruit of the Spirit that Paul describes in Galatians chapter 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Patience is right there in the heart of what we as Christians are supposed to be and to do.

This morning I want to help you understand a kind of patience that goes far beyond the usual caricature. Too often when we hear the word patience, we think only of waiting—of sitting quietly with our hands folded. We picture ourselves in the doctor’s waiting room when our appointment was at 5:00, and now it is 5:22, then 5:32, 5:42, 5:52, and the doctor still has not appeared. That does take patience, but that is not all patience entails.

As we look at Scripture this morning—and we will look at a lot of it—we are going to see this truth: patience is not passive delay. It is a God-given power that reshapes how we live. I like to think of it as the Christian “cheat code” for living life as God desires—for His good, for our good, and for His glory.

First, let us think about patience as trust—trusting God, believing that what He has said is true. We must start here, because treating patience as merely an inner peace or a mindfulness technique we master to stay calm in distress sells short what Christian patience really is. Exhibiting the Christian virtue of patience does not require us to pretend difficulties do not exist, to push them out of our minds, to put our fingers in our ears, close our eyes, and hum. We do not need to flee to our “happy place” or rush into the bedroom, slam the door, and pull the covers over our head to be patient.

Because patience can be so wonderfully described as trust, it first requires us to embrace an accurate understanding of who God is. What do we know to be true about God? Whether we are talking about someone like William Carey undertaking missionary endeavors in India or about you and me living our ordinary daily lives amid the challenges that come to every one of us, if we are going to be patient, we must first find calming peace in knowing who God truly is.

First, the Bible—and we just sang about it—declares and assures us that God is holy. To say God is holy means He is perfect in every possible way. Everything God does is good, right, and true. There is no imperfection in Him, no wrong, no mistake. That is why, whenever prophets in Scripture had visions of God’s throne room and saw His glory, the angels and cherubim never cease crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” We need to hold tightly to that truth when life is hard, when life is not going the way we planned, when we are tempted to become frustrated or discouraged, when we are tempted to blame God or accuse Him of being unfair or unjust. Maybe we simply do not understand everything that is happening. Maybe we do not have all the information we need to pass such harsh judgment on God’s character and actions. God is holy.

And because God is holy, He is also sovereign. That means He is in complete control—of everything. Everything that happens does so according to His divine will and on His divine timeline. In Isaiah 46:9–10 we read these words of God: “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’” Nothing can thwart that. Nothing can derail it. Nothing can cause Him to veer from His perfect plan.

What is so encouraging is that the same Bible that declares God’s holiness and sovereignty assures us again and again that this God loves His children. The circumstances of your life are not arbitrary. You are not a rudderless ship tossed wherever the winds blow. God uses the circumstances of your life to strengthen you, shape you, and even bless you. In Romans 8 we are told that if God is for us, who can be against us? It does not matter who is against us, because God is for us. And because God is for us, in all the difficult, painful, challenging things of life we are more than conquerors—not because we are super-strong or have it all together, but through Him who loved us. Nothing—famine, danger, sword, peril, or anything else—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That truth should energize and encourage us and fill us with joy, because the God who loves us, protects us, and makes us more than conquerors is the sovereign, holy God who has no rivals.

When we are tempted to doubt, worry, fear, or take matters into our own hands instead of trusting patiently, this truth gives us assurance that what we are grasping for may be far less than what God has planned. Maybe God has something better for you than merely the American dream. Being patient does not mean you cannot react to life’s circumstances. It means your reactions are constrained by the commands and purposes of God because you recognize that He is holy, sovereign, and loves you. Patience means facing the realities of life head-on but refusing to respond sinfully, even if things never get better—because you trust that God’s commands are right and His promises are true.

A great illustration is the nineteenth-century English pastor George Müller, who for decades ran orphanages in Bristol (not London) and cared for thousands of orphans. Throughout his ministry he never once solicited donations. He relied solely on prayer and trust in God for provision—even on mornings when children were seated at the table with empty plates and no food in the house. Müller would fold his hands, lead the children in prayer, and trust God to provide. And God always did. It was Müller’s trust in God’s loving faithfulness, holiness, sovereignty, and perfect plan that gave him calm patience in desperate moments.

Do not hear me say that because God provided food when Müller prayed, He will always answer your prayers exactly that way. What I am saying is that God can and will sustain you through dark and difficult times. Patience is trust.

There are several English words in our Bibles—steadfastness, perseverance, forbearance, endurance, long-suffering—that all translate the same Greek root we usually render “patience.” One fascinating connection is that in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament), the common Hebrew word for “hope” is frequently translated by this same Greek word for patience. That tells us we can also think of patience as hope.

In Romans 8:25 Paul writes, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” The Christian always lives with an eye toward the future God has promised. Biblical hope is not finger-crossing or wishful thinking; it is confident assurance based on God’s unbreakable promises—promises of glorification, a new heaven and new earth, and the end of all sin, sorrow, and pain.

Listen to David in Psalm 37: “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass… Trust in the Lord, and do good… Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act… Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him… Refrain from anger and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.” David’s eyes are fixed on the future God has promised, and because of that hope he refuses to fret, envy, or sin.

Patience does not demand perpetual passivity. It simply refuses to take matters into our own hands by disobeying God. Patience recognizes that creation groans under the curse of sin, but it will not use life’s difficulties as an excuse for sinful reactions. Instead, it keeps the perspective Paul describes: our present troubles are light and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory awaiting us.

I want to show you a picture of two dear friends of mine—Jackie and Shadow, a pair of nesting bald eagles in Big Bear Lake, California, whose live cam we have followed since 2021. Right now they are tidying their nest, bringing in sticks, preparing for the next season. There are days when you tune in and one of them is sitting on the eggs completely covered in snow, the wind rocking the tree, and you think, “That has to be miserable.” Yet they patiently take turns incubating, turning the eggs, keeping them warm—waiting with confident expectation for what is coming. It is a beautiful picture of the hopeful, expectant waiting to which Christians are called.

We have been saved from the penalty of sin through Christ’s blood, and we have been saved to an inheritance that is imperishable. Even when life feels like sitting in a blizzard, we know an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison awaits us.

Margaret Thatcher once quipped, “I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.” Many of us can relate, but that is not biblical patience. Biblical patience is better because what God has promised us in the end is infinitely better than anything we could want. We trust and obey not because the future holds what we want, but because it holds something far greater than we can imagine.

Peter, in 2 Peter 3, reminds persecuted believers facing mockery about Christ’s “delay” that we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells. That hope produces patience with a healthy dose of courage.

Finally, think of patience as courage. In James 5 we read, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord… Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand… As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” The prophets declared God’s word boldly to hostile audiences, often prophesying blessings they would never see. Their courageous obedience required trust and hope.

Being a disciple today takes the same kind of patient courage. Evangelism, perseverance in good works, and shining as lights in a dark world demand that we play the long game—an ultramarathon, not a sprint.

Remember William Carey: forty-one years in India, no furlough, endless setbacks—yet he founded the Baptist Missionary Society, established Serampore College (the first degree-granting university in India), rebuilt the mission press, introduced Europe to Indian literature, led hundreds to Christ, and translated the Bible into multiple languages. His famous motto sums up biblical patience perfectly: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”

Let’s pray.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your Word and for the consistent call both to patience and to the rich meaning of patience. Thank You that when You command patience, You are not telling us to sit on our hands and do nothing. You are calling us to be men and women of action—obedient, trusting, hope-filled, courageous disciples—who keep attempting great things for You even amid difficulties, setbacks, trials, and discouragements. All the while we rest in the certainty that You are true, that every promise will come to pass, and that what You have promised is so far beyond our wildest dreams that our very best imaginations look childish by comparison. When we are tempted to despair and feel we cannot go on, remind us that we can depend on You and therefore be patient in this life. In Jesus’ name, amen.