Every Promise Came Through Patience

If God has told you something and it has not happened yet, this is for you. I do not know how long you have been waiting. I know you are not the first one.

What does Hebrews say about inheriting a promise?

That patience is part of how you get it, not something you endure until you get it.

Turn to Hebrews 6, and read from verse 9. "Beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, things that accompany salvation."

Then it tells you to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Two things named together. Not faith on its own. Faith and patience.

We are comfortable preaching the first one. We would rather not talk about the second, because the second one costs time and we cannot shortcut it.

Did anybody get the promise right away?

Not one of them.

Every one of the patriarchs had to wait for the promise. Every one. God put them in the record for you to look at, so go and look — because when you read their lives you stop assuming that a delay means a denial.

And let me tell you something else. Salvation itself came through patience. Jesus. It came through patience. If the greatest promise ever kept came that way, your promise is not going to arrive on a different schedule than everything else God has ever done.

What about Job?

You cannot talk about patience without somebody bringing up Job, and they should.

Read what he went through. Can you imagine losing your whole family and losing everything you have? Job was the richest man of his time — he and Abram were parallel with each other, on the same timeline, both men of great wealth.

And if that had been you? Some of you would have said forget about it. I am being honest, and so are you if you think about it.

Here is what I want you to take from him. Job is not in your Bible as a warning about how bad it can get. He is in there so that when you are in a long wait, you have somebody to look at who was in a longer one.

You are not being ignored. You are being kept.