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I. THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN PATIENCE. Patience is not an insensibleness of present evils or an indifference for future good: "No affliction for the present is joyous, but grievous." But Christian patience is a disposition that keeps us calm and composed in our frame, and steady in the practice of our duty, under the sense of our afflictions or in the delay of our hopes.

1. Patience secures the possession of our souls in every circumstance that tends to discompose our minds.

2. Patience will prevent hasty and rash conclusions, either from present troubles or from the suspension of desired good.

3. Patience will fortify against any unlawful methods for accomplishing our deliverance or desires.

4. Patience disposes a man to go on in the way of his duty, whatever discouragement may arise from the pressure of his troubles or the deferring of his hopes.

II. THE NEED AND OCCASION WHICH A CHRISTIAN HAS FOR THE EXERCISE OF PATIENCE.

1. A Christian has need of patience to persist in doing the will of God, even in his ordinary course.

2. A Christian hath need of patience to persist in bearing the will of God, and in doing his duty under it, when his course is peculiarly embittered. For instance, to bear the shock of sudden and unexpected trials, which are apt to overset a man at once and to produce hasty thoughts and unadvised words, both of God and man (Psalm 31:22; Psalm 116:11). To suppress a tumult, and keep the mind in frame upon such an occasion, is a very great attainment. To bear succession of exercises, one after another, is still more. To have God's waves and billows to pass over us, and yet keep our heads above water, neither thinking Him unkind, nor unjust, nor unfaithful, nor losing the use of reason and grace, is a noble firmness of mind (Job 1:20-22). To bear the long continuance of exercises. Many who have behaved well upon the first attack have been tired out by the length of afflictions. To bear the hand of God when He touches us in a most tender point; not only in small trials, but in great and heavy afflictions. To bear God's rod when we cannot account for His reasons or ends in it. To bear sharp afflictions when natural spirits are decayed. To bear affliction patiently when an unlawful way of deliverance seems directly to offer itself and to promise relief. It is hard in such circumstances to choose suffering rather that sinning; to be content to bear our burden still rather than be eased of it upon such terms.

3. A Christian hath need of patience to persist in waiting to the end to receive the promise, especially if he has lively views of a happy state before him, and comfortable hopes of his own title to it; if his course be greatly embittered in the meanwhile by bodily infirmities, by troubles in the world, by the removal of many of his pious friends and acquaintance to heaven before him; if his service and usefulness are to appearance much over; if he hath long thought himself going, just at harbour, but finds himself driven back again to sea: every such instance is a fresh trial to him.

III. THE WAY TO WHICH CHRISTIANITY DIRECTS US FOR SUPPLYING THIS NEED, OR FOR FURNISHING US WITH THE PATIENCE REQUIRED.

1. Whatever is a trial of our patience, we should consider it as the will of God concerning us.

2. We should strengthen our faith in the discoveries of the gospel and live in the daily exercise of it.

3. We should carefully cultivate the principle of love to God.

4. Let us often represent to our minds the present advantages of patience. It is its own reward, as impatience is its own punishment.

5. We should often contemplate the great examples of patience.

6. We should be earnest in prayer to God for this grace (James 1:4, 5). For a clue —

(1)  Let those who are destitute of the principle he sensible of their need, and solicitous that they may obtain it.

(2)  Let us be solicitous to have this necessary principle daily strengthened, to exercise it upon every proper occasion, and that it may "have its perfect work."Be solicitous to exert its most excellent acts. Not only that we may be preserved by it from sinking and murmuring and notorious misbehaviour, but that there may be the most complacential acquiescence in the will of God, that we may be in a frame for praise in the darkest day: "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Study to have the actings of patience easy and ready to you as there is occasion; to be able to say with Paul, "I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 21:13). Be careful that the exercises of it be lasting; that it be a fixed habit, and not only by starts; like Moses, who made the exercise of patience so constant a practice that we find but one instance to the contrary through his whole story.

(John Evans, D. D,)

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KJV: For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

WEB: For you need endurance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.