The Urgency of Patience

Soon after I bought my first house, I awoke early on Resurrection Sunday to plant fruit trees. Although I was breaking traditional Sabbath boundaries, I was planting these trees for a special reason. God had given me a glimpse of Eden restored.

The risen Jesus is the firstfruits of a wider resurrection harvest. The resurrection of Jesus is a window into the destiny of all believers: new life in a powerful and glorified body, set free from the corruption of sin and death. In the risen Jesus, we see life as God created it to be. Believers will share this life with Jesus forever in a new heaven and earth, flooded with the glory of God. 

I planted fruit trees on Easter morning because, together with all those who call on the name of Jesus, I am a “test plot” for God’s new creation. Although this new creation is not yet present in fullness, it is truly present. My garden was meant as a sign of the church’s mission: to offer the world a foretaste of Eden restored in Christ. 

Nearly a year and a half after I planted my garden, I sold my house. When I left, the peaches and cherries were all pits. The apples and pears were small and hard. Even if they had been worth eating, they were tattered by abuse from birds and bugs and squirrels long before I ever had the opportunity to make something edible of them. In the short time that I had lived in this house, my trees never bore fruit worth eating, let alone worth sharing. 

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CMC is commissioned to mature and multiply churches. Yet it has not always been clear to me how maturity and multiplication should be prioritized. Sometimes I have perceived a tension between two seemingly different assignments: to mature or multiply churches. But taken in isolation, neither part of our commission yields a compelling vision of the church.  

At best, a single-minded concern for multiplication exposes many to the gospel. At worst, it yields a harvest of superficial Christians who fall away when testing comes. A multiply-only mindset can even lapse into disdain for long-held convictions of the church, seeing them merely as obstacles to exponential growth. 

At best, a single-minded concern for maturity transmits the accumulated wisdom of the church as a gift to future generations. At worst, a mature-only mindset is self-satisfied, inward-looking, and stagnant. It does not reach the world with the gospel and does not seem to care.

How does the Bible teach us to pursue maturity and multiplication? Rather than negotiate a balancing act between two competing priorities, I submit that the Bible teaches us a different way. From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, maturity and multiplication are beautifully united in a single image: fruitfulness. 

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Fruit trees take time to mature. Even after a year and a half, the peaches are all pit. But when fruit trees are mature, they create something beautiful, desirable, and sweet. 

Wild animals — perhaps the same birds and squirrels that tore my pears and peaches to ribbons — carry the seeds of mature fruit trees far afield. When those seeds take root and grow to maturity, they shower unforeseen blessings upon new and unexpected places. Perhaps the seeds of these stray trees will someday be carried abroad to continue the pattern of blessing. With mysterious wisdom and great irony, God sometimes carries forward his plan by means of the same birds and squirrels that would pick his garden bare. 

We are given the privilege, in a way that wild animals are not, to participate intentionally in God’s pattern of blessing. The goodness of a tree is known by its fruit, and mature fruit trees are no less desirable to humans than to wild animals. Beautiful, productive fruit trees inspire humans to purchase both land and seeds, sometimes at great expense. By planting gardens of our own and nurturing seeds into maturity, humans fill the world with sweetness and nourishment. Nothing inspires the planting of trees like a mature, well-tended garden.

In and through the church, God is putting the goodness of his creation on display in the midst of a fallen world. Although the world can seem to be a wilderness ruled by wild animals, God is cultivating a garden here. God is patient in his work, and we are called to be imitators of God, partnering in the patience of Christ. In the words of Cyprian of Carthage, an early Christian leader: “Patient waiting is necessary that we may fulfill what we have begun to be.”

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“Even now, the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Mt. 3:10) There is unmistakable urgency when John the Baptist calls the Pharisees and Sadducees to repentance. 

John’s call to repentance is grounded in the Hebrew understanding of repentance: shuv or turning. John’s call to repentance is both a call to turn from sin and a call to turn toward God. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!” (Mt. 3:2) Prepare yourselves! God is about to do something momentous!

John demands much more than a momentary spin. He demands that the Pharisees and Sadducees plant themselves in this “turned” orientation, to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Mt. 3:8)  They must send down their roots — down into the good, wet earth by the River Jordan — and stay planted in repentance long enough for God to bring forth something beautiful and sweet from their barren, gnarled branches.

In his discourse on the True Vine, Jesus calls for his disciples to “remain” in him no fewer than seven times. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn. 15:5) Here, as everywhere, fruitfulness demands patience across the seasons. 

It is the singular privilege of Christians to be rooted in the one who is perfectly faithful, and who is always worthy of our faithfulness. If we remain in Jesus, we can face seasons of hardship without fear. It is because Jesus is faithful that we can trust him. We should trust Jesus when he tells his disciples: “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”

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I believe fervently in the work of multiplication: in the urgency of direct, personal evangelism, leading to the spiritual birth of new Christians. I believe no less fervently in the work of maturity: in teaching and discipling toward the full measure of the stature of Christ. But I see clearly now that the Bible treats both maturity and multiplication as a seamless whole. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23) The seed of the church is embedded in this fruit. 

Sow urgently. Water urgently. Tend to your fruit trees and do not be discouraged. It is urgent to be patient and gentle; in Christ, there is urgency without fear! The trees that we plant will not multiply the beauty and sweetness of Christ unless they are brought to maturity. As co-workers together in the service of the Lord, some plant and others water. But we are united in one purpose: to love and serve the God who makes things grow. (1 Cor. 3:5-9)