Fruit Of The Spirit (Part 2) Series

Last week we examined:

Love, Joy, Peace

Just a quick recap:

When looking at the fruit of the Spirit:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control

We began with love and came to the conclusion that each of the fruits listed after love; encompass love.

In fact, it is impossible to have any of the others WITHOUT love!

Next, we spent a few minutes considering that joy is not gained by what happens to us, but rather what happens IN us. Greek transliteration: calm delight

When we have the joy of salvation in our hearts, it is the peace that surpasses all understanding.

I pray that everyone here has at least once in their life experienced that type of peace.

I threw out the challenge to tell someone in 25 words or less, that you love them, without saying the words “I love you”.

I hope you answered that challenge, and if you did, I’d love to hear about that from you during our potluck fellowship lunch.

Here’s what I learned: it’s harder than it sounds to say it in 25 words or less. Maybe it’s just the preacher in me.

As I mentioned last week:

Here is the construct from how I am applying fruit of the Spirit.

Holy Spirit instructs, guides, leads, and gives us power.

Today we will look at the 2nd set of 3 fruits of the Spirit:

Patience, kindness, goodness

In my journaling of the fruit of the Spirit, it has been enlightening for sure!

I’ll start with this:

Did you show kindness or goodness to someone this past week?

This 3 part message is about how He created us in His image, and how living out the fruit of the Spirit, is showing the world who He is.

As I began looking at patience, kindness, goodness I spent an enormous amount of time at:

Camp Patience- set up tent, had my lantern and canteen.

When I was a kid, in elementary school, my parents went through a separation in their marriage. As a result, my grandfather was getting me ready for school each day. I don’t remember how long this lasted but I remember two things:

He had a cool new car. 1966 Ford LTD 2 door. It was sweet!

I was introduced to Carnation Instant Breakfast.

By the mid ‘60’s America was going through a lot of challenges and changes.

One was the fabric of the family was changing.

Two income families began to emerge.

As a result, there were numerous innovations that addressed these changes.

One was Carnation Instant Breakfast.

Anyone here today, remember or ever hear of CIB?

Essentially, it was a package of protein powder that you added milk and voila “instant breakfast”.

I just thought that was the best thing ever!

Soon afterwards, America began this incredibly dangerous spiral into “instant gratification”. That’s just one man’s opinion of course.

We live in a world that promotes instant food of every kind, 30 second commercials that have products which will solve every problem in life, and 30 minute TV shows that also solve all of life’s problems, in between the 30 second commercials.

As a result, patience as a virtue is long lost.

We’ll get to some details of patience, so just be patient!

But first, I’ve been thinking about some of the quips about patience.

Patience is a virtue.

Enduring patience.

Trying my patience.

Patience is growing thin.

I haven’t looked into the origins of any of these except “patience is a virtue”. And no, I ain’t gonna tell you!

But the one I found interesting is:

“My patience is growing thin”

Patience is a fruit of the Spirit. How does fruit come about? It is grown.

That is like saying “My garden of patience is growing thin”.

So what do I need to do? Plant more patience!!!

I’ve also decided that patience is a four letter word! Not that kind, y’all!

I googled “what is a four letter word for patience” The result= “calm”

Isn’t it interesting that the Greek transliteration for joy is “calm delight”?

The more I dig into the fruit of the Spirit, the more I realize how they are entwined.

Back to that garden:

At least 3 things can help us cultivate the fruit of patience.

1)Thank God.

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

2) Remember God’s promises: Here’s one:

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

3) Seek His purpose

As a rule, I believe we all need to cultivate patience.

Here are some definitions of patience:

the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble or suffering without getting angry or upset.