Fruit Of The Spirit Is Patience

February 22, 2004

Title: The Fruit of the Spirit is...Patience.

Text: Galatians 5:22-23

Introduction

1. A man noticed a woman in the grocery store with a three-year-old girl in her cart.

As they passed the cookie section, the little girl asked for cookies ...

and her mother told her no.

The little girl exploded into a huge fit,...

and the mother said quietly, "Now Missy, we just have half of the aisles left to go through--don’t be upset. It won’t be long."

In the candy aisle, the little girl began to shout for candy...

When mom said she couldn’t have any,...

she began to kick her mother and scream....

The mother said softly, "There, there, Missy, don’t cry--only two more aisles to go and then we’ll be checking out."

When they got to the checkout aisle, the bratty little girl began to reach for the gum...

when her mom told her she couldn’t have any...she began to scream all the louder...

The mother patiently said, "Missy, we’ll be through this checkout stand in five minutes and then you can go home and have a bottle and a nice nap."

The man followed them out to the parking lot and stopped the woman to compliment her.

He said, "I couldn’t help noticing how patient you were with little Missy," .

The mother replied, "Oh, no, my little girl’s name is Francine... I’m Missy."

2. A man and his wife are awakened at 3 o’clock in the morning...

there’s a loud pounding on the door.

The man gets up and goes to the door

where a drunken stranger is standing in a pouring rain...

He says, "can you come out and give me a push"?

The man of the house says, "No way...It’s three o’clock in the morning!"

He slams the door and goes back to bed.

His wife asks him, "Who was it?"

He told her, "Just a drunken stranger asking for a push"

"Did you help him?" she asks.

"NO, I didn’t-it’s three in the morning and pouring down rain out there"

His wife says, "Well, you’ve sure got a short memory...

Can’t you remember about three months ago when we broke down on vacation?

and those two guys stopped to help us?

I think you should help him."

The man realizes he will get no sleep with his wife & his conscience nagging him...

so he does what his wife wants and gets dressed ...

and goes out into the pouring rain

and calls out into the dark "Hello-are you still there?"

The drunken stranger says, "Yes,"

The husband asks him, "Do you still want a push?"

"Yes, please, I’d be ever so grateful!" comes the reply from the dark.

"Where are you?" asks the husband.

The drunk man says, "Over here on the swing".

3. A man’s car stalled in heavy traffic just as the light turned green.

He must be like me...because all his efforts under the hood to get the car started have failed,

and to make matters worse, everyone behind him begins honking their horns.

He finally walks back to the first driver behind him and says...

"I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to get my car started.

Why don’t you go up there and give it a try...

I’ll stay here and honk your horn for you."

4. Patience....

I’m sure you’ve been in situations where your patience has been severely tested...

In fact, we will even joke about it (like we have tonight)...

you’ve heard it said, "Lord, give me patience...and give it to me NOW"

and yes...patience is a fruit of the Spirit...

Let’s read it in our text: Galatians 5:22-23

Body

1. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit...

A. on the surface...that might surprise you...

because up to this point...

We’ve been saying that the fruit of the Spirit is just that...

fruit....given by the Work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the CHRISTIAN...

we agree that things like love....joy....peace....

these are things given by the Holy Spirit...

but some of the these others...patience....kindness....gentleness...

these are human qualities to strive toward...

B. We tend to think of PATIENCE....

as a personality trait...

some people are patient...

some people are impatient...

it doesn’t matter if you are a Christian or not...

some Christians are patient...

and some are......well....they aren’t so patient...

even sinners can be patient...

There’s an old saying that says "patience is a virtue"...

Which reinforces the idea that patience is something we strive for...

something we work at...

NOT something we receive by the Holy Spirit.

so, in preparation for this sermon...

I did a Scriptural study of the word "patient" and its forms...

patience...patiently...

Those words appear 45 times in my Bible...

and I studied all 45 occurrences of those words...

and I came to the conclusion...