Patience
PPT 2 Series Title
PPT 3 Message Title and Text
Ga 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Ga 5:23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (NAS)
Before we get into this weeks message let me remind you something from last weeks message.
First I brought some fruits and did a show and tell. Using actual fruits to teach basic spiritual principles on the Fruits of the Spirit.
For example, I noted mango is not natural to this area. The lesson was, your temperament is no excuse for not having a fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, is the fruit of the Spirit. It is not your nature, but His nature being revealed through you.
Asian pear reminds us to bear fruit out of our ethnic group, race, culture, circle of friends etc. If you only bear fruit around the people you are like and are familiar with, you are nothing more than a false face. To only show kindness to your friends is not the biblical fruit of the Spirit, to show it to them and to your enemies is the real deal.
Prunes reminds us that the fruits cause reactions and surprisingly some of them are not pleasant. In other words you might show kindness, but you may get the opposite reaction. That is what happened to Jesus, but that is no excuse to stop bearing spiritual fruit.
Then we spoke on gentleness and use Jacob's concern to not overdrive the children and the flocks on the way to the promised land.
We also used a text from David's life when speaking about his rebellious son, he said "deal gently with the young man for my sake." He deserved to be treated much differently, but love tempers anger into gentleness.
So this week we are going to talk about the fruit of the Spirit that is called patience, in the KJV it is translated longsuffering, I didn't want to use that translation because it includes the word suffering in it. Which is what most people think of when they think of patience. Patience is not a form of suffering, but of peaceful overcoming of suffering, through the agency of the Holy Spirit.
We begin by saying patience is a fruit of the Spirit.
In other words it is the outflow and product of the Holy Spirit being resident in a person's life.
If you plant corn, corn will grow. God placed His Holy Spirit in us, patience is one of the fruits that is produced as a result of that.
Twice in Matthew 7 Jesus said, "By their fruits you shall know them."
I want to take a minute here and try to show the difference between short term fruit, and long term fruit of the Spirit in a persons life.
A story is told of a trucker who stopped to get gas and chow while on a long haul. The waitress had just served him when three swaggering, leather-jacketed bikers --of the Hell's Angels type entered & rushed up to him, apparently looking for a fight. One grabbed the hamburger off his plate; another took a handful of his French fries; & the third picked up his coffee & began to drink it. The trucker didn't respond as one might expect. Instead, he calmly rose, picked up his check, walked to the front of the room, put the check & his money on the cash register, & went out the door. The waitress followed him to put the money in the cash register & stood watching out the door as the big truck drove away into the night. When she returned, one of the bikers said to her, "Well, he's not much of a man, is he?" She replied, "I can't answer as to that, but he's not much of a truck driver. He just ran over three motorcycles out in the parking lot."
That is short term fruit of the Spirit. In other words he had patience that lasted 5 minutes. But it was completely negated by his next action. Don't let that happen, don't have short term fruit.
Let me illustrate long term fruit:
PPT 4,5 text
Lu 9:51 And it came about, when the days were approaching for His ascension, that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem;
Lu 9:52 and He sent messengers on ahead of Him. And they went, and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make arrangements for Him.
Lu 9:53 And they did not receive Him, because He was journeying with His face toward Jerusalem.
Lu 9:54 And when His disciples James and John saw [this,] they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"
Lu 9:55 But He turned and rebuked them, [and said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of;
Now we will go almost 60 years into the future of John, one of the Son of Thunders life.
PPT 6
1Jo 2:12 I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.
1Jo 2:13 I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him [that is] from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.
1Jo 2:14 I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him [that is] from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.
When John was younger he looked at, and leaped on the faults of others. To the point of wanting to call fire down on them. We would call these types of people the Christian policeman. They get some sort of perverse pleasure out of giving people spiritual speeding tickets. Always looking for what's wrong. You want to be miserable? Look for what is wrong. You want to make others miserable always point out what's wrong. You want to live in depression, always point out what's wrong. That was John when he started on his journey.
But now almost 60 years later we get an example of what the long term results of the Holy Spirit living inside a person should be: You look to encourage people for what is right with them.
How are you doing on your spiritual journey? Are you moving forward? Is there evidence of a long term work of the Holy Spirit in you? There is a fruit of the Spirit that is short term in duration, where say the peace of God floods your soul. But there is also a long term fruit of the Spirit, that over time he turns you from an angry man like the Apostle John, to a gentle loving spirit like John became.
No one is exempt from bad days, but overall we should be growing in the fruits of the Spirit. There should be long term observable progress. Let me remind you one more time in this series, do not listen for how this message applies to others, listen for how it applies to you.
In Luke 8:18 Jesus said, be careful how you hear.
How you hear has serious spiritual ramifications on how you speak
PPT 7 text
Isa 50:4 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to [him that is] weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
Listen for yourself and then you will have power to speak to others. Let the Word break you first then you will walk in patience and gentleness towards other who need to grow in the same areas.
The story is told of a Pastor who had a very bad Sunday morning.
His alarm didn't go off so he started out late.
He got to the car and he had a flat tire.
He got the tire changed and realized his teen daughter who had borrowed it last night had used up almost all the gas, so he had to stop on his way to get gas.
At the gas station he realized he left his wallet at home, so he went back and got it.
Then he went back to get gas. Now he is going to be really late.
Finally he got on the expressway and was booking it and passed a state trooper who turned on the lights and proceeded to pull him over.
Jumping out of his car, the agitated preacher said, "Well, go ahead & give me a ticket. Everything else has gone wrong today."
- The policeman walked up & said quietly, "Sir, I used to have days like that too, before I became a Christian." - Ouch!
Most people even Christians confuse patience with impatience.
Impatience means the inability to tolerate delay, and it also can mean the inability to deal with obstacles: "Caution explosion ahead" (Impatience results in outbursts of anger)
They think of patience as nervous anxiety.
They think of patience as frustration. "Oh I have to wait"
Patience is Spirit energized restraint. Look at this passage of scripture:
PPT 8 text
Col 1:11 strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously
Patience is the recognition that God has everything under control. So there is no need to get anxious or nervous about your current circumstances. It is a calmness that enters your spirit.
PPT 9 text
Ps 37:7 Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
Do you see rest and patience wedded together in this text. When God says to be patient He is not talking about nervous anxiety while forcing yourself to wait. He is talking about a waiting on the Lord that renews your strength.
The necessity of patience/longsuffering.
You are going to go through what you are going to go through so you might as well have supernatural patience while you go through it, else you will surrender to the flesh, and the payment the flesh will extract will always be more than you want it to be. In addition God may discipline you on top of the payment the flesh extracts. (Ishmael, look at all that impatience brought!)
How to develop patience:
1. Through love. It is love that suffers long and is kind. 1 Cor 13.
Unless we love those who have wronged us, there will not be a sufficient motivation to bear with them.
Unless we love those who are wrong all we will do is throw stones at them. But if we will patiently work with them, some will be saved.
2Pe 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,
2Pe 3:15 and regard the patience of our Lord [to be] salvation;
Do you see in the text where patience of the Lord leads to salvation?
2. Through prayer. Just because it is a fruit of the Spirit, doesn't mean its presence is always automatic. Col 1:11 is the prayer of Paul's. ... for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience with joyfulness. Patience with joyfulness, does that sound like something negative? Paul understood that often we have to go to the prayer closet and prayer before we mount up with wings as eagles.
3. Through cooperation. When God says stand still, you have to stand still. Patience is poured out at the place God wants you to be. Your blessing is over here in the prayer closet. Your provision of peace will be given when you sit down and shut up. If God says don't but it, don't buy it! Your provision of peace and patience is found in the place of obedience.
4. Through tribulation.
Romans 5:3,4 we glory in tribulation because tribulation works patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.
Close: Are you facing something that is causing you to struggle with anxiety? Are you wanting to see more long term fruit of the Spirit in your life?
