Proof of Life: PATIENCE

PROOF OF LIFE: Patience

Gal 5:22-25

Intro: The Galatian Problem

“You have new life in Christ, so act like it.”

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ga 5:22–25.

When we keep in step with the Spirit, we are acting out the new life we have already received in Christ.

PATIENCE: What is it??

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ex 34:6–7.

God’s patience.

Bible patience = holding back anger.

Hebrew: “enlarge the nostrils”

Greek: “hold in the storm”

Between God’s grace and God’s wrath is God’s patience.

Long-suffering, forbearance.

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

How can I make you like Admah?

How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

My heart recoils within me;

my compassion grows warm and tender.

I will not execute my burning anger;

I will not again destroy Ephraim;

for I am God and not a man,

the Holy One in your midst,

and I will not come in wrath.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ho 11:8–9.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 3:36.

Patience while God deals with people.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 4:1–6.

Patience with God deals with the world.

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Pe 3:14–16.

How Do We Get Patience?

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Col 3:12–14.