Fourth message in Branches series on the fruit of the Spirit and union with Christ. After love, joy, peace, we consider patience.

Colossians 3:12-17:

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 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. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Endurance & Patience with Joy:

• Endurance (hupomone): does not mean just sitting, head down, and enduring, it means “not only the ability to bear things, but the ability, in bearing them, to turn them into glory. It is conquering patience. Hupomone is the spirit which no circumstance in life can ever defeat and which no event can ever vanquish. Hupomone is the ability to deal triumphantly with anything that life can do to us.
• Patience (makrothumia): is basically patience with people. It is the quality of mind and heart which enables a man to bear with people that their unpleasantness and maliciousness and cruelty will never drive him to bitterness, that their folly will never drive him to irritation, that their unloveliness will never alter his love. It is the spirit which never loses patience with, belief in, and hope for people.
  

Quote: “If joy is not rooted in the soil of suffering, it is shallow.” —C.F.D. Moule (1908-2007)

• Patience is Longsuffering
• Patience is Forbearing
• Patience is Loving
• Impatience is an epidemic
• Patience leads to Forgiving

Galatians 5:22-26; 6:1-2:

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

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Preached on Sunday, February 16, 2025 at Renew Church by pastor Jeff Patterson

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