06 Fruit of the Spirit: Patience

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the sixth talk in my series on the fruit of the spirit. You can find the blog version of this podcast at WednesdayInTheWord.com slash fruit-spirit-patience. Thanks so much for listening. We're continuing our series on the fruit of the spirit. In this series, we're seeking an understanding of what Paul meant by the items on this list. For most of us today, it's just a list of nouns. The nouns can be rather abstract concepts, so it's easy for us to pour into these words all ideas that we may have from modern psychology, current philosophy, and our own experiences. My goal in this series is to explore what Scripture says about these items and therefore what Paul had in mind. Let me just briefly remind you of the context where we find this list. In the letter to Galatians, Paul is refuting the argument of the Judaizers. The Judaizers claim that it's not enough to believe in Jesus. Genuine believers, especially the Gentiles, must also become Jews, live like Jews, and keep the law. Paul writes this letter to refute that claim, and he spends most of the letter arguing that faith in Jesus alone is sufficient for salvation. At the point in the letter where we find this list, Paul is arguing that law-keeping does not really accomplish what it claims to accomplish. Keeping the law does not make us more holy, does not make us good people. We may strive to keep laws that we used to break, but on the inside, we're still sinners. Conversely, Paul argues that true moral transformation comes from faith in Christ. Because we have been reconciled to God by the cross, God then gives us his spirit, and his spirit changes us from the inside out, producing a genuine moral change. The nouns in this list of the fruit of the spirit are the kinds of things that the spirit is producing in us. In this series, we're on a quest to figure out what these are, what these items are. Today we're going to talk about the quality that my translation has rendered as patience. And we're going to talk about the word first of all. What does it mean to be patient? Today we use the word patient to describe someone who could sit in a waiting room for a long period of time without fidgeting or complaining. And that is a kind of patience. But that's not really what we're talking about in scripture, and I don't think it's what the Greek word is getting at. I'm about to break one of my own Bible study rules. I'm going to talk about etymology. Etymology is the study of the origin of the word. Etymology traces the evolution of a word and analyzes its component parts. If you've listened to much of my teaching, you'll have heard me say that arguments from etymology are weak at best, and that is true. What words mean in current usage is often very far removed from what they meant when they were coined. We can lead ourselves astray with etymology because the meaning of words changes and evolves over time. The classic example is the word butterfly. The compound word comes from the word butter and the word fly, but it doesn't take too long to realize that analyzing the parts of this word are not going to get us anywhere. Some people think the term comes from the old fairy tale notion that witches disguise themselves as insects to consume butter or milk that was left uncovered, but in any case, the insect has nothing to do with flying milk fat. In many cases, etymology just isn't helpful to understand a word. We use words the way we use them. The way we use them changes over time. In Bible study, we always want to focus on the question: how was this word used at the time the author wrote it? Not where did it come from? That said, every now and again where a word comes from can be a useful starting place to understand its meaning. As long as we realize that word meaning adapts with usage. And the word patience is one of those cases where the starting point is helpful. This word patience is made up of two Greek words. Basically, one means long or big, and the other means passion, wrath, or anger. Originally, this word started out as something like long to anger or slow to anger. It describes someone whose anger is a long time in coming. In the New Testament, we often find this word in one of two contexts. The first is it is used to describe our attitude toward the faults of others. And that usage, it's more literally like the original meaning slow to anger, slow to respond, slow to strike back, that kind of thing. The second context we find it in is in talking about the attitude that we have toward the difficulties in our own lives. In this usage, it's more like persevering, slow to give up, slow to throw in the towel. It means to persevere or hang in there. In the New Testament, we typically see this word in one of those two settings. If we lived several generations ago, it would be easy to translate this word. Probably the clearest translation of this Greek word patience is the old-fashioned word long suffering. But we don't use long suffering much anymore, and we probably don't quite understand it anymore the way it was originally intended. Today we think of suffering as going through something very difficult or terrible, but to suffer used to have the meaning to endure or to put up with. You might have heard older people use an expression like, I don't suffer fools gladly. What they're saying is, I don't put up with fools very easily. If you're a fool, I draw the line, I don't want to be in your presence. Because in their day, suffer meant to endure or to put up with. To be long-suffering meant to endure or put up with something or someone for a long time. And that's what this Greek word means. It means to put up with for a long time, either to put up with the difficulties in our own lives over a period of time, or to put up with the faults and failures of other people for a long time. As I've said before in this series, the fruits of the Spirit are rooted in a set of beliefs. They are not feelings that are magically poured into us by the Spirit. Rather, they are actions and attitudes that are grounded on and result from embracing the gospel as true. In today's modern pluralistic culture, that is a very, very important idea for believers to understand. We believers are not just called to a new ethical standard or a different ethical standard. Christianity is not a lengthy description about how good people ought to behave. It's not that we just replace the list of the works of the flesh with the list of the fruit of the spirit. Instead, we embrace a set of truths and then we live like those are true. And when we do that, these attitudes and qualities result. Now, a lot of people may show a kind of patience that is not a fruit of the spirit. The Bible is not commanding us or encouraging us to put up with things. The Bible is exhorting us to believe the gospel and live in accordance with it. The fruit of the spirit are rooted in a basic perspective of what is true. They result from a set of beliefs, a way of looking at the world. And what we are being exhorted to do is look at the world the way the Bible presents the world. The Bible exhorts me to embrace what God says is true. Out of the understanding of those truths, these fruits emerge. I remember who God is, I remember who I am, I remember what God has promised, and then I live like all that is true. When we're talking about a fruit of the Spirit, we're not just saying be the kind of person who's patient. If somebody is bugging you, just sit there and do nothing. There are lots of reasons for doing nothing. And some of them aren't particularly good. Suppose you have a neighbor who is a pest, and every day this neighbor comes over uninvited, sits down in your living room, and bores you to death for three hours. She tells you stories about people you don't know, she never asks how you're doing. She just barges in, eats all your food, takes up all your time, and then leaves. Suppose you responded to this neighbor by being patient, by being long-suffering. Every day you let her in and you don't say anything, you just put up with it. Well, you could put up with your neighbor for many reasons that Paul would not describe as a fruit of the spirit. Maybe your mom just brought you up to be hospitable. Maybe you're the kind of person who's too embarrassed to ever confront anybody about anything. Maybe your neighbor is the only person who will take care of your pets when you travel and you don't want to jeopardize that relationship. Maybe while you're sitting there patiently taking it, you're seething with anger inside. Maybe in your boredom, you're imagining all kinds of mean or sarcastic or funny ways to get this person to shut up. You grow more and more irritated until one day you finally explode in anger. The fact that you waited a long time before getting angry does not qualify as long suffering as a fruit of the spirit. The biblical virtue of long suffering is patient endurance for a reason. We patiently endure because we believe something to be true. We have taken the long view on life. We press on because we believe that God has promised an outcome which will bring meaning and purpose and resolution to everything we're going through now. Stifling my reaction to a difficult situation is not long-suffering. If I have no wisdom, I'm not showing this fruit of the spirit. If I have no understanding or perspective on why I'm enduring, then I'm not really long-suffering in the way the Bible describes as a fruit of the spirit. All right, let's look at some passages. First of all, this word is used to describe our attitude toward the difficulties of our life in light of faith. In these contexts, this word patience is very close to meaning perseverance. We hang in there. We've heard the promises of God and we believe them. In spite of the pressures on our lives, we hold on to those promises, we endure through the difficulties. These difficulties do not push us away from God, and we are long-suffering. For example, Jesus tells the parable of the sower who sows the seed on different kinds of soil. The seeds that land on the rocky ground grow up immediately, but then the sun bakes down and kills it. The seed on this rocky soil lacks patience, it lacks long suffering. Jesus explains it this way, this is Matthew 13, verses 20 and 21. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. The seed on the rocky ground responded to the gospel without endurance, without long suffering. It sprang up in joy, but when trouble came, its response was to dry up and disappear. It had no roots. There was nothing substantial to it. To be long suffering is not to be like the seed on the rocky soil, but to have something very real and substantial in our faith that stands firm and patiently waits until God fulfills his promises. All right, let's look at Hebrews 6. The author of Hebrews gives Abraham as an example of someone who was long suffering and waiting for promises to come. This is Hebrews 6, 13 through 15. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. Abraham was promised a descendant who would found a great nation, but he had to wait until he was an old man before he actually saw the promise fulfilled. His son Isaac was born in his very old age. Abraham was promised a homeland, but he himself never lived in it as a native of that land. Rather, he wandered around through it as an alien and a stranger. He was promised the whole world would be blessed through him and his descendants, but he didn't see that fulfilled in his lifetime. It was fulfilled later. Hebrews describes him as having patiently waited and then having obtained the promised. Why did he wait? Because he believed. And later in chapters 11, Hebrews encourages us to be like him. We should be imitators of those like Abraham who through faith and patience, through faith and long suffering, inherited the promises. The promises of God are the foundation for patience. We wait for an inheritance. We wait for complete rescue from sin. We wait for the return of the Messiah. We know those promises are real. We believe, as Abraham believed, that God always keeps his promises and therefore we endure. We wait patiently. We hang on till the end. We expect God to do what he said he will do. Meanwhile, in the midst of all the difficulties of our present lives, we wait, we endure, we hold on. But why are we doing it? Because we believe the promises. We believe God and we trust him. There's a great deal of difference between sort of being numb and waiting, or being angry and waiting, or being desperate and waiting, or having no hope and thinking, well, I guess I'll just put up with this until I die. That's not long suffering as a fruit of the Spirit. Long suffering in the biblical sense is to have the view that says, there is meaning to what I'm going through now, and God is working all of this into something good. Therefore, I will trust him and I will walk on on this journey. One of my favorite passages on the subject is from the book of James. This is chapter 5, verses 7 through eleven. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judges standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. James wrote this letter to people who were facing great difficulty. They were going through trials and persecution. And James begins the book by saying, Consider it joy when you encounter various trials. He says that because he's talking to people who were encountering various trials. They were suffering in many ways. Many of them were making foolish decisions. Many of them were behaving as if they were not believers at all, and were acting as if the world is all there is, and what they could grab onto in this world was all they had to get hold of. Their faith was being tested, and he is exhorting them to persevere, to hold fast to the end. He exhorts them not to abandon the faith, no matter how difficult life gets. In the middle of these issues, where they are wrestling with the implications of their faith, he's saying, Don't walk away, hold on, let your faith speak to you, hold fast to the promises of God. His exhortation to persevere is firmly rooted in this expectation for the future. He says, The Lord is coming back. Jesus is coming back to establish his kingdom and bring his inheritance to his people, and they should hold on until he does. James uses this analogy of the farmer who is waiting patiently for the produce of the soil. And I find that analogy really helpful. The farmer goes out into the field and he's working hard. He's putting seeds in the ground, he's watering them, he's pulling out the weeds. There's all kinds of work to be done. That work is hard, but it has meaning. The farmer works because, as James says, he's looking for the precious produce of the soil. The farmer is literally sustaining his own life and the lives of people who depend on him. The food that he needs to eat is growing from the ground he's working. That's why he does all this work. There is a good result in the end. And James is saying, think about your life as if you were a farmer. You're sowing now so that you can reap in the end. The farmer is long suffering as he goes through all that he has to do. He works and he waits for the early rains. He works some more and he waits for the late rains, and still it's not the harvest, but he knows the harvest is coming. That's what all his work is about. That's long suffering from a biblical perspective. Patience is hanging in there with a purpose. Long suffering is hanging in there with hope and expectation. We go through the struggles of this life because we know there is victory in the end. We don't give up because we know God is in control and He will get us there. As James says, we can be patient because we know the outcome. We know the Lord is compassionate. We know the Lord is merciful. The emphasis is on the outcome. James reminds them to think about how God has dealt with someone like Job in the past. Job had great difficulties, but in the end, God was faithful and restored him. Think about how God dealt with the prophets. Most of his prophets really suffered for being God's messengers. Many of them died at the hands of the people they were sent to serve, and yet their reward is great. James is saying the same kind of thing. If you want the same reward as the prophets, don't give up. Be faithful, be patient, and you'll receive it. We are long suffering in this life because we expect to reap the outcome that God has for his people. The long suffering, the patience, and the expectation for the future are very much tied together. Patience as a fruit of the Spirit is not sort of mindlessly hanging on. Patience as a fruit of the Spirit is hopefully enduring. I am long suffering because I know the end of the story and I'm waiting for God to bring it about. This kind of perseverance or long suffering is specifically described in other places as a work of God. For example, this is Colossians 1, 9 through 11. And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy. Paul says, This is what I pray for you. I want you to be filled with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding so that you might live your lives in a worthy manner. Paul specifically pairs bearing fruit with increasing in knowledge. He prays that they would be strengthened for the purpose of endurance and patience with joy. But it all starts with being filled with knowledge. It all starts with this understanding. Because we believe, because we embrace the truth, we live out our lives in a way that pleases the Lord. Because we stand on these foundational truths of the gospel, we bear fruit, we endure with patience and joy. And all of this is a work of God in our lives. Paul is praying that God would bring this about. Through his Spirit, God teaches us, strengthens us, and produces this fruit. That's the first context in which we find this word. Longsuffering describes this hopeful endurance and perseverance through the difficulties in our lives. Because we believe the promises of God, we persevere and hold on, waiting for those promises to be fulfilled. The other way you'll see this word used is to talk about us being patient and long-suffering with each other, to forbear with each other, to put up with each other. This is the same idea we talked about in the last podcast when we talked about peace as a fruit of the Spirit. James also reminds us that we need to have a certain attitude toward each other. He reminds us God is coming to judge as well, and therefore we should be long suffering with each other. We should forbear with each other's faults. And we can find that idea in a number of places in Scripture. Here's another one, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verses 14 and 15. And I urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Here, being patient has this idea of put up with each other. We are to forgive and overlook each other's faults. This is not endure life's difficulties. This is overlook the sins of others. And again, I don't think this is the sort of endurance that says, I'm just gonna grit my teeth and pretend you're not there. This type of long suffering is rooted in what we believe to be true. It's rooted in our hopes and our beliefs about the future and the promises of God. Now it probably sounds strange to say that my beliefs about the future affect how I treat you today, but I think that's the biblical picture. I can almost hear you saying, you really think that abstract ideas like mercy and justice are supposed to make a difference in how I treat the obnoxious people all around me? And my answer is yes. All of history is on a collision course with the day of the Lord. One day God is going to judge the world and bring about his kingdom. On that day, there will be mercy and there will be justice. And both of these things ought to mean something to me now as I'm living my life. If you've listened to much of my teaching, you'll have heard me talk about this before. In fact, we've talked about this in this series on the fruit of the spirit. Other people are hard to deal with. They take unfair advantage of us, they say bad things about us, they misjudge us and accuse us of things that aren't true. They use our very real faults and mistakes against us, they gossip about us, they might lash out in anger at us, people that ought to care about us don't, people that ought to be on our side or sometimes indifferent to us, people that we have tried to treat well, turn around and take advantage of us, and it seems that the people closest to us take us for granted the most. How are we to respond when all that kind of stuff happens? Well, it all comes down to what we believe. We believe that God exists and that one day he's going to judge the world. He's going to execute justice, and for some he's going to grant mercy. And both of those truths are profoundly important. Either God is going to execute his justice or he's going to show mercy because of the very costly blood of Jesus Christ. And both of those are good things. Justice is an appropriate consummation to a world like this, and mercy is a wonderful and compelling consummation to a world like this. Mercy is great and justice is necessary. But here's the kicker. Each one of us must wrestle with the question of where do I stand? Am I going to get justice or am I going to get mercy? Other people are not the only sinners in the world. I am a sinner too. In the end, my future holds either mercy or justice, and that ought to mean something to me. Now it doesn't mean anything to a lot of people because they don't believe in the God of the Bible. They don't believe that God is good or just, and they don't think they need his mercy. Maybe they believe in a benevolent God who's going to be nice to everybody just because, but they don't really believe in a God who takes justice so seriously that he became a man and died on a cross so that he might be merciful to some. But if we've come to terms with the cross, then we have to come to terms with where we stand in the face of that future. Our future holds one of those two things. And we need to recognize that we are guilty and we deserve justice, but God has graciously offered us mercy through the cross. He will not hold against us what he has every right to hold against us. He can forgive us because Jesus died as an offering for our sins. So if we have embraced that truth, the truth that we are really guilty and we really are in trouble, but we can be rescued by the cross, that changes the way we think of ourselves and other sinners. Everyone's future holds the same thing. God is going to take care of the problem of sin in this world. He is going to solve that problem, and he's going to solve it through either judgment or mercy. That means you and I are in the same boat. We are equally guilty before God. We need the same grace and mercy. I have no right to judge you, condemn you, or consider myself superior in any way. That's the foundation for being long-suffering. I can be willing to endure, to forbear with other people's sins because I know I need the same mercy. As believers, we recognize that any standard we use to condemn someone else also condemns us. Because we've seen our own tremendous need for mercy, we value mercy and we willingly and humbly show it to others. Now let me be clear. What are we being called to do and why? Rather than striking back at those who have sinned against us, we are being told to be patient, to overlook it, to let it roll off our backs. Why are we doing this? Because we know the truth. We know that God is long-suffering with us, and we in turn should be long-suffering with each other. We also know that one day God will right every wrong and we can trust Him. We can wait and endure, knowing that He has promised to bring both mercy and justice. The more we understand how desperate our situation is, the more we understand how great the mercy of God is. And that in turn becomes the basis for patiently enduring the problems that we have with other people. We know we will be all right because God is being merciful to us. We can be humble because we know we're sinners too. We can afford to be forgiving and merciful to others because we know in the end God is going to make everything right. That's the picture out of which our long suffering with each other comes. Once again, there's this important theme. The fruit of the spirit that Paul is describing here is not a supernatural feeling that comes upon me. It's not that I go through life with this warm, fuzzy patience surrounding me. The fruit of the spirit results from a new perspective on life, and that new perspective results from our faith becoming strong and real. Basically, the foundation beneath all the fruit of the Spirit is the promises of the gospel. Exhortations in the Bible are essentially an exhortation to believe the gospel. If we're encouraged to be patient with each other, that's another way of saying believe the gospel. If we're encouraged to persevere in our faith, that's another way of saying believe. If we're exhorted to forgive each other, that's another way of saying believe the gospel. Because we're encouraged to do more than fake an outward action, like putting on a mask. We're supposed to believe the gospel and then live our lives in a certain way because we believe it. When we talk about being long suffering, how we respond ultimately depends on what we believe to be true. If the hope of the gospel is not capturing our hearts, then at best we can only fake patience. We can plaster on a mask of patience, and you've probably seen this on the faces of some of those around you in church some days. You probably even wore it yourself a day or two. We're told Christians are supposed to be patient, so we force ourselves to be patient. But it's just a plastered-on patience. Inside, we can still be resentful. We can still be angrily thinking that the world owes us something. We can plaster on this fake smile and grit our teeth and say, look, I'm being long-suffering. But in the end, you know that doesn't really get you anywhere because there's all this hostility brewing below the surface. Eventually that anger bursts out, and it's not really long suffering. It's just this religious posture that we're taking because everybody expects that you're going to act that way when you walk into church on Sunday morning. But that's not long suffering from a biblical perspective. The question behind long suffering is: have I really come to understand what life is all about? I can plaster on a smile and play the brave Christian, or I can have the perspective of the farmer. I'm working hard for a reason. My eye is on the promises of the gospel. I trust that God is at work. There's this expression that Christians kick around. Some say, oh, he's so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good. I don't like that expression. I don't think there's much truth behind it. I think the more biblical teaching is you can't be any earthly good until you're more heavenly minded. We don't have any real transformation until, as Peter says, our hope is fixed completely on the grace to be revealed to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. When our hope is fixed on the right thing, that washes back and gives us a new perspective on where we are now. Think about the farmer. The farmer is very future oriented. Every single thing that he does on a daily basis is because of the future harvest he's expecting. If there wasn't going to be a harvest in the future, he wouldn't go out and weed the garden. If there's not going to be a harvest in the future, no farmer in the world's going to go out and dig up the ground and plant seeds and water it and go through all that work for nothing. He works because of his future hope. So who is more practical and down to earth than the farmer? He's working in the earth every day. He has a future hope, but his daily tasks deal with earth and soil and weeds and rain, all the earthly stuff of daily life. He's not so future oriented that he ignores daily life. He's careful and attentive to daily life because he is future oriented. His hope gives him perspective. His hope gives him priorities and it helps him sort out all the responsibilities in this world. Likewise, the gospel shows us which responsibilities are truly profoundly important and which ones can be set aside. We are long-suffering because we're embracing an understanding of what God is doing and where our lives are headed. We endure because we trust the promises of God. And that same thing is true with the attitude that we have toward each other. We can put on a fake smile and just sort of grit our teeth and put up with each other, or we can take the harder, longer road of coming to terms with who we are, coming to terms with how merciful God is, and then confronting the issues we have with each other from a place of humility and love and patience. So to wrap this up, here again we see this picture of the fruit of the Spirit as not being feelings, but a perspective change. As the Spirit of God reveals truth to us, as the Spirit changes our perspective and opens our eyes and strengthens our faith, these qualities emerge. These qualities emerge not as a mask, not as something we put on from the outside in so that we can fit in at church on Sunday mornings. They emerge as a natural result of the fact that our eyes are fixed on the hope of the gospel. Yes, I believe all this as a result of the Spirit of God, but it doesn't mean I sit back and say, okay, someday I guess the Spirit's going to do something, because every day I'm faced with choices. Today I'm facing choices like how am I going to treat my spouse? How do I speak to my boss? Am I going to have a good attitude at work? Will I overlook that sarcastic comment that hurt my feelings? Do I join the office gossip and laugh at a coworker? Do I lie on my tax forms? Do I cut ahead of someone in line? All those choices, big or little, confront us with the reality of the gospel. Right now I have a choice to make. Am I going to live like the gospel is true or not? When you put all that together, either we're wrestling with life in light of the gospel or we're not. That's what's at stake here. The legalists that Paul is speaking to have basically dodged the bigger issue. They've come along and said, hey, just keep the rules. God will like you, everything will be okay. I make a great sincere effort at keeping the rules, so I must be okay. What's wrong with you? And they live life with a certain kind of self-centeredness, a self-importance, a faulty view of themselves, and a faulty view of God. And ultimately that leads to works of the flesh. Legalism or law keeping just isn't going to get us anywhere. But when we come to understand the gospel, we understand I'm not standing before God because I kept the rules. I'm standing before him because he is merciful to me. If he's not merciful, I'm going to be condemned. His mercy is the thing I am counting on. And that knowledge becomes the foundation for the fruit of the Spirit. Long suffering is built on something real, something that can last, a promise that will make it through the storms because it's built on the promises of the gospel. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. I don't take any advertising on my website, nor do I ask for donations. Your ratings and reviews are the advertising for this program. But it really does encourage me to hear from you. Please leave a positive rating on your favorite podcast platform or drop me an email. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can find his music on heartfeltmusic.org. You can find all the episodes in this series on my website, Wednesdayintheword.com. Thank you for listening today. I'm Krisan Marotta and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.