Longsuffering – Fruit of the Spirit

  Posted on 15th November 2016  by Tom Barns  No comments

Hebrews 6v10-20

Everything keeps getting faster. And no matter how fast we can do things, people still run out of patience.

Long-suffering could perhaps be translated literally as ‘long-tempered’. It means having a long fuse, putting up with a lot. It’s one of two types of patience we find in the New Testament – the other is endurance.

What is God like?

Think about God’s patience and long-suffering:

• At the time of Noah (Gen6v5, 1 Peter 3v20)
• With the people of Canaan (Gen 15v16)
• Israel in the wilderness (Num 14v18)
• Israel before the exile (Jer 7v23-27)
• Israel at the time of Christ (Luke 13v6)
• All the other nations all this time (Acts 14v16, 17v30)
• Us (Rom 2v4, 2 Peter 3v9,15)

‘Long-suffering’ is part of how God describes himself – Exodus 34v6-7

Patience with others

Look at God’s example as we saw above

Eph 4v1-3

It’s linked to love and to peace which we’ve seen already

It needs to be accompanied by forgiveness – Col 3v12-13

For an example of this look at Matt 18v21-35

Patience in trouble and suffering

Look at the examples of the prophets, of Job, of Jesus himself. Read James 5v11-12. To learn patience is one of the purposes of suffering (Rom 5v3-4, James 1v2-4) And so this patience is itself a good, commendable thing in God’s sight. And it teaches us to hope…

Patience in hope of God’s promises

Look back to the passage we started with, Hebrews 6v10-15

Abraham is a great example of hoping in God’s promises. For more examples just look at Hebrews 11

They all hoped in faith for what they didn’t see

• Rom 8v25
• Heb 10v36

Wait in hope and patience, for the coming of Christ: James 5v7