November 09, 2025

CULTIVATE: ENDURING PATIENCE AND PERFECT PEACE

November 09, 2025

Teaching Pastor Charles Billingsley

We are in our November series, studying the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:16-26. Today, we will learn how to strive for perfect peace and cultivate patience. Do you know anyone who does not desire peace in their life? Marriages are broken because someone wants peace. Murders are committed as people seek peace. Children leave home to find peace. Yet it is as near as the comfort zone around our body: it is within our reach, no matter what our circumstances. As Charles so rightly put it, “You will never find peace until you know the Author of Peace, and make Him the Lord and Savior of your life.” Patience, meanwhile, might be more difficult to master until it begins to show positive results. Still, each time one practices patience successfully, we are a centimeter closer to perfection—or at least closer to spiritual maturity! Keep on, don’t quit.

Focal Passages: Galatians 5:13-26; John 15:1-5, 14:27; Romans 2:1-4, 5:1; Ephesians 2:14-18, 4:1-3; Philippians 4:6-7; Colossians 3:12-15; Psalm 4:8.

Bearing Fruit:

     The key to bearing fruit in your life is to walk in the Spirit:

  • Read Gal. 5:16-17. Last week, we discussed the only way the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our lives. How does that happen? What does He do in our lives? What will quench Him?
  • What will continually give the Spirit more power in our lives, as we live for and do God’s will? Is there a limit to the power He provides if we ‘exercise ourselves toward godliness’ (1 Tim. 4:8)? Will others notice if we bear fruit? What will they see (Acts 4:13)?
  • Read John 15:1-5. How do we stay filled with the Spirit’s power? Does it hurt to be pruned?

What is the surest way to fail in life (vs. 5)?

PEACE:

Seeking Peace with God:

  • Read Rom. 5:1. How can we have peace with God? When does God forgive our sins?
  • Read Eph. 2:14. When Jesus lived, enmity existed between which two groups? How was it removed? Where else does enmity exist? How is it resolved?
  • Does God have peace with His children? Is peace possible without believing on Jesus Christ as Savior?
  • What causes us to be at war with God, before salvation (Rom. 7:5, 18)? After salvation, what happens to the fleshly desires (Rom. 7:22-23)? Will we always have our spirit and our flesh fighting each other?

Seeking the Peace of God:

  • Read Phil. 4:6-7. In this passage, how are we to come to God? Can we praise Him with thanksgiving and be worrying at the same time? What will His peace do for our hearts?
  • Why are we not able to have a heart full of gratefulness and a soul full of anxiety?

Why does God help us if we approach Him as this passage tells us?

  • Read Psa. 4:8. What picture of peace does this Psalm imply? Is it possible to trust Him so completely that we really can rest from worry? How do we do that?

Patience

  • Patience will help us see others through God’s eyes—rather than judging them through our own. Read Gal. 5:13-15. What do we do to love those who are unlovely? How do we even start? What if they continue to spurn us? Where does patience come in?
  • Patience allows us to love others the way God wants us to love them. Read Eph. 4:1-3. In the NLT, what six things are we to do because God has called us and because of the love we are to have toward all people? How can we do this?

Observations of Fruit:

  • Fruit is always visible. Have you ever seen an invisible banana? Neither has the world.
  • Fruit is always consistent with the plant from which it was produced. Good trees bear good fruit. Bad trees bear bad fruit. Matt. 7:17.
  • Fruit does not exist for itself. It is for others to enjoy. Share the joy.
  • Fruit eventually dies if it is detached from the vine. The branch cannot bear fruit without the vine. John 15:5.
  • Fruit doesn’t try to be something it is not. A pear never tries to be a grape. Bloom where you are planted.

Close: 

When was the last time you had a disruption of fellowship between you and another believer, whether they were family or friends? It will never be right until the two of you get together and talk it over—with full awareness that God is there, also. Finally, there will be peace between you.

When was the last time you saw your sin as a barrier causing the same disruption between you and God? Only by keeping a short account of your transgressions can you have a right relationship with Him. That is why you must use 1 John 1:9 to keep yourself cleansed from sin.

God, the Holy Spirit, is the One Who convicts us of our sin, so we need His constant activity in our lives. By recognizing how often He works in our lives, we learn to depend on Him more and more.  We must strive to live so that we do not grieve Him, quench Him, or resist Him. He loves us and gives us the power to produce the fruit of righteousness like love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Do you want to bear fruit as you interact with people? Then hold fast to the Vine that allows you to be full of the Spirit of God, pray often, read your Bible, and praise Him always.

By Sandy Day

November 09, 2025

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