“The Promise” Part 3 The Provision
Pastor Glenn Newton June 8, 2003
GAL 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and
desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not
become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Gal. 5:22-26
This morning we are continuing our Journey of learning about the Holy Spirit, as we talk
about the Holy Spirit’s Provision for our life, in other words I want to talk to you about
What the Holy Spirit wants to provide to you in this relationship that we all can
experience as Christians with Him.
How many of you have ever picked fruit off of a fruit tree? Do you remember when you
were kids, finding that apple tree and climbing up the tree and picking you a ripe apple to
eat?
Of coarse, if it was a green apple tree, we didn’t eat many of those, but we had some
wonderful times throwing apples at each other.
Around here I’m sure you climbed alot more peach trees than apple trees didn’t you?
How many times did you look up into that peach tree and notice that the peach tree was
producing Oranges? Anybody? Are you sure?
It just doesn’t happen does it. We can know a Tree by what kind of fruit it produces,
right?
This morning we are going to talk about the Fruit of the Spirit that the Holy Spirit
produces in our lives as a growing Christian, and how we can know each other by what is
being produced in our lives. Not everyone who calls themselves Christian is producing
Fruit of the Spirit.... Did you know that? It’s available to every Christian, but I hope you
have learned by now that there’s nothing automatic about the Spirit’s ministry. Every
believer is baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ, and every believer has the
Holy Spirit indwelling presence, but neither of these guarantees that we will experience all
the Spirit’s benefits.......
So let’s talk about those qualities of theSpiritual life that the Holy Spirit will produce in us
if we submit to His filling and control, ... notice the word Submit is key today.
The Apostle Paul lists the Fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5:22-23 which we have read this
morning, two tightly packed verses that we will study. It would be great just to turn to
these two verses and let the juice of the Spirit run down our arms, so to speak, as we dig
into their goodness and all that God has for us.
But to do that, we would have to climb over the verses that preceed verses 22-23,
which means ignoring the context in which Paul’s discussion of spiritual fruit occurs. But
even more important, if we skip over verses 16-21 of Gal. 5, we will miss a truth about the
Christian life that is critically important to understanding and experiencing the Holy
Spirit’s Fruit.
So let’s Whet the Appetite.
Let’s look at verses 16-21 in Gal. 5 together, what we are doing is whetting our appetite
for the juicy, sweet, and satisfying fruit of the Spirit by giving us a taste of the dry, rotten,
and unsatisfying deeds of the flesh. Sometimes we don’t develop a real hunger for the
good stuff until you’ve gotten your fill of the bad stuff. If you’ve ever tried to live the
Christian life on your own power, without the power of the Holy Spirit, then you will
know what I’m talking about.... it’s utterly bitter.
In fact, the believers in Galations were trying to live the life of the Holy Spirit in
the energy of the flesh, on their own power, and Paul was astonded, listen to what he says
in Gal. 3:1,3 “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus
Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?.... Are you so foolish? Having begun by the
Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
Why was Paul so upset? The Galatians were being tempted to substitute rules for a
dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit. This idea is still with us today. We have all met
Christians who have a list of rules for us to follow if we want to be victorious...., the
Christian life does include rules.... There are definite do’s and don’ts. But the power for
victorious Chrisitan living is not in the rules.... It’s in the Spirit. Paul clarifies how it
works in this classic passage in Gal. 5: 16-18........ What he does is give us a good taste of
the rotten fruit of the flesh so we will sincerely desire the fruit of the Spirit. Listen to what
he says....v. 16-18
GAL 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful
nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit
what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that
you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under
law.
Paul is telling us that we live in a War Zone. This zone consists of two opposing realities;
your flesh, the old man, and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
When you came to Christ, the Spirit of God came to take up residence in your life and
gave you a new nature. He placed your new nature in the old house of your flesh-- and
your old self, this old house doens’t take kindly to the Holy Spirit moving in, He wants to
make too many changes to the old house......one thing we realize about our Old Flesh, It
kind of likes keeping things the same as they’ve always been, it’s more comfortable.
Friend, what I want you to understand is that battle that takes place, in this War Zone
needs to be won, the question is will you DIE to the Old way of life and allow the Holy
Spirit to have complete control? Listen to what we read about our need to allow the Old
Man to die.
RO 6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no
means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us
who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore
buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from
the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
RO 6:5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be
united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him
so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to
sin-- 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
RO 8:5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that
nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on
what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the
Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law,
nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
RO 8:9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit
of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong
to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive
because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is
living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies
through his Spirit, who lives in you.
God through the Death and Ressurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ has given us through
the Holy Spirit the Power to Live a Holy Life, a Spirit led life, a life not ruled by Rules and
Regulations, but a life Ruled by a Relationship with the One who makes us an overcomer.
The apostle Paul has been trying to show the Galatians that no amount of Law-Keeping,
which is really their own effort to live a Holy life will do the job. The Law is good and
necessary because we are rebellious by nature. The Law given to Moses, which is the
revelation of God’s perfect standard, was given to show us how sinful we are and how far
short we fall of God’s demands.
No police officer is ever going to pull you over, come up to the drivers window, and say,
“I couldn’t help but notice on my radar that you were going the speed limit. So I just
wanted to pull you over and let you know how blessed the Clarksville police department is
to have a law abiding citizen like you. Here, let me write you a thank you ticket.”
That’s not going to happen is it? The law is not there to congratulate you for obeying the
law... It’s there to catch you when you exceed the speed limit. It’s there to condemn you,
because that is what law does. The problem with the law is that it doesn’t give you the
power to obey it. I won’t ask how many obey the speed limit......... The law can give you
guidelines and punish you when you have broken them, but the law can’t make you obey.
That’s why, if you try to live the Christian life by keeping a list of rules in the power of
your flesh, you are doomed to failure and misery. All the law can do is condemn.
Paul tells us the answer to this is to let the Holy Spirit take over in your life, then you are
going to be pleasing God because you want to, not because you have to. When the Holy
Spirit takes over, we don’t function by law, we function on Relationship.
When we are living our Christian Life in tune with the Holy Spirit, when we are in
Obediance with the Holy Spirit, something awesome takes place... do you know what that
is? The Holy Spirit begins to produce Fruit in our lives.
Just as the deeds of the flesh are evident, so are the fruit of the Spirit. There are
three things I want you to know about the Spirit’s Fruit.
1. Fruit is Visiable.
The first thing you need to know about fruit is that fruit is always visible. Watch
out for that tree in your backyard that is giving you invisible fruit. When fruit is ripe and
ready, you know it.
So don’t tell me that you are walking in the Spirit in your heart, or that you are full
of the Spirit in your heart, if nothing is evident in your life but the works of the flesh.
Jesus said that we can tell false prophets by the fruit they produce. The same is
true for believers. If you are walking in the Spirit, others will know it.
2. Fruit is Recognizable.
The second thing you need to know about fruit is that fruit always reflects the
character of the tree or vine that is bearing it. “Grapes are not gathered from thron
bushes, nor figs from thistles.” Jesus said this in Matt. 7. Apple trees produce apples,
orange trees produce oranges, and so on. The Fruit that comes from a life controlled by
the Holy Spirit will reflect the character of Jesus Christ. What do people see in your life?
There’s no use acting like your a Orange tree if your producing something else, right.
God gives us discernment to know what kind of fruit people are producing in their lives.
So let’s make sure that we are saying one thing and producing another... Amen?
3. Fruit is for Others.
A third fact about fruit is that fruit is always borne for the benefit of others. The
seed in a fruit is designed for reproduction. So as you bear the fruit of the Spirit, others
not only enjoy the “taste” of your life, but also the seeds of spiritual growth are planted in
their lives.
Fruit is always meant for someone else’s enjoyment. You never see fruit chewing
on itself, do you? In fact, fruit that only exists for itself gets rotten. Suppose an apple
begins to go bad and says, “I don’t want to be picked. I don’t even want to be touched,
let alone eaten. Just let me hang here on the tree.” That apple is going to rot, because
one reason for fruit is so that somebody can take a bite.
The Holy Spirit wants to control us so that our families and friends can be around
us and take a bite out of our lives and say, “UMM, that’s good.”
In our Passage this morning, Paul says the Fruit of the Spirit is love. Godly love is
the ability to seek the highest good for another, regardless of that person’s response. The
flesh says, “You aren’t being loving to me, so I’m not going to show you any love.” The
Spirit says, “Even if you are not loving me, let me show you what real love looks like.”
That’s the Holy Spirit.
How about Joy? The world can only offer you happiness, which is driven by
circumstances. In other words, if you can show me a good time, I will be happy.
But the joy of the Spirit has nothing to do with happiness. It has to do with a well
of living water on the inside, not the circumstances on the outside. Joy is the overflow of
the life of God within you. If you have an empty well within, you will have to go all over
the place to find happiness.
But if you have joy, you can turn a bad situation into a playground. Joy is inner
stability regardless of external circumstances.
The Fruit of the Spirit is also Peace. The Holy Spirit can bring harmony where there is
conflict. He can take two different personalities and cause them to live together in peace.
He can take two factions that are at war and bring them together in harmony.
The fruit of the Spirit also consists of “patience,” that quality that allows us to be
“long-fused” instead of short tempered. It removes a vengeful spirit toward those who
have wronged us.
“Kindness” is thinking of ways you can help others, not ways you can hurt them.
“Goodness” means deeds that benfit others, not deeds that destroy. “Faithfulness” is the
ability to be consistent, not there one day and gone the next. It means we are dependable.
“Gentleness” or meekness is the ability to bring yourself under the control of another, the
ability to submit to the will of God. Finally, “self-control” is the ability to say no to wrong
and yes to right, no matter how tempting the wrong is.
Friends, there’s so much more the Spirit Provides for us..... I challenge you to grow closer
and more intimate in your relationship with the Holy Spirit, and He will teach you so much
better than I can preach it.... He wants you to know Him and learn more about Who He is.
The key to this Relationship is found in Gal. 5:25, 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us
keep in step with the Spirit.
To walk with the Spirit means that you actually going somewhere, there’s going to be
growth. Walking also assumes continuious movement, you just keep going, if you fall
down, you get up and keep walking. Walking also means dependance, putting your
weight down on your legs one leg at a time. Walking in the Spirit means you are
depending on the Holy Spirit to hold you up..... much of this walking starts with our
Prayer life..... So let’s get walking with the Spirit, let’s stay in step, and we do this
through prayer and obedience. We need a church full of Spirit-Filled, Fruit producing,
Holy Living people that will influence and impact the people around them. Will you be
one of these people?
