…God, He’s part of the Trinity. That’s what Christianity affirms. We’ve talked about that two weeks ago. And then last week was “What is My Relationship with the Holy Spirit?” – how do I live and interact with God, the Holy Spirit. This week is entitled, “The Fruits of the Holy Spirit” – that there are some things that the Holy Spirit does in a person’s life that you bear fruit. All right, so as we start, I’m going to play some voices for you. There are five voices on this CD that I’m going to have R.C. play in a second and there’s about 15 seconds in between that and that’s where you get to tell me who that is. Don’t be shy. It’s okay to talk in church and we’re going to see if you can identify these five voices. All right, hit it R.C.
Intro: Play audio clips from 5 people, see if congregation recognizes them.
So if you are 14, you didn’t get the Winston Churchill one and if you’re over 14, you didn’t get the Miley Cyrus. Okay. So you recognize voices. You can recognize the voice and you can recognize who that person is behind the voice. What is a thing that we can look at in a Christian’s life and recognize them to be a Christian? What is that? Because it’s not just a sure thing if somebody says they’re a Christian. It doesn’t mean that they are a Christian and truly only God knows a person’s heart. But generally, what can we see in a person’s life that can identify them as being a Christ follower – being a Christian?
Some people think it’s just their testimony – what they say. But that’s not true. If somebody just says they are a Christian, it doesn’t mean necessarily that they’re a Christian. Just because you say I know the way to Rockford, doesn’t mean that you’re in Rockford right now. It’s just the same way. Somebody can say “I’m a Christian” even know the way to be a Christian, doesn’t mean necessarily that they’re a Christian. So what are the things that can identify a person as really being truly a Christ follower?
Take your Bibles and just turn to John 15 as we get into the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Jesus addresses this very thing in John 15. And he gives us two things that we can identify in a person’s life. In your own life…I want you to be examining your own heart and life today. Don’t think that this is a great message for my neighbor to hear. Think about it for yourself for a moment. Jesus lists two different things. Look at verse 4:
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. And then jump down to verse 8:
8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
So Jesus says essentially two things: Abide in faith. The person that abides in Jesus, abiding faith, believing in Him and staying in the vine – that’s a mark of a Christian. And then the second one is bearing fruit. Bearing fruit in keeping with a said belief system or their faith. Two things. Two markers that you can recognize a Christian. In your life, you can recognize that you truly are a Christian if you have abiding faith and you are bearing fruit. Not perfectly. Not necessarily all the time, but on an ever-increasing basis as your life unfolds you are bearing more and more fruit as you grow up into Jesus Christ. You become mature in Jesus.
So you say, “What is that fruit?” Well, good question. That’s why we’re here today to talk about the fruit of the Holy Spirit. So go to Galatians 5. This is where we are going to spend the bulk of our time today. We’re going to start at verse 22. As you are going there, let me just give you a background about the letter that Paul wrote to this church just to catch us up to chapter 5.
Paul started this church and this church was started by hearing first the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel that God loves sinners of who you are one. Paul would say I am the chief. God loves sinners, but He longs to restore you into a relationship with Himself and so he sent Jesus, God’s Son, to die on the cross for sin. Jesus’ death on the cross was not only a victory over the spiritual forces of the enemy, a victory over sin, but it was also a substitutionary atonement for people’s sin. Four words that describe the gospel is “Jesus in my place.” Jesus died on the cross in my place paying for the sins. We just sang that, “Jesus Paid It All” – paid for our sins. So if you believe in him, you trust in him, you become a new creation.
Well, the church in Galatia received this. They received it, but then something started happening. False teachers most likely called Judaisers…these were people who claimed to be Christians, but they said that you would have to believe in Jesus, but then also become a Jew, a practicing Jew, and hold all the rules and regulations and the laws of the Jews. It makes logical sense. Jesus was a Jew, was he not? And Jesus came…he didn’t come to do away with the law. Jesus even said that. He didn’t do away with the Law, so then what are we supposed to do with this law? Well, Judaisers have a logical answer. Believe in Jesus and keep all the laws and therefore, if you’re a Gentile you become a Christian – now you have to be circumcised. This is the big argument of the day – in Paul’s day by the Judaisers. You become a Christian. You’re a Gentile. You’re not circumcised. The mark of a Christian according to the Law was circumcision.
Well, then Paul writes this letter because he sees that this is starting to happen and the people are even being led astray by it and he says in verse 6 of chapter 1:
6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—
You’re so quickly turning from the gospel that I preached to you – and now thinking that you’re saved or you’re really pleasing to God when you follow all of the laws and commands. He goes onto talk about faith. It is by faith that one enters into this relationship with God – faith in Jesus Christ. That’s what we proclaim here. It’s not by the observance of laws and Paul is so strong on this. Let me show you a verse in chapter 5, verse 12 he’s talking about these Judaisers. These people who are encouraging these new Christians – “Oh, you have to be circumcised.” Okay, guys, hold your breath. Here is what he says to these guys:
12I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!
Okay, literally he’s saying, “I wish you guys who are preaching this circumcision stuff – leave the JV team and step on the Varsity – and just go all the way with it.” Yeah, it’s in the Bible. Why does he use that type of language? Because it’s detracting from the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing that we can do on our own merit or power to gain favor from God. It’s all on what Jesus has done. The salvation comes when we are associated with the Messiah, with Jesus. So it’s not of ourselves, it’s a gift of God. It’s not of works so that nobody can boast.
Now the alternative that Paul lays out then we’ll see in chapter 5 is to walk, to live by, the Spirit of God inside of us. God has given his Spirit now. He is God’s representative. He is God and He is God’s representative. He points to Jesus. He works in our lives. He draws us to Himself. He saves us. He indwells within us and we live by His power, not by a list of rules and regulations.
This doesn’t just happen in the Galatian church – the church that started with the gospel and then goes back to the Law. This happens in a lot of churches today. I’m not thinking of any specific church, but this an easy thing for people to do. It’s easy because it’s easier to have a list of do’s and don’ts than to listen to the Spirit of God. It’s an easier thing because the Spirit of God is sort of a mystery. Jesus said the winds blows where it may. Who knows where it blows? It’s kind of the same with the Holy Spirit. He moves in powerful ways here. He moves in subtle ways here. And it’s hard to be in touch with Him and what He’s doing and to be studying His Word. Let’s just boil it down to a list of do’s and don’ts.
Then you have a community – a church that comes together that started on the gospel and then all the people have heard the gospel. Supposedly everybody’s been saved and so now what do we preach on? We preach on sanctification which is all well and good if you keep the gospel the center of sanctification. But if you just preach sanctification as works that you do pretty soon it becomes a culture of you do certain things to be part of this church – to be part of this community and that is where you status is is what you do. And that’s not the gospel. The gospel is not that. The gospel is always what Jesus did. And our sanctification then happens with the gospel as the background and as the gospel on the foreground and the gospel on the center. And so here as long as God gives me breath, we’ll always be talking about the gospel because that’s where everything happens. It affects how we are sanctified – how we live for God because we know that we’re not alive anymore. Jesus now lives in me and that’s make a difference in how we live.
I’ll give you an example. A pastor from Texas named Matt Chandler. It’s actually on the West Lisbon Face Book. You can watch him tell the story himself. It happened to him. It didn’t happen to me. But he told the story of…he was 19 years old and in one of his classes in college he sat next to a girl who was in her mid-twenties. She had been divorced, had a kid, and she was actually in the time that he was talking with her and just trying to get to know her and share Jesus with her, she was having an affair with some other married guy…whatever.
So he asked her to go to a youth event. A big event with a whole gathering of young people because he knew that the music…the worship leader. It was a good band and so he thought, “Hey, at least she can come and hear some good music”. Didn’t know what the talk was going to be about, but the music got over. Then the guy got up to give the talk to a thousand young people. The talk was on sexual purity. And he starts off by holding up a rose saying, “Isn’t this rose beautiful? Does anybody want to smell it and touch it? Here…” and he hands it out to the crowd and the rose goes all over the crowd. He goes onto his rant about not really exploring about what the Bible says about sex – how beautiful it is; that it’s between a man and a woman and that relationship between husband and wife reflects the relationship that God has with the church and all those wonderful things that you could bring out. It was more like if you have pre-marital sex, you’ll get this disease, this disease. You might have an unwanted pregnancy. Now that doesn’t work with non-Christian young people. They’ll just say, “I’ve got to make sure to use protection then. Thanks.” It was just trying to scare the kids. And then at the end of the talk, his big crescendo was, “Okay, where’s the rose?” They give him the rose and it’s all broken and the petals are falling off because it had been handed around. And his big final thing was, “See this rose?” Comparing it to your sexuality that the thing that you have to give to another person… “See this rose? Who would want this rose?” And this pastor said he was just sitting there physically wanting to run up and tackle the guy because he’s sitting next to his friend. The answer is “Jesus wants the rose.”
See, that’s what happens when you leave the gospel. Now the guy’s intentions were good. He wanted to have young people save themselves for marriage, but he missed the whole point of the Bible, of Jesus’ love, of the gospel of redemption.
So this happens today. It didn’t just happen to the Galatians. Well, then what is the alternative then? How do we do this? How do we bear fruit? Well, the alternative is to live bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit – being led by god Himself and certain things start to happen in your life. And that’s what we’re going to look at in Galatians 5:22 because we want to be a gospel community, right? We want to be a people who love God, who love one another, and who are bearing fruit and being sanctified and becoming more like Jesus all the while telling others and sharing this great, good news that we have.
Galatians 5:22. We left last week we went to the verses previous to that and saw the things that we abstain from remembering that we can’t do it on our own power. First, acknowledging that, but then living and actually doing some things and one of the things that we did was stay away from the list previous. Now here’s the positive thing. Verse 22:
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
So we’re going to spend some time. Let’s go through this list because these are fruits that should be in every Christian’s life. Did you hear that? These are fruits that are to be in every Christian’s life. Next week, we’ll talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Not everybody has all the gifts, but the fruit of the Spirit…every fruit of the Spirit is supposed to be a part of a believer’s life. In varying degrees, yes, but they should be there. We want them to be there as we grow up in our faith.
First one: love. Love is the greatest quality. That’s why it’s listed first. Many times in the Bible something in a list (such as a list of names) shows their importance. You see Peter is always listed first among the disciples. It doesn’t mean that it was greater than them or it doesn’t mean that he was the first but he was the first among equals. Love is the greatest quality and it appears first. It reflects the very nature of God. I John 4 says that God is love. In I Corinthians 13, Paul explains really what love is and how important it is. You might have heard these verses read at a wedding.
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
So if you have the gift of speaking in tongues and you can speak in a heavenly language and you do it according to the Bible. When you speak somebody else interprets, and you can speak in tongues. It’s wonderful and it’s marvelous. If you don’t have love, it’s just the same as Sam coming up here and banging on the cymbal. It’s worthless without love.
2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. Wow! You mean you have faith in God that can move mountains and it’s worthless without love? Yeah.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing. Give away everything including my own life, but if there’s not love, it’s worthless.
Well, what is love? Verse 4:
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. I’ve just got to say this and I don’t quickly say this because I’m ashamed. “the rejoiceth with wrong doing?” I can remember whenever I play sports I want to win and I don’t want to lose. I want to be on the team and I want to be on the court the whole time and that was a little hard because I’m a little short, but I wanted to be on the field the whole time. So much so that one of my baseball teams that I was on in 9th grade…I was new to this team – this traveling baseball team. The coaches didn’t know me. I thought they were giving me a raw deal so I wouldn’t start. I’d get into the game maybe like the 4th/5th inning. The whole time that I’m on the bench I’m hoping that the guy in front of me gets injured so I can get in there. Isn’t that terrible? Yeah, I was a bad team member. But that’s not love obviously. I was actually rejoicing in the possibility of some wrong doing. Love doesn’t do that. Verse 7:
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never ends.
Wow! That’s a characteristic that should be blossoming in your life and growing – the love of God.
The second one is joy. Joy is not happiness and it’s not based on circumstances. Joy is deeper than that. It’s rejoicing. Joy is the noun; rejoicing is the verb. Rejoicing is what you do when you remember God’s salvation. That’s true joy. Joy comes from knowing that you’re forgiven and loved by the King of kings and Lord of lords. He’s got your future in hand. He’s got your best interests at heart and you can live life joyfully regardless of the circumstances; regardless of what happens. Jesus says this in John 15:9-11. He says that I’ve come that you might have my joy. My joy would be in you and that your joy would be full – would be made full. Jesus comes and he gives a deep joy that the world can’t remove. Sometimes our eyes can get off of it.
Peace. Peace is the product of salvation. Salvation brings peace. Every person has a certain level even if they don’t know it of not having peace if they don’t know their Creator. God made us that way. Its manufacturer’s specifications that until you know God you will never find true happiness (joy); you will never find complete fulfillment. So people look for that in a lot of different places. They look for that in trying to gain power, prestige, popularity, a person. If I can find my worth in somebody else… Husbands and wives, you don’t find your worth in your husband or wife. You’re to find it in Jesus and then when we find it that brings the ultimate peace. Romans 5:1 says 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The gospel brings peace. Hebrews 4:16 says that now we can come boldly, confidently to the throne of grace. Isn’t there a peace in that knowing that you can come before the God who spoke the universe into existence? You can come to him with all your petty problems; with all your big issues. You can come to him because he cares for you. Jesus said cast all your cares on him for he cares for you. That’s an amazing thing that brings us peace. No matter what happens; no matter what happens to the economy; no matter what happens with our job.
Patience. Patience is trusting in God’s plan and timing – not on our own. Trusting in him. Proverbs 3:5, 6 says to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. That takes patience to trust in God. I didn’t ask if I could say this, but it was said in Sunday School already so I’m going to go out on a limb. Patience in everything in life…Duane and Rhonda Brown…Duane has been out of a job for 8 ½ months. He’s had to trust in God and now the insurance is going to go out next month. But praise God. God just got him a job last week. Didn’t you have to have patience in that? Waiting on God.
Maybe some of you are here today and you’re wondering if God has somebody for you as a mate – if God is preparing that man of God for you and it seems so far off. Or that woman of God and you don’t know about any of that and you just have to be patient and trust in him. Patience. This is a fruit of the Spirit.
Kindness. Kindness is showing goodness and generosity and sympathy toward others. That leads into goodness.
Goodness is literally to work for the benefit of others. In chapter 6, verse 10 it says do not grow weary in doing good. Do good especially to those that are in the household of faith. So we do good to others. We work for the benefit of others and we don’t work for the benefit of others expecting to get something in return. Last week in the adult Sunday School class talking about giving and giving of your offerings. And you give and God will bless and He’ll give to you, but you don’t give thinking that you’re going to get something back. That’s the televangelists saying that the little old lady…”write your check for a $1,000. God will give you $10,000.” And that’s not Biblical. Same thing with doing good to others. You do good to others not because you “I get into a bind hopefully I can cash in and they can help me.” No, you do good to others because you love others and you give of yourself like Jesus gave of himself.
Faithfulness. Faithfulness…when I hear faithfulness I think faithfulness like to God, like the big grand faithful to Him. I’m not going to stray away from the Lord. Really this has a real practical side that I want to draw out and it is consistently doing what you say you’re going to do. Consistently doing what you say you’re going to do. This is faithfulness. This is a fruit of the Spirit. It’s the fruit of the Spirit that is probably still a little bug in my life, all right? Because I just realized this yesterday…I didn’t just realize it, but it was brought out to my attention by my wonderful wife, Stephanie. I was getting ready to go over to the church. It was in the morning time and she said, “Can you vacuum before you go over to the church.” She threw out her back and she’s been in a lot of pain. I said, “Well, I’m just going to go over and study for a few hours and then why can’t I just do it then?” She said, “Because you won’t do it then.” I said, “No…I will do it then.” So I vacuumed right then, but she knows me well enough to know that she’s asking me to vacuum and I’m saying yes, but I’m thinking in the back of my mind of what the Greek word for faithfulness is and how can I show people really what it means and how they can know it. Will I vacuum? Yeah, sure, but I can’t wait to get over to the office and… She knows how I think and so I want to be faithful. Consistently doing what I say I’m going to do.
One other way that that works out in my life is I found myself saying to people, “I’ll pray for you.” And I do end up sometime in the future praying for them… But instead now I don’t say I’ll pray for you, but I just pray for them right then. That’s, for me, maybe not for you, it’s a good discipline. Not talking about doing something, but just…let’s do it.
Gentleness. Gentleness is a quality that Jesus attributes to himself in Matthew 11:29 and 30. Jesus calls himself gentle and he says to take my yoke upon you; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. A yoke was a rabbi’s set of teachings so everything that they believed about different things in the Old Testament was called their yoke. Their disciples, their job was to learn this rabbi’s yoke; to learn his teaching. Then hopefully they would take it upon themselves and then they would get their own disciples and see this rabbi’s yoke. His understanding of what it meant to live and serve God would be passed on in that way.
And Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. What in the world did he mean by that because Jesus said to deny yourself, take up your cross. That means die to yourself. How is that easy? Well, it’s easy in the sense that it’s freedom from religion. What we’ve talked about already. It was freedom from the Pharisees and all of their laws and their rules and regulations that are heaped upon a person. And the gospel is so freeing because it’s about trusting in Jesus. It’s about being found in him. See how his yoke is easy and his burden is light? What do you have to do to get eternal life? What do you have to do? Trust in him and that’s easy. Now the living part – that’s where it gets difficult. But Jesus’ yoke compared to the crushing demands of the Laws of the Pharisees was easy.
Self-control. Self-control is a discipline given by the Holy Spirit that allows Christians to resist giving into their sinful flesh and their sinful desires. Think back over the past month. What things came up in your life that you knew was wrong, but you chose to do it anyway? That’s a lack of self-control. The Holy Spirit gives self-control.
So there’s the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And then you get this odd statement. I memorized these verses and then I never knew what this meant: “against such there is no law”. What in the world is Paul talking about here? Well, I think and some other people think this too that Aristole, (you know the philosopher?) had this statement talking about certain people – “against such people there is no law.” And people think that in the first century this was like a proverb of the day. We have proverbs of our day. Did you know that? Yeah, you know that. “An apple a day…keeps the doctor away.” People think that in the first century “against such there is no law” was like a proverb speaking of someone or some things. Paul is using it here to talk about the fruit of the Spirit meaning that the fruit of the Spirit surpassed all legal prescriptions and are therefore, beyond any legal accounting. So this Paul’s way of saying that this is separate from the Law. This isn’t a list that you have to do in your life. This is separate and greater than the Law. This is the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit that is born in a Christian’s life and in their heart in an ever-increasing basis bearing this fruit in their life. It’s above the Law. It can’t be held by the Law.
Then verse 25: 25If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Now in verse 16, (we were there last week), we said that walking meant living. Here the word translated in English is “walk”, but it’s a different word in the Greek. It means to fall in line with the leader. So Paul is essentially saying in verse 25 if we live by the Spirit (the Spirit of God) if we say we live by Him, then we are to follow him; to follow his leading; to follow his guidance; to follow his conviction in our heart as we live.
And then verse 26:
“Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” Now this happens if we’re not careful. To well-meaning Christians who are bearing this fruit in their life. Things can happen to them and here are the three things that Paul says. The first one is not to become conceited. See those people who are bearing much fruit in their life, it’s easy for them to become conceited and say, “Wow, look at me. Look at the things that God is doing in my life. Look at how I’m increasing in my self-control. I haven’t sinned all day.” So don’t become conceited.
Then don’t provoke. These are people who are tempted (the fruits of the Spirit are growing in their life) to use that to shame another person. Let me explain what I mean. If I’m in the kitchen and she has a jar to open and she can’t open it up, I’m stronger than her so she gives me the can. I walk over and I pop it open and I… “wimp.” And I give it to her like that. That would not be right, right? I’m using my strength to shame her. That can happen in many different levels in our Christian life.
Maybe someone is having a hard time loving someone and you naturally…That’s the way God’s made you. You love everybody. You can forgive anybody. You don’t hold a grudge, but somebody else really struggles with that and they hold grudges. And you come to them and say, “Well, why can’t you just love. I mean I’ve had this happen to me and I’ve had this person do it that to me. I love those people. I don’t know why you can’t just do that.” That provokes the other person. That doesn’t build them up and in the body of Christ – members in the body of Christ – we are to build one another up.
The last one he says “envying one another.” When you see God doing something in someone’s life, they’re bearing fruit, it can be easy because of our nature to be jealous of that. Wow! Why isn’t God using me to do that? I’ve been asking and praying for him to use me and it doesn’t seem like he’s really using me. I wish I was like that person.” Turn away from that Paul says. That’s actually the enemy coming in and using even the bearing of fruit to hurt the body of Christ – to hurt you, to hurt others. So we live bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
That’s essentially the message. But one thing as we’ve been exploring who the Holy Spirit is and hearing from him, walking in His power, I had a question posed to me in the JV on Wednesday night. We’ve got like 30 kids that come out – JV, Jr. High, and they said, “I’ve never really heard God. People talk about like hearing and I’ve never heard God. And really I haven’t even had a feeling…like people have like a feeling.” I said, “Hey. That’s a great question. Let’s talk about what that means to hear God and to be led by God.” And we had a good little discussion there. I’m wondering how many people here say the same thing. I mean, I haven’t heard God. I haven’t heard God audibly either. But you say, “I haven’t felt God.” It’s honestly not about feeling; it’s about what Jesus did on the cross too. It’s trusting in Him that Jesus died for your sin, in your place, and he rose again to give you new life. That’s the essential of the gospel. Now the feelings might come. They might go, but its okay to crave an experience with God where he moves you. That’s okay. It’s not something to be feared – an experience with God. So many times we just have the facts and we push the experience to the side. We can experience God so if you’ve never heard him or felt him move in a powerful way in your life, ask him and ask him every day until he does. Be like Jacob who wrestled with God and wouldn’t let God go until he blessed him. Think of that! So you want to experience the Holy Spirit. You want to be filled with him so you can have this fruit in your life and be increasing in it and growing up in it. So you crave an experience with Him. Ask him.
Remember last week Jesus said how many of you fathers when your kid asks for some bread you give him a scorpion? The answer is none of you! Then how much more (if you’re evil), how much more will our heavenly Father who is not evil – he is always good, all the time – how much more will God the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? So ask him and if it doesn’t happen after a month, ask him. Keep asking. He’s good and he will work in you. Let’s pray.
