Series: The Sweet Life
Message: Living Above The Mayhem of Life
Text: Galatians 5:22-23
As we move into this second message in our series The Sweet Life I want to invite you to discover with me how to experience and radiate the fruit of God’s love, joy and peace!
Let’s start by discovering how to:
Experience And Radiate the Supernatural Love of Christ.
Galatians 5:22-23(NIV) 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
John 15:9-11(NIV) 9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
How do you know If God’s love is controlling your life? Let’s take this inventory. I want you to answer these questions on a scale of one to three. One = never 2= once in a while 3=Usually:
1. Are there ever strings attached to your acts of love towards others?
2. Do you see others as a means to an end or do you see yourself as existing for the good of others?
3. When others hurt you; do you spend more time thinking about getting even or do you look for ways to demonstrate forgiveness towards them?
If those questions made you feel uncomfortable then I’m glad because they are meant to! You see the kind of love we are talking about is not the kind that you can humanly produce. This is a quality of love that only God can generate in and through the life of a believer. The bible boldly states in 1 John:
I John 4:16 (NIV) And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
The word used to describe God’s unique love in the Greek is Agape. It speaks of total unselfishness; it is not like eros love or erotic/sensual love which demands to be pleasured as much as it gives pleasure; neither is it like phileo love which is the love of friendship, a love that seeks compatibility. Agape love is unconditional, relentless and always seeks the best for others with no thought of itself.
Jesus calls Agape love the New Commandment in John 13:34-35…
John 13:34-35(NIV) 34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Perhaps the greatest test of Agape love in our lives is our capacity to love our enemies.
In his book Hidden in Plain Sight, author and pastor Mark Buchanan writes about a woman named Regine. Originally from Rwanda, Regine came to Christ while reading her sister’s Bible during the genocide that ravaged her country. When she fled to Canada for refuge, she met her husband, Gordon. They decided to return to Rwanda to show the love of Christ to the people who had once been her enemies. Regine told Mark Buchanan this story of agape love:
A woman’s only son was killed. She was consumed with grief and hate and bitterness. "God," she prayed, "reveal my son’s killer."
One night she dreamed she was going to heaven. But there was a complication: in order to get to heaven she had to pass through a certain house. She had to walk down the street, enter the house through the front door, go through its rooms, up the stairs, and exit through the back door. She asked God whose house this was. "It’s the house," he told her, "of your son’s killer." The road to heaven passed through the house of her enemy. Two nights later, there was a knock at her door. She opened it, and there stood a young man. He was about her son’s age.
"Yes?"
He hesitated. Then he said, "I am the one who killed your son. Since that day, I have had no life. No peace. So here I am. I am placing my life in your hands. Kill me. I am dead already. Throw me in jail. I am in prison already. Torture me. I am in torment already. Do with me as you wish."
The woman had prayed for this day. Now it had arrived, and she didn’t know what to do. She found, to her own surprise, that she did not want to kill him, or throw him in jail, or torture him. In that moment of reckoning, she found she only wanted one thing: a son.
"I ask this of you. Come into my home and live with me. Eat the food I would have prepared for my son. Wear the clothes I would have made for my son. Become the son I lost." And so he did.
How can you love like that? You can’t; but Christ can if He has full control of your life; if you have allowed yourself to stained by His own love
(take a piece of fruit and stain a white dress shirt as you say this; stain it over the heart and talk about how obvious this stain is to anyone who might see you wearing such a shirt; so our live should be stained by the love of Christ)
Has you life been stained by the love of Christ? Do you know and live in the knowledge and experience that He gave His life to demonstrate His love for you? Do you wake up each day knowing that you are the apple of His eye and that there is nothing you can do that will separate you from His relentless love?
I’m convinced that one of the reasons we have such a hard time expressing the love of God is because we don’t bathe ourselves in His love! Our resident Pharisees tells us we must earn God’s love or someone else has convinced us that we are too guilty to be loved by God. Those are lies! The truth is God loves you unconditionally; He proved it by sending His Son Jesus who died for you and me on the cross. When we confess our sins and surrender our lives in faith to Jesus the love of God comes pouring into our lives.
I have begun a new discipline in my quiet time of taking a few minutes each day to remind myself that I am loved because only as I live in the love of God am I able to share the overflow with my family and others.
Let’s look at another aspect of God’s fruit this morning; let’s discover how to:
Experience and Radiate the Supernatural Joy of Christ.
Galatians 5:22-23(NIV) 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
John 15:9-11(NIV) 9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
How do you know if God’s joy is controlling your life?
Ready for another inventory? Put a one if this is never true; 2 = once in a while and 3 = Most of the time:
1. Would others say that your mood is generally affected by your circumstances?
2. Do you depend on others to make you feel happy?
3. In the midst of turmoil can you find something to genuinely rejoice in?
Be honest with yourself! I’m afraid that one of the problems we are facing in our materialistic culture is a tendency to confuse happiness and joy. Happiness is a cheap substitute for joy! Happiness is always based on people, behavior or events and circumstances. Do you see how happiness can be like a roller coaster? You can be up one day and down the next depending on what is happening around you.
Joy on the other hand transcends all events, circumstances and people. Why? Because it is based on Jesus. I like how Paul puts it in Romans 14:17
Romans 14:17 (NIV) “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…”
Just as agape love can only be produced by God; only He can produce the kind of Joy referred to as a fruit of the Spirit. So how does this joy get released into our lives? By getting our focus on Christ and not our outward circumstances. Joy comes from a right view of God, rejoicing in His grace, His goodness, His salvation, His sovereignty. Joy is about leaping and shouting and jumping over the fact that God has chosen me, set me free from the curse of sin and promised me a new life in Him and at the end I will spend an eternity with Him!
The idea is that we get so full of the joy of the Lord that it spills out of us and touches those around us. When they see us celebrating even in the midst of crisis it can’t help but touch their hearts!
Writer C. W. Metcalf was working as a hospice volunteer when he met 13-year-old Chuck, who was terminally ill. One day Chuck gave Metcalf half a dozen sheets of paper with writing on both sides and said, "I want you to give this to my mom and dad after I die. It’s a list of all the fun we had, all the times we laughed." Metcalf was amazed that this young boy on the verge of death was thinking about the well being of others.
Metcalf delivered the list. Years later he decided to make a list of his own. Surprisingly, he found it difficult at first to compile his "joy list." But as he began looking each day for the moments of laughter, satisfaction, and joy, his list began to grow.
Do you have a joy list? Can you look into your life and see the blessings that God has brought and do you stay focused on what He has done, is doing and will do in your life?
Let’s look at one more aspect of the Fruit of the Spirit; lets see how to:
Experience and Radiate the Supernatural Peace of Christ.
Galatians 5:22-23(NIV) 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
This is the final inventory…until next weekend! ☺ Once again answer 1=Never 2=Once in a while 3= Usually
1. Do you have a peace of mind? That means your thoughts are not distracted by worry or concerns.
2. Do you feel at peace? Are you free from feelings of anger, anxiousness or fear?
3. Do you let others rob you of peace?
4. Is your body at peace? That means you don’t have high blood pressure, insomnia, twitches and upset stomach etc.
How many of you are brave enough to say, “Oh, oh!” Yeah me too! This is a tough one. A lot of us are missing peace in our lives and in our relationships!
But here’s the good news! Jesus can give you His supernatural peace! Listen to John 14:27:
John 14:27(NIV), “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Philippians 4:6-7(NIV) Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
What is the peace of God?
The peace that Jesus gives us is a peace that comes from knowing His presence in us no matter what our circumstances are. It is to anchor our lives and therefore our trust in the Omnipotence of God – His all powerfulness; the Omniscience of God – His all knowingness and in the Omnipresence of God – His inescapable all pervasive and holy presence!
Think about it to be anxious is a form of atheism isn’t it? To be anxious and upset is to doubt God’s knowledge of our situation; it’s to believe that He doesn’t have the power to see us through or deliver us and it’s to question His willingness to accompany us through the valleys of life.
Isaiah 26:3 (NIV) says, “I will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Me.” Dr. Lloyd Ogilive notes that there are two very interesting things about this verse. First of all in Hebrew there is no descriptive adjective for perfect; that means the verse literally reads I will keep Him in shalom shalom! The second interesting thing is that the passive participle is used in describing the phrase, “whose mind” that means it is not a mind or attitude that we create but one which is given to us! In other words if we will look to Jesus, if we will focus our thoughts on Him; He will give us His mind, a mind of peace.
Having a peace of mind then is seeing and knowing Jesus in every situation.
Spencer Morgan Rice, Rector of Trinity Church, Boston, once told ("Watch, Therefore, for Ye Know Not When the Master Cometh," 2 December 1984) of how early in his ministry he was serving a small congregation in the Los Angeles basin. The sexton of the church took as much interest in those who came to pray and meditate as he did the upkeep of the church. One man in particular attracted his attention. This man dropped by the church briefly every day about 12:15. He would walk down the center aisle, stand at the chancel steps and stare at the altar for a moment. Then he would leave. After a few days, the sexton began to worry. The man was not well dressed. He was not the cleanest. He did not always walk steady. The sexton mentioned his concern to Rice, who suggested the sexton simply ask the man if there was anything the church could do for him. When the sexton asked, the man said, "No, thank you. I just come in every day and stand before the altar and say, ’Jesus, it’s Jim.’ It is not much of a prayer, I know, but I think God knows what I mean." Months slipped by. The sexton never again mentioned their daily visitor. Then, one morning Rice got a call from the Mother Superior of a home for aged men run by the Sisters of the Transfiguration. These women minister to men broken by life. Let’s let Rice tell the end of the story: the Mother Superior told me that Jim had been admitted, and I said I would be out to see him. She met me at the door and said, "You know, Father Rice, he has been here for two months. He went into the most cantankerous ward we have. Every nun here has tried her best to bring some sense of joy and calm to that ward. We failed. Jim went into that ward and the place is transformed. It is a new place. I went to him two days ago and I asked, ’Jim, how is it that you have been able to bring such joy and such a sense of peace to these men?’ And he said, ’Oh, sister, it is because of my visitor.’" And she said, "I know he didn’t have any visitors. That chair hadn’t been occupied the 60 days he has been here. So I said, ’Jim, what visitors? I’ve never seen a visitor.’ And he said, ’Sister, every day at 12:00, He comes and stands at the foot of my bed and says, "Jim, it’s Jesus!"’"
Having a peace of mind is always knowing that Jesus is here. Do you remember when the disciples were on a stormy lake at night? In the distance they saw a figure approaching them on top of the water; they thought it was a ghost but when Jesus got within hearing distance He said, “Don’t be afraid, it is I.” Is it who? It is I. In other words, don’t worry; be at peace, it’s Jesus!
Let’s pray…..
