Beginning this morning, we’ll embark on a new journey that will take us through the various aspects of the fruit of the Spirit over the next nine weeks. Each week, I’m going to open our time with a short story from a book titled Home Town Tales, which is authored by a Quaker minister named Philip Gulley. This morning’s story is titled “Stitches in Time”.
[Read story]
As you might guess this morning we’re going to be focusing on love. But before we do that we need to take a few minutes to set the stage for where we’ll be going for the next nine weeks. So go ahead and turn to Galatians chapter 5. I’m going to begin reading in verse 16. You can follow along as I read this passage that contains some essential context that will help us accurately understand the fruit of the Spirit.
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
In this passage Paul describes several different aspects of the fruit of the Spirit that are crucial to a proper application of the things that we’ll be learning over the next nine weeks. I’m going to briefly discuss three of the most important ones.
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
1) Is demonstrated by being not doing
One of the first things that we see in this passage is the stark contrast between the works of the flesh described in verses 19-21 and the fruit of the Spirit described in the following verses. It is quite instructive that nowhere are the nine qualities that make up the fruit of the Spirit ever described as “works”. Instead Paul uses the metaphor of fruit to describe these nine character traits.
We also note that “fruit” is singular, not plural. It is not the “fruits” of the Spirit. This is really similar to what we saw with the book of Revelation – it is the Revelation (singular) of Jesus – not Revelations (plural). Unfortunately, it is very easy to fall into the trap of calling these nine qualities the “fruits” of the Spirit. While that may not seem like a big deal, there is a subtle danger in using the plural here. Let me illustrate
If I go to the produce section at the grocery store, I can pick among the variety of fruits I find there. I am free to choose some and not others based on my personal preferences. If we accurately refer to the “fruit”, rather than the “fruits” of the Spirit, then it lessens the temptation for us to pick and choose among the nine character traits based on our own preferences or areas of strength in our lives. In his book, The Fruit of the Spirit, Stuart Briscoe writes these relevant words:
The fruit of the Spirit is to be seen not as a collection of unrelated fruits that can be selected or neglected according to personal preference, but rather as a composite description of all-around behavior that is the result of a relationship with the living Lord who indwells his people by his Spirit.
Although our actions are certainly important, God is much more concerned with who we are. Because when we are controlled by the Spirit and develop the character traits that make up the fruit of the Spirit, the right actions will automatically follow.
2) Is developed as Christ followers cooperate with the Holy Spirit
The second important aspect of the fruit is that it is the fruit of the Spirit. That means that these are not merely nine character traits that we can somehow generate on our own. They are derived from the Holy Spirit who dwells permanently in the life of every believer. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have an important role to play in the development of this fruit.
It is interesting how frequently the Bible uses agricultural references in its teaching. In fact the Bible is framed by two fruit producing trees – the first in the Garden of Eden and the final one in the New Jerusalem. I’m convinced the Biblical writers made such frequent use of these agricultural illustrations because they so vividly picture the importance of both works and grace in the life of a Christ follower.
Each summer and fall, we really enjoy going up to Howard’s Orchard in Catalina to pick peaches, pears and apples. And when we’re there we see how much work that Mr. Howard and his wife have to put in so that they will have fruit each year. They have to water, fertilize and trim the trees throughout the year. But ultimately, the quality and quantity of their harvest is mostly out of their hands and they have to depend upon God. A couple of years ago there was a late hard freeze and they had almost no peaches and then last year the trees were so full of fruit the branches were breaking from the weight.
Developing the fruit of the Spirit is a lot like that. We must do what we can to develop the fruit. In a sense, we have to give God something to work with. But ultimately only the Holy Spirit can bring fruitfulness to our lives. Paul confirms this concept with these familiar words from one of his other letters:
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Philippians 2:12, 13 (ESV)
On one hand, we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, but on the other hand it is God who gives us both the desire and the ability to carry that out.
So the fruit of the Spirit is more about being than doing and it is developed as a result of us cooperating with the Holy Spirit. But perhaps the most important question we must ask is this: What is the purpose of the fruit? And based on what we find here in this passage, as well as in another passage that we’ll look at in a moment, I’m convinced that the purpose of the fruit is that it…
3) Is to be delightful to an unbelieving world
Far too often when we focus on the fruit of the Spirit, we view these nine character traits as something to be developed primarily for our own well-being. But I think the words of Jesus provide us with a different perspective. Just before He went to the cross, Jesus spent some time with His disciples in a vineyard, talking with them about bearing fruit. Most of us are familiar with that discourse where Jesus reminds His disciples that they cannot bear fruit on their own apart from Him. But His words also give us some important insight into the purpose of bearing fruit:
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
John 15:8 (ESV)
One of the characteristics of fruit is that it is alluring. That’s why the grocery store displays it so prominently or why we put out a bowl of fruit in our home or even why an artist would choose to paint a still life of some fruit. Jesus is pointing out that our spiritual fruit is to be alluring, too. The purpose in bearing spiritual fruit, however, is not to glorify the individual, or even the body of Christ. It is intended to bring glory to God Himself. In other words the church is called to embody this character before an unbelieving world so that our lives would be alluring and draw people not to us, but to the God who lives within us in the form of His Holy Spirit.
And while there is a sense in which this fruit must be developed in our individual lives, I am convinced that the primary picture that Paul has in mind here is the development of the fruit of the Spirit within the community of believers we call the church.
In both verses 16 and 25 there is a reference to walking by the Spirit. But there are two different Greek words that are translated walk.
In verse 16 , Paul uses a word that he uses frequently in his writings that literally means to “walk around”, but which is consistently used in a metaphorical sense by Paul to describe one’s path in life, or one’s conduct and behavior. The command in verse 16 to “walk in the Spirit” is also in the second person plural, which means that Paul is addressing it to the entire church and not to individuals.
In verse 25, the verb that is used means to “walk in line” and it is used here to describe the conduct of a person in relation to others. So as it is used here in verse 25, it indicates the need to walk in step with others as all submit to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
So as we approach the individual elements of the fruit of the Spirit over the next nine weeks, I am not going to focus on how to develop these character traits in our individual lives, although certainly what we learn can help us to do so. But our focus is going to be on how we can develop this kind of fruit within this body so that our church will be an alluring place that will cause people to focus on God and not on us.
As we do that, we’ll focus on two areas where the fruit of the Spirit is on display for the world around us to see and therefore where we need to concentrate on developing the fruit in a manner that will make it alluring to the world around us:
• The way we treat each other
• Our corporate worship
So with that introduction, we’ll begin this morning with the first aspect of the fruit of the Spirit – love.
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS…LOVE
There are a number of commentators who believe that the fruit of the Spirit is love and that the remaining eight aspects of the fruit are merely elements of love. I’m not sure that I can really disagree with that conclusion. And since we’ve already spent some time setting the stage this morning, I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on this aspect of the fruit since we’ll certainly develop the concept of love more fully as we look at the remaining eight aspects of the fruit.
One of the drawbacks of the English language is that it is limited in its ability to express certain ideas. And certainly that is true with the word “love”. I have to use the same word to say that I “love” my wife, I “love” my children and grandchildren, I “love” my dog, I “love” spicy Mexican food, and I “love” God. So when we read that fruit of the Spirit is love, we get all kinds of different pictures of what that means.
But the writers of the New Testament used the Greek language, which gave them the ability to be much more precise about what they meant by “love”. In Greek, there are four primary words for “love”:
• phileo – to have tender affection for. We often refer to it as “brotherly love” and the city of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love gets its name from this word. This word is used in the New Testament primarily to describe friendships among man.
• eros – sexual or passionate love. We get our English word “erotic” from this Greek word, which is not used in the Bible.
• storge – love and affection that naturally occurs between family members. It is used only once in Bible as part of a compound word.
• agape – This is the word used to describe the fruit of the Spirit. It is the same word used to describe to love of God toward us and pictures love that is a deliberate choice, an exercise of the will. It is not based on feelings.
As Jesus spent time with His disciples in the hours just before His crucifixion, He twice commanded them to love each other. And in each case, we learn about how we, as His followers ore to love each other.
The first time Jesus gave this command was immediately after He had demonstrated His love for them by washing their feet:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34, 35 (ESV)
Here, when Jesus commands His followers to love each other, He says that they are to do that in the same way that He has just demonstrated His love for them by His actions.
The second instance occurred as part of the discourse in the vineyard recorded in John 15, part of which we looked at a few moments ago.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:12, 13 (ESV)
Once again, they are to love each other in the same way that Jesus has loved them. But He further describes His love for them here by telling them that He is about to lay down His life for them. Again His love is more than mere words; it is demonstrated by what He does on their behalf.
In the same chapter where Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit, we also gain some more insight into how we are to love each other within the body of Christ:
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
Galatians 5:13 (ESV)
The word “serve” that Paul uses literally means “to be a slave to”. Once again, the kind of love that is to be demonstrated in our lives as a means of being alluring to an unbelieving world is characterized by our actions, not just our words.
That is not to say that words aren’t an important part of love. We’ve all heard the old adage that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”, but we all know what a lie that is. Our words can either build up or they can tear down. So there is a sense in which our words are an important aspect of our love. But genuine “agape” love goes far beyond just our words – it also requires action.
Let’s see if we can take these words of Jesus as well as those in Paul’s letter and see how they can guide us in developing love within the body of Christ. Although there are almost limitless applications here, I’m going to limit them to just a couple that we can apply both to our relationships with othesr and to our corporate worship.
• Developing love in the way we treat each other
1) Keep the focus on others
That is certainly the nature of God’s love for us. Jesus did not leave the glory of heaven to come to earth and die on a cross for His benefit.
The first step in developing love within the body is for all of us to get our attention off of ourselves and direct it towards others. That is not an easy or a natural thing to do in a world where people constantly demand their rights. Apparently this is not a new problem, because we see Paul address this same issue in his letter to the Philippian church:
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:3, 4 (ESV)
Because this kind of behavior is so foreign to our culture today, when it is carried out in the body of Christ, the world around us sits up and takes notice. And as they continue to observe that kind of behavior they are naturally attracted to it.
There are so many ways that this can take place in the body that we can’t possibly begin to scratch the surface this morning, but we’ll be able to further explore this idea as we look at some of the other aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. But let me just ask a few questions that will get us thinking about how we can do a better job of loving others in this way:
o Do I always think about how something will affect me or am I concerned about how it will impact others?
o Do I insist that things be done my way or am I willing to go along with the methods of others?
o Do I rejoice when others succeed or get recognition or do I pout because they received the attention instead of me?
o Do I really listen to others, or am I already thinking about my response before they even finish talking?
2) Give generously
Once again, this reflects the nature of God’s love for us. I’m sure that most of you here can complete the next phrase of this familiar verse:
For God so loved the world, that he [gave his only Son]…
John 3:16 (ESV)
Because God loves us, He gave. And if we are truly going to love each other, our lives will be characterized by giving. This really comes back to the idea of stewardship that we talked about several weeks ago when we looked at Revelation 18.
If we view ourselves as stewards who are only managing the resources that belong to the Master for His benefit, then we won’t be tempted to think that our time, our possessions and our other resources belong to us and attempt to hoard them for our own benefit. Instead we will joyfully give of those resources for the benefit of others because by doing so we are actually serving Jesus. Listen to how Jesus Himself described how we serve Him when we give generously to others:
35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Matthew 25:35-40 (ESV)
Once again, we can’t even scratch the surface on this topic. But whenever there is a need and we begin our response with the words “I don’t have the time” or “I don’t have the money”, we need to stop ourselves immediately and ask God how He might want to use the resources He has entrusted to us to meet the needs of a brother or sister.
• Developing love in our corporate worship
1) Keep the focus on God
There is a natural tendency to make our corporate worship a whole lot more about us than about God. And so we often come to church with the idea of “getting fed”, or “getting our batteries recharged” or to “being blessed” or even to earn favor with God. But the problem with every one of those reasons for coming to church is that they all focus on me and not on God.
As you know, the Psalms are the praise songs that were used in the worship life of Israel. I went back and scanned through quite a few of those Psalms this week. Many of those Psalms exhort the worshipper to sing to the Lord and to praise His name. Now I didn’t read every Psalm word for word, but I couldn’t find even once example where we are exhorted to praise God because he fed us or recharged our batteries or blessed us. Instead we are to praise God for who He is and what He has done. And sometimes that does result in some benefit to us, but that personal gain is never to be the object of our worship. The focus is always God, not us.
Worship that sets aside our own self-centeredness so that we can focus on the One who has called us into a relationship with Him through His love for us that was demonstrated on the cross is certainly alluring to the world around us. People are longing for something that is much bigger than any of us and when our worship stays focused on God people are naturally drawn to that.
So what does that look like in real life? It means that I don’t focus on whether or not I like a particular song or music style, but rather that I think about the God who is revealed in the words of those songs and my response to Him as I sing. It means that I don’t come away thinking what a great message I heard, but rather what a great God we serve. It means that I don’t care about what others may think of me as I worship God, I only care about what God thinks.
And when we begin to worship like that, we’ll find that it will also begin to transform our relationships with others as well.
2) Give generously
The Bible often describes our worship in terms of being a sacrifice. We’ve looked at Romans 12:1 quite frequently where we are exhorted to give our bodies as living sacrifices as an act of worship. In Hebrews 13 we are commanded to continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. In 2 Corinthians 9, we are encouraged to give generously and cheerfully to the work of the kingdom.
Once again, when we begin to worship God by giving generously, we will find that it will also begin to transform our ability and willingness to give generously to others as well.
The fruit of the Spirit is love. And as we saw with Ruby in the story we read to open our time this morning, that love is often dispensed just one stitch at a time. How are you dispensing that kind of live in your relationships with others and in your worship?
