Fruit of the Spirit
Galatians 5:19-23
The apple tree is undoubtedly the most popular fruit tree in North America. These trees grow everywhere in the US and produce so much fruit that often we don’t know what to do with them. But who doesn’t love the smell of apple pie, apple crisp, apple sauce? Actually there are 8,000 varieties of the apple. There are apples that ripen in July and others in October. Some are best for eating raw, others for cider, others just for sauces. Skins might be red, yellow, orange, green, or brown. And tastes? Sugary sweet, bland, tart or spicy. One gardener (L.H. Bailey) once wrote: “Why do we need so many kinds of apples?. Because there are so many folks. A person has a right to gratify his legitimate tastes. ..there is merit in variety itself. It provides more points of contact with life and leads away from uniformity and monotony.”
We could go on and on but what is the most important fact about the apple tree? THAT IT PRODUCES APPLES! And that is what we are looking at today as we examine our God given gift to be fruit producing Christians. A Christian who doesn’t produce fruit is like an apple tree that doesn’t produce an apple. And just like there are a variety of apple trees and fruit, so there are a variety of believers and fruits. This whole picture brings up some crucial questions for us about our lives and each of us as a fruit bearing person.
The first question is this: What is crucial in bearing spiritual fruit?
No one can manufacture spiritual fruit – it can only be grown from the Holy Spirit.
Today, in our text Paul first mentions the works of the flesh and then later the fruit of the Spirit. It’s important to notice that difference. A machine in a factory works, and turns out a product, but it could never manufacture fruit. Have you ever seen a fruit factory? A fruit manufacturing plant? Certainly there are canneries and fruit processing plants, and fruit packing plants but not a fruit factory. Fruit comes from orchards, from farms. Fruit must grow out of life.
So also with the fruit mentioned here in Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. We are unable with our hard work to “manufacture” these fruits.
Just as it’s ridiculous to think we could build fruit, so also it’s just as ridiculous to think that you or I can make ourselves loving, joyful, peaceful, patient with hard determination. We simply cannot make that happen no matter how hard we try. God tells us it’s impossible. We are born dead spiritually with no ability to produce. It would be like expecting a factory to start making apples from a recipe.
But what ARE we able to manufacture then? What things are we able to do with our flesh and ability? The Bible tells us very clearly what the works of the flesh are: (19) “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” I didn’t come up with this list on my own – I wouldn’t dare because these are offensive things. But that is what the Bible says comes naturally from our heart and from our lifestyle. This is “normal” and “expected” for a person who is born in this world. This is the natural man and woman. If God didn’t enter your life and if you had no connection with Christ, this is how you will behave and you should expect to find that and therefore you should also expect it from your non-Christian neighbor.
This impacts our relationships with our non-believing neighbors. You should not be surprised at drunkenness, sexual immorality, anger, occult practices by people around you – by your neighbors and co-workers. For a non-Christian, it would be unusual if this was NOT part of their lifestyle.
So what are the implications from this fact? Don’t look down on people in the world who are practicing these works of the flesh. You wouldn’t expect a car factory to produce apples – neither should you expect non-believers to “know better” than to produce the works of the flesh. They simply can’t do it and this is the great struggle that we all have – as much as we’d love to be loving, kind, peaceful, self-controlled – we simply can’t do it as hard as we try. We keep turning back to the old ways. And then guilt rises and we try harder.
So then where does this fruit come from if we can’t produce it? Paul answers that question with one simple phrase in verse 22 “the fruit of the Spirit.” It ONLY comes by the miraculous work of God’s Spirit.
Vs. 24 “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
Every day we need to come before the Lord and surrender to him our will, our mind, our emotions, our thoughts, our bodies – we put to death our natural self. We remember that our flesh factory died with Jesus Christ on the cross and we are risen from the dead to a new kind of life – a life led by the Holy Spirit. We are fruit producing trees of God’s Spirit. But we are COMPLETELY dependent on the Holy Spirit to produce any fruit. You’ll never find peace, forgive others, love your enemy, be patient with others or have any self-control without the working of God’s Spirit in you. It’s simply not possible.
This fact has an impact on every one of us who call ourselves Christians. Any time you find yourself involved in any works of the flesh, it should open your eyes to the fact that something is wrong with your relationship to God. Are you jealous? Did you get drunk? Are you losing your temper? Are you divisive with others? Are you involved in sensuality? That should be a wake up call to you!
Matthew 7:17 “Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.” And later “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (19) Something is not right with our relationship with God when we see bad fruit – or the works of the flesh.
You can’t produce fruit without the Holy Spirit doing something in your heart. It’s not natural to produce fruit because we are not born naturally to produce good fruit. We are born to naturally produce bad fruit: we have a sample of that from the first part of Galatians. No matter what a person says they are, they evidence comes from their lives.
A secondly question arises concerning each of us as fruit bearing believers: Why do we produce fruit?
Are we to produce the fruit of the Spirit because it makes us feel better? It does feel good but that’s not the reason for the fruit. Think about this in relation to the apple tree. The tree doesn’t eat the fruit. The fruit is to be eaten by others. It’s to provide nourishment and blessing to those who pass by. Someone else picks up the apple off the tree or off the ground and takes a big bite. He is so thankful for that fruit - it’s so juicy, tasty and healthy – and HE didn’t produce it, he simply received it from your tree.
You see? God wants you to produce fruit not for yourself so you can be a good Christian. But he wants to produce fruit in you so that you can be a blessing for others around you.
Just last week we were looking at the amazing vision the prophet Ezekiel had of the river of life coming from the Temple. It was the river of God’s Spirit bringing life wherever he went. And in verse 12 it says, “And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
There is the story of Jim Eliot and Nate Saint who were missionaries to the remote tribe in the Amazon. After months of searching they finally found the tribe and made first contact by flying into a dry river bed. As you might remember, they were slaughtered by the natives by the banks of the river – spears right through their hearts. Not only did their wives and children grieve at this horrible loss and tragedy. But they returned to the very tribal group that murdered their husbands and witnessed to them the love of Christ. The result? The tribe was transformed and the mission was begun.
Friends, that is the fruit of the Spirit. It can’t be manufactured. No one would be able to do that without the Holy Spirit and look at the blessing to others – their fruit was for food and their leaves for healing.
Why else does a fruit tree bear fruit? in order for it to produce other trees. Apples drop on the ground, rot, the seed inside is fertilized and if you don’t mow the grass, a small tree will sprout up next year. Normally this will happen all around a fruit tree.
You see, the most important purpose for producing fruit is that you reproduce – others become Christians because of your actions. Think about how powerful your witness is when you are dropping fruit such as love, joy, peace, patience…Those are seeds planted in the hearts of others which can grow and become true faith.
How does that work? Let’s take the example of love. The first fruit on the list. What does it mean to produce the fruit of love? It’s definitely not a feeling. It’s not being in love (eros). It also doesn’t mean that God expects you to like everyone. Love like this doesn’t mean that you like a person (fileo –friendship).
But it means seeking the best for someone through your actions (agape). Love is being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand their problems. When you understand their problems, you want to help them, you want to encourage them, you want to do anything to help them with their problems.
The fruit of the Spirit love is a special kind of love that is especially seen with evil and cruel people – with your enemies. You do good to your enemies, you pray for them, you go out of your way to help them. That is the most powerful use of this fruit.
What happens when you do that? The Bible writes that it’s like burning coals on his head. He can’t understand it and has to react quickly. It’s a powerful witness. You are planting seeds in that person’s heart. Your fruit is doing its work on that person. Your fruit can change him! And so it is with every fruit on the list.
A farmer one planted two fruit trees on opposite sides of his property. The one he planted to provide a hedge to hide the unsightly view of an old landfill; the other to provide shade to rest under near a cool mountain stream which ran down beside his fields.
Friends, you cannot and will not produce any fruit of the Spirit without the life of the Spirit – so feed your life with the Word of life. Feed it with his presence. Spend time with him daily in prayer, in his Word. And then when that fruit begins to grow, share it – drop it in people’s laps. Pour your life into others. Bless them. Your life is not just for those who know and love, but for passersby – hungry for a juicy fruit. Don’t fence yourself in but open your life to others. That’s what Jesus did and we are called to do the same. We are reproducing fruit trees. So let God produce an orchard through you!
