What’s your favorite fruit? Strawberries? Mangos? Peaches? I think I’ve shared with you before that my favorite fruit is the Asian pear which the Japanese call nashi. They are available in stores here but they never taste very good. That’s because nashi don’t grow in this part of the world. They’re imported from Asia so they have to be picked before they’re fully ripe to survive the long journey across the ocean. The result is a bland, not-very-juicy fruit. But if you’re ever visiting Japan in the late summer, you’ll become addicted to this crisp, sweet and juicy fruit. Nothing tastes so refreshing as a chilled nashi on a hot humid day.
Nashi of course isn’t the only fruit that tastes best when it’s in season—every fruit is like that. Peaches, for example, are best in late summer when they’re being harvested in B.C., not when they show up on store shelves in April having been imported from elsewhere. There is, however, one fruit that is always in season. It’s not a fruit that you eat but is one that everyone ought to enjoy—the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. For the next couple of months we’ll be taking a close look at each one of these Spirit-fruit characteristics because God has sent his Holy Spirit to produce them in abundance in each one of us no matter what the season. Our focus today will be on love.
Before we delve into what love is I want to help you understand the background of our sermon text. Paul wrote to Christians in Galatia, present-day central Turkey because false teachers were saying that believing in Jesus wasn’t enough for salvation. These false teachers insisted that you needed to believe in Jesus and keep God’s commands for entrance into heaven. Paul however maintained that we are saved solely by what God has done for us through Jesus. We are free from the demands of the law. This doesn’t mean that we are free to ignore God’s commands. Paul anticipated that conclusion when he wrote: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13).
Perhaps I can illustrate Paul’s point like this. I don’t know of any underage children in our society who are required by their parents to pay rent for their bedroom. Nor are they charged for the meals they eat at home. Parents provide these things at no cost to their children. They do so out of love. The children are free from the burden of these expenses. But does that mean that these children are free to disrespect their parents, free to trash their bedrooms, or free to dump their full dinner plates on the floor for the fun of it? Of course not! That wouldn’t show appreciation for the love the parents have shown their children by providing for them. Likewise although we’re no longer on the hook for having to keep all of God’s commands to get into heaven, we will want to keep these commands because it shows thanks to God for the salvation he has given to us.
But now there is part of us, the sinful nature, that doesn’t care about salvation. It just wants to live for the here and now. Paul gave these examples of the works of the sinful nature: “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” Paul then went on to say: “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).
But it’s hard not to fall into these sins! Our default setting is to do what seems to be in our best interest right now. And so we throw fits of rage when we don’t get our way. But Paul wanted the Galatian Christians and he wants us to know that we are no longer slaves to the sinful nature. We have been freed and now live by the Holy Spirit. Paul put it like this: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:24, 25).
When a criminal was crucified in Paul’s day, it was one less bad guy society had to worry about. In the same way through baptism and faith in Jesus, our sinful nature has been crucified. It should no longer control us even though it hasn’t actually died yet. Just as a passerby shouldn’t have to fear the threats of a criminal who was hanging on the cross or think he has to obey his commands, neither do we have to obey the commands of our sinful nature. Anyway there is a new force at work in our lives: the person of the Holy Spirit. He works in us to produce fruit—the Fruit of the Spirit that we’re going to take a closer look at in the coming weeks. Let’s turn our attention now to the first one on the list: love.
An author once interviewed children about love. He asked one: “How do you get someone to fall in love with you?” One little girl said: “Shake your hips and hope for the best.” A boy was asked if he knew of any love songs and he said: “Sure, I think one goes something like: ‘I’m in love with you most of the time, but don’t bother me when I’m with my friends.’” (from a book called “Love Is Like A Box of Crayons”)
We can laugh at responses like that, but the sad truth is many people don’t really know what love is. Love is more than an emotion or a feeling. Puppy love won’t see you through the dog days of a marriage for example. (John Maxwell) Love is an action. The Bible says that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Tell me, do you get warm feelings when you think about yourself? Have you ever had a crush on yourself? I doubt it. Instead when you think about yourself, you probably think about all the things that you could do better. Like how you could be a better parent or grandparent, or be a more obedient child. There are even things that you don’t like about yourself. But does that keep you from taking care of yourself by eating, sleeping, and finding time to relax? No. Because you really do love yourself, and your love shows in the way that you act in your own best interests.
Paul wants us to know that this kind of love is to be aimed not just at ourselves, but also at the people around us. And take notice how the Bible says that we are to love our neighbor—that’s anyone and everyone around you, and not just those people who are nice to you. We’re to love everyone regardless of their age, their skin color, or their economic status. We are to love them, that is, act in their best interests even if they don’t do the same for us. We will want to do this because this is the kind of love God shows us. In his letter to the Romans, Paul reminds us that God showed his love to us by sending Jesus to die for us while were still sinners, not after we had cleaned up our act and sought his forgiveness (Romans 5:8).
So that makes love a choice, not a feeling. You don’t have to have a nice feeling about someone to love them. It wasn’t because we were attractive to God that he sent Jesus here to die for us. And so the grumpy cashier might not deserve your kind words, but because you’ve been called to love, you can and will choose to share kind words with that individual.
But isn’t it dangerous to show such love? Sure it is. When we open our hearts to others and do things to help them, we risk being disappointed. We risk being betrayed. What happens if I give and the other person doesn’t give back? What happens if I take the first step and they don’t meet me? God took that risk when he sent Jesus to die for the whole world. Refusing to love others is actually the greater risk. The famous English author C.S. Lewis once wrote: “Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness, but in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken, but it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be safe from all dangers of love is hell.” (from “The Four Loves”)
Friends, are you withholding love from anyone? Why? Is it because you’ve been burned for sharing your love and you don’t want to experience that again? God understands your pain. Jesus faced it when his love for Judas ended in his own arrest. But even then he didn’t withhold love from Judas but still called him “friend” during the very act of betrayal. And it’s not just Judas who has taken advantage of God’s love, so do you and I whenever we indulge our sinful nature. And yet God doesn’t remove his love from us. He continues to act in our best interest. He continues to forgive. And he calls us to keep doing the same.
God doesn’t just call us to show love, he produces that love in us through the work of the Holy Spirit. Martin Luther once said that just as a rock that is left out in the sun doesn’t have to be commanded to become warm, so those who bask in the light of God’s Word don’t have to be commanded to show warm love. We will do this because when we’re in the Word and believe what is written there, then the Holy Spirit is in us and he will move us to love others. So parents are you trying to get your children to be more loving? Keep them connected to the Word! Spouses are you wanting to grow closer together in your marriage? Be in the Word together! Talk about the sermon at home. Sit together in Bible class and compare your answers. When we’re regularly exposed to the light of God’s Word the fruit of love will follow.
Love. It’s fruit of the Spirit that is never out of season as there is never a time when love is out of place. Even when we discipline each other we do so out of love because we care about what sin is doing to another’s relationship with the Lord. We’ll spend more time talking about love because the rest of Paul’s description of the fruit of the Spirit is really a description of love in action. May God bless our study in the upcoming weeks. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
What was the false teaching Paul was combatting in his letter to the Galatians?
Jesus has freed us from the law. Why doesn’t this mean that we can do whatever we want now?
Why can we now ignore the commands of our sinful nature?
What does it mean that love is an action more than it is a feeling?
Love makes us vulnerable because others might not return it. So what is going to motivate us to keep showing love?
