July 4, 2021 Online Live Sermon Fruit of the Spirit: Love - Galatians 5:13-23
At beginning of message and before Scripture reading, ask people to grab a piece of fruit that they might have in the house, in the fridge, even frozen in the freezer.
People generally have a favourite kind of fruit, or maybe a few favourites. What’s your favourite kind of fruit? Why don’t you type it in the chat for today? What is your favourite fruit? Today we begin our summer series on the Fruit of the Spirit.
When I think about fruit, I think just about the thing I’m planning to eat. I happen to enjoy mangos, pineapples and coconut, mostly because they remind me of the part of my childhood spent in Mexico. Smelling or eating those fruit takes me right back to the beach in Acapulco, and to a time when my birth family was young and everyone was alive.
That happens sometimes. Fruit, or even some other food or aroma, can take us back to moments in our past. Some of you have said: (fruit mentioned in chat). Awesome.
Pretty much across the board, one of the best things about fruit is that it’s sweet. It’s like nature’s candy. But fruit - whatever one it is, is actually the outcome of a long process.
Let’s look at an example of a strawberry growing. This is sped up drastically, of course. Strawbery growing time lapse - from frozen seedling (YouTube video of strawberry growing, sped up on YouTube 2X)
Comments while video playing: So many things go into the healthy growth of a strawberry. It needs the right amount of sunlight at the right time at its stage of growth. It needs good, nutritious soil. It needs water in the right amount. It needs oxygen. It also needs a gardener to protect it from weeds and even just other plants around it that might grow around it and overshadow it, not allowing it the light that it needs.
When video ends: So although I’m only thinking about the mango I’m about to eat, the truth is there’s a ton that has gone into the creation of the mango. The mango is the outcome of a lot of forces at work. The orange is the result of multiple processes working at the right time to bring it to the point where I can eat it.
If you have your piece of fruit, take a bite or have a piece of it now. That’s sweet. That’s delicious. Thank you God.
The Bible uses the metaphor of fruit to talk about something very important - it’s the formation of our souls, it’s the quality of our character and it’s the presence of Jesus in us. And so we have an actual list of the character qualities of Jesus which are called the fruit of the Spirit.
Let’s quickly look at a list of the fruit of the Spirit and then we’re going to talk today about the first fruit which is love.
The fruit of the Spirit are:
Love (seeks the highest good of others)
Joy (gladness that is not based on circumstances)
Peace (Deep contentment, shalom, unity between people)
Patience or Forbearance (Slow to speak, slow to anger)
Kindness (showing mercy, a sweet tenderness)
Goodness (generous and open-hearted)
Faithfulness (dependable, loyal and full of trust)
Gentleness, calm, non-threatening)
Self-control (Behaving well and in a way that honours God).
So these are the fruit of the Spirit that we find in the Bible. They are qualities of Jesus’ own character that we want to see continually increasing in our lives as people whose hearts are submitted to Christ. They are qualities that reflect what Jesus is like.
This of course takes real time to develop in us, and we have the example of Jesus in the Bible when we want to see the completeness and perfection of these qualities. In Him and in Him only are all of these fruit, all of these qualities perfected.
It takes time for the Fruit of the Spirit to develop in us, and though we can’t speed up the process the same way I sped up the video, we can choose consciously cooperate with God who is at work in us, in order to allow the growth, or maybe just not get in the way of the work of the Spirit bringing about fruit in our lives.
Now, you might ask: “How do I know if I have the Holy Spirit in me? What if sometimes I feel the Holy Spirit and other times I don’t. Does the Holy Spirit come and go?”
That’s a good question. We can sometimes wonder about this because our emotions can be all over the place. Fortunately the work of God is not dependent on our emotions. And the truth of God is not dependent on our feelings. It’s all rooted in Who God is and in God’s Word. And here are just 2 examples from many that talk about the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 1:13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
The Message paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 puts it this way: God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge—a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.
Both of these passages tell us important truths about the Holy Spirit. We become Christians, followers of Jesus, when we hear the message of the gospel and then we believe it. To hear it and not believe it has no impact on our salvation. To hear it and believe it has a massive, positive life-transforming impact.
And then when we do believe, which in itself is a work of the Holy Spirit, we are marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit - The Holy Spirit Who is a deposit guaranteeing our standing with God. God gives us the ability by His Spirit to stand firm in Christ - to not waiver, to not compromise what we believe about God, about the gospel.
Both these passages speak of the Holy Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Did you hear that word: guaranteeing. That’s God’s guarantee. Far better than ANY human guarantee.
Now, while we want to grow in the Fruit of the Spirit, we want to remain honest with ourselves that none of these are completed in any human other than Jesus who is fully God and fully human. So we shouldn’t be shocked when we see ourselves lacking in any of these areas.
That just means that God has a lot of room to work in your life. And we shouldn’t be shocked when we see them lacking in others. We are all in the same boat.
So that’s a quick overview of the fruit of the Spirit as we launch our summer series on this topic. Future messages from multiple speakers will go deeper into each individual fruit, and how they are also all connected to form in us the character of Jesus Christ, who is our very life.
Today we’re going to look at the mother of all fruit (note that the plural of fruit in English is fruit, not fruits).
What is the mother of all fruit? Love. A passage you may have heard at weddings, but that was not written specifically for weddings, is 1 Corinthians 13.
13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Glitz and showmanship get our attention. You and I are easily distracted by things that seem really impressive. They get our attention, and in doing that they can distract us from things that really matter.
Here the Apostle Paul points out things that can compete, in a sense, with love. What was true in his day is true in our.
He talks about the gift of tongues, which can be a manifestation of the supernatural and evidence of God. A friend of mine who was a pastor, Dexter Quinlan, was in the hospital. At the time he was fighting cancer. He was worshipping the Lord quietly in his hospital bed and he was worshipping in tongues.
Another patient in the room brought to his attention that he was praising and worshipping God for some time in Russian. Perfect Russian. The other patient knew because he was Russian. Dexter did not speak Russian. It was a “tongue of men”, similar to what happened to the disciples in Acts chapter 2 when they were declaring the wonders of God in their own languages.
But did you know it’s possible to have that particular spiritual gift and NOT have love? What is the impact of that? It makes the gift pointless and meaningless, because without love, a heart attitude of love, that gift is just a lot of unpleasant, pointless noise.
Likewise, prophecy can appear impressive. God gives you the ability to proclaim the truth about Himself and maybe about the future. That’s not unimpressive.
Having a deep capacity to fathom spiritual mysteries and being able to grasp everything the Bible says about wisdom and knowledge. Put on a seminar and I’m there. That’s impressive. Having massive faith, so great that you can do the impossible? Pretty cool. But if I don’t have love, the Bible says that all that impressive stuff minus love equals zero.
Even...even if I live completely selflessly, giving everything I have away to people who need it and if I endure great suffering for others or for my faith, if love is not the primary reason why I do all those things, it all adds up to bupkiss. That’s a term that comes from the Yiddish language that means zilch, nonsense, nothing.
So love needs to be or needs to become the number 1, primary, first and foremost motivating factor for everything we do. This may seem very familiar to you and nothing new. Jesus was asked what is the most important part of the law.
He said it is love. He said it is to: Mark 12:30-31 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
The next few verses in 1 Corinthians 13 say this:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
This is what love looks like when we live it. It’s not fancy, it might not even seem that spiritual. In fact, it’s deeply practical.
Love is patient. It’s not rushed, it’s not distracted by other more important things. Love stops to listen to the person who is pouring out their heart in sorrow because they are so wounded. Love stops for that, and patiently listens and is present. The word for patience used in the New Testament always describes patience with people and not patience with circumstances.
Love is kind. It’s thoughtful, thinking of others, putting others first. Love is sweet and when it’s enacted, when you see it in a person, you may think to yourself, “Man, that person is just lovely. Such a caring soul”.
Love doesn't get envious, bitter about what others have - be it good relationships or nice stuff. Love doesn’t envy.
Love doesn’t boast or brag, assert itself as more important than someone else; it doesn’t put down another by talking about what a good relationship or what nice stuff it has. Love isn’t prideful, arrogant.
Someone said that there is a self-effacing quality in love. True love will always be far more impressed with its own unworthiness than its own merit. Some people give their love with the idea that they are conferring a favour. But the one who truly loves cannot ever get over the wonder that he is loved. Love is kept humble by the consciousness that it can never offer its loved one a gift which is good enough.
Love doesn’t put down anyone. It doesn’t talk behind people’s backs
When I reflect on these things, I realize I have a long ways to grow and a long ways to go. But God is working in me, as He is in you, to make us all more like Jesus. He is our brother, He is our Lord. He is our Redeemer and the Lover of our Souls.
Love is a fruit of the Spirit. Love is the end result of us living in cooperation with the Holy Spirit of God who lives inside each of us as believers. A strawberry takes a certain amount of time to ripen. Eat it too soon, and it is just not pleasant. It takes time to mature to the point where it is useful to be enjoyed.
And so many things go into the healthy growth of the fruit of love. For love to grow in us we need to live in constant exposure to the Son of God who as God was and is love incarnate. For love to grow it needs good, nutritious soil. It needs water in the right amount.
As we yield to the Holy Spirit and allow his fruit to be evident in our life, bearing good fruit becomes easier but it is never easy. We’re always battling the world, the flesh and the devil - those things that are mentioned earlier in our passage today, that Florence read.
They represent the weeds that try to choke out the fruit. They represent things that can pollute the soil of our lives if we let them. Those are things of our old lives that have no place in us now, now that we are new creations in Christ. They represent in part the content of our confession to God - those things we need to seek His forgiveness for in order that they not slow or compromise our growth.
Ephesians 5:25-26 Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.
The good soil, the nutritious soil, the well-watered and well-oxygenated soil that we need in order to grow includes immersing ourselves in the Word of God on a regular basis - read and talk to God about what you’re reading and pray as God speaks to you as you are reading. Let your mind be renewed on the regular by God’s truth. In order to grow we also need solid, committed and consistent Christians to fellowship and worship with.
We also need to give of ourselves - to volunteer somewhere that connects to our interests - somewhere and with people outside of our families and normal circle of friends, where we can practice who we are becoming.
Sometimes if the people around us normally are not particularly healthy, they can resent or resist the new you you are becoming in Christ. Sometimes you need to develop new strengths in your character around people who will not be sitting in judgment of you as you become more like Jesus.
As we continue to explore the fruit of the Holy Spirit this summer, may we learn to celebrate the fact that the Holy Spirit is in us, in the first place; and may we celebrate that from the inside out, from the deep well of His own goodness and love, God is transforming us to be more like Jesus in our attitude, behavior and character.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 16 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 them. 1 John 4:7-12, 16
May God richly bless you as you continue to love and serve Him
