“The Fruit of the Spirit”
LOVE
June 1, 2002
Introduction
Show video clip of “Mr. Holland’s Opus”.
The video clip we just showed was from the movie, “Mr. Holland’s Opus”. The plot of the movie is essentially about “bearing fruit”. Mr. Holland has been teaching music for years feeling as though he was wasting his talent for writing music. His career it seemed to him had not bore much fruit. The music department gets cut at the high school he teaches at and so does his job. A huge assembly, an outpouring of love, is arranged to give Mr. Holland a farewell. His wife has secretly taken the music piece that Mr. Holland has been working on for 30 years and arranged to have his former music students from years past perform it. It is then, as he hears his music played by his students that he sees the fruits of his labor in the lives of his former students.
Don’t we often think like Mr. Holland? We toil, we struggle, we work to make something of our lives and too often we don’t see any progress, any results, any fruit. As Christians, we go to church, we tithe, we read our Bibles, we pray, we try to live the life God wants us to live and yet we don’t see any fruit. Here a little secret that I want to let you in on: Our lives will inevitably bear fruit. You may not always be able to see it right away. It may take someone pointing it out to you. The fact remains that each of us will bear fruit with our lives. Matthew 7:17, “Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.”
Tonight, we begin a series on the “good fruit”, the fruit of the Spirit out of Galatians 5. Galatians 5:22, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” Each week we will tackle a fruit of the Spirit, beginning tonight with love. The fruit of the Spirit cannot be broken down into three different groups. John Stott writes, “The Fruit of the Spirit portray a Christian’s attitude toward God, to other people, and to himself.” Love, joy and peace show our attitude toward God. Patience, kindness, and goodness show our attitude toward other people. Faithfulness, gentleness and self-control show our attitude to ourselves. I personally believe that attitude is one of the most important factors in determining the direction that our lives our going to go and the fruit that we are going to bear. I have a quote on my wall about attitude that Mike (our youth minister) gave me that Chuck Swindoll wrote. It’s a powerful quote, so powerful that I’ve given each of you a copy of it in your bulletin:
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one thing we have, and that is our attitude. I am now convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”
The fruit of the Spirit that we are going to be looking at will ultimately be manifested and shown in our attitudes.
In the Old Testament, we see that people were without an intimate, personal relationship with God. They knew God through great prophets and their rituals. In the New Testament, God reveals himself to man through His Son Jesus. He was flesh and bone, appearing in person to mankind. After his death, burial and resurrection, man was not left with the void of knowing God intimately. The New Testament tells us that as Christians, the Holy Spirit of God lives in us. God is not only with us at all times, but he actually lives with us and in us. Speaking about the Holy Spirit to his disciples the night before his death, Jesus says this in John 15:16-17, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” The Holy Spirit is a precious gift that we possess as Christians. The Holy Spirit is working in each one of us who have accepted Christ to make us like Christ. One of the natural processes of the Spirit is to produce fruit in our lives; the fruit that is listed here in Galatians 5. The only hindrance to the Holy Spirit producing this fruit is man himself and his sinful nature.
We begin looking at the fruit of the Spirit by looking at love. Love is the foundation of the Christian life. Love is the very nature of God. I John 4:16, “God is love.” A great question to ask is “How do I know when I’m bearing fruit?” When we are bearing the fruit of love, we will:
I. LOVE GOD WITH A “FIRST LOVE”.
I remember my “first love”. I’m sure you do too. For some it may be a high school or college boyfriend or girlfriend. It may be your very first boyfriend or girlfriend. It could be the first person you ever had a crush on. If you’re very fortunate, it may be your spouse. But maybe you’re like me and your “first love” comes from elementary school. Her name was Stacy. She was a blonde haired girl in my first grade class at College Park Elementary School. I remember that we had a big school carnival at the end of the school year and each grade picked their king and queen for their grade. Each class nominated a boy and girl and then their pictures were put up with jars in front of them and you voted by dropping change in the jar. This also served as a fundraiser for United Way. The Friday before the carnival was held, the king and queen for each grade were announced over the loud speaker at the end of school. Stacy was the queen of the first grade. I was the king. My mom has a picture of the two of us at the carnival with our crowns on.
When we come to a point that we realize that God is deeply in love with us, not in a romantic sense mind you, and understand the great lengths he’s taken to show us that love, we can’t help but to fall in love with God ourselves. When we’re bearing the fruit of love, we will love God with a “first love”. We’ll be fully devoted to Him. We won’t be able to be away from Him in thought and in prayer. We will long to be in His presence and worship Him. We will want to go out of our way to please and obey Him. We will be passionate about God.
It is difficult to maintain that “first love” attitude. The church at Ephesus, although they were a very hard working, persevering and righteous church were chastised by Jesus in Revelation 2 because they had forgotten their love for God. Revelation 2:4, “You have forsaken your first love.” It is so easy to become consumed and passionate about projects or causes or work that needs to get done and leave God out of the picture. If we are truly bearing fruit of love, we will love God passionately with a “first love”.
If we are bearing fruit of love, we will:
II. LOVE THE THINGS GOD LOVES.
As I said earlier, the Holy Spirit is living and working in us and is making us more and more like Christ. As we become more like Christ, we will begin to take on the same mindset and attitude of Christ. We will dislike the things that God dislikes and we will love the things that God loves.
I love sports. Probably part of the reason that I love sports is because my dad loves sports and we watched them and played them a lot. I love what my dad loves. I love to root for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. I’ve followed them ever since I can remember first watching baseball when I was a little kid. When I’m home and can catch a game on TV, I’ll watch it. Hope was sitting at a little table we have in the living room for her to play at and color. She was coloring and I was watching the Braves game. I said, “Go Braves!” She repeated, “Go Braves!” The Braves fans do a cheer called the Tomahawk Chop. I taught Hope the Tomahawk Chop. She stood next to me and we said together “Go Braves!” and did the Tomahawk Chop. As we were doing this, the Braves outfielder hit a home run! Every time the Braves come on TV, she comes over to me and says “Go Braves!” and does the Tomahawk Chop. She’s beginning to love the things that I love.
God loves many things. For the sake of brevity, I want to boil down what God loves to two things:
1. God loves goodness.
Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.” Paul encourages the Philippians to think about these things because these things are good and it pleases God when we think and are good because God is good. God loves truth, righteousness and purity. He loves these things and so should we. Not only that, but we should embrace these things with our lives.
2. God loves people.
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world…” God loves every person and so should we. God loves the unlovely and so should we. God loves the sinner and so should we. God loves the undesirables and so should we. God loves people even when he is hurt by them and so should we. If we as Christians, were to love people the way that God does, the world would be a totally different and better place. Churches wouldn’t be able to hold all the people that would be in them. Society and culture would be turned upside down.
This also means that we are to love each other. I John 4:20-21, “If anyone says, ‘I love God’, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
It is said that the old apostle John insisted on being with his congregation in Ephesus for every meeting. When he was too old to walk, the people would carry him and he always insisted on addressing the assembly before dispersing. The assembly loved his sermons more than bread. What was his message? It was quite simple: “Little children, love one another.”
The first time, the weakened old man could say no more and the audience was powerfully moved. And his one-sentenced messages remained the same. Later, the congregation began to consider his words insipid.
Finally, someone asked him, “But Master, why do you always say the same thing?” John replied: “Because it is the Lord’s command; because this alone, if it is followed, is sufficient and adequate.”
Do you love what is good? Do you love people? If we are bearing fruit of love, we will love what is good and we will love people. We will love the things that God loves. When we are bearing fruit of love, we will:
III. LOVE THE WAY GOD LOVES.
God’s love is deep and strong. It’s sometimes hard to comprehend. God loves each one of us unconditionally. God has committed himself to loving us. There is nothing that we can do that will make God love us anymore or any less than He already does.
In Psalms, the word that used to describe God’s love is one that is very similar to unconditional- “unfailing”. Psalm 130:7, “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.” We must love God with an unfailing love as well as love others with an unfailing and unconditional love. This is the way that God loves.
Lee Ezell writes in his book, “Porcupine People- Learning to Love The Unlovable” that “Love is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.” That perfectly describes God’s love for us; an unconditional commitment on His part, to us, the imperfect person.
Conclusion
I want to close tonight with another quote from Lee Ezell that sums up what I want to say about the fruit of the Spirit of love. “The Bible says that love is a fruit, not a gift. When we review the Fruit of the Spirit, the first characteristic is love. As a fruit, love has to grow, and that requires effort, nurturing and wise tending of the orchard. If we can prune away whatever stands in the way of love and begin to cultivate the attitudes that foster love, love will take root and blossom inside us. Love is a way of acting, not a feeling on which we base our actions. All of the other Fruits of the Spirit follow love, and in fact, stem from love.”
We will bear fruit with our lives. As the Holy Spirit works in each of us, may the fruit of love blossom and grow and may we be able to see it by:
1. Loving God with a “first love”.
2. Loving the things God loves.
3. Loving the way God loves.
