Have you ever tasted or smelled chlorine? It’s that wonderful smell we smell when we get near a swimming pool. It is designed to keep bacteria from growing in the pool and making us sick.
Those with pools know how important it is to get the right balance in the water between too much chlorine and too little chlorine. I remember a swimming pool at a campground that I worked at many years ago. It turns out that after spending a good deal of the summer in the pool, the chlorine levels were probably not sufficient to keep out bacteria from which I mostly likely got a pretty good case of pink eye.
If you are on a cruise ship you will often taste chlorine in the water and coffee because the seawater that is used on board is heavily treated so that it is usable for human consumption. But, I drank my coffee anyway. Chlorine is used to filter the bad stuff out of water.
Some of us perhaps are “blessed” with hard water or we like to have clear and no-taste water. So we have purchased either a filtered water pitcher (we have one of those) or a faucet-mounted filter. The filter contains different kinds of things that are designed to filter out chemicals and other impurities through chemical reactions that come as the water comes in contact with the filter. The result then is usually water that is safer (and tastier) to drink.
My point is this: As we continue to address ways that please God we need to know that there is a spiritual filter that our lives must continuously pass through to better please Him. That filter is named the Holy Spirit. One of the ways that we please God is by following the Holy Spirit and allowing the Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out.
In our text for this morning we have three ways this filter changes the spiritual composition of our lives. Each of these ways allows us to please God.
First, the Holy Spirit “filters” our character as we obey Him and as we do so the fruits of the Spirit that are listed in verses 22 and 23 become evidence of a life that is pleasing to God.
Fruit is used in the Bible as a metaphor for the kind of life a person leads. Jesus told the Disciples in Matthew 7:20, “The way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced.”
This verse appears in a passage in which Jesus warns the Disciples about those who say one thing but their lives demonstrate something else. But, this verse also carries a truth about all of us. What kind of fruit does our life bear these days?
Have you ever heard the statement, “So and so has lived a fruitful life?” It is a statement about a person who has lived well and lived true to their beliefs.
We please God when these important traits – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control – begin to take root, blossom, and grow in our lives, and that of our church, as well. But, these fruits come to life only as we allow the Holy Spirit into our lives and cooperate with Him.
Pastor Ed Wood shared the results of an extensive survey conducted some time back here in the US with the question, “What are you looking for most in life?”
“ When the results were compiled,” noted Wood, “the analysts were surprised. Most of them had expected answers that would suggest materialistic goals, but the top three things that people wanted in life were love, joy, and peace—the first three fruits of the Spirit!” Isn’t it interesting that we buy so much, we do so much, we try so much, and we go so many places to find something that God wants to give us?
God is pleased to give us these qualities in our lives. He wants to give them to us! He wants our lives to be fruitful and meaningful! But it requires our surrendering to His Holy Spirit so that these character qualities become active and authentic in our lives. This is possible as we daily tell the Lord that we are His and that we will do what He asks us to do through His word the Bible and through our obedience to the work of His Spirit in our lives!
Another way that the Holy Spirit filters our lives in order to please the Lord is through the strengthening of the ability to “let go of our sinful passions and desires.” What does this mean?
It means this, “We are in a battle between right and wrong, good and evil.” Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, “For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.”
The battleground for this battle takes place in our hearts and minds. It comes in thoughts and attitudes that are mean, harsh, and just plain wrong. It comes out in feelings and emotions such as hate, judgmentalism, envy, and resentment.
Even after we have been saved and begin to truly live for the Lord, we are always tempted to think the worst of and about someone and feel threatened by them. However, it is a battle that the Lord wants to help us win!
There are several different ways that we are able to win this battle. They are both implicit and explicit in scripture. Here are three passages of scripture that clearly offer one important way to win this battle over our sinful nature:
In Hebrews 10:25 we read, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.”
In James 5:16 we read, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
In Galatians 6:1-2 (which is right after our main text) we read, “Dear brothers and sisters, if another Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”
These three passages point us in a singular direction – toward community and accountability not isolation or alienation. They underscore the need to practice confession on a regular basis as a way of “nailing the passions and desires of our sinful nature” to the cross and crucifying or killing them.
When we begin to isolate ourselves we become vulnerable to temptation. Remember that when Satan tempted Jesus He was alone in the desert. Granted, being with people sometimes causes us to be subject to temptation. But we are talking about being with fellow believers and that should help us grow in our ability to say no to sin.
We need to gather together. We need a Sunday School class or a small group to help us grow in our faith and say “no” to sin. When we end our isolation or alienation through being honest and open (I call it authenticity) and also through accountability we are better able to overcome our sinful nature because the Holy Spirit is able to work when there is an honest openness or authenticity made possible by confession and repentance.
And when this spiritual filter is in place we are better able to overcome our sinful tendencies. This filter also operates in a third and very important way.
I am indebted to my ministerial colleague, Kerry Robinson, for opening up the final verses of our passage through a sermon I heard him give at Yellow Creek Lake Camp meeting a couple of years ago.
He was speaking on this issue of holiness and he pointed out that we often focus on verses 22 and 23 but we forget about verses 25 and 26. We please God in this area of our life when we allow the Holy Spirit to produce an attitude of grace and respect toward one another.
If we claim verse 25 to be true of us, “If we are now living by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives,” then the conditions of verse 26 have to be dealt with thoroughly and completely. There cannot be conceit, or impatience, or jealousy in our hearts, minds, and lives if we claim to live by the Spirit.
A life that gives evidence of the Fruit of the Spirit is a life that has no place for jealously or impatience or conceit. They cannot exist in the same space. One or the other will triumph based on our decision of which way choose to respond.
As we read through the writings of the New Testament, we have several passages of scripture that openly deals with conflict between believers and within them as well. An example of the former is I Corinthians 1:10 where Paul says, “Now dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so there won’t be divisions in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.” An example of the latter is James 4:1 and 2, “What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it the whole army of evil desires at within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can’t possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them.”
The filtering work of the Holy Spirit is a work that must be allowed to go deep into our hearts and souls or we are in danger of having a shallow faith. We cannot please God halfway in this area unless we truly allow the Spirit to truly change us so thoroughly that our relationships with one another are marked by respect, love, and dignity.
What Paul wrote in I Corinthians 1:10 about being of “one mind, united in thought and purpose” and what he wrote in verse 26 of our main text, “let us not become conceited, or irritate one another, or be jealous of one another,” is two sides of the same coin.
Unity in thought and purpose is made possible when instead of conceit there is kindness, instead of irritation there is patience, and instead of jealousy there is love. Conversely, disunity of thought and purpose is present when conceit, impatience, and jealousy are allow to rule in our hearts.
Last month I spent parts of four days at a seminar in Indianapolis. It was for pastors who were planting a church, re-starting a church plant, or re-focusing an existing church. I was there for the last reason – re-focusing.
The seminar was an affirmation of much that we have done together here in the past four years. But it was also a time when I was presented with some new ideas regarding change and how God uses it in our lives.
Dr. Dan Croy of Point Loma Nazarene University shared with us some comments regarding change that I want to share as we conclude this morning from the perspective of the change that God has done in our lives through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The final point of his presentation on change was, “It ultimately comes down to faith.” He went on make three statements on this point:
1. An unchanging God…
2. Calls us to continued change…
3. Requiring faith in an unchanging God to deal successfully with change.
Are any of us here this morning the same as we were when we were saved? We shouldn’t be! The work of the Holy Spirit sees to that!
We should be more like Jesus now than we were last week or last month or last year or last decade. (We could also say last century and not feel old!)
The fruits of the Spirit should be more evident in our lives than in the past. We should have a greater desire and ability to say “no” to sin and “yes” to the Lord when we are tempted. We should be less conceited, less irritable and impatience, and less jealous if we have said, “yes” to the Spirit.
Much has changed here, for the better. Much has changed for the glory of God and the advancement (not retreat) of God’s Kingdom through this church. May it continue to be so because God wants it so. Amen.
(Wood illustration is from sermoncentral.com. Croy illustration is from New Church Specialties Start, Re-start, and Re-focus seminar, September 20-24, 2004 in Indianapolis, IN)
