The Fruit Of The Spirit, Goodness & Faith Series

The Fruit of the Spirit

Goodness and Faith

Galatians 5:22-23 (KJV) 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Mark 4:20 (NKJV) But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred."

John 15:8 (NKJV) “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

John 15:16 (NKJV) You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

As we saw last week God is into the fruit bearing business and He desires to do a work within us that will produce good works on the outside of us.

Matthew 5:16 (NKJV) “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

So far we have looked at 5 fruits, Love, Joy, Peace, Long-suffering & Gentleness

This week where going to look at Goodness and Faith.

Goodness

In a book that I was reading a man shared this story:

Once when I was flying from New York City to another city in the United States, I noticed the man sitting next to me had his head lowered against the seat. I could tell he was experiencing some kind of terrible throbbing pain in his head, so I asked him, "Is there any way I can pray for you?" The man peered up at me with a look of joyful surprise. I knew from his response that he was a believer! He was delighted that I had offered to pray for him, so with his permission, I reached over and laid my hands on him. Then I began to speak healing over the pain he was feeling in his head.

After prayer, I asked the man, "What do you do for a living?" He told me, "I am a wealthy businessman. I have joined together with several other very wealthy businessmen, and as a team, we travel the world over to find worthy organizations and evangelical works that need money to advance the Kingdom of God. Once we find them, we make it our business to fund them so they can operate without having to worry about raising money."

When I thought about this man and the goodness of his heart, I was reminded of the word "goodness" in Galatians 5:22, where the apostle Paul writes, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness...." This man's desire to give is exactly what the word "goodness" is all about. His urge to help others demonstrated the fruit of goodness, which is supernaturally produced in the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit.

Goodness:

The word "goodness" is the Greek word agathusune, which comes from the word agathos, meaning good. But when agathos becomes the word agathusune, it means goodness in the sense of being good to someone.

This word was used to portray a person who is generous, big-hearted, liberal, and charitable with his finances. We would call this person a giver.

In Acts 10:38, we find that this fruit of the Spirit operated mightily in Jesus. It says, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him."

Many times when we preach from this verse we focus on the healing portion of this verse, but today I want to draw our attention to the phrase "doing good," because it is so crucial to this discussion.

The words "doing good" are from the word euergeteo, which is an old word that denoted a benefactor, a philanthropist, or one who financially supported charitable works.

This word would only be used to describe a person who possessed great financial substance and who used it to assist those who were less fortunate.

The implication of the word eugereteo is that Jesus possessed a great amount of financial resources in His ministry. In addition to the offerings that were received for His ministry,

Well pastor, I thought Jesus was poor, you remember it said He had no place to lay His head.

Luke 8:3 tells us that a group of very wealthy women also financially supported His ministry.

Luke 8:3 (NKJV) and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.

Also, we get from Judas' words in John 12:5 that Jesus' ministry had a significant philanthropic outreach to the poor and needy over which Judas had been placed in charge.