The Fruit of the Spirit
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Intro
Whose glad to be in church today? Turn to your neighbor and tell them you are glad they are in church today.
Week 1 of a 9 part series on the Fruit of the Spirit. We will do this on Sundays and Wednesdays.
There are several reasons that I wanted to do this series…
God has this hope in us that we are bearing the fruit of Christianity. IOW, God wants us to live in such a way that people see our lives and want some of what we have.
He wants us to bear fruit and to have values.
People are hungrier for God than every before but they are rejecting it. They are not rejecting God, they are rejecting us. We need to allow God to work inside of us…
We can’t make a difference if we are not different.
We have to live a different life than those who are not followers of Jesus.
We are in a political season and there is a lot of vitriol and hate out there right now, and the sad thing is that some people who claim to be Christians are acting just like those who claim not to be.
This really started after the 2016 election and especially after the 2020 elections.
It’s ok to have political opinions. We need to vote, we need to vote our faith and our values and to vote for those whose policies align with your beliefs; but it’s not ok to treat each other the way we are treating each other.
Our world has gotten so divisive and toxic that no matter what side you pick, the other side hates you. This is not the way it’s supposed to be… especially among followers of God.
John Maxwell - High Road Leader. It’s a leadership book, but he and Chris Hodges wrote a book titled, Jesus, the High Road Leader, where they looked at Jesus as the High Road leader.
Jesus is the one that said when they make you carry their stuff for a mile, carry it two.
Jesus is the one that said when they slap you on the cheek, let them slap the other.
I ordered bracelets, Do what Jesus did.
Fruit is important because it lets us know that we are getting our Christianity right. I am not talking about denominations.
The fruit will tell you if you have it right.
This is not something you can work on, This is who you are. How we are and how we are living is the evidence of what’s going on inside of us. If that concerns you, great. It concerns me because when something is not on this list and it’s in my life, God is letting me know to get rid of it.
God wants you to have all of these. Wouldn’t you love to have more Love? Patience? Goodness? Joy? Faithful? Self Control
Love is the first one but I have to set up the series before we look at the first fruit. Here is our passage for the whole series.
Here is the context.
16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. 19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:16–21 “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.
The spirit and the flesh are in conflict. There is a war going on inside of you. You may say something and think, why did I say that?
18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
When you are led by the Spirit, you don’t need the Law because God is guiding you. You don’t need something externally telling you what to do when yo have it written on the inside of you.
The Law was not just the 10 commandments, it was all the other laws as well.
19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery,
Sorcery - Pharmakia - illicit drugs is having a supernatural experience but you left god out of it.
hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.
Hatred, discord, jealousy… fits of rage - doesn’t that sound like America right now.
Selfish ambition… dissensions… we have a lot of this…
Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”
Those who live like this never get the best of what God has to offer. The KOG is what God wants to do when God is the king of your heart. He wants to put the KOG inside of you.
There is a bigger thing that God wants to do inside of you…
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
He says it again, these are on the inside of you. These have to be written inside you… on your heart.
Here is what I mean. I preached once, and need to do it more but there is a Teaching of the 2nd story of the Bible. 1st story is Creation but the second story is this.
When you pursue God, there will always be two choices. The tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is where you have a knowledge of it, and you try to follow it because it’s law. The Tree of Life is when you have it inside of you.
The problem is that when you have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you only have learned behavior that you don’t want to do, but you have to obey it. Versus… the Tree of Life which is where you become the behavior and now you want to do it.
This is the answer to the question of
How am I going to become godly?
How am I going to become godly?
How are you going to become more godly? Are you going to do it through… “don’t do that”… “better not”… or IOW with rules. Or are you going to have this love of God on the inside of you where it’s no longer a “have to”, but it’s a “I get to”?
We are not here out of obligation, but we are here because of the Love of God. Are we going to serve him out of fear of punishment or love of good?
Parenting - we make them obey us, but if we don’t get it into their hearts where they want to obey then when they go off to college, they go wild.
Religion has gotten this way. Preachers say… you better not and people go ok, but you still want to, and Monday through Saturday we don’t follow the Lord. We live like the devil.
Galatians is written to a church in Galatia, a gentile are, but the church was led by Jews. They were trying to bring certain Jewish beliefs into the Christian faith. A big one was that of circumcision. They were trying to make all the Gentiles become circumcised. Can you imagine that in a membership class? That’s a great way to fill up the church with women…
Paul is dealing with this idea. Look what he said,
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.
What they were talking about wasn’t the Gospel at all.
If I stood up here and told you that you have to love better or else, that’s “Law based” teaching, and that’s not what we are doing here.
This was a perversion of the Gospel. We don’t have to, when we have the HS inside of us, we want to.
2 Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. 4 For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.
If you are going to go the rule way, you have to get them all right. You are no longer putting your hope in Christ, you are putting your hope in you.
Fruit has to come from the inside because,
You can’t learn fruit
You can’t learn fruit
You can only let it ..
Fruit is the byproduct of who we are.
Fruit is the byproduct of who we are.
We have to get this on the inside of us, so that we can bear fruit because it comes from the inside.
You may think, How can we do that? As we go through each of these fruit, there is one constant thing that you will hear. Here it is, You have to
Fall in love with Jesus
Fall in love with Jesus
The more you become like Jesus, the less it becomes what you have to do, but it becomes more of who you are. Then all of this fruit is coming out of you and it becomes a revealer of who we are in Christ.
Look at this…
4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. 5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
You have no hope of being full of these fruit on your on. You have to remain connected to Jesus.
The Gospel is not a learned behavior, the gospel is a transformation of the inner person.
The Gospel is not a learned behavior, the gospel is a transformation of the inner person.
So the fruit pops out of us so we have to get it inside of us.
This verse says a lot about our ministry and our beliefs.
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments.
There are two ways to read it. One os from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the other is from the tree of life.
If you love me prove it… Don’t tell me you love me if you are not doing what I told you to do… That’s how a lot of us read that verse.
If you love me, you will do what I command. IOW, don’t focus on doing the commands, focus on me and the commands will come out.
What side of the coma are you living on?
As we approach these fruit, that’s how we are going to frame them.
Let’s look at the first one… Love…
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
The greatest is … LOVE
1 Let love be your greatest aim; nevertheless, ask also for the special abilities the Holy Spirit gives, and especially the gift of prophecy, being able to preach the messages of God.
In our Christian walk, we aim at a lot of things… knowledge, wisdom, giving, discipleship … and these are all important, but if you read the rest of 1 CO 13, you will read 1 Corinthians 13:1–3 “1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”
Love is more important than knowing a lot…
God is less concerned about what you know and what you believe than how you act and what you do.
God is less concerned about what you know and what you believe than how you act and what you do.
This is where Christianity has toe get this right. We put the emphasis on what we believe and what we know but God say, that’s good but why you try to be a little nicer to people? Why don’t you love people better?
Look at Jesus sermon on the mount.
23 “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24 leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.
IOW, don’t come talk to me until you get right with them. You can’t separate your faith from how you are treating people.
34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
How we love each other is how people will know we are Jesus followers. Not by how much we know, but how well we love.
When people talk about River Church, they might say we are not the biggest church, or that we don’t have the most programs, but I want them to say, but they are the most loving and caring people of any we have seen.
One person asked Jesus…
36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37 Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
These two are connected. You can’t separate your love for me and your love for people. You can’t love me and hate people. And you can’t love people unless you love me. These are inseparable.
6 For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.
The only thing that is important is faith expressing itself in love.
So now, you should be wondering HOW?
1. I understand the depth of God’s love toward you.
1. I understand the depth of God’s love toward you.
This comes from… Paul prayed for you and I…
17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
He prayed that we would understand the love of Christ and know it… Paul wanted, I want us to really get this.
Listen to the story to illustrate it.
36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. 37 When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. 38 Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. 39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”
Let me just say, you don’t ever just say something to yourself, Jesus knows your thoughts…
So Jesus told another story…
40 Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.” “Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied. 41 Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. 42 But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?” 43 Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.” “That’s right,” Jesus said.
44 Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. 47 “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”
She is loving a lot because she has been forgiven a lot.
Listen to me, we are all this woman. We have all been forgiven much… God has wiped away everything we have ever done… over and over again. Even that thing you said you would not do again last week and you did it…
Jesus loves you and there is nothing you can do about it.
The more we love Jesus and understand what he has done in our lives, the easier it is love and treat others well. We have to not only know it and ponder the love of Jesus, but we have to receive it.
2. Receive God’s love
2. Receive God’s love
This has to be something that you take. There may be someone here who has given up on this because you think that there is no way God could possibly want you. You didn’t do anything to cause Jesus to love you like he does and there is nothing that you can do to stop him from loving you that way. You have to have this love because
Capacity to love comes from receiving love.
Capacity to love comes from receiving love.
You cannot really love others until you understand the fact that you have already been loved.
19 We love each other because he loved us first.
We have to receive it. Check out this verse..
8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
He didn’t wait for you to receive him. While they were spitting on him… while you were ignoring him and living like you wanted, or even while you actively rejected him, He died for you and for your sins.
When Brandi was little, she wrecked her Bike and tore the tendon off of the leg bone. So I had to take her to the doctor quickly and she was crying and there was nothing I could do to stop her pain. Some of you may know what that feels like. I had to do that again when my grandson broke his collar bone and I had to hold him still (Brandi couldn’t do it). It’s a helpless feeling.
Do you know? That’s how God felt when His Son hung on that cross for you and for me and said, daddy why have you forsaken me… He let Jesus go through all of that torture for you. And the more we receive that, the fruit of love will just start popoing out
3. Choose to love.
3. Choose to love.
People talk about love like it’s uncontrollable. I fell in love… like it’s a ditch or something. I just fell… I didn’t want to but I just fell in love… That’s not how it works because people will use that same excuse to say, they fell out of love.
Love is a choice… Check this out
14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.
Just like putting on clothes, we have to put on love
Choices lead Feelings follow
Choices lead Feelings follow
Love is getting up in the middle of the night when your child is sick, or your wife is sick. It’s not fun, but you love them.
Love is being patient with your spouse when they are irritable… it’s not fun, but you love them.
By the way, this is why your giving is som important. You don’t feel giving.
21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.
Notice it doesn’t say that you give to the things you love, it is saying that you will love the things that you give to. If you want to be a lover of God, invest in the things of God and watch your love relationship with God grow.
Some of you need to choose to do it and give to the tings og God… time, talent and treasure. You are already loving something that way. It just may not be God. But if you looked at your calendar and your checkbook, you are already loving something because you are giving to it.
Be careful not to put something other than God on the top because
Whatever I love becomes an obsession.
Whatever I love becomes an obsession.
Love it but don’t obsess about it.
Whatever I become obsessed with I imitate.
Whatever I become obsessed with I imitate.
Whatever I imitate, I become.
Whatever I imitate, I become.
What I love changes me into the image of what I love.
What I love changes me into the image of what I love.
Prayer
Lord help them to understand your life, receive your love and choose your love…
If you have struggled to receive God’s love, it’s time…
Maybe you need to rededicate your life to the lord..
Sinners prayer