Love (The Fruits of the Spirit)

The Fruits of the Spirit  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Intro to Fruits of the Spirit

Today we begin a journey through the Fruits of the Spirit.
When we discuss the fruits of the Spirit, we are often comparing them to the works of the flesh.
The works of the flesh are what our natural tendency is inclined to do.
Let us understand our natural tendency by looking at a passage from Ephesians.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Before a person is saved, this is their condition.
We were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we walked.
This leads us to believe that we are in pretty bad shape apart from God.
What are these works of the flesh that we were walking in?
Paul believes this is something we should already know.
He says,
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Im sure that everybody here has practiced at least one thing on this list, if not many.
The result of practicing these works of the flesh leaves us without an inheritance in the kingdom of God.
If this is our natural tendency as people, what are we to do?
Are we left without hope?
Paul tells us,
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
When we are saved, we are given the Spirit of God to help us walk in a way that is pleasing to Him and also in a way that opposed to way in which we used to walk.
Notice we don’t get the credit for these good fruits but it is the fruits of the Spirit, fruits which God brings about in us by the Holy Spirit.
We read,
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
These fruits can then be said to be the abilities that are given to Christians by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the church.

Love Introduction

Today, we will be focusing on LOVE, the first fruit of the Holy Spirit mentioned in this passage.
In my studies preparing for this message, I was curious which one of these fruits was mentioned the most in the Bible.
Does anybody have a guess what it is?
Thats right, its love.
We read things like,
1 John 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus being asked what the greatest commandment in the law was replies,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

These are just a few of many passages that explain the importance of love.
Not only in the Bible, but what about our world today?
Are not a majority of the movies and songs we hear about love?
When thinking about the concept of love, there was a movie that instantly came to my mind.
Has anybody here ever watched the princess bride?
I believe this movie presents many examples of loves.
The Bible tells us,

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends.

We see this played out in the movie in the fact that Westley is willing to sacrifice everything for Buttercup and seems to be willing to go to the end of the world for her.
Westleys phrase that we hear so often, “As you wish,” is an expression of consistent and patient love.
Westley never gives up hope but continues fighting until he has rescued his Buttercup.
Not to mention my boy Inigo Montoya.
Out of love for his father, he has searched for the 6 finger man for 20 years in order to exact revenge for his murder.
"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
Revenge is certainly not something we should pursue and something which God says should be left to Him, but it must be a deep love for his father to dedicate 20 years of your life to this mission.

What is love?

The problem we have in the world today with love is simply this.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The meaning of the word love has been watered down so much over time that I believe its rarely used today in the sense that it was used in the Bible.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, if someone was said to be “cute”, it meant they were bow legged or slightly deformed in appearance.
Today, if someone is told that they are cute, they take it as a compliment because it means attractive in a pretty or endearing way.
Im here to argue that the word love has change significantly from the time these Bible passages were written to the time we live today.
If we are to pursue this fruit of the Spirit, I think its important to understand what the Bible meant it to be.

Transition

We will be looking at three different stories from the Bible that demonstrate love.
But one thing before we get started.
The word love in the greek language is a complex word.
In the English, we have the word love but the Greeks use four different words to describe love.
1. The word agape in greek is meant to describe an unconditional, selfless, sacrificial love.
2. The word Philia, where we get our city Philadelphia from.
Whats Philadelphia mean? The city of brotherly love.
This is what Philia is, brothery love, friendship, affection
3. Another word is storgay, which is a family love or natural affection.
4. The fourth word Eros, meaning a romantic love.
You will learn about this in your premarital counseling whenever the time comes.

Ruth and Naomi

The first story we will look at today will be based on the book of Ruth.
In the book of Ruth, there is a famine in the land of Judah so Naomi, Elimelech her husband, and her two sons move to the land of Moab.
When they got to this land, Elimelech dies.
Her two sons took Moabite wives and shortly after, the two sons died.
This left Naomi in a very bad position.
Being a widow, losing her two sons, and being in a foreign land.
Its not like she could just get on careerbuilder.com and find a job and be alright.
This was a very different time period and without any family to take care of her, she was in a bad position.
Naomi decides to go back to her homeland in hopes of surviving and her two daughter in laws decide they would go with her.
She tells them not to, and one of them leaves, but the other, Ruth will not leave her side but says, “Where you go, I will go; your people will be my people, and your God my God.”
Now, it would have probably been a lot safer for Ruth to just go back to live in her fathers house.
She would be provided for with no real worries.
Out of love for her mother in law Naomi, she decided to share in this hardship with her instead of leaving her to her own devices.
The primary love shown in this case is the storgay love we talked about.
The family love
The natural affection
Can you imagine being in Naomi’s shoes during this time?
It was probably a very scary and sad time for her.
I mean she lost pretty much her whole family and was going back to a land where there was not too long ago a famine in.
The fact that Ruth basically says, you are not alone in this, we will go through this together no matter the outcome had to be a great sense of relief and comfort for her.
This is also the agape love, the selfless sacrificial love we spoke about.
She could have been remarried where she lived or went back to her fathers house but sacrificed that to care for Naomi during this hard time.

Application

Is this the kind of person you are for your family?
Not just your blood family but your church family as well?
I feel that I oftentimes see someone struggling and think to myself, well im struggling too! Not much I can do for you.
This is not the example we see with Ruth though.
Both were in hard times but Ruth chooses to walk beside Noami instead of leaving her to figure it out herself.
The example we see in this story is sacrifice.
Love often requires sacrifice.
Are you willing to sacrifice your time, your money, your comfort out of love for your family no matter the cost?
Consider the story of Ruth next time you are faced with one of these situations and pray that the Holy Spirit will bear the fruit of love in your life.

David and Jonathan

The next story we examine is the story of David and Jonathan.
Jonathan was the son of King Saul and would be next in line to become king after his father.
David was a victorious soldier in Saul’s army whom the people praised.
This left Saul very jealous and worried that the people liked David more than they liked him and that David would someday replace him.
This caused Saul to dislike David and he set out to wrong David and kill him when he could.
If any of you were upstairs when Greg went through 1’st Samuel, this should be very familiar to you.
Although Saul hated David, David and Jonathan were great friends.
After David had defeated Goliath we read,

the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

This seems to be a great expression of love.
How many of your friends would you say that you love as your own soul?

3 Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. 4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt.

Out of love, it seems that Jonathan gave everything to David to be successful including the robe on his back.
Finally, there comes a time where David comes before Jonathan and asks What have I done that your father seeks my life?
Jonathan agrees to figure out whats going on but before that, he says to David,

May the LORD be with you, as he has been with my father. 14 If I am still alive, show me the steadfast love of the LORD, that I may not die; 15 and do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever, when the LORD cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.” 16 And Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD take vengeance on David’s enemies.” 17 And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul.

After determining that his father did indeed want to kill David, Jonathan sends David away instead of leading his father to him.
In this story, we see the Philia, or brotherly love and friendship.
These two were not brothers by blood but in their love for each other, one might have thought they were family.
The works of the flesh, jealousy and envy might have led Jonathan to give David over to Saul, because David was certainly going to be king which would have to Jonathan’s chances vanishing.
Jonathan could have got on his fathers good side by turning in David even though he had done nothing wrong.
In this story we find loyalty and trust between Jonathan and David which is based on their love for each other.
There is also an agape love, a selfless sacrificial love.
Jonathan puts David above himself and basically commits treason against his father by helping David, which could have left him in a bad place.

Application

Do any of your friendships resemble the friendship of Jonathan and David?
It’s sad to say but I am not sure I have seen barely any friendships with the kind of love that Jonathan and David had for one another.
I am sure this is because we live in a world that is the opposite of selfless and sacrificing for others is almost unheard of.
I believe in order to have friendships like this, it must be from the help of the Spirit and must require selflessness and sacrifice.
Having these kinds of friends and being this kind of friend would add a lot to your quality of life, as it most certainly did for David.
The key to applying this kind of love is to think about your friendships and the decisions that are made in them and ask yourself,
“Am I doing this for me or for my friend?”
I think we will naturally find that we tend to lean towards doing things for ourselves versus doing things for others.
We should aim to be the kind of friend that we would like to have, displaying a brotherly selfless sacrificial kind of love.

Jesus and Humanity

This brings us to our third and greatest story.
The love of Jesus towards Humanity
God created man in his own image yet man has rejected him time and time again.
We were enemies of God, profaning his name and living lives contrary to the way he has asked us to live.
Although we may not have realized it, we were hopeless, on our way to facing the wrath of God for eternity.
Even if we did realize it, there was absolutely nothing we could do to change this outcome and save ourselves.
Our sin against a Holy God was far too great to just be wiped away.
Enters God’s Perfect Love
The man, Jesus Christ, takes on humanity, and lives the perfect life.
Of course he is hated because we have already established that we reject God and profane his name.
He is taken to the cross and murdered, tortured, laughed at, mocked, but most of all faces this unbearable wrath of God.
WHY?
Agape love
Selfless Sacrificial love
But this love is greater.
In the story of Ruth and Naomi, I am sure they loved each other as family.
In the story of Jonathan and Saul, they loved each other.
In this story of Jesus and us, WE HATED JESUS, was an enemy of Jesus, yet Jesus loved us.
Not just at the risk of something happening to him but at the cost of him being crucified!
At the cost of facing the greatest punishment possible, the wrath of God.
Jesus made us right with God by taking our sin with him on the cross, the very actions we rejected him in, and paid for it with his own blood.
In place, we are counted as righteous before God based on the perfect life that he lived.
This here is love friends!
Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan, etc, etc, are good love stories, but this is love
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