ESGAL18 Fruit of the Spirit Part 12 Conclusion
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22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Verse 24 starts with an ‘and’ following on from the fruit of the Spirit so this is connected and so today we will actually complete the Fruit of the Spirit. It also has a ‘have’, as in have crucifed taking for granted that the Christian, the one who belongs to Jesus, has actually already done verse 24 and so must have formed part of the Gospel message that was preached. Last week we saw in Paul’s reasoning with Felix that he talked of righteousness, self-control and the judgement to come. Here we discover another aspect that must have formed the discipleship…the crucifixion of ourselves. This is repentance. Verse 24 seems to be the repeat of an earlier statement of Paul in this letter:
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Part of this self-crucifixion is that we are no longer controlled by the flesh but now are controlled by the Spirit. This crucifixion means that we are no longer controlled by those things that control the world, that is, our desires and passions. All have been subjected to Christ.
And you thought the sermon on self-control was over! But this is where it starts. It starts in realising that when Jesus was crucified all those years ago we also were crucified with Him. We, or to personalise it, ‘I’ am crucified and that means that I am no longer alive. Do the dead feel anything? Do the dead sin? Do the dead get carried away by passions and desires?
But, of course, we have been made alive albeit in Jesus. So, when it says we have crucified our passions and desires it is so. We have been made pure, we have been made holy, we have been made righteous, we have been made alive, we have been made to sit in Heavenly places, we have been forgiven, we have been justified, we have been made complete, we have passed from death to life, and among other things we have been made into, we are also a temple for God’s Spirit to reside in.
This should change the whole perspective of who we are and what we do. Verse 25 says:
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
It is patently obvious that the first part of this verse is true if we have understood what has just been said. But the second part seems to me to be a choice. This is the difference between what we actually are and what we actually do. It should automatically follow that since we are alive in the Spirit, and that God, by His Spirit lives in us, then we should also be walking in the Spirit.
But what does this walking in the Spirit mean? Paul does not mean for this to be abstract but to be concrete, to be practical. Walking in the Spirit has to do with the fruit of the Spirit.
Let us check this out more carefully. Let us hear what the NIV says about this verse:
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
When I was young I was in Sea Cadets and we were taught how to march and how to change direction with left or right wheel and when to stop. Keeping in step is crucial for uniformity and to stop tripping yourself or someone else up. If you watch a parade it becomes very obvious if one person is not in step or out of step…it is an accident waiting to happen.
The Greek word for this word translated walk or step is literally: be drawn up in a line. It is to agree with, to conform, to follow. [Polycarp of the 2nd Century translated this verse as ‘follow the Spirit’.]
Who is it that the Spirit glorifies? It is Jesus. To keep in step with the Spirit then is to be a follower in the footsteps of Jesus. It is when we do not serve ourselves but seek to glorify Jesus in the lives we have been given.
If we surrender to God’s Spirit then we will also have the power to overcome the temptations that come our way. We have been set free from a life of sin and now it is time to start to live like it. The fact is the more we want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps the more we will be tempted…though you’d think the opposite would be true…but this is because we have a mortal enemy in the devil who is doing everything he can to discredit us and bring us down and stop us from being effective for God. The most surprising truth for us is that we don’t have to sin…we have the power to say ‘no’ as indeed I read this morning:
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
This is a great truth but perhaps we have got out of step. Then we have to surrender again to God’s Spirit and let Him direct us.
What have we been given the Holy Spirit for?
What does Scripture say?
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
This is the answer. We have been given the Holy Spirit so that we can speak in tongues and use other gifts of the Spirit. Er, no! We have been given the Holy Spirit to witness to others about Jesus. Remember that the number one goal of the Spirit is to glorify Jesus. He wants us talking about Him; wants us living for Him. A Spirit-led life is what this is all about. If we don’t want to do this then we have not yet surrendered whole-heartedly to His will. It means we are more consumed by the world than by Jesus.
What do we think Heaven is? It is a place where God’s will is perfectly done. Is this not what we heard this morning?! So, because Heaven is my home I will prepare myself for that day – might as well get used to it.
And this is why we needed to revise what we have heard about the fruit of the Spirit. Why it is important for us to go over it time and again.
The Spirit gives us power to live. There He guides us, directs us and lifts us above our carnal desires. He expects us to submit to His will and He will lead us from where we are to where we ought to be.
But let me remind you that at the beginning of the series on the fruit of the Spirit that Paul said that we do not do the things we want, that we are in a battle, a battle that we must win. It is plain from the list that we find earlier in the Chapter that there are many things that can blight our lives, whether it is
· sexual sins or
· idolatry; which are the things that take the place of God in our lives whether family, possessions, jobs, holidays, etc;
· or other things that blight our lives and the lives of others such as hatred and discord such as jealousy which is a form of anger, selfish ambition, gossiping, dissensions, envy.
Whilst even Paul’s list is not comprehensive (and he mentioned other things too that I have not covered today) he kind of covers the unmentioned by the phrase ‘and the like’. These are not sins of Christians are they?! We have to be careful that we do not make any of these a way of life. But instead the fruit of the Spirit should be more and more evident.
What were the fruit of the Spirit again?
Love: Mentioned first because it is the foremost evidence of the Spirit’s work in our lives. God is love and those who are His most also show love – if we do not demonstrate love to Christians we are still in darkness. Love is what drove God to send His Son to us and love caused them to send the Spirit to us. Love is a decision, it is unconditional.
Joy: The joy of the Lord is our strength. We discovered that joy becomes evident in trials and pain. It was for the joy set before Him that Jesus endured the cross. We are to count it all joy when we fall into trials. It is to rejoice in the Lord always. Joy is the attitude of gratitude.
Peace: Peace comes from knowing God is in control. The peace that passes understanding comes when we make our requests known to God. It is reconciliation between God and us and between each other. Recall that I spoke about Spafford whose four daughters died on a ship on its way to Cardiff and in the midst of it he wrote the hymn: It is well with my soul.
Patience: Jesus, with His Father showed incredible patience towards us and therefore we are compelled to be patient with others. Patience has to do with forgiveness: God has forgiven us so much and we are expected to forgive our fellow believers from the bottom of our hearts.
Kindness: This is a deep concern for others. We are to be kind to our neighbours. Kindness has to do with mercy.
Goodness: Moral and spiritual excellence. It is uprightness. The opposite of goodness is evilness. We can overcome evil by doing good.
Faithfulness: Trustworthiness and loyalty make up this quality. It is, with the others, a trait of God: Great is His faithfulness. It is about being givers and not takers. We are to serve. We have put our hand to the plough – now no turning back. We prove our faithfulness in small things.
Gentleness: Strength under control otherwise known as meekness. In Gal 6.1 for those caught in sin are to be dealt with in a Spirit of Gentleness. The aim is restoration. It is the taming of our wild nature. It is humility. It is arrogance and pride that causes us not to be gentle for it is saying that we are better than they but beware if you think you are strong lest you fall.
Self-control: It is keeping everything in check and under control. Self-control is being controlled by God not self. It is the ability to control one’s emotions or behaviour, especially in difficult situations such as intense provocation or temptation.
None of these things are harmful to anyone else. There is no law against them.
In the Melanesian islands of the South Pacific during WWII, the natives watched closely as the American and British engineers came in and built airstrips. The islanders were amazed to see that when the airstrips were completed, planes began to arrive filled with cargo: food, building materials, machinery, even vehicles. This, they decided, was something they wanted in on.
The Melanesians deduced that if they built airstrips then planes would come to them, too, likewise bringing cargo. They accordingly hacked makeshift runways out of the jungle and built mock-up control towers out of grass and mud. They put fires along the sides of the runways, and put a man in the grass-hut control tower, with two coconut halves on his head for headphones--he’s the controller--they rigged antennae’s out of bamboo and then they waited for the aeroplanes to land. As far as they could see they were doing everything right. The form was perfect. It looked exactly the way it was supposed to. But it didn’t work. No aeroplanes ever came.
There’s a point to this story: we can try to do things all the right way. It will look good to us and to others but the result is nothing. This is what is called dead works. To others it may seem that we have got it but there is one who truly knows and that is God. He looks upon the heart and not on the outward appearance. If we try to be these things without the Spirit of God then we will fail and it will produce no or little fruit. However if we build the runway, prepare the ground, lay the foundations upon our relationship with Jesus then the blessing, the fruit, will follow. And as with runways and control towers if these are not maintained they fall into disrepair and become more and more useless and unsafe so if our relationship suffers through lack of prayer and study of God’s Word then we will then lack the fruit that follows.
If we are saved we will bear fruit of the Spirit. How much so is dependent upon our submission to God. I will say it again because it was a heresy of the early Church as well as the present: we are not free to do whatever we like – this in theological terms is called ‘antinomianism’ which literally means anti-law – if you believe this then you are a heretic not to put too fine a point on it! However we are free to do whatever the Spirit of God leads us to do.
We are also to be careful to obey the last verse:
Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
There is no room for pride if we know what Jesus has done. All that we have comes from God in the first place…are we to argue with Him that He has given someone else better things than to us which is really what envying has to do with. It is out of pride that we provoke, we irritate and annoy and frustrate others. Where is the fruit of the Spirit in that?
It is curious that Paul should end this section like that. It must be because of experience. Instead we should be carrying one another’s burdens and loving each other as the brothers that we are. We should be laying down our lives for each other for this is what the Gospel requires…there is no excuse for anything else when we look to the Author and Finisher of our faith.
The Spirit wants us to become like Jesus. He glorifies Him, He loves Him, He desires that we become like Him because Jesus is the epitome of what a human being is supposed to be. The First Adam failed miserably and we have suffered the consequence to this day with the fight between the flesh and the Spirit. But the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, did not fail in His mission. For the joy before Him, knowing the travail of His soul, knowing that we would be His people who would be conformed to His image, the image that we lost somewhat back in the day of the First Adam…for all this Jesus was willing to pay the price of sacrifice for us…and we are to follow in His footsteps.