The Fruit of The Spirit

We live in a world that speaks of love a lot. The Beatles wrote the song “All you need is love” and then broke up, we’ve heard the motto’s by the LGBTQ movement of “love wins” and “love is love” the last few years. And we even hear that the Church needs to be more loving. But what does it mean and is it important?

Well, in 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3, Paul tells us that it doesn’t matter if you can have great ministerial powers or if you’re extremely intelligent, or if you have faith to move mountains or even if you give away all you have and give your body up to be burned. He said that if we have and do all of that without love, we have nothing. But what is love? Where does it come from? Is it merely reactionary and defined by our own minds? Well, for there to be any true definition of anything there must be a supreme authority and as we consider God, we find that He is love.

Love Derived

One commentator says this concerning God’s love, “God should not be conceived of as living on a independent standard of what counts as love; rather He Himself defines what love is to us.”

Jared Wilson said, “What does it mean for God to be love? It doesn’t necessarily mean God is simply loving. Judaism and Islam and Mormonism proclaim a God who loves. But when Christians teach that God is himself love, they’re saying that real love itself has its origin and essence in God. And this cannot be true unless God is a Trinity.”

In 1 John 4:8 we read, “8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” But this is not a reaction to anything created. See, if God’s love was a reaction to a created thing then God would’ve been lacking until that thing came to be, instead God’s love was before creation itself existed. Jesus said in John 17:24, “24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

But this is not a love that sits in the past, but was also a present love with Christ on the Earth as He says, in John 3:35 “35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.”

As we begin to look further into this, we find love is reciprocal among the Trinity in John 14:31 “31 But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.” So, the Trinity is a reciprocity of loving community and righteous self-love.

Wayne Grudem says, “The eternal love of the Father for the Son, the Son for the Father and both for the Spirit, makes Heaven a world of love and joy because each person of the Trinity seeks to bring joy and happiness to the other two.” He goes on to say, “God’s love means that God eternally gives of Himself to others. This definition understands love as self-giving for the benefit of others.

So, as we ask the question of what is love, where did it come from and how is it defined”, we look to the Triune God who has always been a community of self-giving love for the good of the Trinity.

So, what is love? Love is the giving of ourselves for the benefits of others.

Love Defined by Display

In Genesis we find that God created man in His image to reflect His attributes to the world. So man was created to reflect and enjoy the love of God, but in man’s rebellion we now display the works of the flesh and no longer fully and proper represent the love of God and enjoy His love and fellowship as before the Fall.

So God, in His self-giving love that defines the Trinity, comes to show His great sacrificial love to a fallen mankind. 1 John 4:10 “10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Romans 5:8 “8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

As we consider how wild it is that God created man out of dirt to be His representatives where we would be able to honor and enjoy Him and we so arrogantly rebel against Him. And what does He do? He self-givingly loves you and me. Let’s consider the display of His love.

Consider the love of the Father as He makes the covenant of redemption with the Son before the foundation of the World, where He promises a bride for His Son. Think of His love as He elects us to be in the Beloved in Ephesians 1:4-6

Ephesians 1:4–6 NKJV

4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

John 6:37–40 NKJV

37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

(Mention foreknowledge -Proginosko)

Consider the love of the Son as He comes to pay the price for His beloved Bride and as He dies for our sin! Isaiah 53:5 “5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.”

Consider the love of the Spirit as He does the work of Regeneration as He takes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26 “26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” and Romans 5:5, Ephesians 1:13 and Romans 8:31-39 tells us of His presence as a token of steadfast love.

Love Developed and Displayed

The Spirit’s Developing Work of Sanctification (Philippians 1:6 )

Philippians 1:6 NKJV

6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;

LBCF 13:1-2 1. Those who are united to Christ and effectually called and regenerated have a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the power of Christ’s death and resurrection. They are also further sanctified, really and personally,1 through the same power, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them.2 The dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed,3 and the various evil desires that arise from it are more and more weakened and put to death.4  At the same time, those called and regenerated are more and more enlivened and strengthened in all saving graces5 so that they practice true holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.6 2. This sanctification extends throughout the whole person,7 though it is never completed in this life. Some corruption remains in every part.8  From this arises a continual and irreconcilable war, with the desires of the flesh against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.9

The Spirit uses the means of grace to develop us in our Christian walk. These means of grace are baptism, prayer, fellowship, the Word, and the Lord’s Table. And this is what the Lord uses in your life to sanctify you.

The Love of God Displayed

So, how can we who have witnessed the love of God in our live’s imitate this love?

Galatians 5:22 “22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,”

First, by loving God.

Matthew 22:37-38 “37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment.” and if we love God we will obey His commandments (1 John 5:3) and we will love God and not the world (1 John 2:15) and we will do this because He has first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Second, we imitate the love of God by loving others.

1 John 4:11 “11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” As a matter of fact, Christ said that our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ would represent Him so well that it would be how the world recognized us as His disciples in John 13:35.

and what does this look like? Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.”

And it is God that gives us the strength to do all of this. It is by His love that we are enabled to love each other. John 17:26 “26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.””