Manifest the Fruit of the Spirit

To start out today, I want to revisit last Monday’s prayer devotional. Here’s what it asks:

“What kingdom are you most anchored in? We are called to be people of the Kingdom of Christ; but we live, work, play, and die in this world. Sometimes there is tension between our worldly concerns and our efforts to focus on the kingdom of our Lord. The kingdom is not a democracy. Jesus is our King. The people of His Kingdom are called to live in the Lord’s way in justice, service, and speech.

Pray that you will reflect Christ so completely at every moment that your life on earth will serve as a tase of the Kingdom of Heaven. Ask God to help you build a Kingdom life with a Kingdom focus as we honor Jesus each day.

Name one thing to God which you are excited to experience in heaven. Then, ask God if there is some small way which you can manifest this blessing to someone in your life right now.

‘Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ Matthew 6:9-10”

What does it mean to see God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven? I think we see it outlined for us in Galatians chapter 5. Here, we are given some of the attributes of heaven that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we are able to manifest in our earthly lives. And we call these the fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God indwelling us: He is literally heaven on earth, and the fruit of the Spirit is what He produces in us. Galatians 5:22 says,

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

These are the attributes that other people will see in us if we are living in harmony with the Holy Spirit. And these characteristics are a cooperative effort between us and God. They are God’s fruit; they come from His Spirit. And yet we have to decide whether we allow God to act through us.

Take a minute and ask yourself: how well are you acting out the fruit of the Spirit?

Have you been loving this week? 1 Corinthians tells us that if we don’t have love, we have nothing. Love is the moving principle behind the rest of this list. If we don’t love others, we aren’t going to be kind and patient and gentle with them.  Have other people been able to detect and experience that love proceeding from you this past week?

Have you been joyous? This is an easy one to dismiss as unnecessary or as not being a moral issue; but Galatians says that if we are filled with the Spirit, we will produce joy. And that doesn’t mean everything always has to be cherry; but it means that regardless of what you’re experiencing inside, you still are looking to have joy in life, and you are producing joy for the people around you. Godly joy should be contagious. There is no one better to be around than someone that is determined to make life better for everyone around them. Have you chosen to be that kind of person this week?

Have you been peaceable this week? Romans 12:18 says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge.” There are times when facing righteous conflict is necessary. But even righteous conflict aims for ultimate peace, and we are never to be the sources and drivers of conflict. Have there been times this last week when you caused conflict that could have and should have been avoided? If the answer is no, that’s great; you can also asked yourself, have you been able to be a peacemaker in a situation that was already contentious? Maybe you’re a person who already hates conflict by nature. And that can be a good thing, insomuch as you are never the person creating conflict. But sometimes that’s only half of the equation. What does Jesus say in the Beatitudes? “Blessed are the peacemakers”. And being a peacemaker actually requires braving the conflict. Maybe you’ve been a bystander in a church split or a family feud or an argument between friends and you’ve decided that you won’t add to the problem, and that’s good. But maybe, just maybe, you could also be the voice of reason that can make peace between two warring parties. If you haven’t been living by the fruit of the Spirit, it probably won’t work. But if you have been living by the fruit of the Spirit, and everyone around you can see your unselfishness and reasonableness, you just might be in a unique position to make a difference. People see and remember the way that you act, and if people know that you’re a kind and peaceable person, they are far more likely to listen to you when you do have something to say.

Have you been patient this week? It has not been immediately apparent to me why impatience is a sin. But there’s a common denominator in all of these fruits of the Spirit: They are all characteristics of someone who does not demand their own way. To have patience is to say, ‘I’m willing to not have my way in this moment.’ ‘I will wait for the future to get what I want.’ And that lets go of selfishness in the moment, and makes us tell God that we are content with His timeline.

Like all of the fruit of the Spirit, we are taught to be patient because God Himself is patient. Does anyone know what kind of nose God has? The Hebrews Scriptures say that He has a long nose. Now you probably won’t find that in your English bibles; it gets translated to it’s literal meaning, such as in Numbers 14:18: “The Lord is slow to anger.” But to the Hebrews, anger took place in the nose. What happens if I have an angry expression? My nose actually gets shorter! So if someone has a very long nose, it must take a long time for them to get angry. And that’s what God is like.

Think about what you’ve been impatient about this week, and ask yourself, does that reflect something in my life that I’m selfish about? What am I demanding to have my own way? Did I have a long nose this week?

How about kindness? This one is straightforward. We may justify to ourselves why we are unkind sometimes, but we know when we are being unkind. Someone who is in the Spirit is simply kind. Have you been kind to those around you this week?

Have you been good this week? This one cuts deep. Most of these other fruits we can force if we really try to. But goodness is deep within; only you know if you have been ‘good’ this week. Is it possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason? It sure is. If I help someone out because I want them to feel indebted to me, I’m not being good. If I truthfully debate theology because I want the satisfaction of proving myself right, I’m not being good. If I do a good deed to make someone else feel outdone or guilty for their lack of performance, I’m not being good. God did not make us Christians just so that we could shine on pedestals; He wants to transform our hearts. So where has your heart been this week?

Have you been faithful this week? Has your mind been on God, trusting in His plan and His caretaking over you? Have you been faithful in prayer? If loving is our moving principle, faithfulness is our fuel that gives us reason to stive to be a Christ-like person. If we don’t have faith that God is for us, we don’t have reason to try to express His fruit. Are there ways that you could have been more faithful this week?

Have you been gentle this week? One thing you will always notice in the stories about Christ is that He uses the minimal force possible to make things happen. When the woman caught in adultery is before Him, He simply says “Go and sin no more.” When Thomas doubts, He simply shows Thomas the holes in His hands. When the very Jews who shouted for Jesus to be killed repent on the Day of Pentecost, Jesus welcomes them into His church. People are complicated and delicate, and God isn’t vindictive about all the ways that we fail. When we repent and do the right thing, that is enough for Him. We have to show the same gentleness towards other people if we want them to see Jesus in us. Are there times this past week when you could have been more gentle towards the people around you?

Finally, have you been self-controlled? The measure of any person is the strength of their will. But the strongest foe that we must oppose isn’t any personal enemy; it’s our own flesh. We have to be strong enough to control our internal desires and motivations. Self-control is perhaps the ultimate example of not demanding my own way. When my flesh wants something that I know is wrong, I can say no. There is probably no better skill to have in life than self-control.

I can tell you that the two I am struggling with the most right now are joy and self control. I struggle with joy because I get so unhappy with everything that goes wrong in my life. And I guess that means I’m ungrateful. There are so many good things in my life that my mind does not dwell on; and instead I choose to be resentful about the things that are wrong. Why do I do that? I would be so much happy to choose to dwell on the good and be joyful. Obviously, there’s something about my soul that enjoys being resentful. I pray that God leads me out of that.

As for self-control, I like a lot of basic pleasures in life. I like sleep, I like digital entertainment, and I especially like eating. In fact, I like eating all too much. I’ve really let myself go over the last six months or so and I’ve put on quite a bit of weight as a result. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure in eating and there’s nothing wrong with being overweight, but there is a point where choosing a spirit of indulgence is not good for our spiritual well-being. For myself, I know that I’ve crossed that line lately, and it’s bleeding into other parts of my life. I need to start conditioning myself again to refuse the flesh and choose spiritual things, and I’m going to start working on that today by going back on a ketogenic diet for a while.

I say these things both as a means of confession, and also as an invitation for you to make your own decisions in your life. There are lots of things in life that are complicated. There are grey choice that we’re not sure which way is best. But I’m quite sure that every one of us can think of one way where we know we are not living up to the fruit of the Spirit. What is that for you? And what can you do to start changing it today?

Following the fruit of the Spirit,verse 23 says, “Against these things there is no law.” No one can object to goodness of these fruits. And verse 24 and following confirms what binds all of these attributes together. “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Let’s go back to our prayer devotional. Jesus prayed, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” When we act out the fruit of the Spirit, we are doing our small part—to actually bring a little piece of heaven onto earth. How can anyone be miserable if they are practicing these things? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control? These attributes are in and of themselves happy and satisfying.

So why don’t we do them? Well, happiness is not really the only thing we want. We want power, pleasure, approval, wealth, fame, revenge, and satiation. Sometimes it is very easy to choose these over simple goodness and happiness. What is your inclination when someone betrays you? Why don’t you forget about the whole thing, forgive and move on, and just choose to be happy? Because in that moment the desire for revenge is actually stronger than the desire for simple happiness.

This past week I re-listened to The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. It’s a short book, about 2 hours if you’re listening.  It’s about the great divorce between the type of people who are aiming for heaven and the type of people who are aiming for hell. It’s not a doctrinal book; it’s more of a thought exercise about how different these two type of people are, and how every single one of us are on a path to one place or the other. It’s very similar to the story Jesus tells about the rich man in hell speaking to Lazarus in heaven. He tells a series of stories, and in each story, the person has a choice between choosing simple happiness in heaven, or a different motive.

For example, he tells a story about a woman who has died and has gone to heaven. Her husband has a chance to speak to her, and he’s shocked to find that in heaven, she’s finally truly happy. And she’s truly happy without him, for she’s in heaven. But he’s been so used to being needed by her, to enjoying her earthly love and her devotion to him, that he actually resents that she would be happy in heaven without him. He could simply choose to enjoy heaven with her, realizing that in heaven God will be the ultimate object of our love, and we will need nothing else to be happy. But he would rather choose to be hurt. To him, the fact that his wife can be satisfied with God means that she never loved him at all. And he fools himself into thinking that he wants love; although what he really wants is to feel needed. And he can’t feel needed in that way in heaven. And so he chooses hell instead.

In another conversation there’s a woman who has spent her whole life controlling her husband. She knows what’s best for him, she’s domineered all of his choices in life, she’s isolated him from his friends, and she’s bullied him into bending to her whim. And once they die and pass into heaven, she’s told that she no longer gets to control his life. She thinks she has done what’s right for him; she thinks that she has a right to him as his wife. She’s convinced herself that what she feels is love; but in reality what she loves possession. And she refuses a heaven where she does not possess her husband.

The point is that our behavior in life is conditioning us to become the kind of person who either wants heaven or wants something less than heaven. All of these other motivators—possessiveness and lust and power and a sense moral superiority—are counterfeits of the real thing. But they are very alluring. In the words of Milton, for some people “It is better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.”

This is getting into a much bigger study that is outside the scope of this sermon, and what I say needs qualification. But I am convinced that the most defining characteristic of hell is not inflicted punishment—it’s separation from God. Matthew 8:12 describes Hell as “the outer darkness [where] there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” It is the place where God’s light does not touch, and it’s the place for people who want something else more than they want God.

But the fruit of the Spirit points us to who God is. The fruit of the Spirit points us towards the kind of life that prepares us for heaven. Against these things there is no law. If we practice them honestly and purely, we will do no wrong. And we know that we want these things. The question is, do we want them more than we want to satisfy our flesh? We’re not going to change all of our dysfunctional behavior in a day. But we can start by being honest with ourselves. Do we really deeply love our family, or do we just put up a façade because we get something out of the relationships? Are we really kind to others, or are we nice to their face while we talk behind their back? Are we truly self-controlled, or do we appear to have our lives together while we watch pornography in our home? This is what confession is—the first step to becoming better people is being honest with ourselves, with our peers, and with God by what we are doing wrong. Then we pray to God that He will help us improve. And we strive to act out the fruit of the Spirit.

The point of this sermon is not to guilt you of your sins. We know that where sin abounds, God’s grace abounds all the more. But the point is that we want to start experiencing heaven now. If the Spirit dwells inside of us, that means looking within. The line dividing good and evil passes down the heart of every human being. Let’s spend some time considering what we’re doing to make the most of what the Spirit gives us.