The Fruit of the Spirit
We apologize that the video did not record the first few minutes.
Texts: Galatians 5:16-25
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, UT
May 28, 2023 Pentecost
On this Pentecost Sunday we are going to skip ahead in Galatians. In the fifth chapter Paul writes about what he calls the fruit of the Spirit. Since this is a Sunday when Christians honor the person of the Holy Spirit I wanted to move to this passage this morning.
The fruit of the Spirit are those qualities and character traits that begin to take shape in a life under the influence of the Spirit of the living God. Fruit is a metaphor used throughout the Scriptures for visible, tangible signs of the things of God in people’s lives.
In Isaiah 5:2, the Lord chastised his people Israel because he looked for a crop of good grapes from them, but instead they yielded only bad fruit.
Jesus said a good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears bad fruit. And that you will know people by their fruit.[1] He was speaking of how a person lives his or her life.
Jesus said the Father cuts off every branch that does not bear fruit and prunes every branch that does bear fruit so that it will be even more fruitful. Our Lord said, “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”[2]
Paul, in Philippians, says we are to be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.”[3]
Four things about fruit:
1. Fruit is visible. You can see fruit. The things of God need to be visible in our lives.
2. It is recognizable. The fruit reveals the character of the tree. An apple tree grows apples. We should be recognizable as people of the Lord.
3. Fruit is for others. The tree grows fruit for others to enjoy.
4. It doesn’t appear all at once. Fruit grows and it takes some time and seasons for it to appear. So these things grow over time in us.
Fruit is what God wants in our lives. Paul calls it the fruit of the Spirit. It grows and comes by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in the person who has faith in Christ. He is Jesus with us now. It is the Holy Spirit who moves us toward God, who convicts us when we sense we are far from God, who stirs the life of God in us. The Spirit inspires, convicts, speaks, and comforts.
The Father created this world. The Son came to die for, save, and redeem the world. The Spirit brings the work and presence of Jesus into our lives.
The fruit of the Spirit is not automatic because there is a conflict between the Holy Spirit and our flesh. The flesh is our sinful, self-oriented self. This conflict sometimes keeps us from doing what we want to do and being what we know God wants us to be. The Spirit and our sinful nature are in a battle over us. Paul lists what the things of the flesh are before he lists the fruit of the Spirit. He says they are obvious:
Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery (frenzied grab for pleasure); idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and then he says “and the like.”
Paul is clear that people who live and behave like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. They are at odds with God.
But a life controlled by the Spirit looks different: (take Bibles and read) full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
When we surrender our life to the Lord Jesus Christ someone new moves into the house: the Holy Spirit. And the old tenants don’t like it. The old tenants of pride, selfishness, and all the mental and emotional garbage that comes with being centered on ourselves fight back. The Spirit comes to rebuild, remake, and transform us into a house where God abides. Our sinful self resists. If you’ve ever done a remodeling project you know that sometimes things look worse before they begin to look better. When rooms are being gutted it is a mess. But once the remaking occurs it starts to look good. The Spirit is remodeling us.
Paul writes Galatians to tell the people that they need more than just laws, rules, and religious regulations to experience life with God. People often see the Christian life as keeping a set of rules. Some people would say if I go to church, read my Bible and pray that makes me a Christian. There are do’s and don’ts to being a Christian but following Jesus really isn’t about keeping rules.
The Christian life is about living and we need a living person in us to guide us. That person is the Holy Spirit. In this way it is a spiritual life. The Holy Spirit brings the fruit that God is looking for into our lives.
After listing the fruit of the Spirit Paul says, “against such things there is no law” meaning we don’t need a rule saying you need to live these things. They come naturally when we live in step with the Spirit of God.
I’m going to guess that most of us in this place are law-abiding citizens. You probably didn’t get up this morning and say to yourself, “OK, I’m not going to rob a bank today. I’m not going to drive drunk. I’m not going to murder anyone.” We don’t have to think about not doing that because we aren’t bent that way. The law is there for people who do rob, and drive recklessly, and do harm to others. No police officer is ever going to pull us over and congratulate us for obeying the speed laws. The law isn’t there to reward us. It is there to point out where we are wrong. Another thing about the law: it can’t give us the power to keep it. You have to have something more, namely good character, in order to fulfill it.
In the “Jesus life” if you try to live it by keeping a list of rules or on your own power, you won’t make it. We need the Holy Spirit to have full control. When the Spirit is controlling our lives, what we get are the fruit of the Spirit growing in our lives. The inside is changed and the outside begins to look different. There is no law against love, or peace, or patience. Who is going to stop us and accuse us of doing any of those things? That’s what Paul means when he says there is no law against these things.
What is growing in your life? Do you look like a fruit orchard full of the fruit of the Spirit? Even if there are just some small shoots or blossoms beginning. Or do you look like a weedy, garbage-filled empty lot?
What sounds better to you? A life that stinks with mental and emotional garbage? A brutal temper? Always wanting something else and never being satisfied?
Or a life of love,
exuberance about life,
serenity,
not having to force everything but being able to wait,
having a big heart that treats others with compassion,
and things like this?
It’s interesting that Paul uses the singular and calls it “fruit” yet lists nine different things. It shows that each of these things are distinct yet related. Each fruit is different but connected to the others because they all grow from the same source – the Spirit. When we allow the Spirit to have control and influence not just one of these things but all of them begin to show. They are kind of a package deal. Some might be more prominent than others in a particular life but they all begin to come.
Let’s briefly hit each one of these fruit. The first fruit is love. And why not? Jesus said the mark of belonging to him is love. He said the greatest commandment is to love God, and then to love others. He said if we love then we have fulfilled everything God desires from us.
Think of Paul’s beautiful description of love in 1 Corinthians 13:
Love is patient and kind (two fruit of the Spirit). It does not envy. It does not boast and is not proud. Love does not dishonor others. Love is not self-seeking, it isn’t “me first”. Love is not easily angered, it doesn’t fly off the handle. It keeps no record of wrongs, it doesn’t keep score of the sins of others. It does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. It always looks for the best, never looks back, keeps going to the end, hangs in there.
When we become disciples of Jesus Christ we enter a life committed to love. And we spend the rest of our life learning how to do that. Love is the seed from which all the other fruit grow. Someone said, “Love is the budding point from which all the rest come…If that is frost-bitten we need not hope for any of the rest.”[4]
Next comes joy. Many of us think we can’t experience joy because we aren’t always happy. But joy and happiness aren’t necessarily the same. The root of the word for happiness is “hap” which means chance or luck. Think about two other words with this root: “haphazard” and “happenstance”. Both of these words refer to chance or accidental happenings. Human happiness is dependent on the chances and changes of life.
Joy is much deeper. Joy in the Bible is something that is independent of the changes and chances of life. Jesus said, “…no one will take away your joy.”[5] The joy that Jesus speaks of sees us through whatever comes. Nothing in life or death can take it away from us.
The third fruit is peace. Most people can’t find peace because they are looking for an absence of trouble, escape, refusing to face things as they are. They are searching for a negative peace that seeks the elimination of problems. Hey, I want to get rid of some problems, too. But I also need a presence and strength to help me in whatever trouble may come my way.
The peace that Jesus gives is not the absence of trouble. Jesus said “in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”[6] The peace of Jesus is not the absence of trouble but is rather the confidence that He is always there with us.
It is said that sometimes the Lord calms the storm. But sometimes he lets the storm rage and calms his child. That’s peace.
Then there is patience. That word literally means “long anger.” A person with patience takes a long time before becoming angry. He doesn’t have a short fuse. She has restraint and waits before acting or letting passion take over. Patience is the long-suffering that bears injustices and unpleasant circumstances without revenge or retaliation. Patience waits. Patience hopes. It accepts. This doesn’t mean we passively sit in a horrible situation when God gives us the openings or ability to change according to his will. Patience is waiting, hoping, accepting that which we cannot change.
Kindness is outward. Kindness necessarily involves someone else. Some of the other fruit of the Spirit – joy, peace, patience – are more interior. We have them in our hearts. Kindness needs to be shown. Kindness needs to be done for others.
I was at a bakery having lunch with someone one time and in front of us was a husband and wife, and in front of them an older man. There was a certain pastry in the window case and there was only one left. The older man had ordered it but overheard the woman behind him talking to her husband how she hoped there would be others because that is what she really wanted. There weren’t anymore. There was only one.
The older man bought it and turned around and gave it to the woman. She insisted that she could not take it. He insisted that she take it, that he really wanted her to have it. They went back and forth. She ended up with the bag with the pastry in it.
And as she went to her table with her husband, I looked over, and she was crying. Not just a few tears. She was bawling. She was so touched and moved by this man’s act of kindness to her. Who knows what was going on in her life? Maybe she had been fired from her job. Maybe she had just lost someone dear to her. Maybe she had cancer or suffered from some other illness. Maybe she was just going through a series of days where life had been hard and disappointing. Maybe she was just overwhelmed at this simple act of kindness. I don’t know.
But she sat there with her husband and cried.
The Spirit breeds kindness in us.
Faithfulness is showing up. Being there. Being reliable whether the conditions are good or not. Meeting obligations. Faithfulness doesn’t wear Vera Wang dresses and three-piece Armani suits. It wears overalls, if you know what I mean. It doesn’t act just based on the results. Mother Teresa once said she was not called to be successful. She was called to be faithful.
The next fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. The gentle person has a sweet temper toward God, toward others, and in the daily frustrations of life. He or she is humble, sweet and mild.[7] They aren’t harsh but meek.
The last fruit on the list is self-control. If any of the nine fruit of the Spirit are about you and no one else this is the one. Self-control is about how you handle yourself. We have self-control when we get a grip on ourself; our passions, our appetities, our actions. When you have the Spirit you don’t lose control, you gain it.
Notice that none of the fruit of the Spirit are particularly ecstatic or flashy. These are everyday things. They aren’t for special or more advanced Christians. They are to be visible and growing in the life of every follower of Jesus. They show with all people and in any relationship, anytime and anywhere.
My life isn’t going to look any different, it isn’t going to look like a God-life until the inside is dealt with. The stuff of God begins to blossom, grow, and harvest in us when God’s Spirit is alive in us and controlling us. When the Spirit of God is working inside of us the fruit of the Spirit grows on the outside. Spirit on the inside, fruit growing on the outside.
Which means we need to let the Holy Spirit have control of our lives so that he can bring his fruit in our lives. And it’s a free gift.
Just another way we live by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, come and settle upon us and in us again. We open ourselves to you and ask that your presence would be strong so that these would be the things that grow and are seen in our lives. Help us to walk in step with you. Speak to us with your counsel. Comfort us with your peace. We ask for the life of Jesus to be greater in us. Amen.
[1] Matthew 7:17-20
[2] John 15:5
[3] Philippians 1:11
[4] Evelyn Underhill, Lent, p.82
[5] John 16:22
[6] John 16:33
[7] Philip Graham Ryken, Galatians, p.233