The Spirit Grows Fruit

What a great reminder that it’s such a blessing that there’s so many ways that Alicia and Cindy and our women’s ministry are creating spaces for women to connect with one another. Not just so that they can be connected with each other, but so that they connect God through that so they can grow in their faith. It’s a reminder to us all whether you are a man or woman, we are made to connect with one another. There’s ways to do that. So thank you, would you guys pray with me just over this event and women’s ministry as we get started here. Lord, thank you so much for the work that you’re doing, that you’ve made places for people to come and connect with who felt lonely and far off to now come and connect and have a home, have a community of people to belong to. I thank you that you’ve made us that way in your image for relationship for community, but not just not just for communities sake, but for the sake of knowing you better. I pray that we would all grow in our community grow and getting connected to one another, as the body of Christ and that as we do that you would grow our hearts, grow us into knowing you better grow us in the fruit of your spirit. Would you help us get where we need you. Pray now as we turn to your word that you would turn our eyes and our hearts and our minds to your word today, that You would speak through me through this word and encouragement towards us. And we might be moved to follow you more. We might grow in our faithfulness, grow our likeness, if you pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

Well, if you don’t know me, my name is Quay San, I get to be the junior high pastor here at the church. We may argue about this on staff a little bit, but I think I have the best job. I love my job. Here’s why. I work with seventh and eighth grade students and I get to see God move in their lives. My team and I get a front row seat to see God move in the lives of our students. It’s amazing. Let me tell you guys, our seventh and eighth grade students blow me away with their faithfulness, they asked the best questions. That’s the best questions. You know, sometimes I think, middle schoolers ask better questions, and we do and here’s why. Because they’re not afraid. Sometimes we know a good question might be scary, right? Middle schoolers aren’t afraid of those questions. It’s such a blessing. If you’re in here, junior highers. Just know I love you, that we the church, we need you. You’re the part of the church now. We need your faithfulness here and now among us, because you’re helping us know Jesus better. For everyone else, would we be people who are not afraid to ask questions? Because let me tell you, God is not afraid of our questions. There are answers in the Bible that apply to our lives today. So let’s all together just ask good questions. One of the one of the really cool things I get to do, and one of the ways I see God moving in our students is this baptism coming up. So February 26, we’re having a baptism celebration. They’re still signed by the way to sign up. If you feel like you’re being led to be baptized, a number of our students have signed up to be baptized. It is such a blessing and a privilege to walk along that side those students because they’re ready to take that step. I get to hear their story. I get to hear what God has done in their life. I get to hear the way that they want to know Jesus, and they want to follow Jesus. They’re not scared to talk in front of all you people just to say I follow Jesus, I want to be baptized. It is such an awesome thing. A privilege that I get get to do, just to walk alongside that. So I, my wife, Ellie, we’ve been married now a little over a year, we both grew up in the church, you grew up at West Shore, which is really cool. I started at West Shore when I was in high school part of student ministry, which has been a really cool journey and God’s use that in my life. One of the things that Ellie and I joke about all the time though, is the amount of hobbies that I have. She likes to say that I have more hobbies than I have time to do. Part of part of that’s part of that is true and I love to coach and play volleyball. I love fly fishing, making ceramics and paintings I love to cook like the list goes on. But my my favorite pastime is gardening. Whether it’s indoors or outdoors, I love my plants. Right and I know there’s some plant people in here so at least I’m not alone. Hopefully. I actually worked out in high school in college I worked at a greenhouse for seven years in Harrisburg grown orchids I thought that’s what I was going to do I was going to be the orchid man and it’s going to sell them and yeah, anyways I’m here now it’s fine. But all that to say one of my favorite one of my favorite plants is a fig tree and face if you’ve ever had a fresh fig you know it’s delicious. Like if you’ve never had a fresh fig this summer, summer go find one taste one is going to change your life. It’s just amazing. Right I in there’s a story behind this. I in college studied abroad in Italy for a semester and there was this park there that had a fig tree that was just laden with just fruit we would go to the park and just pick for figs right off the fruit. So coming back I was like oh man, I want a fig tree so bad. One of my really good friends a couple of years ago actually gifted me a fig tree which was Such a good gift and it’s so special. One of the crazy kind of things about phases are picky plants, right? Most of our winters here are a little too cold for them. So I gotta bundle it up in the winter, I got to wrap it up with twine, put it in a warm corner outside, so it doesn’t, doesn’t freeze up and all these things, but it’s worth it. Because of the fruit. For I think we I think we got a picture. This is some of the figs from my garden this year. They’re delicious. They’re bursting with flavor. I see some people say, Ooh, yeah, like, that’s correct. That’s the right response. These are delicious, right. That fruit makes it worth it for all of that kind of extra work I have to do to get there, right, all of the waiting, the watering, the wrapping it up with twine, keeping it warm. That’s the goal. It’s delicious. I hope you guys grow in your love for figs from today. But more than that, we’re actually going to talk about a different fruit. We’re talking about the fruit of the Spirit today. But likewise, I My hope is that we together today would grow and gain that kind of desire that we would find the fruit of the Spirit, so enticing, we would find the spirit, we would find the fruit of the Spirit, so desirable that we would actually turn our lives around and point them in the direction of that fruit. That we would be convicted to change the way we live, so that we can experience the life that God has for us. Bursting with goodness, with the richness, right all that God has, and desires for us together. We need that fruit that’s a good gift from the Lord.

So today, our text, we’re going to be in Galatians five, verses 22 to 26. In this section, if you’ve got your Bible, you can open there. Now, if you don’t have a Bible, by the way, we’d love to give you one, it’ll be on the screen, as well. But if you stepped into the Welcome Center, we’d love to send you home and get God’s Word into your hand. So this, this passage, verses 22 to 26, comes at the very end of chapter five. It’s part of a larger argument that Paul’s making, right we remember chapters one and four, we’ve been in Galatians for quite some time, chapters one and four. Paul’s making this argument that we are free from the law. That’s his main point, we are free from the law, we cannot earn righteousness through the law. Rather, we’re free in Christ from the law and its demands, right? So that’s chapters one to four. Now in chapters five and six, he starts to shift. So to answer a new question, how do we then live in that freedom? It’s kind of like chapters five and six are Paul’s application for those first four chapters. Right? How do we live under grace? How we ought to use our freedom? What is our life supposed to look like if we’ve been given freedom in Christ? So that’s what we’re going to start with today. If we look at chapter five, this kind of second half of chapter five, it starts in verse 16, goes all the way down to verse 26, is a passage where Paul is contrasting comparing and contrasting the flesh and the spirit. Right, so we’re gonna read verse 17, right here. It says, For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the spirit or against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Right, the desires of the flesh are against the desires of the spirit. Last week, Trent taught us through a list of the works of the flesh, Paul gives us this list, sexual immorality, impurity, and he goes on and on. It’s like he’s heaping it on at the end of it. He says, people who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. People who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. He’s heaping it on, and there’s this weight of this as the works of the flesh. Then finally, finally, Paul gets to verse 22. It’s like verse 22, is his crowning jewel, it’s slates, like we finally get to the good stuff, right? It’s the first warm day of the spring. So as we go and read now, verse 22, through 26, let’s remember what he’s just said. Right? We’re coming and finally we get to the fruit of spirit, he says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, but it’s also keep in step with the Spirit. But it’s not come become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. You guys see the contrast here? This should blow away this but right, But the fruit of the Spirit, right? Because right before that, he says, people who practice the things will not inherit the kingdom of God. That’s verse 21. Then we get the Fruit the Spirit, and we get the good stuff. He says what? Against such things, there is no law. Meaning there is no need to put a boundary around the kind of love. There’s no need to put a boundary around the amount of patience against such things. There is no law. This is beautiful. Church, we have something beautiful right in front of us. What beauty and goodness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

Don’t you want these things to mark your life? Don’t you want those things to be part of who you are. Because this list right this list is more than just actions. This has to do with character. This has to do with the very disposition of our heart towards love, joy, peace and the rest. Scholars will break this list of the first three there’s nine they’ll break the list up into three sections, saying that there are each sections of different kinds of attitudes that the believer has. So the believers attitude toward towards towards God is informed by love, joy and peace that come from God. Believers attitudes towards others. patience, kindness, goodness, and then our attitude towards ourselves how we carry ourselves faithfulness, gentleness, self control. See, what we see here is the fruit of the Spirit is a comprehensive display of the heart of Christ in the life of the believer. The fruit of the Spirit is a comprehensive display of the heart of Christ in the life of the believer. It’s not like this is this is good stuff, guys. This is Rich stuff. It’s not some you know, Frou Frou pin on a wooden sign and hanging in your kitchen kind of thing. If that’s all you do with it. This is rich fruit. There’s robustness. It’s bursting with goodness. Right? There’s resilience in these things. People who have the fruit of the Spirit have resilience, they have a life that is robust, filled with the presence of God because we’re receiving and practicing and living in the fruit of the Spirit. This is a good thing we should want this mean Can you can you imagine? Can you imagine not being thrown into chaos at every hardship or difficulty, because you have joy, love and peace and aren’t affected by circumstance. Having the fruit of the spirit means we’re not thrown into rage at the slightest inconvenience. Instead of heart of kindness, and goodness and generosity. Let us take each step slowly seeking the needs of others. First, we’re not the most important thing in the world anymore. We put the needs of others, we’re sorry, ourselves. There’s resilience in these things. Imagine a life marked by faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Showing up when you said you would have been thoughtful and gentle as you go about your life. Not being controlled by emotion or desires. Don’t you want this is a beautiful gift. Let me tell you, even if you don’t want this, we need this. You desperately need the fruit of the Spirit in your life. We together need the fruit of the Spirit you need the fruit of the Spirit in your marriages. You need the fruit of the Spirit in your parenting. Children you need the fruit of the Spirit in your being children under those parents. We need the fruit of the spirit here in the church in our life together. We need this fruit of the spirit for our community. We need these things. The alternative Paul warns us in the end in verse 26 is conceit and provocation and envy things that divide and tear us apart. as individuals and as the body. We need the fruit of the Spirit. Because the fruit of the Spirit goes deeper than just action starts to shape who we are. Let me tell you there’s no amount of discipline or hard work that has the power to change our hearts. Only the Spirit can do that. Only the spirit can produce real and lasting fruit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. fruit that comes only from ourselves. We only produce pride or you can muster up to strength maybe to do it for a little bit, but lasting joy that can only come from the Spirit.

So how do we get this fruit? What does the text say? The spirit grows fruit in the heart that crucifies the flesh in walks in his ways, the spirit grows fruit in the heart that crucifies the flesh and walks in his ways. So how do we grow the fruit of the Spirit Paul is going to give us here to necessary measures that make room for the spirit to produce fruit. So how to make room for the fruit of spirit. The first thing we see verse 24, crucify the flesh. This read verse 24. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions, and desires. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. This comes right after the fruit of the Spirit, right? Because Crucifying the flesh is a marker of those who belong to Jesus, crucified in the flesh is a marker of those who belong to Jesus. Now, notice, he didn’t say those who belong to Jesus are the ones who have crucified the flesh. Or to say, if you crucify the flesh, then you will belong to Jesus. This isn’t talking about a way to earn our way to God. Right? We saw chapters one to four, you were free in Christ, there’s no amount of doing that can get you to God. But if we have freedom from sin in Christ, now we have a choice. Now we have a choice. So why why do we need to crucify the flesh? Why is that necessary in order to make room for the fruit number, verse 17, says, The flesh is opposed to the Spirit. Only one thing can produce fruit at a time, there can only be one thing in control of your heart. So we must crucify the flesh, in order to make room for the spirit. We must crucify the flesh in order to make room for the spirit. This is active crucifixion. This is an active crucifixion in earlier in the chapter, verse, chapter two, verse 20, Paul talks about how he has been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer here who lives but Christ who lives in him. He’s home, nothing has been done to him. Because of his faith union with Christ, His flesh has been crucified on the cross before God, His flesh is dead, and he’s alive in Christ. Right? That’s it that has been done. Now, Paul’s talking about something different. Right? That was something done to us before God, our flesh is dead, and we’re alive in Christ. That’s true. That’s happened. That is true. God has done that. But we still live in brokenness still live in broken bodies. So when he talks in Galatians, chapter five, verse 24, we are the ones who crucify the flesh. Those who belong to Christ, have crucified the flesh, his passions and desires. So Christ does the work of declaring death on the flesh. But we have to be the ones to hold it on the cross. We who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed our flesh on the cross, when we became Christ upon believing in His name. Now we have to hold it there in a state of crucifixion. Because we know Christ has spoken a word over death, that flesh is dead, the death sentence has been made. Death is coming, but we have to hold it there. Right. Crucifixion is a long, nasty process. But it always ends in death. It’s active, it’s daily. You know, we get the same idea from Jesus who says, take up your cross daily and follow me this idea of every day, I’m going to commit to holding my sin on the cross, not going to let it down and hang out with it. I’m going to keep it up there. Keep my flesh, my old self, my old nature on the cross. The final death of our flesh is certain. But for now, we live in broken bodies in a broken world. So it’s up to us to hold our sinful nature upon the cross, knowing that its final death is coming. Now, thankfully, we’re not alone in that. But we have to be active in that. So what’s this? What’s this look like in real life on the ground? It means making a plan to ruthlessly get rid of sin in your life. Don’t just like, you know, it’d be like, you know, you sit and mess up and they say, oh, man, I hope I’ll do better next time. Then you just live your life. That’s like taking your sin off the cross your flesh on the cross and saying, hang out here. I hope you don’t stab me in the back. It’s like hanging out with it. You have to make a plan to eliminate this in a plan to keep our flesh at bay and on the cross. confess your sin. Can’t fight sin that’s hidden. Bring accountability into your lives. Remove the temptation. Don’t bring the phone to bed. Don’t let pride or envious thoughts live in your mind. Put them on the cross. James four seven says Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Its a Promise, we have to be active in the resisting. Lastly, fill the void with things of God. fill that void. When we remove our flesh, there’s a void, we have to fill that with something, fill the void with things of God, memorize Scripture as a tool to keep your flesh on the cross. How are using scripture to fight sin? Right every day, we have a decision to make. Will you keep your flesh on the cross? Or will you let your sinful desires live on? What this means is taking stock of our desires? I want to correct my friend over here is that desire to correct coming out of love and patience and for their good or is that because I like what it feels like to be right? We have to put our desires under a microscope and make a commitment that any desire we find in ourselves that does not align with the heart of God, we’re going to put on the cross. We have to crucify even our desires. Hold them on the cross. As you live each day, are you holding your old, self centered ways on the cross in a state of ruthless crucifixion? Because if we want to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, we must crucify the flesh. Right? Because we’ve been given freedom in Christ, we have the freedom now we have to use that to keep sin at bay.

What’s the next thing that Paul gives us? How to make room for the fruit of the Spirit? keep in step with the Spirit. Verse 25, as we read on verse 25, says, If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Does that sound familiar to you? It should, because in verse 16, at the begin to Section Paul says, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And that’s how he starts. And he goes and that’s kind of how he ends to write. So verse 25, is like an unpacking of verse 16. walk by the Spirit, you won’t gratify the desires of touch, what’s it mean to have a walk by the Spirit, we’ll get a little more information. If you live by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit, as original phrase, had a little bit of a military connotation of falling in line behind a leader walking into plans that they have laid out for you. So if we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. That is to say if we are alive by the Spirit, meaning we have freedom in Christ, but it’s not us that freedom to gratify the flesh, which is what he tells us in verse 13. But to keep in step with the Spirit, what does it look like to keep in step with the Spirit? Mr. walk in his ways, to order our lives and steps that they fall in line with the way of the Spirit, to be active, to conform our actions and patterns to what God has laid out for us. Right and it’s clear in Scripture, by God’s Word, we have a clear view of what the steps of the Spirit are. Right we see the life of Christ. How did Christ model a life for us to follow? How did he love other people’s? How did he carry himself, Christ gives us an example. We need to model our lives after the example that we are given by God. He even gives us commands in scripture of how we ought to live. Colossians were flipped through Colossians 312. Briefly, it says put on then, as God’s Chosen Ones holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. This list goes on. Which by the way, this list of actions put these things on is very similar to the list of fruit that Paul gives us that the Spirit will produce in us. Right, the commands are clear, the footprints are clear friends, the footprints are clear, but now we have to step in them. Aristotle said that nature abhors a vacuum, talking about physics, but did you know that that’s true, the heart to the heart abhors a vacuum, meaning if you take something out, something is always going to fill that spot. If you take something out, something will always fill that spot. One of the things I see when I work with students or friends of mine, when we’re fighting, Sanders will say Oh, I’m going to fight that same but I’m not going to fill that hole with something else. Sin will always fill that hole. The key to fighting sin, to keeping the flesh crucified is to fill that hole with something else. Crucify the flesh and fill the void by walking in step with the Spirit. Fill the void by crucified by walking in step with the Spirit. You’ve made the void right? You’ve taken something out. Something always fills me. The heart abhors a vacuum.

So how else do we keep in step with the Spirit? We strive for the fruit of the Spirit We strive for the fruit of the Spirit. Now this is a little bit of a paradigm, right because on one hand, we have the fruit of the Spirit, right, we need to run to the fruit of the spirit towards God away from sin towards the fruit run to that I need to, I need to do that I need to go in that direction. But on the other hand, we know that the fruit of the Spirit is only produced by the Spirit of God. So we have to hold these two things in tensions, we like go towards that thing, but we know we’re only going to get there by the power of God. So we aim ourselves in the direction of the fruit of the Spirit, taking steps in line with the Spirit. And we trust that we’re going to get there by the power of the Holy Spirit. We aim ourselves in the direction of the fruit of the Spirit, aim towards the fruit. We take our steps in line with the Spirit. We trust that we will get there by the power of the Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can produce fruit, and he’ll do it. As we strive towards those things in faithful discipline. The fruit of the Spirit is grown in the heart that crucifies the flesh and walks in his ways. Remember, there’s only one there’s only room for one thing in your heart. Later on in Galatians, six, seven, Paul is going to give us a warning. He’s going to say, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one says that he will also reap. We allow the flesh to live from the flesh, we will reap destruction. We would be foolish church, we would be foolish to expect spiritual fruit from flesh deceit. So we have to crucify the flesh, walk in step with the Spirit, and trust that the Lord will produce fruit in our lives. Now, the fruit of spirit needs to be grown isn’t just pop up.

Guys, remember that fig tree. One of the amazing and incredible things about figs is the amount of time it takes for the fruit to grow. So the in the spring, the leaves will break the flush out with nicely these beautiful little green fake lists hard as a rock will pop up. Like any good plant dad, I take a lot of pictures of my plants. If you asked my wife, or anybody, they would say they all look pretty much exactly the same. It’s especially true for this fig tree. Because in their growing season part of the summer, about 40 days in the summer, there’s nothing that happens on the outside, you can’t see it. Then when August comes, it’s harvest time, all of a sudden the fruit starts to grow, you start to see you start to reap the benefits. Those little hard green figs grow into these purple, brown delicious fruit bursting with flavor. What why do I share this? Right because we might not see the fruit right away. But God is working even so we might not see the fruit of the way right away. But as we make space for the Spirit, he will grow the fruit. So promise. When we crucify the flesh and start to walk in step with the Spirit, we might not see it immediately. We might not immediately become patient, or learn patience by not becoming patient. We might not immediately be marked by love and joy and peace, those things are coming the fruit takes time. But if we want to see the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, we must crucify the flesh and walk in his ways and trust that the Spirit will produce fruit. For us, we’ve been offered a great gift. This gift that God has given us a life of fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. You’ve been offered a great gift. We’ve been offered freedom in Christ, true freedom. I know that there’s people in here who maybe you haven’t decided to walk with Jesus yet. Maybe that’s you. We’re glad you’re here. But let me tell you friends, there is true freedom. There is real love. lasting joy, enduring hope. It’s not dependent on your circumstances. But those things are only found in the person of Jesus. So hear me when I say if we want these things for you, if you want these things, they are found in Jesus. Let me remind you that Jesus isn’t there like Hey, yo, like, Wait, please bring me the fruit and then maybe I’ll be there. He says, Come to me. all who are weary and heavy laden, I’ll give you rest. His arms open, not waiting for us to figure it out. But to say I can’t do it. I need you. And there’s nothing more that he wants to do. Bring you into an embrace and call you his friends if we have received that. We’ve received that freedom. The question now becomes how are we going to live in that? Let us who’ve received the gift of life. Now be active to keep in step with the Spirit. We can trust that the Spirit of God will grow fruit. If we crucify the flesh, and walk in his ways. And let me remind you, we desperately need the fruit of the spear. Think about how your life would change. If you aren’t tossed around by every storm and wave that comes. But instead, you’re anchored in love, and joy and peace no matter the circumstance. How would your life change if it were marked by goodness? patience, kindness. What would your love life look like? If faithfulness, gentleness and self control ruled the day that would change our lives that would change our body together. So friends, let us aim towards the fruit of the Spirit. Taking our steps in line with the Spirit, trusting that by the power of the Spirit, we will see fruit. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Let’s pray. Lord, God, we need you. We want to see fruit in our lives. We want the resilience we want the life of fruitfulness that you’ve promised, but in order to do that, we need you. We thank you that we are not alone. I pray that You would give us the reminders as we go about our life that we need to crucify the flesh. You would bring to light the places that were bringing it off the cross and hanging out with it that you would convict us to keep it on the cross. That we need your power to help us do that. Help us to walk in step with your spirit by showing us what your ways are. Open our eyes to the ways of God and give us the discipline to do it. When we want to see your foot we asked for you here we thank you. Allah we need you and pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen