So open your Bibles if you would
to Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. Today we're
going to start looking at the fruit of the Spirit and I was
talking to Zane about this this week. We were out together on
Friday and I said, you know, instead of going right through
all the fruits real quick, the fruit, the fruit, We're going
to go through it slowly. So today we're going to look
at, we're going to look at love again. I didn't quite finish what I
wanted to with the love, love that the spirit produces in us.
And then joy today. So we'll look at love and joy
and then next week we'll look at a couple more. Something I
want to start off with, okay. It's called the fruit of the
spirit, right? That means it's all the same.
It comes from the same source. So imagine a cluster of grapes. You ever go, we go to the grocery
store and we buy a cluster of grapes and they're all attached
to a vine, right? So imagine, because it's singular
in the text, the fruit of the spirit. Now all those grapes
are the same fruit, right? Exactly the same. You pick one
grape and it's a grape. You pick the next one, it's a
grape. It's not an orange, it's not a, right? So imagine that. The fruit of the Spirit is like
a cluster of grapes. One is love, one is joy, one
is peace, one is long-suffering. You see? So just to give you
an idea of why it's called the fruit of the Spirit, because
it all comes from the same vine. It all comes from the Holy Spirit
of God. And Christ is the one who sent the Holy Spirit. And
if you notice too, all this fruit is foreign to us. The love of
God in our hearts is foreign to us in our natural birth. See,
we can't produce that. That's why Satan can't counterfeit
that. These are things that Satan, these are true things that Satan
can, now he can counterfeit joy, but not the joy of the spirit.
He can counterfeit love, but not the love of the spirit. And the works of the flesh, this
is something I was listening to Henry this week too, I want
to bring this out. I thought it was fantastic what he said.
The works of the fruit is something we produce naturally. But the fruit of the Spirit,
we cannot produce it. It has to be produced in us by
God the Holy Spirit. But the works of the flesh, which
we looked at last week, man, we just naturally produce those.
They just come out of the bus like they're nothing. Zay and
I were talking. You ever do this? You've been
in church, you listen to a nice message or listen to a message
in your car and all of a sudden you're driving down the road
and someone cuts in front of you. What the? Yeah, see? Right? Zay's looking like, I don't do
that. Yeah, just check everybody's
being true, telling the truth, right? Isn't it true though,
right? We instantly react. So it just shows you that that's
something we can, we naturally produce, even as believers, right?
But now here's something to comfort you. I heard from DJ Ward this
week that was just magnificent. Nothing we can do, nothing we
do will affect our salvation in Christ, because it's not in
us. It's in Christ. It's in Christ. It's in Christ. It hangs on Christ. It hangs on our Savior. Isn't
that wonderful? So even though we still produce
these works of the flesh to save people, right? It doesn't affect our salvation.
Now that's incredible. That will give you joy. That
will give you peace. It's amazing. So let's read from
Galatians chapter 5 verses 16 to 26, just to see the context
of our verses, which actually we'll just be looking at the
first love and joy of the fruit of the Spirit. Starting at verse
16, this I say then, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill
the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the
spirit. There's the war. Civil war within the believer.
And the spirit against the flesh. And those things, and these things
are contrary to one to another. So the works of the flesh are
totally contrary to the fruit of the spirit. And that's the
battle. That's the battle. The old flesh,
the old man, and the new man. And they are contrary one to
another, so that you cannot do the things that you would do.
We don't want to sin, do we? We don't want to. But this flesh,
like Donny Bell says, the flesh, the flesh, the flesh. One day
we're going to shed it, beloved. Oh my. It says here, but if you
be led of the Spirit, you're not under the law. Well, hallelujah. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envians, murders, drunkenness,
revilings, and such of the which I tell you before, as I've told
you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit
the kingdom of God. So again, those are naturally
produced in us. We produce them naturally. Now here we go, when we're born
again, this is what the Holy Spirit produces in us. But the
fruit of the Spirit, remember the cluster of grapes, right?
One's joy, one's love, here we go, is love. That's God-given
love, joy. That's rejoicing amidst the times
of just chaos. Right? Peace. That's a peace
that passes all understanding. Long-suffering. Being long-suffering
with our brethren and with other folks too. Even with unsaved
folks. Gentleness. Gentleness. Remember the Lord said, I'll
send you out amongst wolves. Well, we're just like sheep,
aren't we? We go out, we're like sheep for the slaughter. Gentle. That doesn't mean let someone
walk all over you. That's not what that means. That's
not what that means. But we're to be gentle with folks.
Kind heart, tender hearted. And it says gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, that's quiet strength. Quiet strength, underlying
quiet strength. That's, I believe that's the
Lord giving us that strength. In our weakness, he is strong.
He produces that in us. He brings us low, doesn't he?
Brings us low. temperance, that's just moderation. Against such there is no law.
And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh, remember
we're being crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live. I live,
Paul said, but not I, I live by the faith of the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself for me. We've crucified the flesh with
the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let
us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain
glory, provoking one another, envying one another. I was talking
to Zane, we had a really good talk on Friday, and one of the
things we were chatting about was that when we're tempted,
and we all are, we all get tempted, when we're tempted and try, turn
on a sermon. And I'll tell you what, it does
not take long for that to go away. And pray that God will
give you the strength to overcome that. And I'll tell you, one
of the best ways to overcome is just to turn on a message.
Sermon audio is at our fingertips now, right? We always have it. The message is there. So just
find a preacher that you want to listen to and listen to them. And just listen to them preach
about your savior. And I'll tell you what, that
temptation that's in your mind, because the battlefield is always
right here, isn't it? It's always right here. That thing will just
start disappearing. as you start focusing upon Christ.
And this is biblical, because Paul says, set your mind on things
above. In Colossians, right? Our affections on things above,
which is Christ. So take note in verse 20, 22,
that the word spirit is capitalized. This brings forth that this fruit
is only by the working of God the Holy Spirit. We can't produce
it. It comes about by the Spirit. It's the fruit of the Spirit.
It's not the fruit of our works, right? Really, if you want to
say the fruit of our works is the works of the flesh. Again,
we just produce that naturally, don't we? But look at those wonderful
words brought forth here. but the fruit of the spirit,
singular, capitalized, in reference to God, the Holy Spirit, not
the spirit of man, but the spirit of God. And man in his natural
state is dead spiritually. We can't produce this fruit of
the spirit, but we can naturally produce the works of the flesh,
which we read in verses 19 to 21. And take note of the fact
that it's called the fruit of the spirit, not fruits. It's a complete package. And
every believer has them. Every believer is given them
in measure by the Holy Spirit of God, right? Some hundredfold,
some sixty, right? It's by the measure of the Spirit.
By the measure of the Spirit. But every born-again blood-washed
saint has this, because number one, the love that's mentioned,
that's the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. It's being placed
there by God. It's not natural to us. Now again,
like I said, naturally, our natural love is very selfish. If we admit
it, our natural love that we're born with is very selfish. But
this love is selfless. This love desires to serve Christ. This love desires to learn more about him. This love,
Christ is our all in all. See, it's foreign to us. Because
in our natural state, we don't have that love. All we want to
do is please the flesh. Right? And we've all been there.
I don't even have to tell you anything. We've all been there.
It's our natural sinful state. Now let's consider the fruit
of the Spirit. Read verses 22 and 23 again. But the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law.
So the first one we see mentioned is love. First one we see listed
is love. You know why? Because everything
else comes from that. From the love of God came our
salvation. From the love of God came our
election. From the love of God came our
justification. From the love of God, Christ
was sent into this world. So it centers with the love of
God. It has to be primary, doesn't it? Remember what Paul wrote
in, if you read 1 Corinthians 13? Charity there is love in
the Greek. And he says, if you don't have
love, everything's just like a sounding cymbal. That's all.
Ting, with no. See, if we don't have this love,
the profession is nothing. But this is worked in us by God
the Holy Spirit. You see, isn't it wonderful?
And remember, the purpose of this epistle is to show the difference
between law and grace, right? That's the whole purpose of this
epistle. And what is love? It's the fulfilling of the law,
isn't it? Right? Yeah, Christ. And Christ so fulfilled
the law perfectly for us, brother, that there's nothing for us to
do. It's all finished. What a hope we have. What a hope
we have, beloved. It's amazing. And this love,
it comes from God. And we can testify of that, can't
we? Brother Brian, did we have this love in our natural state?
We didn't have it at all, did we? But now that we're born again,
Think of the love we have for each other. We love coming here,
don't we? We love hearing the gospel. We didn't love that before
the Lord saved us. No. Loved ourselves. And even we still have trouble,
even after we're saved, with loving ourselves, don't we? Let's
be honest. I remember hearing the grace
preacher the first time, and he said, I'm just a dirty, rotten
sinner. And I fell over, because I'd
never heard a preacher say that. But we all struggle, don't we?
Every single one of us. I'm just a saved sinner preaching
to other sinners, who the Lord saved or who may be lost, right?
This message is going to go out into the world. And there are
people there that do not know Christ. And our prayer is that
The Lord would, by his providence, would have them listen to a message,
and if it be his will, save them. Right? My, oh my. Or if they're a believer, build
them up in Christ. Right? Oh my. And this love comes from
God. It doesn't grow naturally in
our heart, because our hearts are, our natural heart is a heart
of stone. We need a new heart, don't we?
Holy Spirit does heart surgery on us. Yeah, it's a transplant,
all right, brother, it is. He gives us a heart transplant.
Right, Brother Tom, you've had heart surgery. God's given us
a new heart, brother. He's given us a new heart that
hungers and thirsts after righteousness. We didn't have that heart in
our natural state. No, but now, oh my, this is wonderful. This is wonderful. And what does
the scripture tell us? Brother, it tells us that God
loves us before we love Him. My, that's the greatest news
I've ever heard. That God loves me so much that
He sent Christ to die for my sins. And then you find out,
well, I've loved you with an everlasting love. I've had my
eye on you before you were even born, before you were even a
twinkle in your dad's eyes. I've loved you from eternity
in Christ. That's overwhelming, isn't it?
But it's truth. It's truth. Oh my goodness. Herein is love. Not that we love God, right?
But that he loved us. And what did he do? And sent
his son to be the propitiation for our sins, beloved of God. If God so loved us, we are also
to love one another then, right? That's 1 John 4, verses 10 to
11. God loves us so much that he
sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. Remember, he surrendered
his son. We were looking at that in the
Greek. He surrendered his son. Surrendered him for us. That
word delivered by the term of counsel and foreknowledge of
God, he surrendered his son. And Christ surrendered himself,
too, to the will of God, didn't he? To be the propitiation for
our sins. Oh, and then the Holy Spirit
teaches us these wonderful things, these wonderful truths. Christ
died for me. My, and he does that heart operation
in us, brother. We got a new ticker now. Right? Oh my. It's a heart that hungers
and thirsts. I'm going to keep saying it.
Hungers and thirsts after righteousness. And that righteousness is only
Christ, isn't it? And love is the fulfilling of
the law. If I love you, I won't steal
from you. I won't speak evil of you. I won't covet your home or your
car. I won't do that if I love you. or I won't cover any of your
possessions if I love you. I remember there was someone
who went to this church and they said to Vicki, I'm so jealous
of you in that house. And Vicki and I were like, what?
You got a home, you got a family, you got kids, and you're jealous
of us in the house? What? We don't own the house. The church owns the house. See, that's covetous. And that's
awful. That's an awful thing. But it
revealed a lot about that person. And we just stored it away. They're
no longer with us now. We just stored it away in thoughts,
right? And then when something happened,
we were like, well, that's not surprising then. See, I don't covet your things.
I love you guys. I'm thankful that the Lord's
given you everything he's given you. That's a great blessing,
isn't it? It's all his anyways. Everything
I own, all the stuff in the house that the church owns is God's. He just gave it to me. And when
I die, you know what's going to happen? It's going to go to
someone else. It won't be mine anymore. I loved
Neil one time. He was telling me this story.
I loved this. He goes, Wayne, I was thinking of buying a new
chainsaw. And I said, you were thinking of buying a new chainsaw?
He says, yeah, my old chainsaw is starting to get a little.
But then I thought, why should I spend all that money getting
me a new chainsaw when someone else is going to get it? So he stuck with his old chainsaw.
Oh, my. Oh, my. My oh my. So if we have this
love, we won't covet things of our brethren. We will love our
brethren. We'll love Christ. We'll love
the gospel. We'll love the Bible. We'll love
these things, beloved. And you know why? Because we
know that God has forgiven us for Christ's sake, like it says
in Ephesians. Right? I am so unworthy of anything
I have. And yet he's given us grace,
mercy. I'm talking spiritual things,
right? The other stuff is just stuff, it's temporary. It's just
temporary, right? I work on a computer a lot. Most
of my work on the computer. But it's just a machine that's
going to break down one day, and I'm going to have to get
a new one. Or if it's still there when the Lord takes me home,
someone else is going to get it. Right? It's just temporary.
Everything we see is temporary. Everything. Even us. Even us. So this love of God in our hearts,
we seek the good of others now. I rejoice when the Lord blesses
you, not just with something materialistic, but spiritually
more so than anything. I've seen so much growth in the
body here, it's absolutely incredible. It's amazing, but I rejoice in
that, that God is building you up in Christ. It's amazing. The unity, the love we have,
It's incredible, beloved, absolutely amazing. But that's all of God,
right? That's that love that's now spread abroad in our hearts,
right? Worked in us by the Holy Spirit of God. My oh my. So because we've been
forgiven much, it moves us, it moves us to have a forgiving
spirit now. It is easy for us to forgive others, isn't it?
Because of how much God forgave us. And the Word of God tells
us that if we don't have this love, this love of the Spirit,
we're nothing. It profits us nothing. Our profession
profits us nothing. But if we have Christ, and we
know that He loves us, and we have everything, all the riches
of the love of God in Christ, then we have everything. And
as born-again, blood-washed people, turn if you would to 1 Corinthians
10. As born-again, blood-washed people, we are to rejoice in
all things. And you know what we're to do?
We're to glorify God. Whether you eat or drink, glorify
God. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. We just acknowledge that all,
everything we have comes from Him. I have two wonderful kids. They come from God. He gave them
to me. They're temporary, right? Just leased. Dave always says
that, and I love it. They're just leased. Right? But we thank God for our kids,
right? My, we thank God for the homes we live in. We thank God
for the clothes we can wear, the food that we have on our
table. It all comes from him. Cars to drive. My, look at this
in 1 Corinthians 10 verses 31 to 33. Whether therefore you
eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give him glory for everything
we have. He's our all in all. Give none
offense, neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles, so we don't
go out and seek to offend people. Right? Nor to the church of God,
nor to our brethren. Even as I please all men in all
things, not seeking mine own prophets, he doesn't seek a following,
he doesn't seek a crowd, he doesn't seek riches. He's serving God. He's preaching
the gospel. He says, but the profit of many
that they may be saved. To a preacher, someone being
saved is worth far more than anything in this world. And it's
the Lord that does the saving, isn't it? You know, some water,
there's some preachers spend their whole ministry just watering.
And somebody will listen to another message and boom, the Lord will
save them. But it's God that gives the increase, isn't it?
It's God that gives the increase. Every born-again, blood-washed
child of God loves the Lord Jesus Christ, because he redeemed us,
he saved us. And we cry out, oh, for grace to love him more,
don't we? We say, like, Peter, help my
unbelief, Lord, please. Please. And to those who have
this wonderful love shed abroad in our hearts, we don't desire
to be under the law again, do we? I don't know. Don't even
yoke me under the law. I don't even want to have anything
to do with the law. Yeah, we're dead to the law.
We're saved out from under the law. Yeah. That law has no claim on us because
it extracted everything it demanded of us in Christ. You see how
afraid we are? I was thinking something. I was
thinking something. I got a little puppy now, right? Little puppies. We keep them on the leash, right?
Because otherwise, you take them off that leash, tornado happens. We call them Hurricane Ollie.
All of a sudden, man, there's just stuff's flying, right? OK? But I was thinking, the law
is like that leash. And remember how Paul said not
to use our liberty for lasciviousness? I thought, when I let that dog
off that leash, he's using that liberty to do whatever he wants.
That's not what we're supposed to do. Isn't that amazing? We're free. The leash is not on us anymore.
And now we just quietly sit at the feet of Christ, don't we?
We want to learn more about him. We're not tearing off like the
dog does, right? No. That's why I always say,
we can't go out that door and do whatever we want. Now here
we are. Now we're like the gathering
demoniac. We're sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in
our right minds now. See, when that little dog gets
let, he loses his mind. But we have the mind of Christ.
I never thought I'd get a lesson from my dog, but it's amazing
though. It's amazing. My. So we see here, we're to
do all things to the glory of God. Why? Because we love Christ.
And it's the love of Christ that restrains us, right, from sin.
It's the love of Christ that restrains us from going crazy
out the door and sinning as much as we want to. We already sin
more than we want to, don't we? Right now. Oh my. And those who have this wonderful
love, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, will not desire
to be under the law. We're motivated by the wonderful everlasting
love of God now, which sent the Lord Jesus Christ into this world
to save God's sheep, to redeem us from our sins by the shedding
of his precious, precious blood. Now look at this. Let's go back
to our text. Galatians 5, 22 and 23. But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law.
Now the world offers a lot of things that causes the natural
heart to rejoice and to have joy. And it's sin. Sin, the scripture
says, is pleasurable for a season. But it extracts a great price,
doesn't it? Because the wages of sin is death.
Right? We're all going to die because
we're born sinners. My oh my. And worldly joy, it's temporary.
I can testify to that. It's just temporary. I'll tell
you why. You know, people get a high from
drugs and it vanishes. And people get a high from fleshy
things and it just vanishes afterwards. It's temporary. It's temporary. You know, anyone who's departed
from this world without Christ has found out that that joy is
temporary. Anyone who's departed this world
with Christ has found out that the joy we have now is the same
joy we're going to have in glory because it's the work of the
Spirit in us. But then that joy will manifest even more because
we'll be seeing our Savior face to face. Oh my. And no worldly joy can compare
to the joy that floods the soul of the believer when we experience
the miracle of the new birth when we're born again. No joy
even compares to that. And then the joy that God the
Holy Spirit gives us is a joy that admits the turmoil of this
world. We could have things going on
in our lives, we could have things going on in the world, that there's
this underlying joy that cannot be taken away. And
it only comes from God. It only comes from God. The Apostle
Peter wrote these words concerning believers faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said, whom have not seen ye
love, in whom though now ye see him not, yet believe and ye rejoice
with joy unspeakable, full of glory. And that's what we have
now. We've never seen him. But we
have this joy of the Spirit in us. And we joy with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ. In Philippians,
Paul wrote this, he said, See, this joy has no confidence in
the flesh. It's produced by the Holy Spirit
of God. And it's, again, foreign to us. It's not worldly joy. It's the joy of the Spirit. My, what are some things that
can fill the believer's heart with joy and cause us to rejoice
in Christ Jesus our Lord? Well, here we go. We, as the
redeemed of the Lord, can rejoice in Christ because we were chosen
in Him before the foundation of the world. That'll cause us
to rejoice, won't it? That'll cause us to have some
joy, won't it? We who are the redeemed of the Lord can rejoice
in Christ because He, by His sovereign power, delivered us
from darkness that we were in and translated us into the light
of the dear Son. Oh, He did it all by His power!
My, and we as the redeemed of the Lord can rejoice because
Christ Himself purged our sins, purged our sins by the shedding
of His precious, precious blood. My, And we who are the redeemed
can rejoice because he works all things after the counsel
of his own will. Do you know if he cast away one
believer, he'd have to cast away Christ? G.J. Ward said, I was listening this
morning, he said, we're so secure in Christ that if God had to
cast us away, he'd have to cast away his own son, and he would
never do that. What a surety, what a savior,
what a redeemer is Jesus Christ our Lord. My. And we who are the redeemed,
Lord, can rejoice because we know that in our lives, no matter
what comes, God is working all things out for our good and for
His glory. And we can have a peace about
that. We can have joy in the midst of circumstances that are
going on. And we who are the redeemed of
the Lord can rejoice in Christ for the fact that he has promised
to never ever forsake us. Never! Never forsake us. And he's also promised that he
which has begun a good work in us shall complete it, beloved. He started a work in us, and
praise God, he's gonna finish. He's working on them stones that
we are, right? He's chipping off, chipping this,
and sometimes you're like, oh, that, oh, oh, right? But he's making us ready, so
that when we pass away, when we go home to glory, we're a
stone fit right in the temple, without a sound, without a hammer.
All the work is done here on us. All the work is done here. And
it's all done by God, the Holy Spirit. It's wonderful. And we who are the redeemed of
the Lord can rejoice, because one day we're going to be delivered,
brother, from this body of death. And we're going to be ushered
up into eternal bliss, where we will see the Lord of glory,
brother Charlie, forever. That's where Denise is right
now. She's seeing Christ face-to-face. That's where Joel is. That's
where Wayne is. My, that's where Jim is. They
are rejoicing, seeing Christ face-to-face. Kathy, no more
Parkinson's. No more Parkinson's bugging her
at all. None. She's rejoicing in the King.
Isn't that wonderful? My, and you guys know Sylvia
and all those other folks that were here in the past, right? My, oh my. Isn't that wonderful? Calvin Newell. Oh, I miss Newell.
But I would never want to bring him back. He was like a grandpa to me.
I wouldn't want to bring him back, though. I'm going to see him
one day. Yeah, we're all going to see
him. We who are the redeemed of the Lord, we're going to see
him, beloved. Oh, my. Amen. So no wonder Peter said
this joy is from the Holy Spirit. No wonder Paul here writes that
this joy is from the Holy Spirit and Peter wrote it's joy unspeakable
and full of glory. No wonder, no wonder he wrote
that. My oh my. And the believer's joy is based
upon something more substantial than the fleeting joys of this
world. It's based upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's based upon him, not the
fleeting joys of this world. We sing with Habakkuk, although
the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the
vines. The labor of the olives shall fail, and the field shall
yield no meat. The flock shall be cut off from
the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation."
Habakkuk chapter 3, verses 17 and 18. He's saying, no matter
this world be falling apart, I'm going to rejoice in the Lord.
That's, and rejoice there is joy too, right? That joy, where's
it come from? God, the Holy Spirit. He can't,
what, in our natural state, what happens when the world's falling
apart around us? No, no, you see the world. I
talk to folks, we talk to folks all the time, right? Oh, this
is so horrible. Oh, what are we going to do?
And here we are as believers, we see everything going on the
same way. And yet we have this underlying
joy that can't be shaken. This underlying peace. Knowing
that our master, our king, is sovereign. And he's in full control
over everything. And what do we say? Amen, brother. That's right. Amen and amen.