Would you turn with me in your
Bibles to John, Chapter 15? I'm going to bring a message
this evening on the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of God, the Holy Spirit. In John, Chapter 15, verse 16. The Lord says to his disciples,
you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you. Do I have to convince you of that?
If you're a believer, you know that's so. He said you did not
choose me, but I chose you and ordained you. I don't have to
convince any believer of that. That's true to your experience.
And then he says, I chose you that you should go and bring
forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. Now, here is his
purpose in choosing us that we would bring forth fruit. Look in verse eight of this same
chapter. Herein is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit." Much fruit. So shall you be my disciples. In verse 1 of this chapter, he
said, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth
fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now
you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can you except
you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, you
can do nothing. When the Lord gave the parable
of the sober and the four different kinds of hearers, what was the
difference between the good ground hearer and the other three hearers? The good ground hearer brought
forth fruit. The others didn't. They brought
forth no fruit to perfection. But the good ground hearer brought
forth fruit. In Romans chapter 7, verse 4,
Paul tells us that we're dead to the law and married to Christ,
that we not bring forth fruit unto God. That's his purpose
in giving us as the bride to his son, that we would bring
forth fruit unto God. Turn with me to Matthew 7. While you're turning there, Peter
warns us about being barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of
our Lord and Savior. I don't want that, do you? Barren
and unfruitful. Matthew chapter 7, beginning
in verse 17. Even so, every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down
and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by your fruits you
shall know them. Now, what is this fruit he's
speaking of? He chose us that we should go
and bring forth fruit. This is the fruit of God, the
Holy Spirit. We just read it in Galatians
chapter five. Let's turn back there. Galatians
chapter five. Verse. Twenty two. Now, the fruit. Of the spirit. You know, that encourages me,
the fruit of the Spirit. It's not something I can come
up with. It's the fruit of the Spirit. Now, the fruit of the
Spirit, let's divide this into three sections. The fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy and peace. That has something to do with
me loving God. and finding joy in God, and having
peace from my relationship with the living God. Now, these first
three have something to do with our relationship toward God. Next, he says, the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, and then the next cluster is longsuffering,
gentleness and goodness. Now this aspect of the fruit
has to do with my relationship to you, toward men. If I have the fruit of the Spirit,
I'll be long-suffering toward you. I'll be gentle toward you,
kind, and I'll exercise goodness toward you. We're going to consider
what that means in just a moment. And then the third cluster of
grace has to do with what is in me, faith, meekness, and temperance. If I have the fruit of God the
Holy Spirit in me, I have faith, I have meekness before God, and
I have temperance, control from within. because of God the Holy
Spirit. Now, fruit comes from life, doesn't
it? You've got to have life to bear
fruit. Fruit doesn't come out of a dead post, does it? It only
comes from a living tree. Every one of God's people, every
one of God's elect has, possesses the fruit of God the Holy Spirit
because they possess life. If you have spiritual life, you
have this fruit. Now, it's more developed in some
than others. You know that, and I know that. But still, every
believer, even the youngest believer, possesses all of the fruit of
God the Holy Spirit. And fruit grows. You know, when
it starts out, it starts out as a seed, doesn't it? And then
a flower. And when fruit is young, you
know something very sweet, is it? doesn't taste good. As it
grows older, it tastes better and is sweetened. Fruit calls
for care. Pruning. Pruning. Somebody says, I want to grow
in fruit. Well, you're going to be pruning.
You can just write that down. The growth in fruit comes through
pruning. Now, the fact that this is the
fruit of the Spirit tells me that none of these things that
he speaks of is found in the natural man. The natural man
does not have the love he's speaking of. The natural man knows nothing
of the joy or the peace that he's speaking of. The natural
man knows nothing of long-suffering, or gentleness, or goodness, or
faith, or meekness, or temperance. This fruit, or these fruits,
it's called the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruits, the fruit,
this fruit. It's a package deal. If you have one, you have them
all. This fruit of the Spirit is not found in the natural man. It's only found in that one who
has been born of God. It is the fruit of God, the Holy
Spirit. That's encouragement to me. What
if I had to come up with this fruit on my own? I'd be utterly
discouraged. But because it's the fruit of
God, the Holy Spirit, I have every reason to be encouraged
that I will bear this fruit. And you know, the fruit of the
Holy Spirit is beautiful. First, I look at this as a description
of the Lord Jesus Christ. his love to his father. Oh, the joy of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's happy. He's happy. He's joyous. He's the son of
the Father. What peace he has. You see, he doesn't have any
enemies that are not under his thumb. He's in control. He's not worried about anything.
He has complete peace. And he's so long-suffering. so
long suffering to me and how gracious he is to me. That's what this gentleness is
all about. It's graciousness. It's kindness. And how good he is. His goodness
is his capacity to forgive. That's what goodness is. Remember
when Moses said, show me your glory. Show me what about you
is most glorious." What did he say? I'll make my what? Goodness
to pass before you. I'll proclaim the name of the
Lord before you and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.
Now, this is talking about his sovereign goodness. His capacity
to forgive a bunch of folks like that who made a golden calf.
He forgave them anyway because he's good. Oh, the goodness. of the Lord. And what about the
faith of the Lord Jesus Christ? He believed God all the way to
the end. He never quit believing God,
even when he was on the cross in utter darkness with nothing
but the wrath of God on him. He never quit believing God. The meekness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's humble. He's lonely. He's meek. And I think this is
I have such a hard time grasping this when I think of when I think
of the Lord, I've said this before, when I think of the Lord washing
the feet of his disciples and I can understand Peter saying,
you're not going to wash my feet. I said, man, he said, if I wash
you not, you have no part with me. Now, the point being, We
think of it as an act of condescension for the Lord to wash our feet,
don't we? But He didn't. He didn't look at it as an act
of condescension. Oh, the meekness and the gentleness of the Lord
Jesus Christ and His temperance. Oh, His control from within. Now, you can see how the fruit
of the Spirit is a beautiful portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fruit of the Spirit. As opposed
to the works of the flesh. Look in verse 19. Of Galatians
Chapter 5. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest. They are obvious. Which are these? And the first four that he speaks
of has something to do with sexual sin. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, wicked desire. In verse 20, he speaks of idolatry,
the worship of a false concept of God, and then witchcraft. Now, you'll find this interesting. We get the word pharmacy from
witchcraft, sorcery. It's actually the use of drugs,
and they would use drugs in order to have, you know, to produce
certain kind of result. But what it is, it's drug use.
Did they have it back then? Sure they did. Witchcraft. Hatred. The opposite of love. Variance. That means fighting. Contemptuous.
Fighting. Always getting in fights. Always
getting upset. Emulations. Jealousy. Wrath. Temper tantrums. Strife. That means seeking to
gain a following. Self-seeking, here the word means
self-seeking, seeking to gain a following. Seditions, divisions,
heresies. Heresies. You've heard of heresy,
heretical doctrine, but the word means literally a choosing. And that's why believing error,
believing wrong doctrine is sin, because you're choosing to believe
it. You're making a choice to believe that which is contrary
to the Word of God. It's a moral problem. It's not
an intellectual problem. It's not about having enough
information. It's wicked. Heresies. This is called the works of the
flesh. In beings, that feeling of displeasure at the prosperity
of others. Murders. Whether physically or
murdering somebody's character, being mad at them without a cause,
drunkenness, intoxication and the revelings that come along
with it. And such like of which I tell you before, as I've told
you in the past, that they which do, they which practice such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. How many different
ways are there to take that? That's what it says. But, in contrast to the works
of the flesh, the fruit of the Spirit is love. Now, this is the fruit of the
Spirit. This is not something that is found in any natural
man. Oh, he may love his mom, he may
love his dad, he may love his wife, he may love his kids. He
ought to. But that's not the love this
is talking about. This is talking about love to God as He is. You see, if I love God, that
means I love His sovereignty. I love His absolute control of
everything. I love His holiness. I love His
justice. I love His wisdom. I love His
merciful kindness. Every attribute of God, I love. I love Him as He is. The Lord
knows what I'm telling the truth. It's one thing to say you love
God, and it's another thing to love Him. But as I love Him,
I love Him. And if I love Him, it's not a
love simply that's in word. But it's indeed, and in truth,
this love is going to come out in my life, in my conduct, in
my conversation, in my character. The fruit of the Spirit is love
to God. And a love to anybody who loves
Him, along with it. You know, Scripture says, He
that loveth him that begets, loveth also him that is begotten
of him. Everybody that loves God, I love them. Everybody that
loves God the way He is, I love them. I'm their biggest fan in
that sense. We love each other, don't we?
We really love each other. We have the same Father. We have
the same Savior. We have the same salvation. And
we love each other. There's a true fellowship. And
we love men. I want men to be saved, don't
you? I want men to come to a knowledge
of the gospel. And we love them enough to tell
them the truth concerning God and seek their salvation. We
love men. The fruit of the Spirit is love.
He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. And I read one fellow who said
the fruit of the Spirit is love, and all these things are different
aspects of that love. That may be. That may be. But
next he says, the fruit of the Spirit is joy. It's joy. Being saved by the free grace
of God. Knowing the Lord Jesus Christ
gives me joy. And listen to this, and I hope
the Lord doesn't test me. I've been worried about saying
this, but I believe it. Knowing Him is all I need for
joy. If everything else is bad, it's
okay as long as I know Him. Now, I hope He doesn't test me.
Leave us not into temptation. I'm not wanting some kind of
trial to prove whether or not I believe that. Really, no, no. But that's still true. If I know
Christ, I don't need anything else. I don't need anything else
to make me happy. You know what most folks' problem is, is they're
trying to be happy. Happy is based on happenings. Happy is
based upon circumstances. And your circumstances can be
awful and still have joy if you know the Lord. The kingdom of
God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ and peace, the peace that comes from
knowing His righteousness really is my righteousness before God
and joy in the Holy Ghost. Oh, it makes me full of joy to
know that everything God requires of me, he looks to his son for.
Does that give you joy? You know, when Paul says rejoice
always again, I say rejoice. Remember, that is a command. That's a command. Rejoice always,
under all circumstances. Again, I say rejoice. Rejoice,
pray without ceasing, and everything give thanks for this is God's
will in Christ Jesus concerning you, whatever it is that you
may be having a hard time thanking God for. It's God's will in Christ
Jesus concerning you. It's for his glory and your good.
Rejoice. Rejoice. The fruit of the Spirit is peace.
The fruit of the Spirit is peace. Now, here's where this peace
we experience comes from. Romans 5.1 says, Therefore, being
justified. Oh, I love the holy, glorious
doctrine of justification. It's more than a doctrine, it's
a person. He is my righteousness before God. He is my justification
before God. And that gives me such peace
to know that my whole righteousness is found in the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And all my sins are paid for
by his blood. I got nothing to worry about.
What peace I experience from that. The joy and peace, Paul
said in Romans 15, 13, of believing. The joy and peace of believing,
believing the gospel. I have peace. And I have peace
with my brothers and sisters in Christ. You know, when people
fight, it's because you've got something they want, or they've
got something you want, and that's what they argue. But if we're
believers, we want the best for each other, don't we? We want
the best for each other, and we're not, and you know, we're
at peace with the world in this sense. I don't want what they
have. I really don't. I'm fine without
it. I'm fine without it. I'll tell
you when a believer gets miserable, when he starts becoming taken
up with things in this world, when you lose your peace, you
can almost bet you're getting taken up with something in this
world that's just making you miserable. Christ Jesus is our
peace. Ephesians 2.14 says, He is our
peace. He made peace. He is our peace. And we have peace. Peace of conscience. And I'll tell you where this
peace of conscience comes from. It's not because, well, I didn't do
anything to feel guilty about it. No, I do things I feel guilty
about all the time, but my peace of conscience comes from the
fact that Christ Jesus is my righteousness before God, and
my conscience is satisfied with that. That's what gives me peace
of conscience, not how good I'm doing or how bad I'm doing, but
who I am in Christ Jesus. Peace. cluster has to do with our attitude
toward each other. First is toward God, love, joy,
and peace. And the second cluster has something
to do with our attitude toward each other. He says the fruit
of the Spirit is long-suffering. Long-suffering. Patient. Long-tempered. self-restraint in the face of
provocation that doesn't retaliate. It's associated with mercy, and
it's the opposite of anger. It's born from this belief, this
thing of being long-tempered, patient, long-suffering towards
people. It's born from an understanding
of two things. First, God's on the throne. And
you know, he's already determined everything. No point in worrying
about anything because it's already been determined. He's in control
of it. He's in control of people. He's
in control of that person, and I need to exercise long-suffering
for it. God is sovereign. He's in control. And that person,
I feel sorry for them. They're just like me. Sinful,
weak, helpless men and women. And I see the long-suffering
of the Lord toward me, and I'm long-suffering. patient with
one another. The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness,
gentleness, long-suffering and gentleness. Now, that word gentleness
is graciousness, kindness. Ephesians 4, 32 says, Be ye kind. There's the word. Be ye kind. forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. For Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. What will
you do for Christ's sake? I know what God has done for
Christ's sake. What will you do for Christ's sake? For Christ's
sake. Come with me to Luke chapter
6. Luke chapter 6. Beginning in verse 27. Here is gentleness. Here is graciousness. Here is
kindness. Right here if you want to understand.
Verse 27. But I say unto you which hear,
love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.
Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you. And unto him that smiteth thee
on the one cheek, offer also the other. And him that taketh
away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every
man that asketh of thee. And of him that taketh away thy
goods, ask them not again. As you would that men should
do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Do you want to be treated
with kindness? Do you want to be given the benefit
of the doubt? Do you want to be treated with graciousness? Do you want to be forgiven? Verse 32. If you love them which
love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that
love them. And if you do good to them which
do good to you, what thank have you? For sinners also do even
the same. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive,
what thank have you? For sinners also lend. The sinners
will receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do
good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. And your reward should
be great and you should be the children of the highest for he
is kind unto the unthankful and the evil. Be ye therefore merciful
as your father also is merciful. Here's graciousness. Judge not
and you shall not be judged. Condemn not and you shall not
be condemned. Forgive and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given unto
you good measure, pressed down and shaken together, and running
over, so many can give unto your bosom. For with the same measure
that you make withal, it shall be measured to you again." Graciousness. And he says the fruit of the
Spirit is goodness. There's longsuffering, gentleness, and
goodness. Now, what is goodness? I've already
hinted at this. Goodness is the capacity to forgive. Oh, his goodness, that he with
that bunch made that golden calf and worshipped it. And Moses
is praying for him. And during the course of this
prayer, he said, I beseech you, show me thy glory. And he said,
I'll make my goodness pass before thee. And I'll proclaim my name
before thee, and I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and
I'll show mercy to whom I will show mercy." His goodness is
his capacity to forgive through the Lord Jesus Christ. Goodness
is quick to forgive. And let me say this about forgiveness. Please listen real carefully.
When you hear this stuff about forgiveness, and if you think,
well, they need to forgive me, you've missed it. You've missed
it all together. If you're thinking, I hope so
and so hears this, they need to be forgiven. Do you come up
to the Lord and say, you need to forgive me. It's your duty
to forgive me. It's your responsibility. No,
that's not the way forgiveness works. So when we hear this stuff
of forgiveness, we're the ones to do the forgiving. Don't worry
about somebody else. You're the one to be doing the
forgiving. The fruit of the Spirit is goodness
or forgiveness. Oh, that we would have the Spirit
of God, that we would have this fruit in our demeanor before
men. Long-suffering and gentleness
and goodness. And then the last cluster. The
fruit of the Spirit is faith, meekness, and temperance. The fruit of the Spirit is faith.
Faith is a gift of God's grace. I believe the gospel. What do
believers do? They believe. I believe the gospel. I believe
the word of God. I believe that Jesus Christ is
everything in salvation. I believe salvation is by grace. I'm relying on that. I'm relying
on Him. I believe the gospel. Believers
believe. And believers can be believed.
They're faithful. That's what faithful means. You
believe and you can be believed. A believer is honest before God. He confesses what he is before
God. And he believes the gospel. Faith. Faith is the work of God
the Holy Spirit. If God doesn't give it to you,
you won't have it. But if you have the Holy Spirit, you will
believe the gospel. Right now, you will rely on Christ
only, and you won't look anywhere or to anything else but Him alone
as everything in your salvation. You have faith. And next, he
says, meekness. Meekness goes hand in hand with
humility. It's that temper of spirit that
accepts his dealings with us as good because he did it. It's believing that he is the
first cause behind everything and everything he sends my way
is good because he is the one who sent it. You see, meekness
really believes that God is sovereign, that God is God. And meekness
really believes it's a sinner. And meekness really believes
the gospel, and it's not weakness. Actually, it's strength. You
know, most people, if they look at a meek person, they think,
well, that's a weak person. No, that's a strong person. Made strong by grace,
he submits to everything God does because God did it. And
you know, when you realize, you know, when you get mad, when
we get mad, you know what we get mad at? Every time you get
mad, you know who you're getting mad at? You're getting mad at
the Lord. Every time I get mad, who am I getting mad at? I'm
mad at the Lord. I'm mad at the Lord. Meekness believes... Have you ever been mad at the
Lord? Sure you have. It's awful, isn't it? It's awful.
But meekness believes that whatever the Lord does is right and best
and it submits. The fruit of the Spirit is meekness. And last, the fruit of the Spirit
is temperance. The fruit of the Spirit is temperance. Control from within is what the
word means. Now, this is the fruit of the
Spirit. And once again, this is something
that encourages me so much because I think, man, I can't control
anything. Well, he can. He does. He's the fruit. It's
the fruit of the Spirit. It's not your fruit. It's not
you determining, I'm going to control things. No, I mean, as
far as that goes, anytime you're tempted, you'll fall. Now, you
can just, I hate saying that, but I know it's so. Anytime I've
been tempted, I have fallen. I've never, not once, have I
resisted temptation. At least not in my heart, I haven't.
I might not have done it outwardly, but I did it inwardly, or probably
did it outwardly too. So this is not, I'm going to,
Don't refuse to give in to temptation. This is the work of God the Holy
Spirit within. Temperance. Turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 6. Verse 12, all things are lawful unto me,
but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me,
but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly and the belly
for meats, but God shall destroy both it and them. Turn to 1 Corinthians 9. Now you know that they run, which
run in a race, run all but one receiveth the prize, so run that
you may obtain. And every man that striveth for
the mastery is temperate in all things. If someone is striving
to win an athletic contest, he Does everything he can to put
himself in better shape and he works, he practices, he seeks
to gain speed, gain whatever it takes to be the best at it. Now, he says, every man that
strives for the master is tempered at all things. Now they do it
to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible crown. I therefore so run. Not as uncertainly
so fine. I'm not as one that beat at the
air, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection,
lest that by any means, when I preach to others, I myself
should be a castaway. I turn back to our text in Galatians
chapter five. The fruit of the spirit has something
he's got to deal with in this life. The works of the flesh. Flesh and spirit. And look what
Paul says in verse 17 in Galatians chapter 5 in the context of this
passage. He says for the flesh lusteth
against the spirit. and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one
to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. You would. You would be without
sin. You would have nothing but love,
joy, peace, longsuffering. gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, and temperance. You would, wouldn't you? But you can't. You have something called the
flesh contrary to you. Now, it's also true. You would
give vent to the flesh You would step on anybody and everybody
in your way to get your way. You would participate in every
fleshly sin that can be participated in. You would. You would. You would be a moral pervert. But you can't. God, the Holy Spirit in you will
not let you go that way. There's a fight. There's a battle. And all those works of the flesh
that he mentions, anybody free of those in your heart? But beloved, one of these days,
before not very long, that battle will be over. We'll put down
this flesh and all we'll know, all we'll know is love, joy,
peace. longsuffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, and temperance. The fruit of the Holy Spirit
is beautiful, isn't it? May the Lord enable us to manifest
the fruit of the Holy Spirit. May He cause it to grow. You
know, when I was thinking about this, once again, Lord, Give
me the grace just to believe your words so I don't have to
learn things the hard way. Stuff like this scares me to death
because I'm afraid what's going to happen to me. I shouldn't think that
way of the Lord. Let's just believe the word.
Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your gospel.
We thank you for your son. We thank you for your spirit.
And Lord, we thank you for his fruit. And Lord, we ask that
his fruit may grow in us for the glory of your name. In Christ's
name we pray. Amen. Let's see. Three twenty three.
More love to the three twenty three.