Recently, on Wednesday evenings,
I brought several messages concerning God the Holy Spirit and believers. Here's something that we all
know is true. Just as apart from the work of
God the Father in electing and apart from the work of God the
Son in redeeming, even so, Apart from the work of God the Holy
Spirit in calling, there would not be any believers. There would not be any believers
had not God chosen before the foundation of the world of people. And there would not be any saved
believers had not God the Son come into this world. and redeemed
those that were chosen by the Father. And if God the Holy Spirit
does not call a person, that person will continue in darkness. Come into this world in darkness
and leave this world in darkness unless God the Holy Spirit calls. regenerates. We looked, I believe
the first message, we looked at the new covenant promise in
the book of Ezekiel, where God promises to give a new heart
and a new spirit, and at the same time to put his spirit within
us. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
speaking to Nicodemus concerning the new birth, he said, that
which is born of the spirit is spirit. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh. We're all born of the flesh. But that which is born of the
Spirit, that new heart that is given in regeneration, that new
Spirit, is born of the Spirit. And that is Spirit. And that
which is born of the Spirit is what we see in the Word of God
is referred to as the new man, the new creation. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. You see, salvation is a creative
work. That alone should tell everyone
that salvation is of the Lord. Because only God can create. Man, he can make things, but
he cannot create. Only God. And He created all
things out of nothing. And He upholds all things by
the word of His power, the God that we worship, the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. How we love to rejoice in the
truth that He is God, that He reigns, that He rules, that He
works all things after the counsel of His own will. But this is
what I want us to consider tonight. I want us to think about God
the Holy Spirit and the fruit, the fruit in the life of a believer. God the Holy Spirit and the fruit
in the life of every believer. And my message has two parts.
The first part, I want to say this, God is glorified by believers
bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit. God is glorified by believers,
by those who are born of the Spirit of God, those who are
made new creatures in Christ Jesus, those who receive Christ
as their Lord and Savior. God is glorified by us, those
of us who have experienced God's saving grace. God is glorified
by us bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit. I want you to
turn with me to John chapter 15. John chapter 15. And the first eight verses we'll
read in this chapter. The Lord Jesus Christ speaking,
I am the true vine and my father is a 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 ye 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. If a man abide not in me, he
is cast forth as a branch and is withered. Men gather them
and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide
in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will,
and it shall be done unto you. Now here is the verse from which
I took that statement. God is glorified by believers
bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit. Verse eight. Herein is
my Father glorified that you bear much fruit. So shall you
be my disciples. The purpose, the aim, the goal,
the desire of every true believer is to glorify God. A person,
no matter what they profess, if that's not their desire, if
I do not have a desire to glorify God, then I have every reason
to question that I'm a child of God. Every child of God. Every disciple desires to bring
forth fruit to glorify the Father. The Apostle Paul wrote this to
the believers in the church at Corinth, and we know it's applicable
to all believers, to all of us, every child of God, whether therefore
you eat. We do that, don't we? Drink. We do that. Whatsoever, whatsoever
you do, do all to the glory of God. The desire of every child
of God is to bring forth fruit. And this verse tells us, our
Lord declared this, the father, or herein is my father glorified
that you bear much fruit. Now, we see the impossibility
of this in verse 5, if we do not abide in the vine. Because our Lord says in verse
5, without me, you can do nothing. Now, in bringing forth fruit
without Christ, we can do nothing. This is what is called a vital
union. a vital union. We must be in
union to Christ because Christ is life and Christ is the one
who produces the fruit in us. This is a vital union. And the illustration of the vine
and the branch is so easy for all of us to understand. You
can just picture that in your mind. A vine Picture that in
your mind and off to the side there's a branch and the branch
is disconnected from the vine. The branch is not connected at
all to the vine. Do you expect, would you look
for fruit on that branch? Of course not. That branch cannot
bring forth fruit. if it's not in union with the
vine. Now this is an illustration which
is easy for all of us to see, all of us to understand. But
this is not the only illustration that we are given in the Word
of God concerning this. I want you to hold your place
here in John 15, but turn with me to Romans chapter 7. This is saying the same thing
but in maybe a different way. In Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7, beginning with
verse 1. Know you not, brethren, for I
speak to them that know the law. Now he's writing to those that
he knew were familiar with the law. And the law, of course,
he's speaking of is the law that God gave through Moses on Mount
Sinai, that covenant of old. Know you not, brethren, for I
speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion
over man as long as he lives. As long as a man lives, he's
under the dominion of that law. Now, if he dies, he's no longer
under dominion of that law. Let me explain that. Suppose
a man is arrested and he's taken to the jailhouse And he's charged
with the crime. And then he dies. He dies. Well, that's the end of that,
isn't it? They don't take that corpse and
take it into the courthouse and try him for whatever that crime
was. He's dead now. He's dead to the
law. The law no longer has dominion
over him. Now, Paul, The same truth he's
saying, but he turns this somewhat when he says, for the woman which
hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as
he lives. This is the law of Moses. Woman
is married to a man and she's married to him as long as he
lives. And if she leaves him and she
goes and marries another man, then Paul says she's called an
adulteress. But, but if the husband be dead, if the husband be dead, she's
loose from that law of her husband. She's free to marry anyone and
she's not going to be called an adulteress. So then, if while
her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be
called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she's
free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she
be married to another man. Wherefore, now watch this. Wherefore,
my brethren, you also are become dead to the law. You have become
dead to the law, by the body of Christ. How is it that we
have become dead to the law by the body of Christ? Because we,
the believers, those who were chosen of God, were represented
by Christ, and when He died on the cross, we died. We died. We've become dead to the law
through the body of Christ, but now here's the important part.
That, in order that, You see what I'm saying? We've become
dead to the law. As long as the law had dominion
over us, we could not bring forth fruit to the glory of God. We
just couldn't do it. The law demanded, but gave no
power, gave no ability. But we've become dead to the
law through the body of Christ, that in order that we might be
married to another. Now who are we married to? Even
to him that who is raised from the dead, that we should bring
forth fruit unto God. Because we are in union with
Christ, just like that branch is in union with the vine, it
may bring forth fruit. So we are in union with Christ. Now, think about this union. We're in union with Christ because
He lives in us. The Spirit of God lives in us,
and we have faith in Him. There's a union, and there's
a union between Christ in every believer, which I know is eternal,
but this vital union, when we come to experience it, is when
we, by faith, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and
Savior. That, in order that we might
be married to Christ and bring forth fruit unto God. Our Lord said herein, as your
Father glorified, that you bring forth much fruit. A person who's
not married to Christ cannot bring forth any fruit. No more
than a branch that's severed from a vine can bring forth fruit. Just can't happen. Just not going
to happen. Now, I said this illustration
here in John 15 is easy to understand. A branch apart from the vine
cannot bear fruit. Why? Because it has no life.
It has no life. So our Lord tells His disciples
that they must abide in Him. Christ is our life. Paul says
in Colossians, when Christ who is our life shall appear. He
is our life. And there is no life apart from
Christ. And there is no fruit apart from
Christ. Abide in me. Notice what He said
in verse Verse 5, 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. How does a believer abide in
Christ? How do you? How may I? How do we abide in Christ? How is that? Well, I want to
answer that question in two ways, or two parts, I should say, to
my answer, but basically it's the same answer. But I want us
to say, first of all, how it is, how it is that we may abide
in Christ. Here's the first part of my answer.
We must continually, now listen, we must continually eat his flesh
and drink his blood. Now, we're not going to abide
in hell if we do not eat his flesh and drink his blood. I
want you to look back to John chapter 6. What am I saying? We must continually
look to Christ. We must continually look to Christ. In John chapter 6, And verse
56, the Lord said, he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood
dwelleth in me and I in him. Now, let me tell us this. This word that's translated dwelleth
here in John 6 is the very same Greek word that's translated
abideth in John chapter 15. Very same word. Strong's Concordance
tells us that this Greek word is a primary verb, and it has
these meanings, to stay, thus abide, continue, dwell, endure,
be present, remain, stand, and tarry. To abide in Christ, we
must continue to eat His flesh and drink His blood every day.
Every day we must continue to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
Now that, I know when we first hear that, and maybe when we
first read those words, it's somewhat perplexing. He tells
us we must eat his flesh and drink his blood, but we must
understand how he speaks these words. If you look back to verse
35 here in John 6, it makes it very plain. In John 6, in verse
35, Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh
to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. How do we eat his flesh and drink
his blood? We come to him, we believe in
him. Now someone has broken that up
in these two ways. When we come to Him, what does
it mean to come to Him? It is to know Him, His person. To come to Him is to know that
He is God-man. To acknowledge that, to believe
that, to be assured of that. We come to Him, we know Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. to believe on Him
is then recognizing that He is the Son of God, that His work,
what He accomplished by coming into this world to satisfy God
and to honor God's holy law, He did on behalf of His people. And we trust that His righteousness
He's made unto us righteousness. Now He worked out a righteousness,
but be careful here. Be careful here. Christ, He is
our righteousness. Now, I know it's easy to think
of righteousness. We speak of that robe of righteousness,
which is put upon us. And I like to talk about that. Don't you? That father of that
prodigal, when his son came home, he said, bring forth the best
robe. That best robe is the righteousness of Christ. But it is Christ himself,
the Lord, our righteousness. We come to Him, we believe, we
trust in Him as not most of our righteousness, but all of our
righteousness. It's His righteousness that God
imputes unto us who believe and therefore declares that we are
just. We are righteous before Him.
That's what it means to eat His flesh and drink His blood. We're
not talking about some physical activity. And I know lost people,
lost people, they don't understand the word of God and they take
these things and want to make them literal, like you could
actually eat a piece of bread and somehow that's the body of
Christ. That's foolishness, my friends. That's not what our
Lord is saying at all. The piece of bread may represent
the body of Christ, But there's no way that that bread is turned
into the body of Christ or that wine is turned into the blood
of Christ. That's foolishness. That's superstition. And that's taking many people
to hell, that false teaching. No, to eat his flesh and drink
his blood is to believe, to trust in him. That's how we abide in
him. We must eat his flesh every day. That's the reason the Apostle
Peter said, to whom coming? To whom coming? As unto a living
stone. You know, some people have the
idea, well, you know, I came to Christ. I walked down an aisle
or I prayed a sinner's prayer. I came to Christ. No, to come
to Christ is to come and keep on coming. I came to Christ yesterday,
and I come to Him today. And by God's grace, I will come
to Him tomorrow. And that's the only way we may
abide in Him, is to keep on coming. So that's the first part of my
answer, but go back to John 15. I want to include this also in
how it is that we abide in Christ. We eat His flesh, we drink His
blood, But His Word abides in us. That's what He said in verse
7. If you abide in Me, and My words
abide in you. How do we abide in Christ? By
having His Word abiding in us, dwelling in us. Turn with me
to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. and verses three through six. Colossians chapter one, verses
three through six. We give thanks to God and the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since
we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you
have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you
in heaven, whereof you heard before in the word of the truth
of the gospel. Now watch this. They heard the
word of the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you. What
came unto them? The word of the truth of the
gospel. It came unto you, as it is in
all the world, bringing forth fruit, as it doth also in you,
since the day you heard of it and knew the grace of God in
truth." You see, the Word of God had come to Colossae and
it brought forth fruit in them. Now John Gill, he said this may
be understood in either of these two ways. The fruit may be referring
to the believers there in Colossae. It brought forth fruit. There
was those who were saved there. But he also said it may also
mean the fruit of the Spirit in the life of those who receive
the word, who receive Christ. And if you look in chapter three
of Colossians, in verse 16, Paul says, let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly in all wisdom. Teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord. When the word of God dwells in
us richly, then these things that are mentioned here will
just be natural. Singing to yourself, psalms,
admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Now, that's the
first part of the message. The second part of the message
is this. Let me remind us, the first part
of the message, God the Father is glorified in believers bringing
forth fruit. We've seen that, haven't we?
I trust we have. Number two, the fruit of the
Spirit is manifested in the believer's life in three areas. In three
areas. Now our Lord in John 15, he said,
so shall you be my disciples. Bringing forth fruit doesn't
make you a disciple, but it manifests that you are a disciple. Bringing
forth fruit doesn't make you a child of God, it manifests
that you are a child of God. Now, the fruit of the Spirit
is manifested in the believer's life in these three areas. Number
one, in our worship. in our worship. I want you to
look in Hebrews chapter 13. The fruit of the Spirit is manifest
in our lives, first of all, in this area. Worship. Chapter 13
of Hebrews and verse number 15. By Him, that is by Christ, therefore
let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that
is the fruit, the fruit, the fruit of our lips giving thanks
to His name. The sacrifice of praise we are
to offer to God continually and it's always through Him. You know what that means, don't
you? Through Him. I heard someone the other day
say he heard a man, a preacher that both of us knew, he said,
I heard him pray this one time, and he said, I've never forgotten
it. The man was praying, and he said,
Lord, there's enough sin in my prayer to send me to hell. Well, that's so, isn't it? Everything
we do, everything we touch, Why? Because we are sinners. That's
the root. We are sinners. And yet, to praise
God, it must be offered up through Him, through Christ. Our prayers,
our praise, our worship, our service, everything to be accepted
must come through Christ. He must make it acceptable, His
righteousness. Our repentance needs to be repented
of. Our tears need to be washed in
His blood. Everything. That's what Paul
says here. By Him, therefore, let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit
of our lips giving thanks to His name. A child of God always
has cause to give thanks. In Psalm 22, which is sometimes
called the Psalm of the Cross because it begins with the words
which our Lord spoke from the cross, my God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? But in that Psalm, God Almighty
is referred to there as O thou that inhabitest the praises of
Israel. God inhabits the praises of Israel. The Israel of God, the true circumcision,
who worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. He inhabits the praises of Israel. It's good just to praise the
Lord. When you get down, get discouraged, You say, well, I
never have that problem. Well, I'm not talking to you.
I'm talking to the rest of us here. When you get down and get
discouraged, why not just start praising God, thanking God, blessing
God? You'd be surprised what a tonic
that is to your spirit. All right, that's the first area.
Number two, in our character. The fruit of the Spirit is manifested
in the believer's life in these three areas. First of all, in
his worship. Second, in his character. And
we see that in Galatians chapter 5. This is probably the better
of all the verses that speak to us of the believer's fruit
or the fruit of the Spirit. In Galatians chapter 5, verses
22 and 23, This passage begins Paul saying,
the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. And then he
names a litany of, of wickedness and evil sin, but verse 22, but
the fruit of the spirit. And you notice that word is singular,
the fruit. Some people believe the fruit
of the spirit is love. That's it. And these other things,
just part of. That love, that love is agape
love, which is love that God gives. It flows from the heart
of God. It's not love that's stirred
by the lovability of the object, but it's love that is of God,
and it flows from His heart. And then, of course, there's
joy. This is that inner spiritual happiness. but does not depend
upon our circumstances, that spirit of joy to rejoice in Jesus
Christ and who he is and what he's done, where he is. He's
my friend, we sang that hymn a little while ago. Isn't it
wonderful to have such a friend? That brings joy, doesn't it? I've had a few friends in my
life that have meant a whole lot to me. And I can only thank
God for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is my friend. He sticketh
closer than a brother. What a blessing friends are.
And he's our friend. That brings joy to our heart.
Peace. We were enmity with God. We were enmity with God. Not
at enmity, we were enmity with God. And through the cross, through
the reconciliation, through the blood of Jesus Christ, we have
peace with God. And you know, until a person
has peace with God, they're never going to have much peace with
anybody else. They're always cantankerous and
argumentative and just troubled. But when you have peace with
God, then you're able to have peace with those around you.
Long-suffering means that we are patient with others. That
includes forgiving others. Gentleness or kindness, and that
would mean the concern and consideration for other people. Goodness, that's
very similar to gentleness, but it goes further than gentleness
or goodness. It actually, I mean, it goes
further than gentleness. because it brings in acts of
generosity. And then faithfulness. You know,
faithfulness, that involves reliability. A believer that has the fruit
of the Spirit, his character, you can rely on him. You can
count on him. And dependability. And then,
of course, there's meekness or lowliness and that Reminds us
of Paul's words to the Philippians when he said, in lowliness of
mind, let each esteem others better than themselves. Also
the words of Christ when he said, take my yoke upon you and learn
of me for I am meek and lowly in heart. And then there's temperance,
self-control. And listen, let me just say this
about temperance, self-control. That doesn't mean self-control
in self. No, because that would be a work
of the flesh. That's not what it means. It
means God the Holy Spirit controlling us. Him controlling our lives. And listen to part of Paul's
prayer for the believers in Philippi. Being filled, now listen, being
filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ. at union, being filled with the
fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the
glory and praise of God. Now the last area, our ministry. Look with me in Romans chapter
1, just a moment. With this I'll close. The fruit of the Spirit should
be seen in the area of worship, character, and ministry, and
every believer. Every child of God has a ministry. I know we usually think of a
preacher as a minister, and that's true. Scripture speaks like that. But every child of God has a
ministry, and we all minister to others. And we want that to
bring forth fruit, to be a blessing to others. Romans 1 in verse
13, Paul said, Let me get the right book here.
Romans chapter one and verse 13. Now I would not have you
ignorant brethren that oftentimes I purpose to come unto you but
was led hitherto that I might have some fruit among you also
even as among other Gentiles. Every believer has a ministry
to others and we pray for God the Holy Spirit to help us Help
us to witness of Christ, to bring forth fruit, to be a blessing
and a help to others. I pray the Lord would bless this
word to all of us here tonight. David, if you will, come and
lead us in a hymn.