John 15:11: “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of Spirit is…joy.”
Jesus promised us His joy in John 15:11 and Paul reminds us that the Holy Spirit makes Jesus’ joy active in our lives. How does this joy take shape in our lives? First, it is the gift salvation. We cannot know the joy of Jesus until He is alive in our hearts. We can experience earthly joy and happiness in the right circumstances, but the deeply rooted joy of Jesus, in all circumstances, comes into our lives through salvation. Salvation is the result of repenting of sin, confessing them to Jesus and inviting Him into our lives. If you have Jesus in your life, you have His joy because you have His promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit. You can claim that joy now by just turning from sin through confession and repentance and inviting Jesus into your life. Second is the gift of worship. It is through worship that we express the joy that we have in Jesus. Some people express their joy in quietness and stillness. This is how I express my joy. Some people express their joy in..well..loud praise. There is no right or wrong way to share your joy through worship and thankfulness for His salvation and for the gift of His Holy Spirit. Don’t let anyone tell you that the way you express your joy in Jesus is the wrong way, just do it the way you feel it. You can worship Him alone as well in public worship. Third is the gift of service. Our joy in Jesus is complete when we take the joy of our salvation, and joy of our worship into service for Jesus in whatever way He leads. We all have our gifts for service, and we need to use them in service. The word that is translated as “worship” can also be translated as “service.” There is a sign that you have probably read in many church bulletins: “Enter to Worship-Depart to Serve.” There is great joy in Christian service, whether it is visiting and ministering to someone who is ill, or witnessing to someone about their need for salvation. There is so much more that could be written about this gift of joy. I think that the three gifts here can apply to any life. Do you have this kind of joy in your life? Bro. Joe
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Galatians 5:22-23 mentions “the fruit of the Spirit.” In the articles for the next few days, I will describe the different aspects of “fruit” that the Holy Spirit brings into our lives when He indwells us when we are saved. Notice that “fruit” is singular. I liken it to an orange that is one fruit with many sections. All of these comprise a single “fruit” in our lives and this means that all of them are present with the Holy Spirit. For the next few days, we will look at each aspect of the fruit.
Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23. Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” “The Fruit of the Spirit Is Love” Love, especially Agape (ahgahpay) love, is one of the main themes of the New Testament. Love is given as the main motivation for Jesus’ coming into the world to save sinners. It is also one of the main motivations for our service to God and people. Fittingly, love is the first part of the “fruit of the Spirit.” When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, He brings love with Him. This means that we do not have to search for love, or conjure up some sort of pseudo love. We have the genuine love of God in our hearts already because of the indwelling Spirit. This certainly erases any excuse that we might have for not loving people. God has planted His love within us. (Thank Him!) We are to live in love and share the love of Jesus with others. The Holy Spirit did not bring Jesus’ love into our lives to lie dormant, or to just be used with family and friends. Anybody can do that. The fact that love is a fruit of the Spirit says that it is supposed to do something in our lives and in the lives of others. In essence this means that love is a gift of God. It is a gift that is given to every Christian to be used in His service. Christian service that is given without the fruit, or gift, of love will usually come across to others as legalistic and sterile. We can learn every “plan of salvation” that has been printed, but if they are not presented with love, they will just be words. Because we are given divine love, we can learn to love the unlovable. We simply cannot say that there are people that we just can’t love. It is certainly tempting at times, because there are people who do not exactly endear themselves to us, but there is no one so obnoxious that God cannot love him or her. Since we are infused with God’s love, we can love the unlovable too. In John 5:36 Jesus said: “For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same?”Anybody can love people who love them. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to help us love those who do not love us, or who are obnoxious to us. Love should be the main motive in everything that we do. For example, why do people teach Sunday School? Is it to merely share knowledge about the Bible? If so, that is an inadequate motive. The main motivation should be because we love God, love people, and want to share God’s great love with them. It would be the same with all of the offices of the church, and in all that we do in the community. The Holy Spirit urges us with His love to serve God and people. This should do away with uninspired, half-hearted, legalistic, cold service. Think of a church with people in every office who are motivated by love. What an influence that church would have on the world!!!! It is a privilege to have love as a fruit of the Spirit, but it is also a challenge. Love makes us different from all other people in the world. Love is not an option for us. Jesus saw to that when He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us. Bro. Joe "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23. Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
Paul’s point in this text was that we depend on the Holy Spirit to enable us to live the Christian life as defined by the “fruit of the Spirit,” not by keeping the Mosaic Law. We are not saved by legalism but by faith in Christ, who indwells us with the Holy Spirit, who guides us in living the Christian life. This takes the focus off of ourselves, and puts it on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides us into love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness and temperance.” We are given an interpretation of the statement, “against such there is no law” in 1 Timothy 1:8-9: “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully. 9. Knowing that the law is not for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners….etc.” The Mosaic Law tells us what is wrong, but the Holy Spirit leads us away from what is wrong. Living the Christian life is not a “do it yourself” project. We do not keep the law, instead we live it in our daily conduct as we follow the guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit. He leads us to love and honor God, and to love and treat people right. Look up the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1ff and notice that if we love and honor God, we will heed the first four commandments, and if we love people we will heed the last six commandments. Both Jesus and Paul said that love fulfills the law: Matthew 22:37-40 and Romans 13:10. You will note that love is the first thing mentioned in the “fruit of the Spirit.” Following the “fruit of the Spirit,” makes better people of us. It does not make us self-righteous and judgmental, but it does give us a sense of right and wrong, and defines what is right and wrong. Following the “fruit of the Spirit” will keep us from being offensive in our conduct, because this fruit will lead us to have loving attitudes towards our fellow man/woman. We will be careful about what we say to people and about how we treat people. I hope that all of this explains what “against such there is no law” means. Bro. Joe “Temperance” is also translated as “self-control.” Self-control covers every area of our lives. In this age of affluence in America, self-control is a real struggle, even, or especially for Christians. After all, there is so much to buy and to consume. However the Holy Spirit in our lives reminds us that we need to be temperate in all of life. We will consider three facets of temperance in this article: Discipline, mastery and servanthood.
Discipline Without discipline we will not control ourselves. Paul realized the value of discipline when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:27: “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” Obviously, the Holy Spirit convicted Paul of this need to stay in control. When we lack discipline in any area of our lives we stand the chance of rendering ourselves useless as witnesses for Christ. Discipline might seem like a negative thing in our free-wheeling society, but it is positive when we realize its value in our lives. With it we control our habits, tongues, bodies, time, etc. Mastery The Holy Spirit enables us to master ourselves as we serve the Master. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:24-25: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain. And every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things…” This is a reference to foot racing. It is impossible to excel in foot racing without mastering oneself. It is also impossible to excel in Christian living without mastering ourselves under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We need to constantly look at our lives and see if there are areas that are mastering us instead of our mastering them. Servanthood Until the Holy Spirit controls our lives, and until we practice self-control under His leadership, we will not be the servants of Jesus that we could be. David was sidetracked by a moment of intemperance when he committed adultery with Bathsheba. Moses was sidetracked by a moment of intemperance when he killed the Egyptian who was mistreating one of the Israelites. Peter was sidetracked by a moment of intemperance when he denied knowing Jesus. All of us could probably recount times when we gave in to intemperance. Thank God that Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit to help us master ourselves while we serve Him. The world needs to see the servants of Christ living up to that great name. It takes real discipline and real mastery over self to be effective servants of Jesus. All great servants of God have been temperate people. Like us, they probably had moments of intemperance, but the balance of their lives was heavily weighted toward self-control. The reason for this is that they were led by the Spirit of God instead of by the world. “Go thou and do likewise…” Bro. Joe Meekness is also translated as “gentleness.” However, we translate the word, “proates” in the Greek, it does not mean weak. In our day “meekness” could we be spelled “weakness,” but that is definitely not the meaning of meekness as translated from the Greek. The word has three main meanings in the New Testament. (This was derived from The Daily Study Bible.)
It means submission to the will of God. The “meek” that are mentioned in Matthew 5:5 are an example of what this means. “Blessed are the meek” means “blessed are those who are submitted to the will of God.” Matthew 5:5 tells us that the meek “will inherit the earth.” People who will inherit the earth are not wilting flowers who are afraid of their shadows; rather, they are people of faith who have submitted to God’s will for their lives. This means that they are under God’s control, not the control of the world. They are like horses that have been broken. They still have their innate strength, but that strength is channeled in a more creative way. Their strength is now at the command of God instead of self or Satan. It means that one is teachable. A meek person is one who is not too proud to learn. A meek person would certainly not be a know-it-all, who never has anything to learn. The meek person is quick to see the error of his or her way, and turn from it. The meek person is willing to learn, even if he or she has to change his or her mind based on what he or she has learned. Only God is omniscient – all-knowing, and the meek person accepts this truth. It means that one is considerate. According to scholars, this is the way meek is used most often. In 1Corinthians 4:21, Paul used the word in this way: “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip or in love with a gentle (meek) spirit?” The meaning: Shall I “clean your plow,” or shall I be considerate. Jesus is the best example of meekness as considerateness. This meekness is beautifully illustrated in Jesus’ consideration for His mother, Mary, at the cross. He gave her over to the care of the beloved apostle John. If we follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our fellowship, we will be considerate of each other. The Holy Spirit teaches us, and leads us, to be submissive to God’s will, teachable and considerate to each other. The truly meek person will have each of these qualities simultaneously. We need all three of these qualities if we are to be the best witnesses for Jesus Christ that we can be. This is certainly the aim of the Holy Spirit who is at work in our lives. Bro. Joe The Greek word used for faith here is “pistis.” It is the word that we normally translate as “belief” or “faith.” There are several shades of meaning to this word, and all of them probably apply to this text. The Point is that the Holy Spirit gives us faith for every aspect of our lives – for everything that we might face in our lives. What are these shades of meaning?
Belief The Holy Spirit simply leads us to believe. He leads us to believe in Jesus in order to be saved. He leads us to believe in the Bible and Bible doctrines. Vines wrote that “pistis” primarily denotes firm persuasion or conviction. This is the kind of belief that is commanded in the Bible. We are never told that we should take our commitment to Jesus lightly. In fact, it is always the exact opposite. For example, because they believed firmly in Jesus, the early disciples gave up everything in order to follow Him. It is the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit that makes believers out of us. Faithfulness The Holy Spirit, who inspires our belief in Jesus, leads us to faithfulness to Him. If we will pay attention to the urging of the Holy Spirit, we will be faithful. We do not want to deny Him, as Peter did, or betray Him as Judas did. If we follow the Spirit’s leadership we will not want to do anything that would be unfaithful to Christ’s high calling on our lives. I don’t guess any of us lives up to this 100%, but we should surely try. Jesus saves us and puts His mark on our lives; therefore, we belong to Him totally. Like Peter, we need to overcome any denials of Jesus’ lordship in our lives and go in great service for Him. The Bible never shows us people who serve as perfect examples of loyalty, but there are a lot of people, like Barnabas, who show us the importance of faithfulness. Trustworthiness Our faith in Jesus leads us to be trustworthy, and we can give the Holy Spirit credit for that. With the leadership of the Spirit, God can trust us with responsibilities in His church and in the community. People can trust us to do right by them. Too many people are like Demas in 2Timothy 4:10 who, because he loved the world too much, forsook Paul while Paul was in prison. We need more people like Timothy, Titus, Ephaproditus and Tychicus, who faithfully stood by the great apostle during his imprisonment. Understand that their loyalty to Paul was borne of their faith in and loyalty to Jesus. This is the same reason why we can stand by each other, and trust each other, as we serve Jesus in our time. Can your Christian friends, your church, trust you to serve in a trustworthy manner? If you will follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit, you will have the faith to be trustworthy. The Holy Spirit has given us all of the faith that we need to do whatever we need to do. He can deepen our belief and help us to be faithful and trustworthy. Bro. Joe I think you will agree that we really, really, really need gentleness and kindness in the world today. The Holy Spirit has put kindness in our lives; now we need to claim it. The Greek word is “chrestotes” (chres-to-tees), which means goodness of heart – or kindess. It can mean “warm-hearted” as opposed to “cold-hearted.” Christians, of all people, should be warm-hearted. Barclay suggested the following words in reference to chrestotes – gentleness, sweetness, and mellowness.
The first word is “gentleness.” Jesus is the supreme example of this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. When Jesus saw sick people, even lepers, he reached out and touched them. He was even gentle and kind with the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8:1-11. Jesus’ first words from the cross gave evidence of His gentle kindness: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” There is far too much harshness towards each other in our country today, and, I might add, there is far too much harshness towards one another in our churches. The second word is “sweetness.” Before you gag on this word, read on: Why do we belittle sweetness of spirit and attitude today? If you had to be around someone for hours every day, would you prefer that they be irritable or sweet? I’ve worked with both and I choose sweet - period! While Paul’s irascibility is sometimes evident, he also portrayed a sweetness of attitude and spirit. (For an example of this, read Philippians 1:3-8.) If you had a choice of being remembered as being irritable and mean or sweet and kind, which would you choose? The Holy Spirit has given us a sweet spirit. Let’s claim it and live it out before the world. We could start by practicing it in our churches. Just saying! The third word is “mellowness.” The Greek word for yoke in Matthew 11:30 is close to our word for gentleness or kindness. According to Barclay: “Christ’s yoke is called chrestos, that is, it does not chafe and irk and gall.” Jesus calls us to serve and obey Him, but He does not make it irksome. If it appears to be irksome to other people, maybe we need to check our attitudes. In fact, Jesus makes service to and for him joyful. Why? Because Jesus is kind and gentle, and kind and gentle people are not irksome people. This doesn’t mean that we nod agreement to unchristian and unbiblical behavior. It does mean that a winsome and kind spirit will win people to Jesus quicker than a sarcastic and ugly spirit. We can be kind, gentle, sweet and mellow people because the Holy Spirit has given us gentleness and kindness. We need to claim it. People need to see the kindness and gentleness of Jesus in us and in our churches. Bro. Joe The Greek word "makrothermia" (longsuffering) can also be translated as "patience." However there are some subtle differences between the usual word of patience and the word of long-suffering. The normal New Testament Greek word for patience is hupomene (hoopomenay) which means to passively wait. This is the way we normally use the word patience. It is used a lot in reference to trials, as in we just have to wait until it is over. Makrothermia literally means to be able to suffer long and bear it in strength and courage. Pardon the “Greek lesson,” but the subtlety of the language is important here since there is a difference in waiting on someone or something and bearing up under suffering. I want to share some words that come to mind when I think of the meaning of long-suffering.
The first word is endurance. The Holy Spirit helps us endure all slings and arrows and pains of life without losing patience and without the desire to retaliate. This is the kind of endurance Jesus needed to go to the cross. It was this holy endurance that led Jesus to say, “Not my will, but thy will be done.” It is the kind of endurance that early Christians needed as they faced various formS of persecution from both unbelieving Jews and Romans. It is the kind of endurance that we need to face life in the twenty-first century. The second word is persistence. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to persist in serving Jesus under any circumstances that we might face in life. In my lifetime I have seen a change in the public attitude toward the Christian faith. I think that most people are at least sympathetic to the Christian faith, but the fear of offending people has caused some powerful forces to try to keep us quiet about Jesus. Before it is all over, we might learn the real meaning of long-suffering. Paul certainly had this fruit in his life as he went from place-to-place establishing churches, meeting opposition in every place. Persistence in our faith is necessary if we plan to reach our sophisticated world today. The third word is restraint. The Holy Spirit gives us a spirit of restraint when we need it. “Long suffering is that quality of self-restraint in the face of provocation which does not hastily retaliate or promptly punish.” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, page 604) Jesus certainly illustrated this aspect of long-suffering when He was slapped, beaten and spat upon without retaliating. It is important for us to realize that the Holy Spirit also makes restraint possible for us. Keep in mind that the Holy Spirit has given you all of the endurance, persistence and restraint that you need to live for and to serve Jesus. When you find yourself in situations where you need this fruit of long-suffering, remind yourself that the Holy Spirit is at work in you helping you to endure, persist, or restrain yourself. The wonderful thing about this is that you do not have to ask for long-suffering. You just need to claim it and practice it. The Holy Spirit is with you at all times and He will not let you down. When you feel yourself weakening under pressure, desiring to quit or to retaliate, remember that you have the power to undergo all of it. Bro. Joe “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23. Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
“Fruit” in the text is a translation of the Greek word “karpos.” The word literally refers to, for example, fruit produced on a plant. But in the Bible it is used metaphorically of the result of the actions of people whether good or bad. It is a derivative of the same word that Jesus used for “fruit” in Matthew 7:16-17: “But you shall know them (false prophets) by their fruits (karpon): do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17. Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit: but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.” The results, or fruit, of our actions reveal what we are. When people do bad things, the fruit, or result, is evil. History of some bad actors reveals this to us. We have an example of this in the actions of the Islamic radicals. Their fruit is death and mayhem. But we can find examples in our own lives when we have let Satan’s temptations lead us to do bad things. My point here is that we need to look at the fruit, or the result, of our own actions. What are your fruits at home, at work, at play, or even, or especially, at church? What fruit is your life producing? The gist of Paul’s thinking in Galatians 5:18-21 is that if people follow evil instincts, they will do bad things, such as, hatred, strife, adultery, fornication, just to mention a few things from these verses. Of course this is not an exhaustive list of what Paul called “the works of the flesh.” Perhaps there is no exhaustive list of evil fruits when people yield to Satan’s temptations. Paul’s point in verses 22-23 is that when we follow the Holy Spirit our lives will produce good fruit. He gives a list of fruits: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering (patience), gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” These words encompass the results of a lot of our actions as we are led by the Spirit. What you need to do today is to prayerfully and carefully, look at the list in these verses and see if your life reflects these aspects of the Spirit’s fruit. Bro. Joe “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples.”
According to our text we have been saved to bear fruit for the Lord. In fact, we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to bear fruit for the Lord. I think that we all need to pause at times and meditate on whether or not the way we are living our lives is bearing fruit for the Lord. What I want to do in this article is to point out some of the ways that we can bear fruit in our lives. The fruit of new Christians The last command that Jesus gave to His disciples was that they witness to the world, beginning where they were and reaching around the world. (Acts 1:8) He promised that they would be powered by the Holy Spirit for this task. Every Christian is called to be a witness for Jesus Christ. Witnessing is not a gift of the Holy Spirit; it is a compulsion of the Holy Spirit. In other words, we can’t opt out of witnessing because we say that it’s not our gift, because it is our empowerment from the Spirit. I have heard this many times, so it is not original with me, but it is said that “the fruit of a Christian is another Christian.” We need to show by the way we live, that Jesus is our Savior, and we need to be able to tell others what He has done in our lives. There are different ways that we can witness to people, and we need to make sure that we are doing it. If you have a difficult time with it, join the club. Get you an experienced partner and go out and tell others about Jesus. Our task is to tell about Jesus, the fruit will be brought about by the Holy Spirit, but we will have made it possible. The fruit of blessed lives What we wrote above was about witnessing, this point is about ministry. People who know us should be blessed because they do. As I have followed Jesus, I have become aware of the need for ministry. He has made me more sensitive to the needs and feelings of other people. He has taught me to be more of a giver of myself and my time. This might seem like a burden sometimes, but if we are going to bear the fruit of blessed lives, we will have to make time for other people. We can bear this fruit by making sure that we show kindness to other people, even when they make it difficult to be kind. We can bear this fruit by praying with, and for, other people when they need it. I think that we can assume a person needs prayer by the personal burdens that they share with us. Don’t be afraid to say “Let’s pray about it.” The fruit of personal growth Personal growth in Christ affects our witness and ministry to people. What I mean by this is that as we grow in Christ our influence on other people will grow as well. One thing that people look for in those of us who claim to be Christians is the difference that Christ has made in our lives. We grow in Christ by constant prayer, constant Bible reading and constant fellowship with fellow Christians. The closer we grow to Christ, the more we grow in love. People can sense the love of Christ in us. We can’t fake Christian love, we can only really and truly live it from our hearts. When Christian love is genuine, it will influence people not just to love us, but to want to have that love in their own hearts. A great part of our Christian witness and ministry is having a loving and positive attitude. We will all have these graces in various degrees, but it is important that we cultivate them in our lives. I have not written this to make you feel guilty about your life. All of us have to deal with all three of these “fruits” in our lives. The main thing is to be aware that bearing fruit is important. Believe it!!! Bro. Joe |
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