Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: The glorious fruit of the Spirit. Today, on Abounding Grace. The fruit of the Spirit is the work that God does in us. The greatest love He showed for us was the death of His son. The greatest love that you can show to this community is to die to yourself and to live to Christ.

And these areas of life will come out: love, joy, peace, patience. You can see why frustration comes when you try and it doesn't happen. That's because you and I are limited in our ability to produce these things in our lives. We don't try to do them. We allow God to manifest them through our lives.

Guest (Male): You have no doubt seen the before and after pictures in advertisements. Before the diet and after the diet. The change is often dramatic. Should we expect something like that after we become a Christian? Shouldn't there be dramatic change in our lives?

A change from what we were apart from the Lord to what we've become now that God is in us? We'll get some biblical answers to those questions today on Abounding Grace. On today's broadcast, we continue with a message begun last time on the fruit of the Spirit. It's not something we can drum up on our own, but only what God can do in us by His Spirit. Here's Pastor Ed with more from Galatians chapter 5.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Let me show you now the fruit of the Spirit. We're going to put them into three categories. I don't know if you've ever done this before, but I want to put them into three categories ahead of time so that you can see. But they all apply. They're not stuck in these categories, but they're helpful.

The three categories ahead of time: number one is our life upward toward God, you'll see. Secondly, it'll be our life outward toward others. And then thirdly, our life inward in our character formation. Notice again verse 22. Pick up in verse 21 at the end, though. Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love.

Pause there for a second. The contrast is clear. We have all this fruit of the Spirit, self-life, human response, old sinful habit patterns, but what you have in Christ is far greater, the fruit of the Spirit. Notice right away in your English versions, the New King James is what I'm using, that the word fruit is singular. Do you notice that? Look again at your Bible.

The word fruit is singular. It's not fruits; it's fruit. So that when you read it that way, the way it's supposed to be read, the fruit of the Spirit is singular. What is that? The fruit of the Spirit is love. It's right there in the text. The fruit of the Spirit is love. That is what marks the believer of Jesus Christ in a loveless world.

Don't be deceived. Don't be taken off with emotion and hyped-up emotional responses to difficulty. The fruit of the Spirit is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love, agape love, Christ's love. You can look in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 some of the characteristics of love. Don't be deceived. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

You can do all kinds of things, even good things, without love. So you can do good things, but not do them motivated by Jesus. The whole world is filled with good ideas and good actions, a lot of charitable benevolent people, but not for the Lord. And you have to be careful that love is the supreme motivation.

You know love is a great motivator. It's the greatest motivator in life. It outlasts everything else. A lot of people are motivated by money and prestige and people, a lot of things motivate, but nothing motivates like love. I mean you can see people do incredible things simply because of their love for God and their love for each other.

The works when you think of the fruit, remember the contrast. Works is something I do, fruit is something that's done. Works I do, but fruit is done for me. Trees and bushes they don't strain or toil, they just are. And this is where we choose to resist the legalistic response of setting up a bunch of things I now have to do.

People give up. When you meet somebody that says I tried Christianity, this is what they did. They open up the Bible, they saw a few moral things to do and realized they can't do them, frustrated them, didn't like it, so they say I tried Christianity. You don't try Christianity, you die to follow Christ. You die to yourself.

Isn't that what Jesus said? It's so simple. The teachings of Jesus can be crystallized to something very simple. If you want to follow me, you have to deny yourself. That's it, just start there. You could spend the rest of your life on that one part, just deny yourself. Take up your cross. Know that you're going to embrace pain and difficulty and follow Him.

The fruit of the Spirit comes through a relationship. You think of that tree again. You've got all the pieces of the tree. You've got the trunk and the roots going deep down into the soil and the nutrients and the water. It's all a system. It's something that God has created, just like He's put you into something He's created.

Put you with your roots down in His word, empowered internally by His Spirit. You are in a relationship with the God who produces this in your life. It's singularly the fruit of the Spirit. And love isn't something we will to do, love is something we surrender to do. We surrender.

And the rest of that list is a simple definition, another expression of love. The rest of the list is love. And what the law, the fruit of the Spirit is not produced in your life by your own human effort. There's something that transforms. You're listening to me now, some of you are wrestling with this, or you might have even checked out yet.

Don't check out. The Lord's doing a deep work in you, especially you guys that are checking out. I just caught you. Because God's doing a deep work in your life and you don't want it to be done. You don't want God to go deeper than He already has. So I'm already a good person. Really? I've already mastered gentleness.

I'm sure you're the most gentle person. Even the way you've been talking to me in your head, so gentle. But you've limited yourself by what you can produce. You've limited yourself. So maybe you are a good person. Great. Or you are gentle, fantastic. But how are you measuring that? Is it just by the world's standards?

Yeah, because I have a neighbor and I'm much nicer than him. Oh, that's how we measure. We all should know your neighbor. And if we met your neighbor, we're going to be nicer than him or less nice. No, it's not about your neighbor. It's about the perfection of Christ. Are you as nice as Jesus? Well, you know Pastor, none of us are Jesus.

Yeah, but He lives in you and He wants to produce His gentleness in you. He wants you to be even more. He desires to work in you, not your own efforts, not your own commitments. Listen, the flesh only gives birth to more flesh. Have you noticed that? You could be in a good mood. Think about this, let me give you an example of your life.

I've been watching you, I've been following you, and I've been checking in on you and here's your life. Your life, you wake up in the morning, oh, I love listening to the birds and it's not snowing, life is great. Then you open up your social media and some person says something nasty and all of a sudden what did it produce in you? Nastiness.

Why? Because somebody saying something nasty can't do anything else but produce nastiness in you. Now you can quickly dismiss it and get back in the Spirit, but flesh only produces flesh. Your flesh only produces flesh. Someone else's flesh can only produce flesh in you until you yield yourself to the Spirit. You guys with me so far?

You've got to stay put in Jesus no matter what comes your way so that you can walk in the Spirit. And the fruit that you'll see in your life is love. The response will be love. Notice what love looks like. Number one, the first thing in our category of upward toward God is joy. A deep abiding joy given by God that's sustained in our lives no matter the circumstances.

Someone once called it a holy optimism. I like that, a holy optimism. So I know when optimism is around me or I'm feeling optimistic, that's a work of the Holy Spirit, because I'm not naturally that way. Some of you are not naturally that way. I know you're not naturally that way because you probably do what I do and say, oh, there's pessimists and optimists, but there's realists.

This is for all you realists out there. When you hear and sense optimism in your heart, because you're looking at what's happening to the world, oh look at the world, no you're not supposed to look at the world, look at Christ. That's where hope comes from. Look at the world, perilous times. Yeah, the Bible said that would happen.

But are you looking to the Lord for His direction and for His help? Are you looking to someone's opinions and voices? Flesh only produces flesh and Jesus produces joy. Number one. Number two, He produces, what does your Bible say? Say with me, peace. Love, joy, peace. This is deeper than just a sense of getting along with someone.

This word is deeper when it comes to God because it has two parts to it. This word speaks of no longer being at war against God. You're no longer at war, you're at peace with Him. You have signed the peace treaty through the blood of Jesus Christ. He signed the peace treaty with the blood of Jesus Christ and now you're no longer at war with Him, which then what does that produce?

You not only have peace with God, secondly, what do you have now? The peace of God. Only God can produce that. Nobody can produce that but the power of the Spirit inside of you. That no matter what happens, no matter what comes, peace floods in. That's a work of the Spirit. Next is our next category, outward toward others.

And I like this word, we don't use it very much. We use the word patience instead. But this word longsuffering, if you just read it the way it is: long suffering. God gives that to you with others. You're able to take a lot. The idea of longsuffering is not just patience, but it's like having a long fuse before you blow up.

And before you know it, that long fuse, things get resolved and you don't blow up because the Holy Spirit has developed in you a desire to stay put. You don't know what's happening, you don't like it, you don't want it, but your response in the Spirit is to be longsuffering with someone, longsuffering with yourself or with a situation.

God does that in us. Some of you are desiring this right now and the truth is you already have it. You just left the place where you enjoy it. And when you leave the place where you enjoy it, you take it with you because Jesus lives in you. Spirit of God is in you. You just don't get to enjoy it.

You don't have a peaceful life, you don't have a joyful life. You're impatient with everyone, inconveniences, it's all works of the flesh. But with the fruit of the Spirit is God gives you longsuffering. Not only that, notice what else God does. He gives you kindness, which is a tender spiritual concern for others. Loving others as God loves them.

Not only that, He produces in you goodness, a willingness to extend that kindness. It's almost like goodness is the outgrowth of kindness. You feel kindness, but you give goodness. And that's the expression of these things toward others, a willingness to extend this kindness. Then notice in our third category, our life inward, our character, these are character-forming.

Again, all the categories, they don't separate them. I just wanted you to kind of remember them a little bit, but they don't separate them because they all can fit each category. But you see this, the next one is faithfulness. Faithfulness is loyalty and trustworthiness. That's something that who you are. You're faithful, you're trustworthy.

And I love that word faithful, that means you're also full of faith. And I love that word trustworthy, means your life is worthy of trust. When someone sees you and looks and they need help and your name comes up, are you worthy of trust? As you abide in Christ, you are. And you can see some of the little sins that get exposed and get explained away like gossip.

Think about gossip. Gossips are not trustworthy. Why? Because they're not worthy of trust. You know you're going to tell somebody and they're going to tell 10 other people. I don't trust them. Why? I can't believe you don't trust me. Yeah, but you're a gossip. Yeah, but you know I just, I was my prayer life, I was just praying, you know, we really need to pray for Ed, he has a big problem with his flesh. Tell me more, tell me more.

You want to be worthy of trust, full of faith. How does that come? It comes by the power of the Spirit inside of you. Like today you leave here and go, I'm just going to be more full of faith. Okay, tell me how it goes. But if you leave here today as Lord I surrender my life to you, whatever comes I trust you. Oh, how much faith will be built up.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. God does that work in us, makes us more faithful. Now I love this one, a lot of us need this, you need gentleness, meekness, strength under restraint. A lot of you, especially you men, you strong men, you say I don't want to be gentle, it's going to be a sign of weakness.

It's the exact opposite of a sign of weakness. Gentleness is a sign of great strength. That maybe the situation it requires some response and men we try, oh yeah, I've got to be strong. No, gentleness is what Jesus was described as, lowly and gentle. And yet He was God in human flesh. How much more power do you need than God in human flesh?

But He was under restraint. Not only that, notice the restraint of gentleness and self-control. So needful. The ability to restrain our passions and our appetites. And you can see how these replace the works of the flesh. They can almost go side-by-side. You have a choice by the decisions you make of whether to enjoy the fruit of the Spirit or to do your own thing, your self-life.

Some of you have been doing your self-life so long that you're not even sensitive to the Holy Spirit to let Him change you, to put His finger on that area. And don't think that if He put His finger on one area that you're done the rest of your life with that area. Because there's another one, another one, that's part of what the sanctification, the change that takes place.

Notice what He says in verse 24. Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. This is a new representation of your life as a believer. You have killed the flesh. Each time you see it, you've killed the flesh. You don't celebrate it. You don't excuse it. You don't feed the flesh, you kill it.

You admit it, you repent from it. You wash it away. You take God's soap as my pastor would always say, 1 John 1:9, and you apply it to your life. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He wants to keep clean in the Lord with the work of His Spirit.

And then you think of these wonderful attributes of the work of God in your life and you have to be careful that you don't come to them like I'm going to make this a list. I'm going to make this a list. You can take something so sweet of what God's already doing in your life and make it a list. But the flesh doesn't produce the work of the Spirit, only God does.

So instead of making this a list, here's what I suggest you do. Are you ready? This is the spiritual response to you list-makers: memorize it. Hide God's word in your heart so the Holy Spirit can use it. So you can learn: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And it's just already in you.

The Holy Spirit can bring it out. So that when you're laying in bed with some massive food poisoning and you think God's judged you, it's not God. It's like Ed, you were in the flesh. And you need to deal with that right now while you're laying out in pain. You need to deal with it right away. I mean it's kind of an embarrassment to some degree that it took me a day to see it.

That I didn't see it walking out and I could have just turned right around. It took me a day to see it. And the Lord's just showing you, you could be walking with Him. He's showing you so many things. And when you're walking in the Spirit, He wants to show you the same things about your own life. Why? Because He loves you. He cares for you.

He wants to see He has your best in mind. He has what's best for your life that would reflect His love. If you're walking in the Spirit, you don't need a rule or regulation for it. Do you notice that? Against such there is no law. There's no law against these things. Thou shalt not love? No, rather the law speaks to the things of the flesh.

You don't need a law to keep you in His love. The Spirit of God lives in us. You've crucified the works of the flesh. You are crucifying them. Then He says in verse 25, if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. That's an interesting way to end the chapter, isn't it?

With words like conceited, provoked, and envying one another. Those are all self-centered things. Everything, those three things are all self-centered. And they were happening in a legalistic environment with the believers in Galatia and they happen anytime we start to live in the self-life. The self comes out.

I know that I have this legalistic selfish mindset when I'm not completing one another, thinking of others more highly than myself. Instead, I'm competing with them, trying to get ahead, trying to move on instead of stopping to help. I know that I have a legalistic mindset when I'm not providing for people and serving them.

Rather I see people to serve me and I'm provoked by them instead of provoked to love them and be happy for them. You see this happens in families all the time. Somebody in your family gets something, but you couldn't get it because you're in a different stage in your life. Maybe your sister got something you didn't get.

You're like I can't believe she got another thing. Well why can't you just be happy for her? I'll tell you why. You're in the flesh. The flesh just takes. Why can't you just be happy for people? Because you're in the flesh and you're provoking and conceited and it's all about you. You see it's not what I have done and it's not what I will do.

My life is now it's centered on Christ and what He has done for you and for me. It's not who I am, it's who He is. It's no longer how hard I try, but that He's already finished. Do you realize today that you're God's precious daughter, precious son, that He loves you all day and night? He never stops loving you.

He never stops loving your kids, your grandkids. He never stops loving those that are in relationship with Him. He's never going to stop it. The greatest love that He showed for us is the sacrifice of Jesus. Everyone wants to get our eyes off of the sacrifice of Jesus. Keep your eyes firmly fixed, Hebrews chapter 12, firmly fixed.

After the hall of faith in Hebrews, all the sacrifices, all the loss, all the martyrdom, everything going into Hebrews, He says we have this great cloud of witnesses in chapter 12, but here's my mandate to you: you keep your eyes on the Lord. We're going to talk about people and see people and we'll learn about people of people in and out of our lives, but you keep your eyes on the Lord.

Looking unto Him, remember we learned when we studied that, that word means to stare. Sounds very similar to abide, huh? It's like keep your bottom right there, stay close to Jesus, but you keep your eyes on Him, keep your ears in tune to Him, keep your hands and feet available for Him.

The fruit of the Spirit is the work that God does in us. The greatest love He showed for us was the death of His son. The greatest love that you can show to this community is to die to yourself and to live to Christ. And these areas of life will come out: love, joy, peace, patience. You can see why frustration comes when you try and it doesn't happen.

That's because you and I are limited in our ability to produce these things in our lives. We don't try to do them. We allow God to manifest them through our lives. Amen.

Guest (Male): What you heard today on Abounding Grace is part of Pastor Ed Taylor's series taken from the book of Galatians. You can hear it again online at aboundinggraceradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. We also have an app that makes listening to Pastor Ed easy to do on your mobile devices. Search for Calvary Church.

And we'd really like to hear from you this summer. It's helpful to know how these studies are impacting your life and that would be a real encouragement to Pastor Ed and the team. And if you're in need of prayer, please leave your prayer requests as well. There's a place to contact us at aboundinggraceradio.com.

Pastor Ed, our pick of the month is the Jesus Person Promise Book. I understand there are over 800 promises straight from God's word in this helpful book from David Wilkerson.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Yes, this is one of those books, Larry, that is a vital addition to your spiritual library. 800 verses where you open it up and you're going through something, you're looking for hope, and you know we all do this. I even mention it sometimes when I'm teaching, I'll say I don't remember the address, but I remember a verse.

And one of the ways that you remember verses and not addresses is you have one of these books and you're just looking up scripture and you're memorizing them and you know you're going through a bad day and you just pull this little book out. It's a promise. The word of God are promises to you and as you open it and read it, you receive it as the promise that it is. Pick it up whether you support the ministry or not.

And by the way, we love and appreciate those of you that support our ministry financially and prayerfully. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It helps to pay the bills. Not all of them, of course, but we are grateful. And it pays a lot of them, you know production costs and radio airtime costs, that kind of stuff. So thank you. We appreciate it.

But more importantly the key is to get good resources in your hand. That's why we do this. This is an outreach ministry of our church and the Abounding Grace Media ministry, so we're just grateful. Get the book and grow in grace and then call or email us or write us and let us know what God's doing in your life.

Guest (Male): So request a copy of the Jesus Person Promise Book today when you give a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. So call us at 877-30-GRACE or visit our e-store at calvaryco.church/store. And then come back next time when we'll continue our study of God's word with Pastor Ed. That's right here on Abounding Grace. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado and online at aboundinggraceradio.com.