Turning Point

Dr. David Jeremiah: Welcome to Turning Point. Spiritual growth doesn't happen automatically. In fact, many never grow at all after giving their life to Christ. Don't be one of them. Today, Dr. David Jeremiah explains how God intends for every Christian to keep growing, developing a fruitful life that reflects the character of Christ. From his series on the Holy Spirit, here's David to share his message, The Fruit of the Spirit.

Dr. David Jeremiah: Well, the Bible tells us that when the Holy Spirit is in control of your life, there will be some things that happen. Galatians chapter 5 gives us the list of the fruit of the Spirit. You've heard the list. It's the love, joy, peace list, and the other characteristics that are a part of it. We're going to take it apart and put it back together in these next two days. Hopefully, to the benefit of your soul and your walk with the Lord.

The series we are currently doing on the Holy Spirit comes from a preaching series and a book that I've written called The Holy Spirit You May Not Know. You know, the world changed on the day of Pentecost 2,000 years ago, and on that day, the Holy Spirit filled an upstairs room and saturated the earliest Christians with the presence and the peace of God. God's power was no longer confined to a sacred place or a select few. It was poured out on ordinary people, and that outpouring continues to this very day, which is why this is an important study for us.

I don't think you can live a victorious Christian life without the Holy Spirit, and you need to know who He is, what He does, how He affects you, what's going to happen in your life because He takes control. We'll get started in just a few moments with this first part of The Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians chapter 5.

We're about halfway through the month of June, and as you know, this is a key month for us at Turning Point. If God has blessed you through Turning Point, I would like you to consider how you might be a blessing to us during this important time of year. Your gift will be matched dollar for dollar, thanks to some generous friends of the ministry. If you stand with us, you will make a big difference as we face the opportunities of the new year.

Of course, when you send your gift of any size, be sure to ask for your copy of the book, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know. Here's part one of The Fruit of the Spirit.

During World War II, a young teenager tried to enlist in the Navy. He was only 15, but he was very large for his years, and he told the recruiting officer in Richmond, Virginia, that he was 16. The officer looked at him and shook his head. He said, "Sorry, son, you're not old enough." Two months later, he returned, and the recruiter didn't seem to remember him. So, this time, he listed his age as 17.

Again, the answer was, "Sorry, you're not old enough." He waited a few weeks, came back again. This time, in reply to the recruiter's question, he said he was 18. The man looked at the teenager and he said, "Young man, we would really like to have you in our Navy. The only trouble is you're aging so fast, we'd have to put you on pension after the first year." Wouldn't it be great if every believer had that kind of desire to mature in the faith? Wouldn't it be great if we just automatically grew spiritually like we automatically grow physically?

It's sad, a little difficult to understand how many Christians never seem to advance beyond the entry level. In their walk with the Lord, they have walked through the open door of salvation and stopped just inside and never gone any further. They're saved, they're on their way to heaven. They take that as a blessing and never try to add to it the blessings that go with the journey.

You cannot faithfully study the Scripture without being challenged by the opportunities and excitement of growing to be like Christ. The word of God paints a beautiful portrait of what a Christian person should look like, what a Christian person should act like, and even what a Christian person should feel like when they walk around in the world. That's what we have when we talk about the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22 introduces us to this subject, and it says this, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such there is no law." Don't miss the context of this powerful passage because right before this, you have another list that isn't attractive at all. Galatians 5:19-21 says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like."

According to the Bible, we are either living according to one list or we're living according to the other. The fruit of the Spirit and the lust of the flesh don't mesh any place in between. Paul paints the dark backdrop of this life apart from the Holy Spirit, so that we can really appreciate what happens when we let the Spirit of God control us and begin to exhibit His qualities in our life. We begin to move from one list to the other. We begin to have different qualities of life than we had before.

Fruit is something you can observe. That's why this is such a good illustration. It isn't concealed or secret. You walk by the tree, and there it is. In the same way, if a person is walking in the Spirit of God, there will be visible, recognizable evidences of this in his or her life. How then is this fruit displayed? Well, the fruit of the Spirit is always displayed in the context of relationships with others.

You don't bear fruit simply for yourself. You bear fruit in your life so that you might have the opportunity to touch the lives of others. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul organized the fruit of the Spirit in a very special way. I want you to imagine with me three different branches on this tree and three pieces of fruit on each branch. On that first branch, there are three pieces of fruit that describe our personal experience with God.

On the next branch, there are three pieces of fruit that describe our personal relationships with each other. And on the third branch, three pieces of fruit that describe our personal development as people. Or to put it simply, the first group is fruit toward God. The second group is fruit toward others, and the third group is fruit toward ourselves.

Let's notice, first of all, our personal experience with God. The Bible says that when we are filled with the Spirit, it will not be an academic thing or an intellectual exercise. Wherever the Spirit of God moves, there is an impact on life. Paul says that when you are filled with the Spirit of God, it will directly mark your own personal experience. Whatever your life may have been known for previously, your life in the Spirit will be characterized by love, joy, and peace. He says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love."

When you study the concept of love in the New Testament, you learn it is the primary commandment that God has given to us. Do you remember when the lawyer came to Jesus and he said, "What is the greatest commandment?" And Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." What is the greatest commandment? The greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is to love.

Not only is it the priority commandment, it's the perfect gift. In First Corinthians, Paul teaches about spiritual gifts, but when he reaches the end of chapter 12, after listing all the gifts, he says, "But I want to show you a more excellent way." And what is that more excellent way? It's First Corinthians 13, which we call the Love Chapter. Paul explains that you can have every spiritual gift that you can imagine, but if you don't have love, you've missed it all. God gives Agape love as His perfect gift.

So it's the priority commandment, it's the perfect gift, but it's also the permanent virtue. Read through that chapter, First Corinthians 13. It's often read at weddings to describe what love is supposed to be like. When you get to the end of it, in a summary statement, the Apostle says, "And now abides faith, hope, and love." And what is the rest of it? Verse 13 says, "But the greatest of these is love."

Finally, and this is the thing I think shocks a lot of people. Love is the proof of your faith. You want to know if someone's a Christian? Here's how you tell. "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another." The Bible says that if we say we are Christians and we don't love other Christians, our salvation is in doubt. The Bible says if you want to know if someone's a Christian, find out how they deal with other Christians.

It's the placard that you wear that says, "I am a Christian," when you love other Christians. Listen to it again. The Bible says, "By this will people know that you are My disciples." How will they know? Not by what you say, not by going to church, not by doing good things. No, the Bible says the proof of your Christianity is your love for one another. You cannot be a real Christian and not have love in your heart for other Christians.

Jesus said this in John 15:11, "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that you may have joy too." So after love, we come to the fruit of the Spirit is joy. Sherwood Wirt once wrote a whole book on the subject. I remember reading it years ago. He pointed out that in the Bible, joy is listed 542 times. Experienced in these words is gladness, delight, pleasure, merry, happy, and many others.

In other words, I made an incredible discovery. I discovered that the Bible is a book of joy. And when you read the Bible, it should bring happiness and joy to your life. And we ought to be people of joy. The Bible says one of the evidences of the Spirit-filled life is joy. Just like love, so is joy. We should be happy people. I have to confess to you that when I first started to teach on this, I thought there was a difference between joy and happiness.

I used to say, "Joy is Jesus, happiness is happenings." That just isn't true, and I found that out by a deeper study. The words joy and happiness are used interchangeably in the Bible. There is no such thing as two qualities of happiness and joy. If you know Jesus and He's reigning in your life, you will have joy, and it will make you happy. There's nothing wrong with being happy. In fact, it's a good thing.

The Bible says that when we have the Holy Spirit, we have love, and we have joy, and the joy is so wonderful. What kind of joy do we have as Christians? We have the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's centered in Christ. It's complete. It's absolute. Did you notice that the last part of the verse I just quoted, the Bible says that our joy in Jesus Christ is full joy, absolute joy?

In First Peter 1:8, we read these words, "Though you now do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory." The Bible says the joy we have is inexpressible. That means you can't put it in words. It's joy that bubbles up from a well deeper than your own understanding or your intellect. If you tried to write about that joy, you'd have to throw down your pencil after a few sentences in frustration.

You'd have to say, "I just can't do it. No matter how I try to say it, it falls short." When you know Jesus Christ, He gives you a deep-centered joy in your heart. And that joy is not just about the things that are happening around you. It's about your relationship with Christ. Joy has nothing to do whether or not you are pleased with your particular life situation. Joy is that deep-seated sense of well-being that's in you and that sustains you no matter what's happening on the outside.

Whatever your set of circumstances, you can sing with all of your heart, "It is well with my soul." I've often said if you can sing that, everything else is okay. Joy isn't always laughter. It isn't always noisy. It isn't always hilarity. Sometimes it's very quiet, very personal. Sometimes it may be mixed with some tears, but it is real because it is centered in Jesus.

I know you know that I love some songs more than others. And my song for this year is, "Jesus, You're the center of my joy." According to this text, Jesus is the center of our joy. Everything else might be going south, but if you know Jesus, you know that He's with you every step of the way. And then there's this verse in Nehemiah that should grab hold of our hearts when it comes to joy.

I think I'm getting to understand it. Nehemiah 8:10 says, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." You want to have strength to face the things of life? The Bible says, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." How many of you know we need strength in the days in which we live? The Bible says, "Cultivate the spirit of joy in your heart, and it will give you the strength for every day of your life."

The fruit of the Spirit is love. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. And the third quality that has to do with our relationship with God is the fruit of the Spirit is peace. Peace is the third fruit on the first cluster of fruit. When I am filled with the Spirit of God, I will be described as a loving person. I will have joy, and I'll have a sense of peace in my life.

The Greek word for peace is Eirene, which means to join together. And it paints the picture of two things that once were separated, but now are reconciled. Peace is knowing that the God you were once separated from, you are now joined together with through Jesus Christ. Romans says it this way, "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

So this is such a wonderful picture of the Christian who is Spirit-filled. Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." The peace we possess is His peace. It's complete, it's absolute. David described it in terms that will resonate with all of us. "I will both lie down in peace and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

The Bible says if you have the peace of God, you shouldn't stay awake all night stressed out over what's going on in life. That's not just a physical thing. When you know it's right between you and God, you have peace. This week God told me to do two things, and I didn't hear them audibly. I just felt them in my heart. I did those two things. They were kind of unusual. And you know what happened when I did that? I had this sense of peace come over me.

A sense of peace that just flooded my heart. You know why? Because what I did was a good thing, and it was God's instruction to me to do it. Sometimes you think you hear God and you push it away, and you don't do it, and you don't get peace when you do that. God does speak to us sometimes through His Word, sometimes through a message, sometimes through music. And when He does, and we hear the nudge of the Spirit in our heart to do something, if you want to have real peace, don't procrastinate. Just do it.

And the Lord God will fill you with His peace. So we have joy, we have love, we have peace. Isn't that an encouraging thing? John 16:33 says, "In Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." I was teaching on this not long ago, and it suddenly dawned on me that there was a very special lesson hidden in this verse, and here it is.

If you read this verse, you should expect it to say, "In Me you have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome tribulation." But it doesn't say that. It says, "I have overcome the world." Listen to me, you guys. When we have the peace of God, He doesn't just overcome tribulation. He overcomes the world in which the tribulation happens. He really does do that.

This little section should strengthen our faith in God. "Be of good cheer. Take heart," says the Scripture, "Because our Lord is bigger than any circumstance in which we could ever find ourselves." In Philippians 4:7, Paul says that this peace is a peace that surpasses all understanding. In other words, it doesn't make a bit of earthly sense. It isn't logical. It doesn't add up. It doesn't square with circumstances.

It's as real as this morning's sunrise. Philippians 4:7 goes on to say that this peace will guard your heart and your mind through Jesus Christ. Praise God for His peace. You may be asking, "Are those things that love and joy and peace ever interrupted?" Of course they are. We're flawed human beings, but when you are filled with the Spirit, when you are walking the Spirit-filled life, these three things will little by little take over who you are.

You'll be a person of love. You'll be a person of joy, and you'll be a person of peace. And if you're a Christian and you started to walk with the Lord, you should begin to sense those things kind of moving into your spirit and taking over in your life. That's fruit toward God. Now, the next section is a little more personal and a great deal more convicting.

Because our personal experience with God is followed by our personal experience and relationship with others. Love, joy, and peace are God-ward, but the next three are man-ward. These are three characteristics that will exhibit in your life with regard to other people. Here's the first one. Are you ready for this? The fruit of the Spirit is long-suffering. That's a wonderful word. It's a word for patience, but in the Greek language, it's actually two words blended into one, makrothumia.

The word makro in the Greek language means long, and the word thumia means heat or temper. So the word long-suffering means to have a long temper. When I grew up in the Midwest in Ohio, firecrackers were both legal and plentiful. And because of that, I am very grateful to have all the digits on both of my hands. I have lit firecrackers that almost blew up in my hands.

Did you ever light a firecracker with a short fuse? You touch a match to it, and bam, it goes off and almost in your face or in your hand. You know, some people have short fuses too. That's what this is about. Long-suffering means to be long-tempered, to be patient. It's not much fun to be around someone who is short-fused. You find yourself wincing when something goes wrong. "When will he blow? When will she go ballistic?"

The slightest little spark can trigger an explosion. And I'm talking about Christian people here. The people get hurt in the explosion. And if you are walking with the Lord, you get embarrassed. One writer defines long-suffering as "self-restraint that doesn't retaliate when wronged." Paul prayed for this when he spoke to the Colossians. He said, "I want you to be strengthened with all might, according to God's glorious power for all patience and long-suffering with joy."

When you are filled with the Spirit of God, you relate to others with patience and grace, instead of losing your temper when things don't go your way. You may have a little trigger that goes off inside of you, but the Spirit of God gets control of it before it releases. You start to say something, but the word dies in your throat. You write that hot letter and you throw it in the fireplace instead of in the mailbox.

Or you compose that speech, and you give it in the car when you're driving. I've actually done that and said it out loud. And people looking at you like, "What is wrong with that man?" But you never deliver it. There are times when we will find ourselves in very volatile situations, sparks flying every which way. But the Spirit of God can give us the strength to display long-suffering in our lives.

When you are keeping your cool at the very moment when everybody else is losing theirs, believe me, the spiritual fruit of long-suffering will be very, very evident. You will stick out. If everybody else is going ballistic, and you're sitting there or standing there with a smile on your face, not getting involved in the reactions, something's going on in that person that's different, and we know what that is. It's the Spirit of God.

Dr. David Jeremiah: And if you've ever experienced that, you know, you may even say something like this, "I don't know what happened. That wasn't me. That wasn't what I would normally do. That was something else. That was a God moment." Well, the Holy Spirit produces those moments in our lives. He helps us to do what we would not naturally do, but what we need to supernaturally do. He alone can do that. He can give us the power to be the person God wants us to be, not the person we often want to be. And the fruit of the Spirit is that in our lives. We'll have more of it tomorrow here on part two of The Fruit of the Spirit in this extended series, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know.

Dr. David Jeremiah: Ladies and gentlemen, we are very excited about the opportunity that we have to make available to you every month a magazine that helps you to grow in your faith. If you're not getting Turning Point's magazine, simply ask for it when you call, write, or go to our website. We'll send you the next edition. It will sell itself. You'll be wanting to have it every month, I'm sure. We'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

Dr. David Jeremiah: For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's new series, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know, visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know, a valuable resource that's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue The Holy Spirit You May Not Know, on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.