SPEAKER_00: Wow, those were good.
SPEAKER_00: We have been blessed this week with guys out in different faces up here leading.
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at Clay here.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sunday, for leading us in worship.
SPEAKER_00: It was wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: We are blessed here, aren't we, at FBC with so many people using the gifts God has given them to serve, uh to encourage us, to edify us, uh, to serve in so many incredible ways.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited tonight to continue our series looking at the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you were with us last week, we looked at how the Holy Spirit gifts believers with abilities, with talents.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, scripture talks about in four primary passages throughout the New Testament about how the Holy Spirit uniquely gifts believers with spiritual gifts to be used for the purpose of edifying or building up the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so last week we looked more, we could characterize that as saying, last week was all about how the spirit works through us.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight we are going to look at a very familiar passage of scripture in Galatians talking about the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And but tonight, instead of the focus on how the Spirit works through us, tonight the focus is going to be how the Spirit works in us, how he shapes our character.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have your Bible, I want you to open it up to Galatians chapter 5, and I want you to follow along as we read a few verses here, starting in verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, these are very familiar verses, uh, but let me read them just to set the stage as we unpack this a little bit and see how it is that the spirit produces fruit in us.
SPEAKER_00: So follow along.
SPEAKER_00: Starting in verse 22, it says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
SPEAKER_00: And against such things there is no law.
SPEAKER_00: And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I want us to look at here is how Paul, in the book of Galatians, in chapter 5, he is going to contrast the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And those are those are actually very intentional phrases there when he talks about that works, the things that we produce in our flesh, when we are not yielding to the control of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the verses that precede 22, starting in about verse 19, it talks about all the things that our flesh can produce, the works of our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll let you go back and read it.
SPEAKER_00: It is not a very flattering list of things that we produce in our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is, it is, it is, it is what we what we are capable of, apart from the work of the Spirit in our life, uh, produces all kinds of pain and chaos and and turmoil and heartache and regret in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul goes on to say, but there is another way.
SPEAKER_00: The whole book of Galatians, if we had time to get into it, he is talking to a church that is eaten up with legalism.
SPEAKER_00: They say, yes, we know that Jesus died on the cross to purchase our ticket out of hell and into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: But from there, it's kind of up to us to keep ourselves saved, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna keep these rules and we're gonna do all these things, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we're just gonna kind of elevate ourselves because we can earn and keep our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, I don't know what message it is that you're preaching, but let me tell you, it is not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He says, that is not a message that is from God.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what Jesus came to do.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot save yourself and you cannot keep yourself saved.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul, as he's unpacking that idea to warn them against legalism, he gets here to chapter five and he says, Listen, here's what you're capable of, and he gives the list.
SPEAKER_00: He says, but when you will yield to the spirit, here's what the spirit produces in you.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to notice that these gifts, the gifts that we looked at last week, the gifts of the Holy Spirit that he gives us to use in service to him, they're varied.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Like we talked about, there's teaching, there's service.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We all have unique abilities and talents and gifts that the Lord has given us that we can employ to serve him and to make our churches healthy so that we can go out and be about the business of reaching others with the message of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But the fruit of the Spirit is singular, it is one unified reality of Christ-like character.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us just to look at the list for just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Because what we're gonna find in this is the Holy Spirit is not just interested in what we do for Christ, but he is interested in making us look and act more like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So look at this list of character of what the Spirit produces.
SPEAKER_00: There's nine qualities that really flow together to make one Christ-like life.
SPEAKER_00: He starts with love, the root of it all, right?
SPEAKER_00: Self-giving, willing to set your interest aside for the benefit of someone else.
SPEAKER_00: Paul talks about that in Philippians, where he says that Jesus Christ humbled himself.
SPEAKER_00: He did not consider equality with God, something to be held on to, but it says he humbled himself and he took on the form of man and he died in our place.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He was willing to sacrifice so that we could be made right with God.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, if we want the character of Christ, it starts with this idea of love that we should have a Christ-like love in the way we act, in the way we interact with each other.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say, joy is part of this unified fruit of Christ-like character that the Spirit wants to produce in you and I.
SPEAKER_00: Joy, it's not based on circumstances, it's it's so much more than just happiness.
SPEAKER_00: I would describe it this way: joy is just delighting in the way the grace of God works in you and overflows out of you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Even on our worst days, even in the worst of circumstances, we can pause and we could meditate on all the ways we have been recipients of the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: Can we not?
SPEAKER_00: When we think about the unearned favor that we have experienced and the fact that God sent his son to redeem us, to set us free, to break the bonds of sin, to give us life, to give us hope, like we just sang about.
SPEAKER_00: We can have joy, we can have peace.
SPEAKER_00: Settled, a settledness.
SPEAKER_00: Remember in John chapter 14 when Jesus says, Let not your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_00: Believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_00: That idea is don't let your heart settle into this state of agitation.
SPEAKER_00: The opposite of a state of agitation is peace.
SPEAKER_00: Christ-like character says, I can have peace.
SPEAKER_00: Even if I can't see my way out of something, and I don't exactly know what God is doing right here and now, I can still rest in the fact that God is in control, and He is a good God that I can trust.
SPEAKER_00: And that can produce a peace in us.
SPEAKER_00: Patience.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like that one, do we?
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the favorite phrases in church.
SPEAKER_00: Don't pray for patience, God will give it to you, right?
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to think about that, but the willingness to be long-suffering with our situations, but even more tricky with people, right?
SPEAKER_00: How do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: How can we be patient with people who just irritate us?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what I think that's one of the things, and we don't have time for this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to be careful here because you know, I want 40 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I only got like 10 minutes here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, one of the best things about being part of a local church, the reason we need it, is because so many times God works out those rough edges in our character because we have to rub shoulders with other sinners who just like poke our buttons, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we have to be willing to yield to the spirit to help to give us patience and kindness and a gentleness with other people.
SPEAKER_00: Like God is refining us by being part of a local church, and it's only through his spirit that that happens, right?
SPEAKER_00: In order for that to work, I have to yield to the spirit's work in my life, and I have to recognize God, you want to do something in me.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You want to produce a Christ-like character in me, and those other qualities, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
SPEAKER_00: I'd encourage you to go back and meditate on this fruit and the nine qualities of the fruit that produce this character that models Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is the work of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to produce a Christ-like character in us.
SPEAKER_00: So it begs the question: how does he do it?
SPEAKER_00: And you're not gonna like this.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like this.
SPEAKER_00: This is painful, but it's how the fruit is produced.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
SPEAKER_00: How does the Spirit of God produce Christ-like qualities in us?
SPEAKER_00: It's when we will die to ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: When we will say with Paul, which he said just a couple of chapters before in Galatians chapter 2, verse 20, he says, I am crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
SPEAKER_00: The life that I now live, I don't live for myself, I live for him.
SPEAKER_00: See, we don't produce the fruit of the Spirit by our willpower.
SPEAKER_00: The only way it is produced in us is by abiding in Christ and by a willingness to say, My life is yours, Jesus, you are King.
SPEAKER_00: And so I will daily and hourly and minute by minute, second by second, surrender to you and die to myself.
SPEAKER_00: Our only part in the production of the fruit of the Spirit is surrender.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God does the transformation.
SPEAKER_00: So a great question to ask ourselves here is what am I doing to make room for the Spirit to do that work in my heart?
SPEAKER_00: Am I spending time in the Word of God?
SPEAKER_00: And am I allowing the Word of God to transform my mind?
SPEAKER_00: As we've been looking each and every Sunday through our series on prayer, am I a person who understands that prayer is a learned desperation because I need to be in constant communication with God?
SPEAKER_00: I need prayer to conform my will and lay it down in order to keep my eyes on the Lord and what he wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: How am I keeping in step with him?
SPEAKER_00: Am I making room for that so that the Spirit can do that work of producing fruit in us?
SPEAKER_00: So if the gifts of the Holy Spirit show how God works through his people, and we saw the fruit of the Spirit shows how God transforms his people.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to understand.
SPEAKER_00: How those two things work together.
SPEAKER_00: When those two things work together, both of them point people to Jesus, and they point us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To be used by him requires the Spirit's transforming work in us.
SPEAKER_00: And to be a useful tool in the hands of the Lord requires us to yield to the Spirit's work of producing that Christ-like character in us exhibited through the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So are you yielding?
SPEAKER_00: Are you yielding to the Spirit's work in you to produce these things?
SPEAKER_00: Because He is faithful to do it.
SPEAKER_00: We always like to leave out that verse, don't we, at the end that we saw?
SPEAKER_00: That those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: It's a dying to self daily.
SPEAKER_00: But the beauty of the gospel is that in dying to ourself, we find life.
SPEAKER_00: Abundant life.
SPEAKER_00: That's the work of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's what He produces as we yield to Him.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for this time we've had tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the beauty of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That it is not just a focus on the future, a focus on heaven, although it is that.
SPEAKER_00: But God, the beauty of the gospel is that we have your spirit now.
SPEAKER_00: God, you want to involve us in what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need us, but God, it is mind-boggling that you would choose to use us even in our frailties and our weaknesses.
SPEAKER_00: But God, that's a work of your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And God, you also want to make us useful vessels.
SPEAKER_00: And so your spirit is producing Christ-like character in us.
SPEAKER_00: You're not leaving us to do that on our own.
SPEAKER_00: You are empowering us, and you are doing the work.
SPEAKER_00: So, God, I pray tonight that we would be reminded to die to self daily so that you can produce the fruit of Christ-like character in us.
SPEAKER_00: That when people see us, it points them to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this time we've had, and it's in His name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you guys.
SPEAKER_00: Have a good rest of your evening wherever you're off to next time.