Fruit and More Fruit (Romans 7:4–6)

Trying to become more loving, patient, or self-controlled by sheer effort is exhausting, and it usually collapses before you even get out of the driveway. We take a hard look at why that happens by returning to a simple but freeing claim: it is the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of us. Using Romans 7, we talk about being joined to the risen Christ so our lives can bear “fruit for God,” the kind of spiritual fruit that comes from relationship, not pressure.

We walk through three big categories of fruit God grows in believers: the Savior’s character (righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ), sanctified conduct that makes holiness visible to the people around us, and the Spirit’s control that replaces “fruit for death” with “fruit unto life.” Then we turn to Galatians 5 to contrast the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit, and we underline a key detail: it is one fruit with many expressions, like a cluster of grapes, not separate traits we master one at a time.

Along the way, we use two surprising stories to make it stick. “Mad as a hatter” becomes a picture of how long-term exposure produces long-term effects, and Helen Keller’s bond with Anne Sullivan becomes a moving illustration of the closeness Jesus wants with us. If you want practical Christian spiritual growth, deeper sanctification, and a clearer understanding of abiding in Christ (John 15), press play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Transcript

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This is the fruit of the Spirit. It is not the fruit of Stephen or Tom or Paul or Bill or Cindy. Andrew Murray wrote it this way: the branch is nothing more than a rack from which the fruit of the vine hangs. It is the sap from the vine coursing through the branch that produces the fruit. Likewise, it is the life of Christ flowing in us that produces anything worthwhile. The truth is, we cannot

The Fruit Is Not Yours

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produce this list. You cannot put your little fruit of the cup mug on the dash of your car with patience on it and say, okay, I'm gonna produce that today. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God. I hope after these sessions you don't go around wondering why you're a Christian. One of the incentives, one of the primary motives for God as he wooed you to his son to be his bride, was that you might have an offspring.

Joined To Christ To Bear Fruit

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The offspring of your union with Jesus Christ is fruit unto God. And we began to look at a few of those. Last Lord's Day, we talked about the fruit of speech and the fruit of spiritual maturity, the fruit of sacrificial giving, and the fruit of saving truth. There are some 80 times this word carpas or carpon appears in the New Testament. And we kind of stopped there last Lord's Day, and I wanted to just go further one more time as we work our way through the end of verse 6 today on this theme of bearing fruit for God. Let me give you three more kinds of fruit that we bear for God. First of all, we're to bear the fruit of our Savior's character. In Philippians chapter 1, verse 11, we're told that we've been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. This is the fruit of God or the fruit unto God that comes from the character of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Three Kinds Of Fruit Unto God

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It takes the union of the Savior with our lives for us to bear anything that's living. Which then, of course, produces, well, we could be a little more specific with another kind of fruit. We could say it this way. Second of all, we bear fruit of sanctified conduct to God. The passion of your bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, is to make you holy and blameless. It is a process that began at the altar, so to speak, when you were converted by faith in Jesus Christ alone, and it continues until the day you are perfected. That's what Paul wrote. He who began a good work in you will perfect it at the day of Jesus Christ, Philippians 1-6. That word perfect has been misapplied to a believer reaching some state of sinless perfection. The verb epitelo simply means to complete, to mature. And the promise of Philippians 1 6 is that Jesus Christ begins the process of maturing when you're united to him by faith, and he will obligate himself to complete it when he appears, or through death glorifies you to be with him. The point is the true believer has the work of Christ continually developing and maturing and perfecting, renovating life from the inside out. And this process of renovation is not a touch-up job. It isn't a little pain. This is more like a wrecking ball and a bulldozer as he comes and he wipes us out and he starts anew. One author rattled Mike Cage with this thought when he wrote, Christianity is not something to just keep people civil. Christianity is like dynamite to blast us loose from our prejudices, our weaknesses, our besetting sins, our unclean and unchristian habits, our petty selfishness, and all the rest of the things that chain our lives to meanness and mediocrity? This is the conduct of Christ within us that becomes fruit unto God and everybody observes it. Would it be a shock to somebody who lived in your dormitory, your room, or on your floor? Would it be a surprise to the guy you played golf with last weekend? Would it be a shock to the neighbor nearest your backyard fence? Would it be a surprise to that one nearest your cubicle or in your shot? Would it literally blow them away to discover all along that you're a married man and you're a married woman? Married to the bride, groom, who is Jesus Christ, and you have his name. Would that be a surprise? This holy conduct backs up our claim to be married to the one, the holy one who rose from the dead, and we bear within us the holy one, and then exposure to him produces that holy attribute that we so long for and see him developing in and through us, this passion for holy living. A few months ago, my wife gave me a little book that gives the history of words and phrases. It's a fascinating little book that you don't necessarily read from cover to cover. It just sits on your desk like it does on mine, and every once in a while I'll pull it out and read another rather fascinating paragraph that gives the background to some very interesting words or phrases that are popular. I read just a few days ago about the popular phrase, mad as a hatter. You remember that one? Mad as a hatter.

Holiness Through Long-Term Exposure

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Perhaps you remember in the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which we were required to read in fourth grade, which nearly ruined my educational process. At any rate, there's that character known as the Mad Hatter, right? He was that loony character who was always befuddled and confused and upside down, and really he was insane, I guess you could say. The truth is, the phrase mad as a hatter actually referred to makers of hats in England. Many hat makers seem to be like this character. Mad, insane, with their strange twitching facial muscles, especially the old hatmakers, and their stumbling gait and their incoherent speech. And so the phrase grew out of that, and people would refer to old hat makers as mad. So that mad hatter, or you're mad as a hatter came into being. What we know now is that these hat makers, before the invention of felt-making machines in 1846, would make it themselves, and it was made from matted animal hair or perhaps wood fibers, and part of the making of this process included the chemical mercuric nitrate. We now know that longtime exposure to mercuric nitrate causes confusion and loss of muscle control and a stumbling gait and incoherent speech. It was simply they didn't know it then, but that profession's exposure to this chemical produced the effect of insanity. What a tremendous spiritual principle. In the natural world, long-term exposure to certain things produces long-term effects. So also in the spiritual world, the believer, having been exposed to the Holy One, eventually begins exhibiting the symptoms of holiness. Thus, holy conduct is produced as fruit by means of exposure to the Holy One. So, fruit unto God is the fruit, first of all, of our Savior's character, secondly, the fruit of sanctified conduct, and third, let me give you one more, the fruit of the Spirit's control. Look at verse 5 in Romans chapter 7, where Paul writes, For while we were in the what? In the flesh. This word sarks, translated in the flesh, is translated a number of times in the New Testament, and you have to let the context determine who exactly he's writing to. And here the context clearly refers to someone who's not yet been born again, as opposed to that one who was in the spirit. This one is in the flesh. He says, herefore while we were, verse 5, in the flesh, look here, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law, we'll talk about how that happens next Lord's Day, Lord willing, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for what? Fruit for death. Verse 5. They were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for what? Thank you so much. I'm glad to know you're awake and with me. Fruit for death. He will contrast then, verse 4, you could circle that phrase, fruit for God. He now contrasts that in verse 5 with fruit for what? You're amazing. Fruit for death. Right. So you have the law which produces fruit unto death, and that's true simply because no one can keep the law, and the law simply passes one sentence upon everybody, and that sentence is death. But the Holy Spirit produces fruit unto life. I want you to turn to Galatians chapter 5. You've never been outside Romans in about three years. Here we go. Galatians, it's to the right. Galatians chapter 5. Probably no better text to contrast these two categories of fruit, the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, than Paul's letter to the Galatian believers. Look at Galatians chapter 5, verse 18. He will describe those who are led not by the Spirit,

Fruit For Death Versus Fruit For God

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but by the law. And here is the fruit of the flesh. Verse 19. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident. This is fruit everybody can see. They are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, you could render that orgies, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice, key word there, those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Why warn them of this? It's possible to be in the community of believers when this letter was read and not be in the community of faith. It's possible for somebody then and now to say, well, we belong to the Spirit, but if we operate in and we live in and we enjoy and we practice and we revel in the works of the flesh as given here, we are self-deceived, not in the spirit, and on our way to that eternal death. So these are the fruits of the flesh. Now notice verse 22, but, I'll contrast, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. In other words, there are no laws given to prohibit this kind of living. No one would ever want to prohibit this kind of living, but there are many laws that try to control the living of the flesh.

One Fruit With Many Expressions

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But there are no laws to try to control the living of the spirit. Everybody wants this, and everybody would hope to have it and be around those who exhibit it. By the way, if you go back to the beginning of verse 22, you notice that this is not called the fruits of the spirit, but the fruit of the spirit. And that's very important to understand. We tend to think of these as separate issues, though they are separate expressions and wonderful expressions, but we we tend to miss it here. God is not producing the fruit of love in some believer over there, and then the fruit of gentleness in some believer over here, and the fruit of patience in another believer over there. And he is producing all of these in any one believer. We would perhaps think in our minds, well, you know, it's obvious that God wants to develop the fruit of patience in those working with two-year-olds this morning under attack as we speak right now, or maybe he wants to develop self-control in the parking lot crew, or maybe gentleness and junior high workers. We could understand that. We also have the mistaken notion that what we will do is allow God to work in us this one fruit of love. And then maybe once we get that nailed down, we'll go over here and allow him to work out that fruit of gentleness. And don't cross me while I'm in love, because he hadn't made me gentle yet. Wait till I get there to cross me. And maybe God will do these works as we nail and master all of them down. We have this mistaken notion. This is one fruit with many expressions. Rather than one apple on a stem, this is like one cluster of grapes. And if the Spirit of God is at work in a believer's life, he will be at work in every one of these areas. Surely he focuses on one at some time. You know, he's working on a particular area in your life, but we can't say, well, God just didn't want that one in my life, evidently. You know, I'm just not gentle. Or I'm not patient, but boy, it's great to have Sister So-and-so is patient. You know, she's just a compliment to the body of Christ, and glad to have her here. No, that isn't it at all. Long-term exposure to the Spirit of God produces these kinds of symptoms. It is the fruit of the Spirit. The first three are perhaps the best known, so let's deal with them just for a moment and then we'll move on. The fruit of the Spirit is what? Is love. It's impossible to be a partaker of the divine nature, God being love, without exhibiting that fruit as well. We need to know that love is the opposite of the work of the flesh. The work of the flesh is self-centered. The work of the flesh is selfishness. Everything in this list that we read earlier sets its desire against the spirit. Why? Because they are only concerned about their flesh. And so they're involved in immorality because it feels good. Impurity, because they want to. Sensuality, because it all revolves around them. Idolatry because they want to worship what they want to worship. And on down the list you go. It is themselves. I, me, my is the work of the flesh. The work of the spirit is that quickening where suddenly we begin to care about somebody other than I, me, and my. An unbeliever, you might say, is loving. Oh, but they have a motive for that love. It may make them feel better, it may make them look better. But the believer is capable of loving in a purely motivated fashion because God's work is at their heart and in their life. I love the way Donald Gray Barnhouse paraphrased 1 Corinthians 13, that great love chapter we like to think about and read. Love, he writes it this way, in very practical terms, is unselfish. Love is interested in other people. Love thinks of the life and problems of others and tries to say the word and perform the act that will make life a little happier for them. Love is not envious when somebody else gets a promotion or a prize or a bargain. Love is actually glad when oil is discovered on your neighbor's property. Imagine that. Love does not go around talking about its own achievements. Love leaves statistics to God. Love is genuinely interested in the other person's job and wants to know how he's getting along. Love does not lose its temper, it is not hasty, does not snap at others. Love puts the best possible interpretation on words and events. Love will never think the worst of others. Love is never glad when others get into trouble. It is never happy about sin. Love is always glad about the truth. Love will stand anything. Love always wants the best. Love will endure any offense. And you read a list like that and you say it's impossible, right? It is. There's no way you can produce that. That's why it is the work of God in our hearts to make us something other than that which we would be without Him. Totally involved in ourselves and our own flesh. He goes on to record the fruit of the Spirit is also not only love, but joy. This word sark arcara has nothing to do, by the way, with circumstances. That's why Paul could write, I am sorrowful, present tense, yet I continually rejoice. How do you get those two together? I am sorrowful, but I am continually rejoicing. How? Why? Well, this is the fruit of the Spirit of God. And Kara is that word, that joy which is grounded in the awareness of a relationship with God. Sorrow comes from life. Joy comes from being related to the life of God's Spirit. The next fruit follows naturally. It's the fruit of peace. You know, I have read that the worst ocean storms that rip across the Atlantic creating incredible waves. The storms never go more than about 50 feet deep. In other words, you go down 50 feet and the water is calm. Up above, raging, stormy, wind, waves. You would think it would envelop the whole of the ocean, and yet you go 50 feet deep. I remember as a boy growing up near Ocean View in Virginia, Norfolk, Virginia, going down there and playing on the jetties, those stone piers that they built out to diminish the currents. And we'd hop from rock to rock, risking our lives and having a blast while we did it. And I would see off to the left or the right these green plants floating on top of the water, broad green leaves. They would be dashed against the rock to the jetty, they'd be thrown about, they'd have surfed, they'd be sprayed, they'd be tossed upside down, they would all kinds of things happen to them, but yet they would flourish. Why? Because if you happened to explore, you'd follow that slender plant stem as it goes down to the rock below, and its roots like tentacles wrap themselves around the rocky shore and then into the nourishing soil. Up above chaos, turmoil, wind, wave, stress, pressure! How does it survive? It's anchored where the water is calm. That is the illustration of this word peace. It has nothing to do with things being settled on the surface. It has everything to do with things being settled deep within the soul. United with the Spirit of God. I like the way the hymn writer penned this truth. This great rendering of this Greek word for peace. He wrote it this way: Hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand. Never foe can follow, never traitor stand. Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care, not a blast of hurry, touch the spirit there. Why? Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed, finding as he promised, perfect peace and rest. Before we leave this text, would you go back again to the first part of verse 22? And would you notice that it is called this cluster? It is called the fruit of who? The fruit of the Spirit. It's not ours. In fact, a close examination of Romans chapter 7, verse 4 tells us that we do not necessarily produce fruit, we simply bear fruit. Andrew Murray wrote it this way: the branch is nothing more than a rack from which the fruit of the vine hangs. It is the sap from the vine coursing through the branch that produces the fruit. Likewise, it is the life of Christ flowing in us that produces anything worthwhile. The truth is, we cannot produce this list. You cannot put your little fruit of the cup mug on the dash of your car with patience on it and say, okay, I'm gonna produce that today. Somebody jumps in front of you and you lost it, and you didn't even get out of your driveway hardly, right? Why do we always fail? Well, one of the things we try to do is come up with this ourselves. No, this is the fruit of the Spirit. It is not the fruit of Stephen or Tom or Paul or Bill or Cindy. It is his. So there isn't any cause for self-congratulation. In fact, it would do us well if we would correct our theological vocabulary in a practical way. Rather than saying, oh, you know, so-and-so, my sister or my brother in Christ, they're they're such gentle people. They're such joyful people. You know, I wish I'd been born that way. No? The truth is they aren't peaceful, they are not joyful in and of themselves. They are simply responding to the Spirit of God, whose joy and peace is evident in their lives. It is like sap in that vine flowing out, and they simply bear it before God and others. In John 15, our Lord delivers what some call the secret to a fruit-bearing life when he said, I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do at least one thing. Where'd I go off? For apart from me you can do what? Nothing. John 15, 5. The secret of fruit bearing is not a secret. It's very clear. It's a relationship. And without

Abide In Christ To Bear Much

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him, we can do nothing about this fruit bearing. Through add John 15, the relationship is evident. In verse 4, he says, abide in me. The latter part of verse 4, abide in the vine. Verse 5, he who abides in me, verse 6, abide in me. Verse 7, you abide in me. Verse 7, the latter part, my words abide in you. Verse 9, abide in my love. The word abide, meno, simply means to remain. It means that you have a desire to have intimate and close fellowship with God. It says, I want to be where you are. David said, This is my one desire, and this is what I will seek after with my whole heart, that I may dwell in the house of God. What is he saying? He wants to be in some building? No. He wants to be with God. That passion, that desire to abide with God. Him when you pray to him that drives you to his word to study his word so that his words abide in you, so that you relate the events of his life to him, so that you praise him for his delight and his discipline. You are then abiding in him, and he and you. None of you fathers ever sat down with your son and said, Okay, I want you to walk like I do. Now watch me, and then you walk across the living room floor and you make him watch, take some notes, and then say, Okay, now you try it. And he gets up and after a while he can do it. No. He just walks like you. None of you mothers ever sat down with your daughter and said, Okay, watch how I brush my hair. Listen now, I sing or laugh. And I want you to speak like me. So say, say it with me, y'all. Not you all, but y'all. Say that? No, no formal lessons at all. They picked it up from you, how? They simply learned it by abiding with you. And when you abide with him, he gives you the evidence that you've been hanging around him. You've picked it up, you've picked up his character and his perspective and his accent on life. So bearing fruit and all that we've discussed is unlike the law, it is not a list of things to follow, of things to do and things not to do, bearing fruit in the spirit, is a relationship that you enjoy and develop. It was Dr. Alexander Graham Bell who advised the parents of a little deaf, blind, mute girl to send for a teacher from the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts. And Anne Sullivan, a 19-year-old orphan, accepted the call and went to help this little girl named Helen Keller. You've probably read some of the story, and so you know of the arduous work that Anne Sullivan went through

Helen Keller And Nearness To Christ

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just to get Helen to understand the relationship between what she was pressing into her hand and that meaning a word and then that relating to some physical, tangible object, but she kept with it and eventually Helen caught it. After two years, Helen was able to write and read fluently in Braille, and she would, by the way, learn many languages and be fluent in them all. She learned at age 10 the variations of sound by placing her hands on the throat of Anne and feeling the lernicks and knowing the difference then in sounds that were loud or soft, high or low. Eventually she was accepted at Ratcliffe College, and she went there, and Anne, of course, had to go with her, but willingly did, and pressed every lecture into Helen's hand. Fifty years of companionship ended when Anne died in 1936, and Helen wrote these endearing words about her friend who had become her eyes, her mouth, her ears. My teacher was so near to me that I scarcely thought of myself apart from her. Her being was inseparable from my own. I feel that the footsteps of my life were in hers. All the best of me belonged to her. There was not a talent or an inspiration or a joy in me that was not awakened by her loving touch. You know, in many ways, what Anne Sullivan was to Helen Keller, Jesus Christ, our bridegroom, wants to be to every believer. Our ears, our eyes, and our mouth are inseparable friends. So may I read this back to you again, editing it slightly so that it refers to our divine, ever faithful bridegroom. He is so near to us that we scarcely

Union That Produces Visible Offspring

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think of ourselves apart from him. We feel that his being is inseparable from our own, and that the footsteps of our lives are in his. All the best of us belongs to him. There is not a talent or an inspiration or a joy in us that has not been awakened by his loving touch. Friendship, relationship with him like that will allow us to bear offspring by means of our union with Christ and the God that will be evident to the world.