Vessels: The Spirit's Fruit Bearing

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HeartWaters #8

Pastor David Staff

Vessels: The Spirit’s Fruit Bearing Galatians 5:13-26

A well-known book bears the title All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (25th Anniversary edition!). Jon Mutcher of Ferndale, Washington suggested an alternative title: All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Noah – like these key lessons.          

Don’t miss the boat We’re all in the same boat Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark. Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something big! Don’t listen to critics; just do the job that needs to be done. Build your future on high ground. For safety’s sake, travel in pairs. When you’re stressed, float a while. Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals. [And] No matter the storm, when are with God, there’s always a rainbow waiting.

Good lessons from Genesis chapters 6-8! In April and May, we’ve been opening our Bibles and asking the Holy Spirit to tell us about Himself, about His “flow” (like a river) through our lives. Here are the lessons our hearts have considered: #1 The flow of the Holy Spirit of God begins when I believe in Jesus Christ. (John 7:37-39) #2 The flow of the Spirit from me is my greatest advantage (John 16:4-7) #3 The flow of the Spirit washes, regenerates, and renews me from the inside out. (Titus 3:3-7) #4 The flow of the Spirit compels me to cooperate with Him, and to encourage others, to increase in personal holiness (Ephesians 4:30) #5 The flow of the Spirit provides that I can be filled (controlled) by Him every day (Ephesians 5:18) #6 The flow of the Spirit demonstrates that together, and individually, we are His temple, His dwelling place (1 Corinthians 3,6) #7 The Spirit’s flow results in a grace-gifting through me, impacting spiritually my world (Romans 12,1 Corinthians 12, 1` Peter 4)

We say with Francis Chan, “I don’t want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit. I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn’t do this by my own power. I want to live in such a way that I am desperate for Him to come through.” The 19th century hymn writer Edwin Hatch (1835-1889) Breathe on me, breath of God; Fill me with life anew, 1|P a g e

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That I may love what thou dost love, And do what thou wouldst do. Let’s pray… ----------------------------Well now…listen to this! “Sitting”, we are now told, “is the new smoking.” Several years ago, Dr. James Levine (May Clinic-Arizona State University) studied the adverse effects of our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. He summed up his research in 2 sentences: Sitting is more dangerous that smoking, killing more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death. Studying 53,000 males and 70,000 females, prolonged sitting—6 hours a day or more--increases the risk of developing several serious illnesses…and.Americans sit an average of 9 hours per day. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Sitting for long periods increases your risk of colon, endometrial, and even lung cancer. Greater risk of heart disease Increases the risk of obesity Increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes Are more susceptible to muscular issues Prolonged sitting interferes with LPL, the enzyme that breaks down fat, fat that should not be stored 7. Prolonged sitting associated with higher risk of developing depression. (harder for the “feelgood” hormones to make their way to receptors.1 Wow! Who’da thunk? That something we do all the time; something that seems very natural, is actually deadly. The truth is, we are often ignorant. We unthinkingly do things that are actually self-destructive. Things we do every day; practices we’ve done for many months, years; things actually robbing us of life, taking the-life-we-could-have away. As a boy, I vividly learned that “smoking kills.” These days, I’m more and more aware that “sitting is the new smoking.” So let me ask this: Might there be some way – a way of living -- that can take your life away, spiritually? Something that slowly and steadily drives your walk with Jesus Christ into the grave, and makes it frustrating, if not truly lifeless? The answer is YES, and according to Jesus’ apostle, the Apostle Paul, it was something to be identified and reversed by the Holy Spirit of God. Let’s take a good look at it; Paul identifies it in his letter to the Christians in Galatia, Galatians chapter 5 (p.975 ESV). Galatians 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your

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neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. 16

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

Here’s today’s Biblical truth: The Spirit’s flow frees me to walk in the true life of fruitfulness! Free from the flesh! Free to express His life-connecting fruit! Realities Paul unpacks… 1st As a child of God, called to freedom, I am capable of remarkably opposite choices. Galatians 5:13-15 Galatians 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. Here’s the truth – In Christ you are set free to trust God for everything in your life. 1) You are free to trust God for a perfectly righteous standing before Him – in Christ you are released from all your sins and declared righteous (meaning: you’ve got nothing to prove) 2) You are free to trust God for the forming of Christ Himself in your person – in Christ you are being reshaped into an expression of Jesus himself wherever you live, wherever you go, with whomever you meet, in whatever circumstance you find yourself (meaning: it’s not about you, it’s about Him) 3) You are free to trust God for the presence and leading of the Holy Spirit in your living – in Christ the Spirit of God will use the Word of God in your thinking to lead you and prompt you to give yourself to the will of God every day…with a sense of blessing as a result (meaning: it’s not about trying harder, it’s about listening and being response) 4) You are free to trust God for the outworking of His promises and plan for your life – in Christ God promises to grant you the best desires of your heart when you delight yourself in Him. (meaning: it’s not about forcing anything, it’s about God bringing the right things about at the right time) You’re born free! Never surrender…the joy of Christ’s presence & freedom in you for the slavery/mess of self-effort religion

So…the question is this --“All right, my heavenly Father, God, has set me free in Christ. I don’t have to prove anything or try to perform spiritually or religiously attempt to follow a grocery list of laws. I’m the host for God’s Holy Spirit and I’ve got a guaranteed future. So what now?…How will I use my freedom?” Will I spend my the freedom (the time I have, the resources I have, the energy I have) on me…or will I spend the freedom I have from the Lord to love others? Philip Yancey tells this interesting story about seagulls – It’s easy to see why people like the seagull. I’ve sat overlooking a craggy harbor and watched one. 3|P a g e

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The seagull exults in freedom. He thrusts his wings backward with powerful strokes, climbing higher and higher until he’s above all the other gulls, then coasts down backward in majestic loops and circles. He constantly performs, as if he knows a movie camera is trained on him, recording. In a flock, though, the seagull is a different bird. His majesty and dignity melt into a sordid slough of infighting and cruelty. Watch that same gull as he dive-bombs into a group of gulls, provoking a flurry of scattered feathers and angry squawks to steal a tiny morsel of meate. The concepts of sharing and manners do not exist among gulls. They are so fiercely competitive and jealous that if you tie a ribbon around the leg of one gull, making him stand out, you sentence him to execution. The others in the flock will furiously attack him with claws and beaks, hamming through feathers and flesh to draw blood. They’ll continue until he lies flattened in a bloody heap.2 Galatians 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another…. 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

What is the Apostle Paul teaching? That we Christians are capable of using the freedom we have in Christ as (vs. 13) an opportunity to satisfy our flesh – in our relationships (vs.15) to bite and devour one another – or we can use it (vs. 13) through love to serve one another. So where does choice come from? Here’s Paul’s second point. 2nd As a child of God, my insides hosts a wrestling match between my flesh and God’s Spirit. Galatians 5:16-17 Galatians 5:16 But

I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

This is an incredible section of Scripture; it teaches much about “how to understand myself as a Christian.” Notice the key words in this “understanding” FLESH = Your flesh is that physical part of you that wants what it wants when it wants it. Paul teaches in Romans 7 that the flesh is that physical part of us that still has self-satisfaction as its highest priority. In Romans 8, Paul says  The mind that is “set on the flesh” is hostile toward God Rom 8:7  Those who are “in the flesh” (i.e., driven and directed by) cannot please God Rom 8:8 DESIRES = original word means what we might think – “impulses, inner wants, a longing for something that comes from within and tough to ignore” – can be used for a moral desire or an immoral one. SPIRIT – here a reference to the Holy Spirit of God, who (as we know from many Scriptures) lives inside of each of God’s children, and brings the power and presence and longings of God Himself to be expressed inside of our hearts.

So think about who you are – God’s child with a physical part that simply wants what it wants, and God’s child with a Spiritual Person living inside who is always working to form Christ inside so Christ can be expressed outside. 4|P a g e

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So there’s a bit of an inside battle. Russia’s gulag prisoner Alexander Solzhenitsyn said it, Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line dividing good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through the human heart. A wrestling match between independent FLESH and God’s Spirit (vs. 17). So who wins? 3rd As a Spirit-led child of God, when the flesh loses, the Spirit’s fruit emerges. Galatians 5:18-24 18 But

if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

And you/I – as born again Christians – still can side with one or the other. But, a child “walking by the Spirit” prayerfully does two things. First, he/she APPRAISES WELL the end-result of fleshdriven living (vss. 19-21)

Please notice what happens now…and in the future, if you/I choose to be

driven by the flesh. And, because he/she chooses to be led by the Spirit rather than being driven by the flesh (vss. 18-21) EXPRESSES freely sweet fruit of Spirit-led living character Vs. 22-23 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

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gentleness, self-control;

against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Many years ago, a 10-year-old boy walked up to the counter of a soda shop and climbed onto a stool. He caught the eye of the waitress and asked, "How much is an ice cream sundae?" "Fifty cents," the waitress replied. The boy reached into his pockets, pulled out a handful of change, and began counting. The waitress frowned impatiently. After all, she had other customers to wait on. The boy squinted up at the waitress. "How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" he asked. The waitress sighed and rolled her eyes. "Thirty-five cents," she said with a note of irritation. Again, the boy counted his coins. At last, he said, "I'll have the plain ice cream, please." He put a quarter and two nickels on the counter. The waitress took the coins, brought the ice cream, and walked away. About 10 minutes later, she returned and found the ice cream dish empty. The boy was gone. She picked up the empty dish—then swallowed hard. There on the counter, next to the wet spot where the dish had been, were two nickels and five pennies. The boy had had enough for a sundae, but he had ordered plain ice cream so he could leave a tip.3 That, my friends, is THE FRUIT OF GOD’S SPIRIT. A “walking-by-the-Spirit-of-God” child of God prayerfully dailogues with the Holy Spirit, who lives inside and is in there “to give me leadership” 5|P a g e

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-- how to live through a day, how decisions will be made. Not simply to satisfy my own flesh! That kind of living is deathly. No! A Spirit-led child wants to rather express the Spirit’s “holy” fruit through the steps of life. The Spirit’s flow frees me to walk in the true life of fruitfulness! Free from the flesh! Free to express His life-connecting fruit! And so… BOTTOM LINE Choose life! Live & walk by God’s Spirit! Galatians 5:25

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If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

PRESSING IT HOME

As a result of poor planning, Dennis, from Katy, Texas, needed some same-day dry cleaning before he left on a trip. He remembered one store with a huge sign, "One-Hour Dry Cleaners," on the other side of town, so he drove out of his way to drop off a suit. After filling out the tag, he told the clerk, "I need this in an hour." She said, "I can't get this back to you until Thursday." "I thought you did dry cleaning in an hour" "No," she replied, "That's just the name of the store."4 May I ask you, What’s the public sign hanging on your life today that indicates you are walking by the Holy Spirit…that you and I are being led by the Holy Spirit…that you and I have the flow of God’s Spirit in us and out of us? The sign people experience every day, the fruit of our lives that they “taste” every day in every interaction that God’s Spirit has taken over inside and won the wrestling match with our selfish flesh? Consider these reflection questions for your life with In Christ, I have freedom and resources…how am I using these? Whom am I serving in love?

the Spirit? Copyright 2016 © David A. Staff All rights reserved

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-active-times/sitting-is-the-new-smokin_b_5890006.html 2 Philip Yancey, as quoted in The Strong-Willed Child by James Dobson (Tyndale, 1995) – found in PreachingToday.Com, More Perfect Illustrations (Tyndale House, 2003), 203. 3 Citation: Pat Williams with James D. Denney, Mr. Littlejon's Secrets to a Lifetime of Success (Revell, 2000), p. 80 4 Cited in PreachingToday.com, Perfect Illustrations For Every Topic and Occasion (Tyndale House, 2002), 277. 1

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When I compare the outcomes of THE FLESH with the fruit of THE SPIRIT, which of these do people usually see expressed in me?

What fresh rhythm will I include daily in my schedule to stay in step with the Spirit?

reflection