(Galatians 5:16-26)

When we think about the role of the Holy Spirit we are tempted to think of his more miraculous and spectacular works. We know that he regenerates us, he brings people who are spiritually dead in sin into a newness of life. It is a spectacular thing to raise the dead. Or we might think immediately of the gifts of the Spirit or the fullness of the Spirit and the strange manifestations that can sometimes accompany the Spirit of God working in and upon people – tongues speaking, healings, miracles, prophetic utterances. And yet in the grand scheme of things there is another quiet work of the Holy Spirit which, alongside people being born again is the most significant part of his role. That is - helping people to bear or display the fruit of the Spirit.

The bible teaches that we may have one or two of the gifts of the Spirit but we are meant to display all 9 flavours at least of the fruit of the Spirit. Given a choice between the gifts and the fruit we should incline towards the fruit of the Spirit – not that we have to choose of course – for Paul does say elsewhere if we have many great gifts and have not love (the first of the fruit of the Spirit) then we are just an empty noise.

Yet this work of the Spirit is slower, less spectacular, more under the surface. But it is vitally important. I love the little verse in Galatians 4:19 where Paul says he is again “in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”  Not that Paul knew what it was like to give birth as any woman would tell him! But he knew the pain of helping people to be disciples of Jesus. Ultimately NT Christianity is about Christ being formed in us. If Christ is in us then His Spirit is in us and if His Spirit is in us then we should naturally be displaying his character, the fruit of the Spirit - which we have listed for us in Gal.5:22-23. Not that I think this is an exclusive list, there are other qualities like humility and grace that are not mentioned here but which are obviously Christian qualities. But it is all about Christ being formed in us.

So although this subject of the fruit of the Spirit may not sound as exciting as tongues and prophecies and what is the baptism of the Spirit it is actually, if anything, more relevant and more important to us as christians and as churches that we aim to keep in step with the Spirit and be filled with the fruit of the Spirit.

Three things to look at here:

The context of the fruit of the Spirit  -  war

The content of the fruit– the flavours

The cultivation of the fruit – the environment.

1.The context of the fruit of the Spirit  -  war   (5:16-21)

The Christian’s life is full of conflict. We live in the world yet we are not supposed to be of the world. We are supposed to have died to sin and its temptations yet daily these temptations face us. The more we grow as christians the more holiness becomes an issue – we desire to be holy as God is holy but as we get closer to God he shows us more sin in our lives that we did not notice at first and we have to deal with it. It is like getting closer to the sun, as it gets brighter we see more dust and dirt and wrinkles that have to be dealt with.  

Sometimes I think that as Christians we will not really grow or take our Christian lives seriously unless we recognise that we are at war. There is a war between satan and God yes, but more immediately and proximately there is a war in our bodies and in our minds, in our hearts between our fleshly, selfish, old nature and the new spiritual, godly, Christ honouring nature. Much as we would like to be removed from the presence of sin when we become a Christian we are not. The penalty may be paid, the ultimate power of sin may be broken but by golly the presence and influence of sin is still very strong and we need to recognise this. Unless we take this seriously we will not really begin to deal with the ingrained sinful patterns that are in all of us.  You see we can be a christian for many years and unless we recognise and are serious about the war then we can be as selfish, as proud, as angry, as lacking in self control as your average pagan. In too many of our churches we have people who are no different in their character from non Christians, all they have done is maybe nodded their head in affirmation of a few doctrines and creeds.

Jesus’ words still echo down through the centuries, many will say to me “Lord, Lord I did this and that in your name and he will say I never knew you”. Mt.7:21-23 My Spirit was not really in you for there was no change. By their fruit you shall know them. And this is not just the fruit of good works, surely it has to be the fruit of a changed character.

Paul says the sinful nature and the Spirit are in conflict with each other. This war is raging all around us and within us. We cannot ignore it. In the 2nd WW I think there was a slogan “dig for victory” which I think was encouraging people to plant their own fruit and vegetables so that they could eat healthily through the war. We are in a war situation and cultivating the fruit of the Spirit is actually the best way to win the war. We need to make a conscious choice to follow the old nature or to follow the new spiritual nature.

 The world may get more sophisticated and there may be more sophisticated ways of sinning but human nature is basically the same and sin is sin in the 21st century as it was in the 1st century. Nothing much changes really in the human heart. This list in v.19-21 that Paul gives us could be repeated today. It roughly into four areas – the realm of sex (sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery and orgies); the realm of religion (idolatry and witchcraft), the realm of relationships (hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions); and the realm of drink (drunkenness). Now all these are a problem for us today and we can fall so easily in any of them. Sometimes people talk about the unholy temptations of money, sex and power. It is all here and human nature has always tended to give in to these things through history – they have brought down people, church leaders, governments and even empires. We need the power of the Spirit of God in us to defeat these powerful enemies of holy living. We are at war and we need the fruit of the Spirit. Because as Paul says in v.21 “I warn those who live like this, you will not inherit the kingdom of God.”  We are at war and we need to intentionally fight in this battle (return to this in my third point) if we are to live by the Spirit, for if we do not we will die in the flesh.

2. The content of the fruit – the flavours (v.21-23)

Now here we have one tree and nine different flavours. It is a bit like taking a tube of Starburst (used to be called opel fruits). You open the packet and you have different flavours (albeit not as many as nine). At the top of the list we have love which is no surprise and it is the king of the virtues. At the bottom we have self control which is such an important virtue but I am sure if we were drawing up our list many would not have thought of it. But in discipleship which comes from the root word for disciplines we need self control. It is key and we will touch on it later.

So we have nine flavours. This I do not think is an exclusive list, I am sure if we think of the character of Jesus we could come up with other great characteristics but here are some of the main ones and we are doing well if we even display these nine. Some of us may lean toward certain ones – we may have a natural disposition towards some but we need to work at displaying them all. It is not like pick and mix here – it is not like the gifts where we maybe have one or two. No we are meant to work at having them all. The Spirit you see is a spirit of change. When he moves in he is not content to leave things as they are – he wants to change us. He wants to get rid of bad habits and help us form new habits and to decorate our lives with all of these virtues.  

I am not going to explain what each of these qualities are – we should know what they are and what they mean - it is the displaying of them which is the issue. But can I pick up on a few qualities of physical fruit and apply them to this spiritual fruit.

A.    Paul says there is no law against the fruit of the Spirit – they are overwhelmingly good, we can never have enough of this fruit and these qualities. Laws tend to be enacted to curb, to restrict, to limit, to prevent. We can never have too much love, joy, peace etc. We need an abundance of this fruit.

B.    Fruit takes time to grow. It would be great if we had instant Christ-likeness and instant sanctification. It does not work like that any more than you can have an instant tomato or orange or pear. Fruit takes time to grow. You do not see fruit growing, it grows so slowly but you notice the difference over weeks and months. We and others should see the difference over time. The years should make a difference as you look back on what you were and what you are now.

C.    If the conditions are right it should grow naturally. Elsewhere Jesus speaks about certain types of tree producing certain types of fruit. An apple tree does not produce oranges. If you see oranges hanging you can be pretty sure it is an orange tree. If we are Christians then we should naturally be producing this fruit. A Christian who is involved in immorality is as out of place as a fig tree growing bananas – it is not right – it is dysfuntional. Are we producing the fruit that we would expect from a Christian tree?  Do our neighbours and our work colleagues see the right fruit? If we are abiding in the vine (Jn.15) then good fruit should naturally be produced. If not then we need to ask are we abiding in the vine or are we a dead branch without the life of Jesus growing in us and through us.

D.    We are encouraged today to eat healthily. Are you eating your five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Healthy eating leads to healthy living. Fruit is good for you. We need to develop the taste for this spiritual fruit. If we have a life that displays the fruit of the Spirit it will be a healthy life, even a long life, a blessed life. There are no guarantees and we could get cancer or have a car accident but by and large Christian living is good living. One way of turning from illicit pleasures is to re-place that desire with a greater desire, a greater appetite for better pleasures. Would you rather have a strawberry sweet or a real strawberry. A child might go for the sweet but we know the better thing is to go for the real thing and it is better for us. But we have to develop the taste for fruit sometimes. As we mature we learn to like what is better for us, we learn to discriminate between the good and the bad, the true and the false. This fruit is worth pursuing for it will make our lives happier and healthier.

So this is good fruit, health giving fruit, no law against these qualities, we need to desire them more and more.

3. The cultivation of the fruit – the environment.

If we are to aim at Christ being formed In us and that means that we will wish to display these qualities in our lives then how does this happen. All Paul says here is “live by the Spirit” in v.16; in v.18 “be led by the Spirit” and in v.25 again “live by the Spirit” and “keep in step with the Spirit”.  To me “living”, “being led” and “keeping in step with” all indicate an active involvement from us with God, an active co-operation with him. Usually we are not led where we do not want to go, and usually to live and keep in step with something or someone requires active participation. We cannot passively be led by the Spirit, it involves intentionality.

To go back to the gardening analogy, we do not make the sun shine, we do not make it rain, but we can make sure that the soil is tended, that weeds are kept down, that extra watering can happen during a dry spell, that pruning takes place to encourage the right growth. A gardener knows he cannot make the fruit, but he can certainly create the environment for the fruit to flourish. Effort is still required on our part: the effort of keeping in step. We must be awake, we must have the desire to grow in Christ-likeness and we must use what are called the means of grace to grow – things like prayer, Bible study, church attendance, the spiritual disciplines. These things if done faithfully enable the fruit to grow but if they are neglected then the fruit will be small if not non existent.

There are two mistakes that Christians often make in this area. There is the extreme of overemphasising human effort and trying to produce Christ-likeness by our efforts alone. But fruit is not made, it grows, it cannot be manufactured. It is the fruit of the Spirit of God, not the fruit of human effort. The theologians call this mistake nomism – trying to attain perfection through our own effort alone. The other extreme and the other mistake is called quietism – underestimating the role of human effort. Lying back and saying Spirit you do all the work, you change me and I will wait for you to turn me into Christ-likeness. As is so often the case the middle way is the true way, it is both Spirit and human effort when it comes to sanctification. God produces the fruit but we have to tend the plant and make sure the environment is right for increased growth.  So elsewhere Paul uses words that show that we are to be active and disciplined and put effort into our Christian lives  - Fight the good fight, run the race, make every effort… and so on. We must daily align ourselves with Spirit.

The final fruit of the Spirit which Paul mentions is self control and this is such an important quality. If love is the supreme quality then self control is the supreme workmanlike quality. We speak to ourselves and say “self you will not allow sin and the old sinful way of thinking to master you, you will submit to the spiritual side, you will not feed self and pride and hatred and jealousy and sexual lust and immorality. You will die to sin and live to Christ. You will crucify the sinful nature with its passions and desires (5:24)”. And we will do this because we know that it is worth it and it is the best way to a holy and a happy life. Being a part of church and being active in it as well as engaging in your private devotions and spiritual reading are key in creating this environment of fruit bearing. When people start to go missing from church they start to miss in their devotions and the fruit bearing gets stalled also. People fool themselves when they think they can go it alone – we need each other. We need church, we need christian friends to encourage us to keep going because it is back to this point - we are at war, we are in a conflict zone and we need our brothers and sisters in Christ. Faithfulness leads to fruitfulness. So let us make every effort to keep in step with the Spirit.  

In Greek mythology the Sirens (half woman half bird creatures) would sing from their island this entrancing song. Their singing would lure ships on to the rocks surrounding the island. Odysseus put wax in his ears and strapped himself to the mast to prevent being lured towards the sound. Orpheus employed a different strategy. He played music on a harp of such superior quality that his sailors were not lured away by the sirens. The Holy Spirit is singing a sweeter tune if we would listen for it and be led by it. Let’s not listen to the sirens of this world but the Spirit of God as he leads us into holiness and happiness. Let us keep in step with the Spirit of Christ and in doing so increasingly display the fruit of his Spirit.

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