The Fruit of Patience

July 29, 2012 in Bible - NT - Galatians, Holy Spirit, Meditations

Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

Patience is not something at which we as humans particularly excel. No doubt like me you recall your parents reiterating to you time and again, “Patience is a virtue.” And indeed, patience is a virtue – just not one that we practice well.

The reason for our failure originates with our first parents. Rather than entrust themselves to their Creator, knowing that in time He would give them all they could ever need or desire, our first parents impatiently grabbed at joy and blessing. Believing that they knew best, they ate the fruit that God had restricted and brought upon themselves and all their posterity toil, hardship, misery – challenges that would demand even more of the virtue of patience.

Unfortunately, we have followed in their steps ever since. Like them we grab for things before their time; repeatedly pluck the fruit before it is ripe. As children, we are impatient: we scream and cry when things don’t go our way, we pout and fuss and whine. As youth, we are impatient: we grab for the privileges of adulthood while shunning its responsibilities. As singles, we are impatient: we lust for the intimacy of the marriage bed and fail to wait for God to provide us with a spouse. As parents, we are impatient: we expect our children to be perfect when we ourselves are far from the same. As churches, we are impatient: we endeavor to increase our attendance while failing to disciple our congregations. As a nation, we are impatient: we want economic prosperity by government decree rather than through dint of hard work, steady plodding, and genuine productivity.

The root cause of all this impatience – ours and our first parents’ – is idolatry – we do not trust God and so we grasp for what He has not yet given in fear that He won’t give it. And our impatience brings upon ourselves and our children toil, hardship, misery – challenges that God puts in our way to teach us even more to be patient.

Contrast our impatience with the character of our Creator: He has shown Himself longsuffering and patient again and again and again. When our first parents transgressed against Him, He covered them in clothing and promised to provide a Redeemer. When our fathers sold their brother Joseph into prison, God used Joseph to rescue them from destruction. When our fathers were enslaved in Egypt, God raised up Moses and delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh. When our fathers rebelled against God in the wilderness and tempted Him at the waters of Meribah, God forgave the guilt of their sin and continued to lead them. When our fathers constructed a golden calf and bowed down to worship it, God forgave them, gave them His law, and led them to the Promised Land. And though all of us have sinned repeatedly against our Creator, shunning His law, despising His image in our fellow man, He sent His Son Jesus to die for us and cover our sin. God is patient. And it is His patience that enables Him not only to rescue us from our sinful impatience but to teach us, by the power of the Spirit, to grow in the virtue of patience.

And so reminded of our impatience and the way in which it contrasts so forcibly with the patience of our Creator and Redeemer, let us kneel and confess our sin to Him.
Our God and Father,
You have been and continue to be patient with us. Your patience is shown most in the Person of Your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus, who gave Himself for us – sinful, impatient sinners – in order that He might make us into a new people by the power of the Spirit. Forgive us our impatience and renew us by Your Spirit.
Amen.

The Fruit of Peace

July 1, 2012 in Bible - NT - Galatians, Holy Spirit, Meditations

Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

Today we consider that the fruit of the Spirit is peace. Peace is more than the absence of war – it is the presence of harmony, understanding, fellowship, and camaraderie. The Spirit of God gives the gift of peace.

First, the Spirit of God establishes peace with God. Though by nature we are enemies of God, estranged from God and rebels against Him, the Spirit reconciles us with God through the sacrifice of Christ. He gives us faith so that we might believe in Christ and appropriate the benefits of the crucifixion, so that we might be justified, set right with God, by faith in Christ. “Therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Second, the Spirit of God then enables us to live at peace with one another. This is to be particularly evident in the relationships that we have with fellow believers but also evident generally. “Live at peace with all men,” Paul commands, “especially with those who are of the household of faith.” We are as far as it depends upon us, to live at peace with all men. We do not have the option of holding grudges, nursing bitterness, destroying fellowship. Such actions are sinful and not the fruit of the Spirit. They are actions which the Lord hates.

So how are we able to live at peace with one another? What is the logic the Spirit uses to enable us to live at peace? First, we are able to live at peace with our neighbor because we understand the cause of warfare and its solution. The cause of quarrels and conflicts is sin, lust, selfish desire. The solution, therefore, is grace and a forgiving spirit. How is it that we are reconciled with God? Because God in His grace and mercy forgives us through the death of Christ on our behalf. So how are we reconciled with one another? Because we grant the same grace and mercy to others that was extended to us. Having been forgiven we are empowered by the grace of God to forgive.
Second, we are able to live at peace with our neighbor because we know that whatever trials have come our way as a result of our neighbor’s sins against us, God is ultimately in control and has orchestrated even this very difficult time for our good. God promises to use all things – even the sins of our neighbor – for our good. And so we are not mere victims of our circumstance but enabled, by the grace of God, to learn and grow from these and so to live at peace with our neighbors.

But we often miss the logic of peace. Though God in His grace and mercy has forgiven us, we hold grudges against our neighbors, we become embittered, we nurse hatred and warfare in our hearts. Though God has assured us that He cares for us and that we can cast all our anxieties upon Him, we fester and blame others for our position, imaging that God is not really sovereign and in control.
So reminded of these tendencies – to fail to forgive, to fail to trust God’s Sovereign control of all – let us kneel and confess our sins to the Lord.
Our God and Father,
You have been and continue to be gracious and longsuffering. You have forgiven us in Christ, not holding our sins against us. You rule over all things, transforming even the sins of our neighbor into blessings for us. Forgive us for responding to your grace with warfare and strife rather than with peace. Grant O Lord that we might first and foremost be at peace with you through Jesus Christ. And then grant that we might live at peace with our neighbors. Through Jesus Christ our Lord and by the power of Your Spirit,
Amen.

The Fruit of Joy

June 24, 2012 in Bible - NT - Galatians, Holy Spirit, John Calvin, Meditations

Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

One of our distinctives as a congregation is what we have labeled Sunny Calvinism. What do we mean by the label? Just this – Calvinism, rightly understood, is nothing but the declaration, as Spurgeon once said, that salvation is of the Lord.

Salvation – the glorious glad tidings that though we rebelled against our Creator and brought upon ourselves and all creation ruin and destruction, God acted to deliver us from our folly and rescue all creation from the darkness of death. He sent His Son to bear the punishment for our sin; He raised up His Son victorious over the grave; He gave His Son, as the Exalted Ruler over all creation, the right to pour out the Spirit and renew the face of the earth. What we could not do, weak as we were, God did.

But there’s more. After all, for all these glorious things to apply to us individually something more must happen. God doesn’t just set up some mechanism of salvation and then say to us – OK, put the coin in the slot and pull the lever and make it work. No! Salvation – the renewal of all creation and the renewal of each of us individually – is of the Lord. Each of us by nature is a child of wrath, devoted to the service of other gods, selfish, self-centered, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. We are, as Paul announces, dead in our trespasses and sins – unable to rescue ourselves from our folly, unwilling to turn from our sin and embrace Christ. Christ’s death on the cross, His resurrection to the right hand of God – neither would benefit us if not for the illumination of the Spirit. God must make us willing to turn from our sin and turn to Jesus. So if you are in Jesus, if you believe in Him and rest on Him for forgiveness and newness of life, then God has done this for you. Though you were stubbornly set against God by nature, by grace He has given you new life.

So what ought to be our response? Joy! Rejoicing! Delight! Sunny Calvinism. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. God has rescued us; God has done that which we were not able to do for ourselves; so how can we be anything but joyful?

And not only this – not only has God rescued and redeemed us – we know that our Sovereign Lo rd governs all things and holds us and all things in His hands. Whatever the Lord pleases he does – in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all deeps. He is sovereign. Salvation is of the Lord – the One who holds us in His hand and whose purposes none can thwart. God is on our side, not one hair falls from our head apart from our Father determination – so ought we not to be joyful?

But often rather than reflecting such joy – joy that we have been redeemed, joy that God has us right where He has us for some good purpose – we grumble, complain, grow sour, live anxiously. So let us kneel and confess our sin to the Lord.
Our God and Father,
You have been good and kind. Not only did you Create us in your own image but you Redeemed us through sending Your Son as the propitiation for our sins. You give us Your Spirit that we might believe in you, love you, cherish you, worship you. Yet we have responded to your grace with fear, anxiety, worry, grumbling, complaint rather than with joy and thankfulness. Forgive us and bring forth the fruit of joy in our lives. Through Christ our Lord,
Amen.

The Fruit of Love

June 17, 2012 in Bible - NT - Galatians, Holy Spirit, Meditations

Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

In listing the various fruits of the Spirit, Paul begins appropriately with love. When Jesus was asked which was the greatest of the commandments, he replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is the greatest virtue, the virtue which gives to other actions their worth.

Paul writes in 1 Cor 13:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1–3, NKJV)

Paul reminds us that neither remarkable spiritual experiences, nor religious achievements, nor doctrinal exactitude, nor intellectual brilliance, nor even great faith are of any value absent love. Love gives to these actions and experiences their worth; absent love they are absent virtue.

So what does it mean to love? Paul explains:
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–7, NKJV)

Paul looked to Christ and in the face of Christ beheld love on display –  a love that considered not its own interest but gave itself in the interest of others. And it is this love that Paul describes; this love that He holds out for us. The fruit of the Spirit is love – a love for God and love for neighbor.
The Apostle John warned the Church in Ephesus that she had lost her first love, had become cold and indifferent to the Lord and Master whom she claimed to serve. So what of us? Are we driven by love? Consumed by love? Overcome with love for God and for neighbor? If not then we, like the Ephesians, need to remember from whence we have fallen and do the first works. So let us kneel and confess that we are often loveless people.
Our God and Father,
You have loved us with an everlasting love and underneath are the everlasting arms. You have cared for us and cherished us; you have watched over and protected us. You have provided food for our sustenance; clothes for our covering; homes for our shelter; family for our warmth; church for our growth. Yet too often we respond to your love with indifference and coldness. Forgive us, O Lord, and renew within us a right spirit: grant us a passionate love for you and for our neighbor, through Christ our Lord,
Amen.

The Fruit of the Spirit

June 15, 2012 in Bible - NT - Galatians, Holy Spirit, Meditations


Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

This morning we begin a series of exhortations on the fruit of the Spirit. And today Paul reminds us that the virtues that we long to possess as the people of God and that, even as fallen human beings, we often admire and treasure are the fruit of God’s Spirit. He is the One who must grow these virtues in our midst. Because of our rebellion against God in our father Adam, we all are disposed to twist and corrupt the good gifts which God has freely given to us. We twist craftsmanship and artistry and we make an idol to worship; we twist sexuality and passion and we indulge in lust and fornication; we twist wisdom and ability and we become proud and arrogant.

It was precisely because of this rebellion against God, this inability on our own to produce the virtues that please God and that create true community, that Christ came and gave His life for us. He came to rescue us from our sinfulness by His death and to empower us to live righteously by His resurrection. By the resurrection He received authority to pour out the Spirit of God on the people of God. And it is this very Spirit who delivers us from the works of the flesh: hatred, sorrow, strife, impatience, meanness, evil, unfaithfulness, harshness, and impulsiveness. And what do these things look like fleshed out? Paul tells us:

“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19–21, NKJV)

This is where we are as fallen human beings; this is the rut in which our sinful nature falls again and again; this is where Satan would delight to lead us. And this is a condition from which we cannot rescue ourselves. We are sinners and sin is what we do. But thanks be to God that Jesus gave His life to accomplish our forgiveness and rose from the dead so that He might pour out His Spirit upon us, the Spirit who redeems us from our fallen nature and enables us to live lives that are pleasing to God. That which we could not do, weak as we were in the flesh, God did by sending His own Son.

Knowing, therefore, that we could not save ourselves and that it is Christ who saved us and who continues to empower us, by His Spirit, to live lives that please the Father, how foolish is it of us to begin thinking and acting as though it is by our own strength that we will please God? By reminding us that these virtues are the fruit of the Spirit, Paul insists that the only way we will be transformed as human beings from sinners into saints is by trusting in Christ and relying upon Him to transform us by the power of His Spirit. It is through Christ that we were forgiven of our sins against God; through Christ that we were set right with God; even so it is through Christ working in us by His Spirit that we will be sanctified, made new creatures who love and practice virtue. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

So listen brethren to the Word of God: rest on Christ; receive His grace; rely on His mercy; be filled with His Spirit; be renewed by His resurrection power; be blessed by His grace. And only having first received then give in turn. Reminded that this is the only way we can please God, let us kneel and confess that we often try to reverse the order. We will have a time of silent confession after which I will pray on behalf of the congregation.