February 19, 2012
Producing Fruit
- Galatians 5:16-25
- Rev. Jim Capps
His name was Art Starnes and I don’t think I have ever met anyone quite like him. He was a rancher in the San Joaquin Valley of central California, one of the great food producing areas of the United States. I was in Turlock with Alice and Becky, visiting Alice’s parents. I met Art at Alice’s parent’s church. Since Art’s main crops were fruit, He immediately took a liking to me when he found out that I had grown up on a fruit farm in Michigan.
Art insisted on taking me out to pick peaches in one of his orchards. When he asked if he could pick me up at 5:00 in the morning, I negotiated a 6:00 o’clock meeting since I was on vacation. Even though Art was in his 80’s and probably a multi-millionaire, he picked me up in his old truck which looked like it was being held together with chewing gum and bailing wire.
Arriving early, he seemed genuinely pleased that I was going on this expedition with him. He had the most engaging smile as he talked, telling me all about his family and the settling of that part of California. It was easy to see that he knew all the back roads which he had driven for decades. He seemed to put it on “automatic pilot,” with most of his attention on me and very little on the roads. I suspected that some of the stop signs we drove right through had not been there when he first started driving. In an inconspicuous way, I “white-knuckled” it and was so happy it was early and there wasn’t any traffic.
Then came the next astonishing fact, Art had taken me to an orchard where his crews had finished picking some time before. At first glance, the trees had no peaches on them. After we got out of the truck and I whispered a quick prayer of thanksgiving for making it there safely, Art proudly took me to the back of his truck where we lifted a couple of long bamboo poles with coffee cans attached by duct tape.
Then as if they were rare works of art, he gave me one and showed me how to use it. We would be going to these “already picked” trees looking for those one or two peaches missed by the pickers. They were now tree ripened and delectable to sight as well as taste. Like a professional athlete with great agility, Art deftly demonstrated the prowess needed to accomplish the feat. He lined up the peach, guided the coffee can carefully around it, flicked his wrist, until we heard the faint “thud.” Then carefully he would take the prize and carefully place it a bucket. He then set me loose to fend for myself.
After a few mishaps, I finally got the hang of it. Oblivious to everything around me, before long I was moving from one tree to the next searching for the illusive prizes. Not knowing where I was in relationship to his truck, my bucket was filled to overflowing, but my now trained eye spied one more beauty which I had to have. I must tell you this was as much fun as any golf game I had ever played.
When I called out to Art and finally made it back to the truck, my bucket was overflowing with the most beautiful tree-ripened peaches I had ever seen. With his loving smile, I could see that Art was proud of his new student. He carefully tried, to no avail, to put the best few peaches he had picked on my overflowing bucket.
Dear friends, with every bit as much joy and excitement, I believe that God, our Awesome Creator and Sustainer deeply desires for you and me to be overflowing with the fruit of the Holy Spirit. These fruit are a part of our spiritual DNA as Christ Followers who have been given the Spirit when we commence our journey of faith.
Art Starnes taught me another lesson. Year after year, as my family visited California, we would see Art. More than the delectable fruit which he grew and in which he took pride, Art naturally produced the fruit of the Holy Spirit. He was really special. It’s been more than 15 years since I last saw Art, but his memory is still very much on my mind. He produced some wonderful fruit.
Please turn with me to Galatians 5:16-25. As a quick introduction to Paul’s letter to the Churches in the area of Asia-minor known as Galatia, he is trying to deal with Jewish Christians who thought it was imperative to still keep the letter of the Old Testament Law. Paul wants them to know that they have a new freedom in Christ, which they must not abuse. He gives them some important history in chapters 1-2, a biblical-theological foundation in chapters 3-4, and some practical application in chapters 5-6. Please follow along with me as I read, paying close attention to his mention of the fruit of the Spirit in 5:22-23. Read.
THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT ARE PRODUCED IN US AS WE LIVE BY THE SPIRIT.
While Paul has made the point that they are no longer under the bondage of the Old Testament Law, they are not to allow this freedom to do whatever they desire. Listen to Paul’s words in verses 13-15,
“You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
There is here a classic battle between life in the Spirit and the sinful nature. There was once an old Indian who said that there was a constant battle going on with in him. He viewed it as being the good dog and the bad dog. They were always fighting. However, he discovered that he had the power to affect the outcome. The one he said “sick ‘um” to always won.
When we give in to the sinful nature, Paul says, we don’t do what we really want to do. And conversely in Romans 7 Paul adds, “And what we don’t want to do, we do.” That’s the human dilemma which all of us face left to our own devices, in our own power. I don’t know about you, but I can relate to that.
Then he gives a long list of activities which are acts of the sinful nature. While we don’t have time to get into them, I will tell you that most translations do not descriptively translate the list of actions which are mentioned as an outcome of the sinful nature. By anyone’s standards, it’s a sordid list.
In vivid contrast, Paul calls them to “live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” As the Old Indian mentioned, no matter who we are and where we have been; no matter how long we have been a Christ Follower, we have a battle being waged between good and evil, the Holy Spirit and the evil one. Someone has visualized it as a tug of war contest where we are being pulled from both sides.
I have often visualized it as our lives being like a cylinder with pistons on both ends pushing against the other. I would often leave diagrams on boards or newsprint in rooms where I was teaching or meeting with a group and people could never figure out what I was trying to illustrate. To be “filled with the Spirit” meant the Spirit had pushed out the evil one. To give into temptation and the sinful nature meant the evil one pushed out the Spirit.
No matter how you visualize it, it’s the human dilemma which we will always face. In fact, we are most vulnerable when we think somehow in our own strength and prowess we have conquered the sinful nature. In this passage as well as Romans 7, it is only by God’s power that we can overcome.
To go a step further, through the power of the Spirit, not only are we empowered to overcome the sinful nature, but wants to produce within us the fruit of the Spirit. Instead of using, abusing, manipulating and causing harm to the people around us, we have the potential to be catalysts of love who enrich and care for them. That’s quite a contrast, isn’t it?
Let’s move on to the next point we find in this passage.
THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT ARE MEANT TO GROW IN CHRIST FOLLOWERS JUST AS NATURALLY AS FRUIT GROWS ON TREES.
The metaphor of the Holy Spirit producing fruit is one that the people of Paul’s day would have readily understood and related to. Orchards and vineyards were a common sight on the landscape. They were not nearly as removed from the source of the production of the fruit as we are when we buy our fruit in grocery stores.
I have shared with you that I grew up on a couple of fruit farms. One had grapes, peaches and cherries and the other had apples, peaches, pears, cherries, and plums. I saw firsthand all the work that went into producing the fruit we take for granted now on a year around basis. In the winter the trees were trimmed, sometimes, the pruning looked pretty severe. In the spring we were fertilizing and beginning to spray insects as well as different kinds of fungi and molds. In the summer, the orchards were mown and again sprayed at crucial junctures. Then in July for cherries, August for peaches and September and October for apples we harvested the crops. With cherries and apples we had large harvesting machines that would shake the trees, catch the fruit, and dump it via conveyor belts into tanks with water or large boxes.
Some of you have never seen an operation like the one I am describing and couldn’t have made the amazing discovery that I made at a relatively early age. Please don’t applaud when I tell you that I discovered that each year from the buds which became blossoms which became fruit, apples grew on apple trees, cherries grew on cherry trees, peaches grew on peach trees and plums grew on plum trees. It never varied. It was part of God’s plan. It was the natural order of things. I can see that you are utterly astounded by the profundity of my observations.
I believe that Paul was saying to the churches of Galatia and to us today, that just as naturally as apples grow on apple trees, so the fruit of the Spirit should grow on us. It is no more or less extraordinary than fruit trees producing fruit. It should be the norm and not the exception.
Another of my impressive powers of observation caused me to see up close and firsthand that I never saw or heard a tree straining or working to produce fruit. These trees were just doing what they were created to do. They were accomplishing their God-given purpose. So it is with us, dear friends, when we are living in the Spirit, without straining or working at it, we produce the fruit of the Spirit.
Part of our spiritual DNA as Christ followers is to produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We are the most Christ-like when these fruit, which were perfectly seen in Him, are seen in us.
THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT ARE GROWN IN THE SOIL OF LOVE.
Did you notice when we began reading Galatians 5:22, Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” and not “But the fruit of the Spirit are ….” Some scholars would say that Paul was intentionally making the point that the other eight fruits grow naturally out of the soil of love. Love is at the very center of all of the fruits. That idea would certainly coincide with I Corinthians 13 when Paul writes that most beautifully descriptive treatise about love, proclaiming at the end that love is the greatest action of our lives.
Think for a moment about how that works. When I really love someone, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control should be a natural part of our relationship.
Billy Graham, one of the most admired men in America, once preached a sermon on the fruit of the Spirit. See how he came to the same conclusion when he said:
“Now the fruit of the Spirit. The first one is love, and this is the heart of it all because if you love that takes care of all of the rest. They are all wrapped up in this one word “love.”
Graham goes on to explain that the Greeks had three major words of love instead of the one we have. The first was eros which portrayed the idea of physical, sensual love. The second was philos which was speaking of the kind of love families or friends have for each other. The third and strongest word by far is the word agape which is the word used here as the first fruit of the Spirit. It’s the word in its purist form is demonstrated in God’s love for us. It has the idea of emptying one’s self for another without calculating the return, rewards, or remuneration. It’s giving to another for the sake of building up another with disregard for one’s self.
Do you see how that kind of agape love is the soil from which the other eight fruits grow?
A great preacher from yesteryear, Donald Grey Barnhouse, understood this idea when he wrote:
“Love is the key. Joy is love singing. Peace is love resting. Patience is love enduring. Kindness is love’s touch. Goodness is love’s character. Faithfulness is love’s habit. Gentleness is love’s self-forgetfulness. Self-control is love holding the reins.”
Dear friends, love is the soil from which the rest of the fruits of the Spirit grow.
APPLICATION
I remember in the little country church of my childhood in Southwestern Michigan, we used to sing a hymn every Sunday just before we scattered out into the world. The first line and title was “Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.” The Holy Spirit wants to continually renew you and me so that people see Jesus in us on a day by day, hour by hour basis.
God, the Holy Spirit, wants to fill us so that prayerfully using the spiritual gifts He has given us, the fruit of the Spirit are lived out in such a way that people naturally see Jesus in us. Martin Luther captured that idea when he said that the church should be made up of “little Christs” who are impacting the world like Jesus did.
Do people see Jesus in you in the most positive, tantalizing way? Put another way, just as naturally as apples grow on apple trees, are the fruits of the Spirit being produced by the Spirit in your life? More than programs, exceptional media, gifted communicators, inspiring music presented by gifted musicians, people are drawn to Jesus Christ by the fruits of the Spirit which naturally grow out of love.
Dear friends as I wrap up this series of message on being “Renewed by the Spirit,” I believe God wants to challenge us to “Live by the Spirit” and not gratifying the desires of the sinful nature. This all begins as we accept God’s gift of Jesus as our Savior and Lord, opening the way for the Holy Spirit to indwell each of us. It all starts there. If you have never come to that point in your life and would like to explore what that would mean for you, there will be people in our prayer team in the area next to the cross after wards and they would find great joy in sharing with you. Feel free to contact one of the pastors or staff or one of the elders and we would love to discuss how you can begin the adventure of becoming a Christ Follower.
If, as you reflect upon and evaluate your life, you know that you are off the path and are not living by the Spirit and instead are going your own willful way, you can turn around today. Repenting and walking with God like you once did, the Spirit wants to produce the fruits of love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in you. I can’t speak for you, but in my deepest self, I desperately want those fruit to be constantly a part of my life as I interface with my family, my church family, at work, with friends, and the general public.
Just between you and me, I’m afraid we haven’t produced those fruits very well. For example, I remember conversations I have had with servers at restaurants and they have said to me that Sunday is their least favorite day of the week to work. When I asked why, quick came that response, “It’s because of church people who are arrogant, rude, insensitive, and cheap.” I have even heard on different occasions how church people have made young servers cry as they go back to the kitchen. It seems like the fruit of the Spirit are missing when that kind of thing happens.
Again, going back to my childhood on a fruit farm, there was something so special about going to an apple orchard in the crisp sunny days of fall. There would be a sea of red or yellow and the smell of fresh apples. It was the culmination of a whole year’s labor. It was so tantalizing and special.
Dear friends, I believe God wants it to be harvest time in your life and mine, with the fruit of the Spirit being naturally produced in each one of our lives. Just as apples grow on apple trees, God wants to produce the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in each of our lives so that the beauty of Jesus is seen in each one of us.