A Series on the Holy Spirit - Part 2.

Last week, Pastor Abbie kicked off our new sermon series called And, and it's all about the Holy Spirit and everything related to the Holy Spirit. So last week was Pentecost Sunday, and we kicked off with the Holy Spirit and Pentecost. Pastor Abbie talked to us about when the Holy Spirit came down from heaven and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit came about on all the disciples and followers of Jesus.

Just a quick recap on that. It's really important to remember that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is something that we all have when we come into relationship with Jesus. We say the prayer, we make God the Lord of our lives, and we receive the fullness of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Then when Jesus ascended into heaven, we went into this third chunk of the Bible, which is the time of the Holy Spirit, where the Holy Spirit descended and empowered God's people to then go and make disciples of nations.

So there are two different encounters with the Holy Spirit. One is salvation, when you have the fullness of God indwelling in you. And then the second is empowerment of the Holy Spirit, that then enables us to live godly lives and bring the kingdom of God to earth. Today, we're going to be continuing our sermon series on the Holy Spirit with the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit.

It is the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that enables us to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Our big so what is this: the Holy Spirit will empower you to bear good fruit.

Walking by the Spirit

We're going to be reading out of Galatians chapter five. We're going to read a good chunk of it, but we're going to do it in pieces. First we're going to be in Galatians chapter five, verses 16 through 18.

So I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh for the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh they are in conflict with each other so you are not to do whatever you want but if you are led by the spirit you are not under the law by the flesh.

Galatians 5:16-18

Walking by the spirit versus walking by the flesh. Our flesh is the part of us that has been marked by living in a sinful and broken world. When we say the flesh, we're referring to our carnal being. It's referring to the part of us that is contrary to God, the part of us that is at opposition with God. When we make the desires of our flesh the dictating force in our lives, when that's how we make our decisions and do things, then we're walking by the flesh. When we're walking by the flesh, we make our sinful desires the lord of our life instead of God.

The thing that determines the decisions you make is what is God in your life. So when our flesh and things of the world are what dictates the decisions we make, that is what we have made a lowercase g god in our lives. It's an idol in our heart. That's what it means to walk by the flesh. It means to walk according to our desires and our sinful nature instead of walking by God and his word and what he desires for us.

So what does it mean to walk by the Spirit? To walk by the Spirit is not only to know what godly things to do, but to actually allow the Holy Spirit to lead us, even when our flesh doesn't like where we are being led to. The reality is that what scripture just told us is that the Spirit and the flesh are contrary to one another. They're in conflict. They're in opposition with each other.

That means that when we choose to walk in the spirit, our flesh more often than not is not going to want that. That's why it's really important to remember that it's not always about doing what we like. It's not always about walking and making decisions and doing things that feel good to us because our flesh is at opposition with our spirit.

Making the decision to walk by the spirit, to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and to follow where he leads, means to choose very often to do the opposite of what our flesh may be desiring. I also think that's why it's important to recognize that this is completely countercultural to what our world tells us. Our world tells us what is everyone's favorite key phrase. Just follow the desires of your heart. Except scripture literally tells us over and over and over again that the heart is a liar.

No man can perceive it or understand it. Our heart is deceptive. It is wayward. It is wishy-washy. One day it wants this, one day it wants that. It changes its mind and its thoughts. We are not to live by the desires of our flesh. We are to walk in the Spirit.

To walk in the Spirit is to choose to be loving when your flesh desires spite. To walk in the Spirit is to hear God say stay and choose to stay even if you really want to go, or to go even if you really want to stay. To walk by the Spirit is to choose forgiveness when our flesh desires anger. To walk by the Spirit is to choose to tell your flesh no. And often we need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit because by our own strength and our own power, we just can't.

Fasting and self-control

We are called to walk by the Spirit. We have a rule of life here in our church and something that we talk about in that rule of life, and earlier this year in January we practiced as a whole church together really intentionally, is fasting regularly. We really encourage you to be fasting weekly, about once a week. Earlier this year we fasted every Tuesday as a church. We said no and we turned down our plates to fast, and there's a lot of reasons we fast. It does a lot of different things.

But one thing is we get in a habit of telling our flesh no. I tell people all the time, if you can't say no to a burger, I promise you're going to have a hard time saying no to sin. There's something about fasting that gets our entire being in alignment with actually my flesh is not what controls me. My flesh is under the obedience and under the submission of my spirit. So my spirit needs to fast and I'm going to tell my flesh no.

It's an incredible spiritual discipline that's going to build one of the fruits of the spirit because that's how it works. But specifically self-control is the ability to tell our flesh no.

The fruit of walking in the flesh

Let's talk about the fruit of walking in the flesh. We're going to continue in Galatians chapter 5, picking up in verse 19, and we're going to go through verse 21.

The acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

I want to backtrack really quick. Because of this word factions, which is synonymous with clickiness and having sectioned groups of individuals, I just felt like saying this because we understand what a clique is.

We produce fruit in our lives. That's the reality. Your life is producing fruit, whether you are walking by the flesh or walking by the spirit. The question is never, am I producing fruit? The question is always, what fruit am I producing?

The fruit is going to reflect the seeds that you are sowing and the seeds that you are tending to in your life. If you are walking by the flesh, the fruit that your life is going to produce is hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfishness, dissension. If you notice that bitterness has taken root in your life, that's because there's a part of you that is walking by the flesh. There's unforgiveness there. And the fruit that unforgiveness is bearing is bitterness. You are producing fruit, and if you're walking by the flesh you're producing fleshly fruit.

The fruit of the Spirit

So what are the fruits of the spirit? Continuing in Galatians chapter 5, picking up in verse 22:

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-25

Let me read that last part again. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit.

Let's define these fruits because I think these are all words that we hear all the time. I think it's fair to say that there are plenty of people that aren't walking with the Lord, that aren't filled with the Holy Spirit, that maybe we would describe as being kind, being gentle, being loving, being patient, being those things. That's why I think it's important to define these things from a biblical standpoint, from a biblical standard, not our own standards.

Biblically, we would define love as loving people without expecting anything back, no strings attached. Love that is the fruit of the Spirit is not transactional in nature. It is not about how well you love me. Loving people by the fruit of the Spirit includes loving people that you rather hate and loving people that hate you.

Joy is to delight, being in a good mood because God is exceptionally good. The joy of the Lord has nothing to do with our circumstances, has nothing to do with what we have or don't have. It is literally having joy simply because God is good and he is exceptionally good.

Peace is health and wholeness in relationships and in personal well-being. It's this both and of peace in relationships and peace in personal well-being. It's a health and wholeness in these categories.

Patience is prolonged restraint of anger and agitation.

Kindness is being friendly regardless of how people treat you or what they deserve.

Goodness is being generous and kind to people.

Faithfulness is confident trust in God that results in consistent actions. We should faithfully trust God, and it is that trust and that faith in God that should be producing consistent actions.

Gentleness is humility, considerateness, meekness, and preferring others.

And self-control is discipline, control over actions and appetites.

Growth takes time

Here's the thing about bearing the fruit of the Spirit that I want you to keep in mind, because I feel like it can be really overwhelming to hear all of those definitions and hear all of those things and be like, well, I don't know if I see that in my life. I don't know if I'm doing those things. If I am or if I'm not, how do I get there? Maybe you've been following Jesus for a long time, you have been remaining in him, you've been seeking him, and you have been receiving empowerment from the Holy Spirit. And you're still not seeing a ton of these fruits in your life.

I want to encourage you that growth takes time. The same way you don't plant a seed in the ground and pick grapes off the vine of that seed the very next day, it takes time to produce good fruit. Everything has a season, and you have to keep sowing into that, keep watering the soil. Sometimes we have seeds going down and creating roots, and it just looks like we're tending to soil. Nobody sees that. We're tending to a seed that's going to produce amazing fruit, but it takes time.

When you're feeling discouraged, I just want you to know: stay close to Jesus, delighting in him and in his word. Trust him. And when you do start to notice some fruit, thank him for it and enjoy the changes that he's bringing about in your life.

The fruit of the Spirit are accessible to every believer. The Holy Spirit and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit is accessible to every single believer. And when we are walking in step with the Spirit, I can absolutely promise you, because scripture promises it, the Holy Spirit will empower you to bear good fruit.

Seeking the Holy Spirit

So here's our big now what. How are we going to do this? We're going to seek the Holy Spirit. The reality is we don't have the capacity to do all of these fruits all the time. Our flesh is literally at war with our ability to have prolonged restraint of anger and agitation. Our flesh is at war with our ability to love those that we don't feel like deserve our love. Our flesh is at war with our ability to be humble and considerate of others and to put their needs above our own. Our flesh is at war with our ability to be at peace in relationships and in well-being.

We need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit. So our now what is we seek God. We seek the Holy Spirit. We get in his word. We pray and we open ourselves up to receiving from him.

I do really want to encourage you to be paying attention to that rule of life, to be pursuing that. That's daily scripture reading, daily prayer. And I really want to encourage you to incorporate fasting once a week into your rule of life, into your rhythm, into your way of seeking God. It's an incredible discipline. There are different ways to do that. We have resources available for you if you need them, and you can always reach out to myself or a member of our team. We would love to help empower you and resource you to incorporate this spiritual discipline into your life.

And you'll absolutely be amazed at the fruit that it will bear.

Closing prayer

I would love to take just a moment to pray over you all as we move into the next week and to just really invite the Holy Spirit into your homes and into the rest of your week until we see each other again. So wherever you are, just bow your head, close your eyes.

If you're willing, and you know Lord, I need you to help me be loving, patient, kind, gentle. I need you to give me joy, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. I need you to come into my life and help me do these things. Wherever you are, just hold your hands out open to you in a posture to receive and in a posture of surrender. We're opening our hands to release those other fruits that we've been holding on to. Anger, these things, our flesh that is contrary to our spirit. And we're opening our hands to receive the Spirit.

Wherever you are, hands open, eyes closed, head bowed, let me pray for you.

Dear Lord, thank you so much for the opportunity to hear your word and to be present in your word wherever we are. Thank you because whether we're gathered together in a building or if we're in our homes, your Holy Spirit is in us and is with us and is around us.

Lord, I pray that as we move through this week, your Holy Spirit begins to bear good fruit in us and in our lives. Lord, we need you and we surrender our flesh to you. Lord, your word says that we are to be crucified with Christ. This scripture says that it is our very flesh that must die so that we might live and walk by the Spirit.

Lord, right now in this posture with hands open, we surrender. We surrender the flesh. Surrender those desires. Help us to surrender our fleshly desires to you and in exchange, change our hearts to desire that which you desire. Change our hearts to look more and more like you.

Holy Spirit come and uproot these fleshly seeds that have taken root. Cut down every single vine and every bit of fruit that isn't of you. And in its place, allow the Holy Spirit to begin to change and transform us and create us into people that bear good fruit so that all the world can see and all the world can know exactly who you are. That you are good. That you are God. And that Jesus is Lord.

Lord I thank you and I worship you. I cover all the members of our church watching this. I pray for good health and speedy recovery and that we might all be able to come together once again very soon in your holy name. I pray. Amen.