Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Okay. Morning, everyone. Sorry you got a lot of me today. But.
[00:00:17] Hopefully the Lord will bless you through what I'm going to share. I said to Eric a few months ago, I said, we need to sort of have an idea of what we're preaching on because the Lord doesn't speak too loudly to me sometimes and I can be wondering what I'm going to share on. And takes me forever to come up with a message and then by the time I've come up with a message, I've not got enough time to prepare it. So, yeah, it's been great having a bit of a, like a plan ahead so that we know what we're sharing on. But this morning I want us to focus in on the fruit of the Spirit. But in order to do it, when I was preparing, I realized you can't just like preach about the fruit of the Spirit. You've got to put a bit of context into it.
[00:01:06] And so I want to go back to the last time I shared, and that was a couple of weeks ago, two weeks ago, maybe four weeks ago. And I shared about the supplements of our faith and just the fact that salvation, our faith is what we rooted in. That's what gives us our salvation faith.
[00:01:29] And then Paul goes on and he says, and add to faith these virtues, these supplements, which are virtue. And we'll look at them all again just now. But as we supplement our faith, we grow in our relationship with the Lord and, and we start to.
[00:01:51] I think I used the analogy of instead of standing at the doorway, moving into the household of faith, once we get to know God and we start adding virtue and knowledge and steadfastness and those things ending up with love, that we become more like Christ and we start to move into the household of faith. And that drives us to.
[00:02:14] To works. Not that the works save us, but it drives us to works because we cannot receive this gift and do nothing about it. We need to go and make disciples in the world.
[00:02:28] And so, yeah, as we.
[00:02:32] Where am I now?
[00:02:34] So, so the supplements brings us to fullness in Christ, basically. And then we start, we start to grow.
[00:02:41] And so as we, as we add virtue and knowledge, self control, steadfastness godliness and brotherly affection and love to our faith, we are becoming more and more like Jesus. We become more like him, and we start to reflect what is in this passage I'm going to share today, described as the fruits of righteousness.
[00:03:05] In Philippians 1, Paul prays for the church, and he prays that their love would abound more and More in knowledge and depth of insight. And when I was reading that this depth of insight, or the ESV says discernment, I was praying, lord, what is that? What is that? Exactly. So let's just read Philippians 1, starting at verse 9, and this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness.
[00:03:46] I have bolded some of these so that you can just pick out the emphases here that comes through Christ and then to the glory and praise of God.
[00:03:57] So what does it mean, discernment or depth of insight?
[00:04:03] I want to just take us Back to Matthew 24, where we see Jesus warns his disciples that at the end there's going to be lawlessness increasing. And he says there's quite a like a.
[00:04:18] He says there the love of many will grow cold.
[00:04:22] And that's a warning to us as believers. It's a warning to, to those that are in the household of faith that there will be a great falling away as people cave in to persecution and fall for the false teachings that are already all over the place because they don't have depth of insight, they don't have discernment. And so there's a warning that we all need to be mindful of that as Christians.
[00:04:50] It's not just we saved and that's it, we don't need to worry about anything.
[00:04:57] In verse four and five, he says, watch out that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name claiming I am the Messiah and will deceive many. And I don't know if you've been taking note of things going on in the charismatic world at the moment, but there's been a lot of deception exposed. A lot of deception, deception exposed. Big, big church leaders falling.
[00:05:20] And those people are leading these churches astray because the flock don't know Jesus themselves.
[00:05:31] They have to receive from the teacher. And this is the emphasis that I want us to get this morning that is all about us, my relationship with Jesus. So how can we be prepared for this and how can we discern?
[00:05:44] Jesus warns the disciples that there's going to be such great pressure and opposition to those who follow Christ with a deep knowledge, without a deep knowledge of God's word and the strong relationship with the person of Jesus is what is important.
[00:06:00] Because without that, it is almost impossible.
[00:06:04] Discernment is being able to tell the genuine or the True from the false and the fake.
[00:06:11] And see what Jesus says in Matthew 24:9. He says, Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death. This is like him, like, trying to encourage people to come to him. You know, it's like, you're going to be handed over and persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
[00:06:28] At that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other.
[00:06:33] Many false prophets will appear and deceive many because of the wicked, because of the increase of wickedness. The love of most will grow cold. And there's a in there. The love of most. I really struggled with that, but it's a big warning. And I was like, lord, please, I want to be one of those that is deceived. I want one of those. Be one of those whose love grows cold.
[00:06:54] And then thankfully, verse 13 was there because he assures those that are in his household, he says, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
[00:07:05] So we cannot just.
[00:07:07] This is my encouragement to us as a church this morning. We cannot take our cue from Eric.
[00:07:14] Okay. When Eric starts heading to the mountains, we're going to follow.
[00:07:18] No, because Eric might be deceived. We need to know ourselves.
[00:07:23] So we can't just like. And that's the biggest thing that we see in the church that's failing right now is everyone's eyes on the man, not on the Messiah.
[00:07:32] And that's the truth.
[00:07:34] So we need to make sure that we have a strong bulletproof faith in the armor of God. We have the shield of faith, and it quenches Satan's fiery darts. And those darts cannot get through the shield of faith. True faith is absolutely bulletproof, and that's what we need.
[00:07:55] So in Philippians 1, we see clearly that Paul tells the church at Philippi that his prayer for them is that their love would abound with knowledge and discernment.
[00:08:06] And that's one of the things that in the supplements that I preached on last night, when we add to virtue, the next thing is knowledge.
[00:08:13] We need to know what it all means. We need to have our personal knowledge so that we can discern and that they would be pure and blameless as they wait for the day of Christ.
[00:08:27] And then it goes on and says that they would be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes from Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
[00:08:36] And that fruit, or the result of righteousness is the outgrowth of righteousness in our hearts.
[00:08:44] That's what the fruit is a truly righteous person will display certain actions, attitudes that confirm the nature of the heart, things like honesty, integrity, meekness, goodness, love.
[00:09:00] In the nlt, it's interesting, the translation. It links the fruit of our salvation and the resulting Christian character. It says, the fruit of your salvation, that's the product, the righteousness produced in your life by Jesus.
[00:09:17] So the fruit is produced in you by Jesus. So if you haven't got Jesus, you can't produce the fruit.
[00:09:23] And it's Paul's desire that the Philippian Church believers will show external evidence that they are truly righteous.
[00:09:30] That's what we're seeing here, and this is for us too. And that they will harvest what the Holy Spirit produces in them, that fruit, and that they will be filled with all that Christ's righteousness yields.
[00:09:43] So the fruit of righteousness, like all fruit, springs up from a seed, doesn't come from nowhere.
[00:09:52] And in this case, he's talking about the seed of grace that is implanted in all of our lives the moment we come to salvation.
[00:10:01] And without seed, you can't produce fruit. It's not possible.
[00:10:06] So prior to God's work of regeneration in our hearts, we are incapable of producing righteous fruit.
[00:10:13] Romans 3, 10, 18, we see Paul describes the state of unredeemed man, says there, not one of us is righteous.
[00:10:23] By righteous he means holy, pure, undefiled. Not one of us is righteous.
[00:10:31] And so clearly unrighteous people cannot produce fruit.
[00:10:37] They cannot produce the fruit of righteousness.
[00:10:39] And in John 15, I love this passage.
[00:10:43] There's this description of the vine and the branches, and it paints this beautiful picture of the fruit of righteousness. And, you know, a grapevine, the main stem of the vine is from where the branches come off, and we are those branches.
[00:11:01] In this like parable that Jesus shares, he says, I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. And only as a branch attached to the vine can grapes come from that branch.
[00:11:18] Only if we are attached to the vine, that is Jesus. And in the parable, Jesus, like I said, he is the vine.
[00:11:27] And the nourishment that we get as the branches comes through it, comes through him.
[00:11:37] They don't produce fruit on their own. They only display it.
[00:11:41] That is the key thing to understand. We don't produce the fruit, we display it. All branches attached to the true vine will display fruit because righteousness comes from the righteous vine.
[00:11:54] And so getting now to the fruit, in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, we see that the fruit that God produces in us, which he calls the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, or long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. There's nine of them, and these are the qualities of that are described as the fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit creates new life in the believer. And the evidence of that life, evidence that we are new, a new creation, is we are bearing this fruit.
[00:12:35] And the fruit that we bear produces life, not just in us, but in others, because of our testimony, our witness, and our a light to the world.
[00:12:48] So the source of the fruit of righteousness, I emphasize this is not a righteousness of my own, as we see in Philippians 3, 9. He says, it's not a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
[00:13:04] So without faith we cannot be righteous, we cannot produce the fruit of righteousness.
[00:13:11] And so Paul adds that the goal of the fruit of righteousness is to the praise and glory of God.
[00:13:19] Interesting.
[00:13:22] Our fruit is for his glory.
[00:13:25] There's nothing there for us. Philippians 1:11. Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
[00:13:34] And the fruit displayed in our lives comes from God and is not for our praise and glory and not to gain honour and applause from men.
[00:13:42] It is only to glorify God.
[00:13:45] Others should see that our deeds, that our good deeds glorify God. We see this in romans in Matthew 5:16.
[00:13:53] In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
[00:14:02] 1 Peter 2:12 says the same thing, Live such good lives amongst the pagans that they'll see your good works and glorify God on the day he visits us.
[00:14:13] So these works are the proof of a saving relationship with Christ. And Jesus assures us that if our salvation is real, and this is a test, this is how we can test ourselves. If our salvation is real, there will be righteous fruit. There will be evidence of it.
[00:14:31] Matthew 7:16, 20. You will recognize them by their fruits are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles.
[00:14:39] So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
[00:15:00] So I don't have too many statements, but I'm going to put this one on the screen so we see that the fruit of righteousness comes through Christ only.
[00:15:18] Walking by the Spirit means trusting in the promises that God has given us in the Bible. We cannot walk by the Spirit if we don't trust those promises, because we've just read that we're going to suffer persecution, we're going to be murdered for our faith. And so those things are quite, quite off putting, actually.
[00:15:39] But walking in the Spirit means that we trust the promises that he will never leave you nor forsake you, that everyone who calls on his name will be saved, and that he has gone before us to make a way for us.
[00:15:52] And we see that walking by the Spirit requires faith. In Galatians 3:5, does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
[00:16:10] It's not by works of the law, it's by hearing with faith.
[00:16:13] And the Holy Spirit works miracles in us when we trust those promises.
[00:16:21] So some of the miracles are the fruit of the Spirit, because if you think about it, loving your enemy is not a.
[00:16:28] It's not something that you can do without the Spirit in you.
[00:16:35] Giving someone your coat when he's robbed you or, you know, it's counter to our natural way of doing things. And so these things are miracles. And that's where I want to get on to the fruit of the Spirit this morning. So the first one is love.
[00:16:55] And I don't know if you noticed, but with the supplements, we go through virtue and it ends in love.
[00:17:02] And then we know that God is love. And then the first fruit is love.
[00:17:08] It's like sandwiched between the love of God and this relationship.
[00:17:14] Our faith is sandwiched between these two statements that we must add to our faith love. And that the fruit of first fruit of the Spirit is love.
[00:17:24] God is love. And so love is like the comprehensive fruit.
[00:17:31] We have to have love because God is love. If we're not, we can't love. We need to need to worry about that.
[00:17:37] So what is love? It's to humbly and sacrificially serve the good of others.
[00:17:42] Galatians 5:13 says this. For you were all called to freedom, brothers only. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another.
[00:17:57] And Galatians 5:6 we see that love comes from faith. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
[00:18:09] So that's the first of the fruit, the second.
[00:18:14] I'm going to join the next two together Joy and peace, because there's nine of them in all. But in Scripture, you see quite often these two are together, and joy and peace, basically defined as a happy, stable, tranquil heart through faith.
[00:18:33] Romans 5:13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope.
[00:18:43] You see, you can abound in hope because you know what's coming. You know your eternal destiny is secure, and so you can have joy and peace.
[00:18:54] Even in a crazy situation, you can have joy and peace because the power of the Holy Spirit in you shows you what's to come. And the things in the way are small and meaningless. Actually, in the big picture.
[00:19:07] Then there's patience and kindness again.
[00:19:12] They sometimes pop up together, and this is not easily provoked, but quick to be helpful.
[00:19:20] Hebrews 6:12 says, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.
[00:19:32] 1 Corinthians 13:4 says, Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant.
[00:19:43] Again, sometimes patience is.
[00:19:50] Exercising patience to a frustrating brother is not easy, but by the Holy Spirit we can be that, because Christ is patient with me. And that's the reality.
[00:20:04] Goodness and faithfulness.
[00:20:07] This is being devoted to the good with integrity and thus reliable.
[00:20:30] I think I have papers on.
[00:20:40] Okay. There we go.
[00:20:42] Right. Sorry.
[00:20:44] Yeah. To this end, we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.
[00:21:01] Psalm 15:1 to 4.
[00:21:06] Sorry, I just need to get my check again.
[00:21:12] Okay.
[00:21:14] Yeah. So in Psalm 15:4, the Lord says, o Lord, this is David. He says, o Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? And Niv, it says, who may dwell in your sacred tent?
[00:21:29] He who walks blamelessly and does what is right, speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, does no evil to his neighbor, does not take, takes, no takes, nor takes up reproach against his friend, in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honours those who fear the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change.
[00:21:52] At last, that last line in the NIV says, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind.
[00:22:03] That's faithfulness. That's goodness. That's.
[00:22:06] That's understanding that God doesn't change.
[00:22:12] He. He is good in all circumstances. We. We never have to question that.
[00:22:20] But who may sojourn in his tent? He who walks blamelessly and does what's right.
[00:22:26] The standards are high.
[00:22:28] Sometimes we think we can't do it, and it's true, we can't.
[00:22:32] But we can through the Holy Spirit in us. And this is why producing this fruit is so important. The fifth one is gentleness. That's not being harsh or brash.
[00:22:45] Look at what Romans 12:19 says. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it's written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Can I tell you, you will be avenged.
[00:23:02] God will avenge you one day.
[00:23:06] Things that have been done wrong, you can leave that to God, who's perfect and just and will justly judge.
[00:23:20] Romans 12:2. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed. That's what we have to do.
[00:23:26] Gentleness.
[00:23:28] Sometimes when we are really wronged, it's hard.
[00:23:32] And then self control.
[00:23:35] I think you probably remember self control is also one of the supplements to our faith.
[00:23:40] The self control is the.
[00:23:48] Yeah. Is the last. Is the last one before love.
[00:24:01] I'm trying to find the.
[00:24:14] I don't know how I've got this all mixed up.
[00:24:18] Romans 8:13.
[00:24:21] Okay, yes, sorry.
[00:24:24] Okay. So, yeah, Self control is ability to say no to our sinful desires.
[00:24:32] Romans 8:13. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
[00:24:36] But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
[00:24:41] The self control is putting to death the works of the flesh and exercising self control.
[00:24:51] So those are the fruits of the spirit. And I just want to end off by looking at Hebrews because the writer in Hebrews encourages us to push on in spite of our troubles. And I've just seen, when I look at what's going on in the world, there are so many.
[00:25:12] There are so many leaders falling, there's so many things being exposed in the church.
[00:25:19] And there's things happening that are confusing and we need to understand that the Bible tells us it's going to happen.
[00:25:28] Hebrews 12:1 says this. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
[00:25:38] Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, for the joy set before him. He endured the cross scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
[00:25:59] This is such an encouragement for me we don't have to.
[00:26:04] Jesus is the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith.
[00:26:08] So take heart. He is alive and he has run this race ahead of us every single step, the way we are run, every step of our race. Jesus is running along with us.
[00:26:22] And so here it says, fix your eyes on Jesus, not on this, what's his name, these prophets and these church leaders that are not on Him. Fix your eyes on Jesus, who's going to perfect your faith as you grow in your knowledge of him, get to know him very well, because he alone is the One that will help you to know the way, the way.
[00:26:51] And know that he has endured this persecution unto death so that you do not have to grow weary and lose heart.
[00:26:59] Guys, this, the fruit of the Spirit, has to be produced in us as evidence that we understand this and that we run to Jesus.
[00:27:09] And if you don't know Jesus, you're not going to be able to figure it out. You're not going to be able to discern between the false and the true.
[00:27:22] But again, the last statement I just wanted to put on the screen was this, that we must know him intimately and not just about Him.
[00:27:30] A lot of people, and that's what I've seen in these, in these exposures, the exposure of all these guys, they know about God, they just don't know God.
[00:27:39] No, it's like I can know about Donald Trump and what I read, but I don't know him as a person. I've never had a chat with Him. If we just know God like that, then we are in trouble because when someone says something good or bad about Donald Trump and we believe it, either way, it might be totally wrong.
[00:28:00] And so we need to know the person. And the person is Jesus.
[00:28:03] Do you know him intimately?
[00:28:06] Is he your Lord and Savior today?
[00:28:10] Are you justified in being sanctified?
[00:28:17] Are you on the journey of faith producing fruit?
[00:28:21] Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for Jesus and I thank youk that in every way we can.
[00:28:35] Know the truth, because youe Word is truth, it doesn't change.
[00:28:41] And through youh Holy Spirit living in us, we can be steered.
[00:28:51] Steered in the. In the truth, steered in every decision that we make in our lives. We can be steered to make decisions that bring you ultimate glory, Lord, because that is what you are called to here.
[00:29:01] That these things that we bear fruit to the glory and praise of God.
[00:29:06] And so, Lord, we want to thank you that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit today.
[00:29:15] And I pray, Lord, that for each of us that as we go from here that you'd make it clear.
[00:29:20] The journey that you have for us, you know that you have prepared us, prepared in advance for us works for us to do.
[00:29:28] May we be faithful to do those works. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:29:37] Sorry about that.
[00:29:40] When I put my thing down, I got mixed up and then.
