If you have your Bibles with you, you could open with me to Galatians Chapter 5. I suspect that it's possible that this is one of the most well-known portions of the Book of Galatians that we've been in for months of all the six chapters This list of the fruit, singular, the fruit of the Holy Spirit that we'll consider. And I wonder if even the mention of the nine fruit causes your heart or mind or will to tremble in a way. When you hear these, you immediately begin to judge yourself. Let's consider God's Word here now. In the reading of Galatians 5, we'll pick up at verse 16, and we'll read in context what we've been saying about these four major verses, these four major exhortations of how to live by the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, and to keep in step with the Spirit, reading verses 19 and pointedly stopping at verse 25. This is God's Word. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warned you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Thus far the reading of God's Word. as I alluded to in my small orientation to you in your thoughts about the fruit of the Spirit or perhaps the most famous section of the Book of Galatians, I wonder if you are asking yourself, how can I possibly do this? How can I possibly be led by, keep in step with, live in, and by the Holy Spirit? How can I possibly, how can one, even to take it out and away from you for a moment, how can anyone live a life filled with such traits or virtues? Do you know anyone who is marked by all nine of these? That you just, you hear the nine and you say, that's like, fill in the blank. We might feel that frustration at the outset when we hear of these fruits. We think of these Christian virtues and the answer to the question, how can I possibly do this? The answer is really simple. You've heard it already twice in just the verses I've read. It is by the spirit that you live like this. It is by the presence and power of God the Holy Spirit, third person of the Holy Trinity, that you actually actualize these traits, virtues, and fruit of the Spirit. Now I would ask you, how many of you are living this? Because that's the question that usually draws us into this first point I'm making, Jesus not Moses. Now don't get me wrong, all the punctilious ones, all the very persnickety reformed people, I am not setting Jesus against Moses. I am about to use an illusion by way of terminology that if you ask someone who doesn't even know the Bible very well, and I said, who's that person in the Bible that says, thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt not. And you'd probably think someone would say Moses from the commandments. And all too often, my point is to connect this that when people come to Paul's famous, perhaps most famous passage of the book of Galatians, here at the fruit of the spirit, they treat it as if Paul has given a new law, a new law set against all other laws. And it reads like this. Christian, thou shalt love more. Christian, thou shalt have more joy. Does everybody get what I'm saying? Often it thunders as if from Mount Sinai with lightning and the threat of death that you are not loving enough. that you of course do not rejoice always. You are not peaceful enough. You're not patient enough. You're not kind enough. You're not good enough. You're not, right, I could just point at every single soul and accuse you with the fruit. Is that what Paul intended by delineating this contrast between what we were like when we lived in Adam by the flesh in contrast to who we are now in Christ, the second Adam, as we live by the Spirit. That's the big division. It's the big division I made actually in parts one and two for those who weren't here. I made those same divisions in parts one and two, and here we come to three, and I know it's hard. One of my favorite preachers, perhaps he's one of yours, I won't mention him by name so you think about him and his ministry. I mean, nine sermons, right, for the nine fruit. And I'm gonna sweep through them all in three triads, right? It's a hard task to unpack the fullness of these exhortations. Paul is demonstrating what life in the Holy Spirit for you who are in Christ, united to Jesus Christ by grace, through faith, will actualize these fruit. And you will not do it perfectly. So what I asked you by way of application now three weeks ago was think about the ministry of Jesus in light of the fruit and see how he can work this in you. In technical terms, people often conflate the indicatives of scripture with its imperatives. That is, who we are now before what we do. The big words, indicative, imperative, you might know them well. They split up every one of Paul's epistles. But the point is who we are and then how we should then live. As we explore the fruit of the Spirit here, we must not forget all of the indicatives, that is what Paul indicates, you hear it, what he indicates about who we are now in Christ, united to Christ by grace through faith. The Galatians had received by faith alone, by grace alone, the outpouring of the Spirit through the work of Christ. Paul has been saying that to them since chapter one and explicitly in chapter three. And now he comes to delineate that the work of Christ is now being lived in them. Their union with Jesus is the indicative. On the basis of the glorious union that they have with Christ by the Spirit, Paul could then give the Galatians these imperatives. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You shall love God and your neighbor and so fulfill the whole law, as we say. Jesus in Matthew 22, which we read a message ago, all the way back through all of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and so live by the Spirit, are led by the Spirit, and keep in step with the Spirit. I've just connected what I said in my last message to this one. That's technically where I'll summate, but I led it with you just because we're back in Galatians 5. So the Spirit produces His holy fruit within us. It's the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit, God Himself that is producing this holy fruit within us. We cannot pull ourselves up by our moral bootstraps in the effort to love, to have joy, or to produce peace within our hearts and our lives and our souls, etc. In this vein, if Christ indwells us through the Spirit, then His Spirit will produce His fruitfulness by His faithfulness. Do you hear that? Praise the Lord. That's what Jesus was telling us in His ministry in John 15. Just abide in Me and so be fruitful. In that way, you just want to keep with Jesus. You just want to stay with Jesus. You want to walk with Jesus. In my Christ-centered application this way and in the last time, it's the character of Christ that is manifest here. Jesus embodies the fruit of the Spirit more perfectly than anyone, as I brought up Psalm 1 only, but we don't get to its fulfillment. In our quest to understand the fruit in this way, our focus must be upon Jesus by the presence and power of his Spirit at work within us. Like I say often, you often, we often just get our heads all twisted up and looking in our own navels or looking at ourselves in the mirror and saying, I'm not, I'm not, what do we say, measuring up. Praise the Lord then because Jesus did perfectly measure up and he's in us living this life for us. Is that the way you think about your Christian life? You cannot acquire or enhance these qualities by any legal righteousness, hence my title. It's not by legal righteousness. The law can never produce this kind of spiritual fruitfulness. God must do it by his power and his presence. And that's why he said, this life is not lived by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. That's the fulfillment of Zechariah 4 in John 15. So in the second point, the first of the three triads, love, joy, and peace, as we take these, I recognize this is really unsatisfactory. It's really unsatisfying to think of talking about the fruit of the Spirit in one message, but we're going to do it. The greatest manifestation of love the world has ever seen is in Christ's love for fallen sinners. As Jesus told his disciples, mentioning this first of the triad, love, joy, and peace. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. That's what John 15, 13 said. Did you catch that? I often try and reference that. I had an elder in a church once tell me, I don't get it. I don't know what you're talking about. I said, oh, really? You've not read John 15, 13, 14, and 15? Jesus said it. It's not my idea. But what makes Christ's love jaw-dropping is that he loved us. And do you remember our condition before we came and were loved by God? Do you remember our condition? Do you remember your condition? You were a God-hater. You were an enemy of God, according to Ephesians 2. I'm just, again, quoting the Bible. I'm not trying to be disparaging towards you and your perfection prior to knowing Jesus. Jesus said, this is perfect love that one would lay down his life for another in his Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 43 to 48. Love, then, by way of application for you this morning, Christian, is not simply an emotion, what I've called in this series already a warm, amorphous blob that we feel somewhere in this part of our body. That's not all that love is. Love is not a warm feeling that we might have for one another. It's also not an ill-defined modern mantra that is sung in songs so often, one perhaps most famous is, all you need is love. You all know that song, right? You're all smiling and giggling because you know that song and all you need is love, right? Is that right? Sometimes you need other things. But where the virtue is extolled in all modern music and poetry, Biblical love, by contrast, is often concrete action. It's often, as I've said throughout this series, it's self-sacrificing. It's willing to lay down its life for something greater. It's concrete action on another's behalf. It's loving the other person enough to do the right thing. Maybe even in the face of hostility or hatred, we've been seeing it in the book of Acts, how Paul is loving Christ and his gospel. He was worn from the day he was converted when Ananias went back. We didn't, I don't know if it was mentioned when I left the Sunday school this morning, but remember Agabus, you know, he gets himself all tied up, ties himself up and said, the man who owns this belt, right, took Paul's belt, did that and told him those things as the people in Sunday school, adult Sunday school heard this morning. But remember, from the day that Paul was converted, when Ananias went back, Ananias told Jesus, I don't wanna go back. I don't want to go back and talk to him because he kills Christians." And he said, go. And do you remember what Ananias had to tell Paul? Go and tell him how much he must suffer for my name. Paul's known since the day he was converted he was going to suffer. And he's telling the people in Ephesus and Tyre, he's telling them, I'm going to Rome. And they're like, you're going to Jerusalem. And you know what I'm going to do when I'm there? I'm gonna preach the gospel with all boldness and without hindrance. I mean, it's just, this is an incredible faith we live, right? Anyway, I hope you love it. So Christ formed love is opposite to the world's often perversion of love. All kinds of immoral, just as love and true spiritual joy, maybe even when you've suffered, you've still known the confidence of hope, like exuberance. The Bible often links joy and suffering. As in Christ's ministry, I'm alluding to it directly now. Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. That's just quoting Hebrews 12 too. And so as we are conformed to Christ's likeness, we might find that we learn about joy even in the midst of trial or trouble or tribulation as we were promised. If we believe that joy is something we generate ourselves, then perhaps we might lack joy during times of trial and suffering. But if we recognize that it's a fruit of the presence of the Holy Spirit at work within us to make us more like Jesus, now it makes sense. As Paul writes, we will be able to even, possibly I say, possibly exhibit the mystery of walking by hope or walking by faith and rejoice always. That very difficult passage in First Thessalonians 5.16 that all of you know, to rejoice always? Really, Lord? I'm sure you've kicked against the goads of that passage before. But one of the mysteries here of our faith is that the Spirit can even produce joy when we seek the Father's will in all things. The same way we know in Romans 8, 28, God is working all things together for good for those who love Him and are called by Him according to His purposes. We come to know that in hard times. We don't often want to hear it. It's a hard word to hear when you're really sick, suffering, and grieving. But our gracious God is working all things together for good for those who love him. This is how we can know love and joy, even in times of trial or tribulation or suffering, as I've said. Joy is often attended even by peace in the third of this first triad. Before our redemption, our biggest problem is that we were at enmity to God, Paul says famously, not just in Ephesians 2, but Romans 3. But Christ, the Prince of Peace, is our great peacemaker. He made peace with us. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know where that's from famously? Romans 5.1. And if we have peace with God through Christ, then this God-given peace could permeate the rest of our lives. And we can ask God for it, that He would give us greater peace in the midst. Said more broadly, Christ is the Church's bride. I'm sorry, Christ is the Church's bride. his church's peace, that is his bride, the church. This was the very thing that the false teachers were jeopardizing. They were rebuilding division. Remember, we've talked about it in Chapter 1, Chapter 3 again. They were building, these Judaizers were building division by their insistence on circumcision. They were creating the very things that he mentioned in Chapter 5, strife and dissensions and divisions amidst the body. The very opposite of peace. However, if the church is united to Christ, then it should be marked, listen closely, we should be marked by love and joy and peace. And we fulfilled John 13, that Jesus very famously, after having washed their feet, do you remember this allusion? After having wiped and washed their dirty feet, he stood up and said, do you like what? Love this way, and by how you love one another, the world will know that you're my disciples, Jesus says. Well, that's just the first triad. We're plowing on. We're not going to do as much in the second and third triad, okay? But just for you who love to kind of think about the scripture, notice how love, joy, and peace in the first triad are all single syllables. And then patience, kindness, and goodness, two syllables. And then the third triad, all three syllables. That's just for you wordsmiths who love, I've only said it about 18,000 times in the last month or two, so I noticed that. That's for you. Mention the word patience to a Christian, and apart from Jesus, mention patience. And not mentioning Jesus, who's the other person who has a book named after them who endured with great patience? Job, you're asking? Yes. Job's patience was truly incredible. But we must always remember when we think about the case of Job, I've been thinking about Job in the recent past. And as I've reflected upon Job's life, I read through him as part of, I always remind my heart, almost every time I listen to a chapter of Job, I remind myself, remember, Job prefigures Jesus. Job wasn't perfect. He was blameless, as the Lord said about him, but he wasn't perfect. He endured this fall with, at times, do you remember, okay, now I'll just, I asked you to think about Jesus and his ministry. Have you thought about his ministry in the last couple weeks of your life? Have you thought about what Jesus endured? Almost every page of the Gospels, if you just read one page of the Gospels, you know the highlights of his faith. But just every day when you think of it, and here's just some examples that I decided to delineate. Jesus patiently dealt with, at times, his dare I say, dim-witted disciples, right? What do you call them? We call them downcast and discouraged, especially when they're on the road to Emmaus, but that was different. Just, they were dull. They didn't always seem to get it. And at times, you'd get frustrated with the disciples when they frequently misunderstood Jesus' teaching. I mean, he was with them. They were with him daily, and they didn't get it. That allows me to have a little mercy on myself. Jesus patiently dealt with the crowds too, saints, who constantly pressed in on him. They want food, they want to be healed, they want miracles, they want stuff. He says to them, you come because you want stuff. They just wanted what they wanted. It's not sure that they wanted Jesus. He patiently dealt even with the religious leaders, just in categories. The patient with the religious leaders in spite of their hatred, their wicked scheming, and their absurd arguments that he constantly refuted. They just didn't even understand the scriptures that they had been meditating on all their lives. Some of them had memorized whole portions of the Old Testament and they didn't understand its meaning because they needed the Holy Spirit like we do. so we can have mercy on them when we reflect upon them. Jesus produces this love, joy, peace, and patience through the Holy Spirit. God is working in us, often Jesus's patience towards beloved children, his often foolish or wayward sheep. Even when foolish and unfaithful, thankfully, as the list says, Jesus remains faithful. Have you ever been grateful for how faithful and long-suffering Jesus had been with you when you were perhaps, dare I say, a little dim-witted? You know a lot of truths, but you don't always live by them. And so we can be grateful as we look to Jesus and say, thank you for your patience. Thank you for your long suffering. Thank you for the fulfillment of that Hebrew word hesed. Thank you for your loving kindness to me in your long suffering, even though at times I am dull and I don't get it and I refuse you. When someone deserves punishment, listen closely, when someone deserves punishment but receives pardon, this is an act of kindness. God's kindness to you has been made evident in the salvation that you did not deserve. It's a way for us to remember gratefully our salvation every day. Paul said it like this to young Titus, the goodness, he tells of his redemption, we receive Christ, the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared. The kindness, the loving kindness and goodness of God manifest in our salvation. Paul combines goodness and kindness and it should always tell us of these two virtues and how closely they are related. Now I'm gonna be really practical here for a moment. If we have been recipients of this kindness and goodness of God our Savior, then how can we fail to show the same to others around us? If we had once hated God, but nevertheless received his incredible kindness and mercy and grace and goodness in Jesus, should you be known as a person who shows that to others? Or are you marked by impatience and unkindness toward those who don't know the truth? Just check it. The present evil age is marked by so much darkness, often we think that it is our job just to simply declare it constantly dark. But what about bringing the light of the Lord by His truth and His love and His goodness and kindness, et cetera? By those who are united to Christ, we have been given incredible blessings in Jesus. We've been shown this goodness and kindness, and maybe we can speak some of that light into this sin-darkened world. Bring the light of Christ to your world, right where you live. And I can point to each one, right? I can't be there where you're meant to be, but you can't be where I'm meant to be. So we all bring that light. We leave this place. We don't keep it under a bushel. We take it into this dark world. And then we bring that love into our work and in our family and our friend group. That's the end of the second triad. We're into the third. You ready for your three-syllable words? Faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I've already leaned into faithfulness and even now the gentleness of God. The Lord God has certainly been faithful to his covenant promises throughout the ages. In this respect, we look at all of salvific history, all of redemptive history throughout the whole Bible, and we find it's still continuing right here in the 21st century, if you can believe it, even in an election year. Are you all with me? Even in our sin-darkened world, the light of Christ is being made manifest. Is it being manifest in you to this world? In this respect, Paul also speaks of the Son for all the promises of God and find there yes in Him. That's why it is through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory. Christ Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God's promises. So when we speak of Christ, we're speaking of a faithful God who has been gentle and good and kind and loving to us. And so also then into this world. He manifests this faithfulness of the triune God in his work in history, in all of saving history. If faithfulness marks our covenant Lord, then by way of application for those of us who are becoming more like Jesus, who know that it was God's intent before the foundation of the world, Romans 8, 29, to make us more like Christ is actually making his faithfulness known through you, by your conformity to Christ. It should also mark his covenant people, since we are being renewed in the image and likeness of our Savior, Jesus. We're being conformed and we're being transformed, remember, and we're being renewed evermore into his likeness, Romans 12 says. And so are our lives marked by gentleness and self-control. Though different virtues, they're closely related. The world around us is often devoid of these virtues. We most often hear about the lack of self-control or gentleness. Most of media is marked by a lack of gentleness and a lack of self-control. What leads and bleeds, right, the headlines, are not often examples of gentleness and love and self-control. But we, as the recipients of God's grace in Christ, maybe we should be the gentlest of all people. This is something that is very hard for me, I admit. But I try and practice in my innermost concentric circle and let the see the ripples effects of that. I often give this as an example, but I wonder in your life when you think about coming to the end of this list if your life is marked by self-control. And so I exhort you, especially the ones that I am closest with, I wonder if you would flip the list and don't start with love, start with self-control. And then gentleness. I love how some of you are smiling at this, right? Start with self-control, you hear me? And then move to gentleness and see if that can lead you all the way to greater love. Just an idea. Anyway, moving on. Notice, this is something that Paul will later exhort us. I want you to hear it now by way of example. I can give examples in your life, in my life, in the media, et cetera, and in the world, but notice where we're headed. Two verses ahead from where I stopped, look at verse one, please, of Galatians 6. Brothers, and that is, you know, you can see the little footnote, brothers and sisters, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore them in a spirit of gentleness. Let me ask you practically, if you would all look at me for a moment. Has your gentleness been this week passed? When you notice someone is sinning, especially against you, is your first inclination, gentleness to that person, right? All of you are smiling right now because you know it's probably not. What do you usually think? Vengeance is mine, right? Wrath, I love wrath. You love wrath and just judgment. But is gentleness your first intention when you're sinned against? It's a test, a measure of where our heart is and how much the Lord Jesus had been sinned against. And yet he showed incredible kindness and long-suffering and love. And we're gonna be exhorted, saints, probably in the next message to notice that we're exhorted. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. And by the way, if anyone's caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual are supposed to restore them with gentleness. Okay, so we got a real practice coming. Think about that. Is that your first inclination? Generally, it's not mine, I admit. But I am reminded as I hear that last encouragement, just to finish up the previous paragraph, look at verse 24, and those who belong to Christ, are you here this morning one who belongs to Christ? You have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And it's saying, you live by the Spirit, so let's also keep in step with the Spirit. Those encouragements are exhortations about your new life. In Christ, the old passed away. Behold, all things have become new in Christ. That's what 2 Corinthians 5.17 says about you. And so when I quoted Galatians 2.20, I'm ending that way. I've been crucified with Christ. I can say that of myself. That's what Paul taught me and taught the Galatians back in chapter two. We have been crucified with Christ. We no longer live. It's Jesus living through us. How is Jesus living through you? This paragraph closes this way, for those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. So we don't live according to those old desires of the flesh, we live this new life of the fruit of the Spirit. It's true of us now in Christ, so I'm answering my question that I opened with today. How do you possibly do this? How can I do this, Lord? I just keep beating myself up with this list of nine. I shall do this, I shall be more this, I shall be more that. You're in Christ. Abide in Christ. And so fulfill the law of Christ to love and be joyful and peaceful and patient and kind and good and faithful and gentle. And yes, even self-control. I answered that question for you purposely, so that when you begin to self-flagellate, when you begin to whip yourself with the fruit of the Spirit, you remember, it's not about me, it's about Christ in me, Christ abiding in me. So live according to that abiding in Christ, and so be fruitful, and he will do the pruning. His Father's the vinedresser. He will prune and make you more fruitful. Do you desire that? Then say, Lord, here I am. In closing, I asked it once already and I'm saying it again as we often do, a little bit more in Galatians than usual because we've been so firm about salvation by grace through faith on account of Christ. Do you belong to Jesus? Are you here this morning belonging to Christ? Have you become truly what He calls a new creation in Him by grace through faith? Are you truly crucified with Him and it's no longer you who live but it's Christ who lives in you? If not, talk to us. by turning from sin to the Savior, then this new life of fruitfulness is actually part of your inheritance, not by your own faithfulness, but by His faithfulness. So Jesus truly is living in and through you to fulfill the fruit. And that's a great promise because now I don't look at myself, I look to Jesus. And the good work that Jesus has begun He will never complete, he will always fail. Is that what Philippians 1, 6 says, saints? You all know it even when we paraphrase it. The good work that God began in you, in Christ, he will complete. He will fulfill these fruit in you because it's not by your power or your might, it's by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Remember, it's the fruit of the Holy Spirit at work within you. Is that better news than your, right? Praise the Lord, let's pray. So Jesus, we look to you. You are called in your word the author and perfecter of our faith. You're the author, perfecter, and finisher of our faith as we spoke that promise from Philippians 1.6. We thank you that the good work you've begun in us, you will carry to completion. We just seek to abide in you, Jesus. Come by your spirit and remind us just to walk with you. and talk with you and live in you. Be led by your spirit. You gave us your spirit as your counselor, our helper, our counselor and our comforter. In John 14, as we mentioned, we ask, O Lord, that you would do this work in us for your glory, because we pray and ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.