16 – So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
17 – 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 that you are not to do whatever you want.
18 – But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 – The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;
20 – idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
21 – 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.
22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 – gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
24 – Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 – Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Kenneth Helphand is a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Oregon and apparently this college professor is like the Adamses—because he likes to go to yard sales. While shopping at one recently Helphand found and purchased an old stereopticon. A stereopticon is a device that was popular around the end of the 19th century. It allowed the viewer to see 2-D pictures in 3-D.
The stereopticon that Helphand bought had a picture that depicted a scene of shelters in French military trenches during World War I—shelters that were surrounded by GARDENS. This made Helphand curious and after some research, he discovered that gardens were often created in times of war. For example, victory gardens like the one in this picture were planted all over the United States during WW II. In the midst of that same horrible conflict, gardens were planted in Jewish ghettos and in German POW camps and in Japanese-American internment camps in the U.S. Gardens were planted by people who lived in the war-torn areas of Sarajevo. And today, gardens are sprouting up in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Understand—these gardens are more than a source of food. They are symbols of survival—symbols of life—in the midst of the most difficult of circumstances. Helphand says, “They are an obdurate refusal to give in to the horror of the hell so close at hand.” He goes on to call them “defiant gardens.”
I was drawn to this story because there is a very real sense in which you and I are called to plant our own “defiant gardens.” After all, as followers of the Christ, we are living in enemy territory. Every day we work and raise our families in a culture that embraces morals that are increasingly contrary to the teachings of the Bible—a society where Christians are often ridiculed for their faith. And in this hostile environment our Lord has called us to bear fruit in keeping with righteousness. We are to grow and mature such that we give evidence of the fact that we are becoming more like Jesus and less like the world. I think this principle is what Paul was talking about in Romans 12:2 when he said, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This transformation is seen in the way that we produce attitudes and actions that are like our Lord.
Of course this kind of growth is part and parcel of developing our second nature so in keeping with our vision, for the next eight weeks we are going to study spiritual gardening. We’re going to look at the kind of fruit that we should produce in our lives—specifically the fruit Paul lists in our text for this morning: goodness, peace, love, joy, patience, self-control, gentleness, and faith.
We have a great line-up of gifted teachers—“gardening experts”—to help us learn how to cultivate these virtues: CC Day, Charlie Brinkman, Roger Price, Kevin Freeman, and Bobby Cook. I’ll miss most of this study because I leave on my sabbatical tomorrow but I will be praying for you while I’m gone—and I look forward to seeing evidence of a couple hundred productive “defiant gardens” when I return. I encourage you to not miss a single Sunday because it is vital that we each learn to produce this kind of “fruit.” Otherwise we can’t experience the ABUNDANT life we all yearn for—the kind of life God promises. And understand, we NEED God’s help in this “gardening” because it is His divine power—it is God’s Spirit in us that empowers us to grow. This is what Jesus was getting at in John 15:5 when He said, “If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Another thing I want you to note as we begin this study is that these fruits—these virtues—are not just virtues in and of themselves but rather, as Mark Buchanan puts it, they are also,“…SEED BEDS of goodness…in that they GENERATE VIRTUOUSNESS.” To explain what Buchanan is getting at let’s use GOODNESS as an example. It’s a wonderful trait all on its own. Wouldn’t you agree? Don’t you like people who are known for their goodness? Well, one reason we esteem this quality is because we have learned that goodness has the power to produce or generate other admirable qualities—qualities like forgiveness, repentance, humility, unity, and trustworthiness. Goodness builds community, enriches friendship, and inspires servanthood. It does indeed “generate virtuousness” — as do the other spiritual fruits.
And if this isn’t enough motivation for us to strive to grow them, I want to point out a second advantage of this kind of “gardening.” In a sense, the fruits we are going to be studying also function as “ANTIDOTES” FOR SIN. To show you what I mean, let’s use SELF-CONTROL as an example because like a base neutralizing an acid, SELF-CONTROL neutralizes sins like gossip and lust and gluttony. The other spiritual fruits have a similar effect on other sins. The fact is, where they flourish sinful attitudes and actions tend to whither.
Okay—as we begin, take a moment to examine our life as a believer. How ABUNDANT is it? How VICTORIOUS is it? How close do you feel to God? To what extent are you experiencing the joy and fulfillment of joining Him in His great work? If your walk with Jesus is less than abundant—if you find yourself falling into sin—could it be due to the fact that the “garden of your life” isn’t productive? Could your feelings of defeat and frustration stem from your NOT making every effort to develop or produce these Godly qualities?
One more thing before we “plow” into our study. I want to let you know that, other than the Bible, those of us who will be delivering these messages are relying on two main books to compliment our study:
- Mark Buchanan’s book, Hidden In Plain Sight and
- Jerry Bridges book, The Fruitful Life.
I invite you to pick up a copy of both or either and study along with us! We have multiple copies of both books in our church library.
Okay, let’s begin by looking at the first “fruit” on our list: FAITH. I think it is important for us to BEGIN here because FAITH is foundational to the other fruit we need to produce in the garden of our life. Faith is essential because it takes faith to believe that God will grow us—that He will indeed shape us to be more like Jesus. Faith is the conviction that God will work in all things for our good—using everything that happens to us to help us grow as believers. Faith is the belief that says, “Yes, I can mature. I can produce spiritual fruit. I can become known for goodness, peace, love, joy, patience, self-control, and gentleness. I can do great things for God. With His help I can become a faithful—faith-filled person.” Perhaps we should think of faith as the SOIL that nurtures the seeds of all the other fruit in this list.
On a recent visit to two California vineyards, author Margaret Feinberg discovered that vintners must adopt a long-term approach to their work. According to Feinberg: “The first year a vintner plants shoots of vines rather than seeds because these yield the strongest vines. At the end of the first growing season, he cuts them back. A second year passes. He cuts them back again. Only after the third year does he see his first viable clusters of grapes. Serious vintners leave those clusters on the vines. For most vintners, it’s not until year four that they bring in their first harvest. For those growing grapes for winemaking, they’ll bottle their harvest, but won’t taste the fruit of their labors until year seven or eight. Most vineyards in Napa Valley won’t reach a breakeven point for their investment until year fifteen, eighteen or beyond.”
Applying these insights to her spiritual life, Feinberg writes, “Sometimes I look at my own life and wonder, ‘Why am I not more fruitful? And why does pruning have to hurt so much? Why does cultivating a healthy crop take so long?’ Yet those questions circle around the here and now. God’s perspective is much different. Like a good vineyard owner, He knows how to bring about fruitfulness better than I ever will. And He is patient with me, more patient than I am with myself … [Also], as we fulfill our callings … we must recognize that like the vintner’s, our fruitfulness will not come overnight. The first harvest of our labors may not come for three or five years.”
As Feinberg points out, faith is important because it helps us to hang in there. It empowers us to believe that our gardens will grow. So that’s where we will begin. Now, as we start our study of this foundational “fruit” — faith — I want you to note that everyone—even non-Christians—have faith in something. John Bisagno once put it this way, “Faith is the heart of life. Think of it. You go to a doctor whose name you can’t pronounce. He gives you a prescription you cannot read. You take it to a pharmacist you have never seen. He gives you medication you do not understand—and yet you take it.” That’s living by faith isn’t it?! The truth is none of us can get through a single day without living by faith. When you flip a light switch you put faith in the electrical wiring. When you turn the ignition switch in your car, you trust the starter and the motor. When you snail mail a letter you have faith in the US Mail Service. When you punch in a number on your cell phone you put your faith in Verizon. When you sit in those soft wine-colored chairs you have faith that I’m going to stop preaching in time for you to eat lunch. Everyone has faith in something. But of course I’m not talking about these everyday varieties of faith. No—the GROWING Christian is a person who learns to live every day of their lives by faith IN GOD. With that in mind, let’s start our gardening by looking at what Biblical faith—faith in God—is NOT.
(1) First, Biblical faith is not faith in FAITH.
I say this because in Christian circles many times we link the effectiveness of our faith to how strongly we can convince ourselves that there will be a positive outcome to a particular situation.
We decide to exert our will power such that no doubt will enter our minds. We convince ourselves that if we pump our faith up enough, God will honor our desires. We sing, pray, read Scripture, scold ourselves for any second thoughts—and try to convince ourselves that we can believe enough to get God to do what we think is right. But that is not BIBLICAL faith because thinking like that is not a trust in GOD’S wisdom and power. No—it is confidence in OURSELVES and the amount of belief we have conjured up in an attempt to control God.
This is the kind of false faith that fuels the NAME IT CLAIM it or BLAB IT AND GRAB IT philosophy that so many television preachers have proclaimed over the years. And this flawed kind of faith will not outlast the first major disappointment of life. I mean, when we can’t claim what we name or grab what we blab—when a loved one is not healed or a promotion does not come through or an unforeseen tragedy hits—false faith like this will crumble like a stack of cards in a gentle breeze.
In their book, We Let Our Son Die, Larry and Lucy Parker recount the tragic story of the way they embraced this kind of misguided faith. In painful and painstaking detail, Larry and his wife paint the picture of how they had come to believe that if they just had enough faith, God would heal their diabetic son. Eventually, their son Wesley got ill and needed insulin. Believing that God would heal Wesley, they withheld the insulin and, predictably, Wesley lapsed into a diabetic coma. The Parkers, warned by some about the impropriety of not having enough faith, believed that God would heal Wesley. Unfortunately, Wesley died. But even after Wesley’s death, the Parkers, undaunted in their “faith,” conducted a resurrection service rather than a funeral service. In fact, for more than a year following his death, they refused to abandon their firmly held faith that like Jesus, Wesley would rise from the dead. Eventually, both Larry and Lucy were tried and convicted of manslaughter and child abuse. Well, their nightmare is the result of faith in their own FAITH—not faith in God. Theirs was not Biblical faith but rather a warped form of religious positive thinking. It was faith in faith rather than faith in Him Who is faithful.
The late Ron Mehl, who endured Leukemia by embracing a Biblical faith in God and who finally succumbed to that disease several years ago wrote a book for his sons to read after his death. He titled his book After Words and in it he says, “Faith isn’t trying to manipulate God or circumstances to get what I want. It is resting in Him so that I can have what HE wants.” And Mehl was right! Genuine faith—Biblical faith—does not believe that God will do what WE say. It is a faith that knows and trusts that God will do what HE says. It is a faith that acknowledges God’s limitless wisdom and knowledge and goodness—a faith that says He knows more than we do and that He is always working out His absolutely perfect purposes. Genuine faith is resting on the promises of God, no matter what happens—His assurances that we will encounter hardship and heartache in this life but that He is with us and is working in all things for our good and His glory—and that when this life ends we’ll enter that perfect world where everything will be set right.
Let me put it this way—Biblical faith is a RELATIONSHIP of trust in God. It’s an experience-built confidence in the character of our Heavenly Father. You see, faith in and of itself is worthless. The value of faith is rooted in the soundness and worthiness of its object. Buchanan says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God but without God it is impossible to have good faith. Faith like that has nowhere to lay its head.”
(2) This leads to a second thing Biblical faith is NOT. It’s not a BLIND LEAP in the dark.
You see, some people think faith in God means you ignore logic and reason. For example, many are like TV’s Dr. House in that they ridicule Christians for their faith that God exists, saying that kind of faith makes no sense. But, the truth is, believing there is NO God requires an unreasonable kind of faith. I mean, if atheists, agnostics, or secular humanists put their faith into words it might sound like this: “By faith we believe that this amazingly intricate universe evolved from mindless matter. We believe that order accidentally emerged from chaos.” Of course, they are hard-pressed to find any EVIDENCE for this “statement of faith”—because true scientific observation consistently proves that ORDER does not grow from CHAOS and that DESIGN points to a Designer. I don’t know about you but I find my Christian faith more logical—more reasonable. When it comes to my statement of faith I look to Hebrews 11:3 where it says, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
Do you see what I’m saying? Both creeds require faith. But only Christian faith is actually compatible with logic and reason. Ours is a faith that is based on historical evidence and scientific observation. It is supported by the Biblical record, by personal testimony, and—as I inferred a moment ago—by our own experiences. As I told you in this week’s SOWER article, we can look UP and DOWN and ALL AROUND and see the fingerprints of our Creator. And as Christians we can also look BACK and SEE evidence that God is worthy of the trust and faith we put in Him. I mean, the longer we walk with God, the more we know Him and the more we know Him the more we know that we can trust Him.
Author Tim Hansel tells the story about the day he and his son Zac were out in the country, climbing around in some cliffs. Hansel says at one point in the day he heard a voice above him yell, “Hey Dad! Catch me!” He turned around to see Zac jumping off a rock, flying straight at him. Apparently, Zac had jumped first and then yelled, “Hey Dad! Catch me!” Well, Hansel became an instant circus act, instinctively twisting to catch his son in mid air. They both fell to the ground and for a moment Hansel could hardly talk. When he found his voice again he gasped in exasperation: “Zac! Can you give me one good reason why you did that?” Zac responded with remarkable calmness: “Sure! Because you’re my dad!” Zac’s assurance was based on the fact that he believed his father was trustworthy. He’d no doubt experienced his dad’s quick instincts and firm grip in the past. His relationship with his father deepened his faith and enabled him to live life to the hilt. He could risk the joy of that jump because he was confident—he rested in—the strength and love of his father that he had experienced every day of his life.
OKAY—enough of the NEGATIVE. What IS faith? What is this “soil” that is required if we are to produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives?
(1) Well, flowing from my last point I’ll say that FAITH is BELIEVING in what we can’t always SEE.
As Hebrews 11:1 puts it, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Now—the phrases “being sure” and “do not see” seem to contradict each other—but people who practice genuine faith know that there is no contradiction because the Bible teaches us that real faith ANTICIPATES. It VISUALIZES the future in the present—It SEES in advance—it believes God’s purposes will prevail somewhere out there over the horizon. So it IS being sure even of what you don’t YET see.
NOAH embraced this aspect of faith. Remember? He was warned about an impending flood. He had never even seen rain before, much less enough water to flood the world, but he was so sure of this future event that—IN FAITH—he built the ark as instructed by God. You see, when we accurately understand God’s character we can embrace a faith that does not SEE and then BELIEVE. Instead it BELIEVES and then it SEES. It’s believing in a future that you cannot see. Matthew Henry put it this way. “Faith demonstrates to the eye of the MIND the reality of these things which cannot be discerned by the eye of the BODY.”
The great musician RAY CHARLES went blind at age seven. When he was just a small child something gathered over his eyes and turned his world grainy and gray—finally closing him in utter darkness. He lived his childhood in rural poverty in a one-room shack at the edge of a sharecropper’s field. In the popular film about his life that came out a few years back there is a scene from this chapter of his life. Ray runs into his house and trips over a chair. He starts to wail for his mother. She stands at the stove, right in front of him and instinctively reaches out to lift him. Then she stops. Backs up. Stands still. Watches. In a moment Ray stops crying. He quiets. He listens. He hears, behind him, the water on the wood stove whistling to a boil. He hears, outside, the wind pass like a hand through the corn stalks. He hears the thud of horse hooves on the road, the creak and clatter of the wagon they pull. Then he hears, in front of him, the thin faint stretch of a grasshopper walking the worn floorboards of his mama’s cottage. He inches over and, attentive now to every sigh and twitch, gathers the tiny insect in his hand. He holds it in his open palm and says, “I hear you too, Mamma.” She weeps with pride and sorrow and wonder. Later in the film Ray explains to someone, “I hear like you see.”
Well, as Buchannan puts it, “This is faith’s motto: I HEAR LIKE YOU SEE. I trust in God—in what He’s done and is doing and will do—as much, even more than others trust in what they touch and taste and see.” Faith is believing in that which is often imperceptible from our limited perspective.
(2) And then second, FAITH is ACTING on what we can’t always UNDERSTAND.
You see, faith is not only a way of SEEING—it is also a way of LIVING. Faith makes us into faithful people. Faith produces faithfulness. Let me put it this way. Genuine FAITH is more of a VERB than it is a NOUN. Hebrews 11:8 says: “It was faith that made Abraham OBEY when God called him to go out to a country God had promised to him. He left his own country without knowing where he was going.” Abraham’s faith motivated him to obey God even when it meant leaving his homeland and heading off for some unknown destination—a trip that must not have made much sense to him. And the truth is many times God’s commands don’t make sense to you and me. As Oswald Chambers says, “Common sense is not faith and faith is not common sense.” I like the way Chambers puts it because as it says in Proverbs 3, faith often requires us to “…lean not on our own understanding.”
The fact that God’s instructions didn’t make sense to Abraham didn’t stop Him from acting on his faith. And his example teaches us that authentic faith is always characterized by ACTION.
Look at the men and women of faith listed in Hebrew 11—that Hall of Heroes of Faith. Their faith in the FUTURE made them ACT in the PRESENT because genuine faith is not passive. No—it is dynamic and forceful. Truly faithful people actively obey God day in and day out.
Listen to their achievements beginning with verse 32: “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. (Hebrews 11:32-35) The faith-filled ACTIVITIES of these people have changed the course of history—because their faith led them to boldly ACT in obedience to God!
I think that one of the first science fiction novels I read as a teenager was H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. If you read it or have seen movie adaptations of it, then you know that the only way you could tell if the invisible man was in the room, was if things were moving. There would be a teacup and a saucer going across thin air about this high. Or a hat would be hanging in thin air with nothing underneath it—or a door would slam. So, the only way you could tell the invisible man was there was by his ACTIONS—the effect that he had on the things around him.
And we see genuine faith in people who claim to be Christians by their actions. One way to put it would be to say that faith is a belief in the UNSEEN that can be SEEN by others. This is what James 2:18 means when it says, “Show me your faith without deeds. I’ll show you my faith by what I do.” You see, the truth is people know what we BELIEVE by the way that we BEHAVE.
So let’s ask ourselves this morning: What would people who know us and work with us—people who share our car pools and play dates—what would they say we believe? What would they say about our faith? Would they say that you are a faithful person? This is an important question for us to consider because genuine faith is VISIBLE.
One of the reasons many churches don’t grow is because their members don’t embrace this kind of faith. Instead, they have a “deedless faith.” [As Buchannan puts it] their motto is, “…believe but carry on as usual.”
When it comes to belief in God we often put people in one of two groups: THEISTS and ATHEISTS. We group them according to those who believe in God and those who don’t. Well, in Our Daily Bread, Vernon Grounds points out that we need a third category: APATHEISTS. That’s APATHY joined to THEISM, indifference married to creed. I mean, APATHEISTS believe in God but don’t really care. They’re glad God is out there, somewhere doing something, hearing prayers and spinning planets—but His existence impinges little on their own. It doesn’t guide their actions, shape their decisions, or correct their attitudes. God is not a present, urgent reality to them. Instead He’s a distant, occasionally interesting idea. Their belief is such that it doesn’t prompt them to do anything. SAD!
In 1959 the USSR leader Nikita Khrushchev made an unprecedented visit to America. This was right after the death of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. Khrushchev was his successor and he had already caused a global stir in a speech he gave in which he had denounced Stalin’s many atrocities: his genocidal policies against the Ukraine, his cold-blooded assassination of anyone who had become “redundant,” anyone whose existence no longer served “the party.” Khrushchev criticized Stalin for his purges—the way he ruthlessly killed anyone he didn’t trust, which was almost everyone.
Khrushchev was scheduled to appear at the National Press Club in Washington and it was widely expected he would deliver an abbreviated version of his Politburo speech. Every newspaper and magazine of any standing made sure they had at least one reporter present so the room was packed. Khrushchev did not disappoint: he delivered—via translator—a shortened but potent indictment of his former boss, complete with corroborating evidence. When he finished he the floor for questions. Someone called out from the crowd, “Mr. Khrushchev, you have just given us an account of Mr. Stalin’s many crimes against humanity. You were his right-hand man during much of that time. Well, what were YOU doing while all this was going on?” The question was translated to Khrushchev and when he heard it he exploded in anger, “Who said that!?” he demanded. No one answered. “Who said that?” he bellowed at the audience. There was only silence. “Who said that?” Again there was just SILENCE. Everyone present just LOOKED AT THEIR SHOES. Khrushchev said, “That’s what I was doing.”
Unfortunately his inaction illustrates the “faith” of many Christians—a workless faith characterized by looking at our shoes and doing nothing while a lost world slips further and further from God. Remember, Jesus says that on the day of Judgment He will be able to SEE His true followers in one way: they will WEAR their faith. Their belief will be translated faith into action. When confronted with the hungry, the suffering, the poor, the imprisoned, they will be those who didn’t look at their shoes. In faith, they will have said, “Here I am. Send me.”
Well, is your faith the kind that makes you an expert on the state of your footwear or is it the kind that makes you wear your shoes out as you obediently allow Jesus to use your feet and your hands and your voice to share His love with those who desperately need it?
We always close our service by singing a hymn to give us an opportunity to respond to God in faith. This morning God may be calling you to trust Him with your eternal destiny by deciding today to become a Christian. You see your need for a personal FAITH relationship with Jesus Christ. If that describes where you are—if you see that you need the anchor that Jesus gives, come and share that decision with me. God may be speaking to some Christians present—convicting them to lay aside their APATHEISM by getting involved in His great work in some way. Perhaps He is calling you to join this church and WORK OUT YOUR FAITH by serving God here with us. I welcome hearing your decision whatever it may be. Will you walk here to the front and share it with me now as we stand to sing?