FRUIT DOESN’T LIE
We started a new series last week on the fruit of the Spirit, and we said that fruit doesn’t lie. Or, in Jesus’ words: “The tree is known by his fruit.” The Pharisees spewed venomous words, so Jesus called them vipers.
But the fruit that the Holy Spirit produces is from the inside out. The Pharisees were focused on the outside—but they were whited sepulchers—pretty graves—full of dead men’s bones. They were outwardly compliant but inwardly dead.
How do we avoid that?
Abide in the vine. John 15. It’s the vine that produces worthwhile fruit.
Oh, our flesh can produce fruit too, but it’s not good. In church life, we’d discipline someone over the fruit of Galatians 5:19–20: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft… murders, drunkenness, revellings…
But what about the others we looked at? “…hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings… and such like.” Those are more common. So common, in fact, that they’re almost accepted.
I wonder why?
I don’t have an answer to why, but I know the second list is as bad as the first (which includes murder!), and both lists come from the same source: THE FLESH. Equally bad, it’s not from the Spirit.
God, help us to have fruit in us that comes from you.
His fruit looks different, the first of which we’ll spend tonight’s study on:
Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
–Pastor Ryan