Weekly Sermon

1-15-12

 

I Am Set Free

 

We have just closed out a year that ended with an inspirational series about personal revival. We have learned many things about ourselves in that series. Now that we know these things about us, let us dig deeper with a new series. We are starting out on a new year and with what new year comes new growth, new seeds to plant, and new discoveries about our own selves. These new seeds and growths will be known as the fruits of the Holy Spirit. We will learn that it is only through these fruits that we can do anything in our lives. Let us jump right in to today's message.

 

What we will discuss today are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. This message will take us through a list of the fruits, as set forth, by God. Over the next few weeks we will take several of the fruits and learn how they will apply to our lives.

 

Before we get to our scripture let us learn what the fruit of the spirit means. The Fruit of the Holy Spirit is a biblical term that sums up the nine visible attributes of a true Christian life, according to Paul's Letter to the Galatians chapter 5. Throughout the Bible, righteous men are referred to as trees; Psalm 1, "Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. (2)But they delight in the law of the LORD, meditating on it day and night. (3)They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. (4)But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. (5)They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly. (6)For the LORD watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.", Proverbs 11:30, "The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life; a wise person wins friends."

 

We will be reading from Galatians chapter 5, where Paul will show us many things about how we are to be set free from this world and fully rely on God for our peace in this life.

 

Immediately before he shows Christ-like "love-one-another" love, Paul gives us a harsh warning in presenting a partial list of what he called "acts of the flesh" which he labels as "obvious": Galatians 5:19-21, "When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, (20)idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division,  (21)envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God." Notice how Paul gave us the circumstances of not following the fruits of the Holy Spirit before he actually tells about those fruits. This shows us how serious it is to fall away from the Holy Spirit.

 

When Paul gave us the warning first, with the negative list of sins, that did not state, nor does it anywhere in the Bible, that those sins are unpardonable. Yes, it states that those who live like that will not inherit the Kingdom of God, but this is refering to a constant lifestyle, NOT a sin that can be forgiven.

 

This is a common writing style of the Paul. I bring this up because, in these days and in this culture, things of great importance is repeated over and over. Let us see what Paul has done throughout his writings that will show us his sincerity and stern warning about this subject. Bare with me and all of this will come together very soon.

 

Romans 1:29-32, "Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. (30)They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. (31)They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. (32)They know God's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too."

 

Romans 13:13-14, "Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don't participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. (14)Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don't let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires."

 

1 Corinthians 6:9-10, "Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, (10)or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God."

 

2 Corinthians 12:20-21, "For I am afraid that when I come I won't like what I find, and you won't like my response. I am afraid that I will find quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorderly behavior. (21)Yes, I am afraid that when I come again, God will humble me in your presence. And I will be grieved because many of you have not given up your old sins. You have not repented of your impurity, sexual immorality, and eagerness for lustful pleasure." 

 

Philippians 4:8, "And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. "

 

We can see that Paul keeps making the same statements over and over. This shows us just how serious these offenses are in the eyes of God. If we really go back and dwell on each offense, we would see that one or more of these would apply in each of our lives. Let us look now at the title of this message again, "I am set free", and find out what it is that really sets us free from these warnings we have learned about.

 

Paul, in Galatians 5, explains what fruit a righteous tree bears. Accordingly, these fruits are grown by those who have truly repented, or are truly followers of Jesus, as it says in Matthew 3:8, "Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God." It is arguable that if someone does not bear these fruits, they are not truly a Christian. In John's account of the Gospel Jesus said, "These things I command you, that you love one another", John 15:17, referred to as the New Commandment or the second greatest commandment. Paul shows us with these attributes the kind of love that marks a true Christian life: Galatians 5:22-23, "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."

 

Today I want us to look at the first three fruits, of the Holy Spirit, that will get us started and lead us to the next fruits. Each fruit we learn about will bring us to a deeper insight of our selves and lead us to the next fruit.

 

The first fruit of the Holy Spirit that we will learn about is love. The "love" that we will talk about today will be different from any other love. Love is an emotion that we feel because of an action that we do or is done toward us. Let us learn about the love of the Holy Spirit. The word "love" comes from the Greek word "Agape". Agape means an undefeatable benevolence and unconquerable goodwill that always seeks the highest of others, no matter what they might do toward us. It is the self-giving love that gives freely without asking anything in return, and does not consider the worth of its object. Agape is more a love by choice than philos, which is love by chance; and it refers to the will rather than the emotion, as I stated above. Agape describes the unconditional love God has for the world. The "Agape" love is more than that, it is sacrificial, demonstrated by Jesus death on the cross, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything without weakening. 1Corinthians 13:7, "Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."

 

The next fruit is joy. The Greek word for 'joy' is Chara, and comes from the word charis, which is the Greek word for 'grace.' This is important to note because it tells us that Chara is produced by charis of God. This means 'joy' is not a human-based happiness that comes and goes, rather, true 'joy' is divine in origin and it is a Spirit-given expression that grows best in hard times. Oh but pastor how can we experience joy during hard times Let us take a look at a prime example. 1 Thessalonians 1:6-9, "So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. (7)As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Greece—throughout both Macedonia and Achaia. (8)And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don't need to tell them about it, (9)for they keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the living and true God. The Thessalonians were under great stress due to persecution; yet in the middle of it all, they continued to experience great joy. In fact, the Greek strongly implies that their supernatural joy was due to the Holy Spirit working in them. Paul even called it the "joy of the Holy Ghost". It was such an apparent joy that it not only kept them joyful, but poured out beyond their land to others that recognized it and wanted that same joy. According to Nehemiah 8:10, "The joy of the Lord is your strength". In Hebrews 12:2, Paul said it this way: "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Just think about Jesus and how He died on the cross and did it with joy.

 

The next, and last, fruit we will look at today is peace. Peace is the result of resting in a relationship with God. There are several points that I want us to go over here.

 

[1] Peace is a tranquility, a state of rest, that comes from seeking after God, or, the opposite of chaos. The word "peace" comes from the Greek word Eirene, the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew word shalom, which expresses the idea of wholeness, completeness, or tranquility in the soul that is unaffected by the outward circumstances or pressures. Does this sound familiar? We are all under some form of stress because of something or someone. How we handle it is all in the peace that we allow God to put inside us with the Holy Spirit. The word Eirene strongly suggests the rule of order in place of chaos. When a person is dominated by peace, he has a calm, inner stability that results in the ability to conduct himself peacefully, even in the midst of circumstances that would normally be very nerve-wracking, traumatic, or upsetting, rather than allowing the difficulties and pressures of life to break him, a person who is possessed by peace is whole, complete, orderly, stable, and poised for blessing. We are given peace so that we will be in the right position for a blessing. We have talked about this many times. You looking for YOUR blessing? You want to see that thing happen that you have been waiting on? Grab this fruit, it is sweet!

 

[2] Jesus is described as the Prince of Peace, who brings peace to the hearts of those who desire it. He says in John 14:27: "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." The only way to get this peace is to trust in the Jewish God, Yahweh, as Isaiah says, "The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in You." [Isaiah 26:3] Pastor there is so much going on that it would be impossible to have any type of peace. What do we say when the pressure gets too much for us? "Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of God no matter what the conflict." Amen. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."[Romans 5:1] "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."[Romans 15:13] When having peace with God through the sacrifice of Jesus, we are then able to make peace between men, and also between men and God, which is also called "evangelism." It is understood that those who have peace with God, are sons of God, and will act like their Father in heaven and become those who are able to make peace, or be peace makers, as Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God"[Matthew 5:7] and "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me."[John 8:42] Notice that, not even, Jesus came on His own. Jesus was sent with the power and by the power of God. We do not come on our own accord, but we come with the power of God. Do not lean on our selves, but lean on God ONLY. So by saying this, Jesus is stating that only those who have received peace with God through Himself, the "sons of God", are able to make peace, no one else. These sons of God are specified by John when he says, "None of those who are children of God continue to sin, for God’s very nature is in them; and because God is their Father, they cannot continue to sin"[1John 3:15]. Paul also says, "Never pay back evil for evil. Take thought for what is right in the sight of all men."[Romans 12:17] Peace, in the Bible, is much more than just a lack of yelling or lack of war, it is the presence of Yahwah, allowed into a place and a person. Only with the God is there peace, as Isaiah writes, "'There is no peace,' says the Lord, 'for the wicked.'"

 

First we must first find that Agape love, a true love, no matter what is done to us or against us. In the times of hardship and depression we must dig deep and find that true joy that ONLY God can bring. Finally, if we find those two, we will discover the peace that God gives us to endure all the wrong that we feel is in our lives. Let us dig deep inside that newly revived Christian, from our personal revival, and discover the fruits that are growing inside each and every one of us.

 

Are you ready to discover your fruits? It is an instant harvest of fruit, just add God. If you are ready to start on this road of discovering the real you and what path God has for you, all you have to do, to get started, is to say a simple prayer with me.

 

Say this simple prayer with me, Dear Lord, I want you to be the Lord over my life, forgive me of my sins, and give me the gift of everlasting life. Amen.

 

If you have said this simple prayer, then we believe that you have received salvation. We would love to rejoice with you, so please drop us a note, in our link, to let us know and confess Jesus before man, so that we may send you a few things that we hope will help you in your new Christian walk.

 

With Love in Christ,

 

  Pastor Stone