Fruit of the Spirit
Galatians 5:22-23

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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

I’ve got an apple here. Do you like apples? How many of you like apples? If you don’t like apples, then you’ll have to do me a favor today, and you’ll have to imagine that this apple is your favorite fruit—a banana, a strawberry, or whatever. Now imagine that someone you love walks up and hands you a piece of fruit like this—an apple with a big brown sore where it got bruised, a banana that’s all black and a bit soft, a strawberry that has begun to leak its red juice from a squishy spot. Sometimes we do this to each other. We take not such great fruit and we hand it to each other. Well, that is what this morning’s epistle lesson is about. The fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh. The fruit of the Spirit—like a good, green, healthy Golden Delicious apple that looks so good and tastes so good when you eat it and provides nourishment, and the works of the flesh—like the other side of this apple, like the strawberries at the bottom of the bottom container in the supermarket, like the bananas that have set on the counter while you were on vacation and left the house at 80 degrees. “Walk by the Spirit,” Paul says, “and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16 ESV). Instead, by the power of God’s Spirit working in you, you will bear the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23 ESV).

“Now the works of the flesh are evident,” Paul tells us. We all know what they are. Even people who aren’t Christians will generally agree that much of this is bad stuff. The list is divided into four groups—the New International Version actually puts semicolons in to separate the three groups, but our English Standard Version does not. The first group has three items: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality” (Galatians 5:19 ESV). These are sexual sins. People who are married sleeping with other people; people who are not married sleeping with each other; homosexual acts. They also include acts that are a little more subtle: looking at girly magazines, viewing pornography on the internet, sending pictures of him- or herself on the phone, as some teenagers have taken to doing. This is all sexual sin, and it is all a work of the sinful flesh. You and I have to be very careful about these. The list goes on, this time, with two items: “idolatry and sorcery” (Galatians 5:20 ESV). Idolatry means worshiping anything besides the true God—it could be money, a car, the nice toys you’ve accumulated in your shed, your collection of knick-knacks, the way you look. Sorcery means tapping into powers that do not come from God. Young people, if you ever go to a slumber party and your friends ask you to play on the Ouija Board with them, say no. Leave. Call your parents and go home, because that is sorcery, and Christians do not seek any power besides the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

The next part of the list is longest, and it’s the one that hits closest to home for most of us: “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy” (Galatians 5:20 ESV). These all have to do with how we think about one another and how we treat one another. These are the ones where it’s like giving your brother or sister in Christ a rotten apple or a gooey banana or a squishy strawberry. Enmity—hating someone, holding a grudge, choosing not to forgive. Strife—fighting, bickering, provoking one another. Jealousy—wanting what other people have, tearing down people who have what you want. Fits of anger—outbursts, temper tantrums. Rivalries—jealousy that turns into unhealthy competition, vying for power, struggling for authority. Dissensions, divisions—factions, rifts, people talking behind one another’s backs, trying to win people to your side, casting doubt on someone’s reputation. Envy—much like jealousy. When we do these things, we are handing our brothers and sisters in Christ, we are handing our family members rotten apples. These do not come from the Spirit. These flow from the flesh, along with the last two list on the list: “drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:21 ESV). These are not good. These are not the works of people who are walking in the Spirit. These come out of our sinful flesh.

What’s more, these works of the flesh take you away from God and separate you from one another. These will shipwreck your faith. These will tear apart the body of Christ. They leave families in shambles. That’s why you and I are to avoid them. How serious is this? John the Baptist said, “Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10 ESV). Through the Apostle Paul he says, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21 ESV). These works of the flesh will keep you out of heaven. These are the ones that will take you to hell.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22 ESV). God has set you free. Through the cross of Jesus Christ, he set you free from the law, so you don’t have to worry about earning your way to heaven any more. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, he set you free from fear, and you live in the perfect confidence that he will raise you to eternal life in heaven. All your sins are completely forgiven. In fact, God has treated you with the fruit of the Spirit. Through his love, he gives you the joy of heaven, and through his love, he gives you peace with the Father. He is patient—“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 ESV). He is kind and good toward you, even though you are by nature his enemy. He is faithful to his promise to save you, even though it meant sending his Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross. God rescues you with all the gentleness of a tender shepherd who loves his sheep. Self-control—even when Jesus was whipped and scourged, and did not cry out in anger, but instead said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34 ESV). But there’s one thing to remember about the fruit of the Spirit. I could say to you today, “Go and do likewise.” But that would be sort of like saying, “Why don’t you go and plant a garden without seeds.” These are the fruit of the Spirit, and you and I don’t control the Spirit. The Spirit grows up within us as we hear God’s word, as we confess our sins to God and to one another, as we receive forgiveness from one another and from God, as we eat the body and the blood of Jesus in the sacrament of the altar. The Spirit comes to us, enters our heart, and there the Spirit plants an orchard. He puts the seeds of his love down there, and through the word and sacraments he waters those seeds and they begin to sprout up. They affect your heart and thinking, and then they blossom in the way you treat the people around you. “I am the vine,” Jesus said; “you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 ESV). To bear the fruit of the Spirit, you’re going to need some help—you’re going to need the Spirit working in your life. Love: love is that attachment that wants to do good to somebody, even if it means sacrificing on my own part. How can you love somebody else sacrificially? Remember this: God so loved you that he sent his only begotten Son that if you believe in him you will not perish but have eternal life. Joy: that inner attitude of confidence even when life is less than great. How can you have joy when life doesn’t go your way? Remember this: Jesus promised, “In my Father’s house are many mansion, many rooms, and I am going to prepare a place for you” (John 14:42 composite). On Easter he rose from the dead, and so you too will rise from the dead no matter what this world throws at you. Eternal joy is yours through Jesus. Peace: how can you enjoy peace with the people around you, especially when are not peaceful to you? Recall that Jesus has made peace between you and God, even when you did not deserve it, and through Christ he teaches you to forgive those around you. Patience. Is it easy to be patient toward somebody who is mean to you? No! For you and I to bear the fruit of patience, we have to be reminded how patient God is toward us, that even though we are sinners, he waits, he sends people and he waits, so that you and I and everybody else will have ample opportunity to hear the good news and to repent. Kindness, goodness. To be kind to someone who is not kind to you, remind yourself how kind Jesus was when your hands helped to put him on the cross. To do good to those who hurt you, remember that “while we were still enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10 ESV). Faithfulness. There are times when faithfulness is really difficult, when it’s hard to stay true to your promise. How do you do it? Don’t search within yourself, don’t look for your inner strength. Look to God who was faithful to you to the point of sending Jesus to die for you, and there you will find the Spirit working faithfulness in you. Gentleness. Think of yourself as a sheep being carried by your tender shepherd. Self-control. What do you do when your desires take you toward sin? You exercise self-control, but again, the strength does not come from within you. It comes from our Savior Jesus, who exercised self-control by turning his face to Jerusalem, to the cross, to redeem you and me. That is where you will find true self-control.

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25 ESV). That means not feeding one another a rotten apple or a squishy banana or a soggy strawberry. That is sin, and it flows out of sin. That is not how the people of God act toward one another. Instead, bear the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23 ESV). When we live by the Spirit, when we receive God’s forgiveness in word and sacrament and live at peace with one another, we are doing something that the world does not understand. We are giving a picture of true unity, of true harmony, of people who can get along even though we’re sinners and even though we sometimes treat each other poorly, of people who can bring our sin to one another out of love in order to live with one another in forgiveness. How often does that happen in your workplace? But we can have that in the church. As Paul says, “through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14 ESV). Don’t feed each other bad fruit. Bear the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of peace. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.