Flesh Works vs Spirit Fruit

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Look at your Bibles and turn to Galatians 5.
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We're going to finish the chapter today, Lord willing.
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We'll see how it goes.
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We're going to begin in verse 16.
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We're going to read to the end of the chapter and our focus is going to be on verses 22 to the end, but I think verse 16 helps us pick up the context.
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If you remember in the first portion of Galatians, Paul has been arguing against the Judaizers, those who would say that to be a Christian, you must also keep the ceremonial laws of the Jewish people, meaning you must be circumcised, you must keep the dietary restrictions, you must maintain the Sabbath day, and Paul was saying no, those things are not required because we are now living on this side of the cross and on this side of the cross we live by faith in the work of Christ and we do not live under the law, particularly those laws that were meant to distinguish the Jewish people.
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And so we get to chapter 5 and Paul says in chapter 5, verse 1, for freedom Christ has set you free and we've talked about what that means.
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Freedom in Christ means freedom of conscience, freedom from condemnation.
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We're no longer condemned.
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But that does not mean that we are free to live ruthlessly, sinfully, arrogantly.
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It doesn't mean that we're free to live in sin.
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It means we're free to live in Christ and live for Christ, which would mean that we would seek to be followers of His example.
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And certainly He was one who was in every way like us except without sin.
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So we get to verse 16 and Paul begins to tell us about walking by the Spirit.
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And the last several weeks we've been over this, but I'm going to read it to you beginning at verse 16.
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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.
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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.
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But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
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Now the works of the flesh are evident.
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Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
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I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
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Against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
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Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
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This is the Word of the Lord.
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Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I pray that now as I seek to give an understanding of it, that You would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I am a fallible man, capable of error, and I don't want to preach error because of the sake of Your name, and the sake of these men and their hearts, and for the sake of my own conscience.
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And I pray, Lord, that everything that is said today would be in accordance with Your Word.
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And I pray, Lord, also that it would be moved by Your Spirit, taught by Your Spirit, and received by hearts that have been opened by Your Spirit.
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For Lord God, if the Spirit is not working, then we teach in vain.
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We pray all this in Christ's name, Amen.
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One of the things that is very evident as we look out at the world right now is that there is a lot of hate in the hearts of men and women.
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We live in a world filled with hatred.
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Men make up reasons to hate one another.
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I hate you because you look different.
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I hate you because you sound different.
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I hate you because you come from a different place.
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They make up all kinds of reasons to hate one another.
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And if you go back to the last study we did, in fact, the last two studies, the works of the flesh, if you'll remember in your mind what they were, there were like 15 of them that Paul gives us.
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And that's just a relative sample.
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That's not all of the works of the flesh.
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That's just some.
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But if you notice, when you go down that list, most of them have at the heart hatred for one another.
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What did we say that the majority of the works of the flesh were focused on? Social sins.
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Remember, it starts with sexual immorality and impurity and sensuality, those things that most people at least would accept there are something wrong with that.
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You know the one thing that most people still agree on? Adultery is wrong.
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Because if you commit adultery, whether you call yourself a cheater, and most people still consider, even in a world that's lost its morals, if you commit adultery, that's wrong.
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So the first three of the works of the flesh is sexual immorality, which would include fornication and adultery.
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Okay, that's wrong.
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Sensuality, that's lusting for the flesh.
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God is their bellies, is the way the Bible describes it.
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Wants what the flesh wants all the time.
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Moved by the senses, that's what sensuality means.
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And we see that.
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And then it goes into idolatry, which is putting things before God.
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But then it quickly moves into the works of the flesh that are social.
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The first one is enmity, which means hatred.
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Literally just means hatred of other people.
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And then the strife and jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies.
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All of these, with the exception maybe of drunkenness, are purely behaviors towards others.
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And what do we say drunkenness, how does it fit into that? What's that? Yeah, if you're already a jerk, it just makes you more of a jerk.
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Yeah, they say, well, drinking accentuates my personality.
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Well, that's not good if you're a jerk.
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It just makes you more of a jerk.
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And so if you're already a hateful person, and then you become an alcoholic, you're just a hateful alcoholic.
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Yeah, it intensifies whatever your attitude is.
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And so we see hatred as really the heart of the works of the flesh.
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And hatred expresses itself in different ways.
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Jealousy, I want what you have, and I feel like I deserve it more, and I hate that you have it.
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That's jealousy.
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It's hatred.
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Envy, I feel like I should be able to be where you are, and have what you have, and do what you do, and be able to do what you do.
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And I hate you that I can't do what you do.
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And that's the hate that we see beginning at verse 19 and going through verse 21.
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But then we come to verse 22 and we find this great contrast.
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We see the word but, and if you've been here long enough, you've probably heard Brother Mark talk about the importance of the word but.
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It's an adversative conjunction, which means it changes something.
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You know if somebody says, if a woman tells you, you're a really nice guy, but you don't want to hear what's coming next.
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Because whatever it is, it's not good.
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Exactly.
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Whatever's coming after the but is going to be different than what came before.
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And so we have in verses 19-21 this list, which at the heart of the list is hatred.
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That's the flesh working itself out, wanting what it wants, not caring about others, not being concerned with others, not considering the well-being of others, wanting what it wants.
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But, verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit, and it goes in to give us nine things in this list.
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So, just so we're clear, Paul is making a contrast between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit.
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And you say, well that's obvious.
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Well the reason why I want you to see it this way is because when you interpret the fruit of the Spirit, you should not only interpret it by what the words mean, but you should also interpret it by how these words contrast what the other words mean.
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Because this is a contrast.
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What the flesh gives us is hatred.
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What the flesh gives us is death.
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What the flesh gives us is immorality.
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What the flesh gives us is self-want and fulfillment and all those things that we just want to indulge.
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What the Spirit gives us is distinct and contrasted with that.
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It's not a one-for-one list.
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It's not as if you can say, well the flesh gives this and the Spirit gives this and the flesh gives this and the Spirit gives this because they're not even the same amount in the lists.
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As I said, there's about 15 on one.
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There's only nine on the other.
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So it's not a direct one-for-one.
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But what I am going to show you today, at least I hope to show you, is that the contrasts are there if you're able to see them and it will help you understand more what the fruit of the Spirit really looks like if you compare it to what it doesn't look like.
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Sometimes the best way to know what something is is to look at it as opposed to what it's not.
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You know? If I asked you to define good, you'd say, well, it's not bad.
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I mean, honestly, that would be the first thought that most people have.
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If I asked you to define righteousness, you'd say, well, it's the opposite of unrighteousness.
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Well, that's kind of hard, right? You find the definition in the contrast.
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You find the definition in the opposite.
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Now, one of the things I want to mention as we go into this is the difference between works and fruit.
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Because we see that's the first contrast that we see here.
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The works of the flesh.
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If you follow that word works back through the book of Galatians, what you will find is the works of the flesh almost always is dealing with the law.
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Because he says works of the law.
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Works of the law.
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So that word works comes up in regard to the law.
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And so, what are the works of the flesh but our inabilities to keep the law? The works of the flesh are the evidences that we are not law keepers.
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Right? The law tells us to do righteous and do good.
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And what does the flesh do? It proves that we're not good.
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Last night I taught a lesson to our church on the doctrine of total depravity which is a doctrine of the sinful nature of man.
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I went through ten passages and I showed that the Bible describes man not only as not good, it describes man as evil by nature.
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Ephesians chapter two.
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You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the prince of the power of the air and you were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
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Now that was a paraphrase.
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I missed a little bit of it, but you understand.
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By nature, children of wrath.
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Romans chapter three verse ten.
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There is none good, no not one.
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There is none who understands.
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There is none who seeks after God.
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All have turned aside.
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All have gone their own way.
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The venom of asps is under their lips.
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There is no fear of God before their eyes.
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This is the nature of man.
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Rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, Good teacher, what must I do to be saved? Jesus said, Why do you call me good? There is none good but God alone.
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Jesus wasn't denying His own goodness, but what He was denying was that man's understanding of goodness.
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You call me good because you don't understand what good is.
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You think you're good and if you go back to that story, what did Jesus say? When the man said, Good teacher, what must I do to be saved? Jesus said, Keep the commandments.
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And He said, Honor your father and mother.
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Do not commit murder.
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Do not steal.
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What did the young man say? All that I have done since my youth.
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Which means I'm good too.
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No, you're not.
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That's in a couple of the Gospels, but I think it's Mark 18.
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But I'll have to check to make sure.
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But there is another passage that really I talked about this a little bit last night.
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When Jesus was describing the goodness of God, He said Fathers, you fathers being evil, you still know how to give good gifts to your children.
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How much more will the Father in heaven give good gifts to those who love Him? That was a statement Jesus made.
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But notice the dig.
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You fathers being evil know how to give good gifts to your children.
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Jesus couldn't even express anything about us without saying, Oh, and also, you're evil.
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Don't forget.
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Don't forget you're evil.
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The works of the flesh are evil.
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The works of the flesh are hatred.
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The works of the flesh are bad.
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But the fruit and remember the contrast.
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The contrast is from works to fruit.
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Why? And no, I'm not trying to make a cross.
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There's nothing particular.
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That's not the point.
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It looks like a cross.
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The comparison is works and fruit.
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What's the difference? Works are what we do.
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Remember works are the law.
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It's all about us.
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It's what we do.
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Fruit though, fruit is something that is planted, nurtured and comes to life by a process that we don't control.
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Think about this.
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Have you ever planted a seed and had it grow into anything? I never have.
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I literally never have.
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People talk about having a green thumb.
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I don't have a green anything.
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I can't do it.
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But I've seen people do it.
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I've seen people plant seeds and grow fruit.
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Grow crops.
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Grow trees.
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What did they do to make that happen? Other than planting, of course.
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But what did they do? They watered maybe? They nourished.
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But ultimately, you can't make a seed grow.
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It has to rot, germinate, change and metamorphosize.
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It does all that independent of us.
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We can't go down there and make it happen.
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We can't make a seed grow.
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Think of the picture of that with fruit.
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You say, what are you getting at? Here's what I'm getting at.
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The works of the flesh are what you do.
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The fruit of the spirit is the growth of the spirit's work once he comes to live inside of you.
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Just like that seed that goes into the ground, you don't cause it to grow, it just grows.
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The fruit of the spirit is the natural growth of someone who's been born of the spirit.
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Remember what Jesus said in John 3? Unless a man be born again, he will not receive the kingdom of heaven.
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And Nicodemus said, what do you mean? Am I supposed to go back up into my mother's womb and be born? And Jesus...
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There's something bigger going on in there.
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He's going to tell you.
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Sorry for that interruption.
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So where was I? The fruit of the spirit is the...
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Oh, I was in John 3.
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He said, unless a man be born of water in the spirit.
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So born of the spirit, Jesus says.
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We must be born of the spirit.
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What does that mean? The doctrine is regeneration.
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Our heart was dead.
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God comes.
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He gives us a new heart.
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The Bible says he takes out our heart of stone, gives us a heart of flesh, and the spirit comes to make his home within us.
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And now that he's there, the fruit begins to work itself out.
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Because he's there.
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The seed is planted in the ground, and it grows because the seed's there.
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The Holy Spirit is inside of it, and so it grows because he's there.
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It's the byproduct of having him within us.
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I'll give you a thought on this.
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At our church, many of you have been there, visited.
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Next time you're at our church and you're driving in the driveway, or you're riding in the driveway, whatever, and you make the first turn after the driveway entrance, you make that first turn.
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There's a place where the concrete slab has shifted.
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And it's literally like an 8-inch shift.
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And what has happened is the trees that are nearby that have these long extended roots have continued to grow.
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The church building has been there for well, since 93.
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So what's that? 27 years? 26 years.
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Yeah.
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Okay, so it's been there for that long.
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And when it was first built those trees weren't quite as big as they are now.
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The roots had not grown out as far as they had.
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But we couldn't stop the root growth.
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We didn't know where it was going to go.
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But what's happened is it's grown up underneath that concrete and even as heavy as that concrete is and it's probably several tons worth of concrete.
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Even though it's got several tons worth of concrete sitting on it, it literally is nothing because that fruit's going to, fruit, that root, which you understand the connection, it's growing, that growing root is going to make its way out.
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And it doesn't care if there's a two-ton boulder in front of it.
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It's going to keep going.
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This is why Jesus, when He described in Matthew 5 or Matthew 7, He's talking about false teachers.
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And He talks about the fact, He says, you'll know them by their fruits.
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Right? He says because a bad tree produces bad fruit and a good tree produces good fruit.
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Why? The fruit doesn't make the tree good or bad but the fruit shows whether the tree is good or bad.
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The fruit says what kind of tree it is.
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You don't...
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A poisoned ivy bush is not going to produce grapes because it's not Yeah, tht's what I'm saying, it's not going to produce good fruit because it's not a good bush, it's not a good tree.
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The Spirit coming to live within us produces fruit and the fruit is described here in nine different things, nine different qualities but I want to make a point about the word fruit.
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The word fruit is in the singular and I point that out and some people say you can make too big a deal about this and I do think you can make too big a deal about this because it's what we call a collective singular when you go to somebody's house and you see they've got a bowl and the bowls got apples and oranges and bananas you don't say hey look at all the fruits you say look at the fruit right it's still multiple things but it's a collective singular right it's it's used in the singular but I the reason why I'm pointing out the use of the singular is because when it says the fruit singular of the spirit is yes yes yeah remember this the the general rule is the general rule right the what Jesus is not saying that it's impossible that a that a believer have something in their life that's bad we know that that's possible in fact the very thing we're going to study next week is if a person is caught in sin restore such a one that's that's chapter 6 of Galatians and we're going to talk about how that happens it's not impossible but the point is is the quality of of life right if you had a here's the example if you had an apple tree that bore a hundred good apples and you saw a couple of bad apples you'd still say it was a good tree but if you saw a tree that had all bad apples then you know it was a bad tree so it's not it's not a it's not a it's an example it's an analogy it's a metaphor it's not a hard and fast yeah oh yeah so getting back to the idea of fruit being singular you say you know I don't want to be too pedantic here because I do think we can overpress this but the reason why I'm pointing this out is when it says the fruit of the spirit fruit being singular it says the fruit of the spirit is love and then it goes joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness doing a self-control everything that comes after the word love is an expression of love and I'll prove it to you open your Bibles to 1st Corinthians 13 1st Corinthians 13 is what's known as the love passage it's all about love it starts by saying if I speak in the tongues of men and angels and have not love I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal if I have prophetic powers understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love I am nothing if I give away all I have or deliver up my body to be burned but have not love I gain nothing so the the point of the first section of 1st Corinthians 13 is that if you have all of these various things that you do whether it's giving up of yourself and being a good teacher being a good speaker all those things if you don't have love it's it doesn't matter because love is the one true necessity if you're a Christian then it says love is patient guess what that's a fruit of the Spirit if you go back to Galatians and kind guess what that's a fruit of the Spirit that's one of the nine love does not envy or boast well you could go back and say that that would fit into the quality of joy and peace again these are not hard and fast but the it goes in to say is not rude it does not insist on its own way it's not irritable or resentful of course those are all examples of kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth alright so we see the example of what love is in 1st Corinthians 13 we go back to Galatians 5 and we see this list and we say okay there's something special about the first one there's something special about this one now again stepping back I'm not saying the only fruit of the Spirit is love but I do think there's a reason why it comes first and if I had to encapsulate all of the fruit of the Spirit in one word if I had to take that singular fruit and said what is the fruit of the Spirit I would say it's love in fact I'll quote Martin Luther as I often do he's my favorite on the book of Galatians this way says it would have been enough to mention only the single fruit of love for love embraces all the fruits of the Spirit in 1st Corinthians 13 Paul attributes to love all the fruits of the Spirit there it is that's what we see and that's why you know we can we could stop there and we could just have a study on what does it mean to love others honestly you could go back to the other page you could go back to verses 19 to 21 and you could say entity what is entity the opposite of love what is strife it's the opposite of love what is jealousy it's the opposite of love I mean it's all opposite in a way it's expressing hatred in a different way but it's all hate and hate is the opposite of love and therefore all of that is an expression of the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit therefore if you get nothing else out of today's lesson know this the fruit of the Spirit is love Jesus said a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you now why did he call that a new commandment the commandment to love was already in the Old Testament the commandment to love in the Old Testament was love your neighbor as yourself but what did Jesus say love one another as I have loved you yeah he becomes the standard he is the standard that's right and so we look at Jesus and we say there's my standard he said a new commandment I give to you love one another as I have loved you meaning in the same way that I have loved you how did Jesus love his disciples he was patient with them think about how patient he was with Peter if there's one disciple that I really connect with it's the one who had the biggest mouth and the one who was quick to speak and the one who often got his foot caught in his mouth you ever been there yeah and that's Peter well Thomas absolutely the doubter right he had that he had Thomas had legitimate questions that expressed themselves sometimes in the worst ways but it was his concerns his doubts but yeah so we see that Jesus was patient with Thomas he said put your hand here know that it is I touch my and see that it is I that's patience right he didn't come up say Thomas how could you doubt me hit the floor young man now Thomas did hit the floor Thomas said my Lord and my God fell down after he had seen the nail marks in the spear mark love love is the ultimate fruit of the Spirit and Jesus is the example of it and the rest of these were always going to go back to love whether it's joy patience peace kindness goodness faithfulness illness self-control what we're going to go back and say and see how love does this see how love does this think about Romans 10 I'm sorry Romans 13 verse 10 and Romans 13 verse 10 it says this love does no wrong to a neighbor therefore love is the fulfilling of the law love does no wrong to a neighbor anytime we have ever done wrong by our family anytime we've ever done wrong by a friend anytime we've ever done wrong by someone we didn't know anytime we've ever done wrong by a anything anyone it was a moment where we were not showing love because love does no wrong to a neighbor so the first fruit of the Spirit and the one that encapsulates all the fruit plural of the Spirit is love now let's look at the second the second one is joy joy is hard to define and I say that because it's often misunderstood and it's often wrongly defined some of you have Bibles that and I don't know what translation is it might be the New Living Translation it might be the the Message Bible but some of you have Bibles where when you go to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Matthew chapter 5 it's it's supposed to say blessed are those who mourn blessed are those who this blessed are those who that some of you say happy happier those who this happier those who that and that's the translation I don't remember which one it is I just remember seeing it and I remember going that's wrong because blessedness and happiness are not necessarily equal but also joy and happiness are not equal people want to compare joy and happiness and make it equal but it's not what's the difference between joy and happiness the very the very heart of the definition the word happiness comes from the same root as the word happen or happening happiness happen happening so for instance there are happenings that occur that can be hard go to the doctor he pulls out a file opens it up and at the top it says cancer that's a tough happening wake up on Christmas morning your house is flooded with sewage water as your toilet is backed up that have Christmas morning several years ago that yeah that no it was that was a happening that weren't happening this is this is awful and I can tell you that moment I weren't happy I weren't happy I were not I was this deep in my sewage trying to the pipe outside that you you know oh yeah what a day is rough and each one of you if I gave you the opportunity to tell me about your worst day that's certainly not my worst day that's that was a bad day it was my worst day I've had worse I'm serious could I mean if I said where there happenings in your life I mean maybe it's what brought you here maybe you had a really bad day maybe a really bad year maybe had a really bad decade and if you came here looking for happiness I want to tell you what I'm again I don't mean to deal with just you guys in this situation but since we're here we'll talk about it if you came to set free looking for happiness that is not the promise because happiness is fleeting it comes and it goes but joy is a state of being it is not the same as happiness joy is a state of comfort and peace where you are with God you see when I wake up and my house is flooded I'm still a child of God if the doctor opens up that thing and the word cancer is there I'm still a child of God if I on my way home and then a horrible accident and I lose the facilities of my body and I can't walk for the rest of my life my wife has to take care of me I would still be a child of God Johnny Erickson Tata was a young girl who was a swimmer and once she dove to a pool and when she dove into the pool she broke her neck she lost all of the feeling from her neck down she became a quadriplegic and she has lived her life since then as what we would call an invalid a person who's unable to do and care for themselves she has gone on to be one of the most inspirational Christian speakers and writers in the last 25 years she's married she has a husband who loves her and takes care of her she has a life that is hard but not without joy and she is able now to thank God for her injury because it turned her into who she is and it changed her life ultimately for his glory that's joy I'm sure there are days where she's not happy I'm sure there are days where it hurts but she's still a child of God and that's the key that's joy that's the fruit of the Spirit love joy peace the word peace the best way I can describe it is the Hebrew word Shalom you've all heard Jewish people use that term Shalom and the Arabic word is similar you have heard assalamu alaikum that is the Arabic expression of the the Hebrew which is shalom alaikin means peace be to you all shalom alaikin or assalamu alaikum it's same idea shalom shalom shalom in battle there are ceasefires but a ceasefire does not necessarily mean peace think about the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea North and South Korea could go back to war at any moment that space keeps them separated but at any moment that peace could become war again it's not peace it's a ceasefire but when we come to Christ the Bible says we who were at war with God are now at peace with God therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God and that word peace is the idea of Shalom the Bible says when we come to Christ we are given a peace that passes understanding meaning that it doesn't make sense but we haven't that's the peace that's the fruit of the Spirit here it's a peace not with others necessarily because there's a lot of people hate me you don't think so hey let's just go to the videotape go online emails comments people don't like what I had to say most of the time yeah calling people yeah calling calling out sin preaching Jesus people don't want to hear that I don't expect to have peace with people Jesus said I didn't come to bring peace with a sword and I will divide father from mother I'll divide sister from brother I'll divide people with even within their own homes you say well how why is he called the prince of peace because he came to give peace with God and the fruit of the Spirit is peace with God and that peace carries us through the inevitable battles of life patience number four patience I'm going to kind of go through these a little quicker now the word patience is macro through Mia now the reason why I mentioned that is because if you go back to the the works of the flesh one of those was fits of anger and that was the word through boy meaning getting hot when we talk about third where we get the word thermometer means to get hot it's a thermometer means to measure heat and so through more I mean a person a person who gets mad gets hot macro the Mia macro means large the Mia means hot you say well means he gets hot big no that's not what it means it means it takes a long time for him to get angry that's what patience is person who has a long fuse not a short you ever heard somebody say I got a short fuse that's the opposite of patience macro for me I've got a long it takes me a while before I am you know what does the Bible say about God he is slow to anger and a bounding and steadfast love by the way if you walk through these characteristics love joy peace patience all these and then you go back and you compare them to Christ he magnifies all of them as the God man he magnifies them for us and so what it's saying is the fruit of the Spirit is it's the Spirit's work of making you more like Jesus Romans chapter 8 says we have been predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that's the goal of our salvation not to take you to heaven that's the byproduct the goal of your salvation is not to take you to heaven the goal of your salvation is to make you more like Jesus yes sure so let's just say individually speaking as all if we worked on this kind of like class at school and graduate would you just take us to heaven if we if we magnified all of all of his teachings and we became similar like him like we would he like like just we don't just drop dead and just rise to heaven you know no let us enter if we pass if we have we magnified those teachings of the fruits or whatever I understand what you're saying but I want to clear I want to clarify something very quickly the reason why anybody goes to heaven is not because of what you do what we do but because of what Christ has done for you and the fruit of the Spirit is a byproduct of what has been done for you you're not in a class going to receive a reward like you would having passed the test no here's here's here's how you go to heaven this is and I want to make sure this is clear you have to recognize first that you are a sinner you deserve the wrath of God if you can't understand that concept there's no reason to go any further if you don't understand that you I'm not I'm not talking about you in general I mean everybody if you can't understand that your sin is treason against the God who created you and that every time you've ever sinned you have heaped upon yourself the wrath of God that you deserve that's the first thing you recognize that you have offended and you have violated the God who made you the very God who created you I'm not gonna say but yet I want you to stay there because I before anybody can learn to appreciate the work of Christ they have to learn to understand from where they came and if you don't understand the pit that you were in you won't understand the value of being pulled out of it so understanding sin is first understanding that Christ came and here's the thing about Christ he never sent the Bible says he was tempted like us in every way but was without sin he went to the cross to do one thing to bear the wrath of God that I deserved see I deserve God's wrath because I'm a sinner didn't I just admit that I said I deserve God's wrath I deserve to be punished I deserve I committed treason against the king of the universe as a sinner I deserve to be punished Christ says I will take your punishment for you and when he goes to the cross the Bible says the wrath of God was poured out upon him who killed Jesus God it says in Isaiah 53 it pleased the Lord to strike him why because in striking Christ he doesn't have to strike me Christ becomes my sin bearer Christ becomes the one who takes my punishment on the cross when Jesus died the wrath of God was satisfied that's why he said at the end it is finished what was finished the receiving of God's wrath in himself and when he received the wrath of God he provided for me forgiveness because now the debt that I owed he paid he paid it in full so the only way I'm going to go to heaven is by trusting in what he did everything that I do as a byproduct of that all of the fruit of the Spirit that doesn't save me that is a byproduct of his already having saved me does that make sense good yes sir Thu Moi is the macro Thu Moi is the is the patience means long suffering or long anger the breastplate of judgment on the heart goes to the holy place to bring them so that you will remember us before the Lord and in the breastplate of judgment you shall put on Urim and Thummim and they shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel no no sir no the Urim and the Thummim were parts of the breastplate they were stones that were Urim and Thummim are stones they were part of it it sounds similar but the Old Testament remember is written in Hebrew and the New Testament is Greek so Thu Moi in Greek is heat so it wouldn't be the same wouldn't be the same word sounds the same but but no no okay so let us finish out the nine we've we've seen love joy peace patience kindness and goodness very similar ideas moral goodness uprightness kindness those are hard to define but you know when you see it you know what it's like when somebody's not being kind you know what it's like when somebody's not treating you well goodness kindness faithfulness faithfulness someone who trusts and is trustworthy gentleness and I do want to stop on the word gentleness just for a moment gentleness does not mean weakness a lot of people think that the only right way to be a Christian man is to be an effeminate man and let me say this about that it just ain't so an effeminate man is a weak man a gentleman is a man of strength who knows how to keep his strength in check see there's a difference people talk about being peaceful there's a difference between being peaceful and being what's the word there's a difference between being peaceful and being passive yes because peaceful does not always mean passive I'm a peaceful man but I'll protect my wife I'm a gentle man but I'll protect my children there are times when peaceful men have to stand up and not be passive men right and so gentleness that's my goal and I do as the Bible says seek as much as it depends upon me to live at peace with all men but some men will not allow it man breaks into my house in the middle of the night to harm my child or rape my wife he will not meet a gentleman but he will meet a man you understand what let me finish my thought I don't want to ask you a question because the concept here the idea of gentleness is not weakness but it is strength in check it is strength under control same way as meekness the Bible says blessed are the meek meekness is not weakness meekness is strength under control always keep that in mind yes sir now that's your question okay for example if someone if a person came in my house and harmed my child or wife and I had to commit a a sin to protect my family and it so happened I had to kill that person we've got allow me into heaven even though he said thou turn your Bibles Exodus 22 to Exodus 22 verse 2 here's what it says I'll let you get there this is important I've taught on personal protection and what the Bible says about it many times Exodus 22 verse 2 this is very much this is in the heart of the law of God what it says is this if a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies there shall be no blood guilt for him but if the Sun has risen on him there shall be blood guilt for him he shall surely pay if he has nothing then he shall surely be sold for his theft alright so here's the point if a man breaks in at night and he struck so that he dies I am not guilty of his blood because I struck him in the moment of protecting my home no punishment however if the Sun rises upon him which is what the next verse says and I go find him and kill him that's an act of vengeance it's no longer an act of personal protection now yeah it's it's premeditated and it's also it's avenging my you know again the difference if a man attacks my wife and I and I stop him and in the midst of stopping him I hurt him and even kill him that is an act that's not a sin that's an act of protection okay well again again if he's no longer a threat and this even the law would say this if he's no longer a threat to me I can't pursue him I can pursue him legally I can purse and that's what it goes on to say it talks about him being sold into slavery and things like that I can pursue him legally that he be punished by the law but if I got a group of you guys together and said hey we're all going to get pitchforks and go find this guy and and and kill him right I mean that's if I did that if I said we're all going to go find this guy and we're going to collectively go beat him to death then that would be that may satisfy my flesh but that would not satisfy the law and it certainly would not fulfill the law of God that's right that's right that's right there is a difference there is a difference between personal protection in the moment and seeking vengeance for a wrong having been done and I think Exodus 22 2 & 3 shows the difference all right but that was a very good question and let me just finish with this last one the last fruit of the Spirit then we're going to pray is self-control you know what the word self-control means well it means self-control nothing fancy but I do want to give you the word in the Latin the word in the Latin might help you continent yeah continent yeah and think of it like this someone who is conscientious someone who is who understands themself and has themselves under control temperance yeah someone who is temperate someone who is self-controlled the virtue of one who masters his passions his desires and his appetites that's self-control that's the definition these are all fruit of the Spirit remember the Spirit is what gives birth to these things this is not from the flesh the flesh is all the bad things we talked about for the last two weeks the Spirit but what do we do with fruit we cultivate it we rejoice in it when we see God working out fruit in our lives we thank him for it remember what st.