The Spirit & Genuine Morality

Alrighty, guys. I apologize, I wasn't really watching the clock while I was in the kitchen still, so we're starting a little bit late, but if y 'all want to turn to Galatians chapter 5, we'll pick up right where we did last week.

The Fruit of the Spirit as One Unified Character

And this is now our third lesson since we started this study on the fruit of the Spirit. And we're still kind of introducing the topic, because the main purpose of the study, obviously, will be getting into each of what we're calling the dimensions of the fruit.

We pointed out in our first couple of lessons that Paul uses the singular, not the plural, when he mentions the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruits. But then he goes on to list nine distinct things, and so the question is, what is that all about?

What's the purpose in doing that? And as we concluded last week, we talked about it in detail, is the primary purpose, I believe, and I think the context supports it, is that he uses the singular because he wants us to realize that each of these nine dimensions are really part of one package.

He doesn't want us cherry-picking these things. He wants us to realize that as a believer with the Spirit living within us, these are the things, this is the fruit, this is the character that we are to exhibit across the board.

We can't just pick love or joy and then put patience aside. It's all one package. It's all one fruit. So, we've talked about that, and again, we've been introducing all of these ideas. We're still doing it to a degree here.

And kind of the last thought that we ended on last week was talking about the reality that when you read the New Testament, not just Galatians 5, but all of these passages where Paul kind of makes similar arguments for some of the other apostles, Ephesians 5, Ephesians 6, Colossians 3, James chapters 1 and 2, are all making these arguments with regard to godly living and giving us the breakdown of what it looks like to have godly character.

And what we concluded last week was we can gather two things from it. Number one, God wants us and expects us to do better all the time. We always need to be doing better in our journey toward God, becoming more like Him, becoming more holy, and all these types of things.

But the second thing we know from all these places is that it's an impossibility to do that in and of ourselves. And so what person is highlighted, what person is emphasized when it comes to this walk, this Christian walk, where we are to live up to all these standards, it's the Holy Spirit.

Without Him, it's an impossibility. So that's kind of where we left off last week. How's it going, guys? Y 'all come on in. Make yourselves comfortable. We're just getting started. So, I tell you what, let's read the passage one more time just to reset the context a little bit.

This is Galatians chapter 5, starting in verse 22. Paul says, but the fruit, singular, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such, there is no law.

When we get to it, that will be a very important phrase for us to hone in on. And then verse 24, and they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and the lusts. And so obviously a big part of Paul's argument in this whole chapter is the contrast between what he calls works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit.

Two antithetical things. There's no mixing of the two, and Raj made this point. In our first lesson a couple of weeks back, there's no mixing of the two. They're antithetical. They are opposites. You can have one or the other.

And so as believers, Paul says, go for the fruit. Go for the fruit of the Spirit. You have crucified the flesh. You now have the Spirit, so walk like you have the Spirit. So, as we kind of work closer to walking through all nine of these actual dimensions, again, meekness, goodness, faith, love, all of these different things, we're going to talk about all of them as we kind of work closer to getting to that point.

Gifts, Character, and Personality

I want to make one more distinction that I think will be important for us to remember throughout this study. Just like we made a distinction, I think it was last week, between fruit and gifts. Do you all remember that?

So people are born into this world with different gifts. Maybe you're a great musician. Maybe you're great at administrative skill. Maybe you're a good leader. You're good at speeches, public speaking, and that sort of thing.

People are born with natural gifts, and not everybody has the same gifts. However, everybody, and to be more specific, every Christian is expected to have the fruit. So there is a distinction between gifts and fruit.

Oh, is that mom? Okay, cool. Is it working? Can you hear me, mom? Okay, cool. You can just mute your phone, and then you should be able to hear me. Okay, so we made a distinction between fruit and gifts.

We're all expected to have the same fruit, which is what we're looking at in this Galatians passage, but everyone has different gifts, obviously. I want to make another distinction, though, and that is let me just turn this down and that is there is a difference between character and personality.

And it may seem redundant at first, but it's a little bit different. What is the difference between character and personality? Well, character is something that is built over time. So when we talk about the fruit of the Spirit, these are things that come back to a person's character.

It's something that's built. It's where you see the virtues that we're talking about here, all of these things that Paul is talking about. Character is where you see them demonstrated. And when it comes to character, as a lot of us know, there is a maturity and a growth that takes place with regard to character.

Again, it's something that's built. Coach Davis talks about it a lot, and a lot of people do. So character is something that is built over time, and it's something that is demonstrating what you might call these virtues, like what Paul is talking about here.

Joy, peace, patience, and all of these types of things. So a person is not born with good character. In fact, it's actually quite the opposite. We understand the doctrine of depravity. We are born bearing the original sin of Adam, our father.

And so we are born in a state of we're born in a state with a lack of character. We're born in a state of selfishness. And, of course, as a child grows, even in the earliest stages, that becomes apparent really quickly.

So we're not born with good character. It's actually the opposite. But personality because remember, we're making a distinction between personality and character. Personality, on the other hand, is where everybody's uniqueness comes from.

So when you look at every individual in the country, around the world, everybody is unique in some way, whether that is talking about their physical appearance or their abilities in certain areas, things like that, their personality.

Personality is where uniqueness comes into play when we are born into the world. And so, for example, a person can be naturally shy or naturally outgoing. They can be a naturally charming person. They can be a naturally loud person or a quiet person.

They can even be naturally compassionate. Ron, I was not thinking of you when I said that, I promise. They can be naturally compassionate. So you have these personality traits that you're born with, but that's different than character.

Of course, when it comes to personality, when it comes to these things you're born with, of course it's very important to recognize what those things are as well. We should want to know what our natural proclivities are because some of them may be bad.

Some of them may at least kind of tend toward goodness, such as if you're a naturally compassionate person, that could be a good thing. It can also be a bad thing at times as well. But you want to know what your personality is.

You want to know what your natural inclinations, your natural proclivities are so that we can adjust course if we need to. But even the good ones, like I said, even if a person is naturally outgoing, we would consider that, at least our current culture would consider being outgoing or being an extrovert to be a pretty good thing.

People like outgoing people. They're gravitated toward the people that are outgoing and just good with people. And then the shy folks are kind of looked at as the ones that are a little strange. And so even if you have a quote-unquote good personality trait, such as being outgoing, for example, the thing about personality traits is they are not moral.

And again, I don't want to feel like we're getting into the weeds here too much, but this is setting the tone for this study. Because when you look at verses like the Fruit of the Spirit, we're talking about Christian ethics.

We're talking about Jesus' view of what it is to be an ethical person, a moral person. So that's why we've got to make these distinctions between personality and character, fruit, gifts, these types of things.

Because personality types, they could be good, they could be annoying, they could be bad. It doesn't matter. They are not inherently moral. In the same way that being a shy person, which again is kind of culturally shunned.

So if you're in a culture like ours and you're a shy person, those are the kind of people that are a little strange. You leave them to do their thing and you go on and hang out with the outgoing people.

The outgoing people, that's not a moral trait. But in the same way, the shy person is not immoral. Does that make sense? So it's not, again, this isn't an issue of morality, it's an issue of personality when it comes to those types of things.

Personality traits can come with us into this world when we're born. They can also develop slowly over time depending on our environment. So depending on the kind of family you're born into, the type of church you go to, the type of school, you may grow into being more and more and more of a shy person.

But the point is, personality is something that generally we're born with and it kind of goes from there. Whereas character is something that's built from the ground up. Now here's why all this is important for us to bring up and to pay attention to these differences between personality and character in this study on the fruit of the Spirit.

Like I said a second ago, personality is innate. It's something that is part of who we are as a unique, individual person. It's something that every human has. Every human has personality. But character, and specifically the fruit of the Spirit, things that the Bible teaches us to live out, like we see in Galatians chapter 5 here, they are only acquired through one thing, and that is salvation by grace through faith.

So when you talk about the fruit of the Spirit, when you start talking about morality now, not personality, not things that people are born with that can naturally develop over time, but character, morals, ethics, it is something, and we're talking about biblical ethics here, it is something that comes only through salvation.

Now why is that the case? Well, based upon our conclusion last week, it's because we can't do the things Paul is telling us to do without the Spirit. And you don't have the Spirit until you have called upon the name of the Lord and submitted your life to Him.

The Spirit, Sanctification, and the Battle With Sin

And so here's the thing. Even an unregenerate person, a person that's not saved, can exhibit what we think of as moral traits. And I think we would all agree with that. I mean, people, and you've got to remember, all human beings are made in the image of God.

In Romans chapter 2, we are told that the law is written on everybody's hearts. And so you cannot ever hear the Ten Commandments, and yet you can know that to murder someone is bad. You cannot ever hear a preacher behind the pulpit, and yet you can know that things like cannibalism should not happen, even though there are people that still do it to this day in weird remote islands and stuff, or lying, or stealing, or committing adultery.

The human nature is programmed upon birth to know those types of things. Now that's still different than character, because whether they do it or not is a totally different question. The point is, is they are born knowing better.

Paul tells us this in Romans 1. He fleshes it out more in Romans 2. And again, every person is born the image of God. So because of that, we can look around us, even in a culture like ours, and we can pick out people.

They may be atheists. They may be Muslim. They may be Mormon or something weird. And they can exhibit what is considered moral traits in things like that. Even a pagan can be a gentle person. That's one of the dimensions of the fruit.

A pagan can be gentle. He can be honest. She can be patient. They can do these types of things. But what is the difference between that and the believer that has the Spirit living within them, that exhibits what Paul is calling the fruit of the Spirit, which kind of entails that the Spirit is the source of it?

What's the difference? How do we know when we're talking with a person that has atheistic worldview ideas or whatever it is, and we can clearly see that they are living very consistently with Christianity, even though they deny Christianity.

What do we do with that? Because according to biblical doctrines, they don't have the Spirit living within them, and yet they're doing these good things. So what is exactly the difference between all these people?

And the thing is, I believe where the difference lies, is that they will exhibit these virtues, gentleness, meekness, love, those types of things. They will exhibit those virtues for as long as it benefits them in some way.

That doesn't necessarily mean them as an individual in that moment. It may be very much coming back to the broad picture of things. In other words, I'm going to act like this as a person even though it doesn't really make any sense because I believe in Darwinistic evolution where everything is kind of meaningless in the end and all these types of things.

I'm going to live like this anyway because it contributes to peace and unity in my society, and that's good for me. You get it? So it doesn't always come back to the individual. Sometimes it comes back to just societal peace.

And so they are willing to not steal, to not murder, to not commit adultery, to believe in things like monogamous relationships because it is good for the society. They can see that God's design does work even if they deny that there's a God behind it.

And so the difference between an atheist or a Muslim or a Jew, an Orthodox Jew that denies Christ, or an atheist like I think I already said or a Hindu or a Mormon or whatever it may be, the difference between them exhibiting some of these moral virtues and the believer is that they are doing it because it benefits them in a number of ways.

They're glad to showcase this external morality that they are living a certain way on the outside because what it means is that it gets to contribute to their well-being and to their peace. But Christians, on the other hand, is where it gets really weird because you look at church history and you start to see these weird instances pop up where they exhibit these virtues even in the face of death when they're being told not to exhibit those virtues anymore.

All of a sudden you see a vast difference between the person that will live in a certain way until they're told otherwise, don't live that way anymore, and they drop the virtues, versus a Christian that is facing the lines in the Colosseum or the gallows or the executioner or the pyre that they're about to light on fire.

And all of a sudden these virtues aren't fleeting. They're still with them, and they cling to them, and they're not going to let them go. That's the difference. A Christian will be honest, he'll be patient, he'll be meek, joyful, even when nobody is looking or when there's no societal gain that comes from it, when there's no gain to be had, and even when at times there's persecution.

And why is that?

Why on earth would any person ever do that? Why would a Christian not just kind of compromise a little bit for the sake of his own life, or maybe the life of his loved ones that are right there? The reason they don't compromise is because of the Spirit, not themselves.

It's of the Spirit, it's not of themselves, and that's why. And so a dividing line between the lost and the saved is what will the person do when they're in a position to get away with something that no one would ever know about anyway?

You start looking at situations like that, and there's the dividing line between external morality and a Christian ethic, a Christian morality that is internal, not just external. You put a person in a situation where they could do anything they wanted to do and get away with it from the human viewpoint.

No one would know. No one would know that they did or denied the thing. So the positive or the negative, what will the person do with that? There's the dividing line between those that bear the fruit of the Spirit and those that may be gentle sometimes when it's convenient for them, may be patient sometimes when they have something to get out of it, may be honest sometimes, but not all the time.

Again, you can think about it both the positive and the negative. Will I be honest even when no one around me is there to commend me for being honest? Will I be honest even when there's no one that will ever know that I was honest in that moment?

Or you could put it in the negative. Will I not steal even though no one is around to catch me? So imagine you're in a position where maybe you legitimately need some resources, some cash, some food, whatever it may be, and there's no one around to actually see that you could steal in that scenario, that it would never come back on you.

You know it wouldn't. What are you going to do in that scenario? These are the dividing lines that I'm talking about here. Do we have a desire to refrain from sin even when no one would ever know that we actually were to engage in that sin?

Anyone other than the Lord, of course. So here's what it comes down to. And, of course, this is understanding that sanctification is a process. We all know what sanctification is, right? When we get saved, when we call upon the name of the Lord, we are justified in that moment.

We can't ever lose it. That comes back to what we refer to as our eternal security. When Jesus says, all of them, I will lose nothing and raise them up on the last day. That is because we are justified at a point in time.

But then we have the rest of our lives after that. What do you do with it? And that's where sanctification comes into play. That is constantly working toward being more holy as our God in heaven is holy.

That is the journey of becoming more Christ-like as much as we possibly can as often as we can. And so understanding that sanctification is a process. It's not just a we're saved and now we're perfect.

That's not how it works. We are sanctified slowly over time. With that understanding, here's what it comes down to. The proof of the fruit of the spirit in a person's life is a consistent pattern. It's habitual, consistent patterns of living out what Paul is telling us in his verses.

It's not just an occasional love for people around me. It's not just an occasional gentleness or an occasional patience, but it is a behavioral pattern. It's an habitual habit. That was redundant, but you know what I'm saying.

I guess redundancy is good here. It is a consistent pattern that is happening all the time. The proof of the spirit being in a person is a consistent pattern of behavior, not just individual acts of meekness here and some patience there and then love every now and then or something like that.

There are patterns because it's who the person is at that point. The spirit of God is living within them. It's who they are, so patterns have to show up. The pattern is either going to be a pattern proving that the spirit is within that person over time, because remember, it's a process.

When a person gets saved, they are not going to be the saint that everyone wants them to be the next morning. But ten years later, you should see a glorious increase in their godliness, in their holiness, in their relationship with the Lord and their desire to please the Lord over a span of 10 years, 15 years, 20, you name it.

You will see that. That is where you will see a change for sure. When we think about people in our lives, then we consider patient people. If you think of a person, you think that person is patient or that person is joyful like Miss Pam and Ron both would fit that bill.

When you think of a person, these are joyful people. These are patient people. These are people that exhibit meekness all the time. The reason why those people are that thing, the reason they are joyful, the reason they are that is because we expect them to be that.

That's why you say that. You say that person is joyful because you expect them to be joyful all the time. It's not an anomaly when they're joyful. It's not an anomaly when they're patient. It's the norm.

That's the difference. It doesn't mean that we are going to be sinlessly perfect because there will be times when even Ron isn't patient. There will be times when even Miss Pam might not be joyful because of stuff that's going on.

But that's the anomaly. You see the difference? It totally flips it.

I know.

It's a bad example. I don't know if we'll ever see that. You have to think of really potent examples, and so that one is one that will stick with you. And so the fruit of the spirit is the norm for those people.

It's not the anomaly. That's one way that you see that it's actually a work of the spirit and not just them playing a game, not just them playing a moral, external game to look good, to be reputable, or whatever it may be.

True internal morality, which is something that can only flow from a perfect, sinless lawgiver. So we're talking about morals here. We're talking about ethics. Where does that come from? What is the source?

What is the standard? It has to come from a lawgiver, one that is perfect. When it comes to true internal, when I say internal, you know what I mean. It is, again, it's in you, and therefore you're going to be honest even when no one sees it or will give you props for it.

It's internal. That's what I mean by that. True internal morality is never satisfied with mere rule keeping or these external nods to these reputable works, these acts. See, that's perfect for a Pharisee because they're whitewashed tombs.

They're dead on the inside. And so give them a checklist of do these things and we'll call you holy. That is, boom, that's perfect. That's all they could ever ask for. But for a person that has true internal morality within them, the Spirit of God, a list will never be enough because the list is, if you think about it, the list is somewhat a moot point if there's no one else in the room.

If there's no one else around to see where your heart is and what will flow from that. God, of course, is seeing whether we're honest and meek and loving and all these types of things, but the Pharisee doesn't care about that.

But the true believer that has the Spirit of God living within him and therefore the fruit of the Spirit, that means something. It's not true morality is not satisfied with occasional acts of righteousness.

It has to be habit forming. It has to be patterns of good works, as Paul talks about in Titus chapter 1. Actually, I'm sorry, Titus chapter 2. Again, this is because the people of God who have the source of morality living within them, which is the Holy Spirit, they are a people who have changed characters.

Remember what we started with. Character, personality, they're different. They are a people that are moving closer, that are building upon this thing. They're moving closer to being more like God all the time.

And to be like God is to be righteous intrinsically, not just righteous in the work that we do. And I'll end with that thought. Think about the way that God is. He's not righteous because of what he does, because of his acts in history, because of his work.

He is righteous in and of himself. And then that righteousness is demonstrated in the works that he conducts throughout time and space. The same is true for the believer. Just because we're doing a quote-unquote good work, it doesn't really mean anything unless that is nothing more than the demonstration of the righteousness that is within us.

Now, how can we be righteous? Because the Bible tells us there are none righteous, no, not one. And then in Isaiah, we have that very colorful phraseology that the prophet uses that our righteousness is like filthy rags in the eyes of God.

So if that's true, and it is, then how is it that we could ever exhibit righteousness at all?

The blood of Jesus.

The blood of Jesus. And one of the things that we got because of that blood sacrifice was his righteousness. And so in the same way, if we have the righteousness of God within us, which is what happens when we're saved.

It's imputed to us and our sins imputed to Christ on the cross. If that is true, here's what happens. In the same way that God is righteous in and of himself, and therefore his works that we see are nothing more than a demonstration of that.

Anytime we are in the new man, and that's an important point to emphasize because remember, it's not really us. It's the spirit within us. It's this new regenerated creature. Hand in hand with God. When we go and we are meek and joyful and loving and patient and gentle and all of these things.

That is a demonstration of the righteousness that is within us. It's not the righteousness isn't limited to the work. The work is just an extension of it. For the Pharisees, their works is all they got.

But for the child of God, the works are nothing more than a demonstration of the righteousness that is within them. And it's not our own.

It's Jesus's.

So we'll end with that today. We went way over time. A few more thoughts in that realm. But hopefully by the next time we're together, we'll be able to actually get into the dimensions of fruit themselves like love and gentleness.

And we'll go point for point through all nine of them and to see what we can learn from them. Do you all have any thoughts or anything you want to share before we jump into prayer requests?

If we don't have time, it's okay.

Oh, we're fine.

I'm curious about, so I'm totally following you.

I feel like it. And all of the differences there.

But let's say, because we're using the example, you know, this Pam with the, okay, she has this pattern. And it's the anomaly if you see something different. So let's say we have a believer. And let's say she's 40 years old.

Just kidding.

I'm kidding. No.

Her initials are Katie.

And maybe the pattern in this person are several of the things. And the anomaly is the bad side of it.

Right.

But let's say the pattern is the bad side. And the anomaly is the good. In like one or more areas.

Sure.

And the personality that you're born with may tend to make one or more of those more difficult to progress in. But, like, I am thinking about myself in this. But, like, you're an adult. You've gone through lots of stages of life.

And, you know, getting to where I have older kids and they watch mom and you don't necessarily see, or maybe others do, but you don't necessarily see progress.

Right.

In one or more area. And it's like, okay. But I'm thinking based on kind of what you're saying, it really ultimately does come down to just that sanctification thing. And, well, number one, maybe the desire, but also just that hand-holding and just knowing it is a journey.

But it's like you want to see it go faster in some areas, but you just don't see growth in certain areas. Does that all make sense?

It makes total sense. So the key here is to remember the foundational assumption that the Bible sets for us. And that is that sanctification is a process. Now, that seems like a cop-out, but it's not.

And here's why. Let's say you go through a season, and we're not talking, you know, oops, there's an anomaly this week. But we're talking about weeks start adding up. Maybe months start adding up in this particular sin habit, this weakness, this shortcoming, however you want to put it, just keeps cropping up over and over again.

You know that you're a believer. You know that you have the power of the Spirit within you to stop that, but it's just very hard. Well, two things. Number one, that timeline will feel like an eternity in the moment, but later down the road, for the same reason that you can look back during your teen years now and you can see the gulf between where you were then and where you are now, not all that long down the road you'll see the same thing where you are now and where you will be when you're 50, 60, 70, and so on and so forth.

Now, I get like at first you're like, okay, this is great. I just got to wait in this state. Well, no, we don't have to. Here's what we have to remember. We can take these particular things to the Lord.

So you know how dad talks often about the idea of transparency in our culture being kind of a gross misunderstanding of the way it should be. Transparency is not the same as honesty. And what he means by that is there will be things that we struggle with in our hearts and our minds that no one else necessarily knows about.

And so you don't necessarily want to just start taking those to people and airing out your own bad laundry or dirty laundry or whatever this thing is all the time when you already have a perfect mediator to go to now to take all those things.

And not only can you take them to him, and he's not going to air out your dirty laundry ever, but he actually understands what you're going through better than you do yourself. So you don't have to think like, well, I got to wait 10 years so that I see the progress I'm actually making even though I don't feel like it.

It doesn't have to be like that. It can feel immediate in the moment. And a, you know, prayer and abiding in the word of God are the two antidotes to going through prolonged seasons of feeling that way.

Now, just to give you a brief demonstration, and this is one that everyone's familiar with of how tough this is. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter 7, for that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not.

But what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is so good. Now then, it is no more that I do it, but sin dwelleth in me. So here's what we have to remember, first and foremost.

We are believers. We are Christians. We have been justified once and for all. And through sanctification, we are becoming more like God over time. But remember, it's not a straight line to the peak. It is more like a very choppy stock chart for Raj and Dave back there and Rod and Pam.

It looks more like this. You have, you can have dips. It's still uptrending, but there are dips in that process, in that journey. And that's what Paul is talking about here. If all this happens, it is not me that does it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

We have to remember we've got sin natures. We're still dragging around the old man, kind of like the burden on the back of Christian in Pilgrim's Progress. That is our burden, the old man. And that's what Paul is talking about here, the war between the spirit and the flesh all the time.

Listen as he goes on. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, take notice of this stuff, dwelleth no good thing. So that part of us, nothing good can ever come out of it, ever. Remember, they're antithetical.

Works of the flesh, fruit of the spirit. There's no mixing. It's one or the other. And so Paul is saying, anytime I am in the flesh, anytime I am in the old man, even as a Christian, even as an apostle, the preeminent apostle that wrote the majority of the New Testament, when I am in that state, the old man, there is no good that dwelleth in me.

No good thing dwelleth in me. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I can't find it. I find not. For the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do.

Now, if I do that, which I don't want to do, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Remember in Sunday school we were talking about the slave master of sin? We are freed from that slave master when we call upon the name of the Lord.

But because of our fickle nature, and as Dad calls it, you know, Christians are the best schizophrenics out there, we go in and out of desiring God with this fire and this zeal within us that seems unquenchable until it's not, and then we're right back in the old man.