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Introduction: The Fruit of the Spirit Quiz
Gal 5:16 …let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be
doing what your sinful nature craves. (NLT)
5:22… the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23a
gentleness, and self-control. (NLT)
__________
Gal 5:16 …let the Holy Spirit _________ your lives. Then you won’t
be doing what your _________ ________craves. (NLT) 5:22… the
Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, ____,
________, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23a
gentleness, and ________________.
__________
Gal 5:16 …let the Holy _________________________. Then you won’t be
_________________________. (NLT) 5:22… the Holy Spirit produces
this kind of fruit in our lives: _____,________,_______,________,
goodness,
faithfulness, ________, ____________________.
__________
a) Let __________________________________
b) Then you _____________________________________
c) The Holy Spirit __________________________________
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
________________________________________________________________________
As long as we are in the mood for quizzes let me ask you some more
questions:
Which of the following statements are true about the Fruit of Love?
TorF a) Love is the first and may be the most important fruit.
b) Love is an emotional feeling that often accompanies burning
candles.
c) Love is an inner willingness to self-sacrificially give oneself
away to others
d) Love was demonstrated by Jesus death for our sins and should show
up the same way in our attitude toward others
e) The fruit of love starts out full-grown in the Christian's life
and does not need any further development.
Which of the following statements are true about the Fruit of Joy?
TorF a) Joy is the giddy feeling we get when we receive unexpected
money.
b) Joy is the series of small bumps that form on your forearm when
you see or hear something especially beautiful.
c) Joy is not directly linked to the circumstances going on around
you or how other people are treating you.
When your circumstances take a sudden turn for the better and you
have a feeling of euphoria… is that the fruit of
joy?_____________ What is it? ________________
(This strangely elusive thing called happiness)
Our teens were here in the study of this subject on Wednesday
evening and they took us deeper in to this truth than many adults have
ever been before…
When you go searching for better feelings in life what are
you searching for?______
(happiness)
Happiness is always related to what is "happening" to you. It is
fleeting and fickle. It may or may not have any connection to your
relationship with God.
Joy, on the other hand, is always connected to the
_______________ of God in your life. (presence)
Many people, in their lifelong pursuit of happiness, completely miss
out on the fruit of joy. While searching for happiness they walk right
by joy.
Joy is always connected to the _____________ of God in your life!
There is absolutely no alternative to that statement… or that truth.
God comes into your life…. And God is filled with joy over his
relationship with you…
Zephaniah 3:17 For the Lord your God is living among you….He
will take delight in you with gladness. He will rejoice over you
with joyful songs.” (NLT)
He wants to create, in you, a return JOY in your relationship
with him..
Psalm 16:8-11 I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be
shaken, for he is right beside me. 9 No wonder my heart is glad, and
I rejoice. 11 You will show me the way of life, granting me
the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you
forever. (NLT)
We looked at lots of Scripture, from all over the Bible, Wednesday
evening and it all said exactly the same thing.
God wants to build into each one of his children an inner
awareness of his presence that allows us to have the Son shining on the
inside even when the sun has completely disappeared on the outside. He
wants our source of deep, soul, satisfaction to be rooted in our
relationship with him on the inside …not on what is going on around us
on the outside.
In the bigger picture, the eternal one…. That you have been placed
on this earth to prepare you for spending all of eternity with God in
heaven…
- it makes no logical sense for you to use this life to milk out
every drop of personal fulfillment and happiness…
- but it does make huge sense that you would be using this life to
nurture this inner personal relationship with the Savior that you are
going to be spending the next million years with in heaven. It makes
perfect sense that you would be learning an inner rest… an inner
contentment, in him, that finds his presence the most comfortable
atmosphere in the universe to be in.
It’s a beautiful truth that you can learn to be resting in that
place of inner contentment, in Christ even when the world is
chaotically blowing up around you.
(We looked at a whole series of Scriptures that tell us that joy
often is bred right in the midst of life adversity)
That’s joy…accompanied by it’s cousin…PEACE
If you try to find life's meaning in the occasional burst of
positive emotion in your life ( happiness) brought on by another's nice
actions, or a surge of financial success, or some good turn in your
life …….. you may…probably will miss…. this pervading, eternal
fruit that God wants to grow in each of our lives.
Remember…remember… remember… The fruit of joy is completely linked
to the presence of God in your life. If you are living in such a way as
to push the presence of God out of your life and at the same time
expecting a life of joy… you are expecting an impossibility!
Phillip Keller- A Gardener Looks at the Fruit of the Spirit-
“It is quite literally impossible to be at variance with God in any
area of life and there find joy. When I am in harmony with God’s will,
His joy energizes my being…The moment I rebel against his will for my
life, joy fades, and faith falters. (adapted)
I've got to say one more thing about JOY before I move on to the
fruit of PEACE because joy and peace are so closely related…they are
two sides of the same coin.
Luke 2:10-11 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring
you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he
is Christ the Lord. (NIV)
This “Savior of Great Joy” spent his ministry teaching his disciples
the link between a joyful life and staying tuned to his presence.
John 15: 9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now
remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will
remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and
remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy
may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
We get that????
All right…now lets bring in the third fruit…
What's Fruit # 3 on the list? PEACE!
Now here is a word you hear all the time in our society. Everybody
claims this to be one of their greatest desires for the world. It’s on
the list of every beauty pageant contestant. Every politician claims to
be striving for it… what ever it is.
Have you seen this new bumper sticker?
More commonly… this group even has their own line of clothing out:
It should interest us that the first symbol (Islam) and the middle
symbol (Judaism) both use the word salaam and shalom
(peace) as their greeting to each other and yet nowhere in the world
are people more used to the constant sound of gunfire and exploding
bombs.
Real peace has to be something more than a slogan or greeting. What
is peace?
Does PEACE mean the absence of conflict… life without tension?
When a politician says they want to bring peace to the Middle East
what are they talking about?
Absence of measurable conflict!!
How many politicians do you think actually believe that with the
signing of just one more peace treaty there is going to be a warm fuzzy
light that begins to make it's way through differing races and people
with thousands of years of built up hatred for each other and it will
spread like a thousand points of light until reaches China and Russia
and Europe and finally it will cross the ocean and make American
Christians and Muslims and Jews learn to coexist with each other and
with humanists and Satanists and everyone on that bumper sticker will
sit down and smoke peace pipes and laugh about how silly our
differences were.
All we need for peace in this world is for people to mentally decide
to tolerate each others differences.
You people of the cross, here on the end, can come back over here
and embrace the supporters of atheistic evolution and the "people of
the pentagram"…. and the "fruit of peace" will let us all hug each
other and no longer try to convince each other that our views are the
only right ones…
Remember…the fruit of the Spirit are characteristics that God
himself has… when he come into our lives he brings himself and as we
submit to him… his characteristics become more and more our
characteristics
As you have read through the Bible did you find that God was all
about co- existing with all other view-points. Is that the story of the
Old Testament? I want you Israelites to just get along with everyone.
Try not to rock the boat with the Caananites…Practice a little of your
religion…practice a little of theirs…throw in a idol or two… it's all
good!!
How about in the New Testament? What did the "God of all peace"
command his new and growing Church to do. "Don't you be out their
trying to convince the world that you have the only way to God… Just do
you best to co-exist with everyone else. Remember… you are Christian
filled with the fruit of peace… live in the world as best you can but
don't rock the boat… Don't cause any conflict or tension in the people
around you!!
When God promised peace to people in the Bible and he did..
Psalm 29:11 The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD
blesses his people with peace. (NIV)
Psalm 4:8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD,
make me dwell in safety. (NIV) (Lucky David… a life without any
hostility)
When God promised peace to people in the Bible and he did… was he
promising them peace with others on the outside or peace with God on
the inside?
I don't need to beat this horse any more…. You know that the peace
God is offering you is not a life free from tension.
Just like it's cousin JOY, the fruit of PEACE comes as a direct
result of the presence of God in our lives… and just like JOY…Peace
often grows on the inside while chaos is taking place on the outside.
Peace and joy work as partners to give you:
1) an inner assurance of your position with your Creator,
2) an inner contentment that he is working out all things for your
good.
3) an inner peace that he loves and accepts you unconditionally as
his child,
4) an inner rest that he is going before you arranging your life
circumstances for your greatest benefit,
5) an inner certainty your life will never end in an eternity spent
with God
All of that may be happening, inside, at the same time you are
crying out to God about impossible situations going on, on the outside:
Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again:
Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is
near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by
prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard
your hearts.
There it is…the dynamic duo… Joy and Peace!
What did the angels promise when the Savior was born?
Great Joy!
That's not all they promised…
Luke 2:13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of
others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God
in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is
pleased.” (NLT)
We'll come back to this fruit with greater definition Wednesday
evening and at the beginning of next week's sermon…
Conclusion:
Romans 15:13 I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you
completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will
overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. (NLT)
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