“Fruits of the Spirit:  Called to Give”

Corey Fields

First Baptist Church, Topeka, KS;  November 25, 2007

Galatians 5:16-25

            One day, a fox and an angel were talking.  They were having a disagreement.  The fox said, “You know, I’m just here to survive.  I live in the wild, and it’s a harsh, cruel world out here.  I do what I’ve got to do.  I go get what I want, and if someone gets in my way, I just might have to hurt them.”  The angel is horrified.  He says, “That’s no way to live!  Nothing in this world is worth your time except for the invisible.  You just want to sleep, eat, and mate.  There’s no meaning in those physical things.”

            Animals and angels.  Animals live in step with and simply react to primal urges.  As psychoanalyst Bill Maher points out, all mammals, including humans, have 3 primal urges:  Eat, sleep, and mate.  Animals live out of a reaction to these 3 primal urges, and do little else.  There is an unconscious part of the brain that controls this…in humans it’s sometimes called the midbrain.  This is also the part of the brain that is in control when someone has an addiction.  Angels (in a pop culture sense, not necessarily in a biblical sense) live in the spirit world and don’t concern themselves with things physical or material.

            Humans, supposedly, are neither animals nor angels.  I staged this conversation in the parabolic context of an angel and an animal (which is the imagery used by author Rob Bell in his discussion of these things).  The funny thing is, the same conversation can happen and has happened between 2 human beings.  On the one hand you have some people in our society who do little more than satisfy their primal urges to eat, sleep, and mate….and I’m not talking about just teenage boys either.  There’s now actually a developing cultural voice that says that humans have added too many extra concerns to our lives, and that if we could go back to a lifestyle of satisfying our urges and living the way we want to, we would be truly free.  On the other hand, you have those – like the “angel” in my parable – who basically say that anything that your human body naturally wants is sinful…especially sexuality.  The technical words for these two extremes are “asceticism” and “hedonism.”     

We see these extremes in our world, and the apostle Paul – who wrote the book of Galatians – saw these extremes in his own world.  He addresses this kind of thing in his first letter to the Corinthians.  There were people in the church at Corinth who were denying themselves many different things to the point where Paul said to them, “You have freedom in Christ!  Don’t keep yourself in bondage.”  And there were other people who said “Well, Christ forgives us and we can do anything we want!”  Paul said, “Mmmmm…no, not that either.”

            I think we are familiar with this dichotomy…these extremes.  Now, the reason I bring all this up is to ask:  Is that really all there is to the Fruits of the Spirit?  When Paul tells us to forsake the “sinful nature” (the Greek says “desires of the flesh”) in favor of the fruits of the spirit, is he telling us that everything in this world is bad?  Everything our body naturally wants is bad?  Are we down to two choices?  Body or spirit?  Asceticism or hedonism?  Is this just a list of right and wrong?  In these passages Paul gives us this vice list.  Fellow students at my seminary always steered clear of these vice lists; they didn’t like them (probably because they were guilty of most things on the list).  Then he lists the fruits of the spirit.  Is it just a list of bad stuff and then a list of good stuff?  I  think there’s a lot more there.

            In verse 18, Paul says, “If we live by the Spirit, we are not under law.”  Paul talks a lot about living by the law versus living by the Spirit.  It doesn’t quite work with our modern ears because his definition of law is somewhat different and complicated, but one thing Paul says over and over – including here in Galatians, is that the law is only good for revealing what sin is.  The law only tells you what you’re not supposed to do, as in the first part of this passage.  Imagine if all we had was this first list.  Rules can give you motivation to stay out of trouble, but that’s about it.  Rules can’t save you.  Rules don’t make you a better person.  Rules don’t teach you what to do, they only tell you what NOT to do.  Paul seems to say here, ‘God has much more in mind for you than a list of don’ts.”  Imagine you’re lost and you stop somewhere for directions.  And the person points in one direction and says, “Don’t go that way.”  Unfortunately, this is what we sometimes have reduced Christianity to.  A list of don’ts.

Paul doesn’t just give us this list of vices and say, “Don’t go that way.”  He tells us where to go.  More important, he tells us where the Spirit is going.  In verse 25 he tells us:  “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”  The Greek word for “keep in step” is a military language.  Picture an army or a marching band – different people who have different roles, but they’re all marching to the same rhythm, the same beat.

  The Spirit has a beat.  The Holy Spirit keeps us in step with God’s beat.  And what is God’s beat?  Think about what we know about God from scripture and experience.  This is why I also read the verse from Acts 20:  [read again].  God is always going.  God is always giving.  God is constantly seeking us out.  The Bible gives us a picture of a God who totally concerns Himself with the affairs of His creation.  John 3:16 describes the ultimate act of giving.  Paul said, “Keep in step with this Spirit!  Walk to this beat!  March with this group.” 

God calls us to realize that we are more.  It’s not a choice of physical vs. spiritual.  It’s a matter of having the physical and every other fiber of who we are in step with the Spirit.

So I tried a little experiment.  When you line up the acts of the “sinful nature” with the fruits of the spirit, you start to see that Paul probably had a rhyme and a reason for how he wrote this.

                        Sexual immorality                                  à                                Love

                        Impurity, Debauchery                           à                                Joy

                        Idolatry, Witchcraft                               à                                Peace

                        [Jealousy]                                             à                                Patience

                        Hatred, discord                                    à                                Kindness

                        Selfish ambition                         à                                Goodness

                        Dissensions, Factions, Envy                  à                                Faithfulness

                        [Fits of rage]                                         à                                Gentleness

                        Drunkenness, orgies                              à                                Self-control

            The Spirit calls us beyond sexual immorality to following the Spirit in love.  When we engage in sex for the sake of sex, we are only after something for ourselves.  But love gives.  Love is not a feeling that we get.  It’s a commitment and a promise that we give.  Some young couples, still infatuated with each other, marry so early in the relationship that all they’re really marrying is a feeling.  They don’t realize that when you’re on that marriage altar, you are saying to the other person, “I promise that for the rest of my life, I will give to you, and give to you, and give to you.  And when I’ve run out of things to give, I’ll give some more.”

            The Spirit calls us beyond impurity and debauchery to following the Spirit in joy.  Here we see the difference between happiness and joy.  When we indulge ourselves, we’re seeking happiness…something that we get for ourselves, sometimes at the expense of others.  But when we follow the Spirit in joy, we have something contagious that we give to others even when we’re not trying.

            Peace – is it something you get or give?  Many people in my generation are very spiritual, but for the wrong reason.  All of the new age and pop-spiritualities out there are often all about what I get out of it.  Jesus said, “Blessed are the peaceMAKERS,” not the peaceGIVERS.”  The Spirit calls us to give peace.

            The Spirit calls us beyond jealousy to a life of patience.  When we’re jealous, there’s something that someone else has or is that we want for ourselves.  We often talk about patience as something that we HAVE, but it’s also something we give.  Patience is giving people and events the space and time that they need.

            The Spirit calls us beyond hatred and discord to a life of kindness.  When we engage in hateful behavior and cause discord, there’s something that we want.  The Spirit leads us to give kindness.

            The Spirit calls us beyond selfish ambition to a life of goodness.  Take vs. give.

            The Spirit calls us beyond dissensions, factions and envy to a life of faithfulness.  I wish we saw more of this in American churches.  There’s too much church-shopping going on today.  Too much moving around to different churches depending on what best gives us what we want.  When we are in step with the Spirit, we say, ‘This is my church church family, and I will be faithful to it.  No matter who the pastor is, no matter what the music program looks like, no matter whether I agree or disagree with people in my Sunday School class – this is my church family, and led by the Spirit, I will be faithful to it!’

            The Spirit calls us beyond fits of rage to a life of gentleness.  It’s been said that true strength is not when I impose my will on someone else, but when I can and choose not to.  Take vs. give.

            The Spirit calls us beyond drunkennesss and orgies to a life of self-control.  When we live with self-control, we are giving other people around us a good and peaceful environment to live in.

The Fruits of the Spirit are much more than a list of good stuff in contrast to bad stuff.  The Fruits of the Spirit are much more than choosing the spiritual over the physical.  The Fruits of the Spirit are about bringing everything of who we are and walking in step with the Spirit…the Spirit that gives and gives and gives.