New sermon series: The Fruit of the Spirit
Welcome to summer, Redeemer! This Sunday, June 22nd, we will embark on a new summer sermon series, "The Fruit of the Spirit." We will use Galatians 5 as a launching point to explore how these rich fruits can sprout, grow, and flourish in our lives together with Christ. ...The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
I love summer for so many reasons: school being out, baseball, longer days, hot weather (I know; I am sorry, but I do love hot weather!), family vacations, a little more time to play and to reflect, and summer fruit. My favorite summer fruits have rotated over the years - from grapes, watermelon, to peaches and nectarines, to cherries, but I love them all!
God loves to give us his fruit, at all times and places, in season and out of season. Jesus, the Son of God, gave his life for us and calls us to be his people, appointing us to bear fruit as his kingdom people. And this fruit grows in us as we abide in him. As the Bible tells us, he is the vine, and we are the branches; apart from him, we can do nothing. (John 15:1-16)
The Holy Spirit, sent from the Father and the Son into our lives as believers in and followers of Jesus, is the living, personal sap that runs into the branches of our lives as we are affixed to Christ by faith. And the Spirit loves to grow the fruit of a Christ-like life in us - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This fruit is wonderful, powerful, and eternal.
In the literary classic, The Berenstain Bears and The Prize Pumpkin, Papa Bear wants to grow the largest pumpkin in Bear Country and win the prize at the fair. He gets obsessed with growing "The Giant". He wants to make sure his pumpkin is bigger and better than the pumpkin his neighbor, Farmer Ben, is growing. What Papa Bear and the cubs discover along the way is that pumpkins are really made for growing and sharing and eating, not so much for winning blue ribbons at a fair or being larger than everyone else's.
That is how the fruit of the Spirit works. This fruit is not grown in our lives so that we can prove to ourselves or others what amazing people and Christians we are. The Spirit grows them in us so that the fruit can be shared and tasted by others, so they can taste and see the goodness of the Lord, as our lives are cracked open and others experience God's love and kindness through us.
I hope you will join us on Sunday as we launch this series and learn to live by the Spirit and see him grow the beautiful fruit of Christ in our lives!