This Hymn Sing is in three parts, meant to be a mini "series" over three seperate Sundays. It can be done at any time in the church year and may be perfect for when a minister is taking vacation or renewal leave as it can be lay lead.
Large parts of this Hymn Sing were also inspired by the book Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit” by Eugenia Gamble and I highly recommend it as a resource.
Call to Worship:
Leader: As we gather for worship, we pray that the Holy Spirit would dwell within us.
Leader: As we gather for worship, we pray that the Holy Spirit would dwell within us.
People: Come, Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Love.
People: Come, Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Joy.
People: Come Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Peace.
All: Come, Holy Spirit, Come! Amen.
Introduction: Fruit of the Spirit
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” - Galatians 5:22-23
For three weeks we are exploring the Fruit of the Spirit as Paul shares them in Galatians. This is a well-known passage of Scripture - used in children’s songs, Vacation Bible School themes, devotionals. It is worth re-visiting. Because I feel like we often dismiss the Fruit of the Spirit or treat it like a moral character trait checklist that we may or may not have. But the Fruit of the Spirit is not about our character - they are about the character of God.
The Holy Spirit is loving, joyful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and full of self-control. And because, as a Christian, the Holy Spirit is within you, you also have the seeds of these traits inside of you. When we open ourselves up to let the Holy Spirit take deeper root in our lives, we are capable of bearing the fruit of the Spirit. So that whenever we are the embodiment of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we are being the embodiment of The Holy Spirit, the embodiment of God.
We are not called to “achieve” these characteristics, like a summit we climb or trophy we win, we are called to make room within us for the Spirit to shine forth and foster growth. This Fruit of the Image of God inside of us - we are capable, through the Spirit, of bearing this fruit. My prayer for us in this series is as Eugenia Gamble says in her book, “Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit” that “we can discover anew what it means to be a Spirit-indwelt, deeply loved child in whom God makes God’s home.”
Today we will look at Love, Joy, and Peace.
Let us sing, “The Fruit of the Spirit” (Insert)
https://www.carolynshymns.com/the_fruit_of_the_spirit.html
Love
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”- 1 Corinthians 14:3-7
Love. How does a preacher talk about love? Indeed talking about love is all we ever do as, as 1 John tells us, God is love.
There are many words used for love through the Bible, in the New Testament, agape, is the most common, used over 300 times. During the time of Jesus, agape, was an outdated antiquated word. The followers of Jesus, the writers of Scripture, picked up and dusted off this un-used word to get to the heart of God’s love for us. Agape love is the unconditional, unconquerable love of God for us.
The famous love passage as it’s known from 1 Corinthians 13 is about agape love. While often read at weddings, this passage is not describing love between two humans but it is describing the Love that God has for us. Indeed, it is describing who the God of Love is. You could take every time the passage says “Love” and replace it with “God.”
God is patient; God is kind; God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It starts to sound a little bit like the Fruit of the Spirit, doesn’t it?
We are called to let God’s agape love change us so that the love of God would transform not just our inner lives but overflow to all those around us - our family, our friends, our neighbors, and even our enemies. This love is more than just a feeling or passion - it is a choice, a muscle that we can learn to engage. The more we are attuned to God’s great agape love for us, the more we accept it, dwell in it, meditate upon it, and let it change us - the easier it comes to draw from the well of love in our treatment, attitudes, and words towards all others.
Perhaps Paul put love first in the list of Fruit of the Spirit because it is primary. After all, God’s two greatest commandments to us, which sum up all the law and the prophets are “Love God” and “Love neighbor as self.” Love is primary. It is the soil through which the rest of the fruit will grow. It is also perhaps the hardest to cultivate. There is much in our world that is antithetical to God’s love: fear, injustice, oppression, violence, apathy, hate…
And yet, and yet. The Light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. The God of Love is the light of the world and we are capable of great love - experiencing the love of God and bearing its fruit.
Let us sing, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” vs. 1, 2, 4, UMH 384
Joy
“Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.’” - Luke 2:8-11
Our God is a Joyful God!
Somewhere along the way we lost sight that the Gospel literally means Good News - and it is Good News of Great Joy! Our faith, church, worship has often become a serious, somber affair while perhaps we should be making room for more laughter, more levity, more dancing, more joy.
Now, happiness and joy, when referring to the theological concept of joy, are not synonyms. Happiness is often related to our outer experiences - what happens to us. Joy, on the other hand, is an inner reality that is based on the presence of the God who is Joy living inside of us.
There is an old camp song that has a verse: “I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul. I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul.” A fountain is an apt comparison for the joy that is found within our souls through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Like a fountain, joy does bubble out and burst forth from within us, we can’t contain it. But this isn’t some fountain that is built into concrete and is shallow - no, joy is a fountain that bursts out of a deep body of water. For joy has depth within our souls. And the body of water that the fountain is in is trust in God. What joy is, is deep trust and deep faith. Joy is an undercurrent flowing through our lives, assuring us that, ultimately, everything is going to be alright. That, in the scheme of things, the eternal scheme of things, in the words of Saint Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.” Joy is trusting in the words of Saint Paul in the letter to the Romans that nothing, absolutely NOTHING in this life or in death, can separate us from the love of God. Joy is knowing that we are awash, a float in the deep waters that are God’s love and there is nowhere we can go that we will not be in God’s care. Eugenia Gamble sums up Christian joy like this: “Joy is the result of a deep conviction that, no matter what, God and life are good.”
To help us cultivate joy in our lives, we have to trust that joy has already taken root inside of us because of the presence of a joyful God within us. Meredith Miller says this about joy in her book “Woven:” “Perhaps our hesitancy about joy reveals that we don’t think God actually delights in us, so we can’t imagine a God who is fine with our just plan having a good time.” Just as God delights in us, may we delight in God. Delight in the joy of worship. Delight in the joy of the sacraments. Delight in music and Christian fellowship. Delight in nature and all its wonders. Delight in the noises of small children. Delight in how all of creation points back to a God who is joyful. This delight helps open us up to the Spirit’s joy.
Friends, God loves you. God delights in you. The God who came to bring joy to this world, who holds us in the palm of God’s hands, who was there when we were formed in our mothers’ wombs, will be there when we take our last breath, and will carry us beyond life into eternity has planted the seed of joy within you. Let it burst forth like a fountain.
Let us sing, “Joy to the World,” vs. 1-2, UMH 246
Peace
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” - John 14:25-27
The word Paul uses for peace is eirene. Gambles defines that word for peace like this: “It refers to harmonious relationships between peoples, between nations, between a person and God, and within all the various aspects of a person that tend to war with each other. It has the connotation of quietness, freedom from oppression, rest, and contentment. It is the word used to describe internal coherence where all the pieces of our lives are knit together to fit into a new whole.” Eirene is the Greek word used to translate the Hebrew word Shalom which we know to mean peace but also wholeness.
Our understanding of God’s peace cannot be separated from our understanding of wholeness. To live in peace is to live into the wholeness of the world as God created it and the wholeness of all things that will be restored at the New Creation when God comes to make all things new.
Introduction
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” - Galatians 5:22-23
This is our second week exploring the Fruit of the Spirit as Paul shares them in Galatians. This is a well-known passage of Scripture - used in children’s songs, Vacation Bible School themes, devotionals. It is worth re-visiting. Because I feel like we often dismiss the Fruit of the Spirit or treat it like a moral character trait checklist that we may or may not have. But the Fruit of the Spirit is not about our character - they are about the character of God.
The Holy Spirit is loving, joyful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and full of self-control. And because, as a Christian, the Holy Spirit is within you, you also have the seeds of these traits inside of you. When we open ourselves up to let the Holy Spirit take deeper root in our lives, we are capable of bearing the fruit of the Spirit. So that whenever we are the embodiment of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we are being the embodiment of The Holy Spirit, the embodiment of God.
We are not called to “achieve” these characteristics, like a summit we climb or trophy we win, we are called to make room within us for the Spirit to shine forth and foster growth. This Fruit of the Image of God inside of us - we are capable, through the Spirit, of bearing this fruit. My prayer for us in this series is as Eugenia Gamble says in her book, “Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit” that “we can discover anew what it means to be a Spirit-indwelt, deeply loved child in whom God makes God’s home.”
Last week we looked at Love, Joy, and Peace. Today we will take a closer look at Patience, Kindness, and Generosity.
Let us sing, “The Fruit of the Spirit” (Insert)
https://www.carolynshymns.com/the_fruit_of_the_spirit.html
Patience
“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” - Colossians 1:11-12
I feel like it is at this point in the Fruit of the Spirit that I hear a record scratch. Love, Joy, Peace….Patience. Ugh. For many of us, patience is not a strong suit. We live in a culture of instant gratification where even if a webpage takes several seconds to load, it feels like a long time and we can get impatient. Amazon built a whole empire over the promise of two day shipping. We don’t even have to go to a restaurant anymore, it can be dashed to our door. We as a culture are certainly not patient. In fact, the word used here for patience in the Greek also has a connotation of forbearance of even “long-suffering.” Gee. That sounds…fun. (Not)
But put aside our individual and cultural struggles with patience for a minute and consider how this patience, this forbearance, and yes, even this “long-suffering” are attributes of God. It brings to mind the passage in 1 Corinthians when it says Love is slow to anger…the God who is Love is slow to anger. God is patient. God bears with us. For God loves us, God is ever patient, in both caring for the span of humanity across all of time and for waiting for us to come to God. God will never tire of the work of millennia in shepherding God’s people. God will never tire in waiting for you to return to the embrace of God’s arms. God is ever patient.
And through the Spirit that patience is within you as well. How do we tap into this deep well in a world of instant gratification?
Part of practicing patience is making our fuses longer. Just as God is slow to anger - we must be too. Slower to retaliation. Slower to nurse grudges. Slower to judge. We must purposefully slow down to allow God’s ever present Spirit to work within and through us. A story that has always stuck with me was shared by Nadia Bolz Weber in her book “Pastrix.” As a pastor she said there were many times when parishioners came to her angry and threatened to leave the church over what that incident of the week was… She would always say something like, “You are free to leave. But if you do, you will miss out on what happens when the Spirit of God works between us to reconcile us to one another.” If we aren’t patient, if we don’t lengthen our fuses, if we don’t forebear one another…we will miss how the Spirit is at and will be at work in our lives.
Another part of cultivating patience is cultivating the awareness and appreciation of the Now. This Moment. Every moment. Right where we are and what we are doing. And who is with us. And how God is with us now. Right now. Not waiting for what will come next. Not wishing for one more thing to make it right. Not hurrying past what is for what will be.
Patience isn’t just about not hurrying to the future. It is also about not rushing back to the past because the road ahead is long. The Israelites were not long in the desert, freed from the bonds of slavery in Egypt, when they were tired, hungry, and thirsty and they said they should go back to Egypt for while they were enslaved at least they knew where their next meal was coming from. This is so human. God had amazing things planned for them. In God’s eternal, steadfast, patient love - God was already at work in bringing them to the Promised Land - but the Israelites lacked patience.
So can we all, just take a deep breath. Patience can be hard to access in our world that is ever more quick to lash out but we can access it because the Spirit is within us, inviting us to breath deeply, and appreciate the gift of the present moment, trusting that the God who is steadfast and patient in love and commitment for us, is already at work in our lives.
Let us sing, “Take Time to Be Holy,” vs. 1, 2, 4, UMH 395
Kindness
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.” - Micah 6:8
The word often translated as kindness in Hebrew is hesed. It’s translated this way in Micah 6:8 where it says: “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” Hesed has a deeper meaning beyond kindness as it is often used today. This kindness is not what I call “Southern hospitality” or “Midwest niceness.” This kindness is not simply not saying something rude or hurting people’s feelings - this kindness comes from a steadfast commitment to walk alongside one another with love. In Isaiah this word is used to describe how a mother feeds her nursing infant: “Can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” It is most often used to describe an inherent trait of God towards us: Never ceasing to walk alongside us and shower us with loving-kindness.
The Greek word used for kindness in the Fruit of the Spirit has the same connotation. This kindness is one that is full of compassion and usefulness, to support what is good and full of integrity in one’s self, and to lift that up in others.
To say that God is Kind is to say that God is Good, Compassionate, Merciful, Never-Ceasing, Faithful, Loving.
To say that the Fruit of the Spirit of kindness is within us is to say that we have the capacity for that same loving kindness in all of our interactions.
The good thing about kindness is there is no shortage of ways to let it flow through us in this world and in our relationships. The Spirit’s kindness is ever ready to flow through us.
We can express kindness by going to a friend in grief and simply being with them, holding their hand, crying with them, offering support with the weight of the presence of our body.
We can express kindness by paying attention. To what makes people light up. To express little moments of gratitude. Taking the time to give someone your full, undivided, listening presence. Kindness is expressed in seeing the full humanity of all around you. Kindness is expressed in being an encourager, a cheerleader, using words and actions to uplift the goodness and kindness in others. Kindness can also be fierce and courageous action taken to protect another. We must also not forget to be kind to ourselves. We are beloved children of God. There are countless ways to let the kindness of God flow through you to other beloved children of God.
Let us sing, “Jesus’ Hands Were Kind Hands,” UMH 273
Generosity
“For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the favor of partnering in this ministry to the saints, and not as we expected. Instead, they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, so that we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking among you. Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.” - 2 Corinthians 8:3-7
Perhaps you did a double take when you heard “Generosity” instead of “Goodness” in the list of the Fruit of the Spirit - all those old children’s songs have goodness as the word here. The translation of Scripture that is being used for the list of the Fruit of the Spirit is the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition which is generally considered a scholarly translation of high regard. But almost every other translation out there is going to have “Goodness” as the translation instead of “Generosity.”
What does this difference in translation between generosity and goodness, the space between these two words, tell us about the Fruit that the Spirit bears within us?
Both goodness and generosity require openness. Whereas goodness and the aforementioned kindness might seem to overlap in our minds, generosity implies that we take the goodness inside of us, we take the kindness inside of us, and we openly share it with others. We move from that which lies within to that which we share without. In our church we recognize that generosity comes in many forms: generosity of prayer, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Sharing all these things requires and brings forth goodness.
It is good and kind to see the person who is hungry. It is generosity that feeds them. It good and kind to notice the oppressed and marginalized, it is generosity that puts one’s body on the line with them or to give funds to support their cause. It is good and kind to sit with a friend who is sad, it is generosity that keeps showing up time and time again as grief continues.
Generosity allows us to partner with the Goodness and Kindness and Love of God in the world. You might start to realize that all the Fruit of the Spirit are connected to one another. As those in the church of Macedonia were eager to partner with God in ministry by supporting Titus so that it overflowed with generosity, when the Spirit abides in us, we too can become eager to give all that we can to partner with God for the all Good that can be done in this world.
It is as the famous quote attributed to John Wesley goes: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
Goodness is about how we choose to use what we have -- our resources, yes; our time, yes; our talents, yes. The goodness and kindness given to us by God, yes. Generosity requires action from us - it will not just happen, we have to choose to follow the Spirit’s leading, to open our hearts, move our hands and feet - and generously share God’s goodness with others.
Our next hymn will be our final song as part of our Fruit of the Spirit hymn sing today. Next week we will engage three more Fruit of the Spirit.
Let us sing, “Take My Life, and Let It Be,” vs. 1-2, UMH 399
Fruit of the Spirit Congregational Hymn Sing - Part 3
Introduction
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” - Galatians 5:22-23
This is our third and final week exploring the Fruit of the Spirit as Paul shares them in Galatians. This is a well-known passage of Scripture - used in children’s songs, Vacation Bible School themes, devotionals. It is worth re-visiting. Because I feel like we often dismiss the Fruit of the Spirit or treat it like a moral character trait checklist that we may or may not have. But the Fruit of the Spirit is not about our character - they are about the character of God.
The Holy Spirit is loving, joyful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and full of self-control. And because, as a Christian, the Holy Spirit is within you, you also have the seeds of these traits inside of you. When we open ourselves up to let the Holy Spirit take deeper root in our lives, we are capable of bearing the fruit of the Spirit. So that whenever we are the embodiment of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we are being the embodiment of The Holy Spirit, the embodiment of God.
We are not called to “achieve” these characteristics, like a summit we climb or trophy we win, we are called to make room within us for the Spirit to shine forth and foster growth. This Fruit of the Image of God inside of us - we are capable, through the Spirit, of bearing this fruit. My prayer for us in this series is as Eugenia Gamble says in her book, “Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit” that “we can discover anew what it means to be a Spirit-indwelt, deeply loved child in whom God makes God’s home.”
Over the last two weeks we have looked at Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, and Generosity. Today we will finish this series by taking a deeper look at Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.
Let us sing, “The Fruit of the Spirit” (Insert)
https://www.carolynshymns.com/the_fruit_of_the_spirit.html
Faithfulness
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
For the first things have passed away.’” - Revelation 21:1-4
We often think about faithfulness as us being full of faith, in that we are full of the right beliefs about God. I would ask us to consider instead, what it means for God to be faithful. Not a faithfulness of a theology checklist but a faithfulness of unceasing commitment. I often describe the drumbeat of the Old Testament and really the whole Bible as it says in Exodus 6 and other places in the Bible, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” God’s faithfulness means that God is always working to draw God’s children into God’s embrace. Through making a way of out of no way, from the Exodus in Egypt, to the law, to the cries of the Prophets to “return to God,” to Jesus coming so that we would have relationship with God, to that relationship being open to all peoples - a new covenant of water and the Spirit.
“We can trust God that God is always going to be faithful to God’s creation. God has told us how all this, all of creation will end in that vision from Revelation 21 where there is a new heaven and a new earth and there is no more pain, no more crying, no more death. God and humans dwell together and all things are made right, all things are restored.
We can trust God. God is faithful. It is as Saint Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.” (Which we talked about when we talked about Joy - it’s amazing to see how all of the Fruit of the Spirit are connected to one another.)
God is faithful to us in all circumstances. Even when our love fails, God’s love remains steadfast. Because God is faithful to us - we have the capacity to be faithful to God. We won’t always get it right - and yet, we can trust God and reflect the fruit of faithfulness.
What does it mean for us to be faithful? It means for us to be humble before God and realize how much we need God. We are not self-reliant. We are not independent beings. We need God and God’s goodness in our lives. We need to put aside our own egos and desires, to listen carefully to the kind of life God is calling us to live - a life that bears the fruit of the Spirit. Our faith deepens the more we trust in God’s faithfulness to us and to all of God’s creations. When we trust that God is always holding us in God’s hands - we can ask questions of our faith, we can be bold in service, we can take big leaps to go where God is calling us. To be faithful is to trust that God is God and faithful to all of humanity - that God is offering us a deep well of grace and love, and when we drink from that well, we are called to let that living water, that grace and love, overflow to ourselves and all others in our lives. The details of what faithfulness looks like will be different for each of us - but at it’s core it will be the same - do we trust in God’s faithfulness? Does that trust cause us to follow God that through our actions and the goodness of God that shines through us, others will come to trust in God too?
Let us sing, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” vs. 1 & 3, UMH 140
Gentleness
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.” - Psalm 23:1-3
This may be the most mystifying of the Fruit of the Spirit that Paul writes about. Gamble says this about the Greek word used for gentleness: “Prautes in ordinary Greek is the word used for an animal that has been brought under control, trusts the leader, and therefore can relax in the feeling of security and knowing its place in things.”
In this series on the Fruit of the Spirit we have talked a lot about God’s goodness and a lot about trust. Not to be labor a point but it all comes back to this - God is GOOD. And we can trust that God is good.
Have you ever had an animal, a pet, sleeping at your feet? A dog or a cat that is totally relaxed, safe, the literal definition of warm and fuzzy because that pet knows that their owner loves them, cares for them, and will always watch out for them?
This is the fruit of gentleness - we are the animal at the feet of God. The cat, the dog, or perhaps even the sheep sleeping at the feet of the Good Shepherd.
This is the same word used in the Beatitudes when Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Gentleness and meek are the same Greek word. The Common English Translation translated meek as “humble” but they have a similar connotation here.
When we trust in God’s goodness, we can humble ourselves before God, following God’s will, God’s way - which is a way of gentleness. Jesus was the lamb who was led to the slaughter. The Good Shepherd who guides sheep besides still water. The teacher who taught us to turn our cheeks and walk the second mile.
The thing is, our world will harden us. The gentle and the meek are seen as pushovers. People to take advantage of. We may feel we have to harden our hearts and toughen our skin just to survive in this world… We need to be reminded that gentleness can be a kind of strength too. To hold on to the absolute core that God is good in a world filled with violence, hatred, trauma, death, senseless…it takes strength. It takes resolve. It takes trust and a deep, meaningful relationship with God that is regularly tended.
Gentleness in a decidedly not gentle world can also be an asset. Without it, we will sink into despair and become a part of the injustices of the world. A spirit of gentleness allows us to hold tight to God, to get a bird’s eye perspective that God is in charge, and leaves our hearts open to God and to one another.
Before we sing our hymn, I just want to return to that beautiful imagery of gentleness that is a loving and loved pet falling asleep at their master’s feet…may we be so at peace with our good God.
Let us sing, “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” vs. 1, 3, 4, UMH 351
Self-Control
“For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. 8 For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 2 Peter 1:5-8
It is appropriate to end our three week series on the Fruit of the Spirit - or perhaps we could say it was appropriate for Paul to end his list of the Fruit of the Spirit - with self-control. Self-control in the spiritual sense is not about setting a strict schedule, waking up at the same time every morning, keeping a good workout routine or anything like that. Self-control as a Fruit of the Spirit is consistently making choices that are consistent with our and God’s highest values.
In other words, are we choosing to live lives that tend the Fruit of the Spirit? Are all our decisions reflecting love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and gentleness? Perhaps exercising self-control is the opposite of being a hypocrite - our words, our actions, our hearts, our minds, and our souls are aligned. Not only are they in alignment within us - but they are in alignment with God as well.
This is, of course, easier said than done. I think it’s why Paul resonates with us so much when he says in Romans: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” For it’s easy to choose, well - the easy way. The way of anger, of lashing out, of self-service, greed, selfishness, jealousy, quarreling, envy, gossip…all those “ways of the flesh” that Paul warns about. We could also call it what it is, sin. A go-to definition of sin means to miss the mark. The mark is love of God and love of neighbor as self. So anytime we fail to love or our actions are actively non-loving, that is a sin. Another definition of sin that I recently heard is that sin is whatever stops the spirit's work within us. The Spirit’s work within us is bearing the fruit of the spirit.
And that’s where self-control comes in. The Spirit who resides within us, gives us the ability to hold fast to what is good and what is right and what is true. And when we fail, because we were human, we are offered forgiveness and the chance to try again.
Self-control is about letting everything in one’s life reflect the love of God. Self-control is about bearing fruit.
And so, friends, as we bring to an end this series on the Fruit of the Spirit, let us remember that the Fruit are just as much about who God is as they are about what we are called to be - for we are called to become Christlike and Spirit-filled.
Each and everyone of you here has the capacity, the ability, to abide in the Spirit and bear good fruit - fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
May it be so, Amen.
Let us sing, “Breathe on Me, Breath of God,” UMH 420
Introduction: Fruit of the Spirit
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” - Galatians 5:22-23
For three weeks we are exploring the Fruit of the Spirit as Paul shares them in Galatians. This is a well-known passage of Scripture - used in children’s songs, Vacation Bible School themes, devotionals. It is worth re-visiting. Because I feel like we often dismiss the Fruit of the Spirit or treat it like a moral character trait checklist that we may or may not have. But the Fruit of the Spirit is not about our character - they are about the character of God.
The Holy Spirit is loving, joyful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and full of self-control. And because, as a Christian, the Holy Spirit is within you, you also have the seeds of these traits inside of you. When we open ourselves up to let the Holy Spirit take deeper root in our lives, we are capable of bearing the fruit of the Spirit. So that whenever we are the embodiment of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we are being the embodiment of The Holy Spirit, the embodiment of God.
We are not called to “achieve” these characteristics, like a summit we climb or trophy we win, we are called to make room within us for the Spirit to shine forth and foster growth. This Fruit of the Image of God inside of us - we are capable, through the Spirit, of bearing this fruit. My prayer for us in this series is as Eugenia Gamble says in her book, “Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit” that “we can discover anew what it means to be a Spirit-indwelt, deeply loved child in whom God makes God’s home.”
Today we will look at Love, Joy, and Peace.
Let us sing, “The Fruit of the Spirit” (Insert)
https://www.carolynshymns.com/the_fruit_of_the_spirit.html
Love
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”- 1 Corinthians 14:3-7
Love. How does a preacher talk about love? Indeed talking about love is all we ever do as, as 1 John tells us, God is love.
There are many words used for love through the Bible, in the New Testament, agape, is the most common, used over 300 times. During the time of Jesus, agape, was an outdated antiquated word. The followers of Jesus, the writers of Scripture, picked up and dusted off this un-used word to get to the heart of God’s love for us. Agape love is the unconditional, unconquerable love of God for us.
The famous love passage as it’s known from 1 Corinthians 13 is about agape love. While often read at weddings, this passage is not describing love between two humans but it is describing the Love that God has for us. Indeed, it is describing who the God of Love is. You could take every time the passage says “Love” and replace it with “God.”
God is patient; God is kind; God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It starts to sound a little bit like the Fruit of the Spirit, doesn’t it?
We are called to let God’s agape love change us so that the love of God would transform not just our inner lives but overflow to all those around us - our family, our friends, our neighbors, and even our enemies. This love is more than just a feeling or passion - it is a choice, a muscle that we can learn to engage. The more we are attuned to God’s great agape love for us, the more we accept it, dwell in it, meditate upon it, and let it change us - the easier it comes to draw from the well of love in our treatment, attitudes, and words towards all others.
Perhaps Paul put love first in the list of Fruit of the Spirit because it is primary. After all, God’s two greatest commandments to us, which sum up all the law and the prophets are “Love God” and “Love neighbor as self.” Love is primary. It is the soil through which the rest of the fruit will grow. It is also perhaps the hardest to cultivate. There is much in our world that is antithetical to God’s love: fear, injustice, oppression, violence, apathy, hate…
And yet, and yet. The Light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. The God of Love is the light of the world and we are capable of great love - experiencing the love of God and bearing its fruit.
Let us sing, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” vs. 1, 2, 4, UMH 384
Joy
“Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.’” - Luke 2:8-11
Our God is a Joyful God!
Somewhere along the way we lost sight that the Gospel literally means Good News - and it is Good News of Great Joy! Our faith, church, worship has often become a serious, somber affair while perhaps we should be making room for more laughter, more levity, more dancing, more joy.
Now, happiness and joy, when referring to the theological concept of joy, are not synonyms. Happiness is often related to our outer experiences - what happens to us. Joy, on the other hand, is an inner reality that is based on the presence of the God who is Joy living inside of us.
There is an old camp song that has a verse: “I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul. I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul.” A fountain is an apt comparison for the joy that is found within our souls through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Like a fountain, joy does bubble out and burst forth from within us, we can’t contain it. But this isn’t some fountain that is built into concrete and is shallow - no, joy is a fountain that bursts out of a deep body of water. For joy has depth within our souls. And the body of water that the fountain is in is trust in God. What joy is, is deep trust and deep faith. Joy is an undercurrent flowing through our lives, assuring us that, ultimately, everything is going to be alright. That, in the scheme of things, the eternal scheme of things, in the words of Saint Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.” Joy is trusting in the words of Saint Paul in the letter to the Romans that nothing, absolutely NOTHING in this life or in death, can separate us from the love of God. Joy is knowing that we are awash, a float in the deep waters that are God’s love and there is nowhere we can go that we will not be in God’s care. Eugenia Gamble sums up Christian joy like this: “Joy is the result of a deep conviction that, no matter what, God and life are good.”
To help us cultivate joy in our lives, we have to trust that joy has already taken root inside of us because of the presence of a joyful God within us. Meredith Miller says this about joy in her book “Woven:” “Perhaps our hesitancy about joy reveals that we don’t think God actually delights in us, so we can’t imagine a God who is fine with our just plan having a good time.” Just as God delights in us, may we delight in God. Delight in the joy of worship. Delight in the joy of the sacraments. Delight in music and Christian fellowship. Delight in nature and all its wonders. Delight in the noises of small children. Delight in how all of creation points back to a God who is joyful. This delight helps open us up to the Spirit’s joy.
Friends, God loves you. God delights in you. The God who came to bring joy to this world, who holds us in the palm of God’s hands, who was there when we were formed in our mothers’ wombs, will be there when we take our last breath, and will carry us beyond life into eternity has planted the seed of joy within you. Let it burst forth like a fountain.
Let us sing, “Joy to the World,” vs. 1-2, UMH 246
Peace
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” - John 14:25-27
The word Paul uses for peace is eirene. Gambles defines that word for peace like this: “It refers to harmonious relationships between peoples, between nations, between a person and God, and within all the various aspects of a person that tend to war with each other. It has the connotation of quietness, freedom from oppression, rest, and contentment. It is the word used to describe internal coherence where all the pieces of our lives are knit together to fit into a new whole.” Eirene is the Greek word used to translate the Hebrew word Shalom which we know to mean peace but also wholeness.
Our understanding of God’s peace cannot be separated from our understanding of wholeness. To live in peace is to live into the wholeness of the world as God created it and the wholeness of all things that will be restored at the New Creation when God comes to make all things new.
But how, in our world that has been broken by sin, do we live into this wholeness of peace now?
We must let the God of Shalom weave together an inner peace of contentment, calm, acceptance, and wholeness in our souls. And while that may be easy enough to say, we know that it is not an easy task while living in contexts that are anything but peaceful. For as long as we look for the answer to our peace outside the Spirit’s presence within us, we will not find it.
We must do the hard inner work of, together with the Spirit, of healing our own inner hurts, wounds, egos, resentments, and anything that holds us back from the inner peace given as a gift from God. Through a lifetime of doing this inner work, we will catch glimpses of the wholeness that God desires for each and every one of us.
This work does not need to be completed to be a proponent for peace in our larger world but it is inner work we need to be engaged in for the good of ourselves and the whole world. We let the God of peace work within us, trusting in God’s vision of wholeness not just for our own lives but for all of creation, so that, grounded in the peace of God, we would become the blessed peacemakers that Jesus preaches about in the Sermon on the Mount “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.”. That the peace that the Spirit has wrought within us, would be a peace that we would partner with the Spirit, to bring to the world.
Our next hymn will be our final song as part of our Fruit of the Spirit hymn sing today. Next week we will engage three more Fruit of the Spirit.
Let us sing, “Let There Be Peace on Earth,’ UMH 431
Fruit of the Spirit Congregational Hymn Sing - Part 2
We must let the God of Shalom weave together an inner peace of contentment, calm, acceptance, and wholeness in our souls. And while that may be easy enough to say, we know that it is not an easy task while living in contexts that are anything but peaceful. For as long as we look for the answer to our peace outside the Spirit’s presence within us, we will not find it.
We must do the hard inner work of, together with the Spirit, of healing our own inner hurts, wounds, egos, resentments, and anything that holds us back from the inner peace given as a gift from God. Through a lifetime of doing this inner work, we will catch glimpses of the wholeness that God desires for each and every one of us.
This work does not need to be completed to be a proponent for peace in our larger world but it is inner work we need to be engaged in for the good of ourselves and the whole world. We let the God of peace work within us, trusting in God’s vision of wholeness not just for our own lives but for all of creation, so that, grounded in the peace of God, we would become the blessed peacemakers that Jesus preaches about in the Sermon on the Mount “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.”. That the peace that the Spirit has wrought within us, would be a peace that we would partner with the Spirit, to bring to the world.
Our next hymn will be our final song as part of our Fruit of the Spirit hymn sing today. Next week we will engage three more Fruit of the Spirit.
Let us sing, “Let There Be Peace on Earth,’ UMH 431
Fruit of the Spirit Congregational Hymn Sing - Part 2
Call to Worship:
Leader: As we gather for worship, we pray that the Holy Spirit would dwell within us.
Leader: As we gather for worship, we pray that the Holy Spirit would dwell within us.
People: Come, Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Patience.
People: Come, Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Kindness.
People: Come Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Generosity.
All: Come, Holy Spirit, Come! Amen.
Introduction
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” - Galatians 5:22-23
This is our second week exploring the Fruit of the Spirit as Paul shares them in Galatians. This is a well-known passage of Scripture - used in children’s songs, Vacation Bible School themes, devotionals. It is worth re-visiting. Because I feel like we often dismiss the Fruit of the Spirit or treat it like a moral character trait checklist that we may or may not have. But the Fruit of the Spirit is not about our character - they are about the character of God.
The Holy Spirit is loving, joyful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and full of self-control. And because, as a Christian, the Holy Spirit is within you, you also have the seeds of these traits inside of you. When we open ourselves up to let the Holy Spirit take deeper root in our lives, we are capable of bearing the fruit of the Spirit. So that whenever we are the embodiment of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we are being the embodiment of The Holy Spirit, the embodiment of God.
We are not called to “achieve” these characteristics, like a summit we climb or trophy we win, we are called to make room within us for the Spirit to shine forth and foster growth. This Fruit of the Image of God inside of us - we are capable, through the Spirit, of bearing this fruit. My prayer for us in this series is as Eugenia Gamble says in her book, “Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit” that “we can discover anew what it means to be a Spirit-indwelt, deeply loved child in whom God makes God’s home.”
Last week we looked at Love, Joy, and Peace. Today we will take a closer look at Patience, Kindness, and Generosity.
Let us sing, “The Fruit of the Spirit” (Insert)
https://www.carolynshymns.com/the_fruit_of_the_spirit.html
Patience
“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” - Colossians 1:11-12
I feel like it is at this point in the Fruit of the Spirit that I hear a record scratch. Love, Joy, Peace….Patience. Ugh. For many of us, patience is not a strong suit. We live in a culture of instant gratification where even if a webpage takes several seconds to load, it feels like a long time and we can get impatient. Amazon built a whole empire over the promise of two day shipping. We don’t even have to go to a restaurant anymore, it can be dashed to our door. We as a culture are certainly not patient. In fact, the word used here for patience in the Greek also has a connotation of forbearance of even “long-suffering.” Gee. That sounds…fun. (Not)
But put aside our individual and cultural struggles with patience for a minute and consider how this patience, this forbearance, and yes, even this “long-suffering” are attributes of God. It brings to mind the passage in 1 Corinthians when it says Love is slow to anger…the God who is Love is slow to anger. God is patient. God bears with us. For God loves us, God is ever patient, in both caring for the span of humanity across all of time and for waiting for us to come to God. God will never tire of the work of millennia in shepherding God’s people. God will never tire in waiting for you to return to the embrace of God’s arms. God is ever patient.
And through the Spirit that patience is within you as well. How do we tap into this deep well in a world of instant gratification?
Part of practicing patience is making our fuses longer. Just as God is slow to anger - we must be too. Slower to retaliation. Slower to nurse grudges. Slower to judge. We must purposefully slow down to allow God’s ever present Spirit to work within and through us. A story that has always stuck with me was shared by Nadia Bolz Weber in her book “Pastrix.” As a pastor she said there were many times when parishioners came to her angry and threatened to leave the church over what that incident of the week was… She would always say something like, “You are free to leave. But if you do, you will miss out on what happens when the Spirit of God works between us to reconcile us to one another.” If we aren’t patient, if we don’t lengthen our fuses, if we don’t forebear one another…we will miss how the Spirit is at and will be at work in our lives.
Another part of cultivating patience is cultivating the awareness and appreciation of the Now. This Moment. Every moment. Right where we are and what we are doing. And who is with us. And how God is with us now. Right now. Not waiting for what will come next. Not wishing for one more thing to make it right. Not hurrying past what is for what will be.
Patience isn’t just about not hurrying to the future. It is also about not rushing back to the past because the road ahead is long. The Israelites were not long in the desert, freed from the bonds of slavery in Egypt, when they were tired, hungry, and thirsty and they said they should go back to Egypt for while they were enslaved at least they knew where their next meal was coming from. This is so human. God had amazing things planned for them. In God’s eternal, steadfast, patient love - God was already at work in bringing them to the Promised Land - but the Israelites lacked patience.
So can we all, just take a deep breath. Patience can be hard to access in our world that is ever more quick to lash out but we can access it because the Spirit is within us, inviting us to breath deeply, and appreciate the gift of the present moment, trusting that the God who is steadfast and patient in love and commitment for us, is already at work in our lives.
Let us sing, “Take Time to Be Holy,” vs. 1, 2, 4, UMH 395
Kindness
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.” - Micah 6:8
The word often translated as kindness in Hebrew is hesed. It’s translated this way in Micah 6:8 where it says: “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” Hesed has a deeper meaning beyond kindness as it is often used today. This kindness is not what I call “Southern hospitality” or “Midwest niceness.” This kindness is not simply not saying something rude or hurting people’s feelings - this kindness comes from a steadfast commitment to walk alongside one another with love. In Isaiah this word is used to describe how a mother feeds her nursing infant: “Can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” It is most often used to describe an inherent trait of God towards us: Never ceasing to walk alongside us and shower us with loving-kindness.
The Greek word used for kindness in the Fruit of the Spirit has the same connotation. This kindness is one that is full of compassion and usefulness, to support what is good and full of integrity in one’s self, and to lift that up in others.
To say that God is Kind is to say that God is Good, Compassionate, Merciful, Never-Ceasing, Faithful, Loving.
To say that the Fruit of the Spirit of kindness is within us is to say that we have the capacity for that same loving kindness in all of our interactions.
The good thing about kindness is there is no shortage of ways to let it flow through us in this world and in our relationships. The Spirit’s kindness is ever ready to flow through us.
We can express kindness by going to a friend in grief and simply being with them, holding their hand, crying with them, offering support with the weight of the presence of our body.
We can express kindness by paying attention. To what makes people light up. To express little moments of gratitude. Taking the time to give someone your full, undivided, listening presence. Kindness is expressed in seeing the full humanity of all around you. Kindness is expressed in being an encourager, a cheerleader, using words and actions to uplift the goodness and kindness in others. Kindness can also be fierce and courageous action taken to protect another. We must also not forget to be kind to ourselves. We are beloved children of God. There are countless ways to let the kindness of God flow through you to other beloved children of God.
Let us sing, “Jesus’ Hands Were Kind Hands,” UMH 273
Generosity
“For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the favor of partnering in this ministry to the saints, and not as we expected. Instead, they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, so that we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking among you. Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.” - 2 Corinthians 8:3-7
Perhaps you did a double take when you heard “Generosity” instead of “Goodness” in the list of the Fruit of the Spirit - all those old children’s songs have goodness as the word here. The translation of Scripture that is being used for the list of the Fruit of the Spirit is the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition which is generally considered a scholarly translation of high regard. But almost every other translation out there is going to have “Goodness” as the translation instead of “Generosity.”
What does this difference in translation between generosity and goodness, the space between these two words, tell us about the Fruit that the Spirit bears within us?
Both goodness and generosity require openness. Whereas goodness and the aforementioned kindness might seem to overlap in our minds, generosity implies that we take the goodness inside of us, we take the kindness inside of us, and we openly share it with others. We move from that which lies within to that which we share without. In our church we recognize that generosity comes in many forms: generosity of prayer, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Sharing all these things requires and brings forth goodness.
It is good and kind to see the person who is hungry. It is generosity that feeds them. It good and kind to notice the oppressed and marginalized, it is generosity that puts one’s body on the line with them or to give funds to support their cause. It is good and kind to sit with a friend who is sad, it is generosity that keeps showing up time and time again as grief continues.
Generosity allows us to partner with the Goodness and Kindness and Love of God in the world. You might start to realize that all the Fruit of the Spirit are connected to one another. As those in the church of Macedonia were eager to partner with God in ministry by supporting Titus so that it overflowed with generosity, when the Spirit abides in us, we too can become eager to give all that we can to partner with God for the all Good that can be done in this world.
It is as the famous quote attributed to John Wesley goes: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
Goodness is about how we choose to use what we have -- our resources, yes; our time, yes; our talents, yes. The goodness and kindness given to us by God, yes. Generosity requires action from us - it will not just happen, we have to choose to follow the Spirit’s leading, to open our hearts, move our hands and feet - and generously share God’s goodness with others.
Our next hymn will be our final song as part of our Fruit of the Spirit hymn sing today. Next week we will engage three more Fruit of the Spirit.
Let us sing, “Take My Life, and Let It Be,” vs. 1-2, UMH 399
Fruit of the Spirit Congregational Hymn Sing - Part 3
Call to Worship:
Leader: As we gather for worship, we pray that the Holy Spirit would dwell within us.
Leader: As we gather for worship, we pray that the Holy Spirit would dwell within us.
People: Come, Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Faithfulness.
People: Come, Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Gentleness.
People: Come Holy Spirit!
Leader: May we bear the fruit of Self-Control.
All: Come, Holy Spirit, Come! Amen.
Introduction
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” - Galatians 5:22-23
This is our third and final week exploring the Fruit of the Spirit as Paul shares them in Galatians. This is a well-known passage of Scripture - used in children’s songs, Vacation Bible School themes, devotionals. It is worth re-visiting. Because I feel like we often dismiss the Fruit of the Spirit or treat it like a moral character trait checklist that we may or may not have. But the Fruit of the Spirit is not about our character - they are about the character of God.
The Holy Spirit is loving, joyful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and full of self-control. And because, as a Christian, the Holy Spirit is within you, you also have the seeds of these traits inside of you. When we open ourselves up to let the Holy Spirit take deeper root in our lives, we are capable of bearing the fruit of the Spirit. So that whenever we are the embodiment of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we are being the embodiment of The Holy Spirit, the embodiment of God.
We are not called to “achieve” these characteristics, like a summit we climb or trophy we win, we are called to make room within us for the Spirit to shine forth and foster growth. This Fruit of the Image of God inside of us - we are capable, through the Spirit, of bearing this fruit. My prayer for us in this series is as Eugenia Gamble says in her book, “Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit” that “we can discover anew what it means to be a Spirit-indwelt, deeply loved child in whom God makes God’s home.”
Over the last two weeks we have looked at Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, and Generosity. Today we will finish this series by taking a deeper look at Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.
Let us sing, “The Fruit of the Spirit” (Insert)
https://www.carolynshymns.com/the_fruit_of_the_spirit.html
Faithfulness
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
For the first things have passed away.’” - Revelation 21:1-4
We often think about faithfulness as us being full of faith, in that we are full of the right beliefs about God. I would ask us to consider instead, what it means for God to be faithful. Not a faithfulness of a theology checklist but a faithfulness of unceasing commitment. I often describe the drumbeat of the Old Testament and really the whole Bible as it says in Exodus 6 and other places in the Bible, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” God’s faithfulness means that God is always working to draw God’s children into God’s embrace. Through making a way of out of no way, from the Exodus in Egypt, to the law, to the cries of the Prophets to “return to God,” to Jesus coming so that we would have relationship with God, to that relationship being open to all peoples - a new covenant of water and the Spirit.
“We can trust God that God is always going to be faithful to God’s creation. God has told us how all this, all of creation will end in that vision from Revelation 21 where there is a new heaven and a new earth and there is no more pain, no more crying, no more death. God and humans dwell together and all things are made right, all things are restored.
We can trust God. God is faithful. It is as Saint Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.” (Which we talked about when we talked about Joy - it’s amazing to see how all of the Fruit of the Spirit are connected to one another.)
God is faithful to us in all circumstances. Even when our love fails, God’s love remains steadfast. Because God is faithful to us - we have the capacity to be faithful to God. We won’t always get it right - and yet, we can trust God and reflect the fruit of faithfulness.
What does it mean for us to be faithful? It means for us to be humble before God and realize how much we need God. We are not self-reliant. We are not independent beings. We need God and God’s goodness in our lives. We need to put aside our own egos and desires, to listen carefully to the kind of life God is calling us to live - a life that bears the fruit of the Spirit. Our faith deepens the more we trust in God’s faithfulness to us and to all of God’s creations. When we trust that God is always holding us in God’s hands - we can ask questions of our faith, we can be bold in service, we can take big leaps to go where God is calling us. To be faithful is to trust that God is God and faithful to all of humanity - that God is offering us a deep well of grace and love, and when we drink from that well, we are called to let that living water, that grace and love, overflow to ourselves and all others in our lives. The details of what faithfulness looks like will be different for each of us - but at it’s core it will be the same - do we trust in God’s faithfulness? Does that trust cause us to follow God that through our actions and the goodness of God that shines through us, others will come to trust in God too?
Let us sing, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” vs. 1 & 3, UMH 140
Gentleness
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.” - Psalm 23:1-3
This may be the most mystifying of the Fruit of the Spirit that Paul writes about. Gamble says this about the Greek word used for gentleness: “Prautes in ordinary Greek is the word used for an animal that has been brought under control, trusts the leader, and therefore can relax in the feeling of security and knowing its place in things.”
In this series on the Fruit of the Spirit we have talked a lot about God’s goodness and a lot about trust. Not to be labor a point but it all comes back to this - God is GOOD. And we can trust that God is good.
Have you ever had an animal, a pet, sleeping at your feet? A dog or a cat that is totally relaxed, safe, the literal definition of warm and fuzzy because that pet knows that their owner loves them, cares for them, and will always watch out for them?
This is the fruit of gentleness - we are the animal at the feet of God. The cat, the dog, or perhaps even the sheep sleeping at the feet of the Good Shepherd.
This is the same word used in the Beatitudes when Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Gentleness and meek are the same Greek word. The Common English Translation translated meek as “humble” but they have a similar connotation here.
When we trust in God’s goodness, we can humble ourselves before God, following God’s will, God’s way - which is a way of gentleness. Jesus was the lamb who was led to the slaughter. The Good Shepherd who guides sheep besides still water. The teacher who taught us to turn our cheeks and walk the second mile.
The thing is, our world will harden us. The gentle and the meek are seen as pushovers. People to take advantage of. We may feel we have to harden our hearts and toughen our skin just to survive in this world… We need to be reminded that gentleness can be a kind of strength too. To hold on to the absolute core that God is good in a world filled with violence, hatred, trauma, death, senseless…it takes strength. It takes resolve. It takes trust and a deep, meaningful relationship with God that is regularly tended.
Gentleness in a decidedly not gentle world can also be an asset. Without it, we will sink into despair and become a part of the injustices of the world. A spirit of gentleness allows us to hold tight to God, to get a bird’s eye perspective that God is in charge, and leaves our hearts open to God and to one another.
Before we sing our hymn, I just want to return to that beautiful imagery of gentleness that is a loving and loved pet falling asleep at their master’s feet…may we be so at peace with our good God.
Let us sing, “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” vs. 1, 3, 4, UMH 351
Self-Control
“For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. 8 For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 2 Peter 1:5-8
It is appropriate to end our three week series on the Fruit of the Spirit - or perhaps we could say it was appropriate for Paul to end his list of the Fruit of the Spirit - with self-control. Self-control in the spiritual sense is not about setting a strict schedule, waking up at the same time every morning, keeping a good workout routine or anything like that. Self-control as a Fruit of the Spirit is consistently making choices that are consistent with our and God’s highest values.
In other words, are we choosing to live lives that tend the Fruit of the Spirit? Are all our decisions reflecting love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and gentleness? Perhaps exercising self-control is the opposite of being a hypocrite - our words, our actions, our hearts, our minds, and our souls are aligned. Not only are they in alignment within us - but they are in alignment with God as well.
This is, of course, easier said than done. I think it’s why Paul resonates with us so much when he says in Romans: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” For it’s easy to choose, well - the easy way. The way of anger, of lashing out, of self-service, greed, selfishness, jealousy, quarreling, envy, gossip…all those “ways of the flesh” that Paul warns about. We could also call it what it is, sin. A go-to definition of sin means to miss the mark. The mark is love of God and love of neighbor as self. So anytime we fail to love or our actions are actively non-loving, that is a sin. Another definition of sin that I recently heard is that sin is whatever stops the spirit's work within us. The Spirit’s work within us is bearing the fruit of the spirit.
And that’s where self-control comes in. The Spirit who resides within us, gives us the ability to hold fast to what is good and what is right and what is true. And when we fail, because we were human, we are offered forgiveness and the chance to try again.
Self-control is about letting everything in one’s life reflect the love of God. Self-control is about bearing fruit.
And so, friends, as we bring to an end this series on the Fruit of the Spirit, let us remember that the Fruit are just as much about who God is as they are about what we are called to be - for we are called to become Christlike and Spirit-filled.
Each and everyone of you here has the capacity, the ability, to abide in the Spirit and bear good fruit - fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
May it be so, Amen.
Let us sing, “Breathe on Me, Breath of God,” UMH 420
