Fruits of the Spirit, Part 2

A fruit tree, of course, is known by the fruit that it bears. I mean, an apple tree bears apples. A pear tree bears pears. So you know that's an apple tree. But a tree is also known by the quality of its fruit. And if you have an apple tree in your backyard, and you go out, and it's just full of rotten apples. It just won't produce apples. You might try to do something with it and cultivate it and trim it and do all kinds of things with it to see what would happen. And the next year and next year, but after a time, if it doesn't start producing and the trunk starts to be cracked, and you realize this tree is not going to produce anything, you cut it down. And you get rid of it. Because a tree, a fruit tree, is supposed to bear fruit. That's its purpose. Well, Jesus uses this as an analogy in Luke, chapter 13. Let's go to Luke 13. And so we have a spiritual analogy of a tree. Luke, chapter 13, verse 6.

Yes, the branch is bending over. I like figs, so I just love to pick figs. The ripe ones, the sweet, juicy ones, and eat them right off the tree. But this fig tree bears no fruit at all. And so the owner comes to and he calls over the man who runs his vineyard there and he says, that fig tree has just taken up space. Let's cut it down and put it in another fig tree or plant more vines and have more grapes, but it's just taken up space. But the man who worked the keeper of the vineyard says the verse 8. But he answered and said to him, Sir, let it alone this year also, till I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit well, but if not, after that we can cut it down. Now, the point Jesus is making here is a spiritual one. And that is, when we are called by God, we are expected to bear fruit. In fact, bearing the fruit of the Spirit is just as much a command as the Ten Commandments. A lot of times we think, well, the fruits of the Spirit, that is something, it's a secondary thought in our Christianity. It is just as much a command from God. It is just as much expected. In fact, it's the keeping of the commandments that helps us bear the fruit. And when you look at this parable, what he is saying is, you know, God will keep looking and looking and trying to help us bear fruit. If there is a point where we don't bear fruit, He will cut us down. Now, He also said, but before He does that, He will try to cultivate you. He will cut limbs off. He will trim. He will dump manure on you. Sometimes, if you feel like in life, a big truck just backed up and dumped manure on you, that may be God. He is saying, you need some fertilizer. You are not bearing any fruit. And so, we must be cultivated. This fruit just doesn't happen. We are not wild fruit trees. We are cultivated fruit trees. And there is a vine dresser who works with us to produce this fruit. We all receive individual gifts of the Spirit, and we love to talk about those gifts. And that is a whole other subject. But all of us, no matter what the gifts are, are supposed to bear the fruits of the Spirit. In fact, sometimes people can receive enormous gifts from God, and they are wasted because they don't bear the fruits. Without the fruits of God's Spirit, the gifts of God's Spirit become rather meaningless after a while. But we like to look at the gifts. In fact, Paul spends a whole chapter in 1 Corinthians telling people, you are so caught up in your gifts, you are missing the fruit. So last time we talked about self-control. We started through the list of the fruits of God's Spirit. We started at the bottom and moved up. And you will see as we do this why. These all work together, eventually producing the agape, or the love, which is the first of the fruits listed there. So let's go back to Galatians 5, and let's look at the next fruit.

As I mentioned last time, self-control, it's interesting. Submitting to God isn't just letting God control us like we are automatons. It's having Him develop self-control in us. We do it, we are controlled, we give up, we sacrifice, we do the right thing, even if there is a bad result, because we want to. We now have self-control. But that self-control only happens because God is developing in us. The spiritual self-control we need, we can't do ourselves, which is the conundrum here. I have to have self-control that I can't do. So God has to develop self-control in us. All of these fruits, none of them, can we do ourselves. It takes God helping us and developing them because they are fruits of His Spirit. Galatians 5, 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Gentleness. Now, that is actually a very...it's not a poor translation. It's a very limited translation of what that word means. It's better translated meekness, but we're going to have to explain what that means. Now, we usually think of meekness as a personality trait. Someone just sort of mild-mannered and easygoing and maybe lets people take advantage of them, and we consider them meek. But here, with this word, meekness, is the fruit of the Spirit. In other words, it is expected. So, I just don't have a meek personality. No, this is one of the fruits of the Spirit. It is expected in us. It is what God wants us to become. So, what is meekness? The problem we have here is this is a Greek word that has no English equivalent. There is no English word that you can translate this into. It captures its meaning. So, we have a problem, meekness. Many times, people think of meekness as weakness, and that's not what this is talking about at all. So, what does it mean? Well, let me read from a couple Greek dictionaries, and you'll start to see how the difficulty of what this word actually means, because it's a big concept. The problem is, it is an ethical word. I mean, by an ethical word, an English honesty is an ethical word. Well, if you say, okay, honesty, explain honesty, you'd have to write a paragraph to explain honesty, because honesty involves a whole lot of things, right? How you talk. It talks about, you know, it would have to be not lying. It would have to be not cheating people. So, honesty has all these components to it. So, the word honesty in English would take a paragraph to explain. Well, the word here, that is translated meekness, takes a paragraph to explain, because it's an ethical word. It's an approach to life. Let me read from Vine's expository dictionary. This term meekness is chiefly towards God.

So, let's start with, this word means that you are so humble before God that you believe what He is doing is good and you submit. There's an absolute submission to God. So, the word begins with your relationship with God.

It is a submission and humility before God, as we will see, that then turns around and affects how we treat others. So, this meekness is between us and God, but it is exhibited in how we treat others. So, you can't have this meekness before God and treat others badly. If you have this meekness before God, it's going to affect how you treat other people, and we will go through and show how that's described in the New Testament. Continuing on, the meaning of this Greek word is not expressed well in English, for the terms meekness, mildness, commonly used, suggest weakness. Describe negatively, in other words, to look at what this word means in application. Meekness is the opposite to self-assertiveness and self-interest. It is calmness of spirit that is neither elated nor cast down, simply because it is not occupied with self at all. It is such a humbleness before God that you're able to have a calmness of spirit, so that you're not going around trying to assert yourself on others. You have a calmness of spirit so that you're not in conflict all the time with others. Now, everybody's going to be in conflict. I mean, Jesus was in conflict with people. But it is a state of mind where you don't seek conflict because you are not...you're calm. You have nothing to prove, not because of the other person, but because where you stand with God. Where you stand with God is so humble that you have a calmness with other people, and you don't always have to have your way.

In the New American Standard Greek lexicon, it says this. Oh, by the way, let me explain something about how it's used. You know, you don't use...how Aristotle used it. You don't use Aristotle to prove the Bible, but you have to figure out how a word is used in its day. He said the person who had this neatness would be exhibited by someone who had the perfect control over anger. This person would never be angry unless there was a reason. And then the anger would always be measured to the morality of the issue. In other words, they would never be angry because they themselves were being mistreated. They would be angry maybe if somebody else was being mistreated.

And it would always be measured. It would always be in relationship to the crime, not on how it made that person feel. That's interesting how he used that word. Now, when we see that the New Testament, the fruit of the Spirit, is expanded out even greater than that. But it's that calmness of Spirit that he's talking about here. That calmness of Spirit.

This lexicon says, parutas, which is one of the... This word is used...you see it in four different forms in the Bible. I mean, there's an adjective form, a verb form, a noun form. But I'm going to go through some scriptures that is used in one of those forms. I'm going to tell you what form it is. I don't know Greek that well. I can only tell you it's in the form of the word. And we'll go through and show how this word is used in Scripture. Because if we're going to explain it, and it's this large, what we have to do is see how did they use it. This lexicon says, therefore, parutas is getting angry at the right time, at the right measure, and for the right reason. It is a condition of mind and heart which demonstrates gentleness. That's why it's sometimes translated gentleness. But it exhibits gentleness towards others, not in weakness, but in power. It is a virtue born in strength of character. In other words, because I am right with God, I can be gentle with you, even if you're acting like an idiot.

Or, if I have to be hard, I can measure that. I can do it in control. We will get to another one of fruits of the Spirit, by the way, it has to do with standing up and fighting evil. But you know, that one isn't first. That's not in this list of where you reverse it. It's towards the top. Because you have to learn this first, or you'll just go around killing everybody, you know? We have to learn first to be measured in all of...so we have self-control. H1 we go through is going to be linked together. We have self-control, where God teaches us to control our own appetites and desires, control our thoughts, control our emotions. Now we get to this place, okay, now I have to be so humble before God. That even in the face of other human beings, I will treat them in a certain way.

I will have a certain, maybe, courteousness. I will have a certain calmness. And now it comes down to a calmness of spirit. This fruit of God's spirit is so submissive and teachable towards God, it produces something towards other people. So let me sum it up this way, in terms of what the lexicons, what the Greek dictionaries say. This fruit of meekness is produced in three ways. One, by being confident in God's goodness and work in us. Okay, you're acting like an idiot, but I know God, so I can be calm in this. You know, every one of these fruits, as I go through them, I haven't given a series of sermons on this in a number of years. I go back and I tell, I've told Kim, wow, I'm not sure I've learned anything since the last time I gave this sermon. Because as I go through them, I realize, is this fruit really being born in my life? Well, a little bit here, a little bit there. It's not a tree with a lot of good fruit on it sometimes. And then every once in a while, I understand why God dumps a load of menoramy. There's a reason. Fruit's not good yet, boy. We've got to work with this tree. We're going to do some trimming and some hacking and some digging and some prodding. We're going to make this fruit better. But first, it's produced by being confident in God's goodness and workiness. Two, by humbly submitting to God's will, which lets us be calm and considerate towards others, instead of reacting in constant frustration and anger and being rude. We can fight our frustration with others with this fruit. With this fruit, make this before God. A prayer to God, in a moment of frustration, can change what's happening with you and change the way you treat the other person. Because the Spirit of God can now produce something in us that lets us control the frustration, lets us control the anger, lets us control the hurt. And now we're meeting before God, and we're gentle towards someone that is not normal to be gentle towards. That's why I said last week or two weeks ago, when we go through these fruits of the Spirit, these are the keys to your relationship problems. They're the keys to your issues at work. They're the keys to your marriage. These are the keys. Because if we're bearing these fruits, we treat people a certain way. And this one is really like that. That's really the key to this fruit. And then a third way that this meekness is produced in us, by being concerned with God's interests so much, instead of our own, that we're able to show patience and gentleness towards others. The one reason why we don't show patience and gentleness towards others is we're concerned with our interests. If we're more concerned with God's interests, we can show patience and concern, because God's interests trumps ours. So to have meekness, we have to be...or what this word means...we have to be meek before God. We have to be so submissive before God, so teachable, so humble, that when we're in situations we can say, no, no, no, no, I know God. And God helped me to bring this frustration under control, and to treat this person the way you want them treated. And I don't know about you, I've gone to God sometimes. I say, God, would you treat this person this way? Only to have the thought come into my mind, why should I treat them the way you want me to treat them? Well, yeah, but...but if I asked you to treat them the way you want to treat them, then it's not what I want!

I mean, I would rather you let you treat them the way I want you to treat them. God says, no, no, let's reverse this. How about you treating them the way I want you to treat them? Oh, can I just leave them alone? Ignore them the rest of my life? No, you treat them the way I want you to treat them. If we're submissive to God, what do we do? We now, the frustration level goes down, we have a calmness of spirit, and we go treat that person, even though it may not be comfortable, the way God wants them to be treated. That's what this meekness is all about. So this fruit is between us and God, but it is exhibited with others. So let's look at, then, some of the ways this word is used. That's the only way we can really figure out what it means. We have to look at some of the ways it's used in the Bible, in the New Testament, and how the New Testament writers use this word. And once again, if you look this up, you'll see that I'm using, you know, there's four different forms of this, I'm just using the forms of this, but they all come from the same word. They all mean the same thing. And they all go back to the word that is used in Galatians 5. Let's look at how Paul uses it. Galatians 5, we were just there, so let's go back there, Galatians 5. So are you still with me? Okay. This is a broad concept. So every time you lose patience with somebody, you stop and think, okay, this fruit of meekness may have been a problem. Now, we will get to the point that, you know, this doesn't mean, well, that means I have to let people do to me whenever they want to. That's not what this means. It means, though, that this is a primary way in which we treat people. We are to stand up and fight evil, but that's another word, and it's another fruit. But this one is, how do I react to people so that I am reacting to people the way God wants me to react to them?

And it's because God is with me. Galatians 5, verse 26. So down just a verse from where we talk about the fruits of the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, ending one another. Now, we're going to see this thought process by a number of different writers in the New Testament. That in this subject, they begin discussing issues like pride, conceit, people who cause constant warfare, confronting one another, provoking one another. You're picking a fight all the time, and envy. So one thing about this meekness, this meekness is the opposite of conceit, provoking, and envy. So sometimes you can understand something by understanding the opposite of it. The opposite of this is pride and conceit, constantly provoking something, picking at people. You see people do that. Interesting in marriage. You know, you've been married long enough. You know what the buttons are, right? You just push those buttons, provoking one another, envy. This is the opposite, okay? This is the opposite of what this meekness is. Now, remember, this was a letter. There were no chapter breaks. There were no verses here. So this thought leads into what he's about to tell them next. Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, so here we have a person who had sinned and probably been put out of the church. He says, you who are spiritual restore, okay, so he's been put out of the church, but he's now repented. So he's been removed from the fellowship because of his sin. But he says, you're the restorer that person. You're supposed to bring them back. Restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. The word gentleness there? That's that Greek word of meekness. So he says, look, okay, there's somebody in your congregation that's committed a sin. First of all, let's not act with conceit and provoking an envy. They've committed a sin. They were removed from the congregation because of that sin. They have now repented of that sin. He says, in this meekness, the same word he just used, you know, two lines, three lines before, to talk about a fruit of God's Spirit. That meekness, we are to restore that person into the fellowship, into the body, into the family, and carry their burden. Help them carry their burden. Now we start to see how it's applied. If I have that kind of meekness before God because I know what God did for me and my sins, here's a brother who has sinned, or sister has sinned, who now wishes to be restored. We're not only to restore them, we're to carry their burden.

Oh my, these fruits are hard.

But I want to stress, they're just as commanded as thou shalt not kill. They're just as expected in us as God says, thou shalt not steal. They're just as real and just as important. Because he says, I'll cut you down if you don't. That's a strong saying, that's right. I will cut you down. I'll throw you out of the garden. Now he produces it. The more you and I try to produce it ourselves, we have problems. We have to submit to him. Let's look how Peter uses this word. 1 Peter 3. Oh wow, okay. This is a big concept word.

It's part of the problem with the fruits of the Spirit. And why we get nine sermons on one verse? Because each one of these words is a huge concept. And we read through them. Oh yeah, I've got to have some generalness and neatness. But what does that really mean when you break it down into the reality of what God wants to do with this? 1 Peter 3. Verse 8. Now he's setting up where he's going to use this word. I don't mean he's setting up for this word. This word just comes naturally in his thought process of what he's doing here. But we can see where this is set up.

He says, finally, all of you be of one mind. So Peter's writing to the churches, not writing to the world. He says the church should be of one mind. How can we be of one mind? We can't all think exactly the same. That's not even possible with God's Spirit. God doesn't want us all to think exactly the same.

We're individuals. But we are to have a singular viewpoint of God, and a singular viewpoint of what we're supposed to be. And we're supposed to be working together, and here's how we have one mind. Having compassion for one another. Love as brothers. Be tender-hearted. Be courteous. Not returning evil for evil, or reviling for reviling. But on the contrary, blessing. Know that you were called to this. This is our calling. That you may inherit a blessing. Well, I was called to keep the Sabbath. Yes, I was. I was called to keep the Holy Days.

Yes, you were. And you were called to be courteous. Huh? Called to be courteous? Yeah. We were called not to respond to evil with evil. There's a time to confront evil. But what happens when we confront evil with evil? I mean, that's the one thing we really like. You know, in the old westerns, where the guy, just, you know, the little rancher takes it. They come in and they burn down his barn, and they beat up his hands, you know, his helpers and his workers.

But then they shoot his dog. And he's trapped on his guns and goes over and blazes away and kills all three guys, you know? That's not exactly how evil is to be confronted. They're to be confronted with the law, according to the gospel. But we want to respond to evil with evil, and we don't justify it with it. We're justified by responding with evil.

So he's saying, we can't do that. But we have to be tender-hearted and compassionate and courteous. That's a hard thing to do. That's not important. That's not like one of the important stuff, right? It is as the fruit of the spirit of meekness. He then goes on, and through the rest of verse 10 and verse 11 and 12, he uses Old Testament passages to prove what he's saying.

He goes to the Old Testament, reads passages from the Old Testament, and says, here, this proves what I'm saying. Then we get to verse 13. So here we are. We're supposed to be compassionate, not fighting evil with evil, courteous. But here's the problem. The problem is, and who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good?

He says, now, wait a minute. If you're courteous, if you don't revile for revile, or if someone gets up and calls you a bunch of names, you know, gets on Facebook and calls you a bunch of names, you don't get on Facebook and call them a bunch of names. It's reviling for reviling. Now, they may be wrong, and you need to confront them, but you confront them in the right way.

Remember, the way this word was used in classical Greek was, you respond measuredly. Most things that happen on Facebook are not measured responses. They're just not. So, here we have this measured response. You don't respond evil with evil. Because why? I'm humble before God. How does God want me to handle this? What does God want me to do?

But, in being followers of evil, you're going to get harmed. But who can harm you? Well, people can harm you, but who can harm you if you are right with God? What can they do to you and kill you? Okay, then you come up in the resurrection. I know that's an easy thought. It's hard to actually believe it and do it. But his point is, if we're right with God, who can really harm us?

But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. That's where this meekness is. Even if I suffer for obeying God or doing what's right, I am blessed by God. And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. Once again, it's a quote from the Old Testament.

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. How do you sanctify? Sanctify means set apart. Set apart God in your hearts. What's that mean? It means our motivations, our mindset, everything we do every day is submitting to God in this humility. We're submitting to God, ready to give an answer. See, this isn't running and hiding.

This isn't meekness like, oh, I can't say anything. No, you're ready to give an answer. I had a chance to give an answer last week, and I did not. And afterwards, I wish I would have. I was at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Yes, Jo-Ann Fabrics.

I bought a yard of cloth for anointed cloth and a set of shears, because my shears were all worn out. And I walk up to pay for it. And the woman looks at a yard of cloth and a set of shears, and she says, what are you making? And I said, nothing. Because I said, I'm not making anything. She says, really, what are you making? I said, nothing. And she looked at the other woman and said, I've never had anybody buy something to make nothing. And then they all laughed and made fun of me. And I'm thinking, later, I said, no, I should have said, oh, no, I'm a pastor. I'm a minister. And, you know, it says in the Bible that Paul would anoint cloth and send it out through the mail, and God would heal people. And I get letters and requests from all over the United States for me to do that. And that's why I'm doing this. It had been fun to look at the look on their faces. But later, as I was leaving, I thought, why didn't I just tell them? They would have probably said, well, that's interesting. Because most of the time people do. Really? You didn't? Sure. I mean, I've been places and people ask me to pray for them. We were at a restaurant here after the Day of Atonement. And there were other people in the church there. And they told their wait. We said hi. We talked a little bit. And they were leaving as we were getting in. And the waiter came up and he said, do you know them? And he says, oh, yeah, he says, they're the pastor at our church. I think I told you this. So he comes over and asks me to pray for them. Yeah, he says, can I tell you this? He says, I'm really worried. My girlfriend's pregnant. And I don't know what to do. And I'm worried about the baby. And I'm, Mary, are you kidding? No. I said, no, son, you need prayers. So we bowed our heads right there in the Longhorn Steakhouse. And I prayed for that boy. I prayed that he'd, you know, man up and do what's right. I just considered that. Hey, you know, be ready to give an answer. The man asked for prayers and I'm going to pray for him. He needed prayers. But I wish I would have told him why I was cutting up the cloth, just so the look on their faces. Where were we? Okay. Be ready to give a defense for a reason for the hope that is in you. Now notice, with meekness and fear. The word meekness there is the same word used to describe what are the fruits of the Spirit.

We are prepared in humility before God to give a defense. Now remember, it's because you've sanctified God in your hearts. It's the meaning of God at such a level that when the chance to defend comes up, you defend. You don't run away. It's not weakness you defend. You defend the hope that's in you. You can explain why you believe what you believe in. You're willing to do it. And it's because of this meekness and fear. The fear here is the fear of not obeying God. It's not having God sanctified in your heart. That's the fear. The fear is that if God's not with me, I'm lost. The meekness is that God is with me. I meek before God. And therefore, we're prepared to give an answer. It's interesting, in verse 16, it says, having a good conscience. So in other words, you're free from guilt. Now, when we have this meekness before God, and now we are prepared to defend our faith when the opportunity arrives. You don't go out seeking it. When it happens, you have a good conscience because of it. You have a good conscience. That when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better if it is the will of God to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. This is the viewpoint of this meekness. I would rather suffer for doing what's right than, you know, get a... something good happen for doing what's wrong because eventually I will suffer because of that. Now, there's only one way you can have that viewpoint. You have confidence in God's goodness. Remember, I talked about the three things that we must do to bear this fruit. You have to have confidence in God's goodness. That this is...bad things happen to me because I'm obeying God, but in the end, the blessing comes. It is in the end. It is when this is worked out that God says, you did a good job there. And a blessing comes. And the greatest blessing is going to be in the resurrection. That's the greatest blessing. That blessing has to be out there that we hold on to that and we believe that. It has to be at the core of our goal of life. And when Christ comes back, we get changed. This is all part of this concept of meekness. So we see how Peter uses this. Now let's look at how James uses it. James chapter 1. Now, remember, the early church had no systematic theology of the word meekness. All we're looking at is how they would have used the word in normal discussion, normal writing, normal talking. That's all we're looking at. But as we do, we see why it's a fruit of the Spirit. Because when they use it, they use it as part of a thought process in which you're talking about huge concepts. But those huge concepts are carried out in actions. Curtiousness, tender heartlessness, not reviling for reviling.

James 1.20 Okay.

Let's do verse 21. James 1.21 Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Here, it's the same word, this humility before God that gives us a humility with the implanted word. In other words, the word of God comes into us, and we are teachable.

The meekness of the implanted word. We are very sensitive to the Scripture. You know, we wrestle with the Scripture all the time, and we're supposed to. Sometimes you come up with an understanding of Scripture, and then six months later say, Oh, maybe I wasn't right. We all do that. We should do that. We should wrestle with the Scripture because we're submitting to it. We're humble before it. And what happens is, if we're not careful, we get to where, because of the sheer amount of knowledge that God's given to us, we have an enormous amount of knowledge. We sort of get vain in that, so we get sort of secure in every idea that we have. And some ideas that we have aren't really scripturally correct. Nobody has every idea. Not every one of my ideas are scripturally correct. And I get corrected by the Scripture all the time. All the time. We're corrected by the Scripture. There's things I believe ten years ago. There's things probably everybody in this room believed ten years ago that now you think, Ah, that wasn't exactly right. Or that was only partly right. Or that was incomplete. You should. I wish I wouldn't have yelled at Aunt Jane over that because she was right. Or whatever. Because we're being our submission to the Scripture, the implanted Word. That is part of this meekness. Once again, it's funny. It's used, I mean, not funny, but you see where it's used as our relationship with the God, but its product is always how we relate to other people. Let's now go to James 3. We'll see how he uses it in a wider context. James 3. James 3. And we'll start at verse 13.

The way he uses the word here is just fascinating to me.

Who is wise and understanding among you? So who really has understanding and wisdom? This is a Hebrew concept. Knowledge, understanding and wisdom. You can have knowledge without understanding and the knowledge is useless. You can have understanding without wisdom and it's pretty useless. You have to have all three and there are three steps in a process. Knowledge, understanding, wisdom. You go back to the Proverbs, you go back to the teaching of Solomon. That was core to the Proverbs. So you've got a Hebrew thought here. Who is wise and understanding? Who has wisdom and understanding of the knowledge? How do you know that someone is wise and understanding? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. Meekness of wisdom. That's the same word.

You'll see the word meek or meekness in the New Testament and it's a totally different word. Usually it means gentleness or humility. But this word has such a broad meaning to it. The meekness of wisdom. So this is a meekness that is so submissive to God that God's wisdom is produced in our lives. One of the things that I see in the Church, and when I say in the Church, it's been in my own life. We have been very good at the knowledge and not always been very good at the wisdom.

We've been very good at the knowledge and not very good at the wisdom.

And that's because we lack this meekness. The submission to God that is so strong that it produces in us this calmness of spirit so that God's wisdom is able to be carried out through us. Remember, all these fruits of the spirit when we went through self-control, it's like water that flows through us. It doesn't just come in and we're just a big dam. All this stuff comes in and gets contained in us. It flows through us. It comes out. So self-control comes out in actions. Meekness comes out in actions.

Let's go on and show you. He uses this word meekness, the meekness of wisdom. I thought I would have never thought of that phrase, the meekness of wisdom. Such submission to God and it produces the wisdom of God. But if you have bitter envy, once again, just like Paul, he's showing the opposite of it. If we have bitterness, if we have envy, if we have self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. Now he's going to compare the difference between worldly wisdom and godly wisdom and this concept that we have to be meek before this wisdom. Submitting to God's wisdom in us. Verse 15, he's talking about bitter envy and self-seeking. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. Whoa! What a statement! He didn't just say, okay, if we have bitterness and self-seeking, if we're selfish, well, you're just being carnal. You're just being human. He took it a step farther. He said, you're being like the demons. Because the demons are filled with envy and they are filled with pride and they are filled with selfishness. That is their state of mind. And if we're not careful, we're always sliding into that.

Verse 16, for where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But this wisdom that we submit to in meekness, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And now, really, what we have here is a breaking down of what meekness really is. Meekness in us produces a purity, a spiritual purity. We have peace. We tend to be peacemakers. We tend to have some gentleness with people. That doesn't mean we're not tough when we have to be tough. It means that our normal approach is gentle, willing to yield, willing to step back and say, okay, I won't get my way this time, willing to sometimes step back and say, you know, I may be right, but this isn't that important. Sometimes it's not important to be right. I guess it is. I'm right. No, no, sometimes it's not that important. Sometimes it is. That's where you've got to make a stand. Pick your hills you're going to die on, right? Some hills are worth dying on. You're just not. If she wants the red car, let her have. Let her have. You know what I mean? There's some things he says aren't worth it. They're not worth it. Willing to yield. Full of mercy. See, this neatness produces mercy towards others. Why? Because you receive mercy from God. If I receive mercy from God, I'm willing to give mercy to others. Good fruits, interesting fruits is used here, without partiality, without hypocrisy. We can't be prejudiced and partial in the way we treat people. We can't be hypocrites and have meekness before God. And then verse 18, Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. We're going to get to one of the fruits of the Spirit is peace. But you really can't have peace unless you have this kind of meekness before God, because where does the calmness come to create peace? God's Spirit. It is submitting to God to have the calmness of Spirit that allows you to be a peacemaker. So this fruit has to be being developed in order to eventually become a peacemaker. That's why peacemaker is later on the list. I mean, if you reverse this. Which makes a lot of sense when you reverse it. Paul started with the major fruit to work down. We just reverse the order, working up.

These fruits are inner. They produce actions. In other words, you can try to pretend to do this and be a peacemaker and be so filled with frustration and anger and bitterness and selfishness that you pretend to be a peacemaker, but all you do is create strife. The actions have to come from something that is happening inside. And the inside is a calmness of Spirit because you are first right with God. That's why if you have a major conflict in your husband and wife, go right with God first, then go deal with the problem.

Get calmness of Spirit from God first, then go deal with the problem. If you want to strangle your kid, go get some calmness first from God. Then go punish the child or deal with the child. You won't strangle them now. You'll do something else. It will be measured. Remember this measured response. Why will it be measured? Because you have a calmness came upon you because I went and got right with God. And God gave me something I did not have. God gave me something I did not have. That's what the fruits of the Spirit is. When we lack these, we have to go ask God, give me something I do not have. We have to admit it. I do not have this. But I wish to submit to have it, to receive it.

And then we don't strangle our child, which is good.

Let's look at one last place here. One last place. Matthew. Matthew 11.

Verse 28. Jesus says here, Jesus says here, He's talking about peace. He's talking about calmness of spirit. Christ says, Jesus knows what it's like to be a frustrated human being. I find it interesting. There were times He literally went away from His disciples. I can't be around you guys anymore. Got in a boat, went out and said, Jesus says to get away from them, to go eat from the crowds. People didn't jot in me nuts. I have to go what? Get right with God.

Not that He wasn't right with God, but I mean receive power from God. He had to receive something from God. Calmness of spirit. And then He says to us, Guess what the word gentle there is in Greek?

Think about it. He says, Now here He is speaking as a human being, and He says, He received His calmness of spirit from His Father, and He says, I will give you calmness of spirit.

His word yoke is, you know, I gave this in Nashville last week, and I had some younger people come up and say, I don't fully understand that. I mean, a yoke is a negative thing. You know, a yoke is like bondage. So, well, you have to understand the agricultural world they lived in. You know, if you had a heavy wagon or a heavy plow, you would have two oxen, and you would yoke them together with a big heavy yoke. If you ever go to some museums where they have farming tools, from the late 1700s up through the early mid 1800s, you will find huge yokes that they yoked oxen to. Sometimes the wagons, those kind of stoga wagons coming across the United States, where they had oxen, these big heavy yokes. Well, you have to match the oxen. They have to be fairly even in size and in strength, or you'll have a mess. Just think about it. You have a strong ox, a weak ox, it'll probably kill the weak ox. You don't drag him, knock him down, or you'll keep going to the left, if he's to the left. You have to have oxen that are even. The analogy here is amazing. He says, because I am meek, now this shows that this meekness is not a weakness. He says, because I'm a large, heavy, strong ox, and you're a weak little ox that can't even pull anything. Get yoked to me, and I'll pull.

Understand what he's saying here. He says, because of my meekness, I'm the big, strong, heavy ox. And I should say, get this little one away from me. But that's not his viewpoint. His viewpoint is, get yoked to me, and I'll pull it. I'll pull my load and your load. Now we get the full understanding of the meekness of the Spirit of fruit of spirit. You're the sinner. I'm the Savior. You're the one who offends me. I'm the one who does right. You're the one who does evil, and instead of responding with evil, just get hooked up to me and I'll pull you through this. Wow. These are called the fruits of the Spirit because they are character traits of God. This is who God is. This is who Jesus Christ is. And he says, now you go bear this. In other words, we're expected, when we receive that calmness, that rest, calmness of spirit, by being yoked to him, we can then help carry other people's burdens. Remember what we read? What Paul said? Carry his burdens. Carry each other's burdens. And he's saying in the context that somebody just sent him and kicked out of the church. And that's repented. He's brought back. Carry his burdens. Well, how in the world do we do that? We have an example. Here we have the prime, perfect example of meekness. As the fruit of God's spirit. We can now see how the fruit of self-control and meekness work together. Each one helps us develop the next. As we allow God to develop in us the self-control, so that we're not controlled all the time by our thoughts, our emotions, our own desires. It gives us the freedom to have these shackles taken off of us. Remember I talked about that last time. Self-control actually produces freedom. We can now then work with our inner life, because we're not being controlled by everything else outside. Our inner life, where we can begin to have a calmness of spirit, because we have confidence in God, and because we're submitting to God. And in that total submission, we are yoked to Christ. He's pulling us, but He's not dragging us like a big ox would do. He's measuring His steps. He's measuring His response. So that we keep up. It's a remarkable concept. And therefore, we become compassionate and measured, and patient with others, because of the yoke that we have on us. To sum up the fruit of the spirit, it is to be so willingly submissive and teachable before God, that we actually become gentlemen and gentlewomen in how we treat others. Well, we'll sing some songs, eat some food, and then have the Bible said.

Thank you.