Spiritual Grapes

As a child, my family moved around a couple of times, but always within about a mile of the original house that I was born in. I think finally my parents moved into, after I went to college, a house two miles from where I was born. So they always moved every few years, but it was always within a very small area. And almost every place that we moved, we had a grape arbor where we would grow grapes. Now, I remember those grape arbors in my backyard, mainly I remember because my mother didn't take care of them. We didn't really know anything about growing grapes, so usually they were just a mass of leaves. And if you went looking under the leaves, lots of times there were grapes. Sometimes there weren't. I don't remember her ever fertilizing them or watering them. They just grew. And there were a couple times she had to go back and prune them because they would just get bigger and bigger, and the trellises would start to collapse. But we had grape arbors, and many times we had good grapes. Sometimes we didn't. Sometimes we had these little hard green grapes that couldn't be eaten. I mean, they were so sour, and if you ate them, they would literally make you sick. Other times we'd have these huge, big, beautiful purple grapes. And so we just had grapes by accident. Fruit by accident. Sometimes we had it, and sometimes we didn't. A boy with their crop was good, was it good. Although they always had these great big seeds in them. You know, those big purple grapes with seeds in them. A boy, when they were good, they were so sweet, we would pick them and we would eat them. And sometimes my mom would have enough that she would create these, you know, these grape arbors would produce a gift for us. These fruit would come out, and then she would take this fruit, and she would can it. She would make jelly out of it. She would make juice out of it. I don't ever remember trying to make wine out of it, but, you know, a lot of people will try to make wine out of grapes. And then in the winter time, boy, it was always nice to open up those jars of jelly or whatever that she had made out of the grapes, and we would eat them. The question I'm going to ask you today is, and ties right in with the sermonette, what kind of spiritual grapes are being produced in your life? I don't know much about growing grapes except what doesn't work, because my whole life we grew grapes by accident, and we had fruit by accident. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad. Sometimes there was no fruit at all. Nothing grew except leaves. There were just no grapes. I'm amazed when I look back that the plants always grew. The winter would come and it would seem like they would die off, and they'd come back. Sometimes part of the trestle would just get nothing but hardened roots or vines. We wouldn't have to cut those down because they would just die. There would be hard vines all over the place, not even anywhere leaves on it. They'd cut it down, and the next year the vines would grow back. And we may or may not have fruit. What kind of spiritual grapes are growing in your life?

Is it no fruit at all? Is it good fruit? Is it little hard green grapes that you can't even eat because it will make you sick? Unfortunately, for many of us, our spiritual growth is sort of like the way we grew grapes. It just sort of happens or it doesn't happen by accident. We go through life just sort of interacting with God, sort of, sometimes. And sometimes we have fruit. Sometimes we don't. And sometimes our fruit is bad. Well, today let's look at some concepts of growing fruit, grapes specifically, that's in the Bible. And then talk about how you can begin to experience more spiritual fruit in your life. The positive fruit that God wants and God desires for you. We're going to look at what God wants here. Much of the time when we go to God, what we talk about is what we want from God. What He wants to give us. What we want from Him. What we feel like we deserve.

But I'm going to talk today about what God wants to give you. He has some very specific things He wants to give you. Then we're going to talk about, too, if we have some time, the relationship between fruits and gifts. We talk about the fruits of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. I've given sermons on both of those subjects over the last couple of years, but I really want to tie them together a little bit. The first point I want to mention is, grapes, to have a healthy production of grapes every year, you need a vine dresser that pays constant attention to his grape armor.

If you want healthy grapes all the time, some of you may raise grapes. When you look at, you drive by places in the hill country where they grow grapes for wine, these wineries in the hill country. If you notice, you'll see all these grape vines, but they don't have a lot of weeds around them. They're always being watered. They're always being taken care of. If they're successful, it's because there is a vine dresser taking care of the grapes, taking care of the vines, taking care of the roots. If you and I are going to have spiritual fruit produced in our lives, then we are going to have to submit to the vine dresser. Let's go to John 15. This was mentioned in the sermon. I would have taken it apart here. This is something that we read all the time at the Passover service.

Sometimes we just read through it. We're so used to hearing it, we know what it says. But let's really, really look at what Jesus Christ is telling His disciples and how that message applies directly to you and me right now. If we really want spiritual fruit in our lives.

First one, Christ says, I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser. Now in this parable, there's two things He sets up right away. You and I are supposed to be fruit being produced because we're connected to a vine. If you're not connected to the vine, you cannot produce the fruit.

So much of the time we still live our lives trying so desperately to think that we are, if I could just do this, if I could just maybe do this ritual a little bit more, or do this a little bit more, or do this a little bit more, then God will be with me. And it's important that we are particular about how we live our lives, but if we're not connected, it won't mean anything.

We have to be connected to the vine, and then the vine dresser has to work with the fruit.

This means that Christ must be constantly present in your life, not present on the Sabbath, or present once in a while, or present at the Passover.

He has to be present all the time. And two, you have to be going to your father, who is the vine dresser, and letting him work with you all the time. Or your fruit is going to be sometimes nonexistent, or your fruit is going to be sometimes little hard sour grapes that have no purpose. If you want to have fruit that has purpose, that you have to be connected every day to Jesus Christ, and you have to be submitting to the vine dresser all the time.

I remember one time hiking in Wisconsin, and it came across some wild grapes. And, I don't know, people made wild grape jelly, so I thought, these must be good. Wow. You don't want to eat wild grapes.

At least this variety you don't. We don't want to be wild grapes, and yet for many Christians, we have God's Spirit, but all we're producing is wild grapes. A fruit that is not usable.

We have to be connected, or we have to be submitting to the vine dresser. Look at verse 2. Every branch in me, Jesus wants to know that every branch must be connected to Him.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. Who is He there? The vine dresser, the Father. And every branch that bears fruit, He prunes that they may bear more fruit. We just heard about pruning. I did a little study this week on how to grow grapes. It is interesting. You're supposed to prune them all the time. This may explain why we had years where we didn't have many grapes. They're supposed to be pruned. The dead vines are supposed to be taken out. We only did that when the dead vines started to show up so many they looked ugly.

Oh, look, there's lots of dead vines out there. We've got to go tear those out. It has to be pruned. Your life has to be a commitment to constant pruning by God. Constant clipping, constant taking away what is dead and what is useless in your life. It's amazing. A plant will not hold on to what is dead and useless in its life. Only human beings will hold on to what is dead and useless in our lives and to bend it.

Nope, nope, I can't give that up. But it's dead and useless. Nope, nope, it's part of me. Can't clip that off. Can't have it. He says to his disciples in verse 3, You are already clean, because of the word which I have spoken to you, Abide in me in I am you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

Cut off a cluster of grapes and lay it down in a bowl and see how long it can live. The moment you cut that fruit off, it begins to die. It can only live when it's connected to the vine. It can only live when water is coming into it. It's interesting, throughout the Bible, you will see agricultural examples that describe the Spirit of God as living or running water. Not stagnant water, but living water. Water that actually brings life to the plants that are being watered by it.

You and I are to be watered by the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God flows through the vine. We just don't somehow disconnect from the vine and then say, okay, give me power, give me love, give me help. We must be connected to the vine. Mr. Piper talked about fertilizing. You know, we were supposed to fertilize those grapes, too.

Every once in a while, when it feels like someone has taken a truck full of an ore, or backed up and dumped it into your life, that may be exactly what happened. That may be exactly what the vine dresser is doing, because if he doesn't, you will die. If he doesn't, you will begin, your roots will begin to deteriorate. The vine will no longer be bringing water and nourishment up to the fruit.

The leaves will dry up. And I can remember years that there was drought, and I'd go out to see if there were any grapes, and they'd be these shriveled up little brown balls, almost like raisins hanging there rotting on the grapevine. We have to have God's Spirit coming through us. We have to stay connected to the vine. And in today's world, you think, oh yeah, I know that. That's a nice analogy. We all know this. I mean, how many times have you read John 15? The point is, we've read it so many times that we're not really, really grasping its meaning.

You must every day be connected to the vine. And we must every day be submitting to the vine dresser in prayer, in study, in the way that we think, in our decisions, and every action we take, because there is some fruit that God wants to produce in our lives. Verse 6, if anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

Jesus often would be giving a very encouraging message, and then there would be one line of warning. One line of warning. If you don't do this, if you don't do this, the results are beyond imagination. They're so horrible, they're beyond imagination. Because it means you die. And when part of a vine dies, and the fruit dies, and the leaves die, the vine dresser cuts off those leaves, cuts off those vines.

And he burns them out. They have no purpose. They have no purpose. You have a purpose. You are called by God. You are called by God, and you have been connected to the vine, the life of death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God's Spirit has been given to you, and God the Father personally is evolved in your life. And so he says here, this warning, to not bear fruit, to not bear fruit, can have horrible effects, eternal effects, on who you are.

Then he goes back into, of course, the encouraging. Jesus is very seldom negative for very long, but he always had a warning in there. Verse 7 says, And if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so you will be my disciples, my imitators. He says, you're going to bear fruit because you're going to follow me.

You're connected to me. And he said, God is glorified by the fruit in your life. We don't think about that much. I mean, how often do you ever go to God and say, God, I wish to be glorified by you producing fruit in my life. I wish you to be glorified. I wish you to be honored.

Let me tell you something. We actually ask God, help me today not to shame you in any way. Help me today not to shame Jesus in any way. Help me today to glorify you by you bearing fruit in me.

Interesting prayer. I wonder what would happen if we all prayed that every day. If every day we started our day by going before God and saying, you be glorified. Not me. Not that people say, oh, look at Him, look at her. But people say, thank you. You help me today be closer to God. So much of what we do in life is to bring something upon ourselves, some kind of a claim to ourselves. But God is glorified by fruit. We think He's glorified when we do great deeds for Him, when we get into gifts of the Spirit. Sometimes we think, well, if I could just walk around healing people with glory before glorifying God.

Maybe if God just gave me the ability to speak in dog tongues and suddenly I could just speak in 15 different languages, that would glorify God.

It's the fruit that glorifies God. When God gives us gifts, it's to accomplish something specific.

In fact, gifts can be used to not glorify God.

God is glorified by the fruit He produces in us, and He is looking for very specific fruit. Very specific fruit is another analogy used by Jesus in Luke 6. Luke 6.

Verse 43.

He says, In other words, when God comes to the arbor that is you, connected to the vine which is Christ, He expects good grapes. That's what He expects. And if it's not there, guess what He's going to do? He's going to prune, He's going to fertilize, He's going to cut, He's going to do whatever it takes so that you do not wither and die.

So bearing fruit is very important, isn't it? Without bearing proper spiritual fruit, we wither and die. Bearing fruit is glorifying to God. And you and I, different than a grape vine, a grape arbor, you and I participated in this. We decide whether this fruit is going to happen in our lives or not. We decide whether we're going to submit to God or not submit to God. We decide. Because God won't make us do it.

So what kind of grapes are being produced in your life?

Now, it's interesting, when someone's growing grapes, they have a specific role or goals for those grapes. You know, not every grape arbor produces the same grapes, does it? If you're producing a variety of grapes that are table grapes, then you're going to do whatever it takes to help that variety of grape to grow. If you're producing a certain kind of wine, you're going to use a certain kind of grape. If you're going to produce raisins, you need a certain kind of grape. And you take care of those arbors a little different. But the important thing is that the vine dresser wants very specific fruit. The vine dresser doesn't plant all these vines and then say, oh, I'll just see what comes up. I'll just see what happens. I can tell you what's going to happen, because that's what we did. I think my mom still has a grape arbor back there. Can you remember? Does she still have a grape arbor? No, she doesn't. They finally cut it down. I think it finally got so big it collapsed by its own weight. The trestles sort of rotted out and the whole thing collapsed and they had to come hauled all this brush off. It was just like a giant brush bush. God doesn't want that. He has very specific fruit that He wants in your life.

What does God want from you?

Have you ever asked God, have people tell me they've gone to God and said, God, what is it You want from me? I'm doing everything I can here, but that doesn't seem to work. I kept the Sabbath and I lost my job.

I was honest and my neighbor took advantage of me. I didn't sleep around. I waited to marriage and I'm 35 and not married.

I've done this, I've done this, I've done this, and it doesn't seem to be working out. What do You want from me? My life isn't what I want. I've kept your health laws and yet I've got some kind of sickness that was hereditary. What is He who would for me? God wants specific things from all of us, but there is a fruit that He wants from every one of us, that He desires, that we have to believe He has the right to develop in us and we have to be willing to submit to that development. You have to cultivate grapes.

The fruit in us must be cultivated. It will not grow on its own. It must have God's Spirit watering it. It must be connected to Jesus Christ. And we must have the vine dresser diligently working all the time. And that He wants this fruit in our lives. That's what He desires. What does it He desire?

He said, well, okay, this will be good because this will tell me how He's going to rearrange my life so that this fruit can be developed. Actually not. These are the same fruits that we're going to go through. That God wants to produce in your life, whether you're married or not married, whether you're raising children or not raising children, whether you have a good career or no job at all, whether you have good money or you live in poverty, whether you have good relationships or bad relationships, whether you have health or don't have health. God wants the same fruits. Well, wait a minute. He has to fix those things, right? Then I can produce the fruits. Once God fixes my kids, fixes my husband, gives me more money, and gives me more health, then He'll produce fruits in me. No, God wants to produce fruits in you in spite of all those things. The fruits are the same in spite of all those things.

So we're not talking about our circumstances here. The fruit that God wants to build in you is the same no matter what your circumstances, no matter who you are, no matter whether you're male or female. It doesn't matter whether you're 20 years old or 80 years old. It doesn't matter. It's the same fruit. We're all attached to the same vine. Now, we all may have different gifts, but gifts and fruit are not the same. God wants the same fruit in every one of us. And He tells us that fruit, of course, in Galatians 5. So let's go there. Galatians 5.

We think so many things will make us happy, will make us fulfilled. When God says, let me do this, let me do this, and these will be part of who you are, it doesn't matter what happens to you. It doesn't matter if you get fired. It doesn't matter if you start to think of the devastating things that happen to us as human beings. I'm not saying that we won't feel devastated or we won't feel depressed, we won't feel lost. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if these fruits are in our lives, they will survive anything. God has created a drought-free, catastrophe-free, grape. It can survive Katrina. It can survive drought. You know why? It's connected to a vine that can't be influenced. Jesus Christ. It's connected to a vine that can't be damaged. And the vine dresser will take care of it no matter what. No matter what you're in, no matter what crisis, no matter what problem, he's there working on his vine, or working on his fruit. So we look at this in Galatians 5, verse 22, and we know I gave seven servants here about a year and a half ago just on these two verses. But the fruit of the Spirit is love. This is Galatians 5, 22. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is what God wants to produce in your life. And if you have this, then you think, well, yeah, but I could really have joy if God says, no, let me produce joy in an inward way. See, God wants to work from the inside out, and what we want to do is from the outside in. I can have peace if everybody around me does exactly what I want. Won't happen ever.

I can have joy when my kids behave the exactly the way I want them to. Won't happen ever. So we keep taking all these external things and saying, yes, I'll have joy when that happens, or I'll have peace when that happens, or I'll have long suffering when I don't have to suffer anymore. That's called short suffering. So if you understand, God says, oh, this fruit is developed from the inside out, not the outside in. That's why it takes God's Spirit to do this. You can do behavioral modification. There are some very good books that you can read on how to have a happier life that will give you some really good points, or how to get along with people better. You know, have a little more peace. How to put up with the difficulties of life. But this isn't what this is talking about. What is being described here is the very character of Almighty God. This is what God is. You see, God is agape, which is the Greek word that's used there, which basically Paul uses to say the character of God, the ultimate goodness. Agape had a number of different vague meanings in Greek simply because it was a philosophical word, the ultimate goodness. God is agape. God is joy. Does God grieve? Yes. Does God feel sadness? Yes. Why isn't God ever overcome with sadness? Why isn't God destroyed with sadness? Because God is joy. Doesn't mean He doesn't have other emotions. But this is part of the very core of His being. At the core of who He is, He's joyful. At the core of who He is, He has peace. Does God get angry? Yes. Why does God never lose control of that? Because at the core of who He is, He has peace. He is long suffering. Aren't you glad? Why? It's who He is. If God stopped being any of these things, He wouldn't be God anymore. The fruit of His Spirit is Him. And He says, let me take me. That's why you have to be connected to Jesus Christ. That's why this can't be just behavioral modification. It is the very mind of God that must come into us and change who we are. He gives us everything we need. He gives us the law, the Sabbath, the Holy Days. He gives us the Bible. He gives us all the witnesses in this book and all the examples in this book. He gives us the teachings of Jesus Christ. He gives us Jesus Christ Himself. He gives us His Spirit. And He's the mind-dresser. Every day He's snipping and pruning and working. He gives us everything. The only variable in this is you and me. That's it. It's what we decide to do. That's any variable. Because God is these things. And because God is this, He actually is very predictable in outcomes. He's not very predictable because we're small-minded in what He's going to do day by day. In the day by day activities, He's so much greater than we are. We think we've figured it out and we almost never have it right. But in outcomes, He's incredibly predictable. Because in outcomes, He's always going to produce agape. He's always going to produce joy. He's always going to produce peace and long suffering and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. If you remember, oh, probably two years ago, I gave an entire sermon on God's faithfulness. He's always faithful. We're not. He is. He always has self-control. We don't. He does. This is who He is.

And this is what He wants to do with you. This is the fruit He wants. He wants you and I to be this way. Let's look at this in context. Let's go up to verse 19. Because He's comparing two things here, Paul is. He starts with, this is what we naturally produce as human beings.

He says, now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outburst of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies. This is what human beings normally do. Human beings are always involved in some kind of wrong sexual practices.

Human beings are all naturally just involved in false religion. They're always involved in false teachings, always involved with selfish ambition, always involved with verse 21, envy, and murders, and drunkenness, and revelry. It's just party time. We just want to have a good time. Human beings naturally want to have a good time. So they view life as, I want to have a good time, not as the fruits of God's Spirit. And the result is, life becomes, how do I party next? Right? What do I do next? In my partying, in my good time.

And yet, real peace, real joy, real goodness, it's not part of who they are. But notice what he says here, once again, in all this, there's this little statement of warning. Because remember, Galatians is written to the church. He says, and the like, this is the partial list of what human beings do naturally, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in the time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. He says, this naturally will kill you. You will just wither up.

If you've driven through the South, you don't see it much in Texas, if you drive through the South, Alabama, Georgia, North South Carolina, Louisiana, and someplace else, what you see is a plant called kudzu. Who knows what kudzu is? Kudzu, I don't even think it's native to the United States. I have no idea where it comes from. They got here. And what, I don't know, kudzu doesn't seem to have any purpose except to destroy other plants. It's a vine that just grows up over everything, and you can literally see, as you drive through parts of the South, sections of forest that are just, there's like a tent over it. Huge trees, 40, 50 feet high, just covered. And you drive by a couple years later, and it's all just collapsing downward, because everything inside, it appears to me, is being killed. It's being smothered and choked out by a vine.

And it's interesting, grapes don't do that.

I've never seen a forest destroyed by grapes. Kudzu does. It destroys. This is spiritual kudzu.

It will simply engulf the grape harbor where God is working, until there's nothing left to do but what my mom did to her grape harbor a couple years ago, which is tear it down and have it hauled off, because it has no purpose. It dies.

And he says, this is killing you. These aren't fruits.

This is death.

Then he says, but let me tell you the fruits of the Spirit. Let me tell you what life really is. This is what life is all about. Now what Satan tries to tell us is life is about this. Life is about adultery, fortification, and cleanliness, and lewdness, and idolatry. It's about jealousy, and it's about selfish ambition.

It's about partying, and that's what life is. And we buy into it, and we die. There is no spiritual life in that. But the fruits of the Spirit produce life. Verse 24 now says, And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. They have crucified these works of the flesh. They've literally killed them. They've killed them.

And if we walk in the Spirit, or if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. In other words, if you're connected to the vine, let the vine work.

If you live in the Spirit, act like you live in the Spirit. Every day, act like you live in the Spirit. Let the Spirit come through you. Let God do His work. Let the vine dress. We just keep pushing the vine dresser away, and I like being this way. I like having bugs all over me, right? I like having half my leaves die here. I know I'm connected to the vine, but I like being shriveled up old grapes. And what we do is we keep detaching ourselves more and more from the vine. Live in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit. There's an eternity to these words. There's eternal life in what He's saying here.

What does this produce? Okay, this is an analogy. I'm going to mix metaphors here a little bit. Let's go to another analogy, because what does this produce? Oh, good. I'll have some fruits in my life. It's more than that. It's more than just having these fruits. God wants to do something with you.

He's doing something with you, if you will submit to it.

It will make you do it. 2 Corinthians 3 2 Corinthians 3 It's a long passage here where Paul is going through a very detailed discussion, but I'm just going to read a couple verses.

2 Corinthians 3 verse 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit.

The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from the glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Oh, what does that mean?

There's a spiritual mirror you looked in at one time, and what you were was a deformed and depraved criminal. That's what we are. We're deformed, depraved criminals. And we looked in the mirror, and that's what we were. If you looked at us, you could know, what is he? I think he's a human being. See, we were originally made in the image of God, but when God first showed us the spiritual mirror, we didn't look anything like God.

If you and I are submitting to this process, if we are connected to Jesus Christ, who is the Spirit, and that Spirit is coming into us, you know, the Holy Spirit comes from God and Christ, and it comes into us, it's the power and mind. You know, law of power and sound-mindedness, right? That's what Paul said the Spirit does and gives us. It's God's power, God's law, but God's sound-mindedness that comes into us.

As that comes into us, we're connected to that vine, and a vine dresser is working with us. One day we look in the mirror, and we're not the same, deprived, deformed, criminal. We're beginning to become somebody else. It's amazing how we keep trying to hold on to the deprived, deformed, criminal. When we look into the mirror over time, as God works with us, we begin to look like someone else. We begin to have a family resemblance to someone else. And sooner or later we look, and if you read through this passage, the Lord here is referring directly to Jesus Christ.

We're looking at that mirror and we say, Wait a minute, I shouldn't look like Him. There's a family resemblance. Over time we are to begin to look spiritually like the family, like the Father who created us and the brother who died for us. And if we're going to look like them, guess what we're going to have?

Love, joy, peace, love, suffering. That's who they are. That's who we're going to have to be in this spiritual mirror. That's what we're going to have to see in our lives. When we look into that spiritual mirror, we're going to have to see more and more of these fruits. And when we do, you begin to see, wait a minute, I'm not the same person anymore. I really am beginning to become a different person.

It's not enough just to come to services. This is about being transformed into a child of God. And this fruit has to be at the core of who you are. This next statement, I don't want anybody to misunderstand what I'm saying, but I want you to understand.

You can keep the letter of the Ten Commandments. You can keep the Sabbath of the Holy Days. And still not look like Jesus Christ. Now, you don't keep the Ten Commandments. You won't look like Him at all. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying you shouldn't keep the Ten Commandments. I just said the letter of the Ten Commandments.

Jesus Himself said that, right? The law says, don't murder. I says, don't hate. The law says, don't commit a dollar. I'm saying, don't even lust after somebody. Even He said, it has to be more than that. He didn't say you could do it. But He said, it has to be that plus more. And it's the same way. The other reason I say that, there are Orthodox Jews who keep the letter of the Ten Commandments and their meetings today on the Sabbath, and they don't even know Jesus Christ.

They're not even attached to the line. So we have to be more than that. We have to do that. But that has to take us someplace. Everything God does takes us someplace. The Ten Commandments take us to understanding certain things. The Sabbath, the Holy Days, lead us to understanding certain things. And everything He does keeps leading us to something. And what is it He's leading us to? He's leading us to looking in the mirror and saying, Oh, I'm not the same person I used to be.

I'm literally becoming somebody else. And these truths are what we have to become. Everything He gives us is teaching us these things. Let's give a short definition of these truths. Let's start with the first one, which is self-control.

We have a slide so that you can write down these very simple definitions. My monitor's down, so I'm not sure when it's up there. When it's up there, you all have to shake your head. Yes. So it's up there. Okay. I don't know. Knowing this crowd, you would be doing that just to play a joke on me.

I'm going to check. Self-control. Self-control involves struggling against our corrupted human nature, our thoughts, our emotions and habits, and bringing them into subjection to God's laws and teachings. So see, even God's laws have something to do with these commandments, because it is the law of God that teaches us what self-control is.

Paul said, I would not have known not to covet it, except the law told me not to. He wrote that in Romans. I would not have known that, except the law told me. We would not know what self-control is, proper self-control. I mean, there are people who have great self-control. Some of the Olympic athletes had great self-control, but they are absolutely immoral people.

But they had enormous self-control to be able to put their bodies in subjection to do a sport. This is different. The self-control of the Spirit involves struggling against our own corrupted human nature, our thoughts, our emotions and habits. It's a struggle. It's a struggle you will fight the rest of your life. And bringing these things into subjection to God's laws and teaching. Okay, the next one, gentleness.

Gentleness, or sometimes it's translated meekness, depending on the English translation, is, now this is the Vines' expository dictionary, a biblical word's definition. It says, it's the temper of spirit in which we accept God's dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting. In other words, this gentleness or meekness has to do with how we respond to God.

It is a response to God that says, I submit to you. Now, if we have this kind of meekness and gentleness, it will affect the way you treat others.

If you're not submitting to God, and you're just pretending to be gentle to others, you're just putting on a show, behavioral modification, and guess what will happen? Eventually, the true you will come out. That's the problem with all of us, right? Any one of us, at any given moment, is acting very unconverted. I don't care how long you've had God's Spirit. At any given moment, all of a sudden, you're not responding. So, this kind of meekness, this kind of gentleness begins with towards God. You're a vine that He can work with very easily. You're pliable, supple. He's able to grow big leaves around to protect you.

And fruit's big for Him. Faithfulness. Faithfulness is to remain committed and faithful to God. I've been surprised over the years how many times, and I understand why. It's just, I think, where else do you go? How many people I've seen, called by God, but because of hard things in their lives, or personal sins, or because somebody else treated them wrong, or whatever reason, the person does not remain faithful to God.

None of those excuses are acceptable to God. If we have God's Spirit working through us, we have the fruits of the Spirit. If we have the fruits of the Spirit, what can separate us? I think of a Roman date where the Apostle Paul says, what can separate us from the love of Christ? He said, nothing! There's nothing that can separate me from the love of Christ.

If we're faithful to God, what can anybody do to you that would separate you from the love of Christ? So you cut yourself off from the vine. I just cut myself off from the vine because I'm having bad things in my life, or things aren't working out the way I want, or somebody was mean to me. So I just cut myself off from the vine. There! I'd fix that problem.

Kindness. Kindness denotes the character to treat others with respect, consideration, and compassion. Once again, I don't care how close you are to God. At any given moment, you could be having trouble treating others with respect, or with consideration, or compassion. But this has to be developed in us. This has to become a way of life. So that the moments when we're not doing this become less and less and less. These works of the flesh just start to disappear. We're all still struggling with them. But they become less and less and less. If they are not becoming less and less and less, then you're beginning to wither on the vine. You still may be attached to the vine, but you're beginning to die on the vine. God has to revitalize you.

Long suffering.

The ability to endure suffering for a long time for the good of God or for the good of others.

Someday, every one of us hopefully will have a point in our lives where someone will say, How do you put up with that? And your response will be, Because I know God. Because I'm connected to the vine.

Because that's the way my father is. It's the way my brother is. It's the way our family is. This is a family trait. You see, it is a family trait to have self-control. Whose family do you belong to? There's only two. There's Satan and God. There's only two families. Which one do you belong to? Because whatever these are, just do the exact opposite in that Satan's family. Why do you have such self-control? Because of me, I just have lots of character. It's a family trait. And Dad's had to really teach that one to me.

Why do you have such a meatness before God? It's a family trait.

After long suffering, the next one is peace. The peace of God produced by His Spirit is more than the absence of conflict or war. We're always going to have some conflict while we live in Satan's world. The spiritual fruit of peace is an internal state of being that guides how we react to external situations. You know, I have to be very careful. In my life, especially since the last year when I've been suffering through some illnesses, I find that because I've been sick, it's much easier to not be patient. It's much easier to react to external situations. So I'm starting to realize if I want to get better, then I'm probably going to have to learn to deal with external situations differently.

It's what we learn, right? We have to learn that the peace comes from within, not the external situations. The person who steps in front of you rudely at the checkout counter shoves his way in, is wrong. The person who cuts you off is wrong. Then we have to decide how we're going to have to deal with this. The person who drives by, and you think, oh, he must be saying I'm number one, is wrong. How do we now respond to that? That has to be an internal decision. An internal decision. God produces this fruit in us. It's not easy, but this is where we have to go. Joy. Joy is happiness and gladness of heart, which allows us not to be emotionally controlled by circumstances. It doesn't mean you don't feel bad. It doesn't mean you don't get hurt. It doesn't mean you don't feel distraught over something or a sense of loss because someone's died or anger and some injustice. What it means is that you still, because you are happy, you are joyful because of God's Spirit, you're able to weather it. You're able to come out of it. It's why God... Look how many times in the Old Testament where God says, My anger will not last forever. He always says, Look, if I get angry, it's because of this situation. We'll fix this situation. I'll be angry anymore. So you know what God said? Now I'll always fix this situation because I'm not going to stay angry. Why? Because inside He's joyful. It is who He is.

And then agape, love, which is the very character and goodness of God.

This, everything God's doing in your life, every commandment He gives us, the Bible that He gives us, the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, the community He gives us, called the Church. In fact, this is the greatest place in the world to learn these things.

Your family and your Church is where you'll learn this at the deep core of who you are, and how you relate to each other, and how we relate to God.

This is what God wants to do in your life. This is what all this is supposed to produce.

A family resemblance. A family resemblance.

Now, I did want to mention one other thing, a related topic, and it has to do with the gifts of the Spirit. Because people say, what's the relationship between the gifts of the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit? When we talk about the gifts of the Spirit, we mix two different things together, and that's fine. When we talk about the gifts of the Spirit, one is talents. People have, everybody has something they bring to the Church they're supposed to give. So, I don't have any talents. Can you sweep the floor? Yes, then you have a talent. Sweep the floor. There are no useless talents. Everybody has talents. Everybody brings something. And God expects us to develop those talents for service. I mean, I think of Dorcas in the New Testament, who is, in entire congregation, is in just mourning because she died. And when Peter shows up, what do all the people, all the widows come to him and say, look at all the clothing she made for us. What was her talent? She made clothing. That was her talent. What was her fruit?

She loved her brethren. Her fruit produced something out of her talent.

The fruit has to come first. When we talk about the gifts of the Spirit, we also talk about specific gifts that are actually, supernaturally given to us through God's Spirit. Now, God sometimes will take our natural talents and enhance them.

Maybe you have a special talent in singing, and God will actually enhance that talent. But we also see supernatural talents given, like where God gives prophesied speaking, inspired speaking, where God gives the gift of healing. That's a supernatural thing. You can't go say, well, I've decided today I'm going to heal. Or I'm going to speak in tongues. Okay, God, today I'm going to speak in Swahili.

You can't work that up. Either God gives it to you or he doesn't. So there are these great, inspired gifts that are given. But these gifts are given specifically for purposes. Specific purposes. So we all have talents we bring, and those talents are to be developed, and God's Spirit will help us develop those talents. And then he also has these inspired gifts he gives, which we talked about in the Bible.

Now, I talked about at the beginning how these fruits would produce gifts for us. We would eat jelly and jam, grape juice. In the middle of the winter, I remember getting up a foot of snow outside, and for breakfast we had grape juice. Now, we couldn't afford grape juice. We had a poor family. But we had canned grape juice that my mom canned, and we would drink that for breakfast. That was quite a treat. We had these gifts from this fruit, but the gifts came from the fruit. The gifts came from the fruit. When I look at the Bible, there is one congregation of all the congregations in the Bible that obviously had an enormous amount of talent in that congregation. Even music is mentioned as one of the talents that's there. They also, as a congregation, had more supernatural gifts poured out on it than any other congregation you could find in the New Testament. This church was a church of remarkable gifts. Natural gifts being enhanced by God's Spirit and those special gifts given by God's Spirit. It was a remarkable church. We know as much about this congregation in the Bible as any of the other congregations. We also know that this congregation is known for sort of comfortably allowing sexual sin to take place in their congregation. We know that it was a group filled with sin. We know that it was a group filled with divisions, and infighting, and power struggles, and confusion. People showed up at the Passover drunk. Imagine that coming to the Passover drunk. Members were taking each other to court. They slandered each other. They lied about each other. They were self-righteous, and they constantly debated over doctrine, and they constantly fought over their gifts.

Anybody know what congregation I'm talking about? Go ahead. You can say it. It's okay. Corinthians. You all knew I was talking about Corinthians, right? But it's how we get to the end. Wait a minute. I've read 1 and 2 Corinthians. The most talented and gift-filled congregation we can find in the New Testament, and it is the most dysfunctional, spiritually sick congregation you can imagine, except maybe for Thyatira. And you think, how did that happen? Part of it happened because they were so proud of their gifts. They didn't have the fruit first. You say, how do you know that? Well, 1 Corinthians 13. Actually, 1 Corinthians 12. In 1 Corinthians 12, he talks about their gifts, and the remarkable state of this church and what they were given is just remarkable. At the end of talking about all the gifts they had, and all the talents they had, and all the confusion they had, if you read through 1 Corinthians, if you walked into one of their church services, you would have walked out of it. Everybody was singing different hymns at the same time. Different people were preaching at the same time. Little groups were off arguing, and everybody was talking in languages that weren't their normal language. Just to show off, hey, I can now speak in Greek, but I couldn't speak in Greek before. Hey, I can now speak in Hebrew. I couldn't speak in Hebrew before. Hey, I now speak in Persian. I couldn't speak in Persian before. And they're all blabbling away. It's absolute chaos. It's mayhem. And to make it worse, the women had taken over the church.

I'm not making that up. It actually says that. And after talking about all their talents, on all their gifts, verse 31 in 1 Corinthians 12, But earnestly desire the best gifts, yet I show you a more excellent way. I'm going to tell you about something better than gifts. What can be better than gifts? What can be better than... I can speak in tongues. What can be better than... I can do miracles. I walk down the street and I heal people left and right. What can be better than that? And Paul says I'm going to tell you about something a whole lot better than that. And then he talks specifically in verse 1 about gifts. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. He says, so what if God gave me the ability not even... Because he talks about one place where he can speak more languages than anybody. He says, what if God actually gave me angel language? That'd be pretty neat, huh? He says, I might speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not agape I have become what? Just blaring noise. A symbol. Remember that little monkey you could buy? I don't know if they still have that little toy. They were just buying, buying, buying, and winding it up. That's all you are. A little monkey playing with a symbol. A noise. A useless, meaningless noise. But you say, but I've got all these talents.

You know, I talked to choir directors at the feast for 30 years. And I hear a story that comes up over and over again. And that is, sometimes they have somebody come into the choir that has the most perfect voice of anybody. They're head and shoulders above everybody else. And they know music. I mean, they know they can read music. I mean, they're just head and shoulders above everybody else. But they won't stay in the choir because they won't put up with everybody else. What good is their gift?

You see, we're given gifts and talents to edify the body. And when it becomes driven by selfish ambition or envy or jealousy or any of the other works of the flesh, guess what happens? The gift from God, the talent from God, begins to be kazoo.

The gift from God becomes spiritual kazoo. How can that be? Because everything is given by God. And if you read 1 Corinthians 12, that's what he keeps telling them. You are to use these things to become one, not to separate.

Verse 2, though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, he says, if I know the Bible inside and out, Paul would say if I know Greek because he knew Greek, or Aramaic because he knew Aramaic, or Hebrew because he knew all of them. He said, if I had all the ability to speak with the inspired message of God, and you will find in the Bibles, some people who spoke with the inspired message of God and turned out to be, to turn against God, you'll see that. Their fruit dried up on the vine. If I know it all, if I know all the mysteries, I've unlocked everything in this Bible, which I've never... Nobody, I don't think anybody ever will unlock everything that's in this Bible. There's that much in it. But he says, I know all of it, and I have all faith. I believe God. I do what he says. So that I can remove mountains, but have not agape, I am nothing. I am zero, zilch, nada, I am nothing. How could that be? Because gifts aren't reflection of the family resemblance. They're special things God gives us to do His will. And the more we reflect our brother Jesus Christ, the more whatever talents we have or gifts God gives us will be used to His glory, to His honor, to His benefit, and less for ours. Less for our own. So much of the time we take our talents and we try to prove something with them about ourselves.

Like my mother likes to always remind me, don't feel too big about being on television. God made Balaam's donkey talk. He could put you on television. Push things in perspective, especially when it's coming from Mom. Verse 3, And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, so I do lots of good deeds, and though I give my body to be burned, I'm a martyr for God. If I don't have His character, if I'm not reflecting Him, if in the inner part of my being I'm not being changed into a child of God, it profits me nothing. This three verses should shake our Christianity to its foundation.

If I do these things, if I do not worship idols, but I don't have the character of God, now that's the problem with this word love here. We put that in English context. We're looking at it in the terms of what we just looked at in Galatians 5. Let's just put in, we can put in the fruits of the Spirit. If I don't have the fruits of the Spirit, if I'm not becoming the resemblance, the image of the family, what does it mean? If I go work at soup kitchens, I do lots of good things, but privately, I'm not like Christ. What does it mean? He says, what does it mean if I'm a martyr? But inside, I'm still the same person I was 40 years ago. What does it mean? It's a remarkable set of verses, but what he does, he puts entire context, the issue about talents, gifts, and fruits. The fruits have to come first. They always have to come first. The great vine dresser has a plan for your life, and you're connected to the mind of Jesus Christ. God earnestly desires to cultivate fruit in your life. He is actively cultivating that fruit so that you can be His child forever. That's what He wants. That's what He desires. It's how much He loves you. He'll do anything except make you do it. It's time to rid your life of kudzu. It's time to get spiritual kudzu out of your life. Those works of the flesh and submit to the vine dresser, it will change you from the inside out. And when He does, you will look more and more into that spiritual mirror. And as you do, you'll see a family resemblance.