Fruit Happens
Tom Shrader walks through Galatians 5:16-23, contrasting the deeds of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit and calling listeners to honestly examine which pattern marks their lives. He grounds the teaching in Ephesians 2:8-10, emphasizing that salvation is entirely by grace through faith, while the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—is the outward evidence of inward change that God produces in the believer. The teaching closes with a pastoral reminder that fruit is not manufactured by religious activity but grows naturally where the Spirit is alive, and the service concludes with communion as a remembrance of the cross that made it all possible.
“Works contribute nothing to my salvation but are the result of my salvation.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: New City Church
Recorded: April 14, 2013
Duration: 41 min
Themes: holy spirit, fruit of the spirit, grace, salvation, self-control, love, spiritual growth, communion, new believer, struggling with sin, questioning salvation, feeling stuck spiritually, longtime churchgoer, seeking inner change, young adult, spiritually dry
Scripture: Galatians 5:16-23, Galatians 5:22, Ephesians 2:8-10, 2 Corinthians 13:5, Philippians 2:3-5, Philippians 2:12-13, 1 Corinthians 13, Romans 8:28, James 1:2-4, Ephesians 6, John 3:16, John 14-16
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, pneumatology, works of the flesh, soteriology, salvation by grace, regeneration, new creation
Full Transcript
Introduction
Open your Bibles, if you would, please, to the book of Galatians. If you have a Bible that you picked up on one of the seats, it's page 633 — Galatians. We're actually going to look at Galatians chapter 5.
Brian started last week a study on the Holy Spirit. When he was telling me about that, I was excited for some very selfish reasons. I have served as the senior pastor, lead pastor, teaching pastor at a church that we were actually part of founding in 1991 — so 22 years ago. That was East Valley Bible Church. The last few years we put together a merger, and we are now Redemption Church, with different campuses around primarily the East Valley.
A Question That Stunned Me
Last summer, Sandy and I were in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Go to Portland, head to the beach — it takes about an hour and a half and you're there. It's a very quiet, restful place. There's a Christian conference center there, which I believe was the old Cannon Beach Hotel in the 1940s before it was purchased and converted. I go up about once a year to teach.
Last summer I was teaching in the mornings, and a gentleman by the name of Brian LaRitz was teaching in the evenings. We developed a habit of going out together after the evening session, because by eight o'clock at night everything in Cannon Beach is pretty well shut down. There are a few little places open where you can grab a beer, a glass of wine, a Coke, and maybe a burger. Brian, Sandy, and I would go out every night after Brian was done.
Sitting there one night, Brian asked me a question that stunned me — though I didn't think about it very long, because I had never even contemplated it. What surprised me even more was my answer. The question was this: in those 22 years, as you look back over your teaching at the church, is there anything you wish you had either emphasized more or taught more — or perhaps never taught at all and wish you had? Instantaneously, like hitting my knee in a reflex, I said, "Yes — the Holy Spirit." I found myself debriefing that answer that night and into the next day, asking myself, how did that happen? What was I really saying?
The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit
Most good Bible churches are going to teach you an awful lot about God the Father and an awful lot about Jesus, and will make frequent passing references to the Holy Spirit — but rarely do what Brian is doing, which is an in-depth study on the person of the Holy Spirit. So when Brian named that as the topic and then called to ask if I would be part of the series, I was excited.
As this series unfolds, my suspicion is that you will be exposed to two big areas: the person of the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit. We see the person of the Holy Spirit especially in John chapters 14, 15, and 16. It is the night before Jesus dies, and He is saying to the disciples, "I'm going to go, but I won't leave you as orphans. I will send you another" — the same in essence, the same in person. It is God the Spirit who comes and indwells you and fills you.
And then there is the fruit of the Spirit — that is my topic today. Brian called and said, "It's the fruit of the Spirit. I'm not going to tell you how to do it — just teach it."
The Fruit of the Spirit
The moment you hear "the fruit of the Spirit," you go to the passage you have in front of you — Galatians chapter 5, verse 22: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." That is the fruit of the Spirit. That is what the Spirit produces in your life.
So I am going to ask you to do something today that can be dangerous, but is absolutely essential. Paul asked the church at Corinth to do it in 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5. He said, "Test yourself, examine yourself" — to see, as one paraphrase puts it, whether you are really a Christian or not.
Saved by Grace
Keep your finger in Galatians chapter 5, and turn just to the right to the next book — Ephesians. In Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, we find a passage that is sometimes introduced as one everybody is familiar with. I learned a long time ago that not everybody is familiar with it, so for some of you this is a refresher, and for others it may be brand new information. There is no topic more important than this.
Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved." Saved from what? I was born and raised Catholic through grade school, high school, and college. I was taught in elementary school by a group of ladies who were the most misnamed people on the planet — the Sisters of Mercy. They were not long on mercy, and I seemed to bring out the worst in them.
What I was taught — or at least what I heard — was that Jesus died for my sin, but that there was a great deal for me to do as well. Somehow, and I was never entirely sure how this was going to work, God had a prototype of a prototype of a prototype of a computer that tracked everything I did in my life. Upon death I would stand before St. Peter, he would hit a button, and if there was more good than bad I went to heaven. If there was more bad than good, I went to hell. And if it was a close call — and I never knew how close was close enough —
Saved by Grace, Not by Works
For by grace you have been saved through faith, it is not of yourself, it is a gift of God, not as a result of works, of human effort, so that no man may boast. That is Ephesians 2:8–9. What Paul is describing there is not religion. Religion is the idea that if the good outweighs the bad, you make it — and if it was a close call, you go to purgatory. That is intuitive. That may even be why some of you are here today.
As we live life over a period of time, in a macro sense, we look around and say this world is a mess. There is a volatile situation in Korea. There is war and strife around the globe. We see people in Africa dying almost needlessly, from diseases for which medicine is available. We look at our own country and see the strife there. We look at our friends and think they are struggling.
And then there is a moment where the macro becomes micro. You look in the mirror and say, "I am a mess." That is when you are going to go one of two ways.
When I hit that moment, I assessed my life and said the stack of bad is so high that I could spend the rest of my life doing good and never get there. Thirty-three years ago, I walked into Phoenix Country Club and there was a man teaching the essential idea that salvation — deliverance and rescue — is not based on my effort, but on grace, unmerited favor. It is based on faith in Jesus Christ.
What Christ Accomplished on the Cross
You celebrated it here a few weeks ago at Good Friday. Jesus lived and died on the cross. That is historically true — it is documented fact. What the Bible tells us is *why* He died. He took my place, your place.
All of the punishment for our sin that was due us — a debt we had that we could not pay — that is why Christ died. That is what Jesus meant when He said, "It is finished." He had paid the price.
When He cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" it was at that moment that Jesus experienced, for the first time ever, separation from the Father. All of the guilt due us was thrust on Him at that moment. So the remarkable truth is this: I am saved by God, from God, for God.
Works Are the Result of Salvation, Not the Cause
Ephesians 2:8–9 tells us we are saved by grace through faith, and it is not of ourselves, it is a gift, not a result of works. Rarely do we continue on to verse 10. "For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works."
Now that I am His child, He expects me to act like it. Works contribute nothing to my salvation but are the result of my salvation. I am not necessarily asking you to agree with that at this point — though I hope you do — but I want you to understand it clearly enough to either embrace it or object to it.
I am saying that salvation has nothing to do with my effort. That runs against our instincts. Many of us have had that micro moment in front of the mirror and decided to fix it ourselves — clean up our act, come to church, work through the right programs, work, work, work, work. What the Bible says is that our work produces zero as it relates to salvation. But once we are saved, our works begin to manifest the change that has taken place.
Ephesians 2:10 adds that we are "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Just as God saved us, God is the one who allows us to persevere. He preserves us and creates us for these good works.
Working Out What God Has Worked In
In Philippians 2:12, Paul tells us to work *out* our salvation. He does not say work *at* our salvation or work *for* our salvation. Because we have been delivered and rescued, now we are called to look like it. Then in Philippians 2:13, he makes clear that all of that is from God — He is the one who puts the desire in you and the ability in you.
So what I am asking you to do today is test yourself. Not the person sitting to your left or your right. I do not want you to be fifteen minutes into this and be texting a friend saying, "Boy, you should be here, you need this." This is about you.
Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York who died at the end of last year, used to walk through the streets of New York and shout out, "How am I doing?" That is what I want you to ask yourself today. How am I doing?
The Battle Between the Flesh and the Spirit
Let us go back to Galatians chapter 5. Before we talk about the fruit of the Spirit, notice the first word in verse 22: "but." There is a contrast being set up. In verse 16, Paul says, "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh." The word "walk" carries the idea of a continuous, regular action — a habitual way of life.
Here is the conflict: the Spirit and the flesh are set against each other. Verse 17 says, "For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; they are in opposition to one another." But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
This is a matter of who is governing your life. You will hear the phrase around a church: "I want to be led by the Spirit of God." Paul is telling you exactly what that means. He wants you to walk, to live in a certain way, a certain style — not according to the flesh. What Paul gives us here is the context for a historic battle between the flesh and the Spirit.
The Armor and the Flesh
Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 to put on the full armor of God. When do you put on armor? When you are going into battle. In the Greek, it reads literally: put on once and for all, and leave on, the full armor of God. What does that tell you about this battle? It is relentless, 24-7. The enemy — Satan, that subtle serpent, angel of light, roaring lion — is seeking to devour you.
So how do we know how we are doing? What are the characteristics, the hallmarks of our life? Paul speaks to us here about the deeds of the flesh. Verse 19: "The deeds of the flesh are evident." He then lists them — these things we see in our life, this ongoing pattern — and he places them in three categories.
The first category is sexuality. The deeds of the flesh, if I am being driven by the flesh, include immorality. The Greek word is *porneia*, from which we get the English word pornography. It is a broad term speaking to all sorts of sexual behavior that would be a deviation from God's plan: adultery, fornication, sex outside of marriage, bestiality, prostitution, homosexuality. Impurity means unclean — originally a medical term describing an infected wound that oozed pus. Sensuality is an excess lack of restraint in the area of sexuality, sinning openly and without shame.
The second category has to do with man-made religions: idolatry and sorcery. Idolatry is obvious — something that takes the place of God. Sorcery comes from the Greek *pharmacia*, from which we get the word pharmacy or pharmaceutical, and has to do with drugs — primarily mind-altering drugs — that were used in the process of ceremonial worship.
The third area is human relationships. The deeds of the flesh are evident in the sexual area — immorality, impurity, sensuality — in the religious area — idolatry, sorcery — and then in human relationships: enmity, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissension, faction, envying, drunkenness, carousing. Paul says that is not an exhaustive list, but it is a representative one.
The Warning and the Ongoing Practice
Paul says, "I forewarned you about these. Those who practice such things will not enter the kingdom of God." The word *practice* there is in the present active participle. It indicates an ongoing action. He is saying: if these are the things that mark your life, take note.
He is not suggesting that you and I are perfect. He understands that in the life of believers, there will be times when some of these things are evidenced. But the question is: is that the trend line? Is that the thing that marks our life? In this whole idea of whether I am being led by the Spirit or led by the flesh, what is the continual practice of my life?
The Fruit of the Spirit
The contrast comes in verse 22: "The fruit of the Spirit is" — and then Paul lists nine characteristics. Grammatically, we might want to say *fruits of the Spirit are*, but God wrote it the way He wrote it, so we know we have it right. Paul is either saying the fruit of the Spirit is love, and the other eight characteristics help define that love, or he is picturing something like a bunch of grapes — nine characteristics hanging together in one cluster. Either way, here is what he is saying: when the Spirit is alive in your life, He is producing these things. They are an outward indicator of an inward change.
When someone asks how you are doing spiritually, there is a very human impulse to reach for a list of activities. "I was in Bible study last week. I am signed up for the marriage course. I will be at the park — I do not want to be, but I will be there smiling and saying it is great to see you." We want a matrix, a way to measure. Religious people, even believers, tend to measure by activities. But God does not do that. He says it is not what you are doing, it is who you are. It is these nine characteristics, and the supreme among them all is love.
What Love Actually Means
Love is not just a feeling. There are beautiful, almost poetic love songs — Sinatra-era songs full of romance and longing — and they are lovely. But even as compelling as those songs are, they have nothing to do with what Paul is talking about here. This is a love that is a conscientious choice. It is *agape* love — a love defined not by you and me, but by God. The perfect picture of that love is symbolized by the cross.
"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." God came down in the person of Jesus and went to a cross — a humiliating instrument of torture and death. If you had walked into a church 2,000 years ago and seen a cross hanging there, people would have been deeply disturbed by it.
The Mark of Love
It would be like hanging an electric chair or a noose — the cross was an instrument of torture and death, the most horrific way to die. But the transforming power of love is seen in this: when Christ went to that cross, He turned this instrument of torture into a universal symbol of love. Your world is marked by that. Your relationships are marked by that.
The night before He died, Jesus had the disciples together, and here is what He said to them. He could have put anything on the whiteboard at that point — study the Bible, pray, hang out together, all good things — but that is not what He put. He said, "Here is how the world is going to know that you are Mine: you are going to love one another." We are supposed to look at you and say, "They are His kids." How do you know? Look at the way they deal with each other. They do not devour one another.
What Love Actually Does
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul defines love. Love is patient, love is kind. At the end of that passage, Paul writes, "Love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, and love endures all things." Consider what each of those means in the context of how we are to treat one another — in a marriage, in a dating relationship, or in any relationship.
Love bears all things. It means to cover, to support, to protect. It carries with it the idea of protecting others from exposure, ridicule, or harm. Genuine love does not gossip, and it does not listen to gossip. You live in a world marked by gossip, but you draw a line and say, "No, I am not going to do that."
Love believes all things. Love is not suspicious or cynical. It throws its mantle over a wrong and believes the best outcome for the person. If there is a doubt about a person's guilt or motivation, love always opts for the most favorable possibility.
Love hopes all things. Even when belief in a loved one's goodness or repentance is shattered, love still hopes. When it runs out of faith, it holds onto hope. As long as God's will is humanly operative, failure is never final.
Love endures all things. It is a military term, speaking of soldiers holding a vital position. In every hardship or suffering, love endures and holds fast. It stands against overwhelming opposition at all costs.
Love in Practice
Does that characterize your relationships with one another? Sandy and I have been married ten and a half months, and we were on a panel last night talking about marriage — which perhaps seems a bit premature. We were talking about how well it is working, and I hesitate to say that, because it can easily be dismissed by saying it has only been ten and a half months. But if that is your response, you have missed the power of this.
It is working well, and here is why: to this point, the majority of the time when we come to a difficult situation, we each understand that we bring our own sin into it. What I am trying to figure out is how I can build up and love Sandy. Paul addresses exactly this in Philippians 2:3-5. "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit." Philippians 2:4 says, "Do not merely look out for your own interests" — it is a given that you will — "but also for the interests of others." Your marriage cannot fail if your main concern is your mate.
Relationships are shattered everywhere. Think about what it means to protect someone's reputation — what happens when you see something tweeted or texted, you hear about it, and then you pass it along. Protecting that person is not covering up sin. It is loving that person. The fruit of the Spirit is first and foremost love, and that is supernatural.
Joy, Peace, and Difficult Circumstances
The fruit of the Spirit is love, then joy. Joy appears seventy times in the New Testament. It is the feeling of happiness based on spiritual realities. Fear comes along and robs joy and happiness — one definition of fear is "false evidence appearing real." Joy is the spiritual reality that no matter what is going on around you, God loves you and God protects you. Romans 8:28 tells us, "We know that God causes all things to work together for good."
Joy and peace share a similar relationship in that they are both largely independent of circumstances. It is having love and joy in spite of circumstances — and in fact, coming to understand that difficult circumstances are your friends and are oftentimes the answer to prayer.
You may be praying, "Father, I want to be Your person. I am not playing at this anymore. I want to endure." James tells us in James 1 that we should "consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, because the testing of your faith produces endurance." So you pray, "God, I want to endure," and He says, "Really? All right — here comes suffering." Joy and peace are not the absence of turmoil; they are the presence of God in the midst of turmoil.
A week ago I went to the doctor for a test he had been waiting to perform for fourteen months. It is a fairly invasive test — I believe what he did is illegal in five states. But I was waiting on the results of it —
The Fruit of the Spirit in Difficult Circumstances
The reality is there's a sense in which, where my joy is concerned, it doesn't matter what the result is. If he comes back and says it's serious and we need to do something, or he says it's nothing, either way it shouldn't affect the joy and the peace that you experience. That's what he's saying. Love, joy, peace, patience — patience is this exhilaration that comes from a right relationship with God and now the ability to tolerate people and circumstances.
I live three minutes from the church. I have one stoplight at the corner of McQueen and Elliott. I don't know how they do this, but they have programmed that light so that as my car approaches, it doesn't matter if it just turned green — it turns red. A couple of Sundays ago, the three-minute trip took me five minutes. I was so frustrated, and I'm pulling into church thinking, you have got to be kidding me. The man of God is destroyed by a sixty-second wait?
Here's the thing about love, joy, peace, and patience: you don't know if you have them until you're put in difficult circumstances. You don't know if you're a loving person until you brush against somebody who's unlovable. You don't know if you have joy until the smooth circumstances are taken away. You don't know if you have peace until all of a sudden there's a ruffling of circumstance around you, or patience until you hit red lights. It does not require patience to drive across town where every light is green.
That's a small illustration, but that's exactly why it's so powerful. It doesn't take some great big thing to potentially ruin your day and knock you off kilter.
Kindness, Goodness, and Faithfulness
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness — that's tenderness. That's the genuine desire to treat people gently. Goodness and kindness largely define themselves. There's an excellence to it, a sweetness.
There was an interview two or three days after 9/11, down on the street in New York City. A reporter was interviewing a woman, and she said that 9/11 had changed the city. The reporter asked how, and she said, "Just yesterday, a man held the door for me." That's baby steps, but it's in the right direction. What he's saying is this is the normal way we are to live.
You can come into a place like this — and this is my second time here — and I love it. We've had the chance to go around the city, preach the gospel, and tell people what a great work of God is taking place here. But you can come into a place like this, as I did today, and just look around and tell that a particular person is new. So I go up and say, "Hey, I'm Tom," and they say, "Hey, I'm Aaron," or Bill, or Frank. I ask, "Is this your first time?" And when they say yes, I welcome them. You don't need a lanyard for that. How about simply being kind and good to somebody?
Faithfulness means loyal and trustworthy. Your yes is a yes and your no is a no. You RSVP. We had a dinner at church where 120 people RSVP'd, so we prepared 125 meals, because someone could be in from out of town. And about 80 people showed up. That makes me so mad. I understand that things happen, but they don't happen to a third of the people. And if something does happen to you, there's this thing called a phone, where you say, "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm not going to make it." We spent all that time, all that money, all that effort, because you said you'd be there and you weren't. That says something about you.
Gentleness and Self-Control
Not just faithfulness, but there's also gentleness, which is also translated as meekness. It's strength under control. The picture is Jesus and the cross.
Then the last fruit is self-control — the idea of restraining passions and appetites. I have a nutritionist, and I would hate to have his job. He has me on an eating regimen that excludes grains, which is essentially everything, and sugar. So I'm here today, I'm in the back, and there's a white box. I've seen a box like that before, and I was pretty sure I knew what was in it — one of the essential food groups: donuts. I opened it up and said, "Okay, I can't eat a donut." But somebody had already taken half of one, and I thought, well, I can't eat a whole donut, but surely half can't hurt that much, can it? I told myself no, walked away, walked out, said hello to somebody. But the whole time I was talking to that person — "How are you doing?" — I could hear on my shoulder, there's a donut there, there's a donut there. I ended up back in that room, shoving that donut in my mouth like I hadn't eaten in sixty days.
Self-control says you don't have to eat every donut you see. You don't have to drink every drink there is. You don't have to snort every line you see. You don't have to sleep with every person you see. You are not driven by appetites.
Summarizing the Fruit of the Spirit
Let's go back and summarize to make sure we get this. The fruit of the Spirit — the evidence that God is at work in your life — is not just being here at church. It's not just studying and accumulating knowledge. It's not religious activities. The evidence that the Spirit of God is working in your life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. It's obedient living.
So let me ask the big question: how are you doing?
Fruit Happens
When we talk about the Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, and when we talk about the fruit of the Spirit, we have to understand what makes fruit so remarkable. It is almost paradoxical — in fact, it is paradoxical — because fruit is not something you are doing. It is something that God is doing through you.
How do you get fruit from a tree? In the back of our house we had the most prolific fruit tree I have ever seen. It produced ornamental tangerines — thousands of them, literally thousands. And I never once walked by that tree and heard it straining and groaning, forcing each piece of fruit out one by one. Fruit happens. It simply takes place. That is what God does.
In some cases you do not even know it is happening. You have changed, and you look back and think, "I don't even know how that happened." I do. You love Jesus, and that is the evidence of it.
Returning to the Cross
It all goes back to the cross. That is why every Sunday we stop and remember. "Do this in remembrance of me." We remember what Jesus did on the cross, where He died to make all of this possible. That is what communion is.
The elements are around the room. As you are prepared and ready, go and take them. As we close our time of worship, let us pray together.
Father, thank You for this truth. It is an awesome reality of Your work in our lives. God, thank You that You love us even more than we love ourselves, and the evidence of that is that You produce this fruit in our lives. Fruit happens. God, as we examine our hearts today, let us see what the trend is — is it the deeds of the flesh, or the fruit of the Spirit? God, we yield ourselves to You. We give our lives to You. Use us in a way that brings honor and glory to You. We pray in Christ's name, amen.