Struggling to answer someone's questions about your faith, Pastor Greg Laurie recommends a great book to help. You know, I remember the first time that I shared my faith. I was so young, and I was challenged by an atheist. I did not have a clue as to what I should say. And I wish I'd had a copy of this book by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler, and the title of it is "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist." And we want to send you this book for your gift of any size, available at.
Harvest. dot org. Hey there! Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you.
If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to Harvest. dot org. As I mentioned, we're in this series, "The Holy Spirit and You." My message title today is "The Fruit of the Spirit." The fruit of the Spirit.
Now, the last couple of weeks, we've had an amazing time together in this series. My dad's pointed out so many good things about the Holy Spirit, things that honestly I knew but sometimes forget, and are just so great to be reminded of. And so, I created kind of a summary of the last two weeks of some of the stuff that we've gone over. And so, you know, who is the Holy Spirit, and what does He do?
Well, so far, we've learned that the Holy Spirit. Is not a force. He is a person, right? He is a person. He is not a force.
So we think of Star Wars, right? Use the force, Luke. It's all around you. It encompasses everything. It's in that rock.
It's in that lizard. It's in you. No, no. The Holy Spirit is not the force, right? The Holy Spirit is a person.
He is fully God. He is a full member of the Trinity. The third member of the Trinity. One God. In three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
He is co-equal and co-eternal. He is all the way back in the Book of Genesis when God says, "Let us make man in our image." The Holy Spirit has a personality. He has intelligence. He searches all things. He has a will.
He gives gifts as he wills, and he has an emotion. He can be grieved, which tells us that he is a friend. Because can you grieve a stranger? Not really. You can take a stranger off.
I'll tell you what: you are driving down the ninety-one freeway, you cut somebody off, you might lose your life. You got to be careful. But if you. If you offend somebody that's a stranger, you tick them off, right? You bother them, but you're not going to grieve somebody.
If you if somebody hurls an insult your way on the freeway or in line at the gas station, and they say something to you, it's like that'll that'll you know take you off or maybe get under your skin, but grieve you. That's reserved for people that are close to us. If one of my kids said something to me that was hurtful, that would grieve me. If something happened to them that would grieve me. The Holy Spirit is a friend because we can grieve the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says we should not grieve the Holy Spirit, and so a loved one, their insult grieves you.
So that's a little bit about who the Holy Spirit. What does he do? What is the role that he plays?
Well, the Holy Spirit, simplified, he is the Paracletos. My dad told us the Paracletos, which simply translates means the Helper. Jesus. It is better that I should go away, because then the Helper will come. Can we just pause for a moment and think about that?
Would you rather have the Spirit of the Living God walking with you, which we all have today, or would you rather have the physical Jesus Christ walking on the face of the earth? I think a lot of us, if we're honest, would say I'd really love to see Jesus face to face. Right? I'd love to do that. We're all in agreement on that.
But we shouldn't discount the fact of what Jesus Himself said: "It is better that I should go away, so that the Holy Spirit could come upon you." That's powerful. We should really look and see just how powerful the Spirit is, just how much He motivates us, just how much He encourages us, and works inside of us.
So Jesus said, "He is the Paracletos, the Helper, the one called alongside to help." He is also our Advocate. If you think about this from a legal perspective, Jesus is kind of our—he is our our lawyer, and he goes and approaches the bench to the righteous judge, which is God the Father, right? He does that on our behalf. The Holy Spirit is another type of advocate, another type of lawyer, I guess, legal assistant, and he stays by our side. He stands at our side.
He convicts the world of sin. He convicts the world with righteousness and with judgment. John sixteen says he gives us assurance. The Bible says he bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. In Romans eight sixteen, he seals us.
He is God's royal seal, his ID tag, property of Jesus Christ is written on us. He is also the down payment guaranteeing our inheritance. He teaches us and brings Jesus' words to remembrance. He helps us to pray when we don't know what to pray, and He lives in every believer, whether we feel Him or not. And that brings us to the last one: He wants to be at home in our hearts.
He wants to be at home in our hearts. Galatians four says, and because we are His children, God has sent forth His Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father." I love the way that Paul describes that the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, comes into our hearts and creates an intimacy with God, the Father, the Creator of all things, the Alpha and the Omega. We have no business of calling God. Our Father, except that Jesus made a way for us to do that, and the Spirit comes into our lives and He creates that intimacy, that relationship with God, and we are able to call Him Father. But even more than that, we're able to call Him Abba.
Abba is like the Hebrew version of daddy, right? Think of like for you that are parents or grandparents. You know, your four-year-old little girl reaching up her arms and saying "daddy." That affection, that love, the way she looks at you. That's the way we can look at our Father in Heaven. We can look at Him as a Father, as a Daddy, as somebody who loves us and takes care of us and has that intimacy with us.
It's a wonderful thing, and He wants to be at home in your hearts. He wants to be at home inside of us.
So I don't know about you, but I know that there is somebody living at home in my house because there is evidence of it. My wife Brittany and I have been married for sixteen years, and very thankful for that. God's blessed us. And there is evidence that we've been married for sixteen years because there's been a woman sleeping in my bed for the last sixteen years, right? But not only that, her clothes are there, her makeup is there, her personal items are there, her cars in the driveway, there's food in the kitchen, there's evidence that she is home.
I know when she is at home because I see her computer is plugged in. I see that her purse is there. I know when she's home. I know when she's out. I know that I have.
Three kids. I know that one of them has recently moved out. Very sad. That's a hard thing. There's a big empty spot in her room where a bed and a desk and everything once was.
But I know that I have two other kids that are living at home right now because, well, there's trash everywhere and the bathroom is a mess. I reach into the couch cushions and it's like an old candy wrapper. Seriously, guys, you can't make your way eight feet to the garbage can over there. There's evidence when somebody is living in your house. They have their stuff.
Sometimes it's more personal things, right? Maybe it's like. A set of paint brushes. Right, you're married to somebody that's creative, or one of your kids enjoys painting, or whatever it might be, or maybe your husband he likes to wrench on cars, and there's oil stained rags around the house, and his clothes are soiled, and there's a motorcycle in the garage. Right, for me, everywhere I go, I bring bottles of Tabasco with me.
No joke. I have bottles in my car. I have bottles in my house, multiple bottles. Bottles in my office. I leave bottles at friends' houses.
And they don't use it, and so when I come back like a year later or six months later, they're like, "Oh, hey, you left this here, by the way." I'm like, "Yeah, that that was intentional. Thank you. I'm going to use that now." And I love Tabasco; it's my favorite hot sauce. I've been using it since I was a kid. Very simple: vinegar, red pepper, and salt.
It never goes bad. It does sometimes get a little aged, but I like that the fermentation process. It adds some extra. No, not really. I love hot sauce, though.
I love hot sauce. I put it on everything. But there's evidence. That that person is living with you.
Well, when I ask you who lives in your house, you definitely know who lives in your house. There's evidence. But if I ask you today, does the Holy Spirit of God live inside of your heart? Does the Spirit of Jesus live inside you? I think most of us would say yes.
I know he does. I believe he does. But some might say they're unsure. I don't know for certain. I think so.
Sometimes is it possible that he's like a partial roommate, like fractional ownership? What is the evidence that the Spirit of God lives inside of you? That He has made His home in your heart? Is it that you own a Bible? Is it that you own and and you put Christian stickers on your forty gallon water bottle and your phone?
Is it that you have a Bible verse in your in your social media bio? Is that you have a Christian tattoo? Maybe, yeah, okay, those things are all fine, but let's be honest; those are things that anybody can do. Those are things that anybody can do. What is the real evidence that cannot be faked?
They can't be manufactured. That the spirit of God, the spirit of Jesus, is at home in your heart. And what is the evidence when our flesh is running the home? Paul presents two lists, and he tells us this word. He says these things are evident.
You can tell. It is easy to figure out. And now we read together in Galatians chapter five. Let's look at verse thirteen to twenty-six together. Galatians five.
Paul continues, and he says, "For you, brethren, have been called to liberty. Say liberty. Say it again. Say liberty, liberty. You have been called.
We have been called to liberty. Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh. But through love, serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word. Even in this, you shall.
What is it? You shall love." Your neighbor as yourself. You should underline that. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Now, the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication. Uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, heres, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love. Joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such there is no law.
And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Let's stop there. That brings us to our first point, the first area that I want to look at with you.
Is love and liberty; these two things go hand in hand in the life of the believer. Love and liberty. Verse thirteen says, "For you have been called to live in freedom." Another translation for liberty. You have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.
Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. I love that. You know, liberty is a word that a lot of us are accustomed to. We live in the United States of America. It's written in the Declaration of Independence.
You know, all men are created equal, and we have the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And it's written on our money. And so, it's a word that we're kind of familiar with, but. Maybe more in the political space, maybe more in the you know the American understanding of it. But the reality is, the Oxford English Dictionary defines it this way: it says the power or scope to act as one pleases.
That's what liberty is: the power or scope to act. As one pleases, but this is only one side of what liberty means. In context here, the Apostle Paul in Galatians five is actually talking about a very specific group of people that we need to exercise our liberty, our freedom from, and that was the Judaizers. The Judaizers. You see, there was a group of people; there were Jews who had accepted Jesus supposedly, but they believed that anybody that was Going to be saved and go to heaven needed to adhere to the Mosaic Law in order to be saved.
So that means they put their faith in Jesus Christ. They believed that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah of the Jewish people, whether they were Gentiles or Jews. They would believe in Jesus, and then they still had to adhere to all the old covenants, all the old laws of Judaism. They viewed Christianity as a Modified Judaism again, teaching that in order to have a relationship with God, submission to the law was mandatory.
Now, maybe you're thinking, "Well, Pastor Jonathan, I actually think it's a pretty good idea for us to submit to the law. After all, we have the Ten Commandments, and I think they should be put back up in schools, and I think they should be put back in courtrooms." I agree with you. I think that's a very good thing. These are our moral framework, but it's beyond that. It's beyond just the Ten Commandments.
It's not just those that Paul was speaking out against. The Judaizers believed that in order to be saved, you needed to follow the dietary and customary laws of the Mosaic Law, and there were six hundred and thirteen of them. Everything from you can't eat this type of meat, you can't wear these two types of fabric, you can't work on the Sabbath day—all kinds of things. Listen, they weren't asking for minor observances; they were empty. They were attempting to subordinate the gospel to an entire.
Culture and legal system effectively making salvation in Jesus Christ not enough to atone for your sin. You also had to follow these laws, and circumcision was the point that they were driving home. That was just the tip of the iceberg, if you will, and it wouldn't end there. It wouldn't end there. That was just the very beginning.
They wanted to promote the other things again, dietary and customary. The gospel of Jesus Christ was under attack, and the Apostle Paul, very rightly so, draws the line in the sand. He knew that the gospel of Jesus Christ was done. It was done. It had been finished.
You see, religion says, "Do this, and you can be saved. Live this lifestyle, and you can go to heaven." Have this, you know. Do make sure you make your your trip to Mecca. Make sure you have your, you know. You keep these pillars, and you do all of these things, and maybe you'll go to heaven.
Maybe you'll get your forty virgins. Do this, and you'll have that. You know. Do this, do this, do this. It is all a bunch of do's and don'ts.
Christianity says it's done. It's done. Jesus said to Talastai when he hung on that cross. Saying it is accomplished, it is finished. The job which I came to do, which was to reconcile mankind to God, has been completed.
I did it. There is nothing more that needs to be added to it. I have finished it. And now, because of the gospel, we do not do good works today and obey God's commands because we want to earn God's favor. We do it because we already have God's favor.
We don't obey God to earn His favor. We do it because we already have it, because we love Him as an expression of love for our God, for our Father in heaven. We don't work for God's approval; we work from it. The Apostle Paul takes all of these Judaizers who were pushing. These things, all these these different agendas they had, and he boils it down to one verse.
In verse fourteen, all the laws that they had held, he says, for all the law in verse fourteen, for all the laws fulfilled in one word. Even in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. One word, love. Love that is to be the characteristic for the follower of Jesus Christ, and hold on to that word because in a few minutes we're going to see again that love is the spiritual fruit that shows up in nine different ways. We're going to talk about that, but first, Paul shows us what happens when people don't love.
He tells us in verse fifteen, "If you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another." You will be consumed by one another. That is a church that uses its freedom rather than serving each other out of love, going the extra mile. That is a church that uses its liberty. A group of people, a believer that uses their liberty for their own benefit. I have this liberty, just because you don't have this liberty, doesn't mean that I need to not practice it.
After all, I am free to do whatever I want. All things are lawful, yes. But not all things are profitable. Not all things are going to build up the body of believers. We are called to edify one another.
We are called to bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Paul tells us, "Use your freedom to serve one another in love." So, how can we tell which one is running our house? The flesh or the spirit?
Well, the Paul. I don't know. The Paul. The Paul says you don't have to guess. It's evidence.
There's evidence of these things, and we read now about the works of the flesh. The evidence of the flesh reigning supreme in your life. And point number two, the works of the flesh. Look back at verse nineteen with me.
Now, the works of the flesh are evident. Which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Wow, that's heavy. That's heavy reading through that list.
It's grieving to even think about all of those things. But you know, if you open up your phone, it seems like every single one of those topics is a headline on a different website. As you pull out your phone on social media, you're seeing this promoted across the board: sexuality, adultery, fornication, sorcery, which is drug usage, hatred, anger, jealousy, fits of rage. Crazy. You know, it's funny for those of us in our small.
Groups that are going through the Book of Judges together a couple weeks ago, we talked about Samson, right? And it asked us to look at Samson's life and say, "What works of or what fruit of the Spirit do you see evident in Samson's life?" And it was like love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Hmm. None. I don't see any evidence in Samson's life as you mention it, and then you look back at the works of the flesh, and it's like rage, adultery, fornication, hatred, outbursts of wrath for sure.
You know, murders, yes. Double check on that one. But what's great is as you look at Samson's life, you know, you see that the spirit of God was with him. And he's actually mentioned in Hebrews in the Hall of Faith, along people like Abraham and Moses, these heroes of the Jewish people, the heroes of the faith who were made righteous with God by their faith. And Samson's mentioned there.
And honestly, as you look, it's like wow. When you're a little kid, you think of Samson like, oh yeah, he's so strong, he's so cool. Then as an adult, you read about Samson, you're like, this guy was kind of a degenerate. Like this is this is not a good guy. And yet, the spirit of God was with him, and this is a reminder: God uses imperfect people, and thank God that He uses imperfect people, because I would not be standing up here today.
God would not be using you. God uses imperfect people. The Bible says that. The Bible says that God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He uses average every day.
Ordinary people, but as we look at these lists of things, these works of the flesh, this is what happens when you live without restraint. This is what happens when the spirit of God is not working in your life.
Now, most people today believe that humans are generally good, that man is generally good, or at least morally neutral. The Bible actually teaches the opposite. It says that man is basically corrupt in every capacity, every aspect of his being. That is why, as much as we want these things and believe they can better our society—housing, transportation, education, jobs, income, medical care, and everything else—as good as those things may be, can do nothing to solve our greatest problem, which is our sin. Which is sin in our lives now?
As we look at that list, not every person sins in every one of those categories. Hopefully, not. And not every person sins to those level of extremes, adultery and murder. But Jesus does point out to us that these are also sins of the heart, and we are guilty of them, even if they are in our heart. But we see that every person does possess the flesh, which is sinful and will manifest sinful behavior.
Paul's list of works of the flesh seem to point to three general areas that he. Says the flesh really dominates your life. The flesh really takes control. Number one is sexual. The second one is religion, and the third one is in human relationships.
In human relationships, three general areas the works of the flesh seem to affect: sex, religion, and human relationships. Go back to the first part where Paul talks about adultery. The word Paul uses for adultery is pornia. Take a wild guess. What word we get from that?
It is pornography. It's also translated in our Bible, not only adultery, depending on which translation you read. It's also translated as sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is any kind of sex apart from the sex that takes place between a husband and wife that are married to each other.
Okay, just to clarify. It's not just extramarital sex. It's not just premarital, marital sex, or adultery. It's homosexuality. It's prostitution.
It's certainly pornography. And it seems like every time we turn on the TV or the computer or open up our phones, it's sex and porn being promoted. Constantly, sex and porn, whether it's in TVs, on movies, even on on the news, sometimes social media, YouTube, not always explicitly, of course, but certainly implied, promoted, and celebrated, and even encouraged. According to one study, seventy four percent of Gen Z men and sixty four percent of Gen Z women that were polled say pornography is a problem for them. It's a problem for them, and it's actually resulting in a sort of sex recession.
And the first time in history, there is a sex recession. The percentage of young adults who have had who have not had sex in the past year doubled from twelve percent in two thousand ten to twenty four percent in two thousand twenty four.
Now, you might think, isn't that a good thing? Like people are having less sex outside of marriage. Yes, that is a good thing. But it's not because of self-control. It's not because they're fleeing youthful lust, like we're commanded to in Second Timothy two twenty-two.
It's actually because people are becoming more connected to a screen than a person. People are actually preferring pornography, digital stimulation over a real relationship with a person. This is what the devil does. The counterfeit is replacing the real thing. And now, with the advent of AI and chatbots, it's only going to get worse.
This is the rotting fruit that the flesh produces. A word to you, parents. I want to encourage you, parents. Protect your children in this space. Monitor their activity on their devices.
Learn how to protect them. You lock your front door of your house at night, right? Do you lock the digital front door to your children, and allowing who does and who does not have access to them? Learn how to use a firewall. Learn how to have internet filters and block that type of content.
The best defense is a good offense. You need to be proactive. And your kids—they are going to be on devices. It's pretty much the statistics are 100 of kids now are on devices of some sort, whether they're at school and they get a computer or. You give them a device to be able to, you know, play games with their friends, but you need to be proactive.
You need to be intentional about this. I was 11 years old when I was first exposed to pornography. I was working on a research paper about cars and different things, and I went to an automaker website and I typed in the website one character wrong, and it was a porn site. It was a porn site, and you know what? That's been something that has plagued so many men in our society, in the church today, and continues to to this day.
That is what the flesh does. It takes a good gift God designed for love, commitment, and covenant, and it turns it into consumption. It affects the way you view your sisters in Christ and and your your brothers in Christ, ladies. You know, if if we were going to do something where maybe we we helped. Would you guys be interested in learning how to protect your children on devices?
I know so many of us are not tech savvy. I've had to do a lot of research. Would any of you be interested in something like that? Maybe we'll offer some classes or something. Great.
Okay, that's good to know. We'd love to do that and help you guys protect your kids. It is important. It is important. Again, the best defense is a good offense.
Be proactive about this stuff. But it's not just sexual immorality. Paul points to. It's also religion. It's also religion.
In verse twenty, Paul talks about idolatry and sorcery.
Now, idolatry—we think of that, and it's like, yeah, Jonathan, I don't think that's much of an issue for me. I don't bow down to any wooden statues in my home. You know, I've got that bobblehead of Shohei Otani, but like, I'm not bowing down to it. Maybe I pray to it once in a while. You know, please, you know, close this game out.
But idolatry isn't just bowing down to a statue. It's anything we put in the place of God. It's anything we put in the position that only God should hold. It could be our money, our career, a relationship, approval. It can even be greed.
You may not have money, you may not have possessions, but your greed, your lust for those things, can be an idol in your life. Paul says in Colossians three. Then sorcery, sorcery.
Now you're probably thinking, I definitely don't know any witches. That is not a thing, Pastor Jonathan. Yeah, there's those weird people out. There that say they're witches and whatever else, but actually, if you look at the original language, the word that Paul uses for sorcery is pharmakia, pharmakia, and take a wild guess what word we get from that? Pharmacy, pharmaceutical, and so it's talking about drugs, mind-altering drugs.
Now, of course, there's the organic drugs which have grown and become very popular. Things like psilocybin mushrooms, magic mushrooms, peyote, people taking ayahuasca journeys and trying to experience God. Of course, marijuana. These are organic mind-altering substances that can ultimately take a religious position in your life. You're committed to them.
They're what gives you peace. They're what gives you satisfaction, and you look to those things. Very dangerous, but. It's not just that. It's also, I would say, pills.
Pills. A lot of things that doctors prescribe can be harmful for us. We view sometimes these antidepressants that we get, anti-anxiety meds, on the same level with medicine that the doctor prescribes to us when we have an infection, like amoxicillin or penicillin. They're very different. They're very different.
Drug use is alive and well in 2026. One in six Americans. This comes from the National Institute of Health, the government office. One in six Americans takes a psychiatric medication or antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds. That is roughly forty-three million people.
Forty-three million people.
Now, listen, I'm not a doctor, nor do I portray one on TV, but I do know that from my own past, there's been plenty of times that I know it's way easier to take a pill. Open up a bottle, or you know, light up a joint, than it is to sit in discomfort. And for a lot of people, these drugs have become a sort of bandaid on an issue that God actually wants to heal you from.
So, actually, taking these things can create a dependency and keep God from treating the root of the problem, while you're just trying to treat the symptom of the problem. It's a band aid that God actually wants to heal the issue with. I believe that God is sovereign, and we believe that if God brought you to it, He will bring you through it. First Corinthians ten. First Corinthians ten says, "God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to resist, but with the temptation there will come an escape that you may be able to bear it." Listen for me and my story.
You know, in two thousand eight, my older brother Christopher went to be with the Lord. That was a deeply painful and grief-filled season. And you better believe there were moments where I wanted more than any. Anything to numb myself, to fall back on those old patterns, to take a pill, to smoke a joint, to drink to excess, to numb myself, to have some relief. But I chose not to, and I want to tell you that pain was the catalyst that drove me closer to God.
That pain was the thing that brought me to Jesus. Because that was the sense of relief that I found. He was there for me, and the church was there for me, and His Word brought great comfort. Yes, there were tears. Yes, many many nights of tears and grief.
But we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We have the hope of seeing those loved ones again, and so I would encourage you. You should talk to your doctor, and you should ask yourself if you struggle with anxiety, if you struggle with depression. I know that some of these things may seem silly, but you know, I would ask you: Are you getting good sleep? Are you getting good sleep?
Do you have a good diet? Are you eating the right kind of food? Are you looking at your caffeine intake? Literally, these things can affect your anxiety and your depression. Are you putting your phone down and actually having a reasonable amount of screen time every day?
Are you in spiritual community? Are you exercising? Are you getting sunshine? These things literally have a physiological effect on us, and we should not discount them. And most importantly.
I would ask you: Are you bringing this pain to God? Are you bringing this pain to God, or are you just bringing it straight to the doctor? Oh, well, Pastor Jonathan, you know this is a medical issue. Listen, we've heard for years that there's the chemical imbalance of the brain.
Well, listen, research has actually shown that there are not tens of millions of people with chemical imbalances of the brain. This is actually a pharmaceutical talking point and promotional device to sell more drugs. The pharmaceutical industry is a trillion-dollar a year industry. Don't discount what God can do. Don't discount the healing that He can bring in your life.
Bring it to the Lord. And then there's relationships. There's relationships. Notice how Paul pairs these up. There's an attitude, and then there's the action that it produces.
As we continue talking about the works of the flesh, we see that hatred leads to contentions. Jealousy is wanting what belongs to somebody else. That leads to outbursts of wrath, sudden and unbridled anger. Then comes the selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, and envy, which are what happens when the attitudes settle in for the long haul. Then Paul adds drunkenness and revelries.
Wild, out of control, living, and ends with the like. It's a pretty long list that Paul went through, but it's actually not exhaustive. It's a summary. There's even more to it, so it's a sample, not a complete list. And then Paul says in Galatians five twenty one, those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Now I don't know about you, but every time I read one of those verses, "Will not inherit the kingdom of God," a little bit of a cold chill goes down my spine because I look at that list and I go, "Oh man, I've I've done these things. I've messed up. I've fallen short for sure." But the key word here is practice. That's the key word: practice. In the Greek, it describes ongoing, habitual action.
Paul isn't talking about the believer who stumbles. He's talking about a life characterized by these things.
So the question is not, "Have I ever done them?" and the question is, "Has this become an unrepentant pattern in my life?" The works of the flesh are obvious, and they're the result of a life where self is on the throne. Every item on that list is self at the center. My pleasure, my control, my way. My rights, but Paul doesn't end there. He doesn't leave us there.
He tells us what the fruit of the spirit is. That was the works of the flesh. That is the evidence that the spirit is not inside of your home. That is the evidence that the flesh is occupying your life. And he goes and he tells us now what the fruit of the spirit is.
The evidence of the spirit of God being inside. He point number three: the fruit of the spirit. Look back at verse twenty-two. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
You know, as I was writing this message and I was going through that last section in particular, talking about the works of the flesh and kind of diving deep on what those things are, it is grieving. It's gross to think about that stuff and to go through all of it and think about my my past. And as I came to this section, I read about the fruit of the spirit. Man, it's just a breath of fresh air, isn't it? Love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, patience, self-control.
Against such, there is no law. To dwell on those things even brings peace. I want you to notice that Paul, at the beginning here, he says the fruit of the spirit. Singular, the fruit of the spirit. He doesn't say the fruits of the spirit.
He lists nine different things there.
So it's not like a picture of a fruit dish where it's like a banana, an apple, an orange, a peach, a pear, different kinds. It's one type of fruit with different expressions. I love that. Love is the fruit. He tells us in verse fourteen what kind of fruit this is, and it is love.
Love is the fruit of the spirit. Everything else on that list is love showing up in a different way, expressing itself in a different way. We see that joy—that's love celebrating the right kind of things. That's celebrating the right kind of things. Peace is love pursuing what's best, not just what feels best.
Patience is okay with is love being okay with timing other than yours. Kindness is love reaching out. Goodness is love doing what's right. Faithfulness is love keeping its word. Gentleness is love handling people with care, and self control is love saying no to self.
Love is the very life of God. God is the one who defines love, true love. Philip Keller, a Bible commentator and guy that was actually had a background as a shepherd and as a gardener, wrote a great commentary on the fruits of the Spirit, and he talks about God's love as the fruit, and he says this: God's love is God's own life. Plant it in a willing heart, and it grows. It looks a little different in each of us, but it always shows, and it can't be faked.
You cannot fake spiritual fruit. It is evident. You will be able to know for sure if that person has real spiritual fruit or if they're trying to fake it. You cannot fake this. Is love evident in your life?
Are you known by your spiritual fruit? Are you known more by the things that you're against, the things that you hate? Oh man, I hate that politician. Oh, I hate that sports team. I hate this.
I hate that. Are you known for that, or are you known by your love? Jesus said in John 13, "By this will all people know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." That is the defining characteristic. We should know. We should be known what we are for more than what we are against.
We should be known what we are for more than what we are against. And so the Spirit produces fruit. Fruit grows. Healthy fruit begets healthy fruit. You don't see an apple tree struggling to create an apple.
It does it naturally. It's what it was created to do. It stays connected to its roots and fruit. Happens. Fruit is not a one-time thing.
Oh, you had, you had joy one time in your life. You had peace one time in your life. You had patience one time in your life. No, this is going to be perpetual. It's constantly going to happen.
There's going to be new seasons where you have new seasons of peace, new seasons of joy, new seasons of practicing patience. And you do this by staying connected to the roots. The way we do this is by. Abiding in Christ. This is how we do it.
How do we make sure we have spiritual fruit in our lives? We need to abide in Christ, as the Big Lebowski said. The dude abides. We need to make sure we abide in Christ. Jesus tells us in John fifteen five, I am the vine; you are the branches.
He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. Listen, branch. A vine doesn't try harder to make grapes; it stays connected. You don't need to grit your teeth and produce patience.
You need to stay close to Jesus. Psalm one three tells us, "The person that delights in God's word shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its season." The word of God is so important. And the right soil is huge.
Some of you say that you're trying to abide in Christ, but the reality is you're planted in bad soil. You've got bad company, right? You need to uproot yourself. From that group of friends, potentially, you need to uproot yourself out of that career. Potentially, you need to uproot yourself out of that sports team, out of that school.
If you need to, maybe even out of that neighborhood, and you need to plant yourself in the right kind of soil. That's why being in a small group here at Harvest, we emphasize that so much. Being in a small group, attending church, serving as a volunteer, and meeting other believers. I'm not going to say it's fertilizer, but I'm going to say it is fertile soil.
Soil that you need to be planted in, and will be healthy for your spiritual development. I read a study. A March 2026 study by the Barna Group reveals that spiritual maturity actually is not guaranteed, though, by church attendance. The same is true for those attending small groups. Same is true for those that are coming to church as a volunteer.
Many of the things that the church calls discipleship are inadequate in creating results. The Barna search found there was one factor, one undeniable metric that is the single greatest predictor. Of all spiritual growth in a believer, and that is a daily engagement with God's word. That is the source. That is what we need to abide in is God's word, in order to produce that spiritual fruit.
So let's go back where we started. I asked you. If someone lived in your house, would you know? Of course, you would, because there would be evidence. And if the Holy Spirit lives in you, there is going to be evidence.
It's not just a scripture in your bio or a Christian sticker on your on your water bottle. It is going to be spiritual fruit. But maybe some of you heard the works of the flesh today, and you thought, "That's my house." That's my house. That's the fruit. Those are the works that I've produced.
The works of the flesh: anger, immorality, strife, drug usage. The thing you swore you'd stop, but you haven't. And maybe you've tried to clean it up. Maybe you've tried to turn over a new leaf, and you've just been unable to. You can't produce this kind of fruit on your own.
The fruit of the spirit. Nobody can. That's the whole point of Galatians. The law couldn't do it. Religion couldn't do it.
And willpower couldn't do it. That is why Jesus Christ came and did it for you. And that is why He says it is done. Jesus lived the life you couldn't live, and He died the death you deserved to die, so you can have the hope of heaven.
So you can have the life that you need to live, and so you can have the power to live that life. And here's the good news: When you put your trust in Jesus, He doesn't just forgive you; He moves in. He moves in. Galatians four six says, "God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, 'Abba, Father.'" You don't have to clean your house up before you come to God. You come to God, and He will clean your house up for you.
Jesus said in Revelation three twenty, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." If any man hears my voice and opens the door, behold, I will come in and dine with him. For some of you today, Jesus is knocking on the door of your life. He wants to come in. He wants to come and clean that house up. He wants to remove those works of the flesh and fill it with the fruits of the spirit.
He can do it for you. It's not too late for you. You may be young. You may be old. You may have been raised in the church.
You may have been raised in a crazy home and completely apart from the church. God made a way for you. He can do it for you right here, right now. Would you like to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Would you like to know that you'll go to heaven when you die?
Would you like to have that spiritual fruit evident in your life? If so, respond to this invitation now. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your Word, God. We thank you.
As believers, that we have the opportunity to bear spiritual fruit. That all we have to do is abide in you. Look to your word. Spend time with you. Know your personality.
Know your character, God. We thank you that you give us this power. You give us this strength, Lord. We confess. We have works of the flesh still evident in some of our lives in various capacities.
Maybe not like it once was, thank you, God, but still continuing in some capacity. Lord, we recognize this is the work of sanctification. Continue to do it in us, Lord, as we decrease, and we ask you to increase in our lives. Help us, Lord. Fill us with your Holy Spirit.
Help us to bear good fruit as we abide in you. And Lord, we know that there are some today who maybe have not yet put their faith in you as their Lord and Savior. And we pray that you would speak to them now, while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, and we're praying. If that's you, if you would like to receive Jesus Christ, if you would like to bear spiritual fruit, if you'd like to be delivered from the works of the flesh—hatred, angry anger, revelries, dissension, sorcery, idolatry. Sexual immorality.
If you'd like to be delivered from those things, if you'd like to have the hope of heaven, if you'd like to have Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God dwell inside your heart and make His home inside you, wherever you are, whatever campus you are watching this from, pray this out loud after me. This is you talking to God. Pray this. Say, "Dear God, I know that I am a sinner." But I know that Jesus is the Savior, who died on the cross for my sin, and I turn to Him now as my Savior and Lord. God, would You forgive me of my sin?
Would You help me to walk with You and to bear good fruit? God, I need Your help. I can't do this on my own. I'm sorry for what I've done. But I thank you for sending Jesus, as He paid for my sin on that cross, and it's in His name that I pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Hey everybody! Thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest dot org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest dot org and click on Know God.
