Patience, Kindness and Goodness (Galatians 5:22-23 Part III)

In a world of road rage, sexual abuse, animal cruelty and other dark and evil things; in a world that thrives on knowing about the latest tragedies and has an insatiable appetite for other “news worthy” things that show human misery and suffering; in a world that has lost the basic civil understandings of respect and service, what do patience, kindness and goodness have to say?

We must remember that these three words are but different facets of the one fruit of the Spirit, which is love.  Patience is a way of loving, as is kindness and goodness.  You can’t practice one without the other; all of them are interrelated.  It is impossible to grow in peace and not grow in patience, to grow in kindness and not grow in gentleness, to grow in faithfulness and not to grow in self-control.  Each of these aspects of love builds upon all the others.  That is why there is but one fruit, with many facets.

A world like ours desperately needs people who are growing in love and exhibiting the various aspects of love.  A world like ours full of violence, anger and cruelty needs people indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit who live out patience, kindness and goodness.  Lets look at each of these.

Cultivating Love, Joy and Peace in a world that manufactures Markets, desire and tolerance (Galatians 5:22 Part 2)

We live in consumer-oriented world.  Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Consumer to Consumer.  All we need to do is look at the world to realize that everything is a commodity that can be bought or sold or traded.  And that means that everyone is trying to create a desire in everyone else to buy his or her product.  Whether it is eBay, or television, the circular ad or the Internet pop-up the world is “for sale”.

So what does the fruit of the Spirit say to a world intent on marketing anything and everything to us?  It says, “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).   This morning we are going to focus on the first three items in Paul’s list: Love, joy and peace.  But before we get there let’s review a few points from the last two weeks.  Two weeks ago, my sermon focused on the fact that as believers in Christ, we have been set free to love and serve each other.  The contrast painted between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit is one of love and service versus pride and selfishness.  And last week looked at what we desire?  Do we really want Christ formed in us for the Fruit of the Spirit are the character qualities of Jesus?  Do these sermons bear upon a world intent on manufacturing markets and the desire for them?  Absolutely, for today’s passage reminds us the Fruit of the spirit IS…  Is means present, is relates to the present reality not the past or the future, but the present reality.  The Fruit of the Spirit has bearing on life now in this world and under these situations.

What then does love say to manufactured markets and what does joy say to manufactured desire and what does peace say to manufactured tolerance? 

What do you want? (Gal. 5:22-23 Part 1 of 4)

Gal. 5:22-23 Part I: What do you want?

In his book Fruit of the Spirit, Stephen Winward reminds his readers of a question Jesus once asked a blind man: What do you want me to do for you?  (Mk 10:51).   This question is a powerful question to reflect on so I thought all of us would be wise to contemplate this morning.  Please take your bulletin and with a pen or pencil scratch your answers down to my version: “What 3 things do you want more than anything else in the world?”

Free to Love and Serve - Galatians 5:13-26

Imagine with me a Palm tree.  The tall trunk wrapped in diamond scales.  The top bulging like a growth out of which shoots out the fronds, waving in the breeze.  Nestled between the leaves like a baby in her mother’s arms are the green coconuts.  They lie there invitingly calling to passers-by come drink my milk, and eat my flesh.  Let them nourish you and sustain you. Now what would you say if instead of coconuts, there were grapes, or olives, or heaven forbid brussel sprouts nestled in its leaves?

Wouldn’t you exclaim, ludicrous, outrageous, and absolutely uncanny.  That is not how it is to be, that is unnatural, unfathomable and completely backwards.  James 3:12 paints just such a picture, “My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”  These words create an image that is unfathomable in the minds of the hearers.  It tells us of things that should not be, things that are impossible like a man sprouting wings like a bird and flying or a fish reciting Shakespeare or a an elk walking about on 2 feet. 

These incongruencies are expressed in our passage this morning as well.  Galatians 5:13-26 paints an extended picture of the Christian life and those things that are inconsistent with it. 

Christ has set us free (Galatians 5;1-12)

When a man finishes his obligation to society and is released from jail.  He walks out a free man.  Arguably he was living within the bounds of the law when he was in jail.  He may have lived a very moral life, more moral than many people on the outside – free from drugs, alcohol; free from the ability to harm others or be harmed.  But was he free?  No, external constraints upon a person don’t make him free, living with walls and bars and external rule pushed upon him is the opposite of freedom, it is coercion.  But if that man, walks out of jail changed on the inside and never again acts poorly, not because of fear of returning to jail, not because the law says it is wrong, but because he is truly a new person who loves his neighbor as himself (Luke 10:27c).  Would you consider him to be free?  Absolutely.  In fact, he is probably more free than many of the people who have never been to jail, but who obey the law out of fear of reprisal and not out of a love of others.

When Paul says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1), what is he saying?  What are we free from and what are we freed to? 

A story of Pairs: Galatians 4:21-31

Pairs, not pears the fruit, but pairs or couples.  The animals went to the ark in pairs, two by two (Genesis 7:8).  Let’s talk about some pairs this morning.  When I say Abbott, you say “Costello”. When I say Adam, you say “Eve”.  When I say Moses, you say “Aaron”.  When I say Simon, you say “Garfunkel”. Pairs, duos.  Our minds have a wonderful way of remembering pairs, whether they are people, items, and concepts.  Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication and division, good and bad.

Pairings are memory aids that just stick with us. This morning, our passage is full of pairs:

2 Mothers	Hagar – Sarah
2 Sons	Ishmael – Isaac
2 Covenants	Works – grace
2 Cities	Jerusalem below – Jerusalem above
2 Mountains	Sinai – Calvary
2 Ways of Life	Slavery – freedom
2 Births	Natural - spiritual

These are wonderful pairs that Paul intends to shape our minds and our Christian life.  Pairs that God wants us to know and understand for they are descriptors of the life of people in and out of Christ.  God wants his people to remember, know and understand these pairs in the same way they remember Abbott and Costello or Scooby Doo and Shaggy too.

Restating the Gospel - Galatians 4:8-20

Who has ever used “Cliff’s Notes”?  I remember using Cliff’s Notes to get through my high school English class, particularly the sections on Shakespeare.  You have to understand that I hated reading books.  I was a numbers guy.  I could work math problems over and over and over.  I could read dictionaries or encyclopedias and never get bored, but I just couldn’t make it through a novel, much less a Shakespearian play. 

Our passage of Scripture today is kind of like picking up a Cliff’s Notes.  What I mean by that is these 12 verses give us a good overview of the book of Galatians, just like my handy English book gave me a good overview of what happened in Romeo and Juliet, or Hamlet.  There are a number of themes, which Paul retouches on briefly at this point in the letter.

Thoughts on Goodness

Goodness: Again, the reader should be aware that this is the third post in a series related to the Fruit of the Spirit written by Stephen Winward.

"The holy God, who is perfect goodness, requires his people to be holy; 'You shall be holy, for I am holy' (1 Pet. 1:16).  It is in order that we may meet this requirement that he gives to us the Holy Spirit, who produces in us the goodness of Christ.  And so it is from God, from the Holy Trinity, from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that all human goodness is derived.  Goodness is gift, grace, fruit." (pg. 148).

Just think on that for some time.  Without the Holy Spirit, without God alive in us, we will not be able to do anything which God will ever deem "good".  It is only his actions that are good, Jesus said so when he responded to the rich young ruler - "Why do you call me good?  There is only one who is good - God." 

Thoughts on Kindness

Kindness: This first thing to catch my interest in this chapter of Winward's Fruit of the Spirit was a quote from Quaker Stephen Grellet,

"I expect to pas through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow-creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."(pg. 136)

The words show a great amount of wisdom and ring a warning to us about our temporal lives.  We may not live until tomorrow to do that next act of kindness that has been put off.  We need to act now.  But what was more striking to me was how he connected Christian conversion with kindness.  Using the story of Paul and Silas in Philippi he tells us they had been beaten and the jailer had fastened them in the stocks, without any concern for their pain and suffering, but when he was converted the text tells us, 

"He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their wounds." (Acts 16:33)

Kindness is part of being a Christian and it is a radically different way of interacting with society than the non-Christian way.  The actual word used in Gal 5:22 is chrestotes and means

"goodness toward the evil and ungrateful, it is beneficience towards enemies." 

In the case of Paul, Silas and the Jailer, they were his enemies, but now his friends.  Paul and Silas showed not anger, rather they showed patience and kindness to the Jailer, he in turn, after conversion, showed kindness and love.

Thoughts on Patience

I promised more comments on Winward's Fruit of the Spirit.  Here they are.  Overall the book is excellent, a wonderful source for devotional reading and reflection on my life.  I have been reading through the 3 chapters on patience, kindness and goodness this week.  Each of them contained a wonderful nugget worth pondering.  I will post something from each chapter over the next 3 days.

Patience:  The reader should understand that the word used in this particular instance in Galatians 5:22 that has been translated patience is the Greek word makrothymia.  With that in mind read on,

"As the word makrothymia indicates, patience operates in the context of anger.  Makros means long, and thymos means anger.  Patience is the prologed restraint of anger...There is a tendency nowadays to assume that anger is always bad...Anger can be excellent; it is a characteristic of God himself.  It's true that God is 'slow to anger', but he does become angry. There is a divine impatience with evil. God doesn't always restrain his anger, and the servants of God should not always restrain theirs." (pg. 126)

After thinking on that for awhile, the author then helps the reader to distinguish between good and bad anger.  These are two kinds of anger that exist in our world. "Good anger is other-people centered; bad anger is self-centered."

My only complaint, with the chapter is the digression he takes into discussing patience in relation to waiting for things.  While I think our culture needs to hear his words, the Greek for patient waiting is a totally different and unrelated word, which the author acknowledges, but which he moves on and covers anyway.

Who’s your Father? (Galatians 3:26-4:7)

“Whose your father?” he asked. 

The child responded, “I am not sure.” 

“But surely you live with a man in your hut.  What’s his name?” the missionary asked. 

“His name is Masapi, but I am not sure if he is my father.” 

 Perplexed, the missionary took the child to Masapi’s hut and that evening he asked his language helper the meaning of the child’s words. 

 “Oh, no one is sure who their father is.  In our culture, you can never be sure who the father is, for you can never be sure which man was in the house, but you always know who the mother is because you can see the child come out of her. That is why children belong to the mother’s side and not the father’s.”

The Law Leads to Christ (Galatians 3:19-25)

What is Law?  Many believe that laws exist to protect us?  The law against murdering protects someone, generally speaking, from being murdered.  The same is true of theft, libel, slander, violence and such.  But that truly isn’t the purpose of laws.  Laws exist in order to punish those who transgress, or break them.  Frederick Bastiat, a French political philosopher in the 1850’s wrote, “When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others.”  This is the purpose of law:  Keep us from harming others.  But that is a far cry from the purpose of the Christian: To Love God and to love your neighbor.  Failing to harm someone doesn’t mean that I love him or her. 

Belief or unbelief: That is the question - (Galatians 3:6-18)

William Herschel was a young boy who grew up in Hanover Germany in the mid 1700’s.  He loved music and followed his father into the military as a member of the band.  Unprepared for war, he deserted when the 7-years war began in 1756 as France invaded Germany.  He didn’t like battle and wasn’t up for it.  He fled to England, and hid for a while.  Did I mention, the penalty for desertion is death.  But eventually he became a famous astronomer, finding Uranus.  But something happened to William Herschel, George, the head of the house of Hanover, was crowned the King of England.  King George III summoned William to the royal court.  Here was one man in all of England, who knew about Herschel’s past and his desertion.  For William had deserted from his regiment of the Hanoverian guard.  As he was handed a letter, written in the King’s own hand, he read these words, “I, George, pardon you for your past offenses against our native land.”

Such is the story of Galatians.

Book Recommendation

The fruit which a person bears, whether good or bad, is of three main kinds. Jesus said that the words of a man are the fruit of what that person is. (Matthew 12:33-35). Jesus also taught that deeds are fruit. (Matthew 7:15-23). ...But fruit is more than words or deeds; it includes the qualities of character from which those words and deeds issue, 'for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true' (Eph. 5:9). Outstanding among the truly good qualities' of Christian character are the nine fruits of the Spirit. The include all three, words, deeds and virtues. For love, joy, peace and all the fruits of the Spirit are revealed in what we say, in what we do and in what we are. [page 16]

I just started reading Fruit of the Spirit by Stephen Winward. The preface and opening chapter are so wonderful that I am going to jump out on a limb and recommend it to you before even finishing it. The book is out of print, but there are a number of used bookstores on line with copies at very reasonable prices. Winward is a Baptist pastor from England who wrote this in the 1981. He takes a very Christocentric approach to the fruit stating that they are a character sketch of Jesus and that we need to understand Christ before we can understand the fruit he wishes to produce in us.

Wonderfuly written and extremely full of devotional thoughts, I highly recommend it.  In the opening chapter, Winward goes on to discuss how we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit so all the fruit is born in our life. He recommends 4 ways:

1. Attention - paying attention to God and directing our eyes upon Christ at all times, or returning our gaze to him when we wander.
2. Devotion - praying, reading the word and worshipping
3. Restraint - refusing and denying those impulses and desires which are not in accordance with God's word
4. Practice - doing those things which are in accordance with his word

From here he states,

For since the love of God in Christ includes all the virtues, in responding to that love he recieves all the virtues. If, let's say, I am deficient in joy then I shall not become joyful by concentrating on becoming joyful. For joy is the fruit of a relatinship from which all the other virtues likewise spring. If I lack patience I shall be sadly misguided if I focus my attention on becoming patient: it should be focused on the one source of all the graces, patience included...It is in the context of a continuing and ever-deepening response to the love of God in Christ that all the virtues develop, indirectly, naturally, spontaneously. Within those who abide in Chrsit the Spirit produces the fruit, the love which includes all the virtues. [page 27]

I hope you have found these few thoughts stimulating and that you find the book wonderfully beneficial to your walk.  I will make occasional posts as I read the other chapters and share some of his insights and mine.

Review of Ryken's Galatians

I just finished reading Philip Ryken's Galatians.  What a wonderfully uplifting book.  It is a series of sermons through Paul's great letter.  Ryken is a wonderful exegete and very easy to read.  Here is my favorite quote from the book:

Referring to Galatians 2:19-20 he writes,

At least four things were nailed to the cross of calvary.  The most obvious, of course, was Jesus himself, through his hands and feet...Also fastened to the cross with a hammer and a nail was the public pronouncement that read: "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews"(John 19:19).  The third thing that was nailed to the cross was the debt of our sin. Paul explained this to the Colossians: God forgave "all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross"(Col. 2:13-14)...But here is the surprise: if you are a follower of Christ, then you were nailed to the cross too!  The crucifixion is not just a fact about the life of Christ and a momentous event in human history, but is also part of every Christian's personal life story...This is not a subjective experience in the life of the believer, but an objective reality that is based on the believer's relationship to Christ...The reason union with Christ [in the cross as well as all things]..is that everything Christ has ever done becomes something we have done.  It is as if we had lived his perfect life and died his painful death.  It is as if we were buried in his tomb and then raised up to his glorious heaven (Rom. 6:3-5).  God attaches us tot he events of Christ's life so that they become part of our lives.  His story - the story of the cross and the empty tomb - becomes our story."(page 73-74).

If this inspired you, so will the rest of the book.  I hope you find it as wonderful to read as I did.

Justified Forever (Galatians 3:1-5)

Plato, in Timeaus, makes the statement that there are 2 kinds of fools:  One lacking instruction and the other due to madness.  What he is saying is that fools exist because they haven’t been taught, have been taught incompletely OR because they are insane.  The first is correctable, the second isn’t.  Let me illustrate, the definition of insanity has often been reported as being, “doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”  This charge could be leveled at our congress for the past 50 or 75 years: spend more and expect the budget to be balanced.  Continue to spend and proclaim loudly that the deficit will be overcome.  Spend even more and decry all who stand against progress as lacking faith in the government’s ability to balance the budget.  This is insanity, it is madness and it doesn’t seem to be based on a lack of instruction.  There is plenty of data in history to counter these thoughts, but it is ignored or explained away. This is one kind of foolishness.

But there is another kind of foolishness, a foolishness that is grounded in a lack of instruction and education.  This would be like me checking the voltage on a switch.  When it is off, there is none; when it is on, there is 120v.  I repeat the process, same results.  Again, the same.  Now if I go on indefinitely expecting something different, I am either crazy or testing for product failure.  But if after 2 or three tests I quit, and go and study more to understand what is happening inside the switch, then my foolishness about electricity and switches is alleviated with new education.

Paul’s opening words this morning are You foolish Galatians!

The Case of Peter: Negating the Gospel by our life - Galatians 2:11-21

Have you ever had a friend that you liked, but you were ashamed to be around?  I have heard stories of people who really thought the school geek was fun and enjoyable to be around, but who ignored this person when the popular kids came around.  Or who denied their friendship in public when others talked bad about the “nerd.”  You are not alone.  Politicians are famous for doing this kind of behavior.  So is Business.  A recent example is Gilette’s distancing from Tiger Woods, along with AT&T as another business trying to withdraw.

Our text this morning tells of another story where former friends and partners began distancing themselves. 

Liberty without License - Gal 5:13-18

I am preaching through Galatians currently, and this week I am reflecting on Galatians 5:13-26 in order to speak on it a few weeks from now.  While I inherently have an understanding of what Paul is saying about not using our freedom to sin, actually expressing this without it sounding like a new form of legalism is a hard thing.  One can speak experientially of their own life, but not be able to convincingly articulate that reality to others. Convincing articulation is what sets apart great writers and orators.  I am neither, but I believe the following quotations are excellent food for thought in this regard.

"Anyone who uses freedom to indulge the flesh is not really free at all.  Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin"(John 8:34). In other words, license is the very opposite of liberty.  It is really a form of slavery.  Real liberty comes when Christ frees me from sin, not to sin...[but our newfound] freedom to serve others...is actually a new from of slavery.  the word "serve"[Gal 5:13] is the Greek word for 'be a slave'- the kind of person who washes the dishes and takes out the trash.  So here is the paradox: By setting us free to serve, the Holy Spirit enslaves us to one another in love." -Ryken, REC: Galatians, chapter 18

These words wonderfully articulate the new Christian life to serve and love.  But how does one serve and love.  This is where the law of God comes in.  We are not freed from the law, but from its demands for becoming righteous through the law.  Now that we are righteous in Christ, we can live out the law by the empowerment of the spirit and truly love one another.  Granted, we will still sin, we will love imperfectly, we will fail along the way, but we can continue to walk in this way and learn what it means to love our God and love our neighbor.  This is our calling in the Christian life.  To be free to love.  Let us press on toward the goal of heaven where love will be the rule of the day.

The Gospel makes us free (Galatians 2:1-10)

Spying is a pernicious act. Spies want to pass as friendly when in fact they don’t belong. They do this in order to steal something valuable from their enemy. We are familiar with names like Benedict Arnold, The Rosenberg’s, even some entertainment spies like James Bond. But how about some other real life spies, take Oleg Penkovsky, for example, he was a soviet military agent who worked for the British during the Cuban Missile Crisis and help the US identify the nuclear pads being installed in Cuba. Or Oleg Gordievsky who informed NATO that one of its training exercises was being interpreted as a first strike. Then there is Aldrich Ames, the US CIA operative who compromised 100 agents and led to the execution of 10 CIA contacts in Russia. In his own words, I compromised "virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other American and foreign services known to me" and provided the USSR and Russia with a "huge quantity of information on United States foreign, defense and security policies." Spies try to incapacitate another party from living and acting freely.

The Gospel makes us equals (Galatians 2:1-10)

Wouldn’t you love to take any common metal like nickel, copper and be able to turn it into gold?  That was the belief of the alchemist, men and women in the Middle Ages who tried to create gold out of other non-precious metals.  The one thing they didn’t understand was that it was impossible, with the technology they had to change copper into gold.  Copper has 29 protons and neutrons, and 35 electrons; a density of 8.96 g/cm3 while gold has 79 protons and neutrons, 118 electrons and a density of 19.32 g/cm3.  This is what particle accelerators do; unfortunately the result is very unstable and highly radioactive.

The good news is that while you can’t change a base metal into gold or silver, the Gospel can change people, and it does supernaturally change men, women and children.  It changes drunkards who worship the bottle into people who praise the Lord Jesus.  It changes greedy, selfish women into compassionate, serving princesses of God Almighty.  It changes namby-pamby men into strong leaders who point their family and friends toward Jesus Christ regardless of the cost that society charges them.  The gospel changes people because the gospel is powerful.  It is the power that raised Jesus from the dead; it is the strength that caused the Son of Man to hang on a cross and die to forgive us our sins.  It is the fortitude that unites us to the Body of Christ, refusing to release us when we are dirty and wallowing in our filth, but which sees us as we are – children of the King, brothers and sisters of the spotless lamb. The Gospel changes people.