03 Fruit of the Spirit: Love Part 2

Krisan Marotta: Welcome back to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is my third talk on the fruit of the spirit. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast. You can also find them by going to Wednesdayintheword.com slash fruit-spirit-love too. Thanks for listening. I'm really glad you joined us. In this series, we are seeking to understand each item on the list that Paul gives in Galatians 5 that he calls the fruit of the spirit. My goal in this series is to get us back in touch with the mindset Paul had when he wrote Galatians. So we're seeking to find out what Scripture says about these concepts and therefore what Paul probably had in mind. To accomplish that goal, we have been looking at a variety of passages each week. When we do that, we find some consistent themes in Scripture, and they are not the themes of our modern culture. And we find that the items on this list do not describe feelings. In the last podcast, we looked at the first item on the list, love. We're going to continue with that today, but first let me briefly explain the context in which we find the list, and then I'll review what we talked about last week. We find this list in Galatians 5, and in Galatians 5, Paul is explaining why being free from the law is not an excuse to sin. He argues freedom in Christ gives us a different motivation to avoid sin than obedience to the law. Instead of the threat of the consequences of the law, we have the teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit who changes us from the inside out. The Spirit is making us the kind of people who love God and want to keep the law. The more we become people who genuinely love God, the more we want to be like Him, and the more we will pursue holiness and the items on this list. Paul argues this kind of obedience is a real moral transformation because it results from the work of the Spirit changing us from the inside out. Paul also argued that the obedience promoted by law keeping is a kind of fake obedience. It is not a real moral transformation, and we can tell it's fake because it leads to the items on the list that he calls the works of the flesh, things like self-righteousness, factions, strife, jealousy, anger, and so forth. Paul argues that God gives the spirit to those who have been justified by faith in Christ. The Spirit teaches us so that we no longer want to sin and we repent when we do sin. The list of the fruit of the Spirit represents what true moral transformation looks like. The Spirit is at work in us to produce the things that we find on this list. Now we talked about love in the last podcast, the first item on the list. I argued that love as a fruit of the spirit is not a warm, fuzzy feeling, nor is it an emotional response. Love as a fruit of the spirit is not a state that we find ourselves in. It is not something we are given instantaneously, but rather it is something that grows in us as we go through life. And as I will argue for all the items on the list, the fruits of the spirits are not feelings. Rather, they are a perspective change that results from the Spirit teaching us truth. Last week we looked at how the kind of love that is a fruit of the Spirit is not a feeling, it's an action. Paul is talking about how we treat others and the idea that we learn to treat others as we would want to be treated. So love acts for the benefit of another person, and it is rooted in the understanding of our essential equality before God. When we come to faith in the gospel, we embrace the fact that God exists, the gospel is true, and we are equally sinners in need of grace. I learned that I am no more and no less important than my neighbors. My needs, wishes, and wants do not take priority over the needs of others. Our sanctification involves coming to accept that truth and living in light of it. When we do accept the truth of our quality before God, we then have the basis to realize that we should treat others as we would want to be treated. Now most of us are willing to be empathetic up to a point, but then when it starts costing us something, our sinful self-interest kicks in and we start grabbing, taking, and insisting on getting things our way. It's only when the Spirit of God starts working in us that we start seeing the truth that you and I, all of us, are created equal before God. As a sinner, my natural tendency is to put me first, but that's a lie. It's just not true that my needs take precedence over the needs of others. When Paul says the fruit of the Spirit is love, I think he primarily has in mind the idea that the Spirit teaches believers to see the lie of a self-centered view of life. We start to see and understand our place before God, standing next to our neighbors, equal in dignity and equal in guilt. And over time, as the Spirit teaches us, we become willing to act for the benefit of others in the way that we would want them to act for our benefit. What I want to talk about today is another kind of equality that we must recognize. Last week we talked about the kind of equality that all of us share as creatures made in God's image. What I want to talk about today is the special and unique bond we have with other believers. This is an idea that we see all over the New Testament. Jesus talks about it. Paul, Peter, and John all talk about it. They all talk about this idea that we have a unique and particular love for other believers just because we are all believers. Let me start with Matthew 10. Jesus is talking to the 12. He's about to send them out on a missionary journey as his representatives. The you in this passage is the 12, the disciples he's sending out to minister to Israel. And there's a principle involved here that I want to pull out. This is the beginning of the process by which the 12 become his apostles. I think this journey is an important step in their training to become his apostles after the resurrection. As Jesus sends them out to preach the gospel, he warns them to expect rejection and persecution. He reminds them their fate is in God's hands and they are not to fear other people. Even if their human enemies kill them, God has the power to grant them eternal life. He warns them that this is not going to be a victory tour. His message does not bring peace, it brings a sword, and people are going to hate and reject them just as they hate and reject Jesus. The gospel is divisive because it requires people to choose to follow or to reject Jesus, and that choice will split and divide even the closest human relationships. After all of those warnings, Jesus ends this talk with a positive reaction to his message. This is Matthew 10. I'm going to read verses 40 through 42. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. And the one who receives a righteous person, because he is a righteous person, will receive a righteous person's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. Now you might think this is a strange passage to pick because the word love doesn't even appear in it, but bear with me. In this context, to receive someone is to accept them or to welcome them. To receive the apostles is to make the conscious choice to believe what they say and accept it as true. At the core of the gospel is a call to choose to respond to God and his messengers. And this word receive is one of the words used to capture that response. We're supposed to receive God's messengers. We are supposed to receive the gospel. That is, we choose to accept and embrace it as true. Now, in this passage in Matthew 10, Jesus says, Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. I would paraphrase that something like this. Whoever welcomes you and chooses to listen to you welcomes and chooses to listen to me as well. The one who opens his heart to you has opened his heart to me as well as the God who sent me. In 1041, Jesus speaks of receiving a prophet because he is a prophet. Some translations have receives a prophet in the name of a prophet. I think what he's talking about there is this if I receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, I am receiving the prophet because of his role and authority as a prophet. So I am welcoming him, accepting him, and embracing what he says is true because I recognize he is a prophet. I might not find him impressive as a person, maybe he's not charismatic as an individual, but I acknowledge that he has a role as a representative of God and thus I welcome him. I accept him as the representative of God and I listen to him. It's important to me that he is a prophet and I grant authority to what he says because I believe he's a prophet and I think that's a big deal. If I receive a prophet and embrace his message, then I receive the same reward he does, eternal life in God's kingdom. And then Jesus goes one step further. It's not just receiving a prophet. If I receive and embrace other believers just because they are believers, I receive the believer's reward. Look at 1041. This is the last half. And the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward. Now I understand righteous in this context to mean one who has repented and is humbly seeking God rather than rejecting God. So I don't understand righteous in this context to be holy, morally beautiful, and perfect, but rather the person who has cleansed themselves of rebellion to God and is actively seeking them. So the righteous person is not a prophet sent with a message, the righteous person is just another individual who believes what God has promised and is seeking God. So he's describing people who welcome and embrace fellow believers precisely because they are also seeking God. We come upon another person seeking God, and we say, those are my people, they're like me, they are kindred spirits, they are also seeking God. We recognize them as people we will spend eternity with and as fellow travelers on that narrow road. The way we respond to the people of God, including apostles, prophets, and just regular old other believers, says something about us. Our response to other believers reflects our response to God. Because we love God, we also love God's people. If we reject God, then we hate God's people. Other people can tell where I stand with God by how I react to other believers. If I love them because I love God, then I will receive the reward people of faith receive, which is eternal life in the kingdom of heaven. Now I think he gives these two examples, receiving the prophets and receiving his disciples, because the point he's driving toward is this third statement in 1042. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water, because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. So he talked about how you respond to a prophet. He talked about how you respond to his disciples. Now the question is, how do you respond to other followers of Jesus? You love them, that is, you treat them well, you act for their benefit, even if that action is something as simple as offering them a cup of cold water. If I befriend and treat well other disciples of Jesus precisely because they are disciples of Jesus, it shows that I too want to be a follower of Jesus. My response to the disciples of Jesus represents my response to God and his Messiah. It shows I have the same repentant heart and I show that by welcoming his disciples. Now, this is a major theme in the New Testament. This idea that we reveal what we think about Jesus and his message by how we respond to his people, particularly his apostles, but all of his people. Both Jesus and Paul talk about this idea a lot. According to Jesus, I reveal my eternal destiny by how I respond to his apostles who teach in his name and his other disciples. When I see other followers of Jesus, they ought to mean something to me because Jesus means something to me. I care about Jesus, I care about what he teaches, and by extension, I care about other people who also care about Jesus. We're going to spend eternity together. We are seeking the same things. Who we are, what we value, what kind of person we are, that can all be seen by who we hang out with. The people you define as your people reveals what you value. Now, naturally, we have a particular affection toward members of our biological family. That's the way God designed us. That's normal and natural, but there's nothing particularly noteworthy about it either. But when I choose to associate with other people who are seeking Jesus, that says something about my values, my commitments, and my goals. It shows that I value Jesus too. And I think this kind of love is a fruit of the Spirit. Love as a fruit of the Spirit can be seen in how we treat other believers. Let's look at another passage. This is John 13, 34 and 35. Jesus is speaking and he says, This, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. You are also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Let me start with what he's not saying. There's a popular interpretation of these verses that I think is wrong. I do not think that Jesus is saying, you're going to be such loving people that it's like you'll have this kind of glow and everyone will recognize, hey, she's got that Jesus glow. She must be a follower of Jesus. So I do not think Jesus is saying, you will just be so strikingly overflowing with good vibes that people will know you're my disciple. That's not it. I think what he's saying is other people will know you're my disciple because you love my other disciples. You don't go around mocking my followers, you don't persecute my followers, you don't make fun of my followers, you don't think they're strange. Instead, you treat them well, you want to be with them, you see them as kindred spirits, and you act for their benefit. The new part of this commandment is the my disciples should love one another. That's the new thing. The general commandment that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, well, that's been around since Leviticus. But the newness of what Jesus is saying is the emphasis he places on disciples of Jesus loving each other. The world will recognize that you are a follower of Jesus because you love other followers of Jesus. Now remember, love here is not a warm, fuzzy feeling. It is the way we treat each other. It is acting for the welfare of another. We seek each other's benefit in spite of many things that may divide us. Followers of Jesus are a very diverse group. We are different races, different genders, different ages. We come from different nationalities, from different social status, from different upbringing. We may have completely different personalities. In spite of all the things that divide us, we recognize that we are alike in a fundamentally important way, and that is we are all seeking the things of God. So disciples of Jesus show their love for Jesus by loving his people. That's how other people will know who's who. Instead of mocking and persecuting the followers of Jesus, we will treat them well. Next, let's look at Matthew 25, verses 31 through 40. Jesus is again speaking here. When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people from one another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, Come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. Now there is a lot we could talk about from that passage, but for our purposes in understanding the fruit of the Spirit, I just want to comment on one idea. Many people understand this passage to mean that believers do well to seek out and help random strangers, prisoners, and sick people, and that every time you visit someone in the hospital or in prison, you're really doing it for Jesus. Now that is a lovely thing to do, and that is a good thing to do, but I don't think that's what Jesus is teaching here. The context of this parable is who is going to enter the kingdom. Remember, this parable starts with the Son of Man coming in glory and separating his people from not his people. This is the same principle we saw in John 13. He who receives you receives me. Jesus says, You performed of these acts of love and kindness for the least of these, my brothers. And I think his brothers are his people. When did you feed and clothe and comfort Jesus? When you received his people. When you performed of those acts of kindness for other disciples of Jesus, it showed that you love Jesus. You recognize that other person as a follower of Jesus just like you, and you tried to meet their needs. You acted for their benefit because you saw a fellow heir of the gospel. It's true that every human being has dignity and worth because we are all made in the image of God, but there is a further dimension at play among believers. Some of us are going to spend eternity together. Some of us are seeking the Messiah together. We see Christ in other people in the sense that we see people who believe in him like we do. I don't see Christ in people who reject God and couldn't care less about what the Bible says. But I do see Christ in The lives of people who love and believe him. That is, I recognize them as people like me who have repented and are seeking mercy based on the cross. I recognize them as my people and I treat them well because of it, because we have this unique and special bond of seeking God together. Let's move on to Ephesians. Paul regularly talks about love for other believers as an indicator of genuine faith. He says this in the opening of Ephesians, this is chapter 1, verses 15 and 16. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. So Paul opens this letter. He says, I've heard all about your faith and your love toward other believers. He puts those two items in parallel. How does he know they have genuine faith? Well, he's heard they have faith, and that faith has been expressed in how they treat each other, and that proves that their faith is genuine. Faith, by its very nature, is invisible. You can't see it. It doesn't leave a mark on the body, it doesn't change your appearance, but it does change the way we treat each other, especially the way we treat other believers. One of the ways we express our faith is in how we treat the people of God. We act in self-sacrificing love toward other followers of Jesus. Let's move on to Colossians 1, verses 3 through 5. Paul says something very similar there. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we have heard of your faith in Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Again, this is the opening of his letter. This is very similar to what he said in Ephesians, but he adds this phrase, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, both the faith you have and the love you have for other believers results from the hope of the gospel. Because you believed in the gospel, you now hope in the gospel, you have faith, and that faith shows itself, it makes itself known in how you treat other believers. You believe the gospel, and that results in loving each other. What made you act this way? What changed you into this kind of person? The hope laid up for you in heaven. You believe the gospel. You became a follower of Jesus, and one way that faith expresses itself is in how you treat other believers. Let's look at one more passage in 1 Peter. Peter has been explaining our living hope. He's talked about how we were dead in our sins, but Jesus has given us a new birth through his sacrifice on the cross, and because of Jesus, we now have hope in the gospel. Peter is writing to people who are facing trials and persecutions, and part of his goal is to encourage them to persevere in the faith through these trials, and he urges them to fix their hope fully on the grace to be revealed at the revelation of Jesus and to focus on the salvation to come. Since that is true, he goes on to explain how they live in light of this great hope. And one of the things he says is this this is 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 22 and 23. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. God has called us to follow the truth of the gospel, in obedience to that truth. We have purified our souls. And what does he mean by that? I think he means we are cleansed of hatred and hostility to God. Prior to conversion, our hearts were metaphorically covered in filth and gunk. We hated God, we rejected God, we loved sin and we were selfish, self-centered creatures. When we embrace the truth of the gospel, our hearts are cleaned of that metaphorical dirt and filth. Now we love God, we seek Him, we hate sin, and we strive to treat our neighbors as we would want to be treated, because we have been cleansed of that rebellion and we wholeheartedly seek God. That's what he means by purified souls. Before I believed lies, I made foolish choices. Now that I'm free from that, I embrace the truth and seek wisdom. And where does that lead me? It leads me to a love of the brethren. In other words, it leads me to loving other believers earnestly. Let me read those verses again. 1 Peter 1, 22 and 23. Having purified your souls, that's the cleansed your hearts of rebellions, having purified your souls by obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. As we increasingly understand the promises of God and increasingly pursue the things of God, one of the results is a fervent love for our fellow believers. The more we understand and love and value God, the more his people will mean to us. We've been given a new birth by the imperishable word of God. And by word of God, I think he means just God's decree. God has promised, God has said, and it will be so. He is now working out this great rescue from sin and death and futility. And his work is imperishable. You can't lose it, it's not going to die, it can't be lost. He has decreed and it will happen. God will sanctify us through the work of his spirit, and one of the results of that sanctifying work is that we will love God and his people. We will start putting aside malice and envy and deceit and hypocrisy, and we will learn to love our fellow believers. Why? The same spirit is at work in all of us. The Spirit is changing all of us believers from selfish, self-centered creatures to people who love God and love his people. The Spirit's moving us in the same direction, toward the same goal and the same finish line. In that sense, we are becoming more and more alike. We ought to recognize that other followers of Jesus are among the most important creatures in the universe. We will spend eternity together. I should see followers of Jesus as my people. These people are the ones I want to be with. They seek what I seek. They love what I love, and we are in this together. We share the most important thing in all of creation together. The more Jesus means to me, the more his people come to mean to me. As I more fully understand and embrace the hope of the gospel, I should be drawn to those others who also embrace the hope of the gospel. Let me make one clarification. Not everyone who calls on the name of Jesus embraces the hope of the gospel. Just because someone claims to be a believer doesn't mean they are. I've run into pastors, teachers, scholars who don't teach the gospel, or at least they don't teach what I think is the gospel in my good for nothing opinion. It's not that we differ on the finer points of theology here and there. We have fundamental baseline differences about who Jesus was and what he did for you. I'm talking about people who don't teach the cross of Christ or minimize the importance of recognizing sin or teach a kind of moralistic therapeutic deism or a prosperity gospel. None of those are the gospel as I understand it. And as I listen to people who teach those kinds of things, it's clear to me, in my humble opinion, that we are not following the same God. Not everyone who claims to follow Jesus is in fact following him. That's one of the reasons we see Jesus separating the sheep from the goats. Or the other metaphor he uses is separating the wheat from the tares. If you find yourself listening to someone who claims to teach for Jesus, but you don't recognize the Jesus of Scripture and that teacher's words, stop listening, find another flock to join. I bring that up because you don't need to measure yourself by whether you embrace every single solitary person who claims to be a Christian. I think the connection between believers is a more profound connection. It all comes back to this fundamental equality we talked about in the last podcast. We have to recognize that God is real, God exists, God has revealed Himself in Scripture and in Jesus Christ. We recognize we are not the center of the universe. God is. We, his creatures, are equal before him. That means I am no better and no worse than anyone else. We all have the same problem with sin and we find the same grace, mercy, and forgiveness on the cross. The fruit of the Spirit is the result of the Spirit teaching me that truth and then also teaching me how to live in light of it. When I see others embracing that same truth and seeking to live in light of it, I recognize those are my people. We share this special bond, and the outcome of that will be obvious in the way that we treat each other. We act for each other's benefits. We are fellow creatures, fellow sinners, and fellow believers. Now I'm not suggesting that you have to beat yourself up because you don't have enough Christian friends. That's not something you have to go out and do. Remember, we're talking about a fruit of the Spirit. If the Spirit is working in you, this kind of bond for other believers will come about. The contrast, the warning sign, the red flag is if you hate other believers. When you run into other genuine followers of Christ and they embarrass you because they don't laugh at the right jokes or they don't use the right slang, or you ridicule them because they don't want to follow you into drunken nights of hedonism or something like that. If you hate other Christians, if you mock them for their beliefs, then you are marking yourself as someone who is against Jesus, and that's a problem. But ultimately, if you love the things of Christ, then you will also love the people he loves, and you will recognize them as being on this journey of faith with you. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how to figure it out. I do not accept advertising on this website, nor do I ask for donations. Your subscriptions and your ratings and reviews are the advertising for the show. Please leave me a positive rating on your favorite podcast platform and drop me an email with a question or a comment or just something you learned. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician, Reggie Coates. You can find all of his music on heartfeltmusic.org. If you want to find out more about how to study the Bible or hear previous episodes in this series, please go to Wednesdayntheword.com. Thank you for listening today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.