02 Fruit of the Spirit: Love Part 1

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the second talk in my series 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 one. Thanks so much for listening. Well, in this series, we are looking at the fruit of the spirit from Galatians 5, 22 to 23. And my purpose in this series is to try to understand what these concepts are from a biblical perspective. And that's going to take us all over the Bible. We probably have some vague idea what they mean, maybe filled in by our own experience or psychology or philosophy. I want to explore what the Bible says about these topics, trying to recover what Paul had in mind when he wrote the list. Last week I gave an overview of the book of Galatians and explained the context in which we find this list, just to review briefly. In the letter to the Galatians, Paul is correcting the teaching of the Judaizers. They claim, they teach, that belief in Jesus Christ is not enough to be saved. They argue Gentiles must also keep the law, be circumcised, and live like Jews. And Paul corrects that view. He says that is not the gospel. Most of the letter is a defense of justification by faith alone and why the Judaizers are not correct. In chapter 5, which is the immediate context of the list, Paul is explaining why being free from the law is not an excuse to sin. He argues that trying to obey the law on our own resources produces only a fake moral transformation. We are putting something on the outside, but nothing is really changing on the inside. On the other hand, freedom in Christ gives us a different motivation to avoid sin. Instead of being under the threat of the penalties of the law, we now have the teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit changes us from the inside out and makes us the kind of people who love God. The more we become people who genuinely love God, the more we will want to be like Him, and the more we will pursue holiness and goodness and the items on this list. 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 you can tell that the kind of obedience promoted by law-keeping is fake because you see what it leads to, and he gives that list he calls the works of the flesh. He says that kind of obedience leads to self-righteousness, factions, jealousy, strife, anger, divisions, and so forth. And we know all this is true because Christ solved our two biggest problems by dying on the cross. Our two biggest problems are we are guilty before a holy God and we will be condemned justly and rightly on judgment day. And the reason we are guilty is because we are sinful, selfish creatures, and we cannot change that fact left to ourselves. However, because Christ paid the penalty for our guilt, God can now justly forgive us, and because Christ reconciled us to God, God can now pour his Spirit out on us, and the Spirit changes and transforms us. So Paul is arguing true moral transformation can only come from the Spirit of God working inside you. The law was never meant to change us, the law can't atone for our guilt, and the law cannot solve the problem of our sin the way the cross does. If the spirit is inside us to make us people who hate sin and love God and love our neighbors, then we will pursue the things of God. Unlike the law, the spirit can free us from our slavery to sin. And that's the context in which we find this list. This list tells us what that true moral transformation looks like. Let me just read the list again. This is Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 to 24. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. This list gives us both a picture of the work God is doing in His people, and it also gives us a challenge. It challenges the legalists among us to ask ourselves if we are really interested in the things on this list. Now, the first three items on this list are love, joy, and peace. And the problem for us today is that these words can mean many things. And we all have a pretty vague or abstract idea of what Paul is talking about. Most of us probably think these words describe a feeling or a state we should find ourselves in. We see love, joy, and peace on bumper stickers and t-shirts and in advertising slogans. And we probably have this vague picture that these words represent some kind of Woodstock revival or utopian lifestyle where everyone gets along. And probably most of us think that they are feelings that we ought to feel the majority of the time. And if we aren't feeling them, well, then maybe something's wrong with us. When we see a list like this, we're tempted to fill in our understanding with all our modern thoughts and feelings and philosophies. We start thinking about these concepts in the abstract, and then we fill in our understanding with modern psychology and our theories and concepts. Maybe we find an entertaining story or a moral or a fable and we use that to explain the concept. My goal in this series is to rediscover the mindset Paul had when he wrote this letter. I want to uncover what Scripture says about these concepts and therefore what Paul had in mind. To do that, we're going to study various passages which speak about the items on this list. And when we do that, we will find some very consistent themes in Scripture. And they are not the themes of our modern culture, and they are not describing feelings. We're going to spend the first two weeks on love because we find two different themes in Scripture. Love is a very important concept in Scripture. I suspect most of us have a basic understanding of what it's about. Because we're all familiar with this concept of love, we tend to drift right past it on the list. We think love, joy, peace, check, got that, and we move on without even stopping to ask, well, what kind of love are we talking about? What does that love look like? But before we get to that, let's start with what palm means by fruit. When we're talking about the fruit of the spirit, what are we talking about? I think by fruit, palm means the result, the thing that is produced. So when you plant an apple tree, eventually it grows apples. Eventually the tree bears fruit. The goal of planting an apple tree is to harvest the apples. The thing that an apple tree produces is fruit. So the fruit is the desired result or the thing that is produced. The items on this list are the results of the work of the spirit. The spirit works within us to produce the things on the list. And when we see those things in our lives, we know the spirit is at work and we are being transformed. The first point I want to make is one I will repeat for all the different fruits of the spirit. And that is the fruits of the spirit are not feelings. You might think we're talking about a kind of feeling that comes upon spiritual people. So the spirits at work, we're empowered by him, and then we go through our day with this warm, comfortable feeling of love, peace, joy, and so forth. Maybe we don't feel them every minute of the day, but as we mature, we think these feelings become more consistent or more powerful. And that's probably the picture most of us start out with. I'm going to argue that the fruit of the Spirit is not a feeling that comes upon us, but it is something that grows in us. It grows through struggle and trial. It grows out of the maturing and the strengthening of our faith. We aren't instantly transformed and given the items on this list. Rather, these things result slowly over time as the Spirit of God works on us. I'm going to argue for all the items on the list of the fruit of the Spirit that these are not feelings, they are a perspective change. The Spirit produces these items in us by changing our minds, changing our worldviews, teaching us truth, and giving us a more clear understanding of God and wisdom. As we grow in wisdom and knowledge, as we learn more truth, our perspective on the world changes. We could say our worldview changes. And the result of those changes will be the items on this list. They are qualities that describe us because of that perspective change. And hopefully as we go through these, that will become more clear. So let's start by looking at love. And just as a reminder, I'm not going to be in the book of Galatians. Instead, we're going to look at a variety of passages in Scripture that talk about love. And the first one we're going to look at is 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5. Paul wrote this letter, 1 Timothy, to one of his young disciples. This is near the beginning of the letter. Paul is urging Timothy to remain in Ephesus, where Timothy is the pastor of the church there. And Paul wants him to continue teaching truth to those who are spreading false doctrine. And in that discussion, he says this the aim of our charge is love that issues from my pure heart a good conscience and a sincere faith. So note something very interesting here. Paul says love is the goal of his instruction. We are teaching, the aim of our teaching, the aim of our charge is love. Now let's think about that. The goal of his instruction is love. He wants Timothy to teach truth to these certain men, and the goal of that teaching is love. Well, that implies to me that love is not this feeling that comes upon you when you first convert to Christianity and never goes away. Love results from learning the truth. Timothy is teaching them the gospel. He's teaching them the truth with the goal of producing this thing he calls love. So Timothy is to remind them of the truth of the gospel as they wrestle with the ups and downs of life and they embrace these truths in the middle of that struggle. The result is love. And that love comes from a sincere faith, a pure heart, and a good conscience. Now I'm not going to take the time to go through a thorough Bible study on these phrases, but let me just summarize what I think they mean. By a sincere faith, I think he means genuine belief. Love results from true, authentic, saving faith. It is the result of having faith because the Spirit is working in you and producing this thing called love. By a pure heart, I think he means a heart that is not divided, a heart that is focused and entirely set on the promises of God and turned away from idols. Love results from seeking God and no longer rebelling against him. What he means by a good conscience, this third phrase is a little harder to pin down. The Greek word is a little different from what we mean by our English word conscience. I think he means an understanding of the truth and the belief that I am following that truth. Having a good conscience is having knowledge and understanding. It's knowing what the gospel is about, it's knowing what God is calling me to do, and having the conviction that I am in fact following that. I have a good conscience because I believe the gospel and I'm acting on that belief. I want to live my life as if the gospel is true, and I'm confident that I am following the path of the gospel. So Paul says, Timothy is teaching truth. The result of that, teaching that truth is love, which comes from a sincere faith, a genuine understanding, and following the truth or a good conscience. I don't think Paul means to say that the Christian life is always and forever filled with feelings of love, peace, joy, comfort, and so on. I think the work of the Spirit is deeper and more complex than that. The fruit of the Spirit is not a feeling that comes upon us, but it is something that grows in us as we go through our lives facing trials and learn from those trials. The next question we want to ask then is whether Paul is talking about our love for God or love for people or both. You'll remember that Jesus says the two greatest commandments are love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. Both those commands are important. Love of God is presented as the greater commandment, and loving your neighbor is a second, which is like it. I think the emphasis in the section that contains the fruit of the spirit is on loving your neighbor because of the context of Galatians 5. The focus in chapter 5 is on how they're treating each other. And Paul is contrasting the works of the flesh with the fruit of the spirit. The way they're treating each other when they're pursuing legalism looks very different from the way they treat each other when they are guided by the Spirit. So I think foremost on his mind in Galatians 5 is the love we have for each other. Now, of course, loving God is important, but I think in the context of chapter 5, the question is how are we treating each other? So in chapter 5, I think Paul's focus is on loving our neighbors. And then in 1 Timothy, we've learned that the goal in teaching the truth is love, which comes from these three things: sincere faith, genuine understanding, and a good conscience in following the truth. Okay, so if we're talking about loving our neighbor, let's just look at the command to love our neighbor from Leviticus 1918. Many discussions in the New Testament refer to this concept of loving our neighbor. They often quote or reference this command in Leviticus. This is 1918. Now notice Leviticus gives us both the positive and the negative. Loving our neighbor is contrasted with taking vengeance and bearing a grudge. Vengeance is the external action, bearing a grudge is the internal attitude. If I take vengeance, I am retaliating. If someone hurts me, I hurt them back. If someone treats me badly, I treat them badly in the same way. I am acting in a way that inflicts harm, punishment, or hurt of some sort. If I bear a grudge, I'm holding on to any wrongs that were done to me. I'm refusing to forgive and forbear. I think badly of that person and I wish him ill. I may not actually act to inflict harm, but I am doing nothing to help him. And internally I refuse to let go of the harm that was done to me. I refuse to forgive. And that is what we are not to do. In contrast, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to ask ourselves, if the tables were reversed, how would I want my neighbor to treat me? And then I do that. When we're the ones in the wrong, we want understanding, forgiveness, patience, forbearance, things like that, mercy. So when our neighbor is the one in the wrong, those are the ways we ought to respond. We are to show them forgiveness, mercy, patience, forbearing, and understanding. The same things we would want if the tables were turned. Notice loving our neighbor is how we treat them. In contrast to taking vengeance and bearing a grudge, we are to love our neighbor, and that is expressed by actions and choices. We have to choose to be patient. We have to choose to forgive. We choose to overlook someone else's sins. We choose to be generous and kind, and we choose to act in a way that brings good to our neighbors rather than harm. And if we were to follow this concept of loving our neighbor through the New Testament, we would see that it doesn't matter how they respond. We aren't treating them well so that they will be nice to us in return. We are treating them well because it's the right thing to do. This idea in Leviticus is foundational to all the passages we're going to look at in the New Testament. Let's go next to first John three verses 16 through 18. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart to him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. From this passage, how do we know that Jesus loved us? He acted. We can see that he loves us because of what he did. He laid down his life for us. How do we know if God's love abides in us? We see it in our actions. We act when we see our brother or sister in need. And John admonishes us not to be all talk, but to act. I think that is probably one of the clearest passages to see that love is an action. How do we recognize love? We look at the way the person is acting. Love acts for the benefit of another. We know God loves us because of the way he treats us. He actively works to bring about good for us. When Scripture talks about God's love for us, it describes how he treats us. His love for us is active. We count on him to act. He reaches out in his love to rescue us, and he acts on our behalf by sending us his son to die in our place and his spirit to teach us truth. We know that Jesus loved us because of his actions. He laid down his life for us. Well, how do we love our neighbors? We follow our Lord's example and we act for their benefit. We love each other by actively working for each other's good. Let's look at another passage. This is Luke chapter six, twenty-seven through thirty-one. And here I think Jesus is expanding on and explaining the command from Leviticus nineteen. But I say to you who hear, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. And from the one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from the one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. I'm only going to touch on the main theme of this passage. I'm just going to highlight a couple of points for our purposes. I do have a podcast on the parallel passage in Matthew in my series on Matthew, if you want to look at these concepts in more detail. First, notice that Jesus is not focused on any kind of emotional reaction. The emphasis here is on seeking the welfare of someone else, not a warm, fuzzy feeling. We love others by acting for their good. seek good things for them and we work to bring those things about even if they act against us. It's not that we're to have warm, fuzzy feelings for our enemies, I think that's probably impossible, but it is possible to choose not to retaliate. It is possible to make a dramatic gesture of reconciliation like turning the other cheek or giving more than required. And notice how active the verbs are in this section do good, bless, pray for, turn your cheek, give your shirt, lend expecting nothing in return, and as you wish that others would do to you, do to them. We love both our neighbors and our enemies by treating them well. Now you don't have to be a Christian to understand this concept of love and you don't have to be a Christian to act in love toward another person. As Jesus said, even sinners love those who love them. That is even pagans with no concept of God or the golden rule, treat others well as long as those others are treating them well. Since we're made in the image of God we have a certain understanding of love built into us and we all have people that we actively love. But Jesus teaches us there's something more there is a kind of love that goes beyond that general understanding and that kind of love treats others well even when those others are treating us badly. Look at what he says next this is Luke chapter six thirty two through thirty five If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them? And if you do good to those who do good to you what benefit is that to you for even sinners do the same? And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount but love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil just to be clear, Jesus is not suggesting that one day we'll be able to go to God and say, look how well I love my enemy and he'll accept us on that basis. None of us is going to get into heaven that way and that is not what Jesus is teaching here. He's saying even those who are hostile to God and don't care what the Bible says about truth, even those people understand this concept of love and are able to love those who love them back. That is a fairly easy human endeavor. But there is a kind of love that goes beyond that a kind of love that marks you as a person in whom the Spirit of God is working. It marks you as someone who is coming to look at life the way God looks at it. That kind of love goes beyond loving those who treat me well and ultimately loves even our enemies why is this so well I would argue that the key idea from Leviticus and from what Jesus says in Luke is based on this this kind of love, the kind of love that can love even our enemies is rooted in an understanding of our essential equality before God. Now understand what I'm saying here the idea of love your neighbor as yourself means we come to realize that we are not the center of the universe that our needs are no more important than anyone else's and we all stand equally guilty before the same God we need the same rescue and the same saving grace. The modern concept of equality has come to mean that I ought to have as much as everybody else has. The modern concept is because we're equal it's not fair that you have more money or more opportunity or more education or more beauty or social status or whatever. And especially in America in modern thinking equality has come to mean we need to take from those who have and give to those who don't have because we're all equal. In my good for nothing opinion that's just a fancy bow wrapped around coveting and greed. That's wanting what someone else has and making up an excuse to take it. When I say we're equal before God I am not saying that we all have the same path and the same calling and will have the same opportunities in life. We do not God does not treat us as cookie cutters who all receive equal treatments, equal trials, equal successes and equal failures in this life. Our lives will be very different. The paths we walk will be very different. Some of us will be rich, some of us will be poor, some of us will be popular and some of us will be loners some of us will have great opportunities some will experience great lack some will have great failures some will have great successes all depending on what God wants to teach us and his plans and his purposes. And we are not to use those differences as an excuse to covet or take greedily what someone else has. We are to be content with whatever path God has given us to walk. And equally important we are not to use those differences as an excuse to avoid being generous, kind or compassionate or helping our neighbor who is in need. The overall command is love your neighbor as yourself. If I am a person of means and wealth I ought to respond generously to the needs of others as I am able. If I am a person who lacks I am not to resent my richer sister nor am I to expect or demand that she help me. The biblical concept of equality is not that all of us should have equal outcomes and equal opportunities regardless. The biblical concept is every one of us has been created in God's image. That simple yet very profound idea that we are the same before God. And because we are the same before God, my needs are not more important than anyone else's. When I'm trying to figure out what the right thing to do is I can go a long way toward the answer by asking myself how would I want to be treated if the roles were reversed. That requires me to accept the truth that we are equally important as human beings. That requires me to face the fact that my needs are not more important than anyone else's we are truly significant creations of God and God teaches us that we are equal before Him. As Luke says as you would wish that others would do to you do so to them. He does not say if you want to be treated well then treat other people well. Now that might help but it's not his point. What he's saying is think about how you would want to be treated and then act in that way. And I think there's a sense in which every human being understands this truth. But you don't have to look very far to see how quickly we put ourselves forward at someone else's expense. And of course this selfishness can be really profoundly evil and lead to theft and murder and war and horrible atrocities but it can also be the simple kind of selfishness that leads to simple things like cutting in line, taking the last cookie on the plate, leaving the dishes in the sink for someone else to clean, forgetting someone's birthday and being outraged when they forget your own, or just insisting that we must get our way in any given situation. Most of us are willing to be empathetic up to a point and then our sinful self-interest kicks in and we start grabbing and insisting that we get what we want and we can become judgmental, jealous, mean, sarcastic, and display all kinds of bad behavior. When I act that way everyone around me can see how badly I'm acting especially in relation to how I expect them to treat me. Yet to me it seems equally obvious that I'm just doing things the way they ought to be done because to me my needs are more important. It's only when the Spirit of God starts working in us that we start seeing what love is all about. I am created by God. You were created by God. My natural tendency to put me and my needs first is wrong. When Paul says the fruit of the spirit is love, I think primarily he has in mind this fact that believers start learning to see that the self-centered view of life is a lie. It's just so ingrained and natural for us to put ourselves first at the expense of others. To me I'm what it's all about every situation is about me and everything needs to be evaluated by what benefits me. And each and every one of us thinks like that until the Spirit of God comes along and says that's a lie. That is not true. I know that God created me. I know that God is more important to me I am answerable to him and he holds my destiny in his hands and that same God who created me created all my neighbors and each one of us is answerable to him. You're not answerable to me we stand in the same relationship to God and I have no right to put myself first. Until God works in us and teaches us that we are locked in the prison of our own self-centered experience. But when God gives us faith he teaches us truth he opens our eyes and calls us to see reality and one of the truths we must embrace is not only God is really there and he gives meaning to our existence but God created me and you and everyone else and we stand equal before him. Let me give you an analogy imagine you're a little kid again and you're at school playing on the playground and you're one of those misfit kids that doesn't quite fit in with the other kids. You've decided that all those other kids well they're just a bunch of losers they play silly games they aren't interested in the right toys and you've decided those other kids they're just not worth your time then an older teenager gets a job at the school overseeing the after school playground program and this teenager is the coolest guy you have ever seen he's smart he's funny he's thoughtful everyone admires him you have never wanted anything in your life like you want him to accept you and be your friend. And he likes you he treats you well he treats you with interest and respects he listens to you he loves playing games with you. Life is now great because you are in the inner circle of the coolest guy around but being friends with him also changes your whole worldview. The way you see yourself in relation to the other kids on the playground changes. Instead of being an outcast loner you're one of the cool kids because this cool teenager accepts you and other kids look at you and admire you because you are his friend and he is your friend. And that's great. But it also takes some humility because you realize he's cooler than you are. Your good fortune comes from the fact that he accepts you. But there's something else that changes your perspective you're not the only kid this teenager accepts. He also accepts some of those kids that you wrote off as losers. In fact he befriends a whole group of them. They are his buddies too. If you're going to hang out with him you have to hang out with these other kids as well because now you are in his gang and these other kids are in it with you. This cool teenager clearly thinks there is no difference between you and these other kids he treats them the same way he treats you. He sees them as equally valuable lovable and worthy friends. So now you face a decision. How are you going to treat these kids? Are you going to continue considering them losers? Are you going to continue thinking that you're better than they are? Or will you realize you are the same as them because this teenager has told you that is true. Well when we become believers our picture of the world is transformed in the same way when by the grace of God we accept the truth of the gospel that changes how we view other human beings. When I accept the fact that God created me that God is my judge and my savior that humbles my view of myself and raises my view of everyone else. If I really believe the gospel not as some intellectual hypothetical theory but as the reality of the world I live in that changes everything. Like the kids on the playground we are part of the same tribe. I can't avoid the idea that the reality of God's existence changes the picture of who I am and who my neighbors are. You and I together are lower than God, but we are equals standing next to each other. That's one reason we're to love our neighbors as ourselves. That's one reason we seek the welfare of God's other creatures in the same way that we seek our own welfare. If I refuse to love you as I love myself then I am refusing to live out a truth from God. I am fighting reality and perhaps I have not really humbled myself to the truth of the gospel. Self-righteousness can show itself as a refusal to admit the equality that stands between us as sinners. Self-righteousness is based on the lie I tell myself that I am better. I know I have problems but self-righteousness tells me to believe the lie that somehow I am better and more deserving than others. And most of us have a pretty good eye for seeing the faults of others but we are blind to our own faults but the gospel changes that if there's room in the world for God to forgive me then there's room in the world for God to forgive you and I must accept that and forgive you too I would argue that love as a fruit of the Spirit stems from this picture of equality under God. When we come to believe the gospel we learn that God exists that he is great and glorious and our Savior and our creator and we are equals before him. We learn the gospel is true and we are equal sinners and we need the same grace. Our sanctification involves coming to accept that truth and live in light of that truth. And when we accept that truth we have the basis to realize that we should treat others as we would want to be treated. My experience should be a mirror that helps me understand your experience. I know what it's like to be lonely or lost or troubled. I know what it's like to need a helping hand. I know what it's like to need mercy and forgiveness and patience. So I should be able to understand that you need those things too. God intended us to be truth seekers. We are intended to be people who would break out of the lie of self-centeredness because we see the truth about the essential quality of human beings. An essential part of our sanctification is embracing and living out this truth. And one other point that arises from this Luke passage is that we have the freedom to love this way because of our relationship to God. Notice Luke 635 but love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil the person who reaches out and does good for his enemies may look like a loser to the world because it may look like others are taking advantage of him but in reality God says he's winning it may look like the wicked are prospering and those who follow God are losing but in reality the opposite is true. Because if you treat others as your heavenly Father treats them your reward will be great. You will be sons of the Most High. That marks you as a believer only those in whom the Spirit of God is at work are able to show this kind of love. God is kind to ungrateful and evil people and if you are kind to ungrateful and evil people it is because the Spirit of God is at work in you making you like your heavenly Father that's how God acts and if you act the same it shows the Spirit is working in you. That means you are his and your reward in heaven will be great and beyond imagining in light of that inheritance what difference does it make if you endure some scoffing and some mocking now so what if you're out of money now? So what if you did a good thing and no one noticed as a child of God you stand to inherit true life in the kingdom of heaven and that is the pearl of great price the most valuable thing in the universe and it is yours as a child of God. Nothing in this world compares to it. You can afford to pay the short-term cost of loving your neighbor or your enemy because you have an eternal reward in heaven. Now it's not a reward in the sense that I love ten enemies so I get 10 bags of gold in heaven or something like that. It's not that kind of reward. It's a reward in the sense of it's the desired outcome it is the fruit it is the eventual result. If I treat you as my competitor and I steal and I lie and I cheat to get ahead of you what's my reward? What's the result of all that? Well I might have the stuff that I cheated and lied to get for a little while before I die, but that's it. But if I look to God for mercy and trust in his promises and seek to be like him in the way he loves even those who hate him, what is my reward? In the end God will claim me as his child and I will enter into the kingdom of heaven. The love that God calls us to is only sacrificial in a temporal sense. It costs me things that are temporal but it gains me things of eternal value. So it costs me nothing of ultimate value and it gains me everything worth having. One last point from Luke and this becomes really clear in the Sermon on the mountain in Matthew's gospel this kind of active self-sacrificing love is an alternative to self-righteousness. The Pharisees were self-righteous. They used the law that called them to love God and to love their neighbor to instead set up a system by which they could measure themselves successful and judge everyone else as failures. They could thank God they weren't like those other sinners and pagans out there because they kept the law as it ought to be kept and they used the law to judge themselves worthy and condemn everyone else. Jesus tells them they have misunderstood the spirit of the law and he gives them the golden rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Essentially he says to the Pharisees look you claim to understand the law and the prophets you claim to be the best followers of the law out there but the fact is you miss the boat. The law calls you to treat others as you would want to be treated but you use law keeping as an excuse to judge and condemn others. Loving your neighbor is at the heart of keeping the law and you missed it. Well our context in Galatians is this same kind of idea. Paul is looking at the Judaizers who pride themselves on law keeping as a means to win God's favor. They insist everyone else must keep the law too and he's saying look at how you're fighting with each other condemning each other you're jealous you're biting you're devouring each other. Self-righteousness encourages the delusion that my needs are more important than someone else's self righteousness lies to me and tells me I'm better than others. But the working of the Spirit teaches me that's not true. We're the same. The fruit of the spirit is we treat each other well because we understand we are equal before God. We are equally guilty we are equally saved we Are equally lost and we will be saved by the same cross. Yes, we all have faults, but the fruit of the Spirit is learning to treat each other well because we understand that we are equal before God. It's okay to recognize someone has sinned against us. Where we go wrong is the essential hypocrisy that views the sins of others as enormous while thinking my own sins, well, those are at least understandable, if not downright excusable. We congratulate ourselves for doing one right thing while ignoring the 50 things we failed to do or did wrong. We point out the flaws in others because we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we escaped those flaws. It's such a common human experience we could laugh about it if it weren't so tragic. Well, the Spirit comes along and teaches us that's a lie. We are no different than the person who offended us. We are no different than the person who imposed on us or took us for granted. The essential lie we tell ourselves is I deserve grace and mercy, but you don't, because my sins are understandable, but yours are offensive to me. And then the Spirit exposes the truth to us that that's a lie. Love is one of those arenas in which we work out our faith with fear and trembling. Our friends, our family, our neighbors, strangers confront us daily with opportunities to live out or ignore this truth. We will be tested in big ways and small ways as we go through life. Every day you'll be faced with a choice to be patient, to be kind, to be forgiving, to give when it's costly, or to let someone else have their own way. And we will fail many of those opportunities. But sometimes we won't. When we fail, what do we do? Be quick to repent, apologize, and seek forgiveness. When we succeed, what do we do? We thank God that his spirit has taught us something. We thank God that he has changed us and we chose wisely for a change. Now each of us confronts this issue of loving our neighbor in every relationship we have every day. It happens with our spouses, with our children, our bosses, our co-workers, our parents, our friends, our bank tellers, and the person in front of us in the grocery store line. Whenever a relationship stops giving and starts costing us something, we are tested of will we live out this truth or not. So to summarize, I think the fruit of the spirit that Paul has in mind here is becoming people who are willing to see our rightful place under God, standing next to our neighbors, equal in dignity, equal in guilt, and willing to act for the benefit of others and the way that we would want them to act for our benefit. This is both our great hope and the result of the Spirit working in us. One day, God will make us people who love this way naturally and easily, but not today, not yet. We can expect God to work in this area in our lives, and we can expect to see this kind of love growing in our lives, but we can also expect to fail. The fact that we recognize we are not the kind of people who love like this and want to be that kind of person is evidence that the Spirit of God is working in us. We shouldn't expect to be exactly like Jesus in this life, but we have the promise that we will be like him in the next. What marks us as children of God now is that we want to be like him and we turn to God to change us. We're not there yet, but we are heading that direction because of the work of the Holy Spirit. The challenge is not, can I be like Jesus in every moment of every day? The answer to that is no. The challenge is, do you want to be like him? Start there and trust the Spirit for the rest. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. I don't accept any advertising on my website, nor do I ask for donations. Your subscriptions and your ratings and reviews are the advertising for this show. But it does encourage me to hear from you. Please leave me a positive rating on your favorite podcast platform or drop me an email. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org. If you want to find out more here from previous episodes in this series, please go to Wednesdayintheword.com. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.