The Fruit and the Spirit

We’ve been looking at the fruit of the Spirit in the last several posts, talking specifically about this verse:

I’ve been writing about this because I truly believe this fruit is lacking today. Everywhere I turn, as I observe Christians, I see less and less fruit. Watch your social media feed and see what you think. We live in a culture that is moving further and further away from God, and if Christians are going to have a positive impact on our world, we need to be characterized by this fruit. 

As believers, there will be times when we must decide to stand up for God’s truth when that truth isn’t popular. We are going to need to do this even when society deems us the bad guys. God calls us to be salt and light, and part of that responsibility is preserving our culture and shedding light on sin. But we must do so in love, which is the first and overarching characteristic of the fruit. It’s one thing to hold our culture accountable; it’s another thing to do that in love and humility, with kindness and gentleness and a little self-control.

If this fruit of the Spirit, then, is needed so desperately, how do we produce it? How do we have this fruit in our lives? The simple answer is that we can’t produce it. The fruit of the Spirit isn’t something to put on our to-do list; it isn’t something we will ourselves into having. On our own, we are helpless to produce this fruit. But if we can’t produce it, who can?

It’s the fruit “of the Spirit.” Only the Holy Spirit operating in the life of a believer can produce this fruit. That’s why Paul, in Galatians 5, says we are to “walk by the Spirit” (5:13), be “led by the Spirit” (5:18), “live by the Spirit,” and “keep in step with the Spirit” (5:25). If we do this, the Holy Spirit will produce his fruit within us. People will look at us and see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our goal, then, is not to produce the fruit, but to keep in step with the Holy Spirit.

So how do we keep in step with the Holy Spirit? There’s only one way: by faith.

Look at what Paul says earlier in Galatians:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Paul reminds us that our old self, the person we used to be before we came to Christ, is dead and gone. That person was a slave to sin and had no choice but to sin. As believers, we are no longer slaves to sin. We can choose to sin, but we don’t have to sin. We are now free to allow Christ to live his life through us, which is the same as “walking by the Spirit” (see Galatians 4:6). 

And this is done by faith, “I live by faith in the Son of God.”  The Holy Spirit produces his fruit in us when we surrender in faith to him, day by day, hour by hour. He produces the fruit when we spend time with him in prayer and reading and meditating on the Bible, when we go to him with our struggles and our worries,  and when we trust him to love us and guide us. We trust him to keep every single one of his promises. We learn to stop trying to be what he wants us to be in our strength and instead learn to rest in his overwhelming love.

As we come to know God and his love more and more, we regularly ask the Holy Spirit to help us become all that he calls us to be, while admitting that we are helpless without him. We live each day trusting in his ability to live through us in his power. Then we simply start doing what we know is right and stop doing what we know is wrong.

As you rely on the Holy Spirit, as you walk in fellowship with the Spirit, as you continue to choose to obey the Spirit’s promptings and do what you know is right, he will live through you with all of his strength. This is “walking by the Spirit,” and this is when he will produce his fruit in you. 

I’ll never forget something that took place at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. In the semifinal of the 400-meter race, British runner Derek Redmond pulled up with a torn hamstring. Rather than give up and fall to the ground in defeat, Redmond hobbled down the track, trying desperately to reach the finish line and complete the race. Suddenly Redmond’s father, Jim, ran onto the track, grabbed hold of his sobbing son, and supported Derek to the finish line. You can watch a clip of it here. 

That’s a perfect picture of living life in the Holy Spirit. We can hobble along the best we can, but we are simply not capable of living the life God wants us to live. Our Father knows this, so he comes alongside us to hold us up and carry us. We keep our eyes on him, trust him, and allow him to take us on his shoulders. In his strength, he changes us and molds us and takes us where we need to go. 

I’m not saying here that the Christian is to sit around doing nothing while God does all the work. Derek Redmond’s father did not carry his son across that finish line in a wheelbarrow. Derek held on to his father, and he walked around that track in tremendous pain. 

It’s our job to surrender to our Father and his will and his strength. It’s our job to ask him, allow him, to change us. And as we walk with him and hold onto him, as we grow in our faith, and as we grow in constant reliance on the Holy Spirit, he will produce his fruit within us. 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

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