Bomberger, Phil: What Is Spirituality ? ~ Galatians 5;

We want to turn again to Galatians chapter five, The book of Galatians chapter five, and we want to deal with the subject again tonight, what is spirituality? Galatians five, and we begin our reading at verse sixteen. This I say then, walk in the spirit, and ye will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, unclean- uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, amulations, wrath, strifes, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another. Now may the Lord bless his word. Let us pray. Our Father, again we ask for thy special help as we would examine this great subject, what is spirituality? And we pray that in each of our lives we may behold growth and fruit, that which is genuinely of thee, for we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Last week, I didn't have the tape recorder on, and I forgot it somehow or other. Someone asked for a copy of the tape, and there wasn't any. I want to just review for a moment what we went over last week in the first part of this message. How do you identify a spiritual person? We're dealing with the subject of what is spirituality. And my second question is, are you a spiritual person? And if you say yes, what is it that makes you spiritual? Now, there are some facts that need to be covered in this area, and they're very basic. The goal of spiritual life is Christ-likeness, and that is what spirituality is in essence. And for a definition, I told you last week, a believer is spiritual when those qualities which were seen in Jesus Christ are being developed and exhibited in a person's individual life. Now, we use the term believer because it's only a believer that has life. A person who has never received Christ as Lord and Savior by a genuine act of faith does not possess spiritual life in the New Testament sense of the word and in the very reality of the word. You just don't have it. Now, there are many people who are trying to live the Christian life without a life, and it's a total impossibility. It ends in frustration. Now, when you try to incorporate, uh, biblical principles into a life that isn't there, you have some real difficulties. On the other hand, there is what is termed here in Galatians chapter five, the activity of the flesh, and a few things need to be summarized. In verse sixteen, uh, here in of Galatians, we're in the practical portion of the book, and he's telling us that we have been called to liberty. God has delivered us from bondage. He has brought us into the liberty of the gospel, but he says, don't use your liberty as an occasion to the flesh. And it's in this section that he tells us that there is a conflict that the believer faces day by day between the flesh, which is another name for the old natural nature that we received from our parents, and they received from their parents, and we go all the way back to Adam. It is a nature that is contrary to God. However, when we come to spirituality, on the other hand, the fruit of the Spirit, which we're going to deal with tonight, we notice in verse twenty two he lists these nine virtues of the Spirit as the fruit of the Spirit. Now, this is a very practical thing, for we're dealing with abstract terms. How do you know which you are? Controlled by the spirit or controlled by the flesh? You see, here's an area where self-deception can take over, and it's easily to be self-deceived. It's easy to deceive oneself. I've seen it done many times, and we have a tremendous capacity for doing that, and it doesn't matter who we are. Preachers can do that as easily as anyone else. You see, so what Paul does here is he lays down two yardsticks, and the two yardsticks are found, uh, beginning in verse nineteen through verse twenty one, the activity of the old natural man, that man who has never been born of God, that person who is still a stranger to God's divine grace, and he lists there the deeds of the flesh. In other words, the deeds of the flesh are those things which are the product of a life that is dominated by the flesh. You can, we don't need to define these things, but you can see they are sins of the flesh. They deal with sensuality, immorality, and things like this. And then you have a group that deals with things like divisiveness, disputings, and factions. These are what would, could be termed sins of the spirit. And they're always more dangerous than sins of the flesh. They're far more devilish than sins of the, of the flesh. You see, now if your life is dominated by the flesh, there are some of these areas that are going to be cropping up. But on the other hand, there is what is called by the Spirit of God here, the fruit of the Spirit. And these nine virtues are listed as the fruit of the Spirit. You'll notice it is not fruits of the Spirit, as you often hear. What we learn from this is this is a complete list. It's unlike the previous list. Paul goes through all those things that have to do with the works of the flesh, and then he adds in such like. But when he gives the nine virtues of the spirit, he doesn't do that, for this is a complete list, and what he's doing, he's telling us that this is the package. This is complete. So we come now to a discussion of the fruit of the Spirit. The emphasis here, when because he uses the singular, the fruit. I know fruit, just that way, can be plural as well as singular in the English language. I'm aware of that, but I'm using it, laying emphasis on the fact of the coherence of these virtues of the Holy Spirit in the believer. Paul is here teaching us something, and that the fruit of the Spirit is being produced in the life of the believer, and it is all of the fruit that is being produced. All nine virtues are being produced in the child of God, be- by virtue of the fact that the Holy Spirit of God dwells there. Now, it is wrong for us to think I have a, well, I read that list. I have a few of them, but some of those other ones I just don't have. Well, it's the fruit of the Spirit. It is the package, you see. What he is saying is that all of these virtues are present in your life. You may say, well, I have goodness and gentleness, but I don't have self-control. Well, if you have goodness and gentleness, you do also have self-control, and if you have love, you also have joy and peace. Now, as I examine my own life, it does seem that on a practical level, that this is exactly the case. I have one or two, and I don't have the other seven. I do seem to have some of the virtues, and not the others. And yet it's a package. Now, what does this mean? How can we explain this? It means that we have an, an analogous thing here, an analogy. A tree on, you take any given tree, an apple tree, you may have a multiplicity of pieces of fruit growing at the same time. And the maturity rate is different for each piece of fruit. When I see our apple tree loaded with apples, I'm happy that it all doesn't ripen at the same time. Aren't you glad? I tell you, it's hard enough, uh, for us to work, uh, uh, the fruit that it does give when it is in season. You see, the maturity rate is different for each piece of fruit. Now, that is true for us as believers as well. Now, we ought to be able to identify in our lives all nine virtues, especially as we compare our lives to the time before we were saved. Before I was saved, I had no Holy Spirit of God living within. There was no need. I cared nothing about God. But now that I'm saved, you see, the Spirit of God dwells within, and the Spirit of God makes known his presence. Now I can say, I really do lack patience. This is a real problem, you see. But would it be fair to say that in your life today, that you have more patience than you had before you were a believer, when you were still an unbeliever? This puts it on a practical level, where we can deal with ourselves, and we can evidence the Spirit of God's working in our lives. So you see, if you can say yes, boy, I remember my life before I was saved. I knew a little fellow up north, Russ Gingrich, and he was one of the most patient men I knew, and I said to him, Russ, you have a good patient disposition. He said, you should have known me at one time before God saved me. He said, I'd carry on in the silk mill where I worked. He said that the other people would get away from me. They never knew what I was going to do. Patience, the fruit of the spirit, beloved, it works. The Holy Spirit of God is a reality in the lives of those who know Jesus Christ in a personal way. Now, I don't have much patience, but I have a lot more than when I was first saved, or before I was saved, I didn't have any. You see, I'm just like that little green apple on the tree that's maturing so slowly, you see. Now, this analogy of a tree, we can see different stages of maturity. Now, there's certain things that cause an apple on a tree to mature. Its position in relation to the sun. An apple on a tree that's in the sun is going to mature much more rapidly than an apple that's shaded. The position on the branch, you see, and there, there are a lot of things that cause maturity, and one of the things that shapes the fruit much in the soil of, is the soil of personality. That soil of personality has a lot to do with the shaping of fruit. Each of us are different trees, as it were. We're different. No two of us are alike. Now, depending upon a person's temperament, especially there's certain virtues of the Holy Spirit will develop more rapidly than others. You see, see, here's a person who has a temperament that possesses a sensitive spirit. A person that normally, naturally has a sensitive spirit. Now that person, you see, kindness and goodness, they're going to develop very rapidly, but they might have some other problems. So that same person might have a problem with peace. While they're sensitive, they're a worrier, and they may lack peace, you see. While one part of the fruit is maturing rapidly, another part may not be. And you see, I've seen believers who have very sensitive spirits. They're filled with goodness and kindness, but they lack that peace that you wish they'd have. But that peace is maturing, you see. Now, when you and I should be able to look at our lives and say, yes, the Holy Spirit of God has matured in my life the virtue of self-control. But I have problems with joy, I become depressed easily. When things, uh, uh, circumstances of life can, uh, put me down real easily. You see, we have to look at this in a very practical way. And we find, yes, thank God there's maturity in the fruit in these nine virtues in our life. For you see, all nine virtues will be present in our lives because they're a package deal. It is the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, the apostle writes, is love, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, meekness, self-control. But there's some, there's a second thing we need to look at here. It is a fruit of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who produces this fruit. Believers who take this passage seriously, and we should, we begin to realize that they very often are aware that they're not mature in any of the nine virtues, and it's easy to get frustrated. Why am I not maturing as a child of God? Now, we have to realize the work is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the fruit of the Spirit. It's not by our own effort that we produce fruit. The fruit is the natural product of the Holy Spirit. You give a tree the right setting, cultivate it, and it will naturally produce fruit. I've never heard a tree grunt and groan trying to produce fruit, but I've heard Christians do it. I've heard Christians grunt, groan, and, uh, strain to produce fruit. Can you imagine me as a gardener? This might sound like a silly illustration, but I believe it nevertheless, uh, hits a point. I want to grow some corn. I want to grow some corn, and every day I go out in the cornfield, and I walk through the rows of corn, and I pick at the roots and say, come on, fella, keep at it. I want some corn, and I want it soon. And I try to kick at the roots and try to urge it on, produce some fruit. You know what's going to happen? I'm going to ruin the corn stalks. I'm not going to get any fruit at all. I can't produce corn. I'm not programmed to produce corn. You see, the work is the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, again, each of us ought to be able to look at our lives and say, yes, I am a person basically characterized by peace, and that is not pride when we say I have peace. It's a recognition that God is at work in my life. And what a wonderful thing it is to be able to look at your life and be able to say, thank God, God is at work in my life, and here's the evidence. Here's the evidence. And we can look at a tree that's bearing fruit, and we can say there's fruit, there is definite, definite life in that tree, and the evidence is in the fruit that is there. And I tell you, it's a joy to the child of God when the fruit of the Spirit is evident in the life. Now, in fruit bearing, beloved, well, the work is the work of the Spirit of God. There is also human responsibility along with divine working. There is human responsibility. I'm reminded of the man who stopped by a gardener's garden. I called it that in partic- a gardener's garden. It was so well done. And the fruit was in such, uh, and the vegetables were in such nice rows, and it was clear of weeds, and everything was growing well. And the man said, my God has really blessed your garden. He said, that's true. He said, but you should have seen it three years ago when God had it on his own. Did you get it? You see, if we're going to bear fruit for God, I can't produce corn. I can't produce corn, but I can participate in its cultivation. This is why the Spirit of God tells us here, walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. In the fruit of the Spirit, beloved, there are things we can do to cultivate that fruit, and that fruit needs to be cultivated. Well, first of all, just like a garden, a a beautiful garden is, has the weeds have been pulled up, and when it comes to the Christian life, it calls for a life that is free from sin, the weeds of sin. The weeds of sin. And then there's that area, the importance of the word of God in the life. Beloved, wherever you find the working of the Spirit of God, it is always in conjunction with the word of God. I have never met a fruitful Christian, a Christian in whose life there is evidence the fruit of the Spirit, who was not enjoying on a continual basis the word of God. They go together. Now I want to examine these nine virtues of the Spirit, which make this cluster, this one cluster called the fruit of the Spirit. And we want to examine them individually, and we want to look at them for what they are. As we look at these nine virtues of the Spirit, we need to think how they were manifested in the earthly life of our Lord Jesus when he was here. First of all, there is love, and a definition for love is seeking the highest good for the other person. That is biblical love. It is not an emotion. It is love of the mind. It is an act of the will. This is why it can be commanded. Husband, love your wife. And to us, love your enemies. Love your neighbor as yourself. Now, I'm not saying that love doesn't issue in an emotion, but biblical love is a genuine act of the will. And you can will not to love. And you can will to love. This is illustrated in First Corinthians thirteen. Let's turn to it. First Corinthians thirteen, that great chapter on love. This is why I say our definition is desiring the best for the other person. First Corinthians chapter thirteen, we begin at verse four, where we read, love suffereth long and is kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love, beloved, is seeking the highest good for the other person. So when we look at love as it's illustrated and as it's told what it is here in First Corinthians thirteen, we have to confess that none of us, by nature, has the capacity to love anybody. None of us has the capacity to love anyone, to seek the best for someone else. Why? Well, because we're incurably self-centered. We're incurably self-centered. You see, the scriptures are very clear on this subject. Now, we may do some good things, but usually in the doing of them, our motive is wrong. We have the wrong motive. You see, seeking the best for the other person is the work of the Holy Spirit. And you see, this is so important, and this heads the list. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Are you seeking the best for the other person? What has it cost you? See, love is a costly thing. God tells me, I want you to love your neighbor. God tells me, I want you to love your enemy. You see, the Lord never told- tells us to do something he didn't do. You see, the Bible says when we were enemies and alienated in our minds by wicked works, we were loved. He loved us. Now God says, I have placed in you, when you believe me, I have placed in you the Holy Spirit of God and the evidence of his indwelling in you. You now have the capacity to love the unlovely. You have. Now we can just kid ourselves, and we can sing hymns about love, we can sing little choruses about love, but here's the reality of it. Love suffereth long, and he's kind. Love envieth not. Love is not easily provoked. Love beareth all things. Let me just put it in another way. Do you love the other believers? Do you love other believers? Or do you only love the believers who conform to your pattern? A lot of times, you know, we read the Bible with colored glasses on. Uh, we love a certain group. But you see, I'm commanded as a husband to love my wife. I'm commanded as a believer to love my enemies. I'm commanded to love my neighbor, and I can't do it. But the Spirit of God can. He's the only one who can. The fruit of the Spirit is love. And you know, in the real sense of the word, I can't love my wife as I ought to, apart from the work of the Spirit of God. And God tells the older women in scripture, it didn't say old women, but older women, he tells them that they are to teach the younger women to love their husbands. You have that in Titus, chapter one. They're to teach them to do this. And you see, that is the message of the sp- the work of the Spirit of God producing that virtue, the virtue of love, which goes to make up part of this gift and fruit of the Spirit. Well, the second one is joy. Joy. What is joy? Joy is a deep settled happiness, a contentment that is not conditioned by circumstances. That's joy, a deep settled happiness, and circumstances don't affect it. A good illustration of this in the Peter's first epistle, in chapter one, he speaks of fullness of joy. These believers had fullness of joy, and that they, yet they were suffering s- intense, severe persecution. They were enduring the trying of their faith, the trial of their faith. But they had joy. Yes, they had fullness of joy. And it comes from contentment in the presence of God, you see, and that produces a deep, settled happiness. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy. But then third, there is peace. Peace is a tranquil heart, emotionally. Peace is tranquility of mind that is not affected by circumstances. That's peace. This is the peace that our Lord Jesus spoke of in John fourteen, the night he, before he went to the cross, his last night with his own disciples. In John fourteen verse twenty seven he said, My peace I leave with you. In other words, he had it. If he wouldn't have had it, he couldn't leave it. He says, My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. You can't give someone else what you don't possess. He had it. What is it? A tranquil heart, a tranquil mind, in the, uh, and it wasn't affected by circumstances. He was going to die the next day. He was going to be betrayed in a few, uh, minutes, in a few hours. He was going to be denied by his, one of his true blue disciples, Peter. But yet he had peace. Oh, beloved, this is ours to lay hold of, and the Spirit of God has come in order that he might develop in us this virtue. The Lord Jesus said, my peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You want peace? Well, first of all, you have to have the life. You can't have this unless you have the life, and you're not going to have this, these nine virtues, unless the Spirit of God is dwelling in you. You just don't have them. It, it comes, it's a complete package that comes with receiving Christ as Lord and Savior. And if we're saved, then we have the formula for peace. It's found in Philippians four. It says, be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. That's a formula, and someone has reduced it to three things. Number one, be anxious about nothing, be prayerful about everything, and be thankful for anything, and the peace of God will keep you. Love, joy, peace. Then we come to the word long suffering. Long suffering. This virtue is simply that of patience. Now, the idea in the Greek text is that of holding yourself back. Long suffering. Now, there are two words in the Greek for patience or suffering with adverse things. One has to do with patience or long suffering in relation to people. The other has to do with things. Now, adverse circumstances, to be patient in them is a lot easier than to be patient with an obnoxious person. You know. And it's much more difficult to be patient with people than it is with adverse circumstances or things. It's just like David, when, uh, God gave him a choice, uh, and David said, I can't choose. Let me fall into the hands of God, but don't let me fall into the hands of men. Long suffering, being held back, patience, the ability to hold oneself back, basically with an obnoxious person. And that brings us to kindness and goodness, for these are closely related. They have to do with attitude. Kindness with the attitude of going, doing good for others, and goodness looks more at the action of self, the self actually doing these things, kindness and goodness. Then there is faithfulness. Faithfulness. The idea is that of consistency. In other words, an even keel in the Christian life, not a roller coaster Christian. You ever, uh, ever meet a roller coaster Christian? You know, one day they're up, the next day they're down. And the higher they're up the one day, the further down they are the next. You see, they're either on a high or they're on a low. They never seem to be in between. You see, faithfulness, and faithfulness is produced by the word of God. Uh, I like Dr. Charles Ryrie's definition of faithfulness. He says faithliness is godliness in the grind of life. I like that. Godliness in the grind of life. You see, you can get people to be on a high, you can work them up to that, but it's where it's that person who is steady going when the circumstances are adverse or when the circumstances aren't adverse, that steady going, that one who plods on for God. Faithfulness. Meekness. Meekness is s- is strength under control. It means having strength before God and submission to God, and therefore strength before men. That's meekness. Moses was the meekest man of all men upon the face of the earth. So we read in the book of Numbers, chapter twelve. It is written this of him when his brother and sister turned against him and said some very nasty things about him and the woman that he married. And God smote his sister Miriam with leprosy. In other words, she probably was the ringleader in this activity. But Moses was meek. He had strength before God, and he had strength before men, and he was able to intercede on behalf of those who had gained faith against him. That's meekness. It's a genuine work of the spirit in the life. Then there's self-control. Self-control has to do with disciplined living. Sometimes we wonder, can we ever control various appetites and thoughts and other things? Well, Paul says in First Corinthians nine, I bring my body under, and I keep it in subjection. Lest at any time, after I have preached to others, I myself should be cast away or disapproved. In conclusion, I'd like to draw four things. First, the fruit of the Spirit is God's standard of spirituality. It's God's standard. It is God's standard. Now there's a danger. And what is the danger? We can set up artificial standards. Time and again, we set up our own artificial standards. And this is a lot the reason for a lot of Christians, many times, they carry around bad attitudes. A lot of times, Christians carry unforgiving spirits. They're not willing to forgive others. A lot of times, Christians are divisive, and yet they think that they're spiritual by what they do. And it's caused by artificial. Here's a standard. First Kalin- uh, Galatians five verses twenty two and twenty three. Here is a standard. Here is what the Spirit of God produces in the life. Now, the flesh can produce plenty. We read that too. But this is what is of God. This is what is of God. Now, any standard that you have, including Bible reading and prayer, can be performed without the Holy Spirit's enablement. And if it is, it becomes an artificial standard for determining spirituality. You may grit your teeth and say, I'm going to read the Bible through in six months. And doggedly you go at it and you accomplish it. But the Spirit of God may not be in it at all. It's an artificial standard. I don't ask other people to read the Bible the way I do, to read it through. Because sometimes it takes me two years to read it through, because I have a marking system I use, and I'm always re- and I read it through in a different translation each time. But I enjoy doing it my way. I don't tell other people, I don't set it up as a standard. I want it to be the work of the Spirit of God, not my work. Beloved, we can have artificial standards, but this fruit of the Spirit, there's nothing artificial about it. It's love. And when I get the first one, that if I can see love reproduced in my life, the genuine thing that's defined there in First Corinthians thirteen, only the Spirit of God can produce it. I can say thank God for that virtue. The second thing I want to leave you with is this. Bible reading and prayer are important aspects of the Christian life, but they do not, of and in themselves, become the standard for the determination of the fruit of the Spirit. You can read the Bible through and through and do it many times, and not be manifesting love or gentleness or even self-control. The third thing I want to leave you with is this. For your own benefit, define those nine virtues of the Holy Spirit. And then ask yourself the question, are any of these nine more predominant now than they were a year ago in my life? I think we have every right to do that, and I think we should. Are they more predominant now than they were a year ago? The fourth thing I want to leave with you is this: we can all recognize our deficiencies. Oh, it's easy to find out our deficiencies when I read this list and when I really define them.