Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Hello, and welcome to the unveiling with your hosts. AJ, mark, and Tim three guys discussing the one true gospel. We hope you enjoy today's discussion. Let's dive right in.
Speaker 1 00:00:23 Hello and welcome to the unveiling with your hosts. Mark, AJ and Tim. This is episode 28 and we're titling this one, the fruit of the spirit. So obviously we are dipping into the new Testament integrations chapter five, verse 22 and 23 would say, but the fruit of the spirit is love. Joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such. There is no law. Now. I don't know, mark. I don't think we wanna dive in and just, uh, dissect each one of those. But I think we wanna start at, at least start by talking about the nature of the fruit of the spirit.
Speaker 2 00:01:06 Sure. Well, I think one point that that came out of our spirit series, um, was just the, for me, it was an awesome revelation that when, when Jesus said, as he was telling his disciples that after he was, he left them, he wouldn't leave them as orphans, but he would send the counselor, the advocate, the holy spirit. He says, I will not leave you as an orphan. I will come to you that the spirit is Christ in us. And as I look at the different, uh, fruit of the spirit here, that's listed, I'm gonna read mine since I've got the, an IV translation. And it just gives a few different words. That mean the same thing, but it says the fruit of the spirit is love joy, peace forbearance, which is basically bearing withy, not each other, being gracious to each other, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control, which is the same as temper temperance.
Speaker 2 00:02:09 Uh, one of the things that jumped out at me, none of these things are about doing. We tend to think of looking at a Christian's life for fruit as how many good deeds they have. You know, it's like a, a litmus test. You told the story in past episodes, Tim, how a couple came in to visit your church and said to you that they were fruit inspectors, they were gonna judge you by the way, you guys were, you know, acting and treating each other and what the church was doing. You know, I can't even know what their personal list was, but this is saying that it's not about what we do, but about who we are and who we are becoming in the spirit and who God's already made us to some extent. And, and if you look at these different words, love who is the most loving person that ever lived, joy who gave his very life for the joy set, perform peace, who was the prince of peace for Baron's grace, who was, who is the personification of grace as you go through these goodness faithfulness, these are all describing Christ.
Speaker 2 00:03:22 When I look at them, he is the superlative of each one of them. And so to me, that was kind of eye opening to see that. And then the other thing, as I, as I kind of chewed on this was one of the dangers that looking at it too closely is that we would try to grade ourself just like our good old fruit inspectors at your old church. We can try to inspect our own fruit and grade ourselves, but how do we do that? That's very subjective. And can we, could we even do that in an unbiased fashion if we wanted to? Um, so to me, that's one of the dangers, but we obviously all want more of this fruit of the spirit. So I think I'm sure our conversation will definitely gravitate toward how is it? We have more of the fruits of the spirit and in our life. And that I will hand it over to my esteemed colleague, AJ, sorry, Tim, you cannot it's. He wants give it to you.
Speaker 1 00:04:25 I'm gonna, I'm gonna interject here, AJ, and then it's to you. Good Tim. So the problem I see with these, especially in the case of like my fruit inspectors is these aren't actions. These are not actions. These are state of being, you be, you you've, you know, you're loving your Ken gentle. You're kind, you're full of joy. You're full of peace. These aren't measurable by exterior means cuz these are all innate, uh, states of mind, more or less Saja.
Speaker 3 00:05:01 Yeah. In fact, uh, Tim and mark and I was go, it's uh, such a great point. You are making that these are not actions, you know, to further back up what you said with scripture, the first fruit is, uh, that is mentioned here is love. And then if we double click into love in quarantine chapter 13, again, we see that, you know, it's not so much about doing our actions, but it's about being and what is the nature of love, right? Love suffers long. And it is kind, it does not, Vy does not per itself is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own so on and so forth. Right? So again, I think people who are saying, you know, we are going to be, um, fruit inspectors. They totally got it wrong because how can you measure these things? In fact, clearly in the same chapter, if you go further up a little bit, it says though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge.
Speaker 3 00:06:05 And though I have all faith so could so that I could remove mountains, but I have not allow I'm nothing. And though I Beto all my goods to feed the poor. And though I give my body to be burned, but I have not allow it profits me nothing. So you could see somebody who is actually giving his body to be burned, right? Giving away all his money to the poor judging from outside, you know, you could say, okay, this guy is a quintessential example of love, but Bible clearly says, you know, you could do all those things, but still you could do it without love. So that clearly says, you know, love is not about, uh, actions. It's about the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. And in fact, uh, Bible says, God is love, right? So love is about the nature of God.
Speaker 2 00:06:57 Um, I wanna share a scripture here that I think, and, and here's the thing. AJ made a great point in, in Tim and, and me too, if I do say so myself is that it's not about what we do. The fruit of the spirit is about who we are in Christ. And, and two, this, the scripture I wanna bring, um, mentions too directly that are in that list of fruit of the spirit. But I don't think anyone's gonna argue that hope is also a fruit of the spirit. But listen to this. This is the apostle Paul speaking about, about the Thesalonians. He says re we remember before our God and father your work produced by faith, fruit of the spirit, your labor prompted by love fruit of the spirit, your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord, Jesus Christ. So to me, I love this because it's the proper order for anything we do, you know, we don't, we don't labor so that we're loving, loving.
Speaker 2 00:08:04 We don't endure endure, endure. So we have hope and we don't work, work worse. So it works. So our faith is stronger. So when I look at these fruits of the spirit, even though they themselves are not deeds or works or doing, but who we are, who we are in Christ produces, it grows fruit on us. And, and that's what I really like about the order here. But so many of us, you know, so many Christians, the three of us did it for years, as well as we've testified too many times, we get the order wrong. You know, we, we put the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse. And, and when I think of it that way, it's almost like an apple tree. It's like the Apple's trying to grow the tree instead of vice versa. And I've shared this, uh, this one of my favorite analogies of the apple tree that I shared.
Speaker 2 00:09:00 But I think in this conversation, it bears repeating and that is apple trees are apple trees. They are created to grow fruit. They don't work to grow fruit. They don't gather weekly with a whole big building full of other apple trees and an expert, apple tree, guilting them, cheering them on, teaching them how to grow fruit. They don't have little five, six men, small groups of apple trees. <laugh> going through curriculum, how to grow fruit now, what do they do? They plant their roots into the good soil. They drink in the living water. They turn their leaves to the sun and what happens effortlessly, beautiful fruit is produced and obviously the good soil, the living water and the sun, our Jesus himself, and his spirit.
Speaker 1 00:09:56 The, the idea of a whole bunch of apple trees in a convention center makes me laugh. We all know they're on zoom during these, this period
Speaker 2 00:10:03 Of <laugh>. Well, nowadays. Yeah. Be, and they're all wearing masks as well, but <laugh>, I digress <laugh> but
Speaker 1 00:10:10 Let's just dive into love for a moment. Uh, I know I said, you know, we, we're not necessarily going through these one by one, but just as an example of what you're trying, what you're saying, the word for love in the Greek in this instance is agape. And the definition of that is a divine love, an ardent tender self-sacrificial devotion to the wellbeing of others. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I do not have I do not of myself have divine love in me. There are people in this world. Believe it or not that I probably wouldn't love on my own. But so if that, if I have love agape love, it's not coming from me. It's coming from the spirit out of me. That's nature. That's not me working at it. I, if I had to work at love in people, I'd be terrible at it.
Speaker 2 00:11:03 You know? And you know, the funny thing is you can tell when somebody is working at trying to love, you ever notice that you get a sense of a radar, that these people aren't sincere, but they're doing it because they believe this is the right thing to do. And it's serving God. So I don't mean to be too critical, but I've just visited. You know, let's just say Christian, no, I've visited churches where people are coming up to you being really friendly. And I'm not trying, I don't mean to be, but you can just tell, first of all, these aren't extroverts, but they're doing it out of a sense of duty and that almost negates that's against the definition of love. You know, if it's duty or you're doing it because you're trying to serve God or gain greater blessing from him. And it's just, everybody can tell when it's not ringing true. But then there are other souls that are filled with the fruit of the spirit of divine love. And that just reaches to your very core.
Speaker 3 00:12:11 Yeah. Billy mark, I think you were sent to this, to the church as a fruit inspector, right? <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:12:17 You better believe it, bill
Speaker 3 00:12:19 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:12:21 So love is a wonderful thing and comes springing out of us from our dwelling of the spirit in Jesus Christ, but all this fruit is that, how does it all get produced? What do we have to do to get that produced out of us? Hij what do you do? What do you have to do to get it to spring fourth?
Speaker 3 00:12:40 Yeah. Yeah. Tim, you know, uh, before we get there, you know, I just wanted to quickly touch on the, um, contrast of the fruit of the spirit, just for, uh, more clarity on, you know, what is not the fruit of the spirit in case somebody is confused. Of course it's obvious, but I think it might be good to just, uh, uh, read through that as well. In Galatian chapter five and verse 19, it says now the works of the flesh are evident. Again, it's kind of interesting. You know, the contrast is when we are talking about the fruit of the SP spirit, it doesn't say it's the works of the spirit. It says the fruit of the spirit, but when it comes to flesh, it specifically uses the works of the flesh. So again, a good contrast here, but, um, the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, reformation, unclearness rudeness, Sary hatred, contentness jealousies outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions.
Speaker 3 00:13:40 Dissensions Hees envy, modern drunkenness revelries and the like, so it is clear, right? Again, you know, we talked about it several times when we say, you know, we are not under the law, but under grace, we don't mean that, you know, you go and, uh, do all these things, right. That's not what we are saying, but for, uh, clarity, you know, the contrast is pretty clear between the fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh. So back to your question, Tim, uh, how do we bear the fruit of the spirit? Right? So one was that struck me is, uh, it does not necessarily say the fruit of the spirit, but it uses the word fruit of righteousness in Philippian chapter one was 11. It says being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
Speaker 3 00:14:30 So clearly it says that fruit is not by us, but it is by our Lord, Jesus Christed. And again, going back to the, um, Galatian chapter 15, if you, uh, look at the scripture in context, it starts from verse 16. Paul says, you know, I say, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the loss of the flesh for the flesh loss against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish, but if you're led by the spirit, you are not under the law. So again, I think here we have a clue, right? It says, if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law. In other words, if you, uh, reverse it, right, if you are under the law, you cannot be led by the spirit.
Speaker 3 00:15:20 So the first and foremost thing to bear, the fruit of the spirit is you come out of the law. We talked about it several times and you first come from the land of the law, into land of grace, right? That is a first thing. And the second thing is we bear the fruit of the spirit, not by ourselves, but by Jesus Christ. And, uh, we also see in, uh, again, it, uh, aligns very well with what the Lord Jesus said in, uh, uh, John chapter 15. I am the true wine and my father is a wine dresser. Right? Then he goes on to say, in verse chapter in, uh, verse four, abide it in me and I in you as a branch, cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the wine. Neither can you, unless you abide in me, I'm the wine, you're the branches.
Speaker 3 00:16:13 He who abides in me and I, and M bears much fruit for, without me, you can do nothing. And then he goes on to say, in verse nine, as a father allowed me, I have also loved you, abide in my love. And then he goes on to say, if, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire. And I sh it shall be done for you by this. My father is glorified that you bear much fruit. So here again, the context is bearing fruit and how we bear fruit is simply abiding in Christ and abiding in his love.
Speaker 2 00:16:50 And AJ, that just sets up so perfectly the point I wanted to make to kind of address, I believe it was Tim's question. So how do we get these, the fruit of the spirit in our life? How do we get it in greater amount? And, and just how you just mentioned Christ himself said, abide in me, remain in me is in my translation. And, uh, one, you know, as I talked earlier about these different fruit, fruit of the spirit, love gentleness, forbearance, all those being the character of Christ, really it's Christ being formed in us. And we've talked quite a bit about that Christian life. And you mentioned about the first thing is you've gotta come out from under the land of the old covenant law and works and religion into the land of grace. Well, as always second Corinthians chapter three, mentions just that by first saying in, in, uh, verse 18, the apostle Paul summarizes being filled with the fruit of the spirit by saying, and we all who with unveiled faces, that's coming out from the land of a law, cuz he calls the law and that works mentality of veil.
Speaker 2 00:18:13 So when we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, contemplate is remaining in it's abiding in it's gazing at him, looking at him. And these are not works. Believe me. People have tried hard to make even just basic faith. That is a gift, a work, but it is not a work just to set the gaze of your soul, to consider Christ, to contemplate him. And when that happens, what does it say? It says so, and we all who with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with whatever increasing glory, which is from the Lord who is the spirit, there's the spirit again. So it's the Spirit's job. As we unveil ourselves from the law and contemplate Christ, it's his job to form his fruit in us and, and that's not a work. And then there's another scripture. I don't remember the, the address right now, but it's where it says, um, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, uh,
Speaker 3 00:19:28 Roman chapter 12.
Speaker 2 00:19:29 Yeah. 12. Okay. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but by the renewing of your mind, be transformed. There's another exec, renewing your mind. How do we renew our minds by looking at Christ, by looking in scripture at Christ, by through worship at Christ or just by simply going for a walk and thinking about Jesus and talking to him, these aren't works. They're just communing with God himself. And as we do that, the spirit transforms us and fills us with his spirit and, and his fruit. That's the only way to do it. You can't manufacture it no matter how hard you try
Speaker 1 00:20:13 AJ, I wanna go back to the verse. You read where you, uh, said that the fruit of righteousness is equitable to the fruit of the spirit with one small caveat. The, if you call it the fruit of righteousness, you can't produce that fruit unless you are righteous. So mark, I'm stealing a point you mentioned earlier, and that is you have to be righteous to produce fruit. We aren't righteous. We can't be righteous. So when we get our salvation, we are made righteous. And as a result of that, we are able to produce fruit. Mark, did you wanna expound on that?
Speaker 2 00:20:52 Well, I was reminded of Johnny Carson who would've said wrong Pharisee breath. I dunno if you remember that. I'm I'm, I'm dating myself here. We are righteous. In fact, we are the perfect righteousness of God because God made him who had no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. Are you? I think you're probably talking about in and of ourselves, correct.
Speaker 1 00:21:16 Well, I'm talking about the, the moment of salvation. We are made righteous. We don't work into our righteousness. We don't, we cannot of ourselves produce righteousness. Absolutely. But the holy holy spirit comes in and makes us righteous in that instant. And then we can bear fruit of that and it, you know, call it a timing issue if you will. Uh, we have to be righteous to produce fruit. So we aren't working towards our righteous. It's a, it's a proof text for grace. Sure. We are given grace immediately, fully righteous, no longer under the law, no longer having to go do works to prove and earn. So, you know, I think that's just, it might be a minor point, but to me it is like mind expanding.
Speaker 3 00:21:59 No, that is great. Um, yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 2 00:22:03 Uh, AJ, can you do me a favor and read that scripture again that mentioned the fruit of righteousness?
Speaker 3 00:22:09 Yeah, its sense in, uh, Philippians chapter one, verse 11, being filled with fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
Speaker 2 00:22:20 So it's fruits, plural of righteousness or fruit of righteousness,
Speaker 3 00:22:25 Fruits of righteousness.
Speaker 2 00:22:26 OK. So then that would tend to mean that the fact that we're righteous in itself produces fruit as opposed to if it was singular, it would mean that the righteousness itself was a fruit.
Speaker 3 00:22:42 Yeah. This is a result of being righteous. So righteousness is, um, nothing but the nature of Christ in us, right? So it's another way of saying Christ bearing is fruit in and his manifesting his character in nature in and through us.
Speaker 2 00:22:57 Now this is funny. Let me read you my NIV. Uh, it says, and this is my prayer. This is, uh, the house Paul again, writing to the Philippians chapter one, verse nine. And he says, and this is my prayer that your love, which is a fruit of the spirit may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
Speaker 3 00:23:35 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:23:35 So I think this really ties in well with the list and Galatians of the fruit of the spirit.
Speaker 3 00:23:42 Yeah, yeah. Again, I think the key point is, you know, the fruit is by Jesus Christ. Not by ourselves, we don't try to produce it. We basically rest in him. So back to the point of, you know, righteousness producing the fruit, Romans chapter five 17, it says the same thing in a different way. Uh, Romans five 17 for it by one man's offense, death reigned through the one, much more. Those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christed again, you know, those who receive the gift of righteousness, right? Not those who work out their own righteousness. As we are made righteous, we will reign in life and not by ourselves, but through Jesus Christ. And if we are reigning in life, of course we are bearing the fruit, right? It's the same thing.
Speaker 3 00:24:31 The Christ life manifesting in us. I want to make one other point. You know, uh, we said we bear fruit by abiding in Christ. And mark mentioned in abiding is simply looking at the Lord, Jesus Christ and understanding and contemplating is glory. So another, uh, abiding also means resting in the finished work, right? The work is finished. There's nothing for us to do. What does a branch do? The branch doesn't really, uh, work, right? It's simply remaining. The remain also means resting, resting in the Lord, Jesus Christ and resting in the finish work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in fact, in Roman, sorry, in Hebrew chapter four in, uh, was, uh, tenses. He who has entered his rested has himself also seized from his works as God did from his. So when we enter the rest of our largest Christ, right, we do not work anymore.
Speaker 3 00:25:31 We don't work for our righteousness. We don't try to produce anything, but we simply rest in the finish work of our Lord, Jesus Christ. So here it clearly says, you know, we enter into God's rest, God finished the creation. And then he rested it on the seventh day. And Lord Jesus Christ finished the work of redemption and is now seated at the right hand of God. And now we are seated in him and we are resting in him when abiding in Christ also means we are simply resting in the finished work of Lord Jesus Christ. And then his life flowing through us will produce a fruit.
Speaker 2 00:26:09 Yeah, I've got, I found that scripture and it goes so perfectly with what you just said. And it is Philippians two 12, Paul instructs, the Philippians continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Now this is one that's been so misused in teaching to get people to work. And PA AJ, you just made a very clear point. You don't work for it. It's the spirit in us. But listen, and I don't know how people have gotten this wrong because it says, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fill his, fulfill his good purpose. So right there, it's saying how anybody could, uh, understand that as meaning to work for, to work harder for your salvation. This is working out of your salvation. It's working out of your declaration of, of, um, righteousness. It's working out of the fact that God has given you his spirit as a deposit and a seal of ownership. I just, I just, it just clears it up. So clearly there. And it's obviously that scripture taken out of context. If you take the one line, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, they have, uh, defined it as continue to work for your salvation, with fear and trembling, where this is obvious, it's God working in you. And you're whatever you do is out of your relationship.
Speaker 3 00:27:47 Yeah. In fact, the same verse also says it, God working in you both to will and to do right. He gives both the willingness and performance. It's not our, uh, stirring ourself up and trying to come up to do something. But as we are resting, God is working in us, both the willingness and also performance of it.
Speaker 2 00:28:11 Yeah. And I love this. And he says, if you, when you, when this is true in you, it says, then you will shine among them like stars in the sky. As you hold firmly to the word of life. He's not saying you're gonna shine as you work hard. He's saying, as you hold to the gospel, the word of life, as you hold onto the fact that we are saved by grace, through faith in Christ alone, that's what, that's, what brings all change into our life. And whatever fruit comes out of it is just holding onto Christ, reflecting on him, considering him contemplating him and moving ale, like how you put it, AJ leaving the land of the law and entering the land of grace,
Speaker 1 00:29:01 Not to beat a dead horse. But if we have to work for our salvation, we are not gonna know when we're saved. Because, because we, it's a, it's a goal that we never seem to be able to achieve. So if God gives us our salvation, then we're cleansed forgiven. We, we, we have a place now where the spirit can dwell, you know, blemish free spotless, sinless, and then we can bear fruit. But without all those things, I in place, no fruit.
Speaker 2 00:29:33 And you just don't know when you have enough, as you're pointed out. If we only had some type of story or illustration that involves the Russian Orthodox church, I think it would really help us. Tim, do you, by any chance have anything like that, that you could share? It's a perfect example. Like
Speaker 1 00:29:54 I said, I don't wanna beat any dead horses
Speaker 2 00:29:55 Here, beat it, man. Beat it.
Speaker 1 00:29:58 But there is a, I think I've said this on the show before there is, uh, in the Kremlin in Moscow, there is, uh, while there's several churches and we were in the cathedral and one of them and the back wall was a painting of God, holding a scale and putting people on that scale to measure their good deeds against their bad deeds, to see if they were good people or bad people. And I asked my, you know, my translator friend and who was also a Cantor in the Russian Orthodox church, how do you know when you've done enough? He goes, well, that's the whole point. You never know when you've done enough. So you gotta just keep doing it and doing it, doing
Speaker 2 00:30:37 It. What a nasty, vicious circle that is. Yeah. Cause no matter how hard you work, you don't know if you've worked hard enough or you're doing it well enough, which makes you work harder, which still makes you not know. It's just like a never ending cycle of works and condemnation and having no assurance in life. No freedom in that at all.
Speaker 1 00:30:59 I'm exhausted. Just listening to that.
Speaker 2 00:31:02 <laugh> yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 00:31:04 In, in addition to that, you can never finish a finish work. Right? It's the work is finished and we are already in Christ and we can never enter a room that we are already in. So what they're trying to do is finish a finish work, which is an I impossibility. Yeah. Either you rest in the finish work or you basically say I'm going to do it on my own. Both are not possible.
Speaker 2 00:31:29 And the, that the fruit of that, not even fruit, the works of that, um, just play out in so many bad ways. It's just a whole different lifestyle, a whole different paradigm when you're under the law. I'm, I'm part of this discussion thing on Facebook. And these people are so sidetracked with works and discussions about everything but Christ himself. And today there was a big debate going on about what day the Sabbath needs to be on. Is it Saturday? Some are arguing, no it's Sunday. Some are saying, well, the original Jews had it on Saturday. They're going back and forth with all this stuff. Christ has never mentioned. And I said, I just re I just kind of chimed in and said, you know what? The Sabbath, first of all was the old covenant law. And it was for Israel. And I said, um, we now as believers, we rest in Christ.
Speaker 2 00:32:31 We don't rest in the law in, you know, having this day of rest. That has to be on a certain day and you can't do this on that day. We rest in Christ and there's freedom in that. And even Jesus himself answered the Pharisees. You know what? The Sabbath man was not created for the Sabbath, which is a part of the law. Mankind was not, was not created to follow a set of rules. Those rules were made for mankind. First of all, we know that the main reason the law was given was to bring us to Christ, but the rules themselves are good. And this is something we've tried to be clear on as we've gone throughout this podcast is we, we are never ever saying the law itself. Isn't good. Thou sch not murder. Who's gonna argue that that's not a great law. Thou sch not commit adultery, thou sch not lie. These are all good things. But when we make them rules and systems and mindsets of gaining God's salvation, acceptance, or even greater blessing, that's when they just become this GE wheel that basically takes you nowhere. It's a burden of slavery as Paul used to call it.
Speaker 3 00:33:50 Yeah. I would like to touch on a couple of points about, uh, again, you know how to bear the fruit again, we are not talking about works, but how do we bear? Right. So just to bring us home, uh, in John chapter, uh, 15, again, the Lord said abide in my love, right? So in order to abide in your love again, we need the power of the holy spirit. So I want to just read, uh, couple of scriptures from efficient chapter three, towards the end of the chapter. It says, this is actually Paul's prayer. For this reason, I bow my niece to the father of our largest Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named that he would grant you according to richest office glory, to be strengthened with might through his PA spirit in the inner man. That Christ meant well in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is a width and the length and the depth and the height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that you may be filled with the full of God.
Speaker 3 00:35:01 So here we see, right, you know, can you be filled with the fullness of God and not be filled with the spirit of God? And can you be filled with the spirit of God and not bear the fruit of the spirit? Right? So here, the order of things is, as you know, the love of Christ, you will be filled with the full of God of God. And as you're filled with the fullness of God, you will bear the fruit of the spirit. So again, I think here, going back to what the Lord Jesus said, abide in my love, right? As we understand, and as we grow in the knowledge of the love of Christ for us, the byproduct is, you know, we bear the fruit of the spirit. So I want to finally, you know, bring us back full circle. I know we talked about it several times.
Speaker 3 00:35:48 Galatians chapter three in starting from was three. I think it, uh, will be good to read all of it. So all of it in the sense philosophy versus, oh, foolish Galatians who has Bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified. This only, I want to learn from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish having be in the spirit? Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain, therefore he who supplies the spirit into you and works miracles among you does Z by the works of the law or by hearing of faith, just as Abbra believed God. And it was accounted for him for righteousness.
Speaker 3 00:36:41 So again, here, clearly we see that, you know, he who supplies the spirit and works miracles among you, does it by the works of the law or hearing of faith. And clearly it is by the hearing of faith. So again, you know, like we always say, right, you know, our salvation is by grace through faith. And our righteousness is by grace through faith. And our scientification is by grace through faith. And similarly bearing the is also by grace through faith, just as we have begun in Christ Jesus, right? Just as you received Christ Jesus. So walking in him, how did we receive him by faith? How do we walk in him by faith? How do we bear fruit? It is by faith. So simply by hearing of faith, simply by accepting our gift of righteousness and accepting who we are made in Christ Jesus and just rushing in the finished work of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We bear the fruit of the spirit.
Speaker 2 00:37:43 And I like to follow with my concluding statement. I can't think we're getting pretty near time. Aren't we Tim? Hey, I think this is the first time I've ever cautioned us on time. <laugh> but uh, I wanna kind of close up, um, by saying that the holy spirit is Christ in us. And so the fruit of the spirit is also Christ in us. It's his character, his qualities that have been deposited us in the spirit. And as we abide in him and remain in him, he is formed in us. His quality and character is formed in us as, uh, Paul Paul said in second Corinthians three, we are transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which is from the Lord who is, who is the spirit mm-hmm <affirmative>. So all we do is abide in him, contemplate him, leave the land of the law and works and enter the land of grace and, and into the freedom we have in Christ, resting in him.
Speaker 2 00:38:47 And he will do the rest with ever increasing glory. So as we do those things, and we look at our love, our joy, our peace, our forbearance, which is really his love, his joy, his peace, his forbearance, we will see those things over my li our lifetime increasing. And, and the only thing we can really do to short circuit that is to get in the way is us trying to take that job on our own, because we can't do it. It's not something that can be achieved by human power, by human goodness, by human trying, or even being guilted or encouraged or taught by some pastor somewhere it's turning to Jesus.
Speaker 3 00:39:32 Yeah. Mark. I just wanna clarify one thing, you know, you said all we need to do is abide in him. Then if someone asks, how do I abide? Right? So again, there's a tendency to go back to works, but the way we abide is by grace through faith. It's as simple as it.
Speaker 1 00:39:50 Well, in a sh in a show, first in episode 28, I'm writing this on my calendar. You guys gave your wrapping and closing statements without being prompted. And me having interrupted call time. This has been a good discussion tonight guys. And I hope that any, those of you who are listening have gotten something out of this. We'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email with any questions, comments we'd love to, to reply or get back to you on anything,
Speaker 2 00:40:18 Tim, excuse me, excuse me. But on behalf of me and AJ, that was just a demonstration of the fruit of self control. So keep that in mind. We can't take credit.
Speaker 1 00:40:30 Well, I it's either that or you guys want to get to the Miami heat game.
Speaker 2 00:40:34 Uh, that might be it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:40:37 That's it for us tonight. Everybody. Thanks for listening. And we look forward to talking to you the next time we would like to thank you for listening to the unveiling. We hope you have enjoyed it enough to consider subscribing and sharing with others. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback. You can reach us via email@theunveiledgospelatyahoo.com or find our Facebook page at the unveiling podcast for IJ, mark and myself. God bless. And we will talk with you next time.
