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Love as a fruit of the Spirit is action-oriented and choice-driven, not a warm fuzzy feeling. Believers choose to treat our neighbors well because the Spirit has taught us some fundamental truths about who we are before God. Love as a fruit of the Spirit is active forgiveness, patience, compassion and seeking the welfare of another.
Key Points
- Fruit represents the thing that is eventually produced. When you plant an apple tree, eventually it grows apples.
- The items on this list result from the Spirit working in believers.
- Love (like all the other fruit of the Spirit) isn’t an emotion It is a perspective change brought about by the Spirit teaching us wisdom and truth that results in action and attitude.
- Love as a fruit of the Spirit is rooted in understanding our essential equality before God.
- Love as a fruit of the Spirit is becoming people willing to see our place under God, standing next to our neighbors, equal in dignity and equal in guilt and willing to act for the benefit of others in the way we would want them to act for our benefit. This is both our hope and the result of the work of the Spirit.
- Passages: 1Timothy 1:5; Leviticus 19:18; 1John 3:16-18; Luke 6:27-35.
- Greek Word: Strong’s G26
Next: 03 Fruit of the Spirit: Love Part 2
Previous: 01 Fruit of the Spirit: Introduction
Series: Fruit of the Spirit
Love as a Fruit of the Spirit Part 1
In this series, we are looking at the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23. My purpose in this series is to understand what these concepts are from a biblical perspective. That’s going to take us all over the Bible.
We probably have some vague idea what the items on the list mean. Maybe filled in by our own experience or psychology or philosophy. I want to explore what the Bible says about these topics, to recover what Paul had in mind when he wrote the list.
Last week, I summarized the book of Galatians and explained to the context in which we find this list. To review briefly, in the letter to the Galatians, Paul corrects the teaching of the Judaizers. They claim belief in Jesus Christ is not enough to be saved. They argue Gentiles must also keep the law, be circumcised and live like Jews.
Paul corrects that view. Most of the letter is a defense of justification by faith alone. In Galatians 5, which is the immediate context of the list, Paul explains 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 the threat of the penalties of the Law, we now have the teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit. This kind of obedience is a real moral transformation because it results from the work of the Spirit, changing us from the inside out.
That’s the context in which we find this list.
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. – Galatians 5:22-24
We’re going to spend the first two weeks on love because we find two different themes in Scripture.
Fruit defined
But before we get to that, let’s start with what Paul means by fruit. Fruit is the result, the thing that is produced. When you plant an apple tree, eventually it grows apples. The goal of planting an apple tree is to harvest the apples. The fruit is the desired result or the thing that is produced.
The Spirit works within us to produce the things on the list. When we see those things in our lives, we know the Spirit is at work, and we are being transformed.
The Fruit of the Spirit are not Feelings
The fruit of the Spirit are not feelings. You might think as the Spirit empowers us, we go through our day with these warm, comfortable feelings of love, peace, joy, and patience. 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.
I’m going to argue none of the fruit of the Spirit are not feelings. They are a perspective change. The Spirit produces these qualities in us by teaching us truth and giving us a more clear understanding of God and wisdom. As we learn more truth, our perspective on the world changes. The result of perspective changes will be the items on this list.
1Timothy 1:5
Let’s start by looking at love. We’re going to look at a variety of passages in Scripture that talk about love. The first one is 1Timothy 1:5.
Paul wrote this letter to one of his young disciples. This is near the beginning of the letter. Paul is urging Timothy to remain as the pastor of the church in Ephesus. Paul wants him to continue teaching truth to those who are spreading false doctrine. In that discussion, he says,
The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. – 1Timothy 1:5
Paul says love is the goal of his teaching. Now let’s think about that.
Paul wants Timothy to teach truth, and the goal of that teaching is love. That implies love is not a feeling that comes upon you when you first convert to Christianity and never disappears. Love results from learning the truth. Timothy is to remind them of the truth of the gospel. As they wrestle with life and embrace truth in that struggle, the result is love.
The resulting love comes from a sincere faith, a pure heart, and a good conscience. Now I will not go through a thorough Bible study on these phrases. Let me just summarize what I think they mean.
By a ‘sincere faith,’ he means genuine belief. Love results from authentic, saving faith. Love results from having a sincere, deep faith.
By a ‘pure heart,’ he means a heart that is not divided; a heart that is focused on the promises of God and turned away from idols. Love results from seeking God and no longer rebelling against Him.
By a ‘good conscience,’ he means an understanding of the truth and the belief that I follow that truth. Having a good conscience is knowing what God is calling me to do and having the conviction that I am doing it. I have a good conscience because I believe the gospel and I’m acting on that belief.
Timothy is teaching truth. The result of teaching that truth is love, which comes from a genuine belief and confidence that I am living out that belief. The Christian life is not always and forever filled with feelings of love, peace, joy, and patience. 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.
Love for Neighbor
The next question we want to ask is whether Paul is talking about our love for God or love for people. I think the emphasis is on loving your neighbor because of the context. The focus in Galatians 5 is on how they’re treating each other. Paul contrasts 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.
Of course, loving God is important. But in the context of Chapter 5, the question is how believers are treating each other. Paul’s focus is on loving our neighbors. Then in 1Timothy, we 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.
Leviticus 19:18
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor yourself. I am the Lord. – Leviticus 19:18
Leviticus gives us both the positive and the negative. We are told what not to do, and we are told what to do instead. 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. Internally, I refuse to let go of the harm that was done to me. I refuse to forgive. That is what we are not to do. In contrast, we are to ask, if the tables were reversed, how would I want my neighbor to treat me? Then I do that.
When we are the ones in the wrong, we want understanding forgiveness, patience, forbearance, and mercy. When our neighbor is the one in the wrong, those are the ways we ought to respond. We are to show them the same things we would want if the tables were turned.
Loving our neighbor is how we treat them. In contrast to taking vengeance and bearing a grudge, we are to love our neighbor. That is expressed by actions and choices. We choose to be patient, forgive and/or overlook someone else’s sins. We choose to act in a way that brings good to our neighbors rather than harm.
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 are not 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 are going to look at in the New Testament.
1John 3:16-18
16By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. – 1John 3:16-18
How do we know that Jesus loves 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. John admonishes us not to be all talk but to act. 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.
How do we love our neighbors? We follow our Lord’s example. We act for their benefit. We love each other by actively working for each other’s good.
Luke 6:27-31
27But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. – Luke 6:27-31
Jesus is not focused on an 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. We are not 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.
The verbs are in this section are very active: 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.
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. Even pagans with no concept of God or the Golden Rule treat others well as long as those others are treating them well.
But Jesus teaches us there’s something more. There is a kind of love that goes beyond that general understanding. That kind of love treats others well, even when those others treat us badly.
Luke 6:32-35
32If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34And 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. 35But 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. – Luke 6:35-35
Even those who are hostile to God and don’t care what the Bible says love those who love them back. That is a fairly easy human endeavor. But the love that marks you as a person in whom the Spirit of God is working goes beyond loving those who treat you well and ultimately loves even your enemies.
This kind of love that can love even our enemies is rooted in an understanding of our essential equality before God.
We love our neighbor as ourselves because we realize we are not the center of the universe. We all stand equally guilty before the same God. We need the same rescue and the same saving grace. Therefore, our needs are no more important than anyone else’s.
Modern Equality
The modern concept of equality has come to mean that I ought to have as much as everybody else has. The popular concept claims, because we are equal, it’s not fair that you have more money, opportunity, education, beauty, social status or whatever. Especially in America today, equality has come to mean we should take from those who have and give to those who don’t have.
In my good-for-nothing opinion, that’s a fancy bow wrapped around greed. That’s coveting what someone else has and finding 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 we’ll have the same opportunities in life. We do not. God does not treat us as cookie cutters who all receive equal treatments, trials, successes, and 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.
We are not to use those differences as an excuse to covet or take what someone else has. We are to be content with whatever path God has given us to walk. Equally important, we are not to use those differences as an excuse to avoid being generous, kind, compassionate or to help our neighbor who is in need.
The biblical concept of equality is not that all of us should have equal outcomes and equal opportunities, regardless.
Biblical Equality
The biblical concept is every one of us has been created in God’s image. Because we are the same before God, my needs are not more important than anyone else’s. When I am trying to figure out the right thing to do, I can go a long way toward the answer by asking myself how would I want to be treated if the roles reversed.
Loving my neighbor requires me to accept the truth that we are equally important as human beings. We are truly significant creations of God and God teaches us we are equal before him.
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. The selfishness can be really profoundly evil and lead to theft, murder, war and horrible atrocities. But it can also be the simple selfishness that leads to 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 get our way in any given situation.
Most of us are willing to be empathetic up to a point. Then our sinful self-interest kicks in. We start grabbing and insisting that we get what we want. 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. My natural tendency to put myself first is wrong.
The Self-centered Lie
When Paul says the fruit of the Spirit is love, primarily he has in mind this fact that believers learn that the self-centered view of life is a lie. To me, I’m what it’s all about. Every situation is about me and everything needs to be evaluated by what benefits me. Each and every one of us thinks like that until the Spirit of God teaches us that’s a lie.
Until God works in us, we are locked in the prison of our own self-centered experience. But when God gives us faith, He opens our eyes and calls us to see reality. One of the truths we must embrace God created us and we stand equal before Him.
Kids on the Playground
Imagine you are a little kid again. You’re at school playing on the playground. 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 are losers. They play silly games. They aren’t interested in the right toys. You’ve decided those other kids are not worth your time.
Then an older teenager gets a job at the school overseeing the after school playground program. 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 be your friend. And, he likes you. He treats you well. He treats you with interest and respect. 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 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. The other kids admire you because you are his friend and he is your friend.
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. If you’re going to hang out with him, you have to hang out with these other kids, too. 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.
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?
Living this Truth
When we become believers, our picture of the world is transformed in the same way. The gospel 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. Like the kids on the playground, we are part of the same tribe.
I can’t avoid 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. If I refuse to love you as I love myself, then I am refusing to live out a truth from God.
Self-righteousness is based on the lie I tell myself that I am better. Love as a fruit of the Spirit stems from this picture of equality under God. When we come to believe the gospel, we also learn we are equal sinners and we need the same grace.
Our sanctification involves accepting and living in light of that truth. My experience should be a mirror that helps me understand you and treat you well. I know what it’s like to be lonely, lost, or troubled. I know what it’s like to need a helping hand. I know what it’s like to need mercy, forgiveness and patience, so I should be able to understand that you need those things, too.
Freedom in Christ to Love our Neighbor
We have the freedom to love this way because of our relationship to God.
The person who does good for his enemies may look like a loser to the world, because others take advantage of him. But in reality, he’s winning. Because if you treat others as your Heavenly Father treats them, that marks you as a believer. Only those in whom the Spirit of God is at work show this kind of love. That means you are His and your reward in heaven will be beyond imagining.
In light of that inheritance, what difference does it make if you endure some scoffing and mocking now? So what if you’re out of money now? So what if no one noticed the good thing you did? As a child of God, you stand to inherit true life in the kingdom of heaven. That is the most valuable thing in the universe. You can afford to pay the short-term cost of loving your neighbor or your enemy because you have an eternal reward in heaven.
The Alternative to Self-righteousness
This kind of active self-sacrificing love is an alternative to self-righteousness. The Pharisees were self-righteous. They used the Law to judge themselves worthy and condemn everyone else. 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.
Our context in Galatians is the same idea. The Judaizers pride themselves on law-keeping as a means to win God’s favor. 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. 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 is sinned against us. Where we go wrong is the essential hypocrisy that views the sins of others as enormous, while thinking my own sins are at least understandable, if not downright excusable.
The Spirit 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 ‘my sins are understandable, but yours are inexcusable.’ Then the Spirit exposes the truth to us.
Love is one of those arenas in which we work out our faith with fear and trembling. Whenever a relationship stops giving and starts costing us something, we are tested. Will we live out this truth or not?
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. 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.
Summary
To summarize, love as a fruit of the Spirit 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. 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. 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. 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.
Copyright © 2024 · Krisan Marotta, WednesdayintheWord
Photo by Bill Williams on Unsplash
Season 24, episode 02