Fruits of the Spirit

Transcript

Good evening everyone. The subject that we're going to look at this evening is something that I originally prepared a class on as part of a series that we were doing on the fruit of the spirit, and I was looking at peace as one of those very important characteristics that we should be it's one of those important parts that make up the fruit of the spirit that's described by Paul in chapter five of his letter to the Galatians, and although it was originally part of a series and we would have many other more interesting speakers and other parts of the fruit to look forward to, you're just getting me and peace on this occasion, but it's a part of the that it's worth digging into on its own. I think that's why I decided to look at it together this evening. I think peace, although a very important word, principle, idea, hope throughout all of scripture and something that's talked a lot about in studies and excitations, I think peace as a part of the fruit of the spirit as a thing that we need to show is maybe one of the less considered parts of the fruit of the spirit. We hear a lot about love, patience, self-control, faithfulness, all good things, all very important things, but maybe not so much on peace, and for that reason I personally found this very useful to think about and dig a little bit more into. So we're going to get to the chapter in question in a moment, that's Galatians chapter five, but before that I want us to do a quick shallow dive into the use of peace throughout the Bible. First of all, peace is a very common word in English and most languages. It can mean lots of different things to different people. We might say to ourselves, I need some peace and quiet. Any parents might have shouted, for goodness sake, can you just give us some peace? The younger ones amongst us might have been familiar with the phrase on the streets, peace out, homie. It's something that kind of is very common in our day-to-day language. People can talk about peace treaties as well, times of peace. It's often a hot topic in politics as well and in the media, and maybe more so in recent months with the current US president and those around him stating their intent to achieve peace through strength, that being one of their campaign slogans and something they say fairly regularly, or more recently declaring very confidently that there is now peace in the Middle East. We hear this word a lot and generally speaking it just means freedom from disturbance or tranquility or the absence of war. In the Bible, the word peace can refer to the presence of something better in its place, instead of conflict or distress, rather a state of well-being or completeness. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for peace is shalom. We're not going to go too deep into the different related words. The three in blue are the kind of main forms of that that are going to crop up in the examples that we're going to look at. The root of those words is below in blue as well. That's what it looks like in Hebrew. Then in the New Testament, we get onto a Greek word, a Greek form of the word peace, which is irene, and that's in the pinky-purpley colour on that slide there. The most basic meaning of shalom is complete or whole. Apologies in advance. First of all, I'm not a Greek or Hebrew scholar, so anyone who is, please correct me where I go wrong. Second of all, we're going to fly through a lot of verses now. We're going to fly through different bits of scripture, but I've put everything on the slides so hopefully we don't need to do too much flicking around. The word shalom could be used to describe a stone that has a perfect whole shape with no cracks. In Deuteronomy 27, we see there an instruction to build an altar to the Lord your God of uncut stones. That word uncut is a form of shalom. It could refer to a completed stone wall as well that has no gaps, no missing bricks. One example that the wall they were building was finished, and that word finished is a form of shalom. It could also, it kind of refers to these kind of complex things with lots of pieces, and when that's in a state of completeness or wholeness. Another example is when Job says that his tents are in a state of shalom. We read in Job 5, he counted his flock and no animals were missing. It was whole. It was complete. None of his possessions were missing, and we see there it says your tent is at peace. Shalom can also refer to a person's well-being. We see when David visited his brothers on the battlefield in 1 Samuel 17, he asked about their shalom. He went and greeted his brothers. That word greeted is in the ESV. It could be saluted in some other versions like the King James. He was checking up on them. He came to see how they were getting on with the stress of battle. He shalom'd them. Solomon brings shalom to the unfinished temple when he completes it in 1 Kings 9. Again, that finished, he finished the house, that same word as we saw a second ago. I've doubled it up there. That's a mistake. Two finished. Lots of finished there in that 1 Kings 9. In Exodus 22, if your animal accidentally damaged your neighbor's field, you had to shalom them by giving them a complete repayment for their loss. We see there in the Exodus verse that make restitution from the best in your own field and in your own vineyard. That word restitution is a form of shalom. I think that the core idea is that from all these examples, life is complex. It's full of moving parts, relationships, situations, and when any of these things might be out of alignment, or missing, or a spanner gets thrown in the works, then our shalom breaks down. Life is no longer whole. Something is missing from what usually makes us feel comfortable at ease, and it needs to be restored in some way. That's the basic meaning of shalom, which means to make complete or restore. In the case of the Exodus example, you had to restore what you damaged to its original wholeness, and shalom refers to your neighbor there, and living in harmony is important for what we're going to come to So you take what's missing, you restore it to wholeness. The same goes for human relationships. In the book of Proverbs, we see in Proverbs 16, an example here, when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. When rival kingdoms make shalom in the Bible, it doesn't just mean that they stop fighting, it also means that they start working together for each other's benefit. In 1 Kings 5, we read that Solomon and Hiram stop fighting, and then there is shalom between them. The Lord gave Solomon wisdom as he promised him, and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty. And we see in the narrative that follows that, that it wasn't just no more fighting that came from this, it was a strong economic and political alliance. And there are other examples of this kind of thing as well, with Abraham and Bimelech, and Joshua and Gibeon. Peace is made between these parties, and then there is a fruitful relationship that follows. This state of shalom is what Israel's kings were supposed to promote and cultivate, but as we know, it rarely happened. And with all of the failed attempts of the kings trying to achieve this throughout history, obviously some of them being much worse than others, but most importantly no one being perfect, the prophet Isaiah looked forward to a future king, a prince of shalom, the prince of peace, who's mentioned in those well-known verses of Isaiah 9. For unto us a child is born, and it goes on to say, his name shall be called wonderful, wonderful counselor, so on, prince of peace. So we read that this prince of peace elsewhere in scripture, his reign will bring shalom with no end. It will be a time when God would make a covenant of shalom with his people, and make right all the wrongs in this world, and heal everything that's been broken by human nature and the effects of sin. This is why when we come to the New Testament, Jesus's birth is announced as the arrival of the word, the Greek version of the word now. In Luke 2 verse 14 we hear the angel saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. Jesus came to offer his peace to others, like when he said to his followers, my peace I give to you all. In John 14 he says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, and the apostles said that Jesus made peace between sinful human beings and God when he died and rose from the dead. Romans 5 tells us this in verse 1 of that chapter, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This word, Irenae, peace, is used to tell us that Jesus restored to wholeness the broken relationship between humans and their creator, the same idea that we considered a moment ago in relation to shalom. This is why the apostle Paul can say that Jesus himself is our peace. In Ephesians 2 he says that in verse 14, he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, breaking down this wall of hostility, so making peace, reconciling us both to God. Jesus's sacrifice is a message of peace to everyone, Jew, Gentile, whoever. All can be saved, all can find peace through him. Through his sacrifice, the hostility, the opposite of peace, was broken down. He brought peace between human beings and brought peace between human beings and God. So now those who follow Jesus are in turn called on to create peace. Ephesians 4 tells us that Paul instructed the local ecclesias to keep their unity through the bond of peace, which requires humility and patience and bearing with one another in love. Becoming people of peace means associating ourselves with Jesus, trying to be an example of him, sharing the peace that he's given us with those around us. He restored peace through his death and his resurrection in one sense, removing barriers that were between us, giving everyone the opportunity to share our relationship with God. That peace has been achieved, but we also look forward to his soon return and his reign of peace that will begin at that point when this that God intended from the very beginning. So that was a flying tour through the Bible's of the word peace, and we'll come back to some of those passages and ideas that I mentioned in more detail shortly. I need to give credit as well to the Bible Project for helping me summarize all of that. They have a great video giving an overview of peace, if you'd like to comment to anyone who is in their own time, it's very useful. So let's go to Galatians chapter 5 and read the verses that are around this subject for this evening. Galatians 5, this section starting from verse 16 here, we have all of these bad behaviors listed out, we're told to avoid sexual immorality, impurity, anger, jealousy, enmity, all these bad things we're told to not do these things, and whoever does do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God, verse 21 says. And then we come to verse 22, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit, let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. So when we went through the introduction to the word peace, its use in the world today, and then how it's used throughout scripture, it was usually in relation to physically damaging something and then making it whole again, or times of war contrasted with times of peace, peace being the opposite of conflicts, or people feeling relaxed and comfortable. But here in Galatians we have to think about it on a more personal level, in terms of it being a characteristic of us as disciples of Christ, it's mentioned in amongst the other parts of the fruit of the spirit, such as love, joy, patience, kindness, these are all behaviours or ways of living, they are characteristics that verse 25 tells us that we are to walk in, or keep in step with, we are to make these behaviours our way of and show them in the way that we behave with others and in our attitude to God and to Jesus. So I can see how I can be joyful, how I need to be joyful, ways in which I can do that, I can see how I need to be patient as well and think about how I can do that, that it's good to be gentle, I know I'm supposed to show kindness to people, how am I supposed to be peace, or how can I show peace in the way that I live? Specifically about this word peace in this context before I kind of just brushed over it, obviously it's a nice word, it's a good thing, so Christians should definitely incorporate it in their lives somehow, but I hadn't really given it any more thought as to how you actually do that, how do you actually demonstrate the characteristic of peace in the way that we behave. Now there's probably a few places that you could go with this and we don't have all night, so I'd like to consider just two trains of thought just now, two ways of having peace or demonstrating peace or seeing peace in our lives. The first is between us and God, having peace with God, how that's achieved and what it means for us. The second is on more of an interpersonal level, peace between ourselves and other people, between us and those we interact with, especially our brothers and sisters and our family. Let's start with peace between God and us then, I think there's two layers to this one, I think there's actually peace between us and God and we'll consider how that works and there's also a certain peace of mind which we can experience and that comes from that peace with God, so is there not automatically peace between God and us? He's a loving God and the opposite of peace is conflict, so why would there be conflict between us and God? That doesn't seem to make sense. Well, we know that the conflict between us and God, we know the starting point for this conflict is way back in Genesis in chapter three, Adam and Eve ate the fruit that God told them not to and in doing so they committed the first human sin against God's will. We're all familiar with this scene back at the start of our Bibles we won't read through it all just now but let's just jump to verse 15 of Genesis chapter three. God is talking to the serpent here and he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So, we read here that God curses the serpent, that symbol of sin throughout time and God tells it that he's going to put enmity between the serpent's offspring and the woman's offspring. This word enmity here is another word for hostility or hatred, a form of conflict and it's the first mention of hostility or conflict in the Bible. The first mention of a conflict in the Bible isn't between nations of the world or between a group of human different groups of human beings, it's between the offspring of Adam and Eve, between mankind and sin throughout the rest of human history that began here in Genesis chapter three. So, what does this relationship with God, what happens when we succumb to our temptations? Well, we end up committing sins and unfortunately that doesn't benefit our relationship with God. We know from lots of places how much God dislikes it when we sin against his will. Just one verse that might tell us this is Proverbs six and verse 16. It reads in verse 16, there are six things that the Lord hates, seven are an abomination to him and then he goes on to list these kind of sinful things. We're told clearly here that God hates it when humans do these things. There's a good. So, from what we've considered about the definition of peace and its use throughout the Bible already, it doesn't sound like we're in a state of peace with God when we do these things, when we commit sins. Sin seems to be a bit of a problem. It upsets a potential state of tranquility between us and God. It causes a divide and drives a wedge and essentially puts us in a state of conflict with his ways. Isaiah 55 tells us clearly as well when we go against God, our thoughts are not his thoughts, our ways are not his ways. We're opposite to him. It's talking there about a wicked, talking about the wicked, talking about an unrighteous and his thoughts and we read that God's thoughts are not our thoughts when we're like that. Neither are his our ways when we behave in that way and goes on to say, yeah, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So, when we think and do bad things, there is a state of conflict between our ways and God's ways. There's this battle within us, a constant fight against sin. This situation that we're in is quite clearly opposite of having peace with God. This battle against sin is the enmity, the warfare described back in Genesis. These are just some other verses that kind of put it to us, the kind of situation that we're in when we behave in this kind of way. So, in Isaiah 59, we read, your iniquities have made a separate your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. And then in James 4, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Romans 8 verse 7, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. So, what is it that can fix this situation that we seem trapped in? We're sinful human beings, and we're constantly susceptible to going against God, doing things that displease him, behaving in these ways that we see described in these verses. That can be us. What of conflict? Well, the first place I want us to look is Ephesians 2. All of Ephesians 2 is a brilliant chapter for what we're considering together just now, but we're just going to read verses 13 to 18 because they're particularly relevant. Starting off in verse 13 in Ephesians 2, but now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. So, depending on your translation, you might have hostility or enmity used in verses 14 and 16, echoes again of Genesis 3 verse 15. Hostility, conflict, warfare, again we're seeing the opposite of peace, but we read here in verse 14 that it's Jesus who brings peace to this hostility, and not only does he bring peace, he is our peace. Now, this hostility here is specifically, it seems, getting at the hostility between Jews and Gentiles, Jesus' sacrifice does away with that conflict, that friction, but we also read here that he reconciled us to God, effectively giving us a way to overcome that enmity, that hostility that we saw mentioned back in Genesis 3. When men and women are brought to Jesus, when they're baptized into him and continue to live in him, they find peace with God, and in doing that, in coming together and finding peace in God, they find peace with one another, whatever their background might be, whatever they may have been divided by before, whether it be race, color, class, whatever, this is what Jesus came for and what the prophets prophesied about. He came to be the prince of peace, to bring peace on earth, and he achieved this through his death, his sacrifice on the cross, he has made all of us one and healed our relationship with God. So Ephesians 2 kind of demonstrates that these ideas of reconciliation to God and of reconciliation between people, they're intertwined in some way. Through Jesus' sacrifice, he reconciled people to God, that was his purpose. When he was killed, the hostility between humanity and God through sin was ended because he bore our sins and made our forgiveness possible. In sacrificing himself, he also provided the basis for that new covenant and reconciled both Jews and Gentiles to God, but also reconciled each and every one of them, all people throughout the world, to one another, by bringing them together in this new covenant, in one body, in a shared hope, if they choose to get baptized in his name. I think Romans 5 is another brilliant example of what we're considering right now, and perhaps puts it most simply, looking at verse 1 of Romans 5. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Then the passage goes on to verse 8 to say, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. So very similar language and ideas to that of Ephesians 2, just reinforcing that we have to God by faith through Jesus. And then in verse 10, while we were enemies, or while we were hostile, it could also be translated, the idea of hostility coming up again. The hostility, the opposite of peace that came in in Genesis, we've been reconciled to God, saved from that hostility through the death of Jesus. If we've been saved from hostility, we've been removed from it. What must we have now then? The opposite of hostility, peace through Jesus. We have peace with God. So just to summarize this section on peace with God, God has bestowed peace on us through the sacrifice of his son, so we now have peace with him through Jesus. The hostility that sin plagues us with can be removed through the work of Jesus. God forgives us even though we're completely undeserving. It's through grace that we have through Jesus. We as sinful human beings don't deserve it at all. Nonetheless, we can now enjoy peace with God in that knowledge. Jesus has removed the hostility of Genesis 3, crushing the serpent as it was prophesied. It was important that we looked at peace between us and can the impacts the way that we then approach the next section on peace between ourselves and others. As we considered briefly in that introductory whirlwind tour and when we looked at Ephesians a moment ago, peace between all of us with each other, all human beings worldwide, was achieved in the sense that we have no divisions or shouldn't have divisions amongst us because we're all made one in Christ, whatever our background. There is now a new covenant that all rather than a law that catered predominantly for the Jews. So that's one sense of the meaning of peace between us, a unity, a shared sense of hope and purpose and principles to live by. However, I think there's a way, another way that we can think about peace between us. So everything we've just considered, how through the sacrifice of his only son, God bestows peace on us, how he forgives us even though we're completely undeserving, how he's provided us with an escape from the hostility and conflict of human sin. In all of this, he's shown us unbounding love. What do we need to do in return for all of this? Well, because we know and can enjoy the peace of this great gift of grace, we now have a big responsibility to mirror that grace, this love in our lives. Colossians tells us about this very clearly. First of all, in Colossians two, we're kind of given a summary of exactly what it is we've been given an escape from. Colossians two says, going in at verse 13, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. So this is how much we've been forgiven. This is what God has done for us. God allowed our debts to be written off, our trespasses or our sins were set aside and nailed to the cross with Jesus. And then we go on to see in Colossians three then the implications of everything that's been done for us. Colossians three, we read, starting in verse 12, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you are called in one body, and be thankful. We need to show all of the fruit of spirit that's mentioned in Galatians, and some of them are mentioned again here in Colossians three, but also, really importantly, we need to forgive each other just as we have been forgiven. As opposed to just mentioning it like verse 12 does with kindness and humility, for example, forgiveness is emphasized here, and we're told that it's something we must do. And if we do all of this, then the peace of God will rule in our hearts, and we should be thankful for what's been done for us at the end of verse 15 says. So, because forgiveness is singled out here as being so important in the build-up to, you know, talking about having peace in our hearts, I wanted to think a bit more about it. I think that one of the huge sources of peace and comfort in our lives as followers of Jesus is knowing that we have peace with God, because we can be forgiven through Jesus when we go wrong, if we repent and ask for that. If we enjoy that peace that we don't deserve, the least we can do is pass some of that on to others, and it's made abundantly clear elsewhere that this is exactly what we need to do. We need to show this forgiveness in our dealings with others, because so much has been done for us. Matthew 6, we see in this chapter, it emphasizes the importance of forgiving others as we've been forgiven. There's the start of the prayer, which we're familiar with, and then we get to verse 12, where we read, And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others in their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. What a high standard we're called to here by Jesus. From these words, forgive us as we forgive, and those words in verse 14 and 15, it wasn't enough to just say it in the prayer. As soon as the prayer is finished, he makes this abundantly clear in the verses that follow after immediately. There's clearly a responsibility on our part to be forgiving of others, as well as to be asking for forgiveness for ourselves, and our own forgiveness from God is in some way tied to how well we forgive others. So there's a really big call in here. We need to remember the extent of what's been done for us, and subsequently we have a responsibility to demonstrate the character of Jesus in some way, show his character in our lives, in our behavior with others, firstly with our families and our brothers and sisters, but really with everyone we come into contact in our lives. Then we can experience the peace of God that we've just read about. Forgiving one another as we've been forgiven was one that I wanted to focus on because I think that's a really powerful peace creator. It's also emphasized in that Colossians peace passage, but also because it can be one of the most challenging things to do. So it was always worth thinking about and trying harder to There's other verses that give great guidance on living peaceful lives, showing peace, creating peace. We just don't have time to look at all of it now. So this idea of peace as a fruit of the here in Galatians that we were looking at is less about global warfare, signing peace treaties, repairing your neighbor's field after your cattle has damaged it, and human beings stopping their striving against one another and God. Because of all of that, then showing the peace that God and Jesus have given us, showing that those around us, I think that's maybe what it's getting at. And I suppose if this happened in every human being, then the global warfare wouldn't happen in the first place and nobody's field would be getting destroyed. At the minute, human sin still manifests itself in the world around us and we're waiting for Jesus to come back and eventually remove that completely. But right now, those that have been baptized, we have a certain escape from human sin. We have a certain peace of mind when it comes to dealing with our own peace with God through the sacrifice that Jesus made. Jesus made peace between sinful human beings and God when when he died and rose from the dead. He restored to wholeness. He shalom'd the broken relationship between humans and their creator. And we can enjoy the peace of mind that comes with that fact. So let's do the same for others and share that peace in all of our day-to-day interactions with everyone we meet. We see in a passage like the end of Romans 12, where Paul is summarizing what my Bible heading describes as the marks of the true Christian. We see in this passage a list of instructions on how to behave as followers of Jesus. There's lots of great advice. This advice is verse 18 and I think as well as being physically near the center of the text, it also seems to be at the heart of what's being asked of Christians here. It's the good behaviors or the avoidance of the bad behaviors that are listed around it. I'll just read some of this passage now. So there is a load of good traits and things to avoid and then we get to verse 17. Repay no on evil for evil but give thought to do what's honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves. Leave it to the wrath of God. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. If your enemy's hungry, feed him. It goes on to say. And then do not fight evil but overcome evil with good. So live peaceably with all. Or we won't do the things like avenging ourselves, it says there, cursing people. We won't be full of our own self-importance. We'll instead show love and honor as we're told to here. We'll look out for the needs of others. If we live peaceably with all, that's what it looks like. Paul makes that point here and living peaceably is at the heart of these good things. So finally, I'm going to just finish by reading these three verses alike on this subject. So Jesus tells us in Matthew 5, in the Beatitudes, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Then we read as well in Romans 14, so then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. And finally, in 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 14, we read, Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, it's talking about the signs of Jesus is coming in the verses prior to this, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. So let's be found at peace with one another.