“The Fruit of the
Spirit: Long-suffering
and Temperance” By Kirk Orelup August 5th,
2018
I hate to stop a good thing. If something's good and it's
going on, why
interrupt it? It’s like, don’t fix it if it's not broken, so... But, we
have a
message. We actually have a protracted message, it's been going on for
quite a
few weeks that needs a conclusion, don't we? In the proceeding weeks,
it was
Chris Ulrich, then Parrish Lee, then Arman George; they covered seven
of the
night characteristics of the fruit of the spirit. Seven of the nine.
Today we
hope to conclude the last two, long-suffering and temperance. There's
one more
left, next week? Forget that last part. All right. But, I do have an
advantage in
that I get to build off of the preaching of others who have gone on in
preaching
in the past, preceding me to this point. If I step on the toes of the
one
preaching love, it's because I didn't realize we had one to go. So, the
verses
that we have are Galatians, five, twenty-two to twenty-three, as we
know. Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit
of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness,
temperance:
against such there is no law. So, let's pause for a moment, and let's ask God to bless
this message.
Heavenly Father, we thank You, God, for your Word, and for all the many
blessings that You give to us, and the way that You show us more about
how we
could be pleasing to You and fruitful in our walk with You. We asked
You to
bless this message to make us more fruitful to allow us to receive more
of your
blessing and to let that spread to others. In Jesus’ name, we pray,
amen. So, long-suffering. It's not a very common English word; we
don't use
it very often. Not very often do we go around saying, “Well, that was
very long-suffering
of him.” It just isn't in our vernacular. It means to—well, if you just
take
it, and flip it around, and say to suffer long. But, what does that
really
mean? Some people think it means like a prolonged hardship. “I suffered
for a
long time, therefore I'm long-suffering. I've been through a lot, I
endured a
lot, therefore I'm long-suffering. Look at me; I've learned
long-suffering.” There's
two ways you can look at the word suffer, and this is why, because you
can look
at suffer as in I suffered or I was afflicted, or suffer in the sense
of, to
tolerate. Now, Jesus used the word suffer when He said suffer the
little
children, which Arman mentioned, and, this of course, means to tolerate
or to
pity, or to love. Not to afflict. Otherwise, He would be promoting
child abuse.
I think Arman may have said this, one time, I'm not sure, after you get
too
old, you forget where you learned things. There are three steps to
plagiarism,
by the way, are you familiar with this? “As someone so once said…”
that's the
first step. The next time it's, “As I once heard” and the third time
is, “As I always
say.” Then I have to quote my source; I learned this from Pastor
Thomas, he
taught me that. So, the word long-suffering, it's similar to tolerate,
but the
Greek comes from two words put together, which is makrothymia or
makrothymos,
depending on the form. Macro we know, right? Macro, micro; so, macro
means
long, okay? Or large. And thymos means wrath. Long wrath. When we go
through
the works the flesh, we'll read thymos again. Okay? So, long-suffering,
it's
the opposite of wrath, it’s not wrath in the same sense, it's long
wrath, or,
we may say, wrath withheld. It's slowness in avenging wrongs.
Long-suffering.
So, it's similar to tolerate, but, with pending wrath. So, let's look
at an
example of it, the Bible gives us a great example of it in the story of
Noah and
the ark. Are you familiar with the story of Noah and the ark? I assume
most of
you are familiar with it. So, why did God tell Noah to build the ark?
Flood was
coming. Why was a flood coming? Violence in the Earth. Yeah, He was
going to
destroy the Earth because of the sins of man. How much time did He
give, from
the time that He said He was going to destroy the Earth until the time
He actually
destroyed it? I hear one hundred years, and I hear one guy who's always
the
only guy who tells me this answer: one hundred and twenty years. Okay?
One hundred
years to build the ark, one hundred and twenty years from when He said
He would
do it and when He actually did it. So, Joe wins the prize. Here’s some
Altoids.
Here. All right. one hundred and twenty years. Look at Genesis, six,
three.
Now, if you're an old head like I am, you probably thought this was an
explanation of why we don't live to be nine hundred years, anymore.
But, when I
start looking at it in context, and seeing how it lays out, and reading
from
others, I realize, no, it's talking about the amount of time God's
going to
give until He brings His wrath. Okay? So, it says: Genesis 6:3 And the Lord said, My spirit
shall not always strive with man, [so, He's
saying
already, your time is coming. It's short] for
that he also is flesh: [because he's sinful] yet his
days shall be an hundred and twenty years. And, that's how long he has. It's like God is about to
destroy the
Earth, the entire Earth, so, you don't say to somebody, “Hey, I'm going
to
destroy the planet, because of the evilness of man, and then tell all
humanity,
but you're still going to live one hundred and twenty years.” That
doesn't make
sense. You're all supposed to be dead. Right? So, it wouldn't make
sense. So,
it's like the whole world, the whole earth is getting this big
diagnosis from
the doctor, okay? “Lab results are back; you have sin. it's through
your whole
flesh. I'm sorry, but it's terminal. That's the worst news. The good
news is,
though, you still have one hundred and twenty years. Okay? But then
it's going
to kill you.” So God is saying He’s going to destroy the Earth from all
the sin
that's on the Earth, but, He is long-suffering. So, Peter, referring to
this,
says in first Peter, three, verse twenty: 1 Peter 3:20
Which sometime [which means in time past,] were
disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of
Noah,
while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were
saved by
water. So, here He is, saying, this is the long-suffering of God
that waited.
Okay? And, this is specifically talking about while the ark was
preparing. He's
talking about that hundred years. But, what this tells us is all
mankind, all
of us, or deserving of God's judgment. But, wrath, wrath is governed by
mercy
in God. Because mercy rejoices against judgment. Mercy is greater than
judgement is. You know Methuselah? Who was he? There's nobody in the
Bible
recorded to have lived longer than Methuselah; he lived for how long?
Nine
hundred and sixty-nine years. And, he died in what year? The year of
the flood.
And, I used to think, “That guy must have drowned.” You know? Looking
at it in
terms of the story, of the long-suffering of God, He chose the person
who had lived
the longest, waited until the guy who lived longer than anybody, longer
than
the hills, nine hundred and sixty-nine years on Earth, He waited until
that man
died and He brought the judgment. And, that would be a better testimony
of the long-suffering
God. That's what I think happened. Long suffering of God. All these
things in
the story, they're all telling us that God is long-suffering. But
there's wrath
that’s coming. Okay? So, Roman's nine, twenty-two to twenty-three: Romans 9:22-23
What if God, [it says] willing to shew his
wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the
vessels
of wrath fitted to destruction: And, that he might make known the
riches of his
glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Now, how many times in a situation have you wanted to make
your wrath
and power known? Yeah. I know. I certainly have, all my life. I
remember just growing
up, just being a kid. It just, you know, comes out of us, right? So, we
don't
have to learn wrath. We just grow up going wrath. The things that I
wanted to
do, the ways that I would just, like, get mad at some kid because he
had a toy
and I wanted it, and I'd go knock him down and take it, because I
wanted to
show my power, and it wasn't long before somebody came along and wanted
to show
their power over me and took me into the paddle room. So, God, He would
do the
same. He has that power; He has all power. He has power over everyone.
So He
has the ability to do it, but He is long-suffering, and why? Well, it
says, in
this verse, in Romans nine, it says God wants to show His power and His
wrath,
and He does, but more, He wants to show His mercy and His glory.
Therefore, He
suffers sin, so that the righteous might be saved. This in turn, gives
Him glory
because of His mercy. So, another definition of mercy might be, or
long-suffering
rather, might be patient mercy. So, can we say that we have patient
mercy when
we’re dealing with other people? Are we waiting, longing to pour out a
blessing
on other people in spite of the wrong what they do? Because, that's
what God
does; that's what God does in His long-suffering. So, we were all the
sinful
vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, but, because God was
long-suffering we
obtained a mercy. We would not be saved if God were not patient to give
us
mercy. So, let's listen to Paul, as he describes his purpose in God's
saving
him, the chiefest of sinners. First Timothy, one, fifteen and sixteen.
It reads: 1 Timothy 1:15-16
This is a
faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save
sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy,
that in
me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern
to them
which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. So, I'm paraphrasing this, but he says when God gives us
mercy, it's
for His glory, because it testifies that He is long-suffering to those
who
should be saved. Therefore, shouldn't we belong-suffering of others so
that
they might be saved? By doing so, we preach the mercy of Christ to
those who are
need of mercy. As Noah did, who Peter called a preacher righteousness.
You see,
God, really is going to destroy the Earth. And, if He is waiting,
shouldn't we
wait, too? Vengeance is mine saith the Lord. Our job is to testify of
His
patient mercy. Patience is good, it is a virtue, the Bible says that we
all
have need of patience (Hebrews 10:36). It even says that in our
patience possess
we our souls (Luke 21:19). And, although I think patient mercy may be a
good
way to look at long-suffering, I don't believe patience is a good
substitute
for long-suffering. A lot of translations will use patience instead of
long-suffering,
but patience doesn't describe wrath that's delayed. It doesn't describe
depending
judgment, either. I have a really good joke about patience, by the way. You'll
love it,
it's really, really funny. Just wait till you hear the punchline.
(Pause) You
didn't get it. I got a… Okay, so, I got to talk about another trait; it's called
temperance, which
means self-control. Don't tell the joke if it's not funny. So
temperance,
self-control, this is the last on my list; it was supposed to be the
last on
the list. It is the last in the series if you read love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. It
relates to
fixed, unmovable strength, tempered steel; hardened so that it doesn't
bend or
break. As one who has mastered himself; it is a literal, moral
Superman, a man
of steel. The Strong’s Concordance defines it as the virtue of one who
masters
his desires and passions, so he's not compulsive, not emotionally
driven, he's
not a hot head. It could be strong-willed, tenacious, but he has
self-control.
And, it says in the concordance, especially one who has mastered his
sensual
appetites. So, consider the hardest steel of Paul’s testimony in First
Corinthians,
nine. We'll go through verses twenty-four to twenty-seven: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Know ye not
that they which
run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may
obtain.
And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.
Now
they [‘they’ being athletes in a race] do it [do run] to obtain a corruptible
crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so
run, not as uncertainly [because he's fully persuaded];
so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: [so this race just
became a full contact race, okay? Fighting not as one that beats the
air] But I keep under my body, [now this is
an odd expression, we may not be familiar with this, I keep under my
body—I
looked up the terms are and it really means to hit below the eye. I
keep under
the body, I hit below the eye; which means, and it's figurative
meaning, means
to subdue. To subdue. I had a client; she came in to train, and she had
a black
eye. She had a black eye, and I said, “What happened? Did that happen
at the
gym?” and I said that because she had bought a training package. The
trainer
was doing a bad job; she said she wanted another one, they gave her
another
one, and he did a bad job, so she wanted another one, they gave her
another
one, he did a bad job, and she said, “I want to cancel it and refund”
and they
said, “We can't do that,” because these big box gyms don't do that
stuff. “We
will give you seven hundred dollars’ worth of facials.” Seven hundred
dollars’
worth of facials, I figured they would give her a boost, and they
didn't. She
was walking in the gym and somebody was moving a bar and they took a
forty-five-pound
bar and smacked her under the cheek. Subdued her in no time. Okay? Hit
under
the eye. Subdue, I keep under my body] and
bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached
to
others, I myself should be a castaway. So, this helps us to understand a little bit better what
Jesus was
saying when He said the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the
violent
take it by force (Matthew 11:12). Okay? We have to fight; we have to
fight this
battle that takes place. So, I love this definition of temperance to
have the
victory over our affections and lusts, or our passions and lusts. Paul
summarizes this definition when he used Galatians, five, the very end
of the
chapter, it says we must crucify the flesh with this affections and
lusts
(Galatians 5:24). So there we have it; affections and lusts. To
understand this,
though, he follows that after he lists
the works of the flesh. So the works the flesh are what he was
illustrating,
before, when he summarized it, saying this is what we overcome. We may
say it's
self-control in all these different ways, but, he's talking about
bringing the
works of the flesh under control, under subjection. So, the works of
the flesh,
in Galatians, five, nineteen to twenty-one. I feel it's worth reading.
Okay, so
don't do these: Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works
of the flesh are
manifest, which are these; [ready?] Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife,
seditions,
heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: [Ready?
Okay? Got it? Right? Seventeen, seventeen of these things listed all
out. I
mean, we look at this list, and we say, “My goodness, there's only nine
works
of fruit to the spirit. I mean, nine fruits of the spirit; seventeen
works of
the flesh. And, I look into these things, I look in the numbers and so
forth
and I try to understand why this is. And, this may be beside the point,
but he
says that both lists are incomplete. Okay? It's not supposed to be a
complete
list, any of them. Paul adds, which of these, which in Greek, means
such as,
for instance, have their ends with] of
the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that
they
which do such things [‘such things’ means anything like these] shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And, the fruit of the spirit says against such there is no
law,
meaning, there's still more fruit of the spirit. That's why he doesn't
list
them out. Even Chris, when he preached, added thankfulness to the list.
Right? Isn’t
it? So, there's more. It's not just a commandment of the law; it's like
the Ten
Commandments were given to us, which told us the do’s and the don’ts,
you have
the fruit, you have the works, do one and don't do the other. It's not
that,
it's the law written in our hearts. The law is not all-inclusive. So,
you might
be saying, “Yeah, okay, seventeen are enough.” I could summarize these
and, I
don't know, Parrish, did you do this one time? You summarized the works
of the
flesh? Seems to me, a long time ago, I have to look back and see what
you've
done, because, I came up with my own list, and I, afterwards, I was
thinking, “I
think, I think—again, this is the plagiarism kicking in with the old
age, I
think somebody did this once before. So, there's four, the first four,
all relate
to lusts. Lusts. Sexual lusts, but also material lusts. Luxurious is
the
definition of uncleanness, which would be fine dining, maybe name
brands,
keeping up with the Jones’s, profligate living is another definition of
uncleanness, which means wasteful living, maybe it's compulsive
shopping, and
needing to always upgrade to the next thing, spending on things that
hold no
value. And, the rest of them we know, we could go over them, but
they’re
sensual and sexual lust. The next two: false gods, idolatry. So,
whatever
receives our praise or devotion: Entertainment, possessions, success,
social
status. And, witchcraft which is harder for us—we look at witchcraft
and we say,
“Oh, the new age people.” Well, yeah, in a way, because it's more than
that,
it's because the witchcraft people want to be half the power to be of
themselves, and, when you look at what is witchcraft, it’s like Simon
the
sorcerer, give me also this power that, on whom I may lay hands he may
receive... (Acts 8:9-24) We want to have the power of ourselves. That's
the
witchcraft side of it. If we're doing that, that's wrong. okay? The
next four:
contention with others; I'm trying to make a summary, so, let me not
talk. But,
that's where we have wrath, which is thymos. This next three: disunity,
the
next two, harm to others, even to the point of murder. And, the last
two:
intoxication, and related activities like drunken parties, revelings.
So, this
is what Paul has in mind. This is what Paul is talking about when he
says
temperance, when he's talking about the definition of crucify the flesh
with
the affections and lusts. Now, Chris, I think you mentioned it,
again—I’m
saying you a couple of times here—but, I think you asked, “Who was in
control,
the flesh or the spirit?” Which has the victory, or the mastery over
the other.
You can't have two serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). I told you
seventeen is an
odd number, I look into it; I hesitate to say this, because I don't
want to get
too far off the trail, here. But, I look at seventeen, what does it
mean? One
thing having the victory over another. Seventeen works of the flesh.
If, either
way you look at it, what do you think this is true or not, if you let
the flesh
have the victory, you're going to fulfill the works of the flesh. Okay?
Because, the alternative to temperance is doing the works the flesh.
Notice
that Paul says the works of the flesh are manifest, or made known,
they're
revealed. So, you don't have to try to do them, or to learn them.
Arman, you
said, recently, a child learns to say, “Mine!” at a very early age. He
doesn't
even know that need to know the intent of the word, he just needs to
learn the
word. The intent is already there. He wants it, whether he can say it
the word
or not. It's already inherent in there. It just comes out of us without
intervention. To produce fruit, however, takes work. Weeds need no
cultivation.
Weeds just happen. Just look at my garden. Works of the flesh are in
our DNA.
Their programmed into the code. We don't need viruses, or to be hacked,
we took
that a long time ago when we ate the apple, okay? So, it’s just the way
the
software runs right out of the box. We cannot reprogram ourselves. What
we need
is intervention. We need to go to the one who can fix the code, and the
only
one who can do that is the Creator of the code. We need intervention of
the Spirit
of God. So, only then can we generate the output of the spirit. So,
regardless
of where you are in your walk with God, what are this is all new to
you, or
you've already made a profession to faith, or even baptized in Jesus’
name,
regardless, if you don't have the victory over the flesh, you cannot go
on into
perfection. If we commit the works of the flesh, we shall not inherit
the kingdom
of God. And, it's not just because of sin, itself, it's because the
spirit is
not alive in us. Without this, we are dead in our sin. Okay, so, I want
to get
to part three, and it was meant to be the conclusion, again, so I have
to tell
you, communication is a great thing I should practice it more. Being
fruitful,
though, is the point. So, we heard from Parrish, Chris, Arman, and now
we have
shared eight of the nine. Trying to bring these together, though;
Second Peter,
one, five to nine. I could tell you about him, but I want to say, this
is where
the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Okay? Second Peter, one, five
to nine: 2 Peter 1:5-9 And beside this, giving all
diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to
knowledge temperance;
and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness
brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these
things be
in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that
lacketh these
things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he
was purged
from his old sins. So, it's like building instructions, or ingredients to a
recipe that
must be completed in a specified order. It starts with faith, it
assumes that
we all have faith; actually, the Bible says that we’re all given faith
the
measure of faith. So, then we must take this faith and we must add to
it seven
ingredients. The objective that we have is to complete the
instructions; not to
just do some of them. It's similar to what Paul said, when he said I
have run
the course, I have finished the race. You want to get to the end line.
It does us
no good to start, if we don't complete it. So, this verse makes us ask
ourselves,
where are we in our walk today, because it gives us a process; where
are we in
this process? Have we stopped short of charity? So, let's go down, step
by
step, I'd like to break this down, if I can, to step one, all the way
through. Add
to your faith, virtue. We're all given the measure of faith, but not
all hold
themselves accountable to their actions. We all have faith. Everybody
has it,
but there are people that will even deny that they have it. They think
they
don't have it; they're just not making themselves accountable to what
they know
they should be doing. But, this is the first step: add to your faith,
virtue.
You have to be honest with yourselves, with your sin, and your need for
God's
grace. If this is you, then, add to your faith, virtue. Decide today to
be
virtuous, and the Spirit of God will make you more fruitful. Add to
virtue,
knowledge, step two. Perhaps you've already made a profession of faith,
but
you're not sure how following God, or how to follow God in a way that
is pleasing
to Him. I know people like this, they may say, “I thank God for this, I
thank
God for that.” But, in their thanking God, they don't do what the Word
of God
says, because they don't know. They have an added to their virtue,
knowledge.
they want to do some things right, some things wrong, but they're not
taking
that to the next step. If we really want to do what's right and hold
ourselves
accountable, we should want to know what God wants of us, right? So, we
have to
add knowledge to that. For many years, that was me, when I was growing
up. I
grew up in a church, but I didn't learn what God's will was for me, or
how to
perform it. It was when I got out on my own that I realized, “Wow, I
don't know
how to make a right decision, what I should I be doing? Should I be
doing this,
or should I be doing that?” And, then, I was with all those people that
had
added to their faith virtue, and they all had different ideas of what
knowledge
was. So, I wanted to know, “Should I be doing what they're doing, or
should I be
doing something else?” and it challenged me. So, if this is you today,
you need
knowledge. You need discernment between the good and the evil, the
right and the
wrong, even the knowledge of God’s saving grace. So, you study, you
surround
yourself with God's people, and you learn from them and the power of
gospel is
revealed from faith to faith. And, then the spirit of God will give to
you
liberally, and not withhold, and make you more fruitful. So, step
three, add to
knowledge temperance. Now, maybe you know the Word of God and even
accepted the
truth a baptism in Jesus name but you still find yourself struggling,
struggling to do the right things. You keep falling victim to the works
of the
flesh. You need to add temperance, which is self-control. You know it,
but now
you have to do it. Somebody, recently, again—Chris, I think I'm picking
on you
a lot, I just really was awake that day—but, you recently told us that
a good
way to get temperance, really a way to overcome the flesh, and, it was
a
previous message, not in this series, but through prayer and fasting.
Prayer
and fasting. Because, it weakens the flesh and increases our dependency
on God.
Okay? So, add temperance, and the Spirit of God will make you fruitful.
Steps
four and five: add to temperance, patience; the word patience here, is
actually
two words together, it means patient continuance. Okay? Patient
continuance. I
think of perseverance when I think of patient continuance. Okay? To
maintain
your walk with perseverance. And, what happens after that? A godly
testimony
will follow this. Godliness is the next one, so I said four and five.
Step five,
godliness, add to patience, godliness. A testimony that reflects God
and
doesn't happen overnight. Someone once said, “I would have patience
already if
it didn't take so long to get it.” It takes time to change one's
lifestyle. But,
godliness will happen if we have perseverance. So, add to your
temperance, patience,
and to patience, godliness, and the spirit of God will make you more
fruitful.
The last two are brotherly kindness and charity. We listed all—well,
there's
nine in the list, that's what I'm trying to say. Nine in the list of
the
characteristics. But, they're all product of one spirit. Okay? So it
says the
fruit, one thing, one fruit. It's like what is the fruit of the apple
tree?
Apples. Yeah, so, we have—it's one fruit but it may be many apples.
Okay? But,
it all comes from that one source, the key is that it's one source. You
can't
say, “Well, I want to have fruit from this tree, but I only want one of
this or
one of that,” you have to take whatever the tree gives you. If it's
going to
give you apples, you’ve got to take the apples. You don't pick and
choose. You
need them all. If they're all from the same source, then we cannot have
one
without the other. We cannot have love, joy, peace without
long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness. They have to be together. No God, no peace, wasn't that
shared
recently? No God, no peace—k n o w God, k n o w peace; or n o God, n o
peace. All
right? It's—I'm going to tie it in, though. You could substitute this,
okay,
so, no God, no love. Isn't that true? No God, no joy. all right? Now,
if that's
true, then I can say, “No peace no love.” Simple algebra. if a equals b
and b equals
c then a equals c. All right? Simple. They're all from the same source.
Okay?
If we know God then we have all of them, we should have all of them.
Long
suffering, we talked about long-suffering; can you have long-suffering
and not
have mercy? It's impossible. Can you have long-suffering and not have
temperance? You can't, because you're going to go, “I'm mad, and that's
it. You're
toast!” Can you have long-suffering and not have charity, or
gentleness, or go
on; go through the whole list. You cannot. You have to have them all.
It's not
enough for us to say, “Well, I'm a pretty good guy, because I can be
kind, I
give, I do this,” all right? We want to go on to perfection. So the
fruit of
the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith,
meekness, temperance. There are three groups of three. Three groups of
three.
The first three relate to our relationship with God: Love, joy, peace.
The next
three relate to our relationship with others: Long-suffering,
gentleness, and goodness.
And, the last three relate to our relationship with ourselves, faith,
meekness,
and temperance. You cannot have one relationship to be healthy without
the
others. we need all relationships to be fruitful, if we want to be
complete in
Christ. Peter just covered the things with relation to ourselves, when
he
covered add to your faith, virtue, then add knowledge, temperance,
patience,
godliness and then he goes to the next two which her brotherly
kindness—our
relationship with others—and charity, which is our relationship with
God, the
love of God. So add, step six, add to godliness, brotherly kindness.
Brotherly kindness;
it's kind of a cool word, it’s Philadelphia, we all know the city of
Philadelphia, the motto of the city of Philadelphia is the city of
brotherly love.
Brotherly love. So, it's not just the outward form of godliness, The
Pharisees
had the outward form of godliness, okay? But, it's actually having the
heart
that drives the actions. Brotherly love. And, lastly, add to brotherly
kindness,
charity, and I'm not going to go on to that topic, because I know
that—now I
know—that's for next week. Okay? But charity is agape, the love of God.
It follows
after brotherly kindness, because, if we don’t love our brother who I
have when
we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen (1 John 4:20)?
All
right? So the next verse in Peter's list, it says: 2 Peter 1:8
For if these
things be in you,
and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor
unfruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you may say, “Now, wait a minute, knowledge was also
one of the
things that you added to faith, faith, virtue, knowledge.
Wait a minute, now, how did we end up with
knowledge if we started with knowledge?” The knowledge in the first
part is gnosis,
okay? Knowledge, no, okay? The knowledge in the second part is
epignosis. Full
knowledge. So, you make you complete, full of fruit, okay? Didn't the
apostles
speak of having perfect understanding? Now, can we say that we have
epignosis, today?
No. Okay. So, we all have work to do, or, maybe I can say we all have
fruit to
do. So, if you're like me, you've been saved a while and you're
fruitful,
you're just desiring to be more fruitful, consider your relationship
with God,
others, and yourself. Find whichever whatever relationship is weakest,
and draw
from the other relationships to strengthen your weakness. If you lack
love, joy,
and peace, your relationship with God may be weak. So, how do we
strengthen
this? Well, we've already said, you cannot love God who you have not
seen if
you do not love your brother whom you have seen. We cannot receive from
God
what we do not think we need, also. Our relationship with God. So by
serving
others, practicing long-suffering, gentleness, and goodness, and
humbling
ourselves by obedience to God, which is faith, meekness, and
temperance, we
will increase our love, joy, and peace, because we will realize just
how good
God is to us. I think of this definition of humility, I have to share
it,
because I really love it, and, it is, a right perception of oneself in
the side
of God. Amen? Humility. people say, “Oh, Lord, it's hard to be humble
when
you're perfect in every way.” He didn’t have a right perception of
himself in
the eyes of God. But, when we have that right perception, it's natural,
we're
going to be humble. Okay? So, if we lack long-suffering, gentleness, or
goodness, which is our relationship with others, or brotherly kindness,
we have
to consider charity, and who we are in God, namely we're all sinners
saved by grace.
Now, they say you cannot love your neighbor as yourself, if we do not
love
ourselves. You hear that? But, the phrase, there, saying, “Love your
neighbor
as yourself, actually assumes that you already love yourself. That's
why it
says love your neighbor as yourself.” If you didn't love yourself, why
would He
tell you to love your neighbor as yourself? If you need to work on
loving
yourself—we naturally love ourselves. That's our problem. All right?
Because,
if we understand how the all-powerful all-knowing Maker of the universe
loves
us so much, that he came in the form of men and saved us, in spite of
our sins,
even when we were His enemy, then we will have more long-suffering,
gentleness,
and goodness toward others. Okay? And, you know, sometimes, we—they're
certain
people that we'd like to hang out with. We call it fellowship; we go
see a
movie with somebody who has the same interest in the same movie. I
don't know,
we were kids growing up, maybe we read comic books together, you know?
Whatever
it would be. Because, we said we both love comic books, I really don't
know
anything about them, but, but they're cool movies, I'll just say that.
All
right, so, if we did that, where is, really, the love in that? Where is
really
the sacrifice in that? We're just being with the people that we enjoy
being
with, and that's good, but try hanging out with those people you can
hardly
stand to be around. That requires charity, okay? That requires
Philadelphia
brotherly kindness. So, thirdly, many people struck struggle with the past.
They're haunted
by images of who they were, and it hinders on them from being who they
are. I
believe Paul struggled with this one. So, you have somebody you can
identify with.
Paul talked about his thorn in the flesh, and you always wondered,
“What was
it? What was it?” Well, I look at, what does he talk about more than
anything
else? He says he was the chiefest of sinners. Why? because he
persecuted the
church. If I just put it together, and say this is Paul, this is what
his
message is, chiefest of sinners, persecuted the church, his thorn in
the flesh,
looking back and considering, “All that I have done and God saved me
and spite
of how I persecuted God. I kicked against the pricks.” How is that for
a thorn
in the flesh that will hinder you in doing what you want to do, if you
allow
it. But, he wouldn't allow it. He allowed only the grace of God to be
magnified
in his life. Okay? So, if we’re faltering in faith in God's ability to
save us
because of our sins in the past, consider Christ who walked in the
flesh, like
you and me, defeated sin and death, and was raised in a glorified body,
and
consider the testimony of transformation and witness of your brothers
and
sisters, and this will increase your acceptance of yourself as a child
of God
and in the family of God. So, wherever you are in your walk, the Spirit
of God
desires to bear fruit in your life. You shared it, Parrish, three weeks
ago,
the purpose of every tree is to bear fruit and to make more trees.
Okay?
Therefore, the words that God spoke to Adam and Eve remain just as
relevant to
the body of Christ today, as they were when they were spoken which was,
“Be fruitful
and multiply.” (Genesis 1:28) Allow God's Spirit to transform your life
into a
fruitful branch full of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance, for against such there is no law. Amen.
|
|
|
|
