Children, don’t let anyone deceive you. The one practicing (poeio) righteousness is just imitating Jesus, the Righteous One. The one who practices (poeio) sin belongs to the diabolical one, who has been all about sin from the beginning. That is why the Son of God came into our world: to destroy the plague of destruction inflicted on the world by the diabolical one.
No one who has been born into God’s family practices sin as a lifestyle because the God’s children are the spiritually generated offspring of God Himself. Therefore, a child of God has the power to reject a life of persistent sin. So it is not hard to figure out who are the children of God and who are the children of the diabolical one: those who do not practice righteousness and those who don’t practice agape love for one another do not belong to God.
‘Practice’[1] in this passage is poeio: to make or make ready, to prepare, to acquire, to produce, to do a thing well.
As I noted last week, practicing is not in opposition to the reality that God’s gifts are, well, gifts.Something can be given to us freely, and we still have to practice, like the recorder my parents got me one Christmas and then quickly regretted.
I think that’s true also of the gifts from God the Bible calls the ‘fruits of the Spirit.’ Here are a few places the Bible talks about the idea that we invest sweat equity into the gifts of the fruit:
· Seek and pursue the fruit of peace (Psalm 34:14) as much as it depends on you (Romans 12:18).
· Consider it the fruit of joy when you face trials (James 1:2), or when we share in Christ’s suffering (1 Peter 4:13)
· Choose the fruit of love (Luke 6:27 “But to you who are willing to listen…”)
· Be patient (James 5:7-8) like a farmer waiting for crops, imitating the saints before us (Hebrews 6:12)
· Make every effort to add to your faith goodness and self-control (2 Peter 1:5-7)
· Clothe yourself with gentleness and kindness (Colossians 3:12)
So these things are all gifts from God; they are all part of the fruit our lives bear when the Holy Spirit is the sap in these people trees. In that sense, they are not something we demand or we earn or we are even responsible for having. But…we are responsible for poeio. For practicing, cultivating, looking for opportunities, do the things that someone like us is made and empowered to do.
This morning I want us to begin looking at how to do this. Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus:
“At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:8)
I’d like to offer something to help us discern whether or not we are a walking in the light in a way that pleases the Lord. Think of it as a Self-Assessment Fruit Test. We are going to get better at what we practice. Are we practicing righteous fruit like we think we are?
Love (agape). I like Ken Boa’s definition: “a love not of emotions or feelings but of the will and of choice. This type of love can be defined as the steady intention of the will to another’s highest good. It is an ongoing benevolence—willing (-volence) what’s good or best (bene-) for another.”[2]
Agape love is is serving people for their intrinsic worth, not for how they make us feel or what they give us in return. It is a love that seeks first to give rather than be given. It’s what one popular song calls “reckless”[3] love. I don’t know that I like that word to describe the kind of love that originates in God,[4] but I think it’s meant to reflect what God’s love looks like to us. Extravagant.
· It’s a bottle of tears or a ridiculously expensive jar of perfume poured on feet as an act of love[5]
· it’s leaving the 99 to get the 1[6]
· it’s an innocent man paying the penalty on behalf of the world’s guilt.[7]
· It’s the physical body of Jesus[8] and then the spiritual body of Christ (the church) being spiritually broken and spilled out for even the mockers and haters.
Poeio. Practice that.
The counterfeit of agape love is selfish love or lust, where you care for others because of how they make you feel about yourself or because it benefits you. Instead of willing the best for the other even at cost to yourself, it’s willing the best for yourself at the expense of the other. It’s an easy love, really, a love that is all about you and what makes your life easier, and that’s not love. It’s actually a “love” that has no problem harming others for the sake of “love.”
I call this Twilight love. “I love you, but in order for us to be together I am going to need to kill you and turn you into one of the undead.” Yeah, not love.
The opposite is hate or indifference. That’s why we can murder people with our hands and in our hearts.[9] It’s the same spirit behind them both. Someone’s life is not worth caring about at best, and at worst is worth hating. “I hope terrible things happen to them” is not that far apart from “I don’t care if terrible things happen to them.” You’re on the same page.
· “I don’t want to have to care about you” is practice.
· “I don’t care about you,” means your practice is working.
· “I hope nobody cares about you.” It just keeps going.
· “I wish someone would harm you.”
· “I wonder if there is some way I can harm you?”
The fruit of the Spirit is love.
“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (I John 4:9-11)
Poeio. Practice it. Watch the love from Jesus in you to others do a miracle in this broken world.
Joy is a delight focused on God for the sheer beauty and worth of who He is. It is independent of our circumstances.
· Joy does not come from personal comfort or emotional highs. “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:10)
· Joy is not us-centered; it’s God centered. It only comes from a focus on Christ. “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9)
· Joy looks to the future in spite of the present. “The prospect of the righteous is joy, but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing.” (Proverbs 10:28) For the joy set before him Jesus endured the cross.[10]
· Joy happens when we set our eyes on things above, and not on things of this world. Habakkuk 3:17-19, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The joy of the Lord is the thing that gives us strength.[11]
Because joy is dependent not on you but on the source of your joy, it is always available.
The counterfeit of joy is happiness. You feel good as long as you have money, health, affirmation, success, and a schedule that’s just like you want it. Happiness is fine, but it’s fleeting. Happiness is a terrible task master. It will drive you and the people around you into the ground. You cannot sustain happiness. Every vacation picture on FB shows you happy people (maybe). Do you know how many of them came home miserable? Happiness ain’t joy.
A song we sang as kids made this confusing: “I’ve got joy down in my heart…and I am so happy.” Sometimes that’s true. But you can be happy and not joyful, and joyful and not happy. In fact, happiness is not a biblical word. Seriously. If your translation has the word “happy” in it, it’s a bad translation. It should read “blessed,”[12] which comes from a root word meaning to walk in a straight path, which is an apt depiction of righteousness.
“Some glad morning when this life is over…just a few more weary days and then…to that home on God’s celestial shore.” Whoever wrote that song[13] was not happy, but they were loaded with joy.
The opposite of happiness is probably depression; the opposite of joy is despair. Despair happens when there is no hope. There seems to be nothing to set our eyes upon. Not only do we find our situation terrible, but we don’t see a future where it is not, and we certainly don’t believe anyone can save us.
So how do we practice joy?
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. 15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4)
Peace is an internal groundedness that comes from a right relationship with a God whose sovereignty we trust. This, peace, as a fruit of the Spirit, seems to be something different than the peace that Jesus made possible between us and God through his death and resurrection like we read about in Romans 5. This has more to do with the John 14 kind of peace, which addresses Jesus’ gift of peace to address times of trouble and fear in our lives.[14]
Peace is not controlling the storm; it’s offering our situation to Christ in the midst of it. We often seek peace through power or control. If I can just control the storm; if I can get my way; if everybody else could just understand how smart my ideas are; if you do that and this goes there, I can finally relax because I have properly ordered the world. Then I will have peace.
Now, I’m not talking to ya’ll who are wired to be organized. I don’t understand what that’s like, but it’s a gift to be able to bring order from chaos. I’m also not talking to those with OCD-type tendencies. That’s just a thing. Carry on. I’m talking about the idolatry of order and control, the kind of thing that reflects a heart that does not trust the sovereignty and Lordship of Christ.
I’m talking about how we respond to the storms in our lives. Do we have to walk on the water – do we have to have the power to control cultural, relational and spiritual elements around us - to find peace, or is it enough to know that Jesus is reaching his hand toward us? The peace that comes from controlling the world around us is like happiness: it’s fleeting. Peter didn’t walk on the water for long.[15] The world is never ours to control. If it was, we wouldn’t need Jesus. And if we think it must be, the inability to control it will eat away at us like a cancer.
Here is one way the peace of God passes understanding: We remember that God is sovereign, and that He wins in the end, and that focus on the source of our hope-filled joy sustains us through the times when we don’t feel peace in the midst of chaos that we cannot control.
The counterfeit of peace is indifference or apathy. People think you are calm; really, you have just stopped caring. You have become numb and it feels like a win. “Dude, nothing rattles me.” Yeah, because you’ve checked out. You don’t have the heart of Jesus for the world because you barely have a heartbeat. That’s not a mark in your favor.
· “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.” (Proverbs 18:9)
· “Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them.” (Obadiah 1:10-11)
It’s a small step from apathy to complicity. At some point, doing nothing makes us partners with those who do something. Sometimes, “I just don’t get worked up about things” is a terrible sign. If you lived in the antebellum South during the time of slavery, or during Jim Crow, or read about the shooting of Ahmad Arbury, or saw this past week the story of this Snapchat group in town that had set up a slave market on line for black students in TCAPS, and someone asked, “How are you so chill about these issues of racial hatred?” and you said, “Guys, I know about these things, but it’s just not something I care about,” that would not be a mark in your favor.
In fact, that’s how evil flourishes: when good people do nothing. And good people tend not to do something about evil either because they don’t know about it, they don’t realize it’s evil, or they just don’t care enough to get involved. It doesn’t mean we all respond in the same way, of course. But to shrug it off so that our peace is not disturbed – that’s not biblical peace.
The opposites are worry, greed, or dissention.
· Worry links with lack of control (Take no thought for tomorrow…”[16])
· Greed is what takes root in us when we must have what we do not have. That’s not just boats and lovers; that’s power and control. “Like ravenous dogs, they are never satisfied.They are shepherds with no discernment; they all turn to their own way, each one seeking his own gain.” (Isaiah 56:11)
· Dissention is what we sow that robs those around us of peace. You’ve heard the phrase, “Hurt people hurt people?” Well, unsettled people unsettle people. If one my chickens panics, they all panic. It’s that idea. If even just one of them stays chill, the others will calm down.
So how do we practice peace?
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9)
Patience is persistently enduring without blowing up, giving up or lashing out. You can face insults, for example, without lashing out. You can watch your kids screw up without blowing up. You can navigate hard seasons in relationships without giving up. This is sometimes translated as “longsuffering.” Yep, suffering for a loooong time.
This isn’t encouraging enablement of passivity in harmful situations (see previous point about passivity). I mean, Jesus was patient and confrontational, patient and in-your-face as the situation required; patient and still comfortable with telling his disciples there are some places you will have to leave when they attack you.[17] You find your stability in knowing that God is sovereign in both circumstances and timing.
I think this has to do with what we would call not ‘flying off the handle’, not jumping to conclusions, not giving in to immediate emotional outbursts, not rushing God’s timing in our lives and the lives of others. And if we must shake the dust off our feet and move on from a situation in life, it’s not a poorly thought out, emotional, knee-jerk reaction because someone pushed our buttons. It is a thoughtful, prayerful decision, likely after we have received counsel, following Matthew 18’s recommendation.
The counterfeit of patience is cynicism. You don’t blow up, lash out, or quit, so you look like a patient person, but really you expected the worst anyway and you are kind of watching things fall apart because it proves you right. You're the one in heated arguments that is cool, calm and collected not because you have peace, but because you think all of them are fools, and you figure time will prove that you were indeed the smartest one in the room because you knew this was all a fruitless joke.
The opposite is impatience/resentment.
Impatience:
· “I do not have time for this. How many times have I told you to stop pulling the cat’s tale! Twice? You’re 1 ½ now. Grow up!“
· “I have to show you this again? How do you not know how to tie your shoe/change your oil/pack your own lunch?”
· “You said God was working with you about your impatience and it’s been what, a week already, and yet here you still are with your impatient self!”
· “This COVID stuff is dragging on forever! AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!”
· “How have we not started fixing the fire damage yet!!!”
If our timetable is shorter than God’s, he’s not the one who needs to realign his outlook.
Resentment: “How dare you…
· make me wait
· disrupt my vegging in front of the TV
· take so long to become just who I want you to be
· not show up on my terms yet again
· still not agree with me!
So how do we practice patience?
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 2: 22-25)
Up next week…the rest of the fruitJ
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[1] Philippians 4:9 has a word for ‘practice’ similar to poeio that more directly means doing something over and over. John uses a word that referred to individual acts, but in his context he makes clear these should be done over and over.
[2] https://kenboa.org/living-out-your-faith/five-loves-greatest-agape/
[3] Cory Asbury, “Reckless Love”
[4] Precise doxology, ya’ll J
[5] Luke 7
[6] Matthew 18; Luke 15
[7] All the gospel narratives of the crucifixion of Jesus
[8] 1 Corinthians 11:24
[9] 1 John 3:15; 1 John 4:20; Matthew 5:21-22
[10] Hebrews 12:2
[11] Nehemiah 8:10
[12] At least two translations use the word “happy” in the Beatitudes. Nope. It’s “blessed.”
[13] Turns out it was written in 1929 by Albert E. Brumley J
[14] https://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/14-27.htm
[15] Matthew 14
[16] Matthew 6:34
[17] Matthew 10:14