The Fruit of the Spirit is Love!

1. Read: Galatians 5:22-23

2. About the Text:

1) What does it mean to be spiritual?

2) It means to be guided by the Spirit of God in your spirit.

3) We need our desires to originate from within our spirit, not our flesh.

4) Fleshly desires originate within the flesh.

5) Spiritual desires originate within the spirit.

6) True love is a spiritual desire!

3. Ref. to S, T, P, O, and A.

1. Humans don’t define love.

1) Love is not sex.

2) Evolutionary theory is false.

3) This is clear from Galatians 5; fornication, adultery, uncleanness is contrasted.

2. God is Love

1) “God so loved the world…” (John 3:16).

2) “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-9).

3. Jesus/God Demonstrated Love

1) “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).

2) “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).

4. We need to love the brethren.

1) “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

2) “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

1. Human love divides, but God’s love unifies.

1) Only loves its own.

2) It creates “identity politics.”

3) Social cliques based on sex, political viewpoint, gender, race, nation, etc.

4) Excludes those not “in our group.”

2. The Spirit brings unity and love comes from the Spirit, a fruit of the Spirit.

1) True unity comes from loving each other as God has loved us.

2) Unity based on a standard of right and wrong behavior.

3) “Keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).

3. Love is the bond of perfection.

1) It brings us together – “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Ephesians 3:14).

2) It prevents sin – “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

3) It sacrifices self – “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Ephesians 5:2).

1. Human love fails!

1) Look at all of the failed marriages in the world!

2) Diseases propagated by “love.”

3) Look at the orphans created by “love.”

4) Abortion!

5) True love that comes from God does none of these things.

2. Love is our purpose and our greatest motivation.

1) “Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets’” (Matthew 22:37-40).

2) “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

3. Love overcomes pride and serves others.

1) “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a).

2) “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

1. The fruit of the Spirit is love…

1) Love Originates from God

2) Love Unifies

3) Love Will Not Fail

2. Invitation