Doing the Right Thing

This past Sunday, we talked about the fruit of the Spirit. Our intent was to show a relationship between the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. The emphasis of this connection between the two works of the Spirit in the life of the believer shows how fruit affect the application of the gifts.

The fruit of the Spirit as detailed by Paul are an interesting group. First of all, some of the fruit listed are also used by the Apostle in describing God. What we might infer from this fact is the fruit, as Paul outlined them, are a composite definition of the character of God as expressed in the life of Jesus. In other words, when we think about who Jesus is and how he lived his life while upon the earth, we see these nine character traits expressed. So, we can conclude, then, God through his Spirit is working in our lives to reproduce in us his own character and the character of his Son Jesus.

A second observation I can make here, and not observed in our study Sunday, is most of the words in the fruit of the Spirit list are used elsewhere by Paul in ethical contexts. Paul was concerned for believers to live their lives according to the principles of Scripture. By its very nature, the Bible is ethical. Scripture is ethical in its being the revelation of God; God, in the Bible, shows himself and his will. If God directs us to do something, he is commanding us to do the right thing. So, the fruit of the Spirit is about doing the right thing.

A third observation is the fruit are about relationships. Three fundamental relationships are covered by these fruit: God and the believer; the believer and others; the believer and himself. Three of the fruit show us what God has done for us and given to us. He has shown us his love so we will be able to show love to others. Because he has saved us and made us his children, we can have a deep sense of joy because of the basic security we have. We have peace, or wholeness, because God has forgiven us our sin and made us whole (see Colossians 2.10). We then can have the kind of relationship with God he wants us to have because of what he has done for us.

The next three fruit describe how a believer should relate to others, both saved and non-believers. We are to be patient; we are to be in such control of our anger we can undergo much ill-treatment without “losing” our temper. Also, we can show kindness to others. The word kindness can also mean mercy, so we should be mercifully kind in our treatment of others. We do not give them what they deserve, but we show them kindness in a merciful way. Such is what God did for us. Then, we are to express goodness to others. The basis of our relationships with others is good and not bad. We treat them with goodness and our hope for others is for them to find good.

Then, the fruit show us how to relate to ourselves. First, we are to be faithful. We are to be true to our principles. Now, we express that faithfulness in the commitments we make to God and others. But first, we must be true to ourselves and what we believe before we can be faithful to others. Further, we are to be gentle. The word gentle also means humble and would have been used by a Greek-speaking person to describe how a slave should conduct himself. We would say a gentle person is self-effacing (to be effacing means one acts in an inconspicuous manner; he does not seek attention). So, we are to be gently humble, or humbly gentle. We must not take ourselves too seriously.

Then, Paul said, “against such there is no law.” What he meant was, since the Law was intended to regulate bad behavior, good behavior is not “regulated” or restrained. We can love and be gentle, good, and kind as much as we want. This is the right way to act.

So, we arrive at what we want to discuss next Sunday. How do we understand the difference between right and wrong? How do we develop the strength to always do the right thing? A study of Hebrews 5.11-14 will help us understand better our ethical responsibilities as believers.