THE HOLY SPIRIT

“THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: GENTLENESS”

GALATIANS 5:22-23

 

Who remembers the fruit juice drink FIVE ALIVE?  FIVE ALIVE was a fruit juice blend made from  five juices: orange, lemon, grapefruit, tangerine and lime.

 

 As I recall, it was pretty good.  The name was appropriate because with that combination of fruit juices, it would wake you up and let you know you were still alive. 

 

Even though it had five fruit juice flavors, it was not five different juices.  It was five fruit juices blended into one.

 

The same is true when it comes to the Fruit of the Spirit.  There are nine different expressions of the Holy Spirit.  Nine different characteristics.  But these nine different flavors are blended into the one fruit of the Spirit.

 

Have you ever noticed that the phrase the Fruit of the Spirit is singular? It’s not plural.  It’s not the FRUITS of the Spirit.  It’s the Fruit of the Spirit. One fruit. 

 

What’s the significance of that?  When it comes to allowing the Holy Spirit to express his fruit in our lives, it’s an all or nothing proposition.  There is the one fruit.  If we are allowing the Holy Spirit to control our lives, we will exhibit all nine characteristics of the Fruit of the Spirit.  It’s not a pick and choose buffet kind of thing.

 

When you go to a buffet, what do you do?  You go for the food that you like.  You go for the prime rib, the seafood, and the banana pudding.  You stay away from the food you don’t care for: the cauliflower and the Brussel sprouts.  I got you there!  You thought I was going to say broccoli!

 

You can’t take that approach with the Fruit of the Spirit.  You can’t say, “well, load me up on the joy and peace.  But I’ll pass on the self-control and patience.”

No, the Holy Spirit won’t just produce a few of the fruit, or some of the fruit, or most of the fruit.  He will produce all of his fruit: love, joy, peace.  Patience, kindness, goodness.  Faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

 

Today we come to the quality of gentleness.  In Philippians 4:7 the apostle Paul wrote- “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” Are you a gentle person?  Would other people describe you that way?

 

Jesus described himself that way.  He said, “I am gentle and humble in heart.”  The Holy Spirit will help us to be gentle, humble, and meek like Jesus.

 

Let’s PRAY and then we’ll dive into this message.  PRAYER

 

We’re going to look at how the Holy Spirit can produce gentleness in us.  But we begin with this definition of gentleness.  Gentleness is……..

 

1.STRENGTH UNDER CONTROL

 

When people think of “gentleness” or “meekness”, they think of someone who is weak and wimpy.  Someone who shrinks over in a corner.  Someone who is afraid of his/her own shadow.  The image some of us have of a gentle and meek person is someone who is a pushover.  Someone who lets other people walk all over them.

 

But that’s not true.  A gentle person is not someone who lets others push them around.  A gentle person is someone who places his or herself under the control of God.

 

There are two people in the Bible who were described as gentle and humble.  The first one is Moses.  Moses bore a striking resemblance to Charlton Heston.  But he is described as being gentle or humble.  The Bible says that Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.

 

But even though Moses was very humble, don’t mistake his gentleness for weakness.  Moses was not a pushover.  He confronted Pharaoh.  He stood up to Pharaoh and demanded, “let my people go.” 

Moses went up on Mt. Sinai where he received The Ten Commandments from God.  The Ten Commandments etched on stone tablets by the very finger of God! 

 

But when he came down from the mountain with the two stone tablets in hand, he saw the Israelites worshiping the golden calf and Moses threw the tablets against the mountain and broke them into pieces.  Moses was anything but weak.

 

The other person in the Bible who is described as being gentle is Jesus.  He described himself that way.  But Jesus did not let people walk all over God.  Jesus drove the money changers and animal traders out of the temple because they had made God’s house of prayer a den of thieves.

 

When the Holy Spirit produces gentleness in you, it doesn’t mean that you are weak.  Look at the type of spirit that Paul said God has given us:

 

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.” – 2 Timothy 1:7

 

Meekness is not weakness.  We have not received a spirit that makes us timid.  We have received a spirit of power that is disciplined and used for God’s purposes.

 

Gentleness is strength under control. The Greeks admired that type of gentleness as a virtue.  The Greek word for gentleness described strong animals that were brought under control.  A gentle horse is a wild horse whose spirit is broken and tamed, and brought under the control of the bridle.  The horse is now under the control of its master.

 

When we are gentle, we are under the control of our master, our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are under the control of the Holy Spirit.  We are being led by the Spirit.  We are not weak.  We are controlled.  We are not powerless.  We are surrendered.  We surrender our strengthen to God.

 

The gentle person is one who says to God: here is my temper, my will power, my drive, my attitude, my tendency of pushing back and charging ahead to get my own way.  I hand over the reins of my life to you Holy Spirit.  Bridle me.  Tame me. 

 

The Holy Spirit will take that surrendered strength and turn it into something beautiful.  Gentleness is strength under control.  How can the Holy Spirit transform us into gentle people?  Two things need to happen.  Here’s the first one.  Gentleness happens when we have……

 

2.A HEART SURRENDERED TO GOD

 

Jesus told us that the greatest commandment in God’s law had to do with having a heart for God.  When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus replied:

 

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” – Matthew 22:37

 

We are to love God with all our hearts. We are to love God wholeheartedly.  We are to love God before anyone and anything.  We are to be passionate about God.  We are to care deeply about the things God cares about.

 

David was described as a man after God’s own heart.  That ought to describe us.  We will want what God wants.  We will surrender our will to God’s will. 

 

That’s how the Holy Spirit produces gentleness in us. Our two prime examples of gentleness demonstrate that for us.

 

God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage.  At first Moses didn’t want to go.  He pushed back.  At first, he resisted God’s will.  His response to God was, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  Moses said, “I’m a nobody.  Pharaoh won’t listen to me.  I’m not your guy God.”

 

Moses argued with God.  He brought up all sorts of excuses as to why he was unfit for the task of leading God’s people out of Egypt. “What if your people won’t believe me?  Besides, I am not an eloquent speaker.  You better send someone else.”

 

But God reassured Moses that he would be with Moses and that his power would be at Moses’ disposal.  God told Moses that his brother Aaron would be his spokesperson.  Finally, Moses surrendered his will to God’s will.  He went back to Egypt and led the Israelites in the Exodus out of Egypt. 

 

Jesus knew that going to the cross to die for our sins was God’s plan to save us.  Even though Jesus was fully God, he was also fully human.  In his humanity, Jesus struggled with the thought of going to the cross.  He wrestled with the decision.

 

He went into the Garden of Gethsemane.  Three times he prayed, “Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.  Yet not as I will, but as you will.”  Jesus submitted to his Heavenly Father’s will and went to the cross.

 

When we surrender our heart to God, we submit to God’s will for our lives.  We pray- “God, here’s what I want.  But if what you want is different from what I want, than what you want is what I want.”

 

That’s not always an easy thing for us to do.  In our humanness we might fight God.  We might push back on what he commands in the Bible that we are to do.  We may resist his will for our lives.

 

Have you ever found yourself, like Moses, arguing with God?  That’s an argument you want to lose!  If you win that argument, you will lose in the end.  But if you lose that argument, you’ll win.

 

Jesus said that if we try to save our lives, that is, live life on our terms, then we’ll lose our lives. But if we lose our lives for his sake; if we’ll live our lives his way and live our lives for him, we will find our lives.  God will bless us with lives filled with meaning and purpose.

 

We need to make sure that our ladder is leaning on the right wall.  That wall being the will of God.

 

We need to quit playing God with our lives. In Psalm 46:10 God says, “Be still and know that I am God.”

 

Slide: GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT. 

 

SAY THAT WITH ME: GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT. 

AGAIN: GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT.

ONE MORE TIME: GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT.

 

Got it?  Good.  It would be good for each of us to remind ourselves of that truth from time to time.

 

Since God is God and we are not, we need to surrender our hearts and our will to God’s heart and God’s will.  The desire of our hearts needs to be reflected in this prayer from Psalm 143:10:

 

“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” – Psalm 143:10

 

That prayer needs to be our prayer.  Prayer is a vehicle for us to surrender our will to the will of God.

 

Mark Batterson, in his book, Gradually Then Suddenly, wrote-“Every prayer has to meet a twofold litmus test.  It has to be in the will of God and for the glory of God.  If it’s not, it’s a nonstarter.  Prayer is not outlining your agenda to God.  Prayer is letting God outline his agenda to you.”

 

A gentle person prays like Jesus, “not my will but yours be done.” A humble person prays- “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Thy will be done in my life.”

 

If we want to be filled with gentleness, we need to surrender our hearts to God.  And here is the second thing necessary for the Holy Spirit to produce gentleness within us.  We need to have……

 

3.A TEACHABLE SPIRIT

 

Have you ever met someone who is a know-it-all?  You can’t tell them anything.  They already know it all.  At least they think they do.  That’s a person who is unteachable.

 

Now, you and I might not be a know-it-all. But we might suffer from:

 

SLIDE- ULTRACREPIDARIANISM

                 Expressing opinions outside the scope of one’s knowledge

 

Ultracrepidarianism is one of the longest words in the dictionary.  Ultracrepidarianism is:

 

Expressing opinions outside the scope of one’s knowledge.

 

We do that all the time, don’t we?  We try to come across as experts in areas where we have no expertise.

 

Take sports for example.  People are good at being armchair quarterbacks.  I’ve never played football in high school or college.  I’ve never coached football.  But, hey, I just know that the Cowboys would win the Super Bowl every year if only they would do what I say.

 

Being a know-it-all or an ultracrepidarian is dangerous when it comes to a relationship with God.  It means we’re unteachable.  If we don’t have a teachable spirit, then God can’t teach us anything.

 

We need to put aside our pride and have a teachable spirit.  Our attitude needs to reflect this prayer from Psalm 25:4:

 

“Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths.” – Psalm 25:4

 

A gentle person wants God to teach them. 

 

Have you ever heard this phrase: You don’t know what you don’t know.

 

There are some things I just don’t know.  And I don’t know that I don’t know them.  Have you ever come across some information that takes you by surprise.  And you end up saying, “Huh!  I never knew that before!”

 

You don’t know what you don’t know.   Once we realize that, we’ll be ready to learn from Jesus.

 

READ MATTHEW 11:28-30

 

Jesus says, “learn from me.”  If we want to be a gentle person, we need to learn from the one who is gentle and humble in heart.  The Holy Spirit will teach us.  Jesus promised:

 

“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” – John 14:26

 

The Holy Spirit will teach us by using the Bible to instruct us in God’s ways.  The Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Bible.  The Spirit of God wrote the Word of God.  He will use the Bible to teach us what God wants us to know and do.

 

Have you ever been reading or studying your Bible and you have an AHA moment, where you saw something for the first time?  That’s the Holy Spirit teaching you what you didn’t know what you didn’t know.

 

If we want to be gentle, we must accept what the Holy Spirit will teach us through the Bible.   James wrote:

 

“So put out of your life every evil thing and every kind of wrong.  Then in gentleness accept God’s teaching that is planted in your hearts, which can save you.” – James 1:21

 

May I ask some questions that will lend themselves to some honest evaluation on our part:

 

What percentage of our attitudes and opinions are a regurgitation of social media & news media?  What percentage is a revelation we’re  getting from God’s Word?

 

Are we being conformed to the world around us?  Or are we being transformed by the Spirit of God within us? 

 

Are we giving in to popular opinion, peer pressure, and political correctness?  Or does Scripture get the first word, the last word, and every word in between?

 

In Romans 12 Paul says that we must not be conformed to the world around us. We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  The Holy Spirit will renew our minds by teaching us what the Bible says.

 

A gentle person will accept what God’s Word has to say and apply it to his/her life. They will approach the Bible this way: The Bible is speaking to me and the Bible is speaking about me.

 

A person who has a spirit of gentleness will have a teachable spirit.  A humble person will say teach me Lord.  Show me your ways.

 

The payoff for being a person of gentleness is huge. Jesus shared with us what the reward is in the Beatitudes:

 

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” – Matthew 5:5

 

That principle is a part of the Great Reversal that runs all throughout the entire Bible.  God doesn’t honor the person who tries to throw their weight around for their own self-centered gain.  God honors the person who puts himself or herself under God’s control in order to advance God’s kingdom here on earth.

 

God doesn’t honor the person who calls the shots in their lives and who lives life on their terms.  God honors the person who submits to God’s will for their lives.

 

 

God doesn’t honor the person who is arrogant and prideful.  God honors the humble person who realizes they need to be teachable.

 

Ultimately, it is the meek who will inherit the earth in this life and God’s kingdom in the next.

 

PRAYER

 

Father, we have believed the world’s lies for too long; that strength means grasping and that meekness means weakness.  Forgive us for the times we have pushed and demanded and fought to sit on the throne of our own lives.

 

Teach us the power of meekness.  Take the strength you have given us, our will, our gifts, our drive and bring it under your gentle control, the way a horse is brought under the bridle.

 

Make us like your servant Moses, and far more like your Son, who was gentle and humble in heart.  Help us to stop promoting and grabbing, and start trust, that we might receive from your hand the inheritance you have promised to the meek.  In the gentle and mighty name of Jesus we pray.  AMEN.