TD Jakes - Acts of the Flesh and The Fruit of the Spirit
Now let’s go to the Word of God. We’re going to be reading Galatians chapter 5, verses 17 through 25. When you have it, say Amen! I can’t hear you, but say it anyway; God can hear you. This is going to be good. It reads: «For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit.» Ain’t that the truth? And «the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.» So true! I want to get into it and start teaching on that alone because look at the fight that is going on inside of us. The flesh does not want to cooperate with the Spirit, and the Spirit is at odds with the flesh. You are both; you are living with both realities. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, which lets you know there is a certain tension.
Paul said, «When I would do good, evil is present with me» in Romans chapter 7. There’s a conflict that Paul is addressing to the church at Galatia. In Galatians 5:17, they are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want; but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious, and then he lists them. I’m reading out of the NIV so you don’t have to wrestle through the King James English as much: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Okay, so we know these are on the list of the things that God is warning us about. If we allow our flesh to entrap us in these, we endanger our eternal home in glory. But the fruit of the Spirit—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.
That’s good! Now let’s go back a little bit; I want to break that down a little more. I’m going to be teaching on the acts of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. I hope to cover all of this; I don’t know how far we’ll go, but we’ll try. Let’s look back. I call it the «Dirty Dozen» list, just to see the things that Paul refers to as the acts of the flesh. Notice he didn’t say the fruit of the flesh; it is the acts of the flesh. It’s just how the flesh acts. Your flesh, my flesh, her flesh, their flesh—everybody’s flesh falls into this category.
That’s why it’s amazing to me when people look at other people’s failures, flaws, or mistakes and kind of look down their noses as if they would never do such things, when in reality, the Bible is clear: all of these go along with being in this flesh. That doesn’t mean you have to yield to them, but it does mean that you feel that pull toward them. When you feel that pull, you have to resist the enemy so he can flee from you and resist your own desires as well. To the level of your strength and your ability to rely on the Holy Spirit to help you resist, you walk in victory. If you don’t, you fail and you falter. When people falter, you have to be merciful—speaking the truth, challenging them, but also being merciful. Don’t be someone who castigates other people when you know you feel the pull of your own flesh.
Let’s look at this; this is important. The acts of the flesh are obvious. He says: sexual immorality—you know exactly what that is—and impurity and debauchery. Now, I want to define debauchery. Debauchery is excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures, just letting your senses control you. Sex addictions, eating addictions—anything where your flesh is excessively controlling you. Idolatry is where you worship something else. Witchcraft is where you manipulate in the spirit world to get control, to execute what you want to happen in a situation: hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage—it’s a whole lot of stuff!
Selfish ambition fits of rage; selfish ambition is a wide range of things. Dissensions are disagreements that lead to discord. So when it mentions dissensions, if you keep arguing and creating discord in an organization, in a company, in a ministry, or in a church, and you keep sowing seeds of discord, the Bible calls that dissensions. Factions are small organized dissenting groups within a larger one, especially in politics. When you organize a little gang with a little hate group and you’re still in the thing and you’re fighting the thing, you’re in dissension. You can leave; you could quit; you can change; you can form your own party, your own ministry. Just don’t form a posse and create factions because God says that will endanger your eternal home in glory just as much as the other things: sexual impurity, hatred, jealousy, fits of rage, and selfish ambition. It’s all part of the same category.
Oh God! And then he lists drunkenness, orgies, and the like, which is a catch-all phrase meaning etc., etc. He says, «I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this—not those who fall but those who just live like this—will not inherit the kingdom of God.» Because when somebody falls, they make a mistake; they want to get back up. When somebody lives like that, they will not inherit the kingdom of God.
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. That self-control cancels out those fits of rage, that selfish ambition, that discord, and jealousy. The fruit of the Spirit is designed to neutralize the acts of the flesh. The more we give into temperance and things like that, the less we are apt to indulge in excessive sexual pleasure. The one thing cancels out the other.
If you look at the list of the acts of the flesh and the list of the fruits of the Spirit, if you walk in the Spirit, the fruits of the Spirit cancel out the acts of the flesh because the more you yield to what’s positive, the less you have to fight what’s negative. Some people build their entire ministry preaching every Sunday about what’s wrong with you. I try to build my ministry preaching about what’s right with you and what’s attainable for you. Because if you pursue the fruits of the Spirit, you will not walk in the flesh. It will deliver you from the flesh; it will raise you up; it will cancel out the pull of the flesh.
Oh, this is good! This is good! Some of us are saved today because God placed so much in front of us that we didn’t have time to look back. When we did try to look back, the pull in front of us yanked us back into our rightful place. And there is a war going on! I want you to see that there is a constant war going on in all of us: things you want to say to people, how you want to respond to people. Oh, you should see the things I’d like to text back to people when they say something smart to me! I have to modify it and bring it down to the Spirit of God because my flesh rises up. My flesh wants to go all the way out there, and I could go out—I really can! —I could get right with you and be just as nasty to you as you are to me. But the Holy Spirit speaks to me and says, «Give them an answer.» You can still speak the truth, but you can do it in a godly way and hold on to your integrity. And finally, I say, «Yes, sir,» or I type it out and then erase it, and finally the Holy Spirit wins, and I do that. That’s important; you need to do that too.
Those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Now I want to add something here: those who belong to Christ Jesus are crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires because you never get finished! I can prove that by the Scriptures: you never get finished. There is a depth that continues to work in your life—a dying away, a wilting away of desires and passions, a transformation that continues to go on in your life. You never get finished. You’re not finished at 40; you’re not finished at 60; you’re not finished at 70; you’re not finished until you get to the end and say, «I have fought a good fight, I’ve kept the faith, I’ve finished my course.»
It is an ongoing battle. Just because people get older doesn’t mean they don’t have struggles—they do have struggles. They might not be the same struggles or as intense in some areas, but they are still struggles: struggles with selfishness, selfish ambition, dissensions, hatred, discord, and jealousy. I don’t care what title you hold in the world—in corporate America, wherever—you have to fight these things on a daily basis. Because the world lends itself to an environment that seems to empower us to be treacherous, it doesn’t empower us to be loving.
We’re living in a society today where you’re not often applauded for being loving and kind. We almost applaud people for being outspoken, rude, and tenacious. We call that strength. «I’m a strong man,» «I’m a strong businessman,» «I’m a strong woman.» And a lot of times that may be true, but sometimes it’s really a code word for «I’m a rude person, I’m an evil person, I’m hard to get along with,» and people clap for that. «Oh, that’s good! That’s good! That’s good!» And when you’re loving or forgiving or you let things go, they criticize you. «Yeah, I can’t believe you let them do that to you.» They criticize the fruits of the Spirit. But here in the book of Galatians, the Bible is quite clear that God does not criticize the fruits of the Spirit; He encourages the fruits of the Spirit.
Now listen, let’s digress a little bit and understand what’s going on in Galatia and why Paul is writing to them. They have taken the grace of God—the new gospel, the Christian message—and mixed it with traditional Judaistic laws, creating a hybrid that distorts and diminishes the power of the cross. Paul is writing back to them and saying, «Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?» In other words, who has come in here and tampered with what I taught you that now you have diluted the gospel with what the gospel came to liberate you from? So when he’s writing to Galatia, he’s making a strong case for grace.
I want you to understand that midst making a strong case for grace, he’s saying grace is not an open license to live your life any way you want. Grace is just saying that you are not a Christian through your own goodness; grace is saying that I’m giving you the power to follow another lead in your life than to follow the lead of your flesh. I hope you’re getting what I’m saying!
So we’re understanding a little bit about the acts of the flesh. I want you to go to 2 Corinthians for just a moment—chapter 7, verse 1. I read the earlier texts in NIV, but I’m going to read this one in the King James Version just because I learned it that way. 2 Corinthians 7:1: «Having therefore these promises.» Do you know you have promises? Even in the middle of COVID-19, you still have promises! Even if you lost your job, you still have promises! Even if your husband left you, you still have promises! Even if you’re HIV positive, you still have promises! Even if you got bad news that your hours have been cut, you still have promises! Because the promise didn’t come from the IRS; it didn’t come from the doctor; it didn’t come from your boss. The promises of God are yes and amen! God has given you promises.
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves—watch this! This is what I want you to see: let’s cleanse ourselves. This is what you’ve got to do and I’ve got to do and we’ve got to keep on doing. It’s like taking a bath; you can’t take a bath one time and say, «Well, I’ve cleansed myself; I’m through.» No, you’re going to need to do that again and again and again! Bathing yourself in the Word of God, bathing yourself in a Christian atmosphere, bathing yourself in music that reinforces your faith is very important. I’m not saying that’s the only thing you can listen to, but I am saying that you need to listen to things that build up your spirit and encourage you, at least most of the time—some of the time, okay?
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh. What is filthiness of the flesh? I just told you whatever; I just gave you the list. The spirit is perfecting our maturing holiness in the fear of God. We often talk about the filthiness of the flesh; we hear a lot about this, but we don’t hear much about the filthiness of the spirit. I think sometimes the filthiness of the spirit, I know, is just as dangerous as the filthiness of the flesh. Sometimes, I think it’s worse than the filthiness of the flesh because it can hide. You can’t see deceitfulness; you can’t see envy; you cannot see those sorts of things. But the Bible says to cleanse yourself of the filthiness of the flesh and the filthiness of the spirit.
Some people, and I know this is—this I said—not the Lord—but after forty-some years of ministry, I have learned that people who do really well with the filthiness of the flesh have to watch out for the filthiness of the spirit. They’re more prone to be arrogant, proud, vengeful, and unforgiving. They don’t wrestle with the filthiness of the flesh as much, but the enemy wars against the filthiness of their spirit, and vice versa. Some of the people who wrestle with the filthiness of the flesh are kind, forgiving, and merciful, and they don’t understand why your friend or spouse can’t forgive you. It’s because you struggle in different areas: one of you is fighting with the filthiness of the flesh and the other one is fighting with the filthiness of the spirit.
Both of you think the other one’s fight is worse than yours; you say it’s more terrible. How could you not forgive me? How could you not be forgiven? How could you do what you did to me? There’s an arrogance that comes with not having a Christ-like attitude. When you take Christ off the throne, then you put yourself on the throne. See, Christ is supposed to be on the throne. Imagine Christ on the throne, and you are supposed to be on the cross. If you change that around, you put Christ on the cross, sacrificing Him again, so you can sit on the throne. You might say you’re a Christian, and maybe you are, but you’re a Christian who is underdeveloped, malnourished, and needs to grow in the things of God because you have the wrong person on the cross.
Christ shouldn’t be on the cross anymore; He rose up from all of that. You’re supposed to now build the cross, and that’s why the Bible over and over again tells us to crucify our flesh, crucify what you want to say, crucify where you would go, and crucify your attitude. Cleansing yourself—now they make soap to cleanse the body, but when it starts talking about cleansing your flesh, it’s not talking about something physical; it’s talking about cleansing your lusts, cleansing your anger, cleansing those things. The orgy said the excessive sexual immorality, sensual immorality, and the things that are listed above—they don’t make something for that. They make a word for that. The word is to soap. How do you know that?
The Bible says, «Ye are clean by the washing of the water of the Word,» so the Word is how you cleanse yourself of these impurities. And how do you cleanse yourself from envy? You see, you can’t even see envy. This is where it’s almost like COVID-19: you can’t see it, and you have to have special soap to be able to get rid of it. You can’t see envy; you can’t see spirit divisions; you can’t see factions. You don’t even know that the person who’s hugging you is part of a group that’s trying to bring you down. You can’t see jealousy; you can’t see a fit of rage until it breaks out. Selfish ambition—those things have to be cleared inside of you. Identify the parts of your life that are jealous or envious or full of selfish ambition; you have to monitor your head and say, «Wait a minute, I’m going too far, I’m straying too far out there,» and you have to reel that in.
That’s a job, friends. That’s a job; it’s a 24/7, 365 days a year job! Yeah, I know I added a couple of days—it’s a full-time job watching yourself, controlling yourself, and getting yourself together. I don’t have time to be reading about anyone else’s struggles; I am busy trying to keep mine in order, trying to keep mine under control, and trying to do that. If you are really serious about walking the Christian walk, you have to get serious about it. Now, Paul is writing to the Galatians in the book of Galatians. He is writing to them because their theology is under siege. It has come under siege because they try to mix the grace of God. It just seemed too easy; it seemed too nice; it seemed too right.
So, they’re going back and adding the traditions of the law, and the traditions of men make the Word of God of no effect. Paul was trying to fight to get them back on the right path and the right course. Incidentally, Galatia in the Old Testament is modern-day Turkey, so he’s in Turkey, in ancient Turkey, and he’s ministering the gospel there and trying to get through to them. In Corinthians, he lets us know that we don’t just have to fight the filthiness of the flesh; we also have to fight the filthiness of the spirit: pride, envy, jealousy, hatred, dissension, rebellion, discord. Sometimes people just say stuff on Twitter, Instagram, and everywhere else, in the office, in the boardroom, just to be the center of what is going on.
If you say white, they say black; if you say we’re going, they say yellow. They just have that spirit of discord, and they’re never going to be happy, and they’re never going to be satisfied. I want to get someone delivered right now: there are some people in your life that are never going to be satisfied. I don’t care what you do. You could change your hair; you can change your address; you can stand on your head and market to the moon, and they’re still going to have an issue with you. You can bring them cookies and coffee every morning; they’re still going to have an issue with you. Stop trying to please people.
There are some people that refuse to be appeased; they refuse to be pleased, and you cannot define success by changing their minds because their minds might not ever change. You still have to breathe air, go to bed at night, get up in the morning, take your shower, hold your head up, and get yourself ready for work. You can’t make their changing their minds an idol in your life. Some of you have created an idol you can’t even see. The idol is public opinion; the idol is what somebody said about you, and you’ve spent all of your life worshiping at the shrine of getting them to see that you’re not like that. I release you today, hallelujah! I release you today. You’ve been released and delivered from a lot of things: maybe smoking, drinking, cheating, or whatever it was you’ve been delivered from. But today, I deliver you from people and your need to have their validation in order to love yourself. You don’t need that in your life.
Can I go deeper with this? So, when the Bible starts teaching us about the fruit of the Spirit— we’ve talked about the acts of the flesh. I want to talk about the fruit of the Spirit. I meant to go in the kitchen and get a bowl of fruit; I had some apples and some oranges and some bananas in there; there’s a bowl of fruit up in the kitchen. I want you to understand that wherever you see fruit—this is important—wherever you see fruit, there’s been relationship. You cannot put a banana tree out in the middle of the world and expect it to yield bananas because it cannot yield bananas by itself. It needs the nectar from other blossoms and plants to cross-pollinate in order to produce fruit. Apple trees do not produce apples without the aid of bees; bees are important. They carry nectar from one flower to the next, causing the apple blossoms to bloom.
Out of the blossom comes the bud, and out of the bud comes the fruit. You understand what I’m saying? The bud, the blossom, and the fruit—I said it wrong: the bud, the blossom, and the fruit. So, you’ve got a bud, you’ve got a blossom, then the blossom falls off, and the fruit remains. All of that is a result of relationship. You cannot have a baby by yourself—no, no, no, no, no. Whether it’s artificial insemination, someone else is involved. You cannot have immaculate conception; it was God involved. You cannot be fruitful alone. Anytime you see fruit, you know there’s a partner around. I remember years ago when I was a young man, my mother taught me something about snakes. There was a baby snake out in the yard, and I said to her, «Mama, that’s just a baby snake.» She said, «Yeah, but wherever there’s a baby, there’s a mama and daddy.» Okay?
Wherever there’s a baby, there’s a mama and a daddy. Wherever there’s fruit, there’s a mama and a daddy. So if we have the fruit of the Spirit, who are the parents of that fruit? I’m glad you asked; that’s really what I want to get down to. I’m going to show you the parents of that fruit. Then let’s go to Romans 8:11–17, and we’re going to go back to Galatians. But first, let’s go to Romans 8 because I want to familiarize you with your spiritual parentage that produces the fruit of the Spirit in your life. You don’t give the fruit of the Spirit just by reading the scripture; this fruit of the Spirit is brought about through the union of the Spirit of God and the spirit of man.
Romans 8:11–17—did you get that? We’re going to have a good old Bible study today, and we’re going to grow. I refuse to leave you as ignorant Christians who are just superficial Christians who have Christian colloquialisms and no depth, no understanding, and don’t know what they believe. We can’t defend what they believe, and don’t know where they are, and can’t find the scripture they refer to. No, no, no, no! That’s what Bible class is made for. It’s not just for me to preach to you; it’s for you to learn and have an encounter with your Bible. So go to Romans 8:11–17, and we’re going to have an encounter with our Bible. We’re going to have a relationship with our Bible; we’re going to have such a relationship with our Bible that the Word is going to get in our hearts—not just church in our hearts, not just submission in our hearts; the Word of God in our hearts.
David said, «Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.» Go to Romans 8:11–17: «But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken—that word 'quicken' means 'make alive'—shall also make alive your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.»
So the Spirit of God is dwelling in me; the same Spirit—not another spirit—the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in me. Whoa! My spirit is the spirit of the man. It is the candle of the Lord, according to the scriptures. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. Every man has a spirit. When God breathed into him the breath of life, he became a living soul. He has a spirit inside of him. But in addition to my spirit, I am a spirit; I have a soul, and I live in a body. I’m a triple being: I am a spirit; I have a soul; I live in a body. This body is not me; it’s the house that I’m living in. The house may be caving in, but the spirit is fresh and new because the spirit is not subject to age. It’ll never be.
If I live to be 120, my spirit will still be young and fresh because the only things that get old are the things that came from the earth, and this body came from dirt. To the dirt it shall return, and that dirt is calling it back right now. Your mama might be in the dirt; your body might be in the dirt; but she’s not in the dirt. You didn’t love her body; you loved her spirit; you loved her personality; you loved who she is. That part is not dead, and it cannot die. A gun cannot kill it; a sword cannot destroy it; poison can’t take it out because that which is spirit is spirit, and that which is flesh is flesh.
Get this in your head so you can understand life because life does things to you, and if you don’t understand, you’ll think your loved one is gone. Your loved one is in the ground; your loved one is in a casket; your loved one is in a bottle over the mantelpiece. No, they’re not; their body is, but their spirit is not. Now, the Bible is teaching us here that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead shall also quicken our mortal body. They nailed His body, but they couldn’t stop His spirit. They rolled a stone in front of His body, but they couldn’t stop His spirit. That same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal body. Verse 12: «Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh.» I told my flesh, «You don’t own me.»
It is because the flesh is never satisfied. Everything my flesh wants, it wants more of. Love—I want that to sink in. Everything my flesh desires, it continually craves. If I feed it, it’s going to get hungry again. If I have sex, I’m going to want more sex. Everything my flesh desires, if I get thirsty, I’m going to want more water. Everything my flesh wants will be insatiable; it will always want more. It’s not that if I satisfy it, it will be quiet; it will never be satisfied. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live after the flesh, for it will never be satisfied. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die, but if you, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. This doesn’t mean you don’t have a body; it just means you’re not led by your body. It doesn’t mean you don’t have temptations or desires, but you’re not driven by them.
It’s like the lame man that Jesus healed; he told him to pick up his bed and walk. The only difference between the man after he got healed and before is that at one point, the bed was carrying him, and once he got healed, he was carrying it. The things that used to control you are still there; the difference is now you’re controlling them, rather than them controlling you. They’re no longer making every decision for you. You’re no longer driving around in the middle of the night looking for someone to pick up. You’re no longer weaker than someone at the water cooler who you know is married, flirting with them, even though you could, you’re just not controlled by that.
This is good stuff! If you don’t find this valuable, you might not be a Christian. If this isn’t good to you, you might just be a churchgoer. If the only thing that excites you is the tone of my voice, and that’s all you’ve got, then you don’t have anything at all because that’s just style. It’s simply style, culture, and personality—the way we do what we do. What gives life is the Word of God. What sets you free is the Word of God. What causes you to transform is the Word of God. What enables you to grow is the Word of God.
I’m talking to you right now; can you hear me? For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. It’s one thing to have the Spirit of God; it’s another thing to be led by Him. So you can see that the Spirit of God isn’t just here to be in the curio cabinet to show off to your friends with the gifts of the Spirit. The Spirit of God wants an active relationship with your spirit. Wow, that’s amazing! But you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear (verse 15). You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear! You’re not enslaved; you’re not entrapped. This gospel didn’t come to shackle you down. It’s not about what you can’t do; it’s about what you can do. You have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, «Abba Father.» You’ve been adopted into something amazing, new, and fresh. It’s not just that you joined First Baptist or First Faithful Fire Baptized or the Potter’s House; you’ve come into something larger than a building. You have received the spirit of adoption.
And I know something about adoption: with biological children, you don’t get to pick them; they just are. With adopted kids, you had a choice—God chose you. You have the spirit of adoption. Stop saying nobody wanted you; God chose you and adopted you into the royal family, whereby we cry, «Abba,» the closest English word being «Daddy.» That’s how close we are. You can walk up to Him and say, «Daddy, I’m having a bad day,» «Daddy, my emotions are shot,» or «Daddy, I need to talk to you.» For some of you, this is your first time having a daddy that really responds to you. God cares about you; He cares how you feel. He cares about what you’re going through, your broken heart, your disappointments, and how things aren’t going the way you thought they should go. Not that the way you thought they should go is the way He planned for them to go, but He cares about the pain and disappointment of having to shift your ideas to God’s ideas.
Now watch; it’s just getting to the good part. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit. The Spirit of God is talking to my spirit, bearing witness that we are the children of God. If children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, we may also be glorified together with Him. And there’s so much more; we could go to Ephesians and talk about how God has raised us up together and made us sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Ephesians 2:1 it says, «And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, even as your father did.» All of that is a part of the story, but we’re just touching on a little bit.
What I want you to see here is that the Spirit of God, when it actually penetrates, affects, connects, and becomes one with your spirit—it’s about not my will, but thine be done. Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. When the Spirit of God gets control of your next decision, the offspring of that union is the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit could not be produced by God alone because God cannot be fruit; fruit is not fully developed, and God just is. So when you start talking about fruit, you’re talking about the recycling of the tree. The purpose of the fruit is to get right down to the seed, so that the seed can be planted and other trees may grow, and the world may be replenished.
So, God is not developing; He’s not becoming—He simply is. When you talk about the fruit of the Spirit, you’re talking about the effects of the Holy Spirit on my spirit, changing my nature and attitude. I’m going to go through this again in Galatians 5:22, where it says, «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. If the fruit of the Spirit were just the Spirit of God, how could the Spirit of God have self-control when it has no self to control?
This is what happens when God starts ruling and reigning in the life of a human being: they develop self-control, forbearance, endurance, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, joy, and peace. All of this is a result of the Spirit of God having a deeper relationship with the spirit of man. I’m wondering today, not whether you go to church or how well you know the songs, but how deep is your relationship between your spirit and the Spirit of God. In case you’re just joining us, we’re having a wonderful Bible class tonight about the acts of the flesh versus the Spirit of God. What I hope is happening is that as we learn about the fruit of the Spirit, we’re going to use the fruit of the Spirit to manage the acts of the flesh, rather than always praying about the acts of the flesh, trying to defeat them without the fruit of the Spirit. If you get the fruit of the Spirit, you will defeat the acts of the flesh.
So pursue those things that are pure, lovely, and wholesome. If there be any virtue—as the Bible says—if there be any praise, think on these things. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong with you, I want you to begin developing what’s right with you. The more you delve into what’s right with you, the more what’s wrong with you will begin to fall away. You need to get busy in the things of God. You need to allow the Holy Spirit to have a deeper place in your life, and as He begins to take a deeper place in your life, I’m not saying this will make you perfect. You’re still not perfect, but it will help you grow. It will enhance your control, make it easier to say no, and help you avoid the same mistakes you’ve been making over and over again.
The fruit of the Spirit, your relationship with God, leaves less room for the acts of the flesh to control and drive your life. I hope you’re getting something out of this because it is so important. I know I might have to plow through this, and I might have to dig deeper into it because the church is not used to much teaching about the acts of the flesh or the fruit of the Spirit. There are some churches that only preach about what you can’t do, where you can’t go, and what you can’t wear. They train their people to be negative, acting like detectives investigating each other.
Then there are other churches where they’re all about grace, and as long as you attend church and raise your hands in worship, nobody challenges your behavior. Nobody challenges the fact that you cheat; nobody challenges your perverted behavior, your compulsions, your depression, or your fits of rage. Nobody challenges any of that because as long as you come to church looking nice and singing, everything’s alright. I’m trying to bring balance between those two extremes, where you’re not either all the way on one side or all the way on the other. Balance, my friend, is maturity. Balance is what maturity means; it’s about developing the ability not to be extreme, to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
I’m trying to teach you about the fruits of the Spirit. Okay, I’m going to introduce one more character into all of this, and then I’m going to close. We’ve spent a lot of time, especially Charismatics and Pentecostals, talking about the gifts of the Spirit. «Oh my God, the gifts of the Spirit!» They say, «They prophesied!» and «I’m a prophet!» Now everybody’s a prophet; everybody thinks they’re a prophet. Not everyone is a prophet or an apostle, and I won’t even get into tearing down all of that. I’m not saying there aren’t any prophets or apostles, but not everyone is one. Once we hear something, we just reach out and grab it—we don’t even have to know what it means.
Now, I’m a prophetess, or I’m a prophet! They’re running around seeking the gifts of the Spirit, holding up services for an hour and a half, wandering around speaking in tongues, waiting for someone to interpret or interpreting for themselves. All of that is biblical, and we do understand that the gifts of the Spirit operate if you look in Corinthians. You’ll begin to understand that the gift of discernment is a certain line of spiritual gifts. We understand that they do operate; we must differentiate between discerning people and discerning spirits. The gift of discernment is a gift that discerns spirits.
You go through all of these gifts of the Spirit, and they are important, but Paul says in Corinthians that if we have all of that, all knowledge, and we have not love, we are nothing. He said that between the gifts and love, the fruit will always outweigh the gifts. Oh, this is good, yet you don’t hear anyone talking about having all the fruit of the Spirit operating in their lives. You don’t see it on anyone’s Instagram page or business card; they may boast of being apostles, prophets, chief apostles, and so on, but nobody is bragging about the fruits of the Spirit. However, Paul says that if we have all the gifts, all the knowledge, but do not have love, we have nothing.
And charity, and the greatest of these three is love. Oh, that’s so good! That’s so good! That’s good; the greatest. So, if you’ve never discerned the Spirit, if you’ve never prophesied, if you didn’t do anything but love people, you would have the greatest thing you can have: love. The greatest thing you can have is love, and that’s the very thing nobody’s interested in. It’s not marketed to us; it’s not talked about. We don’t even get to talk about it. Nobody preaches about it; nobody teaches us about it. Nobody teaches us patience, temperance, and long-suffering, or just how to be kind. Some of the meanest people hold the biggest titles. The greatest thing you can have is love.
Now abideth faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of the three is love. Everybody’s snatching onto faith; everybody’s talking about holding on to hope. And that’s good; I need them to. But the greatest of the three is love. Paul says if I don’t have love, I am nothing—nothing! Not an apostle, not a prophet, not a pastor, not a teacher, not a CEO, not an executive, not a billionaire, not anything. You know, if I don’t have love, I don’t have anything—neither stocks, nor bonds, nor annuities, nor a summer home. He says if you don’t get you some love, you are broke.
Today, we’re talking about the fruits of the Spirit and the importance of having them in your life. You’d be amazed at what it would do for your ministry if you would speak the truth in love. You’ll be surprised at what a genuine love would do to your service. You’ve got all kinds of head knowledge but no heart knowledge. You’d be surprised how much more effective you would be if you would let your heart into it, and let your recreated, Christ-like heart infiltrate how you lead that church, that business, that ministry.
I’m talking to you; real talk. You’d be surprised how it will affect your prayer life if you had the fruits of the Spirit operating in your life. When you start praying out of your own selfish agenda, trying to bend the will of God to your ambition, you’re not interested in doing the will of God; you’re just interested in making what you want happen. You are a God manipulator. Stop saying you’re an intercessor; you’re not an intercessor; you’re a God manipulator. Because when you really start praying, you get like Jesus, and you say, «Father, if it be Thy will, let this bitter cup pass from me,» and then you correct yourself: «Not my will, but Thy will be done.» God is not here to serve you; you are here to serve Him.
So, it’s not about your plans; they’re all messed up, just like mine. So what? I don’t care; it doesn’t matter. Because if God wanted it to happen, it would happen. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord. You’ll never hear me up here arguing about something I planned not going forward. I only want to last in the areas that God ordains to happen, and if God wills for it to happen, it will happen. If God never wills it, then it will never happen, and I don’t even care, because I don’t want anything that God didn’t want for me.
I don’t want a friend that God didn’t want for me. I don’t want a house that God doesn’t want for me. I only want what God has for me; how about you? This is a result of spending hours with the Spirit of God, changing the spirit of Thomas. Oh yeah, my flesh needs a lot of work—always has and still does. But I’m telling you, it starts in my spirit. Then, if I can get my spirit right, if I can love right, if I can have peace right, if I can have joy right, I won’t have so many thirsts and cravings of frustration for everything else. It starts with the fruits of the Spirit. I can’t find anybody that’s preaching about it; nobody’s talking about it. But we need it like we never needed it before!
Oh, and in closing today, I just want to remind you in Exodus 39:24–36 that when they made the garments of the priests, when they made the garments of the high priest—give me a minute and let me explain to you that the first high priest was Aaron. When God made his garments, Aaron was down at the bottom of the mountain, leading an orgy, naked dancing around an idol; he was doing everything wrong. But God made a robe for him, which is grace, and covered his wrong with God’s grace.
Picture this: Now God is on the mountaintop designing a garment for a guy who’s down in the valley acting a fool. He has made the church that Moses led out of the wilderness into absolute chaos, and everybody has taken off their earrings, melted them down, and built an idol, dancing naked around the calf. I might be wrong, but when people get naked and the heat is on, well, you know, anyway, it’s a mess. And God is designing clothes to say, «Out of all the people in Israel that I will allow to come into my Holies of Holies and be face-to-face with Me and the Shekinah Glory, I choose this joker right here.» Oh my God! You want that naked, failing, faltering, stumbling God to be the high priest? Guess! Give me him! And He made robes for him, a linen ephod, and a censer for him to carry. How amazing is it that God can love, forgive, and cover people that others would never touch?
Why did God make Aaron the high priest? It was the smartest thing. I would have picked a good man; I would have picked a man that never failed, never made mistakes, never broke any laws, kept all the commandments. I would have picked him, I surely would have. God picked the worst possible individual to be the high priest so that no matter what the children of Israel came to him and confessed, he could never turn up his mouth because he remembered himself. He could always be touched by the feeling of their infirmities because of his open sin. He could always come and move the heart of God because he was always reminded of his own wretchedness.
So in this particular text today, God the designer is doing the finishing touches on tailoring His garment. They made upon the hem of the robe pomegranates of blue, purple, scarlet, and twined linen. They made bells of pure gold and put the bells between the fruits; they put the bells between the pomegranates upon the hem of the robe, to minister all the way around: a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate, as the Lord commanded. What does that mean: a bell and a pomegranate?
The bell tinkling makes noise; it’s like the gifts of the Spirit; they’re noisy. But what stopped it from being tinking brass and sounding cymbals? It sat in between every gift was a fruit—a gift and a fruit, a gift and a fruit. I’m trying to tell you, my friend, the more gifted you are, the more loving you have to be. The higher God takes you, the more humble you have to be. The more pressure He puts under you, the more peace you have to have. The more you’re attacked, the more joy you need. The more powerful your words are, the more kindness you need. And I’ve seen God designing something for you, and it’s going to be so amazing! It’s gonna cover all the flaws and failures of your past.
But He sent me to teach this class to you today: a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate. I’ll give you no more gifts than you’ll let me give you fruit, and if you have my fruit, it’ll balance your gift. So today, I’ve come to spend just a little time explaining the acts of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit. As I close today, I want you to know that God is desiring a garment for you: a bell and a pomegranate. A bell—not a pomegranate! If you just stripped down and let Him dress you, your latter days will be greater than your former days and no devil, witch, hex, or spell, and no COVID-19 can do anything about it. Because even though you’re down at the bottom of the mountain, dancing naked around the calf, God is up on the mountaintop designing a bell and a pomegranate for you.
I know you want a lot of prayer about what’s going on right now, but that’s not what I feel led to pray for. I feel led to pray for what’s about to happen, where He’s taking you, and what He’s getting you ready for. I don’t feel led to spend time praying about the calf and the nakedness of your present situation. I just wanted to let you know that there’s something beyond what you’re going through right now, and it’s going to be the fruits of the Spirit that take you there: a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate.
I came to pray for you, because some of you are nice, loving, and kind, but you hate that about yourself. You’ve been taught to be ashamed of your forgiving, loving, compassionate heart. But in this season, God is taking you back to who He created you to be. Even though nobody claps for you, even though nobody appreciates it, God still says, «I’m a bell and a pomegranate; I’m a bell and a pomegranate.» He told me to tell you to stop despising your fruit. Stop wishing you were tough like your sister or mean like your brother. He designed your heart to be blessed—a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate. Stop hating the fact that you’re nice because God is going to bless you.
I want to pray with you, and I want to pray that the peace of God, which passes all understanding, would keep your heart and mind. I want to pray that you would grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I want to pray that the fruits of the Spirit would be yours and that the acts of the flesh would fall off you like dry leaves falling from a tree. Let the wind blow, because you are coming into your season. This is a word of knowledge to you: you are coming into your season now, in Jesus' name. Amen.