There came a time, after his resurrection, when Jesus left the disciples and ascended into heaven. In Acts 1 Jesus tells his followers, "...wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." ...But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (vv. 4-5, 8). We know from scripture that the Spirit brings peace, power, unity, words in trial, strength, and joy. The kingdom of God is a matter of the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). The Christian life is a life lived in the Spirit.
It was clear at Pentecost that the Holy Spirit had come to the followers of Jesus because there were very obvious and tangible signs. The Spirit was acknowledged by the senses of the bystanders. Through flaming tongues, miraculous communication, and an uncommon form of interaction (which looked like drunkenness apparently) it was clear that the Spirit had come in what some might call a new way. However, when sinners are baptised in the Spirit this doesn't always happen, in fact it probably only was meant to happen once but that's a discussion for another time. So how do we know if we, sinners saved by grace who are trying to live a life of faith and good deeds yet falling short as we do our best supposed to know with certainty whether or not we have the Spirit? Will our chests be strangely warmed as some men have said they experienced? Will we speak in the tongues of angels as some have? Is there still some kind kind of sense oriented sign that shouts "LOOK! I have within me the Spirit of God!?" I believe there is.
A large theme in the scriptures is the bearing of fruit. Sometimes there is a contrast between bearing fruit and bearing no fruit (the fig tree Jesus curses for example) and other times there is the contrast between bearing good fruit and bad fruit. Jesus discusses the issue of false teachers saying, "Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (Matthew 7:17-19). In John 5:1-8 Jesus says
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."
So good trees ear good fruit and bad trees bad or no fruit. Trees that bear good fruit are gardened by God, the original gardener (think Creation and Eden) and bad trees are apart from God and later meet their end (how could they not? Dead things rot and fall away and are only good for burning). By the way, trees are people in all this garden talk. Jesus refers to himself as a tree in that John passage at the beginning. You and I are trees and we are either good trees that are gardened by God or bad trees apart from him. And how do we know which we are? By our fruit! So what does this fruit stuff have to do with the Spirit? Well, the Spirit also produces fruit. His activity has results just like our activity. When we have the Spirit of God there are certain proofs/fruits that we can observe. These fruits are mentioned by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:22-23. "But the fruit of the Spirit is
- love
- joy
- peace
- patience
- kindness
- goodness
- faithfulness
- gentleness
- self-control.
If we can be defined by these terms then odds are we have the Spirit. Unloving, joyless, quarrelsom, impatient, mean, wicked, brimming with denial, coarse, and uncontrolled people are not those who belong to God but are against him. Life in the Spirit looks like the attributes of that verse. If we are out of control, unfaithful, unloving, impatient, and ungentle people then we are not yet living in the love of God, accepting Christ and all he has for us. Part of accepting Christ as Lord is laying down our worldly weapons of the flesh (I don't mean guns and knives but our shallow and sinful practices and desires) and bowing before him. We must put off our old self, dying as though we were on the cross, and putting on the new self as though we have been raised from the grave and been given a new body with which to walk around in. It's like being reborn. We play an active role in our conversion for we decide to cease trying to be the Lord of our own lives; we give up our power of king and we concede it to Christ and we begin to operate under his rule. When we say Christ is Lord we are saying that he is in charge and we are not. He commands us and we obey. This is how we know we love him, we obey him (John 14:15).
As Paul says, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25). We keep in step with the Spirit by pursuing Christ and his Way. As we actively resist the ways of the sinful world and nature that are constantly against us let us seek God in prayer for it is prayer that demolishes strongholds in our lives and makes for us to have the things God wants to give us. It is the Spirit which produces this fruit in us and it is God who sends the Spirit. It is not by our own works that we are people with the fruit of the Spirit but by the grace of God. He desired us and sought us. When we respond to him with faith he gardens us and makes us to bear fruit. It is a partnership and it is a process. The disciples screwed up repeatedly while they walked with Jesus for several years but there came a time when they lived into their faith and the Spirit was given to them by God's will (not their works). They knew Christ was Lord after the resurrection and they lived in that reality of faith and as a result they received the Spirit and through them the world saw love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control unlike anyone else. Other's followed suit and eventually pagan men such as Aristides were writing things like "And see, because of them, good flows on in the world! Truly it is they who have sought and have found the truth, and from what we have understood here we must conclude that they alone are close to the knowledge of truth."
May good flow on in the world because of your faith and your obedience to God. May you see fruit from the Spirit which is promised to those who abandon the world and their own rebellion and finally claim Jesus Christ is Lord! May you lay down your crown at the foot of the cross of Jesus of Nazareth who was later raised and told us of our helper; the Holy Spirit. May the wrestling out of your salvation produce good fruit so that you do not rot, die, and burn away but rather find and produce life that may be enjoyed for eternity (Romans 8:13). Amen.
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