Rev. Andrew Murray was a missionary to South Africa at the end of the 19th Century and wrote many books. He was from a Dutch Reformed background. I don’t know how closely that church’s teaching relate to Wesleyan teachings, but I do know that his quote hits right at the heart of the role that the Fruit of the Spirit has in our going on to perfection.

  "The Holy Spirit was poured out as the fruit of Resurrection and Ascension. And the Spirit is now the Power of God in us, working upwards towards Christ, to reproduce His life and Holiness in us, to fit us for fully receiving and showing forth Him in our lives. We must take the lesson to heart; we can have as much of the Spirit as we are willing to have of His Holiness. Be full of the Spirit, must mean to us, Be fully holy. [. . .]Be holy means, Be filled with the Spirit. If we inquire more closely how it is that this Holy Spirit makes holy, the answer is,—He reveals and imparts the Holiness of Christ."

  There is so much to unpack from that quote. Let me focus though on the idea that the connection between being full of the Fruit of the Spirit and being fully holy. You can’t have one without the other. You cannot be moving onto perfection-trying to become perfect in love in this world—and not be full of the Fruit of the Spirit. You cannot be full of the Fruit of the Spirit unless you are allowing the Holy Spirit to move in your life and shape you more and more each day into the image of Christ.

  As you think about this process, you have to consider that the change that has to happen in our lives does not come from our own power. We cannot force the Fruit of the Spirit to grow. We cannot demand which Fruit will be produced. We cannot force God to give us more of the Holy Spirit. It’s all about God’s grace unfolding in our lives and God moving in us as God deems fit and necessary.

   So, if we can’t make God do any of this, what is our role. Well, since God is the gardener that provides the growth, our role is, in my opinion, best seen as a co-gardener that helps to keep the weeds out. Not a very glamorous role. Yet, one that is important. Have you ever seen a garden overrun with weeds? It’s not a very effective garden—is it?

   We need to identify the weeds in our garden that need pulling so that God can more freely begin to develop the Fruit within us and so that the Holy Spirit can more easily shape us into Christ’s image. We need to get rid of things that pull us away from prayer, the Bible, coming together for fellowship, service toward others...the list could go on. I hope you get my point. If you want to be more like Christ, you have to allow the Holy Spirit to move in your life and you have to allow the Fruit of the Spirit to grow.

  It’s a good thing to have a friend that is open and honest with you. It’s good to be able to get the feed back that let’s you know that what you are about to do is good, bad, or indifferent.

   This week, I need for you to find one of those honest and to the point kind of friends in your life. I need for you to arrange a time when the two of you can get together. Maybe you can get a cup of coffee at Hardee’s. Perhaps, you can drop by his or her home one evening. Perhaps, you could take a stroll along the Greenbelt. Where you meet is not important. What is important is that you make the meeting happen.

   When you get together, I want the two of you to engage in some very specific kind of conversation. Get the weather comments out of the way. Put the grandchildren stories aside. I want you to use this time to discuss how God has been moving in your life in response to your seeking to draw closer to God.

   Talk about some of the scriptures you have been reading. Are any of them speaking to you in a strong way or a fresh way? Talk about some of the things that have been on your prayer list? What is God putting on your heart to lift up in prayer?

   Ultimately, I want you to ask each other about what you see in the other person when it comes to the Fruit of the Spirit. This is where I need you to be honest. This is where that true friend comes into play. It will do neither one of you any good to simply say what you think the other person wants to hear. You need to be honest with each other.

   I need for you to tell the other person what you see as the Fruit of the Spirit that is most evident in his or her life. I also need for you to tell your friend what Fruit of the Spirit seems most lacking in his or her life. Your friend should then do the same with you.

   At this point, you should still be friends. At this point you should still be able to laugh and smile. However, you should also be pondering what your friend has just said about you.

   He or she has just told you what one of your greatest strengths is, as he or she sees it working out in your life. He or she has also given you an area of weakness.

​   Each of you then needs to say a short prayer for the other person thanking God for the Fruit of the Spirit that is evident in his or her life and asking God to grow the Fruit of the Spirit that might be lacking. Covenant to pray for each other for the next 7 days and then have another conversation to see how things might be different in each other’s lives.
 

  I was interviewing Rusty Taylor for my podcast and I asked him, “What is your favorite dessert?” This is a standard question to end my podcast interviews. His response, though, was unexpected. Everyone else I had asked that question had talked about cakes, pies, cookies, etc. Rusty, though said, “Watermelon. Only after the Fourth of July, at least that’s what my grandfather taught me. Before then, it’s not ripe enough to eat.”

   Rusty knew how to answer my question and didn’t hesitate in doing so. He knew that there was only one right answer for him. He knew that watermelon was the only dessert for him.

   Let me ask you something. “What is your favorite Fruit of the Spirit?” Think about that in two different ways. First of all, what is the favorite in terms of what is evident in your life right now? Secondly, what is your favorite in terms of I need more of that fruit? Could you answer in a no hesitation manner as did Rusty?

   Even as I pose these questions, I am trying to answer them in my own mind. You see, when it comes to the Fruit of the Spirit, how many of us actually think about them being present in our lives? How many of us strive to allow that fruit to be on display for all the world to see?

   John Wesley said that once we get the love of Christ in our hearts and began to see the world as Christ sees it, then the first thing that would be produced in our lives would be Fruit of the Spirit. The questions that are before each of us are these: Is there Fruit of the Spirit present in my life? How is this fruit manifested and seen by others? Is there fruit present in my life that I may not recognize, but that others do see? Am I striving to make the fruit abundant? What is God’s role in this process?

   The more I think about this topic, the more questions that arise in my own mind. I am trying to remember if I have ever heard a sermon or sermon series on the Fruit of the Spirit. In the back of my mind, I vaguely remember one and it was decades (Yes. I am old enough to use the word decades in this context.) ago.

   So, I suppose, I need to do some searching on my own  and see where the Lord leads me on this topic. I suggest that you, likewise, begin some searching. I sense that there may be a sermon or two that might come out of this search. I can’t promise when, but I suspect soon.

​Let me close with the following quote from the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer for us to ponder this week:

“Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends.”

  Have you ever marveled at the way a garden grows? It is not a haphazard process. Sure, some plants will come up again year after year without your intervention. However, when I think garden, I tend to think of something orderly and intentional.

   You have to first till and prepare the soil. Then you have to decide where you are going to plant the various seeds or young plants. Then, once they are planted, you have to tend them. Then you sit outside every night and all day long and you say to the seeds and plants: Grow. I Command you to GROW.

   Is that the way you grow a garden? Not really. Once you get everything planted, other than a little weeding, you sort of sit back and let it happen. It doesn’t happen, though, on its own. You see God has created the seeds and plants and God programmed them to grow and blossom and bear fruit under the right conditions. We can assist the process, but we are not ultimately responsible for the process. Nor can we force the process.

    Our spiritual growth is sort of the same way. We have to cultivate the soil and get things ready. We have to plant seeds. We have to water and weed, but ultimately, the growth will come from God. The Fruit will occur in God’s time. Specifically, the Fruit of the Spirit will blossom in our lives as we do the things we can to prepare our spirit, but we have to rely on God to bring them to full fruit. They are God’s gift to us, not something we can demand or make happen on our own.

    In the Wesleyan Way of Discipleship chart (I hope you have one of those by now-they are available online and in the office) you will note that once we begin to see the world as Christ sees it and once we put Christ on the throne of our heart and begin to love the world as Christ loves it, then things begin to happen. As we become more and more eager to be like Christ, then God rewards that eagerness on our part by producing fruit—i.e. the Fruit of the Spirit— in our lives.

   God doesn’t typically dump the whole orchard on us all at once. I tend to think that God begins to produce a crop one fruit at a time. He might help us first with patience or faith. Maybe he will produce more love in us and then help us with meekness. I don’t know the order. I don’t know the process. I do know, that the master gardener is at work in us. I also know, that the more we prepare the soil (read the Bible, engage in prayer, attend worship, receive the sacraments) the more quickly God will be able to produce that Fruit that we all desire.

​    So. What are you doing in your life to get the soil of your spirit ready for the Fruit that God is seeking to produce in your life? If you aren’t trying to get things ready, then you shouldn’t expect God to bless you with a bountiful crop.
 

   In my younger days, I used to act. I was in several productions. Each production was different, yet there was one thing in common with each of them. I had to memorize my lines.

   If you have never been in a stage production before, you might not realize how difficult that can be at times. You see, the playwright put those words in the order that he or she wanted them and arranged them to convey the emotion and meaning that was within them. It wouldn’t do for an actor to rewrite the script as he or she went along. You see, other people were counting on you to say your words correctly so that they could then say their words correctly.  

   Working on stage fosters a sense of interdependence, wherein, each person needs the other person to succeed and to do and say the correct thing. When this happens, the actors come together and the play is more likely to create the intended effect.

   I think the church is like a troupe of actors. You see, we have been given a script (The Bible) and we have been asked to learn or memorize it. By knowing our lines, we can uphold one another and working together we can present a harmonious performance that allows us to experience the oneness that comes from being individual parts of the greater body of Christ.

    When it comes to the script, I think that it is important for us to memorize certain parts of the Bible. This week I am challenging us to look at the fruit of the Spirit and, if we have not already done so, to commit them to memory. Wesley taught that out of the Love of Christ that was in our hearts, the first thing that would flow would be evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We will be spending a few weeks on this first ring in the Wesleyan Way of Discipleship and it is in this ring that we will talk about and question one another concerning the fruit of the Spirit.

   Now, depending upon your favorite translation, the list of the fruit of the Spirit may differ somewhat from the lists that follow. That’s okay. I merely want us to be able to recite the fruit. Pick a version that is most familiar to you. That is our part of the script. That is our line in the play. That is how we will help to get God’s grace within us.

   From Galatians 5:22-23 in the New Century Version we get this list:
22 But the Spirit produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.

​  Some of you may be more familiar with the King James listing of the fruit of the Spirit.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 meekness, temperance: