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Fruit of the Spirit #2 "The Garden of Rejection"

Galatians 5:16-26

by Clancy Nixon

January 14, 2007

Church of the Holy Spirit

Broadlands, Virginia

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org

This is talk #2 in my series on the Fruit of the Spirit, and I call it "The Garden of

Rejection." In this series, we're looking at how we can love like Jesus, so we can have

more loving relationships with everyone we know. We want to bridge the gap between

the promises of God about loving relationships in the body of Christ, and the provision of

God in the relationships that we actually experience. Last week, we agreed that we'd like

everyone in our community to get to the place that our reflexive response to negative

circumstances in our life is the response of Christ: love and forgiveness.

Last week, I introduced the idea that we become like Christ through what Renny

Scott called the "Garden Principle," which is this: God always gives us his best. Let's

say that together: God always gives us his best. In Romans chapter 8, verses 28 and 29a,

Paul says, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,

who have been called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also

predestined to become conformed to the likeness of his son...." We learned that the

Bible defines what is good for us not by how we feel about it, but by that which conforms

us into the likeness of Christ. Romans 8:28 and 29 teach that God is at work in the

circumstances of the lives of Christians to make us look like Jesus. Because God loves

you and those around you, He wants to create something of a characteristic of Jesus, a

fruit of the Spirit, in your life, so you will bless others. Paul says this is not just what

God wants to do, but that God is doing this irresistibly in us, since he predestined us to be

like Jesus! We will look like him; we can choose to cooperate and look like Jesus sooner

rather than later. God always gives us his best. If we believe this, we can view painful

experiences not as hindrances, but as teachers. The Fruit of the Spirit is one biblical list of

the character qualities of Christ: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In this series, we're looking at the fruit of the

spirit to discover how to better love each other.

The garden where you and I are formed, that is, the emotional circumstance that

produce the fruit of love in us initially, is called acceptance; and the garden in which the

fruit of love is pruned and multiplied is called rejection.

We first learn love in the womb and arms of our mother. Even when we are in the

womb, there is a part of us that can tell whether our mother wants us, accepts us or not.

The mother sends biochemical information to her baby about her stress level, and her

feelings about her baby. One study found that a woman in a tension-filled marriage runs

a 237% greater risk of bearing a child with physical and emotional problems than a

woman in a loving marriage. (Linns, Healing the Eight Stages of Life, p. 34) From the

very beginning, our relationships influence both our health and our capacity to love.

Infancy is the stage of life where we learn to trust that the world God created is good. If

we don't bond with our mother, we will lack a sense of being. Psychologist Eric Erikson

says that learning to trust is the first developmental task of life. So we must first

experience love ourselves before we can love others. Thank God that any development

we missed earlier can be made up later, and that anything can be healed. There is nothing

that Jesus cannot heal! There is nothing that the body of Christ, empowered by the Spirit,

cannot heal. Healing prayer can heal the wounds you may have suffered in your infancy.

It's in relationship that we become whole, we become like Christ: relationship with God,

and relationship with others. 1 John 4:19 says, "We love because He first loved us."

When I was a boy, my mother loved me very much. I grew up having a sense that

I was loved, that the world was a trustworthy place. However, I did not learn about God

at all until I was a Tween. Remember, the garden in which the fruit of love is pruned and

multiplied is called rejection. I experienced rejection as a boy from my older sisters, who

for a time teased me pretty mercilessly. I also vividly remember being rejected by some

older guys in the neighborhood, who didn't want a youngster pestering them. They used

to "ditch" me they would ask me to follow them to a place where they could lose me so

I would not see where they went. As a boy, I did what many people do when they are

rejected I looked for someone else that I could reject, so that I could be in and they

could be out. I switched from being a victim to being a victimizer, which is an all-too-

common response to victimization. God placed that garden of rejection in my life to teach

me the fruit of love, to get me to empathize with the rejected ones so that I could show

God's love for them by being an includer. Very frequently, God wants to use the pain in

your life to give you a heart for others who suffer in similar ways. So, the people who

minister to others who are considering abortion through crisis pregnancy centers have

often been touched by abortion themselves. Next week on Sanctity of Life Sunday, we'll

hear one woman's story of her healing from her abortion. I was thick with pride, so I did

not learn the lesson of empathy for rejected ones from the way others rejected me until I

was born again at age 14.

The axis of my conversion at Calvary Camp in Conneaut, Ohio was the revelation

to me that God loved everyone, not just the kids who were smart, or athletic, or good

looking, or rich. I finally saw the sin of my own pride in thinking that I was better than

anyone else, and I asked Jesus to change my heart to love others as he loved us all. The

Bible says it is no credit to you if you love those who love you! With some fear, the next

day I realized that I now had a duty to love the person at camp that I was most repulsed

by. For me, this was a boy in my cabin named Tom. For me at age 14, Tom was hard to

love not just because, in my unregenerate, immature state, I had seen him as slow and

dim-witted and unattractive and slovenly, though I admit that was a part of my disdain for

him. More than that, Tom could ruin your whole team effort! At camp there was a daily

award called the "Pot of God" award. Free canteen was awarded to the cabin that had the

best table manners of the day, and the Dining Hall Steward was the judge. The worst

cabin won the Pig award. One day our cabin decided we would do our absolute best to

win the Pot of Gold, so our manners were immaculate. It looked like we were going to

win this award, when at dinner, with the Steward standing right there looking at us, Tom

removed the skin whole from his chicken breast, raised it in the air, let the grease drip on

his cheek, and exclaimed, "I loooove skin!" That day, we did not win the Pot of Gold, we

won the Pig. Yet after my conversion, God gave me the grace to love Tom. God just

turned my heart on like a switch. For the first time in my life, I experienced compassion

for another person, and I could feel my heart just grow in my chest. God showed me that

he was no respecter pf persons, that he loved Tom, because like everyone else, Tom bears

the image of God. So we can look past the outward appearance, and look at the heart, as

God does. I learned that there are no ordinary human beings. Every person you and I

meet is immortal! C.S. Lewis says that apart from the Blessed Sacrament, (the bread and

wine of the Eucharist that has been infused with the real presence of Christ), other people

are the holiest objects presented to our senses. The Bible says that if we don't love our

brother whom we can see, we cannot say that we love God whom we cannot see.

Love heads up Paul's list of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5. That is not

by accident. I believe that the fruit of the Spirit is actually one: that is, love; the other

listed virtues are different manifestations of love in operation. If you look at the famous

love passage, First Corinthians 13, you find a definition of love - agape love - that is very

similar to this list. You know the list: "love is patient, love is kind...." Not only that, but

Paul's list of the fruit of the spirit is set in contrast to his (immediately following) list of

the acts of the sinful nature found in Galatians 5:19. Notice that these acts of the sinful

nature are plural; by contrast, the list of the virtues, the fruit of the Spirit, is singular. Acts

is plural; fruit is singular. Here is more evidence that the list of the fruit of the spirit is an

elaboration on the theme of love, just like First Corinthians 13. This should not surprise

us, since we know that God is love; the world will know we are Christians by our love;

and the greatest Commandment is all about love.

In the letter to the Galatians, Paul's chief task is describing the freedom of the

Christian. He takes the "Judiazers" to task for demanding that gentile believers be

circumcised and conform to the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. His theme is

liberty, so he distinguishes liberty from license in chapter 5, verse 13. In verse 16, Paul

says if we live by the spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Verse 17,

our sinful nature, or as some translations call it, the "flesh" (Greek sarx), is in conflict

with the Spirit (that is, the Holy Spirit in us). Now as we walk in the Spirit, the sinful

nature is increasingly subdued, but the conflict between them remains.

Let's look at just a part of that list in verses 19 21 to help us understand what

the absence of love looks like, which Paul says everybody should already know about.

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: 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." I don't know

about you, but when I read a warning in Scripture this hard-hitting and categorical, I

pause and reflect, and say "Whoa!" John Stott says this list falls into four categories of

sins: Sexual sins; religious sins; social sins; and drinking sins. The Greek word translated

sexual immorality in verse 19 is pornea, and it means fornication, and any other kind of

unlawful sexual behavior. Impurity means unnatural vices, and debauchery means and

open and reckless contempt for propriety. Because sexual sins are so highly charged with

emotion, we are familiar with those; but we need to focus even more on the others in the

list, because they are more common. If we look a bit farther down the list, we see social

sins like discord, jealousy and fits of rage. These are more common in the body of Christ

than the sexual sins, but they are every bit as dangerous. At the end of the list Paul warns

us: "those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God." Paul is not saying

here that we are saved by works, or by the absence of sin in our lives; rather, he is saying

that our works are a necessary evidence of the second birth. He has just finished saying in

verse 17 that the Christian does not do what he wants because of the war between the

Holy Spirit in him and his sinful nature. Even so, if any professing Christian regularly

indulges in any of these sins without remorse, if he lives like this, he has just cause to

doubt his own salvation.

How do we avoid this trap? Only by the Spirit's power can we live by the Spirit.

How do we do that? Verse 24 tells us: we crucify our sinful nature. Like executioners,

we are to take the sinful and wayward parts of our character, and kill them with no pity or

mercy. On the day of our conversion, we repented - turned away from everything we

knew was wrong, and so put that part of ourselves to death. Even so, like a zombie, our

sinful flesh lives on in us, it's a "living dead" part of us. Unless we repent daily, we can

return to the scene of the crucifixion of our flesh, and begin to fondle our sinful desires,

long for their release, and even attempt to take them down from the cross. We ought not

even consider doing so. Let the issue is settled forever.

The Christian life is more than renunciation; it is about freedom from the bondage

to sin, and freedom to love others. But it does start there. We die so we can live. We die

to hatred so we can love. We die to revenge so we can bless. We die to sexual sin so we

can experience purity. We die to fits of rage so we can experience kindness and peace.

We die to the flesh so we can walk in the Spirit. It is more than passive surrender; verse

25, it involves an active walk. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that only love could turn our

nation from the evil of segregation, and this was not passive resistance, but an active

walk in the Spirit.

Dream with me for a moment. We have all been to the garden of rejection, both

being rejected and rejecting others. Wouldn't it be worth it for us as a community to do

whatever it takes for us to walk in the spirit with such confidence that it was our reflexive

response to love all people? To help each other be healed from our scars of rejection?

To walk in love as Christ loved us? As I reflect on the listening class we had yesterday,

and the marriage course we'll have next month, I can see one way how that might take

shape. Imagine you being confident in your ability to listen so well to your husband or

wife so that you know they feel loved, understood and respected by you! Imagine

teenagers who are so kind to one another that other teens are drawn like bears to honey!

This is God's dream for us. Let's make it a reality.

[Prayer]