Study on the Fruits of the Spirit- Love

Tonight we begin our study on the Fruits of the Spirit.

Text

Galatians 5:22-26 (HCSB) 22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, 23  gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24  Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25  Since we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit. 26  We must not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Tonight we start with Love

There are 4 types of love mentioned in the New Testament

Agape Love

Pronunciation: [Uh - GAH - Pay]

Perhaps the best way to understand agape love is to think of it as the type of love that comes from God. Agape is divine love, which makes it perfect, pure, and self-sacrificing. When the Bible says that "God is love" (1 John 4:8), it's referring to agape love.

1 John 4:7-8 (HCSB) 7  Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8  The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Storge Love

Pronunciation: [STORE - jay]

The love described by the Greek word storge is best understood as family love. It's the kind of easy bond that naturally forms between parents and their children -- and sometimes between siblings in the same household. This kind of love is steady and sure. It's love that arrives easily and endures for a lifetime.

Phileo Love

Pronunciation: [Fill - EH - oh]

Phileo describes an emotional connection that goes beyond acquaintances or casual friendships. When we experience phileo, we experience a deeper level of connection. This connection is not as deep as the love within a family, perhaps, nor does it carry the intensity of romantic passion or erotic love. Yet phileo is a powerful bond that forms community and offers multiple benefits to those who share it.

Eros Love

Pronunciation: [AIR - ohs]

Eros is the Greek term that describes romantic or sexual love. The term also portrays the idea of passion and intensity of feeling.

• Paul's introduction of the word fruit is filled with meaning. While we might have expected him to say, "The works of the Spirit are," Paul needed to use a fresh term. He had used "works" enough throughout this letter. Besides, "works" indicates lots of activities that people must do. "Fruit," however, is singular, indicating that all the fruits exist as a unit (like a bunch of grapes rather than many different pieces of fruit) and that all are important to all believers (unlike "gifts" that are dispensed differently to different people). So Paul conveyed the meaning of a full harvest of virtues. Also, "fruit" is a by-product; it takes time to grow and requires care and cultivation. The Spirit produces the fruit; our job is to get in tune with the Spirit. Believers exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, not because they work at it, but simply because they are filled with the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit separates Christians from a godless, evil world, reveals a power within them, and helps them become more Christ-like in their daily lives. In contrast to the list it follows, Paul did not describe these characteristics as obvious. The previous ones reside in us; the following ones come as a result of the Spirit's presence.

Love (agape)—Love as shown by Jesus, whose love is self-sacrificing and unchanging, and as demonstrated by God who sent his Son for sinners (Romans 5:5). Love forms the foundation for all the other fruit listed. Elsewhere, Paul breaks love itself down into various components (see 1 Corinthians 13), so that "love" turns out to bear little resemblance to the emotional meaning so often given to the word.

• Love is first on the list, which makes sense because Paul has already said love is how genuine faith expresses itself (5:6). Some Bible expositors have written that love is actually the only item on the list, with the other named characteristics being how love is expressed in a believer’s life. Experience would suggest that where there is true love for God and fellow human beings, joy and peace cannot be far behind.
• Unlike the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are separate and dispersed among various believers, the fruit of the Spirit is found grouped together in a Christian heart and life. Where one is found, the others will likely be found as well.

• The first fruit of the Spirit is love, agapē. The common word for love among the Greeks was philanthrōpia, from which we get our word It did not go higher among the Greeks than giving a man his due. The word ranked far lower than the New Testament word philadelphia, the love of one believer for another, genuine brotherly love. Agapē is spontaneous love, love irrespective of "rights." It is the word commonly used in the New Testament to describe the matchless love of God. Henry Drummond demands,

• What is the summum bonum, the supreme good? You have life before you. Once only you can live it. What is the noblest object of desire, the supreme gift to covet? [Love!] The greatest of these is love.... A man is apt to recommend to others his own strong point. Love was not Paul's strong point.... The hand that wrote, "The greatest of these is love," when we meet it first, is stained with blood.... Paul begins by contrasting love with other things that men in those days thought much of.... He contrasts it with eloquence.... He contrasts it with prophecy.... Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyrdom.... You can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the impress and reflection of this Love of God upon your character. That is the universal language. It will take you years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day you land, that language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence.... You can take nothing greater.... It is not worth going if you take anything less.

Referring to 1 Corinthians 13:4-6, Drummond says,

• Paul in three verses, very short, gives us an amazing analysis of what this supreme thing is. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other side of the prism broken up into its component colours... so Paul passes this thing Love through the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into elements. And in these few words we have what one might call the spectrum of love.... Notice that they have common names; that they are virtues which we hear about every day; that they are things which can be practiced by every man in every place in life.... The spectrum of love has nine ingredients: patience ("love suffereth long"), kindness ("and is kind"), generosity ("love envieth not"), humility ("love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up"), courtesy ("love doth not behave itself unseemly"), unselfishness ("seeketh not her own"), good temper ("is not easily provoked"), guilelessness ("thinketh no evil"), sincerity ("rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in truth").

1 Corinthians 13:4-6 (HCSB) 4  Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, 5  does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6  ?Love? finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.

Love! It is the sum and substance of the Christian life. It all began with love. Love flooded this sin-cursed planet even before Adam's fateful fall. The Old Testament prophet first picks up and then puts down that great word from God: "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jer. 31:3).

• When Moses wrote his memoirs, he sought for an explanation of God's extraordinary love for Israel, a love that burst all barriers and triumphed over all provocations, a love that took minimal account of Israel's continual murmurings, complainings, rebellion, and unbelief but that, in spite of all, brought the nation to the Promised Land. God looked at the Hebrews. He knew them only too well. He had "suffered... their manners in the wilderness" (Acts 13:18). He could find only one explanation: "The Lord," he said, "loved you, and because he would keep the oath" ( 7:8).

• The gospel begins on the same high note. Never have greater words been penned than these: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Well might we sing Frederick M. Lehman's hymn "The Love of God":

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk of earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above,

Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

• "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Jesus came to demonstrate the truth of that declaration. He exhibited love as a babe, as a boy, as a teenager, and as a man. He manifested love in the home, in the classroom, on the playground, in the synagogue, and at the workbench. He revealed love when tramping the highway, when on the sea, and when in the temple. Ever and always, He displayed this one great truth about God: God is love. He displayed it with every breath He breathed. He demonstrated love in action in a particularly memorable, undiluted, down-to-earth way. There was never a road too rough, never a way too long, never an appeal too faint, never a case too hard, never a sob too late, and never a day too long for His love. Now it was an aristocratic Pharisee coming to Him in the dead of night, then it was a wicked woman at a wayside well at high noon. Now it was a dead little girl, then a demon-possessed little boy. Now it was a loathsome leper, then a woman with an issue of blood. Now it was Nathanael under a fig tree, then it was Zacchaeus up a sycamore tree. Now it was a wedding that had run out of wine, then it was a funeral and a woman who had been robbed of her only son. Now it was a publican, next a peer of the realm. Now it was a hungry multitude, then some frightened disciples in the grip of a howling gate. Always, love found a way to dry the tears and calm the fears.

• Love! The word breathed through His teaching. He summarized all 613 commandments of the Mosaic Law in the one word—love! He said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" ( 22:37-40). He said to His disciples, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). But He demanded even more: "I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matt. 5:44).

• Impossible? Not for Him. He loved poor, lost Herod, self-seeking Annas, crafty Caiaphas, and weak and wavering Pilate. He loved them enough to die for them. He loved Peter even as he cursed and swore and denied Him. He loved Judas even as he planted the traitor's kiss on His cheek. He loved the man who punched Him in the face, the man who crowned Him with thorns, the man who smote Him on the head with a reed, and the man who plowed His back with a scourge. He loved the soldier who dropped that heavy cross upon His lacerated back and commanded Him to get going. He loved the men who nailed Him to that tree. He loved the very men who mocked Him as He died: "Father, forgive them," He said (Luke 23:34). What love:

Love that no tongue can teach,

Love that no thought can reach;

No love like His.

God is its blessed source,

Death ne'er can stop its course,

Nothing can stay its force;

Matchless it is.

• Now then, says Paul, "The fruit of the Spirit is love." It is the love that "many waters cannot quench" (Song 8:7), the love that "suffers long and is kind" (1 Cor. 13:4), the love that "will not let [me] go" (Song 3:4), and the love that is "strong as death" (Song 8:6). Impossible? Of course, it is impossible to us. But it is gloriously possible to the Holy Spirit. Indeed, that is one of His New Testament titles—He is called "the spirit... of love" (2 Tim. 1:7).

Song of Songs 8:7 (HCSB) 7   Mighty waters cannot extinguish love;   rivers cannot sweep it away.   If a man were to give all his wealth for love,   it would be utterly scorned.

1 Corinthians 13:4 (HCSB) 4  Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited,

Song of Songs 3:4 (HCSB) 4   I had just passed them   when I found the one I love.   I held on to him and would not let him go   until I brought him to my mother’s house—   to the chamber of the one who conceived me.

2 Timothy 1:7 (HCSB) 7  For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.

• Let us remind ourselves afresh how the Lord Jesus, as Man, lived His life on earth. He did not live His matchless life in the power of His own deity, although He could have done so because He was never less than God. He allowed the love of God His Father to flow through Him as electrical current flows through a wire, in touch with the power at one end and the need at the other end. As a result, the supernatural, sublime, and superlative love of God flowed through the Lord Jesus at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances.

• That same love is to flow through the believer in the same way by means of the Holy Spirit. We cannot manufacture it; neither can the flesh imitate it. The flesh, indeed, can exhibit what it calls love, but it is flawed at best. True love is of God, for God is love. In contrast with the "works of the flesh" is this glorious fruit of the Spirit.

• Love took David Livingstone to Africa. "In the heart of Africa," says Drummond, "among the great lakes, I have come across black men and women who remembered the only white man they ever saw before—David Livingstone; and as you cross his footsteps in that dark continent, men's faces light up as they speak of the kind Doctor who passed there years ago. They could not understand him; but they felt the love that beat in his heart." The same was true of Carey in India, Judson in Burma, Hudson Taylor in China, Brainard among the Indians, J. G. Patan among the terrible cannibals of the New Hebrides, George Müller among the orphans of England. Christian love not only has sought to save men's souls but also built hospitals, asylums, leper colonies, orphanages, and homes for the aged. Love sent William Booth to the drunks and derelicts of London's slums. Love led William Wilberforce to strike the blow that freed the slaves in Britain's vast domains. Love sent Lord Shaftesbury to the factories and mines and then to the House of Lords to demand an end to child abuse and harsh labor laws. When all else fails, love never fails. Christianity is Christ, Christ is God, and God is love. Christianity is love in action. The fruit of the Spirit is love.