Main Idea: I show the Spirit’s love whenever it costs me to care more about you than me.

Today we begin a new message series called "Living from the Inside Out." Over the next nine messages we are going to talk about what the Bible calls the "fruit of the Spirit." I want you to look at the first part of Galatians 5:22 because it helps us get a handle on what this series is about and why it is important that we spend our time talking about "the fruit of the Spirit."

Paul wrote this letter to the Galatian Christians, which, was a region in what we call Turkey today, In verse 22 he says, "But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us," and then the first "fruit" he mentions is love. That sentence raises some questions that we need to answer. The first question is: "Who is the Holy Spirit?" Just so we are all on the same page, very simply, the Holy Spirit is the presence of God that lives inside every person who has invited Jesus Christ to be his or her Lord and Savior. We say that as a Christian we have "Jesus in our heart." The truth is that Jesus has sent his Spirit, his Holy Spirit, to live inside us. The Bible says every Christian has the Holy Spirit living within their life. (John 14:17)

If the Holy Spirit lives in my life, it brings up the next question that this statement of Paul’s raises: "Who is in control of my life?" The words that Paul uses here lets me know that there is a possibility for some other power or influence that can control my life. It also tells me that the struggle for control occurs inside me because that is where the Holy Spirit lives. Therefore, if I am going to have any hope of living my life in cooperation with God’s control in my life then that is going to have to occur inside me, within me. The control issue is settled inside my life, not on the outside. That’s why if I am to experience a life that reflects God being in control of my life it has to occur from the inside out. Living from the inside out is living each day under the control of the Holy Spirit and reflecting that control in daily living.

When the Holy Spirit is in control of our life on the inside then there will be evidence of that on the outside. In other words, it is going to be obvious. The first evidence of this control according to the Bible is love. Jesus told his disciples in the verses read earlier, "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." (Jn. 13:34-35) Jesus commanded his followers to love each other in the same way that he loved them and that it would be this kind of love that gave evidence to everyone that they were his follower.

I don’t know about you but I do know about me: I can have two kinds of response to a command. If you order or command me to do something, I may respond immediately and do whatever it is you tell me to do. I figure you know more about this than I do so I’ll do what you say. The other response is that if you command me to do something, I may resist simply because I’m stubborn and since you told me to do it, that may be the very reason I won’t do it. Because Jesus commands me to love other people like he loved them, I am more inclined to respond with obedience to what he says. In other words, if he tells me to love someone like he loved them, then at the very least I will try.

I know this about myself: I have an easier time loving someone if they are a person who is easy to love. They may not be perfect but I can overlook that because they are a person who is loving in return. The problem comes for me when I know I need to love someone and they are not easy to love. This is where the command to love as Jesus loves really becomes a challenge.

If the command to love someone was not a problem, then Jesus further aggravates the issue by using a specific word for love that raises the stakes. The word he uses is a Greek word that meant unconditional, sacrificial, giving love. So not only does he command me to love, he tells me that the way to do it is with an intensity that is impossible for me to do!

Who is it in your life that is impossible for you to love like Jesus loved? What did they do that has so wounded you and hurt you that when you even think about loving them with this kind of love, you immediately reject it? Who is it that you face or see continually that causes you to recoil when you hear the command of Jesus to love like he loves? Who is it that brings you face to face with the impossibility of your ever loving like Jesus loved? Stop for just a moment and think of that one person and put their name in when I read these verses again: "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love______. Just as I have loved you, you should love ______. Your love for ________ will prove to the world that you are my disciples." (John 13:34-35) Puts a different twist to it, doesn’t it?

Do you see the problem? Simply because you have an issue loving a specific person doesn’t exempt you or me from obeying this command of Jesus. There are no "exclusion clauses" – love everyone but __________ and you will prove to everyone that you are my disciples. You and I have to admit that Jesus’ command is actually impossible for us to do in our own strength or ability. Yet he still commands us to do it. So how are we ever going to obey a command that is impossible for us to fulfill?

I have some bad news and some good news for you. The bad news is that you can try every human method or technique of relationship building and there are going to be some people, even some Christian people, that you, by your own ability, can’t love. You just can’t. Your "love" capacity will only take you so far and you are going to hit a wall of your ability to love like Jesus commands. It’s not going to happen and the sooner you accept the bad news then we can move on to the good news.

Here’s the good news: God never expects you to fulfill this command by your own power and ability. If you could do this by your own power and ability, then you wouldn’t need God and you certainly wouldn’t need his presence living inside of you. So go back to the statement again: "But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us…" (Gal. 5:22). What God is telling us is that the power and ability to fulfill this command of Jesus to love each other as he loved us is not and never has been based on our human capability or human capacity! It says that when "the Holy Spirit" is in control of our life that "he" will produce the love that Jesus talks about in this command.

I want you to notice something in the word "fruit." A fruit is another word for result or evidence. Notice that it doesn’t say "fruits"; it just says "fruit." That is important because what it tells us is that all of these nine virtues are contained within the capacity of the Holy Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit lives in every Christian’s life then it means that each one of these attributes or virtues live in us. The point is that when the Holy Spirit controls my life and I am enabled to love someone in the manner that Jesus loved them then it is not evidence that I am a loving person but it is evidence that the Holy Spirit is in control of my life.

This should bring a sense of both relief and responsibility to our life. The relief comes by realizing God doesn’t ask me to love __________ in my own capacity or capability. His Holy Spirit living in me has all the capacity and capability to do that so that I can fulfill the command of Jesus. On the other side of this is the responsibility I have to allow the Holy Spirit to control my life. The Bible is very clear "…when the Holy Spirit controls our lives…" that this ability to love like Jesus loved will be produced in me. I have the responsibility to give or release the control of my life to the Holy Spirit in order for me to love in the way Jesus loved. It’s not an excuse to say, "Well, the reason I am not loving this person is that the Holy Spirit has taken the day off! Don’t blame me for being unloving. The Holy Sprit just hasn’t done that in me!" I have a responsibility and the responsibility is about "control." Who controls your life is your responsibility.

Inside everyone who is a Christian there is an ever-present struggle for control between the Holy Spirit and my own human desires. That’s what Paul talks about in Galatians 5:16-18. He says, very simply, that as long as the Holy Spirit controls my life then I will be able to live the life that God wants. When my own desires control my life, I’m in trouble because they are in direct conflict with what the Holy Spirit wants. This conflict is one I am going to live with all my life until I go to heaven. If I persist in letting my desires be in control, my inner life and my outer life will descend into chaos. That’s what Paul describes in verses 19-21.

So, let’s go back to the person whose name you put in the blank earlier. There you are faced with the command to love him or her with a love that you know you can’t produce. You can’t work up some type of emotional feeling for them. Yet you know that in you is the capacity to do what Jesus commands. At the same time, you have another set of influences in you that tells you that they are not worth your time or energy to love them because of what happened between you two. They have a need to be loved and you have a need to obey the command to love. You have two competing desires inside of you – one to love and the other to not love. At some point something has to give—either you are going to keep on not loving them and further your disobedience or you are going to surrender the control of your desires to God’s Holy Spirit and let Him love that person through you. You have to choose. You have to make a choice. So you choose to surrender the control to the Holy Spirit to love through you.

What does that look like? Does it mean that the next time I see them I get all teared up and embrace them and we sign up for a Dr. Phil special on "People I love but used to Hate"? No, because it isn’t a one-time surrender. The word in our text says "controls." That means it is always a present action. It means that the issue of control is one that is gradual and continual. The more gradual and continual I choose to surrender the control of my capacity to love to the Holy Spirit the more I will see Holy Spirit producing love through me.

Okay, so how does this happen? You understand the concept but how do you act it out? How or where do those moments of gradual and continual surrender come? It’s this: I show the Spirit’s love whenever it costs me to care more about you than about me. You demonstrate surrender to the Spirit’s capacity to love by the choices you make that cost you to choose against yourself. That may be by making a phone call to a person that has hurt you to say you were thinking about them and just want to say "hi." It could be stopping by a person’s office who gave you a bad review and seeing if they need a cup of coffee. It might be a text message to see if they were going to the ball game and needed a ride. None of these are huge sacrifices by comparison; yet, each one of them forced you to choose between yourself and the Spirit’s control and each choice cost you something. It cost you to care more about them than about you. I show the Spirit’s love whenever it costs me to care more about you than me.

This past Wednesday I had lunch with John Miles, the new pastor of First United Methodist Church. John and I grew up in Hot Springs and attended the same Junior High and High School. I knew his father and his sister but we had never met. We went out for Chinese and got to know each other by asking questions about some very basic things. When we got back to the church we discussed what we did for recreation and he said his hobby was "half-triathlons," which is a 1.2- mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13-mile run—in the same day! Understand that John is 50 years old so to say I was impressed is an understatement! In fact, he just finished a half-triathlon a week ago Saturday in Arkadelphia in approximately six hours.

Because I have swam in the past for recreation I asked him where he swam for training. His answer surprised me. He said, "I don’t. I swam in college." I said, "So you let the other training carry you through the swimming?" He said, "Yes, pretty much. If I trained I might get five minutes faster but what’s five minutes for a six-hour race?" John lets the capacity and ability he has built up in other areas enable him to do what has to be done.

Jesus Christ has commanded you to love that person that is impossible to love. He has given you the capacity and capability to love that person with the presence of the Holy Spirit within you. Just like my friend John, you stand at the edge of obedience knowing what you need to do and depending on the capacity and capability of another’s strength to meet the demand. You know you must choose. You know you will be disobedient if you do otherwise. So you choose. It costs you. In some significant way it costs you. You discover, though, a surge of life in you that you knew was there but never used before. Suddenly, you feel as if you were watching from the outside and someone else is doing what you never thought possible: You are showing the Spirit’s love. You are living life for that moment in the Spirit’s control. You know what it is to love someone from the inside out and it came so simply when you chose one action that showed you cared more about him or her than you. That is living from the inside out.

Here’s the question we each have to answer: "How much longer will you wait to say "yes" to the Spirit’s control?"

Sunday, August 27, 2006 a.m.

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org