Last week, we talked about the soil of our lives and how we should respond to the grace of God by adding certain virtues to our lives, thus bearing fruit for God. This week, I want to return to the topic of our work vs God’s work. Last week, I looked primarily at our response to the grace of God, adding virtue to the grace in thanksgiving. But I want to be clear: as hard as any farmer works, no farmer ever caused a plant to bear fruit. The fruit comes only from God. Farmers prepare and maintain the conditions necessary for God to do His work.

Metaphors are powerful but can easily be misunderstood and even abused. So, I didn’t want to leave this subject without looking again at God’s work in our fruitfulness. In my life, I’m prone to bounce back and forth between complacency and trying to do everything myself. When I’m complacent, I hate myself, and when I’m trying to do what only God can do, I’m frustrated and discouraged.

Today, hopefully, we will all get a little closer to finding that balance between trusting God’s work and our response to His gifts. Let’s begin with a familiar passage from Galatians.

But the fruit of the Spirit is

This passage begins with the word ‘but.’ Which means this is the second half of a thought. The first half of this proposition described the “works of the flesh.” These “works of the flesh” are contrasted in this section by the “fruit of the Spirit.” The contrast between these phrases gives us our first clue to understanding the relationship between our work and God’s.

Works of the flesh have their source in our lower nature. They are products of our sinful and fallen nature, fostered by our insatiable physical desires. If you go back and read the list of these fleshly works, every item will sound very familiar. These works surround us in this fallen world because these desires drive the world.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit has a different source. These things are not the fruit of our efforts or desires. They are the fruit of the Spirit of God working in and through us. When we see these things at work in us, we can know and be encouraged that God’s Spirit is at work and bearing fruit. Let’s read on for some final thoughts.

If we live by the Spirit,

In these last two lines, we see where the work of God and our response to His work come together. As we saw in 2 Peter last week, the Spirit is a gift and does what we could never do on our own. But, we need to keep in step with the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is the product of cooperation between the good soil and the good seed.

We rest in God's grace and trust that He will finish what He began in us, but He will not force us to do anything. Walking the Way is not a passive exercise. God empowers us to do what we could never do without Him, but in the end, we still need to do things to bear fruit. God’s grace has been poured out with an end in mind, and that end is seeing His grace brought to the world. We are His chosen vessels to carry that grace. We are not potted plants. God gave us legs and arms.

This Week

This passage begins with encouragement to “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” It ends with the encouragement to “keep in step with the Spirit.” When we do, the Spirit will have all that He needs to grow and bear fruit in our lives and in the lives of those He sends us to today.

Paul gives us one last warning in this passage. We are never more vulnerable than when we are doing well. Knowing this, Paul closes this passage with a reminder to avoid conceit, provocation, and envy. The Spirit empowers us to do what we could never do on our own, but it does not prevent us from falling back into our old ways. Fruit is delicious, but any number of things can spoil it.

This week, let’s encourage each other to “love and good works”, allowing the Spirit of God to grow His fruit in us so that we can share His gifts with others through the virtues we discussed last week.

Have a great week!