Sunday Sermon-Bearing Fruit for God-Bring on the Rain!

Text : James 5:7-9, Mark 14:32-42, Galatians 5: 13-18 and others.

Be patient until the coming of the Lord. Patient in what? Patient for what?
We need to be patient in what we are doing for the Lord and patient for for the coming of the lord.
It is too easy to become tired or discontented with what the Lord has called us to do. It is also easy to get impatient with the Lord's tarrying.

The Bible uses the example of the Farmer. He trusts that the rain is going to come and patiently waits for it. He knows that the fruit is produced after receiving the rain. For the Christian the rain represents the pouring out of The Holy Spirit. To be attached to the Vine (Jesus) is not enough to produce fruit. Jesus said, "Abide in me and I will abide in you". The connection allows the Holy Spirit to flow and this flow will produce fruit. One way to abide in Jesus is to establish your hearts on The Word of God.

In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus commanded the Disciples to watch and to pray that they may not enter into temptation. The Greek word for enter used here is eiserchomai (into/to go or leave). Its use emphasizes that Jesus is not talking about accidently sinning but a sinning entered into willfully. The Lord says go this way and you decide to go another way. The Disciples slept instead of praying and when the time came they denied their relationship with Jesus.

Jesus said,"The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak". The Greek word for willing prothumos expresses a willingness or eagerness to do something. The Greek word for weak asthenes imparts a feebleness, without strength, weakness. For fleshly needs override the spirit needs there must be an insufficiency of the Spirit. There are two ways to deal with this insufficiency. Either we can decrease the problem, desire, situation or we can increase our spirit to overcome.
Most of us know to eat healthy; fresh vegetables, fruits, etc. However, frozen pizza is much quicker and easier to prepare.

The Spirit nature is contrary to the Flesh nature. They are at constant odds with each other. When I walk according to the Flesh I am walking according to a contrary nature and thus I take away from my ability to produce Fruit. From our Example from last week we see that Flesh effort can produce something resembling fruit (wooden apple) but it is Spirit effort that producves the only Fruit that God cares about (real fruit). As any orchard owner will tell you Fruit is grown. It takes time and purposeful effort.

In breaking it down we are told by Jesus that we are to love others as ourselves. The nature of God is Love. The nature of Satan is Pride (love of self). The Fruit of the Spirit is Loving others as well as youirself. The works of the flesh is loving yourself before others.