The Fruit of the Spirit are an important part of our discipleship. We are all called to seek to grow all of them, which is always a challenge! To help us to think about what this means we had a sermon series on the fruit of the Spirit. This is the sermon series outline, which will hopefully help anyone else planning something similar.
In the passage from Galatians listing the fruit, Paul talks about the freedom we are given by having the fruit of the Spirit grow in our lives and about the freedom for new life based on the power of the Spirit working through us. That’s why I think that it’s such an important part of our discipleship – if people see the difference in our lives, they have more reason to discover the God who has changed us. I’ve preached on The Fruit of the Spirit, as part of a sermon series on discipleship. The outline (and the sermons!) are based on Alan Mann’s excellent book A Permanent Becoming, which explores each of the fruit. I hope that this helps!
Fruit of the Spirit sermon series
| Love | We use the word ‘love’ all the time, but what does it mean? God shows us love by sending us his Son. Love is the first and foundational fruit: the rest are specific expressions of love.Read Chapters 1 and 2 of A permanent becoming | Gal 5:16-26 1 Corinthians 13 |
| Joy | Joy springs from our relationships and particularly our relationship with God: God is not self-absorbed, but outward looking.Joy is not yet fulfilled and happiness about hope. Being future-orientated should bring forth happiness, change way we view the world, and bring a new perspective into unhappy situations.Read Chapters 1 and 3 of A permanent becoming | Revelation 21:1-7 |
| Peace | Christ gives us his peace, his shalom. This is a bigger concept than we think: it is about bringing order out of chaos, about our response to situations, and is a communal, not individual, activity. Jesus confronted the worldly and spiritual powers, but did not use violence.Read Chapters 1 and 4 of A permanent becoming | John 14:15-31 |
| Patience | Our culture is not a patient one, with its focus on instant gain and communication. But, this is a form of poverty. Wisdom is gained in the patient wait: Abraham is commended for living by faith and not receiving what he was promised.The parable of the prodigal son is also the parable of the patient Father; waiting for us to come home.Read Chapters 1 and 5 of A permanent becoming | Luke 15:11-32 |
| Kindness | We are more likely in media age to know what happening other side of world than on doorstep, can have most significant impact locally.Our kindness should be pervasive – we need to ‘think globally, act locally’. Isaiah tells us that acting kindly and justly is an important part of our worship – both at a local and global scale.Read Chapters 1 and 6 of A permanent becoming | Isaiah 58:1-11 |
| Goodness | God created a ‘very good’ world. Although fallen, our world is still good although damaged by evil. All that is good is from God, and we have the God-given potential to grow in more goodness, to increase in purposeful and creative maturing. We need to encourage one another to bring goodness into the world.Read Chapters 1 and 7 of A permanent becoming | Galatians 5:22-6:10 |
| Faithfulness | Ruth is a great biblical example of faithfulness in action. Faithfulness grows out of and within faithful communities – it needs to be nurtured and modelled so that the whole family of God can grow in faithfulness.Read Chapters 1 and 8 of A permanent becoming | Ruth 1:1-18 |
| Gentleness | Jesus shows his revolutionary power in the gentleness of his actions. He meaningfully and purposefully reflects the God who is love and calls us to do the same.Read Chapters 1 and 9 of A permanent becoming | Matthew 12:1-21 |
| Self-control | Control of self is not a popular virtue in a self-indulgent society! But, we are called to a counter-cultural freedom gained through the freedom of following God’s call on our lives.Read Chapters 1 and 10 of A permanent becoming | Matthew 16:24-27 Galatians 5:13-26 |
olem - From the past to eternity 