I’ve gotta tell you.  I’m a little intimidated by the next couple of sermons, I’m not kidding.  This Sunday and next, we’re going to talk about the Fruit of the Holy Spirit and, in pursuit of that, I’m going to talk on occasion about growing things.  You know, like a gardener or a farmer does.  The reason I’m intimidated is because I come from a long line of gardeners and farmers.  My dad grew up on a farm and never lost his love for growing produce.  He took a special pride each and every summer to deliver some really tasty tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini.  My mom, in turn, loved flowers and she could oftentimes be found in the yard tending to roses, azaleas, you name it.  But me?  Well, maybe having a green thumb skips a generation, I don’t know.  Because, well, I don’t have the green thumb.  As a matter of fact, you night well characterize mine as fairly well black.  Case in point.  At my very first apartment, my mom did what any mom would do – she got me a fern as a housewarming gift.  It was a nice fern and mom told me it loved sunshine so I put it out on my front porch.  What ever became of that fern?  Well, it died.  Pretty quickly if memory serves.  I don’t really remember much about it except the leasing office calling me, asking me to dispose of it because it was dead and an eyesore.

But I’ve been in churches long enough that I’ve heard the oft-repeated mantra – “healthy things grow” and, I’ve got to tell you, while it’s not a perfect understanding of all the world, that statement does do a fairly good job of capturing the activity of what someone who is in Christ is up to.  For to be Christian, is to be on an amazing journey of growth and production.  We’re to move further and further away from our old selves, with their sin and self-satisfaction and more and more towards the new life that Jesus Christ makes possible through His indwelling Holy Spirit.  And this indwelling God in Christ just fills our lives with His glorious fruit.

For the last four weeks, we’ve looked at Galatians, talking about our justification by grace through faith.  Paul, as we’ll remember, had planted a group of churches in a region of Turkey called Galatia at the time.  These churches were of course near and dear to Paul’s heart. After all, it was his effort, empowered by the Holy Spirit, that led to these churches being alive.  But, after he departs, a group with seriously different beliefs comes through and begins converting believers.  Where they were taught about grace, the new group comes in and places a different emphasis on what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  They believed that you ALSO had to follow the Jewish Law to remain in the grace of our Lord.  That is they believed that God gave you a little nudge, but after that, it was all up to you.  Now, believe it or not, this is what Catholics sort of believe.  So do Methodists, really and a host of other denominations.

And as I’ve talked about ad nauseam in this sermon series, this relatively small change leads to some massive fissures in Christian belief, according to the Bible.  Because the Bible squarely, firmly, entirely, absolutely puts the emphasis on God’s work as it comes to our salvation.  AS I have said too many times to count during this sermon series, we do nothing for ourselves.  Everything has been done for us through Jesus Christ.  That’s why we call it GRACE.  But the argument is, and continues to be, if God is doing all the work, then why would I do anything?  I mean, strictly speaking, if it is entirely grace, that means I could go out and do anything I wanted to do, regardless of caring for other people, and I’d still be good with God.

Now look, if I don’t read my Bible, this can certainly be where I come out.  Thankfully, the New Testament goes to significant lengths to stall this as a workable, Biblical theology.   The Apostle James goes into considerable length in his where he writes – (James 2:14-17)  “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can that faith save him?   If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”  So, while we can make the claim that we have been saved entirely by faith, we cannot faithfully claim that, in Christ, we do nothing.

So what gives?  Getting to the bottom of that requires us again to interact with theological language.  Theological language can be difficult for us a variety of reasons.  Sometimes we just don’t know what they mean, at all.  I’ll never forget hearing the word, eschatology, for the first time at seminary.  First time I heard it, I was like, “what did that person just say?” because I had absolutely no idea what it was or what it means.  FYI – Eschatology means what the church believes about the end of the world.  So sometimes you’re just running in the dark entirely.  On other occasions, you just have the wrong definition in mind.