Goodness
Of course, no one is good (Romans 3:10), but faith requires action. James 2:17, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” Some misinformed Christians think this means that we are saved by good works and not by faith. That’s not what it means at all. Rather, we are saved by grace through faith — by no means of our own. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Paul also wrote in Romans 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” In Romans, Paul was saying that we are justified and saved by faith alone with no works added to it, and James supplements to these words and affirms Paul’s previous statements on it by saying that faith becomes evident in works. What he’s essentially saying is this: If you say you have faith but have no good works, you might as well have no faith at all — it is dead. Faith becomes known to other people by your good works; it is your faith that saves you and it is the good works of your faith that enables people to see Christ at work. Don’t be a lazy Christian and do nothing with your faith. We are not called to complacency; we are called to action, and we know this by Jesus’s Great Commission to the disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). There are numerous ways to do good works according to your faith. Give to the poor, as Jesus commands us (Matthew 5:42), humble yourself and serve others in humility as I mentioned with the fruit of love, and so on and so forth. We all know what it means to be a Christian according to our actions; we just have to actually do those things.
Faithfulness
Of course, no one is good (Romans 3:10), but faith requires action. James 2:17, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” Some misinformed Christians think this means that we are saved by good works and not by faith. That’s not what it means at all. Rather, we are saved by grace through faith — by no means of our own. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Paul also wrote in Romans 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” In Romans, Paul was saying that we are justified and saved by faith alone with no works added to it, and James supplements to these words and affirms Paul’s previous statements on it by saying that faith becomes evident in works. What he’s essentially saying is this: If you say you have faith but have no good works, you might as well have no faith at all — it is dead. Faith becomes known to other people by your good works; it is your faith that saves you and it is the good works of your faith that enables people to see Christ at work. Don’t be a lazy Christian and do nothing with your faith. We are not called to complacency; we are called to action, and we know this by Jesus’s Great Commission to the disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). There are numerous ways to do good works according to your faith. Give to the poor, as Jesus commands us (Matthew 5:42), humble yourself and serve others in humility as I mentioned with the fruit of love, and so on and so forth. We all know what it means to be a Christian according to our actions; we just have to actually do those things.
Faithfulness
This fruit is faithfulness to Christ. By this, Jesus says, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). Many English translations say, “he must deny himself,” but in the Greek the phrase is αρνησάσθω, which is the aorist middle passive deponent imperative verb from αρνέομαι, and because it is an imperative verb it is thus, “let him deny himself,” not “he must deny himself.” When we follow Christ, He enables us through the Holy Spirit to deny our flesh and follow Him every day, hence “let him.” So let the Holy Spirit empower you to follow Christ daily. Of course, as sinful human beings, we often fail. But fret not, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).
But what does it mean to deny yourself? It means to be in constant denial of your fleshly desires. It is to ignore that little voice in your head that tempts you to commit premarital sex, to give in to pornography, to do this or that drug, to gossip about this or that person — anything and everything that goes against God’s Word. It is to deny the ways of the world, “for the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). From time to time, we will fail; as sinful human beings we are bound to failure. But faithfulness is not being perfect and flawless in your dedication to any one thing, even God. If God expected us to be perfect in our faithfulness, He wouldn’t call us to repentance. Heck, we would not have needed to be saved from our sins. Rather, because we are imperfect and therefore incapable of fulfilling the Law, Jesus fulfilled it for us (Matthew 5:17). Faithfulness is staying committed to your faith in Christ, recognising your sinful mistakes, learning from them, repenting of them, forsaking them, and moving on. That’s what faithfulness is. That’s what it means to pick up your cross daily while following Jesus.
Picking up your cross daily also means to continue pressing on in the faith in the face of adversity. Jesus told us to expect persecution. In Luke 11:49 He said, “For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute.’ ” Jesus prophesied to the Jews of what they would do to the prophets and apostles He’d send, which they indeed did kill and crucify the apostles. This is a continuing prophecy, too. In modern times we still see Christians being arrested and murdered. Do not fear, however. We have encouraging words from Christ Himself, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in Heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12). When others persecute and insult me, all I tell them is: “Thank you. You’re actually giving me a blessing,” and I usually quote the above passage to them.
Jesus enables us to pick up our cross daily and follow Him through all our inevitable sufferings. Expect trouble. Do not be surprised when you suffer. Second Corinthians 1:5, “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” As we can expect to suffer in this world, we can also expect to be comforted by the Holy Spirit. “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathise with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). Because Jesus was fully human, He suffered exactly as we suffered, so He perfectly understands each of our situations and is able to sympathise with us. And because He is fully God, He never sinned, so He knows how to help us overcome our suffering. It is because of Christ that we are able to boldly approach the throne of grace in order to receive God’s mercy and grace in time of need.
Gentleness
The gentleness of Christ is shown when He says, “Come to Me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). In the same way, many of us find ourselves in leadership positions in the Church that require us to listen to peoples’ problems and troubles, and even in our personal friendships. As Christ is gentle with us and our troubles, so we must be with other people when they come to us about their troubles. People will come to you when they need help, guidance, and encouragement. It is important that you lead them in the Lord. Be sympathetic, listen with genuine interest, be comforting and encouraging, and don’t be negative, critical, or condemning. (Basically, don’t be like Job’s three friends.) It helps to have a peaceful, calm demeanour about yourself that makes people comfortable with approaching you about what’s troubling them. You don’t have to go looking for people to comfort; just be ready when people do approach you. And if you do happen to notice someone who seems to be troubled, have the fortitude to take the initiative as a leader and speak to them through the love and meekness of Christ.
Self-Control
This fruit can cover a wide area of things. I could preach about control over anger, sorrow, and any number of temptations. Because this is such a wide topic, I will simply generalise. “...for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). We have the power of the Holy Spirit to love and to have self-control over our temptations. You don’t have control when you yell at someone in anger, or when you’re in a perpetual condition of sorrow that causes depression, or when you’re addicted to drugs or pornography, or when you commit premarital sex habitually, and the list goes on. Because our society has become so sexualised, I will talk about sex. You don’t have self-control over sex when you have premarital sex, when you masturbate, rape, commit bestiality or incest, or succumb to homosexuality. I won’t be using this time to talk about the sins of homosexuality (I imagine that word sticks out more than any of the other sexual acts I listed). Rather, I will be focusing on the heterosexual sins. I don’t care who you are, each of us suffers with sexual temptation at some point in our lives, some more than others.
But what does it mean to deny yourself? It means to be in constant denial of your fleshly desires. It is to ignore that little voice in your head that tempts you to commit premarital sex, to give in to pornography, to do this or that drug, to gossip about this or that person — anything and everything that goes against God’s Word. It is to deny the ways of the world, “for the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). From time to time, we will fail; as sinful human beings we are bound to failure. But faithfulness is not being perfect and flawless in your dedication to any one thing, even God. If God expected us to be perfect in our faithfulness, He wouldn’t call us to repentance. Heck, we would not have needed to be saved from our sins. Rather, because we are imperfect and therefore incapable of fulfilling the Law, Jesus fulfilled it for us (Matthew 5:17). Faithfulness is staying committed to your faith in Christ, recognising your sinful mistakes, learning from them, repenting of them, forsaking them, and moving on. That’s what faithfulness is. That’s what it means to pick up your cross daily while following Jesus.
Picking up your cross daily also means to continue pressing on in the faith in the face of adversity. Jesus told us to expect persecution. In Luke 11:49 He said, “For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute.’ ” Jesus prophesied to the Jews of what they would do to the prophets and apostles He’d send, which they indeed did kill and crucify the apostles. This is a continuing prophecy, too. In modern times we still see Christians being arrested and murdered. Do not fear, however. We have encouraging words from Christ Himself, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in Heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12). When others persecute and insult me, all I tell them is: “Thank you. You’re actually giving me a blessing,” and I usually quote the above passage to them.
Jesus enables us to pick up our cross daily and follow Him through all our inevitable sufferings. Expect trouble. Do not be surprised when you suffer. Second Corinthians 1:5, “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” As we can expect to suffer in this world, we can also expect to be comforted by the Holy Spirit. “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathise with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). Because Jesus was fully human, He suffered exactly as we suffered, so He perfectly understands each of our situations and is able to sympathise with us. And because He is fully God, He never sinned, so He knows how to help us overcome our suffering. It is because of Christ that we are able to boldly approach the throne of grace in order to receive God’s mercy and grace in time of need.
Gentleness
The gentleness of Christ is shown when He says, “Come to Me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). In the same way, many of us find ourselves in leadership positions in the Church that require us to listen to peoples’ problems and troubles, and even in our personal friendships. As Christ is gentle with us and our troubles, so we must be with other people when they come to us about their troubles. People will come to you when they need help, guidance, and encouragement. It is important that you lead them in the Lord. Be sympathetic, listen with genuine interest, be comforting and encouraging, and don’t be negative, critical, or condemning. (Basically, don’t be like Job’s three friends.) It helps to have a peaceful, calm demeanour about yourself that makes people comfortable with approaching you about what’s troubling them. You don’t have to go looking for people to comfort; just be ready when people do approach you. And if you do happen to notice someone who seems to be troubled, have the fortitude to take the initiative as a leader and speak to them through the love and meekness of Christ.
Self-Control
This fruit can cover a wide area of things. I could preach about control over anger, sorrow, and any number of temptations. Because this is such a wide topic, I will simply generalise. “...for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). We have the power of the Holy Spirit to love and to have self-control over our temptations. You don’t have control when you yell at someone in anger, or when you’re in a perpetual condition of sorrow that causes depression, or when you’re addicted to drugs or pornography, or when you commit premarital sex habitually, and the list goes on. Because our society has become so sexualised, I will talk about sex. You don’t have self-control over sex when you have premarital sex, when you masturbate, rape, commit bestiality or incest, or succumb to homosexuality. I won’t be using this time to talk about the sins of homosexuality (I imagine that word sticks out more than any of the other sexual acts I listed). Rather, I will be focusing on the heterosexual sins. I don’t care who you are, each of us suffers with sexual temptation at some point in our lives, some more than others.
When we lose control, this is the reason why Paul wrote, “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband,” and again, “But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:2, 9). Marriage is not a necessity; not everyone needs to get married if it’s not their desire to. However, if one cannot overcome sexual lust, he or she should marry since they cannot exercise self-control, for that is a much better option than to be inflamed with lust. Then there are the famous words of Jesus, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Jesus was saying that anyone who looks upon someone of the opposite sex to arouse illicit sexual desire has committed adultery of the heart. For those who are single, by imagining or fantasising a sexual act with someone, you are committing premarital sex in your heart. You are mentally taking their virginity, or mentally sacrificing your own, or in the case that neither of you are virgins you are nevertheless inflamed with lust — therefore adultery of the heart. The same especially applies in the natural sense of adultery for those who are married.
To Be Continued...
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