ready to look into Galatians chapter 5. Let's open with a word of prayer. Father, thank you for today and thank you for your word and for how rich and glorious it is. Thank you that it changes us. Thank you, Lord, that it is living. Thank you, Father, for just the opportunity to come to your house, to bring worship before you, to lay it at your feet. Father, I pray that this morning, that you might be glorified in all that we say and do, that you might be praised because you are worthy, and that you might change us, that you might make us more like your dear son. We ask this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, well, we're in Galatians chapter five. For all you people who are a little bit older, welcome to the teen class. We've been going through the book of Galatians for, I don't know how long, a year and a half maybe? So we finally hit verses 22 and 23, if you want to look there, the fruit of the spirit. We've been going through one particular fruit a week. So this morning we've made it all the way to goodness. And just to kind of, I guess, bring you up to speed in 30 seconds or so, The first thing we said about the fruit of the Spirit is that love is the foundational fruit for all other fruits. Because without love, you can't know what kindness is, you can't know what goodness is, you cannot know what joy or peace or long-suffering is, faithfulness, meekness, temperance. You can't know any of these, and you can't really exhibit these fruits without love. So let's read Galatians 5.22, and what I do is I teach out of the King James. It's just the Bible that I have. But what I'll do is I'll read both the King James and the ESV for those of you who don't have the King James. If you have a different version, sorry, I only have these two in my computer, so. So Galatians 5.22 and 23 says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. ESV says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law. So this morning, as I said, we're gonna look at goodness. Now, as soon as I looked at goodness, I thought of somebody in the Bible. I thought of the rich young ruler. Because when he comes up to the Lord, how does he address the Lord to start out? Right, good master. And what is Jesus' response to this rich young ruler? Right, why do you call me good? Now is the Lord denying his deity? Absolutely not. What's he trying to point out to this rich young ruler? In your unregenerate state, you have no idea what goodness is. Because if we were to do a survey, let's say we were to take Take 10 people, we'll go over to the mall, and we'll do a survey, and we'll just stop everybody who comes and say, and we'll ask them one question. Can you tell me what goodness is? How many different answers do you think you're going to get? You're going to get a ton of answers. To some people, sitting down and eating until you go into a coma, you know, you become comatose from so much food, that's good. Other people, Going 24 hours on the sports network not sleeping and drinking Red Bulls until you're shaking, that's good. Everybody has their own definition of goodness for themselves in an unregenerate state. So we have to ask ourselves, what is goodness? What is goodness? Well, Paul said something. He said, I know that in me dwells what? No good thing. But was Paul contradicting the Scriptures? Because a fruit of the Spirit is goodness, and Paul was indwelled by the Holy Spirit, so was he wrong in what he said? Why not? You've got to participate in class this morning. I make them participate. They've got to answer questions. Come on, you guys remember back to when you were teenagers, right? It was only a couple years ago. Just like yesterday, right? Yes. Right. So, aside, there is no goodness in us until we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. And then, the goodness that is inside of us is not of us, is it? It is because of the Holy Spirit of God. So Paul's not contradicting anything. What he's saying is, I know who I am. I know what I'm like. And without the Spirit of God, there is no goodness in me whatsoever. So, what is goodness? Well, the Greek definition means uprightness of heart and life, goodness and kindness. Well, what does uprightness mean? What does uprightness mean? Does that mean you're like this, so if you're laying down, you're no longer good? See, you guys get to experience the kind of humor I have with the kids. So, sorry. You'll be scarred for life. Uprightness means honesty, integrity in principle or practice, conformity to rectitude and justice in social dealings. Let me ask you a question. Do phony people bother you? Phony people. You know, and you know what I'm talking about. Someone who acts spiritual. Someone who acts one way. You know, if you're over here, they're this way. If you're over here, they're that way. And you really have no idea who they are because it's like they have different masks to put on in different situations. Well, does the Bible talk about that? It does in the book of Galatians. We're going to see this in just a few moments. So what this means is that the person, when they say they are a Christian, is going to conduct themselves in a way without compromising in every situation. Does this mean they're going to be perfect? No. Absolutely not. or you're going to try to conduct yourself the same way no matter where you are. How you see me at home, how you see me at work, how you see me here is all the same. I'm a goof. I'm eight up, as they'd say in the military. Sometimes I'm nice, sometimes I'm not. You can ask my kids. I am not perfect. Don't try to be perfect. But what I do try to do is I try to be consistent. And you can tell when someone is not consistent. You can tell when someone is playing a game. You can tell when someone is just putting up a front. So it means they're not going to change in how they conduct themselves unless that change is brought about by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. However, this is the problem. Now we're talking about the book of Galatians. What was happening in the churches in the province of Galatia? What had crept in? Legalism. So you have these Judaizers who are trying to impress upon these Gentile Christians that you need to live after the law. You need to live this way. If you're not living this way, you're wrong. What did they do to Paul? They attacked Paul. And Paul comes back, well, if they accuse me of being this way, and I'm doing these things, then why are they persecuting me? Because they're the ones who are doing that. And they were two-faced. They'd be one way with the Christians, and then they would act a different way. And we saw somebody else fall into this problem. But here's the problem with legalism, and when you have a legalistic mindset. You say, I'm not going to compromise. Bless God, I'm going to tell that person like it needs to be told. What do we do? I'm going to show that I'm a non-compromising Christian. When a person sins against me, I'm not going to compromise in how I deal with them. You know what the problem is with that? Focus is on you. And we think that showing love, compassion, mercy, kindness, the fruit of the Spirit, is somehow compromising because we need to let that person know what they need so they can change into what we think they should change into, and as a result, what happens? We're kinder to other people than we are to those close to us. So I have some questions for you. You don't have to answer these questions out loud, although the last time I asked questions, we had a lot of feedback. We were like, yep, that's me. Yep, that's me. You don't have to do that this morning. But I have five questions for you. First question, do I show strangers more goodness than Christians, especially those Christians close to me? What happens as a person grows closer to you, what do you think you have the right to do? Advise them or come down hard on them. Somehow we think we have a stamped letter of approval to rebuke in a harsh way because they're close to us. I remember learning this a long time ago. We can control how we respond. You know that? Have you ever, for you married folks, have you ever got into a fight with your spouse? I mean, you guys, this is a good one. I mean, sometimes the walls are shaking, or the looks are glaring, and the voice is a little deeper, and don't you talk to me that way. And then the phone rings, and you're like, hurr! Hello? You ever do that? You can control how you respond. You can show the person who comes knocking at your door more kindness and goodness, and all of a sudden turn that anger and that rage and that nastiness off and want to present the gospel to them. And then when you close the door, the fangs come down again. Right at your spouse or your child. Guilty. I'll raise my hand for anybody who wants to raise their hand. You don't have to, okay? Second, do I show the love of Christ or the harshness of legalism when people make mistakes or forget things? Uh-oh. We talked about this too. The old adage, and I've said this before, I'm guilty. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. I've told my son that. guilty, but someone comes to church that you don't have that really close relationship with and they make a mistake, how do you treat them? Well, it's okay, here, let me help you. And you show such kindness and love to them, but then you turn to your spouse or your child, if I have to tell you one more time, and the voice goes down a little bit lower, maybe you furrow your eyebrows, I don't know, maybe it's just me. Third question, do I exhibit the fruit of goodness to others whether they deserve it or not, or do I base the goodness I give to others on their worthiness? They were mean to me. They don't deserve my goodness and my kindness. Have you ever based how you treat someone on how they treat you? I thought the scripture said that we're supposed to love our enemies, too. Oh, wait a minute. So if someone treats me bad, now they're my enemy? No, that's not what I'm saying. The principle is, is no matter how somebody treats you, you should be kind to them. And show the love of Christ to them. Number four. Am I known for the goodness that I show to others? Or are people surprised when I actually show others goodness? Are you feeling okay? Have you ever been surprised by someone who just, all the time, and then they're actually nice to you and you're like, what do they want? Or maybe someone's surprised by you if you have a tendency to always grumble and complain. You know, there's that old expression, you complain if they hung you with a new rope. Number five, is goodness shown to others only because I hope to receive something in return? Favoritism. We see that all the time, don't we? You do me a favor, I'll do you a favor. Or you owe me. Have we ever been that way? Have we ever hoped that if we do something kind for someone that they'll do something back for us? All this is in the book of Galatians. So let me say this. A Christian is going to be himself or herself and not try to play the people they are with. The perfect example is found in chapter 2 of verse 14. Turn over to Galatians 2.14 please. Here we have the confrontation between Paul and Peter. And the Bible says this, But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If you, being a Jew, live after the manner of the Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do? What was the problem here? When the Jews weren't around, who was Peter, for colloquial terms, hanging out with? Gentiles. But what happened when the Jews came around? I don't know them. He would separate himself from them, wouldn't he? That's hypocritical, isn't it? So he acted like the Jews when the Jews were around, but he acted like their friend when the Jews weren't around. Is that really a friend? Is that someone who can really minister to your heart? You know, kids experience a lot of this, in a sense. What happens is, some of their friends, the only reason they want to come over is because of the things that they have, or the things that they think they can get by having these other kids as their friends. We've experienced this. We've experienced it where, you know, Jonathan had a game system. Well, kids that didn't even like Jonathan all of a sudden wanted to be his best friend. Why? Wasn't Jonathan, it was the game system. But if we said, no more games, you guys have played for an hour, you're done, guess what happened? They didn't move on to play other things, they left. And when they weren't allowed to come in and play the games, how do you think they treated Jonathan? We do the same thing as adults sometimes. We can use people for what we think we can get instead of wanting to be with that person either because we want to sharpen iron. Iron sharpens iron. We want to fellowship. We truly love that person. We care about that person. It's not about what we can get. It's about what we can give. We need to give of ourselves. We need to give to others, not expect others to give to us. Look at another example from the book of Galatians. What did these Judaizers do to the Galatians? They would heap praise on them so that the Galatians would reciprocate. It was about what the Judaizers wanted and could get instead of building each other up in the Lord. Turn over to chapter 4, verse 17. Sorry, last verse, I didn't have the ESV. I have it in the notes here. So, verse 17 says, The ESV is a little bit clearer. It says, What does this mean? Have you ever had a friend that tries to dominate your relationship? Doesn't want you to be friends with anyone else. And what will they do? Oh, they will build you up. They will heap praises on you. They will tell you how good you are at this, how good you are at that, how you do all these wonderful things. And all the while, they're doing it for one purpose. What's that purpose? For you to heap praises back on them. They're not really concerned about how well you do something or how well you don't do something. Whether you're good at painting, good at music, good at cooking, good at baking. They tell you these things because they want their ego built up. They want to be told how wonderful they are. And they don't want anyone else to have your time because if someone else has your time, that's taking away from their time that they can hear all these praises about themselves. I know people like this. They want to manipulate every minute of your time. And when Paul came in and started to confront them, they became extremely harsh towards Paul. So let me ask you a question. This is not part of the five, this is a different question. When is being harsh to someone good? When is being harsh to someone good? It's not. It's never good. How are we told to confront people? Out of what? Love. And while it may seem harsh, and it may seem that the things that you have to deal with are extremely difficult, when you confront someone out of love, and you lace that with goodness, integrity, uprightness of heart, Even though it may seem harsh, it isn't because what you have is that person's best interest in mind. It's not about what you can get out of confronting them. It's not about you making them into the person that you want them to be. It's about that person growing and changing and you just being a pitcher. God filling you up and you pouring yourself out into them. But if you take the picture and smash it on their head, what good does that do? Doesn't do any good at all, does it? A person that acts with integrity is not going to be perfect, but they are going to be consistent in who they are in the Lord. In other words, phonies will be found out every time because there is nothing upright about them. but those who exhibit goodness in their lives do so because of the guidance and instruction of the Holy Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 1.5 says, For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. What do you think? Do you think God is pleased when we put on different faces for different people? Do you like that when people put on different faces for you? You really don't want to be around people like that because you never know what their motive is, what their desire is. Have you ever experienced this where you're thinking to yourself, what does this person really want from me? What does this person want from me? And we're not talking in a good sense. Now, what can I give this person? What scripture, what words, what actions can I give? What can I show this person to minister to them? That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is someone who is two-faced, an actor. When you fail in the area of goodness, you fail in the area of love. You can't show goodness to others. If you can't show goodness to others, excuse me, it is because you have the wrong view of God, and you do not love Him like you should. What it boils down to is another form of idolatry, in that we think we know what is best for this person, or that person, or for ourselves, and the fruit of goodness is not sufficient enough to change this person, And so, I'm going to make the initiative and help God change this person into the kind of person I know God wants them to be. Was this not happening in the churches in Galatia? They wanted to change these people into the kind of people they wanted them to be. I remember telling this to a friend a long time ago who was frustrated with their spouse. And I asked them, I said, What are you praying for? Are you praying for your spouse to become the kind of person you want them to be? Or are you praying for your spouse to become the person that God wants them to be? Because there's a big difference. If you get what you want, you better be careful. Israel wanted a king. What did they get? They got just exactly that. And what did he do? He was a horrible king, wasn't he? So, when you deal with people, what's your goal in interacting with people? To minister to them or to get something from them? Well, if you want to change a person into what you want them to be, congratulations. You have just erected the idol of yourself up for all to see. The question we have to ask is this, then. How do we break down the idol of self and see God for who He is and what only He can do? So, I have some more questions for you, but it's a test now. It's pass, fail. Okay? There's no grade. It's either pass or fail. All right? I like these kind of tests. Again, five questions. I like five questions. Question number one. Can you speak something into existence? Can you? What can you speak into existence? Nothing. Can you keep the sun from going down? Can you calm a storm just by speaking three words? Can you raise the dead to life? All right, here's the last question. Can you change a person? Now, you might be tempted to say on number five, yeah, I can change a person. No, you can't. And you know, I know this is the teen class slash adult class this morning, but adults, I want to speak to you for a second. I learned this. When you get married, you don't change your spouse. And don't try to. I learned that. Oh, the first year of marriage was so much fun. We would fight over the silliest things. Why? Because she needed to become the wife that I wanted her to be. Instead of her becoming the wife that God wanted her to be. We can't change people. Again, We're just a vessel. The only thing that can happen is we can let the Holy Spirit flow through us and the words that we speak and the actions that we do, if they change a person, all glory to God. We can't change anything. We can't change a person. We can't make the sun shine or the sun stop shining. Only the Holy Spirit can change a person. by taking the Holy Word of God and making Him like the Holy Son of God. And we fail in that area more often than not. Do we sometimes continue to try to change a person? Or how about this? We really want to see someone saved. So what do we do? We keep pressuring them with the Gospel. Well, don't you want to make a decision? Now, I don't think that happens here. I'm pretty sure it doesn't. You know, we've seen that before. Pressuring someone into saying a prayer, and then when they say a prayer, guess what? They're still just as lost as they were two minutes ago. But we think if we somehow pressure them, that they'll say this prayer. I experienced that firsthand. I got sick and tired of my brother telling me about the gospel. I didn't want to hear it, so I prayed a prayer. And my life was no different five minutes after I prayed that prayer, five days, five years. It was no different. The goodness that resides in us is what? It is a fruit of who? The spirit, not of us. Because it is a fruit of the Spirit, then you need to use that fruit in a way that pleases God, first of all. And secondly, it has been given to you to use for the sake of others, and you have no right to withhold that fruit for any reason at all. We said this in a teen class. When you think about a fruit tree, what does a fruit tree do? I know, it bears fruit. But what does it do? It feeds many, doesn't it? So shouldn't the fruit of your life feed many people? That's why you bear fruit. It's not to say, look at all the apples I have on my tree or look at all the oranges or pears or whatever. It's so that others can take of that fruit and be nourished in the Word of God and be nourished by the things that you say, the things that you do. It's not for you. Sure. We had, when we lived in Elgin, we had two or three apple trees, two pear trees, and a lot of the fruit would fall to the ground, and you know what happens after it falls to the ground and it sits there for a while. It's nasty and mushy, and you step on it and you slide. But what does that fruit then do? Soaks into the ground, doesn't it? And it helps replenish the nutrients that help the tree to grow. So the fruit is also for you to grow by too. But the fruit is for others. The goodness that God puts inside of you through the Holy Spirit is not just for your benefit alone. It is for the sake of feeding and nourishing others. Why? So that they might grow in Christ. And we have no right to withhold that. Even if a person sins terribly, even if they sin terribly, do you know what we have no right to do? We have no right to withhold love, goodness, kindness. What do you do when someone sins against you? How do you treat them? Do you want to help them? Or do you want to show the harshness to them so they understand how awful their sin is? How do you treat people? What's your desire in talking with people? What's your desire in confronting people? What's your desire in showing the fruit of the Spirit to people? I know we talked about this in Revelation, But we're going to ask again, did the Lord Jesus Christ withhold goodness to the woman caught in adultery? How about the woman at the well? Did he withhold goodness from her? Two grievous sins, right? What about, going back to the beginning of our lesson, what about the rich young ruler? Did he withhold goodness from him? We have no right to withhold the goodness of God from anyone, even our enemies, even those that hate God. Then lastly, we're gonna finish a few minutes early if that's okay. How you exhibit the fruit of the Spirit shows how you worship the Lord. Truly. We are supposed to, on Sunday mornings as we gather corporately, the worship that we have had all week, what do we do? We bring that in corporately and we lay it at the feet of the Lord. We present our worship to Him. We're not here to get, we're here to give. We're here to give worship to our Lord. We're here to give praise to our Lord. We're here to give glory to our Lord. So, how you exhibit the fruit of the Spirit shows how you worship the Lord. If you only show the fruit of the Spirit when it benefits you, then you're truly not worshiping God. What and how you worship tells what your heart is attached to. So let's ask this this morning. If you have had a heart change, and you understand what I'm talking about, taking out the heart of stone and putting in a heart of flesh, then how has that heart of flesh been saturated with the Word of God How has it been pressed down and overflowing into your heart so that what flows out of you is love and goodness and kindness and the fruit of the Spirit? Or do you find yourself exhibiting the works of the flesh more often than not for people who really make you mad? Who people that you deem don't deserve the fruit of the Spirit? Where are you at this morning? Because what your heart is attached to will really tell where you are in your worship. So before we pray, as I always close, are there any comments, questions, concerns, or complaints? I know lots of complaints. Go back to the team class, please. All right, I'm going. Are there any comments? I'd like to know what's on your mind on this. If not, we'll go ahead and pray. We can end two minutes early, right? All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for today, and thank you, Lord, that the goodness that you put in us is pure. It is pure goodness that you put in us. because you are pure and you are holy. And Father, I pray that you would help us to show the goodness that you have shown to us to others. Lord, that it would be saturated in love. And Lord, that we might show this goodness to others, even others who sin, even to others who we might have personality conflicts with, others that we might just not get along with, whatever the case is. Father, I pray that you would help us to show the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, your dear Son, to others. Lord, you are good. You are holy. Lord, you are worthy of our praise. And I pray that as we come before you this morning for our Sunday morning worship, that we would lay our worship down at your feet. Lord, in doing so, we might show the love of Christ and the goodness of Christ to those that we encounter, not just here at church, but those that we encounter throughout the day and throughout the week. And we ask this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.