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Stephen Ministry

Number six in our series on the nine fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22, 23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

First of all, any random acts of kindness this past week? Anyone want to share something? How are you doing regarding the fruit of the Spirit in your life? I do think the fruit of the Spirit is a "rubber meets the road" kind of thing on our journeys of faith. God wants to change our hearts. God wants to fill us with His Spirit so that we might experience for ourselves and express to others the fruit of the Spirit. God wants to change our hearts. In other words, God wants to give us good character. And that is the point of today’s fruit of the Spirit—goodness.

All of the fruit of the Spirit could be seen as both an internal quality of character and an external action. A loving nature prompts acts of love. A joyful spirit triggers responses of joy. A peaceful nature prompts acts that promote peace. All of the fruit of the Spirit have both an internal quality and an external action. Reflecting this week on goodness, however, especially drew me to the internal character. I don’t want to push that too hard because certainly there are acts we would label good, just as there are acts we would label bad. And I don’t want to push that too hard because all of the fruit of the Spirit have an internal and an external component. But goodness makes me think of character. As in, "Biff volunteers at Jeffco Action Center out of the ‘goodness of his heart.’" "Beulah tutors her sister in math every night. She’s such a ‘good heart.’" Goodness, it seems to me, especially relates to the content of someone’s character.

The key to understanding character and goodness is viewing it in the context of who you are when no one is around. You’ve heard that definition of character before haven’t you? "Character is who you are when no one is around." Obviously you wouldn’t steal something from a store in the middle of the day with store clerks and shoppers all around—at least I hope you wouldn’t steal. What if you walked into a store and it was absolutely deserted? No shoppers. No security cameras. No store clerk—maybe he’s back in the storage area, maybe using the bathroom. You could easily grab a thing or two off the shelves and walk out. Would you do it? Probably most people would still not steal. At least I’d like to think so. But how about your taxes? If you absolutely positively knew you could get away with it, would you cheat on your taxes? Or your expense report. A little padding here, an extra mile or two—or a hundred—on your expense report…and no one will ever know! Would you do it? How about what you watch in the privacy of your home, websites you access on your computer at home? No one around. Pornography’s available practically at the snap of a finger. And no one will ever know! What do you do? The content of our character, the level of "goodness" in us is revealed by the kind of person you are when no one is around.

That’s why I was intrigued by the quote on our bulletin cover this morning. "The supreme test of goodness is not in the greater but in the smaller incidents of our character and practice; see right there is both internal (character) and external (practice). F. B. Meyer continues, "not what we are when standing in the searchlight of public scrutiny, but when we reach the firelight flicker of our homes." Who are you in the firelight flicker of your home? I have no doubt you are a good person in the "searchlight of public scrutiny." But who are you in the "firelight flicker of your home?" And not just in the large, grandiose moments in life—who we are "when some clarion-call rings through the air, summoning us to fight for life and liberty, but our attitude when we are called to sentry-duty in the grey morning, when the watch fire is burning low." Does goodness flow from you, not just in the "clarion-call" moments of life, but also in the "grey morning sentry-duty" moments? Especially in the grey morning sentry-duty moments. What’s the content of your character when no one else is around, or when the praise of others is not at stake? A person filled with the fruit of the Spirit will have a consistent quality of goodness in his or her life.

There is a struggle that goes on in each and every human being for control of our character. It is, to use Paul’s phrasing in Galatians, between the sinful nature and the fruit of the Spirit. Or, if you will, between evil and good. Paul tells us, "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like." In contrast, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." There is an ongoing battle for your character, your nature. And if we fail to seek the fruit of the Spirit from God, our sinful nature will take control. Evil will win out over good.

James Edwards, in his book The Divine Intruder, claims that evil has an advantage over good, our sinful natures over Spirit. Edwards claims that our human nature "stands closer to evil than to good." He cites as examples such things as the colorful and attractive characters of evil in literature and film—Captain Ahab, the boys who go bad in Lord of the Flies, Darth Vader, Norman Bates, Hannibal Lector. We find them more interesting than the heroes. Even Batman has evolved into a conflicted character of good and evil—the dark knight. Edwards claims it is even true for religious literature—Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost having "all the good lines," while Milton’s Christ is not memorable; Dante’s The Divine Comedy as one of the great masterpieces of world literature but, as Edwards goes on to claim, "literary critics as well as college freshmen rarely read The Paradiso, and those who do usually judge its virtue and bliss flat and insipid compared to the gargoyled vices of The Inferno."

And then Edwards goes to state, "There is a good reason this is so. Human nature stands closer to evil than to good. Intrigue, scheming, and deception are more instinctual to us than love, goodness, and forgiveness. The vices are ‘first nature,’ so to speak, whereas virtue is ‘second nature,’ either a learned response or no response at all. It is easier to figure out ways to cheat the IRS than to solve the problems of hunger and violence. When we are wronged, we can hatch ten brilliant schemes of revenge; but try to devise even a paltry plan for redeeming a bad situation." Human nature stands closer to evil than to good.

Make no mistake about it, there is an ongoing conflict between good and evil for our character. Left unattended, failing to act with due diligence in seeking the fruit of the Spirit results in a slide toward evil. Perhaps not evil on a large scale, perhaps not even an evil that is unlawful in our society, but at the very least an evil that runs counter to the goodness God wants us to have and to show. As F. B. Meyer’s quote concludes, "It is impossible to be our best at the supreme moment if character is corroded and eaten into by daily inconsistency, unfaithfulness, and besetting sin." That’s why I think the fruit of the Spirit is a "where the rubber meets the road" kind of faith experience. God wants to change our lives and the lives of others around us by filling us with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. God wants to move us further away from evil and have us stand closer to good. God wants to give us characters of goodness. That is His very purpose as Lord in our lives.

The image I’d like to leave you with is the image of a character container. Think of it, if you will, as if there is a container in each of us that holds the content of our character. If we allow evil, the sinful nature, to fill up in our character container there’s little or no room for good, the fruit of the Spirit. The more we fill up our character container with good the less room there is for evil. The goal is to be so filled with the fruit of the Spirit that it overflows from us to others, leaving not only no room for evil in our lives, but leaving no room for us to be tempted to seek the fruit of the Spirit from creation rather than from the Creator. Our attitude should be that of John the Baptist who said, "I must decrease so that He (Christ) might increase." Now admittedly, John was speaking of his role in the Kingdom and his stature with the people. But why not an attitude also for us in seeking the fruit of the Spirit and a character of goodness? "I, my sinful nature must decrease so that He, Christ’s Spirit and His fruit for my life, might increase." Would you seek that through your prayer life, your Bible study, your reflections on matters of faith? Would you do that…for goodness’ sake?