BraveMen S4E107: John Arana - Fruit of the Spirit

It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. One of the things I've always thought in my life to learn something is to know also not just what it is, but what it's not. Tell me what it isn't, and that'll help me further define what something is. This is Brave Men podcast, and we're going to look at what the fruit of the Spirit is today, with Pastor John Arana on 15 Go, and we're going to hit for 15 minutes, oh, I've got to hit, started, and here we go, Pastor John Arana Oasis Church in Arlington, Texas on Paul Lewis Cole, Christian men's network, cmn.men, cmn.men, we're going to talk about the fruit of the Spirit, what that looks like, what it is, and it's a listed in Galatians 5, and I'm going to start with what it's not, all right? What it's not is Galatians 5, and verse 19 says, when you follow the desires of your sinful nature, nature, the results are very clear, it's pretty clear to Paul writing this to the Church of Galatia, and he says, the results are clear. When you follow your own sinful nature, the results are sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. In other words, he says, and all the other stuff you know is wrong. Little miscellaneous, come there. Yeah, it's a miscellaneous, and such like, I think, is the King James, and such like, that's God's miscellaneous column, right? It's like, and everything, and you know that's wrong. You know that's wrong. You know what you're doing right now, isn't in the list. That's right, but you know. But you know it's wrong. It's one of the deadly sins. Exactly. Okay, so now here's the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Self-discipline. There is no log in these things. So now, and then he goes on, says, those who follow Jesus Christ have taken the bad stuff, the sinful nature, nailed to the cross, and those of us who are living alive in Christ will produce that. So, here's my deal. To me, this is the Mark Galatians 5 verse 1, Paul says, hey, you have put yourself under law your whole lives. Why are you putting yourself back into the lives, talking to a bunch of people who had put themselves under religious teaching that bound them, constricted them. A bunch of rules. A bunch of rules and regulations. Yeah. My friend Ed says, he said when he was young, he went to a church that had so many rules and regulations that God didn't even obey them all. That sounds like a church I went to. Yeah. Exactly. So the fact is, is that when we're talking about the fruit of the Spirit, we're talking about freedom. Yes. Right? Exactly. Now, what it also says is these are the things that come out of a life that's following Christ. We see these things. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So, when you see a man that has these things in his life, that means he's following the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Following Christ. Now, other stuff still happens. A sinful nature still happens, all right? Yeah. It's there, but it's not necessarily dominating or governing. It doesn't govern. It doesn't govern. Man, that's a great word right there. Yeah. It doesn't govern. Okay. So, my decisions day to day become governed by the fact I'm a follower of Christ. I'm forgiven. There you go. And then what gets produced is love. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So, love. What's love? Acting to benefit others. Even if they're only friends. Even if they're only friends. Yeah. So, love gives. Yeah. Okay. So, now what's produced in my life is generosity. Yeah. Exactly. Right? For Christ, I produced generosity. Joy. Yeah. Man, the joy of the Lord is my strength. The Bible says. Exactly. Yeah. Man, that's tough when we have an incredible man just passed away yesterday, who's a pastor in our area, Ricky Tahada. And how do you have joy in the midst of trouble and chaos, crisis, right? Yeah. Right. I see that. The way I see that, Paul, is that joy is connected with a mental state. So like, in other words, I could have joy. In other words, because joy is produced by the way I think, my mentality. And if I see that a friend of mine pass away and I dwell on, he's not going to be here, I'm going to miss Omar, what a tragedy, blah, blah, blah, I'm not going to have joy. But if I'm saying like, oh man, he's going to be with the Lord, he's going to be in place. That's the thing. I'm going to have joy. So I think that joy is not just an emotion. Yeah. It's not happiness. Yeah. It's connected with my mental state. Yeah. I think, yeah, that's when we talk about joy gets produced in our lives. It doesn't mean we're always just giddy. Yeah. Yeah. We're not just perky and don't be that person, especially don't be that guy. Nobody loves a perky guy. Yeah. It will be that guy. What's your deal? Yeah, what's your deal? That's wrong. We're talking. Nobody's always that happy. And it's like, what was that, what was that the office that movie and flair in anywhere? It was the office in about how much flair you were as a working in a restaurant. Okay. And he's going to be happy. Going to be happy. And it's not. You know, joy is a produced in your life by the foundation of following Christ. And Jesus cried over stuff, man. Yeah. That's right. Right? Yeah. So love, joy, peace. Yeah. You know, Jesus said, my peace I give you, my peace you'll always have with you. He said in John, he said, I've told you all these things so that in this world, you'll have trials and tribulations and chaos, but you will have peace. Yeah. So peace is a state of being, not the, not the state you're in. Yeah. That's good. I liked the way that came out, man. Say that again. I don't know if I didn't say that again. Say that again. But it's a state of being, not the state you're in. Yeah. It's, it's what's in you, not where you're, not where you are. Yeah. Okay. Not the absence of conflict, but the presence of God, even in the middle of the conflict. So there are going to be times where that's good, where it's, man, there's stuff going on. It's, there's not peace around me, but I'm at peace in my life, because I know who I trust. Yeah. Right? And I trust, you know, my trust in my faith, I hope and pray that good people do the right thing in government, but my, but my peace is not based on them. There you go. That's right. The peace in my life is not based on the governor of my state doing the right thing. Yeah. It's based on Jesus Christ giving me a peace, even in the middle of that guy making a wrong decision and me having to go through what it means for my children or my church or my business. Yeah. And now all of a sudden we've got a new regulation and it's like, okay, well, I'm going to vote for a different guy. I'm going to work to get the thing changed. Yeah. But I'm also going to operate within the system and I'm going to turn in the paperwork so that my business is good. Exactly. Right? I'm not going to rebel and go, hey, dude, I don't think your law is right. Right. So I'm not turning in the paperwork. Sure. And then all of a sudden, all 35 of my employees don't have jobs. Right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, but I was right. Yeah. Exactly. So I think that's where peace, patience goes right with that, right? Yeah. Patience endurance. Yeah, absolutely. Paul said in Hebrews, he said in Hebrews 13, he said, you don't have what you need because you haven't endured. Jesus came and said, my strength will help you endure all things. Yeah. I think that endurance produces, you know, that endurance produces that hanging in there, even when it's tough, you know, when times are difficult, you're hanging in there and you just taking one step at a time, moving forward, it's going to produce something in you. It's going to work something in you. And I think that's where patient is birth. Yeah. I may have been zig-zag, or Dr. Schuhler who said tough times don't last, but tough people do. Mm-hmm. Now that the ancillary for me is being tough in that situation is patience enduring, holding onto my faith. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I think sometimes we say, hey, just grit your teeth. Yes. It's like gritting my teeth and hoping I don't sin until I die. It's like, I just got to get out here. I got to get out of here, out of this life without committing the unpardonable sin. Bro, if I can do that, I'm just grit my teeth and get the man, you got to live in some peace and some patience. Well, one of the things that strikes me on this verse, Paul, and also verse 17 of the same chapter is that it says, but the Holy Spirit produces. Wow. There you go. The Holy Spirit produces, and then in verse 17 it says, it says, the sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants, and the Spirit gives us desires. And so to me, what that says to me is that God didn't leave me on my own, to my own devices and to my own simple human strength, but that if I'm connected with God through Jesus Christ, and I'm having a fairly healthy relationship with him, he produces these things in me. These things are going to be birth in me. These things are going to emerge out of my inner man, and they're going to flow out of me because they're coming from him. This is the one that births them in, as I invest time with him. The problem is, we want to produce these things without investing time with him. And then the only way to produce these things, because I can't produce them on my own. It says, and the Holy Spirit produces, and the Holy Spirit gives us these desires. So it's like, I can't drum them up. I can't just say, okay, from now on, I'm negative by nature. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to produce this now in me this year. I'm going to produce, yeah, you can make that commitment, but the only way that's going to happen is if you're spending intentional intimate time with Jesus. You know, that goes back to, you know, we all make New Year's resolutions. Right. And I tell people all the time, don't do that. Don't set yourself up for failure. Instead, start some new habits. Yeah. Right? And one of those is being in the Word of God. Just start a habit. To make a New Year's resolution, hey, I'm going to read 28 chapters by the second day and then I'm going to do resolutions. Yeah. You know, start a habit. That's good. That's good. Start a daily habit. You know, our life is made up of our daily habits. Yeah. In fact, 40% of what you do every day is a habit. I believe that. Yeah, there are habits you skill up. You do this. You do that. You do this. You do that. Just habitual. Yeah. A place you drive. Yeah. And you drive. Let's say you're driving from your church to your house, but you think, okay, I need to stop at Walmart for something and then you're driving and you get on the phone and then you're thinking and then I was suddenly you're in the driveway at your house. Yeah. That's happened to me. Dude, that's happening. The other scary is that I'm going like, oh my gosh, I stopped at the red light. I don't even remember going through that light. Yeah. But you know, Paul the Apostle said this in Romans 7 and he's saying, guy, the roguelations. He said the things and it's just what you just talked about. The things I want to do, I don't do and the things I don't want to do, I do. There is a war going on. There is a battle. Yeah. This is a fight. So when we talk about the fruit of the spirit, the Holy Spirit produces this fruit. Yeah. And here's the other thing. Maybe another way to looking at it is look at your life. What are you producing? Hmm. Okay. If it's a gluttony anger, bitterness, rage, you know, then you got to go back to the first list and go, oh, I think I'm producing the wrong list. Yeah. Yeah. Right? I mean, don't you have to look. You have to look at yourself. Absolutely. One of the things that Dr. Cole wrote in a real man, we're going through a Monday night man, is the man, every man deals with three men. The man that you want others to think you are. The man you think you are and the man you really are. Right. And we have to get to the man we really are. We have to look at it and say, am I producing this? And you gave us the key right there, John. You said, it comes from the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit. And how do you get that? Repent? Yeah. And the Father says, and Jesus said, He said, when you repent, I'm there. Yeah. Absolutely. He's faithful. Don, He's faithful. Yeah. And the Bible also teaches us everything we need to fulfill our lives. Ephesians says, Ephesians 1, He's lavished us on us as well. It's given to us already. And in Paul and Romans 8, the next chapter after this thing, the things I don't want to do, I do, things and all that. In Romans 8, that's where he says that nothing can separate you from the love of God. Yeah. Nothing. Right? I mean, He's going to love you no matter what, you know? And I think one of the things that I ask people is because of this battle between the spirit and our human nature, I ask people, who do you think is going to win? It's whoever you feed the most, whoever you feed, whoever you feed the most. It becomes the strongest. It becomes the strongest. So it's our choice to seek God, it's our choice to spend time with God, to be self-aware, how the Holy Spirit to speak into our hearts. And as we do that, He produces these fruit in us. I'm telling you, man, daily disciplines and daily disciplines don't happen when you wake up, they happen before you go to sleep. And I think it's massive. And you know, before I go to sleep, if I'm home, you know, if I'm not on a road traveling, if I'm on a road traveling, I set something up in place. But I grind my beans, you know, the night before, that's the right way of doing it, man. She's ready. So when I wake up, I don't wake anybody up in the house. There you go. But it's fresh and damn. You mean, damn. Exactly. And so, bam, so I'm making my coffee, and then I've got routine supplements, vitamins, and I've got my U version Bible plan that I'm going through, and you know, it's just got a routine. Sure. You know, got to do the pushups, got the stuff, got a routine and you build a daily routine and that daily room, daily routine will build you. That's good, man. That's good. So those habits, those habits don't have to be there, and you can get rid of habits, but the only way you get rid of bad habits is starting the right ones. Build new habits. Yeah. Build good ones. Power the whole spirit. Power the whole spirit. Yeah. Bang. Good stuff. And here goes the very government. That's great. Hey, the fruit of the spirit needs to be evident in our lives. It's not always going to be in the same manner. It's not always going to be, hey, gentleness is really strong in my life right now, but I don't know about joy. Sure. You know, it's not going to pull that joy up. It's not about that. We're going to see those things because we're following Jesus Christ, and the life of Christ produces life in us. And it's not about performance. Come on, man. It's about relationship and spending time with Him. He will produce these things as we invest time with Him. John Rana has been with me for these 10 shows of 15 go that we're doing with the Brave Men podcast, but he's also on Achieve Lab. Achieve Lab is a part of the cmn.men website and universe of tools. There's over 400 hours of curated materials for men, videos and materials on Achieve Lab. And you can find that on cmn.men plus all the tools and disciple men, the Dangerous Nations campaign to Global Fatherhood Initiative and the things we're doing to reach men around the world because when you touch a heart of a man, you touch the soul of a nation. And we believe if we raise up fathers who love their kids, we change the future of the world. cmn.men. Thanks for being with us today. My name is Paul Lewis Cole. And this has been the Brave Men podcast sponsored by the partners and supporters of cmn.men.men. The Christian men's network, active in over 100 nations around the world for almost 50 years. God bless you. Remember hope is alive. Hope has a name. Hope's name is Jesus. You just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at cmn.men or write to him at Paul at cmn.men.