Fruit, Not Force

Galatians is Paul's most heated letter. Some teachers had come to Galatia after he left and persuaded the Christians there that they needed to add the law of Moses to faith in Christ, circumcision, Sabbath, dietary codes, to really be in. Paul is furious. The whole letter is about freedom: the gospel does not make us servants of a system; it makes us sons.

Then, near the end, he names how that freedom is supposed to work in real life. Five chapters of theology come down to one botanical metaphor.

Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

-- Galatians 5:16-17

He lists the works of the flesh first. They are plural. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. Notice the texture. Frantic. Fragmented. Loud.

Then comes the fruit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

-- Galatians 5:22-23

Notice it is fruit, singular. Nine qualities, one growth. They come together. You do not get patience without kindness; you do not get peace without joy. The metaphor matters. Fruit grows. It does not get manufactured. It does not appear by white-knuckle.

Notice also where self-control sits. Last on the list. One of nine. Not the only fruit, not the first one. We tend to want self-control to lead the others, once I master myself, then I can love. Paul is saying: love comes first. Joy comes first. Peace comes first. Self-control is fruit grown on the tree those other fruits grow on.

The mode of getting it is in the verb. Walk by the Spirit. Keep step with the Spirit. Not climb, not fight, not seize. Walk. The Greek is peripateo and stoicheo, walk around, keep step with. It is a daily, unhurried verb. The transformation comes by company kept, not by muscle exerted.

Some of us have tried self-control as a stand-alone project. Lock the door. Throw out the bottle. Delete the app. Break the contact. These can be wise and necessary. But on their own, they leave a brittle structure. The branch is bare. The fruit has not grown. The first storm bends it back.

Paul is naming a different way.

If you have been white-knuckle for years and still failing, the answer is not white-knuckle harder. It is to walk with the Spirit until fruit grows. That looks like:

- Time in the gospel until joy starts to surface, not only discipline. - Honest prayer until peace creeps in, not only relief. - Friendship in the church until kindness becomes a habit before a virtue. - Showing up in worship until your mind starts to want what your body has been chasing elsewhere.

Self-control comes. Not as the first fruit. As the gift the others bear when they have grown together.

Today's invitation is gentler than the one you might have given yourself. Stop trying so hard. Start walking. Keep step. Let the gardener do what the gardener does.

The branch you cannot make fruitful by force is the branch he is patiently growing.