FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT

– 25 October 2009 (am)

Past. Melody vd Merwe

Aim: Study the Fruit of the Spirit so we can cultivate the fruit – to bear much fruit and so glorify the Father.

Gal 5:22+23 (OKJV) “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such there is no law.”

John 15:1-16 (v16)…Jesus said he chose us that we should go and bear fruit, and that our fruit should remain.

(v2) branches not bearing fruit He takes away. Branches bearing fruit He prunes that it may bear more fruit.

(v5) He is the vine, we the branches, when we abide in Him we bear much fruit; without Him we can do nothing.

(v8) we glorify the Father when we bear much fruit.

AMP. Temperance – self-control, self-restraint, continence.

Gems from the Greek: TEMPERANCE Enkrateia: Literally means in control and denotes power over one’s self – self-control. It suggests the control or restraint of one’s passions, appetites and desires.

Prov 16:32 in TLB – It’s better to have self-control than to control an army.

A man without self-control is as defenseless as a city with broken-down walls. (Prov 25:28)

A person with temperance has power over: His appetites, physical urges, passions and desires.

He is able to say “No” to overeating, “No” to overindulging in fleshly activities (balance), “No” to any excesses in the physical realm.

A person with temperance maintains a life of moderation and control.

Temperance could be translated as restraint, moderation, discipline, balance of self-control.

Temperance is opposite to works of the flesh. If we allow the flesh to have its way, it will worry, overwork, overeat, overindulge, and run itself to death.

But temperance is discipline over the physical realm that helps us sustain our physical condition, stay in good health, remain free from sin, and live a balanced life.

1 Cor 9:24–27 (TLB) (v25) to win the contest you must deny yourselves many things that would keep you from doing your best. (v27) Like an athlete I punish my body, treating it roughly, training it to do what it should, not what is wants to  – Ek kasty my liggaam en maak dit diensbaar.

We need to cultivate this kind of spiritual fitness. Doing this will affect all areas of our life – How we treat others, where we go for answers to decisions.

To be effective we must identify the habits we need to build into our lives so we can live with temperance, self-control, and diligence.

Habits such as:

Physical fitness

Balance between work and home

Financial and personal accountability.

People who have temperance / self-control are productive, dependable and influential.

Self-control, self-discipline or temperance is almost never easy!!

Self-Discipline / temperance defined – a quality that allows a person to do what needs to be done when they don’t feel like doing it.

Women at counseling.

We can and must develop / cultivate the fruit of temperance in our lives.

Kick off the  weekend visiting with us in Knysna at the fabulous Friday Market!

This supper and craft market offers stalls with fresh dishes from local restaurants and homemade  specialties and deserts. Choose from the amazing array of locally produced food. Work up an appetite first by  moseying around the craft stalls, tap and jig to live music and cozy up around the blazing bonfires.

All you need to do is…

Bring your picnic blankets and/or chairs and of coarse your moola (to buy food) and  all your friends (even if we don’t know them)  to join in, and get to meet some new people.

Date: Friday 30 October 2009

Time: 16:30 – 20:00

Where: Welbedacht Friday Market

Contact us if you need more info… info@knysnacharisma.co.za

Can’t wait to see you there!

BEARING AND SHARING BURDENS

– 18 October 2009 (pm)

Past. Melody vd Merwe

Gal 6:1-5

AIM: Encourage us to help one another – to be our brother’s brother.

Be ready to restore a brother.

Behave gently, without haughtiness, being aware that you too, can be tempted.

If we believe we are too spiritually mature to fall, or need help – BEWARE!

• We see bible heroes as a warning to us to remain humble and open to correction.

• Don’t judge other’s weaknesses!

Use only Jesus’ life and teachings as our standard for judgment of ourselves and not the performance of others.

Rom 15:1 –3 (a) – Cain and Abel – Gen 4:9 …am I my brother’s keeper?

God’s answer? – Absolutely!!

HOW?

1 Pet 5:7 + TLB – Help them carry the over-load.

Phil 4:6 …Be anxious for nothing.

James 5:13 –15. Let others help you – ASK.

STEPS TO FRUITFULNESS

18 October 2009 (am)

Past. Melody vd Merwe

Rom 12:1+2

AIM: We’ll see and take note and adjust our lives so we can bear much fruit to glorify our Father.

• An effective, productive and fruitful life comes by sanctification (character transformation) that begins with faith and results in love.

Rom 12:1+2

Transformed by the word thru faith to be like him – being the personification of love.

John 13:34.. A new commandment – love one another – as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

Greatest commandment – Matt 22:37-39

1 John 3:11 .. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

2 John 4-6 – Truth in Action

We can and must cultivate fruit to bear much to glorify our Father.

Natural for a peach tree to bear peaches – for Christians to bear Jesus fruit.

Fertilize a natural tree

• Water
• Prune, dig around it … etc. (spray)

How can we cultivate Jesus fruit?

Peter gives us a progressive list of Christian virtues – the way we should live (moral excellence, goodness), when we establish these in our lives, they will cause us to live fruitful lives in the very knowledge of god.

And this life will produce only good in its response to others.

2 Pet 1:1-15

• We have the very nature of God! (v4)

• Giving all diligence (hard work) – Work at this – be consistent – be consistently constant.

• Add to your faith virtue – Faith – Rom 12:3 – Each been given a measure of faith (faith without works is dead) – Virtue – Moral excellence, goodness. Virtue is considered a necessary ingredient in the exercise of faith.

• To virtue knowledge – truth about God – knowledge of the heart – as God reveals Himself in nature, conscience (our heart) and especially in the bible (the word) – experiential knowledge (recognition of truth by personal experience).

Col 1:10 … that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him. Being faithful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

-   A walk worthy of God

1. 1. Pleases the Lord
   2. Fruitful in Good works
   3. Grows in knowing God and the Word
   4. Is strengthened by God’s power (Holy Spirit)

• To Knowledge add self control (v6)

Control of one’s actions and emotions by an act of your will.

• To self control add perseverance (patience)

The steadfast effort (consistently constant effort) to follow God’s commands and effort to do His work, James 2 … faith without works is dead… makes it clear that perseverance in doing good works is the greatest indication that an individuals faith is genuine.

James 1:2-4 (TLB) in short as a result of perseverance (patience) one can expect to become closer to God – complete – mature.

• To perseverance add godliness

Faithfulness – reverence toward God.

God is God – Serve Him – Fear Him.

• To godliness add brotherly kindness

(Philadelphia) the love Christians have for other Christians (fraternal affection). Blood is thicker than water. Brotherly kindness dissolve personal infighting, it allows refocusing on our real enemy – Satan.

Allow kindness to be the rule of everything you say and do.

• To brotherly kindness add love

Agape – 1 Cor 13:4-7

This is the fruit bringing glory to the Father.

To fail to grow in Christ results in an inability to perceive the blessings received in initial salvation – so that our identification with Jesus is forgotten or ignored.

1 John 4:17 … love has been perfected among us in this; that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.

Let Us Cultivate – Bear Fruit that Brings Glory to our Father.

BEAR FRUITS WORTHY OF REPENTANCE

11 October 2009 (am)

Past. Melody vd Merwe

AIM: We’ll check our lives to see that we’re bearing good fruit, as we should; before we are inspected and found without fruit and consequently thrown into the fire.

John 15:1-8

V2> Branch that does not bear fruit He takes away.

Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

V4> Branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. V5> without Me you can do nothing

V6> if anyone does not abide and bear fruit – cast out as a branch and withered, thrown into the fire and they are burned.

V8> As disciples we are called to bear much fruit to glorify the Father.

Barren Trees – Luke 13:6-9

• Trees not bearing fruit use up the ground – causing others to stumble.

Bear Fruit Worthy of Repentance – Matt 3:8-10

You cannot bear good and bad fruit – Matt 7:17-20

V19> Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Lessons from the withered fig tree – Matt 21:18 – 20 – if there are leaves there should be fruit

• Fruit is formed on a fig tree before the leaves. There should be fruit.
• Hypocrites – Matt 6:2 – Matt 23:13 – Scribes and Pharisees leading others astray.
• 2 Tim 3:5 Having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

God has given us all we need to bear fruit

Holy Spirit

Born Again

God has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness – 2 Peter 1:3+4

We are to bear fruit of the Spirit

Gal 5:22+23

If you are bearing good fruit expect to be pruned to bear more fruit. John 15:2

The Father is glorified when we bear much fruit and that our fruit remains

John 15:8+16 …that your fruit should remain.

Go and Bear Fruit to Glorify the Father!

DO YOU GO WHERE OPPORTUNITY IS OR WHERE OPPORTUNITY IS GOING?

Go farther than you can see.  Don’t just look at the  present. Think unthinkable thoughts, see where no one is looking and take action before it’s obvious.  Wayne  Gretsky is, arguably, the greatest hockey player in  history.  Asked about his secret for continuing to lead the national hockey league in goals year after year, Gretsky replied, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

Isak Dineson said, ”God made the world round so that we would never be able to see too far down the road.”   Significant achievements have never been obtained by taking small risks on unimportant issues.  “If you’re    hunting rabbits in tiger country, you must keep your eyes peeled for tigers, but when you are hunting tigers you can ignore the rabbits.’” (Henry Stern).  Don’t be distracted by the rabbits.  Set your sights on “Big Game”.

You have reached stagnation when all you ever exercise is caution.  Too many people expect little, ask for little, receive little and are content with little.  Having a dream is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence; dreaming is daring to do something regardless of the consequences.  Let you faith run ahead of your mind.

WHY ASK WHY—JOHN MASON

BRIDLE THE TONGUE

04 October 2009 (pm)

Past. Melody vd Merwe

James 3:1-12

INTRO: Nothing can cause more damage than the tongue. Keeping our speech under closer control is a discipline believers must develop.

Monitoring & checking/weighing our every word we speak may seem difficult and tiring at first, but it will have the right result in our lives.

V2 – He is a perfect man – mature man.

• We are to tame our tongue (v8) carnal- natural man- we are super-natural – born from above.

Words are containers:

• Use words right and they’ll move mountains Mark 11:23 “…for assuredly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “be removed and be cast into the sea” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.”

• Use your words wrong and they can cause your entire life to end up where you don’t want to be. Num 14:2 “…if only we had died in this wilderness…”

Can it be?

v5. See how great a forest a little fire kindles (eg. Knysna forest – Tsitsikama)

A fire lights first one log then the next until you have a big fire going.

Once the fire’s burned out – you can’t find the first match or piece of wood that started it all – it would be burned there would be no trace at all.

The tongue is like that (v6) it first defiles the body, then sets on fire the whole course of nature with a fire so great it leaves no trace of it’s origin (where it started).

Ps. 34:13 “…keep your tongue from evil”

Matt 12:36+37 (TLB) “… your words now reflect your fate then either you will be justified by them or you will be condemned.”

Words are seeds.

Speaking faith-filled words consistently is tough to do – you must watch it all the time. Ps 141:3 “…set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips..” (TLB) “Help me, Lord, to keep my mouth shut and my lips sealed”

Remember: Prov 18:20+21, Prov 12:14 “a man will be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth”

Prov 13:2+3 “A man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth” – You eat your words.

Prov 13:3 “…he who guards his mouth, preserves His life, but he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction.”

Prov 16:24 “…pleasant words are like honeycomb sweetness to the soul and health to the bones.”

Prov 17:20 “…He who has a perverse tongue falls into evil”

Prov 21:23 “…whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from trouble”

Be careful what you say. Measure every word. Do not speak unless it’s important to do se. Speak only in order to build up and strengthen.

James 2:20 “…faith without works is dead”

Don’t be a hearer only – DO THE WORD!

God, our example, uses words to create, to bless!!

SPEAK WORDS OF LIFE!!!