Join us with our teacher Pastor Ryan Brown as we finally discuss the Fruit of the Sprit. Grab a warm cup of tea, sit back, and join the conversation with our extraordinary guest, Brandon Pittman. Brandon is not just an involved member of our church, but a beacon of service in our community, serving as a Deacon and in the Widows ministries. His journey unfolds beautifully, unraveling a story that takes us beyond the conventional and into the heart of what it means to truly serve.
Diving deeper into Galatians 5, we tackle the intricate teachings of Paul, exploring the concept of how to evaluate that you are walking in spirit, and the transformative power of daily crucifixion of the flesh. We navigate through the metaphorical meaning of fruit within the word, while putting a spotlight on each part that makes up the whole fruit. We journey through the concept of Agape love, love by choice, and how it shapes our relationships, and the challenging yet rewarding terrain of serviceable kindness in spreading the Word of God.
Our conversation evolves into the significance of spiritual growth, shining a light on the oft-misunderstood concept of meekness. We reassess the common perceptions tied to this word, and how it represents strength under control rather than weakness. We also delve into real-life applications of these spiritual teachings, from maintaining successful marriages, to parenting and disciplining children in a Christ-centred way. This episode is a spiritual compass, providing guidance, support, and provides a way for you to evaluate your own goodness (in the process of being made good). With lessons to learn, stories to share, and our remarkable guest, this episode promises to be an enriching spiritual journey.
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Notes: https://sermons.church/archives?church=PalmsBaptistBibleStudy&id=126
Website: https://real-bible-stories.square.site
Check us out on these Streaming Platforms: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1912582/share
Join us with our teacher Pastor Ryan Brown as we finally discuss the Fruit of the Sprit. Grab a warm cup of tea, sit back, and join the conversation with our extraordinary guest, Brandon Pittman. Brandon is not just an involved member of our church, but a beacon of service in our community, serving as a Deacon and in the Widows ministries. His journey unfolds beautifully, unraveling a story that takes us beyond the conventional and into the heart of what it means to truly serve.
Diving deeper into Galatians 5, we tackle the intricate teachings of Paul, exploring the concept of how to evaluate that you are walking in spirit, and the transformative power of daily crucifixion of the flesh. We navigate through the metaphorical meaning of fruit within the word, while putting a spotlight on each part that makes up the whole fruit. We journey through the concept of Agape love, love by choice, and how it shapes our relationships, and the challenging yet rewarding terrain of serviceable kindness in spreading the Word of God.
Our conversation evolves into the significance of spiritual growth, shining a light on the oft-misunderstood concept of meekness. We reassess the common perceptions tied to this word, and how it represents strength under control rather than weakness. We also delve into real-life applications of these spiritual teachings, from maintaining successful marriages, to parenting and disciplining children in a Christ-centred way. This episode is a spiritual compass, providing guidance, support, and provides a way for you to evaluate your own goodness (in the process of being made good). With lessons to learn, stories to share, and our remarkable guest, this episode promises to be an enriching spiritual journey.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RealBibleStories
Notes: https://sermons.church/archives?church=PalmsBaptistBibleStudy&id=126
Website: https://real-bible-stories.square.site
Check us out on these Streaming Platforms: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1912582/share
Hello and welcome to Real Bible Stories. Join us as we deep dive into the historic, religious, cultural, political and emotional context surrounding the real lives of real people in the Bible and the stories we've all grown to love. Hello and welcome back to this episode of Real Bible Stories. I'm your host, Emron Ward. We are joined by my wife, Selena Cruz. Hello, Our teacher, Pastor Ryan Brown. Hello everyone and our friendly neighborhood, Brandon Pittman.
Brandon:Hello, glad to be here.
Imran:Yeah, so Brandon's joining us from our church. And before we even get into introducing Brandon, I want to apologize because it's been probably about four, maybe five weeks now since we've got an episode out. Three weeks no, it's been more than three weeks.
Ryan:It was three. I think it's now four. I think it's now four.
Imran:Yeah, so I, we came together to record an episode and after all was said and done two hours later. Two hours later, I go back to edit it and like we're finally going to get this out, and something happened with the file and it's corrupted. So we are now going to go through this again. But the fun part is that with like two days after we recorded it, I was like that was so good.
Selena:I'm down to here to get ready for it.
Imran:I'm ready to hear this.
Ryan:And now we got Brandon with us to even I'm so excited.
Brandon:Thank you guys.
Imran:Yeah, and Ryan's on daddy duty right now too, so he's got his two boys over in the other room jamming out in the in the home theater.
Selena:So we got a full house tonight.
Imran:Yeah, selina made him popcorn and everything. Hopefully they'll only disturb us every 15 minutes.
Ryan:You know, not every five. You may just hear him quarreling in the background. Just ignore it.
Imran:Yeah, if you're any fighting going on, I promise you we're going to stay in the spirit here.
Ryan:We're going to let them be of children, of the flesh out there. Yeah, I'm going to grow and mature and then we'll deal with it later.
Imran:All right, so before we get into it, brandon, what brings you to 29 poms?
Brandon:Well, I am with the Marine Corps. I've been stationed here since 2019. I've been here off. Wait a minute 2019.
Imran:That's five years.
Brandon:Yes.
Ryan:Oh he thought they, he thought he was leaving like two years ago. I cannot stay away and we prayed and prayed, and prayed as a, as a Deacon body and leadership team, that he keeps him and his wife here. For those who remember, brandon's wife was on the podcast ones.
Imran:Yeah, triss, triss. Oh right, it was when I was in the field.
Ryan:Yeah, it was one of the parables we did. But yeah, his wife has been on so we've been doing this for a while.
Imran:That that was like a year ago. That's kind of kind of awesome.
Brandon:So, yeah, I enjoyed my time here. I love being part of the church, really really excited to get involved and stuff like that. So glad to be here.
Imran:How long have you been listening to the podcast?
Brandon:I have actually been listening to the podcast since, since I was able to find you on Stitcher.
Ryan:Unfortunately, stitcher is no longer.
Brandon:So I had a little gap in between. But I found you on another podcast service. I'm not sure what it is, but they found it.
Imran:Oh, where'd it go? So, we're, yeah, so we're everywhere. So Spotify, apple podcasts, google podcasts, audible we're on audible. That's a cool thing. So we're on iHeartRadio. I don't even know how you pick episodes on iHeartRadio, but it's actually one of our bigger followings, so anywhere where podcasts can be found.
Selena:And I wanted to mention too that Brandon is a Deacon at Pompoms.
Imran:Baptist Church, absolutely.
Selena:And you are with the widows.
Brandon:Yes, for lack of a better term, widows. Some people don't like it, but yes, widows ministry.
Imran:Well, I don't know what's the other church, so the.
Ryan:Deacon, the Deacon ministry at our church we have different committees, or committees and or people who are lead. So Brandon came in after Kirk Compton died and he took over the widow and orphan committee for the Deacons. So every Deacon in our church is assigned a widow or an orphan, at least one. Most of us have what Two, some of us have three, but Brandon manages all that. So we make sure that, hey, are the widows being taken care of the way they should? What issues are there? Can we just special pot of giving that the church has for widows and orphans that we they run into a hard time.
Imran:What's that like?
Brandon:So it's a little involved. It's just you're talking to people, making sure that you know you're getting updates and taking care of their needs there. So it's not bad, because we, like I, love to give love, to help people, so it's actually very rewarding. And I feel like most people would agree with that, so yes, and you help and leaveites right.
Ryan:But I think the most important thing, and we just can't skim over this, you know, fellow Deacon, brother and taking care of widows and orphans and all that is, you know, but Brandon is the back to back church, pot luck.
Imran:I like that. Yes, this is very true. He's very proud.
Ryan:He got the trophy again, andy. I think he fasted for three days preparing to take you on and he put up a good fight.
Imran:but he didn't make it yeah still outmatch, so yeah, I was calling you out too during the day.
Selena:He's like you're ready, You're ready.
Imran:Underdog rivalry is like an anime.
Ryan:watching the anime, I did it last year and I remember about throwing up in my mouth probably three times, halfway through, looking down at my pie, realizing that it didn't even look like I ate any of that.
Imran:You're not that guy. Look at that. You're not that guy.
Ryan:And I'm like this year. I was like there's no way. There's no way to put my body through that, because I already know.
Selena:Wow.
Ryan:Yeah, Brandon has it.
Imran:That's good. You looked at that pie and you realized you're not that guy, so you grew.
Ryan:Anyways, I'm glad you're here though, Brandon.
Imran:We've been trying to get you on for a while.
Brandon:So I'm glad we were able to make it.
Imran:Yeah, I'm glad you like, like Ryan hit us up like yesterday. It's like Brandon, come on, like come on over, then he hit up. I think it was yesterday too. He's like I got to bring the kids, like send it.
Ryan:We're all about it, we're all here, so yeah.
Imran:And this. So, like I said in the beginning, um, this is our second time going through it, but at the same time it's it was so palatable that I'm super excited to go through it again, because this was actually the episode that I've been waiting for for months and I know you all have been waiting for months as well with me. And we had this three week delay where Ryan spent some time in Quantico because he got a new job and transitioned to a new position, so he had to kind of get settled with that. And then we had youth Sunday and that was a huge thing at the church as well, so had all the youth kind of all think you had over 30 youth participating in that event by the time.
Ryan:All the sudden done. Actively participating. Yeah, that's right, all right. 30.
Imran:Yeah, about 30, 30 youth within our church, which is what age group like, 12 to 18 type of thing.
Ryan:Yeah, so our youth group goes from junior high to high school.
Imran:So junior high to high school that we're all participating in Um, they're running lights, they're running sound, they were performing on stage, they were handing out cars, they were greeting people, they were seating people, they were doing everything and that was super awesome. So if you're looking for opportunities to get involved, if you're looking for opportunities for your family to get involved like palms is alive and well, if you're in the 29 palms area, come check out palms. But we're alive and well. But let's dive in to this week's episode of real Bible stories and where are we going to be reading through reading from this week?
Ryan:So we're going to be in Galatians five and let's see you start in verse 22 all the way until the end of the chapter. So, uh, as is customary, Brian gets to lead us in our scripture reading. How's?
Imran:this tradition.
Brandon:Just just.
Ryan:I have to say this last thing too about Brandon, because I just want to prepare everybody. He has the best Bible reading voice on the planet. I mean you put him and Morgan Freeman side by side. You're often for Brandon, so I'm just you're all about to be blessed, all right, thank you Um.
Imran:I read from the King James so oh, and we get the good oh boy.
Brandon:All right, I'm joking here we go, start your poetry, all right, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with affections and lust. If you live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not, uh, let us not be desires of vainglory, provoking one another and envying one another.
Imran:Go ahead and read like verse 22 for me again real quick. I just want to hear that one more time.
Brandon:But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law.
Imran:All right, so we're going to bottle that up. That's going to we're going to cut that right there. That's going to be a ringtone.
Ryan:We're going to go through.
Selena:So, your text tones right there. Oh my gosh, that was fantastic.
Ryan:I told you goosebumps.
Imran:Man. All right, so I think the podcast is actually done. Thanks y'all for coming.
Ryan:That's all you needed.
Imran:We're good. All right, ryan, now you got to. You got to keep up with his voice. I know I got to get focused now, okay, so so it's obviously been a couple of weeks.
Ryan:So, um, probably want to hurt, just to remind everybody where we're coming from. So we just came out of the episode where we talked about acts of the flesh. Um, very straightforward, right, we was just like this big Bible.
Imran:It was like a great kind of word analytics, yeah, word study, um the what, let me say it right, the etymology, etymology, etymology, yeah, awesome.
Ryan:And we're going to do more of that tonight. But um, it's important to remember, though, that he went in and first describes that the acts of the flesh are obvious, right, like he says, and he gives a list of about 19 things and he says, and the like, right, so there, it's not a all exhaustive list. He says, and the like, it's just, yeah, giving you examples of things that are obviously acts of the flesh, and the idea is that if you're walking in the spirit, you're not walking in the flesh, and here are acts of the flesh. So this piece of text is now running in contrast right To acts of the flesh, but what's interesting is that he doesn't like if I were to write this, right, I would say here are acts of the flesh and now here are acts of the spirit, right?
Imran:Your things you could do. Right, I can't keep it comparable right.
Ryan:But he does this switch where you said. He calls one thing an act, so this is something you do, that's in the flesh. Then he switches here and says but here's the fruit of the spirit. So one is an act, the other he now replaces and says this is a fruit.
Imran:Yeah, it's like the results instead of the, instead of the action itself is like right.
Ryan:So I think just like a just a few things with this right One, because I think it's important to remember for people who may start feeling convicted as we go through this list that like hey, I don't feel like I have that right, I don't have joy, I don't have peace, I don't have you know, you know some of the things described here as the fruit, and it's important to remember that this is indicative of walking in the spirit right. So it is not. This does not mean that if you're like hey, I'm running short on joy, so you wake up tomorrow morning and say I'm going to try to be more joyful today, yeah, Right, I'm going to bear the fruit of the spirit.
Imran:I'm going to try to be joyful. Are there so many self-help books that say, like, just wake up and tell yourself right Self affirmation I'm going to be happy.
Ryan:I'm going to be happy, I'm going to feel good. Yes, and that is not Paul's point. Paul does not want you.
Imran:Look in the mirror and say you are worth it. You are worth it, you are worth it. It's like no God's worth it, right.
Ryan:Right, well, and yeah, and that's kind of his point is like Paul would not want you to take away from this and say, oh, I'm not, I'm not in peace today. So I'm going to try to be peaceful today. If you feel like you are struggling with one of these things, the answer isn't trying to be more of that thing you're struggling with. I mean, that's kind of a given right. The answer is that you need to go back and walk in the flesh or walk in the spirit.
Brandon:Yes.
Ryan:You need to be walking more personally, hand in hand with the spirit, just as he kind of gives this negative like well, what is it like not to walk in the spirit? Well, here's acts of the flesh, and they're obvious right Now. This is the fruit of walking in the spirit and I think it's important to remember too, because I think there's a lot of people who will look at that list of the acts of the flesh right and they may have that in check, you know. They may be like hey, I'm not having an affair or I'm not you know drinking and I'm not gluttony and all that stuff.
Ryan:Right, all those things that we did with the. You know I'm not all those things, but that doesn't necessarily mean, though, that you're being patient with your, your spouse, or gentle with your children, or peaceful at work.
Imran:You know what I'm saying Because I think we talked in the past that, like there's plenty of people that give a lot of money, there's plenty of people that donate a lot, but they're not doing it out of the, out of the results that we've been talking about here, the fruits of the spirit. They're doing it out of their own, like self gratification and they're doing it for themselves.
Ryan:Well, I would even say it's yeah. I mean, yeah, there's certainly a element of that, but I think there's also a right.
Ryan:But there's also a piece where they they're repeating a good, established habit from a time when they were walking in the spirit. Oh, interesting, right. So they were walking in the spirit and they were able to have these victories over some of those fleshly desires and they got a good habit of not being dependent on it. They didn't need it anymore. But then they stopped walking in the spirit, so they're not in that sinful habit anymore, which is obviously good, but they're not necessarily walking in the spirit still, which means that they're not demonstrating positive fruit.
Brandon:Right.
Ryan:Does that make sense?
Brandon:That makes sense.
Imran:I appreciate.
Brandon:I really appreciate the dichotomy when you talk about not walking in the flesh but walking in the spirit. I think a lot of people don't remember that we also have to crucify their flesh daily, and so that allows us to then be more sensitive to the spirit, walking in the spirit and reaping those fruits.
Ryan:That's a good point, because if you're not crucifying the flesh every day, then you're kind of walking hand in hand with both, and if I'm walking a little bit with my flesh still, and that's less room for the spirit to be there with you.
Imran:I want to ask you this, Brandon, we'll double down on you. What does it mean to crucify yourself? So crucifying the?
Brandon:flesh is kind of taking a stand saying that today this flesh is not going to do whatever it wants. I'm going to choose to put God first, basically. And so you're pushing down on the flesh, You're saying no, we're not going to do this today.
Imran:Not today Denying yourself yeah not just in our Dye to self and serve others.
Ryan:I would also say it goes even deeper in the sense of identity, where you say I am crucifying my identity today so I could live in the identity that Christ has given me, that's it Right.
Imran:So you're saying and that's not easy? Oh no, that is not easy at all.
Ryan:That's why we've talked about it before, but that's why forgiveness is the hardest thing you'll ever do in the world, because forgiveness is the ultimate act of self-denial. The reason you need to forgive somebody is because somebody has probably generally rightfully wronged you in some way and you're offended. You, you're right, justifiable offense to a certain extent, imran and the identity that you hold is offended and you say I choose to forgive because I am crucifying the identity of Imran for the identity of Christ Right so so I like that.
Ryan:I want to also kind of point out. So in verse just starting off right, it says but the fruit of the spirit. So we'll just pause, right, because the reward's in. I know, but notice how this is like one of those things where you hear people say it's the book of revelations. You know, it's not revelations, it's revelation. Also, if you didn't know that, it is revelation, it's a singular revelation, with a series of collection of about 60 visions that are given in light of that revelation, one revelation of Jesus Christ.
Ryan:This is another one. They call it fruits of the spirit, but it's not plural. The Greek is very clear it is a singular form. This is the fruit of the spirit. One fruit, so he lists, I think, about nine things here around there, but this is all collectively the fruit right, the singular fruit Meaning. All these things are intertwined and complementary with one another. Right, so there's no such thing as being. You can't be in peace without joy. Right, you cannot be joyful but be mean, and without kindness. Right, you can't be patient but not gentle. Right, like all these things together collectively make the singe that they're parts of a singular whole of a fruit right, so sometimes I
Ryan:think we kind of like, oh, I'm lacking joy, but it's like, yeah, you are lacking joy, but your problem isn't necessarily joy. It's because you're lacking patience. Because you're lacking patience, right, and that is not coming to bearing light into your life, what ends up happening is that, in the lack of patience, you end up getting in a fight with your wife. And then, because you're in a fight with your wife, now there's not peace in the home. And because there's not peace in the home, there's not joy in the home. And it's just this whole right. It's a cycle of pain. That's why it's one singular fruit. These things are interconnected.
Imran:Yeah, I think that that's absolutely just kind of that was a wake-up call for me when we were going through this before of like no, it's not one or the other, and if you have two or three, you're still kind of you're still not bearing the whole fruit. Like you should be looking at yourself and as we go through each of these lists because we're gonna do the same thing kind of the etymology of each of the words. What exactly do they mean? What exactly is Paul getting after when he says each of the parts that make up the whole fruit? And if you're only getting after a part of it, then you're missing the whole point. So this is gonna be good.
Ryan:Well, but again, though, right, it's not that you're getting after a part of it. What you're getting after is the whole.
Imran:Yeah, I'm saying if you're only getting after part of it, you're missing the point.
Ryan:Because the whole idea again, it's actually very simple. I think people get overwhelmed, like, okay, I got faith. I feel like I have some self-control, but I'm not kind enough or I'm not. It's very, very simple, Like the answer to all this is very simple to Paul Just start walking with the spirit, right, the spiritual habits of a relationship. What does that mean? Right, Like well, how do you build a relationship with your spouse or your children or your coworkers, or you know?
Imran:you gotta talk with them, you gotta spend time with them. Yeah, it's like oh, by the way, it's peace, love, patience, kindness, like those are how you build relationships, which we'll talk about here in a second.
Ryan:But before we get to that piece, I just wanted to kind of talk through. Just, he was very selective in using the term fruit, right, like Paul uses a lot of different analogies across his texts. He describes the church as one body and they use different analogies to pay in concept. Right, he chooses fruit here for a reason and I think if you think about the different characteristics of fruit, like, what's the characteristic of a fruit, you know what I mean. It has seeds. It has seeds and what do seeds do, right?
Ryan:So fruit comes out, I don't use that word we tiller Right, but it replicates itself. It reproduces itself, right.
Imran:Yes.
Ryan:So fruit is reproducing of itself, meaning the more joy you have, it can plant seeds and be reproduced in the other people's lives. Right, there is a substantial difference in the home, just being married with kids, and when I'm working, life's working, a lot of life going on. Brandon, we were just talking about how your daughter is like in about 80 different things extracurriculars right.
Ryan:And when you get tired and when somebody in that home, whether it's one of the kids, one of the parents, right me or my wife, if one of us is having a bad day and we are not joyful or we are not in the best of mood, right that radiates throughout the home.
Imran:Yeah.
Ryan:But when one of you or somebody in there is just joyful and just full of joy and it's just overflowing, that's contagious to the rest of the home, right.
Imran:So fruit is reproducing. It's really hard to get mad at someone who's just like I love you, have a great day, and you're like no, I want you to be mad at me. It's like no, but you know, I love you. I love you too.
Ryan:And I think that is kind of to me the inception of every married fight. If just one person in that fight would be walking in the spirit through that fight right, I think you probably wouldn't fight the way you do fight. I mean you still may have an argument but it's gonna be conducted much different. Right, but when it becomes a fight, you know what I'm saying. Like the nasty ones it's when both are walking in the flesh and neither one's walking in the spirit.
Imran:I would explain it this way that marriage is all about negotiation, constant negotiation. You have to negotiate everything. Jordan Peterson actually talks about this, where it's like everything has to be negotiated. Where does the couch go? Where do the kids play? Who do they play with? You know what time are we waking up? How are we gonna sleep in the bed? What are we gonna have on the bed? What kind of bed are we gonna have? Every single thing has to be negotiated within the marriage, and a fight is when the negotiations break down, and now you're no longer trying to figure out what's the most optimal action for the both of us, and one person is now trying to dominate the other and get their way.
Ryan:So that is- I think that's Peterson's psychological approach. I think the biblical approach is submission. So fights also happen when because you're expected to submit to one another right. So when one stops submitting to the other, that's when you have these explosions, right? And submission is walking in the spirit right, like Dying to self. Exactly right so that and he doesn't listen here as part of the fruit right. But that is what patience is.
Ryan:That's what gentleness is, that's what kindness is, that's what love is, that's what all these things he lists go into submission you know what I'm saying.
Brandon:It all works together, right.
Ryan:Yes, so yeah, we brought up so fruit reproduces, that's by the way. It doesn't even. It's not even reproducing into others, but even within yourself. Right, like you get a little bit of taste of joy in your life and ministry or whatever Like man, I like that and it just starts exponentially increasing within you as you go right Like it self-produces itself.
Ryan:So the point of that though which would go into, I guess, another point about fruit is that fruit grows out of process. It's not instantaneous, it's not this big like you put the seed in and then the very next morning like, oh, I got this big apple tree right.
Imran:Yeah, unless you play an apple tree, it's a process.
Ryan:Yeah, it takes time. So you gotta realize that. You know if you're looking at like your life, you're like man. I'm just struggling with you. Know some of these attributes, like start working at it right. Like because to grow from a seed you have to water it, you have to make sure it has sunlight you know you have to care for it. You know it is actually fragile. That's another characteristic of fruit. Right, it's fragile.
Ryan:Exponentially more so if you're in like an emotional desert or in a because we're in a physical desert and I tell you it takes deliberate dedicated effort, so my grass doesn't die you know, and so think about like where you are as well. The smallest bit of neglect or complacency will crush that right and that's how it is out here. Like man, if I don't water this for three days, it just you know it's done.
Imran:You're like whoa, you know, but some people are in that kind of space spiritually and in that place emotionally. So you have to be aware of those things because, like dying to self is also self-reflection is a part of that as well. You know, in order to die to yourself, you have to actually know what you're dying to. So you have to be able to observe yourself and see well, what am I doing, what are my needs, what are my desires, and how do I actually die to them? So that's its own process in and of itself.
Brandon:Yes, yes indeed.
Ryan:So it requires work, which means it also needs patience, right. But the other thing interesting thing about fruit, though, is that it goes through seasons, right. The trees don't produce fruit throughout every single season.
Brandon:Right.
Ryan:There's a season for everything, and I think one interesting thing is like when you look at the way Paul puts forward the idea of spiritual gifts or talents. Right, the idea isn't that we all possess those gifts and talents. The idea is that we can all potentially be vessels of those gifts or talents, but we all don't possess them right.
Ryan:And you see, that played out practically in church, right? Like Imran and Selena and Brandon and Ryan, we all have our different gifts that we bring the body to the mutual benefit of one another, but that doesn't mean we all possess those gifts, right? So when you start talking about the fruit of the spirit I don't think it's always, I don't think it necessitates that you're experiencing every bit of that element of fruit all at the same time through you know what I'm saying. I think there's certain seasons and Ecclesiastes even talks about, you know, time and the place for everything Right right for everything.
Ryan:So you may be in a season where you're like I just don't feel at peace. I was like, well, that may not be your season, but the season for peace in your life will come, right, it will. But you still have to nourish that fruit, right? You can't just like, well, life sucks, and you know, just throw up the white flag and just kind of cope and just build this lifestyle of coping and you just stay in this lifestyle of coping, right, or or okay, even translate over into like victimhood in a sense. Right, like you know, there's people who live there.
Imran:Yeah, they're like the camp mentality, it's like I just can't and it's like, well, of course you can't, but you're supposed to do it through Christ.
Ryan:Right, just like do it through the spirit.
Imran:There is a time because it's supposed to be able to on your own, or you to mourn, trauma to mourn, you know, sad things right.
Ryan:But you're not meant to stay there. That's a season. But then, ultimately, there's a season to which you should be producing fruit from that trauma, right? So you know, bad things happen to you. I think everybody in life and it's not a competition, but whatever negative thing has occurred to you or happened to you, there's a season to where you're like I got to mourn it, I got to come to terms with it, I got to figure out how to get past this. But then there's a season to where it says now, because I'm walking in the spirit, that trauma is now going to produce fruit, you know, fruit into somebody else's life.
Ryan:I want to also I know what it's like to be a victim of sexual assault. I know what it's like to be a victim of rape, or I know what it's like to Harassment or anger or To have a gross cheat on them or to be the one who cheated on a spouse and trying to live with the guilt and you know, try to get past that.
Ryan:You know what I mean. People can go through those bad seasons, but then there's a time where you go into a season of producing the fruit of now. This is to the benefit of God's glory.
Imran:I do also want to. That's a testimony. Go ahead. I did want to also articulate that the beautiful thing about the body is that we're not all going through the same season at the same time.
Imran:And so one of the things that people tend to do when they're really going through that traumatic situation is they'll retreat into themselves and they'll become more recluse and more isolated. When that is when you should be pursuing the body, because it's those people that are not going through the same season as you, but have gone through it or are aware of it. Those are the ones that can pour into you and continue to love and continue to guide you. Those people are going to show up your house and give you food, show up at your house and help you with what you need. That's what should be happening. That's part of why the body is here. That's why we are a part of the bride of Christ, and we should be displaying these fruit, the fruit that we're talking about here, so that when you're in a season where you're not able to produce like you want to, you've got those in the body that are there to help you and support you through that process.
Ryan:There's a time to feed and there's a time to be fed. I would also say this is kind of the last piece of, just because there's a lot of characteristics of fruit. I'm just you have people thinking this in this framework. But one last thing I would also say is fruit is attractive and desirable. When you look at this list gentleness, self-control, kindness, goodness, joy, peace nobody ever, like nobody in your job right, will ever look at Brandon and say you know my biggest problem with Brandon? I just despise Brandon because he's just so kind. You know what I mean, you know what drives me crazy.
Imran:He's just so caring.
Ryan:Is that when the office erupts in chaos because you know everybody's who in the hall are in about some decision that higher, you know whatever everybody's upset. You see Brandon over there and he's just full of joy and peace and just seems to be content and maintains just this. You know character of just not being bothered by it, nobody ever says that right. I mean some people kind of get. You know there is a real thing of some people just hating other people's happiness.
Imran:Yeah, the narcissist and such out there.
Ryan:So I mean. There's obviously exceptions, but most people right those attributes. That's described here is attractive.
Selena:Yeah, most people are seeking this.
Ryan:Exactly so. If this is seeking, seeking it. Oh, seeking it.
Imran:Okay, I thought you said like Satanist and I was like I don't think most people are Satanists, like there's books on all of this.
Ryan:I would say this though if you look at the modern church at least you know, in the West and particularly America and you see all those outside of the church and a lot of their impressions or opinions of Christians. Right, why are we not more attractive to them?
Imran:Yeah.
Ryan:You know, it could be because A lot of Christians are holding positions, because it's easier to maintain a list of things I gotta do and I gotta believe than to walk in the spirit. Walking in the spirit takes daily work. Memorizing things is much easier right. So that's lazy.
Ryan:Christianity and because we've been lazy, we're not doing the work to actually walk in the spirit every single day and, as Brian said earlier, recrucifying the flesh every single day, we're not bearing as much fruit of the spirit as we should. We're not as attractive to people, right? We all started, really just deeply, intimately, walking in the spirit every single day. We would become far more attractive to the world. Yeah, I absolutely agree 100%.
Brandon:You know people are looking like you were saying, selena. They're seeking the fruit of the spirit love but they don't know what it looks like until it's demonstrated sometimes, and we just need to be ready to be that person to demonstrate the fruit of spirit for the people around us Because the world is looking for these things in the wrong places, like just the first one.
Selena:love, you know.
Ryan:But holistically right.
Imran:Interesting part too, before we even dive into. That is like if we look in Galatians and actually so we record a lot of episodes already with Pastor David, where he's gonna be doing another the next season with us. One of the first ones we did is on the story of John Mark. One of the points that he brings up there is and it's not an explicit point but something I realized is that we were extremely attractive to people back then. They would hear about Jesus Christ and the spirit and people, jews and Gentiles that had no background, or, as well, jews had the background, but Gentiles with no background in the faith were turning to Christianity, turning away from the desires of the flesh, and this was something that they wanted. I want to die to self. I want to pursue. It's like I don't really see that. Now I go out on the street and I start talking about Christ and people don't have that.
Ryan:You have to convince them why they want it.
Brandon:Yeah believe me, you want this, but why do I really?
Ryan:want this, yes, you really want this right and you have to make this whole argument, but Paul, just go out and preach the truth and people would listen.
Imran:It's like okay, but it's like, what fruits was Paul displaying when? He or the whole church, the entire church, right At the time that made it so attractive, and that is something to think about in your church. What makes it attractive?
Ryan:Yeah, and it should be. These things, and again going to the point that this is, these are parts of a holistic whole right. It's a fruit of all these things, I think a lot of people consciously you want to go love people well, and a lot of times they want to love them to the point of an effect right.
Ryan:So I'm gonna love my child until, I'm just gonna love on them until and just love them out of that drug addiction or love them out of that toxic relationship right, or love them to where they just maybe their eyes are open, they turn to Christ and they're saved, right. People will go love deliberately, love people well with a desired effect. But when that desired effect doesn't happen within their perceived what they would like the appropriate amount of time based off their own things start right.
Ryan:They either stop loving them well, or they take a different tactic, right, and that goes to the patient's piece, right. That's why part of the fruit of the spirit is patience. Right, you may have to love somebody for a decade before you finally see that effect. You know what I mean so, but that's why it requires you daily walking.
Imran:I'd say my last point here, before we transition and go to each of the pieces that the fruit of the spirit is definitely not the pomp and circumstance, the being well dressed, the big show, the bright lights, the three songs and a sermon right, that is not what makes the church the church. And if you thought that that's what makes the church the church, you have to dress up to the nines and raise your hands in worship and get a sermon and then go about your day, and that's what makes you the church. That is not what makes you the church.
Ryan:It is an interesting emphasis people have on fashion and church, both positively and negatively, and how rarely it's actually ever mentioned in scripture in terms of worship.
Imran:I don't even know what they wore during that time. It's like rags. That's a whole different thing.
Ryan:We actually just talked about that at youth on Wednesday, but I can't go down there hold on, we don't have time.
Imran:All right, so that was my two cents.
Ryan:But the fruit of the spirit is love. Get a pause again. Love. Three more words. One of the things that you're gonna see with every one of these, if you just really think about it. Every bit of these all apply relationally Right Like patients, only apply as outside of oneself.
Imran:Yeah.
Ryan:Right, love right. Like obviously I can love myself and that's kind of. We're actually very good at that right, that's why Jesus? Uses that as a metric, they say no, the fruit of this is that how you love others, right Peace and kindness and goodness, all that, it's everything here is towards others. Relationships right.
Ryan:And I find that very interesting, particularly because the first one he lists here is love. But all proper relationships are built off that right, it's all built off love. So in one sense you can almost just say, hey, the fruit of the spirit is love, and then the rest of these are just kind of descriptors of what love is right.
Ryan:Well, I thought it was about walking in the spirit. Sure, who is God? God is love, right? So walking in the spirit means you're walking in love. To be loving means you're walking in the spirit. And well, what does love look like? Well, it looks like these things. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, how it all kind of flows together.
Imran:It just kind of continues to express the character of God and so, like, the fruit of the spirit is being God-like, and if God is love, then it kind of follows Right, it follows.
Ryan:So these are very relational terms, but the term here for love is the word agape, and I think most well, not most, but I know a lot At least some mature believers are familiar with the four loves of Greek. You know them, Brandon.
Brandon:Yes, you got filet agape. What's the other one, eros, and one more which?
Ryan:one was that it's like adulta-wana.
Selena:Oh yeah, what's he going to say?
Brandon:Adulta-wana.
Ryan:Storgae.
Selena:Storgae.
Imran:Yeah, yeah, storgae, that's a deacon of the church right there, if everyone was like name any of them, I'd be like agape. That's all you got. All you'll get from me, I'm sorry. So I'm young in the faith.
Ryan:Storgae is an affectionate love right. So if I were to say I love my dog, I would say I storgae my dog. I am an affectionate love for my dog but, I, don't love my dog the way I love my children.
Ryan:I don't love my dog the way I love my wife. You know what I mean. So it's a storgae love. Eros is a passionate love. It's generally applied romantically. We're talking about the intimate passion between people, right? So when you look at Christ on the cross, who demonstrated all these loves, they call his crucifixion and that sequence the passion, or in Greek, the Eros. This was the Eros of Christ. Faleo is brotherly love. We here in this room with the exception of you and Selena, because you guys have the marriage- right.
Ryan:But for the rest of us we are Faleo. Right, we have a Faleo love for one another, brotherly, sisterly love for one another. But then agape, which is always generally described as divine love or godly love, and it gets that term that's not the actual etymology of the word it gets that characteristic because that is what the Bible says. This is how God loved you, agape. So it kind of adopted that meaning that term over time.
Ryan:In terms of how it matured. The original etymology and idea behind agape was a love of choice and I, just, I always love the divine love. Right, obviously, but how? What does divine love mean? And I think this provides so much for me.
Imran:It also removes the. Well, I can never love Selena divinely, but I have agape Selena. I do love her by choice and we even talked about this before we got married. That like I love my mom, but I love my mom for all the reasons that you love your mother, but I chose to love you. It's like I didn't grow up with you. You kind of disappeared in my life one day in high school and I. That's the whole pretense of marriage. Yeah, exactly I choose you Exactly.
Ryan:I agape you. I'm choosing to love you and only you. Right, that is the power of marriage and that's agape For some people their parents, they have to agape, right? Because maybe yeah, but my father was an alcoholic, he was abusive, he was all these things. You're telling me I have to go love him. That's hard, right, you have to go agape, you have to choose, constantly. Choose to love them. Agape assumes as a love by choice, a non-natural love.
Imran:So I, I mean, I don't want me to just finish this.
Ryan:Because, you know, when Jesus says like you need to love your enemies, right, he says if you only love those who love you, even the tax collectors do that. That is not an agape love cause, that's a natural love. It is natural for me to love my children. It is natural for me to love those who are kind and loving to me. It is not natural for me to say I choose to go, love ISIS, right, I choose to love Russians, I choose to go. You know what I'm saying?
Brandon:Yeah, you have to make your conscious choice, and you're a bad guy here, cause it's not easy.
Ryan:It's not natural to do that based off of certain behavior or experiences, or you?
Imran:know what I mean, and and you don't even have to make it that big you can say, like you may be in a situation where your boss is a tyrant and you're you have a manager that just is absolutely lording over you. It's like, well, you need to agape them as well, because by showing the fruit of the spirit as it'll go through it, you may influence them over time. That's right. Cause in the face of that love, like how can they, just you know, treat you poorly, right?
Ryan:A love by choice, I think is very beautiful. Right, it assumes actually not natural, but it also tells us a lot about the way God loved us. If God loved us, agape, I mean he chose to love us, meaning in a sense it wasn't natural. Well, why wasn't it natural? Cause he's a holy God. We were these dirty, nasty sinners, yeah, but God says I'm choosing to love them. And this feeds into some of these other fruits. Right, cause, really, if you just look at Christ as a whole, he's the one who demonstrated what it meant to walk in the spirit. Right, when we talk about the pistis, the faith and faithfulness of Christ, right, that was him choosing to do so. We didn't earn it.
Ryan:right, we didn't earn any of God's love right we were nasty people living in the garbage, but he says I'm going to choose to love you, right, and that's what makes it powerful. A lot of people, I think, feel like they have to do certain things to earn his love. It's like, no, he already loves you. That's it. You know what I mean. Like he chose to love you. Yeah, that's what a copy is and I'm sorry, Dupre.
Brandon:No, you're right on. We love him because he first loved us and it was because he had that love for us that we can show that love to other people, absolutely.
Imran:Yeah, I think that that's absolutely great. I didn't want to clarify very, very quickly, so we brought up those different types of love. But does the Greek? The Greek reads as the agape love, or where it says love in verse 22,. That's agape, it's agape, okay.
Ryan:That's the word used there, as agape. So, but the food of the spirit is love. The next one is listed here is joy, the Greek here is chara. So joy is another one right. Joy is kind of like a really abstract term sometimes, like what do we mean by joy? Happiness, it's like, well, no, not necessarily happiness, but how do you define joy?
Imran:right? Yeah, because happiness is extremely short-sighted, it's very fleeting.
Ryan:It could be unless you make it synonymous with joy, right, so I like that. It kind of breaks it down a little bit more here. So the term chara for joy, the etymology of wink, is a combination of the word char and charo, which is really, it's, a unique word biblically, or at least in the Greek, because what they would do then, like this root meant something and this root meant something.
Ryan:So if I have a new concept that I okay, this is the concept I'm talking about they would put those two words together to make the word to understand the concept right Spanish does that?
Ryan:sometimes Hebrew does that. There's a lot of languages that do that, but Greek was very defined that way and the etymology link of char and charo is really joy because of or out of grace. It is very specific. It is a joy. It's like saying it's a joy of awareness and it's a joy derived from a source with a little bit more of a specific here of that source being grace. Joy because of grace it's the idea that you should be constantly self-aware of the fact that what you have you don't deserve Again the love of God you've received. You do not deserve the blessings you have you do not deserve and yet you have it Like God's grace and God's grace alone, and you should be weeping for joy for that because one. There should be a sense of gratitude. But if I couldn't earn it the first time, there's nothing I could do today to continue earning it. So it's fully sustained, based off God's choice to love me.
Ryan:Therefore I have this grace right. That's a big deal, right. So now there should be this burden off you of like well, I messed up today. I cursed out a coworker, I flipped off that guy in traffic. Whatever, god's gonna be mad at me and he is going to punish me and remove his grace from me. No, because you didn't earn it to begin with. Right, I was having when I was in Quantico. There was this lady who I've worked professionally with her for years. Very bitter of women. She's older and she was just going on her husband passed away about two years ago and just very angry.
Imran:But you should become more angry after her husband passed away.
Ryan:Yes, very bitter and her bitterness was she kind of came out in our conversation. I'd never had this kind of talk with her before, but it was really pretty much her view. But just to summarize, it is unfair that my husband passed away when he did, but Bertha has just celebrated her 60th wedding anniversary with hers and she's like at my age she's like the only men who wanna marry anybody. How does she say it? They want a nurse, a purse or somebody who's 20.
Ryan:He's the way she put it so you gotta have money, you gotta be willing to take care of him and baby him, or you better be young, right? That was her view. So I'm stuck alone for the rest of my life, right, Cause I don't have the purse. I'm certainly her personality. I'm not gonna be any of these nerves and I'm not 20, right, just very bitter.
Ryan:why do they get it? And it's like look the grace and the blessing and the joy that you had in that marriage with your husband did you deserve it? And if the answer is no, right Cause we don't deserve his blessing on those things, so that means every single day that you had with him was through God's grace, by God's grace.
Imran:It was a gift.
Ryan:And a gift. So stop complaining about that. You don't get in continuum. It's a very when you think about it. It is a very spoiled, bradish way, very selfish. And of course she's probably still grieving a bit the loss of her husband and a couple. They were married a while but and I've never gone through that, I don't know what that's like. But that whole self-awareness right. But if you were to maintain a reminder that everything I have is just through God's grace and that's where my joy is anchored, and if God's giving me his grace every single day, then I'm gonna have joy every single day I will have Chara. That's why you walk in the spirit cause. You're walking in grace, I'm walking in grace and I'm aware of that grace. I'm walking in joy Does that make sense.
Ryan:So sustained joy requires a sustained awareness of grace, and a sustained awareness of grace requires a sustained walk in the spirit. Okay, so the next one. We have peace, and the Greek here is the word Irene, and Irene in terms of that talk.
Imran:That's so awesome, Just such a good name. It's like I did not know that that meant grace. You know what I think of when I hear that word.
Ryan:What.
Brandon:Black Hawk Down. I'm thinking of Tobi Mack, really.
Ryan:What's Tobi Mack? I know who Tobi Mack is, but like what.
Brandon:He had a song about Irene after it. Oh really.
Ryan:So in Black Hawk Down, I'm just thinking of when their Irene was the code word for go, launch and execute that Anyways.
Imran:Oh nice, I love that.
Ryan:I just always hear Elvis playing in the background of my mind when you're reading scripture, just Elvis playing in the background. It's a what is it? Suspicious minds is playing anyways. So, irene, and it's for peace, that's for peace.
Ryan:And it means completeness or fulfilled, or the etymology of the word itself, really just means all essential parts are joined together. All essential parts are joined together. So, again, when we're talking about the fruit of the spirit right, that which is a part of a whole, you receive peace when all those parts are where they should be.
Ryan:So when you look at, people who, in life, they're like. You could find peace for a time. Right, because you could go through these different seasons, even as a non-believer, where in some sense, essential parts are joined together properly. Right, where you know. This is why you, you know non-believers have to have very strong, happy marriages. In the beginning they just had a kid and man. We're strong, right. Everything is essential. It's when things start to break down, right.
Imran:Yeah, they don't have the foundation.
Ryan:You start losing the peace and I think walking in the spirit and peace is just so like in my own life. I have found that I could have these highs and lows, but the way I remember a lot of that time I like emotionally, it's very much tied to what my walk was at that time right.
Ryan:So I had a very strong walk in my last combat deployment I ever had in Afghanistan and of all my combat deployments across Iraq going into Afghanistan, I looked at the Afghan. I thought about the Afghan deployment. I'm like you know that was actually not a easy go. That was not an easy deployment.
Ryan:I probably experienced the most, not in terms of longevity, but the most intense combat of my career on that deployment and I look back at that time with just complete joy and fulfillment and peace, like I look back joyfully at that time and people were getting hurt left and right, I mean like everybody was getting shot at, felt like, like it was not like I said, it was not easy, but I'm like, why do I view it that way? But then there's this one particular deployment in Iraq which was somewhat similar. But man, I don't even think about that time, like when I even started to have a little memory of it. I just completely suppressed, go to the back of my mind.
Imran:I'm like, right, I was like, okay, can't pull that out, put that back in the closet.
Ryan:And that was like the peak of me and my flesh Absolutely wild. So the peace I experienced in both of those I was like man, like I mean, people were still getting hurt, people were dying, we were in combat. I'm away from family, I'm still living like a dog. You know, I stink like a goat. I even I'm saying like all those things were pretty much the same, same kind of environment, but one I look at was such, you know, peace and joy. The other one I don't. It's like when my walk was different than you know what I mean.
Ryan:Like peace is so important, like peace in the home, right, when you look at like marriage, for example because we were just talking about, you know, fighting and stuff like that, like if somebody was just walking in the spirit, right, if you know, I think a lot of men or I know that's not just men, but I think just married people in general but you get home from work and you kind of take a breath going into your home because you're not sure what mood your spouse is gonna be in and, depending on what mood they're in, like this is gonna be a good night or a bad night. I don't know. You know what I mean, depending on the day they have.
Ryan:And you just kind of gamble. You know, like, if it's gonna be a rough night, I'm not sure I could deal with a rough night. You know what I mean. Like in marriage, you're supposed to be each other's peace. Right, you're supposed to be each other's peace. In a marriage, you're not supposed to be the source of friction or discord, right and life or stress. You should be each other's peace. Well, that can only be accomplished for each if both are walking in the spirit. That's why the most important relationship in a marriage is your personal relationship with.
Imran:Christ. I think that it's also something to think about. Is that? This is just kind of, I guess, an advice piece? So one of my leaders brought up to me that, like you have to every day, you have to wake up twice. You wake up to go to work and then when you get home, you need to wake up again and be there for your spouse. You can't just get home and be like I'm tired and I just like go to sleep or I'm exhausted, I'm gonna go watch the game, I'm exhausted, I'm just gonna go do my own thing. Yes, you may interact with dozens of people throughout your day. Yes, you may be tired, but you have to continue to build that marriage. When you come home, you have to continue to work on it. When you come home, you have to muster that or leave a little bit in the tank so that you can wake up again and be the husband or wife that you need to be.
Ryan:So the way and that's like another way of it was kind of a paradigm shift for me, but it was the concept of second shift. I don't think you were at that men's camp when we did it, but when you, you're working all day, that's your first shift. When you get home, you're working your second shift. That is not like okay, it's done, shift over these are nine to five and you're five to 12.
Ryan:Nope, you're starting your second shift. Everybody's working two jobs, right? When you get home particularly, I think, in our context was for men like you need to go in there and run your second shift and be the spiritual leader of your home right. You can't just drop the pack and then just hand over to your spouse and say you got it all because I just worked and I'm tired, right, like nope, you're on your second shift, but that's still. I mean, that's good advice, right? I guess I'm saying in general.
Imran:It's another way of saying. It's the same kind of concept.
Ryan:Irene, the concept of it is to no longer long, but to rest in satisfaction.
Selena:Yeah.
Ryan:And to the point. The previous point, right With Chara and Joy and Grace, is that if I'm already receiving more than I deserve, how can I not be satisfied in getting more than I deserve? You know what I mean. Absolutely, If I feel like I did not get that If I'm already satisfied in receiving more than I deserve if you are already aware of the fact that you were receiving more than you deserve, how can you not rest in satisfaction there?
Imran:Okay, okay, you know what I mean.
Ryan:If you're about to go into transitioning into the Marine Corps or out of the Marine Corps right Into CivDiv.
Imran:Scarier than one might think.
Ryan:You may go in and you're like, hey, you know what I feel like with my talent, my experience and where I'm willing to work, and I feel like I'm worth $90,000 a year to start. I'm like, okay, here's $110,000 a year, Right. And you're like, man, that's more than I deserve. I haven't even worked yet. I don't even you know what I mean.
Imran:I feel like I'm worthless here, I want to know you?
Ryan:You know what I'm saying. Are you gonna be not satisfied with that offer?
Selena:Yeah.
Ryan:You know what I'm saying and to say well, I feel like I am worth this or I deserve this. They're offering you more than you deserve. Are you gonna complain at the offer that they're giving you? You see what I'm saying?
Imran:Yeah, I'm not saying being in your flesh, though, Like some people might be like. Well, I guess I'm worth this and it's like I'm better than I thought I was. I'm like buh-buh-buh, you know yeah.
Ryan:I'm just saying, but that's why it requires awareness right, yeah, exactly that's self-awareness. Remember, at the very end of this, paul says let's walk in humility, because you can't do any of this without humility.
Ryan:Yeah Right, there's a lot of things that require this to actually take root and bear fruit in your life so to no longer long, but the rest and that satisfaction of I'm resting in this grace, like I don't deserve it, but I'm getting it every day. I'm joyful, but I'm at peace because he's already given me more than I actually deserve and you're able to rest there, You're able to be content. Yeah, I think that's probably the best way to describe this term. Peace. It's more contentness, in my view. Like it's. I'm not longing for more, but I'm completely content with what God has given me and I'm able to rest there.
Imran:Yeah, I would say that, at least for me, that concept of peace, that concept of contentment is the most squishy one for me, and when I say squishy I mean kind of like hard to nail down.
Ryan:Yeah, it's interesting projective.
Imran:Yeah, Because it's kind of hard to nail down exactly how I know that I'm in that zone, but at the same time, on the other side of the coin, I think it's obvious when I am in it and I'm just like, oh, you know, everything's chill. I really appreciate my wife, no matter what she may be doing or not doing, I just appreciate her. I really appreciate, you know, my vehicles, no matter if they're up or down or which up and down the military means broken or not broken.
Imran:You know, it's like I really appreciate, just like the life I've been given the opportunity to live and it's like just like a baseline, even though things may not be where I want them to be and things may not be okay. I'm like content, but then when I'm not in that zone, I can't even, I don't even know how to get there. It's like I wake up and I'm in it sometimes and then sometimes I'm just like nothing's right, nothing's fine, and I'm kind of like that, and I think that's part of the.
Ryan:Again, walking in the spirit right Is setting the second you wake up and you get up from your bed, you pray. I'm right now walking in your spirit right. You're with me now. You said it from the very beginning, right? I notice, even for me personally, because I'm really cranky in the mornings, like Because you're chronically addicted to coffee. Yeah, if I don't have my two cups of coffee and I just I'm cranky. I don't know those cheery morning people I find them to be.
Selena:Selena lives next to one if she hates it.
Imran:We're the complete opposite, that's how it is in a marriage. My wife's the same way.
Ryan:It's like as soon as I wake up, and she's like hey, so I was thinking.
Imran:So I was planning while sleeping.
Ryan:I think we should maybe go camping over Thanksgiving. And I was just saying there's this campsite, this campsite, this campsite. What do you do? I'm like woman, let me get my. I always bring me a coffee before you.
Imran:The fun part is when I do that to Selena but we got up at the same time. She's like but how did you plant? I guess while I was sleeping.
Selena:I don't know how. Are you already dressed?
Ryan:So my point, though, is like. I found, though, that in some of those mornings I tend I'm far more less patient, I'm far more less kind and gentle with people in the morning if I don't pray first. But if I anchor myself and I get into prayer before any of those engagements, it's completely different, right Cause I've already. Instead of like getting up in my flesh and just going, it's slow down when you walk beside and get the spirit with me on even in the morning.
Imran:That's good Right, so I gotta integrate some of that.
Ryan:I think, what we all do right.
Imran:I know I do.
Ryan:I certainly do All right. Next, it depends on the translation. What did you do? You were doing King James right. Yes, that's correct. Did you say for barons or patients? I know the ESV the NIV uses for barons patients.
Brandon:It says temperance. Is that what we're talking about? Temperance? Long suffering, long suffering. There you go. So Long suffering, long suffering.
Ryan:Add that one to the list. So long suffering for barons, patients, but the Greek is Mac. So we have all these different English words, right, but there is just one Greek word used here. But the Greek word is Macrothumia and it means patients, but specifically not just general patients. It's patients as applied to justice and vengeance. So the idea of somebody has wronged you, somebody, there's something you see, you're like this is not right. We need to correct this. Right. This is not right.
Ryan:Being patient in how you execute that vengeance or justice, one, because vengeance isn't yours, it belongs to God, so one that's just handing over responsibility for that vengeance and justice to him, that's what judgment day is right. Because when you do that, when you have patients as applied to those things in particular, you now approach that problem much different. If somebody has wronged you or there's some wrong in the world, they're like this just isn't right. You're like I'm gonna go fix that wrong. You're going to approach that with a different spirit. You're going to approach that with a different strategy and tactic, right, but if you remove that and say, no, I'm gonna be patient because it doesn't belong to me, but that problem still exists. But if I'm not now, I'm not seeking vengeance or justice. How do I approach that problem now? And now you're going to approach that problem in line with the spirit of grace, love, mercy. You know what I'm saying.
Imran:It's going to be completely different.
Ryan:Our problem is that we want to be the ones to dish out justice, and especially when the wrong is against us. You know what I mean and I think the hardest part. I mean I think it's true of everybody, but I just know of me as a man the hardest thing, one of the hardest things for me to do is that when I'm offended or somebody's wrong and I know I'm in the right to not at least make it known.
Imran:That you know you're in the right that I know.
Ryan:I'm gonna make everybody else know that I'm in the right. Yeah Right, because it just You'll see, you'll see it drives me crazy, right, and this is me and my flesh, but it drives me crazy the idea of somebody else thinking that you know what I'm saying?
Imran:That they got one over you, right, and that's pride, right, that's pride.
Ryan:But you know but I think many people deal with that.
Imran:I feel that it worked a lot. I was actually telling Selena this maybe yesterday or today, where it's like sometimes it frustrates me, I'll bring stuff up to my bosses and I'm like, hey, we need to do this this way, something simple, like we do these situation reports every week. This one's the one I was actually thinking about today. I let the office know. It's like hey, we need to somehow get this down to one product. We've been doing two different products, blah, blah, blah. This needs to go down to one product. And he made a big fuss about it. It's like it's gotta be this way. It's always been this way, and that was about two months ago. Last week he was like all right, so this is really complicated, we're gonna go down to one product. Nobody's gonna be like all right all right.
Ryan:Sometimes I just put my I wanted to say I told you so. Yeah, I didn't do that. But that's what it's talking about, though.
Imran:I feel that sometimes, though, like I work just like oh man, you can make your opinions known without you know, lording over someone.
Ryan:and then the spirit will work itself out. The spirit works itself out We've been experiencing in my job, and because my new job also kind of crosses with my old job, which makes some of the professional dealings a little awkward. But one of the things that's going on is that there's a reckoning occurring. That's a strong word that we, well over a year and a half ago, we're saying if you do not do these three or four things, doesn't matter what else you do. This is going to fail.
Ryan:And they just refused to listen. They refused to listen. We're pushing things out like hey coming down the pipe. We really need to get on this. And ahead of this, nobody wanted to listen. Now it's all reactive and oh, we gotta find a solution for this. And now they're not making smart decisions, so bad decisions have led to even further consequences. All the while, me and my coworker the two who are the voices for this, all you know we're like like part of this is like we told you.
Ryan:So we told you so we told you what I mean there's so much about you in your pride and your own identity that you want to make it known and to be vindicated now that but what they need is your. I want to hear that dirty little mouth say it, you know, and that's the pride in us, but what they need from you now is your pride is actually your patience.
Imran:Exactly Now they need you to mentor them through it, because they've realized what they need. This is what I told my coworker. I said well, me and him were just kind of oh, I know, dude, I'm so irritated oh man it's so annoying.
Ryan:I was like, well, if God does not mature us in grace, if there's not situations for us to apply it to, yeah Right, and of course he's a believer and he's a believer in God and he, like me, was like you're right, and I didn't want to hear it.
Brandon:You know what I mean.
Ryan:Like neither, one of us wanted to take off the option of grace.
Imran:Let's go with good friends, but bad friends would be like no go tell them Go hit them again TP is how yeah exactly, but so, anyways, let's move on.
Ryan:The next one is kindness, and the Greek here is Christades, and this doesn't mean just being kind or polite or a nice person. This actually means serviceable kindness or useful kindness.
Imran:That's Brandon in a nutshell, right there.
Ryan:Yeah, I'm trying to be what did you say it was called?
Imran:How'd you say it in the Greek?
Ryan:Man, you're gonna make me keep saying another Greek. I mean, you know, I'm bad at Greek, I know.
Imran:And I love hearing your bad Greek. Say it. Say it, pastor, all right, Christades, christades, okay, that's your new nickname. So um Christades.
Ryan:Christitis. So Christitis, christitis, see, I got it good twice. I don't know why I went for it third time. Kindness, but a serviceable or useful kindness, so it is. It's not a kindness as a state of existence but is properly used for service to somebody. So when it says that the fruit of the spirit is the serviceable kindness, it's not you just constantly being polite and, you know, always having a smile and using good manners. You should do that right. But that's not what this is talking about. What it's talking about is that, like as a good church example right, I'm about to slap a lot of people in the face with this one, because we've all everybody's guilty of this in church and then turn the other cheek.
Ryan:Yeah, everybody's guilty of this one in church. But when someone presents a situation that they're like, yeah, like the car broke down and or you know my AC stopped working and or you know what I mean, they're presenting this a situation and a big problem, and maybe it's a live problem and you say, oh man, that's horrible, I'm gonna pray for you Right now. You should pray for them, right? I'm not discouraging prayer, but is that all you should do for them? Right? Because you saying I'm gonna all pray for you as you being kind to them, hey, I'm empathizing with you, I sympathize with your situation To the point that I'm gonna take time, I'm gonna pray for you, Thank you, but you know what they really need.
Ryan:They need your prayer, but what they need is your serviceable kindness. They need you to step in and be kind usefully to them and say, okay, well, I actually know something about ACs, Let me come in and take a look at it, Right? Or? Or you, man, you broke your leg and you can't go pull the weeds in your yard here. I got that for you, man, Right. Meal trains at church, right? That's serviceable kindness. It's not just saying we're sad that your husband died. We're gonna pray for you as a church. It's also we're gonna pray for you as a church, but we're also gonna deliver you your meals for two weeks, so you don't have to worry about that, as a host of people are coming in and you could just focus on grieving, getting you know all these things in the funeral arrangements done. That's useful kindness. Right Be useful. If it is not a useful kindness, that is not the fruit of the spirit that this is talking about.
Imran:I have an interesting thing that happened to me this past week. So so I've been working on my truck since last Saturday. It was supposed to be a two to four hour job. It turned into a four to five day job, as it always is, as it does.
Imran:So last night I actually got the project done. We got the lift on and when it finished up, I was getting cleaned up, getting ready to go, and there was a Marine that was in the back working on his car and he actually like threaded the bolts wrong on his wheel so his wheel wouldn't go back on the vehicle correctly. And I just kind of overheard all of that happen and I was really feeling like you know, real excited because you know we got this project done, we got it done in time and all that stuff. But as I was listening to him, I was in line waiting to pay and listening to him kind of explain what he did and that he needed to buy this part and he couldn't drive home Cause he had or at least he had to leave his vehicle overnight. Once they finished up, I pulled him aside and I I didn't know why really but I just like, hey, you need to ride home. I didn't plan or think about it beforehand, it just kind of came out of my face, I didn't even know if I had gas on the truck, but he did need to ride cause his vehicle was stuck and I'd never met this room before, didn't know anything about him, didn't know his rank or anything like that, didn't even know his name till we were getting ready to leave.
Imran:But as we were driving home or driving to his house, he was just kind of talking to me about some of the stuff he was going through.
Imran:He was actually getting ready to get get separated from the Marine Corps because of some issues that happened while he was a platoon commander, found out later on that he was a lieutenant and he was just kind of going through a lot at his unit and so I didn't know that he needed this, I guess. But I just kind of gave him some information about cause. I just went to TRS a few weeks ago, just went through and I was like, hey, have you talked to this person? Have you gone and gotten this counseling? Have you gone and talked to these individuals? Here's some context for some people you can talk to to kind of get some cause. He gets out in like 15 days and he didn't really have a plan besides going back home to his mom, you know. And so in that little 15 minute drive I tried to give him as many resources as I could, but I didn't plan to do that, I didn't plan to be there, but trying to do something that that Marine needed in the moment. I guess, as you say, useful kindness.
Imran:Actually, it's hopefully turned into a mentoring session that maybe it may have been something he needed, that he just got from some guy he just met at the auto center and Brandon can attest being a deacon right.
Ryan:There's a big difference between being kind to somebody and being useful. He kind to somebody which is what widows and orphans and general just being a deacon is right.
Brandon:Yes, that's a everyday thing and you know it's knowing that your actions speak louder than words. I think being able to recognize the time where it is to take action and help out when needed.
Ryan:Kindness is putting prayer to action Absolutely Right. Lord, I want you to help their situation and I am going to actively participate in helping that situation right, Because who does God send? How does God resolve the situations Right? And I think one of the things that you and I get a lot of insight to is how much stuff comes out. You know, Comes out.
Imran:Yeah, at the church, at your positions.
Ryan:You realize that God uses people you know, and you need to be usefully kind and to the point earlier, like you don't deserve God's grace, right, yeah? Or God's love, you know it's by His grace. I'm trying to. Who was the quote by? I want to say maybe it was Martin Luther. He says God doesn't need your good works, but your neighbor does. Oh nice, right. So God doesn't need you to be usefully kind, but your neighbor needs you to be usefully kind. And God recognizes with us. Imagine if God wasn't usefully kind to us. What if we were in our sin and God says man, guys, I want you to know something. I really love you, I love you guys so much, but you're sinners, yeah, you get to go to hell and all sins are like 30 racks.
Imran:So Right, Bye-bye.
Ryan:The whole context of the crucifixion is God being usefully kind to us. It wasn't just that he loved us, that he was polite to us when you know we were dirty. He says I'm going to be usefully kind to you, I'm going to bear that cross for you, right, that's useful kindness, All right. Next we're going to be here all night. Next one is goodness. I think yours said something different, Brandon, but maybe not. Maybe the Greek is a goth usune and it's for goodness. For goodness, Okay, and this is a purely biblical word.
Imran:What does yours say Goodness. It doesn't say goodness, so it is biblically.
Ryan:this is a very specific term only used in biblical Greek, so the roots are obviously found elsewhere.
Imran:Absolutely.
Ryan:Remember etymology is bringing, and particularly in the Greek, is bringing things together for a concept, right Meaning, so I guess a better way to say this word is only found in biblical Greek, which would mean then that within the Greek context, this concept only existed within the church Does that make sense yeah.
Imran:So if it wasn't, or at least hearing that word. Using that way, you would only hear in the church.
Ryan:No, this word is only found in biblical Greek. Okay, so the pairing of the roots together, the etymology of it, is only found in biblical Greek. So this is a very specific concept for the time and as a Bible term. What it really just means is the condition of being made good, right?
Imran:In the condition of being made good A condition of being made good so if you think about.
Ryan:It's almost like how do you describe the condition of a dirty dish in the dishwasher being made clean.
Imran:It's going through a lot of violence in that dishwasher.
Ryan:Well, I closed down the question is do you consider when you run your dishwasher right, you hit start and it's been going for 30 minutes or whatever? Are the dishes in there clean or are they dirty, Still dirty, Still dirty?
Selena:Or they're.
Imran:They're in the process of being made clean.
Selena:They're in the process of being made clean right yes, they are.
Ryan:That is goodness. That is the idea. Right Is that it is in the process of being made clean, or?
Imran:being made good right.
Ryan:Yeah. So what it says is the fruit of the spirit is a process of being made good, but that means isn't necessarily that you, like day to day, do everything right, make every right decision, make. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that you don't make mistakes. The idea, though, is I'd almost say it's more like spiritual growth. Yeah, you should be able to look at yourself a year from now and say, wow, I've grown. Right, because I've been walking in the spirit, I have grown. If you look at yourself today compared to where you were a year ago and you don't think you've grown, then that's a whole year that's a problem.
Ryan:You probably haven't been walking in the spirit right. You've been again to our earlier point, just kind of existing off the old spiritual habit of a time that you were walking in the spirit, but you've stagnated right, yeah. But walking in the spirit. It should be some spiritual growth or being made good.
Imran:Yep, the spirit's gonna convict you and it's definitely that process.
Brandon:Yes, being made good. I think spiritually is just something that we need to put in the forefront as Christians, just striving for spiritual growth and reaching out to those around us that are able to help us with that. You can go into church reading your Bible all things that can help with spiritual growth and goodness.
Ryan:And to remember that if everybody's walking in the spirit, everybody's, at different places in life, right. I think often we tend to put people in comparison to ourselves of where we are spiritually right.
Ryan:So somebody will act in a very immature way. You know like they're a believer. They should not be acting that way. You're like you're right. However, you acted that way five years ago. You've just grown, Absolutely. They're growing too Like, don't look at them where they are compared to you.
Ryan:Look at where they are compared to where they were a year ago or two years ago or where they came from, right, think I've told the story before of the guy who came really annoying guy who came was at our church, who, like, asking for help moving.
Ryan:He wouldn't move any of his stuff, but, like, everybody from the church is there helping him load his you know U-Haul, but he's just there smoking a cigarette. And you're like gosh, this guy's annoying, right, yeah, like we're moving your house and he's just there complaining the whole time, and you know what I mean. Yeah, I was like, oh man, this guy's annoying, and anybody who would look at that guy would be like that is, he's not bearing fruit of the spirit, right, yeah. However, it does matter, though, the fact that that guy came from a place where he was a neo-Nazi, racist, right, and now he's here with a whole church helping him move, even though he's being obnoxious in it, but like he's like hugging dudes, you know he's hugging black dudes, he's hugging. You know Hispanic guys, like you know what I'm saying.
Ryan:That's growth right, and he may not be where you are, but from where he came from he's come along with. You know what I'm saying.
Imran:And then there's also people that are just getting started. There's this guy that just I recently started seeing him at our church and he's got a bit of a potty mouth he's very rough around the edges, but I would say that he is my favorite person that's at the church, because every time I talked to him he is just happy to be loved by our church you know, and he wants to know more about the faith because he is being loved by our church.
Ryan:To see somebody in their joy, because we take it for granted, because we get used to it, but somebody who hasn't had that grace or had that being loved that way, right when it's new to them like this, is amazing right.
Brandon:I mean, we're all kind of like oh, it is kind of amazing, isn't it this?
Imran:isn't new this isn't outside.
Ryan:This is your normal right, but to him they're like no, this isn't. That's why I love doing believers right, because they're so. Yes, they are rough around the edges because they don't know all the cultural isms. Hey hey, hey, Like you guys see it, yeah on. Tuesday night Bible study. Sometimes you got guys who are asking a question. They're cussing like man. We're in the sanctuary at church, like hey, you're not supposed to cuss at church.
Ryan:Like you would think that's something right, but they're at a Bible study asking a question, meaning they're engaged in the work. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's good, and you gotta just remember like, and they're new to the faith, yeah, I love it. They're not on fire, but they love it Like they just absolutely love it and I'm like you know what?
Ryan:I see more joy out of that person walking out of a Bible study, even though they may have cussed when they ask their question, right, cause that's just a habit of how they talk compared to this other believer who's been in the faith for 40 years and they walk out and just kind of you know, doesn't seem to have any impact, right? No smile, no joy, nothing. And you're almost like man that must have bombed a night, right. But then you see this new believer over here, like this is amazing, you know.
Imran:It's like that's where I'm getting encouraged from you know, I remember you were teaching a Bible study or maybe it was, it might've been Pastor David during one of the revelation studies someone asked the question of like, like what is the Holy Spirit? Like just straight up, like kind of just ask that open-ended question, and Pastor was kind of taking it back and she was like I've never heard of this concept before.
Ryan:I need you to explain it to me. I know exactly yep. He told me yep.
Imran:Yeah, and I was like, oh man, I haven't even comprehended being in that place where someone just asked me like, straight up from scratch, like what is something as simple as the concept of the Holy Spirit, which is not simple in and of itself, but at least like a foundational concept.
Ryan:you know, it's like, and it's like, oh man, that's awesome, but you know to be able, to ask that question is also Also imagine your brand new believer, the first Bible study you ever get into is way through the book of Revelation. We were talking about dragons coming out of the sea. Very true. If you don't understand context and what is going on, it could sound very, very odd right. I'm like wait a minute. What are you? What?
Imran:do you believe Right, but anyways she came back though she did yep, all right.
Ryan:Moving on, the next one is I think you're said faithfulness, didn't it? Or did you say faith?
Brandon:Just as hold on faithfulness.
Ryan:yes, Yep, so faithfulness, which is actually, I think, probably the more accurate. So this is the same word. Pistis Is the same word that's been used all throughout Galatians in the study that you are justified by your pistis, but who's pistis? You're not justified by your pistis, you're justified by Christ's pistis. Or, more probably, or appropriately, faithfulness. It is a faith that leads to faithfulness, right. It is a concept of belief that manifests itself in faithfulness to that belief, right. So when it says that part of the fruit of the spirit is faithfulness, right. You can't say I belong to God, who is love and who is all these things, and I'm his disciple and I'm surrendered over, and to not be faithful to him. Yeah, you know what I mean. If you're saying I belong to him but yet I'm faithful to the world, then who do you really belong to? Does that make sense? Yeah absolutely.
Ryan:And remember this is something that is. This is indicative of what it means to walk in the spirit. So if you're like, well, I feel like I'm, I actually am walking more in line with the world and the spirit, then you're not gonna be faithful to God, You're gonna be faithful to the world, because it's much easier to be faithful to the world, right?
Imran:I think that that's also a good tie into kind of the concept of the whole fruit, because you mentioned in the beginning it's like all of these things together make up the fruit of the spirit. So you may be in your sin right now, very comfortable, and think that you have peace, joy, kindness and goodness in something maybe not goodness like in something that is sinful. You know, it's like you may be happy to be watching porn or happy to be kind of frivolous with your relationships in the moment, but there's no faithfulness there. That's not tying back to faithfulness, that's not tying back to point towards Christ. So if you're talking about hey, he didn't say fruits, he said fruit. That means all of these things make up the fruit of the spirit. If you think that you have joy but you don't have faithfulness, if you think that you have peace but you don't have faithfulness, then you're not actually exhibiting the fruit of the spirit.
Ryan:Well, and I think so, starting earlier in Galatians, to Paul's point how are you saved? Well, I am saved because I believe. No, you are saved because of Christ's faithfulness. You know what I mean. So if he being faithful to us then means that we be faithful to him, right, what is that?
Ryan:So I think we talked about this last time, but there was a corpsman who had just left the church not too long ago, and he's having a hard time, him and his wife in particular, in their marriage since he's left. And he's like one of those things like how long do I have to do this? Like I feel like I'm the only one fighting for this marriage. I don't think she cares, doesn't seem like she's making any effort to change at all. Right, so how long do I allow her to continue? Just why does she just get to keep on being the way she is and I'm the one who has to change and up in everything for this marriage, right?
Ryan:Like he was very frustrated and we brought up this idea of faithfulness and I said well, let me ask you, are you struggling with being faithful to her or being faithful to your promise, which then kind of inverse it when I started thinking about it. Was God faithful to us because of us, right? No, he chose a love us, but he was faithful to his promise to us. Because he was faithful to his promise, therefore, he was faithful to us. Well, what's the difference? One is anchored on the other person's character. The second right to be faithful to the promise is anchored on your own right.
Ryan:So in certain situations, particularly like in marriage, when you're like man, it just she doesn't seem to be trying, or doesn't see my key cares, or he's not trying right. Well, at that point you're struggling not to be faithful to him or her. You're struggling to be faithful to the promise you made.
Ryan:And when you've got weak character, you have no promise or problem breaking the promise you made. But by breaking the promise you made right or not being faithful to the promise you made, you're really just aligning yourself into the same character of the person that you're having a hard time being faithful to. You see what I'm saying.
Imran:Like it's rolling down to their level. I guess Essentially, and you're like well, so now it's not taking the high road. Leaving that's not taking the high road. Taking the high road is abiding by the promise that you said.
Ryan:And just as God was faithful to his promise, which meant being faithful to us. We then, in return, are faithful to Christ, who justified us through his faithfulness and his piste right. Amen.
Brandon:So just a small correction. And the King James, it does say faith. I was reading from the Amplify, so I have the King James and Amplify.
Imran:Oh, you close. Oh, that's all right.
Ryan:That's all right. I saw a few from there. He's old school and new age at the same time.
Imran:Yeah, I had the iPad with the Amplify and the SV there.
Brandon:Look at you, sorry, man.
Imran:So you can see all the man.
Brandon:I love that.
Imran:That's great, and I love his Bible too. His dog ear it's got notes all over it. He's writing in it. I love it Absolutely.
Ryan:All right, so we've got two more here. The next one my and I. We says gentleness, so the word here is prautis and this is literally the word for meekness. So, like when it's used elsewhere, it's the word from being meek and meekness gets a really bad rap.
Ryan:I think Meekness Not just because it rhymes with weak yeah, Probably the biggest reason Maybe but, I, think I think particularly men have a hard time with the idea of meekness because it sounds like you're weak. But what's actually interesting about this word and the etymology of it is that it actually, if you are weak, you cannot be weak. Meekness actually assumes strength. So the actual etymology of the word pretty much is a sentence that says it means to essentially know how to use the sword but keep it sheathed.
Selena:Yeah.
Ryan:So you have to know how to use the sword. And because I know how to use the sword, I'm gonna be more apt to want to use the sword, because I know I could probably, you know, wield the sword better than it ran. But then, knowing that, but then choosing to keep it sheathed, to say I'm not gonna go to the strength that I have. Instead, I'm going to be patient and gentle in this situation. Right, it's like strength under control, strength under control is the concept right, whereas weakness is the absence of strength too, right so?
Ryan:somebody who's going like oh, he chose not to do that because he's just real meek. Like no, he didn't do it because he's weak. He had no choice but to not do it, right? Yeah, this is talking to the guy who's like no, I knew I could probably win that fist fight, but I chose not to. Yeah, Right, like legitimately. Like I chose not to because I'm walking in the spirit.
Brandon:The spirit doesn't want me to act that way.
Ryan:You know what I mean. So it's actually, I feel, like a very manly concept that we've kind of I would say a mature, a mature man concept.
Imran:The boys concept would be to fight.
Ryan:Sure. I'm just saying, though, that, like I don't know, I always kind of viewed the word weakness as kind of feminine Like oh, I gotta go be meek. You know, go be meek is just like I don't know. It's just probably me and my own sin.
Imran:I'm just saying I think a lot of men share that Maybe not even in your own sin, I would say just a lack of understanding, because I just I don't remember the. There's like a nursery rhyme where you say, like meek and mild, like something like that. Like there's something I heard growing up like a nursery rhyme that put meek and mild next to each other and it was surrounded with the concept of weakness, and I just it was never corrected for me.
Selena:Marry me. I'm a mouse, for some reason.
Imran:You know, but that's no Maybe.
Brandon:I love it.
Imran:But at least, growing up, that word was not defined as clearly as you just did, and that's probably the biggest reason why I associated with weakness because it rhymed, because there were nursery rhymes. That kind of mis oversimplified the concept, and so now we're just correcting it.
Ryan:Right, and I think this is a I don't know this one can be can fix me a lot as a parent. You know what I mean. Just because you have grounds to and you can raise your voice justly or ground them justly, you know what I mean Does not mean that's what you should do. Right, you recognize you have that strength and you have that power as a parent, but that needs to be under control. You know, and you need to be walking in the spirit and the way you go about dealing with your children and disciplining your children. You know, I mean, I think I mean you see this right, the reason I, for example, like spanking right, and I know everybody has their own views about whether you should or shouldn't spank right- I got spanked growing up.
Imran:Also that spanked growing up, you know, and it was fine.
Ryan:But the reason people have a hard time with it is because if you are spanking and disciplining but it's not under control, yeah. Spanking out of anger, that very quickly Contourment Crosses a line into abuse, right and again, that's an example, right? So okay, if you're gonna spank, but you better be under control, you better not be doing it angry, you better. You know what I mean. But that requires you, though, to have meekness. If you are not a meek parent. You have no business doing that, because you can't control yourself right.
Ryan:The ones who get upset by you know, those who are like well, no, that's abuse. Well, I feel like I'm under control if I do it. You know what I mean. So that's either somebody who's experienced it or, in themselves, have experienced themselves not being able to control themselves. So it's the un-meek telling the meek that you can't be meek.
Imran:You know what I mean. It's like Something that at least that my family did growing up is that there was always a time separation, so like if. That's what I do Like if something happened, my mom would be like you know, just you know it'll be when your dad gets home. It's like you know, go to your room and I would just have to wait you know, and then you know just get in, which is awful.
Ryan:That was the real process. Yeah, exactly.
Imran:He's like oh man, do I try and put the?
Ryan:pillow. Dad spanked me. Do I try to put the? Pillow in my pants or do I notice the pillow? Don't put a shirt. Dad spanked me, but mom did the psychological torture on me Exactly.
Imran:But there was always that time. So my dad with no context of like what I had done or anything like that, my mom would just explain the situation. He was like oh well, like this equals this many you know Butt-Wop-Ins or this many hours, or you lose your video games or whatever they had. It was like a very, very complex math thing. That was very logical. But then there was a specific belt he used that he never wore or anything like that, and it was just like go get the belt and you knew what the belt was where it was Go choose your, Go get it bring it and then it's like all right.
Imran:And then you get hit with it and then it's like now go put it back, and then we have a talk and then we'll go about our day. But it was a very deliberate and almost like to the point of being routine process, so there wasn't any emotion attached to it. So that's probably why I don't have any like significant, like negative feelings about it.
Ryan:Well, and the larger point, though, was right being meek is the idea that, particularly as a parent, that you have the strength. You have the strength yeah.
Ryan:The strength of this when you talk about, we hear about those parents who are abusive that that is them being weak. Because they have their strength, they have the sword, they know they can wield the sword and they never keep achieved so all right. Lastly, to that same point, self control. We were just talking about strength under control, right? So this is a ingradia, but the term for self control here is really more mastery, it's a mastery of self, right.
Ryan:So kind of to Brian's point earlier about what does it mean to crucify the flesh it's a mastery of being able to say I recognize within myself that there are things that my flesh wants to do that I in the spirit do not want to do, and I'm making a conscious choice of mastering my flesh by the spirit. And often our spirit is weaker than our flesh and so we need to be walking with the spirit to come in to help master, because it's not just a general mastery, it is a mastery proceeding out from within oneself, but not of oneself. That's what the word means. It means it's almost like, in a way like marriage in a self. In a sense is ingradia. It is your spouse keeping you a master of yourself, accountability. In a sense, it's saying that, not within yourself, but coming out from oneself, is something that is keeping you under control or in mastery of your own flesh, and that's, by and large, with marriages.
Ryan:It's because I mean honestly, if I wasn't married, I didn't have that accountability in my life like what I would say, what I would do. You know what I mean. My behavior would probably be completely different now than it was. If I'd never got married. I could guarantee you I would still probably be a little boy in terms of maturity if it wasn't for my wife and getting married and having certain accountability factors from her in my life.
Ryan:And I would say the same goes probably back to her. She would probably be very immature, maybe not in that the fleshly regard, but other regards right. She would probably be very immature in if it wasn't for me coming in and giving some ingradia to her right.
Imran:So marriage operates that way often it talks about brotherly accountability. I think it's far more complicated to grow spiritually when single like.
Ryan:That's a much more difficult process because you've got to make that deliberate effort and muster that on your own Maybe because the one thing I would say in the inverse of that is that it's the same idea that when walking in the spirit, a fruit then of walking in the spirit is that the spirit provides the strength behind your weakness to get mastery over things you're too weak to get mastery over right.
Ryan:So you know, this is just a harsh reality. You read this, and it was at 2 Corinthians 12, I believe. But when God tells Paul you know, my grace is sufficient for you, he says I've pleaded with you three times. You know, remove this from me. And he's like my grace is sufficient for you. So, in other words, over and over what I think you see and that you see it here even is, god doesn't if you're struggling with something and you're just like God. I just wish you would remove this desire. Like it's just that that whole paradox of I'm doing the things that my flesh wants to do, but I don't want to do, but yet my flesh is a part of me, so I do want to do it, but the spirit does not want me to do it right, like there's just this internal turmoil.
Selena:Yeah.
Ryan:Intention within oneself of this stuff. It's like being in a dishwasher there you go All right.
Selena:Yeah, it's like clean To clean.
Ryan:We make it now.
Brandon:Hey, sir, sir.
Selena:Yeah, in the dishwasher.
Ryan:But no. But the idea, though, being is that we always ask like okay, I'm so tired of fighting this fight and losing this fight, just remove the desire from me. Right, and what God doesn't do is ever remove the desire or remove situation. What he does is he provides his strength to get through it. Yeah, so where you're weak, he brings in his strength to get mastery over it. Does that make sense? So that only happens if you're walking in the spirit. Yeah, so I don't know you guys have any?
Imran:I will say that that tie in I think was was really really good there that all this only happens if you're walking in the spirit. All the fruit of the spirit can only happen if you're walking in the spirit. So in order for you to actually get all of these things and to be able to demonstrate all these things, you have to be, we have to be walking in the spirit. You're looking at me like you're something to say, selena.
Selena:No, I'm just really glad we went. We went over this again, even though we had to re-record, but I was like God, this is so good. Yeah, is it.
Ryan:I'm happy we did this too. When you first text me and said hey, like I just got back that night. I was exhausted.
Imran:I think that because we did that was we were exhausted.
Selena:I think we were right after church we were just Wow, I didn't think about it.
Brandon:You think?
Imran:of your text and your text and your back is like I'm just not going to think about it and I like went to sleep and I was okay with that because I was like I am the thought of doing this again exhausts me right now.
Ryan:Yeah, but then you know, here I'm, I'm, I'm because we got Brandon in.
Imran:Yeah, this has been fun. It's been really good. How do you enjoy this? This is amazing.
Brandon:I appreciate y'all having me and just the process of going through and being part of that. That's just glad to be here.
Ryan:Thank you. Any closing thoughts on the fruit of the spirit?
Brandon:I believe you've touched on it greatly Just with the long suffering. You know, I know people are dealing with certain things and the issues, but along with the patients, I think, and being led by the spirit, we can all make it through.
Ryan:And I think it's important to remember fruit requires pruning, removal, weeding right. Sometimes things have to get cut off, sometimes things have to get removed to produce good fruit, you know, requires work and requires patients. You know it's worth it internally and externally. Absolutely.
Imran:You may have to cut things off internally and how you're living your life. You may have to weed things within yourself. You may have to till the land that is wet within yourself. So it's not just you know, cut off your friend. You may need to cut off a friend, maybe, or at least, or even for a time, to like really be able to start seeing the fruit that you're looking for. But that's applied internally and externally.
Ryan:So I just want to finish off with the rest of the set here, though, because we can't just gloss over that. So Paul says this is what. Here's the acts of the flesh. This is what that looks like, but they're obvious, right? Don't fool yourself. You know what the acts of the flesh are. Here's what the fruit of the spirit look like.
Ryan:And again, such things. There is no law. Why is there no law against these things? No one's going to be upset with you if you love them too much, if you're too patient with them, if you're too kind to them, right? Yeah, there is no law against those things. But verse 24, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh right, every day, with its passions and its desires. But since we live by the spirit, walking with the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. I just want to just make one quick, just a reminder, everybody, this whole letter came because of these teachers coming in and undermining Paul right, and now, right before this, the climax of Galatians was take that teacher, kick him out right, remove him from within you right.
Ryan:That was ultimately what Paul was leading them to do. So now he starts turning to them, because I think one of his concerns is like well, there may be some who don't want them to leave or may disagree with you, right? And I think one of the biggest things that he's trying when he's talking about what the fruit of the spirit is is kind of wrapped up here what does not become conceited. Don't become prideful in this situation. Don't provoke and don't stop envying each other about. Like. There was probably some sense of like. I told you not to get circumcised and look at you. Now You're the one waddle on around and I'm here, you know, playing soccer, right, like, don't provoke each other, stop being jealous and envying each other, but love each other, right.
Ryan:And the next set of this, what we're going to hit next week. In chapter six, paul begins to make the point of so if that's the fruit of the spirit, how do you deal with this, teacher, and how do you remove them? Hey, restore them gently, right. Every situation, the fruit of the spirit manifests that even comes into removal of people from your community. It needs to be done so with patience and gentleness and kindness and etc. Right, so we'll get into that next time.
Imran:Yeah, Thank you so much. Ryan, Thank you so much for coming out and Brandon thank you so much for joining us this evening. And I do want to leave the last few words before we go out to you. I would love for you to read verse 22 one more time as we head off into this week.
Brandon:But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law.
Imran:Amen.
Ryan:That was not AI, that was real voice.
Imran:Oh yeah, no AI generated around here, just good, old fashioned.
Selena:Man.
Ryan:Yeah, all right, y'all enjoy the week. Everybody walk in the spirit.
Imran:Go bear fruit Good evening Go love someone, go serve someone.
Selena:Thank you for tuning in to Real Bible Stories. If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to leave a review, share and subscribe to be notified each week when we upload new episodes. Real Bible Stories is produced in partnership with Palm Church in 29 Palms, California. If you would like more information or want to check out archive sermons and Bible studies, please check out the church website at palmsbaptistchurchcom or check them out on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. Real Bible Stories can be found wherever podcasts are found. Thank you again and we will see you next week.