TEXT: Galatians 5:22-23
INTRO: Our text is one that might be familiar to many of you sitting in this room today. If it’s not, no worries, I’ll bring you up to speed. Our text is an excerpt from Paul’s letter to several assemblies of believers in Galatia. This would have been in the region we know today as Turkey. The book of Galatians, as a whole, is aimed at combating legalism in those assemblies. This provides an excellent backdrop for the theology of the believer being justified by grace through faith in the work of Jesus Christ rather than by earning one’s way into heaven based on merit or strict observance of the Mosaic law. Within the argument, Paul drops a great litmus test for the Galatians and for believers today. Chapter five presents a great dichotomy of the works of flesh contrasted to the fruit of the Spirit. As we open this series on the fruits of the Spirit, let’s explore what the scriptures reveal about the nature of the fruit of the Spirit in the believer’s life.
