Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness

Well, if we've never met, my name is Josh and I'm glad that you're here today. I say this often, but you should know that if you're new around here, you just walked into a room full of broken people. We're just here to pursue Jesus. Our marriages aren't perfect yet, our parenting is not perfect yet. And we have not figured out how to live the perfect, full blown, fruit filled life that we would love to live yet.

But we're on the way. So if you showed up this morning and you don't resonate with that, go home. You're making us all feel bad. And for everybody else, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here.

Our hope is that you'll feel welcome here, that your affections will be stirred for Jesus here and that you will grow in your faith while you're here. And we're hoping that if you are new around here, if you've never connected with us other than just sitting in a seat, that you'll do one thing today. Just one thing. Go after the service out to the information desk in the foyer. We got a team there that would love to meet you, they'd love to help you get connected here in community, help you find a place to share your gifts with the body.

We're glad you're here. So let's pray and we'll get into it. Almighty God, you spoke the world into existence and you spoke us into being and every cell in our bodies. You know, and I am just astonished that you would allow us access to you in any form, but to allow us access to you internally, like inside of ourselves. That you would offer us the gift of your son and give us this indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit.

That is unbelievable. Help us to just grasp a little bit more today what that means and what that looks like and how to live that out. I pray that you'll speak through your word to us today. Use me. Empower my words.

Not just as nice things or some educational bit, but Father, would you empower my words to be seeds of eternal value planted today in all of us? In Jesus name, Amen. Well, if you are new here or you have not been here for the last several weeks, you might not know that we've been studying through the fruit of the spirit. We find this list of qualities or characteristics given to us in our Bible. And they are the qualities or characteristics that when they are in us, they make us look and act more like Jesus.

In fact, the promise in the Bible is that if we abide in Jesus and his spirit is in us, that when we abide in him, we, we will produce much good fruit. That sounds pretty good to me. Before we dive in today, let's fly out a little bit and remind ourselves of the broader picture, kind of how we got here. The book of Galatians was written by a guy named Paul, and actually he was named Saul before he was radically changed into a totally new person and God gave him the name Paul. So before Paul became the most prolific writer in the New Testament, the greatest Christian missionary that ever walked the planet, he was Saul.

He was a devout religious leader who made it his mission to destroy Christians because they were, in his way, messing with his stuff. He hunted Christians down, he imprisoned them, he had them beat, he even approved their executions. And we don't have time to get into the whole story. That's some homework for you to go and do. Read through the Book of Acts and you'll be able to hear some of this fascinating story.

But this guy Saul has a miraculous and radical encounter with God that completely and dramatically changes the entire course of his life. Now I say all this because I want you to know that when Paul gives us this list of the fruit of the spirit, it is not the description of his personal enneagram number. It's not his Myers Briggs. It's not his temperament tendencies or his personality. This list, in fact, is almost entirely exactly opposite of the way that we would say Paul was wired.

This is not a list of 10 things that highly effective people do. This is not 10 Ways to Win friends and influence people. He isn't speaking from natural disposition. He's speaking from a true transformation in his life. This list is not a list from Paul.

This is a list from God. So let's back up a few verses in Galatians 5. We see Paul is going. We see where Paul is going with all this. And Paul and his friend Barnabas have planted a handful of churches in an area called Galatia.

It's modern day Turkey for us today. And the book of Galatians is a letter written to these churches. He's encouraging them and speaking life to them. Galatians 5. Starting in verse 13, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.

But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

So wait, the Guy that was beating, imprisoning and killing Christians is now telling us to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is a really dramatic shift for Paul. And notice that Paul is echoing the Old Testament and echoing what Jesus said is the second greatest commandment. Here he says, love your neighbor as yourself. File this away.

The fruit of the Spirit is in our lives for the sole purpose that we would grow into likeness of Jesus so that we can love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the whole point of the fruit. He continues, so I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what's contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They're in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want.

And then after describing the flesh in verse 22, we're given this list. Let's read this together. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law.

We'll keep going here. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. And then we go right into the first verses of chapter six. He says, brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, which by the way, remember what he did when he thought people were caught in sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently, not chase them down, persecute them, throw them in jail and beat them.

But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Now I've read this many times and I have always misunderstood what he was saying when he said, watch yourselves, otherwise you might be tempted. I've always understood it to be be careful when you go to rescue someone out of sin. You might fall into the same sin that they fel. That slippery slope that your friend is on, you might fall into that.

But what he's actually saying when you put into full context here, is that you should watch yourselves so that you don't fall into your own sin of self righteous judgmentalism and pride. Like, I'll show these rotten dirty sinners how wrong they are and I'll show them how righteous I am. This is why, he continues, carry each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something, when they are not, they deceive themselves. Now this sounds nothing like a guy with a backstory like Paul's.

Restore that person gently you say prior to Paul's transformation, he did nothing with gentleness, and now he can't shut up about it. Ephesians 4 starting in verse 1, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you, and over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. File that way, love binds all of this together in perfect unity. 2nd Timothy 2 and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents, even his enemies, with gentleness.

And then in Titus 3:1 2, remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle to toward everyone. Now, again, this is a far cry from the man that Paul used to be. And I bring this up for two key reasons. First, Paul was not naturally any of these things, and yet he not only became them, he exemplified them in a way, despite his natural bent that honored God and showed us an example of Christ. And second, if God can transform Paul, surely he can transform us.

Those of us that look at this list and go, yeah, that's about impossible. I've seen myself in the mirror. I've met myself before. I can't become these things. If Paul can be transformed, then so can we.

So today we're talking about the spiritual fruit of gentleness. I think it's one of the most misunderstood and underrated qualities on this entire list. Because I think if we're honest, it's also one that most of us, especially men, especially those from tough backgrounds, especially us gritty Westsiders, we tend to dismiss it as weak and unhelpful. I mean, sure, there's a time for gentleness, like when you're holding a baby or if you're working on something super delicate. But gentleness all the time?

Yeah, no thanks. That's what got me beat up. That's what got me taken advantage of. That's what cost me my marriage, that's what cost me my job. That's what kept me from having enough to eat.

And yet our aim as Christians is to look and act more and more like Jesus. And gentleness is unavoidably part of this list. So what do we do? Well, I think we have to first redefine both what gentleness is and what. And what gentleness isn't.

First, let's look at what gentleness isn't. If you look up that word in a thesaurus, you will get these. Hardness, roughness, harshness, and violence. Now, I think we can all agree down on this extreme end, the opposite of whatever gentleness is fits into that way down here on this end. But there's also a false gentleness.

This is that fake plastic fruit that we've been talking about that looks kind of like gentle activity but isn't the real thing. It's like the Splenda of gentleness.

Fake gentleness is spineless, kind of nice at all costs behavior. It's very similar to what we looked at when we looked at kindness and love, like flattery, avoiding the truth, allowing others to walk all over us so that we can keep peace at all costs. Now, they may look like they might be gentleness, but really they amount to being a passive wimp. So maybe you've seen this whole trend of gentle parenting online. I'm sure there's some parts of it that are valuable we should learn from, but, like, the extreme end of it is just straight up ridiculous.

There's this mom that sees her kids throwing rocks at the car, at the car, and she says, I understand that your heart wants to throw rocks at the car. Would it be okay if we redirected that energy into something else that brings you joy? Or the toddler who won't go to bed and the dad says, hey, buddy, I understand that your spirit makes you feel like it's not time to go to bed. And so whenever your spirit does feel like it's time to go to bed, maybe we'll try this again. Let me just say that has not worked that way at my house.

And if this is what the word gentleness means, then obviously it's completely understandable that we would not see gentleness as valuable. So, on one end of the spectrum is what gentleness isn't. It's not harshness and violence. On the other end, it is definitely not spineless, wimpy wimpiness either. So what is true biblical gentleness?

Well, the Greek word used here for gentleness is the word prowess. It can be translated as humility or meekness or gentleness. And since the whole point of this fruit is to become more like Jesus. Let's look at how it played out in Jesus life, what he had to say about it. Jesus uses this word in the famous Sermon on the mount in Matthew 5:5.

And he says, Blessed are the prowse, the meek or the gentle, for they will inherit the earth. And then he uses it again in Matthew 11:28 30. He says, Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am prowse, I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and and my burden is light. And then in Matthew 21, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, his triumphal entry, Palm Sunday what we celebrated on Palm Sunday.

He comes riding on a donkey. And Matthew quotes Zechariah 9:9. It's a quote from the Old Testament. And he describes Jesus as prowse, gentle and riding on a donkey. And this is not only a very different kind of king and messiah than what they expected, it's very different than what what we would probably expect.

If Jesus is all the fullness of God in human form, how could he be on a donkey? He has no insecurities. It's like riding in on a little pink tricycle. I mean, it's pretty amazing. But not everything that Jesus does in the Bible looks very gentle.

Now, we talked about this when we looked at love. If God is love and Jesus is the fullest expression of God in human form, if he is always perfectly loving, then everything Jesus did was love, whether it looked or felt like love or not, including things that really didn't look like love. And in the same way, while Jesus certainly is the fullest and most perfect example of gentleness, he said and did things that didn't look very gentle. So it seems we're left with two choices. Either we can look at Jesus and some of the things that he did that we deem as ungentle.

And we can say since he wasn't gentle all the time, then I don't have to be gentle all the time. Or we can look at him and say, if he's the fullest expression of gentleness, then the stuff that he did that didn't look very gentle. Maybe the problem is that my definition of gentleness is off. Maybe my gentleness gauge needs recalibrated. Let me tell you a story.

So my daughter Ada comes into the world at 1:45am it was a long, long day, and she's this perfect little, fragile, tiny human being. And I get to hold her for the first time. And I'm convinced that if I sneeze, I will break her because she's so small. And handing her to Heidi is like this big effort where both of my hands remain on her, cradling her head and neck, making sure support that. And I just very carefully make sure that Heidi's hands and my hands are on her at the same time.

And then I carefully pull one hand away, and carefully. Any other parents do this on the first one? And so we're playing this game because she's so delicate, and soon she's fed, she's snuggled well, we are exhausted, and we put her in that little crib, and we try to get some sleep. And what felt like four seconds later, it was probably a couple hours. All the nurses in the room, we appreciate.

You just stop coming in. Okay?

It's true. That's why it's funny. Okay. I totally lost my train of thought. So we lay her down to sleep.

What feels like seconds later, the nurse comes in, knocks on the door, and she's there to take her vitals and weigh her and give her her first bath. And so I carefully pick her up, and I really gently hand her over to the nurse. And then I watch in horror as the nurse, like, rips the blanket off and flips her around, and she's got one hand, and she's cleaning her like this. And it looks way more like a WWE match than it looks like giving a baby a bath. And I am fully convinced she's gonna break my daughter forever.

And the problem isn't that she's being ungentle. The problem is that I don't know how durable a baby is yet. She's actually being the perfect amount of gentle because she knows how durable this baby is.

I think this is our first problem with understanding what true biblical gentleness is and appreciating it for what it is. Whether we believe that something is too gentle or not gentle enough is almost entirely based on what we feel. It's not rooted or anchored to any objective truth. And what makes this word prowse different from some other words that are also translated as gentleness in the Bible is it has a very specific connotation to it. This word is not weakness or softness.

This word is literally power under control. Power under control. And what do we mean by power? Well, power is the ability to influence, act, or exert force through words, actions, authority, or resources. This isn't just a lesson for people who look like powerful people.

All of us have that kind of power to influence things and act on them with our words and our resources. We all have this kind of power. So power under control. How is this power to be properly controlled or limited? Well, most of us look at gentleness like a volume knob with a one and a ten.

And we say one is gentle. And then as you dial this thing up, you just get less and less and less and less gentle. But this is not true, because what is gentle for one object or person or situation is not gentle for another object or person or situation.

Let me explain this for us in different terms. When I think of gentleness, I think of what probably everyone in the room thinks of when they think of gentleness. We could say it together, but I'll say it a sledgehammer.

Stick with me, because this might reshape everything you think about gentleness. Now, imagine I hand you a 15 pound sledgehammer. It's now in your hands, and I say you have two tasks to accomplish with this sledgehammer. And the only rule is you have to use the greatest amount of gentleness possible with this sledgehammer to produce the outcome that we're looking for. The first task is I hand you an egg and I say, crack this egg open without smashing it.

Okay? The second task is I hand you a three foot long tent spike and send you out into the parking lot to drive that tent spike down, down into the asphalt. Now, the one job, use as much gentleness as you can possibly use in this task. Now, if someone was watching us do these two things, they might watch you do that with an egg and confirm, yes, that was a gentle act. But no one, no one would look at driving a tent spike down into the parking lot with the sledgehammer and say, that looks gentle to me.

And yet you could be exerting the highest level of gentleness possible to accomplish that task. This gives us the beginning of a better definition of gentleness. Gentleness, then, is the proper amount of power applied to the object, situation, or person in front of us, the proper amount of power applied. And if gentleness is the proper amount of power applied, then the opposite of gentleness is not harshness or violence or roughness. In fact, the opposite of gentleness is actually an improper amount of power applied to the object or person or situation in front of us.

But then the problem comes that what I deem as gentle and what you deem as gentle will always be different. And if we're going to apply the proper amount of power Then we're going to need our gentleness gauge calibrated properly, because our feelings, our temperament, and our preferences will always get us in the wrong spot there. So what do we do about that? Well, our gentleness gauges can be properly calibrated by adding something to the beginning of our definition and to the end of our definition. True biblical gentleness begins somewhere and is on the way to something.

And the start or the origin of gentleness is love. Love is the thing that binds all of this together. You might remember that on week two, we established a working definition of love. It was from a guy named Dallas Will. He said, love is to will the good of others to will the good of others.

He also had something to say about gentleness. He said, gentleness is not opposed to strength. It is strength employed in service to love. So the origin or the starting point of gentleness is always love to will the good of others. If this is not the starting point of whatever you're doing that may or may not look like biblical gentleness, you can be assured that it is not true biblical gentleness if its origin is not love.

So whether Jesus says, let the little children come to me, or he ties a whip and drives out the money changers, whether he has compassion or on the widow who lost her only son and he brings him back to life and gives him back to her, whether he is giving the religious leaders an absolute tongue lashing, we can conclude that he is operating in perfect gentleness, rooted in the desire to will the good of others and that he has applied a perfect amount of power for the situation. Some of us love tough guy Jesus, don't we? The flipping tables, cracking whips, calling out hypocrisy. And we assume that means that we should always be tough guy Jesus. We should always be in warrior mode.

Now, others love sweet Jesus. Gentle, compassionate, never ruffling feathers. And we think that that means that we should never confront anything and we should always be sweet Jesus. But true gentleness don't miss this. It isn't about choosing one Jesus over the other.

It's about knowing which Jesus this moment needs. It's about knowing which Jesus this moment needs. True biblical gentleness begins with willing the good of others. And if this is true, then sometimes we gotta choose sweet Jesus, and sometimes we gotta choose tough Guy Jesus. So true biblical gentleness begins with love.

It applies the proper amount of power. And then there's one more piece that allows us to properly calibrate our gentleness gauge. True biblical gentleness must be on the way to something. So what is our gentleness supposed to be on the way to? It's actually the same exact thing that all Christian activity at large is on the way to.

It's what we said in our Armor of God series that all spiritual war is on the way to. It's what bringing Jesus to the earth and hanging him on a cross for our salvation is on the way to. It's one word that we've been using on repeat for the last 12 months. What's that word, anybody? Shalom.

It's on the way to shalom. Shalom is all about peace, healing, restoration, reconciliation. It's about things being put back to the way that God designed them to be and wants them to be. Again, true biblical gentleness begins with love. It applies the proper amount of power and is only and always ever on the way to shalom.

So let's rework our definition a little bit more. Gentleness is the proper amount of power dispensed in love on the way to shalom. The proper amount of power dispensed in love on on the way to shalom. So how the heck do we do this? Well, first, let me remind us that this fruit is spiritual fruit.

It is fruit from the spirit. It is fruit that comes from abiding in Jesus and walking in the spirit. And if you're here today in the room, or you're listening online right now, and you have not yet given yourself to. To Jesus and you're struggling with this, it's because you can't. You cannot abide in one you do not know.

And you cannot walk in something that you do not have access to. And that's not me shaming you. That's me helping you make sense of what's going on in your life right now. And so if you're tired of being your own God, if you're tired of being the morality police for yourself and just trying and trying and trying and trying and getting exhausted, then the invitation to you today is the exact same invitation that we just read a minute ago from Jesus. He says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. And so if you're in the room today, you want to start having that conversation. You just want to take a step, ask some questions. We're going to have a team at the bottom of the ramp after the service. They would love to pray with you, pray for you speak to someone.

If you're online and you're listening right now, you can go to whitewatercrossing.org prayer. Fill that form out and one of our team will reach out to you this week and connect with you. But man, don't let today go by without at least taking a step toward Jesus. Now, for all of us who are abiding in Jesus, relying on the Holy Spirit, our part of this partnership is that we have to make sure that our gentleness gauge is properly calibrated. It's got to be properly calibrated.

Gentleness is power under control. And something that we have to understand about power is the greater the power we have, the greater the strength gentleness requires. The greater the power we have, the greater the strength gentleness requires. All of us have a sledgehammer. And whether it's a 1 pound sledgehammer or a 20 pound sledgehammer will dictate the level of intentionality and strength that will be required to dispense the proper level of power and be truly gentle.

Now, the good news is the longer you carry around a 20 pound sledgehammer, the stronger you get. The more you practice with it, the stronger you get. Now, all of us will find ourselves this week in a situation that calls for gentleness. All of us, whether that's at the lunch table at school, whether that is with our colleagues at work, whether that's with people who live in our home with a stranger, with our children, with our worst enemy, or when we stand in front of a mirror and we have to use one on ourselves.

True biblical gentleness requires the proper amount of power to be applied with this sledgehammer. It must be dispensed in love, and it must be on the way to shalom. That's what true biblical gentleness is. And so our homework this week is to pause before we swing our sledgehammer or recalibrate by walking in the spirit and asking a few questions. Is my response rooted in love?

Am I willing the good of the one in front of me now?

Is my response properly measured for the person or the situation in front of me? Is this a tense spike in the parking lot moment, or is this an egg without smashing it moment? We gotta gauge it.

And next, is my response on the way to restoring, healing, and reconciling things back to the way that God intended them to be? Is my response rooted in love? Is it the proper amount of power for the situation of the person in front of me? And is my response on the way to shalom? Now, if we would do that.

I guarantee you. We would have less of those face palm moments in parenting. We'd have a lot less messes to clean up with our spouse. We would probably have a lot better work environment. And we wouldn't have so much drama at school or with our roommate and on and on and on and on because we've got a sledgehammer and most of us are just swinging them around however we feel like it.

Is my response rooted in love, properly measured for the person or the situation in front of me? And is it on the way to shalom? And sometimes we'll look like tough guy Jesus, and sometimes we'll look like sweet Jesus. But true biblical gentleness is the proper amount of power dispensed in love on the way to shalom. Now, I want to tell you something.

Most of us have this picture of God, like Thor with Thor's hammer, and there's lightning coming out of it, and he's got his sledgehammer and he's just waiting to smash us with all the power he's got. He's waiting for us to mess up and be broken so he can go whammy.

But here's the thing. No one more perfectly uses their power in love on the way to shalom than God does. And his promise for us is that he is gentle and humble in heart. And he will not smash you.

He will not smash you. This is the invitation. Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest because I am gentle. He's gentle with you. Now, of course, the ultimate display of gentleness is Jesus led like a lamb to the slaughter, quietly going to his death on the cross, being jeered.

And at any moment, he could call down the entire angel army of heaven. All the power in the universe he has access to. And instead of using his power in that moment to crush the world and save himself, he used his power, limited it, and held himself on the cross to save us. This is the most beautiful picture of gentleness.