THE GREAT COMMISSION: Fruit of the Spirit in Evangelism

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5:22-23

Our witness is strongest when it’s rooted in the fruit of the Spirit. Love and kindness open doors; gentleness, joy peace, forbearance, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control keep them open. The Spirit produces this fruit in us so that others will see Jesus through our lives. But before you exhibit fruit, you have to cultivate roots. You have to be rooted in a local church community, in the Word, in prayer, and of course, in Christ.

In John 15, Jesus speaks about abiding in Him. To abide in Christ means to stay, to endure, to continue. The more you abide in Christ by way of community, prayer, and scripture the more you produce fruit that is edifying and refreshing to those around you. People know when you’ve been in the presence of Jesus. They see it and they feel it. They may not have language to describe it, yet they know. You don’t have to announce it. You don’t have to wear your big Jesus shirt; you don’t have to dress up like Bible Man. It is expressed through every way - your tone, body language, your eyes, everything about your mannerisms are different and that alone goes a long way.

One day I was taking an evening walk, praying and listening to worship music, and noticed a woman struggling to carry grocery bags to the bus stop. I offered my assistance to help and she asked me, “Are you an angel?” I said no then asked why, to which she said “nobody in this town is as nice as you are.” She had made a couple other statements about how nice and kind I was before I got her to her stop. She seemed really impressed by me. This is not an opportunity to brag, because honestly that’s just something that I think is rather common sense and not a big deal. I wasn’t evangelizing at all lol You’re supposed to help other people in those situations, but it seemed there was something about me and my assistance that truly made a difference for her and I believe it was me spending time with the Lord and the Spirit working in that moment to show kindness to her.

Back to the topic about being rooted. We touched on being rooted in scripture, prayer, and Christ. Now let’s talk about being rooted in community. If Christ is our foundation, then community is our strength. It is so vital for growth and development for who we are becoming in Christ. From the very first pages of scripture we see the idea of community in the form of the Trinity. From there, community is all over the pages from beginning to end. Every person in scripture who did something great did not do it alone. Moses had Aaron and Joshua, David had Jonathan, Jesus had 12 homies (eventually 11 - RIP Judas), Paul had Timothy, who do you have?

It’s always a bit concerning to me when people profess to follow Christ but reject the idea of community. Faith cannot flourish apart from the body, and fruit cannot produce apart from the tree. You are designed to know God and know other people. It’s woven into the fiber of our DNA to crave community, and the quality of your community plays a big factor in the quality of your fruit - are you producing good fruit or rotten fruit?

FOUNDATION PROMPTS:

• Which fruit of the Spirit do you need to grow more for effective evangelism?

• Are there areas of your life that need pruning so that good fruit can be produced?

• Who’s in your community and do they push you to live like Jesus?