What does the Bible say about the fruit of the Spirit?

The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, pastoral care, or worship planning focused on the fruit of the Spirit. 

• Genesis 5:22-26, guided by the spirit (Enoch walked with God)
• John 15:1-5, those who abide in Jesus will bear fruit (Jesus as the true vine)
• Romans 7:4, bearing fruit for God (we are raised from the dead in order to bear fruit) 
• Galatians 5:22-23, the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, and so on) 
• Colossians 1:3-6, the gospel bears fruit (the word of truth is bearing fruit in you and in the whole world)
• Colossians 3:12-14, compassion, kindness, meekness, patience (most of all, put on love) 
• James 3:17, be willing to yield good fruit (wisdom brings peace, gentleness, mercy, and other good fruit)

Sermon ideas about fruit of the Spirit 

Fruit vs. gifts 

The work of the Holy Spirit in the church is manifold — indeed, most everything that happens in the church can ultimately be traced to the Spirit's incessant work in God's people. But in terms of broad categories, we often think of the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit. There is a vital distinction to be observed between these two categories of the Spirit's work: 

• Gifts vary from person to person. It is legitimate for a given Christian to say, I don't have the gift of teaching, but I am gifted in the area of hospitality. 

• The fruit of the Spirit does not vary from person to person — these traits need to be common to all believers. Thus it would be illegitimate to say, In my life I bear the fruit of peace and goodness, but I don't feel called to self-control. 

A sermon on the fruit of the Spirit can make clear that though gifts vary, fruit is common to all. 

Countercultural fruit? 

Some have noted in recent times that the list of spiritual fruit as detailed in Galatians 5 generally skews away from characteristics often associated with males. Yet, what some deride as feminine behaviors are actually the virtues that all Christians must bear through the nurture of the Holy Spirit. In a world that values brashness and bravado, the Spirit leads believers to gentleness and kindness. In societies where self-indulgence is encouraged and instant gratification is a value, Christians bear the fruit of self-control and patience. 

Taken together, the fruit as detailed by the apostle Paul is surely part of the New Testament's witness to the idea that the church is supposed to be a very different kind of community in a world where otherwise only the powerful and those skilled at the art of manipulation get ahead. 

The fruit and the vices 

In several places in the New Testament — including passages like Galatians 5 and Colossians 3 — lists of spiritual fruit and Christian virtues follow (and stand in stark contrast to) lists of human vices that Christians are called to flee. Sometimes labeled works of the flesh, these vices are indeed the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. 

Vices typically include strife and arguments and quarreling, whereas fruit includes love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness. Vices include rank sexual immorality, greed that leads to dishonesty, over-indulgence that leads to drunken orgies, and carousing of all kinds, whereas true spiritual fruit includes self-control and restraint and patience. 

Fruit and grace 

A sermon on the fruit of the Spirit can acknowledge that there is sometimes a perceived tension in the New Testament between celebrating our salvation by grace alone and the need to engage in good works and virtuous living that glorifies God. Although the apostle James is the loudest champion of the "no faith without works" line of thought, the apostle Paul also encountered a kind of libertine antinomianism that tried to turn grace into a license for indulgence (see Romans 6). 

But the fact that grace and good works can (and must) go together is perhaps nowhere more clearly seen than in the very New Testament epistle that contains the classic list of spiritual fruit: Galatians. Although Paul spends over half of this letter screaming at the Galatians for their foolishly having traded in the gospel of pure grace for a legalistic works-righteousness, he concludes this same letter by detailing everything the Galatians Christians did indeed have to do as a result of so great a salvation. Paul pivots from saying, "Stop thinking about what you do" to saying, "Start thinking about what you must do" without missing a beat or being the least bit inconsistent. 

Grace entails fruit. Or, as Jesus put it in John 15, once you are grafted onto the true vine, the sap and energy of that vine will flow into you and you will bear good fruit. The grafting was all grace, but the fruit-bearing is an overflow of that same grace!