SPEAKER_01: I wanna challenge you with something is that now some of y'all I get it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: You wait till Sunday to worship.
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: Got busy lives, man.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to make time for the one that pulled you out of the mirror clay.
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: I understand.
SPEAKER_01: And it it's it's more convenient to only do it once you come in here and everyone's watching you.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all's prayer closet time is non-existent and it shows up when you pretend at church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna look at my wife because she's the only perfect one in here.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all have the wrong language coming out of your mouth because you forgot what your prayer one is.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you aren't worried about being filled with the spirit and being endued with power because you feel that you can handle it on your own and you don't need that.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us hold back what God has given us and planted in our hearts because we don't want people to see the fruit we actually have.
SPEAKER_01: Good or bad.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you've been with us for any amount of time, you know we've been talking about faith.
SPEAKER_01: And faith is pointless if you don't put any action behind it.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is meaningless if you don't do anything with it.
SPEAKER_01: I've told you this before, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, and it is my policy as pastor of this church, that if you think we're out for your money when we start taking up tithes, you don't understand what giving really is.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm telling you, give three months of your tithes to another church.
SPEAKER_01: You're choosing, I don't care if you know them, if they're in the same town or if they're online somewhere, and you believe in their organization, you listen to their music, whatever you want to do, and watch God show up because you begin to be faithful.
SPEAKER_01: Because God's not asking for things that you don't have, but he wants all you got.
SPEAKER_01: And in return, the exchange is he gives you all that he has.
SPEAKER_01: And until we pass that threshold of wanting to hold on what we've earned, and we lay it all at the feet of Jesus and say, God, whatever I have, whatever talents, whatever gifts I have, they are yours.
SPEAKER_01: It begins to produce righteous fruit in your life because you have yielded to God and said, God, whatever I am, all of this mess, somehow you turn it into a message.
SPEAKER_01: Look over with me.
SPEAKER_01: Usually we've been reading in our key verses, it's been in James.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all remember that?
SPEAKER_01: It's been almost every every Sunday we've been doing James.
SPEAKER_01: Today we're gonna be in Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis chapter one.
SPEAKER_01: This is a throwback to the throwback.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis chapter one, verses 11 and 12.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a very simple process that God designed, and we still, today, since the beginning of time, today, we still do not understand and try to pretend like we're producing things that we haven't planted.
SPEAKER_01: But here is the the growth law of God.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to grow and you want things to be healthy and righteous in your life, you have to be willing to plant healthy seed and keep the nasty stuff out.
SPEAKER_01: Last week we read to get all the filth out.
SPEAKER_01: How we allow commercialized witchcraft and filth in our homes and wonder why God is not doing things in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: When we as a church beat our chest and get mad at homosexuality and don't say nothing about just sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 says, Then God said, Let the land sprout with vegetation, every sort of seed-bearing plant and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_01: These seeds, turn to your neighbor and say, Seeds, these seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they come from.
SPEAKER_01: And that is exactly what happened.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12 the lamb produced vegetation, all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Their seeds produce plants and trees of the same kind.
SPEAKER_01: And God saw that it was good.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we thank you so much for your presence here today in the worship service.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, God, that through this series of faith, that the seeds be planted.
SPEAKER_01: And that Father, we put our feet on the solid ground of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That every other foundation that we try to build on may it crumble and pass away before our very eyes so that we can remember what kind of God we serve.
SPEAKER_01: That you deserve all the glory, that you deserve all the honor, and you deserve the rightful place on the throne of our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_01: We have in our presence today a birthday girl.
SPEAKER_01: Up in the booth, the pro presenter Extraordinaire.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think she's quite 35 yet.
SPEAKER_01: Because if she was, we all know how old that would make the parents.
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's move on.
SPEAKER_01: So December 11th, it is one week from today.
SPEAKER_01: We have something very exciting going on here at the church.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a special service.
SPEAKER_01: That's a week from that day, on the 18th.
SPEAKER_01: But on the 11th, we have, if y'all don't know our denomination, we are called Church of God because we are God's church.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to have someone from the World Missions for the Church of God to come and speak.
SPEAKER_01: This is a little bit of vision casting for 2023.
SPEAKER_01: Monday night, we're going to have a leadership meeting and we're going to be talking about the year 2023, what we want to accomplish, things we did in 2022.
SPEAKER_01: Hello, you got to look back where you come from and see how you can make next year not be that that wasn't successful.
SPEAKER_01: You got to trim the fat.
SPEAKER_01: You got to prune the trees.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you want growth to happen, you have to see what works and get rid of what don't.
SPEAKER_01: And so I believe that this church is a church that loves to give.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to give you something to aim at, and we're going to start supporting some missionaries.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, there is a uh a church that is being built.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to I'm not going to steal his thunder, but it's a church being built.
SPEAKER_01: He will tell you where it's from.
SPEAKER_01: He'll tell you all that information.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of what his main topic is going to be.
SPEAKER_01: And they're trying to, in the state of Texas, it's going to be a Texas heartfelt giving of all churches across Texas to give and donate$250,000 collectively, and this will be able to build a new church over there.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be willing, the good that God has given us to not grab a hold of it with clenched fists and be willing to let God work through your hands.
SPEAKER_01: That means you must be a channel, not a dam.
SPEAKER_01: We love to bottle up what God gives us and hold on tight.
SPEAKER_01: So if you get a chance, go tell Morgan happy birthday.
SPEAKER_01: She's even wearing a tiara and everything.
SPEAKER_01: I abstained from doing that on mine.
SPEAKER_01: So we got enough of that going around.
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
SPEAKER_01: Alright.
SPEAKER_01: So we've been going on a series for the last six weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Today's week number six, and it actually worked out perfect to where we end and then we start going into the Christmas holiday.
SPEAKER_01: Week one was what is faith.
SPEAKER_01: You have to know the definition.
SPEAKER_01: You have to know what you have the rights to.
SPEAKER_01: You have to understand that faith is something that is given by God to his people for action to be behind it.
SPEAKER_01: The same with the gifts of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: God has given every single person and every person watching online, you have been given some sort of gift.
SPEAKER_01: You are not to sit on what God has given you and bottle up and hold on.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, a lot of Paul's writings to the Corinthian church were not about self-edification, but they were about serving the body.
SPEAKER_01: Week three, laying on of the hands.
SPEAKER_01: We believe here that when you lay hands on the sick, they will recover.
SPEAKER_01: It's not anything by our power, but it is what we are mandated to do, that something happens through the power of touch.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what I know that God, so rich in mercy and grace, if anybody in here has been saved, sanctified, and redeemed and covered by the blood of the Lamb, you know from your, you know, you inside that you laying on the hands, there is nothing that you've done to make it work.
SPEAKER_01: And when God gets a hold of humble people that realize that they are just saved by grace, that faith in the Almighty God sending his one and only Son is the only reason they are going to make it into heaven and not into hell, we begin to pray different because we know it's not what we do, but it is only by what God does.
SPEAKER_01: And we believe that when we put hands on somebody in a good way, not talking about the spirit of slap, but when we lay hands on somebody and we simply just believe.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's what God said to do, and simply laying on of the hands is an act of faith.
SPEAKER_01: And then when God's people get together and we believe together, we see miracles sitting in our church today because we know that when we pray, heaven and earth will move on our behalf because we serve a good and gracious God who is still capable to heal today.
SPEAKER_01: And we sang a song a minute ago.
SPEAKER_01: Even when I don't see it, even when I don't feel it, I believe that God is still doing something.
SPEAKER_01: Week four was faith to see, even when I can, and week five was last week planted in faith.
SPEAKER_01: You have to have good and rich soil for your uh seeds to be planted in and for your roots to grow in.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all like that.
SPEAKER_01: You ever seen on the side of a house?
SPEAKER_01: You get those vines, and man, they go everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: It's like they got no restraint, they just don't care who they're affecting.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us do that spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: We got a root over here and a root over here.
SPEAKER_01: We want to be in our old life, and we want God to bless us in our new one, and we're trying to walk two lives and we're getting split down the middle.
SPEAKER_01: We wonder why there's anxiety and depression at the door constantly, because we're not living the way we're actually called to live.
SPEAKER_01: And then we get confused, we get hurt.
SPEAKER_01: But today we're gonna be talking about fruitful faith, that faith must produce fruit.
SPEAKER_01: And today we're gonna be speaking on fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Last week we said, in order for a tree or a bush or a plant to grow, first it must be planted.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way as believers, we know that in order to produce righteous fruit in our own lives, we must have healthy and nutritional soil to grow in.
SPEAKER_01: And I said this last week.
SPEAKER_01: I was I don't I don't think they were making fun of me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday at the men's breakfast, if you don't know and you're not a part of it, every first Saturday, we have a men's breakfast at the butcher shop.
SPEAKER_01: So come join us, have a good time.
SPEAKER_01: It's just a time of fellowship and some good cooking.
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday I just had coffee, but it was still good.
SPEAKER_01: And somebody said to me, that was the dirtiest sermon I think I've ever heard preached.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm, you know, I'm already self-conscious about my preaching.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm I'm I'm afraid I'm gonna say something stupid.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, nine times out of ten, I probably will at some point.
SPEAKER_01: My poor wife is probably so embarrassed constantly.
SPEAKER_01: I don't get to go out in public much.
SPEAKER_01: This is all she takes me to.
SPEAKER_01: But all the week builds up, and you get it on Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I never heard dirty preaching like that.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking in my head, what is he talking about?
SPEAKER_01: What did I say?
SPEAKER_01: What do I need to go home and repent for?
SPEAKER_01: This is a man of God.
SPEAKER_01: What is he talking about?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, You said doo-doo and poop in your message last week.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's true.
SPEAKER_01: We act like our boo-boo don't stink.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we act.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the church people, we eat our own real good.
SPEAKER_01: We kick our loved ones when they're down.
SPEAKER_01: We want to tell them how to live and we won't do it right.
SPEAKER_01: We're good at pointing out everybody else's issues and problems, and we won't want nobody telling us who what ours are.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want the mirror to come up in front of our face, we want to turn it to everybody else's.
SPEAKER_01: But what I said last week is this that even though we have a lot of boo-boo in our past, the best soil is made from doo-doo.
SPEAKER_01: Ask any farmer.
SPEAKER_01: You want to have some good fertilizer, you'll get some cow dung patties, whatever the political correct word is.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say it.
SPEAKER_01: And get in more trouble next week.
SPEAKER_01: But it has nutrition in it.
SPEAKER_01: So don't be scared about talking about your past, what God has done for you, because that's the best kind of soil to grow in.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're not worried about it.
SPEAKER_01: God will use it.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter if you only chose to love God today, he will still use everything in your past you didn't love him with.
SPEAKER_01: Every time you didn't love him and you ran from him, today can be your time where all of that nonsense he can use for your good.
SPEAKER_01: Everything when you start loving the Lord becomes something he can use.
SPEAKER_01: Everything, everything, the good and the bad, everything God can use.
SPEAKER_01: Fruitful faith.
SPEAKER_01: You have to understand this.
SPEAKER_01: In the context of this passage, we just read these two verses.
SPEAKER_01: It's the beginning of creation, and this is what started it all.
SPEAKER_01: And we read this passage and we see that God set things in motion of the way of the life system, how things work.
SPEAKER_01: So, what does it say?
SPEAKER_01: Then God said, Let the land sprout and vegetation, all sorts of seed-bearing plants and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_01: The seeds will produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they come.
SPEAKER_01: And once it begins to grow, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: That very process is still the same to this day.
SPEAKER_01: So, what does this mean?
SPEAKER_01: To every seed that is planted can only produce what plant it comes from.
SPEAKER_01: Watermelon does not produce apples.
SPEAKER_01: Pineapple does not produce pears, an oak tree doesn't produce a pine tree.
SPEAKER_01: Thank God.
SPEAKER_01: Pine trees are ever green, but they're ever on my nerves.
SPEAKER_01: If they're in your yard, you ain't got no green grass.
SPEAKER_01: It's funny how they kill the green stuff, but they won't stop being green.
SPEAKER_01: Every seed produces exactly what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Everything we allow to be planted in our hearts, every fruit we allow to be produced in our hearts will produce what the seed is.
SPEAKER_01: What you allow to be planted in your heart came from a plant.
SPEAKER_01: It came, follow me, it came from a fruit that you have already allowed once to grow through.
SPEAKER_01: And now, if you do not get rid of that fruit, the seed will bear the same fruit again.
SPEAKER_01: We get caught in life cycles over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't know why I'm divorced seven times and oh, I got 17 kids, and I don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: There's reasons that things are happening in that way because you won't stop the problem.
SPEAKER_01: I can't stay away from drugs.
SPEAKER_01: No, you can't stay away from the friends that supply you the drugs.
SPEAKER_01: When I'm with my family, I'm never present.
SPEAKER_01: I guess I need to talk to them more.
SPEAKER_01: No, you need to put a stupid phone down and get off social media.
SPEAKER_01: You're worried about everybody else's family more than you are your own.
SPEAKER_01: And we wonder why there is a distance between people sitting in the same room.
SPEAKER_01: I walk by people.
SPEAKER_01: I told my wife this the other day.
SPEAKER_01: I said, do not ever let me be the man or the husband in this house that sits at the dinner table or in a restaurant, and I'm more concerned about what's on my phone than what you have to say.
SPEAKER_01: We can be in a place full of crowded people and will separate ourselves sitting there lost and undone and divided by depression and anxiety, and we got our eyes going like this as we're scrolling.
SPEAKER_01: Having more conversation with people is not going to solve your problem.
SPEAKER_01: Understanding where your roots are.
SPEAKER_01: The same is true in the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Everything, every seed that you plant or you allow to be planted.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, somebody, just because you didn't plant it don't mean it didn't get planted.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever had a garden and you go out there and there's things in there that you didn't plant?
SPEAKER_01: My wife's had a little garden and there was a little oak tree popping up.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't plant that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, somebody did.
SPEAKER_01: No, it just happens sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: That's why you have to maintain the garden of your heart because things are getting planted constantly in your heart and in your mind that you are not paying attention to.
SPEAKER_01: This is why it is so important to be led and guided by the very Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_01: Because you will begin to bear witness with things that fit and things that don't.
SPEAKER_01: Your eyes will become open, your ears and eyes will be turned to God and say, God, what needs to be here?
SPEAKER_01: What does not?
SPEAKER_01: A lot of us do not want to have that self-evaluation.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to get rid of stuff because it's comfortable.
SPEAKER_01: I will get lost.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just being honest with you.
SPEAKER_01: TikTok, Instagram reels, people make some funny stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, this guy over here, I share a lot with him, and he shares a lot with me.
SPEAKER_01: I'll just be like, copy, paste, text it to him.
SPEAKER_01: Look at this idiot.
SPEAKER_01: We're constantly feeding on things.
SPEAKER_01: Did y'all know it's called a feed?
SPEAKER_01: All of you are eating something.
SPEAKER_01: What fruit are you eating?
SPEAKER_01: Because what you let in, you will soon let it come out.
SPEAKER_01: What the seed is, is what will be produced.
SPEAKER_01: If you have anger, it will be more anger.
SPEAKER_01: If you have an issue with lust, when you feed that, it will produce more lust.
SPEAKER_01: If you have an issue with jealousy, it will produce more jealousy.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been hurt in your past and it tore you up, hurt people always hurt people.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't deal with it and you left it undone, that fruit begins to grow.
SPEAKER_01: Complaining produces more complaining.
SPEAKER_01: You ever had a bad day?
SPEAKER_01: And you start talking about how bad it was, and then you have one of those people like I like to call them one-uppers.
SPEAKER_01: Because you say what your day has done, and all of a sudden they come along and say, Oh, yeah, well, you shouldn't have been at my job today.
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, you got two people that are complaining.
SPEAKER_01: Then you got third one comes along, and oh, they got a better story than that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, last week, and there it goes domino effect building bigger and bigger and bigger, complaining.
SPEAKER_01: Produces more complaining.
SPEAKER_01: Bad attitudes produces bad attitudes.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that is something and it has been created produces the same fruit.
SPEAKER_01: That is the same as the last source of its origins.
SPEAKER_01: It can only produce what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Humans can only produce humans.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all I kind of question, but we'll go on.
SPEAKER_01: Bananas only produce bananas.
SPEAKER_01: Righteousness only produces righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Flesh only produces flesh.
SPEAKER_01: The reason we battle so hard and we get so caught up in what's going on in everybody else's life, and we end up like you ever fought and fought and fought and fought, and you feel like you are about to be exhausted, and you would just want to shrivel up in the corner and die.
SPEAKER_01: You are tired of fighting, you're tired of running the race.
SPEAKER_01: It's an uphill battle every single day of my life.
SPEAKER_01: I wake up, my feet hit the floor, and I'm running and running and running until I die at the end of the day and I crash, and it's all over again the next week.
SPEAKER_01: Week after week after week, month after month after month.
SPEAKER_01: And we're fighting what we think is fleshly battles.
SPEAKER_01: You ever had issues with a person?
SPEAKER_01: Now y'all got real quiet on that.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay if they're sitting next to you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just keep looking at me.
SPEAKER_01: Just keep blink twice if you need help.
SPEAKER_01: But you when you get caught up in this endless cycle and you get mad at the person, but when you become spiritually mature, if you have not noticed, I want to be at this church to be birthing spiritual Christians that can understand that when they look at a problem and it looks like a person, it is a principality.
SPEAKER_01: It is not a person, it is not a physical issue.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot walk into it with your physical, fleshly weapons and expect to handle spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_01: You will be overcome.
SPEAKER_01: You will be dominated by a spiritual being that you don't even understand.
SPEAKER_01: We start talking about demons, and church gets scared.
SPEAKER_01: The church backs up.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you haven't been seeing the demons for what they are.
SPEAKER_01: And so the things that shouldn't scare you all of a sudden do because they're making an appearance in your life, and you should have already been recognizing who they are.
SPEAKER_01: This is why it's so important to take a self-inventory.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the New Testament?
SPEAKER_01: Some people try to cast out demons.
SPEAKER_01: How many of us?
SPEAKER_01: The demons know that you pray or you don't.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are going through some of the darkest time in your life right now because God is trying to get your attention to where it needs to be.
SPEAKER_01: You can paint it up as the enemy all you want, but you ain't listening to God yet.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing can pass through to you unless given permission by God.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a fight against good and evil.
SPEAKER_01: There is a wrestling going on down here, but if God says move, the mountains have to move.
SPEAKER_01: There's no question about that.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you right now, if you walked up on a demon or somebody was possessed, first of all, you probably wouldn't even notice.
SPEAKER_01: And we would get the same speech.
SPEAKER_01: I know him, her, and him and her.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know you.
SPEAKER_01: Who do you think you are?
SPEAKER_01: Apparently I'm not who I thought I was.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna leave now.
SPEAKER_01: And we shake in our boots when we actually have the authority.
SPEAKER_01: We have the authority.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all aren't walking in authority because you don't know the author.
SPEAKER_01: We become watered down, self-righteous, looking down our nose at the people who keep messing up, who keep doing wrong.
SPEAKER_01: You know what will make them stop doing wrong?
SPEAKER_01: When you keep loving them no matter what.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the the disciples, they were kind of dumb.
SPEAKER_01: They had the Messiah in front of them, performing miracles, walking on water, speaking to the storm, and they had it had to cease.
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Oh, surely he must be the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Really?
SPEAKER_01: By now you have not figured that out.
SPEAKER_01: They were a little slow, and it actually didn't dawn on them until he died and came back.
SPEAKER_01: Because even though he told them, I will return, I am going to be resurrected, the temple will be rebuilt in three days.
SPEAKER_01: He had to then show back up to them for 40 days to then build back up their faith.
SPEAKER_01: Because they were in mourning and crying and weeping and gnashing of teeth, putting ash on their head, throwing dust in the air.
SPEAKER_01: They did a lot of weird stuff back then.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, in Abraham's story, they would they would put their hands under each other's other thigh to make an oath.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not doing that today.
SPEAKER_01: That's weird.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
SPEAKER_01: But flesh cannot produce more flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And spirit, if you remain in God's spirit, if you if you try to retain this, you first have to understand that you are flesh, you are man, you are woman, you will mess up, you will fall down, you will take some steps back.
SPEAKER_01: But understand that when you fall, when you take steps back, God is there cheering you on.
SPEAKER_01: He's on your side.
SPEAKER_01: He's not waiting for you to mess up so that he can point it out to everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, every person who turns to God, he is in the business of redemption and restoration.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he does, that's who he is.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to redeem it, he wants to restore everything the enemy has tried to take from you.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times we want to blame the devil of taking things from us when really we put out our hands and gave it to him.
SPEAKER_01: We want to chase after things of flesh, we want the coolest shoes.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, y'all know I like shoes.
SPEAKER_01: We want the best cars, we want the best house, and none of that is against the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: But when you make it your God and you chase after the things of this world, you've lost sight of your true home.
SPEAKER_01: And you will reap only the things of the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible even says in the New Testament that if you chase after those things and they become your God, they will be your reward, and that is all.
SPEAKER_01: John 15, 16 says this.
SPEAKER_01: And if you have a Bible, I want you to highlight it.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to write this down, whatever you're doing today.
SPEAKER_01: John 15, 16, it says this.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't choose me.
SPEAKER_01: But I chose you.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't choose me, but I chose you.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all are sitting on the sidelines acting like God has not chosen you.
SPEAKER_01: You may feel down on yourself, you may do some stupid stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
SPEAKER_01: Stop feeling sorry for yourself and begin to walk in the freedom and the promise that God has for you because we didn't choose him, he chose us.
SPEAKER_01: I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for using my name.
SPEAKER_01: Whether on purpose or accident, you are producing fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Whether you want to or whether you don't, whether you're doing it knowingly or it's unknown to you and you can't see yourself well.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it is so important to not forsake the assembly.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you get away from people who will really show you what you look like in a godly fashion, will show you who you are really spiritually and not tickle your ears and pad you with loving adoration and say, Oh, it'll be all right, you're doing just fine.
SPEAKER_01: No, none of us are.
SPEAKER_01: We all need God's mercy and grace.
SPEAKER_01: If you're always getting praises from people, check your parameters because you got an enemy in the camp.
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's fruits of flesh or fruit of the spirit, where your roots are planted, the soil.
SPEAKER_01: In the soil, and what seed you allow to be planted determines the fruit you produce.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 7, 16 and 18.
SPEAKER_01: It says this.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: I challenge y'all at the very beginning of this message.
SPEAKER_01: Because they will use you to justify their sin if you're not living right.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 7, 16 and 18.
SPEAKER_01: It says, You can identify them by their fruit.
SPEAKER_01: That is, by the way they act.
SPEAKER_01: Act is the root word of action.
SPEAKER_01: If you have no action behind your faith, they're gonna judge you for it.
SPEAKER_01: Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes?
SPEAKER_01: It's the same principle he's saying here that we read in Genesis a minute ago.
SPEAKER_01: Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?
SPEAKER_01: A good tree produces what?
SPEAKER_01: Good fruit.
SPEAKER_01: And a bad tree produces what?
SPEAKER_01: Bad fruit.
SPEAKER_01: A good tree can't produce bad fruit.
SPEAKER_01: You hear me?
SPEAKER_01: A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone will be known by the fruit that you produce.
SPEAKER_01: You are always, always, always turn to your neighbor and say, always, always producing fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Whether you want to or whether you're not, what do you don't want to?
SPEAKER_01: There are things like my wife's garden that end up in there that you don't want in there.
SPEAKER_01: It will rob you of the fruit God wants in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And they will know God by you.
SPEAKER_01: Can any of us in here see God right now?
SPEAKER_01: The people out there that don't know God, they're going to see Him through you.
SPEAKER_01: You're either going to be a witness of who He is or a decimation of what could have been in their life.
SPEAKER_01: You will either build up who God is by glorifying him with your life and with your words and with your attitudes, or you're producing bad fruit and you are tearing down the very kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: They will use us to define who God is.
SPEAKER_01: I am not saying that is fair.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even saying it's right, but that is facts.
SPEAKER_01: How many people have you heard that say, I'm not going to church?
SPEAKER_01: There's a bunch of hypocrites in there.
SPEAKER_01: And sinners and liars and fornicators and everything else that needs God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: People of addiction.
SPEAKER_01: But we serve a chain-breaking God.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we come together because we can share our stories and say, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: If God could do this for them, he can do it for me.
SPEAKER_01: And if God can do it for me, I know he can do it for her.
SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden our faith becomes built, and we realize we're just a bunch of sinners saved by grace that need his mercy every single day.
SPEAKER_01: And what this does, when we begin to think in this way and stop living in shame and stop worrying about what people's gonna think, whether you tell them or whether they don't, they'll either make up the story or know the true one.
SPEAKER_01: Might as well say the right one, right?
SPEAKER_01: In the same way, bad fruit is produced in the garden of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: If you allow that seed to be planted there, if you allow those bad fruits begin to grow, the same is available for the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: This is why it's so important to be producing the fruit of the spirit, because by our fruit they will know us, they will know that we belong to Him, they will know and define who God is by the fruit that we bear.
SPEAKER_01: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control all produce more of the fruit that the seed comes from.
SPEAKER_01: John 13, 35.
SPEAKER_01: For your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Love is a fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, it's the first one mentioned.
SPEAKER_01: Over and over and over, we see in scriptures pointing to this one constant thing that they will know who the Father is by the way his children act.
SPEAKER_01: Can I give you a real world example here?
SPEAKER_01: We were on, we went to Thanksgiving over at her parents or sisters over in the Bullward White House area.
SPEAKER_01: And last night I had a photo shoot with our cousin over in the downtown Tyler.
SPEAKER_01: And Tristan was there with us, he was helping me out.
SPEAKER_01: Tristan was not with us on Thanksgiving Day, so we went over there.
SPEAKER_01: The cousin was there.
SPEAKER_01: I was just being me.
SPEAKER_01: She said at the photo shoot last night, you know, when you were there and Tristan wasn't, I realized how much alike you and him were.
SPEAKER_01: Don't put that on me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, this isn't my message.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: The parent will be known by the children.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because there's all kinds of things coming in contact with our children that we will never have the opportunity to see or meet.
SPEAKER_01: They're out there a lot more than we are in another area that we will never be.
SPEAKER_01: I never went to Tristan school.
SPEAKER_01: Please, God, not ever do I need to, to actually walk the halls, meet all of his teachers.
SPEAKER_01: They know the last name, but talked on the phone, maybe, but never actually went face to face.
SPEAKER_01: He knows students.
SPEAKER_01: That he brings, proud of this boy, that brings every Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_01: And Wednesday night, four or five of them raised their hand that they wanted Jesus Christ in their heart.
SPEAKER_01: And I told him last night on the way home, I said, son, I know you're 14 and you're kind of dumb right now.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to understand, and I told him, everybody's head was bowed, like I do it here.
SPEAKER_01: I did it over there too, and nobody was looking around.
SPEAKER_01: And I told him, I said, son, the seeds that you're planting, you're making heaven bigger.
SPEAKER_01: We can either produce good fruit or we can produce bad fruit.
SPEAKER_01: But whatever fruit you produce, they will label that on your heavenly father.
SPEAKER_01: My father has been here before.
SPEAKER_01: My actual dad.
SPEAKER_01: He came and preached and he's visited a couple times.
SPEAKER_01: My dad's a little goofy, you probably can tell from the product.
SPEAKER_01: And somebody said, You know, I met your dad now, I get it.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that stuff doesn't register to you until it's real and in your face.
SPEAKER_01: We are products of our parents, and our children are products of us, and their children will be products of them, and we get the opportunity to remind them of all the stuff they did when they were young and dumb.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I'm getting a little spiritual in here.
SPEAKER_01: How you act, the things you say, the life you live, the fruit you produce, everything that comes out of your mouth is either bringing glory or dishonor to God.
SPEAKER_01: There's no in between.
SPEAKER_01: The things we watch, the things we say, the conversations we have, the life that we live either testifies or tarnishes the life of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They will know you by your fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Faith produces fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Because faith should produce action.
SPEAKER_01: And in these actions, we begin to toil the ground, we begin to break up the ground, becoming broken before God and allowing righteous seed to be planted in our hearts and minds.
SPEAKER_01: And when these things begin to grow, it begins to produce righteous fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are gonna have to literally burn your soil and plants to the ground and let God rebuild your life from ashes.
SPEAKER_01: But we know by his word that he brings beauty from the ashes.
SPEAKER_01: And actually, my my dad's side of my my grandparents up in Missouri.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever watched this before, but they will light things on fire.
SPEAKER_01: And it's actually a replenishing process that revitalizes the soil.
SPEAKER_01: And it literally re-nourishes the ground.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us we clip off at ground level and we wonder why it keeps growing back.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you have to get the word of God and the spirit of God in your life, and you gotta scorch the earth to make sure that nothing returns and grows that is not where it's supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to ask you a question today.
SPEAKER_01: Is the faith producing fruit in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Are you being full of action with your faith?
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a pastor and I still feel reserved in a public place when I see somebody with a sickness.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't tell me to pray for them.
SPEAKER_01: But wouldn't it be awesome if I did and they were healed?
SPEAKER_01: Would that bring dishonor or honor to God?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we wait for we wait for God to say, okay, do this now.
SPEAKER_01: My wife always uses the name little Timmy.
SPEAKER_01: I almost said it.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, little Timmy.
SPEAKER_01: You can do it.
SPEAKER_01: Do this, do that, do this.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes he wants the mature Christians to step out and know that just when you pray, things are gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: That I know that I am nothing, but God is everything.
SPEAKER_01: And so if he tells me to lay on the hands of the sick, he's told me once.
SPEAKER_01: Why does he have to tell me again?
SPEAKER_01: What fruit are you producing?
SPEAKER_01: Has your faith become dormant?
SPEAKER_01: Have you allowed your walk to become stale and stagnant?
SPEAKER_01: God wants his people to produce spiritual fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Healthy, righteous fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We all have a choice.
SPEAKER_01: And going forward, you can decide today that all of the junk in your life, in your heart, in the garden of your heart that you have allowed for so long to plant the wrong kind of seed, and it has been producing over and over and over and over the wrong fruit, and you keep suffering, you keep hurting, you keep crying out for help, but you won't get rid of the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the biggest problem in our life with the bad fruit is looking at us in the mirror.
SPEAKER_01: Self examination is key.
SPEAKER_01: Key for spiritual maturity.