SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Eastridge.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Justin.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the senior pastor here.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I I I want to before I get into my message and everything, I just want to say that I am completely encouraged by all of you.
SPEAKER_00: Um just in conversation, I uh one of my favorite things about being here on a Sunday morning is that I get to have a conversation with some of you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and if I don't get to have a conversation with some of you, I want to invite you to contact me, email me, text me, whatever you need to do.
SPEAKER_00: I would love to have a conversation with you.
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, Sunday mornings can be come and go, it can be kind of busy, it can be kind of loud and everything else.
SPEAKER_00: But honestly, I just want to invite that for all of you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's what it's one of my favorite things to do, and I get encouraged when I have conversations with you.
SPEAKER_00: I get encouraged when I get invited to do that and be a part of your lives and and walk through anything that you're going through on a spiritual basis, on a personal basis, anything.
SPEAKER_00: Just honestly, I'm open.
SPEAKER_00: Text me, call me.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to have a conversation with you.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so with that said, um, uh, you know, I I want to encourage you to do that with with me, but also with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and so keep keep doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I I love that.
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just just let me know.
SPEAKER_00: I would love to get together with you.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, um this uh we are in week four of our summer series, the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: And uh let me just catch you up a little bit if you haven't uh been here.
SPEAKER_00: Week one, we said that the Holy Spirit is not a force, it's not a feeling, um, that the Holy Spirit is God.
SPEAKER_00: Uh a couple weeks ago we talked about how the the Holy Spirit breathes life into dead things, into the valley of dry bones, that dead things come alive.
SPEAKER_00: And that uh that last week we learned that the Holy Spirit doesn't just comfort us, that the Holy Spirit in fact leads us.
SPEAKER_00: When the Holy Spirit is leading us, uh we we know that that God is going to lead us into things that might be challenging or that might be something that we can't do on our own.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the whole idea has this one steady idea behind it as well, that the Spirit of God forms us.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God forms us.
SPEAKER_00: He's not just a guest who we get to visit on Sundays, uh, he is the living God inside of us, forming us into the likeness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And today we get to ask a very practical question.
SPEAKER_00: If we know and if we believe that he is leading us, what does that actually look like?
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like on a day-to-day basis?
SPEAKER_00: And when the Spirit of God goes to work in a human life, what does he produce?
SPEAKER_00: What is going on in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: And Paul gives us the answer in one of the most famous passages in the whole entire Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But before we read it today, I want to give you the big idea for today.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to really, really understand this.
SPEAKER_00: So write it down and hold on to this idea.
SPEAKER_00: That the Spirit changes our character before he changes our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit changes our character before he changes our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: And most of us spend our prayer life asking God to change our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: And the spirit very often is far more interested in changing us.
SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you where this one hits me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really good at asking God to change my situation.
SPEAKER_00: To say, you know, God, change this person, okay?
SPEAKER_00: God, change this season.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like the season of life that I'm in right now.
SPEAKER_00: God, fix this thing that is making my life challenging.
SPEAKER_00: Please fix it.
SPEAKER_00: We're invited to bring it all to God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that clearly we should bring these to God.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I keep bumping into.
SPEAKER_00: I'll pray and pray for God to change my circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: And what he keeps doing instead is putting his finger on me and saying uh uh he puts his finger on my impatience.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not, if you guys know this about me, I'm I'm uh I'm not a big fan of red lights.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And last week when we were going to the um, when we were on our way to the Jay's cabin for our men's event, um if you've ever driven on tower, there's lots of lights on that road.
SPEAKER_00: And I hit every single red light.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one.
SPEAKER_00: So I was late to to the event.
SPEAKER_00: Uh luckily I wasn't I wasn't counted as late.
SPEAKER_00: I just was I just was a little bit late.
SPEAKER_00: I also got trained.
SPEAKER_00: So on top of all the lights that I hit, I was also trained.
SPEAKER_00: So God was working on my patience on that day.
SPEAKER_00: Uh He also works on my lack of peace, on the way I treat people when I get stressed, and on what comes out of me when I get squeezed in that stress, when things are happening around me.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the truth about all of us that what is inside you comes out when you get squeezed.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: You don't find out what's really in a person when life is easy, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You find out when they get pressed, when things are happening in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm honest, when I get stressed, what comes out is not always love, it's not always joy, it's not always peace.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes what comes out of it is irritation or anxiety, uh, a sharp tongue.
SPEAKER_00: I had some words with God on Tower Avenue last week, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And I used to think that the answer was just try harder.
SPEAKER_00: If you just try a little bit harder, then you'll be able to really understand what it's like to get through some difficult circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Be more patient.
SPEAKER_00: Grit your teeth, white knuckle it, but you cannot squeeze spiritual fruit out of yourself by sheer effort.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how fruit works.
SPEAKER_00: You've never once seen an apple tree literally just trying by its own grunting and straining to produce a fruit, right?
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't work like that.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit does not come from effort.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit comes from life.
SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly what Paul wants us to see today.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, let me ask you, where are you trying to manufacture willpower on what only the Spirit can actually grow inside of you?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been trying to be more patient with your kids and you keep losing it and you feel like a failure.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been trying to love someone who is very difficult to love and you just can't seem to get there.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been waiting for your circumstances to change so that you can finally have some peace.
SPEAKER_00: When this season is over, then I'll finally have peace.
SPEAKER_00: When this problem is solved, then I'll have some joy in my life.
SPEAKER_00: When this person finally changes, then I will be able to love them.
SPEAKER_00: When they change, I can love them.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: If your peace depends on your circumstances, you don't actually have the peace of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You have the peace of good circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: And good circumstances never last.
SPEAKER_00: That's a promise in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You will have trials.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit is the kind of character that grows in you regardless of what is happening around you.
SPEAKER_00: Joy in the storm, peace in the waiting, patience in the pressure, love for the difficult person.
SPEAKER_00: That's not natural.
SPEAKER_00: That's supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: That's fruit.
SPEAKER_00: If your peace depends on your circumstances, it isn't the peace of the Spirit yet.
SPEAKER_00: So let's open in Galatians 5, where we're going to be today, because it should shows right away in Galatians 5, starting in verse 16, that we live by two ways.
SPEAKER_00: There are two ways by which we live.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this before.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says that there is a war going on inside of every single believer.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh wants one thing, the spirit wants another.
SPEAKER_00: And they're pulling against each other.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've ever felt that tug of war inside of you, if you've ever felt that tension inside of you, the part of you that wants to do the right and the part of you that wants to do the wrong, that is not a sign that something is wrong with you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I want you to reassure you that that doesn't mean something's wrong with you if you feel that.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually a sign that the spirit is alive in you.
SPEAKER_00: A dead branch doesn't fight anything.
SPEAKER_00: The struggle is evidence of life.
SPEAKER_00: Notice Paul's instruction.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, try harder to beat your flesh spirit, the spirit of the flesh inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: He says, walk by the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Walk by the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The way you win the war is not by pouring all your energy into fighting your fleshly nature.
SPEAKER_00: It's by walking in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You don't overcome darkness by staring at darkness.
SPEAKER_00: You overcome it by walking toward the light.
SPEAKER_00: You don't defeat the flesh by fighting harder.
SPEAKER_00: You defeat it by walking with the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now Paul gives us two lists, and the contrast between these two lists is everything.
SPEAKER_00: So let's read that as we continue on.
SPEAKER_00: In 18.
SPEAKER_00: But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
SPEAKER_00: Now the works of the flesh are evident.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual immorality, impurity.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read these slowly.
SPEAKER_00: So if you get a little bit uncomfortable, that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: That means something's working inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Sensuality.
SPEAKER_00: Idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Sorcery.
SPEAKER_00: Enmity.
SPEAKER_00: Strife.
SPEAKER_00: Jealousy.
SPEAKER_00: Fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
SPEAKER_00: I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that list.
SPEAKER_00: It's chaos.
SPEAKER_00: It's fragmented.
SPEAKER_00: It's relationships that are breaking.
SPEAKER_00: Desires in your own life that are running wild.
SPEAKER_00: People at war with each other and with themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And notice the word Paul uses.
SPEAKER_00: He calls them works of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Works.
SPEAKER_00: Plural.
SPEAKER_00: Things that you produce, things that you manufacture, that you are putting an effort in doing.
SPEAKER_00: It is you trying to do these things.
SPEAKER_00: But when he gets to the spirit, the word changes.
SPEAKER_00: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Against such things there is no law.
SPEAKER_00: But it says it doesn't not works of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Paul does not say the fruits of the Spirit are.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: This is something in English.
SPEAKER_00: So if you are an English person out there, this is going to be something that you will pick up on.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Paul does not say the fruits of the Spirit are.
SPEAKER_00: He says the fruit of the Spirit is.
SPEAKER_00: One fruit.
SPEAKER_00: One cluster.
SPEAKER_00: Nine characteristics that grow together as a single life.
SPEAKER_00: Which means this.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get to walk down the produce aisle and kind of pick out everything that you want to live by.
SPEAKER_00: It can seem really simple to do that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, like I'll take love and joy, but I'll pass on patience and self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Today I don't need that as much as I need other things right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pass on that.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work like that.
SPEAKER_00: You can't be genuinely loving and chronically unkind.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have real peace inside your soul and refuse all self-control.
SPEAKER_00: It's one fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the portrait of one person.
SPEAKER_00: We'll come back to that.
SPEAKER_00: Just remember that the flesh manufactures works, the spirit grows fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the heart of what I want you to take home today.
SPEAKER_00: That fruit is not something you produce by effort.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, you don't see an apple straining and grunting and trying to get its fruit out of its branch.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit is not something you produce by effort.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit is something that grows out of life.
SPEAKER_00: When you have that single seed that grows into something that's really a gigantic fruit tree, like an apple tree.
SPEAKER_00: There's life in there.
SPEAKER_00: A branch does not grit its teeth and squeeze out grapes.
SPEAKER_00: Just like an apple.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit is simply what comes out of a healthy branch connected to the vine.
SPEAKER_00: The branch's job is not to manufacture fruit.
SPEAKER_00: The branch's job is to stay connected.
SPEAKER_00: Staying connected and the fruit comes.
SPEAKER_00: Think about how a gardener or a farmer actually works.
SPEAKER_00: A good gardener doesn't stand over a young tree pulling on branches and trying to force the fruit out fast.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: And it looks pretty silly.
SPEAKER_00: If you see someone who's tending an orchard and they're just trying to shake the branches, trying to get fruit out of those branches, it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: And it looks weird.
SPEAKER_00: So what happens is a good gardener will tend the soil.
SPEAKER_00: He will water the roots.
SPEAKER_00: He prunes what needs pruning.
SPEAKER_00: And then he does the hardest thing of all.
SPEAKER_00: He waits.
SPEAKER_00: He gives it time and seasons.
SPEAKER_00: And here's something that every gardener knows.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the sweetest fruit comes from the trees that have weathered the hardest seasons.
SPEAKER_00: For apples, you will get the very best apples out of the trees that are the oldest.
SPEAKER_00: The trees that have deep roots, whose trunks are wide, whose branches are strong.
SPEAKER_00: The deep roots, the rich fruit, they come from the tree that's had to dig down and hold on.
SPEAKER_00: That should preach to some of us today because the hard season you're in is not God forgetting about you.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to figure this out on their own.
SPEAKER_00: It does not, that's not what that means.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the big idea matters so much to us.
SPEAKER_00: The deepest fruit, the deepest fruit is growing inside of you because of the season you're in.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit changes our character before he changes our circumstances, because fruit grows from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: And God keeps saying, Let me grow first something in you.
SPEAKER_00: Even though we keep asking, change my circumstances, change this person, change what I'm going through in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing: if God changed all your circumstances that you're asking to change, but left your character unchanged, you would just carry the same unfruitful heart into a brand new situation.
SPEAKER_00: A change of scenery never healed an unchanged heart.
SPEAKER_00: So God, in his wisdom and in his love, very often leaves us in the very circumstance that we are begging him to be removed from us.
SPEAKER_00: Because the circumstance is the soil where the fruit is growing.
SPEAKER_00: The patience you're praying for.
SPEAKER_00: It grows in the situation that requires patience.
SPEAKER_00: The peace that you are asking for, it grows in the middle of the storm, not after it.
SPEAKER_00: We want God to change the weather.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to grow a tree that can stand in any weather, in any flood, in any drought, in any storm.
SPEAKER_00: A change of scenery has never healed an unchanged heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's go back to that list one more time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read it, I'm gonna read it here again.
SPEAKER_00: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Now ask yourself a question who is that?
SPEAKER_00: Who is perfectly loving, perfectly joyful, perfectly at peace, endlessly patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and in complete control of himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's not just a list of virtues.
SPEAKER_00: That's not just a hobby lobby sign that we buy and say, that's a good thing to keep us in remembrance of that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a portrait of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit is the character of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the whole point of this whole entire series.
SPEAKER_00: And it says in 2 Corinthians 3.18, and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit's goal is not just to make you a nicer person, although that would be good.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit's goal is to make you like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit is the life of Jesus reproduced in you.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says something stunning about how that happens.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 24, it says, And those who belong to Christ, Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the order, and it matters.
SPEAKER_00: It is not produce the fruit so that you can belong to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, you know, be kind, be gentle, be loving, be good, be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: It's not saying have those things first, and then you can become to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is you belong to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, the flesh has been dealt with at the cross, and now his life grows in you.
SPEAKER_00: Belonging comes first, fruit comes second.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit is simply living the life of Jesus growing in you.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to the gospel, the good news.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you read that fruit list honestly, it should humble every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Perfect love, perfect patience, complete self-control.
SPEAKER_00: None of us have ever done that before.
SPEAKER_00: Not one.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit list is a mirror, and the mirror tells a very simple truth that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: We've all lived by the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: We have all produced the wrong kind of fruit, but here is the good news for all of us that there was one who bore the fruit perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus loved perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: He was patient with sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was gentle with the broken and bold with the proud.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus stayed faithful all the way to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And on that cross, the fruitful one was cut down for the fruitless.
SPEAKER_00: Us.
SPEAKER_00: He took the judgment of our flesh deserved.
SPEAKER_00: He died the death we should have died, and he rose again.
SPEAKER_00: And now to everyone who turns from sin and trusts in Jesus, he gives the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Not as a reward, but for good behavior, but as a gift of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're here today and you have been trying to clean up your own life, exhausted, striving, white knuckling your way toward being a better person, hear this.
SPEAKER_00: You don't bear fruit in order to come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You come to Jesus and He grows the fruit in you.
SPEAKER_00: So come to Jesus today.
SPEAKER_00: Receive his spirit and let him begin a work in you that you could never do in yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You don't grow fruit to earn God's love.
SPEAKER_00: You receive God's love and the Fruit grows.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we respond?
SPEAKER_00: Like we do, like we do every single week, there's something to know, something to feel, and something to do.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Something that you need to know that you are the branch, not the vine.
SPEAKER_00: You are the branch, not the vine.
SPEAKER_00: You are not the source of the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You are not the power plant.
SPEAKER_00: You are the branch.
SPEAKER_00: So stop trying to be the vine.
SPEAKER_00: You'll only exhaust yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You're not the source of the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You are the branch that bears it.
SPEAKER_00: You need to know that in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing, you need to let two things settle in that you need to feel in your life this week.
SPEAKER_00: First is relief.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: If the fruit is the Spirit's work, then you can stop the desperate striving.
SPEAKER_00: You can exhale.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit grows by the Spirit's will, not yours.
SPEAKER_00: Second, patience.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit grows slowly.
SPEAKER_00: You will not become a perfectly patient person by Tuesday, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: God is not in a hurry.
SPEAKER_00: And He is not finished with you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't despise small growth.
SPEAKER_00: A little more patience this month than last month is still the Spirit at work.
SPEAKER_00: And the third thing that we need to do this week, stop outsourcing your peace and keep in step with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: First thing, stop waiting for your circumstances to change before you'll let God grow something in you.
SPEAKER_00: Ask instead a new question.
SPEAKER_00: Not just, God, please change this.
SPEAKER_00: God, will you change this?
SPEAKER_00: But God, what are you trying to grow in me through this?
SPEAKER_00: Through the trauma in my life right now, through my jobs, job situation, through my health situation, through my family situation.
SPEAKER_00: What are you trying to grow through me?
SPEAKER_00: What are you trying to teach me?
SPEAKER_00: What fruit is trying to be produced here?
SPEAKER_00: So stop outsourcing your peace.
SPEAKER_00: Ask God where you're trying to grow, where he's trying to grow you.
SPEAKER_00: And second, do what Paul says at the end of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: He says in 525, if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Keep in step.
SPEAKER_00: That's a daily walk, not just a one-time decision.
SPEAKER_00: So return to the prayer that we started the series with.
SPEAKER_00: Each morning, Spirit of God, lead me today.
SPEAKER_00: And then walk with him through the day one step at a time.
SPEAKER_00: That is how fruit grows.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit doesn't grow in big, dramatic moments, it grows in daily steps with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine what would have happened if we lived like this together, if we had these ideas together.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a church where the air that we breathe is the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Look back at the works of the flesh for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, divisions, and dissensions.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm honest, that's the list that describes a lot of churches.
SPEAKER_00: It's the list that describes a lot of families.
SPEAKER_00: It's the list that describes the internet.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have a device on you right now that is connected to the internet, God bless you, but that's is you're going to see the works of the flesh in that device.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you you will.
SPEAKER_00: But imagine the church that had a different kind of community.
SPEAKER_00: One that was marked by love and not strife.
SPEAKER_00: Joy instead of cynicism, by peace instead of anxiety, by patience instead of short tempers, by kindness and goodness instead of rivalry and envy.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine homes where parents are growing in gentleness and self-control, and the kids can feel it.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine workplaces where you are the most patient, most peaceful, most humbling, most loving person in the building.
SPEAKER_00: And people are gonna say, something's different about you.
SPEAKER_00: Something is different about you.
SPEAKER_00: There's something different about you, and I want to know why.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's how Jesus said the world would know who belongs to him.
SPEAKER_00: Not by our arguments, not by our buildings, but by our love.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit is a watching world seeing Jesus in us.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit that you produce in your life is not for you.
SPEAKER_00: The love that you have in your life is not for you.
SPEAKER_00: The joy that you have in your life is not for you.
SPEAKER_00: The patience, the self-control, the goodness, the faithfulness, the gentleness is not for you.
SPEAKER_00: It is for others.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit that we produce in our lives that the Spirit produces through us is for others to see Jesus in you.
SPEAKER_00: The world doesn't need to read our doctrine, even though they're really fun books, okay?
SPEAKER_00: The world needs to taste our fruit.
SPEAKER_00: So let me bring us back to where we started.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit changes our character before he changes our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: So if you come in today carrying a circumstance with you that you've been begging for God to change, keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to pray.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to be connected to the vine.
SPEAKER_00: But while you wait, don't miss what he is doing.
SPEAKER_00: He is growing something in you in the pressure, in the waiting, in the very situation you wish that you could escape right now.
SPEAKER_00: He is producing the life of Jesus in you.
SPEAKER_00: One piece of fruit at a time.
SPEAKER_00: So today let's not strive, let's surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stop trying to manufacture what only Jesus can grow in us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stay connected to the vine.
SPEAKER_00: And let's trust the gardener who knows exactly what he is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, you are the gardener.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you are patiently, faithfully growing something good in us even when we cannot see it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, thank you that you lived the fruitful life that we have failed to live.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you were cut down for the fruitless so that we could be made alive.
SPEAKER_00: You are perfect love, you are perfect joy, you are perfect peace.
SPEAKER_00: And by your spirit, you are reproducing your own life in us.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, we confess now that we so often try to manufacture by effort what only you can grow.
SPEAKER_00: We confess that we ask you to change our circumstances when you want to change us.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for striving.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us to abide.
SPEAKER_00: Help us live in the amazing grace that Jesus the Son gave us.
SPEAKER_00: Where we are impatient, grow patience.
SPEAKER_00: Where we are anxious, grow peace.
SPEAKER_00: Where we are harsh, grow gentleness.
SPEAKER_00: Where we are loveless, grow love.
SPEAKER_00: And help us to keep in step with you one day at a time.
SPEAKER_00: We are not the vine.
SPEAKER_00: We are the branches.
SPEAKER_00: So we stop striving and we surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Grow your fruit in us for the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
SPEAKER_00: So, Spirit of God, we surrender to you.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.