Be Fruitful in the Spirit

Be Fruitful in the Spirit

Well this morning for our scripture reading, let's turn if you will to the Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5, I would like to pick up the reading in this passage in verse 13. I want to speak to you about the fruit of the Spirit this morning, but I want to go back a little further in the context to come up to those verses. And so Galatians chapter 5 beginning in verse number 13.

For brethren we have been called unto Liberty, only use not Liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the Spirit, you're not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like. Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit, let us not be desirous of vain glory provoking one another, envying one another. And we'll mark our Bibles to this portion of Scripture this morning as our text.

That was our heads and ask God's blessing upon the Word that we have now read. Our Heavenly Father, once again we are coming to ask that you would prosper the Word that we've read now to our hearts, that it would serve the purpose of teaching us the joy, doctrine that we need to know about, and even the truth about ourselves, the Word. May it also serve to reprove and rebuke us where needed in our lives. May this Word also be profitable knowing that all Scripture is profitable, not only Old Testament, the New Testament, for these things we pray that it would instruct us in the way that we should go. And Lord, the reason we pray for this is that we might bring glory to thee, and we might be helpful to each other as well as to be the light that we ought to be to those who are without Christ. And so we ask that having read these things, Lord, this morning that this would be true in our lives, and that every aspect of this service today will be pleasing in Thy sight. We pray for those that are on the road today, Lord, that you would strengthen them and keep them safe as they go their respective places. And we pray that you bring them back next week safely to be with us again. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

You know, in this world that we're living in, men are going in their own way. I think we know that, don't we? The Scripture says that everyone has turned to His own way, and the Lord laid on Him, Jesus Christ, the iniquity of us all. And because we're going our own way in sin, and men are going their own way in sin, the human heart has to be filled with something. And what we are naturally, apart from God, going to be filled with are those things that are corrupt. Because wherever you do not have a life source, you know, whenever you disconnect a fruit from the vine, and you let it sit there for any amount of time, it's going to go corrupt, isn't it? It's going to start stinking, it's going to start growing mold, and the Scripture makes it clear that as sinners we are alienated from the life of God. We are separated from the life of God, and so what I think I mentioned this last week in the message, it stinks, right? We stink, our sin stinks, and the fruits of the flesh, can we call them, they are stinking.

Now, all that being said, what are some of the things that we see that characterize, well we certainly can look in this text this morning and see that the works of the flesh, what they are. But I was thinking this week about some key things that mark the corruptness of our sinful nature, and they are things like lust. And of course, in our sinfulness, we lust after the wrong things, don't we? Lusting is an intense desire for something, but we intensely desire the wrong things. We intensely desire the things that are actually destroying us, that are actually furthering and deepening our corruption. This all falls, this can fall into the category of addictions. I mean we get addicted to things because we want a feeling and not the truth, right? We want to feel good for the moment, but not know what the truth is about ourselves. And so this is the natural tendency of sinful man. The world, the Scripture Peter I believe it is, says that men's eyes are full of adultery, full of adultery.

Well, I know I can tell you as a man and I can tell you as a man, first of all, that the tendency of men is to look with their eyes and lust. I can tell you that. And then I can also say that even since the Lord has saved me, but I've worked with other guys, that's what they do for their entire lunch break. Their eyes are full of adultery. That's what they spend their entire lunch break. I'm not saying every one of them, but generally speaking, this is, maybe they don't all talk about it, but this is what guys do. Their eyes are full of adultery and they talk about it. And they want you to join in with it. This is what we, this is the stinking, putrefying mess that we are apart from God. Even men that are married, there's a desire to be unfaithful. We might say sometimes to the wife. But the Scripture tells us this is the way it is out of the heart, proceed, adulteries. It's already baked into our very sinful nature to desire things that God doesn't want for us. And not desire the things God does want for us. This is why we're in a pornography epidemic today. We have a pornography crisis even in churches today. I'm hearing pastors talking about just the young people dealing with them and they're coming like, help me with my pornography addiction. It is right at the fingertips of people today. But Galatians here in chapter 5 says that this is simply the works of the flesh. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. All of these things are characteristics. These are works of the sinful flesh.

This is what the flesh does. It might be more dignified in some individuals and more covert and more under the radar, so to speak. But it's still there. Apart from Christ, it's there. Maybe we might say, I never murdered anybody. Well, you weren't given the opportunity. You didn't have the right set of circumstances. But if you were put in the right situation, I was put in the right situation. Apart from Christ, I would do it. You would do it. Every one of us in here would do it because that's how our sinful nature is. It's corrupt. Now, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse number 9 says, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor the kingdom of God. Listen to this beautiful truth. Paul says to the Corinthians, in such were some of you. You were that way. You might not have been all of those at one time, but you were. This is who you were. But you are washed. But you are sanctified. But you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Think about this with me. He's talking to a church that he's had to deal with, what was it, a man taking his own mother? This is sin not even named among the Gentiles. It's possible for any one of us to sin. I know that. But thank God we are clean. We are washed. If you're in Christ today, you're a new creature. You're not bound. You're not a debtor to the flesh to serve it in the lust thereof. You don't have to live in that prison, in that stinking prison anymore because you're in Christ. And we're to mount up with wings like eagles and walk and not be weary and run and not be weary and walk and not faint. We were lustful. We were living fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. We were the children of disobedience in our old lives. We were hateful.

The internet allows a lot of the thoughts of people's hearts to come out. The internet allows people to type out what's really what they're really thinking on the inside. Sometimes people think I'm under the cloak of anonymity. Then they find out a little too late. You're not under the cloak of anonymity. It's just a matter of time before it's going to be found out what you're saying in private. It's going to be shouted from the housetops. I think the internet has not made us a worse people so to speak. It's just revealed who we really are. It's just revealed the rot inside. Maybe some of you are today saying, well, I haven't even really ever looked at the internet much, well, praise the Lord. Don't go out and buy a smartphone if you haven't. Sometimes you just look at what people are. The vile things people will say to one another. On the internet, it's just astounding the loneliness of human sinful nature. What we are capable of doing.

I think about this situation with Charlie Kirk. I don't want to make the message about him this morning. But the thing is, people have said some of the most vile and spewed the most hateful things about him. Well, they're not too late, the guy. There's no reason for someone to have taken the life of anyone for that matter. I don't care if it's my worst enemy. You don't have the right to take somebody's life and just murder them in cold blood. But the things that probably the worst thing about it is the people out there that are making videos and rejoicing over it and excited that somebody got killed. What in the world? Well, we know that this is what the scripture says is in the heart of man. And yet, I think we're getting into this pendulum even more in our country now in our world where now we're going to start seeing people who name the name of Christ, but their love is waxed cold and they're going to start rejoicing and doing videos about the other side. And when somebody on their side gets killed, I'm not saying that everybody's going to do it, but I can see it happening. Just because they did it doesn't make it right for us to do it. It's wrong, it's wrong. Sin is sin.

So we were hateful. Titus 3:3 says we were hateful and hating one another. We were filled with lust. We were filled with hatred. We were sorrowing and sorrowful and in depression like the world's in depression. We can all face stress in our lives. No doubt, as Christians we do. We can have sorrow in our lives, but we must not sorrow without hope as Christians, but we were filled with hatred. So this is what sin will do after the pleasures ever with. You get filled with that, you know, the crash. After the pleasure of the high of sin and then is sorrow begins to take over. But is it true sorrow for sin or is it just sorry I got caught or sorry that the high is over or whatever the case may be? That's the world. And so they seek deeper, darker sins to try to recreate the feeling they had before.

Then we have the fearfulness, mere fearful, fearful of death, fearful of facing. They might have a tough shell, but deep down in the heart. There is no peace, the scripture says, to the wicked. Fearful of a certain judgment that's coming. You just feel it, even if they don't know the scripture very well, they know. I want to have to give an account. You know, even some people talk about karma. Hopefully I won't come back as to, they have a sense that there's some kind of judgment. Maybe not, they don't have a proper biblical understanding of what the true judgment is going to be like, but I may come back as some cursed animal or something like that. No, it's going to be worse than that. You're going to face the Lord one day and you're going to either face God in Christ or without Him. You're going to face Him. And there is a fear. There should be a fear. Hebrews 2:15 says that through fear of death, we were all our lifetime subject to bondage because we fear of death.

But we're going and when I say those things, I think about even what we read here in our text, the works of the flesh. There are these envyings. We talked about hatred, right? The murders and drunkenness, revelings and such like these are all part of the divisive, strife-filled nature that is in us that leads to these kinds of regrets and fears and this sorrow that we spoke of. But look in John 7, I don't want to stay on the dark side of this passage this morning. In John 7 verse 38, there's this promise that our Lord Jesus gave. It says here, he that believeth, he says, he that believeth on me as the scripture has said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Well, the promise is that the Spirit would fill and flow out of our lives. This promise is that, well, this is what Jesus did. He said, if I go away, I will send another comforter right to be with you. And the purpose of the Holy Spirit in our lives is that the fruit of the Spirit might be manifested in us. Just like John 15 says, the vine is there so that the branches can bear the fruit. And then this will bring honor to the vine, right? Because the branches, not we don't bear fruit of ourselves, but because we're attached to the life of the vine, right? Because in a way, the sap that or the juices that flow up through the life source that flows up through that vine that goes into the branch is what produces the fruit. It's so much like the enabling power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. But here we have Jesus saying that out of his belly, the one that believes on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Just like the work, as he says here, it says this, the spake he of the Spirit, the day that they believe on him should receive.

So these fruits of the Spirit or this fruit of the Spirit that is enumerated here in this passage, I like the phrase at the end of verse 23 really stands out to me back in our text here. It says that after enumerating this fruit, it says against such, against such there is no law. I realized very early on in my life, before I even went to my whole college that as a young person with the Lord God of the Holy Spirit, I realized you know, I've got to do what the Lord wants me to do with my life because no matter what I do, somebody, it doesn't matter what you do in life. There's going to be somebody who doesn't like what you're doing. There's going to be somebody that's opposed to you. There's going to be somebody that says, you know, well you should have done something else or you shouldn't be doing that or you shouldn't be, there's always going to be somebody. So at the end of the day, if we know that we know that we're doing what God has for us, me individually to do, don't worry about what people say. But we can stand on the authority of God's truth and know that we're doing his desire for us and not simply following our own heart. Well, we stand at the judgment, we're not going to answer to, we're going to answer to Christ for how we have, we have not to the naysayers we might say.

But the law, there is no law against these fruits, right? There might be people against it, but there's no law against it. There might be someone who says, you know, what a boring life, what a sad life, whatever they might say. You know, what is it, why don't you just live it up and have fun? Why do you got to be a Christian? Well, they're going to answer to one day, but we're going to answer to God. Galatians 5 here in our text in verse 14 says, for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Well, not only does the law not condemn this fruit we read of here, but the very first of the fruits that we read of here is actually commended. It is actually commended in the law. Thou shalt love. It is commended in the law. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

The law was not intended for people who do what's right. The law was intended for people who do what's wrong, which is all of us. The law was intended to reveal that we are wrongdoers, that we are evildoers, that we are incapable of doing right in our own strength. We are falling short of the law. We cannot meet the law's demands if we're honest. The law says in Romans 3:19, we read about what the law's purpose is. In Romans 3:19, the purpose of the law, now we know that what things so ever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped. And all the world may become guilty before God. That's the purpose of the law. The law was given that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Because it reveals our inability to measure up to perfection. It reveals our imperfection. The law concludes us guilty. You broke it. You broke it at one point, you broke the whole thing, right? A fine must be paid. A judgment must be made for the breaking of that law.

But the Christian life is not a life where it's not a life about, don't do what's wrong. You know what, and maybe I shared this with you before, but you know when my children get up in the morning, I don't give them a line them up on the couch and say, all right, let me go through the list of all the things you're not supposed to do today. That's not how we deal with our children, right? Do not go in the road. Do not run away from home. Don't do all these things. We don't do that. But we do have, we hopefully have some simple, clear expectations of them. And you know, if we would simply do unto others as we would, they should do unto us, that's going to solve a lot of the problems among ourselves right there. Do unto your siblings as you would have them do unto you. That simplifies things.

Now, we know that as Christians, God has put all love in our hearts for our brethren, and it's even from Him that love, right, enemies comes, patience with one another. All of these things come from God. These, this fruit we're talking about here this morning, of the Spirit, this meekness, this gentleness, this goodness, this faith, all of these things, they come from God. They're not, they're not resident within us. Well, we received the Holy Spirit as a newborn believer. We received the earnest, the scripture will tell us of the Spirit. That word earnest in the Greek, it was also, we could go into more detail about this. And I believe I've mentioned it to you at a message number of years ago. But it literally indicates a pledge, or a down payment, the earnest, we're talking about earnest money, right? It's the pledge, or the down payment. Christ has imparted to us when He went away, He gave the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit came in His place.

He as the, as the Greek calls it, the arrabon. That's actually a transliteration from the Hebrew. It's interesting that this word is actually used of like an engagement ring, and the Greek, an arrabon would be like an engagement ring that one who is to marry that girl gives her as a pledge that He's going to marry her. And in a way, the Holy Spirit is a pledge, and I promise that the Lord is coming back for us, that He, that we are His, but He is going to receive us unto Himself one day, and having received the Holy Spirit, now we are to walk in the Spirit. If you live in the Spirit, the text told us, if we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. We have the ring, so to speak, we have the Holy Spirit. Let us live by the Holy Spirit. Let us live by the power of the One who alone can enable us to live in Christ. We can't do it through the flesh. We can't do it through our own strength, through our own wisdom. It is only by the Holy Spirit that we can live a life that is pleasing to God.

We sing to Him, Spirit of God, my teacher be showing the things of Christ to me, more about Jesus in His Word, holding communion with my Lord. Hearing His voice in every line, making each faithful saying mine, the Holy Spirit shows us, and reminds us that the love Christ showed us in coming down to this earth, and dying on that cross for us. He reminds us, He brings to our remembrance. What our Lord has done for us, that He loves us, that He demonstrated that love for us on the cross. And the Holy Spirit also fills us with hope. We're commanded to be filled with hope in the Holy Spirit, but he is the One who fills us with hope as we look forward to the return of the One who loves us and gave Himself for us. We love Him, Christ, because He first loved us, gave Himself for us. So we must live in the Spirit. We must, Paul, talk about presenting the brethren as chaste virgins unto Christ. Christ's church is called His bride, right, to be presented unto Him. And, first John 3, every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth Himself, even as He is pure. Every man that has the hope, the expectation. Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me, not for the years of time alone, but for eternity. I'm looking forward to the blessed hope of Christ's return or calling me home to be with Him.

And in that, see, that changes the whole paradigm. It changes from, they'll shout, no, don't you do that, don't you do that? No, no, no. Prohibition, all it does is inflame desire to do the very thing that's prohibited, right? Whatever's forbidden. That's why they particularly the fruit in the garden. Well, you know, well, Eve was deceived. There's this sort of appeal. Well, maybe God did me. Maybe it would be all right if we took of this fruit. Well, God is going to get through the Holy Spirit all the glory for the fruit produced in our lives. We don't get any of the glory for it. We shouldn't seek any of the glory for it. Because only by the Holy Spirit can we actually display and manifest this fruit in our lives. It's only by His grace that we can do this. And I know we've said this before, but the first three fruits. I've preached through this passage before, at least once, maybe twice in the past. But this passage shows us the first three fruits have often been said to be God-ward fruits. Fruits unto God that we display in our relationship with God. It reminds us of even the 10 Commandments. The first four Commandments are God-ward Commandments. The final six are more so dealing with our relationship to our fellow man and how we are to relate to him. But this love we mentioned, love is the fulfilling of the law, right?

Love. This love is the opposite of what we used to be. Hateful, right? Hating one another. Hateful and hating one another. The love of Christ motivates us. Shouldn't motivate us to do all that we do. We do it because we love God and we love even our neighbor. We notice that there is, in this love, this is a sacrificial love. It's a self-impelling. Not a self-serving sort of love. Not lovers of our own selves, like the world is characterized by, but love of God. And we see this joy is a real happiness, a true happiness that transcends circumstances and feelings of a particular moment. It's not just living for a high and happy feeling, but it is a joy that is deeply rooted from knowing the Lord himself and knowing that he loves us and knowing that he's called us to be his. This joy will result in our lives in a rejoicing, a rejoicing in our speech. You remember our speech is not to be corrupting speech, it's to be edifying, right? And when we are joyful in the Lord, we can't help but rejoice in the Lord. It'll come out of our mouths. It will come out in what we say in our interactions.

I met someone in the post office this week. I think they had the joy of the Lord. As I was talking to them, you could see it on their face. You could hear it in their words. And we were in a long line in the post office because there was only one employee working in there. And most of the time, what are you going to be talking about when you're in a long line in the post office with one person waiting? Man, can't they get their act together? And they should get their act together. Maybe we could talk about something other than what is the very plain and obvious reality that we're all standing in here. Be joyful, right? Talk about the Lord. So we did. It was a very encouraging encounter.

This peace that we read of here in this text as well. We see this is the fruit of the Spirit, peace. This is a peace that passes all understanding. This is a peace that, whereas I was once in no peace, I was in unrest like the troubled sea, right? Now I have peace with God and therefore I have peace in my soul, knowing it is well with my soul. And I just rest in His promises, not rest on my own feelings, because the feelings come and they go. And they're deceiving. But I rest in the promises of God's Word, the truths of His Word. This is not a peace that the world gives. Jesus said, my peace, I leave with, I give unto you, I leave with you. Not as the world gives. Let not your heart be troubled. Don't be tossed around with trouble and fear. Rest in the Lord. Was that Him say, would you walk with the Lord and the light of His Word and have peace and contentment all the way? You must do a sweet will to be free from all ill. On the altar you're all, you must lay.

There's this fruit of long suffering that we read of here. We need long suffering one toward another. We said long suffering is the opposite of quick to get angry, right? Quick to impatience with one another. Long suffering. We tend to be swift to speak as we said the other week. Swift to wrath. But we're going to be slow to speak and slow to wrath. Swift to hear. Paul said in Ephesians chapter 4, let's look there briefly in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. With all lowliness and meekness. With long suffering forbearing one another in love. What is exhorting the Ephesians to do is to bear the fruit of the Spirit, isn't it? Because the next fruit here is gentleness and then after that we have, you know, goodness and faith and meekness that was mentioned here in this passage.

With this gentleness that we see of is a kindness and graciousness of Spirit. Not crabby, not harsh, not cutting. You know, we're even to be, let our moderation, the scripture tells us be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. That's the same idea of this gentleness in our approach. It's translated more times than gentleness, this translated goodness and kindness actually in the scriptures. This word is goodness and kindness. We sometimes say out of the kindness of his heart or her heart, out of the kindness of her heart. Well, just remember that every good gift comes from above. If there's any kindness in me, it's because of the Lord, right? If there's any kindness in me, it's because of the Lord living in me. Actually, our heart is not naturally so gentle and kind as this passage is clear.

What happens with life? You get roughed up a little bit and then you rough other people back up. You know, you might say that we become jaded, don't we? But with Christ we don't have to be jaded. We can be truly. In the midst of adversity, it's easy to be nice to people that are nice to you. That's what the world does, right? What are you more than the Gentiles? Jesus would say, if you love them that love you, I mean, what are you accomplishing? But when the trial hits, when the difficulty, when the adversity is there, when people aren't nice to you, are you still, are you still displaying the goodness and gentleness of the Lord in your life? Are you going to let him shine through? Or is that corrupt, ugly nature going to come out? That's the question. That is the question.

So we see this. We see this gentleness. We see this goodness. This goodness. There's no good thing in me, right? No good thing dwells in my flesh. But the steps of the good man are ordered by the Lord. We see also this faith when a man or woman trust in the Lord with all their heart, they become a trustworthy person. It can be said that a person who trusts in the Lord is a man or woman of integrity, of faithfulness, of fidelity. That's a truly faithful individual. But it's only because of our trust in the Lord that that can be the case.

Meekness here is mentioned. This mildness, this lowliness of mind toward the Lord and toward others as it relates to our Lord. We need to be teachable, moldable, meek, mild toward him. But also we need to be mild and meek towards our fellow man, toward our brothers and sisters in Christ, toward our neighbor, right? And this meekness is the opposite of even sudden anger as we saw last week, the thumos or even that long harbored anger, the orge wrath that we tend to store up and then eventually let it go on someone. Know this meekness is different. Long suffering is one aspect of that, but also meekness in our approach toward others. Our Lord is meek. Meekness is required in church leadership. The Scriptures tell us, meekness is required in women, a meek and quiet spirit, remember that? We have meekness, this commanded for us to show one to another in the body of Christ in Ephesians chapter 4. This is a lowliness of spirit. This is the kind of approach that we're to have one toward another. Where do this play meekness toward all men? The Scripture says, we're not to speak evil of any man to be no brawlers Paul told Titus. But gentle showing meekness unto all men. Wow, that's a high calling, isn't it? That doesn't come naturally to us. Show meekness toward all men? All men? Well, only by the Spirit, there's nothing good in us.

And then finally, temperance. We need this self-control, this temperance. Control over our own spirit. We don't want to be like that man mentioned in Proverbs where it says that he's like a man that has no control over his own spirit is like a city whose walls are broken down, right? A city without walls. May our lives not be like that. The Lord is the one that's able to build us up. The Lord is the one that's able to make us what we ought to be. But you know any fruit that we are bearing in our lives, we must give God the glory for it. We must, like I said last week, our lives are to point to him because we know the only possible because of the love he showed at Calvary and the fact that he's coming again. And in the meanwhile, we have the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit, not only with us, but he wants to control us. He wants to fill us. And we are called to walk in the Spirit so that we won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. We're no better than anybody else out there, but we have a Savior, a great Savior. We have a great salvation in Christ. And we need to live like we do. We need to bear the fruit.

You can have perfectly good ground. But if you don't grow anything in it, then how can people know how good the ground is, right? If you don't put something in there and let it grow, then you're not doing any better than if you didn't have any ground to grow anything in. And so may God help us to be filled. May we be desired to do His will because He commands us. Ephesians recommended, be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. If you're not filled with the Spirit, look what we saw about Solomon this morning. Because he drifted. And we're going to see more of it. But because he drifted away from God's purposes, he drifted into all kinds of trouble. And in our Christian lives, we must be prayerful, purposeful in our prayers. Lord, fill me with Your Spirit. Help me to be what I ought to be. What you have called me to be. God never gives commands. But He doesn't also accompany with grace to fulfill those commands.

Verse 16 in our text said, this I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Verse 18 says, if we are led, if we're led of the Spirit here in verse 18, we're not under the law's condemnation, right? There's no law against the fruit of the Spirit. So let's obey the Lord. Let's not bite and devour one another. Let's not be hateful. You know, this world, because iniquity is abounding, the love of many will wax cold, the Scripture says. People's hearts have been broken, can grow, and I think we're going to see hearts growing hard. May we not be hard. May we be filled with His love. May we be filled with the fruits of righteousness. May we be filled with the fruit of the Spirit. That's what we need right now.

If there's anything you can take away from what Charlie Kirk said, regardless of, you know, I know his wife, I believe his wife comes from a Roman Catholic background. I'm not giving a blanket endorsement of his Christianity or whatever the background there is. But he did say the name of Jesus Christ. He did talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we take anything away from it, he did say, I heard him say one time, that it's not about politics, it's about Jesus Christ. That's true. That statement is true. And that's what our lives need to be about. Our lives don't need to be about politics. We need to be about the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. That is the number one priority that we have as a Christian today. Our number one priority is not getting even with those who have done some wrongs against us. Scripture makes it very clear that that's not to be the priority of our lives, right? Sometimes the disciples had to flee to another city, okay? Getting even is, I don't see that anywhere in the Bible. I don't see that anywhere in the Bible. Father forgive them. I see that in the Bible. May we have the fruit of the Spirit. May we be conformed to the image of Christ and be what He would have us to be.

Let's pray. Gracious Father, thank you for this reminder from your word this morning that we were filled with lust. We were filled with hatred. We were filled with lies. We were filled with deception. And as a result of that, as we go deeper and deeper in sin, we have more and more sorrow and more and more fearfulness. But Lord, thank you that one day you got a hold of our heart and you opened our eyes to see our true condition and that there was hope for us individually. There's hope for me. There's hope that to not live the life of a hypocrite, even in a religious sinfulness, Lord, is so easy to do. But thank you for sending Christ. Thank you for the Holy Spirit that now lives within us. He's that blessed third member, third person of the Trinity, the Holy Trinity that the Scripture presents. And we pray that we would know the fruit in our lives that only he can bring. We know that there's no good thing in our flesh, nothing good that we can do in and of ourselves, but we're thankful that Jesus Christ, in every good we see in Him. And so we pray that that good would be reflected in our individual lives. We pray these things now and ask that you bless us as we sing this final hymn in Jesus' name. Amen.