All right Galatians chapter 5 let's see we got a crew of young people here with us this evening and We'll have some you guys ready for some sword drills. Maybe a little bit through this lesson All right, and we'll have a couple that I've intentionally not put on my screen. I finally catch up with These young ones are pretty sharp, and I don't know if any cheating was going on while I was involved in it. Actually, not trying to, but put it up on the screen and calling out the ones that are on the screen. So tonight, I think I'm set up for them. All right, Galatians chapter five, let's get into this. We're walking our way through the fruit of the spirit, and we have went through a revival, enjoyed that. And we'll get back in track here to finish up Galatians. But if you notice with me, Galatians chapter five, let's begin reading in verse 19. And he speaks of the works of the flesh. And he says, now the works of the flesh are manifest. Let me turn this on here for the media. We'll get you turned on here. Sorry about that. Verse 19, now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. He goes on in verse 21, envyings, murderers, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. of the witch 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. Verse 22, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we bow before you and we ask that you would meet with us tonight. I pray that your Holy Spirit would have his will in his way with the word that goes out. Be with me, fill me with your Holy Spirit. Father, I pray that we You would strike any thought or words that are contrary to what you once said or taught or preached, Father, tonight, that you'd be with us, meet with us. Those that are watching, give them a blessing. Those that are listening, I pray that you'd be with them as well. Just be with our services tonight. Bless those that have had faithfulness to come, and we thank you for that. Father, I know they've worked hard today. and put in a hard day's work. We pray that you just be with them, bless them around our word, your word tonight as we study it. And we ask these things in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, something to notice real quick in verse 22, when he says the fruit of the spirit, notice that the spirit is capitalized, it's personification, it's dealing with a person. All right, it's very important to note, maybe the Bible student will pick up or make a note of that. Sometimes in mine, I'll have those highlighted or underlined. And so it's good to note those little things that makes a big difference. Let me say by introduction, Webster, If you look, the word gentleness will be on gentleness, walking with gentleness. Webster defines gentleness as noble or generous and kind. And gentleness or kindness is the fruit that will make or break our Christian testimony. Gentleness is one of those for kindnesses, and society as a whole today, gentleness is hard to come by. In the church, however, gentleness should be something that is frequently named among us, named among Christians. And sad to say, sometimes that's not the testimony that can honestly be given to some Christians. But we should be given to a testimony of having some gentleness about us. So we're going to look at that tonight. Our first one you'll see up on is an illustration of gentleness. When you look at that, the Lord himself is the personification of gentleness. Now this first verse, the first verse, if I have a young people and it's not up there, so I'm ready for you. If you're ready, if you have your Bibles, get ready here. I'm going to give you this verse and we're all going to turn to it. Matter of fact, I'm going to give myself a head start, not to look bad. See, that's cheating. I know. I know, I don't even know where it's at. Let's see here, keep turning. Psalms chapter 117, verses one and two. Let's see if I can get there myself. 117, there's a verse here. When you get it, you can stand and read it. 117, 117 verses one and two. It's still in play there. If you don't want to read it, I'll happily read it for you. And if you want to read it, you sure can. You got it. The girls, Rebecca, would you like to read it? You want me to read it for you? All right, I'll read it for you. Verse one, it says, Oh, praise the Lord. "'All ye nations, praise Him, all ye people, "'for His merciful kindness is great towards us, "'and the truth of the Lord endureth forever. "'Praise ye the Lord.'" Man, that's a truth statement, and this begins, as we look at the Lord, there's gonna be two things I want to draw to about Jesus, or the Lord Himself is the character of Jesus. dealing with gentleness, the character of Jesus. Jesus did not have to die. He did not have to die. He voluntarily went to the cross. And I'm gonna go back now, we're in Psalms, I'm gonna go all the way back towards Revelation, looking at 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter two. And I keep turning around to see if I have it up there. I'm kind of, 1 Peter chapter two. and we're gonna read verses here, 21 through 24, and it says here, for even here unto where ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. Don't ever think for a moment that the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't the example or example for you and I to follow. Say, well, I would never, I can never obtain being exactly like Christ. That's not, that wasn't the reason why he has you follow him or want you to live like Christ. The goal is that's where you're, that's like the target. That's where you're headed, constantly headed towards and not to get sidetracked. I think Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 12 says, looking to the author and finisher of our faith, you want Jesus Christ in your sights. If you have a man, if you have a religion, if you have a denomination, if you have a church, If you have any other thing, you might have a family member in that site and, well, whatever they believe or whatever they say or whatever they're doing I'm going to do, it's going to let you down. It's gonna let a number of people down. But if you have Jesus Christ in your sights, he's the target, that's where you're moving to, he'll never let you down. And so he's that example. So let's finish reading here in 1 Peter chapter two, 1 Peter chapter two, and I'm looking at verse 21. So he says here, he says, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. Verse 22, who did no sin? Neither was guile found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. And so we see by this, let's read verse 24, who is his own self? who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. And so there's a lot there doctrinally dealing with your salvation and my salvation on what God does for you at the moment of salvation. But we're looking at the character of Jesus. He is definitely our example, and he's an example to you and I dealing with gentleness and kindness. So we see this, now let's look at the second part, the compassion of Jesus. We looked at his character in that verse, but look at the compassion of Jesus. We'll read a couple more now. There's two areas. In kindness, he offers salvation. Think about it. The Lord, he did not have to come and die, but he did, to offer a pardon for all of humanity that would receive him according to John 1 12. And I quote it quite often. It's a very powerful verse. Talks about receiving him, not just knowing about him or believing, but receiving him appropriately. And I'd use water. You gotta drink the water. You can say you got water, you need the water, the water's there for you, but until you drink it, until you take it in, until you take the Lord Jesus Christ into yourself, and that's through asking him, say, Jesus, would you save me? That simple. How about the thief on the cross? Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Say, well, man, he didn't do the one, two, three, repeat after me. No, it was the heart. It's always with the heart, with God, always will be. So here, dealing with this, in kindness, he offers salvation. I'm gonna have you go to Titus chapter three, Titus chapter three, and then we're gonna go to Ephesians. Titus chapter three. Notice with me verses four through seven, Titus chapter three and verse four, but after that, the kindness and love of God, our savior toward man appeared. See, when did that happen? Well, that happened in a couple of them. Number one, when he showed up as a baby in a manger, and then he appeared before all as the savior of the world. Now watch verse five, not by works of righteous righteousness, which we have done that that you'll hear that theme is, is clear through through the Bible, especially the New Testament dealing with our salvation, it that Christ would have not have to die on the cross if our righteousness, if we could do something, pay our way or do something to obtain that righteousness. The righteousness, you'll hear me say it again and again, is the Lord Jesus Christ, that's God's righteousness. And to get that, God says, you have to come through my son. And you've got every religion or every flavor, every color of religion out there. There's many of them that will tell you, you get that righteousness through doing this. You get that righteousness through doing this. You get that righteousness by not doing that. And by the way, you gotta be one of us to get that righteousness. They'll tell you all kinds of stuff, religion's good for that, and it damns souls to hell. That's why I'm not a universalist, that's why I'm not a non-denominationalist. There's a number of reasons why I'm not certain denom, because they believe that works, a works-based salvation. And you know I'm death on that, I get me caught up on that hobby horse, but here, he says in verse five, not by works of righteousness which we have done, But according, how is this? According to his mercy, he saved us. That's where it comes from. By the washing of regeneration and by renewing of the Holy Ghost, and that's what quickens you. Verse six, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that being justified by his grace, We should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. You say, what is he saying? He's talking about and he's explaining and he's teaching the kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's offering salvation and it's by way of kindness or gentleness that he gives us. It's by grace. An unmerited favor that we have. And so we see this. Now there's another one in Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two. Now, there will be several verses here, so when we get to it, I'll make sure, I'll try to note that out, so get ready. The girls are up on the boys tonight. All right, now I gotta pay attention. I might miss somebody, so help me out here, adults. If I miss somebody, be looking for the hands or somebody to stand up. All right, so we have this, we have the kindness, but there's something else here. Oh, let's add this to the kindness. Ephesians chapter two, look at verse seven here. It says that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Now watch verse 8, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. He tells you again, it's not going to be by something that we do or don't do. It is the gift of God. So this comes out even clearer to me in my mind as I look at it. He explains it's a gift, this salvation or this grace that we obtain our salvation and it's through the faith, that's the mode. Now watch verse nine, not of works. Now he comes out even further, pushes it even further. And to me, let me say this, and I'll get off the horse here in a minute. When you're reading verses that are this clear, and you're still you have an individual who's refusing that it has to be of works, or some other way or something, you know, you're not going to you're not going to get far with them. And that level of ignorance is special. And they're out there. to simply say it. So when you have somebody who is putting their faith, their trust in a workspace, and when I say workspace, I mean anything under the sun. You could be sitting here tonight in this pew knowing that we don't preach or teach this heresy, but you could be trusting in something that you've put your faith in. That's why I continue to consistently clearly teach or preach that it's not of works. You say, why do you keep saying that? Because there are still individuals who still have hesitance about a works versus done religion. That's why. You think, well, I don't believe that way. You'd be shocked at what you really believe when somebody kind of puts you in a corner and starts asking you questions. Like, what did you trust in when you got saved? When I say salvation, do you think of water baptism? When I say salvation, do you think of some experience that you had, some vision or dream? When I think of salvation or say salvation, what do you think of? Here's what I think of when I say salvation. I've asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart and save me because number one, I'm a sinner and I'm headed to hell and I know there's nothing I can do. That's my definition of salvation. That's the Bible's definition of salvation. Might not use those words exactly, but it's gonna have the same content. I trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior, plus or minus nothing. Doesn't matter what church I'm in, doesn't matter what I'm trusting in. There are a slew of people who believe many things, but the Bible is extremely clear. Let's go back to the verse. Verse eight, for by grace are ye saved through faith. And whose faith is that? Some people believe it's their faith. It's not your faith. It's the faith that God gives you to put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. You've gotta, that's the stuff. Now you could be saved and not know that and learn that, but as you're learning it, don't reject it, receive it, and it builds your faith, it builds your foundation on what Christ is saying here. You begin to rest in the scripture versus resting in maybe an experience or something you've been told or taught. And you can have been taught truth, you can have been taught right, I'm not saying it, but you can also be taught fallacy and wrongness. And this is what heats up the wording I use and why I come across it the way I do, because there's a lot of them out there that are good people, but they're all damn souls to hell just by adding something to salvation. Not of works, lest any man should boast, verse 10, for we are his workmanship. created unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." What happens after you get saved? God says, hey, now that you're saved, you've got salvation taken care of, now you don't sit on the pew, you don't sit at home. You go to work for God. You go to work for God. God has a purpose for you. It might be right where you're working at by the hour. It might be the business or businesses you're running. It might be a ministry God is calling you to or has you working in, or he's training you in one ministry and going to move you to another ministry. God's constantly working on you to strengthen you, encourage you, and go. And it's all by His kindness, all by His loving kindness through this fruit, gentleness that you and I should have. Let's get a little bit deeper. So we say in His kindness, He offers salvation. In His kindness, He leads us to repentance. And I have a verse on this, Romans. I am a preacher who believes in repentance. You cannot have salvation without repentance. And you'll find it through, you say, why do you, because it's in the Bible. That's why, that is why. Romans says, not because my daddy believes it. There'll be things that I happen to believe or hold to, but my father might not. But most of the times we're on the same page in the Bible, but it's the Bible. And my father would say, it will be the Bible. You need to trust the Bible. And it's important. When you guys say, no, you need to trust me. No, you need to trust the word of God and the Holy Spirit. All right, you need to be guided correctly. So watch this. His kindness leads us to repentance, Romans chapter two. Look at verse four with me. Romans chapter two and verse four. Romans chapter two and verse four. He says, or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering. not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." You say, how does that happen? Well, you put it in the form of a question because when your heart begins to mold itself around this ideal of God's goodness and graciousness, and then you see that you have lived a life that hasn't been pleasing to God, that hasn't been in the will of God, that hasn't been in the plan of God, and then you begin to realize that God has spared my life, he's kept me healthy, he's brought me to this point, and now my spiritual eyes begin to open up and I see that the goodness of God, I'm not despising it, or his forbearance or his long suffering that this verse speaks of, is dealing that it leads you to begin to repent, to turn to God away from the things that you're doing. At some point in your life, at salvation, I would say, you advocate the throne of authority of your life, and God sets on the throne of your life. That's the surrender that takes place, dealing with repentance. Look at where you're at, where you come from, and you're turning to God. The Bible speaks of it in Thessalonians. It just simply comes out that they turn to God from their idols. And so that's a good working definition to repentance. And it says here that it says the goodness of God leadeth thee to, say it with me, repentance. And repentance can take place even after you're saved. Not salvation repentance, you've already been there, but you could be walking away from God and then realize, I've been walking away from God, my heart is cold on God. I've got more anger than I have gentleness. I've got more bitterness than I have long suffering. I've got more hatred or envy or just something's not right, rather than the love and joy and peace of God. And then you begin to ponder, God's still gracious with you, he hadn't struck you dead. He hasn't done that, you're still living, you're still healthy. And then you begin to see that the goodness of God and it leads you to a point of repentance and turning back to God. That's that relationship. And so here his kindness leads us to repentance. And so we see an illustration of gentleness. Let's move on and see if I can get this thing to work. Again, so secondly, we're going to see here, and I've gotta find another verse for these young people here. I'll tell you what, I've got one. While we're here in Romans, before we get into point number two on infusion of gentleness, you're ready to go. Here we go, here's your next point for the kids. And so if you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Romans chapter 10, verse nine. Romans chapter 10 and verse nine. And when you got it, you stand, and if you don't wanna read it, I can happily read it for you. Or you can read it. Okay, girls again. Got it. Man, she's in light here. Do you want to read it? Do you want me to read it for you? All right, we'll read it. We can read it together if you want. See Romans chapter 10 in verse nine, he says that, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And I'm gonna read verse 10, because it clarifies just if you have questions. He says, for with the heart, for with the heart, it didn't say words. It didn't say a lot of stuff, but it said the heart. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. You say, what salvation is that? That's a soul-saving salvation. If you read the context, that's what's going on. So let's get into an infusion of gentleness. Let me say this before we get into our verses, and I'm gonna turn you to Philippians chapter two, if you wanna turn over there. I wanna say this. We are, of course, grateful for the gentleness of God. We enjoyed every day, you and I both enjoyed it today. But the Holy Spirit wants to infuse his gentleness into our lives as well. Now the Holy Spirit has a work, but there's something unique about what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is number one, right off the bat, you learn something about it if you do gnomatology, deal with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is he never shows or bears witness of himself in the fact he draws attention to himself. The Holy Spirit, the real Holy Spirit, always draws attention to who? The Lord Jesus Christ. So if you got around somebody who's dealing with the Holy Spirit, and that's all they wanna talk about is the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit's a beautiful thing, and he's part of the Trinity, but he'll always point you to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it says, the Bible says, he does not draw attention to himself. And so it's important, but watch what he does. One of the works he does, it's important to realize what he does. It says, we're gonna look at, let's look at three things here, through sensitivity. Now watch, no matter how many scriptures we may have memorized, or how many convictions we have in our life, we do not have kindness. If we don't have kindness, none of these things matter. As a Christian, Or as Christians, we must be sensitive to the needs of others. You can have every T crossed, every I dotted. You could look the way you're supposed to look. You can act the way you're supposed to look in the sense of how you're acting in front of people. But when it comes to the sensitivity of somebody's need, where is that sensitivity? Is it cold? Is it hard? Is it calloused? Is it like stone? Is it like ice? Where's your sensitivity level for other people's needs, one to 10? I'm just worried about my own, my own self. Well, we get selfish real quick. Say, yeah, but I love God, I do too. But we easily walk down the road of being non-sensitive towards other people's needs, all right? It's just there, that's why, let's look at Philippians. If you found your place, Philippians chapter two, notice with me verses four. Philippians chapter two, get in the right place here, verses four and five, it says, look not every man on his own things. Kind of what I just said. And the Bible's gonna teach us this, but every man also on the things of others. Verse five, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. This mindset, if you please this kindness, this sensitivity was in Christ. Now let me do a flip side on you. I've been around good Christian people that wouldn't lift a finger for their family, but would walk the seventh mile for somebody else. Flip side. You say, what's wrong with that? Well, they're not getting glory in their family. It's just the family, their family. They're kind of used to that, but they'll go to the ends of the earth to do something to somebody else, because glory or something in it for man. Be careful. The sensitivity should be spread abroad in anything that you do, any individual that you have. The Bible says this, and I like the phrase, and I've used it before, especially of the household of faith. That's your saved brothers and sisters. That's what it's speaking of. All right, so this gentleness through sensitivity. We see in Philippians chapter two, verses four and verses five, it was in Christ. And I like this, I caught this illustration and I fit this illustration very well. And it says, it goes like this. A man once said to his friend, few things upset my wife. It makes me feel rather special to be one of them. And that's the truth. You know, sometimes we're just not sensitive to the right people at the right time. And so it could be you tonight. I fit that pretty good. I thought that was funny. Kind of funny. Might not be too funny. Now let's move on. We got two more points here under this in infusion of gentleness through sympathy. So we see through sensitivity, but through sympathy. Now let's look at some verses here. Let's go back to Romans. We have Romans up there, we do. Kids, pay attention. I had you one, okay, we'll pick another one here. Girls or two? Romans chapter 12. Now we have used Romans chapter 12 quite a bit. Romans chapter 12 is a powerful verse, and it's on the tail end of an argument, a three-chapter argument from 9, 10, 11, and then you got chapter 12, some conclusion here. Now watch this. At Romans chapter 12, look at verse 15. He says this, rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. You say, what are you saying? I'm speaking of sympathy. Having sympathy, you can put it in as even a little bit closer or more empathy towards one another. There'll be times when you will see a brother or sister cry, cry about something. that's heavy on their heart situation or whatever have you, and will cause you to be sensitive in that area. You say, well, I don't like doing that. The Bible says that's healthy. That speaks of what we're dealing with here. We should have sympathy towards our brethren and sister, and the lost, and the lost. All right, 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy, take a look at this one, 2 Timothy. It's Timothy's or past Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 24. This is a pastoral epistle. And so he says here in verse 24, and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men apt to teach. And he says the word there, what's that word? Patient. And then he goes on, he develops it. Verse 25, in meekness, instructing those that Say it with me, oppose themselves. If God pre-eventually will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. Sometimes you'll have individuals that you'll have to work with, I call it managing, and you'll find that their life consists of themselves and only themselves. And their world, their bubble is all about them. And when you can spend about five minutes, less than five minutes with somebody and what they talk about generally will tell you where their mind and heart's at. And if it's all about them, not about others, not things or ideals, you know you have a person who's heavily concentrated in thinking, imagination on where they're at and what they're doing. And so here, it'll be an individual who will eventually, it'll be hard. Life will be hard. Troubles will be harder because they oppose themselves because it's all about themselves. You need to interject, number one, Christ into that crisis. Number two, you need to interject others into that crisis and the word of God into that, pump that in, and it will balance the situation out. So we see here, sympathy is important. And we use these verses now, he says here, Verse 26 is good, it goes with it. He goes on to say about this type of individual, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. Satan will always get you sidetracked off of the things of God and others. All right, let's look at spontaneity. Through spontaneity, Galatians chapter six. We were right there, Galatians chapter six. We're looking at actually Galatians chapter 5, but look at Galatians chapter 6, notice with me verse number 10, and he says this, as we have therefore opportunity, let us do, what's it say there? Good, unto all men, especially unto them who are of, say it with me, the Household of faith. Who's that? That's you and I. That's the brethren and sister and that make up the body of Christ. And we see here that it should be through spontaneity. You can look at the first part as we have there for opportunity. Sometimes you can create that opportunity, pray about it. God will create that opportunity for you or that opportunity will just come in your day to day walk with God, your work, wherever you're at. Sometimes he opens that up. It's a beautiful thing when that happens. The Holy Spirit has you to do something. And man, if you're in self-world, if you're dealing with and trying to manage your own problems, you'll miss the opportunity that God sends your way every time. And then simply totally be upset with God. You're like, you're missing it. I've used this before. I liked it. It's about the guy that, you know, he was down south and he got himself in one of those storms, hurricanes, and he wanted help. He wanted somebody to save him. And a boat come by, and they tried to rescue him. He says, no, no, I'm waiting on God. I'm praying. God's going to save me. It's like, OK. So they took on off. And then the water kept getting higher and higher. He got up on his roof, and he's writing SOS on his roof. And here come another boat. And he's hollering back at him, no, God's going to save me. It's all right. Go get somebody else. You're fine. God's got me. I know what God's told me. And pretty soon, there were no boats, it's a helicopter. Helicopter, they're dropping down the ladder. Get on, get on board. He's like, I'm telling you, God. Well, he doesn't make it. He refuses the helicopter and he drowns. He gets up there and he's upset with God and he's, God, what was going on? I put my faith and trust in you. I thought you were gonna save me. He said, I sent two boats and a helicopter. What more do you want? And so that's where people get in the life that we live, God's there. We just don't like the color boat that he has for us or the size of it or whatever have you. But it's there. God's there. We just sometimes we're in self self mode and we miss we miss what we're supposed to see. All right. Thirdly an influence with gentleness and we're going to go to let me activate this and we'll turn here. All right. I think I can do this one. Oh yes kids you're ready. Get your Bibles out. The girls are stomping the boys tonight, and Rebecca is on top of it. All right, Miss Rebecca, here we go. Ephesians chapter 5, Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18. All right, Miss Rebecca, you got it. You want to try to read this one? Now, all right, let's see here. 518, very good. So the girls got this one. He says, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. And is that S, it's capitalized. So he's dealing with what spirit? He's dealing with the Holy Spirit, the person, the personage of the Holy Spirit. And he says, look, like you're filled with an excess of wine, we should be filled with the Holy Spirit. We run on empty a lot of times. And the Bible tells us we can stay on full the whole time. But guess who gets in the way? Self. And Satan will see to it. You have help, by the way. I lay all the blame here. Generally, the biggest problem is going to be yourself. The second problem you're gonna have is Satan because he influences, deceives, and he's deceptive. And the third, you walk in because you have a job, you communicate, it's our mode, and it's the world. It's society as a whole. The society is the group or people that do not, they're not Christians, and they'll profess they're not Christians. You probably work around a few. I know I have in my past life. And you go to the grocery store with him, you go everywhere with him. Don't ever think you're going to rid yourself of him. Okay, but you still need to be separated from him in the sense that you're a child of God, you're an ambassador, and here he's bringing this out, and we're to be empowered by the Spirit, and this is what this verse is saying. How do I get empowered? You have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So I thought I got that when I got saved. You were sealed, sealed unto the day of redemption. The filling of the Holy Spirit, yeah, he got you, but have you taken all of the Holy Spirit in yourself? That means yielding to him, that means following him, that means praying, reading your Bible, and you have a life and a mindset and a heart set to please God. That's the empowering of the Holy Spirit, all right? So we see, we can do this a number of different ways. I just had, I have, I think I have three here, in our homes. A lot of times Christians, Pharisaical Christians, They're great for not in the home, but they're great for out in front of people. They have it down. And they'll fool a lot of the people. And that's basically what's going on. God doesn't want us to be that type of Christian. That's pretty much easy to do. And you can fool a lot of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time. And so we need to start in our homes. Second is our community, and I wanna give you some verses on this. I'm winding down, I got about three, four more minutes. Turn to Colossians chapter three. I think it's up on the board there. Colossians chapter three, verse 12. Dealing with the Holy Spirit and getting more of the Holy Spirit into your life. What I mean by that, I'm talking about your relationship I'm not talking about salvation. I'm talking about your daily Christian walk with Christ. That's like a relationship with your wife or with your husband, a relationship with your child, a relationship with your boss, a relationship with your employee, whatever. It's a relationship. That goes up and down. And when it's good, I like any relationship that when it's running and going well, I like that. Everybody does. But sometimes those relationships don't go always very well. Something to be said, generally it's a lack in something. Either a lack of communication is generally the first breakdown. And you begin not to speak or talk or communicate, and then it gets a little cold. Then somebody will say something, you'll be a little stressed, or they'll be a little stressed, and then it goes downhill from there. You guys are going to be like, what? That never happens. That happens. That happens all the time. Here, let's look at this. So let's get back to the Holy Spirit just for a second here in our community I'm going to deal with. But I want you to see this verse, two verses here. Verse 12, now Colossians chapter 3, verse 12. What's the first two words there? Put on. Now, God's not doing that for you. The Holy Spirit's not doing that for you. Mama's not, Papa's not doing it, your wife, your husband. It's you, put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bows of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering. It says all that, it keeps going. Watch verse 13, forbearing one another. You mean I have to forbear somebody I don't like? Yes, yes, yes you do. And forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you. How much forgiveness did Christ forgive you? A lot. All of it. If you confess it, he'll forgive it. All of it. He's faithful and just in that area, that doctrine, if you please. He's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And he says here in verse 13, he says, even as Christ forgave you, so also do, say it with me, do ye. Wow. And then he goes on and above all these, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. Nobody's exempt from working out of a mode of love. I know we like to shovel that off to the officers and the leaders and stuff like that. All of us are included in this. All of this are part of this. So in our community, an unkind spirit in our church toward our community and community leaders will turn people away from the message of Christ. You don't believe me? I'll tell you, I can give you books. I can give you firsthand accounts. And so it's very important to be a good testimony in the community. Almost, you try to want to have a good testimony. Now, two areas. To those who oppose us. So I think we should love the people that really are for us and support our church in what we do. No, it's gonna be to those who oppose us as well. Okay, secondly, to those who are in need. not to those that don't need nothing, but it'll be to those who are in need, is who we should have some empathy for. Okay, so we have in our homes, we have in our community and in our church, when we think of how Jesus forgave us, we are encouraged and empowered to show kindness to others around us. Ephesians 4.30, let's look at this and we'll be done. Galatians Ephesians chapter four, four verse 30. He says this, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. That's a very powerful verse. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you in all malice. You say, but well, I'm already sealed by the Holy Spirit. It shouldn't matter. Missing the point. That's a private interpretation, by the way. That's an ignorant interpretation of Scripture, by the way. And that's not what he's saying. He's saying, look, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Now act like it. And you've got some work to do here not to get saved, not to stay saved. That's what we're dealing with. That's been taken care of, but because you're an ambassador and a testimony, you want to make sure that you maintain this. And he tells you how. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Verse 32, and be ye kind one to another. It says that? Yeah, it does. Many places. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Is that, did I, that's like deja vu. We just read that again in another place. Even as God for Christ's sake hath for, what's he keep going back to? He's gonna nail the point home. Just like God forgive you and he forgives me and he forgives the sins of the whole world if they want it, whosoever, that's how freely we should be willing to forgive. No, it's not that easy. I didn't say it was easy and you won't ever find it that it's easy. It's a command. It's a command. And so here we see, he said, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. And so in our church, it's important. Let me say this and listen carefully. Gentleness will not come to us through perseverance or determination. A lot of Christians want to work at this gentleness and the fruit of the spirit through something they do. It will only come as we walk in the spirit and produce his fruit. That fruit is manifested and developed in you through the Holy Spirit. That's how it comes. And you have to allow it. It is governed by how much you want of it. And that's why, and you say, well, I don't know if I believe, I don't know if I kind of land there on it. That's why you have Christians who some are very nice and some are not very nice. Some are very kind and some are not very kind. It's because it's self-imposing. The fruit of the Spirit, we should all manifest it and have that unity, but if you've lived any somewhat at all around a Christian or Christians, you'll know that that's not the case. And you say, what is it? Well, that's why we all will one day face that judgment seat. That child of God stands before God, not for the sins he's done, but his conduct and how he's lived or lived for Christ. And God begins to mete out that wood, hay, and stubble. gold, silver, or precious stone. And so tonight, hopefully it's been a blessing. Hopefully I got to the third point, I did. And the girls won soundly tonight. Miss Rebecca pulled you guys back out. So the boys won one night, I think, and the girls have won two. And so the girls are up. I don't know, this is building maybe to maybe a party or something, maybe some refreshments. We'll see, we'll see if we get to the end of this lesson or study. All right, let's all stand up. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for your time. I'm over a little bit. But pray for one another, pray for our prayer petition. And we will have a song, an invitation if you want to pray or do business with God, you're more than welcome to. But pray for one another. The prayer works and we want to encourage each and every one of us to pray, to pray more than we do. Tonight, you've heard just a little lesson, simple lesson on gentleness. We all can be more like Christ. And that's the goal of manifesting that fruit. You say, well, what does it do for me? Well, you probably want to rethink that. It should be more kind of the question should run through the mind and heart. Well, what does it do for God if I do manifest this fruit? the Lord and Savior that you love and He loves you, He gets the glory and honor out of the fruit that's manifested in your life. I guess I could ask it this way. Can we see fruit? Can we see the fruit of the Spirit in your life today? If you had somebody that was maybe a third party and just looked at your life and said, yeah, they manifest love. They manifest joy. They manifest peace. And they definitely manifest gentleness. Could that be said of you tonight as a Christian? Brother Jeff, what are we seeing? 276. 276. Let's sing.