All right, Galatians chapter number five. You know how we preach through those fruits of the spirit? And we said, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, all that. And then before that, we saw all the works of the flesh and went through all those works of the flesh. We did two opposing messages. You know what happens to somebody that's poor and They're unsaved, and they're a drunk, and they're a fornicator, and they're just full of anger, and then they become rich. It just makes them more of a drunk, more of a fornicator, and just more angry. It just fuels who they are. And you know what a poor person that's saved, and has goodness and gentleness and joy, and then they become rich. You know what they become? Oh man, more money to give the missions. Man, more money to give them a local church. Man, more money to help people. Man, more money to get the gospel out. Money, all it does is make you more of what you already are. And these works of the flesh and this fruit of the spirit, if you're in Christ, you're a new creature. Who you are, these fruits now should magnify as you grow in grace. You do what you do because of who you are. If you're lost, or if you're speaking to a lost person, if you're not lost, Don't be surprised that they do what they do. Don't be surprised that they curse you out. Don't be surprised that they're a drunk. Don't be surprised that they're a fornicator. They do what they do because of who they are. But you, if you're saved, you do what you do because of who you are. And these works of the flesh should not be magnified in your life. What you do isn't most important. Who you are is most important. So my first question for you this morning is, who are you? Are you in Christ? Are you a new creature? If you are, you have the fruit of the spirit. Now when we preach on fruit of the spirit, one of the things that drew out to me as I was studying for this week's message is, do you notice that, look at verse number 19, you see works as plural? works of the flesh. Now look at verse number 22. It doesn't say fruits of the spirit, which I thought was odd because there's nine of them. Shouldn't it be a plural? And then I got to thinking it's fruit because it's fruit singular. It's a package deal. In other words, all of it is yours. It's a package deal. This fruit, it's not like you got three, and you've got seven, and you've got two, and I've got five, and we just divide them all up, and we all get together, we'll make sure we got all nine. No, you and I, we have this package deal. All nine of these, we have them. So I thought that to be interesting, and when you walk in the spirit, Well, okay, let's look at the first one. Let's look at joy. The extent of expression of your joy might be different than my extent of expression and my joy. But we both have, if we're saved, the same fruit of the spirit, joy. How does the expression become magnified? You've got to walk in the spirit. Have you ever seen a Christian and you wondered to yourself, how can that person be a Christian? They're not really joyful. Have you ever thought that? Well, they have the same fruit you do. It just hasn't magnified itself as well as it has in your life. It doesn't mean they don't have it. It's just that it's not being brought forth in its full expression. This is why fruit has to ripen. When you go to the grocery store and get fruit, you don't take it home and eat it right away. You let the full maturation of that fruit happen, and you let it ripen up, and then you can enjoy it. It's the full expression of that fruit as it gets ripened. Same idea with the born-again Christian. Our fruit is there. We have to mature. We'll have a greater capacity to express that. You have babes in Christ, and they're fed with milk. But when they come in, they have a basket full of all nine of those fruits that we just listed. The mature Christian comes in with the same fruit. They're not a better Christian, quote unquote, or they're not a more spiritual Christian, quote unquote, because they've got 19 fruit in their basket. And this babe who's only been fed with milk has nine. No. The babe and the mature Christian, they both have the same fruit. One has been brought to a full maturation, and that expression you can see more beautifully. What's wrong with the babe in Christ? Nothing. They just have to grow in grace, and they have to allow, we've talked about it before, making that mind, that mind has to be so influenced by the spirit, that it will walk in that spirit, and then you'll see the, We don't see much of it here, but we used to make snowballs in the Northeast as kids, and it was packing snow. That means it stayed together. And you roll it, and it gets a little bigger, and you roll it some more, and it gets a little bigger. And when you keep rolling it, you know what you can't do? You can't lift it up. You have to use that one as the bottom part of the snowman, because you can't lift it. and dad's at work, and so mom can't lift it, so you just leave it there. How did it get that way from that little ball? You keep rolling it, and it gains more, and it's the same thing with the fruit. It might look small, but if you keep walking in the spirit, it'll just keep rolling, and it'll get bigger, and it'll fully express itself, and that's the idea. I want you to grow and ripen in grace. I want to grow and I want to ripen in grace. You don't get more fruit. You have the same nine that a babe in Christ has. But the idea is to go for a fuller, riper, richer experience. You don't need a Tony Robbins seminar. You don't need a Dale Carnegie course. You don't need new age advice from Deepak Chopra or any of these, you know, self-help, look within. Let your conscience be your guide and some fairy whirl around with a wand, you know, Peter Pan and all that. You don't need that. You don't need that. You have the fruit of the spirit. You don't need any of that new age stuff. You've got Jesus Christ. You can have the full expression of the fruit if you would just tap into what God gave you. But we want to go and sign up for this course and sign up for that course and try to get this seminar and that seminar. Maybe you ought to just make use of the stuff that God gave you. You know what a good parent does? You know what a good parent tells their child? This is what we have. This is what we're going to get by with. And this is what we're going to use. You know what the Christian has in our heavenly father is saying, look, you got everything you need. Matter of fact. It's not that you can even get by with it is you can live a rich, fulfilled, ripen life. If you tap into this fruit, you don't need anything else not for right living. You got it Galatians 2 20. We all know this verse. I am crucified with christ. Nevertheless, I Live yet not I but christ liveth in me And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of god who loved me and gave himself for me Our flesh should be crucified with Christ. Look what it says. We got this harvest of fruit that's been produced by the Holy Spirit, so we're walking in the Spirit. And now look at verse number 24 in Galatians 5. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. It says have crucified. meaning you need to regard it as God regards it, as a fact, have crucified. But God, it has passions. But God, it has loss. I know. And all that should stand crucified because you've got the fruit of the spirit. All that should stand crucified because you're crucified with Christ. In God's eyes, when he looks down at you, it's a fact to him. It's a total fact. Get Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6, verse number 6. We'll start at verse five in the beginning of the sentence. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. You are not, if you're saved, you are not in Adam anymore, you're in Christ. And this idea, well, I'm gonna come to church on Sunday at 10, I'm gonna come to church at Sunday at 11, and all of a sudden, I'm gonna get a B12 shot from the preacher, and then I'm gonna be able to live my life. No, you're not. That's gonna last until about six o'clock. And then somebody's gonna come and wear you out. And you ain't calling me up, because I'm worn out, too, by somebody at six o'clock. When we do that, when all of us do that, because we all do, in one way or another, We lose, we have faulty thinking. We lose the idea or the fact that, look, God told you your flesh is crucified, gave you the fruit of the spirit. You've got to tap into that. You can't allow another Christian. Look, I get motivated when you come. You get motivated when I come. We all get motivated when the kids come up and do their verses. Isn't it great? Isn't it wonderful? It makes me want to do more for God when I see that and hear that. But if that's all I've got, I'm not going to make it very far. I want that. But what we all need is to tap into this idea that we've got the proof, let it mature, and let's not let our flesh wear us out. Christ's death became your death. Your sin has been paid for. And everything that you were in Adam is now crucified. And you have an improved position. You know where that position is? In heavenly places in Christ Jesus, not in Adam. Somebody says, well. These Christians that jump in this boat, and then they start sailing down this sea of sorrow. And then some of them start sailing backwards. They just love to go back into the misery at the depth of their sin. If you've been saved by Christ, stop going to God and saying, or stop going in your own mind, or stop talking to yourself and saying, oh God, I'm a drunk. No, you were a drunk when you were in Adam. Now you're in Christ. It doesn't matter if the woman was a harlot. It doesn't matter if the man was a drunkard. It doesn't matter what you were involved with. If you were a thief, it doesn't matter. What matters is if you've come to Christ, you're in Christ. Those things have passed away. Stop going back and reliving the junk. I thought that wasn't who you were anymore. And if you're here this morning and you're not saved, then Get saved. Today would be a great day. You say, well, I'm not a fornicator. I've not killed anybody. I've not. Have you ever had a bad thought in your heart? God counts that as murder. Have you ever disobeyed your parents? God counts that as sin, as iniquity. And you can be saved from that sin if you put your faith in Jesus Christ. Get out of the old dirty Adamic nature that's in Adam and get in Heavenly places get in Jesus Christ Salvation is simple that even a child can understand it. You're a sinner You need a Savior. You can't save yourself No self-help guru can save you Your parents can't save you, the preacher can't save you. Oh, I go to church, big deal, it can't save you. But God can, because he sent his son to be the perfect sacrifice. And he obeyed his parents, even though he knew more than his parents. Imagine that. How many of you kids here this morning think you know more than your parents? All put your hand up, because you all do. Well, just be like Jesus and obey them. OK? At all points, he's perfect, sinless. And he paid your sin debt on that cross so that your sins can be forgiven. I know you want to be a cute little snuggled marshmallow to mom and dad, but you're a sinner. You're a sinner. You're a cute little sinner. And you need to have your sin paid for. And it can be paid for because Jesus made a way for everyone to be saved. But they have to come to God on God's terms. You can't come on your own terms. Gotta be God's terms. Is your flesh alive and well? Then it will lust, because the flesh lusteth against the spirit. The Bible says in Colossians 3 10 and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Are you a new man? Are you a new woman? Then you have what you need to crucify your flesh. I know that the war will wage, Ephesians 4, that you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust. That's what we would expect of the old you. How many of you have ever gotten together with some friends, I've done this, you haven't seen them for a couple of years or maybe a decade, and they're wondering where the old you went. Why are you talking about different stuff? Why are you acting different? Why aren't you ordering liquor anymore? Why aren't you singing those old songs anymore? Why are you nice now? Well, I'm a Christian. I got saved. I got born again. Oh, really? Well, what's that all about? Let me tell you what Jesus did for me. You know, your testimony is one of the most powerful things that you can say to somebody, especially an old friend when you witness to them. Number one, they can't take that away from you. That's your testimony. People say, I don't know how, I just wouldn't know what to say to somebody about how to be saved. Well, that's easy. Just tell them how you got saved. And if you got saved based on the Bible, it's going to be the right way of salvation that they'll hear. And you know what? You can get better off of that. Testimony. You were this old creature. Now you're this new creature. You're renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. I was talking to Brother Kelly this morning. He went to a church, somebody in his extended family at an event. He went and they have a traditional service. Sounds pretty nice. And then they have a fog service. They put this out there. It's a fog service where you can go. They'll have fog lights, fog lights. How in the world are we going to compete with that? With pizza? And those fog lights are gonna be pizza every time, man. You're gonna need a lot of pizza to outdo that. Okay, so we bring in pizza. And they had, he told me they had the sound system was like, it was like Hollywood sound production. Microphones and equipment. How are we gonna compete with that? More pizza or Chick-fil-A? I mean, what are you gonna do? There goes Chick-fil-A, closed on Sunday. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I have a hard time, I have a hard time with that. But I can tell you this, what we sung this morning, little is much when God is in it. You want God in it? I want God in it. I want God in it. There is no way, we don't have the money, the resources for the fog machines, the lights, the cameras, all of that. I don't want a fog machine. I got the Word of God. Well, that's not good enough. Too bad. God's in what we're doing. You can have your fog machine. You can have your smoke machine. You can have your dancing girls. You can have your rock music. You can have all the worldly stuff. You can bring in Pretzels the Clown and have a big to-do on Sunday. You can have all your people drink that Kool-Aid. I'm sticking with God's word. And you know what you're gonna come when you come to Pilgrim Baptist Church? You're gonna have some tech student talk to you about Jesus Christ. You're gonna have some senior citizen that has lived his life, loved God, teach you the Bible, and you're gonna have some crazy preacher. Yes, a mean, narrow-minded, legalistic preacher tell you to love God and live for Him. You don't need drugs, you don't need liquor, you don't need dancing girls, you don't need dancing boys. You need the Word of God. You need the Word of God to get in your heart so you can go out and live a life that's honorable to God. That's why it says righteousness. I wanna be right. Get God's imputed righteousness. I want to live a holy life. What's wrong with holiness? nothing according to God. You know what's wrong with holiness according to these modern mega churches? The preacher ain't holy and the people that go there ain't holy. They're full of the devil and they're filled with worldly lust and their flesh controls their passion. We can fill this church if we fill it with worldly lust. Pizza parties, pretzels to clown, dancing, all this and that and the fog and the smoke and all of it. And I'll go home miserable every Sunday. Because I've done a lot of things successful in my life. And I'm not about to take on the most important thing that I've ever done and dumb it down to entertainment and bill it as, yeah, this is for God. No, it's not. It's for you. And because you're scared to death to tell somebody that God loves them so much that he died for their sin, you would rather than come in and live an unrighteous life and preach sermons that have nothing to do with holiness and just let the thing lie. It's disgusting to God. It's disgusting to God what this modern mega-American church has turned into. It's filthiness. And as an American Christian, I know I'm a Christian, and we're all in the body of Christ, I get all that, but as an American Christian, I'm sick to death over it. And if we're gonna get back to God as a nation, The preachers need to start preaching holiness, righteousness, God's standard, and the Bible. And little is much when God is in it. And you kids, you remember, yeah, the preacher's this, the preacher's that. I want you to live for God. And you're only gonna live for God if you fall in love with this author of this book. And you know how you're not going to live for God? If you fall in love with you and your flesh and what your flesh wants. Kind of how like when you fight with brother and sister. No, it's my toy. No, it's my toy. You're in love with you. And I want you to fall in love with the author of the Bible. He created you and he has a better way for you. And righteousness is a good clean word. Holiness is a good Clean words and that's how Christians ought to live Second Corinthians 5 let's get that second Corinthians 5 Our flesh should be crucified and God he made a ways that your flesh will stop making contributions to yourself 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 very familiar passage. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature Old things are passed away behold. All things are become new man You I start going as you start getting a little bit older and I still think I'm pretty young though Until I try to read And then I can't read so and it just it's like it becomes a new a new page and It's how are you viewing life from the old lens or from the new lens? You're a new creature in Christ. Whoa, man, I can live my life different now. That's great. That's like putting on a new set of lookers. Old things have passed away. Your flesh stands crucified and you don't need to be controlled by your flesh. You need a temperature check. How do you check your temperature? We can't go anywhere now without, you know, someone's been inoculated with the Fauci flu doctrine, where you gotta get everybody, gotta take everybody's temperature, which depending on where you hold it on their body, it's gonna come up different anyway. But anyway, how do we as Christians get our temperature checked to make sure that we can see where we're at? In Galatians 5. Are the works of the flesh really, really hot? Is it like 104 fever? You better get that flesh crucified. Or is the fruit of the spirit, man, is that peaking at 104? Yeah, keep that up. And results will come. That's what God wants. If you look at Galatians 5 in verse 25, this'll be the last verse. If we live in the spirit, See that if? That's assuming that it's true. We live in the spirit. Then, it's this if then idea, let us also walk in the spirit. This is why Romans two said the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That's where true life comes from. People say, well, why don't you get a life? Well, I've got eternal life. How about you? Well, I'm good. Not according to God, you're not. You know, you've been faking out your girlfriend for some time, but she's going to, Pretty soon, she's gonna realize you're no good too. You're better off just forgetting this idea that you're good and getting in Christ. Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. You don't have to look anywhere else. We got the spirit of life, we live in the spirit, we walk in the spirit, it's taken care of. It's 100% supplied by God. And I know this is gonna sound, People say well, I don't know if that is enough to sustain me It's like we need something else Believe me Nobody wants people here more than I do Okay, we're a new church. We're growing so Kids Nobody wants more kids here than you do why because you're kids is fellowship important. Yes And you know, we have our fellowship coming up, you know what makes the fellowship Not me and my wife eating animal crackers and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together. Although that'd be nice to just have some quiet to do that, but But but you know what makes the fellowship the fellowship not me and my wife just looking at each other like It's the brothers and sisters in Christ and our family, our church family, coming together and fellowshipping. It's not two fellows in a ship don't rock the boat. No, it's the church. It's the church. It's Christ's body coming together and just loving on each other. You'll make it. You'll make it something. Now, with all that said, You know how lonely Paul was in Athens? Yeah. He did a great work for God. One of you men wouldn't want to be a Paul, right? He didn't have much fellowship, but he had tapped into the fruit of the spirit. Small, big, a lot of fellowship, little fellowship, no friends, a little friends, a lot of friends, annoying friends, great friends, whatever it is, none of those circumstances should fully sustain you. You've got the fruit of the spirit. I'm not using that as an excuse to say, well, let's just say small and not have anybody come. No, what I'm saying is we need to be careful that our circumstances don't determine whether or not we live full out for God. You know, if nobody comes on a Sunday morning, we had one guy visit and he, after the message, he said, you know, can I talk to you? Yeah, sure. He said, there's like nobody here. Yeah, I know. He goes, you're preaching like there's a bunch of people. I've never seen anybody do that. Your energy and your excitement and your enthusiasm is so great. I said, oh, well, praise the Lord. I hope you got something out of the message. He goes, you know what you need? Then I'm thinking, oh boy, what do I need? You know what you need? And he looks up toward the pulpit and he said, drums. You need to stir the people's emotions. I have a hard time stirring my wife's emotions and my kids' emotions. I'm so mean and grumpy at times. But look, if a drum set is gonna be the key to bringing people, then I'm sticking with God's word. And if it's one people or five people or ten people or no people, I'm going to preach the Bible. And it doesn't matter if Yankee Stadium is full or we're just this little country church in the middle of Tennessee and it's only a few people, I'm going to preach the same way. Why does what you wear determine how you preach? Why does how many people show or don't show determine how you preach? Why for you, Christian, does your circumstances determine how you live? Will I live holy if? Will I dress right if? Will I get rid of this music if? Will I be excited about church if? Hey, you've got the fruit of the spirit. Why don't you live for God and don't worry about your circumstances? You know, if you trust God, he'll bring you the right friends. My son would say, dad, there's no kids here my age. I said, son, there's no kids here my age. But dad, you're an adult. I said, but son, you're a kid. Why don't we just trust the Lord? Well, okay, dad. Then the next week, dad, there's still no kids here my age. I said, well, there's no kids here my age. God will provide you and he will provide me with the friends that we need and the fellowship that we need. If we just trust him and decide, you know what? We're going to crucify the flesh and let our fruit get ripened. Walk in the spirit, walk on, march on. If you want to advance as a Christian, follow the commands given regarding your relationship with the spirit. There's basically four of them. In Galatians five, we saw a walk in the spirit, live in the spirit. Galatians 5.18, we saw being led by the Spirit. In Ephesians 4, we're told not to grieve, not to grieve the Holy Spirit. And in 1 Thessalonians 5, we're told quench not the Spirit. Those are the four bold reasons concerning our relationship with the Spirit. But this idea, as we close, to walk or to live in the Spirit, it's a command, and it is a calling of every born-again Christian. You and me are commanded by God to walk in the Spirit. And if you wanna solve the problems of your fleshly lusts, if you wanna solve the problems of your fleshly passions, that is the medicine. You have the medicine right there, walk in the Spirit. And if you want to ripen, if you want to mature as a believer, And as a Christian, you must obey the command to walk in the spirit. Somebody says, well, first Peter says, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. Yeah, when you walk in the spirit, you are going to want to desire to be in the word and read the Bible and study the Bible. That should be your desire. That is where God will lead you if you're being led and walking in the spirit. Two more things and I'm done. This walking in the spirit, it's not forced. It's not lulled in the sense where someone's twisting your arm and putting you in a lock to do it. It should be voluntary. You know, kind of like when you're lost and you volunteered to pick up all the fellows and go to the bar. Nobody forced you to go do dumb stuff. You put your hand up and volunteered, you know, when you were living in the world and your friend called you up on the weekend and say, hey, let's go do this. And, you know, he dragged you out of the house. You just made you do it. It was so legalistic. No, you kind of voluntarily went along with it and said, yeah, sure. And then offered to do it some more the next weekend. So now you're in Christ, you're not in Adam anymore. Now you have the fruit of the spirit. Why would somebody have to force you to wanna think different, live different, dress different, act different, listen to different music, fellowship with different friends? Nobody did that when you were in the world. You volunteered. It's not a forced thing. It's a voluntary thing. Lord, sure, I wanna please you. and I'm happy to please you. Husbands and wives, the world is watching how you relate to each other. Christian husbands and wives, your children are watching how you relate to each other. Is it I'm just throwing some food on the table? I know if I don't, I'll get yelled at and it'll just be a big mess and everything is forced. Your kids see that. You're out in public and spouses talk to each other one way and another way, the world sees that. Sign up, be a volunteer to live and to walk in the spirit and be led by the spirit. And lastly, that will bring forth liberty and freedom to serve the God who gave you and I life.