Well, this morning, we are celebrating, some would say, our 95th anniversary. Others would say it's our 69th anniversary. And why do I say that? Well, sometime back in 1921, the first Baptist church of Eastport was born. On October the 18th, 1921, there was also a change of its name to Eastport Baptist Church and the church was received into the fellowship of the Jacksonville Baptist Association. In that first year, the church had around 16 baptism, 32 additions by letter, five other additions for a total of 53. Also that same year, the Sunday school was organized with 65 members. That was a great beginning. And that was something to rejoice in because this community, the Eastport community, needed a work of God. And God had birthed that work. But unfortunately, on June 23, 1929, the work of Eastport Baptist Church officially stopped. And it stopped for nine years. And the reason why it stopped is because the lumber company that was here moved away. And that took everything away from this community. But through the efforts of Ocean Way Baptist Church and Holly Ford Baptist Church, Eastport was reborn and it became a mission. In fact, first it became a mission under Ocean Way Baptist Church and then later Holly Ford Baptist Church took it on as well. So for eight years, it was from 1938 to 1946, a mission church of the Ocean Way Baptist Church. And then in 1946, Holly Ford Baptist Church assumed its mission. Now when I get my dates there, because I said first of all, 95 years, that's taken the church from its very beginning. But then we take the church after it stops and starts again some nine years later, that's where we get 69 years. The church was born again, if we could say it that way, not as a mission, but as a full-time work. And that was on March 20th, 1947. Today that work continues. Since its rebirth 47 years ago, the church has continued what it started 95 years ago. And from its history, it's had actually three names. It's had the First Baptist Church at Eastport. I also found Quinlan Baptist Church, and then, of course, the current name, which is Eastport Baptist Church. And as many of us have grown up in this neighborhood, we know Eastport, Eastport is this actual area right here even though that we also have Ocean Way and we have other names that have come up through the years. But there is a work that is going on right here and there is a work that has begun and a work that is continuing. Now, I believe that there are many things that we can learn from history. Last week, we studied about the English Reformation. We talked about William Tyndale. We talked about his commitment, his devotion. And I think, again, history can teach us a lot of things, things that we can learn from one another. One thing that I would certainly say is that we can learn not to repeat the mistakes that we have made in the past, right? You know, we have this little phrase that history goes around repeating itself. Well, it repeats itself because we forget about the mistakes that we have made and then we go around and do them again. Well, that's one thing I believe that we can learn. Another thing I believe we can learn is new strategies for the work. As long as the gospel message is never compromised, we can look for new ways to reach people. And, of course, in our age, in our day, we have technology. We have cell phones, smartphones, computers. We have all of that. And I know even in my lifetime, and I'm not... I just turned 52 a couple of weeks ago, I remember that when I first learned of a computer, it wasn't until I was probably about 20 years old. Businesses used a little CRT model in their businesses. We were all using typewriters. I learned how to type on a real typewriter, not on a keyboard on a computer. I took my first test years ago trying to get a job with the state of South Carolina. I had to take a typing test, and it was called the bullpen. That's what they termed it. And it was on a typewriter. And by that time, I had done some work with AT&T, and I was already getting used to a computer. So I didn't do so well the first time. And I said, well, can I take it again? Because I didn't realize that I could move the stuff to the other side. And when I moved it to the other side, I passed, and hence started my career for the state auditor's office in South Carolina, and my journey on a wonderful tool that I think everybody should learn. I work for a school, and it amazes me people that come to us and tell us that they no longer teach cursive handwriting in the schools. That just blows my mind. That's one of the fastest forms of writing unless you can do shorthand. And I know that most people don't even know what shorthand is. But again, we have all these devices. We can record people. And so I don't know what the idea is. But we teach cursive handwriting, and we're teaching it also to our kids. Now, these are things that have brought us into the current time in which we're at. and to look back over all those years. And many of you that are in here have been part of East Port Baptist Church one or a couple times in your life here. And we're grateful that you're here with us this morning and sharing in this time together. But I wanna show you something else. If you'll notice on the front of your bulletin, if you just get out your bulletin, you'll find three phrases on the front. You'll find expository preaching, meaningful worship, and loving fellowship. Now I want to tell you that no one in here came up with any of that, and that's not even something fancy to come up with, but this has been my observation. Now the expository preaching, I'm pretty much telling you what kind of preacher that I am, so that will take care of itself. But the other two parts, meaningful worship and loving fellowship, That's what Eastport Baptist Church is sought to be, and it's sought to have. No matter what it has went through in all of its years, it has sought to have that, to teach the word of God, to provide a meaningful opportunity for worship based upon the word of God, and then, of course, to have a loving fellowship. You know, one of our highlights of the service is the fellowship time. And it's a traffic jam right here. So if you want to go anywhere that way, you go around, same coming back. But it is a sweet time. We had someone visit our church for the first time, found us on Facebook. And one of the testimonies that they said about this church was that they treated me like I had been there for years. And that's a wonderful testimony. And we as a church, whether it's Eastport Baptist Church or any other church of the Lord Jesus Christ, should have that kind of testimony. We should be known for our love. A lot of times church is known for what it's against. We should be known for what we're for. And we're for a loving fellowship. We're for meaningful worship. And we're for the understanding of the scripture. We want to understand it. We cannot apply something that we don't understand. And so I believe that we have this today. I believe that every day we need to recommit ourselves to these things. And this morning I want to talk about that. The first thing that is on the front of the bulletin, it mentions expository preaching. What in the world is expository preaching? There was a book that came out a few years ago, a gentleman that had wrote his doctrinal thesis for the Master's Seminary, and it was called Expository Listening. And that was pretty interesting because there is a listening as well as a preaching. If you just sit there and allow your mind to wander off in all kinds of directions, then you're not really listening. Now, we tried that years ago with my oldest son because we homeschooled, and my wife would sit there and watch him doodle, and she would read things and talk about things to them and wondered if he was listening. But he was just that type of learner, an auditory learner that could hear it. He didn't have to see it. And he would just regurgitate back to her everything that she had just talked about. So we were like, okay, won't bother you anymore. Keep doodling. But we do have some people that can't do that, that are not auditory learners. Maybe they're visual learners and they need to see it. They need something tangible in their hands and they need to look at it. I think I've got a little bit of both, visual and auditory. But as you talk about this whole subject of exposition, again, what in the world are we talking about? Well, let me just give you a short version of this. It is talking about preaching the understanding of the Bible, giving the meaning of the word. So if we're looking at a text of Scripture, we want to look at that text, open it up before us, we want to study in its historical, grammatical understanding, and we want to get to the original meaning that the author intended. I'm not interested in interpreting the Bible with a Western culture because this is not Western culture when we pick up the Bible. We have to understand that this comes from the Middle East. This comes from a period of time that is not the time in which we're living. We have to understand that this covers a large period of time, 1,500 years, 40 different authors. And by the way, there's 40 different authors agreeing with one another. That is amazing in and of itself. It's hard to get two people in the room to agree 90% of the time, right? And you had 40 different authors covering a span of 1,500 years and coming from all walks of life. And they write with incredible unity. People that say that there are contradictions in the Bible usually do not read the Bible. Or if they say there's contradictions in the Bible, they've come to the Bible with that preconceived idea and that's what they're looking for. I remember talking to a student a few weeks ago that said that the Bible was not truth, the Bible was not God's word, that God didn't exist. And I said, have you ever read the Bible? And she said, no. I said, well, then you don't have anything to say. You're sitting here giving what you believe is an understanding of the Bible, but you've never picked it up and read it. I said, would you like a Bible? Because I have a Bible. And she said, well, I have a Bible. It's like, okay, we'll read it. And I believe that if you come to it, just like Josh McDowell did, come to disprove the Bible, you will find out that all your thoughts are folly. And if you're honest, when you come to the word of God, you'll find that it is the word of God. And in the process of time, like he did, you would become a believer. The evidence is overwhelming. So expository preaching is just simply that, giving you the understanding. Now let me give you what Webster says about that. He says, an exposition is a discourse to convey information or explain what is difficult to understand. Applying this idea to preaching requires that an expositor be one who explains scripture by laying open the text to public view in order to set forth its meaning. Explain what is difficult to understand and make appropriate application. Many times when people read the Bible, they jump immediately into applying the Bible. And that's fine because we do wanna apply the word of God. We wanna be doers of the word and not hearers only, but you also have to interpret it. And by the way, if your interpretation is wrong, so will be your application. You will be applying something that you've come up with that doesn't mean what you think it means, and that's never what the author intended it to mean. Yes, I believe that there are things that are of face value that we can understand, but there are some things in the scripture, and you'd have to agree with me if you read your Bible, that are hard to understand. Even Peter said that about Paul's writings. Paul takes up 13 New Testament letters. And in 2 Peter 3, as he's talking about false teachers, he says there, or rather chapter 2, he says that Paul's writings, some things there are hard to understand. Paul was a very intellectual man, schooled in Judaism, schooled in the law of God. When he became a Christian, he abandoned all of those pharisaical things, because he was a Pharisee, he abandoned all of those things that he held in contempt and embraced faith in Jesus Christ. He didn't take off his brain and leave it there at the altar. No, he applied the things that he knew, the things that he understood from God's Word. He now had the bigger picture. He now had the understanding And you read his letters, and that's what he gives us, his understanding as he applies the Old Testament to the New Testament. The Westminster Directory, this is in 1645, it states about expository preaching, it says, the true idea of expository preaching is that the preacher should become a mouthpiece for his text, opening it up and applying it as the word from God to his hearers. in order that the text may speak and be heard, making each point from his text in such a manner that his audience may discern the voice of God. Now, I tell you, as a preacher, the easiest thing to do is to take a book of the Bible and to study it every week, because when you're done with that particular set of verses next week, you already have what you're going to talk about. So if you're in a chapter that has ten verses, you covered five that day, well, next week you're covering another five. And you don't have to run around going, Oh, Lord, what do you want me to talk about today? Today, because we're out of 1 John, we've been out of 1 John for a couple weeks, I found myself walking around in circles like that. But as we've been studying 1 John, it hasn't been any problem, because like I said, I just go back to the chapter, to whatever verses that we're on, stay within its context, and build from there. It's much harder to speak like this. There's a verse in 2 Timothy 2.15 that you're familiar with, but it's a verse that talks about the diligence of the preacher it says be diligent to present yourself approved to God a worker who does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth now that statement rightly dividing the word of truth perfectly defines expository preaching and while difficult to translate into English the word essentially means this and I quote handling a right the word of truth declaring the word of truth without distortion, rightly administering the word of truth, holding a straight course in the truth, giving the truth a right way. See, Paul was a tent maker, and they would make these tents out of goat skins, and he had to cut it straight. As they would sew these pieces together, they had to be straight, because if you tried to sew it together, they would overlap one another, they would buckle, they would create a gap. So he had to cut it straight. And he applied that terminology to the Bible. And he says, Timothy, you need to be diligent in your handling of scripture. You need to rightly divide it. You need to cut it straight. And again, that's expository preaching. That's what we seek to do. And again, many times people wanna come to the Bible and they just wanna jump in to apply it. And again, I'm for application, but I think we get it confused because the work is really into interpretation. You know that there is only one interpretation of scripture. How many times you've heard someone say when they share the interpretation of scripture, well, that's your interpretation. Well, if they have put all of their personal ideas into that and their personal opinions in it, maybe that is, quote, their interpretation. But there is one interpretation of Scripture, and we have to get to the author's original intended meaning for that interpretation. And that's what the preacher is to do. I believe that our time together should be that, that we worship God in a meaningful way, but it's based upon the biblical text. Or we're going to misapply it. John MacArthur used to say that the meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture. When you get to the author's original intended meaning, you have the Scripture. And what an awakening that this created as we talked about last week with the Reformation. as people are getting the Bible in their language and in their hands, and they're able to open up the Word of God and to read it and to hear what it says in their language. Luther in German, Tyndale in English. The Bible had been locked up in Latin. The people didn't read Latin. Most of the priests didn't read Latin. That would be like passing out a Bible and hearing Russian and saying, okay, guys, we're gonna read this Bible today. Well, number one, I don't know how to read it. I don't know how this sounds. Well, let's just go for it. You know, that's about as bad as having a Bible study and no one leading it, no one doing a study of what the Scripture says and means and applies that to the Bible study, and they're all sitting around in a room pooling their own ignorance. That's not helpful at all. Somebody has to study it to teach it, right? There has to be that. Now, as we look at this, again, we're talking about explaining the scripture. And let me just walk you through a few passages. I'm just going to mention them and move on. You can jot them down if you like on the back of your bulletin. But on that first Resurrection Day, Jesus, as it says in Luke 24, 27, He expounded to the two disciples, all the scriptures, the things concerning himself, the two on the way to Emmaus. You remember that? He opened up the word of God to them. He expounded, as the scripture says, and as being the prince of all expositors, he expounded the truth and illustrated it with his points. And he did that with authority, and he adopted the customary method of reading and exegeting the scripture. Paul told Timothy, "'Til I come, give attention "'to the public reading of Scripture.'" And that little phrase, give attention, means that there has to be proper preparation prior to it. That means study. Now whether he was in the synagogue or whether Jesus was in homes or on the hillside or from an anchored boat, he was very consistent about expanding or expounding the word of God to hungry hearts. He opened it up to them. And if their heart was hungry, They got the feeding of the word. Peter did the same thing on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. If you analyze that sermon carefully, you'll discover that Peter birthed his message from the prophecy of Joel. He also then supported his dominating theme with two Psalms. Even Stephen's sermon that's recorded in Acts chapter 7 was an expository treatment of the historical portions of Genesis and Exodus. And even Philip followed the same procedure when he was dealing with the Ethiopian eunuch, when the Ethiopian eunuch was sitting there reading from Isaiah 53. And he climbs up in the chariot with him and he expounds Isaiah 53 to him. Churches have removed themselves from explaining the original meaning of the scriptures. You have story sermons, pop psychology lectures, Dear Abby style, counsel, drama, musical productions, interpretive dance. All of these things are replacing true preaching. John MacArthur said, if preaching is to play its God-designed role in the church, it must be built upon the Word of God. Much preaching today emphasizes psychology, social commentary, and political rhetoric. Bible exposition takes a back seat to a misguided craving for relevance. Lamentably, there is a discernible trend in contemporary evangelicalism away from biblical preaching and a drift toward an experience-centered, pragmatic, topical approach in the pulpit. And I will tell you that when we stopped the work that we were doing for 12 years, and by the way, Jared was part of Changed by Grace with me, and he did the music and everything. And we have some roots that go back. But when we finally brought that to a stop, feeling that God said that the time has come to stop it, and I took some time to try to find a church for my family, this is the kind of stuff that I was finding. Now see, as a pastor, I don't get very many opportunities to go and visit another church and to hear another pastor speak. If I go to another church, most of the time it's speaking at that church. But my heart is usually right where I'm at. Last two weekends ago, I was up in South Carolina at a conference and there for a very short weekend preaching the word. But like I said, during that time, prior to getting back into the pulpit and back into another church in that capacity, we were having a difficult time finding a pastor that would exposit the word. Very difficult. I'm not saying they're not out there. But it's become this today. Warren Wiersbe used to tell preachers that he was training. He would say, preacher boys, we are not to focus on entertaining the goats. We are to feed the sheep. I agree with that. So the word of God has to be explained. And I believe it should be explained every time someone walks up into this pulpit to preach God's Word. It needs to be explained. That's the first thing on your bulletin that a church must have. The second thing a church must have is meaningful worship. And what do we mean by meaningful worship? Are we talking about it just being singing and preaching and praying and giving or fellowshipping? What is meaningful worship? And I believe that all those are components of it. But you know, you can go through all of that and go through the motions and never worship God. You could sing songs that are either familiar to you and just sing words on a page, or you could stand there and not learn a new song and somewhat defiance and say, I'm not gonna learn this, I'm not familiar with this, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And I'm an old dog and I'm not gonna learn any tricks. That's silly, isn't it? With a zillion of songs that are out there that have been written to praise God. And we should look for those opportunities to praise God. If you don't know the song, just close your eyes and listen to the words. Right? And just focus your attention on God and worship Him. Over in John 4, 24, if you remember, that's one of the verses that we sing. It says, God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. Meaningful worship is worshiping the true God in the right way by the right prescribed means. In other words, as that verse tells us, that God is God, He is a spirit, He must be worshipped. He must be worshipped in spirit. That is worship with all your heart. He must be worshipped in truth. That is according to the prescribed truth of Scripture. I believe in Leviticus 10 that there was a problem there with worship. Nadab and Abihu, they come in, they do an offering, and that offering was not according to God's prescribed means. And you know what happened to them? They offered up strange fire, Leviticus 10 says, and God killed them. Listen to it. Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it, offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. Key word. He didn't command this. This is self-styled worship. This is worshiping God in your own way. That's like the same people that say that, I will come to Jesus, but I will come on my own terms. You know, I have to say to that, then you're not coming, and He's not taking you, because you come on His terms. And here in this case, they come in there, they offer strange fire, they do something that God did not command them to do. And verse two says, fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them. And they died before the Lord. And then Moses said to Aaron, because these were Moses' or Aaron's sons, he said, it's what the Lord spoke. By those who come near me, I will be treated as holy. And before all the people, I will be honored. So Aaron therefore kept silent. You read the rest of the chapter, it seems to indicate that they came in there drunk. And that's certainly a problem. See, when the church gathers for worship, what is its biblical mandate? Is it to amuse or is it to entertain? Is it to cater or is it to cry for fulfillment? Is it to honor God in spirit and truth? See, the difference lies largely in the area of our focus. Are we zeroed in on ourselves or are we zeroed in on God? And once that is established that God, not ourselves, must be the central part of our worship, we must then examine that we do it right. What's the point of having it written down if we're going to ignore it? God has given us the practice. He's given us the procedure. He's given us what He desires in His Word. How do you do meaningful worship then? If all that's the case, let's back it up. Meaningful worship comes when you love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, with all your strength. That's meaningful. That's an opportunity for it. says in Deuteronomy 6 for hero Israel the Lord our God is the Lord is our God the Lord is one he shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your might these words which I am commanding you today should be on your heart then listen to the psalmist some nine verses one and two. He says, I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and exult in you. I will sing praise to your name, oh most high. You see the key there that as we were being led in singing a few moments ago, was it with all your heart by which you sang? Because if it wasn't, was it meaningful worship? Maybe the song gave you goosebumps. But that's maybe all you got from it. In fact, many times we think worship is something that we get, but rather it's something that we give. Prostaneo, the word for worship, means to kiss the hand, to kiss toward. It means to honor. And when we bow down before God, we are honoring Him. You know when Obama traveled around the world and he was bowing down to people? You know what the problem was with that? He was bowing down in worship to them. And that was something that American presidents didn't do. They didn't go around the country talking about how weak America was and apologizing for America and things like that. But you know, some people do the same thing in their relationship with God. That Sundays are the only time that they have anything to do with Him. And then, my goodness, break out the Lord's Supper. What's that? Well, that's some crackers and some juice. And that's the way it's looked at, nothing to it. But yet even in that opportunity there for us to worship and commune with the living God, that we have to examine ourselves. We have to make sure that we don't take up the cup and of the bread in an unworthy manner. So do you worship God with all your heart? When you're sitting there listening to the message, are you seeking to obey what Jesus said in Revelation 2 and 3 when he said, he who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church? Are you listening intently for what God has to say through one of His servants? Oh, I'm flawed. I'll be the first to tell you that. And if I don't tell you, my wife will tell you. And if she doesn't tell you, my kids will tell you. And if they don't tell you, then anybody else that knows me will tell you. You'll tell me, right? We all have flaws, don't we? We all fall short of the grace of God. But you know, God has chosen to use human vessels. This past Friday, the Lord just blessed. You guys have been praying with us for about this case that we've been working with for NICA. And you know, we went to a hearing. Well, we finally got the phone call Friday. Phone call came while I was at work and I missed it the first time. And then on the message, he told me, call back now or I'm fixing to go to lunch. And I called back and I missed him. I was like, great. I was a nervous wreck. And I'm going, Lord, I'm trying to trust you on this. I'm trying to prepare myself. I don't know which way to go on this. And then he called me back and I said, I sure hope this is good news. And he said it was. He said, you won. And I couldn't even speak. And it wasn't an issue of whether I trust God or not, it's the issue is would God say yes? God's gonna do what he's gonna do, period. And to have prayed for seven years for something to finally go in my son's favor has been huge. Now, why did I tell you all that? I tell you all that because it's all part of our worship. Worship is not just walking in here and then you have an experience. Worshiping God is something that we do every day, every single day. From the moment that you wake up and you hit that alarm and you groan and moan as you try to crawl out of bed, to leaving your house to go to work, or maybe you're retired and you're at your home and you do whatever things you got going on there. We worship God all throughout the day. We're always in His presence. There's never a moment that we're outside of it. And we should take advantage of those moments and those opportunities. Some of us are so busy that we have to find moments. Some of us in here aren't very busy at all, and we have those moments, and we need to take advantage of it. If you're not reading your Bible regularly, you need to read it, and you need to pray, and you need to share it with other people, right? I can't find anything else that we should do with that. You should invest yourself into hearing the way that God wants you to hear, expository listening. You should invest yourself in meaningful worship, and then last, loving fellowship. I think that the last one is really a byproduct of the first two. If I focus in on the word of God and understanding it, and I focus in on having a meaningful worship time based out of that understanding, then what's gonna flow from that is love from my heart. And I believe that we must minister to each other in love. It's sad that many churches gather a reputation for not dealing with things in the church in love. We all know about dreaded business meetings. If they're the kind of meetings that create dread, if they're the kind of meetings that create discord, then yes, who in the world wants to go to that, right? Come on to church, we're gonna have a shouting match. You know, none of us are gonna get our way because we all want our way. And we're not at McDonald's. Jesus said this, John 13, 35, by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Quit arguing over who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom and love each other. Put each other first. Humble yourself. Put another person's needs above your own. That's what it means to truly love. Since we don't have enough time, I was gonna go into 1 Corinthians 13, but I'll leave that to you to go into that. It's the love chapter, but that's the opportunity where you get to read what love is about. And many times what we do doesn't match that chapter. People wrong us and we keep our little list of all these wrongs, and the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13 that love doesn't keep that list. When you say you have forgiven, let it go. Or you haven't forgiven. But let me have you to go to Galatians 5. And I want you to just understand this as we bring this to a close, that love is a fruit of the Spirit. And what do I mean by that? Well, we all know the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5, 22 and 23. In fact, there are nine different attitudes that are listed there. It says in verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things there is no law. Why would he say that at the end of the verse, against such things there is no law? Well, if you understand what he's doing here, he is contrasting the fruit of the Spirit with the works of the flesh. Now, if you look up at verse 19, He gives us what the deeds of the flesh are. He says they are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. In other words, the list is not all conclusive. And then he says, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But, on the other hand, the fruit of the Spirit is this. It's complete opposites here. It's a contrast. And so he's saying, when it comes to the law of God, the law of God is meant to restrain evil. It's meant to point it out. Paul said, I would not have known about covetousness if the law hadn't said thou shalt not covet. Paul even says that the law itself excites the flesh. But he also says right here that that has to be restrained. The law is set up to restrain it. You and I have to restrain it. But when it comes to the fruit that is produced by the Spirit of God, which is the results of being filled with the Spirit of God, which also means when you're controlled by the Word of God, this is what's gonna happen. Can I please, this probably will never get corrected, but I will seek to try. This is not the fruits of the Spirit. Do you see that? It says, but the fruit, singular, this is one amazing fruit. One fruit with nine flavors. But when you get one, you get it all. Do you understand that? If you call it fruits of the Spirit, then you think, well, I'm doing pretty good in love, but I need a little bit more joy. Or I'm doing good with joy, but I need a little bit more peace. Oh my goodness, don't pray for patience. How many times have you heard that? But what's to say about the fruit of the Spirit? You want patience or long-suffering? Be filled with the Spirit, and when you're filled with the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit will be produced. You'll get the patience that you need. You'll get what you need. And again, these are nine attitudes. This is attitude fruit. Love is an attitude. Joy is an attitude. Peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are attitudes, and you don't want to restrain that. You want that to have its pre-course. And see, if I'm filled with the Spirit, I don't have to worry about having signs in my home that says, don't beat your wife with a hammer. you know, or drown your kids in a tub. You know, these people that do this kind of stuff to their family, and then they say that they're Christians, they're far from it. They're far from the door of Christ to do that wickedness. See, when you produce this in your life, in fact, let me correct myself, when the Spirit produces this in your life, this is a different person right here. This is someone who is controlled by God. This is someone who is controlled by God's spirit. And therefore, that's gonna produce inevitable results. See, when the word of God, again, is explained, when you are pursuing to love God and worship Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, then you're gonna do the last part of that, you're gonna love your neighbor as yourself. And there's your loving fellowship. And like I've said, this church right here from day one, now my day one was back in the 70s, they remember it, I don't. My unfortunate thing is from my years of drugs, it's wiped out a lot of memory in my past. But I went here, my family went here back in the 70s. Jim remembers it, he tells me all these things and I don't remember. But I found it in some of the church records that I was here then. I knew I was here, I remember that much. I do even remember when I was nine walking the aisle, I do remember who told me to say something to Jack Connell and what to say. And I do remember that there was no transformation of my life. I remembered I went back as to what I was before I came in here. But it was at 19 years old when I did get saved, and it did change my life. He changed my life. And if I could say this to you as well, is that you're in here today, and I don't know what your relationship to God is, but if you don't know Him, He can transform your life right now. You could become a new creation in Christ. And I certainly want to encourage that. We're gonna pray right now, and as we do, would you examine your heart? Would you examine your heart for these things? Are you in such a attitude of heart that you really want the scriptures taught to you, and you're a student and a learner, and that you really do wanna worship God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you really do wanna love one another? If that's the case, then guess what? You met the real church. That's the true church. Father, we thank you for this time that we've had together this morning, and our prayer is right now that you would help us to apply what we've talked about and to truly meditate on these things that we have talked about. And I pray right now, God, that you would just get a hold of our hearts. Help us to understand how important these issues are in all churches, not just this church. And I pray that we would be those who hunger and thirst for your word and hunger and thirst to worship you the right way, and Lord, to love everyone as we love ourselves. Lord, speak to us during this time. Again, I pray if there is someone in here that has never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray, Father, that you would save them right now. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.