of God's Word and turn with me to Galatians. Galatians chapter 5, we'll be reading verses 16 through 26. Let's stand together for the reading of God's Word. I say then, walk in the Spirit. and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand just as I also told you in times past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Thus far, the word of God, let us pray. Father, as your people, we know that we abide in Christ by faith alone, that we live a life of holiness by faith in Christ alone. And Lord, we know that we hear your word to our prophet for our good if we hear by faith alone and go in due by faith alone. Lord, bless us in these things, that we, hidden in Christ by faith, would bear spiritual fruit for your glory. Instruct us, Lord, on these remaining fruits that we might know what it is that should be found in our lives as we abide in Christ. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. In God's providence, we find ourselves learning about the remaining spiritual fruits this morning out of the love for Christ and for you. I would not have you be ignorant about the remaining spiritual fruits, though we don't have five more weeks with which to cover them. And so we will consider them in one sermon this morning. And next week in God's providence, we will be hearing a farewell sermon. Now as we consider these things, you and I must remember we have a major problem. We dare not minimize it, we're prone to, but we have a major problem. And we can cause a lot of harm to others because of this problem. Maybe you're starting to think and listen and you wonder, well, what is this problem? We have a lot of problems to be sure, but the problem I'm thinking of particularly this morning is that we tend to think too little of the fall. We tend to minimize the fall, the effects of the fall upon our own being. Our view of the fall is too small. We fail to recognize just how big an impact Adam's sin has had on us. We're prone to compare ourselves with others. And we'll always find ourselves patting ourselves on the back. The problem is if we fail to realize just how deep and wide the corruption of sin is in our own hearts, yes, indeed, we will do harm to others. We need to understand the depth of depravity in our own hearts. The degree to which sin has touched us in every corner of our being, in the fabric of our entire life, even in the physical sense, molecularly. Sin is pervasive right through. We are rotten to the core. When we consider the very first words that a sinner spoke after sin came into the world through him, We see something of what I'm talking about. Adam has rebelled against God and God has come, seeking him out, calling him to Himself. And He asks him, what have you done? And the first thing that Adam does is he sins with his mouth. He throws his beautiful bride under the proverbial bus. It was that woman you gave me. She took and ate and gave to me. We see there the depth of the fall, the depravity that has come upon us. And what Adam did in that moment at the very presence of God is with each one of us to this day. We have this same problem. There was no love. There was no humility, no joy, no peace. no long-suffering, no gentleness, no kindness, no faithfulness, no self-control, no Adam, had none of these, and indeed no mere man or woman since then has ever been able to produce the spiritual fruit that was lost in the fall. It is spiritual fruit because only in a life that has been born from above and born in Christ will such fruit be found. Apart from it, Like Adam, we are hard, harsh, cruel, self-seeking, liars, and constantly given to blame-shifting. Whatever goes wrong in our lives, we're quick to find fault in someone else. And the Bible gives us a record of many men and women. And what we find in the record of the men and women, and even the ones that we might consider to be great, what do we find in their lives? There's always a flaw. There's always a failure. There's always something of sin there. Some of the greatest men had done some of the most wicked things. But my friends, there's one exception, the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, God who came in human flesh, God who came to save us. He was untouched by the fall. Oh, his humanity was affected. It could die, it did die. But as a man, a God-man, there was no sin found in him. There was none of that weakness, that moral corruption that we have. Praise be to God because he came and he was obedient and he gave himself a sacrifice for sin that in him we have life. And this spiritual fruit that Paul writes above, here we can bear it in our lives. Indeed, he will bear it in our lives. It will be imperfect. It will be in varied measures, but indeed it will be in our life if we're born of Christ. There'll be something of us to be found in us. And Jesus has called us to live and abide in him. And he's promised that as we abide in him, this fruit will be in our lives. And he has promised that if we will abide in him, we can bear it abundantly. Let us never be satisfied with a little bunch of grapes that look like shriveled up raisins. But by the grace of God, should we desire that this spiritual fruit to be in our lives would be like that great bunch of grapes that it took two men to carry back out of the promised land, all for the praise and glory of God. We use three main headings again, looking at what are these spiritual fruits, the five that remain. Asking again, the question is, why should a Christian seek to bear the fruit of the Spirit? And finally, how does a Christian bear the fruit of the Spirit? We begin with what are the spiritual fruits. We've covered five thus far. I've brought in one more that's not in this passage. It's certainly connected as humility is connected all of life. We dealt there, begin there. Humility, love, joy, peace, and long suffering. Now we're going to consider the five remaining ones here. Kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We begin with kindness. Some of these words, there's an overlap. If you look at different translations, you'll see different English words showing up in different places. They've not changed the order, but the words are somewhat closely related. Some of them are. And this one, particularly kindness, rightly understood. This is a moral quality. Kindness here, this spiritual fruit, it's not just that somebody's a nice person. We can meet an unconverted person who can present themselves and seem nice. A lot of people go to great lengths to present themselves to be nice, but that's not what kindness is. It's something akin to gentleness, and indeed some translations render it that way at this point. It's a spiritual quality that thinks of the other person first. Remember in Philippians 2, right before Paul says, let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, he talks about that the godly man, in kindness, he puts the interest of others ahead of his own. He doesn't just think about himself. This is the nature of kindness. And Jesus is an absolute picture of kindness. He put his interest, our interest, ahead of his own. gave himself as a sacrifice, he laid down his life. This word kindness, it's a loving, of a loving sympathetic temper or attitude. Think about it when we see Jesus' life recorded in part in the gospel accounts. And think about the contrast between the Pharisees, the legalists, the law keepers of his day. And I mean law as man gave it, Jesus is the only law keeper. Think about how they treated the tax collectors and the prostitutes. Sneering, looking down, condescending, mocking, hatred, really. There was no kindness. And yet Jesus, how did he respond to them? He welcomed them. He wasn't concerned about what religious pious men thought about him. He put the interest of these sinners who needed a doctor who came to him. And he showed them kindness. That's what we're talking about. It's then a welcomeness, welcoming them to minister to their deepest needs. You see, kindness and fault finding cannot live together. If you're prone to finding fault, being critical about others, then you are not exhibiting kindness. They don't cohabitate. They don't live in the same room. The Pharisees were not kind. They crushed others. They were quick to find faults. It is the kindness of God that keeps us from being crushed. Remember how we said earlier, it's a moral quality. Loving. Sympathetic. Tender. Is that not what we see in God? The kindness of God. It is His kindness that we are not destroyed. This was God's kindness. It was God's kindness that Naomi celebrates. when she realizes that God has guided Ruth into the field of Boaz. She speaks of the kindness of God, that in this woman who spelled herself to be bitter and even renamed herself bitter, now sees the hand of God upon her. And she celebrates this characteristic, this quality about God, the kindness of God that so guided Ruth. There was lovingness in it, there was sympathy. for these two women and their need. It was kindness, the kindness of God and David that when he sought to show kindness, he sought to show kindness to the house of Saul after he came into power and many in the house of Saul had been destroyed. It was the kindness of God and David, this spiritual quality whereby he showed such tenderness to Mephibosheth that he brought him in and he sought to keep his vow to Jonathan Through this one, he showed him blessing and benefit. You see, Jesus went about doing good. He preached the gospel to the poor. He was sent to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who were oppressed. That's the words that Jesus read in Nazareth from Isaiah 61. And he says, I'm the fulfillment of these things. It's kindness, setting the captives at liberty. recovery of sight to the blind, preaching the gospel to the poor. Well, then secondly, we see that Paul mentions this fruit of faithfulness. Now, this is not dealing with a matter of faith. I think the King James says faith, and this is not talking about that faith whereby we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and are saved. It's faithfulness. It's about living a life, it's not, I'm sorry, it's not about living a life in steadfast obedience to God. We are called to be faithful, but that's not what's here. This is a spiritual fruit. It's about how we deal with other men. And it is that we deal with them in good faith. This faithfulness really is the idea akin to integrity. So we were reading in Sunday school this morning about how Jesus called us to let our yes be yes and our no be no. There were men of our words, there were women of our words, that we don't play games with how honest we are. Remember in the one another series that we had the one sermon on not harming one another, and we had the text from Colossians 3.19, stop lying to one another. And you will remember that I made an application of how the church would be greatly benefited if those who are members of the church professing Christians were of their word. And I don't mean just telling the truth, but acting the truth, standing for the truth, not outfacing the truth. We're called to tell things as they are, that we don't embellish a story, that we don't add a little bit to it and put a little bit of face on it to make us look a little better than we are. That's the idea of faithfulness here. It's a matter of integrity. It's a matter of keeping our vows and dealing with one another in good faith. One of the plagues that infects the church today in most congregations, probably all congregations, are affected by it is that there are problems with how we deal with one another. We play games. Faithfulness doesn't play games. It's honest. It's when we go to a brother, if we have a problem with that brother, rather than going to other people and talking about it. Faithfulness. It's the Christian husband who is faithful to his wife. It's the Christian businessman who makes sure that he keeps all his promises to his customers and all his commitments to their clients, to his clients. You see, it's about a Christian being diligent to keep his word even to his hurt, as Psalm 15 says it. Faithfulness. Thirdly, Paul mentions gentleness, or as the word might be understood, meekness. Jeffrey Wilson puts it this way, meekness is the mark of a man who has been mastered by God. Say that again, meekness. or gentleness, as your translation may have it, is the mark of a man who has been mastered by God. Meekness, it's a manner of mildness with others. It flows from a heart that has seen himself as God sees him. A heart who says, I am a sinner. And by the grace of God, I have received life. I've received forgiveness. I stand before God complete in Christ alone And apart from Christ, I am corrupt. I'm unworthy. I'm undeserving. It's that idea of that man in Jesus' parable, the tax collector who came into worship, and he stood afar off with his head down, and he beat on his breast, and he said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He recognized in the presence of God who he was, a man, a woman, a boy or a girl who exhibits meekness, recognizes what he really is. and that whatever he is as good is by the grace of God, a man who has been mastered by God. Jesus says in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Years ago, my first semester of seminary, I was reading through Dr. Lloyd-Jones' Sermons on the Sermon on the Mount. And again, I think I've mentioned this several times. I highly commend that to you. of all the works I read in seminary, I can point back to that one as having great impact, significant, abiding, and lasting impact on me. And I remember working through the Beatitudes and coming to this idea of meekness in God instructing my heart in, not that I've mastered meekness, but desiring meekness. and being helped by an understanding that this fruit should be in my life, it helped me. As those of you remember, I worked as a security guard at a gated community. I had all kinds of people show up there. Many of them came with attitudes. They were all sinners. Some of them were unreasonable. Some of them were arrogant. And I had to deal with them all in a Christ-honoring manner. And that, of course, would be the best way to represent the community that I was the face of at that gate. And it was this that so radically helped me, the recognizing who I was apart from Christ and who I was in Christ and being mastered by God that I could respond to these different personalities, the different ways that people came in a manner that honored Christ. There've been many times I wished I could say always that I've been sinned against by members in a congregation. And God has helped me to remember in those situations what I am apart from Christ and indeed what I am in Christ and to respond in a manner that is becoming of a follower of Christ. That's what meekness is. It results in a mildness in response, no retribution, no vengeance, a matter of understanding how people are. This is the spiritual fruit that King David exhibited when when he was fleeing from Jerusalem, being driven out by his own rebellious son, Absalom. And there's Shimei up on the ridgetop, running along, shouting down curses upon David, the Lord's anointing, the King of Israel, this worm of a man. And one of David's servants, it was Abishai, he says, let me go up and lift his head off his shoulders. What he meant was take a sword and cut it off. But it was this spiritual attribute the mildness that we see in David there, this meekness that restrained David in that moment. And he said, no. Oh, that we would have that in our lives. The fifth fruit that Paul mentions here is self-control. Now this is the fruit that governs the whole man. It restrains and rules all his passions and his appetites. And we have them. Each of us can sit here and think for just a moment, what is it that tends to take us? Something, a button that gets pushed and we're provoked and we're quickly caught up in it and carried away by that passion, that emotion. Self-control, the work of God's Spirit, bears this fruit in our lives, that's restraint. It's reined in, it's dealt with, it's mastered, it's something we cannot do apart from God. William Hendrickson explains The person who is blessed with this quality possesses the power to keep himself in check. Sober stuff. I think all of us sitting here would recognize there are times we don't keep ourselves in check. But by the grace of God, the spirit of God in us, we can. Think about all those evil fruits back in verse 19. The works of the flesh are evident which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness. These are spiritual corruptions within the heart. These are passions that carry men away. This is what the spirit of God controls in us. This is the self-control to keep us from giving over to adultery and fornication and uncleanness and lewdness and other moral impulses of our hearts. Since self-control restrains us, indeed results in the very opposite of these things. Now, These are all fruits, and they're all spiritual fruits, and they're all by the spirit of the living God in us. Men will attempt to fake them. There's no faking self-control. We all have those passions that will carry us away. And if you're trying to do it in your own strength, there will be that moment when someone will provoke you, and then it will erupt. But when the spirit of the living God is working in us, we'll master it, and we will walk. in self-control to the praise and glory of God. A person who bears self-control is a person who is controlled by the Spirit, a person who is bringing every thought captive to the Lord Jesus Christ. That requires constant awareness, a walking with Christ, an abiding with Christ, where you're mindful He's with you, He's in you, He's around you, and you keep bringing every thought captive. You submit every thought, Lord, govern me. Lord, I feel this impulse in my heart. This brother has just said thus and so to me. I bring that thought, Lord. You know the tenets of my heart. Rescue me, God. Deliver me, oh God. That's living a life of self-control. Now, notice that Paul finishes his list, and by no means is this list it. There are other spiritual fruits, as we dealt with humility from another place, and there's others as well. But he ends this list by saying, at the end of verse 23, against such there is no law. Now, Think about this, God's law, when we think of the Ten Commandments, God's law justly condemns all works or fruits of the flesh. The natural impulse of our flesh is to worship some other god, namely, self. That is our most common idol that we pursue is to worship self. And so the law of God comes to restrain us as thou shalt have no other gods before me. That's the law of God. But these spiritual fruits, there's no law against them. There's no law anywhere found whereby these things are condemned. Rather, the law of God commends these spiritual fruits. The law of God stands against their opposites and indeed the law of God commends these spiritual, against such there is no law. The spirit of God will bear them in every heart that is owned and ruled by the Lord Jesus Christ because a man or a woman, a boy or a girl that has new life in Christ has the spirit of God in him and is working to spare spiritual fruit. And so Paul tells us that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace. long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Is that what other people see in you? We're real prone to judge the fruit of others, aren't we? There's a place for that, depending on our office and station. But what about our own fruit? Is this a list that people who know you would say, well, I see that. Not perfectly, we wouldn't expect that of anyone but the Lord Jesus Christ. Would the others say to you, I see something of that in there. Those things are in evidence in their life. More importantly, is this the fruit that God sees in your life? Is God at work in you bearing these spiritual fruits? If so, praise God that God is at work in you. He's begun a good work in you. He's given you a new heart. He has brought you by faith to abide in Christ, and He's bearing fruit in you. Praise be to God for the blessing of new life in Christ. He's refashioning you. He's sanctifying. He's making you to be holy as He is holy. Praise God for that. But perhaps If you're honest, you have to say, you know, I really don't give much thought at all to spiritual fruit. I'm not sure that I could even list any of these. I might remember two or three, but you see, it's not enough just to quote the Bible verse, is it? We need to know the word of God. We need to be students of, but do you honestly give much thought as a day begins about bearing fruit in your life that gives glory to God. Do you begin your day by crying out, God, my heart has been affected by the fall, but you have given me new life in your son, and today, Lord God, for the praise and glory of God, would you bear spiritual fruit in my life? Or some sort of prayer like that. Too often we get caught up in other things. We live a lot like the world. and therefore we have no impact on the world. Second thing we wanna consider then is why should a Christian seek to bear these spiritual fruits? Or simply put it's because it's proof of our conversion in the presence of God. If you're converted, there will be spiritual fruit in your life. And if you're not converted, there will be fruit in your life, but it will not be this spiritual fruit. The list that we find in verses 19 through 21, that's what will be an evidence in your life. God saves us to bear fruit in us. He saves us so that our lives would adorn the gospel of Christ. He saves us so that the aroma of Christ will be carried by us through the world, through the life that we live, wherever we go. He saves us so that we go forth and live with the light. He saves us so that we go forth and we are salt to bring savor and flavor to a bland and corrupt world. And so to say, I'm a Christian and have no concern for spiritual fruits and not to be bearing spiritual fruit is a complete contradiction. To be a Christian is to be Christ-like. And so, we should seek to bear these spiritual fruits as proof of our conversion. Now, it's not a matter of saying, well, I don't see any proof in my life, so I better knuckle down and see if I can't come up with these fruits. No, if you don't see these fruits in your life, and indeed, if they're pathetic half-manifestations of the fruit, which would be they're no fruit at all, it's time for serious soul searching. See, Jesus promised that when he returned to the Father, to that generation and to every generation since. Every time He's converting, He's sending His Spirit. And that Spirit brings us life. And that Spirit brings us into union with Christ so that we are as branches abiding in the vine. And the sap of life comes from Christ to us. Jesus has promised that if we have life in Him, He takes out the old heart of stone and He gives us a heart of flesh. Jesus taught us, if you look with me over at Luke 6, Luke 6.43. It's exactly what Jesus is driving at here. He's been talking about fruit, even love for enemies. He says, a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. Two kinds of trees, good and bad. Every tree bears fruit according to its root. And so it is with man. He makes the application, verse 45, a good man out of the good treasure of hearts bring forth, good treasure in his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. Four, this is a given, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It's true for me, and it's true for every one of you. that our mouth, our thoughts, and our actions are fruit of what our heart is. And so it is that our lives will be a manifestation of whether we have true conversion or not. How we live is our fruit. How we think is our fruit. How we speak is our fruit. Simply put, a Christian should bear the spiritual fruit because it is the character of our Heavenly Father. It is Christ. in us. God calls us to be like Him and then He enables us to be like Him. He's working in us to be like Him. Look again at Galatians 5.16. I say to you, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. What Paul says there is if you don't walk in the Spirit You'll have no fruit? Is that what he says? Does he say that? If you don't walk in the spirit, you'll just be this blank screen. No, he says if you don't walk in the spirit, you're gonna bear the fruit, the lust of the flesh. It can be no other way. That's what Jesus was driving at in John 15. But it's also what Paul is writing about in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. The heart of stone's gone, a heart of flesh has come, he's a new creature. The old is gone, all this filth that is in 19 through 21 in our text, it's gone, it's vanishing, it's being driven away. And the new has come, the new of this glorious fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, gentleness. Goodness and self-control, they're coming, and they're in our lives, and they're in evidence in our life. So what's your fruit? As a Christian, what's your desire? Do you want to bear the spiritual fruit of a life in Christ for the glory of God? If that's your longing, that's your desire, the great cry of your heart is, Lord, form Christ in me. I want to be the aroma of Christ. I want to be salt. I want to be light. I want others to see Jesus in me. Praise God. Indeed, praise God that he has given you such a heart to pray that way. But if you have to be honest and your life looks something like, whatever, I haven't really given it much thought, those are serious things. They're cause for some serious thought. and some searching soul and inviting of the spirit of God to probe deeply within. You see, in the garden, sin came and immediately Adam was bearing fruit. He shifted his blame for his sin to his wife, the wife who God gave him. What a loving gift. He threw her under the bus. because his heart was sinful. And it was the only fruit that he could bear with the root that he had at that moment. He could do no other. That's what his heart was. You and I are walking, when you and I are walking in the flesh and not by faith, we will always be blame shifters. Whatever's going on that's going wrong, we'll put it on someone else. My friends, right now we find ourselves as a congregation very exposed. Each of us, very exposed. Our congregation's in crisis. We're producing fruit in the midst of this. This last two months, of course, before then too, but right now, We're bearing fruit, it's very evident. There's a lot of our fruit that is much more out there. It's as though the weeds have been cleared away and there's a tree of our life and others are gazing on, looking. We're producing fruit. We need to ask our question, who are we throwing under the bus? Are we blame shifting? I'm ashamed. How many times over the last two months have I blamed someone else for what's going on? You've done it too. I've heard it. We should be ashamed. But you see, that's the problem of the fall. You see, when we don't recognize just how much the fall has affected us, we hurt others. That's back to what meekness is. When we recognize it has affected me, I'm sinning in this moment. I'm at fault. I have contributed. God, help me to see what I have done to contribute to this situation. Search me, oh God, and try me. If there be any unclean thing. And so, very few times have I heard anyone say, well, I have sinned. I have heard one. I know for certain I've had one come to me and say, I see how I've contributed. I failed, and I'm repenting of it. I acknowledge my sin. I did my part in bringing this down, and I failed to do my part. I've repented myself, and right now I confess to you that I have sinned in failing to pray for you as I should. Paul sets that standard. He says, every thought of you, of every remembrance of you, I pray. And there's thanksgiving in my heart. I pray for you continually. I've not achieved that. I have prayed for you, but I have not prayed for you as I should. I also confess to you that I've sinned in failing to put more hard labor into sermon preparation, too often letting important but less important things crowd out the importance of time in the study of crafting sermons. And in that part, I've contributed. There's no doubt other things the Lord may show me as time goes on. But I also would confess, I've not loved you as I should. I've not exhibited these spiritual fruits with you in every occasion. Self-control. And so, I urge you to join with me as Christians who want to bear spiritual fruit for the glory of God and take some time this Lord's day and saying, Lord, where's my fault? What have I done? Who should I go to? Who do I need to talk to about how I've sinned? Well, as we've been doing, we thirdly close out with how does a Christian bear spiritual fruit? Maybe you've listened to this series on spiritual fruit, and you recognize that your life lacks it, that you're a blame sifter, you're proud, you're unkind, you're unloving, you're impatient, you're hard, harsh, and cruel. That's really what distinguishes you, you're critical, and you're often carried along by your own passions. Maybe you need to be born again. Yes, I'm saying that to a room full of members of this congregation. But there's a great tragedy to go from a pew to hell. The only thing I know greater than that is to go from the pulpit to hell. And so we need to hear the gospel. If the fruit of our life suggests that we're not converted, we need to be alarmed. We need to get that right. Jesus alone can take away that heart of stone and he can bring us a union with him through faith that we will bear fruit for his praise and glory. Perhaps you have a new heart, but you know you've made very little effort to abide in Christ. The ideas of John 15, oh, you've heard them from the pulpit, but you've never really opened your Bible and prayed over that and thought about it and asked God to help you to abide. You've not really made an effort to take up the means of grace. Your conscience is troubled. Doubts plague you, because you live most of your days and most of a day with little thought of Jesus. You're not very mindful that he's with you, a constant companion. You live most of your days really, your life just looks like your pagan neighbors. That's a problem in the church today, isn't it? You see, when Christ comes and there's the radical alteration, you look at Acts, what happened? They were so different. The world could not miss them. And it made a big impact because the gospel was evident because they were living for the glory of God. If we don't treat our wives, men better than the man down the street, if we fail to cherish her and nourish her, wash her with the word, how are we different than our unbelieving neighbor? If you scarcely pray for your wife and pray with your wife and pray for the Lord's blessing upon your marital union, you know this is not right, men. Because such a marriage indeed is. Such a picture of a husband is a perversion of what the Lord Jesus Christ is. Because Christ cherishes his bride. He nourishes her. He washes her. He cares for her. And that's what Christ has called us to. And indeed, as we abide in Christ, we can do that. And in doing that, we will have the aroma of Christ in the home. Our wives will know. Men, make no doubt about it. Our wives know how much we're spending time with the Lord. They'll be the first to see the aroma of Christ, smell the aroma of Christ, and see Christ in us, and at first to see it when it's not there. And that's how we help each other. You know I've said that. It's the closeness of that relationship we admonish. I'm thankful that my wife points out to me when I'm not bearing fruits to the glory of God. We should cultivate that. You see, brothers and sisters, It is a wrong, a dangerous thing to have a form of godliness, but to deny the power thereof. I'm not speaking in these things about having a formal routine, but indeed meeting with the living God of the universe in intimacy. And you will know it when it's happening. He shows up and He communes with your spirit. His spirit bears witness with your spirit that your heart cries out, ah, the Father, you know, and you have that assurance of your salvation because you're seeking to abide in Him. That, my friends, is what we should long for. It's what we should encourage in one another. It's what we should pray for for one another. And that's the thing I'm speaking of. I've not prayed that enough for you men. I have prayed it, but not with a discipline that it would happen. That's what we're called to. Now what are you going to do? Will your life change so that you begin to seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit? You see, what you do in your heart right now in the presence of God, will it make a difference tomorrow morning, and on Thursday morning, and next Tuesday? What will we do with what we hear from God? God's calling us, and He's sincere, to be changed by His grace. This is what Christ has come to do, to bring us a change that we stand out in the world. All of this spiritual fruit, love, joy, peace, humility, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, they're anchored and they flow from God the Holy Spirit. We're Trinitarian. The Holy Spirit dwells within us and we must depend upon Him. But too often, is it not true that we are grieving and quenching the spirit. You see, God is at work in us that this fruit would be on the branches of our life and it begins with love for God. We cannot love others if we don't begin with a love for God. And there's not one of us here this morning that dare say, I love God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind. There's not one of us can say that. Now that's not, I don't say that to our shame, that's said to our encouragement. We need to love God more, amen? There should be more love of God in our hearts. And we know full well that when there's more love for God in our hearts, there's more love for our neighbor. And that's what Jesus has brought. That is what he's brought salvation to our hearts so that there'll be that evidence of God in the world, that we will stand out as his subjects, as his people. It all comes from above. Be honest before God how much of this fruit is truly in your life. The mouth will be directly proportional to the fullness of your heart with the person of the Holy Spirit. Someone you are called to relate to, to be intimate with, to spend time with. We're leaky vessels. Is that what scripture talks of? Some of you guys listen to jars of clay. That's what we are. full of fractures. We're called to be full of the Spirit. The only way to keep a cracked vessel full, as brother Dr. Reader reminds us, is you have to immerse it. And then it will be full, and it will stay full. That's what Jesus calls us, to be immersed in Christ, to be immersed in the Spirit by the means of grace. When was the last time that you and I got down on our face I'm not saying it's just you, I mean you and I. When was the last time you and I got down on our face before God and begged him to fill us with his spirit? When was the last time we wrestled like Jacob? I will not let you go, oh God, except that you should bless me. I must have your spirit. I cannot live apart from you. We don't do it enough, do we? That's what we're called to. Jesus promised that he will abide in us. He promised that we will bear fruit for his glory if we will seek his face. Grace also began in the garden. Sin began there, but grace began. God promised in that moment that there would be the seed of the woman. And we know from future revelation in scripture that that seed of the woman is the Lord Jesus Christ. And He has come. He has come, the only begotten of the Father, born of a woman, that seed. God spilled blood in the garden from an animal and covered Adam and Eve with the garments. A picture of what happened 2,000 years ago when the blood of God, the Son, was spilled on our behalf. And that blood atones for us. And we must be in it and hidden and washed by it. And then when we are, our lives will bear this fruit. In some degree or another, Christ at work in us will manifest these things. As Jesus told the woman at the well, whoever drinks the water that I shall give to him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give to him will become a fountain of water, springing up to everlasting life. Amen? Let us pray. Oh Lord, our God, Help us to be fruitful, bearing this spiritual fruit from a new heart, a true root, a good root that is in Christ Jesus, from a heart that has been replaced by your grace and mercy. Father, we live in the world, and the world does not encourage us in any of these things. The world gives us a distorted and perverted standard, but you have called us to something more. You called us to be Christ-like. And so we call upon you as your people, Lord, that Christ should be formed in us and that we should bear this spiritual fruit for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.