Abiding in Christ for Lasting Fruit

Oh, crossing family, I love you, but more importantly, God loves

you and I am so glad that you are here.

I want to welcome you to all of our different locations, those

of you watching online and those of you who are part of the

crossing inside. This upcoming Tuesday we're

going to have a special event called Watch and Pray and if you

want to figure out how your particular location is

participating, you can go to thecrossing.net/watchand pray.

I don't know if we're if we're going to do this every election

year, but I felt compelled to live out First Timothy chapter 2

1 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

verses one through 4, which states I urge then first all

that petitions, prayers, intercession, and Thanksgiving

be made for all people. Who are some of these people you

might ask? For kings and all of those in

authority. Why should we be praying for

these people so that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all

godliness and holiness? Why should we do that?

Well, He tells us because this is good and it pleases God our

Savior, who wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge

of the truth. There is no doubt about it, an

intense division in our country. Many people are gripped with

fear about which way the election is going to go.

And I was convicted while I was preaching my own sermons during

the Don't Take the Bait sermon series.

So if you weren't getting anything out of it, I sure was.

And I realized that I don't pray nearly enough for our government

leaders. So you've heard me talk about

all the time that we believe that God's way is the best way

in every area of our life. And if God's way is the best

way, then when God says that we should pray for our leaders so

that way we can live peaceful and quiet lives so that people

can be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, we

should probably believe it's the best way.

And then we should behave like we believe it's the best way.

So we will be spending election night.

And I'm an election junkie. Listen, I've already filled out

who I believe is going to win how many electoral votes they're

going to get. I have it screenshotted so I can

do a victory dance for being right.

I'm a junkie. But instead of me being a total

election junkie, which we will definitely allow me to be a

little bit of an election junkie on that night, but while we're

watching it, we're going to do something else.

We're going to actually pray for our leaders.

We're going to spend time worshiping God, who's on the

throne, who only can get elected into your hearts, but nobody can

elect him out of his throne. And we believe that this will be

a faith motivator and elevator for those of you who

participate. So some of you, you'll be able

to join at a physical location. Many of you, if you want to be a

complete election junkie and cuss where nobody can hear you

as the polls close, you can do that at home and just have us up

on YouTube next to, you know, CNN or whoever you watch.

There'll be more information about this at the close of our

services as they tell you what they're doing at their

particular location. To those of you who are a part

of the crossing and you live in Missouri, I sent you an e-mail

this week regarding amendment three.

If you did not receive it, you can get there is a link to my

remarks that you can find at thecrossing.net slash amendment

3. This is for those of you who

live in Missouri. There is an important thing in

the on the ballot this year and I want to encourage you to

participate. And you might be going, Clayton,

I don't like voting. I don't like any of that stuff.

And you're thinking about sitting this election out.

The last election, 30 million people who would call themselves

Christians sat out. And what I want to encourage you

to do if you live in Missouri is even if you're not voting for

one president or the other, I believe you should show up and

vote no for amendment three. That being said, OK, thank you.

Those are the Missouri people. Everybody else in Iowa and

Illinois are like, what's on? And you can find out if you

want. OK.

Today we are going to continue in our sermon series called

Counterfeit Fruit Establishing an Authentic Walk with Jesus.

Genuine godly character is not just about your outward

appearance, but a heart that abides or gets pruney, a heart

that has wrinkles because of time spent with God.

We look at John chapter 5 or 15 verses one through 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

Look what Jesus says. I am the true vine and my father

is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me

that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he

prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

Remain or abide or get wrinkly in me as I also remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the

vine. Neither can you bear fruit

unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the

branches. If you remain in me and I in

you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from Me, you can do

nothing. 4 things to notice here.

Kind of a recap. God expects fruit because he has

saved you, because He has placed the Holy Spirit inside of you.

Fruit should be a part of your Christian experience.

And when he doesn't find fruit, you are cut off.

You might be going, that doesn't sound good.

It's not. Good branches bear fruit, and

even good branches get addressed by the gardener.

He cuts you, prunes you so that you become even more fruitful.

You're like, well, what does that feel like?

When you feel a conviction over sin, When you feel a pressure or

a prompting to do something that takes you out of your comfort

zone, You are being pruned. Remaining and abiding is how the

fruit is produced because you and I cannot produce fruit.

The Holy Spirit produces fruit in us when we remain.

This is not accomplished through human effort and #4 we have

absolutely nothing to offer apart from Him.

Many of you, we are trying to live our lives in our own power

and in our own strength. But when we abide, when we get

pruny, we develop a wrinkly heart.

When we spend time in the Word, in prayer, in community, and

operate in obedience, abiding in God produces this fruit.

And you're going, OK, well, what is the fruit?

Well, let me tell you what the fruit is.

Galatians 5 tells us this is what the fruit is, but the fruit

of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

So let's do a little group participation.

I'm going to have you answer on behalf of the person that you

came with today. OK, So husbands, you're going to

answer for your wife. Be careful, wives.

Do whatever you want to do. We get it.

All right? So raise your hand if the person

you're sitting next to wishes that you were more loving.

OK, Raise your hands if you wish your spouse was less loving.

Ladies, raise their hands. I got it.

OK, you're going. Hey, my spouse wishes I was more

joyful. If you're not raising your hand,

your marriage is in free fall. OK, You're like, we want a

grouchier person. If you could dial up Grouch in

our home, that would just be fantastic.

All right, let's try another one.

How many of you are going? My spouse would just.

It would be great in my family if I there was more peace.

OK, how many? How many of you are going?

We wish there were less peace. It's just too calm here.

We need some chaos, you know, like, yeah, I get it.

OK, Here's one. This is my family's going to put

all hands up. How many of you you wish, you

know, someone in your house was more patient?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got an F on that 1F.

It's a sickness. More kind.

They wish you were more kind. I wish you could just be meaner.

OK. More good.

I wish you were bad. Bad to the bone, babe.

All right, let's just skip ahead for a little bit.

How many of you wish that the people in your lives exhibited

more self-control? Yeah.

So these are all things that we need more of, but we can't

produce. The Holy Spirit produces them in

US. And last week, we talked about

how this counterfeit fruit shows up in different areas of our

lives. For instance, we looked at love

and joy, and the counterfeit fruit of love is a love that has

no boundaries, and we learned that love does not equal no

boundaries. We also learned that joy is not

toxic positivity, that you don't have to fake it till you make it

in Christ. Today, we're going to talk about

peace and patience and their counterfeits.

According to Interventure, counterfeit products have

emerged as a booming industry, topping out a $2 trillion

annually in the counterfeit game.

This is up from 450 billion in 2016.

So it is five times up. It is going fast.

Now the most affected industries are going to kind of bump some

of you out. Ready.

The clear leader in the counterfeit market is footwear

at 22 percent. 22% of the counterfeit market of $2

trillion is counterfeit sneakers.

Clothing comes in at 16%, leather goods, 13%, followed

closely behind. This is a little freaky.

It gets worse. 12% of electrical equipment is counterfeit.

So that surge protector that you bought, Probably not as much of

A protector as you thought. It's more of a serger.

OK. Watches are at 7%.

This is the freakiest one. 5% of medical equipment.

Like you thought you got a name brand pacemaker.

You got a pace taker. OK, that's what you got.

Not in the notes. Perfume is 5% of perfume and

cosmetics are 5% of the global market.

Why does this matter? It's because it's used with less

pure extracts and it's used with harsher or made with harsher

chemicals to keep the price down, which means that it can

pose serious health risks. And it's important to note that

the counterfeits are never of the knock off brands.

OK, I'm not trying to throw any shade, so if my jokes hit you,

they're not intended to hit you. But let me give you an example.

It is always like the Yeezys, the Jordans, the Prada, the

Dior, the Gucci and the Rolex that get counterfeited like

nobody. Do you guys remember, is Jordash

still a brand? Yeah.

Have you ever seen someone selling you some Jordash at, you

know, a discount? Like, oh man, I got, I got

Jordash sneakers here for $0.50. OK.

Like they're already $7.00 like we can.

It's always, it's always the high brand stuff.

And so when it comes to your relationship with Jesus, there

is counterfeit fruit. Why?

Because the real thing is so powerful.

Recently I was at Christmas. Somebody gave me a very nice

gift. They bought me some Cologne.

And Cologne matters to me because I'm 6 foot six, 285

pounds, 300 post Thanksgiving. And my my motto is I'm too big

to smell bad. Like if you have somebody this

big, that's like if a small person smells, nobody notices.

But if you, if I give you a hug, you're in my armpit.

Like that's where it starts. OK, So I always have Cologne on

me. And so he bought me this Cologne

and we loved it. We fell in love with the whole

family, loved it. And so they were just squirting

it all over themselves. So I ran out.

Well, we were coming back from a funeral in Chicago and we

stopped at an outdoor mall and they had a fragrance shop in

there. And I've never been to a

fragrance shop, but I walked in there and they had the the

Cologne that I purchased. And before you all e-mail me,

it's called Savage and it's fantastic.

OK, I don't want to e-mail you guys all this week.

Like, what's the what's the Cologne you got?

Because I want to get it for my smelly husband.

It's savage, Savage. And I, I, we buy and we were,

we, everybody bought their stuff.

And when they rang it all up, I got sticker shock.

And usually that's because of something that other people in

my family have purchased. And then I found out how

expensive Savage was and I was not anticipating that.

So I go back to the guy who gave me the gift and I go, I need you

to know, I had to buy a replacement of that because we

went through every and I did not realize how kind of a gift you

had given me. And he said I bought you the

knockoff. I love him so much.

Listen, and I'm just going to tell you the knockoff smells

just as good. But if I die, blame him.

Today we are going to discuss two more fruits of the Spirit,

peace and patience, and their stubborn, tricky, subtle

counterfeits, Comfort and complacency.

Sometimes when we think that we are living in peace and

practicing patience, we are really simply being inactive in

our faith. For instance, peace does not

mean staying comfortable. You see, we tend to view peace

through the context of our circumstances.

If I avoid hardship, If I avoid conflict, If I avoid hard

conversations, if I say no to difficult Holy Spirit directed

tasks and I stay in my comfort zone, then I will have peace.

However, this is never the case. We only grow in our relationship

with God outside of our comfort zone.

And I've talked about this before, but I think it's worth

repeating. OK, if you are not sensing the

power of the Holy Spirit in your life, it might be because you

are not doing anything that requires His power.

Let me explain. The Bible, I'm just going to

list a few, calls us to love our neighbor, seek the lost, pray

for our enemies, seek the needs of others, of ourselves,

sacrifice, be bold in our faith. And those things, just so you

know, are not possible without the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so when we're not doing those things, we're operating in

the flesh. And the Holy Spirit does not

have to empower you to live in the flesh.

You see, peace is not the absence of conflict or a

challenge. It is a position of trust that

God is who He says He is and that God's way is the best way

in spite of the world, in spite of the opposition, in spite of

how the world perceives us. A perfect example of this is

found in Philippians chapter 4, verses 4 through 9.

Philippians 4:4–9

You guys all know this verse. Rejoice in the Lord always.

I will say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident

to all. The Lord is near.

We're going to circle back to that.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every

situation, by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving,

present your requests to God and the peace of God, which

transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your

mind in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters,

whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,

whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable,

if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such

things. Whatever you have learned or

received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice

and the God of peace will be with you.

Notice the situation that they're in.

They are in a situation that is causing anxiety and worry.

They are outside of their comfort zone.

How do I have peace when I'm outside of my comfort zone?

Here's what we can take away. One remember that the Lord is

near. God is with us.

He is not distant, nor is he uncaring. 2 Pray through every

situation, big or small. Pray about it all.

Some of us go, this thing is too big for our God.

That's silly. A lot of us think this is too

small for our God, but God pays attention to everything.

When birds fall out of trees, when you lose your hair in the

shower, he knows the number of hair left on your head.

He notices it all. So pray about it all.

Then he says, think about a certain set of things.

Think about true things and noble things and admirable

things and excellent things and praiseworthy things.

Can you? You guys are Christians, so this

is this is not a trick question. Can you think of anybody or

anything that might embody all of those qualities?

I can think of three, Jesus himself, the cross of Christ,

and the tomb of Christ. If you're looking at excellent

and praiseworthy things, I would say Jesus is the most true, most

noble, most right, most pure, most loving, most admirable,

most excellent, most praiseworthy person to ever

exist. And Jesus reminds us that God is

close. His name shall be Emmanuel, God

with us. And Jesus reminds us that God is

caring because God is the God, which we talked about last week

of all comfort. And Jesus shows us that God's

way is the best way. When he's in the garden before

the crucifixion, Jesus himself prays not my will be done, but

your will be done. I can have peace when I know

that I am doing the thing that God has called me to do.

Then I can turn myself and I can look at the cross of Christ to

find peace. I when I think about that

because it is excellent and it is praiseworthy because the

cross reminds me that God can turn absolutely anything around

at a moments notice. You see, God took an instrument

of torture, the cross, and He used it to write every single

one of our testimonies. It began at the cross when He

redeemed us and He began to make us new.

And when I look at the cross, it reminds me that no matter what

situation I'm in, God can redeem it.

God can repurpose it so I can have peace that what I'm going

through will not be the end of me.

I can look at the tomb of Christ and I can remember that God is

undefeated. Not once has he ever taken a

loss. He went into the grave, He died,

and then he came back out overcoming death.

Overcoming sin, overcoming guilt, and overcoming shame.

Which means that those things are no match for His power, His

mercy, His grace. Which means when I'm in a

situation, I have a God who can turn everything around and a God

who is undefeated at that very task.

If I have those two things going for me, 6 of you are awake.

God bless you. You got an extra hour of sleep

and you're using it in here. What When you come into a

relationship with Jesus Christ and you find yourself in a spot

and you start thinking about all that you have going for you in

Christ, That's what gives you peace, not the situation.

He's what gives you peace. And then pay attention to this.

Paul, thank you. You guys are trying to turn it

around. God bless you.

OK, we're going to try and get peace in the sermon.

I don't at all of our other locations.

They're standing and cheering. 48 streets drunk.

OK #4 Paul says whatever you have learned or received, put it

into practice. Faith in Jesus is active.

When we do these things, God promises to be with us.

Let me explain this. There is a difference between

comfort and contentment. You will be in situations where

you will be uncomfortable. Through God's help, you will be

able to be content in being uncomfortable.

I'm going to take you to a verse that everybody knows and I'm

going to help you realize what that verse is really all about.

Philippians chapter 4. We're in the same chunk of

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Scripture. We've been in verses 11 through

13. I am not saying this because I

am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the

circumstances. I know what it is to be in need,

and I know what it is to have plenty.

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every

situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty

or in want. I can do all of this through

Him. Who gives me strength.

That's what Philippians 413 is about.

It's about making you undefeatable because no matter

what circumstance I'm going through, I'm going through.

Paul is not comfortable. He's content.

He's able to be content in any and every situation because of

the power of the Holy Spirit through Christ who gives him

strength. This is not the strength to

reach your Max deadlift. This is not the strength to help

you get the promotion, win the game, get the girl to marry you,

break 100 on the golf course. It is none of those things.

It is about something much deeper and something much

richer. It means crossing family when

the hardships of life come knocking at your door, when you

face opposition for doing the the very thing that God has

called you to do, when you experience deep hurt

relationally, you can get through because God is with you.

You have something that cannot be taken from you because when

you have an intimate personal relationship with Christ, you

have been made right with God through the sacrifice and death

and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And since Jesus is alive and God is undefeated and the Holy

Spirit is available, I can be at peace while I'm going through

things in this this life because I know I'm going through.

In other words, the storms can come, the winds can blow, the

waters can rise, but my spiritual house will be standing

after the storm because it's not built on me.

It's not built on the foundation of my family, the foundation of

my finances, the foundation of my status.

It's built on the rock solid foundation of the teachings of

Jesus and the power of his Holy Spirit.

Now the second area, OK, we got to move quick.

The second area where this manifests is in the spirit of

patience or the the fruit of patience because for a lot of us

patience has become complacency and those are two different

things. It happens over time.

Over time we can just slip into complacency in our walk.

It takes zero effort for us to develop a lazy faith.

However, James warns us in James chapter 2 verse 26 as the body

James 2:26

without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

If you are not walking by faith, you don't have faith.

James makes this point really, really clear earlier in this.

This is what he says, hey, you believe in God, great.

Even the demons do that. So if you're here today and

you're going, I believe in God, I just want you to know right

now you are on par with demons. Turn to your spouse and go you.

No, don't do that. What separates us from the

demons is when we put our faith into practice.

Our beliefs must be married with action.

We know this is true in every area of your life.

It is not enough to know how to eat right, you actually have to

eat right. Right, some of you.

How many of you guys have a Peloton or a rower or a

treadmill at your house that you guys use to hang your laundry

on? Yeah, having it.

If if owning equipment made us skinny, we'd all be skinny.

If knowing we should work out made us skinny, we'd all be fit.

I'd be the Brad Pitt of preachers, right?

We we both have shoulders Like it's a start.

OK, Godly Patience, hear me, is waiting is waiting for an

opportunity. Complacency is avoiding an

opportunity. And here's what I mean.

So many of us in an effort to like, try to be godly, we go.

I just don't want to get out in front of God.

We've forgotten that we are as people to be on the move with

God because God is always moving.

For instance, let's just say in your life that there is somebody

who is close to you and they are far from God and you've been

going, man, I need to talk to them.

I need to invite them. I need to have a conversation

with them. But you haven't yet.

Why some of you go, I just don't know what to say.

OK, I got a question for you. How long have you been stuck on?

I don't know what to say. That's complacency.

That's spiritual laziness. You've you've identified a a

deficiency, a challenge, a hardship.

I don't know what to say. And for weeks, months, years,

decades, you've been stuck on. I don't know what to say.

That's lazy. Complacency is never working to

figure out the right thing to say, or complacency is not

trusting that God will do what He promised in His Word He would

do, which He would give us the words to say when the moment

comes about. In other words, complacency is

saying I'm going to talk to them next week, next month, and how

many next weeks and how many next months have come and gone

and nothing has changed. Patience is not waiting for a

door to open, but for the door to crack.

Let me give you 3 cracked doors for those of you who are going,

hey, let's just figure out how to put this into practice.

If you're around somebody and you hear these three statements,

this is the door cracking. This is a Holy Spirit

invitation. If you hear somebody talk about

loss, unexpected change or struggle, that is, in my

opinion, a Holy Spirit invitation for you to step into

them with the love and the word of God.

When somebody goes, I'm dealing with loss, somebody has died,

they're going through a divorce, their marriage is struggling,

that's an invitation. When there's an unexpected

change, they had a change in their job or a change in their

health or somebody else's health.

When there's a struggle with kids or at work, when you hear

those things, that is God showing you this person is

hurting and I'm the God of all comfort and I want to use you to

comfort them. And faith is stepping into that

moment, trusting that the Holy Spirit will guide you and give

you the words to say so that person can be saved.

But patience is even more than this.

The Hebrew word for patience was made by slamming 2 weird words

together, long and nose. Patience in the Hebrew

Scriptures is long nosed. Like a big old honker, like just

a big bird. You know why?

Because when you're not patient, you're in a rush.

But a person with patience is calm under pressure.

They're not reacting, they're responding.

They're long nosed about things. They're breathing deeply and

calmly and just waiting it out. In the New Testament, they did

the same thing. They took 2 words and they

slammed them together to make the word.

Patience. Long sold, long hearted that

you're dealing with the situation and you've just got a

little bit of endurance in you. You're long sold about it when

things are not going the right way.

We are long nosed. We're long sold about it when

our kids are difficult. We're not complacent and just

assuming that it's going to figure itself out.

Oh no, we are very active. And so we step in to make sure

that they don't act a fool, but we don't respond in anger.

We're a long nosed about it. We don't give up on them because

we're long hearted about it. We realize that we are in it for

the long haul. We have patience.

There's a cool story in ancient literature about when Carthage

in North Africa and Rome and Italy were at war with one

another. And the in the year 215 BC, the

general Hannibal was conquering cities and he came to this one

particular city called Castilium, and it was being

defended by just 600 soldiers. And Hannibal noticed that these

soldiers were protecting it, just 600 of them, that they went

out in the daytime and they started to plant turnips outside

the city walls. And it caught him off guard

because he was going, these 600 soldiers actually think that at

some point in time they're going to end up winning and they're

going to want something to eat. These people were so long sold,

long nosed about the war that they're going.

One of these days this war is going to be over and I'm going

to want some turnips. And in a couple of months this

will all be over and we're going to need something to eat.

They had not given up one bit. They were long nose.

They were long sold about it. And so when you think about

those two things, when you find yourself in second Peter chapter

2 Peter 3:9

3 verse 9, you find out something about our God.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand

slowness. Instead, he is long nosed with

you. He's long sold with you, He's

long hearted with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but

everyone to come to repentance. God is far from complacent.

He is long sold with you and I so that we can be saved from our

sins through repentance. In other words, why does all

this matter? Because the gospel of Jesus

Christ only advances when we are outside of our comfort zone.

And when we are out of our comfort zone, all we're going to

want to do is get back in it. But when you have the fruit of

the Spirit that is peace and patience, you can remain outside

of your comfort zone where the power of the Holy Spirit does

His most work so you can have the greatest possible impact.

And while you are outside of your comfort zone, you will have

a peace that surpasses all understanding and a patient

endurance to stay there until He's done with you.

That's why Second Corinthians chapter 4 says this.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

We know that our light and momentary troubles are achieving

for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

When you and I are long nosed, long sold, and at peace, we are

reaping an eternal reward that outpaces our present suffering.

Why does this matter? Because if people are going to

find the Lord, it is going to require people like you and me

to step out of our comfort zone. And with the real fruit of the

spirit of peace and patience, we can do that.

We're moving to a time of decision.

If you are in this room or you are watching online and you

don't know God, you don't have peace yet.

In fact, the Bible kind of sets up this imagery of you are at

war with God. Your bitter enemies hear me, not

because of what He's done, but because of what you've done.

But I have great news for you. The war can come to an end

today. This God that you're at war with

loves you so much that before your war with Him even started,

He provided for you a way out. The Bible tells us that He sent

his Son to die on the cross for our sins, for your sins, to ease

the pain, to bring about a peace that can only be granted from

Him. But it comes after your

surrender and when you come into a right relationship with Him.

The Bible says that God goes from being your enemy to being

your friend and you become a son or a daughter.

And when you become a son or a daughter, you become an heir to

the promise and an heir to the Kingdom of heaven.

And if I could tell you anything, I would tell you this.

Don't put it off any longer. And you might have been sitting

in here for weeks, some of you months, sometimes it's years.

It's crazy. There's stories that get written

here. And the voice of comfort and

complacency has won at every single one of these moments at

our church because you know that there is a thing that you're

supposed to do. And you've said, well, maybe

next week I'll talk to somebody. You have questions, you know,

maybe next week I'll ask them. And next week has come and gone

over and over and over again. And maybe today, through the

power of the Holy Spirit, you'd be willing to step out of your

comfort zone and into a conversation that could bring

you a peace that surpasses all understanding.

What I want to encourage you to do is in just a few moments, the

people around you are going to stand and sing.

Some of them are going to come to the steps and pray.

And I want to encourage you to take what might be the scariest

walk of your life that leads to the greatest relationship you've

ever had and walk right over there underneath that screen

next to the baptistry. And somebody would love to talk

to you about what you're going through.

If you're watching online, somebody's already populated it

in the chat. And if you click on that, you'll

have a private window where not everybody can see what you're

talking about. And person will individually

meet with you and talk with you and answer some of the questions

and help you get connected to a church to make some of the

decisions that you need to make to the rest of you in the room.

To those of you who already know Jesus, it is time for real fruit

to be produced in our lives. Not the counterfeit stuff.

Our comfort zone, our complacency are robbing the

people we love of a relationship that they desperately need with

Jesus. I'm praying that as a church we

would step out and we'd allow God to do what only He can do

through His power and His strength in our lives.

Here's a tough question for you to wrestle with.

When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone

for the cause of Christ? Sometimes when I'm talking to

people, they'll tell me their testimony of like when, when was

the last time they'll be like, well, when I was in high school,

when I was in college a couple years ago, I deep down inside,

don't you want to be a part of a church where our story of the

last time we stepped out and the last time the Holy Spirit

empowered us was yesterday, last week For God, just keep writing

these stories. So then let me ask you a tougher

question. When will the next time be?

And I'm going to encourage you to spend some time praying about

that. Would you guys stand with me?

Heavenly Father, I want our church to be addicted to Your

Holy Spirit. I want us to crave Your

direction and Your power in our lives.

We want to be blown around by You like sailboats in the wind.

We just want to be ushered along by You.

Take us to places we wouldn't normally go.

Take us to places we could never go on our own.

Now, there is nothing that we do as a church that has any power,

any validity, any excellence without your Holy Spirit at

work. And God, I believe there's

nothing off limits to you. And so I'm asking that right

now, not just at this location and not just online and not just

at our other locations, but God, that every church that gathers

today, that every person. Would get a clear prompting of

what it is that you are asking them to do, asking them to stop

doing, asking them to start doing, and that you would give

us the strength and the patience and the peace to do it.

In your name, I pray. Amen.