Free People - Walk This Way

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Today we are in part seven.

That's a lot of messages.

Seven of an eight-week message series that we have called Free People.

And if you're new to our church, every summer we pick a book of the Bible and we just go to work on this book.

And so for the last seven weeks, we've been talking about this idea that Paul wrote a letter to a series or a group of churches in an area called Galatia, which would be modern-day Turkey.

And the whole point of this book is God created you to live in and walk free in freedom as free people.

So many of us, we get ourselves entrapped or entangled in sin or trying so hard to earn God's forgiveness, and you can't earn a gift that God has freely given you.

And so we we've been talking about what does it mean to be free.

If you missed last week, man, last week I came after it, talking about how so many of us live with our hearts literally enslaved.

And what does it look like to be free?

Today I've got another message that I'm just gonna ask you in advance.

I need you to put your big boy or your big girl pants on, because I'm gonna come after it today.

To get us started today, uh, a few years ago, my family had this realization, and it was that my oldest son Joey was getting close to graduating high school, and I didn't know how many summers we had left where we'd be able to take a family vacation.

So we made this decision that we were gonna live a little cheap during the year so we could go big on a vacation in the summer.

Two summers ago might have been my favorite vacation we've ever had as a family, because my family we booked a Mediterranean cruise, and it was awesome.

We started in Barcelona, we stopped a few places in Italy along the way, got to show my kids their mom's motherland, and uh it was so much fun.

We showed them the Colosseum and the ancient Roman ruins.

We showed them the leaning tower of Pisa, and listen to me, that thing is creepy.

It is leaning, like it is going to fall someday.

It is leaning so much.

Uh, we ate all the pizza and all the gelato, and people will say things like, Well, you know, when you're in Europe, you can't really gain weight.

Not your boy, everybody.

I'm an overachiever, okay?

And it was awesome.

Now we uh we started the cruise in Barcelona, and um we decided to go a couple days early to let our body clocks adjust to the time change, but also some of our best friends in the world, John and Brandi Carano, live there.

And we thought it'd be fun to spend a few days with our dear friends.

They're missionaries there that our church has supported from the earliest days, and we just love them.

And so we go and they gave us a grand tour.

We saw all the beautiful things of Barcelona.

If you've never been, it is one of the most alive and beautiful cities in the world, you should go.

But one day, there was this moment that marked me.

And here I am all these years later, I still think about it often, because John drove us up a mountain called Mount Tibidaba, which is this beautiful place.

And at the top, there is this unbelievable, beautiful cathedral.

In fact, it's not a cathedral, it's actually called a basilica.

It's called the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

That's what this church is called.

And what's so incredible about this church is the architecture is amazing.

I learned that there's a difference between a cathedral and a basilica.

A basilica is a cathedral that the Pope has declared like special, like over the top, and forever it's going to be called a basilica because there's something special or significant about it.

Could have been something that something magnificent happened.

It could be for the architecture and the beauty of it.

But they built this beautiful cathedral, and we go, like this next picture is Liz and Ella, my daughter, standing in front of it.

It was unbelievable.

The beauty, the architecture.

Inside, there's unbelievable stained glass windows, and it's got this Spanish flair to it.

It was just so, so, so incredible and so pretty.

So we toured it, we walked up all up in the different spires, and it was beautiful to see.

But what was interesting to me about it was um it's not really a church anymore.

It's not, it's like it's like a museum.

And people pay money to go see it, people pay money to buy a candle to light.

They pay money to just see it, but but there's no real life there.

To make it even weirder when you drive up Mount Tibidabo and you see the beautiful church, outside of it, since the church doesn't really exist as a church anymore, they built an amusement park.

There's rides, there's a carousel, there's a massive Ferris wheel.

And it was interesting because we were there in a place that was created and designed to be set apart, consecrated, sacred and holy.

It was a place where people were to come and encounter the presence of the living God.

And it was now a museum, and it was now a theme park.

It's like this that place had the appearance of godliness, but was lacking the power of the Holy Spirit.

It it looked to be beautiful, sacred, and holy, but nothing beautiful and sacred and holy was happening there anymore.

I wonder if that definition might feel true about you.

That people would say, Oh, that person goes to church, oh, that person lives a good moral kind of life, and what we have is the appearance of godliness, but there's no power in us to do what God has called us to do.

I would say it like this many Christians are called, but lack the power to do what they're called to do.

And if that might feel like you at all, Paul talks directly to you in the second half of Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read a lot of verses and I'll do my best to explain it as I go, then we'll give some context to all of it.

Galatians 5, verse 16, Paul starts with this.

Galatians 5:16

So I say, walk by the Spirit.

Essentially, what he's saying is, I want you to learn to live in step with the Holy Spirit.

Whatever he tells you to do, I want you to walk with him.

And he says, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Now, if you grew up going to church, you probably heard this word flesh used a lot.

And I think a lot of people hear words and don't really know what they mean.

When Paul says you won't gratify your flesh, here's what he's saying.

The the Greek word for this word flesh is this word here, you would say it sarks.

And flesh literally means your internal person that desires and has appetites and cravings for things that are not of God.

It's this part of you that wants to do whatever you want to do with your body, with your life, with your thought life.

It's this part of you that really doesn't care what God wants.

It's this part of you that is this uncontrolled appetite that will never once and for all fully be satisfied, that wants whatever you want.

Paul goes on and he says this.

He says, For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.

So it's like there's this war going on between the spirit of God who wants God's best for you, and your flesh who just wants to satisfy the immediate cravings of your heart.

He goes on, he says, They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want, but if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

And then Paul's gonna do something hard.

He's gonna list off 15 different categories of sin.

And I'll be honest for just a moment.

Some of these are uncomfortable.

Some of these, if you're not careful, you'll just kind of read over it quickly and think, ah, these don't really apply to me.

I believe with all in my heart that 100% of us today struggle with some of these at some level.

So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read this list of the sins of the flesh that Paul gives, and I'm gonna I'm gonna explain them to you so you don't just bounce over it and miss what he's saying to you.

He says the acts of the flesh are obvious.

Sexual immorality.

This is having sex anywhere outside of God's design and context for it.

What is God's design for sex?

In the context of a covenant marriage between a man and a woman, no place else.

In fact, if you're into Greek words, the Greek word for this phrase sexual immorality is the word porneo.

It's the sexual junk drawer word, which means anything sexual.

Think about all the different words that would be associated with porneo, like pornography.

It's any sort of sexual thing outside of God's design for it.

Sexual immorality, impurity.

Well, it's a hard one because impurity is the stuff that you think about.

It's the stuff, it's your thought life.

It's when you walk past a person and you let your eyes linger a little too long, it's when you imagine them in an objectified kind of way.

It's it's the thought life you have.

Sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery.

Now there's a fun word.

Tried to use that one tomorrow at the water cooler.

Um, debauchery uh literally means the celebration of sin.

All right, let me just get real for a moment.

I I champion any person who says they're struggling with the sin, because I do believe that it's a fight.

I believe that there are inclinations that some of us have, some of us are bent towards one direction in our life, one sin or another, and all of us have some things that we struggle with, but debauchery is when we move from struggling to a sin to celebrating it.

It's when we put words like pride in front of sin, which means we've moved out of it being something sinful and shameful to being something that we celebrate.

Are you with me on this?

It's debauchery.

And he says, idolatry, idolatry is putting anything in the place of God.

It's moving God off of the throne of your heart and moving anything else into it.

And sometimes we think of idolatry as like having a golden idol.

Idolatry can be money, idolatry can be a relationship, idolatry can be having kids or some sort of career success, and we do that.

He says, in witchcraft, and witchcraft maybe you don't struggle with, but witchcraft is literally going to any other source than God for the things of God.

Witchcraft, hatred.

You understand what that means is to hate or to despise someone.

Discord is to like rip friends and relationships apart.

Jealousy, which is wanting what someone else has, fits of rage.

So I'm on the plane a couple days ago, flying home from California, and I read this, and it just hits me like a brick.

I I had a weird experience that morning with a TSA agent, and I was furious.

Like I'm literally fuming mad.

I waited through a long line.

They made me start the line all over again.

And my daughter Ella's with me, and she is just so cool.

She's like cool as a cucumber.

And she looks at me and she goes, You okay, bro?

And I was like, What do you mean?

I think my ears were red, I think steam was starting to come out.

I was so angry.

And then I get on the flight and I'm flying home and I'm reading through this verses to preach it, and I notice he says the word fits of rage or fits of anger.

Who throws fits?

Toddlers.

Two-year-olds, babies throw fits.

And I'm like, whoo, that's hard.

Maybe you struggle with this too.

Uh he goes on, he says, selfish ambition, which is wanting everything for yourself.

Dissensions is dissensions is when we try to like push people out or we split people up.

And by the way, uh, if you have church hurt, it's probably because somewhere along the way someone struggled with this or this factions.

Factions is like when we play the game Survivor in real life and we make real life alliances.

And so we say, like, this is my group, and no one else can be in it.

We're exclusive, we're friends, and if you're not in our group, you can't be with us.

That's factions.

And envy.

Envy's not wanting what someone else has.

Envy is wanting someone else to not have what they have.

Drunkenness is taking a gift from God and abusing it.

Orgies that has two different meanings.

The one is the one that every adult knows.

The second meaning of orgies is kind of just living like everything is a party.

Like I can just do whatever I want.

YOLO, it doesn't really matter, it's not that big of a deal.

It won't hurt me that much.

I'm just out there living for number one.

And then he says this phrase and the like.

It's like any of these sins.

Now, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand if you struggle with one of those, but but I will.

Like honestly, like I just struggle with some of them because some of them are internal, some of them are my thoughts, some of them are the way that I perceive the world, some of them are the way that I judge people, some of the ways I separate people in my mind and in my heart.

And look what Paul says.

If you struggle with any of those sins, he says, I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Whew.

That's tough.

And then he hits you with this massive conjunction.

He says, But there's hope, but you don't have to live this way.

He says, but the fruit of the spirit is, and he's gonna go on to list nine things.

Now, this is interesting.

In that list of 15 sins that he gave us, seven of them were relational, several of them were sexual in nature.

Um, on this list of what he calls the fruit of the spirit, there's nine, every single one of them is relational.

Because he uses the word fruit, it means that there should be something evident to the people around you that you're not being led by your flesh or your sinful desires, but that you are being led by the Spirit of God.

He says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, which means patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness.

Gentleness, another word is meekness, which means power under control, and self-control.

Self-control is a big one because a lot of us are controlled by our desires, we're controlled by our appetites.

And by the way, your appetites and your cravings are never once and for all fully satisfied.

This is important for you to understand.

Have you ever had a buffet?

You ever had a Thanksgiving meal and you ate so much that your back hurts, and you think, I will never be hungry again.

And the next morning you see Tony the tiger's face and you're like, they're great, and you have a bowl of frosted flakes.

It's because an appetite, a craving, is never once and for all fully satisfied.

Self-control says, I can be in control.

I don't have to let my appetites and my cravings control me.

Paul goes on and he says, Against such things, there is no law.

He says, Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.

We've put to death our sinful desires with its passions and desires.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep, I love this phrase, keep in step with the Spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

This is this is strong.

Paul says that there is a way that you and I can live our lives where we're not controlled by those cravings, those appetites, and those desires that is our flesh, but there's a different way.

And here's what I want you to understand about this.

If you live the patterns of this world, you're gonna get the results of this world.

But if you live according to the ways of God, you're gonna get the results of heaven.

That's the goal, right?

So I want you to write these down because I want to explain these verses we just read.

Number one, walking by the Spirit is a daily challenge.

I want you to understand this.

I think a lot of people make the decision to follow Jesus and they think that if I follow Jesus, all of those desires are just gonna magically go away.

No.

Paul says there is a fight going on in the souls of every believer.

And it's the fight of the immediate versus the ultimate.

It's will I satisfy my flesh?

Will I do what my body craves or wants to do, or will my life, my body, my hope, my soul will all of it be subjected to whatever the Spirit of God asks of me?

Here's what he says in verse 17 again.

He says, For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.

They're literally at war with each other.

He says they're in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want to do.

There is a battle happening inside of all of us, and I just need you to know, here I am, I'm the pastor of a church, and I still struggle in this fight.

It is a daily decision to fight for the things of God.

Um, I had uh the best grandmother in the whole world, and when I was in college, um, she says to me, Jason, look, I need you to know something about you.

You are 116th Native American.

You are 116th Western Cherokee, West Side, you know, and I was she's like, Um, I want you to know it's not a recognized tribe yet, but I'm petitioning Congress, don't pay your college bill anymore.

I'm gonna get all of your college bill paid.

And I was like, our people have suffered.

Yes, we have, you know.

And um, anyway, she said I was one sixteent Native American.

23andme.com said I'm not, but I trust my grandmother, okay?

And so um, anything that has to do with like Native American culture, I just I enjoy laughing about it because of my heritage.

And um, there's this quote by a chief called Chief Sitting Bull.

It's an ancient Indian proverb, and he said this.

He said, Inside of me, there are two dogs.

One is mean and evil, and the other is good, and they fight each other all the time.

When asked which one wins, I answer, the one I feed the most.

It's really simple, right?

You understand what you feed grows, and what you starve dies.

Let me teach you two big words vivification and mortification.

Vivification is giving life to something, mortification is putting something to death.

And what Paul is saying and what Chief Sitting Bull is saying is the same thing, which is that every single day, it's like there's this fight going on in you.

One is the flesh that drives you to your selfishness, and the other is the spirit of God.

And you have to make the decision to mortify your flesh, which means to put it to death, and to vivify your spirit.

I want you to understand this.

It's a fight every single day.

I wish you could pray one prayer and all the sinful, selfish desires were taken away.

That's not how it works.

In fact, the battle for your future is won or lost in the small decisions that no one else sees.

Every single day, you are fighting a fight that no one else sees.

In fact, the word I would use for this is the word integrity.

The word integrity comes from the root word integris, which means whole.

Integrity is what you do when no one else sees.

Integrity is what you do when you're on a business trip away from your spouse and she has no idea where you are or who you're with.

Integrity is what you do when you're home alone and you have an open internet and you can do or watch whatever you want.

Integrity is what you decide to feed yourself or to watch on TV or movies.

Integrity is choosing to not cut a corner on your taxes, even though nobody will probably catch you and you'll have a few extra dollars in your pocket.

Integrity is choice after choice after choice to behold.

Now let me try to explain it to you like this.

I said it a moment ago, if you follow the ways of the world, you get the you get the results of the world.

And what are the results of the world?

Brokenness.

Some people will say to you, well, like sin is no fun.

Yes, it is.

You're not doing it right, okay?

Like it is, but it always leads to brokenness, right?

Integrity comes from the root word integris, which means whole.

God doesn't want you broken, he wants you to be a whole, healed person.

So what if you just made this decision to say instead of settling for the immediate, which is what I want, I'm gonna shoot for the ultimate, which is what God wants?

Number two, write this down.

The flesh always overpromises and under-delivers.

It's kind of like this.

Have you ever seen a McDonald's commercial on TV?

Don't their burgers look perfect and big and juicy and fluffy?

The cheese is melted just right, all the lettuce and tomatoes all stacked perfectly on it.

You ever ordered a McDonald's hamburger?

Does it look anything like the commercial?

No.

And did you have a good customer experience ordering it?

Absolutely no, right?

Like, that's how this works.

Sin does the same thing, it overpromises, it gives you a picture of what life will be like, but it always falls short, it always underdelivers, it always leaves you broken.

In fact, let me give you three lies of the flesh.

Number one, if you indulge me, you'll be happy.

Truth is, if you indulge sin, you'll be broken.

Number two, follow me and you'll be free.

The truth is you follow your sin right into slavery of your soul.

Number three, here's one.

You deserve this.

You deserve this.

Come on, it's no big deal.

You earned it, you you have worked so hard, just blow some steam off.

Can I tell you the truth?

Big sins usually begin as tiny permissions.

I have counseled hundreds, probably thousands of people over the years.

I've talked to lots of people who have had affairs.

You know what I've discovered in people who have had affairs?

They never stumbled into it.

They didn't just like trip one day over the sidewalk and boom, they're sleeping with somebody.

It doesn't work like that.

Every affair started with a bunch of little tiny compromises.

A lingering touch, a lingering look, an internal thought of it's not a big deal.

An internal thought of, well, you deserve this, or she's not meeting your needs, or he's not keeping me happy.

Every affair started with a series of little choices.

And here's the thing about you here's the thing about me.

All of us have what I would call an internal lawyer.

And this is important for you to understand.

I told you a couple weeks ago I love law TV shows.

In fact, if this whole church ministry thing doesn't work out, I'm gonna get past the bar and I'm gonna become a lawyer.

So I'm gonna fight for people.

I'm gonna fight for good and fight for justice and use my gift of talking to help people get out of some problems, right?

But here's the thing a good lawyer will help you get out of a problem, but your internal lawyer, it gets you into all kinds of problems.

Your internal lawyer will say things like, Well, I know the Bible says but.

Like I know what's right, but but it's not hurting anyone, no one will find out.

It's just your body, it's just sex, it's just a little cut on the corner of your taxes, it's just it's just a little something, it's not that big of a deal.

You need to put to death mortification your flesh and vivify vivification with your spirit.

Number three, write this down.

The spirit empowers us to do what we can't do in our own strength.

And if you're fighting me in your mind, you're like, oh Jason, I can't do this.

That's right, you can't do it in your Own strength, but here's the good news: God never asks you to do anything in your own strength.

The book of Philippians, Paul also writes it, he says, In my weakness, God's strength is made perfect.

Like I don't have to do anything in my own strength.

And Paul says this the result of being connected to or walking with the Holy Spirit is there's going to be evidence to the world around you.

I want you to notice this.

The fruit of the spirit is nine things: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Nine things.

And I want you to notice his language is intentional.

He doesn't say it's the fruits of the spirit.

It's the fruit.

It's when the Holy Spirit is alive and working in you.

All of those things love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

All those things are going to be evident to the world around you.

In fact, if the world around you isn't noticing there's something different about you, you should maybe check the fruit.

Are you living it out?

The Bible uses a lot of fruit language, a lot of agrarian farmer language.

Jesus in Matthew chapter 7 says that you will know the kind of tree it is by the fruit that it produces.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Here's the translation for you.

You will know what kind of Christ's follower you are by the fruit of your life.

Are people noticing?

John chapter 15, Jesus says another thing on fruit.

John 15 · chapter mention

Here's what he says.

Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener.

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.

By the way, this is an important thing, that this is us putting to death those sinful things in our life, our flesh, because they bear no good fruit.

While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

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

And then Jesus says, Remain in me, as I also remain in you.

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

He says, Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

Then he quotes himself.

He says, I am the vine, you are the branches.

If you remain in me, connected, and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

And then look at this line.

He says, Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Now I need you to know something about me.

I am not a farmer.

I am not good at things like this.

I'm not handy.

A few years ago, we saved up our money and we did a family vacation to Hawaii, and I came back and I thought to myself, I'm gonna grow a pineapple.

So I got a pineapple plant.

And I watered that thing every day and it grew.

I took pictures of it like a proud father does of his children.

I was so proud of this thing.

And it grew.

But here's how bad I am.

I don't know like when to harvest this thing.

So I think I harvested it about a month too late.

Cut it open.

I called the kids in.

I'm like, kids, this, we're gonna celebrate this moment.

You're dad.

Superhero.

Look what I grew this.

I did this.

We cut it open and we all took a bite at the same time.

We even like cheers and we took a bite.

And for one second it tasted like pineapple.

And then for one second it tasted like rubbing alcohol.

And then the third second it tasted like the most rancid thing I've ever put in my mouth.

Everyone's like puking it out, all it was disgusting.

I'm not good at gardening.

Okay, are you with me?

But I know some stuff.

Okay, pretend that this is a vine.

And I want you to just I want you to see this for just a moment, okay?

We took a banana.

Go with me on this.

And if we connected it to the vine, like it's kind of on there, excuse me.

Here's the question will it grow?

No.

It's near, but it's not connected.

It's close, but it's not attached.

It's near, but it's never gonna grow because growth happens when there's a connection to it.

Okay, let me try to make this personal for you spiritually.

A lot of Christians, in my opinion, we're close to the things of Jesus.

We love church, and so we're close to church.

We love the worship.

Oh, it gives me the goosebumps.

I love it so much.

Our students love access youth, so they're close to access youth.

We try to get close to God through serving, close to God through giving, and we try to get ourselves close, but then we think, oh, I'm just not really growing spiritually.

It's because close doesn't count, it's connection that grows you.

So let me show it to you like this.

Fruit is never about effort, it's about connection.

So here's what I know.

If you can get a tree healthy, a fruit tree healthy, you don't even really have to do very much to it because it's naturally going to produce fruit.

It's the connection, not the closeness.

It is the attachment, not the disconnect from it.

That's we're gonna grow it.

So, what does it mean?

Look at me.

It means that if you found yourself connected to anything close to God that is not God, you're never going to grow in your relationship with Him.

So, how do we get attached and connected?

Here it is.

Number four, we need to do what Paul says and walk with the Spirit.

What does it mean?

Paul says in verse 25, he says, Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

This week for my daughter's birthday, I took her to Disney.

And um, we did some work at Disney.

One day we did 40,000 steps.

That's a lot of steps, fam.

It was a lot.

We did it.

And there were some times where I was in dad mode.

I was like, Ella, keep up, let's go! And I would just take off.

And every once in a while I would look and she was always with me, always in step, always close, always there.

What would happen if she took her eyes off of me and went her own direction?

She's gonna be out of step, which means to be disconnected.

And a lot of us, if we examined our hearts, we we get out of step with what the Spirit of God is saying.

This is the reason our mission statement as a church is really simple.

We exist to help people take the next step in their relationship with Jesus.

Following Jesus is literally just one step after the next.

We we don't help people run after Jesus or run with Jesus.

We we help them walk or take the next step with him.

I want you to understand this.

This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

This is what it means to be connected to what Jesus is all about.

So let me give you three challenges.

Let me make this really personal.

As I as I read these questions to you, I want to challenge you this week to wrestle these to the ground.

I want you to fight through these.

I want you to ask the question Is there fruit in my life that's evident of my following of the Spirit of God?

Or am I living to satisfy and gratify my own flesh?

Question number one, write this down.

What are you feeding?

Because remember, whatever you feed grows, and whatever you starve dies.

So listen to me.

If you are feeding the things of God, you will be growing the fruit of the spirit.

But if you feed your selfishness, your sinful desires, that is what's going to grow.

Number two, what fruit is growing?

This one's a good one.

In fact, if you're married, this might be a good one to ask your spouse.

If you have a mentoring voice or someone in your life who's like a season ahead of you that's a fully devoted follower of Jesus, this might be a good question for them.

And why don't you go through that list of the fruit of the Spirit?

Love, enjoy, peace, and just ask it slowly.

How am I growing in love?

How am I growing in joy?

Here's one.

In our anxious world, how am I growing in peace?

How am I growing in patience?

I want God to give it to me right away, but patience it never happens right away.

And ask the question, what fruit in my life is growing?

So that number three, I can ultimately answer this question: who is in control?

And this is the one I really want you to come to grips with.

At the end of the day, you follow the ways of this world, you will get the results of this world.

But you follow the ways of Jesus and you will get the results, the fruit of the spirit of following Jesus.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes with me at all of our locations?

Here's how I want to end today.

Would you take just 10 seconds and ask the question, who's in control?

The way you can know is by the fruit.

Again, I don't know a lot about fruit, but I just know all it takes is connection to the source for it to grow.

If there's no fruit in your life, you should ask the question, who am I following, or who am I connected to?

Is it my sinful selfishness, or is it following the spirit of God?

So, God, give us courage today to look at your word as the mirror.

Give us the courage to stare our souls in the mirror and ask the question, am I truly living for me and my sinfulness and my selfishness, or am I living according to following the Spirit of God?

God, for those of us who need to make an adjustment, may we have the courage to do it today.

God, here's my prayer.

The point of fruit is not even for the tree, the point of fruit is for someone else.

May the world around us see that we're different.

May there be an evident fruit of the spirit in our lives: love and joy and peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

May it be evident and obvious to the world around us, and as a result of that, God, may our city be changed.

Thank you, God, for it.

With your heads up still bowed and eyes still closed, if you're here today and you'd say, Jason, I don't even know if I'm right with God.

Like, how can I have fruit of the Spirit and how can I follow Jesus if I'm not following him?

If you're here and you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, or you're like a lot of people who maybe you went to church as a kid because your parents forced you and you prayed a prayer, but you just you feel like you're so far from God.

Like there's no evidence in your life that you're following him.

But today you're saying, Jason, I need to start or restart following Jesus.

Would you have five seconds of courage and just raise your hand right now?

No one's looking, no one's talking.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Wow, thank you.

So cool.

Thank you, thank you in the back.

I see you.

At all of our locations, just raise your hand.

Here's what I'm gonna invite you to do.

In a moment, we're gonna pray a prayer together.

And listen to me.

Praying a prayer will change everything in your life when you mean this with all of your heart.

So as I pray it out loud, I want you to repeat it after me out loud and I want you to mean it with your heart.

But we're not gonna embarrass you and leave you alone.

Our whole church family is gonna say this prayer with you.

It's like, it's like spiritually, we're standing with you, we're linking our faith with you, and we're gonna pray it out loud and proud.

In fact, everybody, would you just pray this loud with me?

Say, Jesus, today I make this choice.

I give you my life.

Be my Lord and Savior.

Save me, forgive me, change me, and make my life new.

Jesus, from this day forward, I choose to follow you.

I give you my life for the rest of my life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Church fam, can we celebrate with those who just made that decision?