The Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness | Ryan Wallace

So morning, beautiful people. It's wonderful to be up here and

just sharing this message. We continuing our series through

Galatians. We've been camping in this book

and really letting it get into us.

And today I'm going to be talking on the topic gentleness,

which is actually, I found it very, very challenging.

It's a topic I've kind of been wrestling with and I'm sure you

guys will agree with me that gentleness isn't trending.

It's not trending if you look around us, if you look in the

South African society, if you look at what social medias feeds

kind of give us. Gentleness is not what the

algorithms are after gentle. The algorithms are after people

that clap back quickly. You know, that fire back that

are confident that you know, will put you in your place, that

will, you know, strength is what's trending.

Gentleness doesn't seem to dominate the debates, doesn't

seem to be, you know, it's more like confidence and forcefulness

that that wins the arguments. Having the last word and, you

know, cancelling entirely seem to be way more effective than

gentleness in our society. But if we're honest, gentleness

is something that's actually very, very appealing.

It's actually such a beautiful thing.

We with frequency, we did a hike on Friday night and I asked many

of the high schoolers. There were about 3035 of them.

What do you think about gentleness?

Like is it relevant? Is it a good idea?

Do you find it appealing? And unanimously everyone loved

gentleness. People all agreed that actually

we need to be more gentle with one another.

It's actually such a beautiful thing, but it's kind of rare.

It's, it's, it's, it's, it's appealing, though.

I think of some examples. Think about someone like Sia

Khaleesi, you know, for me, this is someone that kind of in our,

in our society epitomizes it. He's got so much power.

He's the Springbok captain. You know, he's been through

hardship. This guy deserves.

He's worked hard to get there. This is a guy that should be

super. I mean, he is confident, but

he's not arrogant. He's he's kind of gentle.

He's not perfect. I'm not saying he's perfect.

I'm not saying we need to all be like Sia, but I I love his

gentleness. It's very appealing.

I also have this kind of a client, Andrew.

He's a big deal in the conservation world and but I've

noticed when he interacts with people, he's so it's almost like

a resting he's he's a big deal, but he's so humble.

He like even talks softly, even like even Stoops down when he

speaks to people. It's such a beautiful thing.

And when you meet someone that's calm under pressure, you know

someone that doesn't react, unlike Ryan when you meet

someone that's calm under pressure, someone that is strong

but not harsh, someone that is confident, but they they don't

crush the people around them. You drawn to them.

Such a beautiful thing. And in Galatians, Paul actually

reminds us that gentleness is one of the markers of a life

that's going in the right direction.

Scripture points out on several occasions that gentleness is one

of God's most evident attributes, especially in the

way that he deals with us. It's the way he interacts with

us, the way he approaches us. It's kind of, he's very, very

gentle. And there's a few things that I

want to start with what Scripture says gentleness is.

First of all, it's a it's a Kingdom mark in Matthew 5, Jesus

said blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

There he's quoting Psalm 37 and that word for for meek or

meekness is, is blessed are the gentle or people who are gentle

will inherit the earth. He's not talking about weak

people. He's talking about people that

don't grasp and don't put themselves forward.

But that's that's what meekness and gentleness is.

But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in

abundant peace. The same root word for meek is

is translated in English as gentleness.

Secondly, it's a Christ like trait.

In Matthew 11, Jesus says this. This is actually super

remarkable. Take my yoke upon you and learn

from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find

rest for your souls. And and the reason this is super

interesting is many scholars including Dane Ortland that

often point this out that this is the only explicit, explicit

place in all of scripture where Jesus tells us what his heart is

like. This is the only place where

Jesus describes himself. And look at the words that he

chooses to describe himself. He chooses 2 words.

I am gentle and lowly. The King of the universe

describes himself, not how we would define kings, talking

about how our power and our lands and our Kingdom and

everything that is ours. You know Jesus defines himself

by his tenderness. He says I am gentle and lowly.

It's the only place where he describes his own heart.

And as when he says, take my yoke upon you, he's saying learn

from me. He's saying, do, do as I do.

Gentleness is part of our discipleship.

It's not just like, hey, an optional character trait and

yeah, I'm going to be a gentle Christian.

Others can be this type of Christian.

On that note, gentleness is how it's part of our discipleship.

It's not just an option for us to consider.

Gentleness is also, it's a relational command.

We see this in the in the letters to the church in

Ephesians and Colossians. Ephesians 4 verse one to two

talking about unity in the body. Paul says I therefore a prisoner

of the for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the

calling to which you have been called with all humility and

gentleness with patience, bearing with one another in

love. It's also a leadership

requirements in one Timothy 3 verse 3, where there's the kind

of the qualifications for an elder.

You guys might be familiar with this passage, but in there, one

of the one of the qualifications for an elder is that overseers

must not be violent but gentle. And they're focusing on our

passage for today, our key text. In Galatians 5, we see that

gentleness is a fruit of the spirit.

And let me let me read that out. If you're just joining us in the

series, I think the key verses 2223 are up there, but I'm going

to read a little bit more to give us the context and really

let's get this into us and see what Paul is trying to do.

He says, for you were called to freedom.

Brothers, this is reading from verse 13 only do not use your

freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love

serve one another for the whole law is fulfilled in one word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself, but if you bite and

devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one

another. How's this portion now talking

about keeping in step with the Holy Spirit?

Verse 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify

the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are

against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are

against the flesh. For these are opposed to each

other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you're not under the

law. But the works of the flesh are

evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,

sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger,

rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness,

orgies, and things like these. I warn you as I've warned you

before, that those who do such things will not inherit the

Kingdom of God. And here we go, verse 22.

But the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

self-control. Against such things there is no

law. And those who belong to Christ

Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the

Spirit. Let us not become conceited,

provoking one another, envying one another.

Can I pray for us? Father God, thank You for Your

word to us, which is so direct and clear, but I pray that you

would help us to understand gentleness correctly in the way

that you modelled it, and that You would help us to understand

just this tension of You commanding us to be gentle, but

then also understanding that this is something that is

empowered by You, Holy Spirit. It's not something we can

produce ourselves. Maybe for a short while we can

fake it, but actually true gentleness is something that we

need you to cultivate in our lives.

In Jesus name we pray, Amen. Are you still with me?

OK, good. So I want to define gentleness

because we need to be clear here.

This, this word understanding of gentleness.

And I can only speak for the English speakers in here, this

word gentleness. We probably have a wrong

understanding or different understanding of what the Bible

is talking about when it's it uses this word and the word, the

Greek word in Scripture is pruatis.

Can everyone say pruatis? OK, and this is a, it's a

specific word that would have been used in those times and it

would have been this word would have been used to talk about a

horse, a wild horse that has been trained.

OK, think, think of a, a horse that is wild and it's been

brought under control and it's been trained to go into battle.

OK, The horse doesn't lose its strength.

The the horse still has all of its strength.

What it gains is control and direction.

And this is really important for us to understand.

Gentleness is not weakness, it's not meekness, it's not a lack of

strength. This word, Pruitt is, is talking

about the strength of a horse that is under control.

Gentleness is the person that could retaliate, that could

dominate, that could crush, but instead chooses to be

restrained. Gentle gentleness is not, and

this is where we see it in our society, like, oh, gentle giant,

you know, sweet, or we know like that meek person.

Gentleness is not passivity. It's not people pleasing either.

Hey, I'm a bit of a people pleaser.

I'm trying not to be, but I can't help it.

I'm getting help. But we often, we often confuse

gentleness with those two things with, with passivity or with

people pleasing. You know, people pleasing is

saying yes to stay accepted, you know, keeping harmony and, and

keeping the peace at the cost of truth.

People pleasing tries to, to manage relationships at all

costs instead of trusting God. And, and people pleasing is

really, it's really just fear. It's fear that's dressed up as

kindness. And this word peratis is, is not

avoiding conflict. It's just refusing to use power

and agency and your resources to, to crush others and to get

your own way. This word peratis really means

strength under control. Or another description that I

really love is that it's power that's governed by love.

Isn't that beautiful? Strength under control?

Power governed by love? Gentleness is not weakness, It's

not people pleasing, and it's not passivity.

That's not what Jesus, that's not how he describes himself.

He was not a people pleaser. He definitely wasn't passive, He

wasn't fearful, and he definitely had a lot of

strength, but he chose to constrain his strength.

I mean, just just coming as a human, coming as flesh.

This is power being constrained into this bag of chemicals.

And I want to just jump back into Galatians Chapter 5.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

There are these two directions that we've been seeing as we've

been looking at each one of these.

Well, at the as we've been looking at the fruits of the

spirits and the different aspects of the fruit, we see

that there's these two directions that Paul is

reminding us of. He's wanting people to stay

free. He doesn't want them to be

trapped. And he describes these two

different directions. There's this, this old way of

doing things. There's the old man, you know,

there's the, and I'm not just picking on the men.

So that's the old man and woman, the old way of doing things that

he talks about the works of the flesh, this very fragmented way,

way of, of living, of being like almost pulled in many different

directions, being torn apart. It's reactive, insecure, there's

jealousy, there's envy, there's striving, there's rivalry,

there's fits of anger and the flesh, the the work, this old

man is always being fractured. And then he talks about on the

in in verses 2223 talks about the fruit of the spirit.

There's this new man that is displaying the fruit of the

Spirit. There's this life that is

integrated, that is relationally whole, that is secure, Lovejoy,

peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness,

self-control, and this picture of the spirit integrating life

and and creating this whole kind of togetherness.

And I want to ask you, which direction is your life going in?

Is it becoming more and more fragmented and pulled in all

sorts of different directions, or is it becoming more and more

whole? Is it looking more and more like

the new man? Or is it, you know, are you

still being pulled in that other direction?

And I'm talking here not, I'm not talking about perfection,

guys. I'm not talking about have you

arrived here and you're displaying all the fruit of the

spirit and none of the flesh. I'm talking about which

direction? Direction, not perfection.

Which direction is your life moving in as you see those two

contrasts. And I want to just guard your

hearts against sin management. Yeah, this is this is how we

sometimes get sucked into things.

Try to manage sin in our life and it it doesn't work.

We need to avoid sin. We need to resist.

But trying to manage sin, I think it's a slippery slope.

I want to ask you guys, someone shout out what is an incredible

destination that you want to go to?

Just anywhere in the world, Somewhere you've seen on

Instagram, somewhere your friends have told me.

Tell someone, tell me, huh. Paris.

OK, Paris, fine. Someone shout out a destination

that just don't want to go there on holiday.

It's not a place that's really, you know, no one's going there

on holiday. You don't want to go there.

It's a horrible place. Pero we can't do pero man, come

on, we've got people from pero there.

We can't do porch of strums. They're fun studied there.

We can't do it needs to be AP guys Paris and we need another P

por fada. Fun por fada.

Paris or por fada. Because when you want to go to

Paris, OK, you don't get to Paris by thinking I mustn't go

to Por Fada. I mustn't go to Porfada.

I'm trying to get to Paris, but I mustn't, I mustn't go to

Porfada. What's happening in Porfada?

Let me check. Let me just check.

Let me see Instagram. You know, no, you don't get to

Paris by obsessing with Porfada. You book your tickets, you plan

your route. And actually, the closer you get

to Paris, the further away you get to Porfada, OK.

And that's how we, that's how we, that's these two

destinations that Paul is highlighting us here.

He's highlighting them not, you know, so like, hey, you need to

focus on avoiding folks. No, he's giving a much better

option. He's giving the fruit of the

Spirit, this new way of living. And he's saying, this is where,

this is where as a Christ follower under the power of the

Holy Spirit, this is what is going to be produced in your

life. This is the destination.

This is where you're going. You don't focus on Porvada as we

move towards Paris. We automatically are moving away

from Porvada as we get to Paris. So the Christian life is not,

it's not a focus on avoiding sin.

You know that's you're going to, you're going to get bogged down,

you're going to get overwhelmed. It's not about sin management.

It's about walking in the spirit.

We still have, we still have a role.

It's not we don't go just passive.

Hey, if God wants me to be fruitful, God wants me to

display these things. I just sit chair and wait.

That's that's just quietism, I think is the word, Eric.

Well, no, that's just like, no, we still have a role that says

walk in the spirits. We we fix the direction and the

distance from Porfada. It's just the result of us

heading to Paris. I think it's very, very

important. And Tim Keller actually points

this out, that in this fruit analogy that Paul is giving us,

he's talking about all these things as a fruit of the

spirits. He doesn't talk talk about them

as goals or achievements. That's maybe where my analogy

falls down. This is not like, you know, a

destination as such. He, he, he talks about it as

something as fruits. And there's something that we

can learn about how fruit grows. There's kind of four, four or

five things that Tim Keller talks about.

He says we can really lean even more into this analogy that

Paul's given us, this fruit of the spirit.

How, how do we see fruit being produced on trees?

This can really help us. And the first thing is that no

tree produces fruit overnight. Doesn't happen.

Plant the tree next day. Where's the fruit?

I'm actually, I've got this, this funny story.

I should tell her Shelley's nodding head.

So my mother played a trick on my father.

The one time he had these two lemon trees outside his house

and outside the front door. And he was always looking for

the lemons. When when are the lemons?

When are the lemons going to come?

When are the lemons going to come?

And he went away on a ministry trip or something like that.

And she was naughty. She she went and sell a taped

some lemons onto the tree so that when he came back into the

house and he's coming up this things like Sue there's lemons,

but no, no tree produces fruit overnight.

It's you know, I wish I mean, I wish it did, but it doesn't.

You you have to plant. You have to water.

You have jewels will know this. He's my you know, he's my expert

in the vegetable garden. You plant, you water, you wait.

And and that's, that's what sanctification is.

It's the slow process. Sanctification is the Spirit's

lifelong work in us, his lifelong work of making us more

and more like Jesus. And it actually takes your whole

life. You know, you don't, you don't

graduate from this one. But the question to ask is, you

know, maybe in the space of gentleness, are you more gentle

than five years ago? Not am I displaying the perfect

gentleness of Jesus Christ every, every time?

No, we're talking about this fruit that is being produced

over a long period, period of time.

And again, we're not talking about instant perfection.

We're talking about direction. What direction is your life

going in? The second thing about how fruit

grows is it's, it's inevitable. As long as the tree is healthy,

as long as the roots are in the soil, as long as it's, you know,

in the elements, a healthy tree will bear fruit.

A healthy tree will bear fruit. If there's no fruit at all,

there's there's no life at all. But if there's life in the tree,

it will bear fruit. It's inevitable.

And wherever the spirit dwells, the spirit is dwelling inside of

us. The fruit of the spirit, which

includes gentleness, will appear slowly but surely.

The next thing is, and this comes back to the analogy, you

can't, you can't staple the apples onto the branches or the

bunch of grapes onto the vine. We're not about, we're not

talking about fake gentleness here.

Yes, you can temporarily modify your behavior.

Maybe you can suppress your anger.

You can, you can manage the optics and and what you look

like, but this gentleness is something that is real and is

internal. It's not like you're trying to,

it's totally overriding. You actually are gentle.

This gentleness is this beautiful, internal and very,

very real fruit. It's all about who we are

becoming. And fruit, fruit grows from the

roots. What is what is the, what is

the, what are the roots of your life?

Drawing on where, what are they sunk into?

Where are they getting their nutrients and their water and

their refreshments and gentleness.

It grows from our security in Christ.

It's it's his gentleness that is becoming our gentleness as the

Holy Spirit does that work. The next thing is that the

growth is symmetrical. So it's not, we don't have this

lopsided growth. And here's where I need to

remind us that Paul is, says the fruit of the Spirit.

He's that this one thing the he's not saying the fruits of

the spirit. So we don't look at all these

these different things really individually in a way and say

like, Hey, I need to work on my kindness, but this thing I'm

doing OK. No, these things happen

symmetrically in our lives. You, you can't, you can't

actually be one without the other.

Doesn't work. You, you can't actually be

gentle without love. You can't have joy without

self-control. You, you cannot have peace

without kindness. All of these fruits, it's not

like, hey, which one am I working on?

It's like, no, the Holy Spirit, as he works in me, he's going to

produce this fruit that looks like this.

This is what my life is going to look like.

So it's not a call today. If you're hearing I need to work

on my gentleness, it's not what I'm saying.

This is a call to work on the Holy Spirit and as you walk in

the Holy Spirit, He is going to produce a fruit in you that

others will see as many things. It'll be an experience and it'll

be gentleness and kindness and love and self-control and all of

these things. The Spirit grows all the fruit

in our lives. Another thing about how how

fruit grows is that it's invisible.

So what I mean, I've actually, I remember as a child trying to

see if I could see grass grow. I was like, it's our grass is

growing fast. I'm going to just watch.

I'm sure I'll be able to see just the flicker, just some just

a hair come up on a grass or just something, you know,

there's like time lapse things where you see like a rose open

or whatever. I mean, it's, it's so beautiful.

But you can you can never actually see this with your

naked eye. It's imperceptible, but after a

period of time, maybe after a long season, after storms and

wind and rain and you know, all sorts of thing, you're able to,

you're able to see that the growth has happened.

In that situation, I would have exploded before, but actually

doesn't bother me now. That's that's fruit.

It's, it's, it's kind of invisible, the growth, but it's

very, very real. So don't don't be discouraged if

you don't see growth every single day, but walk in the Holy

Spirit every day. And I'm actually coming in to

land a bit quicker than is normal for me.

You guys, should I try And you know, no, I'm going to, I'm

going to keep going. But friends, I hope that you can

see that that gentleness is actually at the very center of

our faith. It's actually at the very center

if that's how Jesus described himself.

I mean, look how Jesus came. Look how God came.

He came as a baby in a Manger. Can you think of a more gentle

way to enter human history? Look how look how gently and

compassionately he lived his life.

I mean children, children were drawn to to him.

I'm told that's one way you can trust, you know an adult as you

see if like children feel safe around them.

Look how compassionate he was. Look how he you know people's he

fed people before he preached to them.

There was this real concern and a care.

Look how gently he submitted to rest in the Garden of

Gethsemane. You know when the soul just

come, Peter comes and cuts off the ones ear.

But what does Jesus, what does Jesus do?

He restrains his power. Peter wants to use whatever

power he has. Jesus restrains his power and

he's so gentle. He actually takes the the

severed ear and he puts it back on the soul and heals and puts

it back on his head. I can't think of something more

gentle when you being arrested and about to be put to death.

This is a, this is a very, this is restraint.

Think of how gently he, he answered all of pilot's

questions. You know, pilot, who's this

earthly authority way lower than him.

You know, there's this kind of mock trial, you know, just going

through the motions and, you know, just trying to, you know,

Jesus, he, he's gentle. He answers all the questions.

He goes through the motions and then he gently endures the

cross. He willingly, like a lamb, led

to the slaughter. That's how it's described.

He willingly went to the cross and endures the cross.

If, if Jesus Christ was not gentle, there would be no cross

and there would be no redemption for humanity.

There'd be no way forward if there wasn't.

If Jesus wasn't gentle, if he wasn't humble, if he wasn't

lowly, the cross gentleness is is not a nice personality trait

that Jesus had. No, it was his gentleness that

allowed him to be there and it was essential for us.

The cross screams at us. When we look at the cross, it

screams at us. Power governed by love, power

under control. It screams gentleness.

Jesus had the power even when he was couldn't touch his two

physical hands together and he was up there.

Jesus had the power to stop it in an instant.

The God's Word says he could have commanded legions of angels

to come and rescue it. He he commanded the the sea.

He he, he atoms listen to him. He could have asked every atom

to cease to exist, to just explode, or to do something

else. But he didn't.

In his gentleness, he willingly absorbed the punishment.

He went through it all, the punishment that should have been

ours to bear. He took it on his shoulders.

His punishment became our peace because of his gentleness.

And if you're not yet a Christ follower today, I hope, I hope

you're hearing an invitation. This is a God who is all

powerful, yet he does not crush sinners, although we are by

definition his enemies and objects of wrath.

And yeah, just going against him, He does not crush sinners.

Rather he absorbs judgement for sinners.

And if you came in here today and you thought Christianity

says things like do this, that and the other, and then God may

accept me. Or let's bring it back to

today's topic. Become more gentle.

And when you're gentle enough, Christ will accept you.

That's not it at all. No, rather Jesus is the God who

came to us gently. And in Matthew 11 verse 28, he

Matthew 11:28

says, come to me all all you who are weary and burdened, and I

will give you rest. You don't fix yourself first.

What does Jesus say you do first?

He says, come, come to me. We come.

That's all we need to do. And amazingly, and I can testify

to this, when you when you when you do that, his Spirit begins

to grow something inside of you that you could never produce by

yourself. This is not behavior

modification we're talking about.

This is life transformation. And it's a work that he does.

And maybe today, if you're not a Christ follower, you can hear

him calling you gently. He calls you gently.

Sometimes I wish God would just scream at us and give us no

choice and overwhelm us. And you know, we would just have

no choice but to follow him. But it's always a still.

It's a soft, quiet voice that's beckoning us home.

Can you hear as you hear about the cross, as you hear about who

Jesus is, can you hear him calling you gently and saying,

put your faith in me, My grace is sufficient for you.

And if you are a Christ follower, I just want to remind

you that in Romans 8 verse 11, Paul says this.

Romans 8:11

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in

you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give

life to your mortal bones through his Spirit who dwells in

you. Gentleness on the cross to the

grave. But gentleness is not weakness.

There's a very real power, and there's a power that raised

Jesus from the dead, a power that rolled the stone away,

breathed life into a dead body. There's a power in that moment

that defeated sin, Satan and death.

And that same spirits, that same spirit that did that lives

inside believers, the same spirit that raised Jesus from

the grave in power is slowly at work in Christ followers

producing fruit of the spirit. That's where we get our

gentleness. I was running around while

Stefan was doing the announcements trying to find an

acorn of that oak tree as acorns are not in, in season or

something. There's, there's no acorns, but

I was hoping to have as a final picture an acorn, you know,

which is like an oak tree seed. And there's this beautiful

analogy I've heard other preachers use and they talk

about imagine this small, harmless little acorn and, and a

graveyard. And this acorn falls off the

tree onto like a tombstone, like a slab, a slab.

I don't know what the word is, but a big slab and a grave, you

know, a lot of concrete basically.

And this acorn just falls there. And you think, man, that acorn

acorn is just, well, it's not on soft soil.

It's probably just going to die. But you go back and, you know,

it settles itself in like a little crack in the concrete.

And it's like, you know, it's it's kind of got no prospects.

And it looks like it looks like this acorn is totally weak.

It's you know, it's kind of a dry, it's dry.

It's you know, acorns seem a bit dead.

You know, they're like a little piece of wood.

They're very hard. And you, the story is told of a

man that sees this and he sees the acorn, you know, wedge

itself on a, on a concrete slab. And he goes back a few years

later and he sees, oh, wow, this acorn is actually wow.

It's managed to, it's managed to grow a little bit.

It's like a little, a little sapling.

Somehow it's found enough, you know, roots and whatever.

And anyway, it goes back decades later and out of this grave.

This is a tree like that, a tree that has grown very much like

that. And I think the analogy there is

that sometimes we feel like we this this acorn, you know, and

without much prospect or like kind of an impossible situation

or that spiritual growth maybe is going to be very, very hard.

But because the Christ follower has the Holy Spirit, because

this acorn has life in its DNA, it actually is totally

unstoppable. You know, think the hard

surface, the, the concrete, it looks impenetrable.

But that's what a life under the power of the Holy Spirit looks

like. He can cause such incredible

growth and such incredible life. And so just in landing

gentleness might not be trending in the culture around us.

The culture around us sees gentleness as weakness, but

actually gentleness in Scripture and from what we've heard today,

gentleness is actually evidence of a superpower at work.

Gentleness is the the evidence that the resurrection life is at

work beneath the surface. And the gentleness that Jesus

claims in his own heart when he describes about himself is the

same gentleness that the Holy Spirit grows in us in Galatians

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5. So my final exhortation to us

today is, is let's be more like him.

Let's allow the Holy Spirit to shape us into people that are

gentle and lowly. Can I pray for us?

OK, why don't you stand to your feet?

Oh, Jesus, we just want to acknowledge just how incredible

you are. And we just consider the cross,

how willingly you endured the cross, how you were gentle, how

you were willing, how you're willing to pay the price that we

most needed. And I just thank you so much for

my fellow believers here today. I thank you that Holy Spirit,

you promise that you will accomplish this work.

You will produce a fruit in US. You will totally change our

lives. You will do all of this if we,

if we walk in, in you and Holy Spirit, I pray that you would

give each one of us the courage to do so, the courage to go in

a, in a different direction than our cultures, maybe sucking us

into that. We will see that Holy Spirit,

you are willing to do this work and that we can just, we can

just walk in step with you that Jesus, whatever you command of

us, you also empower the Holy Spirit.

I pray that we would just be more and more aware of your

power that is available and that is at work and that we would

hand over the reins of our life to you and that you would cause

incredible fruit to grow in this community.

Fruit that will last, Fruit that will have an impact.

Fruit that will change the world around us.

For your glory in Jesus name, Amen.