The Spirit's Fruit - Evidence of a Changed Life

All right.

Well, it is awesome to see you guys.

We're going to let Chief Donald Bowen make his way back over to a seat.

I know he he loves the attention, and if you want some, get up and walk around.

I'll give you some too.

I'm kidding.

My name's Russ, and I'm one of the pastors here at Church of Grove.

I want to welcome all of you that are with us today.

And I know many of you are just part of our church family.

Some of you might be here for the first or second time, and we say a special welcome to every one of you.

We're so glad you're here.

And we always want to make sure to greet people warmly, love them well.

But I'm telling you, my biggest prayer is that you would have an encounter with God through through Jesus.

And so as we continue to move forward in our series, this is the final Sunday.

Some of you might be, thank God, you know, uh sometimes I feel that way.

I'm ready to move on to something new.

But today we're going to finalize and finish our series on the Holy Spirit.

Doesn't mean that we come to an end of thinking we've got it nailed down and figured out, but we will continue to grow.

But today will be uh the end of the series.

If you've got your Bibles, turn to Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

Galatians chapter 5, and we'll be in there uh today in verses uh let's see, 16, uh, and then we'll go through a passage there.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

Um I grew up, uh my my parents were from Decatur, and so the first five years of my life, we lived in Decatur.

Um, and that sounds like that my parents were city people, but they they weren't.

Back then, Decatur was kind of on the was the suburbs of Atlanta.

I grew up going to Mathis Dairy.

How many of you have ever heard of Milk and Rosebud?

So, but my parents wanted to, they wanted to have a little piece of land, so we moved out really to the sticks, which was Henry County at that time.

My dad built a barn, then we he built a house, and so right in front of the barn, he planted early on, um, as we were living there on Swan Lake Road in North Henry County, he planted two apple trees.

And it was, I, you know, as a kid, as a six, seven-year-old kid, you know, it was fun to hear my dad and to watch my dad explain and actually put those trees in the ground, and the excitement of a kid, you know, bright-eyed kids that are hungry to learn, and those types of things can be fun and memorable.

And so we planted those trees and we were excited.

I thought that you know, we'd plant the trees, wait a few months, maybe we'd walk, walk down to the backyard and pick an apple and eat it.

But I learned it takes time for a planted tree to produce fruit.

But the other issue is when the fruit comes, is it good and healthy?

Or is it diseased and sickened?

And so, sure enough, we planted those trees, watched them grow, pay, trying to be patient.

My dad, in that period, this is back in the 70s, so my dad's economy, many of you probably know your parents or your family was affected, the economy tanked in the 70s, and my dad's company said, if you want to work, you got to go out of town.

So he started traveling, which means he was not home to help take care of things like these trees.

And so as the kids were getting older, we didn't know how to do it, we didn't know to take the time to do it, but nobody gave attention to the trees.

They kept growing, and they got to a point where they produced apples.

Now, have you ever bitten into an apple?

It just wasn't right.

You know, it's bad if you bite into an apple and find a worm.

It's worse if you bite into an apple and find half a worm.

Y'all are so easy.

Oh.

But I remember going excitedly as a young man, kid, a child, still, going down and picking that first apple off that tree and biting into it.

And it was nasty.

Nasty.

The trees had not been adequately cared for, they had not been pruned, they had not been, had not had the attention given to them that they needed not just to grow and mature and to produce another apple, but to grow and to mature and to produce good fruit.

And that's kind of what we're talking about today is the fruit of the Spirit.

Now, God is good.

The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is God distinctly expressed in three different personalities.

God the Father is God without skin.

God the Son, Jesus is God with skin on.

And the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God in your skin.

And so, listen, you can be born again, and you can have the security of your salvation.

We sing about Jesus being our defense.

He gives us a gift of righteousness.

We can't earn it.

It comes by faith by faith through grace.

And so, but we have to continue the journey.

We don't, we are, I don't know about you, but I wasn't instantly sanctified.

I mean, it took some time for me to mature.

And there's a place where I had people that came into my life and counseled me said, Russ, if you are going to say that you are a follower of Jesus, your life needs to change if you want to have the confidence of not just your salvation, but the fact that God wants to work in you and through you to produce change.

And so here's the beautiful thing is that transformation.

God doesn't just call us to salvation, he calls us to a life of transformation.

How does that happen?

We learn to walk by the Spirit.

And this is the passage of Galatians 5.

This this idea of walk means to it alludes to the fact that we walk through life.

It literally refers to the fact that we've picked somebody that we're going to follow.

And ultimately that needs to be Jesus, but it also includes the fact that those of us who are more mature invest in those who are new to the faith.

And so, it's how do you walk by the Spirit?

It's not that you get baptized one time at salvation and you're set.

We have to continually be filled with the Spirit.

And we're saved.

Salvation is completely a work of God.

It's sanctification, is us depending on the Spirit.

And so it's all God, but we have to decide: are we going to let Him prune us?

Are we going to let Him dump a little fertilizer into our life?

It stinks, but God uses it to grow?

Or are we going to accept salvation, produce fruit, but the fruit is rotten.

It's not good.

Doesn't reflect the character of God in Christ.

And so when you walk with the Spirit, you begin to experience a life that you were meant to live.

A life marked by love, joy, peace, and freedom.

And here's the big idea for today is this that walking with the Spirit leads to a life that looks like Jesus.

Walking in the Spirit leads to a life that looks like Jesus.

Now we talked about miracles and the signs and wonder gifts, and we we all are attracted to those things.

But let me tell you something.

A life marked by the Holy Spirit is not the evidence of some activity in a service.

It's every day, day by day.

And so where, listen, here's a question.

Where does your walk point to?

If you're walking through life, when people look at you, what are you pointing them to?

If the answer doesn't include Jesus, there's a problem.

We point to something with our life.

And so we can we just pray for a second?

Let's pray and we'll dive in.

Father, would you speak to us?

Would you actively work through the power of your Holy Spirit?

Help us to learn to grow.

Help us, God, have a desire to walk by the Spirit, a hunger for all that you have for us that leads us to a life that reflects Jesus.

Come, Holy Spirit, move in our hearts and our lives.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Galatians 5, 16 through 18.

Here's what Paul says in Galatia is a place that just had ordinary people.

It was an ordinary community.

I imagine that this community that Paul loved, that he had gone and done ministry and planted a church there and sent, raised up other leaders.

These were people that weren't known as super Christians.

He's not talking to leaders.

He's talking to ordinary people, you and me.

And so here's what Paul says in verse 16.

He says, I say then, you go back and we won't take the time, but you always want to know the context.

Read before, read after, understand.

He says, I say then, walk by the spirit, and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh, for the flesh desires what is against the spirit, and the spirit desires what is against the flesh.

These are opposed to each other, so that you don't do what you want.

But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

And so Paul, I think, is writing ordinary people.

Here's a couple of questions to think about.

Are you married?

Do you have a family?

Are you a parent?

I mean, all of those things involve a lot of our effort.

It's not easy to do life, and we need the Holy Spirit.

Whether you're a teenager, whether you're a child, whether you are a young adult single, or somebody married, somebody that's having kids.

I spent the last couple days with a young man that goes to our social circle campus, and he's got a three-year-old and a two-year-old at home.

And then in January, they're having a boy and a girl.

So in January, they'll.

Yeah, it'll be good.

And he was so excited.

He's like, man, I just feel like God's calling me to serve in the church.

He starts telling me all the things he's thinking about.

I said, brother, you better go talk to your wife.

Because I think in January, she's going to want you around a little bit.

I mean, we need the Holy Spirit.

We need to depend on God.

These are vital things.

And it's not just about, you know, grandiose church experience.

It's about every day.

Every one of you men are a priest in your household.

And we need to walk by the Spirit.

So, what does it mean to walk by the Spirit?

I'm going to give you two things if you're a note-taker and we're going to flesh it out a little bit.

Number one, it means that we yield to the Spirit every day.

We yield to the Spirit every day.

That word walk in this passage that we just read, it's a Greek word that literally means to walk around after someone or to walk in a particular direction.

So for the Christian, the follower of Jesus, to walk by the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit means that we follow our teacher, our rabbi, our leader, and we we model the life that he's lived before us.

Talking about Jesus.

And I do, and I love that.

I love being in nature.

But I don't know if you've ever been hiking.

I've been out in the woods hiking, deer hunting, different, different things, and I've gotten disoriented before.

And now we have a GPS in our pocket, but you know what?

Sometimes it doesn't work.

We hear the stories all the time of people that go to places and get lost a bit, disoriented.

And so, you know what I need more than a GPS?

I need somebody who knows the lay of the land to come and literally walk me out.

I was up in Nashville, which I'm not familiar with, the area I was in, and so I'm I'm following directions on the GPS, and I can't even tell what the GPS is telling me to do.

So I'm asking my friends, hey, does this mean to turn right?

Sometimes I can't, it's right in front of me.

I need somebody that will speak into my life that is outside of me to guide me so I'm not lost, so I'm not wandering.

And so we've talked about over this passage that the Spirit is given.

Jesus said, I have to leave.

But it's a good thing because when I leave, the Spirit will come.

And he says in his final discourse in the Gospel of John, he he goes through and we've talked about this, that the Spirit of truth leads us.

The Holy Spirit leads us into truth, will guide us and lead us just like a park ranger that finds you, walks you.

He doesn't just tell you, he will walk you out to a place of rescue.

And so walking with the Spirit begins with an attitude of dependence, not self-reliance.

It is positioning ourselves so we can follow Jesus, but also we can produce the fruit of the Spirit.

When people see it, it points them back to the Lord.

What does that look like?

Let me just give you some practical things.

Sometimes it means when you walk out your door, you might whisper a prayer that says, Holy Spirit, lead my thoughts, my words, and my steps today.

If you've got a meeting or an important event with work or life, sometimes before you walk in the meeting, you just say, Okay, God, I need you by the power of your Holy Spirit to be with me.

I don't know about you, but I have to have tough conversations occasionally.

And I don't want to sin.

I want to be led by the Spirit.

I gotta have the conversation.

It's what we're called to do.

There's gotta be accountability.

But pause, ask God.

How about asking the Lord to prompt you?

Now that I'm gonna tell you that that that makes me a little nervous in my own life.

To feel like God is prompting is one thing, to act upon it is another.

And I know if I struggle with it, that probably, and when I say this, I don't I don't think of myself as a professional.

I think sometimes people think that.

Hey, I bet Russ is Russ never has a hard time sharing his faith.

Man, I I'm like you.

I'm like the people in Galatia.

We're everyday people, we struggle.

And so, but but asking the Lord to prompt me and that I might be obedient.

When you have the chance, there are times we have a chance to hear people talk critically or divisive.

We've got an opportunity to just kind of be quiet or just let the conversation flow, or we can say, God, give me the power of the Holy Spirit to speak a word of encouragement in the midst of this divisiveness.

Part of it's just considering everything that you digest in your life and asking the Holy Spirit.

I don't know if you watch, you watch something.

I I've you know, I there's times that I might watch something and I'm convicted because it's not something that glorifies God.

And I need to get to a point where I just turn it off.

I don't know, that's just personal conviction.

Obedience in the small things is still a requirement.

It's still an important aspect to be led by the Holy Spirit.

Following Jesus isn't just about getting to heaven, it's about taking the time that He's left us here on this earth to bring heaven to the earth.

That's the Lord's prayer.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is to heaven.

A.W.

Tozier says this.

He says the spirit-filled life is not a special deluxe addition of Christianity.

It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for his people.

And if I could impart anything at this stage in my life, is that you have the freedom to access God personally and to access the power that he provides.

You don't have to go through a priest, you don't have to go to a pastor.

You can go directly to the Lord, and he will lead you by the Holy Spirit.

Verse 19 of Galatians, here's what he says.

He says, and these next two passages are basically saying, hey, there's two trees.

They both produce fruit, but one is the tree of life that produces good fruit, and it comes through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

The other tree produces fruit, but it's rotten.

It's rotten and it comes, you know, through our flesh.

You know, we got three enemies.

One is Satan, Lucifer.

The biggest lie that he whispers into our heart every day is he's he's a figment or a myth, and he's not real, but he's real.

Evil is real.

The second enemy is the world, the concepts and ideologies of the world.

And the third enemy is your flesh, the appetites that pull you away from living the life as a follower of Jesus.

And so here's what Paul says.

So he says, now the works of the flesh are obvious.

Shouldn't they be obvious?

I mean, do you look at our world and think, man, the world is is it continues in decline?

This is the reason.

The works of the flesh are obvious.

Sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, and factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar.

I'm warning you about these things as I warned you before, for those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, that word practice is not really indicative of a one time where you stumble and sin.

It's really explaining that you're practicing a behavior over time, like it's a habit.

Because listen, as believers, we're probably going to stumble.

No, no, not probably.

You're going to stumble.

There's going to be issues.

We are covered by the blood.

Your sins in the past, present, and future are forgiven.

Doesn't give us a license to sin.

As Paul talks about in Romans 6 and 7, we have to depend on the Spirit.

And so practice means that you there's a difference between somebody who sins and immediately is convicted by the Holy Spirit.

They're miserable.

You know how you know you're saved is when you do sin, it convicts you.

There's no joy in it.

If you continue to sin without conviction, I would question whether or not you really know the Lord.

And I don't know.

I can't judge.

I don't know your heart.

So he says, you will not inherit the kingdom, which means a lifestyle of these practices is incompatible with being in the presence of God.

So he's not teaching, Paul's not teaching that you lose your salvation every time you sin.

He's saying that if you are persistent and consistent and unrepentant in those practices and behaviors, listen, your heart and life is certainly not being transformed.

And it might be indicative that you're not a part of the family, you're not in the kingdom, you haven't put your faith in Christ.

So, when the soil of our hearts is surrendered to the Spirit, we begin to change, we begin to grow.

Galatians 5, 22 through 26.

So he contrasts the life of the flesh.

Now he talks about the fruit of the Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is what?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The law is not against such things.

Now 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.

And so how do we walk by the Spirit?

We say, hey, we yield every day.

Change, try to change and make it a practice to just be conscious.

God, lead me, guide me.

Give me courage to jump into a conversation when you open the door for me.

The second way that you follow the Spirit, the thing we need to know about following the Holy Spirit is this the fruit always follows the walk.

The fruit always follows the walk.

The fruit follows the walk.

So Paul shows us this distinction between the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit.

I love this because it if you look at the teachings of Jesus and all and places in Scripture, here's what Jesus says in John 15, 5.

He says, I'm the vine, you are the branches.

If you remain in me, abide in me, and I in you, you will produce much fruit because you can do what without me?

Can you do a little bit without me?

What's the word?

Nothing without me.

That's so good.

I want to stay attached to Jesus.

So when we walk by the Spirit, the image, the vision is the life of Jesus that we really want to aspire to.

Jesus is love.

He embodies love.

Jesus is joy.

I love the image of Jesus laughing and enjoying the fellowship of the disciples and the people that he taught.

Jesus is peace.

He is the calm in the midst of a storm.

He is with us through the valley that we walk through.

Jesus is patient.

You see it with the disciples, with the crowds, and even with us.

Jesus is kind.

He touched the lepers.

He welcomed outcast.

Jesus is good.

He is wanting to please the Father in all he does.

Jesus is faithful, obedient unto death.

Jesus is gentle.

Now if you read Matthew 23, when he calls out the brood of vipers, those of you that are demons from the depths of hell, you may not get the idea that he's real kind.

But that's truth.

That's truth.

Jesus practiced kindness, but it doesn't mean that he didn't address sin.

He didn't address disobedience.

He is self-control.

He refused to give in to temptations.

And so the work of the Spirit in your life, when you surrender, you become more like Jesus.

And I think the world is desperate for Jesus to show through us.

Listen, I mean, I don't want you to be oblivious to the reality that God is sparking revival.

I mean, for years church attendance has declined.

You know who's coming back to church?

Young men.

Young men are coming back to church.

Never, never thought that revival probably be sparked by young men, Gen Z men.

But man, there's a hunger for truth.

There's a hunger for revival.

Joan and I spent some time with a pastor in New York City yesterday and Friday, and he shared about how God is breaking out and bringing revival to a place like New York.

So God's working.

So our world doesn't need more outrage.

It needs more fruit of the Spirit, peace.

It doesn't need more cynicism.

It needs joy.

It doesn't need more self-promotion.

It needs kindness and humility.

It doesn't need more selfishness.

It needs love.

So when the spirit fills us, we begin to embody what the world is starving for.

I can remember growing up and going to my grandmother.

She was the godly example of what a Christ's father was.

But, you know, I don't know about you, but her home was a refuge.

It was a place of warmth.

But she always had this bowl that sat on a table with a bunch of fruit in it.

I don't know if you've ever seen that bowl.

As a child, you might have reached in like I did to try to bite one of those pieces of fruit and realized it wasn't real.

And I should have known by the collection of dust, those bowls always collected dust, and you could never dust them, could get all the crevices free of dust.

And I thought about that's what it like, that's what it's like when we try to produce fruit on our own.

This just comes across fake.

It's not real.

And so I don't know about you, but I've I've probably faked the fruit a lot in my life.

And sometimes I just put one front of the other.

I know I'm not being led by the Spirit, but I don't want to produce fake fruit.

I want that to be my heart.

I don't want to be satisfied that I want to see good fruit.

Good fruit.

I don't want my life to collect dust.

I want it to be alive.

I want it to be real.

I want it to have a sweet taste.

When people see my life, when people hear my language, when people see my family.

So here's a question I have for you.

When was the last time you walked out of your house with the idea of, hey, I'm going to walk by the Spirit today?

I don't know about you, but a lot of times when I'm trying to get out of the house, it's hectic.

It's not as hectic as it used to be.

Because we all we always had three children, you know, and I, of course, in my line of life and work and ministry, I'm it's easy, ready to jump out and leave early and leave Jill at home to get the kids ready.

It's hectic.

It's crazy.

And so we've got to be led by the Spirit.

This having this intentional focus throughout our day.

And I think we've got to have a heart like Jesus, which is to love people with an unconditional love.

And we talked this whole series about the Holy Spirit being a person, not an it, not an impersonal force.

You know, we don't, when you hear, may the force be with you, there ought to be a red flag.

You know, that's that's not that's not necessarily there may be some reflections of reality, but it's not reality.

It's not a force.

He's a person.

It's God with your skin on.

And when we follow the Holy Spirit, it needs to be led through love.

Paul says this.

He says, You can speak in tongues.

You can speak with tongues of angels.

You can do all these things in 1 Corinthians 13.

But if you do not have love, if you don't have love, you are a noisy, clanging symbol.

And so the world's hungry, not just for truth, but for the real manifestation of the Spirit of God.

Paul says in Romans 5, 5, God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Poured out in our hearts.

Now, I want to spend a minute closing this time before we sing this final prayer.

And I want you to do something.

I'm going to ask you to close your eyes.

So if you've been taking, if you've been doing your grocery list, re-re-engage right now.

Close your eyes.

I started to put this scripture on the screen, but I said, nah, I'm going to read it to you.

It is a vision of Ezekiel.

It's a vision of Ezekiel.

I just want to read it.

It's longer.

It's more verses than maybe normal in a close of a sermon, but I just feel like I need to read it.

And I want you, it's a vision that God gave Ezekiel.

I want you to close your eyes because as I read it, I want you to imagine being, seeing this vision.

Here's what God gave Ezekiel.

The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple.

And I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faced east.

The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar.

He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate from the east, and the water was flowing from the south side.

The water means something.

I want you to think about it.

As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits.

And then he led me through water that was ankle deep.

That means something.

That's the shallow end of the pool.

It's a new believer that's testing the water.

It's ankle deep.

They haven't yet headed out to the deeper waters.

And so he says, ankle deep, and he measured off another thousand cubits, and he led me through water that was knee deep.

He measured off another thousand.

He led me through water that was up to my waist.

He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river.

River means something.

It was a river that I could not cross, but because the water had risen and was down deep enough to swim in a river that no one could cross.

He asked me, Son of man, did you see this?

Then he led me to the bank of the river.

When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river.

He said to me, This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the sea.

This is the dead sea that is in the southern part of this in the Judean desert of Israel.

25% of that sea is made up of minerals.

Nothing can be alive in that sea.

But he's talking, Ezekiel has a vision that a river flowed into that sea and brought life out of death.

He said to me, This water flows to the eastern region down to Arabah, where it enters the sea.

When it empties into the sea, the water becomes fresh.

The swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows.

You know what the river is?

Anybody know what the river is?

There will be large numbers of fish because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh.

So where the river flows, everything will live.

Fishermen will stand along the shore from Engedi to Ingallium.

There will be places for spreading nets.

The fish will be of many kinds, like the fish of the great sea, the ocean.

But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh.

They will be left for the salt.

Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river.

Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail.

Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them.

The fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.

For healing.

Now, look up at me.

Look up at me.

I went to Israel in 2005.

I didn't know it, but when I got there, it was the Feast of Tabernacles, always takes place in the fall.

And the Feast of Tabernacles, tabernacle means tent, but it's to remember God's provision while they wandered in the desert and lived in tents.

And so I go to Israel, and everywhere you go, every house, every apartment has a tent, either on the deck or in the backyard.

Something like this.

And that whole week of the festival, that family eats all their meals and they talk about Israel's journey and God's faithfulness through the desert.

And so on the final day of the feast, the priest of the Feast of Tabernacles that's leading the Feast of Tabernacles, he would take buckets down to a pool, like a pool of Siloam.

When I went in 2005, they had just discovered and uncovered that pool that the scripture had talked about, but it had been buried for years.

And they would walk down to that pool with buckets of water and take the water back up to the temple steps and pour the water down the steps.

You know where that custom and where that practice came from?

It came from this vision that God gave Ezekiel.

And the water refers to the spirit.

And where the spirit flows, places that were full of death and chaos now have order and life.

And Jesus in John 7, he tells his disciples, you go to Jerusalem for the feast of Sukkot, which is Hebrew for tabernacles.

He didn't go.

He said, My time has not come yet.

But if you read through that chapter later on, it says he secretly went to the festival.

And they don't know he's there.

During what would have been this practice of the priest pouring the water as a reflection of this vision.

But Jesus says this I am the living water.

And so the vision of Ezekiel includes Jesus being the fulfillment of all things.

He lived, he died, he rose again.

And listen, our ability to produce fruit is dependent upon the river of the Holy Spirit flowing.

Dead stagnant water doesn't produce as much life as moving, running water.

I mean, there's places where we go catch catfish, but you wouldn't drink the water, would you?

But man, if you come across a stream and you're thirsty, there's something about a stream, moving water.

And so I love this because the end of the journey of the Holy Spirit in our series always comes back to Jesus.

He is our living water.

As we partake and put our faith in Christ being our living water, he promises to flow through us through the power of the Spirit.

Where we walk, people who are enslaved to sin and death, they give it into the flesh and the enemy.

The river's flowing through us, and they look at us and they think, hey, that person's got something that I want.

And so I want to pray for us right now.

We're going to conclude our time in worship.

Really, really just offering up a prayer.

And you know, I've had a couple people ask me questions, well, isn't the Holy Spirit already here?

Why do we just continue to say, Come, Holy Spirit?

Well, it's not that he's not here, but I think it's a prayer and a posture of surrender.

So, hey, we invite you, God.

We want more of you.

We want the river, we want the living water.

So can we pray for a second?

Father, thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross.

Thank you for the spirit that is promised and has come and now has the power to change us.

And as we say here at Church of the Grove all the time, growing people change.

There's actual, tangible life change in our life that is visible and observable.

So, Father, would you start that work in us today if we already haven't stepped into the journey with Jesus?

The Bible teaches that when we're born, we're born into sin.

God loves us, we're creating his image, he wants a relationship with us, but but until we deal with that sin that separates us from the presence of God, we we can't enjoy the fruit of the Spirit.

So Jesus came to offer his life.

Number one, as an example.

Number two, he became our atonement.

He came to forgive, to provide the blood and his broken body in our place.

Jesus, in my place.

So when he died on the cross, he took upon himself all my sin.

They buried him in a tomb.

And he laid there on the third day through the power of the Spirit, breathing life back in his body.

He walked out of that tomb to prove that we can have power over sin, death, and the grave.

So here's the question this morning.

Have you entered into a relationship with Jesus?

And if you haven't, today is the day of your salvation.

So I want to ask you a question.

Nobody's looking around.

Your eyes are closed, heads are bowed.

If you want to put your faith in Jesus for the first time, would you slip up your hand?

Slip it up.

I want to pray for you.

Hold it up for a second.

Anybody?

I see that.

Thank you.

I see that.

Man, three.

Anybody else?

If you put your faith in Christ, Jesus said, repent and believe the good news.

You trust him to save you from your sin.

You trust him to fill you with his spirit.

We've got to be inviting.

We've got to yield.

And we've got to have an intentional focus on the fruit in our life.

If that's you this morning, I just want you to say, dear Jesus, I love you.

I thank you for saving me.

Thank you for dying for me.

I repent and I believe in the good news that Christ came and he died and he rose again for me.

And now he dwells in me by the Holy Spirit.

And if you put your faith in Christ, here's what I want you to do is I want you to tell somebody immediately after we're done here.

Tell one of us, a pastor or leader, find one of our team, find somebody that, tell somebody in your family, tell somebody that brought you there, invited you.

If you have questions, we are here.

We would love to talk with you.

Father, would you work this morning?

For those of you that might want to pray, you're welcome to come to the altar.

If you want somebody to pray with you, myself, Monty, and Jonah are here.

I know there's a couple ladies that would be willing to pray with you if you would like to.

Father, thank you for your goodness and your grace.

We pray that you would lead us in this time of surrender and in this time of just expressing our desire for you to come and move in our hearts.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.