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.
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?
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
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.
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
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.