JUN 28 2026 | Rooted In The Spirit S1E1 | The Epistles: Fruits and Gifts

Sea Change Church · Rooted In The Spirit · "The Epistles: Fruits and Gifts" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · June 28, 2026
Galatians 5:15-26
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

If you have your Bibles, open up to Galatians 5, 15 through 26. We are in a series in the epistles this summer, and we go through all the different types of biblical genres throughout the year. So that's the gospels, the prophetic literature, and on. So you can find all those on YouTube. We'll be sending out a schedule of it soon to let you know where we've been and where we're going. Currently in the epistles, we did a four-week series on the purpose of the church.

I hope you check that out. Coming out with an e-book soon. We're going to take that series, turn it into an e-book, send it to you. Also make an audible. I'm going to read the audible version of it so you guys can download that for free and kind of see where we're going as a church. And the second part of that is becoming a church that is filled with the Spirit of God and what that means. And so we're going to look today at the difference.

For the next four weeks, we're going to talk about fruit and gifts and look at the difference of that. So as you're turning, as you're finding your Bibles, like Harry said, we want to be a Bible-carrying church as we read and as a witness. But I want to share a couple things that are going on that you can pray for. One of the things is I feel like our church has been under a tremendous amount of spiritual attack. There's been too much coincidence to call it a coincidence.

And so we've had a lot of sickness in our congregation. We've had a lot of odd accidents. We've had somebody get hit when they're on their motorcycle. We've had multiple staff have to go to the emergency room. Right now we have somebody who's in the emergency room on the staff. We have families that have had that happen to them. So there's just been a lot of disease, a lot of sickness, and oftentimes that can be spiritual.

So I'm calling for a day of fasting. This week you can do any day, but I'm going to go on Wednesday. So you can fast on Wednesday. You can do any day you want. And you could also just do a meal. You can just pick sugar or whatever your thing is. But we are going to fast as a church for the wellness of our church and through breakthrough. Now, I always dislike fasting in the middle of summer because it's a really long day if I do sunup to sundown.

Like the best day to fast of the year is like December 21st. Like that is the money day to fast. You're out by like 449. You know what I mean? And then boom, you're eating. So you can tell how spiritual I am. Also, we've had somebody, if you've gotten an email from me, which wasn't from me, asking you for money, I am not going to send you an email asking for gift cards from Amazon, okay? FYI. But this is an attack against the church, and some of our people have been persuaded to send that.

I know it's going to get worse as AI, you know, dupes people's voices. You'll get a phone call that won't be from me that will be able to talk to you. Just be very aware. I am never asking you for gift cards from anywhere. And I will never directly ask you for money. If we do talk about finance, it'll probably be up here from the pulpit. But one of the things I have prayed is that whoever is doing that, they're asking for gift cards to help cancer kids, which is just really despicable and super wicked.

So there's a verse in the Bible where it says that he would pray that this person would be handed over to Satan to be dealt with according to the works of his flesh. And so I've been praying that. You can actually find that verse and just send it to them if they email you. But I am praying. I'm praying regularly that they will repent. And number two, that they will suffer the deeds that their fruit is asking for. Because you don't steal from the church.

You don't steal from God's people. It's very sacred, and it does make me super angry. And so I've been praying about it as well as being slightly embarrassing as well. They're really good at it. It's coming from a Gmail account. So these are some things that are happening. I want to let you know, be praying for our church. Okay? So we're going to be praying this week. Lean into that as we do that. Now as we move in, go to verse 15.

We're going to be reading this out of the Scripture. And I will read it right now. Okay. But if you bite and devour, circle devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed, circle consumed by one another. But I say, walk in 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, underline this, the things you want to do.

It's a hard statement. The works of the flesh are evident. They are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality. Verse 20. Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, division, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, second warning, that those who do such things, circle this, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Tough statement. Verse 22.

This is the sweet spot. But. Okay? Circle but. The conjunction in Scriptures are so important. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. That's already circled. Circle it again. Or underlined. Verse 24. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its 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. Today I told you we are talking about the fruit of the Spirit. And it's interesting. In one of the most well-known passages, it's verse 23, verse 22 and 23, are probably one of the, two of the most well-known verses. The fruits of the Spirit. And it's interesting that Paul, when he's writing to the church in Galatia, he is, starts out with two words that have to do with consumption.

Go to verse 15. But if you bite and devour, there's three words actually there, one another, out of that you are not consumed, out of that you will not be consumed by one another. He's using these verses to show that the way we live our life has a consumptive property to it. And the way that we live our life actually produces fruit in one way or another. We'll see that in the end. All of you produce fruit. You either produce fruit for good.

We produce fruit for ourselves or the flesh. Some people produce fruit for evil. But all of us, it says in the Scripture, as we'll see in a moment, will live according to that fruit and we will consume that fruit. It's a really powerful passage as it speaks to that. Now, people have asked for a long time, you've heard, you know, what does it mean to be Spirit-filled? And every so often I'll get a phone call from somebody and I'll pick up the phone and they'll say, Hey, is your church a Spirit-filled church?

And I'm always a little bit curious. Actually, I'm not curious. I know exactly what it means, right? Because I spent a lot of time with my charismatic friends and I'm still a closet charismatic. I'm there. I'm actually not that closeted, but I am charismatic. And I have a lot of Pentecostal friends. And I came out of a more conservative upbringing as I looked at that. But what those type of people that are kind of like me mean is, do you guys believe in the gift of tongues?

Do you raise the dead? Do you do all these things, these works of power? And are you gifts-focused? Are the gifts of the Spirit present? And what they will say is, if you see these works that are happening in the gifts in your church, you're Spirit-filled. What I think that fails to mention is not only are there gifts of the Spirit, there's a thing called the fruit of the Spirit. And it is interesting in the Scripture, as you go on, Paul will actually look at the gifts and he makes an argument that tongues are like a clanging gong.

He says that these gifts are amazing, but those gifts aren't going to end up in heaven. The things that are going to be the character and nature in heaven that will continue on is the fruit of the Spirit. So rarely when somebody calls and somebody says to me, is you a church, a Spirit-filled church, they're rarely if ever asking, hey, how kind are your people? Hey, are your people really patient? They've been praying for this campus over here to make change at whatever college it is or whatever for 25 years.

And they're praying and they're interceding with faithfulness and steadfastness. I will say that you can show up to heaven, and I'm not throwing out the baby with the bath water. I am into the gifts of the Spirit. I believe in all of them. Some churches believe in nine. Some believe up to 29. I believe in a whole bunch. So I am totally for it. But the Scripture makes it clear that you can show up to heaven with a whole bunch of gifts, and Jesus will say, depart from me.

I never knew you. But we raised the dead. But we healed the sick. We did all these things. But I never knew you. I will tell you from the Scripture, it is far superior to walk with the fruit of the Spirit than it is to walk in the gifts of the Spirit. Because the fruit of the Spirit shows that you're becoming like Jesus. Now, a week ago, or two weeks ago, I spoke about the destination of the Christian faith is to become like Jesus.

The location where that is eventually going to happen in its complexity and its fullness is heaven. But heaven is the location. I got some feedback on this. I wouldn't say I got pushback. But I would say it was on the border of pushback. I said it's easy to get to heaven. It's hard to become like Jesus. Why is it easy to get to heaven? Because Jesus did all the hard work. He was crucified, suffered under Pontius Pilate, rose on the third day, suffered, obviously, for us.

He bled. The nails were in him. And now to go to heaven, to spend time with eternity for him, there's one qualification, it says. That if you confess with your mouth, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, that Jesus Christ is the Lord, what? You will be saved, right? That's the easy part. What I have found out is that the becoming, the conformity to his image, to becoming like Jesus is the hard part.

It takes tending. It takes nurturing. The analogy I use is like a wedding and a honeymoon. You know on a honeymoon that the Ritz-Carlton is not the destination. That's the location that maybe the couple goes to. The destination is oneness with each other, right? A completeness. If you told your wife the most important thing, guys, and don't do this, the most important thing about our honeymoon is this incredible, we're going to Hawaii, and it's amazing.

Your wife eventually be like, hey, there's Hawaii and then there's me. And so that is the analogy that we're seeing here in the gifts. And so what does it mean to be spirit-filled? Well, I would say spirit-filled means that you have the character of Christ and you have the dunamis, the Greek word, the power, the dynamite of Christ that comes with the gifts. Go to verse 22. But, conjunction. Always be aware of the conjunctions in Scripture.

They are a hinge point. They are a U-turn. They oftentimes will give, they are an equal sign. It says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now one of the things, the first time I saw this was this week, and I keep somewhat embarrassing myself because I'm going to call myself out, I, for so many years, would have said the fruits of the Spirit.

And maybe you were as well. You've looked at this verse and you've said the fruits of the Spirit. There is no differentiation in the actual Greek. It is a fruit of the Spirit. It is singular. And what the deception causes me to do when I parse them out into a cornucopia rather than one fruit is to be able to say, well, hey, you know, that thing of grapes that I have, that cluster of grapes is doing pretty well. That fruit's pretty good and this fruit's good, but yeah, so the patient's not so good, you know.

And I kind of just start telling myself because I have certain fruits that are good, I'm allowing myself the ability to say, well, I'll work on those later. When you look at the fruit of the Spirit, it is one nature. It is all of them coming up together at one point. And so you will see as we move closer to Jesus, as we tend with Jesus, and I have found this, as we abide in Him, I find that all of the fruit of the Spirit, imagine it is one fruit, all those are just elements of one fruit.

It's not a cornucopia, it's like a watermelon, right? All of those are, will come in concurrent as you spend time and abide with Christ, will come up together at one point. That is the nature of becoming like Christ. Now, if you go to verse 23, it says something really interesting. It says, against these fruit, this fruit, and I'll probably continue to accidentally say fruits, against such things, there is no law. What does that mean?

It means that if you are abiding in the truth and the things that God is for, that there is no law against it. It's like if the speed limit is 55 and you drive 54, right? There is no law against that. You are actually in freedom because law is for those who break the law. Once there is a law, it is enforced. Is it enforced before it is broken? No. Law is enforced after it's broken. And so what Paul is saying now is that you have freedom to live away from the law, completely free when you live in these things.

There is no law. Jesus came, he fulfilled the law, and he abolished it so that we can live in freedom. When you are in agreement with God, you don't need to be obedient. What? What did you just say? Some of you are freaking out right now. What did Adam just say? Scripture says, when obedience has completed its work in you. Let me ask you this question. If your children want to do what you tell them to do, do they need to be obedient?

No. Obedience is when you submit yourself to do something you don't want to do. When you are in agreement with God, whether it be with generosity of giving, whether it be in kindness to others, whether it be in forgiveness, you no longer need to be obedient. If Christ is telling you, hey, I need you to forgive this person, you're like, no, I don't want to, but I'm going to do it out of obedience. I've got to say, that is one level of spirituality that's amazing.

God, when you're in obedience to Christ, that is important, and he blesses that. But when you get to the place where you say, I want to forgive that person because Jesus would forgive them, when you get to there, you no longer are living in obedience. You're living in agreement, and there is no law for that. Obedience to the law allows you to live righteously, but now you are moving to another place, and so that is conformity to his will.

You know, obviously, we move into those levels of maturity. So I'm not saying don't be obedient. Be obedient if you need to. But let's get our relationship and the fruit and the character of that to where we're no longer having to live in obedience, we're living in agreement to God. Here's your big idea for the day. The Holy Spirit does not merely make us supernatural. It is to make you more like Jesus, the character first, first the acts, excuse me, the character first, and then acts of power second.

The fruit and the gifts of the Spirit become part of a redeemed and transformed life. When you are living in the fruit of the Spirit, we live according to a verse. If you don't have it in your notes, write down 2 Corinthians 5.17. In 2 Corinthians 5.17, it says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, within Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away and the new has become new. Now here's a key thing that the fruit will give.

When you are abiding, you will see in a moment that Jesus shows you, he tells you how to create fruit in your life. When you are doing that by abiding in him, tending to the things that he is about, you will begin to change and it will create a new creation in you. Again, I told you that it's easier to follow, to become, to be saved than it is to actually become like Jesus. And when we look at the fruit and the gifts, I want to make a distinction between fruit and gifts.

This is really key. When it comes to fruit and gifts, gifts are given, fruit is grown. There is a huge difference between being given a gift and growing something. I actually, my wife and I moved to a piece of property in East County, back to my roots. I am back to the roots of East County. Yeah, let's go. And it's been a journey, right? And I am learning that growing things in East County where there are varmints, where we were growing stuff down the street.

We were living like two blocks from the church here. It was like the Garden of Eden. I don't know if you ever walked by our house. It was easy. I would just look at a plant. It would grow, you know? I planted seven vines for a vineyard. Just seven little tiny vineyards because I want to be, you know, like Jesus, he's a vine dresser, right? So I want to be a vine dresser. Literally within a day, I walked back out there, every single grape was eaten by squirrels.

Like, just destroyed, right? Yesterday, I went. I have watermelon. You know how much a watermelon costs at Costco? Ten bucks, right? All my little, I had like 15, 20 little watermelons, all gone, completely like messed up. I tried to grow peppers this year. I grew peppers here. You would have thought, like I lived in, you know, Oaxaca. You know what I'm saying? Like, the peppers I grew, like they were, I was making hot sauce for people.

I grew 60 starts. My wife said, you need to harden those off. I said, what do you know? You have a degree in agriculture. I don't, but what do you know? She goes, you need to harden, she's laughing right now as she's watching this online. She says, you need to harden those off, which means put them in the sun. I, you know, for a while slowly, just for an hour a day, and then let them out. I said, no, I'm just going to plant them.

We're good. We're good. 60 starts. Every single one of them died. I am just so upset at my wife for not telling me more. She should have told me seven times. Fruit is grown. You can always trust Ellen for a good guffaw. Gifts are given. We have got to start, stop judging our, the Christians we follow and the churches we go to based on their gifting. Gifts are like a Ferrari, keys to a Ferrari, right? I was given gifts, you were given gifts, God gave me gifts, and here's the thing about a gift.

You didn't earn it. That's why it's called a gift, right? So God gives you a gift and all of a sudden, almost immediately, you can drive it, whether it's a gift of a prayer language, whether it's a gift of administration. I have seen God download gifts. Remember the Matrix? They would just plug Neo, right, into the Matrix, and the next thing you know, he's doing Kung Fu or whatever he's doing, right? Spiritual gifts are just like that.

You can immediately use them. They were given to you. They have nothing to do with you. We love gifted people, right? We love gifted speakers. I love watching Michael Jordan. I love watching people that can sing, you know what I mean? I love watching people that can act. We love gifts and we are drawn to gifted people and gifted churches and thank God for the gifts. He gives them to him for a reason. But I want to be a part of a church that is full of fruit, that is full of the character of Jesus Christ.

I grew up at a church, I talk about the church I went to Skyline growing up as a kid. I talk about it all the time. I talked about it a few weeks ago. I was on the drama and team ministry and actually my leader, probably the guy who probably influenced my life more than anybody else is actually, I won't point him out now, but he's here in the service today. His name's Doug. Showed up today. I haven't probably seen him face to face for like 30 years.

But that guy, when I was going through the midst of family hell, reached out to me on a regular business and said, come be a part of this team, cared for me, picked me up at my house. I'm just going to tell you this, without him showing up like he did, maybe two or three other people, we all would not be here today. What you see right now, anything I've done in my ministry is the fruit, is fruit of the character and witness.

Now Doug never came, pulled me out and said, we're just going to pray tongues over you right now and I'm going to prophesy and he never did any of that. But he showed up with love, he showed up with care, he showed up with the occasional pink belly, which would be illegal now. These things, you know, for me, that actually changed our life and it was the fruit of witness, right, the fruit of witness that brought this about.

I want to be a part of a church that is full of fruit. I want us to be an orchard, right, more than a store full of gifts. I want us to be a vineyard, I want us to be something that we grow into and so we see that fruit and gifts and fruit is grown and it has to be nurtured. Jesus says this, go to your first point in the message, fruit reveals the nature of a tree. You will know the root by the fruit. You will know the root by the fruit as you look around and you see the fruit.

Jesus says this in Matthew 7, 17. So every healthy tree bears good fruit but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. Other than, you know, there was the fig tree that Jesus cursed that had no fruit but in Jesus' analogies about people, in scriptural analogies about people, it says that everyone bears fruit. Every single one of us will bear fruit and that fruit will either be good fruit which others will feast upon, which you will feast upon, or it will be diseased fruit.

So Jesus, like I said in Matthew 17 once again, so every healthy tree bears good fruit but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. Now, as we look now and pull out from this passage, I want to show you in the scripture the use of the metaphor of fruit and why I'm making an argument that fruit is far superior to gifts. The Bible starts with a garden and fruit. If you get halfway through, about halfway through to the Psalms, the Psalms, chapter 1, verse 3, starts with fruit and in Revelation 22, 21, 22, the Bible ends with a tree and with fruit.

It doesn't start with a gift, you know, giving. It doesn't start with a white elephant party halfway through and then gifts in the end. It is all about fruit and the character and the nature of who we are. Genesis, let's start, go to Genesis 2, 8 and 9. You can turn there if you can, but it's also in your notes. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and what?

Good for food. And so you see that in the beginning there was a tree and it produced that which would provide sustenance for those that surrounded it. Psalm 1, 3. He is like a tree planted by streams of water. This is talking about the righteous person. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither in all that he does he prospers. That talks about tending where it's planted and where you're planted matters.

It talks about being watered. It talks about fruit and it produces its season. And then we get to Revelation 22 and look at the fruit here in Revelation 22. Then the angel showed me the river of water of life bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and from the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month.

It wasn't yielding it every season. It wasn't yielding it every fifth year. It was yielding a bevy, a crop every single month. Now one of the things the Lord told me in regard to our church and this is just a word I want to share with our members and our regular attenders is that God has said we've done a pretty good job of building a church but I want to call you beyond building a church I want you to build a city. And as a church I want us to begin to go out to the city to make a difference.

I want us to set up prayer tents where you can come and pray and have a cup of coffee at the Cove for everybody from this part of town La Jolla, Bird Rock. I want to also do it at Mission Bay for Claremont, Bayhoe. All over the city we want to start to reach out and make a difference and the verse the Lord gave me to confirm that this morning because I didn't see it before I was this morning I was preparing and I saw this verse.

He said through the middle of the street of the city also ran on either side of the river and I feel like the Lord said from this place from this church we are going to equip you to go out like a river through the city. You are the sustenance and the fruit. Now look you might use your gifts in that but what people are going to care about is your character. They are going to see a difference and I will tell you that the people who have changed my life the most were not the most gifted people.

I have been surrounded by some of the most gifted people in the world and God has let me rub shoulders with some of them and know them and I have seen them in their gifting. But the people who have changed my life the most were people like Dave Chrysler who was a discipler of me and he was a mechanic and he would meet with me every week and just go through the scriptures with me and he cared about me deeply. My mom Betty and Lloyd Hart who prayed for me every single day for 28 years they told me they would kneel beside their bed every time they were together they would kneel beside their bed and they would pray for my family for 28 years they prayed for my family.

That is a character that actually changes things. Once again we need to stop judging our churches by how good the music sounds. By how intriguing the pastor is. By whatever thing they're doing. Is it changing lives and is it transforming cities? We want San Diego to bow the knee to Jesus Christ and you are part of that happening. You are the river that will run from the throne of God through the city to nourish the city to produce fruit in its season to change your high schools to change the medical areas you work in in the seven streams of culture art in medicine in education in entertainment in all of these areas sport all these areas you are all part of it in all of this city.

I found out this this week that we have somebody from almost every city in San Diego that goes to our church. We have the ability to reach all of San Diego through you. I even asked somebody I said obviously there's no one here from Kensington and I asked last service is there anyone from Kensington? I got a Kensington shout out. I can't believe it. We have reached Kensington. It's unbelievable. It's like the promised land.

Most people in San Diego don't even know where Kensington is do they Chris? You know where it is because you're arty because you're super artsy. But to move out now so I wrote in the notes this the primary evidence of the Holy Spirit is not what we can do for Jesus but who we are becoming. We have got to mature. There's four purposes of a church I've been talking to you guys about. One, identity. You have to know who you are in Jesus Christ.

Number two, unity. We have got to do it together. Number three, maturity. We have to become like him more like him as a congregation that people will look at our church and not say oh did you hear their album they put out is amazing and the album we put out is amazing. Yes it is Chris. Thank you so much. But what they will say that is the most loving church. I cannot believe how much they love me. They're showing up to the retirement communities.

They're showing up to the schools. They're showing up to the neighborhoods. This is what we're going to do and where we're going to change because that final thing is mission. And if we don't know who we are and if we don't do it together and if we don't do it in maturity then the mission will have no roots. And that's what roots are. Roots are the foundation the thing that feeds the fruit. I'll finish with this because somebody asked me this week they texted me Adam because we were talking about this fruit they said hey when it comes to fruit can we only grow fruit in difficult seasons?

I said absolutely not. If that was the case it means that the fruit of God would be subservient or submissive to hard times and we know that hard times are a part of the curse. They're a part of the thing that was the brokenness of the world. Fruit comes in all seasons and in due seasons as it says in Psalm 1. So if you want to be a fruit producer let me tell you how to do it. Jesus says it in one very simple sentence John 15 4.

Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine neither can you unless you abide in me. Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine neither can you unless you abide in me. Hudson Taylor said this see to it that you are abiding and he will see to the fruit. You don't I will tell you this when you are gardening or you are working land or doing anything agrarian you don't grow the fruit.

You never grow the fruit. The fruit is a result of the tending. The fruit is a result of where you plant it. I have found that if you know I think I sometimes I get confused if I say something first service or second service but I'll say it again so you might have to hear it twice in one service. You will never make an unhealthy plant healthy by planting a healthy plant next to it. If something has mildew did I already say that?

I didn't. Okay thank you Stephanie. If you have mildew on a tomato plant and you plant a really healthy tomato plant next to it let me tell you what you are going to have two unhealthy plants. Right? You are not going to get a healthy plant from the one that is healthy. I will tell you where your planted matters. This week the challenge is to see yourself like that tree in Psalm 1 and ask yourself where am I planted?

And how am I tending? Because the way you tend will naturally produce fruit. You are not going to produce kindness by saying I need to be more kind. This is not going to work. Right? It's like when it comes to you know the fruit of the spirit as you look at the fruit of the spirit here which is interesting self-control is the final one. One of the exceptions that I've had even until recently is I've put self-control first and said that if I can control myself then all of a sudden I'll have that relationship with Jesus that I want.

Right? I think it's interesting that it's at the end. Here's the thing. If you abide in Jesus first you will have self-control. If you abide in Jesus first you will have peace. If you abide in Jesus first you will have faithfulness. What the enemy wants you to do is to use your willpower your understanding and try to create he wants you to make the fruit and then tell you until you have the fruit you can never actually walk in the garden with God.

So keep trying to make that fruit. It is impossible to make fruit. Christians can't make fruit. Christians can abide in Jesus and Jesus will make the fruit. You can tend it. You can do all those things. Put yourself in the right place. But don't start with self-control. And even this week I realized I've been doing it so backwards. I've been thinking I can just fashion a piece of fruit. And then once I fashion all the pieces of fruit I can actually grow a tree and have the roots cared for.

No. It's simple guys. Let me just give you a simple recipe. This week spend time with Jesus. Just spend time with him. Sit with him. Take an hour. Sit. Binge listen to the scripture. Take like two and a half hours right? And just go somewhere. I did this recently. I listened to I think I told you guys this. I listened from Romans all the way through to 1 John in like a two and a half hour period is how long it took me.

I've got to tell you there is something when you binge listen to the Bible it's just weird what it does to you. Like in a good way. Like it just you'll just see there's a certain point where it's like ah da da da da and pretty soon it starts taking effect. And when you're like I don't know you're about halfway through like Galatians you start feeling something you know what I'm saying. This is abiding. Abiding is attending church.

And so I put as your final thing actually I do want to say this final thing and then I will let you get to the farmer's market I promise. This is really key. The Bible is clear this is a hard word but the Bible is clear that whatever fruit you produce and you all produce fruit you will eat it. It is very clear. I put a couple verses there. I'm going to read Isaiah 3.10 which you can write in. I don't think it's in the notes but you can go right in.

It says this. Isaiah 3.10 says tell the righteous it will be it will be well with them for they will eat the fruit of their deeds. Proverbs 1.29 and 31 says this. Because they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the Lord they would have none of my counsel despise my reproof therefore they shall what? They shall eat the fruit of their way and fill themselves with their own devices. That's key. In the Old Testament with Israel God would turn Israel over to their enemies.

In the New Testament he turns us over to our desires. It says that in Scripture. If you want to go after the things of the flesh the enemy will not be the Arameans. The enemy will not be the Babylonians. The enemy will be that thing that you go after. And he says eventually when they will not listen he'll protect and he'll protect but there comes a point where God says I will turn them over to their own desires and they will eat the fruit of their way.

Fruit is really key because it sustains you. Fruit is the thing you will live by and all you have to do is abide. And if you abide you will start seeing your life going from a desert place to an orchard. To something that they found in the promised land. That sustains you and not only sustains you sustains your family sustains cities sustains generations. You can do that and it's simple as abiding. This is the fruit of the Spirit.

Amen? Let's stand if you would. Chris would you come forward? Chris is going to lead us in a song and we're going to take a moment before I bless you just to open our hearts up to what he's doing in our heart right now. Let's just take a moment before Chris leads us. We just invite you Jesus. We want to be a fruit filled church Lord God. We love the gifts. We want some gifts too. We need the fruit of you in our marriages Jesus.

We need to tend our marriages God. We need to tend our families and our children. Lord we bless you Jesus. Just invite him in as Chris sings this chorus and then I'll bless you before we go. It's your name. It's your name.