Fake fruit is fun when you're a kid. Right? Because you can play, you can cook, you can, you can eat, but not really eat, right? Because you can't actually eat the thing. Uh, it's fun to play with, it's fun to pretend, but it's just that it's pretend, right? When you're a kid, you're pretending in the little, anyone have one of the little kitchens at home, like for little kids, right? It's, it's fun to play with. You, you wouldn't give children like actual kitchens to play with. Yeah, let's turn on the burner, Sally. Like, you know, like, it's not safe. OK, so it's fun to play with fake fruit when you're a kid. And then when you become an adult, you like the appearance of fake fruit. I would guess that many of you have some version of fruits in your house, that maybe it's fake fruit on a table or on a counter or on a painting or in the backyard, uh, because it's fake fruit is fun to look at. But fake fruit at its core can't help you live, right? Like it it's not, you can't, you can look at it, but it's not gonna bring you any nutrition. Why do I share that? Because we're gonna spend the summer learning about spiritual fruit. But I don't want you to have fake fruit in your life. I don't want you to have the appearance of faith. I want you to have genuine faith. It's easy to play the game when it comes to Christianity, where you want to appear like you got it all together. When in reality, you got that business meeting coming up, you are fighting in the car on the way here. If not on the way here, it's probably coming on the way home, right? You, you gotta go to the grocery store, you gotta clean up, you gotta go through all the things. And so what I want you to have is not an appearance of life, but rather, the abundant life that Jesus promises in John 10:10. And so while it's easy for us to try to look spiritual or to try to fake fruit. My heart for you and for for me this summer is that we can understand what does it mean to have spiritual fruit in our life. And so this summer series is called Bear fruit, and we're gonna have some fun with it. We're gonna deep dive into it. And there's 9 weeks here in summer. There's 9 characteristics that we're gonna talk about. We're gonna take a week per characteristic. We're gonna talk about what does it mean to be spirit-led and spirit-filled. And so this, this morning's message, we're gonna give an introduction to the entire series. But also we're gonna uh jump into the first characteristic of the fruit of the spirit, which is love. And so this morning's message is entitled Spirit-filled Love, Spirit-filled love. And if you're taking notes, I want you to go ahead and write this down, that spiritual fruit is evidence, not effort. Spiritual fruit is evidence, not effort. In other words, it is a description of a life that is connected to the Holy Spirit and the heart of God. Right? You can't white knuckle Christianity and be like, ah, I'm gonna be more like Jesus, uh, and because we, we try to fake it, or we try to strive for it. But in reality, the spirit grows, what's striving in our own strength never can. Uh, I was watching this really deep, complex show on Netflix. It's really hard to track and follow, so you gotta be really smart to watch it. Uh, have you seen it? It's called Is It Cake? OK, it's probably the stupidest premise you've ever seen, and I make fun of the show, and then you watch it, but then you guess wrong, and then next thing you know, you're like 3 episodes in, and you're like, it's amazing. So the premise of the show is, is really simple. It's these professional bakers are so good at making cakes, they can make cakes and bakery items look like real life items. And you think to yourself, well, of course, I can tell what is which is cake and which is a leather chair, right? Until you guess wrong, because it looks the same on the outside, but it's completely different on the inside. And so you find yourself wondering, OK, is it cake? OK, I think when it comes to Christianity, sometimes we wonder, is it fruit? Right? And, and we like the appearance of life without the vitality of life. We want the appearance of wisdom without the spiritual power that gives us the wisdom. We want the appearance of having our life together when Paul, the author of the letter to the Galatians, wants you to experience genuine freedom in life itself. Now, if you wanna know what kind of fruit you're gonna have in your life, it starts with looking at what seeds you plant in your life. Now, imagine going to your favorite hardware store. Uh, let's just take a quick poll with your neighbor. Uh, I, you gotta pick your preferred store. We got Home Depot, Lowe's, or Ace Hardware. Go ahead. On the count of 3, turn to your neighbor, say your favorite hardware store. Ready? 123. OK. So imagine walking into your favorite hardware store. You go to the garden section, and you wanna, you wanna, you wanna start a garden, right? You want, you want, you want some fruit, and let's pretend for a second we're not in Arizona, where the sun kills everything. And let's say you want to plant an apple tree. And so you get some apple seeds. It's got a picture of the apple on the front, and you go home, you buy some apple seeds, and you take it home, and you set the packet on the table, and you're like, OK, I'm gonna get some apples. And then you wait a couple of days, you come back, you look on the counter, and no apples. You're like, oh, that's weird. You give it a week, you come back, you look at the package, you're like, oh man, there's no apples. What's going on? And eventually, you get frustrated and you take the package back to the store, you're like, hey, this didn't produce anything. And they're like, well, did you plan it? No. Did you open up the package? No. OK. And as crazy as that sounds, how many of us, if we're being honest, do that with faith, right? We come to church, we come, get a lesson, we get some seeds. We want things that to change in our life, and we go home, we take the package, and then we set it on the counter and we do absolutely nothing with it. And then we come back and we're like, OK, God, we want some seeds, we want some fruit. But in reality, we haven't prepared the soil, we haven't planted the seed, we haven't watered, we, we haven't cultivated the garden in our heart to actually do anything. You see, in faith, works really are manufactured, OK? Works are manufactured, but fruit can only be cultivated. And so there is, there is this intertwining or inner working where we can create the environment. We can prepare the heart for our soil. We can actually plant the seeds in our lives. We can actually create the space where only God can actually create the growth. And so let's jump into our Bibles here in Galatians chapter 5. If you have a Bible, open up the Galatians chapter 5. If you have the exact Bible I have, I'm on page 974, um, if that helps anybody, and it's helping nobody, but it's fun to share. Um, and so if you don't have a Bible, we'd love to give you one today. And so we have them at the welcome table, so stop by the welcome table on your way out. And if you don't have a Bible here, pull up that smart device or check out the verses on the screen. Let's jump into it. Galatians 5:1. For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. So, Jesus wants you to be free. For freedom, Christ died to set you free. It is both the goal and the method through which Jesus came and what he came for. He wants you to live out your freedom, which is only found in its created purpose. Right? An apple tree, when fully grown, produces apples, right? Bless you. And so the question is, what do you wanna see in your life? What do you want produced in your life? And so Jesus gives us freedom that he died on the cross to give us freedom. Well, what's the purpose of freedom? Well, a few verses later, in verse 13, we see this, it says, for you are called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. Through love, serve one another. Now, there, we're gonna see this contrasted idea between the fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh. Fruit of the spirit and works of the flesh. So there are things that we have to let go of and things that we grab hold of. And so there's a difference here within that. Let's let's continue reading here and let's read verse 16 to 18. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Now, when I used to read this verse, verse 16, I used to read it and be a little bit depressed because if you've been a Christian for a little length of time, do you ever have those days where you're just self-conscious and you think, man, I thought I would be further than this? Tracking with me? Where you think, man, I've been a Christian for 10 amount of years, and yet I still struggle with. Insert whatever sin you're struggling with at the time. Like I thought I was further than this. And so I'd read this verse, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh and I get depressed. Until one day, God hit me with this thought, what if this wasn't meant to Depress you, but actually to give you the solution or the escape or the way out, right? What did he just write about? He, it's for freedom's sake. Christ died to set you free, that he wants you to walk in freedom or in other places in the Gospels talks about living an abundant life, a life of vitality, a life of meaning and purpose and fullness. What if this verse was the key to walk in that? That in other words, That if you want to stop gratifying the desires of the flesh, the key is to actually walk in the spirit. It continues on. Verse 17, 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 that you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, and you are not under the law. So you have the flesh, you have the spirit. That you have to let go of the things holding you back to experience the life that God has called you to. You have to let go to ultimately jump into what God has called you to do. What does it look like? Well, I think back to one of my favorite all-time vacations with my family. We saved up for a long time. We took the kids to Hawaii, and, and we loved it. It was an adventure, and we did in Maui, we did the road to Hana, or at least part of it. It's a really long road, if you've gone there. Anyone experienced the road to Hana before? It's like this along the coastline and there's like jungle everywhere. And what's super cool about it is that you You can just stop anywhere along the way and experience something magical, like there's eucalyptus trees that are like multicolors, and there's rivers and there's hiking and there's views. And so we were driving along the path, and I looked to my right and I see this child just from the jungle just appear and then disappear. I was like, wow, that looks terrifying. And also, what is that? So I pull off to the side of the road and we go hiking through the jungle, and we come across what looks like a movie set of a waterfall in a pond that people are jumping off the waterfall surrounded by this tropical, beautiful setting, and there's a rope swing, and it's really cool. And I don't know about you, but there's something about dangerous things that where you tell your kids no. But in this case, when you see other people doing it, you're totally fine. You, you know what I'm saying? Like, you can't really see the water, but you see people jumping in from a waterfall. I was like, that looks awesome. And if they're doing it, I'm sure it's fine. And so we see these families jumping in. Well, they end up leaving. And so then it's just my family and this little European couple. Uh, I, I don't know where they're from, somewhere in Europe, but they, they spoke very broken English, right? And this is your broken words. My name is Yusuf, you know, and like he just kind of had this thing and we were, we were, we're having a blast. And so my kids and myself are, well, they're using the rope swing. I'm kind of rope falling, right? Like they're doing flips and stuff, and, but it's great. And so Yusuf, I don't, I don't remember if that was his name, but he, he, he was interested in what we were doing, and he was like, rope swing, rope, I ropes, you rope swing, I rope swing. And he had never done a rope swing before. And so my kids were going in and so I was like, OK, OK. So he climbs up the rock and I was like, All right, Yusuf, you swing out, let go, swing out, let go, rope swing. I said, let's go. Like I'm like, like, yes, like swing out, let go, OK. He swings out. If we got one crucial part. He looked out over into the mound, he got scared. He did not let go. So Yusuf swing out. And boom, against the rock, and then it was so sad because he just kind of slowly slid down. The rock face into the water. And I was like, and, and, and it was at the point where you heard the thud and so we're like, oh, like, and, and I was like, Yusuf, you OK? He goes, are you OK? And like when he lifted his arm, his whole side was bleeding from the rock and he's like, I rope swing. I was like, you hospital and uh and he kept leaving, hopefully he's OK, but um why do I share that? Is one, it just is seared into my memory. But two, OK, some of us want to walk in the life of the spirit, right? We want to give up the things of this world and we get out and we get excited about all the things God could do. But we don't let go of the works of the flesh, and then we get boom, we get smacked like, oh man, and then next week we come out, and we're like, OK, God, I wanna live for you. And we don't let go of the flesh and we come back and if you wanna experience the amazing life that God has for you, you have to let go of the very things that enslaved you in the first place, OK? Because Christians are called to be spirit-led and spirit-filled. Spirit led and spirit-filled. Those sound very churchy, what do I mean? OK, when I say spirit led, this won't be on the screen, but I'm really talking about 3 things, 3 things. And it says it right here in the verse. It says walk by the Spirit, it says led by the Spirit. In order to be led by the Spirit, you have to have 3 characteristics. Number 1, you have to have humility. To follow God Means that you have to be willing to not follow self. You have to be humble to say, I don't know the way God does. Right, that can be tough. You cannot be spirit-led and prideful at the same time. The second characteristic of being spirit-led is then to to have trust. To have trust that God actually knows where you're supposed to go, that you have to have faith that he, that he is the way, the truth and the life. So you have to admit, OK, I don't know, have trust that God does know and then you have to have the courage to actually obey what he tells you to do. To live a spirit-led life is to daily choose to humble yourself before God. To trust that God's plan is better, and then to actually obey and and do what he tells you to do. You know, you need water every day. And coffee doesn't fully count, although sometimes I feel like it does, right? Cause it's like mostly water. Anyway, um, so you think of H2O, OK, think of HTO. Think of HTO. You need humility, you need trust, you need obedience, to be spirit-led, to walk in the spirit. And if we're called to walk in the spirit, that means you can walk without it. Because then we're also called to be spirit-filled. And what you're gonna see here is a contrast between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. Works of the flesh, fruit of the spirit. Let's keep reading here verse 19. Now the works of the flesh are evident sexual morality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. And I warned you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now pause. He's listing a whole bunch of sins, and he could have listed more for being honest. But he's listing these broad and then weirdly specific categories, because he's saying these are the things that are part of the flesh. These are the reasons that Jesus came down and died. Now, how do we balance the fact that all of us are sinners? But then we have this list, and it says, if you do these things, you'll not inherit the kingdom of God. Well, because inherently. If you routinely and continually. Do the things that Jesus died for. Do you actually understand why Jesus died for in the first place? Like, why are we choosing to live for the very things that Jesus came and died for? Now, other passages, he talks about how it's only through faith that we are saved. And in Galatians 2:20, for example, it says that I no longer live, but it's Christ who lives in me. And so salvation comes through Christ and Christ alone. And so he's not saying that we don't sin. In fact, in Romans, he actually talks about how he has this continual battle between flesh and spirit. That oftentimes I end up doing what I don't wanna do, and that I don't do what I should be doing. And when I do that, it's because I'm living in the flesh. And so he's giving a description of the works of the flesh. These are the things that will not be in heaven, and we have to not play the game of ranking sins, right? Cause as soon as you see a sin that you're not committing, you're like, ha ha. But don't miss all the other ones that you are committing, right? So he's doing a broad brushstroke, saying, look, you're you're doing one of these things. And if it's not this, I could can share more. But understand these sins, these selfish desires. are not going to draw you closer to God. And so now he's gonna give us a contrast, verse 22. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. See, these characteristics are really represent the heart and the and and the character of God. God is all of these things. And we have the picture of this in all of these things in Jesus. And these, if we're being honest, are what we want in life. And the reason I know that is because none of you, when you were a child. Longed for the reverse growing up. Can we pull that, put that list back up there? Just think about it. Like, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentle self-control. OK, you got 9 characteristics. Now, it's actually singular fruit. So it's not here are 9 different fruits, but here is the fruit of the Spirit that collectively God's gonna develop these things in your life. And this is what is a description of what a Holy Spirit transformed life looks like. Right? And we want these things. We want love, joy, peace, patience, right? I know that because no one as a child wanted the reverse. You know what? I really hope I have no love when I grow up. I hope that I'm depressed. I hope that I'm anxious. I hope that I'm impatient, mean, uh, I'm a horrible person, unfaithful, not gentle, and have no self-control, right? Like no one wants that. You don't want that for your kids, right? You want them just to be good functioning human beings. What does that look like? Well, it's to live out the image of God that you were created to walk in. He's describing what a free life looks like to be able to walk in these things. But notice here also that it's the works of the flesh versus the fruit of the spirit. And that's important because Works can be manufactured where fruit has to be cultivated, right? When you see works, you think perform. When you see fruit, it means to abide, or to dwell, or stay connected to. Fruit can only be produced slowly and deeply over continual time and connection. That's why he differentiate. It's not works of the flesh and works of the spirit. It's works of the flesh and fruit of the spirit, because it's it's what God can do in you and through you. Because spiritual fruit is the evidence, not the effort. It is the result of a of a changed life of evidence of God working in your life and beyond. Let's continue reading verse 24. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. In other words, you have let go of the rope of the old way of life. So that you can cannonball into the new life that God has created you for. If we live by the Spirit, let us also then keep in step with the Spirit. So there's this continued heart behind it. So a way to think about it is this, the flesh, in other words, is a description of a sinful heart. When he says the flesh, it's. It's a description of a sinful heart. It's, it's when you desire self over the things of God. And a sinful heart leads to an empty life. Right? And it's not gonna bring you the satisfaction that you think it's going to bring. But when you let go of the sins of this world, and you embrace the heart of God, it leads to fruit, and fruit then is a spirit-filled heart. It's a spirit-filled heart. This fruit actually serves as a great measuring tool and a mirror in which you can look at yourself and actually see, OK, how am I doing? Right? Am I becoming more Christ-like? Because the measuring stick is not more knowledge, it's more love. It's more joy, it's more peace, right? And you're and you're learning to live more like Jesus, because Jesus lived out all of these characteristics. So every week, what we're gonna see is we're gonna have a description of the characteristic. We're gonna see how Jesus lived it out, and then how you and I can live it out through the power of the Holy Spirit, cause you can't do it on your own strength. Well, how do we do it? Well, Paul is reflecting back on, on an image that John actually shared in his gospel with us. And so John has this imagery found in John 15:4-10. So everybody will flip over there. John 15:4. He says, abide in me, I in you. That word abide, some have translations to remain and other translations is to dwell. The concept here is to make home. To make home? Or have you made your home in the life of Jesus? And have you made room in your heart for Jesus to dwell as well? It it's kinda like if you think about there's a difference between buying the home, and then actually moving into the home and unpacking. You ever moved into a new home, and you just got unpacked boxes? Right? Some of you have been living in a house for years, and you got sections of the house just undone. You got stuff in storage, you got stuff, and then you got projects to do, don't you? If you don't have a room, maybe you got that junk drawer or that junk corner. You know what I'm talking about? Like when you post something beautiful in your house, and meanwhile, you got all that dirty laundry next door, right? Like, you know what I'm talking about? Like you go through, and we have these areas in our homes, also in our lives that are just kind of a mess. Well, to abide in Christ is to give the whole home over to him. Every room, every drawer, everything, and then are you making space? Are you remaining in him? Are you staying connected to him? Are you making your home into the presence of God, right? Can you, here we go, verse 4 again. Abide in me, 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. I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and uh and withers, and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it'll be done for you. And by this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. I want to pause here for a second. If you're connected or not connected, it's the difference between being a branch or being a stick. OK. A stick is just by itself. A stick will never produce fruit in and of itself. Branches that are connected to the vine ultimately produce fruit. And so the emphasis is not simply just produce fruit. It's rather staying connected to the vine that through that will bring you life and and produce the fruit. And so I wonder as a church, are we filled with a bunch of branches? Are we filled with a bunch of sticks? Don't be a stick, right? Here a phrase like stick in the mud, just we got too many stick in the mud Christians, OK? Don't be a stick, be a branch. With it brings life. Right? Sometimes people take the sticks, it'd be like then taking masking tape or Scotch tape and like taping produce from the store on the stick to like fake it. Like, oh, look at, I'm producing fruit. No. It's not about performance, it's not manufactured. It's about abiding and dwelling in Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit changing your heart from the inside out so that now you will start to live as Jesus lived. Let's continue reading verse 9. As the Father has loved me, so I loved you. Abide in my love. If you commit, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. And so we have this picture. That really spiritual fruit is the evidence, not the effort. It's the product, not the process, that the process is humbling yourself before God, trusting God to work in your life, being connected, knowing the life and person of Jesus, and allowing the Spirit to work in your heart, so that now you can actually obey what he tells you to do. And slowly but surely, over time, you will start to see fruit in your life. So let's talk about the first fruit in that list. And I think it's important that it's the first fruit because it really sets the stage for the, for the rest of the characteristics, and that is love. Cause he says in there, right in that passage, the first thing he says, abide in me. He says abide in my love. Abide in my love. Well, what is this love? That word is agape, and agape love really is this definition is that is self-giving and sacrificial action taken to serve the needs of others. It's self-giving, it's sacrificial, and it's service. If you know, you know, I gotta be alliterated, right? Like if it's alliterated in the Greek, it's alliterated for, OK. It's self-giving, it's sacrificial, and it's service. We live in a culture that describes love as a feeling, right? We're always asking the question, what is love? And my sinful human heart thinks of that repetitive song, What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Right. If you know that song, we can be friends, but also don't watch the movie, it's pretty stupid. OK? But we're sitting in a culture that's constantly trying to define love. What is love? OK, it's a feeling. It's a feeling, being in love or fall, fall in love. Why, why do we wanna fall in love? At what point is falling a good thing? Right? What I've learned as I age, now I've crossed over into my 40s. And before 40s, you trip. After 40, you fall. Anyone tracking with me? You know what I'm talking about? Like when you're little, you could like tumble out of an airplane and somehow you, you roll and you end up on your feet and you're totally fine. The other day I got out of bed wrong and I hurt for days. Right? If you fall after 40, you're it's just like this will hurt for the rest of life now, you know what I mean? But yeah, when it comes to love, we're like just fall in love. I wanna fall in love. Oh, but if love is a feeling. You can fake it, you can gain it, you can lose it, and now you've placed your worth on on somebody else. Love is not a feeling, love is a foundation. And love is based on self-giving, sacrificial action in order to serve the needs of others. But don't take my word for it. Let's see the example of Jesus. How did Jesus love people? When he said to love others, what did he mean? Romans 5:8 says, but God shows his love for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The timing is important. Because sometimes we wait to think if people deserve our love. And, and I'm not talking boundaries like be smart, be wise, like don't, don't be foolish, right? There's a whole book of Proverbs talks about wisdom and, and foolishness. But when it comes to loving people the way that Jesus loved us, Romans 5:8 reminds us that while we were sinners, in the middle of our rejection of him, he showed us love by dying for us. Self-giving, sacrificial action for the sake of others. He literally gave everything he has. That's why the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave, right? That's why we believe in joyful generosity, because it is self-giving sacrifice or action to serve and meet the needs of others. So Jesus died for us. He didn't wait for us to want him. In the middle of our sin and rejection, he says, I'm gonna show you what love looks like. The apostle John wrote this in 1 John 4:9-12. He says, in this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us, and he sent his son to be the propitiation or payment for our sins. Beloved. So again, we identify with this love. Beloved, if God so loved us, right? So we we're just all wrapped up in a good old warm, cozy, comfy, snuggy blanket of love, right? Like, because God loved us, we also ought to love one another. So, no one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us. There's that word, and his love is perfected. In other words, matured or grows in us, right? If we understand and experience and receive the love of God, connected to his love, then the byproduct or the fruit is then how we love one another. Now some might be thinking, OK, John, but yeah, that's Jesus. It's a little unfair, right? And he died. I would die for my family if push came to shove. OK. But in Romans 12, it says that we're called to also live our bodies as a living sacrifice. In other words, You might be willing to die for somebody else, but are you actually willing to live for somebody else? And that could almost feel more difficult because that takes daily consistent, faithful decision making, even when you don't feel it. Oh yeah, but did Jesus do that? Yeah, actually he did. Check out this example in John 13. And for time's sake, I'm just gonna read verse 4 and 5, and then the conclusion there in verse 34, 35. So Jesus rose from supper. This, by the way, is part of the upper room dialogue. So Jesus knows he's in his final week. He's gonna go to the cross to die for people. He's in his final moments, right? Think about people who are about to die, and they have a bucket list, like I wanna go here, I wanna see this. OK, Jesus is in those final moments and and his Make A Wish, his his bucket list is actually to serve. OK. He says he rose from supper, he laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, he tied it around his waist, and then he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, and to wipe them with a towel that was wrapped around him. So he took on the lowest form of a servant and wrapped and washed the feet of his disciples. And let me ask you, do you know who was also in the room with those disciples that we forget? Judas. So the guy that was about to betray Jesus and Jesus knew it, and he washed his feet anyway. You wanna talk about how you know, you understand the love of God? It's not just how do you love your family, how do you love your enemies? How do you love the people you disagree with? How do you love the different political party? How do you love the person that you can't get along with at work? How do you love the people who have hurt you? Right? I'm not, again, I'm not saying don't have boundaries and don't be wise. What I'm saying is, when you understand that Jesus didn't wait to be loved, that he offered sacrifice and self-giving service for the benefit of others, that is the picture of love. Not only did he die for us, that while he was living. He routinely reached out to the least, the last, and the lost, and he washed the feet of his disciples. And so when he gives us this verse in verse 34 and 35, and he says, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By all this, people will know that you are my disciples, if you have loved one another. This should be the mark of our church. Not how much we know, but how much we love. This is the mark of maturity, not how much you know, but how well you love, and specifically love the difficult people. And can I just tell you, if you don't have any difficult people in your life, you probably are a difficult person and someone else's. OK. Look, we're just getting started this summer. My heart and prayer for you is that you're gonna be spirit led, spirit filled. We have to understand that if we're gonna bear fruit in our life, that spiritual fruit is the evidence, not the effort. It's the evidence, not the effort. So I want to challenge you with 3 thoughts here in closing, OK. As you think about living a spirit-filled life, as you think about living a spirit-led life, as you think about having to let go of that rope swing of the old way of living, the cannonball into the the abundant life that God has called you to. I want to challenge you to do 3 things. Number 1 is to stay connected to Jesus. Be a branch, not a stick. Right? Well, what does that mean? What if you spent the 1st 10 minutes connecting to Jesus through his word, then touching your phone? What if you spent 10 minutes every day just just studying the word of God to understand the person of God, to to see the example of God, right? Stay connected to Jesus. He is the vine, we are the branches. Number 2, I want you to stay surrendered. To the spirit. I want you to ask the Holy Spirit daily, what are you trying to grow in me? If you stay connected to Jesus through prayer and His word, you abide in His love, you come to see all that he's done for you. And then you in turn, you ask the Holy Spirit to work in your life, which is the substitute presence of Jesus in the life of the believer, and say, God, what are you trying to work in my life? They'll then set you up for the 3rd commitment, which is to stay committed to loving people. If you stay connected to Jesus through his word, you say surrendered to the Holy Spirit, asking, where can I grow? That allow you to stay committed to loving people. Not chasing a feeling of love. But choosing, self-giving, sacrificial love. To serve the needs of others. What if you serve someone this week? They had no ability to pay you back. You didn't serve to get something in response. You served because you already gave, you already received everything you need from him. This is what it means to abide. This is what it means to love. We can't manufacture or fake fruit, but we can cultivate the soil in our heart, ask God to work in our lives, and if we love people the way that he loved us, we're gonna start to see that fruit slowly grow over time. It's time to let go of the old way of life, the works of the flesh. And jump into a spirit-led spirit- filled life that God has called you to. Will you pray with me? Dear Heavenly Father, God, you invite us to abide, to dwell, to stay connected. To be spirit led, to be spirit filled. God, we know that disconnection and, and, and broken branches don't change overnight. Rather, they slowly wither. God, it's, it's what happens in our marriages, and our faith, and our integrity, and our joy, that people, we, we don't fall apart just suddenly, but rather we slowly disconnect. But God, may we be reminded that we don't have to. That you are the vine and we are the branches, that we can stay connected to you. And over time, slowly, deeply, relationally, God, the Spirit will start to produce in us what striving never could. Help us to remember that spiritual fruit is the evidence, not effort. Help us to remain in you, that you can transform us one moment, one day at a time. That ultimately we could love others the way that you loved us. It's your son's name we pray. Amen.