Organic Change

It is great to have you guys here. It's a wonderful morning anyway, beautiful weather, and there's a big game today. So thankful it is being played at 3:30 and not 10 like last week. But just kind of a quick question, how many of you are Niners fans here today? I see a lot of you Niners are at very nice. And how many of you like Valerie are Seattle fans, if you're very honest? God bless you, you're welcome here. This is a Church of Grace. You can be dismissed. No, just kidding. I'm going to shock you Seahawks fans. Right now I'm going to shock you. I'm going to say something good about the Seahawks. Yes. Because the Seahawks have a guy on their team named Derek Coleman who is deaf. And a commercial about him has really gone viral this last week. It's already been seen by over 2 million people on YouTube. And I want you to watch the screen because here it is. Watch this.

They told me it couldn't be done. But I was the law of cough. I was picked on. And picked last. Coaches didn't know how to talk to me. They gave up on me. Told me I should just quit. I'm going to do it now. And the last thing is... They didn't call my name. Told me it was over. But I've been deaf since I was three. So I didn't listen. And now I'm here with a lot of fans in the NFL cheering me on. And I can hear them all. That's awesome, isn't it? I love that commercial until like the last second. Because I'm here to tell you what can get you through something like that is a power within you. But the power within you that you can trust is not Dora-Cell. And the power within you that you can trust is not even you. But there is a power within you. If you trust the Lord that is greater than anything else in the world and through which all things are possible and that can get you through anything. And that is the spirit of God inside of you. And let's talk about that right now.

Grab your message notes that look like this in the middle of your bulletins. Radical Deep Organic Change is our three-week New Year's series that we started off 2014 with. While you grab your message notes, let me just mention again that next weekend is our annual World Outreach Week. We call it "Wow Week" because we talk about world missions. And it's going to be fantastic for all the reasons Paul and Val already mentioned. But we also have a great speaker returning to TLC. This guy speaks all over the planet to tens of thousands of people. He's written dozens of best-selling books like Simplify and How to Be a World Class Christian, which Rick Warren said every Christian should read. So Paul Borthwick is going to be here live next weekend. He will inspire you. Do not miss it.

But this morning I want to wrap up this series and talk about the power within that you can trust to have some radical, deep, organic change in your life. In fact, let's talk specifically about organic change. The first week of the series we talked about radical change. Last week, deep change. This week, organic change. Here's the way the Apostle Paul describes this. In one of the most famous passages of the Bible, Galatians 5, starting in verse 19, he says, "The works of the flesh," and that means when you follow your old, sinful desires that we talked about last weekend, "are very clear: in pure thoughts, sexual immorality, lustful pleasure," that's talking about sex abuse, abusive sex. "Idolatry, sorcery," it's talking about spiritual abuse, religious abuse. "Hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, division, envy," and that's talking about selfish ambition. "Drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin," that's talking about substance abuse. So that pretty much covers everything.

And some of you look at this list and go, "Yeah, you just described my family." That's mom and dad right there. Okay, now be careful here because this list and lists like this are not in the Bible so that you can judge someone else or judge the big bad world out there. These things are in here so you can look at you and so I can look at me, right? Because you might think, "Well, I'm not sexually immoral, you know, sorcery, not something I'm dealing with right now." Yeah, how about outbursts of anger or envy? I mean, let me just talk about René. When I don't allow God's spirit to control my life, you know what the power within me is capable of? Some really ugly stuff. Some stuff that comes to my mind, I mean, wow, I'm capable of some pretty bad stuff. And what this is is a graphic image of what happens when I don't allow God's spirit to be the power within controlling my life, when I try to be my own power controlling my own life.

And again, we talked about this last week. And that's all I want to say about that because for the rest of the chapter, Paul talks about the good news. And here's the good news. He says, "But the fruit of the spirit," those are the works of the flesh, "but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Let me ask you, isn't this how you want to live? Isn't this the kind of legacy you really long to live? I don't know, too many people go, "Yeah, you know, I'd really like to be known as a world-class envir." You know, when I go, I'd like people to say, "Man, that guy caused divisions like no one else," you know. I want to be a loving, a patient, a kind person.

Well, I want to give you some hope today because when Paul says, "Fruit of the spirit," he is deliberately evoking the imagery of orchards, right? Of trees, of botanical growth. And in those days, people got what he meant because in those days, people were a lot closer to the land. They walked past fig trees like this tree on screen all the time, so they kind of instantly got where Paul was going in this growth analogy when he talks about fruit. And we're a little removed from this, so I want to dig into this pun intended a little bit for the rest of our time today. What does it mean that spiritually we grow organically? We grow like fruit grows. I think you need to really understand this because otherwise you will be in despair, in despair when it comes to changing your life.

And to help you understand this a little bit more, I actually am going to ask Mr. Spurlock to wheel a fruit tree onto the stage. Mr. Green-Jeans, this morning, Mark Spurlock, let's give him a hand. He's going to wheel this on stage. And Mark, I understand this is actually a lemon tree from your yard. Is that right? That is correct. I can see it's verdant. It's huge and thriving. But as Mark said, hey, this just goes to show you don't have to be impressive to bear fruit because of the very fruitful lemon tree. Let's give Mark a big hand. Thank you very much. Good.

Well, so you see the lemon tree here and this is great because this way you can kind of picture a lot of the things that we're talking about here in this passage when Paul talks about the fruit of the spirit. I want to talk about two things. I want to talk about the organic nature of Christian change. That's on page one of your notes. And then secondly, the organic process of Christian change, how we get the organic nature of change inside of us. First, let's try to understand the organic nature of Christian change. Tim Keller talks about four implications of this. Just like fruit grows, your change in your life, Christian change is first gradual. It's gradual because fruit grows really gradually, right? In fact, so gradually that you can never really see botanical growth actually happening.

I mean, look at these lemons. These lemons are growing. Right now, as you look at this, they're not stagnant right now. They are actually growing. There's more juice being added to each lemon. They're getting more mature as fruit, but you can't tell, can you? Just looking at it. Now, if you came back next week or maybe in a couple of weeks from now, you'd go, wow, there's more lemons. I see more buds. This lemon is bigger. But even though the growth is happening right now, you can't see this growth happening right now. And the same thing is true of your spiritual growth in your life. It happens so gradually that sometimes you can't see that growth happening. What does that mean to you practically? It means you have to be patient because you're not always going to see dramatic change.

Now, fruit trees do have seasons like the spring where there is dramatic change. The blossoms are just popping like popcorn, right? But other times, like now in winter, you see very little change at all for months at a time, you know, and growth in love and peace and joy and even self-control is like that. It's mysterious. It's seasonal. It's gradual. Why is this important? You know, one of the things that's hard when you hear testimonies, "I have been changed through the grace of God." That's great, but you have to be careful because they have changed and they see it now. They can look back and they can measure it. But when you are in the middle of it, dealing with your own struggle with self-control or with anxiety or with not being kind or with bitterness or envy, you don't feel like you are growing. You don't feel like you are changing.

Do you remember when you used to get measured on the dorm frame of your house when you were a little kid? Anybody remember this? Anybody actually have this happen to them, right? You loved it as a kid, right? Why? Because when you are a little kid, you don't feel like you are ever going to what? Grow up, right? It's never going to happen. I'm stuck at six. You are convinced of it when you are a little kid. And so when you go over to the door frame and you go, "Wow, I really grew in the last year," it's encouraging to you. And the same thing is true of your spiritual life. Sometimes you don't feel like you are ever going to get over whatever it is that you are struggling with. But when you look back and measure it, you go, "Wow, I've grown. It happened so gradually I didn't even see it."

Now, little kids get measured against door frames. How do you get measured in your Christian growth? You get measured when you are tested. Tests are the measuring point. And you go, "Wow, I can't believe it. I never would have been that patient a year ago. I didn't even think my patience was growing, but I guess it is." In my own life, I was thinking about this. In fact, my wife and I were talking about this this morning. I said, "Honey, I want to give some examples from my own life, but I want to be honest. So you tell me where have you seen me grow over the last few years?" Because I don't want her to sit here. She's coming to the second service this morning. I don't want her to go, "I object, Your Honor, so I want to make sure I'm right." But she said, "Well, a couple of big ways." She said, "Your patience." She says, "I can see you very rarely now losing your patience." She said, "Frankly, a few years ago, you were super impatient." I remember last week I'm driving along and highway one traffic, and it's actually moving. So I'm happy it's moving along. And somebody merges on right at the Bay Avenue on-ramp. And they are one of these bad mergers who they don't look over their shoulder, they don't break stride. They just, "Here I come, right in." And if I hadn't slammed on my brakes, there would have been an accident.

A few years ago, that would have made me just go ballistic. I mean, lose my salvation craziness, you know, because I had a little Fiat... I don't really believe you can lose your salvation, but I had a little Fiat convertible. And I remember a few years ago, I was down in Orange County driving around, and a big semi-truck merged like that right in front of my tiny little two-seater Fiat convertible. And I was so filled with road rage that I literally... This is how stupid road rage makes you. I literally tailgated the semi. Like, "I'll teach him a lesson!" "He didn't even know I was there, he didn't know I existed!" You know, I was less than a mosquito to him, but for Miles, I followed him, you know, with his mud flaps right in my face. I didn't do that last week, and she said, "You know, you look back, and you don't think you've grown impatient." But she said, "I've seen you grow, Miles." She said, "Also, in your anxieties that used to just keep you up at night." She said, "That rarely happens to you anymore because of this speaking the truth into your life and growing gradually." Gradually! Without... Honestly, without my even noticing it, that fruit has grown. And I'll bet you can see the same thing happening in your life.

Then secondly, spiritual growth is inevitable. It's inevitable, and that should give you hope, because if you have the Spirit of God inside you, you will get stronger. You will become more patient. You will become more gentle. It's kind of like this. It's kind of like a seed that falls into a groove in a granite slab. And this slab weighs several thousand pounds, right? Maybe it's on a monument over a grave. Now, if you look first at that little tiny, you know, acorn, and that several-ton granite slab, at first you think, "Oh, there's no contest. Which one is stronger?" Right. No contest. That acorn will win. No doubt. You give it enough time, and there's going to be an oak tree that splits that slab in two, and it's just going to roll right off, right? I mean, it's the bane of anybody who builds anything, you know? Trees just coming up and ruining sidewalks and so on.

But listen, think of the things you see as immovable slabs in your life. Bitterness, insecurity, fear, self-doubt. Those things can be gradually split and rolled off by his spirit inside of you. Christians gradually grow, and they inevitably grow. They just change because of the Holy Spirit. Here's a question for you, audience poll. How many of you, whether you're here in the auditorium, watching in venue, raise your hands if you would honestly say, "This is true. It's been true in my life. Jesus changes hearts, and then out of heart change comes life change. I've seen it happen in my life." How many of you would say that? Raise your hand. That is great. How great that is, right? In fact, some of you are shocked or even here in church, right? You're going, "I'm in church. What happened? Because last year I would have thought this was ridiculous. And now I want to worship Jesus. I want to love Jesus. I want to get into the Bible. What happened?" Well, it was that little seed inside your heart that started to grow.

I've got to tell you something that really moved me. There's a family here at TLC. A young woman who's a single mom. When she was very young, she got pregnant one night, not a lasting relationship. And she's now raising the baby on her own with her mom, completely refocused her life on Jesus, right? Well, this little baby had a birthday this last November, and I saw the invitation card that they sent out, and it just made me cry, because it said, "Please don't bring gifts for the baby. Instead, please bring money to contribute to the 2020 Vision Project for a children's ministry building and to help feed hungry kids and to build a building at the orphanage in India." And I read that I'm just like, "Wow. I've got to tell you, the 10.7 million that was pledged toward all these projects last fall is amazing and supernatural. But what's even more meaningful to me as a pastor is the spiritual growth that underlies that commitment, because that generosity and kindness has welled up as a result of not somebody twisting somebody's arm, but as a result of little acorns splitting granite slabs, as a result of real spiritual growth in people's lives.

Now, if you never grow, you need to ask some hard questions. Ask yourself, "Am I growing?" Better yet, ask your family, "Am I growing? Where have you seen me grow?" Because if there's no growth, if you're always undiplomatic and abrasive, you're always super sensitive, you're always getting your feelings hurt, you're always resentful, you never change, you've got to ask why. More on that at the end of the message. But that brings me to the third thing. Spiritual growth is internal. Real organic change is internal. Because see, what grows in that verse? What's the fruit of the spirit? The fruit of the spirit is charisma, intellect, dramatic speaking ability, dancing skill, musical talent. Now, those are skills, maybe those are gifts. Listen, a lot of people confuse the gifts of the spirit with the fruit of the spirit. And they'll follow speakers or worship leaders or authors who display a lot of charisma and a lot of intellect and a lot of skill in speaking, but their lives aren't displaying the fruit of the spirit.

That's why Jesus said about false teachers, "By their fruit, you shall know them." Not by their gifts, by their fruit. Not by their talent, by their fruit. It is possible to be an immensely talented, gifted speaker and leader and have zero fruit of the spirit. I mean, this is the whole point of 1 Corinthians 13, right? You guys know this passage where Paul says, "Hey, listen, if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, if I have the gift of prophecy, if I have faith that can move mountains, but I don't have love, I'm nothing." You can preach, you can teach, you can even give to the poor generously, but if you don't have love, if you're self-seeking, if you're harsh, you've got... It is possible out of a desire to prove yourself or out of selfish ambition or prove yourself to your parents or some other weird motivation to have a dynamic ministry that actually changes people's lives, that God is actually using that to change lives. But is your life being changed? It's possible to grow your business, but are you growing yourself? It's possible to grow your family, but is your character being grown? And so you've got to think about this internal aspect of growth.

And then organic changes, and I can't think of a better term, symmetrical. It's symmetrical. And let me explain this. Paul says the fruit singular of the spirit is several things. He names nine characteristics. It doesn't say the fruits, the nine fruits, plural. It says there's one fruit that has a lot of characteristics. And Paul is doing something on purpose here. He's trying to show that all these things are one. In fact, look at that graphic at the bottom of page one. Just look at that for a second in your notes. This is something Amy Sweetman, our graphic designer, put together to express this, and I love it. She did a great job with this. There's one fruit with all these characteristics, right? You see there's one fruit on this lemon tree. There's not bananas and oranges and avocados and whatever else. It's lemons. There's one fruit of the spirit, but it has all these different nuances to it. What's the deal with this?

Listen. Some of you are, for example, very self-controlled. Self-control, you're great at it, but you're not gentle. And you're not joyful, and you're not loving, because there is a self-control that comes totally from the flesh, totally as a work of the flesh, totally from self-effort and maybe just from your natural temperament. That's not of the spirit. That's self-control through arrogance. That's rigid self-control. Or some of you are very loving, but you have no self-control. You're loving, but it's just a function of your personality. You're just kind of a sweet person, but no self-control. You indulge yourself at every whim. You eat too much. You drink too much. And so you're a very loving guy who's destroying your family. You get the idea there's a connection. They all go together. You might be joyful. You seem very bubbly and extroverted, but you're not faithful. People can't count on you. That's not joy. That's just being extroverted. And so you've got to look at this. Am I really displaying the fruit of the spirit? When self-control, joy, humility, and everything else come together, that's supernatural. That's integrity. And that can only come from the spirit.

So how do you get there, page two, the organic process of Christian change? Now, to demonstrate this, I actually am going to take you to a local orchard. Right now, via video. I went to the Apple Orchard over in Corralitos, owned by TLC members Bud and Kathy Mann. And I just asked them, what parallels do you see as local growers between fruit growing and spiritual growth? And here is what they said. Watch the screen.

I'm Bud Mann, and this is my wife Kathy. We've been married for 53 years. It comes from a farming background, farming family. Fifth generation here in the Pajaro Valley, and right actually where our ranch is here. We grow apples, and our apples all go to Martinelli for juice. You know, you look at the trees out there now, and they look like they could be ready to cut up for firewood. They look dry. But in another month, they'll be blooming. And that just can't happen. Somebody's got to help them bloom. And that's our Lord. If you don't prune the tree, the tree will stop growing. And it just sits there. It may bear fruit, but the fruit is not big. The fruit has a hard time growing, and I think that follows our spiritual life too. And we thin out the tree, a lot of the cross limbs that are in it, and the brush that's in the center of the tree, let the air get through it, let the water, let the sunlight get through too. And if you don't do that, you're just going to have a big bush. And in the apples, you have to have that air movement in the tree. It's got to breathe. If you don't feed them, they don't grow either. We know through tests what the trees are requiring. And so then we put that correct amount of fertilizer onto our ground. You know, sometimes we get what we call a shell crop. And that's when a tree, you stand back and you look at it, and all it's got is the apples on the outside of the tree, and you feel, gee, that's pretty good. It looks real good. You forget to look on the inside of the tree because there's no fruit in it. You know, sometimes people are that way too. Look real good on the outside, but where is it inside here? I really enjoy the abundance of the fruit. It's just amazing to see all those bins at the end of the year, to know that that will pay the bills, but also to be able to share physically the fruit. You have to be kind to the trees. Those are living things, and we're, they're caretakers of that. It's a very, very peaceful profession to be in. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

Man, isn't that beautiful? I just love Bud and Kathy and Jamie Rammel, put that video together. Bud, did you catch what they were talking about? It's very simple, isn't it? He said that there's two real ways that you get fruit to grow, and that's pruning and feeding. And you've got to be experts at both of those things, and we have a gardener who loves us and is an expert at them both. Look at the way Paul talks about it in the next verse. "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." That's pruning. Now, crucify the flesh, what does that mean? Does that mean just stop? No, we know that doesn't work. This is past tense. Have crucified the flesh. That means you recognize that your sin nature is no longer the dominant nature within you. Now, you may still have bad habits, bad patterns. Some of the old ruts still remain, like the old wagon wheel ruts that you can find up in the days of the Gold Rush and the hills here. It's still easy to fall into old ruts, but you're driving a new car now. You have a new life now in the spirit, so you don't keep focusing on what's dead and crucified. You move on from the dead past. And this is so important because sometimes in the name of resisting sin, we end up focusing on sin. So Paul says, "Consider it dead. Consider it deadwood. Prune it off. Move on. There's new life for you. Dwell on the living spirit." You dwell on the living spirit and what the living spirit desires.

And here's the way Paul puts it in the next verse, verse 25 of Galatians 5. "Since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit." Now, in the last couple minutes together here, I want to drill down on this verse because the verb translated "walk" or "keep in step" is a Greek verb tense that means daily, continual. On a daily basis, you focus your mind on the spirit and you will change gradually, inevitably, internally, symmetrically, because, listen, you move toward whatever you focus on, right? You move toward whatever you focus on. Another way to put this is you become like whoever you spend time with, right? You just naturally become like whoever you spend time with.

For example, have you ever noticed how dogs and their owners start to look alike? Has anybody noticed this phenomenon? This is not your imagination. Article in Atlantic magazine just this past October, 2013, "Why You Look Like Your Dog" behind the phenomenon of pet owner resemblance. This is no joke, although this is funny. Article says, "The phenomenon has been amply documented. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that strangers can match photos of dogs with photos of their owners at a rate well above chance." So this is real and the article talks about researchers have all kinds of theories. They don't know why it happened, but the fact is it's true and they have some extreme examples, but these are not posed. They show photo after photo. Look at these. Illustrating this phenomenon to be true. These people don't even realize it, but dogs and their masters do end up looking alike. Somehow we just become like who we hang out with, right?

All right, now keep that phenomenon in mind when you see this. Jesus said, speaking of fruit, "I am the vine. You are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, you'll bear much fruit. But apart from me, you can do nothing. Abide." Don't make it complicated. That just means be. Hang out with. Be there. Spend time with him because you become like whoever you hang out with. So that begs the question, all right, well, how do I abide? How do I spend time with him? Well, there's some very practical things. The biggest one, as the Bible says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly." Get into the Bible, right? Get to know Jesus through the pages of Scripture, not just your imagination. Your imagination is good when fed by Scripture and its image of Christ. So just kind of soak in Scripture.

Now some of you are going, "Okay, that sounds very intimidating because the Bible's a thick book. I'm not a big reader and I don't know a lot about the Bible, so where do we even start?" How about this first start? Kind of entry level. The verse and a half that we're focused on this morning. Read this out loud with me. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." What about memorizing that and just meditating on that? Because you know what this is a description of? This is a description of Jesus. And when you memorize this, you're hanging out with Jesus. You know what a difference this can make?

You know, it's Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. And so I thought I'd see, I wonder if there's a connection between Martin Luther King Jr. and what he thought about the fruit of the Spirit. So I Googled this and I found in a book that's online called The Fruit of the Spirit, a fascinating story. It seems whenever MLK Jr. was provoked, I mean spit upon, threatened, he would pause in his later years particularly, and in that pause, he would try to recall all nine aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. In that pause, he would think to himself, "The fruit of the Spirit is," and he'd say this verse to himself, and he said it was in that pause that the fruit grew. Now how would he have been able to do that if he hadn't memorized this verse? So I'd say that was worth a try.

Now maybe you're thinking, "I could never memorize a verse, a whole verse and a half. I'm not a memorizer, can't do it." All right, are you old, how many of you raise your hands if you're old enough to remember the Big Mac commercials that McDonald's ran when the Big Mac came out? Can I see a show of hands? There's a few of you here. How many of you memorized the Big Mac commercial? Did you memorize that? Let's see if you still remember it. After all these years, say it out loud with me. Let me start it out right. Okay, to all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun. That is amazing! It's been 20 years, 30 years since that ad campaign came out. It's lodged in your brain. Okay, I did a little counting, did a little math this week. The number of words in that jingle is exactly the same as this verse on screen. Exactly. So I know you can memorize this. And it makes a difference, you know, for like 10 years after that ad campaign came out and I went into McDonald's, what do you think I got every single time? A Big Mac. Why? Because what you put into your brain influences you. Even if it's disgusting, you know, you can't help it. Not that Big Macs are disgusting, please don't email me, but anyway.

The fruit just grows when you abide with Jesus and things like this are a great way to kind of hang out with Christ. Because think about it, you get joy, say, by seeing, by thinking of the joy of the resurrected Christ. He's so joyful. You get peace by thinking of how Jesus said, "My peace I leave with you," and how you can trust Him. You get self-control when you see how self-controlled Jesus was on the cross. He could have called 10,000 angels, Jesus beat up all those Roman centurions, but He persevered out of His love for you and for me. You get faithfulness, kindness, gentleness when you see Jesus Christ and what He did for us, when you see Him humbly giving His life for you. That's what changes you. And it really does make a difference.

I'll close with this. I started with a Seahawks, so of course I have to end with a Niner, equal time. Thank you. Amen. Yeah. I read a blog this week because I am a Niner fan and I'm reading everything about the Niners I can get my hands on. And guess what? I found a sermon illustration so it justifies all that wasted time. But I was reading a blog on the Sacramento Bee's website, which shows you just how—because I read everything in the Chronicle and the Merc, so now I'm on the Sacramento Bee. And the guy there was talking about how the most changed player on the 49er team by anybody's measure is Vernon Davis. He said just a few years ago he was a selfish player, completely all about himself, absorbed in his own production, and he was benched by Mike Singletary, who kind of took him under his wing. And now every player will tell you he's the most changed player on the team. Now he's all about the team. He's a humble person.

Now, listen, I'm not—I always have to be careful because I'm not holding up Vernon or anybody else. I ever quote some celebrity in a sermon as an example of a great saint or a great sinner or whatever. He's just a human like you and me. But I thought to myself, "I wonder if Vernon Davis on his website talks about what caused that change in him?" And so I went to his website and sure enough he does. He comes right out on his own website and he talks about his change. He says, "There are times we all struggle, weaknesses we all have, and we all just want to give up. But I have faith that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Now every day I pray, 'Lord, give me the strength and the wisdom I will need today.'" Now listen to this. Christ died so that we can be delivered from our sins. And it's very important that we hold on to that every day and acknowledge that in every situation. And that's pretty good if that football thing doesn't work out for him. I got a job for him here, you know, as a pastor. But I like how he said, "We need to rely on it every day." That's the bottom line and to stay with our organic analogy. Just soak in God's nutrition daily, you know. Abide, soak in, put down roots, revel in the sunshine, let the good gardener do his work in you. And what happens to you? There's a line from Psalm 1 that says, "Blessed is the person like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season." And this is what happens to your character.

Now how can you stay planted like that? That's what our next series is all about. In two weeks after World Outreach Week, we call it "Still." For the month of February, it's about how to abide, how to put down roots, how to stay centered quietly on God in a loud, distracting world. And we're going to put that to the test because we're starting this on Super Bowl Sunday, the most distracting Sunday in the universe, right? But for now, I want to leave you with this question. Ask yourself, "Am I bearing fruit?" Self-controlled, gentleness, okay? And if you're not, you need to ask yourself some hard questions. And the first one is, "Am I a Christian?" You know, don't assume just because you were baptized as a baby that you're a Christian. Don't assume just because you came forward at an altar call at camp when you were a little kid that you're a Christian. Don't assume just because your Baptist grandma told you that she'd give you a cookie if you accepted Christ into your heart that you're a Christian, you know? That's what Baptist grandmas do. They're just made that way. But have you said yourself, "Lord, I don't have the strength within me. I need your strength within me by the power of the resurrection. I will ask you my life and redeem my life." Now, some of you are going, maybe most of you are going, "Yeah, I've done that. I've surrendered my life to Christ." But ask yourself this question, "Am I abiding?" Not just in the past, but like Vernon said, "I need to preach this to myself every day in an ongoing relationship. I trust him yesterday and today and tomorrow and forever."

Let's pray. Bow your head with me. If you resonated with any of those things I just mentioned, just pray a prayer like this if it comes from your heart. "Heavenly Father, come and be the gardener in my life. I want the peace and the love and the self-control and the gentleness that comes from just being with you, just reveling in your grace, just putting down roots, just rejoicing in the freedom that your amazing grace has bought. I admit I don't have the strength in me or the answers or the wisdom, but I want to be filled with you and trust that power within. So come in and change me by the power you showed that your crucifixion and resurrection set me free. Crucify my sinful nature and raise me to newness of life. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.