Growing Fruit | Pastors Adam and Rebecca Peterson

Morning. Let's do it. Hey, before we jump in, I wanna take a minute to welcome everyone who is joining us online. Online family, we love you. Grateful that you are with us today. And then come on church, I need you to put your hands together for all the men and women who are joining us in correction facilities all across the US. You are our church family. Thank you for leaning in every single week and we're believing God's gonna speak to your heart today. We are continuing, actually wrapping up our series today called Juicy Fruit. We've been rocking in this for the last 10 weeks. If you've missed a week, hey, jump online, get on the app, catch up on one of the weeks. And what we've been looking at is what the Bible calls the fruit of the spirit. And this is what the Holy Spirit produces on the inside of us. Let's look at our theme scripture in Galatians. It says the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

So the Holy Spirit looks at you and goes, all right, you asked Jesus to come into your life and if you're here today or you're watching online and you've never asked Jesus into your life to be your Lord and Savior, that is your first step today in our church and we're so glad you're here and we believe some of you are gonna make that decision today. It is, woo, life-changing. He died on the cross for your sins. He's not mad at you, he loves you, and he wants a relationship with you. And the moment you call upon Jesus, the Holy Spirit goes, hey man, I'm so glad you got Jesus, I'm so glad you got forgiveness, but we gotta get to work. Because there's some junk in your life that we need to get out and the Holy Spirit wants to produce this in us, the fruit of the Spirit. This is what we have said the entire series, that fruit grows from a life that's rooted in Jesus. You don't get the fruit unless you stay connected to Jesus. And then we gave you this one because it rhymes, the deeper the root, come on, somebody say it with me, the sweeter the fruit, the better the fruit is, the deeper you stay connected to Jesus Christ, the sweeter that fruit is that's gonna come out of your life which will bless you, but it's really gonna be a blessing

to other people around you. And this is what we've been saying the whole series, Holy Spirit, do the work in us, change us, and this is the language we've really been using, more of you, Jesus, and less of me. Your family does not need more of you, your friends do not need more of you, this world does not need more of you, it needs more of Jesus in you, can I get a better amen? And so, we're gonna wrap this thing up today, and I wanna just go ahead and prepare you for how we're gonna close the service. Because we're gonna close with a time of response and reflection. And we're gonna take a deep, honest look at our lives, and we're gonna get honest with ourselves, and honest with God, because there is some work that the Holy Spirit needs and wants to do in you. And for some of you, you've been resisting it. But today, God's gonna draw you to Jesus Christ, he's not gonna condemn you, he's gonna bring you in. And so here we go, we have three thoughts that we're gonna share with you today. The first one is this, when it comes to the Spirit of God, we can either be living in the flesh, or we can be living in the Spirit. So we all have a spirit, and we all have a flesh. Your spirit is what comes alive in you when you say yes to a relationship with Jesus. Galatians 5, 16 and 17, says,

walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. The flesh and the Spirit are opposed to one another, they are in conflict with one another. And the works of the flesh choke spiritual fruitfulness. Why don't you pause and explain to somebody in here that's like, what is the flesh? Yeah, so your flesh is you. It is what you produce in and of yourself. Your flesh, maybe you are prone to negativity. Maybe my flesh is prone to just being self-centered. Yeah. My flesh is prone to being lazy. I'm a really hard worker, but when it comes to spiritual things, I can tend to be really lazy. I can tend to be very negative. I can tend to be very critical. Impatient, mean, angry. That's my flesh. We could do your list. Happy birthday to you. We could do your list as well this morning. And so your flesh is you. When you think about who you are, and you think about the things that come out on the inside of you, the things that you're not always proud of, that's your flesh. But like I said, when we say yes to Jesus, when we put our faith in Jesus, God makes our spirit come alive. We now have the Holy Spirit of God

living on the inside of us. And so your spirit is in conflict with your flesh. And we have to choose which one we're actually going to allow to take control over our life. Our flesh is what's gonna crave sin. Our flesh is not gonna crave the things of God. But the spirit of God inside of us, will crave the things of God. If we feed our flesh, it's gonna produce more flesh. It's gonna produce sin in our life. But if we feed the spirit of God on the inside of us, it is going to produce more of the Holy Spirit. spirit inside of us. And so if our flesh and our spirit are in conflict with one another, this means if we're feeding our flesh, we're actually blocking the work of the Holy Spirit on the inside of us. If you are running after your flesh and you're allowing your flesh to take over your life, then you're actually blocking the work of the Holy Spirit on the inside of you. I wrote it like this, the fruit will not grow if your flesh is constantly being fed. Fruit is not going to be produced in your life if you're actually feeding your flesh. Your flesh is going to continue to be produced in your life and so you've got to choose which one you're going to allow to lead your life. Feed the flesh, produce the fruit of the flesh which is sin. Feed the spirit, produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Every day you get to choose which one am I going to nourish, which one am I going to take care of, which one am I going to allow to lead and dictate my life. Galatians 5 says those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires and since we live by the Spirit, now we choose to keep in step with the Spirit. So your flesh has been crucified, it doesn't have to have power over you, you just allow it to. You also get to choose to allow the Holy Spirit to take over your life and when you live in step with the Spirit of God, your flesh will not have power over you and you will see the patterns of sin and the patterns of your flesh begin to fall to the side and you will begin to see the Spirit of God come alive in you more. You ever heard somebody say, well this is just who I am? Okay, or maybe somebody's like, well that's just my personality. Okay, when it comes to the Spirit of God, He looks at us and

He goes, yeah that's who you are, that's why I want to change you. We don't get to walk around and go, that's just who I am, well it's just my personality. That's why God looks at us and goes, yeah that's why we need less of you and we need more of Jesus. That's why Jesus came along in John 15 and He said these words, I'm the true vine and my Father's the gardener. So Jesus is saying in this moment, I'm the vine, God's the gardener and they're ready to work in your life and you're like, well what am I? What's my role in the whole thing? Jesus would go on to say, you're a branch. Not very awesome, right? Nobody was like, whoa, branch. A branch, all it does is stay connected to the vine and then the gardener will come along and he'll actually prune up the branch from time to time so that the branch can produce more fruit. But if the branch disconnects from the vine, it's a dead branch that will produce nothing. And so as a branch, what do we do? We stay connected to the source of life. We stay connected to Jesus so that fruit can come out of our lives. But here's the thought that I wrote down. Fruit doesn't create the tree, it reveals the tree. All right? You're like, what does that mean? It means the apple tree that's on the fruit or on the tree didn't make the tree an apple tree. The tree was already an apple tree. It got roots in the ground. It got soil. It got water. It got sunlight. And then it starts producing the apples. I don't have love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, self-control. I left one out, but that's okay. I don't have that. I can't make that happen. But when I stay connected to the source of all of that, it's a byproduct. It just comes out of my life. But if I remove myself from that, then the flesh, all of the ugly jacked up stuff in my life, that's what's going to come out. So every time you get angry and spout off and you start just tearing into somebody, maybe it's a parent, maybe it's a sibling, maybe it's a spouse, that's your flesh. What does the Spirit of God do? The Spirit of God is patient, loving, kind. So you should be able to look and go, well, that's not Jesus. That's me. And that's why we need Jesus to change us. If you know you need Jesus to change you, would you shout amen? Philippians 1 says it like this, for I want you to understand what really matters. Some things don't matter. Here's what really matters. So that you may live, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. What is a spiritual life? It's pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return. Do you know that Jesus is coming back? Okay, half of you do. For the other half, Jesus is coming back. He came once as Savior. He's coming back the second time as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And I need you to understand this. I don't say this to scare you, I say it to prepare you.

You will stand before Him and you will give an account for how you have lived your life. and the fruit that's come out of your life, you're not gonna stand before him and go, look at all this fruit that I did. You're gonna go, no, no, no, no, I surrendered my life, I followed after you, I wasn't perfect, but look what your Holy Spirit did in me. You will give an account for how you are living your life. Every word that you say, how you speak to the people in your life, how you treat, you will give an account. May that sober us up this morning and wake us up. Paul goes on to say this in Philippians. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation and the righteous character that is produced in your life by you, no, by Jesus Christ. For this will bring much glory and praise to God. When you humble yourself and you say, God, I need you, and I wanna live according to your spirit, I wanna follow you, I don't wanna do my own thing. That's what honors and glorifies God. If you wanna honor and glorify God in your life this morning, say amen. Come on, point number two is this. Here's how we're gonna do it. We gotta change our appetite. So we can hunger for the things of this world, which is gonna leave us empty, it's gonna leave us dissatisfied, it's gonna leave us hungering for more,

or we can hunger for the things of God, which is gonna lead us to wanting more of the things of God, which is gonna lead us to having a hunger for his word, his Bible, the word of God, is a gift that has been given to us. It is life-giving, and it is everything that we need. In the book of Matthew, Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil, and for 40 days and 40 nights, he did not eat. And the devil comes to him to tempt him and says, hey, eat, like, can't you just turn that stone into some bread, like, find something to eat? And Jesus replied to the devil in Matthew four, and he said, but he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He knew in this moment that this was a temptation to satisfy his flesh, and that food wasn't something that he needed in this moment, it was something that was gonna bring him temporary satisfaction. He knew that the word of God was something that was gonna bring him eternal satisfaction, something that was actually gonna satisfy the spiritual need that he had in his life. Everything this world offers us is temporary. Everything this world offers us, it might feel like instant gratification, it might feel like it makes us feel good,

but it's not going to last, and it's not going to sustain you to be able to continue to live your life. It's not gonna be able to hold you. And so just like we talked about in point number one, you've gotta feed your spirit, and the word of God is more than enough. It is everything your spirit needs to be able to come alive. In the book of Psalms, it says, blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, whose delight is in the word of the Lord, who meditates on this law, who meditates on the word of God day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither, whatever they do prospers. If you crave the things of this world, you're gonna get more of what you crave. If you crave the word of God, and you hunger and thirst for the word of God, it is going to be life-giving to you, and we have to choose to change what we consume. If we keep consuming the things of this world, we keep consuming entertainment, we keep consuming our phones,

we keep just consuming whatever it is that the world has to offer, it's gonna leave us empty. And I know getting into God's word at times can feel hard, right? Can feel difficult. One step at a time, one day at a time, one verse at a time, and as you consume his word, you will continue to crave more of his word, and it will begin to come alive to you, and it will satisfy your every need, and you will be like a tree that is planted by streams of water. His word will just water down into you, and it will be life-giving to you. I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand because it could get really embarrassing in here this morning, but I would assume that the majority of you, actually, let's have a little bit of fun. How many of you would say, I like reading any book for that matter? Wow, I'm actually impressed. More than I expected. Okay, half of y'all are liars. You're just trying to impress the person beside you. Here's what I found. A lot of us, we graduate out of high school, college, and we're like, I'm done with that. I'm never reading ever again, ever.

And so then we take that mindset, and we use it with God's word. And the devil wants us to do that. And he wants us to overcomplicate this. And odds are, you read something in here at some point that you... who did not understand, and that makes sense. Sometimes you gotta dig a little deeper when it comes to God's word. But this is just the most beautiful book ever, and it is unlike any other book in the entire world, okay? And here's what we don't want you to do. We don't want you to go, well, I don't really like reading. I'll just come listen to somebody preach and tell me about it. No, we want you to dig in for yourself. Some of you are here and you're like, I don't even own a Bible. We have one to give you. It is free, and you're like, oh, y'all got them donated? No, we paid for them. How'd you pay for them? Through the generosity of the people of Horizon Church who give faithfully. And so it's a gift, it's a good Bible. Like, go to our Next Steps wall. We almost ran out. We're having to find more. Go get one, and then ask them, I also want the resource that tells me

how to read my Bible, because I know some of you, you do this method from time to time. And you're like, that did not work. Every once in a while, it'll work, because God's Word's good. It'll still work, but we actually wanna put a resource in your hand that actually shows you how to read the Bible. It's a way of reading the Bible, and I'm telling you, it works, and it doesn't overcomplicate it. We want you to love God's Word. We want you to read this book, because when you read this book, you're gonna get to know God's character, and you're gonna get to learn, oh, he's trustworthy, he's reliable, he's good, he's strong, he's a provider, he's a promise keeper. And once you read this Word, now this Word starts to get on the inside of you, and you start to hunger for it. That's the desire. And then, this is just a side point, but come on, somebody, can we be a church that brings their Bibles to church? This Thursday, you know what we're doing? We're giving out backpacks and school supplies for kids to take to school, because that's the expectation. When they show up to school, they have their stuff. Can we just be a church that's like, I'm coming to church,

of course I'm gonna bring my Bible. Come on, let's go. Colossians 1, 9 says it like, this is Paul talking to a church. He's like, man, I love you guys, I miss you, I wanna be with you, but I can't. And verse nine says this, so we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. Every time we think about you, we pray for you. That's what Pastor Rebecca and I do for you guys. Every time we think about you, we pray for you. Sometimes we think about you by name, sometimes we see your face, and we just start praying for you. Sometimes we're praying for you in general, and this is what Paul prays. We ask God to give you a new hunger. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of His will, and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. What's he saying? That God would open your eyes, that you would see clearly, because when you see clearly, you know how to live. We were just in Nebraska this past week, and we took some of our students with us, and some of our team with us, and me and one of our guys, we got in the car early one morning to go get some coffee, because where we were staying didn't have coffee, but we didn't know where we were going, so we had a map, and it was kind of, and I was like,

I think the coffee's around here, and we got to a light, and I was like, I think we need to turn right here. He went to, I wasn't driving, he was driving. I won't say his name, but it rhymes with Evan. He went to turn right, and I start yelling, no, no, no, no, no, because as he turned right, I saw three arrows all pointing in the same direction, and I said, I think this is a one-way street, so he turned it back real quick. We ran the red light and just kept going. We both looked at each other, and we were like, man, they really should've put a one-way street sign right there. We got our coffee, we went back where we were coming from. I turned back, and I look, and there it was, one way. It was there the whole time, we just didn't see it. That's Christianity. I don't know which way to go. I don't know if I can trust God. I don't know if I can rely, I don't know if I can give when they pass the buckets, because, man, I don't know. He's a provider. We gotta change our appetite. We gotta stop hungering for the things of the world and hunger for God, and then Paul goes on to say this in verse 10, when you start hungering for God, the way you live will always honor God. The way you live will always please the Lord, and now, because you're living to honor God,

you will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. How are you gonna know God if you don't read his word? This is how you get to know God better and better. God, would you change our appetite to hunger for more of you? We'll put down the phones, we'll turn off the TV. because that stuff can't fulfill us, only you can. Does that mean I can never watch TV? Of course not. Does that mean I can never be, of course not. I'm just saying, come on God, let us hunger for you also in our lives, because you're the only one that can satisfy us, and you're the only one that can lead us to more of you, to know you better and better, if you're with me, shout yeah. Come on, point number three, write this down. It's time to take our faith seriously. So today is an opportunity for us to examine our lives, to say God, I'm gonna choose to take my faith serious. I'm gonna choose to examine and see what's actually being produced in my life. We can call ourselves Christians, we can say we're followers of Jesus, but this morning, we're not just calling ourself a Christian, we're actually actively choosing to pursue the things of God. We're choosing to take our faith serious. Galatians five says those who belong to Christ Jesus, we read this earlier, have crucified the flesh

with his passions and desires, and since we live by the spirit, now let us keep in step with the spirit. Let's not just once and for all say I'm a follower of Jesus, let me continue with it every single day. Let me keep walking with the Holy Spirit every single day of my life. Let me wake up in the morning and say I'm not just calling myself a Christian today, I'm actually gonna follow after the spirit of God. I'm actually gonna hunger and thirst for the things of God. Too many of us are walking in our own step. We're keeping in step with ourself and with our plans and the things that we wanna do, and we wonder why we are anxious, why we're fearful, why we're frustrated, why we're trying to figure things out and everything just seems chaotic in our life because we're keeping in step with our plans rather than keeping in step with the spirit of God and trusting him and following after him. To keep in step with him means I'm not moving until he moves, I'm following after him. I'm not getting ahead of him and trying to do my own plans. I'm not staying stagnant and I'm not falling behind either. I'm keeping in step with what the spirit of God is leading me, how he's guiding me, where he's telling me to go. I'm moving when he moves, I'm stopping when he stops. I'm walking where he walks, I'm going where he goes. We have to choose every day to keep in step with the Holy Spirit because if I'm following my own lead,

I'm gonna feed my flesh just like we talked about in point one and I'm gonna go places that I never wanted to go and my life is gonna produce things that I never wanted it to produce. And some of you have been there and some of you are there now and you're wondering how did I get where I am right now? It's because at some point along the way, we forgot to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit and we started to follow our own lead. In the second Corinthians, Paul is writing a letter to the church and this is the second letter he's written to the church of Corinth and he's getting on to them. He's rebuking them for their unrepentant sin and he's saying, hey, it's time to actually take your faith serious. It's time to mature up in your walk with the Lord right now and begin to examine your lives. And so he says to them in second Corinthians, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you unless, of course, you fail the test? And so he's not trying to scare them here. He's not trying to call them out and say, hey, I don't know if you know Jesus, but he's saying, you are the only one that can answer this for yourself. And he's saying, test yourself. Are you actually walking with the Holy Spirit?

Is your life actually producing the things of God? And so come on, church, this morning is an opportunity for us to test ourself. Am I walking with the Holy Spirit? Is my life producing the Holy Spirit? Am I really a follower of Jesus? He says, do you not realize Christ is in you? And then he goes on to wrap up this chapter and he says, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and here it is, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. This is the key to everything. We gotta walk with the Spirit of God. You need him, you can't do it without him. You cannot be a Christian without the Spirit of God actively producing things on the inside of you. Let's keep in step with the Spirit. We were in Nebraska this past week attending a youth conference and I got to preach at it and I asked this question to hundreds of students and young adults and I'll ask the same question to you. You don't have to raise your hand. If you wanna be honest in church, you can. How many of you would say that some of the times when you wake up, the first thing you do is just grab this device right here? Pastor Jonathan, you can come join us on the stage. I'm guilty of this as well. The first thing I do in the morning when I wake up is I'll grab this, I'll.

Maybe read some sports articles about my favorite baseball team. I'll read what the Jags are doing in the offseason I'll read about LeBron going to the 70s, you know, I'll read I'll read about the news. I'll flick through this phone I'll scroll on social media And I'm guilty Of saying God you don't come first in my day And I'm telling you There was a moment that happened recently in my life where God was just going Adam You can keep going that direction But none of that stuff's gonna fill you Would you learn to continue to seek me first? And I'm telling you there's moments where I have sought God first in my day but if I'm not careful, I'll just fall right back into some old patterns and There's this reality that God is trying to wake us up and go. I want you to take your faith a little more serious and I want you to put me first and That's what we're doing. We're saying God we want to put you in the rightful place in our lives So I'm gonna read you a story and things are gonna get a little intense here. It's in Luke chapter 13 Jesus told them a story Said a man had an apple tree planted in his front yard He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren't any let's read on he said to his gardener. What's going on here? For three years now. I've come to expect this tree Expected producing apples and not one apple Have I found? Imagine the frustration right three years You plant an apple tree you water it you soil you do all the things and for three years. There's no apples That would be frustrating Imagine if you went to the gym consistently for three years I mean you did not take days off and you worked out hard

But you looked in the mirror and you saw no results or you ate healthy consistently for three years You cut out all the desserts you cut out the fried foods and still nothing. You didn't lose any weight You'd be like, this is pointless. What am I doing here? This is what Jesus is saying of our lives Where's the fruit Now let me say this very clearly God doesn't expect perfection from you But he does expect fruit to be out of your lives What fruit love? joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleness Faithfulness and self-control I nailed all nine That's the expectation It's what you should actually expect from your life as a follower of Jesus, too And if you're like, well, man, I'm actually treating the people closest to me terribly I'm not being kind to them at all Then Holy Spirit I need you to work in me I Need you to change me Because it's about to get real intense and maybe you're gonna be offended by this That's okay verse 7 would say this in the story three years Chop it down Why waste good ground with it any longer Three years Three years, that's the patience of God in our lives three years willing to wait for the fruit God will look on and go no fruit. We're just gonna chop it down. We'll move on to the next thing But I love this next verse the gardener said

Let's give it another year. That's grace Let's give it another year I'll dig around it and I'll fertilize and maybe there's no guarantee because you gotta want it but maybe Maybe it'll produce next year if it doesn't Then we'll chop it down Can we wake up this morning to this reality the mercy of God is generous, but it's not endless God is a just and a holy God. He will punish sin You will give an account to God for how you lived your life, and he will justly Justly judge you Again this isn't perfection This is the expectation of a follower of Jesus that there should be fruit coming out of your life And you can say I'm a Christian all day long But a Christian follows Jesus Submits to Jesus humbles himself to Jesus and says Holy Spirit. Would you do in me what I cannot do for myself? So to go back to the verse earlier It says the said, let's give it another year and I want to do some digging. This is what I believe that God put on my heart. There are some things that the Holy Spirit wants to dig out of you, not tomorrow, right now. Now the process is gonna start now and it'll keep going. There are some things you need to repent of, not tomorrow, right now. There are some things you have allowed into your life that will never produce more of God. It will only produce more sin and more flesh. So we're gonna get serious this morning and here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna just pause and we're gonna respond to God. The Holy Spirit is convicting some of you right now. That's not making you feel guilty, it's convicting you to draw you back to Jesus. That's always good. Praise God for conviction. Conviction doesn't beat us over the head and tell us how terrible we are. Conviction grabs our heart and says, come home.