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00:01 Good morning church. Today's passage is taken from Galatians
00:07 chapter 5 vers 19- 24. Galatians chapter
00:12 5 19- 24. Let's focus on the word of God. Verse 19. The acts of the flesh are
00:21 obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft,
00:29 hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
00:36 and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that
00:44 those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the
00:49 fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness,
00:56 faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.
01:04 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions
01:10 and desires. This is the word of God.
01:31 Shall we pray?
01:39 Come Holy Spirit. Breathe new life into our willing souls.
01:46 We do not want to walk by flesh, but we want to walk by your spirit. Lord, help us to know what is the fruit of the
01:54 spirit. And help us to walk in your love.
02:01 May this be more than the least we admire. May be a life we live by your power. Help us to understand your word.
02:08 Speak to us now. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Morning brothers and sisters.
02:15 Today we are continuing on the fruit of spirit. uh how to live our lives. But
02:20 before that um next week Anna will be preaching on bearing each other each other's burdens. Alex will be preaching
02:27 on sewing reaping after that and Dr. Peter will be sharing on boasting in the cross.
02:32 So today our sermon is titled life in the spirit uh producing the fruit of the
02:39 spirit which is based on Galatians 5 19-2.
02:45 Last week we have actually gone through that there are two ways to live. One is you walk by the spirit. The other one
02:50 you gratify the flesh. I already said that if you walk by the spirit, you will actually have all these um fruit of the
02:56 spirit that comes out. If you gratify the flesh, you have all these different um vices and different uh consequences
03:02 that are things that we don't want as well. So today our first point for today is the fruit
03:09 of spirit. What is the fruit of spirit? In Galatians 22, Galatians 5:22, it says
03:14 over here, "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
03:21 self-control. Against such things there is no law." Okay? Against such thing,
03:26 there's no law. And so, a very quick explanation to you what each of them are. The first one is love. What is
03:33 love? Love is actually the word agape which means it's sacrificial love where God loves us unconditionally and love us
03:40 in spite of what we are. That's the first one. In fact, if you see the first spirit, everything comes from love. Love
03:46 is a foundation that causes us to actually want to uh do all the other uh
03:51 to have all the other values that stated over there. The second one is actually joy. What is joy? Joy is whether you
03:59 have difficulty in lives or not, you will still be able to have gladness. You
04:04 have this buoyancy in your life whereby nothing can sink you. No matter what happen like our brother who shared when
04:10 things go through, when things are difficult, you still be able to have joy because you know that God is with you. The next one is peace. Peace means that
04:17 you have this shalom from God to know that everything is okay. God is in control and you have peace with people
04:24 and peace with God at the same time. The next one is patience. Patience is
04:29 something that a lot of times um many of us may not have because we're living in a very fast world. Everything needs to
04:36 be fast. But patience means that sometimes we deal people who are weaker than us, people who do not know certain
04:41 things, people who not uh who may not be as strong as as us just maybe just as what we think. But it means that we are
04:47 willing to spend the time to actually be with them and go through things with them and guide them. Next one, kindness.
04:55 Kindness means that you actually it's like love in action. You see someone needs your help, you go and do something
04:60 for them because you love them. Next one is goodness. Goodness means integrity.
05:05 It's a moral integrity to know that if something is right, you're going to do it. You do it whether it's hard or not,
05:11 you will do it. That's goodness. After that, there is I can't remember
05:17 what it is. What's up? What's up? That faithfulness.
05:24 I should put it in the the word faithfulness. Faithfulness is like the sun. Whether you are a good person or not,
05:30 tomorrow the sun will continue rising. That's faithfulness. And so God is
05:36 faithful to us. And because that we will can be faithful to people. It's like steadfastness to say that whether things
05:41 are good or not, I will still rise up. I will still continue loving the person,
05:46 doing my duty because I'm faithful to the person.
05:51 Next one over here we have two more which is self-control and the final one sorry I'm not sleeping enough now the
05:58 final one is uh gentleness gentleness means that we are we have strength under
06:04 control a lot of times when we look into our lives right we'll say that we you
06:10 don't see gentleness in corporal you don't see gentleness ever normally when people are who have power they will
06:15 exert their power they will do what they can because their power but gentleness means that you actually care for people,
06:22 you're able to speak to them nicely. Even though if they may go do something wrong, instead of scolding them, you be gentle with them. And finally is
06:28 self-control. So this is a very quick list of all of them. The fruit spirit is stated over
06:34 here. And when we see the fruit spirit, the conventional way of understanding it is that it's like, oh, maybe I have
06:42 love, joy, peace, but I don't have much patience. Um, I may have kindness and goodness, but I don't have self-control.
06:49 So a better way to look at the fruit of spirit is it's actually one fruit. It's not really different types of fruit is
06:55 one singular fruit. The fruit of spirit is singular is one. And when you actually have this like the duran when
07:01 you actually eat this duran there are different taste there different textures there different aspects and values and properties of it. That is the fruit of
07:08 spirit. Now the fruit of spirit when I look at it why does it matter whether we say it's one fruit or actually multiple fruits? It matters because if you really
07:15 understand what the fruit of spirit is, you'll be able to understand how you should live your life. I give example over here. So the fruit spirit is
07:22 actually evidence of God's life within a person. So if you have the fruit of spirit, you know that God is with you.
07:27 And so all of us who are believers, you will have to spirit with you. You're supposed to have it. The list I show you
07:33 just now is and is a non-exhaustive, which means that it's not only the nine. There's actually a lot more. But when Paul wrote this letter is actually to
07:39 address what's happening in Galatians and do a comparison with the acts of the flesh. But I give you example over here when we say that sometimes we have
07:45 certain we say oh this person is very kind but maybe um maybe he doesn't have
07:51 so much peace but if you see the text and understand it what it means is
07:56 actually not possible. The fruit of spirit actually look works like this. Take for example this guy over here his
08:02 name is helpful Harry. He's very helpful. You ask him to do anything he would say yes. He's willing to help you.
08:07 Always there with you, you know, always smiling. All you ask him anything, he will say yes. But actually helpful Harry
08:15 over here doesn't have self-control. What he does is he's very helpful
08:20 because ultimately he wants to please people. He wants people to like him. Therefore, as long as you like him, you
08:26 show that you like him, he do for you. Okay, can I do for you? And he's always and we call this a yes man. No matter what he say yes you help you because he
08:33 doesn't have self-control and he actually actually cares more about what people think about him. He doesn't want
08:38 people to not like him so he will actually live this way. So because of that his life is torn apart when
08:44 actually he needs to do certain things but because too many people ask him to do things he say yes to all of them in the end he actually will suffer. Is that
08:52 really what God wants us to do? The next one, this Daniel over here is a driven
08:57 executive uh head of sales in a multi multinational company. And you see her,
09:02 she's very driven. She serves in church. She does well at work. She hits the top
09:08 sales every single quarter. And so when you see this, you see all this very good Christian, you know, u surely got a
09:13 fruit of spirit. You see this person having all these good qualities, successful. And so you see it uh he is
09:19 kind to people and all that. But you see what what Daniel really has is Daniel is doing all this because Daniel doesn't
09:26 have joy. Daniel doesn't have peace. What it means is inside her life she's
09:33 doing all this because she is brought up in a family that believes if you do not have achievements you are not loved. And
09:40 so she needs to continue striving so that she achieves. And she's worried one day what if I don't hit the sales target
09:47 anymore? one day what if when I preach I forgot my slides what happens and so
09:54 this is a driven person and one of the biggest challenge because for them they're not driven from the love that
09:59 they have from God but because they actually have an issue with this disordered loves inside their hearts
10:06 currently final example is Zach over here Zach is a preacher Zach knows the
10:12 Bible so he has goodness he actually cares for the Bible he he's steadfast he's loyal he serves. But Zach is not
10:21 kind at all. If you don't know the Bible, you cannot really read, you know, you don't understand. He explained to
10:27 you one time, you don't understand, he said, and then you go and talk to someone else, you go read it. So if you look at these three examples I given
10:33 you, you see that the fruit of spirit is not having some and not having one, but
10:38 the fruit of spirit is actually needing to have all of them because ultimately what the fruit of spirit is is actually
10:44 Christlikkeness. is not having some properties and not but is Christ likeness and all of us
10:50 should strive to say that yes we want to be like God we want to be like Jesus over here but good news is there's good
10:57 news good news is it's so difficult to have but the good the fruit of spirit is gradual but it's inevitable
11:04 the first the fruit of spirit is gradual but it is inevitable now what I mean by
11:10 that a lot of times when we see the fruit spirit maybe now you know that or
11:15 some people may be driven, some people may be a yes man, some people may uh may be very zealous but actually not kind
11:22 people then you start judging and say that hey some people some of these people in church you see they don't have fruit of spirit. This is very important
11:28 to understand because in the Bible here it says this if you actually belong to God you will have the fruit of spirit
11:35 you would have it so whether in a lot or not but you have it. So it's gradually it will grow. So when you first become a
11:42 Christian first you accept God slowly you will change but it's not for us to judge others whether they have it or
11:48 not. The last thing you want to do is understand this and start judging everyone around you as well. This one is
11:53 a Christian. This one is not a Christian. The first spirit grows in God's timing. I give you example of this
11:58 person over here. There's this person who is sleazy. Uh he loves sex and from
12:06 young he does vices just because he wants to. when I was young, he actually
12:11 stole pears. And people ask him, "Why did he steal pears?" He say, "I'm not hungry." Actually, I just want to steal
12:17 the pairs because I enjoy doing it. And I'm not sure whether some of you are like this. And you do with kids sometimes you see them, they just want
12:23 to, you know, they're not supposed to draw on the wall, but they just want to draw it because maybe they just like to
12:28 see the parents getting angry, for example. And this person, you see it and you grow up, he had a mistress from the
12:35 age of, I think, 17 years old. From 17, he has a mistress. I think none of you can actually fight with him really. So
12:41 you see see this you say this person cannot save an FBC will not allow me to come. Yes. And you feel that this person
12:49 is not suitable for FBC. Go to the other church down the street that one go there see here people all holy. But he's not
12:56 for us to judge the fruit of spirit growing in a person's life is not for us to judge. This person one day he
13:03 actually um he said this thing also he his he came from a Christian family and
13:08 his mom always prayed for him always cry and pray for him and know that he's such a terrible person but he prayed one day
13:14 he said Lord make me chase but not yet okay make me a good person but not yet I
13:22 want to be good but not yet I still want to enjoy myself and doing all these uh all these things uh that are not
13:27 pleasing to you but not now later give me a bit more time I'll come back and sometimes we people and you know
13:33 non-believers and me say that as well. But one day he actually read Romans 13. He actually heard a sound asking him to
13:39 read the Bible. He took out the Bible and read it. And it says over here, "Let us behave decently as in the daytime,
13:45 not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debulery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather clothe
13:52 yourselves with the law with the Lord Jesus Christ. And do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."
13:58 When he read this Bible verse, he wept, he cried, and it totally transformed and
14:04 changed. This sleazy person who stole pairs when he was young and who has a mistress from 17 to about 30 years old
14:11 and did all the different vices in the world became a
14:18 person that you see is the one who actually gives us, you know, who actually taught us about disordered
14:23 loves which I shared with you last week. So you can't really be judging people
14:29 because of their current circumstance and what they're doing now. You never know because it is God's timing is
14:35 gradual but is inevitable. And you can't and if I tell you all these stories and
14:40 you look at his life, will you be able to reconcile that such a person who
14:46 steals pairs and you know who has all these sexual sins and uh lives a life knowingly that is wrong who decides to
14:52 say that you know to fall in love with God is the greatest romance to seek him
14:57 the greatest adventure to find him the greatest human achievement.
15:03 Would you believe that such a person will be doing that? Maybe you can't see it because
15:09 ultimately in Philippians 1:6 it says he who began a good work in you will carry on to completion until the day of Christ
15:15 Jesus the fruit of spirit grows not just through your own effort but is actually
15:20 God the is actually the one it to grow as well so let to let you understand how
15:26 does the fruit of spirit uh comes a easier way to understand is like you have um you've been drinking smoking and
15:34 having all the bad habits and causes your heart to have this uh problem. So your heart is dying. So as your heart is
15:41 dying, you will have uh not much energy, you feel stressed, you can't do much exercise and you feel very depressed,
15:48 you can't even breathe properly and you always have heart pain. What can you do? The fruit of spirit is not saying that
15:54 okay just try to be try to breathe better, try to be able to uh be more active. It's not that. What it really
16:01 means in this text over here, this fruit of the spirit is given by God. What happens is if you see Ezekiel 36 over he
16:07 says God says I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your
16:13 own land. I'll sprinkle clean water on you and you'll be clean. I will clean you from all your impurities and from
16:20 all your idols. I will give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and
16:26 give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
16:32 If you see this text over here, what I highlighted is the word I will. I will.
16:38 I will. The person that's talking about this is actually God. God is the one that do is doing it that helps us to
16:44 change. So a better way to understand the fruit of spirit is given actually by God. We actually get a heart transplant
16:50 when we actually follow Christ. We get a heart transplant and from that all these values, all these different traits will
16:57 actually come up from us. So the second point that we have is the good news is it is gradual but it is
17:04 inevitable. The first spirit is gradual but is inevitable.
17:10 The third point having said all of these things and I just told you that God is the one who
17:16 does all of it. You have a vital part to play. Okay? You have a vital part to
17:22 play to make sure that you have the full spirit. So in verse 24 and 25 it says over here those who belong to Christ
17:28 Jesus have crucified the flesh with his patience and desires since we have since
17:34 we live by the spirit let us keep in step with the spirit. Okay since we live by the spirit let us keep in step with
17:40 the spirit. You read it over here you can see that Paul is actually writing to Galatians to let them know that those
17:46 who belong to Christ Jesus what do you need to do? You need to crucify your flesh with his passions and desires. And
17:53 since you live by the spirit, since the spirit is in with you, you need to keep in step with the spirit. Keeping in step
17:59 is like a um it's a army term whereby you imagine you're marching, you're marching together with a lot of people
18:05 and you need to be in step in the same rhythm as them. So Paul is saying that we need to be in step in the same rhythm
18:10 as the spirit of God. So does it mean that it's just a one time event when you
18:16 become a Christian? You just crucify you know in the morning today you accept Christ you take your old self you
18:21 crucify on the cross and that's it is that one time thing and it's done does it mean that after this now we can live
18:27 happily ever after and you know you know live our lives and be joyful and we have smooth sailing life now all of you who
18:35 are here and if you are older you realize that life is never like this you
18:40 see these photos and you look at it you I think you realize that life is never like this if you let if your life is so
18:46 beautiful come and see me. I want to learn from you how you do it also. I want to understand that you know um but
18:52 I want to share with you what is how do you actually get the fruit of spirit and what is your role in it. Now um I
19:00 actually like eating papayas. Why? Because I was indoctrinated from young. Uh from young my dad will actually buy
19:07 me a lot of papayas to eat. He says there's a lot of vitamins and do you know he has more vitamins than oranges
19:12 on a per gram basis. So if you want to save money, don't buy oranges, buy
19:18 papaya. Right? Papaya is actually very good. And I my dream is actually one day
19:24 I can have a papaya tree like this. I wish I can have papaya tree like this.
19:29 Why? Because papayas are very expensive and very hard to get. You go to any shopping mall, you go anywhere, very
19:34 hard to find. If you can find, let me know. I don't know where to find. So always it's not raw, it's not ripe and it doesn't taste good after you buy,
19:40 even though it's getting more and more expensive. But how do you grow papar trees? Can you tell me?
19:48 You have papa seed and what you do? You throw it into the soil. Okay. And
19:55 that's it. Perfect trees grow. Yes. They tell you duran very hard to grow. You need 10 years. Papaya one in two years
20:02 can get up. So it's very easy grow. Is that true? Yes and no. Now I mean throw the seed
20:08 into the ground, right? And some of you are maybe murmuring and actually not so easy and maybe you have green fingers.
20:13 And truth is when you throw the seed into the ground, it starts sprouting and it starts growing. But can you get a
20:21 papri? Based on my experience, based on my professional experience, I've grown maybe more than 10 to 20 of them. I
20:27 think answer is yes, you can get a papaya tree. Okay, you can get a papaya tree. But do you always get papaya
20:33 fruits? Not necessarily. I show you over here. This is my papaya tree.
20:42 This is my papaya tree. It is taller than me and its leaves is actually
20:48 almost uh less than mine and it's real. I I tried to find online and find a
20:53 better example, but I couldn't. This is still the best one. This is a papaya tree. So, I can grow the tree, but
21:00 there's no fruits. Now, why does it happen? For those of you who when when when Paul uses the allegory of far of
21:07 agriculture because at the time is agrian agrian society you see that it is
21:12 something that is very close to the people understand it for all of us who are city folks you may not understand to
21:19 grow something what does it mean to grow something number one you can't just throw the seed into the ground and let
21:26 it grow it doesn't happen like this what do you need to do
21:31 need to take care of it right need to maybe put fertilizer, water it. There's a lot of stuff. And the truth is, there
21:38 are a lot of things attacking your papaya trees. When there's actually
21:43 papayas, you don't even need to wait until it's yellow. There'll be birds, there will be
21:51 squirrels, anything coming to actually eat your papayas. Why? Because they also want to eat. And
21:57 so there'll be fungus, there'll be attacks. And as you see mine, you can see definitely something is wrong with it. I had so much hopes for it when it
22:04 was growing but I'm busy you know so then time to take take care of it so it grew and grew and grew and grew and then
22:10 one day something happened to it I don't know what happened but all its leaves were gone and it only had tiny little
22:16 leaves now on it and look at it I just dream one day I don't know what to do maybe when I retire one day then I'll
22:22 grow grow better papayas but the truth is it's not easy to say that if I ask you how do you grow a papaya tree the
22:29 answer is Now you can't grow a papaya tree alone. You
22:36 can't grow it just by watering, by putting fertilizer. What's the main thing you need for a papaya tree to
22:41 grow? Can you tell me sunlight? The most important thing you
22:48 need is sunlight. You need the sun to be shining. Now, can you control sunlight
22:53 or not? You can't. In the old days as well, you can't control whether there's sunlight
22:58 or not. So a lot of times is dependent on God. God is the one that actually
23:03 grows the the the papayas that you have. So a lot of times at a and in those
23:10 times even water whether it rains or not is not within your control. So a large
23:15 portion of it is really not within your control. If you want to grow the fruit of spirit a large portion of it is not
23:21 within your control. But does it mean that you can just relax? No. There's a
23:27 lot of responsibility on your part as well. You need make sure the squirrels come, you chase them away. You do something maybe a tie the fruits, you
23:34 make sure you take good care of them is fungus. You need to put something on it to remove the the fungus. There's a lot
23:39 of work to do. So if you look at this papaya example, you understand that the fruit of spray in order for to grow, it
23:45 is a joining responsibility. God is the one that causes it to grow, but you have
23:51 the responsibility to make sure that you do your part to remove all the items that will stop it from growing. That's
23:57 your responsibility to remove all the items that will stop it from growing.
24:03 And when we say removing all the items that stop it from growing, the easiest way to understand is what Jesse R said
24:10 over here. True Christianity is a fight. Christianity a lot of times they talk
24:15 about Christian in your mind. You imagine a person is smiling hold a Bible singing songs and that is your vision
24:22 and your image of a Christian. But true Christianity is a fight. A better way to
24:29 understand is is a person that keeps on fighting from the day he becomes a Christian until the day he dies. That is
24:35 a Christian. He fights. What is a fight? Well, before accept before you accept Christ, you had one adversary. You have
24:41 one enemy. God. God is the one that comes after you. But he's a good enemy.
24:47 He's trying to stop you from destroying yourself. And so he will nudge you and move you towards a place that will be
24:54 good for you. So you have an enemy that actually is trying to deal with you for your good. But when you accept Christ,
25:02 God is no longer your enemy. But you now have three different enemies. Number
25:07 one, the world, your friends around you. Okay? Malaysia, all the rules,
25:13 everything around you will cause you and cause trouble for you. The flesh, your
25:18 own desires, your own sinful desires. Last time you could do a lot of things, but now you can't do them. The flesh
25:24 will start to actually cause trouble for you. You say that, "Oh, Sunday I want to stay in. I want to stay at home. I want
25:29 to sleep." So the flesh says it's better to rest because Monday need to go to work. But you know in your heart you're
25:37 supposed to go to church, you know, to actually connect with the body of Christ to hear the word of God and maybe to
25:43 serve. But the flesh will come after you. And final one which we have to talk about is this world is not just flesh
25:50 and blood. This world has principalities and power. The devil is like a prying
25:55 lion going around to devour those who are not careful. So whether you like it or not, the devil will come after you
26:03 and actually cause trouble for you and may maybe some some of you here have actually experienced it after becoming a
26:10 Christian your life actually gets harder. It doesn't become easier and so it's very important when you actually
26:16 spread the gospel when she tell people about Christ it's important to let them know it's not about easy life but it's
26:21 about knowing the truth knowing there's a God who loves you and because God loves you you can actually go through
26:26 all this. So true Christianity is a fight. It's a fight from the day from the start from the start of the morning
26:33 to the time you sleep. It is always a fight. Rejection of the flesh over here when we
26:39 actually become Christian uh Jessel says over here the rejection of the flesh is
26:45 painful because now a lot of things you going to do we can't do anymore. But we need to be pitiles and we need to be
26:51 decisive. If you said no to all these spices, if you want the papaya tree to grow, even the fruit of spirit to grow,
26:56 you have to be decisive to say that no, these are things I will not do anymore. You need be pitiles. There are things
27:02 that maybe you say that's so nice, you know, eating this chocolate cake, but you know that is not good for your
27:07 health and you have a problem. You have to be pitiles and say never mind, I'm not going to do it. That's actually what
27:13 is required. So true Christianity is a fight. If you do not deal with it, if
27:18 you do not fight, if you do not go into this fight every single day, you will be rendered useless. You have a terrible
27:26 life. Why? Because the world will always try to pull you back into its situation.
27:32 The world will try to pull you back into your status quo whereby you do not know God and and it wants to kill and destroy
27:38 you. I give example over here. Supposedly you
27:45 do not you know you do not do anything you are just uh living your life but the
27:50 world will have many things happening for example your boss tells you oh the company sales is dropping
27:57 and you're doing sales and you know that your sales numbers have not been very good as well. So when you hear this what
28:04 do you do if you're living by the flesh maybe you said that oh no company sal is dropping
28:11 will I actually be retrenched or not oh no because my t I just meet the target what if my boss actually fires me how
28:18 and then later SST increase and then you realize that if I get retrenched and SST
28:24 increase then I cannot afford to leave like now suddenly go out to eat everything also becomes more expensive
28:30 then you suddenly remember the car installment needs to be paid the kids tuition needs to be paid also
28:35 and you realize that oh no what if I don't have enough money I not even save enough for the college if my kids don't get to go to college what be a good will
28:42 be a good father or bad father will they hate me for the rest of their lives oh after that I don't even have retirement
28:47 plan you know I have not planned before at all so what should I do now if I actually when the kids actually graduate
28:52 even if I can deal with the college funds after they graduate I don't have retirement money what will my wife and I do oh started to feel very painful on my
28:60 heart alreadyh not feeling well What if I fall sick now? What if actually something's wrong with my heart? Oh,
29:05 what if I lose everything? Oh, what if actually God doesn't come true? Oh, oh, so that's what you're going through in
29:11 your mind. You keep on having this in your mind that you talk to yourself and you tell yourself say
29:17 okay in English die something bad is going to happen bad.
29:23 What do you tell to yourselves every day? Do you tell do you when information
29:29 comes to your mind, when you hear something, when you read the news, when a when a colleague tells you something,
29:35 when bad things happen in your family, what how do you respond?
29:40 And so these are like the squirrels, the birds, the fungus that come and try to destroy your life. And but if you have
29:48 your loves in life order properly, you realize that hey actually for example SST increase, it's okay just it's 8%. I
29:55 know life may be a bit difficult. Maybe I just eat less out, eat out less law, eat at home a bit more. If really my
30:01 kids cannot go for college because I don't have money. Maybe it's okay. Maybe God will take care of them. I do my part
30:07 is actually just to do my best. Will God not come through? Will God abandon me? The truth is no. God will
30:14 not abandon me. So if we actually understand and know this our life is
30:19 actually to remove all these items that is causing us to have this um worries
30:24 and things that actually causes us to go back to the acts of the flesh. So the solution is we need to preach to our own
30:31 heart. We need to stand firm in it. And Philippians it says okay do not be anxious about anything but in every
30:36 situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the peace of God which
30:42 transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So how do you have the peace of
30:48 God one of the fruit of spirit that you saw it says over here do not be anxious
30:54 but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving. What does
30:60 thanksgiving mean? Thanksgiving means that when you pray you already know that God will answer your prayer. So with
31:06 thanksgiving present your requests to God and the peace of God will trans that
31:11 that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts. That's what it means over here.
31:16 So what we learn is this when we have the
31:21 spirit with us we also need to move because the spirit works as we do.
31:26 Galatians 5:16 says it. It says so I say walk by the spirit and you will not
31:32 gratify the desires of the flesh. Verse 25. Since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit.
31:38 Philippians 2:12-13, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For is God who works in you
31:44 to will and to act in order to fulfill his go. One of the biggest um I think
31:50 misunderstanding of the gospel is we believe that when you become a Christian
31:56 all you need to do is pray and then uh god is like receiving an email from you
32:03 read it let's do it then settle a lot of times maybe we have this in our mind to say that we just need to pray then life
32:10 will be okay or when we become Christian we just care about ourselves you know care about our nice family that's about
32:16 it but the truth is God always involves his people. You can see over here in all
32:23 these three verses and there's so many in the Bible, you will always have actions and commands for us to do. Walk
32:29 by the spirit, live by the spirit. Okay? God works in you, but we also need to
32:35 work out our own salvation. It is always mutual. It's always both parties. God
32:40 will do his part, but we also need to actually do our part. We need to actually use our freedom to live according to God's will also. So now I I
32:49 want to share with you that those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires.
32:55 And so we need to keep in step with the spirit. So how does a Christian live? How should we live? What does God intend
33:01 us to do? And maybe the truth is harder to accept. But the truth is if this is
33:07 what we do every day in the morning or at night when we come back aside from work we get so tired already there's
33:13 nothing else we can do we just look at the phone if this is what we do perhaps we are not really living by the spirit
33:20 perhaps we don't really understand and we have not appropriated everything that God has given us if we understand
33:26 remember that Christ has died for us and all that is done remember the ordered loves if we actually preach to ourselves
33:33 we realize that hey there's hope because a lot of times why you do this. The truth is we're not just physically tired. We are mentally tired. We feel
33:40 that life is difficult. Tomorrow is going to be the same again and again.
33:46 It's always going to be the same. And some of us may may say that our career is not going to go anywhere already. Our
33:52 health is just going to deteriorate as we continue to to um to age. These are
33:57 all not true. You can actually be muscular even when you're 70 80. I've seen before. But the but when you see
34:04 all this right if we appropriate what God has done for us we will say that you know perhaps what we need to do is stop
34:12 thinking about all this and preach to ourselves and understand appropriate the gospel for us. So how do we preach to
34:18 ourselves? What do we need to do to actually help us to understand and live according to God's will. So these are
34:23 means of grace. Means of grace means that the ways whereby we actually can receive God's um God's blessing. a way
34:30 for us actually be connected to God to receive his word to commune with him to actually know him. So things that we can
34:35 do there's so many reading the Bible praying attending live group fellowship
34:42 with believers worshiing church sacraments are like you know um taking
34:48 the cup and the bread baptism serving meditation daily examination of
34:54 ourselves and there are a lot of other ways but instead of just lying on the bed and just thinking that tomorrow will
35:00 be the same my life is so difficult what is the future if we As you read the word of God, if we remember the ultimate
35:08 ending for this world and for our lives is we win.
35:13 That is the final outcome that we have. We win. Whether you are doing well now
35:20 or whether you're going through a lot of challenges or whether you're sick or not, the ultimate ending that we have is we win. And because we know that we will
35:28 win and we know that the Christ is with us and the Holy Spirit is empowered and living within us even now we can choose
35:35 to say that instead of accepting and saying that things are going to be like this we do something about it because
35:40 the truth is God is always working God is always doing something. So I want to
35:48 gently lovingly share and maybe Eden and Ano can tell me whether this is okay or not that if your life is easy and
35:54 predictable mostly doing it wrong. Okay. Not okay.
35:60 Okay. He say okay. So if your life is easy and looks like this, you know,
36:05 you're a child very cute, just play violin and you don't have any problem in life. Most likely you are living wrong.
36:12 Why? Why do they say so? Because if you read the Bible, there's so many different parts that the Bible says. For
36:19 example, Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep knows me." Just as the father knows me
36:26 and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must
36:33 bring them also. They too will listen to my voice. And if you continue reading, what does it mean? God cares about other
36:39 people. And it is not possible for you to live in Malaysia without seeing anyone with pain and trouble. But
36:46 perhaps you look at the fruit of spirit. Maybe you don't have enough love. You have self-control because your self-control helps you to earn money.
36:53 But maybe you don't really have love for people. So there are things that we need to learn and understand that if you are
36:58 really living an easy life and things are predictable, you're most likely doing it wrong because true Christianity
37:04 is a fight. That's why I want to make sure you all can get I mean go home today. But why does the fruit of spirit
37:11 matter? Why does the fruit of spirit matter in all this? In this world, we what we value is power. We value
37:18 competency. Now AI can do every single thing possible. We believe that it is
37:23 important to have money, resources, network um you know to be healthy and we and
37:30 every single day we spend our time to try to accumulate competencies, accumulate resources, wealth because we
37:37 understand this can give us a lot of things. But why the fruit of spirit matters is because ultimately God is not
37:45 interested in your competency. Your communism is important, but what's
37:50 more important is your character. Because what God wants to do is to change us into his image. That is
37:57 actually the main goal to say that when we say we sin, we fall short of the glory of God. We no longer image or
38:04 reflect God. And God wants us to change and get back to become like him. So we God wants us to actually be like that.
38:09 So it's not about competency, but what the world really needs is not more and more competent people, but really we
38:15 need people who have character. And some of you have uh maybe seen this online recently. This is a CEO of a
38:22 company and uh they were on this uh kiss cam in America on a cold play concert
38:28 and suddenly the kiss cam actually uh was u showing them up and from very
38:34 happy suddenly they start hiding themselves. Why? Because the CEO is
38:39 actually married and the lady over there is actually HR of the company. And so
38:45 they've been caught red-handed and now it's a big trouble they're having now. You have one of the smartest person.
38:50 This is a I think it's a billion dollar company and yet the character they have will not allow them to sustain. And so
38:57 what you see is uh most likely this person will be uh taken on leave. I don't know what's going to happen next.
39:02 But why does the fruit of spirit matter? Because what we need is not just competency but most importantly we need
39:09 character. We need people who can live our lives correctly serving God and living right and doing things right.
39:17 What does God really care about? And as I share over here just now, what he wants is to conform us to the image of
39:23 his son to transform us into his image because he want us to be like him.
39:29 That's what he wants us to do. And so when the fruit of spirit what I want to share with you what I want to uh put
39:36 forth to you is when you really have the fruit of spirit your whole life will change. Competency can be lished many
39:43 things can change if you have the fruit of spirit.
39:49 So let me share with you a a case study over here example of how fruit of spirit is actually in action. There was once a
39:55 monk uh is a theology professor. He wanted to discuss some theological concerns uh because he loved the church.
40:02 So there was something happening in the church and he he was actually disturbed like he said hey something is not doing right. So what he did was he followed
40:08 the com the common ways at the time. He wrote a letter okay and he got it
40:15 printed because he's academician this is 1517 he got it printed and probably
40:20 posted in Latin which means that most people cannot read. He he read he wrote it in a way it's just for academics to
40:27 academicians to actually read it. He wrote it he posted it and it's actually called the disputation on the power and
40:34 efficacy of indulgences the 95 thesis. You know what this is
40:40 this guy is Martin Luther and he wrote it he actually said that at the time
40:46 when he wrote this thesis a lot of times you think that he wants to fight with with Rome you know fights the pope but
40:51 that's not the truth. He was just trying to be a good Christian and he said, "Hey, this indulgence doesn't seem
40:56 right." He said he was actually a a pepist meaning that actually someone that actually follows a pope as well. He
41:02 didn't seem that what he did would break with established Rome Catholic doctrine. He was just trying to be academician on
41:08 it. You know, he wrote it, he posted it, but somehow one thing led to another because of printing press, because of
41:14 the current the situation at at the time, it suddenly became viral. It
41:20 became viral. People printed it and everybody started talking about it, right? And so what what do you do? Maybe
41:28 as an academician be very happy. You know what I wrote a people care about it. But uh why he rarely why he actually
41:34 stood up because indulgences that there was a preacher who said as soon as a coin in the coffer reigns a soul from
41:40 purgatory springs. He says that if you can pay if you pay and buys indulgence
41:45 people who in purgatory people who are actually dead uh they believe that people are dead actually cannot go to heaven. But you now can actually help
41:51 them go to heaven. So you pay money to get people to heaven. That's what he's saying. And and Martin Luther feels that
41:56 this is not right. So he was trying to just talk about it and but that led him to number one excommunication. The pope
42:03 says that you need to recend. You need to take back what you said. If not, I'm going to excommunicate you. Now what would you do if let's say the pope let's
42:10 say the church wants to excommunicate you. What will you do? I the one I don't
42:16 want. Never mind. I try to help only right now. They want to cause so much trouble for me and I don't want to talk about it. It's okay let them be okay be
42:23 bitter and just let it be. But because of the fruit of spirit because of goodness because he loves people and he
42:29 sees the people he said why does the pope spends much money to actually renovate the uh the buildings that he
42:34 has but try to actually and he wants to get all this money from these poor people and he loves people and he
42:40 believes in justice and believe in the word of God. So what he does is when people wanted to excommunicate him, he
42:46 actually stood firm and he said that never mind I'll continue. Excommunication is not as simple just
42:52 kicking you out. As communication means that anyone can kill you. Anyone can kill you. You know that's
42:58 excommunication. And yet he stood firm to do that. And in 1521 he actually received the imperial
43:05 ban as well which means that whatever you write you're not allowed to print it again. You're not allowed to distribute
43:10 it. If not, it's actually considered illegal. And with all this together, he still continued to persevere. And when
43:17 he was actually his life was under threat, he went on to translate the Bible into German, common German that
43:22 people could understand. And even use woodcut illustrations to actually share it. And so what I'm sharing with you is
43:28 when you have the fruit of spirit with you, the fruit of spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness,
43:34 gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. With all these that you see over here, it changes you. A normal person may say
43:41 let's uh you know I'm just a condition don't want to deal with it but because of goodness you realize that I need to
43:46 stand up for what's right because of love for people you stand for what's right now some people didn't get it as good as him this is actually William
43:52 Tindel he got killed by translating the New Testament from Greek into English
43:58 and so when you have the fruit of spirit it doesn't mean you have a good life but you will do what's right all the time
44:04 because you have the love of God with you and he was in prison he actually still wrote to the prison guard to say
44:10 that can you please give me my Hebrew Bible together with my clothes and why does he want his Hebrew Bible because
44:16 he's translated the New Testament and even though it's prison he he may die he's asking for his Hebrew Bible so they
44:22 can translate the Old Testament as well for people. So at the end he was tried for heresy
44:29 and burned at the state but if you have the fruit of the spirit with you you do whatever it takes and because
44:35 Christianity is a fight and this is what he says Christ is with us until the world's end let his little flock be bold
44:41 therefore now for us maybe we will not meet such circumstance we will not be
44:48 burned at the stick we don't have much difficulty going through but I want to share with you that um I have I know
44:54 these two ladies Uh I meet these a bunch of uh friends every month and there's
44:60 these two ladies over here uh siding and um Vanessa and I'm going to share a story with you with the first what we
45:06 will do. So these two ladies they are very good friends for many years and what they do is they always meet up and
45:12 they will uh serve and you know do some u social work as well. So this is this
45:18 is them giving toys to some I think some um Burmese refugees. But with the fruit
45:24 of spirit what it means is when you have love for God you do whatever it takes.
45:32 So remember true Christianity is a fight and your fight can be big like Martin
45:37 Luther can be as small as what they're doing here. So one day um so actually runs task is a
45:44 soup uh soup kitchen in Glamour and one day a whole truckload of uh goods food
45:52 was actually brought to the soup kitchen and those people told him you want or not I am closing my soup kitchen already
45:59 I have this extra and give it all to you and she looked at it and she said yes I want it but when
46:07 the food was being dumbed down on the floor here can you see what they doing?
46:13 They're killing cockroaches actually. So ladies, how many of you love cockroaches?
46:19 But if you have the fruit of spirit with you, you have love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness,
46:25 gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. You have self-control to say that because I love people, I am not afraid
46:32 of cockroaches and I'll do my best whatever necessary to be able to salvage
46:37 all this food to cook and give to people who need it. Not that they enjoy doing
46:42 this, but because of the outcome that comes from it. Because of the outcome that comes from it, they are willing to
46:48 put in effort. And so for all of us, it's also for us to remember to say that
46:55 if you're full of spirit, you need to understand that life is not meant to be easy and you do whatever it takes and do
47:00 your best as well. And so for us over here, if you want to hear more stories like this, you want to actually
47:07 ultimately if you want to live a successful Christian life, a victorious life, a life whereby at the end of the
47:13 day, you can say that, you know, I feel that I've done my best and I have God
47:18 with me every single day. I strongly encourage you to say that there's this Delta marketplace ministry happening
47:23 next week and so Ano is actually the main elder actually in charge of it. So
47:28 sorry I encourage you if you are working and you want to explore how to live out your faith and hear more stories and you
47:34 know to really journey together with people come for delta uh next week at 2
47:40 to 4 p.m. in group cafe and then I think it will be very helpful for you in life. Now so we've learned three things
47:46 together. Fruit of spirit is Christlikeness. Number number two is good news because it is gradual but
47:52 inevitable which means all of us will have it one day. Number three, we have all a part to play in our own growth. So
48:01 as we end today, I just want to make sure you can understand this as the worship team comes up. First thing to
48:07 always remember is you never do it alone. Just like papayas that you saw just now, growing papayas,
48:15 a large portion of it is not dependent on you. If there's no sunlight, if there's no rain, there's no water is
48:22 impossible to do it. So God is the one that gives the sunlight, then make sure that the the seed is okay. Then make
48:28 sure that the soil and everything is there. But at the same time we have a responsibility to say that we put an
48:35 effort to take good care of our own lives to see that if there are pests
48:42 there are birds there squirrels that are things that's affecting our growth we'll do something about it as well
48:49 and ultimately we are not living alone the Holy Spirit is with us and helping
48:54 us to go through this because true Christianity is a fight it can be as I
49:00 can I don't want to say is small because I think many of you may not want to do this. You run away. So, but true
49:06 Christian is a fight. A fight to always do what's right and what is right may
49:12 not be always easy. May not be always happy just like what Martin Luther did.
49:17 He didn't want to start a whole um pro protest protestant movement but because
49:23 of what is right he will go on do it. So today hope we can actually remember this
49:28 that ultimately fruit of spirit is something we need to incalculate in ourselves. It is gradual but inevitable
49:36 but finally we all have a part to play in the growth.
49:41 Should we bow our heads and pray? Father, we want to come before you and
49:47 and said the Lord,
49:53 following you is not an easy thing. And sometimes as we preach the gospel, we
49:58 tell people about knowing you, we make it sound so simple that there's only
50:07 easy life ahead. But Lord we want to say that whether it's easy or whether it's difficult no
50:13 matter what happens Lord the reason why we can say yes we will still continue
50:21 why Martin Luther why William Tinder why Vanessa can actually say that even
50:27 though things are difficult but we will still persevere we still continue and we'll do it again if we
50:32 need to is because ultimately is not stoicism it's not a way to say that we do it because we're strong but We do it
50:39 because we have received love from you. Because of what you have done for us on the cross that Lord, you have shown us
50:46 that it is possible to live a life that follows you. But it is not a life
50:54 that is filled with pain, but it is actually joy. There's this buoyancy in our hearts to say that even though it
50:60 may be difficult, we can have joys in our heart. we can have peace to say that no matter what happens, we know that you
51:06 are in control and we have love for others because you first love us. Lord,
51:11 I pray that you help us to appropriate this to understand the fruit of spirit and help us to desire to be more like
51:18 you. Lord, be more like you in all circumstances. Be at family, with our
51:23 friends, with our social circles or even in church or anyway. Lord, help us to be
51:29 more and more like you for your glory and help us to find joy and peace and
51:35 love as we do all this, Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Now, I received the
51:41 benediction. If you can get a slide, I've been crucified with Christ and I no
51:48 longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by
51:53 faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Go forth living by
51:59 faith in the power of Christ who dwells in you. Amen. Service is over. Wish you
52:05 a good Sunday and and have a good fellowship outside. For those of you who need prayer, please do come to the
52:11 front. Um we have our pastors, others over here and leaders can actually pray for you. At the same time, for those of
52:17 you who are interested in the Delta ministry, uh remember it's next Sunday 2 o'clock can proceed to come and join or
52:23 you can also uh come over and I can scan a QR or give your names to Arnold, myself or Alex as well. Thank you.
