Chris Hodges - Bearing Good Fruit
All right, anybody glad to be in church today? Anybody, anybody? Me too. I love the local church, and we're so glad that all of you guys are here. We're in week number six of a seven-part series that we're calling "Disciple," and I'll tell you more about that in just a second, but I always like to still begin formally by saying hello to all of our locations across the great state of Alabama and into Georgia. And then also we're in 26 of Alabama's Department of Corrections facilities right now with hundreds of volunteers that are serving the men and women there.
We are so grateful. What an honor it is to be with you, and of course, we always have a church family that watches us online, perhaps for whatever reason, while you're at home or away. We're glad you're with us or on-demand. Grants Mill, like you've never done it before, come on, say the biggest hello. Oh yeah! Thank you. And I have to tell you one thing before we get into the message today, and that is I had one of the best days of my life yesterday. If you're new to our church, you need to know that one of the deepest passions of my life is the fact that God led us in 2011 to start this university that now is just growing with momentum, Highlands College.
This past year we received our accreditation. Can I get an "amen" everybody? And yesterday we had our commencement ceremony, and I was just, tears were streaming down my face as we had the color guard, and we honored America, and as these graduates were sent into that harvest field. And it's just something that I'm just so grateful to the Lord for, and of course, a bunch of you guys, most of you were not able to be there. You didn't have a graduate, and you weren't in attendance in that. And I just wanted all of you to experience it in some kind of a way. So yesterday, we showed a little "year in review" video of the year that was Highlands College of the class of 2024, and we just thought we'd start off today by letting you see that too. It's just a couple of minutes long, but take a look at the screens.
Come on, give Jesus the praise, everybody. That's awesome. And if you wanna know more about Highlands College, you can go to Highlands College. Now it's ".edu", everybody. And so go to highlandscollege.edu, and again, it's a place where we're training the next generation of ministry leaders in an academy model, just like our military academy's actually taught a religion class at the Air Force Academy and got bit by this model of not only academic instruction but also ministry training. Our graduates graduate with 800 hours of experience in their degree field on their graduation days.
There's a whole character formation pillar and of course, spiritual development, so it's something we're very, very passionate about, and thank you Church of the Highlands. Your generosity not only impacts your church, and also just supports your local church, and not only touches the missions fields around the world, but you're also investing in this wonderful, wonderful vision, and I want to thank you for that. Usually on Mother's Day, Happy Mother's Day again to all the moms. Usually on Mother's Day, I'd go ahead and begin to tell you about some of the things that are coming up this summer, 'cause we work very, very hard as a staff to serve you and your families very, very well.
So let me give you a few dates, and then we'll jump into the message. First one is: we're in a Small Group break. If you know much about us, we are a church of Small Groups. We're in a Small Group semester break right now, but we have a very short six-week Small Group semester beginning on June 2, and we encourage you guys to jump in a group, maybe even lead a group. If you'd like to know what it takes to lead a group, we're actually training leaders at every one of our campuses today every Sunday this month during the 11:30 service, or if you're in Columbus or Newnan, that's, of course, 12:30.
But we would love to train you, or at least give you the information, and it doesn't sign you up for it, just gives you the information. But it's probably the easiest time to do that when it's just a short summer semester of 6 weeks. Notice with me that it ends on July 13, and that's a date that I would love for everybody to have in your notes. In fact, I'm asking you, if this is your church and I'm your pastor, let me call this play. This is one of the few times that I say I want all of us to do this. We call it Serve Day, and we'll have thousands of community projects that impact our cities and our schools, and it's just, it makes this biggest splash when we have these Serve Days all together.
Last year, we had more than 30,000 of you painting, and mowing, and caring for widows in nursing homes, et cetera, and so, we have a whole coordinated effort to deploy every single one of you, but mark the day down, Saturday, July 13. That's when that Small Group semester ends, and then we take another break before we start Small Groups again in the fall. Another highlight of summer, it's one for the kids, basically, our version of vacation Bible school is called Summer Blast, and it's free, but you have to sign up because we want to have enough popsicles, amen, everybody?
And we don't want to have too many either, and so, let us prepare well. Please let me prepare well by you letting us know if you're coming, and then, of course, if you'd like to volunteer, just connect with our children's team at your location, and you can find out what it takes to maybe volunteer for those three days at the end of June. And then lastly, we have our student conference right before, come on, MOTION students, where y'all at, all right?
Right before school goes back, we have a great conference in our downtown arena. We always have world-class worship leaders and speakers coming, and again, you need to register for this, and this one has a fee attached to it. I wanna tell everybody who might be new to our church if there's ever something that does have a fee attached to it, which is actually, it's very rare, but if it does and you don't have it, you just let us know. We always build in money to scholarship people who have need there, and we're happy, happy, happy to do it. And the church said a good amen.
All right, all right, let's jump into the Word of God. I have a short message today for you today, but this might be the deepest end of the pool that I've ever brought you to in scripture. So people, from time to time, come to me and say, "Pastor Chris, we like it when you go deep". And I think when they say "deep," they mean confuse me a lot. You know, just say stuff that I don't understand and I'll be like, "Wow, that was awesome". By the way, I could dwindle this church down to a few confused people, okay? I have three semesters of Greek and Hebrew, and I can, you know, I can go there. To me, what "deep" is is when God calls us to something that we haven't done yet.
I think deep is love the person you hate. I think deep is learn how to forgive. Can I get a good amen out there, everybody? That's deep. It's when you're actually not just understanding it, but when you're doing it, and that's all. We're in this series called "Disciple". Our theme verse for this series is Matthew 28, where Jesus said last words in the Gospel of Matthew, "Therefore go and make disciples," it actually literally means "students of spiritual growth," those who are being instructed in their faith. "Go make disciples," so not just church attenders. We're not just looking for a place to check that spiritual box on a Sunday.
"Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them," we have Baptism Sunday every first Sunday of the month, and if you can't wait, you just let us know. We'll baptize you ahead of time. "Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and then teach them," he's asking people like me, pastors and leaders, "Hey, teach them how to obey this stuff". It's not always so hard or it's not so easy, and it's not so plain whenever you're reading it in the Bible, "so teach them how to obey everything I have commanded". And then when you go to that place of discipleship, "surely I'm with you always, to the very end of the age".
And today, I'm gonna bring you to what I believe is the touchdown line of discipleship. So what we've covered so far is that God has more for you than what you're currently experiencing. So everybody in the room, including the one speaking to you, needs to take another step toward God. There's always more. The second thing we talked about was how important it is to have a daily time with God. That what disciples do is they spend time with Jesus, again, not just on Sunday, but they learn quiet time. They learn how to read their Bibles and pray. You become a self-feeder, not just getting fed a little bit on a Sunday.
The second thing that we talked about is how important it is, according to the Bible, to commit to a local church. You do that. I'm preaching to the choir, but you have picked a church and said, "I'm gonna find me a faith family in the body of Christ, and I'm gonna commit to it, and I'm gonna be planted in that house". And the Bible says whenever you get planted is when you begin to flourish. In week number 3, we talked about that. Even in your planted church, you need to have a few friends that you are growing together with, Christian friends, who provide accountability, people you can talk to, pray for, pray with. Just, you need relationships.
They were committed to being together every single day. They broke bread in their homes. We talked about that. Last time we talked about how important it is to discover your spiritual gifts, that for every disciple, God has given, we talked about it last week, a grace gift, a divine enablement. And by the way, today is step two of our Growth Track, and this is the class, tonight at 6:00 at every location, where you discover it. We actually take you through a spiritual gifts profile and a personality profile and let God's design, and you emerge to point to the things that fit for how you're wired.
Today, I wanna talk about this concept of being fruitful. So, now that I've discovered my gift, my life, I'm growing in all these areas. Now, my life is actually producing something. And actually, it's the first thing that God ever said to humans. Of course, the first thing that God ever said is "let there be light". This is Genesis chapter 1, but then he creates the suns, and the stars, and the planets, and the sea, and the animals, and the trees, and the plant, he created earth, and then he created humans, man and woman, and the Bible says that "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be,'" say it out loud, "Be," say it a little bit louder this time, "Be, be fruitful and multiply," and he wasn't just talking about having babies.
He was saying that I'm gonna put something in you... listen to me now. I'm gonna put something in you, and I'm gonna give you things, and I'm expecting you to take what I put in you and what I give you and you're to take that and multiply that to the world around you. Your life can be a fruitful life. In fact, Jesus said it this way in John chapter 15: "It's to my Father's glory," in other words, God likes it when you "bear much fruit," and this actually, and here's the verse, "shows that you are true disciples". I'm gonna define "fruit" today as "what my life produces".
So I wanna ask this question. I'm gonna ask it in multiple ways today. What is your life producing? And I'm gonna talk about it in two areas. I'm gonna talk about, first of all, what my life is producing, like, in my life, the fruit that I'm bearing in my life, and I'm talking about what people see. I'm talking about, help us Lord, our actions and our reactions, and I'm gonna talk about that. If nobody saw you ever dawn the door of Church of the Highlands, and they saw you on a Thursday at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and they saw how you act and react, what would they say about what you're producing?
Come on, somebody. Everybody, get your toes off the floor. Here we go, all right? Because this is where the Bible actually gets very, very deep and very, very strong, and I'm getting ready to share with you some very strong language by the One we've sworn our lives to, our Savior, Jesus, and he doesn't cut many corners here. This is, you want deep in the pool? Well, buckle up, here we go. All right, Matthew chapter 7: "By their fruit you will recognize them". He's talking about disciples, or followers, of Jesus.
"Do people pick grapes from thornbushes," and he's basically saying, hey, are you calling yourself a grapevine, but what your life is actually producing is prickling everybody, "or figs from thistles? Likewise," sure is quiet in this Methodist church. Are y'all okay out there, everybody? All right, just checking on you. I just thought I'd check on you, all right, "Likewise," I'm picking on the Methodist. My kin are all Methodist, okay, "Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit," so this is how you know, "and a bad tree bears bad fruit. And a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire".
Okay, this is what Jesus said, okay, and then he summarizes it again, and I've actually prayed that this be a convicting message for all of us. 'Cause honestly, the more I studied it, I spent more time in prayer this week studying, but I wasn't praying for you. I was, like, repentin'. I was thinking about my own life. Like, what is my life? How do I act? How do I react? Because "by their fruit," not if they come into the doors of a church, not if they own a Bible, it's what they look like Monday through Saturday. In other words, fruit is always visible. It's visible. So, like, how do you know if it's an apple tree?
This is not a trick question. It got apples on it. And if they said, "Oh that's an orange tree, but it's got apples on it," well then you're not convinced. Because "by the fruit, you'll know it". I was actually speaking at a French church in California several months ago, and from the airport to the church, I passed through all these beautiful places. If you've never been, like, to Northern California, well actually all of California, most of it, and that central valley, especially, is beautiful farming land. I mean, a lot of our produce comes from that part of the country and just mile after mile after mile.
Well, in this particular part near Sacramento, and I was headed to a little city called Vacaville, California, and they had all these beautiful orchards, but it wasn't in fruit bearing season yet, or they had already picked the fruit. So as I was driving by these beautiful, obviously, it was an orchard 'cause they were all lined up. They had been planted, and it was just, it was actually gorgeous. And I was saying, What kind of fruit trees are those? And my host didn't know, and so, we started trying to figure it out because there wasn't any fruit on it that was letting us know. They were actually cherry trees. But you will always know a fruit, a tree, by the kind of fruit it's bearing.
Now, this is where I'm just gonna get on all of us, myself included. Like I said, as I was studying this, I was getting deeply convicted. Because I read through every verse in the Old and New Testament on the word "fruit," and it brought me to this place in Galatians chapter 5, and again, it's just, if you want the deep end of the pool, you want to be challenged, you want the touchdown line of discipleship, here we go, all right?
"So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives," not your attitude, not your neighbor, not your boss, not the weather, not the government, not the news, "Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. And then you won't be doing what your sinful nature desires," and he's speaking to the church here, the church in Galatia, "The sinful nature wants to do evil," and that's all of us, "which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite of what the sinful nature desires. They are opposing forces constantly fighting each other," so if you've ever felt this, like, man, there's a lot of good in me and I want to be, like, I want to be a good Christian, but I have this opposing force going on inside of me, that's true of all of us.
The question is, lean in, church, what are you doing about it? Are you satisfied just to go to heaven one day? And you will. If you know Jesus, you're gonna go to heaven, but what disciples do is they let their lives produce something that looks like Jesus. I don't just know him, I'm becoming like him. "So you're not even free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses".
Now, I have to explain that one. The law of Moses means the Ten Commandments. So, what non-disciples do is they go to church, but they don't have any of that in 'em. So they need tablets to tell them, now don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And what the Bible is saying is that when you become a true disciple of Jesus, you don't need the law of Moses 'cause it's written on the inside of you. You've become it, and now I have a desire to follow after God. I'm not just going to church every day and letting the preacher point his finger at me and saying, "You're going to hell. You better repent right now," right? No, you already have all those convictions. You already had this desire.
Am I preaching to anybody today? Are y'all listening to this? This is very important. I have this desire working inside of me. "So when you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger," this is just the Bible, okay, everybody? "selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me say to you again, as I have before, that anyone living this sort of life will not inherit all that God has for you," because God has more. That your life, what disciples do is they allow the work of God to take place on the inside of me, and I'm not just claiming to be an apple tree.
I've actually got apples on it. I'm bearing good fruit, and then he tells us what that fruit is, "But the Holy Spirit produces," and here's the verse that actually brought me to this passage as I was studying, "this kind of fruit: love," and you look at the list, and you just make your own assessment. You don't need me to preach it to you. The Holy Spirit's talking to you right now, I hope, right? "love, joy, peace," I'm gonna skip the next one, "kindness," and that's the point, and I can glaze, I'm actually, and I'm being very honest with you. I don't think I hate anybody. I can forgive real easy. That's just not hard for me. I could love the most evil person you've ever, you know, you know, I just, I don't know.
"Joy," wake up every day, the glass is not even half-full. It's over top flowing. It's a party every day. "Peace," got it. "Patience," uh-uh, not even 1%. Like, I'm barely a Christian when I'm driving. Come on, where y'all at out of there? Barely, barely. And as I was studying this, I mean that word just kept popping out at me like, "You know Chris, you've got good fruit, but it's not consistent fruit. These branches look pretty good, but you got a branch over there," and it's still on the list, and I found myself preparing for you on my knees and saying, "God, I still need you to do a great work inside of me 'cause I want to be a disciple". Can I hear a good amen, everybody?
"Kindness, goodness, faithfulness". I mean, are you "gentle"? Do you have "self-control"? So, so, I'm a honker. Anybody honk when you're in your car? Where are the honkers? There's always honkers and non-honkers. Some people, like, think it's so rude, and there's others, like, "Yes, hey to you, hey to you, hey to you," okay, all right? I'm that guy. And I love just to let people know, "Hey, I'm over here too. Like, I'd love to go right now".
And Tammy can't stand it, and on Mother's Day, I thought I'd honor her, right? And she can't stand it. she's the holy one in our family, got a halo, and it ain't easy as you think it is, livin' with an angel. I'm just letting y'all know that right now, okay? But she doesn't honk, and so, even when she's driving, I'll reach over there. Come on, everybody. And she slaps my hand. That woman slaps my hand, and she says the same thing every time. She goes, "Chris, they probably go to our church". And I always say the exact same thing, and I say, "Well, good! I'm their pastor, and they can learn something right now".
And this is what happens, right? Well, she says it every time. So that now, when she's not in the car with me and I'm getting ready, I can hear her voice. Come on, husbands, where y'all at, right? I can hear her voice in my head. It's like the Holy Spirit, and then there's holy Tammy right there, okay? And I'm saying to you that's a good thing. She says it so much, its makes me think about whether I should or not. And my question for you is: Are you leaning in enough to God, where he's starting to say stuff like that to you? Like, is he able to speak about your gentleness? And is he able to speak about your patience?
Like, I'm confessing right here in front of you. I'm not where I should be in some of these areas, but I'm saying, "Holy Spirit, I hear you, and I wanna be a disciple, and I wanna bear that kind of fruit". Say "amen" or "oh me". One of those is gonna work for you right now, okay. I wanna bear fruit in me. The second type of fruit that I found in scriptures I was studying for you guys is I wanna bear fruit with my life, not just in my life but with my life. I am supposed to take the fruit. My fruit is actually supposed to feed people.
Let me show it to you in John chapter 15. Says, "You did not choose me," Jesus said this. You didn't choose me. You thought you picked me, like I'm gonna get saved. He says, "I've always chosen you". Even when you weren't a Christian, listen to this very carefully. And for those of you who aren't people of faith yet, listen to this. Even if you don't even believe in God, God has still chosen you, and he has "appointed you," that for every person under the sound of my voice right now, there's an appointment waiting on you, and it's God's divine assignment. It's what your life is really all about, and it's not just paying bills, and going to work, and hoping things work out in life.
No, no, no, you have an appointment with God, "so that you might go and bear fruit". Like, your life is supposed to impact the life of the people around you. Fruit was always not only intended to be visible, it was intended to be beneficial. Like, we don't grow it to look at it. We grow it to eat it. It's designed for someone else to eat. So here's the question I wanna ask you. Who's taking a bite out of your life? Let me say it this way. Who are you benefiting right now because how you live your life? And the people who are true disciples, you want to go, in fact, I don't even think this is approaching the touchdown line.
I think you've already crossed it. I think the ultimate disciple, what disciples do is they say, "I'm wake up today. Watch out world, here I come! You're getting ready to benefit that I was alive today". Because I'm gonna do everything I can to not just see what the life can give me but what I can give this world for in Jesus name. And what they do is they do three things. They give generously, and I'm not just talking about your money. This is not a money message. I'm talkin' that they give whatever they have. If you have joy, give it away. If you have a smile, smile at somebody. If you have an encouragement, encourage somebody.
I want to really challenge every one of you to think about it this way. Like, you wake up on assignment with your appointment to go bear fruit that benefits everybody around you, and what's gonna happen is two things. The people around you are gonna like it. But I'm gonna tell you something else is gonna happen. You're gonna like it. What I've discovered in 40, now my 41st, year of full-time ministry: That the happiest people aren't the people with less problems. The happiest people turn all that around and still use it to benefit somebody else. They take the evil that the devil had brought in their life, they say, "That's all right. I'm gonna turn that, I'm gonna take that lemon and turn it in lemonade. I'm gonna bless some other people around me".
They truly believe that their life was here to bless somebody else. And so, I always tell people that the best way to pastor you isn't just to help you through your problems but to give you something in your life bigger than your problems, and if you don't have that, if you don't wake up with that assignment, you have missed what real joy is all about. Bible says "God has every desire to make you rich," not just the money but, "in every way," so that you can wake up tomorrow, Monday morning, and benefit others, "that you can be generous on every occasion, and through that generosity, people go, I wanna know your God. They result in thanksgiving to God".
They not only give generously, but they're servants. I could've done an entire message on the fruit of servanthood. It's all throughout scripture that what real disciples do is they're not looking to be served, they're always thinking about serving. They're not looking about receiving, they're always giving. In fact, Jesus's disciples, he was trying to explain this to them. They were politicking to be in what they thought was gonna be Jesus's cabinet, so to speak, 'cause they actually thought Jesus didn't come to die. They thought he came to overthrow the Roman government, and he was gonna be the new king.
And so, there was two of them, James and John, are politicking, basically to be vice president and chief of staff, "And when the ten," the other ten, "disciples heard about this," the Bible says that, "they became indignant with them. And Jesus called them all together and said, 'You know that that's how the world acts.'" The world lords over people. They always are thinking about what place of position I can have over somebody else, "Not so with you". And you guys, you know I don't ever preach to you this strong, but I'm just gonna say to you that your life isn't about you blessing your own life, "Not so with you". Your life was intended to serve the lives around you.
Come on, say amen right there. You know it's true. This is the Word of God. "Instead, whoever wants to become great becomes the servant in the room, and whoever wants to be first becomes the slave of all," and I modeled it for you, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give their life a ransom for many". And that's why we encourage you guys to get on the Dream Team. I'm encouraging you even today. In the Growth Track, go through that spiritual gifts profile, jump on a Serve Team somewhere in the church, participate in our Serve Day coming up in July, and let's make a difference in the lives of others, and watch the difference that it makes inside of you, and you'll never know it until you try it.
So I'm gonna give generously. I'm gonna serve just willingly. I'm also gonna share Christ urgently. What disciples do is they share their faith with others, and this summer, I'm gonna help you with it, but check out this verse, everybody. The Bible says that "the fruit," here's the word, "of a righteous person is a tree of life". In other words, you bring life to every places where there's death. And then look at the rest of the line, "and he who wins souls is wise". What disciples do is they not only bear good fruit, but they're also letting that fruit benefit the lives around them by being generous, by being a servant, and by sharing their faith.
Now, if you're at this point in the message, you're probably going, "You're right," and that, "You just frustrated the fire out of me," 'cause I look nothing like that. I know that because I had some of those same emotions while I was studying for you. I thought, "Well great," 'cause I don't look anything like that sometimes, and I don't have that in my life. So the question then becomes, we'll close with this thought: how do you get this kind of fruit actually happening? You can't just want it. You can't just desire it. You can't walk up to that apple tree and say, "Man, I wish it would have produced more apples".
What do you do to it? You constantly work on the environment that that tree is planted in. You fertilize it, prune it, work on it, right? You're gonna enrich it in every way. So what is that enrichment in faith? What is that enrichment in our lives where that can become a reality? And I want you to lean into this verse out of John chapter 15. Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is a gardener". Everybody, look up here. Is God able to garden your world? Is he able to fertilize, make better, your environment so this can take place? "He cuts off every branch," and there it is again, "that doesn't do this. While every branch that does bear fruit he'll prune it," make it better, "and it will bear even more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you".
Now, he threw that in there to say, "Hey, this isn't heaven and hell," and I'm not saying this is heaven and hell. If you've accepted Jesus into your life and you made him the Lord of your life, you have all you need to go to heaven. You cannot get to heaven based on fruit and works. You're saved by grace. Say amen right there. But God doesn't want you to stay there. So you're already clean. You're just not fruitful. And if you're clean, you're going to heaven. And you're not fruitful, there's more. How do you get it?
Now watch this. Five times he says the same word: "Remain in me. I'll remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain. Neither can you bear fruit unless you," like, okay, Jesus, we get it, "unless you remain. I am the vine; you're the branches. If you," and he says that again, "If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you'll do nothing".
And it seems to me that Jesus was emphasizing something that I wanna leave you with, that if you'd like to be a life that regardless of what your temperament is or what your grandfather was like or what your family line's like... no, no, no, I don't, I don't, "Well, my daddy was mean. My granddaddy was mean. My great-granddaddy was mean. We know... we're I... you know, well..." no, no. I'm letting God work on the inside of me. How do you get there? It seems like to me the word "remain" is pretty important. And I studied. I went into the Greek language, the original language, and it basically means this. You got to keep doing it, keep, abide, remain, be consistent, consistent, and the more you're consistent, and it thought, I had this thought, that it's not important just to read your Bible and have a quiet time.
In fact, it may have no effect in your life at all. What works is if you do it every day. It's like it's not important to be planted in church. No, it's only important if you come every week. It's not important if you have a spiritual friend who's an accountability partner. No, no, no, it's only important if y'all call each other every day, and check in on each other, and pray for each other. That there's this remaining thing, and I found this study, and I'm gonna close with this. They found out that if you pray and spend time with God, you have a quiet time, prayer and the Word, and you do it three days a week, the study said that you'll have almost little to no effect in your life.
It shocked me. But they said but if you can read your Bible and pray at least four or more times a week, all of a sudden, the whole thing changed and it's because the remaining actually works, that the feelings of loneliness go down 33%. For everybody who's lonely, try it four days a week and not just one, and watch what happens.
Feelings of bitterness in your relationships go down 40%, and your sexual or lust issues go down 60%. Why? Because we don't become what we want, we become what we regularly do, and if you wanna go to the deep end the pool, all you guys who, "Give it to me deeper". Well, there you go. When old PC becomes a lot more patient because I spent more time with God and I have the good fruit coming inside of my life, that's the deep end of the pool. Because discipleship isn't an act. Discipleship is a habit. That's what disciples do. And all of God's people said a good amen. So let's pray.
So Lord, there it is, and we're asking you now, not just to show us, but give us the courage to actually remain, be abiders, those who abide daily, consistently, disciplined. Lord, we are developing the habits, the consistent habits, of a true disciple. Lord, we're not satisfied just to go to heaven. We want our lives to produce something, and so, God, work your Spirit inside of us. I pray in Jesus name.
Heads bowed, eyes closed. If you're here today and you're not right with God, you're not a Christian or you're not right with God, you've walked away, you're one heartfelt prayer from that completely changing this very moment. I never close a service without giving people a chance to find Jesus or to return home to a relationship with God. You'll know if this is you if God feels like he's a million miles away because the Bible says that Jesus came to destroy the sin barrier so you and God could be close. That's Ephesians chapter 2. Close, God wants to be close to you. He wants you to be close to him, and if that's what you desire, then just pray this simple prayer right there in your seat. You can whisper it. Say:
Jesus, I need you, and today, I receive what you did for me when you died on the cross. I receive the forgiveness of my sins, and today, I make you the Lord of my life. I surrender my life to your control because I believe you're the Son of God who rose from the dead, and today, I put my faith in you. In your name I pray, amen and amen.