Alive: Life You Can See (Worship 4/12/26)

Joy supersedes our troubles at at work, our with coworkers, maybe troubles with classmates, troubles with family members, troubles with our finances, troubles with as we view the world. Joy supersedes that because we have a relationship with Christ, because we know that we are gonna be with him for all eternity. We have a joy because nothing on this earth can faze us. It can hurt us. It can hit us between the eyes some days. But nothing on this earth has the final say because Jesus has overcome. That is joy. That is joy. [00:37:21] (47 seconds)  #JoyInChrist

When we go to Thanksgiving this year, when we go to Christmas this year, everything's gonna be hunky dory. Right? Nope. Because we're not in control. Right? Somebody's gonna be sick and not be there. Someone might drink too much and cause a scene for everybody else. Someone might just be difficult in the family. Right? And that's just life. May we trust that God is in control. [00:40:11] (30 seconds)  #TrustGod

A kind word, a kind action to someone. Kindness cost us nothing, but it can change situations. The cashier at the cash register just to say a kind word. A waiter or a waitress who's having a bad day who just spilled a pitcher of water at the table beside them. Right? That the kitchen is slow and your food's not coming out instead of being unkind to them to just be encouraging. Right? Kindness. [00:43:42] (31 seconds)  #KindnessMatters

Our relatives that we don't see eye to eye with. We don't agree with their life choices, or they don't agree with how we worship. Right? We're to consider others with mercy. We're to consider others before ourselves. Right? We're to forgive 70 times seven. So hard for us to do, but being patient directly affects how we relate to others. How we're able to be a witness, a tangible witness to Jesus. [00:41:48] (35 seconds)  #ChooseMercy

I love the definition of this one, strength under control. Strength under control. Again, think about your interactions daily. Driving down the road, someone cuts you off. Driving down the road, someone either goes too slow or maybe you're the person that follows the rules and they're going too fast. Right? Strength under control. A child does something that you don't like. Right? Strength under control. To call them out, to discipline with soft hearts. [00:46:17] (40 seconds)  #StrengthUnderControl

The last way that we can, really have success in in growing in these fruits of the spirit is to stay grounded. Everybody say that, stay grounded. There's many ways to do that. I provided three. One is the word of God. If we are going to live our lives as Jesus would have us live, if we're gonna live according to the spirit, then we truly need to do what Jesus would do. And the only way we're gonna know to do that is to read it in his word, to study it, to digest it, to pray over it. [00:53:17] (39 seconds)  #RootedInGodsWord

Where where are we having success in our walk of faith in living out the fruits of the spirit? Where are we challenged this week? Where are we falling short? What is God speaking into our lives in this season? Where are those things I need to confess and turn over to him and have other people pray with me on? And so community of faith, that can be small groups as like youth group. It can be small groups like our kids ministry, small groups like our men's ministry, our women's ministry, and the list goes on. But to stay grounded, to keep in step with the spirit, we gotta stay plugged in. [00:56:09] (42 seconds)  #CommunityOfFaith

All of a sudden, the language we were taught at home changed, and I'll just leave it at that. Right? And so when we were around different groups of people, our language adjusted. But you know the only problem with that is? I remember going to college, and that language began to come out in my everyday. Right? So we gotta be intentional in our conversations that not only what we say, but also how we say it. [00:51:49] (29 seconds)  #IntentionalSpeech