Sunday Morning Service 02/15/2026 - Fruit - Love, Kindness & Goodness

And I want you to see today that, like, love is this root system for you and I as believers. It's something that we're tapping into through the resources and through the nourishment that God brings us. Right? The the streams of water, we even see that verse in the book of Psalms to be a tree planted by streams of water that gets its nourishment and yield its fruit in season. [00:28:30] (26 seconds)  #RootedInLove

He said that's what a tree does. And here, this kindness, this concept of branches, that's exactly what a tree does. It adapts to its environment. And so you and I, what does that mean? Well, it means that we've gotta be the kindness. We've gotta be the branches. We've gotta provide that outward reach to other people. We have to provide strength for other people around us. [00:52:14] (30 seconds)  #BranchesOfKindness

Well, anytime I've seen fruit on a tree, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of attracted to it, like, especially if it looks really great. Well, you go apple picking or peach picking or bushes with berries and things on them, and you look at them. And if they're they're nice and they're healthy and they're mature, you wanna go over and grab a handful. Right? You wanna taste it. You wanna see how good it is. And so what does goodness do in a believer's life? We're attracting people to God. [00:54:11] (29 seconds)  #FruitLeadsToFaith

And to be honest with you, I think as humans, one of the things that we've done even as believers is that we've kind of faked this concept of love a lot of times, haven't we? We've kind of put up an AI model and we haven't really displayed what God wants us to display because, to be honest with you, it's too hard. And so that's what God wants to do in and through us today. I wanna see that this is a fruit. You don't have to try to recreate it. The Holy Spirit wants to give it to you, and he wants to enable it through you. [00:32:56] (33 seconds)  #GenuineFruitFromSpirit

We see here that he John says, dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from where? From God. He's reminding us of that. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love doesn't know God. So we really can't fake it. It can seem like it's the real thing, but God's saying it's not unless you got it from me. [00:35:27] (24 seconds)  #LoveFromGodOnly

And so we're all there no matter what the ages are, but it stretches us out of our comfort zone. And so when God says love your enemies and do good to those who hate you, that's impossible for you and I to do. But because the Holy Spirit is bringing God's love into the picture inside of you, it does make it something that you can live out. [00:41:46] (25 seconds)  #LoveEnemiesBySpirit

Now, the reason I picked that verse and and I wanted to lean into that for a second is because one of the things that we all experience the most in our lives is fear. A lot of times the world is not a great place. And a lot of us deal with anxiety. We deal with other struggles. And because of that, that's all something that's just from the enemy. And when we pass on love to someone else, we're passing on a love to them that doesn't include fear, that has no strings attached. [00:43:21] (32 seconds)  #LoveWithoutFear

And so it doesn't work that way. The fruit of the spirit is not a consumer kind of thing. It's not something we can just kinda go and pick and take it free will when we want to come and to grab something. And he walked us through both of those last week, gentleness and self control. You know, gentleness is strength under control. It's not being timid. It's not being shy. It's not being fearful. [00:22:20] (27 seconds)  #GentlenessIsStrength