One of the house of the Lord here at John Wesley Methodist Church. I'm Marty Dunbar, one of the pastors. Great to see members and guests today, and those joining us online as well.

We are continuing, actually wrapping up the Soul of Music series. If you don't know what the Soul of Music series is, it's where we take some secular songs and we look at them and we break out the truth of those songs and the godly truths, because all truth comes from God. He is the source of all truth for us.

And today's special song is "Faithfully" by Journey. And so it's going to be a lot of fun. You're going to love the rendition. So later on when you hear that song, you're like, okay, that's what we're doing today. But we're talking about the last fruits of the Spirit. And so we will be dealing with those today as well from Galatians chapter 5. And so if you have your scriptures, you're going to look at that a little bit later.

Again, it's great to see everybody. I want to let you know that the Wednesday night dinners and studies will begin kicking off in February. We've been having some special events leading up to our God is Big Enough campaign that launches in February. And those special events have been on Wednesday. We have another one this Wednesday evening. And so I just want to let you know that our studies have been sort of extended the start time and it will be on February 5th, Wednesday, February 5th. So please note that.

There are some pastors. Pastor Trish and I will both be having a study as well as others that will be available. So please be looking for more information on that.

Well, like we always do, let's get up. Let's greet those around us. Introduce yourself to somebody around you. Have a conversation. Let's thank our modern worship team for that. Adrian, appreciate it. And then thank the choir as well for that beautiful anthem. Amazing, amazing stuff. And thank you for pushing through technological problems. Always, always something. So you just never know.

Earlier in the day at the nine o'clock service, I had sent the production team the entirely wrong video, and so they were playing something. I was like, well, that ain't the video. But anyway, so hopefully I sent the right video this time, but you never know.

Okay, so we're going to start out, we're going to have some fun to begin with today's message. We're going to play a game called "Fill in the Lyrics." Fill in the lyrics, okay?

And so I am going to divide us up into teams. Okay, we're going to do three teams. Three teams. Okay, well, let's do, yeah, let's do three teams. So these two sections, you're a team. Okay, these two sections, you're a team. And then the chancel choir and the pastors, we're a team. Okay?

And we're going to compete. I have 100% want to let you know this: there are no prizes today. Okay? This is all about your own pride, your own competition. Okay? And we know we just shout out answers, and there is no scientific reason why I'm going to pick you as the winner at all. Okay? And that everybody can be a winner today, even though I grew up in the 80s and there was always a winner and a loser. I just had to clarify that.

But anyway, so here we go. Fill in the blanks before they put up "Fill in the Lyrics." This is the song we just heard. Okay? This is "Faithfully" by Journey. Okay? And so this is just opening lines. It's going to be the first one, and then we're going to move on to some other lines.

Okay, so here we go. Highway run into the what?

I heard "midnight sun."

Behind me is... Is Lisa here? I know I... That's why I was going to say she's her own team, but I just put her together with the... Anyway, if you've ever played this game with Lisa or anything like this, she knows stuff.

Okay, so here's the next one. They say that the road ain't no place to start a what?

I heard everybody's a winner on that one. Everybody did a great job.

Family's the answer.

Okay, third one: "And being apart ain't easy on this what?"

Affair.

Love! I heard "love" over here, so I'm going to go with somebody who said "love," so we're going to give an award to this group over here.

Okay, and the last one is this: "Through space and time blank another show."

Always, always... Somebody had it over here. We're going to go with "where the wind."

So everybody won today! Don't you feel great about yourself? Everybody gets a trophy! Now I'm going to knock you off your little shelf. No, I'm kidding.

Okay, so what a great song "Faithfully" by Journey. For me, it's sort of this heartfelt ballad that has that memorable chorus to it, of course, "I'm faithfully yours" or "I'm forever yours faithfully." It was released in 1983 and was on the album "Frontiers" by Journey. It was written by their keyboardist, Jonathan Cain.

Jonathan Cain tells the story that he composed this song. He had started out with the first line of the song written on a napkin. So all he had was "highway run into the midnight sun," and they were riding from Saratoga Springs, New York, to their next gig.

Well, the main soul and theme of the song, as he tells the story, speaks to really the challenges and the demands of a life on the road of a touring musician and how in the world can a touring musician have a committed relationship if they're gone for long periods of time? And that's just striving to maintain that faithfulness with their loved one.

You can see it in the lyrics: "They say that the road ain't no place to start a family, but right down the line it's been you and me, and loving a music man ain't always what it's supposed to be. Oh girl, you stand by me, and I'm not alone. I'm forever yours, faithfully."

So the heart of this song, to me, really celebrates some timeless truths, spiritual values, and virtues of love, commitment, and personal sacrifice. You can go back and listen to it, read the lyrics, but it also, I believe, correlates with the challenges of having a faith—the road of faith, the journey of faith.

And it embodies these sort of final three fruits of the Spirit: faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If you go back and you listen to that now, faithfulness—how does... Well, that's in the title or the main line, "I'm faithfully yours" or "forever yours faithfully."

And just talking about an unwavering devotion, we hear it: loyalty, loyalty, trust. Just like in our relationship with God, we're called to trust God, be faithful to God, but also faithful to others that we have relationships with.

Gentleness comes out in just the tone of the song. It's this sort of tenderness and humility in the way that the song makes you feel—the heart of that song. And the whole idea of this faithfulness is expressed in sort of gentleness and humility, and there's strength under control in this song, to me, fostering some sort of peace.

And then self-control is very evident throughout this song too because it speaks to me directly to discipline. I mean, discipline is required to sustain faithfulness in our life to someone or to some things. Even in the midst of the challenges and demands of life, we need to have some sort of self-control.

Now, the big question—the subtitle, you know, for the Soul of Music is "What does your world need now?" But we've been asking ourselves, what does your world need now? What does our world need now?

We would hear answers from all sorts of different people, depending on who you talk to. If you're talking about politics, or you're talking to your father-in-law, they might have an answer. You know, your buddy or whatever it is. But God has an answer, is what we've been trying to look for.

What does your world need now? God has an answer in Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 through 23. The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things. No limit, no extreme against these things.

So let me change gears a little bit. Is it bad to be attractive? I mean, who doesn't really want to be attractive? You know, I mean, think about this world. It's not inherently bad at all. It's not really sinful to be attractive.

But when you look at the world's definition of what is attractive and God's definition, it might be slightly different. Actually, as Christians, at the root of Christianity, we are counter-cultural. And so you could see where God's definition might be a little different than the world's.

Now, the world's definition for attractive is sort of based off of six main categories, and usually you could say only off of these: physical appearance, material success, charisma and confidence, independence and ambition, social influence, and then youthful energy and adventure.

Now those are all great things. We should all have those. I think those are wonderful things. But the godly truth is this: to live by the Spirit and produce the fruits of the Spirit, this will make you attractive to others and to the world. People will naturally be attracted to you if you are a friend who is faithful, if you are gentle, right? If you have self-control with your words and your behaviors.

Just thinking about those three fruits of the Spirit, let alone love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and goodness—those three categories that we talked about. We've broken it down over three weeks. Let me recap that for us.

The love fruits—love, joy, peace—those focus in on our relationship with God and how He truly is those things and wants us to again sort of reflect those things. But then patience, kindness, and goodness we talked about last week, the focus on really our relationships with others. I mean, we have got to be patient. We've got to be kind. We've got to have goodness.

And then this week, these three—faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—really our focus for us should be. We should think about these three as strengthening and maintaining and sustaining our relationship with God and our relationship with others. They're essential to your strength of character as a Christian.

Faithfully, you've got to remain faithful as you walk the walk, right? So faithfulness—let's dive into a couple of things.

I want to say angelic, the different fruits of the Spirit. Faithfulness. It's fidelity is a great way to think about faithfulness. It's the quality of unwavering loyalty. It's being true. It's being trustworthy in our relationships, our reliability in dealing with other people. It's definitely a God characteristic.

Fidelity is a mark of His character. We need to note, for us to have trust and faith in Him, we need to know He is faithful as well. God keeps His word. God keeps His promises. Whether it's on our timing or not is a whole different story.

But in Lamentations chapter 3, it says, "The faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease." And then we hear this line, "Great is His faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh each morning. Great is His faithfulness." That's where we get the traditional hymn, "Great is Thy Faithfulness."

"Great is Thy faithfulness, O God, my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not; Thy compassions, they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be."

Jesus exemplified faithfulness. He fulfilled God's plan, God's mission, God's will, even to the point of death on a cross. I mean, that's faithfulness right there.

There are hundreds of scriptures throughout the Bible that speak to Christ's character of faithfulness and God's character of faithfulness. So personally, here's a question for reflection: Where do you need to recommit your fidelity to God or in God?

In 2 Timothy chapter 4, the Apostle Paul, speaking to a young pastor, Timothy, says, "As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, and I've remained faithful." Paul says, "I've remained faithful." This is a witness to my walk with Christ.

So I think about this other question: Am I dependable in my commitment to God? Am I dependable in my commitment to God? Am I dependable in my commitment to others as well?

In Matthew 25, Jesus is teaching about servants and the master. God, the master says, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." That's something that we should all want God to say—to be able to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Now there's a recipe to foster growth in God. Faithfulness. Some simple things, you know, we need to be faithful in our relationships first and foremost. That's helpful. We need to keep promises. We need to keep our word. We need to let our yes be our yes and no be our no.

We need to show up for others. That's vitally important in faithfulness. We need to live with integrity. You could name off all these things and go, "I totally understand that. I totally know. Totally believe that." Now we got to live that out.

Now the other part of this is we have to trust God, even when the plan's not clear. That has a lot to do with faithfulness.

So I want to challenge you. If you want to just examine one area of your life where faithfulness is lacking and just recommit that to God, just examine your life. And just maybe there's one area that you need to recommit to God.

Maybe say a prayer like this: "Lord, help me to trust you completely and to be faithful in all that I do. Teach me to reflect your steadfast love and your dependability in my relationships with others." Amen.

So one thing about faithfulness is we transition into our next fruit as well, but they kind of blend and go together, I think. But faithfulness—that's a big part of what's happening right now.

I am a big fan, of course, of college football, and I love to watch the national championship game, which was between Notre Dame and Ohio State. And did you know that faith seemed to take center stage? Really, belief in Christ did this football season with a lot of different players, a lot of different teams, and even at the national championship.

And so let's watch this little clip as the commentators talk about that.

I love that clip. You know, you think about it. Yeah, you can clap on that. But, I mean, what does our world need now? It needs that right there.

But they're talking about fruits of the Spirit. This is what they're talking about. They're talking about faithfulness. I love how the quarterback for Notre Dame, Riley Leonard, he has scripture on his wrists, on his right and his left. And you might have saw this if you were watching the game. He scores a touchdown. The first thing he does is go to the camera. And he goes, "Oh, my God." He goes like that. What's written there is Matthew 23:12.

"But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." I love that.

The quarterback, Will Howard, for the winning team, Ohio State, he said, before anything, as he was presenting the trophy, MVP trophy, all that stuff, he said, "For anything, I just want to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." He brought it to the forefront.

Now, I think about that as a college, former college athlete, my college experience with strong, powerful men and strong, powerful women who lived in the spotlight—maybe some of them even household names—when they had this gentleness in their life. And it was a fruit of that Spirit as a Christian. It was key for them to live with this humility and this grace.

Now, it was faith that also unleashed that gentleness and that humility and that grace. That's where it leads us into gentleness from faithfulness.

Gentleness is strength under control. Strength under control. It's fostering peace at the same time. It's boldness, as Riley Leonard had boldness, but at the same time, strength for God's particular purpose, without arrogance.

Trying to take the reflection off of himself, the spotlight more on Christ. It's sort of like long suffering, they say, like patience, but it carries with it this genuine humility and a teachable spirit.

That's gentleness. It's this consideration of others that others might actually have a different take on something. They might have a different worldview. We need to be gentle with somebody in where they are in their particular story or where they are in their life.

It's this ability at the same time to respond with humility and restraint, with kindness, in those challenging situations. That's why I always think these athletes who are powerful and doing amazing, amazing things, and when they cast a focus on Christ, it's so wonderful because these challenging physical things they're doing under immense pressure, they're doing it almost with this tenderness and humility and teachable spirit in Christ.

I've also loved the saying, "A man who is gentle is a gentleman," right? That's, I mean, that's an old saying, but studies actually continue to show that women are attracted to men who show strength and tenderness. That is something that's attractive to people—his strength and tenderness, this boldness without arrogance is very attractive to people.

It's a God characteristic. This gentleness—Jesus described himself as gentle in Matthew chapter 11 as he's talking about the yoke. He says, "Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and I am what?" He said, "Gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

The Bible shows, I think, that God's patient and He has this tender care for His people throughout the ages. I mean, centuries, millennia, really. God has been patient. God has been gentle. God has been kind to us. He is still sovereign. He's still powerful, but He is full of grace, full of love, full of gentleness.

This is where, you know me, just a side note, this is where I struggle with the problem with a literal or a bad interpretation of the Bible, especially when we get in the book of Revelation to where it turns and makes God into some sort of killing machine. Because the entire Bible does not show God as some sort of killing machine; it shows Him as a tender, gentle parent who is strong and sovereign and has plans for His children.

Now, personal question of reflection for us: Do I respond to others with humility? Ask yourself, do you respond to others with humility, or do you let pride and anger take over?

Really, for a recipe of growth for the Spirit, you know, I'm a Christian. Fruit, you could say, first of all, I need to surrender my reactions to the Holy Spirit because we have these natural reactions. We need to prioritize prayer in this particular area of our life.

We need to probably prioritize peace over proving a point. See, it says that God gives grace to the humble. I mean, I want more grace, and so why not be more humble?

Now, personally for me, this is hard to do at times. It's hard to do as a leader. It's hard to do as a person. When I'm hurried, when I'm impatient, I lack gentleness in my responses, and I know it, and I go, you know, I know it.

And so the challenge for us is maybe we need to choose to respond gently in one situation today and from now on. One situation throughout the day that we normally would respond in a very harsh and defensive way. Let's just respond gently.

Maybe say a prayer for ourselves: "Teach us, Lord, to be gentle like you. Help us to respond with humility and compassion, reflecting your heart in every interaction we have with others." Amen.

So let's move into self-control.

So this has a lot to do with discipline. This is discipline that sustains—listen, this is important—that sustains our character and purpose. You have to have self-control. It keeps us aligned with God's will.

This is the mastering of our desires, our impulses, our emotions. This is spiritual temperance. That's what self-control is—spiritual temperance. It flows from other virtues that we have: love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and all that.

Without self-control, we just struggle and kind of wander aimlessly, if you think about it. I love how the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians, he says, "I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others, I myself might be disqualified."

As he talks about his testimony, he talks about his witness, he talks about his faith. People look at him and go, "Hmm, I don't know why I believe him; he seems to be out of control."

I want to make a statement here: I believe this fruit is counter-cultural in every way, almost. It seems that the Christian lifestyle actually does require discipline in our life, even though the culture sometimes teaches it doesn't, or any life doesn't have to have discipline in it.

But the Christian lifestyle requires a disciplined life. You have to live a disciplined life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Now, when we say that, especially from the pulpit, people get all sorts of baggage that has been laid upon them. But let me say this: it's not to receive salvation. Self-discipline does not give you salvation.

But it's ultimately to foster the very characteristics of God in our life. If you're just walking aimlessly and doing all sorts of things and just agreeing and conforming to the culture and everything, you will find yourself not in alignment with God.

And there's a lot of different other conversations we can have about that. But the Christian lifestyle doesn't fit with a lack of modesty. The Christian lifestyle doesn't actually fit with extremism. And it really doesn't fit with being so flamboyant because it's not very humble.

It's not a cultural thing, really, to have self-control a lot of times. But it's a self-control thing for Christians.

God's ultimate example of self-control. Now, I know what you're thinking because I was thinking it when I was thinking about saying it. He's God. He's got self-control because He's God, right? Of course.

Also, Jesus Christ was born fully man. And the Bible talks about how He extends patience and mercy instead of condemnation when He interacted with people.

And in Matthew chapter 4, Jesus is teaching or goes out into the desert, and for 40 days and 40 nights, and He doesn't have food and water, but He has self-discipline to remain linked to the will of God and the purpose and plan for His life. Jesus had self-control.

Another sort of just comment to go along with this is the Holy Spirit is not rude or pushy, nor is the Holy Spirit violent or crude. Okay? The Holy Spirit is not rude or pushy, nor is He violent or crude.

There's some gentleness and there's some self-control the Holy Spirit has, even with you, when you have missed the mark.

So here's a personal question for reflection for us: Are there areas in your life where you struggle with self-control? And we could probably all raise our hand. There's multiple areas.

But a recipe for growth for that is we need to submit our desires to God, whatever that is, wherever that is in our life. Let the Holy Spirit shape our choices. We need to hold back on our impulsive behaviors.

And here's the challenge for us today and every day moving forward: maybe we need to just identify one habit, one area of our life that needs self-control, and then just take a practical step forward. Just one practical step. Don't make it so big.

"I'm going to just get rid of that. I'm going to pray to God and it's just all going away." That might happen, but at the same time, just take one practical step to make it better. Make it what God wants it to be. Bring some self-control into our life.

Maybe say a prayer like, "Strengthen me with your Spirit so I can live with discipline and self-control. Help me, Lord. Help me to make the choices that honor you and bless those around me." Amen.

I'm going to close with this. We asked that question: What does our world need now?

I believe 100%, like when it's in October and you're looking around and the world's still messed up, like it's always been messed up. And you're like, what does the world need now?

Well, let me tell you what the world needs now. The world needs a new politician, a new president, new something, new something else, whatever. Not really. The world needs the fruits of the Spirit.

They need the genuine marks of godliness and virtues lived out vividly in mature Christians. That's what the world needs now. They need you. Yeah. And they need me producing those fruits. That's what they really, really need.

And that's attractive, actually. But they need love and joy and peace. They need patience, kindness, and goodness. They need faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Not from the people who aren't Christian. They need it from the Christians. These are fruits of the Spirit, not natural fruits that just naturally people have. This is fruits of the Spirit.

And I love to think about them as gifts of God. Think about that. The Holy Spirit has promised to gift us with the traits of God Himself. We should feel honored.

And it's not because we have this intrinsic righteousness going on in our life. I mean, we missed the mark still. Praise God for His grace, His amazing grace.

Think about it like this. Augustine says it this way. I love this quote, and I'm going to end with this: "God is pleased to crown His own gifts upon His people."

Let's go to God in prayer.

Gracious God, thank you so much for the gifts, the fruits of the Spirit. Lord, they are from your Spirit. And it's something we just drum up. But Lord, when we're faithful, we're faithful.

And we're faithful with you and faithful with others. Lord, there's just something that the Holy Spirit can work in. And it works in the gentleness, the self-control as well, and then all these fruits.

Lord, I just pray for each and every one of us that as we move into the world, may we think about what truly you do need this world to be about and what we need to be about. Because around us, it's going to be brokenness, Lord.

And even though we are broken at times, we are made whole in you. And so your fruits, may they fill us up, may they pour out in our lives, Lord.

Give us that Holy Spirit power in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen.

I want to open the doors of the church. If you want to join this portion of the Body of Christ, we'd love for you to do that. We have a pathway, and you can contact the church office or one of the pastors. We'll get you plugged in.

If you want to recommit your life to Christ, or you want to take a profession of faith in Jesus Christ for the first time, we want to know about that as well, and we want to help you on that journey. So reach out to one of the pastors.

If you need prayers, there's always our prayer angel, prayer partners in our prayer chapel just across the Narthex. Go over there and pray. Ask them to pray specifically for you or share joy or concern in your life.

We'd love for you to take that, use that resource in your life.

Well, let's stand as we consider that we are forever yours, God. Faithfully, as we sing, "I surrender all."

You love God. May you embrace beauty. May you live life to the fullest. Go in peace. Amen and amen.

Subject: Embodying Spiritual Truths Through Music and Virtue



Dear John Wesley Church - Houston,



I hope my email finds you reflecting on the fruits of the Spirit as we wrap up our Soul of Music series. This past Sunday, we explored the song "Faithfully" by Journey, connecting its themes of love, commitment, and personal sacrifice to the final fruits of the Spirit: faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We discussed how these virtues are essential not only in our relationship with God but also in our interactions with others, reminding us that the world needs to see these fruits lived out in our lives as a testament to our faith.

As we move forward, I encourage you to examine your own life and identify one area where you can recommit to being faithful, gentle, or exercising self-control. Let’s strive to embody these virtues in our daily interactions, reflecting God’s steadfast love and grace to those around us. Remember, it’s not just about knowing these truths but living them out in a way that draws others to Christ.

Blessings,
John Wesley Church - Houston Team