While eating dinner at the house of a Pharisee, Jesus noticed a man with dropsy (a physical ailment). He turns to the Pharisees and says, “I can heal him, but it’s the Sabbath. Is it lawful for me to do it?” What happens next is something we all need to learn.

Self-control is the ability to harness your actions, your thoughts, and your feelings, knowing you represent Christ to others. People are going to see Christ through you. If you can’t control your tongue or actions, what, then, will people think about your Christ?

Jesus teaches us in the Beatitudes that gentleness doesn’t mean soft. It means nonviolent. And the more nonviolent we are, the more we look like Christ and live out of the Spirit. In this simple, yet profound beatitude, Jesus lifts up the humble, the lowly, and gentle above the rest.

"God’s hand has been on my life since the beginning . . . even before the beginning,” says Jeremiah. The truth for him is still true for us today. God’s faithfulness has been with us every day of our lives.

Goodness is seeing the best in someone or something. It’s choosing to live with moral excellence. And it’s a gift that comes from God and fruit of the spirit that we may most need to cultivate.

The prophet Micah tells us we are required to love kindness. This language is direct and important for us to grasp. We are to cherish how we treat the other. We are to be attentive and alert in how we engage our neighbor. We are to actively love being kind to everyone.

Habakkuk is fed up with waiting on God. The destruction of Israel and the sinfulness of other nations is too much to stay silent about . . . so Habakkuk laments. Through lamenting, he arrives on a firmer foundation, and by the start of the second chapter he is ready to stand on a watchtower and wait. It took lamenting, but he learned that strength rises when we wait upon the Lord.

We need peace. We need peace of mind, peace of spirit, and peace on earth. We can rightfully assume this peace will not be contrived of by human hands. We need the peace that surpasses understanding. We need the peace of God that comes with God-sized comfort even in the midst of our chaos.

Love is the greatest expression of God in the world. Paul gives us a timeless description and definition of what true love looks like in the world in 1 Corinthians 13.

This sermon will give an overview of the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5 and compare it to the fruit of the world. There are two lists in Galatians 5, but only one is birthed from a life lived in the Spirit.