Book of Romans, 8:1 - Fruit Bearing of the Believer, Pt. 2 (09/15/2019)

Well, do we want to keep the kids here or do children's church today? What do we have planned? We have quite a few. All right, so we will have children's church. We will see you guys at lunch. That was beautiful, Glenda.

Thank you for the special this morning. The offertory was the special this morning. It was great. Yes, it was. And that song choice, Charlotte, was very good. Imagine that. I was thinking about, you know, who writes songs like that nowadays?

Not too many people can make them majestic like that, you know. Quite amazing. Yeah, I think there's stuff going around. I've been feeling a little weird all week. Just my stomach's been a little churny or something like something's not quite right.

So, I'm glad we're here. And maybe we should be glad the others aren't here so we don't catch whatever it is. But I'm sure the teachers are tired. I mean, it's still hot and getting used to the new schedule.

And the kids bring nice little things we can catch around too, I'm sure, for the teachers. It takes them, it's got to take them a few weeks to get immune to all that, right? All right. Yeah, I would say if you think about Sharon Henry, pray for her through the next few days because she's having a little difficulty with her recovery.

And, you know, they send people home so quickly now, you wonder about that. Because it was a pretty major surgery and they sent her home the same day. And, you know, she's been very lethargic and not springing back very quickly.

So pray for her and for Joe to have wisdom if he needs to take her back or whatever. Not that they're talking about doing that, though. I'm just theorizing here. Great Sunday school lesson this morning, by the way.

Jonah’s Death, Resurrection, and the Lesson from Sunday School

It gave us a lot to think about. We all learned something new, I think, today. I know I've never considered the fact that perhaps Jonah literally died, drowned in the ocean before the fish swooped him up.

And then he was resurrected the third day inside that fish. Quite a bit of evidence that that's the case. Brother Bill presented that this morning and noted that Matthew Henry believed that. So did J. Vernon McGee believed it.

And so who knows? I wish I knew what Rocky thought. Have any of you had a chance to listen to Brother Rocky on our church website yet? You should do it. I'm telling you, it's a seminary education. It was my seminary education.

It's phenomenal. You'll learn more, like if you listen to one, it's usually an hour to an hour and a half. You'll learn more than other people would teach you if they had ten hours in one hour. It's amazing how much he, but he talks fast, for one thing.

All right. All right, let's just get right into this. You guys gave me a little extra time to preach. I can always use that, you know. So I want to review just a little bit here. We've been in Romans 8, verse 1, for a long time.

The second part of the verse about that we walk according to the spirit, not according to the flesh. And how that's an effect of the salvation. It's not a condition of salvation. It's the result of salvation.

And John Calvin said that's what he believed it meant. And we started looking through Scripture to see if Calvin was right or not. See, did he base that on the Bible? Well, in Colossians chapter 1, there are at least 30 of the things that the Lord did to us immediately upon our salvation listed in this one chapter.

And some of the things that we have talked about already. I might have to put my glasses on to see my sloppy notes here. First was in Colossians chapter 1, starting with verse 1 and going all the way down through about verse 10 is what we've done so far.

And so we have seen about 11 things that God did to us the instant he saved us. I'll just mention them. He made us faithful. In other words, he gave us his faith, which makes us able to be faithful. He opened our eyes to grace and what it really means and how if it is grace, then there's no part we play in it other than receiving it as a gift, a free gift.

He gave us peace. And that root word, if you remember, comes from Iroh, which means to be joined together with something. So obviously the only peace we have is when we're joined with Christ. He gave us faith.

He gave us love of the brethren. He gave us hope. Elpis is the Greek word for that, and it means a joyful anticipation of a certain future event. He put that in our hearts. He gave us ears that hear. It's kind of interesting, the Greek word proakouo there means to hear already.

In other words, the moment he saved us, it's like we already hear. We didn't have to learn to hear. We could hear with understanding. We could hear and understand the Bible. Not all of it at once, but it came alive to us.

Number eight, he made the Bible bear fruit inside of us. Remember that one? He made the Bible bear fruit in us. Number nine, he allowed us to know and understand grace. The first mention I had of number two of grace was talking about how we grow grace unto grace.

This one means he gave us an understanding of what grace means, unmerited, undeserved favor. That was number nine. Number ten is he caused us to have knowledge of God's will for our life. How do we know God's will, what he wants us to do tomorrow?

He gives us knowledge of how to determine that. Number eleven was he causes us to be fruitful. That's what we've been talking about lately. We started out on that little road. We were talking about the story of when Jesus went into Jerusalem.

He looked around about the temple, and he saw some things that weren't right, didn't he? He took a whip, and he whipped the money changers out. He turned their tables over, destroyed their equipment. He took a hard look at what God's house should look like.

It didn't look right, and we kind of mentioned how he's doing that today with the modern church. Then the next thing was he cast out the secular and the false prophets. We talked about how when we talk about fruit, one of the things about fruit that's important is it allows us to judge our teachers, our preachers, our teachers, because Jesus says you know them by their fruit.

You have the negative side of fruit, and you've got the positive side of fruit. We talked about the negative side for a little bit, what it looks like when a person is a false prophet. Remember that? You look at two things.

You look at their life. That takes a little bit of time to see that. Secondly, you look at their words. Do their teachings match the Bible or not? We talked about that a little bit too. Then we talked about the last thing I think was what did the Bible mean by they have the error of Balaam and the doctrine of Balaam.

We talked about that quite a bit. Really, if you want to think about the problem with Balaam was he was truly a prophet. He could pray, and he could hear from God, which is interesting. But he sold out to a worldly king and went with him in order to make money, and that was his error.

It's kind of interesting because if you read the story where it's actually talking about the story, you don't necessarily in the Old Testament reading it, you don't see that he did anything really wrong.

It doesn't look like it if you read it, even carefully if you read it. But if you go to Revelation 2 .14, the Holy Spirit comes back and gives us a little more insight into that story that's not in the Old Testament about how he was, in fact, going after the money.

He was doing it for money, and he was tempted to sell out Israel, which he didn't end up doing because God stopped him by speaking to him from the donkey he was riding on, right? Remember that? Literally sent an angel with a sword that was going to kill Balaam if the donkey hadn't stopped.

The donkey could see the angel. The prophet couldn't see the angel until later. So it's a fascinating story about how not to be, but we certainly don't want to bring prophets like that in here. But what are some of the things we notice about this man, though?

Most people in most churches in this country, I'm sorry to say, would have thought he was a great man of God. Why? He could do miracles. Most churches today, as we have the biggest growth, is in the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements worldwide.

So most people in these megachurches are looking for miracles like this man could do. And it's all being set up for the Tribulation period because Satan himself is going to indwell a person called the Antichrist who's going to do great miracles and say great swelling words.

Better than Hitler. Hitler was great at speech giving. And this man will just woo people into doing exactly the wrong thing. They will even think he's the Messiah. So it's all being set up for that. And so to me, this was a pretty timely study for us to go through.

Fruit Bearing as the Result of Salvation, Not the Condition of It

Well, that brings us to talking about fruit bearing from the positive side. And I just want to give you a rendition of what the Bible has to say about that issue. And it's fascinating because Charlotte has been listening to Brother Rocky early in the morning.

I'll go in there and she's got him on the loud speaker in the kitchen. And I walk in and just want to cry every morning because there he is. It's like he's alive again on the face of the earth. He had the most unusual ability to teach.

He was more of a teacher, but he could preach too. But he was going into some of these fruits of the Spirit in the lessons she was listening to. And it's called the Abundant Life Series. If you would want to go out to parkmeadowschurch .com, click on the Rocky Freeman area that Ben just got set up.

And choose the one that says the Abundant Life. It's going to tell you even more stuff about these fruits that we're talking about today. Because I'm just going to hit it today and be done with it. He'll go into hours on it.

And it's fascinating stuff. It's not stuff you've heard before. It's fascinating stuff. Like what's the difference between fruit bearing and spiritual gifts? Fruit and spiritual gifts. What's the difference between that and good works and all these kind of interesting things?

So wonderful stuff to listen to. Please take advantage of it. I want to thank Ben. He's not here to hear me. But Ben Mitchell for totally revamping our church website, putting the Rocky stuff on there.

Eventually we're going to have some Brother Bill stuff on there. We're going to have some Brother Otis stuff on there. Some Raj stuff. And now Ben's got it where when I preach right now, this sermon will be on there by Tuesday of the week I preach it.

We've been like a year and a half behind. So he's caught us up. And what he'll do is he'll go back in time and get that caught up later. So it's pretty cool. So it'll be people out there in the country that know about us can hear it pretty much after we have this service.

So that's great. Well, let's go to John chapter 15, verse 1. I want to talk to you this morning about fruit from the good side of that. The kind of fruit that born again people have. And there's several really cool ways to remember it.

Remember how to divide this study up in at least a couple of different cool ways. But first I just want to go through this passage with you in John 15, starting with verse 1. And here we have the greatest teacher.

This is Brother Rocky's teacher that's going to teach us this morning. Jesus. All right. And here's what he said about fruit. He said, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. So what's he going to do?

He's going to give us an object lesson, an agricultural lesson, which made way more sense back then, 2 ,000 years ago, when most of the family businesses were agricultural, right? So, like, he could tell the story.

They knew exactly what it meant. And he said, now, physically, this is what you do. This is what you do when you plant a vineyard. And here's how it works. Spiritually, it's the same way. In your life, it's going to be the same way.

So it's an object lesson. So he says, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. What do you think about that? Just that phrase. Jesus says, I am the true vine, my father is the husbandman. That means the farmer, right?

It makes everything happen. So think about the difference between the farmer who's not always there. You can't always see the farmer running around the vineyard. But the vineyard grows when he's not there, doesn't it?

It just keeps doing its thing while he's asleep. It does its thing when he's in town on vacation and comes back and goes out and does what he needs to do to make it all work. And that's a picture of the father, but Jesus is the vine actually growing out of the earth.

Now think about that. So that is showing us his physicality, the fact he's fully man. He's fully God also, but he's fully man. And God the Father sent him here and planted him in this earth. And he was physical where we could touch him, we could be with him.

And that's a picture of it in that little phrase. Think about that. He says, I am the vine, my father is the husbandman. He's not always around, but I am. I'm here growing right here in front of you, and you can learn from me.

So he says, every branch in me. Now he brings us into the picture. He is the vine. He's also known as the root. So he is the bottom part of the plant from which all the nutrients come and all the water flows up through the ground.

The nutrients in the water flow up through the roots, which is Jesus, and through the vine, which is Jesus. And then on that vine, you have some branches, and that's us. So the first thing we notice is we have to be attached to him.

We have to be attached to him if we're going to bear fruit because a branch can't make the fruit, it can only bear it. So remember, there's a difference between holding fruit or making it obvious to the world where it hangs off the branch and the world can see it and use it.

There's a difference between that and producing the fruit, which is not what we do. We bear the fruit. Jesus produces the fruit. That is so important to remember, especially when so many of us came from fundamental independent Baptist churches and Southern Baptists where it's all about programs and works we have to do, and if we do enough of these works, we'll build a big church, and we can actually even engineer those programs.

Charlotte, see if you can remember that phrase Rocky put in there about a week ago, and you jotted it down, where he said, we've got churches full of mechanics and the pastors, and they prepare a perfect sermon.

What was that phrase he said? You can look it up if you don't remember it. Get it exactly in his words because it was so good. I want you to hear it. He's talking about the modern church, and remember this is back in the 80s.

That's a long time ago now to me. It doesn't seem like it because I'm old, but it's like yesterday to me. But you guys, it's like a long time ago, especially to Dave Huber. All right, so what did Rocky say?

Did you hear that? It's possible for a church to excel in mechanics but fail in dynamics. Dynamics means the power, the dynamo, the dunamis from the Greek, the power. It comes from the Holy Spirit, not from the mechanics.

And we have a lot of churches today that are magnificent machines. I mean it would embarrass us if we could see what they're doing. That doesn't embarrass me because I've been in those. One thing I did when Rocky, when I got called to preach, I didn't know what it meant.

I didn't know, am I supposed to be a pastor? Am I supposed to be an evangelist? So I said, Rocky, let me travel with you. I can at least explore the evangelism side maybe. I'm supposed to be an evangelist.

He didn't want to let me do it because he'd travel alone forever, but he finally let me do it. So I traveled with him for months. Went into every kind of church there is because he preached in every kind of church.

He preached in the huge city churches, and he would dress up and look better than their lawyers and doctors and talk with a more educated sound than they had. And then he'd go into some little country church, about like this one or even smaller, and he wouldn't wear a fancy suit.

He'd be more like a farmer. He'd talk like a farmer. That's how Rocky was. He spoke to whoever was in the crowd. He spoke where they could understand him. But I've been in these big churches that have the mechanics, and it's amazing.

I mean the music is amazing. Rocky would sit right there every time before he preached. Maybe that's why I do it. I don't know. But I would watch him because I'd be sitting usually right about where Dave is so I could see his profile.

I'd be kind of close, but I wanted to see his profile because I'm learning. I'm watching this man. What does he do before he preaches? And I can't tell you the number of times a music group would come up, and they would be magnificent.

And Rocky would come up, and he would just get up, put his stuff up here, and he would just kind of hold his hands like this and just look down. It seemed like for an hour, it was probably a minute or two with no, just total silence because he wasn't going to say anything good about that music group because they were carnal.

They were musicians who were very good, but they weren't spiritual people, and he could discern it, and it upset him, and he couldn't preach after hearing stuff like that. So he would just say nothing for two or three minutes of silence.

Then he would pray, and then he would start preaching, but it took him longer to get fired up. So then we'd go to another church, and somebody would come up, and they would sing, and just like miss a few notes, you know, a little flat here, a little sharp there, just not quite perfect, and they would sit down, and he would come up, and you would think it was an angel that had just sung because he discerned that that person walked with God, that person was spiritual.

And he would talk about that person for three or four minutes, or a group. Sometimes it was a husband playing the piano and the wife and the teenage kids singing, but he would talk for three minutes about how awesome that was.

It was funny to me, but he could just discern the difference. So I would rather be in a place like this where people doing it are walking with the Lord, and besides that, it's also you've got the mechanics and the dynamics.

That's what's pretty cool about Glenda. And, of course, you too as a song leader, brother. It's right there. I do appreciate it, though. I'm not kidding. I appreciate it so much. And, you know, I, some of you guys looked around, and you said, God, we've got like six people here today.

I don't, that doesn't ever enter my mind because what enters my mind is it's our church. It's where God put us. This is what he wants us to have for whatever reason. And it's awesome. Have you ever been in one that had a whole bunch of tares and it had a bunch of people, but you had a whole bunch of tares, about half of them?

The church I grew up in, three-fourths of them were tares. Seriously. Maybe not tares, but carnal Christians plus tares equal three-fourths, or maybe more. And that's why we left that church. It was terrible.

But it was big. Big music stuff going on all the time. I picture the early church. Do you really think the early church had screens with pastors from 40 miles away preaching so they could watch that, and then they got the music and orchestras?

Do you really think they had that, or do you think they met in little caves with six or eight of them? They met in barns with 12 of them? Just like this, except this is better than a barn. Hallelujah.

So, that's my thinking on it. I do wish we could reach more people, but it's not like I'm talking about this morning. We cannot make the fruit. We can only bear it. We cannot save the souls. We can only tell the message, right?

Something flying around there. So, look at this. Let's continue with this little picture. So, here he brings us in on the eighth or the ninth word in the whole passage. Every branch, that's us. In me is the key there.

In Christ. That means attached to the vine, who is also the root, right? But every branch in me that bears not fruit, the husbandman takes it away. So, now we see a picture of the visible church, not the true church, because the true church, there's not any lost people in it, right?

The true church has saved people. But the visible church has wheat and tares mixed together, doesn't it? Jesus told us that. And they said, well, should we get rid of the tares? And he said, no, leave them.

My angels will separate them at the great resurrection, right? Because if you try to get rid of them, you might actually hurt one of the wheat, trying to get rid of the tares, because you might mess up, and it might actually be a wheat, and you think they're a tare.

So, he said, it's not your job to get rid of the tares. So, they're there. So, the church at large, you have, here he pictures these as things that look like, branches that look like they're attached to the vine, but something has died at the area of attachment where they're not really attached.

There's no nutrients coming to it. And that branch dies, and the husband comes, and he prunes it off, doesn't he? He cuts it off. So, this is a picture of people that aren't really saved, but they are going to church, or they're in our families, or whatever, and they're pretending that they're saved.

Oh, they may be trying to get in, Bill. I locked everything. So, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he takes away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it. So, now that's an interesting concept.

So, the ones that are saved, that are bearing fruit, the husbandman does something to those branches, too. He doesn't cut them off and throw them into the fire like the other ones, but he cuts them back.

Now, peach trees are great examples. Otis used to use them a lot because when you go and you look at what they do to peach trees in the early spring, I mean, almost like the end of winter when they do it, they cut those things back so far it's like little stubs about this tall sticking up over that tree, and you think they killed it.

And it actually makes it come in fuller and bear way more fruit. And that's what this is picturing, and the Greek word there for purges, kathiro, means literally to cleanse or to prune. So, he's pruning the branches.

Now, these are the branches that are real, the ones that are alive, the ones that are attached to Jesus Christ and to the root, and he wants them to be more fruitful than they currently are, right? So, he prunes them.

What do you think the pruning could be a picture of in our lives? Think it could be trouble? Could it be surgery? Could it be illness? Could it be discouragement, even? Problems? Other people treating us as enemies, which is sad when it's a Christian that does that.

It happens sometimes, not so much in our church, but there have been times in our church when it happened. I won't mention any names, but I can think of some people that could hurt you that have been in this church while we were here, right, Sharon?

Raymond's over there smiling. It's good because it's good we can smile about it, but we remember it. And the Lord has pruned all that out. So, maybe you've got to get it down to eight or ten to do that.

I don't care, but it's worth it, isn't it? It's worth it to have peace. Bill and them have been here when we didn't always have peace. It's nice now, isn't it? It's very nice, and my mom has too. And she went to the one I was talking about over in Mahea where three-quarters of it were either lost or carnal Christians, and it's nice to not be in that.

She says a hundred times, I'm so glad I'm in a car with you headed to Corsicana and not going to that church. Well, yeah, you did. Well, we all did. So, he purges it that it may look at this, bring forth more fruit, more fruit.

So, you see a process through fruit bearing here. It starts out with fruit. The next stage is more fruit, and the third stage is going to be much fruit, and you're going to see how the Lord deals with us to get us from fruit to more fruit to much fruit in our lives as we live this life.

What he does to get us from just being saved, anybody that's saved does bear fruit, and we're going to talk about the different kinds of fruit. I'm beginning to see this is not all going to happen in this one sermon, so it will take more than one, as you probably figured.

You start out with fruit. How does he get us from there to more fruit? That's the purging, okay? He prunes us. He cuts back the dead wood. He makes it possible for us to be more alive that can literally bear more fruit.

So, that's where we are here. So, now he says in verse 3, Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Now, there's another clue about this word for purge in the Greek. It has two common meanings.

One is to prune, like we just looked at. The other is to cleanse. And you can only tell which it means by the context. What's interesting about this context is it has context that supports both meanings.

So, I'm thinking it means both. So, the thing when he talks about the pruning of us to make us go from fruit to more fruit, two things are happening. One is he is bringing trouble to cause us to pray more, like Jonah did in our Sunday school lesson this morning.

And that causes us to be more fruitful. But he's also bringing cleansing. And it's very clear how Jesus teaches what this is. He says, Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. There's the Bible.

So, now you have two things going on. You have prayer and you have Bible study. Those are the two things that take you from fruit to more fruit. Prayer and Bible study. How does he get us to do the prayer?

Because we don't do it naturally. He brings trouble, difficulty. Times of trouble is where we really get solid and grow and then we have times of peace because he'll always bring us through the trouble and out of it.

He always does. We think he's late when he gets there, but he's there right on time because he accomplished the pruning that he needed to accomplish. Always remember that when it's happening. Don't feel like it on the...

I want to caution here. Don't take it negatively, though. Don't think that pruning sounds like something bad that has to happen. It's not. Sometimes it is bad stuff happening, but as Otis said so beautifully, he said, When it leaves God's hand, it's meant for good.

That's how we should think of it. This is terrible trouble. I know from if I've lived any time at all with the Lord that he will show up and bring me out of this trouble and I'll think he's late, but he's not because he needs to finish this work in me.

Boy, that's helpful if we can think about that when we're under fire. That's the prayer. It brings us to pray more, and we all know that's true. We've experienced it. Everybody in this room has experienced it.

Secondly, he's cleansing us through the Word of God. Sometimes trouble brings us more into the Bible, too, doesn't it? We'll be looking for comfort, and it comes from the Psalms so often, for me anyway.

He accomplishes both very easily and very often in the life of his children, doesn't he? Now he starts giving us some exhortation on how to bear more fruit. He's still on the more fruit concept, but he's about to move into much fruit.

How does he get us to that place? How does the farmer get us to that place? Remember, the farmer is the Father. Think about this. God the Father is working on you and me through his Son who is the vine, right?

So you have both the Father, the farmer, the husbandman who set all this up, and he owns it all. He's working on us, and he's doing it directly through the vine that he planted here with us, which is a picture of Jesus.

So as Jesus works on us and in us, it's the Father who's really doing it because he owns the whole thing. It's all for him and to him and through him and then through Christ and then to us as we're attached to Christ.

So here he begins to give us a great secret. He says, Abide in me and I in you. Now look, he's the vine, you're the branch. Don't ever become one of these that dies on the vine, which is impossible if you're born again.

But you know what? This message is given to the invisible church, which means it has tares in it and it has weed in it. It's got carnal Christians, spiritual Christians, and he's telling the congregation, Don't die.

Don't ever have a life where you're not attached. That speaks to our responsibility to remain in Christ. How do we do that? We make a willful choice. We choose to be spirit-filled rather than carnal, right?

That's our choice. We have to make that choice. So that's what he's telling us. It's an exhortation. It's a command almost. He says, Abide in me. Now this word abide, mino, means to stay, to dwell, or to be centered upon Christ.

It literally means to be attached to him and to dwell with him. As we walk in our life and we live, we need to live an attached life where we're connected to him like the branch is to the vine. A healthy branch is attached to that vine.

And he's telling us as a command to be that way. What does that tell us? Well, in the spiritual realm, even though we're indwelt by the spirit at our salvation, which connects us to Christ and to the Father and to each other, permanently, doesn't it?

We have the ability and free will choice to not be spirit-filled. So this is speaking to the spirit-filled aspect, not the indwelling. You can't lose your salvation. You never lose the presence of the Holy Spirit, but you can lose the power of the Holy Spirit by choosing to not be connected.

So that's why this is given as a command when he says, abide in me, because you obviously have the choice not to. You can abide in the flesh for a season, can't we? And then, of course, then he might bring some of the pruning, right?

That's when the pruning comes. But we have a responsibility here, which is obvious from the Greek grammar. To abide is something you're supposed to do. It's in the active tense. It's not passive. It's not something he does to us.

It's something we're supposed to do. It's a responsibility. So abide in me. And then he says, I will abide in you. Now that's his responsibility as the shepherd, isn't it? Who has the greater responsibility, by the way?

The sheep or the shepherd, as far as keeping that sheep alive? The shepherd. The shepherd does. The world doesn't understand this. Churches we've all been to don't understand this. But Jesus bears the huge responsibility of keeping us bearing this fruit.

Isn't that wonderful to know? Wouldn't you hate it if it was you that carried that big responsibility? Now here's what he says. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it is connected to and abiding in the vine, no more can you unless you abide in me.

Very clear object lesson. I am the vine. You are the branches. You don't make the fruit. You just bear the fruit. I am the vine. You are the branches. He that abides in me, that's our responsibility. He that abides in me and I in him, that's Jesus' responsibility and is the larger responsibility.

The same bringeth forth. Now look at the phrase. Much fruit. So now we've gone from being saved as a baby Christian and we're bearing a little fruit to bearing more fruit through purging and study of the word of God to bearing much fruit which comes, look at this, strictly from abiding in Christ, being spirit-filled more minutes of the day than you used to be.

Think about that. Now is that an area? I mean, I think this church is, I know our church pretty well. We've gotten through stage number one. We're saved. We've gotten through stage number two. All of us have gone through trouble and still go through trouble.

And when we do, we pray and we study the word. But I want to ask our church here today, have you passed into the third stage? Have you passed into the much fruit stage? Because you can't do that until you learn to be spirit-filled more often throughout the day and evening of your life, each 24-hour period.

You can't do it while you're sleeping, but while you're awake. Do you make the choice? It's obviously a choice. It's in the active tense. It means you have to make the choice to connect to the one who already lives in you, connect with him, and walk that way more minutes of the day than you bear much fruit.

And I have to say this. As we study the fruit, the huge majority of what Jesus teaches and Paul teaches about fruit in the Bible is on the inside of us. It's called character fruit. But there is a whole topic in Scripture that you cannot discount called convert fruit.