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Living a Jesus Christ Life: Goodness ~ Gal. 5:16-6:1, 7-10 ~ Carl Crouse ~ Mar. 29, ‘15

3/30/2015

Studying the Fruit of the Spirit could be subtitled, “How to put out the fire.”

A building on Chicago's Southwest Side that contains a fire extinguisher manufacturing business went up in flames late Thursday (3/19/15), prompting a hazardous materials response that required more than 150 firefighters. A portion of the building…collapsed under the intense flames. The fire ultimately elevated to three alarms, requiring the help of 156 firefighters and 26 pieces of equipment. …A fire official said getting enough water to the structure proved difficult. "We had one engine feed another engine to another engine until we got water on the fire," said 1st Deputy Fire Commissioner Charles Stewart. (NBC News Chicago)

The irony is great--a building designed to manufacture fire extinguishers made no provision for putting out its own fire! The Bible says something similar about our own spiritual condition. READ Ga. 6:1. “Watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”

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Living a Jesus Christ Life: Kindness ~ Pastor Phil Dufrene, March 22, '15

3/25/2015

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Pastor Phil aboard a cargo ship with Port of Hope Ministries

Let's take a few minutes and turn our attention to God's Word as we continue in Pastor Carl’s series on the Fruit of the Holy Spirit. This week we will turn our attention to the topic of kindness.

As some of you know I often speak at the Clearbrook Lutheran Church. Lutherans like short sermons. They start squirming in their seats after about 17 minutes. Anyway, my mother used to say that, "If you can't say it in 20 minutes, you can't say it." In fact, I'm getting pretty good at saying what I have to say in 20 mins.

The spiritual fruit of kindness is smack dab in the middle of the list of these nine characters of the life that is changed by the Holy Spirit.

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Living a Jesus Christ Life: Patience: James 5:7-11; Carl Crouse; Mar. 15, ‘15

3/16/2015

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An Apple Tree produces…. [apples]
A Banana Tree produces…. [bananas]
An Orange Tree produces…. [Oranges]
What does the Holy Spirit Produce? [Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control ~ Ill. a mirror]

Today Patience… You know what patience isn’t: A man in Los Angeles was arrested for negligent discharge of a weapon after taking his 38 caliber handgun and shooting his toilet bowl five times. He says that he just got upset. He couldn't take it any longer. His daughter had flushed a hairbrush earlier in the day and clogged the pipes. So he shot the offending toilet. That is called “not patience.”

Jesus is a model of possessing patience: from Julie Nolan ~ “Jesus exercised patience when dealing with people, specifically the religious leaders of His day, and His disciples. Every time He told a parable, and tried to teach them something they needed to learn, one of the twelve would say they didn't understand. They were confused. He would have to explain it again, and again, in different ways. He must have been frustrated with them time and gain. But He was a patient man.”

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Living a Jesus Christ Life: PEACE; Phil. 4:1-9; Carl Crouse; 3-8-15

3/10/2015

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Inner Peace. It’s a gift from the Holy Spirit of God. Peace is one of the nine Fruit of the Spirit listed in Gal. 5:22: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22). These are traits given by the Holy Spirit to those who seek to live a Jesus Christ life.

Many people feel stuck in the patterns of their life. They don’t know how to make changes. They aren’t sure which way to turn. By studying the Fruit of the Spirit in this series of messages, my prayer is that you will be able to identify specific ways to allow the Lord to change you from the inside out. Peace does not depend on your world changing, but rather adopting godly attitudes, the way you respond, the values of Christ.

It’s tempting to seek peace in the wrong places. Here is one person’s silly story:

By following the simple advice I read in an article, I have finally found inner peace...The article read: "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you've started." So I looked around the house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished....and before leaving the house this morning I finished off a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white wine, the Prozac, some valium, some cheesecake and a box of chocolates. You have no idea how good I feel.... ////

(Unfortunately, too often this is no joke, grasping for peace by checking out of reality, but guess what, after spending half the day foggy brained the same situation is present the next day.)

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Living a Jesus Christ Life: Joy ~ Mar. 1, ’15 ~ Carl Crouse ~ Gal. 5:22-25; John 14:5-17

3/3/2015

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Thanks to Starla D. for the drawing

Here’s a crazy story from a Pastor:
“A man once appeared at my office door, and in so many words, he said, ‘I’m very busy and very successful and don’t really have time for this, but I wonder if we could talk for five minutes.’ ‘By all means,’ I said.
‘Well,’ he went on, ‘my wife has been attending this church and now at dinner she’s talking about Jesus, and I don’t know anything about Jesus, so I thought I’d come by for a few bullet points about Jesus.’
‘Wow, I’m not sure I can help you. For one thing, I’m not good with bullet points, and for another, even if I could give you some good bullet points about Jesus, I’m afraid it could have a way of getting into your life that would cause you to rethink your power, your success and your money and your marriage and your family – and everything.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to do that. Not at all! I just want some bullet points about Jesus.’
[I suggested to him], ‘How about changing the subject matter at dinner...’” (Mark Labberton).

Ready for everything to change? A little bit of Jesus isn’t enough. The Lord Jesus Christ is waiting for your invitation to change you completely. The world does not need a little bit of religion, a bullet point list of Jesus. The world needs a lot of Jesus.

Today begins a series using an outline from the Fruit of the Spirit found in Gal. 5. The first fruit is love, followed by 8 more. (challenge to memorize) Some think love is the only fruit, each of the 8 that follow are expressions of love… That is possible.

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Living a Jesus Christ Life: Goodness ~ Gal. 5:16-6:1, 7-10 ~ Carl Crouse ~ Mar. 29, ‘15

Living a Jesus Christ Life: Kindness ~ Pastor Phil Dufrene, March 22, '15

Living a Jesus Christ Life: Patience: James 5:7-11; Carl Crouse; Mar. 15, ‘15

Living a Jesus Christ Life: PEACE; Phil. 4:1-9; Carl Crouse; 3-8-15

Living a Jesus Christ Life: Joy ~ Mar. 1, ’15 ~ Carl Crouse ~ Gal. 5:22-25; John 14:5-17

Carl Crouse, Pastor

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