Josh told me that I should be myself. I don't know if he knew what he was asking. But I have all my tools, just so you know, just in case. I've got my main notes here. I've got my backup notes, just in case this fails. My wife has my phone with notes on it, just in case those fail. And I even brought, check these out, I brought batteries to recharge that thing, just in case I need them. But the most important tool that I brought is right here, and it's God's Word. So we're gonna dig into that today. It's wonderful to see you all, and thank you for joining us as we gather to worship our great God. Isn't it a privilege, Josh prayed for our country and for our elections, but isn't it a privilege to live in a country where we can still gather together like this and worship the Lord together? So let's start out, I know Josh just prayed, but I'd like to pray as well for us as we dig into his word this morning. So let's bow our heads again and pray. O gracious and wonderful and all-powerful God, Father, we thank you that you revealed your truth to so many of us here today and that we share the common bond of love and trust in your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the work that he did for us at the cross. As we look into your Word today and start this series on the fruit of the Spirit, we ask that you open our eyes and our hearts to your truth and that your Word changes us and transforms us into the image of your Son. As we all anxiously await that great day when we'll be together with you in glory and there will be no more tears, no more pain, and no more sin. Please bless us, God, and encourage us as we remain here on the earth that You created for us, and await that blessed day. In the mighty and powerful and wonderful name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, we pray these things. Amen. Okay, so today we are starting a nine-week series on the fruit of the Spirit. And we'll be doing that actually in nine successive weeks, so there won't be any other breaks. We'll go straight through the next nine weeks. And today, we're going to start with the first fruit of the Spirit, which is love. And that's going to be our topic today. And so our passages, if you want to be ready for that, our passages are primarily going to be Galatians 5. And 1 Corinthians 13. Galatians 5 is where we will find the list of the fruit of the Spirit. And 1 Corinthians 13 is where we'll find probably the best definition, well, maybe the second best definition that the Bible gives us of love. But before we dig into God's Word, I want to just do a quick introduction, because some of you may know me, but some of you may not know me. And then there might be others of you that think you know me, but you're about to learn a little bit more about me. I will tell you that I like to have a good time, and I like to laugh. So there might be a few jokes in my sermon, and I want you to know that was pre-approved by Josh But you'll also notice that Pastor Chris is not here today. That's a little kind of joke. I talked to Pastor Chris, obviously, before this. So as Josh mentioned, my name is Robert Cantrell, and I've been a member here at Santa Rosa Bible for almost 25 years. I moved here from Colorado with my wife, Tati, and our four young boys in the year 2000, and we decided to make this church our home at the recommendation of a very trusted friend of mine who used to go here and has moved away, doesn't go here anymore. We've called this our local church ever since. I personally surrendered my life to Jesus Christ in 1992, and I've been doing my best to follow him ever since. He still has a lot of work to do in me, but I have a deep and eternal hope in his work. Philippians chapter one, verse six tells us, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. So he began a good work, but he's still doing his work, and it's not complete. So what you're going to get from me this morning is something that's not complete. I'll admit that right up front. My most formative years as a Christian were spent here under the teaching of Pastor Chris. And I already kind of used that joke, but I'll use it again. Pastor Chris found out I was teaching, and he said, I'm getting out of here. But if you see any flaws in my teaching, you can go to Pastor Chris. It's his fault. But I've also been under Josh's teaching for about five years, and that's been a blessing to my soul. It's a privilege to be here with all of you today and worship our great God. As Josh mentioned, I'm currently serving here as an elder. I'm also the church treasurer, and my wife, Todi, and I are the directors of our biblical counseling ministry, which we started several years ago here. And it is indeed a privilege to be with you and to be a part of this church body. So let's dig in now. Let's get into God's Word and the fruit of the Spirit. If you would open up your Bibles and follow along, Galatians 5, and I'm going to read verses 16 through 26, and then we're going to dig into that a little bit. And I did not check the page number for you. So I apologize about that. I can't tell you what page number it is in the Pew Bible. But I know we always mention, if you don't have a Bible, there is one in front of you, and that is yours now. So if you need a Bible, feel free to take the one out of the Pew as you leave. That would be a blessing to us if you would take that if you need one or if you know someone that needs one. So now we're gonna read Galatians 5, verses 16 through 26. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident. sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But, fruit of the Spirit, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. So the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the churches in Galatia. And Galatia was in what is now modern-day Turkey. We just read about Paul's travels to Galatia, as a matter of fact, in the book of Acts. Does anybody remember being in the Book of Acts recently? For those of you who go here, I think we've been in the Book of Acts for almost a year. It's been a wonderful journey. through the foundings of the early church. Paul wrote this letter to the churches of Galatia for a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons that he wrote this letter was to correct an error in the church whereby some of the believers were telling other believers that they had to follow Jewish traditions and customs, such as circumcision, dietary practices, things like that, or they were not authentic Christians. Paul refuted this assertion and rightly pointed out that we now have liberty because of the grace of God through our faith and that we're no longer under the bondage of law. This freedom was bought for us by Jesus Christ when he went to the cross and died for our sins. Paul continues later in the letter in the passage that we're looking at this morning, and he expands on one of the roles that the Holy Spirit plays in the life of the believer. The Holy Spirit enables the believer to manifest these fruit of the Spirit. And for those of you who are confused, why do we say fruit and not fruits? The Bible says fruit, but fruit is called a numberless noun. Sorry, a countless noun. So fruit is plural, and so is fruits. They're both plurals. So we say the fruit of the Spirit. It's a little interesting tidbit there. But they're called the fruit of the Spirit, and it's really important that we all understand this because They are manifestations that are an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So we should think of them as the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It's a better way to think about it. Because otherwise, spirit might mean something else to other people. These are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. In verses 19 through 21, Paul spells out the works of the flesh. Some of the sinful behaviors that come out of our flesh and are the evidence of an unbelieving heart. But then in stark contrast, in the famous verses that some of us may be very familiar with, there are children's songs and all sorts of things about the fruit of the Spirit. But in verses 22 through 23, these fruit of the Spirit are listed. Now let's go back to Acts for a minute because we didn't spend enough time there. So we're going to go back. In Acts 1, we read that shortly after Jesus ascended into heaven, the believers experienced the promised arrival of the Holy Spirit. There was a sound like the blowing of a violent wind, and the Bible tells us that what seemed to be tongues of fire came and separated and then came to rest on each of the people who were there. This, of course, was the long-awaited arrival of the Holy Spirit, who is here now on the earth to be an indwelling presence in the life and part of the essence of every believer in Jesus Christ. If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells within you. He is your comforter. He is your guide. and He is ever present with you to reveal truth and to be your companion." Isn't that a great blessing? I think about that all the time. I don't know how often you think about that, but when I'm lonely, when I don't know what to do, it's always such a comfort to me to know that God dwells within me and His Holy Spirit is there. The Holy Spirit does many things that are described in the Fruit of the Spirit listing, and they're all supernatural. I'm going to explain that to you. God, through His Holy Spirit, enables us to do things like love our neighbor who mistreated us. To have joy in the midst of hard times or disease. To have peace when things seem to be falling all around or falling apart all around us. to have patience when someone is falsely attacking our reputation. These genuine outpourings of the believer are gifts of the Holy Spirit and they are evidence of our salvation and evidence of the Holy Spirit working through us. Many great books and studies have been done, written on the topic of the Holy Spirit. And they do a lot of really fun things with the fruit of the Spirit in particular. They organize the fruits in various ways. You can read all about this if you want to. There are places where they take the gifts of the fruit of the Spirit and they place them into triplets, groups of three. And then they look at the affinity of the three things and why they're similar to each other and why these are different than these. There are chiastic patterns or outlines that have been formed to really describe this is what really is going on here. And these exercises can be useful, and they're interesting, and they can maybe expand our understanding and knowledge, but they don't really present a new truth, in my opinion. The Scripture in its clear and plain presentation simply lists nine fruits. And it's a list of nine outpourings of the Holy Spirit. And thankfully, God has given us that help in the form of the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to understand these things. And the Holy Spirit, as we all know, is a full member of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all three equally God, one God, three persons. I am very grateful that the Holy Spirit dwells within me, as I said, and I am very aware of the fact when I manifest some of the fruit of the Spirit that something else is going on because it's usually not something that I want to do, but I end up doing something that I don't want to do. But it's the right thing. I know the Holy Spirit's at work. When I use the term supernatural, by the way, I know it was just Halloween, so don't wanna freak anybody out. Supernatural is a great word, actually. And when I use that term, I mean just that, supernatural. It comes from the Latin, supernaturalis, which means literally above or beyond nature. That can only describe one thing, my friends, that describes God, the divine. So let's get back to something supernatural going on. Have you ever had an experience where you wanted to right a wrong or you wanted to debate someone on a topic so that you could set them straight? But I'm talking about maybe something that didn't need to be said. It wasn't really adding any value or glorifying God, but you really wanted to do it. Have you ever had that experience? If you have that experience, but then you just don't say it, and you hold back, and you don't speak up, and you don't glorify your flesh and yourself, but through your silence, you do something else. You do something supernatural. Where does that ability come from? That ability to hold your tongue. It comes from the Holy Spirit. It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. enabling you to exhibit maybe self-control, maybe gentleness, maybe patience, maybe all three at the same time. So over the next couple of months, I guess, we'll be studying all nine of the fruit of the Spirit. And I'm really looking forward to this. Next week, Pastor Josh is going to be going through the second fruit, joy. And I'm really looking forward to that. But today we're gonna start with the first fruit that's listed in the list of the fruit of the Spirit, which is love. And from all of the authors and sources and scriptures that I studied on the fruit of the Spirit, I found one common theme. I think most authors agree with, Christian authors. Love is a preeminent fruit. It is preeminent among all of the nine fruit. In other words, love, what does preeminent mean? I had to look it up, I did. Love has a paramount rank. It has an importance and a pervasiveness among all of the other fruit. You could even say that love is a required underpinning for the other fruit. So it's fitting, I think, that we start today by looking into love. So let's shift gears now and let's talk about love. According to a Christian author that I read recently, this is a paraphrase, throughout history, it seems that the church has found it difficult to be loving. It is easier to be right than to be loving. It is easier to be active in church work than to be loving. Yet the supreme characteristic that God demands of His people is love. So what is love? What is love anyway? Well, let's first look at our popular culture to help us define that. Should we do that? Let's do it. Did you know that love is one of the most common themes in popular music or popular songs? Love, there's something about love, all sorts of stuff out there. We listen to it. I know many of you do. I listen to more than I should. But one only has to do a quick Google search to see what all these songs about love are really about. You just read their lyrics. Because sometimes you're listening to a song, you don't really listen to the lyrics sometimes. You just kind of like the tune maybe. You should listen to some of these songs. A little more research on your part will reveal what it revealed to me. The definition of love that's used in many popular songs is nothing like what we're talking about here in the New Testament. See, the English language is woefully lacking in many ways. I'm sure most languages are, but one of the shortcomings of the English language is that we have few words, and sometimes we'll have one word that has multiple very, very different meanings. I'll give you an example. The word ball. Ball can be something we use in sports, like a baseball, or like a football, or like a soccer ball. Something we throw, something we kick. That can be a ball, right? You guys all know that. On the other hand, a ball can be a fancy event where there's dancing, as in like Cinderella went to the ball and fell in love with the prince. Those two meanings have nothing to do with each other. We use the same word, love. Here's another example, a bat. I'm gonna read this one. A bat can be a flying mammal. that comes out at night and consumes myriads of insects utilizing radar for navigation. Did you know bats use radar? But a bat can also mean a long stick that we use, again, in sports, like a baseball bat or a cricket bat. No, no, is this cricket? Can I go like this? Cricket? Again, two very, very different meanings. And one more example, a pitch. Okay, yes, there's a baseball theme because the World Series was just over. A pitch can mean several things. It can mean a description of the quality of sound when someone's singing. What pitch are they singing? Where are they in the spectrum of sound waves? That's number one. Number two, a pitch can be something that's used to pave or to waterproof something, as in I used some pitch to cover up my whatever and it waterproofed it. Or three, a pitch can also mean, yes, back to the World Series theme, a pitch can also mean to throw a ball to a batter so that they can strike the ball, whether it's cricket or baseball, they're both called a pitch. So we see in the English language, we have words that have radically different meanings, that have nothing to do with each other. We have this same issue with the word love when we read that in the Bible. With love, we've all heard sermons. I know I've heard several here by Pastor Chris where he goes into detail about all the various kinds of love in the Greek language. We have storge, which I think is a family love. We have phileo, which is brotherly love. We have eros, which is more maybe romantic love. And then we have agape, which is the kind of love that we're talking about here. But we're not going to dig into the Greek any more than that today, because I'm not qualified to do that. You have to have someone else up here to do that. But when I researched this, I found out that agape which is the love we're talking about, and we're going to define it here. Agape is one of the rarest words in ancient Greek literature. It's rarely used. However, check this out. It's one of the most common words in the New Testament. John uses it, for example, John uses it 27 times in just 15 verses. In 1 John 4, 7-21, agape never means romantic or sexual love, which we all know from our prior teaching here is assigned a different word in the Greek, eros. And guess what? Eros never appears once in the New Testament. It's not used. So clearly when the New Testament talks about love, they're not talking about what culture talks about when they talk about love. So as Christians who exist in a modern culture which constantly exerts its influence and pressure on us, we need to be very clear on the meaning of the word love. It is agape and it has no relationship to eros. We need to make sure we read the word love in the New Testament and we rightly recognize what it means. If I read the lyrics for you to many popular songs today, you'd be shocked, first of all, but what do you think they'd be referring to? Yeah, they are not referring to agape in general. Agape is a self-giving, selfless love that requires us to give without expecting anything in return. In Acts 20, verse 35, Paul tells us to remember the words of Jesus Christ, how He Himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Christian, these are the words of Christ Himself. We are to be givers as Christians, and not concerned with getting anything back. We all want to be loved, But we are commanded to love others. And we are loved by God Himself. That's enough for all of us. Should be enough for all of us. And that's all that we need. My wife and I, my wife Tati and I taught cubbies here at St. Rosa Bible for actually a little 20 years-ish. My absolute favorite verse in cubbies is their version, the cubbies version of 1 John 4.10. And I know Carrie could stand up and say it by heart, because she taught it to me many years ago. But this is how the Cubbies do it. They say, God loved us and sent his son, 1 John 4 10. That's what we do in Cubbies. We have too much fun. And then, of course, there's the most famous verse in the Bible, made famous by sports. John 3 16. which tells us God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. Whoever believes in him shall not perish, but shall have eternal life. Amen? And what was John referring to when he said that he gave us Jesus? What did he mean? Well, there's not a single answer to this, perhaps, but I can summarize it for us in this way. He gave us Jesus completely. Completely. Jesus is sufficient, Jesus is supreme, and He is fully satisfying in His love for us. And what do you all think of when, if I ask you what's the most famous Bible passage about love? Well, I think you'd come up with 1 Corinthians 13. So I'm going to read an excerpt from that to you right now. Thank you. The people with the slides are doing an awesome job. I appreciate it. And here we go, 1 Corinthians 13. I'm going to read verses 1 through 8a. Do all of you know what that means when they say 8a or 16b? So a and b just means like we're going to stop at the middle of the verse, or b means we're going to start in the second half of the verse. So we're going 1 through 8a. Here we go. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. And then it goes on to tell us what love is. And this is the most convicting list that I've ever read. We use this in our biblical counseling ministry, and I'll tell you, this is really hard. You can spend weeks with people, helping them understand what love really means and what they're really called to do as Christians. Let's read it, starting in verse four. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. What a great passage that is. How many of you feel like you just stepped into a wedding ceremony? Yes, this is the passage that's probably the most commonly read passage at wedding ceremonies. 1 Corinthians is a letter from Paul to the church in Corinth, which is now in modern day Greece, to correct problems that had developed within that local church. See a theme there with the letters? In chapter 13, toward the end of the letter, Paul presents love as a unifying truth that all members of the Christian church should live by. Did you hear that? All members of the Christian church should live by. This passage gives us a very clear definition of agape love. All you need to do is read down that list and just go do all those things. Easy to say, hard to do. This passage in 1 Corinthians should be our handbook on how to treat people as Christian believers. This type of love is not a feeling. The world wants us to think love's a feeling. It's some sort of a mushy-gushy feeling thing. No, that's something else. That's not what this is. This love is a decision that we make to follow God's commandment and to be intentional about how we treat other people. And how we give God the proper place in our lives. Love is a discipline. And the master teacher who indwells the believer is the Holy Spirit. And after Paul gives a really clear definition of love, he closes later in the chapter by telling us that among a list of some pretty lofty concepts, faith, hope, and love, the greatest is love. Hence my comment about the preeminence of love. Romans 5.8 tells us that God loved us while we were still sinners. 1 John 4.8 and 4.16 tells us that God is love. Jesus reconciles with the Apostle Peter in the very famous passage toward the very end of the Gospel of John, in chapter 21, where Jesus asks Peter three times, Peter, do you love me? Each of the three times, Peter answers, Lord, you know I love you. Jesus then instructs Peter each time, Tend My sheep. Feed My lambs. Feed My sheep. In other words, Jesus was saying, Peter, since you love Me, you must do these things. You see, Christian, God has saved us. It's completely His work. He has done it through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There's nothing else we can do. But the life of a Christian is all about the now what. Great, thank you, Jesus. Thank you for saving me. I'm still here on this earth, brokenness all around me. Now what? Well, the what, dear friends, is love. It's the way of life for the Christian. Love is talking to your neighbor and encouraging them through a tough time. Love is praying for a coworker who recently lost a family member. Love is extending forgiveness to someone that hurt you, even if they didn't say they were sorry. It's a tough one for some people, very tough for me. Love is sharing the good news about Jesus to the people that God puts in our path. You get the point. In another famous passage in Matthew 22, when the leaders of the church were trying to trick Jesus, they asked Him, Jesus, what is the most important commandment in the Jewish law? And Jesus answered in a way that I always like to say only Jesus could answer, because He's God. But He didn't give them one answer. He gave them two. Number one, love the Lord with everything you've got. I'm paraphrasing. And number two, love your neighbor as yourself. In a similar passage in Luke, Jesus was asked further, who is my neighbor? And then Jesus responds with the story of the Good Samaritan, which many of us know that teaches us what it means to be a neighbor and who our neighbors are. And honestly, your neighbor is everyone. It's everyone. Friends, if we truly love God and we extend our affection and devotion to Him, our love will grow and expand, and it'll come pouring out of us like a fountain. The priority for sure is to love God. But the very clear commandment of our dear Lord, as He said, the second commandment is like the first, almost giving it somewhat of almost like an equivalence, although not quite, maybe. The second commandment is to love others. The love for others is central, for example, in our biblical counseling ministry here at the church. The various counselors that we have here at Santa Rosa Bible use God's word to give the Lord's direction and help people by sharing them how God wants them to live their lives. That's what biblical counseling is in a nutshell. God's word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Have you ever pondered just how profound it is that Jesus is called the Word? I have. I still can't comprehend it completely. And lastly, dear Christian, in John 15, Jesus tells us there's no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend or for a neighbor. In this passage, Jesus was obviously foreshadowing his death on the cross, but he was also telling us how we must live. So today, we started our study on the fruit of the Spirit. We've seen that the first fruit is love, and it is preeminent, and it's an outpouring of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We are to give without expecting anything back, and to properly reflect God's love to the world around us. It's indeed a difficult teaching, and it requires us to give up self, which is the hardest thing for most of us to do, certainly for me. Have you ever thought about why Jesus didn't command us to love ourselves? You won't find that anywhere in the Bible. Now, the world tells us, oh, you need to learn how to love yourself. Well, that's not in the Bible. It's in the world. It's not in the Bible. I think Jesus didn't command us to love ourselves because we already do. It's so inherent in us. We don't need any coaching. We don't need any extra instructions here. But notice when he tells us how to love our neighbor, he says, love our neighbor as ourself. Think about that. But that implies, dear friend, that we already know how to love ourselves. Because his instruction, love your neighbor as you love yourself, there's an implication there. You already know how to do that. Go do it to them. Our great and wonderful God loved all of the people of the world so much that he sent his son to step into the world and join the human race. Jesus lived the life of a human perfectly without sin, but he was persecuted and he suffered a brutal death on the cross. And he was buried. But he rose from the dead on the third day, proving that he is God and he has power over death. He did this to provide a way for us who choose to believe and trust in him, that we can live forever with him in heaven. We can have eternal life. Jesus ascended into heaven, and he is now seated at the right hand of his father, God. He left his Holy Spirit here on earth as our guide and comfort while we await his glorious return. If you believe this today, then you are already part of God's glorious kingdom. Amen. If you don't believe this, then I would urge you, friend, to place your faith in Jesus Christ today. Jesus tells us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. His Word makes it so clear that He wants to be in relationship with us. And He sacrificed His life to save us and set us free from the sin that encumbers all of us. In His own words, Jesus said, I came to seek and to save the lost. So if you are here today and you're lost, and you're looking for answers, I am really glad you're here. And I would urge you to cry out to Jesus and tell Him that you acknowledge that He is the Lord, the one and only God, the Lord of your life, and that you want to serve Him and follow Him forever. This invitation is open to everyone. And if you did that, that would make this the greatest day in your life. If you'd like to know more about that, if you've done that today, please talk to your neighbor after service or talk to one of our elders. Some of our elders will be down front after the service and you can come and talk to us. So come on down. But if you don't want to do that or you don't know who the elders are, just talk to anyone and they'll direct you. And don't wait, my friend, this is truly a matter of eternal life or death. So let's all take a moment now and let's pray for God's work of salvation. If you are a believer, please pray for others to be called and to be saved. And if you're not a believer, God still wants to hear from you. He's still your God, just like he's mine. So please take a moment and talk to him now in quiet. And now let's pray together. And as we pray together, I'm going to ask the worship team to come on down. The price is right. No, I just dated myself. Most people probably don't even know what I just said, but let's pray together. I just ruined that moment. Okay, let's pray. Dear God, please work in our hearts today and work in the hearts of those you may be calling and show them clearly your love today and draw them to you so that they might become a part of your kingdom today. And for those who are here who already trust in you, help us all to love you. as you would have us love, and to live the lives you have called us to live, while we love others, as you have commanded us to do, while we wait for your return. We love you, dear Lord. We thank you for Jesus, and we thank you for your Holy Spirit. And now, as we prepare to celebrate communion this morning, if any of you have not received the juice and the bread, please raise your hand. make some sort of signal, and one of our team members will bring you your juice and your bread as we prepare to approach the Lord's table this morning. Verses 26 through 28. We read about the Last Supper, and we're gonna use that as our guide this morning as we take communion, which is, for the believer, this is a reminder of the sacrifice that Jesus placed himself under when he went to the cross and died for our sins. The bread represents Jesus's body, and the juice represents Jesus's blood. So from Matthew 26, now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body. So let's go ahead and eat the bread as a reminder of Jesus' death on the cross. And the passage continues as we open up our little aluminum foil and get the juice ready. in verse 27, and he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. So let's drink this juice in remembrance of that. So next week, Bible Church family, We will continue working through the fruit of the Spirit. Josh, as I mentioned, is going to be focusing on joy next week. So if you want to read up for that, you can go to Galatians 5, and you can read the one word, joy. Joy. Or you can do your own study in preparation. Let's pray, and then the worship team's going to close us in song. Dear God, thank you for your word today. Please be with all who are gathered here today and help them to see you more clearly. Help them to be students of your word and doers of your word. Help us to be your hands and feet to this world who so desperately need to see your face. Lord, your words are true and the truth never stops being true, no matter what the world tells us. You are wonderful and powerful. You are everything that we need. Help us all to see that and to live by that until you return to take us home. We love you, dear Lord. Amen. This message has been brought to you by the Santa Rosa Bible Church. We are a gathering of sinners saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. We exist to glorify God by making, maturing, and multiplying followers of Jesus Christ who will know Him and make Him known. For more information visit us at srbible.org.