Sermon Series | June 1- July 27, 2025
This summer, we’re returning to the basics—not in simplicity, but in substance. Together, we will walk through each of the fruit of the Spirit, exploring how the Spirit forms us into people of Christlike character for the sake of others. This is not just self-help or moral improvement. It is about being re-rooted in the gospel and re-formed by the Spirit—for our joy, church, and city.
Becoming the People the World Needs: Cultivating Character in a Culture of Chaos
What’s Happening?
We are living in a moment of cultural unraveling. Our age is marked by accelerating technological advancements and increasing emotional fatigue. We are more connected than ever—and more anxious, isolated, and reactive. Attention is fragmented. Trust is eroding. Outrage is currency. In a world of constant noise, many people feel they are slowly losing their grip on what’s real, what’s good, and what kind of person they want to become.
We are not merely facing a crisis of information or innovation. We are facing a crisis of formation.
More and more people are asking: Who am I becoming? What does it mean to be good? Can I trust anything anymore?
The church is not immune. Many Christians feel spiritually stretched thin. We’ve absorbed the same cultural habits of hurry, comparison, image-management, and self-protection. Even in our churches, we can confuse charisma for character, activity for maturity, and visibility for fruitfulness. The deep spiritual work of becoming more like Jesus is too often replaced by surface-level performance.
And yet, God has not left us without a better way.
In Galatians 5, the Apostle Paul offers a stark contrast. He names the works of the flesh—envy, division, self-centeredness, anxiety, impurity—and then offers a radically different vision for life in the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is not a list of personality traits. It is the description of a person: Jesus Christ. And the Spirit of Christ is abiding in us to form these fruits in us.
This fruit of the Spirit is not something we produce by trying harder. It grows in us as we live in communion with Christ and walk in step with His Spirit. It is the visible evidence of invisible transformation. And in a fractured, cynical world, it may just be the most powerful witness the Church has.
This summer, we’re returning to the basics—not in simplicity, but in substance. Together, we will walk through each of the fruit of the Spirit, exploring how the Spirit forms us into people of Christlike character for the sake of others. This is not just self-help or moral improvement. It is about being re-rooted in the gospel and re-formed by the Spirit—for our joy, church, and city.
Our world is hungry for wholeness, our neighbors long for peace, and our culture is desperate for people of deep, steady, radiant character. This is a moment for the Church to show the world not just what we believe but how we live. The fruit of the Spirit is not optional. It is essential. It is how we live the gospel way.
Why This Matters
At a time when so many are asking what Christianity is, the Church has a chance to show the world who Christ is. But we won’t do that merely through louder opinions, sharper arguments, or bigger platforms. We’ll do it through the kind of people we become—people whose lives bear the unmistakable aroma of Jesus.
That’s why the fruit of the Spirit matters. These are not peripheral virtues. They are the essential evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work within us, forming us into Christ’s image for the world’s sake.
The Church is not a building. It’s not a brand. It’s the body of Christ, animated by the Holy Spirit and called to reflect the character of our Savior. In a time when religion can feel performative, we must return to the deeper work of formation, not just information. This isn’t about keeping up appearances. It’s about growing roots in Christ, so our lives produce something beautiful, substantial, and real.
These nine qualities—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—are the very traits our world desperately longs for but cannot manufacture. They can’t be mass-produced by culture or conjured by effort alone. They are grown by God in the soil of surrendered hearts. And they are not only personal—they are missional.
When a church community becomes a greenhouse of this kind of fruit, the world takes notice. It becomes a countercultural community where love is genuine, joy doesn’t depend on circumstances, peace rules even in conflict, and patience outlasts pressure. This kind of Church becomes a signpost of the kingdom to come—a living, breathing witness to the grace of God in a graceless world.
In short, the fruit of the Spirit is the character of Christ lived out in the Church for the good of the world. And that’s why this series matters.
It’s not just about personal growth; it’s about public witness. It’s not just about cultivating nice people; it’s about cultivating people like Christ. It’s not just about surviving our cultural moment; it’s about shining in the midst of it.
How We’ll Do This Together
We can’t manufacture the fruit of the Spirit. But we can cultivate the conditions where it grows.
This summer, we’re inviting our whole church into a focused discipleship season called The People We’re Becoming: Cultivating Character in a Culture of Counterfeits. Over the course of nine weeks—one for each fruit—we’ll walk slowly and intentionally through Galatians 5:22-23, allowing the Spirit to do His deep, shaping work in us.
Each week, we’ll trace the path of formation through three movements:
1. A Devotional Commentary – Through rich biblical teaching, we’ll reflect on the meaning, implications, and beauty of each fruit. This is where theology meets the everyday. It’s not just “what it means,” rather it’s “what it looks like” when the Spirit forms it in real lives.
2. False Fruits & True Life – Every fruit answers a deep human longing. But in the absence of the Spirit, our culture counterfeits those desires with quick fixes that look like fruit, but rot from the inside out. Each weekly devotional installment concludes by naming different cravings in our culture, the counterfeit versions of this real fruit, and how the gospel offers something better.
3. Life Together – We’re not meant to grow alone. We’ll engage in this journey together through these Connect Group materials—including discussion questions, cross-referenced scriptures, and prayer themes. These are not abstract ideas but meant to be lived out and encouraged in community.
This is not a self-help program. It’s not behavior modification. It’s not moralism. It’s spiritual formation. And it only happens as we walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25), abide in Christ (John 15), and build one another up in love (Eph. 4:15–16).
If you’re weary of a culture of outrage and ready to become a person of peace, this is for you. If you long to grow in joy, kindness, or self-control, this is for you. If you’ve ever wondered whether your life reflects Jesus, this is for you. If you want our church to be known less for style and more for substance, this is for us.
Together, let’s cultivate the character the world so desperately needs to see. Let’s become people who reflect the likeness of Jesus.