 It's interesting that the Bible says here, not fruits of the Spirit. You would assume it's talking about nine different characteristics like love, peace, patience, kindness. And you would assume it will use proper grammar by calling it fruits of the Spirit because there are many of them. But it's using word fruit. When it talks about works of the flesh, it uses plural works. When it uses fruit, it says only fruit, not fruits of the Spirit. Why? Because Holy Spirit, all of these nine characteristics, Holy Spirit develops at the same time in your life. You can develop one of them by yourself, but you cannot develop nine of them by yourself at the same time. You can develop love at the expense of self-control. You can develop kindness at the expense of love. You can develop one work on one while all five other of them are just rotten to the bone. But you cannot develop all nine at the same time. Only Holy Spirit can take all nine and at the same time develop these in your life. A person can develop one at the expense of another, but Holy Spirit develops all nine at the same time. That's why they're called fruit, not fruits of the Spirit. Therefore, you and I cannot say, well, I have the fruit of love, but I don't have the fruit of patience. That means you don't have the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is all nine. You may say, oh my goodness, that's not possible. That's why it's called fruit of the Holy Spirit. It's not called fruit of fasting. It's not called fruit of your prayer. It's not called fruit of your New Year's resolutions. It's not called fruit of your workout. It's not called fruit of reading self-help books. It's not called fruit of I'm going to work it on myself. It's not fruit of your efforts, because if you work on yourself, if you pump an apple, that's all it's going to be. But then you see all others will be struggling. But when Holy Spirit is working on it, they're all nine being produced at the same time. It's a fruit. A fruit grows slowly. A fruit is not a machinery produced by a machine where things can be done so quickly. A fruit first is sour before it's sweet. And this is the frustrating part that we get sometimes as Christians. It's when you walk with Holy Spirit, you begin to notice that your character and change in your life does not happen all the time. That's why I have a hard time believing testimonies, who people say, my life was radically changed on that night. I know what you mean. But I also know what really happened. Your life cannot be dramatically changed in one day. It can't. Now you can receive salvation in one moment. You can receive deliverance in one moment. You can receive healing in one moment. But fruit cannot be developed in one service. And so after a week or after two weeks, you will recognize, you know what? Not everything changed that night. And then after a month, you will realize, well, you know what? It seems like nothing changed since that night. Why? Because a fruit does not happen overnight. And at first it's sour before it's sweet. That's why as a Christian, when you walk with Holy Spirit and you get so upset during traffic, you get so upset with something that many times you be tempted to say, Holy Spirit is not working in my life. Yes, He is. You just have to pat yourself on the back and say, my fruit is so sour today. But it's on the way to be sweet. You have to pat yourself on the back and when you see a fellow Christian sinning, or maybe like you see that they're not, that their attitude is so damn, you pat them on the back and say, you know what? We all can taste. It's kind of sour, huh? Your fruit is very sour, but you are on your way. Don't immediately think that they got a demon. Don't immediately think that, oh, the Holy Spirit is so far from them. Oh, they're so far from the Holy Spirit because they don't have these features in their life and they're not sweet. Remember, before they got sweet, they were for sour. And so it's the process the Holy Spirit develops and Holy Spirit uses the word fruit to encourage you that if certain things in your life are still not in there where they're supposed to be, this is not a moment to quit and say, this is taking too slow. Can we hurry up, God? Don't you have a microwave? God, don't you have a drive-through system? God, can we get it done faster? I can help you to do it faster. No, this is the moment to say, Holy Spirit, I am not going to quit in my relationship. Why? Because I know that it's a fruit and I know fruit takes time. It grows. It doesn't get made. It grows. It doesn't get created. That's why with Holy Spirit, you don't go through life. You grow through life. That's why with Holy Spirit, every single year, you are getting better. You might not be better than me. I might not be better than you, but with Holy Spirit, I am better this year than I was last year. With Holy Spirit, I can be better this week than I was last year. Why? Because it's a fruit and it grows. But you know, every single year, if you have trees in your backyard or in your front yard, and I would encourage you to plant some if you don't have any, because it's a fascinating, interesting part of how slow they grow and they encourage your Christian faith. But secondly, you can do nothing to pull a fruit out of a tree. You cannot set up a blow dryer. You cannot put a certain sprinkler on it to sprinkle. You cannot feed it nothing. The only thing you can do to grow fruits is that you can constantly and continuously work and cultivate the tree and the tree will produce the fruit on its own. And this is my encouragement to you here. Work on your relationship with Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit will work on your character.