Saints, God's grace, and let's bring the book to Galatians 5. We'll be looking at the second half of Galatians 5. May God bless and add it to us. As you're turning, there's a story in the book of Mark. Just a few chapters in, the book of Mark tells us about this poor man. Boy, what an awful circumstance he had. He was demon-possessed, and we find out the name of this demon was Legion, for we are many. That there was great evil and great power upon this man, and it was destroying him. Jesus comes along to this poor demon-possessed man, and in great compassion and in great power, Jesus rescued him and not only gave his life back to him, but gave this man new life. Everything was different. And it says there that this man was to go home and talk about what great things the Lord had done for him. And we probably need to be reminded of what great things the Lord has done for us. And that's why we're here. And that's why we sing and teach and open up the Bible, so that we can set our hearts on those great things the Lord has done for us. And so that we can talk about those things. And what are those great things the Lord has done for us? And as you look at the whole Bible, we see exactly what he has done, not just what he has done, but has done on our behalf And you know that our Lord Jesus Christ, from the very beginning, Genesis 3.15, he was promised by God many times, hundreds of times over the generations. And 2,000 years ago, when Jesus Christ came into this world, he was the great answer, he was the great accomplishment of all God's promises. As Paul would say, Jesus is the yes and amen of God's promises. When we look at Jesus, he's the great I told you so. He's the promise keeper. And we know that as he went about his life, that he lived a perfectly righteous life. Nobody has ever done that. But he lived a perfectly righteous life before God and before men. And in his life, he fulfilled all righteousness and he earned the righteousness that we need. And Jesus shares it. He imputes it. He gives us the righteousness that we need. And throughout his life, he showed us God. He showed us truth. And Jesus was our great example, that God all over the Bible not only teaches us how to live, but in Jesus Christ, he shows us what a godly life is all about. Jesus is our model of what a human life should be. And Jesus went about his life, and then as Paul would say here, he loved us and he gave his life for us. that in his death he bore our sins, and in his death he bore our curse, so that our sin and our curse has been removed from us and put upon him so that we bear it no more. And three days later, Jesus triumphed out of the grave. He rose again, conquering death, proving his great work of salvation was real and authentic. And 40 days later, he ascended on high. And right now as we speak, he is the risen reigning Lord at the right hand of majesty. And there he is seated because his work has been done and he will get up again and come and finish the glory of God in this world. But right now, he is advocating for us. We talk about advocating for ourselves, but we have one in heaven, in the presence of God, who advocates for us. And he bestows forgiveness on all those that come unto God by him. And so these are the great things that the Lord has done for us, and yet there's one more. Those are probably all things that we could talk about, but there's still something else. You remember John the Baptist, that John the Baptist was the great forerunner. He preached and he made ready, he made the people ready for the coming of the Messiah. And John the Baptist said things like, there is one that is coming after me who is greater than me. I preach or I baptize with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit. And so Jesus eventually would pour out his Holy Spirit. He would baptize with the Holy Spirit. So that when we think of the saving events of Jesus Christ, we think of his death, his burial, and resurrection. But consequent to that, in our Lord's saving career, He also gave the gift of his Holy Spirit. And so in Galatians 1.4, it talks about how we are living in this present evil age. That was true of Paul's day 2,000 years ago, and it's true. And we know, we could talk about all the examples we experience every day, Galatians 1.4, this present evil age. And yet, at the same time, alongside of that present evil age, above that evil age, and infiltrating that present evil age, is what we could call the age of the Spirit. So that yes, there is an age right now that is evil, but there is an age of the Spirit, and the Spirit of God is doing holy things in the midst of unholiness. And if there's ever holiness in this world, it's traced back to the Holy Spirit. Now, What is the Christian life? And John Stott would answer, and we could base our answer right out of what Paul is saying here in Galatians 5. But John Stott said that the Christian life is life in the spirit. We ought to soak that up. It is a comprehensive statement. And we see that in Galatians 5, that the Christian life is life in the spirit. In other words, it would be impossible for you to become a Christian without the Holy Spirit. And it would be impossible for you to behave as a Christian without the Holy Spirit. So from beginning to end, it is the spirit that causes your life and salvation. and He is the one that continues and sustains your life and salvation. And without Him, we are nothing. Well, with that, notice with me Galatians 5, and we'll look at verse 16. This is the age of the Spirit. This is life in the Spirit. Galatians 5, beginning at verse 13. For you, brothers and sisters, have been called to liberty. Only do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the laws fulfilled in one word, even this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. These are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. of which I tell you before, just as I also told you in pastime, that those that practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law. and those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Amen. And let's bow in prayer. Father, thank you for our time. Thank you for our songs, our giving, our fellowship. Thank you for calling us together, that we are your family and your flock. Thank you, shepherd. Thank you, Father. We ask, Father, that you would now bless us. We ask now that you would speak to us out of your word, that you would guide us with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, that even now as we're a church, even now as we're gathered, and even now as we have these holy pages open, that we would walk in the Spirit. And it's in Jesus that we pray. Amen. We are familiar with the second person of the Trinity, We believe in the triune God, God the Father, and then the second person of the Trinity. And the second person of the Trinity has around 200 names and titles in the scriptures. He's revealed in many different ways. And we know him as Yeshua. 2,000 years ago, that's what they would have called him, Yeshua. We know him as Jesus. Jesus was the Son of God. He was the Son of Man. He was the Messiah, the Christ. He was anointed by God to be prophet, priest, and king. These are all his names and titles. And what's particularly special for us in light of our church's name is that Jesus was the Emmanuel. He was God with us. He was the Emmanuel. And in Peter, We have a title, a name of Jesus that we don't always think of, but Peter calls him the cornerstone. that all that God is doing, he is building upon Christ as the chief stone, that he is building his church in this world, and he's locating everything on the cornerstone, Jesus Christ, so that without the cornerstone, there would be no church. It's all lined up in him as the chief cornerstone. And Peter says something wonderful in that passage. He says, to you who believe, He is precious. The Lord Jesus is precious to us that believe. And then if you will, we move to the third person of the Trinity, and he has around 30 names in the Bible. He's revealed with various titles, some 30 of them in the Bible. And so we know the third person of the Trinity to be the Spirit of God. It's a direct title. We know Him as the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ. We know that He is the Comforter, the Helper. He is the Guide. He's the Convictor. And most commonly, out of all those titles of the Holy Spirit, the most common one, some 96 times, He is found as exactly that, not just the Spirit, but as the Holy Spirit. So that yes, he's guide and comforter, but most often he is the Holy Spirit. Now Jesus, as he traveled and ministered in this world, Jesus had various evil spirits come to him. He had demonic spirits come to him. They are called unclean spirits in the New Testament. Literally, he had foul, Foul spirits come to him. But in contrast to all of those evil spirits that came to Jesus is this spirit, the Holy Spirit. Sometimes Christians talk about the unpardonable sin. We get all nervous about that, and rightfully so, to a degree. And there are various interpretations of it, but if you stick to those passages that talk about the unpardonable sin, it seems to be this. that Jesus was actually functioning and operating and serving in the power of the Spirit, and yet there were Jews that said he was doing things in the power of unholy spirits, that they said that he was doing it according to Satan, Beelzebub. And Jesus there warns that if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, it is unpardonable. What those men were doing was saying that the work of Jesus, which he was doing by the Holy Spirit, was actually being done by an unholy spirit. And so the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the unpardonable sin would be whenever you attribute to the Holy Spirit something that's unholy. He is so holy. that if you transgress against what He is, holy, you'll never be forgiven. That's the holiness of the Spirit of God, that you don't take that lightly. And what does the Holy Spirit do? And throughout the Bible, we know that He regenerates and causes us to be born again. He's the one that quickens us and makes us alive to God. He convicts us of sin. He convicts us of Christ. If you're ever convicted of sin, if you're ever convicted of Christ, that He's the real deal, it's by the Spirit. No man can say that Jesus is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit, we are told. It's the Holy Spirit that illumines. He throws light on Christ. He throws light on the Scriptures so that we understand Christ. We understand the Word of God by the Spirit. And it's the Spirit that helps us to pray, so that in our Christian lives, we are doing so many things through the Spirit, as he says back in verse five. But particularly, brothers and sisters, it is the Spirit of God that has the ministry to us of making us holy. The Holy Spirit has that effect on His people. He's the one that makes us holy. Remember the song that we sing. Holiness is what I want. Holiness is what I need. Holiness is what I long for. Well, if you're wanting and needing and longing for holiness, where is that coming from? It's not coming merely from you. It's coming by the Holy Spirit. And it happens, it's accomplished by the Holy Spirit. he does according to his name. And so when Leviticus tells us, as Peter would quote, when he tells us, be ye holy, for I am holy. How do we become holy? How do we obey that call to be ye holy? Well, first of all, it's in Christ. In Christ, we are forgiven and cleansed. In Christ, we are clothed with holiness so that we get holiness, we fulfill that command in Jesus Christ. But secondly, it's the Holy Spirit. that ministers to us practically, making us in our experience, making us in our day-to-day reality, He is the one that's making us holy. In Christ, I am holy positionally before God, but in the Holy Spirit, I am practically day-by-day becoming holy. Christ, we could say, is the primary agent of our salvation, that He is Savior, But here, the Holy Spirit is the primary agent of our sanctification, and we could call him the sanctifier, so that we have the good news of the Savior and of the sanctifier. It's the Spirit that gets us to Christ, and it's the Spirit that conforms us to Jesus Christ. So that back in chapter four, verse 19, Paul talks about Christ being formed in us. And who is doing that? Whose ministry is to form us into Christ? It's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit within is making real things about us into the image of Jesus Christ. The Spirit is of Christ. He loves Christ. And He's making Christ to be formed in us. And in light of our book here, the Galatians, in all of their struggles, in all of their back and forth, in all of their misleadings, the Galatians kept on saying, we need the law. We need the law. We need the Ten Commandments. We need the law for salvation, and Paul is gonna say, until he's blue in the face, no, you need Christ for salvation. And then these Galatians would say, we need the law not only for salvation, but we need the law for sanctification, and here Paul is gonna say, no, you need the Holy Spirit for sanctification, that we can't save ourselves, nor can we sanctify ourselves. It is the work of God Now, Paul, as you know, and we've said this a million times and rightfully so, Paul, all over this book, is going to talk about how we do not add to Jesus Christ. It's not Jesus and. We do not add to Jesus Christ, but we do grow in Christ. And that's what our passage is about. We're not adding to him, but we do grow in him by the Spirit. Now, what's the evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life? There are lots of them. But how do we know if he's operating in my life, in your life, and in the life of our church? How do we know? Well, it's not really, and especially in this passage, but it's not really that we perform miracles and we speak in tongues. That's not really the evidence of the Holy Spirit. The evidence of the Holy Spirit throughout the Bible and throughout the ages, the evidence of the Holy Spirit is that he puts the attention on Christ, John 14 through 16. The Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ keeps putting the attention on Jesus Christ. And he keeps putting the attention on the word of God. Brothers and sisters, what's your emphasis for Christ and what's your emphasis for the scriptures? You know if the spirit is working in you. How do we gauge a church? What's the barometer of the church? What kind of emphasis is there on Christ and the scriptures? Because wherever the spirit is, he's doing that. And What we always need to be careful about is not judging the Word of God by our experiences, but judging our experiences by the Word of God. Christians get that all mixed up. I had an experience and therefore that's what's true. No, gauge what you experience based on the truth. And the Spirit will always put the attention on the Word of God. But now particularly, what is the evidence of the Holy Spirit? And if you look in this passage, how would you answer that? What is the evidence of the Holy Spirit's presence and working among us? Well, it's not really in miracles, but it's in morality. that you do the things opposite of verses 19, 20, and 21. You see there all that immorality, and the Spirit operates totally different than that. He operates in morality. Now, I think this is generally true, and I think we understand, and your mind will race to certain people, I'm sure, that certain people have a distinct walk. You can notice somebody, even if they're far away in a crowd, you can notice them by their walk. So my daughter plays soccer and she could be all the way across the field with 20 other girls around her, and we could be up in the stands, and you can notice my daughter by her walk. That's true of people. People have a distinct walk. And so it is here that you and I as Christians, we have a distinct walk. That just like you can tell somebody by their walk, you can tell Christians by the way they walk. It's not perfect. Sometimes we stumble and bumble, but you can tell a Christian by his walk. And that's what we're getting at. In our passage, we have these bookends. In the beginning of our passage, verse 16, and at the end of our passage, verse 25, it talks about walking a certain way. And if you think about that language there in verse 16 and verse 25, if you think about that language of walking, walking is relatively slow. Walking is slow, but if you keep at it step by step, you will progress. You will get from point A to point B. And so walking is slow, but it's progressive. And what a reminder for our spiritual lives and our spiritual growth. There will be slow moments, but it is progressing. This whole idea of walking in the Spirit might be slow, but it is progressive toward growth. And when he talks about walking in the Spirit, he's talking about conducting our lives, ordering our lives, formatting our lives. according to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we format our lives according to a schedule or according to the clock or according to needs, according to other people. And here we are to so order our lives according to the Holy Spirit. We have to be careful because when it says here walking with the Spirit, when we walk with people, a lot of times we're walking with equals. But here we're not walking with an equal. We are walking with the sovereign. We are walking, as our text says there, we are walking in a way that we are being led by the spirit. He is leader and we are follower. And so we conduct our lives, but he's doing the leading and we follow in our walk. I think one way to express this would be think about the trains here in Manville. We have them at all times of the day. Some of you live very close to the trains. I live close enough so that I hear them at 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock in the morning. You say, well, what are you doing in the middle of the night? Why are you awake? Well, it's the trains. But you hear those things, and many of us have gotten caught at 13th Avenue over there. We get caught going back and forth in town by the trains. But if you think about it, those trains might be 25 cars, 50 cars, 100 cars, or whatever they are, but they're all being propelled, they're all being moved by the locomotive. It's that first car, the engine car, that's driving, that's empowering all of those cars. That train is being led by the locomotive. And in the same way, that's what we have here. Our walk and our being led is by the power of the Spirit. So that, brothers and sisters, there can be 50 of us in this room, and we can have all kinds of cars on our track. We can have yesterday's outreach with Manville. and we can have youth group, and we can have feeding hands coming up, and we can have VBS, and Sunday school, and Bible studies, and we can have all of these ministries. But brothers and sisters, the one that is propelling it, the power behind all of it that moves this train called Emmanuel Baptist Church, is the Holy Spirit. We want to be led by His power. We want to be walking with Him. Without the engine, the train just sits there. And without the Spirit of God animating the body of Christ, we just sit there. And this is true with all the cars in our lives. When you go off to work on Tuesday, and when you go off to your family, and relationships, and all of your sicknesses, and your burdens, and your chores, and your responsibility, what is the thing that's going to drive you? What is the thing that's going to empower you? It's by being led by the Spirit. It's by walking with the Spirit. He is the power of the train in our lives. Now, we mentioned this before, and all over Galatians there is a contrast. And I wonder if you could just pull them out of the text, but I'll remind you that all over Galatians, there is a contrast between faith and works, grace and law, spirit and what? In our text, there's a contrast between the spirit and the flesh. So that there's a balance here. Six times we are told about the flesh. The word flesh is used six times here, and the word spirit is used seven times. So you see that there's this contrast throughout the text. And so what is the flesh? There are various ways to get at it. But about 100 years ago or so, the London Times, the newspaper there, asked a question to certain authors. And the question was, what's wrong with the world? Here we are 100 years later still wondering that. But the question of that newspaper was, what's wrong with this world? And people wrote in. And one of them was G.K. Chesterton. G.K. Chesterton said, dear sirs, The answer to your question is, I am. Yours truly, GK Chesterton. So brothers and sisters, that is so true. There are many problems in the world, but do you know what the problems are? They stem from humanity. They stem from our evil hearts. They stem from our flesh. What's wrong with this world? It's the sin of man. It's the flesh of man. So turn on the headlines or figure out what happens in day-to-day life, and you know some of the things that happen out there in society. And where's it coming from? It's coming from the flesh. What's wrong with the world? I am, my sin nature, my flesh, it all contributes to this present evil age. Put seven billion sinners into a globe, and you will get a present evil age. It's us. We know the Wesleys, starters of the Methodist movement. They were all about holiness. John and Charles are good men. They gave us many hymns. And so we know John and Charles Wesley. But they had a mother, Susanna Wesley. And Mama Wesley said this. She basically talked about the flesh. And she said, the flesh is whatever weakens your reasoning. whatever impairs your conscience, whatever obscures your sense of God, whatever takes away your relish of spiritual things, that's the flesh. So that you can even be sitting in church and not relish spiritual things, you can have a dull reasoning, your conscience can be impaired, and it's you. It's your flesh. As Jesus would say, the flesh profits nothing. And we see what the flesh is in verse 15. It's that the church can act like a bunch of pack animals. It's that the church can bite and devour and consume one another. That's the flesh. The flesh is verse 15. It's that which gossips. It's that which judges. It's that which insists on your way. It's that which does not budge and does not forgive. It bites and devours and consumes those that are around you. That's the flesh. And we probably remember the great struggle of Romans 7. where Paul says, the good that I want to do, I don't do. And the bad that I don't want to do, I do. And he says, even as an apostle, with my mind in my inner man, I want to serve God. But what gets in the way of the apostle, he says, is this principle of sin, this principle of the flesh. So that the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak. And that's really what you have. What Paul does in Romans 7 over several verses there is what you have in our text in verse 17, this conflict within, between the spirit and the flesh, and they pull in different directions. Now, I said to you earlier that the Christian life is life in the spirit. You ought to remember that. That's a great way to understand it. That's what Paul is saying right here in Galatians 5, that the Christian life is life in the spirit. What is unsaved life? What is the non-Christian life? It's life in the flesh. It's life in verses 19 through 21. That's true of all of our unsaved. It's that kind of life, life in the flesh. And it's awful. And so, for just a few minutes here, since Paul with these bookends talks about walking in the Spirit, and that's so key, that we have been given spiritual life by the Spirit, and now we are to walk in that spiritual life. We are walking with the leadership of the Holy Spirit. How do we do it? How do we walk in the Spirit? I believe all these things, but how do we do it? And so, To pick up on that, think about it physically. Each one of us, once upon a time, physically learned how to walk. Your mom, your dad, somebody taught you how to walk. They held you out, they kept you from falling, they braced you, they picked you up, they helped your steps, they kept you balanced. We all learn to walk once upon a time. And in the same way, brothers and sisters, when our passage talks about walking in the spirit, there is a sense to which we have to be taught, we have to learn what it is. And yet, that being true, isn't it true physically with little babies that they just naturally will begin to walk? Instinctively, a little baby will begin to walk. You don't have to force it, it's just gonna happen. So that when they're first born, they lay on their backs. And they're first born, they lay on their stomachs. And eventually, they begin to hold up their heads. And eventually, they begin to put themselves on their arms. And they begin to wobble and rock back and forth. And eventually, they begin to crawl. It's just kind of happening. You don't get on the ground and start teaching them how to crawl. They just know how to do it. And then they go by the sofa or by the coffee table, and what do they do? They start pulling themselves up, and they start wobbling on their legs, but they're holding themselves up. And eventually they try to take a step, and they try to take a step, and they try to take a step. But because that process is happening, that's when you begin to hold up their little fingers, and that's when you pick them up and let them try again, because there's something instinctive and natural about that child that eventually he's gonna walk at around one year old. And so it is, brothers and sisters, and this is the good news, that though we need to be trained about walking in the Spirit, we need help with this, there is something very real. It's instinctive, it is natural for the Christian to walk in the Spirit. It just happens because of the presence of the Spirit. That in the new covenant, you remember in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and quoted in the book of Hebrews, it tells us what God is gonna do. that God is going to put his spirit in us. And what is he gonna do? He's gonna take out the heart of stone and put a new and living heart inside of us. And it says there that he's gonna put his spirit in us. This is the great promise of the gospel. He'll take out a bad heart, put a new heart in there, and he will put his spirit inside. And what does it say? I'll put my Spirit in you, and you will be careful to do my ways." Why are some of you careful to do God's ways? Why do you care about that? Why are you bothered when you don't? Why do you pray and long that things would be better in your walk in righteousness? It's because God has put the Spirit in you, and the Spirit makes you careful to do God's ways. He's making it instinctive. There is a proclivity because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. And was it say there that I will write my law in your heart so that the spirit, the law was written on stony tablets outside of Israel. Israel's problem is that they were sitting on rock and not in their hearts. But God will take the truth that was on the stones and he will write it on our hearts so that there is a proclivity. And who is writing the law of God on our hearts? It's the spirit that dwells within. So to be a Christian is to have the Spirit. To be a Christian is to have the Spirit that makes us careful to do God's ways, that is writing God's law in our hearts, so that in a real way, there is an instinct in all of God's people, so that Jeremiah would say, they shall not have to be taught to know the Lord. Do you know with a Christian, you don't have to beat him up, you don't have to scold him to know the Lord, because Jeremiah says, they shall all know me. Why do we know the Lord? Why do we have a sensitivity toward Him? Why do we desire Him? Why are we constantly repenting and coming to church? Why don't we have to be begged to come here? It's because the Spirit of God is at work in you, giving you certain proclivities, tendencies toward God. So that how do we walk in the Spirit? Well, the presence of the Spirit, He's doing things in you. He's making it natural, if you will. And yet, verse 16 does say, it does give us a charge. Paul commands us. It is an imperative. Walk in the Spirit. Paul is telling us to do that. God is telling us to do that. This is something that we must obey. Walk in the Spirit. Verse 25, you see there, he says, walk in the Spirit. And literally there in verse 25, It's talking about keep in step with the Spirit. It's a good picture. Keep in step with the Spirit. When you're walking with somebody, what do you do? You keep in step with them. And I think a picture of this could be something of a parade. I know that Yavi and Jamie They're away, but I know that those guys have experience with marching bands. And we all have seen parades, whatever parades, the Macy parades, the Mummers, whatever, you see groups of 50, 100, maybe even more, and they're all marching, and they're all marching in unison. They're moving their heads, they're moving their instruments, they're moving their hands and their legs, all as one, like a machine. They're all moving, and why are they keeping in step with each other? A hundred of them are marching in step with each other. Why? How is this happening? Because in the front of the pack, there is a leader of that marching band, and what is he doing? He's whistling, and he's giving sign gestures, and he's calling out. And when they see what their leader is doing, when they hear what their leader is doing, they march according to his leadership. And in the same way, brothers and sisters, all of God's people across the world across the ages in this room. There is one that is leading our walk and he has given us signs, he has given us gestures, he has given us ways so that we can march according to his leadership. And what are those ways in which he is commanding the church as a parade to walk under his leadership? Well, just like that parade leader is communicating, the Spirit of God communicates, and how does he do that? And we know how he does that. Because in the spiritual warfare passage, where Paul tells us to put on that armor, in Ephesians 6, remember it says there, the sword of the Spirit, and you know it, the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. The Spirit has a sword, it is the word of God, and he intends to use it. Brothers and sisters, the Spirit of God that breathed out the Word of God, the Spirit of God that illumines the Word of God to our understanding is the Spirit that intends to use the Word of God in our lives. And so as a parade leader would be giving out communications, the Spirit by the Word is communicating how to conduct our walk. And in Ephesians 6, not only is the spirit communicating by the word of God, this book, but it also talks about how we pray in the spirit. And so that when you walk with somebody, chances are they talk to you and you talk to them. They talk to you and you talk to them and you're walking, keeping in step with each other. And in the same way we walk with the spirit, he talks to us through the Bible and we talk to him in prayer. And when that happens, we begin to walk in the spirit step by step. So the Word is the first way, prayer is the second way, and the church is the third way. How do we walk by the Spirit? Well, you'll get marching orders if you come and sing. You'll get marching orders if you listen to the prayers. You'll get marching orders if you study the Bible with us. You'll get marching orders if you sit under sermons. Brothers and sisters, the first step is the Word, the second step with the Spirit is prayer, the third step is coming to church. The Spirit always, every Lord's Day, walks to church. And if you're walking with the Spirit, guess where He will take you? He will take you to church. He is the Spirit of the body, Paul says. He's here, and everyone following Him will be here as well. And this, it's by being here in the means of grace, it's by being here that He is shaping and forming our walk. We are to, the rest of the week, conduct ourselves according to God, but when we come into this room, the first day of the week, the first step of our walk this week, the Spirit here is forming us so that we keep the course, so that we keep in step with Him. This is a great first step this week. being here, to walk in the Spirit. But there is an obedience part to this. There's no magic with any of this. There is an obedience part to this, that as we keep in step with the Spirit, we follow His Word, we pray back to Him, we come to church, we're being shaped by Him. As we keep in spirit, there's an obedience that we don't do, verse 13, or that we do, verse 13. Verse 13 talks about serving one another in love. Brothers and sisters, you wanna know the walk of the Spirit? If you're walking with Him, we serve one another in love. You wanna know if you're walking with the Spirit? You simply keep away from verse 15. You don't bite and devour and consume one another. Spirit doesn't do that, and if you're walking with Him, you won't either. Simple matter of obedience, being a doer. Do you bite and devour and consume one another? That's not the walk of the Spirit. Do you serve in love? That's the walk of the Spirit. What kind of shape, what kind of form, what kind of pathway does the Spirit have? You find it there in verses 22 and 23. So that if you're keeping in step with the Spirit, guess what? It's gonna look like love. It's gonna look like goodness, kindness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness. That's the Spirit's walk, and if you're keeping in step with Him, that's what's gonna happen. He is walking in those things, and we will too if we are walking with Him. Brothers and sisters, the very last thing, as we walk in the Spirit, We're to believe the promise of verse 16, because there is a commandment there in the first part, walk in the spirit, but you notice the promise, you will not fulfill the eagerness of the flesh. Command, walk according to the spirit. If you do, you will not follow the course of the flesh. There's a promise there. And the reason why it's a promise is that if we keep in step with the spirit, taking on his word, taking on prayer, coming to church, availing ourselves of his resources, if we keep doing that, brothers and sisters, the spirit who is stronger than our flesh will keep us in line. He is the locomotive. Our flesh is strong, but the promise here is that the spirit is stronger, therefore walk with him. You know what the spirit will do? Because as we walk, as children, we stumble, there are obstacles, and we trip, and we fall. And Proverbs says, a just man will not stay down on the ground. You watch an athlete, they don't stay on the ground. Soon they fall, they get back up. And if they can't really get up, somebody will help pull them back up. What a picture for us. Because Proverbs says, a just man will fall, but he will get back up. And brothers and sisters, as we walk with the Spirit, there are gonna be times where we stumble just like little children. Did you ever walk across the floor and really, for no apparent reason, you stumble? Well, that's gonna happen in our spiritual lives. Because of the world, because of the devil, because of our flesh, we will stumble. But what does the Spirit do? He puts our attention back on Christ, and he says, George, Roman, Alex, Jana, Julio, Juan, he says, your acceptance is not in your walk. Your acceptance is in Jesus Christ. Now get up and walk. God bless it to us through Jesus Christ. Amen.