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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.
Life in the Spirit
Series Galatians
| Sermon ID | 1013241943382573 |
| Duration | 45:22 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Galatians 5:13-26 |
| Language | English |
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