The Daily Walk

Good morning and Welcome Home Cross Creek family, guests, and everyone joining us online on Facebook or YouTube.

Today is the last day of May, and all month we have been pressing into the promises of the Holy Spirit in this sermon series, “New Wine, Fresh Oil.” Each Sunday, we’ve pressed a little deeper.

I want to commend everyone who has stepped outside their comfort zones in faith this month to get all that the Spirit has had for us! We are going to pivot in June to a focus on Faith and Family, but not before I give one final teaching about the indwelling Spirit.

I’d like to jump right in today with an illustration from my own life. My husband will tell you that I’m generally not afraid of heights. But last Summer, we were driving up a winding mountain road to visit our daughter, Josi, in West Virginia. Suddenly, we came across the New River Gorge Bridge - and I instantly had second thoughts about being in the driver’s seat.

This structure is a three-thousand-foot long, single-span arch bridge. It is the longest steel span in the Western Hemisphere, suspended nearly 900 feet above the canyon floor.

Now, even with standard safety features, it was tough for me to just casually drive across that bridge at 60 miles an hour listening to music. But could you imagine if there were absolutely no guardrails? No concrete walls, no steel cables - just a flat piece of asphalt hanging hundreds of feet over a rocky abyss?

If that were the case, anyone would be gripped by paralyzing fear. You would white-knuckle that steering wheel, crawl forward at five miles an hour, and hug the exact center line of the road. In that moment, the total absence of boundaries wouldn’t make you feel free. It would completely restrict you from moving forward. It would paralyze your progress.

But the thick, heavy steel guardrails on the bridge that day didn’t make me think “Man, just look at how the government is trying to restrict my freedom!” No. Because they were there, I could step on the gas, glance (briefly) at the view, and cross the canyon with confidence.

Healthy boundaries don’t box you in; they give you the freedom to move.

Today, we are wrapping up our sermon series by diving into Galatians chapter 5. We are looking at how the Holy Spirit is the ultimate guardrail of the human soul, and how walking step-by-step with Him provides the freedom we need to live a fruitful, Spirit-led life.

We live in a culture that tells us boundaries are bad - that true freedom means having no rules, no limits, and no perimeters. But the truth is, when we step inside the boundaries of the Spirit, we don’t find a prison; We find the freedom to actually live. And when the Spirit gives us that “nudge” to step outside our comfort-zone for the sake of the Kingdom, He never lets us fall.

Because - let’s be honest: life has a way of taking us right to the edge of some terrifyingly high drops. God wants us to be bold, brave, and trust Him in all our circumstances.

We often like to think that following Jesus means a smooth, flat road with no problems and no risk. But the reality is that we are not immune to frightful moments of tribulation. The valleys of life are real, the drops are steep, and the winds of trouble blow hard against us.

Jesus Himself didn’t hide this from us. In John 16:33 (NIV) He said, “In the world you will have trouble; but take heart! I have overcome the world.” Notice He didn’t say you might have trouble. He said you will.

David echoes this exact same reality in Psalm 34:19 (NIV) when he says, “The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all”

Scripture is incredibly honest with us. God never promises that we won’t cross scary bridges. He never promises that the canyon floor beneath us won’t be deep. But what He does promise is a Guardrail and the power to get to the other side.

Our confidence in those frightful moments doesn’t come from our own driving skills, our own strength. Our confidence comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit. He is the boundary that keeps us from plummeting. He is the rescue that meets us in the trouble. He is the fresh fire that fuels our faith to go beyond our own limitations.

Pray

Thanksgiving: that You do not leave us to navigate life alone

Confession: where we’ve been trying to survive in our own strength

Open eyes, and open hearts to be sensitive to His voice

Recognize quiet corrections and bold nudges

Push back distraction, anxiety, and cynicism

Release peace, transformation by Your Word from the inside out

Look with me at Galatians 5:25 where Paul urges “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

On the surface, that sounds almost repetitive. If you’re alive, don’t you just automatically walk? But Paul is doing something brilliant here. This single phrase distinguishes between two totally different dimensions of the Christian experience.

Living in the Spirit refers to possessing new spiritual life as a received gift. It’s your position. It’s your ticket onto the road, and into the Kingdom. It means you’ve been saved, Born Again, and given a brand-new engine - the Holy Spirit - by which to move through life.

Walking in the Spirit means habitually conducting yourself according to the Spirit’s mind and guidance. It is a choice and an action that requires your participation. It’s how you drive your new life. It requires your faith in His leading, your moment-by-moment attention and your step-by-step submission.

Here’s why this distinction matters right now: because we are living in a time when the greatest virtues of faith, hope and love are under constant attack.

You can have the gift of new life inside you, but if you do not actively walk in it, the despair of this world will cause you to veer off the road. If you do not habitually conduct yourself according to the Spirit, the cynicism of our culture will pull you into the canyon. Rage will cause you to crash.

It’s not enough to just stand on the bridge, looking at the view of the Kingdom and claiming we have life. We must learn to drive with confidence across the hills and valleys, entering the fullness of the Kingdom by the unction of the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 3:5–10 tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart...” “In all your ways acknowledge Him...” “Fear the Lord and depart from evil...” and “Honor the Lord with all you have...” As we trust, acknowledge, fear and honor Him, He promises in that same scripture to direct our path, bring health to our flesh, strength to our bones, and to fill our vessels to overflowing.

So how do we do that? How do we practice this daily walk without crashing into the cultural chaos around us? It starts by understanding the first dimension of this Spirit-led itinerary.

Perimeter (The Boundary)

To understand how to walk this out every single day, we have to look first at the perimeter. The Holy Spirit functions as the circumference, the boundary line, and the ultimate perimeter of our daily lives.

Our culture hates the idea of boundaries. The world tells us that boundaries are a prison, that rules are restrictive. It’s the age-old tension between the law our human propensity to break it.

But look at how Paul redefines freedom for us in Galatians 5:14 (NIV) “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

And just a few verses earlier, in Galatians 5:5–6 (NIV) he says, “For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love.”

Paul paints a clear picture of the boundaries. On one side of the road, the perimeter is marked by Faith. On the other side of the road, it is marked by Love.

This is the lane the Holy Spirit has paved for us. True Christian freedom is not the liberty to do whatever your flesh wants; true freedom is the divinely given ability to stay within the lines of faith and love, even when the world around us is plummeting into cynicism and rage. In this way, the Holy Spirit acts as our governing principle. He is our safeguard against fleshly desires.

When I was driving across that New River Gorge Bridge, I didn’t have to hit the steel guardrails to know they were there. If I started to drift even a few inches toward the edge, my eyes saw the line, my stomach dropped, and I pulled the wheel back to safety.

That is exactly how the Holy Spirit works as your Perimeter. When you step out of bounds, the Spirit signals this violation, prompting you to repent and return. Think of how a smart-watch sends an alert when your heart rate gets too high. It ‘pings’ your attention, sends a buzz into your wrist, and says, “take a moment to breathe.”

When you get that email or comment or phone call this week that makes your blood boil, and your flesh wants to respond with bitter sarcasm - that’s you drifting toward the edge of the bridge. The Holy Spirit is the one who ‘pings’ your conscience. He creates that internal check in your spirit. He alerts you the exact moment you start to step out of bounds.

And what should we do when we feel that alert in our spirit? We don’t argue with the notification - we trust the guardrail! We immediately repent, pull back the wheel, and take a deep breath.

Jesus spoke about this continuous, daily correction in John 13:10. He told His disciples, “Those who have been bathed need only to wash their feet.” Meaning they already live in the Spirit, their position is secure - but they still need to wash their feet.

Why? Because walking in a dusty, broken world means our feet get dirty. Walking across the bridges of daily life means we will occasionally drift toward the edge. We step out of bounds. But the perimeter of the Spirit is there to safeguard us, to convict us, and gently wash us clean so we can keep moving forward.

If we want to survive the cultural drop, we have to respect the perimeter.

This “ping” in our Spirit doesn’t just alert us when we are drifting into danger. It also applies when the Holy Spirit wants us to step outside the perimeter of our own comfort zones. We are urged by Him to stay within the lines of faith and love, but also urged by Him to push our own boundaries of what those lines represent.

The Lord reminded me that when I was first saved, He “nudged” me quite often to step out into the aisle and go forward to receive something He had for me. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. But I really got to know what that “nudge” felt like on Sunday mornings. It wasn’t about being in front of everybody, it was about pushing my boundaries of faith.

The more I heeded that feeling to respond, the more familiar I became with the holy “nudge” of the Spirit. Then I started feeling it outside of church - when I was in the coffee shop, or the grocery store, or my office. The Spirit would nudge me to push my comfort level and approach someone in faith or love. Soon, it became second nature to “hear” what the Spirit was saying because I became so familiar with the nudge.

It feels something like a knot in my stomach that won’t come loose until I obey. It isn’t fear - it’s the fear of the Lord.

Do you see what the Holy Spirit is doing here? The enemy wants you to think that the Spirit’s boundaries are only there to keep you small and restricted. But the truth is, the exact same guardrail that keeps you from falling is the very thing that gives you the security to step out. The Spirit doesn’t just nudge you to keep on the road; He nudges you to show you how solid the ground beneath you actually is. When we obey that nudge, we realize the guardrails are still there. We aren’t falling. We are stepping out of the boat and into the power of the Kingdom.

But walking in the Spirit is more than just staying inside the lines or responding to the nudges. It’s also about the very air you breathe while you go along. And that brings us to our second dimension...

Environment (The Routine)

Once you respect the perimeter, you begin to notice something incredible: The Holy Spirit is not just our safeguard; He is our environment. We inhabit God as one inhabits air; He functions as our dwelling and home, and within Him we move with freedom.

To walk in the Spirit means to inhabit an entirely different atmosphere. The Apostle Paul captured this beautifully when he spoke to the culture of Athens in Acts 17:28 “for in Him we live and move and have our being”

Walking in the Spirit requires a thought-by-thought, decision-by-decision submission throughout the entire day. It’s a daily, rhythmic routine. That’s why Paul said in his second letter to the Corinthian church to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

This isn’t just about what you do for an hour on Sunday morning. This is about how you operate on Tuesday at 2:00 PM when the pressures of your daily demands are pulling you in a thousand different directions. The workplace is often where worldly pressures try to suffocate our faith, trapping us in cycles of anxiety and stress.

But God is the environment we inhabit.

When you treat the Holy Spirit as your everyday environment, the ‘nudge’ stops being a terrifying, random jolt. It becomes a natural rhythm. A believer who lives in the environment of the Spirit learns to instantly recognize when the current is moving them to speak to a coworker, pray for a friend, or hold back an angry response.

Think of a dancer or a swimmer. A swimmer doesn’t fight the water; they submerge themselves in it. They move within the water. They allow the water to support them, and they adjust their posture to work with the element, not against it. A dancer doesn’t fight the rhythm of the music; they sync their footsteps to the beat.

Walking in the Spirit means continually allowing Him to transform us. Adapting the way we live and move according to His rhythm, and the flow of His presence. That is the routine of the daily walk.

Just as walking requires taking one step at a time, being filled with the Spirit involves living under the Spirit’s control in a thought-by-thought, decision-by-decision manner. To trust Him and lean not on our own understanding. This ongoing practice operates across the whole of life - our thoughts, feelings, desires, speech, and actions both inwardly and outwardly.

When you step into your office, when you open your laptop, when you pick up your kids or walk into the grocery store, you are swimming in the presence of God. You are moving within Him as He is also in you.

Practicing this environment means that throughout the day, you are constantly syncing your pace to His pace. When a stressful thought enters your mind, instead of letting it pollute your environment, you take a breath and remember: ‘In Him, I live. In Him, I move. In Him, I have my being.’ You choose to breathe in His peace and exhale the world’s panic.

But just like a dancer doesn’t learn the steps without practice, and a swimmer can’t win the race without exercising. It’s a habitual routine of turning your attention back to Him, moment by moment that will strengthen this discipline. Listen for, and get familiar with the “nudge.”

If we are going to sustain this daily routine in a world filled with chaos and distraction, it cannot be just an external habit. It has to become an internal reality. It’s not enough for the Spirit to just surround us; the Holy Spirit must consume us.

And that brings us to the third and deepest dimension of the Spirit-led life: The Element.

Element (The Internal Reality)

We’ve looked at the perimeter, the boundaries that keeps us safe on the road. We’ve looked at the routine environment we inhabit as we move. But finally, we have to look at the internal reality, the elemental dimension of walking in the Spirit.

Because here is the beautiful, mind-blowing truth of the Gospel: the Kingdom of God is not just a destination “out there somewhere” that we are trying to reach. The Kingdom of God is in you. The Holy Spirit doesn’t just want to surround your life; He wants to occupy your heart.

Jesus promised this intimate reality to His disciples in John 14:20 & 23 “On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you... My Father will love them, and We will come to them and make Our home with them.”

Think about that. The God who created the New River Gorge, the God who spans the canyons of the universe, wants to make His home in you. He wants to be the very element of your inner life.

But when the Holy Spirit moves in, an internal conflict begins. Look at how Paul describes this struggle in Galatians 5:16–17 (NIV) “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”

This is where the rubber meets the road in our daily walk.

Inside every single one of us, there is a war over who controls the dashboard. The flesh is loud, reactive, and demanding. It wants to steer us back toward the world’s cynicism, anxiety, and rage.

The flesh wants us to worry about how we are perceived by others, but the Spirit is only concerned with how we are living for God. When the Holy Spirit is your element from which you draw your very being, He begins to push back against those old patterns from the inside out.

The flesh and the Spirit are in direct conflict with each other, and like poles on two opposing magnets - they resist each other elementally - because of their very nature. As you allow the Holy Spirit transform you from the inside out, you become the opposite of the world, naturally resistant to the desires of the flesh.

And look what happens when the Spirit wins that internal conflict. Look at the landscape of a life governed by Him in Galatians 5:22–24 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Did you catch that phrase? ‘Against such things there is no law.’

This is the ultimate definition of freedom. When you are operating in the fruit of the Spirit, you don’t need external laws to keep you in bounds. You don’t need a sign telling you not to drive off the bridge because you have no desire to jump! By becoming one with the Spirit we fulfill the law because we completely lose our desire to sin and are totally driven by faith and love.

True spiritual freedom is reached when you have the settled conviction that nothing worth having exists outside of Jesus.

When His Spirit becomes your internal Element, you realize something life-changing: The ‘guardrail’ and the ‘nudge’ are the exact same voice. It is the same loving Spirit. When you are drifting toward danger, His voice is a guardrail that says, ‘Stay inside.’ When you are sitting in a moment of opportunity to share His love, His voice is a nudge that says, ‘Step out.’

You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through life, because you trust the one Voice of Holy Spirit. His character naturally flows out of you. You don’t have to fake kindness; the Spirit produces it. You don’t have to manufacture peace in a crisis; the Spirit supplies it.

You are no longer a frantic swimmer fighting the waves. You are resting in the Element that carries you forward.

So, how do we take this truth off the pages of Scripture and walk it out tomorrow morning? Let’s look at our next steps...

Summary (Application) - This is the “bottom line,” drive it home. Apply the Gospel message

As we wrap up this series, ‘New Wine, Fresh Oil,’ let’s look back at the map of this daily walk. We don’t have to live in fear of the troubles in this world. God has given us everything we need to move forward with absolute confidence.

He is the Perimeter: He has drawn the boundary lines of faith and love that keep our feet from slipping into the cultural abyss.

He is the Environment: We live, and move, and have our being inside His very atmosphere, empowering us to handle the heavy pressures of our every day lives.

He is the Element: The Holy Spirit is living in us, resolving our internal conflicts and naturally producing the fruit of deep, internal transformation.

When you look at this whole picture, you realize something profound about the Gospel of the Kingdom: The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of absolute liberty.

Religion tells you that God’s boundaries are a prison designed to take away your fun. The enemy wants you to look at God’s Word and see restrictions, rules, and limitations. But the Gospel tells us that God’s boundaries are the very guardrails that protect our freedom.

Think about the Garden of Eden. God didn’t give Adam and Eve boundaries because He wanted to lock them up. He gave them a boundary to keep them connected to the true source of Life. The moment humanity decided to break past God’s perimeter - the moment we demanded a freedom with no rules, no limits, and no perimeters - we didn’t find liberation. We crashed into the canyon of sin, brokenness, and death.

But Jesus came to rescue us from the wreckage at the bottom of the canyon.

On the cross, Jesus took the full crush of our sin so that we could be lifted back up. He didn’t just forgive us to leave us standing abandoned on the side of the road. He gave us His Holy Spirit to put a brand-new engine in our hearts, paint the lines of righteousness, and lead us into true, unshakable freedom.

Tomorrow morning, when you wake up and step out the door into a chaotic world, you don’t have to white-knuckle your way through the day. You don’t have to crawl forward in fear. The Guardrails are secure. The Atmosphere is full of His presence. The King is on the throne, and His Spirit is inside you.

Step on the gas. Keep in step with the Spirit. And walk in the freedom of the King!

Pray (Stand)

For discipline to not just live in salvation, but walk in the Spirit

Obedience to the Holy Nudge - immediate boldness when knot appears

Trusting God and His guardrails when we step out

Resting in the Holy Spirit’s atmosphere of peace

Submit our hearts to the Spirit cultivating Kingdom fruit

Tithes & Offerings

Benediction

May the Holy Spirit fill you with peace, guard your steps with faith and love, and give you the boldness to obey every holy nudge this week. Step on the gas, walk in the Spirit, and with the freedom of Christ! Go in peace - you are dismissed.