Walking in the Spirit: Part 1
So, you know, I was gone part of the week at District conference down in Indianapolis. And, you know, I have to say listening to a lot of other churches. We've been blessed with how well, we've fared covid so far and how much it's impacted us. You know, there was one particular church, that's in Roanoke where he was actually sharing with me that at that point in time. The only two people in the church that did not have covid-19 cure his wife. So we're really facing a struggle with it at their church and you know, wondering how it's going to impact them down the road, but we need to be thankful for that. What are the main thing is? We talked about through the couple days that we were gathered. There was just How you know, with covid happening in the impact that it has had on our society on our churches that, you know, it's kind of a loudest and a lot of weight. To hit the reset button and rethink the way we're doing some things real. Things that as we start things back up and you know, allowed to be an opportunity.
but the thing that we all realize also that we think going through, this struggle has made very apparent to all of us as church leaders is that Perhaps more than we would have expected. We are definitely in need of Revival as a church. Because of the fact, you know. We all know that if you don't do something for a while, if you get out of the habit of doing it, it's a lot easier to keep not doing it, right. And how many people buy fitness equipment in the, you know, the months of December and January and then they sell it on their garage sale in the summer because they don't use it. Well, unfortunately, with what's happened with covid and where people have gotten used to not going to church not being a part of social Gatherings, not being a part of a lot of stuff going on in the community. Now is churches and Community organizations are trying to restart things. people are still stuck in that rut of their used to not getting out, not doing those things and some things, you know, they want to get out and do but then other things they struggle to be a part of so, as I thought about that a lot fought about some of the scripture I heard from different speakers. I was kind of led to the idea that I think we're going to talk a lot about the Holy Spirit here. And really, what I'm going to kind of do is over these next couple weeks gonna give me a aerial view of Galatians chapter 5 verses 16 through 26, where it talks about, you know, the fruit of the spirit that then I'm going to go back through the fruit of the spirit that are listed there. And Take a closer. Look at each one of them cuz the truth is, if we are believers in Jesus Christ, if we are living Like we are in dwelt with the Holy Spirit. If we are living life as God intended, we should be seeing these fruit of the spirits. Like said will take a more in-depth. Look.
And I think sometimes we don't spend enough time thinking about the holy spirit cuz that's a little harder when to put a grasp on. You know, Jesus is a person so we can identify with what that you know, who he was. But, you know, just, as Jesus Christ, was the primary person behind the ideas of justification and sanctification.
The holy spirit is the primary person behind sanctification, you know, that process. We've talked about it. Continuing to shape us into the image of Jesus Christ. Yo, it's a Believer. We have to realize that we're no more capable of saving our self. Then we would have been of doing what Jesus accomplished on the cross. You know, we simply can't do it. We can't rid ourselves of sin. That's We can't do it. We've tried to do it. We try to do it by following rules in the law, but it always falls short. So the first verse I want to look at is Galatians 5:16.
So I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Yeah, kind of the contrasting theme in the book of Galatians. If you look at it is between the law and Grace. You know, Paul repeatedly shows that these two things are incompatible in a law and Grace, you know. Either if you're looking at them from the standpoint of Salvation or of sanctification law, and Grace just don't go well together. It's kind of an oil and water thing. Because you a person can't come to know God simply by law. Keeping a lot of people like to think that that if they simply just follow all the rules, then they're good. Then they've accomplished what they need to but you know, it just didn't work that way, you know, even the god-given law of Moses that was there. That was the old Covenant that was never meant as a means of salvation.
You know, the law was given as a way for man to see that it wasn't possible for them to live up to God standard that they couldn't match God's holy on their own. That's the whole reason it was given. So that they can see their need for God. That the people could understand how much they needed to be saved by God, you know, it was an effort to drive them towards Jesus Christ for men to see their need to see, they're falling us, and that's what it was all about. You know, it was so that God could lead them towards to say, Why was never meant to be the Savior law was meant to be the means to lead them towards the savior? I've heard one person say that the you know, the law was kind of like your tutor and salvation of it was there to help point the direction of where you needed to go.
Because, you know, the believer should realize that.
Even if they follow the law to the best of their ability, that's not what's going to save them. What's going to save them, is their personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And if they have a relationship with Christ, if they've given their life to him, then they've already been adopted into God's, Heavenly household as a son or daughter of God, that's already been accomplished.
But, you know, it's the holy spirit that will continue to guide them as we go through this process of sanctification as we go through the process of God.
We need the Holy Spirit. There with us, continue to guide us on that path. You know, we can try to do all the things in our effort and we should do all these things, you know, Bible study prayer, worship witnessing and other things. Believers, and they are.
But we have to realize that simple spirituality can't accomplish. What the Holy Spirit can. And your spirituality cannot be measured by how often you do these things. I mentioned or how intensely you do those things. Just because you go to Bible study five days a week, doesn't mean that you're where you need to be spiritually. Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that, that as long as I participate in everything that I can participate in church, then I'm good. You know, I've had a few people say to me while you know, the nice thing is now that I go to church online. I can go to church every day. So that's better, right?
Not necessarily. So.
You know, Holiness comes only from the Holy Spirit. You have to realize that holy living doesn't come by how well. We perform, the things that are commanded of us in Scripture. Holy living comes only by the work that God performs on us and God performs at work through the Holy Spirit.
But unfortunately, in our pride and ignorance, you know. We think that as long as we live by this outward list of rules and commands and everything that looks good on the outside as a Christian, that will be okay, but everything will be fine that everything will appear to be great.
If that was what was happening in the galatian church, that's what they were trying to do. They were trying to base their spirituality off of the things that they could do off of the things they could control off of the way. It gave an appearance to others around them.
That's why Paul is commanding them to walk in the spirit. We know that it's a command. I won't go through trying to, like, parse the Greek for you and all of that. But if you actually look at the original Greek word, that was meant there. Is translated as walk with the Holy Spirit, but the idea of it is that you know, it's a continuous regular actions. It would almost be to keep walking with the Holy Spirit to continually do this thing, you know, in other words. He wanted to become a habitual part of our daily. Walk with the Holy Spirit, not just be something we do for an hour on Sunday morning. But you continually walk with the Holy Spirit. And then there's also the fact that, you know, it's a verb and it's a verb that is in the imperative mood which indicates that this is not an option. It's a command. and, You know, that's the thing. That's hard for us. Sometimes think. Isn't it? But something's a command not an option. I believe Mary was talking about that if, you know, having to tell some parents, it's okay to tell your kids. No, sometimes they may not like it, but they need to hear it. We have to understand the same thing from scripture that there are times when we are commanded to do things. You know, another thing that the idea of walking implies is progress, right? If you're continually walking, then hopefully you're actually going somewhere. You know, hopefully your whole life is not just a treadmill where you're stuck with the same view. But if we are walking with Christ, we should be making progress toward something. We should be moving towards something. And where God is trying to move. This is from the place where we were. We came to him. Where he wants us to be into, really where God needs us to be to be used in the way that he wants us to be. And when the believer submits his life fully to The Holy Spirits control, he's saying that he's open to that as he walks with the holy spirit is willing to go wherever the Holy Spirit might lead. Whatever might lie there to do whatever God needs them to do at that point.
And that is often the difficult part for us.
You know, we don't understand that of, you know, being told by God. Okay, I need you to go here and do this for this reason at this time, cuz that didn't always necessarily fit with our schedule, right of how we plan things out.
How many people in this room can say that the plan you had for your life? When you graduated as a senior from high school? Everything has went exactly according to that plan from that day forward.
You can't you haven't graduated yet, but still need a few more years, honestly, but none of us can say that. I remember when I went to Seminary, I was sure of two things.
I would never return to Indiana and I would never serve in the United Methodist Church.
Guess what? Got laughed at that, obviously. But that often happens with our plans, the two things we don't think will happen or what.
The funny thing is, I can stand on this side of some of that life experience now and look back at things that were hard for us to go through things that were difficult for us to go through and see how if all that stuff haven't happened back then I wouldn't be where I am now.
When were younger, it's hard to think about that. And it's hard to think how anything could change our plans, our shift, our view, or change our desires. But it happens when we're living Nets or surrendered life to the Holy Spirit.
I always remember to men's accountability group. I had the guy who let it CV. Elliott, who's some people here know they went to a Columbia with him.
Kia would always share with us that the safest place for you to be is in the center of God's will.
Doesn't matter if that's across the street from the house you grew up in or if it's in the middle of Baghdad. That's the safest place for you to be is in the center of God's will ever that leads you. That's a challenge for us to think that way and certainly even more challenging to live that way. So we have to realize that the power for Christian Living comes entirely from the Holy Spirit, just as the power for salvation comes only from Jesus Christ.
Do we have to realize that if we're living our life apart from the power of the holy spirit that we are running on fumes, that we are doing something that will work for a little while, but it's not going to last.
You know, cuz God doesn't want us to put all of our time and effort into something. That's not going to accomplish something. He has a role for each and every one of us in the kingdom of God.
It's just, are we willing to submit Our Lives to the Holy Spirit and find out what that is and to move forward obeying where the Holy Spirit leads us. Galatians chapter 6, verses 9 and 10. Just let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time. We will reap a harvest. If we do not give up. Therefore as we have opportunity. Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
You know, like I said, a Believer who is led by the holy spirit is to go wherever the Holy Spirit, guides him and to do whatever the Holy Spirit leads him to do.
And, you know, like I said, that's often the challenge cuz sometimes we will go to that. Place will do that thing, and we don't see immediate results. Are we don't see the results that we necessarily think should be happening. But that's when we have to be faithful. That's when we have to trust in the power of the Holy Spirit. In what we're doing and what he's feeding us to do. Cuz, you know, if we claim that we are fully surrendered to try and see if we claim that. We're fully surrendered to the power, in the work of the holy spirit in our lives, but then we turn around and don't do it yet. It's exactly what it says in. Luke chapter 6, verse 46. It says
And do not do what I say.
How many of a saver fully submitted to God but yet we don't want to listen to God suggestions on what he wants us to do. We're only motivated by our goals and our purposes.
you know, when to walk in the spirit to really do that as we're supposed to mean, since there are going to be a lot of times when we do things that
you know, we're not going to do the things that maybe, Our Earthly desires, our fleshly desires and everyone are leading us to do or maybe we're not going to do the same things that the rest of the crowds doing Romans 13:14. Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. I do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
Go to walk in the spirit means that we are going to do our best every day to live our life. As we know, God wants us to live in. One commentator I read said it is to live your life in the light of day. So to live your life out in the open where everyone sees it but you don't have to be worried about everyone seeing your life because you know, you're being led by the spirit.
So you don't have to be worried about what are people going to think about this? What are they going to think about that?
But we all know where that can turn if we make the choice to follow, our fleshly desires instead and to walk that out every day until that out, every day can lead us down a much, much different path. And that's what we're being cautioned about when he's telling the Galatians to walk in the spirit.
Cuz we have to realize, you know, we're either walking in the spirit or we're not. It's one of those things where there's only two options. You can't spend half your time walking in the spirit and half the time not walking in the spirit. Because the desires of the spirit, in the desires of our flesh, are two totally incompatible thing.
Being like oil and water. So you can't live on both sides of that fence. You can only do one or the other. In the spirit, fill fly for the christ-like life. Means that, you know, we have surrendered our life to the Holy Spirit to the point that our thoughts are emotions. Everything is saturated. That's God's truth, that it's filled with God's love and that's where we come to the fruit of the spirit that we see listed there.
Colossians 3:16 Says, let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish. One another with all wisdom through songs, hymns and songs of spirit sing to God with gratitude and your hearts.
Life walked in the spirit, is simply choosing to live our life in a way that we see patterned after the life of Jesus Christ. If we look at the life that he lived in his 33 years that he was here on Earth. He lived a Spirit-filled life.
What's a life that's filled with this constant overriding desire to do, is it says, in Philippians 3, 9, where it says be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law. But that which is through faith in Christ. The righteousness that comes from God on the basis of State. As we going to verse 10, we see that it's enough, the desire to know Christ. He has to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.
That's where it often gets scary for us as Believers and that no one likes the idea of death.
But are we willing to surrender our life to that point? Are we willing to allow our fleshly desires? Our worldly once and things? To die. To the point that we can begin to live in the Holy Spirit.
You know, it's a challenge to all of us in.
You know, to be 100% honest. I know for myself, it's always one of those things when you read through the fruit of the spirit, who else catches them, self thinking, okay?
Do I live that one out, too? I live this one out, you know as you go through that list. Challenge. And that's why I have to be take this kind of overview. We're going to take a more in-depth look. Do you know something I noticed since last week and sides making out my sermon schedule for? Janine that we always use through the end of the year. So I was looking at that. I noticed that the four themes that we usually put with Christmas and we usually do Advance, you know, the same four things. Those are four of the fruit.
So we'll try that and as we get towards Christmas also, and I think it'll be a good study for us to look at and take time to really examine our in our hearts.
Univision's chapter 5 that talks about being filled with the spirit in 518.
You know, really what I'm talking about is walking in the spirit. Is it any different than saying that you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
She knows something we so often forget. Is that just like we have to invite Christ? Into our life, into our hearts to receive salvation to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need to invite him to fill us. Also.
We need to invite him to help us to. Die to ourselves and begin living. For Christ, not just for ourselves. So these next weeks we're going to take a look at that and, you know. I was looking at our church schedule and I realize math. There is something going on every night of this next week here at the church. Something in one way or another.
You know, yeah, it's just Girl Scouts on Friday night, and that's not necessarily a church activity, but yet. It's making a witness. To those girls who are allowed. Star Building. And
You know, Monday night we have Healthy Families is here. Would have been Sarah Haggard run set now and you know, she comes here with family.