Sermon Tone Analysis

Gal 5: 16-17, 22-25

 

                Wednesday before last; we started to look at these verses in Galatians 5 about the constant struggle between our Flesh and the spirit of God.

I don’t know about you; but there have been times in my life where things were just moving along so smoothly, so effortlessly with God and me that I began to think that this Christian life was a cinch.

If you have thought that too; you also know that that feeling is very short lived.

It was around moments like that; when I thought it was just a sure steady march ahead in the things of God; when the flesh reared up its ugly head; and before I knew I had said something, did something that I thought was died and gone; yet the flesh proved to be alive and well!

I had taken three steps forward but because of my flesh striving inside my body; I took two steps back!

I think you know what I’m talking about don’t you?

Sunday comes; God is real, God speaks, you listen and heed, you get right, you think right, you want to be right more than ever before; it just couldn’t get better you think.

Do you know why that is? That’s God’s Presence for you.

This lasts probably up to about Tuesday afternoon; or maybe this sense of God leaves us sooner that Tuesday.

Before we know it we are pulled here and there, blown away like a feather in the wind, the world has it’s way with us, the flesh is coming out left and right; all this brings us the place where the majority of Christians live on an daily basis; in frustration!

You can ask any Christian that is there at this moment and they will say that they know what is right and wrong, they know what sin is, they know the Lord is real and that they are saved; they know that their sin grieves the Lord; yet they don’t know how to make the Lord’s power real in their lives!

They feel like a hostage; even worse a prisoner to themselves!

 

          That’s where you have been or will be some day.

You are going to find out that there’s more to being a Christian than just being forgiven of your sins and having a home in heaven!

There’s more to being a Christian than just waiting around for the Lord to come back.

God doesn’t want you just too endure life; but to enjoy life!

God doesn’t want us just to cope with the problems of life but to conquer them and give Him the glory!

Thank God I have already been there and done that and I don’t want to go back!

I have realized a long time ago that Jesus didn’t shed his precious blood and give his life for a half way deliverance from sin! Jesus didn’t die so you could settle to be a hostage or prisoner for the rest of your life.

I have realized that though the flesh is real and strong; yet there is someone else inside of me that more stronger, more mightier, more powerful and more persuasive than the flesh is; that someone is the Holy Spirit of God!

I know we don’t always know this power in our lives; but it is available to us nonetheless.

In fact, as far as God is concerned the only reason why we don’t walk after the Spirit is because we just don’t want too or just don’t know how too.

Believe me the problem isn’t with God!

The problem is somewhere with us.

Most Christians think this way; “Well, I have lived in the flesh for so long and it’s just what I’m accustomed too; so though I know its wrong; it’s just easier to live after the flesh no matter if I do destroy my own life the process.”

If you are resigned to live after the flesh as a Christian you will destroy yourself!

Living to please the flesh will involve sin and “/sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death;”/ the bible says!

Don’t kid yourself, there are Christians, truly saved; everywhere strung out on this drug and that drug; in alcoholism, pornography, adultery, stealing, murder.

In jails, in prisons, in hospitals, in asylums, and in the grave that lived after the flesh because it was just easier than trying to learn to walk after the Spirit.

And you know what?

So be it!

The fault of the matter doesn’t lay with God!

The problem isn’t that Jesus is a fake savior or that salvation is incomplete; the problem is that they have settled for the prison life rather than the free life that salvation brings.

They want deliverance alright yet their terms on their conditions rather than on the terms of Christ, and that won’t happen!

I don’t know about you; but I lived enough after the flesh as a lost person.

And I ain’t going back.

Unless you share these same feelings then your wasting your time here tonight; yea, you are wasting your very life just to maintain pretense or an outward show that everything is alright when it really isn’t.

Your heart is still bent towards the flesh!

Last time we waded through the muck and mire of the flesh in vv.

19-21 so we won’t cover them again.

But I will say, that if you have ever wondered if you were living after the flesh; all that is needed is to check this list and the others that the bibles gives.

I also want to say that the flesh inside of you will always be there!

There never is a time when the flesh isn’t there and there will never be a time when you will be separated from it until you shed this body mortality and put on immortality.

Just mark it down the flesh isn’t going away; so you must learn to deal with it the way God says so!

 

          The only way to counteract the pull of the flesh; is by walking after the spirit of God that indwells us.

So we have here tonight three things that we need to know about walking after the spirit.

I.

The Possibility of Walking after the Spirit.

/Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

/

 

A.

Personal Responsibility/ /

/“Walk in the Spirit”/

Boy, that sounds possible to me! On whom does Paul place the burden of active on?

i.e. who did Paul tell to do the walking?

God? Jesus?

The Holy Spirit?

No! Paul addresses these Christians, because that’s where the problem lays as well as the solution; humanly speaking.

They were expected to do the walking in the spirit!

Since Paul even brings this up; then that tells me that there is a possibility for me too to live after the spirit so as not to live after the flesh.

Don’t think that you are bound to live after the flesh, you not!

You don’t have to give in and just settle for it because it just seems easier.

It is possible for you to walk (live) after the spirit of God and not be pulled down by the flesh!

By the way, keep this in mind.

You have to do your own walking in the spirit for yourself.

No one can do your walking for you.

We are here tonight not because I have done the walking for you, No! We are here tonight to reinforce the walking that you should have done for yourself.

The reason why you don’t get nothing from the preaching is because you are always in a state remediation.

I.e.

God is always getting on you for not staying up with Him! God can’t teach you anything new because you have mastered the very simple thing of walking.

Why should I expect Madison to drive the car; when she haven’t even mastered ride a bike first?

Some people think that the preacher does their walking in the spirit for them!

“Well I haven’t cracked open my bible since last service; but that’s ok, the preacher has, that’s good enough for me”.

I can not get saved for you more than I can walk after the spirit for you!

No, you had to get saved for yourself and if there’s any walking to be done for you, it must be done you!

Because that is so, guess whose to blame if you don’t walk after the spirit?

If you haven’t figured me out by now; let tell you that I have a “take-no-prisoners” philosophy about the things of the ministry.

That means if you want to serve God with me, then you’re going to serve God because you want to serve God not because I make you serve God.

That means you going to be what you should be for God; because you want it for yourself!

I don’t have time to tend to prisoners; but I do have time for fellow soldiers.

Paul is saying that it is possible for you to walk in the spirit; if you want it then it starts with you!

 

B.

Promise 

/“and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”/

Did you hear that/ “shall not” /there?/ /That sounds like a promise to me; if you walk after the spirit.

That’s like /“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”/

That means if you walk after the spirit you will not /accomplish or carry out/ the desires and dictates of the flesh.

The flesh will still be there, but it will be overridden by a higher law; which is the spirit of God.

The way to make sure that I’m not living after the flesh, is to make sure that I’m walking in the spirit!

The only safe guard you have against the flesh is to make sure that you are under the control of the spirit of God!

Watch it!

Some want to stop living after the flesh, because they know it will ruin their lives; waste their money, but they don’t care to live after the spirit with all the things that it includes.

You can’t stop living after the flesh and yet not live after the spirit.

Such thinking leads us to pretend like the Pharisees were doing when Jesus showed up.

They paraded around the fact that they from the surface didn’t let the flesh run wild like others did; yet they refused to live after the spirit also!

Thereby; still being in the flesh, yet more religious.

Listen don’t play the hypocrisy game!

Which is basically the flesh trying to hold back flesh; while you don’t walk after the spirit!

That’s the first thing we see the Possibility of walking after the spirit.

Second Notice verse 17.