Keeping In Step

So let’s continue on our conversation about the Holy Spirit! If you have your Bibles you can meet me in Galatians 5. That’s where we will be looking at our study of the Spirit’s work in our lives.

So to recap last week, we talked about who the Holy Spirit is but didn’t get too in depth. We understand that the Holy Spirit is God and we lives within us when we believe Jesus saved us from eternal separation from God the Father. We talked a little bit about His role in convicting us to stay away from making bad choices as well.

So what we are going to do today is talk more about what it means to Keep in step with the Spirit.

Turn to your Bibles to Galatians 5. It’s in the New Testament, feel free to use your table of contents.

Just to give you a bit of context in what we are reading. Galatians is a Letter written by a man named Paul. He wrote it to a church in Galatia which is modern day turkey. Here’s a map of where it was. the problem with this church was that they said they believed in Jesus Christ but were living like they were still believers of other gods.

It’s like saying your a vegetarian but you go to burger king and get a whopper. You just don’t do that.

So Paul’s letter was to say hey, you said you believe in Jesus, so live like you believe in Jesus, stop being stupid. You do that best with the Holy Spirit. So Paul names a list of behaviors that are unacceptable and what we are about to read right after that.

Galatians 5:22–26 (CSB)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Pray:

How many of you have noise cancelling headphones?

Some of you might have headphones that has a feature called noise cancellation. Not just headphones that block out sound, but headphones that cancel sound. There’s a difference.

Do you guys know how they work?

Illustrate: The Science of Noise Cancellation: use white board and marker

The way sound works is that an object creates a disturbance in the air which pushes and pulls air particles to travel around the object that has made a disturbance.

When I Clap, I create a disturbance in the air and you hear it because the air particles were pushed and pulled toward you and you received it in your ears.

Sound waves help us visualize the way the air is disturbed. Look at this video. When there is a bigger disturbance there is a larger wave. So depending how hard I clap my hands will also determine how loud the sound is because the disturbance I’m making is bigger.

So now how does noise cancellation work. Your headphones have a feature where they are actively listening for ambience and sound around you. And the headphones are able to create a negative energy to counteract the constant disturbances around you. Look at this Video Now. See how there are extra waves underneath. That is active noise cancellation sensing the disturbances and keeping those frequencies from hitting your hears.

However, there are some disturbances that are too big and loud that can get through the cancellation. Like a handclap or a loud baby crying.

Transition: Why am I telling you this, because the Holy Spirit works this way too.

All around us is opportunities for us to sin. It’s all around us, it gets inside us and causes us to fall into temptations. So sin is like the frequencies that are constantly around us which cause us to feed into our pride and our selfish desires.

When we receive the Holy Spirit, He cancels those frequencies by showing us for what they really are. They cause destruction, and separation from God. Our job, is to recognize what God is showing us and to live in a way that is actively cancelling the sin in our lives so we can ignore the temptation to fall into sin.

This is what it means to Keep in Step with the Spirit.

To have the power to say Yes to the way God wants us to live and to say No to the way the world says we should live.

The question you have to ask yourselves is, “How are you actively trusting God to cancel the sin in your life?”

Notice how I’m not asking how are you actively cancelling the sin in your life. The truth is, you can’t cancel it yourself. You need God’s help.

We need to talk about sin cancellation. But not with the intention of just stopping it, but replacing it with something better.

So Paul names a list of sins that he says we have to work at cancelling. So I’m going to read that list. It’s in Galatians 5:19-21

Galatians 5:19–21 (CSB)

19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So Paul says these are the things we need to be cancelling and even throws in a warning too. Those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Meaning you will be separated from God forever.

So how do we cancel these things? By replacing them. Paul gives this list.

Galatians 5:22–25 (CSB)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

So this list is filled with characteristics which is interesting because the list above is all actions.

So what does that mean? It means that the Holy Spirit works in us inwardly first, which will produce actions that please God.

You see it’s the heart that is filled with sin that causes the first list to happen, but a heart that is filled with the Spirit creates actions that please God.

What I’m going to do now is send you out into your groups, and I want you to talk about what kind of actions should come out of a person who lives with these kind of characteristics by first understanding that these things are given to us by the Spirit.

And Here’s a contest for your small groups. The most people in a small group at the end of this series that has the fruits of the spirit memorized will have a pizza party for their small group. So if there are three people in the 6th grade girl small group who memorized the fruits of the spirit and 4 people in the 8th grade boys small group, the 4 people in the 8th grade boys small group will win the pizza party.

PRAY INTO SMALL GROUPS