He's reiterating that apart from being led of the Spirit, led of God, looking to Jesus, we're nothing. That's what he's telling us. As Jesus told us in John 15, you can do nothing apart from me. There's nothing of an eternal value that you can do if it ain't connected to me. And if we think we're something apart from Him, without Him, what are we doing? We're deceived. So see, it goes back to looking, well, what did Jesus say? Jesus said, I'm nothing without my Father. His total dependence in every single way was upon His Father. Apart from that, we don't have a Redeemer. Apart from that, we don't have a substitute. Apart from that, we don't have a shepherd. He had in every ounce and second of his life to be utterly dependent upon his father, or he would have gone his own way. And going his own way would be no different than you and me. So that's what we go back to. This is how he lived his life. And because we're gonna be flawed in it, we're not gonna do it perfectly. He did it on our behalf, but see, He is our perfect example of how we are then to be led by God is that, hey, we do what He teaches. He told us to seek first the kingdom of God. He told us to trust in the Lord with all our heart. He told us to lay down our life. He said, I give you a new command. You love your neighbor as I have what? Loved you. Okay, now He's given us The example, why did he go to the cross? He said, I want everybody to know that I love my father and that he's given me an assignment. So I do what I do because I want people to know who I love and that I'm doing what I'm doing with a purpose. The same way with us, right? That's being led by the Spirit. What happens out of that, then love flows out. That highest, good, and greatest means, God has to be The heart changer. Man can't change his own heart. You can't change their heart. Only he can do that. That's why we ultimately are dependent upon him. And have to get there to them. Because it's in that message where that power's at for the change. Those outbursts of rage and wrath, people do some crazy stuff. things that are unfathomable, you know, you can't wrap your mind around why. Now that uglies and everybody, you remove the restraint, who knows what any of us would do. It's just part of who we are, that's why we need help and why it's good for a culture to be civil and have laws and things like that for that reason. Because you let man go do himself, who knows what he's gonna do and how he's gonna do it. Tribes and places like that, some of the things they do in their thinking, from cannibalism to human sacrifices and that kind of stuff, just how the devil will put that in people's spirits and minds, that's how we can make ourselves right, by doing that kind of stuff. Because they're doing it for some sort of act of worship or religious reasoning, but just shows you how deceptive. Throughout the Old Testament, we see that, how they would sacrifice children to Moloch and different ones, and how God always... He's at work, that demon's still there. Think about just the volume of abortions and things that take place within countries and nations, and how the enemy is steady, steady, steady, fighting, fighting for that, what they call a right to be done. That's just demonic, no matter how you look at it. Like many things are, you know, scripture says wisdom without God is devilish, right? It's rooted in a bad spirit from the beginning. And that applies to all of us, man, at our core, We are sinners by nature. You gotta be born again to be a believer by nature, but still have the propensity to transgress in sin if led of the flesh. Anything led of the flesh is missing the mark. No matter how innocent it may appear, it's still not right. And that's hard for people to fathom though, isn't it? And that's why it's important for us to teach truth and help them all see and then see us as acknowledging hey that's we we in no different position than you are we're throwing our lives upon one who come to change who we are to be safe with him uh louisiana is saying that every public school has to have 10 commandments that the 10 commandments is we know that's the law and that that can't save you but it shows you that you're a sinner it teaches you that you're a sinner and not saved and need a savior yeah because it doesn't have life in it doesn't have life in it and so the ten commandments says you're a sinner you don't do this you don't do that you do this or whatever then you're a sinner this whole Yes, we do have great consolation and hope that God is putting people at times and places and positions that can influence those decisions in spite of the public outcry. Politics, as we all know, is either public opposition against a thing or an affirmation of a thing is usually what these politicians are going to stand behind. It's rare that you come across one that says, look, we need to make changes in how our region or how our people and our voting district thinks about life, and we want to help shape that in the right direction. Usually, as they get a sense of, okay, what does our people want, they say, well, we want to have the right to abortion. Okay, well, we'll fight for that right then. And that's what usually happens to society that we're in. And it's gonna take, though, that's the thing, back to the schools, to the churches, to the homes, and to the schools at the lower levels of changing the perceptions of these little boys and girls from the church house to the house to their schools on what to look at in the right way. Because we're dealing with a society who are a major portion, a group that are right now that are a larger number than the baby boomer generation. And all they've been taught and has been pushed down them is a new era of like social media stuff and that you can do what you want, when you want, however you want to do it and there's no consequences to that. And the shift has gone so far And then the influences from the school system to the college level and the universities have been telling them they need to stand for these certain things. And that's why they rioting on college campuses. Why? Because it's an attack on principle. And that's why they're doing it. But it's gonna go back to, hey, we gotta get some things back at the base level because we see the outcome of what happens when you remove all that. Now that's where we are. I could only foresee it getting uglier before it ever gets better. I mean it would have to be. Because we have projected the nation and world today because I mean you can find out what's going on in Japan or China or Africa in a split second how people thinking and living and doing where when we were all young, you was in the dark on all that. You had no idea how them cultures were unless you picked up a National Geographic or you read some article, but you had no preview of their everyday life. You can get a picture of, you remember how you used to look at those National Geographics when you go get a haircut in the barber shop, they'd have magazines in there, whatever you looked, man, them cultures looked A world of different. It was like a foreign thing. You couldn't involve yourself in that. But today, these kids see everything. Whatever they want to see, instantly. One of the extravagant things that he ever bought was National Geographic. We always had them in the house. And I still got some back from the 60s. Yeah. Can't let go. It's like a hoarder. Can't let go of the past. That'll eat you alive, won't it? It will. It'll kill you. Eat you alive. Relocating won't fix that, will it? But you know, in some situations, families deal with that same thing, but the individual person, it doesn't affect them the same way. they can still persevere and overcome, even though their kids are in that same position. So it's a matter of, you know, it's easy to fall it back on what my kids do or don't do, or I can change them, but it still falls back on allowing, as the scripture says, the leech has two children and their names are Give Give. They're bloodsuckers. And if they're not sucking blood off of you, they're gonna suck blood off of you. And so it doesn't matter what is blood, it's life. They're just sucking the life out of you. Proverbs 30, the leech has two kids, give, give. Give, give. Blood suckers. And life, y'all see it, y'all been around people who work with people or had people work for you, they just suck life out of people. It's what is a leech? A leech is a bottom feeder. It just latch on, takes life from somebody else and just sucks on it right on out of them. And if you had a leech on you, what you gonna do? You gonna get him off. Well, see, you can't get them off. And it'd be like somebody who says, I've got all these leeches that have attached to me. but I don't want to damage the leech. So I'll carry the leeches and just let them keep sucking life out of me. And that's a mental problem, right? And that's what we're dealing with. It's the same picture. It's just a mental issue. And that is allowing these leeches just to keep sucking on them. But if I try to remove the leech, I'm gonna hurt the leech. All right, well, let's jump in. Let's jump in. We are in Jonah. We just wrapped up with Galatians. But if there's anything that you want to give away, share. It could be anywhere. Man, that's some good, ain't it? What you clinging to in there? I got so many notes in here, I don't know where, I wouldn't know where to start. I just want to say, Galatians 5 remember Paul is revisiting we were emphasizing this is he is Reestablishing things that he's already taught this church at Galatia. They had been Misguided by other people and now Paul has to go back and hey, we got to redo everything that's foundational and and the framework of the believer's life, we gotta cover it again. And that's what he's doing. Now, we can benefit, we benefit from that recovery, but you gotta keep in mind, they are regressing in their journey because they were listening to falsehood and lies. I think the thing in 5, chapter 5, is towards the end there, where it talks about, and these are not gonna have inheritance. And, but then these, are going to be the fruit of the spirit. Shows you where the split is between the worldly people and the people of the word. This is where we have to remind ourself. The people who were using the word, but they were misapplying the word because they were dealing with the ideas of the law. So Paul has to revisit and remind them that the law without Jesus is of no profit. It has no life in it. It's all in whose hands this is coming from. You see, if all you have is a law from Moses' hand, but not hearing the voice of God, all you have is a law that kills you because you're not operating in faith. You're operating in works. because you making the emphasis about you, but not hearing from the Lord. And that the law had its purpose. And he tells us that the law was intentional, purposeful. The law is good. The law is pure. The law is great at what it does, but what does it do? It kills. For what reason? So that we can see that we're exceedingly sinful. For what reason? that it would bring us to Jesus. For what reason? So that we can receive his mercy. For what reason? That we can be made right with God who makes lawbreakers right through his graced life. And that's what we see him teaching. And he's reminding them that if you're trying to walk in the law and not led by the spirit, all you're gonna produce is the works of the law. And that is a product of the flesh and the flesh is easily recognizable. All you gotta do is look at your life and look at, okay, is the fruit of the spirit being manifested or is the works of the flesh being manifested? So he gives us this list of how to recognize the flesh and how to recognize the spirit. And the spirit's not gonna work apart from faith. A spirit's not gonna work apart from grace. because the Spirit's not gonna work apart from Jesus. And if you have Jesus, and you're walking by faith with Jesus, it's because of the Spirit, and you're alive in the Spirit, you're walking with the Spirit, and you're led by the Spirit, because you are looking to Jesus. If you wanna know what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit, just look at Jesus. Just trust Jesus, follow Him, and He lived by the Spirit. He walked in the Spirit. He produced the fruit of the Spirit because the Spirit that was in him is now in us. But see, if we stepped out of the classroom of grace, now we are stagnant and regressing because we're not being led by the Spirit. But what's coming off of our life is fleshly things. And then he lists those. What are they? They're evident, they're clear, adultery, immorality, fornication, uncleanness, being lewd, idolatry, giving place to other things other than God, sorcery, manipulation, trying to do things in your power, A hatred, how you treat people. Contentions, fighting with people because you're not getting your way. Jealousies, because you want something that somebody else has got. Outbursts of wrath, where man, you get mad like a, fast as you can, it don't take much to get you spun up. Selfish ambition, it's all about you. So when people don't do it the way you want it done, you get angry over it. dissensions and heresies, envies and murders, drunkenness, reveries and the like. I mean, there's so much more that is manifestation of the flesh. And then he's going to tell us, I want to remind you, brother, those who function in the flesh can not profit you. They cannot profit you. There is no eternal profit. flowing in and through their life. They are not operating in any inheritance from heaven when you're operating in the flesh. So he's reminding them, I've told you before and I tell you in times past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And see, where there's no kingdom of God, there's only two kingdoms, the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God. that we operating from or in. You have the kingdom of what? Righteousness and the kingdom of lawlessness. And those who are functioning from the kingdom of lawlessness have no righteousness flowing in and through their life that you can glean from and grow in the Lord. So he's reminding them that the only people that you can grow from are those who are functioning in the spirit. So don't pay attention to those operating in the flesh who tell you have to cling to that which is death because they're operating from the kingdom of darkness and not the kingdom of light. They're not operating in the kingdom of godliness, which is by Jesus. They operate in the kingdom of lawlessness, which is by Satan. So how do you recognize the fruit of the spirit? And notice it's, it's singular, not fruits, but what fruit it's the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And against those things, there is no law. There's no law against that. Why? Because remember, a righteous man doesn't need the law. Righteousness doesn't need law. What needs law? Lawbreaker needs law. And the lawbreakers can't help you. Can't help you. It's only those who are operating within the godliness that comes through the kingdom of righteousness through Jesus. He is our godliness. Then he says, and those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Because your flesh naturally is gonna wanna feed itself. Well, you gotta die and you die consistently and regularly and daily, you deny yourself, take up the cross and follow the Lord as his example. I mean, if anybody walked in the spirit, it was him. Amen. If you, if we say me, if I have an issue of saying, man, I want to know what it looks like to walk in the spirit. Well, I ain't got to look at Greg and I don't have to look at Davin or you don't have to look at me, man. I just go look to Jesus. He's the, he's the example. Well, how did he live? Well, he didn't do anything. He sought him first. He trusted him first. He followed him. first and he never wavered, never. So that's my example. He's my example. Now, I won't do it flawlessly. That's why I needed him. But see, if I'm not looking to him, now I'm walking in my flaw and I need to what? Get back to him again. And that's what he's balling us down to. The issue is gonna be around Jesus. Because you'll never walk in the spirit Contrary to how Jesus lived. It's just not gonna happen because he The spirit that he walked in is now in us and how he lived What he said what he did remember he's got to live his life in us. That's what Paul was saying I've been crucified with who with Christ and the life I live right now in this body I live by in the Son of God who gave himself for me, on my behalf, and the life he lived, he's gonna live that same life in me. How? By the Spirit. So if I'm alive, if I'm living by the Spirit, I need to be led by the Spirit, and that means I need to walk with the Spirit. Therefore, I'm looking to Jesus, I'm leaning in on Him. And that would be, to me, We can make this more difficult than really what he's saying and try to add all these dynamics to it. The greatest thing is, hey, how did Jesus live every day of his life? What did he do? Who did he seek? What did he say? It's as simple as that and as complex as that. Because it can't be done apart from him. Right. That's the thing. The complex thing is we've got to die. It's the only way it can happen. That's where the war's at, right? We still want to manipulate and control. See, that's all that sorcery and that's the flair, that's pride. That's pride at work and pride is deceptive. And then that's where he goes over in and these chapter six, does that make sense to y'all? I mean, I, I just been pondering it for quite some time and we talked about it before we've taught on all these things, but just narrowing it down. I need to be, if I'm alive, I'm alive through the spirit. And if I'm going to be led by the spirit, I've got to walk with him. Matter of Amos, for an example, Amos tells us, how can two walk together? unless they be agreed. So the walk with him, to be led by him, to have life in him, you're actually walking in agreement. That's where Paul started the letter out. Do I seek to be in agreement with men or with God? Because you can just take that word spirit there if we're alive through God, because the spirit is God. If we're alive through God, let us also walk with God. Let us be led by God, and if you walk with him or led by him, he promises us you won't finish what the flesh starts. Not that the flesh ain't gonna initiate, because it's always present. It's always working. I don't know why, but it seems to me that a lot of people, when you say the Holy Spirit, that makes some people nervous or afraid. I don't know why. Just not understanding. when you're in the dark on a thing and you hear something and you can't answer, okay, who is that? What is that? Why is that? The first thing to do is to, you wanna turn the light out and get away, because you don't have a solution. You don't know what to say about it. And keep in mind the word holy, that means unique, unlike any other. And life, spirit, God is one, but three persons, the father, the son, and the spirit. And it's the spirit that must be in us that leads us, which is the father and the son in the spirit living in us so that we can walk in harmony with him. In 6.3 it says, and if a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. He's reiterating that apart from being led of the Spirit, led of God, looking to Jesus, we're nothing. That's what he's telling us. As Jesus told us in John 15, you can do nothing apart from me. There's nothing of an eternal value that you can do if it ain't connected to me. And if we think we're something apart from Him, without Him, what are we doing? We're deceived. So see, it goes back to looking, well, what did Jesus say? Jesus said, I'm nothing without my Father. His total dependence in every single way was upon His Father. Apart from that, we don't have a Redeemer. Apart from that, we don't have a substitute. Apart from that, we don't have a shepherd. He had in every ounce and second of his life to be utterly dependent upon his father, or he would have gone his own way. And going his own way would be no different than you and me. So that's what we go back to. This is how he lived his life. And because we're gonna be flawed in it, we're not gonna do it perfectly. He did it on our behalf, but see, He is our perfect example of how we are then to be led by God is that, hey, we do what He teaches. He told us to seek first the kingdom of God. He told us to trust in the Lord with all our heart. He told us to lay down our life. He said, I give you a new command. You love your neighbor as I have what? Loved you. Okay, now He's given us The example, why did he go to the cross? He said, I want everybody to know that I love my father and that he's given me an assignment. So I do what I do because I want people to know who I love. And that I'm doing what I'm doing with a purpose. The same way with us, right? That's being led by the Spirit. And what happens out of that, then love flows out. That highest, good, and greatest meaning. Y'all good, y'all good. Come on in, come on in. Y'all good, y'all come on in. And we got on a good talk, and we done forgot what time it was, huh? 1055. But yeah, hey, Tommy, how you doing, brother? Good to see you. Yes, sir, good to see you. But yes, yes, chapter six on is just gonna be some very practical, applicational teaching that, hey, be a blessing to people. If you see a brother in trouble, go help him, be a blessing. Well, if you're making it about you, you're gonna down your brother and not have something to help him with. See, but if you, or compassionate with the compassion of Jesus, how he was, what did he do? He came to help us, didn't he? I didn't come to condemn, I came to what? Save. And then you see that he's our example, fulfilling the law of Christ. This is how he lived in verse two. Then verse three, you wanna think rightly. You gotta examine your life in the light of Christ. And then verse six, he's saying, look, join the work. Get involved in the work. with those that are doing it. Simplify your life. Simplify your life. Don't let your life be caught up in all this material stuff. Sow into the eternal things and you'll reap rewards. Sow rightly then, you'll reap abundantly. Keep the faith until the end and always redeem the time. Yeah. Always redeem the time. And then at the close when he talks about, and this is important for us in verse 16, and as many as walk according to this rule, what rule? That nothing we do in the flesh profits. The only thing that profits is a new creation in Christ Jesus. And then he says, the peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. That's just saying, who am I talking about? He's not talking about two different groups of people. He's saying specifically, who is the Israel of God? Those who are a new creation in Christ Jesus, who've been crucified with Him. That's the prince or the messengers of God, is that new creation. So he's not talking about the church and Israel. He's using that, I'll read it like this to you, verse 16. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, specifically, namely the Israel of God. That's who he's describing, who walk by this rule. Not that Israel had something and the church had something different. No, the genuine ambassadors, messengers of the Lord live by this rule. And they are the prince of God. That's the church of the living God. So if that helps with a little clarity there, that's what he's referring to. Well, amen. It's that time we get carried away in here Always run out of daylight, huh?