Well, hello, church. If you would open to Galatians chapter five. Galatians five. I hope I don't need this chair behind me, but if I sit down at some point, this is the longest I will have stood for five days or so. So we'll see how this works. Let's start in verse 16. And we'll read all the way through 26. This is the Word of the Lord. It says, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But, if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. For the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Father, Lord, I don't know where the minds or the hearts of everyone in this room have been this week. We pray that You would send Your Spirit to come and direct them toward You, toward Your Word, Guard us from drifting thoughts that would take us away. Distract us. Guard us from the enemy who would twist. This this scripture before us. And we ask for clarity. And we ask that you would actually use this to conform us to the image of your son. so that Christ, You would get more glory out of our lives. And so please help us through this inspired text. We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, the plan for the next two weeks, Lord willing, is to meditate on four words. Walk by the Spirit. I want to think about that. We're picking up where Kent left off last week. This is a really big transition point in the book of Galatians. Y'all know we've worked for a few months through the book of Galatians into midway through chapter 5. And so we've heard Paul come out and basically say at the beginning, hey, this is not my words. This is revelation from Jesus Christ that I received that I'm passing on. We've heard him lay out the superiority of the new covenant over against the old covenant, saying, if you in the new covenant go back to the old covenant law and submit yourselves to it, that you have turned to a different gospel. You've turned away from grace, you've turned away from the Lord Jesus Christ. We've heard him talk about salvation always, whether it was for Abraham or for us, has always been by faith in Christ alone, apart from works. And we've heard these arguments that he's given against these false teachers who have come into these churches in Galatia and are teaching a different gospel. So this is a transition point where now he's going to begin to teach the role of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant. That's where this is moving. Now when we get into talking about the Holy Spirit, Christians a lot of times immediately think of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We think of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. We think of the sovereignty, I guess in our circles we think of the sovereignty of the Spirit. We start thinking of ways we can argue how much control the Spirit has at salvation and how much He doesn't. I know there's a season of my life where I obsessed maybe a little bit of a strong word. I was certainly very passionate about studying out and seeking after fillings or manifestations of the Spirit of God for ministry, for preaching. But when I come to the Scriptures and I look at what is important for the Christian regarding the Holy Spirit, walking by the Spirit is at the top of the list. Here's the question. Do you walk by the Spirit? Do you walk by the Spirit? I believe that you can be a born-again, Spirit-filled believer and have seasons of life, days, weeks, where you do not walk by the Spirit. I don't believe in a type of carnal Christianity. Maybe some of your minds go there. You think, well, you're meaning for years. I don't believe someone can get saved and five years later there's no evidence that that person has the Spirit of God living in them. They don't love the word of God. They don't care to obey the word of God. They don't want to be around the people of God. They don't love the son of God. And yet they're in dwelt with the spirit of God. I don't believe it. I don't think the Bible teaches it. First John would be a good place to go and study that out. So I'm not talking about that, but I do believe it is possible for a person to have the spirit of God in them, but not always walk by the spirit. And to demystify this idea a little bit, it's probably worth saying that walking by the Spirit is the same thing as walking by Jesus, or walking with the Spirit is the same thing as walking with Jesus. And I get that from Romans chapter 8, verse 9 and 10, where it says, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you, Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ, he interchanged them. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, does not belong to him, but if Christ is in you. So Paul's switching them. Walking with the Spirit, being indwelt with the Spirit, being indwelt with Christ. Those are the same thing. This is the same idea, I believe, as abiding in Christ. To walk with the Spirit is to abide in Christ. I think those are in essence the same thing. So we're talking about the Christian life. We're not talking about how to become a Christian. We're talking about how to how to live the Christian life. And there's really two ways to live, Paul says. You either live according to the flesh, or you live according to the Spirit. You live according to the flesh, which is, and we'll build this out more next week, Lord willing, it's just a radically self-centered life. That's what it means to live by the flesh. And a life lived by the Spirit is a life of self-denial for the sake of loving others and loving the Lord. And those things are in direct opposition to one another. They're not almost the same, they're opposites. And verse 16 says, if believers want to conquer the flesh, they must continually yield to the spirit. That's what the verse says. Verse 16, if I say, but walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. That's a promise. A promise. Now think about how much money people spend on counselors, AA meetings, medicines, different curriculum and books and blogs, uh, trying to overcome sin and addiction. And I'm not saying those things are wrong, but we have here a very clear promise from God that says, if you walk according to the spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. A promise from God. I don't think most Christians believe that. I just don't think we believe or put any weight on those type promises for the most part. Here's what I'm not interested to do for the next 20, 30 minutes. Talk about why you should walk according to the Spirit. We could give verses for that. I don't really care to do that tonight. I don't really care about giving warnings of what will happen if you don't walk according to the Spirit, but walk according to the flesh. We could give warnings. That's quite dangerous to take the path of the flesh, but I'm not going to do that tonight. I don't even really want to get into the benefits and the blessings of walking according to the Spirit, although they are massive. I want to talk about how to walk according to the Spirit. How do you do it? Because at the end of the day, you can be really motivated and go, oh, man, I want to walk according to the Spirit. Because there's so many blessings and benefits to that over against the dangers of walking according to the flesh. But if you don't know how, what is it? I mean, who cares if you're motivated? We need to know how to do this. And we tell each other this stuff. We give advice. We go, brother, you just need to follow the Spirit. You just need to walk with the Spirit. You just need to be led by the Spirit. You just need to abide in Christ. You just need to put on the full armor of God. Do you know how to do that? Preachers are really good at telling you what you should do. I can give you lots of verses on what you should do or why you should do it. You can ruin a lot of good sermons. Can you raise your hand in the middle of the sermon, please? I guess I'm giving you permission to do this to me at some point, if you ever do. But you can ruin a good sermon by saying, hey, preacher, how do you do that? Or maybe just wait till the end of the sermon would be better. Come up to him. How exactly do you do that? You just told us for 50 minutes to do such and such. How exactly are we supposed to do that? I want to meditate on how to walk in the Spirit. And I think this is where we have to start. You can't walk by the Spirit unless you're alive by the Spirit. You've got to be alive. John 6.63, Jesus says, it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is of no help at all. Or 2 Corinthians 3, 6, the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Or Jesus in John 3 seemed to believe this when He says, the Spirit gives life to those whom He will. So whenever the Spirit wants to give someone life, He wants to give you life or you life, you get life. And it's the Spirit's will who that will happen to according to Jesus in John 3. Or in our text, I think we see this balance. Jump over to verse 25, Galatians 5, 25. Listen to this. If we live by the Spirit, see it? If we live by the Spirit, now here's the balance. Let us also keep in step with the Spirit. So if it's the spirit that gives you life, it's the spirit that should sustain your life, help you live your life. You could walk in and step with the spirit. Now I want to back up and say something because I know our church, we may be out of balance on this. I don't know the perfect balance. I know the scripture teaches both, but as a, as a more reformed leaning church, we tend to emphasize the sovereignty of the spirit. Certainly when it comes to salvation. I think he deserves credit for applying the work of Christ to us, for causing the new birth. I think the Spirit of God deserves that credit. He deserves credit because he seals us, it says, for the day of redemption. If you're going to make it to the day of redemption, make it to glory, it's because the Spirit sealed you and persevered you to the end. Um, I don't believe that the new Testament teaches that someone can resist the spirit if the spirit wants to save you. I think grace is irresistible. That's a different sermon, but we preach that. And I think those are glorious doctrines. Um, but when it comes to sanctification or the daily Christian life, Christians can resist the work of the Spirit in their lives to some measure. Why would the Bible say, don't grieve the Spirit of God, or do not quench the Spirit? Because you can do that. You can stiff-arm Him and say, not today. It's the flesh. Right? Or maybe not the whole day, but maybe that moment that you want to rebel and you go, not right now. and you resist the Spirit. That is very possible, and we all do it. And every believer here knows exactly what I'm talking about. Tom Schreiner in his commentary on Galatians said about verse 25, he says there's a tension in this verse between divine enablement and human choice. On the one hand, believers must choose to live by the Spirit. Okay? Make sure you hear that. Believers must choose to live by the Spirit, while on the other hand, the Spirit empowers believers to live a life pleasing to God. If we live according to the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. That's the balance, that's the tension, which leads us back to the question, how do we walk according to the Spirit? And let me just say one more thing before I give what I hope will be a very simple path forward in this. I've taught this numerous ways over the years. Looking back over some of the notes of ways I've taught this particular doctrine over the years, I don't think they're super clear. I was just praying this week, Lord, give me a clear way to teach this. This should not be complicated. Walk by the Spirit should not be a complicated thing. I mean, I have books on this and you go through and read it and it's technical. It's not complex or difficult, it's just like you don't remember three days later what you read. And what's the point? You remember how to walk in the Spirit for three days? I mean, we need something better than that if we want to keep this going. So I want to put two things before us, kind of two points, and I hope this will bring some clarity. There's probably more that could be said here, but this would certainly, I think, help us to walk by the Spirit. Number one, you must know God. All right. How are you going to walk by the spirit? If you don't know the spirit or the son or the father, how can you walk with God? If you have not biblically or experientially or personally known him. And the answer is you can't, you must know him to walk with him. All right, Hosea 4.6, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you have rejected knowledge. And that would be primarily knowledge of God. Second Peter 1.3, he has granted to us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of him. And then chapter three, verse 18 of second Peter, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 3, 8, I count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, our Lord. You know, it's popular to hear Christians say, oh man, all that matters is passion. You know, I just want passion for the Lord. But the Proverbs say, zeal or passion without knowledge is not good. Proverbs 9.10 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Proverbs 15.14, The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge. Don't just be scared to get puffed up with knowledge. That is possible. There's a warning there. But overwhelmingly, the Scripture is telling us to seek knowledge. An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. If you love the Lord and you gain knowledge of the Lord, you will increase your love of the Lord. You will not turn yourself into a stoic by gaining knowledge if you have a heart for the Lord. You'll increase your heart for the Lord. Jesus said, this is eternal life to know me. Ephesians 1.17, Paul praying for the churches, he says that the Father of glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. We could go on and on, but the New Covenant, in its essence, is about knowing the Lord. That's what the prophets prophesying to what the new covenant would be. It was all about knowing the Lord. Listen to Jeremiah 31, 31. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a, here it is, new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke. though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people, and no longer shall each teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know Me." Know Me. From the least of them to the greatest. From the person who gets saved and first day they're saved, to the person who's been a Christian for 50 years. They will all know Me, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more. I love that you can't disconnect knowledge of God with the experiential reality of forgiveness from God. That to know God is to know Him as a God who has forgiven all of our iniquity. Jeremiah 9.24 says, let the one who boasts in this, that he understand and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things, I delight, declares the Lord. That one's relevant. Who, who in our day, I mean, Christians, I guess, uh, among Christians are not talking about justice. Maybe it'd be wise to back up and think about the God of justice before, before we start boasting of our own justice and righteousness or condemning others for their lack of justice or righteousness. Maybe we should back up and say, uh, let's take a good long look at the God who is perfectly just and righteous. and then boast in that. And I think God wants us to know Him, guys, so much so that He sent His Spirit with the primary role to be our Helper so that we would know Him. Jesus said this in John 14, 16, I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because they neither sees Him or knows Him, but you know Him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. In that day, you will know that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. And listen to this promise in verse 21. Whoever has my commandment and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him, and listen to this word, and manifest myself to him. The spirit of God manifesting to the believer, knowledge of God, so that, why? So that we treasure him above all things on this earth. To get a glimpse of who God is, even in some small measure, is to see He is more valuable than anything on this earth. And that's the primary role of the Holy Spirit. So how do we know if we're treasuring God as He's revealed Himself to be? That leads to the second point. You will joyfully surrender to his will. So you know God in order to walk by the spirit, and then you joyfully surrender to his will. I'm talking about a volitional surrender, a joyful, willing surrender. Let me contrast this with someone who is not a believer for a moment, a non-believer. does not submit to God because they won't submit to God. Romans 8, 7 says the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. So think, think about that. Non-believers don't submit to God because they won't submit to God and they won't submit to God because they can't submit to God. Hence the need for the new birth. You need the new birth to happen before you're going to submit to God. You have to have your eyes opened to know God, to be inclined, to want to follow him and love him and, and trust him. And so before that happens, we can't submit to him because we won't submit to him. That's why Paul keeps calling this slavery. That's why it's called slavery. It's a slavery that even reaches to the level of desire. Listen to how Paul says it in Galatians 5.17, he says, the desires of the flesh are against the desires of the spirit. and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do." Guys, there is a want in a Christian. There is a want. And it's a want that's a stronger want for God and the things of God than for sin. And it's possible to, to, to lose focus, right? To, to, to fall into the, the fleshly things, but there is a want in the Christian because of the new birth, because they're alive, because they know God and love God. That want is stronger than the want for the flesh. And it causes us to do something very profound. It causes us to surrender ourselves, surrender our will to God's will. That's what Paul's saying here. This is what Jesus demonstrated in John 5, 19. He showed us what this looks like. The son can do nothing on his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing. He says, I only do the will of him who sent me. That's Jesus. What is Jesus doing? He's walking by the Spirit. What does that look like? Submitting Himself fully to the will of God. And being happy about that. You know, guys, this is such an area of shame for all of us. It just is. Because we fail so miserably. You know, how little do we really rely upon the Lord? Jesus is saying, I can do nothing apart from the Father. And it's like, we go whole days and we don't pray for anything. That's shameful. The very Son of God had to live moment by moment in reliance upon God, and yet we sit there and try to live a whole day by ourself. Just arrogance. Foolishness. It's shameful. You know, I posted on social media this week, it came up in my little memory thing, or whatever it's called. God never gives you more than you can handle. And then, I don't even remember the exact quote, but I made a comment saying something along the lines of, if He loves you, He always gives you more than you can handle. You're not supposed to be able to handle everything on your own. He's going to pile it on to the point you know you can't handle it if He loves you. Because it'll make you finally dependent on Him. And when we depend on the Spirit, rather than ourself, who gets the glory? God is magnified, not us. And so if God loves you, he'll put you in that position often. Oswald Chambers said, if anyone desires to live a life of faith and trust in God, he must not merely say that he trusts in God, he must really do so. You know, so it's easy to say, oh yeah, I trust in God. Um, what, what areas of your life are you actually doing that? In your marriage? Parenting? With your work? With your words, with your thoughts, with your entertainment choices, what you look at on your phone is where's God in the midst of all of this? At what level are we really depending upon him? You know, we don't mature out of this. It's not like this is for all the really immature Christians who haven't learned to walk well on their own. The most mature Christians are the ones who are best at this. That's how you know you've actually progressed in the Christian life, is that you're actually more dependent on the Lord. That you actually realize your weaknesses more clearly. You know, I don't know if y'all remember, like right when you got saved, this is at least how I felt. I'm like, man, this Christian life is easy. You know, I wanted to read my Bible. I wanted to go to church things. I'm like, man, this is, there was like, it felt like, why aren't all y'all doing this? This is easy. And it did not take very long to realize it's not easy. And I see my weakness far more now. I read an article about Billy Graham. It was written by his pastor for the last 15 years of his life. And this guy was being interviewed by Christianity Today. And I guess the interview was given after Billy Graham died a few years ago. And he said this, Mr. Graham had a profound sense of his own personal weakness and inability before a holy and righteous God. There were many times where I would look at Mr. Graham or respond to his question wondering why he, Billy Graham, world-renowned evangelist, would need to ask a question like that. I thought that he would have known the answer, that he had arrived, but not Mr. Graham. He believed that his strength was only in the Lord, and his weakness was made perfect only through Christ. and that this life is a constant pursuit after the holiness of God and crying to God to fill him with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. And then he said later in this article, what was really shocking is that here I am sitting with one of the most influential men to ever live in this country, one of the greatest men of God that I knew alive, yet he made me feel like I was that man, not him. And he genuinely didn't see himself that way. He was the humblest man I ever knew. And it sounds like the Apostle Paul, to me, at least a little bit like him in 2 Corinthians when Paul boasts of his weakness because Jesus told Paul, Paul quit praying that your weakness would go away. My power is made perfect in your weakness. Not once you get strong, But in your weakness, my power is made perfect. And then Paul said, I finally stopped praying about it, because I would rather have Christ's power than to get rid of the weakness. You know, somebody, there's probably some, maybe multiple people here today that you don't even know how you got here. You certainly didn't feel like worshiping or loving anyone and just spiritually kind of dry and dull. Listen to the promise from the Lord for you. Isaiah 40, 29. He gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles that shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint." They shall walk and not faint. Walking by the Spirit isn't something you do. That's not what it tells us. It says walk by the Spirit. It does not say walk by your own strength. Walk by the Spirit. You surrender your will to His. And oh, the joy, the love, the peace that flows when you do that. This is not a point of misery. You surrender to the Spirit. I don't know what background everybody comes from when it comes to surrendering to the Spirit. Some Christian backgrounds, some weird things start happening. That's not what we see in the Scriptures. You surrender yourself to the Holy Spirit, and the fruits of the Spirit become manifest. And you begin to look more like Christ. David Wilkerson, said, if the Holy Spirit is in you, let Him have control. If He lives in you, then take your orders from Him and let Him have His way. You know, a verse in the Old Testament that tells us how to walk in the Spirit, it's Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways. acknowledge Him, and then He will make your paths straight. That's how you walk in the Spirit. Walk. It's present tense in the original language. It's something you do and then you continue doing. It's a lifestyle of surrender to the will of God. So I want to end with just three practical questions. I encourage you to think over these. Maybe in Citigroup we can talk through these. I've been asking myself these three questions, so they're kind of personal to me, but I think they apply to anyone here. How hurried are my devotions? How hurried are my devotions? Do you prioritize a daily, unhurried time for meditation and prayer in the Word? And then, here's a follow-up question to that, and do you move at the pace of the text, or do you move at the pace of the culture? And whatever you have to do that day. And a related question would be a corporate question for us. When we do a gathering like this, are you in late and out quick? Or do you linger? Do you fellowship? And I know this season it's certainly different to be able to do that. Here's another question. Do I have enough room for God's wonderfully humbling providences? We do know, right, that God isn't having all of His plans for our lives frustrated by the devil. He is not taking orders from anyone. He is moving history forward. He's moving our lives forward uninterrupted by the devil, uninterrupted by the world, uninterrupted even by our own sin. I don't know if everybody has a view of God's sovereignty like that, but God regularly frustrates our plans and self-reliance with His mercies because He loves us. Because He loves us. I love productivity. I love to do stuff. It is painfully frustrating to me to move from one house, move into another house and not be able to do anything and be laying in a bed. I, it's like fingers on a chalkboard, you know, it, it drives me insane. I like to accomplish things. I like to have things that I do and then I get something done in the day. Um, God often doesn't. want us to be productive, it seems. He doesn't want us to be lazy, but sometimes he's not so concerned about our productivity as he is that we would manifest more of the fruits of the spirit. And so maybe he slows us down sometimes so that he can bring more of his spirit's fruits out of us. Here's a third question. Do I have enough margin in my schedule and life for other people's needs and requests? I've seen this happen in our family with some of y'all and some of y'all who are watching. A lot of our members are obviously not here today. I've watched y'all be able to give up hours of your day, full days, and just come over and help us. That's convicting to make someone like, man, do I have full days I can carve out to serve someone? Or a few hours even? You know, as believers, we don't just move at the pace of what we need for our own soul. We are called to move at the pace of also what is needed for the souls of others. Do you have any margin in your schedule to help serve love? with your time, with your money, with your energy. And I'm not talking first and foremost about a stranger that you've never met before, although we are to serve all of our neighbors. But how about the body of Christ? How about the people in this room? How about those in this covenant community? Think about Jesus' life. Jesus' life. He walked. He walked in perfect lockstep with the Spirit. He walked and he walked and he accomplished a lot. And I would dare say he was busy and he wasn't lazy. But he was never frenzied. He was never stressed. He never felt overwhelmed, but yet he still accomplished a ton. And he knew when to get off to pray. He moved at the pace of love because he walked with the Spirit. So guys, this is not the takeaway from the message. The takeaway is not, OK, Jesus walked perfectly with the Spirit. Therefore, we all need to walk perfectly with the Holy Spirit. You know, aim for that. I hope you will aim for that. That's not the message. The message is that we should worship Jesus because He walked with the Spirit all the way to the cross. because a bunch of us can't walk by the Spirit and continually walk by the flesh and needed a man to come down who was the very Son of God who could perfectly walk by the Spirit and do all the will of His Father and surrender Himself to the point of death, even death on the cross. Worship Him. As we worship Him, as we exalt Him, as we make much of Christ and His ability to live by the Spirit, I think what happens is that we begin to walk by the Spirit. And we find this new power and motivation to follow in His steps. Let's pray, Church. Father, Lord, these things are much easier to talk about, to preach about than to do. And so God, we want to be doers of your word, not hearers only. There isn't much to disagree with. We all know we should walk by the Spirit. And Lord, we know that we need you to do that. And so Lord, our request is simple. Help us to make application. Help us to not leave here and move into our week. And this never changes us. We pray, Holy Spirit, as it says in James, that you would be jealous Lord, that you would be jealous over the spirit you made to dwell within us, and that you would give more grace so that we would seek to know you more, and we would surrender ourselves to the God that we know and love. So help us, Lord. For your name's sake, we pray. Amen.