-Transcript-
00:37 Amen. Thank you for joining me. Good to be here today.
00:40 Welcome to the cafe. Hope you’re having a great day. Today we are looking at walking in the Spirit.
00:47 We are going to be blessed by looking what the Bible says about walking in the Spirit and how as we walk in the Spirit God can and will guide us and use us but that it’s more difficult than we might think to walk in the Spirit.
01:04 Galatians 5:16-17. This I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would.
01:21 And so we’re looking here in Galatians 5:16-17 to start out here we realize that there’s a war going on that there is a spiritual battle between the Spirit capital S Spirit that’s the Holy Spirit you know that’s part of the Holy Trinity
01:36 there are the three in one Godhead the fullness of God and so you have God living within you if you’ve been saved you have the Holy Spirit living within you and as you have the Holy Spirit living within you you still are in the flesh amen
01:50 it’s like if you you you’ve changed let’s say you used to love to eat pizza and you’ve changed you you say you know what I can’t I’ve got health problems and blah blah blah and allergy food allergies I can’t eat pizza anymore
02:09 and so you you know you totally change your lifestyle and you commit to not eating pizza and you’re just completely mentally understanding what you need to do right to stay away from pizza every day is salads and soups and so on
02:26 and yet one day happenstance you end up in the pizza buffet with some co-workers and as you smell that pizza you might then have a very big temptation to eat it okay
02:40 again kind of a silly example but what I’m trying to describe is your mind and your your will and everything can be fully focused and that temptation can still be very great especially if your co-workers got it and put a plate in front of you more than likely you’d be in big trouble and especially if there was nothing else there but pizza okay
03:00 so what we see here is that the flesh the carnal the worldly the meat on our bones it’s still desires fleshly things and still wants to live in carnal the Bible were to be like earthly desires
03:22 and the spirit wars against that because the spirit is the opposite of that this I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh
03:33 well first we need to look at the idea that we walk by faith and not by sight and that’s 2 Corinthians 5:7
03:39 you know we walk by faith and not by sight we walk in this spirit and we avoid the lust of the flesh we have to have faith we have to trust in something we cannot see or prove easily
03:49 you know and that is something very difficult because think of what that weapon is of the flesh it’s that gratification right it’s that gratification the spirit you know you get an argument with let’s say a co-worker again I’m just taking an office example you can argue with a co-worker right and the spirit tells you turn the other cheek and let them smite the other cheek or the spirit tells you oh they took your stapler give them give them your laptop right
04:17 and so that’s what the spirits telling you and you’re like I mean apparently that’s good spiritually that sounds good but the flesh is telling you to go ahead and knock their cubicle down
04:27 or throw a punch or whatever it is right well think about that what the flesh is communicating is instant gratification and what the spirit is communicating is something much deeper and long term
04:39 and that is what we battle against oftentimes the instant gratification of what the flesh desires verse the true and just and right and pure way that the spirit desires and we have to have that spiritual maturity in order to overcome the flesh we walk in the spirit that’s an action right that’s not stagnant that’s that’s something that we continue to do
05:04 and in order to do that to walk in the spirit we have to be stronger in the spirit than in the flesh to win the battle one must be stronger than the other so how do we make our faith strong
05:17 well faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God our faith is strengthened by Bible study KJV cafe is dedicated to Bible study because it is the most effective way to win souls to Christ and to edify the Saints and strengthen the faith of those that believe
05:39 is to study God’s Word God gave us his Word God’s Word is alive God’s Word is pure God’s Word is holy God’s Word is Holy Spirit inspired God’s Word is infallible God’s Word is completely true God’s Word is prophetic God’s Word will last throughout all of eternity where everything else will fade away and God’s Word is something that we have here on our desk
06:02 in you know on our phones through an app you know in the car and at church of God’s Word is is is all around us and so just because we surround ourselves with it doesn’t mean anything we have to read it and study it
06:15 and then through that studying of the Word and through that that spending time meditating on the Word our spirit is strengthened so we can walk we can walk in the spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh
06:33 we will not have a desire to fulfill the lust of the flesh or the desire of the spirit will be so much stronger than the lust of the flesh I heard a preacher say one time good or bad which one wins the one you feed more
06:45 and I think that’s another way to put it you know the spirit or flesh which one wins which one are you feeding more the spirit of the flesh you could feed the flesh with worldly TV worldly music worldly movies
06:59 the things of the world like materialism and gossip and and all these and I’m just giving you the g-rated examples but that’s you can go and take that where you will how you feed the flesh and you feed the spirit with the things of God with the Bible with time with the Saints of God with prayer with fellowship with with Christian service
07:25 think of the Holy Spirit and you are enriching the Holy Spirit in dwelling within you you are opening up that Holy Spirit and enriching that Holy Spirit and you’re not grieving it
07:36 right one would grieve it the other one would enrich it we want to enrich it but again walking is not stagnant it’s not static you know what a stagnant mean of a body of water or the atmosphere of a confined space having no current or flow and often having an unpleasant smell as a consequence
07:54 no flow you know a sedentary lifestyle is bad for your spiritual health it smells bad sin leaves a nasty odor that the things of God can’t stand to be around
08:07 to walk you have to take a step walking will get tiresome but you have to do it and where do you go for help along the way you go to God amen
08:15 does that make sense as you go through your journey you go to the Lord you turn to him to continue to strengthen your your spiritual side and to continue to put on that whole armor of God
08:35 and as I’ve preached a lot lately in our family altar time you know how can we expect to be men and women of God and children of God and so forth and senior saints of God how can we expect to be that effective if we’re not in the word
08:46 if we don’t know the word you know a lot of the word will tell us to obey the commandments well how can we obey the commandments if we don’t know them how can we be strong spiritually if we’re anemic in our Bible study
08:58 we can’t we have to get into the word in fact this study alone shows us the spiritual warfare happening verse 17 here of Galatians 5 for the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spiritagainst the flesh
09:12 and these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would
09:17 so we realize here that there’s a divide and conquer mentality among the flesh and as the flesh goes to battle with the spirit if the flesh can just get you distracted enough get you put off enough that you don’t do what you wanted to do for the Lord then the flesh has succeeded
09:33 even if you don’t fully sin it just gets you just lull you off distract you get you frustrated get you out of your out of your element maybe get you to do a little sin
09:46 and then you don’t want to repent for it and now now you’re no good right and so what do you have to do you have to be vigilant and you have to bake in a way to walk closer to the Lord every day into your routine the idea of okay every morning I’m gonna have devotional time with the Lord
10:02 not out of some legal obligation right we’re not under the law but simply because you need to build up that spiritual fitness to protect against the flesh
10:12 and I’m going to repent every single morning to go before God said Lord I repent Lord forgive me of my sins whatever I’ve done to transgress against you Lord please forgive me help point those sins out to me so I don’t do them again help me understand what that sin is so I can identify and hate it like you hate it and and that I won’t ever do it again
10:33 and we if you do that every single day you know you spend time with the Lord in the word and you pray and you repent before God well then that’s one way to protect against the flesh coming in
10:43 and and stopping you from what you would do for the Lord because frankly the more you’re prepared and the more that you’ve you’ve enriched the Holy Spirit instead of grieving the Holy Spirit the better you’ll off you’ll be spiritually
10:56 and again we don’t live by works we’re not justified by our works other than believing that’s faith that’s the only way that we’re justified we’re not saved by works and at the same time if we just have this fatalistic attitude that we won’t do anything but just sit around and see what what comes up our way then the flesh will win every time
11:17 because we will be weak and you could see that in the modern church there’s many denominations it’s been a lot of time in emotional worship they’ll sing a bunch of songs and jump around and have a light show and then they’ll leave
11:30 now is that worship what was it it was a flash of emotion what does that do how is that enriching the spirit that’s an emotion and that emotion will come and go and
11:40 and that is a shallow part of the human condition and we realize that that’s not what God is operating on he’s operating on a much higher plane and we have to rise to what God is calling us to do
11:53 and and and be mentally in our mind where the battle starts prepared to face the temptations that the devil throws our way and the temptations that our own flesh will cause throughout the day
12:07 and how do we do that we do that by being spiritually prepared and walking in the spirit doing as God calls us to do being involved with what he has called us to be involved in
12:21 and in verse 18 of Galatians 5 it says but if you be led of the spirit you’re not under the law and so another point to make here we are led of the spirit we’re no longer under the law because Christ died for our sins at Calvary
12:33 so we are no longer under the law we don’t have to do anything to earn approval with God because we can’t we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone it is only by God’s grace that we’re saved
12:50 our righteousness to God is like dirty gauze pads is dirty rags okay there’s nothing we can do it’s only believing that Christ died for our sins on the cross and we believe in Jesus Christ and his perfect sinless sacrifice for us that we’re saved and we’re made whole and we’re justified and when we’re led by the Spirit we’re not under the law
13:12 and Paul was writing the Galatians because they still thought they were under the law they still had to keep the law we don’t have to keep the law we have liberty
13:23 and that’s not an occasion to sin I’ve preached about that before it’s not an occasion to sin but it allows us to fully focus on what God did for us to be fully thankful to God for blessing us and keeping us and saving us frankly
13:35 and to live for him fully in the spirit and to walk in the spirit by having a solid routine by living the scriptures out by spending time studying his word to show ourselves approved unto God
13:49 by not being ashamed by living boldly for him by staying prayed up by staying in church in the real church the actual church doing what God called us to do
14:00 and when will we do that the Lord will bless us I believe with all my heart thank you so much for listening take care God bless and amen