WALKING IN THE SPIRIT

GALATIANS 5:13-18

          A couple of week ago I preached the message “Dead to Sin” and in that message I pointed out that Christ, when He saved us made us dead to sin.  However, our enemy came in a reintroduced us to sin before we had a moment to walk in our deliverance.  Many have not walked one day in their saved life free from sin.  I am here today to remind us that not only are we dead to sin but we have been freed from the bondage of sin, from the power of sin over us.  Roman 6:18 says, “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” Today I want to talk about the “Key to Walking in Freedom”.  Believe it or not there is no new revelation here and there is no mystery in walking in freedom.  It does not require a deep understanding of the Word of God nor does it require the ability to call fire down from heaven.  Walking free from sin requires only one thing that you walk in the Spirit.  So today I want to talk about walking in the Spirit.  You see the Bible clearly declares here that when we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.  Yes, for the Christian, the spirit and the flesh are at war with one another.  But if we elect to follow the leading of the Spirit, we will then not walk in the flesh.

          Now some are being pulled back into sin because you have not yet decided not to follow after the flesh and there are some who are attempting to follow after both the Spirit and the flesh.  They are trying to be spiritual in some areas and yet enjoy the fruits of the flesh in other areas.  I am here to tell you today that you cannot successfully do both.  You can not follow after the Spirit and follow after you flesh as well. 

AMOS 3:3

          Can sin and righteousness walk together and bring you with excellence to your appointed destination?  (Example:  Tug of war – Sandra and Mabel)  If sin is alive in you it will always try to keep you from reaching Jesus.  Trying to walk in the flesh and in the Spirit at the same time is like playing tug of war with sin and righteousness with you in the middle.  If you make any progress towards Jesus it is going to be slow and with much expended energy. 

          Now some would say, “How do you walk in the Spirit”?

I PETER 2:21

          If we are going walk in the Spirit we must do as Jesus did.  He is the example that God appointed for us to follow.  We must walk in his steps.  Now some would say, “Well how do I do that?  How do I walk in Jesus’ steps?”  Well we might start by doing a few simple things.  When confronted with a situation

1.  Ask yourself what would Jesus do (JOHN 6:38)

            Now some of you would get smart at this point and ask well how will I know what is the will of the Father?  Let me answer you this way.  If you have been seeking his face in prayer as Jesus did you will know his will.  If you have been reading and studying his Word, if you are truly surrendered to Him He will show you His will.  And I can tell you this for sure there is no form of sin, unrighteousness, perverseness or unholy living that is apart of his will for you. What would Jesus do?  He would do the will of the Father and he would know that will because He spent quality time communicating with the Father. 

          I know that there are times when we sincerely may not know what to do.

HEBREWS 13:21

          Paul prayed here that God would make them matured in every good work to do his will.  When Jesus did not know what to do He talked to God about it.  When we ask in faith and with full surrender to God the Holy Spirit will guide us to know and do the right thing.

          I can tell you this, doing your own will at least 98% of the time will put you outside of the will of God because Isaiah 55:8 declares “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” Now since our thoughts are not God’s thoughts we need to ask ourselves

2.  What would Jesus think?  (Philippians 4:8)

          Where in this list did it say think about what you want or what you need?  Where in this list did it say think about your feelings?  Where did it say think about your finances, your loneliness, your disappointments, your hurts, your whatever.  We spend to much of our valuable time thinking about us and not enough thinking on the things of God.  I have told you time and time again, if you are focused on you and your problems, desires etc, you are headed down the road to sin.  The enemy constantly seeks to use our desires, cravings, frailties, etc against us.  We work with him when we are focused on ourselves. 

          This brings me to my next point.  Many of us listen to the Devil way too long.  When the Devil approached Eve and said “Did God say” she should have said yes that’s what he said and kept moving.  No she had to stand there and carry on a conversation with him.  In many instances we are not strong enough to battle with our own flesh and with the enemy at the same time.  We need to stop listening to him and move on to something else.  Sometimes it is just a matter of tuning him out.  Ask yourself

3.  What would Jesus hear? (JOHN 5:30)

          Jesus chose to hear the will of the Father.  He heard what God wanted Him to do.  Now we know in the natural that Jesus’ ears operated just as does ours and we know that in the spiritual the enemy talked to him just as he does to us.  Jesus however, would not hear, pay attention to or take heed to what the enemy was saying.  In fact his reply to the enemy was to tell him what God said.  Too often we listen to the enemy and begin to agree with him.  I am sure that after fasting 40 days in the wilderness Jesus really was hungry in fact the scriptures says he was hungry, but when the devil tempted him with bread we never hear Jesus saying, “Yea I guess I am hungry”.  His hunger was not relevant to the situation.  What was relevant was the will of God and God’s word is his will.  God told the Children of Israel in Isaiah 55:3 “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you.”  He is the same God yesterday, today and forever.  If his desire was for them to incline their ear unto him and listen, take heed to what he was saying then such is his desire for us.  Those of us who are apart of the true church of Jesus Christ are the people of God through whom he now chooses to operate in this Earth.  Just as Israel was to listen to God so are we.

4.  We must as ourselves “What would Jesus see?”

MATTHEW 4:8-10

          Some of us would have got up there on that mountain and started saying wow, look over there and what is that over there.  We would have taken our eyes off of God and gotten caught up in the beauty of it all.  With some of us the Devil does not have to work hard at all to get us distracted.  Anything that takes your eyes off of the expressed will of God for your life should be treated like an unwanted distraction.  When Jesus looked out over that mountain I believe that He saw the plan of salvation.    He saw God’s love for us and his love for the father and what he saw had greater value to him than all the kingdoms of this world and the glory they offered because He saw the heart of God for lost man.  If we are going to walk in the Spirit we must view life and all that it entails with spiritual eyes.  We must be like the psalmist of psalms 141:8 and declare “Mine eyes are to the O God the Lord: in thee is my trust.”  (If we will look at ourselves through the eyes of God it would keep us from thinking more highly of ourselves than we should, but it would also help us to see others in a different light.  Though many sinners were brought to Jesus he had a way of seeing the good in them.  He would condemn their sin without condemning them.  He could see their hurts and needs and he had compassion on them.  We must learn to see one another through the eyes of Jesus.

5.  We need to ask ourselves what would Jesus say.

          Sometimes we will say anything to and about one another.  We will run our mouths before we have any facts.  We offer speculations not understanding that in the minds and hearts of some, your speculations become fact whether they are or not.  Matthew 12:34 says “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” If you are always speaking evil of others that only gives evidence that your heart is evil.

COLOSSIANS 4:6

          Seasoning of food makes it tasty and even the most undesirable foods taste better when they are properly seasoned.  Even when you have to tell someone the truth there is a palatable way of doing it.  We want to be constructive and not destructive in the way that we approach one another.   We want to be encouraging not discouraging.  We want our words to build up the kingdom of God not tear it down.  We must learn to ask ourselves “how would Jesus say this”.  Finally if we are going to walk in the Spirit we must ask ourselves

6.  Where would Jesus go and why?

I CORINTHIANS 6:12

          We now operate under God’s grace rather than a bunch of rules and regulations and some think that grace allows them the freedom to do as they please and still be called a child of God.  Do you know what Grace really did?  Grace made developing a relationship mandatory.  The Jew had rules and as long as they were obeying the rules all seemed to be well with them.  We have very few rules but now we have the individual responsibility to get with God and allow Him to implant His will for us within us. 

PHILIPPIANS 2:12-13

          Who is working in us?  Of course the answer is God. But even as God works in me, I have the responsibility to carry out that which He is doing within me.  So I don’t really have freedom to do as I choose and still remain a child of God.  Yes I have free will which allows me to make choices.  But bad choices lead to the consequence of my being pulled farther away from God rather than being drawn closer to him.  Where would Jesus go and why?  He would go anywhere the Father ordained for him to go and he went to glorify God.  If your ability to glorify God is jeopardized by where you are going then unless God told you in no uncertain terms to go, then you should not be going.  To go without the full blessing and covering of God leaves you open to diverse temptations and opens the passageway to birthing sin in your life.

          Jesus is our example.  He took the same Holy Spirit that we have and He walked in the Spirit leaving us an example to show that it can be done.  If we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh and we will experience freedom from sin. The key to walking in freedom from sin is walking in the Spirit.