Walking in the Spirit

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham. A little later in the program we'll tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's devotional, Moments in the Word. But first, here's the message, Walking in the Spirit. What are we to walk in the kingdom without Our presence? The very presence of God in us. The Holy Spirit.

Not an it, not an influence but the third person of the Holy Spirit. We are to walk in the Spirit. Now, I've been walking with the Lord since I was a small boy.

I'm grateful for the heritage of my home, the spiritual training and nurturing I received. I came to Christ as a young boy, and I've been walking with Him ever since. To walk with Jesus means you're following Jesus.

We are to follow. We are Christ followers. And I can tell you that it has been an amazing life, a great, wonderful walk. God has done in me beyond my dreams, my wildest dreams, imaginations. Even though there are hills and valleys and we all have those in our walk with Christ, ups and downs, I cannot imagine life without Jesus Christ. I cannot imagine living in this journey we call life without the presence of the Lord. The only way to keep doing this, what keeps me alive and active and so full of energy and strength is not human energy or human strength, but the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. This doesn't get done because we have willpower or horsepower or nuclear power or any other kind of power, but because we have the power of God. We have the power of the Holy Spirit. And therefore we walk in the Spirit. We're called to press on the upward way. As the old song says, new heights I'm gaining every day. And I believe that our dreams should be greater than our memories. We've got a lot of great things that have happened in the past. But the present and the future is greater than our past.

Again, I believe our dreams should be greater than our memories. That's true of you as an individual, as a person, as a Christian, and it's true of the church. So today we talk about how to keep going, how to do that, how to walk in the Spirit. And in Galatians chapter 5 verse 16, here's what it says, but I say to you, this is a command, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Later in this same passage, it talks about the fruit of the Spirit, which is the result of walking in the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, which is love. That's down about verse 23 and love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and meekness and self-control, all of this fruit of the Spirit.

And it's all about the character of Christ, the Christ life in our life. That's the fruit of the Spirit, but it all is in walking in the Spirit. Now, what does it mean to walk in the Spirit?

If I could define our term here, I would say to walk in the Spirit is to live in daily dependence and obedience to Christ. It is to rely upon our God. Many think that the Christian life means trying harder.

It's not trying, it's trusting. It's not trying, it's relying upon the resources that we have within us, the work of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit. We depend upon the Holy Spirit day by day in this walk. A walk is a step at a time, a step at a time. Every step is a risk. Every step is out there a little bit.

We learn how to walk, and as we grow physically, we learn how to walk better and better. And therefore, we are walking in Christ as we grow in Christ. The Christian life is not about our human ability, our efforts to follow the example of Christ, but it is Christ in you, the hope of glory, Christ in us. And this is the normal Christian life.

Don't think that the Spirit-filled life, that walking in the Spirit is some life for the super saints or the extras or the pros or the missionaries or the preachers, that this is for somebody else. No, it is for every Christian that we are called and commanded to walk in the Spirit and therefore not indulge and engage or live in the flesh and fulfill the desires of the flesh, to gratify the desires of the flesh. Have you noticed that sin satisfies, but it does not gratify?

Sin may satisfy a certain need in a person's life, but it does not gratify the deepest needs of the human heart. So we're to walk in the Spirit. And again, I say, this is normal Christian living. It's abnormal not to walk in the Spirit. As you scan your Bible, you can get a concordance and you can look up in the New Testament as well as Old Testament passages about walking with the Lord, walking in the Spirit, walking with Christ. After all, what is a Christ follower? Someone who's walking with Jesus.

So I just, for your edification this morning, I just pulled a few of these to help you see that this is for all of us, not just for some of us. First we're to walk in good works, Ephesians 2, 10, the good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. God has a plan.

God has a purpose. And we're to walk in the good works, doing good things as we go. Romans 13, 13 says that we're to walk properly as in the daytime, properly meaning in a godly way, in a good way, not living in the darkness, but in the light. Second Corinthians 5, 17 says, for we walk by faith and not by sight. So walking means we walk in faith.

Again, I mean, every time you take a step, there's that risk that you could go down every step of the way. So we walk by faith. We don't walk in the flesh. We walk by faith. Ephesians 5, 2, we are to walk in love.

Everywhere we go, we are to live love and live love loudly. Ephesians 5, 8, we're to walk in the light, walk in the light. You were once in darkness, but now you are the light of the Lord. Walk as children of light. Colossians 1, 10, this is a powerful mission statement for the believer, so as to walk as a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. So we are to walk worthy of the Lord. And then to take it a step further, 1 John 2, 6, we're to walk as Jesus walked. Whoever says He abides in Him ought to walk in the same way that He has walked. And then finally, Ephesians 4, 1, we're to walk worthy of our calling.

Paul said, I am a prisoner of the Lord. I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. In other words, don't just talk the talk, walk the walk. Again I'm showing you, what I'm saying is this is the walk for every believer, that we are to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the desires of the flesh.

You say, how do we do that? Because have you made the discovery that the Christian life is not hard, is impossible? All the demands of discipleship? To walk worthy, to walk in light, to walk in love, to walk like the Lord?

We are humanly incapable of this. That is why God has given us the Holy Spirit. He said, I've not left you as an orphan, but my Spirit will live in you. And the greatest lesson I've learned as a Christian in all these years walking with the Lord, that it's not I, but Christ who lives in me. That it is an exchange life. We exchange our life for the life of Christ. That the living Lord Jesus risen alive is alive in me.

You should get up every day, look in the mirror and say something like, Lord Jesus I know you are alive in me today. To walk in daily dependence and obedience to Him. Now there are obstacles to our walk. In fact there are three obstacles, enemies if you will, adversaries that resist us in our walk with the Lord. The devil and the flesh and the world. Or the world, the flesh and the devil in that order. But I want to talk about the devil first of all because the devil is real. The devil is not a cartoon character. The devil is not down in hell shoveling coal for the fires of torment. No the devil is alive and well and working on planet earth. And it may surprise you to know that the devil doesn't pay that much attention to unbelievers.

He's already got them, they're already on his team. But when you do get saved, then you become a target for the enemy. You understand that? You actually become a target of the enemy as a believer. If you thought that when you became a Christian it was going to get a lot easier, guess what?

It doesn't get easier, it may get harder. There are new temptations and new tests and new trials that we face. And there are temptations that come that are common to all of us. First Corinthians 10 tells us that there's no temptation but that it's common to man. But God is faithful. Do you believe God is faithful? God is faithful and with the temptation will make a way of escape. I thank God for so many times in my life when I came against Satan in the throes of a temptation that God who is faithful made a way of escape, a way out and a way through. I certainly have sinned against God and I haven't lived a perfect life but I am thankful for the preserving, protective, keeping power of God. And when we do fall, when we do fail, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

When we come to Him we confess our sins. But be that as it may, I'm pointing out that the devil now has you in the target zone. Second Corinthians 2-11, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, don't be duped by the devil, for we are not ignorant of his designs.

That's an interesting word. It means strategies. Satan has many powerful weapons and tools at his disposal, temptations that come our way. He has certain vulnerabilities and proclivities, propensities, problems that we face. And so he often attacks us at the point of our vulnerabilities where we are weak.

Now I should say before I go there that he also can attack us at our strengths. If you are relying on your strength, that's an open door for Satan to move. J. Oswald Sanders, the great Christian devotional writer who gave us my utmost for his highest, said this, I memorized this a long time ago, I wrote it in my Bible, maybe you didn't want to write it in yours. He said, an unguarded strength is a double weakness. An unguarded strength is a double weakness because if you don't guard your strengths then it becomes a liability. Our abilities become liabilities when we do not trust and walk in the Spirit. So guard your strength but also be aware of your weaknesses and vulnerabilities and ask the Spirit of God to help you. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, Walking in the Spirit.

When you set aside daily time to connect with God, he'll give you the ability to live a godly life and fulfill his plans for you in the coming year. And we'd like to help you walk even more closely with the Lord in the year ahead by sending you Pastor Graham's 180 day devotional, Moments in the Word. It's our way to thank you for your gift today to help proclaim the Gospel to more people around the world through PowerPoint. So call now to get your copy of Moments in the Word when you give. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131.

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Now let's get back to today's message, Walking in the Spirit. My friend David Jeremiah imagined Satan having an office. And in his office a file, maybe a computer file. And if you looked in the file and typed in your name, your name would be there if you were a believer. And Satan has, as Dr. Jeremiah is surmising, your vulnerabilities there.

Your weaknesses there. And he knows what tool to use to discourage us or disappoint us or depress us or defeat us in some way. Remember, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, but Satan hates you and has a terrible plan for your life.

Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. But Satan comes to lie, kill, steal and destroy, to rob you of everything good, to rob you of your testimony, to rob you of your joy, to rob you of your peace and on and on. So there's a file. And maybe if, you know, we looked into your file, what would your file say?

We could imagine what some of our files might say. God's files on you might say, for example, enjoys gossip or has a quick temper, a hair trigger temper or easily discouraged or prone to worry or prideful or lustful or doubts. Satan is at work, his devices, his designs, creates a struggle for the life of the Christian. So not only is there the devil, but the scripture talks about the flesh. In fact, it talks about it right here in Galatians. I look at it again in verse 16, it talks about the desires of the flesh. Verse 17 again, the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against to the flesh for those are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

Now Paul is writing here to all of us about an experience that he knew personally. He talked about it in Romans chapter seven. And in Romans chapter seven, he says things like, the things that I want to do, Paul says that I'm struggling because those are the things I don't do. And then he says on the other hand, the things that I don't want to do, those are the very things that I find myself doing. What was true for Paul is true for all who are believers. He went on to say at the end of chapter seven, oh wretched man that I am.

Talk about low self-esteem. He said, this wrecks me, that what I want to do, I don't do, what I don't want to do, I do. And he cried out, who will deliver me from this body of death, this dying decaying flesh that I'm living in? That's a Romans seven Christian. And Paul was there, thank God he wrote Romans eight because he discovered victory in Jesus that we're not living in condemnation in Christ, that God is alive and working with us in His spirit from the heels of Romans seven, this terrible testimony of struggle against sin and gratifying the flesh, there's Romans eight and the promise of victory. But I'm just telling you what Paul experienced, we have all experienced and there is this war within. And that's why it's so hard to live the Christian life.

It's why it's so impossible to live the Christian life in our own strength. Because this flesh principle, the flesh is who we are in the old nature, it's our old nature. When you became a Christian, the old nature didn't die, the old man didn't die.

Still alive. Now you have a new life, you have the Spirit of God but in this comes the resistance, in this comes the big fight that we should walk in the Spirit rather than live in the flesh. The flesh is your old way of living, it's your old way of thinking, it's your habits, those addictions, it's those things in your life that are still present. And the word flesh is carnal, carnivorous is in that word, carne, chili con carne, chili with meat, that's what it means, it means flesh.

You're a Christian con carne is what you are. And so you have this new nature and you have this old nature. And the main descriptions as to how to deal with this were to take off the old man, the old clothes and put on the new. By the way we think, the way we believe, rather than believing the lies of Satan, we listen to the truth of the Spirit and we walk accordingly, we walk in the world.

We don't let the old man dominate us. Look down in verses 19, 20 and 21. It says, but the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, which is akin to drug use by the way, enmity, all the anger we see, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissension, divisions.

Is this like watching the news? Envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you as I've warned you before that those who do such things, that is those who live this way, do not inherit the kingdom of God. They are unsaved. But the fact is that sometimes a saved person can go back and start living a carnal life. You have Christ in your life but you're tempted to go back. That's why in Hebrews we keep saying, go forward, go forward, go forward. And the way to overcome the flesh is to feed the spirit and starve the flesh.

Feed the spirit and starve the flesh. Then there's also not only the devil and the flesh but there's the world, which I'm going to call the culture. The culture is the world. Not the world of people that God loves, not the world of creation that God has made, but the world system that is anti-God that just sucks us in, calls us to compromise our conviction. It's the world system and the culture is constantly there. The world is wooing us like a siren and flaming the flesh. The world will play with your emotions. The world can include your old friends that don't know Christ and therefore you have to make a clean break.

You love your friends, you care about them, but you can't keep doing the things that your old friends and keep going back there. The culture, the things you used to do B.C. before Christ, I mean those things that were a part of your life and it was, quote, worldly because you were in the world.

You loved the world. But now we love Christ. Now if you're a Christian, you're walking in the spirit, you're out of step with the world. You're marching to the beat of a different drummer. We don't listen to the drumbeat of the world. There is a distant echo in our hearts. It is the spirit of God that beats within us. So we now are walking in the spirit, whether anybody else is walking with us or not. We are outliers.

You know what that term means? We're outliers. We're not the same as the world.

In order to make a difference, we must be different. Don't blend into the world. Step out in the spirit and walk in the spirit and that doesn't mean you're going to be weird.

It doesn't mean you're going to do crazy, bizarre things. To walk in the spirit is to live under the control of the Holy Spirit. Rather than the control and the domination of Satan, the world, the flesh, we're now walking in the power and the presence, the promises of God.

And if you do that, you will walk in the spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Again, it's not I but Christ who lives in me. Ask the Holy Spirit every day to fill you with His presence.

He's already there. He lives in you. So ask Him to fill you, to control you. Walk in daily dependence and obedience to Christ. When Joshua was called to lead the children of Israel in this trek through the desert and into the Promised Land, and the Promised Land is a picture of a Spirit-filled life. He told him in the first chapter of Joshua that you're going to meditate on the Word of God every day and then that every step you take, the sole of your foot, you're taking higher ground. You're taking more ground. You're walking more and more in the spirit and not living in the desert, living in the wilderness spiritually.

Get it? That's what it is to walk in the spirit. It's really a matter of surrendering your life to live under the lordship of Jesus. Jesus is Lord. The question is, is He Lord of your life? Because when He is, you will be more than a conqueror, the scripture says. You will be able to say, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He is the source of my strength.

The reason that I keep doing this day after day is not because of me, but because of Him. If you will walk with the Lord one day, the Lord's going to say, come on home with me. And the next thing you know, you're going to be walking on streets of Goa and celebrating a life well lived as you walk in the Spirit.

You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, Walking in the Spirit. Looking ahead to a new year can fill you with expectation, but it can also fill you with desperation. What if things get worse?

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