1625. The Resurrected Life

The message that Steve Pettit brought that has stuck with me the most has been how, because if we're walking in the Spirit, we're no longer enslaved by the lusts of the flesh. It was just a super big encouragement for me because a lot of times I feel like I'm really deep into sin or, you know, if my walk with God gets distanced or whatever, I feel like I'm really into sin, but I can know that, you know, if I'm walking in the Spirit, I'm not enslaved to that. It doesn't consume me.

It doesn't rule over me. What I learned in chapel was that walking in the Spirit is something that you have to be intentional about and you can actually live your entire Christian life or much of it not doing that, which is kind of a sobering thought. Something I've learned from the walking in the Spirit chapel theme this semester has been spending time in God's Word and living that out intentionally and really, if I'm growing in God's Word, then I will be walking in the Spirit and growing closer to Him. What I learned from the chapel theme, walking in the Spirit, I just learned how foundational that is to just everyday life and how that can really make or break how your day goes, how your week goes. Welcome to The Daily Platform, a radio program featuring chapel messages from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. You just heard several BJU students talking about the chapel sermons they heard from our study series in the book of Galatians called Walking in the Spirit.

Today, Dr. Steve Pettit will conclude the series preaching a sermon titled The Resurrected Life. I'm going to ask you to take your Bibles and turn with me for one last time this semester to the book of Galatians, Galatians 5. All semester we've been working our way through this passage of scripture. It has been a part of our D-group meetings and I was unable to finish every message until this week, and so I really wanted to take the time with the short amount of time we have to really conclude the chapter and conclude the study with the theme this morning on how to actually walk in the Spirit. And in one way, we've been discussing this the whole semester, and yet in another way, there's never been one specific sermon on actually how to walk in the Spirit. And the reason for that is that's the way in which the Apostle Paul actually wrote this passage of scripture.

Because if we'll go back to what Paul says in the beginning in verse 13 when he introduces the idea that we've been called unto Christian liberty, but we're not to use liberty as an occasion for the flesh, what he's dealing with here is the tension that we have as a Christian. That we have within our own hearts two natures. One from our first birth and the other from our second birth. One is the flesh that we received at birth, the spiritual nature of our fallenness that was passed down to us from our parents, which goes all the way back to the first Adam. And then there is the second or the new nature that is given to us at a spiritual rebirth that is passed down to us from our second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so all Christians experience the conflict within their soul between these natures. So that we often say like with Paul, the good that I would do, I don't do, and that which I don't want to do, I do. It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Oh wretched man, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

And then he cries out, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So Paul is explaining this in Galatians 5 and he talks about the fact in verse 16 that if we walk in the spirit, we're not going to fulfill the desires of our flesh. He didn't say you won't feel the desires of the flesh. He said you won't bring to fulfillment those desires.

And he shows us what sin is. Sin is not the desire. It is the fulfillment of the desire. It is the will yielding to that desire. And then the rest of the chapter, he essentially unfolds the idea that if you walk in the spirit, you're not going to fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Why? Because the desires are mutually opposite. They're antagonistic to each other. And then he explains the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. And when you look at these two, it's obvious that they're the complete opposite. It's no gray area.

It's a black and white. And so on the one side you have the works of the flesh and he goes through those sins and then the fruit of the spirit. And then he concludes with the fruit of the spirit. He says that there's no law that can create these things and there's no law against these things. So now we come down to verses 24 and 25 where Paul now is telling us how is it that we walk in the spirit.

And that's what I want us to look at this morning and it's actually quite simple. Notice what he says. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.

I want to say two statements before we look at these verses. Number one, living out the Christian life is not any different from the way that you started the Christian life. In other words, the way you begin the Christian life is the way you live the Christian life. Or let me say it this way, it's not like you get saved and then all of a sudden something else has to be completely different in your life in order for you to grow spiritually. You live as you begin.

How did you begin? You began the Christian life with repentance and faith. And those two fundamental principles are foundational for the whole of your Christian experience. Secondly, living out the Christian life is the same in nature as to what happened to Jesus when he was crucified and resurrected. So in essence, as you begin the Christian life, you live the Christian life and the nature of the Christian life is in nature with what happened to Jesus when he was crucified on the cross and when he was resurrected from the dead. Or if I could say it this way, Christian living is living out both the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus in our own personal lives. Now those two statements are foundational for the whole of your Christian life and everything flows out of those two basic ideas. So two primary principles I want us to look at this morning as we talk about how to live the Christian life. The first is crucifixion. The second is resurrection. The first is repentance.

The second is faith. So notice what he says in verse 24. And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. He's speaking about those who are believers. What do they do in their Christian experience? How do they live out their faith? How do they walk as in the Spirit? They do it by crucifying the flesh. So as we look at this verse, three questions I want to ask. Number one, when does this crucifixion actually take place in our lives? When does this take place? Notice what he says. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

Now this is a very important question. And I want to share with you three reasons why I believe that this takes place at the moment that you're saved. And they that are Christ's, who are Christ's? Who are those who are possessed by Christ? It is those who have believed on Christ.

Those who have put their faith in Christ. When were you possessed by Christ? Well in one way you can say that we were possessed by Christ in eternity past through His election. But in practicality in the way that we actually live out our life, it was at the moment that we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. So for me it was Easter Sunday 1975 as a freshman in college when I trusted the Lord as my Savior.

When did you trust Christ as your Savior? That's when you were possessed by Christ. And that is when you were crucified with Christ.

The second idea is that this crucifixion according to the Greek language is in the aorist tense. And what he means there is it takes place at a point in time in our experience which I believe is at the moment of our salvation. But my emphasis here is not so much you individually, but it's all of us. And the point is this, that this crucifixion is a uniform event that we all experience. It's not that if you are a believer, if you've been possessed by Christ, that what you experience and what somebody else experiences is different.

Now the way you got there is different. But all of us experience the same salvation. It's not a unique salvation.

It is a uniform salvation in the sense that we all go through the same things. So all of us here who are possessed by Christ at the moment of our salvation were crucified with Christ. And then the third idea is that as I've already mentioned that the nature of our salvation is living out as you begin. How do we live the Christian life?

Well, how do we start the Christian life? We started with a crucifixion. At the moment that we were saved, we were crucified. And from that point forward, we live out our Christian experience through a crucifixion experience. It's like when we talk about when you get saved, what did you do?

You put off the old man and you put on the new man. And so this crucifixion is something that took place at your conversion. Secondly, what does it mean when it says, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh?

What does that actually mean? Well, there are two verses in the book of Galatians I want us to note that seem to be very similar, but actually they're different. Or you could actually say they contrast one another. The first one is in Galatians 2 and verse 20. Would you look at that verse? This is a very, very familiar verse where Paul says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

The word flesh there is referring primarily to the body that you live in, the body of flesh where your sin nature dwells. And what Paul is saying here when he says, I am crucified with Christ, Paul is saying here that this is not something that he does, but this is something that was done to him by someone else. He says, I am crucified with Christ. He's not saying I did this crucifixion.

He said, something happened to me. And the agent of crucifixion here in this case is referring to God. That is God took all of us as believers and he crucified us with Christ.

What is he referring to here? He's referring to the doctrine of the union of the believer with Christ. Maybe the simplest illustration I could give is when you take a plug and you plug it into an electrical receptacle, when the plug is plugged in at that moment of connection is when the power begins to flow through the electrical cord. When you and I got saved, if I could say it this way, we were plugged into or placed into Christ. When you were baptized, for example, how do we say baptism? Baptized into the likeness of his death, raised in the likeness of his resurrection.

When you are baptized into water, you are literally submerged into or you are literally placed into Christ's death where you die with him and you resurrect with him. And so the power of the Christian life is not in what I can do. The power of the Christian life is in what God has done for me in Christ.

I am crucified with Christ. I remember as a young Christian struggling to overcome personal sin habits that I had, that I brought into my new Christian life. And I remember certain sins were very easy for me to stop, but others I just struggled with because they had a powerful grip on me. And a very good friend of mine sat down with me one day and he said, Steve, do you realize that when Jesus died on the cross, he did not die just to deliver you from the penalty of sin, but he died to deliver you from the power of sin. So he said, practically that sin habit that you struggle with, actually you have died to with Christ.

That power has been broken over you. You're trying to do it by your own self effort and you have not, if I could say it this way, plugged into or tapped into by faith, the power source that is in Jesus Christ. So when the Bible speaks in Galatians chapter two, he's talking about what God has done for me in Christ. But look at Galatians five in verse 24. Now this verse here is different.

In verse 20 of chapter two Paul is saying something was done to him, but here Paul is saying something is to be done by him. Notice what he says, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh. Here the believers are the agents of this crucifixion. We crucify our own selves. Now that may sound somewhat strange to you, but it's not strange when you think of what Jesus said to his own disciples. He said, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. That is there is an act of faith and obedience when you and I choose to say no to what the flesh wants to say yes to. That no, that denial is actually acting as if I were dead. Think about it. Go to a local graveyard and see how many people there are struggling with temptation.

Have you ever noticed that? Try to tempt a dead person with drugs or immorality. Call him all kinds of names.

See if he reacts and gets angry. What do we know about dead people? Dead people don't sin. When you and I are facing temptation, the power to overcome it is in what Christ has done for us, but also in our choice to accept the fact that we have died to that sin. Someone said it this way, that when they wake up every morning and they look in the mirror, the first thing they say to themselves is drop dead.

That is today I have to live like a dead person. Dead to what? Dead to the affections and lusts of my flesh. So when Paul says, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, he describes two elements of the flesh, affections and lusts. If I could make it super simple, affections are the things that we desire on the outside and lusts are the things that we desire on the inside.

Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust. That is there's an external temptation and I have an internal desire and both of those things I have to be crucified to. Paul says I am crucified to the world. There are things in the world that I do not have anything to do with because I live as if I am dead. I am resurrected with Christ. I am living as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven though I live on the kingdom of, I live in the kingdom of this earth. And so the whole Christian life is this ongoing experience of dying to one's self.

Now how does that work out in daily experience? And in a sense I've already said it. But I want to emphasize one key verse and that's found in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 5. And you can find this throughout the New Testament but I'll just emphasize the one verse. Where the Apostle Paul tells us and I'm going to quote it from the King James but I'm going to mention the ESV. It says, Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.

Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry. The word mortify is where we get the word mortician or mortuary. It's a term of death. The ESV says, simply put to death. What he is saying is this, that on a daily experience, moment by moment, I have to constantly be putting to death what my flesh is saying to live to. When I say no to my flesh, that's a death sentence. When your flesh rises up and you say no to it, that is a death sentence. And the way that you live out the Christian life is living out that crucifixion. Now is that easy to do?

The answer is no. Because when a person was crucified on a cross, think about the pain of that. Think of the shame of that. You know the fact of the matter is, all of us, if we lived out what's in our heart, what would our lives be like?

Be shameful in multiple hundreds of ways. Aren't you so glad that you have within you a power source to overcome what your own heart is asking for fulfillment to do? Aren't you so glad that you are not enslaved to your sin nature because the power of that sin nature has been broken? Now, there are many of you sitting here who are enslaved to sinful habits.

There's no doubt about it. And I'm not here to speak in a tone of condemnation. I say this as your brother, like Jesus is our brother. That actually what he did on the cross is the only power source that you will ever have. And it's all sufficient to overcome the sinful desires of your flesh.

And if you would begin to grow in your faith and recognize what Christ has done, you can overcome those sinful habits. So the first is a crucifixion. But then the second word that we find here is found in verse 25, and that is the second principle, and that is a resurrection.

Look at what he says. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. There are four key words found in Galatians chapter five verses 16 to 24 that refer to the work of the Holy Spirit. In verse 16, he talks about the walk of the Spirit. Verse 18, he talks about being led of the Spirit. And in verse 24, he talks about living in the Spirit and walking in the Spirit. Now, I don't have the time to explain all the meanings of these ideas, but the walk in verse 16 is referring to our obedience. In verse 18, the word led is referring to our dependence.

We obey and we depend. In verse 24, the word live is talking about the Holy Spirit taking up his residence inside of us. And then verse 24, when he talks about the word walk, the word walk in verse 24 is very different than the word walk in verse 16. The word walk in verse 24 is a military term that means to keep in step with. If you have ever had anything to do with the military, you understand that as a soldier, you have to stand in what they call a formation. And you follow a leader who gives you marching orders.

And he'll say, he'll say, Platoon, forward, march. And you start marching. And you march on the same foot, right, left, right, left. And what he is saying here is that the Holy Spirit is like a platoon leader whose job is to keep us in line. He calls out the cadence, and we simply are to keep in step with the Spirit of God working in our life. As a believer, we're always constantly marching to the cadence of the Spirit of God. Another illustration of this is when you take a class at Bob Jones and you get a syllabus, and the syllabus tells you what you have to do. And everybody understands that a part of your classwork is just simply keeping up.

The greatest stress that many of you experience is you get behind. Do you understand what I'm saying? When the Bible says walk in the Spirit, it's talking about the reality of the presence of the Spirit of God in your life, that you are to keep up with the Spirit of God. What does that tell me? It tells me the Holy Spirit is alive in you. He is real in you.

He is working in you. And for most of us, what happens is we get behind. That's why we have confession. That's why we have repentance, where we come back and we ask God to forgive us, and we come back and we once more, if I could say this way, get back in line and start to walk in the Spirit. And there are two keys to walking in the Spirit. One is a simple keeping up with what we call the graces of God. That would be simply like Bible reading and prayer and fellowship and devotions and discipleship. That is when we lag behind in our Bible and our prayer and our worship and our fellowship and our connection to the local church, we begin to get out of step with the Holy Spirit. So we keep up through these consistent means of grace.

But then secondly, the Holy Spirit being a person works in our hearts. He speaks to us. It's like my wife calling me on the phone or sending me a text and asking me, would you do this? Or it's like my son Michael who lives in Jerusalem, and the other day he texted me. He says, call me, Dad. And immediately I called him.

I responded. The Holy Spirit is a person, and He will constantly be speaking to you. He may be speaking to you about confessing something that you did or sharing your faith or testifying of the Lord or praying or praising or rejoicing. And what happens is you begin to develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit so that you are spontaneously responding to His working in your life. Whenever I sense the power and the presence of God in a place, one of the evident signs is there's a spontaneity to the Lord. There is a responsiveness. It doesn't have to be emotional.

It doesn't even have to be physical. But there is this inner response to the Lord in my life, and in these things I am keeping up with the Spirit. And what we experience then in this life is both a crucifixion, dying to self, and a resurrection, the empowering life of the Spirit of God.

And you put those two things together, repentance and faith, the crucifixion, resurrection. And that's how we walk in the Spirit. That's how we live out the Christian life.

And may God grant you the grace to live that kind of life. Lord, we thank you for your word that you've given us. And Lord, help us to walk in the Spirit in Jesus' name.

Amen. You've been listening to the final sermon preached by Dr. Steve Pettit from the study series in Galatians 5 called Walking in the Spirit. Steve is now using his gifts as a compelling communicator and expositor of Scripture and travels to local churches with preaching, concerts and conferences emphasizing Gospel-centered evangelism and Christian leadership development. You can get more information about Steve's ministry at stevepettit.com. If you would like to re-listen to any of the sermons preached in the Galatians series or want to share them on social media, go to our website, thedailyplatform.com. Thanks for listening and join us next time as we'll hear more sermons from the Bob Jones University Chapel platform.