The War Within

Walking in the Spirit produces a different kind of character. Dr. Tony Evans talks about the breakthrough that comes with the Holy Spirit within you. All of a sudden, the Christian life will take on a whole new level for you because you will see the supernatural overriding the natural. This is the alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr.

Tony Evans. Even the most committed Christian can feel torn between what God wants and what the flesh craves. Today, Dr. Evans helps us understand that inner battle and shows how walking by the Spirit empowers us to win. Let's join him as he explains.

Paulo. has made it clear that we are operating under a different administration. Then the Old Testament. Under the Old Testament, The operation was under the administration of law.

Now we're under the administration of grace. Law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Moses was one administration, one way of operating. It was temporary. We've seen that already in the book of Galatians.

It was a temporary way of operating. He's come to chapter five, and he's made it clear that Christ set you free that you might be free, verse one. Do you have a right to be free? That is, not being held by something illegitimately holding you hostage. But he says you lose that right if you go back under the old system.

Back under what he calls the yoke of slavery in verse one of chapter five. And you, verse 4, become severed from Christ. meaning severed from the benefits of your relationship with Christ. Christ then is of no value to you. He's not benefiting you.

And he uses the phrase, you've fallen from grace in verse four. You've fallen from operating under the grace system. You're in another system. And it's a system that is no longer the system God is operating on.

So you're operating. in a wrong way.

So he now wants you to operate under this new system called grace. This raises the question. How does this system work? How do I operate under grace so that grace works for me? Remember, grace is God's unmerited favor.

Or it is the inexhaustible supply of God's goodness doing for us. What we cannot do for ourselves, could never earn, and would never be able to repay. It is God's faith. Favor. He comes now to the key Verse or verses to help us to understand.

Grace working. He comes to verse 16. This is the key concept. That if you grasp it, will lead you to the freedom. The victory to be what God has created and redeemed you to be.

It's stated in a lot of different ways throughout the New Testament, but here it's succinct. He says, but I say, verse 16. Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. There it is in a capsule form. This is This is Grace Concentrate.

Because it's a capsule form. of this life under grace. Walk in the Spirit. And you will not carry out. the desires of the flesh.

Your new life is situated in an unredeemed humanity. When things you used to say yes to, you now are saying no to, even though your flesh still wants it. He says, Walk in the spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

So, the second thing I want you to notice is the order. The order. The order is not. Fix the flash. The order is walk in the spirit.

What we often do is try to fix the flesh.

so we can walk in the spirit. That's called Backwards Christian Soldiers. You don't, you don't. fix the flesh to walk in the spirit. You walk in the spirit.

which gives you the ability to override the flesh. God is not after flesh management. He's after spiritual transformation.

Okay? And spiritual transformation comes when you When you walk in the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit's job. To put Propel your movement. If you've ever been to the airport and got on the moving sidewalk, You walk, you have the privilege of walking on the sidewalk.

But there is a Power underneath you. that is moving you along as you move. That is the concept of walking in the spirit. Walking in the spirit means. You are moving.

But you are moving. with another power source pulling you along.

So The first thing you need to know about walking in the spirit is your destination. Because if you're walking, you're going somewhere.

So if you're walking in the spirit, your destination is the will of God. The second thing about walking is that there is a dependency when you walk. When I walk, I put one foot. In front of another, you do the same, which means your weight is resting on that leg for that step.

Okay.

So there's going to be a dependency in walking.

So in order for the grace Principle to work. I must be intentionally moving to the will of God.

So let me pause there with a principle. Walking in the Spirit is the same concept as walking by faith. God responds to your motion. We said it again. God responds to your emotion.

When God, throughout scripture, supernaturally intervened. to help people through things, he would regularly Call on them to move first. To show they had faith in his word.

So he told Moses to hold out the ride before he opened up the Red Sea. He told Joshua to tell the priests to put their foot in the water before he held back the Jordan River. Told Mary to move the stone before he supernaturally brought Lazarus out from the grave. He required motion. Oftentimes, when people are struggling with the flesh, They want God to fix the flesh before they move.

When he is saying no. Walk. But when you walk, Walk Not depending on you. You're walking in the spirit. independence on something outside of you.

So, when you are walking, there must be a movement taken by you. It must be that step. or initial steps. And when you take those initial steps, counting on the Holy Spirit to propel you along. It's like turning an on switch.

When you have a switch that's on or off, When you have it off, the power is there, it's just not engaged. When you turn it on, the power that's already there now becomes activated or engaged.

So when you say to the Lord, My flesh wants this. But the will of God wants that. And these are the steps I am moving to the will of God, counting on the Spirit to empower it. You just turned on and on switch. And you have now engaged the Holy Spirit.

to intervene into the movement. Toward the will of God.

So he says, if you will walk in the spirit, That is the focus. The focus is not fixing the flesh. The focus is not yielding to the flesh. But the way that's done is not by trying to get the flesh to be better. It's by having a spirit.

Focus. Two whole chapters are given to this.

Well, actually, three whole chapters, which is a whole teaching in and of itself. And I'll just summarize it now. And this is Romans 6, 7, and 8. Romans 6, 7, and 8.

So those are three chapters that They may want to read that goes into more. Explanation in Romans six. He says, you need to know who you are in Christ. Your identity. You need to know that the old man has been defeated, he says in Romans 6.

You need to know, and then you need to yield to that reality. That's the new reality. In chapter seven, he outlines his struggle with his flesh. He never tells us what the struggle is, but he tells us it was a bad struggle. because he kept being defeated.

And he's writing most of that chapter, he's writing as a Christian. But he keeps running into a roadblock of yielding to the flesh. But then he comes in the first 13 verses of Romans chapter 8, and he talks about, but when he learned. When he learned to walk in the spirit, he was able to override the gravitational pull of the flesh. As we've said before, gravity pulls you down.

Gravity pulls you down. It's the nature of gravity. And you can do all the stuff you want to, and gravity is not going to change. Gravity will always take you in one direction. It will always pull you down.

What goes up must come down. But you and I fly on airplanes and we fly on airplanes because gravity is overridden. It hadn't changed. But the power of Aerodynamics. Things moving at a certain speed with a certain amount of thrust.

Can transcend the law of gravity so that the desire of gravity to pull you down can't do it when other factors are introduced. not canceling gravity, but overriding it.

So God has given you an override button. or source. And the focus is not to fix the flesh. The focus is to walk in the spirit, to move toward the will of God. Depending on God's Spirit to empower the movement to reach the goal.

of not going this direction. Dr. Evans will explain how the Spirit empowers us to overcome the flesh and walk in God's will. when he returns in just a moment. First, though, when we drift from the true gospel, even slightly, We don't just lose clarity.

we risk losing the power that comes with living by grace. If you want to take a deeper dive into the book of Galatians and rediscover the freedom Christ intended, we encourage you to request Tony's current teaching series, simply called Galatians. This 11-part collection explores the tension between the flesh and the spirit. Unpacking Paul's urgent message to a confused church, one that still speaks directly to us today. It's available as our gift when you support the alternative with your contribution.

And for a limited time, we'll also send you a bonus resource, Tony's impactful book, Kingdom Prayer. This practical guide will help you align your conversations with God to His purposes.

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or by phone, 1-800-800-3222. Right now, let's get back to Dr. Evans talking about the war within.

Now he goes now and he wants to explain a little further about How this? operates. For the flesh sets its desire against the spirit. And the spirit against the flesh. Translation, these two don't like each other.

Okay, can we all get along? No.

So it says The flesh sets its desire against the spirit.

So you will have opposition. You do have opposition. And the spirit does the same thing, it pushes back. Against the flesh.

So you're on the line of scrimmage here, and you got one pushing this way and one pushing that way, are trying to get you to yield to. The other a power source. For these are in opposition to one another. They're opposed to each other.

So don't even try to get them to agree because that's not possible. He says, so that you may not do the things that you. Please. That's a very important line. We have all been In situations.

Where we, what we wanted to do. We didn't do. The wanting was there. You wanted to do the will of God. You wanted to please God.

Well, that want to. For the believer is the spirit. That want to please God and not go the way of the flesh. That is the spirit. creating that in you.

He's creating a different desire, the thing that you please. That is You want to please God. You want to do the righteous thing. but the flesh is pushing against it. Trying to take you in another direction.

So the wishing or the pleasing or the desire is coming from God.

Okay.

But on the other hand, the flesh is opposing you going Godward.

Now, I will say this as we continue here, and that is. Once you discover you can beat the flesh. See what once you Once you hit that sweet spot. And you discover that the spirit can override the flesh.

Okay.

You'll never drive again. You'll fly everywhere.

So once you are walking in the spirit, the spirit knows where to take you.

So, you are in fact being led by the Spirit because the power source has a destination in mind. which is the same destination you want, the will of God.

So his job is to lead you there. He goes deeper. He says, now the deeds of the flesh are evident. He says the deeds of the flesh are immorality, impurity. Sensuality, idolatry, sorcery.

Enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes. dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing. And he says I'd run out of room and things like these. He says I for one, you just As I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So let me explain. He's not saying they won't enter the kingdom of God. He's saying they won't inherit the kingdom of God. And to inherit the kingdom of God means inheriting kingdom benefits. The benefits of the kingdom of God are not available to those who practice such things.

So one of the motivations to walk in the Spirit is to get your full benefit package.

Now he flips the script. But the fruit of the Spirit is. Walking in the Spirit produces a different kind of character. A different kind of action, a different kind of reaction. The fruit of the Spirit is.

Love. Love is the decision. Two. Seek the well-being of another. Whether or not the emotion is there.

Joy. Joy is celebration on the inside. that is not determined by circumstances on the outside. Peace. Peace is harmony where there was conflict.

Patience. No longer having a short fuse. Kindness Being helpful and not hurtful. Goodness Where you're seeking to benefit. Others Faithfulness Being dependable.

Gentleness Submitting yourself to the will of God in a matter. Self-control. Saying no to wrong and yes to right. Against such there is no law. In other words, when it's part of your character, You don't need a rule to tell you to be Be nice.

You know, uh One of the things I'll probably never do if I were never, if I weren't doing this. I probably wouldn't be a mortician. I'm not interested in that. And the reason why, one of the reasons why, is I had a friend. who told me that sometimes he's down there.

Working on the body. He's working on the body. and the body moves.

So I ain't interested in that. He says sometimes there are muscular reactions. or contractions. That takes place. And so the body may quiver.

He said one time that the body went into such a convulsion. that it knocked itself off the table.

So at that point, there would have been two dead people in that room. Because You know. That's just not my cup of tea.

So I asked him, I said, Doesn't this bother you? Yeah, we can just take this out with a second. Oh, he says, no, it doesn't bother me. I see it all the time. I said, well, why does it bother you?

He said, because. I know it's dead. Although it has reactions like it's alive. Wow, almost sure. What Christ wants you to do is believe him.

Not the cadaver jumping around. giving you the impression it's alive. Just cause it's It has these actions and reactions. that it is under the authority of the cross. That's why the cross keeps coming up in Paul's literature as a contemporary thing and not only an historical act.

He says this orientation to the cross is not to be an event, it is to be a lifestyle, verse 25. If we live by the Spirit. If this becomes the way we roll, the way our orientation is. Let us also walk by the Spirit. If the Spirit is now your life source, Then walk in light of the life source.

If we live by the Spirit, which every believer is alive spiritually. Then walk in light of this new reality.

Now, to get this going, you may have to learn to start talking to yourself. Y'all do that anyway, so you might as well. We all do it, so we might as well do it with a purpose. It sort of goes like this, Lord. Do it.

I am alive in you. You're my life source.

So, as I move throughout my day, my flesh is going to try to. steer me away from your will in a lot of different ways with my emotions, with my actions, whatever.

Okay, but I'm alive in you. And because I'm alive in you. I will assume that when the flesh raises itself up. It is only trying to deter me. from the life you've given me.

It says, I don't want to be distracted from the benefits of the life you've given me. I'm going to take my steps toward your will, but I know I am weak. in my humanity.

So, as I take my steps in concert with your will, I'm going to need you to come underneath me. and move me along until I arrive at your will. And he says, if you will walk That way The life principle, the spirit. Will Cooperate in that process. and override the flesh.

Once you experience this as a pattern. Once this becomes something that becomes An event in your life reoccurring. All of a sudden, the Christian life will take on a whole new level for you. Because you will see the supernatural overriding the natural. It will increase your faith, it'll increase your trust, it'll increase your confidence, it'll make you want to take more advantage.

of the spiritual realm.

So that's the principle of walking in the spirit. That's the mindset. And so the assignment is every day, just get up with that mindset. Just get up with that mindset.

So when the flesh shows up. That is immediate. Time. to call on the spirit As you are moving toward the will of God, and watch him work his work. Dr.

Tony Evans, encouraging us to daily walk in the Spirit, relying on God's power to overcome the battle within.

Now, be sure to get in touch today to request your copy of Tony's current teaching series on Galatians and his valuable faith-building book, Kingdom Prayer. This limited time offer is our thank you gift when you make a donation in support of the Alternative Broadcast Ministry. Visit tonyevans.org to make your donation and request, or call us at 1-800-800-3222 any time of the day or night. One of our helpful resource team members will be happy to assist with your request. Again, that's tonyevans.org.

or call 1-800-800-3222. Spiritual fruit doesn't grow by accident. It's the product of a life rooted in the Spirit and lived in community. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans explores the benefits of investing our lives into the lives of others.

Be sure to join us.