Walking in the Spirit

If you try to live your life under the law, trying to follow rules, you're gonna be a very unhappy Christian. Dr. Tony Evans says we don't turn into healthy believers by changing from the outside in.

God wants to do it a different way. Because the Spirit provides the power to move forward in your Christian life. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. God wants to energize us to live life by His power, and today Dr. Evans tells us how we can get closer to God's Holy Spirit, which naturally moves us farther from any chaos we've been living in.

Let's join him as he explains. You go to inner cemetery and among the dead you will discover the living. People who work there, people who take care of the grounds. These are living people operating among the dead. They are facilitating death, even though they very much are alive.

Unfortunately today, many Christians who are alive are living in spiritual cemeteries. They are living among the dead. They are finding it difficult to get out of the graveyard of their circumstances. It's not that they want to be there.

They recognize that they shouldn't be there. They've just gotten so used to being there that the thought is maybe there's no hope ever to be released from this environment of death. The mind of the Spirit is the basis for walking in the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit is the basis for life. He says, if we walk in the Spirit, we will live and not die.

That is, we will experience the life, the abundant life, that Jesus came to offer. Conversely, he says, walking according to the flesh is death. That is, it is your inability to experience the life that Jesus promised. So he says, even though you are Christian, it is possible to walk according to the flesh and therefore be a dead man walking. If you're walking according to the flesh, that means you're still moving and living and functioning.

It's just that you're doing it in a graveyard. So the fundamental principle of maximizing and enjoying and benefiting from the eternal life that abides in the believer is whether you're walking by the Spirit or walking by the flesh. He says in chapter 5 verse 16, but I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. It doesn't say walk by the Spirit and you won't have the desires of the flesh. He says, walk by the Spirit and you won't have to obey the desires of the flesh.

The flesh is your body that has been contaminated by sin, or what Paul called in Romans 7, the body of this death. Verse 18, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. If you try to live your life under the law, that is, trying to follow rules, you're gonna be a very unhappy Christian. Not because there's something wrong with the rules. If they're God's rules, that means they're good rules, but he's saying the problem is that what the law does is stir up sin. Have you ever seen a rule don't touch something and you face the temptation of touching it? The rule actually got you more excited to disobey.

Why? Because the Bible says when the flesh sees the rule, sin is stirred up. It's like trying to sweep dust. You done stirred it up more, even though you're trying to clean up. He says if the Spirit dominates, then you don't have to be under this list to operate.

Why? Because the Spirit provides the power to move forward in your Christian life, because God is gonna keep the law for you and through you. So you don't have to make yourself keep it. He enables you to keep it because of a higher law. The higher law is called the law of the Spirit in Romans chapter 8.

That is the supernatural engaging that God brings to bear in your life to deal with what the flesh cannot deal with. My job some years ago was to clean the tub. Then they came out with this product. I don't remember the name of it. All I remember is it says, it works, you don't.

I said, give me some of that. Let me try that. They say, it works, you don't. So you sprayed it around the ring in the tub and let it sit there. And after it sat there for a while, you wiped it, and the thing you were scrubbing to fix now slid off. What I was using previously required my human effort to get a clean tub. What I was now using sucked up the problem. That's the difference between the flesh and the Spirit.

The flesh is you scrubbing. I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna do better.

I'm really gonna do better this time. What walking by the Spirit does is suck it up so that there can be righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. When's the last time God supernaturally delivered you from something that you couldn't deliver yourself from? But if you could fix it, how do you know it was God? Couldn't any non-Christian do what you did and still be better like you are? He says, then you don't have to operate under a law that is under this rule of life, because all that's gonna do is make the sin get worse. The more determined you are to do better, the more you just stirred up the problem, the more determined you are. And that's why it's so much hard work. I'm really not going to today.

All the law did was stir that thing up. You gonna—even if you don't do it, you gonna be thinking about it. He says in chapter 5, Now the deeds of the flesh are evident. Now let's contrast that with verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is. He now contrasts how you know when you're walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit. He says this is not something you have to guess at.

This is not something you have to wonder about. This is something that has very tangible effects and evidence. He said the deeds of the flesh are, and then he lists three categories, sexual, superstitious, and social. He says, please notice, the deeds of the flesh are. How the flesh expresses itself so you know you are being controlled by the flesh is because this is what the flesh produces.

So you can just go down the list and find out where you are. Immorality, impurity, sensuality, that's pornography, that's the internet. Idolatry, anything that takes the place of God in your life, sorcery, imities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, fractions, always fussing and cussing, envying—by the way, the difference between jealousy and envying—jealousy is my feeling bad about the progress of another. Envying is interrupting their progress.

So envying takes jealousy to the next level. Drunkenness—I don't care whether your father was a drunk or not, he says it's a deed of the flesh—carousing and things like these. And I have warned you that such people do not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now that's another misunderstood phrase. He does not say such people don't enter the kingdom of God. He says such people don't inherit the kingdom. To inherit is different than to enter it.

All you have to do to enter the kingdom of God is to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. To inherit it means to enjoy its benefits. What happens is, if you live by the deeds of the flesh, you don't get to enjoy the benefits of being in the kingdom. You may be in it, but you're not enjoying being there.

The benefits of the kingdom are not accruing to you. You sing about a happiness you don't have. You sing about a joy you don't have. You sing about a power you don't have.

You sing about authority that you don't have, because you have not inherited it, even though you may be in it. So look at your life—and all of us have to do that—and look at ways in which you're living in the flesh. If you mean all the time, ornery all the time, fussing all the time, cussing all the time, if you got bad attitude all the time, if you—you know, all that, he says, is the deed of the flesh. He said, this ain't got nothing to do with your personality.

Don't be blaming this on your mama, your grandmama, and your great granny. This has got absolutely nothing to do—this is the deeds of your flesh. See, and one of the reasons we don't make progress is because we pawn it off on something else. He doesn't even say it's by your circumstances. He says it's sin which dwelleth in you that's causing this. We have to take ownership. There's no way around taking ownership, because you got to say what God says about it. So whatever your issue is, you got to say, it's me, it's me, it's me, oh Lord, stand in the need of prayer.

This is my problem. It's my flesh. Because unless you discover what God says about it, you in the flesh. You're not in the Spirit. But then he contrasts it, and he says, the fruit of the Spirit is. Now watch this now. Anybody notice anything about the difference between verse 19 and verse 22?

Look at this. The word deeds is plural. The word fruit is singular. But yet after he says fruit, he lists nine things.

So why wouldn't he say the fruits of the Spirit are, and then list the nine things? He doesn't do that. He does that with the deeds. He says the deeds of the flesh are, and then he just goes all over like buckshot.

He just goes all over the realm. Why? Because all of these become disconnected, disjointed, and are independent. So one minute, you got this one. Another minute, you got that one. Another minute, you got this.

Another one, you got that. Things are random. He says, but when the Holy Spirit takes over, you got one fruit tree producing nine different kind of fruit. Why? Because all these fruits come out the same tree.

They are ordered, organized, harmonized, and unified. Why? Because the source is different. Dr. Evans will have more for us on the difference between deeds and fruit when he continues this message from his latest audio collection, The Best of Tony Evans 2021. It contains 20 of his most hard-hitting, life-changing lessons of the past year, including messages on how to get closer to God, finding freedom from worry and anxiety, how to make your Christianity count, and more. We're offering the collection as our gift to anyone who comes alongside Tony's ministry with a year-end contribution. And as a special bonus, we'll include an additional popular resource for you. In fact, there's three to choose from. You can make your selection and receive them with our thanks when you visit TonyEvans.org.

But this limited-time, year-end offer will only be around for a few more days, so I encourage you to make the arrangements right away. Again, you can do that at TonyEvans.org or call our Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that information for you after part two of today's lesson.

Here's Dr. Evans. You will always know whether you're in the flesh or in the Spirit, not only by the deeds, but by the chaos. The deeds of the flesh are like this.

They're all over the place. The fruit of the Spirit is harmonized. Deeds are what you do, right? Deeds, the activity, the work.

This is what you do. Fruit is not what you do. Fruit does not make itself fruit. Let's talk about fruit. Three things about fruit. Number one, fruit is always visible. You've never seen invisible fruit, okay?

So you know when you see an apple or an orange or a pear, but it's not only visible, it's recognizable. In other words, fruit always bears the character of the tree of which it is a part. In other words, apple trees don't produce oranges.

Orange trees don't produce pears. The fruit reflects the nature of the tree. But let me tell you something else about fruit. Fruit is also beneficial.

In other words, somebody else wants to take a bite out of it. You don't see fruit eating itself. That is unless it's rotten. When fruit eats on itself, something wrong with it. Fruit exists so that somebody else can bite it.

It exists for the benefit of another. The rotten deeds of verse 19, they're rotten because they are self-generated, and you wind up eating you. Fruit is not like that. Grapes don't grunt and groan to become grapey. Apples don't grunt and groan to become appley.

That ain't a word, but you got the idea. Oranges don't grunt and groan to become orangey. They don't, you know what they do? They simply let the tree do its thing, and the tree produces the fruit. It becomes a natural outgrowth of it being tied to that particular tree. You don't force a fruit tree to produce fruit.

You just plant the fruit tree in the right environment, and fruit is what it does. It's just what it does. Have you ever seen a fish out of water, flopping? You know, it's just wiggling and jumping. Because if it's out of water, it's out of where it's supposed to be. So it's trying to move. It's trying to get somewhere, but it can't go where it's trying to get because it's not in the environment it was made to be in. So it's flopping and twisting and flipping and doing all this stuff, but absolutely going nowhere.

Why? Because it's trying to be fishy in a non-water environment, and it wasn't created for that. So no matter how much flipping and flopping it does, all it's doing is running out of breath, and it's going to die because that's not home. A lot of us are flipping and flopping to do better, running out of breath and getting tired, because we're not doing it in the right environment.

He says the environment has to be the spirit. When that happens, notice what you have. Love, where you used to have hate. Joy, inner stability, where you used to have inner confusion. Peace, harmony, where they used to be fighting all the time. Patience, the stuff you used to run out of.

Now you find out you have. Kindness, don't have to be mean all the time. Goodness, you seek to help and not hurt. Faithfulness, the undependable becomes dependable. Gentleness, rather than harshness.

Self-control, rather than being out of control. He says, against such there is no law. He says, when the spirit works, there's no law that can stop you. Those who belong to Jesus Christ, verse 24, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Why? Because you have a total righteous inside. If we live by the Spirit—here it is, here it is, here it is, we're coming to a conclusion here—if we live by the Spirit, that's another way of saying, if you're saved, you've come to life by the Spirit of God. Spirit of God dwells in you. If you live by the Spirit, watch this, let us also walk by the Spirit. Now here's what that means. It means it's possible to live by the Spirit but not walk by the Spirit. It's possible to be alive on the inside and not show up on the outside, because walking by the Spirit involves determining God's viewpoint on a subject, deciding to respond like Christ to that viewpoint, and then calling on God the Holy Spirit to empower the decision based on the discovery. When those three things happen, you are now walking by the Spirit and the supernatural takes over.

Or to put it another way, you can stop using manual transmission and go to automatic. Now let me explain how this is gonna work, because some of you are gonna try this. Some of you are gonna try this. Others of you are gonna decide, no, you and your flesh gonna do fine. But for those who have heard this, you're gonna try it. You're gonna say, okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna determine now whatever I face an issue in my life or in my circumstances to identify God's view on the matter, to make the decision to respond as Christ would respond to that view, and then to call on God the Holy Spirit to empower that decision. I'm going to start operating that way.

Now let me tell you how this is gonna work. When you first start out, it's gonna be like a baby learning to walk, okay? When a baby's been crawling for a while and now it's ready to stand up, knees get wobbly, it falls back down, it becomes very mechanical at first, you know? It's like doing a robot, you know?

Like real mechanical at first. It's gonna be a little awkward at first. It ain't gonna be a smooth flow, because you're not used to walking yet, see? You're used to being a crawling Christian. But now somebody in here is gonna get up today when they leave church and say, you know what? I'm gonna start walking. I'm living in the Spirit, I'm saved. Now I'm gonna start walking by the Spirit. And it's gonna be a little awkward at first. All I want to tell you is keep getting up, because after a while you're gonna get used to it.

And when you get used to it, you're gonna discover you can get a lot further on your feet than you used to get on your knees. You will discover that that will give you the ability for the flesh to no longer rule you. God will let you get tired of trying. So this sermon today is only for folk tired of trying. Tired of trying. You didn't try everything. You didn't try 12 steps and 24 steps.

You didn't try this, you didn't try this. This is not for folk who are not tired of trying, because you're not ready to walk yet. But if you're tired of trying, and you're willing to walk in the Spirit that is operated by the Spirit's point of view, not by the human point of view, because you want to see the supernatural and not keep trying to make the natural work, then this one is for you. For the others of us who are not ready yet, three years from now, when you decide to walk in the Spirit, after you've discovered that on your best day all you could do is camouflage, God will take you back to the same Word. His Scripture not gonna change. His method is not gonna change.

If you're ready to change, you have to adjust to Him. Dr. Tony Evans, wrapping up today's message called Walking in the Spirit, and we'll be back in just a moment. Pain, uncertainty, and division seem to be everywhere you turn these days, until you look to Jesus. And now more than ever, the world needs to hear the hopeful story of the kingdom of God transforming hearts.

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