03 January, 2023
Post By : Admin
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DIGGING DEEP NO. 966 – January 3rd, 2023 Gal 5;16-18 |
I would like to establish our bible studies tonight on three questions: what? Why? And How?
What Is Walking by the Spirit?
In very basic terms, it means letting the Holy Spirit do his work in us through us and for us. First. There are two other images in the context which shed light on the meaning of “walk by the Spirit.”
The first is in verse 18: “If you are led by the Spirit you are not under law. Paul emphasizes the Spirit’s work, not ours. The Spirit is not a leader like a pace car in the “Daytona 500.” He is a leader like a locomotive on a train. We do not follow in our strength. We are led by his power. So “walk by the Spirit” means stay hooked up to the divine source of power and go wherever he leads. If the Christian life looks hard, we must remember that we are not called to live it by ourselves.
The second image of our walk in the Spirit is in verse 22: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,” etc. If our Christian walk is to be a walk of love and joy and peace, then “walk by the Spirit” must mean “bear the fruit of the Spirit.” We also learned that the only activity which we can perform in freedom is love. Galatians 5:13
This love is not optional. It is commanded. And it is very radical: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In other words, we are called in our freedom to desire and seek the happiness of others with the same zeal that we seek our own. But if you take this command seriously, it is so contrary to our natural inclinations that it seems utterly impossible and I feel hopeless to ever live it out. Paul’s answer to this discouragement is found in Galatians 5:16-18. The secret is in learning to “walk by the Spirit” verse 16. We must live it by the Spirit of God. The command of love is not a new legalistic burden laid on our backs; it is what happens freely when we walk by the Spirit. People who try to love without relying on God’s Spirit always wind up trying to fill their own emptiness rather than sharing their fullness. And so, love ceases to be love. Love is not easy for us. But the good news is that it is not primarily our work but God’s. We must simply learn to “walk by the Spirit. God’s Spirit Conquers Our Flesh and creates law-fulfilling fruit
Verse 17(let’s read it) The main thing to learn from this verse is that Christians experience a struggle within. A Christian is not a person who experiences no bad desires. A Christian is a person who is at war with those desires by the power of the Spirit. Conflict in your soul is not all bad. Even though we long for the day when our flesh will be utterly defunct and only pure and loving desires will fill our hearts, there is something worse than the war within between flesh and Spirit; namely, no war within because the flesh controls the citadel and all the outposts. Praise God for the war within! Serenity in sin is death. The Spirit has landed to do battle with the flesh. So, take heart if your soul feels like a battlefield at times. The sign of whether you are indwelt by the Spirit is not that you have no bad desires, but that you are at war with them! (The battlefield of the mind by Joyce Meyer). But when you take verses 16 and 17 together, the main point is not war, but victory for the Spirit. Verse 16 says that when you walk by the Spirit, you will not let those bad desires come to maturity. When you walk by the Spirit, you nip the desires of the flesh in the bud. New God-centered desires crowd out old man-centered desires. Verse 16 promises victory over the desires of the flesh — not that there won’t be a war, but that the winner of that war will be the Spirit. What Paul means in verse 24, when he says the flesh has been crucified, is that the decisive battle has been fought and won by the Spirit. The Spirit has captured the capital and broken the back of the resistance movement. The flesh is as good as dead. Its doom is sure. But there are outlying pockets of resistance. The guerrillas of the flesh will not lay down their arms and must be fought back daily. The only way to do it is by the Spirit, and that’s what it means to walk by the Spirit So the first reason why we must walk by the Spirit is that, when we do, the flesh is conquered. The second reason to walk by the Spirit or be led by the Spirit is found in verse 18: “If you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.” This does not mean you don’t have to fulfill God’s law. You do. That’s what verses 13 and 14 said, “Through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” And Romans 8:3-4 say, Therefore, not being under the law does not mean we don’t have to fulfill the law. It means that, when we are led by the locomotive of the Spirit, we cruise on the railroad track of the law as a joyful way of life and are not left to climb it like a ladder in our own strength from underneath. When we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the punishment or the oppression of the law because what the law requires the Spirit produces; namely, love. Notice verse 22: the first and all-encompassing fruit of the Spirit is love, which verse 14 says fulfills the whole law. And to confirm that this is just how Paul is thinking, he ends the list of the fruit of the Spirit in verse 23 with the words, “against such there is no law.” In other words, how can you be under the oppression or punishment of the law when the very things the law requires are popping out like fruit on the branches of your life? So, the second reason to walk by the Spirit is really the same as the first. Verse 16 says, do it because you get victory over the flesh when you walk by the Spirit. You nip temptation in the bud. Verse 18 says, do it because then you are free from the oppression and punishment of the law, because the fruit the Spirit produces fulfills the law. The Spirit is the fullness that overflows in love. Therefore, it conquers the emptiness that drives the flesh, and it spills out in acts of love that fulfill the law.
How Do You Walk by the Spirit?
All of us have heard preachers say, “Let the Spirit lead you,” or, “Allow the Spirit to control you,” Many have gone away puzzled as to what that means practically. How do you allow the Spirit to control you? You walk by the Spirit when your heart is resting in the promises of God. The Spirit reigns over the flesh in your life when you live by faith in the Son of God Here’s the fivefold evidence from Galatians. First, Galatians 5:6 Genuine faith always produces (expresses itself through) love, because faith pushes out guilt, fear, and greed and gives us an appetite to enjoy God’s power. But Galatians 5:22 says love is a fruit of the Spirit. So, if love is what faith necessarily produces and love is a fruit of the Spirit, then the way to walk by the Spirit is to have faith — a happy resting in the promises of God is the pipeline of the Spirit. Second, notice Galatians 5:5 “For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness. When you keep your heart happy in God and resting in his promises, you are waiting through the Spirit and walking by the Spirit. Third, look at Galatians 3:23. “Now before faith came, we were confined under the law.” The coming of faith liberates a person from being under law. But what does Galatians 5:18 say? “If you are led by the Spirit you are not under law.” How, then, shall we seek to be led by the Spirit? By faith. Fourth, see Galatians 5:3 The Spirit does his mighty work in us and through us only by the hearing of faith. We are sanctified by faith alone. The way to walk by the Spirit and so not fulfill the desires of the flesh is to hear the precious promises of God and trust them, delight in them, rest in them. Finally, consider Galatians 2:20: Who is the Christ who lives in Paul? He is the Spirit. As Galatians, 4:6 says: The Spirit of God’s Son has been sent into our hearts. And how according to Galatians 2:20 does the life of the Son produce itself in Paul? How does Paul walk by the Spirit of the Son? “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God. “Day by day Paul trusts the Son. Day by day he casts his cares on God, frees his life from guilt and fear and greed, and is borne along by the Spirit. How, then, do we walk by the Spirit? The answer is plain. We stop trying to fill the emptiness of our lives with a hundred pieces of the world and put our souls at rest in God. The Spirit will work the miracle of renewal in your life when you start meditating on his precious promises day and night and resting in them. Romans 15:13, 2 peters 1:4 and Isaiah 64:4. The Secret of Walking by the Spirit “Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” keep a little scrap paper by your prayer bench, and whenever you read a promise that can lure you away from your guilt and fear and greed, write it down. Then in dry spells, have a pile of promises to soak your soul in. The fight of faith is fought with the promises of God. And the fight of faith is the same as the fight to walk by the Spirit. He works when we are resting in his promises. Our primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have our souls happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. Now, what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer but, the word of God. I say to you, brothers and sisters, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. You will have victory over temptation and know the guidance of the Lord if you keep your heart happy in God by resting in his promises.
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