Walk in the Spirit

This talk was given at Christian Student Fellowship on September 27th, 2022.

Hey y’all. Me again. If you weren’t here last week, no biggie. My name is Leah; I work here at CSF. I have a cat named Socks and here’s another picture of him. My parents are here tonight, so that’s super cool for me. Also scary, but mostly cool. 

Last Tuesday, I talked to you all about freedom in Christ and what that means. I’ll give you a little recap before we get started, but first, let’s pray. 

So last week, I walked you through what it means to be free in Christ. I laid out the Gospel—the good news—that Jesus is God in the flesh sent to take the punishment we deserve for the sin we were slaves to, freeing us from the power of sin and offering to us the glory He deserves by conquering death. 

I just love hearing new ways to explain the good news of Jesus. What I just said there was the whole story of the Bible in one sentence—we were slaves to sin, BUT GOD set us free through Jesus’s death and resurrection. There it is again. So good. 

Anyway, I also talked last week about how sometimes we still feel like slaves to our sin, like we can’t escape it, and I said that we are still in a fight against our flesh, our sinful nature, but now we have the answer. We’re free because we don’t have to give in, we don’t have to sin, and we have what we need to choose not to. And even when we do sin, there is no condemnation for us because the penalty has already been paid. This doesn’t give us license to sin or do whatever we want, but it frees us to love God and love those around us. 

I said near the end of my spiel that the solution to the problem of our sin, our distorted desires, is not willpower but spirit-power. Instead of doing whatever we want in the moment of our temptation to sin, we are free to take advantage of the Spirit-power we have in Christ Jesus and live as He wants us to. And that’s what it means to be free in Christ. 

So today, I want to talk more about this Spirit-power and what it means to walk in the Spirit. Let’s reread the Galatians passage from last week to start. 

Galatians 5:13-25

13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever[c] you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Here in Galatians, Paul says the answer to slavery to desire to sin is to walk in the Spirit. What the heck does that mean? 

First things first, I think we should talk about who this Spirit is. Jesus said several times before he went to the cross that there would be one coming after Him to help us. In John 14, He says, 

John 14:15-18, 25-27

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[a] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

The Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, is God’s Spirit. I could get into all the doctrine of the trinity and stuff, but honestly, I’m not very good at explaining it because I end up talking in circles and saying nothing helpful, but if you want to talk about it later, I’m so down. But anyway, all that to say that the Spirit that walks with us is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, God Himself. 

God’s Spirit is called the Advocate. He advocates for you before the Father. He will teach you all things and remind you of everything Jesus said. He gives us peace.

We all have access to God’s Spirit; we were all indwelled with the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation. No exceptions. The only qualification for receipt of the Spirit is belief in Christ. And this is a permanent indwelling; we don’t sometimes have the Spirit or have it only when we live up to certain criteria or standards. It doesn’t go away from us for any reason. The Holy Spirit is a down payment of our inheritance, according to Ephesians, and that inheritance is eternal life in Christ Jesus, the life of the age to come. 

But being indwelled with the Holy Spirit, which we all are, does not mean that we all walk in step with the Spirit all the time. 

Let me give you an imperfect example. I’m walking with my dog, Merci. Here’s a picture for context.

She’s a mini schnauzer. Very cute, I know. Merci never goes for a walk around the neighborhood without me, for obvious reasons. She’s so small and the world is dangerous. My parents live near a big road with four lanes of traffic going way over the speed limit. I would never let her go for a walk by herself because she could get hurt. So I’m always with her. 

Merci’s leash is one of those retractable leashes. It extends pretty far. I want Merci to walk with me. Next to me. To keep her safe because I love her. I don’t want her to walk into certain death, that is, the road where cars drive or my neighbor’s yard with big mean dogs or wherever. 

But Merci is curious. She’s tempted by the sights and sounds and smells, and she wants to go check them all out, bark at them or whatever. 

So every now and then, when she wanders too far away from me, I give her leash a little yank. I press the little button that stops it from extending and pull back. Gently, of course. I don’t want to choke her or anything. Usually, she comes back to me. But if she doesn’t, I do it again, a little harder. 

Now, I think you all see where I’m going with this. It’s an imperfect example for many reasons, the first of which is that the Holy Spirit does not have us on a leash. The leash is for illustration purposes only. We are totally free to make our own choices; when we decided to trust and believe in Jesus, put ourselves under His authority, we chose to walk with the Spirit. Anyway, yes, it’s an imperfect example; just roll with it. 

The Holy Spirit walks with us like I walk with Merci. And the little tug I give her to call her back to my side is called conviction when the Holy Spirit does it to us. 

A lot of the time, Merci ignores my little tugs and I get mad and we go back home because I can’t stand that she doesn’t listen to me. Luckily, the Holy Spirit is a lot more patient than I am. 

So then my question is this: how often do we ignore or disregard the tugs of the Holy Spirit? Do we even recognize them? How often are our desires to sin, our temptations, more powerful, or seem more powerful, than the Spirit’s still small voice? 

I think that the more often we ignore the Spirit the harder it is for us to hear Him. But even more so, I think that the more often we give in to our flesh, to our sinful nature, the more of a hold it has on us. 

Let’s look a little farther down in Galatians at chapter 6. In the original Greek, this is all one big letter, not broken up into chapters and sections, so it makes sense to assume that Paul continues in his discussion about life in the flesh versus life in the Spirit. So let’s read. 

Galatians 6:1-9

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, [if someone gives into the desires of the flesh] you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently [God’s heart is always restoration and it should always be done gently because we’re a family, note brothers and sisters]. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted [pay attention to your own heart; no one is immune to temptation]. 2 Carry each other’s burdens [which in this context is temptation, not necessarily grief or pain, though I’m sure grief and pain come along with temptations, especially if you’re being convicted], and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves [If you think you have it all together, if you think your “old sin” is not a problem anymore, if you think you’re not tempted anymore, you are only deceiving yourself]. 4 Each one should test their own actions. [Self-examine, reflect on your life and your choices]. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else [don’t compare yourself to others, especially those “less righteous” or whatever that means because that’s a sign of immaturity. Focus on you, my guy.], 5 for each one should carry their own load. 6 Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor. [This next part is the climax of it all, so pay attention.] 

7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 

[So Paul is saying that you get what you give. If you sow to the flesh, if you give into the flesh, you’ll reap destruction; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life, the life of the age to come. So when he says do not weary of doing good, he doesn’t just mean keep on keeping on through whatever hard circumstances, though I’m sure that’s good, he means don’t grow weary of fighting against the flesh. And then, at the proper time, we will reap a harvest, as long as we don’t give up.] 

Let’s talk about sowing and reaping for a minute. Anyone heard of the law of returns? This law basically says that whatever you invest you’ll get back with interest. The law of returns is said in many different ways—what goes around comes around, no pain no gain, the idea of karma, garbage in garbage out, and Jesus says give and it will be given to you—so it’s not just a biblical idea; it’s a human condition idea. 

So if it’s a human condition idea, then we can see it in all kinds of areas of our lives, not just spiritual. For example, plant a bell pepper seed and you’ll get what? Bell peppers! You won’t just get a seed back; you’re going to get a whole plant that bears fruit. 

To use my example from last week, if I eat a jar of frosting for a meal on the regular, I’m not only going to crave more jars of frosting, but I’m going to get cavities, I’m going to feel physically bad because I’m not providing nutrition to my body, I might get sick to my stomach. I’m getting out what I’m putting in and more, more bad stuff in this case. 

So here in Galatians, Paul is saying it works the same with our spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is the process by which we are formed from our spirit, from the inside out, to become a very specific kind of person, for better or for worse. 

Every time we sow to our flesh, every time we give in to our temptation to sin, we plant a seed in our soul that will grow into a character. It will grow who we are. And the same the other way, when we sow to the spirit, we plant something in the soil of our hearts, growing our character. 

Let me put it another way: when we choose to either sin or not, to either practice the way of Jesus or not, it forms who we are. And then who we are determines what we choose the next time. The only difference between the two is that one way will lead to death and the other will lead to life with King Jesus. 

John Mark Comer says it like this: “The law of returns is the mechanism of our spiritual formation. It is how we are either formed from our spirit out to become more like Jesus and in doing so utterly ourselves, or malformed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, to become less ourselves and to fit the status quo of our society.”

So our choices become habits and our habits become who we are and who we are determines our choices which become our habits which become who we are which— etc and so on. 

The more we sin, the more our heart hardens. The more we sin the less bad we feel about our sin. We stop feeling the tug of the Holy Spirit. Conversely, the longer we follow Jesus, the more we realize how sinful we are. But also, the more we choose Jesus, the easier it is to choose Jesus. 

We have these desires of the flesh and we have these desires of the Spirit, and the more we choose one over the other the easier it will be next time. Have you ever experienced that? It’s a lot easier for me to choose Jesus if I’ve been choosing Him. But when I slip once it’s harder the next time. I can talk myself into sin more when I’ve already been sinning. I can talk myself out of not reading my Bible to scroll on Instagram in the morning instead if I’ve already been doing that. I can talk myself into pulling up things on the internet a lot easier if I’ve been watching those things regularly.

So we have these competing, multifaceted desires, the desires of the flesh feeling stronger than our actual deepest desire of following Jesus (if we’re followers of Jesus), and it feels like a tug-of-war inside us. A struggle every time. Let me tell you something. It doesn’t have to be that way. 

When I decide to choose Jesus, it gets easier and easier. I made a sign for the back of my bedroom door that says “One Day More.” It’s an homage to my favorite musical Les Mis, but it also reminds me, when I’m feeling tempted to gratify the desires of my flesh, that I only have to choose Jesus one more time. And I pray, “Holy Spirit who dwells within me, please help me choose you one day more.” 

Even if we can’t eradicate our flesh all the way on this side of eternity, we have the power of the Holy Spirit. He lives inside us and has since the moment we turned our life to Christ. And when we choose to sow to the Spirit through our choices and, more importantly, our habits, it becomes easier and easier to feel the tug and to trust His voice. 

We can’t control our desires, in the same way that we can’t control our emotions. But we can influence them. If you want to influence your emotions, change what you think about, what you set your mind on. Similarly, we can’t control our desire but we can control what we give our mind and our body to and we can augment the desires of our flesh through habits that turn our mind and our bodies toward the Spirit of God. We do have a say in how much and how often we are tempted and to what extent it has power over our hearts. 

If I had practiced with my dog Merci, if we had gone on walks every day and she had practiced walking beside me, she would have gotten better and better at walking next to me and not pulling away. She would have the habit of listening to my voice, of feeling the leash, and she wouldn’t have been as tempted by the sights and sounds and smells of the world around her. 

My parents recently got a new puppy named Raspberry or Razzy. She’s literally the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Here’s a picture.

She loves and trusts my mom so much that she will follow her anywhere, and she cries when my mom leaves the room or if she can’t see her. They don’t walk around the neighborhood because she’s much too small, but when they walk around the yard, Razzy is right on my mom’s heels. She’s in step with her. She’s like this because she spends a lot of time with my mom and has gotten used to being with her. She’s practiced following her. She’s in the habit of doing it. 

In the same way, the more time we spend with Jesus the easier it will be to hear and trust His voice, to remain in step with the Spirit of God. Our habits shape who we are. Some of our habits sow to our flesh. Others sow to our Spirit. Which one do you want to sow into? 

Every habit, every decision, test it like this: does this sow into my flesh or does it sow to my spirit? One will reap destruction; one will reap life eternal with King Jesus. Both in the future and here and now. 

And don’t give up. Some of you are discouraged in your spiritual formation, discouraged in your mental and emotional health, discouraged in the power that a sin or habit or addiction has over you, and you just want to give up. Don’t do that. Don’t grow weary in spending time in the Word and in prayer, don’t grow weary in doing life in community when you’ve moved past all the romance of it and you’re annoyed by the people at church or here at CSF or wherever. Just keep sowing to the Spirit, keep saying no to your flesh, and you will, in due season, reap a harvest of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and, most importantly, Jesus, if you do not lose heart.