Galatians 5:18-25 | When Holy Spirit Leads | Alex Culpepper

Well, our sermon, once again, I said we are in Galatians, chapter 5. If you don't know me, my name is Alex. I am the pastor here at Renovation Church. It's my joy every Sunday to be able to open up God's Word. And so we just work our way through the passage.

If you don't have a Bible with you, we did put the passage up there on the screen, and you'll get to walk along with us through that as we go through. I want to open with a simple principle this morning. And the principle is this. The principle is what you feed grows, and what you starve dies. What you feed grows, and what you starve dies.

So believers in Jesus, if you're here this morning and you're a believer in Jesus every day, you and I have a choice. Will I this day feed my flesh, that part of me that is dull to God's Spirit, that has already been put to death with Christ, that is only good for destruction? Or will I this day feed my responsiveness to the Holy Spirit? Will I give the Spirit space to speak? Will I praise what the Spirit calls good?

Will I seek to put my eyes on where the Spirit is moving and what the Spirit is already seeing? Will I yield to the Creator of worlds who is living inside of me? Will I listen to what he loves and what he hates? Will I give him space to conform my heart? You see, when I feed the flesh, I feed that part of me that is dull to the Holy Spirit.

But when I feed my responsiveness to the Spirit, my sensitivity to his wants and his desires increases, and I become an increasingly sharp and useful tool in God's hands.

Joey prayed. He said, today is the Day of Pentecost. Now, normally in non liturgical churches, I say the Day of Pentecost, and you're like, what is that? But the day of Pentecost is the day. It's the day in the liturgical calendar where we honor, where we recognize the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the church.

Jesus told his disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait. And as you wait, I'm going to pour out my spirit. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses to take the Gospel to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth.

And so today, what we're really talking about is, we're talking about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, how he gives life to us. How. And not just the life, but the kind of things that he does inside of us. So every day, you and I are empowered. If you're a believer in Jesus, you're empowered with the choice to yield to the Holy Spirit and feed your responsiveness to him.

And so today we're continuing a series in the book of Galatians called Spirit or Flesh. And here, the Apostle Paul, he's concluding his letter to the Galatians. He's kind of wrapping things up, and he says, hey, there are. There are some things that come from the Holy Spirit, and then there are also some things that come from the flesh. And if there are people who are walking by the Spirit, you will see in those people an increase, a growing in the things of the Spirit and less a decrease in the things of the flesh.

So, so he gives them this tool to evaluate and to discern, you know, what's. What's going on among them. And. And so any idea or teaching in the church that occurs, you ought to, in that teaching, see people who are following that teaching and observe more of the fruits of lives who have a trajectory of walking with the Holy Spirit. And you ought to see a trajectory of lives away from the flesh with people who follow that idea.

And so even if you don't see those things, or if you don't see those things, there are really kind of two options on the table, right? If we're trying to discern what the idea is, the first option is, is that it could be actually a good teaching in that community or a good idea that people are supporting. But it just so happens that the people who are listening to the teaching or idea, just they claim to be following it, but they're not actually following it. That could be one reason you're not seeing more of the fruit of the Spirit and less of the fruit of the flesh. But the other option is that it's a false teaching, that there's actually a false teaching that that community is gathered around.

Either way, though, there are some pretty clear clues that can help us see whether or not a group of people are walking by the Spirit, and likewise whether or not we ourselves are walking by the Spirit. Because this was not just given to them to discern what's going on out there, it was given to them to discern what's going on in here. And so last week, we looked at the works of the flesh. And if you haven't listened to that yet, I just encourage you to, on our website, on our app, you can go check that out a renovation church on your app store, or you can go to renovateus.org and find last week's sermon. But Just encourage you to go and listen to that, because this week we're talking kind of like part two of a two part message, and we're looking at the fruit of the Spirit.

And so I'm going to read Scripture, but I would invite you, would you stand with me as we hear the word of the Lord together?

The apostle Paul writes, but I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Verse verse 18 of chapter 5. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And then in verse 22, he says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things there is no law.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.

So, Holy Spirit, we give together in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we give ourselves to say, we need to be led by you, God. I've been identified as a leader. We have elders who are identified as leaders among us. We have ministry leaders who are identified as leaders among us. But none of us truly lead.

Lord, you are meant to lead us, and we are meant to follow your lead.

So, Holy Spirit, whatever I have to say, whatever is of me today, I pray that you would take that away and present only that which is of you, God, as we here recognize our need to be led by you, Lord, I. I increasingly recognize in these days the temptation to go after strategy and go after tools and go after ideas that might make us more effective for the kingdom. But first and foremost, Lord, the thing that makes us effective for the kingdom is that we would receive the power that you have to give to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.

So, Holy Spirit, we need you more than anything else here. Would you manifest your presence among us this morning? We ask in Jesus, mighty name. Amen. Amen.

You can be seated.

Galatians5.22 says, the fruit of the Spirit is. If you were to contrast this list with the list that Paul provides regarding the flesh. He calls the things that the flesh produces. He calls them works. He says, the works plural of the flesh versus the fruit singular of the Spirit.

He Says there's works that the flesh produces and fruit that the spirit produces. Last week we looked at this list of vices, these things from the flesh. This week we have a list of virtues, a list of character qualities. It's interesting if you were to look at the nature of the two lists, the vast differences between the two of them. The first list was a clear list of things that you can do.

Things like specific things you can do. Paul called them works. But this list is different. This list has characteristics. Paul calls these fruit, their postures of the soul, their dispositions.

They are various expressions of the attitude or personality or person of the Holy Spirit. Did you know there is a perfect person who is living inside of you? Now, before you start to think that I'm some kind of self help guru up here, that perfect person is not you, right? So you are not the perfect person who is living inside of you. But if you are a believer in Jesus, there is a perfect person called the Holy Spirit who is living inside of you.

He is a person who has a personality, right? And he wants to bring to life his character qualities inside of you by changing you from the inside out.

So when we speak of fruit, we're not speaking of mere works. The flesh has mere works, but with the Spirit, we are speaking of the pristine character of the creator of the universe, who is putting on display his character in and through your life. That's what he wants to do. And so what does this character of his look like? Well, it says in verses 22 and 23, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

So in contrast to the works of the flesh, which that list, if you were to just go back and look at that list, that list was very chaotic and very haphazard. And it seemed like there was kind of no formal organization to that list or structure to it. But most interpreters, when they look at this list, they see that this list is highly more structured and ordered. And the apostle Paul does that intentionally, right? Most interpreters will actually see that he breaks this list into three groups of three characteristics.

And while each of the groups of three, they all describe characteristics that we all ought to display in every part of our life. And each set of characteristics has its own unique relational emphasis. You see, when we speak of a person's character, right? Because that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the character of the Holy Spirit.

The characteristics of the Holy Spirit. When we speak of a person's character, what we're really speaking about is how that person relates. Like what are the relationships? How do that person engage themselves in their relationships? How do they relate to others?

How do they relate to the world around them? How do they relate to their responsibilities? How do they relate to their challenges? And so I'm calling these relational renovations. I called them originally relational reformations, but then were called renovation church.

And so I figured I had to call them relational renovations because they speak of new life that God wants to bring about. That's what that word renovation means, literally, is to bring new life to something. They speak of new life that God wants to bring about to the dead and the rebellious and the fractured parts of us. And so I see, I see in these, these three sets of three, three relational renovations that God wants to bring about. First of all, he wants to bring about new life in our relationship with him, right?

That's, that's the first set. The second set is new life in our relationships with others, how we relate to the people who around us. And then finally, he wants to give new life to the relationship that we have with ourselves or to how we think of or consider ourselves. Now, when I label these like this, I just don't want you to think that that makes them exclusive to these categories because honestly, like, all of these character qualities are like big overlapping Venn diagrams, right? They're all inter with each other.

They build upon each other, they intertwine with each other. Because as opposed to the works of the flesh, which is works of the flesh is plural, right? These are expressions of one thing singular called the fruit of the Spirit. And therefore we don't separate them into various works, but they are intricately intertwined and connected results of the life that the Holy Spirit is seeking to overflow out of us. You know, remarking on this John chapter 7, Jesus spoke of this kind of reality of life that would overflow out of us.

John chapter seven says this. There's a feast. And at this feast, the last day of this feast, they've made sacrifices in the temple area. And the temple courtyard is really messy because of the sacrifices that they've made, because sacrifice is a bloody ordeal. And so on the last day of the feast, this particular feast that Jesus is at, there's this ceremony where they carry in pots of water, big, massive pots of water.

And they carry in the pots of water and they bring it into the temple courtyard to pour out the water in order to wash away everything, all of the mess that has resulted from the sacrifices. And so Jesus is observing this ceremony. Take Place on the last day of the feast. And it says, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, Literally, he yelled so loud first to get everybody's attention and say, hey, look at me. And he says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Verse 38 says, Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. So this is about the Holy Spirit. There's a river of living water that is intended to flow out of our hearts. And it's one river.

It's one river. And we just live in this river. But you know what's interesting about a river is when you go and look at a river, you. You can see various effects of the one river. I can tell you about this because I grew up on the Mississippi river, right?

And so this is a very apt illustration from you. This is very helpful. So on any given Saturday, I would be able to go out and stand on the bank of the Mississippi river and see any of the following things. I would be able to look across the river, and I could see a forest that is growing there on the other side of the river, on the banks of the river because of the vibrant life that the water of that river is giving that forest. I could at the same time observe from where I'm standing on the banks, various streams that break off from that river, where that river is kind of cutting in new pathways and going into new territory.

I could see on another part of the. Across the bank, I could actually see farmland from where I stand on the bank of the river, which means that farmers are using the river as a resource to grow their crops and feed the community around them. I can also see water being provided to entire communities of people. If I were to just look down the bank on my side, I can see the intake for where the water for my entire town comes into our community. I could.

On a Saturday, I would also be able to look out and see boats on the river, people having fun on the river. I would see kids swimming and playing on the river. I could see people fishing and getting food from the river. I could see grain barges that are moving down the river and they stop in my community. As I look again down, just down a little bit further down the way of the river, grain barges come and they get grain to carry to other parts of the country in order to feed this place.

The river, the Mississippi river is providing life everywhere. It goes, but the various effects kind of look different. They have their own unique nuance to them. So it's one river. But it provides all these various expressions of life by, by virtue of its very existence.

And it is like this with the Holy Spirit. Like we come to Jesus and we come to Jesus to find in Jesus everything that we need, right? That he would be satisfaction for our souls, that he would be source of life, that he would be forgiveness and welcome into the presence of God. And as we find in Jesus everything that we need, as we let him be hour enough, the Holy Spirit then is given opportunity to flow in torrents or rivers out of us.

So what does this look like? Well, like we said, we broke it into three parts. So the first part that we, we are meant to consider here is, is new life with God. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace. This is renovation to the way that we relate to God.

So I'm just going to give us brief definitions here to get a rough idea of how we're meant to understand these words. That word love speaks of a self sacrificing affection. It's the Greek word agape, right? I would give myself because I have a deep inward affection towards the one who I am. Giving of myself for joy speaks of this idea that I am filled, to overflow, flowing in terms of my own satisfaction in the Lord.

And that despite my circumstances, I might not have happy circumstances, but regardless of a lack of happy circumstances, I have a joy that rises in me because I have some higher source of stability and fullness and satisfaction and peace. Peace is this word shalom, if you know it from the Hebrew Bible. And shalom. Jesus doesn't just speak of like an absence of conflict. Shalom speaks of an idea of wholeness, an idea of things being as they should be, right?

So these three things describe what takes place in the heart of a person whose eyes are fixed on a God who is good, right, who is righteous in all of his judgments, who has loved us perfectly by sending His Son. And so as we increase our capacity to comprehend the self sacrificing love that has been given to us in Jesus, well you know what that does is that increases our affection towards Him. As we receive his affection for us, it increases our affection towards Him. As we gaze at the one who stands victorious over death and hell and who holds the keys of death and hell in his hands, we gain the capacity to laugh at the troubles of the world like because his victory is greater. It's very interesting in Psalm chapter two there's this whole, like, passage there.

These kings of the rulers and the rulers of the world, they plot together against God and they're going to rise up against God. And this is really serious stuff that Psalm chapter two is talking about, right? Heaviness, wars and rumors of wars. And we're in the midst of some of that today where rulers of the earth are rising up against the things that God wants and the things that he says. And there is a heaviness and there are people who are being persecuted for their faith.

And the people of God are trying to be driven out in many places and overcome in many places. This is heavy. And it says in that Psalm, he who sits the heavens laughs.

That's kind of jarring. How could he laugh at such a heavy situation? Well, because he has resolution for the situation. He knows what the ultimate outcome is. He's the one who is ensuring the ultimate outcome.

So regardless of whatever the circumstances of right now are, he can laugh at those who plot against him, and so can we. We can laugh at the heaviness of the circumstances when our eyes are truly fixed on the Lord. I don't say that to make light of your circumstances. I say that to point out how strong and how good and how perfect and how righteous and how genius he has been. To work out everything from eternity past as we rest in and operate out of a right and good relationship with God.

You know what happens is that then peace and shalom begin to thrive in us. In a world that is highly anxious, you don't have to be anxious. Did you know that everybody around you is being driven towards anxiety? You don't have to live that way. You can have stability with your Lord, who will bring life and peace and wholeness and shalom.

Now why do I say all of this? Because this is all about what your eyes are fixed on. Where is your attention? We could say it like this. Our hearts grow, right?

What are we feeding? Our hearts grow towards what captivates us.

Our hearts grow towards what captivates us. So be captivated with God's love and power towards you, Right? Nobody has loved you as well as he has loved you. And nobody is stronger than he is. Right?

And so whatever is going on right now, his strength will win the day and his love for you will be proven.

So would this be the object of your constant consideration and affection? Would this be the thing that shocks and surprises you and draws you in daily? And this is the thing for which you need to ask the Holy Spirit's help. You need to Ask Holy Spirit to help you in being captivated with your Lord. Live in a pattern of giving your mind and your heart to reflection and consideration of the greatness of the things he's done for you.

To return worship to him for those things. To give space to yourself, to be awestruck at who he is. To consider what he's done truly, like how what he's done truly confronts every single wound and hurt in your life. To consider how what he's done truly confronts every shortcoming and failure of yours. To consider how what he does has done truly confronts every evil and tragedy and takes what the enemy has meant for evil.

Joseph was delivered over to captors, to people who took him as a slave and made his life miserable for the next 15 years. A heaviness of existence. Joseph in the book of Genesis. And yet the power, the love and power of his God were so able to reframe his perspective that he could say to his brothers, what you intended for evil, the Lord has turned around for good. And may the same be true of our perspective.

May the Holy Spirit empower us to have such a perspective. Now, I want to confess that you may not see exactly what redemption looks like on this side of heaven. Now. I think there's much more redemption that God would bring about if we would like just truly give ourselves to seeking Him. I think we stop short of ever seeking God for the redemption that he wants to bring.

I think there's a lot more that he would want to do if we would seek him for it. But Jesus power still conquers, even when we don't see all the results in the here and now. I want to tell you a story of a man. This is Ben Sasse. He's a former Republican senator.

The marks on his face are from a drug that he is taking that literally makes him bleed out of his pores. And he's taking this drug because In December of 2025, he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and given a very short timeline on his life. He has made it the singular purpose of his life to go on whatever platform will have him so that in that space he can talk about his hope in Jesus. He's been on the New York Times podcast, he's been on a handful of other podcasts, and in those places, he has other ideas that he's talking about and things that he's throwing out there. But the main thing, the main reason that he is going on this is because he knows that he is a public Persona and he wants to use his public Persona to take advantage of all the time that he can to tell people about the hope that he has in Jesus.

And he said this on a recent podcast. He said, I don't know what the weaving together of the tapestry of full redemption should look like, but I know that going through this period of suffering is a benefit because it is a winnowing. I'm filled with dross. This suffering does not save me, but it is sanctifying, and I'm grateful for it. Imagine that that is the love, the joy and the peace of the Holy Spirit overflowing out of this guy in this period of life right now.

Because when he got his diagnosis, he made up his mind that he was going to be captivated with Jesus above everything else. So that's new life with God. And from that foundation, we come to the next relational renovation of new life with others. Galatians 5:22 says, the fruit of the Spirit is patience, kindness and goodness. The patience is the ability to put up with stuff, for lack of a better term, for a long time.

It's literally called long suffering. To sit with and put up with and deal with for lengths of time. Kindness. Kindness actually comes the root word for kindness comes from the word grace. We've talked a lot about grace over the last several weeks.

We said grace is God's generous power to do for us what we can't. Well, kindness, it speaks of generosity, right? God's grace is generous and powerful because he is God. But our grace is just generosity, right? We overflow in generosity towards those around us.

And then goodness is a reflection of moral purity. It's actually a reflection of the rightness of how things are meant to be in God's kingdom, right? There's a meeting. So as we go and we reflect God's goodness and we take that to others, we put on display the goodness of what God is bringing into the world. And so these express the Holy Spirit's fundamental attitude towards other people, right?

Other people who he wants to meet through your life. This is his attitude towards them. Would you adopt his attitude towards them? Right? The call to love people, you need to know.

It's one of the most challenging calls of the Christian life because it is really easy to say that you love God. Anybody can say that they love God. But whether or not you really love God is displayed in how you love people. Galatians 5:14. This is just before this.

Paul said this. Sorry. Paul said this in Galatians 5:14. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as Yourself.

Now, doesn't this contrast with what Jesus taught? If you were to read that, you'd go, no. Jesus taught, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. But Paul says it's only love your neighbor as a self. What is he saying here?

Well, Paul knows that the Judaizers who have brought in this false teaching to this church, Paul knows that they think they love God.

So he emphasizes the second part to say, love your neighbor, because the reliability of their teaching. He knows that the reliability of their teaching is going to be displayed in how they treat people. So, quick note, when I say love with this call to love our neighbor, we need to just be really clear. Love does not necessarily mean giving approval and affirmation to everything that your neighbor does. Today people are confusing loving others in an objective sort of way, in a Christ centered kind of way.

They're confusing that with affirming everything about them. And so if you don't affirm everything about a person, you must not love them. But love commands, demands that we do not give affirmation to the works of the flesh. Paul calls people to love people. And here he goes through a whole list of things where he does not give affirmation to the works of the flesh.

But I can still have a patient, kind and good disposition towards you. I can love you even while I don't give affirmation to what opposes the Holy Spirit in you. And so why can I do this? Why? Why am I able to do this?

Well, because it is, it is what God has done with me. How does the Holy Spirit bring this about? What does he do? Well, we delight in giving what we've learned to receive. Do you know how you will learn to suffer along with others when you actually place your attention on how long the Lord has had to suffer with you.

You know, people say, oh, don't pray for patience, because God's going to give you opportunity for patience. Absolutely. Pray for patience. Pray for patience all the time. You know how you learn to be patient when the Lord lets you see the extent to which he has waited for you and he has longed for you to do differently than what you're doing.

And he has expected you to take a different pathway. And he did not come on down on you like a hammer. But he said, no, there will be another opportunity. He's so patient with us, more patient than nearly any of us could comprehend.

So if you struggle to abound in these things, patience, kindness, goodness, then my suspicion is that you've Downplayed. Probably one of two things you have downplayed. Number one, the extent to which you are constantly in desperate need of them from God all the time. I'm always in need of God's patience. I'm always in need of God's grace, His kindness, and I'm always in need of his goodness.

I need to be able to see what is right and good and pure and holy in this moment. And he's the only one who can show me right. So if you, if you fail to abound in them, you, you, you fail to see either the, the extent to which you're in constantly in need of them, or you're, you're failing to see the extent to which he's constantly providing them for you, even when you're not asking them. And so you essentially really what this means if you, if you fail to have this posture. And I just want to let you know, I'm not here to like, criticize or condemn you.

I'm just trying to help you discern yourself. If you fail to have these dispositions of heart, then what that means is that you think more highly of yourself than you ought. I'm not just talking to you on that. Talking to me too. You think that you deserve to sit in the judgment seat over other people, as opposed to the humility of being one who is undeserving, kneeling before a holy God, finding grace in his hands.

So Holy Spirit puts your attention on what you have received from God and the extent to which you receive those gifts. You become willing to extend those gifts to other people. The final relational renovation is new life in relation to ourselves, with ourselves. Galatians 5, 22 and 23. The fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

Faithfulness. The word faithfulness is, I think a good translation of this word is integrity, right? It is that your words match your actions or that your actions match your words. It is honesty, right? There's consistency within these things.

What you say you're going to do, you will do what you say you're committed to you, you will display a commitment to. Gentleness is actually. It's the word for humility. I'm so intrigued by the use of this word gentleness here. Like Jesus uses the word meek to describe what this word is saying.

Blessed are the meek, right? So self control speaks of a restraint of indulgence. So each of these words has a significant connection to truth and honesty. So for faithfulness, it's that my life is true to my words and my words are True to my life that my yes is yes and my no is no. For gentleness, it's.

Or for humility, right? For meekness. It is a learning to see myself rightly, to not think of myself more highly than I should, to not raise myself or my status any higher than that of a servant. Because Christ became meek and humble and took the form of a servant, right? So if that's the bar that he raised towards when he walked to the earth, that's.

I'm not going to raise any higher than that, right? Because I certainly am no higher than Christ. And so I too will consider myself as high as him if I'm listening to the Holy Spirit, right? And if I'm a Christ follower, I am first and foremost a servant. And then self control.

Self control is in part being honest about my impulses so that I can learn to deny them, to acknowledge what my impulses are actually oriented towards instead of like, pretending that those impulses aren't there. And then as I be honest about those impulses, I am then able to submit them to a higher way. And so we could say it like this. We submit our impulses to the truth. Holy Spirit teaches, right?

There is a right and a good way. There is truth that he is acknowledging there's honesty within ourselves, right? And so we're gonna submit all of this to the Holy Spirit. So what does this look like? Practically?

This is number one. I can afford to be honest about my shortcomings. There's no threat to me if I'm honest about my shortcomings. I can afford to let the spotlight move off of me in a conversation and let somebody else take that place. I can afford to see another person do my job better than me.

I can let go of the need to defend myself in every circumstance. I can let go of the need to be right in every circumstance. I can tell the truth even when it costs me something. I can do the right thing even when it hurts. I can restrain my tongue when others curse me.

See, when you are operating in the flesh, all of what I just named are threats to the flesh. And so the flesh reacts out of the flesh in order to say, no, I'm going to defend myself and, or no, I can't tell the truth in that circumstance because I might lose my job for the sake of my integrity. Or you know what? I really need people to pay attention to me, right? Because I get my validation and my affirmation from the extent to which people are paying attention to me and loving me and getting something from me.

And it's the only way that I feel valuable. All of that's the flesh.

But in the Spirit we have all, all we need for our identity already affirmed and provided by Christ. Right? If we're in the Spirit, we're secure in him, which means we don't have to live in the insecurity of the flesh. Right? So we can afford to be, to have integrity even when it costs us.

And we can afford to be meek and to not need to lift ourselves up. And we can afford to have even a degree of self control in all of this. Okay, so what, I've been talking for a little bit now and, and we need to know what to do with this. So what? Number one believers in Jesus are free.

We are free to follow the Spirit's lead. This can be said of nobody else. Only believers in Jesus have this kind of freedom to do what the Holy Spirit would lead us to do. Galatians 5, 23 and 24 says, against such things there is no law. The law was judging everybody else.

Everybody who does not come to Christ, they are under the law, they are bound by the law. They are going to have to endure under the punishment of the law. Only in Christ are we free to actually do the good that God wants us to do. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. So before Jesus, the flesh determined our destiny and the flesh itself is destined for destruction.

That's the case for everybody. But remember, the flesh is your desire. And we talked about this. The flesh is your desire to live as your own God.

And this is how it is with everyone who tries to live as your own God. There is no hope in that way of life. But for believers in Jesus, Paul says that the flesh no longer is determinative for you. It has no power over you because it has been crucified with Christ. So listen to me, Christian, you, I don't know what lies that you might be believing, but you do not have to let the flesh win whatever the circumstance.

Like you are not required to let it win. The flesh does not have determinative power over you. You do not have to obey the flesh. It's a lie. If anything would tell you.

You have to obey the flesh. And then some are stuck in mindset and behavior patterns that would seem to indicate that you believe that you can't help but live this way. But that is a lie. It doesn't have to be like this because the old man is dead. The flesh has been crucified with Christ I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live. I live by faith in the Son of God. And so you now have the freedom to be able to choose the good that God wants, because the living God is living inside of you in order that his character might flow out of your life.

So number two, then faith in Christ is the only way to the new life of the Spirit.

Says if we live by the Spirit, that's one thing. Let us also keep in step with the Spirit, right? So this is not a statement about your salvation, right? People who, it's. There's a possibility of a group of people who might be living by the Spirit but failing to keep in step with the Spirit, right?

But if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. So I just want to clarify some things. The Holy Spirit is not primarily a feeling, though he can produce feelings. The Holy Spirit is not primarily an experience, though experiences can often accompany Him. The Holy Spirit is not even, I want you to know, not even primarily power to accomplish the supernatural, though He Himself will at times work miracles and do mighty deeds.

Those are all things that might result from the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is primarily interested in bringing people into alignment with truth that produces life from the inside out. And here is that truth. This is the truth that produces life. This is the thing that Holy Spirit is primarily interested in.

As human beings, we were made to have relationship with our Creator at the core of our being. The entirety of who we are was meant to be oriented around Him. That's what he created us for. But in choosing our own way and rejecting his way, we reject the very one for whom our souls were crafted to be connected. And Jesus came that he might restore that connection.

He came to suffer and die and to pay the cost of your rejection of God on the cross so that you could be forgiven and that his blood could be poured out to purify your life. And so it is the blood of his perfect sacrifice that when you believe in him, it gets applied to your life in order to make you so clean that the Holy Spirit of the living God can now come and live inside of you and breathe life into all of your living and all of your doing. And so if you have not trusted Jesus Christ, that is the only way to life. Christ Himself is the only way to receive the life that the Spirit wants to bring through you. And so if you have not trusted him as your Lord and Savior, I would implore you, would you please trust him today?

Because that faith in Jesus, that is where Holy Spirit's lead begins. So trust him. Would you pray with me?

Father, thank you for the gift that it is to be gathered with your people. I thank you for the truth that Holy Spirit does indeed breathe life into us. And so we come to the table, Lord, and we recognize the table as this place not only of reminding us, but where we actually eat and drink to say that we feast on what Christ has done. All of our hope, all of our satisfaction, all of our enjoyment. Lord, we might be prone to in this world find satisfaction and hope and enjoyment in other things.

But Lord, we remind ourselves at the table that our satisfaction and our hope and our life are in Christ and what he has done for us.

And so we come to this place and Holy Spirit, we receive the gift of your presence with us. And we say, make us clean that the life that you have to give might flow out of us.

So Jesus, we honor your name here today. And may you make us aware of Holy Spirit's presence with us and his desire to work in, in and among us as we continue in worship. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.