The Holy Spirit: The Believer's Walk

In touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Next on In Touch, the Holy Spirit, the Believers, walk. Have you ever felt like just quitting the Christian life? I mean, you've tried, and tried, and tried to be the kind of person you think God wants you to be, and you've read the Bible, and you've prayed, and you've done just about everything you know to do. In fact, every time you turn around, it's one struggle right after the other, and you think, hey, I don't think I live this life. Either I'm missing something. Somebody didn't tell me something. Oh, this is really not all it's cracked up to be. Have you ever felt like that? Well, probably, if you have felt like you have been defeated in your Christian life, and it's just not working, join the crowd, because all of us, at some time in our life or the other, have probably felt something similar to that. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Galatians 5. And in this passage of scripture, here is the real simple key to living a life of joy and peace and victory. I don't mean a life without conflict. I don't mean a life without temptations and trials and heartaches, but I'm talking about the key to that victory. And beginning in verse 16 of Galatians 5, and I want us to read through the 26th verse. Now, we won't take time on all of these verses,

but I want you to get the context of what Paul is saying. He says, "But I say, walk by the spirit, "and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. "For the flesh sets its desire against the spirit "and the spirit against the flesh. "For these are in opposition to one another, "so that you may not do the things that you please, "but if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law. "Now, the deeds of the flesh are evident, "which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, "saucery, enmities, strife, jealouses, outbursts of angers, "disputes, dissensions, factions, "endions, drunkenness, carousing. "And things like these of which I forewarn you, "just as I have forewarned you, "that those who practice such things "shall not inherit the kingdom of God. "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, "patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, "gentleness, self-control against such things, "there is no law. "Now, those who belong to Christ, "Jesus, have crucified the flesh "with its passions and desires. "And if we live by the spirit, "let us also walk by the spirit. "Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, "end being one another." Now, we're talking about the Holy Spirit, the Believer's Walk.

So let's look at this from one of the two things I want to share in this particular passage that is so very important, and yet so very, very simple for us to understand. And the first one here is simply this, what he says in this passage, and that is, the believer that is a Christian is commanded to walk by the spirit. It's not an option, it's an imperative command. When he says, verse 16, I say, "Walk by the spirit, "and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." So one is a command, the other is a promise. When he says, "Buy the spirit" in this passage, what does it mean? So I want you to watch, and I want you to listen carefully. When we walk by the spirit, that means that we rely upon him. Now, remember, when you are saved, that is when you receive Christ as you say. The Bible says, "The Holy Spirit whom Jesus "and came into you to live in you, "to seal you as a child of God, "so that every single believer is now "indwelt by the Holy Spirit." Whether you're backslidden, or whether you're walking a God in life, it doesn't make any difference. The Bible says, "The Holy Spirit is coming

"to your life to dwell, "and to seal you under the day of redemption." That is, if you're saved by the grace of God, he has sealed you until the day when you are totally and completely and even in bodily form, redeemed by him. So you're forever a child of God. Now, while we are living in this life, we have conflicts and temptations and frustrations and so forth. So he says, "And dwelt by the Holy Spirit, "when we say that we are walking by the Spirit, "that means we are in our daily walk, "relying upon." Listen, when we walk by the Spirit, we rely upon the Holy Spirit who indwells us to empower us and to enable us to do what? To walk obediently before God. So what is this walk? This walk is a continuous series of decisions. That's what the Christian life is all about. We make one decision after the other. We make decisions about our home life, our finances, our job, our relationships, whatever it might be. The daily walk, everything that encompasses a 24-hour period of your life. Everything that encompasses from this Sunday to the next Sunday. presence of the Holy Spirit, moment by moment, day by day, step by step, in our walk, He says we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh." That is, we will be able to live a life that

is pleasing and honorable and victorious, a life of peace and joy, a life of contentment. I didn't say, I didn't say there would be no conflict, no temptation, no heart aches and no trials. Yes, there will be. But here's what He's trying to say to us. Remember what Jesus said? He says, "I'll not leave you comfortless. I'm coming to you in the presence of the Holy Spirit." And why did He come and able us to live the life that He's called us to live and carry out the work He's called us to carry out? How does He do that? Living on the inside of us and therefore to live by the Spirit means that moment by moment, day by day, acknowledging My need, I rely upon His indwelling power to enable me to face anything, everything, all things, whatever it might be in any circumstance, to enable me to face it and to face it victoriously. So that He did not leave us, as He said, down here to get along the best we could, doing the things that we have to do. Now, what is God's goal in all this? That is, why did God give us the Holy Spirit? It's essential of the life He's called us to live, essential of the work He's called us to do. That is, He wants us to walk obediently before Him. The will of God is that you and I, that our hearts would be bent toward Him and that you and I would live a life of obedience to God. Why? Because it's for our good. God knows that living obediently is for our good, our best interest and He will also in the long run glorify Him. And you know, one of the reasons that some of you who are watching, one of the reasons that some of you who are listening will not give you life to Christ is that you're already persuaded that you're not about to try this Christian religion bit because you know you can't live up to it. Well, we want to say to you who feel that way, join this wonderful throne because we feel the same way. We can't live it either. You say, well, what in the world are you doing in church? Can't live the Christian life. That's what I'm going to explain. The reason we're here and the reason we loving the Lord Jesus Christ and walking in obedience to Him is not because we can live the Christian life, but because we've discovered a wonderful, liberating truth that He doesn't even expect us to. You know what? No, hold it. Wait a minute. What do you mean don't expect you to? Because I've had people talk to me that tell me that if I'm going to live a Christian life, I've got to quit my drinking and smoking and running around and card playing and gambling and all these things that I enjoy doing. You telling me that I don't have to do that? No, that's not what I said. I said, we can't

live the Christian life. We're not capable of doing it. That's why the Holy Spirit came into your life and my life and we were saved because God knew that you and I were absolutely inadequate to live the Christian life and the Christian life in essence is this. The Christian life is the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer responding to the believer's yieldedness and empowering and guiding and leading and expressing the very life of Jesus Christ through that believer's conduct, conversation and character, moment by moment, day by day, step by step in the believer's walk. You said, well, that sounds real passive and what you're saying is that all we have to do is just let God have His way and just let go and let God and we don't have anything to do. I didn't say that at all because you see every single time a decision comes up and every single time you're not tempted, we have to make a decision. Our responsibility in the Christian life is decision making. That's what it's all about. And now decision is, shall I rely upon the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit within me to enable me to face this, whether it's a temptation or some trial or some heartache or some burden or some sorrow, will I allow him to enable me to face this victoriously, or am I going to try in my own strength and in my own energy? You see, the more self-confident you and I become in the flesh, that is in our own humanness, when we look around we say, well, you know, I can do that and I can do this and I can handle that, then what we do is we get in trouble. Every time we begin to live the Christian life in our own strength, we make a mess of things because you see, God never made us to live this life apart from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. And so when He says, we're to walk by the Spirit, where do we walk? That doesn't mean walk around at home on Sunday. It means when you get in your car and drive to work, we're to rely upon the Holy Spirit. As we think about our responsibilities on our job and our vocation, we're to rely upon Him. You say, No, wait a minute. I thought I thought the Christian life is reading the Bible. You mean on my job where I work, in my home, I cleaning up the house under life on the Holy Spirit? What does he say? He says, the believer is to do what? The believer who took one step into the new birth is to now proceed, making progress, growing,

in a sense of direction. We are to walk by the Spirit, moment by moment, day by day, doing what? Relying upon the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. You said, well, that sounds like a passive kind of weakness. No, it is the wisdom of God who knew that you and I would blow it every single time without His help. He said, I'm going to send you a comforter. You remember the other word he uses? A helper. He knows we can't live it and we can't achieve it, apart from the Holy Spirit. That is, he sent him in order to achieve and to accomplish what he knows we cannot do. Now listen, the terms he uses, walk, step by step, by step, I'm going to do what? Rely upon the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. I don't know how much simpler he could have made, the Christian life than that. And yet we don't do that oftentimes. We want to do it our way. Or if we have a couple of victories back here, we think, well, I can handle that. It is a walk. Every decision, every single work you and I carry out, we are to rely upon the presence and the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. That's the reason he's there. Listen, why doesn't God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit all just sit up in heaven together?

Because the Lord Jesus knew we'd never make it, unless he was down here on the inside of us, living this life through us and enabling us through his powers, rely upon him. So when he says walk by the Spirit, that means to rely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to face any and every circumstance in every situation of life. Now, what does that require? It requires several things. First of all, it requires to be regenerated. That is, to be born again. That is to give you life to Christ, to be saved. Secondly, it requires yielding my life to him. You see, I'm not gonna rely upon him if I'm not yielded to him. And listen very carefully. You cannot rely upon the Holy Spirit, whom you will not yield your life to, whom you're living in disobedience to, whom you're grieving and who you're quenching. So it requires yielding my life to him. That is, if I'm gonna walk by the Spirit, I must yield myself to him. I must rely upon him and then I must trust him. Now, it's interesting what have, I want you to turn to Ephesians chapter two. All of us know this passage by heart. We all know it by heart and yet somehow, somewhere back yonder by somebody's erroneous teaching

or lack of teaching or something, we've missed a major point. All of us know Ephesians two, eight, nine and 10 by heart, but I want us to look at it. Now, I want you to fill in the blanks. He says, "For by grace you have been saved through what?" All right, let's go back to it again. "For by what?" You have been saved through what? All right, "For by grace you've been saved through faith." Now, he says, "And that not of what?" It is a gift of God not as a result of, lest any of us should what? All right, so we're saved by grace. That is, it's a gift of God. He says, "We're saved by grace through what?" Faith, now, here's what I want you to see. Here's the mistake we make and growing up as a Christian, I made it because nobody told me the difference. Somehow, I had the idea that I'm saved by faith, I just trust the Lord. But then when it came to living the Christian life, I had to do all of these things in order to keep God's approval and to make things work. But the Bible says that you and I are to live by what? - Faith. - The just shall live by what? - Faith. - Faith. Now, but we don't do that. You see, here's what we do.

I'll take care of that Lord, no problem. Let me give you a proof of that. Are there not times when you go through, not being accused of just asking a question? Are there not times when you go through several days and you're just too busy to pray? You know why? You don't say it, but in your mind, you say, "Well, you know, I can take care of today." Not anything particularly going on on a downhill today. My friend, you realize that Satan's just waiting for your days that you can handle? He loves those days because he knows we do what? We drop our guard, which leads me to say, God didn't make it, so you could. So you can't. Secondly, you can live it successfully if you will learn to rely upon Him by faith. Now, the other part of that verse brings up our problem. I want you to look at it for a moment. He says, verse 16 now, chapter 5 of regulations, but I say, walk by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Now, we said, how do we do that? The requirements are real simple. I must yield myself to Him. I must rely upon Him, and then I must trust Him to do what He says He'll do. But we've got a problem here, and the problem is this thing of the desire of the flesh. Now, what in the world does that mean? Well, the believer has three enemies. First of all, there's the devil. Secondly, the world, and third, the flesh. Now, we are rather familiar with the first two. The devil, we know who He is. And let me say about Him that He is more powerful than any person on the face of this earth. So if you intend for Satan to be defeated, and you think you're going to defeat him, you've had it, because you're not going to defeat him. God, the Holy Spirit within you will defeat him, but you can't defeat him. I mean, He defeated some of God's greatest servants. You look back at all of the Scriptures, and I mean, they went tumbling down for all kind of reasons. It's not, listen, we don't have the strength and the wisdom and knowledge

to defeat the devil. He's an enemy, and His purpose is to destroy our soul, our body, and our spirit. He never has anything good to offer. He camouflages all of His offers, but ultimately they all have a hook in them, and their ultimate purpose is to destroy us as a slam against God. Well, what's this world we're talking about? We're talking about the world system. This world system in which you and I live, and we'll live until Jesus comes, the world system is society without God. And you and I look around us and friend is very evident that the majority of people in our society would rather live without God. This is an anti-God world. That is an anti-Christ, anti-true God world, because the Bible says if you love God, you love His Son. If you love His Son, you love God. Jesus said, "If you know me, you'll know the Father. If you don't know me, you don't know the Father, so most folks don't. So therefore, this is a world system that is the political system, the financial system, the scientific system, the educational system, the religious system. It's all anti-God." Now, that's the first two, the devil and the world. What about the flesh? Let me say something about the world and the devil. First of all, they are exterior. We can't do a whole lot about them. You're not going to change the devil, and you're not going to change the world system. We may change, we may see certain changes take place in our society, but we're not going to change the world system because the God of this age is running the system. But now, what about the flesh? Well, you see, I can't change the world. I can't do much about that. I can't do anything about the devil over here. But there is within me something that I have to deal with, which the Bible calls the flesh. Now, when you were saved, the Bible says that you were taken out of the domain of darkness and placed in the domain of light, that you were in Adam, and now you are now in Christ. Christ in us, we're in him. And that when we were saved, we became partakers of His divine nature. So living within us, now the Bible says is the Lord Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Now, remember this, that when you gave your life to Christ, He saved you. But there's some parts of us that are not fully redeemed. This physical body of mine is not redeemed yet. It's the same old body I got born in. In fact, I've been with it for 57 years, and it hadn't changed much as getting a little older. That's all. Now, with this body came all my five senses and all the desires that legitimate, legitimate desire for rest, for food, for pleasure, for sex, and for God and all the rest. Now, all

of those are legitimate desires that God has given to us. And as long as we keep them in the sphere of God's will for our life, everything works fine. But when out, listen, when we choose, when we begin to desire, we begin to desire those things outside. That is, He says the desires of the flesh, the lust, those strong desires. When we begin to desire those things that are outside of God's permissive will, what happens? We get in trouble. So in the life of every single believer who has a new nature, there is still because we're in this human body with its normal, natural humanness. Because it is there, we still have the potential to sin against God at any moment. Because there's no such thing as eradication of all evil." Since the Bible doesn't use that terminology, then I don't use that terminology. But there's no question about our capacity and our potential to sin against God. Now because we have that, that's why, listen, the Holy Spirit came to live within us so that when we are tested and we are tempted and we are tried, we have the privilege of relying upon the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to enable us to say, "No to sin and yes to God." And that's why He's there. Essential to the life God has called us to live. So He says, "Look at this." He says, "I say, when you walk by the Spirit, relying upon the, relying upon the Holy Spirit, He says you, you won't allow your normal natural desires to get out of their boundaries. But when we begin to try these things ourselves, we get in trouble. We sin against God, we disobey Him. And every time we do, it's because we rely upon ourselves rather than upon Him. I have to choose every single time. Shall I rely upon the Holy Spirit to enable me through this? Am I going to do my own thing?" That is the believer's walk. And that's why God made it so simple. He said, "You want to walk in victory? You want contentment and joy? Didn't mean that you're not going to have frustrations at times and anxieties. Does it mean that you're not going to have challenges in intense temptations?" But here's the difference. I want you to look, if you will, in the 18th verse of the 6th chapter of Romans. And He says in the past tense now, "Having been freed from sin." That doesn't mean the presence of sin, but having been freed from its enslaving power. Having been freed from its enslaving power, now we've become the slaves of righteousness. What? Before you were saved, sin's power had a grip on you. Why? Because you had a sinful nature that governed and dominated everything. Now, what happened when you and I received Christ is that that grip was broken. Now we have a new

nature. And now God has turned us toward Him. Now our desires are for the things of God. Still live in this body. Still have to deal with this body. But now we have the power of the Holy Spirit in dwelling us who will enable us. Listen, who will enable us to bring every thought, every habit, every action unto obedience to the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Did I say we always would? No. Did I say we can? That's what God said. And that's why He gives us this command here in Galatians chapter 5 when He says, walk by the Spirit and He says, here's the promise. You will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Now look in verse 17. He says, here's the conflict. He says, for the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, there'll always be that conflict and the Spirit against the flesh. For they're in opposition to one another. That is, as a believer in dwelled with the Holy Spirit, full of the Holy Spirit, we want to be obedient to God. We want to do what God wants us to do. But every once in a while, something rises up within us that does not want to do what God wants, or what we'd like to say as God, I would like to do this with your approval, which we know is an act of disobedience to God. Here's what you and I are capable of, apart from Jesus Christ. And let me go one step further. We're capable of most of this, even with Jesus Christ and our life, unless we're lying upon the Spirit. Listen, it's not something that I've come up with. It's in the Bible, by the way. Look in the 19th verse. Here's what you're not capable of. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurities, sensuality, idolatrous, sorcerer, imitistripe, jealousy, outburst of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, Indians, drunkenness and carousing. That's a pretty ugly look inside in it. My friend, don't ever get to the point that you think. Cleaned all that up. Don't ever have to worry about that anymore. Satan's not going to bother me in that area. My friend, where you drop your guard, Satan launches his most vicious attacks. That's why he said, listen, walk by the Spirit and you will not yield to the flesh. You won't give in to those strong desires that sometimes come. That's the only way not to give in to them. Now you want to know what you're capable of from the Holy Spirit's in charge? Look at this. Verse 22, "But the fruit of the Spirit is what? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, Now, if I had my choice, I'll take the second. Amen? I prefer the second group, myself.

But I want to tell you something. Apart from the Holy Spirit, we are capable of the first group. There is no stage whereby you ever reach that you save. Don't have to worry about sin anymore. As long as you're in this human body, the capacity is there. And isn't it wonderful that Jesus loves you and me enough to say, I'm not going to leave you comfortless. I'm coming to you in the presence of the Holy Spirit. And as you walk by Him, relying upon Him, in every given situation, He will empower you, and He will enable you to be the person I want you to be and to achieve the work I've called you to do. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]