Pre-Review
We are looking for sermon transcribers/transcript reviewers.
Email [email protected] to serve or to report transcription errors.
 

Come to chapter 5 and just 3 verses this morning, but I like to begin with a simple trivia. A trivia or a quiz about energy or power. It's from a website that I found, 10 energy-related jokes your dad would make. So they are a bit corny, uh but I'm not going to go through all 10, just a few.

For example, the first one, what do wind turbines think of renewable energy? I know it's cold, not easy. I give you the answer for the first one, they are big fans. I was waiting for some delayed ha-ha, but okay, never mind. Second one, how does the kitchen say hello? It microwaves. The third one, what bank account does an LED light bulb have? Savings, not bad, a lot of savings people here. An energy saver, okay this one not so funny. The last one, what do you call it when an electron cheats? A current affair.

Well these are all jokes about energy or power. We all understand the need for power. We get very nervous when our car petrol tank, the indicator shows very low levels. We get very nervous when our phone's battery indicator turns red. We are very, all very nervous when our devices run out of power, but have you ever thought about it that Christians also need power to live the Christian life?

You see, Paul had been telling the Galatians to love one another and to serve one another. I don't think it's things that they do not know. But the reality is that they do not know how to live in this will of God. They can't find the power to do so. As a result, we are told in verse 15 of Galatians that they are really actually biting and devouring each other. They are tearing one another apart so much so that the church is in danger of imploding.

However, they don't need to stay this way. You be careful that as you continue to bite and devour each other, the church will be, will be destroyed. But, he says, I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Paul is saying, I know this is the state of your church, but it doesn't need to stay that way. I know that you are in danger of implode, imploding, but it doesn't need to stay that way. Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

This is a tremendous promise of hope, of victory. That the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit Himself, lives in us and we can walk by the Spirit and have victory over the desires of the flesh. So today we're going to study what it means to walk by the Spirit.

Some of you absolutely would appreciate this message because you are right now struggling. You're struggling with desires in your heart to take revenge, to be bitter, to be hateful. You're struggling today with sexual sins. You do not want to stay in pornography or in an affair, but you just find it so hard to break out of that cycle. Some of you today are struggling with greed and worldliness or anxieties and fears. And that's not where you want to be, but you do not know where the power is to break free.

So this passage, I hope, would bring comfort, hope and victory in your life. It's actually something that will be dealt with further in the subsequent verses, but I think it's so important, I think I want to deal with it right here in this passage. All that I can share, I think, we would look at today.

1. Priority

So let's see, first of all, the priority in this passage, the importance of what Paul is saying. Paul says, walk by the Spirit and you do not quite sense it in English, but in the Greek, this is written in the imperative mood, which means it is written like as in a command. It's not a suggestion. It's not an option. It's not good to have a cherry on top.

This is absolutely vital, according to Paul. If you do not want to continue biting and devouring each other, if you do not want the church to be destroyed, then it is absolutely imperative that you should walk by the Spirit. Because the flesh can't be trusted or depended upon to love one another. You can't. You don't have the power in the flesh. We don't have the power to love one another in our own selves. The power belongs unto God and the Spirit of God lives in us.

There is a story of a float parade. You know a float? Something like this. Uh, it's just some vehicles decked up with decorations. There was this float parade in the States and one of the particular floats just stalled, didn't move. And they found out the reason is because it has run out of fuel. It has run out of petrol. And it was very ironic because this particular float belongs to a petroleum company. So it is ridiculous that the petroleum company that owns a lot, a lot of petrol would have its float stall.

We laugh at something like this but isn't it also true for you and I? We belong to God. God is all-powerful but we stall in our Christian life. We don't progress. We don't have victory over our sin because there is no power. We did not tap on the power that is absolutely available to us.

Many of us make this mistake. We think that we become a Christian by God's power and then we continue to live the Christian life by our own power. That's the problem. We think we are saved by grace but we continue in our flesh. That's a mistake. We think that the way to become more Christian, more holy, more like Jesus is like the rest of the world, trying to be good in your own strength. But that is absolutely a mistake and a tragedy because Paul already tells us, you've got to, this is imperative, this is a command, you've got to walk by the Spirit otherwise you will fall.

I'm in a demonstrative mood nowadays. Last week we had a demonstration. This week also same. But this week I only need one volunteer. Don't worry, it's not scary nor difficult. When I have one volunteer, anyone, what I would like him to do is to be able to keep all the balloons afloat. I'll give him one by one. Don't hold it at the end and like that ah, very cheat that one. No cheat moves. But just, I'm going to pass to him one at a time and he's supposed to keep all of them afloat. Alright? Ready? You think he can do it? Wah, such great confidence in the flesh. Okay. Okay, come come.

We'll stand here so that they all can see. Alright, a bit further. Let's see how he copes with all the balloons. Alright? Here we go. Keep them afloat. Keep them afloat. I help you lah ah. Hey, how come you're not keeping any afloat? Now, it's really hard for him to do so, isn't it? Very hard. Why? The flesh is weak. And to think all of you had such great confidence in him. You see, now he's desperate until.

But let me tell you how he can keep it all afloat. Here you go. That's your gift. Okay. Let's give him a round of applause. Thank you very much. I think if I could produce another 10 balloons, it will all stay afloat. Why? Because it is filled with helium. Actually, someone asked me to try to put it in my mouth and I say better not lah. Ah, I hope this is a simple demonstration.

You all had such confidence in the flesh, but it will all fall all over the floor or the ground. It won't work. The only way you can have victory over your sin is to be filled with the Spirit. So Paul makes it clear, you must walk by the Spirit.

2. Promise

Now secondly, in this text, we not only see a promise or a priority, we see also a promise. He says walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Now I need to emphasise that again in the Greek, the word not is absolutely emphatic because it is not just not, it is a double negative in the Greek. It is no, never, never, never, no.

So if you walk by the Spirit, you will definitely not gratify. The word there means to carry out or to fulfil or to perform the desires of the flesh. And the reason is because, the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. They are absolutely opposed to each other, Paul says.

And then there comes this little phrase that people have a hard time trying to decipher or figure out, uh, but I'll just simply say, to keep you from doing the things you want to do, I think the best way to understand this is Paul saying, if you are led by the desires of the flesh, the Spirit in you keeps you from going all the way there.

And on the other hand, if you are led by the Spirit, the desires of the flesh is also to keep you from being led by the Spirit. So there is always going to be this tug of war that happens in a Christian's life. One of the best ways to tell, am I really a Christian? Is to ask yourself, do I really struggle with temptation and sin? Because before you came to Christ, I don't think there's any struggle. If no one is watching and if the police doesn't catch you, you will just keep on sinning and you don't really feel that bad about it. But after you come to Christ, there is a desire of the Spirit in you. And now there is a genuine struggle.

Therefore, Thomas Watson, he says, saving faith lives in a broken heart. When we sin, we grieve.

And so, a Christian is not someone who is perfect. A Christian is not someone who never struggles with temptation. Actually, a Christian is someone who regularly struggles with temptation. He struggles with the tug of war that happens within his soul. There is no such thing as perfectionism in the Bible. That is to say, no one ever comes to a state where he says, I'm impervious to temptations, I will never sin, I'm beyond all sin. No, because all of us, before Jesus would come back for us, still possess the flesh, which is the sin principle of the old life. It still resides in us.

But if you walk by the Spirit, Paul says, though the desires of the flesh are there, you will not gratify it because the Holy Spirit helps you against it.

But this is not just keeping you from sin and leaving you in a vacuum situation. I think if you properly understand verses 13 all the way to 18, Paul is saying, when you walk by the Spirit, not only will you not gratify the desires of the flesh, but you will also actively, positively pursue that which is good. And I think he already told us in verse 13, you will be able to serve in love. By love, serve one another.

So the opposition to that is the flesh, that leads you to indulge in your fleshly lusts. But if you walk by the Spirit, you will not do that, but you will do what God has designed you to do, to love and to serve. It make sense there. This is further corroborated with verse 18 or by verse 18, which we read here, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now this is also rather complicated. If I take off this part and if you just read this, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. What exactly does this mean? I think the best way to understand this, maybe I give you 30 seconds to think. Because I talk, talk, talk, talk, you'll hear, you're just, okay lor, easy lor. But I give you 30 seconds to think. If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. What does this mean? What is Paul saying? 30 seconds, very precious. But I hope it's useful. For you to just at least have a stab at understanding this verse. I think 30 seconds up.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. I think the best way to understand this is to split this up a bit further so that I can inject a few qualifiers. If you are led by the Spirit, understanding verse 13, you will love. You're not going to be indulged in the fleshly lusts, but you will love. And in verse 14 he says, love is the fulfilling of the law, therefore you are not under the law. Now I know I'm referring to verse 13 and 14 to be inserted in verse 18, but I think that's contextually what is this verse all about.

Paul is saying, if you are led by the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, but you will love. And since love is the fulfilling of the law, you are not under the law in the sense that you are not under the condemnation of the law. You are living the life that the law is describing anyway.

And verse 23 is another verse that says, as you live life in the Spirit, as the Spirit bears the fruit of love, joy, peace, so on and so forth, against such there is no law, there is no condemnation to these things, because it is exactly what the law is describing. With all that said, I just want to keep things simple for you. If I just focus on verse 16, Paul is saying, walk by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, but you will serve in love, which is exactly what God wants for you.

Another demonstration. This is a glove, a works glove. It is designed to hold things, to work. And this is something that you can use to hold things. But I got the wrong hand, but never mind, I'll use the left hand. But if I were to say to the glove right now, hold the water bottle for me. The glove doesn't do it. The glove is not able to do this.

So never mind, I bring him to church. Then I give him Bible study. Bible study, Bible study, Bible study. Hold the water bottle. It still doesn't move it, it still doesn't work. Never mind, I give it discipleship, I train it. I train the fingers, I train the different parts. Now hold the water bottle, same thing, it will not hold the water bottle. What do I need to do?

Well, the only way is if, it is filled by the hand that is supposed to use it. See, left hand, like, leg like that, can't, okay. And now it is finally able to hold. This is your life. This glove describes you and me. We all are created by God to be useful. We all are created by God to do the good works. But we can't do the good works unless the Holy Spirit is filling our lives.

So the only way you can serve in love is not by sheer willpower or by only Bible study. Nothing wrong with deciding to choose to serve. Nothing wrong with knowing the Scriptures, but the power belongs unto God. Therefore it is imperative that we live life in the Spirit. The word walk is a hebraism. That means a Jewish way of describing something. The word walk does not mean literally move your legs. The word walk is a hebraism to describe how you should live your life, how you should conduct your life.

So Paul is saying, conduct your life in the realm of the Spirit and not in the realm of the old existence of the flesh. Be led by the Spirit, be guided by the Spirit, be controlled by the Spirit, be influenced by the Spirit.

So that is the promise that if we live life in the Spirit, we will serve in love as we will see in verse 13, verse 18 and verse 22. All these describe God's will that we should live in love.

3. Path

Finally, the last point I want to make is again the most important one, I think, is to answer the question, how? How can I walk in the Spirit? What is the path towards being filled with the Spirit? So this is the million dollar question. How can I walk by the Spirit so that I do not end up with balloons on the floor but all my life is held up?

What's the secret. Is it a mantra we should make like every morning I just utter these chants and God fills me with a zap? Is it some temple I need to go to? Or is it some drink I need to drink that fills me with power? You know, these are things people may do to get power. But how do I get to walk by the Spirit?

I think of it as two-way plug or two-pin plug. You need to be plugged into the power supply, you need to be plugged into the Holy Spirit and there are two words that are vital to walking by the Spirit and I think the two words are trust and obey. They are very easy to remember, especially if you are familiar with a, with an old, old song we sing. I think many of you would know the song, trust and obey. How many of you have not heard this song, trust and obey, before? Okay, a few of you but never mind, you will probably be able to follow along. The rest of you who know, can you sing with me? Let's have some participation today.

Alright, let's sing this song, trust and obey, ready, go. When we walk, with the Lord, in the light of His Word, what a glory He sheds on our way. While we do His good will, He abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.

Yay, let's give yourself a round of applause. You guys sang well. One of the things about hymns is that they are always very singable. Very easy to sing, very easy to follow along and usually great words, lyrics that depict great truths. Trust and obey are the two pins I think a Christian needs to live life by the Spirit.

You can't live life by the Spirit if you do not trust and if you do not obey. So let me try to work this out with you. The word obey, let's start from the bottom. The word obey I think is the idea that we get in verse 18 that you are led by the Spirit. You are willingly subjecting yourself or submitting yourself to the desires of the Spirit. To the will of the Spirit.

And I think from Galatians 5, we are very clear, the desires of the Spirit are not the desires of the flesh. Not wrath, not vengeance, not lust, not sorcery, not these things. But the desires of the Spirit are the opposite. Love, joy, peace. The desires of the Spirit is holiness and love. Makes sense that as Christians, if we say we want to be walking by the Spirit, we aim not towards the fleshly lusts, but to righteousness and love. So if you want to be led by the Spirit, you obey Him in not doing the desires of the flesh, but pursuing righteousness and love.

What about the word trust? Well, the word trust I think is the idea that you can see throughout the book of Galatians. For example, Paul began in chapter 2 verse 20 when he said, The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, huh. Paul says, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So the life that I live now, I live by faith. I depend on Christ who lives in me by His Spirit.

And again in chapter 3, he says, are you so foolish? Did you begin by the Spirit? Did you get saved because the Holy Spirit works in you? And now you try to live the Christian life in your flesh? No, you shouldn't. Of course, that's a rhetorical question. So to live life in the Spirit, we do not depend on the flesh, but we depend on the Spirit of Christ, and I think that's what it means to trust, and when you combine these two together, I think they are the two pins that are needed to plug into the power of the Spirit.

So walk in the Spirit or walk by the Spirit consists of trusting and obeying, trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. So we, we think that this is a concept of dependence, to depend on the Spirit and not in our own flesh, and obedience.
Obedience is to be led by the Spirit. Obedience is to say no to the indulgence of the fleshly lusts, but to say yes to the Spirit's desire for righteousness and love. I think that's what it means to obey. To depend or to trust means that I do not live my life in my own flesh, not having confidence in my ability to keep the balloons up, but my confidence, my dependence is in the Spirit of God who keeps my life up.
How can I switch from depending on my flesh to balance the balloons to being filled with the Spirit? How can I switch my dependence? I think we have spoken about it quite some time ago in Galatians 3, and I mentioned it is very simple, it is as easy as A, B, C. A little bit more difficult, just add a D. It's as easy as A, B, C, D.

How can I switch my dependence from the flesh to the Spirit? Well, A is to acknowledge I can't. I can't balance the balloons in my life, I can't. It begins there. Because once you think you can, you will not need to depend on the Spirit. Acknowledgement.

Number two is to believe. To believe what? To believe that Christ lives in me by His Spirit and that His Spirit absolutely can keep my life up. The Spirit can absolutely help me to live in righteousness unto God.

C, to call upon God, it's not just something you think about, but something you ask God for. God, I can't do it, help me. You can.

And as you pray in confidence, you then step out in obedience to do it. To obey God in what He has told us to do.

So I think these concepts are essential to walking in the Spirit. Now it might seem a little bit complicated to you. Like I always say, badminton is like life or life is like badminton. Hitting a badminton shot seems complicated. If I break down the steps from the wrist to the forearm to your legs to your everything, it seems like a lot of things. But the more you do it, the faster it gets and it's almost instantaneous after a while.

But this is the mental, I think, steps broken down for me at least. So let me try to apply it. Suppose today someone offended you, you're angry with someone, you're tempted to be unforgiving. That according to the Bible, taking vengeance is living life according to the fleshly lusts.

You want to take revenge, right? You want to kill the person if you can. But as a Christian, the desires of the Spirit is also real in your life. You know that God doesn't want you to do that. So you hear the Spirit's desire for you to love and to forgive and not to retaliate. So as Christians, oftentimes, we kind of know it. Alright, I want to kill him, but God doesn't want me to. So let me love him.

And that's how we also fail. Because immediately, we do it in our own flesh. We do it in our own strength. So now you say you're going to forgive him, but the next time you think about him, you're going to kill him. You, you still want to kill him. You still want to scold him. Things have not really changed because we cannot depend on our own efforts.

Instead, I think knowing that this is the right thing to do means I now begin to acknowledge I can't. To acknowledge that though I need to forgive, I must forgive, I must love, I should not retaliate. The reality is in my flesh, I can't love him. In my flesh, I can't forgive him. I, I will only retaliate. I acknowledge that. And I remember, and I count it real, that Jesus lives in me by His Spirit. And His Spirit is called the Spirit of Holiness. He's also the Holy Spirit. He will lead me. He will enable me to live a holy life. He can do it.

So let me call upon the Spirit, Lord, help me. You are God, and you have all power, and you can do what I cannot do. So help me, and I go out and love and serve this man or this woman. It's a simple, simple process.

Let's apply this again to greed. We, we love the things of this world, many of us. The flesh loves the things of this world. But the Spirit also informs us that we shouldn't. So I should not be greedy, I should not love the things of the world, I should be generous to give, I should be sacrificial. But again, the flesh profits nothing. It is the Spirit that gives life.

So we need then to go back to A, B, C, D, to acknowledge I can't, to believe that Christ lives in me, His Spirit is able to help me live a life of generosity and sacrifice. I call upon Him for help, and I go and do what He wants me to do.

Same thing for lust. I shouldn't indulge in pornography. I should not have this affair. I should not have this fling. But it is so tempting, I'll grit my teeth and stop this pornography. But the next day, you fall back in again, because the flesh is weak. It all ends up on the floor. But I acknowledge now, I, I need to go to the helium tank. I need to acknowledge all my balloons are going to drop. But I need to be filled up with the Spirit, I need to walk in the Spirit. So I acknowledge my own inability. I believe Christ lives in me to help me live that holy life. I call upon His help, and I go and fight sin in His power.

Same thing for service. I should serve. I shouldn't be selfish. I should sacrifice. But willpower alone is not sufficient. You need the A, B, C, Ds. Sharing the Gospel is not easy, it's scary, it's nervous, because we are scared to, afraid of losing face, but we know that God doesn't want me to be a coward.

And by the way, don't be ashamed that you are afraid of sharing the Gospel, because the apostles needed the Holy Spirit to fill their lives and to grant them courage. Likewise, we all can have that courage, not in our own flesh, but as we acknowledge, as we believe, as we call, and as we step up to serve.

Walking by the Spirit is not so complicated after all. The Bible tells us that we can do it if we trust and obey. There's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Let me end with this story of a man who understood the teachings of the Spirit-filled life, or walking by the Spirit. He was told that walking by the Spirit is like someone in a hot air balloon. All of us are subjected to a gravitational pull downwards, but when you step into a hot air balloon, the hot air rises and we all get to rise.

But let's say you're in the mid-air and you decide for yourself, hey, I'm flying, I'm Superman, and you step out of the balloon, what happens to you? You ain't Superman, you're a dead man.

So the Christian is called to walk by the Spirit all times. This is in the present tense, it's something we need to continuously do, and I hope this is something you will carry with you from today onwards.

I read about, I heard about a story of a man who understood this, and he was reminded to stay in the basket. So he knew he was going to have a very difficult business meeting, oftentimes tempest flare, people get very upset, and he knows he will get upset. So he bought for himself a little basket, and at the meeting table, he places the basket right in front of him, and whenever people say something very irritating or agitating, he looks at the basket and he reminds himself, stay in the basket, walk by the Spirit. Do not fulfill the lust of the flesh, trust and obey, do the A, B, C, Ds. That's living life in the Spirit. Let's bow for a word of prayer together.

Father, we thank You this morning that we can hear Your words, and we pray that each one of us who is Yours would not live that life of that float that stalled, or the balloon that falls, or the glove that lies motionless. But Your Spirit would fill our lives as we trust and obey.

Help us to stay in the basket, help us to live that victorious life You want us to live. And we also want to pray today that this church will be healed of sins, healed of divisions and strife. May we all taste of what it means to have victory, holiness, love, as we walk by the Spirit.

For all our friends who are here who do not know Jesus, we pray that You'll help them to see that it's not that we clean up our lives, then You clean us. Then You accept us. No, but that You first loved us, gave Your Son for us. And as we trust in Him, Your Son and Your Spirit will then change and cleanse our lives. Lord, help them to see Jesus and Him crucified. So bless each one. We pray all this in Jesus' Name. Amen.

 

We are looking for sermon transcribers/transcript reviewers.
Email [email protected] to serve or to report transcription errors.