Walking By the Spirit

So we come to one of the landmark verses in scripture, not landmark, pretty significant verse. Walk by the Spirit. So the context of this is what we studied last week. Last week we talked about the 13th and 15th, so I'll just read it again. For you are called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

So we're going to see that it's really neat. Verse 15 will be the launching pad for verse 16. And I'll show you that shortly. But the negative thing that we have this biting and devouring among the the brethren in Galatian Church. So let's just review some points from last week. The first point, Paul told us the following things in verse 13 through 15.

Every believer is called to freedom. Okay? And he said, this is an action, when you see the word stop, it's an action that's already going on, assumed to already be going on. He says, stop using your liberty or your freedom as a base of operation for the flesh. That's that word that we kind of studied last week. It's like a military base of operation. They're a starting point for how they do their operations. He says, don't do that.

We are to serve as slaves to one another through Christ's love. We are to love one another as those who are, we are to love those who are near. Neighbor is the idea of being near, near in our sphere of influence. We are to love one another, even as Christ has loved us. So that's, remember, Christ said, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you. And then lastly, the context of that is, the biting and devouring is going on. They're already biting at each other. He says, stop biting and devouring one another, or you may be consumed by one another. So pretty stark words.

And actually, it was pointed out last week I didn't realize it, but I think it was Macaulay pointed out that that's one of the, that's the only negative thing, the only sin he pointed out in the Galatian church. Interesting. That was their only sin. Well, you could argue their falling out of the law was a sin, but anyway, somebody, that's what Macaulay pointed out. Okay, so let's go in, and this is just a summary from last week that we did, which I thought was really good. It says, this is from Hal, Hal Malloy.

The only way a believer can manifest love toward others or one another is when Christ is the object of our heart and we walk in grace and not under law. So we have two options here, right? Under grace, Christ's life is manifested and characterized by the fruit of the spirit. Under law, The self, self-life, is manifested and characterized by abiding and devouring. So that's the two options, right? You're under grace, the spirit is controlling, or under law, self is controlling.

So as I go through here, if you have questions or thoughts, let me know. Okay, so that's last week. So now we start out. So here's an outline from Macaulay, which I kind of changed a slight bit, changed a few words here and there. So he has basically Galatians 5, 13 through 26, he calls dynamics of the Christian life. So the first part we did last week, are Christian liberty or freedom. Actually he started way back, I think Bob taught 13 back a few weeks ago. So we talked about the possession, the abuse, the motivation of liberty, and then we talked about last week the freedom expression, express either positively or negatively, So today, we're going to move into what Macaulay calls our Christian spirituality. We're just going to focus on one verse, verse 16 today. So Macaulay divides it into three sections. We have the command to walk. We have a relationship by the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit.

And the promise is, if you do that, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Then following this, in the coming weeks, we're going to talk about the battle. of the flesh versus the spirit. We're going to talk about the position that you may not, may not do as you please. That's our, you know, we're in that place. We can't do as we please. And then the summary is being led by the spirit, you're not under law.

So Roger, this is the new life. It is, absolutely, absolutely. This idea of making choices, the choices are often of the flesh because we're concerning the consequence. The life when it shows up in a spirit letter, you're maybe going to go there, forgive me, but it's a life. It is. It's Christ's life. It's a new creation of Christ Jesus. It's a life, not a choice. That's one of the key things we're going to find.

Actually, walking by the Spirit, we're not to focus on the Spirit. It sounds all like an oxymoron. I'm walking by the Spirit, but I'm not focused on the Spirit. I'm focused on Christ. And that's kind of, we'll see that as we go through that. That's one of the key parts of this walking by the Spirit. It's not, the Spirit we're to focus on, we're to focus on Christ. And that's clearly, clearly given in the Gospel of John. We're going to go through those verses very clearly.

When Christ left, he says, I give you a helper. And this helper, His whole job, the Holy Spirit has the job of magnifying Christ. I mean, that is his total job. So if we focus on the Spirit, we're going against what Christ asks us to do. focus on me by the Spirit. So that's going to be really key.

That new life, how can we love one another without that life? Actually, we're going to see here, he says you were abiding and devouring, he says, but I say, in contrast, but I say, that's what we're going to see right now, here's the verse, but I say, this is what he says, in contrast to what abiding and devouring, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Just a tremendous, tremendous verse. Okay, so that's our verse for today. So let's look at it. So I'll just think about as an introduction.

So the metaphor of walking is used quite a bit in scripture, you know, walking. So what is walking in scripture? It's a whole round, walking describes a whole round of activity in Christian life. It's how we conduct our life, right? That's what it's to be. It graciously tells us how to conduct our life. Use the metaphor of walking.

It's used specifically of things. It talks about we should walk this way, but not walk that way. There's a bunch of verses. I'm not going to cover all those verses, but there are a bunch of verses that say, I'm going to cover mostly the positive one. You should do this. There are some that say don't do that. But they all use the metaphor of walking. I think we're going to have, I asked you to make some handouts. I have some handouts of the slides. You can get them after class.

OK. So the last point here is that it is used here in the Galatian church to counteract the false teaching of the Judaizers. OK. So that's kind of the introduction here. So now we're just going to jump into it, if there's no questions. OK. OK. So we start out with, but I say. So the idea here is that this I say then, or here's how. So he's saying, let me just get a sip of water here. And we're gonna see that what I say is useful. What I say, literally, this I say then, here's how.

So here's how to overcome that biting and devouring. Here's how to live the Christian life so that you will not fall into the issues presented in 13 through 15. So 13 through 15 presented positive things to love one another right, It presented negative things, biting and devouring. So walking by the Spirit is how we can accomplish both of those. So here's a couple other places where this phrase, but I say, is used. In Romans 10, 18, but I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed, they have. And it's used in the next verse, but I say, surely Israel did not know, did they?

So he's always using it in a contrast sense. He has said something previously. Now he says, in contrast to that, this is what I want to tell you. And the third example is in 1 Corinthians 7, 8. But I say to the unmarried or to the widows that it is good for them to remain even as I. So we're not going to go into those verses, just to show you that Paul likes that contrast starting to this verse.

But I say. Okay, so now we're gonna talk about, so you is implied here, it's you believer, you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, walk by the spirit. So what does that mean? Easy part, so the word walk is peripateo, it's a normal word for walk in scripture, it's an idea to walk, to walk about, signifying the whole round of activities in the Christian life.

It's in the present tense, imperative mood, active voice. It means you continuously do this, basically. You continuously do this. Continuous action in the present are moment by moment living in Christ. As Bob says, it's a life, right? This is a life. We're to do that moment by moment.

And it's by the Spirit. versions of that, you could say, or by means of the spirit, or Wyss renders it through the instrumentality of the spirit. So this walking is only possible by the spirit. So that's important. So what does that look like, is the question. So we're going to dive into that a bit more here. OK, so here's kind of a parallel verse. I think it'll help us to understand that.

I'm going to have a question for you here. so this verse is 2nd Corinthians 2nd Corinthians about Colossians 2 6 anyway therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk on him so not a hard question so this is anybody who would like to speak up how did you receive him it's not hard this is not you know it shouldn't be a You shouldn't rack your brain day and night.

Go ahead. By faith. Good. Excellent. OK. We received him by faith. Right? Anyone disagree with that? I didn't hear that. How did you receive Christ Jesus? By faith. Pardon? By faith. By faith. OK. OK. And actually, she gets a gold star. We have no gold stars in this class. So if you want to get a gold star, you have to answer correctly. By faith. Who do we have faith in? God gave us that faith, though, right? That means we didn't crank it out. That's not the best way to look at it. God didn't give us the faith, no. When you became a believer, how did you become a believer? By the hearing of the word. Good. Excellent. Perfectly. And what happened is... But then I often ask myself, how did I... What made me believe? Oh, hey, amen. I hear ya. I have a sister. I have a sister.

I've talked to her. She's four years younger than I am. I've talked to her for as long as I've been a believer, which is, I was a believer about 35, so all those years have passed. I've talked to her. I'm gonna talk to her today. Pray for me today about 4.30, 5 o'clock. I'm gonna do a Zoom meeting with her. She's in Louisiana. She lost her husband, but she's still not a believer. So I'm going to talk with her again. We can go over the gospel. I'll try to convince her she's a sinner. You wouldn't think of it. It's a tall order. If you don't see you're a sinner, you can't be saved. Anyway, we're getting off the track here. OK, so excellent question. She gets a gold star. You receive Christ Jesus by faith.

You responded, right? And this is just a tremendous thought. We know the Holy Spirit, in John 16, 8, and He, the Holy Spirit, when He comes, will convict, or I like the word, convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. So, you, Barb, you responded, you read God's word, and the Holy Spirit convinced you that that was true, and you believed it, right?

And when you did that, you were born again. You became a believer. Amen. Praise the Lord. So that happened. So when she asked, now did God give us this faith? But think of it on an earthly level. I'm a pretty big guy. How do I know this chair is going to hold me up if I sit down? I put my faith in it, Will, because I see all of you. It's worked for you. You see evidence. You see evidence of that faith. God didn't give you the faith. You look around you, you consider the options, and you put your faith in that. No. Amen.

That's great, Bob. Outstanding. Outstanding. Okay. So now, this verse is going to make a parallel. It's going to say, you receive Christ Jesus the Lord by faith. So what do you think, what do you think is going to be the, I use a big word, the modus operandi? Is that too big a word? What's going to be your lifestyle? What's your lifestyle going to look like as a believer if you receive the Lord Jesus by faith? And it says, It kind of leads you right to that. So what's your lifestyle going to look like as you walk in your Christian life? How will you conduct yourself in your Christian life, then?

Can you answer that, Barb? I'm sorry, I'm picking on you. I shouldn't be answering this. Well, you want me to crawl under the table? No. Roger, you still have your sin nature. Right, we do. But OK. But didn't you exercise faith? You had a sin nature. You had a sin nature. You exercised faith. You still have a sin nature. And we're still to exercise faith, right? It hasn't changed, right?

It's all about faith. It's all about faith. So that's where we're going. So the idea is you receive the Lord Jesus by faith. We're to walk by faith, right? Right. Go ahead, Bob. The three verb tense is I was saved, I'm being saved, and I will be saved. Amen. And that being is sanctification. Exactly. Walking in the Spirit. Exactly. OK. All right. So let's get here. But again, I think when we put on the faith of walking in the Spirit, that's a life that shows up that we don't have to think about anything.

The truth of the Word of God living out through us. That's the power of the Spirit. What Bob just said, the truth of the Word of God, once you believe, you need to get into the Word of God. That's very important to walking your Christian life. Because you wouldn't know how to walk otherwise. When I first, you know, realized I was, you know, I needed the... How do I explain? You needed a Savior is what you needed. I didn't know anything. I didn't know anything. And you know the thing is, you still need the Savior every moment of every day. It really has not changed. You know, you trust Him for faith, right? When you became a believer. But it's to continue on. It doesn't just, OK, I'm now a believer. Now I go to some other mode. I think I'll just do this and that.

No. Every moment of our life is to be the same way, focused on the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's all about growth. I mean, it's an ongoing, your whole life, it's about growth. And once you're into the Word of God, as you mature in the Word of God, you're going to find out that you are in Christ, and Christ is in you. And you live that life that's in Christ. We're going to see all those great points. You guys are making all my points for me.

Okay, so now as a believer, you're to walk by faith in Him, okay? By faith, you responded, you're to respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit. So we're gonna find, and I had seen this before, I taught this back in 2019. I saw this before, but I forget, I forget the wonderful. There's a leading aspect to our walk, and we have to realize that the Holy Spirit wants to lead us as we walk. And if you leave that leading out, I think you miss the boat, that's my opinion. I said I'm gonna show that to you here. Okay, so you respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit, And this is a beautiful verse that talks about that.

We all, beholding as in a mirror, what's a mirror, right? The mirror is God's word, right? As a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. So as we interact with God's word, we're being changed. We're exercising faith, we're looking at his word, promise he's changing us. We're growing in grace and the knowledge of him. That's ongoing in the believer's life. If you're involved in something else, you're not gonna be growing. But if you're involved in his word, you're gonna be growing in grace and the knowledge of him.

Okay, this is gonna kinda set the stage here. So now what I wanna do is, okay, just a few examples. I'm gonna go through these pretty quickly. So here's a few examples of walking. So the Christian is to walk, I'm not gonna cover these in any detail. We're to walk in newness of life, Christ's life. We're to walk after the Spirit. We're to walk in honesty. We're to walk by faith. We're to walk in good works. We're to walk in love. We're to walk in wisdom. We're to walk in truth.

And that's it. Okay, so I did that just real quick. That's all the positive ones. So let's just jump past that real quick. We could delve into those, but not today. Okay, I want to show you two charts. These two charts, to my mind, are the seedbed. The seedbed for understanding your interaction with the Holy Spirit and Christ. Because Christ is going to give, in these three verses we're going to see, he's going to give the God Job description of Christ. Job description of the Holy Spirit revealing Christ. Okay, let's start here. So would someone like to read that? Margaret, could you read it? Sorry, you're looking at that slide. Do you mind reading it? Oh, you want me to read it? Yeah, that'd be fine.

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever. That is the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he abides with you and will be in you." Okay, just some tremendous truth.

So, Bible study 101. What do you do, and I've mentioned this before to many people, what do you do when you see a passage of scripture? One of the wonderful techniques is you say, well, I'd like to understand that passage better. I don't know Greek, I know nothing, but I can observe. So you say, let's make some observations about these verses. So I made some observations. Now I had the benefit, I've done this a few times before, I know a little bit about the language, so I have a little bit of insight that maybe you wouldn't have, but let's just start off.

The Holy Spirit is another of the same kind as Christ. So here's where my little bit of study has benefited me. Another, especially in the King James, is actually can be one or two words, can be allos or heteros. Allos is another of the same kind, which in our case it is, or heteros is a different kind. So this is telling us that the Holy Spirit is another of the same kind as Christ. He's God, right?

That's one of the first observations out of the starting block. The Holy Spirit is another of the same kind as Christ. Next. He'll be with you forever. That's comforting. So I don't have to worry about the Holy Spirit leaving, right? We're not going to talk about this.

Other aspects of that, though. You know him, it says. And knowing him is gnosko. Interesting. By experience. Interesting. Bob would appreciate this. We know the Holy Spirit by experience. Wow. So he's going to elaborate on that. Two aspects. He abides. Menno is this great word. Hal, our brother Hal would say, He hangs out with you. He's at home with you. So the Holy Spirit of God is hanging out with you. You didn't ask Him to hang out with you. You just said, Holy Spirit, please hang out with me. You never ask Him one thing. All you did was exercise faith. He hangs out with you, or abides with you, and He will be in you.

And there's a verse that talks about that. It's in Galatians. We studied it earlier. 4.6, God has sent forth His Son, the Spirit of His Son, into your hearts. Every believer has the Holy Spirit in their hearts. So that's really very comforting. So we're gonna build on that.

I'm gonna show some observations a little bit later on, but that's one verse. The next verse, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. So some observations here. He will be sent in Christ's name, so you have the same if I'm sent as an ambassador in the United States name I have all the Integrity or whatever you think about the United States behind me right you say oh you're ambassador United State that means you're so-and-so Some have good opinions some have bad opinions, but as far as God's concerned. It's only good He will teach you all things He will bring to your remembrance all things. I'm going through it pretty quickly. I'm afraid we're going to run out of time here if I don't hurry along. OK, the third verse. Margaret, can I one more time? It will help my voice here. Sure.

But when he, the spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own initiative. But whatever he hears, he will speak. And he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine, and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you."

Just a tremendous verse. Very, just incredible. So here's some observations here. Observations in the story. He will guide you, or you could say He'll lead you, as a believer, into all truth. He will not speak of himself as a source. Just a key point.

You know, so many dear brothers and sisters, we have relatives, they're all focused on the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, please come. Holy Spirit. They're constantly in the dialogue, day in, day out. Well, no, no, no. He's not going to talk about himself. The next point is, whatever he hears, he will speak. So here's my illustration about that.

I had the privilege of being in the, not in the military, I worked for the Air Force my entire career. I was stationed mostly at Buckley. I was stationed overseas at the base in England for five years. All my career was in this secure environment. So we had these telephones, these red telephones. If you guys didn't know, I'll make sure you know. Red telephones, they're secure. Red telephones, and we had the black telephones, which were outside lines.

So what happened is, of course, things break, right? Things don't always work perfectly. So my job was to coordinate sometimes between the secure environment and the unclassified environment. So I couldn't compromise that. So I would put the red phone in one ear, the black phone in the other ear. What I heard in the red phone, I would translate to the black phone. I couldn't just do that, put them together. That would be violating security. I could be a go-between. So I could be, I don't want to say the Holy Spirit, I would be a conduit.

So I would say, turn that switch, Is that the right switch? Back and forth, back and forth. I did that multiple times between the black and the red. So that's the, did Roger, was I seeking glory? I was merely providing the conduit between one environment to another environment. So the Holy Spirit, whatever he hears, he speaks. He's God, don't ever say he's not God, but his focus is on the Lord Jesus Christ. His whole ministry is to do that. So I think it's just so important.

Hopefully that illustration was, Interesting, right? You order this closed, you order this to come. He shall glorify me, Christ. Now this is really amazing. He shall take how that pertains to me, Christ. He will make it it, make it known to you. So whatever pertains to Christ, he wants us to understand that. All things that the Father has are mine. And then he kind of repeats it again. He takes of mine, Christ, and discloses it to you.

So the rest of the discussion about walking by the Spirit, we're going to utilize all these truths, all these observations are going to be used. Most of them are by Brother Hal. I found just so many. But I wanted to show you, you know, in Bible study, you say, well, Hal Malloy was great, Miriam Lynn was great. Macaulay's great, all these wonderful, Mike Doyle's great, Miles is great, Roger, maybe not so much.

Anyway, where do we get these observations, no, just come to me, I sit in my room and go, Lord, give me the lesson today, what should I, you know, do I sit there and just kind of bounce it off my head? No, I look at God's word, I observe what he says, right? That's what it's all, if you don't look at God's word and try to teach, you're a fool, absolute fool. Look at God's word, observe what he says, and then you can make observations. So our brother Hal is gonna make some observations here.

So now, down to the rubbery. So how do we walk by the Spirit? Overview. Okay? First off, the Holy Spirit is the only one that can lead us. And we know that because we just read that in the John passage, right? The Father gave him that responsibility. Okay? Therefore, we are to be depending upon his leading. That's what walking by the Spirit's about. So walking by the Spirit is walking by faith.

What's always our contribution? Don't think that you have to do a bunch of gymnastics, right? Faith is our contribution. All I bring to the table is our faith. That's the only thing we can bring. We have nothing else to bring. And depending upon the leading of the Holy Spirit and the things of Christ. Okay, important points.

Walking by the Spirit is not There's other ministries. Baptism, being placed into Christ, not water, being placed into Christ and never taken out, indwelling, filling, etc. Walking is not that. Walking is not self-occupation with the Holy Spirit. That's not what walking by the Spirit is about. Walking by the Spirit is occupation with the glorified Lord Jesus Christ. So you see where, did Hal get these out of the air? Did he just pull them out of the air someplace? No, he looked at scripture and he recorded, and that's just what, you know, we all want to do that. And that's what gives me great encouragement.

When I study something and then I see what somebody else said, I said, well, I saw the same thing, but maybe he says it better than I can say it. So I'm going to use him. I like, I like your brother Hal, or I like Malloy, or I like whatever, Merriman. So anyway.

Roger, so what are the criticisms of Paul Luisa? We have an active responsibility to walk by faith. It's an active thing that we need. Right, right. Amen. Okay, and last quote, it. Walking by the Spirit is beholding Him, depending upon Him, Christ to be our all in all. Christ is our focus. He's the focus of our entire Christian life. There's to be no other focus. So a couple more things here. Okay, now one last thing. Here's the connection, and this is what I had kind of forgotten. So what's the connection between the leading of the Holy Spirit and the walking of the Holy Spirit? Okay, here's some points.

Christ tells us, we just read it, that the Holy Spirit is responsible to lead us. He will guide you into all the truth. He's like a parent lovingly guiding his child. That kind of comes from that passage, I read it before, it says, Abba, Father, he's placed in our hearts, Abba, Father, a very warm term. He's leading us. Does he lead us by visions, appearances? No, that was in the Old Testament. No, he leads us by his word, right? There's nothing else. His total tool is by the word of God.

Christ sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us so he could lead us into the person of Christ. Boy, that is just so important. You don't want to get unbalanced and get focused on the Holy Spirit. He is totally God, but he has a wonderful mission to show us Christ.

Paul tells us in verse 16 that we're to walk by the Spirit, by means of the Spirit, so we are to be depending upon the leading, so we are depending upon the Holy Spirit leading as we walk by the Spirit. You know, and that, looking at that takes a burden off me. I say, well, wait a minute. I'm gonna, as I look at God's Word, interact with God's Word, the Holy Spirit is gonna be leading me so I can walk properly. So we're not, I'm gonna walk by the Spirit today. No, as Bob said, it's not like that at all. You're seeing, the Holy Spirit is guiding you into the truth as you interact with God's Word.

So actually, that's all I have to say about walking by the Spirit at the moment. I wanna get to the rest of the verse here. How are we doing on time? Okay, we'll come back to a summary at the end here. Okay, so here's a wonderful promise. So, but I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out. Let's just look at that. So actually it's a double negative in the original. You will not, will not. Or, Aaron says, you cannot, you will never, never.

And that word is used, that phrase is used in John 6.37. All that the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will certainly not, double negative, I will certainly not, not cast it out. So in our context, carry out is the idea to bring to completion. So we put it together here.

So it's saying, you cannot, you never, never will bring to completion the desires of the flesh. Incredible, incredible promise. It's an impossibility. So he's saying that, as I walk with the Lord, by faith, my contribution is faith, that guarantees I will not be involved in my fallen nature, my fallen flesh. An incredible promise. Here I am, I know, just an ordinary person in this life, I trust in Christ, and he promises me if I focus on him, it's impossible for me to be hanging out with the flesh, so to speak.

Incredible thing. So, Roger? Yeah, go ahead. If that's impossible, and this is kind of a... I know what you're going to keep going. I'm looking at it from the other people's point of view. If it's impossible, then are we perfect? Suddenly, can we walk by the flesh? And what causes us to do that? And then what causes us to... Go back the other way. You know, again, I've said this many times before, but I'll say it again.

Remember, He sees each and every one of us as righteous. That's positional truth. And I think, you know, your comment is appropriate because we all fall back to the flesh all the time, don't we? But He sees us. position or truth, but again, personally, when I lose sight of my position, then I'm more likely to fail the meeting of the Holy Spirit. So what, when you lose sight of your position, what do you do to get back in sight of it? I confess it and get back in fellowship, right? Or I like, if you realize that, if you realize that you're being drawn away, remember that little stair, I presented it in a little stair tip, Hal had?

The James passage. So there's a point at which you have a choice. You can respond, you can respond to the flesh or not. At that point, scripture tells us to what? Reckon ourselves dead to sin. So I like to think it's that we got a tag team here. We got, I can reckon myself dead or I confess my sins. I would rather be up front and do the front part first. If I realize that sometimes I don't, sometimes I'm so stubborn. I'm going to do this anyway, right? I like my sin as Mike says. Go ahead, Bob.

So what Bob said is you confess it, and we can use like 1 John 1.9. Sure. Sometimes people think of confession as, oh, I'm going to feel sorry for this, or I got to do penance, or I'm so miserable. But I think of it more in terms of you realize what you've done, you confess it, and then the important part is that you move on. Amen. But Bob, that's not who we are. Right. We're seen positionally as righteous. That's not the way God sees us.

You confess that I've left that beautiful position, you see me in, and we get back in fellowship. I'm just talking from a practical, everyday thing. I mean, Margaret can tell you how many times I fall for it. It's a lot. We'll talk privately. I don't think Heidi's ever found me. Judging by the look on her face. No, no, no. We've noticed. We will talk. Why don't we carry on here? I think we've had a confession time enough here. OK, so let's go on. So the rest of this is, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh, or the sinful nature. So epithumia is desire, a craving, a longing, mostly evil. It's transmitted to lust many times.

So here's some observations. Paul is not saying, this is key. This is key. The old nature doesn't go away. It doesn't go poof sometime. It's still there. Paul's not saying you will have no desire of the flesh. You will. It's there. It's reality. We don't have to tell ourselves that. Paul is saying these desires of the flesh will not be brought to completion as we walk by the Spirit. That's a wonderful thing. We're able to walk in fellowship with the Lord, and the desires are still there, but we'll continue to do that.

Okay? The desire of the flesh will always be there. It's not going to go away. Okay. Last summary chart here. OK, and I actually told my story about that. No other stories, shucks. OK, final thought. If we're walking by the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, then it's impossible to fulfill the desire of the evil nature, impulse, and passions of the flesh.

It's impossible because the flesh, the power, or the believer is broken or cut loose, just like we studied six Romans 6.11, it's been cut loose, taken offline. It's still there, but we're not connected to it. We need not obey it. There's nothing in the flesh worth holding on to.

As we walk by faith, we are to allow the Holy Spirit to hold the flesh in the place of death, separation on the cross. The Holy Spirit, who is our living link with Christ, forms in us and manifests in us the glory of Christ. The Lord desires for us to walk by the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is our moment-by-moment desire and experience. So actually, coming up here, actually, we get to have Miles in the next two weeks. I keep telling Miles, you just can't stay in the other class. I'm talking about staying with Mike. I say, you can't do that, Miles. You've got to be in this class.

So he's going to come back. He's going to teach the battle between the flesh and the spirit. He's going to teach more about the leading of the spirit. The next two lessons, Miles is going to teach. So I'm looking forward to that. He has a great lesson this morning. I saw the charts already, so that's really cool. Any last comments or thoughts? Great conversation, great points. And just one, maybe some closing thoughts here. Just like I said before, though, understanding that the Holy Spirit is leading us. Isn't that wonderful? As we look at it, he's leading us into the truth. He's the one that shows us the things of Christ. He's the one that illumines our mind to show us who Christ is. The power. Dunamis, which means dynamite. That's powerful.

The flesh considers the task of dealing man and sin nature, etc. You know, in the flesh you can make a decision not to go that direction because of the consequences of what you do. That's not leading to the spirit. No, that's a good point. The flesh, I mean, think of all the sin nature and how it's expressed in everybody's lives, and the consequences can be very different. I mean, how about vanity and pride? I mean, the consequences of that we ignore pretty much, don't we? But the consequences of things like robbery or burglary or adultery, I mean, the consequences are substantial from those kinds of...

But that's flesh. That's not leading the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't say, gee, the consequences of this might be serious. Maybe you shouldn't be doing that. That's flesh-driven. The Holy Spirit raises us above the temptation. I mean, it's a life. It's not simply considering the consequences.

Well, He's showing us the beauty of our Savior. He's showing how wonderful our Savior is. He's showing us the wonderful truths that we see about what He's done, what He's accomplished, and how He had us in mind at the cross, how we're with Him on the cross. I mean, just so many wonderful things that we see from the word, and the Holy Spirit allows us to understand that, gives us understanding. And someone's asked over the years, you know, how come if everybody's led by the Spirit, how come we all aren't at the same level? Why don't we all, excellent Bible students, we all agree on every piece of doctrine?

He said, well, how am I gonna answer that question? Well, go ahead, you answer, Bob. Volition or volition. Exactly. If you aren't interested, if you aren't interested in the things of God, if you aren't interested in Scripture, you're already almost three strikes out. You're not going to get very far in your Christian life. If you don't, if you don't value Scripture, what God has said, you're not going to progress very much in the Christian life. You're just not. You can't.

You've got to have, you've got to have that raw material, just like we went through those wonderful verses of the raw material of your Christian life. You need to see those truths. You need to understand them. You need to believe them. And if you don't do that, that's why there's differences between believers. It's because some don't have much interest in scripture. They really don't. It's sad. I've had people say, I don't have much interest in that. I said, OK, well it seems kind of strange to me.

There's a growth process. True. And a training process, just like with our children. Right. We get away from the pacifier and we learn truth as we go along. Paul talked about that. We're all in a different place. He says some of you should be teachers now. He kind of chides them. He says some of you should be teachers now. But basically you're not spending time with the Lord.

Every time you open God's Word you're spending time with Him. It's incredible. Well, great, let's close in. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have. We thank you for your word, Father. Thank you so much that the Holy Spirit guides us into all the truth. We thank you that he's there, moment by moment, showing us the beauty of the Lord Jesus. We ask in his name, amen.