Let Us Walk by the Spirit In John John 3:5–8 revealed is that human nature, with which all of us are born, will not enter into the kingdom of God unless it is changed. This change is called being born again. And what this means is that the Spirit of God creates something new; he takes out of us the heart of stone that rebels against God, and he puts into us a new heart which trusts God and follows his ways. Or to put it another way, the Holy Spirit establishes himself as the new ruling principle of our life. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. In other words, that which is begotten by the Spirit has the nature of the Spirit, is permeated by the character of the Spirit, is animated by the Spirit. This change is owing wholly to the Spirits work of free grace, prior to any saving faith on our part. The new birth is not caused by our faith; on the contrary, our faith is caused by the new birth. No one can come to the Son unless it is granted to him by the Father (John 6:65). Therefore, the life we have in Christ is owing wholly to the work of Gods Spirit, and we have no ground for boasting at all. We live by the Spirit. Now what? Galatians 5:25 states concisely what our next step should be. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Paul is in full agreement with Jesus that it is by the work of the Holy Spirit that we have been given new life. Even when we were dead through trespasses God made us alive together with Christ . . . We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:5, 10; Colossians 2:13). Just as God once said, Let there be light, and there was light, so he has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). Now Paul, in Galatians 5:25, draws an inference from how our new life in Christ began: if it began by the Spirit, then all our subsequent life ought to be carried out by the Spirit (see Galatians 3:1–5). If it was by the free and sovereign power of the Spirit that our new spiritual life came into being, then the way that new life should be lived is by that same free and sovereign power. Walk by the Spirit means do what you do each day by the Spirit; live your life in all its details from waking up in the morning until going to sleep at night by the enabling power of the Spirit. But what does that mean, practically speaking? How do we walk by the Spirit? Lets observe a few things in the immediate context of Galatians 5 and then bring in some other Scriptures in order to get as full an answer to this question as we can. Ill conclude by describing five things involved in walking by the Spirit. How Do We Walk by the Spirit? The phrase walk by the Spirit occurs not only in verse 25 but also in verse 16, But I say, walk by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. So here we see what the opposite of walking by the Spirit is, namely, giving in to the desires of the flesh. Remember, flesh is the old, ordinary human nature that does not relish the things of God and prefers to get satisfaction from independence, power, prestige, and worldly pleasures. When we walk by the Spirit, we are not controlled by those drives. This is what verse 17 means: the flesh produces one kind of desires, and the Spirit produces another kind, and they are opposed to each other. Walking by the Spirit is what we do when the desires produced by the Spirit are stronger than the desires produced by the flesh. This means that walking by the Spirit is not something we do in order to get the Spirits help, but rather, just as the phrase implies, it is something we do by the enablement of the Spirit. Ultimately, all the good inclinations or preferences or desires that we have are given by the Holy Spirit. Apart from the Spirit we are mere flesh. And Paul said in Romans 7:18, I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. Apart from the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, none of our inclinations or desires is holy or good, for the mind of the flesh is hostile to Gods law and does not submit to it because it cannot (Romans 8:7). The new birth is the coming into our life of the Holy Spirit to create a whole new array of desires and loves and yearnings and longings. And when these desires are stronger than the opposing desires of the flesh, then we are walking by the Spirit. For we always act according to our strongest desires. Therefore, walking by the Spirit is something the Holy Spirit enables us to do by producing in us strong desires that accord with Gods will. This is what God said he would do in Ezekiel 36:26, 27: A new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you . . . I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. Thus when we walk by the Spirit, we experience the fulfillment of this prophecy. The Holy Spirit produces in us desires for Gods way that are stronger than our fleshly desires, and thus he causes us to walk in Gods statutes. Led by the Spirit and Not Under Law This, then, explains the two parts of the next verse in Galatians 5, verse 18, But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. It is easy to understand, in view of what we have seen, how Paul could shift from the phrase walking by the Spirit in verse 16, to being led by the Spirit in verse 18. The phrase, being led by the Spirit, simply makes more explicit the initiative of the Spirit in the life of a Christian. We dont lead him; he leads us. We are being led by him through the stronger desires he awakens within us. Walking by the Spirit and being led by the Spirit refer to the same thing. Being led by the Spirit stresses the Spirits initiative and enablement. Walking by the Spirit stresses our resulting behavior. The Spirit leads us by creating desires to obey God, and we walk by fulfilling those desires in action. Emmanuel,hope people will be blessed and are well equipped by this sermon to understand as it did to me beloved.Stay well,Emmanuel
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 00:44:44 +0000
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