Walk, Led, Live with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at Medichurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

It's good to see everyone here with us today.

Look, before I get into the bulk of my message, I want to talk about kind of how to think about church a little bit.

And I'm going somewhere with this.

The church is multi-layered who we are here at MetaCurch.

In one sense, we are attached historically, we're a part of a 2,000-year-old movement that goes all the way back to Jesus and his first followers in the Middle East.

We're also a part of the church globally.

All of the believers in Jesus all around the globe.

That's like sometimes you call it the capital C church, like the church.

And then the way that Jesus organized his movement is in these local gatherings or the local church.

And the local church really matters because then you can specify your area of impact.

And we were so excited when this building came on the market and just thrilled at the way that God kind of gift wrapped us this space because it put us right on the edge of a community of neighborhoods.

And so we're so close and we care about the neighborhoods around us.

Many of you live there, and we're trying to always think of ways to have impact and to get to know people.

And as I was driving in today, uh I could tell there was a huge, huge fire.

As a matter of fact, it it looked like it might be coming from our building.

And as I you know sped around the corner, I saw that it was in the neighborhoods behind us and went and tracked it down.

And so uh the fire was uh a total loss.

The house almost burnt all the way to the ground.

And I know not everyone who goes here lives directly behind us.

Y'all live all over the city.

Um, but we're always looking for opportunities for impact and to make a difference and just to stand alongside people in trouble.

And so uh we made contact with friends of the family and are hoping they will reach out to us.

But the one thing we know we can do is we can come together and pray.

And so before I get into my message, uh, I want to ask you to just join me in prayer for the family who lost their home today.

Father, uh, we know that you love us, um, that you don't cause bad things, your heart breaks for heartbreaking situations.

And we just got out of a series about compassion.

That when a heart breaks, our response should be our love breaking out.

And so I pray that MetaCurch would have an opportunity um to just do something to make a difference, to stand by and show your love in very real and tangible ways.

God, we pray for peace in the midst of chaos and and broken hearts, and uh just for safety and protection as they navigate that.

Thank you.

Thank you for the space you've given us to meet.

Um, thank you that it is right on the edge of uh of neighborhood after neighborhood.

And I pray God that we would be a shining light into each of those lives.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, and everyone who's in agreement say amen.

Amen.

Well, let's get to uh some very good news.

Last week uh we baptized 29 people here at MetaCurch in our three services.

Yeah.

That's uh that's 69 baptisms in 2022 and 325 since 2019 here in the life of MetaCurch.

Yeah, it's very good news.

And I really uh we're not in a series right now.

Every once in a while I step outside of a series and just feel like God has given me some things to save.

And uh we're not in a series, but I did write this uh with our recently baptized uh members in mind.

And it's not just for you, it's a it's a wonderful reminder, and maybe even a new teaching for many of us in the room.

But you guys know this.

We start with the belief you were created on purpose.

It's it matters that you're here, you're on earth with intention by God.

You were created on purpose and you were created with purpose, which means you have something significant to do with your life.

That's why we say we don't just meet together, but we move together.

We meet together in Sunday services.

Remember, this service is not church.

You are the church.

We just meet in Sunday service.

We meet together in life teams out in the community, we meet together in life classes where we work to get healthy so that we can be as powerful as possible out in our world.

But we don't just meet to meet.

We meet together to move together, to actually do something in the world.

And that can be really difficult because we're broken people in a broken world.

And inside of Western Christianity, there is one key issue that there is a ton of confusion around, and that is the person of the Holy Spirit.

And so I want us to really nail down on this because without a proper understanding and without proper application of who the Holy Spirit is and what the Holy Spirit's role is in our life, we are going to struggle to live out the fullness of purpose and potential that God created us for.

And so my message today is walk, led, live.

That's the journey we're gonna go on.

Walk, led, live.

Towards the end of Jesus' time on earth, he started talking about leaving.

You know, he had he had done public ministry for three years, unbelievable teaching, unbelievable miracles.

He had his followers, then he died, then he defeated death itself, and then he said, I'm leaving.

And understandably, the disciples were freaking out a little bit because they'd been a part of something significant and they planned on continuing that, taking it, Jesus said, all the way to the ends of the earth.

But they probably imagined doing that alongside Jesus.

You know, he was kind of the main event.

And when Jesus started talking about leaving, they were like, counteroffer, why don't you stay forever?

You know, like just be here with us.

We we rely on you.

And Jesus spoke to them about these concerns directly in John chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

Uh, this is one of the craziest verses in scripture.

John 14, 12 says this truly I tell you, Jesus said, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and will do even greater works than these because I am going to the Father.

Now, first we just have to address the idea that Jesus' followers are going to do even greater things than Jesus did.

I don't know if you've read a lot about Jesus.

He did some pretty spectacular things.

And we know ourselves, like, I can barely get my life together, I can barely organize my family, I can barely raise my kids, I'm just barely hanging in there in my marriage.

How am I gonna do greater things than Jesus?

And sometimes I get the sense, and I've even gotten the feedback over the years of like, you just maybe believe in all of us too much, Clayton.

You know, you're always talking about our potential, you're always talking about how unimaginable our lives could be.

Look, I don't feel that near as much as Jesus feels that about you.

And he says, you're going to do greater things.

Remember, addressing the concerns of how are we going to move on without you here, not in spite of the fact that I'm going to the Father.

He says, You'll do greater things because I am going to the Father.

And so here's the key, and this key is often misunderstood.

He says in verse 15, if you love me, you'll keep my commands, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor.

Jesus was their counselor, he was their guide, he was their leader.

I will give you another counselor to be with you forever.

And that's what they wanted from Jesus.

They wanted him to be there forever.

Let's just take the throne, you can rule and reign forever and ever.

Amen.

Because no, no, I'm leaving, and it's good that I'm leaving, because I will send you another counselor who will be with you forever.

In verse 17, we learn who this counselor is.

This counselor is the spirit of truth.

And the world is unable to receive them because it doesn't see him or know him, but you do know him because he remains with you and will be in you.

The Holy Spirit is very misunderstood.

And there's there's kind of two sides to the extreme of where we get off base with the Holy Spirit.

One side is what Pastor Francis Chan calls the forgotten God.

He wrote a book called The Forgotten God years ago.

And this is kind of like some of the churches that I grew up in, and maybe you grew up in, where they just don't really talk about the Holy Spirit at all.

They talk about God the Father, they talk about Jesus the Son.

They preach about God the Father, they preach about Jesus the Son.

They sing songs to God the Father, they sing songs to Jesus.

They pray to God, they pray to Jesus, but you hear virtually nothing about the Holy Spirit.

Every once in a while, the Holy Spirit will come up in a sermon text that they're reading, but you're kind of left wondering about this forgotten God, this part of the Trinity that is like confusing.

It's just spirit and it's in us, but it's also everywhere.

And how does it even make sense?

And maybe you grew up in churches with old school translations like King James.

And so to add to your confusion, he was called the Holy Ghost.

Well, how does that help, right?

It's like my reference for ghosts as a kid were like Casper the friendly and like who you're gonna call, right?

That's all I had.

And so we just we just kind of ignore that.

That feels too squishy, too ethereal, too up in the air, and we like just focusing on what we can understand and put our hands around.

On the other side of the extreme are people who leopard the Holy Spirit, and you can see this popularized like in the prosperity gospel, and they use the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is there, and its primary role is to just do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want.

And so if you just have enough faith, the Holy Spirit will line up with your agenda and your calendar and all of your wishes and desires.

And if everything you want in life doesn't come true, it's because you're lacking faith.

And so they talk a lot about the Holy Spirit, but they misrepresent who the Holy Spirit is and what role it actually plays.

And what we need desperately is we need to center ourselves on who the Holy Spirit is and what he means in our life.

And Jesus' words should really drive home the importance of really understanding this because Jesus says that if you want to do greater things, live a life of purpose and maximum potential, then you have to know the Holy Spirit.

And so we're gonna talk about what that means to live a spirit-led life.

But first, we're gonna do like a small crash course, a broadest view of who the Holy Spirit actually is.

In Ephesians chapter one, the apostle Paul said this: In him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

When you heard the word of truth in the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed.

When you believe, when you are convinced and convicted that Jesus is who he says he is, and that he's done what he says that he's done, in Jesus you are sealed, this is a promise, with the Holy Spirit.

What does that mean?

He tells us in verse 14: the Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of the possession to the praise of his glory, until the redemption of the possession, until Jesus comes back for us.

We are sealed, he is the down payment.

In other words, the Holy Spirit, at a broad level, the Holy Spirit is our guarantee.

This is our guarantee that we are we are gods, we are his children, and he will come back for us.

Ten years ago, uh Katie and I went on our honeymoon.

We went to the Dominican Republic.

I'd never been there before.

In my mind, I had imagined a few things wrong.

I imagined our resort would be maybe 10 minutes from the airport.

We drove on a shuttle for like two hours into the city, had no idea where we were once we got to the resort.

Expectation number two got broken.

I imagined at this, you know, tropical resort that I would open the door to our suite and I would be steps away from the white sand beaches.

That's really what I thought was gonna happen.

Instead, on this massive, like five-square mile resort, we were over a mile walk down to the beach, right?

It's hot.

I'm not trying to walk a marathon at my honeymoon, okay?

Not what I imagined.

So the first day, you know, we we labored down to the beach and we spent some time down there and had to walk all the way back.

Then I started noticing a lot of the couples there were on mopeds, right?

So that's great.

I mean, what mixes better than margaritas and mopeds, okay?

I've got to have one of these.

We had spent all of our money to get there, but it's like, take my money, bro.

I do not care.

I need a moped, I am not going to walk everywhere every day.

And so I went in, filled out all of the paperwork, everything was good.

They grabbed the keys.

Now, when you travel internationally, there is something that you bring that is the most important thing.

It's more important than your undies, it's more important than your toothbrush.

The most important thing you have when you travel internationally is your passport.

This is this is what gets you out of where you are.

He grabs the key and says, I need your passport.

And I'm like, You can see my passport.

No, no, no.

We need to keep your passport.

And I gotta tell you guys, I thought there is no possible way.

This is my lifeline, this is how I get back to home.

I started thinking about how long that walk was to the beach.

I gave my passport, I'll be completely honest.

I was younger, you know, not quite as wise.

They wanted my passport because they knew that was what was most important.

The one thing out of everything I had on that vacation that they could be 100% certain I would come back for.

This is the first role that the Holy Spirit plays in our life.

We are sealed with the down payment, that's the Greek word Arabon.

It means the promise of return God gave to every believer that which is most important to him.

Sealed us with the Holy Spirit.

This matters so greatly.

It's why we can't just ignore the Holy Spirit, can no longer be the forgotten God in the church.

Because if we don't have a guarantee of what comes next, if we don't live with assurance as believers that we know, that we know, that we know what comes after this life, then we will have no other option than for our walk and our faith to be motivated by fear.

And that's every religion across all of human history.

They are all rooted in fear because every religion says that you have to work your way to God.

And you never really know if you've made it, and there's no way that you can have complete assurance.

And the beauty of the gospel is it offers you security, assurance, and that assurance is found in the Holy Spirit.

One other attribute that you need to know on this quick crash course of who the Holy Spirit is.

In Romans chapter 8, Paul wrote to the church in Rome and said, For all those led by God's Spirit are God's sons.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

The Holy Spirit is our guarantee, and the Holy Spirit is our guide.

And life is very complex.

Like every component, part of your life is complex.

Your career is complex.

What career to go into, when to change careers, whether to go to the promotion where you'll have to work double the amount of hours or stay at a lower salary where you have more freedom.

Parenting is complex.

Relationships are certainly complex.

Everything is complex.

On top of that, we're broken, we have pain in our life, we have false narratives in our minds.

Life is so complex.

And we all have, like at the very core of our longing, this desire for our lives to matter, to do something of significance, to fulfill the purpose that God created and instilled inside of us.

How do we navigate the complexities of a broken world and our brokenness inside?

The Holy Spirit is our guide.

It is God who designed his world and designed you in it, allowing you to have the roadmap over time for how to navigate the life that you're living.

It's so critical.

It's largely what we're gonna focus on today is how to actually let the Holy Spirit take the reins and guide you in this life.

At the highest level, the Holy Spirit is our guarantee, the Holy Spirit is our guide.

Before we move on to the meat of the message, we have to also just re-emphasize the Holy Spirit is not our genie.

And I realize you might have come up in these environments, or maybe this is how you imagine.

And I know many people who have walked away from their faith because they were under the impression that the Holy Spirit was kind of like their inner Oprah who's just waiting to hand out things that they didn't even know they needed every turn, and when they didn't get every single thing exactly how they wanted it, they walked away unnecessarily from a version of God that never existed in the first place.

The Holy Spirit is key to not just being a community who meets together and checks a box, but actually moving together with power in our world.

And so I want us to look today in a letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians and this interesting progression, this template we're gonna see of walk, led, live.

And I want to get down to kind of the nuts and bolts of what it means to experience the Holy Spirit in your life and what it can mean for your life moving forward if you're able to actually apply that into your life.

In Galatia, Paul showed up and did what he did everywhere.

He preached the gospel.

And gospel just means good news.

The good news of Jesus is that God came down in the person of Jesus, put on human flesh, lived an actual perfect life, died to pay the price of everything that separates you from your heavenly Father.

Jesus then rose again three days later.

He ascended back to heaven 40 days after that and promised to return from us.

That's what he that's what he taught.

And so the the question after the gospel is presented is how do we get to be a part of that?

How do we get Jesus' sacrifice applied to our life?

And the answer was always the same.

It is through faith and faith alone.

Jesus did it all, and all that he asks is for faith.

The equation is Jesus plus faith.

Period.

Nothing else involved, nothing else in the picture.

Jesus plus faith.

In Galatians 5, verse 1, Paul writes this for freedom Christ set us free.

Galatians 5:1

So stand firm and don't submit again to a yoke of slavery.

This is a thematic statement, not only for Paul, but for the movement of Jesus and for Metachurch today.

Stand firm in the face of a world that is constantly pulling us and distracting us and influencing us.

Stand firm.

That's a metaphor.

Like cement your convictions, root your life into something that is unchanging.

Stand firm.

You know the saying, if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

And we fall.

We backslide, we sin, we give in, we give into temptation, we take on habits that grow into addictions, we fall.

And yet we strive forwards.

And so how do we cement ourselves?

We believe here at MetaCurch, Jesus meets you exactly where you are, but he loves you enough that he doesn't leave you where you are, he moves you forward in growth and maturity and power and purpose.

Stand firm.

In verse 2, Paul says, take note.

I, Paul, am telling you that if you get yourselves circumcised, feels like a tangent, Christ will not benefit you at all.

Okay, Paul, I was following you in verse one.

Stand firm.

Now, I'm not really exactly sure where you're going.

It's fine.

Everyone gets to chase rabbits every once in a while.

It's fine.

Let's move on to verse 3.

Again, I testify that every man who gets himself circumcised, he's on this, guys.

He's not letting go.

He's obligated to do the entire law.

Now the Bible has to be read in its context.

And in the context, 2,000 years ago, there was really only one people who were circumcised.

It was the Jewish people.

And it was a sign of their covenant to follow the Jewish law, the law of Moses.

In 2022, circumcision isn't really, in most cases, about nationality or religion anymore.

And so, if any men in the room are sweating because Paul just said if you're circumcised, Christ doesn't want anything to do with you.

Just know you're in the clear, okay?

This is a different context.

What had happened in Galatia is false teachers had come into the church.

And remember the gospel, the gospel that Paul and all the apostles preached is Jesus plus faith, period.

Period.

No room for anything else.

Nothing else gets added to the gospel.

The false teachers came in and they said the gospel is Jesus plus the law of Moses.

And that's a pretty high bar because in Galatia, the majority of people are not Jewish.

And so the men in Galatia who have believed in Jesus might have thumbed through the law.

Some of it might have been disappointing.

No more bacon.

Okay, that's fine.

Jesus did a lot for me, you know.

I get to rest on Saturday, that could be kind of cool.

Circumcision.

And church attendance dropped dramatically the next Sunday, right?

And that's the issue then.

The issue now isn't Jewish law, the issue now is religion.

And you see, over and over again throughout scripture, what it teaches is that the law played a role, but then Jesus came and the law was fulfilled.

And when you believe in Jesus, all of the necessity to follow the law has gone away because Jesus followed it on your behalf.

He followed it perfectly, and you who are incapable of following the law perfectly are only asked to put your faith in the one who did.

And the problem with the law, as the apostles saw it, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is that focusing on the law is in essence focusing on sin.

And you drift towards what you focus on.

We talk a lot about worship, and we call our music time here worship.

It's maybe more technically worship through music.

Worship is a lot bigger than just music.

And the root of worship, to understand what worship is, the root of worship is attention.

What are you giving your attention to?

And the New Testament makes the case that when all of your attention is on the law and all of the things that you're supposed to stop doing, that you actually end up drifting towards the very thing you're trying to get away from.

And the true exercise of walking out our Christian faith is not to keep our eyes on our sin, not to keep our eyes on the law, not to keep our eyes on a checklist of expectations, instead, to keep our eyes, our attention, our focus, our admiration on Jesus Christ.

And by focusing on Jesus, we will move our lives towards who He is and who He has created us to be.

And Paul felt very, very strongly about people coming in and trying to add to the gospel.

And maybe you've been in religious environments that said, you gotta believe in Jesus, but there's a few more things you're gonna have to do to prove to us and everyone around you that you're actually on the bus headed to heaven.

Sometimes I have this conversation with myself because I do feel like part of my job as your pastor is to kind of pull back the metaphorical curtain on the church world and maybe help you see some of the ways that you've been hurt and some of the ways that we've gotten sideways over time.

But I also, this is the conversation.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm being too hard.

Am I being too hard on those churches?

Am I being too hard on those environments?

Here's what Paul says.

We're in Galatians 5.

If you go back to Galatians chapter 1, here's what Paul says.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we've preached.

Jesus plus faith, period.

A curse be on him.

A curse be on him.

You can translate that in the Greek to they should be damned.

And so I'm like, maybe I don't need to pull punches, you know?

Paul seems to think that this might be one of the worst types of offenses.

I know that some of you don't read the Bible because the Bible seems a little bit boring.

And let me just tell you, if you read on in Galatians about the guys, the false teachers who are obsessed with circumcision and all they want to talk about is snip, snip, snip, snip.

That's all they want to do.

You know what Paul says in Galatians?

And don't get mad at me and don't send me an email because this is in the Bible.

Paul says, if you guys are so obsessed with circumcision, why don't y'all go ahead and cut the whole thing off?

That's what Paul said.

It's in there.

So I'm like, maybe I'm not being too harsh.

And I think what it is, is a lot of times in the church world, we take all of our ire and all of our frustration and we point it at those outside of the faith.

And I recognize that Metachurch is a place for people in every part of their faith journey.

You might be here and not believe what we believe.

And I and I know that the church, what they think is defending God, is yelling and screaming at a world that doesn't even believe in God.

You know what scripture says?

It says the way of the cross is foolishness to those who are without Christ.

When you see Jesus get mad and flip tables, when you see the apostles get mad and write wild stuff, it's not pointing at people outside of the faith.

The real danger, as they saw it, came from within the house.

The false teachers who came in the church and started taking the precious gift that Jesus gave us and distorting it and destroying it.

And they want a focus on the law.

We go back to Galatians 5, verse 4.

Galatians 5:4

Paul says, You who are trying to be justified by the law are alienated from Christ.

You have fallen from grace.

And before we judge the Galatians too quickly, it's very natural to want to feel like you're earning your salvation.

You know, part of this is instilled in us as Americans, right?

You learned this growing up.

I remember one of my grandpa's, my dad's dad, he told me one time, nothing is free.

Nothing's free.

And if it's free, it's faith.

You've got to earn it.

You gotta grind, you gotta do your part.

Part of that's pride.

We want to feel like we've done something.

Like we'll sing, Jesus paid it all.

But it's like, but also I kind of did a little bit, right?

Like all those times, yo, it's the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

I'm still here in church service.

I did a little bit, right?

We want it so badly.

And Paul is breaking it down for us so clearly, so specifically.

We want it.

Because we want the law.

We want to check the boxes.

And remember, the law all it does is keep us focused, keep our attention, it keeps our worship focused on the wrong thing.

And the law today is like religion.

And so, inside of religion, you can be falling apart on the inside.

Your marriage can be a complete disaster, your kids don't talk to you anymore, your mental health is all out of whack, you're filled with depression, you hate everybody, you're angry all the time.

But boy, you can check those boxes.

And as long as you hit church almost every Sunday and you hit prayer group on Wednesday night, as long as you're doing the right things, as long as all the bad things your kids do don't get found out by the church people, check that box, baby.

As long as you dress the right way and you sing all the songs and you know all the parts, as long as you look the right way and sound the right way and talk the right way and think the right way and vote the right way, as long as you check all the boxes, then you're good.

That's the law.

And you see, for hundreds of years, people had followed the letter of the Jewish law without recognizing the heart of the law that lines up to God's desire for their life.

And so Paul's railing against it, but he's going to give us the answer, an answer that is sorely missing from many of our churches today.

In verse 16, here's the instructions.

I say then, walk by the spirit, and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh.

But Paul, don't we need the law?

If we don't have the law, if we don't have a checklist, people are gonna go buck wild, people are gonna go crazy, they're not gonna know what to do.

No, no, no.

Take your attention off of what's wrong and put it on to the spirit of God inside of you, the counselor, the gift, the seal.

Walk by the spirit, and you will certainly not carry out the desires of the flesh.

And this is the tension, and it's raging inside of us all the time.

The spirit versus the flesh.

I don't do what I want to do, and I do what I don't want to do.

And maybe you have found yourself at different parts of your faith journey, praying the same prayer consistently every week, falling in to the same temptations every time.

Drunk, every Saturday night, crying out to God, saying this is my last time, and I'm so sorry, and I'm not gonna do it again.

Over and over and over, again, using your words to tear someone down and looking back at the wreckage that you have caused and thinking, This is my last time, this is my last time.

I'm not doing that again as all of your attention is on that thing.

And you will drift towards what you focus on.

He says, No, no, no, no.

Walk by the spirit.

It's very interesting if you see the setup and the payoff.

He said, For freedom, Christ set us free, so stand firm.

I say then, walk by the spirit.

That's verse one and verse 16.

And so here's how it breaks down.

The way that we stand firm is to walk by the spirit.

The way to stand is to walk.

And stand firm is a metaphor, it means to cement your convictions, to root your life in something that is deep and unchanging.

The way that we stand firm is we walk out by the spirit.

And the problem with religion and the problem with the law is it doesn't make you stand firm, it causes you to stand still.

And you need to know this in your spiritual adventure, standing still is the exact same thing as going backwards.

And so there are churches and they prioritize getting you into the church building seven days a week.

You're there for Sunday morning, you're there Sunday night, you're there for Monday Bible study, Tuesday visitation, midweek service, you're there Thursday to serve, you're there Friday, Saturday, every day of the week, you're in the building.

You got a lot of meat together and virtually no move together.

And we have this idea, and it has bankrupted our churches spiritually.

The idea that the way we win is we believe in Jesus, and you believe in Jesus, yeah boy, you get your get out of hell free card, right?

I don't even like the summers.

I know I'm not gonna like hell.

I might as well believe in Jesus, get to the pearly gates, get to the golden streets.

You got that insurance.

And so now you stand and you incubate and you isolate and you wait for heaven.

And standing still is the exact same thing as going backwards.

We meet together and we have to move together.

Walking by the spirit is the movement.

Walking is how we win, walking is how we stand firm, walking is how we shift our attention.

Jesus has not called us to put our faith in him and then hide away until he comes back.

His movement was meant to be on the move, to be out in the world, actually exercising our faith, putting ourselves in positions where we cannot depend on ourselves.

We are forced into dependence on the spirit of God inside of us.

The way we stand firm is we walk.

This is a life of freedom.

Jesus paid it all.

We have our guarantee.

And the spirit of God is in us and is guiding us.

In verse 17, the flesh desires what is against the spirit, and the spirit desires what is against the flesh.

They are opposed to each other, so you don't do what you want.

You come every Sunday and you get inspired.

I want to do it, I want to live it out, I want my relationships right, I want my money right, I want my family right, I want my parenting right, I want my mental health right, I want it all right, you get inspired, and every week you find yourself falling back into the exact same rhythm.

Flesh and spirit at war with one another.

So you don't do what you desperately want to do.

But, verse 18, if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law, you are not under oppression.

In Christ, He set us free, not free to stand still, free to move, free to take our faith and run courageously the race that has been set before us as believers, the work that has been given to the saints, to go out into a hurting world and spread the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, to be light in the darkness and hope to the hopeless.

And look, if we walk by the spirit, we will be led by the spirit.

And in verse 25, if we live by the spirit, walk, led, live.

Let us also keep in step with the spirit.

Here's the progression.

If we walk by the spirit, that's verse 16, we will be led by the spirit.

That's verse 18.

And if we are led by the spirit, over time, we will learn to live by the Spirit.

That's verse 25.

Wherever you're at on your journey with Jesus, you've been walking for years, decades, or even if you're just like fresh out the baptism waters last Sunday, wherever you're at on your faith journey, you can walk by the Spirit.

And it means wind.

You can actually translate it straight up wind.

It's the movement of air like pneumatic pressure.

And it's not wind like a tornado, it's not wind like a hurricane.

The spirit is like a still soft breeze.

God created us with freedom, and the Holy Spirit in us does not negate that freedom.

It usually doesn't override your freedom.

And so we believe in Jesus and we are sealed by the Spirit, and we can walk in confidence.

And then we follow.

We don't follow Jesus out of fear because we already got the guarantee.

We follow Jesus out of the motivation of love for what he has done for us, what he has given to us.

And we walk in the spirit, following Jesus out of the opportunity to live the life that of the deepest longing of your soul, you know you were created to live.

And so what does it mean to walk by the spirit?

The spirit is like wind.

Wind is always there.

We feel like, oh, it's windy when we can see it blowing leaves across the driveway.

The wind is always there, but we just are not always aware of it.

And remember, we're pretty comfortable in the church worshiping God and worshiping Jesus.

But the root of worship is attention.

And the enemies of God.

Satan knows in our world, he doesn't need for you to become an act murderer to derail your life.

He just needs to distract you.

If worship is attention, then distraction is what kills our worship.

And we're maybe the most distracted people of all time.

What it means to walk by the Spirit is to grow an awareness that the Holy Spirit is in your life as a believer and is trying to guide you.

Always.

The wind is always there.

It is always guiding.

The question is whether or not we are paying attention.

And so, time and listening, prayer, maybe changing your mind where prayer isn't something that you do before bedtime and right before you eat.

And even right before you eat, like, is it really prayer or is it recitation of God is great, God is good, thank you for what's on this plate.

Amen, right?

Like, you could say it in your sleep because you're not really doing it with any intention.

And instead of it being these scheduled moments, maybe prayer is a continual way of life in communication with the spirit of God inside of you all of the time.

Everyone, wherever you're at on your spiritual journey, you can walk by the spirit.

And I hear it from a lot of people like, man, honestly, I don't, I can't name three books of the Bible.

There's like Genesis and Revelations, which is close, it's actually Revelation.

It's like we know a couple of them.

You can walk by the Spirit.

The first 300 years of the church, they didn't have a Genesis to Revelation leather-bound Bible.

They maybe had one letter from Paul, they maybe had one letter from James.

That's it.

Scripture is powerful.

Scripture was inspired by the Spirit of God.

And when we dig into Scripture, the Spirit of God speaks to us through it because he wrote it.

We're so distracted.

We don't spend time, we don't spend time in silence, we don't spend time throughout our day in prayer, we don't spend time in the Word.

And if we're missing out on the Spirit of God and the role it plays in our life, then we are missing out on the very key for how Jesus said we can do even greater things.

Walking by the Spirit is being aware when the Spirit is prompting you in your life.

And the only way you'll know is to test it.

And it's usually very simple.

Like being aware enough to know that your coworker is struggling even though no one else is paying attention.

To be aware that there is an injustice around you, to be aware there is someone who is without community, who is without friends, to pay attention to your family members who desperately need you to reach out and you don't even know what you have to say, but that's fine because if you will walk by the Spirit, you'll be led by the Spirit.

And I'll tell you, the times where I feel the most led by the Spirit of God in my life is when I am willing to take a step of faith into a situation where I have no idea what I'm gonna do or how I'm ever even gonna be helpful, but I become in that moment reliant on the spirit to speak on my behalf.

You won't know till you try.

And if you will walk and you'll take that step and you'll take that step and you'll take that step, over time you will grow the habit of being led by the spirit.

And here's why: because the first time you do this, and the first time that you think, My gosh, I think the Spirit of God is trying to get me to do something.

When you do it, when you're paying enough attention to feel that prompting, to hear that prompting, and you have enough courage to take that step, you will get your first window into the life of purpose that you were created to live.

And as you walk by, you grow to trust and you'll be led by.

And over time, if you are consistently led by the spirit, over time, you will begin to live by the spirit.

Complete reliance, completely in tune.

And that when we talk about moving together, that is a life of power and purpose and impact that you cannot imagine.

Not because I said so.

Because Jesus said that if we love him, obey his commands, keep our eyes and attention on Jesus, and walk by the Spirit, that we will do even greater thanks.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you and uh and we thank you.

We thank you for your time on earth, we thank you for salvation, and we thank you for sending us every single believer the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, we acknowledge you and maybe even need to repent for our lack of attention that you have received in our lives, and maybe even the lack of attention you've received from this stage.

And today, we are seeking to follow you, to be aware of you, to give our attention to you, to seek you constantly, to feel you prompting in our life.

I don't know exactly what that means.

What I know is there's some things you can only understand by practicing it, by walking it out.

Holy Spirit, I am confident that if we will walk, if we'll take that first step, another step, another step, another prompting, another step, the courage to follow through, that we will be led by you, our guide, our guarantee.

And I believe that if a movement of people begin to live by the Spirit, that our city and our world will have no idea just how powerful that will be.

We love you.

We pray these things all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.