Thank you for listening to the Riverbend Church Podcast.
Riverbend Church exists to lead all people to know, love, and
live new life in Jesus Christ. We hope that you enjoy this
message. Well, good morning Riverbend.
My name is Todd. I get the have the distinct
privilege of serving as the executive pastor here at
Riverbend. So thankful that Pastor Ben has
given me the privilege this morning of leading you in God's
word this morning. So thankful that you have joined
with us as we wrap up our third person series, the of the Holy
Spirit. And I hope this morning that you
will discover or we will discover together this path or
the path of the Holy Spirit today.
It helps us to fight against temptation, strengthening and
strengthening our faith and allowing us to have victory over
the flesh. As most of you are aware,
tomorrow's Memorial Day. Memorial Day has been observed
in United States since 1868. Today when we pause to honor and
remember those who have given their lives defending our
freedoms. You may or may not know this,
but the original purpose of Memorial Day once called
Decoration Day. It's been set aside so that
whatever faith across America that people practice, that they
would take time to pray for eternal freedom or I'm, I'm
sorry, eternal peace in our land and across our world.
Of course, it is morphed into what we celebrate today as
Memorial Day. Across this nation.
Families will gather, flags will fly at half mast.
We will remember loved ones who were killed in service because
freedom always comes at a price. In my own family, we have loved
ones very near and dear to our hearts who lost the son in
battle in 2012. He was killed in Afghanistan.
And so tomorrow we remember Staff Sergeant Matthew sitting.
Just last month, the state of Florida renamed a portion of a
highway in Florida in honor of Staff Sergeant Matthew sitting.
We call him Maddie or I didn't. I didn't personally know him,
but I've had opportunity to meet his family and they are some
awesome people. And so tomorrow on Memorial Day,
we will remember Staff Sergeant sitting along with many others
who have lost their lives in battle.
Tomorrow, as you relax by the pool or possibly on the lake,
take time to remember those who have given the ultimate
sacrifice. Remember their families and pray
for them as they mourn the loss of their loved ones so that you
and I can live in freedom, the home of the brave, right?
We could celebrate and do the things that we do each and every
day because of these who have given their lives, who have, who
have given the ultimate sacrifice so that we could have
the freedoms that we have. As a Christian, Memorial Day has
a double meaning. The idea not only of freedom
being free because of those who have given their lives in
battle, but also because of Christ who gave his life so that
you and I could experience eternal freedom and eternal
forgiveness. Jesus death, burial and
resurrection gives us freedom from what Pastor Ben mentioned
last week as the unholy Trinity. You remember last week he said
it's the word, the the world, the flesh and the devil.
That's the unholy Trinity. We Christ died on the cross for
you and me so that we could have freedom from the unholy Trinity.
But freedom in Christ isn't just about being set free from sins
penalty. It's about being empowered to
live this life in freedom, to live this life in victory.
Many of us, if not all of us, suffer in this life with this
thing we call the flesh. All of us have this flesh.
And this flesh causes us to want to do things that are against
the Spirit, causes us to want to do things that we would consider
to be sin. The only way that we can live
free is by living in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And we're going to see all about that here in just a minute.
We call this the path of the Holy Spirit.
This weekend, as we honor those who gave their lives for our
country, let us also consider the One who gave us life through
the path of the Holy Spirit and what it means to truly live
free. If you have.
Your Bibles, and I pray that you do this morning, Turn with me to
Galatians Chapter 5, if you will.
We're going to spend some time. Diving into Galatians chapter 5
here in just a few minutes as we begin in verse 16.
And while you're turning to Galatians chapter 5, do you have
your note? Sheet with you this.
Morning. There's some important notes on
there. I just gave you a very, very
brief summary of Galatians and all that Paul writes about
there. In Galatians, there's three main
sections #1 in In Galatians chapters 1 and 2.
Paul further explains the unity of God's people.
You see, when Paul begins to write the book of Galatians or
when Christ came on the scene, religion was basically reserved
for the Jews and especially the way Christ came onto the scene.
He came to save his people, the Jews, and.
In Acts we see that the gospel goes not only just for the Jew,
but it begins to break over into the Gentiles so that all people
are grafted in. Peter has a vision and all
people are grafted into this, to this gospel, to this, this new
way of life called the way, these people following after
Jesus Christ with their lives. And so as Paul writes Galatians,
he begins by saying, look, there's further unity, there
should be unity. And with within God's people,
Jew and Gentile, we we are now one in the same, right?
And so he explains that in Galatians one and two, in
Galatians 3 and four, he describes the people he
describes to the people of Galatia that Jesus is the
fulfillment of the law. If you know anything about
Jewish law, it was built on these set of things that you
don't do and things that you you do need to do, right?
There were 600 and some odd laws that they had to follow.
And so Paul takes time to explain to them that Jesus is
the fulfillment of the Old Testament law.
And then finally, in chapters 5 and 6, Paul explains how there
is a new creation through the power of the Spirit.
We're going to talk all about that this morning.
We're calling that the path of the Holy Spirit.
And this leads beautifully into our main idea that we've had
throughout this sermon series. The person, the presence, the
power and path of the Holy Spirit in our lives or in my
life are necessary for my life. And so we're going to dive into
that this morning. If you have been with us during
the first three weeks, the sermon series, you heard Pastor
Ben talk about who the Holy Spirit is and the person of the
Holy Spirit. The second week of the series,
we walk through what happens when the Holy Spirit shows up
and is freed up in our lives as we talk about the presence of
the Holy Spirit. Last week we talked about the
Holy Spirit, what he does once he's in our lives, in the power
of the Holy Spirit. And Pastor Ben preached that
link from Romans chapter 8 last week.
We're going to talk a little bit about that a little bit more
here in just a minute. I know Pastor Ben has covered
the person, the presence, and the power of the Holy Spirit,
but we're going to do a little bit unique this morning as we
talk through the path of the Holy Spirit.
We're going to revisit each of those three points, the person,
the presence, the power of the Holy Spirit.
And we're going to look at that through Galatians Chapter 5 as
we talk about the path of the Holy Spirit.
And so I hope you're buckled in this morning.
I hope you'll lean in. I hope that you don't think, oh,
you know, I'm good with all of that.
I've heard that I'm good and sort of check out this morning.
I pray that you'll lean in this morning and that you'll write
down whatever the Holy Spirit speaks to your life this
morning. It's been said that you'll
remember about 75% of what you write down versus about you'll
only remember about 15% of what you hear.
So if the Holy Spirit speaks to your life this morning or speaks
to you this morning, write this down because you'll you have a
greater chance of remembering if you write it down than if you do
if you just hear it. So as we get started this
morning, let me ask you a very important question.
What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in our lives?
Well, we're going to we're going to look at that at length this
morning In Galatians chapter 5, beginning in verse 16, Paul
writes this. But I say walk by the Spirit,
and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the
desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of
the Spirit are against the flesh.
For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the
things you want to do. But if you are led by the
Spirit, you are not under the law.
And as you can see on your note sheet this morning, we have
three main points that we're going to walk through.
The power, the presence, and the purpose of the Holy Spirit.
Those are out. That's our outline this morning.
So point #1 the person of the Holy Spirit, verses 16 and 18.
As Ben rightly said several weeks ago, and as our bumper
video said this morning, the Holy Spirit is not a force or a
feeling. It's not a thing.
The Holy Spirit is a person. He's the third person of the
Trinity. We see the Holy Spirit doing
several things in Scripture all throughout Scripture, the New
Testament. When he's promised to come,
Jesus tells his followers, look, I'm going away and the helper is
going to come. The Paraclete is going to come.
And when he comes, you'll be able to do greater things then
then you could do when I was here, right?
And so Jesus promises this gift for this, this, this person
that's coming to help us. And then the New Testament lays
out several things that He does #1 in Acts chapter 13, verse 2,
the Holy Spirit speaks. Listen to Acts chapter 13.
Two, while they were worshiping and fast, worshiping the Lord
and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart from me,
Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
The Holy Spirit spoke to them when they were worshiping and
fasting. This shows the personhood of the
Holy Spirit. Secondly, in John chapter 14
verse 26, the Holy Spirit teaches John 1426 says, 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 have said to you. The Holy Spirit teaches number
three or third. In Romans chapter 8 verse 14,
the Holy Spirit leads. Listen to Romans 814 for all who
are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
And this verse is the essence of the path.
Of the Holy Spirit as we depend on the Holy Spirit to lead us
and guide us through this life. Now I want to be real clear this
morning. Perhaps you've had an experience
and I can't, I can't invalidate your experience, but it's
unlikely the Holy Spirit's going to speak out loud to you.
All right, we we just know that because the Holy Spirit has
given us the Word of God through those who wrote the Word of God.
So we've got the word of God in, in what was audibly spoken to
these men who wrote the word, OK?
Or they were led by the Holy Spirit as they were writing
God's word. So it's unlikely that the Holy
Spirit's going to speak out loud to you now.
You may again, I can't validate your experience.
I can't tell God what to do, but the Holy Spirit is necessary for
you to be taught and for you to be led.
The Scriptures tell us that. The Scriptures tell us that
without the Holy Spirit, this is absolutely foolish for us to try
to read it because the Holy Spirit, 2nd Corinthians 214 says
that these things are spiritually discerned.
And without the Holy Spirit helping us to discern God's
Word, we will never understand what this says.
So we've got to have the Holy Spirit inside of us to teach us
and to lead us. And so the third person of the
Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is who does that.
Paul aptly reminds his readers in Galatia then and us now, 2000
years later, that the Christian life is not lived by following a
set of holy rules or moral laws. If we follow moral laws, then
that just makes us moral people, right?
If we say at the end of the day, hey, I didn't do anything wrong
today, well, that just makes you a moral person.
It doesn't make you a Christian if you say at the end of the
day, hey, I followed every single one of these laws where
you'd be a good Jew. But you wouldn't be a Christian,
right? And so in order for us to truly
live out the Christian life, we need the Holy Spirit and the
path of the Holy Spirit to to give us faith and to live out
this this Christian life in and through us.
We honor God the Father by living out a relationship with
the Holy Spirit. Let me give.
You just a quick example of this.
So I'm married. I have 5.
Kids. And so in order for me to
develop a relationship with my kids and with my wife, I can't
just ignore them. I can't just be married in name
only, right? I, I can't just say, hey,
Jennifer's my wife, but I really have no idea who she is.
Jeremiah, Joshua, Jonathan, Phoebe and Judah are my
children, but I, I, I really don't have any idea.
What they like to do? I don't really have any idea
what they like to eat or don't like to eat.
I. Don't have any idea.
What sports that they're involved in, I really don't know
them, but they're my kids. That's like what we do in the
Baptist Church, you know, because other religions and
other denominations have so abused the Holy Spirit.
As Baptists, we tend to shy away from the Holy Spirit.
And we're like, and we that, that that gets a little freaky
when we start talking about the Holy Spirit.
We can't be like that. We have to embrace this third
person of the Trinity and understand the Holy Spirit is
who leads us and teaches us. And so without the aid of the
Holy Spirit, we're never going to be successful in this life.
And so as we talk about the path of the Holy Spirit this morning,
that's what we mean. Now having a relationship with
the Holy Spirit, Paul tells us in verse 16, is walking with him
daily. It's a conscious decision to
stay in tune with him moment by moment.
The first point that Paul gives us here in Galatians 5 about
developing the path of the Holy Spirit is through realizing who
the Holy Spirit is, the person of the Holy Spirit, and then
doing everything we can to develop that relationship.
We have to develop that relationship with this person of
the third, the third person of the Trinity.
Once that relationship is began, developed and deepened, we then
walk by faith as Paul says here in verse 16.
This leads to our second point today, the presence of the Holy
Spirit. Paul writes in verse 17 for the
desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.
Now to understand the path of the Holy Spirit.
How does Holy Spirit works in US?
We must understand what Paul's talking about here when he talks
about the desires of the flesh being against this thing that
we're trying to learn about this morning and that being the Holy
Spirit. So when I read Scripture, you
may do this as well. When I read Scripture, questions
often pop into my mind. And so as I'm reading Galatians
516 and following the first question that comes into my mind
when I read verse 17. For the desires of the flesh are
against the Spirit. I'm, I'm weird.
I know I'm, I'm a little different.
Like this morning I have on red, white and blue and somebody told
me this one. I see your red shirt underneath
your other shirt. I said, well, I'm trying to be
patriotic. I know it doesn't work for
everybody and it really doesn't work for me, but that's what I'm
doing. My wife just laughed at me when
I told her I was going to do that last night.
But it is Memorial Day weekend, so I'm trying and I have on red,
white and blue shoes too. So anyway, good grief.
I just totally got my train of thought.
Oh, I asked questions of the when I read scripture.
And the question that I asked when I came to verse 17, it was
OK. I, I I.
Kind of understand what that is, but but what are the desires of
the flesh? Like?
What does that mean? You know, we, we often read
scripture and we just breeze right through portions of
scripture thinking that we, we have a good idea of what it is.
But often times when we read something and we don't fully
understand it, we need to stop and we need to dig a little.
Well, here in Galatians chapter 5, I'm glad we didn't have to
dig very far because Paul gives us this list what the desires of
the flesh are. In verses 19 through 21, Paul
says this. Now the works or the desires of
the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity,
sensuality, idolatry, sorcery. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits
of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy,
drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such
things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Now, this list is not exhaustive and we know that, right?
There's more things that Paul could have written here, but he
gives us a list that kind of summarizes several things that
we in our flesh. Deal with It covers a wide array
of life, Paul says. Those who practice sexual sins,
sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, he says those who
practice idolatry, which would be idolatry, sorcery, enmity,
Paul says. Those who have a bad or sinful
heart, Fits of anger, jealousy, rivalries.
And those who lack self-control when your flesh lead you to
drunkenness or orgies or things like these.
Paul gives an exhaustive but in a but not exhaustive list, if
that makes sense. He gives us categories of life
where these things fall into you're here this morning.
You may suffer with with drunkenness, you struggle with
that. When life gets hard, you try to.
When life is easy, it's easy for you to break away from the
symbol. When life gets hard, you suffer
with that lack of self-control. When you turn to the bottle to
to to ease your pain, or perhaps this morning, you suffer with
fits of anger. Fits of anger, lack of
self-control. As.
I said while ago, I have 5 kids and so the Lord is continually
working on my patients and he's continually teaching me that I
have little self-control over fits of anger.
And so really the Lord's worked with when in me a lot in that
over the last probably five years as my children have gotten
older. And so I'm trying to get better
at when things happen, stopping and saying, OK, Lord, I need to
be led by the Spirit in this moment and just not fly off the
handle because my first instinct is to why did you do that?
Why you look? You know, and just giving him
the riot act. When the Holy Spirit doesn't do
that inside of us, the Holy Spirit wants to use those
moments as moments of, of teaching where I can say, OK,
look, when you do this, you probably should do this instead
of doing that, right? And so we understand this list
is not exhaustive, but it's it it, it lays out a wide array of
life. And so Paul is saying here that
those who practice these things will not inherit the Kingdom of
life. Of the Kingdom of God.
And I just want to be honest with you this morning, this
verse, verse 21 ought to scare us to death.
It really ought to 'cause us, it really ought to cause us to to
stop and evaluate our life. Look, if we're practicing these
things that Paul just laid out, then this is the reality for us,
that we're going to not experience a life filled with
God, a life of love, a life of everlasting joy and peace.
Paul says if you practice these things, then you will not
inherit the Kingdom of God. Ben mentioned something last
week that resonated with my heart.
He said it's not the existence of hell or even the fact that
the Bible describes hell as a place of fire and burning and
torment that makes it terrifying.
What makes hell terrifying is that it's eternal.
The eternality of hell. Yes, fire and and and torment,
those things are scary, but it's the eternality that the the the
the existence. Of hell for.
All of eternity, that should scare us to death.
The question came up this week, you know, is it, is it, is it
really the absence of God in hell that really should scare
us? And there is some truth to that,
but I, I tend to think that that God's existence will be known in
hell because somebody's got to be there pouring out the wrath
of God. Somebody's got to be there, got
to be there exercising the penalty of, of sin, the penalty
of not receiving Jesus as our Savior.
And so kind of what we talked about was what's going to be
absent from hell is realizing that peace, joy and love for all
eternity that God gives us right in heaven.
When we get to heaven, our own the new heaven and the new
earth. And So what makes hell so
terrifying and what should just make all of our teens chatter is
the fact that Paul says those that experience these things,
those who allow the the the flesh to win all the time in
your life, it's symptomatic of something deeper.
And that something deeper is that you've never given Jesus
your heart and your life in total surrender to him.
Now some of you in here are probably like me.
I absolutely love shooting fireworks.
I get you something about it that just, I don't know, I love
it. And really I love shooting
anything I have. I have some some fun toys at my
house that I love to take out occasionally and and have fun
with. And also I really love to burn
anything. So if you want to, if you like
something, you know, that's flammable and you, you bring it
to my house, don't leave it at my house because it's probably
going to get burned, right. Hey, let's see what happens when
we do this. Now I do I, I guess I'm a
pyromaniac at heart, but it never, ever, ever fails.
Never. And I'm sure those.
Of you who shoot fireworks. You can identify with this.
It never fails. We go shoot fireworks.
It can be a little bottle rocket or it can.
Be a Roman candle, or it can be ones that go 4000 feet in the
air. Whatever it is, I wish I'd never
shot one of those. That would be fun if I could.
But anyway, I've seen YouTube videos.
When you light the fuse on the fireworks, what happens?
You burn your finger every time. Like I'm not smart enough to
realize that I need one of those long lighters.
Like, I got to get really close to the action and use like a
cigarette lighter. And so when you light it, like
shoots back and you burn your finger every time.
I don't care what I'm doing. Anytime we shoot fireworks for
two days after shooting fireworks, I just know I'm going
to have a burn finger, right? And as bad as that hurts for two
or three days, I cannot imagine experiencing that for all of
eternity. Can I tell you this morning,
church? Verse 21 of Galatians 5 ought to
scare us to death because hell is not a place of intermittent
suffering. Until Jesus rescues us from
hell, we've got one chance, one life only to receive Jesus as
our Lord and Savior so that we don't have to experience the
wrath of God for all of eternity.
And I pray that today that that as you sit in this room and as
you listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth, that the
Holy Spirit is, is actively penetrating your heart, telling
you, yes, you're good. You know Jesus as your savior.
Because I believe the Holy Spirit will do the opposite.
If you don't know him, the Holy Spirit will also prick your
heart this morning. Your heart will start beating
faster and you'll start thinking, wow, do I really know
Christ? I pray this morning that you do
again. Paul says in verse 16 and 17, I
say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of
the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit
and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.
For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the
things you want to do. This is the path of the Holy
Spirit. Through His presence, He allows
us to experience victory over the flesh.
Finally, point #3 this morning, the power of the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Brent. Pastor Ben preached on this at
length last week, so I'm not going to redo his sermon.
I invite you to go to our website, Riverbend Church dot
Life. You can go on YouTube.
You can find our sermons in the sermon series.
If you haven't been here during the first 3 or 4 weeks of the
series, I pray that you'll go back and you'll watch those.
Pastor Ben's done a great job of laying out what the Holy Spirit
is and who the Holy Spirit is and how He works in our lives.
So I encourage you to do that. But in terms of Galatians
chapter 5, I do want to lay out the power of the Holy Spirit as
we look for the path or how the path of the Holy Spirit might
work. If you were with us last week,
Romans chapter 8 was our text. Verse one of Romans says there
is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus. Well, why is that?
Well, because the Holy Spirit lives in US and the Holy Spirit
assures me of my salvation. So he frees me from any
condemnation whenever Satan starts time to to confuse me and
say, why did you do that? Well, you should be condemned
for that. The Holy Spirit reassures me.
No, you're not condemned for that, because Jesus paid your
penalty. And so the Holy Spirit assures
in me my salvation, because the Holy Spirit assures me of my
salvation. I can be.
Confident that I'm living my life and obedience to Him.
And I don't have to. Worry about facing death because
there is therefore now no condemnation.
The Holy Spirit living in US assures us of our salvation.
Or conversely, here in Galatians 5, Paul says if we deny the
power of the Holy Spirit and live according to our flesh, we
will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
So the Holy Spirit's either assuring you of your salvation
or he's assuring you of your lostness.
The Holy Spirit does both of these things.
And so, as Ben said last week, yes.
Often times when we question our salvation, if you're not saved,
then it's then it's going to come in the in the form of a
question or condemnation. But if you are saved, the Holy
Spirit assures us and frees us from that condemnation, if that
makes sense. Now again I like to read
questions or I like to ask questions as I read Scripture.
And so as I'm reading. This passage of Scripture, Paul
gives us a second list that that contrasts the list of the flesh,
right? So he talks about this living by
the Spirit and it'll create desires in US.
And so my second question were what are the desires of the
Spirit? Thankfully, Paul gives us that
in verses 20 through 22 through 24.
But the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control. I told myself I wasn't going to
do this, but I am anyway. If any of you sang that song,
I've got Lovejoy, Peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness. We used to sing in youth all the
time and I'm so thankful that my youth pastor decided to sing
that song. We would start real slow.
I've got Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
And then as we sang it one more we get real fast.
I've got Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
So I'm so. Thankful that my youth pastor
taught me that that song because now whenever I think about what
are the works of the spirit, that song comes to my mind and
it allows me to say hey, am I living by?
The fruit of the spirit, Lovejoy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control. Are those things evident in my
life. Now, here's one thing about the
fruit of the Spirit. It's not the fruits of the
Spirit. It's kind of like when I hear
people say revelations. There was only one revelation
given to Paul. Yes, it was written over a lot
of chapters. There's only one revelation.
So when you want to study Revelation?
Don't say, hey pastor, talk and we study revelations.
Now all of you are going to do that just to drive me nuts
because it really does. I want to say, no, it's
singular, not plural, right? But the fruit of the Spirit is
the same way. It's singular.
It's not plural, although the list contains several things
that should characterize our life as Christians.
So let me ask you this morning, does your life look like the
list of the flesh? Or does your life look like
Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and
self-control? Which is present more in your
life? Because remember what Paul says
at the end of verse 21, those who allow the sins of the flesh.
To live out and to characterize their life.
It's those who will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
However, if your life is characterized, if your character
is made-up of Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, then Paul says
against such things there is no law.
And those who belong to Christ. Jesus have crucified the flesh.
With its passions and desires. Now here's the unique thing
about this list of the fruit of the Spirit.
No matter what we do, we can't muscle up.
We can't make this thing happen. We can't pray harder.
We can't try harder to love that unlovable person that's in our
lives. We can't try harder to to muscle
up the fruit of the Spirit. No, you can't, just like we
can't earn our salvation. I love The Blood, the last song
that we sang and how it talks about the chasm that that opened
up when when Adam and Eve sinned.
And now all of us are born as sinners and that chasm is far
too wide for us to cross. So something else had to happen.
Jesus. God had to move in the form of
sending his Son Jesus to die for you and me so that that chasm
could be crossed, so that you and I were given the gift of
salvation that happened. Through the power.
Of God sending his Son Jesus. But I love Romans 8.
Pastor Ben challenged us last week to go back into journal
Romans chapter 8 to write the entire chapter.
And so I've been doing that this week.
And one of my favorite passages in Romans chapter 8 is verses 28
and following, and it talks about the Holy Spirit in our
lives. Listen to this as Paul writes
this in Romans 828 through 32. And we know that for those who
love God, all things work together for good, For those who
are called according to His purpose, for those whom He
foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His
Son, in order that He might be the first born among many
brothers. Those whom he predestined, he
also called. Those whom he called, he also
justified. And those whom he justified, he
also glorified. Can I tell you this morning, you
don't play a part in any of that?
The Holy Spirit plays a part in all of that.
All we are responsible for is receiving that gift.
And once we receive that gift that is freely offered to you
and me, the Holy Spirit goes to work.
He predestined us. He foreknew us.
He he, he brings us into glory. All of those things are works of
the Holy Spirit. If you want to know the path of
the Holy Spirit, it's through the work that He does in and
through us, through His power. Let me say this as plainly as I
know how. We don't bear the fruit of the
Holy Spirit by trying harder. Now sure, there's things we can
do to help. US develop the fruit of the
Spirit in our lives and I pray that you do this by you being
here this morning. It's evident that you understand
because some things that we can do are called spiritual
disciplines, right? Spiritual disciplines, attending
church, reading your Bible, praying, sacrificing, giving
sacrificially, all of those things I believe are are helpful
in developing the fruit of the Spirit in US.
But we can't do those things more and do them harder and
develop the fruit of the fruit of the Spirit faster.
I hope that makes sense to you this morning because the fruit
of the Spirit is the work of the Lord in us.
If I could ask this question this way, I could make this
point this way. How many of you are experiencing
trials today? I'm sure many of you would raise
your hand. I could ask the question, how
many of you have experienced trials in your life at all?
And I'm sure every single one in the room, if you're older than
maybe five years old and you understand what a trial is.
Everybody in the room would raise their hand.
What did you do to bring that trial into your life?
Well, probably nothing. You could say, well, I made a
bad decision. Well, maybe, but you didn't do
anything to bring that trial in your life.
That's Romans 828 and following. God allows those things to
happen in our lives to make us more like Him.
All things work together for good for those who are called
according to his purposes. Right.
And so when those trials come into our life that you didn't do
anything to invite into your life, it's the Holy Spirit, the
path of the Holy Spirit working in and through you to make you
into the image of his Son. So that when we stand before
Christ at the end of our life, we don't have to say, look, I
did all these things in order to be standing here in front of you
today. That would be foolish, right?
Jesus is going to look at us or God's going to look at us and
he's going to say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity,
right? You didn't do what I commanded
you to do with my Son. And that is just accept the free
gift of salvation that he's given us.
Once we accept that gift of salvation, we're good, right?
And then the Holy Spirit goes to work in and through US.
I. Hope that makes sense to you
this morning. Instead of asking how can I be
more loving? How can I be more patient?
How can I be more joyful? Instead, we should ask what John
writes in John 15 Five. I am divine.
You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in
Him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can
do nothing. What's our responsibility in
this Christian life? It's to abide in Christ.
That's it. That's it.
You say, well, that sounds too simple.
Well, you're kind of right. But the way that we abide in Him
is through every day. Soaking up the word every day,
hitting our knees in prayer and saying, OK, God, I'm going to
face things today that are going to push my buttons.
I'm going to say things today that are going to light my fuse.
Lord, I want the world to see you through me.
And so help me to develop patience for people because
people are people sometimes, right?
And they can get on your nerves. Help me develop patience.
Help me develop love, help me develop the fruit of the Spirit
in my life. John tells us all we have to do
is abide in Christ. That's the path of the Holy
Spirit in us. As we draw all of this together.
This morning worship team is going to come.
They're going to begin to play. When I think about the path of
the Holy Spirit, Galatians 516 and 525 draw it all together for
me. Paul writes this in verse 16,
walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the
flesh. And then in verse 25, he says if
we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the
Spirit. I love that.
I'm a very visual guy. When I think about what Paul
says here in verse 25, keep in step, some of you have seen this
on TV, some of you have lived this out in real life.
But what I hear when I read that verse is left, left, left,
right, left, left, left, left, right, left.
Now, some of you just brought back PTSD, right?
Because you were in the Army and that was drilled into your head
during boot boot camp. But when you.
First, got to boot camp. For those of you that went or if
you know anything about those who have been to boot camp,
walking in cadence is a thing that just doesn't come natural
because we all want to do our own thing.
Walking in cadence takes time to to drill into your brain.
Right, we have to figure out my drill sergeant's going to leave
me alone if I'm doing it right, left, left, left, right, left.
Well, that's what Paul's talking about here in verse 25.
The Holy Spirit's like the drill Sergeant.
He's like the cadence, the, the, the unit commander.
Whoever calls out that cadence, that's the Holy Spirit in our
lives. He's calling out that cadence.
Follow me. Do this.
Don't do that. Make this choice, not that
choice. Buy this car, not this car.
Don't buy that car at all. You don't need it, right?
The Holy Spirit guides us and we have to get used to living in
that cadence. We have to develop that cadence
in our life. And the way that we do that is
through studying the Word and through abiding in Christ.
By marching with the Holy. Spirit, by following His path,
we will not gratify or satisfy the desires of our flesh in our
life as we often do. On the bottom of your note
sheet, I've just given you two key questions.
I want you to sort of try to internalize the path of the Holy
Spirit this morning. So #1 Holy Spirit, what step or
steps are you leading me to take today?
I believe that every time we come into worship together, the
Holy Spirit desires something of us.
Perhaps you're here this morning.
The Holy Spirit desires for you to leave that burden that you're
you're carrying at this altar this morning.
You're not meant to carry that alone.
Some of you have been carrying that burden for far too long.
And the Holy Spirit is is is prompting your heart today to
leave that burden at the foot of Jesus.
And we believe that's what this altar symbolizes.
It's us coming up here and just laying our burdens at the feet
of Jesus and leaving them there. How crazy would it be for you to
be carrying around a 50 LB weight and you're like, man, I
just need to get rid of this 50 LB weight.
Well, you lay it down somewhere and you walk away from it and 5
minutes later you go, wait, I forgot my 50 LB weight.
I want to go back and. Pick it up.
Again. No.
The Holy Spirit wants you to to drop that burden at the altar.
You can't do anything about it anyway.
You worrying about it, it's just going to give you more Gray
hair, right? So let's leave that burden at
the feet of Jesus. This morning and then secondly.
Have I fully? Surrendered my life to Christ so
I can be led by the Spirit. Some of you are wanting to be
led by the Spirit, but you've never, you've never asked Christ
to forgive you of your sins and to come into your heart and life
and save you. Praise the Lord.
There were I know of, at least I think.
Three people last week who gave their heart and life to Jesus.
Praise the Lord for that. Their walk with the Holy Spirit
started last Sunday. But perhaps for some of you in
the room this morning, your walk with the Holy Spirit's never
started because you've never surrendered your life to Jesus.
Here, in just a few minutes, our worship team is going to come
up, and they're going to lead us in a time of response.
Here's what I ask of you. It's real easy for us to stand
up and sing and maybe slide out. You've really got to go to the
bathroom or something like that at that.
If you need to do that, fine. Why don't I ask?
This morning when we stand to our feet, let's have as few
distractions as possible. Let's let's give room for the
Holy Spirit to work this morning.
If you're here this morning and you're good with salvation,
you're good with where you are, then pray for the people around
you. Pray that God would prick their
heart and that he would move in their life and lead them to
salvation this morning. Father, thank you so much for
your word today. Father, I thank you that this
study has been great for me, this third person series that
we've walked through over the last three to four weeks because
it's brought me front and center to the conversation of, well, do
I know Jesus as my Lord and Savior?
Lord, thankfully the Holy Spirit has assured my heart and my life
of who I am and, and, and more than that, who I belong to and
that's you. Father, I pray that you would
have your will and your way in this place this morning.
Lord, that there's burdens that need to be left at this altar.
Father, I pray that you would do that.
Father, I pray that you would release somebody this morning
from this burden that they've been carrying for years, Father,
that they would leave here with a new sense of freedom today.
Father, perhaps you're calling somebody to salvation.
Lord, I pray that you would prick their heart in the way
this morning that they cannot get away from and that they
would come talk to either Pastor Ben or myself.
And Lord, we could nail down their salvation today.
Have your will and your place. Have your will and your way in
this place, in Christ's name, we pray.
Thank you for listening to the Riverbend Church Podcast.
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You can head over to our website Riverbend Church dot Life.