Embracing Spiritual Growth: Walking in the Spirit According to Galatians 5

Going to go ahead and continue our sermon series in the summer looking at spiritual strength, spiritual growth.

And we're going to pick up in Galatians chapter 5.

So far in this study, we've looked at various passages.

We looked at Romans chapter 8 and the true definition of what spiritual growth is.

And what we came to the conclusion of is that spiritual growth is conformity to Christ.

Spiritual growth is growing more and more like him.

And the Bible speaks of that in many different occasions.

But a really great succinct definition of that is found in Romans chapter eight.

And then we also looked at Second Peter chapter one, looking at after faith.

What are we supposed to add to our life there?

There is that directive of Scripture that we are called to grow and to add to our life various elements of character as we mirror after Christ.

And then we looked at Ephesians, chapter 4.

Ephesians, chapter 4 spoke of walking worthy.

Okay, so walking a certain way of the vocation of the Job in which we're called.

Now, here in Galatians chapter five, we're going to see what it means to walk in the Spirit.

So we're called to walk worthy of the vocation.

And so what does it mean to walk worthy?

Well, it means to walk in the Spirit.

A lot of times we think that spiritual growth is performative.

Well, I've got to do this, this, and this, and then I'm spiritually growing.

But really it's the other way around.

We grow spiritually and we do these things.

And a lot of times we think that if we can just fake it till we make it, eventually we'll spiritually grow.

But really what we see is that God changes us from the inside out.

And our walk starts with what's in our heart and what's guiding us in our life.

So Galatians chapter 5, verse 16 gives us this contrast of walking in the Spirit, walking or walking in the flesh.

It says in verse 16 of Galatians 5, this I say then, and this is Paul talking after all he's given in the book of Galatians.

He's talked about our hope in Christ, the liberty, the freedom that we have in Jesus, the hope that we have in his grace, and the freedom that we have from the law.

He says, after you've heard all of these things, this is what I'm going to tell you.

He says this I say then, walk in the Spirit.

So we see that he's challenging us.

He's exhorting us to walk a certain way, and that is in the Spirit.

Now we're going to talk tonight about what walking in the spirit is and what it looks like.

Then he says, if you walk in the spirit, ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

So we see there are things that are diametrically different.

You don't walk in the spirit and in the flesh at the same time.

You either walk in the spirit or you're going to fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Verse 17.

He says, what does flesh bring us?

For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

So he, he says here that the flesh and the spirit are fighting against each other.

There's this battle.

He talks about this in Romans chapter 7.

There's other places in scripture that speak of this battle that's still happening.

Even though we're free from the bondage of sin, even though we've been gifted the gift of grace, even though we have the hope of eternal life, there is still this battle that's happening.

And he says they're fighting against each other and these are contrary to the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.

So what he's saying here is that one of the things that holds us back from the spiritual growth that we desire in our life is the flesh, the, the feeding of the flesh.

So sometimes what happens, and this is really what Paul is dealing with here.

He's dealing with what we call people that are steeped in legalism.

Now that word gets thrown around a lot and we have to be careful on using that word out of context.

Legalism isn't just people who have a lot of standards.

Legalism is trusting in something to give us salvation.

It's trusting in some kind of work that we do to give us salvation.

Now we know that we're trusting in Jesus's work for salvation, so we have to trust in something.

But what legalism is, is someone who is trusting some type of man made system to bring them what God has promised us in his grace.

So for the legalists, at the time of the book of Galatians, they were trusting in the law to bring them salvation.

They thought that yes, God loves us, but we must perform to receive God's good favor.

We must follow everything and then we can be good believers.

But what Paul is dealing with here is that, hey, look, that's not the way to follow because none of us can follow the law perfectly.

And he's going to speak to that here in this passage.

But another thing that sometimes people that are steeped in legalism will, will fall into is they think, well, now that we have freedom and grace, does that mean we can do whatever we want to do?

Does that mean that we can just offend the.

The Lord?

No, he's not saying that's the case, but what he is saying is that the law actually does bring something and it brings bondage.

He says, but if you're led of the spirit, you're not under the law.

And folks, I'm going to tell you here this evening, you do not want to be under the law.

None of us can perform perfectly under the law.

Some of us might be able to perform for a time.

Some of us might be able to trick people around us.

Some of us might be better than our neighbor.

But at the end of the day, the Bible teaches of the fact that if you can't fulfill the law perfectly, you fall short completely.

And so for all of us here this evening, none of us want to be under the law, specifically the Mosaic Law, but none of us want to be under the law of Middletown Baptist Church.

None of us want to be subject to, to perfection when it comes to the law.

So he says, if you're being led by the Spirit, you're not under the law anymore.

You're under something else.

The Bible speaks in Romans about how we're now under the grace of God.

So he says, you are not under the law now, verse 19.

He says, if you want to be part of the law, if you want to be under the law, if you want to perform yourself, this is actually what's going to be produced.

So this doesn't really compute for us sometimes.

But what it is saying is that if we try to perform in our life, if we try to be the ones that follow every little law, eventually what's going to happen is we're going to look to ourselves and think that we're pretty good, that we could perform.

But he says this is actually the manifestation of trying to live in the flesh.

He says the works of the flesh are manifest or shown, which are these.

So if our life is characterized by any of these things in any way, we're walking in the flesh.

If any decision that we make can be characterized by any of these things, then we're walking in the flesh.

And so he talks here about some of these things, and he lists sins.

He says here, adultery.

Now, we all know what that is.

And the Bible says that if that's something that's characterizing our life or even done one time in our life, we're walking in the flesh.

Talks about fornication.

That's a broader spectrum of that type of sin.

And he says uncleanness.

Lasciviousness.

Lasciviousness.

Another way that you could word that in our everyday language is sensuality.

Someone who just lives according to their senses in every which way, really.

Verse 19 speaks of sins that we commit with our bodies.

And then he goes on to talk a little bit more about even some aspects of spiritual sin.

He says in verse number 20, idolatry.

Now a lot of times we think that idolatry is something that we're over in our society today.

We say, well, you know what, in American society we don't have idols.

That's people across the world that are building these little carved images or that was something for the Jews long ago when they would build these golden casts.

But I'm going to tell you here this evening that idolatry is rampant in our country.

You would say what?

I haven't seen an idol today.

Well, an idol is really something that we put before the Lord.

It's something that we worship more than God.

It's something that we attribute our love and worship to that is not supposed to receive it.

An idol could be a hobby, it could be an activity.

An idol could be something that we have in our life, a material thing that we look to for our hope that we worship in our life.

And we might say, well I, I would never worship something like that in my life.

Well, don't go by what we say, go by how we live.

And some of us might not say that we're worshiping something, but by the way that we live our life, we're worshiping something that does not deserve our worship.

There's only one who's worthy of our worship.

And so any, any level of idolatry in our life is a flesh filled endeavor.

Anytime we put something before the Lord.

And there's times in my life that I might not mean to do something idolatrous, but what it is is that I might even look at something that's good in my life.

You know, sometimes if we put anything before God, even if it's a good thing, you know, a job is not a bad thing.

But if we put our job before the Lord, it now becomes idolatry.

If we love a person in our life, that's a good thing.

We should love others.

But if we love a person more than God, it becomes idolatry.

And that's what he's talking about here.

Then he goes on to say something very interesting.

He says, witchcraft.

Now most of us are probably not practicing witchcraft.

But I do want to go a little bit deeper into that word, because I think that we look at that word witchcraft, and we think, well, I don't know what you think about.

I think of maybe like a movie of someone, like around a cauldron doing some weird thing.

But actually, the Greek word for witchcraft is pharmaceia.

Now, you don't.

Maybe don't know what that means, but we get the word pharmacy from that.

And what I truly believe is that some witchcraft can be tapped into through various substances that can harm our senses.

That can be maybe drugs or some type of substance that can allow us to get to a place where our senses are dulled and our senses are turned over to something else controlling us.

And so here he warns that witchcraft is a work of the flesh.

Some of the others that we see here you see this word hatred.

I mean, obviously you're familiar with that word.

You know what that word means.

But then we see this word, and it's an interesting word that we don't use very often.

It's variance.

What is variance?

Well, variance is basically contention.

Always being ready to fight somebody.

Maybe not physically, but it's that strife.

Another word that has.

Has been translated from this word in the New Testament was debate.

Now, debate isn't a bad thing.

I think there are times and places for a debate, but we all know those types of debates that aren't going anywhere.

That's what this is talking about, basically, to just try to win an argument.

And that's what he's talking about here.

That's a work of the flesh.

We'll go on to talk a few more of these that you might know and you might not know.

Um, we see another word here that's called emulations.

What's emulations?

Well, emulations is a word that basically speaks to having jealousy or being so envious that we hate somebody.

We.

We see it as a.

We see everyone as a rivalry.

To us, someone is rivaling me, and I don't like them.

That's what he's talking about here.

Wrath, strife, seditions.

What is seditions?

Well, the Greek word for seditions is division.

You causing division amongst different folks.

That's one of the works of the flesh that he mentions here.

Then he says heresies.

Well, heresies would be basically false teachings, different teachings that come out of different ways of belief and different, different, what we would call disagreements among different belief systems.

And then he goes here and he says envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like And I love how that's added there.

He basically lists all of these sins and then he says, and anything like it.

What Paul is trying to explain to us, he's not giving us a list of a bunch of things.

And we look at these things and go, well, I don't practice any of those, so I must not be guided by the flesh.

What he's saying is, is that any of these things that we know are anti God, against God's plan, against God's will, and anything like them are works of the flesh.

So if I commit any of these things, if I think about any of these things, if I have some type of love and desire for these things, I to some degree am walking in the flesh.

And then he says of the.

Which I tell you before, as I have told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now those seem to be some pretty strong words.

Basically, a lot of people will teach that if you've ever committed any of these things, you'll never be able to inherit the kingdom of God.

And that's not what he's saying here.

I think it's important to note what he is saying.

He is explaining that yes, a Christian can commit these sins and that's an evidence that they are walking in the flesh.

But someone whose life is characterized by this is someone whose life is not characterized being by being filled with the Spirit.

And so the strength and certainty of, of Paul here, it, it's very clear that he's saying something.

And what is he saying?

He says that if someone's life is characterized by this, they're not characterized by God.

And again, I'm not here to judge someone's salvation.

I, I can't know what's in someone's heart.

But what Paul is saying is that if you have no aspect of the, of the Spirit in your life and flesh is guiding every aspect, most likely you're not a believer.

And that's what he's mentioning here.

Now again, if I, if you've committed any of these sins, it doesn't mean that you're hopeless.

The grace of God is beyond any of these sins that are here.

But what it does tell us is that as a Christian, that should not be the norm for us.

That should not be our lifestyle, that should not be our desire.

We might fall into some of these sins as we walk in the flesh, but it should always be that we are repentant and, and broken in our spirit and coming to God to find forgiveness and hope and the way that one pastor mentioned it to me is he said, you know, you could take a fish out of water if you've ever been fishing.

And you, some of you may, or you guys might not understand what catch and release is.

I was talking to a fellow today, and he goes, I don't know why anyone does catch and release.

I'm catching fish to eat it.

Well, sometimes people just like to feel the tug on the line and they let the fish back.

You can pull a fish out of water and they can survive for a while, but that's not where they're designed to live.

And that's how a Christian is.

A Christian can be pulled out of living in the Spirit and they can somewhat function to some degree, but that is not where they're designed to be forever.

So he explains here that the works of the flesh are going to bring these things.

Now, why does he mention all the dangers of the works of the flesh?

Well, because if we as Christians start to think that these things aren't that bad, if we can just choose the flesh and feel like everything's going to be okay, we.

Well, then that's going to cause a lot of issues.

Because later on, he says in Galatians, chapter 6, verse 9, that in due season we shall reap if we faint.

Not we talking about the good thing there.

But if you go back up a few verses in verse seven, he says, God is not mocked, for who whatsoever a man saith that, shall he also reap.

So there is a law of sowing and reaping within Scripture.

And the principle that he's teaching us here is that if we want to have lives that are growing in Christ, reflecting Christlike characteristics, we have to be walking in the spirit.

So verse 22, he flips the scripts, and now he's going to give, in contrast to the works of the flesh, what we call the fruit of the Spirit.

And most of you to some degree have gone through a study, at least in the fruit of the Spirit.

And I used to think of the fruit of the Spirit this way.

Well, if I am a Christian, I can work on these things.

And I'll try harder to be loving, I'll try harder to be joyful.

I. I'll try harder to have peace.

But that's not what this passage is saying.

This passage is saying if we walk in the Spirit, these are areas of our life that will be seen.

Now, we certainly can grow in these areas, but it's not about manufacturing love in our life.

It's about allowing the Spirit that's why it says the fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, the manifestation of the Spirit are going to be these things.

And he says in verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, that love is the agape love that we've been studying on Sunday mornings.

Sacrificial.

It's a choice.

It's something that does not receive anything back necessarily.

He says love.

And then he goes on to mention that word that we talked about this morning, joy.

And joy is such an important thing.

You know, I. I've met some Christians who have.

And I've been this Christian to some degree that have said, you know what?

My joy has been stolen.

I have no more joy.

And though I believe that there are times and places in the Christian's life where we can go through the mourning process, that we can go through pain and understand what it means to be broken, the Christian's life should be characterized by joy because of what we talked about this morning, the hope that we have.

That's a greater hope.

And so there is gladness there, there is joy.

There is rejoicing in the fact that there's something more.

So this joy is a choice.

Just like love, agape love is a choice.

This joy is a choice.

Then he goes on to talk about peace.

And again, peace is one of those interesting things.

And I think I mentioned this last week that, you know, there's times in my life that I think, well, peace is something that I find through peaceful circumstances.

But that's not what this type of peace is.

This type of peace is having a state of tranquility in the midst of panic, in the midst of conflict.

And that's what he's talking about here.

He says, this is something that you can have in the Spirit.

This is something that's brought to us through having the Spirit indwelling us and guiding us.

And he says longsuffering, that's patience, endurance, gentleness, goodness, faith.

These are all things that we're familiar with.

Meekness.

Meekness is strength under control.

Temperance, that's self control.

Against such there is no law.

Meaning you can't follow these things and grow in these areas by following some list of rules.

It has to be through the Spirit, verse 24.

And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust.

What does this mean?

This means that as a Christian, we have to intentionally crucify the flesh.

What does it mean to crucify my flesh?

Crucifying means killing, right?

I need to put to death my fleshly desires.

Every single Day recently, I.

How many of you.

Don't.

Don't raise your hand.

Okay, but how many of you get a little bit more irritable when you're hungry?

Okay.

For me, my wife.

My wife and knows when I'm hungry because I can come a lot more irritable.

She's like, I think you're getting hangry.

And I said, yeah, I am.

And she had to remind me.

She's like, just because you're hungry doesn't mean that you have to lose your patience, all right?

She's like, there's this thing called self control.

You can wait.

I'm like, I know, but.

But sometimes I use a circumstance in my life to justify my wrongdoing by saying, well, I'm hungry.

That's why I'm this way.

Well, it doesn't mean that I can just do what I want to do because I feel a certain way.

You know, this person did this to me, so I have to be this way.

No, the Bible says that we have to die to that, kill that.

It's a decision that we make to say, no, I am not going to allow myself to feed the lust of my flesh.

Says in verse 25, if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

He says, if that's where we're abiding, that's the way that we should live.

They're correlated.

We can't say that we're following the Spirit, obeying the Spirit, and then.

And then live in the flesh.

It's not happening.

We.

We can't.

It's what you put in is what's going to come out is what he's saying here.

And I think there's a lot of Christians that are wanting to see all these blessings of walking in the Spirit, yet we're not willing to die to the flesh.

Verse 26, Let us not be desirous of vain glory.

That's really interesting there.

What is he saying?

Well, what he's saying is this.

To live in the flesh means to live for your own glory.

Vainglory is emptiness, hopelessness, worthless.

And he's explaining that that type of glory is worthless.

It's hopeless.

But that's what everyone's seeking after.

That's why we act certain ways.

That's why we feed the flesh.

We only feed the flesh because it's for our glory.

Going back to idolatry sometimes, it could be self idolatry, it could be humanism, it could be worshiping myself.

And really the prevailing worldview in this world today are.

Would be people who basically just worship themselves.

They might not worship a God on, you know, a mantelpiece with an idol.

They might not go to a church building, but to some degree, they are putting worship out for themselves.

And he says, let us not desire that type of vainglory.

Don't make life be about yourself.

And that's a hard thing coming from an only child, okay?

Because growing up, life was all about me.

My parents focused on me.

I didn't have to share any toys.

I didn't have to share any food.

I didn't have to share anything.

I had it all.

And so I certainly understand what it means to think about, hey, this is all about me.

And a lot of times that's where we get in trouble as Christians, we think, well, that person wronged me.

So therefore, you know what?

We're going to cause problems in their life.

I'm not going to be helpful for them.

I'm going to be, as we see there in the works of the flesh, divisive, having seditions, emulation, strife, wrath, heresies, envyings.

All these different things that we don't really want to have in our life can manifest when it's all about us, when we don't basically get our way.

Someone told me one time that was working in youth ministry, and when I'm.

I'm about to say something to you guys, and I know it's going to hurt, but it's the truth, and I'm just going to say it to you because I love you, and I'm speaking to myself.

This guy that was working at youth ministries is like, it's so hard, Pastor, to deal with teenagers.

He was like, they're always bickering with one another.

They're always jealous of one another.

There's always this infighting with them.

You know, I just.

When I get to adult ministry, I'm not going to have to deal with any of that anymore.

And.

And I looked at him and I said, well, look, I said, working in adult ministry is very similar.

It's just.

It's just all the teenagers are growing up now, but we still have.

Because it's not just subject to teenagers.

And I'm not tearing us down because that's part of life.

We all struggle with these things because that's humanity.

Humanity is.

There's always going to be that infighting.

There's always going to be that.

That bitterness.

There's always going to be that envy.

And he says, don't be desirous of that vain glory.

Why?

Because it says they're provoking one another, envying one another.

We.

We see the outcome of this desire for vainglory.

It's going to provoke one another.

Not in a good way, by the way, the Bible says that we are to provoke one another to love and good works, but not to provoke one another to envying one another.

Because what it ha.

What happens is that there's this system.

And if we provoke one another to love and good works, it becomes contagious.

That love and good works are going to be the norm.

It's going to be what we do.

It's going to be what is shared.

But then if we go to the other side and it's all about me, and there's division there that's going to provoke people not to love and good works.

It's going to provoke people to envy one another.

And we create a culture of envy within our church, within our family, within our workplace, wherever it is.

And we see here that he's saying that's not what we want.

So that selflessness that's mentioned earlier on in this passage is seen through having the Spirit guide us.

And we want the glory of the Lord to be seen.

And spiritual growth is understanding that I'm in this not for myself, but I'm in this ultimately for the Lord's glory.

But to provoke and to love other people so that they can love others and that they can see that fruit of the Spirit growing in their life.

What I would say here this evening is that part of spiritual growth is essentially saying, life is not about me.

We're trying to teach our kids.

You know, part of maturing is sometimes doing things that you don't want to do.

This summer, the school gave our kids summer work.

And by the way, I'm not a huge fan of summer work.

I'm thinking like, hey, it's summertime.

Give them.

Give them a little bit of break.

But they gave them summer work.

Either way, I. I don't have an opinion on that.

I do have an opinion, but I won't share it too much.

But either way, they had to get their work done.

And of course, what happens?

They did the same thing that.

That I would have done.

They saved it to the very end, right?

And at the very end, it's like, it's God, we gotta do this.

We gotta get this done.

And.

And part of it is this.

Though we might not always understand why we have to do what we have to do within our Christian life, within our adult life, we do have to understand that there are times and places that we have to go beyond our comfort to say, yes, I have to do this.

That's part of maturity.

Part of maturity is that I got to make sure other people are taken care of.

Part of maturity is sacrificing what I want to help other people around me.

And that's what it means to be a mature Christian.

To be a mature Christian is identifying.

Yes, there's blessings in going to church, yes, there's blessings within my Christian life.

But I also have to realize that it's not about me, that I need to be looking for others to help others in their time of need.

And that's only gonna come through a spiritual growth process of understanding that the Spirit is our guide for that growth.

Our Spirit.

The Spirit is the guide for all these elements of meekness, temperance, and all those things that are listed there in the Fruit of the Spirit.

So here's a test that I would give to you, and it's a test that I try to run myself through almost every day, is I'll have an interaction with somebody and I'll make sure, okay, did I respond in the Spirit?

And it's a really easy test to see whether or not we responded in the Spirit.

We look at verse 22 and 23 and we see if our response, our actions, our words, our hearts aligns with these elements of the Fruit of the Spirit.

So if I look at this and I say, okay, did I respond in love?

Not really.

Did I respond in joy?

No way.

Did I, did I respond in peace?

It was not very peaceful.

You can start to realize that that was not a spirit filled response.

That was a flesh filled response.

Well, the beauty is, is that we can go before the Lord, we can ask for forgiveness, we can restore that with someone else that we have said something against or done something against.

And the beauty is, is that we hack.

We can have forgiveness and we can have hope.

And that's spiritual growth.

We don't get it overnight.

The spiritual growth process is a step by step process that happens every single day for as long as we live.

Paul says it in the book of Philippians.

I want to want you to see this here, Philippians chapter three.

He's, he's speaking here of really this calling that God has given him in his life.

And he talks about pressing forward.

He, he, if anybody could have said they had it complete and done, it would be Paul.

I mean, Paul was in many ways we see him and we say, wow, man, he really had it all together.

Though he didn't always have it together.

Paul was A man that was being guided by God.

I think that all of us would agree with that.

But he says in verse number 13 of Philippians 3, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, whether they're good times or bad times.

He's not stuck in what he used to do.

You know, I've heard people say, and maybe you have, Pastor, you don't know my past.

You don't understand what I used to do.

I could never be used by God today.

Well, if anyone could have used that example, it would have been Paul, right?

Paul could have said, you didn't know me back there in Jerusalem.

You didn't know me when I was a Pharisee.

But he says, I'm not looking back there.

And then I've also heard people say, well, these are all the good things that I used to do.

But you know what?

I'm done now.

Just can't do anymore either way, if it's good or bad.

He says, I'm not stuck back there.

I'm looking forward to the next thing that God has for me.

He says, I. I'm not looking back those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before.

I press toward the mark for the prize, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

He speaks to this idea of pressing forward, reaching forward, always desiring to have more of the growth that God brings to the Spirit.

Verse 15.

He says, Let us therefore, as many be perfect or mature, be thus minded.

He says, if you want to be a mature Christian, have the same mindset.

What if.

What if I got up here tonight and said, guys, I got it.

I've reached it.

Okay, I'm your standard.

If you want to know about the Bible, follow.

Just be like me.

I'm there, though.

I don't need to grow anymore.

I can.

I've got this all memorized.

I'm going to put it down.

I'm done with it.

That would be a red flag.

That would be when you all need to stand up and walk out or vote me out.

Okay, that would be the case.

But what he says here is, he says, if you want.

That's an immature way of thinking.

He says, if you want to be in verse 15, that's what he's saying.

He says, let us, therefore, as many as be perfect.

Now, he doesn't mean perfect in the sense of, like, sinless.

That word, perfect in the Greek means mature.

He says, those that want to be like this and be mature he says, have this mindset.

And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.

He says, let's keep walking in step of what God has called us to do.

He goes on to talk more about this.

He says, brethren, be followers together of me.

So we would say, wait.

But wait.

Paul's saying to worship him.

No, he's not saying worship.

He says, follow me and mark them which walk.

So as ye have us for an example.

We know that this aligns with what Paul says before follow me as I follow Christ.

Then he goes on to talk about other people that we should not be following.

He says, for many walk of whom I have told you and now tell you, even weeping.

So Paul is.

Is weeping over this, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly.

See, what is he talking about?

He's talking about this idea that their God is what makes them feel good.

Their God is what feeds them.

Their God is what gives them some type of fleshly pleasure.

And he says, and whose glory is in their shame.

Who mind earthly things.

They're all about the here and now.

They're all about the flesh.

They're all about material.

They're all about just living life in the moment instead of thinking of what it is to come.

He says from our conversation.

For our conversation is in heaven.

That word conversation is not just based in our language, but it's in our lifestyle.

He says we should be living heaven, focused.

Heavenly focused.

There's a song.

This world is not my home, I'm just passing through.

That's the mindset that we're supposed to have.

We're pilgrims in this world, though we're here now for a time.

And some of us are here for longer than others.

But we're here for a time.

But our eternal destination is heaven.

So what Paul is telling us is we should live that way.

We should think that way.

We should think about the eternal perspective from whence also we look for the salvation the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body.

That's a.

For.

For many of us that's a blessing because this body, this flesh is.

Is something that we're going to wrestle with until the end.

But there will be one day where we no longer have the pains of the flesh, the lust of the flesh.

One day we'll be as it says and that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.

One day we'll be rid of all these fleshly desires and we'll be able to walk perfectly with him.

And he says, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

So the hope is not to live for the here and now.

The hope is to live for eternity.

Our hope is to live with what we can invest forever.

You know, there's times in my life that I feel like I'm doing something now and am I really wasting my time?

Is this really, really beneficial to anybody?

And the truth is, is that the test for that is whether or not this is something that is for the Lord or not for the Lord.

Jesus says that there's things in this earth that we can invest in, but Roth Moth and Rust will corrupt it.

The one thing that Moth and Russ will not corrupt is our relationship with him.

The things that we do for him, the things that we grow in, in his name.

And so I encourage you to think about that when you go into a situation, have the heavenly perspective, the eternal perspective, in the midst of work tomorrow, when you go in, in the midst of conflict, maybe within your home or even in the midst of a physical struggle, think about it from the heavenly perspective.

I know that, you know, we're in a time now where obviously all of us have lost someone that we love, but particularly it's fresh with what's happened with Michelle.

And, you know, it is painful to lose somebody that we're close with.

But the Bible tells us that we don't have to sorrow as other people sorrow because we have a greater hope.

And if we truly believe what we say we believe, we.

We understand where Michelle is and where our loved ones that are believers are and that they're walking with God.

And the Bible says absent with the body is present with the Lord.

And there is that.

That comfort of knowing that they're understanding God's grace now more than we could ever understand on this side of heaven.

I mean, we're just getting glimpses and taste of it, the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is like a down payment or an earnest payment for what we will have one day.

And so think about the.

The most joyful, meaningful spiritual experience you've ever had.

And the Bible says that that's just a taste of what it will be, and that's what we're living for.

That's spiritual growth.

To understand that this is just a temporary place.

This is just a shell of what I will eventually be one day, because one day I will be able to walk with My Savior.

And I think about that a lot.

I think there's times.

Sorry, there's your Greek word right there.

But the, the problem that I think a lot of us have, including myself, is that I'm going through a struggle.

And I think about it from the perspective of the here and now, and I forget that there's something more.

And, and I, I go back to some of those times in my life where I really experience the love of Christ or the presence of God.

For, for me, sometimes it's when we're singing songs on Sunday mornings here, sometimes I just like to listen to everyone sing.

Sometimes I like to think about the words that we're singing and I get just a little taste of, I think, what it'll be like in heaven one day when we have all the saints singing praises to God, getting around the table and having fellowship with other Christians and breaking bread with them and discussing the Bible and talking about what this verse means and what that verse means and praying together.

These are all amazing experiences.

I get excited for those things.

What gets me up in the morning when you see someone get saved, when you see someone come down the aisle and trust in Jesus, or get up behind the pulpit and join the church, These are all just like little beautiful glimpses of what it will be one day.

And so I would encourage you to do as, as you grow in your spiritual walk, is to start to think more about walking in the spirit.

Why?

Because there's something bigger, there's something greater, there's something larger in our life than just the here and now.

So if you're tempted to get frustrated, if you're tempted to walk in the flesh, if you're tempted to, to get bitter against the situation that you might be facing in your life, if you're a believer, think about the bigger perspective.

I, I've used this as an example before, and it's a very crude example, but let me explain it to you and hear me out.

If I'm ever going on a, like a vacation, I'm really excited for it.

On that Friday, the problem might come up.

And I can say, you know what?

I can.

If I can just make it to five o' clock and get on the road, we're going to be okay.

And now Pastor Ethan's here.

I can just say, hey, Pastor Ethan, deal with that as I go.

See you later, though.

You understand what I mean?

Like, we can have problems here on this earth, but if we're living for that, if that's all we have and that's all we're focusing on, of course that's going to bring us down.

Of course that's going to bring us hopelessness.

But if we say, yes, I've got this issue here right now, but I'm living for something more, I'm living for something better.

I, I, I can look to Jesus and he's going to give me that peace that passes all understanding.

It at least allows us to endure those temptations and trials and those hardships in a lot more Christlike, mature way.

So as we walk through this, we're only going to walk through it about two or three more weeks.

As we get into September, we're going to be getting into another Bible study.

But I want you to think in your mind, what is spiritual growth?

How am I spiritually growing?

How would I even know if I was spiritually growing?

Well, we've talked about a lot of different tests that we can put into our life to identify and evaluate where we are in our spiritual walk.

We're all growing, we're all learning.

And I hope that you are at least able to take the next step.

You might say, what's my next step?

Well, it's different for everybody.

Some people's next step is getting into the Word.

Some people's next step is finding how, how you're spiritually gifted.

Other people, it's how to use that spiritual gift within the church.

For some people, the next step is the first step, just trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior.

But whatever it is, as a Christian, we're called to take that next step.

And I would encourage you to think about that and pray about that as we go through the study.

Now, some people have asked, where are we going after the spiritual growth series?

If you are really interested, I'll tell you.

We are going to be doing some studies in the minor prophets, and some of you are like, minor prophets.

What about, what's that about?

I think it's the minor prophets are a group of scriptures that get overlooked a lot.

But they're like, really beneficial to some of the New Testament prophecies that we see.

And so we're going to be going through books like Joel, Amos, ones that maybe you don't read every single day, but it'll be a really interesting study.

And I think that we'll see that the New Testament actually leans a lot on the Old Testament for its quotations and references to things that are to come still in the future.

And I would love to talk you through all of that.