SPEAKER_01: Sons not slaves, sons of grace, sons of freedom, sons of God to be declared winners against the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Even if the battle is tough, we'll make it.
SPEAKER_01: Because we have the Holy Spirit in us, and the Spirit of God is in us.
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: It's so good to be in God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: It's so good to be in God's church, surrounded by the people of God, full of passion, uh, gospel-driven people, mission-driven society of Jesus, um, people that are enjoying the Spirit of God moving in our midst, uh, wondering if the next Sunday He will do it again.
SPEAKER_01: And praise God, he did it again uh and brought us back again to worship.
SPEAKER_01: Uh praise Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so grateful to be back in your midst, uh, Grand Parkway church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm thankful for the leadership of this church that uh um doing it again, allowing me to be again at this pulpit.
SPEAKER_01: And uh last year uh on April 15, I had um one of the greatest um uh uh blessings and um gifts uh for my birthday uh uh being in this pulpit and preaching.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to thank Pastor Neil for um allowing me to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Um I was very encouraged to do that uh then and to do it now, um, to preach the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to see all these friends around me.
SPEAKER_01: I see friends from uh KD, I see friends from other places, of course, from um uh from Sugarland.
SPEAKER_01: Um I bring you greetings from Romania.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I hope um you will understand the message with my Romanian accent, with uh uh all my um imperfections.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord will will make a way and uh the word will get to your heart, amen.
SPEAKER_01: Um the text this morning is Galatians 5, 16, uh, 18, three verses.
SPEAKER_01: But before before I get into that text, um I want to I want to let you know, I want to tell you a little story uh about um what happened to me uh and my wife that is here, Adina.
SPEAKER_01: We always fight for uh coffee and food and um uh donuts, crispy cream donuts.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we received two eleven uh 18 crispy cream donuts from uh uh one professor that came to teach in um in a seminary class that we are hosting uh four times a year in in four different weeks in our uh center um uh at our foundation, uh House of Joy in Romania.
SPEAKER_01: So I received this gift.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the professor arrived on Friday.
SPEAKER_01: I think he bought the the donuts uh probably on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01: So uh I had a whole week of carefully eating them, sipping my coffee with uh old donuts of um more than a week.
SPEAKER_01: I ate them in slow motion, I uh savored them and and uh because um we don't have any Krispy Kreme um uh temples there.
SPEAKER_01: Um so uh that's one of my my uh blessings when I when I come here.
SPEAKER_01: And uh uh that was good from the Lord because um God knows my flesh, God knows my um my nature, and uh um I if they were fl if they were fresh my flesh would have eaten them all uh 18 in in in a day in a in an hour or I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but in a sense I had to to to commit the sin against my appetite to eat them uh old after almost two weeks, a week and a half.
SPEAKER_01: Um let's get in the text that uh speaks about these problems um that we have, even with donuts.
SPEAKER_01: Um but I say walk by the spirit and you will not fulfill, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do.
SPEAKER_01: But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Um Paul is addressing um uh this problem after he's defending his apostleship in two chapters in Galatians, after he he brings uh uh a condensed um uh dose of theology um on salvation through the grace of God, through this through the Spirit of God, um, through the gospel, then he he gets into the practical side of things of life.
SPEAKER_01: And uh he's he says uh the same thing that he spoke uh a few minutes ago in chapter uh three and four uh about uh being saved, being justified before God, being considered righteous, being considered right with God based on the work of Jesus, uh, and only on the work of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he says the same thing about living your life um uh in full dependence uh on on God through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, your life is is is falling prey to legalism, it's falling prey to religion, it's falling prey to um uh rigidness and and uh all sorts of um tendencies that uh will bring you to bondage and will not give you the joy of serving God.
SPEAKER_01: And and Paul is is totally against uh such a uh lifestyle of of bondage, of spiritual bondage.
SPEAKER_01: He wants Christians to be delivered for freedom and to be to enjoy the freedom in Jesus and to not be stressed by uh legalists like the Judaizers, those guys, the false teachers that invaded the church and they um wanted to change the truth of God and to um diminish the work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, uh this would have uh have affected the the work of the Holy Spirit as a continuation in the believers.
SPEAKER_01: So um he says, in the same way that you you cannot justify yourself before God, you cannot uh sanctify yourself before God uh by your own strength, by your own powers, by your own your own resources.
SPEAKER_01: So uh I want I want us to look this morning to uh two things.
SPEAKER_01: It's a command and a conflict in this text.
SPEAKER_01: A command, and they are connected to each other.
SPEAKER_01: If you uh abide and if you walk uh obeying this command of God that we find uh we found in this text, you will of course get into uh a conflict.
SPEAKER_01: Um and um actually that's that's uh simultaneously in our lives, in our spiritual, in our Christian life, we we live these two things together at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: We obey the Lord and we we step into conflict day by day, hour by hour.
SPEAKER_01: Um the theme of the book of Galatians, of course, is is the law versus grace.
SPEAKER_01: Um the law is not was not intended by God to be a means of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: The law was was intended by God to to bring us on our knees to uh crush us with its perfection, with its high standard, with its incredible standard that nobody can reach, and to bring us to uh the only solution for our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that would be Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Uh to him be the glory this morning, amen.
SPEAKER_01: Um nobody nobody can bring on the table before God his own standard of life uh in order to pretend that he can make it through through life.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because everybody is imperfect, because we are imperfect, man is imperfect and God is perfect, and you cannot bring your imperfections to God or before God and and and claim that you you will make it in life through life uh with your imperfect life.
SPEAKER_01: My dentist was telling me uh last week, um all it's important in life is just to do good.
SPEAKER_01: And I immediately uh jumped from the chair and I said, Uh, how much good?
SPEAKER_01: Uh um he said, good, just good.
SPEAKER_01: I said, I don't know exactly how much good I have to do um to to please God.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and he didn't he didn't continue.
SPEAKER_01: Um he's not he's not a theologian, he's a dentist, and I didn't want to get in trouble with my thing.
SPEAKER_01: He might have pulled uh a different tooth.
SPEAKER_01: Uh no human standard is the answer.
SPEAKER_01: No matter if you if you are influenced and and you're embracing right now, and you came in this meeting with a secular mindset and with a secular uh standard, and you say, I'm doing uh my own thing, I have my own ideas, my own good, my own uh truth, you won't you won't have the the answer to uh before the perfection of God and before the challenges of life that are so so big and so so complex.
SPEAKER_01: And nobody with the religious uh uh uh standards will never make it uh through life because really because religion will turn us into the most hateful people ever.
SPEAKER_01: Um religious people are are are criminals, they they uh religion kills, religion is is hateful.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and um I know that in this place one thing uh is not truth.
SPEAKER_01: This this place is not a place of religion.
SPEAKER_01: This this place is a place of relation with uh our savior, with the Holy Spirit, amen.
SPEAKER_01: And we celebrate you we celebrate this this relation with our Lord every um every Sunday when we come here.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we become aware every Sunday that it's not about rules, it's not about uh laws.
SPEAKER_01: And uh though we come and we study, we have Bible study, women are invited um to study here, men are invited to study in different uh contexts.
SPEAKER_01: The whole group, the whole church is invited here to pray, to worship, um, to witness, to witness locally, nationally, internationally, in Romania and other places where God is leading you.
SPEAKER_01: Um and by other behavior standards.
SPEAKER_01: All of these things uh that are uh commanded to the believer uh and are essential to the Christian life, they are not the spiritual spirituality of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Your spirituality cannot be measured by by these things, and then you uh ask, by then by what to use these things to measure your spirituality means to to embrace legalism and uh and to to try to to act only on the outside, to only uh look good to others in their eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Um and uh this will make you uh embrace a set of rules, create your own set of rules.
SPEAKER_01: You borrow from others, maybe, or you create your own uh set of rules, and this is a chain that will bring you to uneffectiveness, to to uh not be very spiritual but very uh religious, maybe.
SPEAKER_01: You have a set of rules, this set of rules will give you uh uh uh self-righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: You will think I'm I'm good, I'm I'm making it.
SPEAKER_01: Um uh then you'll fall into hypocrisy, hypocrisy, and this hypocrisy will separate you from God, and nobody will know exactly what's in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's this command here: uh walk by the spirit, walk by the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Holiness is only through, is accomplished in the cre in the Christian life only through the spirit of God, and the Christian, a holy, a holy life, a holy living before God is not coming by what we are doing, what we are accomplishing uh before God, for God, but uh through what He is doing for us and is accomplishing for us through the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Um living a Christian life means to be uh strengthened, to be uh to be power, empowered by the the strength of the Holy Spirit in the inner man.
SPEAKER_01: Um I think being aware of God's presence, being aware of the Holy Spirit person presence into your life, uh this uh will grant you will guarantee your your um will guarantee a holy walk, um a sensitive walk, um a very spiritual walk.
SPEAKER_01: If you all the time think about the spirit is here, he's right, he's writing to me, he's right, he's dwelling in me, he's he's uh guiding myself.
SPEAKER_01: Um if we don't have this awareness of of God's spirit uh in our life, then uh we of course we're gonna go through uh religious acts.
SPEAKER_01: Only pride and ignorance will lead the believer to live based on a list of rules and and commands in his own uh sinful, sinful and limited uh strength.
SPEAKER_01: We're so so limited and so sinful and and and so imperfect, as I said earlier, and we cannot we cannot do it on our own.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we need we need God's influence, God's presence, God's um guidance in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the the apostle says walk.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a verb that expresses uh progress, it expresses an action, a continuous.
SPEAKER_01: The verb there in its tense is expressing this continuous action.
SPEAKER_01: It's not it's not just you walked uh one time uh 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: I had a great walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's something continuous, it's something that has to happen right now.
SPEAKER_01: Right now, you're not allowed to stop.
SPEAKER_01: There is this example in the Old Testament uh with Jane uh Jacob that was uh asked by God to come with his whole family to Bethel to worship there, to to start uh a new life there.
SPEAKER_01: And on the way there, he stops.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's in chapter 35 or 36.
SPEAKER_01: He stops to see him, and and there uh uh he falls prey to all all the and his family is devoured by all these all these problems, um uh sinful problems.
SPEAKER_01: Uh his children get in trouble and and they they don't end up well.
SPEAKER_01: Um of course on on one side you you think okay the Lord is calling me to guide me so I don't have to do anything.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's um that's uh a bad idea and it's a bad uh teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Uh surrender uh in a passive mood, in a passive way, it's contradictory uh to the teachings of the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it contradicts passages in the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: And um as as God intended that your your justification before God, your salvation, your declaration of God um um based on your faith, um, the declaration that your sins are forgiven, um, was intended to involve your will too.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way, God is using and is involving your will to sanctify you uh day by day as you walk after that moment of uh his amazing declaration that you are forgiven, that based on your trust on Jesus, on his work, um, because you are willing to do that, uh, it involves your will.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we're not we are not underestimating God's God's sovereignty in in uh convincing us and in in invading our being and and convincing our stubborn or dead uh or in bondage uh will.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we're not underestimating that, but the spirit uh will always use your will.
SPEAKER_01: You are not passive.
SPEAKER_01: In Romania, people say when we invite them to salvation, when we tell them, Come to Jesus, the Lord wants to give you a new life, a better life, um, and and he wants to give you an eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Uh people say, if if uh God wants me to be changed, he will change me.
SPEAKER_01: But until then, I will just live my life.
SPEAKER_01: So they they try to to hide behind this um I don't know, determinism or fatalism.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what will happen, but uh for now I enjoy my life.
SPEAKER_01: If God wants to intervene uh drastically, He will uh He can do it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and many times He He's doing it, and and uh the will of people uh um is is finally uh working with God.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way, walking with the Spirit involves your will, and this will um will bring you into action.
SPEAKER_01: You're not just passive, you're not God will never God will never turn uh take away your phone from your hand, God will never turn off your TV, God will never stop your car, God will never um God stopped our plane uh from uh from Philadelphia to to Dallas to Houston.
SPEAKER_01: He he brought some rain over Houston and and we couldn't we couldn't come two days earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Um He intervenes in the people's lives, but when you are a believer, um the idea is this your will is involved.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray that uh your will would uh partner with the Spirit of God this morning and you will walk.
SPEAKER_01: Walking, uh walking by the Spirit uh means to not provide for the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And uh walking by the spirit means to live like the people that live during the day.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and this there is a reference in Romans 13, 14, and uh living uh like being in the the light of the day during the day involves uh staying away of the negative influences, uh the sinful tendencies like drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, sensuality, uh quarrels, fights, jealousies, and other things.
SPEAKER_01: Um walking walking by the spirit, living a Christian life in the spirit of God is uh is a life that resembles the life of Jesus, and your whole thoughts are saturated with the truth of God, with God's love.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, Jesus Christ is perfect, and we will never be perfect.
SPEAKER_01: We're not walking around uh unbelievers uh or people that don't trust, didn't trust Jesus, uh judging them that um uh they are different than us.
SPEAKER_01: We are just letting our lives be saturated with Jesus because we are imperfect and we need we need a model, and our model is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Um and we uh Paul says in another text, you don't even you're not even capable of saying Jesus Christ is the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily verbally, verbally everybody can say that, but um with your whole life declaring his lordship over you, unless you have the Holy Spirit of Jesus, uh the Holy Spirit of Christ in in you.
SPEAKER_01: So uh unless the Spirit is not guiding us, is not leading us, we will not be able to walk according to uh his standards.
SPEAKER_01: Um and it's it's easier to to hide yourself um in in rules, in your own uh ideas than than um being being even religious ideas than um just uh experiencing the freedom of of his guidance, the spirit the the freedom of uh of not being uh taken uh slave of your own religion, and ending up ending up in in uh assuming that you can reach uh and having your own righteousness, because people end up in in um in such a thing.
SPEAKER_01: So the next thing is the conflict.
SPEAKER_01: The next thing is the conflict once or at the same time, while you start walking in the spirit, you obey this command, uh, there is a conflict, and and the the passage here says, uh the text says, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, and these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do.
SPEAKER_01: Um the life led by the Holy Spirit is a life of conflict because you are fighting the old ways of of um your your uh life, and um what what's what's happening here is this you are saved by Jesus, you are renewed by the Holy Spirit, the you are regenerated.
SPEAKER_01: Uh if there is anybody in Christ, um um it's a new creature, a new being, all things have uh gone, uh behold, all things have become new.
SPEAKER_01: So we are talking about something new, and the apostle Paul is very careful to not mix the two natures.
SPEAKER_01: In the believer, there's they are not not two natures.
SPEAKER_01: If if you carefully study, you will see that Paul is never using the word um the old nature related or the old man.
SPEAKER_01: The old man is gone, the old man is dead, the old man is replaced by the new man.
SPEAKER_01: He he's never bringing the old man into the new uh man's life.
SPEAKER_01: He only speaks about flesh, and and he this is the text, the the verse.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the verses, one of the references where he says, the desires of the flesh are against the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So what what is happening in the believer's life is that a redeemed, a redeemed, a redeemed part of humanity, or a redeemed part of the human being, is taking place, is in us.
SPEAKER_01: We are redeemed on one side, but on the other side, we this redeemed side of us has to live into an unredeemed uh self, into an unredeemed body.
SPEAKER_01: You are here and you are unredeemed, and you uh are also here redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but physically um this creates a conflict in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is is finding himself witnessing this about this conflict.
SPEAKER_01: He says, uh he says the following He says, For I know that nothing do nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh.
SPEAKER_01: For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
SPEAKER_01: For I do not do the good I want, but uh, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
SPEAKER_01: Can you believe that these are uh Paul's Paul's words?
SPEAKER_01: These are the greatest uh apostle uh that walk on earth uh words.
SPEAKER_01: He he speaks this.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, God used him in a mighty way, but he's using this his testimony to to encourage us.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, So I find I find it to be the law that when I want to do the right, evil lies close at hand.
SPEAKER_01: For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members, my members, it's another uh it's another expression that Paul is using in other passages too.
SPEAKER_01: I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
SPEAKER_01: Wretched me that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death, who will deliver me from this decaying body, from his um um dying body, and then he explodes in uh in a in a joyful, uh, thankful uh word.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So then I I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Not desiring to do that, of course.
SPEAKER_01: But he expresses it as a reality.
SPEAKER_01: This is what what is happening to me, and then this is of course at the end of chapter 7 in Romans, and then you will, if you read your Bible in Romans 8, you will find the greatest text in the Bible about the Holy the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The chapter 8 in Romans in Romans is the greatest condensed text on the Holy Spirit, because uh Paul, um inspired by the Holy Spirit, is trying to say, Hey, your your escape, your salvation is in the Holy Spirit, your solution to the problem is the Holy Spirit, because nothing good dwells in you.
SPEAKER_01: If we are left on ourselves without the Holy Spirit, nothing good can come out of us.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is acknowledging this, and he he's careful when he is using this word from Greek sarks, which means flesh, flesh, that refers to the moral uh weaknesses and the spiritual weaknesses, um the unhelpful, the weak nature, uh, human nature that is clinging to uh the redeemed, to the redeemed soul.
SPEAKER_01: You you experience this conflict.
SPEAKER_01: The flesh of the believer is inclined to sin.
SPEAKER_01: This flesh is defined by the tendency that you have in yourself to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's part of human your human being that uh experienced the fall and that was passed on generation by generation to us all.
SPEAKER_01: We are all declared f fallen people.
SPEAKER_01: If we accept it or not, if we interpret it uh as allegoric in Genesis or not, we still see this fallenness in into ourselves, into our members.
SPEAKER_01: Even after we came to the Lord, even after we after we accepted salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Flesh, the flesh is that part in the believer that functions separately from the believer and against the uh separately from from the Holy Spirit and against the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: This is the flesh that stands against the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer.
SPEAKER_01: And and listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: The it's a great indicator here for us that consider ourselves saved by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: This is a great indicator that you are saved, and that is the fact that you are experiencing a conflict this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to know that you are a believer, if you want to test yourself, one of the tests is the conflict.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a conflict in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Of course, a moment ago the test was do you walk in the spirit?
SPEAKER_01: Did you stop?
SPEAKER_01: Continuing to the end is is the sign that you are saved.
SPEAKER_01: Um is the test that you are saved.
SPEAKER_01: Uh experiencing a daily conflict in your spiritual life is experiencing this spiritual battle is a sign that you are saved.
SPEAKER_01: If a person doesn't have any any remorse feelings, if a person doesn't have any any battles, any conflicts, um, this person might not be might not have been saved.
SPEAKER_01: Um and this is the difference between the believer and non-believer.
SPEAKER_01: A non-believer, of course, I said doesn't have this spiritual conflict, and all all the experiences some some feelings of guilt and uh and some fear of of the of the consequences, of the painful consequences.
SPEAKER_01: People in the world, people that are not saved, when they when they dwell in their sin, in certain degrees of sinning, people experience a kind of remorse, a kind of a kind of uh sadness, a kind of guilt, uh and a kind of fear of consequences.
SPEAKER_01: But that's it.
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's not a spiritual conflict, it's not something that has to do with the person of God, it's not something that that is related to their uh spiritual nature, and only the Holy Spirit can help us fight the flesh, because only the Holy Spirit lives in the believers, because only the believers can call God Ava through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's what Paul says in Romans uh and in other passages too in Galatians.
SPEAKER_01: Um the Holy Spirit is always is always um trying to stop the the tendencies of the flesh, and the flesh is always trying to put down the will that the Holy Spirit is trying to activate in your life and trying to use uh so that uh his the perfect will of the of God can be accomplished.
SPEAKER_01: Um so it's a big conflict, it's a it's a frustrating conflict, it's um it's a war.
SPEAKER_01: But we are here this morning to to be reminded that the Christian life can experience victory in in Jesus, amen.
SPEAKER_01: We can be victorious in this in this um um context, in these circumstances, uh right in the middle of the conflict.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you are this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know uh what um from what context or what circumstances you you ended up in in the meeting here.
SPEAKER_01: Um what conflicts did you have only today, only from the moment when you woke up to to this moment.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe right now in your mind is is is battling um uh the flesh with the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord knows exactly where you are, and uh the children of God, the servants of Christ, the believers, uh have the obligation to not live by the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And uh they have the the duty to mortify, to starve the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And to this is actually the the key in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: The key to win the battle in this conflict is to to try to starve the to mortify, to put to death all these tendencies in the Christian life based on the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the most secure way to do that is to stay away of the the influences of the temptations.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, temptations are are coming uh every day, they're flooding us.
SPEAKER_01: Um the most secure way to fall into sin, the most sure way that you will fall into sin is is that you will allow yourself to be in situations in which temptations uh will lead you in that sin uh to which you are vulnerable.
SPEAKER_01: On another side, the most secure the most secure way to avoid avoid sin is to avoid the situations in which you are tempted.
SPEAKER_01: So those things that lead to death are immorality, uncleanness, all sorts of um uh desires that are evil, uh greediness and and idolatry and other things.
SPEAKER_01: So all of these things need to be avoided, to be avoided.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot you cannot say, Lord help me to not become an alcoholic while you keep your glass in your hand.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot say, Lord, help me to not fall into adultery while you while you find yourself into uh situations with with women or in other contexts.
SPEAKER_01: So you cannot say, Lord, help me not lose my time, uh, that is so precious when when uh we are all the time on Twitter, Facebook, and other other uh ways uh uh in which we lose we lose time.
SPEAKER_01: Um so a believer that is not active to go against the evil uh desires uh will not be guided by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: A believer is is defined as uh as a warrior, as a fighter, as a soldier, is not defined as a spectator.
SPEAKER_01: We are not spectators, we are fighters, we are going.
SPEAKER_01: We we were talking uh on the way from uh college station yesterday, uh where American Airlines put us um uh on final destination.
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh Pastor Neil uh brought us, uh picked us up, me and my wife from college station, and we were talking on the way here uh about uh the idea of serving in church.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, churches have various programs for service, but every believer is very alert in his mind to to be able to serve, to to be willing to serve.
SPEAKER_01: Every believer is experiencing the service, the the gift of serving others, not necessarily being constrained by a church program.
SPEAKER_01: You do this, you do that.
SPEAKER_01: Um but it comes from within.
SPEAKER_01: You're not a spectator.
SPEAKER_01: This is just an example.
SPEAKER_01: You you you are willing to do God's will.
SPEAKER_01: Um even um even if some people will will not show you how to do it, a believer will not be able to accomplish anything for the Lord in his own strength, but on the other side, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit Spirit will not be able to accomplish a lot through uh a believer that is not committed, that is not surrendered.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not that God does everything and and uh uh I'm not doing anything or I'm doing everything and uh the Lord is just uh watching me and applauding me.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's it's a mutual work.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is um giving us the ability to to exercise uh this power and to go uh against the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to this one of the final uh one of the final references that I have here from 2 Peter 1.
SPEAKER_01: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
SPEAKER_01: Peter is aware of the same issues, of the same things that the Christian is uh is battling, is is going against.
SPEAKER_01: And he is says, the Lord has provided everything for us to to win the battle.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord has given us his spirit, the Lord has poured his life.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 5, 5.
SPEAKER_01: It came like like a like a flood.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the verse there, the verb there uh was poured is is the verb that expresses a flood that comes, his love came into our lives uh in a great powerful way, and and it has to be uh evident, it has to be seen in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm closing with this verse 18 from from my passage from our passage this morning that says, Um, but if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.
SPEAKER_01: If you're led by the spirit, you are not under the law.
SPEAKER_01: To live under the law means to live in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to uh specify a few things, I want to be specific about a few things about my country.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Romania is I don't want to diminish our country, I wanna I want to emphasize good things about my country, uh, but regarding the spiritual side, people are hungry and they fell prey into the false teachers' uh ideas like everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: And um we are almost a spring, a powerful spring of of legalism, of religiosity.
SPEAKER_01: And um from an early age, kids think that they have to work their salvation uh through good works, through worshiping uh in a certain style, through uh dressing in a certain way, through uh observing uh so many, so many uh holidays uh that are with red in calendar, which means they are super important.
SPEAKER_01: And um all all work is seized in those those moments in the in the countryside.
SPEAKER_01: People don't work, people watch each other, people put pressure on on each other to not to condemn each other, to say, oh you're sinful if you work during this day.
SPEAKER_01: Um these things are happening under our own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: People are are bragging about their religion, and um and they they try, and we understand watching from watching through the lenses that that the gospel is giving us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We are we are looking to to people like Romanians that are considered one of the most one of the most religious people on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Very hard work there.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's I have a friend that uh came visited 120 countries and he came to Romania and he said, This place is tough, this place is hard.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and he came about 30 times to Romania in the last 14 years, and he teaches the pastors there uh in uh in a seminary class.
SPEAKER_01: And uh the flesh is is incapable to fulfill the law, but that people still live under this illusion, tricked by the false teachers.
SPEAKER_01: You can do it, just throw the money, just throw money and and we'll make it to the end.
SPEAKER_01: And even even after the end of your life, we'll make it, we'll we'll find a way, we'll find a system to help you go through I don't know, the other the other side.
SPEAKER_01: And people are caught into this.
SPEAKER_01: And we are we are praying for Romania, we are praying for people that that believed that that fell prey to this idea that the flesh, the religious, the the flesh dressed into religious clothes, garments, uh, can fulfill the law.
SPEAKER_01: And God is trying to completely destroy this idea.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about you, it's not through you, it's not for you, it's it's for my glory, it's through through me, through my son.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, for your benefit, for your eternal benefit, uh we will uh inherit eternal life through Christ, but not based on what we accomplish, but based on the work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The law is incapable to win against the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: That's the spring of such an impoverishing, such a such a burdening religion that uh many people live under today.
SPEAKER_01: While we are here to experience the freedom, while we are here to be declared, to be declared by God um sons, not slaves, sons of grace, sons of freedom, sons of God, to be declared uh winners against the flesh, even if the battle is tough, we'll make it.
SPEAKER_01: Because we have the Holy Spirit in us, amen.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit of God is in us.
SPEAKER_01: The more a person is closer to Christ, the the closer and the better that person will be guided by the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's bow before God and let's let's thank Him for this incredible, precious resource, divine, divine resource we have from God.
SPEAKER_01: God Himself decided to come into our lives, weak vessels, imperfect people, unredeemed completely, physically.
SPEAKER_01: We are waiting, we are longing for that moment.
SPEAKER_01: We are longing for the Lord to come and to establish his kingdom completely, in which we will enjoy you forever, Father.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for this glimpse of heaven in this place.
SPEAKER_01: I know there are battles right here in our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you will grant us victory because of your spirit, because of your guidance, because of your love.
SPEAKER_01: You are not here to judge us, you're here to empower us, you're here to correct us and to lead us on the way of freedom, of victory.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to continue as victims of our own.
SPEAKER_01: We want to continue as victorious people of heaven with uh with a divine perspective, with an eternal perspective.
SPEAKER_01: Please forgive us for our limited um horizont that we embraced and we served.
SPEAKER_01: Um I pray that you will continue to guide this church in a wonderful way.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that your spirit would fill each life, would control, would come in a powerful way through the teaching of Pastor Neil, through the teaching of other other pastors here, through the work that is done through each believer in in Sugarland.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy, Father, to see this seats full, to see all these cars coming in every on and on and wanting to worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's your work, Father.
SPEAKER_01: It's not religion.
SPEAKER_01: We we praise you, we love you in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's all stand, lift our hands before God.
SPEAKER_01: Grand Parkway Church.
SPEAKER_01: Be blessed by God with the freedom of walking in the spirit, of walking against the flesh, of experiencing the joy of freedom and uh the joy of uh victory day by day from now on until we see each other again.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.