Turning Point

Announcer: Walking in the Spirit doesn't mean never having setbacks. It means not letting those setbacks impede your progress. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah offers biblical strategies and practical tools for quickly and decisively dealing with sin on your Christian walk. If that's been an area of concern for you, keep listening as David introduces the conclusion of his message, Walking in the Spirit.

David Jeremiah: And thank you for joining us today. We're happy to have you for this weekend edition, sort of the end of the week and the beginning of the weekend. We are involved in a discussion on the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. And today we're going to finish up what we started yesterday as we discuss what it means to walk in the Spirit. That is a biblical command, but what does it mean and how does it work? We'll examine it again in just a few moments as we open our Bibles together.

Next week we're going to talk about the fruit of the Spirit, the work of the Spirit, and the gifts of the Spirit. We have much more to learn as we open the Bible and examine what it has to say about the Holy Spirit of God. During this month, we are making available a very special resource on the Holy Spirit. If the things we are saying are resonating with you, you may want to have them in writing, and we have made that possible with this book we would love to send you.

It's the third book in the trilogy of God books. We have a book called The God You May Not Know, we have another one called The Jesus You May Not Know, and this one called The Holy Spirit You May Not Know, introducing you to the Trinity in these biblical discussions. You may have your copy of this third member of the trilogy, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know. It's yours for the asking for a gift of any size during the month of June.

And ladies and gentlemen, this is an important month for us because it's the last month in our fiscal year. We total everything up at the end of this month and make our decisions for the year that is before us. Many opportunities await us. We need to have the full support of everyone who helps us. So if you haven't given your gift yet this month or if you've been thinking about doing something special for Turning Point, this is a good time to do it. It will help us so much as we end the month of June together. And be sure to ask for your copy of the book when you send your gift. Here is part of Walking in the Spirit.

The flesh can have great power over us. You don't lose your flesh when Christ comes to live within you, and that's a strategy that we need to remember. When you become a Christian, your old nature doesn't go away. Can I get a witness? Listen to these words: "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not able to do whatever you want." How many of you have ever thought, "Why can't I do what I know I'm supposed to do?" Because you're in a battle with the flesh. You're in a battle with the old nature.

And what Paul is saying is that there is a war going on within us, flesh against the Spirit. This is more than a matter of human willpower. I'm reminded of the story of the old farmer who was once seen wrestling with a stubborn mule. Someone finally yelled out, "Sam, where's your willpower?" And he wiped his brow and replied, "My willpower's fine, this mule's won't-power is the problem." Sometimes people ask me, "Why is the flesh so stubborn? Why does the flesh, self, the old you, why does it still have such power in your life?" I'd like to explore that for just a minute with you.

I remember the first time I realized this and how it made so much sense to me. First of all, physical age versus spiritual age. If you got saved at the age of 30, your flesh had a 30-year head start on the Spirit. If you got saved at 70, your flesh had a 70-year head start on the Holy Spirit's reign in your life. Why is the battle so hard? Because the flesh was running before the Spirit ever showed up. And sometimes those habits and those things which you did before you became a Christian reappear.

Before you were saved, you formed habits and reactions and thought patterns that cut deep grooves in your heart. Becoming a Christian doesn't instantly erase those ruts. The Bible says old things pass away and behold all things are becoming new, but they don't become new immediately. You don't immediately, when you become a Christian, realize that you never had any problems in the past. You know you had problems. There are parts of the American West where you can still see wagon tracks from the Oregon Trail. No wagons have passed there in over a century, but the grooves are still etched in the ground.

It's the same with old patterns of sin. We may have turned in a new direction, but the old tracks remain. And if we are not careful, our wheels slide right back into those paths. You may have gone places, practiced habits, seen things before Christ that you now reject. Yet the memories linger. You might be in worship when an old image or an old craving suddenly flashes into your mind. That's the flesh and the enemy trying to pull you back into familiar ruts.

There's another reason we struggle and can wonder why the struggle is so strong, and that's the influence of our culture. Let me ask you a question: What message does our culture promote today? The Spirit or the flesh? It's no contest. Growing spiritually doesn't come easy; it takes effort. Take Sunday morning as an example. It takes effort to join your local community for worship. You set the alarm, drag yourself out of bed, get the kids ready, drive across town, find a parking spot, and finally sit down, hoping to hear from God's Spirit. That takes work.

But the flesh, that is effortless. You don't have to plan for it or put it on your calendar. The moment you flip on the TV or unlock your phone, it's there, parading itself, calling for your attention, trying to shape the way you think and the way you feel. It hardly seems fair, does it? What takes discipline to build can be undone with hardly any effort at all. As believers, we're pulled in every direction. We know that. We want a life dominated by the Spirit, but the enticements of the flesh surround us.

Soon we feel guilty and defeated and confused. "It must be me," we think. "I must be doing something wrong. Something must be wrong inside of me." If we don't understand the nature of that struggle, it's easy to grow discouraged and think there's no hope. But there is an answer, and it begins with recognizing that the battle is real. If you are not having any inward struggle in your life, the probability is you don't have a new nature. Maybe the old nature's just very comfortable that you're doing what you've always done and everything is cool. But insert the new nature and World War III can start before you know it.

Then there's the incompatibility of our lifestyle with the world's; that's the third thing. Another reason we feel the pull of the flesh is simple: The moment you come to Christ, you're no longer in step with the world. Your direction changes, your values shift. The current that once carried you now runs against you, and that's not a flaw, it's evidence that you've been made new. We have watched this happen in our culture visually in these last weeks and months as we've seen the battle between good and evil, the battle between Christians and those who don't know Christ, and the actual hatred, vitriol hatred for Christian people.

Why is that happening? That's a satanic thing that goes on. When you become a Christian, you become a target. Some of you know that because it's happened where you work or in your neighborhood or among your family members. Christianity can be a uniter, but often it's a divider between people who know Christ and people who don't know Him. A.W. Tozer once described the Christian life like this: "A true Christian is a very unusual person. He loves someone he's never seen and speaks daily with someone he cannot see. He expects heaven because of another's merit. He empties himself to be filled and admits he is wrong in order to be made right."

"He goes down to rise up and is strongest when he is weakest. He gives to keep, he dies to live, he sees and knows what others say is impossible." The Christian life doesn't really fit with the world around us. Isn't that true? If you're a Christian, in essence, you're in a minority. We do not live in a Christian world, and we do not live in a Christian nation as much as that likes to be said. Our nation may have been founded on Christian principles, but it has long since left that path. We are a godless nation, and if you're a Christian, you walk in the midst of that environment and you wonder why it's hard, why it's difficult, why it's impossible.

If you do not have the Holy Spirit helping you, you're just a target. The Christian life really doesn't fit with the world, and we're different because of Jesus, and that's a good thing. I'm not saying we should hide from people or act strange. Christ changes what we love and how we live. When you become a Christian, you set yourself over here. It doesn't mean you don't have fellowship with those who don't know Christ, but you are different. If you can be a Christian and not be different, I don't know what Christianity is.

The Bible says when Christ comes to live within you, He changes you from the inside out. He gives you new desires, new hopes, new habits, new things to do and some things not to do. It's amazing to me that I haven't preached on some things in a long time and somebody who's just become a Christian will come and say, "You know, Dr. Jeremiah, since I got saved, I don't do this anymore, I don't do this anymore, I don't go here anymore, I don't do that anymore." And I wonder, how in the world did you ever find out you shouldn't do those things? I haven't preached on any of those.

And then I realize they have the best preacher going in the Holy Spirit. When you become a Christian, how many of you noticed the Holy Spirit makes you uncomfortable with some of the things you used to do? He's making you uniquely different from the world in which you live. Now, if you want a good picture of what it's like to walk in the flesh, all you have to do is read the fifth chapter of Galatians because it gives you a large-screen, full-color picture of what the flesh is like. And it isn't pretty.

Galatians 5:19 through 21 says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like." It's kind of like a little sketch of life without God. That's what life is like when God isn't present. Here's life; take God out of life and this is what you get, this list of practices.

Does that convince you that we need help? The Christian life demands more than our willpower. The enemy never quits; the flesh resists at every turn. Left to ourselves, we unravel. But that's not the whole story because the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead now lives in us so that day by day, step by step, we can overcome the flesh and walk in newness of life. Hallelujah for that truth. When I first started in the ministry back in Fort Wayne, Bill Bright, who was the founder of Campus Crusade, often used a word picture about walking in the Spirit, and it has stayed with me for years.

In fact, there's a little tract you can get that outlines this in a very picturesque way. It goes something like this: If you ask the Spirit of God to control your life, He does, and life is better than it has ever been before. You experience joy and a perspective in your days that is beyond anything you've ever encountered before. Along the way, sin re-enters the picture. It's like a black ink splotch on a white piece of linen writing paper. You do something that grieves or quenches this wonderful Holy Spirit who has been given to you.

In a sense, you push Him off the throne of your life and allow the old flesh nature back in control. What do you experience then? You experience discouragement and sadness. I've said many times over the years a backslidden Christian is more unhappy than any non-Christian could ever be because non-Christians don't know the joy of fellowship with God. If you've known it and you don't take care of it and you allow sin to re-enter and push its way back into your life, you have a misery that is unparalleled because you remember what it was like when you were in fellowship with God and now you're not.

That's why David prayed, "Lord, restore unto me the joy of my salvation." He didn't say, "Restore my salvation." That was never in doubt. But the joy of his salvation was gone. For some of you here today, that's true. You're a Christian, you know you're a Christian, you're on your way to heaven, but the joy of salvation has been pushed to the sideline because the old flesh has gotten back in control. So Bill Bright said when that happens, when you find that going on in your life, you have to practice what he called spiritual breathing.

Think of normal physical breathing. What does it involve? Just two things really: inhaling fresh air and exhaling bad air. It's what we do all day long, all night long. I can guarantee that if you're hearing these words right now, you are engaged in the business of inhaling and exhaling. Spiritual breathing is a similar process. It is exhaling impure and inhaling pure. It is rejecting the bad and embracing the good. It works like this: When you become aware of sin in your life, you deal with it at that very, very moment.

Wherever you are, in the car, at home, at the office. Let's say you just screamed at one of your kids. Maybe they pushed every button you have and a few you didn't even know existed. But you're supposed to be living in the Spirit, right? What do you do when you become aware of your sin? Well, you could spend the rest of the day justifying what you've done. After all, you've worked and slaved for those kids and they ought to show a little more appreciation and respect, right? But in your heart, you know better.

In your heart, you know you've sinned. You know that you have grieved the Holy Spirit and He's made you aware of this sin, and He wants you to immediately confess it and seek forgiveness. That's why we have 1 John 1:9 in our Bibles. Many people are surprised to find out that 1 John 1:9 was written to Christians. Here's what it says: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." You say, "Lord, I agree with You that what I just did was sin. I ask that You would forgive me for that sin." What have you done? You have just exhaled the impurity in your heart. You've just moved the bad air out.

Then you say, "Lord, I don't want to live like this. I want You to come and continue to control my life. I want You to be the one who guides me in all of this. Please fill me again with Your Holy Spirit." That's inhaling. You exhale the bad by confession. And notice what 1 John 1:9 says. It says, "If we confess our sins," this is not the sin nature, this is the activity of sin—sins, s-i-n-s. "If we confess our sins," if we confess the things that we do when we sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

Now watch the last paragraph because the last little sentence often gets omitted: "And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." What that means is if you confess the sin you know about, God not only forgives that, but He forgives all the unknown sins that you have too. He not only forgives the sin you confess, but He cleanses you from all unrighteousness. He makes you clean from the inside out. So the greatest thing you can do when sin is plaguing you and bugging you and following you, trying to trap you, as soon as you know you've sinned, confess it.

Ask God to forgive it. If you're like me, you're going to have some cases where you say, "Lord, I'm sorry, but it's me again, and it's that again. Lord, please forgive me of that. I know that's a sin, I know that's wrong. Fill me with Your Spirit." I believe this with all my heart. Some of you are going to say, "Well, if I did that, pastor, every time I sin, I'm going to be in prayer all day long, just one prayer after another." And that may be true, but let it happen. And what you'll discover is the more you do it and the more you experience it, the fewer times you'll have to do it and the less times it will happen.

In fact, you may discover that you can live a whole day in the power of the Holy Spirit without having to exercise spiritual breathing. But if you allow sin to remain in your heart and you stop seeking the filling of the Spirit, you will wake up one day to discover you've been walking in the flesh for a long, long time. And my friends, that is a terribly dangerous and sad and sorrowful way to live your life. I once read about two young women who died in a fire that swept through their apartment as they were sleeping.

Investigators determined the smoke detector had been deliberately disconnected for a party the night before. Someone had pulled the plug so it would not shrivel while food was cooking, and they forgot to reconnect it. And with no warning, the fire claimed two lives. In the same way, when we quench the Spirit's voice and keep walking in the flesh, we put ourselves in danger. The Spirit may be warning us, but we no longer hear him. You know Christians can live that way for years, refusing to deal with sin and to reappropriate the Spirit's fullness.

That's why Ephesians 5:18 tells us in the present tense to keep on being filled with the Spirit. It's not a one-time deal. For many of us, it's every day, many times a day. And you know, it's exciting to walk in the Spirit. You sense you are a work in progress, reshaped from within. You grow sensitive to His voice, more careful about the things you do. The interruption of sin feels so miserable you want it to be gone right away, so you confess it. You erase it through the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. In short, the Holy Spirit leaves His mark, and what is that mark? It's holiness.

Have you ever watched race-walking? I started with a story about a little child walking. I want to end with a story about race-walking. I remember the first time I saw it. I thought how weird it looks. It's surely funny. The hips sway, the arms pump, and it seems like someone is trying to walk fast enough to run, but they're not allowed to run so they have to walk fast. Yet behind that awkward stride is one of the most demanding sports in the Olympics. It takes precision, endurance, and rhythm.

No one knows that better than Evan Dunfee from Richmond, British Columbia. In the 2016 Olympics, he walked 31 miles in 3 hours and 41 minutes, faster than most people could run that far. The secret to race-walking is rhythm. To stay consistent, athletes like Evan train for years with a metronome or keeping timer to master their pace. During the race, Evan took about 200 steps a minute. That's three every second for almost four hours straight. Step after step, stride after stride, he stayed in perfect sync.

I'd like to leave you with that picture. Walking in the Spirit means letting the Holy Spirit set the pace. Let Him be the metronome in your life and just keep walking. Notice this is not jogging in the Spirit. This is not running in the Spirit. It's not ambling in the Spirit; it's walking in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit, one step after another, keeping constant vigilance over your life. And don't get long interruptions because of sin because you now know what to do with that. You confess it immediately and ask for God's forgiveness.

Exhale the sin, inhale the fullness of the Spirit of God, and keep on walking. "Walk in the Spirit," says the Scripture, "and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh." That's a very interesting concept. Let me remind you of that when we close. Sometimes we think, "If I'm struggling with a sin, I need to concentrate on not doing that sin." How many of you know, let's say you're trying to lose weight and you know you shouldn't eat this particular kind of food because it's inhibiting your progress. And so you say to yourself, "I'm not going to eat it, I'm not going to eat it, I am not going to eat those donuts."

And the more you say you're not going to do it, the more the image of the donut becomes prominent in your mind, and the next thing you know, you're scarfing down half a box of them. You don't break bad habits that way. You break bad habits by replacing them with good habits. And the same is true in the spiritual realm. You don't break the control of sin over your life by determining in your heart not to sin again. You break that habit by imputing the ministry of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit in your life. You overwhelm the bad habit with a habit of the Spirit.

And when you do that, you can have victory. Oh, you'll have some setbacks, but now you know what to do. Here's the good news: Nothing you ever do that's wrong needs to last more than a few minutes. You don't have to wait to come to church on Sunday and confess it. You don't have to wait to be in your small group to confess it. When you realize that you have dishonored the Lord or you've done something that you know doesn't please Him, what you do is immediately you confess it to the Lord and ask Him to forgive you.

And if you have to do that a lot these first days when you practice this, don't get upset over that. Just keep doing it and keep doing it, and all of a sudden one day you'll discover God has made you so sensitive to these things that you don't want to have to come to Him again with it because you've already come to Him so many times, and so you don't do it anymore. That's the power of walking in the Spirit. And I wanted to say this all to all of us today because we want to be God's people, we want to walk in the Spirit, we want to do the things God has called us to do, and here's the formula right from the Scripture to help us do that.

You know, the Bible doesn't say we're to shuffle, we're not to run, we're to walk. One step at a time with the Holy Spirit. And it wouldn't be commanded of us if we were not capable of doing it. So my encouragement to all of us is let's practice walking in the Spirit.

The Bible has a lot to say about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5, and we're going to spend two days on that subject as we begin the next week together. I hope you'll be with us then. In the meantime, as we face the weekend, let me encourage you to get to church, be a blessing to the people in church, and go with a word of encouragement and be a blessing to your pastor. Be sure to look for us on television over the weekend because we're where you are somewhere. You can find us, we're on your dish, we're on your cable, we're there for you, and you can join us, usually not while you should be in church. Hopefully make church a priority, and we'll see you right here on Monday.

David Michael Jeremiah: The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Senior Pastor Dr. David Jeremiah. Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where you can find it, visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know, a valuable resource that's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Let us know how God is using this ministry by dropping us a note to Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue The Holy Spirit You May Not Know on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.