Holy Spirit: How Do We Live In the Holy Spirit?

Good morning, Church. It's good to be with you. I want to tell you a story. So back in 2023, my family and I had an incredible opportunity to travel to England. And because of videos and pictures that I had seen of the southern and south southwestern coast of England, I really wanted to take a road trip through southern and western England, down the coastline.

Turns out there's one problem. In order to take a road trip in England, you have to drive on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. Now, I know that our British friends would say that we drive on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road, but there are many more of us than there are of them, and we won the war. So America now, everything in me, every instinct, every bit of muscle memory has been trained for completely a completely different system. For 25 years of driving, I drove on the left side of the car, on the right side of the road, and now everything's backwards.

The turn signal's on the wrong side. Every turn feels like a sick game of chicken. And I just keep saying out loud, stay left, stay left, stay left, stay left, stay left, stay left. Heidi's navigating from what should be the driver's side of the car. The kids are sitting three wide in the backseat because Europeans have never heard of a third row.

And the kids are commentating the whole thing like a really obnoxious sports announcer.

And because my brain is doing mental gymnastics, there's one rule. No one can talk. So just about the time that things start to settle down and I get a little bit of confidence, we approach the first of 7,000 roundabouts. And they're not like nice American roundabouts. These things are chaos circles.

I mean, they have, like multiple layers, eight exits. There are arrows painted on the road. I have no idea what they mean. And everyone's using a turn signal in a circle.

And the kids are afraid for their lives, of course, and they're doing a terrible job of following the one rule that we've given them. Heidi's watching the GPS so that I can keep my eyes on the road, and she's trying to tell me when to exit this roundabout. And she's not that one. No, not that one, not this one. You're in the wrong lane.

Watch for the truck. You know, it's panic. So I finally decode how they're all using their turn signals, and I go to signal, and all I get is windshield wipers across a bone dry windshield. I should just have a giant sign down the side of the car that says American Driver. And so we exit the roundabout still alive.

And after a couple of days, I start to get the hang of this. But every time I get in the driver's seat, I have to reorient my brain. I need as little distraction as possible and having a co pilot is absolutely necessary. Thankfully, I only pulled into oncoming traffic once. Anyways, in our series on the Holy Spirit today, we asked this question, how do we walk in the Spirit?

And before we even start to answer that question, we've got to understand what's at play here. According to the Bible, there are only two ways to live. We can walk in the spirit or we can walk in the flesh. And Scripture tells us that every single one of us has already been trained in one of those directions to walk in the flesh. A system that's completely opposite of walking in the Spirit.

Here's how Ephesians 2:1,3 says it. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the Spirit, who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. This is how the message paraphrase puts this. It says, it wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.

You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it. All of us doing what we felt like doing when we felt like doing it. All of us in the same boat.

All of us. Paul says this isn't a some people problem. This is the human condition. All of us are born with the innate desire to drive on the wrong side of the road, to do whatever we want. Spend four minutes with a toddler and tell me I'm wrong.

We're almost programmed, it seems, to simply do what feels most natural to us. But this is a huge deal. Not just because it's breaking the rules and we might get in an accident or we might get a ticket. Paul says, here's the result of walking in the flesh. Romans 8, 6, 8.

The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law. Nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

Walking in the flesh isn't neutral. It leads to death. It's not just imperfect, it's actually hostile toward God. He says it's not even capable of submitting to God. Here's how Paul says this plays out in real life.

Galatians 5:19 the acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft. Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. That's just a and so on and so on and so on. It's all the things that we feel like doing.

I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Paul says walking in the flesh actually keeps us from what Jesus told us to seek above every other thing. Jesus said, above all else, seek first the kingdom. Paul says that those who walk in the flesh will not inherit the kingdom. But the promise of Scripture is also that through the blood of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be set free from the bondage of sin and death and given new freedom and power to work against everything that's natural to us.

Walk in the Spirit Romans 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death. And we might read that and we might be tempted to think, well, once we're walking in the Spirit, then we will never again desire to walk in the flesh. Man, I wish that was true. This new freedom.

Don't miss this. This new freedom and power do not make us walk in the Spirit. They empower us to walk in the Spirit. And even with this new freedom, we still feel the pull of the old way. Those old instincts driving inside of us don't disappear overnight.

There's still something in us that keeps trying to drift back to doing whatever we want to do, gratifying the flesh, giving in to do what feels most natural to us. But Paul opens Galatians 5 with these words. He says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. How do we become burdened again by a yoke of slavery?

Paul says we let ourselves. Instead, he says, do not let yourselves go back to your old ways. But how, Paul verse 16 so I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 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 to do whatever you want.

This sounds really familiar to some words that we heard Jesus say back in the Book of Mark. He said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. The short answer to how do we walk in the Spirit Is stop doing what you want to do, Deny yourself. In fact, kill, crucify your old self and start doing what the Spirit wants you to do. And what does that look like?

Well, right after this, right after his list of the acts of the flesh, Paul gives us another list. This is the list of the fruit of the Spirit. Acts are chosen, fruit grows. This is the opposite of the acts of the flesh. Galatians 5:22.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, or patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law. In other words, you don't have to make laws against these things because no one just naturally wants to do them. And then he reiterates Jesus call to anyone who wants to be his disciples in these next two verses. Verse 24, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passion, passions and desires.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. So imagine this whole thing as a giant pendulum. As the pendulum swings all the way to this one side, it's the deplorable acts of the flesh. The stuff that says Paul says is obvious. And then the pendulum swings back the other way.

And instead of living like this, we're supposed to crucify ourselves, deny ourselves, and walk in the Spirit. Seems logical, right? But what a lot of Christians don't notice is that the pendulum can swing too far the other way too. The very next verse, this is what it said, says, let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Wait, what?

I get the fruit of the Spirit. I get the deny the self thing. How do we get from love, joy, peace to conceited and provoking? Well, this is another time that that old proverb, there are two miles of ditch for every mile of road comes into play. The road in the middle is walking in the Spirit.

The ditch on the left is walking in the flesh by giving in to all of our sinful desires. But there's another ditch on the Right. It's the ditch that is much prettier. And Christians fall into and don't even notice it. It's the ditch of self righteousness.

We can do spiritual looking good things in the flesh too. It looks like obedience without love. It looks like discipline without humility. It looks like serving and giving so that people will notice. It looks like doing the right things, but being driven by comparison, control and pride.

And all of a sudden, the same flesh that once pulled us towards these obvious sins is now pulling us towards subtle pride. The direction changed, but the driver is the same. It's us, it's self. We can clean up our behavior and still be completely controlled by self. That's walking in the flesh too.

Jesus confronted this exact thing. The people who looked the most righteous on the outside were often some of the dirtiest people on the inside. They followed the rules, but their hearts were full of pride and comparison and judgment. So here's the danger. We can leave this ditch of rebellion and fall into the ditch of religion and still miss that narrow road of walking in the spirit.

Ultimately, walking in the spirit is not about becoming a better version of ourselves. It's about surrendering control of our lives to him. And if we're going to walk in the spirit, we've got to learn how to stay on this narrow road out of both sides, out of both ditches, where it's no longer self leading the way, but the spirit leading the way. But here's what most of us actually do. We get out on that road determined to stay in the middle by sheer willpower.

And somehow we still end up in our favorite ditch. And most of the time we don't even notice until our wheels are off the road.

Here's the cycle. We try really hard. We get exhausted from trying. We lose our focus. We drift.

We end up in the ditch. Sometimes we sit there for a little while, sometimes we enjoy it for a little while. Then the shame kicks in. And then we beat ourselves up. We call for help.

We get pulled out of the ditch, we get back on the road and we promise ourselves this time will be different. And then we do it again. Again and again. Anyone else?

That cycle isn't walking in the spirit. That's just trying to manage good behavior in the flesh. And if that's the approach, then the only time we correct is when we're already in the ditch. But what if we didn't have to wait until we're in the ditch to realize that we've been drifting? What if we could actually recognize it earlier?

While we're still on the road, one of our cars has a great safety feature that I especially love, having young drivers in my house. It's called Lane keep assist. Lane keep assist. It watches the road, and when you start to veer from your lane, it beeps at you and sometimes it gently nudges you back into the lane. All the control freaks hate it.

If we're going to walk in the spirit, we're going to have to learn to recognize the warning signs that we're getting off track. So here are some key signs that we're not walking in the spirit. The things that should serve as that little beeping sound, that little nudge that we're getting off course. First, love for God and love for others starts to fade. When Jesus was asked, what's the greatest commandment?

He said, love for God and love for others. Interestingly, in the verses right before Paul lists the acts of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, here's what he says. He says, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. Do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly in love.

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. So how do we know that it's beginning to fade? We stop talking to God unless we need something. Time in the Word starts to feel optional instead of essential.

Worship becomes something that we attend rather than something that flows out of us.

Our affection for God doesn't usually disappear overnight. It just slowly cools, doesn't it? What once stirred in us now feels flat. And at the same time, our posture towards people starts to shift too. We become more easily irritated, less patient, more critical.

We assume the worst instead of the best. We start keeping score. Conversations become arguments to win instead of a person to love in front of us. And we withdraw from opportunities to be around people and serve because it feels inconvenient. Or we might be around people, but we're not really for them, we're for ourselves.

Walking in the spirit, though, always moves toward love. A growing, active, God centered, others focused love that reflects the heart of Jesus. And if that's fading or missing, it's a warning sign. Second, sin becomes easier to justify and harder to confess. Things we used to wrestle with, we now make excuses for.

We rename sin to make it more comfortable. We say things like that's just how I am, or it's not that big of a deal, or at least I'm not as bad as and insert your least favorite person. And instead of bringing things into the light. We just keep them in hidden. Confession slows down, conviction gets really quiet, and compromise is the way.

When we're walking in the Spirit, there's a sensitivity to sin. His presence in our life shows us this sin. The Spirit convicts and nudges and redirects. But when we're not walking in the Spirit, we deny the conviction and we avoid confession. Third, this is a huge one.

This is a huge one. Do not miss this. Peace fades and anxiety and pressure grow when we're walking in the Spirit. It comes with a kind of steady peace, not because everything's easy, but because we know we're not carrying everything. We're seeking him, listening, depending.

There's a groundedness that holds even when life gets messy. But when we begin to drift, when we're walking in our own strength, that peace fades. And in its place, anxiety and pressure start to grow because we're depending on ourselves rather than him. Man, this is a easy sign for me. The second I start to feel anxious and pressured is the moment I have begun to veer out of my lane.

We feel like everything depends on us. Every decision, every outcome, every responsibility in our mind is just busy, busy, busy, busy, always trying to solve, always trying to fix, always trying to manage and control everything around us because it's on our shoulders and prayer becomes less frequent and more reactive. God, I need you right now. We start making decisions without seeking God, and we carry things we were never meant to carry. And over time, the weight of that shows up as stress, anxiety and pressure.

A life led by the Spirit produces peace and patience, even in chaos. Fourth, we lose our hunger for truth when we're walking in the Spirit. The Spirit produces us. In us, this growing desire for God's truth, for His Word, and for people to speak truth into our lives. We're not perfect at it, but there's an appetite for it.

When that starts to fade, it's a signal we avoid other Christians that we know will speak truth into our lives because we don't want to hear it. We avoid reading the Word because we don't want to hear it. A life led by the Spirit, though, leads us into a hunger for truth. And when we're not walking with him, that starts to fade. Fifth, pride takes the place of humility.

We start to feel good about who we are spiritually. We're doing the right things. We know the Word, we're serving. We're showing up. We can argue with the best of them and prove that God is real.

We're leading well, and those are all good things. But at the same time, our focus is more and more and more on ourselves, and we don't even notice. We lose compassion for others as they struggle. We are impatient. We start noticing where other people are falling short.

We see their inconsistency, their lack of discipline, their lack of knowledge. Like we have their blind spots. It becomes easier to evaluate others than examine our own heart. We move from being a recipient of grace to a critic of others. But a life led by the Spirit produces humility.

Sixth, this one is connected to number five. Entitlement takes the place of. Of gratitude. We begin to expect from God instead of receive from him in gratitude. We've been faithful.

We showed up, we served, we gave, we memorized scripture, we told that guy he was wrong. Why isn't it working out the way that I wanted it to? I did my part. Why is this happening to me? I don't deserve this.

Why isn't God doing his part? Instead of gratitude for what God has given, there's frustration over what he hasn't. Instead of trusting in his timing, we pressure him to fold into our timing. And all this reveals that we have started to see our relationship with God as transactional. He owes us instead of relational.

Walking in the spirit produces a steady stream of gratitude. All this, all of these, they're warning signs that we're beginning to get off course. So what's the better way? Well, one thing to clear up before we answer that question, and I think this might be the biggest misconception in the whole conversation of what it means to walk in the spirit. A lot of us think that walking in the spirit means we live in the deep end.

We all the time, like, it's always intense, it's always exciting, it's always powerful, it's always loud, it's always obvious. Big moments, big faith, big sacrifices. We think it means constantly carrying heavy things, having dramatic breakthroughs, seeing miraculous things every other day. The truth is that for most of us, most of the time, most of our lives are not going to feel like that. Most of our lives feel like Monday.

Like carpool meeting, soccer practice, the lunch table, emails, dishes and laundry. Conversations that don't feel profound at all, decisions that don't even feel spiritual. And so we start to assume one of two things. Either we're doing it wrong or walking in the spirit just isn't something that you're supposed to experience daily. But that's the misconception.

Because walking in the spirit isn't about living in the deep end. All of the time. It's about being aware of and responsive to the spirit in the normal parts of life. It's not just the big, obvious emotional things. It's the quiet nudge to be patient when we're irritated.

It's the check in our spirit before we say something that we know that we shouldn't, the prompting to pray, the decision to choose integrity when no one is paying attention to what we're doing, and the willingness to slow down and actually listen to the person in front of us. That's walking in spirit. I mean, sure, there are moments where God moves in big, massive, miraculous ways, but if we build our definition of walking in the spirit around only those moments, we're going to miss the spirit most of the time. More often than not, the spirit is forming us and leading us in the ordinary, not just when it feels spiritual, but right in the middle of real life. The better way isn't chasing the deep end of the pool.

It's learning to walk with him in every step, including the plain old normal moments. So what does it look like to walk in the spirit in our plain old normal, everyday lives? Well, here's the simplest framework that we could come up with to try to make this as accessible as possible. Three things. Notice, listen, obey.

Notice, listen, obey. We'll start with notice once we understand who the spirit is and what the spirit does. If you've missed the last two weeks, go back and listen to those. That's what we covered. But once we have that, we begin to have the lens to actually notice his activity in our lives.

Notice noticing is about awareness, attention, listening. And here's the reality. As much as we would love to believe that we are multitaskers, all of the mental science says you are not a multitasker. You are just dividing yourself into different places so that you're not present anywhere. We're really just divided.

And whatever has our attention has us. But it's not just distraction that pulls us away. It's where our minds live.

Many of us are stuck in the past. We're replaying things, carrying regret, wishing we could go back. And many of us are stuck in the future, filled with anxiety, trying to predict and control what hasn't happened yet. Yet. Here's the problem.

Awareness only happens in the present. Don't miss that. Awareness only happens in the present. And the spirit is with us and leading us in real time, right here, right now. So if we're living in regret from the past or anxiety about the future, we will miss what he is doing here now.

In the present, noticing begins when we slow down enough to actually be present. That's where the Spirit's at work.

Second, to walk in the Spirit, we must listen. But what are we listening for? We don't listen for the loudest voice. We don't listen for the most dramatic or impressive thing. Most of the time, the Spirit's voice is much quieter and much simpler than we expect.

We listen through stillness in a world that's constantly loud and moving. The Spirit is often heard when we slow down enough to be quiet. Not because he isn't speaking in the noise, but because we can finally hear him. We listen through Scripture. The Spirit will never lead us outside the word that he has inspired.

In fact, this is one of the primary ways that he speaks to us. Through bringing Scripture to mind in a moment of need, through bringing clarity and understanding and conviction or direction through what we are reading in a moment, through what God has already said. And what does his voice sound like? It often sounds like a gentle nudge, a thought that aligns with truth that God has given us. A quiet conviction.

My experience is it's usually not complicated at all. Josh, reach out to them. Don't say that. Apologize. Slow down.

Trust me. Simple, clear, easy to dismiss. And that's why we miss it. Because we're waiting for something louder and bigger and more undeniable. Really.

It's about learning to recognize and respond to the quiet, steady voice that is speaking all the time. And then there's obedience. This is where it all comes together. The truth is, we can believe, we can notice, we can listen, we can be present. But if we don't obey, we're not actually walking in the Spirit.

Most of the time, obedience is simple. Sometimes it's really hard, but most of the time, it's just simple, not spectacular. It's the next right step, right in front of us, saying what we know we should say, doing what we already know we should do, stopping what we know that we shouldn't be doing. Most of the time. Walking in the Spirit isn't about knowing anything new at all.

It's about doing what we already know. We stink at that, by the way.

But as we obey, even in small ways, we begin to recognize his voice. We hear it more clearly and more clearly as we keep walking with him. Obedience opens our ears and eyes to what the Spirit's doing. Now, is there a lot more to walking in the Spirit? Absolutely there is.

There's always more. But my experience is there are far more of us who are trying to swim in the Deep end and exhausting ourselves while missing these simple things. Today, we've tried to make it as simple as possible for everyone to be able to say, oh, I could do that. I can do that. As a guide and a summary to all of this, we've printed up half sheet practice guides.

They're on the tables on your way out. We would love for you to grab one and read it and just start practicing. On the sheet is a reminder of this framework. Notice, Listen, obey with simple prompts and then a list of prayers that we can all be praying to the Holy Spirit every day. Now, when we've mentioned this, when we say, wake up in the morning and say good morning, Holy Spirit, and when we say pray to the Spirit, there's two big questions that come out of that.

Consistent questions. Do I really need to address the Holy Spirit directly? And is it okay to pray to the Holy Spirit? Here's the short answer that we receive in Scripture. We are not required to address the Holy Spirit individually or directly.

Scripture doesn't command it. In fact, it isn't the primary pattern of prayer that we see in Scripture. However, I believe that it's both biblically and theologically sound to do so. If the Spirit is God and we can pray to God, then we can pray to the Holy Spirit, I think, especially when it aligns with his clear role of guiding and teaching and helping and empowering and transforming and sanctifying us over time. So why practice this if it's not the primary method of Scripture?

Because for most of us, the issue isn't whether we can pray to the Spirit, it's that we often don't relate to him as an active, present person of the Trinity. And this practice is meant to help close that gap in our hearts, in our heads, in our activity, giving us a more tangible way to recognize and respond to and walk in the Holy Spirit personally. So grab a sheet, share in this communal practice together. And one last thing I will ask. We would love for you to share.

How is it going? How's it going? One of the things that we want to do is help expand everyone's imagination for what it looks like to walk in the Spirit so that people can see examples of that. And we would love to hear your story and share your story. You can share your experience and stories of how you've been experiencing the Holy Spirit.

It could be the smallest, most mundane, simple things, and it could be massive. It could be the biggest change in your life or the most explosive thing that you've experienced. But we'd love to hear your story. You can share it@mystoryhitewatercrossing.org Just send us an email mystorywhitewatercrossing.org One last thing before we close. I had planned today to talk about the gifts of the Spirit and how we receive them, what we do with them and all of those things.

I ran out of time. But do not fret. Here's what I'm going to do. At the end of this whole series, I'm going to tack on one whole sermon just about the gifts of the Spirit. We're going to talk about it in detail, so stay tuned.

Our greatest problem in walking in the Spirit is us.

We're in the way. And we are given this opportunity, this call to walk in the Spirit, to hop on the other side of the car, on the other side of the road and break all of the things that we desire to do. And it's hard. But the promise of Scripture is that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit empowers us to do the thing that feels unnatural. So this week, pay attention, be present, listen and obey.

Just practice the simplest thing, that nudge that you feel, that thing, just step into it. Just step into it and begin to see the activity of the Holy Spirit all around you. Will you pray with me?

God our Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit? We thank you for your presence in our lives. We thank you for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And we pray for all of us who have that experience, experience and that reality in our lives right now. Help us to pay attention, to listen and to be obedient.

Help us, Holy Spirit, to have those nudges and the little beeps that show us that we're getting off track. And help us to just take the simple next step that's right in front of us. And I pray for everyone who has not yet stepped into this life with you. Would you draw them a step closer to you today?

Thank you. Thank you for your truth. Thank you for your power. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your grace.

Thank you for the cross. It's in the mighty name of Jesus we pray. Amen.