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Welcome to the Marriage Day Podcast. I'm Jimmy Evans and

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I'm thrilled to have you join us for today's episode.

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Let's get started. This

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message is called Spirit Centered. I

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want to talk to you about how to

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live a spirit-centered life. One of the

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reasons that Karen and I came to Trinity was the Holy Spirit. And

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we just didn't—the church that we went to

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did not believe in the Holy Spirit. And

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so we came to Trinity and found a

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place where the Holy Spirit was

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welcomed and to this day is

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welcomed. It changed our lives. I

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can't imagine who I would be and where I

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would be if I had not received

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the Holy Spirit in my life. This is Genesis

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1 and I want to start here because I want us

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to go back to the very beginning. Through

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this whole series I want to refer back to

0:52

this. This is Genesis 1. God

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said, let us—this is the Father, Son, and

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Holy Spirit speaking—let us make

0:58

man in our image and according

1:00

to our likeness let them have

1:02

dominion over the fish of the

1:04

sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, and

1:06

over the earth, and over every

1:08

creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created

1:10

man in his own image. In the image of God

1:13

he created him. Male

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and female he created them. He only created two

1:17

sexes, male and female. Then God—I

1:19

just want to throw that in. Then God blessed

1:21

them and God said to them,

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be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and

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subdue it, have dominion over the fish

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of the sea, over the birds of the air, over

1:30

every living thing that moves on the earth. In

1:32

verse 26 it says, let us make man in

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our image according to

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our likeness. So image means

1:40

appearance, it means form, and

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likeness means function. We

1:45

were created to look like God and act like God.

1:49

Adam and Eve were created in the image and the

1:51

likeness of God. So let me stop just a minute and say,

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did you know you look like God? The

1:56

Bible tells us God has eyes, he

1:59

looks true to and fro. throughout the world, looking for

2:01

someone whose heart is completely his, that he might strongly

2:03

support them. He has ears, his ears are not so

2:05

dull that he does not hear when we pray. He

2:08

has arms, he has like, we know that Jesus came to

2:10

the earth and he looks like us, okay, he's a man.

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But did you know that you look like God? Did

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you know you look like, the devil doesn't look like God, the angels

2:18

don't look like God. You

2:20

know, dogs, cats, they're wonderful, they don't look like God.

2:23

You look like God. Let me tell

2:25

you what I'm saying, see, you look like God and you

2:27

were created to act like God. Adam and Eve were

2:30

created to look and act like God. And now they fell,

2:32

talk about that more in just a minute. And so why

2:34

am I saying that? Well, evolution

2:37

teaches that we're an animal

2:39

and we're an accident. That

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you don't look like God, you just look like a

2:45

glorified monkey. And

2:47

the only difference between you and a cockroach is you're just higher

2:49

up in the food chain. That's what

2:51

evolution teaches. Evolution strips us of

2:54

our identity and our destiny. If

2:57

you truly believe evolution, and there's this lie that

3:00

says that science has proved evolution

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and science has disproven the Bible. Well,

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let me tell you this, Charles Darwin

3:08

doubted evolution, there's a book by Stephen

3:11

Meyer that thick called Darwin's

3:13

Doubt. Darwin doubted his

3:15

own theory of evolution because of the human eye.

3:18

And he said, it's absurd

3:21

in origin of species chapter six,

3:23

Charles Darwin said, it is absurd

3:25

in the highest degree to believe

3:28

that the eye with all of his complexities

3:30

could happen by natural selection. Then he explained it

3:33

away. But here's what Charles Darwin didn't

3:35

know. In every cell of our

3:37

bodies, we have a six billion letter long

3:39

coded sequence called DNA. And

3:42

yours is different than mine. This

3:44

is why it's used as evidence in

3:46

criminal proceedings. It's so exact, it's so precise.

3:48

You have a specific DNA, and let me

3:50

tell you why you have a specific DNA.

3:53

Psalm 139 says God knit you together in

3:55

your mother's womb and he made you as

3:57

an individual. So if

3:59

Charles Darwin when was freaked out by the human eye,

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he didn't know about DNA. It hadn't

4:03

been discovered when he was around.

4:05

There is no way that a six

4:08

billion letter-long coded sequence can happen by

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chance. And the other thing, while

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I'm on a roll here, the other thing

4:14

is the universe is entropic. The

4:17

universe is decaying. It's been decaying for billions of

4:19

years. And let me ask you a question. If

4:21

you put something in your backyard and leave it

4:23

there for a hundred yards, a hundred years, will

4:25

it be better or worse when you come back?

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It'll be worse. Because everything decays. That's

4:31

not being taken care of. Everything decays.

4:33

The universe is decaying. How could

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somebody as glorious as you happen

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by chance? There isn't any way

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science has not proven evolution

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and science has not disproven the

4:45

Bible. We are

4:47

made in the image of God. You have

4:49

a divine identity and you have a divine

4:51

destiny. And you have to believe

4:54

that. You have to believe that.

4:56

And if your children, you know, children

4:58

are being taught, the Bible has

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been disproven scientifically and evolution been proven. And

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I heard someone say one time, when you teach children they're

5:05

nothing but animals, don't be surprised when they start acting like

5:07

this. And

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we have taken an entire generation of children and

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stripped them of their divine identity

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and their divine destiny. So let me begin

5:17

this series by saying you look like God.

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You look like God. Now some people are eutistical and they

5:22

believe that. You know, I know I look like God. I'm

5:25

saying humbly we

5:28

need to accept the fact that we're made in the image

5:30

of God and God wants us to act like Him. So

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this is what Genesis 2.7 says,

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the Lord God formed men out of the dust

5:38

to the ground and breathed into His nostrils the

5:40

breath of life and

5:42

man became a living being. Now when

5:45

it says that God breathed life into His

5:47

nostrils, the Old Testament was translated into the

5:49

Greek is called the Septuagint. And

5:52

when the Septuagint came to this breath of

5:54

life word here, He used the word infosome.

5:57

Where we get our word emphysema. It means

10:00

on him the iniquity of us all. We're like

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sheep, we've gone astray, we've rebelled against the shepherd.

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That's a common trait that we all have.

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Romans three, as it is written, there

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is none righteous, no not one. There

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is none who understands. There is none

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who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They

10:16

have together become unprofitable. There is none who does

10:18

good, no not one. This is talking about lost

10:20

people. Verse 23, for all

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have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

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being justified freely by his grace through the redemption

10:27

that is in Christ Jesus. We

10:30

have to come to a place of

10:32

recognizing that we're born lost, we're born

10:34

in our sins. Even though God designed

10:36

us to look and act like him

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by his spirit, we're born spiritually dead.

10:42

Every single person to

10:44

be spirit filled, you have to begin at the

10:46

beginning and say, I want a personal

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relationship with Jesus Christ. I

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want to be born again. I want to invite

10:53

the Holy Spirit into me to regenerate

10:55

my dead spirit. This is first Corinthians 15. Christ

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has risen from the dead and has become the

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first fruits of those who have

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fallen asleep. For since by man came death, that's

11:04

Adam, by man also came the

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resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam all

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die, even so in Christ, all should be made

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alive. And so when I was 19 years old,

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a week before Karen and I got married, I got saved. In

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my friend's bathroom after a night of

11:19

sin and partying, I woke up

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the next day and I got saved because

11:24

sin lied to me. I was a good sinner. I wasn't

11:26

an amateur, I turned pro. I

11:28

was a good sinner. And I sinned

11:31

and I sinned and I sinned and I sinned.

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I did everything I could think of. If

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I wanted to do it, I did it. And

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I would lay in bed after a night of partying and

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immorality and all the things that I did. And

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I always felt empty and sad. I

11:47

had friends, partied all the time. And

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I laid in bed and in the morning

11:52

after all this partying, it was

11:54

my bachelor party. The morning after all the partying, I woke up

11:57

in my friend's house and I walked into the bathroom. And

12:00

I thought to myself, this is the most

12:02

empty, sad feeling

12:04

I've ever had in my life. And

12:06

I said these words, Jesus, I'll follow you for the rest of

12:08

my life and I'll never turn back. And

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at that instant, the Holy Spirit came into

12:13

me. And for the first

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time in my life, I was alive on the inside. From

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that day, which was 50 years ago, from

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that day until now, I have never felt empty on

12:23

the inside and there's a joy inside of me that

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I can't explain. And you know what it's like if

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you're saved. The Holy Spirit

12:29

comes in, but there's a problem. Up

12:32

until the time we get saved, all

12:34

that time our flesh has been in control. So

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we have to get to a point, if

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we're gonna live a spirit-centered life, we have

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to be discipled to get back to a

12:43

place to where God wants us to be,

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where we're acting like Him and we're

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spirit-centered, where our spirit, man, is

12:50

in control. Not our flesh, not our soul,

12:53

not our emotions, not our thinking, but the

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Spirit is in control and we're living the

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way we should. So let's talk about three

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steps to live a spirit-centered life. Number one

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is understanding the corrupt and incorrigible nature of

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our flesh. Our fallen

13:06

nature will not go away until

13:08

Jesus comes or until we die. We're

13:11

stuck with our flesh. This is Paul in

13:14

Romans chapter seven, confessing his inability to

13:16

live for God. And Paul

13:18

is the sharpest knife in the drawer. If

13:20

Paul couldn't do it, we can't do it. This is

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Romans seven. I can anticipate the response that is coming.

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This is the message version, by the way. I

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know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not.

13:30

Isn't this also your experience? Yes,

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I'm full of myself, after all. I've spent a long

13:34

time in sin's prison. What I

13:36

don't understand about myself is that I decide

13:39

one way, but then I act another, doing

13:41

things I absolutely despise. So

13:43

if I can't be trusted to figure out what is

13:45

best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious

13:47

that God's command is necessary, but

13:50

I need something more for I know the law, but

13:52

still can't keep it. For if I know the law, I still can't

13:54

keep it. And if the power of sin within me keeps

13:57

sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need

13:59

it. Paul

16:00

in Romans chapter 7 is

16:02

confessing his inability to live for God. Okay,

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we're all in the same boat. He's

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going to answer the question in Romans 8.

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Remember when the Bible was written it didn't

16:11

have chapters and verses, it was just contiguous,

16:14

one text. And so Romans 8 comes out

16:16

of Romans 7 where Paul just confessed. He's

16:18

going to answer the question, he mentions the

16:20

Holy Spirit 15 times in 16 verses. The

16:25

answer to our flesh is

16:28

not discipline. Discipline is

16:30

a good thing, but human

16:32

discipline can't take care of this problem of our flesh. Paul

16:35

by the way was a Pharisee, they were the most

16:37

disciplined human beings on the planet earth. Discipline

16:40

can't do it, self will can't do it, all

16:42

those kinds of things. There's one answer to your

16:44

flesh, it's the Holy Spirit. So we're going to

16:46

begin Romans 8.1, there's therefore

16:48

now no condemnation. This is interesting because

16:51

Paul in Romans 7 confesses at the end of

16:53

Romans 7 he says, a wretched

16:55

man that I am who can save

16:57

me from this body of death? A

17:00

wretched man that I am who can save me from this body of

17:02

death? Next verse, there is therefore

17:04

now no condemnation to those who

17:06

are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to

17:08

the flesh but according to the Spirit.

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Let me stop right here. Have you ever

17:12

thought about why there's no condemnation of those who are in Christ Jesus? You

17:14

need to listen to what I'm saying. Why

17:16

is there no condemnation? Because

17:19

God knows we can't stop sinning. See

17:22

when the devil comes to us to condemn us it's

17:25

because we've done the same dumb thing for the thousandth

17:27

time, right? And

17:30

you say I'm not gonna do that anymore than you do it again and the

17:32

devil comes and says you know let me tell you something, you're a bad Christian

17:35

and you need to cut that out and

17:37

God's mad at you and before you

17:40

come back to God again you need to get your act together.

17:42

Well let me tell you a little secret ladies and gentlemen I

17:44

can't get my act together until I get to God. I've

17:48

tried that many times and the

17:50

devil see condemnation is about me the

17:53

devil can only condemn me because I'm making

17:55

it about me but grace is about Jesus

17:57

Christ. The answer

17:59

is not. us trying to get, when

18:01

the devil comes to condemn you, just praise

18:03

God for his grace, just praise God it's not about me. I

18:06

can't stop sinning. The apostle Paul just said that.

18:09

I've tried. Regardless of what I

18:11

do, I just can't stop sinning.

18:14

So what's the answer? The Holy Spirit. Let's read this.

18:16

This is Romans 8. Listen to

18:18

how many times he mentions the Holy

18:21

Spirit. This is your only hope. This is my only hope.

18:24

For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has

18:26

made me free from the law of sin and death. What

18:29

the law could not do in that it was weak

18:31

through my flesh. God did by

18:33

sending his own son in the lightness of sinful

18:35

flesh on account of sin. He

18:37

condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of

18:39

the law might be filled in us who do not

18:41

walk according to the flesh, but

18:43

according to the Holy Spirit. For those who live according to

18:45

the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh,

18:48

but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the

18:50

spirit. For to be carnally minded is death,

18:53

but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because

18:55

the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not

18:57

subject to the law of God, nor

18:59

can it be. So then

19:01

those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But

19:04

you're not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If indeed the

19:06

spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone does

19:08

not have the spirit of Christ, he's not his. And

19:11

if Christ is in you, the body is dead because

19:13

of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.

19:15

But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the

19:17

dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ

19:20

from the dead will also give life to your mortal

19:22

bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren,

19:24

we are debtors not to the flesh to live according

19:26

to the flesh. For if you live according

19:28

to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you

19:30

put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For

19:33

as many as are led by the spirit of God, these

19:35

are the sons of God. For you did not receive the

19:37

spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit

19:40

of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The spirit

19:42

himself bears witness with our spirit that we're the children of

19:44

God. Did you see how many times he mentioned the spirit

19:46

of God? So in Romans chapter

19:48

seven, the apostle Paul is just being totally real, and

19:50

we can all identify with it. I

19:53

can't do it. I can't do it. I

19:55

love God's law. I know God's law. I just can't do

19:58

it. I try to do the right

20:00

thing. I don't want to do the wrong thing

20:02

and I'm doing it anyway. Just confession. What's, oh

20:04

wretched man that I am, who's gonna save me

20:06

from this body of death? What is the answer

20:09

to this flesh that keeps sabotaging me? The Holy

20:11

Spirit. The

20:13

only answer is to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy

20:15

Spirit does it for us. And we only have two

20:17

options, the flesh or the spirit. Every day when you

20:20

live your life, you only have two options. I'm gonna

20:22

live according to the flesh, fall

20:24

in nature, or I'm gonna live according to the

20:26

spirit. Galatians five. I say then

20:28

walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the

20:30

lust of the flesh. For the

20:32

flesh lusts against the spirit and

20:35

the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to

20:37

one another so that you do not

20:39

do the things that you wish. But if you are led by

20:41

the spirit, you're not under the law. Now

20:43

the works of the flesh are evident, listen to these now,

20:45

this is what we do when we're not walking in the

20:47

spirit. Which are adultery,

20:49

fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry,

20:53

sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies,

20:57

outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions,

20:59

dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,

21:01

drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Of

21:04

which I tell you beforehand, this is

21:06

also told you in time past, that

21:09

those who practice such things will

21:11

not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is

21:14

love, joy, peace, long

21:16

suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and

21:19

self-control against such there is no law. Okay,

21:22

so Paul says you only have two options. Now

21:24

you can walk by the flesh if you want to. And

21:26

walking by the flesh means walking in pride. Walking

21:29

as though you don't need God. Walking

21:32

as though you can live life successfully without depending

21:34

on the spirit of God. Let me remind you,

21:36

God created Adam and Eve to look like him

21:39

and act like him, and to do that he

21:41

breathed his spirit into them. And

21:43

they were alive on the inside, and

21:46

the spirit of God was on the inside of

21:48

them to empower them to act like God. And

21:50

they did act like God until they sinned, and

21:52

they died spiritually, and then the whole world was

21:54

corrupted through them. And

21:56

God looked down and said, I regret that I made man on the earth. And he

21:58

saved eight people, no one in his family. and started all

22:01

over again. And so, walk

22:03

in the flesh, walk in the spirit, you

22:05

won't carry out the desires of the flesh, and

22:07

it goes through all the deeds of the flesh.

22:09

And you may not be able to associate with

22:11

all those, I can't, but I can associate with

22:13

a lot of them, the

22:15

things that I naturally do when I'm not walking in the spirit.

22:18

And then he says this, the fruit of the spirit, now,

22:20

those are the deeds of the flesh, but the fruit of

22:22

the spirit is love, joy, peace,

22:26

long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

22:28

and self-control. So,

22:31

the law of sin, Paul talked about the law

22:33

of sin. There is a law of sin operating

22:35

in my members, and the only thing

22:38

I can do is overpower it with a greater law, and

22:40

that's the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. There's

22:44

only one force on earth that is greater than

22:46

the law of sin that operates within my body,

22:48

and that is the law of the spirit of

22:50

life in Christ Jesus. And when I

22:52

invite him into my life, so here's how this works, you

22:55

have to do it every day. The baptism of the

22:57

Holy Spirit is a one-time event that

22:59

happens when we receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

23:02

I'm gonna pray for you in just a few minutes for

23:04

those of you who haven't received that, to

23:06

receive that, but then every day when you wake up,

23:09

when you're praying, here's what you need to say. This is what

23:11

I say, Holy Spirit fill me up, and

23:14

give me the fruits of the spirit today, because

23:16

I need you. I've got meetings coming

23:19

up with some people I wanna choke. And

23:22

if you don't help me, I'm gonna choke them, and

23:25

feel good about it. And give

23:28

me the supernatural ability to love Karen, and

23:32

my family, my kids and grandkids, the people I

23:34

work with, the people I'm gonna

23:36

encounter today, when I pass

23:38

them, I want you

23:40

to rub off on them. The

23:43

Holy Spirit is the oil, the engine of our

23:45

emotions was designed to run on. And

23:48

we all know that our cars have to have oil. If

23:50

they don't have oil, they heat up and lock down real

23:52

quick, and they disrupt. So

23:54

when your emotions, when

23:57

you're not coated with the Holy Spirit, you're gonna heat up and

23:59

lock down.