please pray with me Heavenly Father we thank you for today we thank you for what we celebrate this weekend and that is all the things that we have to be grateful for from you we thank you that you always take care of our needs that Jesus promised us that we don't need to worry about anything uh you already know our needs um before we even ask you uh to grant them we thank you for always watching over us for protecting us for providing for us and Lord we thank you for safeguarding our souls sealing them
with the with the holy spirit so that we know where we'll be and who we'll be with when all is said and done we thank you for all the hope and promises that you give to us in your word I pray that your spirit would go forth work in our minds and our hearts as we hear from your word this morning and I pray all these things in Jesus name amen well here we are on Labor Day notice the background of the PowerPoint changed uh it's now we got a fall background on there now it's
the offical it's an official US holiday yes but it's also The Unofficial end of what and beginning of what I already gave you a big hint there end of summer and and and uh beginning of fall it's also the very first day of the month it just so happens to be uh today uh that we traditionally start associating with the fall September 1st today we recognize one season passing into the next season in a sense summer is dying and turning into the fall we've all seen Renditions of old wanted posters where the famous phrase is
written dead or alive and from what I could find the last official Wanted Dead or Alive poster was issued for Al Capone in 1929 following the deadly St Valentine's Day Massacre and that was the last time one of these was put up uh the phrase on the poster as most understand it today is very misleading though the government was not issuing an allout blanket Immunity on what would legally be murder of the suspect what the phrase dead or alive meant on a poster like this was ideally arrest and prosecution to the fullest extent of the
law if the suspect resisted a citizen's arrest and was killed during the process of arrest then the citizen making the arrest was not held guilty of murder you see the big difference there but one couldn't see this kind of poster just go grab a gun and lie in weight to kill the suspect in Cold Blood they had to be uh legitimately attempting arrest but God wants us to see this phrase dead or alive as dead dead and alive what in the world does he mean by this one cannot both be dead and alive at the
same time right it's impossible so what does that mean what does that look like and how does it change our everyday lives a modification of another's quote if you stopped anyone on the street and asked them what is a Christian they would probably answer someone who believes in Jesus they maybe they go so far as to say someone that believes that Jesus died on the cross for their sin most people know enough about Christianity to know that but if you stopped that same person on the street and asked them how does a Christian then live
that person may say things like well by being a good person showing love to other people here here's a question how is that answer any different than if you say ask the same person person how should any person anywhere live it's because the world today cannot clearly differentiate how a Christian lives differently than everyone else so what should make everyday life different for the believer in Jesus as opposed to the rest of the world the basis for the entire way a Believer is to filter and process everything through as a child of God and a
follower of Jesus is this so if you brought your Bible with you today please turn to Galatians chap 5 uh we're going to be picking up in verse 24 if you didn't bring your Bible with you that's okay there should be one located in the Pew in front of you please also turn to Galatians 5: 24 or look this up on your favorite Bible app on your smartphone this is what we read now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires now if you're as you read that jump
up to the couple of verses right before verse 24 there what do you see what immediately precedes this the famous list of the fruits of the spirit right love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control these are uh the qualities the characteristics of God that should be being grown in Us by the Holy Spirit however that's not all of what the spirit grows in Us in other words this list of the fruits of the spirit in chap 5: 22- 23 is not is not exhaustive there is a whole way of life that God
is transforming us into and that is processing everything in life in a new way and that is through the holy spirit's eyes we are not to see ourselves the same way as we were before committing Our Lives to God through Jesus we need to see our lives is something completely new see that's where a lot of Believers in Jesus get stuck they don't see themselves as completely new they still see themselves as soand so with the way they see things the way they respond to things and the way they process through things but only now
with a little Jesus and a little Bible and a little church sprinkled in but this is an incredible truth we must replace that with with if there is going to be any growth any testimony for Jesus and transformation you are an entirely new person now you are not the same anymore you should not see yourself as the same anymore you have been made new your world viw your outlook your foundation your strength it's all new I love this description of this exchange from 2 Corinthians at one time we thought of Christ merely from a human
point of view how differently we know him now this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person the old life that's just gone that's disappeared a new life has begun see before the only way we could process things before before we came to God in Repentance of our sins and taking Jesus as Savior of those sins and making him the king over the rest of our lives before we did that the only way we could process things or accomplish anything was through who ourselves that's it it was through a vessel that
while endowed with intelligence and skills could only answer to its selfishness and could only answer to the world and what the world held dear that didn't mean we were stupid it only meant that we were selfish we only wanted to do what made us feel good on the inside guess what that includes all the nice things we did for others simply being nice is not what being a follower of Jesus is all about we know this selfish people are nice to too selfish people still give lots of money to different charities people who see nothing
wrong with themselves go and build wells in impoverished Nations see a lot of followers of Jesus strip what has happened with them theologically from their lives and just trying to live as a Believer by being nice doing nice things and trying not to do bad things what a lot of believers do is that they unplug and disconnect the power of the holy spirit's transformation of their entire way of life and replace it with resorting back to their previous way of doing things and seeing things but here's the glaring problem with that that whole way of
doing things and seeing things what did we just read now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh who we once were with the passions and desires so what is the glaring problem with that way of thinking that way of living that whole way of doing things and seeing things is dead it's supposed to be dead as Paul says here in verse 24 it's already been crucified with Jesus when we repented of our sins and selfishness and surrendered ourselves to God through Jesus it's already dead and yet so many many of us don't
get that we haven't embraced it we haven't made it our way of life instead what do we do we try to dig it back up again why because we're scared we're scared of going through life any other way the world has tricked us into thinking that the way it does things and the way we did things our entire lives is the only way to do things but all of that has been crucified with Jesus already it's been put to death what did we read it's in past tense crucified it's in past tense it's a done
deal if God put something to death why should we dig it back up from the grave put some new clothes on it and say this is my new life in Christ Christ that might make for a scary Halloween decoration but that doesn't make any sense for our lives if we are going to live in the holy spirit's power we must leave what's dead dead if you think about it that's an incredible Revelation that God has given to us isn't it God did not send his son into the world to take Fallen human beings and give
them some nice life adages so they could become better people there's nothing different about that from anything else everyone from Aristotle to Confucius to Buddha to Muhammad has done that no God took it infinitely further than that and had his son be crucified and put to death not to stay dead as with every other so-called good teacher but be raised to life after that that wasn't for his own good that was for ours that resurrected life introduced God's power Into The Human Condition it put to death the power of the Fallen Human Condition including its
sin and replaced it with the power of the Resurrection Paul describes this truth elsewhere in his letter to the Roman Believers in Jesus here's what has already happened when we repent of our sin we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives we are no longer slaves to sin what Paul is referring to here in Romans is the entire old sinful self the whole person we made decisions based on our pride selfishness fear and worry that's how we made our decisions that's sin but
Paul explains further in Romans 611 so you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus the word for consider in the Greek is a term meaning to compute to C calculate or to deliberately make a decision based on the facts one has in other words we have been shown and we have been given the freedom to not make decisions based on the factors of the world anymore we've been freed from that what we are to base our decisions on now is not Pride not selfishness
not fear and not worry that whole outlook on life has been put to death it is no longer available to base decisions on anymore now who else here listens to specific songs by way of someone else uploading it to YouTube with the lyrics I cannot be the only one here all right all right a few brave souls raise their hands here and YouTube will allow it as long as you put some kind of disclaimer that you don't own the copyrights of the song right but if you remember it didn't used to be that way at
one point YouTube didn't allow any copyrighted material that wasn't your work to be uploaded by the average person you would search for a song and click on a video and a window would pop up instead saying that that video was no longer available no matter how much I wished it to not be that way that video was removed from YouTube server never to be accessed by anyone at least in the States ever again it was gone you couldn't access it in the same way our spiritual eyes have now been opened the way we used to
do things are not the way it's supposed to be anymore that's gone never to be accessed again we have been given the freedom of of something completely new and that is to base our decisions on the fact that who we were before has been put to death that has no power over us anymore we have been made new as one biblical scholar put it Believers already died with Christ but they must consider themselves dead that's what Paul elaborates on here in Galatians 5:24 Believers in Jesus must understand and see and know that they have already
been put to death at their conversion and because of that that carries over to how they see the sinful passions and desires that war against their new life in the spirit and the Holy Spirit as Paul speaks about earlier in Galatians we are still in this war of the spirit set against our selfishness and our selfishness set Against The Spirit Well Paul goes on here in this verse to reveal that the sides are not equal in that war it's not an equal tug of war here one side is already lost one side the selfish side
in The Believer has already died good to know take any war from history knowing who won and who lost as an American would you join the British army during the American Revolution no they lost as an American would you knowingly then join the Axis powers during World War II no they lost that would be pointless would you knowingly join the 49ers in this past season Super Bowl no they lost in the same way Paul describes this war between the spirit and the flesh or our old self but then points out that the flesh is already
lost it's not an equal War it's already been put to death in the believer's life as such Believers in Jesus must base their decisions on knowing their selfishness and the power of that selfishness has already lost has already been put to death that side will never bring satisfaction never bring fulfillment and never bring life it's dead no believer should ever think that the side of selfishness sin and pride could ever bring anything other than that other than death and powerlessness see a lot of people think that God is this kill Joy Square who doesn't want
anyone to have any fun but that's not the way to look at things at all in fact that's a very immature way of looking at things the spiritual reality is that there is this unseen spiritual war going on God has put to death The World God has put to death the power of its Prince of Darkness lowercase G God of this world and he has already put to death our selfishness and sin that aligns itself right along with that he has given oppositely New Life New Freedom and new victory to those who identify themselves with
Christ's death and Resurrection who when they go outside for a run or do a bunch of yard work or go to the gym and get all sweaty that after they take a shower and get out they put those sweaty stinky most likely crusty clothes back on that's disgusting right even me just describing it you're like why why is he talking about this that's the point that's disgusting God is not a killjoy he knows what he's done for us and it makes as much sense to base our worldview and life on the world and all of
its facets on how we used to be as it does it makes as much sense as it does to put the sweaty stinky clothes back on see everything in your life as a new creation resurrected risen to New Life to process see do and handle everything newly that's freedom and that's life that's peace and that's Joy that's being both dead and alive so what does that mean we talked a lot about the dead aspect of that phrase dead and alive it means this let's go to verse 25 now if we live by the spirit let
us also walk by the spirit Paul says what's happened inside of you is not disconnected from the rest of you if you have been made alive that is if you have been given Life as a replacement for the flesh the selfishness sin and pride that has already been put to death that must be seen in our everyday decisions in our everyday life do we make our decisions we all have to ask ourselves these honest questions do we make our everyday decisions based on fear or based on faith do we make our everyday decisions based on
worry and sleep depriving worry or do we make decisions based on God's Peace and Trust in his sovereignty do we make our decisions based on selfishness or do we make our decisions based on selflessness what do people see if they were given a definition from the Bible as to how a Christian should live would the average person who knew you see that lining up by looking at the way you live out your life and the way you live out your faith it's a difficult question one we all must grapple with this term walk by the
spirit that we read in verse 25 is actually a military term it does literally mean to walk but it's a certain type of walking this type of walking is described here by this term uh by meaning to march in line and in time behind the military commander so in keeping with this illustration the commander is the Holy Spirit to walk by the spirit literally means to march in in line following him again right in keeping with this theme of a war to March behind the spirit means you follow his every order as already given in
God's word without question it means you keep up with where he's going it means you don't get a break it means you don't get distracted wander off chase after something worldly decide you don't want to listen to him or jump Enemy Lines and join the other side it means you may or may not know where he's going but you follow him anyway it means that you trust that no matter where he's going and what he's called you to do you know that where he's going will ultimately be what's best for you and for God's kingdom
we have had our old selves put to death that is not a leader worth following to say the least we have been given Life by marching behind the one who does know what's best Paul gives us what we can't be following behind anymore but doesn't leave us wandering and directionless at the moment of our Salvation Paul reveals we immediately get a new Commander to replace the old one as we all know a positive command is always more effective than a negative one isn't it instead of leaving it at don't follow your flesh anymore because that's
dead Paul then adds to it but replace that with marching behind the Holy Spirit and where he's taking you if we focus on making sure we're in step behind the Holy Spirit and following the the orders from God's word we won't have time we won't have time to think about trying not to satisfy our selfishness if you read and study the book of Galatians you'll see that one of the situations that Paul needed to address there in General was that there was no love being shown there was for all intents and purposes a complete lack
of all the fruits of the spirit that Paul had just described being seen in the galatian churches because of this source of disunity backbiting there was no unconditional love there was no rejoicing even keeled peace there was no patience as a way of life there was no goodness informed kindness there was no confident faithfulness there was no gentleness of all things and there was no Spirit control which is a a more biblical way of of understanding the term self-control you're really being controlled by the spirit all that had be all that have had been replaced
by selfish ways of looking at things and dealing with things in the galatian churches Paul says because this is what God has given to you a completely new way of living life and handling situations don't ever portray anything other than that are we portraying a new way of life to the world around us or are we just giving them more of the same I'm talking about everything handling stressful situations dealing with difficult people being caught in scary circumstances facing Temptation head on in In the Heat of the battle walking through times of loss and keeping
unity in our ways of thinking making decisions and processing what we're seeing happening in our lives in the lives of family and what's going on in our country and the world have we replaced the commander of Our Lives being our old self that is fear worry anxiety selfishness and pride with the new commander who we received at the point of our repentance from our sin and trust in Jesus as Savior and King when we're faced with a temptation to sin are we just trying not to give in or are we focusing on all that has
been opened up to and given to us by God himself that he will provide the way of Escape look for that way of escape and take that way of Escape when we're fac with a dilemma are we turning to Google first for the answer or are we looking to God's word first when we're faced with a scary situation are we trying to figure everything out ourselves and trying to come up with a solution or is our first response trusting in God's sovereignty trusting in God's sovereignty receiving his peace and asking him to give us his
wisdom and showing us what to do when we're faced with a season of lack is our response that of worry and fear or of a simple trust knowing that as Jesus already has promised to us our heavenly father already knows those needs and he's already got everything lined up to take care of those needs for us let us be showing the world something different something new let us be showing the world something new that they cannot get from anywhere else or from anyone else live the new life that has been given to you in every
area marching behind the Holy Spirit following the the orders from God's word live and show the world what it means to be to be both dead and alive let's pray Heavenly Father we thank you for this passage that we all we all need to be reminded of from time to time we all need to ask these honest brutally honest questions of ourselves between us and you and and repent of anything that still needs to be repented of get things right with you that need to be made right with you bring everything in line with what
has already been laid out for us in your word marching behind the Holy Spirit keeping up following him and him alone knowing we have the hope of Eternity to look forward to that no matter where the Holy Spirit takes us no matter what he's gifted us with no matter what he's called us to in individual missions in participation with the Great Commission we always know that we have the hope of Eternity to look forward to we thank you for all the treasure that has been opened up to us this new life in every way that
has been opened up to us I pray that we would embrace all of it in every way pray all these things in Jesus name amen
