Am I Living in Step with the Spirit? | Who Am I

Well, we're in this series called Who Am I? I'm feeling a little bit of echo. Keep working on the sound back there, guys. Feeling a little something back there. And we're talking about who we are, really, according to Scripture. And we're going to get into today's topic. But I wanted to set this up because, speaking of elders, man, out of the blue, I got this. I didn't know this, but Jerry was actually... Go ahead. Jerry was actually... Amazing but true. One of our elders, Jerry Yao, was just at the Olympics and competing, as you can see here on short track. It's just a 500-meter sprint. And Jerry did really well. This is right before he crashed on the last turn. So he did not meddle, but we love Jerry. Actually, I'm teasing Jerry. I don't even think he could be here today, but I want you to let him know that the things he's sending Carl that he has worked on with AI are coming back at him, okay? You just tell him what you sent Carl, we all saw. Because he has no clue I'm doing this to him today. So I got a question for you, and we're going to jump into the text today, and it's simply this. Am I living in step with the Spirit? In the letter to Galatia, Paul says, if you live in the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit. So asking the question, am I living in step with the Spirit, is an important question to ask. And if we're measuring things, I can't think of anything more important to measure than And as a matter of fact, we're going to look at Scripture today. And if all we were doing was measuring, am I doing this, I could do a compare and contrast from Galatians 5 where I could put up a list of these and a list of that, and we're going to do that. And I could say, well, how are you doing? And then we measure it, and we're out of here, and we could be done in about seven minutes. But we're going to add a little bit more to that. But I want to talk about measuring what matters here for a moment. I just want to pour out my heart. I really do believe that the Lord allows things to happen. for a reason have you ever gone on an appointment that you thought was for this reason but by the time you were done with that appointment you found out it was for something very different we have that happen all the time well when i went to kenya with the timothy initiative they are an organization that's just done an amazing job going into as i was sharing earlier unreached people groups and sharing the gospel with them and watching these churches just multiply And part of the reason that that's happening is when people have very little, God's very clear in Scripture. Jesus says he's chosen those that are poor in this world to be rich in faith. So there's a certain sense in which when you have nothing from an earthly perspective, And the GDP of Kenya is a little bit north of Burundi, where we minister as a church. But all in, they're probably making, on average, a buck and a quarter American dollars a day as a people group. And that's even with Nairobi, where they're making more money, kind of being an offset. So it's a very poor group of people. But my goodness, the richness of faith is amazing. I host a morning show on Moody Radio and I was broadcasting live from there. And one of the things that blew my mind was Watching 50 people get baptized one hot afternoon and these are people that have just surrendered their lives to Jesus and in the back road There's some young men that were just standing there and here I am live on air Broadcasting and I look and I see these four men and their heads are bowed at the but the earnestness on their face was so profound and real and the hunger for Jesus is so radical and so they've got two things going for them they don't have a lot from an earthly perspective but they also do have one other thing and that is when they surrender their lives to christ especially the muslims that are surrendering to jesus in the northern reaches of kenya the cost attached to them is huge The amount of family that they're going to lose, and even inheritance that they're going to lose, and the dividing line between who was friends and who now is friends, that cost attached to surrendering your life to Jesus creates in them a passion for not just going to church, but being the church. This American experiment that we have, man, this is kind of crazy. Because it was about 300 AD that we turned everything around, but it used to be that you right here would meet in a small group facing one another and you'd sharpen one another and you back here would be in a small group sharpening one another. But about 300 AD there became this kind of change and it's not all bad. Where a preacher would preach and those that were there would listen. And we find this even on the day of Pentecost. We find this in the life of Peter when he preached. We find this in the life of Paul when he would go into a city and preach in the synagogues. So I'm not against preaching, but there's something dynamic about groups getting together, looking at one another, sharpening each other, and growing in their relationship with God. And that's what I want for you so badly here. When you think about measuring what matters, I've often said this, but we're going to fight the gravitational pull. And the gravitational pull is that we... measure two metrics that are important, but they aren't the most important. And that is how many people are coming and how much money is given. And those are vital and they're real and we find, and I loved it in the book of Acts, we find that there was someone in charge of counting that 3,000 were added to their number, and those are probably men that were just counted there, but then thousands more were added. Somebody had a sense of how many people are coming to Jesus, how many people really being changed and then the Apostle Paul in his letters speaks repeatedly about hey if you've made a commitment to an offering I'm gonna be coming don't disappoint keep your eagerness to do that right in the forefront because we need this to go further the gospel so nickels and noses or booties and seats and bucks and plates however you want to kind of use it as an acronym it's important But what matters most is what we find in the Great Commission. Go, therefore, and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and I'm with you to the end of the age. I have a personal conviction that as we become more and more post-Christian, and some interesting stats that have come out because now... There's a great group called the Barna Group that has done two extensive studies in 2025. One of them came out December 10th of 25. Let me give you this. The amount of people that call themselves Christian in America today are somewhere between 74 and 76%. Now that's gone down since 2020, excuse me, by 2000, from 2000. So over 25 years, that's gone down about 11, 12%. But the more staggering numbers are found in this study when you compare how many people have a Christian worldview that directs their private and public lives. so let me give you a comparison 70 plus percent say i'm christian in america that's high number would you guys be with me on that one and the question is do you think that's representative of those that call jesus christ lord savior deliverer master well we know that it's not so it's christian in name but then you take pew research report that came out with something and they did a phenomenal study of many thousands and they found that 24 of americans come to churches like this or and not all the time but they might be christers we call them they come on christmas and easter or they come maybe once a month or once every other month or something like that but they would call themselves in that bucket of kind of evangelical bible believing people okay So you ready for a staggering number? Barna found the people who say I hold a Christian worldview and my eager attempt daily is to order my private and my public life around that worldview meaning I hold to the tenets of Scripture I believe in the virgin birth I believe in the Trinity I believe in the crucified and the resurrected Jesus and that he's coming back one day and he's gonna take his children home and Those basic tenets of faith and because of that they take the words of this book the Bible and they Intend to have it guide their life the number of Americans That are into that ready for it four percent So we've got A very different world. Now you might say, oh no, man, just 4% believe like that? And there's, I would say the majority of you here today believe that. You want this book to, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as you submit to Jesus Christ and humble yourself under the Father's hand, you want this book to guide and direct your life. That's awesome, but you're among 4% of the United States of America. And you might say, wow, we've slid in a long way. No, probably, If you take really a good measurement the most amount of people that we've ever had per capita ever was probably during the Great Awakenings and during the Great Awakenings there were 15% of the American population that had this Christian worldview and a hunger for the Word of God and a passion to see this lived out in their life and And that was such a powerful movement of God. Are you ready for this? It shaped commerce. It shaped government. It created almost like a tectonic plate shift of our culture because 15% of our nation radically committed to Jesus has a huge, powerful effect. And here's my heart. I'm spending a lot of time on this, so I've got to put on my track shoes for the rest. I'm totally off my manuscript right now. But this is important for you to hear. I think any goal that would see... Dream up a goal. How many per capita of Americans would you love to see born again and following Jesus? You know what my percentage would be? 100%. right but if we could see those that are in church in fact george barna is not one to comment on his studies much at all this is what he said he said it would appear based on this most recent study of the four percent factor that our goal should be not so much to get more people to come to church But to take the people who are in church and do everything we can to equip them so that they can become the children of God that God always intended them to be. You with George Barna on that one? That's a good one, isn't it? And so if we focus on making disciples, which means we are apprentices of Jesus Christ. That's all it means. We are following Jesus. Everything we do, although we stumble and bumble and we got scars and they're sacred scars, we can show other people, look what happened when I went out and did something really stupid and disobeyed God. I got this big old scar. We can show those to other people, help them avoid those pitfalls and really grow in God's grace. And I want that for us so badly. so lord before i go any further here today i'm asking that you would raise up a holy desire here to be men and women who have a worldview and a passion to have our private and public lives so shaped by you that we would taste and see that you're good and that we would be witnesses to the world around us and that we'd be change agents for your glory and our joy. God, I'm praying for that. And I start with myself. Take the hidden parts of my life that need to be even seen by you so that you can tell me what you see in me and make that evident to me, Lord, we pray. For all of us, in Jesus' name, amen. So I want to do the compare and contrast challenge with you here really quickly. Because if the question is, am I living in step with the Spirit, all we've got to do is go to the Word of God. So let's do a compare and contrast. First, I want to show you the deeds of the flesh, and it's in Galatians 5, 19 through 21. Now, the word flesh is the Greek word sarx, and this is important because all it means is that all that we are, Our memory, our actions, our lives, the words that come out of our mouth, all that we are apart from the Spirit of God is the sarx or the flesh. Now, we who are in Christ Jesus do not have to live like that. But Paul proposes that it is possible for born-again, radically transformed people to live rather powerlessly. And the converse is true as well. So if the goal is to live in the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit, the Apostle Paul has done something beautiful in this letter to the Galatian church. He gave a picture of, this is what it looks like when you're not walking in the Spirit, and this is what it looks like when you are walking in the Spirit. It's that simple. So let's first look at the deeds of the flesh, shall we? Look at this list. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Look, watch this now. Sexual immorality. Impurity. sensuality idolatry let me say this some of your saying I was never raised in a Catholic Church and never had idols or anything idolatry is any person place or thing that has a higher place in our heart than God its if we're using what we find with idols in the Old Testament and you could ask a doctor Jim Coakley about this but idols would often take the high ground the high places And so when my favorite King Josiah got rid of idols, he took down those idols from the high places. And oftentimes there's things in our heart that have a higher premium than God and God alone. Those are idols. It can be anything from mountain biking to who knows what. It can be anything that takes a higher place than God. Idolatry, sorcery, what? What? and enmity and strife and jealousy pastor carl jealousy's in there with sexual immorality come on i'm not peddling what's a little jealousy and then envy and drunkenness and can i just say a word about drunkenness here I went through a time in my own spiritual journey when I was radically transformed by Jesus because God had saved me from alcohol and drug abuse really heavy over here. Have you ever noticed that guys like me, and you might have been this person, I was radically saved by Jesus. Man, I pendulum swung and I went way over here. And I'm like, you can't, you can't, you can't sip wine, you can't even sniff wine and call yourself a Christian. You can't, and you certainly can't dance or move your hips in any way because you just can't be a Christian. And some of you are saying, you can't move your hips anyway, Pastor. But here's what's funny about that. A lot of us, have you ever noticed, either from the culture that we're raised in, we get stuck in norms that we don't even know how broken they are. It's really weird. So God had to break me again because I had become this raging legalist saying, you can't sip wine, you can't dance, you can't chew, and you can't go with girls who do. If you're over here, you're obviously not born again, and you're way out of whack. Here's what I would say. On the issue of drunkenness, because this is still a big challenge in our culture today, The great danger with alcohol is not that you might have a little bit of wine, because Jesus didn't turn the water into grape juice. I hate to break it to you. If some of you come from that theological camp, I'll talk to you afterwards, but you're wrong. He didn't do that. He turned it into wine. But Jesus... Although the culture was approving of that, he never would have rubber-stamped drunkenness nor drinking to a point where that becomes a crutch idol to get you through the day. So even with all these things, you know, are you constantly selfish? No. But would you have seasons when selfishness crops up? Man, that's the flesh. And when you realize with regard to alcohol, you started sipping wine, but now it's drinking you. You want to maybe go 30 days without it and see how you're doing. See, God's a loving God, man. And he wants to just walk us through this thing called discipleship in just a practical way. He loves you that much. Okay, got to keep moving here. Orgies. How do orgies get the list, Pastor Carl? Because in the audience spoken to and in the culture of the day, as today, there are a lot of things that manifest when our heart is not filled with the Spirit. This is why Paul says, measure to see where you're at. And things like these. You know what things like these is? Things like these? It's just like all the other stuff that we do when the Spirit of God's not directed our life. Those things too. So the list goes on and on. Because you might be saying right now, whoo, my idol ain't on the list. Idolatry is. So we always want to measure how are we doing. As I warned you before, he said that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Here's what's important. He is saying, why in the world would you live from the flesh without the Spirit of God directing your life, letting all kinds of things take the high ground of your heart when I loved you so much? This is not to be characteristic of those of you that are truly born again. And God wants to change it. So those are the deeds of the flesh. So how about the fruit of the Spirit? Let's go on. Galatians 5, verse 22 and 23. And these are not called the fruits of the Spirit. Big distinction. These are called the fruit of the Spirit. There's a singularness here to what Paul is teaching, and that is there will be fruit, not fruits, but fruit born from us, meaning it all flows from God, and there are myriad things that reflect that we are abiding in a relationship with Christ. But the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness, self-control. Could anyone with me here right now embrace this reality with me? To me, the most powerful fruit of the Spirit for me, Pastor Carl, is self-control. Give me self-control any day of the week. And some of you are like, That's why it's quiet in here, Pastor, because I want you to get off this topic. Self-control is one of the greatest gifts. And here's what's crazy about that fruit of the Spirit. It has nothing to do with you. It's the fruit of God working in you, taking control over you that allows you to now exercise self-control. But here's what I need you to know. Self-control is not about you generating enough control over self. Being so yielded to the Holy Spirit that the Spirit of God I got chills man That the Spirit of God and you can't see it. I blonde here. It's very short But that the Spirit of God is getting such control over you that what flows from you is the fruit of something that you might have struggled with for years and See, the amazing thing about any idolatry or something that you're struggling with or name any sin that's just amartya, it means to miss the mark, any sin in your life, all the human effort you put into this apart from the Spirit of God will come up empty. But anyone who submits that area to the filling of the Holy Spirit God promises to give you the fruit of self-control. He can do in you what you can never do in yourself. And I'm a living example of that. So we could end right there. And we could say, how you doing? Are you keeping in step with the Spirit? If you live in Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit. How you doing? We want to go a little bit further and what I was preparing for this message. I thought to myself self I Wonder if I can just stay in the book of Galatians and get a hint of what it is to live in step with the Spirit and The answer is an affirmative. Yes So I want to tackle for a few minutes how to live in step with the Spirit And this is going to be a thrilling time. A couple of these points are going to be like for almost everyone in here. But let's just break it down first and foremost. Embrace your new identity. Embrace it. this one of the most powerful things we can look at in our life in galatians two twenty one of my favorite verses ever this is cited over and over again i've heard so many people as of late drilling down on this legit told me he said oh carl don't stop hammer in this one he said this is such a vital verse i have been crucified with christ it's no longer i who live but christ who lives in me And the life I now live in the flesh, that word sarx there, I live by the, let me actually read it. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. John Stott is a theologian that has died and gone on to his reward and he simply stated this about this verse and there's many great theologians that have a lot of good things to say but he's just said this the essence of the Christian life the essence of the Christian life is union with Christ Christ lives in me and I live in Christ Paul said in Colossians 3, set your mind on things above. Why? Because you died and your life is now hidden with Christ and God. This miracle of this transformation of not just a theoretical idea of who we are, but what's really happened, how we've been, Ephesians 1, regenerated and identified by the power of the Holy Spirit. It changes everything. You've got to embrace it. Your new identity. And your identity is found as you're huddled up to your relationship with God. Some of you know I got a new husky pup. His name's Blaze. I don't have a picture today. I'm going to get some soon. We're having so much fun together, man. He's learning all these new tricks. His latest one, he's four and a half months old, and he's a super athlete. Blaze, my husky pup, I flew to Alaska, picked him up, put him in a little carrier, put him under the seat in front of me. There was about a three-week window when I could have done this because it had to be less than 20 pounds, and he had to be at least eight weeks old. So I had like this little teeny window. So I crammed him into this little basket thing. Actually, it's a cat carrier, but he didn't care. And I crammed him underneath the seat in front of me, and he's all the way back from Anchorage on that red-eye flight on Alaska Airlines. He's like, vroom, vroom. And I'd open it up and I'd put him in my lap and praying he doesn't whiz on me and stuff like that. And put him back in and give him a little treat. And he's just a great guy. He's become, we're starting to bond together now. He comes from super athletes. So his mom and dad are both Golden Harness Award winners of the Iditarod Trail Race. So they're like, he doesn't even know what a stud muffin he is, but he's built for speed and he's strong and he's just so much fun. And I just love this guy. And it was probably about four weeks ago now. I wake him up in the mornings and he's like a typical teenager. He's like, oh, no, dad. And I'm like, come on, dude, we got to go because you're going to pee in your kennel. And he's like, let me pee. And he's like that kind of a dog. And I said, come on, buddy. And I give him tummy rubs. And he's just like, oh, yeah. So I could see what he's going to be as an old man. He's going to be like, yeah, he's going to lay over like this all the time. So I'm giving him tummy rubs. And then I took him out. It's been a few weeks ago now that I first ran into this. And when I take him out walking, he's such an athlete that he gets it at the end of the lead. And I'm already teaching him, G is right, ha is left, and on ahead is straight ahead. And it's awesome to watch a four-and-a-half-month-old pup. When I'm coming up to a sidewalk, I'll go, G. And he, bang, he just jumps that way and then takes off running. I'll say, ha, boom, he hits that way. And so I'm training him to be a lead dog before he's even very old. But we come around this corner. And all of a sudden, we're listening to birds tweet and everything's going great. And all of a sudden, bam! And I look up and I'm like, what in the cat hair is going on? And I see a Rottweiler and a smaller dog that have body slammed this bay window of this house that's just like 20 feet from us. And all of a sudden, I mean, they want to kill my dog. If they could have gotten out, they would have eaten him alive. And my dog realizes this. Well, I've only had him a short time. But you know what's funny? Blaze didn't take off like, let's get out of here. His first instinct was, he shot right back to me, circled around this way, and he parked it right here. And he's looking like that around my legs at that big old bay window in that Rottweiler. And he's like, sucker, I'm with dad. He had that look like, he's got me. God's got you. And there's some of you that are running at the end of the leash. And you know what God wants for you sometimes is stop running. Stop running. And start drawing near. And start realizing. Like never before. Become a bit of a mystic. Where you start realizing, hold it. I'm walking with God. And he's walking with me. And he's bigger than me. And he's stronger than me. And he can protect me. You see, modern American Christianity is... We're either wandered away from God or we're running way out in front of God. And the way that we walk with God in the power of the Spirit is to understand who we are in Jesus and get up on this side and let him stand between us and the Rottweilers of our life. That's how we walk with Jesus. Understand who's got you. A second thing that will help us really live in the power of the Spirit is to refuse legalism and license. Paul says in Galatians 5.13, For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. You know, I searched the world over looking for a quote that could somehow do better than what my dad gave me when I was a young follower of Jesus, but I couldn't find it, so let me give you dad's. When we think about the grace of God and his power, and his favor to help us walk. We often find people in especially American Christianity who say, well, I'm under grace, man. Pastor Carl, I'm under grace, God's favor, and it's quantified as the big umbrella for I can go live like heck and God's got me. So in theory, can you go live like hell and God's got you? Yeah, you can come back. God's gracious. But when you're using grace as permission to live as you like, you have totally missed the mark of the grace of God. And this is what my dad said about grace. Joe Clausen. Grace is not permission to live as you like. It's the privilege to live as you never could before. That's what grace is. So back to this drinking thing, I had a buddy one time say, Carl, I got grace to drink. You know what I told him? I said, dude, I didn't need grace to drink. I drank like a fish before I had the grace of God. No one needs grace to go out and live like this. When you're using grace as a rubber band and you're kind of stretching the boundaries of how close to the edge I can walk without getting burned by the flames of my decisions, you're missing it. You see, when we were slaves to sin, we walked that edge constantly. But now in grace, God lets us run in pastures that we never could before. It's a total difference, man. Third, consciously yield to the Spirit. This whole compare and contrast passage that we did is bookended with two cool verses. This is the first one. But I say, Paul says, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Hold it. Time out. Did you see this? Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Holy cow. That's a promise, isn't it? Hold it, I ask you a question. Is that a promise? Is that a big promise? Does that have bearing on how we look at what it is to keep in step with the Spirit? Yeah. Consciously yield to the Spirit. Martin Lloyd-Jones, not a particularly charismatic guy, said to walk in the spirit means that we are controlled by the holy spirit in everything it is not something we do occasionally but the whole tenor and direction of your life now i'm starting to get into something here that is very foreign to a lot of great bible people and i'm a bible person but before i get to this next point i want to illuminate something very important remember i talked about the pendulum swinging We did something in American Christianity that was really, really dangerous. And this is what we did. We saw some abuses of people that were talking about being filled in the Spirit, being slain in the Spirit and all that, and there was a lot of good there, but there was some, as Sam Storms comes on my radio show and he says this openly, there was a lot of abuses over there. A lot of words that were spoken that maybe came from God, but oftentimes did not. and a lot of claims of supernatural power that turned out to be quite false. And so the danger is what we've done is we've done the proverbial throw out the baby with the bathwater. We're called to walk in the Spirit and live in the Spirit, and that whole Holy Spirit realm has gotten clouded and lost for a lot of people and a lot of you here. But to be consciously yielding to the Spirit, as Martin Lloyd-Jones said, and I love it, means that we are controlled by the Spirit in everything. It's not something we do occasionally, but the whole tenor and direction of our life. Now, let me explain this more by hitting the fourth point here about how to live in step with the Spirit. Always be sensitive to the Spirit. Look here what we find in Galatians 5.25. If we live in the Spirit, let us also keep in the Spirit. This is our central passage for today, and I'm asking you, are you keeping in step with the Spirit? Some amazing words have been spoken about this passage, and I'm not going to put the quotes up on the screen, but I want you to listen with your heart. A.W. Tozer said, He preached right here in Chicago, just south of here. Started Christian Missionary Alliance, or was one of the key guys in that movement. And it was Bible preaching, man. Bringing revival. Let's go. Open in the word of God. Respected man. This is what he said. The Holy Spirit desires to be to us what God is to his people everywhere. Present. personal, intimately involved in every detail of our lives. Whoa! Well, Carl, how does that work? i'll give you another quote dallas willard said the first and most basic thing we can and must do is to keep god before our minds this is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls what we've done in a knowledge broker if i know more i'll grow more not necessarily because jesus said only when you apply what you know will you grow But in a no more, grow more, information broker kind of a Bible movement, what we've done is that we've elevated what we know about God and we've diminished the fact of what God wants to know about us and how he wants to speak in our lives. I'm going to get really practical here in just a moment. But let me give you a couple more. Brother Lawrence... 17th century there's a man that loved the lord deeply he's famous for writing practicing the presence of god he said the most holy and necessary practice in our spiritual life is the presence of god it is to take delight in and become accustomed to his divine company speaking humbly and lovingly with him at all times john owen One of the great churchmen said the Holy Spirit puts forth his power in us in a constant, continued supply of grace. God's favor, his presence, his power. Andrew Murray, one of my favorites, he's the author of the book Humility that I say every nightstand here in 180 needs to have a copy of Humility. He wrote these words, the Spirit's work is to lead us into a life of continual dependence on God. And Francis Chan said the Spirit of God is not a force to be used. He is a person to be followed. He is here. He is here. Now, I'm going to be very practical and bold with you. And some would say, oh, Carl, this is getting risky. No, it's not. I am prompted and guided, confirmed by the Word of God, by the Holy Spirit, consistently throughout my days and even while I'm up here this morning. A lot of Bible-believing evangelicals have said for years words like, yeah, I felt prompted or I felt led to do something. But we've not attributed this. I mean, Jesus said, it's to your advantage that I go. And if you want to really study what the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life, go to John 14, go ahead and read 15, and then John 16, and then jump over to Romans chapter 8, and you are going to get a full diet of what God wants to do in your life. As a matter of fact... You don't even have to go to 1 Corinthians because most of the Holy Spirit conversation in 1 Corinthians, most of it, not all of it, is corrective in nature. But John 14, 15, 16, and Romans 8 are instructive and illuminating in nature. And here's what you find. Jesus said, it's to your advantage that I go away because the Holy Spirit will come and he will remind you of all that I have spoken. he will comfort and he will guide and here's what I know this is where Bible and spirit come together the more armed I am with the Word of God the more tools the Spirit of God has to convict correct guide and direct my life The reason to get armed with the word of God is that Jesus said it himself. The Holy Spirit will take the words and he will guide and direct and protect you. And I can't tell you how many times this happens for me. I'll be on air. I was given this message a week ago and I asked Young Thunder who happens, you've heard him teach here. Isn't Jonathan a cool kid, man? And I said, Jonathan, spot check, man. When we're on air, do you ever hear the Spirit of God? And he said to me, yeah, I had something happen last week where the Spirit of God said something, and I bulldozed right through what he was telling me to not do, and I did it. And I had to acknowledge that I bulldozed right through what the Spirit of God was telling me to do. Most of us have a perspective of the spiritual life that we get into the Word of God, and then I hope I've gotten into the Word of God where I can live off the fumes of a quiet time and that those fumes will go with me. No, friend. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will come and He will guide you. And he will direct you. So let me cut to the chase. Pastor Carl, are you saying that you hear the Holy Spirit directing your life all the time? All the time. I was talking with Dr. Jim Coakley right back there before the service. And there was something that I was going to say to him about where we work together. And you know what the Holy Spirit told me? Nah. You don't need to do that. No joking. Was I prompted? Yeah. Was it me? No. Was it the Holy Spirit who reminded me that I'm better off with less gossip? Holy Spirit's the pneuma, it's the wind, and I hear the wind blowing out there today, man. Maybe the wind's blowing in here today. I have one word that I feel prompted to share with you from the Spirit. I really appreciate people who hear from the Lord. But we need to be careful that we're not hearing our own mind churning up things that don't comport with the word of God. And I am convinced that God's word consumed. Arms, the Holy Spirit who indwells us with all the truth we need. You know, I got to tell you something, man. I don't need new revelation. I'm having a hard enough time getting all this applied to my life. Is anyone else there with me? Are you going to leave me dangling like summer sausage here, man? But as we read the Word of God, and as we stay humble and teachable, And we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us throughout the day. Those who live in the Spirit will keep in step with the Spirit. And who knows what God wants to do with you this week. Got a fifth one, and then I'm going to have a Y on the road. I'm going to hit this quickly, so I'm going to ask the band to come up right now. Stay immersed in community. This is vital. This is not a throw-in like, I'll keep coming to church. It's not one of those banner ads. in galatians 6 verse 9 and 10 it says and let us not grow weary in doing good for in due season we will reap if we do not give up so then as we have the opportunity let us do good to everyone and especially to those of the household of faith you know what one of the great expressions of the holy spirit is how you're treating one another And if you're a person that goes, yeah, you know what, I'm just kind of quiet kind of guy, and I'm like, well, get over it. We need you. We need you. I need Katie, she needs me. I need Tori, he needs me. We need each other. Straight up do. This isn't, I'm not just talking here. We need each other. And one of the greatest evidences of the work of the Spirit is whether or not we're listening to someone speaking and then the Spirit of God may say, whoa, you chase a brother down. who's wandering away because of missing the mark in his life, whoa, you're going to, and you bring him back, you're going to cover over a multitude of sins. And instead of listening to it going, I'll pray for you, you say, I've got to tell you something, man. You're making some decisions for your life right now that are really stupid, and I want to urge you to not do that anymore. You see that? That's what we do. You see someone that walks in and they've got a son who's getting kicked in the teeth by demonic forces. And you know what we do? We get alongside that young lady and we put our hands on her and we say, Holy Spirit, come empower and move on her today. Strengthen her, encourage her, protect her. So I got a why in the road for all of y'all. You online. So simple. You know, before you put this slide up here, oh, there you go. All right, thank you. You're quick on the trigger. Humility. Remember how I was talking about that a lot of months ago, but humility is a binary choice. You can choose to be humble or prideful. Did you know that you can choose binary choice between walking in the flesh and walking in the spirit? So here's my choice for you today. You have a choice today. Will you feed the flesh or live in step with the spirit? and I just want you to cry out to God and this is what I want you to do I want you to come back off that extended leash circle around God in this song Park right here and go God I'm in you would you take over and lead me I have never done well walking independent of you and I want your living word to be leveraged by the power of the spirit to change my life and to make it new in every way that you want to do that and if you have the courage to pray that way i believe our god hears and will respond today so bow your heads and hearts with me jesus come thank you that you are here We surrender and yield all that we are to You. In Jesus' name, Amen.