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Good morning church. Uh may I invite you to stand with me as we read God's word together. Today's scripture passage is taken from Galatians chapter 5 16-2. 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. But if you are led by the spirit you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are
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obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery. Idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have
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crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit. This is the word of God. You may be seated. Good morning, brothers and sisters in Christ. Good morning. One more time. Okay. Good morning. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, next week, uh, brother John Lee will be speaking on life in the spirit part one, crucifying the flesh. and the week after he's also going to continue part two producing the fruit. So we're going to touch on this topic from Galatians
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chapter 5 verse 16 all the way until 25 for three weeks in a row. I'm just laying the path for brother John four weeks four weeks in a row. Sorry I I just realized okay so bearing each other's burdens by uh brother Arnold over here also four weeks in a row. So so you know how important this topic is. All right. I am just a messenger um providing the path forward. Okay. Anyway, uh let us begin with a quick word of prayer. Let's bow our heads together. Our father, we have heard from your word that there is a daily inner
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struggle regarding the flesh and your spirit. And father, we just pray as we open your word now that your spirit will lead us to understand what it means to walk in him. We pray father that you help us to overcome the flesh even on our time here on earth by being in step in sync with your spirit and we ask this in the name of the lord Jesus Christ. Amen. So today we are going to cover only the first three verses and also verses 24-2. Um the other two parts verses 19 to 21 that'll be next week verses 22 to 24 the
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week after that. So those are the concentrations. So I'll read this again just to be clear where we are. But I say walk by the spirit and you will not desire not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. So I'll skip this part. I'll read just verse 24. And
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those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. That's our main portion today. So, I'm jumping straight in because we really don't have much time. There's a lot to cover today. Um I don't know why I put so much up there, but yeah. Okay. Anyway, first, okay, there are plenty of wars that are ongoing at this moment in time. All right. This is one of the ones that has um lasted for a while. The
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Ukraine Russia war. I think we are familiar with this. Um it's still ongoing. No one's really winning. Um India Pakistan was a very shortlived one but still you know you can't say a minor conflict. People still died. Sorry. Skirmishes. Yes. In a sense it's skirmishes, right? It's part of it. Um Israel Gaza also longunning. Um it's been a while. And the most recent one is the Israel Iran war. Right. So that was uh really un um expected. Uh but yeah, you can tell that wars happen all the
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time. Now, God allows wars to happen in a sense to also actually tell us a story, right? And the story really is that we are also at war. So when the Bible talks about war, about warfare, we actually understand, oh, I see in real life. So now I can actually understand what's going on within me. Okay. So with whom should the Christian soldier fight? Because we are talking about this warfare today, right? And a lot of us are very good soldiers. All right? uh accept that we're in the wrong arena. We
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start fighting in church. All right? So, I'll fight with this person. I fight with that person. You know, actually, this is not the war that God is talking about. It's not the fight that God wants you to fight. And the Bible tells us, we have read, it's actually the flesh wanting one thing and the spirit wanting another thing. That both are fighting for control over your life. Every Christian wakes up on this battlefield. Um when you really start your journey, when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as
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your savior, it's not with bullets flying, you know, and it's not with swords flashing. It's not just the temptations that are out there outside, you know, that are tempting me to do something wrong. It's it's not that. It's the rebellion that's inside the heart. All right? The flesh, our flesh wants one thing, the spirit wants another thing. So, we're going to look at this at in three parts. The first one is the two natures in every Christian. And then after we'll look at the freedom
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of from the flesh and then finally how to walk in the spirit. So, the first one, the n the two natures in every Christian, every one of us. If you are a born again believer, there are two natures within you. You say very unfair. How come got two natures? I only want one. Well, we read for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are opposed the are against the flesh for these are opposed to each other. All right. So this is the theme flesh versus spirit. So we first we want to know who are the
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participants in your war. All right. Who are the opposing forces at war in this particular scenario? So remember earlier we have Ukraine, Ukraine, Russia, you know, India, Pakistan, you know, Israel, Iran, etc. Now we're talking about flesh versus spirit. So this flesh here really talks about the sinful nature inherited from Adam's time. It's the self-centerness that we have, the desire for control, the pride, you know, the craving for pleasure at the expense of God's will. The spirit really refers to
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the Holy Spirit that God has given that indwells us if we believe in Christ, producing us new desires in us, convictions, and also the power for godliness. Now, I'm going to use this diagram. It's a little bit unfortunate because it's not really referring to heart versus the mind. So, please take this with a grain of salt. Um, but this diagram really just shows the the division between us, you know, inside of us that it's tearing us apart. One is pulling one, one is the other. Okay. So,
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so um it's not about heart versus mind. Just be clear. It's flesh versus spirit. Okay? So, the flesh says do what is good or what feels good. Sorry. And the spirit says do what glorifies God. One leads to slavery and the other leads to freedom. We're talking about the freedom of the spirit today. Freedom from the flesh. So in this particular um section that we're looking at now I want you to concentrate on the occurrences of these and how it relates to verse 19 and then after that verse 22 to 24 after that.
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Okay you see this theme coming up over and over in verse 16 to 18 and then verse 19 is really an expansion of what the flesh is and then verse 22 is expansion of what the spirit is. All right, that two parts. The works of the flesh really is the consequence of the flesh. All right, so look at it this way. If I gratify the desires of the flesh, then what is being produced are the works of the spirit. Uh works of the Oh, I I really got myself mixed up. Sorry. The works of the flesh, it is evident. All right, it is manifest. So
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if I give into the desires of the flesh, let's repeat that just to make it clear. Then it results in the works of the flesh which are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, etc., etc., all the way until drunkenness and orgies. All right? And then if I walk in the spirit, okay? So that's the desires of the flesh being, you know, having the consequence of the works of the flesh. If I walk in the spirit, you see that I will result in having the fruit of the spirit. Um, and that's love, joy, peace,
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patience, kindness, goodness, etc. All right. Now the desires of the spirit results in the fruit of the spirit. So these are the two consequences as it were. So they are always and in conflict with one another there's always tug of war. One way pulling and the other way pulling. Now what does this mean in practical terms right? Our war is this daily struggle within us. All right if if if I if I stop here it's it's a very superficial thing. You know you you don't quite yeah we at war. I don't
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understand what kind of war. Okay let's look at this. It's the war of saying on a daily basis, I'm not good enough. All right, I need to do something more to prove my worth or I need to do something to be approved or loved. I am not enough. You know what God has done is not enough. What it is the struggle to care for someone else is sometimes I I want to care for myself but I I don't want to care for someone else. Now that is a struggle, daily struggle within us. If you see a homeless man, you know, we
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just walk past, you know, that's a struggle again. you know, I I I know I should be doing something, but I I just don't, you know, he he's, you know, he smells funny, you know, and he's not very kind, you know, he says bad words, you know, I I don't want to, you know, associate myself with the kind of person, you know, if that's the struggle, you see, and then it's the struggle of, you know, saying that I want to prove that I'm right. You know, it's it's about pride, right? Our daily
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struggle also involves trying to forgive someone who has hurt us so much. you know we we know that they have hurt us you know and yet we still say ah you know yes God says I have to forgive but I how come I can't forgive you know it's that daily struggle that's the war that God is saying that we are in that's the war in the flesh JC Ra has a whole chapter on this called um true Christianity is a fight and it's really that fight that inner warfare that defines a Christian so if there is that
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fight that you are facing from a day-to-day basis I want you to rejoice in that the spirit is working within you. I'll be very worried if you say I have no struggle whatsoever. I'm fine. I'm okay. You know that there is no struggle whatsoever. So means in a sense life may not actually be there. We're going to label a lot on this second point. All right? The freedom from the flesh. So I've already talked about the two natures flesh versus spirit. But we need to talk and understand more what
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this word flesh means. All right? And what it means to be free from it. Okay? So this section the freedom of the flesh. All right? We looking at this verse 16. All right? If you walk by the spirit it's uh you can say someone is in in this sense it's Paul right all right it's an imperative he's trying to say do it means it's something you can actually do by choice you can decide I want to walk in the spirit so walk by the spirit and you will not disc gratify the desires of the flesh so the flesh the
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term in the Greek is uh s a rx is very unusual because it actually can refer to many different things. It could refer to you know uh meat you know flesh of meat etc all the way down until in this particular sense what we understand as sinful nature all right so so how do you define is it is it about body right is is the flesh our body all right so so that's a question so it's like oh if it's just about the body is very simple then I just get rid of the desires of my body and I'm done right so I don't want
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to have appetites you know and it's fine is it really just about the body all right and and let us look again in verses 19 all the way to 21 to see whether it's true or not. Right? Remember the list sexual immorality, you know, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, adultery, enmity, strife, whatever, right? All the way down until all these. Now, it's a long list. They can divide it into somewhat four categories. All right? So, one is sexual, the works of the flesh, is religious, is community-
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based, and also substance abuse. All right? Generally speaking. All right? uh there's no one right way to divide this. It's just you try to categorize and then you realize you see some patterns. All right? If it's just about the body, right? You can say, "Oh yeah, sexual immorality that's committed in the body." That's correct. Substance abuse, you know, if I drink, you know, until I'm drunk and I don't know what's tomorrow and or if I just say, you know,
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yeah, um just go on a, you know, uh drug field partying, you know. So, so these kind of things are done in the body. But if it's just about the body, then how do you explain this part? How do you explain enmity, hatred? How do you understand jealousy? Jealousy is not in the body. It's in your mind, you know, right? Envy, you know, fits of anger, rage, you know, dissensions, selfish ambition. How how do you justify that this is part of your body? It is not. So the word flesh here, the works of the
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flesh doesn't refer to your physical body. And that's sometimes a misconception that some of us have. It's not your physical body. It's your whole entire being. your body, your soul, your spirit or everything involved. All right. Now, how do we understand then what the flesh is? All right. The key is in verse 16 to 18. There's a parallelism between these two verses. I'm going to put it this way. All right. I'm going to take out verse 17. Okay. But I say walk by the spirit, then you will not gratify
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the desires of the flesh. If you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law. If I just highlight these two, right, they are parallel in a sense. All right? If they are not exactly the same, at least they're very similar and they actually have synonymous meanings. So if I walk by the spirit is mean is meaning I'm led by the spirit. I'm a child of God, right? And if I choose to actually walk in the spirit, I will not desire gratify the desires of the flesh. It means that I'm not under the law. It's a
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very very weird term to say not gratify the desires of the flesh. What does it mean in that sense? So the flesh really is a synonym for saying the desire of the flesh is really being under the law. Let's look at that again. The desire of the flesh is to be under the law. All right. Now what does under the law mean? All right. So your flesh naturally desires a system of works righteousness. It's a partially intact system of self-salvation. Let's look at that very slowly here because this is tough. If you get make
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the connection is clear already. All right. Your flesh desires to prove its worth. I do not want to rely on the grace of God that God has given to me. I I I don't deserve it and I want to make sure that I can earn something. Right? It's the partially intact system of works righteousness/selfvation being under the law. That is the desire of the flesh and that is where all the works of the flesh come from. All right? I don't want to rely on what God has done. I just want to rely on myself what
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I can do. That's the flesh. Okay? So I'm going to give you an example. Um it's like saying that I've been working for a very long time. All right? Maybe 50 years. And then suddenly I'm given a golden handshake. You know I think a lot of people here know what it is. Maybe a lot of you have received it before. It's a voluntary separation scheme from a company say maybe worth 2 million ring. I say okay you know uh thank you so much for your services. all these years thinking about it actually working for
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50 years is a bit unrealistic sorry that means I'll be around 80 already but anyway um what what I'm trying to say is that you work long enough you know such that the company is willing to give you a big sum of money or gift to say you know thank you for all your services and yet after that suddenly the next day I turn up and still say I'm going to work anyways because I don't deserve that voluntary separation scheme you know I still want to work for you know so so you're trapped you know I'm trying to
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prove that I'm worthy of you know Whatever gift I have received, it's a gift. Right? Now, there is a huge warning here. Now, what is the big problem of the flesh? Because if I don't talk about this, you will say, h there's nothing wrong with the flesh. It's okay. Well, I can live with it. I can live with this two dangers. It's fine. Paul gives a warning. He says, I warn you as I warned you before. This is warning number two. You know, you know the companies are usually give out warning
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letter, warning letter. I think you got a second warning letter already. You know, all right. This second warning letter from Paul saying that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Wow, that's a huge statement. He's talking about salvation here. You know, your salvation as it were, the reality of it is at stake. Is it real? So, I warn you as I warned you before that those who do the word do is practice continuous unrepentant practice. I keep doing these things you
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know you know I continue to indulge in sexual immorality fornication having affairs you know I have no conscience whatsoever is fine for me you know and and continue in that state and form then who those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of god the continuous unrepentant practice of such things belies the underlying reality that this person may not actually be a born-again Christian right there's the danger of hellfire for people who are not repentant in these things. This is a
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warning. So, how do we understand this desire of the flesh? All right, we've we've learned about this a couple of times and I think it's worth bearing repetition in this case. Um, the the word desires really is the word epitome. Um, is the same one that we did last time when we were studying about idolatry. It's the overd desire. There's epi over to desire over desire for something, right? So lust in the Bible is not a normalsized desire for something evil. It's the overd desire for something good. You
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have made something good become the ultimate thing above God. So it's like saying this, this is a very helpful diagram um by Dr. Peter. He's saying that overd desire you can overdesire bad things. You can try to beat someone up you know or something but that's just you know the bad things you know. Yeah it's you shouldn't desire those things but if it's good things right I can overdesire good things as well you know money you know success approval love. We've talked about this many times
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before. Or you can also overdesire God. But is there such thing as overdesiring God? Because God can never really truly be overdesired. You can desire him and there is no such thing as really overdesing him. That's why the word used in um verse 17 is that the spirit desires this. The desires of the spirit are against the flesh. The desires of the spirit is is the same word you know overdesire epitome if if it's translated directly with the same translation it's like saying the spirit lusts w the
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spirit can last you know so the word lust is not you know about sexual desire it is about overdire aspect of our being all right so that's the the one on the left hand side represents the flesh if we desire these things right the good things or the bad things overd desiring them that's the desire of the flesh and if we desire god as how it should be so I won't use the word with desire it is actually walking in the spirit. So there is this false belief sometimes that we think that these things are better than
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God right the flesh you know these things can give me a sense of worth you know I will be accepted I'll be loved you know if I have these things if I you know do all these things I give give you an example right uh my wife always talks about this um after work I I sometimes like to play um chess on my phone right and then um you know I'll be making moves and She will sometimes come over and then she'll look at me playing you know and then she'll say why you make that move. Then after
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that I was like oh yeah she's because this this this but when she asked me that question right I will always make a mistake because I'm not concentrating anymore. I'm just trying to explain the moves. So after that I make a mistake already. I was like I lost again. Then after I bang table you know she say wow bang table. So then I realized why did I bang the table you know. So so I was like yeah you know so frustrated you know. Then I realized that's the flesh. The desires of the flesh is that oh if
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I'm a good chess player then I'm a person of worth. You know my ELO has gone up you know and you know I'm worth something you know but actually I'm a I'm a a terrible chess player anyways. So but the point is that you know I tend to try to find my worth in these things. It's a daily struggle you know. So you ask my wife she'll laugh at these things. All right you get to see you know in all its uh uh yeah I don't know. Anyway, um so desire, you know, in this case, you have to learn what is the
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underlying motive and desire for you to see what comes out, whether it's the works or the flesh or whether it's the fruit of the spirit. Okay? So the the battle is fought at the level of desires. It's a much lower level. Okay? Much much lower level. So most of us try to address problems, right, at the you know, at the surface level. this this iceberg analogy right I think is actually a very good one and I think you know it's it's worth spending a bit of time thinking about this sometimes in
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church we always try to to fix problems at this level all right so if just say there's some jealousy or you know enmity some some strife you know some competition then then you know some of the um you know church leaders might say hey no come both of you together come and then shake hands you know and then they shake hand you know we all graduate you know and but but that doesn't solve the problem right that just you're just addressing a symptom. You know, it's like taking a a band-aid and you know
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putting it over you know someone who has cancer. It's not going to solve the problem, right? So you have to address it at the underlying level which is actually really the desires and motives of the flesh. What causes you to be jealous of someone is because that success of that person is say ah I should have gotten that success. So I become bitter when someone else is successful. It's not because actually you know I'm not successful. It's because he's more successful than I am.
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You know, we believe in a culture where it's not enough to have enough. You must have some. You have more than the other person. As long as I have more than my neighbor is good enough for me. You know, 1 million is not enough. I my neighbor has 1 million. I want to have 1 million and one, then I'll be happy, you know. So, so it's is really, you know, trying to find your worth in these things. And when you do, then you will realize that it will produce all these things. Why do people, you know, commit
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affairs or, you know, why is there sexual immorality? Why is there drunkenness? Why do people like to drink? Actually, it's because they have no joy in their lives. Right? That is one one aspect of the fruit of the spirit which is really you have joy in God. You will not actually try to find all these other things because you know people who are joyless will try to find joy in these things. So the same with divisions, envy, we've already talked about this in some detail, right? So we fight battles, right, of our war at the
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level of desires and motives. Don't try to address the problem at the symptom level. All right? is the desire of the heart. You need to really reflect. It's the same with the desire and motives of the spirit. So if you desire the spirit, if you walk in the spirit, which we will talk about today, then you realize that the fruit is singular, which uh John Lee will speak more about, it is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gender, faithfulness, and self-control. All right? You will have all these
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things and and you realize that the fruit of the spirit counters it opposes it corrects the works of the flesh. See how it goes one way or the other. These things can be displaced by these things. All right? So they are always in opposition to one another. The flesh is always in opposition with the spirit. The sin desiring aspect of our whole being is always in contrast and in conflict with the god- desiring aspect of our renewed being in the Lord Jesus Christ. The works of the flesh is always about self. Notice there is a pattern.
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All right? It is about me, myself and I. My pleasure, my pride, my um you know my self-worth, my approval, you know my me, myself, I myself. All right? is self-centeredness in the sense sin can always be defined around self. It is when Adam and Eve in the garden said I want to be better than God and therefore they took the fruit I above God. And the works of the the fruit of the spirit now is is not so self-centered. It's God- centered and others centered. All right? So love, joy, peace, these are actually
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towards God. And then patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control all towards others. If we have the love, joy and peace that God has given, we will automatically show kindness, patience, goodness towards others automatically. All right? So see how these two again oppose each other. All right? Very important. But remember our fight is at the desire level of desires. Now I'm going to give you another example. Imagine that we are cups. All right? We are just uh cups. But you know and and
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and we are filled sometimes with dirty water. The dirty water in this case represents the works of the flesh. All right? To remove the works of the flesh is not so simple as just emptying out the cup because it's just going to be out with um you know dirty water again, right? So you can try to just empty out the cup all the time, but it's going to be filled with dirty water again because there's a stream of dirty water you know all around us. So what we need is really a stream of clean water as it were. And
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the stream of clean water in this case is actually representing the fruit of the spirit. It actually displaces the works of the flesh such that over time it will be completely out whether we can do it in this lifetime or not. Now that's debatable. All right. But if we continuously fill ourselves with walking in the spirit, we will be filled with the fruit of the spirit and that displaces the works of the flesh. You can only choose one or the other. You can't have you you can have both at the
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same time but you can you have to choose. It's a daily struggle for you to choose between one and the other. So the maturing fruit of the spirit displaces the works of the flesh is all about self. Displaces the self. All right? So that's the idea behind it. Remember that struggle that we are always facing. So I say walk by the spirit. You will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So where does this new nature come from? God tells us that this new nature comes from him. He gave us a new heart. He
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gave us and put in us a new spirit within us. He will take out the heart of stone in our flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Now don't confuse yourself with this word flesh here. This is not talking about the flesh, not the sarks, you know. It's it's talking about um a living heart. A heart of stone means is a dead heart. And here I'm giving you a living heart. I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. It's not that you will walk in my
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statutes and keep my judgments and do them and then I will put my spirit upon you. It's the other way around. God puts his spirit within us first. when we believe in Lord Jesus Christ is my spirit is upon you now and then now you can actually do those things. So there is a difference between these two. All right is a very similar kind of struggle regarding the flesh and the spirit. So the heart of stone is all about the flesh. It's all about being spiritually dead following the law but without God's
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spirit. All right. And the other side you have the heart of flesh who is spiritually alive that God has put life within us to do the statutes, the judgments, the law. All right. So before it's is like this before trusting the Lord Jesus Christ you know I have to keep the law to be saved I keep the law I follow the commandments out of fear that is obeying being under the law so remember the phrase in verse 18 he say if you are led by the spirit you know you will not be under the law this case
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you can obey without being under the burden of the law without you know in this in this case he's obeying being under that burden because he needs to prove himself right if I follow then God will love me. But after trusting Lord Jesus Christ, you know, you keep the law because you are saved. You keep the law out of gratitude. You know, remember the law is not a bad thing. The law tells us that we are sinners. But it's also a reflection of who God is. Very important for us to understand. It's not say when
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I become a Christian, you know, I don't need to, you know, care about the commandments of God anymore. I can go out and do all the stuff that I want. You know, I have the freedom to do all I want. That's not freedom. All right? That that is, you know, not the freedom that God is talking about. So we can now obey without being under the law. I don't need to follow these things to obey these things so that I am approved or loved. I'm already approved or loved or approved and loved. Right? So so
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theoretically speaking, you know, this is the ideal case, you know, before trusting Lord Jesus Christ and after Lord trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. This is our relationship with the law. Let's take a look and see how does this apply in an example. Say in the in the ten commandments, we know about this, right? So I can view it from the lens of self. I'm doing all this to prove my worth. But the Lord Jesus was asked the question by a lawyer saying, "Teacher, which is a great commandment or the
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greatest commandment in the law?" It says, "Love your God, love your neighbor as yourself." So that's verse 37 and verse 39. And in very interestingly, verse 40 says, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." So if you can fulfill these two things, you have already fulfilled all the commandments that God has given to you. If it's that simple or like wow I can do that too. No, not really. It's not that simple. Right? That's why God puts the law so that you can understand
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that what we do sometimes is not exactly very loving towards him or towards others. That's the point. So these are the two things very important. So if you we are already saved, we can then follow the law and know what it means to really love God the first four and love others the following six. Ideally remember that's our relationship with the law. But practically it's not that simple. We tend to fall back into the desires of the flesh being under the law or trying to find our worth, our
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approval in those things. Being under the law, this partially intact system of self salvation or self-righteousness. So it's always a tug of war all the time. There's an inner struggle between the old man and the new man. You will see this in Corinthians saying that we are a new creature, a new creation. You know we are given an old heart, new heart, old man, new man, old self, new self is there's you will see this theme recurring throughout the scriptures. So remember that the daily conflict that we
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have the presence of the spirit is actually a sign of life. Don't be discouraged if you feel that you know oh you know I struggle rejoice in that struggle you know thank God for that struggle the spirit empowers but we must choose. All right. Walk by the spirit is not to say you have to do it by your own effort. Walk in your own strength. No, walk by the spirit. Right? Freedom is ultimately not obtainable by human potentiality. Is not by your self-will. Is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. But you have to decide. It's not
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effort. Let's make that very clear. We make a conscious choice and based on that conscious choice, we have a consequence. And what's the consequence? The spirit enables us. He gives us power and creates new appetites and powers within us to resist the flesh. and these new desires, the old desires will be thwarted by new desires. So that's how this works. It's like saying this, I'm trying to roll a boat with all my strength. That's living in the flesh, right? You know, I'm trying to prove
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myself, you know, I'm trying to do that. Whereas, you know, um living or walking by the spirit is really like being in a sailboat. I just have to raise my sails and then I have to observe. I have to steer. I have to stay alert and I have to adjust based on the wind and then I just catch the wind you know that will push me along. The power comes from the spirit but I decide to follow or not. So that's the difference between the two. I don't have to have effort. The the gospel is not about effort. The gospel
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is about choice. So remember we choose to walk in the spirit. So walking in the spirit produces the fruit. What kind of fruit? Right. Um I'm just going to touch on a very very uh you know superficial and very uh I say very quick um aspects of this. So it's like like like like a seed. Okay. Now now when you see this picture I don't know where I first saw this picture, right? I I smelled something. I don't know about you. You can smell it, right? I mean I mean we have no durian here but you can smell
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it. You know it's amazing. I I don't know how God made this but think about it. Okay. Seed. All right. We we have seeds that are planted in the ground and then they can produce a tree and a tree produces more fruit you know and it's amazing you know because one seed has a potential to populate the whole entire world you know have you ever thought about it one seed you know okay if I have one durian seed is enough to plant a tree and the tree can produce fruit produce more seeds more seeds more fruit
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etc etc etc all right I may be oversimplifying it but the idea is that I want you to understand the power of the seed the Holy Spirit is planted like a seed seed within us. All right. Now, that's the idea. The spiritual DNA, the seed of the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, etc. That seed is already implanted within you and I when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You already have that in embriionic form as it were. All right? You just need to cultivate the ground
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your heart as it were upon which the seed the word of God the gospel is planted in seed form this love joy peace patience goodness will spring forth and reach his full potential you need to cultivate the ground you don't need to plant the seed right when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that was when already you have already planted the seed right now it's just cultivating the ground the fruit of the spirit is gradual is inevitable it's internal And we are going to talk about this this
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portion over here. It's gradual. It's going to take time. Now for us here who says that you know I've been um Christian you know and I still struggle with sin you know good news for you. All right because producing this fruit takes time. All right it's not going to be immediate. All right. So when you plant you know a jury it's going to take at least five years for the seed to turn to a tree and then turn to fruit. All right it's a long process. The same with us as well. You don't expect, you know, a baby
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to start walking straight away. You know, it's hard for us to to even learn how to crawl and you just want to start to walk. Same with us in spiritual matters. You you also have to learn to, you know, slowly crawl and then only start walking, right? So, it grows gradually. It's not something that's immediate. So, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness. You don't expect this to happen overnight. Oh, I believe in all Jesus Christ. Next day, you know, I can love, you know, then my neighbor
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as myself. Not so simple, right? But the fruit of the spirit is inevitable. This is the flip side of it. For those of us who have been Christians for a very very long time, this is the bad news for you. All right? If we plant the right seed, we will get the right fruit. All right? So, it's inevitable that you'll get a durian fruit if you plant a durian seed. The spiritual DNA, remember, has already been planted within us. So, technically the seed is there. It should bring forth the fruit of the spirit. So, what
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happens if you don't have the fruit? Remember the Lord Jesus was saying a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. You don't judge a tree by its name. You judge a tree by the fruit it bears. So it's a very solemn morning. If we have been Christians for an awfully long time and we don't have any of the fruit of the spirit um the aspect of the fruits of the spirit within us fruit not uh fruit sorry. So we don't have all the aspects growing within us at least reasonably then we should be questioning ourselves
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are has the gospel really taken heart there's a seed really planted as it were okay the fruit of the spirit is also internal all right it's it starts from the inside and out now we want the Bible talks about this internal organic qualitative growth I can make a seed grow but I can do it mechanically I can throw more seeds at it and it's going to grow but it's going to be a pile of seeds. That's not the growth that I'm looking for. Okay. What I want is to plant the seed and I want it to grow
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naturally and organically. All right. And what does this mean to us as Christians? We can be very mechanical about it. We can just continue doing external actions. You know, I do this, I do that, you know, you know, you just concentrate on working, you know, or you can concentrate on how is God transforming me, right? Another example of what it's the doing, right? A lot of us in the sense as Christians, we try to focus on on spiritual gifts, you know, right? Uh all such things as like tongues of prophecy, you know, wisdom,
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miracles, we focus so much on talking about all of these whether it still exists today or you know whether you know we have it or not, you know, all that kind of stuff. So we always think that oh yeah, you know, the gifts are actually a sign of whether we are spiritually alive or not. Actually, the ultimate sign of authenticity is not the gifts. The ultimate sign of authenticity is the fruit of the spirit. Whether we are cultivating this love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, etc., this
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is the ultimate sign, right? It is internal. It is through character transformation and that shows that will inevitably lead to the works. But remember the example in Matthew chapter 7 where you know people, you know, said to L, Lord, Lord, you know, have we not prophesied in your name? have we not done many wonderful miracles in your name etc. And you know, uh, Thor says, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity." You know, you workers of lawlessness because all they
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did was works. All they cared about was the external part of him, doing the external actions, prophesying in his name, doing miracles in his name. But they didn't care about what way they were inside, whether they were transformed or not. Okay? So, they never knew God. If you know God, you will have what we call the communicable attributes of God. You know, it's like communicable disease like COVID 19. It spreads, right? So if you're close enough to someone who has a flu or COVID 19, you
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will get it as well. It's communicable. Same thing with God, right? He has communicable attributes which are these in the fruit of the spirit. The non-communicable attributes are like his omniscience, his omnipotence and his omnipresence. You know, you can't have that. Those are things that only belong to God. So remember this is just trying to reiterate the point. The maturing fruit of the spirit displaces the works of the flesh, your self. Remember, so that's why we're trying to cultivate
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this fruit. Now, we're going to end this section on the freedom of the law. All right? The freedom that we have from the flesh is the freedom from the law to prove ourselves. It's not to say that I'm free from the law. I don't need to do is that I can freely do it now because I want to, not because I have to. Right? Freedom doesn't mean doing whatever we want. It means doing what we were made to do. Is we think that sometimes as a train, imagine a train says, you know, oh, I'm free. I don't
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need to run on the track, you know, and then you try to jump out of the track, you know, you just when the train is off track, it's really not going fast at all, right? It crashes. So that's not freedom. True freedom is being made to be actually doing what we are made to do, right? So being led by the spirit means we're no longer under the law, but it's not to see say that we are free to live lawlessly, you know, without the law. The spirit becomes the our new track as it were and we can go down at
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full speed that we know we are able to do what we were made to do. We can be real bearers of God's image as we were created. We were created to bear his image and now we can truly bear his character and image towards others. That is what it means to be free. So true freedom isn't doing whatever we want. It's living by the power and direction of the spirit. Last point, how to walk in the spirit. It's very important, right? And this is where the tire hits the road. All right. Walking in the
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spirit. How do we practically do it? I'm going to give an example. Okay. To start this, a young boy once asked his grandfather, "A wise old Christian, grandpa, why do I still I why do I still feel like I want to do bad things even though I gave my life to Jesus?" The grandfather smiled and said, "It's like there are two dogs inside of me, right? One is mean, selfish, angry, and full of pride. That's the flesh. The other is kind, gentle, humble, and full of love. That's the spirit. And they are always
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fighting." The boy thought for a moment and asked, "Which one wins?" And the grandfather answers, "The one I feed." Think about it. The one you feed is going to have the victory in your life. So in this case, remember, we choose the flesh or we choose the spirit. It's a choice, remember, not effort. We make a conscious choice, a decision. We don't need to manufacture the fruit, the love, joy, peace, patience, goodness. That seed has already been planted within us
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in our heart when we believe in Christ. We just need to cultivate the ground. Cultivating the ground also is part and parcel of walking in the spirit and we'll see what it means. All right. Some people call this the means of grace. Through the years, they have called it the word of God, prayer, fellowship with other believers. You know, these are the ways we can cultivate the fruit of the spirit. All right, I'm not going to concentrate on the second and the third. I'm just concentrating on the first because the
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first will lead to the second and the third. All right, the word of God is very very important. Why? So, what is being filled with the spirit? What's the definition of it? And it's actually found oh dear, I did not put the the references. One is Colossians chapter 3:16 and the other I believe is in Ephesians. All right. So, it says be filled with the spirit. Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. All right. being filled with the spirit in psalms in hymns and spiritual songs
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singing making your melody in your heart to God in Colossians chapter 3:16 separate letter it says in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and singing with grace in your heart you see the parallelism at the bottom it's actually telling you that being filled with the spirit is actually synonymous with letting the word of Christ dwell in us okay being filled with the spirit is synonymous with letting the word of Christ dwell in us it's equal It's like saying the word of God is like marinate, you know, and then you put it
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on a piece of meat and you let it simmer through, you know, you let it permeate, you let it saturate the entire meat. It's not enough just to put it on top and not and, you know, and straight away just cook it. You need to let it marinate in it. It's what the analogy is. I can study the Bible all the time. Study, study, study is like putting a lot of, you know, sauce and gathering a lot of sauce and just pour it upon myself. But I don't let it simmer. I don't let it permeate through my being,
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through my whole entire being. I'm just gathering knowledge but not actually letting it transform me. All right? Transform piece of meat. Much nicer. Very tasty. Okay. The word of God, you need to let it um you have to meditate upon it so much so that it permits through your entire being, every fiber of your being. In Hebrews chapter 4:2, the word of God is living and powerful. It can do that. And it, you know, it pierces even to the dividing sun of soul and spirit of the joints and marrow. is
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a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Now I know why is it that I desire this or why is it that I desire that the word of God is able to cut through your intents and your thoughts. Your thoughts and intents are very very closely linked to one another. The word of God is so sharp you can cut those two. You can know what you're thinking and know what you're actually intending. The word of God transforms us. How? It's like looking in a mirror. This is 2 Corinthians chapter 3:18. And beholding
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as in a mirror in a glass the glory of the Lord. If I look at his glory over and over and over again, I'm slowly being transformed into his image from glory to glory. We are transformed by looking at the glory of God. How do we see the glory of God? We see him in his word. And that is why we spend so much time studying the Bible, so much time preaching, so much time just meditating upon the word of God. Now, um most of us here either use ways or Google maps, right? Um, and in a sense is if we don't use it today, it's like
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saying you're you're driving without GPS. It's that's what it's like to walk in the flesh. You don't actually know where you're going, right? I'm talking about a new area. I don't say that, oh, I've been in K for 50 years already. I know how to let's say I throw you to, you know, you know, somewhere maybe Thailand and you're driving there without GPS. That's like walking in the flesh without GPS, right? Walking in the spirit now, suddenly God gives you a
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GPS. God gives you ways now and suddenly you know where you're going. All right. So that's being led by the spirit. Now there is a difference okay between hearing and doing. So I can have the GPS on but I can choose not to follow it. Right? I can still choose being led by the spirit. I can still choose not to walk in the spirit. All right? I can choose to walk in the flesh and say oh yeah you know it's gem you know the the GPS says you know uh in 500 meters please turn right. You know and then
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after that you like no I'm just going to go straight and recalculating you know. So it's is you can choose not to follow you know what God is trying to to tell you to do. So be doers of the word and not hearers only. And and the second part of that verse is also very important. If you are hearer only you're deceiving yourself. You're lying to yourself. You're not actually doing God's word. You are deceiving yourself. Yeah. Become a more spiritual person because I know God's word better. But
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actually no, you're not actually doing it. Do it, not just hear it. That's how we are going to grow and walk in the spirit. So do not be conformed to the image of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You're renewed in your mind by the word of God. We're going to end very soon and we're going to talk more about just this one last portion. To those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh because this is really the key to what it means to walk in the spirit. To walk
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in the spirit, you can't do it in your own strength. It's not about Bible study. It's about understanding the gospel and really making it saturate yourself. You know, let it permeate through your entire being. This verse is very interesting because it says there those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh. The flesh will say those who crucify the flesh belong to Jesus Christ. And the gospel says those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh. Now you say, "Wow, what does that mean?" Look at
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the order. The order in the text, you belong and then your flesh is crucified. If you try to crucify the flesh so that you belong, that's your worksbased salvation. The gospel is you first belong. You have already been made his and therefore you can now crucify the flesh. Remember that how you belong to Christ. Now this is the gospel. You are now a property of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are a property now. You belong to him. And because you belong to him, you can now say, "I can crucify the
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flesh." Now, how did that happen? Now, before we sing our final song, I want you to consider how did this happen? All right? What did it take for us to be able to belong to him and therefore crucify the flesh. Remember at the cross, the Lord Jesus bore the full weight and the penalty of our sinful flesh. Everything that our sinful flesh desires. Remember, I warn you and I warn you again. Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. There's punishment for those things. God says, "I will bear
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that punishment." And when we trust in him, we are united in him with him in his death, his burial, his resurrection. The death that he bore, our flesh died together. The penalty for our flesh has died together. That's what it means to belong to Christ. Our old self crucified with him and now we walk in the newness of life by his spirit. We are given a new life now. That's what happened at the cross of Calvary. Remember the price of our freedom. He had to be bound first. He didn't just have to be bound. His
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hands had to be nailed. He gave us freedom by being bound himself. That is key. There was a price to be paid. So don't go out here thinking today, you know, oh yeah, you know, I should I should I not walk in the spirit? Remember what it cost to allow you to walk in the spirit because if he never paid that price, there will be no spirit for you to walk in. God will not be able to put our spirit within us, his spirit within us. Remember our price has been paid in full. You have been bought with a price. You are not your own. We
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are free. The freedom has been won. Free from our old self, from the flesh, from a life of moral striving in our own strength to prove our self worth, to be accepted, to be loved. You are already accepted. You are already loved. And he's just calling you to walk in freedom by the spirit, to live in step with the spirit. Walking by the spirit is not about striving in our own strength to be better Christians. It's simply about remembering that we belong to Christ. That's verse 24. So I want us today, let us not walk out
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today thinking I must do better. I must try harder. I must strive in my strength. Let us walk out saying Jesus has done it all and I belong to him. And now by his spirit I will walk in step with him. Now that is what it means to walk in the freedom of the spirit. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our father, we acknowledge that we have two natures within us. The flesh, the old man, the old self. You tell us, our father, that is still with us at this present moment. And we are not free from it until we reach heaven's
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throne. Yet, Father, you have so willed to put your spirit upon us when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as a seal as a deposit of our salvation. And your spirit within us, our father, is meant to transform us. And we pray, Father, that as we hear the gospel preached to us over and over again, that we will be transformed to bear the fruit of the spirit to be able to displace the works of our flesh that we so despise. Because father those are the works of sin that will drag us into the depths of
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hell. But we thank you father that you have saved us from that reality. You have saved us so that we can now walk in the newness of life. We can walk in your judgments in your statutes. We can walk in the spirit. We pray father that you will empower us by your spirit to do so. And we ask this in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. Now let us stand to sing. I want you to concentrate on the words that we are going to sing. Remember the freedom. He is my joy, my freedom and in him I am free. Let us sing yet not I but through
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Christ in Jesus is our only hope. Church, please be seated as we continue to declare our hope in Christ by celebrating the Lord's supper together. If you profess faith in Jesus Christ and you have not received the elements, please raise your hands so that the ushers can come and bring them to you. And I'll ask everybody, let's wait for a moment so that we can open this elements together. Is there anyone that needs elements? [Music] Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you to
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remember your son's sacrifice and to receive your grace. Prepare our hearts to partake of this holy meal with reverence and gratitude in Jesus' name. Amen. Church, let's unseal the elements together. [Music] Let us remember the good news of Jesus Christ together. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread. He broke it. He gave it to his disciples saying, "This is my body which is broken for you." Why did Jesus give us his body? He gave us his body so that we may receive forgiveness for our sins. We
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have been unloving. We have been bitter or grumpy. We have been anxious and full of worry. We have been impatient, unkind, unfaithful, evil. We have been crude or cruel. We have been compulsive. We have lived as those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. We have lived indulging our earthly desires. But God showed us mercy. Christ's body was broken. His blood was shed, punished for our acts of the flesh. Jesus received wrath and judgment so that all who hope in his death, all who trust in his name will receive grace and
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mercy, the forgiveness of our sins. Church, let us partake the bread together in remembrance of him. [Music] Thank you Jesus for your body. [Music] After the disciples ate, Jesus took the cup and it says, "This is the cup of my blood for the new covenant." The death of Jesus on the cross not only purchases our forgiveness of sin but also the fulfillment of God's promise. God promised the gift of the Holy Spirit who helps us to defeat the desires of our flesh and bear fruits of righteousness.
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By the Holy Spirit, God has washed us of our sins and regenerated us into new creation. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so are we raised to new life. Church, let us stand together. [Music] Let us thank Jesus for his blood, for the fulfillment of God's promise, for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Let us partake the cup together. Thank you, Jesus, for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Church, let's keep singing. Let's remember the goodness [Music] of God. Through the death and resurrection, we are forgiven. We are
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gifted with the Holy Spirit who enables us to produce good fruit to the glory of God. Thanks be to God for his boundless grace. Let us sing of his grace. Thank you Jesus. Church, receive this benediction. Go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit to live as those who belong to Christ, crucifying the flesh with his passions and desire and keeping in step with the spirit to the glory of God. Amen. Amen. Service is over. After a moment of silent meditation, you are dismissed. The elders and pastors will be in front
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to pray for those who are in need. If you want someone to pray together with you, please come to the front.
