Sermon Central
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Life In The Spirit
Contributed by Anthony Zibolski on Apr 6, 2018 (message contributor)
Summary: As believers, living our lives means that we allow the Lord to be Lord of our lives and we allow the Holy Spirit of God to lead our lives and direct our paths.
Life in the Spirit
Prayer-
Introduction-
Good morning everyone… Do me a favor.
Close your eyes for a moment and picture a perfect world. What would that look like?
Would there be violence?
Would there be racism?
Would there be injustice?
Would there be conflict?
According to what you think, that would be your world. But you have to realize that many have different views of what their perfect world would look like.
A perfect world is perceived in different ways.
Someone greater than ourselves would have to define what a perfect world would look like so that we have something to measure it bye.
It cannot be our definition because we would have different views of what that would look like.
God Almighty, the creator of the universe and the creator of each one of us determines perfection.
He alone determines what our lives were created for and how we would fit into that world.
In His perfect world, we were created to worship and love God, to have a meaningful relationship with Him and for Him to be our God.
He would be our strength and guidance every step of the way.
But sin got in the way of that and we decided we did not need or want God’s help with that, so now today… God, because of His love for us, has provided a way of redemption, a way of helping us through our days with the strength of His Spirit that is available to every believer that calls upon the name of the Lord.
WE HAVE A CHOICE- IT IS NOT DEMANDED AND FORCED UPON US.
WE ARE NOT ROBOTS THAT MUST LOVE HIM BACK.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.”
Apostle Paul writes these words to the church because they thought that living right was about wither they should get circumcised or not.
He tells them it is more than cutting some foreskin off the male’s, it is about living with the Holy Spirit of God directing their life and desiring to please God more than pleasing yourself or people around you.
Galatians 5:17-26 Read from the Bible
We have talked the last couple weeks about who is your neighbor- How far do I have to extend my reach to those around me?
We talked about compassion and the compassion people should have toward each other and what the community of believer’s looks like when they are in the workplace God has placed us.
(14) “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command:”love your neighbor as yourself.”
Board meetings- you can disagree but it should never be an attack on one another. The person is not the enemy. The enemy to defeat is whatever keeps us from common ground.
Business meeting- able to disagree with the determination to come to an agreement instead of making a bridge so wide that no one can cross and worse yet the bridge is burned and no one can cross.
Every avenue of our life should be about loving others as much as we love ourselves… When common ground cannot be reached (That happens) we still love each other as a person, as a human being.
Sometimes leaving the rest to God and His mercy and justice.
(15) “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
Backing a dog into a corner, nobody wins… there will be hurts. Both get bite and both will be hurt.
We destroy each other instead of coming to a solution that brings us together instead of division.
So in a perfect world determined by God, we would love God with all our hearts, mind, soul and body and we would love each other.
In this world, the sinful world where a lot have abandoned God or felt that He is unreachable, Jesus needs Christ followers, those that are called to be a light into this dark world…to walk in God’s Spirit.
(16) “So I say… (Apostle Paul under the anointing of God) “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit. 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.”
He is talking to the church- brothers and sisters is his greeting- to truly be free in Christ is to allow Christ to empower and direct your life and it will be reflected back to those that we come in contact with.
Live by the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. It is not what the world is doing, they are not walking in the Spirit of God, but believers are to be led by the Spirit and walking in the Spirit of God working in our lives.
