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The River ChurchSermons

The Spirit

The Spirit - Sets Us Free

Matt Montgomery · Sunday, 3 August 2025 · Romans 8:1-8 · 43:09 · 7,578 words

Romans S15 · 8:1-8

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Matt Montgomery opens Romans 8, showing that believers are free from condemnation because Christ paid the penalty for sin and gives the Holy Spirit to guide and transform us. He explains justification by faith and urges listeners to stop relying on their own strength, instead yielding to the Spirit to change desires and actions. The sermon asks each person to examine areas of life still influenced by the flesh, seek the Spirit’s guidance in every decision, and trust God’s power to overcome sin.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

spirit 68 flesh 30 can't 31 holy 36 daily 11 lead 18 condemn 16 penalty 7 sin 51 indwell 3 set 15 spirit's 5

Topics

Sin 19 The Holy Spirit 19 Condemnation 7 The Law 5 Prayer 5 The Flesh 3 Justification 3 Obedience 2 Faith 2 Atonement & Sacrifice 2 Sanctification 1 The Body of Christ 1 Freedom 1 Assurance 1

Scripture referenced 26

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 8 1:30 Romans 8 2:12 Romans 8:1-8 2:51 Romans 8:1-8 2:58 Romans 8 4:12 Romans 8 4:22 Romans 8 4:46 Romans 8:1 5:41 Ephesians 2:8 5:59 Ephesians 2:8 6:04 Ephesians 2:8-9 6:20 Romans 5:1 13:20 Romans 5:21 13:46 Romans 8 15:13 Romans 8:33 15:13 Romans 3 15:38 Romans 7 16:08 2 Corinthians 5:21 16:17 Romans 8:16 18:36 Romans 8:2 21:10 Romans 7:18-19 22:48 Ezekiel 36:27 27:44 Galatians 5:16 29:49 Romans 8:5-8 32:10 Galatians 5:17 34:15 Romans 12:2 38:40

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

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Good morning, River Church. How are you?

My name is Matt Montgomery. I'm actually filling in for Pastor Josh today,

and I like seeing some of the familiar faces. I actually see a face I haven't seen in a long time.

You know, it's always great to be in the house of God.

I never feel worthy to be promoting the gospel, but God is using me,

in great and mighty ways, and I thank him for that.

And as we look at the word today, I just want you to keep in mind,

we're coming off a really hard passage in chapter 7.

Chapter 7 beat me up a little bit, right?

So, you know, everything I shouldn't do, I do.

I'm full of sin. You know, what's the difference between the law and the sin?

And now I know I can never be right.

So, you know, chapter 8, I think, is probably the greatest chapter in the Bible.

I really do.

Because there's so much in it.

As I was reading it, I could have done seven different sermons just on the first eight verses.

And you could probably do 30 or 40 sermons on the whole chapter, because it's so empowering.

But before we get started this morning, we're going to read the word,

but I want to go to prayer first.

Thank you for having me, and I look forward to letting God speak through it.

So, dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your blessings.

We thank you. We lift you up. We honor you. We praise you, Lord.

Lord, we know that you are the Lord.

We know that you are God Almighty.

And as we see in chapter 8, we're going to understand that you gave us a Holy Spirit to guide us, Lord.

We're going to see that you are God Almighty, that you took on our penalty of sin,

and that you are the one that is blessing us on a daily basis, Lord.

I just pray, as we speak the word this morning, and as you speak through me,

I pray that if someone doesn't know you, Lord, I just pray that they will try to understand who you are,

and that they will know you as Lord and Savior before they leave today.

I pray for those that are believers, that their ears,

their hearts will be open, their hearts will be receptive,

and I just pray that we will learn of your grace and your glory.

We thank you for all you do in Jesus' name. Amen.

So, we're going to read Romans 8, 1 through 8,

and I know it's always hard when I read because it's dark up here and I'm blind.

So, but let's start. Romans 8, 1 through 8.

Therefore, there, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

for the law of the Spirit of life has set you.

Free in Christ.

Jesus from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do,

but sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,

and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us,

who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh,

but those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh,

but those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh,

but those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh,

but those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh,

but those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh,

but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death,

but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God,

for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

So we're looking at this in abundance in chapter 8,

and we're just going to do the first few verses,

and you'll see as I go along, I'm going to steal more verses from this chapter,

because I can't help myself.

But Romans 8, again, is one of the most powerful chapters

we could ever, ever, ever have in Scripture.

You see, not only does it just start that there's no condemnation in our sin,

that God's paid the penalty,

but also we get to understand that there's no separation from our God.

When we believe, we know that we can be with Him eternally.

So this chapter is full of doctrine.

Everything that we believe in is in chapter 8.

So I love it.

You know, Paul's trying to explain to the believer that you have security in Christ,

he's going to explain the work of the Holy Spirit and what that means,

and he's going to look at the hope of our glory.

We have a future glory.

So as we look at this this morning,

I want us to know that we have assurance as Christians that nothing can separate us from God.

Nothing can separate us from God's love.

But it also calls us to live in the Spirit and to get rid of self.

And that's really hard to do.

So I'm going to look at this in a few different ways.

And as we cut this up into different,

I'm going to call them mini-sermons within one sermon.

Don't worry, I'm not going to preach until 1230.

You'll be able to get the lunch.

But I'm letting you know,

the theme that we're seeing here is,

in Christ, believers are free from condemnation.

This is verse 1.

So we have no condemnation.

This truth brings assurance, it brings confidence,

and God's saving grace.

Now does that mean I can go out and deal with my struggles,

and I can just send all I want, and God's going to take care of it?

Well, no. We know that.

But in Ephesians 2.8, I want to read that really quickly.

Ephesians 2.8 says,

if I can find it, I apologize.

I threw this in last second.

But Ephesians 2.8 and 9, I probably haven't memorized.

I should have just said them.

But I wanted you to read this.

For by grace, you have been saved through faith,

and this is not of your own doing.

That's the gift of God.

Not a result of my works, so that no one may boast.

So I memorized it in the KJV,

so I wanted to make sure I read it in the ESV.

But for me, it's an understanding that none of us are worthy.

None of us can earn our way to heaven.

We have to understand that.

I have many people, when I talk to people about Jesus,

or when I'm approaching people about Jesus,

I want them to understand the fire,

the fervent fire and love of Jesus Christ.

I want them to understand that.

And I don't need to change them at that moment.

I think many times as a church, we want people to conform to us.

The church is not about conforming.

The church is about reaching.

In fact, the commandment is,

go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

That's our job.

We're to lay the seed.

It is not us.

It's not us changing them.

God changes them, right?

So we have to understand,

there is a will, there's a way.

The introduction is, we're all going to struggle.

Bible says, man's heart is wicked continually.

I have nothing I can give Christ.

But I'm told to strive to be Christ-like.

And Paul does a wonderful job of describing this

throughout the many books that he wrote to the churches,

because they always fell to the wayside.

And when I talk to people, like I was saying,

there's three things that always come up.

How can you serve a God that lets all this bad happen in the world?

Right?

That's usually their reason for not believing in God.

Secondly is, you don't understand how bad of a sinner I am

and the things I've done in my life.

I'm not worthy.

God would never love me.

And the third is, I'm a really good person.

I don't do anything wrong.

I don't need that, right?

So those are the three that we deal with.

All of them are prideful.

When you think about it, deep down, it's pride.

It's a self thing.

I'm either too good or I'm not good enough,

which is still pride, because I want to tell you how bad my bad is.

And the last is, they just don't want to believe,

because they know if there's a higher power,

they're going to be responsible to them.

So as we look at this, we have to have an understanding.

In Christ, believers are free from the condemnation that they're seeing

and the condemnation that's in our lives.

We're going to struggle, people.

We're going to have problems.

You know, when we read that verse that there is no condemnation in Jesus Christ,

that means there is no condemnation if we're a believer.

We can have assurance that we're going to see Christ,

that we're going to understand,

that based on none of our personal merits,

but on the very merit of Christ's death, burial and resurrection,

he's giving us his grace.

You know, the truth is it transforms how we live.

You know, I wasn't going to bring this up,

but again, I think it's kind of warranted.

So I have a friend that I grew up with.

I love him with all my heart.

I grew up in a decent neighborhood.

We had like 15 kids that kind of just all hung out together.

We'd ride bikes together, do all kinds of stuff together.

Out of those 15 kids, two are alive today.

13 of them died from drug overdose.

One of them, I chased my entire life to get him off of drugs

to the point where my family had to say,

hey, you have your own kids now.

You need to quit going to drug houses.

You need to quit dragging them out of there.

Your life's in danger.

You can't save him.

And those words really rung in my head

because I thought I can save him.

I'm going to help him.

I'm proud to say today that that young man,

because he found Christ,

is clean, sober, serving God,

has an amazing family.

But what I've learned,

that condemnation, that tear of the world,

that his penalty would have been death, right?

But he's saved because God got a hold of his heart.

The Holy Spirit got involved in his life.

So this sermon is to explore

what it means to be free from that condemnation

and how the Holy Spirit can guide us

and help us in our daily walk.

But before I do that,

I want to talk about some kind of representation.

You know, I was thinking about my children.

I have four kids.

And when they were babies,

when they first are born,

you're just feeding them,

they do three things.

They go to the bathroom,

they cry,

and they eat, you know?

And I think it's really simple, right?

And I always think about the verse

when Paul's getting mad at the church

because he's like,

you guys are still babies.

You're still on the milk.

You don't want to learn.

You don't want to grow.

You don't want to be more.

So I think about that.

And then as my children get a little older,

they start to crawl.

And as they crawl,

you know, especially my two girls,

because there's, you know,

we had quite a bit of difference

between the two children,

two sets of children.

But it really makes me think about my girls.

You know, they had to pull themselves up.

And then they finally would take that one step

and fall down.

And then they'd finally get pulled back up.

And then they'd take three or four steps

and fall down.

And then eventually,

they're walking around.

Still stumbling, but walking.

And then by the time they're one,

one and a half,

they're running around in circles,

going crazy,

doing all kinds of stuff.

That's us, people.

That's how we have our Christian life.

What kind of father would I have been

if I hadn't been a Christian?

My child had gone out

and failed and fell

and I spanked her.

Doesn't make me much of a father, does it?

And it's the same thing

when we look at ourselves.

It doesn't matter the sin that's in your life.

The object is to get past it,

to get up and run away from it.

And that's what God's saying here is,

hey, I'm going to give you a Holy Spirit.

He's going to guide you, right?

I'm not going to condemn you

because you have sin.

Because all men have sin.

It's really, really simple.

You know, there's some key doctrines

that we're looking at here.

Knowing that we can't be perfect.

And we can only be perfect

through the blood of Jesus Christ.

One of the key doctrines is

justification by faith.

And this is a big term

that you learn in Bible school.

But justification basically means that

you are being declared righteous

before God because of Jesus.

It's real simple.

See, this happens not by works,

but through faith in Christ.

Romans 5.1, we're going to put it up.

It says,

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,

we have peace with God

through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So we're justified.

He's showing us

He's showing us justification.

He's paying the penalty.

In the King James Version,

it would have said

he was the propitiation,

which basically means

the sacrificial atonement.

He took our place, right?

And in verse 21,

we can read that.

So that as sin reigned in death,

grace also might reign

through the righteousness

leading to eternal life

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So Christ is paying the penalty.

We understand that.

Jesus is bearing our punishment

on the cross.

He's removing our guilt.

Completely removing our guilt

because now,

because of this,

now we can stand

before God,

fully forgiven,

no longer condemned.

But again,

we're going to struggle.

We're going to fight.

We're going to have problems.

You know,

these feelings of unworthiness

Satan uses that better than anybody.

Satan is the greatest manipulator

of your problems.

A, he gets you to sin.

Then he uses the sin against you

to make you feel like you're unworthy

of a God that could save you.

Don't fall for it.

justification is a legal declaration.

It's a declaration by God.

It's not based on emotions,

but it is final and irreversible.

I love that statement.

Final and irreversible.

Doesn't matter what anybody else does.

There's not an accusation in the world

that can stand against those

who God has justified.

And this is where I'm going to cheat a little bit

because I love verse 33 in Romans 8,

so don't tell anybody as they preach.

But who shall bring any charge

against God's elect?

It is God who justifies.

So knowing that there is no justification in us,

it's purely by our Lord and Savior.

What happens next?

Well, we got to look at the power

of Christ's sacrifice, right?

We understand it.

Now, we've already gone through Romans 3

for the wages of sin is death,

but the gift of God is eternal life

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And then we get to 623,

for all of sin comes short of the glory of God,

which is actually three.

I've mixed those up,

but put those backwards.

But we know that we're all sinners.

We all know that we're justified.

We all know that our wage is death, right?

So Christ's penalty or Jesus's death,

on the cross,

fully paid our penalty of sin.

I can't say that enough.

In chapter seven, we looked at the law.

We studied the law.

We're getting beat up over the sin

that we're dealing with.

But Christ took our place.

You know, 2 Corinthians 5, 21,

one of my favorite verses,

and we're going to put it up.

It said,

For our sake he was made him to be sin

who knew no sin,

so that in him we might become

the righteousness of God.

And sometimes I think we forget

how amazing that really is.

If you go to Revelation and read about heaven,

it's pretty spectacular.

And I can't imagine leaving the seat

or the throne next to my father

to come and take on every sin in the world.

You know, there's only one point

where I see Jesus fight back a little bit

or cry out.

And it's when he's on the cross.

And he says,

My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me?

He knew that God had to turn his back on him

because he was taking on the sin of humanity,

past, present, and future.

So knowing that he was taking on

the sin, God could no longer look at him.

God cannot look upon sin.

So knowing the pain that he went through,

I can't imagine it.

I'd like to think I would give myself for someone's life.

We don't know until that moment hits, right?

I've seen it done.

My real job is in government security.

I've known those that have lost their lives protecting others.

It's an amazing feat.

But how much more to die for somebody that hates you,

despises you, wants nothing to do with you.

So we have to understand what this

power of Christ's sacrifice really is.

You see, there's no sin

too great that he can't forgive.

Those in Christ can completely be covered

in his righteousness.

And it should give us confidence in the fact that

when we're standing before God,

we're going to know that he's going to forgive us.

And then we're going to have eternal life.

So what's the next thing?

So now that we know that the sacrifice happened,

we have justification by faith,

now he's getting into the Spirit, right?

So he's really going to delve into the Spirit,

and he's going to talk about that.

And what is the role of the Spirit?

Well, the Holy Spirit confirms to believers

that they are God's children.

We want to go to Romans 8, 16.

It says the Spirit himself

bears witness with our spirit

that we are the children of God.

So it's our witness, right?

So he's replacing our fears,

he's giving us confidence,

and he reassures us of our salvation

through the Holy Spirit.

When those doubts arise and the Spirit reminds believers

of all of God's promises,

there's 1149 chapters that we can read

out of those full of encouragement.

But I also know

that sin just keeps creeping in.

There's not a day that I don't have a sin in my life.

Typically, it's when I drive.

So I'm going to let you know that right now.

I try really hard.

I even took back roads today,

so I would go slow, which I did.

But when I drive, I sin.

And it's something I struggle with,

and I have to fight myself over it all the time.

And it might seem trivial, but under the law,

I'd be dead.

So you can't keep the law.

There's 614 now.

It used to be 613, now it's 614.

Laws that are commandments today, currently.

You can't keep them.

So if I break the law, I was punished by death.

But now we're past that, right?

So there's no condemnation.

And we know that we're free from that.

Because God promises it to us.

And the Holy Spirit is telling us,

hey, I'm going to be your witness.

I'm the witness of your salvation,

but I'm also going to be your guidance.

I'm going to lead you in the right way.

So when we really start delving in,

this is where I can preach a whole other message

on just the Spirit.

The law of the Spirit is setting us free.

See, there's a theme here.

The Holy Spirit liberates believers.

And it liberates us from sin and death.

And through Him, we can walk with real trueness of life,

and we can live a happy life.

It may not always be easy.

God did not promise you a rose garden.

In fact, what's He say?

You know, there's two paths.

You take a hard way or the easy way.

Well, the hard path leads to Christ, right?

So we know that we're going to have trials.

We're going to go through tribulations.

We're going to fall down.

We're going to sin.

But God's there to pick us up.

That Holy Spirit's there to really indwell in you.

That you don't feel trapped in those struggles.

See, the desire to obey God,

we all do at some point try to obey God,

but we fall so short.

And 8 verse 2 declares that the law of the Spirit

has set us free.

It's set us free from the law of all sin and death.

So we're exploring how the Holy Spirit,

in a believer's heart,

can break sin's hold and empower us.

We can have empowered living,

understanding that truth leads to lasting transformation

and a victory in Jesus.

So the main text on 8.2 would have been,

hey, we have a future.

We have a few different things.

We see some key doctrines there as well.

We see freedom from the law and death.

Again, right?

Before Christ, sin held humanity in its bondage.

There was no amount of effort that could break it.

See, the law reveals sin.

But one thing the law can't do,

can't remove its power.

And that's what the Holy Spirit's doing here.

See, it can condemn us.

It can have hold over you.

But it can't remove the power of God.

And I love that.

When I know that I am truly indwelled

and that I'm feeling it's true,

the Spirit, I want to jump up and down.

I have to say, when I was singing this morning,

I love you too.

I grew up in a church in Pontiac.

She made me so happy this morning.

You should see her praise God.

I want to feel like that all the time.

I feel like that's how we should feel

when we get the Holy Spirit in us.

Man, we should be just letting it go

because God has changed us.

He's making us new every day.

It's not easy.

It's a fight.

It's a tug of war.

And we're going to study that a little more.

But Romans 7, 18 and 19,

which we understood Paul himself struggled with this, right?

We just did this last week.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me

that is in my flesh.

For I have the desire to do what is right,

but not the ability to even carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want,

but the evil I do not want to do

is what I keep on doing.

So in other words,

everything I should do, I'm not doing.

Everything I want to do, I can't.

I just don't.

And everything I want to stay away from,

I just keep doing it.

And it messes with you.

And it screws you up a little bit.

And it gets mental.

And then you start feeling bad

about yourself.

And then self, self, self.

And that's what Satan wants you to do.

He wants you to be so filled with self and pride

that you can't see past it.

Well, the Holy Spirit's there to kind of give you a kick.

Right?

He's in your heart.

He's going to kick you into,

That's not who you are.

You're a child of God.

Not only are you a child of God,

but I'm here to help you through it.

You know, in the old days,

I used to listen to a couple different pastors.

And one of the pastors I listened to,

he said a statement and I didn't like it.

He said, can't wait for the day I die.

I'm going to have a baby.

I'm going to have freedom from sin.

I thought, you have freedom of sin right now.

God says so.

Because the Holy Spirit is there.

And he's there to get rid of your old way of struggling.

He's there to replace that sin.

And you can have new life and power and victory

through the Holy Spirit.

Freedom's not just a promise, man.

It's a present daily thing.

It's not a future thing.

It's daily.

It's not when I die.

Yeah, I can't wait.

I mean, I cannot wait to go to heaven.

I cannot wait to be in front of Jesus.

When I was younger,

I can't say I wanted to say,

because I wanted to live out life things

and I want to do things.

As our world changes and things that are going on in this world

and the evil that's taking place,

I want Jesus to come back as soon as possible.

I don't want my children to go through that.

But I also know he changes you on a daily basis.

It's not about when I'm in heaven.

It's about right now, people.

God is in control.

Not only is he in control,

but he says he puts rulers into place

and he removes rulers.

He's going to take care of you no matter what.

He also says in heaven,

I've given you a place.

I've built you many mansions.

If it were not so,

I would have told you so.

So he's preparing for us.

But while we're here,

he gave us the Holy Spirit.

You know, and when you look in Revelation,

I think the scariest thing for me

are those people that really do go through the tribulation

because the Holy Spirit is removed.

And then what?

You know, it's hard to live

without that constant fight going on for me,

inside of me.

The Holy Spirit leading me.

You know, Paul says to die to self daily.

Like when you get baptized,

we bury you in his likeness

and we're raised to walk in newness.

And life, it doesn't mean you're going to be perfect.

That didn't save you.

But it's an outward sign to say,

I'm getting rid of this old guy.

I want to become something new.

I want to be, I want to be Christ-like.

I want to be driven.

But yet we still fight.

We still beat ourselves up over sin.

The second thing I looked at here

was the Holy Spirit really does empower obedience.

You know, the Spirit enables believers

to obey God's commandments.

You know, he's transforming hearts.

You know, he's making obedience a desire for me.

He's making it more desire than what it was as a burden.

You know, many Christians,

when they first get saved,

they beat themselves up

because it's such a burden.

They feel like they're such a sinner.

You know, and as the Holy Spirit starts to take over,

you know, now it's, it becomes a desire.

It becomes something I want to be, right?

I had a buddy of mine.

He said, I probably can't come to your church, man,

because I smoke weed and I drink and I do all this.

And I said, you can go to my church.

No one's perfect in there.

He goes, yeah, but God wouldn't want me that way.

And I said, he says, oh, you probably want to change me.

I said, I don't want to change you.

God wants to change you.

I got nothing to do with it.

But I can guarantee you,

if God gets a hold of your heart,

you're not going to desire those things

because your life changes.

I'm not going to get into the fact

whether it's right or wrong or indifferent.

Don't care.

It's a personal belief in Jesus Christ.

Let the Holy Spirit determine in you

what's right, wrong, and indifferent,

and make sure that it's based on the word of God.

You see, that desire is all the way back

to the Old Testament.

In Ezekiel, Ezekiel was a prophet

and he prophesied exactly this.

He said, in Ezekiel 36, 27, he says,

and I will put my spirit within you

and cause you to be a prophet.

I will put you to walk in my statutes

and be careful to obey my rules.

Now, they had to have the indwelling of the spirit

back in the old days.

They didn't have the sacrificial atonement

of Jesus Christ over them.

So they had to go pay for their sin,

whether it was sacrifice or whatever they were doing.

But we're talking 1,200 years before the death of Christ.

And they're saying, hey, there's going to be a time

I'm going to give you my spirit to indwell you.

That had to be a great message.

You know, we've got it really easy as Christians.

We don't have to go over a way to do a whole lot.

You just got to believe.

I mean, when I look at, when you read the Old Testament

and see all of the different festivals

and all of the different sacrifices

and everything that they had to do

to be honoring and glorifying to God,

it's a lot of work.

And I think we get lazy as Christians because it's easy.

And then I go to other countries.

One of the biggest things for me is people in church,

just they want to get in, get out.

It's like, hey, entertain me.

I'm done.

All right, I got to entertain.

I'm going to go get some lunch.

And then I go to like Brazil and I've been to Africa.

And I've been to other regions where I sat in service

and these people are begging you for three hours,

begging you, don't stop.

Don't stop.

Don't stop.

Keep reading the word to us.

Please keep preaching.

And I had never seen anything like that before

because they know that God changes everything.

Don't become that person that lets it just become easy.

Don't lose your fire.

And that's where the Holy Spirit comes into play.

You see, without the Holy Spirit,

obedience is 100% impossible.

Our human willpower alone only leads to failure.

We've seen that.

Paul already spelled it out last week.

But allowing him to lead and guide every decision that you make

is so important.

Why is it so important?

Because in Galatians 5.16,

you're going to notice the same verse.

Because Paul is telling the church at Galatia,

and I will put my spirit within you

and cause you to walk in my statutes

and be careful to obey my rules.

Now is the time.

You have the Holy Spirit now.

And you have to ask him to take over.

See, walking in that spirit requires,

requires this daily surrender.

I teach a class,

and I say it all the time to my class.

We do a lot of prophecy studies and other things.

But I said, man, when my day is Matt's day,

it's the worst day I could ever have in my entire life.

But if I wake up and my first prayer is,

God, please get rid of me.

Please let me surrender to you.

Then my days are usually 100% better.

Because God's leading, not Matt.

See, Matt's ways are not good ways.

They're horrible.

You know, I might be preaching the word.

I am no, there's,

there's no one person in the world

worthy of preaching God's word.

But we're commanded to do it.

So I'm here.

But I'm telling you, I'm a sinner just like you.

Josh is a sinner just like you, Pastor Josh.

He'll be the first to tell you.

We are not a perfect church.

But we are here to proclaim the love of Christ.

We're here to proclaim Jesus Christ.

That's our order, right?

So as we see that, and we're walking in the spirit,

we have to have this daily surrender.

We have to look to him for wisdom.

You know, wisdom doesn't come easily.

Usually wisdom comes by learning.

And learning, usually,

because I'm going through things, right?

So when I go through those things,

I have to learn what's right and wrong.

It becomes a new law in our way, right?

We're not beholden to the old law,

but we're learning, hey, this is not pleasing to God.

I want to be pleasing to God.

And that Holy Spirit says, hey, you shouldn't do that.

And then you start feeling it,

and you get that guilt complex.

But the great thing is,

you can go to the feet of God himself.

You can lay it at the very throne of Jesus

and be forgiven.

So we know that the transformation is so important,

but we can't rely on self-evidence.

And the third biggest thing I see out of this

is walking according to the Spirit, not by flesh.

You know, when we close out the last part of this

in Romans 8, 5 through 8,

we see that every believer is going to face a daily battle.

And we have to determine,

are we going to walk in the Spirit

or are we going to walk in the flesh?

See, there's a mindset that the Spirit leads in us,

and it's a place of good life and of peace.

You know, when David was going through his turmoil,

one of my favorite verses is,

he was struggling,

you know, he had a man murdered.

He's on the run.

His child, his favorite child is trying to murder him now.

And he's going through a terrible time.

And there's a thing I like to call him,

one of the punks of the Bible comes out, Shimei,

and he starts throwing rocks at him.

And David's people are like, you know,

should we kill him?

Because he's doing an offense that is actually,

at that time, was punishable by death.

And David said, why?

He's right.

He's telling the truth.

I can't condemn a man for telling the truth.

So he's struggling with a sin.

But he says one of the greatest things in Psalm.

He said,

Depart from evil and do good.

Seek peace and pursue it.

See, he learned, you're going to sin.

But the only way you're going to have peace

is pursuing Jesus Christ.

And I think that's so imperative in our lives.

See, we're going to face those daily battles.

We're going to fight against the flesh.

We're going to have those fights.

But only the Holy Spirit can be the one to lead us through.

So what does it mean to walk according to the Spirit?

And how are we going to transfer,

transform all those areas in our lives

that need to be changed?

Well, again, as we read the text,

we understand that we have to submit to God's law.

Not just the law, but submit to God.

Give him our hearts.

Let the Holy Spirit take over.

And the other key doctrine I'm seeing here

is a conflict between the flesh and the Spirit,

where we're continually in this battle.

Galatians 5.17, if you would put that up, please.

It says,

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 you want to do.

Hard time with that.

There's a lot of things I want to do.

But I also know there's a lot of stupid things I would do

if the Holy Spirit wasn't leading me away from it.

Doesn't mean you can't go out and do things.

It doesn't mean you can't be normal.

But when it's in conflict with the Word of God,

he's going to lead you in the right direction.

So the flesh desires what's sinful.

You know, I look at the world we're in today.

I am amazed at how flesh has taken over.

The sickness that's in our world.

You know, the fact that they won't even relate to us.

At least the Epstein files.

It's proof to me that the world is so sick

because they're all on it.

So none of them wanted to get out.

And that's a political thing.

I didn't mean to bring that up in church.

But the realism is we're in a world

where sin takes control and it runs the world.

See, we are the light of the world.

We're the take Jesus to those that need healing.

Those that need love.

You know, many times as Christians,

we forget to even love people.

I love people that just want to go out

and hammer the gospel to people

and don't even care about it.

They don't care about the people they're talking to.

They don't know anything about them.

They don't know where they come from.

You know, if you would just pattern yourself

after Jesus Christ, what did he do?

Woman at the well.

He didn't just yell out her sin right away.

He got to know her.

He talked to her.

He showed her love.

He said, give me some water.

And then he calls out her sin and says,

hey, don't do it anymore.

But you can have the living water.

You can have me, right?

That's how we need to approach things.

Approach our lives with love for those that need him.

So, so many times we just fall to that sin.

That lustful sin.

The sin that just leads us away from righteousness.

The battle that's the part of every Christian life

is just falling to sin.

And we're not alone.

I always say, you know, when I was hanging out

and doing things, you know, Satan's not in a bar.

Satan's sitting in the church pew next to you.

Because if he can get you away

from listening to the word of God, he's winning.

He's already got what he needs out of the others.

And don't think for a minute Satan really cares.

His battle is an internal battle against Jesus Christ.

Has nothing to do with us.

We're just a byproduct.

So we need to understand that this willpower

of ours and trying to suppress everything

and trying to win battles on our own,

it's never going to work.

The Holy Spirit's the only one

that's going to lead you through that.

And the more that you as a believer yield to that,

the more he gets to transfer, transform

all of your desires, all of your thoughts,

all of your actions.

Everything becomes based on the Christ,

on Jesus Christ.

So as we know, you know, the mindset of flesh

is self-centered.

It's focused so much on temporary pleasure.

Man, I wish I had that car.

Man, I wish I had that car.

Man, I wish I had that house.

Oh, if you're single, man, I really wish I had that woman

or that man.

It's temporary.

God has a plan for you.

But those things aren't going to make you happy.

It just really leads to separation and death.

You know, the more you want, the more you fulfill yourself.

You can never get enough.

You know, I had an old preacher who used to say,

can't all you want and can't all you get.

You know, everything I get, I'm just going to bottle it up

and bottle it up and bottle it up.

It's never enough.

And you can see people in the world today

that it's never enough.

They drive for more and more and more.

I can't have enough cars.

I can't have enough money.

I can't have enough of this.

I can't have enough of that.

The realism is, when are we going to say,

I can't have enough of Jesus Christ?

I can't have enough of the Spirit.

I can't have enough of his salvation.

That's where we need to be.

So the Holy Spirit doesn't just modify my behavior.

He's changing my heart.

See, he's renewing my mind.

He's giving me more thought process to godly things.

In Romans chapter 12, verses 2, it says,

do not be conformed to this world,

but be you transformed by the renewal of your mind

that by time you will be transformed.

By testing, you may discern that which is the will of God,

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

See, it's only through that.

It's only through those trials and those tribulations.

It's only by the leading of the Holy Spirit

that you'll know what's truly good, acceptable, and perfect.

So this transformation we know is a process.

And as believers, we need to walk in the Spirit.

I beg you to walk in the Spirit

because your desires are going to shift.

See, sin's going to lose its appeal.

It's no longer going to be fun.

And righteousness is going to become your true joy.

And as I close this morning, I don't normally do this,

but I'd like you just to bow your heads,

if you would, for a few moments.

So you have a few questions I'd like to ask you,

and I'd like you really to take time

to think about these things.

You know, when I started looking through this,

I actually wrote questions for myself

because I'm not perfect either.

So I started thinking,

what areas of my life are still influenced by flesh

rather than the Spirit?

That's a hard one.

So many things.

Secondly, I want you to think about,

do I actively seek the Holy Spirit's guidance

in all of my decisions?

Not just some of them, all of them.

Number three, how does my mindset affect

my spiritual growth and my daily actions?

If you're saying not much at all,

then we know we need to delve into the Spirit a little.

Number four was, am I relying on God's power

to overcome sin?

Or am I trying to do everything on my own?

This one I fight with.

I'm a control freak.

I really beat myself up over this this week.

Last but not least, what practical steps can I take,

walk more consistently in the Spirit

and not be in the Spirit?

And I would just pray that this week,

if you got anything out of this message,

number one, if you don't know Jesus Christ,

you're not free from sin.

You'll never be free from sin.

And the only way you're ever gonna find happiness

is through the love of Jesus Christ.

I'll tell you that right now.

So if you don't know Jesus and you wanna know him today,

I pray that you'll reach out to somebody here in the church,

whether it's myself after service

or whether it's Pastor Josh throughout the week,

please go to him.

And I really, really, really pray

that each and every one of you will truly,

truly look at your heart this week.

Think about those five questions.

Am I truly letting the Spirit lead me

or am I trying to do everything on my own?

Because to have true happiness,

you're only gonna be able to do it through Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

Dear Father, I thank you for your blessings, Lord.

We are so thankful for your death, burial and resurrection.

We cannot give you enough love and support, Lord.

We are not worthy, but you laid it all on the cross for us.

We thank you that we can have eternal life.

We thank you that we can lay our troubles at the feet,

at the feet of you, Lord.

We thank you for your helper, for the Holy Spirit.

We pray that it will indwell us and lead us,

that the Holy Spirit will keep us away from sin

and that as we get throughout life longer and longer,

as Paul says, that as we get closer and closer,

that we will understand that happiness truly is in you

and not in the sin of this world.

I pray that each and every person will examine their hearts

and I just pray that you'll bring them back safe

as a testimony of your glory, Lord.

We thank you for all you've done in Jesus' precious and wonderful name.