Sermon Transcript
I hope that you felt the Spirit of God working in your heart. I sure did. Hey, let’s take out our Bibles. We’re going to look together again at a study we’ve been in on the book of Galatians. And today we’re going to just kind of finish up most of chapter 5, and then we’re going to take a month off.
We’re going to take 4 weeks off and obviously focus on Christmas and the New Year’s, get us started right. And then we’re going to come back to Galatians in January and finish up the book, Lord willing. So, Galatians chapter 5 is where we are. We come to a passage of Scripture I think you’re going to find really helpful. I mean, if you want to be more loving and peaceful and joyful and patient and kind and good and faithful and have greater self-control— anybody here want some more of that in their life?
I mean, all of those things, right? Then you’re going to see that this passage is really going to be a help. I mean, any one of those qualities, any progress in any one of those qualities would be great. Take patience, for instance. Anybody here perfect on their patience?
Were you perfect this morning, you know, when you got ready for whatever happened before church? And, you know, we’re not perfect on patience. We can all use some advancement or some progress in the area of patience. I used to think I was a patient person till we had children. Then I found out how patient or impatient I really was.
I mean, it just takes one kind of thing happening in your life. A few years ago, I was teaching on James, and you may know the passage in James chapter 1 where it says, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Patience comes out of trials. And patience is something that God longs for us all to have. Well, you know, it’s one thing to know that, right?
So we know that the Lord wants us to be patient. We know that. But it’s another thing to actually exemplify patience in circumstances that come our way. So later that afternoon after I preached on this passage, the car had a nightmare, you know. It decided that it was going to have problems, and it tested my what?
It tested my patience. They say patience is a virtue. It wasn’t a virtue that afternoon for me. And basically what I manifest was what Steve talked about last week as he was helping us see the works of the flesh, which are contrary to the Spirit, Galatians 5:17. They’re contrary to the Spirit.
So, our fleshly nature, our natural self, our selfish ambition, our discord, our impatience is not according to God’s plan. It’s not according to his work. It’s because of the flesh. And so when we come to this passage this morning, I think you’re going to find here some great help in becoming the person that God wants us to be and making progress in love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness. And self-control.
Hopefully, as we talk about this this morning, we’re going to see enlargement in all of these areas in a, in a very, very positive way. We’re going to take what we know and hopefully be able to translate it into actually what we do. And that can make a big difference, right? If you’re married, this can make a big difference. If you are a friend— I mean, you should be a friend of somebody, right?
You hope in your friendships that the friendships see more and more of the fruit of the Spirit through your life. If you’re working for a boss or you are a boss, hopefully the fruit of the Spirit comes to play in your work setting. Or if you’re a child, or of course as a witness for Jesus Christ. So, 9 qualities come into focus in this passage that can help all of us make progress. So, we’re looking at Galatians 5, verse 16, verse 18, and verses 22 to 25.
And the reason we’re kind of jumping around there a little bit is because we covered the other verses that are focused on this flesh matter last week. We jumped around a little bit there as well. So picking it up in Galatians 5:16, so I say, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Verse 18, but if you’re led by the Spirit, you’re not under law. Verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Now, I think one of the simplest ways to see what Paul’s talking about here is just to see it in contrast. So if you can think about the contrasting lives that are pictured here in Galatians chapter 5, you have a life that’s lived in the flesh, and then you have a life that’s lived in the Spirit.
So, we can live by the flesh or we can live by the Spirit, Paul’s telling us. To live by the flesh is to live by our sinful nature. It means that we’re gratifying our flesh and we produce awful, terrible works, fleshly works, which Steve helped us understand last week. But to live by God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to be Spirit-led is to experience supernatural Christlike qualities. And, of course, God’s desire is that this is what’s true of us, is that we produce and Our lives manifest Christlike, Spirit-filled qualities.
Now, the place to begin, though, for that to happen, as you’ll see in verse 24, is belonging to Jesus Christ. Because those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified this old nature, this sinful nature, or the fleshly nature, and as you can see there, its passions and its desires. So in order for us to live by the Spirit, Getting the picture here, just so we have a context to work with. In order for us to live by the Spirit, we need to, as it says verse 24, we need to belong to Jesus, which means we need to be adopted into Jesus’ family. We need to have come to a place where we see that Jesus is the Savior, saves us from our sins, saves us from a fleshly life as well.
And so in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we’re given a brand new life. A brand new life. And what Paul wants us to see is this brand new life, qualities of the brand new life, and what it takes to live a brand new life. So we could begin with a new person. The desire is, is that God remakes us, or rebirths us, we might say.
And this happens when our old self is crucified. The day that we receive Jesus Christ, our old self is crucified, the sinful nature, its passions, And God then begins to produce in us a new creation through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Paul talked about it in Galatians 2:20. If we go back just a couple of chapters where he said, I’ve been crucified. You say, well, were you literally crucified, you know, physically?
No, I’ve been crucified. My old nature has been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. So Paul was saying, I’m a new man. Just like anybody who comes to faith in Christ is a new person or a new man or a new woman, the old life is dead. So, this old life, this fleshly life, it’s dead, and we’re set free from our flesh, from our flesh and passions and desires.
We’re no longer bound. We’re no longer bound. We’re no longer chained, we might say, to our flesh, but we’re freed from our flesh in order to become these new people that God longs for us to be. So the simple thought here is just we’re freed from a fleshly life to live a Spirit-filled life. We’re freed from our old life to live a brand-new life.
Now, have you ever been grounded? Okay, you don’t have to, like, you know, hide on this one. Most of us have probably been grounded at some point in our life for something. We were confined to our bedroom. We lost certain privileges— no electronics, no TV.
No car privileges, whatever it was. A few nights ago on television, we saw just the beginning of the Carol Burnett 50th anniversary special. I don’t know if some of you saw this. It was kind of fun to see a few moments of it. She had a ton of guests on the show, including a lot of comedians who were impacted by her Saturday Night Live— well, actually not live, but her Saturday Night Carol Burnett Show.
I want to say live because we talk about Saturday Night Live, but Her show was on Saturday night also. Years ago, some of you have never even heard of this, and that means you’re a young person. Thank God, we’re grateful for you. But some of us that are older, we can remember the Carol Burnett Show. Well, one of these comedians who was on the show enjoying, you know, meeting Carol Burnett, hanging out with her and all the rest of that kind of stuff, she said, this comedian said at one point, she said, you know, when I got into trouble, my parents would take away my favorite hour of the week.
And my favorite hour of the week was to watch the Carol Burnett Show. They wouldn’t let me watch the show. They’d send me to my room, and I was grounded. Of course, being grounded is not fun, but the picture here is simply this: a life of slavery and sin, chained to a life of slavery and sin, confined to a life of slavery and sin is far worse than being grounded to your room. When you’re bound and chained by the flesh, you’re going to be stuck in that.
You’re not going to be able to get yourself out of the power of the flesh. I read an article yesterday of a guy who was sharing his testimony and how he was a drug addict for years, and then he came to faith in Jesus Christ. And he said in this article, and in Christ I found that I was free from shame, and I was free from my past guilt. And I was free from a powerless life that was addicted to drugs. I was freed.
And that freedom came through the power and the work of the Spirit. And, of course, when the freedom comes, what does God long to do in us? Well, he longs to do in us a new work. No longer will we live for the works of the flesh, but he longs to do a new work in us through— and produce in us the fruit of the Spirit. And so Paul focuses on what could possibly be, what hopefully will be for the life of a Christ follower.
And he says this of it, verses 22 and 23, that the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. And then he says, and against such things there is no law, meaning the fruit of the Spirit is not the result of the law. It’s not the result of law keeping. It’s not the result of human works, or it’s not the result of the flesh, but it is the result of God’s work in us. It’s his fruit that replaces the flesh.
And he describes this fruit for us, and really this fruit stands in context, in contrast to the works of the flesh. So instead of selfish ambition, verse 20, God wants us to live with love, self-sacrificing love. This is agape love. This is Christlike love. And instead of living a life of idolatry, verse 20, God wants us to live a life of joy so that deep down inside of us is this well-being that’s grounded not in what we can get, but what the Lord has given to us, that he fills our hearts then with the ability to have joy even in the midst of difficult circumstances, to be able to say with David, The joy of the Lord is my strength, right?
Or, I can rejoice in the Lord always, regardless of what the circumstances of life are. And instead of factions and jealousy and envy in verses 20 and 21, he wants to produce in us peace, tranquility of mind, a peace with God, a peace with others, knowing my life is in God’s hands. What better place for it to be? I have grounds for peace. And instead of fits of rage, verse 20, he wants to produce in us patience, patient acceptance of his timing in relationships with people and in the plans that maybe are going our way or not, and the problems that we face.
And instead of hatred or discord, verse 20, he wants to produce in us kindness, which is a tender, loving care for other people, the ability to treat others with honor and value and high regard. And instead of impurity and debauchery, verse 19, He wants to produce in us goodness, moral character, integrity, personal purity. And instead of sexual immorality or orgies or witchcraft, He wants to produce in us faithfulness, Faithfulness. Faithfulness rather than unfaithfulness to God, unfaithfulness to a spouse, an enduring, uncompromising, committed lifestyle to the Lord. And instead of harshness and brutality or bullying, God wants to produce in us gentleness so that through our lives people see tender loving care that expresses itself outwardly in compassionate care of other people.
And instead of sexual immorality, verse 21, instead of sexual immorality or drunkenness, God wants to produce in us self-control or restraint, which is the ability to say no to that which is wrong and yes to that which is right. Now, how did those 9 qualities, how do those 9 virtues sound to you? Sound pretty good? Sound fantastic? Some of us might feel a sense of, oh, you’re kidding me?
You mean I gotta work on those 9? Like I’m gonna have to go to graduate school training in this Christian life and I gotta take 9 more classes? Is that what it is? 9 more classes? A class in love and a class in joy and a class in peace?
You might hear this and say, this doesn’t sound like good news to me. Well, don’t miss the word fruit that’s in the passage. Sometimes when we talk about this passage, we talk about the fruits of the Spirit, but we’re not talking about the fruits of the Spirit. Do you see that plural? We’re not talking about fruits plural, but if you look at the passage closely, you’ll see it says the fruit, the fruit of the Spirit.
It’s singular. So Paul’s not talking about a basket of fruit. But he’s talking about a piece of fruit. Have you ever heard of a pluot? You ever heard of a pluot before?
That it’s really the product of fruit genetics, it’s called. It’s the cross-pollination of 2 or more fruits to get one new fruit. So have you heard of a plumcot? A plumcot? What’s a plumcot?
Well, actually, a plumcot is a combination. It’s a combination of a plum and an apricot, but it’s one fruit. Have you heard of a pecotum? A pecotum, what’s that? That’s a peach and an apricot and a plum all in one fruit.
So it’s genetically been, you know, affected, and there you got it, all 3 at one time. It’s an easier way to eat your fruits, you know, just eat one piece of fruit instead of 3. You ever heard of a rangpur? A rangpur is a mandarin orange and a lemon that have come together, just one piece of fruit. So you get your orange and your lemon all at all at one time.
Really what he’s talking about here when he says the fruit of the Spirit, singular, is the product— let’s call it spiritual genetics. It’s the product of spiritual genetics where God works in his children to grow in them love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and so forth all at the same time. All at the same time. So as one grows, they all grow, which means this is a fantastic It’s not a burdensome work. And you say, well, how does it happen?
Well, Paul actually addresses that earlier in the book of Galatians where he asks the question in Galatians 3:3, are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Do you think that you’re going to experience these 9 virtues, these 9 qualities? Do you think that you’re going to produce this by yourself through your flesh? It’s not going to happen.
It is the work of the Spirit. And God wants to work in each one of us in ways that transform us into something that we could never transform ourselves. That’s why he says this is not the result of law-keeping, verses 18 and 23. It’s not the result of fleshly human works, but this is the result of the fruit of the Spirit, which is why then the focus of this passage should be on living in the Spirit. In fact, he talks about that.
Notice verse 16 where he says, so I say, live by the Spirit. Because if you get your focus over here in living in the sphere of the Spirit, if you get your focus over here, you’re not going to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. You see that in verse 16? Verse 18 says, if you’re led by the Spirit, you’re not under the law. Verse 25 says, since we live by the Spirit, let us then keep in step with the Spirit.
Now, I want you just to notice this, because if you’re like me in past days, when I’ve come to this passage, you know where most of my focus has been? It’s been on the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit. It’s been on the product. But really, where the focus should be is on What produces the product. And what produces the product isn’t us.
It’s not us getting together fleshly producing the product, but what produces the product is God through the work of the Spirit in us. And so, if you haven’t already underlined these words or noted these words or highlighted these words, whatever, you know, whatever Bible you’re using this morning, You might want to do that. We need to live by the Spirit. He says that twice. He says that in verse 16.
He says it in verse 25. You need to live by the Spirit. He says, if you are led by the Spirit, so we must be led by the Spirit. And then he says in verse 25, you must keep in step with the Spirit. You must keep in step with the Spirit.
So let’s go back again to the 2 charts, 2 ways of living. He’s focusing on how we must live by the Spirit. All right, we got to live in the arena of the Spirit and not the arena of the flesh. And to live in the Spirit, there are 2 must-dos. Do you see the must-dos that are there?
Verse 18, we must first be led by the Spirit, which means we need to follow the Spirit’s leading. So there needs to be within our lives a whatever mindset. Whatever you want, Lord, ’cause I’m just here to follow you. It’s just a whatever, I’m gonna surrender to your will. Whatever your will is for me, that’s my desire.
I don’t wanna make this up. I wanna follow wherever it is that you want me to go. There’s an old song, maybe some of you have heard this song or sung it before. Where he leads me, I will follow. Where he leads me, I will follow.
Where he leads me, I will follow. I’ll go with him, I’ll go with him. What’s the next word? Anybody know? Always.
Okay, just took a risk on that one. But anyway, there’s an old song that looked like most of you have never heard of before that really gets at the theology of what the Apostle Paul is teaching here, that the key here in his leading is us being willing to follow. So the first must-do is we must follow. The second must-do is we must keep in step with the Spirit. We must stay in step with the Spirit, which is to say we must be on pace with the Spirit.
We must be in sync with the Spirit. We must be in harmony with the Spirit. I think of a marching band, or I think of your son, Stenfords. I think of, you know, him on the drums with the drum corps, and they’re all playing perfectly at the same time. I mean, that’s the picture here.
That’s the picture. God wants us to keep in step with him. And really, whereas the idea of following is a whatever— Lord, wherever you want to lead me, I’m going to follow— keeping in step is a whenever mindset. Whatever you want for me, whenever you want it, I’m going to adjust my clock to your clock, Lord. I’m going to adjust my time to your time, Lord.
I’m going to adjust my pace To your pace, Lord. What a different picture— excuse me— what a different picture that is. When we were up in Grants Pass, Oregon over Thanksgiving, my stepbrother asked me if I would go on a little tour with him. He works at the Grants Pass Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. It’s a place where they’re bringing wounded animals in and trying to help them get well again.
In some cases they keep them there, in other cases they release them to different locations. But he said, would you like to do this with me? And I said, sure. And so we planned the day after Thanksgiving to go to the wildlife rehabilitation center there in Grants Pass. And he took me on a behind-the-scenes tour, a behind-the-scenes tour, in order for me— it’s just a simple illustration, right?
But in order for me to see what it was he wanted me to see, I had to be willing to what? Follow. I had to be willing to follow. So, Kevin, take me wherever you want me to go. And he took me to a lot of different places there.
My favorite was seeing the bears, seeing the grizzly bears. There are a couple of them there. He got me as close as 12 inches from a bear. Fortunately, there was a fence, you know, between us. And at one point, the bear was even closer to that.
I guess— well, I guess it must have been about 12 inches, but he He came right up to me and I wanted to get a selfie with him, and so I took my camera out. I was about ready to take it, and he decided that he didn’t want the picture, so he turned around and left. But anyway, so we got to see these things I’ve never seen that up close. He took me to the mouse farm. That was weird.
They have a place where they, you know, reproduce mice. They go through the reproductive process with them there. I won’t go into all the detail here. This is not Sex Ed 101 or whatever. But, you know, we went in there and the first thing the guy did that was in charge of this whole thing was he pulled out a drawer and it had 96 mice in it.
96. I said, how do you know that? He said, I just counted them. But anyway, 96. There were 1,500 mice in this room.
Fortunately, they weren’t all walking around, you know, like, what are we doing in here kind of thing, like, you know, Hitchcock’s The Birds or something. It wasn’t anything like that, but it was so different. I’ve never seen anything like this. And I would have never seen it had I not been willing to follow and just, you know, adjust my schedule to his schedule. It was an amazing experience.
You know, what this is telling us is God wants an experience for us that is perfectly designed for us, but it’s going to take following in his time. Now, that means in the scriptures that we don’t grieve the Spirit. Ephesians 4:30, we don’t grieve the Spirit. You say, how do we grieve the Spirit? When we say yes to the flesh when we should say no, we grieve the Spirit.
At that point, we’re not following. We’re not following in step with God’s timing. And we can also quench the Spirit. You say, how do we quench the Spirit? When we say no to what the Spirit wants us to say yes to, we quench the Spirit.
So, on the one hand, we say yes to the flesh when we should say no. On the other hand, we say no to the Spirit when we should say yes.
Our granddaughter Paisley this week decided that she wanted to look like a lion, so she took a permanent marker to her face. We’re not talking about like, well, you know, one of those dry erase things. We’re talking about a permanent marker she took to her face, and her mother, you know, then after she saw her, said, Paisley, was what you just did a good choice? Paisley stood there and looked at her for a moment, 3-year-old. She said, well, no, it wasn’t.
When I got that, I thought, this is in some ways us, isn’t it? I mean, it’s hard for a 3-year-old to learn the right whatevers and the right whenevers, but doesn’t that happen to us?
That the Lord is trying to teach us to follow him in his timing, to stay in step with him, to live in his Spirit. You say, what does it require? What’s it gonna require? Well, let me just give the converse of this. It’s gonna require 2 don’t-dos.
If there are 2 things that we must do, there are 2 don’t-dos here. One is don’t lead. It requires that we’re not leading But we’re following. There’s only one leader, and it’s not us. It’s not you.
It’s not me. It’s the Holy Spirit. So it’s a willingness to stay in step with the Holy Spirit. Now, is that easily done? Who was the guy that wrote Galatians?
It was Paul, right? Not a trick question. It was Paul. Did Paul always get the leading thing, you know, right? Did he Did it just come, you know, like, I’ve got this.
I’ll write a book in Galatians about this whole matter of staying in step and following God’s leading. Did he always just get it right? Answer, no. In fact, he wrote this book after the first missionary journey, or maybe while he was on his first journey. Then he came back and there was a gap of time before he took a second journey.
But then he took this second missionary journey, and you can go into the back of your Bible and you can see, you know, in the Bible there that the map that you’ll find. And on his second missionary journey, having left Antioch, he was making his way where he thought he was making his way actually to Asia, but instead the Holy Spirit stopped him. The Holy Spirit forbid him to go where he thought he was supposed to go, and he ended up in the Phrygian and Galatian regions. And after he finished what it was he was there to do, The Holy Spirit then led him away from where he was trying to go next, which was Mysia and Bithynia. And instead of going to Mysia and Bithynia, the Holy Spirit led him to Troas.
And while he was in Troas, one night he got a vision. You may know about this, you’ve read the account. He got a vision, and the vision told him that he was to go from Troas over to Macedonia. And what I find here is of interest, I think, to all of us, because basically what you have a guy doing here is trying to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, but sometimes it’s just not obvious. You ever experience this?
You’re like, Lord, I really do want to follow you, but I’m not really sure where we’re going here. We going right? We going left? Do you want me here? Do you want me here?
I mean, Bernice and I have experienced this so many times in our lives. But as we go through these experiences in life, the one thing that we all want to share is that we’re looking for God’s leading. That’s the key, okay? We’re looking for God’s leading. Lord, you lead.
You’re the one that’s leading. I want to just follow your— we’ll say it this way— I want to follow your leadings. I want to follow the Holy Spirit’s promptings. So, don’t lead. The second don’t here is don’t lag.
Don’t lag. And one of the things that I like about this Acts chapter 16 passage, which talks to us about this challenge that Paul had in discovering where God wanted him, one of the things that I like about this is when he got up to Troas and he had that vision, he didn’t lag. In fact, Acts chapter 16, verse 10 says, after Paul had seen the vision, We got ready at once to leave for Macedonia. It doesn’t say we got ready, you know, over the next 4 months and then we went to Macedonia. God was calling him to leave Troas immediately, right then and there, and they immediately got ready to leave for Macedonia, meaning they were keeping in step with the Spirit.
They were keeping in step with the Spirit. You ever taken a 2-year-old into Target? This is an interesting experience. One of the things that you learn right away is to hold their hand, right? Especially if you’re trying to get to the clothes department.
You’re not interested in the toy department, but if you gotta pass through the toy department on the way to the clothes department, you learn right away you gotta hold their hand. Otherwise, they’re not gonna stay with you, I promise you. If you’re going through the toy department, they’re thinking about the toys. They’re not thinking about the clothes. And in some ways, that’s a picture of us.
We tend to be like 2-year-olds. We got our mind on the toys, and God’s got his mind on the clothes. I want to clothe you with righteousness. I want to do something different in you than you could ever see happen in your own flesh. I want to produce in you love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness.
And faithfulness and self-control. You know, I asked earlier in the series in Galatians, what is it that happens to people, especially Christians, when it seems like their progress in Christ is hardly anything or it’s stunted? What is it? What is it that happens in us? And I think this is one of the answers to what sometimes can happen in a Christ follower what can happen as a Christ follower just continues to be ornery and continues to be selfish and continues to be unloving and continues to be, you know, unwilling to change.
Basically, I think it could be that it’s an unwillingness to follow and it’s an unwillingness to stay in step with God’s leading. How many times does that happen in our lives? I think it can happen a lot. In fact, one of the indicators of this is that we experience the exact opposite of what Jesus wants for us. You remember when Jesus said this in Matthew chapter 11, verse 30?
You remember when he said, for my yoke is hard and my burden is heavy? Do you remember that? Some of you are, no, he didn’t say that. He said, my yoke is easy and my burden is— it’s light. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
What a great picture, isn’t it? You see, when you, you yoke up, when you get connected to God through Jesus Christ, when you yoke up, when you follow the Lord’s lead, when you stay in step with the Lord, the Lord lightens our load. He lightens our load so that our work, when compared to what it would have been had we tried to do it alone without the Lord, it’s easy. When we’re connected to the Lord, when we’re yoked up with the Lord, it’s easy. Our burdens— and there will be burdens— but our burdens are light.
Now, how does that sound to you? You say, well, it doesn’t sound like what I’m experiencing right now. And if that’s what you’re experiencing right now, you’re experiencing heaviness and life is hard, is it possible— is it possible, I’m just asking— is it possible then that we’re out of step?
Is it possible we’re not following? Is it possible that we’re trying to make this thing happen in our time? And so we’re out of step with God’s time. And that frustration that we’re dealing with right now, or the attitude that we’re dealing with right now, really isn’t a reflection of the Spirit. It’s a reflection of the flesh.
And we’ve now brought ourselves under a heavy burden instead of Jesus’ light and easy burden.
It’s a great lesson, isn’t it? As I was working on this, all I could think about are different challenges I’m faced with right now. And I hope that you’re considering where you are right now as well. But I was just thinking, you know, in these challenges that I’m faced with right now, I can so easily— there’s so many things I’d love to do, and I could so easily get ahead of the Lord. I could get out of step with the Lord.
So that in a sense that my flesh is producing the burdens. It isn’t the Lord. It’s my flesh. Instead of just enjoying the moment, I’m in another moment. Instead of being in the moment that the Lord has me in right now, I’m in another moment.
See, he’s saying fruit follows those who follow the Lord’s leading. Fruit follows those who follow the Lord’s leading. You know, as I was working on this message, I was thinking about a song. It just kept going on and on in my mind, and it goes back some years ago when I first saw this movie. This song was in this movie.
The movie was Mary Poppins. Some of you might have even watched Mary Poppins last night. I think it was on, you know, one of the channels. But anyway, that’s often, you know, something at this time of year, but a movie that starred Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews. And there was this song that was in the movie, and as I was thinking about this message, I said, you know, that really relates to what we’re trying to learn here together.
So see if you can figure out how it relates. Watch this song.
Step in time, step in time, come on, man, step in time. Step in time, step in time, step in time, step in time. Never need a reason, never need to run. Step in time, you’re stepping time. Kick your knees up, kick your knees up, step in time.
Kick your knees up, step in time. Never need a reason, never need to run. Kick your knees up, step in time. Run, Jiminy! Run, Jiminy, step in time.
Run, Jiminy, step in time. Every little reason, every little rhyme. Run, Jiminy, step in time. Step in time, step in time. Step in time, step in time.
Every little reason, every little rhyme. Step in time, you step in time.
Lead your elbows! Step in time, link your elbows. Step in time, link your elbows. Link your elbows, link your elbows. Step in time, step in time, step in time, step in time.
Every reason, every rhyme. Step in time, you step in time.
Thank you, Nadia. Ladies and gentlemen, Dick Van Dyke, 91 years old, still stepping in time. What a great picture, isn’t it? You have a whole group of people that have learned to step in time, in unison, in harmony. And I thought to myself, isn’t this what the Lord wants for his church?
Isn’t it what he wants for us as individuals? Isn’t it what he wants for his church? That he leads, we follow, we step in time, in his, his time. And the result is something wonderful. The result is something wonderful to behold.
Let’s pray. Lord, thanks for this passage. Especially at this time of year when life can get crazy and we can be so rushed and so burdened by just the busyness of life. Is it possible, Lord, that we’re living at times different than you have for us to live? Your desire is not ours in terms of how it’s playing out in reality.
And so, I just pray that as we’ve talked about this subject and now we know a little bit more about the fruit that is produced through the work of the Spirit, now that we know a little bit more about that, Lord, may we see it translated from our minds into our actions, into our thoughts, into our attitudes. May we truly come to see that your burden is easy and it’s light. And so that whatever is burdening us right now, whatever is holding us down, whatever has chained us or imprisoned us, may we, through the work of the Spirit, experience liberty, freedom. May we experience the fruit of the Spirit. Thank you, Lord, that you want a relationship with us and you want to transform us in this relationship.
And the relationship begins with receiving the gift of life in Christ. For those of us that have received the gift, we again give you thanks this morning, and we pray for anybody who’s here that’s not yet received the gift, that they would be born into your family through your Spirit’s work, that they would receive you as their Savior. And if you’ve never received Jesus as your Savior, you could even do that right now. Just talk to him. Lord, save me.
I’ve been living for everything else but you. Tell him what’s on your heart. I want to live for you. I ask that you’d come into my life. Save me.
Give me a new life. Change me through the work of the Spirit. And God, having come to faith, those of us who have faith in you and we’re— we’ve been adopted into your family, our flesh has been crucified. Help us live in light of that. Change us.
Help us not get in front of you and help us not get behind you. May we hold hands with you. May we follow you. May we live in pace for what it is that you want for our lives. And we’ll thank you in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Good morning, everyone. Glad that you could worship with us this morning. If you’re visiting, we’re so glad that you came, and we hope, visitors, that as you leave and depart through the lobby, that you’ll go on by our welcome table. We have a gift card for some coffee that we’d love to give you for visiting with us today. We’re so glad that you’re here.
Some of you may be interested in learning more about what it means to be a member here at the church, and if so, we have periodic gatherings, and we have another one next week where it’s an opportunity for you. It’s called our Intro to Bridges class, and it’s in Pastor Dave’s office. Intro to Bridges class is going to be next Sunday from 10:30 to noon, so you’ll miss this particular service. You can come to the first service next Sunday, but in Pastor Dave’s office you’ll have the opportunity to Go through our Intro to Bridges gathering there. We’d love to know that you’re coming.
Just contact the church office this week. That’d be helpful. A couple other things that I want to bring to your attention. As you came in today, you may have seen the Giving Tree out in the lobby. And as you leave today, I would encourage you to go on by and to grab an ornament.
The ornaments there represent different needs that different families who are working with the Salvation Army have requested. This year for their children, or there’s also other gifts related to people of all ages. You simply grab a card, or excuse me, an ornament, or multiple ornaments if you’d like, and then sometime this week go and you get an unwrapped gift, and you can drop it off at the church office sometime this week. The deadline though is next Sunday, so if you don’t drop it off at the church office this week, you can drop it off in the lobby next week here in the worship center. We’ll take care of it and make sure that it gets in the hands of the right people.
Again, you can grab multiple ornaments, and the Salvation Army is one area where we’re trying to focus more energy and effort this year. All the things that are coming through the Salvation Army, through the, through the bell ringing, through all the different things that we’re doing— some of your life groups have adopted one or more families, that’s awesome— all of these things go to benefit people here in the Los Altos Sunnyvale Mountain View area. Also want to direct your attention to in your bulletin, if you grabbed one, and I hope that you did. You may have seen a flyer. If you have one of these, can you hold it up so I know that you have one?
Here’s your little show-and-tell here. Some of you have one. If you don’t have one, as you leave you can grab one. The purpose of this is, first of all, it’s informational for you to remind you that next Sunday we have in both services, we’re gonna have choir and orchestra, lots and lots of music. Lots and lots of singing.
We hope that you’ll invite somebody. You can just simply put this in the hands of someone that you know, tell them to come next week. Lots of people enjoy Christmas music around this time of year. Both services next year— or excuse me, next week— we’ll have choir and orchestra, lots of music. So at 9 and at 10:45.
We’re also going to have on Christmas Eve— you can use this to invite somebody to Christmas Eve— on Christmas Eve we’re going to have 2 identical services, one at 10 in the morning, one at 5 in the evening, and they’re going to have candlelighting and caroling and a brief message. So encourage you to invite somebody to that as well. Also, in closing, want to let you folks know that I’m going to be part of a group of folks that go down to Houston. We’re leaving this weekend, and we’re going to be going to serve and to walk by the Spirit, to serve as he leads. This is a short-term mission trip, and you’ll see the list of those who are going to be going on this trip.
There are 12 of us at this point, and I know I see some people— Savannah’s over here and Dave Stenfort, and I think some of the others may be either in the other services. Anybody else in here? Is Trevor in here? Didn’t see Trevor. Oh, he’s upstairs.
Trevor’s up there in the back. We see you back there, Trevor. Actually, I don’t see you. It’s so bright back there. And several others.
I don’t want to leave anybody out, but that’s our list right there, and we’re gonna meet after the service one more time to just pray together. I’m excited because we’re This has been a trip that I’ve felt in my spirit that something that was an open door, and I wanted us to see how we could help those who have been affected by the hurricane. You say, well, isn’t the hurricane relief over? No, it’s not. There are so many different phases of this.
There are people who are back in their home but who don’t necessarily have walls anymore, or who don’t necessarily have carpet, or they need painting done, or they need the finishing touches in order to get moved back in. And many of these folks are in less fortunate areas in Houston, so we’re just simply going to serve. We’re being hosted by Heritage Park Baptist church. We’re going to be staying there and going to be working wherever they direct us with those families there, in addition to another ministry that I know of in Galveston which is called Galveston Urban Ministries, and I’m excited about that. So we’re going to be just availing ourselves to them.
One of the things we’ll also get to be doing is helping run a Christmas store for some families through an intermediate school that the church there in Houston that we’re going to be working with has identified certain families that have various needs. So we’re going to provide gifts and help offering the gifts and food and things like that for these families to give them a great holiday. So I’m excited about this, and some of you have asked how you can pray. Simply pray that we’d be flexible. This is one of those trips I’ve told multiple people that it’s not a lot of physical preparation, it’s really more spiritual preparation because the schedule can change like that.
And it snowed a couple days ago in Houston. I don’t think it’s going to snow while we’re there, at least that’s not what the forecast says. So we just need to be flexible. It could be that we plan one thing one day and then things change at the last minute and we’re sent in another direction. We just want to be flexible and sensitive to the Spirit and to open doors that come our way.
Would you join me here just in praying for the team here and in praying for the trip, as well as just praying that we could apply the things that we’ve been sharing here today, as well as all series long in the, in the book of Galatians? I’ll be down here after the service if I can answer any questions for you. If you’d like to pray in any way, I’d love to know that that you’re here and would love the opportunity to pray with you. But let’s pray for this trip. Heavenly Father, we come before you grateful for open doors and grateful for the freedom that we have in Christ and grateful for the freedom that we have in this country, Lord, to be able to leave one place and go to another to serve others who are in need.
And there’s so many different needs going on right now in our in our country, in our world. And this is just one way, Father, that we’re trying to be obedient to your Spirit. I pray that you would go before us providing all the details to this trip. We ask that you would cover our team, cover us, Lord, we pray, with good health, with safety, and with gracious, flexible, willing-to-serve spirits. I pray that you would open up many doors, and I pray specifically for doors to see needs met and doors that would open for us, Lord, to be able to share the reason for the hope that we have this season, Lord, which is your Son Jesus.
We pray that you would address every single detail of this trip, Lord. We thank you for those who are taking time to go and to be away from family during the holiday season. Lord, to serve. And we just pray for a spirit of unity among our team. Father, as we leave
