Living With a Pure Heart #3

Here is another one of the ideas that I mentioned at the end of the message on Sunday about work out your salvation. The big idea was walking by the Spirit from Galatians 5:16-25.

Paul starts out this section by telling us if we walk by the Spirit we will travel in a very different direction than if we follow our flesh or sinful nature. Verse 17 explains why we need to work out our salvation. Before meeting Jesus we were governed by our sinful nature. That nature is in opposition to what God lovingly commands us to do. When we repent and trust the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit enters our lives and we have in the midst of our sinful nature, the Holy Spirit directing us in a very different direction. If we are going to follow the Holy Spirit we will need to walk away from what we used to do, what we naturally did and follow the Holy Spirit.

The contrast between our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit are expressed in verses 19-23. The sinful nature wants to lead us toward actions that are destructive and damaging. In contrast, as we follow the Holy Spirit, He creates us within us this amazing fruit that is to ooze out of our lives.

For us to look like verses 22 and 23 instead of verses 19-21, at least two things need to happen. First, from verse 24, we need to understand that when we trusted the Lord Jesus, we took our sinful nature and crucified it. We declared we wanted it dead. We wanted to be separated from it. There is a challenge with verse 24 and crucifying our sinful nature. Though crucifixion is a certain death sentence, it is a slow death sentence. Our sinful nature is still clinging to life. That means we need to not simply recognize that we crucified our sinful nature if we want to work out our salvation

The second thing we need to is to live out verse 25. We need to walk by the Spirit. The word picture idea would be a military term or a football term since I am going to a football game in a couple of hours. Walking by the Spirit means that we follow the cadence of the Holy Spirit. Working out our salvation does not mean that we do whatever we think is best or right. It means we need to listen to the cadence, the direction of the Holy Spirit and follow Him. Listening to that cadence means that we need to pray and read the Bible. It also means that we should talk with mature followers of Jesus and ask for their insights. Through those kinds of things, the Spirit will share with us.

Why would we want to listen to His cadence? The first part of verse 25 gives us the reason why: our life, our new life comes from the Spirit. Working out our salvation means that we live out the life that the Holy Spirit has given us.