Intro
How do we walk in the Spirit? That is the question we will explore in this message.
To walk in the Spirit requires intentional decisions on a daily basis. In our previous message, we examined the latter part of Galatians 5. There Paul gave instruction on the difference between walking in the Spirit and walking in the flesh. His exhortation to believer in Galatians 5:25 is this: “If [since] we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”i Believers have the life of God in their regenerated spirit. That gives them the connection with God that empowers walking in the Spirit. However, walking in the Spirit requires decisions on our part to do so. Otherwise, Paul’s exhortation is meaningless. “If [since] we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” The NLT says, “If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives.” Are you following the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of your life? That obviously requires obedience to the written word of God. But it also entails hearing and following the directives of the Spirit in your daily decisions.
The hearing of those directives must occur in your regenerated spirit. “He who has an ear” (Rev. 3:6): You have an ear if your spirit is alive in Christ. Every born-again Christian has an ear to hear God. The question for each of us is: Are we listening? Are we paying attention to what God is saying to us personally and corporately? “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Walking in the Spirit follows this simple formula: Hear and obey. The more you obey, the clearer the hearing becomes. The more you ignore what the Spirit is saying in your spirit, the more difficult it becomes to know the will of God. The heart hardens every time we say no to God. But when we exercise of our God-given capacity to hear, we become better attuned to the sound of God’s voice. In the earlier days of radio, a knob had to be turned to pick up the radio signal. At first, the signal would sound vague with static and interference. But as the knob was turned to the precise frequency, the sound became clear. There was some trial and error in the process.
Hearing God requires some trial and error. Like many other things in life, you will never learn it without doing it. In the doing, we refine our ability to hear more clearly.ii Start where you are. When you make a mistake, humbly acknowledge it. And keep on improving. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit” is saying to you.
Hearing is a crucial part of walking in the Spirit. As an individual believer we must learn how to hear in our soul what God is saying in our spirit. A key to that is found in Jesus’s first beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”iii A person who is “poor in spirit” feels his dependence on God’s guidance. He listens because he realizes the inadequacies of his own ideas and opinions. Proud people do not listen because they think they already know.
A key to waking in the Spirit is hearing God. A key to hearing God is the humility to listen for
and depend on what he has to say.
How do we walk in the Spirit? I want to address three principles that at least partially answer that
question. Today, we will deal with the first two. Next time we will consider the third principle.
Principle one is:
I. Set your ATTENTION on the activity of the Holy Spirit in your regenerated spirit.
Romans 8:5 says, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the
flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” Paul is contrasting the
believer with the unbeliever. In the context, this statement is descriptive. All unbelievers live in
the flesh. They also walk in the flesh because they have no capacity to walk in the Spirit. But
take note of this: Their minds are set on the things (the desires) of the flesh. In contrast, all
believers live in the Spirit. Because their human spirit has been “made alive” in Christ,iv they
have the capacity to walk in the Spirit. We know from Galatians 5 and 1 Corinthians 3 that
believers do not always live in that capacity.v But that should characterize the way they live their
lives.
Our interest today is an enlightening truth embedded in Romans 8:5. A fundamental difference
between people living in the Spirit and those living in the flesh is what the person sets his mind
on. “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those
who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” To walk in the Spirit, we must apply
that principle in our daily lives. Set your mind on the things of God.
To walk in the Spirit, our minds must be set on the Holy Spirit and what he is doing. We cannot
love the world and walk in the Spirit at the same time.vi If worldly things and activities have your
attention, you will walk in the flesh. For every believer, God says, “May I have your attention
please?” Without that, walking in the Spirit is a fantasy. Pause for a moment and ask yourself:
What am I most interested in? What am I pursuing?vii What am I occupied with? What am I
thinking about most often? Is my affection set on things below or things above?
Colossians 3:1-2 addresses this issue: “If then you were raised with Christ [as we taught earlier,
every believer’s spirit has been raised with Christ.], seek those things which are above, where
Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind [there is that phrase again] on things
above, not on things on the earth.”
The command to “set your mind on” requires an action of the will.viii As a believer, you have to
exercise your will to “set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” Earthly things
constantly scream for attention. But the cares of life can choke out spiritual fruitfulness.
Remember Jesus’s Parable of the Sower. In Matthew 13, Jesus talked about a farmer who tossed
his seed on the ground hoping to get a crop. The seed fell on four different types of soil. Only
one in four developed and produced a crop. The other three failed to be fruitful. Some of the seed
fell by the wayside and the birds ate it. Some fell on stoney ground, and it withered under the
heat of the sun because it did not develop an adequate root system. “And some fell among
thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them” (Matt. 13:7). Then Jesus explained that
category of seed in Matthew 13:22: “Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.” Worldly things so captured the attention that the seed was unfruitful.
Do you want to walk in the Spirit? By an act of the will, choose to occupy your mind and attention with the things of God. Seek first the kingdom of God.ix Spiritual disciples like Bible study, daily devotions, church attendance, and prayer help us keep our minds on the Lord.
All of us have to live responsibly in relationship to the earthly world around us.x But our priorities, our affection, our attention, our goals in life must be on God and his kingdom. Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21). Do you have financial goals? Make sure those goals take a backseat to your spiritual goals. Make sure your mind is set on the Lord and what he wants in your life. “Set your mind,” Colossians 3:2 says, “on things above, not on things on the earth.” The first principle for walking in the Spirit is: Set your attention on the activity of the Holy Spirit in your regenerated spirit.
II. IDENTIFY with Christ’s death and resurrection.
That statement requires more explanation than we can give this morning. But we need to at least mention the principle if we are to understand walking in the Spirit. In our previous teaching, we examined Paul’s exhortation in Galatians 5:25 to walk in the Spirit. Foundational to that admonition is something Paul declared back in Galatians 2:20. There he said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
What does Paul mean when he says, “I have been crucified with Christ”? The tense of the verb tells us something important. The Greek word translated “crucified with” is in the perfect tense. The perfect tense “describes an event completed in the past . . . [having] results existing in the present time.”xi Maximilian Zerwick says, “The perfect tense is used for ‘indicating not the past action as such but the present ‘state of affairs’ resulting from the past action.’”xii It’s not that Paul is being crucified with Christ. It has already happened at Calvary. And it has already happened for you and me as well. Paul was living in the full benefits of that. We are teaching on this subject because we want to experientially live in the full benefits of that. Paul is talking about his co-crucifixion with Christ.
This is not an easy concept to grasp, but it is a key to walking in the Spirit. In Romans 6:6 we read: “knowing this, that our old man was crucifiedxiii with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” Being a slave to sin and walking in the Sprit are incompatible. To walk in the Spirit, I must live above the domination of sin. But how do I live in that level of victory? The answer is found in our co-death and resurrection with Christ.
The first thing I must grasp about my co-crucifixion with Christ is that it happened at the cross. That provides the basis for my faith. The application of that victory rests in what Christ has already done—what has already happened at the cross. Instead of crucifying myself as the aesthetic try to do, I believe what God has declared to be true. Paul follows up in Romans 6:11 with instruction on how we are to respond to this reality: “Likewise you also, reckon [count it to be so—reckon] yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is a tall order with wonderful results to the extent that we actually do it.
“I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). Romans 6:6: “knowing this, that our old man was crucified.” How do I act on that truth? Romans 6:12-13 gives additional instruction: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” We need to deal with this in much more depth in the future. But for now, let us take this exhortation to heart. Instead of yielding our body as an instrument of sin, by a choice of will on a daily basis, we present our body as an instrument of righteousness. Instead of listening to the beckoning of sin, we listen to the call of God in our spirit and offer ourselves to his service.
This identification with Christ in his death and resurrection is a big subject and a difficult one as well. We are only touching upon this principle of co-crucifixion and co-resurrection. Hopefully, we can get into it in more depth later.
Conclusion
In this message, we have discussed two principles for walking in the Spirit: I. Set your attention on the activity of the Holy Spirit in your regenerated spirit. Listen to what God is saying. Pursue his will. Don’t let the things of this world distract you from that. II. Identify with Christ’s death and resurrection. You have been crucified with Christ and raised to newness of life; live that out. Put to death the lusts of the flesh. Offer yourself as an instrument of God’s will.
In our next message, we will consider one more principle: Test and Trust the knowledge and guidance you receive in your spirit from God. We learn by doing. In the natural, an infant learns to walk, by walking. At first, he wabbles and stumbles, but with every effort he improves. Listen to what God is saying in your spirit, and act on it in faith. In this coming message, we will talk more about how your spirit receives knowledge and guidance from the Lord.
ENDNOTES:
i All Scripture quotes are from the New King James Version unless indicated otherwise.
ii Cf. Heb. 5:4.
iii See Richard W. Tow, Beatitudes of Christ: Pathway of Blessing (Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2024), 1-26.
iv Eph. 2:1, 5.
v In Romans 8:5, Paul is not exhorting Christians to walk in the Spirit as he does in Galatians 5:25. He is describing the difference between those who are not under condemnation because they are in Christ versus those who are under condemnation because they are not in Christ. The Christians live “according to the Spirit” because they have been “made alive” in Christ. In contrast to that, the unbeliever lives “according to the flesh.” However, in verses 12-13,
Paul warns his readers who are Christians (Rom. 1:7) to live according to their position in Christ. Here as well as in other passages, such as Galatians 5:25, believers are exhorted to walk in the Spirit. That is the focus of this study.
vi See 1 John 2:15 and Richard W. Tow, Authentic Christianity: Studies in 1 John (Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2019) 95-110.,
vii Eph 2:3 describes the pursuits of those in the flesh as people “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.”
viii Everybody sets their minds on something. The issue is about what we set our minds on. The goals we set in life will significantly influence what we think about. But keeping our minds in the right place is a moment-to-moment endeavor as well.
ix Matthew 6:33.
x Cf. 1 Thess. 4:11-12.
xi Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 573.
xii Zerwick, Biblical Greek, in Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 573.
xiii Here the aorist tense is used, still indicating a past action. At the cross it happened. By faith we appropriate it now.
