Caring Christians Walk Spiritually
By Woodrow Kroll
Today we want to take a closer look at what it means for you and me to be under new management spiritually. When we accept God's gift of salvation and commit our lives to following Jesus Christ, we come under the new management of the Holy Spirit. And the changes in our lives, the way we act and speak and care for others should make them curious about what this new life is all about. I hope you'll find some help in living under new management as we learn what it means to walk spiritually as caring Christians in today's study.
Walking different from the world is our obligation, but it's not within our power to do that and that's where the rub comes in. It's also where today's study comes in because today, friends, we're going to talk about the God who makes all things possible. You see, God can give us the power to walk differently. The source of that power for the Christian is the Holy Spirit of God. And thus today, we're going to think together about walking spiritually, walking as we're guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God.
All this week on Back to the Bible, we're thinking about how to show the world we care--how to show the world we are a caring person. Caring Christians walk differently from the way the rest of the world does. We are a new creature in Christ. We have a new name. We have a new heart. Everything is new about us. The people around us ought to know that, but they will know it when caring Christians walk spiritually.
I want you to think with me today about what it means to walk spiritually. I'm going to take you today to Galatians 5; if you have a Bible and would like to follow along, please do. Galatians 5:16, listen to this:
"I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissentions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."
Now, that's kind of a long passage; but there is a nice contrast there between the works of the flesh and works of the Spirit, and that's what we want to get to today. Caring Christians walk spiritually. We walk doing the works of the Spirit to our neighbors, and to the people we work with, to our family members.
Let's ask some questions of the text. Who is it that is led by the Spirit here? Who is it that Paul's addressing? Is that spiritual leading that he refers to here reserved for just a select few--you know, the super saints--your pastor and a few people in your church? Is it addressed to those more spiritual as evidenced by the way they sing or the songs they sing, or even the way they pray? Is this addressed to the holiest of men and women? Those who are led by the Spirit, are they the superstars of religion today? You know, all the big names you read about, and you buy their books and their tapes and their videos?
Not at all! Let's use Galatians 5:18 as a starting point, and let's trace backward to see to whom Paul is writing. Those who are led by the Spirit in 5:18 are the same as those who walk in the Spirit in 5:16, and vice versa. In other words, in turn those are the ones who have been set free from the Law.
Chapter 5, verse 1 says, "Stand fast, therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free." See, they are not the children of the bondwoman, but the children of the free woman. These are not those who belong to Satan but those who belong to Christ. These are the ones who are the heirs of the promise, those who have faith. These are Christians.
The bottom line is this, friends, being led by the Spirit is for all true believers. If there was a point in your life, a day in your life, when you trusted Jesus Christ to be your Savior, you are a candidate for being led by the Spirit just like everybody else is. You can be led by the Spirit just as everyone can be because the Spirit resides in you as a Christian, just like He resides in me, just like He resides in your pastor, just like He resides in those super saints in your life.
So if being led by the Spirit applies to all, and it's open to all believers, that should lead us to another question, shouldn't it? The questions is, "What does it mean to be led by the Spirit? What is being led by the Spirit about anyway?" You know, if you are led by the Spirit and you walk in the Spirit, you show yourself to be a caring Christian. But how do you know if you're being led by the Spirit? I think that's a good question; it's an important question.
What being led by the Spirit does not refer to is this: It doesn't refer to being governed by your own impulses or your own inclinations. In other words, being led by the Spirit doesn't mean you just kind of wing it in your Christian life. It also doesn't mean that you submit to some higher power within you. This is what the New Age people do; they submit to the higher power in themselves. The Spirit of God is distinct person; He's distinct from you and me. He may reside in us, but we are not the Spirit of God. Being led by the Spirit also does not simply mean being guided by the Spirit. It doesn't mean making a decision based on His guidance, or knowing which option to chose. You know, you're not led by the Spirit of God simply to discern what college you should attend or even what person you should marry. Being led by the Spirit is much more than having just Him as a point of reference along the way.
Let me define for you what I think the Bible means when it says that we ought to be led by the Spirit. That's how people are going to know that we are different, that we walk differently, because we walk spiritually. Being led by the Spirit is His constant, effective, indwelling influence in our lives through which we obey God's will as we are directed and enabled by the Spirit.
Now, don't miss this. Look at the key ingredients to that definition: Constant--that means the leading of the Spirit of God is not intermittent; it's a daily thing. It is effective. That means the leading of the Spirit of God is not superficial. This is not a joke, friends; this is the way Christian life works. And it talks about being the indwelling influence of the Spirit of God. That means the Spirit of God is inside of us. We don't simply read about Him in the Bible; He has taken up residence within us. And the word influence there--Spirit-influenced as opposed to Satan-influenced, as opposed to influence by the world.
The more time I spend in God's Word, the more time I spend in talking with Him, the more time I spend in communing with the Spirit of God within me--the more I am influenced by His thinking, the more I'm influenced by His life. And the less, by the way, I'm influenced by the world. Being led by the Spirit is His constant, effective indwelling influence in our lives, through which we obey God's will.
Now, there's the verb friends--obey. That implies action, doesn't it? It is not just a knowledge or direction, but action--obeying God's will as we are directed and enabled by the Spirit. Directed means that the Spirit gives the orders; and enabled means that He provides the power. If you want to walk differently today, if you want to show the world you're a caring Christian--throwing a couple of dollars in that pot outside of K-Mart when you hear the bell ring is not the way to do it. That's not a bad idea, I would suggest you do that, but that's not the way to show the world you're a caring Christian.
You show the world you're a caring Christian when you walk differently from the rest of the world, when you walk spiritually. We are led by the Spirit when His indwelling influence directs us, and enables us to shun off all the schemes of the devil, and instead follow the will of God. This doesn't take a super saint, friends, but it is one of the ingredients that will make of us a super saint.
Okay, it's time for another question. Being led by the Spirit is open to all believers. We got that. It's His indwelling presence that directs and enables us to do God's will; we understand that. So what are the results of being led by the Spirit?
I'm glad you asked and the Bible does give the answer to that. There are several results. You may want to jot them down. Number one, those who are led by the Spirit are no longer under the bondage of the law. I think that's important because there are a lot of people today who live according to the law. We obey God and His precepts with gladness of heart, not out of fear of reprisal from Him. Galatians 5:1: "Stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage."
He's talking about the law. Galatians 5:18: "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." Now, he doesn't say there that's it's not a good idea to keep the law. He doesn't say that it's not a good idea for us to follow the Ten Commandments. I mean after all, the Ten Commandments were given by God for our good. But when we're led by the Spirit, we're not under the bondage of keeping the Ten Commandments in order to be close to God; it's the Spirit that enables us to be close to God. It's the Spirit that enables us to have an influence on the people in our lives--not keeping the law, not doing what the Bible says--but doing what the Bible says in the power of the Holy Spirit.
So the first result of being led by Spirit is that we are no longer under the bondage of the law.
Secondly, those who are led by the Spirit are no longer held hostage by the works of the flesh. Listen to this, verse 24: "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with its passions and desires." What does it mean that we have "crucified the flesh"? Does that mean we slice ourselves up and nail ourselves to a tree? No, not at all. It simply means that what was engendering in us ideas from flesh, the things that we enjoyed before we became a new creature in Christ Jesus--those things are now dead. That doesn't mean our passions are dead, doesn't mean our desires are dead, but the blood of Jesus Christ enables us to keep those things from being the driving forces in our lives.
That's what crucified means. Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." See, that's the whole point of living a spiritual life. The world knows that we are a caring people when they can see the influence of the Spirit of God in the way we live.
So, the results of being led by the Spirit of God are that we are no longer under the bondage of the Law; and secondly, we are no longer held hostage by the works of the flesh.
But here's a third result that comes from being led by the Spirit: Those who are led by the Spirit evidence the fruit of the Spirit as a result. Remember the contrast I read in Galatians 5? The works of the flesh are adultery, fornication, idolatry, sorcery, and murder. These are all the works of the flesh.
Now contrast that, verse 22, with the fruit of the Spirit. If you live according to the flesh, you end up with hatred. You end up with uncleanness. You end up with jealously, and selfish ambition. But if you live according to the fruit of the Spirit, you live with love, and joy and peace and longsuffering and kindness and goodness and faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
If you want people to know that you are caring Christian, they've got to see it in the fruit of your life. Those who are led by the Spirit evidence the fruit of the Spirit as a result. Now I hope to get to that in just a minute, but I don't want you to lose the connection here. The indwelling Spirit enables us to bear fruit. If we're not led by the Spirit, not only do we cave into the works of the flesh, we are just too anemic to produce the fruit of the Spirit.
Have you heard about the two brothers who didn't mind being sent to their room as a punishment? Because just outside the window of their room was this huge old fruit tree. The boys would close their door, quietly raise the window, and shimmy down the tree. After they went out and played in an old field behind the house for an hour or so, they'd climb back up the tree, back into the room, then they'd call down to their mother and say, "Haven't we suffered enough? Isn't it time you let us out?"
Now, one day the boys overheard their father tell their mother that he planned to cut down the tree. He said, "It just isn't bearing any fruit anymore." This panicked the two boys. Their escape route was in jeopardy. So that afternoon they pooled their finances. They went to the grocery store; they bought a bag of apples and some black thread. After dark that night, they spent a couple of hours tying apples onto the tree.
The next morning they waited eagerly for their dad's discovery. Finally Dad cried out, "Mary, Mary, come and see this. You're not going to believe this! That old fruit tree is covered with apples. It's a miracle!" Well, the boys high-fived each other, and they felt very proud. Then their dad continued, "Mary, it's a real miracle, considering that's a pear tree!"
Some people feign fruit the way these boys feigned fruit on their tree. They try to put pears on an apple tree, or apples on a pear tree. What they don't have is the presence of the Spirit of God in them, producing the fruit, so they try to make you think they have fruit. You know what? The world sees through that more quickly than we do. They know we're not caring people if we try to manufacture love, if we try to manufacture peace. If we're just manufacturing self-control, people around us know it. Our neighbors know it. Our family knows it. But those who are led by the Spirit evidence the fruit of the Spirit as a result.
You want to be a caring Christian today? Show the world you care by the evidence of the Spirit of God in your life--joy, peace, love, longsuffering, faithfulness, gentleness. That's how the world will know that you're a caring Christian.
Well, there's one more way that we can see that we are led by the Holy Spirit of God and it's this: Those who are led by the Spirit greatly strengthen their testimony to the world. Jesus said, "But when [the Comforter] the Helper comes, I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning" (John 15:26-27).
When we are led by the Holy Spirit of God, our witness to our neighbors becomes strong. Our witness to our neighbors becomes sincere; it becomes useful. It becomes helpful. It becomes genuine. If you want the world to know that you're caring Christian, don't try to put on love, don't try to put on gentleness or meekness, or don't try to just say, "Oh, I'm so concerned about you." There's a way to do it, friends, and it's to allow the Spirit of God to shine through you.
Now, I know you join me in a desire to be a caring Christian, but a caring Christian is one who cares enough for God and His holiness that we don't offend God in our lives, any more than we offend our neighbors. If you're being led by the Spirit, if you're being controlled by God's Holy Spirit, if you're being empowered to live a life pleasing to God, then you're going to want shun the works of the flesh.
If you and I really care for our unsaved neighbors, our unsaved family members, we have to show that we care by living in the Spirit, and if we live in the Spirit we will walk in the Spirit as well. So, my friend, if the Spirit of God dwells in you, make sure your feet know it. Make sure your eyes know it. Make sure your mind knows it. That's the way to care enough about your friends and neighbors to give them the very best--you."
As we are empowered by the indwelling Spirit of God, He gives us what we need to be truly caring Christians. When I think of a caring Christian, it's easy to think first of caring for people's physical or emotional needs, being compassionate, offering help and understanding for those in need. But both yesterday and today, you hinted at a caring for the spiritual and eternal needs of the people around us. Do we care if they go to heaven or not? Are we concerned about their relationship with the Lord? Why do you think we so often neglect this most important need?
I don't know, it may be because there is no immediate gratification for us when we think about the spiritual needs. There are no apparent, immediate results. If there's hunger in the world, and we give so that people can have food, so that they're not starving, there are immediate results to that. We live in the wrong world, Don--we live in the world of the now, and we're always looking for results now. But the real results are results that last throughout eternity and that's dealing with the spiritual care that people need, not just the emotional or physical care.
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