How to Walk in the Spirit and Not in the Flesh

Welcome to episode 294.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm going to continue to talk about Ezekiel's wheel and learning to walk in the spirit, and I believe this episode is going to be called How to Walk in the Spirit and Not in the Flesh. And I'm going to do this by using just 3 simple steps, and I want to remind you that when God is involved, it's simple, but it's not always easy. So we— there's got to be some steps that we're going to take. If you'll hang with me for this episode, I think that you'll have a better understanding on how to walk in the Spirit when you get done with this. And again, this is a big topic, so we're not going to get all this done in 10 minutes. But I just want to encourage you, if you begin to get a hold of these truths, it's going to set you free. The Bible is clear: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. We are diving into this topic on how to walk in the Spirit because, to be frank, I just got tired of people telling me I had to learn to walk in the Spirit, or you just need to learn to walk in the Spirit. If you're getting all uptight, brother, you just need to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Well, that's so easy to say, but it's difficult to do. And so I've been digging in, I've been trying to figure this thing out, and Ezekiel's wheel is key. I believe, and it pulls the spirit man out of the Wheel of Life. If you look at all the different goal setting, they put spiritual life on the same footing or the same plane as your health, as your wealth, as your relationships, and that is not biblical. God is holy, and you and I need to be holy, and holy means to be set apart for his use. We are to be holy. We are to be building God's kingdom, not our kingdom. And I've done for multiple years, decades, I've been doing it Greg's way. I feel like Elvis Presley, I did it my way. That's a great song, but it's not a great way to live your life. If you do it your way, it is always going to end up in a ditch. Don't ask me how I know. God's ways are not our ways. But I don't want to chase that rabbit. That's not in my notes. Let's go to 2 Corinthians, and it's chapter 5, and we're going to start in verse 15.

And he died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer. Therefore If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

And I'm going to stop there. We've got to look at ourselves as being a new creation. I'm no longer the old Greg Ryan. The first 29 years of my life, I lived without Christ, didn't really know it, thought I was for God, didn't know that I was not born again. Just didn't know. I was ignorant. But now I know. Now the truth has set me free. And so now I am walking in Christ, which means I'm a new creature, I'm a new creation. I'm not of this world, I'm of God's world. I have been translated into Heaven Island, away from Hell Island. I've got to picture everything. If this is your first time on the podcast, I've got to picture everything. So I've been taken off of Hell Island and I've been placed on Heaven Island. I'm in a new world. I'm totally new creature. I am not like I was.

I was—

I'm dead to myself. I'm alive in Christ. All of those things, we've got to get a handle on that. I used to be a sinner. I was a sinner. I was born in sin. That didn't mean that I was born— my mom and dad sinned when they had me. No, that means that I was of Adam's seed. I came from Adam and Eve's lineage. If the family tree was drung all the way out, one of the branches on the family tree was my branch, my little family's branch, and there I am. So I want you to picture we were in Adam's lineage, we have been pulled off, and we have been grafted into the vine, where that is Christ. And we're not going to go there, but we will get there. He is the vine and we are the branches, and we have got to understand that without Christ, we can't do anything. So that's rule— that's step 1. We have got to understand we are new creatures in Christ. We are no longer a sinner. We are going to call ourselves saints. We are a saint of God. That don't mean that I'm blameless. That don't mean that I don't sin. I'm a new creature in him. What that means in dog years is I am no longer a sinner. I'm a saint. Who occasionally sins. The great news is Christ died for all sin— past, present, and future sin. So sin's no longer the issue. Even if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, your sin is not going to get you thrown into hell. It's not sin that's going to get you thrown into hell. God's not going to throw you into hell. You are going to get to earn it. You are going to tell God by your actions, I don't want nothing to do with you. I don't want nothing to do with your son. I think you both are horrible. I think y'all are both crap, and I don't want nothing to do with you, and I want to spend all my time on earth separated from you. And that's going to earn you separation from God on the other side in hell. I didn't write not one word of this book. I am just telling you how I read it. The second step, after we believe we become a new creation, we've got to understand that we have been redeemed. We have been justified. We have become righteous. So we are redeemed, justified, and righteous. And I want to throw all those terms out because I think sometimes we just throw these words out there and you think, oh yeah, I'm righteous, or I'm re— I'm justified, or I'm redeemed. What that means is I was bought with a price. I was redeemed. I was going to hell. I deserved it with sin. And Christ paid the price. He redeemed me. He took me from going to hell, and he said, look, here you go to heaven. So I'm redeemed. I'm going there. Justified means just as if I have never sinned. That's an easy way to remember it. That just means that when God looks at me, he sees his Son. He sees the righteousness of Jesus when he looks at my spirit man. I don't claim to understand all of it. We just have to believe it. That's what it's going to be. The third step is we have got to learn to walk by faith and not by sight. The walking by faith— faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And we're going to go to Romans. We're going to start in Romans 1:17, and then we're going to go to Romans 4. And let's go to Romans 1:16 and 17, because I like 16, really.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

And I want you to think about the just shall live by faith. And when you see just, that don't mean that they're the special people or they don't do anything wrong. They are the justified, just as if I've never sinned. When you accept Jesus Christ, you are justified. I didn't write the book, I didn't make the rules. This is God's word, this is God's doing. You are justified. You can't fight it, you can argue with it, you can't do any of those things. You are just justified and you're declared righteous. And remember, in Matthew 6:33, it says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. And I've said multiple times that even if you were doing the kingdom of God, God's way of doing things, but you had not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, none of that is going to do you any heavenly good, because you're going to maybe do things God's way, but you are not in right standing. And it's, it's a two-part thing. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. His righteousness is salvation. His righteousness is saying, hey, I want to accept what Jesus did for me on the cross and living that perfect life and dying that death that I deserve to die. And then when you accept that, then you also get the resurrection power. You get— he is the first fruits. He came out of the grave. He will never die again. Jesus is going to come back again someday. Don't know what day it's going to be, but we are one day closer today of Jesus' return than we were yesterday. That I'm certain of. So we have got to know that Jesus Christ is coming back for his church, for his bride. He's going to receive to himself you and I if you've accepted Jesus. Now we are righteous, we are justified We are a new creation, and to walk in the Spirit, we have to walk by faith and not by sight. And if we will use Father Abraham as our example, he's called the father of faith, and we're going to go to Romans 4 to see the reason. But you've heard this before on this podcast, you've heard it probably multiple times from the pulpit. Abraham believed the word of God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham just heard from God and just did the best he could to follow what the word of God told him to do. Now, did he do it perfectly? No, he didn't, but he got after it. Let's read it instead of me babbling, and let's start in Romans 4:13.

For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also those who are of the faith of Abraham. Who is the father of us all. For it is written, I have made you a father of many nations, in the presence of him whom he believed, God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did, who contrary to hope, in hope, believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, So shall your descendants be. And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead, since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb, he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what he had promised he was able to perform. And therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone what it was imputed to him, but also for us, it shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification.

Well, I'm going to stop there because I know I have superior reading skills. I know you love me reading to you. It's kind of like a bedtime story. But I want you to hear that, and I want you to go back and play that again. Romans 4:13-25. If you read that and listen to that. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. It is such a great picture that Abraham believed the word of God and he did not waver at the promise. I think there's a lot of wavering, and present company included.

I—

if I believed everything in this book, I would never have a problem. Jesus went from victory to victory. Jesus did everything that the Father told him to do. Jesus was the perfect example. He had some problems there at the end, but they were because of what Satan did, and he agreed to it for you and I. Jesus would never have had an issue if he didn't come to die for you and I. And I thank God that he did it. I thank God that he had that plan in place, and I thank God for the Holy Spirit every day. And we're going to pray real quick. I love the idea of walking in the spirit and not in the flesh. We have got to understand that we are new creatures. We have justified, we are righteous, and we need to learn to walk by faith and not by sight. We're going to pick this up on the next episode, but let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for the examples that you give us in the Bible. I thank you for Father Abraham, the father of faith. And I thank you for Paul, who was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these words. God, I thank you for this listener. I thank you for this viewer. I thank you that you would just continue to lead and guide and direct us. Keep us safe, Lord Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for coming beside us and leading and guiding and direct us into all truth. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.