Well, thank you again, Mark and Diane, for leading us this morning. Good morning to everyone. It's a fine summer day out there. I felt like I was in Florida the last couple of days. It'll come. It's going to be nice tomorrow, high 58.

So we're continuing through the Book of Galatians, kind of getting back to that. It's been about three weeks. I felt a little concerned as I was going over this message again, that we've lost the flow out in chapter 5. But we'll try and revisit some of that this morning, maybe, and bring that to our remembrance.

This morning, we really come to a crucial text in the Book of Galatians for our understanding of sanctification and of the Christian life. Paul's been explaining the danger of the false teaching of the legalistic Jews, who are now influencing the thinking of the believers in the church concerning salvation, primarily the necessity of the law for the Christian life. At the beginning of chapter 5, he exhorted us to stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. 

We've seen that this liberty is from sin and law and the fear of death, that we are now free to live the life that God intended by His grace and His power and to love, to love God and to love men. This morning, Paul's going to explain to us the means God has given for us to accomplish a consistent life of fruit for His glory. We're going to see a real contrast between law and flesh, the works that we do following a law, works of the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit and what the Holy Spirit will produce through us as we walk by faith.

So he's going to explain to us how this can be consistent in our lives. And he does this, again, by way of contrast, contrasting life by the law, the works of the flesh, life by the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, experiencing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. If we are to walk in the Spirit, we must first understand that we live in the Spirit. We, as believers in Jesus Christ, are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit. We live in the Spirit. Therefore, we must walk in the Spirit, is Paul's argument.

There is what Paul calls in Romans 12:1-2 a sweet reasonableness to a Christian living a life of fruit produced by the Holy Spirit in us as we walk by the Spirit and not by the letter. And it's at this point, the very truth that Paul is emphasizing in our text, that I believe there's so much confusion in the church today and a resulting lack of understanding as to why we can live a new life in Christ and how God intends we live a fruitful life for His glory in this new covenant age. 

It's a basic misunderstanding of regeneration, of the salvation that Jesus provides. It's a misunderstanding of our relationship to indwelling sin and to the law as a believer in Jesus Christ. And this is Paul's subject matter in chapter 5. It's the focus. It's a focus of the battle at the wrong point when we fail to understand what Paul is saying that causes us to fail, to live like who we were rather than who we are. 

So my prayer this morning is that through our study of this tremendous section of Paul's letter to the Galatians, we might better come to understand who we are in Christ and how it is that God intends we bear consistent fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, in our lives to be a witness to men and to bring glory to God. 

Let's look at our text in verse 16 of Galatians 5. Paul says, “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, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, 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, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, 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. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. 

I've given you five points on your outline. First, walk in the Spirit. Second, the battle of the Christian life. Third, not under the law. Fourth, works of the flesh and fruit of the Spirit. And fifth, crucified with Christ.

Well, I'd like to begin this morning by asking you to turn to Romans chapter 8 with me, please. Romans 8 at verse 5. And this section is familiar to us. Beginning in chapter 5 at verse 12, Paul begins to draw a contrast between the man in Adam and the man in Christ. That's the flow, the context of this whole section. The effect of the one sin of the man, Adam, in the garden on the entire human race in contrast with the effect of the one righteous act of Christ on the cross for those who believe.

He continues this contrast in this whole section of chapters 5 through 8. Adam versus Christ. Sin versus righteousness. Law versus grace. Flesh versus Spirit. So I want to draw a parallel with our text here because what Paul's talking about in Galatians 5 in our text is a contrast between flesh and spirit. And his point is that we are not in the flesh, that we are in the spirit. And we're going to see that here in Romans 8. 

What we see in these chapters is a lot of truths, what we call indicatives, statements of fact. What we don't see are imperatives. No commands, but truth statements about what is true of the man in Adam and what is true of the man in Christ. And what we see is that the man in Adam is controlled and dominated by indwelling sin, but the man in Christ is free from the controlling power of indwelling sin. Because he was crucified with Christ, he died to sin. He also died to the law, but the man in Adam is under the law. The man in Christ is free from the bondage of the law. 

The man in Adam lives all his lifetime in fear of death. The man in Christ looks forward to his death, a simple transition from this world to glory, to be with Jesus. So this contrast persists through chapter 8. And I want to begin at verse 5. And here's the thing. Many teachers, many Christians read these words and they try to find commands in here. They teach we need to do this or do that. But I want you to pay close attention and tell me if you see a command, if you see an imperative. 

Romans 8, 5, we'll read down to verse 11. It 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. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.”

What we see in this text is again, a contrast between the flesh and the spirit. Those who are in the flesh are in Adam, lost. Those who are in the spirit are saved, regenerated and dwelt by the Holy Spirit. If anyone does not have the Holy Spirit, he is not His. He is not saved. Everyone receives the Holy Spirit permanently the moment he believes. 

The discussion here in this entire section, five through eight, is sanctification. Paul is discussing actual truth about the believer in Jesus Christ. This is not the positional truth of justification by imputation that we see back in chapters three to four. These are actual changes that happened in the believer, in his spirit, through regeneration, his union with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection to a newness of life. And through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the life of Christ in us, we see the fruit of that. 

So Paul says the believer is in the spirit. He is not in the flesh. And he says it is the spirit who will give life to your mortal bodies, will produce fruit consistent with our spirit, which has been made alive through salvation. We see the same truths in our text. If you go back to Galatians five at verse 24, he says, “And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” And then he says, “If we live in the spirit, which who lives in the spirit? Every believer, right? That's what we just saw in Romans eight. If we live in the spirit, then let us also walk in the spirit.”

So what we see consistently throughout Paul's writings is that the basis he gives for living a holy life, a new life, a life walking in the spirit, experiencing the fruit of the spirit, is that we live in the spirit. We are in the spirit and not in the flesh. The truth that we must understand, the why we can now live the Christian life is that we have died. We have been crucified with Christ. We have crucified the flesh. We've died to sin and law and death. We were raised new creations in Christ with a new spirit, with a new heart and the Holy Spirit living in us to empower us with the very power with which he raised Jesus from the dead, the power to live a resurrection life. 

What he says in Philippians three is out from among the dead, right? We are not the dead anymore. We're not the walking dead. We are alive and therefore our life should be a life different than the dead. We live out from among the dead. So it is because of these truths, the truth of regeneration, recreation, who we now are in Christ, the power we have by the indwelling Holy Spirit that we must now live a new life. We are new men, therefore we must live like new men. That's the argument of the New Testament. 

It's the basic premise, this logical factual truth about us that forms the why we can now live a new life. The sweet reasonableness of the truth is that the believer lives inconsistently outwardly with who he is inwardly, a life of fruit and holiness. And these truths should dominate our expectations for life every day. Paul said this very thing back in chapter five, verses one to six. He's in verses one to six, he's condemning the teaching that the law is binding on the believer as a way of life, showing that if you choose the law as a means of life, then you are placing yourself under bondage, living by your own power, and in this Christ will profit you nothing. 

He contrasts this with the biblical view of the Christian life in verse five. And verse five is a wonderful verse to go back and study and meditate on. He says, “For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” What Paul says here is this, we wait. This word speaks of an attitude of intense yearning, an eager waiting, an expectation for something. Here it refers to the believer's intense desire for an eager expectation of a practical righteousness, which will be constantly produced in his life by the Holy Spirit as he yields himself to him.

If we know and understand what God says is true of the believer in Jesus Christ, as we've been considering in all these great texts, then we should be looking, waiting with eager expectation to see the fruit of the Spirit, righteousness constantly produced through us by the Holy Spirit as we walk in the Spirit. 

My favorite basketball player of all time was Larry Bird. I spent a good deal of my youth hunting and fishing not too far from where Larry grew up in French Lick, Indiana, and I remember one time when the Celtics had just won the championship and the interviewer asked him where he was going, and you know, back in those days, Disney sponsored that, and they'd always say, “I'm going to Disney World,” right? So they asked Larry, he just made the winning shot. They said, “Where are you going?” He said, “I'm going back to French Lick. Squirrel season opens next week.”

There have been countless stories from NBA players about the confidence of Larry Bird. If the game was on the line, he wanted the ball. I heard his coach tell a story. They were down two seconds to go. They're in the huddle, he's designing a play, and Larry says, “Hey coach, just tell everybody to get out of the way and give me the ball.” And Casey Jones said, “Wait a minute, Larry, I'm the coach here.” Then he turned back to the guys in the huddle and said, “Give Larry the ball and get out of the way.” And Larry went out and made that last-second shot to win the championship.

Let me ask you, in those clutch situations with all that pressure, do you think Larry expected to make that shot? He'd practiced and practiced, I mean, thousands of hours of shooting and training. And when he made that shot, he expected it to go in. His earnest expectation was that it was going in. I saw a clip the other day where it was the last second three to win the game, and as soon as he released the ball, he just put his finger in the air and ran to the locker room while the ball was still in the air. He expected it to go in. 

This is the expectation we should have every day in our Christian life—not confidence in ourselves, not by some external law or standard, but confidence in the Holy Spirit in the life of Christ in us, in our desire to live holy, in our expectation that God will produce that holiness through us as we trust and abide in Him. 

Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 3, “We have such trust through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient as ministers of the New Covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” 

Paul says if we live in the Spirit—and we do—let us also walk in the Spirit. And this, my friend, is where the battle of the Christian life lies. It is the why and the how, but if we don't fully grasp the why—the truth of why it is that we can live a new life in Christ—then there's no hope of victory. No hope of applying the how. 

And this is why I get so frustrated, so concerned with the errors that we tend to accept as fact, as truth. I may give you a silly example. How many times have you heard a preacher or teacher or any Christian say, “The lion will lay down with the lamb?” Yeah, it's a misquote of Isaiah 11:6, right? The Bible never says that a lion will lie down with a lamb. It says the wolf will dwell with the lamb. 

Now this is a great promise concerning the time of the Millennial Kingdom, the restoration of the earth and lifting of the curse. This is not true now, and I have experience with this. If the wolf is lying with the lamb, then the lamb is inside the wolf now today. But there are going to be a lot of Christians in the kingdom ruling with Christ for a thousand years who are going to be searching for a lion laying with a lamb when it's been a wolf all along. 

This is trivial, but it's something that Christians wholly believe in, quote, and teach all the time—but the Bible never says. Or like Bobby's grandpa always used to tell me, “You know what a good book says? God helps those who help themselves.” Yeah, it doesn't say that. 

Much more serious than error is the teaching that permeates much of evangelical Christianity concerning who the man in Christ is and what God has done in salvation. How about this statement: “The believer has two natures, his new good nature and his old bad nature.” I have studied on this for about 25 years, and I'm not really sure what this even means, but I know it's not biblical. I think it's an attempt to affirm that sin still indwells the believer, which is true, but it's highly misleading. 

The only way we can define nature, if you want to use the word nature—if you want to use that unbiblical word—is the essence of who we are. My nature is the essence of who I am, and the essence of who I am in Christ is a new creature with a new spirit and a new heart, freedom from the controlling power of indwelling sin and the law and the fear of death. I am no longer in the flesh, but in the spirit. 

Or how about this one: “The believer needs to die to the old man or die to the flesh or crucify the flesh.” This is a popular teaching, some version of it, but what does the Bible say? Colossians 3 tells us that we have died, that we have put off the old man, that we have put on the new man—Aorist tense: one time, finished, accomplished. Ephesians 4 affirms this same truth. And what does our text say in verse 24? “And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” 

Does it matter that we get these things right? Does it affect our understanding of why we can live a new life, why we should be waiting, watching, constantly, eagerly expecting the fruit of the Spirit in our lives every day as we walk in Him? How about the common understanding of Romans 7:14-25? Now we can debate exactly what this passage means; it seems clear to me. But what we cannot tolerate is the common teaching that this is the normal Christian life, that it's the height of maturity in the Apostle Paul when he came to realize how wicked and evil he is and the total constant complete failure characterized in this passage leads us to the grace of God. 

This is not a tenable view in light of the teaching in the New Testament, as we've been studying—that is that the mature Christian life is one where I always continually fail and do what I hate and never, ever do what I want and do any good at all. This is not a tenable view of the Christian life; this is not God's intention in saving you. 

This is the works of the flesh, not the fruit of the Spirit for sure. I don't have a wicked heart. I hear preachers say your heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. It's not what God says. Those who are in Christ have a new heart, a new spirit. God's taken out the heart of stone and put in the heart of flesh. 

We are not who we were in Adam. So if we were to understand the battle of the Christian life, where it should be fought, why it is we can live a new life and how God intends to produce fruit through our lives, we must first understand that we are in the Spirit. We live in the Spirit, not in the flesh. 

And as we see so often in Paul's writings, he ties the flesh and the works of it to the law. Look at verse 17 in our text: “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 we've already established that you are led by the Spirit. You may not always walk in the Spirit, but you are led by the Spirit. You do live in the Spirit— that's a fact. Therefore, you are not under the law. 

Again, we see the positive and negative: one, you are in the Spirit; two, you are not under the law. So this idea for salvation or for the Christian life that we can live by faith, by the power of the Spirit and by the law at the same time is not biblical. In Romans 7:4-6 he says, “Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead. Why? That you should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.” 

Remember when we were in the flesh? But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. How are we going to serve? How are we going to live? How are we going to produce it? By the Spirit. Walking by faith. 

What letters Paul talking about? What law? “Thou shalt not covet.” My brothers and sisters, I hear preachers say all the time even preaching in the book of Galatians, “Well, of course, this is not talking about the moral law.” 

The moral law of God is timeless; it's representative of character nature; the moral law is binding on the believer. And again, I still have no idea what that means. What does it mean, “the moral law is binding on the believer”? How so? Paul says the law brings only wrath; the law brings condemnation. The law is a ministry of death. He also says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 

All I know for sure by observation is that what Paul says—the law, any law—the moral law or any other is not God's means for producing holiness in my life as a new covenant believer. And whenever Paul mentions what law he's talking about in this context, he mentions the Ten Commandments here in Romans 7: “Thou shalt not covet,” in 2nd Corinthians 3, the law engraved on tablets of stone, in Galatians 3, the law given by angels. The law that shows us our sin and leads us to faith in Christ. It couldn't be more clear: the power lies in the Spirit, by faith, not in the letter, by works.

So the battle begins with knowledge. We must first know. We must know who we are in Christ. We must know what God says is true about us because of his salvation work in us. That's the message of our text. We are led by the Spirit. We live in the Spirit. We have crucified the flesh. We're not under the law. 

We must know that we died, that we were crucified with Christ, our old man died. We have crucified the flesh. We've put off the old man, we have put on the new. We are dead to sin and law. We have new hearts and a new spirit. We're alive to God in the life of Christ. The Holy Spirit lives in us permanently, empowering us to live for Him. Therefore, we are not sinners. We are not vile and wretched. Our hearts are not wicked. We do not have two natures. We are not under the law. The law is not a rule of life, and the law is not a means to holiness. These things we must know, and I think this is the biggest challenge in the church today. 

These things are not taught, perhaps not even understood by most preachers and teachers. And when they are taught, it's difficult for the believers to hold on to these truths in the barrage of lies that undermine them from most of the church, from Christian bookstores. Pastor Krenz always used to tell me the best thing that could happen in this world is if every Christian bookstore burned to the ground from radio, from podcasts, from sermons, devotionals. 

Someone gave Sarah a devotional a year or two ago, and we were reading that every day, and every page, “You're vile and you're wicked; you need to see how wicked you are and you're wretched”—I mean, it's just like, “No, that's not what God says.” 

No, that's not what God says. And if that's who I am and the whole admonition of the New Testament is to live according to who I am, then how should I expect to live? 

So what is the battle of the Christian life? It's a battle to know what God says is true in His Word. It's a battle to constantly renew our minds to these truths, to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, to constantly, continually reckon these things to be so—walking by the Spirit in Romans 6. We see Paul give the list of indicatives, all those truths in the first ten verses. In verse 11, he says reckon them, count them up, choose to believe God. Yield yourself, your members to the Spirit, you know not to sin. 

This is the battle: to know, to reckon, to renew, to believe, trust what God says in His grace, His power to perform it in our lives. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're not the works of the law, the works of the flesh—those undesirable sinful things listed in our text that Paul says if you practice them, you don't go to heaven. 

He's not setting up some sort of relative standard there that if I look at my life and I say, “Well, I had this outburst of wrath, and I did whatever,” then if I cross a threshold in those works and my performance, then I'm going to be out. It's not his point in the flow of the text here. His point is these are unbelievers. This is what they do. They're in the flesh. They live under the law. They don't have the power of the Holy Spirit to produce holiness in their lives. 

These are believers. They don't work by the law to produce fruit; they walk in the Spirit, and he produces the fruit. It's a crucial difference. The weapons of our warfare are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 

It's a matter of taking every thought captive, bringing it into alignment with the Word of God and choosing to believe God, to trust Him, yield to Him and His life and power in us. This is what it means to abide, to walk in the Spirit, to be sanctified by the truth—His word is truth—to yield our members as weapons of righteousness to God. 

Paul highlights this in verse 17 of our text. He says, “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.” Now first of all, where's he going with this? He's going to instruct them to prevent that, right? And his instruction then is you are in the Spirit, you have crucified the flesh. Now walk in the Spirit because this is consistent with who you are.

But it's important that we understand the word flesh in verse 17. Three weeks ago, we went over this in detail, but I want to revisit that because what does it mean, the flesh? We hear people all say all the time, “We live in this flesh.” Well, the word flesh simply means meat and bones, but it's most often used in a negative connotation, right? 

And the key to understanding this, I believe, for the word flesh, used in its negative connotation, is Romans 6:6, where Paul says, “Our old man was crucified with him in order that the body of sin”—the key phrase is the body of sin. What does that mean in Romans 6? It means this physical body, this flesh controlled by indwelling sin. 

So what's Paul saying here? He's saying sin still dwells in you as the believer. Sin is still there, and sin's desire is still to rule over you. It wants to control this body. It wants you to yield your members to sin. But our spirit is new. Our desire is totally in line with the Holy Spirit of God. 

Romans 8 says our spirit witnesses with the Holy Spirit. We're in agreement; we want the same thing, and that is the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: love. So Paul says you have this battle. Sin still dwells in you; still, sin still wants to rule over you. The flesh is the body controlled by indwelling sin. 

But in that verse in chapter 6, Paul says that we were crucified for the express purpose that that body of sin might be rendered powerless or done away with. So it is our death with Christ that has rendered or changed our relationship to that indwelling sin. What I'm driving at here with all of this is if we don't have that battle won in the mind, if we're not reckoning what God says is true, then we're going back to the law, we're going back to the flesh and trying to do it, and the sin then takes that opportunity to rule over our body. And that's the flesh. That's the body of sin. That's what wars against the Spirit. 

So again, a dichotomy—a contrast. It's one or the other. It's not both. And going to the law, going to works is what produces that body of sin becoming operative again. It's contrary to who we are. The truth is that we are dead to sin. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are free from sin. We're dead to the law—the law that aroused the sinful desires in us, causing us to bear fruit to death, the fruit of the flesh. 

The battle is choosing to believe what God says is true, reckoning yourself dead indeed to sin. Ashley was telling me the other night, she and Sam, you know, they've got those three little kids, and it's—I don't know how they do it—four, three, and six months old boys. And she's sleep training him now, the little one. So he's crying all night, and Sam's working 12-hour days, right? 

So Ashley told me, you know, in the middle of the night, saying, “Oh, the baby's crying.” You know, I've done that. That's a man move, right? “Oh, all right, go to sleep, make that thing stop.” So Sam went in the bathroom, and she texts him on the phone, “You're not reckoning yourself.” 

But that's the key, isn't it? That's the key in every aspect of our lives, every moment as we walk. I'm dead to sin. I’m alive to God. I choose to believe what God says is true. I have this thought, this doubt, this temptation, whatever it is, sin rising up in me, and I'm going to choose to believe God. And I'm going to quote that scripture in my mind, and I'm going to ask Jesus to help me. And if I do that in that moment, I'm telling you, you won't sin, right? 

Now, if you want to conceive that sin and justify that sin in your mind, then it'll give birth, like James says. So it's important we understand the battle. When we seek to live by the law, the result is the works of the flesh. The works are works, but when we yield to the Spirit, we see His fruit manifest in our lives: love, joy, peace. This is our choice. 

Paul says in verse 24, “Those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” He summarized this teaching back in Galatians 2:19. He says, “I through the law died to the law in order that I might live to God. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. In 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. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

It's either by grace or by law or by works, or it's either by grace or it's by law and works. The two are mutually exclusive. And Paul says, “If I build again those things which I destroyed, the law is my way of life, then I make myself a transgressor.” But if I live by faith in Jesus, trust in Him and the grace of God, I will see righteousness in my life, the fruit of the Spirit. That should be my expectation, and it has to be based on the fact that God says I'm new. 

I guarantee you that wasn't my expectation before salvation. We must know why we can live a new life—a new life reckoning, affirming who we are in Christ—and we also must understand the means, how God intends we live this new life by the power of the Spirit in the life of Jesus. 

Let's close with Ephesians 3:14. Paul kind of lays that out in that text with a series of purpose clauses here linking together. He's praying for the believers for their understanding of these things. He says in verse 14, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.” 

Isn't that amazing? I go back to Larry Bird for a minute, I just thought of this, but it was according to his ability, his drive, right? 

Pat Riley, who coached the Lakers all those years, said if I had to trust one guy for a game-winning shot, it would be Michael Jordan. But he said if I had to trust one guy for one shot to save my life, it'd be Larry Bird. 

According to the riches of His glory, God's glory—how much greater is God? What does God have in reserve for us? What power does He have to give? He, according to God's riches in glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. That's how it works. He strengthens our spirit through the Holy Spirit to live for Him. 

And then he says in verse 17, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God, that God may control you, right? Not to me, right? Not to me, not to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. 

To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. How do I live in Christ? By the power of the Spirit. The power that raised Jesus from the dead works in me, imparting strength to my inner man. Jesus lives in me, and He seeks to live His life out through me as I walk by faith, depending on Him, abiding in Him. 

I don't look to myself; I don't look to the law; I don't look to a list of standards to meet; I look to Jesus as I run this race. And I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. It is the grace of God through faith by which the fruit of the Spirit can be consistent in my life. 

No reckon, yield. Renew your mind. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Walk by the Spirit. This is the way of life for the believer in Jesus Christ. We live in the Spirit; therefore, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we thank You for the greatness of the salvation that You have provided to us in Christ. Help us to understand it more and more. Help us to dare to believe it, and help us to live according to it. Help us walk in a way that is consistent with who we are on the inside because of what You have done. And all this by Your power, by Your grace; You are able. Help us to know that we're not able. Help us to look to You to perform Your work in us, to glorify Yourself through us. In Jesus' name.