Tony Evans - Growing in Your Walk Means Changing
- Watch
- Donate
Summary
Drawing from Romans 8, Galatians 5, and Ephesians 5:18, the preacher explains that Christians must continually «keep on being filled with the Spirit» because the filling isn’t a one-time event—like gas that gets burned up as soon as you drive away—but a daily lifestyle and mindset. The law reveals right and wrong but can’t empower obedience; only walking in the Spirit, through a relational dependence on Him, produces the fruit of changed character rather than fleshy deeds. The ultimate takeaway is that victory over the flesh comes not from programs or self-effort but from living in the «environment» of the Holy Spirit, where the flesh is held in check.
The Ongoing Filling
Why does he tell you the present tense? Keep on being filled with the Spirit. That’s how it reads. When you pull up to a gas station, you fill it up, but as soon as you leave the gas station, you begin to lose that feeling. Why? Because you’re burning up gas. I don’t care how full you may feel right now; the moment you leave here, it’s going to start to burn. That’s why he says, «keep on being filled.» It is a mindset, a lifestyle, not an event.
Walking According to the Spirit
So the requirement, verse 4 of the law, might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
He says you’ve got a mind problem; I have a mind problem. He says because we’re not thinking spiritually, we’re not walking spiritually. Because we’re not walking spiritually, the flesh rules. The flesh truths, no matter how committed you are to the law. The law can tell you what is right and what is wrong, but it can’t help you to do right. Let me say that again: the law can say this is right and this is wrong, but it can’t help you do right. It can just condemn you if you’re wrong or tell you if you’re right, but just saying you know the Ten Commandments or whatever the law is—those laws are good; they just can’t help you.
Relationship Over Rules
What he says is, if you walk in the Spirit, you’re not operating by a relationship, not by a rule.
Okay, how many of you have gone to the library to look for a book on «How Do I Love My Kid»? You kind of do it because they’re your kid; it’s a relational thing. And the love you learn about from the book only comes to supplement; it doesn’t come to define. The law can’t help you; it can condemn you. But what he says is, if you walk in the Spirit—and he says it is a mindset—there must be a change in thinking to think spiritually to get the help of the Spirit.
Learning to Walk in the Spirit
Okay, so when that begins to take place in our lives, the Spirit, the engine, is turned on in our souls and in our being so that God’s presence is now being experienced.
Now he asks, how do you know if you’ve begun walking in the Spirit? Because you know, when a baby first starts walking, it’s going to fall down and then get up, and then fall down and get up. What are you going to do? You’re going to encourage, «Come on, come on, come on.» Then, you know it gets wobbly after a while, but it doesn’t fall down. In other words, you’ve got to learn to walk. You’ve got to learn to walk. See, what we don’t want to do is learn to walk. We don’t want to make this a lifestyle; we want to make it a Sunday visit. That’s called taking a step; that isn’t walking. Walking is where it’s a daily orientation, a daily way of thinking, a daily way of operating so that the flesh is trained. You don’t rule in here anymore. You’re training the flesh because you aren’t crawling on your knees anymore, submitting to its demands. You’re now standing on your own two feet because you’ve learned to walk by means of the Spirit.
Evidence of Growth
Okay, so now your thinking is shifted because this is a way of operating and not merely just a way of following a bunch of rules without an appropriate relationship. And he says, here’s how you know you are growing in your walk: you are changing. When a baby is growing, it’s changing. If there’s no change, there’s no walk. Okay? And the change is not necessarily the desire; it is the control.
Deeds of the Flesh vs. Fruit of the Spirit
He says, walking in the flesh, living by the flesh, in Galatians chapter 5, he says that walking is by the deeds that you do. Look at verse 19. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident. The flesh is measured by what you do. And he lists all these categories of actions that are fleshly.
Now let me say this: a lot of what’s wrong with us is not tied to our personality; it’s tied to our flesh. But we excuse it because of our personality or we excuse it because of what somebody else did; «Well, they shouldn’t have ticked me off; I wouldn’t have slapped them at the Oscars.» Now you know, I would. You know, we attribute stuff that has to do with our flesh, but we excuse it because we’re not thinking spiritually; we’re just thinking circumstantially. When you’re thinking spiritually, then you own it. And that’s why people, husbands and wives, are fighting all the time and cursing each other out. It’s not just the issue; it’s that we’ve got two people in the flesh and because they’re not in the Spirit, they’re not relating properly.
What does the Spirit do when you’re walking in the Spirit? Verse 22: but the fruit of the Spirit is… The deeds of the flesh are, but the fruit of the Spirit is. You say it again: the deeds of the flesh are, but the fruit of the Spirit is. Okay, watch this. Yes, deeds are tied to what you do outside of the will of God; fruit is tied to a tree. That’s two different things. Deeds are tied to you; fruit is tied to a tree.
Fruit Reflects the Tree
You’ve never seen an orange grunting, «Oh, I need to be orangey; I need to get the juice going.» You’ve never seen a banana saying, «Come on, yellow.» You don’t see fruit grunting to be fruity. No, it is growing because of its attachment to a tree. Its attachment to a tree is making it fruity.
Okay, and remember what fruit does: fruit always reflects the character of the tree of which it is upon. You will only find apples on apple trees. Two, fruit is always visible. You’ve never seen invisible fruit. Three, fruit is always for the benefit of somebody else. Any fruit eating itself is rotten. So if nobody else wants to take a bite out of your life, it’s 'cause you’re not juicy enough. If nobody wants to follow you, nobody wants to be like you because there’s not enough Christ in you showing up, that means you’re not bearing fruit, which means you’re not connected to the tree. You’re not intimate with the tree, and so you wind up with the deeds of the flesh.
It Shows in Relationships
He says it shows up in our personal relationships. Verse 21: let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. It says it will show up in your relationships: your lack of spirituality.
Do you know that person that you’re living with that you don’t want to live with anymore? Maybe God’s test is to show you how fleshly you are, how unrighteous you are. That may be God’s provision to wake you up to being more spiritual. Or that person at work or that person… what God is trying to do, if God would just get rid of this thing, God is trying to grow us, not get us to manage. That’s transformation.
Live and Walk by the Spirit
He says, if we live, verse 25, by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Since you have the Spirit, live! That’s the life; let’s start operating that way—not on Sunday morning, but Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday—and then we get some new juice.
Under the Influence
You know, Ephesians 5:18 says, «Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.» Okay? If you see somebody drunk or think back to your days, whichever one works, it affects their footwork. Their walking is affected because their mind is being controlled by another substance. Something else has influenced their mind. He says, «Be not drunk with wine, but do get drunk.» He says, «Be filled with the Spirit.» So he’s talking about being drunk, but not with wine, because you’re now coming under the influence. See, when you’re with wine, you’re coming under the influence. He says when you’re drunk with wine, you are coming under the influence so you won’t act like you would normally act in the flesh; you won’t talk like you normally talk in the flesh; you won’t react like you normally react in the flesh because you’re not under the influence of the flesh; you’re under the influence of wine.
National vs. Local News
Why does he tell you the present tense? Keep on being filled with the Spirit. That’s how it reads. Keep on being filled with the Spirit. Well, when you pull up to a gas station, when you pull up to a gas station, you fill it up—that is, when you used to be able to afford to fill it up, you fill it up. Okay? You fill up your tank. Okay? But as soon as you leave the gas station, you begin to lose that feeling; why? Because you’re burning up gas. So as soon as you leave, you’re losing what you just got. And if you drive long enough, you will wind up on empty because you’re burning things.
I don’t care how full you may feel right now; the moment you leave here, it’s going to start to burn. The kids in the car are going to tick you off; the person next to you is going to tick you off. You’re going to be burning. Feeling that’s why he says keep on being filled. It is a mindset, a lifestyle, not an event. Now we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of people here today, and everybody has a different issue. Well, you know, this sermon is national news; national news is like for everybody. Okay? But you need local news, so you need something specific to your situation. I have one sermon for everybody; I didn’t give a sermon for every individual. I gave a general sermon. That’s national news. But you need something that’s going to deal with your flesh and your situation, so you need a local Holy Spirit who’s going to deal with you in the situations you face, in the challenges that you have. And he wants to be your local news.
He doesn’t want you to depend on weekly national news here at church, but because you’re walking in the Spirit, you can get local things that are tuned in to your situation.
The Blob Illustration
Look, in 1958, many of you remember the first time it came out, the movie called «The Blob.» Any of you remember «The Blob» when it first came out? Okay, here’s this jelly from outer space. This is jelly from outer space, and I remember it well. This man sees this thing fall from outer space. He takes a stick over there and puts the stick to try to figure out what it was, and this thing jumps up and gets on his arm. He runs to the doctor; the doctor is trying to figure out why this jelly-looking thing has come up on this man’s arm, but they can’t figure out what it is. He goes out to call for some other help to figure it out. When he comes back, the jelly has taken over the whole man. Man, this thing that started with his arm is just all over him, and now it gets loose in the hospital. Whenever it gets on somebody, it slowly begins to take them over and now consumes them.
Then, it all comes down to the movie theater when the Blob entered the movie theater. Because it started out as this, that’s huge because this is eating up everything it touched. It’s in the movie theater; it comes out from behind the screen, and people are screaming because the Blob has now made itself man-faster. It’s just taking over everything. People are scared; they’re terrorized because nothing can stop it. They shoot it; they shoot bombs at it; they do everything they can, but nothing they do is able to stop the Blob from blobbing. It’s just taking everything over until it was discovered it couldn’t handle cold. When cold, when a cold thing was shot at it, it recoiled. It couldn’t handle it.
Changing the Environment
When they discovered that the problem was the methods they were using were insufficient for the flesh they were trying to control, they said, «We’ve got to change our method.»
So they got it caught in a net and took it to Antarctica, where it’s cold all the time, and it now lives in a frozen environment. The reason that the Blob was overcome was not because they had a plan, a program; it was because they had a change of environment. And when they changed the environment, they could hold the flesh hostage. I know you’ve been trying; I know you’ve been doing a little of this; I know you’ve been doing twelve steps; I know you’ve been going to counseling here; I know you’re buying self-help books over there. But if you will change the environment and move to the realm of the Spirit as a lifestyle, you’ll see the plane of your victory rise over the gravity of the flesh that seeks to defeat you. And then you’ll be able to say, «Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.» Let’s stand to our feet.