ERIN:   Hi, this is Erin Michele, and welcome to steps to trusting. At steps to trusting it is my goal to meet you where you are in your faith journey and encourage you to continue to take steps to trusting the Lord more fully.

[00:00:19] I’m so glad you guys are here. Thank you so much for joining me.

[00:00:23] This conversation is a continuation of what we were discussing last week. We talked a lot about performance and striving and how often we strive for something that God has already offered us.  We have been offered God’s righteousness. We don’t have to earn it.

[00:00:40] We don’t have to earn a position right with God. If we trust Jesus as our savior, then we’ve already received this. If you have questions on this, I greatly encourage you to seek out someone in your local church who can sit down with you and help you look at an answer these questions. 

[00:01:00] Last time on the show we talked about how stepping outside of performance and striving is really something different in our hearts and it may look the same from the outside.

[00:01:10] I feel like this, this is something hard to grasp. It’s hard to grasp in a way that it affects us and changes us. So, I wanted to continue with that conversation. And so, the question for today that continuation of the conversation is how do we strive in God’s strength and not in ours? And I believe that answer is found in Galatians.

[00:01:33] I wanted to start with a verse that we looked at last week, Galatians five, starting in verse 13, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘love your neighbor as yourself.'”

[00:01:56] I think that passage takes the truth, that we are free from striving to uphold the law, but it says that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do the right things, right. That we should use our freedom, not to indulge the sinful nature, but to serve one another.

[00:02:13] If you skip down to verse 17, it says “for the sinful nature desires, what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit, what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

[00:02:32] There’s this tension in the Bible and I feel it so often. This tension of, the freedom and the responsibility, they go together. And I think it’s hard for us as humans to grasp that there is freedom and responsibility. But the responsibility is lived out within the freedom, not to earn the freedom or to earn the position.

[00:02:57] Guys, I have said this before, but I am currently seeking to understand this in a deeper way. And actually, one of the resources that I have been using to try and deepen my understanding in this is a book called True Spirituality by Francis Schaffer. Francis Shaffer talks about this responsibility and freedom in something called active passivity. I’ve looked into this a little bit over the last couple of years and just really love the way he describes that we are active and passive in what God is doing in our lives.  And I wanted to understand that more deeply.   I am learning so much

[00:03:40] so if you guys are like the, in that questioning and trying to understand this more deeply in your life, I highly encourage you to get that book. I will put the link in the show notes.

[00:03:53] I have not finished the book yet. But I love how he talks about this as active passivity.

[00:03:59] That there is a tension that we are active and passive.

[00:04:04] It makes me think of water skiing. When I was in high school, we had a youth leader and a campus life leader who would take us water skiing.  I listened to him over and over how he would explain for people to learn how to ski.

[00:04:20] He’d say the boat does all the work and he would teach us and remind us that it was like Jesus working in our lives that we couldn’t save ourselves, but we could rely on Jesus for that. I find myself teaching my kids in the same way and telling them, let the boat do the work

[00:04:37] just sit behind the boat, don’t stand up too fast, let the boat do the work and relating that to Jesus.

[00:04:45] I think that water skiing gives us a visual picture into what we’re talking about today. The boat like Jesus does all the work

[00:04:55] and water skiing is a visible reminder to me of that. as time has gone by, and I’ve thought more about letting Christ do the work. And yet we participate. I’ve understood this analogy in a deeper way.

[00:05:11] Because you still have to get in the water. You still have to hold onto the rope. You have to be in that ready position. And I equate that with the willingness of our heart.

[00:05:21] And actually I talked about willingness on a recent show. That was episode seven. If you didn’t get a chance to listen in. But there is a participation.

[00:05:31] We can’t do it. We can’t do the work of the boat. The boat is the one that pulls us.

[00:05:38] We can’t save ourselves. We can’t do it. We can’t make ourselves righteous. But there is a participation.

[00:05:47] When you’re water skiing, you can sit in the water and you can hold tight. The rope you can sit from in the water with your skis straight and pointing toward the boat.

[00:05:59] Or we can choose to, not hold on to the rope.  We can choose to not look toward the boat to not point our skis toward the boat. You know, what will happen? When we try to ski, we’re going to fall down.

[00:06:16] In our lives we can make those same choices. We can choose to participate. We need to be willing when you just set our eyes on God. We need to believe what God says. We need to want to follow after him. And when we don’t, we, we can turn our hearts and say, God, I want to want to follow you. I want to do what you want for me. I want to be who you want me to be.

[00:06:44] In water skiing, you’re not going to get up on your skis if you don’t point them at the boat. As you’re coming out of that water, if you are trying to go a different direction than the boat, you are not going to be water skiing.

[00:07:00] God does it all for us.  Just like the boat, he pulls us, but,

[00:07:05] we have to set our eyes on him. We have to point our hearts and our lives, in the direction of God.  If we make the direction of our lives away from the Lord, we are fighting against who he is calling us to be. There is a participation.

[00:07:22] This is a common theme in the Bible that comes up in lots of passages. Let’s go back to Galatians to explore, how do we live out obedience without striving in our own strength?

[00:07:33] Galatians five verse 16, I think says it the best. “So, I say live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

[00:07:44] In verse 17, it goes on to talk about the sinful nature, how it’s contrary to the spirit and how there’s almost this battle happening between those two things.

[00:07:53] And I think when we’re striving in our own strength, it’s often because we’re striving towards our own means. We’re striving for ourselves and by ourselves. But when we are striving with the spirit. We are striving for God’s will, and we are doing it in his strength and his power. 

[00:08:10] Guys, what is natural in us, what is human nature is our sinful nature. And that’s what it’s talking about in verse 17. It talks about the things that we desire the seeking of ourselves, the striving and performing to be seen, to be known, to be applauded, to be seen as righteous or good or popular or famous, the striving in us. That’s part of our sinful nature and desire is to put ourselves ahead. But it’s telling us here that the spirit is contrary to that sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other.

[00:08:50] But in 18 it says, “but if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.”

[00:08:56] Let’s jump to   Galatians five, starting in verse 22.

[00:09:00] ” But the fruit of the spirit is love. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the spirit. Let us keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited provoking and envying one another.”

[00:09:30] We need to apply the truth of what Christ has done for us and realize that we live by the spirit. So, here’s that tension. Again, we live by the Spirit.

[00:09:42] We have that gift, but that we are called to keep in step with the spirit. We are called to obey the Spirit.

[00:09:50] I’m going to take you to look at another passage. It’s John 14, starting in verse 15. ” If you love me, you will obey my command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him or knows him. But you know him for, he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me because I live. You will also live.”

[00:10:25] For those of us who follow Jesus, we receive his spirit living in us. And the things that we do, the things that we are called to do, we are not called to do by our own strength. We’re called to do them with the power of the Holy spirit that lives within us.

[00:10:45] We can strive and we can seek to grow goodness in us, to be loving, to be joyful, to have peace and patience, kindness. Goodness. Should I say them all faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We can try and grow all those things.

[00:11:02] But it is The Lord and the Spirit that works, those things in us that brings those, those things to our hearts. And yet we have a responsibility. But the responsibility is not to strive to do these things. The responsibility is to keep stepping with the Spirit.

[00:11:21] We somehow participate in something we cannot do

[00:11:25] we can’t do it. And so, I think it’s holding the tension of knowing that. I can’t change my own sinful heart. I can’t grow love and kindness.

[00:11:36] Again, I mentioned that this is something that I’m learning right now.

[00:11:42] I said in the very first podcast, that I was setting out to explore how to become equipped and aware, to walk towards the Lord, to take steps, to trusting him more fully. And here we are now talking about stepping with the spirit. how do we do that? How do we live by the spirit and keep in step with the spirit?

[00:12:06] I see it as very similar to the key verse that I use for this show. Ephesians two 10. We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus. He’s working in us.

[00:12:18] He’s created us just like it says, here we live by the spirit, right? Those are, those are out of our hands. Right. But in this verse, it says, keep in step with the spirit and in Ephesians two 10, it says,

[00:12:33] we were created for good works that we should walk in them. There’s a responsibility of walking in them and here is, it’s a stepping with the spirit. Right?

[00:12:45] And so when we look at Galatians, when he says, keep in step with the spirit, or when we look at Ephesians and when he says walk in the good works that were laid out for you.

[00:12:57] We see it takes our willingness. It takes our action to walk after him.

[00:13:05] God invites us to participate in what he is doing in our lives. He won’t force us to follow after him. He won’t force us to have a willing heart, but he invites us.

[00:13:22] Let’s look again at Galatians five verse 24, “those who belong to Christ have crucified, the sinful nature and its passions and desires.”

[00:13:33] This as very similar to what Paul is explaining in Romans

[00:13:36] It’s saying we are dead to sin, but alive to Christ, but you guys.  in Romans, Paul says I do not do the things I want to do.  There’s still sin living in me.

[00:13:49] We still fall into sin. We still fall and fail.

[00:13:53] Let’s check out this verse in Romans seven where Paul is lamenting the sin. He keeps walking in.

[00:13:59] He says he doesn’t do the good that he wants to do, He says “What a wretched man that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death.”

[00:14:09] but in Romans seven 25, he continues. ” Thanks, be to God- through Jesus Christ, our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind and my slave to God’s law, but the sinful nature is a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so, he condemned the sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. “

[00:14:57] God sent his son to make up for, or a tone for where we fall short from earning something from the law. The law was not able to save us because of our sinful nature.

[00:15:09] Living according to the sinful nature brings death. But living according to the spirit is the life that was given to us. Not the life that is earned, not the life that is proved. And what should flow out of us is thankfulness and gratefulness and a change. Because of what God has done for us, not because of what we have to do to earn it for ourselves.

[00:15:32] God will grow us and change us that this fruit will show in our lives and we participate, but we don’t have to make it happen. We live in a freedom, a freedom that the law does not condemn us. The law cannot separate those who are in Christ Jesus from God.

[00:15:52] Praise. Be to God. That we can live by the spirit that the spirit will work in our hearts, love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We don’t have to strive to be righteous, to be with God, to be accepted.

[00:16:13] That’s a gift.

[00:16:15] I’m going to pray for us as we close. Dear God. I pray that you would help us to understand more deeply how we participate in what you are doing in our lives.

[00:16:29] And Lord, how we not only participate, but also ask for you to do it in us, or God change us. May your spirit work in us. May we be changed. May we be people who walk with the spirit, keep in step with the spirit who see the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Lord God, change us.

[00:17:01] Give us a willingness in our hearts, a willingness to participate you, Lord Jesus.  A willingness to light you work, but a willingness to actively participate. It’s in Jesus’ name that I pray. Amen.

[00:17:18] Friends. Thank you for exploring this truth with me. I pray that it encourages you.

[00:17:23] I would love to hear more from you.

[00:17:26] I am seeking this out. If you have any verses or wisdom that you want to pass my way, please connect with me.  You can find me at steps to trusting on both Instagram and Facebook. I really hope to connect with you guys there.

[00:17:41]  Also, I have a question for you. Would you please share this with someone that you think would be encouraged? Would you share this with someone who needs to be reminded that they can step out in faith that they can participate with God? And yet they don’t have to do the work. Christ has died for them, that they may live with him and for him.

I hope you’ll join us next time. Till then, I want to leave you with this encouragement from Ephesians two 10 for we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Friends, I am praying for you as you keep on stepping.