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This is the fifth and final session from our 2023 church camp held in Phuket, Thailand. Our speaker, Reverend Peter Chun, shares session 5. Walk by the Spirit, not by the Flesh.

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For the final session, the title is Walk by the Spirit and Not by the Flesh. I think we are all familiar with such Paul's teaching. You know, as a pastor, I often counsel people who are facing problems because of the wrong decision they have made in the past. And over the years, I my observation is that many people live in regret. Yeah. Some regret marrying the wrong person. No, it's still the hope. Reconciliation is coming. Christian reconciliation. Some regret trusting people who later betrayed them. Some regret not being vigilant and ended up being scammed, right? Others regret spending beyond their means and getting themselves into debt. And yet others regret leaving their previous job for a job with a higher pay, but ended up working like a slave and having no time for family. That's why someone said our life is the sum total of the results of all the choices we make. That's why at the start of thing, I think Christians must learn to make right choices, right decisions. Ask questions, right questions first. But every choice we make will lead to consequences that affect us and also our loved ones. So in his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul reminds the early believers about who they are: that they are God's new creation. And as God's people, they are to reflect the likeness of Christ, to bear the fruit of the Spirit, and in the way they conduct themselves and relate to one another. Paul has very good teaching. That conversion is the beginning, a new beginning of a lifelong process of transformation. True faith must result in transformations of our total being, our mindset, our values, our attitudes, our conduct, our relationship, and our goals in life. And we cannot claim that we are children of God, and yet it's no different from the world, from those uh without God. Now, by God's grace, we are taught to be his children, right? And by his spirit, we must learn to live up our new identity as God's children. And this is where the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, will sanctify us and change us to be like Christ. In the first two sessions, we talked about to know Christ and to be like Christ. But we must want it. We must want to be transformed. Unfortunately, if we are bonders with ourselves, many of us do not see the need to be transformed to be like Christ. You'll be enough. Some of us think that we are good enough. What is there to change? Other things that I can't change. My wife wants me to change, I cannot change. For many of us, our heart is not ready to pay the price. To be like price, to be changed. Our heart is not ready to do the things Jesus did or to say the things Jesus said. For example, how many of us would readily forgive those who have harmed us and hurt us? Ask yourself, are you able to forgive? Or you take years to forgive? And somehow for many of us, the life of Christ is not the vision and intention of our heart. Think carefully this statement. The life in Christ, do you have a vision of a light in Christ or Christ in you? What is this vision look like? Has it result in the intention to move pursuit towards that? Christians, we need to learn a lot of things. Dallas Wheeler in his book Renovation of the Heart, Putting on the Character of Christ, beautifully, wonderfully said this. He believed that the problem of spiritual formation, transformation among Christians today is not that it is impossible to be like Christ. He said the problem is that it is not intended. There is no deliberate intention on our part. And few believers truly desire and intend to be like Christ. Think about it. But if you don't intend to be like Christ, we will never be. We will not be. We all know that. But we must know that this sinful desire is against. We have the propensity to be negative, to be sinful. But this sinful desire is against God's desire. So Paul said, for the desire of the flesh are against the spirit. And the desire of the spirits are against the flesh. If we can grasp that, then we can be, and you'll be we we can begin to be serious about transformation. As children of God, we need to choose. Indeed, this is so essential, so central to living a life in Christ, to be like Christ. So central in the running the race to grow in Christ. Paul warns the division Christians strongly that they are not to gratify the desire of the flesh. So we know that flesh against the spirit. So how to deal with it? Paul said, do not gratify the desire of the flesh, which is my first point. So what are the desires of our sinful flesh? Sinful nature. Anyone? You don't have. What comes to your mind? What are the desire of the flesh that is sinful? Food. Love. What else? Self-protention. Self-centeredness. Self-centeredness. Yeah. Okay, these are go straight to the metal of the what else? It's good to know. Now I'm let me say this. When it comes to sin, I realize that I become a priest only at 55. So major part of my lay, my life is a laity. So I'm among the laity, right? So I'm on the ground hearing, right? You know, and some laity is uh don't like pastor to preach on sin. Right? But no, see, today's the pastor's response. I'm talking about the lay. But the pastor still got to preach because this is the word of God. But the point is that this is why should the pastor keep on preaching on sin? And then there's another, why should he preach about evangelism, talking about outreaching? You know? Now people who say those things, maybe they are grappling with the problems. Because Christians should be sensitive and deeply aware of sin. Right? One characteristic of a Christian is that I'm very sensitive to sin. I'm reminded of Ten Commandments every week. I mean, true and good and we can say every week we remind ourselves of Ten Commandments. Or God's commandments. What is a commandment for? Commandment is to tell us where our sin is. The Ten Commandments. Right? So we are reminded. So that we know we see your need, we know that. Don't go there. Right? So when Christians hear message about sin, we should be very happy. The spirit is reminding us. But those who against sin, I come to the conclusion, being a lay before. I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about this is the nature in your church. Right? They against sin because they themselves are playing. So let's take this in good spirit. You look at uh uh uh uh Paul. Paul is not shying away, you know, he he he didn't mean his words and just tell you what sin is. So he he categorized sins in his letter in four categories the sinful desire. First, this sexual immorality, last, as James said, last that will lead us to all kinds of acts of immorality, impurity. It begins from last, no unnatural sex, pornography. Why why a person in a normal uh time wants to go and look at pornography? Last, the root is for last premarital sex, extramarital sex, same sex practices, all these start with last. So sexual immorality is one category, second category, spiritual sin. Like what? Idolatry, even worship of object, become money, uh, become uh uh idolatry, sorcery, uh casting of spells, superstitious practices like like folks with involvement in the occult. And in Singapore, we we are so uh how do I put it linked up to all kinds of uh uh religious practices, right? In the workplace, you can see altar, you can see this and that. The boss says it all a few weeks ago. One of my members in my group told me that the company moved to a new building, new new office. I want to bring luck. So this first side here, he said pineapple to grow on the phone. So he asked me. My boss asked me to do a should I do it or not? I said, What do you think? Yeah, they said I should listen. No, I didn't tell him not to do it, I said what do you think? They said he shouldn't. They said this is a good time to tell a boss that it's against your belief. Because we're in the multi religious, we should respect each other, right? So I won't do because but I will pray for God's presence in this place. Take the authority to tell him. You know, and he did. So, you see, superstitious. If you give in, then they will identify forever. And this guy, his faith is Kambhavana, he can do all things on, right? So, spiritual sin. Relationship sins like enmity, hatred, strife, envy, jealousy, fits of anger, selfish behavior, self-centeredness, dissension, division, scheming, slang, what they are wrong, you know. Paul letters and Jesus also by someone cover some of this. Being judgmental, discriminating, pride, being false, uh boastful, putting people down. There are so many relationships. And as I read all this, not all of us are free. I'm not free, totally 100% free from this. We are capable of falling into that trap. And if you don't even acknowledge that you are, then we are that's the biggest vulnerability that you will fall into sin. Right? Reckless behavior, right? Like drunkenness. Yeah, even the government also tells you drive, don't drive, and uh drive and don't drink something like this, right? Drunkenness is a sin to us. Carousing, or self-indulging, gambling, you know? All this, yeah. So, church, let us not take lightly such sinful behavior, attitude, and desire of the flesh. See, true conversion, true faith, and salvation must result in turning away from sin, from sinful thoughts, passion, and behavior. And I think people who become Christian, attending baptism, cause being baptized, even confirmed, begin a journey of faith. That first two, three years is very critical. Someone should walk the journey with them to encourage them to move away from all this sinful desire and things that are around them into a new kingdom values. And then walk with them, show them what is kingdom, how I work in my office, you know, and how I treat my subordinate, things like this. They need to hear things. Young people need mentoring, okay? And I think Pastor Daniel is team to see our young people grow. So, how do we deal with the desire and passions of our sinful nature? Having listed them, if you look at them, how do you think we should deal with? Anyone? You don't have a strategy. You don't have a anyone? How how do we deal with the desire and passion of sinful nature? Cover put on the armor of God. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. That's fine. That's uh you are you are you are him, you are him, yeah. Put your armor. That's that's cocaine who worship. Worship, yeah. What else do you think? Who said, yeah, crucify, crucify them. This is the word Paul used, no. This is the word that is cried out by the people who put Jesus to the cross. Crucify him, crucify him, right? It's it's a very drastic and painful uh experience. Crucify them. You know, kill them, don't wait, don't you know put a stop to the sinful thought, desire, and behavior immediately, as a Chinese say, means cut the weeds and eliminate the roots. Okay? Richard, yeah. Now, John Stock in his commentary on Galatians say the word crucified has three implications. First, is our action must be brutal. Second, it must it is painful. Yeah, and third, it must be decisive. That means the result is a sure and certain death of our sinful desire. Kill it. You know, I know some of the sinful desire as we experience it, we kill it and keep coming out again, uh, we'll keep killing it. You know, that kind of notion. Let me explain. First, we need to be brutal when it comes to dealing with even not just sin, you know, sinful thoughts and desire in our hearts. You know, how do you know take action so brutally? Don't give ourselves excuses. Nobody is watching or whatever. Don't say that I deal with it later. Enjoy first and do it later. Your sin must be dealt with immediately because sin corrupts. And if we don't deal with it fast, it will soon control us. Yeah, it is like a cancerous cell. It starts small, and if you don't remove it, it will grow and spread throughout the body and destroy us. And I think this cancer thing, uh, a lot of people, even young people today, uh, they understand the reality. Because it is it's happening in people's lives. Oh a young, you are not immune to cancer. And when you have a cancer, the doctor said, I want to do surgery, chemo. The objective is to kill the cancer cell. Right? So if you see sin is like this, you know, and then see yourself as a doctor, yeah, I want to do surgery. If not, if necessary to respond. So, to crucify our sinful nature is really painful. This is what John Stock said. See, when in a wrong relationship, you know, the drastic thing is to break it. But it is painful. But no matter how small, how painful it is.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Before marriage, before marriage can.

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After marriage, red conciliation is painful. You know? So, no, no. First of all, we must go back to the function. Fundamental principle, God's promise. You know, God gave us principle, He didn't say try and see whether it works or not. His instruction it will work. Except that we are not given enough attention to ourselves, a chance to ourselves to address uh reconciliation even in marriages. You know, and when something causes you to sin, you say throw it away, no matter how expensive it is. You know, when I first became a Christian, I know when I uh after my baptism of the Holy Spirit, the times 1970, uh in the 70s and early 80s, the cat's spirit movement to Singapore, right? Then in my home, I got so many beautiful vas, you know, with dragons and all these things. At times I don't know uh throw away. Wow, throw away my boat. New one, no, so expensive. But at the end, I throw away. Not because I believe I don't believe that this one at home work, work, work, work. The devil is at home, no, I don't believe that. But I don't want to stumble people's uh faith. I don't I can do without it. You know, and I really break it, you know. I paid a few hundred dollars, one piece from Taiwan. I travel to Taiwan by ship and then can come back with all this big thing. I just throw away. So throw it away. If you think that it causes people to sin, force you to sin, throw it away. Listen to Jesus' teaching on how to deal with sin. He says that this is so drastic and painful, right? If your right eye causes you to sin, then you pain it out, throw it away. So it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body to be thrown into hell. Jesus tells story very traumatic. And if you if your right eye causes you to the right hand causes you to cut it off and throw it away. So it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go to hell, to use the word hell. Okay. So we must take this seriously. What what is the gist? What is the the the instructive uh uh exhortation here? Yeah, to crucify the flesh, you need to be decisive, right? Uh like John Stock said, painful, drastic, decisive. In other words, you cannot be double-minded. Now, crucifixion must lead to sure and certain death. Fine. No one who is put on the cross up there will come down alive. It has to be, you know, take, then you bring it down. And no one should go back to that place again to sin again. True repentance must therefore lead to brutal and decisive dealing of our sins, regardless of how painful it is. Okay, remember these three three words. So, my dear friends, we need to see sin as it truly is evil, and this is and it is what God hates. What God hates, yeah. And therefore, never justify, never give excuse, never give reason for our sinful behavior, thoughts, practices, and never give reason that it is acceptable. Indeed, any sin, no matter how small, over time will destroy our life. And if you think that my life is okay, think again, our family, you know, our children, our faith, our church community. You know, someone used this illustration of a piece of wood floating in water to describe a Christian giving in to sin. It's like a piece of wood in the water, the Christian living in sin will initially float on the surface and not too wet, still not too wet. Yeah? But just as wood that is in the water gets waterlocked and sink to the bottom. So also the Christian who live in sin will soon drown. Remember this image, this metaphor. Well, let me share with you this. My wife and I visited Yosemite. I think Richard is modeling, and it's beautiful. Yosemite National Park in California in year 2000, when we were students doing a theological study in Canada. Now, Yosemite is a uh is a is famous for many types of pine trees. Tall, strong, and green. And many are more than 100 years old. Certain types are more than 1,000 or even 3,000 years old. You can see the pictures. I just took some you know from website to show you. I saw that the the the old tree. I saw I saw it myself. Now let me show you the pictures, some other pine trees that I saw. You know, I we were driving, and the pine trees you can see on the roadside, you know, uh by the by the road. Uh this picture was taken 2000 years. I I'm not a good photographer. I I don't have a handphone at that time, 2000 yeah. I only use a Fuji Mickey Mao camera. So so this is a very unclear picture. I nearly threw away, but I thought better remind myself that I have been to uh uh a Yosemite. Yeah, and then as I drive closer, I saw some patches that of tree uh that is uh uh like this, uh you can see, dying. And then later I saw this. You know what do you think? What happened to this tree? Fire. You think fire? We should probably know the answer. You think fire? No, these strong and tall trees that can that could stand uh against the storm are killed by something very small. But beetles. The bug beetles introduce a fungus that prevents critical nutrients and water from traveling within the tree. Beetles also lay their eggs under the buck, and the feeding larvae help kill the trees, sometimes within weeks of the initial attacks. You see, the the beetle goes inside, they they they eat into the trunk, you know, and truncate the supply of water and neutrons into the leaves, into the top of the tree. That's why all the leaves and branches die. So let me ask you what is the beetle in your life that can destroy your faith? What is the beetle that will prevent neutrons, water, and life coming into you that stop you from receiving spiritual food and nurturing? Oh, I thought someone answering it. What what what what is the the beetle in your life that can destroy your faith? Oh James, you you you you you pin you pinned out the the the source. Sin, yeah, sin. Yeah it cuts off, you know, it separates the s from the source of life, source of strength, peace, and holiness. Remember the first thing Adam and Eve did when they disobey God, they hide. They hide from God, right? You separate them from God. Sin, no matter how small or insignificant to you, will cut you off from God's presence, killing your relationship with God, destroying your faith and your life. That is the what you call devastating result that it could happen to you when you allow sin to remain in us. So for us to grow in faith and to finish well, we need to guard jealously our relationship with God because we don't want the relationship to be cut off. We have to deal with the sin. We have to you know guard against uh sin and protect our relationship, right? So don't let sin stand between you and God. Don't let sin rob you of eternal life. Don't let sin destroy what you already have, what God has given to you, say your life, your family, your reputation, your faith, your you know, whatever, even material possession that you have. Look, my dear friends, it's not worthy to allow sin to be in the body. You just think do you allow cancer in your body? Can you just say, ah, never mind, I'll do it next year. You know, you you you will deal with it. Yeah, you suddenly become so decisive and it's so painful to go to chemo, you will go. You know, so we must treat sin like this. Yeah, take seriously the wise advice of Paul to the Galatians, crucify the flesh. But just now, just now somebody give positive one call it was that walk by the spirit, yeah. You know, so we on one hand we deal with the sin, but on the other hand, we at the same time we walk by the spirit. Now, before we do that, I want to address this. There are serious consequences if we choose to walk by the flesh and allow the desire of the sinful natures to take roots. So, next point is serious consequences of walking by the flesh. Paul wants those who choose to follow the desire of the sinful nature that they will not enter the kingdom of God. Wow, another you know, very pointed and serious, solemn uh warning. And I know when I was in KT, a lot of people come and ask me, you know, if I do this, can I can I go to heaven? Because another preacher says, once safe, always safe. You know, so they are concerned. And you know why? When people are concerned, this I ask them if you are struggling, that's fine. But if you are continuing to believe in sin, that's why you are thinking this way, then you are you are in trouble. Okay? But the main thing is that you could instead of thinking about this, go and live by the spirit, which is the guarantee of the assurance and guarantee of the salvation that that God has given to us. So you you live, and by living in the spirit, you'll find that you your flesh, the desire of flesh, will disappear. So that that is the counterbalance, okay, in that context of dealing with sin. Now listen to what Paul says. He said that in Galatians chapter 5, verse 19, the act of sinful nature are obvious. So he's stuck all the sins there, right? Which I summarized uh earlier on. Sexual immorality, impurity, the bulgery, which is in indulging in sex, alcohol, and drugs, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, feats, or rage, anger, you know, fits of anger. So someone asked me, if you get angry, it means I lose my salvation. No. Not yet. If you continue to do that, then it becomes, you know. So feats of anger, uh, selfish ambition, dissension, affection, envy, drunkenness, orgy, and the like. You know, I think about why why Paul take delight in with in listing out so many. I think he's helping us to remind ourselves. Because otherwise, we keep on asking, is this can, is this, cannot? In other words, we're trying to find a way to get by, you know. But the one word sin is the best one. He can't remember. Sin, that's it. Yeah. So, so uh uh yeah, then then he says that at the line, now this is where the punchline is. I warn you, as I did before. See, Paul was quite dutifully uh engaging and instructing them, you know, many times as I did before. And those who live like this will not inherit treatment. In other words, it becomes your pattern of life. That means you are already in bondage of this, then you think again. You know, I think all of us get angry from time to time, right? That is not in this category. But if someone says this person is an angry person, he got an angry spirit, then you better be careful. I have seen people like this. I watched a man in a hawker center, was quite a senior person, scolding his daughter, his uh helpers, scolding even uh uh kind to come and buy chakra for whatever they say, scrolling, you know. They have scope and maybe he's come out of the wrong bed or side of a bed or what. But afterward, hey, for one hour, so many. So I said that this man has an angry spirit. The anger has gripped him already, he becomes an angry person. So this is what I think. When you live like this, then you take this warning seriously. We might lose the kingdom of God. We might not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, Paul states clearly that Christians who choose to yield to the desires of the flesh and live in sin will not enter. If you live in sin, that means you even ignore the grace of God to forgive. You don't even want God's forgiveness. Then your sin is not forgiven. If you don't want it, you're not forgiven. You're not forgiven, not reconciled. And you choose to separate yourself from God, right? So sin separate us from God. In other words, oh, there's one more. Uh Paul ends his letter with another somber warning in Galatians chapter 6, 7, 8. He said, Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows, the one who sows to please his sinful desire, from that nature, he reaps destruction. The one who sowed to please the spirit from the spirit, he reaps eternal life. So, in other words, we reap what we sow. We reap the consequences of what we choose, what we do. So, if we if we give in to the flesh, we reap corruption and live in bondage. If we walk by the spirit, we reap the fruits of a godly life and character. If we give in to the flesh, we reap eternal damnation. If we walk by the spirit, we reap eternal life. So the choices we make not only affect our present life, it has also eternal repercussions. We need to understand this. So don't just say later, never mind. We may not even have another hour to live, right? This can happen to us. So in life, we need to make the right decision and choices. So I want to say this. Let us ask the Holy Spirit. You know, come to Him to ask for wisdom, you know, to ask Him to give us the strength to first of all to choose wisely and then to do what God expects us to do. Choose to live in freedom from sin instead of bondage to sin. Choose to walk in the spirit instead of giving in to the flesh, to the desire of sinful nature. So the beginning of this journey, this spiritual walk, starts with the decision first. And sometimes we have not seriously made that decision. And that's right in my conversion, I say that I want to be a serious Christian. I want to take my faith seriously. Make that decision and then make a vow if necessary, and then abide by it. Okay? Now I don't know your situation. And some of you may be saying in your heart right now, saying that, yeah, I want to be free from the sin that trapped me and separate me from God. I really want to be you know uh delivered from the bondage uh to you know to sin and to live a life that is boundary to God. If this is your desire, this is the time to come to God. This is the time to seek the Holy Spirit to come for you, especially now in a retreat like this. Indeed, without the help of God, we cannot free ourselves from the mess we are in. Our hope in God, who has called us from slavery to sin to freedom in Christ, you know, that He does not want us to continue to live in bondage. Like all fathers, our Heavenly Father wants to protect us, wants to free us from anything or anyone that binds us. So, for those of us who are struggling with sin or temptation, again, this is the time. This is the time to come to our Father for help. Don't wait, don't delay. And He wants to deliver you from the grit of sin and set you free. And our Father has sent the Holy Spirit to be with us, you know, to guide us, to empower us, even to crucify our sins so that we can be holy. So we need to walk by the spirit, which is my final point. Walk by the spirit. So to effectively kill the desire of our flesh, we need to walk by the spirit. And the more we yield to the spirit's leading, the more our sinful nature will be subdued. Someone said there is only one way of getting rid of our or of one's faults, and that is to acquire the habit contrary to that. I think someone mentioned that just now. See, the more we focus on the positive thing, the negative things will be subdued, will go away. You know, uh, and and and and we live in into the positive thing. In this case, we are talking about led by the spirit. Okay, in other words, next time when you think of saying something unkind to someone or about someone, say something kind. You know, deliberately praise that person you want to criticize. You know, or next time, when you think that we are better than the other person and better off, well, step up. Step up to serve them in humility. I'm sure you can think of many other things that is in the category of being led by the spirit, prompted by the spirit to do things which is against your flesh. Okay, and in Galatians chapter 5, verse 16 to 26, Paul mentioned four times walk by the spirit. Led by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and also walked by the Spirit four times in the verses on the screen. So Paul exhorted the Christian in Galation to make a deliberate choice to walk in line with God's standard and to live in accordance with his words. And he said that if we walk and live by the Spirit's prompting and power, then people around us will see the likeness of Christ in us. And that is why he said, you know, the fruit of the spirit is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. How do you know that you have this spirit? This fruit is the evidence of the spirit in us. And this fruit is not just for us, it's for others. If you say you're kind, but nobody benefits, how kind are you? Huh? What kind of kind?

SPEAKER_03 45:17

One kind.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

One kind, one kind. So think about it. The fruit of the spirit is for people to enjoy, for people to yeah. Sometimes we grow up, we plant fruit trees, we put fans for it, make sure that nobody can't steal the fruit. This fruit is meant for others. It's evidence that God is in me. And people ask that, hey, this fruit is so sweet now, where did it just come from? Ah, then you can tell your story. Okay. Now, interestingly, Paul does not refer this virtue as fruit of faith. Yeah? Think about it? He didn't say the fruit of faith. He said fruit of the spirit. What he's saying is that this fruit of the spirit, as I just mentioned, is the evidence of the work of the spirit, of the presence of the spirit in you. So go around sharing your fruits with others. You know. So it is God's spirit that brings about this fruit, this virtue in us. And in other words, the spirit will give us the strength to overcome our sinful desire. Go and do this thing, you'll find that. That's why sometimes we wear collars like this, huh? Yeah. Especially when you are driving, uh not to simply dry, right? You drive carefully, because uh you remind yourself that look, I will present God. So you know, fruit must be palpable and can be filled in sin, not just a sign to show. You know, like the shepherd, the Holy Spirit will lead us, uh uh lead us away from sin. But we the sheep must follow his prompting, right? So when God's spirit prompts you not to sin, instead go and do what is right, what is righteous. Ignore, and don't ignore his warning, his prompting, uh, and to and struck him out. No. No, but today's the situation is this many of us are confused, sidetracked, and deceived by some false teaching on what it means to have the Holy Spirit in our life. We we look and long for and even pursue and seek for spectacular manifestation, yeah, of which some of these are not biblical, yeah, like outpouring of gold dust. If you heard of hypercharismatics, you know, they laugh, they cry, they bark like animals, not making noise like animals. You see, this is evidence of the Holy Spirit. I don't know whether you know or not, but it is already in Singapore. Okay, so so let us seek the fruit, the evidence of the spirit in the political way. Not based on some spectacular manifestation and claim that this is the spirit working, you know, and then the object becomes to pursuing those things. Like a magic show, like this. In fact, on the night of his arrest, Jesus uh spent time encouraging his disciples before his uh after his departure. He says that I would uh that after his party, I he would ask the father to send the Holy Spirit to be with us, to be with them. And Jesus took the opportunity to teach them many things about the Holy Spirit in chapter uh 14 from uh 14, 15, 16. Yeah, and he said in John 14, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because they neither see him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. And I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. What promising of you know encouraging you know teaching from Jesus that the Holy Spirit will be given to us? Yeah, the Holy Spirit in Greek is paraklete or parakletos. Okay, it means coming alongside the literal translation from Greek, you know, one who is called to come alongside another person, and it is translated in other Bible translations as our helper, our advocate, our comforter, our counselor, and so on. And the paraklate will come and help and defend us against the attack of human and demonic power. Now, paraklate is also the spirit of truth, and this spirit of truth will teach us and able us to know the truth about God, which I which we mentioned just now. What is the truth of God? The plan of his plan of salvation, his will for the world, his will for our life, his purpose for this present life and and for eternal uh destiny, and so on. So the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth and make clear to us, you know, uh the truth. So the question is what is truth, right? Truth in the Greek is you know, is more than just knowing right and wrong, it is being able to understand and see things from God's perspective. What God sees, what's you know, what He He meant it to be, that is the truth from God's perspective that we want. It is to be able to discern and distinguish what is true and from what is false, what is from God and what is from the world, or what is from the devil. Now Jesus said in verse 26 that the helper, uh the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, world, teach you all things and bring you uh bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. In other words, you know, when the Spirit is in us, we will have the discernment, knowing and understanding God's truth, living by the teaching of Jesus and experiencing the transformation by God's truth. These are the work of the Holy Spirit, these are the evidence that the Holy Spirit is in us. It's so important then, so much so that Jesus, before his ascension, he promised the disciples that he will send the Holy Spirit to empower all believers, that they might be witnesses. See, Jesus always reminds you a lot of things, but he also tells them don't forget who you are, you will be my witnesses. He says that for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Not many days from now. That was a day of ascension, yeah, and you will receive power when the spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses. Acts 1a. All of us know that, right? And what happened? At the first Pentecost, the spirit empowering brought about mighty transformation, a mighty transformation in the early disciples, and after that, they preached with conviction and evangelize with a miraculous power. From cowards, they become bold, bold witnesses. Peter, who initially denied knowing Jesus out of fear that he too would be arrested later, proclaimed the gospel boldly and was ready to die for his faith. And during the first sermon at Pentecost, by the power of the Holy Spirit, what happened? 3,000 people came to faith. Wow, can you imagine? In the first century, 3,000 people came to faith and were baptized. Stephen, another man, full of the Holy Spirit, courageously testified about Jesus despite the threats of death he was facing. Indeed, he died, pleasing God and asked God to forgive his enemy. You find this in Acts chapter 6 and 7. Another story: the early believers shared the gospel with power and great wisdom. Though they were unschooled and uneducated, they also performed miracles, testifying to God's power. You find this in Acts chapter 5. And when they were persecuted and threatened, all the more they prayed for the Spirit's empowering so that they could continue to preach the gospel with power and boldness. Acts chapter 4. So the Holy Spirit's presence in our life is a dynamic experience reality. We can experience his presence and power daily, on a daily basis. Amen. Yes. And God does not leave us like orphans to fight life's battle on our own. God gives us his spirit to guide us, to empower us, to enable us to be bold witnesses and to transform us to reflect the likeness of Christ. Now let me conclude with this. Philip Keller, author of the book The Sacrifice of Self Will in the High Cause of Holiness, this is what he said. Jesus' supreme desire that those who are to be his people should display the same qualities of con uh of character which he does. Not only in our outward conduct, but also in our innermost character. The old ways would no longer do. The old attitudes would have to change. The old selfish, self-centered character would have to be completely altered. God's spirit is at work within us, conforming us to his likeness. We are being recreated, remade into a selfless, gracious, generous, great-hearted people. And we are different. We are distinct and separate from the self-oriented society around us. Wow, what uh uh apt and succinct descriptions of who we are to be. So, so my dear friends, I want to encourage all of us to make decisions to choose. Choose to walk by the Spirit instead of giving in or gratifying the desire of the flesh. And remember this Jesus did not die so that we are free to sin. Jesus died so that we are free from sin. Amen.