The Flesh Which Listens

Introduction

Good evening, church. I’m so thankful that we can be together this evening. Study God’s Word. It’s been uplifting to sing songs of praise to Him, to go to Him in prayer. And your presence tonight is a great encouragement to me. I hope that our time in the Word of God will be an encouragement to you. I know it’s it’s Tuesday night, we’re busy. There’s lots and lots of things that we could be doing with this time. But you have taken this time and you’ve invested in spiritual things. And I believe you’ve chosen the better part. And I believe that we’ll all be blessed in investing in spiritual things together this evening, which is a way to say, I’m so glad you’re here. And if you’re a guest here tonight, like I am, I trust that you’ll find this is a very warm and friendly congregation with a great love for one another.

I’m enjoying getting to know the brethren here and sharing meals and time together. And I even got a guided tour of downtown Orlando today, which I’ve not had before, you know. And so uh every every kindness being shown me, I appreciate it so much. So if you’re a guest here tonight, like I’m a guest here, I will tell you that you want to know more about this congregation. You want to meet these people and you want to come back. Because it’s about glorifying God and knowing him and loving him. We can’t love who we don’t know. We know him by his revelation, by knowing his word, and so it is to the scriptures that we turn now. We are in the midst of a three part series talking about the devil you don’t know.

And for all the unrest and brokenness that we experience in our society, in our families, in our personal lives. It’s possible that we are overlooking a nefarious actor. It’s possible that we are ignoring the warnings of our Lord Jesus Christ, the devil. In our first lesson last night, we talked about the devil who lies. And we saw how Jesus taught us that there is a devil, that he lies. These are his weapons of lie, deceit, and trickery. For what purpose? To murder, to destroy, to scatter our souls in our society. We might wonder, how’s that working out for him? How’s he doing it all that? And the devil might tell us, well, why don’t you just take a good look around? You tell me how I’m doing it all this.

There is a devil. His lies and deceptions permeate our societies. People hear lies, they believe them, they repeat them, they live them out, and it is to devastating spiritual consequence. The devil could point to and say, Well, there’s an awful lot of animosity and violence between people. And I will tell you that all of that is evidence, it is proof, manifestation of a spiritual war that is raging. And brethren, we are not casual observers to this. The devil’s lies are weapons. His weapons are lies. And we’re entertaining them in our hearts. We need Jesus and we need his truth. But moving forward from there, the devil cannot make you do something you don’t want to do. And so tonight we are considering the flesh which listens, the flesh which listens.

That is to say that perhaps the devil you don’t know is yourself. Perhaps the devil you don’t know is is your own, my own disordered desires in my flesh. Let me just think about it. Why is it that we listen to lies? What is the appeal of these lies? And how come we think that we are too clever to ever fall for a lie? Why do we think we’re so sophisticated that we’re beyond even believing in the existence of a devil? That’s for backwards people. That’s for that’s for ancient people, isn’t it? Why is it that people are actually duped? Broadly as the human race, but also individually. What happens to us when we trust and live those lies? Well, that’s what we are exploring. Whose side are we on in these spiritual battles?

1. Designed for Dominion

Is it on the side of Jesus? Or do we land on the side of ourselves? And who is it that we trust? Who do we follow? Who do we support? Who do we serve? Again, what if the devil you don’t know is you? We’re gonna study along those lines tonight. If we focus on the flesh, our flesh which listens. Then I think a very natural first question is, well, who made our flesh? Take out your Bible and let’s go to the book of Genesis, chapter one. We’re going to begin in the very beginning in Genesis chapter one. And as we read the Holy Spirit’s record of God’s miraculous six day creation, we are going to learn that you and I were designed for dominion. Human beings, men and women made out of the image of God, were designed by God, created by God for dominion.

You and I are designed for dominion. I see this in Genesis chapter 1 and verse number 26, Genesis 1 and verse number 26. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

What we find in this account of the six-day creation of God is that mankind is the pinnacle of God’s creation. You are not an animal. You are not just another animal. You’re not the animal, you know, the ape that was so unlucky, all the hair fell off of you. Or maybe the ape that was so lucky, your head got just a little bit bigger. I’m trying to get us to understand, you’re not apes. You’re not just another animal. That’s not the place that God puts you in his creation. You are uniquely designed and created by him to be a man, to be a woman, after his image.

That you’re just another animal. Don’t believe that lie. The Word of God says you are so much more. Created in His image, and to have dominion. Well, what is it that makes us in His image? What makes us different than these other animals and the animal kingdom? We might make a long list together of those things, but I do want to highlight a few of them for you at this time. The first is this that you have an imagination. Our minds are different than the beasts because we have an imagination. What’s that mean? Well, that means that you can envision what is not yet. You have the ability to dream up what could be and to think about what should be. How important is that given the mission of dominion?

How important of that is giving the mission to subdue this creation and to steward this creation? Our minds work differently. We have the ability to trust in the unseen so that we might be able to act in the unseen. Maybe that sounds a little bit ambiguous or esoteric, but what is it that people can do, animals can’t do? We’re problem solvers. That’s what we can do. And that is important for dominion. We have the ability to look and to envision and to imagine. We ought to have a city here. We ought to have a building here. So how are we going to go build that building? It’s not there yet. But we see we need it, we imagine it, we plan how we’re going to build it, and we go build it.

We can do that. God has created us with the ability to do that, build cities, build bridges, to craft social customs and laws, build up civilizations. I’ll tell you something else special about this mind that has the ability to envision and to trust what is not seen, what is not immediately in front of them. You can have faith. In the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 1, you remember the definition of faith? The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But you have a mind that can comprehend that, can envision that. That is imagination. We’re different from the beasts. We’re different from animals. We’ve been created so that we could exercise dominion. I’ll give you a second one. You have choice. Free will, choice.

And your choices craft your character. We’re different than the animals around us. They don’t spend a lot of time making a lot of choices. They’re driven by instincts. What is available and what is immediate to them? I gotta share with you a funny little, funny little saying. It’s a motivational saying. It’s not original with me. You may have heard it. It gets me fired up in the morning. Here’s how it goes. Quote. Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning, a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

Doesn’t that just get you fired up? That’s the way of the animal kingdom, isn’t it? Get up and get running. Instinct, what’s immediate? Let’s go get it. The lion doesn’t sit there like you and I go to a restaurant, and what do we want? We want a menu. So that we are given all of these choices. And then we make our choices. I’m not running to see what I can catch, and that’s what I’m gonna eat today. But I’m presented choices, and I make choices. I exercise my free will. And that’s a funny little illustration, but I’ll tell you that our choices craft our character. Our choices are all about who we really are in our hearts and in our lives. In Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 19, choose life that you may live.

In Joshua chapter 24 and verse number 15, choose to stay whom you will serve, but as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. You make that choice. You exercise a will and a choice. Let me tell you a third thing about our mind. Design created for dominion. Our mind works with repetition and memory. Our minds are designed in such a way to lock into patterns. Lock into habits, lock into customs. That’s what our mind likes to do. Because once we figured out how to do something once or twice, we don’t have to think very hard about doing it anymore. Patterns, we love patterns. Habits, we love habits. We tend that way. We learn something, we lock it in. In fact, not only do we learn by doing and so create habits and even muscle memory and things like that, but we learn by observing other people’s habits.

And we say, oh, look what they do, look how they act. If I want to be like them, if I want to know the success they have, then I ought to build those habits as well. And we start building habits very quickly. Why does the mind like to do that? Because uh, because basically you can just kind of go on autopilot. Have you ever kind of zoned out while you were driving somewhere? Be you driving from your workplace to home, and all of a sudden you look around and you realize how in the world did I get here? I was listening to that good song on the radio. My mind was drifting away. I sure hope I stopped at all the red lights. You know, I you weren’t paying any attention.

Well, you didn’t have to. There’s such a pattern in your mind about where you’re going, your body will just take over and do that. And we’ve all done that. You ever been talking to somebody in the car and you’re intending to go somewhere, but where do you pull into? The driveway at your workplace, the parking lot at your workplace. Because you just go there automatically. You go there so often. Your body locks in these habits, your mind locks in these habits and these customs, and you will tend to do that. Oh, there’s great things about building habits and customs. I think about God’s prophet Daniel in Daniel 6 and in verse 10, and how he had a custom of praying to the Lord three times a day.

And even when the law was passed, that that would be outlawed that he should pray to Yahweh. He knew that the law was signed, and he went back up to his apartment. He opened the windows, he prayed as was his custom. He went and did it anyway. There’s a lot of beautiful things about having a memory, about having a custom, about having habits. Now I want to highlight these three things about our minds, and I want you to appreciate that when God made us and God made us this way, he saw that it was good. There was nothing wrong or bad in designing you for dominion. Nothing bad about that. And then the serpent came along. It just doesn’t take long, does it? It doesn’t take long, and Satan uses his weapon, lies, deceptions, wiles, and what transpires.

Go with me to Genesis 3 and verse 1. Genesis chapter 3 in your Bible and verse number 1. Genesis 3 and verse number 1. Satan comes along and he begins to speak, and he speaks slanders. Genesis 3 verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.

For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Wow. That’s what the devil comes and says.

God as he speaks to Eve about this fruit issue. Well, in so many words, he’s saying, Well, God isn’t really good. You cannot trust him. Think about this slander. Has God indeed said? Are you sure you heard him right? Are you sure you can trust that’s the case? And she puts back, she clearly understood what she was could do and what could not do. She clearly understood that. And uh what is what is the Satan come back and says? The serpent comes back and says, uh no, you will not surely die. In fact, God knows on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open. You’ll you’ll be like God. Who really wants best what’s best for you? It’s not God. It’s you. Maybe it’s me if you listen to me.

But this God’s trying to keep you out of knowledge. He’s not so good. You cannot really trust him and the things that he says. These are slanders. He says, God lies. You won’t die. Oh, and the day I eat of it, I’ll die. You will not die. You will not die. They didn’t stop breathing when they ate of it, but there was a spiritual separation between them and God. There was a spiritual death, and sin always incurs that. Sin always brings that about. God didn’t lie to her. Satan was lying to her. But the lie was God’s lying to you. That’s the lie. Third slander against God. God is oppressing you. He’s keeping you from good. Don’t you want to be like God? Don’t you want to know what God knows?

What kind of God is this? Trying to keep you ignorant of things, trying to keep you in the dark. God’s not really for you. And I would suggest that this here is the tale as old as time. That God’s truth is told us, and then Satan’s slanderous lies are told us, and we’re gonna go for one or we’re gonna go for the other. How is that so? How is it that we can sit here and have this dilemma about, well, should I trust God’s word? Should I obey God? Or should I listen to what the devil’s saying and go do things his way? The dilemma comes because Satan comes along and he’s able to twist our design to use it against us with his lies, with his temptations.

The good design. Now let me show you this from the book of James in the first chapter. James chapter 1 and verse number 12. James 1, verse 12. Blessed is the man who endures temptation. For when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. People want to blame God. I’m not blaming God. But I am observing how a twisting of our design is perpetrated by Satan in lies and temptation.

How so? Well, we’ve been given this wonderful mind that can imagine, so that we can have faith. That’s good. So that we can exercise dominion and build societies. That’s good. Satan says, Oh, you’ve got an imagination? Well, that means you can believe lies. I can tell you things, and you can envision those in your mind. I can paint some pictures for you, and you’re gonna like these pictures. And you can imagine that. You could trust that. You could follow that. This mind that has the ability to envision what is not yet, can also envision what is not at all. Can also envision what will never be. And those are lies. See, that’s deception. We can trust lies. We can even come to covet things. Covet things, what we do not have.

But in our mind, we fixate on them. We obsess, we just can’t imagine anything else until we get those things. And that is lies and temptation, twisting a good mind. Twist in the way God has made us. Because we have this ability to envision what is not or what is not at all. You have a free choice, a free will. And Satan’s gonna twist that. This free will, this free choice means that you are created to be able to choose the greatest good, which is to love. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, body, strength, love God. That’s the best. And then love your neighbor as yourself. That’s the best. But because you can genuinely love God, it means you have the potential to choose evil, to choose the worst, which is to hate.

You can choose great harm. You can choose to believe lies and act in lies and sin against God. Third, the devil knows that anything you do, it’s easier to do it the second time. And once you have done something, do it again. Once you do something, now you know the way. And that little bit of payoff, that little bit of thrill, that little bit of excitement, that little bit of what are the brain scientists call it, the dopamine rush, right? And we want to go and have that feeling again. And not only will we do things again, we’ll do them with less thought, not only will we do things again, we tend towards habits, we tend towards getting into patterns because it’s just less to think about, and you get yourself wrapped up into sin very easily that way.

2. Lies Appeal to Disordered Desires

The point is that the devil knows and leverages and tempts us in this world. He tells lies, he promotes and propagates lies, and there are things that we can be quite inclined to listen to, and once we start down the path, it’s easy for us to go down that path. Well, why is it that our eyes are inclined to, excuse eyes and ears rather, are inclined to lies. Number two. Because lies appeal to disordered desires. Number two, in your notes, the lies appeal to disorders, disordered desires. So we’re designed for dominion. We are spiritual, but we are also carnal. We are also fleshy. We have flesh and we have blood. And in the Bible, the word flesh can be used to communicate three different ideas. It depends upon the context.

First, when you come across the word flesh, it can just simply mean your body. We use the expression flesh and blood. And there are places where the Bible uses flesh that way also. Okay?

It’s not bad. Flesh speaks to your mortality. There’s a part of us that’s going to go to the dust, and the Spirit’s going to go back to God who gave it, and that is our flesh. There’s a second way in which the word flesh is used in the Bible. And this way, the word flesh can speak to your ethnicity. I’m thinking particularly like in Philippians chapter 3 and verse number 3, when the apostle Paul says, and I have no more confidence in this flesh. Okay? That’s really not a biological statement about I don’t think my body can get me from point A to point B or function. He’s really talking about something else there. He’s talking about his Jewishness and how that meant nothing in the kingdom.

Because he was actually combating Judaizing. So flesh here can mean racial, cultural, national identities. It can cover language and food and customs. And look, prejudice is wrong. But we all have backgrounds as we come into Christ’s kingdom. And so there is the flesh in that sense. And then there’s the third way that flesh is used in the scriptures, and that is to speak of flesh in the sense of cravings, sinful cravings or appetites. And that’s when the devil’s tempting us, tempting our flesh, these sinful cravings and appetite. And our flesh, these cravings, they entertain lies because the lies appeal to the desires. Now go back with me to Genesis 3 and let’s pick up our reading in verse 6. We saw in verse 5 from this first episode in history, we saw in verse 5 how the devil’s slandering God, telling lies on God.

But then what happens next? Genesis chapter 3 and verse number 6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew they were naked, and they sowed fig leaves together, and they made themselves coverings.

Saw the tree was good for food. There’s a flesh appetite there. We got to eat something, and it’s good to eat, right? They weren’t supposed to eat that, but there’s that stomach saying, This is good for food, and it’s pleasant to the eyes, and now she’s seeing things, she’s looking on it. God says it’s not for you, but she’s looking on it, and it’s looking pretty good. And then when she hears this from Satan’s uh perspective, you know, oh, and it’s gonna make you wise. Wise like who? Wise like God. There’s some pride there, isn’t there? There’s an overestimation of myself. I wouldn’t want to be less than the Creator. I want to be like the Creator. I want to be greater than the Creator. What are we talking about here?

We’re talking about the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. It’s all right here. And these things the apostle will warn us about in 1 John chapter 2 and verses 15 and 16. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. It’s of the world. Now we’re actually, if you come back tomorrow night, we’re going to dig into this passage deeper. I’m just gonna, there’s there’s no little commercial for tomorrow night. But just right now, let us observe.

These cravings of the flesh, right? Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, what we’re calling here some disordered desires. The lies appeal to the disordered desires. And when we give in, when we practice these things, whatever it might be, for her, it was a piece of fruit. And that sounds fairly innocuous to you and I. Whatever it may be, all right, it is a seed sown to the flesh. When you give in and you give the flesh what it wants, you give the eyes what it wants, you you you you you puff up that pride a little bit more, hmm? You’re sowing seed to the flesh. I want to go with you in my Bible to Galatians chapter six and verse number seven in the New Testament, Galatians chapter six and verse number seven.

We were talking last night about some particular teachings in the Bible where the Holy Spirit says, and do not be deceived. This is one of those. Don’t be lied about on this. Galatians 6 and verse 7, do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. You see, when I trust the devil’s lies, when I act upon the devil’s temptations, I sin. And with each sin, it is easier to sin again. Said a moment ago, well, with Eve, it’s fruit, and that seems a bit innocuous to you and I today. But in the book of Galatians, we’re shown really quite a list of the kinds of things that appeal to our flesh, the kinds of things that the lies and deceptions will be told to get us to do these things and sow to the flesh.

And we’re told we’ll reap what we sow. Now, like what? Go with me to Galatians 5 verse 19. You’ll reap what you sow. If you sow to the flesh, you’ll reap corruption. Well, what does it look like to sow to the flesh? What does that even mean? Galatians 5, verse 19. 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 now, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. We reap what we sow. You look at that list. Does that list sound familiar to you? Does that list look like some things you see in the mirror?

Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery. How about the Tinder app? How about hookup culture? How about the local bar scene or the local club scene? We’re involved in all that. We’re sowing to the flesh. Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of wrath. How about all the awful things people say back and forth to one another on Twitter and other social media? How about cancel culture? How about most of the news that we turn on? It’s a whole lot of discord and fits of wrath. Selfish ambition, dissension, factions. How about the way human beings run their politics? People say, oh, it’s bad. I’ve never seen it so bad. It’s bad. Politics has never been nerf sports. And that politics isn’t just about what’s going on in national politics. There’s politics in offices and companies.

Politics, sad to say, in churches from time to time. And all that office gossip, all the way from the parking lot to whatever’s going on in Washington, DC is dissensions, is factions. We’re involved in all that kind of gossip, backbite and office politic and foolishness. We’re so into the flesh. We’re so into the flesh. Envy. Envy. Man, envy. We just get online, we get on the internet. We go out to the mall of the different shopping centers. All of the advertising. These are envy generators. You don’t have it. Somebody else has it. Wouldn’t it be better if you had it? You’ll be happier now. The envy generator that is social media statistics. Let’s get out the analytics. How many friends do you have? But I got more friends than you.

Or we beat ourselves up because we know we don’t have as many friends as so-and-so. Followers. How many people following you? I’ll tell you how many people following me. Likes. Oh man, did anyone like this picture of my cat? I can’t believe I posted this picture of my cat 20 minutes ago, and I’ve only had one like. People don’t like me. They start telling themselves these lies. But really, what was that about? Really, that was about some envy. Subscribers. Got to make sure that these kinds of things are getting fed all through this media, and really, it’s just feeding a lot of lies and sowing to the flesh. This list talks about drunkenness and revelries and the like.

I don’t know, y’all watch any reality television? Like to sit down and binge some new show on Netflix or HBO. And what’s it showing on there? The hookup shows, the real wives shows, all the different shows that are just, they make mockery of marriage as God’s relationship. People, their 90-day fiance, and they’re married without sight, and they’re, you know, and it’s all these social experiments, and they tell them all the time, and we’re going to do this now, but if you don’t like it in three months, you can get divorced. And it’s just all a mockery of all of it. And we we call that entertainment, just watching those things. Well, what are we feeding our hearts? Watching those things, celebrating those things. As we watch, as we listen, as we’re doing these things, we’re sowing to the flesh.

And when you sow to the flesh, you’re going to reap what you sow. Reap corruption. But I would tell you that we’re taught in Galatians, you don’t have to sow to the flesh. You ought not to sow to the flesh. You’re going to reap what you sow. He tells you to sow to the Spirit. Now, what does that look like in Galatians 5 and verse 22? Galatians 5, verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law. There is no law. Doesn’t that sound beautiful? Doesn’t it sound like the kind of life that you want? And what breaks my heart is I want to share this scripture with people, and there’ll be people that’ll listen to that and they’ll say, that’s a pipe dream.

That’s too good to be true. That’s not the way this world works. But this is the message of Christ. You can have this if you sow to the spirit, not sow to the flesh. How do you know you can have it? Because you reap what you sow. You receive this. You sow to the flesh, leads to corruption, leads to destruction. You sow to the spirit, and it leads everlasting life. It leads to everlasting life.

We reap more than we sow. This is a beautiful principle of God’s creation. Not only does a seed reproduce after its own kind, but you don’t plant one corn seed, and you get your corn stalk up, and there’s one little corn on top of it. What do you got? Years of corn. You reap a whole lot more than you sow. These things compound. These things compound. What do you mean? I mean, I’m sowing to the flesh and small things and little things today, but they compound. And once I do it once, it’s easier to do it again. And a whole lot more of it and a whole lot faster. The wonderful hope is that when I understand this, as it’s taught in the scripture, I want to sow to the spirit, and that means that there’s going to be blessing from God, spiritual blessing from God, a whole lot more.

And it becomes a whole lot easier to get up and get into these habits of prayer and devotional times and things like this. Even coming out and being assembling in a church gets to be a habit, a very good habit and an easy thing to do. It’s hard when we break that habit to get it going again, but it needs to. We need to sow to the spirit. These things compound. And because they compound, I’ll say one more thing, I’ll move on. But because they compound, it is never easier to sow to the spirit than it is right now today. It is never going to be easier for you to repent and to begin to follow God and obey God than it is right now for you today.

You put it off another day, you keep sowing to the flesh another day, it just becomes that much harder to give it up, to put it away. It’s never easier than it is today. Because the good things compound, and the bad things will compound. What we learn from the scripture is sin compounds, sowing to the spirit compounds, and that what you serve is what you become.

Of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. These religious leaders he’s talking to, they kind of miss some of this stuff. They said, Ah, we’ve never been enslaved to anybody, even though actually they were political slaves to Rome, even at that time. No matter, it was a spiritual slavery that was the issue. A spiritual slavery that was the issue. And the terrible things happen when men and women give themselves over to sin and to slavery to sin. You read in the Bible about the days of Noah and that world before the flood. And how is that described? It is described as people whose hearts and deeds were only evil continually.

3. We Need to Sow to the Spirit

Well, what does that mean? It means what we’ve been learning that you sow to the flesh and it compounds. You get more of it until there was a corruption, a terrible corruption in that world. And we need to wake up to these lies. We need to wake up to these lies because we got to feed our spirit. We need to sow to our spirit and not be wrecked by sin. We need to know this freedom from Christ and sink it, seek it in our own lives. And so let’s then conclude tonight by looking at point number three. We need to sow to the Spirit. So to the Spirit.

So what should we choose and what informs our choices? And I believe the answer to those things really comes back to this word of authority. The person that we’re going to give authority, grant authority, I will listen to you, I will obey you, I will trust you, I will live to please you. And who’s the you? Is it the Lord Jesus Christ, or is it my own flesh, my own appetites and cravings and desires? Who should be the authority? And what you and I hear all the time is it ought to be you. You should be your own authority. No one knows better than you. Be true to yourself. Be your authentic self. Is there anything more important, anything more valued in our society today than somebody being real or keeping it real?

What does that mean? Follow your own heart. Be led by your own feelings. In fact, in fact, if anyone is telling you that you ought to deny your feelings for anything, even for God, they’re only hurting you. That’s a toxic person. That’s spiritual abuse. You’re hurting yourself. You’re losing your authentic self. So what you need to do is you need to follow your desires. Let your heart guide you and your feelings be your guide. Doesn’t that sound amazing? But I’m going to tell you that that’s a lie. That’s a whole bunch of double talk for. Indulge the lust of your eyes. You see what you want, go get it and never tell yourself no. That’s a whole bunch of double talk for, gratify the lust of the flesh.

When you fill every craving, then you’re going to really be real. Don’t deny yourself anything. Nothing bad could happen from that. Follow your own heart. Let no one tell you different. Glory in your pride. That’s what that’s really saying. Walk in the pride of life. Because after all, no one knows better than you. No one can tell you anything. You know what’s best for you. You’re authentic. You’re real. You have all wisdom. I mean, like a God. Eve. Like a God, Adam. Oh, I’ve got all wisdom, just like God. It’s the same stuff that comes around and around and around. It’s not about a piece of fruit, but the same lies are going on, telling you, you know better than God. You don’t need God, and you don’t need the word of God.

Be true to yourself. And that’s the lust of your eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. No, we need to hear the word of God over and against these lies. And what the word of God says is, Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. That’s the prophet Jeremiah. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Again, Jeremiah 17, verse 9. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Proverbs 14 and verse number 12. No, there is another authority beyond my mind, beyond my heart, the true Lord, the creator and the redeemer, who is Jesus Christ.

And what we can do is we can submit to Him. And when we do, he is the one who sets us free. He is the one who sets us free so that we are no longer slaves to our eyes and our flesh and our pride. But we need to believe in Him. Trust Him. Follow Him. I think that’s the great power of faith. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7. We walk by faith, not by sight. Got a couple of great definitions of faith. Unfortunately, I didn’t get them in your notes. But from the book Live No Lies, which again has been a very helpful book to me by John Mark Colmer. He wrote this.

It means you put your trust in something or someone and remain loyal to it. What is faith? It’s trusting that all this is true and being loyal to it. Or the Quaker theologian Elton Trueblood, he defined faith thus quote, faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations. I don’t like that. Faith is not belief without proof, it is trust without reservations. We walk by faith, not by sight. This is the way of Christians. Or Romans 10, verse 17. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The power of faith is not believing lies, rather, it is acting on truth. Live as the Bible is true. Trust the Bible and that without reservations. Jesus and the writers of the New Testament, they did not see faith as a blind leap into the dark.

For them, it’s a lifestyle of unswerving trust and loyalty to Jesus based on his knowledge of reality. Jesus was the true teacher. Jesus knows, and we’re going to trust him, and we’re going to follow him. We want to sow to the Spirit that we might be reaping in the Spirit. That there are some simple things that we could be doing, making choices, developing some good patterns, some good habits of sowing to the Spirit, such as Bible reading and Bible listening. It’s so important for us because we will reap what we sow. And in James 1 and verse 21, the scripture said, Lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickness and wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. It really is important that we be reading our Bibles, that we be reading our Bibles every day, or that we be listening to the Word of God.

I know we got a bunch of audible people in here now and Bible on MP3 and all such as that, but we really do need the word of God sown in our hearts. We hear that truth, we believe that truth, we repeat that truth, and we live that truth, and that makes a difference. For it is obeying the word.

As we mentioned, Daniel earlier in the lesson tonight, and he would not be curbed even when there was a law against it. It was his custom. We need to have that to be a habit in our lives, a habit. We sow to these things. Even that important secret place or that quiet place and quiet time with God as a habit. Matthew 6 and verse 6 talks about going to the place where we are not seen except for God who sees, except for God who sees. We need a time in our day where we are unplugging from all of the megaphones of lies and temptations that the devil blasts at us. And in that quiet time, there’s the time that we commune with our God. And we prepare ourselves to believe him, to trust him, and to serve him as we must go out into this world for another day and the cacophony of the devil’s lies.

Conclusion

We’re talking this week about the devil you don’t know. The devil you don’t know. There is a devil and he lies. We need Jesus and we need his truth. Our flesh, our disordered desires, these cravings, we tend to listen. So we need to be listening to God. Faith in his word and obeying the Spirit, sowing the Spirit.

But I’d have you consider so who is on our side? We’re talking about this spiritual warfare and Jesus versus the devil and truth versus lies. Are we all alone? And who’s on the devil’s side? Is he working all alone? If this is a spiritual battle, where are the armies? If this is a spiritual battle, when is the cavalry going to arrive? Well, that’s tomorrow night. Tomorrow night we’re going to talk about the world. And we’re going to talk about being God’s people in this world. And I hope you can be back for that. Thank you so much for your good attention tonight. We’re going to sing a song of encouragement now. And it may very well be that there is someone here who is ready to take those steps of faith and obedience to the Lord’s truth.

To confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and to be baptized, immersed in water for the forgiveness of sins. My friends, it will not be easier tomorrow. It will not be easier than this moment to repent and turn to God and come to him for salvation to become a Christian and to be sowing to that spirit and reaping from him and his good fruit the remainder of our days together. If we can help you with that or any other spiritual need, we invite you to come forward and make your desire known now as we stand and sing. Won’t you come?