The Battle Within
Jim Clements and Samuel Prime · Tidal Church Moncton · January 18, 2026 · love, sex, relationships series
Jim Clements and Samuel Prime explore Galatians 5 and the battle between the flesh and the Spirit. They trace our distorted desires back to Eden and invite us to crucify the flesh, trust Jesus, and let the Holy Spirit lead our hearts again.
More from Jim Clements · More from Samuel Prime · The love, sex, relationships series
Topics: Holy Spirit, Relationships, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Love, sex, and relationships is where we're at today. Continuing to do that. It is indeed. And it was a thought that maybe the oldest pastor and the youngest would tag team together and do this. So, let's start, you know, when I think about for us at the point in time where we are now in our society and culture, we gotta ask ourself the question, how did we arrive at this place where there's such a different way of thinking when it comes to love, sex, and relationships? In order to get to the bottom of where that comes from, how we can be so different and so far apart, we have to go back to the beginning.
[0:47] Can you imagine a world that has, like, no hate, no pain, no war, no cancer, no brokenness. Everyone's in good relationships, family relationships are all intact, everybody's happy. Could you imagine a world like that just filled with joy? See, there was a world like that in the original design. God's original design for us was a world like that. And some of us, I know that we've had days, even in life, maybe even this week, where there's been hardship, there's been trauma, there's been death, there's been pain. There might even have been some hate in there. But the truth is, God's design didn't have any of that. God's original design had none of that.
[1:34] No pain, no grief, no death. And when we look up the scripture and we go to Genesis 1 and 2, and we begin to look at that and see what God created each time, when He finished each day, He said that it was good. And then when it was all done and He sat and He kinda takes a look back and looked of creation, He says, it is very good. God's design is very good. And Genesis, sometimes when we can look at the image, some people might say it portrays a little bit of exploitation or something, control over us. But in reality, the creation that God had created for all of us to be in was actually a display of trust, was a display of Him giving.
[2:26] He created everything. And then He gave ownership over to Adam and Eve. He gave ownership and said, had dominion all over it. And He even said to him, He said, then go have sex. Okay, maybe He said, go be fruitful and multiply. Didn't exactly say sex, but He said that to go forth and multiply. I mean, when we look at the scriptures and it tells us that a man and his wife were naked and not ashamed, it shows us that there's an innocence in there. There's a trust in there with the relationship with each other and with God, a wholeness that exists, it means that nothing's hidden, nothing's fractured, nothing's broken. Relationships are whole.
[3:14] And then in Genesis 3, we watch that all change. We watch when the enemy uses the serpent to come and speak to Adam and Eve and begins to cause doubt, where they begin to be the holders of creation to make decisions. And they decide autonomy or self over God's design for God had for them this design to trust. But they listened to the serpent's voice and not to God's voice. And in that moment, evil and good get redefined, but they get redefined on their terms and not on God's terms.
[4:01] The reality is the choice that Adam and Eve made in that moment was to have a life and live it out with God or without God. And they chose to do that without God. Brokenness enters into the world and all of a sudden shame and guilt and fear enters in and they're ultimately exiled from the Garden of Eden. You can say that's where Discovery got their first idea for Naked and Afraid. Maybe sin enters the world, but it fractures the humanity's relationship with God. It fractures it with one another. It fractures it even with creation itself and the separation from God begins. You've ever been lost, and then open your app that put in the address you're trying to go to, and every time you keep going in the direction, you think you're going the right way and it goes, turn back where possible.
[4:57] And you're kind of lost like, where am I gonna turn back? It's not even possible. And you're just telling me if it's possible. And sometimes in life, because of that fractured relationship in the fracture with creation, we're going down a path and we're going down a journey that's leading us in the wrong direction. And we're not hearing anything that says, turn back where possible. The image of God was not erased from us. It just became distorted, became very distorted. And our inner compass, our desires and our sense that leads us to life and fulfillment didn't disappear. It just got misaligned. We all still want love and joy. We all want meaning in our life.
[5:43] We all want intimacy in our life, but our hearts keep taking us towards shortcuts that actually can't get us there. That's the problem. We tend to think it's a behavior, but it's more than behavior. And then more change comes in Genesis as we continue and we think about this fractured relationship, Sam, that now has separated us and distorted how we see God and how God sees us and how others see us when it comes to God. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. And the first change that we see, Jim, is we actually see, the first change that happens is brokenness relationally. We see that in Genesis that there's this brokenness relationally where there was once openness where Adam and Eve had dominion over the garden where, you know, Adam got to name the animals and rule the land and have all the food and everything that he could ever want.
[6:36] There's now hiding and shame and fear. The scriptures in Genesis actually say that Adam and Eve realized that they were naked and became afraid and actually hid, showing that what sin does is it fractures the connection, the relationship that we have with God before it ever brings consequences. Humanity still bears God's image, but what happens is it has become distorted. Think of it like a cracked mirror. If you've ever looked at a cracked mirror, depending on how cracked it is, maybe your face and body look a little wider or a little taller than it is. It doesn't look like a whole mirror that is uncracked and the world that God called very good now feels disordered.
[7:22] We all know the feeling of pain and of fear and of separation. And now part of the reason Adam and Eve couldn't just go, whoops, sorry, God, I messed up, is what breaks in Genesis 3 isn't a kind of thing that's like, whoops. Sorry, I messed up. What breaks in Genesis 3 isn't a rule or some big, mean, scary God goes, where He set it up. It's what breaks is fellowship and communion with the God of the universe. That's what sin breaks. It breaks fellowship and relationship with the God of the universe. And the Scriptures say that Adam and Eve were created to live in openness and dependence on God. But the moment that they reached for autonomy, or as Pastor Jim put it, "I get to decide what is good and I get to decide what is evil," the relationship itself fractured.
[8:18] We see that they hid, Adam and Eve hid immediately, not because God is a God who shames them, but because shame is born within them. And what happens is fear is the thing that begins to govern Adam and Eve. Fear is the thing that begins to filter through how they see themselves and how they see other people and how they see God. And it's like when we talk about God's image and likeness, it's like speaking to something that everybody in this room feels. The image is what's still true about you here today, no matter what your worth, your capacity to love, to create, to choose, to long for meaning. That's never been erased in the fall, even in your worst moments.
[9:07] But what likeness is, the difference between image? 'Cause we were all created in God's image. And likeness is likeness. How that actually plays out, images is how it shows up in real life. How you actually live, how you trust, how you love and see other people and yourself. And that's where humanity feels the fracture. We know who we could be, but we don't live there. We perform, we hide, we compare, we protect ourselves. We become people that are more shaped by fear and what others think of us than the freedom that Christ Jesus offers us. We're still made in the image of God, but we no longer reflect Him clearly, like a broken mirror.
[9:54] And that's why change feels so hard when it comes to the Scriptures. It's because change isn't just what's broken, isn't just behavior, it's their inner orientation, the desires or longings or cravings of the heart. And the beautiful part is the promise of Christ isn't you're forgiven, but you can be made whole in Christ Jesus. God doesn't just clean up the mess of sin and absolve you of all guilt, but rather restores you back to His likeness through Christ Jesus. And so, Jim, Genesis shows us kind of where we came from. It shows us, you know, what we were made for, how our desires have kind of begun to become distorted.
[10:39] And that raises a bigger question for every single one of us in this room. What is shaping our desires today? What is shaping our desires now? Well, some people would say and refer to it as the flesh. Yeah. And so if we read in Galatians, why don't you read the Scripture we have here for everybody. So I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So it's the flesh that we're battling with. And a lot of us, over time or maybe where you've been or how it's been defined for you, you think of flesh like our earthly skin, our body, our bones, like that. And that's not what Paul is referring to by the flesh. When we look at the word that comes from it, flesh is sarx, the Greek word for it. And it tells us that it's not about our anatomy, it is about the system that we put into our life that determines our decisions.
[11:29] It's our operating system, basically. It's not our skin, it's what we do that eventually takes us away or leads us to God. It's what we choose to do. And there's a deep conflict between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit. It's a war, or it's a battle within us. The flesh and the Spirit are not just two aspects of a person. They are two powerful agents that are trying to shape the life of the followers of Christ and those who are not following, also each one prompting a conflict. The flesh does in the desires. Let's put it this way, if I wanted to have a physique like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, I've gotta make some decisions about what I eat.
[12:22] And if I like donuts, which I'm not saying I do, I'm not saying I don't, but I can't have a desire towards eating donuts if I want to have a physique like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Galatians tells us in 17 and 18, chapter 5, "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." So the question that it leaves us with, and truthfully, is why do the desires of the flesh feel so strong if they're so wrong?
[13:10] And even at times when people are trying to figure this out, these are some of the quotes that we hear in conversations with people, is like, times have changed. What was wrong in the Bible times is not wrong now. Now, another one might be, we're married in God's eyes. Another one is, it's not wrong if we love each other. Or how about this one? Love is love. And finally, what gender I am, I choose to or choose to date is really up to me and nobody else's business 'cause I feel really strongly about it. See, the flesh and the Spirit aren't mainly arguing about rules. They're competing for the right to define in your life what love, intimacy and identity and what it means to be fulfilled is about.
[14:01] That is the battle that is going on. And it began in the garden, in the Garden of Eden, because God anchored them in His original design to be fulfilled in the way that He meant in a relationship that was unpressured, that became fractured. The longings that we have for those, for love, for intimacy, for identity, for being fulfilled, did not fall away, did not die. They were just displaced. And what happens in our world today is this lingering that people want to be known, they want to be wanted, they want to be safe, they want to belong, they want to behold.
[14:46] That's why sin, when it comes into somebody's life, rarely introduces itself as a rebellion. It comes with a promise for a better life. It whispers, "I can give you what you're looking for. I can help you with what you feel desire, want to be in control about." Some of the things in our culture are just pulling us away from God's original design. Porn offers us intimacy, but without the covenant that God really meant. Social platforms that we find ourselves on offer identity, but without a rootedness.
[15:32] Success in our culture offers the worth and the money, but not the rest that we need. Being in control of things offers us security, but doesn't offer us trust. So when Paul speaks to the flesh and the Spirit, he's describing two rivals, two voices answering the same human question of how do I get to be whole and fulfilled? The flesh says, find it by feeding yourself. That's without God. The Spirit says, "Find it in surrendering yourself to God." That's with God. And to be truthful with you, as you chase things.
[16:17] And I've had a number of conversations. People are becoming exhausted chasing something that never fulfills the promise that they were given, longing and longing for more. But it doesn't end the way that they want. If you are here today and you've been chasing and chasing, and it's the next thing and the next thing, this message is for you today to hear: the flesh tries to satisfy those longings without God. The Spirit restores them with God. Every single desire of the flesh is trying to answer the question, "Am I loved? Am I enough? Do I belong? Will I be okay?
[17:03] Will I end up alone?" These strategies of the flesh, these achings of the desires that are in all of our lives, and if we're not following God's design, those come from the original story. Those come from the origin of when God created Adam and Eve, they're meant to be with Him. And those come from that distant, distant time of creation and create the ache and desire within us. That's why they're so powerful in our life. The deep desires of what God intended to be with Him in creation are wanting to restore our relationship from a fractured time with Him.
[17:57] Galatians 5:19 tells us that the acts of the flesh are obvious. This gets to be a long list. It does. It's a pretty crazy list when you read that. But it says what I'm gonna read here. The acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And it keeps going, right? It doesn't. And so I'll let you share. Yeah. Paul actually goes on to share a whole bunch of other stuff in this passage. And Galatians, we're in a series called Love, Sex, and Relationships. And so we're gonna be focusing really on the first three. But what I need you to know is Paul lists off a whole bunch of other stuff, and then he gets to the end of it and he basically says, this is not an exhaustive list. And so do with that what you will. But this whole list, what it's saying is, I want what I lost in Eden, what we lost as a humanity in Eden, but I don't know where to get it anymore.
[18:51] And I think of, when we think of the flesh, if we're being truthful, we think of sexual sin, we think of porn, we think of affairs, we think of some form of sexual temptation, sex outside of what God intended, between between a married biological woman and a married biological man. And here's what the flesh says. It says, if I feel it, it must be true. If it's authentic, then it must be right. If it's loving, it cannot be wrong. And as I say to our students all of the time, although yes, your feelings are real and they are valid, they are to not always be trusted. You can't always trust the feelings that are inside of you.
[19:38] And so, yes, sexual sin is a part of the flesh, but it's not the whole story. Augustine, in his works, The City of God, has an extensive writing on sexual lust in particular. And it gets all of the attention because it takes over the whole person. So incredibly quickly, what does it do? It clouds the mind. It distorts decision making. It embeds itself into our identity of who we are. We have this whole concept now of sexual identity. And I wanna say something that Christians aren't pro body. Christians aren't pro-sex like God designed and created those things for us to enjoy within God's design.
[20:27] And so sexual sin gets all the attention because look at it like this, all wisdom sometimes goes out the door when someone cheats on their spouse and you ask them the question, what were you thinking? Not all the time, but some of the time the response will be, I wasn't, or I don't know what I was doing. And now don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not downplaying the 15 other steps it takes before you're into that position, before you make that decision. But sexual sin clouds your decision making. And the truth is, all the things that Paul listed are just one expression of a deeper problem. And that problem is desires that refuse to be ruled.
[21:15] Let me ask you a question this morning. How do you think a lust filled existence shapes your desires? That's a heavy question. How do you think your lust filled? How do you think a lust filled existence shapes your desires? What do I mean by that? How do you think how oversexualized our culture has become has affected us as individuals and as people? How do you think that porn has rewired the way that we not only view sex, but how we view the other, about how we view people in general?
[22:09] How do you think that a culture that cares more about sex than about genuine intimacy with one, what true and genuine intimacy has affected the way that we actually and genuinely interact with one another? I think a lust filled culture and existence doesn't just change what we look at. It fundamentally changes how we look. Our oversexualized culture has trained us to see people as bodies before we see them as souls. That's what it's done. It's changed how we fundamentally see people. It teaches us about sexual intensity of getting some level of a certain high and extreme instead of intimacy with the one that God has faithfully called us to love.
[23:00] It conditions us to consume instead of commit to community into one another. It conditions us to look at stuff maybe a little bit longer than what we should be looking at. It causes us to fantasize about what we think we do not have instead of focusing on the beautiful things in which God has given us. And over time, what begins to happen is it begins to make patience feel unbearable. I think of stories of kids who are so excited for Christmas time that they can't wait and their patience is gone. And so they go under the Christmas tree when their parents are sleeping and they unwrap all the Christmas presents, and then they rewrap them.
[23:46] And the truth is, when they rewrap them, the parents know because it isn't the same as when they it teaches us that faithfulness feels to each other feels restrictive. Vulnerability of who we truly are and what we truly struggle with feel unsafe. And I don't know if you notice this too, and I think this is actually a result of a lust filled existence. I think that there's more happening, that there's more noise, that there's more podcasts, that there's more books, that there's more stuff happening all around us. There's Facebook and social media and more ways to call and text and message and carrier pigeons and a whole bunch of other stuff. But yet we are so incredibly lonely. You've heard it before. It's been taught from here before.
[24:32] The world is in truly a loneliness epidemic. And I truly think that that is because lust has reshaped how we actually and genuinely connect with one another because it speaks to our flesh and to our brokenness. And so to answer the question, how do you think a lust filled existence shapes our desires? I think, I don't think it makes us want the wrong things. I think it makes us want the right things at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons in the wrong way. And over time, what begins to happen is I think it disorders our imagination and it causes us to see people differently and think things about people that we wouldn't normally think. And as we know, it quietly reshapes the kind of people that we are becoming.
[25:22] And the unfortunate reality that we see in the truth of the scriptures and the reason that this cuts so deep to the core, that's why sexual sin outside of God's design, why porn, why all these things are work of the flesh is they compromise the core promise of them all. This is the core promise of the flesh. They promise fulfillment, but that fulfillment never comes. When you finally get the thing that you want. When you finally get, you know, the girl or the guy or the person and you get married, when you continue to give into the flesh, the desires, of our sinful nature, it will tell you that the person that you have married is no longer enough for you.
[26:11] It reshapes fundamentally who we are. That fulfillment that the scriptures talk about will never come. It whispers that in the back of your ear and then you finally get the thing that you're craving: the car, the girl, the promise, the home, the health. But outside of God's design, it will always leave you wanting more. When I was in Halifax, there was this young man who I met and we went out for coffee and he was a real estate developer. And as we got talking, you know, he retired. He was extremely well off. He retired his parents, he set his brother up for college, he had the car that he wanted, he owned his own home. He was set for life. Like he had no real, like, wants, like he, if he wanted it, he bought it.
[26:58] He was good. And as I'm sitting here, I'm processing and kind of thinking of what to ask this guy. And I asked him the question. I said, at what point in your life did you realize and or know that you have made it? You've had enough, that you've hit your goal? And he stopped and he kinda looked down at his coffee and he's holding his coffee cup and he paused and he sighed. He took a deep breath. He looked back up at me and he said, I don't think I've ever had that moment. I don't think I've had that moment where I've had enough, where I feel fulfilled. And he said these words that probably still haunt me to this day. It just feels like something's missing and I cannot find it.
[27:46] Do you wanna know what the truth is? The truth is the reason that he couldn't find it, the reason that something is missing, it's because we were meant for an inheritance. And Jim, I think the scriptures talk about what that inheritance is. Well, and we think about everybody's chasing, like, the inheritance here on earth, but the one that God has planned for us, it comes outta His design, is so much more. And why don't you, Sam, go ahead and read what it says in Galatians. In Galatians chapter 5, verse 21. It reads, "I warn you as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." Not inherit the kingdom of God. See, the lust and the appetite for it and the self-rule is consistently changing your heart, contributing to the kind of person that you want to be versus the kind of person that God wants you to be.
[28:41] Paul in scripture is not only talking about the battle that we're in when it comes between the flesh and the Spirit. He's talking about the blueprint of your life because flesh is trying to lay a new blueprint. We hear people say all the time when they go through this, this is just who I am. I do what I feel like doing. No one can tell me what to do. I'm gonna do what I want to do. But a person who says that is telling you that a new blueprint is being set other than what God wanted. Their desire is no longer is something they resist.
[29:27] It is something that has taken command over them and they obey them each and every day as decisions are made in their life. Over time, it's not just something you do, it becomes what you think each time. It shapes what you expect of yourself and what you expect of other people. It's what you reach for when you're stressed, you're tired and you just feel like the one thing you've been chasing is not answered. What you've been looking for is what you believe will be the final thing that'll make everything okay as you continue to chase it. What starts out as a habit turns into a pattern and a pattern just begins, we begin to say to ourselves, this is just who I'm becoming.
[30:21] This is just who I am. Your reactions change and your standards shift and how you interact with people becomes different. Your sense of what normal has now been moved because the enemy, using the flesh, is rewiring us. When we follow anything that is of God's original design, your flesh will always lead you in a way that is tearing you apart, that is destroying what God has for you. When it comes to decisions we make, there's those of us that are in a battle and we come across things and we make the wrong decision and we ask for forgiveness and then we just go back and do the same thing again.
[31:09] But truly what we need to do is when we have those times of failure is repent, is come to a point that we understand that we're God's design for our life is not that decision we just made or or the conversation we had or the life that we're leading. And we repent of that sin in that moment. And we set up the ability to turn from it to come up and live a completely different way, moving the desires of our heart back towards the original design that God had planned. For those, there is hope. A lot of the communication that happens in our society today talks about hope, but it doesn't deliver.
[31:58] And so people begin to feel hopeless, but there's hope. The Word tells us that there's hope and hope is rising. And we are here as a result of God's design for our lives to realign ourselves to His design so that we live in the wholeness that He wants. The Scriptures tell us that flesh can be ruled, that it doesn't have to have dominion over us. That as followers of Christ, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in each one of us when we ask Him to be our Savior, Romans 8:11. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.
[32:54] That's a powerful, powerful part of God's design for us. See, when we look at the things that are of the flesh, it fractures parts of our life away from us slowly. It's this one area, it's this one thing, it's this one habit, it's this one behavior, it's this one way of talking, this one way of acting. And it slowly, slowly tears us down. But Galatians 5:22 says, but the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit. See, when I'm about to read here, and a lot of you already know it, you get all this, not pieces of it, when you decide to follow God's design, that's why it doesn't say fruits.
[33:45] It's the fruit of the Spirit. It's this whole design that God intended. But flesh eats away at us piece by piece. The Scripture says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against these, there is no law. That is all for each one of us. This is what brings us closer to God. This is what we were created for and what He designed for us. So the question this morning is, how's that hitting your heart? How's all this hitting your spirit?
[34:31] I am sure with the chaos sometimes that can happen in life, all of us could use a little bit of peace. All of us could use a little bit of joy. And I'm not talking about happiness. Happiness is but a moment when you get something or you have an event happen. It doesn't matter what happens. The joy comes from the Lord, that joy is sustained and fulfilled and continues through from the design that God has meant for us. Maybe there's even some of us out there now thinking, boy, I could use a little self-control in the decisions that I make. I don't want to have that distorted relationship fractured from God.
[35:17] And if we ask ourselves if we want more of the Spirit, what is it that we have to do to the flesh? I can only think of one word that has to do with the flesh, and that word is crucify. It's not enough to just pretend like it's not there, but we have to crucify it. In Galatians 5:24-25, it says, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, which means we have to crucify the flesh in order to keep in step with the Spirit. Yeah, I think what's beautiful about, you know, this passage in Galatians where, you know, Paul writes for us to crucify the flesh, is he doesn't just say kill, which is, you know, pretty crass when you think about it to, you know, kill the desires of your flesh.
[36:23] He says to crucify, which is that much more extreme, he doesn't say to, like, overcome to, you know, press aside. He says to crucify your flesh every single day as Jesus talks about, to pick up your cross and to follow Him. In fact, in Romans chapter 8, verses 12 through 13, it says, therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation. But it is not to the flesh to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of your body, you will live. I think that's beautiful that Paul writes, that we are under no obligation to our sinfulness. We are under no obligation to the flesh, to the desires of our sinfulness.
[37:09] For those of you in this room, that Christ is Lord of your life, who have been washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, you are under no obligation to your flesh, to your sinfulness, to those sinful desires. But I think that the truth is, when it comes to crucifying our flesh every day, we have to look at what it is we feed ourselves. And we need to starve our sinfulness. We need to look at the people that we hang out with, the circles that we run in, what we watch on social media, how we look at people, what we read, what we listen to. I think of, when I think of, you know, like, the climax of, like, pornography that we hit, where we look and it's not enough, and then we go look for more.
[37:57] Like, I don't know if you know this, but pornography isn't just visual anymore. It's in books and it's like audio. It's all over the place. And so you have to watch what it is you are taking in because it's not just the big thing that it reaches to, it's the little steps of how you look at people and how you talk about them and how it is you interact with them. And the question that it boils down to is, do we want an eternal life with God? As Jesus talks about, He came here to this earth to set up what is called the kingdom of God. And that kingdom is a promise that we don't have eternity. We do have eternity, but we'll have eternity in the future. And someday that will be enough, but rather we can participate and partake in the kingdom of God here on this earth.
[38:44] And when I think about this, you know, it's not just about dying to something and starving something, it's also about what you feed yourself. Like the desire to open the Scriptures that tell you the truth about who you are instead of getting it on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all these other places that tell you these kinda worldly ideas of who you are and why you're here and why you are created. That if you listen to, you'll be so confused that you don't even know why you exist anymore or whether or not you have a place here. And I think that a lot of the reason why people struggle with not just with mental health, but just more generally is because they have been conditioned to believe one way or another that this life genuinely is meaningless.
[39:36] Because truthfully, when you think about it, if there is no God, what is the point of living this life? And that's the promise of the kingdom of God that we actually get to partake and live in something that matters, that actually transforms us to our core. And things that help with that is the desire to put our phones down, to be fully present with God and community and those people around us. Man, I think to the early church in Acts, what a beautiful thing that would've been to sit there and not have the constant buzzing of technology, the desire to be in spaces like church and youth group and young adults and small groups and CR, and all these different areas that remind you that you are not alone in this battle within.
[40:26] And friends, I don't actually think it's a battle within us. I think it's a war. I think it's a war. And what do you do when you go to war? You get ready, you prepare, you train. And the issue this morning, whether you follow Jesus or you don't, isn't that we have desires. I think we can all agree that we have some form of desires that live within us, but the question is, are our desires leading us towards Jesus, that leads to the fruits of the Spirit that we've read about. and talked about here this morning? Or is it leading away from Jesus that will always lead us to that longing, for something more that we can never hit? And I just wanna say, is it like, it must be exhausting to always be searching, to always be longing, to always getting something and not having it be enough.
[41:23] And the cry of Jesus is that I am, that Jesus is enough. It's like if you just slow down and get to know the person of who I am. And I think that Pastor Jim talked a little bit, a little bit about it, where the same Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the grave, the same Spirit, Holy Spirit that raised Lazarus from the grave, is the same Holy Spirit that lives with inside of you when you accept Jesus as Lord of your life. And I think that at a certain point, it's not that there is a lack of Holy Spirit power in your life because you have access to all of it, but rather maybe it's a lack of willpower.
[42:12] And so are the desires that we have leading us towards life with Jesus or away from Him? In Romans 1:24-25, it tells us, "Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own heart, to dishonor their bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who was blessed forever." Amen. And there's some people here this morning that have been feeding the flesh and starving the Holy Spirit for far too long. And some of you here are just exhausted. You're exhausted from chasing things that promise you some form of life and fulfillment and purpose and meaning, and yet it never delivers.
[43:08] Like that must be exhausting. It must be exhausting to feel owned by those desires that you've given into that you can now not escape from. Some of you have been following Jesus for so long and forgotten the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, that your life is more dominated by the works of the flesh than to the Holy Spirit. We read three works of the flesh. There's significantly more than that. I'd actually encourage you to actually read through what those are, 'cause it's more than just sexual sin. It's more than just sexual sin. It's desires that we have within us that when used outside of what God had intended for us, leads to pain and to suffering.
[44:02] And that pain and suffering isn't like a physical pain. It's a longing of feeling like we don't know what or why we were created. I think it's why so many men walk around with their heads down 'cause they feel purposeless because they can't find it in work. They can't find it in providing for their home. They can only find it in Christ Jesus. And so when we start exchanging the truth of God for a lie, when we start looking to created things instead of the Creator to give us life and identity and fulfillment, God gives us over, as Romans says, to those desires. And I wanna be incredibly clear here this morning. It is not because He does not love us, it's not because He stops loving us, but because He lets us feel where those roads actually lead.
[44:56] And at the end of those roads, as many have experienced and will testify, it leads to weariness and despair and dread and emptiness, a soul that feels heavy and alone. And that's why I believe the Holy Spirit is asking this morning, "Will you let me lead your heart again?" Crucifying the flesh isn't punishing yourself. It's not physically harming your own body. It's actually trusting God enough to say, "You know what? I was made for better than I do. You are the God that created the universe and the heavens and the earth and me. And so I'm trusting You to define how it is I live my life and what I desire and how I desire it more than myself."
[45:49] I want to encourage you, don't just try. If you try to stop wanting the wrong things, you will fail. You will fail. Let the Spirit of the living God teach you how to want or desire the things that you desire in the right way. Again, 'cause the truth is, it's not about behavior and modification. It's not about changing behaviors. It's about fixing the relationship of us saying, "God, I am not the God of my own life. I am not the God of my own life. God, You created me. I submit to You, I submit to the person of Jesus." And so this morning, my call is simple, it's to come and to crucify the flesh.
[46:35] What do I mean by that? How do I mean that? I mean, there's a lot of people that think that this battle happens alone. That this war happens alone. But I will tell you this, a war that is fought by a single person will always be lost. A war that is fought by a single person will always be lost. And so this morning, I'm gonna invite the prayer team to come forward. And if your life is a life that is marked by the works of the flesh instead of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and you're ready, and the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and saying it's time, it is time, I would encourage you to come forward.
[47:21] And if you're somebody who's not super comfortable with talking and sharing what's going on in your life, that's okay. What I still want you to do is I still want you to physically get up out of your seat and come forward. Even if you're not praying with anybody, if you're praying and crying out to God, I would encourage you to do that. But what I'll say is this, chances are if you are not willing to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and be obedient here and crucify your flesh, we've seen it time and time again. Chances are you're probably not gonna be willing to outside of these doors. And so as I pray and as the team leads us in worship, if you haven't met Jesus or you've backslid in and you're still longing for that meaning, I would encourage you to come forward and see what it is God might do.
[48:14] 'Cause the truth is, I can't project what it is God wants to do in your life. But I do know that there is a relational God who wants to know you. And so this morning I opened the invitation up to come and meet Jesus. Come and receive the Holy Spirit. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, almighty Counselor, You are a wonderful God. I just thank You and praise You for the gift of Your Son who was crucified on that cross, whose blood was shed for us so that we could be washed and covered and cleansed by His blood.
[49:08] God, we thank, I pray for anybody in this room that sexual lust has grabbed a hold of their lives and faithfulness to the one in whom God has called them to love feels restrictive. God, I just pray that they would meet Your Holy Spirit here. That would be God. I pray for those that, God, porn has just gripped the innermost quiet moments of their life. God, and I pray that they would meet Your Holy Spirit here this morning. God, I pray for those who maybe have defined themselves, whether spoken or unspoken, but effectively who have made themselves the God of their home life.
[50:04] God, I pray that they would meet Jesus here at this moment. God, I pray right now just over those who God, even just live in unbelief, or they're like, "I don't really know if this is real and this is true." And I, like, this message kind of freaked me out. God, I just pray through the power of Your Holy Spirit that they would meet Jesus here today. Jesus, You're so precious. Jesus, we love You. We worship You, and we praise You, all in the powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.