Why Faith Feels Like a Battle | Ken McIntyre

Many people want to love God fully but still feel stuck in an ongoing struggle. In this message, Pastor Ken explores why faith often feels like a battle and why that tension is actually part of the Christian life.

As we look at Galatians 5, we discover that freedom is not found in trying harder or giving up, but in learning how to walk by the Spirit each day. This message helps us understand the battle between the old us and the new life God gives us, and how to keep moving toward Him even when faith feels hard.

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Transcript

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- Hey, this is Phil Kal, lead pastor at Hope City Church. Thanks for tuning into our podcast. My prayer is that this helps and encourages you, gives you some practical ways to live out your faith and ultimately fills you with hope. Enjoy the message.- It takes a brilliant person to distill a complex thing into its simplest form. Michelangelo is known as one of the world's greatest artists, and he sculpted the statue of David 17 feet tall out of a single block of marble, extreme detail. We're talking about tendons in the hands, veins in the arms, even expression in the eyes. It is amazing the amount of skill and vision and determination to pull this off. It's nothing short of brilliant. And he was asked, how did you do this? How did you sculpt the statue of David? And he said this, I removed everything that wasn't David. It takes a brilliant person to distill something complex into its simplest form. Now, what's the opposite of that? It's someone who could take something really simple and make it really complex. Maybe you know someone like that. Maybe they're sitting beside you. Do not nudge them or else it will make your life more complex than it needs to be. In Jesus' day, religious leaders took God's law and overcomplicated it. They buried the heart of God under layers of tradition and interpretation and rules. And there's a story in the New Testament in Matthew 22, when these religious leaders, they approach Jesus and they ask him, out of all of the laws, which are 613, out of all of them, which one is the most important? Which one is the main thing? That's like asking a parent who your favorite kid is, right? Like you might have one, but you can't say it out loud or else you're gonna get in trouble. And that's what they were trying to do to Jesus. They're trying to get him in trouble because for the Jewish person, all of the laws were divinely given and binding. But Jesus says this anyway, he says, this is the main thing. He goes, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus is brilliant. He takes something seemingly complex and distills it into its simplest form. But the question we're trying to ask in this series is, well, how do you do that? How do I love the Lord my God, with all of my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind? How do I keep the main thing, the main thing today? I wanna look at the book of Galatians. Now, the apostle Paul wrote this book to the church in Galatia because they had drifted away from the main thing. And so this is, this is a course correction. It's a stern book. It's not a warm hug. Okay? This book is a wake up call. And the heart of the book has to do with freedom. And maybe the key verse being Galatians five chapter or chapter five, verse one that says this. It says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free, which I love. The reason why Christ has set you free is so that you would be free. Freedom is not a perk for the Christian. Freedom is the point. Now for Paul in this letter, he's juxtaposing Christian freedom against two extremes that we tend to drift towards. One being license and the other one legalism licenses. This idea of I'm just going to do whatever I want. And then if my conscience kind of bugs me, I'm just gonna pray the prayer and God will forgive me. And then rinse and repeat. Right License. And so this is what he says in verse 13. He says, you my brothers and sisters, you were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge in the flesh. Paul is talking about this real temptation to turn God's forgiveness of sin into permission, to sin, to twist God's grace into a get outta jail free card. We can knowingly even premeditate sin because we say in our hearts, well, God will forgive me anyway. That's not freedom. That's not freedom. Christian. Freedom is not the right to sin. It's the power to walk away from it. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, right, there's license, but on the other end is legalism. If license is saying, listen, freedom is ignoring God's law. That's how I get freedom. Legalism is saying, obeying God's law. That's how I earn freedom. And Paul really digs into this idea in Galatians, he's talking about how no external rule, no law can actually change. The internal law of a person cannot change your nature. Not guilt, not pressure, and no law. Those things, they'll modify your behavior, but they cannot change your heart. Here's what I mean. Do I have any lead footed drivers here? Yeah. Okay. I like that. Honesty in church, okay, lead footed drivers. Alright, what are speed limits to you? Okay, what are speed limits? They are suggestions for wussies, right? That's what a speed limit is. It's a suggestion for a baby, right? What do you really want? Lead for the drivers. You wanna go fast. That's your internal drive, that's your internal nature. No amount of speed signs or photo radar is going to change that. It might modify your behavior, but it will not change your heart. And so if Christian freedom, it's not license. And if Christian freedom is not legalism, well, what is it? Christian freedom is the internal change of your heart, which results in fully new desires. Primarily the desire to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. I know that you do not want divided loyalty in your life. You do not want a lukewarm faith or a halfway devotion. I don't. When it comes to your faith with Jesus, you want and you want to love the Lord your God with every Adam in your being. And so why is it so hard? If that's what you want, and it is for freedom that Jesus Christ has set you free to do that. Why is it so hard? Why don't you love God the way that you long to, I bet I'm naming attention that you walk through. There's a part of you that wants to love God with all you got. And then there's this other part of you that wants to sabotage that. It's like there's two yous and they're out a constant battle with one another. In Galatians, Paul names this fight, he calls it the flesh versus the spirit. Part of you wants to please God. That's the spirit part of you wants to please yourself. That is the flesh. So I'm gonna read you what seems like a a, a raw personal journal entry from Paul. It's messy, sort of comical. Uh, as you go through it, it just makes you laugh a little bit because you can see yourself in the text. This is what the apostle Paul says. He goes, I do not understand what I do for I what, uh, for what I want to do. I do not do. And what I hate I do for I know that good itself does not dwell in me. That is in my sinful nature for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out for I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil, I do not want to do this. I keep on doing. This is hard to read by the way. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it. But the sin living in me, we're gonna talk about that. So I find this law at work, although I want to do good, evil is right there with me for in my inner being. I delight in God's law. But I see another law at work in me waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. And then he says this, what a wretched man I am. Can you relate? Paul is describing a tension that every single Christian wakes up to. Tension isn't the right word. That's too soft. He, he, he says it right. He says it wages war inside of me. And if you are not a Christian, I'm glad you're here. But you will not understand this war. You can't. You could watch coverage of a war overseas and you might understand the headlines, you might even understand the history, but you don't feel the fear. You don't feel the fatigue. You don't feel the cost the way a soldier on the ground does. And so if you're not a Christian, this, this war between the flesh and the spirit, you're not gonna be be able to fully understand it. But you do need to understand that you are fighting a war. It's a different war. And it's a war that you might not even know that you are fighting. And the war is against God himself. It might not be full out hostility, but the Bible says that apart from Christ, we're not neutral towards God. Romans five even uses the word enemies. We are enemies with God. But hear me, it's not that God considers you his enemy for what kind of person dies for his enemy in Christ, Jesus died for you. No, no, no. It's not that God is resisting you. It's that you resist God for what is a war besides a clash of wills. A competition right over leadership over your life. So if you refuse to let God lead what is rightfully his, which is your life, you are at war with him. And you cannot win that war by fighting. And so this is a Christian life, one that stops fighting against God. The Christian life is one that gives in to God, submits to his love. And so when you become a Christian, you stop fighting that battle. It's no longer you versus God. But that doesn't mean you stop fighting. You just have a new battle. And it's you versus you. It's the old you versus the new you. This is how it works. When you become a Christian, something marvelous happens in your life. Ephesians one 13 says this, that when you believed, when you gave your life to Jesus Christ, when you made him the Lord and leader, when you repented from your old life and took upon Jesus' life when you believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit to be a Christian is to have God's spirit living in you at the moment of salvation. God's spirit took residence in your life and he breathes his life into your life. And the Bible says something amazing happens when, when that takes place. Two Corinthians five 17 says this, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone and the new is here. What's the old? The old is that part of you that used to fight God? That's not who you are anymore. You have gone from rebellion against God to a relationship with God like that's a 180. You have fundamentally and radically changed. Your very essence has changed. And we miss this. The fact that you want to love God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind tells me everything that I need to know about your spiritual condition. It lets me know that you are a new creation. It lets me know that God's spirit is in you. It's amazing thing. There's a theological word for this. The word is ontological. It means a change in essence, not just behavior, but in your very being. It's not that you're just acting differently. It's you or someone new back to my lead footed drivers. Okay? You're not off the hook yet. Remember, no amount of speed signs could change your heart could change your nature. Those external rules can modify your behavior, but they can't change your essence. And that's why God doesn't save with speed signs. He doesn't save with external rules. He saves us with himself, his spirit into us. And he changes us from the inside out. And so our desires change, our heart changes. Our very nature changes. Listen, before God, before you bent your knee to Jesus, you didn't want to please God. That wasn't on your radar, that wasn't on your vocabulary. But now you want that. When you hear Jesus say love your enemies, you think to yourself, I wanna be that type of person that makes sense to you. When you hear turn the other cheek, you're like, yeah, yeah, I get it. That makes perfect sense to you. When you hear Jesus say, take up your cross and follow me, you start giving an inventory and think, yeah, what parts of my life have I not submitted to Jesus life? It's like, who? Where did that come from? Not you that didn't come from you, but from the spirit of God that lives in you. That changed you to your very core. Not religious pressure, not guilt. It's a new life. And with that new life comes a new fight. Before Christ, it was you versus God after Christ. It's you versus you. The old you versus the new you. This is how Paul frames it in Galatians five, he goes, you, my brothers and sisters, you were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in the flesh. Rather serve one another. Humbly and love for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. This is gonna sound familiar. Love your neighbor as yourself. So I say, walk by the spirit and you'll not gratify the desires of the flesh for the flesh desired, which is contrary to the spirit and the spirit. What is contrary to the flesh. They're 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. There is the fight, right? Flesh versus spirit. Now, when Paul says flesh, he's not talking about the biological matter that constitutes your body. He's not saying that's the enemy. He's saying that part of you that wants to please yourself instead of God, that is the flesh. So then the million dollar question is this, how do I fight the old me? Right? How do I become more of the new me and less of the old me? How do I fight the old me and win? Paul tells us, verse 16, he says, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Walk by the spirit and you'll not give into the old you. You wanna win the battle against your flesh. You wanna win the battle against the old you. You wanna truly love God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. Bible's telling us walk by the Spirit. It's like, well, what does that mean for all of our uh, right-brained creative types here, driven by imagination and intuition. This makes sense to you. It's ambiguous and you love it. It's freeing. You go, yeah, I get it. Walk by the spear for, uh, the left brainin thinkers here who prefer a little bit more analysis and maybe logic. This is too abstract. Walk by the spirits. It doesn't make sense to you. And so let me help to walk by the spirit is to move with God. You go where God goes like a little child in a mall holding his parents' hand. You are to hold the hand of God and let him lead you. So how do you do that? How do you walk by the spirit? Okay, can you get nerdy with me for five minutes? Five minutes? Okay. Five minutes. That's all the phrase walk by the spirit in the original language, which is Greek. Okay? Uh, it, it shows us something that we don't get right off the bat, okay? He, the walk by the spirit is in the present active imperative. Meaning it's in the present tense, the active voice and the imperative mood. I am bad at many things in my life, but there are two things that I'm really bad at. Number one is understanding family trees. If you told me that you, uh, have a second cousin, you may as well be from outer space, okay? I do not for the life of me. Understand what that means. And if anyone comes up after the service to try to explain it to me, I will shut down emotionally and physically and relationally. I'll cut you off. I do not need your help. I don't care. I moved on. I just decided I'm bad at this. I'm bad at this. The other thing that I'm bad at is learning new languages. In my theological training, I've had to take, uh, five Biblical Greek courses and each course I've taken, I'd rather have lemon juice squirt in my eyes. I am so bad at it. I'm the worst student talent-wise, for sure. I have to work hard just to pass these classes. But I'm glad that I did it because sometimes you can see things in the original text that you don't see when it's translated into English. So the phrase walk by the spirit is in the present active imperative. Here's what this means. The present means now and continuous. It doesn't stop. So number one, walking by the spirit is daily. Meaning you don't just wake up one day and say, from here on out for the rest of my life, I'm going to walk by the spirit. That doesn't work like that. It's a day by day decision. It's better yet, it's a moment by moment decision to walk in the spirit and not the flesh. Am I going to gossip or am I going to guard that person's dignity? Am I gonna fire off that text or am I going to pause and pray? Am I gonna exaggerate or am I going to tell the truth? Walking by the spirit is a daily thing. It's in present tense. Secondly, it's in the active voice. So walking the spirit is daily, but it's also deliberate. Active voice means it's you who is doing the walking. This is probably the most important part of the message today. If you go away with anything, it's this, okay? The active voice, it's you who is doing the walking, meaning your parents do not walk by the spirit for you. Your pastor does not walk by the spirit for you. God himself does not walk by the spirit for you. It is you who has to do the walking. I think we can get confused here. We think that the spirit filled life right, that God living in us is passive and we shut down and we just think of us as this like shell, that God just animates and does stuff for us. God is not going to open up your Bible and read it for you. God is not going to call your friend and apologize on your behalf. God is not going to put the correct numbers in your tax return. You have to do it. God has changed your heart. God will lead you. But you have to walk. I saw a video online that I thought was an accurate and lighthearted way to depict how sometimes we- Think these spirit filled- Life- Is. And so- I have a golden retriever. And so this in particular resonates with me.'cause there, if you have one, you, you get it. But in this video, imagine- That God- Is this gentleman in the, in the cat and that we are golden retriever. Okay? I'm not saying you're a dog, but if there were golden retrievers, the- Cutest, okay? So- This is what we sometimes believe. The spirit filled life is life that we just, no, I'm just going to,- Yeah,- I'm just gonna- . He's gonna pick him up.- I'm not gonna do the walking. I'm just gonna let God carry me at. This is a Christian life. We go, thanks God. I'm gonna get carried, right? I've done this before. By- The way,- Right into the car. . I think we're tempted to think that this is a, this is a picture of the spirit filled life. It's passive, maybe even lazy. Paul doesn't command us to get dragged by the spirit. He doesn't command us to even get carried by the Spirit. He says, walk by the Spirit. Let me ask you this question. Who lives your Christian life? Is it you or is it God within you? Sounds like a trick question, right? Okay, let me ask you this. When you sin and everyone sins, do you say it's God's fault? Or do you say, that was me. Say it was me. Okay. When you do good, when you do a righteous act, do you say, that was me? No, you say that was God's work within me. So who is it then? Is it God or is it you? The answer is yes. I don't know how it works exactly. Here's what I know. The Christian life is 100% spirit dependent. You wouldn't even want to love God if it wasn't for the Holy Spirit. But the Christian life is not spirit. Automatic God leads, God empowers. But you have to choose to follow. You have to walk. So walking by the spirit, number one, it's present tense. So it's daily. It's in the active voice, meaning it is deliberate. And lastly, it's in the imperative mood, which means it is demanded. Walking by the Spirit is demanded. The imperative mood means it's a command. It's not optional. The Bible isn't saying, Hey, if you're in the mood, if you're having a good day, if you're, if you're feeling extra Jesusy today, walk by the Spirit. Now the Bible's saying this is how you survive as a Christian. You have to walk by the spirit. There's only two ways to live out your Christian life. You're either walking by the spirit or you're walking by the flesh. And if you're not walking by the spirit, then by necessity you're walking by the flesh and you cannot love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. If you're walking by the flesh. So it's demanded on you. You have to walk by the spirit. That's what it's saying. I know that's what you want. I know that's what you want to love the Lord your God, with every Adam of who you are. Pastor Phil, throughout the series has repeatedly said this. He says, if you don't choose your priorities, your pressures will. Meaning, if you don't choose to walk by the spirit, life is gonna pressure you to walk by the flesh. So walk by the spirit is three things. It's daily, it's deliberate, and it's demanded. Alright, nerd, nerd mode off. If you liked that, congratulations. You're a nerd. If you didn't like that, then you're lame. Okay? You gotta choose. Either you're lame or a nerd . Okay? Remember, the million dollar question that we're asking is this, how do I fight the old me and win? How do I fight the old me and win? And the Bible's answer is walk by the spirit. That's how we live. That's how we fight in our Christian life. I was hesitant to use the fighting imagery'cause I know that it wouldn't land with everybody because of the, you know, the violence and the world's a hard place, and there's enough violence. And Jesus is a person of peace, and, and that's true. He is the prince of peace. But it's nothing short of a fight, right? To make and to keep peace. Christians cannot just be known for their inner peace. Christians have to be known for their inner warfare. And so the question for the Christian is not, are you in a fight? Of course you are. The question is, are you fighting? Are you fighting? Or are you coasting? Are you fighting or are you compromising? Are you fighting? Or are you sleepwalking through your faith? Listen, if you wanna love God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, you have to fight for it. You have to fight for it. And every time that you show up at church, you fight. Every time that you pick up your Bible, you fight. Every time you get on your knees and cry out to God, you fight Every time that you repent and confess your sin. You fight every time that you worship God in spirit and in truth, you fight. Every time you give of your money to the work of the Lord, you fight. Every time you share your faith, you fight. So let me ask you this one question that I need you to answer. Is there any area of your life where you have stopped fighting? Not where you're struggling. There's a struggle, there's a fight. But any area of your life where you have made peace with sin, is there any area of your life where you have called a ceasefire on the flesh? Maybe you've stopped fighting for sexual purity. Maybe you've stopped fighting for intimacy with God. Maybe you've stopped fighting for integrity in your, in your business or in your relationships. Maybe you stopped fighting for a godly marriage. Maybe you stopped fighting for hope. When you've become bitter and a cynic and no one wants to be around you, maybe you stopped fighting to live a generous life. Is there any area of your life where you have stopped fighting? Listen, you need to understand this. You are not defeated in your Christian faith. The same spirit that rose Jesus Christ from the dead lives in you. You are not defeated, but you might be disengaged. And so this is your wake up call. Is there any area of your life where you have stopped fighting, reengage, walk by the spirit? Fight. Fight in a fresh way? The Apostle Paul, the very end of his life, he writes this letter to his son in the faith Timothy, these are the last words that we have recorded from the Apostle Paul, and he's looking over his life, the highs, the lows, and the struggles and the victories. This is the wretched man after a lifetime of battling between the flesh and the spirit. He says this, he says, I've fought the good fight. I've finished the race. I've kept the faith. There's a good fight and there's a bad fight for Christians. The good fight is flesh versus spirit. That's your battle. Now, walk by the spirit and fight. If you're here today and you are not a Christian, then you are fighting the bad fight. You are fighting against God himself, a fight for control and leadership over your life. You cannot win that fight by resisting him. You only win by submission. You only win by giving in. And so if you're here today and you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, stop fighting God. Stop running from God. Give into His love for your life. Give into the forgiveness that He wants to extend to you. Give in to His grace. Let me pray. Lord, I thank you for every soul in this room, or is listening to my voice online. Lord, for the brothers and sisters in faith who've made a confession of faith upon Jesus Christ, Lord, I pray that you would buy your Holy Spirit or reengage them for the battle that they are in, Lord, that they would not succumb to the flesh, Lord, that they would not walk in sin, but they, they'll walk in the Spirit. Lord, if there's any area of their life where they have called a ceasefire on that they have agreed and made peace with sin, that just Lord, right now, not even so gently, you would just in their heart right now, reengage them for the fight. Because the same spirit that rose Jesus Christ from the dead, you have put in us and we are so thankful for that. If it wasn't for you, Jesus, we wouldn't even want to serve. You wouldn't even be on our radar. But you have filled us with your spirit. You have made us new. And so we thank you for this new desire to love you with all of our heart, soul, strength in mind. Not guilt, not pressure, not law, not rules your very self. We thank you for this grace. Lord, I think of my friends here today who do not know you. God, I pray by your Holy Spirit that you have bring conviction into their life. Not guilt and not shame. That's not how you work, Lord. But you bring conviction to draw them unto you that you would let them know that they don't need to run, they don't need to fight, but God you love them, and that they would allow you to take rightful leadership over their life by putting their faith in Jesus Christ, our one and only savior, not by works, but by faith. So we pray this in your name. Jesus, we thank you for the work that you're doing in our hearts. We thank you for our word, your word that corrects us, and we ask for your spirit to be alive and at work in us. Lord, as we actively walk in the spirit daily, deliberate demanded, we thank you God. Amen. Amen. If you're here today and you wanted to make that decision to follow Jesus and allow him to lead your life, that, that's amazing. We wanna pray with you and help you do that. We're gonna have some team up here who would love to hear your story, know your name and pray with you. If you can't do that for any reason, you can tap that disc on the seat back in front of you, and that's gonna help you take that next step. Thank you so much for being in church today. Remember church fight, okay? If you wanna love the Lord your God, you gotta fight for it. Walk by the Spirit. We'll see you next week.