The Grace to Change

How to Find the Power to Change Anything in Your Life

1. Understand the corrupt and incorrigible nature of your flesh.

Romans 7:14-25 MSG

14 I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. 

15 What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. 

16 So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary. 

17 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! 

18 I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. 

19 I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.

20 My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. 

21 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. 

22 I truly delight in God’s commands, 

23 but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. 

24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? 

25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

Romans 7:22-24 NKJV

22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 

23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 

24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

2. Understand the purpose of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Romans 8:1-16 NKJV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 

3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 

4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 

6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 

8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 

10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 

11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. 

12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 

15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

Galatians 5:16-23 NKJV

16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 

17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 

20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 

21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 

23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

Four Categories of Sin in Galatians 5

A. Sexual Sin

B. Emotional Sin

C. Sins of Excess

D. Spiritual Sins

Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 

23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

John 16:13 NKJV

13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

Mark 11:20-24 NKJV

20 Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. 

21 And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.” 

22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 

23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 

24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

Romans 8:11 NKJV

11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Galatians 5:24-25 NKJV

24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to me through this message?

Jimmy Evans, Gateway Church