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This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. He says in verse 13, for brethren, you've been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another for all the laws fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now look, before I get into more scripture, I've hit you with a whole bunch of scripture here. I'm bombarded with scripture right there. Now let me just explain this to you in my own words to help you understand the concept of what Paul is teaching here when he says, look, if you began in the Spirit, you're not going to be made perfect in the flesh. Salvation is by faith in Christ, but once we're saved, how do we grow as a Christian? How do we become a better person? How do we grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? He doesn't want us to stay a babe in Christ. He doesn't want us to continue in sin. God forbid that we would continue in sin, right? He wants us to grow and become perfected and mature and become complete in our walk with God. How do we get there? How do we arrive? Is it the works of the law that are going to get us there? Let me ask you this. Do you become a great Christian by reading all the commandments in the Bible and deciding, I'm going to obey these commandments and forcing yourself to obey commandments? Is that the way to become a great Christian? Well, if you think so, you're being like the foolish Galatians at that point, okay? If you're going to sit there and say, yeah, you just, you get the list of, this is what I'm supposed to do, this is what I'm not supposed to do, and then if I force myself to follow these rules, I'm going to be a good Christian at that point. Is that what the book of Galatians is teaching? No, the book of Galatians is teaching that the way to be a good Christian is to walk in the Spirit and the Holy Spirit changes you from the inside and then you follow the commandments. You love God. You love your neighbor. You see, all the law is fulfilled in this one word, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. See, according to the Bible, if your heart is right, you don't even need the law. Why? Because you're not going to steal. You're not going to kill. You're not going to commit adultery. You're not going to covet. You're not going to bear false witness. Those are all things that come from the wrong heart. When you're walking in the Spirit, when you're led of the Spirit, you will intuitively do the right thing. You will by nature do the right thing when you're walking in the new nature, when you're walking in the new man, when you're walking in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one that is going to give you victory over sin in your life. That's going to lead you into a righteous life. The works of law can't get you there. Just like the law can't get you saved, the law can't get you sanctified either. Just having a list of rules. And look, let me ask you this, you know, if you're skeptical, okay? And I'm going to show you a lot of scripture on this. Let me just ask you this, okay? If you're a mature Christian, if you're advanced in your Christian life, do you really go through life saying, well, you know, I'd like to kill, but I'm not going to because the Bible says thou shalt not kill. I'd like to steal, but I'm not going to because the Bible says not to. I'd like to lie and cheat. I would love to commit adultery, but you know what, the Bible says not to. I mean, I would love to stay home from church and skip soul winning and not read my Bible, but the Bible says I have to, so I'm going to. Is that a mature Christian life? No. The mature Christian doesn't even want to steal. He doesn't want to kill. He doesn't want to commit adultery. He wants to read his Bible. He wants to go to church. He wants to do what's right because his heart is filled with love for God and love for his neighbor through the working of the Holy Spirit. Now you're not going to be perfect, and if anybody tells you that you get to a point where you're perfect and sinless, they're a liar. It's the Apostle Paul who's writing the book wasn't even there. He had a struggle with sin according to Romans 7 that we'll get to later. He struggled with sin. He tells us in the Book of Galatians, the flesh lusteth against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. There's a battle going on. There's a war going on. You got to mortify the flesh. You got to walk in the spirit. You got to die daily. So don't let somebody tell you, oh yeah, you just get to a point where you're totally without sin. You're not going to be sinlessly perfect. John said if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. God chastens those whom he loves and scourges every son whom he receiveth. Well guess what? If you were doing everything right, you wouldn't need to be chastened and scourged. He's not beating you for doing a good job. That's when you mess up, right? But you're a son of God. You're being disciplined like a father disciplines a son. But the point is that if we walk in the spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So if somebody is fulfilling the lust of the flesh, stealing, lying, lusting, bearing false witness, whatever, that's just a guarantee that person is not walking in the spirit while they're doing that.