Naeane Church Sunday Message — The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost The Spirit's Leading Keeps Me From Chasing My Own Desires

August 11, 2026

Sunday Message — The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost

The Spirit's Leading Keeps Me From Chasing My Own Desires

Subtitle: The Place Where I Once Followed Jesus Becomes, Today, the Place Where I Am Led by the Spirit

Text: Galatians 5:16–18

Opening

This is the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, and I want to preach on this: the Spirit's leading keeps me from chasing my own desires.

Since the season after Pentecost runs all the way to twenty-seven weeks this year, we are staying with the Spirit as our subject, week after week. Our church doesn't really have a Sunday-evening service or a separate slot for Bible study, so we take the Sunday gathering itself and work through the Spirit one week at a time. That means you'll want to lean in on the one hand, and on the other, keep the thread of where we've been.

Today's key word is the Spirit's leading, and as always, I'll move through five questions.

One. How Did I Fight the Spiritual Battle This Week?

Last week we took up the fellowship of the Spirit. Put fellowship in today's language and it's communication — talking back and forth, I said. So this week I put real effort into communicating.

A Man Who Finds Talking Hard, Practicing How to Talk

My wife, who is right here beside me, has been someone who talks — really talks — for as long as I've known her. She started her walk of faith in her early twenties, and I've watched her call God Father with complete ease, no resistance in her at all, just talking to Him.

But talking has always been hard for me. To be honest, it still is. When I try to talk with God, I catch myself just sitting there blank. What do I even say? I get one sentence out, and the next one won't come.

I realized this, too, is something you have to train for. In my generation, you spoke to your parents in one-word answers. My mother especially was exacting and strong-willed — once she landed on a thought, she'd grip it and not let go. That's laid down at the bottom of me.

Don't say pointless things. Say only what's necessary. A man should sit there, solid and quiet. I heard that constantly as a boy. My father was the warmer one, and I was the baby of the family, so when I'd chatter this and that to my mother, she'd listen quietly and then say a man had no dignity carrying on like that. That's just lodged in me.

So when I go to pray, I want to be warm about it — and the moment I get one line out, this pressure rises up inside. Did you eat? How are you feeling today? How's the weather? That's a nice shirt. When I try to say things like that, up comes: should a man even be talking this way? It's my mother's image — I'm still held by it.

A Hundred Questions, as an Exercise

So this week, I made myself talk anyway. These days it's actually come a long way — I keep it going, how about this, what about that. This week I wanted to make it a habit, so I set it up deliberately: I'd put a question to God and sit with the answer, and I ran through something like a hundred questions that way, as an exercise.

I also have some children I look after at set times. So I practiced on them, too. I ask a four-year-old, did you eat? Yes. What did you have? This and that. How was it? Did you leave any on the plate? Just small, trivial talk — I keep asking, and they answer.

And here's what I felt: it's this kind of talking that stretches your thinking wider. Yet inside, I still didn't want to — my mother's image would rise up, a man, asking questions like that? — and I fought that fight all week.

Even in the Heat

There was one more thing that made the battle hard this week. Seoul hit forty degrees, didn't it. Step outside and the heat rolls over you like a sauna — and I don't even like saunas. Right when it felt like I couldn't breathe, to guard myself, I kept on: Jesus is the Christ.

Say it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.

Some people, when they set out to learn anything in this world, want to weigh it all up first and then learn. That's far too slow. While you're busy weighing it, the very motive to learn evaporates. The easiest way to learn anything is to go at it head-on, and when you hit something you don't know, then ask.

So asking in order to do it, and asking in order to avoid doing it, are two different things. In our walk of faith the first word is Jesus is the Christ and the last word is Jesus is the Christ. As you do that, when a question rises up inside, when the reluctance rises up — that's when you ask.

This week an eight-year-old was struggling with something, and even then I said, Jesus is the Christ, and the child looked up at me. It's the same when I'm in a bad mood. In the middle of something hard, something that grates on me, I call it out — Jesus is the Christ. There's no way around it. You have to do it. That's what carries you to the next step.

Two. Looking at the Whole of Scripture, What Was Most Central This Week?

The single most important thing in Scripture is Genesis 3:15. I no longer merely think this — I believe it. My life turned here, and I've seen that this is the thread running through the whole Bible.

A Phone Call With a Scholar at the Very Top

This week, over some matter, I spent an hour on the phone with a senior pastor who lives far away. In his field, academically, he's a man who has gone as far as anyone in this country. Everyone acknowledges it, and anyone worldwide who studies that field acknowledges his work.

And through that whole hour of conversation, a question mark sat in me. He has reached the academic summit — so what would he say is the very core of Scripture? I kept wanting to ask. To him it might sound like a naive question, the kind of thing you'd raise an eyebrow at.

But right now I'm here with you, and you and I are walking this road together. And what I believe is Genesis 3:15.

Why This Verse Is the Core

Because for us — for me — every problem is in here. On account of Genesis 3:1–5, the satan that was outside, the unbelief that was outside, the urge to make oneself god that was outside, the disease, the idols, the eternal curse that were outside — all of it came inside. And the biggest identity to move in was the satan himself.

So this has to change. Standing has to change, belonging has to change, and what's inside has to change, bit by bit. Some of it, admittedly, won't fully change until we die. That part only comes off in death.

The Place Where God's Name Disappears

Originally God had already given Adam and Eve His Spirit, and told them: keep watch here. And He gave them a direction for life. Genesis 1:27–28 — subdue the world by His word, and enjoy what He had already made.

But in Genesis 3 the satan, through the serpent, asks his question in the most appealing way. Did God really say you may not eat from any tree in the garden? If Eve had simply answered, He told us not to eat from this one, and left it there, that would have been the end of it. Instead she let her own thought in and began to look again. She took in her own reasoning — maybe it would be fine to eat it — decided by her own reasoning, acted, and then came the consequence.

Now catch this. Through Genesis 3:1–5, Eve still names the name of God. But after that, God's name is gone. Once the satan entered the human being, God drops out, and it's every man for himself — his own reasoning.

And what did the goal of life become? Making a name for yourself, establishing your own righteousness, wielding your own power, subduing the world. So immediately, in Genesis 4, comes murder; in chapter 6, a corrupt generation; in chapter 11, kings rising up to subdue the world for their own gain. That runs through the whole Old Testament and right down to now.

The Name God Gave Back

But God said, in effect: what you hold has its limits, so I will give you a name upon which My wisdom and My knowledge come. And He gave the name.

Say it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.

In Genesis 3:15, to the one who believes in the offspring of the woman — Jesus is the Christ — and, in Old Testament terms, to the one who brings the sacrifice, God gave wisdom and knowledge and a way and a direction, and led him.

Of course, it varies person to person. How much each one grasps differs. Even so, for Abraham, for Isaac, for Jacob, for Joseph — for those who followed that name — remarkably, God's way of leading them by wisdom and knowledge became visible. And you and I stand in that same line.

Three. Explaining Today's Text on the Foundation of Genesis 3:15

Today's text is Galatians 5:16–18. Galatians is a letter Paul sent to the churches of Galatia.

Galatia Is Not a City but a Region

Galatia isn't the name of a single city; it's the name of an administrative region. In today's terms, it's more like a whole province — the way you'd say a state, or a metropolitan area, rather than one town. In Acts 13 you see Paul, on his first missionary journey, going into this Galatian region. Inside it are Lystra, Iconium, Derbe, Pisidian Antioch. Bundle all those together and that's Galatia.

A Church He Planted and Left Quickly

Paul was young then. He went, preached the gospel, and after a few months he moved on. In Ephesus and Corinth he stayed a long time — Ephesus at least three years. But in the Galatian region the persecution and opposition were so fierce that, preaching to the Gentiles, he was all but driven out, staying only a few weeks or months before moving on.

So the people were left with only a beginner's grasp of the gospel when Paul pulled away. Still, the church held together.

And Then a Problem Arose

Suddenly a problem came up. Jews from Jerusalem — specifically Jews who believed that Jesus is the Christ — came into that Galatian region. They came into the church, worshiped alongside them, joined the discussions and the faith talk and the testimonies.

And they began to say: Yes, Jesus is the Christ, that's true. But you people — believing that Jesus is the Christ isn't enough on its own. From now on you have to keep the Old Testament law, too. You have to be circumcised.

Why did that land? The Galatians were all Gentiles. So the people they looked to as their model were the Jews. And the Jews had their distinctives — even the way they wore their hair — and above all, the men were all circumcised and kept the law. So these Jews came and started pressing them: now you have to keep the law too, you can't eat meat with the blood in it, you can't eat this or that, you have to keep the Sabbath. In short: believe that Jesus is the Christ, yes — but you have to add other things to it.

The Confusion Reached Even Peter

So these Galatian churches, who only had the foundation of the gospel, didn't know what came next, and they started getting confused. And it didn't stop there — the confusion spread to Antioch, and even Peter got caught up in it.

Paul wrote Galatians to set that confusion straight. Especially through chapters 1 to 4, he says, in effect: you people — it's already finished.

Say it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.

Becoming a child of God, meeting God, receiving His blessing, getting into heaven, having your prayers answered — the way to all of it is the fact that Jesus is the Christ, and faith in why He became the Christ. It is not something you reach by piling this and that on top. That's what Galatians sets straight.

And today's text, chapter 5, says this: now that you believe Jesus is the Christ and you're living from here on, the way is to be led by the Spirit. That's the short of today's text.

Four. The Part I Most Want to Draw Out of Today's Text

What "Leading" Means

Today's key word is leading. Unpack it in today's language and it's: giving direction, guiding, being the model, showing the way, walking alongside — maybe even acting as a navigation system.

From "Follow Me" to "He Leads"

In the Gospels, Jesus said to His disciples, Follow Me. And the disciples said, yes, understood, and followed. Back then, Jesus was visible.

But cross over into Acts, and that same Jesus has come inside — as the unseen Spirit. And the word shifts. Jesus said follow Me; of the Spirit, the word that comes up is He leads. Follow and lead are different. So the disciple's job shifts too: I will be led. That's it.

Following Had a Prerequisite, Too

When Jesus said follow Me, there was a precondition to following. First you had to believe in Jesus — as teacher, as Lord. And you had to make a decision: I will put His word ahead of my own thinking and follow it. After that, whatever you were doing — eating, sleeping, anything — you had to fix your attention on what Jesus did, the look on His face, the words He spoke.

And in the following, there was always an inner tug-of-war. A disciple carries his own habits, his own makeup, his whole background. And those keep colliding with what Jesus says. Sometimes his own thinking jumps out first. There's trial and error in it. Even so, going through that trial and error and still saying, inside, I'll follow His word more, I'll put it first — that very thing was the training, and that was the disciple's work.

Today, We Are in the Place of Being Led

Carry that over to today. Today the Spirit is described as leading. So our job is: I will be led.

But there's a condition to being led by the Spirit. Say it with me. Jesus is the Christ. I am a child of God. Every problem is finished. Satan, go. Filled with the Spirit. World evangelization.

This is the ground. First of all, you have to keep confessing that Jesus is the Christ. Because if you don't even believe that Jesus is the Christ, then you don't believe that the Christ has come inside as the Spirit either — and then what leading is there to speak of?

The Habit of Asking

As you live confessing that name, the Spirit within you keeps working through the events and circumstances of your life. You have your own thinking, your own opinions, your own judgments formed from all kinds of information, and you act on them. But there's one more thing to look at.

The Christ within — which way does He want to go here? Is this thought right or not, sound or not? Just ask, once. For someone with a foundation of faith it's once; but as it becomes a habit, you develop the habit of asking.

To ask is to assume the Christ's Spirit is within me, and to admit, up front, that His Spirit is wiser than I am. So you seek and ask and weigh the answer, ask and weigh again, and in that back-and-forth you choose which way to go.

Today Sits on Top of the Last Ten Weeks

We've come ten weeks now through the season after Pentecost. At the start, the Spirit's coming is the evidence that Jesus is the Christ; He came inside the disciples' bodies; and the reason He had to come inside is that every one of our problems happens in here. And He brings the Word to mind, leads us into truth, and gave us the standing of children — so that we're no longer servants gripped by fear but free. Then we said God has guaranteed it all, legally; and last week, that He gives us fellowship — that we can talk with Him.

But up to now, all of that has been stating a principle. Living from here on means constantly choosing and acting in front of new circumstances, new encounters, new events. And for that, what do we need? That's today's leading of the Spirit.

So what Paul says to the church in Galatia in today's text is this: up to now you lived however you pleased, by your own thinking — but the Spirit dwells in you now, so live being led by Him, asking Him. Only know this: the collisions inside you will keep coming.

Five. How Will I Apply Today's Message to My Life?

Say it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. World evangelization. World evangelization.

The Final Destination of the Leading Is World Evangelization

Today is the Spirit's leading. If the Spirit leads me, then He's leading me in some direction, toward some goal, with some purpose. So what is the ultimate purpose the Spirit leads toward? Acts 1:8 — world evangelization.

So this is something to settle in your heart first. The purpose I live for is world evangelization; the goal I live for is world evangelization; the direction I live in is world evangelization.

But that's not our default. Looking back at my own life, the thing running underneath was: make my name known, show off my ability, make a splash in the world — that had quietly become the goal. Yet Scripture says plainly, again and again, that world evangelization is the goal of my life, its value, the direction I'm to live in. So this has to be set at the very bottom, as the center. You have to have a direction — because a direction is what you actually move along.

Getting There: Personalization and Specialization

To move along that direction, there are things to prepare. Say it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.

The first is personalization. As the Spirit leads toward world evangelization, for you and me to carry that out effectively as individuals, the individual has to be evangelized first. And the individual's evangelization is the simplest thing of all: it comes down to how deeply, how closely, how far into your inner life you call out that Jesus is the Christ.

Put that way, the walk of faith is simple. But how you call it differs from person to person. Call it, and something comes to mind. Call it, and irritation rises. Call it, and a question surfaces — then you go and look into it. Call it and something surfaces: that means you're on the right track.

The second is specialization. The world is an age of specialization. All the more so now — with AI advancing, it's become an age of hyper-personalization. Even when sellers market a product, they don't build it for everyone; they build a landing page for that one person, tailor the product, pick the target, set the direction. So it's a formidable age, and an age where the individual is driven toward the hyper-individual.

That's why, looking at myself or at my children, there's something I always have to pray about: what can I specialize in further? What can I narrow down further? Not the whole crowd, but the person I'm actually meant for, the gift I actually carry — keep seeking it and narrowing it down. And that, too, only happens as you call the name: Jesus is the Christ.

Take Trial and Error as a Given

As you press on toward world evangelization and toward specialization, there will be plenty of trial and error inside you. Look at it plainly. When Jesus traveled with His disciples, were there no collisions? There were. Fights? Yes. Betrayal, even. And yet they mostly kept following. They'd follow, hit something hard, wrestle with it again.

So we have to take trial and error as a given. Trial and error is not failure; failing doesn't make you a sinner; and being a sinner isn't what sends you to hell. This is a stage you inevitably pass through as you go.

As you press toward world evangelization, toward specialization, some days you'll fail — it may even be one long stretch of failing. Things that fall out of step with the Spirit will keep coming up. Even so — I'll say it again — keep calling out Jesus is the Christ as you go. Take the failure as a given, take the mistakes as a given, take the collapse as a given, and go on talking, talking, talking with Him. Moving forward is what matters.

This Week, Walking Together

As it happens, this week we're traveling together, gathering under the name of a church camp. Going along together, sharing the road, and when something hard comes up, talking it through together; when a collision comes, talking that through too. In that collision, instead of gripping only my own thinking, weighing how the Spirit within is turning me back around — may this week be, for you, a time of being led by the Spirit.

Closing Prayer

Let us pray.

Father, as we live, we act and decide out of our own thoughts, our own feelings, our own information. But our information and our judgment always carry the limits of human experience.

Almighty God, You made this world and lead it and sustain it even now, and You have made past, present, future, and the soul itself. Open our thinking, always, and work in us so that we are led by the Spirit who lives within us.

At times we'll be stubborn, and we can't help stumbling and failing — but let us not collapse there. Through the Christ within, calling out the name, Jesus is the Christ, let it become a time of being restored again.

In the name of Jesus, who is the Christ, we pray. Amen.