How to be led by the Spirit of God comes down to one choice: stop trying to earn righteousness by keeping rules, and receive it as a gift while the Holy Spirit guides you day by day. In this final message of the series, Dr. William P. Hohman explains why law and grace cannot be mixed, why the law was given, and why a believer who is married to Christ instead of the law bears the fruit of the Spirit. It follows How to Be Led by the Spirit of God, Part 5 — The Inner Witness and the Still Small Voice.
Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, every Scripture he uses (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for walking with the Holy Spirit this week.
Sermon at a Glance
This service was held at the New Testament Church on the weekend of July 5, 2020, and posted on July 7. After worship, the offering and announcements, Dr. Hohman begins preaching at about the 27-minute mark and tells the church this is the last message in the series.
His prayer for the series, he says, is that believers would understand the importance of the Holy Spirit in everyday life, not only in a church service, and that they would learn what the Bible says about Him rather than only what a denomination teaches. The service closes with communion and a blessing.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Dr. William P. Hohman |
| Series | How to Be Led by the Spirit of God (final message) |
| Main text | Proverbs 3:5–6 and Romans 7:1–6 |
| Key theme | Righteousness comes by grace through faith, and the Holy Spirit is the guide who leads us in it |
| Length | About 103 minutes, with the message starting near 27 minutes and ending in communion |
Trusting the Holy Spirit With All Your Heart
The foundation text for the whole series is Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Pastor Hohman says that when we come to the place of trusting the Lord with all our heart, that is where He begins to direct us closely.
He recalls the example from the previous week. Paul was told not to preach in Asia, even though he already had a following there and could have raised support for his mission. Instead, in a vision, he was called to Macedonia (Acts 16:6–10). There he met a businesswoman in the textile trade, cast a mocking spirit out of a fortune-telling girl, was jailed, and saw the jailer and his household baptized.
Those people influenced Rome before Paul ever arrived, so a church was waiting for him there. Paul could have questioned whether a jail cell was really the Holy Spirit’s plan, but God had a plan. When we are committed that strongly to the Spirit’s leading, Pastor Hohman says, great things take place.
He then turns to Deuteronomy 28:1–2, where the blessings come upon those who diligently obey the voice of the Lord, and he notes that far more verses in that chapter describe the curses that follow when His voice is ignored. Faith comes by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17), but hearing His voice is more than reading ink on a page.
The voice of the Lord is God speaking to you, sometimes about something unrelated to the verse in front of you. He still urges daily reading, and he reads the Word out loud so that it is sown into his life and bears fruit.
The Five Ministries of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit does many things, Pastor Hohman says, but he summarizes five general ministries in the believer’s life. The table below follows his list.
| Ministry | What he does, as taught |
|---|---|
| Teacher | Teaches us the things of God |
| Remembrancer | Brings all things to our remembrance |
| Revealer | Brings understanding no one else could convince us of |
| Administrator | Carries out everything the Father has decided for your life |
| Guide | Leads and guides us into all truth |
To explain the administrator, he uses a corporate board. The board decides what is to be done and the administrator carries it out. An administrator who announces he has decided to do something different is not a good one. Jesus was the perfect administrator, because He only did what He saw the Father do and said what He heard the Father say. The Holy Spirit administers the Father’s plan in the same exact way.
In John 16:13, the Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth. Sometimes, Pastor Hohman says, that guidance puts us in a position where things in our lives are dealt with. Other times it gives us liberty for expression. He has learned to love even the first kind, because if he yields, a time of blessing and expression follows.
Romans 8:14 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” He stresses that the tense is continual. It does not describe one trip to the altar but a life of being led. The word sons speaks of maturity: a son of God is battle-ready to take ground and hold ground, and that requires being regularly led by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is exact and will not vary from the Father’s will, he adds. That is why he loves people of faith who are willing to jump in and follow, and why he says he will never let anyone who is blind criticize his vision.
Two Ways to Righteousness: Law or Grace
The heart of the message is that Scripture describes two ways to obtain righteousness, and only one works. If you try to receive righteousness by the law, you cannot receive it by grace, and if you receive it by grace, you cannot receive it by the law. After more than thirty years of pastoring, Pastor Hohman observes that many churches, Pentecostal, fundamentalist and mainline alike, try to mix the two.
The result is a trap. A person gives their life to Jesus, rejoices that He accepted them, and then believes they had better perform or they will lose it all. Living by the law, he says, means keeping all the rules all the time. Miss one point and you lose and pay the penalty.
He points to the first person who broke the law after it was given at Mount Sinai: a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath, likely because he was cold, who was put to death (Numbers 15:32–36). The law was never given so that we could obtain righteousness. What God desires is a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:16–17).
Grace, by contrast, cannot be earned. Churches that live between law and grace, he says, are like a twelve-year-old caught between childhood and the teenage years, and they end up receiving very little.
Grace is received one way, by faith. Ephesians 2:8–9 says we are saved by grace through faith, not of works, lest anyone should boast. God simply gave you a new life and made you a new creation. Romans 5:17 adds that those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through Jesus Christ.
Reading it in the Amplified Bible, Pastor Hohman says we will reign as kings in this life. A king does not carry money, because everything is subject to him. Our own understanding tells us that more work earns more, but in the kingdom of heaven we learn to receive. The Holy Spirit makes that possible, because He leads us in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake (Psalm 23:3).
Why the Law Cannot Make You Righteous
Pastor Hohman reads Deuteronomy 27:26 from the Amplified Bible and then shows Paul quoting it in Galatians 3:10: as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. Everyone who lives under the law will miss it. James 2:10–11 goes further: whoever stumbles in one point is guilty of all.
He applies it to himself with a smile: one small slip in his own words that morning would, under the law, make him guilty of everything, from lying to murder. Many born-again believers, he says, still think they did nothing to be saved but now cannot afford to slip, and they have not yet received the revelation Paul gives.
Galatians 3:11–12 says no one is justified by the law in the sight of God, for the just shall live by faith. He shares that he smoked cigarettes as a kid, and when he stopped, God was not impressed as though that made him righteous. Feeling good about yourself because of what you did puts you back under a curse.
Romans 3:20–26 explains that by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law only points to our failure. He illustrates with the strawberries his wife and daughter had just picked: tell yourself not to think about strawberries and shortcake, and they are all you think about. Focusing on the sin keeps it in front of you.
Any favor we receive comes from God, not from how smart or good we are. Jesus, as King, paid the temple tax by sending Peter to catch a fish with a coin in its mouth (Matthew 17:24–27).
Romans 3 calls Jesus our propitiation, which Pastor Hohman explains as the mercy seat: Jesus became the redeeming sacrifice for our sins. God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). Sin is first a nature, he teaches, and stealing, cheating and manipulating are its fruit. Jesus had no sin nature, yet He took all our sin so that we would be gifted with His righteousness.
So the law was given to show that we are sinners who have missed the mark and desperately need a guide. Some people spend decades trying to shake a habit and cannot, but the Holy Spirit brings righteousness. Galatians 2:16 sums it up: a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.
Married to Christ, Not to the Law
Pastor Hohman reminds the church of what Jesus told the disciples before the cross: He would not leave them comfortless but would send the Holy Spirit (John 14:18). Every religion has its own system of works for achieving righteousness, he says, and all are equally wrong. God accepts us when we have faith in Jesus as our propitiation.
Faith acts. The Lord once told him, he says, to just do something, even if it turned out to be wrong. He describes a staff member who, after two years, still had nothing to report because he never felt he had enough information, and who was let go. Faith without works is dead (James 2:26), and some of his own mistakes made in faith God turned into his best work.
Jesus confronted the religious leaders who looked good outside but were like whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones (Matthew 23:27). Pastor Hohman quotes Derek Prince, who said that many Christians live in a twilight between law and grace, and “they usually get the worst of all worlds.”
The answer is Romans 7:1–6. A wife is bound to her husband while he lives, but if he dies she is free to marry another. In the same way, believers have become dead to the law through the body of Christ so that we may be married to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, and bear fruit to God. Keeping the law does not stop sin; it actually stirs up sinful passions.
Jesus came into the Jewish nation, where the law was given, lived under it without sin, and died to it on the cross, so that all people could be married to another. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). Married to the law, we bring forth the fruit of the flesh. Married to Jesus, we bring forth the fruit of the Spirit.
It is not what we try to do but what we are united with that determines how we live, he says. When we are united to Jesus, we are united to liberty, blessing and righteousness. Romans 7:7–11 shows that the commandment stirred up desire, much as Adam was shown a garden full of blessing and then a single forbidden tree.
How to Be Led by the Spirit of God: The Map or the Guide
In Romans 7:18–20, Paul admits that in his flesh nothing good dwells, and that the root problem is sin dwelling in him. Religion keeps your eyes on the sin, Pastor Hohman says. Paul says to fix them on the Liberator, Jesus Christ, and on the Holy Spirit, until walking with Him becomes a love affair and old desires lose their pull.
Galatians 5:18 says, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” Religion works by the law, but the kingdom of heaven works only by a personal guide. That is the practical answer to how to be led by the Spirit of God: build a relationship with the Guide.
He illustrates it with a trip through a primitive country you have never visited. At the airport you are offered two choices for a journey of several weeks. The table summarizes his comparison.
| Option | What it offers | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| A map | You arrive safely only if you follow it perfectly; any mistake exposes you to deadly dangers | The law |
| A personal guide | Someone trained his whole life on that route, who knows the good things along the way and guarantees your arrival | The Holy Spirit |
The journey with the guide may still be hard, because you have never been that way before, but it is filled with good things. This is why Proverbs 3:5–6 matters so much, he says. Yielding to the Holy Spirit opens your ears to the greater way. When you follow with carefree abandon, revelation is written on your heart, and even in the midst of trouble God takes care of you.
The service ends with communion from 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. Pastor Hohman reminds the church that it is done in remembrance of Jesus, not of our struggles, shortcomings or ailments. Christianity, he concludes, is not performance; what matters is faith.
Living Led by the Spirit This Week
Here are practical steps drawn from this message:
- Trust with all your heart. Bring each decision to the Lord and refuse to lean on your own understanding, as Proverbs 3:5–6 teaches.
- Read the Word out loud. Read your Bible every day and listen for the Lord’s voice, not just the words on the page.
- Stop mixing law and grace. When you catch yourself trying to earn God’s approval, thank Him instead for the gift of righteousness.
- Look at the Liberator, not the sin. Like the strawberry example, fixing your mind on a habit feeds it; fix your eyes on Jesus.
- Act in faith. Do something with what God has shown you, even if you might make a mistake, rather than waiting for perfect information.
- Spend quiet time with the Holy Spirit. Tell Him you love Him and ask Him to show you how to become more intimate with Him.
Timestamped Outline
- 27:27 The final message in the series begins
- 32:15 Foundation text: Proverbs 3:5–6
- 33:22 Paul’s call to Macedonia
- 36:40 Deuteronomy 28: obey the voice of the Lord
- 38:51 Hearing His voice, not just reading
- 40:12 Five ministries of the Holy Spirit
- 42:28 John 16:13: He will guide you
- 43:37 Romans 8:14: continually led
- 47:56 Two ways to obtain righteousness
- 50:39 The man gathering sticks on the Sabbath
- 53:29 Ephesians 2:8–9: saved by grace
- 54:49 Romans 5:17: reign in life
- 59:17 Galatians 3:10 and James 2:10
- 1:05:07 The strawberry illustration
- 1:10:12 He became sin for us
- 1:19:48 Faith acts: do something
- 1:22:19 Romans 7: married to another
- 1:27:26 United to the right person
- 1:33:17 Galatians 5:18 and the guide analogy
- 1:38:25 Communion and closing blessing
How to Be Led by the Spirit of God Series
This is the closing message of the series at NTC Ministries. Start from the beginning or review the previous teaching:
- First message: How to Be Led by the Spirit of God, Part 1 — Born Again by the Holy Spirit’s Leading
- Previous: How to Be Led by the Spirit of God, Part 5 — The Inner Witness and the Still Small Voice
- You are here: How to Be Led by the Spirit of God #7 — Righteousness by Grace, Not by the Law
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this message mean obedience no longer matters?
No. Pastor Hohman opens with Deuteronomy 28 and the blessing that comes from obeying the voice of the Lord, and he warns against using grace as an excuse to live a loose life. His point is about the source of righteousness. Obedience flows from being led by the Holy Spirit and united with Jesus, not from trying to earn God’s acceptance by perfect performance.
Why does he say sons of God speaks of maturity?
He teaches that every believer is born again by the Holy Spirit, but Romans 8:14 describes people who are continually being led. In his reading, a son is a mature believer, ready for battle, who can take ground and hold ground. Growing into that maturity requires being regularly led by the Holy Spirit rather than following Him only now and then.
Why does the service end with communion?
Communion remembers Jesus’ body broken and His blood shed for the remission of sins, which is the gift of righteousness the whole message describes. Pastor Hohman tells the church to take it in remembrance of Jesus, not of their hardships or failures, and prays that the Holy Spirit would fill them and make His voice clear.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- Proverbs 3:5–6 — trust in the Lord with all your heart
- John 16:13 — the Spirit of truth will guide you
- Romans 8:14 — led by the Spirit of God
- Ephesians 2:8–9 — saved by grace through faith
- Romans 5:17 — the gift of righteousness
- Galatians 3:11–12 — the just shall live by faith
- Romans 7:1–6 — married to another
- Galatians 5:18 — not under the law
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
Watch More Messages
If this message helped you walk more closely with the Holy Spirit, there are hundreds more teachings from NTC Ministries to explore. Browse the full sermon archive and keep growing in the grace God has given you.
