Walking by the Spirit: Galatians 5:16-26

The sermon text this morning comes from the book of Galatians, chapter 5, verses 16 to 26.

Galatians 5:16–26

If you're new with us just recently, we are going through this year one week a month, the promises of God, praying in a promise from God, of God, and asking God to help us to live it out.

We have just one more week.

Next month is our last month.

It's been a good year of studying the promises of God, praying in the promises of God and living them out.

And here we have one before us this morning from Galatians 5.

Hear the word of God.

I say walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do.

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

Now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things, there is no law.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another or envying one another.

This is the reading of God's perfect and powerful and beautiful word.

Let's ask the Spirit's help.

Father, thank you.

Thank you for this letter to the Galatians.

Thank you for this letter to us in Alexandria in Washington, D.C.

You know how much we need to hear this truth.

Holy Spirit, would you please open wide our minds to understand, our hearts to believe, our wills to choose, Lord, to live according to your spirit in the ways that we see here this morning.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

Yes, there is a promise here.

Can you find it?

Where's the promise?

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

And you might be thinking, well, that's not the kind of promise I generally think of when I'm looking for promises.

You might be thinking, I'm thinking about promises of what God will give me or what God will do for me.

Well, that disqualifies, even by that definition.

This verse has both a command and a promise.

And we must see that both are given here.

The command is to walk in the Holy Spirit.

The promise is that when we live a spirit-filled life, we will live holy lives.

The promise is emphatic in the language: you will not sin.

You will not be under the control of sin.

We will sin until the day we die.

We will not eradicate sin fully in this life until we see Jesus.

And yet, the scriptures are very clear that it's possible to live a life that's not under the control of the Spirit, to walk in disobedience to the Lord.

And that's not good.

That's not for us.

There is, so, so really here's the question: How do we live this kind of life?

How many sermons have you ever heard on this subject?

How do you live this kind of life?

This is important.

Very important to us.

The first point from the text is very simple.

There is a person that the Lord has given to us to live this life.

And that person is the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit.

He has given us a person that we might live such a life.

Seven references in this short text to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit dwells within every Christian.

The Bible teaches that very clear.

He is called the Holy Spirit.

Now, why is that?

Do you ever ask yourself, why is he called the Holy Spirit?

Well, for at least two good reasons.

Number one, he is holy.

He is completely, utterly, fully holy.

There's no unholiness in him.

Or on Westminster standards say that there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And these three are one.

The same in substance, equal in power and glory.

Fully God.

No less God than God the Father or God the Son.

The second reason why we call him the Holy Spirit is his job is to make you holy.

His job is to make me holy.

Did you know that?

That's his calling.

Ephesians chapter 1, verse 19, the apostle Paul says to the church at Ephesus that the same power that raised God, God's Son from the dead, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power at work in you.

Ephesians 1:19

Did you know that?

If he can raise, if the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, what can he raise us up to to become?

We need to think about that.

We are not left to ourselves to grow in holiness, friends.

Sanctification is a process of day, of dying daily to sin, growing more like Christ, but this requires supernatural help.

This is not a self-effort program.

It just isn't.

And God gave us all the help that we need.

In a person, not just a concept, not just an ideal.

He gave us a person, your best friend, who lives inside of you, who knows you best, who wants the best for you.

And he knows how to make you and me look more like Jesus.

No, this does not help happen by self-effort.

Sanctification comes by grace through faith just as much as justification.

I find there's a lot of confusion in our churches and in our PCA churches.

I think there's a lot of confusion.

And maybe there's some in your mind today.

Well, how does this all work?

I know I'm saved by grace through faith.

I know that.

The Bible's very clear, but did you know it's just as clear?

That you're sanctified by grace through faith.

You're not sanctified by your works.

You weren't saved by your works.

Okay?

Are you getting a little bit more interested in this?

How does this work?

How does this work in your life, in my life?

There's a person.

We're not going to take the time to do it now, but boy, let me encourage you, sometime maybe today, to go back to read Romans chapter 7 and Romans chapter 8.

Romans 7 · chapter mention Romans 8 · chapter mention

It'll take you about 10 minutes.

It's not that long.

Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

Some of you remember that.

The Apostle Paul is lamenting the fact that so often he doesn't do what he really wants to do deep down inside of his heart.

And there's good things that he wants to do that he doesn't do.

And the word law is referenced 31 times in Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

And the Apostle Paul says, in my worst moments, why can't I live the kind of life sometimes I want to live, but I can't.

He ends the chapter by saying, Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from all this?

The Lord Jesus Christ.

And there's this huge divide in transition from chapter 7 to chapter 8 in Romans.

Huge.

This is like, you know, this big divide.

Chapter 8, verse 1, therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

In chapter 8, the Holy Spirit is referenced 19 times.

Chapter 7 of Romans is mostly about indwelling sin.

Chapter 8 is about the indwelling spirit.

We must understand this.

Okay, let's let's study, let's get deep into the weeds of this because this is important.

We all know about indwelling sin, don't we?

Sadly.

We all know about indwelling sin.

Not doing what we want to do sometimes.

Not doing what we know we should do.

Doing what we don't want to do sometimes, that wrestling match, that war that takes place within the heart of every Christian.

By the way, that war is not in the non-Christian until they become a Christian.

Bible's very clear about this.

The war begins when you come to Christ.

And now you have two natures.

Now you have a new nature for the first time in your life.

You weren't born with that new nature.

You received that new nature the moment that you believed that Jesus Christ was your Savior and your Lord, and you came to new life.

And now you have this new nature.

And this new nature is at war, as he says, with the old nature, and the old nature is never going to completely be gone until you die.

So how do we battle the new nature, battle the old nature?

That's a good question.

The Holy Spirit's very concerned to answer.

Friends, I fear that we may know much more about indwelling sin than the indwelling spirit.

And that is very sad.

And that is very harmful to us.

I have a hunch that for some of us this morning, if we're going to be honest, we're going to say, I know a lot more about my indwelling sin.

It haunts me a lot.

It reminds me.

It confuses me.

Sometimes it leaves me in a pool of tears.

The way that I hurt the people that I love.

What do you know about the indwelling spirit?

Unless we understand what the scriptures say about the indwelling spirit, you're going to be, you're going to feel like you're under the weight of your indwelling sin for the rest of your life.

That's not for you.

This passage is about the indwelling spirit.

There's a person that was given for us.

We were not left to ourselves to live an obedient life to Jesus.

We can't do it by ourselves.

Jesus sent his own spirit after he ascended to heaven to us, for us, and he makes all the difference in the world in this fight within us.

There is a person.

There are different words, multiple words that the New Testament uses to describe him.

One word won't do.

Some of these truths are going to just ring through my heart this week.

My God is reconciled.

His pardoning voice I hear.

He owns me as his child.

I cannot longer fear.

I'm taking those words with me this week.

I am.

By the power of the Spirit.

Spirit, massage that truth into my mind and my heart in a new way this week when I'm at the grocery store tomorrow.

When I'm watching a ball game, when I'm with my family, when I'm at work.

Massage that truth.

Wrestle it down into my life.

He owns me as his child.

I can no longer fear when I believe that.

Oh, there's a person given to us who gives us the desire to obey God, who gives us the power to obey God, who makes Jesus look beautiful to us, who makes God look faithful to us, and when God looks good to us, sin looks bad.

It's always the case.

When God doesn't look good to you, sin will look good.

Have you figured that out yet?

It's really a theology thing.

When we're just overwhelmed by our indwelling sin, we're really questioning God's goodness every time.

God, you you haven't given me certain things that I think I need.

Am I really left to myself to go find the things that I need?

Are you just saying it's up to me to find peace and comfort on my own?

We all know what that looks like.

So let me ask you this.

What do you know about the Holy Spirit?

J.I.

Packer said in his book, Keeping Step with the Spirit, he said this at the beginning of the book.

Sharon and I start every walking in the spirit class every year with this quote from J.I.

Packer.

So I ask you now to check before God your willingness to learn this new supernatural lifestyle.

At whatever cost to your present way of life.

For there is nothing so spirit-quenching as to study the spirit's work without being willing to be touched, humbled, convicted, and changed as you go along your way.

Oh, I need to hear that.

Over and over.

Don't audit the Holy Spirit.

Take this one for credit.

Do your work.

Study.

Cry out.

Ask Him, Holy Spirit, would you please reveal yourself to me in new ways that will make a change in the way that I live my life day to day?

Secondly, there's not only there's not only a person, but there's a power that's available to us through the Spirit.

There is this battle raging within us.

Verse 17, for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.

And the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.

They hate each other.

Did you know that?

I'm serious.

They hate each other.

And you're caught in the middle.

They're not on speaking terms.

Your flesh wants to kill you.

Your flesh wants to ruin your life.

Your flesh wants to take down the people that you love.

Your flesh is alive and well, unfortunately.

But the good news is so is the Holy Spirit.

And the Spirit is stronger.

And then the Apostle Paul says this, and they are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do.

And then Paul says, now the works of the flesh are evident.

He lists these weeds, these works of the flesh.

Pride, envy, lust, greed, jealousy, an angry, critical spirit.

Yes, the works of the flesh are evident, aren't they?

If not always to us, to the people who live with us.

The works of the flesh are evident.

And sometimes our spiritual senses are so dulled that they're not evident to us.

Sometimes it feels good.

The key word is it feels good.

It's not good.

And we don't see it.

And we don't see the damage that we're doing to ourselves, or we don't see the damage that we're doing to the people that we love.

Paul says that the works of the flesh are evident.

Oh, we feel this war every day, do we not?

Did you want to come to church this morning?

I don't know.

Did I want to?

Did the preacher want to come to church this morning?

Well, actually, I did.

Do you want to be in control?

Do you like being in control?

Or at least the illusion.

The illusion of being in control?

Do you like that?

That could be kind of addicted, can't it?

You're like, I like being in charge.

I like telling people what to do.

I'm pretty good at it.

Uh-oh.

That's the flesh winning.

Do you just need to win arguments?

Does that kind of make you feel like you just got a little self- a little religion?

It gives you a high when you just win argument after argument after argument.

You're feeling pretty good.

That's the indwelling sin.

And the apostle Paul says this I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Boy, if we're sleeping, that'll wake us up, I hope.

He's not saying those who sin will not inherit the kingdom of God.

What he's saying, it's very clear in the language.

Those who are controlled by indwelling sin, those who are controlled by indwelling sin are not going to heaven.

Let that sink in.

That's not the message being preached in a lot of pulpits today.

That's what he said.

I don't want to be controlled by my flesh.

Lord, deliver me.

Show me.

Give me.

Give me a person.

He says I did.

Give me a power.

He says, I am.

Don't be that person who says, Oh, thank you, Lord, for saving me.

Now we're good, right?

We're good.

You saved me, and now we're good, and now I can.

It's not that big a deal when I live according to my flesh, is it, Lord?

It's not really that big of a deal.

My pride is not that big of a deal, right, Lord?

He'll never say yes to that.

My self-control is not that big of a deal, Lord, right?

No, it is.

My self-righteousness, my unbelief, my pride.

It is a big deal.

It's time that we wake up and realize that and believe that and cry out for deliverance.

Because there are consequences to these things.

It's true.

Paul says just a couple chapters earlier in Galatians chapter 3, verse 3, he asked the Galatians, and these are people that were saved by grace through faith.

Galatians 3:3

They got a good start, and then they really got messed up.

Some false teachers came in and started teaching, adding some works.

Well, you were saved by grace, but you know, it really is up to you ultimately.

You're in charge of your destiny.

It's up to you.

And just to convince yourself and just to convince God that you really are saved, you need to do a lot of good works.

So get out there and start doing good works.

Paul says that's not Christianity.

You know what he says in Galatians?

He says, I wish those teachers would go emasturate themselves.

What does he say in chapter 3, verse 3?

Are you so foolish?

After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

Those are sobering words.

Every Christian knows that the beginning of that spiritual life comes from the Holy Spirit.

He says, you started the Christian life well.

You knew that.

You know that it was the Holy Spirit that gave you faith to believe.

You know the Holy Spirit that brought you to confess your sins to Jesus.

But what does it look like now?

After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

Man, those words haunt me sometimes.

Is that true?

Am I trying to grow as a Christian by my human effort?

And not by the person of the Holy Spirit?

Those are words that I need to listen to.

It's been said that, well, the battle between the old nature and the new nature is like two sumo wrestlers in the ring.

Two big, big sumo wrestlers in the ring, trying to throw each other out of the ring, right?

I've heard that illustration used before.

It's kind of like the battle between the flesh and the spirit.

Who's going to get thrown out of the ring?

May the Holy Spirit give us eyes to see that the war within us can do great damage to our souls and to others.

Verse 24 of this text.

But those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Now, one thing that's important to know in the language, it's in the air is tense.

That means it's a past action.

Something happened decisively at one point in time in your life.

What is he referring to?

Look at verse 24.

When you become a Christian, at that moment that you come to Christ, what happened?

You crucified your flesh.

Now, you might be confused, you might say, but Tom, you're telling me that the flesh still lives.

Yes, the flesh does still live.

What does it mean?

In some mysterious yet decisive way, when we come to Christ, we say, God, take all of my flesh, take all of my sin, and forgive me, please.

Don't let me look any longer be a slave to sin.

I want to be a slave to righteousness.

Okay?

The moment you came to Christ.

What he's saying symbolically is you took a big old hammer.

I took a big old hammer when we came to Christ, and we said, nail this to the cross.

Jesus, you died for this.

You died for all of my sin.

Did you know that happened?

The moment you came to Christ.

But then he says, Paul says in Colossians chapter 3, verse 5, put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature.

Colossians 3:5

Daily put to death.

So was it past tense?

Yes.

Is it present tense?

Yes.

It's both.

But then we read Galatians chapter 2, verse 20.

Galatians 2:20

For I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

And the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Okay, stay with me.

That's a different side of the coin.

When we came to Christ, we were crucified with Christ.

Jesus took all of our sin.

That's true.

He took all the penalty of our sin.

But we still have to resist the power of our sin day by day by day.

They're both true.

And so we say, well, what do we how do we deal with that day by day by day?

One theologian years ago said, crucifixion produced death not suddenly but gradually in the practical sense.

True Christians do not succeed in completely destroying their flesh until we see Jesus, but they have fixed it to the cross and they are determined to keep it there until it expires.

Once a criminal had been nailed to the cross, he was left there to die.

Soldiers were placed at the scene of the execution to guard the victim.

Their duty was to prevent anyone from taking him down from the cross until he was dead.

When we came to Jesus Christ, we repented.

We crucified everything that we knew to be wrong.

Oh, hang in there.

You see what he's saying.

Crucified to the cross.

He says, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.

Don't go back and try to resuscitate it.

Don't go back to the things that you love about your flesh and give it CPR.

And we do that sometimes, don't we?

Because we find some things in life seem to work, work they seem to work for us to make us feel better about ourselves.

Sometimes we think, I'm not experiencing that real life that I hear about, I read about.

I'm not experiencing that in my life.

But I do know what feels good.

And maybe it's a bottle of booze.

And maybe it's a credit card.

And maybe it's something on the screens that I like, I just feel like I'm I'm I'm given the I deserve to look at.

Are you given CPR to your flesh?

Because it just feels good.

And it never stops calling.

The flesh seems to say, I know, I know all about you.

I know what gets you through a day.

I know what gets you through a week.

I know what's really been helpful for you for years.

Let's face it, you and I both know what gets you through life.

That's the flesh.

That's indwelling sin.

And the spirit says, no, it's not.

The spirit says, that's never done anything good for you in your life, and you know that.

The spirit says, how's it going?

Is that really working for you?

That's a half-hearted Christian way of living.

You know, the most miserable existence of all is a half-hearted Christian.

They know enough.

They know enough.

But they're not free like this.

They're not living in their freedom.

They're living in guilt.

They're living with a noisy conscience.

No.

No.

No, that's not for us.

One writer says we begin to fondle it, to caress it, to long for its release, even try to take it down again from the cross, we need to learn to leave it alone.

This is true.

The Puritans called this the mortification of the flesh, to put to death the flesh daily.

But we can't do this in our own power.

We read, Vale read earlier in Romans chapter 8, verse 13, but if by the Spirit, if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.

Romans 8:13

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh.

Only the Holy Spirit can show us sin for what it is.

Only the Holy Spirit can show us what that sin, our sin, did to Jesus.

Only the Holy Spirit can bring us to the point where we hate our sin without hating ourselves.

We hate our sin without hating God.

But the Puritans also talked about the opposite of mortification is put to death.

Vivification, that's a word we don't use very often, to vivify, to give life, to give energy.

Think of adding fresh water to a wilting plant.

That's what the Holy Spirit can do for you.

Now that we can relate to that, can't we?

You see your plants dying?

To pour fresh water into that plant, and that plant comes back to life.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit, he's saying.

We are renewed by the Holy Spirit.

John Calvin said that the death of the flesh is the life of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit produces his fruit in us, we read about in verses 22 and 23.

You want to be a person more and more of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will be like a dying plant coming back to life.

It's true.

It's a promise.

We need to believe.

The call to worship this morning that we started with, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Freedom not to sin, but the freedom to live for Jesus.

And we all, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

This comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

This comes from the Holy Spirit.

Glory.

We're being changed from one degree of glory to another.

We actually are looking more like Jesus as we look to the Spirit.

As the Spirit gives us new desires to live for Jesus, as the Spirit gives us new power to say no to sin.

We're coming alive.

Irenaeus, the early church father, said, he said, let me try to explain what I think the glory of God includes.

Not fully.

The glory of God is man being fully alive.

I think it's a pretty good definition.

The glory of God is you being fully alive.

Think about that this week.

What do you look like?

What would you look like to be fully alive?

And that's why he says in verse 16, walk by the Spirit.

He uses two different words in the Greek from verse 16 to verse 25.

In verse 16, he uses the word of motion.

I mean, actually moving.

Don't be sedentary in your walk with the Spirit.

Be moving with the Spirit.

Let the Spirit empower your limbs.

Let the Spirit direct your limbs, your movement, your direction.

In verse 26, he uses a different word for walking.

That means to stay in formation, like a drill sergeant.

A lot of you understand that.

Don't fall out of formation in your walk with Christ.

That's the word he uses in verse 26.

Verse 18, he says, but if you are led by the Spirit, so being led passive, walking in the Spirit active, which is it?

Class.

Both.

We have to learn to be led by the Spirit.

What does the Spirit have to do to get your attention?

Does he have to wrestle you down?

You know, don't make him do that.

Like all the time.

Can he just touch, can he just touch you?

His soft voice from the Word of God, by the power of the Spirit of God, can he just put his arm on you and say, you know, this is not the right direction you're going?

Put that down.

Put that down.

That's gonna harm your soul.

Put that down.

Pick this up.

Oh, there's something about learning the art of being led by the Spirit.

Don't miss it.

And there's something about learning how to walk in the Spirit.

Don't miss it.

This sermon is just as much about life as it is about death.

Coming alive.

The more I come alive, the more I put to death.

Mark that down.

The more I come to life, the more I put down the indwelling flesh.

It just works that way.

As I close, I just close with this the third point.

There is a promise.

Let's come back to that.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Honest confession, I'm no match for my flesh.

My flesh wants me to assert myself.

My flesh wants me to protect myself.

My flesh wants to defend myself.

My flesh wants me to compare myself.

Does that ring a bell?

That's what my flesh wants.

But God gives us the means of grace.

He gives us the means of grace to say no to that.

To say no.

J.I.

Packer says the Holy Spirit works through means of grace, through the objective means of grace, biblical truth, prayer, fellowship, worship, the Lord's Supper.

And with them through the subjective means of grace whereby we open ourselves to change, namely thinking, listening, questioning ourselves, examining ourselves, admonishing ourselves, sharing what's in our heart with others.

The Spirit shows his power in us not by constantly interrupting our use of these means of grace by visions and impressions and prophecies, but by the regular, powerful means of grace that he gives us.

That we talk about all the time at this church.

That's what he does.

He forms new habits in us.

Habits that we begin to like and love and enjoy.

This is a promise about sanctification.

Are you thinking about these kinds of promises in your life?

When I walk by the Spirit, when I'm led by the Spirit, I believe that I really am forgiven.

That I really am loved.

That I really I really am wanted by Him.

That He really delights in me.

Here's my testimony to you.

The longer I've walked in the Spirit, and the more I've been led by the Spirit, those truths just make Jesus look more and more beautiful to me and God more faithful.

And I find that when I'm being revived by the Spirit, I'm putting to death the deeds of the flesh.

How about you?

That's just the way it works.

If the most alive that we feel is when we turn on a screen for comfort, or when we win an argument, or we gain some, accomplish some achievement, you're not alive yet.

May the Holy Spirit give each of us more and more an understanding and an experience of what it means to be fully alive.

That's how you put down the flesh.

Because the Spirit shows how beautiful Jesus is.

And you don't need to go back to those things.

You can put down your security blanket.

You've got Jesus.

And he's enough.

Isn't it time that we start believing Jesus' promises like this?

And only the Holy Spirit can convince us that these things are true.

Let's ask him.

Holy Spirit, would you please take our wills, take our minds, take our bodies, and make them yours?

Would you give us the desire to say yes to you so that we would say no to sin?

Father, I thank you that you gave us a person, the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, I thank you.

I thank you that you give us all the power that we need.

Holy Spirit, would you help us to believe this promise that we're looking at this morning?

That we will be transformed more and more from one degree of glory to another.

Holy Spirit, we yield to you.

Amen.