Prepare for War (Galatians 5:16-18)

So in Galatians chapter 5, verses 16 through 18, we begin again a very practical section of scripture.

Galatians 5:16–18

So buckle in, take notes, and enjoy the ride.

Read with me God's holy word.

Paul says, But 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 you want to do.

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

Our text will break down into the following outline.

Verse 16 will be the path we walk, verse 17 will be the war we fight, and verse 18 will be the freedom we receive.

We begin with the path we walk.

Paul says, But I say, walk by the spirit.

And in comes the Christian jargon that means almost nothing to the Western mind at all.

If you took someone who just began attending church and said, you need to walk by the spirit, they might ask, where that is exactly.

How do I walk by it?

Is it like walking with a dog?

Is it like walking next to the river?

How do I do this?

Is it a treadmill?

There's a spiritual treadmill upon which I must walk.

How does one actually do this?

And what does it even mean?

It's hard to do something you've never even heard of.

It'd be a lot like if you went over to Japan and they had this random board game that you had never seen in your entire life.

And the items on the board don't mean anything to you.

There's no dice, there's no cards, there's not even little like things.

Like there's just food.

And you just look at it and you're like, do we eat it?

Like, what do what do we do?

I don't even have a category for this game.

And they say, just do it.

Guess what we would have?

You'd have people arguing.

Because we're all a bunch of idiots.

And we'd be like, look, here's what you do.

You shove the food down and you move it around, and that's how you win.

Actually, no, I believe you have to eat all the food, and that's how you win.

The problem is if no one explains the purpose, if no one explains the paradigm, all of us are arguing over nothing.

What does it mean to walk by the spirit?

And we can't choose what we want it to mean.

We can't say, well, in my church background, this is what walk by the spirit meant.

Because your denomination, your church, didn't exist before this was written.

And this wasn't written specifically at the time for your church.

It was written specifically to these people in this context, and it means something specific to them.

What does it mean?

Let's begin to break it down.

The word walk there is the same word upon which the Jews would have known a rabbi's teaching, so a teacher's teaching, and operating their life according to that teaching.

Paul uses the exact same word that all of his Jewish friends would understand and all of the culture would understand in general, and says, the word that we used for when you follow a Jewish rabbi and listen to the teaching and then live according to that teaching, this word.

That word, walk by the Spirit.

I'm a big fan of the inspiration of God's word, that every bit and jot and tittle, as God would say, Himself is inspired.

God breathes it into existence.

So not a little word or a big word is a mistake.

And the word by there matters tremendously.

We have a very hard time understanding the concept that walking by the spirit means walking by someone else's power, walking by someone else's principles, walking by someone else's standard.

The spirit supplies the motive for walking.

The spirit supplies the energy for walking.

And that is hard for us because we in our flesh seek to be sovereign.

I am in control of my destiny.

I am the keeper of my fate.

I decide what I do on a daily basis, and yet God's word looks at you and says, The only victory in your life will come when you walk by the spirit, by a power that is not yours, by a paradigm that does not agree in your mind with logic down here on earth.

I say, walk by the spirit.

This command is in the Greek present tense.

What does that mean?

Why does that matter?

It means keep doing what you've already been doing.

You didn't earn the spirit, and you don't get to maintain the spirit within you.

You got him by simply believing.

And God keeps handing him to you the exact same way.

The paradigm doesn't change, the transaction does not change.

You believe and the spirit moves.

That has always been how victory is found.

It is the same way every day.

And notice what Paul actually promises here.

It's not that the pool of your sin will stop.

It's that the pool of your sin will never come to completion.

That verb there, the will not gratify is one of unto completion.

You will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

So the difference there is very important because the average Christian reads that and they say, I gratify the desires of the flesh sometimes.

Like I fail and I fall short.

Like, how do I do I not have the spirit?

Am I not saved?

Can I not walk like this?

And we learn as we actually understand scripture that this is speaking of a totality of gratification, a fool giving in to the desires of the flesh.

We tend to think that we're a lot smarter than we are.

We also tend to think we're a lot more emotionally removed than we are.

Right?

Like I can, I can I can remove myself from my own problems and look at this and make a wise decision.

But the human is inherently not a logical being, but rather is inherently a being of desire.

We use logic within that.

We use constructs, concepts, procedures.

But in your own life, the battle every day is not about what is most logical.

You might want what's most logical.

It is a battle of what do you want.

And I am here to tell you, you will do whatever you want.

If you don't want to brush your teeth, you won't.

If you do, you will.

Like there's that you do you do what you want.

If you are sick and tired of your kids acting this way, you will yell.

Or you won't.

And it will be not because it's most logical, but because you desire something.

And whatever the greater desire is, is what you decide every single time.

Why is your marriage going this way?

Why is work going this way?

Why can I not read my Bible on a regular basis?

Why am I struggling with just being here?

Why can I not listen?

It is because there are desires within you, and you are giving in to the strongest desire every time.

You cannot beat the flesh by fighting harder with the flesh.

We tend to do that, and we'll go over that more in the third heading of this.

But we tend to think the best way to stop sin is to have more rules.

If I have more rules, I have less bad I can do.

And we forget that scripture already speaks to you.

And in Romans chapter 7, Paul said, I was doing great, and then the law told me, do not covet.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

And all of a sudden, there's a fountain of covetousness in my heart.

It's everywhere.

Why are we so weak?

I want you to think about walking a fence line in the dark that's next to a ditch, right?

So you're on a fence line, got a ditch over here to the right.

How would you make sure that you and your buddy get from point A to point B without falling into the ditch?

Would you stare at the ditch while you're walking and say, don't fall, don't fall, don't fall, don't fall?

Is that how that works?

Or is it by looking straight ahead at the guy in front of you 10 feet and continuing to hold on?

Paul just told the Galatians last week to serve each other in love.

And this verse is the question of how?

What does that actually look like to serve in love?

And it means first and foremost dealing with my heart because I will do whatever is most important to me.

I will enact whatever I love.

I will sacrifice my life for that which I desire.

And so a church does not need a bunch of rules and obligation and pressure to love each other.

It needs a new heart.

It needs greater desires.

It needs a love that goes unfading and says, you are more important to me than me getting more sleep.

You are more important to me than me finally getting to sit down.

You are more important to me than what I want in this moment.

There has to be a greater desire.

The fight isn't gritting your teeth in order to love each other.

Because most of you won't even grit your teeth to love each other.

And the ones that do grit your teeth will find out that your wherewithal, your stamina, your capacity to sacrifice is much less than you thought it originally was.

How do we when we walk by the Spirit?

What does that look like?

It's believing a promise from God's word to the point that you want it more than your sin.

I'll say it again.

How do we win?

It's believing a promise found in God's word until you want it more than your sin.

Watch how Hebrews does this.

In the book of Hebrews, I believe it's chapter 13, they're telling you to be content with what you have.

And here's the reasoning.

For he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

I don't know if you've ever been without.

Like you're like not sure what food you're gonna eat tomorrow.

You're not sure how you're gonna get gas in the tank.

But looking at someone that has no gas in their tank and being like, you need to be content with life right now, and then saying, Well, how do I battle that?

How do I be content?

And say, Well, look, God's word says he'll never leave you and he'll never forsake you.

And the person with the empty gas tank that has to find a way to get to work the next day looks at you and says, I don't like that.

No, thank you.

Like, I want gas.

That's what will make me content right now.

I want, I want progress, I want something in my life that will actually change where I'm at.

And yet, contentment does not rest on your resolve or on your situation.

Contentment has always rested on a sentence that God said.

So, how do we win?

We believe this promise, we read it and we meditate on it and we pray over it and say, God, I am struggling with discontentment.

Help me to believe that you will never leave me and you will never forsake me.

Because God is more than enough.

So in your own life, I want you to name the sin that you keep losing to.

You know, the one that I barely finished that sentence and it popped into your head?

That one.

And I want you to name the promise that undercuts what you're actually reaching for.

Contentment, discontentment tells you you can find satisfaction in the things of this world and get enough things and enough people and enough feelings to be okay.

And the Bible promises and says, everything you've ever needed is within God.

The only issue in that entire equation is do I believe it?

Name the promise that undercuts what you're actually reaching for.

And if you can't name one, that's the assignment.

That's the goal.

That's the job for this week, is to go into God's word and find the promise.

I want you to quit fighting the flesh with the flesh.

Because a rule tells you where the line is, but a rule has never once made a man want to stay behind the line.

And that leads us into verse 17, the war we fight.

Paul says, 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 you want to do.

There's a strange moment in Christianity, again, where we don't understand the basics of the Christian walk.

And so people will act like they never struggle with sin.

They will act like you can completely kill a part of sin in your life.

Or, on the other hand, they'll act like you have complete freedom because no one's ever killed that.

So just try to limit the damage.

Paul says, there is a war that we fight.

Look at what Paul actually wrote here.

Both sides have a desire.

Both sides want.

He doesn't say the flesh wants and the spirit forbids.

Anybody grow up in a church like that?

I did.

Right?

What do you learn in church?

You learn about things that God did, the cool stories of the Old Testament and Jesus' life, and you learn what not to do.

That was me.

You learn what the spirit forbids, what it tells you to not do.

That's not what Paul says.

Paul says they both have desires, they both want something.

He uses the same word for both sides.

The spirit wants.

The spirit is craving Christ.

That's the fight.

And no one has ever won that fight by wanting less, because we are inherently creatures of desire.

We are controlled by our desires.

Says 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.

This is not happening from without you.

This is not happening on social media.

This is not happening with your neighbor that said that one thing, or these people outside of you, or the devil outside of you, or the world system.

It is happening inside you.

There are two powers at me.

And they are arguing daily.

They fight.

And do you know what they are actually doing?

They're not facing each other, trying to battle it out with each other.

They stand before you day by day and give their account, their reasoning for why you should choose their desire.

They say God promises that it will go well for you, and you will live long on the earth if you honor and obey your parents.

We desire to be in God's blessing.

So let's do that.

And the flesh says, We desire to do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want.

We'll feel better if we just choose what we want, no matter the consequence.

And you listen to both.

And then you choose, and you say, This will be my master for the day.

This will be my master for the moment.

And someone in the room is thinking, I would I can say no to both.

I can be the middleman.

And the answer is no.

The Bible says you cannot serve two masters.

And the reasoning behind that is because you will always serve one master.

The question is just simply who.

The desires of the flesh are opposed to each other.

The picture that was given to me this week of that is that there is daily within the Christian a civil war.

And a civil war is different than when someone comes and invades.

When someone comes and invades, we can see the army from over there, and they're coming and they have different colors and they're going in.

A civil war.

All of a sudden, your neighbor becomes someone who supports the other side.

You're not sure who to trust.

There is no safe ground.

You're surrounded on all sides, possibly.

And a civil war within the soul is the same way.

The flesh is sneaky and will find whatever way it can to argue its way into you sinning.

Now look at the end of that verse to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

What does that mean?

Well, it means that whenever I want to sin, I want to do the wrong thing, the spirit of Wars inside of me and pleads with me and begs me and says, Stop.

Listen to wisdom.

Turn from your sin.

It's not going to go well.

It's a lie.

Don't listen to it.

And on the other hand, when you choose the path of life, the flesh whispers in your ear and says, You've ruined it.

You're not good.

You can't keep up.

You're gonna fail.

This is boring.

I can't believe we're here.

What are you doing?

The war in you isn't proof that Christ failed or that you are not saved.

It's proof that the flesh doesn't have the place to itself anymore.

A pasture with one bull in it is quiet.

Put a second one in, and you will hear about it all night.

Before the spirit came, there was only one.

And that is the battle within the Christian.

That line, the last line in this has bothered Christians for some centuries.

And I want to read it for you in both directions.

Again, you reach for something evil and the spirit will get in your way.

And you reach for something good and the flesh will get in your way.

Either way, it feels like you're being torn apart on the inside.

But a man without the spirit doesn't lie awake over what he wants and what he doesn't want.

He just wants it.

To keep you from doing the things you want to do.

You and I forget that some of the basic ways that we are actually kept from choosing our sin are very practical.

Like attending church, like being in community where the Christians in this room know you on a Tuesday and on a Friday.

It looks like accountability.

It looks like prayer for each other.

Looks like reading the scriptures.

It looks like church discipline.

It looks like loving, sacrificial community that's actually living together.

There are many things that can keep you from doing what you want to do that's wrong.

The Christian life is often one where we complain about the sin that we continually surrender to because we have not chosen the path of life that God has placed directly before us.

And day by day, week by week, the path is placed again.

Will you choose it?

Will you choose community?

Will you choose God's word?

Will you choose accountability?

Will you choose to repent?

And we often, for many, many seasons, can find ourselves saying no.

Are you surprised that your Christian life is this hard?

Do you find yourself sometimes thinking that the struggle itself means that something went wrong with you?

Like if you were more mature, you wouldn't struggle that bad.

I want you this week to expect the war and to fight it out loud.

I want you to find one man or one woman this month and tell them what you're actually fighting.

You know, more than the Sunday morning, life's good.

We're talking about like the Wednesday night, life's terrible.

That one.

And that leads us into the freedom we receive, verse 18.

Paul says, but if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

Being led by the Spirit and walking by the Spirit, there was a beautiful picture that was given to me by a guy named JV Fesco this week.

That name is fascinating on its own.

And he said that throughout this book there is this theme of the Exodus.

And he's right.

It is throughout.

And that similarly, though, walking by the Spirit and being led by the Spirit is very similar to the Israelites being led through the wilderness by a pillar of cloud and by a pillar of fire.

They didn't need a map.

They didn't need directions.

They didn't need to know what was happening next.

They didn't need to know the rules and regulations.

They simply needed to look at the pillar, and when it moved, they moved.

What does it mean to be led by the Spirit?

Dear friends, today God has given you his perfect word.

It is the pillar upon which you can always look to, that will always lead you, that will always show you the path of life.

You do not need rules and regulations.

You do not need standards to keep.

You simply need to read his word to the point that your desires have changed.

And now you look to the pillar, not because you have to, but because you want to.

There is a severe difference in the heart posture of someone who shows up on a Saturday morning to serve here at the church and put something together, and they say, I have to be here.

Versus the man that shows up and says, I want to be here.

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

Not under the law does not mean not under God.

It means not under condemnation.

That as we battle, Paul feels the need to reaffirm in the midst of the battle, there's still no condemnation.

You are free indeed.

There's only one other place where Paul talks about being led by the Spirit.

And it goes like this: for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Now you run that through this letter that we're in.

Christ redeemed people who were under the law so they could be adopted.

And because we're sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying Abba.

So if He is leading you, if you do read God's word and you feel compelled and you feel like you are able to enact the things in God's word day by day in your own feeble failure type of way.

Going back to something I said in the beginning of the message, in the Christian walk, we tend to think of how do I kill sin?

And we think of two road.

And on the right road is legalism.

Right?

We need to be strict.

We need to find a way to hammer down.

And the left road is licensed.

And it says, look, free grace.

Who am I to judge?

I can't say anything.

And the mature Christians say, we will find a middle ground.

We will find that little grassy beam in the middle between the two lanes.

And that's where the mature Christians are.

And what you get with that is you get a bit of legalism with a bit of license.

You get a very inconsistent structure where it's like, well, yeah, we're real strict on this, but that's fine.

It's fine.

We can't be can't be legalistic everywhere because then we would be in this camp.

Like we gotta be, we gotta look a little bit, I mean act like it's like a perfect stew that's never been made before.

When the mature Christian's like, yes, our church has the perfect amount of rules and freedom.

We have the seasonings just right.

And actually walking by the spirit, being led by the spirit, is neither to the left, to the right, or in the middle, but is a third road over both.

The false teachers offered these people two roads.

Keep the rules or do whatever you want.

And everybody in this room has been handed the same two.

Paul looks at you today and says, There's a third, and it is in the middle lane between them.

If you look four verses down in your Bible, the fruit of the Spirit are listed out, and then this is said, Against such things there is no law.

Paul isn't lowering the standard to get you out from under it.

He's growing the very thing the standard was describing the whole time.

Walking by the Spirit.

I have a document on my computer that I wrote, and I wrote it in the midst of my frustration because it's one of the most important documents I've probably ever written for myself in my life.

And it goes over the top three or four sins that I struggle with.

And underneath each of those is listed out the promises of God in His Word that tell me he will give me what I actually want that I'm trying to sinfully go toward.

And as I read those and I renew my mind and I pray over them and I ask God to break my heart and to change me and to make me new and to make me believe this, I realize that I have read to the point that the desire is beginning to change.

I spent many years trying to white knuckle sin out of my life.

And when you white knuckle sin out of your life, you normally just change it for a different idol.

A more respectable one.

We have to actually kill sin.

When you hear not under the law, do you have a pardoned man's relief?

Or the relief of a man who thinks he might have got away with something.

Two very different reactions.

And we tend to approach that the same way in life, where when sin comes out, we have usually two opposing reactions.

I want you to live this week like you are a son, not like a defendant.

And I want you to allow obedience to be what comes out of you because you belong, not what buys your belonging.

Martin Luther spent years, I read this week, in a monastery, certain that he was finished every time the wrong thing rose up in him.

He thought, God's done with me.

He would have envy toward another monk.

He would deal with anger or with lust.

And so what did he do?

He went to confession every day.

And he woke up the next day and realized it never worked.

Because the next morning it was all back.

And he was sure that had to settle the account.

He wrote later that he tormented himself for years and that none of it was necessary.

Because he had never understood this verse.

He thought the war meant that he wasn't converted.

Meanwhile, the war was the proof that he was.

And hear what that spirit cost.

God sent his son.

And the son took the curse that belonged to you.

That death bought your redemption.

And that redemption made you a son.

And because you're a son, God put the spirit of his son in your chest.

The spirit is not a prize for spiritual people or for the mature, the clean cut.

He is what forgiven people get.

Believing a promise about the other side.

He isn't asking you for one thing he didn't do first.

This week, you will want something more than Christ.

The only question is what you do in the ten seconds after you notice.

If you reach for a rule, you'll lose the fight.

As you have before and always will.

Instead, this week, in that ten second window, I want you to reach for a promise.

And answer with the only sentence that matters.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you that you are in control.

That we can trust you in all these things.

Lord, we ask that you would help us to use the tools that you've given us from your word.

That you would help us to be a people of your word, who walk according to your spirit, by the power of your spirit, and not by our own unction or capacities.

Lord, help us in our weakness.

We so easily fall and fail and stumble.

And in those moments we can identify with our failures.

We can easily fall into the old habits of trying to handle it on our own.

Help us to be more than simply a crowd that gathers, but to be a family that lives real life with each other.

Lord, thank you that the war is not a testament that we are lost, but rather is proof that we have been found.

Help us in the war to look to you and to your word and to your precious promises.

That just like Moses in the book of Hebrews, that we could forsake the pleasures of this world, knowing that there is a greater pleasure found in you.

Help us to believe that.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.