From Ephesus: Life in the Spirit

Hey, good morning, Venture Church. We're doing all right out there.

Welcome to all of you joining us online as well.

Glad to see you. My name is Christian Lindbeck. I'm

one of the very grateful pastors on your staff here.

It's my pleasure to welcome you here this morning. We've

noticed a lot of new faces since Easter, which is awesome.

So if you're relatively new around here, we hope that

you are finding it easy to get connected and make community.

But if not, just come see one of us. We'd

love to help you start getting connected right away. Last

week we did a kind of one off special sermon

to follow Easter called Astronomical Grace. I hope that you

caught it. That's what it deserves so woohoo. Is really

a lot of fun, but just a profound message about

our place in God's vast cosmos. So you can check

that out online if you haven't seen it as well.

But this week, what we're gonna do is we are

going to hop back into a nine week series teaching

our favorite way at venture and that is right out

of the text of the Bible, So you don't mind

like popping off and doing some of these topics but

what we do here is we teach the Bible. We

go through the good parts and the hard parts, and

we work to the whole thing. That's a part of

how we are formed here all together. So we're gonna

be in a nine week series. We're gonna be in

the Book of Galatians chapter five, Versus thirteen through twenty six.

So if you brought a Bible with you, I'd invite

you to go there. If you use an app would

you do me a favorite, Actually open it up, go

to Galatians chapter five, Versus thirteen through twenty six. Be

in the habit of engaging scripture along with this in

all week. If you haven't found Galatians before, it's more

than two thirds back towards the end. I also want

to say, if you're getting used to using a paper Bible,

is not cheating to use the index like flip to

the front, find the page oney thirty four in my Bible,

and you'll find yourself in Galatians chapter five. The title

of this series for the next nine weeks is from

Ephesus Life in the Spirit. We're going to talk about

life in the spirit, the fruits of the spirit, which

maybe you are familiar with, but really going to unpack

the fruits of the spirit as the result of walking

with life in the spirit. So from Ephesus Life in

the Spirit. Galatians is one of Paul's earliest letters. Now,

Paul was a zealous student and teacher of the Jewish

law who has a radical encounter with the resurrected Jesus

and it turns his life upside down and he becomes

the most powerful champion for Jesus to the gentiles. And

so he has this experience himself of being raised a

faithful jewey loves who he is and his heritage, but

he also feels called and compelled by Jesus to take

the Gospel to the whole world. And this tension shows

up in this letter, and it shows up in Paul

as you get to know him. In fact, this is

like I like to say, Galatians is saucy Paul if

you like, if you want, Paul is just tamed a

little bit. Do not start in Galatians. Galatians he's out

with some fire, and it shows up a little bit

because he knows this tension in his own life. He's

been radically redeemed by the love and grace of Jesus Christ,

and so he takes everything he knows about being a

Jew and he imports it like it is why God

chose him into this discussion about what it means to

be a Christian. Now he's writing this to churches in Galatia.

He sent out as a missionaries out to tell people

who Jesus is. And he writes likely from the great

city of Ephesus, is huge Roman provincial city, and he's

writing back it's early to some of the churches that

he helped just start in northern Galatia, Roman province. And

what's going on going on here is Galicia is these

churches are very, very, very diverse. So you think you've

got gentile believers coming from every kind of pagan and

religious background that you can imagine, every kind of socio

economic class and cultural background. And among them you also

have faithful Jewish believers who now believe in the Messiah

and are Christians. Does it make sense to you? Now,

Jesus was a Jew and it came out of Judaism.

So these Jewish leaders they have some flex they've had

some muscle in the new church because all of the

gentiles are just brand new in this Paul has gone

and preached the good news to all of them, and

now it's clearly gotten back to him that the church

is wrestling a little. How do you unify a group

of people like this? They're so so different, And obviously

what showed up is that they're wondering how obedient to

the Jewish law given by Moses do the new Christians

have to be? Because these new believers in the Messiah,

I probably are thinking, like all of it, like this

is how you're gonna love Jesus well, And this is

not the message that Paul is bringing. Paul, having had

himself a zealous follower of the law, loves the law,

understand its beauty and its purpose, having had this radical

encounter with Jesus, is now preaching something that is radically

different and incredibly freeing and hopefully unifies this whole body,

allowing all of them to walk in who Jesus has

made them. The central idea that begins to unify this

church at the beginning, and I want you to just

kind of bring it in out of Paul's story through

to the church is Jesus does not abolish the law.

Hear me say that many times Jesus does not abolish

the law that these Jews have grown up in love

over millennia. He does not abolish it. He fulfills it.

Right in him is the full fulfillment of the loss

where the law has always pointed. It's always been its intent.

Now you've maybe heard that before, But what Paul wants

you to know is a step further, and it goes

something like this, Jesus fulfills the law, and when we

are full of the Holy Spirit through Jesus, we also

will fulfill the law. He's under saying, like all those

little laws, the six hundred and thirteen mitsvaht and oral

traditions that describe what it looks like to live this way,

that is always meant to describe the kind of life

that can be brought about when we walk in the

grace of Jesus Christ and by the power of the

Holy Spirit. So he's saying, not only has Christ fulfilled it,

but these gentiles are not constrained to the specifics of

the mosaic law. And they might might be like yes, freedom,

and He's like no, no, no, because you're called to

the higher law of love, which is always been the

goal the little laws were always the description of the

highest law of love. This is why both Jesus and

Paul can say. Paul, you'll hear says in this passage,

and Sean, thanks for giving the counterpoint to this with

loving the Lord God with all your heart, mind strengths.

And we talked about the law. He says. The entire

law is fulfilled in keeping one command, love your neighbor

as yourself. If Paul doesn't reject the law, he revers

it for its role and its people and his time.

And you hear me say this. He knows that the

law has always pointed to this idea. The law has

always been a tutor to shape the way we live

with the hope that will love the Lord God with

all our heart, mind strength, and we will love our

neighbor as ourselves. What does it look like to live

the law? Look, these are just little descriptions of the thing.

Have you ever noticed people want the little description instead?

It's easier. Oh can I do this? Can I not

do that? I was a VP at Northwest University, which

means I was in charge of students in one way

or another, and I always found students going, can I

do this? No? How about this, Can I do that?

Like they're always like trying to find the edge. I'm like,

how about you just live with integrity. If you live

with integrity, I don't have to write seven thousand rules

about what you can and cannot do. That's what this

is saying. If you live by the spirit, you will

live the law of love. The promise of Scripture has

never been I will make good little boys and girls.

The promise of Scripture has always been, let me describe

to you in the law what it looks like when

you care for your neighbor and their things, when you

do not covet what they have, when you live with

humility and grace and justice. The promise of Scripture has

always been, always been that someday God would pour out

his spirit renew every human heart, and that by the

power and presence of the Holy Spirit, people would live

the law of love. Paul opens, We're going to get

into the fruit of the spaitment in verse thirteen. On's

to get it, says you, my brothers and sisters, can

I have that? We're called to be free. You don't

have to do the little this, don't do this, don't

do that, but do not use your freedom to indulge

in the flesh rather serve one another humbly and love.

That word serve is actually soft, because what actually says

is you are no longer a slave to the law,

so that now you can be a slave to love

one another. You may be servants of one another in love.

You're freed from this kind of law to lead the

highest possible laws. But Jesus is driving in the sermon

in the mount, not the thing on the outside, the

thing on the inside. I've called this is a description

of what does it look like when we will live

the law of love. We're freed from ourselves so we

can become literally servants to one another. I want to

note in that passage again just a quick note that

the word for flesh here is a Greek word starks,

and it doesn't literally mean like like the meaty part

of you. Think of it more like the rebellious sin

nature in us, the part that's in rebellion against Jesus

and the way of life, the part of us that

resists surrender, prefers self and pulls away from our relationship

with God. That that is the part that needs to

be crucified. So I just want you to hear. In

Paul's description, this is this is not an emancipation proclamation

from if do you know following any rule. It's a

proclamation of freedom from our rebellious self. We need no

longer live as slaves to the rebellious self. But we

have been made slaves or servants to the law of love,

not to do whatever we want, but the freedom to love,

to bear the fruit that God always doesired for his kingdom. People,

Listen to live the life that the law was always

meant to shape. Are you with me? Yeah? Life and

the spirit fulfills the law. Key idea number two. Scripture

paints this idea that there's always been Oh we got

oh did we not have? Key idea number one, ky

Idea number one Life and the spirit of his lawke

Idea number two. There have always been two ways to live. Listen,

because free will demands it. You had always choose yourself,

or you can choose to really find yourself in alignment

with God who you were meant to be. That decision

is always before every human being, and it is throughout Scripture.

I'm early on Deuteronomy thirty nineteen. God is shaping his

kingdom people. This is in the delivery of the law

that describes a life of love. And he says, this

is God speaking to the people of Israel this day.

I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against

you that I have set before you life and death.

Hear this for yourself, blessing and curses. Now choose life,

so that you and your children may live, and that

you may love the Lord your God. And listen to

his voice and hold fast to him. For the Lord

is your life, and he will give you many years

in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob. It's like God is already pleading I

must give you the ability to choose choose life. Before

I read this passage, I just want to said, choose life,

choose the way of life. There's like not even a

close comparison to this. One of the earliest works of

Christian literature outside the Bible, there's a very small work

called the Dedicate. It's the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,

so I mean first century early Christian work, and the

Church would read it. It's like, how do we do

this thing? How do we live? How do what's it

look like to be a Christian, and it starts with

this line. There are two ways, one of life and

one of death, and there is a great difference between

the two. Choose the way of life. Jesus in his

own way and his teaching says, there's kind of two

sorts of trees, right, there's a bad tree and there

is a good tree. Bad trees never bear good fruit,

and good trees do not bear bad fruit. Who you are,

naturally bears a kind of fruit, a sort of life.

And the way that you're on is going to shape

who that you are, and who you are, despite your

best attempts, will shape the kind of fruit you bear.

You can try to exteriorly manifest something that looks like behavior,

but if your heart is crooked in the midst of it,

we are not living the law of love. You are

you hearing me say that, that's the exterior behaviorism that

he's talking about. Have your heart shaped into the way

of life. One brings life, the other does not. Here

now from the Apostle pauls he describes this within this freedom,

He says you, beginning of verse thirteen, my brothers and

sisters were called to be free, but do not use

your freedom to indulge the flesh rather serve one another

humbly in love, For the entire law is fulfilled in

keeping this one command. Love. Your neighbor is yourself. If

you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you

will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk

in the spirit, go this way, and you will not

gratify the desires of the flesh or your sinful, rebellious nature.

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit.

The spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They're in

conflict with each other, so that you are not to

do whatever you want. But if you are led by

the spirit, you are not under the specific law, because

you are under the law of love Verse nineteen. The

acts of the flesh are obvious sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery,

idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, embany, drunkenness, orgies,

and the like. I warn you, as I did before,

that those who live like this will not inherit the

kingdom of God. And I might argue because they do

not know God, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

and self control. Against that there is no law, because

this is the full fulfillment of the law. There is

a way of death and a way of life. Choose

the way of life. Choose this life described by Jesus

key idea number three that I want you to get

today and I have kid Fruit is not the way

to do this. Life in the Spirit is the way

to do this. Fruit is the description of what it

looks like like. You can you can strive and it's

it's not a terrible idea to be patient and kind. Right,

you can strive to do this, But if it becomes

an external thing that you're doing, it will become an

idol in itself. Paul and Jesus are trying to say,

if you strive to be with the Holy Spirit, you

will be this. You are this. This is a description

of people on the way of life within the Kingdom

of God. Fruit is the natural result of life in

the Spirit. I want to hear me say this again.

We do not strive to grow the fruit. We strive

to live by the spirit. And living by the spirit

yields this kind of fruit. When you are this kind

of tree you bear, this kind of fruit. Now, I

want an exception for self control. I think on this

list self control is the key to unlocking some of

the rest of this, and we'll talk about that later

in the series. I want to understand that Paul, the

writer of this freedom to Bear this kind of Fruit Elsewhere,

talks very stridently about striving for his life in Christ,

and I want you to hear this. He says, I

press on towards the goal. I discipline my body like

an athlete. I offer my body as a living sacrifice.

I'm gonna land on Colossians one twenty nine to this end,

the end of my relationship with Jesus, I strenuously contend

with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

I'm gonna land on that word. Contend to struggle, to

strive to assert oneself against difficulty or opposition. I don't

know if you have ever tried to struggle against the

rebellious part of yourself, but struggling against opposition would be

a good description. Or if you try to struggle against

our enemy, struggle against opposition. We contend for our place

in Christ. We may not be able to manufacture fruit,

but we can contend for our relationationship with God, the Father,

and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We contend with

all that we have. Sometimes I just want to grab

Christians by the shoulders who are like, I don't know,

I'm not there, I don't know Jesus saying, like, fight

for the gift that you've been given. You have been

given an extraordinary gift of life. Do not discard it

by the way you can, but like, fight for the gift.

Contend for your place in Christ. Contend for your freedom

by the Holy Spirit. Contend for your identity. Contend for

our relationship with the Triune God. We can fight for this.

Firse twenty five drives the punctuation point home in this.

Since we live by the spirit, let us go on

keeping in step with the spirit. That's like a moment

by moment, right, you walk step by step. This is

this consciousness of our life in the spirit. Let us

contend to listen, to be aligned and be obedient to

the Holy Spirit that our life might bear fruit. Key

idea number four. Contend for the relationship. Don't just avoid

the sin. Stick with me on this second for a second.

The goal is to have a good relationship with the

Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, not to just

not to disobey. I'm not saying that not disobeying is

not a bad idea. I'm just saying it's not the goal.

We don't just not disobey just so we don't get

in trouble. We desire a healthy relationship with God. This

is just true in any other relationship. I'll use my marriage,

but it will work like as a friendship or roommate.

If the goal that I have with my wife is

just not to get in trouble, not terrible, but it

is an inefficient goal, and I'll never know her. I

just won't be in trouble with her. The goal is

that I pursue her to know her and to love

her and to understand. I want a relationship with her,

And as I pursue relationship, I get intimacy that bears

a kind of life you with me. It is the

same with God. You want to bear a life where

you know Him and you understand and you hear from him.

You must build a life of intimacy with God. And

if you will build a life with intimacy with God,

you will know him and you will bear good fruit.

You might be wondering, well, how do I strive from

my relationship with God? This is not complicated. Pursue relationship,

put on that which draws you near to God, and

put off that which breaks your relationship, the same as

you would do with anyone else. This has often been

called in Christian life spiritual disciplines. Have you heard of it?

Practicing the spiritual disciplines? Now? It's kind of cool to

say rule of life again? Have you heard this one?

It's an old Benedictine idea, the rule of life. It

just means I shape my life, my patterns, my loves,

the things I do to grow near to God, and

to put off the things that deteriorate or destroy my

relationship with God. It's simple things like prayer, you know,

talking to the one you're pursuing a relationship, scripture, reading

the word, confession, fasting, generosity, worship, solitude, sabbath, the things

that help us build a relationshiput off the things that

get in the way. If you're relatively new to this,

I've put on our What's Next page a list of

ten books that I would recommend. If you're like I

want to start, I want to pursue my relationship with God.

What's a life of spiritual discipline look like? Check out

that list on our What's Next page. You can get

there through our app. I want to highlight three on

that list. You read him, you're like, oh he named

those three. Number one The Life You Always Wanted by

John Ortberg. Check that book out. Number two is a

real classic celebration of discipline by Richard Foster. Like if

you have not read one of these books and you

are a Christian, add the Life of Spiritual Discipline, and

three a new one that's really making us serious practicing

the Way by John Mark Comer Become like Him, Do

as He did. That is just an outstanding book, and

all of them are on there and invite you to

take a look, like pursue knowing this being that has

rescued you, that is wondrous and good and unfathomable, like

you can do this forever. Finally, I just want to say,

I think this passage invites us to take a really

dangerously honest look at ourselves. It's not just a description

of the life, this good invitation that God is calling

us into. It's also a mirror. So the Christian can

look in the mirror of this passage and ask themselves

what kind of life am I bearing? What sort of

fruit does my life yield? Do I obey and yet

hate it on the inside? Do I do this right thing?

But on the inside hate it? Because that is no life,

that's just legal obedience. What isn't here? What life do

I bear? What kind of fruit am I growing? Because

I think Paul has provided such a vivid comparison. One

life is full of grim sexual sin and spiritual distortion

and relational sins like hatred and discord and jealousy and rage, ambition, dissension,

a total lack of self discipline sexually or around drunkenness,

like one life is just a terrible list, And the

other life describes life love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

and self control. I don't care who you are, at

what station, or what you do in life. That describes

a good life. If you could say, of your life, love,

joy and peace, define my life like that's enough right there,

whatever it is, wherever you are, that describes a good life.

And frankly, the other list describes a terrible life. I

am so tired of this idea that somehow satan offers

something fun and Jesus offers something boring. That is a

lie from the pit of hell. And I'll tell you

of somebody who's walked both paths. Sin is slavery to darkness.

The way of the spirit can be a servant to

the law of love. And they are not even close.

I didn't leave myself time, but I can ramp on

the stupidity of this idea. I'll tell you one story

that has always stuck in my head. I'm driving past

an adult bookstore on Airport Road in Everett at seven

o'clock in the morning on my way to church, and

the parking lot is full of cars at seven am,

Mini vans with car seats since the dans that some

guy just got out of. And I think, do they

think they're exercising freedom? Because I can see slavery written

all over them? Like you just look at this. This

is absurd. Choose the way of life, you see. That's

always been the invitation in scripture. Choose the way of life.

There are two paths to choose. One leads to life

and the other leads to death invariably, and Jesus has

opened the way of life through his death resurrection and ascension,

and he offers that life to anyone who will lay

down their rebellion, take up his way, abide with him,

and bear good fruit. I just say to you, friend,

like I invite you. I don't obviously know everybody in here,

that I invite you right now choose the way of life.

I invite you into the way of life opened in Jesus.

And all any human has to do is believe it,

repent honestly, and receive the gift of life found in Jesus.

And this is a journey, this whole collection of people,

It's a journey you will be on. And this is

just a room full of journeyers like we'd love to

be in that conversation and on that journey with you.

Throughout this series. I'm just going to plead with you.

This is like an honest pleading because you can hear

this and hear this as descriptions of good little boys

and girls that Jesus loves. And I hope that you

instead here like I want that life, and that you

will meditate on the free of the Holy Spirit. You

will wonder aloud to yourself, how do I live that life?

I want that life? And I see this garbage in

my life that looks like the other list, and I

want out of that. The way is, King Jesus. The

way is the endfulling of the Holy Spirit. This is

a description that meant so much to Paul. He was

so eager that his Jewish brothers and sisters and his

gentile brothers and sisters would hear. The Holy Spirit is

renewing your heart. Unto life. One way leads to death.

It makes a bad tree, and bad trees always bear

bad fruit. That we can contend for our relationship with Jesus.

That way makes a good tree, and good trees bear

good fruit. And great is the difference between the two.

But you joined me in a prayer. Who King Jesus,

Thank you. I just speak out of my own heart

and say thank you for redeeming me from a life

of death. And even after you redeem me so many

times in my life I have chased death down, as

though I were eager to die and be a slave

to it. Thank you that you pursue over and over.

Your Holy Spirit comes and says, choose life, Choose life.

Thank you for your constant grace, Thank you for your courage.

I pray for every human heart in here today that

hears this message, that something stirs in them to look

at their life again and say, I choose life. I

will not be deceived by the enemy to choose death,

but I will look to the Father and the Son

and the Holy Spirit and have life. And and you're making

that decision for the first time. Lord, I pray that

you would see yield that decision in their life today,

that they would lift their head, that they would find

somebody to talk to, and that they would begin this

journey with us. Thank you for your faithfulness, thank you

for your goodness, thank you for this passes of scripture,

and thank you for Paul who wrote it with courage

and with love. In Jesus good name, Amen,