Galatians | Gospel Character (January 21st, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

Amen.

Well, if you would grab your Bibles now and turn them to Galatians chapter 5, we're going to be in verses 16 to 25 today, looking at uh just a legendary passage, an amazing passage that is so well known to uh so many of us.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

But before we get into reading that, uh when I was a uh when I was a youth pastor uh back in the day, not that long ago, um, but I used to have the opportunity to lead uh canoe trips for our high school guys.

And this is always one of the highlights of our year, and we would take these guys out and all of that, and and uh we always had a blast going up for about three, four days or whatever.

And I remember on these trips, I used to love bringing this one leader on our trips.

Uh his name was was Christian, and he was uh just this really, really great guy.

Everyone loved him.

He was he was like a firefighter and you know, chiseled in great shape.

He was like a real outdoorsman and stuff like that.

He was like, go fishing early in the morning, catch a bunch of fish, bring it back, cook it all up, fry it all up for us, and all of that.

Everyone loved Christian, and uh he was amazing.

Now, one of the things uh that we inevitably did on these canoe trips, kind of depending on the lake that we went to, but we would always try and get some cliff jumping in.

That was one of the highlights of the trip for sure.

And uh, we used to go to this lake called McRae, and it had these amazing uh cliffs on this one side uh of the lake, and and there was all kind of different levels of of heights on these on this cliff.

And so the you know, the lowest one was probably somewhere around 12 or 15 feet, you know.

We would kind of start off with that, and it would work its way up to, I don't know, there's 35 foot one.

Uh people had actually measured these things off, and so I'm not just guessing, but uh it was about 35 feet, and we spent probably most of our time at that.

And for a couple of years, that's kind of the height that we did.

But there were some more a little bit further down that you could go even higher.

And I remember uh this one year uh we went kind of out to this one that was about uh 55 or 60 feet.

It was kind of in that in that wheelhouse, and we you know we stood on this ledge, and a bunch of us were kind of like looking over like this, and like that's a that's a long way down, right?

That's a long way down.

Now, there was one actually behind us, about 10 feet back and up another 10 or 12 feet.

It was about 68 feet.

Uh literally, somebody measured this once, uh, who I know.

And as we're kind of on the 55 foot-foot one looking over, Christian bombs over us.

He's like, heads up! And he jumps over us and he goes down.

He's like doing the windmill, you know, all the way down.

It felt like forever.

And of course, he hits the water, and he's just like, like it's like the loudest thing ever.

Didn't go in like perfectly straight.

He's kind of a little bit sideways, and everyone is like, right?

And and and we were like, everyone's cheering, everyone's he get he gets out of the water, he kind of like comes to the surface, and and everyone's hooting and hollering and all of that.

And and Christian's kind of like, ah, like that that didn't feel amazing.

And and then on top of that, he was kind of he was actually, he's like, oh man, and we're like, what, what's happening?

Well, it's because hitting the water um at that height had actually caused these like$250 or whatever it was, like custom orthotic leather sandals that he'd been wearing, to basically just disintegrate on impact.

Right?

And and he gets out of the water, and we were actually looking at the like the leather itself had had torn.

And you know, while while Krishna had become this you know absolute legend in the minds of all of us watching, right?

And we just honored his name every year after that, and you know, all of it, um, he was uh feeling the impact of hitting the water in more ways than one.

He was feeling it physically.

He was actually kind of like limping around.

He was trying to be a hero about it afterwards, but he was like, you could tell he had a bit of a limp uh after that.

But then, of course, economically he's feeling the impact of that as well.

I'm sure it was real fun trying to explain to his wife, yeah, those really expensive sandals are no more.

Well, kind of like the you know, the force of hitting the water at, you know, just about 70 feet up, you know, and you know, the impact of all of that.

Our passage today uh shows us the impact of the gospel and the the impact that it has on our our character as individuals.

You know, as you and I, as we learn to live out the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ, the freedom that Paul's been talking about over the last few weeks as we've been looking at all of this.

Okay, now simply put, okay, if you know Jesus Christ as Savior, I know a lot of us would claim to know that for sure.

If you know Christ as Savior, listen, you will become like him.

You will become like him.

You will you will be transformed, you will uh grow.

Your character will change.

You better believe it.

Why?

Why?

Well, because the the Holy Spirit, he's he's in you now, and and that's what he does, right?

That's kind of his thing.

He he transforms us, he conforms us into the image of Jesus Christ, who we were before we got saved.

Okay, all of that is being put to death, and Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, is doing a new work now deep inside of our hearts, uh, in our character.

That's that's the Holy Spirit's job.

That's his MO, that's his wheelhouse.

Now, there's a lot to say about all of these things, so let's just get right into this here.

This passage is great, I love it.

Galatians 5, 16 to 25.

Let's read this.

It says, But I say, okay, 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 that you want to do.

But if you were 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, and 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.

Alright, well, we've already prayed, and so let's just get right into this.

You guys ready for this?

Alright, the gospel will have a major impact on my character, okay, giving me hope as the battle of desires rages within.

Okay, as the battle of desires rages within.

Now, if you have been a Christian for uh more than five minutes, uh you've probably noticed something, right?

That um this is hard.

Right?

The the Christian life, the Christian walk is is challenging.

I mean, I mean, life is hard in general.

There's all kinds of things outside of us uh that are difficult.

Our circumstances are difficult, different things like that.

But specifically, okay, there's this there's this inward battle raging inside of us uh constantly.

Have you noticed this?

Have you seen this?

It kind of seems like you know, one minute I'm sort of just driving along in my car, and you know, maybe I'm I'm listening to some worship music, or you know, I'm having a time of of prayer on my way to the office or something like that, and everything's going really well, and I just sense that I'm really like in the moment with the Lord, and my heart is just connecting with Him and everything is amazing and really great.

And then you know, the the the next moment I'm like this this full-blown, like emotional snapcase because of the Yahoo in his car who is you know completely inept at knowing how to operate their vehicle in a traffic circle.

Not like a personal example at all or anything like that, right?

Right?

But I I kind of like just drive into traffic circles now, just like expecting to die.

Right?

That's kind of how it is.

I don't know if you ever notice this, right?

You drive in and people just like they just they don't even look.

They just come in, right?

And there's no murder, they don't they don't give right away, and then they're they stop and let somebody like what are you doing?

Anyways, I digress.

I need the Lord.

Right?

I need the Lord.

Gabe, if you come away from moments like this, you know, for you, it might not be the driving thing, maybe it's like with your kids, or it's something at work, or you know, whatever it might be, you know, where you're kind of like, man, what's wrong with me?

Right?

Like one second it was it was fine, and and the next time, you know, the next second I'm I'm all of a sudden not in a good place.

And it seems to happen like that, right?

Like pretty much instantly.

Now, I'm sort of making light of this a little bit, right?

I'm having a little bit of fun uh with it, obviously, but I mean, isn't this pretty much exactly how it is?

Right?

This is our life, right?

This is the way that we kind of you know work and and operate.

You know, inwardly, you know, we're we're like, you know, I want to follow the Lord, right?

Like that that that's how we are, too.

All of a sudden, I don't want to follow the Lord.

Like at all.

Like I just want to do my my own things.

You know, one second it's like I I delight in you, Lord, and in your commands and you know, on your law, I meditate day and night.

We're just like David, the psalmist, right?

And then the next second it's like I could care less about the Bible and about the things of the Lord, and you know, it's not my desire, it's not even on my radar.

All I care about is me and my selfish desires and and and what I want, and I could care less about anything, anything else.

Now, wise Christians, okay, wise Christians know exactly what's going on in these kinds of moments, okay, and that is that we are at war.

We're at war, right?

Like it or not, that's the reality, plain and simple.

Inside every single person who knows Jesus Christ as Savior, there is this battle of competing desires going on uh inside of you.

It's competing for your heart.

And listen, I'm not being dramatic about this, I'm not I'm not exaggerating.

This is literally how it is.

Right?

This is what our verses make crystal clear to us.

Take a look at this.

Verse 16, starting there.

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

We're gonna leave that for a second, we'll come back to it.

But then look at this.

For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.

And then what does it say?

They are what?

They're opposed to each other, right?

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

Okay, so what does it do?

This paints a picture for us of this epic struggle going on inside of you and I, inside of our hearts.

Okay, now understand this.

Understand that before you got saved, before you were justified, and the Lord rescued you, guess what?

You were ruled only by your sinful flesh.

That was your governing system.

Okay, your your flesh, your self-centered desires, your pride, okay, all of that.

Okay, but the moment that you trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, you submitted your life to Him, and you said, Lord, you are Lord now, you are God, I am not.

Okay, the moment that you trusted Christ, the Holy Spirit supernaturally enters inside you and I, and he begins this renovation process.

He begins to uh renew our hearts so that we actually want to follow him.

So that we actually desire, the word here in our text is we actually desire him and his ways.

Okay, so so the desires of the spirit, as you see it there in verse 17, okay, the desires of the spirit is best understood as that renewed part of you, okay, by the Holy Spirit, that renewed part of your nature that's now governed and motivated and empowered again by the Spirit.

Okay, does that sound about right?

Right, you think about the conflict, you think about what's going on, you think about your desires and your motives and what's governing you and how you might feel at any given moment and what you want and what you don't want and all of that.

Right, that sounds that sounds accurate, right?

That that that matches up with with life and how we all kind of tick.

There's this raging conflict going on inside of us at any given moment.

Right?

The desires of the flesh, that again, that part of our nature, all right, that isn't fully renewed yet, and again, managed by our own pride and our and our own selfishness and our insecurities, all of that, okay, is it's against the the spirit, as the text says here.

It's against the spirit or the desires of the spirit.

So your your flesh and the spirit of God in you, your your renewed nature, that you know, that they're opposed to each other, right?

That they're fighting, they're they're at war.

And and and each one of these things keeps you from doing the thing that you want to do.

That's a pretty that's a pretty interesting phrase.

I like that.

Okay, so when you're living in the flesh, here's how this kind of works out.

When you're living in the flesh and you know, it's various whims and the carnal desires and the selfishness and all of that kind of thing, you what do you find?

I don't want to follow God.

I don't want to do what he wants me to do.

I have no delight, I have no desire for that.

I just wanna, I want what I want.

Right?

You don't actually want to follow the Spirit when you're being led by the flesh.

Have you ever had a lack of desire for God?

I mean, we all have, right?

We're all there, we're on the same page.

All right, if you've if that's where you're at, it's a good sign that you're you're living by the power of the flesh.

You're being governed by that in that moment.

Okay, but when you're in a good place, the opposite is also true.

When you're in a good place and and and you're humbly submitted to the Spirit of God, and you know, what are you gonna find?

You're gonna find that you want to follow Him and you don't want to sin.

You've probably been in those kind of circumstances before as well, right?

Where you're like, wow, yesterday I was really like, I was feeling really tempted to give in to my anger or or whatever the sin might have been.

And today it's like I don't I don't feel like doing that.

It feels like that was uh a million years ago.

When I'm governed by the Spirit, I don't want to give in to the flesh.

The desire to sin, live for myself, it seems all pretty non-existent at that point.

Now, Paul, of course, he speaks very openly of this inner battle that's going on in each of us.

He talks about his own battle in Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

You don't need to turn there.

I've referenced this a few times, and uh I love this passage because I think I just relate to it so well.

Okay, I'm just gonna read a couple of parts of it here.

This is what he says.

This is Paul speaking from his own experience.

He says, For I do not understand my own actions.

I get that.

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

You ever had good intentions?

Right?

I'm gonna get things right.

I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna live for the Lord.

I'm gonna do this, I want to do this, and like an hour later, you're just like off the rails.

Right?

And and and and and Paul's relating to that.

He says, For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do is what I keep on doing.

Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, who is this so is true self, but it's sin that dwells within me.

So like the old man that is dying, it's that's what he's referring to.

He says, For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.

So kind of deep down in my core, this is what I actually really want to do.

But I see in my members or on the surface another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

And he's like, Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

He's like exasperated, it seems, as he writes this.

Okay, even Paul, as as mighty as he was, and we and we know that we hail this guy as the greatest Christ follower ever.

Right?

At the end of the day, he's no different than you and I.

He's a man, he's a person, he is flesh and blood.

He he struggles the exact same way.

He he experienced this this same inner battle of competing desires.

He wanted to follow the spirit, and at times he he wanted to follow his his flesh to the point where it seems for him it was very quick, it was very frustrating.

And again, exasperation is kind of the word that comes to mind when I read all of that.

He agonized through this.

It was hard.

I think as we read that, we're like, yeah, sounds familiar.

Right?

That's that's that's me for sure.

But listen, instead of us kind of throwing up our hands in in despair or or in defeat or in ultimate discouragement about the fact that the Christian life is this grimy battle and and the desire to sin and and live according to my flesh is still there.

And you know, why won't this end?

And why have I not grown more quickly?

And why am I not more like Jesus Christ, Lord?

Why are you not doing this?

Right?

Are you the kind of person that can spiral pretty quickly as you think about this?

I think I kind of tend towards that way a little bit, especially when I was newer in my faith.

And I'm like, man, I I should be different, I should be like Jesus already.

And I'm like the guy with the proverbial, like whip, just flogging myself, beating the tar out of myself, like harder than Jesus would about, you know, and hard on myself and discouraged and down in all of that.

We can spiral.

Right?

Instead of going down that path, it's easy to do.

Instead, find encouragement in these verses.

Verse 16 in particular, I said we'd come back to it.

Take a look.

But I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desire of the flesh.

Man, what hope in that, right?

What hope there is.

That is a promise.

Walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Memorize that verse.

Commit that to memory.

Go back to it often.

What confidence that we can take from that verse that, you know, as we learn to walk by the spirit, he helps us overcome.

Listen, not not the desires, okay, not the desires there.

It doesn't say that.

It says that we will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Okay, important distinction.

Okay, the desires to live for self and and and all of that and to give into sin.

Listen, they're gonna come and go.

From now until Christ returns or takes us home.

The desires are going to be there.

Why?

Because we are not fully renewed yet.

We don't have our heavenly bodies, we are not yet glorified.

That day is coming.

Bring it on, as I usually say.

I want that, but listen, until that day, it is going to be a battle.

And while I absolutely believe that the Lord does remove some of those old kind of fleshy desires that we have, have you ever noticed this?

Maybe some of the desires that you had back before you came to Christ or in your early days, those are like gone now, like the Lord just took them away.

I remember my dad talking about this.

My dad got saved later in life.

And he had, you know, a real trucker mouth and all of that, like a lot of a lot of people would.

And see, he said, like it seemed like the moment that he gave his life to the Lord, like all of that just kind of went away.

Like the Lord just removed it.

And I think the Lord is so gracious to do that in certain ways.

And I've got examples from my own life, and I'm sure you do as well.

Different things that changed kind of immediately in Psalm 37, verse 4, you know, talks about how the Lord, you know, will remove those desires and actually give us new desires.

Psalms 37:4

But here in our verse, it says that the Spirit, okay, the Spirit increasingly helps us resist gratifying our fleshy desires.

They're not all going to be removed.

He helps us resist giving in to them.

I mean, you and I, we can just take such extraordinary hope here, knowing that as you and I progress through the Christian life, okay, we will see, we will sense, there will be evidence of the Holy Spirit's power and and work in our lives, in our very nature, in our character.

Yeah, that's an awesome thing.

But now, how do you actually cling to that hope in the thick of the battle?

Right?

That's a good question.

How do you actually cling to that?

How do you not let you know hope fizzle and fade constantly?

Because again, it's easy to be, you know, to get spun out about all of this and get discouraged and lose sight of the gospel and you know the fact that as a believer the Holy Spirit is changing me.

And again, I uh you know, day to day, we don't see the change, we don't sense the change.

There's not like massive evidence happening, you know.

You know, today is amazing, tomorrow's gonna be even more amazing.

We we don't sense that.

It's like over time, over a long period of time, over months and years, that we start to see uh that the Lord is actually changing us.

So, how do we remain hopeful in the battle?

Right.

How do we cling to hope?

Well, we've got some things on the screen for you, six things.

And this really comes down to adjusting our mindset.

We've got to adjust our mindset here.

We've got to adjust our entire approach when it comes to growth and sanctification and all of this.

First of all, how do I remain hopeful in the battle?

First one.

Accept that we're at war.

Accept it.

Right?

Just give in to that fact.

We are at war.

Maybe you've heard this before, but it's very true, it's pathetically true for North American Christians that we live with a peacetime mentality.

You know, so much of us don't have the first clue that there is spiritual warfare involved in the Christian life.

We don't understand that there are trials that the Lord sovereignly brings us through to change us and transform us.

We don't understand that we have a flesh that hates all of that.

Instead, we're we're kind of surfacey about the whole thing, and we think that, well, because Jesus is awesome and he loves us, everything should just feel amazing and be easy.

Right?

And we're at peace, and we just kind of like walked through life, getting crushed because we refuse to accept that we're at war here, that the Christian life is a battle.

It is wartime mentality, folks.

That is uh I'm I find that is a huge hump that we need to get over as the church and as Christ followers.

Wishing this war away, okay, ignoring it, pretending it's not there, living in ignorance because we don't read our Bibles or whatever.

None of it helps.

Okay, none of it helps, it only hurts us.

But if you can get over that hump and just accept the fact, listen, we're at war.

This is gonna be tough.

The Christian life is difficult.

It is not for the weak, it's not for wimps, it's not for wusses.

It is step up time, grab a weapon, let's go.

That's what the Christian life is.

It's not kick up your feet time, relax, let everyone else do whatever, and I'm gonna do whatever.

No.

This is a battle, it's war.

Get over that hump, and you're gonna start to find the Lord's giving you hope now.

He's gonna bring that into your life, he's gonna encourage you with it.

Okay, how to remain hopeful in the battle, second thing.

Engage in the fight.

Engage in the fight.

Get off the couch, man.

Right?

Get off it, and you know, don't don't roll over here in this.

Don't be so passive in your relationship with the Lord when it comes to your growth and and when it comes to your sanctification, all of that.

Don't be like, ah, the Lord will do it when He wants to.

Right?

That in that voice is like a perfect, like sums up how the church is in Canada.

Right?

We're so lame.

We really are.

We're so passive.

So passive.

Don't be like that.

Right?

Get get mad.

Like, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna get going with this.

I'm gonna fight against this.

I'm gonna take ownership over my relationship with the Lord.

What does our verse say?

It says, walk by the Spirit.

That that requires effort, spiritually speaking, physically speaking.

It involves actually doing things.

There's a responsibility placed on us that we need to own it.

Okay, engage in the fight.

Put forth effort.

Third one.

Get plugged into real power.

Get plugged in there, into the power source.

Okay, what does our verse say?

It says walk, okay?

That's that's something we need to do, but then it says by the Spirit.

Walk by the Spirit.

It says be led by the Spirit.

Okay, the Spirit is the one who actually gives you the strength.

The Spirit is the one who actually accomplishes it.

Okay, so don't just muster up your own strength and try and like you know, pep talk yourself into engaging in the fight.

You don't have the strength.

You're gonna tire out, you're gonna flame out, burn out, all of that kind of stuff.

You need strength from him, you need strength from above to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.

Okay, you want to tap into hope.

Walk by the spirit.

Fourth one.

Stay positive.

Okay, I don't mean this like in the super cheesy, like positive, you know, power of positive thinking, you know, kind of way.

Okay, but in some ways, there's some like there's some truth to that, I think.

Right?

Meaning that we gotta kill the negativity.

This is something I struggle with a little bit.

I just get negative and you know, I kind of get down on that.

You get like that?

You get negative, something hard happens, and you're like, ugh.

Right?

I think another one that's like closely related to all of this is that victim mentality.

You find so many people have this victim mentality.

We go through something difficult or life is hard or whatever, and you know, not every single door opens immediately, right?

And so we're like, well, you know, classic.

You know, nothing good happens to me.

Life is always hard, and the Lord is out to get me, and nothing ever works out.

And meanwhile, because you're complaining so much, you're actually missing out on all the awesome things that the Lord is doing.

We gotta kill that.

That victim mentality, there's like a whole series brewing in my mind right now about that alone.

Right?

But that victim mentality, it's killing you.

It's killing you.

Why am I not hopeful?

Because you're crusty.

Stay positive here.

Right?

Understand that in the end we win this thing.

We win this thing.

Right?

Death is defeated.

Yeah, there's still some effects of all of that, and sin is still kind of, you know, poking and jabbing, and Satan's kind of coming after us in certain ways, but but he's a dog on a leash, he doesn't have teeth.

Guess he's holding the leash, the Lord is.

Do you know what happens?

We in the end we win.

We win it all.

Jesus returns, he brings us back, he brings us back to be with him.

He takes care of all of this.

There is so much hope in that.

We have a reason to be positive, people.

Right?

Let's cling to that.

Here's the fifth one: long for heaven.

Right?

This flows right out of the whole stay positive thing.

Long for heaven.

You know, as you're upset about your flesh and all of that, and you're trying to fight and all of that.

Listen, desire eternity.

Isn't it amazing to think that in glory, in heaven, when we are with the Lord, we're not gonna have any shred of temptation or or any whim of desire for any kind of sin.

Can you imagine what that's gonna be like?

Long for that.

Want that.

Pray that the Lord would return before the end of the day.

Pray that, want it.

The more that you want that, the more your heart starts to beat in line with that, the less you're gonna want fleshy things.

Does that make sense?

Guess what?

Incredible hope comes to you when you long for heaven.

How to remain hopeful in the battle, last one.

Anchor to the gospel.

Anchor to the gospel.

This is what our entire series has been about.

The gospel is where our ultimate hope is found.

It's the, you know, it's the well that you and I, we must return to often for a drink.

We get dehydrated, we get thirsty spiritually.

You're trying to, you're trying to satiate that thirst with something else, or you're coming to the gospel, you come to the hope that's found there.

The gospel tells us that we have a mighty God who's victorious over sin.

He has defeated death.

It it tells us that he's given us his spirit, he's given us power to help us fight our flesh.

The gospel has a major impact on us by way of the glorious hope that it floods our souls with.

So anchor yourself to it.

Hang on to it.

Do not let go of it.

If you let go, if you forget, if you don't remind yourself of what Christ has done and what he promises to do, if you forget to do that regularly, don't be surprised if your hope begins to fade as you battle your flesh.

In verse 18, look what it says here.

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

Okay, a person who is led by the Spirit is someone who understands that they are not under the law anymore as a system of salvation.

Okay, they're they're anchored to the gospel of grace instead.

Right?

That's where my hope is found.

I don't have to try and impress God.

Jesus did it all for me.

There's hope in that.

The gospel will have a major impact on my character.

Second thing.

Gradually killing my flesh as new fruit grows.

Okay, so now Paul gives us some evidence here of what our character looks like as we live by the flesh versus the fruit that the Spirit Himself begins to grow in us as we walk by his Spirit.

Verse 19, take a look at this.

He says, Now the works of the flesh are evident, okay, meaning obvious.

If you're living by the flesh, if you're a you know fleshy driven person, uh, these kinds of things are gonna be uh evident in your life.

Okay, and you might notice here how they how how Paul he groups these actions and these attitudes into these kind of different categories here.

So the first category he says, first evidence he says here is sexual immorality and impurity and sensuality.

Okay, so these are obviously sexual sins, right?

Our culture today has no problems with this, right?

No, like this is an obvious one.

You're living by the power of the flesh, you're gonna be all about pleasure and and and feeling good and sexual sin and warping God's good design for all of these things.

That's evidence of the flesh.

Then what does he say?

He says, idolatry and sorcery.

Okay, so these are religious type sins.

Okay, idolatry here referring to the actual worship of false gods, as was big in this culture, as opposed to the kind of the broad uh category of idolatry that we often use.

You know, I can, you know, I can I have the idol of money, right?

I think I need money in order to have worth, or you know, I need people's approval in order to feel peaceful inside.

Like these are idols, right, for us.

He's not really talking about that exactly.

It's the the actual bowing down to a false god.

Okay, but then what does he mention?

He mentions enmity, which is hatred, strife, that's like constant conflict, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, okay, dissensions being like rebellions within a group, within a church, whatever it might be, divisions, envy.

Okay, that's kind of his next category there.

It's all about how the flesh can destroy relationships.

If your relationships are a mess, stop blaming everybody else.

Maybe it's somebody else, but just maybe you're living by the flesh.

Relationships are starting to go downhill.

And then lastly, this category here is drunkenness and orgies.

Okay, orgies there not being of the sexual variety, but but actually referring to like drunkenness and you know, drinking orgies.

That's kind of what he's getting at.

These these crazy parties that they were involved in, which again shows us how, you know, living by the flesh and submitting to the flesh and following the flesh, it leads to into addictions like you know, like alcoholism, and again, this whole idea of pleasure above all else.

Okay?

You see the damage of the flesh.

You see it there, and then of course he finishes with just and things like these, okay, which is to say that this list that I just gave you, that's not exhaustive.

If your major sin, your major struggle is not on this list, don't be like, sweet, I'm good.

He's giving us a sampling of how the how the flesh destroys.

Okay, and then he says there, last part of verse 21, he says, I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now I think it's pretty natural for us, you know, we hear, you know, that verse, we read that verse, and and we're kind of like, you know, panic sets in, we're like, oh no.

Like, I've done some of those things since becoming a Christian.

You know, and and I've engaged in one or two of those things, maybe even this just this week, and you know, oh, you know, you start to panic again, like maybe I'm not really, maybe I'm not really saved.

And there's kind of hand-wringing and stuff like that.

Well, listen, that's not always a bad thing to ask yourself.

Right?

If you find that sin is just dominating, if you find that sin is ruling you, and and you gotta ask that question, do I really know Jesus?

Okay, it's a good question to ask.

But listen, here, Paul, he's not talking about occasional relapses into sin, okay, that we're appalled by and that we are repenting of regularly and you know, fighting against and trying to beat in the spirit.

Okay, he's not talking about that.

He's not talking about just kind of the daily grind of Christians that we're all kind of in and all of that.

Okay, he's not talking about that.

When he warns that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, he's talking about those who who make a habitual practice of these things with no thought or care about it.

I don't care that I'm doing these things.

I don't even I don't even think about doing these things, I just do it because I want to.

He's talking about like unbelievers.

Okay, if you're sitting here, listen, this is like classic like high school young adult zone.

Okay?

If you're living in that place and you're just like, my parents dragged me here, and I can't wait till you stop talking, Pastor, right?

If that's you and you don't care, heads up.

Okay, heads up.

Take this seriously.

Maybe you think that because you, you know, said a prayer when you were five or something like that, that you think that now that's all I had to do, or now I can live life the way that I want to.

How many of us live that way only to have a rude awakening?

Right?

Understand this.

If your life is not changing, you are not saved.

He says here, you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If you're a Christ follower, you're still gonna grapple with works of the flesh, but not in the sense that you don't, that you don't care about it, or you're not, again, striving to put them to death.

Okay, if you jump down to verse 24, take a look at that now.

He says, This those who belong to Christ, Christ Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Now, obviously, he's not using the word crucified there.

Notice how it's past tense.

Okay, he's not using the word crucified there to mean that our flesh is gone and buried and has you know zero effect on us.

Because obviously that's what this entire passage is about.

How we're continuing to wrestle with it and all of that.

We're battling it constantly.

Rather, he means this, as one pastor put it, I love this, like a chicken with its head cut off.

Okay, the flesh has been dealt a death blow.

Right?

It was crucified through Christ on the cross.

Okay?

Although it continues to flop around the barnyard of earth until the last nerve is stilled.

I love that.

You can you just know that's a MacArthur quote.

Right?

So good.

Right?

Paul's saying that that Christians still deal with the flesh, but we're ultimately not consumed by it.

We are not mastered by it, we're not dominated by it.

The spirit in us overcomes.

We continually crucify, if you want to look at it that way, the flesh.

Okay, now the good stuff.

Ready for this?

Let's get to the good stuff.

Verse 22.

Okay, the fruit of the spirit is, okay, now he gives us what the spirit gradually produces in us as, you know, and in our character as we grow.

Okay, it says, it says love.

Okay, the first one there is love, which is which is serving another person for their good and intrinsic value as opposed to selfish affection, right?

Which is to treat someone well because of how they make you feel about yourself.

Right?

Love is love is genuine.

It is a fruit produced by the Spirit of God.

Sometimes I wonder about us as believers and about churches who claim to be so loving.

Is it really just a mirage?

Is it really just, you know, selfish affection?

I I it looks like love on the outside, but really I love that person because of how they make me feel, because of what I can get from them.

Okay, love goes far deeper than all of that.

Okay, joy is the next one.

Love and then joy.

Joy is delight in God simply for who he is.

Do you delight in the Lord simply for who he is?

I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

Like, man, I I tend to just ask the Lord for a lot.

Am I just delighting?

Am I enjoying Him?

His beauty, his worth, his nature.

That's joy.

It's not like happy feelings.

Okay?

Joy is way deeper.

Peace.

Peace is confidence and rest in the sovereignty of God.

Do you have peace?

Not just I feel somewhat calm and unratled inside.

But are do you have deep peace?

Because God is in control and my soul rests in that.

He is wise.

I'm not gonna fret about my life.

I'm not gonna fret about the stresses and the worries and the concerns and all the anxiety.

No, I've got peace.

I trust him.

How about this one?

Patience.

Okay, that's the ability to face trouble without losing it.

Right?

Snapping.

This is what I need in traffic circles.

Right?

That's me right there all day.

How about kindness?

Kindness is serving others practically from the deep security that I have in Jesus Christ, right, to the point of vulnerability, even.

That's not just serving somebody when it's kind of you know convenient for me.

I'm putting myself in some ways at risk.

I'm making myself very vulnerable.

That's true kindness.

Goodness.

Goodness is really integrity.

Right?

Being the same person in public that I am when I'm behind closed doors and and no one else is around.

That's goodness.

Faithfulness.

Faithfulness is the next one.

Faithfulness is loyalty, it's reliability, it's being true to your word.

Are you faithful?

Are you a faithful person?

Gentleness.

Gentleness is really humility.

There's a softness there, not a weakness.

Okay, I think men sometimes chafe at the idea of being gentle.

That's soft.

Like cowboy up, man.

No, that's not what this is about.

Gentleness is actually strength, it's humility, it's confidence in the Lord.

And then he talks about self-control.

That's the last one.

Self-control is really the ability to pursue the important over the urgent.

Think about that.

What's most important?

Following the Lord.

But there are other things screaming at you for your time.

There are other things screaming at you for your affections, for your priorities, for all of those things.

Self-control is not just being relaxed, it's about prioritizing things and pursuing the important and the crucial over the urgent.

It's not being impulsive.

And then he says, against such things, these things, there is no law.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, as we've read.

He says, if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Now, I'd imagine as you're kind of reading through all of that and we're talking about all of these things, at the end of the day, if you're, you know, if you're like me, you know, you probably want more of this good fruit.

Right?

Like, yes, please, sign me up for this.

Want more of this in my life, in my heart, in my character.

Lord, can you just like back up the truck and dump it into my heart?

That's what I want.

You know, I want to see, I want to see this fruit, you know, kind of bubble up and overflow in my life, in my in my thoughts, in my in my attitudes, in the posture of my life, in my in my actions, and what I actually do.

I want it to my calendar to be affected by all of these things.

I want my flesh to die already, and I want to see this fruit grow.

Right?

That should be the heart of every believer as we understand the gospel, as we grow in that, and as we as we see it clearly.

So then I think the question is then how?

Right?

How do I get there?

How?

How do I, how do I walk by the Spirit?

How do I, you know, keep in step with the Spirit as He says here?

How do I grow?

Well, I think there are like a million things that we could say about this.

Right?

A million tips, uh, you know, a million things.

I got two for you here as we close our time off together.

Okay, two things.

Remember this.

How do I grow?

By remembering that it's by grace.

Not works.

Okay, remember this.

Remember that your growth is by grace as well.

Do you remember Galatians 3, verse 3?

Galatians 3:3

We talked about this a number of weeks ago now.

And for me, this is one of the most like eye-opening verses in this entire letter.

He says, This, are you so foolish?

He's talking to the Galatian church.

Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Are you now being perfected by the flesh?

He was saying, listen, you don't grow in Christ by getting better at obeying the law.

Okay, that's not how that how that works.

It's not about obeying a bunch of rules better and performing harder, more efficiently, being more better tuned, whatever, to all of that, as though it's all on us.

It's not about that.

It's about grace.

We understand that we are justified by grace.

We can't get ourselves into the kingdom on our own.

We need Jesus to 100% do that for us.

Well, guess what?

Our growth operates the exact same way.

We need Jesus to actually establish growth in our hearts.

So many, we've talked about this, but so many of us kind of approach the Christian life and the gospel itself as the gospel gets my foot in the door.

Right?

The gospel gets me into heaven down the road whenever that happens.

But if I want to kind of be like Jesus, if I want to improve as a person, I need to like pull up my bootstraps and start behaving better.

Right?

That's what we think.

Some of us are here today because we think the behavior of actually being here today makes me better.

Jesus makes you better.

Your salvation is by grace through and through.

Your predestination, your justification, your sanctification, and also your glorification.

We're sanctified.

We grow by grace.

Remember that.

You gotta remember that constantly.

Second thing.

How do I grow?

By cooperating with God in the process.

You gotta cooperate with Him.

You notice the tension in these two things on the screen?

You notice that?

You see that all through the scriptures, don't you?

You see it in our passage alone.

There's this tension between man's responsibility and what God does.

Right?

You see that?

It's not fully explained.

It's not fully described to us in the scriptures.

Paul tells us, walk by the spirit, right?

We looked at that.

We got to do that.

That's all that's on us.

There's responsibility there.

But then the the fruit is the fruit of the spirit.

Not the fruit of Mike.

Not the fruit of Bruce, the fruit of any of us, right?

It's the fruit of the spirit.

He generates it.

He manufactures it.

One of the most interesting fruits in that fruit of the spirit list is self-control.

Think about that.

A fruit of the spirit that he grows in us, that he generates, manufactures, creates in you is called self-control.

Let that just kind of twist your mind up a little bit.

That's good stuff.

Okay, but you see here, there's just a wonderful tension in this.

God and man cooperating and working together in this.

You've got to join the Lord in what he's commanding you to do.

You've got to submit your heart to what only he can do and allow him to grow you and change you.

Listen, do not give up on this.

Find the encouragement in all of this.

The gospel will have a major, major impact on your character.

And do not forget that the illustration that Paul gives us, that God himself gives us through Paul in this section of scripture here is fruit.

Think about fruit for a second.

Fruit grows steadily, for sure.

It doesn't grow for like a week and then take 12 months off and then start growing again.

It grows steadily.

Don't take breaks on your relationship with the Lord.

Don't do it.

That's not in the Bible.

God's not behind that game plan.

Don't do it.

Fruit grows.

It grows steadily.

But what else?

How else does fruit grow?

How about slowly?

Right?

We're using the word gradually here.

Gradually.

Our growth is very slow.

Sometimes it's fast, and you know you go through seasons, and let's be honest, it's through trials.

It's through hard times.

Maybe you go through trials and it's like a two or three-month thing just to kind of place a number on it.

You find like on the other end of that, you're like, wow, I'm really different.

The Lord has changed me, and what I used to be all about, I'm not about anymore.

And there's there's work that's been done in my heart and in my character.

But generally speaking, the Christian life is just kind of plodding along.

It's a walk, right?

It's not a sprint.

Neither is it a crawl.

Neither is it a lay face down in your bed all day.

Right?

It's a walk, it's it's move forward, it's gradual, though.

Our growth, our maturity, it takes time.

Okay, it really does.

It takes a lifetime.

Okay, so understand this.

Have the long view of all of this.

Have the long view.

Be be patient.

Okay, keep going.

You're gonna have some blips.

They're gonna feel like the end of the world.

Keep going.

Lean into the Lord, pray harder, lean into the community around you.

We've got great people here that would love to pray for you and help you and all of that.

Let's trust the process.

Let's trust the Lord in all of this.

Let's allow the gospel to have an impact.