Keeping in Step with the Spirit | Galatians 5:16-26 | Pastor Jake Brown

Our passage of scripture for today's sermon is Galatians 16 through 20 5, 16 through 26.

Galatians 5, 16 through 26.

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 the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual morality, 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've warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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

Against such things there is no law.

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

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

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

This is the Word of God.

We are at war.

A struggle is currently happening in the hearts of every Christian alive.

It's the flesh versus the spirit.

And if that sounds to you kind of ridiculous, like, man, that's a pretty serious way to talk about it.

We're just using the language of the passage.

My wife and I like to laugh sometimes watching sports.

They'll talk to the coach and they'll be like, these guys have just overcome a lot of adversity.

You know, he was he was benched for a while, and now he's out here.

He's had a hard life.

It's like, really?

Like, do you know what adversity means?

Like, I don't know if that's adversity.

Christian, if you have felt tension in your own life and in your heart, I hope this passage opens your eyes to maybe why that is and encourages you that the war has been won, so we can win the battles.

What Paul's really getting at is he's building upon what Sean preached last week on living in Christian Christian freedom.

He's explaining that more to us.

And what he invites us to is to take a walk.

As we walk through the passage, we're gonna see four main points: the conflict, the enemy, the ally, and the key.

The conflict, the enemy, the ally, and the key.

First, we find the conflict.

Verses 16 to 18.

But I say walk by the Spirit.

That's a command.

Christian, that's telling you what to do.

And I love this word walk.

Think of a leisurely stroll.

If you ever go uh running with my dad, he'll say, You're just out for a stroll.

You're not, you're fighting for life.

This is actually out for a stroll.

This is meant to tell you like a steady pace, ongoing daily.

Just to walk.

Brings to mind for me Andy Dufresne in the prison yard, dropping pieces of the wall down his pant leg, if you know that reference.

I don't know if you're like me.

I walk with purpose.

It means I walk fast, unreasonably, and for no good reason at all.

Um it's hard for me to think about a struggle.

Maybe in the Christian life it's hard for you to think about a struggle.

We want it now.

Maybe you've recently become a Christian.

You're like, why isn't my life different?

Why am I still struggling with these sins?

Why am I not immediately some great pastor or missionary or whatever it is you want to be, singer?

Why isn't the Lord giving me those gifts?

Why am I still struggling with these things that I've struggled with for years?

It's because it's a walk.

It's a slow, steady walk.

I think we need to recover that sum in American Christianity, where everything is not just microwaved.

It takes time.

It takes perseverance.

When people talk about this church, we're a young and new church.

If you're here, thank you for being here.

We've only been here a little over a year and a half.

When we make decisions about this church, we try to think decades into the future as best we can.

Now I realize some of us in here are saying, I won't be here decades in the future.

Exactly.

But we hope to leave a faithful church behind us that will preach the word and make disciples.

This is that kind of invitation from Paul.

It's actually a command from Paul.

Walk by the Spirit.

16B says, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Some of you, if it's your first time hearing me preach, you're like, is he gonna go this slow through the whole passage?

We're gonna be here a long time.

Don't worry, it's gonna pick up.

We're gonna get to some things.

We're laying the foundation by looking at what this conflict is.

If we're told to walk by the spirit, he says, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Now, in my preparation for this, I read this verse and immediately said, Yeah, this is the opposite.

If we walk by the spirit, then we won't gratify the desires of the flesh.

Maybe that's how you're reading it.

It's another command.

Don't gratify.

But I want you to notice that's not what it says.

It says, if you're walking by the spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

That's a promise, not a command.

That's good news.

That's reinforcement to you that, hey, walk by the spirit, and there is hope here.

Verse 17 continues, 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.

Notice it says against twice, and it says opposed once.

Are you getting what Paul is trying to show you?

There is a struggle within us.

Some of you have known these scriptures and you've walked in this for years and you still have to struggle.

Some of you have never been taught this, and you're saying, man, this makes so much sense of my Christian life.

I feel that struggle every day.

He makes it plain for us.

He tells us in verse 18, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now, if you remove this from the context of Galatians, if you're here with us for the first time, you may be confused.

Like, why is he talking about being under the law?

That's been a theme of Galatians.

And he wants us to know that if you are in the Spirit, you are under grace, not under the law.

That doesn't mean the law is bad.

It doesn't mean the law doesn't give us guidelines morally for where we need to be and what we need to look like.

It means that we do not earn our salvation through the law.

We are saved by grace through faith in Christ.

You are not under the law if you are led by the Spirit.

Now, what this points us to is a reality.

Christian brothers and sisters, you are already living in freedom.

Now, your eternal life with God has begun.

You've experienced a new birth.

The Holy Spirit resides in you.

The same one that raised Jesus from the dead dwells inside of you.

God Himself, the Holy Spirit.

And yet, though we're living in freedom, we are not yet fully emancipated from the flesh.

We still have fleshly desires because we still have these same bodies.

One day, we will have glorified new bodies like our resurrected Savior.

We've talked about this in this church some before.

I look forward to teleportation.

Maybe yours is like you want to fly or something.

What's going to be really crazy for us is that there's no longer going to be this inner struggle.

This conflict that we're talking about is not forever.

Jesus has already won this war.

He did not give in to temptation.

He did not give in to the desires of the flesh.

He had flesh like ours.

He was tempted as we are, and yet never gave in.

That gives us hope.

That gives us hope.

Now, before we even continue, I need to address, as I talk about a conflict, some of you may have walked in here feeling defeat spiritually.

It breaks my heart to say that I talk to many people in our church and just in Huntsville generally, who that's kind of their spiritual state.

It's a state of, I can't overcome ex sin.

I can't overcome this thing in my life that I've struggled with for so long.

And it makes you doubt your salvation.

It makes your relationships difficult.

I want to encourage you that if you are walking by the Spirit, if you are trusting in Christ and putting sin to death, you can overcome the sin in your life.

Because the Holy Spirit of God is in you.

We are told to resist the devil and he will flee from you.

We are not given that command to mess with us.

You can resist him.

You can put sin to death in your life.

You can walk in freedom.

And I don't say this to shame you, I say this to encourage you.

You are not defeated.

Because Jesus has overcome.

Because we have hope in him.

So while we do have this struggle, we want to make sure we couch it the correct way.

That we recognize that we have already had the cross and the empty tomb.

And we're living in light of that.

But it leaves us with a struggle and with a tension.

And as we've gone through Galatians, maybe some of you have felt this.

As we've talked about the law, some of us tend to really want to emphasize the law.

We like the law.

We like the rules to keep.

We don't like saying that we don't have to keep the law to be saved.

We're quick to be like, yeah, but you know, real faith has works.

Like if I say you're saved by grace and I stop, if you just got uncomfortable, you're who I'm talking to, okay?

Because we want to be quick to be like, yeah, but you're right.

We should, if we're walking by the Spirit, bear good fruit, as we'll see.

But that's the tension inside of us.

Now, if you're on the other side and you're like, I hate the law, I'm just, I'm throwing it out, I'm just gonna live and do whatever I want to do, that's not what this passage is calling us to either.

It is recognizing that there is a struggle to put the desires of your flesh to death and to walk by the Spirit.

Hopefully you feel that tension, you're aware of that tension.

Now, to understand this conflict, we need to understand what we're fighting against and who we're fighting with.

So we're fighting against the enemy here.

Verses 19 to 21.

The enemy is our own flesh.

Now here's what I don't mean by that.

I don't mean that everyone is inherently evil by their own nature always, because we are all made in the image of God.

Sin, however, entered in and has corrupted us.

We have not only inherited a sinful nature through Adam and Eve, but also we have participated willingly, because we like sin in our flesh.

I know that's a hard reality to hear, but it's the truth.

So how do we recognize when we are yielding to the flesh?

Verse 19 says, Now the works of the flesh are evident.

Ah, that's helpful.

What are they?

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

I will admit, in preparing the sermon, I've thought about spending time going through each one of these and defining them for you, and you'll I realize that's not really the point here.

Most of you as adults here know what a lot of these things mean.

Some of you as kids don't.

You can talk to your parents.

Notice what it says right there at the end of that list, and things like these.

Now, if you go to 1 Corinthians 6, you get another list.

It's not exactly the same.

Paul is making the point, there are other things, but he says they're evident.

They're obviously not of the spirit.

We know when we are doing wrong, and we know when we see it in other people.

His point isn't to list those, it's to give us this warning.

He says, I warn you.

You see how hard writing a sermon is?

You literally just say what the text says and help people live it.

Okay.

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

That's his point.

That's severe.

That's not, hey, if you give into the flesh, it's okay.

We all do sometimes, you know.

This is life.

We all have our tendencies, we all have our vices, right?

I know some of you are like, man, I said that to myself in the mirror last week.

I told my brother in Christ that last week.

Yes, let's take sin a little bit more seriously.

Let's not wink at it.

Let's not sweep it under the rug.

Sin leads to death.

Eternally.

Those who walk and persist in these things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And y'all, there's not one in this list or in 1 Corinthians 6, there's not one of us who can look at the whole list and say, Yeah, I've never done any of that.

We've all given into the flesh.

If we persist in those, we will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, a major theme in Galatians has been justification by faith.

Which means if you trust in Jesus, turn away from your sin, you are saved.

Boom, right then.

You are pronounced righteous before God at that moment.

Okay?

That is great news.

And it's something we stand on and believe the Bible teaches clearly.

So, how does this work with that?

If I gratify the desires of my flesh, says I'm not going to inherit the kingdom of God, how am I then justified by faith?

Folks, this tells us something about the life of faith.

That you will not persist in these things.

It doesn't mean that we will not ever do them.

If you're here and you're not a Christian, thank you for coming.

I want you to know that Christians are capable of awful, awful things.

We have done them and we will do them again because we are still in this flesh.

What I hope is different about Christians, what should be different about Christians, is that when we sin, when we gratify the desires of the flesh, we repent.

We reconcile.

We face the consequences.

We take our sin and our confession to God, not away from Him.

Do you see the difference?

If I persist in these things and go on and just say, hey, this is just how I am, this is how God made me, then you need to pay attention to this warning.

It's a strong warning.

It's heavy, it's weighty.

But if we are saved by grace through faith, we will not persist in the works of the flesh.

So that's our enemy.

I have good news for you.

We have someone stronger on our side.

We have the ally.

We have the Spirit Himself, the Holy Spirit of God.

Verses 22 and 23.

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

Against such things, there is no law.

Again, I need to give a caveat.

We're not saying that people who are not Christians can never display any of these things.

That's not what this means.

In fact, because we're made in the image of God, I would expect to find some of these aspects in people.

What we are saying is that Christians have the supernatural power of God to grow and persevere in this fruit.

Now notice it says fruit, singular, not fruits, plural.

It's a list with a lot of things, right?

If you're in here and you're like, I really like grammar, I like English, I'm that person.

I like critique people's text messages because they have commas in the wrong places or don't use punctuation.

First of all, I relate to you.

For those of you who like, that's not me.

Sorry, you should read more.

Um this one, it should stand out to you if you read it and you're like, the fruit of the spirit should say fruits.

That doesn't make sense.

Like, whoever translated this must have misdone it.

They didn't misdo it.

Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, carried along by God as God breathed his word through him, tells us it is the fruit singular of the Holy Spirit.

That has implications for us.

We don't get to pick and choose which fruit will grow.

You may look at the list and you kind of tend towards something like, oh man, I'd really love some joy and some peace.

And I don't know about self-control.

That one's a little hard.

It's not really how I'm wired.

Christians, I got bad news.

You don't get to use your Enneagram number or your zodiac sign to justify gratifying the desires of the flesh.

Okay?

I know.

We laugh because it's real.

That's real life.

I'm a four, so I, you know, that's just not how I am.

By the way, if you ever ask me what my enneagram number is, I'll tell you 14, because I don't know.

I'm glad it's helpful for you.

I don't know what that means.

My wife's a 10, though.

Self-control.

Anyway, you look at these and you naturally go to some and not others.

Maybe some are easier for you than others.

But it's one fruit that, Christian, it should all be growing up in you.

If you've been walking with the Lord for some time, there should be some evidence of fruit in your life.

A peach tree is gonna grow peaches.

An apple tree is gonna grow apples.

If you are in the Spirit, you're walking by the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit should be growing in you.

Never perfectly in this life.

Never perfectly in this life.

I understand that.

But are you growing in these things?

Is there fruit in your life?

Well, the people you interact with on a daily basis agree with you that these things are growing in your life.

Notice how many of these are relational, by the way.

Kindness isn't just something you can have all by yourself.

We bring up the law again.

Against such things, there is no law.

I like that it says no law because y'all never in the history of mankind, I would guess, has it have they ever said, like, hey, no one here can be good.

Alright?

We're just we're done with gentleness, can't have that anymore.

You're gonna get a ticket if you're too gentle.

No, that doesn't make sense.

And if we're growing in these things, we'll actually look a lot more like Jesus who kept the law perfectly.

If you have been a Christian for some time and you've seen no growth or fruit in your life, that might be concerning for you.

If there's been no change from how your life would be without God to how it is supposed to be with God, I am concerned for you eternally, and I hope you will hear today genuine, heartfelt desire for that to not be your story.

These things should be growing up in us.

Maybe some of the fruit is larger than others.

That's the way fruit grows, right?

But you should have the fruit of the spirit in your life.

Against such things, there is no law.

Now, how can we walk by the Spirit and experience this fruit in our lives?

It leads us to the key.

And I call it the key because if we're saying this is a war, this is a conflict, there's an enemy, there's an ally who is the Holy Spirit, then we need to know how to win the war.

How do we win these battles?

Verse 24 says, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have been crucified, or have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

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

Two major things I want to draw you to.

One, those who belong to Christ Jesus.

That may be an odd word that you haven't used a whole lot in the saying, I follow Jesus.

I am a Christian.

Do you belong to Jesus?

Are you his?

I have a young son who has begun to understand what belonging means.

And by that I mean if it is his, he will say, That's mine.

I see lots of nods from parents in here.

Folks, to belong to Jesus means he looks at you and says, That's mine.

That's mine.

That's my son.

That's my daughter.

That's part of my family.

I shed my blood for these people.

First is the belonging.

But second, it says those who belong to Christ Jesus have what?

Have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If you go to church regularly, you can hear terms like crucifixion or cross and lose the weight of them.

Crucified is heavy and bloody and serious.

It would have been shameful at the time to talk about crucifixion.

People who were killed on crosses weren't people you wanted to be associated with.

But Paul here says, if you belong to Christ, you've crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

This calls to mind Jesus' words, right?

Take up your cross daily and follow me.

You heard that before?

Folks, have you crucified your flesh?

Have worldly desires died to you, or do you flirt with them?

Do you feed them on the side?

It's a dangerous game.

If you're wrestling with a sin, you read through these desires of the flesh, and you say, Man, that's one that I just I can't get past.

Confess to somebody here today and get help, please.

We want to help you, not condemn you, not shame you.

We want to see you walk in victory.

We want to see you walk in freedom.

We want you to have joy and peace and these other fruit of the Spirit in your life.

I promise you what the Lord has for you is better than what your flesh wants for you.

Guaranteed.

Guaranteed.

So crucify the flesh.

Then we can join with Paul back in Galatians 2.20, he says, I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

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

Folks, that's the key.

To belong to Christ, who've been crucified with him.

Means that you've turned away from your sin.

You've trusted in the one who came and lived without sin, who never gave in to the desires of the flesh.

Perfectly displayed the fruit of the Spirit.

Go back and read through a gospel and keep a list of these fruit of the Spirit next to it and see if you can find them in Jesus.

He walked perfectly with the Spirit.

And he walked all the way to the cross.

Where he willingly died in our place for our sin, bearing the wrath of God for us.

So that we who have committed these awful things can inherit the kingdom of God.

He died on the cross and he was dead three days, and he defeated sin and death through his resurrection.

He is alive now and forevermore, and he sent his Holy Spirit to his people in our hearts so that we can cry to God, Abba Father, we belong to you.

This is a reminder for brothers and sisters in this room.

The struggle is ongoing, I know, but there's victory to walk in.

And this is an invitation.

If you've not yet crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, let today be the day.

Put that life behind you.

It will be gradual, it will be slow.

And notice that the fruit is not our fruit.

It's the fruit of the Spirit.

He grows his fruit in us.

Which means if you are walking by the Spirit, it's not, man, I gotta do these seven things, I gotta get this list of these fruit, and I've got to get better at them.

As you're walking with the Spirit, you're being part of a local church, you're spending time with the Lord and His Word and in prayer, you're striving to love God and love people, these fruit grow.

This fruit grows.

Yes, they may look old.

Our skin gets wrinkly, your hair gets gray, or maybe that happens in your 30s.

I don't know.

Maybe you lose your hair, maybe you gain weight, maybe you lose weight.

But you look old, right?

If you talk to a saint, and by that I mean a brother or sister in Christ, who've been walking with the Lord for so long, there's something beautiful about them.

There's something beautiful about a brother in Christ.

Who said, I'm gonna turn away from my sin even as a young man, and I'm gonna follow after Jesus.

I'm gonna be baptized, I'm gonna join a church, I'm gonna love my family and lead them to know the gospel.

I'm gonna work in a way that glorifies God.

In everything I do, I want to glorify Him.

And to do that over time, daily obedience for decades.

It doesn't mean these senior saints are perfect, but there's something beautiful about them.

Folks, what you're seeing there is the fruit of the Spirit in bloom.

Similarly, if you see someone who gives in to the desires of the flesh, it's hard.

This stuff corrupts us, y'all.

And it may be harsh to say it's ugly, but I don't mean it in a harsh way.

Maybe we all bear scars from it.

But y'all, if you look at that list, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, things like these, if any one of those stirs up in your heart, man, I'm really still holding on to that one, let's crucify it.

Let's put that to death so that you can walk in fullness of freedom in Christ.

It's an invitation to go on a walk.

And that's where he gets to in verse 25.

If we live by the Spirit, what?

Let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Told you earlier, I walk with purpose, I walk fast.

Do you know why that is?

Because as a little kid, I tried to keep up with my dad.

I just learned that pace.

So now if you see me darting around, you're like, is something wrong?

Like, no, this is just how I walk.

Sorry.

Y'all keep in step with the spirit.

I love the term when we're talking about growing in discipleship.

That it's about consistency, not intensity.

A brother here has been helping me get in better shape and has helped me think about that, even with my own workouts.

Consistency over intensity.

You learn that in your diet or in your exercises.

Y'all it's the same thing in walking with the Lord.

I know some of you are like, I'm an intense person.

I want to be able to, you know, I want to listen to this podcast, I'm gonna read the whole Bible in the next 30 days, and I'm gonna grow and know it.

And like, great, if you want to do that occasionally, that's cool.

What we're looking for is steady drip, slow change, long obedience toward Christ.

And I know that's not as flashy.

And to be a new church, we'd get a lot more people if I'd be like, hey, y'all, we're gonna change by next week.

Ready?

We're gonna save Huntsville by Christmas.

I hope the Lord does that.

But more normatively, just a walk.

Will you walk with the Spirit?

Will you keep in step with Him?

We said earlier how the fruit of the Spirit, a lot of it's relational.

Paul gives us a little tease in this final verse of this chapter, pointing us to what will be next week's sermon.

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

Why does he get to that point?

It seems kind of out of place.

And checking different commentaries, they broke it up differently.

Some of them put it with chapter 6, some of them kept it here.

Well, it's because we can't talk about life in the spirit without talking about our relational life together with other Christians, with our family, with our neighbors, with our coworkers.

We are made to be relational beings.

The Christian life is not one to do alone.

I urge you to press into community with other Christians, whether that's here or at another church that preaches the Bible.

And I want you to think about when you're at home or when you're at work, are those relationships reflecting that you're walking with the Spirit?

Folks, it's a simple sermon.

It's honestly not that hard of a passage.

It's an invitation to go on a walk.

I hope you'll accept it.

Let's pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for the truth of your word.

We thank you that you're honest with us about the struggle, the conflict in us.

But we thank you that we have an ally in the Holy Spirit who gives us victory day to day, moment by moment, in inner battles and turmoil.

And all this is only possible because Jesus has overcome the world.

Renew our trust in Him.

Revive us again.

God, we pray that the fruit of the Spirit will grow in us for your glory, for the good of our neighbors, and for our joy.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.