WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.560 Right, good evening. 00:00:03.560 --> 00:00:08.140 So thanks to Corey, early on for the introduction. 00:00:08.140 --> 00:00:09.140 My name's Neil McMillan. 00:00:09.140 --> 00:00:14.339 I'm the minister of Cornerstone Church in Moringside. 00:00:14.339 --> 00:00:18.920 So it's good to be with you this evening. 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:25.100 Whenever St. Columbus here decided to do a series of sermons on any particular part 00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:29.900 of the Bible, then I know that I can look ahead into that series and find the most awkward 00:00:29.899 --> 00:00:34.719 passage and I'm going to be the one that's asked to preach on it. 00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:37.019 That's generally the pattern that's emerging. 00:00:37.019 --> 00:00:40.359 So here we've got one about orges and sexual immorality. 00:00:40.359 --> 00:00:43.399 I knew I was doomed to be the one. 00:00:43.399 --> 00:00:47.560 And it's just in case I really upset anyone, the blame doesn't fall on one of the ministers 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:49.039 who's here every week. 00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:51.719 So Derek, the minister, is in Nepal. 00:00:51.719 --> 00:00:54.119 And we are, well, he's away. 00:00:54.119 --> 00:00:55.480 He's left me. 00:00:55.479 --> 00:01:02.559 Just to guide you through really verses 19 to 21, the works of the flesh are evident, 00:01:02.559 --> 00:01:11.200 sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:20.159 fits of anger, rivalry, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, orges, and things like 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:21.159 these. 00:01:21.159 --> 00:01:27.439 I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:30.200 of God. 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:33.039 So this is called bad fruit this sermon. 00:01:33.039 --> 00:01:36.159 So just imagine you're walking along. 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:43.879 It's a beautiful sunny autumn day and you find yourself for no good reason in an orchard 00:01:43.879 --> 00:01:47.479 and there are fruit trees all around you. 00:01:47.480 --> 00:01:53.520 And as you come close to the trees, you see that some of the fruit trees are bearing very 00:01:53.520 --> 00:01:54.520 good fruit. 00:01:54.520 --> 00:01:55.880 It looks delicious. 00:01:55.880 --> 00:01:58.800 You can see it's going to be great to eat. 00:01:58.800 --> 00:02:04.760 But you also look at other trees and you see that the fruit in them looks shriveled and 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:07.680 dead and bitter. 00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:12.199 You can't work out why is it that the fruit in the trees is so different? 00:02:12.199 --> 00:02:17.839 Why do some trees have good fruit and some trees have bad fruit? 00:02:17.839 --> 00:02:23.839 And so you find the headman, the keeper of the trees, the orchard master, or whatever 00:02:23.839 --> 00:02:29.759 that person is called, and you say to them, what's the deal with the bad trees? 00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:35.439 And he explains that the bad trees, somebody has come in and poured poison on the roots 00:02:35.439 --> 00:02:37.199 of these trees. 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:43.280 And because the roots are bad, the fruit is bad. 00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:49.079 And so it is with us as human beings that for many of us, the roots of our life are 00:02:49.079 --> 00:02:56.639 poisonous and that means that the fruit of our life is poisonous. 00:02:56.639 --> 00:02:59.359 Your roots determine your fruits. 00:02:59.359 --> 00:03:03.759 That's just the kind of simple idea that we're working with. 00:03:03.759 --> 00:03:10.560 If your roots are bad, your fruit is bad, but if your fruit is good, then that means 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:15.280 that your life is rooted in something good. 00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:21.919 If your fruit is good, it means that your life is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:27.239 And that's the contrast that the apostle Paul's bringing out here in this letter to the church 00:03:27.239 --> 00:03:29.159 in Galatia. 00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:35.520 What does it look like to live a life that is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:44.159 is full of the Holy Spirit, and that is walking in step with the Spirit? 00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:47.560 And what's the contrast to that? 00:03:47.560 --> 00:03:51.960 So we're looking at the contrast this evening, the bad fruit. 00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:55.879 So we're going to think about fruit for a little while, and then we're going to think 00:03:55.879 --> 00:04:01.359 about the heart behind the fruit, and then we're going to think about our roots. 00:04:01.359 --> 00:04:05.079 So that's kind of where we're going, fruit, heart, root. 00:04:05.079 --> 00:04:08.519 Okay, so let's start with the fruit. 00:04:08.519 --> 00:04:15.519 There are 15 kinds of bad fruit here in these couple of verses. 00:04:15.519 --> 00:04:20.719 They're listed there for us, and you could break them down into four sections. 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:27.880 So the first three relate to sexual behavior. 00:04:27.880 --> 00:04:31.160 So there we have sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality. 00:04:31.160 --> 00:04:34.320 So that's all around our sex lives. 00:04:34.320 --> 00:04:43.120 And then the next two are to do with idolatry, false worship, sorcery. 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:45.560 So we've got three about sexual behavior. 00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:49.200 We've got two on idolatry. 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:59.279 And then we have eight that relate to strife in human relationships. 00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:06.199 So enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, rivalry, dissension, division, and envy. 00:05:06.199 --> 00:05:16.000 And then we've got two that relate to kind of intoxication and sort of unbounded behavior, 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:20.079 unrestrained living, if you want to put it that way. 00:05:20.079 --> 00:05:24.240 So you've got those four different areas of bad fruit. 00:05:24.240 --> 00:05:32.920 Now the thing about bad fruit, of course, is that it doesn't sell itself as bad fruit. 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:40.240 Bad fruits always want to advertise themselves as good fruits, because the bad fruit brand 00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:42.480 doesn't sell well. 00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:48.840 Most of us don't set out in life intending to bear bad fruit. 00:05:48.840 --> 00:05:55.720 And so what we could say really is this, that the bad fruit is a counterfeit of good fruit. 00:05:55.720 --> 00:06:00.240 It's the kind of fruit you buy at the bar as if you're in Glasgow, okay? 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:05.160 You go along, it's a knock off, it's a dodgy deal, it's supposed to be the real thing, 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:06.960 but it's not. 00:06:06.960 --> 00:06:11.360 So think about this, sexual sins are counterfeit goods. 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:16.879 Where sexual sins are a counterfeit of love. 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:24.280 It's replacing love with sex and getting the two confused. 00:06:24.280 --> 00:06:29.120 And so we have to be really clear from what's been said here that sexual contact, sexual 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:36.360 involvement with somebody who's not your spouse is sinful in God's eyes, it's not good. 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:40.280 And yet in our culture, of course, we're told it is good. 00:06:40.279 --> 00:06:43.879 Sexual freedom is a good according to the culture. 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:46.000 It's normal we're told. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:51.039 And yet God says no, it's not normal for a Christian. 00:06:51.039 --> 00:07:00.079 So to many people it may seem like a good fruit, but God says no, in reality it's a bad fruit. 00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:03.399 So sexual sins are a counterfeit of love. 00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:10.639 Idolatrous sins are a counterfeit of worship, it's replacing true worship with false worship. 00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:14.919 Sins of strife are a counterfeit of community. 00:07:14.919 --> 00:07:21.000 It's the kind of community where you gather people around you in a divisive way. 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:27.639 In opposition to others or to hostility to other people, you create your group and you 00:07:27.639 --> 00:07:30.479 use your group in enmity against others. 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:34.439 I was reading about the Black Panther movie that's coming out. 00:07:34.439 --> 00:07:40.160 Black Panther movement, of course, was about dealing with racial injustice in the United 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:43.160 States back in the late 1960s. 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:50.160 But the Black Panther movement was driven by hatred, internal conflict, violence. 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:57.840 So gathered around a good cause, but a community that was actually deeply fractured. 00:07:57.839 --> 00:08:01.439 And many of our communities are like that, some of our families feel like that, don't 00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:02.439 they? 00:08:02.439 --> 00:08:08.000 Fractured, strife, envy, bitterness, all those different kinds of things. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:15.299 It's a counterfeit of true community, because true community is found around the gospel 00:08:15.299 --> 00:08:17.319 in Jesus Christ. 00:08:17.319 --> 00:08:24.120 At the end we have sins of pleasure, the last two intoxication and orgies, and these are 00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:29.120 a counterfeit of true celebration and joy. 00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:35.639 So these are the bad fruits, and just be clear about this, that bad fruits have bad outcomes. 00:08:35.639 --> 00:08:40.519 They're dodgy goods, they've fallen off the back of Satan's lorry, they seem attractive, 00:08:40.519 --> 00:08:42.679 they might appear compelling. 00:08:42.679 --> 00:08:47.600 But God says that fruit, that bad fruit, will not bring you the good life that you long 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:49.080 for. 00:08:49.080 --> 00:08:54.960 You may think your happiness and the happiness of the people around you can be pursued through 00:08:54.960 --> 00:08:58.080 these kind of things. 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:02.879 But God says in the end they'll have a terrible impact on you, they won't bring you the peace 00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:05.200 and joy you long for. 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:10.600 And the ripple effect will be felt in the lives of many others. 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:18.640 Bad fruit isn't just bad for us, because our behavior and our action, it always has consequences 00:09:18.639 --> 00:09:21.319 for other people. 00:09:21.319 --> 00:09:24.919 And so what's bad for us will be bad for many of the other people who are close to us in 00:09:24.919 --> 00:09:25.919 life. 00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:32.319 When we make bad choices, when we behave and live in bad ways, it's not only us that suffer, 00:09:32.319 --> 00:09:34.799 many others suffer too. 00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:38.840 So that's the bad fruit. 00:09:38.840 --> 00:09:40.480 Where does the fruit come from? 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:47.200 Well let's think about the human heart for a moment, because Jesus says to us very clearly 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:54.759 that our behavior, our speech, our actions are a reflection of our inner life. 00:09:54.759 --> 00:09:59.400 And sometimes we describe that as our heart, our inner being, our inner person. 00:09:59.400 --> 00:10:05.520 So I'm just going to read you from Mark chapter 7, where we read this, Jesus calls a crowd 00:10:05.520 --> 00:10:11.800 to him and he says, listen to me, everybody listen and understand this, nothing outside 00:10:11.799 --> 00:10:17.399 a person can defile them by going into them, rather it's what comes out of a person that 00:10:17.399 --> 00:10:18.399 defiles them. 00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:26.000 So Jesus was addressing religious rituals that were about maintaining religious cleanliness 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:29.719 and washing your hands, eating the right thing, all that kind of stuff. 00:10:29.719 --> 00:10:33.279 So after he leaves the crowd and enters the house, the disciples ask him about this parable 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:35.279 and he says, are you really so thick? 00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:36.439 That's basically what he says. 00:10:36.439 --> 00:10:37.439 Are you so dull? 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:42.640 Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:46.280 For it doesn't go into their heart but into their stomach and then out of the body and 00:10:46.280 --> 00:10:49.040 saying this Jesus declared all foods clean. 00:10:49.040 --> 00:10:56.320 And then Jesus goes on, it's what comes out of a person that defiles them. 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:04.760 For it is from within out of a person's heart that evil thoughts come, sexual immorality, 00:11:04.759 --> 00:11:13.720 theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, folly, 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:21.000 all these evils come from inside and defile a person. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:28.360 And so when you think about the fruit of your life, the Bible is not saying to you, you 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:35.879 need to change your behavior, the Bible is saying to you, you need to change your heart 00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:41.240 because it's the heart that determines the fruit. 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:45.600 It's from within you that these evils come. 00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:51.000 It's the heart that governs our desires, our affections, our thoughts, our actions and 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:54.800 our behavior. 00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:58.919 It's your polluted heart that comes out and expresses itself. 00:11:58.919 --> 00:12:07.399 If I'm an angry gossip and I come along to you one day over a cup of coffee and I tell 00:12:07.399 --> 00:12:13.959 you something really nasty about another person, that's an expression of something broken inside 00:12:13.959 --> 00:12:19.120 of me, something wrong in my life. 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:26.759 If I'm prone to anger, that's not the fault of the person who's annoyed me, it's a reflection 00:12:26.759 --> 00:12:29.519 of the poison in my heart. 00:12:29.519 --> 00:12:35.360 If I'm driving along in my car raging at the idiot in front of me, it's not because he's 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:41.759 an idiot, it's because I'm an angry person with an angry heart. 00:12:41.759 --> 00:12:48.320 And an angry heart is a heart that's out of step with the Holy Spirit. 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:50.400 Jesus is very clear in the Sermon in the Mount, isn't he? 00:12:50.400 --> 00:12:55.560 If you know the Sermon in the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5 and 6 and 7, Jesus 00:12:55.560 --> 00:13:05.480 is very clear in speaking to people about human ethics that sin is truly a matter of 00:13:05.480 --> 00:13:12.720 the heart, that you can't just look at sexual behavior and say, well, I've never cheated 00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:16.960 on my wife, therefore I'm sexually pure. 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:22.840 Jesus says, no, you have to look at your heart and what's going on in the lusts of your heart 00:13:22.840 --> 00:13:28.600 to determine whether you're sinning in that area of your life or not. 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:33.720 So it's a heart issue that Jesus wants to deal with. 00:13:33.720 --> 00:13:40.440 So how do we deal with a heart that is polluted, that is angry, that's defiled, that's producing 00:13:40.440 --> 00:13:45.080 bad food, food, food, food, fruit? 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:48.520 So let's think fruit, heart, root. 00:13:48.520 --> 00:13:50.400 Okay, so that's where we start. 00:13:50.400 --> 00:13:56.160 Just saying, you know, the roots of our life feed our heart. 00:13:56.160 --> 00:14:04.280 Our heart expresses itself in the fruit, in the behavior, the speech that we see working 00:14:04.280 --> 00:14:09.240 its way out in our day-to-day behavior. 00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:10.720 So where is your heart rooted? 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:16.000 Well, when we see things are wrong, we try and root our heart in a way that will change 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:18.560 our behavior. 00:14:18.560 --> 00:14:26.080 And just as there are counterfeit fruits, there are counterfeit cures. 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:33.360 And one way that we as human beings try and cure the problem of our bad fruit and our 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:38.160 bad heart is through religion. 00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:43.079 And so what we try and do is to root our lives in the law, and especially if we're religious 00:14:43.079 --> 00:14:45.679 in the law of God. 00:14:45.679 --> 00:14:53.199 And we have lots of rules about our behavior to try and manage the problem of bad fruit. 00:14:53.199 --> 00:14:57.159 So we try and use religion to change who we are. 00:14:57.159 --> 00:15:00.000 That's what the Pharisees did. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.199 And what they did was they took the laws of God and they created more and more and more 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:10.600 rules around them in a very complex way to try and manage their behavior. 00:15:10.600 --> 00:15:18.320 But Jesus said that was powerless to bring good fruit because no matter how many rules 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:26.560 they had to govern their behavior, those rules could never deal with the unruliness, the 00:15:26.560 --> 00:15:29.680 darkness of their hearts. 00:15:29.680 --> 00:15:33.120 Rules don't cure the problem of the heart. 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:34.639 The Pharisees were religious. 00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:40.279 They had their laws, but their lives bore bad fruit. 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:46.159 Their lives rippled out into the wider community, into their families, into their synagogues, 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:47.960 into their workplaces. 00:15:47.960 --> 00:15:56.360 The Pharisees brought fear, bitterness, oppression, bullying, the oppression of power and cruelty 00:15:56.360 --> 00:15:59.759 to the sick and vulnerable. 00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:00.759 They lacked mercy. 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:02.519 They had no compassion. 00:16:02.519 --> 00:16:07.720 Their lives were devoid of grace. 00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:15.799 So if you think that obeying rules is what's going to change you as a person, you've misunderstood 00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:18.639 Christianity. 00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:23.100 You're not going to change yourself by giving yourself more rules because that's trying 00:16:23.100 --> 00:16:26.319 to change through your own strength. 00:16:26.319 --> 00:16:31.240 And this passage says that what changes us is the strength and the power of the Holy 00:16:31.240 --> 00:16:32.960 Spirit. 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:40.360 And if you're looking to rules to modify your behavior, all you'll become is a legalist. 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:42.919 You'll become obsessed with keeping the rules. 00:16:42.919 --> 00:16:45.000 Am I keeping the rules? 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:46.080 Are you keeping the rules? 00:16:46.080 --> 00:16:47.360 Is he keeping the rules? 00:16:47.360 --> 00:16:49.039 Is she keeping the rules? 00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:52.639 That's what a Pharisee is. 00:16:52.639 --> 00:16:57.680 So you may want to try and root your heart in religion as a cure to the problem of bad 00:16:57.680 --> 00:16:59.240 fruit. 00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:05.880 But what Jesus wants us to do and tells us through Paul to do is to root your heart in 00:17:05.880 --> 00:17:08.960 the gospel. 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:18.759 So instead of being obsessed with rules, we become obsessed with Jesus. 00:17:18.759 --> 00:17:25.160 Because when the Holy Spirit is ruling in your heart, He will move you towards Jesus 00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:26.160 Christ. 00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:28.880 That's what the ministry of the Holy Spirit is for. 00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:32.840 So there's a very good book about all of this called Keeping in Step with a Spirit by 00:17:32.840 --> 00:17:35.680 a theologian called James Packer. 00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:41.520 And James Packer goes through a lot of different sort of understandings of what the work of 00:17:41.520 --> 00:17:44.920 the Holy Spirit is in the life of the Christian. 00:17:44.920 --> 00:17:50.480 And he ends up basically saying this, that the work of the Holy Spirit is presence, to 00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:54.960 make Christ present in our lives. 00:17:54.960 --> 00:18:03.960 And by that he says this, he says, the Holy Spirit makes God real and he makes God close. 00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:08.079 That's what he means by presence. 00:18:08.079 --> 00:18:16.039 God is real and God is close. 00:18:16.039 --> 00:18:18.920 So that's what the Holy Spirit wants to do for you and that's what's going to change 00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:20.920 you. 00:18:20.920 --> 00:18:29.640 The more real God becomes to you and the closer God comes to you, the more your life will 00:18:29.640 --> 00:18:31.960 be changed. 00:18:31.960 --> 00:18:40.600 You don't root your life in religion, you root your life in Jesus Christ. 00:18:40.600 --> 00:18:45.720 This new life is a life that is lived out of union with Christ. 00:18:45.720 --> 00:18:50.200 By faith we are united to Christ in His death and resurrection. 00:18:50.200 --> 00:18:55.360 We die to sin, we rise to new life in Jesus. 00:18:55.360 --> 00:19:03.000 Life in the power, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:07.960 So if all we have is the rules, if all we have are hearts governed by the law, then we 00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:09.640 do not have the Spirit. 00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:13.160 Look at verse 18. 00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:16.680 If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 00:19:16.680 --> 00:19:21.600 So there's a contrast there that Paul says is very real, which is this. 00:19:21.600 --> 00:19:26.000 You can be under the Spirit or you can be under the law, but you can't have both. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:32.519 So you can root your life in the law and in religion and use that to change your behaviour. 00:19:32.519 --> 00:19:37.720 But if you do that, then it means that you don't have the Holy Spirit. 00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:43.840 Those who have the Spirit don't rely on the law to change them because those who are under 00:19:43.839 --> 00:19:50.079 the law cannot resist the life of the flesh. 00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:54.679 The Pharisees, they had so many laws but they could not resist the life of the flesh. 00:19:54.679 --> 00:20:04.720 They were angry, they were bitter, they were corrupt, they were hateful, they were murderous. 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:14.200 They could not resist the life of the flesh. 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:20.839 So the works of the flesh, verse 19, flows out from this idea of people who live under 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:25.360 the law. 00:20:25.360 --> 00:20:31.640 All the rules that we can make for ourselves are unable to tame the wildness of our inner 00:20:31.640 --> 00:20:33.160 life. 00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:39.120 All the rules are unable to cleanse the heart from its pollution. 00:20:39.120 --> 00:20:42.680 But if you live in union with Christ, if you're rooted in Christ, then you will walk with 00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:44.320 the Spirit. 00:20:44.320 --> 00:20:50.400 When you walk with the Spirit, you can resist the encroachment of sin as it tries to reclaim 00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:56.759 your heart, your affections, your life. 00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:02.080 Sin will try to infiltrate you, but once you're a Christian and you are risen to new life 00:21:02.079 --> 00:21:06.720 in Christ, you are no longer the slave of sin. 00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:10.960 Jesus reigns in the life of the believer, not sin. 00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:15.799 So now in Christ, in the power of the Spirit, you can resist sin, push back against it and 00:21:15.799 --> 00:21:18.079 overcome it. 00:21:18.079 --> 00:21:24.879 At times you will falter, at times you will fail, but you will also be changing, becoming 00:21:24.879 --> 00:21:28.399 more like Jesus. 00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:33.920 You will want to cooperate with the work of God in your life rather than to obstruct it 00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:36.600 or ignore it. 00:21:36.600 --> 00:21:42.240 So fruit, the fruit comes from the heart. 00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:46.759 If the fruit's bad, the heart's bad. 00:21:46.759 --> 00:21:50.000 The heart comes from the roots. 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:55.600 Is your life rooted in Christ and in His presence? 00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:58.919 Is your life rooted in religion? 00:21:58.919 --> 00:22:03.679 Or maybe your life is just rooted in rebellion, just trying to carve your own good life for 00:22:03.679 --> 00:22:06.839 yourself. 00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:14.519 And so it says in verse 21, I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit 00:22:14.519 --> 00:22:15.519 the kingdom of God. 00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:17.879 So we just got to be really clear on this. 00:22:17.880 --> 00:22:28.200 So verse 19 and 20 and 21 describes that is not the life of a Christian, okay? 00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:34.120 That is the life of the non-Christian that is described. 00:22:34.120 --> 00:22:40.720 And those who live like this do not inherit God's kingdom. 00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:43.600 So what does that mean for you? 00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:50.039 Well, I want to say a couple of things, Christians can sin in these kind of ways, okay? 00:22:50.039 --> 00:22:54.519 If you fall into one of these sins, it doesn't mean you're not a Christian. 00:22:54.519 --> 00:22:56.919 Christians can fall into terrible sins. 00:22:56.919 --> 00:23:06.079 There was a very famous old time preacher in Scotland called Robert Murray McShane, 00:23:06.079 --> 00:23:08.079 who died I think when he was only 29 years old. 00:23:08.079 --> 00:23:12.799 So he died when he was young, but he was famed for his piety. 00:23:12.799 --> 00:23:16.119 He was an outstandingly godly young man. 00:23:16.119 --> 00:23:21.519 The holiness of his life left a profound impact on people who met him. 00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:27.839 But talking about this, McShane said this, he saw this seed of every one of those sins 00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:30.879 in his own heart, okay? 00:23:30.879 --> 00:23:35.720 So Christians can sin in all kinds of ways. 00:23:35.720 --> 00:23:39.200 But these sins are no longer our default setting. 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:41.680 They no longer seem like good fruit to us. 00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:43.799 They seem like bad fruit. 00:23:43.799 --> 00:23:52.480 They're no longer the habit of our hearts. 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:56.840 We can see them for what they are. 00:23:56.840 --> 00:24:00.400 So we're not immune to these sins as Christians. 00:24:00.400 --> 00:24:06.600 If we fall into one of them, then we have to run back to Jesus. 00:24:06.600 --> 00:24:11.640 And at the beginning of chapter 6 in Galatians, it says, if anyone sins, then those of us 00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:15.240 who are around them should restore them gently, okay? 00:24:15.240 --> 00:24:19.440 We're a community of grace. 00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:22.480 And we walk with each other in the struggles of life. 00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:28.640 And we're realistic about these things. 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:33.880 But there is something really important here too, which is just to ask what rules your 00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:34.880 heart, okay? 00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:36.400 So that's my last thing. 00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:37.880 Got fruit, okay? 00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:39.280 You've got your fruit. 00:24:39.280 --> 00:24:40.880 You've got your heart. 00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:42.080 You've got your roots. 00:24:42.080 --> 00:24:45.160 And then just ask that, what is ruling your heart? 00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:46.160 Okay? 00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:52.400 Because this is about kingdoms and kingships, about what reigns in you. 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:56.800 Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 00:24:56.800 --> 00:25:00.920 So 19 to 21 do not describe the life of a Christian. 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:07.000 It's describing the life of those who do not live under the rule of Christ. 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:13.799 And those who do not live under the rule of Christ do not inherit the kingdom. 00:25:13.799 --> 00:25:17.680 If Christ is your king, you inherit His kingdom. 00:25:17.680 --> 00:25:20.960 If Christ is not your king, you don't inherit His kingdom. 00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:25.880 That's just the very simple reality that the Bible presents us with. 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:28.720 So what reigns in your life today? 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:32.480 And who reigns in your life? 00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:40.360 And if 19 to 21, the bad fruit describes you, then what you need to do, what I need to do, 00:25:40.360 --> 00:25:50.440 is to repent and to run to Jesus and to put your life under His authority and His kingship 00:25:50.440 --> 00:25:52.839 and His rule. 00:25:52.839 --> 00:25:55.279 Only Jesus can rescue you. 00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:57.920 Only Jesus can change your heart. 00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:04.080 Only Jesus can transform us so that we go from being the people of bad fruit to the 00:26:04.079 --> 00:26:31.639 people of good fruit.