WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.800 As we turn to God's Word this morning, will you pray with me? 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:12.880 ! Oh, Lord, we pray that You would be our help as we listen to Your Word, as we sit under it, receive it from You. 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:24.080 Lord, will You make our hearts soft and our minds alert and our hands willing to hear and obey Your Word. 00:00:24.080 --> 00:00:29.839 Lord, help me that I might speak the words that You would have me say this morning, and that I might 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:38.399 preach Your Word faithfully. Oh, Lord, we need You by Your Spirit this morning. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. 00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:50.079 Amen. I did it again. I lied to my roommate about borrowing his towel without asking. I know I 00:00:50.079 --> 00:00:56.760 shouldn't. I don't want to lie, but it's second nature to me because I don't want him to be mad at me. 00:00:56.759 --> 00:01:03.079 So I lie rather than telling the truth. How can I be a Christian if I do this stuff? 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:12.000 I did it again. I blew up at some little thing at work. It's not a big deal, but I know it's a sin. 00:01:12.659 --> 00:01:19.319 But nobody's perfect, right? I mean, Jesus forgives all my sins. I know I shouldn't, 00:01:19.319 --> 00:01:27.159 but I'm probably going to keep doing it. It's just the way it is. Do you ever identify with these thoughts? 00:01:27.639 --> 00:01:37.319 Does your soul ever have these conversations in yourself? Is this really the way of following Jesus? 00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:45.479 This is the question that our passage will address this morning. Last week, Pastor Nick talked about 00:01:45.479 --> 00:01:52.119 the Christian life is like walking on a ridge with two dangers, one on one side and one on the other. 00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:59.399 As we seek to follow Jesus on one side, we seek to control by doing good things, thinking that that's 00:01:59.399 --> 00:02:04.419 going to make us right with God. And on the other hand, we just give up or we give in and think, 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:14.020 because I'm free in Christ, I can do whatever I want to use my freedom as an opportunity to serve 00:02:14.020 --> 00:02:22.659 the flesh, as Paul says. But this morning, the question we want to answer is, if the life as a 00:02:22.659 --> 00:02:29.879 follower of a Christian is meant to be a life of freedom in the grace of God, if Jesus really has 00:02:29.879 --> 00:02:38.579 done it all and nothing can separate us from His love, why is it so hard for Christians to live in this 00:02:38.579 --> 00:02:45.740 freedom? That's what we're going to answer this morning. We're in Galatians, continuing in our passage, 00:02:45.979 --> 00:02:53.240 our series in the book of Galatians. We're in chapter 5, verses 15…I'm sorry, verses 16 through 26. 00:02:53.240 --> 00:03:00.340 That's on page 916 of your Pew Bible. If you want to pull it up there, we're going to be looking at it 00:03:00.340 --> 00:03:05.939 together in detail, so it'd be great if you pulled it out and looked at it as we walked through it. 00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:13.480 And in this section, Paul has shifted in chapter 5 to talking about how do we live out the good news 00:03:13.480 --> 00:03:19.379 of the freedom of the gospel in practical…and we're actually going to spend two weeks on this 00:03:19.379 --> 00:03:26.519 passage. So, I'm going to preach this week on most of the passage, and so that we have a deep 00:03:26.519 --> 00:03:31.840 understanding of what it says, and an understanding of the framework that it lays out. And then, 00:03:31.939 --> 00:03:37.519 after Easter, we're going to come back and look at this passage again, and really dig into practically 00:03:37.519 --> 00:03:44.280 how do we do this. So, come back the week after Easter. Actually, come back next week for Easter. 00:03:44.639 --> 00:03:49.359 Celebrate Easter with us, and then come back the week after, so that you will get the fullness of 00:03:49.379 --> 00:03:55.799 what this passage has to say. So, with that, let's read the passage together, chapter 5, 00:03:55.879 --> 00:03:59.639 starting in verse 16 of the book of Galatians. 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:07.099 But I say, walk in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires 00:04:07.099 --> 00:04:13.500 of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are 00:04:13.500 --> 00:04:21.220 opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the 00:04:21.220 --> 00:04:28.560 Spirit, you are not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, 00:04:28.779 --> 00:04:35.800 sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, 00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:43.939 divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, 00:04:44.540 --> 00:04:49.580 that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit 00:04:49.580 --> 00:05:00.080 is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such 00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:07.539 things there is no law. And those who belong to the Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its 00:05:07.539 --> 00:05:15.599 passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become 00:05:15.599 --> 00:05:26.139 conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Friends, this is the good news. What this passage is 00:05:26.139 --> 00:05:35.019 telling us this morning is that God has given us His Spirit to enable us to overcome our sinful desires 00:05:35.019 --> 00:05:41.959 and live in the godly freedom of the gospel. So, we're going to ask three questions of this text this 00:05:41.959 --> 00:05:49.919 morning. The first question is, why do we need this enabling power? The second question is, how do we 00:05:49.919 --> 00:05:56.079 discern what way we're walking in, in the way of the Spirit or the way of the flesh? And then third 00:05:56.079 --> 00:06:04.199 what is our hope that we actually can walk in the way of the Spirit? All right? So, that's what we're 00:06:04.199 --> 00:06:09.939 going to look at this morning. The first question then is, why do we need this enabling power? And verses 00:06:09.939 --> 00:06:19.620 16 through 18 is very clear. We need this power because we experience a war in our souls. There is a battle 00:06:19.620 --> 00:06:28.519 between flesh and spirit, and we have these two choices that are placed before us, and we feel this 00:06:28.519 --> 00:06:35.319 internal tension, do we not? On one side is the work of the Spirit of God in the believer, and we want to 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:43.639 remind ourselves that God promises that every believer in Christ, everyone who is a son of God or a daughter 00:06:43.639 --> 00:06:51.699 of God, a child of God, has received the Holy Spirit. So, Ephesians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 reminds us 00:06:51.699 --> 00:06:57.939 that in Him that is in Christ, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, 00:06:58.060 --> 00:07:04.599 and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance 00:07:04.599 --> 00:07:10.959 until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. So, this reminds us that every Christian 00:07:10.959 --> 00:07:16.159 has the Holy Spirit. We don't need an extra dose somewhere. That's not what Galatians 5 is about. 00:07:16.359 --> 00:07:25.599 We all have the Holy Spirit with us, right? So, we have that Spirit, on one hand, pulling us towards 00:07:25.599 --> 00:07:31.299 following Christ and being godly, and then we have this other side that is called the flesh. Now, we need 00:07:31.299 --> 00:07:37.299 to be really careful of this. The flesh does not simply mean the body. Paul was not a Greek who thought 00:07:37.300 --> 00:07:44.939 that the body was bad, and the spirit was good, and somehow we need to divest ourselves from our 00:07:44.939 --> 00:07:51.699 physical body in order to find some moral purity. No, no, no. What he is saying, though, is that we have 00:07:51.699 --> 00:08:01.960 an unerring nature because of our fleshly communion with Adam and our sinful nature. You'll see that, 00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:08.099 like, some Bible actually translate this word, the sinful nature rather than the flesh, because that's 00:08:08.099 --> 00:08:16.139 the idea behind it. It refers to our human nature apart from Christ. And Paul says, these two things 00:08:16.139 --> 00:08:24.799 are warring in us. You know, though, in the cartoons, and I looked it up, you can see, Kronk in Emperor's New 00:08:24.799 --> 00:08:31.759 Groove has an angel and a devil on his shoulders. It also happens to Homer Simpson and to Donald Duck, 00:08:31.759 --> 00:08:38.639 and a few other cartoons, right? We all have this, don't we? These two voices in our ear. And when 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:46.639 someone cuts us off in traffic, the angel is saying, well, he's probably in a hurry. And the devil says, 00:08:46.980 --> 00:08:51.220 honk your horn. As a matter of fact, you should probably road rage against him because of what he 00:08:51.220 --> 00:08:58.240 just did, right? Or other circumstances. When you receive criticism at work, how do you respond? 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:05.320 Are you critical in response? Are you defensive? Do you want to excuse your failures? 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:14.899 When you're a parent at the end of a long day and you're tired, do you find it easy to either give up 00:09:14.899 --> 00:09:21.820 on discipline altogether and just stick them in front of a screen? Or do you become short and harsh with 00:09:21.820 --> 00:09:32.140 your kids? How easy this pull? Or when you're late at night looking at your computer and thinking about 00:09:32.140 --> 00:09:40.500 that link and wondering, am I going to click on it again or not? We feel these tensions, and we live 00:09:40.500 --> 00:09:47.820 in a battle that is real in our lives. And the nature of temptation is that we have both 00:09:47.820 --> 00:09:55.200 external prompts and internal desires, right? And the external prompts do not cause us to sin or to 00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:01.980 follow the flesh, but there are circumstances that can arouse or connect with. But ultimately, 00:10:02.180 --> 00:10:08.740 it's our internal desires that Paul is talking about here. Remember what James chapter 1 says about 00:10:08.740 --> 00:10:16.720 temptation. He says this, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire, 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:26.560 then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. 00:10:27.480 --> 00:10:32.700 So again, we want to recognize that there's a distinction between the external temptations, 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:40.620 which we may have, and even the internal desires that we sense in our mind that we want to do something 00:10:40.620 --> 00:10:48.700 wrong, and sin itself, right? There's a famous quote, Martin Luther, I found this, and it's actually, 00:10:48.980 --> 00:10:55.179 he's writing about it in the Lord's Prayer, and he writes this about temptation. It's such a great 00:10:55.179 --> 00:11:01.139 quote, so listen to this. Thus you see that temptation can be avoided by no one, but resistance 00:11:01.139 --> 00:11:08.820 may be made, and with prayer and recourse to divine aid, we can put ourselves in readiness to meet 00:11:08.820 --> 00:11:16.240 such designs. In the book of an old father, we read that a young brother expressed a desire to be rid 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:21.720 of his thoughts, and what he means is like, I don't even want to feel a desire for those fleshly things. 00:11:22.680 --> 00:11:29.500 Thereupon the old father said, dear brother, you cannot prevent the birds from flying in the air over 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:36.980 your head, but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair. Did you get that? 00:11:36.980 --> 00:11:44.019 Do you see the distinction? We may feel the impulse. We may have the external prompts, 00:11:44.019 --> 00:11:52.399 but the choices are, do we choose to embrace these fleshly desires, or do by the Spirit we choose 00:11:52.399 --> 00:12:02.740 godly desires instead? Do we let those sinful impulses take residence in our life, nest in our hair, 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:13.879 or not? So this is the battle that Paul is describing, and friends, if we are honest, we all know this battle, 00:12:14.220 --> 00:12:24.659 don't we? But let's look more carefully so that we can distinguish in what way are we walking, 00:12:24.659 --> 00:12:36.319 right? In verses 19 through 23, we see portraits. He paints a picture. Here's what the desires of the 00:12:36.319 --> 00:12:42.839 flesh look like. Over here, here's what the desires of the Spirit look like. And I want to look at them 00:12:42.839 --> 00:12:48.339 carefully, because it might be thought, having read the rest of the book of Galatians, where he's been 00:12:48.339 --> 00:12:52.059 saying, you don't have to follow the law, you don't have to follow the law, you don't have to follow the 00:12:52.059 --> 00:12:59.119 law, that finally it's like, well, I can do whatever I want, right? No, not at all. Paul is saying there 00:12:59.119 --> 00:13:05.839 is a pattern of godly living. There are right and wrong things, and he gets specific about it to say 00:13:05.839 --> 00:13:12.419 these are the good ways, walk in them, because they reflect God and His character and what is good in 00:13:12.419 --> 00:13:19.099 the world, and recognize all the other things that are not good, that God has said these things are not 00:13:19.100 --> 00:13:25.420 good for us. And so, He wants us to paint these pictures with more specificity, not so that we can 00:13:25.420 --> 00:13:32.500 return to a legalistic approach to these things, but so that we can see how God wants to change and 00:13:32.500 --> 00:13:41.200 drive our desires towards that which is right and good. So, in verses 19 through 21, the works of the 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:47.680 flesh are evident. And friends, I want to frame all of these things. When you go back to the Garden of 00:13:47.679 --> 00:13:55.120 Eden, when sin entered into humanity and the world, what was at the core of it? Rather than living under 00:13:55.120 --> 00:14:04.379 God's provision and reign and receiving that and worshiping Him in response, Adam and Eve listened to 00:14:04.379 --> 00:14:13.939 the temptation to be like God themselves, to exalt their self, to be co-equal or independent of God 00:14:13.940 --> 00:14:23.500 and like God in those ways. And so, this radical exaltation, this self-orientation, this self-centeredness, 00:14:23.740 --> 00:14:33.600 I think is at the root of this whole portrait of the desires of the flesh. All right, let's get specific. 00:14:33.860 --> 00:14:41.480 This may be uncomfortable. Here we go. He starts with sexuality. Three words here that cover the breath of 00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:48.519 selfish sex. Some of us in this world are allergic to this conversation because the church has been so 00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:54.180 prudish and dealt with sexuality so badly that we just don't want to hear it anymore. And yet, we need 00:14:54.180 --> 00:15:05.060 to recognize we live in a world that is saturated with ungodly sexual understanding, right? It's not 00:15:05.059 --> 00:15:11.679 actually different from the first century. Greco-Roman culture was just as bad. Pedophilia, 00:15:12.099 --> 00:15:17.919 temple prostitution, I could go on and on and on. It was just as bad in many ways. 00:15:19.679 --> 00:15:28.379 In these three words, Paul says, there is in the desires of the flesh a desire for sex outside of God's 00:15:28.379 --> 00:15:34.700 good plan for this to happen within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. 00:15:36.700 --> 00:15:42.700 And if I were just going to summarize in application what those three words mean for us today, it means 00:15:42.700 --> 00:15:49.299 don't have sex with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your fiancé. Don't have sex alone in your room. 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:56.080 Don't have sex with someone of the same gender. Don't have sex by viewing something on a computer or on 00:15:56.080 --> 00:16:02.600 your phone. Don't have sex with anyone who is not your spouse if you are married. Don't have sex with 00:16:02.600 --> 00:16:08.120 your friends or for experimentation or just to explore because you think you need to know something more 00:16:08.120 --> 00:16:17.400 than you do. All of these are ultimately self-centered expressions where you are gaining something for 00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:24.560 yourself at the expense of violating the good confines in which God has given us the gift of sex. 00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:31.659 Our society tells us that if you don't sexually explore, you are not flourishing as a human being. 00:16:32.019 --> 00:16:39.699 And I will simply say Jesus Christ was the most fully flourishing human being that ever lived. 00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:48.979 And you know what? He never had sex. So it can't be that the lie that the world tells us is true about this. 00:16:48.980 --> 00:17:00.879 So, rather than sex being a reflection of the intimacy between a husband and wife that reflects 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:08.319 the intimacy, not sexual intimacy, but true intimacy of the Godhead, of the tripartic God, 00:17:10.059 --> 00:17:16.180 instead we turn it to be a selfish thing. And we end up ultimately using others for our own 00:17:16.180 --> 00:17:21.900 selfish desires. Paul then goes on. That's not the only thing he says. That's just the start. 00:17:22.380 --> 00:17:30.779 He goes on. He says, idolatry is a fleshly desire. That is, the things that we rely on or trust in for 00:17:30.779 --> 00:17:36.620 life, for salvation, for rightness with God, right? It obviously can mean, just like it did in the first 00:17:36.620 --> 00:17:42.340 century, worshiping other gods other than the God of the Scriptures who says, I alone am God in the 00:17:42.339 --> 00:17:51.599 world and in the universe. All other gods are actually not true gods, right? But in our world, 00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:57.299 which is more secular, we don't tend to gravitate towards particular other religions. 00:17:58.659 --> 00:18:05.579 Instead, we make our human lives our idols. And so our careers and our spouses and our families and 00:18:05.579 --> 00:18:14.980 our accolades and our hobbies and our successes become our gods. Sorcery refers to…actually, 00:18:15.099 --> 00:18:20.199 it's a complicated word that has to do with poison and use of different things. But I think ultimately, 00:18:20.439 --> 00:18:25.839 what it's talking about is a kind of alternative spirituality today. That's how I would apply it. 00:18:26.419 --> 00:18:33.779 How many in our culture want a self-determined religion? I get to decide what's spiritual. 00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:40.680 I want to search out the spiritual experience that I'm longing for. And if I find it somewhere in any 00:18:40.680 --> 00:18:47.420 religion or even in my own made-up thing, that's great. Do you see how these are self-centered 00:18:47.420 --> 00:18:53.539 things where we don't want God to be God, we want to make our own gods and choose our own gods to 00:18:53.539 --> 00:19:01.079 worship? Paul then goes on in this portrait of self-centered fleshly desires to talk about relationships. 00:19:01.079 --> 00:19:07.859 He talks about enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, and envy. 00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:15.539 Do you see how they're all self-oriented emotion? We have enmity with others because we want to 00:19:15.539 --> 00:19:23.599 promote and protect ourselves by hating others. We have strife with others because our will is not…is 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:29.319 thwarted by them not doing what we want. We are jealous because they have something 00:19:29.319 --> 00:19:36.980 that we want and don't have. We become angry because we want to control others to serve us, 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:45.019 and they don't do that, and that's very frustrating. We have rivalries because we crave to be seen as 00:19:45.019 --> 00:19:50.559 better than others, and so we put ourselves up by putting other people down. 00:19:50.559 --> 00:20:00.460 We have dissensions and divisions because we insist that we are the locus of all knowledge and all 00:20:00.460 --> 00:20:06.480 right thinking, and we exalt that, and then everyone else is wrong, and we have a divisive spirit. 00:20:08.399 --> 00:20:19.460 Friends, do any of these pull on your soul? I do when I load the dishwasher, all right? Because I know 00:20:19.460 --> 00:20:28.680 how the dishwasher needs to be loaded, and I know where everything should go, and I want to be angry 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:34.279 when it's not done that way, to control it so that it's done right, and to criticize those who don't know 00:20:34.279 --> 00:20:43.160 how to load the dishwasher as well as I do. The desires of the flesh are real, right? 00:20:43.160 --> 00:20:53.700 Paul goes on. He talks about one last category, drunkenness and orgy. The picture here is those 00:20:53.700 --> 00:21:01.540 like unmitigated, ongoing Mardi Gras where you surrender yourself to the party. You surrender 00:21:01.540 --> 00:21:11.180 yourself to the pleasures and to the numbing effects and to the immediate returns of orgies, 00:21:11.180 --> 00:21:21.080 drunkenness, drunkenness, and the like, right? We might do these sorts of things on a spring break 00:21:21.080 --> 00:21:28.100 trip. We might do these things on the sort of thing like a bachelor party, but friends, we might do this 00:21:28.100 --> 00:21:34.960 a lot more on every day. We might binge on media, or we might binge on food, or we might decide that 00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:41.000 smoking weed on a regular basis just to escape and just for the pleasure of it is a good thing. 00:21:41.180 --> 00:21:49.180 Or when the glass of wine after work becomes a bottle after work every day, right? We feel the 00:21:49.180 --> 00:21:56.480 pull for these things because they numb us, because they dull us, right? And here's the thing, when we 00:21:56.480 --> 00:22:02.600 abandon ourselves to these things, when we want to escape by using them, we can no longer actually 00:22:02.600 --> 00:22:10.279 follow God because we give up control to these things in our lives, and that's not how God intended 00:22:10.279 --> 00:22:17.920 us to live. All right, and here's the most scary part of this entire list. Paul says, and the like, 00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:25.720 right? This is not an exhaustive list. This is a representative list. There are more things, 00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:31.480 and the whole of the Scriptures will tell us about the holiness of God and His righteous ways, 00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:40.680 and we will continue to learn as we read through all of it the challenge of how much of the world 00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:46.700 is fallen and in rebellion against God and living according to the desires of the flesh, 00:22:47.220 --> 00:22:56.279 and how prone we are to be like that. So this is the picture of the desires of the flesh, 00:22:56.279 --> 00:23:02.819 and at the center of it is this self. And that's the most important thing about it, 00:23:03.920 --> 00:23:11.240 because to pursue God is to put God in the center of things, because God Himself deserves the glory, 00:23:11.399 --> 00:23:17.480 and because God Himself has the right to say what is good and right in the world, because God Himself 00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:24.240 is met…we were made to put Him in the middle of our heart, and when we reject that and make ourself 00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:33.579 the center, all of these desires then are driven, right? Now, I need to be really clear on this, 00:23:33.620 --> 00:23:38.980 right? Because Paul goes on, he says, the stakes here are very high. When you do these things, 00:23:39.079 --> 00:23:43.539 when this is characteristic of your life, you cannot inherit the kingdom of God, 00:23:43.980 --> 00:23:50.200 because God is not in the center of it. You are living outside of what He has for you. 00:23:50.200 --> 00:23:59.480 Okay, I want to be really clear. We got time. All right, hang on. So, 1 John chapter 1. Christians 00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:06.920 are not perfect. We are not sinless people. So, 1 John reminds us in chapter 1 verse 8, 00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:12.980 if we say that we have no sin…this is writing to believers…if we say that we have no sin, 00:24:12.980 --> 00:24:20.839 we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to 00:24:20.839 --> 00:24:26.740 forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, 00:24:26.740 --> 00:24:32.759 we make Him, that is God, a liar, and His Word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these 00:24:32.759 --> 00:24:38.539 things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 00:24:38.539 --> 00:24:44.819 Jesus Christ the righteous. He is their propitiation for our sins, not only for ours only, but also for 00:24:44.819 --> 00:24:53.299 the sins of the whole world. So, what Paul is presenting here as we think about this is it is 00:24:53.299 --> 00:24:59.940 not that we are going to be perfectly sinless, but what it does mean is that when we sin, we recognize 00:24:59.940 --> 00:25:08.340 it as such, we confess it as such, we repent from it, we do not justify it, we do not excuse it, but we 00:25:08.340 --> 00:25:16.620 hate it the way God hates it. When we live in…when we give in to the desires of the flesh, because we 00:25:16.620 --> 00:25:23.220 have a Savior who has saved us from this and saved us to something much better, a set of desires that we 00:25:23.220 --> 00:25:30.819 all know and want and love, right? This is, as Paul said in chapter 4, verse 12, this is Christ being 00:25:30.819 --> 00:25:39.500 formed in us when the fruit of the Spirit are on display in our lives, right? And this fruit of the 00:25:39.500 --> 00:25:47.500 Spirit, because we are children of God through faith in Christ, by His Spirit, we become like Him, 00:25:47.500 --> 00:25:56.680 and our character reflects the character of God. And so, we love because God has first shown us love, 00:25:56.839 --> 00:26:03.339 and He has shown us a sacrificial love that is oriented towards the good of another at great 00:26:03.339 --> 00:26:10.519 cost to self, so that our love might be characterized by that sacrificial other-centered at great cost to 00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:20.299 ourselves love. So, we have joy because we have come to know that we serve a God who rejoices in all 00:26:20.299 --> 00:26:27.339 that is good and right in the world, and we are caught up in His joy. We have peace because Christ has 00:26:27.339 --> 00:26:34.980 accomplished through His death on our behalf peace with God. And because we have peace with God, we are 00:26:34.980 --> 00:26:42.839 able then to interact with one another in a more peaceably way because we're not fighting for ourselves, but we know 00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:54.900 who we are, and we can then be other-centered even at the expense of strife and enmity and jealousy and the other 00:26:54.900 --> 00:27:04.400 things we saw. We are patient because God is patient with us, because God has not treated us as our sins deserve 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:10.540 today, but because in His grace, but because in His grace, He has called us to repentance. So, we can be patient 00:27:10.540 --> 00:27:21.380 with others in the same way. We can be kind to others, especially those who are undeserving of grace, 00:27:21.380 --> 00:27:28.519 because we know that we are undeserving of grace, and yet God has shown us His kindness, and His kindness 00:27:28.519 --> 00:27:37.660 has led us to repentance and faith in Christ. Goodness, because God Himself has shown us what is actually 00:27:37.660 --> 00:27:43.879 good, and allowing us to take interest in the good of others, because God has shown His goodness to us. 00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:52.319 Gentleness, not being self-promoting and self-proud, but being humble and meek and lowly, 00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:59.599 because Jesus is such. He said, I am gentle and lowly, and I ask you to come and bring your burdens 00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:09.559 to me, and I will give you rest. Faithfulness, the ability to persevere in trusting obedience and hope, 00:28:09.679 --> 00:28:16.299 because God has been faithful to us, because Christ was faithful even unto death on the cross 00:28:16.299 --> 00:28:24.039 for our salvation. And now we are able to be faithful to God in pursuing all these things, 00:28:24.359 --> 00:28:31.940 and ultimately self-control, because when we are in, as Romans 6 says, when we are under sin, 00:28:31.940 --> 00:28:37.039 when we do not have the power of Christ in our lives, we are in fact enslaved to sin. 00:28:37.379 --> 00:28:42.220 The sinful desires, the desires of the flesh that Paul's talked about, we don't have a choice to do 00:28:42.220 --> 00:28:47.900 something else. We are fundamentally self-centered people, and we will always be that way. But when 00:28:47.900 --> 00:28:53.860 Christ comes into our life, He uproots that and transforms it so that we might live a different 00:28:53.860 --> 00:29:02.279 life. And we have the ability now to make the choices and to be self-controlled, to forsake things, 00:29:02.779 --> 00:29:07.240 our fleshly desires, and to take on and to grab hold of things that are good. 00:29:07.240 --> 00:29:15.579 So because we have God's Spirit in us, this is the fruit. Like an apple tree bears apples, 00:29:15.819 --> 00:29:23.500 and strawberry plants bear strawberries. So we want to bear the fruit of God in our lives, 00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:29.400 of godliness in our lives. Not as a work so we can parade it around and say, look at how righteous we 00:29:29.400 --> 00:29:38.900 are, but because God has shown us all of these things. Friends, it is for our good that God calls 00:29:38.900 --> 00:29:46.920 us to godliness. Because this is the way He has made us as a grand designer. To live in line with Him 00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:54.019 and His kingdom, to put Him at the center of our lives, is the way we were made. And so it is good 00:29:54.019 --> 00:30:00.299 for us. But far more importantly than that, though that is important, it is for His glory, 00:30:00.900 --> 00:30:08.740 and it is right and good that we who claim to follow Christ would display the character of Christ 00:30:08.740 --> 00:30:15.720 in our lives. Right? Now, if you're sitting here this morning and you are going, 00:30:16.920 --> 00:30:25.980 okay, Pastor Matt, I think I failed. Completely. Utterly. Or if that's the call, maybe I didn't 00:30:25.980 --> 00:30:30.859 fail today, but I'm going to fail tomorrow. Right? We sometimes feel like the battle is like 00:30:30.859 --> 00:30:37.500 the dark side and the light side in Anakin Skywalker. Right? They're vying for control back and forth, 00:30:37.500 --> 00:30:43.660 back and forth, and they're equal powers. Right? And we just think, I don't know who's going to win, 00:30:43.859 --> 00:30:51.619 and it's terrifying for us. But that is not how Paul sees it. Because Paul began with it, 00:30:52.220 --> 00:30:57.799 and he ends with it. Look back and see how he began this. Walk by the Spirit, and you will not 00:30:57.799 --> 00:31:04.319 gratify the desires of the flesh. The Spirit is more powerful than the desires of the flesh 00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:12.339 in our life. And not that we will do it perfectly, but we know that he has given us this most important 00:31:12.339 --> 00:31:18.700 thing. And so, this is the hope. Right? And we're going to start tasting this today. I'm already over 00:31:18.700 --> 00:31:23.319 time. We're going to come back to it in two weeks and really dig into the practicalities of this. 00:31:23.319 --> 00:31:29.939 But here's the thing. Right? The reason why we have hope is because of verse 24. 00:31:29.940 --> 00:31:36.120 Therefore, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 00:31:36.779 --> 00:31:40.519 Right? Do you remember what we saw in chapter 2, verse 20? Paul says, 00:31:40.660 --> 00:31:45.880 I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me in the life 00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:51.660 that I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. 00:31:51.660 --> 00:32:02.779 Right? So, this is the basis of our hope. Right? That when we are joined with Christ by faith, 00:32:03.100 --> 00:32:12.700 we have crucified our flesh. We have died to our sinful desires because Christ died for us 00:32:12.700 --> 00:32:24.100 to defeat the powers of sin and death. Right? And though we live in this now and not yet with the 00:32:24.100 --> 00:32:29.400 ongoing presence of these fleshly desires, they no longer control us. 00:32:32.220 --> 00:32:37.940 I've been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That is, God's 00:32:37.940 --> 00:32:44.980 Spirit lives in me. Paul weaves the Spirit and Christ together in these beautiful ways. And how do we live 00:32:44.980 --> 00:32:52.480 this? We live it out, not by white knuckling, trying really hard to pull up our bootstraps to be a little 00:32:52.480 --> 00:33:00.740 better than we were before, but by continuing in the patterns of faith that we began in. Right? 00:33:00.740 --> 00:33:09.279 By being dependent. Just like we came to Christ knowing my sin is overwhelming. I cannot do anything 00:33:09.279 --> 00:33:15.000 to forgive it. Christ, you have done everything for me. All I can do is throw myself in dependent 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:22.299 neediness on your mercy and receive the fullness of your grace. So, we continue in this battle with the 00:33:22.299 --> 00:33:28.799 fleshly desires. God, I can't defeat this, but God, you have given me your Spirit. You have made me able to do 00:33:28.799 --> 00:33:35.480 these things. And I go back and I say, this sin is not what you have given me now to do, but you have 00:33:35.480 --> 00:33:42.099 given me a new life through your Spirit. I am born again to a new Spirit where I am able to choose to 00:33:42.099 --> 00:33:48.440 pursue righteousness and godliness and goodness. And so, we trust in Him for this transformation. 00:33:49.079 --> 00:33:56.899 We trust in Him for moment-by-moment choices, willful choices, but also the trajectory of our lives. 00:33:56.900 --> 00:34:07.120 Right? That we will grow in godliness with a confidence that Christ, because He has defeated 00:34:07.120 --> 00:34:16.079 sin and death on the cross, will defeat it in our lives as we cling to Him. You guys know this metaphor, 00:34:16.619 --> 00:34:22.039 but the cross and the resurrection was D-Day in the spiritual warfare of the whole world. 00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:29.159 Right? God came and the decisive victory was won, but it's going to take a while to play it out. 00:34:29.599 --> 00:34:36.599 And one day, there will be a VE day for us, a victory in Europe day, and then a VJ day. Anyway, 00:34:36.719 --> 00:34:41.820 but you know what? You get that? The analogy breaks down at some point. We know that there's a future 00:34:41.820 --> 00:34:51.500 time when this body of sin will be done away with forever. But now, He has given us this enabling 00:34:51.500 --> 00:35:01.860 power of the Holy Spirit that we walk with by faith to put aside the desires of the flesh, 00:35:01.860 --> 00:35:09.340 and to take hold of, and to live in, inhabit the desires, the fruit of the Spirit, 00:35:09.860 --> 00:35:16.099 so that we might reflect God, so that we might live in the freedom of the gospel 00:35:16.099 --> 00:35:23.699 that God has called us to in Christ. A freedom to love and to pursue godliness because it's good and 00:35:23.699 --> 00:35:27.900 right, and because it is the place of human flourishing, and because it is the place where 00:35:27.900 --> 00:35:35.759 God's glory is displayed in the world. This is the battle that we're in, and the stakes are high, 00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:42.420 but the outcome is sure. So let's pray together. 00:35:45.620 --> 00:35:47.600 Lord, we pray for your help this morning. 00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:52.740 We pray for your help because we all experienced this battle. 00:35:54.440 --> 00:35:57.400 Oh, Lord, help us to live by faith, 00:35:57.800 --> 00:36:01.260 to walk in the Spirit, and keep in step in the Spirit. 00:36:01.260 --> 00:36:09.720 Lord, this week as we meditate on your loving sacrifice, going to the cross for our salvation, 00:36:09.940 --> 00:36:17.140 and rising from the dead for our justification, for our regeneration, and for our ultimate hope and glory. 00:36:18.300 --> 00:36:23.180 Lord, I pray that you would capture our hearts, do transforming work, 00:36:23.179 --> 00:36:28.879 Lord, to free us increasingly from the fleshly desires, 00:36:29.419 --> 00:36:33.859 and to bear in us more and more the fruit of your Spirit. 00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:37.179 We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.