Galatians 5:16-26
Let’s read from God’s word from
Galatians chapter five beginning at verse 16. And this is the
apostle Paul and he says, 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 wall. Now
the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity,
sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits
of anger, rivalries, dissensions, division, envy, drunkenness,
orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before,
that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom
of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against
such things, there is no law. And those who belong to Christ
Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the spirit, let us also walk by the spirit. Let
us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Let’s pray together. Our God,
we pray that you bless the things we hear tonight to our minds
and to our hearts and to our hands. May we think on these
things, may we love your truth, but we ask and pray most of all
that you would help us to be doers of your word, not just
hearers, and that we might think on what you require of us and
be willing and able by your spirit to do what you call us to be
and do as Christians. This we pray in the name of Jesus
our Savior, amen. Tonight, I want to give a little
introduction to what will be break from the Psalms and a little
study of the fruit of the Spirit. So tonight I want us to consider
what it means to live by the Spirit and not the flesh. What
it means to live by the Holy Spirit and not live according
to the flesh or remnant sin that is in each of us. And as we think
of the truths that the Apostle Paul explains to us, we want
to also consider what our Confession of Faith and Shorter Catechism
tells us, which I think will help us understand the nuts and
bolts of what it means to live by the spirit and not the flesh,
and also what is sanctification, what is growth in grace, growth
in holiness as a Christian. But I also want to apply this
to us in two particular ways. One, I want to hit home with
you young ones, you children, and by implication, you grown
children, understand for your own lives what I’m saying, but
I also want us to speak just very briefly of how this subject
applies to a contemporary issue that the church faces. So when
the Apostle Paul writes a letter to the Galatian church, he is
writing one of his most difficult letters. He has basically found
out that there are some in the church where he had formerly
gone and preached the gospel and established a church. He’s
found out that some have come up and they are preaching a different
gospel. And remember in early chapters he says, if anyone,
whether a man or angel, comes to you and preaches a gospel
other than the gospel of Christ, he basically says, let that person
go to hell. Let them be accursed. And so
he is very angry at what is taking place in the Galatian church.
It’s one of the letters that some people won’t like because
it has some sections that are a little rough. You might say
they’re not nice, but guess what? Sometimes the Bible has to be
rough with us, right? That’s what God’s word is to
us. It fixes what is broken. It sets
up what has fallen down and it reforms what has become deformed. But one of the things that is
facing the Galatian church is how does a Christian live the
life of a Christian without falling into legalism on one extreme
or falling into what’s called libertinism on the other. But
how does the Christian live somewhere in the middle of balanced and
godly life? Now that is a contemporary issue for us. It’s not the one
I’m gonna mention, but that’s a contemporary issue. One of
the things that you’ll find in our culture today is there are
some who say, if you say the word obedience, you’re a legalist. If you say, obey God’s word,
do what God’s word says, do exactly as he tells you, you’ll hear
the cry, you’re a legalist, you’re a legalist. On the other hand,
you’ll hear people say, I’ve been saved by grace, and so I
can do as I please, including sin, and all I need to do is
just ask forgiveness. Well, neither of those extremes
are right. We’re gonna land somewhere in the middle where God says,
obey me, live by my spirit, and not the flesh. Another way to
look at this is those who are legalists live by the flesh. Those who say, if I don’t drink
and smoke and cuss and chew and hang out with those that do,
that makes me a better Christian than you. Kind of rhymes, doesn’t
it? We know what legalism, though, is, right? We live in the South.
Those of you who have just moved to the South, you are finding
out what legalism is. We’re pretty good at it down
here. It’s all about outward appearance. And outward appearance
is what got the Pharisees in trouble. Jesus said to them,
You are like a whitewashed tomb. You’re freshly painted on the
outside, but inside you are truly dead. And so we don’t want to
be legalist. We don’t want to be those who
outwardly conform to the law of God. But we also don’t want
to be libertines and say God has saved us and so we can do
as we please. We just simply need to ask forgiveness. The modern form of that is Well,
it’s ancient and modern. It’s what we call antinomianism.
We don’t do the law of God. We’re anti. We’re against the
law of God, and so we do as we please. So we want to land somewhere
in the middle. Now, how does this relate to
you children? Well, you children are growing up in your home,
and you probably think your parents are legalists. Don’t run in the
house. Make your beds, eat your beans and your broccoli, sweep
the floor, take out the trash, whatever else it is that your
parents ask you to do. And you start wondering, I thought
I was supposed to be living life by grace. And grace in your mind
is mom does everything. Daddy brings home the money,
mama does all the work, and I just lay on the couch. Part of the
reason your parents get you to do things is so that you learn
to obey God. If you can’t obey your parents,
you’ll never learn to obey God. And so there is a heavy sense
in your young age where you learn law, law, law, because it takes
law to get to grace. Law helps you realize you don’t
measure up, that you don’t measure up according to God’s standards,
and you fall short, and you need grace, and that grace is only
found in the person and work of Jesus. Now let’s get a little
heavier with you children. What happens in your house when
you don’t obey the law? Are there consequences? If your
parents are biblical, they are those who do not spare the rod
and spoil the child. And so probably like, maybe my
kids have asked, you’ve asked before, well, what about you,
mom and dad? Do you ever get spankings? And
we remember what the book of Hebrews, what the writer of Hebrews
says to us as Christians. Our heavenly father loves us
as an earthly father does. What does the Bible say? God
chastens those he loves. And so there’s this sense of
what is held before us as the law, what is required of us as
obedience. And when we fall short, there
is discipline. God disciplines us as sons. And
so There’s something to consider there, but let me encourage you
young ones in this way, and even parents in this way, too. There’s
a point where as you’re young, and some of you older ones know
this, you begin to grow up and you realize that the threat of
your parents’ rod, so to speak, is no longer effective, because
guess what? Mission has been accomplished.
You now fear God yourself. And so we begin to live in the
economy of a Christian. I wanna do what pleases not just
my earthly father, but my heavenly father. And guess what, parents?
You wake up one day and you realize, I’ve got a little Christian in
my home. And they love God. And so the conversation is no
longer, do you know what you did? Do you know what you’re
gonna get? And blah, blah, blah. It’s, you realize what God thinks of
what you’ve done. and you see repentance, you see
grace, you see forgiveness, you see reconciliation. And that’s,
I think, one of the great goals of growing up in a family, is
you learn what God is like and what He requires, but through
your parents you learn how to be God-like and how to grow in
grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. And you know that
we sin, you know that we fall short, we know that we can make
amends and we can repair those sorts of things. But what is
this idea of what Paul says in chapter 5, verse 16 and 17? What is this idea of walking
by the spirit and then the desires of the flesh? He says, walk by
the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. The
desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of
the spirit are against the flesh for these are opposed to one
another to keep you from doing the things that you want to do.
Okay, so you got this war, and it’s the spirit versus the flesh. It’s the redcoats versus the
graycoats, the colonists. It’s the blue Union suits versus
the, what did the Confederates wear, gray? Something like that.
It’s a battle. The lines have been drawn. And
what is at stake for the battle between the spirit and the flesh?
Well, what’s at stake is obedience. What’s at stake is you’re valuing
the Lordship of Christ. What’s at stake is you’re living
the Christian life as God declares to us in His Word. And so our
confession of faith says this very well. It says, they who
are effectually called and regenerated, Having a new heart and a new
spirit created in them are further sanctified, really and personally,
through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection. By his
word and spirit dwelling in them, the dominion of the whole body
of sin is destroyed, the several lusts thereof are more and more
weakened and mortified, or put to death, and they are more and
more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the
practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. And so our confession of faith
is affirming that in Christ Jesus, when we come to faith in Him,
all that Christ has done for us on the cross, all that Christ
has done for us in working out salvation for us, when we come
to faith, it is applied to us. And sin and its dominion is destroyed
in us. and we are then being renewed
after the whole of man in the image of Christ. It goes on to
say this sanctification is throughout. You know how we talk about total
depravity? We’re radically corrupt in all parts of our body? Well,
it’s saying this sanctification is throughout. So there’s radical
corruption, but there’s also gonna be radical sanctification
throughout in the whole of man, yet imperfect in this life. And here’s the bad news. there
is abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part.
And from that comes a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh
lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.
And so what does our confession say? It’s affirming the truth
of the scriptures. We’ve heard from Galatians 5
and now Romans 7 saying that in us is the flesh. Now the apostle
Paul is not speaking of skin. He’s speaking of the body of
sin in us. It’s been pardoned in our justification. It’s been subdued in our sanctification. But it is still remaining in
us. It is still throughout. We’ve given the example before
of the remnant sin in us being like hot coals in a wood stove.
You open that wood stove in the morning after it’s burned all
night and all you see are gray ashes. But if you scoop the top
layer away, what will you find? You’ll find red hot coals. And
those red hot coals are like the remnant flesh in us. It’s
sin, it’s dangerous, it’s powerful. And all it needs is a little
stoking and kindling and oxygen, and what will you then have?
You’ll have a raging fire. And you know exactly what that
is like. If you’ve lived any moment of the Christian life,
you know that to be exactly what it’s like. That temptation comes. Evil thoughts come. We stoke
that fire. We scrape away the top layer
of ashes because guess what? Deep down, We know it’s right,
but also deep down, we want that fire to rage, because it is a
joy to have its light and its heat, because the sinfulness
of sin is deceiving to us, and we want to taste of what God
says that we should say no to. And so in the Christian life,
there is this perpetual and ongoing and irreconcilable war that will
never end until we are glorified. One of the things that we should
think about when we’re near death, or when we are facing the death
of a loved one, are not just the sadnesses of it, but the
blessing of it. One thing we could say very joyfully is a
person that we know and love, at their death, is no longer
facing this battle. The war with sin is over. The
war with striving to be holy is complete. because in heaven,
our entrance into glory, we call it glorification, we sin no more. It is not possible to sin any
longer. And so sanctification, as our
catechism teaches us, is a work of God’s free grace whereby,
in this life, we are renewed in the whole of man after the
image of God and are enabled more and more to die to sin and
live to righteousness. So you as a Christian are able
to do what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 7, it’s hard for him
to do. You know the right thing to do, and you know the wrong
thing to do. And what does Paul say? I do
the wrong thing. I want to do the right thing,
but I do the wrong thing. And that’s what this little shorter
catechism is teaching us. We are enabled more and more
to die to sin and to live to righteousness. There’s this practice
we call in theology the mortification of sin, the putting to death
of sin. And we have to say over and over
in our prayers and over and over in our hearts, God give me affections
for the good things and remove the affections for bad and sinful
things. And so it’s a struggle, it’s
a strife, it’s a hardship. But guess what? In the end, we
will get the victory. In the end, God will win. In the end, and along the ways
of the battle, God is more powerful. His spirit is more powerful than
the flesh. And so let me do the second thing
I wanted to do and speak of a more contemporary cultural issue. Now, in our day and age, we are
living, what, 40, 50 years past the sexual revolution. We’re
living 40, 50 years past an era where restraint completely fell
off of people. We’re living in a time where
the church, in striving to be more inclusive, is saying to
others, it doesn’t matter who you are or how you live, God
will take you just like you are. Well, that’s only part of the
story. Think about who you were before you came to Christ. You
were a sinner. You were wicked. You were an idolater. You were
immoral. You were all the things that
the Bible says will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. But when
you come to faith in Christ, when you become a new creation
in Christ Jesus, the old is gone. In fact, it is crucified with
Christ on the cross. Those former sinful ways are
left behind. And you are now a new man, a
new woman, a new creature, a new creation. And so when we say
to the world, as the church, come all who will. There’s also
a call that says you cannot stay as you are, but you must become
what God in Christ has intended for you to be. For God is in
the business of remaking. God is in the business of recreation.
God is in the business of making all things new. And friends,
he who has the power to speak the world into existence, He
who has the power to raise from the dead. He who has the power
to take what is dead and speak and raise it to life. He has
the power to cancel your sins as wicked and deep and dark as
they may be. But we have to come to him on
his terms and say, my sin is sin because he says it is. My
wickedness is wickedness because that is what God defines it as.
But God also has a remedy for those sins and that wickedness. And so let’s be mindful as children
who are growing up and learning how to live a godly way, as parents
who are trying to help our children be godly, as adults who are striving
to be godly. but also as a church that is
more and more living in a dark world. Let’s not redefine the
gospel, but let’s proclaim the one that is in our word and show
people that God, by His power, can take darkness and make light,
and He can take weakness and give strength. Now notice how
He says it in verse 16. He says, I say, walk by the Spirit,
and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” You read
that sort of statement and say, I love walking by the Spirit,
it’s what I want to do, but I still gratify the desires of the flesh.
There’s a tension there, isn’t there? I want to live by the
Spirit, but I still live by the flesh. I have to repent often,
repent daily, repent hourly. But he’s saying your practice,
your way of life should be to live by the Spirit, and the desires
of the flesh will not be gratified. in some ways, pass away. For
the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit. Let’s get
down. Verse 25, he says, if we live
by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit, not becoming conceited
and provoking one another and envying one another. Let me end
by saying this to us this evening. If we want a beautiful, well-unified
church, that won’t come through friendships and alliances, that
won’t come through Presbyterian church order, that won’t come
through, you know, having some little fellowship suppers and
all those, all those things can help. It will come as a complete
body submitting to the word says, we’re gonna live by the spirit
and not the flesh. And as he says there at the end,
verse 25 and 26, if we live by the spirit, we won’t be conceited,
We won’t be provoking at one another and envying one another,
but we will be walking hand in hand together as we march towards
Zion. Let’s pray together. Our God,
we thank you for this word that helps us understand what the
Christian struggle is really like, that we have not only our
Remaining sin in us the flesh, but we also have the world and
the devil who are against us But we have you who are mighty
you’re mighty to save you were strong in power And you give
us all the resources of heaven that we might live out of them
and live victoriously and triumphantly Lord forgive us when we fall
short forgive us when we live out of our fleshly resources
and help us to walk by the Spirit and So please you we thank you
for this in Christ’s name. Amen