Galatians 5

WELCOME

Pastor Chris Paavola:

Great to be with you guys. My name is Chris Paavola. I’m the senior pastor here at St. Mark. And hello to everybody on spring break tuning in as well. We wish wherever we were where you are frankly, but it’s good to be with you guys as well. Thank you for tuning in. We are in the middle of this series on Galatians where each week we’re going chapter by chapter through a different chapter of Galatians, verse by verse, and discovering God’s truth. For today, it is a different series for me. This kind of teaching or this preaching style is called expository, where you go verse by verse, and it’s a little different for me, but it’s just good to use a different muscle and it’s a good change of pace and feedback I’ve gotten from you guys has been good that you guys have enjoyed this as well.

But today we are in chapter five, but before we get into it, this is something else that we’ve been doing. Each week in the series, we’ve been saying a little prayer to get us started and make sure our hearts and our heads are all caught up with where our bodies are. So grab the black book in front of you or the Bible that you brought or your phone and make me feel like I’m at a concert. Here we go. Say it nice and loud. Here we go.

BIBLE PRAYER

Pastor Chris Paavola: This is my Bible.

Response: This my Bible.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Lord, help me believe it.

Response: Lord, help me believe it.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Teach me.

Response: Teach me.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Correct me

Response: Correct me.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Encourage me.

Response Encourage me.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Change me.

Response: Change me.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Open my heart.

Response: Open my heart.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Open my mind.

Response: Open my mind.

Pastor Chris Paavola: To hear what you have to say.

Response: To hear what you have to say.

Pastor Chris Paavola: In Jesus’ name everyone said, amen.

Response: Amen

GALATIANS 5

Wonderful, wonderful. So we’re going to jump right into it. We’re in Galatians chapter five. So last week in chapter four, the apostle Paul was talking about our adoption through the waters of baptism.

By the way, we have another baptism today at our 11 o’clock service, so that’s very exciting. It’s a student from our world actually. So that’s just kind of one of those things with these moments, right? You’ve got this ministry that you have as a church and then that we partner with. And when the two come together for these wonderful moments, it’s going to be great. So we have a lot of our world folks who are going to be at the second service. That’s pretty exciting as well. But anyway, so last week you talked, Paul talked about how we were adopted through the waters of baptism. We’re adopted into the family of God, and we really unpacked this idea that just because you were adopted doesn’t mean you stopped thinking like an orphan. You guys remember that? So we had the image of Annie from Orphan Annie coming into the house and the mansion, and she still was thinking like a servant.

She reached for the mop bucket when she was in Daddy Warbuck’s house. And that’s kind of a picture of us. We’ve come into this family of God. God says, everything I have is yours welcome. And then we continue to act like orphans scratching and clawing for our existence. And then Paul’s going to kind of expand on that idea of living like orphans in chapter five here. And really chapter five is an entire chapter conversation. And this is not terms that we use, which is why it’s good to have this conversation of a flesh versus the spirit. And we don’t talk. And this again, this is why I think this series is great, is we’re letting God dictate the conversation instead of us. We don’t think in terms of flesh and the spirit, but it is very much at work when we struggle with things, when we do what we want don’t want to do or we don’t do what we do want to do. I think I said that right? Or when we scratch and claw and live like orphans, we’re living out in this thing called the flesh. And really the question that we’re eventually going to answer today is, which one am I following?

And this has to do with like, oh, when you’re confused about something, what kind of a decision am I going to make? Or why is my life like this? It really comes down to this question of which one am I following the flesh versus the spirit? And that’s where Paul’s eventually going to go in this conversation. And so starting in Verse 1 in a second “stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery”.

You guys know this is not an egg yolk of a chicken egg or something like that. This is like the yoke of an animal and this is a terrible drawing, so forgive me in advance, but you got an animal here doing its thing that’s pretty good. Well, that part wasn’t good. That’s pretty good. Come on, I’m doing, y’all encouraged me this morning. I feel judged. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve got four legs. Okay, anyway, and then a tail. Anyway, all right, well that looks like a butt. We’re going to take that. So anyway, you got this idea of being yoked together and he’s saying this is this yoke here that’s binding these two animals together. This is like us, and this is slavery. It really is a slave to whom, and he’s saying the law. So the law is driving this thing. And when he’s talking about the law, he’s talking about the 613 mosaic laws that are cultural, ceremonial and moral laws and crisis fulfilled.

Those we don’t follow the cultural or the ceremonial laws anymore. We only follow the moral laws. He’s saying this following of the law thinking that when you follow the law that God loves you more or that you can do something when you break the law that God will love you less. If you are in Christ, the law is fulfilled. There’s nothing you can do to make God love you more and make God love you less. We now follow the law and grateful response, but it’s not to earn better standing with God. And if we go ahead and we’re living life trying to be, follow the law to earn God’s favor, it’s like slavery again. Now, if you remember, go a little bit of backstory. You have these people in this church in Galatia. Paul hears that there’s some Jews who became Christian Good, but then the Christian Jews started telling all the Gentile Christians, Hey, we should start following all these Jewish laws because that’s how we earn God’s favor. And Paul’s like, no Christ has fulfilled that. You don’t have to grow long sideburns and not mix fabrics and observe the Sabbath and don’t eat calamari. All of these things that the Jewish people did, we don’t have to do them anymore. And this angers Paul and the whole point of the letter, and here’s why I say all that, okay? If I’ve lost you on all that diatribe, come back here.

When we follow, when the flesh, the things of the flesh and Paul’s about to get into this, when we live out of the flesh, it looks like freedom, but it ends up in bondage. And when we follow the spirit, it looks like oppression, but it ends up in freedom. And that’s what we’re going to see in this whole thing. It looks like slavery when we follow God’s law and when we live a life according to the spirit, but it ends up in freedom. But when you indulge in the flesh, and I’m going to do what I want, I’m going to live out what my body wants to do, and I’m just going to indulge in my flesh and let my flesh lead me. It looks like freedom. I can do what I want, but it has incredible consequences that end up in bondage, and that’s the point he’s about to make Verse 1 “For freedom.

Christ, has set us free stand firm and do not submit again to the oak of slavery”. Verse 2 “Look, I Paul say to you that if you accept circumcision”, if you do what this, remember this was a Judaizer who was telling them to be more Jewish. If you do what this Jewish guy is saying who’s confusing you, if you have a circumcision thinking that it’s going to make God love you more “Christ will be of no advantage to you”. You are saying to Jesus, Hey, thanks for everything you did, but I got it here. I want to be approved by God based on what I do, not what you’ve done for me, Jesus. So he’s saying, if you get circumcised, if you let this guy convince you and compel you to get a circumcision, it’s like Christ is nothing to you anymore and you’re going back under the yoke of slavery to the whole law.

Verse 3 “I testify again to you to every man who accepts circumcision, that he is obligated to keep the whole law” all 613 laws. Why is my pen doing that? Keep the whole law. There we go. All of it. And if you keep the whole law, you’re good. But if you break one aspect of the law, if you fail to do one thing, you’re guilty of breaking it all. You are at that point a law breaker. You are severed. And you guys, this is a pun, circumcision. So, you’re saying if you go to the Rabbi Shortman and you get nip the tip kind of thing, what is it from Robin Hood, Men in tights? Anyway, okay. If you get a circumcision from that guy, “you are severed from Christ. So, he’s making a pun there, right? Verse 4 “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified, the law. “You have fallen away from grace” Verse 5 “For through the spirit”.

And we’re going to get into this guy in just a minute. “By faith, we are ourselves eagerly hope for righteousness”, Verse 6 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything” . It doesn’t count for anything, “but only faith, working through love”. And then he goes into a couple metaphors here. The first one being a race Verse 7 “You were running well”, this is this image of a race. What’s so neat about this, I think, is that this is the first letter that Paul writes that we have. This is the earliest manuscript in the New Testament. This predates the composition of Matthew, mark, Luke, and John or anything else in the New Testament, Romans Corinthians, Ephesians, all of it. This predates it. And so, what’s neat is when he uses these metaphors of this imagery or these arguments here, you read them later and you can kind of hear how the teaching developed over time.

And then there’s other sections of the Bible where he talks about running a race and other illustrations of the cross being crucified or as we’ll see in just a moment, a loaf of bread. He uses these images elsewhere. So you were running a race. Well, “who hindered you from obeying the truth”? Verse 8 “This persuasion is not from him”, from God “who calls you”. This guy, this Judaizer is saying is not from God, this is from somewhere else, Verse 9 “A little leaven leavens the whole lump”. In some translations it says a little yeast works its way through the whole dough. So here he’s got the image of bread going on and he’s saying, when you make bread guys, it starts out as a lump of dough. And all you need is a little bit of yeast and all that yeast works its way through the whole dough to make the bread.

In the same way, if you let this bad teaching in that you could be circumcised to earn a better standing with God or there’s something you can do, you can build an orphanage or you can pray all day long that that’s going to make God love you more. That’s like yeast and it works through the whole, it will work its way through all of you. Don’t let this teaching corrupt you. Verse 10 “I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty who, whoever he is”. Verse 11 “But if I brothers still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed”. And so the cross in the ancient world, we wear it around our neck, which it is fine. It’s a beautiful image.

The cross was an offensive image to people. So they’d be like, Hey, as the church expanded, they’d go to some Greek culture and they’d say, Hey, our God was killed on a cross. And they’d be like, what? It’s like appalling. It’s gory. It’s supposed to make us kind of recoil. It’s a gross image. This instrument of suffocation and bleeding someone out and pure torture, it was offensive to them. And not only that impulse playing on that, it’s not only offensive to our sensibilities, but it’s also offensive because when somebody like we’re saying that there’s nothing you can do to make God love you more, that’s offensive to us. And he’s saying the cross is offensive. And if we go back to circumcision, we’ve removed that offense of the cross. Verse 12 ”I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves”. So here’s another pun, right? So he’s like, take that knife and don’t just circumcise, go ahead and castrate.

I don’t want you to multiply this teaching. I don’t want this to reproduce. And we’re like, Ooh, Paul. But I mean he’s really upset. He’s just showing us how upset he is. And then Verse 13 “For you were called to freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through the love serve one another”. I like that opportunity. So we have this opportunity every day to live according to the flesh or the spirit, and that’s where Paul’s about to go Verse 14 “for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. Her, he’s quoting Deuteronomy six verse five. Jesus would later call it the greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Verse 15 “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another”.

Okay, so here we go. Here’s what I think is the meat and kind of the new thought that was all kind of a reiteration of previous teachings. Now we get into a new thought and again, a conversation on the flesh versus the spirit. How do I know which one I’m following? How do I follow one over another? How do I know when I’m following one or the other? And I’ll has to do this conversation about the spirit in my Bible when I’m, there’s sections that talk about the spirit because he’s a little bit of a mystery. I will make a little icon of a spirit so I can scan flipping my pages and see a section. So I’ll draw a little spirit to just serve as an icon from a visual aid. The spirit, we have creeds that talk about this. The spirit is God.

He is the father. He is the son. The spirit is equal with the Father and the son. And we say in one of our creeds together with the Father and son is worshiped and glorified. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is living and active. And anytime we talk about him, we talk about him. He’s not in the room. He’s present right now in this room. This is his house. He dwells here. The spirit of God is here. We can go nowhere to flee from his presence. Psalm 1 39, right? So the Spirit, I don’t like talking about him. He’s not in the room. He’s here, but he’s sometimes referred to as the shy member of the trinity because what he does is he’s always deferring to the father and the son. He’s always lifting up the father and the son. He goes where the father sends him.

He glorifies the son. He has this way of self-deference. He’s always deferring to others. And that makes him kind of this mysterious person. And in this is one of the sections in scripture where we get a little bit of an insight into who the Holy Spirit is. And it’s really this conversation of the flesh. I don’t know why the pen is doing that. The flesh verses the spirit and Paul’s about to do this compare and contrast. And I think taking a brief moment and talking about this will help us be able to read this section better. And here’s why we don’t use the term flesh. Very often you might hear phrases about body autonomy or my body, my choice, and we use that term body, but we don’t use the term flesh. As Christianity grew and it grew into Greek regions, the Greeks had way different thoughts about the body and the flesh than Jews did.

And so, Christianity ran into this teaching that was rampant. If you think about the Greek culture, the Roman culture, you think about the guy like the Greek God, d Dionysus, right? Self-indulgent wine and women and parties. And just if it feels good, do it hedonism, right? If it feels good, do it. Taste it, touch it, smell it, smoke it, drink it doesn’t matter if it feels you’re indulging in the body and that. So when Christianity spreads and somebody like Paul, he’s just like, whoa. And he’s got to be able to speak to this. And as he speaks to this, it gets a little bit confusing because the question becomes, is the flesh good? Is my body good or is it bad? And later on, this would devolve into this weird teaching called Gnosticism where, and there was kind of two branches of it. If the body is bad, we need to punish it.

We need to flail our bodies. Then you’ll see this is what you’d see monks do. Sometimes we need to go off into the desert and starve the body. We need to stand in the sun all day to punish the body because the body is evil. And something to disdain, and I know this is a timeless truth, but to modernize this a bit, this is people who do bodily harm or self-mutilation, or you could even say eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia. That is punishing the body. And then you have the other side that is like the self-indulgent in the body, just like whatever the body wants to do, I’m going to do it. It’s my body, my choice. I’m free to decide this is my flesh. I can indulge in this.

Whatever it craves, I’m going to give it. This is gluttony and everything. I mean, this is the lyrics of pop 40 music. This is just the body is what I am going to indulge in. And again, it looks like freedom, but it ends up in slavery. And that’s what Paul’s about to say. And the question that starts to be begged in these Greek cultures as Christianity is spreading is, well, what about the body? Is it good? And I should just, I’m free to do whatever I want. Is it bad and I need to punish it? What about the body? And the Christian view is a little bit more nuanced than this. So the idea of the flesh is that the flesh is self-indulgent. Your flesh wants to indulge itself. We are consumers. Feed me. I want this. It feels good. Scratch this itch, do this. Our flesh is extremely self-indulgent. And on the flip side, the spirit of God is self controlled.

There’s this sense of mastery. The flesh is self-centered. The flesh thinks about no one else than itself. And the spirit on the flip side is like we talked about, he’s always deferring to others. He’s others centered. He’s always deferring to others. He’s always lifting them up. He’s not out for his own game. The flesh is weak. It’s the reason you get sick. It’s the reason you have to sleep. It’s the reason you have to eat. It’s the reason you get hangry, why you’re hungry and it’s affecting you. It’s weak. Your flesh is weaker than your willpower. It’s the reason that you can’t walk by those donuts in the cafe and grab one because your flesh is like, oh, I really want that self-indulgent. Me, me, me. It’s the flesh and the flip side, the spirit is strong, wrong.

And then another way to think about this, and probably the best way is the flesh is corrupt ed. The flesh, your body is made in the image of God. God made us perfect, but we fell under the curse of sin. And now your perfect beautiful body, God made you just as you are, is corrupted by sin. This is why you can get sick. This is why you might have love handles when you hit your forties. This is why you can die. You were not made to die. You were made perfect and it’s corrupted and the spirit is pure perfect undefiled. Now this is where things get wild. So that kind of framework, lemme give you one other framework and then we’ll dig into this passage. Flesh versus the spirit. Your body was perfect. It’s corrupted by sin.

When Jesus died or when Jesus was born, the word became what? Flesh. He took on sinful flesh. Though he never sinned and he lived a perfect life, though he never sinned in the sinful flesh, Jesus got sick, he could suffer, he could die. And Paul would later say in the book of Romans eight, that he condemned in sinful flesh sin all the way to a cross. And when he rose from the grave, it wasn’t just spirit, it was a bodily flesh, resurrection because his flesh is now redeemed. The sin of the flesh has been a towed for and after the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, he ascended into heaven as flesh. When you and I die, we’re going to go to heaven in a moment and we will be spirits. But then there will be a day where there is a new heaven and a new earth. And God will give us a new body, the body you have, but it will be perfect. It will be redeemed in a new heaven and a new earth. This is the resurrection of the body that we confess When we say the creed, when we say I believe in the resurrection of the body, that’s what we’re saying. Someday there will be a day where even my spirit in heaven will be given a physical body again that is uncorrupted and perfect.

So, what is the Christian of the body? It is made by God. It’s corrupted by sin, but it will be redeemed. Again, your flesh, your body is perfectly made by God. It is corrupted by sin, but it will be redeemed. Again, huge, huge ideas, but it helps us then read through this section of the flesh verses the spirit. And Paul says in Verse 16, “But I say, walk”, and here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to highlight three and I just kind of jump ahead. Verse 16, he says, “walk by the spirit”. Verse 18, he says, led by the spirit. And then in verse 25, live by the spirit. What do we see from that? We see right away that the spirit is living. It is active, it is moving. It is a dynamic relationship with us. He’s not stagnant and sitting there, we interact with him on again and again.

There is this sense that we can walk and live and be led by the spirit, or we can walk and live and be led by the flesh. When you walk and live and are led by the Spirit, it looks like it’s oppression, but it ends up in freedom. And when you walk and live and are led by the flesh, it looks like freedom, but it ends up in oppression as we’re about to see for Verse 17, “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.”. So, there’s just this sense of we’re about to compare and contrast these two things. It’s flesh, vs. spirit, Verse 18 “But if you are led by the spirit, you’re not under the law”. Now the works, and here’s the word works, and later on for the spirit, he uses the word fruit.

Not fruits, plural, but fruit. Same idea. Verse 19 “Now the works of the flesh are evident”. So, this is the word evidence, meaning that when you see these things, this means the flesh is at work. If you are going through these things, this means your flesh is at work. If you see these consequences, it means that you’ve lived according to the flesh. In the next chapter, he talks about if you sow to the flesh, you will reap what the flesh gives. If you sow to the spirit, you will reap what the spirit gives and the works of the flesh are evident. I’m going to kind of go through these “sexual, immorality, impurity sensuality”, and of course, he starts with the biggest sin of the flesh. When he’s talking about the flesh sexuality, Jesus talks about how he talks about how one in the beginning God made them male and female, and the two will become one.

What flesh. This is Jesus quoting Genesis. In the beginning, in the created order, things were perfect. God made them male and female, and the two will be one. Flesh the view of Christian sexuality for all of the kill, joy, oppressive view, reputation that Christians have towards sexuality. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We have a larger grander view of sexuality. We believe that it’s not just physicality, it’s not just chemicals. That when a man and woman come together, it is a bonding of the soul in ways that we don’t understand that the two become one flesh, and this is God’s intended order and design. There’s this union of souls. It’s way more we value it at the highest extreme. This is something to be protected, and we’ll talk about this some more other times. So, immorality is when we take this thing that God has designed and use it in other ways when there’s this created order with God’s intent and we indulge in the flesh in ways that it never was intended, it’s corrupted.

And so, the deviant behavior of any kind of sexuality, adultery, pornography, whatever it might be, it is the flesh at work, not the spirit. Then he goes on to “impurity”, kind of like a synonym of a sexual immorality. This idea of you have something pure versus something that’s tarnished, something that’s holy and worthy of protection and something that’s trashed sensuality. There’s giving into all of the senses. If it feels good, do it. Hedonism, debauchery, idolatry. This is another work of the flesh, making something that’s not God, as if it were God lifting up a celebrity, a lifestyle, a political party, a career, a financial status, and lifting that up as the thing that you’ll ascribe to and calls the shots in your life. It’s idolatry and it’s a work of the flesh because the flesh is self-centered. And then he goes into sorcery, sorcery. And the word there could also be translated like witchcraft.

Any occultic practice, I would expound it. The astrology. Think about what it is doing. What is witchcraft trying to do? What is the astrology trying to do? And I know I’m firing brimstone this morning, but I’m just preaching what it says, right? So, I didn’t write it, okay, I’m just expounding on it. But think about what witchcraft or the occult is trying to do or astrology reading my horoscope. It’s trying to get leverage over people. It’s trying to maximize my potential and get a cheat code, a hack for life. I’m trying to get ahead. So, I’m going to read the stars, I’m going to read the tea leaves, I’m going to read my palms. And God would say, no, I made the stars. I made the tea tree. I made the palms of your hands. Those things don’t dictate your life. Your life is not organized by stars, billows of gas for billion light years away.

No, those don’t determine your life. I do Stop trying to use those things to get ahead. And the other reason that scripture warns so severely against any kind of witchcraft, Ouija, boards, horoscopes, Sears, seances, all that stuff is not because it’s not true, but because it is real. It is real. Demons are not figures of speech. They are real. The devil is not like a character real, and he’s at work and he wants to steal, kill, and destroy you. He does not want what is best for you. And so those things, why would you do those things and give an entrance, give a foothold for the devil? Why would you do that? Flee from those things. Why would you want to give him access into your life to harm you? And then he goes on “idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, strife, separation between people, jealousy”. And this is jealousy for people. I was driving through a really rich neighborhood in Indianapolis this week, and I had jealousy for those people. “Fits of anger”, outbursts, ”rivalries, dissensions, divisions”. Verse 21 “Envy”. And this is for, as opposed to people like possessions, “drunkenness”, not drinking, drunkenness like the excess going to the fullest, extreme “orgies and things like these”.

You read this list and it’s like an episode of Real Housewives or it’s like listening to a panel on Fox News or CNN talking over each other, yelling division, anger out bears, fits of anger, jealousy, and strife. It’s like reading the lyrics of any song on the pop 40. And when you see those things, they are evidence that the flesh is calling the shots. And it’s easy to watch bar rescue and see those people screaming and yell at each other. That’s those people. But the reason we like it is because it makes us feel better about the fighting and dissensions in our life. Oh, look at how messed up they are. I’m not that bad. I got problems. And we look at that and we’re distracted from the fact of the evidence of the flesh in our own life, the fighting, the envy, the discord, the dissensions. And if you are experiencing any kind of brokenness like that in your life, if you are surrounded by toxic relationships, if your heart is full of bitterness or body shame or envy, it is evidence that you have been led and you are walking by and you are living by the flesh.

It is self-indulgent, self-centered, weak and corrupted, and God has redeemed you to live and walk by and be led by the spirit. He says in Verse 21, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God”. And I read stuff like that in scripture. When I have something that I’m confused by, I make a little big question mark and I circle it to just let God know. I need you to answer that question. Why would Paul say that? Hasn’t Paul been saying that we are not saved by what we can do, and we’re not condemned by what we fail to do or the bad things that we do that we’re in Christ Jesus, that what I do doesn’t matter because I’m redeemed by grace. And he just said, if I live like this, I will not inherit kingdom of God.

That is confusing to me because I look at this, and if I’m honest, I look at my own life and I see sexual immorality. I look at my own life and I see strife and enmity. I look at my own life and I see envy and drunkenness and divisions and dissensions. How could God say that? Does that mean I’m not going to heaven? And so, I put a little question mark there and Paul’s going to get to it, but it seems like what he’s saying, right? And we’ll come back to it now. He’s got to get into the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit, the evidence, the Holy Spirit is at work is love. Not a feeling of oh, puppy love like happiness. No, no, no. Like a serving of others, a lifting of others up ahead of our own. It’s joy. Not this trivial temporary happiness that I got from a single bottle, or I got from a single outfit, or I got from a single vacation. Not happiness and little things. No, no, no, like joy. That transcends all circumstances.

Peace. And I’m not causing and making strife. I’m a peacemaker. The fruit of the spirit is patience, not impatience, impatience. He’s defining impatience for us. It is self-centered thinking of me when I’m on the highway and someone is driving slow and the left lane and slower traffic should keep right, and I get impatient behind them, and I get up a little bit too close and hoping they don’t break. Check me when I’m doing that. That is impatience. That is the flesh. But the spirit is patient. It lets others do their thing. And I don’t. It’s okay. Maybe they are having a bad day. Maybe they’re distracted.

So, the evidence of the spirit is patience, because it’s not self-centered. It’s other centered. That’s what the spirit does. It is kindness devoted to kind charity, giving to others what they don’t deserve. At my own expense, goodness, devoted to good and justice, lifting up the oppressed. It is faithfulness, devoted to faithful. I won’t abandon you. I won’t leave you. I won’t forsake you. I’m going to stick to my word. And when I’m faithful, that is the work of the spirit within me. The spirit is gentleness. Now remember we said the spirit was strong over here, but it’s not strength and domination. No, no, no. It’s a strength that can endure gently self-control, not self-centered and against. I love this line against such things. There is no law. There’s no law against patience. Be as patient as you want. Be a glutton for kindness in your life. Indulge in faithfulness, wallow in it, and wallow in it and roll around in it. Have as much as you want of it. Have it to your fill. Running over against love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control against such things. There is no law. So have your fill. It looks like oppression, but it ends up in so much freedom.

I think about evidence like the wind. You can’t see the wind, but you see the evidence of it. You see the effect of it. And when it’s moving the trees, when you feel it on your face, and it’s like that with the Holy Spirit, you can’t see him, but he’s moving. And when he’s present in a church because full of love and peace and kindness and hospitality, and it’s true in your life, and this is actually our theme verse that we’re memorizing this week. So if you’ve been memorizing verses this week with us, here we go. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy. Actually, let’s say these together. Verse 22 “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness”, Verse 23 “gentleness, self-control against such things. There is no law”. Wow.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus, oh, have crucified the flesh. There you go. So, he is referring to two 20. Again, I have been crucified with Christ, and it’s a reference. That’s the answer to the question. Those who live like this to the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. You are right. But I don’t live according to flesh because I’ve crucified the flesh in my baptism and I live by the spirits. Verse 24 “And those who belong to Christ, Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires”. Someone say Amen. Amen. And Verse 25 “If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit”. Verse 26 “Let us not become conceited provoking one another and envying one another”. There you go, my friends.

And so, the question of which I am following? Which one have I followed? Which one should I follow? I’m confused about this decision before me. I don’t know. I’m in this relationship, but this person is pressuring me to do things I don’t want to do. What should I do? What’s the right answer here? God, there’s a job that I really want, but I don’t know if this is the right kind of job for, I just feel like a compromise. Like, well, who are you following? Is it your flesh or your spirit? Is it self-indulgent, self-centered, weak and corrupted? Or is it self-controlled, strong, pure, and other centered?

And that’s how you know between the flesh and the spirit. Now, I’ll be honest, I’ll be honest, I’m the pastor guy and I can say this, and I hope the same is true for you. I read this list of the works of the flesh, and I get incriminated on some of those. I’m like, and then I read the fruit of the spirit and I’m like, eh, some of those. So, what I want to do is close our time together, is just pray through this list. And I’m going to demonstrate how I pray through scripture. If I’m reading a section of scripture and I get nailed by it, I’m like, okay, I’m going to pray through that, and I will just go verbatim Word, word, word for word through it. And I’m just going to say these words and give us the Holy Spirit, a chance to interpret for you what does this mean for you to work on your heart, that you might live by the spirit.

And so, let’s pray through the scripture together Church.

CLOSING PRAYER

Heavenly Father, first of all, thank you for sending your son in the flesh to take on our sinful flesh and to condemn in the flesh all of our sins and to rise in the flesh that you and I, that we might receive your spirit and your redeemed flesh. We confess God, that these words are convicting words, but they’re also somehow empowering. And so we just want to take a moment and acknowledge what this means for us to, it’s at arm’s length. We want to bring it in close so we confess to you, God, the ways that we’ve fallen short, we confess to you whatever this means to each of us distinctly sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, fighting strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, and debauchery.

These things are not a part of your kingdom God, and we need your forgiveness. So, forgive us by your mercy and grace and a credit to us, the righteousness of Christ, and give us even more greater measures, a desire to walk and live and be led by your Holy Spirit that you’ve placed in us and may our lives demonstrate his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your holy name. Amen.