Walk by the Spirit

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Don Filcek, Off the Chain: Finding Freedom in Galatians; Galatians 5:13-25 Walk by the Spirit

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.
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We're currently studying Galatians in a series called Off the Chain, Finding Freedom in Galatians.
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Here's Pastor Don Filsack. Shifting gears here, we have three more weeks in the book of Galatians, and then we're going to wrap this book up.
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We've been in it for a while, and the passage that we're going to look at today in Galatians 5 is probably the one that most people think of when they think of the book of Galatians.
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There's some passages that you hear about a lot. Paul's going to talk about the fruit of the
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Spirit. How many of you are familiar with that phrase, fruit of the Spirit? Some of you have heard multiple sermons on this already, and so it's going to be interesting as we move forward to see if there's anything new for you here, and I'm guessing there will be.
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We're going to see a list of positive qualities that should exist in the life of a believer. I'm convinced that often that list overshadows the main point that Paul is trying to get to us here in the text.
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Paul is not interested in giving us a checklist of things to work on, and yet many times I think I've heard a sermon on the fruit of the
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Spirit, I've heard a lesson, or I've heard a little snippet on the radio, and I've walked away and gone, man, I'm not very patient. I need more patience, or I need more of this in my life, or I need more of that, or I need to really work on this, and we've missed some of the point of what
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Paul is getting at. As a matter of fact, we can walk away with the exact opposite of what Paul is trying to get at in this text if we walk away with a works list, a checklist of things to accomplish in our lives, but I would dare say that many of us have walked away from a sermon, or a message, or a book about this and gone, boy,
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I just need to work harder at this Christian life without an understanding of really what
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Paul is getting at here, and we're going to look through this. He's not interested in giving us a checklist, but when we see a list,
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I mean in our hearts, when we see a list of bad things, which we're going to see in the text, the works of the flesh, and then the fruit of the
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Spirit, we have a tendency to latch on to those things as a list of do's and don'ts, and that is the exact opposite of what
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Paul is trying to communicate. He wants us to walk away from this passage with an understanding that a life lived for Jesus is a life lived by the power of the
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Spirit, Him providing the growth by connection to Him through the cross of Jesus Christ.
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It is the work of the Spirit that is going to produce these things in us, and there are some things that we can do,
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I think, to fuel the fire of the Spirit in our lives, to, if you will, fertilize the plants so that the fruit grows, but when it comes to working on the fruit itself, that's the work of the
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Spirit in our lives, and it's us doing some things to yield ourselves to the
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Spirit's work. So I want you to open your Bibles to Galatians 5, and we're going to look at verses 13 through 25.
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That's page 836 in the Bible that's back in front of you, so open that Bible, turn to 836, and we will read verses 13 through,
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I think I said 25, but all the way through the end of the chapter, through verse 26. The word of the
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Lord to us this morning, Galatians 5, 13 through 26. For you were called to freedom, brothers.
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Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
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For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
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But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
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But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
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For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.
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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
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Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissension, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
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I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.
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Against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
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Let's pray. Father, I glory in this list of things, and I recognize that our tendency in our hearts is to look at lists, and to focus on ourselves, and to bring it around to us, and to analyze.
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And there's some some reality in which these are diagnostic things. We ought to be looking to see if those things are in our lives.
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But Father, it is only through connection with you, through the cross, through your word, through a dependent life of prayer upon you, that these things are going to work out.
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Sure, we can be kind once in a while, but our life will not be categorized or characterized by kindness until your
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Spirit works that into our lives. We will not be patient people. We can act patient from time to time, but it's going to be the power of your
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Spirit transforming us and changing us in the long haul to create in us a desire and a hunger for faithfulness, and gentleness, and love, and peace, and all of these things.
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And so Father, I ask by a movement of your Spirit this morning that you would open our eyes, and open our minds, and open our hearts to what you desire to communicate to us, that you desire to change us from the inside out, not just us acting these things out, but actually becoming these things by the power of your
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Spirit. Father, that you push aside from us the flesh. And Father, as we come to you in worship, that you would be honored and glorified from hearts that are given over to you by the power of Jesus Christ, and in his name we pray.
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Amen. Well, big thanks to the band for leading us in worship. I know they put in a lot of time, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to come before God in worship together.
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Hopefully, you worship throughout the week as well. I can't review everything that Paula said in the text up to this point in the book of Galatians.
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We'd be here all morning, and we'd never get to our text if I gave it a healthy review. But I do want to catch you up just a little bit, reminding you, because I know it's been a couple of weeks since we've been together in the book of Galatians.
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We've spent the last dozen or so weeks covering Galatians, and Paula's weaved together argument after argument, argument on top of argument, point upon point, that the way that a person is brought into a correct relationship with God is by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, by putting your trust in that.
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It is a gift. It is based on grace. That's what the word grace means, is a gift.
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It is not by doing good works. It is not because we did enough, we gave enough, we came to church enough, we have done enough good things to our family or to our neighbors to warrant
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His salvation. It is strictly His gift. But running through the letter has also been another point that runs kind of in tandem with that concept, and that is that after a person is brought into a relationship with God, remembering that the
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Galatians that he's writing to are already in the faith, they have already put their trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, that running along with that is that after a person is brought into relationship with God, our lives are no longer lived by law.
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Law is not the basis. Rules and regulations are not the basis of the way that we grow in this walk with God.
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But we live by faith in the ongoing work of God through His Spirit in our lives, and that's
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Paul is going to zero in on in our text today. How do we then live by the Spirit? If it's not by laws, if it's not by rules, if it's not by shoring up our lives in that way, then what is it?
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So in verse 13, Paul takes on a very simple notion that many of us have wondered. Think about this concept.
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If we are set free, if we have been set free from sin and from the law by Jesus Christ, then does that mean we can live any way that we want?
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Well, this is the way that Paul says it in verse 13, for you were called to freedom, brothers, and we've already established that.
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A few weeks ago we talked about how it is for freedom that we have been set free, therefore stand for a minute.
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But now he goes on to say, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
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The freedom we have been granted could be abused. It's something we could use in a wrong fashion.
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Someone who understands the gospel accurately could say, then wait a minute, if I've been saved by grace as though it has nothing to do with what
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I have done, it's not because I've been good enough and I'm saved and I'm guaranteed that I'm okay with God based on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, then is there a logical, carnal, fleshly question that starts to crop up in the back of our minds?
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Can't I just do anything that I want? Can't I live any way that I want? Have any of you ever either heard that or maybe even felt that well up within you?
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I mean, I guess I could kind of get away with some things, right? Anybody with me on that? Are you going to leave me hanging?
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A handful of us have actually thought that way or have at least heard that from someone else, but here
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Paul commands that we not use our freedom in that way.
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As a matter of fact, he says that through love we are called therefore to freedom to serve one another through love.
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There is a reason for our freedom. There's a reason we've been set free and that reason is to love and serve others.
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I talked about before the freedom that is the twin tracks of the train engine. Train engine not on the tracks doesn't go anywhere, but the one track that the train sits on is loving
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God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The other track is love your neighbor as yourself and that's what Paul is zeroing in on.
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Love your neighbor as yourself. As a matter of fact, Paul summarizes. He says, I can summarize the entire law in one word.
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Okay, do you see that in the text? I can summarize the entire law in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself and apparently
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Paul was more into humanities than he was into mathematics. Okay, one word. How many did he get there?
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I think you get the point though. He's saying in one phrase, in one sentence, in one thing here verbally,
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I can express the entirety of the law. It says we are saved ultimately into relationship, not into isolation.
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And I think we in the West and in our current culture have so personalized salvation. Now is salvation a personal thing?
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Is it a decision that everybody has to make? Your parents can't make it for you, your neighbor can't make it for you, your kids can't make that decision for you.
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It is personal, but we've so personalized the event that we have not understood that we are saved into community.
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We are saved into the community of the body of Christ, not into isolation. So that one of the reasons that God brought you into faith was not just fire insurance, get out of hell free card.
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It wasn't that. It was that you might engage in the way that God created humanity to live, the way that God created humanity to exist.
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And that is genuine authentic relationships that are going to be exhibited. We're going to see some fruit of the spirit here that is awesome when you think about those things being applied in our midst.
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When you think about those things actually being worked out in our relationships with one another is a beautiful thing.
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We need each other in community. The Christian life as it was intended to be lived, cannot be lived alone.
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If you are living a life in isolation, I recognize that, okay, you might say, well, Don, I'm here right now, so I must be living in community.
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Coming to church does not guarantee that you're living in community. Did you know that? Just because you're sitting here in these chairs does not mean that you're living in community, that you're opening your life up and allowing them to open up your life to you.
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All across America this morning are people gathering to hear a message and walking out the door unaffected by others around them and trying not to be affected by others around them, trying to get out the door as fast as they can.
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So many in our culture have rejected the church. They would identify themselves as spiritual, but would say organized religion is not for me.
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That's almost a mantra in our culture. How many of you have heard that stated from somebody before? I'm spiritual,
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I'm religious, but organized religion is not for me. There's a whole class of people in our culture, and it's a growing class.
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There was actually a USA Today, you know, when you're traveling around the nation and your hotel has the
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USA Today. And there was a front page article about this growing trend of people who don't attend a church, but are calling themselves spiritual, and it made a national newspaper.
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That's what's going on in our culture. People have been burned by people in the church, and they would rather just, you know, get up early on a
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Sunday morning or maybe even sleep in and then watch a preacher on TV, read some books about God, and call that religion.
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But I'm convinced that it is the very difficulties of interpersonal relationships that God wants us to endure and work through that causes us to grow.
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It's by our community. And how many of you know that living in community, how many of you admit that maybe living in family, just take it at the base level, the bedrock of relationship, easy or difficult?
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Pretty difficult at multiple levels, right? And, you know, there's a tendency to pull, and I just don't need this anymore.
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I want out of this. I want out of that. God has given us relationships with others to sharpen us, to hone us, to make us stronger.
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Have you thought about that within the context of the church? There are going to be people, maybe some people in this room who rub each other the wrong way on a regular basis, and God wants that.
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He wants you to work through those issues and those things. I'm not saying He wants you to stay in that, but He wants you to work through it and be fashioned based on some of the fruit of the
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Spirit that we're going to look at here in a minute. But if we give up on every time a difficulty arises, we might be missing an opportunity to grow.
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And I don't know if you've ever considered this, but have you ever thought that maybe you might be the difficult person that has been placed in somebody else's life to sharpen them?
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Just think about that. Apparently, in Galatia, things had come to a head, and things were getting very hostile.
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Okay, so that's something we haven't really seen addressed yet in the text. We've seen Paul kind of getting on them about this whole...
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Obviously, some Jews or people from a Jewish background had come in and said, you need to follow the Old Testament law in order to be saved and in order to be okay with God, and you need to add on all these laws.
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But what we haven't seen until this verse is that there's some hostility happening in verse 15.
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And he uses some violent words in verse 15, words in Greek that are used for wild animals tearing at a carcass.
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If the Galatians, he says, continue to bite and devour one another, they will be consumed and destroy each other.
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Do you think there's some animosity? Do you think there's some difficulty going on in that context? Any of you ever watch
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Shark Week? You ever watch the shark show? Okay, any of you into sharks? I mean, maybe a couple people like sharks, okay.
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Can you picture in your mind a feeding frenzy? Okay, they drop a chunk of meat in the ocean and boom, and the sharks show up and they're feeding.
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And it's been actually known that at times sharks will actually consume other sharks in the midst of a feeding frenzy. They'll actually eat each other.
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That's, I mean, Paul is using that as an illustration. That's like, I mean, wild animals going at it, and it's ugly, and they're literally harming each other and consuming each other.
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And so you might ask yourself, maybe Paul's getting a little exaggerated in his analogy. Like, do churches ever really get that bad?
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I mean, could it really get that ugly? You know, I praise God that it hasn't been that way here at Recast.
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I mean, anybody else agree with me on that? I mean, we've experienced a great sense of unity. I've been joyful. I pray for that consistently, but things can, indeed, get that bad.
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As a matter of fact, probably not very far from here, where we sit right now, that is going on with brothers and sisters in Christ who are devouring one another, who are consuming one another.
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Unfortunately, as a pastor in this community, I have an ear, and I hear, and people come to me and talk with me and other pastors, and there are a lot of difficulties going on that we ought to be praying for our other brothers and sisters in other churches that are struggling and are hurting.
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I pray, again, I pray that God would maintain our unity, that he would protect us from the kind of hostility that's mentioned here in 15, by helping us to grasp what we see in this next verse, in verse 16.
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Because what Paul says next is the central point of the entire book of Galatians, in verse 16, and is ultimately the main thing we need to understand about the
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Christian life. As a matter of fact, I would go so far to say, if we don't get verse 16, if we're not understanding that, if we're not operating out of that, then we can barely say that we're living, what we're living is called the
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Christian life. Because what he's going to say is, this is the center, this is the heart, this is the core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
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This is where it's all at. The solution to the Galatians' hostility, says
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Paul, is that they should walk by the Spirit. Now, walking is a metaphor all throughout
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Scripture, in both Hebrew and Greek, for living, for living the life. And we even use it in English for walking the walk of life, you'll hear that phrase used once in a way, his walk, his behavior, his actions.
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And Paul says, if we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
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The solution to the problems in Galatia, and the problems in our lives, the solution is not more rules, the solution is not more laws, the solution is not work harder, or walk away from difficulty or problems, or act nicer, or act more patient, or act more loving.
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The solution is to consider the Spirit of God, which is alive in you, who are believers, and follow
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Him. Walk in the guidance of the Spirit, walk in His strength. And we're going to talk about some specific things that I think drive towards that in relationship.
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Because this is about a relationship with the Spirit, this is not about trying to bring Him down into your life, trying to get
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His attention by doing certain things. It's about a relationship with Him, submitting to Him, yielding to Him.
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Now it seems a bit simplistic for anyone here who has struggled with any formidable sin in your lives, for me to just say, oh just follow the
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Spirit and everything will work out. Does that seem a little simplistic? Some of you are still wrestling with sins, and issues, and struggles, and difficulties that you faced in life.
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Well verse 17 is one of the most authentic and raw verses that Paul ever penned. He understood me, and I think that if you as you read it, you're going to recognize yourself in the verse too.
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And it's like the author of Scripture, who is ultimately the Spirit of God, who revealed it to Paul and to the other authors, intimately understands human nature, intimately understands what goes on inside us.
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It's one of the keys to Scripture is just understanding it. Have any of you ever just like picked up the Bible and read something, and it was like, that's me.
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That's what's going on in here. In one sense, it confirms to me that this book interprets me.
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I don't interpret this book. Do you get what I'm saying? I mean, I read the pages of this, and it makes sense of who
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I am. Paul speaks in terms of an ongoing battle that's going on inside the believer.
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We all have desires of the flesh, he says, the flesh being the sinful, corrupt, and broken natural tendencies that we have all inherited.
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Every single one of us has a broken nature. He refers to it as the flesh. Now, he's not talking about flesh and bone.
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He's talking about a specific theological concept that within each one of us resides an evil natural tendency.
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It's the part of your nature that hungers for sin and delights in sin.
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And every one of us has it. Every one of us has that nature. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, because the only people who don't raise their hand would be those who haven't realized that yet.
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We all have that, and we've all faced it. And if you've ever seen yourself, has there ever come that point where you've looked at yourself in that proverbial mirror and gone, that is grotesque, that is ugly, that is hideous, and I don't like that.
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That's the flesh. That's that nature that is at war against the Spirit of God in our lives.
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And part of my nature is still alive, producing desires that are contrary to the Spirit. And yet, we're going to see some things that Paul says about that here in a minute, that it's been wounded, that it's been injured, that it is being put down, and we need to continually be putting it down.
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But I'm getting ahead of myself. Once a person becomes a follower of Jesus, the Spirit also comes in.
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So now we have this flesh in us, and we have the Spirit alive now in us. The Holy Spirit, the capital
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S Spirit of God, comes in and produces desires that are now contrary to the flesh.
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This makes sense of the way that I can both hate my sin and love my sin simultaneously.
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Have any of you been there? You don't sin unless you desire it, right? Nobody goes, okay,
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I don't really feel like doing that, but I'm, okay, I'll just do it. You know, I mean, it's a desire in you that wells up and leads you astray.
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But simultaneously, you can be going, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be doing that. I don't want to talk bad that way about that person.
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I don't want to be creating enmity or strife or all of these works or deeds of the flesh that we're going to be looking at.
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But can you relate to that battle that goes on inside of you, both hatred for your sin and a little bit of kind of, you know, enjoying it?
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That's the reality of what's going on inside our hearts. And that's what Paul is getting at in verse 17. So that spirit is now alive in it, in us.
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And the battle lines, there is a battle raging inside each one of us and the battle lines are drawn and they cut right across the center of each
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Christian's heart. Now I say Christian's heart because how many of you know that there's a different kind of battle going on inside unbelievers than believers, okay?
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Because now we have the spirit at war with the flesh, but as an unbeliever we have the flesh.
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And so the flesh wins, the flesh reigns, the flesh rules in our hearts.
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It's not to say where everybody who is an unbeliever is as wicked as they possibly could be. We know that that's not the case, but it is to say that they are primarily, an unbeliever is primarily ruled and reigned by their flesh, by their sinful natural tendencies that are within them.
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But I want to point out we are not inanimate bystanders in this battleground, sitting back watching the battle hoping for a positive outcome.
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We're in here sitting on a hill, sipping a glass of cold water, watching this battle rage down below us like some of the generals used to do in the
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Civil War. And watching this battle rage going, boy I hope this side wins. Okay, that's not the way that it's going.
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We are either yielding our lives to the spirit, or we are yielding our lives to the flesh.
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We are either feeding the work of the spirit, we are fertilizing the plant that is the spirit of God, or we are giving food and nourishment to the flesh, feeding it so that it might grow.
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And our lives are characterized right now as we sit in these chairs by one of those two realities. Either we are primarily at a state in our lives where we are feeding the flesh, or we are fertilizing and yielding to the spirit's work in our lives.
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When we yield to the spirit, he keeps us from doing the things our flesh wants to do, it says at the end of 17.
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But conversely, when we yield to the flesh, the flesh prevents us from doing the good that we want to do.
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So that's the nature of the battle. And in verse 18, Paul straight up declares that if we are yielding to the spirit's work, if we are putting fire putting wood to the fire of the spirit's work in our lives, we are not under the law.
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If we are operating out of this category of spirit, and letting the spirit work and yielding to the spirit, then we are not under law.
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Now, I want you to think about this for a minute. How does the law figure into the battle that's going on in our hearts? You have flesh on one side, spirit on the other.
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What's the law got to do with this battle? It doesn't. It doesn't.
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It doesn't factor in, in a sense. I mean, it can be, it's a tool that either side can wield.
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Either we are living out of the power of the spirit in us, or we are living out of our own flesh. Those are the two categories given, flesh or spirit, one or the other.
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Ironically, the law is a neutral third party that can be wielded by either side in the battle to the end of the flesh or to the end of the spirit.
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Think about this. The flesh can wield the law in our lives as a tool that leads us into self -righteousness, that leads us into thinking we're okay because we did this, this, or this, right?
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Do you see how the law can be used by the flesh against the spirit? It's a neutral third party.
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Just like anything that's been given that Satan can corrupt for bad, right?
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The television, relatively neutral thing. But can it be used for evil? Can it be used for good?
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Yes. And equally, the law can be used by the spirit to draw us towards humility, to show us how we fall short to, to, in essence, a beautiful thing.
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It can show us the, the glory of what God desires for us and who he is.
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But the law is a lifeless thing. Without the power of the spirit using it to convict us accurately, it can be a dangerous thing.
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And now in 19 through 23, Paul is going to give us two famous lists. He wants us to contrast the works of the flesh with the fruit, the fruit of the spirit.
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This is not primarily, primarily for the purpose of giving us an exhaustive list of do's and don'ts. That's not what Paul is getting at here.
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Paul wants us, wants ultimately to give us some concrete examples of the types of things the flesh will produce in our lives if we yield to it, if we feed the flesh, if we are constantly yielding to the flesh and giving ourselves over to the flesh and, and doing things that lead into the strength of the flesh.
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These are examples. The list is not exhaustive. As a matter of fact, he's going to say that. And as I walk through this list, I want you to consider that this is the pathway of yielding to the flesh, walking according to your own strength, feeding the flesh and doing what comes naturally as fallen humans.
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This is a, this is like he's saying, this is the logical outcome of a life lived in the flesh.
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The first thing he mentions is sexual immorality. Is anybody surprised that that made the list? Nobody?
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Okay. Nobody's surprised that that one's on the list. You see, in reality, we are all broken, broken sexually in some way.
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That is reality about our lives. And if we're honest with ourselves, we have a tendency to look at certain sexual deviancies as more, more problematic than others.
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But I guarantee that it's not your own sexual deviancy that you think is the worst. Are you getting what I'm saying? It's, it's somebody else's.
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Somebody else has the real problem. But what about us? The desires of the flesh will produce sexual deviance in our hearts, in our lives, and only by God's grace are we protected from acting out on those things.
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Sin is always a corruption of that which was meant to be good, and in sexual immorality is no different.
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Sex, which was created to be a beautiful and awesome thing, is corrupted in our society, and in our culture, and in our own hearts.
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That is what is meant by sexual immorality in this list. That's the product of a life that is lived by feeding the flesh, by yielding to the flesh.
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Impurity is the second one. This refers to extreme filth. It's ironic, when you read down this list, it can be an uncomfortable list, and it ought to be an uncomfortable list, but impurity is a funny
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Greek word that ultimately, it has some sexual overtones, but it's the notion of unmentionable deviance, of things that they don't even want to give a word to.
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And that's the notion of this word impurity in Greek. So filthy, you don't talk about it. We don't want to name it, so we call it impurity.
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That's the notion behind this Greek word. And then when you read through scripture and think about what they're willing to name, that makes it all the more scary.
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This is a dark and dangerous word, impurity. Sensuality, a rough translation, again has really mild sexual overtones, but it's not merely a sexual sin.
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It's the kind of sin that says, I don't care what God thinks about it, and I don't even care what others think about it.
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It's a brash, almost pride of sin, like that guy in 1 Corinthians who is boasting because he has his father's wife.
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That's the kind of word that this is here, the sensuality, this kind of like, I don't really care what others think.
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I just do what I do. That's the way I roll. Are you getting what that's saying? This is a, again, a dark kind of sin.
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Idolatry, worshiping that which is not God, a sin that hasn't changed, has changed in its outward manifestation, but has not changed in its primary grip on the human heart.
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So it is not very common in the world today to bow to idols, maybe in some isolated places, but even in the places where that's the centerpiece, where like in Hinduism or something like that, even modern culture is moving away from that in some of those
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Hindu cultures where they literally bow and sacrifice to idols. But are there idols? Do Americans have idols?
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Do we have idols? Do we have things that we worship outside of God? Absolutely. Sorcery, a word that has shifted significantly over the course of time.
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And how many of you know the word shift? So sorcery, this meant kind of spiritism, demonic worship, that kind of stuff, offering sacrifices to idols and things like that, but even a darker notion behind it and kind of like a wizardry and amulets and spells and all that stuff.
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So where'd we get the word pharmacy from? It's pharma. So you can see how that's kind of morphed over time to actually, in Greek culture over the centuries, it morphed into a word that primarily had to do with medicinal things.
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And that's where we get our word pharmacy from. But in here, in this list of vices, this list of works of the flesh, it is sorcery.
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Enmity, just when you think the word enmity, think hatred. So that's a great translation of that word.
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Enmity is hatred towards others. Strife, the opposite of peace, even a dissatisfaction or a discontentment.
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This can be an internal, strife can be a word for the internal state of a human soul or it can be the way that that human soul then in turn interacts with others.
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Probably both are in play when you have strife. If you have external strife with others, you probably have some, would you agree, some internal strife in yourself.
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Jealousy, an interesting Greek word that just basically means misapplied zeal. It's actually a word that is listed sometimes as a virtue, the actual direct word.
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It's not like it's anti something. It's the word that we get zeal from, but it's a misapplied zeal in this context, a fervor about the wrong things.
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Fits of anger, interesting word that means fits of anger. And I think that that probably just, that translates really well right over into our culture.
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Like anybody here ever relate to that phrase fits of anger? You know who you are and you're angry about it.
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Rivalries, dissensions, divisions, I'll take those together, they're all just so related. You know, splitting people, dividing, causing problems, stirring, and then sitting back and admiring your work.
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Watching, you know, watching feuds get started and then just enjoying that process of going back and forth, quarrelsomeness, that type of thing.
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Envy is an interesting thing, a horrible thing. Envy is taking covetousness to the next degree.
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So have you ever wondered what the difference is between envying somebody for having something and coveting something? Coveting is primarily, it's a really hard sin to come by in America anymore because of the wonderful invention of the credit card.
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So primarily if I covet something, I have access to it in America now, right? Like if I like your flat screen
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TV and I'm like 50 inch, whoa, that thing is awesome, what can I do? What do I have freedom? Is coveting something that resides and embeds in my heart or do
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I just go out and just buy it on a credit card and then I have it, right? So it leads to weird application in our lives.
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Envying is taking that a step further. Envying, if you think about it this way, primarily in America, envying would be like a young woman looking at somebody else's hair and saying,
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I want her, I wish I had hair like that, something she can't have or something that you can't really obtain from the other person.
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But primarily here's the difference between coveting and envy is you desire harm to come to the other individual because they have something that you want.
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Like man, she's got such a great complexion, I wish that she would just get scarred. Pretty rough, right?
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Would you agree with that? It's a horrendous thing and yet we can find envy welling up in our hearts at times.
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Drunkenness, drunkenness is like getting drunk, okay? And there's no way around that and I just,
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I want to say to you that I want to make it abundantly clear that as a church we do not have a stand against drinking alcohol.
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We are not teetotalers, we do not believe that you need to abstain from alcohol to be a good Christian, to be in good standing with God.
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No official, no official stance on that whatsoever but we do have an official stance on drunkenness because God's word has an official stance on drunkenness.
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And it makes this list of deeds of the flesh, of things that fuel the work of the flesh in your lives.
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And if you are here and you're struggling with that and you're working through it and you're kind of, and there might be some here who are actually saying,
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I need some help in this area of my life. Please come and see me, see Kyle, see one of the elders and we'll talk with you about it.
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But drunkenness is not okay. It is not acceptable for a believer to once in a while hanging out and have a couple too many.
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That is not appropriate behavior. Do you understand? And that is, that's from Scripture.
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Drunkenness makes a list of things that should be on the way out in our lives. And this last word is tied, it's hyphenated, drunken orgies, the two of them coming together in such a way that it's like just a complete, a wholesale just debauchery, just moving out from what is normal.
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And again, it's one Greek word that's hyphenated, drunken orgies. It's like too many college campuses.
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Okay. That's the picture that you have going on here. Very graphic, very horrible.
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And then he concludes the list by saying, and things like these. Clearly it's not an exhaustive list, but the point is that these are the kinds of junk that you can expect if you yield to the flesh and its desires.
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If you feed the flesh in your lives, these are works of the flesh, is what
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Paul calls them. And they cover internal things like strife and jealousy. They cover interpersonal things like fits of anger and rivalries.
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They cover spiritual things like idolatry and sorcery. And Paul warns in verse 21, and he gives a very stern warning.
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He says, just as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
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Now, after spending this entire letter going over the top to almost over communicate that salvation is by faith, is really by grace through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus.
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Could Paul really be saying that if you get drunk, then you can't inherit the kingdom of God? What do you think?
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Do you think that's what he's getting at here? Oh, if you get drunk once you're out. No, not at all. I don't think so.
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But he is giving a significant warning because what he's getting at is that what you do, the things that you do are showing your true colors.
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The things that you go out and do in your life is a byproduct of your heart.
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Would you agree with me on that? Your behavior is showing something about what's going on in here.
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And if the spirit of God is in here, these things should be moving out of your lives.
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They should be on the way out progressively growing and moving in that direction.
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Paul gives a stern warning. And I don't want to explain that warning away with just hope and encouragement and, oh, everybody here is in the kingdom and everybody here has the spirit of God alive.
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And I need you to wrestle with that. You need to work through that, particularly if you see these things growing in your lives and cropping up in your lives.
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And this list, you go, oh, this is a list that's speaking about me. See, when we yield to the flesh, we should be praying for more of the spirit in our lives.
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That should be the result is when we see these things crop up, we ought to be on our knees before God, confessing, repenting and saying,
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God, give me help with this. Let more of the spirit in my life and less of the flesh. And now here comes the list of what life looks like when we are yielding to the spirit, the good news, the good things.
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And notice the difference in terms. We look at the works of the flesh. That's what Paul called them, works of the flesh.
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You see, the flesh drives like a taskmaster. If you've been on that side of the equation, if you lived long enough without Christ to have lived that, you experienced some of that driving force of the flesh that would push you into the near reaches of insanity, just kind of living for yourself and on the cycle and going deeper and deeper into sin.
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Some of you here can relate to what I'm talking about because you live there and you know what it's like to live as a servant, as a slave to the flesh.
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And it is works, works of the flesh. And now we come to what is called fruit of the spirit.
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This is a singular word. This is a fruit like an orange with multiple sections and the fruit is given to you.
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You see, what we've often done in this case is we've talked about fruits and we think, well, God throws me an apple once in a while. He throws me a cherry once in a while.
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He's chucking a banana at me. And what I really need is a little bit more pear. Okay. So I'm just going to try to get some pears in my life.
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And it's not that, it's here is the fruit, singular, of the spirit. This is significant as we move forward, because it's not primarily, again, a checklist of things to accomplish, a checklist of things to do.
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It is the fruit of the spirit. Fruit are passively produced. Where works come about through activity.
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The former list comes about when we are in the flesh taking control, but when we walk by the spirit, he is the one who produces a beautiful list of things in our lives that are accomplished through his power.
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Things like, let's go through this list, love, a genuine goodwill and sacrifice for the betterment of others.
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Remember back in verse 13, our first verse earlier, we have been set free to serve others through what?
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Through love. I think you're going to see how these are tied together too. You can't just pull one fruit out of, you can't tell me you have love, but don't have kindness.
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You can't tell me you have love, but don't have patience. These are all so intricately wound together that you're going to see that the spirit gives them together.
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They come into your life as a unit. Joy, when we yield to the spirit, we find ourselves content and exuberant, rejoicing in our savior.
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Joy is something we cannot produce. Have you ever tried to produce joy in your life? You ever tried to just go, you know what,
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I'm going to just be joyful today. Good luck with that. Okay. It's not something we can just, we can't just muster up joy.
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Now I'm going to, you can, you can buy the new iPhone five and have a little bit of happiness for a couple of hours. Okay.
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Do you know what I'm saying? But that's not joy. Do you know the difference between happiness and joy? Happiness is based on our circumstances, but joy, no circumstance can take away your joy in your savior.
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No circumstances can take away the joy that is given by the work of the spirit in our lives.
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Peace, the very thing that every human heart is longing for. There is nobody alive on the faces of this planet that is not seeking some semblance of peace.
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And this is not the absence of war, but rather the word that is carried all throughout the New Testament, Old Testament, all throughout scripture for peace is
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Shalom. Shalom is an all -encompassing setting of things right. In other words, a life that is characterized by peace is a life that is correctly ordered, the right pieces in the right place at the right time, a life that is, that is where it ought to be.
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That's what we're longing for in the end is a rightly, correctly ordered life with our passions and our desires and everything lining up correctly.
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That's peace. Patience. Interesting. I don't know if you've ever thought about this. Patience is a category that has to relate to anger.
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Have you ever thought about that? Patience is primarily about sitting in a traffic jam. What is the end result of being impatient?
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What is it? Anger, right? So patience has to do with how long it takes you to get angry.
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And so you're sitting in the traffic jam and it's interesting because we have a phrase in English that needs a counter to it.
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We have a phrase, we have a little word, hyphenated word, short -tempered. So everybody know what it means to be short -tempered?
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Short -tempered is equivalent in scripture to impatient. So impatient and short -tempered mean the same thing.
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But we don't have the word long -tempered and we need that in English because that's what the word patient means.
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Patience means I can sit longer in a traffic jam before I get angry, okay?
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And I'm going to know that, okay, I know you're going, anger isn't a sin. Well, selfish anger is always a sin. To have an anger about our circumstances or the place that God has placed us in life is ultimately a distrust in him, right?
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Isn't that what impatience comes down to? Is God, I know better and you put me in a traffic jam and I need to get down the road and where I ought to be is up there and look at what you're doing to my life right now,
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God. Don't you know I have places to be, people to talk with? I'm an important person. I mean, isn't it ultimately come down to distrust?
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And so that's patience. The ability to endure much without breaking, without snapping. Kindness is a quality of being nice to others.
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Kindness leads us to assist others. I think we all know relatively in our minds what kindness means.
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Goodness is a quality of generosity. So you might not get that just looking at that word goodness, some nebulous like what is good, what is bad.
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It really speaks in Greek of the concept of generosity. Generosity with our time, generosity with our resources towards others.
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Again, a subset of love, right? Generosity. Faithfulness, a steadfast honoring of commitments with stability has the notion of a stable life that can be counted on, can be depended on by others.
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Gentleness, I love this word. This is a restrained power. A gentle person does not necessarily need to be a weak person, although our minds tend to go there.
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When we think about gentleness, we think about, oh, you know, he's a little weak. But it's someone who need not exert all the power they possess in every situation.
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And if you know somebody who has the opposite of that, who every time that any circumstance arises, they exert the nth degree of their power to get something done or to accomplish it without any restraint, this is a restraint kind of word.
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You might have the power to bring all of that to bear, but you don't need to in every circumstance or situation. That's gentleness.
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Self -control, having your passions, your affections, your emotions under control, not driven by the feelings of the moment.
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It's almost kind of the ability to step out of the situation, look at yourself and go, I'm about to do that, and that's not wise. Right? Self -control.
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The ability to somehow separate from that emotional adrenaline rush of anger or wrath or whatever might be an ungodly response at the time.
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Now, would you guys agree with me that that list is kind of different from the works of the flesh? A little bit? Obviously, in moral implications, it's very different.
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But also, this list is not as specific as the other list, but it's about general qualities.
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Rather than this list saying, tithing, well, let's put tithing in the list, or church attendance, or monogamy over and opposed all the sexual immorality that we saw in the other one, or specifics like that.
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It deals with attitudes that then in turn ought to produce behaviors or actions in us.
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Do you know the difference between, I mean, you understand the difference between an attitude and an action. He didn't list a bunch of things to do.
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He didn't say, go be kind. He said, kindness, this quality is a fruit of the
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Spirit. Are you getting what I'm saying? There's a difference between telling you to go do it versus identifying it as a thing that we possess in our lives.
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As a matter of fact, Paul is contrasting this list with the law. And at the end, he says, against such things there is no law.
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Ultimately, kind of tongue -in -cheek saying, the law does not hold a candle to this list of qualities.
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He's saying, ultimately, if you line these things up on one side of the page and then try to set a law over and against it on this side of the page, no law you can write can produce these things.
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And if you have these things in your life, then you don't even need a law. If you exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control, if those things are in your life, how does a law hold a candle to that kind of life, is what he's saying.
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Are you getting the picture here? That's what it means when he says, against such things there is no law. He's not saying it's not against the law to be patient, although that might be the first thought that you have.
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It doesn't really make sense if you think about it that way. So if you live these things, if these things are alive in you and are growing, then you don't need the law, you need the
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Spirit fueling these behaviors in your life, these things, these attitudes. These are the byproducts, the fruit of a life lived walking in the
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Spirit. As you look at those two lists, which one has more appeal to you? One of those stand out as better, something that you want?
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If you agree with me that the fruit of the Spirit sounds delicious, then let's look at the joyful proclamation of verse 24.
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You don't get this list by trying to make these things happen in your life. He says, those who belong, that's why, verse 24, those of us who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh that produced that nasty list of things in our lives.
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The flesh has been injured by the cross of Jesus. His passions and desires have been slain at the cross. In other words, they no longer hold mastery over us.
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We don't need to follow the flesh any longer. But just as Paul said back in verse 17, you could kind of say, well, wait, it's dead, but it's not dead.
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Verse 17, the battle still rages, but I want to point out crucifixion has a major role to play in our lives.
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You see, walking in the Spirit is not about going out and acting patient. It's not about going out and acting kind.
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Anybody can try to do that with varying degree of success. Would you agree with me on that? Can an unbeliever be kind?
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Can an unbeliever show love? Can an unbeliever have some peace in their life?
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To varying degrees, yes. Walking in the Spirit is about becoming patient, becoming kind, not acting like that once in a while.
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What Paul has in mind is the long haul trajectory of your life moving in the direction of being a person of peace, being a person of love, being a person of gentleness, not just trying to be patient once in a while.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? It's the long haul that he has in mind here, and crucifixion plays a role in this.
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Going on in verse 25, but if we have been given new life by the Spirit, then we should also walk slash live by the
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Spirit, not allowing spiritual growth to make us conceited, stirring others up, or envying one another.
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You see, walking by the Spirit has implications for us as the body of Christ, bringing this full circle to relationships in the body together with other believers, not just us as individuals, not as though I can grow in love by myself.
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I can't grow in patience by myself. I need you guys, because without you guys trying my patience,
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I've got nowhere to grow, right? So we try each other's patience. We push each other's buttons, not on purpose.
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It's not like, well, this week my number one goal is to help other people grow in patience. Don't make that your goal, okay?
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But you get what I'm saying. I mean, we need each other in that sense. We need difficulty in our lives to grow. We grow best in trying circumstances.
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Have you experienced that in your life? That's been reality for me, but it has implications for us in the body of Christ, not just for us as individuals.
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If we are truly walking by the Spirit, we will be loving, kind, gentle, patient, etc.
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And those will go a long way to good relationships with others. If we in this church, if we recast church are growing in these fruit of the
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Spirit, if the Spirit of God is alive in us, producing these things, what a glorious hope we have on down the road for this church and for our immediate interactions and relationships with one another.
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Do you see what a glorious list that is to be produced in our lives? But now I think,
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I hope, I hope that at least one of you is asking the question, how do I yield to the
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Spirit? How do I walk in the Spirit? What does that look like in my life?
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If it's not going out and trying to act more patient, then how do I grow in this? What is this really about?
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And what does this whole crucifixion of the flesh have to do with it? Well, I believe there are three ways we can yield to the
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Spirit. And this is not a list of, this is not, these are not laws. These are relationships. These are about how do we relate to our
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Heavenly Father. You will not grow in this list without some kind of a connection point with God. Would you agree with me on that?
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If you're not connected to Him, you're not going to grow in these things. So number one is contemplate the cross.
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Consider and contemplate the cross. Our sinful nature with its passions and desires have been slain at the cross.
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But just as Paul said back in verse 17, the battle still rages. Crucifixion has a major role to play in this, in the battle inside.
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Paul later writes, so Galatians being the first letter Paul ever wrote, later in the book of Romans in chapter 6 verse 11, he says this,
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So you also must consider yourselves, other versions have reckon yourselves, consider.
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This is a mental exercise. This is about something that you do in your mind. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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There's a, there's a game going on in our minds. How you think about yourself matters in your sanctification and your relationship with God.
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How you think about yourself is part and parcel to walking with the Spirit. If you think of yourself primarily alive to sin and owned by sin and mastered by sin, then you will be feeding the flesh.
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If you think of yourselves primarily as dead to sin, how do you think of yourself as dead to sin? Where did you die to sin?
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The cross. Reckon yourself dead to sin at the cross.
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That is the place. Keep that in front of your mind and in your heart. And it would be a delight if the first thing we thought about when we woke up is thank you,
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Jesus, for the cross. Let me walk in your cross today. And the last thought was to reflect on how you made manifest the cross in your life to others.
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The humility, the sacrifice, the suffering, the intense love that we were granted. How have
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I shown that? How have I shined that? How have I reflected that back at you through the way
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I've lived today? And God, would you give me strength to wake up tomorrow thinking about these things?
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Would our lives be transformed if we just thought about the cross more? I believe they would be. The second thing, meditate on the
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Word of God. The Word of God is His revelation to us. Again, I've said this so many times, but not as a law, but as a lifeline, as your oxygen hose, as your power supply, as the place where you go.
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This right here is the material that the Holy Spirit is going to use in your life to convict you, to move you on, to grow you.
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And by the way, I'm not talking about having a bigger, quiet time. I'm not talking about reading the Bible a half an hour more.
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That should not be your application point. I'm going to read the Bible a half an hour more this week and I'm going to pray more. I'm talking about your lifestyle.
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I'm talking about taking this in and mulling it over and meditating on it and memorizing it. All the different ways that we have to take in God's Word to let it inform our lives.
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Are you getting what I'm saying here? That's the second thing, meditate on God's Word. Without the Word of God, we're missing out on the primary way that the
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Spirit of God directs us. The third thing that we can do to see, and I'm convinced if we do these things, that we will see these fruit of the
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Spirit grow in our lives. These are what it means to abide in the vine, as John wrote in John 15, about he who abides in me bears much fruit.
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But what is your role? Abiding in Him. This is the way you stay connected to the vine.
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The last thing, pray independence upon God for victory. Talk to God regularly about the battle that's raging inside of you.
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Ask Him for victory over the flesh. Talk with Him throughout your day. Brothers and sisters, in light of the fact that the victory in our lives will only come from the
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Spirit of God, would it not make sense to ask Him for it? Would it not make sense to approach
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Him on a regular basis and say, God, I reject these works of the flesh and I reject this list and would you please by your power and by your might and by your authority,
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I yield myself to you, would you give me love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control?
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You see what I'm saying? Stay connected to Jesus. That is the way that the Christian life is lived.
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Trusting in His Spirit. And this takes a lot of work because I think that we like to take control ourselves and go,
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I'm not sure if I do these things, if I pray and I read my Bible and I stay connected and I genuinely, in relationship to God, contemplate the cross and think about the gospel regularly, am
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I going to get better? That seems so passive, right? Do you trust? That's what it means to live by faith is to trust that God's going to do the work in you.
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But instead, we try to arrest that and say, you know what? I've got to take the reins if I'm going to get better.
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If I'm going to be better a year from now, I've got to do it. No! It is the Spirit of God alive in you that you will give credit for any growth that happens in you over this next year.
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God has provided the victory for us at the cross and we conclude every service remembering the sacrifice of Jesus that He has died to bring us victory.
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His death has brought me to life and any of you who are in Christ, He has brought you to life as well and His Spirit now resides in you.
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His blood that was shed has covered our sins. He was broken so that we will not suffer eternal punishment.
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If you're here and you've asked Jesus Christ to save you, then come to the table this morning and contemplate the cross.
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Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh by joining in the death of their
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for just the awesome work of your
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Spirit in our lives. I thank you for this awesome list and we can get so caught up in the specifics of the list that we can miss the main point that this is a work that you desire to do in us and if we abide in you and we rest in you and we trust in you for it, you will produce the growth in us.
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I ask that you would help us as we walk in this life to walk in the Spirit and not walk by the works of the flesh.
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Father, as we remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that has crucified our flesh, has injured it, and is putting it down, that you would help us to reckon and to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to you through the work of Jesus Christ.