Galatians 5:24-25

The Emotional Word Picture of a Broken Home

Lord, Father, as we're together and here in this book, this amazing letter that Paul wrote to the churches at Galatia, we're reminded this morning to put to death our flesh, even as we look at the cross and Christ crucified on it, we are encouraged to live by the Spirit and to keeping in step with the Spirit.

I pray, Lord, that these truths help to form the direction of our life. Give Pastor Jeff your words to speak, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

A man named Steve wrote a letter to his wife. Dear Judy, we both know we've been drifting apart for a long time, and let's face it, I don't see you or anything between us changing one bit. You may as well know that I've been seeing another woman.

Yes, we've been involved, and I really think I love her. I'm telling you all this because somebody is bound to see us together, and I wanted to tell you before someone else did. Judy, let's make this as easy as we can on the children.

It doesn't have to be a big thing with the kids, unless you want it to be. This letter she received on the kitchen table with a marking on it that said, don't let the kids see this, this is for you, Judy.

And she burst into tears, and her heart was broken. Her husband was having an affair and was leaving her. He had already filed for divorce with his attorney, the papers were in motion. He was gone for two weeks on a business trip before she could even talk to him about it.

And when he did come home, he ran in and out of the house as quick as he could, avoided conversation, got his stuff, and was gone. Got his own little apartment. Each time he did come home, the little bit that the family saw him, they were able to talk for a few minutes, and the kids tried to plead with him, and he would quickly end the conversation.

Until one day, as this young family, the little boy named Brian and the little girl named Kimberly, and the mom, Judy, were in to see the counselor, and he suggested that the daughter try to write a letter to her father and send it in the mail.

Here's what she wrote. Words that penetrate the heart, is what we're talking about. She writes, it's more than one page. It's kind of long, bear with me. But it's an emotional story that I think will speak to us, and then especially as we get into the scripture, because I think it's a similar situation.

Dear Daddy, it's late at night, and I'm sitting in the middle of my bed writing to you. I've wanted to talk with you so many times during the past few weeks, but there never seems to be any time when we're alone.

Dad, I realize you're dating someone else, and I know you and Mom may never get back together. That's terribly hard to accept, especially knowing that you may never come back home or be an everyday dad to me and Brian again.

But at least I want you to understand what's going on in our lives. Don't think that Mom asked me to write this, she didn't. She doesn't know I'm writing, and neither does Brian. I just want to share with you what I've been thinking.

Dad, I feel like your family has been riding in a nice car for a long time. You know, the kind you always like to have as a company car. It's the kind that has every extra inside and not a scratch on the outside.

But over the years, the car has developed some problems. It's smoking a lot, the wheels wobble, the seat covers are ripped. The car's been really hard to drive or ride in because of all the shaking and the squeaking.

But it's still a great automobile. Or at least it could be, with a little work. I know it could run for years. Since we got the car, Brian and I have been in the back seat while you and Mom have been up front.

We really feel secure with you driving and Mom beside you. But last month, Mom was at the wheel. It was nighttime and we had just turned the corner near our house. Suddenly, we all looked up and saw another car out of control, heading straight for us.

Mom tried to swerve out of the way, but the other car still smashed into us. The impact sent us flying off the road and crashing into a lamppost. The thing is, Dad, just before being hit, we could see that you were the one driving the other car.

And we saw something else sitting next to you was another woman. It was such a terrible accident that we were all rushed to the emergency ward. But when we asked where you were, no one knew. We're still not really sure where you are or if you were hurt or if you need help.

Mom was really hurt. She was thrown into the steering wheel and broke several ribs. One of them punctured her lungs and almost pierced her heart. When the car wrecked, the back door smashed into Brian.

He was covered with cuts from the broken glass and he shattered his arm, which is now in a cast. But that's not the worst. He's still in so much pain and shock, he doesn't wanna talk or play with anyone.

As for me, I was thrown from the car. I was stuck out in the cold for a long time with my right leg broken. As I lay there, I couldn't move and I didn't know what was wrong with Mom and Brian. I was hurting so much myself that I couldn't help them.

There have been times since that night that I wondered if any of us would make it. Even though we're getting a little better, we're still all in the hospital. The doctors say I'll need a lot of therapy on my leg and I know they can help me get better.

But I wish it was you who was helping me instead of them. The pain is so bad, but what's even worse is that we all miss you so much. Every day we wait to see if you're going to visit us in the hospital and every day you don't come.

I know it's over, but my heart would explode with joy if somehow I could look up and see you walk into my room. At night when the hospital is really quiet, they push Brian and me into Mom's room and we all talk about you.

We talk about how much we love driving with you and how we wish you were with us now. Are you all right? Are you hurting from the wreck? Do you need us like we need you? If you need me, I'm here and I love you.

Your daughter, Kimberly. That's a true story, that's a true letter written from a daughter to a dad who was wrecking his home. He was in sin, sexual temptation, and he fell. And the wreckage was his own family.

She mailed this letter to him at his office and he didn't get it until later in the day. He had been doing all his chores. As he came home, he dropped it on the table and he saw it was his daughter's handwriting.

He opened it and he read it. And he got in the car and he drove to his house, the one he had been leaving behind. And leaving behind the adulterous woman, he walked into the house and there was Kimberly on the steps and she was frozen when she saw him.

And when she ran to him, he asked, how's your leg doing, I wanna help. And he repented of his adultery and he went to his wife and he asked her forgiveness and he went to counseling with her, which took a long time to work through the wreckage, the hospital of what was required to bring it back together.

But that family was restored. God had mercy. The only thing that was able to break through his heart was not even seeing their tears because they cried when he would come home. Not what he knew to be true because he already knew what he was doing.

But somehow, that word picture, that emotional word picture that Kimberly wrote for him, cracked his hard heart. And God used it to change how he saw himself in the world and to bring him to repentance.

Galatians 5:24-25 and the Crucified Flesh

Now, of course, it was the work of the Holy Spirit of God. I want us to open to Galatians chapter five, verse 24 and 25. And John, I'll ask you to read just verse 24. I believe what Paul does here is paint for us a word picture, an emotional word picture to help us think about our passions and our desires.

The flesh and how we are to regard our flesh, to picture something which is even more powerful than the emotional word picture that this dear girl painted, that God used to bring a sinner home. John, and would you just pick up with verses 24, read 25, and then we're gonna focus on 24.

Both 24 and 25?

Yeah, if you could read them both. And those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

The believer in the crucified and risen Christ has a crucified frame of mind regarding the flesh with its passions and desires. What Paul does for us here is he paints a vivid word picture of us crucified with Christ, that our flesh, our sinful flesh, is put onto Christ, that he bears that on the cross.

And what Paul is explicitly doing here is drawing a picture in our mind's eye of Christ crucified. The most vivid picture that we have in our struggle against sin is Christ and him crucified. In the mind's eye, to picture the crucified Christ is a key to our victory over sin.

Justification by Faith and the Danger of Antinomianism

Now, what's happening, let's set a context here for the discussion that really changes at chapter six, verse 13. A little bit of context. The larger book of Galatians is about justification by faith apart from works.

And that works contribute nothing to salvation. Circumcision, a work of the flesh, is nothing. And the point of the book is to say these Judaizers who are saying you must be circumcised in order to be saved, these guys are from the pit of hell.

They're leading you to a false gospel. If you believe their gospel, if you throw in with them, then you are severed from Christ. You, like them, are cut off. The gospel is at stake. So what would be the danger of this doctrine?

Well, it would be for someone to say, well, if it's all by grace through faith, then for me to continue on in fleshly sin is okay. It's all covered anyway. Works don't matter. And the error, the opposite error here is what's called antinomianism.

Anti means against. Nomos is the law. It leads to licentiousness or a libertine approach to Christianity. Licentiousness means to feel as if you have a license to sin. A libertine is not someone who has liberty to walk in the freedom that Christ gives, but someone who is liberal in their approach to sin, that they feel that they have the freedom to indulge the lust of the flesh.

I want you to notice that Galatians 5 .13, halfway through the verse, Paul corrects for this error. He's been teaching justification by faith, fighting off the false prophets, but halfway through verse 13, he says, only, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another.

That word only is a transition word. Only be aware of this. Do not use your freedom because he has been preaching freedom. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. And stand firm and do not submit to a yoke of slavery.

You're not under a yoke of slavery, you're free, only don't use that liberty to indulge the flesh. So if he's going to tell us now about not being a libertine, not using liberty to indulge the flesh, what do you think unfolds from there?

How to avoid doing that? And there are three areas that Paul focuses on. The first is a summary of the law in verses 13 to 15. Galatians 5, 13 to 15. He says, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but, and here's the first tool that we have in our tool bag to fight against the lust of the flesh, through love, serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. So the first tool in our tool bag is actually the law of God, which is summarized in the royal command, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

We should learn from the law to love so that the passion of envy and pride and rivalry and these fits of rage and that whole fruit of the flesh doesn't overtake us. We have to remember to love one another or else we'll break the law and the law will break us.

We'll start biting and devouring one another and then we'll be consumed in these battles. We'll be overtaken in these battles. But if we obey the law, we'll love one another. Really the whole law teaches us how to serve God.

It becomes a guide. I've said this often, maybe you guys remember now. What are the three purposes of the law? The three functions of the law. We're not talking gospel here, but the law of Moses. Number one, show us our need for a savior.

It's a mirror that teaches us, that shows us what we're really like. That's number one, the guide. There it is and that's the one we're focusing on here. Number two is civil government to give order in society.

And number three is a guide. It is a guide for Christian behavior. And this has been lost in our culture, hasn't it? Antinomianism says, well, there's law and gospel. The Old Testament Israel, they were under law, we're under gospel.

And they're getting that from here, but that's not precisely what Paul says. He doesn't say that the law is useless. He says, you're not under bondage to the law. You're not enslaved to the law. You're not saved by the law.

You're saved by gospel. However, it is a guide and that's what Paul is doing here. He's saying, listen, the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Focus on that aspect of the law, the overarching purpose of it.

And then the general equity of every specific case law in God's holy law. And this is the first key. Don't be an antinomian. Don't think that you don't need the law, but focus on obeying the law and how it guides you in your life.

Focus on love. When you're focused on loving one another in the church and building up other people, you're less likely to be fighting and devouring and ultimately consumed by one another. The second principle is in verses 16 to 24 and John through 23.

Walking by the Spirit and Bearing Spiritual Fruit

John did an amazing job last week teaching this. The fruit of the spirit versus the fruit of the flesh. John, is it nine fruits of the spirit, plural? One fruit. One fruit. Because it's one spirit and it manifests in these kinds of things, but the issue here is that when you're filled with the spirit, when you are walking in the spirit, baptized by fire, the Holy Spirit burning in you, living with a heart for Christ, passionate for the things of God, and he's directing you.

The issue in these verses is about keeping in step with the spirit, walking in the spirit, walk by the spirit, be led by the spirit is how we're told. And what that means is a relationship with the spirit of the living God.

That what's so amazing about this gospel that we preach is that God condescends in the person of Christ to accomplish our redemption. And ascending to the right hand of the Father, he doesn't leave us as orphans, he sends the Holy Spirit to change us and live within us.

Recognize that you have the spirit of the living God that you relate to. And he helps you to pray. So pray. He's in you. He leads you. He shows you that you should go this way and not that way as you seek his wisdom.

You have a relationship with the living spirit of God. And so what the spirit does is he produces fruit and this fruit comes naturally. Have you ever seen an apple tree struggling to push the apples out?

Yeah, those cucumber trees, they're kind of weird that way. They really push to get, they're not struggling because what does the apple tree do? It simply blossoms. It does what it does. It's a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season.

Whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked. They're like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the day of judgment. Psalm one, if you're planted by the water, you're receiving that life from the spirit, the fruit comes naturally.

It just comes out. You are a peaceful person. You do love. It's the principle of spiritual life. When we're walking in the spirit, when we're prayed up, we're in the word, we're drinking in the good word of God, the fruit just comes out.

You're not trying to sneak away and look at some bad image or you're not wanting to pick a fight because you have this repressed anger that you wanna take out on somebody. Just irritated all the time.

No, because you're filled with the spirit. You're wanting to tell someone about Jesus. Your mind is on heavenly things, not on earthly things. This is the spiritual life. The fruit of the spirit versus the fruit of the flesh.

Now the fruit of the flesh, the first three that you see listed there are all sexual. So this is kind of the primary and most base human fleshliness. Goes right back to the Garden of Eden. Male and female, they were created.

What's the first thing they notice when they're in sin? They're naked. They're naked. That didn't used to be a source of shame to them, but all of a sudden it is and there's a hiding and there's a brokenness in sexuality and it expresses itself in lustful behaviors.

Pornia. So this is the problem of the flesh. It's strong and it's horrible. But by the spirit, we have the fruit of the spirit. Now, today's lesson is drawing on last week's lesson with John on the fruit of the spirit and that earlier point about the law.

There's a third tool. First is the law. Second is the spirit, the spirit of life. The third is one that I don't think we spend enough time on. And I think it's one of the most important. Here's why. And we're gonna ask, how about we just have different people read through Romans chapter six and we're gonna read just the first 14 verses of Romans six.

It's Paul's point here. It's the same point as John read in 5 .24. Could you read 5 .24 again?

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Okay.

God paints for us an emotional word picture in the cross of Jesus Christ. It's summarizing this one verse, Christ crucified and your fleshly desire crucified with Christ. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Here's something really remarkable about the book of Romans. From chapter one through 5 .21, you have doctrine with no command, no imperative in the text. You have the introductory material, Romans 1 .1 to 1 .18.

And then you have Paul's, well, 1 .16. And then you have Paul's exposition about how sinful we are from 1 .17 to 3 .20, Romans 3 .20, that we're all shut up under sin. And then from 3 .21 to 5 .21, you have his doctrine of justification by faith.

The same thing that Paul was saying, also Paul, right up through Galatians 5 .13. And then at the beginning of chapter six, the subject shifts from justification by faith to the question of sanctification.

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? You finally get an imperative in this section. What's an imperative? It's a command to you, right? The first thing that we are taught by Paul in Romans corresponds with this, wrecking yourself dead to sin.

Count yourself as being dead. And he uses a different emotional word picture in Romans as he does here, but they're correlated. In Galatians, the picture is you crucified with Christ. Your flesh, those passions and desires are hung up on a cross.

Picture your old man as being crucified. In Romans, picture that old man being buried in baptism. You're being drowned in debt, in the ground and buried, and then raised to a new life and a new man rises.

This is meant to create in us a visceral, emotional reaction. Listen, to how we regard the flesh. There is an entire movement in Christianity right now, which is pretty well becoming the majority in our evangelical denominations.

They call it side B Christianity. So many people struggle with same sex attractions. And the teaching is, as long as you don't act on those things, to regard yourself as being homosexual, a gay Christian, is faithful to the text according to these side B Christians.

Side B scripture. Well, they could twist some that they would argue that from. And usually it has to do with the fact that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are tempted, yet was without sin. And so they'll say, well, to be tempted is not a sin.

Jesus never desired homosexual relationships. His temptation never came from within him. His desires were always pure in every way. He was tempted from the outside, but he had no sin nature to desire the things the devil offered him.

How was the temptation real? It could have avoided him earthly suffering.

Well, I wonder what you're talking about here this morning or this afternoon.

Side A Christianity are these Matthew Vines kind of people who say, you can be gay and Christian. It's fine. They fly rainbow flags in front of their churches. Side A, just like you're saying, they go ahead and do it.

Like tempted, and then they say it's fine because, hey, that's just how I'm made. God made me like this. Side B does not go through with it. They resist the temptation, but they still identify themselves as being homosexual in orientation and attraction.

That God isn't gonna change that, that their identity is that, which they're associating with their sexual temptation. I'm saying that both side A and side B is sinful. It undersells the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit and not just what God could do to change you because in 1 Corinthians 6, it says such were some of you after talking about homosexuality.

Such were some of you, past tense, but you were washed, you were changed. God does have the power, and there are many who used to be homosexual who now testify that they've been freed not only from the practice, but also from the desire, the quote-unquote orientation.

See, here's the big point I'm trying to make. What side B Christianity does for homosexuals is what many of us do for any, all manner of sin. What ends up happening is we minimize what that is and we accept it as part of our identity rather than regarding ourselves as crucified with Christ and regarding the passions and lusts of the flesh as being dead on the cross.

Why do you think Paul begins here in Romans 6? The first imperative is to reckon yourself dead because as a man thinks, so he does. What you ponder in your heart, what you hold onto in your heart. Jesus didn't just say avoid adultery.

What did he say? If a man even looks at a woman with lust in his heart, he's violated the deeper meaning. Jesus wants us to be pure in heart, not just in outward behavior. And there is such power in the gospel that the wicked heart can become pure.

Sanctification is real, it can happen. And it seems to me that sanctification is like a forgotten doctrine in evangelicalism anymore. Are we not to become more and more like Christ? Let's read it. So what we'll do is we'll just take a few verses, how about two verses at a time, beginning with John, Romans 6, one to 14.

What shall we say then?

With him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because any who has died has been.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death no longer is master of us. So death to sin and life.

Sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death. For sin will. Since you.

You get to say it too, go ahead, repeat. For sin shall not be your master under law.

Because we are. Right, and stop there because that's tying again back into the first verse. Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? God forbid. God forbid, and here he says by no means in verse 15.

Because the intuitive thing in the world, and don't you hear this when you're witnessing? I've heard it a lot. That somebody will say, well if it's all by faith, then you can just go on and sin all you want.

What kind of gospel, like, how could God judge a world like this? But that's not our gospel. Our good news is that we were crucified with Christ not to go on sinning, but to reckon ourselves as dead. I love this picture of dominion or mastery in verse 14.

Sin will not have dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace.

You would think that law would be.

What crushes the power of sin, right? But it's not. It's grace. You would think if it's all by grace, people would just go on sinning and doing what they want. But it's exactly the opposite. How is it that grace has the power to set you free?

Well, here's what Paul does. He shows you Christ crucified and risen. And he says to you that you were crucified with Christ and your old body of the flesh was buried with him. And a new man has arisen.

And here is how a Christian is to think. The passions of the flesh are part of the old me. The new me was crucified with Christ. And this picture in our mind is to go with us till our dying day. When our physical body dies and our spirit goes to God in heaven, it's at that moment that we are free.

Glorification, we are no longer even tempted towards sin. There is no more sin. Think about this for a minute. Many people think libertarian freedom is the definition of freedom, free will. I can either do this sinful thing that would dishonor God or go do this thing that would honor God.

I'm a free man. Free will means I get to choose. That is not freedom. Here's who's free. The man in heaven who's like the angels, he's more free than the tempted Christian on earth because in heaven, he doesn't even desire sin.

He's free of that desire. There's no competition for his devotion to God.

So who is the man in heaven that is free from sin?

The one who is the physical Christian who has died and is now with God, has been glorified. There is no more desire for sin in heaven. So freedom.

In his pre, I gotta ask this. Do it, bring it. Prior to the crucifixion and resurrection of man. Yes. Was he in that like tempted to be tempted? Tempted to be tempted. He had that spiritual door he could open or could be opened.

Likeness of man. See, I think. In as much as it is impossible for God to lie. Yeah. It was impossible that the son of God would have sinned. However, there's a difference between the nature of the son of God with no desire for sin versus the reality of the temptation outside of him.

So think about this. It's a real temptation when the serpent comes and offers him the kingdoms of the world. Because if he would have taken that easy way out with the temptations of Matthew four and Luke four, he wouldn't have to go to the cross.

He could have avoided suffering, right? Okay. But his heart was so pure, there was nothing in him that desired the works of darkness. And he resisted it perfectly like he did every sin. So the temptation is real, it's just not appealing to his pure heart.

Yeah.

Is it the same way that as Christians?

I think that's a good analogy to external versus internal pull. Yeah, go ahead, Dominic.

With respects to, and I've looked at that temptation because I don't, like he wrestled with it. But that in his humanity, in his, he had to discern that temptation. Yep. Though he was not going to, he doesn't fall into temptation like us is mortal because we're mortal.

Yes. We're told to discern as well.

Kind of ties into the whole thing about, you know, what's that new group that says they can, they're side B. Oh yeah, side B. Side Bers or whatever. Right. You know, I'll get into this where people say, well, you know, are you saying you can do anything you want and still be saved?

I don't even engage in that conversation anymore. Right. That to me is not skeptical. Right, that's right. I don't want his freedom because this chapter in Romans, here he's stepping away from the interrogator and he's basically saying, this is our position.

Yes. Even though these are not fully perfect people. Right.

But he's teaching exactly what you're saying. You are to reckon yourself as dead. Not consider yourself like, yeah, well, maybe I should do this. No, don't even play with it. You're to count yourself as dead and crucified.

Does that not tie into bringing down the high places? Because we, as we mature as Christians, to say, oh, okay, of course, there's always the internet or whatever people struggle with. Right. I get it.

But at some point, you know, what are these things that we're attached to? Right. Families, cars, what our identity is. I don't care. Some have more, some have less. These things become a part of us. How do we get past them?

Because a million years from now, with this little life that we live, you look back at these little moments, even though they have eternal consequence, you're gonna look back and go, what was I thinking?

It's like listening to a bad song you listened to when you were 17. It's, how did I listen to that? Yes. So, you know, I kind of like wrestle with that. That's something that lately I've been wrestling because I think that looking at sin has to be looked at more than just, do you do this?

Do you like the right comfort thing? Do you do this? Do you do that? Because if someone came up to my wife and asked, all right, come, do you lust? I might get very offended. Good point. You know, do you lust?

I might want to punch him. Yeah, I get upset. Right. But what I'm trying to say is, not that I would, but my point is that we just break it down to these little basics, ABCs. We're not looking at what do we really wrestle with?

What are the things we can't let go? Right. And thank God we're in Christ. He's saying we don't have to wrestle with that because it's done. We have to wrestle now in our spirits for growth.

Yeah, well, so much of that wrestling is a battle for the mind. Discernment. Yeah, and yeah, so let's finish the Christ, wrap that one up about Christ's temptations and then land the plane with how we resist temptation.

So with reference to Christ, he did experience what is not sinful in himself, desires of the flesh. The natural desire to not want nails through your wrists and the anxiety, the sweating of drops of blood, there's no sin in him to feel the weight of the cross and even the anticipation of it.

So there is a fleshly, in that sense, desire to avoid pain. He needed to eat, he needed to sleep. It was hard for him to discipline himself. It says in Mark 1 .35, before it was even light, he'd be up praying in the morning.

I think that was his regular, his path. He was the most disciplined man, but it required fighting the flesh, the natural flesh. There's not sin in the fact that he had to resist that, okay? But what I'm saying is he was so pure of heart that his temptations are so fundamentally different than ours.