Social Sins

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Well, good morning, guys.
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Open up your Bibles to Galatians chapter 5.
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We're going to continue our study and we're going to work our way to the end of this chapter.
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Now whether we finish it today or not, I'm not sure.
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We've got a lot to go through.
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And I want to sort of remind you, since I wasn't here last week, of what we have been discussing and where we are.
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It looks like some of the guys who are normally here are out.
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And I see a few unfamiliar faces.
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So if you haven't been with us, we've been studying the book of Galatians now for several months.
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Well, over a year.
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And just sort of going verse by verse.
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And we're at the point where the Apostle Paul is working through the more practical aspects of his theology.
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The whole first four chapters, he's been arguing for justification by faith alone.
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He's been arguing against those who have tried to bring in a demand of the law that you have to keep the law to be saved, that you have to keep particularly the laws of circumcision and the dietary laws and the law of the Sabbath and other laws that were particular to the Jewish people, were not kept by the Gentiles.
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And the important aspect of Galatians is Paul coming in and saying now that Christ has come, there's no more distinction between Jew and Gentile.
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There's no dividing wall.
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Christ has taken down the dividing wall and therefore now, we're all one in Christ Jesus.
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And those distinguishing markers that God had given to the Jewish people are no longer going to be enforced among God's people because those were intended to make God's people a peculiar people, the Jewish people.
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But the Gospel is now not just for one nation, but it is for all nations, tribes, and tongues.
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And so, if someone is circumcised, it doesn't make them any more righteous than someone who's uncircumcised.
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If someone keeps the dietary restrictions, it doesn't make them any more righteous than someone who doesn't keep the dietary restrictions because those laws, which were part of the old covenant, are no longer what distinguished the people of God.
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What distinguishes the people of God today is the fruit of the Spirit.
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And so, that's where we are in the text.
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Paul is distinguishing between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit.
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And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to read chapter 5 beginning at verse 19.
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I'll read down to the end of the chapter and then we're going to pray.
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And then we'll begin looking at the distinction between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit.
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Beginning at verse 19.
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Now the works of the flesh are evident.
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Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, 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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Sorry, my eyes are a little blurry.
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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.
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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.
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Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.
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Father in Heaven, as I seek to give an understanding of this passage and these words, Lord, I pray that You would keep me from error.
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For Lord, You know that I am a fallible man and I am capable of preaching error and I don't want to.
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I pray for the men that are listening to me.
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God, that You would open up hearts to understand.
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And Lord, that we would see what Your Word tells us.
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That those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
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And let us understand what those things are.
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That we might understand that it is by the fruit of the Spirit that we know that we have come to know Christ because He has changed our heart.
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Lord, thank You in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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When we look at this text, Paul distinguishes between the works of the flesh.
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In verse 19, he says, the works of the flesh are evident.
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That means that they are easy to discern.
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Easy to recognize.
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If you sit down with the average believer, the average Christian, and you say, what things does God like and what things does God disdain? I think it would be fairly easy to recognize.
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If I said, does God like it when we hate each other? No.
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Does God like it when we abuse our children? No.
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Does God like it when people are sexually immoral and have multiple partners and children out of wedlock and they're not good parents? No.
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This is examples.
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And that's why he says these things are evidence.
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The works of the flesh are evidence.
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But, so as to ensure that there is no confusion, he says the works of the flesh are evident and then he tells us what they are.
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Just in case.
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Because it is easy for people to take a very subjective view of sin.
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And you remember the difference between subjectivity and objectivity.
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Subjectivity is when we look at something and we make the determination based upon how we feel about it.
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Objectivity means there's a standard above us.
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So for instance, if someone says to me, well, I commit adultery, but I don't feel like that's bad.
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I feel okay about it.
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It makes me feel good.
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My wife doesn't know about it.
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I can go and do it and everybody's happy.
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My mistress is happy.
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My wife is ignorant and where ignorance is, there's bliss.
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And so I can be happy.
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What's wrong with that? You see, that's subjective.
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Because what's wrong with it is there is an objective standard that is above us.
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What we would call a transcendent law.
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Transcend means to be above.
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The transcendent law of God says do not commit adultery.
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So whether or not you like it is irrelevant.
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Whether or not your wife knows about it is inconsequential.
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Whether or not your mistress is enjoying it doesn't matter.
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It's still wrong, you understand.
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And so Paul wants to ensure that we understand there are things that are objectively wrong.
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And whether we try to justify them, whether we try to find in them some form of virtue, Paul says the works of the flesh are evident.
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And we could say, not adding to the Word of God, but what he's saying in essence is the works of the flesh are evidently wrong.
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They're clearly wrong.
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And so last time, we looked at the first...
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I broke it into categories.
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I want to do that again just in case maybe you weren't here or maybe you don't remember.
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Again, it's been a few weeks.
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I said the first three fit into the category of what we might say are sins of the lust, sins of desire and sexual.
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So you have these first three.
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Sexual immorality, it's the Greek word porneia where we get our word pornography.
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And it would encapsulate any type of sexual sin that you can think of.
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Sexual immorality is a broad term.
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So whether you're talking about sex before marriage, adultery while in marriage, it would fit in any of those categories.
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And what do we call sex before marriage? We talked about this last time.
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It comes from the Latin word fornicatio, fornication.
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That's right.
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So sex before marriage is fornication.
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Sex with someone other than your partner while you're married is adultery.
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So there are two biblical words and both of them identify the gambit of sexual immorality.
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And so we have that.
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And then we have impurity which we discussed.
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Impurity is lustful living, luxurious, profligate living.
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It's an extension of not just sexual immorality but impurity in a larger scope.
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And then we looked at sensuality which is the character of one who was without morals.
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That's what sensuality is.
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A person who lives according to the senses.
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What makes me feel good? What satisfies my belly? Or my loins? Or my eyes? Lustful living.
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And those three things I think fit together nicely because they all go back to that desire to satisfy the flesh.
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The desire to make my body happy.
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Your body craves things that are wrong.
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I left a pause for an amen.
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Let me say it again.
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The body craves things that are wrong.
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Thank you.
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Just making sure you're with me.
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Because that's the truth.
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I mean, some of you have had issues with drugs.
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Why? Because once you did it, your body wanted more of it.
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And that was a lust.
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That was a sensuality.
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That was a desire to fulfill that need.
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And you wanted it because your body wanted it.
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And again, it is what it is.
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So all of those would be those fleshly things.
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This is, again, works of the flesh.
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Now, the next two, I said these two go together as well.
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Idolatry and sorcery.
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Idolatry is Edo la Latria, meaning to put anything in the place of God or to worship something in the place of God.
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And that was very common in the ancient world because they had entire temples that were set up to false gods and goddesses.
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You had Artemis and Diana and Zeus and Jupiter.
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And they had whole temples.
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I mean, if you go over to Greece today, you'll see the ruins of these giant edifices of white stone pillars that were erected.
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And within them were statues of these false gods.
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And they were the idols.
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And so the people of God in the first century, they were living in an idolatrous culture.
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And people say today, oh, well, we don't have idols today.
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We have different kinds of idols today.
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Most of us don't think of statues inside of a temple.
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But think about how many of us, how many worship things that are false gods, whether it be individuals, idols, whether it be gods we make up in our minds.
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Idolatry is all around us.
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And as John Calvin said, the human mind is a factory of idols.
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We're constantly creating something that we want to worship other than the God who exists.
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Sorcery.
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Does anybody remember the word for that? Pharmakeia.
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The Greek word meaning what we would say today is like drugs, pharmacy, like a drugstore.
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But the word in this time meant more along the lines of something that was connected to magical arts.
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And when we say magical, we mean like people who would use potions and things like that to try to elicit...
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Remember, this is the ancient world.
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They didn't have a scientific mind.
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And so they would use potions and things that would elicit all kinds of responses.
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And they would use that and they would call it sorcery.
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In Acts 7 or 8, I had to remember, but there's a man named Simon the Magician.
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And you remember that was his whole thing.
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He was a first century sorcerer.
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He went around trying to impress people with his skills as a magician.
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And when he saw Peter come, and Peter could lay his hands on someone and they received the Holy Spirit, he said, I want that! I'll pay you to give me the power to be able to do that.
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And Peter said, your money pairs with you.
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Right? Because your whole desire is to have people pay you and have people celebrate you for having some kind of divine power.
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So we think of magicians today like David Copperfield and people like that.
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They're just showmen.
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They don't claim to have any real power.
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But see, in the ancient world, in a pre-scientific world, they would claim to have magical power, divine power.
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And people believed them.
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And so that's what we see with sorcery.
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I do think there are demonic spirits.
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I do think there are demonic influences and possibly abilities, but I don't have any evidence to say what they would have looked like.
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I look at it like this.
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When Moses went in to see Pharaoh and he took Aaron's staff and it turned into a snake, it says that the magicians of Pharaoh were able to duplicate it.
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However, I don't know if they duplicated it in a genuine way or if they did a sleight of hand motion.
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Yeah, so again, how they were able to do that and those things, I don't know.
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I don't know.
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I know this and you do as well because you and I both did.
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I used to work as a magician when I was in high school.
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For three years, I worked for Delann Entertainment.
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I was a strolling magician.
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Bobby was too.
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We worked together.
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And so you know that there are ways to fool people.
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And the oldest magic trick in the world is the cups and the balls where you take the cups and you put the ball under the cup and make it disappear.
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There are pictures of that on cave walls.
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Like drawings of that.
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That's how far back that magic trick goes.
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So whether or not they had real abilities, we know that there were charlatans who claimed to have abilities.
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What's that? Yes.
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Yes.
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You guys remember Harry Houdini? You know what Harry Houdini spent much of his life doing? He spent much of his life trying to find a real psychic because his mother died and he wanted to try to find someone who could talk to his mother from beyond the grave.
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But he knew these people were charlatans because he was trained in magic.
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And so he would go and he would see what they were doing and he would say, no, I know that's a trick.
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In fact, sometimes he would set up a booth beside where they were showing how they were doing what they were doing just to embarrass them.
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But the goal of Harry Houdini, he was trying to find a real one because he wanted to talk to his mother.
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And when he died, he and his wife had a secret word and he said if you ever find anybody who tells you this word, you'll know they're for real.
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That's how dedicated he was to trying to find a genuine psychic.
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So this desire of sorcery, it spreads the world.
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People want to find someone who has power, magical powers.
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And again, that's a desire of the flesh, right? Because what is it? It's trying to rob something that belongs only to God, the divine power that God has we want to have for ourselves.
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What was Eve's sin in the garden? You will be like God.
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And the desire to be like God stretches among us.
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And it's part of the desires of the flesh to be like God.
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So I put those two.
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Idolatry to replace God.
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Sorcery to be like God.
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That's why I put those together.
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So idolatry is replacing God with something else.
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Sorcery is replacing God with myself, putting myself in that place.
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So now we're going to look at the ones we didn't look at last time.
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And remember what I said if you were here.
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I said when Paul gives us a list of the works of the flesh, I think there's 15 of them, you'll notice that the vast majority of them are sins that we would identify not as sexual or lustful and not as worshipful as idolatry, but they are social.
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Look at these sins.
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And we're going to just quickly go down the list.
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But think about when I say social.
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Enmity.
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That means battles between people.
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Strife.
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Same thing.
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Jealousy.
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I hate you because you have something that I want.
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Fits of anger.
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Rivalries.
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Dissensions, divisions.
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Envy.
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Now drunkenness I said last time was the outlier, but it does fit and I'll explain in a little while.
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But orgies.
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All of these things are what we would identify as social sins.
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Why do you think, and this is a legitimate question, answer if you think you know the answer.
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Why do you think that when Paul lists the works of the flesh, that the majority of the things on the list are social sins? Yes sir.
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Self-teaching.
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Teach each other.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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What do you think? Because it's the ones you probably deal with on a daily basis.
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Okay.
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I don't know.
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And both of you are on the right track.
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What do you think brother? I think it's good though.
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Less obvious.
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Less obvious.
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I like that.
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That's a good thought.
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Brother, you had your hand up.
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It says, is it true that without a vision...
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I got two questions.
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Is it true that without a vision there can't be any growth? I don't understand the question.
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There can be no growth without a vision, right? Where do you get that? I don't know how to say it.
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I've just heard it come from somebody before.
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Okay.
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Not...
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I understand the...
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I understand sort of the heart of the statement.
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But let me come back to that.
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When we get to division, we'll talk about that in a minute.
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Because we are going to talk about division.
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It violates love.
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Huh? It violates the concept of love.
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Thank you.
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And you're probably the closest to what I was getting at.
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The reason why I think that social sins are so prevalent on this is because how we treat each other matters.
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The call of the believer is to love your neighbor as yourself.
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And when you begin at enmity, the very definition of enmity is what? Battle and war between you and someone else.
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And so the reason why there's so many social sins listed is because these are the areas where we're violating the most basic and fundamental Christian teaching.
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And that is you're supposed to love one another.
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What are the two great commandments? Yeah.
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Love God, love others.
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I mean, simplify it, right? We're supposed to love God first.
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We're supposed to love others as we love ourselves.
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And so if you go down the list beginning with enmity, we realize the very first thing starting with enmity and down is it's a rejection of loving your neighbor.
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Yes, sir? Genesis.
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Yes.
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And that enmity is referring to the sons of God and the sons of the devil.
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And it's referring specifically between Jesus and the devil because when it talks about the seed of the woman, we know from Galatians earlier that that's referring specifically to Christ.
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He is the promised seed.
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Though Satan will bruise His heel, and that's what we see on the cross, He will crush Satan's head in the final judgment.
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And so, yes, there is enmity between the Lord and between the devil.
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And that's the enmity that's referred to there.
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Yes? I think, too, the social sins are probably the hardest because I know we've seen people in church who don't give in to sexual morality and all the other things, but you change the color of the carpet of the church, and it will cause fits of anger.
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Why you got to outrun me, Bobby? Because you was going right where I was going.
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But that's fine.
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You're right.
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Because that's the point I was going to make.
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From enmity down, those are what I call socially acceptable sins.
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You all shaking your head no.
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Why? I don't think they're acceptable.
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You don't think it's acceptable? Just for a minute, and I'm not trying to argue with you.
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Christians, if you say, I don't ever commit adultery, I don't commit sexual sin, I don't look at pornography, but you're a jerk.
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Not you, but an individual.
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They'll say, well, that's just the way I am.
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I don't think that's acceptable.
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Well, I'm not saying it's acceptable.
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When I say socially acceptable, what I mean is in general.
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I'm not saying you particularly.
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Or you.
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What I witness on a day-to-day, is some people provoke some of that stuff out of other people.
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And then, what they did is acceptable, but what they provoke isn't.
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You get what I'm saying? Sure.
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Sure.
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So, basically you're saying it takes two to tango.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Well, that's true.
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Somehow all of the blame goes on to the second party.
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Well, I'm not here to deal with any particular issue, and it sounds like you might have one.
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So, why don't we just let that lie? Because that's not what I'm here to deal with.
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But ultimately, my point in all this is when we talk about things that are acceptable, I'm particularly talking about within the church.
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As Bobby said, there are people who treat each other badly, and they just think that's okay.
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They treat each other harshly, and without love, and they think that's okay.
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Now, if you were to say to them, should you commit adultery? They'd say no.
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Should you be having sexual immorality? No.
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Should you be committing idolatry? No.
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Well, then why are you being a jerk? It's in the same list.
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This is the thing I often talk to people about.
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Did you know that in the list of sins that Paul gives in Romans chapter 1, that gossip is right next to hatred of God? If you look at the list of sins that Paul gives in Romans chapter 1, it's at the very end.
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He says this is the sins that are evident among people who God has given them over to the lust of the flesh.
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That's the context of Romans 1.
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People given over to the lust of the flesh.
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And he talks about immorality and sexual immorality and impurity.
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But then he says, gossip and hatred of God.
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And every time I preach on that, especially to the church, I say, do you understand when you gossip about another person that in God's mind, that sin is the same as if you were hating Him? Go back to Genesis 9 in your mind.
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What was the first command God gave to Noah after he came off the ark? Well, let me say it a different way.
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What was the first rule? The rule was this.
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It's Genesis 9.6.
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He said, if a man kills another man, then that man forfeits his life.
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It says, if a man sheds the blood of another man, by man shall his blood be shed.
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For in the image of God made He them.
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Basically, the point is this.
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God enacts capital punishment in Genesis 9.
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If you commit murder, you have forfeited your right to life.
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And the government has the right to kill you because you attacked someone who bears the image of God and you robbed them of life.
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That's why we call murder a capital offense.
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You know what capital means? It refers to your head.
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Cap.
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The word capital comes from the removal of the head.
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Decapitation.
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That's right.
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Yes? I think if we could refrain from gossiping, that a lot of those social sins wouldn't happen.
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That's right.
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Gossip is not mentioned here, but it's implied.
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There's a root in there.
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Yes, sir? That's why the plan had the guillotine.
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Yes, the guillotine was an example of decapitation.
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And that's where the word capital punishment because you're taking the head.
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Yes, sir? I believe in these social sins.
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I mean, it's very easy to see in somebody else, but you socialize every day.
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So, if you truly have the Holy Spirit, you should see it in yourself also.
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Sure, sure.
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We should.
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We should.
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And that's the thing.
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And that's why I wanted to bring it out is because these are sins that we often excuse in ourselves.
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We don't excuse them in others, just like he was saying.
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When somebody else does it to me, when somebody's a jerk to me, you're a jerk! When I'm a jerk to somebody else, ah, it's just the way I am.
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Yeah, righteous indignation.
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It's where what comes from? Yes.
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And all of these...
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I want to go through them one at a time.
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I've got it written down here.
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I just want to make sure we understand.
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Because the word enmity, it literally means hostility or hatred.
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And I like the word war.
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Because the Bible says before we become believers, we are at enmity with God.
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Why? Because we're at war with God.
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And it says, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.
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We have peace with God now because we had war with God before.
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And so the initial social sin is this hostility.
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You ever had hostility with somebody? Every time they walk in the room, your teeth just grind.
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And you just have this feeling of absolute disdain.
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That's a work of the flesh.
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Somebody's mere presence makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
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You grind your fists together and you push your teeth together.
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You can imagine in the mind just pummeling this person and enjoying it.
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Because you have this enmity in your heart.
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That is an expression of the flesh.
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And it's wrong.
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We shouldn't glorify in it.
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We can admit to it.
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But at the same time, we can say that's one of the things Paul is saying.
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In the same way sexual immorality is wrong.
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In the same way sorcery is wrong.
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In the same way idolatry is wrong.
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That tendency within us to hate just for the sake of the fact that our flesh doesn't like...
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And sometimes it's just, I just don't like that guy.
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He didn't do me wrong.
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I just don't like him.
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He walks different.
29:19
He looks different.
29:20
He talks different.
29:21
I don't like him.
29:23
And I let that grow into hatred.
29:26
That's enmity.
29:27
And of course, you can expand that out between people groups.
29:32
A lot of hatred in the world right now.
29:35
Cities are burning today because of hatred in the world right now.
29:40
There are people who are spitting on one another.
29:43
Cursing at one another.
29:45
Shooting at one another.
29:46
Throwing things at one another.
29:48
Burning buildings and vehicles because of enmity.
29:54
Because they hate each other.
29:59
See how serious it is.
30:01
And we say, oh, that's wrong.
30:03
But the enmity I have in my heart, that's okay because that's just me.
30:08
There was a guy I used to work with.
30:12
And he was a real harsh individual.
30:17
He was very...
30:18
His language was just awful.
30:21
The way he would talk to people.
30:23
And I remember one time I responded to him in kind because he had pushed me to the point where I felt like I was being bullied.
30:30
And so I responded in a bullyish way.
30:34
Not in a bullyish way, but in a vindicative way.
30:37
I responded angry.
30:39
Yeah, I retaliated.
30:41
Which wasn't right.
30:43
But my boss at the time, my boss pulled me to the side and said, you can't do that.
30:48
You can't act that way.
30:50
You can't respond that way.
30:51
And I said, but what about him? He said, well, we all know that's just the way he is.
30:56
Oh, man.
31:00
And again, I'm not justifying my behavior.
31:03
But I did ask him.
31:05
I said, why do you justify his behavior? If it's wrong for me, is it not wrong for him? If that type of hatred, if that type of attitude, that's just the way he is? Well, that's just the way it is.
31:18
Some things never change.
31:20
Wait, no, we don't get to do that.
31:21
Ain't the way it is.
31:26
Your propensity to be a jerk is a work of the flesh.
31:35
My propensity to be a jerk is a work of the flesh.
31:38
And I've got a propensity to be a jerk.
31:44
I don't want to be.
31:50
But you understand, that's a work of the flesh.
31:52
I know that.
31:53
When my wife upsets me and I get angry and I say something I shouldn't say, I have to come back and I have to repent to my wife because I say, at that moment, that was a work of the flesh.
32:04
That was wrong.
32:08
Are we willing to recognize where we err in this way, socially? A lot of people aren't.
32:17
That's just the way I am.
32:20
And I'm not going to change.
32:23
It's not the way it is.
32:24
Yes, sir? I was just thinking, my partner was talking, I had a good thought coming to me about self-preservation.
32:30
When someone tries to take advantage of me or abuse me or hurt me in some way for their own satisfaction or whatever they've got going on, sometimes the flesh in me is self-preservation.
32:45
But I was supposed to love them and show them mercy, not approve of their behavior.
32:50
This is how I'm going to love you.
32:51
Yeah, it's okay.
32:52
And keep hurting me or keep doing that.
32:54
But feel bad for them and try to tolerate it.
33:02
I don't know how to explain it, but you know what I mean? Don't approve of their behavior.
33:08
Don't rebuke them and be like, you're wrong.
33:16
We're going down a direction that could take me on a very long discourse.
33:22
I want to be careful because this is important.
33:24
Because when someone is bullying another individual, oftentimes it is imperative that that person not allow themselves to continue to be bullied because it can lead to more dangerous bullying.
33:42
So whether or not they get help or whether or not they stand up for themselves, how they stand up for themselves is often very important.
33:54
But the Scripture text that always comes to my mind is don't overcome evil with evil, overcome evil with good.
34:02
And so how can I, in a godly way, respond to this individual? Now there are times where as a father and as a husband, I have a responsibility to my wife that's greater than my responsibility to the other person.
34:18
So for instance, if a man comes and he wants to harm my wife and myself, my responsibility to protect her overweighs my responsibility to be nice to him.
34:30
I was walking to my car one night.
34:33
It was outside of Regency Square Mall.
34:34
This was about 15 years ago.
34:39
As I was walking to my car, a group of young boys, teenage, you know, older teenagers, probably early 20s was walking this way.
34:48
And as I was walking to my car, I noticed that two of them split off from the pack and began to follow us.
34:56
And we were in the dark.
34:57
And it was outside of Regency Mall, like I said, around 2003 probably, so almost 20 years ago.
35:05
And I told my wife, I said, I don't know what's happening, but we're being followed.
35:09
You need to get into the car as quickly as you can and lock the door.
35:13
And as soon as she heard me say that, she knew what was happening.
35:18
And what I did was I turned around and I went directly at the two guys.
35:22
And I said, stop where you are, don't come any closer, and I'm going to hurt you if you continue to come towards my wife.
35:29
And they both stopped and backed up.
35:31
I said, I'm looking at you, do not come any closer.
35:34
Do you understand? We just want to know what time it is.
35:40
I said, I don't know what time it is, but I do know this, it's time for you to get away from me.
35:45
They went away.
35:49
Yeah, because they thought they were going to get me to my car without me noticing.
35:54
They thought they were going to have me surrounded and have me afraid.
35:58
And all I did was I turned the tables.
36:00
Rather than being a victim, I became the aggressor.
36:03
For a moment, I didn't want to hurt them, but they weren't going to hurt my wife.
36:08
And if it took me dying to protect my wife, then so be it.
36:12
As a husband and a father, I have that role.
36:15
So understand that.
36:17
You have a role in life, particularly, my child should feel safe getting behind me in a moment of threat.
36:26
My child should feel safe standing behind me.
36:30
My wife should never feel like she has to stand in front of me.
36:35
I'm the wall.
36:36
I'm the protector.
36:37
I'm her husband.
36:40
Husband is the role of one who cares for and protects.
36:44
To husband something means to care for it.
36:48
I'm not telling you that you have to be a victim.
36:53
However, we are to love people.
36:55
I didn't start cussing those guys out.
36:58
I didn't become what they were.
37:01
But I did say, you're not going to hurt me.
37:03
You're not going to come any closer to me.
37:06
I set a boundary.
37:07
I teach self-defense.
37:08
I don't know if you know that.
37:10
I've taught personal protection classes.
37:12
I teach handgun classes.
37:13
I teach people how to use sticks and knives because it's just something I've done for 25 years.
37:18
I teach Filipino martial arts, Okinawan martial arts, and I teach for the NRA because these are important to me.
37:25
I do not believe that people, especially women, should be victimized.
37:32
And so I like to teach them how to not be victims.
37:35
And one of the first ways to not be a victim is being willing to stand up and say you're not going to do that anymore.
37:41
You're going to stop.
37:43
Now if that means me leaving, I'll leave.
37:44
But you're not going to continue.
37:47
Does that help? Does that help? I'm not going to be a jerk.
37:51
I'm not going to be the aggressor.
37:53
Start the fight.
37:55
And that's a part of it too.
37:57
Being willing to stand up for what is right.
38:04
I hope that didn't take us too far off the idea.
38:09
And again, it comes from motivation, right? What's the motivation? Is the motivation to attack, to hate, to tear someone down? Or is the motivation to protect and to build up and to preserve? My son is in the United States Air Force.
38:28
His whole job is to reinforce the planes.
38:33
He's a crew chief on an F-16.
38:36
That plane may one day be used in war.
38:40
But if you don't have a theology that allows for the possibility of just war, then I would say your theology is deficient.
38:50
There are things worth fighting over.
38:52
Hitler was worth fighting over.
38:55
Right? Now I'm not saying all war is just.
38:59
But there is such a thing as just war.
39:02
So we took a little side note there.
39:05
These are social.
39:07
These are personal interactions.
39:08
Enmity, strife, jealousy.
39:10
What is jealousy? The definition that I found is envious and contentious rivalry.
39:23
So if I look at you and I say you have that nice Bible, I want it.
39:28
And because you have it, I'm going to hate you.
39:30
And you say people don't do that.
39:33
Yes they do.
39:35
Do you understand that the whole concept of socialism is based around class envy? You have something I don't have and therefore I should hate you for it.
39:56
Socialism is the concept of because there are those who have and I don't have, I should have the right to demand that what they have is given to me and we be equal.
40:11
You say well equality is a good thing.
40:14
Equality of opportunity is good.
40:17
But equality of outcome is impossible.
40:21
Let me say that again.
40:22
Equality of opportunity is good.
40:25
But equality of outcome is impossible.
40:28
Because if every man is given the same opportunity every man is going to do something different with that opportunity.
40:34
And that's why men rise to different levels.
40:38
One, because of natural skills I'm never going to play for the Major League Baseball Association.
40:47
I'm 300 pounds.
40:51
I got bad knees.
40:54
And I can't hit with a baseball bat worth a lick.
40:58
My wife was a ball player.
41:00
She played softball in college.
41:02
They paid her money to go throw a ball.
41:05
She was an athlete.
41:06
People say you throw like a girl.
41:09
I wish I threw like my wife.
41:12
Because she's a pitcher.
41:14
And we go to the batting cages sometimes.
41:16
And at 40 years old the batting cages will hurt.
41:19
Because I get all ready to go and I swing and I say oh I'm going to need some Advil.
41:24
Because I ain't made for that no more.
41:32
And that's the whole idea.
41:34
We all start, and we even talk about equality of opportunity, that's not even true.
41:41
Because we can't all have an equal opportunity.
41:43
We all have different minds.
41:44
We all have different bodies.
41:46
I don't have the same opportunity to play baseball or football or any other sport that other people have.
41:52
You know when I was a kid I wanted to be a police officer.
41:56
Just something I wanted to do.
41:59
I remember a police officer telling me one time he said well your weight will keep you from being in the academy.
42:07
I've always been big.
42:09
And he wasn't wrong.
42:13
If I would have wanted to be a police officer I would have had to have disciplined myself and lost a lot of weight.
42:18
And I would have had to build up my knees which even at 16 years old were already starting to go bad.
42:24
And yeah I would look at those guys playing football that were 16 years old that could throw a ball 60 yards could run 100 yards in 20 seconds or less.
42:37
And I would be amazed.
42:40
That's one thing to be amazed.
42:41
It's another thing to be jealous.
42:44
I can be amazed when I watch somebody dunk a ball or shoot a 1,000 yard shot.
42:51
I like to shoot as a hobby.
42:53
That's a fun thing I do.
42:54
I go and shoot guns.
42:55
And I see guys who shoot 1,000 yard shots.
42:58
Three bullets at 1,000 yards and they're hitting within a 6 inch circle.
43:02
And that's amazing to me.
43:04
I never could imagine being able to shoot that good.
43:07
And I can glorify in their skills without being jealous.
43:13
But you see how jealousy is I want what you have and I'm going to hate you for it because you have it and I don't.
43:24
And then we have fits of anger.
43:27
The word fits of anger is interesting because thumoi is the Greek literally means to get hot.
43:34
That's where we get the word thumos, thermometer.
43:37
Our word thermometer comes from that Greek idea.
43:39
Thumoi means heat.
43:41
What does a thermometer do? It checks the temperature, checks the amount of heat in something.
43:46
And so thumoi is the idea of somebody who gets mad.
43:50
You ever see somebody whose face is blood red? Yeah.
43:53
Yeah.
43:54
You ever happen here? People get mad and their face gets blood red.
44:00
That's the idea.
44:02
This is someone who can't control themselves.
44:07
Rivalries.
44:09
Rivalries is a desire to put someone's self forward.
44:14
Create a division and a partisan spirit.
44:19
And it's based on the idea of there's other Scriptures that talk about selfish ambition.
44:24
The idea of myself being first and therefore everyone else is second.
44:32
Dissensions.
44:32
Now I want to get back to my brother's question because you asked earlier about division and dissension.
44:37
Now say what you said again because I want to respond to it.
44:42
Yeah, I'm sorry.
44:43
Yeah, we were talking about divisions earlier and you said divisions are necessary.
44:46
Say what you said again.
44:48
Is it true that there can be no growth without division? Without division there can be no growth.
44:57
Yes, but in the context that we're talking about here, this is talking about unnecessary and ungodly division.
45:04
So for instance, people like Bobby talked about earlier, people who divide over silly things, things that don't matter, color the carpet.
45:10
I know that sounds silly, but there are churches, there are whole churches that have divided because somebody wanted to have one color, another person wanted to have another color carpet and they couldn't agree and so it created two divisions and the church ended up splitting.
45:23
You don't think that would ever happen.
45:25
That's an exaggerated but not exaggerated truth.
45:32
Yes, and that stunts growth, that kind of division.
45:36
Now there is a sense in which if I am connected to falsehood, like false teaching, like if somebody came to me that was a Jehovah's Witness, right? And they came to me and said, what do I need to do to grow? I'd say you need to divide from that false teaching.
45:51
Does that make sense? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
45:56
If you're connected to something that's wrong, that's like being connected to cancer.
46:01
What do you got to do with cancer? You got to cut it out.
46:03
And so sometimes division is necessary for growth, but within the church, the call is for unity, not division.
46:11
The call is to grow together, not apart.
46:13
Yes, sir.
46:14
In the point where I am being holy, that sort of division, that's how people were, like I told you before, God.
46:43
I mean, those three things.
46:44
Isn't that what gave us something to come back? By performing sacrifice? Well, if you're talking about the way we see God having divided the holy from the unholy and those things, yeah, I mean, that division is necessary.
47:02
I mean, even in our life, there are times where we divide out certain things.
47:08
This is something that is valuable versus invaluable or not valuable.
47:16
But in this regard, I think the context is a little different.
47:18
Because this is talking about, like you and me, if I divide and I create a division in this room where I get everybody to hate you, that's the kind of division that it's referring to.
47:28
It's talking about division that's based on interpersonal hatred and animosity.
47:32
That's the kind I was talking about earlier.
47:35
You're saying that's necessary for growth? Yeah.
47:38
No.
47:39
No, I don't think...
47:40
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:41
Because that type of division doesn't create growth.
47:46
That creates hatred and animosity and it creates factions.
47:51
You guys know what a faction is, right? A faction is when groups divide from one another and they side up.
47:59
That's a faction.
48:00
Yes.
48:04
Strife.
48:04
Yeah, it's...
48:07
Yes.
48:08
That's right.
48:12
That's right.
48:13
Who was that? Was that you? Yes.
48:14
And that's what he just talked about, right? Just a few verses earlier.
48:17
If you fight one another and devour one another, watch out that you do not consume one another.
48:23
Alright, I want to finish this today because next week we're going to look at the fruit of the Spirit.
48:27
By the way, because we're almost out of time, just notice everything on the right side.
48:33
All that fruit of the Spirit, which we're going to go through that next week.
48:35
Just notice everything on that right side is the exact opposite of everything on the left side.
48:40
Strife, enmity, jealousy, love.
48:44
Fits of anger, rivalry, dissension, division, peace.
48:47
It's literally the opposite.
48:50
But the thing is we want the stuff on the left.
48:53
You know what? When I was a kid, 15 years old, and this is not a pride thing.
49:03
This is stupid.
49:04
When I was 14 or 15 years old, my grandmother lived in a neighborhood on the north side of Jacksonville.
49:08
I'd go there almost every weekend.
49:11
And my cousin would come over and we'd spend time together.
49:15
You know what? Sometimes we'd say, let's go find somebody to get in a fight.
49:18
Amen.
49:19
Please don't amen stupidity.
49:27
Because that's the desire of the flesh.
49:31
Some people just wake up, who can I find to argue with today? Who can I find to make myself feel better by either overcoming them physically or overcoming them intellectually? That's all part of this issue.
49:45
That's not love.
49:54
Division, dissensions, the words there, very similar.
49:59
Both of them essentially mean to separate and divide.
50:03
By the way, if you go to Titus, you'll notice it talks about people who create divisions in the church that are there to be put out.
50:11
So there's division right there.
50:12
You divide from that person.
50:15
Because the person who's seeking to divide the church...
50:18
There is no more dangerous church member than a person who comes in seeking to divide the church.
50:25
Over the years, I've been the pastor of the same church for 15 years.
50:28
Over the years, I've had people who come in to try to create little followings for themselves.
50:33
And I see it happening.
50:35
I'm not stupid.
50:38
And I see these little divisions start to crop up.
50:41
And I say, this is it.
50:43
This is the Titus 2 guy.
50:45
As Titus 2 says, the one who creates divisions.
50:48
You warn them once, and after two warnings, you divide.
50:51
Let's look at it.
50:52
Titus 2.
51:16
I'm looking.
51:20
I'm sorry, it's chapter 3.
51:23
Verse 9.
51:25
It says, But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.
51:33
As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self-condemned.
51:46
So when I see somebody creating division in the church, I don't do it myself.
51:50
The elders work together.
51:51
We go to that person and we say, hey, you are a dangerous person.
51:56
You might not be a dangerous person that you think you are, but what you're doing is dangerous.
52:01
And if you continue doing it, you're no longer going to be welcome here.
52:05
Well, this is the church.
52:06
You're supposed to welcome everybody.
52:08
Not if they are stirring up division among the people, because they are a heretic.
52:13
That's the very concept of what a heretic is, a person who divides the people.
52:19
Oh, absolutely.
52:21
Especially if whatever their issue is.
52:24
Because people come in and they'll know what we teach and they'll know what we believe.
52:29
And they'll start having these conversations off to the side, well, I'm not sure if this is right.
52:34
Well, there are certain things that we're willing to say we can concede on, such as end times and stuff.
52:39
We're not going to fight about whether you're a post-millennialist, pre-millennialist, amillennialist, dispensational covenant theologian.
52:45
All those things, that's not what we're going to divide on.
52:47
But you come into our church and you start trying to tell people that the Trinity is wrong, you're gone.
52:51
We're not going to take that garbage.
52:53
Because that is a 2,000 year old biblical doctrine that has not been disputed and has been hotly defended.
53:00
And we will continue to defend it.
53:02
If you're going to argue about justification by faith alone, goodbye.
53:05
We don't want that.
53:06
Unless you're willing to be taught and you move on down the road.
53:09
It's as simple as that.
53:10
I'm not being a jerk.
53:11
I'm not being harsh.
53:11
I'm saying this is something about which we are not going to argue.
53:17
We're going to defend the truth and you can stay or not.
53:20
That's what I say.
53:20
There's secondary issues.
53:23
And a good conversation one day might be what are they? What are the primary issues? What are the secondary issues? Okay.
53:32
That's fine.
53:32
That's fine.
53:33
Because like I said, there are primary issues, there are secondary issues, and there's a lot more secondary.
53:38
Remember what Augustine said.
53:39
Augustine said, in essentials, there must be unity.
53:43
And in non-essentials, there must be liberty.
53:46
But in all things, there must be charity or love.
53:50
So in essentials, unity.
53:52
In non-essentials, liberty or freedom.
53:55
And in all things, charity or love.
53:58
A lot of the way I've talked before, the secondary issues I agree with a lot of stuff.
54:05
Mostly everything.
54:07
And a lot of secondary issues that I've talked before call for some kind of division.
54:12
I don't want to cause division.
54:14
But I'll talk to you more about that.
54:15
Yeah, we'll talk afterward.
54:17
Alright, so let's finish up.
54:19
Envy and jealousy are similar.
54:22
People want to ask what the big difference is.
54:24
It's hard to explain.
54:26
But envy is a feeling of discontent or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions.
54:32
As I said, envy is the heart of socialism.
54:35
It's seeing what somebody else has and having a resentment towards them and a hatred towards them.
54:43
Drunkenness and orgies.
54:45
We'll finish with those real quick.
54:47
Drunkenness is drunkenness.
54:48
It means to get drunk.
54:49
It means to be...
54:51
The idea is methai, methu, which is wine, intoxicated.
54:55
And it can apply to things other than just drinking.
54:58
You can be intoxicated with drugs.
55:01
You can be intoxicated with medicine, which is a form of drugs.
55:07
Ultimately, the idea here is that this is the lifestyle of a person.
55:12
Remember what it said.
55:12
It said those who do or make a practice of such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
55:18
The person whose lifestyle is marked by drunkenness is a person who is marked by the flesh.
55:25
Yes? What does it say about marijuana? It says do not be drunk with wine for this is debauchery.
55:34
And so if the substance that we're using is causing us to lose the control of our faculties, then I would say that falls into any category that wine would fall into.
55:51
There's a big debate going on right now because ten years ago if somebody said should a Christian have marijuana, the answer was no because the government says no and the Bible says we should obey the law.
56:02
And so that was an easy answer.
56:04
But now that marijuana is becoming legal in certain states, some people have to step back and adjust how they address the issue.
56:14
My question is always what is the goal? If the goal is to get high, then it's wrong because it says do not be drunk with wine.
56:22
Do not be seeking to release your inhibitions, seeking to be under the control of something.
56:28
Because that verse says do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.
56:32
Literally, it's a parallelism.
56:33
It means don't be drunk with this, but be drunk with that.
56:35
Don't be drunk with wine, but be drunk with the Spirit.
56:37
Meaning not to be stupid with the Spirit, but be drunk meaning filled.
56:41
And so if I say to somebody what are you taking marijuana for? I want to get high, then I would say that's wrong.
56:47
And what other reason could there be? I don't want to debate it.
56:50
I know somebody is going to come up with something.
56:52
What makes me feel better? Okay.
56:54
But in general, if I say are you doing it to get high? And they say yes, then I would say we shouldn't do it.
57:00
In the same way, if I said why are you drinking that beer? To get drunk, then you shouldn't do it.
57:04
Yes, sir.
57:06
On the orgies thing, could that also be classified as drunk? Yes, but orgy in this sense doesn't mean what we...
57:15
Normally when we consider orgies today, we're thinking of a sexual romp, right? But the word orgy in the first century was related much more to the concept of partying or reveling.
57:28
The word revels, you ever heard that word? That's the concept.
57:31
And you say, does that mean Christians can't enjoy going to a cookout or enjoying a party? No, the concept is that we yearn for that expression of debasement.
57:43
In the first century when they had parties, it was a carousel of sinful behavior.
57:51
Sexual, debauchery.
57:53
And that's why today when we say orgies, normally what people mean by orgies is some type of a group sexual activity.
58:00
And that's why it harkens back to the ancient world where an orgy or a revel would include sexual promiscuity.
58:09
It would include nude and lewd behavior.
58:12
But it was more than just...
58:15
What we think of orgies today, it was a broader term then.
58:18
And it meant to behave in a way that was debauchery.
58:25
I'll just read you the definition because I did bring a definition for each of these words.
58:29
This is from Thayer's Greek lexicon.
58:34
It says this, A revel or carousel, in the Greek writings properly, a nocturnal and riotous procession of half-drunken and frolicsome fellows who after supper parade through the streets with torches and music in honor of Bacchus or some other deity and sing and play before the houses of their male and female friends, hence used generally of feasts and drinking parties that are protracted till late at night and indulge in revelry.
59:01
Bro, that is absolutely right.
59:05
Yeah, I wish I wrote Mardi Gras.
59:07
And we'll end with that.
59:13
Alright, so that's the works of the flesh.
59:16
Next week, we're going to contrast that with the fruit of the Spirit.
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Let's pray.
59:20
Father, thank you for this time to study.
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I pray that it's been fruitful for these men and that it will be used to help to grow us all in the Lord.
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In Christ's name, amen.