The Works of the Flesh

If you do have a Bible, turn to Galatians 5, we're going to be reading Galatians 5, 19 through 21. When you have Galatians 5, 19, go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word. Galatians 5, 19, now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalry, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

I warned you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Amen?

Amen.

You may be seated.

Let's pray.

Lord, we do come before you knowing that you are a holy God and that you are good and the words that you have given to us are words of life for us. We do pray that you help our time here today, that you bless our time to help us to know great things from your Word, to help us to know you better, and to help us to understand your purposes for us.

In your Son's name I pray.

Amen.

Now, it's difficult to imagine a passage of Scripture that is more sobering than this passage of Scripture. We know that some Scriptures are given to us for our instruction, some Scriptures are given to us for our comfort, and there are other passages of Scripture which are given to us as warnings.

And this is one of those warning passages of Scripture, and Paul intentionally within the passage uses the language of warning. And we ought to do well to pay attention when the apostles warn us about danger.

In fact, when the apostle warns us about danger, that's often the time when we're most tempted to ignore the nature of the warnings that are being provided. Now, in the American church for years there has been many errors related to the topic of the assurance of our salvation.

There have been many preachers who have come along and basically presented the message of salvation as if it's just a message that Christians should mentally assent to but has no effect on their lives whatsoever.

And so there's been many preachers who have come along and preached messages which simply reduce salvation to mental assent to a few basic facts which a Christian should agree to, and so long as he can agree to those basic facts, sign on the dotted line as it were, then he can be a Christian and his life could functionally bear no difference between that of himself and an unbeliever.

This is one of those passages which ought to warn us about trivializing the grace that Jesus Christ has given to us in the cross. We know that when Jesus came to die on the cross for us, He did so bearing a great weight of sin.

It's our sin that put Him on the cross. It's our sin which He died to pay for. It's a serious thing to contemplate the nature of the cross and how that relates to our lives. Now, in our time here today we are going to be looking at this passage in Galatians.

We're going to be discussing some of the works of the flesh. I don't plan on walking through all of these works of the flesh individually today. What I plan on doing is to give a brief outline of the passage that we're going to be looking at as it relates to the topic of the works of the flesh.

And over the course of the next few months, whenever I have occasion to preach during Sunday afternoon services, I'll plan on going through a list of these works of the flesh in order. So some of them will be slightly rearranged in their order to categorize them in different ways.

But as you look through the works of the flesh, you can see that they fall under various categories. They fall under the categories of sexual sin, idolatry, substance abuse, anger, divisions, and envy.

And so over the next few months, as I have occasion, I plan on talking through each one of these categories of sexual sin. I'm going to talk about sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality today. And then we'll talk about some of these others at greater length at another time.

And we'll take the same kind of strategy as we go through the fruits of the spirit as well, which will follow after these works of the flesh, where we'll go through them in groups and see how many we can get at the same time.

But as you think about this passage, one of the things to realize is the passage begins with these words. So the passage begins with the words, now the works of the flesh are evident. And I find that somewhat remarkable.

I find it somewhat remarkable that the Apostle Paul begins this passage by saying the works of the flesh are evident, and then he lists the things that he lists here. So, let's read through this list once again under the reality that Paul is presenting these lists as a list of things which should be obvious to us as Christians that should be included under a list described as the works of the flesh.

So Paul lists the following. He lists sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalry, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

So, I want to point out that Paul begins this message on the works of the flesh with the knowledge that these things should be evident. And I would say that to the spiritually minded, to those in the language of the passage who were being led by the Spirit, they certainly are evident.

But we are certainly living in a time where so many professing Christians are characterized by many of the acts that are mentioned here. So many professing Christians are characterized by these acts in such a way that they don't even feel shame about anymore that it's difficult to say that to the standard American Christian that any of these things are evidently identified as the works of the flesh.

In fact, you have all sets of Christians who think about some of these things mentioned in this list almost as if they're virtues or badges of honor that they use to excuse the fact that they're characterized by these things.

I remember a sermon a few years ago at this point where Pastor J .D. Greer mentioned the first of these group of vices that you're going to find that are listed under the works.

Of the flesh.

In his sermon, he was following the pattern of Jen Wilkins who had made this observation in a previous way. But Pastor J .D. Greer mentioned sexual sin as something that the Bible whispered about. And J .D. Greer's point was that we should whisper about the things that the Bible whispers about but shout about the things that the Bible shouts about.

And sexual immorality was listed in his mind as something that the Bible whispers about. And whereas the Bible, he would tell us, shouts about issues of oppression, we should shout about issues of oppression, whereas we should whisper about issues of sexual immorality.

So as I said, you're living in a church culture which doesn't even acknowledge the basic point here that Paul is making, that the works of the flesh are very evident. You're living in a time right now that is filled with rampant sexual immorality.

You're living in a time right now that's filled with rampant sexual immorality, not just in the world but also in the church. Many individuals in the church are characterized by these very things that the passage lists as things which are categorically described as the works of the flesh in which we are giving strong warnings about those who are characterized by these things.

You look through this list, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, we live in a time where we have a great many idols. We have a great many idols, and it's not just heart idols that we are characterized by as Christians.

You're living in a time where professing Christians right now are having serious debates about whether or not it's their fellow Christians' responsibilities to help build idols. You know, in the broader evangelical world, you have serious discussions that are being made by Southern Baptist Christian leaders about whether or not we should aid in the building of mosques.

We seem to be shameless in our lack of discernment as a society. We'll talk about sorcery at some point, but I'm sure that you might not be aware of the fact that sorcery comes from the Greek word pharmakia, and there are many things that are included under this ancient notion of sorcery that we are guilty today of as Christians.

It's not just that we're guilty of, and we praise them almost as if they're virtues. We don't understand them to be works of the flesh. As long as you put these things in the category of medicine, then we're more than happy to participate in these things because we've been blinded by the schemes of the devil in so many different ways that we actively participate in what the ancients would have understood to be sorcery without much shame.

You know, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, enmity, strife, jealousy, these are things that as long as you paint yourself as a victim, you'll have any number of Christians who will come along and give you almost a complete and total blank slate, a free pass to be characterized by all these works of the flesh.

So long as you paint yourself as if you're the victim in any of these encounters, fits of anger, we have psychological disorders that allow us permission to be characterized by fits of anger. As long as you adopt the right psychological label, you can be characterized by fits of anger and have not only the sympathy of fellow Christians around you, but also their active.

Approval.

Just put it in medical language. Say that you're suffering from intermittent explosive disorder, you'll get a free pass to be characterized by the works of the flesh. Same thing is true of bipolar. You put it in the language of medical disorder.

We refuse to identify these things as works of the flesh because we have complicated schemes of the devil which are teaching us to put these in different kinds of category. Envy, you live in a society that is so filled with envy at this point that believes that whenever, you live in a society right now that believes that whenever there is a social inequality, whenever there's a difference in outcome between two individuals, you believe that not only is that irrefutable evidence of oppression that has produced those differing outcomes, but you believe that you have a moral responsibility to plunder your neighbor in order to fix those inequitable outcomes.

We believe envy is a virtue. We've exulted in our envy. Drunkenness is fine as long as you're suffering from alcoholism, right? If you're suffering from alcoholism, then you have individuals at your funeral who triumphantly declare you to be a hero of your life despite the fact that you spend your entire life being a drunk.

You'll be praised as triumphantly struggling with alcoholism which meant that you gave in to the temptation to drink at every occasion that you had. Again, Paul says the works of the flesh are evident, but we have so many different mechanisms that we use as a church and society today to ignore all of this.

Drunkenness, orgies, things like these, the list is not even exhaustive. When you look at a passage like this though, the point here is just to say that Paul understands this list as to be a list that his readers would look at and say, oh yes, this is obviously, these are obviously things that shouldn't be characterized by Christians, like the Christians shouldn't be characterized.

Paul looks at this list as a list that he imagines his audience to look at and say, no Christian should be characterized by these things. And in fact, if they are characterized by these things, that calls into question the integrity of their salvation, and at the same time, brothers and sisters, we are among a people that's so characterized by everything on this list.

We've so normalized everything on this list to the point where it really doesn't jar us as it should. It doesn't sober us as it should. This should be a sobering, I mean, these words should be very sobering to us as Christians, and yet I'm afraid that we're so desensitized to all of these things to the point where we don't tremble as we should at the thought of God's warnings.

Paul says the works of the flesh are evident. We're going to be dealing with the first category of these works of the flesh today, and that would be the category of sexual sins. Now, I don't have to tell you, you should know that you're living in a society that is obsessed with this topic of sex.

This topic is constantly shoved down your throat, as it were, in every conceivable way. It's difficult to watch movies anymore without having sexual immorality constantly paraded before you, and sexual immorality obviously takes a great many forms, but sexual immorality, brothers and sisters, has been so normalized in our minds that we think that the primary battles related to sexual immorality at this point are battles related to the LGBTQ community plus agenda, and that obviously is evidence of the metastasized nature of this problem in our society.

So in some ways, we're past Romans 1 as a society. You're living in a society that is not simply men burning with passion with other men and women burning with passion with other women, but men who don't even know that they're men anymore and women who don't know that they're women anymore.

Obviously, we're one step beyond even Romans 1, but my point here is just to say that if you think about how far gone we are at that point, you have to realize how desensitized we've become to all the other stuff that we used to be very sensitized to.

It is expected, brothers and sisters, you have to understand something, it is expected today that people will fornicate before marriage. It is so expected today that people will fornicate before marriage, that if you want to make Christians mad at you, think how far we've fallen as a society.

When I grew up, there was still an expectation. When I grew up, and I graduated from high school in 2000, there was still an expectation in the year 2000 that it might be possible for a young man who had saved himself for marriage to find a young woman who had saved herself for marriage.

That was looked at as a good thing, even. That was looked at as a good thing, like when I was in high school, and I looked when I was in elementary school. If you want to make Christians mad today, and I'm not trying to suggest that you should be trying to make them mad, it's a figure of speech.

I'm simply saying, if you want to make Christians mad today, dare to suggest that a young man should hold out for marriage to a virgin, and you know what will happen if you do that, if you dare to suggest that maybe he should consider making that a non-negotiable.

You'll get thousands and thousands of professing Christians screaming at you on the internet. Trust me, I've done it. The point here is to say, the point I'm trying to make here is to say that we are so rapidly descended down the Romans 1 sewer to the point where right now, encouraging a young man to hold out for a virgin for marriage is tantamount in the minds of many Christians to denying the imputed righteousness of Christ and embracing an insane form of judgmental legalism.

You live in a society right now that is so obsessed with the tolerance agenda that we think it's our responsibility to basically almost praise these vices that are in this list of things that Paul says that individuals who commit these sins will by no means inherit the kingdom of God.

What are the list of things? Well, there's three things that we're going to talk about today. There's three forms of sexual sin we'll talk about that are included in this list. First is what you'll find in your English Bible is often translated as sexual immorality.

The Greek word for that is porneia. The etymology of that word, I trust, to adults should be fairly obvious. Impurity, you have the word impurity here, which is akatharsia. Sometimes Greek is Greek to me.

Akatharsia. That's any substance that's filthy or dirty, it's refuse, so that's in the literal sense this word impurity is any substance that's filthy or dirty. Another way of describing it would be refuse.

Figuratively, it's a state of moral corruption. And then the third word we're going to look at is sensuality, and that is eselgeia. Now, eselgeia is a lack of self-constraint, which involves one's conduct or behavior that violates all bounds of what's socially acceptable or self-abandonment.

So you have these three words here for sexual sins. You have sexual immorality, you have impurity, and then you have the third word that I've mentioned, which is for sensuality. As I said, you're living in a society that is so characterized by these things that at this point it's considered odd to be a person who is sexually pure.

You're living in a time right now that if you don't have a high body count, people look upon that as a source of embarrassment. In the U .S., individuals have an average of 10 .7 sexual partners. You notice how that is a euphemism that sounds very polite.

It's a very polite way of describing fornication. You know that fornication is a word that almost doesn't exist anymore. When's the last time you heard someone say fornication? People don't use that language anymore.

I tried to type in the word fornication in AI to get some statistics on fornication, and the AI was berating me for my use of this archaic word. That's the state of things right now. It's telling me that this word was offensive to some people.

It's like, I get it. Yeah, I get it, because it has a notion of moral condemnation built into the word. Try to go around saying the word fornication. What you'll realize very quickly is that people will be offended.

The problem is that we're more concerned with offending them than we are with accurately describing their behavior. We're so concerned with offending them that we would prefer to use euphemisms related to this topic than to use moral words.

Imagine how crazy that is related to any other sin. Would you, to your brother or sister in Christ, use the language of reappropriation instead of theft to describe their stealing just so that you wouldn't offend them?

You see that we've adopted the wrong kind of sensibilities as it relates to this topic. As I said, in the U .S., individuals have an average of 10 .7 sexual partners. It's almost impossible to understand how many acts of fornication that actually represents,.

Isn't it?

We don't even think in terms of acts of fornication anymore. We think in terms of sexual partners. Do you understand? One quarter of women will have an abortion by the age of 40. Fornication is so rampant in our society right now that one in four women will have an abortion by the age of 40.

We obviously refuse to treat that as murder or think about it as murder or think it should be punished like murder. But one in four women will have an abortion by the age of 40. There's been some estimates say 63 million abortions since Rovers Wade.

Pornography right now is relatively ubiquitous. It's relatively ubiquitous even in the church. It's expected that this is the biggest problem that most pastors are going to have to deal with is the problem of pornography among their members.

It's expected that most pastors will intolerate this problem indefinitely because it's something that we're all going to be characterized by. It's expected that there will be almost no victory over this sin as if it's just normal, as if it's just the standard state of affairs, as if there's nothing that we can do about it, as if it's just natural.

Men are four times more likely to view pornography than women. But there's a rising problem of pornography even among the women. This is something like Paul was saying in Romans 1 where Paul says that men committing shameless acts with men, receiving in themselves the due penalty for their transgression, Paul starts out by saying even the women, even the women were given over to degrading passions.

Why?

Well, because men have naturally have four times the testosterone of women, so there is some biological relationship between the cycles of men and the differing cycles of women, meaning it's more expected that men would struggle with sexual sin, whereas it's more expected that women would struggle with sins that correspond to their hormones.

The point here is just to say that in a degraded society, it's not just the men who are struggling with sexual sin, it's also the women who are struggling with sexual sin. And as you see our society go down the Romans 1 sewer, what you see is that it's like pornography is not just a man problem, it's increasingly becoming a problem for women as well who are given over to the same kind of degrading passions as men.

I don't know if you think about this, but it really related to this topic. It's one of the most bizarre things in the world in real life. Just imagine in real life, standing outside someone's bedroom, staring at them, engaging in acts that are only appropriate to be viewed in the context of marriage.

What a creepy kind of thing that would be, and yet we all have smartphones now, and we've normalized a great deal of shameful behavior on our part to where we don't even understand how far we're degrading ourself related to this topic anymore.

The works of the flesh are evidence, sexual immorality, impurity. So as I said, this word, a catharsia, basically means any, like in a literal sense, it means any substance that is filthy or dirty is a word for refuse.

So literally, in the literal sense, it means a substance that is filthy or dirty or refuse in a figurative sense. It's a state of moral corruption. Putting it in the context of sexual sin is often translated as impurity.

You live in a church right now that is so compromised at this point that we will literally watch shows with naked people in them because we're so interested in being entertained. This is not just a problem in the world, brothers and sisters.

It's not just a problem in the world. This is a problem in the church where we'll watch movies that we shouldn't be watching, and we'll watch shows that we shouldn't be watching. It doesn't dawn on us that, you know what, the entertainment is just getting worse and worse and worse and worse.

And maybe we shouldn't take any part in it. The issue is we're so addicted to our entertainment to the point where we'll excuse almost any level of impurity, any level of sexual joking and coarse jesting.

You know, and it's not just the scenes. It's not just the scenes. I mean, think about the movies that you watch, the shows that you watch. Just because you get rid of the scenes doesn't mean that most of us don't even get rid of the scenes.

You just pretend that they aren't there, and you don't even bother to do the basic due diligence of looking up the show. I mean, there's so many resources right now that you can look up to see what is going to be in these shows that you're watching so that if you're constantly surprised by, oh, look, there's a naked person again, it's because you haven't done the due diligence, the basic due diligence of looking at sites that are designed to tell you what's in these.

Things.

But here's the point. It's to say that if our standard is that, if that's all our standard is, we've allowed so much impurity in our hearts and our life, we're being entertained by so many abominable things at this point, unspeakable things.

You have iniquity that is paraded in front of your eyes on television every day over and over and over again, and it's not just the scenes that I'm describing. The whole message, the whole story is just parading impurity and iniquity in front of your eyes.

That's the plot. The plot is glorying in wickedness, exposing your brain and your mind to filth, trying to desensitize you to the priorities of God, trying to normalize the most base, gross, abominable practices imaginable.

It's almost impossible to even read a book anymore without the LGBTQ agenda being constantly paraded in front of your face. These things that you should be grossed out about, they are trying to train you.

You're living in a society that is trying to train you to normalize things that you should find absolutely repellent. Now, when I say that, what you think I'm saying is you think that I am talking about having some kind of self-righteous posture towards people who engage in abominable acts.

It says, thank God I'm not like these sinners, and that's not what I'm trying to say. When you see something unnatural, you should be repelled by it. There are studies that say that when a man sees two men kissing, they have the same physiological reaction as they have in seeing maggots.

And that's right. That's the right kind of reaction. And you're living in a world that's trying to take that reaction away and make it seem.

Normal.

And if they can take that reaction away and make it seem normal, what do you think the next step is? That reaction was meant to protect you from going down certain roads. And you're watching entertainment all day long that's trying to brainwash you and train that reaction out of you so that you think that what we're talking about is just normal, so that you make certain concessions.

You start by making concessions for your friends and eventually you start making concessions for yourself because what you're doing is you're searing your conscience actively and slowly by the things that you're watching.

Most entertainment and television today is designed to actively sear your conscience towards the things of God by parading in front of you impurity after impurity after impurity until it becomes normal in your mind.

Where it becomes so normal to the point where you don't even recognize it as odd anymore and that's what's happening. You're being slowly desensitized to the point where you don't even see something that's supposed to be scandalous as scandalous.

And you don't react to it like you should. Instead of repudiating it, you glory in it. That's the point. The text mentions the works of the flesh are obvious. They're evident. Sexual immorality, impurity.

We have whole conferences that Christians put on today that are devoted to the idea that having deviant sexual desires is normal in a permanent condition that you're going to suffer from forever. And it's because we've been brainwashed and desensitized through filth, sensuality, this word asalgeia, a lack of self-constraint which involves one's conduct.

It violates all bounds of what's socially acceptable or self-abandonment. You know that today that there are 210 million registered users of OnlyFans. If you don't know what that is, good. 89 .5 of those are married.

63 .1 are male. 10 of women in America age 18 to 25 are OnlyFan prostitutes. 10%. You're living in a time right now where you consider it worse to slut shame, to actually behave like one, and you might be more predisposed to get offended by the fact that I use that word than the fact that this problem is so ubiquitous.

You know that whore is a word that's in the Bible, and in its cognates, it shows up 55 times in the ESV. Isaiah 121 says, how the faithful city has become a whore. She who was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.

Over and over again, the Bible describes this behavior in stark terms. And you live in a world right now that thinks that it's worse to accurately describe what we're talking about than to engage in these acts.

We're living in a society that has given itself over to sensuality. 63 .1 of the viewers of these sites are male. Most of them are married. I saw some stats, and I don't think this is actually right.

It can't possibly be right, but upwards of 80 of American males have some kind of account here with this. And I haven't been able to find, I looked all over the internet to find better numbers, but that's what I was finding, paying to look at 18 to 25-year-olds.

Do you know that when the bikini came out, it was considered too risque to be worn by regular public? So if you'll allow me to use a euphemism for the sake of the children, an adult film actress was hired to display it at first because it was so risque.

You know, at this point, you guys don't even think about that as being weird. We're so desensitized at this point by the flesh parade that's constantly paraded in front of us, the immorality that's constantly put before our eyes.

Standards of modesty at this point are abysmal. They're at an all-time low. Women long to be lusted after and men long to lust after them, and that's the situation. You know what? No one's allowed to notice it and no one's allowed to comment.

And again, if you want to get plenty of Christians mad at you, you just make some basic observations related to this point. And just making some basic observations related to this point is to say that, you know what?

It's a sin to lust after women, and it's also a sin to try to entice your brothers by what you're wearing and get them to lust after you. Not in one of those is more virtuous than the other. Point here is just to say that the works of the flesh are evident, the works of the flesh are evident, brothers and sisters.

And this isn't even an exhaustive list of things that are mentioned here. This isn't things like these. Paul warns us. He says, I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And we should soberly reflect on the nature of these warnings. You know what? It's not, brothers in the room, it's not understandable if you're addicted to porn forever. It's not understandable. You need to wake up.

You're in danger. You're endangering your soul. Sin will take you further than you want to go. The way of the transgressor is hard. And that's a painful path to go down. It may promise you pleasure temporarily, may think that no one's watching.

You may think that you're not hurting anyone but yourself, but you know what? If you go down that road, you're endangering your soul. There's nothing more soul-destroying than living in habitual, persistent sin, particularly of the variety that's described in this warning passage.

This warning passage is an actual warning passage to you. Paul says, I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And if you've got it in your mind that it's okay for you from start to finish, from the start of your life to the end of the life, to be mastered by your internet habits for the whole of your experience, you think that that's okay because you prayed a prayer or walked an aisle at some point, Paul is telling you that you're deceived.

And the reason why he's telling you you're deceived is because you're going to have a temptation to think that he's wrong. And you know what? The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of God lasts forever.

He's not wrong. The warning is a warning. If the Spirit of God is in you, you will not be permanently mastered and dominated by the works of the flesh. That's not the way it works. That's not to say that salvation is of works.

That's not to say that a person can lose their salvation. That's not to say that the gospel is not the good news that Jesus Christ came to die for our sins, and that if we repent of our sins and believe the good news, we can have eternal life, not on the basis of anything that we've done, not on the basis of foreseen faith, but on the basis of Christ's righteousness attributed to us as a free gift.

Amen.

That's all true. And anyone who God gives faith will be different, and that's the point. They won't be characterized by these things permanently. God's people who have His Spirit inside of them, who are being led by the Spirit, will be led by the Spirit to put the death of deeds to the flesh.

And if you are not putting the death of deeds to the flesh, that should unsettle you, brothers and sisters. That should unsettle you. I pray that as we look at this passage, we see it for what it is, and it should be a wake-up call to us that God is holy, and that His ways are right, and His plans are good, and we shouldn't spurn His ways.

But you know what? God has given us a great Savior in Jesus Christ, and that Savior is able to cleanse us from all of our sins, past, present, and future, to the uttermost. We serve a mighty God who has given us everything that we need for life and godliness.

He's given us His Spirit to come, to live inside of us, to transform our lives and make us different. Pray that as a people, we see His holiness for what it is, and thank Jesus for what He's done.

Amen?

Let's pray. Lord, we do thank You for the opportunity we have to come and to gather here today and to think about the scriptures that You've given to us, which are life to us. Pray for our congregation, Lord, that we would hate the things that You hate, that we would hate our sin, Lord, and realize that it doesn't have to be an intimate companion of ours.

Help us to hate it, Lord. Help us to long to serve You more and more every day, and take it and remove it far from.

Us.

In Your Son's name I pray, amen.