Untitled Sermon (7)

Intro: I have no idea what the past several months have been like for many of you, but I can testify to what has gone on for me in that time. If I am to be honest, I’ve been under much conviction of my life. But the conviction hasn’t always led to repentence, but rather sorrow and shame. I’ve felt like I could be living a glorify life for God way more than I have, and I’m often conflicted with the decisions I’ve had to make that end up resulting in failure or problematic outcomes. Why do I choose to live selfishly and feeling-oriented when it doesn’t glorify God, and I’m over here calling myself a follower of Jesus, yet all too often and frequently I find myself following my own wants and desires rather than follow Jesus. I can’t seem to be obedient to my Father in heaven to save my life sometimes! I’m reminded in all of this of Romans 7:14-25 where Paul has a mind-boggling moment, but I find myself relating exactly to him! Now this isn’t our main text, but it will drive our attention to ready ourselves to what we have coming. Paul is going to help us put into words what I’m rambling on about. He says:

“So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.”

I completely relate to Paul here, and I’m sure many of you do too. How can I want to obey and please God, when it seems like I inevitably choose sin over here 3 out of 4 times. I believe firmly that I love God with all my heart, but it often doesn’t show in my life choices, my thoughts, my actions, or my words. This sinful nature within me has been wrecking me up from the inside and I have found it almost impossible to choose God sometimes. But Paul doesn’t stop there. In Romans 8 he talks about how through Jesus Christ breaking the bondage of sin on our lives and freeing us by His blood—the same Spirit that ignited Jesus with power can live within us. The Holy Spirit is the solution to disruption the path of destruction that our sinful nature leads us on. We find out from Paul that Living by the Holy Spirit is living in freedom. We can find our freedom from sin and the nature that has control over us through the Holy Spirit! So I ask myself and I press you to also ask yourself: What am I living by in my life? To figure this out, and have a better understanding on this issue were facing, we are going to look at Galatians 5:16-25, another point where Paul speaks on our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit. Paul says,

“So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

Transition: What we gather from Paul in his letter to the Galatians is that we ultimately have 2 forces we can live by. We’re going to dive into this passage to identify and examine these 2 forces to have a better understand over the lives we’ve been living. Our first force we’ll look at is…

The Sinful Nature

What we inherited from Adam going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, is the sinful nature. When God created man to have a relationship with them, we ultimately chose to disobey, and through our disobedience to God came sin into our lives, but more specifically is the sinful nature. The sinful nature has been passed on to every man and woman since Adam and Eve. What Paul was getting at in Romans 7 is that when he doesn’t do what he wants to do, and he does what he doesn’t want to do, it’s his sinful nature within him that causes him to stray from the will of God, and the same goes for us. When we choose to go against God in pursuit of our own desires without seeking the guidance of God, we find ourselves sinning against Him because our sinful nature drives our flesh away from God. So here in Galatians, we have 3 aspects of the sinful nature that we must point out in order to better understand how it operates within us. The first of these aspects is…

The Desires

Looking back at our passage, verse 17 begins with, “The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants.” When we’re a slave to our sinful nature, we are driven to do evil, which opposes the Holy Spirit. The sinful nature we inherit is one of evil since it was born from evil itself through disobedience to God’s one rule in the garden. When we find ourselves doing things that displease God, we can be certain that it’s not because the Holy Spirit is in control but rather we aren’t allowing the Holy Spirit to take control and strengthen us. And the truth of this matter is that it’s impossible to deny the flesh without the Holy Spirit. The evil we are driven to do when we operate without our flesh and feelings has a strong effect on our lives when we aren’t allowing the Holy Spirit to give us new desires. Without the Holy Spirit, the desires of our sinful nature will have a pull on us, which is the desire to do what displeases God—evil. As Paul had said, going back to Romans, he loves God’s law with all his heart, he knows within him he wants to do good, and Jesus even makes mention of this in Mark 14:38 where He warns Peter against temptation, “Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Our spirit ultimately longs for God’s will, but when we don’t allow the Holy Spirit to work with ours, or we aren’t alert; letting our guard down as Peter did, we find our bodies are too weak to fight against our sinful nature. How do we know that we’re being dominated by our sinful nature? Our second aspect draws attention to this…

The Fruit

As we go back to Galatians, Paul makes it clear how we can tell what force we are under. Speaking directly for the sinful nature, we see in verses 19-21a, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.” Whatever we allow to dwell in our lives will produce fruit. The fruit we see from our sinful nature is summing up the “good life” of this world. All of the fruit that Paul points out is a result of when we choose to give way to temptation and not let God’s Spirit fight against our sinful nature. This doesn’t always happen consciously, for our sinful nature in itself is a “natural” response when we’re not depending on God and intentionally giving Him the desires of our heart. We see ourselves reflecting the world and not distinctively Christ when we become careless to the war within us where the sinful nature and the Holy Spirit are fighting each other, and this means we can’t freely carry our good intentions; we need the Holy Spirit in order to live a life of freedom. What will result if we don’t deal with our sinful nature like we need to? The answer would be found in the third aspect…

The Reaping

If we don’t give ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and continue to let our sinful nature dominate us, the results are what follows in Galatians 5:21b, “Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” We can’t live dominated by our sinful nature and expect to inherit the Kingdom of God, because our sinful nature pulls us away from God. There is no unity with Christ when we are still living by our sinful nature. Paul points this out in Romans 8:6-8; “So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God, it never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. If we want to be free from the sin we have been enslaved to, have a right-standing relationship with God, and free from the path of death we must rid ourselves of the sinful nature; giving control of our minds over to the Holy Spirit, and live by the Holy Spirit. Only through this will we find ourselves in unity with God, because our sinful nature will never please God, nor obey His Word, no matter how hard we try. Our willpower is simply too weak.

Transition: The only thing we can do in order to find the strength necessary to be free from the sinful nature, is found in the second force which we have already looked over briefly. This force is…

The Holy Spirit

Freedom is ONLY found when we live by the Holy Spirit, and Paul points to how we can rid ourselves of our sinful nature to truly live by the Spirit in Galatians 5:24-25, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” When we belong to Christ Jesus, we take our sinful nature, and put it on the cross with Jesus, following it is the evil desires, the fruit it produces, and the reaping it leads to. They become crucified with Christ and no longer can have a hold over us. By the grace of Christ we find freedom to live by the Spirit. What does it look like letting the Spirit lead in every part of our lives? We find 3 aspects from Galatians as well that help identify life in the Spirit…

The Desires

Paul says in verse 17b that “the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite of what the sinful nature desires.” In this case, if our sinful nature desires to do evil, then the Holy Spirit desires to do good. Our good intentions that we wish we could live out if we weren’t enslaved to our sinful nature can actually be accomplished through the Holy Spirit! We don’t have to be dominated by evil intentions when the Holy Spirit has control over our minds and hearts, and this leads to life and peace. Paul goes on in verse 18 to say that “when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.” This hints at the freedom that can be lived in the Spirit. But why are we not under obligation to the law of Moses anymore? Our second aspect gives us clarity for this…

The Fruit

In verses 22-23, Paul says, “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control. There is no law against these things!” The reason we are no longer under obligation to the law of Moses is because the law of Moses doesn’t oppose the fruit the Spirit produces. So we can truly live in freedom when we live by the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit intertwines with ours, we find ourselves naturally beginning to produce the fruit of the Spirit. These fruits sum up the character of Christ, which means that to truly please God, and live like Christ as He called us to, we need the Holy Spirit in our lives, so He can produce through us the same fruits of Christ. This is possible because the Holy Spirit is the same Spirit that ran in and through Christ. How crazy is it to know that the same Spirit which was within Christ can be in us, and that we can live a life through the Holy Spirit?! But how do we know we have the Holy Spirit in our lives? Our third aspect makes this clear…

The Reaping

Paul points this out in verse 24 when he says that, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.” If we belong to Christ Jesus, we no longer live by the sinful nature, but by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes and occupies the void in our soul that the sinful nature once dominated. When our identity is in Christ, when we have given ourselves over to Jesus and believe in His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; when we believe He has taken our sin upon Himself, we are adopted into God’s family, and thus, we belong to Christ Jesus. Through our identity in Christ, we receive His Spirit, and we inherit eternal life in unification with God! Romans 8 makes this clear that His Spirit makes it known to us that we are God’s children in verses 16-17, “For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.”

Conclusion: I’ve noticed that in my life I’ve tended to hold onto my sinful nature and take him off the cross when I want self satisfaction that God doesn't. The truth is, surrendering ourselves to God, our sinful nature to Christ, and allowing the Holy Spirit to have His way in our lives often is a daily surrender. We must choose Christ every day, just as He has chosen us. Freedom is possible, and it’s only found by living by the Spirit’s power. The Holy Spirit alone can defeat our sinful nature and gives us freedom in Christ, but we must choose to give the Holy Spirit control and surrender the desires our sinful nature tries to tempt us with. Maybe you’ve been relating to Paul like I have lately, but I encourage you just as Paul has encouraged me: choose Christ every day. Let the Holy Spirit have His way in you so you no longer have to be in bondage and dominated by your sinful nature. Crucify that nature and with it, its desires, fruit, and reaping with Christ and leave him there, so you no longer have to live in shame for displeasing God. Live by the Holy Spirit so you can carry out your good intentions, and find that your desires comes from Him; the fruit you produce: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, reflect a Christ-like character in you; and you may reap the inheritance of eternal relationship with God!