The Ambassador's Character

An ambassador's message is authenticated by a character transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Good morning. It’s wonderful to be with you again as we continue our series, "Ambassadors."

Last week, we laid the foundation. We looked at the Great Commission in Matthew 28 and established our identity and our mission. We learned that every follower of Jesus is an official, appointed representative of the King of all creation. We are sent out on His authority—all authority in heaven and on earth—and we are sustained by His presence—"I am with you always." Our mandate is clear: Go and make disciples.

But an ambassador is more than just a messenger. Imagine if a country sent a diplomat to represent them, and while this person delivered all the right talking points from their government, their personal life was a wreck. Imagine they were known in the foreign capital for their arrogance, their dishonesty, their explosive anger, and their out-of-control appetites. How effective would their message be? Not very. In fact, their flawed character would completely undermine and contradict the very message they were sent to deliver. Their life would scream a louder message than their lips.

The same is true for us as ambassadors for Christ. It is not enough to know what we are supposed to say. We must also be deeply concerned with who we are becoming. Our character is the platform upon which our message stands. Our personal transformation is the evidence that the King we represent is real and that His message has power. As Dr. H.A. Ironside said, "The Christian life is not a series of regulations, but the manifestation of a new nature." In other words, an ambassador's message is authenticated by a character transformed by the Holy Spirit.

This morning, we’re going to look at the practical "how" of that transformation. If last week was about our commission, this week is about our character. We're turning to the book of Galatians, chapter 5, verses 16 through 26. In this powerful passage, the Apostle Paul lays out the two competing forces at work inside every believer and shows us the clear evidence of which one is winning. He gives us a diagnostic tool to examine our own hearts and a roadmap for cultivating the character of Christ's kingdom.

The Ambassador's Internal War (Galatians 5:16-18)

Before Paul can describe the character we should have, he has to be brutally honest about the battle raging within us. If you’ve been a Christian for more than about five minutes, you have felt this battle. It’s the tension between who you want to be in Christ and the pull of your old habits and desires. Paul gives names to these two warring parties. Look at verse 16:

Galatians 5:16 KJV 1900

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

This is the thesis statement for the entire Christian life. It’s a command and a promise. The command is to "walk by the Spirit." The word "walk" here doesn’t mean a casual stroll; it means to conduct your entire life, to make your moment-by-moment decisions, in dependence on and in step with the Holy Spirit. The promise is that if you do this, you will not end up fulfilling the cravings of "the flesh."

Now, we need to define "the flesh." When Paul uses this term, he’s not just talking about our physical bodies or obvious bodily sins. The "flesh" is his theological shorthand for our entire fallen, unredeemed human nature. It's the self-centered, God-resisting, prideful operating system that we inherited from Adam. It’s the part of us that naturally wants to be its own god, to serve its own desires, and to live independently from our Creator. Even after we become Christians and receive a new nature and the Holy Spirit, this old nature doesn't just disappear. It remains, and it makes war.

Look at verse 17:

Galatians 5:17 KJV 1900

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

Paul pictures it as two armies on a battlefield, locked in a zero-sum conflict. They want opposite things. The Spirit desires to lead you into holiness, joy, and submission to God. The flesh desires to lead you into self-gratification, pride, and rebellion against God. They are fundamentally incompatible. You cannot feed both. You cannot please both. Every single day, you and I are making choices about which army we are going to march with.

This is why the Christian life can sometimes feel like a struggle. It is a struggle. If you feel this internal tension, it doesn't mean you're a bad Christian; it means the Holy Spirit is alive and well inside you, fighting on your behalf against your old nature! The danger is not feeling the battle; the danger is giving up and letting the flesh win by default.

Paul concludes this section in verse 18 by saying,

Galatians 5:18 KJV 1900

But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

This is crucial. The solution to the flesh is not a new set of rules. It’s not trying harder in our own strength to be good. That’s what the Galatians were being tempted to do—to go back to the law. But Paul says the law can only show you your sin; it can't empower you to overcome it. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. Victory comes not by trying, but by surrendering to the leadership of the Spirit.

The two opposing forces are the flesh and the Spirit.

Victory comes not by trying harder, but by surrendering to the leadership of the Spirit.

The Character of the Old Kingdom (Galatians 5:19-21)

So, what does it look like when the flesh is winning the battle? Paul doesn't leave it to our imagination. He gives us a clear, explicit, and rather ugly list of evidence. He calls them the "works of the flesh." Notice the word "works." These are the things that our fallen nature manufactures effortlessly. You don't have to try to be selfish; it’s the factory default setting. He says in verse 19:

Galatians 5:19–20 KJV 1900

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

He starts with a trio of sensual sins. These are sins related to the distortion of God's good gift of sexuality, twisting it into something self-serving and disconnected from His design for covenantal love. In a world saturated with pornography and a hook-up culture, these "works" are on full display.

Then he moves to spiritual sins: "...idolatry, sorcery..."

Idolatry is putting anything or anyone in the place of God as the ultimate source of our security, identity, or happiness. Sorcery, or pharmakeia in the Greek, refers to the use of drugs and potions in pagan religious rituals, trying to manipulate spiritual realities for personal gain. It's the attempt to find spiritual power and meaning outside of the one true God.

But then Paul spends the most time on a category that should hit all of us right where we live: relational sins. Look at this list: "...enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy..."

This is the stuff that destroys families, friendships, and churches. This is the fruit of a life centered on self. When I am the most important person in my universe, it leads to enmity (hostility toward others), strife (constant fighting), jealousy (resenting others' success), fits of anger (losing control when I don't get my way), rivalries (selfish ambition), dissensions and divisions (creating factions to get people on my side), and envy (bitterness over what others have). These are the works of the flesh that are often tolerated in our Christian communities, but Paul puts them in the same list as sexual immorality and idolatry.

Finally, he lists sins of excess: "...drunkenness, orgies, and things like these."

These are sins of losing control, of giving oneself over to unrestrained indulgence. After this ugly catalog of the character of our old kingdom, Paul issues a chilling warning in verse 21:

Galatians 5:21 KJV 1900

Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

We need to be careful here. Paul is not saying that if a Christian ever stumbles and commits one of these sins, they lose their salvation. The Bible is clear that we are saved by grace through faith. What he is saying is that a life characterized by these things, a life where these "works" are the constant, unrepentant pattern, is evidence that a person was never truly part of the kingdom in the first place. They are a fraudulent ambassador. Their life demonstrates allegiance to the old kingdom of the flesh, not the new kingdom of the Spirit.

These are called the "works of the flesh" because they are manufactured by our fallen nature.

[ILLUSTRATION: Talk about the destructive power of one of the "relational sins," like gossip (dissensions) or selfish ambition (rivalries), within a church or a family. Share a story (hypothetical or real, with details changed) of how this "work of the flesh" completely undermined the church's witness to the community. The goal is to show that these "respectable" sins are just as damaging to our ambassadorship as the more "obvious" ones.]

The Character of the New Kingdom (Galatians 5:22-26)

After showing us the ugly works manufactured by the flesh, Paul pivots to show us the beautiful character produced by the Holy Spirit. And his choice of words is profoundly important. He doesn't call them the "works of the Spirit." Look at verse 22:

Galatians 5:22–23 KJV 1900

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

This is one of the most important distinctions in the Christian life. The flesh works, but the Spirit bears fruit. Works are the product of our own effort. Fruit is the product of life. You can't staple an apple onto a dead branch and call it a living tree. An apple is the natural, organic outflow of the life of the tree itself. In the same way, the Christian character is not something we manufacture by "trying harder." It is the supernatural, organic outflow of the life of the Holy Spirit within us. Our job is not to produce the fruit; our job is to abide in the vine, to cultivate our relationship with the Spirit, and He is the one who produces the fruit in us.

Notice also that the word "fruit" is singular. It's not the "fruits" of the Spirit. It's one, multifaceted fruit. It's a package deal. The Holy Spirit is not interested in producing a loving person who is impatient, or a joyful person who is unkind. He is at work to produce the whole, balanced character of Christ in us.

Let's look briefly at these nine facets of the Spirit's fruit. We can group them into three categories.

First, there are the God-ward qualities: "...love, joy, peace." This is the foundation. Love (agape) is not a feeling, but a selfless commitment to the good of others, reflecting God's own love for us. Joy is not happiness based on circumstances, but a deep-seated gladness based on our relationship with God. And Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of wholeness and tranquility that comes from being reconciled to God.

Second, there are the other-ward qualities: "...patience, kindness, goodness." This is how our inner life with God overflows into our relationships. Patience (or longsuffering) is the ability to endure injury or provocation from others without retaliating. Kindness is a tender disposition, a practical goodness in action. And Goodness is a moral excellence that seeks the benefit of others.

Finally, there are the inward qualities: "...faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." This is the evidence of the Spirit's work in our own character. Faithfulness is reliability, trustworthiness, being a person of your word. Gentleness (or meekness) is not weakness, but strength under control, like a powerful horse that is perfectly submitted to the reins. And Self-control is the mastery of our own desires and passions, the ability to say "no" to the flesh.

Paul concludes in verse 23, "against such things there is no law." The law exists to restrain evil. But the character produced by the Spirit is the very thing the law was always aiming for. It is the fulfillment of God's perfect desire for His people.

So how does this happen? Verse 24 gives us the key:

Galatians 5:24 KJV 1900

And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

This is the decisive act of a Christian. At the moment of salvation, we are united with Christ in His death. We have, by faith, nailed that old, rebellious nature to the cross. It is a past-tense, completed action. The flesh has been sentenced to death. Our job now is to live out that reality every day, to treat the flesh like the dead thing it is and refuse to listen to its desires.

This is called the "fruit of the Spirit" because it is grown by God, not made by us.

"If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit."

Cultivating the Ambassador's Character

Paul ends this beautiful chapter with a simple, practical summary. Verse 25:

Galatians 5:25–26 KJV 1900

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

We have been given new life by the Spirit. That's a fact. Now, our daily responsibility is to "keep in step" with Him. The image is of a line of soldiers marching in perfect cadence with their commanding officer. He sets the pace; they follow. The Holy Spirit is constantly leading us toward holiness, toward love, toward self-control. Our job is to listen to His leading and to consciously, deliberately, align our steps with His.

This is how the ambassador's character is formed. It’s not by gritting our teeth and trying to be more patient. It’s by surrendering to the Spirit and asking Him, "Spirit, what is the loving thing to do in this situation? How can I keep in step with you right now?" It is a moment-by-moment dependence.

An ambassador who doesn't look like their King is a poor ambassador. Our commission to "make disciples" is inextricably linked to our transformation into the image of Christ. The world is skeptical. They have heard our words. Now they are watching our lives. They want to know if this gospel we proclaim actually has the power to change a person from the inside out. The fruit of the Spirit is the evidence.

Let me close with three diagnostic questions for us to take into our week.

1. Based on the evidence, which kingdom's character is more prominent in my life?

If you were to honestly audit your thoughts, words, and actions this past week, would you see more of the "works of the flesh" or the "fruit of the Spirit"? Let's be honest with ourselves. Where is the battle raging most fiercely?

2. Which specific "work of the flesh" is my most frequent battle?

Is it anger? Is it envy? Is it impurity? Is it gossip? Naming your specific enemy is the first step toward victory. Confess it to God. Bring it into the light.

3. What is one practical way I can "keep in step with the Spirit" this week?

This is about cultivating the soil so the Spirit can produce fruit. Maybe it's starting your day with five minutes of quiet prayer instead of scrolling on your phone. Maybe it's memorizing Galatians 5:22-23 so you can recall it in a moment of temptation. Maybe it's choosing to hold your tongue when you're tempted to speak an angry word, and instead asking the Spirit to help you respond with patience or gentleness. Choose one specific, concrete action.

The world doesn't need more Christians who can argue theology well. It needs more Christians who look, act, and love like Jesus. It needs ambassadors whose lives make the King they represent beautiful and believable. Let's commit ourselves to walking by the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit, and allowing Him to produce His beautiful fruit in us, for our good and for His glory.