Walk By the Spirit
Notes
Transcript
In 1990 there was a toy that made the news. I don’t recall it but maybe you do. It wasn’t the kind of news toy companies hope their toys will make. It was a doll that had a mouth that could actually chew and swallow the plastic food toys that — of course — were sold separately. Toy fries, toy burgers, etc. Only problem, though, is that the doll didn’t know the difference between things it was made to eat and the things it was not made to eat. The Associated Press reported that this toy was apparently latching on to children’s hair with its mouth and the kids were getting their hair stuck in it. Now, why the hair was in the mouth of the doll to begin with I don’t know. But a woman in Ohio had to cut out a large chunk of her daughter’s hair just to get it out of the clutches of this doll.
Here’s the point. Often, the things that we think are going to be harmless and fun. One more glance. One more click of the mouse. One more cup. And we’re enslaved. But Satan is not only a master at making sin look attractive to us; not only is he a master at hiding sin’s consequences from us; he also is a master at convincing us we are strong enough to handle just one glance, just one click of the mouse, just one more cup. I can handle it. I can stop. I will stop.
But the problem is that when you give in once, it’s easier to give in again. And again. And then it becomes a habit. And then it becomes a compulsion, an addiction. And before long, you’ve trained yourself, you’ve conditioned yourself to the point where you can’t say no, you can’t not give in, because you’ve lost your self-control.
What we’re looking at this morning is the enslaving power of sin. Sin enslaves us. But the good news is that we are not alone in this fight. We don’t have to rely on our own strength. There is help available. God is our Father. Jesus is our Savior, our Lord, our Friend, our older Brother. He understands temptation because He’s been there and persevered through to the end.
But how do we take hold of this help that Jesus offers? That is what Paul is getting at this morning in Gal. 5:16-25. And before we start I want to say something to two different groups of people.
Those of you who are discouraged. You’re discouraged, perhaps, by some sin that you keep falling into. You want to break free from this sin, but you’ve been unsuccessful. Maybe you’ve had short periods of victory but no lasting change. And maybe if you’re in this group you’ve just sort of given up, you know? “What’s the point in trying? I’ll just mess up again.” If this is you, you feel discouraged because you think God is done with you. Well let me encourage you this morning - God is not done with you. You haven’t reached the bottom of the well of grace. He has not run out of patience with you. Jesus is for you; Jesus loves you; and Jesus even likes you. I think you’re going to find that this sermon is for you.
The second group of people are those who don’t really resist sin at all. Maybe even the very notion of fighting sin, resisting temptation — maybe that sounds strange to you or foreign to you. Maybe you’ve never even thought of that before. Maybe it feels oppressive or legalistic; and yet maybe you would still consider yourself a Christian. I think those of you in this camp, if there are any, will find that this sermon is for you too.
In our text this morning we find three things. We find a promise, a predicament, and a provision.
The Promise
The Promise
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
Paul says, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” Now we’re going to talk later about what this means to walk by the Spirit. But what is the “flesh”? Is it my physical body? Is it my skin? That’s what we might think when we hear the word “flesh”. But that would mean there is something about the body that is bad, something inherently sinful that is in my body and makes my body sinful.
What is “the flesh”?
That part of you and I that is inclined to sin
The flesh will always be a problem for us
The flesh is that part of you that is inclined to live for you and not for God. The flesh is that part of me that is predisposed to resist God. It’s that part of me that finds sin appealing. The flesh is my sinful nature; it’s what makes you and I prone to sin. And the flesh, contrary to what some say, is always going to be a problem for us as long as we live in this world.
There was a guy who lived in the 400s AD, 1600 years ago, whose name was Jerome. St. Jerome. St. Jerome was a pretty important dude. He translated the Bible into Latin for all the Latin speaking people in his day, which was used by the Catholic church for centuries. Now this guy Jerome was really conscious of his sin. It bothered him. He really wanted to be free of it. And like a lot of guys back then, he thought, “Well, if I can’t seem to hack this Christian life thing in the normal world, I’ll become a monk. You know? Separate myself from the world and its pleasures and its way of thinking and its influence, and then I’ll really be able to break free from sin and be holy.
Did it work? What do you think? Did he escape temptation out in the desert? Well, let’s let him tell you:
“Oh, how often I imagined that I was in the midst of the pleasures of Rome when I was stationed in the desert. And in that solitary wasteland which is so burned up by the heat of the sun that it provides a dreadful habitation for the monks, I, who because of the fear of hell had condemned myself to such a hell and had nothing but scorpions and wild animals for company, I often still imagined that I was dancing in a chorus with girls. My face was pale from fasting. My mind, though, burned with passionate desires within my freezing body, and the fires of lust seethed even though the flesh had already died in me as a man.”
Do you know what the lesson is there? The lesson is that sin is not just a problem “out there.” Temptation is not only something we encounter outside the walls of our churches or our homes. Sin and temptation are realities that we find within our own hearts. And so we don’t make the mistake of thinking “if I can sequester ourselves away from the world, we’ll be okay.
When I was growing up in the youth group at my home church, we heard a lot about sin outside the church. It was the typical messages: don’t be sexually active before marriage and don’t drink or do drugs. And they were right. Those are destructive actions. But what was missing was this: what happens when I discover that those sins and temptations you’re telling us are outside the church — what do I do when I find them in my own heart? How do I respond when I find those sins in my own life? How do I deal with that? Because they’re there.
It would’ve been good if we could’ve heard that. But we didn’t. I want to rectify that for you. Paul is saying here the flesh has desires. There are certain things the flesh wants. And so, when you do good for someone, there’s always present to some degree the desire to be seen as a good person. We want people to say, “Hey, he’s generous, he’s kind, he’s a really good person.” That’s partly the flesh. Or, you find yourself turning to food or drink or sexual pleasure or substances when you’re sad or lonely or angry, that’s the flesh. Or when you find yourself wanting to impress others with your talents so that they think you’re great instead of wanting to bear witness to the great God who gave you that gift, that’s the flesh.
The flesh is not dormant in us. It’s very active, always crying out for gratification, and i you want to test that claim, try for the rest of the day to consistently resist the flesh. You’ll see how hard it is.
And yet, for those of us who are Christians, verse 16 is an incredibly comforting truth. There we find this promise: I say to you, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. You can’t see this in the English but in the Greek it’s very strong. It says “Walk by the Spirit, and you will by no means gratify the flesh” — “you will certainly not gratify the flesh”.
So, I don’t know about you, but I want to learn how to walk by the Spirit. If the word of God is telling me here that there is a way that I can grow in my ability to resist the flesh, I want to do that. And we have to follow Paul’s argument here to do that. So please, please do not check out if you’re feeling tempted to do that. That’s the promise. Let’s look at the predicament and we will see how Paul tells us we can walk by the Spirit and resist the impulses of the flesh.
The predicament
The predicament
For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
So everyone in this world, saved or unsaved, Christian or non-Christian, has these desires of the flesh. But those who belong to Christ, those who have trusted in Him and been born again, we have received as a gift the Holy Spirit of God who lives inside of us. And the Spirit, being the Spirit of God, has a set of totally different desires, which Paul calls here “the desires of the Spirit.” And those desires of the Spirit become ours, too. Paul says in 2Cor. 5:17 that there has been a change that has taken place in us who belong to Jesus.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Paul is saying that this change has taken place in us so that we have our old desires still, to some degree, but we also have a new set of desires. This is what it means to be born again. You are a new person on the inside and so you can now begin to live a new kind of life on the outside. You want that, if you’re a Christian. You want to live a new kind of life, a godly life. You may not succeed in it very often. But you have the desire. And if you don’t have the desire, you at least know that you should want it. In other words, you want to want it. And you’re doing something to work toward it even if very imperfect and inconsistent.
And because we have this two sets of desires within us, that is why Paul says there is a conflict between them. Paul describes that tension again in verse 17: “For the flesh sets is desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another.” That word there for “opposition” means face to face conflict, a spiritual fight to the death. In one corner is the flesh with its desires. And in other corner you have the Spirit, who is determined to produce godliness in you.
The godly desires of the Spirit and the sinful desires of the flesh are at odds with each other. There’s this tension, right? You feel it. You know what it’s like. You know what it’s like to be sitting with your coworkers at lunch and they start talking about that annoying guy in the cubicle beside you? He’s the one who’s always on the phone, you know personal calls and all that, very loudly so that everyone can hear? And you don’t really want to hear? Or the lady who’s work your’e always having to do because she slacks off, but you don’t get the credit for it? They start talking about these folks and you really want to join in, don’t you? You want to look cool and with it. You don’t want to look like a stick in the mud. But the Spirit is very gently reminding you that you have an obligation to stick up for this guy, to be different.
Or maybe you’re sitting in front of a computer and you’re suddenly assaulted with temptations to look at what you shouldn’t look at. And your mind starts imagining what you’ll see there as your hand moves to the mouse. And the Spirit is there reminding you of your duty to battle that impulse, to say no, to run away, to flee immorality. That’s the tension, that’s the conflict, Paul’s talking about when he says “For the flesh sets is desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another.”
All of us know what this is like. And very often the flesh wins out. Which is what Paul means when he says in the second part of verse 17, “For the flesh sets is desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.”
English Standard Version Chapter 5
For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do
The ESV translation of this verse gets closer to what the original says, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5:17 ESV). Paul is saying, “You’ve got competing desires within you; you’ve got the Spirit and He wants you to be holy; you’ve got the flesh to contend with, and it wants you to give in to sin.
But stop here and see how practical and true to life this is. Who is there that can’t relate to this? Who is there who doesn’t know something of this struggle, this conflict between good and evil, between holiness and sin? The Scriptures were not given to us to just be analyzed by scholars and debated by theologians; they are primarily for the church, for us, for us to wrestle with it and study and pray over and for us to obey together in the context of the church where we can teach one another and learn and encourage one another as we together strive to follow Jesus.
If there is within you any thought that the Bible or any part of the Bible is impractical or irrelevant or boring, banish that thought from your mind now and forever. It is a lie from the pit of hell itself, intended to keep you away from God’s word; it’s designed to make the Bible seem like a closed book, like its inaccessible to the ordinary person. It was written for ordinary people in ordinary churches like ours, in ordinary cities like Shelby, for us to pour over together and dive into it together so that we might come up out of it motivated and equipped to live a life that glorifies God and makes Jesus look supremely attractive. That is the purpose of the Bible.
So that’s the promise and the predicament; locked in this battle between the flesh and the Spirit making it hard for us to be the godly people we want to be. How do we escape that? How do we break out of that cycle and get free? Here’s the provision.
The Provision
The Provision
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. 19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: aimmorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, dfactions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God
Paul says, “BUT” - “but if you’re led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.” Earlier he said “walk by the Spirit”; in verse 26 he says “keep in step with the Spirit.” Here he says “led by the Spirit”. These are three ways of saying the same thing, okay? Three ways of telling us how we can have victory over the constant tendency to sin by gratifying the desires of the flesh. The Holy Spirit is crucial here.
The key that unlocks this seems to be the Holy Spirit. So we would expect him to say, “If you’re led by the Holy Spirit” in verse 18, “you won’t give in to sin.” But that’s not what he says, is it? He says “you are not under the Law.” Okay… Big deal. We never lived under the law, right? We were never ancient Israelites having to offer sacrifices. The Bible does tell us what it was like. Paul in Romans says
The theme is: you’ve got two sets of desires waging war against one another, keeping you from living the godly life you’re called to live. So, let the desires of the Spirit be what animates and drives your life. But the Bible does tell us what it was like. We read about it in Romans 7.
For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death
That’s what the Bible tells us it is like to live under the law. The law tells us what to do, and it condemns us when we don’t do it, but it provides no power to help us do it. But not only does the law tell us what to do and condemn us when we don’t, all while providing no help; it also increases temptation. That’s right. The law increases temptation. You say “Pastor Dustin, are you saying the law of God in the Bible makes you want to sin more?” Yeah, because that’s what the Bible itself says. We understand this. Hot cookies on the table - your daughter comes in. “Don’t take a cookie,” you say, and then walk out of the room. What does she want to do now more than she did before? Take a cookie.
Tony Evans tells a story about a football game. The coach called a meeting pre-game. He said to the team, “I don’t want any of you watching the news coverage tonight after the game.” Ok, coach. So the next day, he calls the team together and says, “I would tell you what the news media said about the game last night, but I know you already know. You all watched it. I wanted you to do it. And I knew the best way to make sure you watched was to tell you that under no circumstances should you watch it.”
That is our sinful nature. “Oh you’re telling me I can’t do it? Watch me.” That’s what the law does. And Paul is careful to say that this is not the law’s fault, right? Look at what he says later about the law in Romans 7.
for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Jesus did not do away with the law. There’s this misunderstanding, “Jesus fulfilled the law, and so we don’t have to live under it or do this or not do that because the law says it.” No, no, no - Jesus Himself said, “I did not come to abolish the law; I came to fulfill it.” He’s given us the law as a way to guide us and help us live in such a way that we reflect God to others. But we have to understand that while the law can teach us, and guide us, it can provide no strength for us to actually do those things. The law is like an X-ray machine. It can tell us what the problem is, but that X-ray machine can’t do a thing to fix your cancer or your broken bone shown on the X-ray. It’s like a speed limit sign; it can tell you how fast you should be going, but it won’t reach into the car and mash the brake for you. You’re on your own. For that help, for that strength, we have to look elsewhere. God gave His law to us that it might teach us our inability to do what it requires, that we may then look to Christ by His Spirit to do in us and through us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Through the Spirit we can find the strength to do what God calls us to do - if, and only if, Paul says, we are led by the Spirit. Beacuse to be led by the Spirit is to be out from under the condemning power of the law. You can do what God has called you to do; you can obey, not perfectly, but you can, because now you are being led by the Spirit.
So then what does it mean to be led by the Spirit? It means to allow the Spirit to control your words, your conduct, your thoughts, your desires, your motivations. I like what one author said about this:
We are not left helpless in this battle, nor are we simply the battleground between these two foes. We are to walk in the Spirit. That calls for a deliberate choice: we yield either to the flesh, or to the Spirit.
Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: aimmorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, dfactions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul tells us how to recognize the Spirit in our lives when we see Him at work. But first he tells us how to recognize the flesh when we see it at work in our lives. He says, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident” - they’re apparent, there’s no mistaking them, you know it when you see it - “immorality, impurity, sensuality” - those are sexual sins. Then there are sins of a religious nature: “idolatry, sorcery”. There are sins that destroy marriages and families and churches and nations: “enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” - in other words, I could go on, but you get the picture. You know the flesh when you see it at work: it destroys people, it destroys souls.
And there’s a warning here for us. “Of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God”. And friends what that means is that God will have none of this junk in heaven. Now listen, there are some Christians who struggle chronically with certain sins. These Christians hate that this is such a problem for them. They would be free of them if they could push a button and make them go away. They are grieved by what they do. Paul is not talking about this type of person.
“Who is there who does not labor under one or other of these sins? I reply, Paul does not threaten that there shall be excluded from the kingdom of God all who have sinned. The saints themselves are heavily burdened, but they return to the way.”
That last phrase is crucial. True believers may sin really bad and really often, but they never give up; they always get up again; they always return to the way. They keep coming back.
Paul is talking here about people whose lives are characterized consistently and unrepentantly by these things. He’s talking about those who are like, “Yeah, I know my fits of anger. I’m filled with rage. You got a problem with it? Well that’s just who I am. That’s not going to change. I am who I am.” Paul is saying that that kind of person, professing Christian or not, will not inherit the kingdom of God.
That’s the flesh. Well how can we recognize the Spirit when we see Him? Well, Paul tells us in verses 22-23.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
This is the fruit of the Spirit. Notice that it’s not “fruits” (plural); it’s “fruit” (singular). And that means that every single one of us will have something of each of these qualities in our lives. These are not spiritual gifts, okay? We need to understand this. We cannot say, “Well, patience isn’t my gift. Some people might have that. I don’t. It’s not my gift.” But Paul is not talking about spiritual gifts. He’s talking about the fruit of the Spirit, and if you have the Spirit, He will produce His fruit in our lives. This is what the Spirit is up to in our lives.
So what does it mean to be led by the Spirit? It means, very simply, to join the Holy Spirit where we see Him at work in our lives. It means to cultivate the things the Spirit loves: it means to cultivate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. If we do those things, we will automatically find that there’s less room in our lives for the works of the flesh.
Because here’s the thing - there will only be one winner in this fight. There’s only room for one master in our heart. If we’re gratifying the flesh, we’re quenching the Spirit, and there won’t be room for the fruit of the Spirit, but if we cultivate the fruit of the Spirit, we are also refusing the work of the flesh- stamping it out. And the best part is - Paul says, “against these things” - against the fruit of the Spirit, “there is no law”. Take everything we just said about the law - it reveals our sin but doesn’t help us fight it; the law makes us want to sin more, it arouses temptation. The law works actually against us if we try to use it as a means of growing in godliness. “Against these things there is now law” - meaning you can cultivate love and joy and peace and gentleness and self-control. Because not only is there no law against these things which would make it harder for us to do them; there is also the very Spirit of God living inside of us to equip us and fill us and produce in us the godly character God wants us to have.
That’s the promise, the predicament, and the provision.
Conclusion and call for response
Conclusion and call for response
“Chapter one: I walk down the street; there’s a deep hole in the sidewalk; I fall in and I am lost, helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find the way out.
Chapter two: I walk down the same street; there’s a deep hole in the sidewalk; I fall in again; I can’t believe I’m in the same place. It still isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter three: I walk down the same street; there’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there; I still fall in; it’s a habit; my eyes are open. I know where I am. It’s my fault. I get out immediately.”
Chapter four: I walk down the same street; there’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
Chapter five: I walk down another street.”
Gradually we have to do different things. We have to learn to live another way.
Those of you who are discouraged. You’re discouraged, perhaps, by some sin that you keep falling into. You want to break free from this sin, but you’ve been unsuccessful. Maybe you’ve had short periods of victory but no lasting change. And maybe if you’re in this group you’ve just sort of given up, you know? “What’s the point in trying? I’ll just mess up again.” If this is you, you feel discouraged because you think God is done with you. Well let me encourage you this morning - God is not done with you. You haven’t reached the bottom of the well of grace. He has not run out of patience with you. Jesus is for you; Jesus loves you; and Jesus even likes you.
But this sin you struggle with, it causes you to be very self-focused, very inward focused, doesn’t it? I want to encourage this morning to stop looking inward and start looking upward in faith. Look to Jesus whose love for you is so great that He suffered and died in your place; He’s not disappointed in you. He’s not standing off to the side, arms folded, eyebrows raised. He is for you. He’s not ashamed of you. Hebrews 2:11 says Jesus is not ashamed to call you His brother. He is for you. He is with you in your sin, even as you commit it and in the aftermath of it. Jesus never turns away a struggling believer who comes to Him for help. You’re not on your own. And by faith, trust that He is able to give you the strength to fight; and with you after you fall, to lift you up and set you back on the way of discipleship.