Three Steps Forward: The Flesh
Gal 5; 16-26
When you were a kid I bet, that of all the things that you dreamed of being when you grew up; living in outer space was one of those things, Right? Then as you grew; you realized that living in outer space wasn’t as easy as it looked on “Lost in Space” or “Star Trek”. The reason why space intrigues us all so is probably the ability to fly around in the zero gravity! Just imagine being 1/6 of what you weight! That’s the way you would be if you lived on the Moon! Then in space itself there is zero gravity, that means you weight nothing! Imagine being able to float around effortlessly like a cloud, or to sleep standing up, or to eat you meal in mid air, you now all that neat stuff!
Life would seem to be new and exciting wouldn’t it? If all we could do was to get rid of this prosaic, uninteresting, ordinary thing called gravity that does nothing but pulls us downward! Life would surely be better!
If you can understand the concept of gravity upon your physical body then you should grasp the concepts that Paul is introducing to us tonight from the Book of Galatians. Just like the pull of gravity upon any body mass whether it be a feather or a brick; there’s a pull on us as Christians; and it is called the flesh!
Some think that living the Christian life is an effortless thing like floating like a cloud through the air. However, we were never promised a painless or perfect life. We were never promised a free ride. Yet when Jesus called us to come to Him, He told us the burden would be light.
Why is it that so often the burden does not feel light? Why does it feel that we are running as fast as we can, only to stay in the same place? Why is it that we take three steps forward in life and then we are forced by our own selves it seems to take two steps back! Why is the Christian life like this? Maybe you have thought; that since God wants us to live like Christ in this world; that God would helps us to be like Christ; that it wouldn’t be so challenging!
The answer why it isn’t easy or effortless to be like Jesus is because we are not living in zero gravity! You see in zero gravity it’s easy to fly like a bird, or float like a cloud; but we don’t live in zero gravity; we live under the pull of the flesh as Christians just like we live under the pull of gravity as earthlings.
We have a force that is always at work, pulling us to the sinful things of life!
A little kid was saying his prayers one night and he came to the phrase “lead us not into temptation” in his prayer. He thought to himself and then said, “Lord, don’t worry about me I can find temptation all own my own!” That’s not what the Lord’s Prayer means, yet it reveals just how easy it is for us to find sin and temptation without even trying if we honest about it!
This is what I think the Lord wants is to talk about for the next few times together. Knowing how not to live in the flesh and also knowing how to live in the spirit! To live as it you were in zero gravity without ever leaving the ground! To live life without being dragged or pulled down by our flesh! To live and enjoy life in the Spirit of God! I’m talking about taking three steps forward in life, in prayer, in your bible knowledge, in your marriage, with your kids and not losing your ground!
If we are to counteract the pull of the flesh we must first understand the flesh; and thereby understand ourselves better.
I want us to get a good understanding of what exactly the flesh is and what the flesh looks like!
I. The Concept of the Flesh
Paul pulls out and uses this world “flesh” because it isn’t anything new to him; but it probably is to us. What exactly does this word “flesh” mean?
The word flesh means several things, depending how it is used in the context! For starters it can mean just the human body itself; like tissues, organs, our body.
The main usage in the OT denotes just that; a body human or animal. But it is also used in figuratively to show ones; like when Adam used it of him and Eve; Gen 2:23-24 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Have you ever heard someone say after their name was called; “I’m here in the flesh!” They are physically present!
Yet, when you come to the NT the word “flesh” representing the physical part of us isn’t all there is. The body part of us is just one third of us!
Paul makes this reveals in 1Th 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are three parts to you and I. We have a spirit (that part that communicates with God) and soul (that part of us that thinks, remembers, reasons; and then there is the body or flesh of us (this part is that which connects us to the outside world).
I think Paul listed these this way to show us what level of importance that they should have. This is our God consciousness. Our Spirit should come first! Are we being spiritually edified or built up? Is our spirit in touch with the Spirit of God? We should be above all things what’s called spiritual people!
Then we have the soul of us. This is our consciousness. Our likes and dislikes, our reasonings, our desires, our wishes, our revolve, willpower, personality. If you have ever heard someone use the phrase “soulish” they probably mean acting out of your own reasonings, likes, desires, and prejudices, i.e. our self consciousness. That is where the majority of Christians worship and live, on this soulish level. They do what pleases them, they do what makes sense to them, they do what honors them instead of those things that God has said. This level isn’t the lowest you can go; yet it still isn’t the highest either!
Then there is our body. That part of us that is conscience of the world around us. This is the our flesh, the body of every one of us, it bleeds, breaks and one day it won’t work right.
Paul makes this distingion to show that the flesh, with its desires, lusts, passions orngites from nowhere else but our flesh.
Though we are all in the flesh (physically) we don’t have to live on this lowest level, we don’t have to live after the flesh!
The word flesh is used to describe life lived apart from God. It refers to people as they are apart from God, i.e. lost people live in the flesh because that’s all they know! I like what one man said, that part of you that remained the same when you became saved is your flesh! God doesn’t even try to improve upon it, God just condemns it and gives us a new nature to tap into.
Yet the possibility still remains for true Christians to live after the flesh, just like the lost live. Paul tells us this sad yet possible state, Rom 7:18 “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” Paul saw that in his unredeemed flesh, there was absolutely no good thing worth anything! In Romans 7, Paul struggles with that very thing! The just of ch. 7 is that you as a Christian can not live for God using your flesh! We can not rely on our flesh, no matter how determined and noble it maybe to live for God; the end result is a Christian that is defeated! They know what they should do for God, they know that they should stay away from sin and temptation, yet they are looking to the wrong source of strength and motive to do what they know is right!
Listen, I bet today even that you heard someone say, that they tried to live the Christian life and they couldn’t live it! They tried and tried, struggled and struggled and failed and failed, until they came to the conclusion that it is just easier to live like lost people than to live for God!
When I hear someone say that to me; I like to tell them; “you know, your absolutely right! You can’t live the Christian life and for that matter I as a preacher can not live the Christian life either! They are taken back! But! But! You’re a preacher! You of all people should be able to live it they say! No, I tell them because the power to live what I know is right in not found in me, my flesh it is found in God alone! I tell them as long as you rely on yourself to “live it” you are doomed to fail, because flesh can’t flesh put down flesh!
Haven’t you figured it out by now? That the God who saved you, with not help at all from you will live the life that He expects from each and everyone one of us! All that we need to do is believe what God says about our flesh, stop trying to “live it”(that’s what Paul finds is the answer in Rom 7) and do what Paul found, which is just to yield ourlives to Him and God does it for us!
Look at Rom 6; 1-16
Paul reasons that the flesh has no more hold over him because of his death in Christ! That’s right! When Jesus died on the cross, we all died in Him! And when he arose from the grave we all arose with Him! Therefore Paul reasons that Just as Christ is not under the law of sin and of death; then the possibility is there that we need not have to live under the rule of the flesh any more!
In fact, to live after the flesh after that we are saved is not a way of life anymore like it is with the Lost; but! It is a choice now for us that are saved! As far as God is concerned we are choosing to let sin rule and be mastered by the flesh! Rom 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Paul’s point id that the flesh is something that is always with us, and could possibly pull us down to the point that we don’t even try anything for God!
II. The Characteristics of the Flesh
The Bible goes to great lengths to describe the limitations of our life in the flesh. The first characteristic of the flesh we’ll look at is that the flesh cannot please God.
What happens when we are living after the flesh? Romans 8:8 says, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” That means you cannot come to God apart from what God is doing in your life and bring anything to God that pleases Him. The best you have to offer with God on the outside is not going to make it. You can’t please God while living to please your flesh.
Not only is the flesh powerless to please God, it is also powerless to produce righteousness in our lives. Yet how many people are running around trying to impress God with all of their works, somehow trying to get up to a standard of righteousness where they feel they are accepted? One of the great maladies in the church today is created by men and women who are trying to do the Spirit’s work in the energy of the flesh.
Paul asked the Galatians why if they came to Christ by the work of the Spirit they are so foolish to think they can please God in their own energy (see Galatians 3:3). The Bible is very clear that the flesh is weak. Apart from God, we are not able to bring anything to God.
III. The Conflict of the Flesh
The flesh is at war with the Spirit and the Spirit is at war with the flesh. There are two parts of me—what I was before I became a Christian (that part of me is still there) and what I am because I am a Christian. Those two parts of me struggle inwardly.
When I came to Christ I didn’t at that moment become a totally spiritual being. I didn’t lose the flesh. I’ve had people say to me, “If you accept Christ, all the struggles in your life will be over.” But the day I accepted Christ my struggles began. Before I became a Christian there wasn’t any war going on because I was totally committed to the flesh like everyone is. I used to think that meaning was found in me. When I accepted Christ, I discovered meaning is found in God. Those two concepts have been at war within me since the day I became a Christian.
That conflict is one of the most difficult things for Christians to understand. They may go through all of their lives defeated on account of the struggle. Why doesn’t God take away the struggle? How do you explain the fact that we are born again, saved and ready to go to heaven, and yet we have this intense struggle?
All I know is that this a real conflict and if you don’t chose the side you with live on then you will be pulled down by the flesh every time!
IV. The Conduct of the Flesh
What does it look like when someone is living in the flesh? If we knew what it looked like we could at least avoid those who are in the flesh right? God tells us what living after the flesh will result in, whether in lost folks or in saved folks! Look back at Gal 5; 19-21.
Notice the gropus;
A. Sexual sins
1. Adultery =Illicit sexual intercourse between married partners
2. Fornication =Illicit sexual intercourse between unmarried partners
3. Uncleanness =Moral impurity
4. Lasciviousness =Wantonness, debauchery, lewdness
B. Prosperity sins
1. Idolatry =Placing whatever between us and God! Some worship at the alter of prosperity and it is idolatry just the same!
C. Sins of Pagan religion
1. Witchcraft =the Harry potter crowd.
D. Sins of temper
1. Hatred = personal animosities
2. Variance = rivalry, discord, factions, quarrelsomeness.
3. Emulations = Jealousies, sedition, constant desire to excel other people and secure their admiration.
4. Wrath = Passionate anger, stirring up the emotions of temper resulting in an explosion.
5. Strife = Factions, intrigues manifested in party spirit
6. Seditions = Splits, divisions
7. Heresies = Choices based on preferences, sectarian parties, false doctrine
8. Envyings = Feelings of ill-will.
Sins in Public
1. Drunkenness = Excessive indulgence in strong drink. 2. Revellings = Carousals, orgies, not unlike many riotous, wild parties of today.
And such like. The list is representative, not exhaustive.
That’s what God says the flesh looks like when it comes out of a person!
Closing: The flesh is something that pulls at us at the time just like the law of gravity does. Yet, I don’t see people ready to quit life because everything they drop falls to the ground! No they have learned to counteract the law of gravity! What if Bell Helicopter decided to ignore the law of gravity when they designed their next product? It would probably fail! Instead that work and build to counteract the law of gravity because it is there and they can’t do nothing about it!
We are stuck with our flesh until we die! We can’t get rid of it, we can’t ignore it because it won’t go a way! Unless you decide to counteract it with the law of the Spirit of God inside of you, then you will be defeated in your walk with God! That’s something that I don’t want for you; and is surely not what the Lord wants for you!
Aren’t you tried of taking three steps forward and two steps back in everything that you purpose to do for God!
The first step to that is not ignoring the flesh that’s inside of you any more! The more excuses that you make for yourself; is just prolonging the problem!
Just believe God!