Two Journeys

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 6:7-10, considering that we reap what we sow and the dangers of weariness in doing good, and the importance to sow to the Spirit.

Amen. One of the greatest tragedies I think of our life in this world, this life in the flesh, is the proneness that all of us have toward boredom, toward weariness of good things. The fact that things wear off, that they don't have the same impact on us as time goes on. And that is a great grief to us. The first time I probably noticed it, and I've mentioned it before in passing, is Christmas day when I didn't have the same delight in the afternoon that I had with the toys I received in the morning. Do you remember that feeling? And it's like, I still can't believe when kids come to us and say, "I'm bored" on Christmas afternoon. How does that even happen? How do we grow weary with the good gifts of life? How is that even possible? And it's something I've seen in my own life, again and again. I remember going on a trip with my daughter Jenny, and we were in Switzerland, I'd never been there before, always wanted to go there and just felt so privileged by God to be there. And we had, from our hotel room, probably the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen in my life from a hotel room.

I've been in a lot of hotel rooms, I've been to some in some places where you look out and you're not seeing that kind of scenery. And so I thought, "Boy, this is beautiful." And it was breathtaking and amazing. But as the week went on, as the week wore on, it just wore off. And it just didn't have the same impact. I thought it was beautiful and all that, but I could see how people who lived there all their lives would barely even notice it. I remember another time I flew to Southern California, I flew from Massachusetts in March, and I was to be a best man at a good friend of mine's wedding. And March in Massachusetts is among the ugliest things in God's universe. There is sand and salt all over the roads, and everyone is just so waiting for spring and it just never seems to come. And then I got off this airplane in LA, and it was 68 and a nice gentle breeze and fair weather clouds. And I said to my friend Mike, I said, "Man, the weather here is amazing." He said, "Yeah, I guess it is." He lived there, and yes, he wasn't a native of Southern California but he was just so used to it, it didn't mean anything to him.

This happens to all of us. And this is something we all face. I had the privilege of being at a wedding yesterday, and it was just amazing to see the way the couple look at each other, but then just give it years and it just isn't the same. Alright? [Maybe I'm wrong in this case, I don't know, but I doubt it. It's not for the older to discourage the younger, but just to say it just isn't the same, things just wear off, it's just a different feeling. And so it is with possessions, you buy a new car, you're so excited, you can't wait to drive it. And then time wears on, and some dings, some scratches, and it just isn't the same. It is with all possessions. And I think it's just part of the life that we live in this sin-cursed world.

The book of Ecclesiastes embraces this idea of the weariness that comes in life. Right at the beginning in Ecclesiastes 1, it says, "Vanity of vanities." "Vanity of vanities,' says the preacher. All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, the sun also sets and it hastens around to the place where it rises again. The wind blows to the south and it goes around to the north, around and around goes the wind. And on its circuits, the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is never full. To the place where the streams flow, there they flow again." Ecclesiastes 1:8 "All things are full of weariness, more than the tongue can tell. The eye is not satisfied with seeing and the ear is never satisfied with hearing." It's just the nature of this life that we live under the sun as it says in Ecclesiastes 1, that we get bored and we get weary of things.

And the greatest grief there is in that whole topic, is when it gets applied to our walk with Christ. And it gets applied to spiritual things, that's when it's really grievous. People begin the Christian life filled with zeal, filled with energy, filled with the joy of the Lord, filled with a sense of gratitude at salvation. It's almost like you can scarcely believe it, you think about the apostles in the upper room when they're seeing the resurrected Christ, and it said, "They couldn't believe it for joy." It was like it was too good to be true that Christ had risen from the dead. New Christians are zealous and excited, and they're eager for Bible study, and they love to go to church. And they are so excited as they're witnessing to their friends, and there's all that youth and that young zeal, but then as the years wear on, the zeal tends to abate, and there's not so much excitement in the Christian life.

It is in a microcosm with aspects of our Christian faith, we can try something new. A new ministry, and you're all excited, and you're going, and things are happening but then it wears off and it gets a little bit hard and it just isn't the same. We find attendance patterns at FBC like that. You have a new Bible for Life class or a new Wednesday Night, and the attendance peaks out and then drains off, the same thing happens with home fellowships. It happens even at the church generally, people come to FBC, and they're just so excited when they first come, and they love the teaching and preaching ministry, they love the music, they love the people, it's just so friendly and everything's so wonderful. And then in some cases, you hear a couple three, four years later, there's not that zeal, there's not that energy, there's a weariness that's come. And it's not so much that the church is worse or different, it's just that their own hearts have grown cold over time.

We hear sometimes about the distance to travel. I find that interesting because we haven't moved, and the people haven't moved and it's the same distance that's it's always been. But it feels longer now than it did when we first came and that really is a heart state. It's got to do with their own lack of that excitement that they had when they first came, but the worst of all is just when it comes directly to your walk with God, directly to your relationship with Jesus Christ. You think about what God said to Israel speaking in poetic kind of marital language. In Jeremiah 2:2, he said, "I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you followed me in the desert." I remember how it was back then with you. And then of course in Revelation 2, Jesus says to the church at Ephesus, "I have this against you, you have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen, repent and do the things you did at first."

You remember how it was in the beginning of your walk with Christ? How could it be that we grow weary with Jesus? How could that ever be that we grow weary with aspects of the Christian life, that we grow weary of the Bible or grow weary of good Christian fellowship or worship? How does that happen? And even more significantly, how can we combat it? It says in Malachi 1:13, the Jews were saying of the sacrificial system there. They were saying, "What a burden!" And they sniffed at it. And sometimes the Christian life can feel like a burden, the ministry can feel like a burden and you can sniff at it and act contemptuously toward it. And you don't realize what's really gone on is the corruption of your own heart. I really think weariness of every or any aspect of the Christian life is an act of the flesh. It's not listed there but I think that's what the flesh does, it makes us grow weary of things that we were initially really joyful and excited about.

I struggled with this whole idea a year ago, as I was thinking about yet another Easter sermon, and I've been here, now I'm in my 16th year, and I was just wrestling with what new things can I say about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and I had an idea, I remember this, and then I went to the... The internet never forgets. And there it was, that idea had been unfolded before your ears seven years ago, something like that, and there's nothing I can do. And I don't think it's plagiarism for me to preach my same sermons again, but I just didn't want to do it. I know someone would say, "Hey, it was better the second time." Somebody would say something because there's just no forgetting, so I came back to that question, "What am I fighting here? Why do I have to think of something new to say about the resurrection of Christ?" And I think it had to do with this issue of weariness or boredom that we can have in the Christian life.

And I started to meditate on heaven and I thought, I don't think that in heaven, God is going to be showing us infinitely, endlessly new tricks. I think we'll be cured of the boredom, Amen. We'll be cured of the boredom. And he will just show us Christ resurrected and glorified, and that will be forever enough for us. And I don't say in any way that God wouldn't or couldn't have infinite new tricks to show us, He's an infinite being, but I just don't think we'll need them, not like we do here in this weary world that we live in. Our minds wander, our hearts grow weary, and we lose interest. But it says in Isaiah 40, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary. His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak, even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

My prayer today, and my whole purpose in preaching this sermon, is to plead with you to not grow weary in doing good. That you will continue to do the good that's essential to your salvation. You must keep doing good in order finally to be saved. You must run this race to the end. You must not grow weary in doing good, your soul depends on it. My desire is to preach in such a way that you'll be renewed and refreshed in your journey today, that you'll be strengthened so that you can continue to run the race of salvation. Look at verse 9, that's why I'm talking about this whole topic, Paul is writing here to warn the Galatians against weariness in the Christian life, verse 9 it says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." He warns them, really, to use the language of earlier in Galatians to keep on running the good race that they were running.

Look back one chapter at Galatians 5:7, there he says, "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?" The idea there is you're running in obedience to the truth. You're going to keep obeying the truth, keep running this race, through obeying the truth, who stopped you from that? Now, we know just from the context here who stopped them were the Judaizers, these false teachers that came in after Paul had planted this beautiful church or these churches, and they came in and were preaching a false gospel. A gospel of works righteousness, of legalism, a teaching that your sins are forgiven based on your obedience, your unaided obedience to the law. And that legalism is poison, it's not a true gospel. And Paul wrote Galatians to teach them again the basics of the Christian faith of justification by faith in Christ alone, apart from works of the law. We sinners are made right with God, we are forgiven simply by faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God crucified, dead, buried, raised on the third day. This Jesus is the Saviour for sinners like us, and all you to do is trust in Him, all you have to do is repent and believe in Him and all your sins are forgiven. You will be held to be righteous on Judgment Day, you will not be condemned, but you'll have eternal life.

That's the Gospel and Paul's writing them to teach them that justification is by faith alone, not by works of the law but then now in Galatian 5 and 6 he's asking, “what kind of life will you live if you've really been justified?” We're not justified by works but what kind of life will you live? And he's been talking about this battle that we have between the indwelling Holy Spirit and the indwelling sin, the flesh, and that the true Christian life, having been justified by faith, we are given the gift of the indwelling Spirit, and we then run a race of holiness. It's a race in which we're constantly battling against the works of the flesh, and we yearn to be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. That's what he's been talking about, and he's saying don't grow weary in doing that. Don't grow weary in sowing seeds to the Spirit.

Don't sow seeds to the flesh. Run this Christian race to the end for in due time, at the proper time, your labors will be done and you'll be in heaven. Run this race with endurance. That's what he's doing and that's my yearning for you is that you would walk or run by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the flesh, Galatian 5:16. Let's start at the beginning here in verse 7, as you heard Chris read, it begins with this very striking verse. It's a very striking verse, "Do not be deceived," there it says, "God cannot be mocked, a man reaps what he sows." We come face to face here in this verse with the infinite majesty, the transcendence of Almighty God. We're looking at a God who cannot be mocked. He is an infinitely majestic transcendent being. This God who cannot be mocked, it says in Isaiah 40:22, "Sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are before him like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, He spreads them out like a tent to live in." In that same chapter, in verse 15, Isaiah 40:15, he said, "Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They are regarded as dust on the scales and He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust." This God is infinitely high and lifted up. He's sitting on the throne of the universe.

Now as we look at this verse we think immediately, if you think about it, you might say, "I don't know that that's true. I don't know that that's true. Is it really true that God cannot be mocked? Is it really true that God cannot be blasphemed?" Like Isaiah, remember how Isaiah said, "Woe is me, I'm ruined for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." I think that's true of us. We are of unclean lips and we are surrounded by people who mock God. It happens all the time. People are blaspheming God every moment of the day. There's a river of blasphemy that's flowing from this earth up toward God in heaven. Satan's world system pumps out God-mocking propaganda, trying to deceive us. Again, look at verse seven, "Do not be deceived about this, don't be fooled." Satan is trying to fool you, he's trying to deceive you in this matter of, "Can God be mocked?" Satan is trying to imply that God certainly can be mocked, and he continues to use his puppets to deceive us, that God can be mocked. I could give so many examples from our popular culture, talk-show hosts like Bill Maher. I tell you, this guy, if you ever want to get provoked, just watch him on any topic related to Christianity. He's an open mocker of the faith. He calls all of us who are here today idiots, fools for believing these things. You have some kind of mental deficiency that you would waste your time being here. As a matter of fact, most of the world I think believes him. I have trouble making the left-hand turn out of my neighborhood all throughout the week except on Sunday morning. I have no trouble, there's no one on the road. In one sense, I'm happy for the easy drive, in another sense, where are all the people that are thronging to the places of business on Friday morning as early as six in the morning? You almost can't make that turn. Sunday morning, no problem at all. People like Bill Maher, they have an audience and people are listening to them and they are mocking God.

After that just really offensive movie called Noah with Russell Crowe (don't waste your time seeing it),  my son and I saw it and walked out because of how bad it was. I expected the theology to be bad but I didn't really expect that, as Bill Maher said it, that the god… I would say the god of that movie, was a psychotic despot and that Noah was a sociopath. But that's not the truth of the Bible. But Bill Maher just goes ahead and said, "But that's what it says in the Bible. He killed the whole world by a flood, He's a psychotic despot." Well, that's mockery, that's blasphemy. To me it's utter blasphemy. Hollywood regularly pumps out movies that mock God and mock Jesus Christ, TV programs, all that. And if anyone like Matthew McConaughey should stand up when he gets an award, I think Academy award, and thanks God, he's going to get pounded in social media, which he did, by these atheists who are offended just by the mention of it.

An atheist group, Freedom From Religion Foundation (not freedom of religion, freedom from religion), has a billboard campaign… Maybe you've seen some of these billboards. One of them I saw has a picture of a young man, in large Gothic letters, it says Dave 27:1, like a 27 with a colon 1, like it's a Bible verse. "Lead with your heart, not with the Bible." It's what it says on that billboard. And then there's a picture of a woman, Jen 13:1. "Praying won't help, doing will." And then this one, "No gods, no devils, no worries." This is an ad campaign, an atheistic ad campaign. Atheists are mocking God all the time. Ernest Hemingway was a world renowned author, became famous for his mockery of God and his debauched life. He openly declared that his lifestyle proved that a person could do anything they wanted without paying the consequences. He considered the doctrine of the Bible to be outdated and completely useless to the modern man. Even worse, from his perspective, it got in the way of his pleasures. He wrote a mockery of the Lord's prayer. "Our Nada, [which is Spanish for nothing], Who art in Nada." He's mocking that. But in the end, Hemingway's debauched life and his philosophies led to him putting a bullet in his brain.

This is where we start coming around to understanding the verse as God meant for it to be understood. What does it mean that, "God cannot be mocked"? Well, let's start here. God isn't affected in any way by all of that blasphemy. He's not moved by it. His self-esteem isn't diminished in any way by it. He's not touched by it in any way whatsoever. It doesn't make any impact on him at all. And as a matter of fact, if He didn't have compassion for the mockers, it wouldn't move him at all. It's only because he has compassion on them. Think of what the Lord said to Saul of Tarsus, who was breathing out blasphemies against Jesus. He said, "I was a blasphemer." Paul said he was a blasphemer before he was converted. Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads." "It's not hard for me. But it's hard for you." And he has compassion on the blasphemer. But God isn't moved at all by this. It doesn't cause him to rethink his plans. It doesn't cause Him to rethink his motivations. He's not struggling with his self-image at all. As a chorus of blasphemies is going up from earth to heaven, it doesn't challenge Him at all.

Deuteronomy 4:24, it says, "The Lord your God is a consuming fire." Says in 1 Timothy 6, "God, the Blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one ever has seen or can see. To Him be honor and might forever. Amen." I remember some time ago, I was counseling someone who is... This individual told me... She told me she was angry at God. And I'd never had this thought before. I've spoken it a few times in the pulpit, I'm going to say it again. Those verses I just quoted say God is a consuming fire, God dwells in unapproachable light. It gave me the idea of the sun, 93 million miles away, as a picture of God, and the human race filled with vitriolic hatred toward God like if we were angry at the sun. And I've often thought, "What could we do to it?" If the best scientists in the world got their heads together and wanted to do something to the sun, what could they do? I'll give you 10 seconds to think about it. Are you coming up with the same answer I am? There is nothing that we can do to the sun. We can't make it closer or further away. We can't make it hotter or cooler. We can't make it brighter or dimmer. There's nothing you or I can do to the sun.

It [the sun] is just there, and it's a picture of God. It doesn't do anything to God for us to be angry at God. But it certainly hurts us. And so we come to the second way of understanding this. God cannot allow his glory to be mocked. That's really the way we understand that. He won't ultimately sit idly by and be mocked. He will not. Judgment day is coming. Judgment day is coming and all blasphemies and all mockeries will be addressed. All of them. Says in Deuteronomy 7:9-10, "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands. But those who hate Him, He will repay to their face by destruction. He will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate Him." I think that's what the verse means, "God cannot be mocked."

God will repay the mocker. Judgment Day is coming. And just because it doesn't come instantly doesn't mean it's not going to come. God is being patient with sinners. But God will repay. Deuteronomy 32:40 and following says, "I lift my hand to heaven and declare." This is God doing this. Picture the anthropomorphic idea of God lifting his hand. He is swearing. "I swear. As surely as I live forever. When I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasp it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and I will repay those who hate me." The Bible says this again and again. This is not one or two places. This is time and time again. God warns us that God cannot be mocked. That you will reap what you sow. That we all reap what we sow.

Again in that same chapter, Deuteronomy 32. He says, "Have I not kept this in reserve and sealed it in my vault? It is mine to avenge. I will repay. In due time, their foot will slip. Their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them." Isaiah 2:12, "The Lord Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, and they will be humbled." Zephaniah 1:7, "Be silent before the sovereign Lord, for the Day of the Lord is near." And then Revelation 20:12, "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books."

Satan is very energetically active to try to deceive the human race about this. He's trying to deceive us and to tell us that this day doesn't exist, this Judgment Day. That because it hasn't come up 'til now, it's never going to come. Satan wants to hide the centerpiece of this verse, and that is that every person will reap what they have sowed. Satan wants to deceive us about this. He wants to tell us it doesn't matter how we live. Either he wants to lie to us and say God doesn't exist, or if he does exist, He doesn't care. I remember one enlightenment philosopher says of God, "It is is his trade to forgive." Very lighthearted. It is his métier, his trade, it's kind of what he does. Dealing very, very lightly with forgiveness. Satan wants to tell us that because God's judgment doesn't come immediately, it won't actually fall at all. It says in Psalm 50:21, "These things you have done, and I kept silent. You thought I was altogether like you." Just because I haven't answered yet, doesn't mean that I'm like you and I just overlook these things. I don't. Again, Isaiah 57:11, "Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear Me?"

Okay, because God's judgment doesn't come right away, we live among people who do not fear the Lord. These are soul killing lies that there is no God or that Judgment Day will not come, or that there will not be an answer for how that we have lived. "Be not deceived," it says. "God cannot be mocked. A person will reap whatever they sow." We come then to this fundamental law of sowing and reaping. Sowing and reaping. The universe is governed by physical laws. I was just in the Apologetics Bible for Life and heard some great things. And I think we talk about laws of physics that govern the universe. Isaac Newton gave us the laws of physics, and they just cover so much of the motion and just the activity of the universe. F=MA, force equals mass times acceleration. My kids get tired of hearing me quote this, and the weird applications. It must be such a burden to have me as a father. The things that I say, like this. I'm applying one of Newton's laws of motion to their messy rooms.

And I'm saying objects in motion tend to stay in motion and objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Someone messed your room. I saw it neat sometime ago and it isn't neat anymore. It didn't just happen, okay? That's an application of Newton's Laws of Motion to parenting. It can be done. Alright? But these are just laws. Chemists give us laws of Chemistry, how molecules join together and make certain compounds. We have all these physical laws. Medical science studies laws of medicine. And here we have, I think, implied laws of agriculture. What you put in the ground, the seed, the genetic code that's in that, that's what's going to spring up. From the very beginning, from Genesis chapter 1 when God made seed-bearing plants, he created this whole way, the genetic code of the plant and that's what you're going to get when you put that in the ground. It's a fundamental spiritual law then applied spiritually, you reap what you sow. You reap what you sow. The pattern of your life leads to a guaranteed spiritual outcome. That's what he's saying.

This spiritual law is taught in many places in Scripture. Job 4:8, "Those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it." Proverbs 1:31 and following, "They will eat the fruit of their ways. They will be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to wisdom will live in safety and be at ease without fear of harm." Psalm 7:15-16 says, "He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the very pit he has made. The trouble he causes recoils on himself. His violence comes down on his own head." Hosea 8:7, "Those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind." On the other hand, Hosea 10:12 says, "Sow for yourselves righteousness. Reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the Lord until He comes and showers righteousness on you."

This is a law. This is spiritual law. Especially important in raising children. I know it's Father's Day, but fathers and mothers I think understand this law of sowing and reaping. We understand how life works and we seek to train children in light of this. One English writer put it this way. "What strikes me more and more each day is the permanence of one's early life, the identity between youth and manhood. Every habit good and bad of those early years, seems to have permanently affected my whole life. The battle is largely won or lost before it seems to begin." Parents are aware of Proverbs 22:6, which says "Train up a child according to His own way and when he is old he will not depart from it." So patterns are set early, this law of sowing and reaping very, very significant.

Now, we know all of this would spell our own eternal destruction were it not for the grace of God in Christ, amen? Thank God for that. Thank God that God looks over a life of bad seeds sown and says, "This will not take place, this will not happen." Thank God for his grace. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, thank God for his grace. In Christ, we all have our wicked harvest paid for in blood, praise God for Jesus, praise God for his grace. But we still have this law and it still stands over us. And Paul is quoting this to Christians. Now in Christ, having been justified, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit and now there are two ways to live, as we've been saying. You can either sow to the flesh or you can sow to the Spirit; these are the two different ways to live, as we've been saying.

Look at verse 8, "The one who sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." This is a basic principle, two different ways to live; they lead to two different destinations. Now a big picture, the way of sowing consistently to the flesh is the way of the non-Christian, it's the way of the unregenerate person, that's the unregenerate life. The way of sowing to please the Spirit is the Christian life, that's the healthy Christian life. The destination of the first is destruction, eternal condemnation, hell ultimately. The destination of the second is eternal life, it's heaven. In a lesser sense, for us as Christians, this law comes into play by the quality of our life now as well. It's a lesser issue but it's related. What kind of life you're living now is related to this issue of sowing and reaping. The more you sow to the Spirit, the better life you will live now and the more fruit you'll have for the glory of God. The more you step out and sow to the flesh, the more trouble you're going to have in this life, and the more corruption and the more difficulty; it's a basic principle.

Now, what do we mean by flesh and Spirit? Well the flesh, as we've said, is the indwelling sin nature, it is that part of you that remains after justification, still there, sin living in you like a nasty cancerous tumor; it's inside all of us, causing us to sin.  We could say the very thing that we hate we do, but the very thing that we yearn to do we do not do. The flesh is that part of you that produces the acts of the flesh that we've seen in Galatians 5:19-21, sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. The flesh is that part of you that produces those things. That's indwelling sin. Sowing to the flesh is to yield to temptations in those areas, that's what it means, so it's a metaphor. One of those sins or others like it come at you with a temptation, Satan brings it, and you yield; you have just sowed to the flesh. Conversely, sowing to the Spirit, the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, he lives within us after we have come to faith in Christ. He is omnipotent, he is sovereign God, he lives within you, he is the gift of the new covenant, and he dwells within the heart of every true Christian, and there's a war going on.

Fighting the good fight of faith is this war that we're describing between the flesh and the Spirit. And so we have these two ways to live, like darkness and light. Jesus said, speaking of these two different ways to live in the Sermon on the Mount, "Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it." These are the two different roads that we're talking about here. Sowing to the flesh, every time you indulge the sinful nature you're sowing to the flesh. John Stott put it this way, "Every time we allow our mind to harbor a grudge, nurse a grievance, entertain an impure fancy, wallow in self-pity, we are sowing to the flesh. Every time we linger in bad company whose insidious influence we know we cannot resist, every time we lie in bed when we ought to be up praying, every time we read pornographic literature, every time we take a risk that strains our self-control, we are sowing, sowing, sowing to the flesh."

On the other hand, what does it mean to sow to the Spirit? Well, every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to worship Christ, every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to sing a Christian song, a psalm, hymn or spiritual song, you're sowing to the Spirit. Every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to intercede for a missionary, for an unreached people group, you're sowing to the Spirit. Every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to give generously to missions or to the needs of the poor, you're sowing to the Spirit. Every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to share the Gospel with a co-worker or a stranger, you're sowing to the Spirit. As you keep in step with the Spirit moment by moment, every action, every attitude of the heart that you do in submission to the leadership of the Spirit, you are sowing seeds to the Spirit; you're deepening patterns of Christ-likeness within yourself. This all comes down, dear friends, to habits; bad habits, good habits.

Sowing to the flesh, that's the bad habits of the Christian life and we must fight them. Sowing to the Spirit, those are the good habits, the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Those that are completely characterized by sowing to the flesh are unregenerate, they're lost. Now, here's the kicker. This is the hard part for many Christians to accept. And I want you to stay with me now. Your final salvation depends on continuing to sow to the Spirit. Let me say this again. Your final salvation, going to heaven, depends on continuing to sow to the Spirit. In other words, you can't build up a lead and coast in the fourth quarter. You understand what I mean? Do you know that there are sports that have a clock and there are sports that don't? And the sports that have a clock, you can build up a big lead and then do just about nothing and you'll win the game. But then the sports that don't have a clock, like golf and tennis and baseball, you have to keep playing right till the end. You do. For example, running. You can't have a big lead in an Olympic race, the 10,000 meter, and say, "That's it." And shut it down with two laps to go. You will lose. You have to keep playing you, you have to keep fighting, you have to keep running right to the end. That's what Paul's saying here. You cannot grow weary in doing good. You have to keep sowing to the Spirit. He says in Verse 9, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." John Piper put it this way, "This is...," I'm quoting Piper now:

"This is very controversial, let it sink in. What is at stake in this text is eternal life. Not merely sanctification, but also final salvation. Whether you go to heaven or whether you go to hell depends in some way on whether you grow weary in well doing or not." The text is addressed to the church. Listen carefully, note how the thought moves from verses 8-9, "He who sows to his own flesh, from the flesh will reap corruption. He who sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not, therefore, grow weary in well doing, for in due season, we will reap if we do not lose heart." You will reap eternal life, if you sow to the Spirit. That is, if you don't grow weary in well doing. Because of texts like these, I understand my role as a pastor teacher to be not merely a means to your sanctification, but also a means to your salvation. Your final salvation. This text is written to help bring the Saints of Galatia to final salvation, eternal life. Therefore, a sermon from this text to the saints at [FBC] should also aim to help bring you to final salvation or eternal life.

You have to keep running the race and it's my job as a pastor to feed you so you can stay strong for that race. You need energy for this, you need spiritual vitality for this race, for this sowing to the Spirit. Another key text on this is Romans 2:6-10, again, frequently misunderstood. Romans 2:6-10 says, "God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, He'll give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There'll be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the gentile. But glory, honor and piece for everyone who does good, first for the Jew, then for the gentile."

In other words, there are just two different ways to live and there are two different patterns of life. One of them leads to heaven, the other one to hell. And you must continue to sow to the Spirit and reap the good fruit that comes from that. That's the Christian life. Persistence in doing good. We must continue. Listen to Colossians 1:21-23, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel." Again, the same thing, 1 Corinthians 15:1-2, "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel, you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you, otherwise you have believed in vain." Jesus said, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved."

Perseverance and doing good works is not an option in the Christian life. If we are living for the flesh, we're not Christians. We cannot indulge secret sin habits and have any assurance that we're justified. Now, if you tell me that sounds legalistic, I'm not talking about legalism at all. I have not forgotten for a moment the indwelling Holy Spirit and his sovereign power in helping you to do this very thing. As a matter of fact, let me put it this way: True Christians must continue to sow to the Spirit and true Christians will continue to sow to the Spirit. Praise God. To God be the glory, but you need to know that you need to keep sowing to the Spirit and then you need to sow to the Spirit. And when you are sowing to the Spirit, give all credit and the glory to the Holy Spirit. When you see the fruit of the Spirit in your life, say, "The Spirit did this in me. Praise God." God will get all the glory for this journey, you'll get all the joy and you'll get that harvest.

Finally, he talks about doing good to all people, especially to believers. Look at Verse 10, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers." This is a wonderful application. It's a life rich with good works. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself, sow to the Spirit and do these good works. It's a call to benevolence ministry, it says as we have opportunity, that means as you're alive. While you're drawing breath in this earth, while you have time under the sun, that's what opportunity is, that's what time is, time equals opportunity. As you have opportunity, do good. Do those good works that God has prepared in advance for you to walk in. Give to the poor and needy. Be generous to those who need what you have.

But there's a priority in this verse given to the Christians, do you see that? Let's do good to all people. That's everybody, anybody. Anybody all the time who has a need, right? You think about The Parable of The Good Samaritan? Right? And you're walking along the road and you see someone lying in a ditch bleeding. You don't stop and do a spiritual survey at that moment, okay? "Are you a Christian?" Okay. It's got nothing to do with that. The person has a need, they might die if you don't help them, you venture in and you help. But you're doing it, hoping that you might have a long term relationship with that person and lead them to Christ if they're not a Christian.

There's a general priority here given to the Christian church. It is especially vital for us to look after our own. It's really important for there to be no poor, needy people among us. As it says in Acts chapter 4, "There were no needy persons among them." the early Christian church, "For from time to time, those who owned houses or land sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the Apostles' feet and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." As we have opportunity, let's do good to all people. That's urban ministry, that's reaching out, poor and needy, that's ministry of the hungry, starving. Ministry to people, whether they're Christians or not. But let's be certain that we give top priority to the family of believers, the family of God.

What application can we take from all of this? Well, first, just if you're an unbeliever here today, I just want to warn you in the spirit of this passage, God cannot be mocked. You will reap what you have sown. And if you don't have Christ as a Savior, you will reap destruction. I'm pleading with you to flee to Christ. You've heard the gospel that God sent his Son, who died on the cross in the place of sinners. Trust in Him. Trust in Him for the salvation of your soul. I was reading about a free soloist rock climber, I don't know why I read about these guys, but they just interest me, I would never do it. But this guy who set records on a half dome and all that sort of stuff and went up one of the hardest rock climbs and all that. This guy calls himself a militant atheist. And I'm thinking, "How can you be hanging from two fingers, 3,000 feet above the valley floor and be a militant atheist? Do you understand how close you are to hell right now?" It was a terrifying thing to ponder that, hanging by two or three fingers over hell. Now, you may not be a free soloist rock climber, but if you're an unbeliever, picture yourself that way. Spiritually, picture yourself that way, hanging by two or three fingers over hell. God cannot be mocked by blasphemers, by adulterers, by fornicators, by liars, he cannot be mocked. And if you don't repent, you will perish. All of us are in that same situation, but thanks be to God for Jesus. Amen. God sent his son to save sinners like you and me, and he came to rescue you from hell. Flee to Christ.

Secondly, believers just... If I could urge you, be warned by this yourselves as well. Be warned by the tendency that you have to sow to the flesh. The flesh is strong, fight it. Fight it. Do not grow weary in doing that good. Sow to the Spirit. If you're weak right now in your devotional life, repent. Don't grow weary in the Christian life of doing good. Get back into daily Bible reading, get back into daily prayer, get back into confession of sin. If you're weak in your commitment to the local church, you happen to be here this one Sunday, I'm praising God you're here. Repent and be here week after week, you need like I do to be here every week for the feeding of your soul. And if you're feeling as a Christian today, weary in your Christian life, for whatever reason, you may be going through trials, we all get weary, there's so many restoration verses in the Bible, aren't there? Psalm 23, "He restores my soul." I quoted Isaiah 40, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." Even young men stumble. We all get weary. Or Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened," says Jesus "And I'll give you rest." If you're feeling weary and weak or bored in your Christian life, flee to Christ and let Him renew you and strengthen you. And then, parents, if I can urge you, fathers, praise God for you, but mothers too. Teach your kids the law of sowing and reaping. Teach them that they'll reap what they sow. Okay?

Parents do what I call representational disciplines. Okay. That's a euphemism for spankings. And corporal punishments and other disciplines, getting grounded, getting fined, all of those things are representation. The real punishment for sin in this world is in this text, the law of sowing and reaping. It cannot be abrogated. You're going to reap what you sow. If you're sinning in certain areas, God may will that you will have the earthly consequences of those sins, you may go to prison, you may have a pregnancy you didn't expect, you may have your life changed in significant ways by decisions you've made, you may have an addiction, you may have an addiction to internet pornography or to alcohol or drugs and you never expected it, but you forgot the law of sowing and reaping.

I'm just urging parents to teach kids this, that's the real discipline there is in this life, and teach yourself this as well. And then finally, if I can just urge the church, let's be generous in benevolent ministry. Amen? Let's be generous in giving financially. We've got the Deacon Benevolence Ministry. Every Lord's Supper, we collect money and we give it out to people who have needs in the church and in the community. Be generous and give to the poor and needy. And be generous also with our Great Commission Fund. Let's be generous throughout the year. Not just at Christmas time for missions, but throughout the year. There are people who need to hear the gospel, so be generous and give. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank You for the time we've had to look at these incredible verses. I thank You for the power that the Word of God has to renew the weary. Strengthen us, oh Lord. Help us not grow weary in doing good. We know it, in due time we'll reap the harvest if we do not give up. In Jesus' name, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 6:1-6, and the responsibility of family members to watch over one another.

It's amazing to me that less than three centuries after an obscure Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth, was tried and convicted, and sentenced to death in Judea, which was a remote outpost of the Roman Empire… Just less than three centuries after that, the Roman Emperor himself declared himself to be a Christian. He said that he believed that, that Jewish man was actually the Son of God. I’m talking, of course, about the Emperor Constantine. Now, three centuries may seem like a long time, but things moved very slowly back then. The Roman Empire was in charge of the world, of that part of the world for almost 1,000 years, so things moved very, very slowly, not lightning quickly like they do in our age. And so that's a very short amount of time.

How did it happen? How did the Kingdom of Jesus Christ advance and conquer? Spiritually conquer now, not with the sword like Islam did, sweeping across North Africa with the sword. No, but rather with the truth of the Gospel. How did Christ win? How did the Gospel advance so rapidly in such a short amount of time? Well, there's a lot of answers to that question, it's complex. But there are two factors, in particular, that come to my mind, both of them having to do with the nature of the church in the world. The first was the incredible, the supernatural courage that Christians had in facing death. They weren't afraid at all of death. They were willing to die for their faith. They died cheerfully and courageously with great boldness, and nothing could stop them. And so "the blood of martyrs was seed for the church," Tertullian told us.

But a second great apologetic and proof of the truth of Christianity was love, the way that the Christian community loved one another. Now, about 125 years after Christ, the Emperor Hadrian was trying to figure out this growing, spreading phenomenon of Christianity. And he sent a spy, Aristides, to find out who these Christians were, and what they were doing. And this one came back with an interesting, and mixed report. But one of the things he said is, "Behold how they love one another." Maybe 50 to 75 years later, the same Tertullian picked up on that and said, "This is the very thing the pagans are saying about us, ' Behold how they love one another.' "

This love that Christians have, this supernatural self-sacrificial love, was the very way that Christ said that the watching world would be able to identify us as His disciples. As it says in John 13:35, "By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." We are and we must be a community of love, of brotherly love. And we must put that love on display. And the verses that we've heard this morning give us some tremendous insights on some ways we can do that. It's not comprehensive, but there's a lot in these verses that teach us how the Christian church is to love one another.

Now, we have in our church covenant, you hear it every time we have New Members Sunday, a statement that I've pondered much this past week. And that is the statement, "We will watch over one another in brotherly love." We promised to do that for each other. We promised. We covenant together to watch over one another in brotherly love. Now, if you were to come to me and say, "Okay, in our church covenant, do you think that these things are coming from Scripture?" I would say, "Every one of them." Every statement in our church covenant, I think has a scriptural basis, alright? On that particular one, "We will watch over one another in brotherly love," what Scripture would you say supports that? I would say there's many. But of all the verses I could pick, I would bring you immediately to Galatians 6:1. I think that Galatians 6:1 is the best scriptural support for the promise that we have made to one another, that we will watch over one another in brotherly love.

We are a Christian family, and one thing that the Christian family does is, we restore those that are caught in sin. Look at verse 1, it says, "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself or you also may be tempted." So here we come to what I would call an expected emergency in the life of the church, an expected emergency. Someone in the church is caught in a sin. It's expected because we, all of us, struggle with the flesh, as we've just been talking about in Galatians 5. We are deeply divided and we struggle. And from time to time, there's going to be some outbreaks, and we are going to be, from time to time, caught in a sin.

The idea here from the original language, is something of being captured or seized like a prisoner of war, surprised like a traveler who is caught by some highway bandits. But it's not entirely that way, because it's a sin, so the individual is complicit in it. The individual has yielded in some ways, defiled by this. But there's a sense of what the Puritans call the 'surprisal.' It comes on you, and you're captured, or caught in a sin. Well, it's time... It's an emergency, because it's time for the church to be mobilized. The world doesn't care about this at all unless it's a crime, then they'll mobilize the police or the FBI. But if it's not a crime, doesn't care, actually might even celebrate it. But the church cares very much. And so we are mobilized when one of the brothers or sisters is caught in a sin, it's a sin issue.

Perhaps the adulterous relationship has been exposed. Perhaps the internet pornography use has been revealed. Perhaps the gossip has gone just a bit too far at last, and someone's been really hurt by it. Perhaps the bitterly critical wife has disrespected her husband or the harsh husband has been exposed in public. Perhaps the one cheating on his taxes has been caught by an IRS audit. Maybe the college student's been caught cheating or plagiarizing in some way. Someone's been caught in a sin, and it's time for the church to do what it alone can do, to reach out in love, and restore the sinner.

Now, it might be something that's just a matter of spiritual drift, as it says in Hebrews, "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away." That can be the same kind of sense here. Someone is drifting away from Christ and they're caught in like an undertow, they're drawn away because of this pattern of sin. And the centerpiece of this passage is the restoration of the sinner to spiritual health by humble, gentle, persistent, loving brothers and sisters in Christ. It's part of a healthy church family that's depicted here so powerfully.

Now, let's understand, again, our context, the Galatian legalism Paul is seeking to overwhelm by grace, the grace of the Gospel, to drive away the legalistic view of the Gospel that these Judaizers, these false teachers had been teaching, that salvation, justification is a combination of faith in Christ plus the law of Moses, obedience to the law. And Paul is writing to say this false gospel is no Gospel at all, it's not true, and so he's written this whole Book of Galatians. Now, wherever there's legalism, there's always, at the root of it, spiritual pride. It flows from and increases spiritual pride. It results in an attitude of, "Here's the standard, now it's up to you to meet it. We all do, what's wrong with you?" So there's that attitude, that legalistic attitude of pride. If you're meeting the standard, you're superior, morally superior to those that don't meet it.

Just like Jesus said to the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, Verse Four, "Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but you yourselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." So here's this terrible burden being put on people, the legalistic burden, and they're just saying, "Hey, here's the standard, you have to live up to it." Now, Paul hinted at the divisiveness and internal warfare that such a legalistic preaching of the Gospel produces. If you look back at Galatians 5:15, there Paul says, "If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you'll be destroyed by each other."  That's a legalistic, harsh, accusing community, very unpleasant to be around. The remedy to this kind of legalism, of course, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, including the grace for forgiveness, the grace of justification, along with the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit to combat sin.

The Spirit-filled life in the church is an infinitely superior way to live in community with each other. We have the beautiful description of the Fruit of the Spirit that we've had described, which I just think is the most beautiful way to live. I just commend it to you, even though I'm not preaching on it. If I'm not careful, I'll slip right back and preach the Fruit of the Spirit again. You should meditate on that list, memorize it, just flash at every moment, "Am I characterized, right now, by the Fruit of the Spirit? Is this me right now? And if not, I must repent." And so this is just a tremendous community of love that we should be displaying by the Power of the Spirit. Then in Verse 25-26, at the end of Galatians 6, he says, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." So there's that pride, that spiritual arrogance. It results in a self-destructive church, people who are conceited, who provoke each other by spiritual competitiveness, and judgmentalism, and that legalism, or who envy one another, rather than working together to conquer our mutual adversary, which is sin.

So we're at war, all of us, and we talked about that in Galatians 5. We're at war, but our struggle 's not against flesh and blood, but our struggle is against the world, the flesh, and the devil, that indwelling sin, and the devil, and the world. We are at war. And we are called on to be together in that. We're called on to use that famous phrase from Shakespeare "to be a band of brothers." You remember in Henry V, where Shakespeare put these words into King Henry's mouth, as he's gathering the men together for a critical battle? And he talks about that band of brothers, he says, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile." Stephen Ambrose, the historian, talked about how being in battle together forms a cohesiveness, almost a family sense within a unit, and they become a band of brothers together. And so must it be in the Christian church.

We're at war, but not with each other. We're at war with sin. And we need to fight, we need to fight our common enemies. The devil, for example, immeasurably powerful, implacably hostile, indescribably evil. He's a vicious tyrant. He's seeking our very lives. Probably the most powerful being that God ever created, incredibly subtle and devious, masquerading as an angel of light, lying, twisting the truth, dangling temptations, and then turning, and accusing us of sinning, in the very ways he just tempted us to do, therefore, the ultimate spiritual hypocrite there is in the universe, that's the devil. How powerful is Satan and how terrifying would it be for each one of us to face him alone? Jesus prayed with deep earnestness that we'd be protected from the devil. In John 17:15, He says, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one." So Jesus prayed for our protection from Satan. He's so vicious. He is called by Peter, "A roaring lion, prowling around, seeking someone to devour." You have a personal enemy, the devil, and he's coming after you at every moment. Also, secondly, you have the world, which is his clever creation, his alluring masterpiece. The kingdoms of this world with all of their enticing splendor, offering pleasures, and powers, and possessions, experiences, sights, sounds, smells, flavors, touches, alluring, enticing people to sin, then to sin, and sin some more. The world is like the sirens of Odysseus who sang this alluring song, and tried to get mariners to get too close to those rocks, and dash their ships along those rocks. That's what the world is like, singing to us, and enticing us to get closer and closer to deadly danger, that we would sin in this way, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.

In our time, it's the pleasures of sexual sin, the enticing call of internet pornography, the pleasures of the stomach, the constant call to live for food, the pleasures of the eye, of entertainment, movies, theme parks, vacations, resorts, luxuries, the best clothes, automobiles, hotels, houses, real estate, leather, gold, silver, silk, black glass, crystal, the things of this world. It's the allure of a lucrative career, a high paycheck, commanding power, and privilege, and responsibilities, a lucrative career that can give you the world on a platter, which is just more of the same. And then there's enemy number three, the flesh, that indwelling sin that we've talked about in Galatians 5, the internal lusts that Satan and the world seek to appeal to. Remember, I've given you that image of your soul like a walled fortress, and the world, and the devil on the outside hammering, and the flesh on the inside waking up in the middle of the night, and sneaking to open the drawbridge, and let the enemies come flooding in. And so, in some ways, the flesh, the deadliest enemy of them all.

We're all fighting the same three, everyday, all the time. And we're in it together. We are a band of brothers and sisters in Christ, and we are fighting all the time. Now, of course, we're not fighting alone. We have already talked, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. He is omnipotent God. He's inside us. He will not give us over to our sins. He will fight powerfully. But we have a responsibility, we talked about that, we have a responsibility to be at war. It says in Romans 8:13-14, "If you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." So if you're led by the Spirit, you're led into battle against the flesh. You're one of the children of God; you're not the only one. You're in a family, and so your other brothers and sisters are being led by the same Spirit into the same battle. We're in it together. We have a fight that we have to fight. Now, if we fight alone, we will certainly lose. But God has adopted each spiritual orphan into a worldwide family of God. Amen. Isn't that beautiful?

And even better, He's situated us in local churches, where we can practically know, and be known, where people know your name, they know your tendencies, they know your strengths, and weaknesses. They can pray for you by name and that's the wisdom of God. Now, look at the command here in verse 1. We are commanded, it says, "To restore the sinning brother." The emergency is inevitable, sadly. The power of the flesh is so strong, and Satan, and the world so alluring, so relentless, that eventually, some of our number will be caught in sin. Paul gives a plain command here to the Body of Christ, that a loving Christian family must restore the sinning brother or sister.

Now, the word 'restore' is like an image of the resetting of a bone back in its place, a bone or a joint that's popped out of place. Imagine, but not too much, a dislocated shoulder. You probably watched a football game where some guy had his shoulder dislocated and they popped it back in. Now, I don't know what's involved in that, but I imagine immense pain. Now, sometimes, brothers or sisters in Christ are like that, a bone that needs to be popped back in. And that process is certainly going to be painful. It's going to be painful, but without that, the body cannot be healthy. And so there needs to be that painful process of restoration of this sinning brother or sister.

Now, who should do it? According to the verse, it says, "You who are spiritual." It says, "You who are spiritual." I think, following immediately from Galatians 5, we would have to say, "You who are being controlled actively by the Holy Spirit." So these are individuals, they are Christians, they're justified by faith in Christ, but more than that, they are, at this moment, characterized by the Fruit of the Spirit. They are controlled by the Spirit. They are motivated and they're moved out by the Spirit into this ministry. And how beautiful are those attributes for this ministry? The ministry is to go to a sinning brother or sister. Imagine if those individuals that went, those who are spiritual, are characterized by the Fruit of the Spirit, characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. In that Spirit, they who are spiritual are going to do the restoration. That's what Paul is commanding here. How sweet and powerful would such a person be?

Those who are spiritual understand the sinning brother or sister with a proper perspective. They see the situation properly. They see the person from God's perspective and from the perspective of eternity. The sin is great, they don't underestimate the sin. They understand it's serious. It's a poison, it will spread if it's not dealt with, it needs to be dealt with. But they understand, however great the sin, God's grace is infinitely greater, Amen. The blood of Christ infinitely sufficient to cover that sin. And so, in that spirit of confidence, and hope, they go to restore the sinner.

Those who are spiritual see the invisible enemies, and their power, the world, the flesh, and the devil. They understand how powerful they are. Those who are spiritual have maturity, and wisdom, to speak wisdom into the life of this wandering, or this sinning brother, or sister. Elders are particularly called on to this ministry. Though it doesn't specifically mention elders here, we would have to hope that the elders of that local church, of any local church are spiritual, controlled by the Spirit, mature in the Spirit, and are actively doing this ministry. But it's not only elders. All of us are called on to do this kind of ministry, and sometimes, it may be better for you, than for an elder to do it, because you know the person, in this situation better than anyone.

So think of our church covenant. "We will watch over one another in brotherly love." This is what we're going to do for each other. This is the direct scriptural support for that command. We are not going to let a brother or sister just drift away. We're not going to let them just go away into the world. We're going to go out, and get them, and bring them back. And we're going to fight the true enemies to do that. Now, further commands, if you look at verse 1, it says, "Restore him gently, but watch yourself or you also may be tempted." So we've got two additional descriptors here. This whole ministry must be done with gentleness, and I think, with humility. That's what I'm putting on this, gentleness and humility.

A spirit of gentleness, this again, a strong focus on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. One of the Fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. You're going with gentleness, a prayer to the Lord that the Spirit may make you gentle as you do this ministry. Think about Jesus in Matthew 11, how He said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." The gentleness of Jesus, it says of Him, "A bruised reed, He will not break, and a smoldering wick, He will not snuff out." He's able to deal with sinners gently and nurse them back to health. And so that spirit of gentleness, there is that kindness coming back there.

We know the restoring of a bone back in place is going to be painful enough. There's no way to confront a sinning brother or sister without causing some pain, but the spiritual physicians must be careful not to cause any additional pain that doesn't need to happen, no reason for that. So there's going to be some pain. I think of how Jesus likened it to dealing with something in someone's eye. You remember in the Sermon on the Mount? He said, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First, take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Now, if you look at that, does Jesus want us to get specks out of other people's eyes? Clearly, he does. But you have to do something first to yourself. And I believe the plank has got to be, since the little piece is some sin, you should be able to see your own sin far more clearly than you see someone else's sin, so that should produce humility in you. You should be able to say, "There's no difference between us, except that I'm not caught in this sin right now and you are. It could be six months later, you're coming to help me. There's no difference." So there's a deep humility and that produces, I think, gentleness. That produces the gentleness. It's really important to be gentle with someone's eye, okay?

There's a brother in Christ here in this church, Allen Carlson, who is gentle with my eyes, and I'm so grateful for that brother. He removed cataracts from each of my eyes and probably saved my life. There was one bike ride I made once, in which I risked my life to cross the road. I wasn’t quite sure what was coming my way, because of the cataract. It was soon after that, that I said, "I need that surgery." It was close, but not that close. So at any rate, there it was. And now, I have a brother that's touching my eyes, and he knows how to do it. And in his hands is gentle healing, and I'm grateful for it. I praise God for that.

And so we need to be with each other. We've got to go in the spirit of gentleness, but we also have to go in the spirit of humility. We have to "watch ourselves," it says, "Lest we also be tempted." Now, the simplest way to understand that, is you might be tempted with the exact same sin. Whatever they're in, you might do it too. So be careful you don't just get drawn away by them. A little leaven leavens the whole lump, and you've got to be careful that you don't catch their spiritual disease. So be humble enough to guard yourself and say, "I'm going to go, but I don't want to get drawn into that pattern of life." But it could refer to other temptations, not just that, but you could be tempted toward pride, frankly, "I would never do that." Or you could be tempted toward anger toward the person, "I can't believe all the trouble you're causing the church." So these kinds of things are sins, and just watch yourself, that you don't go into that sinful pattern. That's what Paul's saying.

So just let me stop and say, FBC, are you willing to do this for each other? Are you willing to fulfill the church covenant and do this for each other? All of it, not just the part. Don't just go speak the truth, but speak the truth in love. Are you willing to go in the spirit of gentleness and humility? Are you willing to have it done for you? If so, then we can be at church together, Amen? If not, we're not. This is what it means to be part of the family of God. I want to talk more at the end about some more applications.

Secondly, the Christian family humbly shares burdens. Look at verse 2, it says, "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way, you'll fulfill the Law of Christ." Now, obviously, the direct context here of burden carrying is the previous verse. It does, in many ways, feel like a burden to restore the sinning brother or sister in Christ. When you realize the issue, you realize the spiritual danger of the wandering brother or sister, you're immediately struck with a feeling of heaviness, a burden to this. It's a heavy thing. And it even feels heavier when you feel you're the one that's going to go talk to this person. You're the one chosen by God to go do that ministry. "Why me, oh, Lord, why me?" But you were the one, you know it's you, you know the person better, you're ready, and so you get yourself ready, you get yourself prayed up, you've got maybe a couple that are going with you, or whoever. But you've got a sense of feeling of burden, and you're doing this for that person, that brother, or that sister. And so you're carrying their burden by caring about their sin, that's the immediate context.

It's easier, of course, for us to just walk by on the other side of the road, isn't it? Remember the parable of the man that's waylaid on the road to Jericho, and he's laying bleeding by the side of the road, the Good Samaritan parable, and the priest, and the Levite walk by on the other side of the road? It's so easy to do that, turn a blind eye to it, just say, "I don't want to get involved." But he says here in verse 2, "Let's not do that. Let's carry each other's burdens." He says, "Carry each other, and so, fulfill the Law of Christ." Now, what does that mean, "To fulfill the law of Christ"? It's really kind of amazing in the Epistle to the Galatians. He's been talking now for chapters about the law, and he's been telling us that we are not justified by the law, that we're freed from the law, in that sense, etcetera. Now, he's telling us that we need to fulfill the Law of Christ.

First of all, what is that? What is the Law of Christ? Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 9, he says, "To those who are under the law, I act as one under the law, though I myself am not under the law, but I am under the law of Christ." So there is some kind of law here, the Law of Christ, so what does it mean? I would have to say the Law of Christ is all of the Word of God, that still pertains to the Christian life. Anything there is, whatsoever, in the Old Testament, or New Testament, that is still binding on the Christian conscience, is the Law of Christ, anything. So we are still to be obedient to Christ.

"The Law of Christ is all of the Word of God, that still pertains to the Christian life. Anything there is, whatsoever, in the Old Testament, or New Testament, that is still binding on the Christian conscience, is the Law of Christ."

Now, fulfilling the Law of Christ will never justify our souls any more than fulfilling the law of Moses would. No law will ever justify us. But basically, this is the command of Christ the King in your life. But I think, even more specifically, we could zero in on the Law of Love, couldn't we? That in some way, we could say the Law of Christ is the Law of Love. And we've already quoted it, but look at John 13, you could say verses 34-35, "A new command I give you, that you love one another. A new command I give you, that you love one another, as I have loved you. So you must love one another, by this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." So I think it's okay to say that that probably is the Law of Christ too, just that Law of Love, "We're going to love each other. We're going to fulfill the Law of Christ."

And within the context there, in John 13, remember, Jesus had just gotten done doing the foot-washing, remember that? And their feet were dirty, and all that, and so Jesus washed their feet, and dried them with the towel that was around His waist. And He took his place back afterwards. Remember how Peter didn't want Him to wash his feet? And Jesus said, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." So clearly, there was a spiritual symbolism there. It wasn't just a physical removal of dirt from the body. And he said, "Well, then wash everything." And He said, "A person who's had a bath needs only to wash his feet, his whole body is clean. And you are clean, because of the Word I have spoken to you." So the cleaning has to do with Word and sin. Then having taken His place back, He sits down and instructs them about the foot-washing. And He said, "Do you understand what I've done for you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet." So we're serving each other, specifically, not just in the servant ways, I'll talk about that in a minute, but in the issue of sin, and confession, and restoration. So let's wash each other's feet. In this way, we'll fulfill the Law of Christ.

But there are many ways that churches are called on to carry each other's burdens, not just this. I think I've been preaching right within the context, but let's just be honest, there are a lot of ways we should be carrying each other's burdens, right? Not just in the issue of restoring sinners. So there could be any trial, anything that feels like a burden to your brother or sister, anything at all, we are supposed to come alongside in some way and help. I think that we can broaden it to that, not just restoring the sinner, but anything. So is there a burden dear brother, is there a burden dear sister, that you're feeling in your life, can I help carry it for you in some way? It could be a health trial. You heard all the things I prayed before I began preaching today.

Any of those things that I prayed about, that feel like a burden, we can come alongside someone. It could be a health issue, it could be a recent diagnosis, could be a more chronic issue, it feels like a burden to them. Could be even the joy of a baby being brought into a family, but there's some challenges with just getting settled in the new life together and there's a burden. There's ways that the church can come alongside, and share that burden, and that joy. There's a financial trial, that might be somebody's unemployed or underemployed. Or there may be a big bill that's come in their life, because of some tragedy, or disaster, and the church can come around that family, and help them financially. It could be a family trial. It could be a problem in the marriage. It could be a problem in parenting or some other family issue. It could be a relational trial, the person's having trouble at work with the boss, or with the neighbor, or maybe even another church member, various trials.

But we're not alone. Isn’t that beautiful? We don't have to carry these burdens alone. We ought not to carry them alone. We're part of a family, we're part of a church. And so we can carry each others burdens, and in this way, we will fulfill the Law of Christ. One of the number one ways that churches can help each other is financially. We have something called the Deacon Benevolence Fund that we collect for after every Lord's Supper observance. And that money goes to help needs in the church, you probably don't even know most of the time, nor should you know. But there are just financial burdens that come on church members. And the money you give at that time fulfills the Law of Christ, it fulfills that pattern of early church life. Remember in Acts Two, when no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had and there were no needy persons among them? For, from time to time, those who owned lands, or houses, sold them, and brought the money, and put it at the apostle's feet, and it was distributed to anyone as they had need.

So there's financial ways we share each other's burdens, so be generous. If God's blessed you financially, you can help others that maybe are struggling some. Perhaps the situation calls for some labor. Maybe there's an elderly couple that really can't handle some things around the house as much. Maybe there's an illness or something that's come in that elderly couple, and you can go, and some of the strong young men and women in the church can show up, and do some things that they really are not able to do for themselves right at that time.

Again, with the couples that bring infants home, we have the Meal Baby Sign-up, that also applies to people that are going through illnesses. And I can't even imagine all the meals that have been cooked by, I would guess mostly the women of the church. I'm hoping, in most cases, it's the women. The meals have always been fantastic. But just the gifting of the, "I can cook. That's something I can do to lift the burden." The skillful... Now, I'm not trying to denigrate you men. I don't want you men to be offended. I know some of you are really good cooks. I'm sorry, please forgive me. But at any rate, just the way we can come alongside, and help each other, and lift each other's burdens.

I think one of the greatest ways we can fulfill this is by prayer, Amen? We are supposed to cast our burdens on the Lord, because he cares for us, as it says in 1 Peter 5. But we can also share each other's burdens in prayer, consistent knowledgeable prayer. That's one of the advantages of covenant membership, know and be known, people know what you're going through. They know you. They know what you're going through, and they care, and they will pray for you. They will even, in some cases, fast and pray for you, because they care that much about what's going on in your life. This destroys the selfishness of sin. We actually care about each other's burdens as though we're going through them ourselves.

May I commend to you, again, a pattern, a daily pattern of kneeling down with the church's phone list and praying through a page a day. And if you don't know very many people on that list, then just get to know more people, Amen? Or you can just go up and say, "Tell me your name," etcetera, "How can I pray for you this week? I want to share a burden or anything that you may have. Is there anything pressing on you? I want to pray for you." I think about Romans 15:30, which is a great verse for this. In Romans 15:30, Paul says, "I urge you brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me." Literally, to agonize, to wrestle together, to struggle with me as I'm struggling, as you pray for me. In other words, Paul's saying, "I'm going through a struggle." His struggle was being a trailblazing, church planting apostle to the Gentiles. That was a struggle, it brought him in persecution. He said, "Would you please join me in that struggle by praying to God for me?"

Especially, we can bear each other's burdens in the internal journey, right? We can pray for each other to make spiritual progress in the internal journey and sanctification. So think about Colossians 4:12, there it says, "Epaphras, who's one of you, servant of Christ Jesus, greets you. He's always wrestling or struggling on your behalf in his prayers," listen, "That you may stand mature and fully assured in the will of God." That's a prayer for the internal journey. He's praying for you, Colossians, that you may be mature and you may be doing the will of God. So we can do that for each other. Just take a name and say, "I don't know even this person that well, but I pray that they may be mature in Jesus, and grow in their prayer life, grow in their Bible knowledge, that they would grow in their battle against personal sin."

Now, to be unwilling to do all this, I think shows appalling arrogance and pride. Look at verse 3, "If anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself."  That's an interesting verse here, but I think just clicking it into context, it's like, "I don't want to be involved in all this. I don't need it and I disdain people who do need it." Now, no one would come right out and say that, but that's about what's happening here. So I think this verse kind of applies to both sides of the equations. "I don't need help." Alright, look at verse 3, "If anyone thinks he's something when he is nothing, he deceives himself." You do need help. You need a church. You need a local church who cares about you and shares your burdens. "Well, I don't want to get involved. I don't need the help." They need your help. Both sides of the equation are true and you need to help. So it's all part of it. He says, "Don't be arrogant."

So this is a warning to those who think that other Christians are a burden, "Other Christians are slowing me down in my Christian life." I've actually met some people with a very vigorous parachurch ministry that said this kind of thing. I just don't... "We don't do much in the local church, our ministry is “X”, and honestly, these kind of folks would slow me down." It's like, well, I don't know, how would you even begin that conversation at that point? It's like, "They're slowing you down? Okay, well, maybe you can speed us up." That would be the most humble way to say it, "Would you please help to speed us up?" But there's just so many ways we could say that. I think verse 3 just says. "You're acting arrogantly. You're deceiving yourself. You think you're something, when you're nothing." Now, Paul's not meaning to say human beings are nothing. He knows that we're all created in the image of God. But I might take John 15:5 and bring it in here. Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches, if a man remains in me and I in him, he'll bear much fruit, for," what does He say? "Apart from me, you can do nothing." Well, it's not a stretch to say, "Apart from Him, we are nothing." Right? Apart from Jesus, you're nothing. But if you're in Jesus, you're in the body of Christ, and you're part of a family, and you need them, and they need you. So If you think you don't need this, you're deceiving yourself, when you are nothing apart from Jesus. I think that's the way I understand this statement.

"If you're in Jesus, you're in the body of Christ, and you're part of a family, and you need them, and they need you. So If you think you don't need this, you're deceiving yourself, when you are nothing apart from Jesus."

Now, on the other side, the Christian family will carry or bear its own load. Look at verse 4-5, "But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone, and not in his neighbor. For each of us will have to bear his own load." So Paul continues with this theme of how each of us sees himself, like in verse 3. As we honestly look at our lives as Christians, we will see much that brings us joy and much that brings us grief. It's a mixed bag. So when you look at yourself, it's not all good, it's not all bad. You see that the Lord is using you and bearing some fruit in your life, but you also see the sin in your life.

Now, we know that our good works are all done by the Power of the Spirit for the glory of Christ. We can take a share in the joy that we've been included in ministry. And we should rejoice in that, not so much we're boasting in ourselves, but, "Thank you, God, that I actually have a ministry. Thank you, God, I can use my spiritual gifts to help brothers and sisters, and restore them, and pour into them, and carry their loads. Thank you, God, that I can do this ministry." And that's a good thing. That's an incredibly good work. So if you've been instrumental in bringing or restoring a sinning brother or sister in Christ, what a good work that is. It says in James 5:19- 20, "My brothers, if some of you should wander away from the truth, and someone should bring him back, then remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save him from death, and cover over a multitude of sins." So if you actually help someone do that, you can go home, and go to bed that night, and feel happy, not boastful, but just happy that the Lord used you.

And on judgment day, it says in Hebrews 6 that the Lord will not forget, will never forget the way you've loved him, and helped His people, and continue to help them. And so that's a beautiful thing. So basically, then I think we have to see this from a judgment day perspective. On that day, we will all stand alone. On that day, no brother or sister will be with you, you'll be alone. It'll be you and Jesus. And you're going to bear your own load that day alone, see what I'm saying? It's going to be you, and Christ, and you'll give Him an account for your life, for all of it. As we've said in 2 Corinthians 5:10, "We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad." You'll stand alone. You'll bear your own load at that point and you'll talk to Him alone. I think that's in context. But in a lesser sense, I think this also talks about how we behave in the Body of Christ. And that makes it actually pretty interesting, there's a bit of a paradox here. In verse 2 we're told, "Carry each other's burdens." Right? Do you see it? Verse 5, it says, "Each of you will have to…" what? "Bear his own load." So what's that about? I know what it is, it's a contradiction in the Scripture. No, it's not.

Basically, this is two sides of an equation, of the burden of life, the burdens of life. Life is burdensome, there are weights that we carry. And I think one way to interpret verse 5, is that there's some things you're just meant to carry yourself, and not burden other people with them. There are just some things that are your responsibility. So I want to give you an image here, let's say we're on a long hike through a mountain range, like the Appalachian Trail. You're going on a 10-day hike. I'm sure none of you ever been on a 10-day hike. I've never been on a 10-day hike, but it's a long hike. And you're carrying on your back everything you need for those 10 days, your food, water for that day, getting fresh water, but you're carrying your own water. And you got your sleeping bag, maybe a tent, some other things, you've got all that. That's your pack. It weighs 60 pounds or 50 pounds, something, it's a heavy pack. But everybody's got their own pack and you're walking along that road. It would be wrong for you to wimp out after about six hours and say, "My pack's really heavy, would you carry it for me?" "No, I won't carry your pack for you. Carry your own pack, dear brother."  "Okay, I've got my own pack. Okay, I've got my own pack." And so it's wrong to slough off on the body of christ something that you've got the strength through the Lord to carry yourself. Now, suppose on the second or third day, one of the hikers gets a severely sprained ankle and can barely walk at that point. Well, that's a game changer. And at that point, some packs are going to get rearranged. The packs of, let's say, the two fellow hikers that are going to be just about carrying that injured person, and that person's pack all gets kind of divided among the group, and everybody's carrying a little more, because the situation calls for it, so that's verse 2. We are carrying loads that we are meant to carry for each other. But verse 5 is, before the sprained ankle, everybody is carrying their own load. So what is this referring to? Well, let's just talk about finances, for example.

Paul says in 1 Timothy 5, talking about the care for widows in the church, and he says, "If any woman who is a believer has widows in her family, she should help them," listen, "And not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those who are really widows in need." So that's a very insightful verse. There's some things that ought not to be brought to the church to care for. So there, it's talking about widow care, but just in general, First Timothy 5:8 says, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." So again, I think it's the idea of food, clothing, shelter, insurance, different other things that come along. Your intellect, your body, your strength, your ability is what God's given you to care for those things. Don't come to the church and say, "Please donate to these things for me." You see what I'm saying? We are each of us to use our bodies, our minds, our skills to provide for our needs, and the needs of our family, but there are some emergencies that come along, and we pull together for those, and we help those that can't help themselves. So he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little, and we share things in that way. That's the best way I can make sense of verse 2 and verse 5. There's some things you're meant to carry.

Let's go beyond finances. We shouldn't burden the church with spiritual things that we're meant to carry too. Ever been around a gloomy, depressing, and depressed person who just seems never happy, though they are Christians? Maybe you never have. But there are some people that they, at least tend in that direction. "How are you?" You ask with certain trepidation, because the last 12 times you've asked them how they were... You owe it to your brothers and sisters to, Philippians 4:4, "Rejoice in the Lord always." It's a burden if you are consistently disobedient to Philippians 4:4, that's a burden. So find a way to get happy in Jesus daily. Now, I know that there's time, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. There are some times you're going to be sorrowful. Be honest, say, "This overwhelming trial has come into our family. Would you join me in praying?" That's fine, those things are coming. But I mean, just day after day, week after week, month after month, don't burden the Body of Christ with a negative attitude. Don't burden the Body of Christ with all the aches, and pains, and sufferings, and struggles, etcetera, that are normal, and part of life. You guys know we're not in Heaven yet, right? In this world, you will have trouble. So we're going to have to bear that, so just decide. Now, if your judgment is, you really like prayer for something, then ask for prayer, fine. We'll leave that to you, but there are some burdens that we need to carry ourselves.

Finally, in Verse 6, The Christian family shares all good things. In verse 6, it says, "Anyone who receives instruction in the Word must share all good things with his instructor." Now, again, in context, verses 1-5 talks about a strong shepherding that we do for one another, especially in restoring sinners, people are sinning. The elders are especially called on to do this ministry. This is their calling. And among the elders, there is a category called vocational elders, who give their full time to that. They give their full time to preaching, to teaching the ministry of the Word, the organization of the church, and to shepherding. And then we have lay elders who have other jobs, who would also do some of that teaching, and preaching, and shepherding.

The consistent teaching in the New Testament on this topic is that the church should pool their resources and support financially those who give their full time to the ministry of the Word. 1 Corinthians 9:13-14 says, "Don't you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share what is offered on the altar?" Verse 14, it's 1 Corinthians 9:14, "In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the Gospel should receive their living from the Gospel." So the teachers of the word are worthy of sharing in the material fruits of other people's labor. Perhaps someone works at a programming company or someone else is a pharmaceutical research chemist, someone else is a builder. Their labor produces, among other things, money. They're able to buy good things for themselves and for their family with that money. They should share all good things with those who instruct them. There's a practicality to this. You could say, "Now, wait a minute, Paul was a tent-maker." That's true, but once a group of people came with some funds or resources, he stopped tent-making and gave his full time to the ministry of the Word. And so it is, this ministry takes time, it takes effort, it takes thought. Good sermons, good BFL lessons and all that, they don't just happen. And so there's the need for the church to, as it says in this text, to hare all good things with those who are instructing them. And so this is the... At a deeper level, I think the sharing also comes from the doctrine itself. We share this together, Amen? We're going to share all the good things in the Word together and this is part of the life we have together. I think that's also good application.

So finally, application. How do we apply these 6 verses? First, as always, I need to know, are you born again? If you are, in fact, a Christian, then all of the things apply. You are in a Christian family. But if you're not born again yet, you're not part of the family of God. And so, therefore, you're not merely wandering into sin, or being occasionally captured, you're a slave to sin, the Bible says. But the amazing thing, the freedom of the Gospel is, right here, right now, you can be set free through justification, by believing the Gospel. And what is the Gospel? God, Almighty God, the Judge of all the universe, sent his Son, Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, died in our place on the cross for our sins, bearing the penalty we deserve. And God raised him up on the third day, giving proof that that payment was acceptable to Him. If you repent and believe in Jesus, you will be immediately forgiven of all your sins and adopted into the family of God. How sweet is that? How sweet is that? So at that point, then you've got some brothers and sisters who are going to help you with the rest of the journey.

Secondly, let me just urge long-time visitors to FBC, to join a church that you can commit yourself to. If it's this church, as it seems to be, since you're here week after week, then let it be this church. If it's not, then find one you can commit to, all of its doctrines, and its life, and join them. There are many good options in the Triangle region. Why do I say that? So that you have brothers and sisters who know you and are convenantally committed to caring for you. So that the elders can shepherd you as the covenant commits to. I want to tell you a sad story that happened some years ago. I got a phone call from one of the funeral directors in the area and he asked if I'd be willing to officiate at a graveside funeral. I said, "Sure, what's the circumstance?" Well, a neighbor of a woman who died contacted him saying that she had no friends and no family in the world. She was an elderly woman. They knew no next of kin. They did everything they could to find... There were no, of course, no parents, no siblings, no children, no cousins, second cousins, and no friends even, no one. So this man had befriended her, and paid for her funeral, and asked if I would officiate it. That is as lonely as I can imagine a human being could be. You die and no one even knows. The opposite of that, is that God takes the lonely and isolated orphans in this world, and settles them in a family, and that family is the church. And part of that is knowing, and being known. And then you may not have any children, you may never have married, you may have very few other, but you've got brothers and sisters who will cry, and grieve that you're gone, and be there at your funeral, will remember you, and will minister to you right up until those days. Don't let that first happen to you. Commit to a local church. Be a covenant member of a local church.

And FBC members, if I can just urge you, fulfill the covenant. Let's watch over one another in brotherly love. Let's pray for each other. Let's shepherd each other. Let's love each other. Let's get the phone directory and pray through it. And my final word is to elders, just praise God for your ministry. Guys, if I can just tell you, FBC members, how faithfully these men do this work, how often we go through the phone registry, we go through, and we're praying, and we're shepherding, and encouraging people in all circumstances. And it's a wonderful work, but it feels sometimes like a burden. And I'm not saying that just right from the text, but these men are doing it cheerfully. Pray that they will continue to do it. Pray for them. Pray that we'll shepherd each other, the elders will shepherd each other. Elders, be faithful in this ministry, this church needs it done.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time that we've had to study your Word today, Galatians 6:1-6. Help us to be faithful to these verses, to be faithful to put them into practice. Lord, I pray one more time for any that are here, that are at this present point lost, that they would trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins in Jesus name, Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 5:22-26 and how we can distinguish between sinful acts of the flesh and holy acts of the Spirit.

Some time ago, my family and I had the opportunity to go to Monticello which is Thomas Jefferson's home, it's up on a small mountain in Central Virginia. And we had the chance to walk through the amazing grounds there, the gardens that are there. And he was many things, of course: A politician, a philosopher, inventor, but I think he would say above all things he was a farmer, and I would say, a scientist farmer. And he liked to study how things grew in the soil there on top of that mountain in Monticello. And if you walk through the ground, some other grounds keepers have come in the spirit of that same desire to have the most lavish display of flowers, and fruits and vegetables, and trees you could have. Only thing that could be improved is if it will all be done to the glory of God. Amen? Out of faith in Jesus Christ.

But I was there in that spirit, and I was so delighted to see these flowers and just to smell the fragrant air of all of these flowering things, to see the rare wildflowers, and to smell the roses, and to see the tulips, and to see all of that. I was especially mindful of the fact (speaking just for myself, not for my wife), that I can't grow anything. I tend to kill things. I don't mean to, but we have no green thumb. I guess, we have a brown thumb. I don't know, maybe that's the opposite of a green thumb. But he apparently was just exceptionally skillful at growing things, and then fruits, incredible fruits, 150 different varieties of 31 temperate species of fruits. All different kinds of things: Plums, and pears, and grapes, and apricots, and Spanish almonds, and all of it there for the picking. And then vegetables, amazing vegetables; 250 varieties of more than 70 different species of vegetables. And he studied how they would flourish, and what they were, and what different combinations of fertilizers, and watering and all of that.

Monticello is a rich treasure of growing things, but it made me think about my soul and the passage that we're looking at today, the Fruit of the Spirit. What kind of fruit is there in my life? If you could take a walk through my life as we go through that kind of circuitous path there at Monticello and you look around. If you were to do that in my life, what would you see? What is the fruit of your Christianity? What is going on in your life? In John chapter 15, Jesus used an agricultural analogy saying, "I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." And then he said, "Abide [or dwell or remain, live] in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. And neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in me. [said Jesus] "I am the vine, you were the branches. If someone remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing."

Jesus taught the same thing in The Sermon on the Mount. He said that we will most certainly in him bear fruit, and the kind of fruit we bear shows who we are and what we are like. He said in the Sermon on the Mountain, (Matthew 7:16-20)"By their fruit you will recognize them. Every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire thus by their fruit, you will recognize them." And many such passages, as well. I ask you this, I'm asking myself, what kind of fruit is there in your life?

Now, the problem for us is that the answer must be inconsistent. There is, in every Christian, good fruit but also bad fruit. James talks about this in James 3:9-12. He says, "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it, we curse men who have been made in his likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives or a grape vine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water." And yet we acknowledge, as divided beings, as those who struggle with the flesh, but we are also indwelt by the Spirit that we see out of the same life come both things that we give glory to God for in praise and for in those things that we are ashamed of and wish we would never do.

Now in Galatians 5, we see a very clear description of this whole problem, the war between the flesh and the Spirit that goes on inside each one of us. Galatians 5 gives a lengthy list of the works of the flesh and contrasts it with the fruit of the Spirit. The ongoing work of the indwelling Holy Spirit of Christ is to conform us from the inside out to Jesus Christ, so that we would actually be like Christ in every respect. The Fruit of the Spirit that I'm going to look at today is one of the most famous passages in the New Testament. In the book of Galatians, it is the goal of sanctification. It is what God is working in us. It is the goal of the Spirit-filled life at every moment. I believe the Fruit of the Spirit is a good checklist for yourself at every moment. Just take a snapshot of yourself at any moment throughout this upcoming week. Could be Tuesday morning, it could be Wednesday afternoon, it could be Thursday night, doesn't matter, just snapshot.

When I was a student in college, there was this incredible exhibit done by this guy named Harold Edgerton, and he was a pioneer in Strobe Photography. And he took high-speed photographs of instance and time. They hadn't been able to be captured before his research in strobe photography, so there'd be pictures of like an apple with a bullet going through it. I don't know why you'd want to shoot an apple. But there it is, there's the bullet going through and you see the entry and the exit, and just the tip of the bullet coming out, he's able to capture that. Or a drop of milk dropping and it looks like this incredible crown coming all these amazing strobe photography. The picture of a pin going in a big balloon, in just an instant, after it begins to pop and you see the rip in the balloon and it's curt but you can still see the rest of the balloon's still there. Amazing pictures.

Take a snapshot of yourself this week and ask yourself this question, "Am I, right now, characterized by the fruit of the Spirit?" Would my wife, would my husband, would my good friend, would my roommate say, "Yeah, I would say, that you are right now characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, that's who you are. And if our content of the answer honestly is no, then you need to repent. And don't blame your spouse, don't blame your roommate, don't blame the circumstances, understand that the Holy Spirit can and does produce this fruit in you, irrespective of your circumstances. This should characterize you every moment of your life. That's what we going to talk about today.

We're looking right here in the middle of Galatians 5. We've been asking this question, what kind of life leads to heaven? Let's just step back and look at the book of Galatians as a whole. Galatians was a letter written by the Apostle Paul to a group of churches that he planted in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, and he was there and he preached the gospel of faith in Jesus Christ. He did a good job preaching the gospel. Some people repented and believed, and some churches were planted. And after he worked with them for a while, he left. And soon after he left, some other false teachers came in, who we called Judaizers. They're not called that in the book of Galatians but that's who they were. They were Jewish people who professed to faith in Christ but said, faith in Christ is not enough. You need to add to it the works of the law. You've got to add to it Jewish law, the laws of Moses. The combination of faith in Christ plus the law of Moses equals salvation.

Well, Paul heard about this and said, this is devastating, this is no gospel at all, this is false teaching. And he wrote the book of Galatians back to these churches to teach them. As he says in Galatians 2:16, "A person is not justified by observing the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. We too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law, no one will be justified." Justification is the beginning of the Christian life. When you hear the gospel, you hear about Almighty God sending his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, did signs and wonders but especially died as a substitute on the cross for our sins. We were guilty under the law of God. God knew we deserved condemnation, he knew we deserve wrath but instead of pouring it on us, he poured it out on his son Jesus as our substitute. But God raised him from the dead on the third day, showing that that sacrifice have been accepted. And if you repent and believe, you can have forgiveness of sins and eternal life; that's the gospel. If you hear that and believe it, believe it to be true, the instant that you hear and believe, you are justified. What does that mean? Forgiven of all your sins. The righteousness of Christ is credited to your account, you're infinitely perfectly wealthy in righteousness. God sees you as having been perfectly obedient to his law, and in that righteousness, you will stand on judgement day, forgiven, blameless, and unafraid. And in that righteousness, he will welcome you into heaven. That's justification. That happens instantaneously at the beginning of the Christian life and nothing can change it.

But the Christian life doesn't end at justification. After that comes the process, the journey of sanctification. And the rules of the game are a little bit different on sanctification. Whereas, our works are not welcome in justification, we must work out our salvation day by day in sanctification. Little by little, we have to fight the good fight of faith, we have to put sin to death by the power of the Spirit. We have to learn to grow in certain areas, and that's sanctification. It's hard. And that's a big part of why we do church, it's a big part of why you come and listen to preaching; to help yourself grow in Christ, become more like Christ, that's sanctification.

And then at the end, and I've been talking to some people recently who are yearning for that day of glorification. Amen. At last, you'll be free from the struggle, you'll be delivered from all pain, you'll be delivered from all sin, and you will go and be in the presence of Almighty God forever. This happens generally in two stages. First, at death, if the Lord hasn't returned yet. If you're not part of that final generation, you will be separated from the body and you'll be ushered right into the presence of God, and you'll go worship him and you'll be free forever from sin. But you won't have your resurrection body yet, not yet. You'll be absent from the body, present with the Lord. And then, at the end of all things, the second coming of Christ, then He will raise the righteous and the wicked, and you will receive the gift of a resurrection body, and there in that body, you will praise God forever.

That's the whole salvation plan. Now you, if you're a believer in Christ, you're in the middle of the sanctification journey. The book of Galatians is written to help you. Now, one of the most common accusations about the grace, the salvation by grace message that you are justified apart from your work, has nothing to do with your works. Like the thief on the cross, his hands and feet nailed, he can't do anything, go anywhere but he can still go to heaven. What did he do to earn his salvation? Nothing. It was given to him as a gift. People say, "Well then, that means you can live however you want." It's complete lawlessness and then because you're saved, you can go to heaven? Well, people who talk like that don't really understand salvation. They don't understand what the Holy Spirit does in a believer when he comes into your life.

The moment that you're justified by faith, you receive the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Then he, Almighty God, God the Spirit, begins to take over, and begins to change things in your life. If you look at the immediate context, he's talking about the Spirit-filled life. Look at verse 16. He said, "So I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the lust of the flesh." That's the Spirit-filled life, the command, "walk by the Spirit" is there, that is, live your daily life in constant dependence, active dependence by faith on the Spirit's power. Walk step by step through your day by the power of the Spirit, and if so you will not gratify the lust of the flesh. Then he explains the warfare in verse 17, "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They're at enmity or at odds or in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want." We are divided beings, as we've talked about, schizophrenic, somewhat insane, if we can use that language, somewhat crazy. The very thing we hate, we do. The very thing we yearn to do, we do not do; that's the nature of the battle. The Holy Spirit is in us causing us to put to death the deeds of the flesh. He says in verse 18, "If you were led by the Spirit, you are not under law." The Christian life is a life of being led by the Spirit not dominated by the law. And so, we then wage war, God's way by the power of the Spirit. In Romans 8:13-14, it says, "If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." What I get out of that is that every day, the Holy Spirit rouses us and gets us ready, dresses us for battle; battle against the world of flesh and the devil, and that's the nature of our sanctification battle.

Now, we come to the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is the best possible life that you can live on earth. If you have these qualities constantly, consistently, I assert, you cannot live a better life than this, no matter how devastatingly bad your circumstances may be. There are many examples of this. In the book of Acts, take for example Stephen. Stephen was being stoned to death. His enemies were raging at him, blocking their ears, foaming at the mouth, clearly were going to kill him, were in the process of killing him. But do you remember how Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit? And he looked up to heaven and he saw Jesus, standing at the right hand of God, ready to welcome him. And he said, "Father, don't lay this sin against their charge." He's so filled with joy, filled... I think, he was already in heaven while he's still dying on earth. And he was just living a supernatural life in the midst of really terrible circumstances.

Or take, of course, Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail preaching the gospel after driving a demon out of a girl. The Philippians/Romans arrest them. They beat them publicly, bloodying them, shaming them, and throwing them in jail, and their feet are fastened in the stocks. They have had nothing to eat, nothing to drink, they're wounded, they're hurting, and they might even be executed the next day, and there they're praising and singing songs to Jesus. And all the other prisoners are listening to them. Or consider Paul on the deck of a heaving ship in the midst of a hurricane goes on for days and days. And they don't see any... They don't even know if it's night or day, it's so dark. And they haven't eaten anything in days. And Paul is so filled with courage and boldness, and concern for others, and trust in God, he's just characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. That's the best possible life you can live. And I would say, this is the life the world wants but it can never get. It's trying to get these things by the wrong means, circumventing God, turning away from Christ, not looking at any of the spiritual things, going after material possessions, going after worldly success. They think they're going to find the fruit of the Spirit. They wouldn't call it that but they're looking for love, they're looking for joy and peace, they're looking for satisfaction in this world. By these worldly means, they're not going to find it.

I know an individual. I don't know him personally but I know of him, who is incredibly successful in his... He was an athlete and incredibly successful. Everything he was doing, he was living at seemed the perfect life, had a mansion in which he could see the sunrise and the sunset over water. He had his own private island, an astonishing mansion, a beautiful wife, cute kids, success in everything he endeavored to do. But the whole thing was a facade because inside, he was seething with the lust of the flesh, seething with discontent, prone to fits of rage, and threw it all away. And now, his life is a shell of what it used to be. I would contend that individual needs Christ. Amen. He needs to repent and believe in Jesus. But how many non-Christians would look before all of those events and say, "Now, there's the life I want to live."

And I can imagine anyone, if they really believe this offer, the devil is here offering you that kind of life, all the wealth you could want, all the success you could want in the world, the house you could want, the family life you want. All of that but you can't have the following things: You cannot have love, you can have no joy, and no peace, and would you do it? I can't imagine anyone saying, "Yeah, I'm willing to trade away all of my happiness, and all of my love, everything, so I could have these physical things." But they don't believe it's true and they think that I can have both. I can have that worldly life and I can have all that and skip God but I can still be happy, and that's not possible. I would contend, if you have all of the wealth in the world and do not have the fruit of the Spirit, you have nothing. Conversely, if you have the fruit of the Spirit and you're being beaten, or persecuted, or rejected, you have everything.

Friends, this is the best life there is. There is no utopia, there's no perfect society that will ever be in this world. But an individual can be so captivated by Christ, so captivated by the gospel, and so filled with the Spirit that they're living their own private paradise in the midst of very trying circumstances. And that's what the Spirit is offering to you. Now, we're right in the middle of a section, the passage we began today, began with the word "But", so you should always be suspicious of verses that begin with 'therefore', or 'but' and say, we are parachuting right in the middle, what are we looking at?

We're in the middle of a section which is contrasting the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. And we did the works of the flesh last week. Verse 19, it says, "The acts or works of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, adultery and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the likes." We talked about that in detail last week, I'm not going to go over it in detail but just by way of reminder. The sin list is a diagnosis of the human heart, it's a diagnosis of the human life. We saw four groupings last week: Sins of sensuality, sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery. Sins of religion, such as sorcery and idolatry. Sins of relationships, such as enmity, strife, jealously, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissension, factions, and envy; eight of them. And then, sins of dissipated living or lack of self-control, so that's drunkenness and orgies. We said last time this list is not exhaustive, he said, "and such like" or "things like that." There are many other things besides these 15 that are listed but this is the life of the flesh. And he then gives verse 21 a terrifying warning. He said, "I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

The bottom line is that the life of the Spirit kills the acts of the flesh; that's what the Spirit does. Negatively, in sanctification, these are the very things the Holy Spirit is putting to death. Now, we get to the positive aspect of the life of the Spirit or sanctification, that is what positive things does the Spirit produce, and that's this list in verse 22-23, "But by contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." These things laid side by side are in clear contrast with each other. The flesh loves those evil works and hates the fruit of the Spirit. Conversely, the Spirit hates the works of the flesh and loves to produce the fruit of the Spirit; these are the dichotomy of the Christian life versus the life of the flesh.

Notice also the plural versus the singular. We have the works of the flesh; plural. See that? “works.” Versus the fruit of the Spirit; singular. That's a subtle difference but I think it's worth talking about. First, the works of the flesh are spoken of as plural. They are varied and this is what I said last week, not every sinner does all of these things. It is quite possible for some sinners outside of Christ, living lives of wicked rebellion against God but avoiding certain patterns of sin that they would never do. Some extremely prideful, ambitious, vindictive power mongers in the world never touch a drop of alcohol, they never get drunk. Hitler in particular was noteworthy for being exceptionally prudish about sexual things, and extremely disciplined in his eating and drinking habits. But he was clearly prone to fits of violent rage. The works of the flesh are varied and you're not necessarily going to have all of them.

Conversely, the Spirit produces all of these things in every Christian, seeking to produce them all the time. To some degree, it's just one work of the Spirit flowering out in all of these character traits. All of these things are unfolding. It's almost like white light hitting a prism and then just going out into the spectrum, the rainbow of colors, but it's the same one white light that's coming in. The fruit of the Spirit flowers out in all of these beautiful attributes. The Spirit would never say, "Okay, tell you what, let's look at this list and we're going to divide it up. And in 2014, we're going to work on the first two, forget the rest. And then next year, every year, we're going to add two more until we get the whole list." Look, it's not a coin collection, alright? We're not trying to assemble these things. This is something that the Lord is wanting to produce in us all the time. It's a beautiful flowering of the Spirit's work. Spirit is working to conform us at every moment to Jesus Christ in every area. Furthermore, the works of the flesh…The person who does them can say “these are mine, I did them.” But the fruit of the Spirit is something we really honestly could give all glory to God for producing in us. Amen. You can look at that and say, "I am right now surprisingly characterized by love, joy, peace, and patience. I know, in other times, I would be very frustrated right now, and very irritable, and very impatient, and very mean, but instead, the Lord has got a hold of me and he is working this and to God be the glory." And so, we really can give the Holy Spirit full glory for these attributes when we see them in us.

Now, non-Christians can ape or imitate some of the fruit of the Spirit from time of time but they're intrinsically radically different between a Christian and non-Christians. Some people may have a natural disposition toward gentleness and quietness, but that doesn't mean it's the fruit of the Spirit, they may lack boldness to confront evil. Maybe, they're just quiet, mousy, sheep-like people but they're not Christians. Okay. Others may naturally be happy people, always whistling a tune, but their happiness is based on earthly circumstances and sometimes they might not be genuinely happy but just only appearing happy. Christian joy goes infinitely deeper. The Spirit works all of these attributes in Christians to the depth of our being and increases them gradually more and more over a period of time. Be patient and yearn for them. Set this list in front of you and pray over it and say, "Lord produce this in me. I yearn 10 years from now to be more characterized by this list than I am right now. Ten years from now, oh Lord, I want to be more patient than I am now." Someone once said that you never want to pray for God to work patience in you. You know how He works patience in you, right? He's going to bring afflictions and troubles in your life and say, "Okay, see how impatient you are?" That's the journey on working patience but you should yearn for them. You should say, "I want 10 years from now to be much more characterized by all of these things than I am now."

What I want to do is go through them just word by word and just talk about them briefly. Obviously, each one of these, we can preach a full sermon on. But I want to just give some descriptions, so we can understand them, and of course, it begins with love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. This is the greatest of all human attributes or character traits. Says in 1 Corinthians 13:13, "And now, these three remain: Faith, hope, and love but the greatest of these is love." Says in Colossians 3:14, "Over all of these virtues, put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity." Love as we know is the perfect summation of God's law. The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Love sums up God's law. In one sense, we could say, love is all you really need. But God has still, through the Apostle Paul, given us the other words too. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, general self-control, those things describe and unfold what that love is like. I think the whole list is needed.

What is love? Love is a disposition of the soul, a heart attraction towards something. You are attracted. The heart, the human heart has the ability like a magnet to be attracted to or repulsed from anything in the universe. When we are converted, we are suddenly, supernaturally, by the power of God, transformed, rearranged, so that we are now attracted to God above all things, and to Christ, and to the word of God, and all of these things. And now, we hate sin, and evil, and darkness. That's been the re-orientation that has happened in us. It's the attraction of the heart toward something or someone. Now, I would say, biblical love, just practically ethically, biblical love is heart attraction for a person leading to sacrificial action. Attraction leading to action, those two together, that's what love is. Without the one or the other, it isn't Biblical love. Our hearts are drawn toward an individual. We want what's best for them, we are yearning for them to know the joy of salvation even if they're prosecuting us like Stephen. We are yearning that they not be condemned for that sin but we want them to be in heaven, so we're drawn out to the person even if they're our enemies. We want what's right for them and then we're willing to make sacrificial actions for them. Without the heart attraction, it isn't love. If you give all you possess to the poor and you surrender your body to the flames but do it in an unloving manner, if you don't have a heart attraction toward the person, you gain nothing. But conversely, it says in 1 John 3, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." Biblical love work by the Spirit is my heart is knit together with another person, and then I am moved to sacrifice time, or energy, or money, or something to help them. That's what Biblical love is.

Love is the chief work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the Christian, and that's what distinguishes us from demons, alright? Demons know all kinds of things about God but they don't love God, right? They've got all the theology down, they know the Bible, they've got it memorized, but they shudder. Demons shudder, and they hate God. We don't shudder. We love God, we delight in him, we yearn for him, and in the same way, delight in other Christians. It says in 1 John 4:21, "Whoever loves God must also love his brother." And we love also righteousness and hate wickedness. We love God's word, we love the truth. We love to hear about people being converted. Amen. We love to hear stories of gospel success. This is the fruit of the Spirit, love.

Secondly, joy. Joy is an emotion, a feeling of happiness. Now, some of you are going to come and say, "Now, pastor, there's a big difference between joy and happiness." We've been through this before, joy and happiness, the difference between the two. I don't know how you can feel the difference in the feelings between joy and happiness. What I want to say is, the whole thing is, what's the basis of the happy feeling? If the basis of the happy feeling is something worldly and temporal, then it's just a temporary joy, like all non-Christians feel, and there's nothing wrong with it. The happiness that comes from eating food that you like or seeing beautiful scenery, or something that happens in your life that you're happy about, etcetera, those things are valid feelings. Now, we as Christians can give thanks to God for them and then they become acts of worship. For us, we have infinite and eternal reasons to be happy. We have eternal reasons for joy and that's something that the Holy Spirit works in us. Joy is a deep-seated happiness in God and in the things of God, the promises of God, the achievements of God, the truth of God. It makes us happy. It's an experience of pleasure, experience of delight. And I think it's mixed in with peace and no anxiety. It's just a peaceful happiness.

Christian joy is infinitely better than worldly joy because it's focused on better things, on better promises. We feel joy in God's reign over the earth, and over Christ's resurrection victory. We feel joy over the salvation of other people through the Gospel. Jesus is the ultimate joy giver, isn't he? I traced through the Gospel of Luke and just saw all the different ways that I could find that Jesus produced joy in people. It started when Jesus had first been conceived. Just six months after his cousin John was conceived in his mother Elizabeth, and Jesus' mother Mary went to Elizabeth, you remember? And Mary greeted Elizabeth, and John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother's womb just to be in the presence of the recently conceived Jesus. Jesus is the joy giver. And then, Mary herself cries out at that time, "My soul glorifies the Lord and my Spirit, what, rejoices in God my Savior." Jesus is the joy giver.

And then, the angel comes the night Jesus is born and he announces to the shepherds out in the dark in hillside. He says, the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the City of David, a savior has been born for you, he is Christ the Lord." Great joy for all the people. Jesus' teaching on persecution even he said, "When they persecute you, rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way, they persecuted the prophets before you." You should leap for joy. And then, the 72 get sent out on mission and they come back after they've done all the supernatural work. And the 72 returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name." They're just so happy at what God is doing by the name of Jesus. And Jesus replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." And then he said, "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and overcome all the power of the enemy, nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Rejoice that your name is written in heaven.

And then, at that time, Jesus full of joy through the Holy Spirit said, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth." Jesus was teaching in John 15 about how God the Father rejoices over the salvation of a single sinner. He talked about how the shepherd found one sheep that wandered off and brought it back and he was filled with joy at that. And He said, "I tell you, in the same way, there's more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent." But no joy was like the joy that Jesus gave at the resurrection. How sweet was that? Remember when Jesus was raised from the dead and they had heard stories about the empty tomb, stories that the women had brought back and all of that, and then finally, he appears before them. And they can't understand what's happening. And it says, "When they still did not believe it," listen, "because of joy and amazement," that's the ultimate example in the Bible of something too good to be true but is too good not to be true. I mean, He has risen from the dead. And he said, "Do you have anything to eat here?" And he eats some and he said, "Look, a Spirit or a ghost doesn't have flesh and bones as you see I have." And then, when he was ascended into heaven at the end of the gospel, while he is blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven, then they rejoiced and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, says one gospel. You can go through the other 65 books of the Bible and find how God brings joy. But how sweet is that Jesus, the Holy Spirit draws your heart close to a contemplation of Christ and fills you with joy.

Joy is a celebration, a deep-seated happiness, and it's going to characterize our eternity in heaven. It's happiness. It's like when your team wins a championship, only better. It's when you graduate, only it's better than that. It's when you meet the love of your life and you actually get married but it's better than that. It's when the two of you welcome your firstborn into your family but it's better than that. It's better than any earthly thing you can ever experience but it's like it. All of those little pockets of happiness, put them all in one big pool and drink from it and you haven't touched anything yet compared to what your heavenly joy is going to be like. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Now, I think Christians should be characterized by joy. Don't say to me, "I'm joyful but I'm just not very happy today." That doesn't make any sense to me. If you can parse out the difference between joy and happiness, come and tell me, but I don't understand somebody who's telling me, they're joyful but they're just not very happy today. We can have an incredible experience of joy even in the midst of deep suffering, sorrowful sometimes, yes, but always rejoicing.

Thirdly, peace. What is peace? It's the sense of peace and tranquility because we are in a right relationship with God. Having been justified with God, justified by faith, we have peace with God. God is not at war with you anymore. God's not your enemy, He's at peace with you and therefore, we can have an experience, a feeling of peacefulness in our lives. This is the fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit can give you peacefulness. It says in Philippians 4, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

That's peacefulness, a feeling of tranquility based on your faith and your knowing that the God who loves you, your Father who has adopted you, is sitting on a sovereign throne over the universe, and all is well with your world. And you don't need to be afraid of anything, you don't need to be anxious, you don't need to be afraid of anything. The peace of the Holy Spirit, it's a gift, a fruit of the Spirit. And it extends to peacefulness with other people. You're just peaceful with other people. You feel a feeling of peace with them. You're not squabbling with them. Remember the acts of the flesh: Discord, jealousy, fits of Rage, those kind, that's not happening. In a healthy Christian relationship, in a healthy Church, it's characterized by peacefulness, not by strife and conflict.

Fourthly, patience, also translated long-suffering. Why would I want that? Because in this world, you will have trouble, dear friends. In this world, you will have trouble. God must use afflictions to shape you and train you. You must have pain, and without that pain, you can't grow. Pain is temporary, it's not going to be in heaven, but it's useful now, and so you need long-suffering. Greek word is Macrothumia. Long-suffering, you're waiting for a long time, humble and patient, and waiting for God to bring about what you're asking him. You're praying to him and you're crying out to him for alleviation of the pain that you're going through, but you're waiting humble under his hand. You're waiting for him to answer your prayers. You're not chafing, you're not murmuring, you're not questioning him, instead you're waiting patiently. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, you're waiting on him.

Fifthly, we have kindness. Kindness is a trait of active goodness, mingled with gentleness, there's definitely overlap in these traits. Kindness is sweet, and humble, and quiet, and loving, and good. And if you don't know what kindness is, and goodness is, my daughter was talking to me this week about goodness. What does that mean, the fruit of the Spirit is goodness? What is that? And the only way I could really answer that is say, look at Jesus, look how he was. Remember the leper that came up to him? And said, "Lord if you're willing, you can make me clean." And Jesus says with this just kindness and tenderness, says, "I am willing. Be clean." And he reaches out and touches him. That's goodness. It's just flowing from the goodness and the love of God. Remember how Moses, set up in the mountain, and said, "Now, show me your glory." And God said, "I will cause all of my goodness to pass in front of you."

That kindness and goodness, that's just of the nature, the essence of God. I think about the widow at Nain, whose only son had died. And Jesus comes while the funeral procession is carrying this now deceased young man out. And Jesus stops the procession and goes up to the woman and says, "don't cry." That's kindness. We're living in an increasingly unkind culture. Have you noticed that? It's just amazing the unkindness. The sharp words, the harsh words, the prideful things, that should not characterize us. Kindness and goodness, rather, should characterize us.

Seventh, we have faith or faithfulness. Some translators go one way, some another. The fruit of the Spirit is faith. The ability to trust in God to believe him for his promises. That's possible, but I think it's more likely. The fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness on your part, that you'll be a person who keeps his or her promises. That you are committed to what you're committed to. You're going to let your yes be yes and your no, no. You are trustworthy in the Christian life.

Gentleness, gentleness like kindness, like goodness, the sweet attribute of meekness, and humility, and mildness, it's based on humility. There's a gentleness like a spring breeze is blowing on your face. There's a gentleness to a Spirit-filled Christian. They're not harsh and astringent. They're not angry sounding, they're gentle. There's a gentleness like Jesus said, "A bruised reed he will not break, in a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out." He's so gentle with bruised sinners, and He's able to deal gently with us. He says, "Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am [What does he say?] gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls." The Holy Spirit can make you gentle, truly gentle.

And then finally, self-control. The last two acts of the flesh were drunkenness and orgies, lack of self-control in those areas. The last fruit of the Spirit mentioned here is self-control. With self-control, a person knows when to stop, they know when to stop. They don't talk too much, they don't eat too much, they don't sleep too much, they don't get addicted to the honey of life. They eat a little honey because it's sweet, but they don't eat so much, they vomit. They know when to stop, there's self-controlled people by the power of the Spirit. They're living orderly balanced lives by the power of the Spirit.

Now, the power of the fruit of the Spirit is a cumulative effect. He's producing all of these in us. The love that is joyful and also peaceful, while at the same time patient, kind toward others, good to the core of its being, faithful to all promises, gentle like a mild summer breeze, and self-controlled in the face of a world of temptations. And these qualities, these character traits in us, grow and grow as we walk by the Spirit. So 10, 20, 30 years down the line, you are more consistently characterized by these attributes. Now, Paul says in verse 23, "Against such things, there is no law." You could say at one translation would be, these things aren't illegal. Which is really humorous, when you think about, how could these things be illegal? But you think, where Christianity is illegal and all that, there are brothers and sisters that are living out this kind of life and that's not illegal. But I think, more it's the law doesn't forbid these things. We're saying to the Galatians, you, who are trying to live by the law, guess what? The law is not against these things, but the law can't produce them. The law can't make these things happen to you, the Spirit can. Hallelujah! The Spirit has the power to produce these things in us.

Now, we have a changed status. Look at verses 24-25, we live by the Spirit and we have crucified the flesh. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, and we live by the Spirit. We've made a decisive break, we are done with the old nature. Sin has no mastery over us. We are in a whole new relationship with God, and we have the power now to live by the Spirit and not do these deeds of the flesh.

He gives them a final exhortation, verse 25-26, "Since we lived by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited or arrogant, provoking and envying one another." The Holy Spirit is drumming out a beat in your life. And he's your drill instructor, and you need to get in behind him and march with him. And He's going to be telling you left, right, left, right. We're walking by the Spirit like it says in verse 16. Since we're walking by the Spirit, let us keep in step with what the Spirit says.

In Isaiah, it says in Isaiah 30:21, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it." And the Spirit is going to direct you how to live this kind of life that pleases God. And at the center of this is harmonious Christian community. Let's not be arrogant. Don't ever look at another person in this church and feel boastful or arrogant toward them. Don't ever be conceited toward this other person, ever. You are a sinner saved by Grace, so don't be arrogant and don't be conceited, and don't envy another person. Don't look and say, "I wish I had what she had. I wish I have what he had". Don't do that and don't provoke each other, as they were doing. Instead, let's live a life of love together in community.

Just want to finish by giving a couple of exhortation. The whole sermon really has been application. But I want to begin this final word to you in this chapter, by pleading with you to come to Christ. I don't know where you're at, I don't know all of you. All I know is, I want all of you to be in heaven with me. I want you to be in heaven celebrating God's grace in your life. And I don't know if you're a believer. If I know you well and I've seen you walk, I know you're a Christian. But there's a lot of people I don't even recognize here. Can I plead with you, don't leave this place unconverted. You've heard the Gospel from me several times this morning. Look to Christ crucified and resurrected. Trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. You can't live this Christian life without believing in Jesus. This is all of it after justification.

But having been justified, now I am speaking to you Christians, set the fruit of the Spirit in front of you constantly as a matter for prayer. Say, "God, produce in me by the Spirit these attributes." Husbands, look at this list and say, if you have the courage to say to your wife, "Honey, would you say that this consistently characterizes me?" It may be that she'll tell you the truth. And maybe you need to grow and say, and I don't think she'd like anything better than for you to say, "I want to be a year from now much more consistently characterized by the fruit of the Spirit than I am. Would you pray for that for me?" "Oh I'd be glad to. I'd be delighted to pray for that for you." But she should humbly ask the same question of you. Would you say that these characterizes me? You are given to each other in marriage to help each other grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ, so help each other. And do that in the fellowship, brothers with brothers, sisters with sisters in Christ. Help each other. Set this in front of you and use it as a diagnostic free stream. If something is going on at work, just run through the Fruit of the Spirit, and see if it describes you. And if the answer is no, don't blame your boss. It's not your boss fault. Repent and say, "Lord, I have strayed from this, this is not who I want to be. Bring me back. Forgive me, forgive me from my anger, my pride, my irritability. Make me a godly man, make me a godly woman."

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time that we've had to study this incredible text. I pray that you would enrich our lives now. Empower us, help us to be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. I pray these people walk through the winding path of our lives as we did at Monticello, that people would be able to smell the aroma of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives and praise God for how we're living, in Jesus name, Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 5:19-21, and urges us to be alert to the negative impacts of the acts of the flesh in our souls.

Recently, some historians have studied the ancient world and have studied the Roman Empire in particular. Some historians have argued that lead poisoning may have contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. One expert focused his work on the way that Aristocratic Romans would boil honey in lead pots to make a sweetener called defrutum and then they'd boil it down even further to something even sweeter called sapa. The Romans found that if they boil them in copper, it gave a bitter kind of taste but the lead gave a sweet kind of taste and they actually liked it. They would wait until it would all get dried and they would scrape it off and they'd sweeten things with it, this combination of lead and honey. So these sweeteners were used in many ways with meats and wines and many other foods that they ate every day. But the problem was the high temperatures that caused the lead and the honey to mix, made a poison called Lead Acetate. And this poison would accumulate slowly in their bodies and destroy them, weakening them gradually and eventually killing them.

Now the scholar that was focusing on this argued that this gradual poisoning contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. Now, many have debated on whether that's true or not but, no one can debate that boiling things in lead and then drinking it is not good for us. And it got me to think about the passage that we're looking at today, "The deeds of the flesh." And I want to liken all of these sins as poison masquerading in honey, which accumulates in our souls and gradually weakens all who indulge in it. The honey taste of sin has been poisoning the human race since the garden of Eden. And it continues to spiritually poison people all over the world, and it poisons all of us who indulge in it as well. And I want to look at this list of spiritual poisons, the deeds of the flesh which the Spirit actively warns us against every moment of our lives. And I want to do so in the context of asking the question, what kind of life is it that leads to heaven?

Now, the context of this question and of this whole passage is, the epistle of the Galatians, which we've been studying for many months now. The apostle Paul took up his pen to write to a bunch of churches that he had planted. They had had from him the pure gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. But after he left, some false teachers had come in and had begun to preach a false gospel which Paul said was no gospel at all. These false teachers taught a gospel of faith in Jesus, plus obedience to the laws of Moses, equals ultimate salvation. Now, Paul instead preached very plainly and wrote in Galatians very plainly the correction. Justification by faith in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of sins. Now, the Galatians were in danger of legalism, and the idea of having begun by simply hearing this gospel with faith, by the power of the Spirit, having begun by the Spirit, they were trying to be perfected by the flesh, by efforts, by self focused efforts.

So, Paul preaches very plainly over many chapters the beautiful, simple, clear gospel of forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus alone, apart from works. And what a liberating, what a freeing message that is for the human race. We are justified by faith and not by works. But the problem is the most common accusation against this liberating gospel, the freedom of this gospel, is that salvation by grace alone leads to lawlessness. The accusation is that it leads to the idea that you can live however you want. Over and over in history, the true gospel has led to this accusation of this false understanding. The bad remedy is always the same, legalism. That if we get serious about the law, that the law contains within itself the power for its own obedience. And that we're on our own and that we are forgiven for past transgressions by present or future obedience to the law, that's the essence of legalism by the way. We have sin, the law accuses us, the only way to make it right in the legalistic way of thinking is, by present or future obedience to the same laws.

That's what legalism is, that's the wrong answer. Legalistic approaches have filled up church history, and so Paul addresses the false definition of legalism here in Galatians 5. Here's the answer instead, is the freedom of the Spirit-filled life. The power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, that's his answer. Not by combining Jesus and Moses, but by understanding the progression of salvation, from justification by faith alone apart from works. A transition then made to sanctification by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit whereby, we obey the precepts of the moral law, not for the payment of past transgressions, but because it's the most beautiful and the most fruitful possible life we could ever live. In which the Holy Spirit leads us back now to the moral law, love God with all your heart, love your neighbors as yourself and enables us to fulfill it.

Ultimately, then, a battle, a consistent battle and we'll talk about that in the immediate context here, between the flesh and the Spirit in which we struggle but we grow in godliness, becoming more and more like Jesus, ultimately ending in glorification. This glorification happens instantaneously when God, by his sovereign grace, ends the struggle forever. We are rescued from our sin and brought into heaven and there we'll live in holiness forever. That's the true salvation plan of God. Justification is the beginning of the Christian life, the total forgiveness of all of our sins is by faith alone, apart from any works of the law. But justification always leads to sanctification, and sanctification is a gradual, slow, difficult process by which the Spirit works powerfully inside us first to recognize sin, see it for what it is. Secondly, to hate it as God hates it, and thirdly to put sin to death by the power of the Spirit more and more. So that's sanctification.

So the key question that comes to us "How can I know I am justified?" That's a question of assurance. The answer's found in this chapter. The Spirit's work in the life of the true believer results in fruit that can be seen and known. The lifestyle, the regular patterns of life from the heart leading to specific patterns of action proves the reality of God's saving work in a soul. Galatians 5:16-26, the section we're in right now in Galatians, is a powerful diagnostic tool for answering the question "Am I a Christian? Have I been justified? Are my sins forgiven?" And it does at first negatively, by addressing things that must not be part of the Christian life, the acts of the flesh. And then positively, the fruit of the Spirit, the traits that must characterize the Christian, negatively and positively, that's what we're looking at.

So how can I know I'm a Christian? Do you see increasingly the sins that are listed that you heard Chris read? Do you see them increasingly weakening and dying in your life by the power of the Spirit? And positively, we'll see next week, do we see more and more of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives by the power of the Spirit? Do we see Christ-like character traits? That’s how you can know that you're a Christian. Key question number two then, which we've already asked, what kind of life leads to heaven? Justification is understandable doctrinally, we get it. We get the idea that sins can be instantaneously forgiven by simply believing in Jesus. It's hard to believe almost, sometimes it's that easy, but it's true. But how can I know it's actually happened to me. Paul's answer then is to look at the pattern of your life, the lifestyle. And the life characterized by the works of the flesh leads to destruction, it leads to hell. But the life characterized by the fruit of the Spirit is the only one that leads to heaven.

 "The life characterized by the works of the flesh leads to destruction, it leads to hell. But the life characterized by the fruit of the Spirit is the only one that leads to heaven."

 So in the immediate context in verse 16, Paul gives a command, "So I say walk by the Spirit," or "live by the Spirit." So it's a command to live your daily life in the power of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Spirit. Secondly, believe this promise, if you do that, if you walk by the Spirit, you will not gratify the lusts of the flesh. The promise that we have, that the Spirit, the indwelling Spirit and walking by the Spirit is powerful and effective for killing sins of the flesh. We should, thirdly, expect constant warfare. Verse 17: "For the flesh yearns or desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit yearns or desires what is contrary to the flesh. They're at odds with each other so that you do not do what you want." So we are divided beings, we're struggling, we're spiritual schizophrenics. We don't fully do anything in this life, we don't fully serve God. We don't fully serve sin ever because of this division so we expect constant warfare. We're not looking for perfectionism. We're not looking for release in this life. We know we're going to be at war, we must be at war. As a matter of fact, if we're not at war, we're dead in our transgressions and sins. We've got to be at war. We've got to be fighting by the Spirit. And so we must wage war in a new way. Verse 18 says we need to understand our new status we are not under law. We are led by the Spirit. We are in a whole new way of living now. By the power of the Spirit, led by the Spirit, we can live a holy life. So we've talked about that. Now today, we're going to be talking about the works of the flesh negatively, and then next week, God willing, the fruit of the Spirit. That's where we are in context.

So let's look now at the works of the flesh, verses 19-21. "Now the works of the flesh are evident: [Paul says] sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery or sensuality, idolatry, sorcery or witchcraft, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these or the like." Paul here gives one of many sin lists that there are in the Bible. The Bible gives sin lists, and this is one of the sin lists, not the only one. And the purpose of this sin list is a diagnostic tool for the heart. You can diagnose your heart. I like to sometimes talk about salvation in a therapeutic or healing sense. Jesus is the good physician. It's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. We are sick with sin and we need a good diagnosis. We need to be told the truth. Sin is a disease of the soul, and so the heart, controlled by the flesh is powerfully diagnosed or exposed by this list.

As we read this list, we see described in a powerful way what the life of the flesh looks like. Again, people ask what is the flesh? We went through all that in a previous sermon but I just simply say the flesh is that part of you that produces this list. Whatever part of you that makes you do these things, that's what the flesh is. Called sin nature, indwelling sin, etcetera. There are 15 sins listed here, comprehensive and thorough diagnostic tool. Now, not every sin that you could commit is listed here, not at all. There's a longer sin list at the end of Roman's chapter 1 which covers ground that isn't covered here. All right, there's no actual comprehensive sin list, all right? But this is meant to be suggestive and it's a comprehensive diagnostic tool and not every sinner commits every sin on this list or even commits most of them on a daily basis but these are actual heart states that characterize the unregenerate heart. These are actions of the heart state that characterize an unregenerate heart.

They also are patterns of habit of habitual sins that Christians have as well that we must be putting to death by the Spirit. So it's both of that. It's both got a message of warning to the unbeliever and it's got a message of warning to the believer, as well. The key issue for us as Christians are habit patterns, not the occasional foray. All right, we'll make this point more clearly at the end but every Christian occasionally displays some aspects of this list from time to time. But no Christian is continually characterized by this list. So let's look at this sin list in general. He talks first about the works of the flesh, notice he's going to contrast it, we'll talk about this more next week, with the fruit of the Spirit. It's an intentional change from works to fruit and we'll talk about that next time but this is what the works of the flesh, these are the works that the flesh produces. The unredeemed nature, the sin nature.

The works of the flesh is what the flesh desires, verse 17. What does the flesh desire? It desires to do these things. That's what it wants. It wants to do these things. The Holy Spirit hates them and wants you not do these things, so that's where the battle lines are drawn and the flesh produces these things in the lifestyle of the unredeemed person and is seeking to do them in the lifestyle of the Christian. Now Paul says, "The works of the flesh are evident" or they are obvious. You could take this in a couple of ways; one is to just say look, everyone know what they are, okay? And I think there's to some degree a truth to this where even non-Christians have somewhat of the moral law written in their created being, they have a conscience and they're aware, although not perfectly aware, that these things are wrong, okay? They're evident or obvious. Most societies have laws against many of these things or see the wickedness of them and don't argue against them, although that doesn't always stay the same.

We, Christians, we have experience with these sins in daily life and we can identify them. When we see them in practice, we know they're evil, so this isn't some shocking surprise to find out that these things are evil. We're not shocked by this, we're aware, it makes sense. We know that these things are evil, even the pagans know that they're evil. They come to us in four groupings. First, sins of sexuality: The first three, sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery. The second are sins of religion: Idolatry and sorcery or witchcraft. The third division, the largest, are sins of relationship. So enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, and envy. And the fourth are sins of dissipated living or lack of self-control, such as drunkenness and orgies. Again, this list is not exhaustive but comprehensive. "Things like these," Paul says "and such like or things like these." So he's acknowledging right in the text, there are more besides.

But this is a very comprehensive list and it covers many aspects of human life and it is sufficient to diagnose the human heart and the spiritual condition of any person. Now, let's look at this sin list, the list of the flesh, the acts of the flesh in detail. The first three, as I've said, are sexual in nature, the deeds of the flesh are sexual. The first one is sexual immorality, the Greek word is "porneia" which will sound familiar to us from which we get the word pornography, sexual sins of any kind. The Greco Roman world was known for its sexual openness, tolerance of all manners of sexual appetites and practices. When the gospel came to a Greek or Roman town or city and people began to be converted, massive changes in the sexual area were obvious in the lives of these Christians.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, the apostle Paul writes this to the Thessalonians, he said, "It is God's will that you should be holy or sanctified, that you should avoid sexual immorality. That each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God." So it's very clear. This is a consistent teachings, not just one or two verses. Again and again this issue of sexual purity. Now, we know that sex is a great weakness for the human race, it is a major breach. If you could picture your soul like a walled fortress, this is a breach in the wall to which the enemy is focusing a ton of attention. So you know if you're standing on the walls and you see all of the soldiers, the enemy soldiers running to a particular place, they think they found a weakness, they think they found a way in and they want to destroy you by that way. Well, that's what's going on in the sexual area. Tremendous amount of satanic activity in this area so we must know that it's a weakness.

How much effort does Satan put toward sexual immorality, every single day from the moment that Adam and Eve ate the fruit and their eyes were opened and they realized that they were naked and they began sewing clothes for themselves, sex has been corrupted and is a major weakness. In Paul's era, sexual immorality was rampant, and as I've said, and Christians were specifically set apart from their pagan neighbors by their commitment to sexual holiness. They didn't visit the temple prostitutes, male and female prostitutes, they just stopped that pattern of life. They were holy with one another. The Gospel changed the way that people live sexually. Many commandments in the New Testament point to this issue.

The second word in the list, impurity, literally uncleanness. Uncleanness is just a general word seen, I think, especially in a sexual light. Impure thoughts leading to impure actions, has anything to do with anything that will make someone spiritually unclean especially in the sexual area. And then debauchery or sensuality, this would be a total lack of self-constraint resulting in behavior that violates all bounds of what's socially acceptable. In our culture, this kind of person would be called a party animal, let's say. Somebody who's just thrown off constraint, they're living for the next thrill, maybe addicted to recreational drugs and or alcohol. Also frequently has a sexual side to it, a person who moves from one sexual experience to the next, to the next with increasing addiction, increasing appetite and boldness.

Well, what about in our context, what's going on in our day? Well in our day and age, we see Satan's constant assault in the world's sexual gluttony, there are movies and TV programs, and internet pornography and articles, and all kind of things that are constantly appealing to our lust in this area. Specifically in the issue of internet pornography, it's a $13 billion industry every year in the US alone, $13 billion spent on this sin every year. Since the start of 2013, there have been 2.6 billion searches for internet pornography, one in five mobile searches are for porn, one in five, 20% of them. 60% of male church-going professing believers have viewed internet pornography in the last year, similar stats for women. In general, our society is rushing head long toward a similar sexual immorality that characterized pagan Rome, in which marriage is dishonored, homosexuality is celebrated. We see it happening before our very eyes in various areas, for example fornication. Fornication is rampant; premarital sex is the norm on college campuses.

Contrary to the river of sexual immorality is the biblical conception of marriage. The most powerful, complex image of Christ's relationship with the church is marriage. Jesus gives very clear teaching on marriage, in Matthew 19: "Haven't you read, He said, that the beginning, the Creator made them male and female, and said for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife. And they will become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one. What God has joined together, let man not separate." Now, one of the things on the homosexuality issue that I find interesting, is people saying that Jesus never addressed the topic. I can see the fact that he doesn't say the words homosexuality, but instead what he does, and that question comes up in the issue of divorce, he goes above the immediate question of divorce, as I would say, he goes above the immediate question of homosexuality. And Jesus talks about God's intention in very clear gender-based terms. "Haven't you read that at the beginning, the Creator made them male and female? And said, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so they're no longer two but one. What God has joined together, let man not separate." So Jesus does address it very plainly. Paul says in Ephesians 5 that marriage is a profound mystery. It's a picture of Christ and the church. And so therefore, we have this spiritual consummation language at the end of the Bible. In Revelation 21, when the new Jerusalem comes down like a bride, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And there's a beautiful spiritual consummation, not physical because there's no need for procreation at that point. Jesus said at the resurrection, they neither marry nor give in marriage, they're like the angels in heaven. But there is a beautiful picture of the unity between Christ and the church.

Well, that's the standard, that's what the Bible teaches on sexuality. Christians are called on therefore, to be absolutely celibate sexually, outside of covenant marriage, heterosexual marriage between one man, one woman. But they are to enjoy sexual unity within covenant marriage as a gift from God. And that's a healthy way to understand the sexual relationship. Well, these standards are clearly under open assault in our day and age, at every level. We must stand against these assaults, these are called the acts of the flesh. And we must stand, we've got to be at war by the Spirit against all the motions of the flesh.

Go back to my opening illustration, this stuff is spiritual poison, it kills the soul. I guess what troubles me, is in this day and age, we're being told that to tell the truth of someone who's drinking spiritual poison every day, and say, "Would you please," with tears coming down your face, "would you please put the poison down, I don't want you to die," is unloving. It's not unloving to tell people the truth. It's not unloving to tell them that they're killing their souls. That's not unloving. Jesus said it's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. "I've not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

And so we need to tell the truth to our generation that this stuff is poison. Put it down. We need to be at war first within ourselves, we need to be at war against fornication by the Spirit. Christians need to be sexually pure before marriage. We must avoid any hint of sexual immorality. Just because so many other college students and young people are "hooking up," as the term goes, doesn't change God's standard at all. We need to be at war against pornography by the Spirit, as we've already mentioned, Christians need to hate this sin as the spiritual poison it is, it destroy souls. We need to war against adultery by the Spirit. How many marriages are destroyed because husband or wife are led into other relationships? How much anguish? How many tears are wept because of this sin?

How many pastoral ministries have been ruined because pastors have gotten into this sin? How many divorces have sprung from this adultery? How many children's lives have been ruined by it? This too is spiritual poison. And we must war against homosexuality by the Spirit in the same way. This is an obvious target for Satan's agenda in our day and age. We are being systematically trained to think differently about this sin. Resist it! We need to tell people who are poisoning themselves the truth and it is not unloving to do it. I would commend to you this therapeutic model of speech that I've given to you. I think it will stand up better than other patterns will. You say all of us are drinking poison. Jesus remedies us. You're drinking poison, I don't want you to die. I don't know how you accuse a person like that especially if they've got genuine humility and they're pointing to Christ with tears coming down their face of anything less than love, but they'll try.

The warning is very clear at the end of our passage. Those who live like this, "I warned you, that they will not inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 is clear about it as well, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you." What a blessed word that word “were” is. God is able to transform every sinner on that list to make it a past tense. Praise God! We're being told that that actually can't happen in the area of homosexuality but the word stands it is absolutely possible Christ has transforming power. Listen to the rest of the verse. "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God." So that's the hope we point toward in all of these sexual sins. We must speak the truth in love. We must not be bullied into false doctrine or false ministry. The gospel is the only remedy for these sexual sins.

 Let's tell people the truth, so they can be saved from sin and find the light in God's standards living holy and upright lives. Let's courageously resist the temptation to cave in on this. And let's courageously resist the temptation to cave in in whatever ways you are caving in sexually, and not assume it's just out there. All the deeds of the flesh are poison, all of them. The Holy Spirit hates them all because he loves us. And we must fight these sins, each of them for our spiritual lives depend on us putting them to death. Remember what John Owen said which I quoted last week, "The vigor, power, and comfort of our spiritual life depend on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh." So turn those words around. You will be, not vigorous, not powerful and not comforted in your Christian life if you don't put sins to death. You'll be weak, emaciated and have no assurance. You must mortify, said Owen. You must make it your daily work, you must be constantly at it while you live. Cease not a day from this work. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.

If we sin secretly in these areas, we are constantly testing God, challenging him to act as avenger against us. I believe it is a responsibility of each person to assess themselves sexually. And if your right eye is causing you to sin then you gouge it out and you throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. And if your right hand is causing you to sin then it's your job to cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. If the church does it for you, we have become legalistic. It's the churches job to speak these truths to you and you put them into practice. We can't go rummaging through the closets of people's lives, that's your job. Rummage through your own closets. But know this, God sees everything. He knows what you're doing, don't tempt him to act as avenger against his holy law. Be holy because he is holy. It says in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." And it says earlier in that same book "our God is a consuming fire." So flea sexual sin by the Spirit and fight sexual sin by the Spirit.

The next sins listed are sins of religion, idolatry obviously associated with pagan religions, the worship of anything apart from the true and living God. It goes from false religion like Hinduism and Buddhism all the way to materialism and greed which is idolatry. Now the basic definition on idolatry is in Romans 1:25, "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the creator who's forever praised. Amen." So when some created thing takes God's place in your affections, some created thing supplants God as the uppermost goal of your life, that's idolatry.

Tim Keller calls idols "God's substitutes" or "rival gods." It's what your thoughts go effortlessly to when nothing else is demanding your attention. Career advancement, a dream home, a relationship with a particular person. One or two day dreams does not constitute idolatry. But ask this, what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart? What do you spend your money on? What gets your emotions roiling and boiling and churning? Idols tend to be at the root of all these things.

Now, a formalized system of false religion is the work of the flesh. So that's false religion but so also are these things called "heart idols." He also mentioned this word "sorcery" or "witchcraft." The Greek word is "pharmakeia," from which we get pharmacy or pharmaceutical, but it goes back in that day and age to the use of poisons and chemicals for making secret brews and all that, but it extends to the secret arts, witchcraft, etcetera. I used to pastor in Topsail, Massachusetts near Salem, and Salem has something like 3,000 registered witches. As a matter of fact, there was this one witch Laurie Cabot who has designated the official witch of the state of Massachusetts. I don't know why we needed an official witch. But if we needed one, Laurie Cabot was it. And her house was a shrine of the black arts, people would go all year round to see the things in her home. We have more and more interest in the supernatural and witchcraft in our age, it's probably going to get worse. Also possible application here is recreational drug use with the word "pharmakeia." So people that are living for or addicted to recreational drugs, it's an act of the flesh.

Now, the next eight sins on the list are all sins of relationship, sins of relationship. He begins with hatred, a state of hostility between people, deep seated resentments, bitterness, deep desire for revenge or retaliation. It could go as deep as racism or the kind of hatred that Nazis had for Jews, in the 1930s, or that perhaps Jews had for Germans or Nazis after World War II. Things like that. Serbs might have for Croats and Croats for Serbs, etcetera. Deep-seated things or it could go just to neighbors who, because of a bunch of things that have happened, just hate each other. He mentioned discord which is strife or quarreling, bickering, arguing, just not getting along, just not getting along. Just want you to know, praise God, they get along in heaven. Amen. They just do, they like each other and they just get along in heaven. There's no discord in heaven. I can't wait to be there but I need to get cured first. Amen. Maybe you might need to as well.

So in a marriage we're talking about husbands and wives unable to get along or get through a day without arguing, spending their time bickering. It could be in the church, people arguing or bickering in the halls or at church conferences or after church conferences or before church conferences. It could be in the workplace, it could be in government, military, just wherever people get together, you have discord. By the way, isn't it interesting how in the same sin list, you can have sins that you wouldn't think of participating in, sorcery, almost side by side with those that you probably participate in every day, discord. But God hates them all, he hates them all. They're all acts of the flesh.

He talks about jealousy, which is a passionate commitment to self; coveting, yearning for what someone else has. Secretly jealous if someone else is honored or promoted or praised or received some kind of earthly benefit. Fits of rage or anger, sinful anger. Obviously, somebody who can't control their temper, shouting, yelling, face getting all red, veins bulging. James calls anger "moral filth" like radioactive waste. This human anger is usually wicked and sinful. Would you say in any year, okay, let's say you get angry 100 times in a year, what percentage of those are righteous indignation because the glory of God has been impugned? Come on, be honest. I wouldn't put it at 99 out of 100, I have to go out to 1000 and then I might get a few righteous indignations in there.

Usually, my anger is selfish. Somebody has crossed me in some way, somebody's inconvenienced me in some way, somebody hasn't honored me in some way, probably the same is true of you. Fits of rage are acts of the flesh. Selfish ambition is just that careerism and yearning to get to be top dog, to be in charge so that you're honored and worshipped in some kind of way. Dissensions, we just talked about pretty much it's hard to see a distinction between them. Strife, arguments, discord, people not getting along. Think of how many times you and your spouse have argued, all of them acts of the flesh. Or you and your roommate or you and your brother or sister. You and a neighbor, you and a co-worker.

Think of all the dissensions that poison church life. Think of all the disagreements that make church life unpleasant. Think of how the sin of dissensions ruins joyful family life and church life all over the world. And then factions, the idea of party Spirit. "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas." Factions like gang warfare, the crips and the bloods or the blues and the reds, things like that. Factions or party Spirit, those are acts of the flesh. And then envy, again, I don't see a lot of difference between that and jealousy except maybe you're focused on a specific privilege or possession, something, a covetous heart.

All of these things come from the acts of the flesh. Envy is the opposite of contentment. Contentment, it says in Psalms 16, "the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a delightful inheritance." I'm happy with my wife, happy with my kids, happy with my job, I'm content with my possessions, I don't need anything else, I have the Lord, he is my heavenly Father, I've forgiveness of sins I don't need anything else. And so I'm content with the boundary lines, they've fallen for me in pleasant places, Psalm 16. Envy has David up on the roof looking at another man's wife and lusting after her, and wanting her, and taking her. Or it has wicked king Ahab looking at some guy's vineyard and killing him so he can get it. All of these things are acts of the flesh.

And then the last two have to do with just a loss, total loss of self-control, drunkenness and orgies. If you put them together you could picture the kind of wild parties in which people are losing all self-control getting drunk and doing wicked things.

All right, so that's the sin list. Paul then gives in verse 21 a terrifying warning. "I warn you as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." How can we hear that? How do you hear that warning, that those who live like this? Well, to inherit the kingdom of God, that's the goal of our salvation. Right? So it means to live eternally with God in his heaven. People dominated by the flesh will not go to heaven, that's what Paul is saying, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. Same thing he said in 1 Corinthians 6:9, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God, do not be deceived."

So living like this means the heart is unregenerate, this is the broad road that leads to destruction. Now, Christians can and do stray into sin from time to time, or else how could we understand Romans 7, Paul saying in verses 15 and following, "I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not but what I hate I do." What could that be other than the acts of the flesh? "What I hate I do, and if I do what I do not want to do I agree that the law is good as it is, it is no longer I who do it but it is sin living in me that does it." So sin living in me, that's the flesh, produces these things. Paul, at the end of that section says, "What a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord," Jesus will rescue us from this. Either at the second coming when in a flash, in a twinkling of the eye at the last trumpet we will be changed forever or at your death. And you will leave it behind and you will never sin again. But in the mean time we grievously sin in these areas.

Now, unregenerate people have the mind of the flesh, they live for these things, they plan for these things, they love these things, they go after these things. Spirit-filled Christians hate them but can't seem to stop doing them. There's an intrinsic difference. Christians hunger and thirst for righteousness as the beatitudes say, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," but we just can't seem to pull it off daily. We yearn for it but we don't do it. Non-Christians just have the mind of the flesh, it does not submit to God's law nor can they do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God. There's just two different ways to think and therefore two different ways to live. So grace, gospel of sovereign grace doesn't produce this kind of life, it just doesn't. It fights this kind of life.

So if we're told all of your sins are forgiven through the grace of God, all of them, past, present and future, it does not lead to this life. If this is the life you're living you haven't been forgiven, you're not a Christian, that's what Paul is saying. That's the warning he's giving here. What does grace do? Grace covers all your sins, but grace also transforms the way you live. Titus chapter 2:11-12 it says, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age." So how should we hear these warnings?

Well, it shouldn't threaten our understanding of justification or security, it is impossible for any truly justified person to sin their way out of the family of God, it cannot happen. But to know that you're a regenerate you must be at war and you've got to see these things gradually being weakened and assaulted in your life. You need to work out your salvation with what? Fear and trembling. You know what gives you fear and trembling? Verse 21 will do it, it does it for me. "I warn you as I did before," it's a repeated warning, "those who live like this will not go to heaven." That'll give you fear and trembling. You fear the Lord, you fear the outcome, and you put sin to death, that's what you do, it's the kind of life that leads to heaven. Why? Because it's God who is working in you probably right now to will and to do according to his good pleasure.

Christians heed these kind of warnings. Nominal Christians blow them off. Genuine Christians take sermons like this and say, "I must be holy, I yearn to be holy." Nominal Christians just blow them off they don't care. And they either do it through legalism in one sense you could say oh they take it seriously and then they go by legalistic means, we covered that before. But the nominal Christians, they just say, "It doesn't matter, I pray the prayer, sign the card, once saved always saved, doesn't really matter how I live." But we must by the Spirit be putting to death the misdeeds of the body. So looking backward at your sins, run to the cross, run to Jesus. What can wash away those sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Don't run to your legalistic efforts, run to the cross looking here back, run to the cross and find forgiveness through the blood of Jesus. Here forward run to the Spirit for help in obeying God's laws. That's the Christian life, that's the Christian life. And so by the Spirit you can put to death every sin on this list.

Now, this list should make you deeply humble. I would hope it's humbled you. It should humble you deeply. Note how many sins we would never commit are side by side with sins we may commit regularly, consistently. It's not to say that dissensions and sorcery are equally evil in God's sight. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is all sin is repugnant to God and we should never feel morally superior to anyone for any reason ever, period. That's kind of a sweeping statement, isn't it? Yes, it is. I'll say it again. You should never, you forgiven Christian should never feel morally superior to anyone who suffers with any sin ever, period, the rest of your life. Those days are gone. That's the essence of legalism, is to feel morally superior to others. Instead you have been saved by grace out of this list. You should be humble. Deeply humble.

So what application? Well, come to Christ. Come to Christ. There's no warfare possible for you if you're not a Christian. It's not possible. All you can do is amend your ways but you can't truly fight by the Spirit. The Spirit isn't given to any but the Christians. So come to Christ. Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross for sinners like you and me. Come to Christ and find forgiveness. If you're already a Christian, then understand the Spirit's role in this warfare, actively rely on Him, pray to him a lot. Say, "God send your Spirit. I need your help, I'm being tempted right now. Help me now, help me, help me, help me, help me." Pray without ceasing. That's how you fight. That's how by the Spirit you put to death, a constant dependence on the Spirit.

Thirdly, never ever surrender in any areas. You never wave the white flag in any area, ever. You're like Winston Churchill in 1940 looking at Nazi Germany. It's like at what point will you surrender? Never. We'll be down to the last British boy or girl in some alley somewhere, we'll still be fighting the Nazis. We're never going to give in. We don't want to be enslaved by them. So no, we will go down to the last one. Well, that's even more so should be our attitude against sin. I'm never going to give up on any of these things. I may stumble many ways. James says we all stumble in many ways. But I'm never going to give up on any of these areas. So the Spirit won't let me. Why? Because it's poison. Is the Spirit ever going to tell you, "You go ahead and drink as much poison as you want, I'll bring you to Heaven one day"? He's not going to tell you that, ever. He is going to fight every way that you're drinking poison.

Analyze your own patterns and confess your sins. Look at characteristic patterns, seek forgiveness. Everyone struggles in some ways sexually. Seek God's holiness and purity. If you're involved in some sexual sin perhaps internet pornography, perhaps same sex attraction resulting in thoughts or actions that are sinful, perhaps a sinful relationship? Repent immediately. If you're in a dating relationship and you've sinned together sexually, do not lower the standards to suit your lust or the prevailing culture. Read the scripture and know that God hates fornication. Seek God's forgiveness and receive it by the blood of Christ. Seek his forgiveness. Don't try to do good works to prove yourself to God.

Seek just humble yourself and ask forgiveness and He'll forgive you. Look at the relational sins. Married people. Is your marriage characterized by conflict? By sinful anger and discord? Then I'm asking you to repent. The two of you, get down on your knees and hold hands and say, "We have argued too much. Let's make a pact, you and I, to fight the arguing. To love one another as we loved each other when we first got married." Kneel together and pray for that. Church members, is there anyone here that you need to forgive? Anyone here you're feeling morally superior to because they've sinned against you? Give it up. Forgive. Love. No hatred, no discord.

What about pride? What about jealousy? Is this happening to you? Are you jealous of anyone? Are you proud of your position? Anything? Fight against these things. These are the works of the flesh. Flee to the cross of Christ.  You don't have to be perfect, you can't be perfect. But if you walk in the light, you confess the ways you have been dark, God will cleanse you. And so he says in 1 John 1:8-10, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives."

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Galatians 5:16-18, and our dependency on the Holy Spirit to equip us for daily spiritual warfare.

Turn in your Bibles to Galatians 5:16-18. We're going to be looking for a second week at Galatians 5:16-18. And I was just thinking about how we were right in the middle of the sermon last week, and just ran out of time. So we are just picking it right back up again.  I was thinking about a hero in the Bible we know very little about, and he is in the last verse in Judges chapter 3, a man named Shamgar who followed Ehud. We know nothing about but we know this, he killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad. Now I don't know what an ox goad is, but I think it's a sharpened stick. I'm thinking what kind of man do you need to be to kill 600 Philistines with a sharpened stick? And then there's another question, how do you do it? And I think the answer must be one at a time. Then I must think that these Philistines have got to be the stupidest warriors in history; seven or eight of them jump this guy, it's over. But then I picture this in my mind and always and I want to go to Christ, and I think Jesus fulfilled that image for me.

Jesus is the warrior who took on in His life every single temptation that Satan threw at him and killed them all. They laid dead at His feet. He lived a perfectly holy life, and now we by the Spirit can sit at His feet, this great champion who is Jesus, and we are asking him, "Teach us to be warriors for You, O Lord." Do you realize how many warfare images there are in the Old Testament? There are so many. And many of us, just perhaps many of you, are not all that interested in military history. Others of you very interested like myself.  But some of you may be wondering why so many battles, why so much killing? Why so much warfare?

Abraham had to fight a war to rescue his nephew Lot, you remember? Right on through the book of Joshua, it's just one battle after another, and Judges one battle after another. And then once you get into the era of the Kings it's just one invasion and one battle after another. Sometimes they went one way, sometimes another. But why so much warfare? And there's a lot of reasons for that but I think one of them is to teach us in the New Covenant we are at war and we need to fight, and teaches us how to fight.

I think that's one answer, and I think as I read the pages of these warriors in the past, how they fought, how they relied on God and won, how they did not rely on God and lost. There are so many lessons for me in the warfare I find myself in today and that all of you do as well. So as we plunge right in here into these three key verses, I want to remind you of the things we've already said. The Apostle Paul is writing in this Book of Galatians about the doctrine of salvation, how it is a sinner is made right with God, and I'm not going to go over by way of review, but these false teachers were saying that salvation from sin is a combination of faith in Jesus plus obedience to the laws of Moses, and Paul said that is no gospel at all. And he just unfolds how we are not justified by works of the Law but faith in Christ alone. We come to the Galatians five and Paul sums it all up saying, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." And so we are to fight against anything that would enslave us. Now the immediate context was we will not be enslaved by false gospels that teach legalism; we will not be enslaved by legalism.

We will break all of those chains of legalism. We will know that our sins will never be forgiven by what we do, never. We are forgiven by what Christ did, amen? By His works of righteousness and specifically by His work on the cross we are freed from our sin, from the guilt of our sins. Now we have said again and again and I don't think I can say it too much, salvation from sin comes to us in stages. None of us who are here in the flesh now, none of us is fully saved. We're not done being saved. There's yet more salvation work to be done on us. The first stage of salvation as it comes to us, is justification. What does that mean? It means the act by which the judge of all the earth, the sovereign God of all the universe declares you a sinner, not guilty in His sight, righteous in His sight.

A simple word for it is forgiveness, that we are forgiven by faith in Christ alone. Now at the moment of justification, we become adopted sons and daughters of the living God and that will never change. And we receive the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Spirit of adoption by which we cry out "Abba, Father." Having been justified by faith we are then launched out into a life of working out salvation, of gradual steady growth in Christ-likeness called sanctification. And the rules of the game, if we can use that language, are different than justification. Whereas our works were not welcome in justification, they are essential to sanctification. We must work or we will not grow. Now we work in a certain way, we work by the power of the Spirit, we work with the solid rock or justification under our feet. We work understanding all the time that we are forgiven, we are not guilty, but we must work. And we will battle sin and we're at war. We're going to talk about all that again today but that leads finally to glorification, the final act of the salvation drama for an individual is glorification.

Glorification happens generally in two stages. Two stages, if we're not the final generation, it'll happen for you in two stages. First at death, when your soul is separated from your body, your body will go to corruption in the grave but your soul will be instantaneously perfected by the sovereign grace of God and you will never again sin. Isn't that awesome? I'm yearning for that more and more, I'm yearning for that moment but that's not finished because God willed for us to be in bodies, he willed for us human beings to live in physical bodies and so the final act of our salvation, is the resurrection from the dead. At the second coming of Christ, we will be raised up incorruptible and we will be in resurrection bodies as glorious as Jesus's body and that is it, that's the finish line for you. Now we're right smacked up in the middle, if you are a Christian today you're listening to me, you are in the middle of your sanctification struggle or battle or journey. There's a lot of different ways we can talk about it and these verses, I hope, will help you in that battle. I believe it's my ministry, as Jesus said to Peter "feed my sheep," I want to feed you and nourish you for your battle this week. I want you to get ready for your battle, I want you to get ready for warfare, so by way of review, last time we talked about a command in verse 16.

The Apostle Paul said to the Galatian Christians, "So I say, walk by the Spirit" or "live by the Spirit," The Holy Spirit we talked about. The Holy Spirit is the sovereign power behind your sanctification progress. He is as essential to your sanctification as Jesus to your justification, without Jesus you cannot be justified, without the Spirit you cannot be sanctified. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, we see right away in the second verse of the Bible hovering over the waters of the deep and he comes and actually dwells inside of you the moment you become a Christian and there he lives with you forever, he will never leave you.

Now we are begun by the Spirit, we are not then perfected by the flesh. We, by the Spirit, seek to make progress and sanctification. The command here in verse 16 is to walk or to live your daily life by the power of the Holy Spirit. So we came last week to the incomprehensible mystery, the difficult mystery of God's power and our effort. How do they go together? How do we understand those two? In justification they don't go together, In glorification they will not go together, you will do nothing to glorify yourself, and you did nothing to justify yourself. It is justification by faith alone apart from works. It is glorification by God's sovereign power apart from works. But in between these two, we have works and you must work.

Now they're two wrong extremes, we do everything versus we do nothing, we do everything is sheer legalism, that's the very thing that we've been against this entire epistle. You are on your own, there's the standard, now live it. But we already know we can't do that. We have seen that again and again, that is not what sanctification is all about. But on the other side, neither is it true that we do nothing. We're not going to be taken to heaven on a flowery beds of ease. It is not true that if you are striving and struggling you are out of God's will.

There might be an individual who's been struggling, let's say with internet pornography and for the first time he's convicted, and for the first time he's putting up a fight and he's struggling, that's the first indication of sanctification in that area, he's struggling. Now the Keswick theology holiness, this “let go and let God” thing that says, "Cease striving and know that I'm God," and if you're striving and working you're not doing it right. That is just completely wrong. We talked about that last time, instead we are told to make an extreme effort in a Christian life. Many verses teach this, many.

Just the grammatical nature of verse 16, we're being commanded by Paul to walk by the Spirit. We have a command right in front of there something we must do. We must walk by the Spirit. There are other verses that are even clearer than this. 1 Corinthians 9, “Don't you know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize, run so you may win. Now everyone who competes in those games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, [says Paul] I don't run like a man running aimlessly, I don't fight like a man beating the air, I beat my body and make it my slave, lest after I've preached to others I myself may be disqualified for the prize.” That's hard running.

You remember the movie "Chariots Of Fire"? I love that movie. There are so many great illustrations from that movie, but there this one moment which the Jewish runner Harold Abrahams, is called in to these two men, these older men who are frustrated by how diligently he's training. Remember that scene? They're having tea together and with a very aristocratic kind of feel they say to him, "You've been acting like a tradesman, you need to act like the elite. If you're going to a run, run like the elite," meaning without severe training. And Harold Abrahams says, "You know, you yearn for a victory attained with the seeming effortlessness of Gods, it's not how it's going to be, effortless." So I'm just totally ripping that off and applying it right here alright, you're not going to just coast into sanctification. You're not going to just coast into the Heaven. You've got to run this race. And it's going to take everything you have to succeed.

And as I've thought about this, it occurs me, God wants the war. He wants the struggle, he wants the valor, He wants the courage, He wants you to serve him, when it's hard. There's some things we can do here on earth that can't do in Heaven and one of them is suffer, and He wants us to suffer for His glory. He's greatly glorified when we suffer and trust Him and get through some very difficult temptation and kill it. He's glorified by that. And He wants us to glorify Him. So, you folks will have just countless, probably among all of you, thousands of opportunities this week to glorify God by putting sin to death. And He wants you to do it. It is to His glory to do it. And so you need as Paul said at the end of his life, "I've fought the good fight, I've finished the race, I've kept the faith, now there is in store for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord will award to me." He wants you to do that. He wants you to run your race now, He wants you to fight your fight, He wants you finish this race and He wants you to keep the faith and continue believing in Jesus.

However, you must know that all of that is done only by the power of the Spirit, only by the Spirit, never independently. And so key harmonizing verse we looked at last time Philippians 2:12-13 says "Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose." So God by the Spirit is working inside you to will it, he wants you to will it so that you want holiness, and then to do it. But you are called on to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. There's hard work involved and it's not easy. Now I want you to take a minute and we're going to be working back and forth between these three verses, Galatians 5:16-18 and Romans 6-8, those three chapters. This is like a kind of a quick charcoal sketch on mortification, sanctification. The full treatise is unfolded in Romans 6-8. And so if you really want to understand sanctification, if you want to understand mortification, that is putting sin to death, really Romans 6-8 gives you the comprehensive teaching. This is just some quick statements that Paul makes in Galatians but the fuller treatise is in Romans.

If you want to hear how I preached through Romans 6, 7, 8 they're online. You can listen to them and I will commend some of them to you. We went through that over a long period of time and so I would urge you to go back and listen. But the key verse for me in Romans, is Romans 8:13-14. We're going to be looking at this a little bit this morning in conjunction with Galatians. But there in Romans 8:13-14 it says "For if you live according to the flesh you will die." Now, I just believe in context that means "Go to Hell." Not just that you'll die physically. I think it means you're not a Christian. If you live according to the flesh you will die, you will perish. "But if, by the Spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." In my mind I read that, "Live eternally," go to Heaven. So this is just two different ways to live. Life of the flesh, life of the Spirit. Those are just two different ways to live. "Because," Romans 8:14, "those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." And you could again put in your mind “these and only these.” These are the only ones who are the true children of God. So genuine Christians are at war against the deeds of the flesh or the misdeeds of the body.

So again, just keep your finger there or bookmark or whatever and then just go back to Galatians 5. What do we mean by this, the deeds of the flesh? They're listed for us and we'll go there, God willing, in our next few weeks, Galatians 5:19-21, "The acts of the flesh are obvious: Sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like." And then that's why I say if you're living that life, he says very plainly "I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like that will not inherit the kingdom of God."

So it is not the case that if you have prayed a prayer and claim to be a Christian and then you're living however you want and these words characterize how you're living that you're fine, "Once saved always saved" and you're going to Heaven, that is not true. It is not true that justification means you can sin as much as you want and go to Heaven. That is not the Christian life. If you're truly justified, the warrior God, Holy Spirit comes within you and he starts to war against these things. He hates them and he will fight them. And if that warfare's going on and you're being led by the Spirit, you're a child of God.

So every single day what that means is, every single day the Holy Spirit gets you up, gets you dressed and sends you into battle. He doesn’t send you alone, he's with you, he never leaves you or forsakes you, but he is with you. Alright, so that's all by way of review. And it's beautiful we are not passive in this, in this warfare, neither are we abandoned in it, amen. Not passive and not abandoned. Spirit is with us and we have to fight.

Alright so secondly, believe the promise. You will not gratify the loss of the flesh. Look at the whole statement, "but I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." So what Paul's saying here is the direct result of walking by the Spirit is success. You won't gratify the loss of the flesh. These two are diametrically opposed, as we'll see. There is a 100% success rate for everyone filled with the Spirit in facing temptation. Every time you're filled with the Spirit and temptation comes, you will win. Okay? The Spirit is completely effective in enabling us to live holy lives. Of course he is, he's God, he's the Sovereign Spirit. Again from the Judges, think about Samson. Remember when that young lion jumped on Samson and he threw it off and ripped it apart? Says in Judges 14:6 "The Spirit of the Lord, rushed upon him in power. So that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat." We were actually joking about this the other day, how do you tear young goats?  But I think we know what he meant. I personally never torn a young goat. But you could imagine it's easier to tear apart a young goat than it is a young lion. And Samson, it was the same either way. He was able to kill this lion who came on him by the power of the Spirit, the Spirit rushed upon him and he won. So it is with us in temptation, amen? The devil is like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. You resist him standing firm in the Spirit and you will win.

That's what we're saying. So we have this promise, we have to believe it, it's a sweet promise. It's also convicting and a diagnosis after sin. Temptation comes on you, you yield, you sin, you violate your conscience, you know you have sinned. You know you weren't in the Spirit. You didn't by the Spirit put to death, it wasn't like you tried and didn't work. You were not at that moment controlled by the Spirit, that's what we know, just in after the fact.

Thirdly, expect constant warfare, flesh versus Spirit. Look at verse 17, "For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit, what it desires, is against the flesh. These are opposed to each other, so that you not do what you want." Now we come to the issue of this word, "flesh." What do we mean by the flesh? And what are the lusts of the flesh? Well, the word "flesh" is very interesting. It's not just used in this one sense, and that's what makes it a little bit difficult. The flesh sometimes refers to just a physical body like the soft tissue, your organs, your muscles, your circulatory system, your tendons, nerves as opposed to bone. So flesh and bone together makes up the body. I'm not being really technical here but this is just how the Bible uses the term in that sense.

And there's nothing intrinsically sinful or wicked about it. We're not dualists, saying that physical stuff is evil, we are not saying that. Actually it says in John 1:14, the word Jesus, became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And so Jesus became human, became physical, and there's nothing wrong with that. And not only that, but after His resurrection, He became flesh again. Now, He was in a resurrection body but he still uses the same terminology. When they didn't believe what they were seeing in Luke, they couldn't understand, they were just so amazed and filled with joy but still not sure what they were seeing. Jesus said this, "Look at my hands and my feet, it is I Myself, touch me and see. A ghost, doesn't have [listen] flesh and bones as you see I have." That's in His resurrection body, uses the same word flesh. So the word flesh generally just means that muscles... And beasts have the flesh. You can eat the flesh of this or that.

It was by Jesus's physical body, his flesh, that our sins were atoned for. In Colossians 1, Paul is writing to dualists who tended to deny the value or the benefit of things physical and to deny that Jesus even came physically. He said, no, He came physically and not only that, it was by his physical body dying on the cross that your sins were atoned for. Colossians 1:22 "He's reconciled you by his physical body." Now, what does the word flesh then mean here? What does it mean? Well, let me just give you a simple way of understanding it. Do you see lists of the acts of that flesh? Do you see that list? In Galatians 5:19-21 "The acts of the flesh are obvious, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed." That whole list. The flesh is that internal part of you that produces that. That whole list, that's what the flesh is.

I don't know what it is, but it produces that list of sins. Now, the NIV, generally translates flesh in this sense, sinful nature. Sinful nature. So that's that part of you that's inside of you, that makes you do evil rebellious things contrary to the law of God. Now, a clear description of the flesh, the clearest description is in Romans again, Romans 7. So if you're still in that region, you can look at Romans 7. And verses 14-20 in general, talk about... I don't have time to read through it all, but what Paul says is, "The very thing I want to do, I do not do, but the thing I hate, I do. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it but it is sin living in me that does it." So that's... I think that's flesh. Indwelling sin, sin living in you that does it, the internal sin nature. Now, why is the word flesh so closely related to the body? Why does Paul choose this to talk about that sinful nature? Well I think it's because the body is a seat of sin. It's also a vessel for serving God. We can't serve him without our bodies in this world. So that's why Paul says he beats his body, makes it a slave, rather than just killing his body, because if he killed his body, he's commit suicide, he'd be out of this world, couldn't serve Jesus in this world.

So the body is... It's good and bad. It's a vehicle for serving God but it has to be watched very closely. Why is that? Paul uses other terminology in Romans such as "body of sin," and "body of death." And it's linked to the bodily drives. And this is what I think happens, in Adam, in sin, the sinful nature, indwelling sin hijacks normal physical things and pushes them beyond boundaries set by God into sin. It pushes you. A normal good bodily desire pushes it into something that's evil. So, the desire to be loved becomes the drive to be worshipped and esteemed. Like the devil wanted Jesus to fall down and worship him. We are like that. We want to be worshipped. The desire to eat, becomes a drive toward gluttony. The desire to drink, a drive toward drunkenness. The desire for sexual pleasure, becomes the drive towards sexual immorality of many kinds. Fornication, adultery, homosexuality, promiscuity, pornography, all of these things are displays of the flesh. We’ll talk more about it next week.

The desire for pleasure of any type, soft clothes, comfortable living arrangements, well-crafted automobile, or wrist watch, becomes materialism and pleasure-seeking, yearning for only the best and luxury. It's what the flesh does. The desire for productive labor becomes a drive toward workaholicism, seeking the praise of others for the excellence of the work that you do. The love for any created thing, any beautiful thing, any good thing in this world can become idolatry. You can make an idol of a spouse or a child, or a friend. You can make an idol of any good thing that you experience in this world. The desire for rest and refreshment becomes a drive towards self-indulgent laziness. So, you become the sluggard of the Book of Proverbs. Just living for sleep. You can never get enough sleep. That's what the flesh does and I can go on.

The flesh takes normal bodily functions and pushes them beyond boundaries that God set up. These are therefore the lusts of the flesh. The Greek word lust has to do with an overpowering desire, magnetic pull consuming your thoughts. The lust of the flesh flow from the mind of the flesh which is described very clearly in Romans 8:5-8. "The mind of the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." It's a thinking pattern. Romans chapter 8. Now, the verse says in verse 17, "The lusts of the flesh are set against the desires of the Spirit. The flesh desires or lusts for what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh. These are opposed to each other so that you do not do what you want." The same Greek word is used for desires in reference to both the flesh and the Spirit. Same one. Now, generally the drives or desires of the flesh, we use the word lust. We usually don't use that word for the Spirit. We don't say the Spirit lusts for certain things but it is the same Greek word.

Strong desire. So, where the flesh has a strong desire for these sins, the Spirit has a strong desire for the fruit of the Spirit in your life. He yearns for your holiness. He's jealous over you and yearns for your holiness. So there's this strong desire. The Spirit yearns to produce Christ likeness in us in the pattern of the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generous, faithfulness, self control. He yearns to produce those in you. And the flesh hates those things and yearns that they not be in your life. Conversely, the flesh yearns for that list of sins and the Spirit hates them all and is fighting against that list in your life. So, some examples. The Spirit moves in you to pray, it's time to pray. It's time for warfare, you know what I'm talking about. Especially the longer it goes on, alright, you get down on your knees and begin your time of prayer. You start lifting up your hands, you're praying, you're interceding for others. You get the church phone list, please get the phone list, pray for other brothers and sisters in Christ. Pray for each other. Please do that, not just the elders need to do that. Pray for each other. Get the phone list, take a page pray through it. Pray for five people everyday. Just pray though that list. So, you're praying and as it goes on, the flesh starts to rise. Has that ever happened to you? Happens to me all the time. Flesh starts to rise, your mind starts to wander. You start to be anxious about the things you need to get done. Financial pressures start coming in, other issues, temptations start coming in, you're at war. The Spirit wants you to keep praying, wants you to put up the shield of faith. He wants you keep staying on your knees, forget about the pain in your lower back. You older people know what I'm talking about. Not worrying about the fact that you're not getting much circulation to your lower legs. Forget it, shift around a bit, alright but you're at war.

The Spirit wants us to go on a short-term mission trip. You have the idea of it but then immediately some ideas start flooding in. And you start to be anxious about fundraising. Anxious about the travel, anxious about the weird foods you're going to... Sorry, the multicultural different foods you're going to be eating. And you don't know what is going to happen and you start being anxious and then you don't want to do it. And it's a war. The Spirit wants us to evangelize. You know what a war this is. He's leading you, prompting you to share the gospel with your boss at work. And the flesh doesn't want to do that, and there's this war back and forth. Everything's a struggle. The Spirit wants us to attend church and be active in church life. Use your spiritual gifts, have a ministry. So, simply just going to church can be a war for some people. Just going to church, and you know you want to be there but there's just that desire for maybe a day off, it won't matter... And you're at war. It's going all the time. The Spirit wants us to be generous with our money and give to the church, and give to missions, and give to the poor and needy, and he wants us to do that but the flesh wars against it and stops it.

Conversely, the flesh, as I said, has a program for you as well. Read about it in verses 19-21. That's what the flesh wants, and the Spirit hates those things and wants them all dead. So you may ask "Is bitter warfare guaranteed for the rest of my earthly life?", what is the answer? Yes. Absolutely. The only way to escape it is to be taken out of this world by Jesus, either by death or the second coming, that's the only way your warfare will end. It says it right there, "They are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want," so you've got to battle. And so as it is, while we live, we will always be deeply conflicted and deeply divided. Look what it says at the very end of verse 17, it says they are in conflict, the flesh and the Spirit are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want. So I've just taken that, I'm going to absolutize it.

Christians are never wholehearted in anything we do, ever. We don't wholeheartedly serve God, and we don't wholeheartedly sin, ever. It's true. There's something holding you back at every moment when you're serving Jesus. It's like running through waist-high water with a parachute behind you. Or like, for me yesterday on my bike ride, riding for at least 4/5th of that ride though, I was on a circular route, I know I went uphill out and uphill on the way back. And you think "How can that be?" I don't know, but it was, I'm sure of it. The wind was in my face like 80 percent of the time. And I'm very competitive with myself, not with anyone else. Don't any of you really expert riders come and want to take me on. You'll win, I'll lose, I don't care, I don't care. But, I compete against myself with this little bike computer, and I'm thinking "This is pathetic." But I know it's because of the head wind. Every stroke, left right left right is opposed by the head wind, it was a strong wind yesterday. I knew it would be too, because I saw the flag on that Free Will Baptist church at the end of the road right before I turned. Anyway, it was perpendicular, I was like "Oh Lord." So just terrible. And it's in your face.

That's what it's going to be like the rest of your life. It will never be easy to serve God, and I don't think it's meant to be. Now occasionally, the sovereign power of the Spirit will come on you and move you to do it, and that'll happen. He'll do that, but generally you're going to just feel that warfare strongly. So you're not going to wholeheartedly serve God, and neither on the other hand are you going to wholeheartedly serve sin. You may be watching a movie you shouldn't be watching, or reading a book you shouldn't be reading, you may be on the phone saying some things, disparaging things, and you know you're wrong, and you're violating your conscience, and you don't feel good about it, and you feel sick, and you want to stop it, and that's you're not whole heartedly serving sin either, ever.

So therefore, Christians are schizophrenic and weird in God's universe. We are the weirdest thing there is in the universe, and I'm not joking. Think about it, God is pure light, and in him there's no darkness at all. There's no shifting shadow of change within God, he is one, never second guess himself, he is at one with himself all the time, perfectly one. So also the holy angels, they do nothing but serve God whole heartedly all the time. They delight in anything God wants them to do, so also the glorified saints in heaven are like the angles, praising him all the time. Conversely, Satan is not deeply divided and conflicted within his nature, he hates God and fights against him all the time. He knows what he's about, so also his demons, they're just serving Satan all the time, so also the reprobates, unrepentant serving sin slaves to sin. The rocks and wind and gravity and dirt just do what God made them to do. They're not deeply conflicted. Have you ever seen a deeply conflicted rock? You're the one with the problem, it's not the rock that has the problem. So also animals. The cow chews it's cud, it's not deeply conflicted. Dogs do whatever they do. Cats, I guess squirrels are different. You know when they're crossing in front of you and go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth?  And you're just about to kill them and they don't know what direction, they're deeply conflicted. But everyone else, they just do their nature. We're weird, we are weird. We are strange.

But thank God it's only temporary, amen? Thank God someday we will be what we want to be. Someday we will be free. Free forever. James put it this way, with the tongue we praise our God and father, and with it we curse men who have been made in his likeness out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers this should not be. Yes, but it is. Can the same spring produce both fresh water and salt water? You can, in the same 10 minute span, praise God in a very beautiful way and then say something hard about some other person. Could be the next minute. So we're weird, we're schizophrenic, but praise God the deep division is temporary.

So therefore, what is the key? Verse 18, understand your new status, we're not under law, but under grace. If you're led by the Spirit, you're not under law. There's a whole new status, and I covered this two weeks ago in the sermon on the law, basically the law as perfect standard: FBI, District Attorney, convicting judge and executioner. Those days are over, amen? The law will not do that for you anymore. The law will not condemn you and send you to Hell. That's what it means, you're not under law. We're in a whole new status. We're now led by The Spirit in a whole new way of life, instructed by The Spirit we understand God's law. Transformed by The Spirit, we delight in God's law. Empowered by the Spirit, we obey God's law. We're not under law now. Instead, we're led by the Spirit. So how can we win? How will we wage war and win, led by the Spirit? What do we do? Look again at Romans 8:13-14. "If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death, the misdeeds of the body you will live because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Now here when I talk about being led, I'm not talking about, I felt led to take this Job, or I felt led to marry this person, I felt led to go on this mission trip. It's not that. It's he's leading you to put sin to death that's the leadership we're talking about here, mortification.

And so I'm going to lean on John Owen here as I wrap up. You just want to know how am I going to win. John Owen was a 17th century Puritan Theologian, wrote some great things on the mortification of the flesh. Mortification, putting sin to death. He says, "You have a responsibility, if you by the Spirit…" So you have a responsibility. Own your responsibility." And he tells you how you're to do it. "If you through, or by the Spirit, put to death, the deeds of the body, you will live." The outcome is you will live. You'll have eternal life. So Owen says this, "The choices believers who are suredly free from the condemning power of sin, ought to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin." And he said this, "The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depend on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh." Let me say that in simpler language. The health and power and joy and assurance that you want in your Christian life, are directly dependent on how well you put to death sin by the Spirit. Turn it around. The more poorly you put to death the misdeeds of the body, the less power you'll feel in the Christian life, the less joy you'll feel in the Christian life, the less assurance you'll have in the Christian life.

You can't sin your way out of the family of God but you can definitely sin your assurance away and you won't know if you're a child of God and you'll be struggling and wondering about it because you've just been giving into sin so much. So you must put it to death. You must mortify. You must make it your daily work. You must be constantly at it while you live and then John Owen said this, "Be killing sin or sin will be killing you."

Now based on a little illustration used, I've liken it before to a fight with a poisonous snake like a black mamba or something like that right? Walking through the jungle and the snake sees you, and you see the snake, and the snake comes at you and somehow you're quick enough to grab it right around the throat. And it is writhing and moving and hissing and you see its fangs there and you know he wants only one thing and that's to kill you. And you're fighting and struggling and sweat coming down and you're just at war with this snake. You cannot get to the point where you say, "Look, snake. We've had a really good fight haven't we? You and me. We've really had an awesome fight and I respect you. Alright? I don't know if you respect me but we fought well. Now, I'm pretty much done. So I would like to put you back on the path and let you go, and let you go to your snake family and snake home and do whatever you do there in your snake... I'm going to turn around and go back the other way. Okay?" What happens when you let go of that black mamba and turn and walk away. It comes and gets you, it comes to kill you. So it is with sin.

Sin wants to kill you. It wants to take everything of value from it. Now it can't kill you eternally, I've already covered that. And you know what, in this life you can't kill it either. You can never say of any sin pattern, I know this, I will never sin in that way again. No way. If any man thinks he stands, what, take heed lest he fall, you got to be on your guard. But what you can do, is you can gradually weaken sin so it doesn't trouble you as much.

I'm going to close with a key verse, Romans 6:6. Romans 6:6 says this, "we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing." That's the key idea there. Rendered increasingly powerless, so that's the strategy I'm giving you for this, for mortification, okay? You can kill temptations, like Shamgar, you can kill them all. But you can't kill the sin that's sending them. Alright? But what you can do is weaken it. The longer you put between yourself and the last time you yield to that sin, the weaker it gets in your life. The longer, the more hours, days, months, years, between you and that sin, the weaker and weaker it gets.

And so Romans 6:6 says, that our old self is crucified. The person we were in Adam is dead in order that this sinful body might be increasingly rendered powerless, so that we might no longer be slaves to sin. So here's the strategy, death by starvation, besiege the sin, okay? Cut it off, of its supplies. Cut it off of its food supplies, cut sin off of its water supplies, make it weaker and weaker. How? By resisting the temptations it sends to you. You resist one time, the next time it'll come a little weaker. Resist two times, it'll be even weaker. Resist three, four, five times, it'll be weaker still.

And little by little it will not have a grip on you like it used to. Now in order for this to happen, you have to be a Christian. You have to be a Christian. I'm not talking to non Christians. This is a family discussion. If you are here and you have never trusted in Christ, you cannot defeat sin. Your task is to repent and believe in Jesus. Trust in Christ crucified and then you can begin your warfare, but before that all you need to do is trust and repent in him. Now, we're going to go to the Lord's supper. There are so many more things I could say, but this time for us to partake. Now, here is the thing the Lord's supper is a means or avenue of grace in this battle. It is an avenue of grace. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ and you have testified to that by water baptism, you're welcome. If you have not yet been baptized to believe, or you've not testified to that, okay do not come. But if you're a believer and you've testified by water baptism, you are free to come, alright? This meal, this Lord's supper has strength in it, if you feed on it by the Spirit you'll be strengthened for your battle. I'm going to close the sermon in prayer and then I'm going to ask the deacons to come up and we'll partake in the Lord's supper.

So Father thank you for the wisdom that comes from your word and fighting this battle. Thank you for the way that you empower us. God I pray for my brothers and sisters that are here. Give them power to fight by the Spirit. And Lord I pray for any that are here that are lost, that they would trust in you and repent and believe for the forgiveness of their sins. And now as we turn to this time we pray that you would send forth your Spirit we need his ministry with us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Galatians 5:16-18, and how the Holy Spirit helps us survive the bitter spiritual warfare.

Next month, my daughter and I, God willing, are going to be in Serbia, ministering to some folks there with the IMB. And that same month, actually, right around the time that we're there, will mark on June 28th 2014, the 100th anniversary of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, thus beginning World War I, Which as I've said before, I think is one of the greatest tragedies in all of human history. I mean the war, in particular. Obviously, assassination is a grave crime, but all of the nations of Europe had armed themselves to the teeth and were ready to show off what they could do in the battlefields. And these mighty modern economies, these post industrial revolution economies, with all of the technological development and all their weapons, were ready to be unleashed on each other. Each nation convinced the war would be a short one and that the troops would be home by Christmas.

And so, the guns of August were unleashed in 1914 and devastating war resulted in just casualties by the tens of millions. 37 million people killed in World War 1. And perhaps, as finally, when it ended in the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 and a generation of young men lay in their graves as a result of just political insanity. And a poet said, "The lights had gone out all over Europe." The only hope for many in the world at that point, lay in the name that many gave to that war which was 'the war to end all wars'.

Well, from the perspective of the 21st century, know that was absolutely not true. World War I gave birth to an even greater conflagration in the World War II, which the death toll rose to more than double. 85 million people died as a result of that one. And so, the 20th century was really a century of warfare, of huge warfare, of world cataclysmic shaking warfare that has shaped the world as we know it today.

But as we look at the text that we're looking at today, Galatians 5:16-18. I would say as a Christian pastor, despite the fact that World War I and World War II and other subsequent wars have captured all of the headlines and given rise to countless books and documentaries, and poems, and essays, and movies and all kinds of things. Massive scale that dominates the landscape of human history and catches the eye. I think that the warfare described in our text today is infinitely more significant. And it is the warfare that goes on inside every true Christian every day.

The spiritual warfare, the warfare that goes on between the Spirit and the flesh, that's what we're going to talk about. This battle field is internal, its ebbs and flows are invisible, yet the destiny of the world lies in the balance. As Christians conquer the flesh by the Spirit they move out and do the good works that God has ordained, build the church, including evangelism and missions.

We talked much in this church about two infinite journeys, the internal journey of sanctification and the external journey of worldwide gospel advance. So those two are absolutely interconnected. Today, we're going to focus on the internal journey and understand it as a warfare, bitter warfare between the Spirit and the flesh.

Allow me to set these three very small but significant verses in context; we're in the book of Galatians. Galatians to the letter written by the Apostle Paul, he was called the Apostle to the Gentiles. He went out as a church planting, trail blazing missionary, evangelist. He went into the lands of unreached people groups, Gentiles and Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. And he went to a region called Galatia and there were some Gentiles there, and God blessed his preaching of the gospel, many came to faith in Christ. They understood the message of the gospel and they were saved and believed. He organized them into churches and then left to go work in another place. After he left, some false teachers came in who have been called Judaizers. And they preached a poisonous mixture of Christ plus Moses, or Christ plus works, faith plus works, and that believing in Jesus is not enough for the salvation of your souls, you must also obey the laws of Moses, beginning with the law of circumcision.

Paul says that is no gospel at all, it's a false gospel. I call it poisonous. Paul lifted up and made plain in Galatians 2 the center piece of the gospel, which is justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law. Sinners are made right with the Holy God simply by faith in Jesus. We who are guilty, we who have violated the laws of God, we can be made right, we can be forgiven through faith in Jesus and through faith alone. Paul then says that, that their own experiences with the gospel, how they received the gift of the Holy Spirit and began the Christian life proved it out. And then, the Bible itself, the Old Testament proved it out. Abraham was justified by faith not by works, and there a number of verses he sites in Galatians 3 and 4 that show that this idea has been woven throughout the Bible. Sinners are made right by faith and not by works.

In our chapter now, Galatians 5, he calls them to freedom. He warns these Galatian Christians, concerning these false teachers, that want to wrap chains of legalism around you and tell you that you are made right by God and made right in the sight of God and you continue in that status by your own obedience to the law. Well, that's a yoke. It's a chain of slavery. So in Galatians 5:1 he says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not allow yourself again to be burdened by a yoke of slavery." But as we've been saying in the last few weeks, this freedom is not freedom the way the world defines it. To sin with impunity and do whatever you want, doesn't matter how you live, you can pursue happiness as your own fleshly appetites define and there are no repercussions, once saved always saved, doesn't matter how you live, go to heaven when you die.

In Romans 6:1, Paul brings up this question. He says, "What then, shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? May it never be." And then, later in that same chapter, Romans 6:15, he says, "What then, shall we sin because we're not under law," as it says in our text here 5:18, "Not under law but under grace." Shall we sin for that reason? By no means. So the true gospel flees the opposite extremes, as we've been saying, of legalism on the one hand, that you are forgiven in the sight of God by your obedience to the law, unaided obedience to the law, or license on the other, that it doesn't matter how you live.

Now, legalism has been the focus of the letter up until now, but now Paul addresses the concerns about license. That the gospel of God's grace means that you can sin all you want, it doesn't matter how you live and you'll still go to heaven when you die. In order to understand this, this teaching, we have to stop and just step back and look at the big picture. Salvation, Christian salvation from sin, comes to us in stages. We don't get it all at once. None of you has your full salvation from sin yet.

It begins with justification, which is the declaration by God, the Almighty Judge of the universe that you are forever not guilty of all your sins. And that's on the basis of the gift of righteousness credited to your account by simple faith, the righteousness of Jesus. That's justification, the beginning of the Christian life, but it flows inevitably into sanctification. And the rules of the game on sanctification are different than that of justification. Whereas, in justification, your works are absolutely unwelcome. You must not seek to bring your works for the forgiveness of your sins. Now, in sanctification, you gradually, little by little, are called on to work out your salvation of fear and trembling [come back to that phrase], and become more and more like Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, step by step. And then finally, it ends in glorification. And glorification is the act of the sovereign God, Almighty God, instantaneously to transform you forever conform to Christ perfectly in every way. And that comes, I believe, for most Christians in two stages. At death, the Spirit is made perfectly righteous and then goes and waits for the resurrection of the body. And at the resurrection of the body then we get glorious resurrection bodies, just like Jesus and that's it. And we're heading toward that. Amen, hallelujah.

But we're not there yet. And all of you who are listening to me today who are Christians, you're right in the middle of a warfare known as sanctification. And that's what we're talking about today. And it begins in our text with a command, a clear command in verse 16. "So I say", according to the Apostle Paul, he's giving the commands of an Apostle, "So I say, walk by the Spirit." So there's this initial command that comes, walk or live by the Spirit. The word 'walk' means live your daily life. It's a meticulous kind of thing, in detail, how you walk, etcetera, day by day, walk by the Spirit.

Now, the Holy Spirit has already been introduced to the Galatian readers. He says back in 3:2-3, he said, "Now I want to ask you, did you receive the Spirit by works or by believing what you heard?" So they received the gift of the Spirit, God did miracles among them at that time, the gift of tongues came often in the book of Acts. And there were some other miracles, they knew that the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Spirit had come upon them.

They had received the gift of the Spirit, simply by faith. And they had begun the Christian life by the Spirit but they're not perfected by the flesh, he said this back in Galatians 3. And then in 3:14, it says that by faith they received the promise of the Spirit. So they have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. And then, in 4:6, "The Spirit is in our hearts crying out of a father." By that Spirit, we cry out 'Daddy', we cry out to God that He is our adoptive father. And then again, in this chapter 5:5, it says, "By faith through the Spirit we wait for righteousness." That's the essence of sanctification, I think. So the Spirit's already been introduced.

Let's talk about the Holy Spirit now. The Holy Spirit is the sovereign power of God behind sanctification. The Holy Spirit is as essential to sanctification as Jesus Christ is to justification. Without the work of Christ on the cross, we would have no hope whatsoever of being made right in the side of the Holy God. You would have no hope if it weren't for Jesus. None. In the same way, without the work of the Holy Spirit within us, we would have no hope whatsoever of growing in holiness. We would have no hope whatsoever putting a single sin to death apart from the Spirit, so the Spirit's indispensable.

Now, let's talk about a simple definition of the Christian life. Christian life is a life lived daily under the direction and by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, moment by moment, forgiven completely by the blood of Jesus, that's the Christian life. We are justified, we are forgiven, we're adopted, we are secure. Amen? You can't sin your way out of the family of God, but you have the indwelling Holy Spirit and moment by moment, the Spirit empowers you to live a holy life defined by the moral law as we've talked about before. That's the Christian life.

And so, in this paragraph, we have the power of the Holy Spirit described in the life of the Christian, enabling each Christian to live a life that's well pleasing to God. Now, who is the Holy Spirit? What do we mean by the Holy Spirit? Well, we believe that the full revelation of God in the Bible, is that of the infinite mystery of the trinity; the infinite mystery of trinity. Now, you're not going to find the word trinity in the Bible, but it's basically a summation of some doctrinal insights that do come straight from the Bible.

The first and foremost, is that there is one God and there is only one God. There is one God and there is only one God. Secondly, that this one God has eternally existed in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Eternally existing this one God in three persons. And that these three persons are in some mysterious sense, we could use a language, separates centers of existence while being still perfectly one. It's very difficult, I would say close to impossible for us to completely conceive of this mysterious unity of three persons in one God head. This is what the Bible teach us and we accept it by faith.

And in the doctrine of the trinity, the Father is fully God, and the Son is fully God, and the Holy Spirit is fully God, but the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not Spirit, and the Spirit's not the father. So, they can have relationship with each other, communication, conversation with each other, that's the doctrine of the trinity. So, what we're saying is, that the trinity is directly eternally involved in human salvation, but they have different roles in that salvation. The Father before the foundation of the world, made a plan by which the elect would be saved from their sins. Before the foundation of the world, that's what the Bible teach us.

The Son became incarnate by the Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit became incarnate, became a human being, lived a sinless life, did great signs and wonders, died in atoning a substitutionary death on the cross, he died in the place of sinners, rose from the dead on the third day and ascended to heaven. The son executed the Father's plan, that part of it anyway. He achieved redemption on the cross, and then ascended to heaven. Then the Father and the Son together sent the Holy Spirit into the world to take that finished work of Christ and apply it to individual people all over the world.

And that's what the Spirit is doing right now. The sovereign Spirit is moving throughout the world and I trust even throughout this sanctuary right now, applying the work of Christ to individual hearts. If you are Christian today, you may thank the Holy Spirit for making you so. The Spirit personally brought Christ to you. And it is the Spirit who made you a Christian. Now, the Holy Spirit is almighty God, and that's awesome when you think about it. He first is mentioned in the Bible in the second verse of the entire Bible. It's amazing. There the famous verse, Genesis 1:1, it says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." And then it says now, "The earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." So, the Holy Spirit of God is right there hovering over the waters. And in the same way, he is at work inside you, he's working in your soul. How awesome is it? It's really almost inconceivable that the third person of the trinity is dwelling within you if you were a genuine Christian, if you're born again. The Spirit of God is living within you, the same Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation in the ancient world is now moving in our hearts to bring about holiness, to bring about God's purposes, to bring about his changes that he wants.

This is absolute omnipotence. That's got to be redundant, but anyway, I'm going to say it anyway. Absolute omnipotence, he has all power, absolutely. And he's at work in your life, and he is perfectly wise, he's omniscient and he's inside you, fully engaged in your life to bring about holiness. Now, the indwelling Spirit, the gift of the Spirit was promised through the prophets in the Old Testament, that this gift would come to us. He is the promised Holy Spirit of the Spirit of promise. And there's one promise in particular that I never tire of reciting to you folks, and I love it because of all that it says. It's in Ezekiel 36:25-27, you've heard it before, just listen again. This is what the Spirit brings to you. It's what the Spirit does to you if you're a Christian. Listen. Ezekiel 36:25-27, "I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. And I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you. And I will remove from you your heart of stone, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I'll put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

That is the promise of the Holy Spirit's work in applying Jesus's cleansing blood to you, transforming your nature from within and moving you to obey God's laws and keep his commandments. The Spirit's also promised in Joel 2, which the Apostle Peter referred to in the day of Pentecost, Joel 2:28-29 says, "In the last days, I'll pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I'll pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy." Jesus, for his part, made also repeated promises that he would send the Holy Spirit. He said in John 14, "I will ask the Father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."

So again, the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit Jesus made. And then, after his resurrection he reiterated the promise. He's very clear about this. He says in Luke 24:49, I'm going to send what my Father has promised but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. And so the Holy Spirit, the power of the Spirit poured out by the Father and the Son. And then again, in Acts 1:4-5, Jesus commanded them, "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days," He said to them at that time, "In a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

Then that great and awesome day came at last, the day of Pentecost came. And they were all together in the upper room and they're praying and waiting. And suddenly, there came the sound of a violent rushing wind, like the sound of a hurricane but no moving air, just the sound, and they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, it says, "And they began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them." And a crowd gathered for the feast of Pentecost heard the sound of the rushing wind and they gathered, and the church flooded out into the streets and began to change the world, by the power of the Spirit, they began to change the world. And Peter began to preach this awesome Pentecost sermon, he's explaining what's going on. And this is what he says, "God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of the fact of the resurrection. Exalted to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear." So he's explaining the phenomenon they're seeing, the gift of the Holy Spirit. And then, at the end of his Pentecost message, he extends the promise to everyone. When they heard Peter's very convicting sermon, they were cut to the heart. And they said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

Now, that may be you today I hope. If you have come in here as an unbeliever, you've come in here you've never trusted in Jesus, you've been playing the game. Maybe you're nominal and not a genuine Christian. Maybe you've just been invited today. Maybe you're here for the dedication. Maybe you're a family member or a relative, and you just want to take a nice picture of a family that you love and a cute little baby. Hey, they are cute. But can I talk to you about your soul? Someday you're going to die and you're going to stand before God in judgement. Are you ready? The only way you can be ready is by repenting and trusting in Jesus. They, on that day of Pentecost, those people were cut to the heart. They knew they were sinners and they weren't ready to die. And they said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter gave this timeless answer, he said, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off." That's us, we're far off, for all whom the Lord, our God, will call.

So the promise of the Holy Spirit has been abiding now for 20 centuries. Everyone who hears the gospel and believes, they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the theology of the Spirit. Every single Christian has the indwelling Spirit. If you don't have the indwelling Spirit, you are not born again, you're not a Christian. You're still in your transgressions and sins. Every Christian has the indwelling Spirit. The Spirit is the deposit guaranteeing that we're going to heaven, guaranteeing the full inheritance of the saints. The Spirit is that guarantee. But he is also the power for ongoing holiness, for the internal journey of holiness, of sanctification. He is also the power for the external journey of evangelism and missions. The Spirit is active and at work, the sovereign Spirit.

Now, on the internal journey having begun by the Spirit, we are now also to be perfected by the same Spirit. Paul cried out earlier against the Galatians, "Are you so foolish?", Galatians 3:3, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now perfected by the flesh?" So what that means is, it is the Spirit who began the Christian life in you or began you in the Christian life, say both. It's the Spirit that did it. You were dead in your transgressions and sins until the Spirit came to you. You were dead. And the Holy Spirit came and raised you to life. You heard the gospel and he raised you to life. Ephesians 2:4-5, "But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we're dead in transgressions, it is by grace you have been saved."

But now, I want to give you a picture, the Spirit has raised you to life. Now, Ezekiel 36, is that great promise of the gift of Spirit. Ezekiel 37 has the picture of a valley of dry bones. All these dead, these dry bones, everywhere, completely dry, dead, nothing. And Ezekiel was commanded, "Prophesy to the dry bones." And as he was speaking, as he was predicting, there came this terrible rattling sound, and these bones were assembled but still as yet no life. And then H\he said, "Prophesy to the wind." The same word in Hebrew for wind and Spirit. Prophesy. And then, this wind came and they were filled with the Spirit and came to life. And it says in Ezekiel 37:10, "A vast army."

Now, just pause with me. What's an army used for? Army is used for war. And as soon as those people come to life, I want to combine it with Ephesians 6, flaming arrows start coming right at them. Now, the flaming arrows can't kill and we'll never die but they can hurt us. Those flaming arrows from Satan are temptations, they're assaults on us. And we are commanded to get ready for battle and to pick up the shield of faith and put on the armor and get ready to fight. And that's what this text is about.

Now that you're alive, you are at war. Before you were alive, you were just dead. But now that you're alive, you're at war. That's what this text is all about. And the Spirit empowers you to live, and you cannot ever say to the Spirit, "Okay Spirit, I got it, you've done really well up to now, I got it from here on forward. I'll take over, I can do it now." You can't do anything now but sin, alright. That's what you can do on your own. Remember how Jesus said in John 15:5, "I am the vine, you're the branches. If a man remains in me, and I in him, he'll bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing." The Holy Spirit is in, right in there, the Spirit is the connection between the branch and the vine. By the Spirit, we stay abiding in Jesus. Apart from the Spirit you can do nothing. That's the Spirit filled life.

Now, we come to the issue of law versus grace, or flesh versus Spirit. The whole epistle has been about the contrasting themes of law versus grace. We are always tempted to revert to law, that's our tendency, we always go back to legalism, that's our tendency. God means for it to be a salvation by grace from beginning to end. So many Christians, then embattling sin, draw up a list of do's and don'ts, rules and regulations, new rules for the Christian life. And that's what it means to try to be perfected by the flesh. Arrogant, independent human effort. See the law, do the law, you're on your own.

Now, the Spirit-filled Christian life does involve distinct patterns of Bible study, prayer, church involvement, witnessing, giving, etcetera, yes. But these things are written on our hearts by the Spirit. They are lived out in our lives by the Spirit, not in some legalistic way, as though we are slaves in chains or we're somehow on probation, needing to secure a permanent place in the family, that is not true. Everything God commands you to do, He empowers you to do by His Spirit, you're not on your own. That's the essence of sanctification by the Spirit not by law. So we're commanded right here in verse 16, "Walk by the Spirit." Now, I want you to know that it is a command. What does that tell you? What does that tell you? You're commanded to do something. The Lord is telling you how to live, in order to live a life worthy of the Lord, how to please Him. Now, the command here, the verb is "walk." As I already mentioned, this has to do with daily life patterns, details. It has to do with habit patterns. What you are in the habit of doing, how you live your life, practical daily life. There are habit patterns, a habitual lifestyle of holiness that the Lord is after.

The verb "walk" also speaks of progress, doesn't it? We're going to be moving out now. When the Spirit tells you to rise and walk, you're being told to go somewhere. So we call it in journey, or an internal journey we're in. We're not staying where we started, we're going to move out now. This infinite journey, internal journey, we're going to move out. There's a clear parallel verse, in verse 25, it says, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." Do you see that? Let's keep in step with it. So, the Greek word behind that keep in step, means to walk in a line like soldiers on a parade ground. Left, right, left, right, left, right. The Spirit is the drum beat of a life of holiness. Left, right, let's move, keep in step with the Spirit, that's what he's giving us. So the Spirit is prompting us, and He's leading us, and it covers every area of life. There's no part of life that the Spirit doesn't cover. How to speak, how to eat, how to sleep, how to pray, how to spend money, how to be in church, how to be married, how to be a parent, how to resist temptation, everything is covered, everything.

Now, we come to an incomprehensible mystery, and that is the relationship between the Spirit's power and our effort. The Spirit's power and our effort. And here, so many people go astray. So many people, so I will do the best I can to explain to you how these go together but it is very difficult to understand. We have to do the best that we can. There are two extremes when it comes to sanctification. We do everything versus we do nothing. These are extremes. We do everything versus we do nothing. Now, we do everything, we've already covered... That's legalism. You're on your own, here's the law, do it or die; that's legalism. That's we do everything. You're on your own, you got to do it, that's the essence of legalism.

Now, let's talk about we do nothing. There is a strong history of sanctification taught in this pattern. It's been going on a long time, it's got lots of different names. There are popular books still being sold that tell you in effect, you do nothing when it comes to sanctification. One of the slogans of this movement has been, 'Let go and let God.' Growth and holiness then is as easy as a twig moving down the stream, if you just get the right formula. Just let go and let God take you where he wants to take you. That sounds to me a lot like glorification. I'm going to let go from whatever I'm holding on to in the ICU and I'll be gone, goodbye. And then, God's going to take me to perfection, but that's not sanctification. 'Let go and let God.' That's not what's going on. Another language title of it is 'The Surrendered Life.' A movement around a church camp retreat center is called Keswick Holiness. Keswick Holiness.

Now, this is probably more information than you need. But Keswick Holiness taught that striving in the Christian life is evidence of the flesh. That if you're striving, you're off, you're already off. What you need to do is cease striving and know that he is God. And if you're sinning, it means that you haven't paid the price tag for holiness which is total surrender. Oh, wow. This hit me for the first time. I was telling Andy about this. I've never put this together. I see now the deadly combination of what Keswick Holiness and all of this is doing. JI Packer wrote about this. You can look up, just Google JI Packer on Keswick Holiness. Keswick is K-E-S-W-I-C-K. But I guess, Google will cover it if you misspell it, I don't know.

But JI Packer on Keswick Holiness, and he said this, he said, "It's not much of a recommendation of a pattern of Christian life when the best you can say is this teaching may help you if you don't take any of its detail seriously." Wow. It is utterly damning to such a movement to have to say, as in this case, we must say, that if you do take the detail seriously, it will tend not to help you but destroy you. He said it didn't work, and that was deeply frustrating. It was a depressing thing. "It made me feel like an outsider." And at the age of 18, that's a pretty burdensome thing. "In fact, it was straight out driving me insane," he said.

The reality of Keswick's theology, the passivity program, let go, let God, cease striving all that. And it's announced expectations plus its insistence that any failure to find complete victory is entirely your fault, that combination make it destructive. Now just look at what's being said here, cease striving and let God do it directly contradicts the warfare language in all the holiness passages in which you're told to arm yourself and put your own sin to death by the power of the Spirit. We'll talk about all that in minute, but cease striving is not what those passages tell you.

Secondly, total surrender will elude you while you live in this sinful body. You won't be totally doing anything while you live in this sinful body. You're always going to be a mixture of light and darkness; you're going to be a mixture of Spirit and flesh. That's what the text says, as long as you... So you will never be totally surrendered, and you are not just to cease striving. That's the problem with all this. Another writer, Hannah Whitall Smith wrote the 'Christian's Secret of a Happy Life' teaches the same kinds of things.

Now, Packer says and other say, many Christians have gone a long way in the Christian life and have done many good things thinking these thoughts but the essence of that type of sanctification is false, that's not what we teach. We are taught, a strong effort is required to grow in holiness. You must fight. You must run with endurance. Listen to this, First Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul says, "Don't you know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way that you may get the prize. Those who complete in the games go into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last. We do it to get a crown that will last forever. [Listen to this] Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly. I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave; lest after I preach to others, I myself may be disqualified from the prize." That doesn't sound like let go and let God to me. That doesn't sound like cease striving and know that I'm God, which is a Bible verse but misapplied when it comes to this warfare. It sounds to me like, Paul says you want to do well, you've got to go into strict training, you need to be an athlete, you need to be a warrior, you need to fight. That's what he's saying. Same thing in Hebrews 12, there it says, in verse 1, "Let us throw off everything that hinders us in the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race marked up before us."

That doesn't sound like cease striving and know that I'm God. That doesn't like let go and let God. Sounds like you've got a race to run, and it's going to take every bit of your strength and endurance to run that race. The Spirit is there to empower you to do it. But all of that fighting and all of that running... I love this, 2 Timothy 4:7, you've heard this at funerals, here at now while you live, while there's time to make it happen, "I have fought the good fight. I've finished the race. I've kept the faith. Now there is laid up in store for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord will award to me, and not only to me but also to those who have long for his appearing."

Are you fighting the good fight, right now? The good fight I think is sanctification, and also I think it's the advance the external journey; they're both good fights. But it's at least fight the good fight. Finish the race. Keep the faith. I think, I would love that to be said at my funeral, that it were true; that I fought the good fight, that I finished my race, that I kept the faith.

Now, all of that is done by the power of the Spirit; all of it. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, "By the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them. Yet not I, but the grace of God that was in me." Do you see that? Paul says, "God's grace worked on me, it made me work hard, really hard. And yet it wasn't me working but it was the grace of God working in me." That sounds almost confusing but that's the complexity of Spirit works and we work. Probably the best harmonizing verse on this is Philippians 2:12-13. There he says, "So now dear friends, as you have always obeyed, as you've always obeyed, not only in my presence but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in us to will and to act according to His good purpose." That harmonizes everything.

But do you see, "let go and let God" in there? I don't. Do you see cease striving there? I don't. Do you see that God's waiting for you to be totally surrendered, and then he'll give it to you as a gift? I don't see that. I see that we're being told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, but God's at work in us to do it. That's what I see. So we are commanded to walk by the Spirit, and if we do walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So the Spirit is leading each one of you, who are true Christians in to war. The Spirit's leading into war. He says we're led by the Spirit in verse 18. If you're led by the Spirit, not under the law.

Romans 8:13-14 says it more plainly. It says there, "If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live because those who are led by the Spirit of God, are sons of God." Okay. So, if you live according to what the flesh wants, you'll die and go to hell; that's what he is saying. If you live that kind of life, but if by the Spirit, you are in the process of putting to death the deeds of the body, killing them. If you are in the process of killing them by the Spirit, you'll live, that means you go to heaven. Because, Romans 8:14, those who are led by the Spirit, those are the children of God.

So let me say again. If you're not at this kind of warfare, you're not a Christian. If you're not at war with the deeds of the flesh, you're not born again. You're dead in your transgressions and sins. If you are born again, you're at war with the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit. Everyday, the Spirit gets you up, I mean, literally and gets you dressed, not literally, and leads you into battle, into warfare against the deeds of the flesh; that's the Christian life. You're at war and you need to fight in a way that glorifies God.

Now, what are we at war with? And we're going to close with this today. The acts of the flesh are what we're at war with. Look down at verses 19-21. This is what you're going to fight, this is what you're fighting. The acts of the flesh are obvious, sexual immorality. We're at war with sexual immorality, at war with it. We hate it, we want it dead. Impurity and debauchery, we're at war with these wicked things. We're at war with idolatry and witchcraft. We're at war with hatred. Isn't this weird? We hate hatred. And we are at war with discord. We're against jealousy. We're at war with the tendency we have to be envious of other people's blessings; we're at war with that. I don't want that in my life; it's evil. At war with jealousy and we're at war with fits of rage. We're angry about anger. I don't know how that works. But anyway, we're at war with it. We don't want it anymore. We want it out. James calls it moral filth. Its radioactive waste. I want sinful anger out of my life. We're at war with dissension, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions all of these things. We're at war against drunkenness and orgies and the like. "I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

So, we're at war with any motion of our heart toward those things. We want to kill them and by the Spirit, we put them to death. So this morning, as I was practicing this incredibly, ridiculously long sermon, there it is, 23 pages. There was clearly no chance, none whatsoever. So, what's the rest of this? What's the rest of this sermon which I will not be preaching today? This is how to fight. How do we put to death the deeds of the flesh? What strategy are we going to take? I'm going to try to help you with that. I don't think we should hurry through this because you guys are going to go from this sermon today into this warfare. You're at it, right now. It's going on right now. I want to help you. It's my yearning to help you. So next week, God willing, I will finish up and I'll urge how it is that living by the Spirit guarantees that you will not gratify the lust of the flesh. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the things that we've learned today. Really, the simple lesson is this, so many things that I said today but that all Christians are at war, we're at war with the flesh. And that we're at war not in the legalistic sense, as though you're standing back from us with your arms crossed across your chest saying, you better win this one or you're not going to heaven. No, no, no, you're living within us, enabling us, empowering us, guaranteeing success. Thank you, oh Lord. I pray that you'd help my brothers and sisters here to fight powerfully and courageously. And I pray one more time that if there are any here that walked in this place not born again, that they would right now trust in Jesus and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We pray this in Jesus's name, Amen. 

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Galatians 5:13-18and how Christian freedom relates to God's Law.

This past week I watched a powerful movie for the second time. I've seen it years ago, but just came across it again and wanted to see it. That movie is Amistad, it's based on a true story. It’s the plight of some Africans who had been abducted from their villages by slave traders and then illegally shipped to Cuba, the year is 1839. And during the voyage from Cuba in July of 1839, one slave named Cinque managed somehow with his fingernails ripping and his fingertips bleeding to pry out a single nail that began to set him free. He was able to use the nail to pick the lock and to basically lead an onboard insurrection or battle for their freedom. They kept alive the captain and his mates so that they could sail them back to Africa, but the captain fooled them through the navigation and they ended up in Long Island, it's a true story, New York. The ship was impounded by the US Navy, brought to New Haven, Connecticut where the 53 Africans were taken into custody and they were charged with leading a murderous slave insurrection. The movie unfolds powerfully, revealing intense political wrangling over slavery that were going on obviously, in 1839, threatening to rip this country apart. The legal drama was a focus on the rights these Africans had to regain their freedom from vicious men who had stolen it from them.

At one very moving point in the movie, Cinque, who's the focus, stands up. He didn't know a word of English when he came but he was a very, very intelligent man and he's got chains on his wrist and he just cries out in broken English, "Give us, us free," over and over. It's just... He doesn't know what's going on in the court proceedings, can't understand a word, but it's clear what he wants. He's yearning for freedom. Pleading with it. And I thought about it, just in terms of so many scripture verses were flooding in my mind. That's how I watch movies. Just, what verse does this make me think of? And so just... And I was just thinking about the yearning that we have to be free from the chains that bind us. And how we can't be free and how Jesus looked on us with compassion and he saw that we were harassed and what, helpless. It says in Isaiah, "The Lord looked and saw that there was no one to work righteousness" and we needed a savior. Jesus is the savior. Well, I'm getting away from the movie which is fine but let me finish the idea.

So the court trial goes on eventually to a hearing in the Supreme Court. The case is argued by former President John Quincy Adams. One of the most compelling movie moments I've ever seen. He stands up to make his closing argument, soliloquy and he said, "The center of the case comes down to the basic, the true nature of man." And he cited an article written at that time by pro-slavery senator John Calhoun which asserted that slavery had been woven into the very nature and fabric of human society from ancient history, even back to the beginning of biblical times. And therefore slavery was an essential part of man. Well, Adams strongly disagreed and this is what he said in the movie. He said, "I know this is a controversial idea but the nature of man is freedom. Is freedom. And the proof is the length to which a man or a woman or a child will go to regain it once it's taken. He will break loose his chains, he will decimate his enemies, he will try and try and try against all odds, against all prejudices to get home."

Well, I don't watch movies and just take even powerful soliloquies at face value either. So I thought to myself, "Is that true?" I didn't intend to couple the watching of this movie to preaching through Galatians 5, but here we are. And it struck me, they do connect. A major theme in Galatians 5 is the theme of freedom. Right from the beginning in verse 1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm then and don't let yourself submit again to a yoke of slavery," Galatians 5:1. So, Christ has died and risen again and the gospel has come to us by his spirit so that we can be set free. And that freedom is fragile and it needs to be protected and it's misunderstood and it can be abused. And we can take this freedom and use it for flesh and for sin and that's the opposite of what Christ intended. But I was led again to think about what is the true nature of man. Is it freedom or is it slavery? Now, we said only God alone has absolute freedom, because this is his universe and we are all creatures in it. It says in Psalms 115:3, "Our God is in heaven. He does whatever pleases him." Our freedom is controlled by God's pleasure. It's controlled by God's will. It's controlled by God's purposes for us. Our freedom has boundaries.

There are walls around the freedom that Christ shed his blood to purchase for us. Are we free to do whatever pops in our minds to do, to go anywhere we want to go, anywhere the wind blows? Are we free to do that or are there boundaries? Right from the beginning Genesis 2:16-17, it says, "The Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free... '" These are the first words God speaks in quotation in the Bible to man. "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden." Here's your freedom. "But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." There are your boundaries. "For when you eat of it, you'll surely die." You're free to eat but you must not eat, so it's freedom within boundaries.

So, what is the true nature of man? Are we both created... Are we created to be free or are we created to be in boundaries? The answer must be both. Jesus, when he was born as a human being, it says in a very powerful passage in Philippians 2:6-7, "Jesus who being in very nature God," it's an expression used in the Greek, very strong expression, "Being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing; taking the very nature of a slave." That's the Holman Christian Standard translation for that word. "He was as much slave as he was God," it's the exact same Greek expression. He didn't just play at being a slave, he was one even to the point of dying on the cross right to the end of his life.

In the same way at the end of this whole story, at the end of everything in Revelation 22, we have this beautiful picture of the new Jerusalem and the new heaven and the new earth in all this glory and beauty. And it says there... This is Revelation 22:3. "There will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him." Interesting though, Holman Christian Standard Bible likes to translate one Greek word to be slaves when it can. A couple of verses later, it says in Revelation 22:8-9, John, he says, "I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown them to me but he said to me, 'Don't do that, I am a fellow slave with you.'" Not I was a fellow slave, I am one right now. "And with your brothers the prophets, and those who keep the words of this book," keep means obey, worship God. And it says in Romans 6:22, "You have been liberated from sin and have become enslaved to God." And Paul isn't ashamed of it. Paul a bondslave of Christ, etcetera. So, what is the true nature of man? It's both, dear friends, it's both. We were created to serve and we are created to serve in freedom, in absolute freedom.

Now, this morning I want to look more deeply into the boundary lines of Christian freedom. I want to talk specifically about this deep and weighty topic. I'm going to ask a lot of you as hearers of a sermon today, okay? I'm going to lay some heavy ideas on you but you will find them almost indispensable going forward in terms of your Christian life. Not so much that the sermon is indispensable or even the questions I'm asking, but these ideas are going to come up again and again and again.

What are the boundary lines of Christian freedom? What specifically is the role of the law in the Christian life? Post justification, what is the role of the law for us now? As we are justified. We're going to try to answer the questions: In what sense a Christian is free from the law? And in what sense is a Christian still connected to the law? Now, this is a very weighty debate, it's been going on a long time. I'd trace out the history of it but I don't have time. Moving on, you want to know some of the history of the debate? Come and talk to me, but you probably don't. So let's just move on. There are clear assertions in this chapter concerning our freedom and its boundaries. Again, look at verse one, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free," set us free. "Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Then again in verse 13, "You my brothers were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather serve one another in love." And then the last verse that Tom read a moment ago verse 18, "If you are led by the spirit, you are not under law."

So earlier also in Galatians, Paul has been asserting the freedom that all Christians have from the law. He did this because these churches he had planted in Galatia, Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, after he left, false teachers came in preaching a false gospel. And it was a gospel of a mixture of Christ's work on the cross plus their need to obey the law of Moses in order to be saved. And the best summary of their teaching I found is in Acts 15:1 in which they said, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved." And then a few verses later in Acts 15:5, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses." Required for salvation. Paul said this is a false gospel, it's no gospel at all. And he said clearly in Galatians 2:16, "We are justified by faith apart from works of the law." Very plainly, we've been justified, that is forgiven of all of our sins by simple faith in Jesus Christ, not by your obedience, not by your good works, not by your efforts, or by your striving but by simple repentance and faith in Christ are you saved from sin.

And then he starts talking about the law and says, "We're free from it." In Galatians 2:19 Paul says concerning himself, "For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God." So I have died to the law now. The law brought me to the point where now I've died to it. And then Galatians 3:24-25 it says, "The law was put in charge to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we're no longer under the supervision of the law." Galatians 4:4-5, "But when the time had fully come, God sent his son born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law so that we might receive full rights as sons." And then at the end of Galatians 4, he talks about this image of Hagar and Sarah. Sons of Hagar are sons of the Old Covenant born for slavery. They are born in slavery, but we are children of the freed woman, the Jerusalem that's above and she is our mother and we're free.

Sinai equals slavery, law equals slavery, we're free now. Free. And this is also taught in many other places especially in the Book of Romans. Romans 6:14 says, "For sin shall not be your master because you're not under law but under grace." Many other verses in Romans teach us. So the summation of all of this is powerful. In some very real sense, Christians are no longer under the law. We died to the law, we're free from the law, the law has ended in reference to us in some sense. But other verses seem to teach the opposite. Like Romans 3:31, he says, "Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Not at all, rather we uphold the law." Alright, how do I understand that? Or even Jesus saying very plainly in the Sermon on the Mount, "Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them." He says, "I tell you the truth until Heaven and Earth pass away, not the smallest letter or least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven, but whoever loses even the smallest of these commands will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven." Huh, what do we make of that? Or even right in the chapter we're looking at here, look at verse 14. He says in verse 13, "Serve one another in love," and in verse 14 he says, "The entire Law is summed up in this one command, to love your neighbor as yourself."

Clearly, Paul doesn't think the Galatians are done with thinking about that or obeying it. He commanded it of them, that they should love their neighbors as themselves. Why would Paul write that if the Law had nothing to do with this whatsoever? Seems to me then, that the law shows us that we're sinful and wicked. We do not obey what God's told us to do, it brings us as broken, helpless sinners to the cross. There we find forgiveness, there we find simply by faith total forgiveness and reconciliation with God and we're given the gift of adoption as sons and daughters and the gift of the indwelling Spirit of Christ who then brings us back to the law and says, "Now obey this." But not for the forgiveness of sins, but so that you may live the most beautiful, fruitful life you can possibly live as a child now of the living God. That seems to be the rhythm that we have here.

The essence of our salvation is justification apart from any transformation in us, just by faith, leading to a continual transformation in which we become more and more obedient to the law by the power of the Spirit. And it's not easy to understand that sometimes. We struggle understanding that. So I wanted to ask some questions and I had a helper in asking these questions. A Puritan pastor who lived in the 17th century, Samuel Bolton. And in 1645 he wrote a little booklet by the title, 'The True Bounds of Christian Freedom.' What are the boundary lines around Christian freedom? The true bounds. And he asked six questions and they became kind of the outline that's going to carry us through the rest of the message. Six really probing questions and these are going to lead us to some very practical important issues in the Christian life, things that you probably asked yourself.

This sermon is pretty dense. It reminds me of, I was saying it to my wife, it reminds me of this shipping crate that we paid for with our own money to ship stuff back from Japan and it wasn't by the weight, I don't think, it was by the volume. And I was taking cases off the cassette tapes so that we could get all of them in there. We used cassette tapes back then, some of you don't even know what those are. But anyway, and just things that we've just... I was looking at paperbacks and I didn't like the first half of the book, so we'd rip that and the second half we'd keep. It was that bad. We were just whatever... I mean, that's what this sermon's like. So I guess what I'm saying is, there's going to be a lot of truth that's going to fly by you. I would recommend you go back to the website and listen to it, slow it down because these are weighty questions. And I've summarized basically a 300-page book in the sermon that's about to follow. So yeah, it hasn't even started yet. That's all intro. 

Question number one: Does our being made free by Christ deliver us from the law? But what is the law? The word is used in a variety of ways in scripture. Sometimes it refers to the Old Testament like Moses, Psalms, Prophets, the writings, all of that together called law. Jesus called Psalm 82, "It is written in your law, 'I have said you are Gods'", that's Psalm 82, but he calls it law. Sometimes the word is used to refer to just the first five books of the Bible, the Books of Moses. So Moses equals law, that happens a lot. Sometimes it's just the word of God, in general, just anything spoken by God is law. Isaiah one speaks of it that way, "Hear now the law of our God," etcetera. Just anything that God says is law. So that would extend even into the New Testament, any of the gospels, Paul's epistles, Peter's, all of it, law.

Now, theologians talking about Old Testament, especially the books of Moses, the law of Moses divided into three categories: Ceremonial law, civil law, and moral law. Now examples of ceremonial law are circumcision, dietary regulations, sacrificial system, worship, annual feasts, clothing regulations, other things like that, things to do with the beards, all those things, ceremonial law that set the Jews apart as holy and enabled them to worship in that pattern. Civil law was the laws by which the nation of Israel were run and operated: Kingship, taxes, property issues, things like that. Scholars tell us that Christians are freed from any observances of those. We don't need to make three times a year pilgrimages to Jerusalem, we don't have to offer bulls or goats or sheep or any of those things, those days are over, we are free from that. But the moral law is different, it seems different, it feels different. If you look at the 10 Commandments, You shall have no other Gods. You shall not make any idols. Remember the Sabbath day. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder or commit adultery or steal or bear false witness or covet. These things seemed timeless and generally are called 'moral law'. Remember that Jesus's summary of the law, I think tends to point toward the moral law, although it does include the ceremonial and civil law too. But he said, "The first and greatest commandment is this: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all you strength and with all your mind. [He said] The second commandment is like it; 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" Very thing Paul quotes in the same text.

So I guess I'll just make a simple assertion to answer the question. The moral law, the moral law remains a rule of daily life for God's people, for Christians. We are still obligated in some sense to follow it. When Paul says, "We are free from the law," he clearly doesn't mean we don't need to love God or love our neighbor anymore. Clearly, he doesn't mean that. I can't imagine any Christian teaching that that's true. The New Testament epistles make it clear that the moral law still binds Christians today. For example 1 John 4:21. There the apostle John says, "He has given us this command 'Whoever loves God must love his brother also.'" That word "must," does that bother you? Christians must love God and love neighbor. So the moral law is still binding on us. The very own passage we see that Paul's enjoining the Galatian Christians to serve one another in love on the basis of the fact that the law says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." And so that's still binding on our consciences. We still must do it.

Second assertion though, and this is key in understanding the New Covenant. God's grace continually works in us to enable us to keep the moral law. That's the essence of the New Covenant, that's the essence of the salvation. We are free from the law as it condemns our souls to hell. We are free from the compulsion and the fact that the law doesn't lift a finger to help us. Instead now in the New Covenant, we have been empowered from within by the Spirit to keep it and we're being transformed by that. I love what it says in Ezekiel 36, and this is so beautiful, verses 25:27, there God says to the prophet centuries before Christ what he's going to do in the New Covenant. He said "I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols."

That is justification, forgiveness of all of our sins. "I will sprinkle water on you and you will be clean. And I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit in you" that's regeneration. He's changing us from within. "I will remove from you your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you. And I will move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Do you see it? It's a whole different stance that we have now. Having been forgiven completely of all of our sins, past, present, and future we do not ever earn forgiveness by future obedience, that never happens. But now having been transformed, heart of stone out, heart of flesh in, yielded and submissive now to God, by the Spirit, we obey God's law. How beautiful is that? And so it says in Hebrews 8:10, "I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their heart."

So does being free from the law, does that mean being free from the daily need to obey God's moral law? No, it does not mean that. But it does mean being free from needing to obey it on our own, left to ourselves without the law lifting a finger to help us, only telling us what's right and condemning us if we don't do it, that's what the law does. We are not on our own, we are aided by sovereign grace. And it does mean that we are free from the moral law's power to send us to hell. Amen? Sent to hell because we don't love God and sent to hell because we don't love our neighbors as ourselves, we're free from that. Amen? Instead, now we are commanded to live it out. The moral law, loving God with all your heart, loving your neighbor as yourself, describes the most beautiful, the most peaceful, the most fruitful possible life a human being can live. It describes it beautifully, it is the life that Jesus himself lived every moment. It is the very life the Holy Spirit of God within us is working in us more and more, and it is the life we will live forever in heaven, Amen. We will live the love of God and love of others in heaven forever.

Jonathan Edwards preached a great sermon called 'Heaven is a world of love.' Heaven is a world of love. And in it part of the message he proclaimed that since 1 John 4:8 says, "God is love," it follows that, "God is an infinite fountain of love, seeing that he's an all sufficient being, and it follows that he is a full and overflowing and an inexhaustible fountain of love, seeing he is an unchangeable and eternal being. He is an unchangeable and eternal source of love. There, even in heaven dwells that God from whom every stream of holy love, yea, every drop that is or ever was proceeds. The source of all love there has ever been will be right there in heaven." So I couple that statement from Edwards with the beautiful verse in Revelation 22 describing the new Jerusalem. Remember how it talks about that in Revelation 22:1-2, "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, flowing clear as crystal from the throne, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of the city and on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." Well, there in Revelation 22, it just says it's the river of life but Edwards just says it... We could also say it's a river of love and it flows into us and forever we'll be drinking that healing water and we will bear fruit of love. Love to God and love to neighbor forever. Now, what I'm saying is, that that is the kind of life we can increasingly live here and now by the Spirit. Love for God by the power of the Spirit, flowing from the throne of God and love for neighbor flowing from the throne of God and that is awesome.

Alright. Question number two: Does our being made free by Christ deliver us from all punishments for sin? And we would add, here and now on earth. There will be no punishments, no suffering, no chastisement in heaven. No. But here on earth are we free from all punishments and chastisements for sin? Is it possible, that God can completely forgive us for all sins past, present, and future, cover us in the righteousness of Christ, promise us heaven when we die and still chastises us and punish us for sins that we commit now contrary to his law here on earth? And the answer is, Yes! Absolutely. Not only it is possible, if you're truly a child of God, he will do that for you. It's part of his fatherly love for you to chastise you and to discipline you when you break his laws, when you violate his commands.

Alright, there's lots of scriptural support for this. We'll get to one very clearly in Galatians 6:7. It says, "Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked, a man reaps what he sows." So the law of sowing and reaping points toward punishments for sins. We'll get to that in a minute, and I'm not going to unfold that fully because we'll get a chance in the future, God willing, to talk more. Then there's the clear teaching in Hebrews 12 on God's fatherly discipline. It openly says, "The Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son," Hebrews 12:6.

Christ himself makes this clear statement in Revelation 3:19, "Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline, so be earnest and repent." That's the loving language of your Savior. He says, "If I love you, I'm going to rebuke you and discipline you, so be earnest and repent, when you need to repent, repent." There're many examples from scripture, like David and Bathsheba. David was forgiven over his sins but really the rest of his life was impacted by what he did with Bathsheba. We have the Corinthians at the Lord's Supper, where it says that many of them were weak and sick and a number had even fallen asleep because of their sins with the Lord's Supper. That's pretty strong fatherly chastisement. Why did God discipline his forgiven children? Well, he disciplines us, it says in Hebrews 12:10, "For our good that we may share in his holiness." So in order that we may share in his holiness, he is going to discipline us and chastise us for sins.

Well, what disciplines may we expect? Well, let's start with the law of sowing and reaping. Okay? Perhaps a Christian couple may have premarital sex. It is possible they may have to face the challenging circumstances of premarital pregnancy as well. Just because we're free from the law doesn't mean that we're free from consequences for sin. Alright? Perhaps a Christian may stray into internet pornography, he may lose his job as a result. Perhaps a Christian may get into habits of overeating, he may gain a lot of weight as a result. Perhaps a Christian may get angry and say some very unkind thing to a friend, that relationship may be damaged severely because of that statement that was made. A lie may deeply damage trust. A pattern of laziness can come in resulting in someone failing to do preventive maintenance on the car and not changing the oil, running out to 12,000, 14,000 miles, 16,000, until suddenly, you're hearing some strange sounds from under the hood and you're not quite sure why. The mechanic will tell why. It's like, "I just think to remember putting this decal up here four years ago, what happened?" So law of sowing and reaping, you reap what you sow. We'll talk more about that when we get to, God willing, Galatians 6.

But then there's also disconnected fatherly discipline where he sees spiritual attitude, some pride, some spiritual laziness, some other things, and he'll just bring a different unrelated chastisement in your life, like a health issue or a financial issue, and he's just disciplining you. And we should learn to walk in the fear of our father's discipline. You should fear sin and its consequences. That's not a bad thing to do, and just because you are no longer under the law, doesn't mean that you don't need to fear what sin can do to you and what God's fatherly discipline can do.

Question number three: Is it consistent with Christian freedom to perform duties because God has commanded them? Friends, I hope so. How many commands are there in the New Testament? Isn't it nice to know you don't have to obey any of them? That doesn't make any sense! Of course, we must obey God. Being free from the law doesn't mean that we don't obey God, still. Paul is continually giving commands to the people he's writing to. There are many commands in Galatians, like right here in verse 13, "Serve one another in love." That's a commandment. Okay? At the end of the chapter he says, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." That's a command. "Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." There are some commands.

Next chapter, Galatians 6:6, "Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor." That's a command. It says in Hebrews, in... Sorry, in Galatians 6:10, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who are of the family of believers." There are all kinds of commands. There are many commands in the epistles, many commands in the gospels. It's so clear that Christians must still obey Christ and Christ's message to the apostles even though they are not under law, but under grace.

Now, obedience comes from love. Jesus said it very plainly, "If you love me, you will obey what I command," John 14:15. Also, obedience comes from faith. The more you believe in Jesus, the more you'll obey him. Because it says in Romans 1:5, Paul speaks of the obedience that comes from faith. So, a heart filled with love toward Christ and filled with faith in Christ will be an obedient heart. That's the clear teaching of the New Testament. And what will we obey? Obey God's word. Obey God's commandments. Can we call that God's law? Yes, we must obey God's law. But not for the forgiveness of our sins, that's been settled. We are not justified by obedience to the law. It's so that we can live a life pleasing to the Lord, so that we can have fruit for him, so that we can stay away from those wicked moral, immoral things that God says he hates. That's why, we have to be so clear about that.

Now, we are free from obedience as if it's a burdensome duty. It says in 1 John 5:3, "This is love for God to obey his commands and his commands are not burdensome." We're free from duty as some kind of a trade by which we earn things from God. We're not workmen; we're sons and daughters. We're not hired hands and we're free from duty as if done by slaves. We don't have the spirit of slavery, but the Spirit of sonship by which we cry out, "Abba, father." So Christian obedience becomes Christian delight.

Well, in order to answer this, it's not a simple yes or no. In order to answer this, we have to understand two different kinds of bondage. There is a universal bondage to sin and to Satan as a tyrannical principle, and then there is a partial gradual temporary bondage that comes through false doctrine, believing false doctrine or false living, living in license. We have to make a distinction between those two. Now first and foremost, let me tell you the good news. If you are justified now, you are a Christian. You can never ever sin your way back into Satan's kingdom again. Isn't that awesome? Just think about that. You will never sin your way back under Satan's dominion again. You're free from him, and you'll never sin your way back into condemnation or sin your way back into wrath again. We are free from those forever. Jesus rescued you and he will never give you up, so you cannot sin your way back into that kind of bondage, ever, but you can sin your way into habitual temporary bondage. There are two ways to do it right in Galatians 5. Alright. Galatians 5:1 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free, stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Clearly, it's talking about the Judaizers, their false doctrine. Don't listen to legalistic doctrine, whether from false teachers that come from the outside or from your own legalistic heart from the inside and you have one. You really do and so do I. We all struggle with legalism, all of us.

And so through false understanding of the gospel, you can behave like a slave when you're really a son or daughter. And that's very tragic. You don't need to do it but it can happen. And so you are trying to break free of certain things in your life and you're thinking like a slave, and you're acting like a slave and you're forgetting the cross of Christ and the grace of God and the in-dwelling Spirit and all that, and you're trying to do it on your own. You're acting like Jesus never came. And that's the very danger that Paul wrote to Galatians about. Don't do that. You're free. You are free, so live like it. So don't act in a legalistic way. The proof of the pudding is, what do you do when you sin? And you're convicted by the spirit of sin, what do you do?

Now, the two wrong things you can do at that point, legalism or license are both wrong. Okay? What He wants you to do is humble yourself before him, confess your sins honestly and completely to him, be honest with him in what you did, go in your heart again to the cross. Say, "Christ died once for all, he doesn't need to die again, it's sufficient. His blood has been shed, I am forgiven, I am covered by faith alone, by grace alone. Thank you, Jesus." You may need to grieve, and mourn and wail, and deal with the depths of it, that's all fine. But ultimately what you do is you trust in Christ alone for forgiveness. But so many of us are tempted to try to earn our way back in. Try to earn our way back in. Don't do that. So legalism, is one way you can start just acting like a slave, you put chains on yourself through legalistic practices. Don't do that.

The second way you can do it is by the bondage of license of sin. Sin is so tricky, and so entangling. It's a net, this big billowing net and you're trying to walk through without getting tangled up, and it's just so easy for sin to entangle you through habit, habitual sin. You get drawn in, you do something once, you jump out, but then you go back in and pretty soon you're just there all the time. A lust can deceive you and surprise you into some sin. Some internet site visited or some movie watched, something like that. Or spiritual laziness can trick you into skipping your quiet time once and then maybe a couple times a week, and then more and more. Or skipping church a little bit more and more just so nice to have Sunday morning to ourselves. And just little by little you're just in bad habits. Proverbs 24, says, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a bandit, and scarcity like an armed man." You just give yourself a little leeway, a little license, just a little extra sleep and pretty soon you're enslaved. Some excess enjoyment of various pleasures, not sinful in and of themselves but soon you've built up the habit, living for pleasure, living for things to watch or places to go, or fun things to do, or foods to eat, or for sleep. Paul's clear warning in verse 13 is, "You, my brothers, are called to be free but do not use your freedom for the flesh."

He also says very clearly in 1 Corinthians 6:12, "Everything is permissible for me," it's usually in quotations, like, "What you're telling me, everything's permissible for me, right? I can eat anything I want now. Alright, fine, let me go with it." "Everything's permissible for me," as you say, "but not everything's beneficial." "Everything is permissible for me" as you say, "but I will not be enslaved by anything." Are you enslaved by anything right now? Have you enslaved yourselves by bad habits? Are you enslaved to food, or to drink, or to fun, or to sleep, or to things you're looking at? Are you enslaved?

Now, these forms of bondage, both the legalism and license bondage, are temporary. And the beauty of the gospel is that any time, you can get out, anytime. That's what it means that you're not a slave. You can walk away. Like Christian and Hopeful, in "Pilgrim's Progress," you have the key right here, pull it out, put it in and walk out of doubting castle. You can do it any time. Those of you that know "Pilgrim's Progress," you know that story, the rest of you don't worry about it. Anyway, you can get out any time. You are free, you don't ever need to sin that sin again, you don't have to work your way back, just stop sinning. By the power of the Spirit, you're free, at any time. So keep in mind, Galatians 5:1 and 5:13, and stay away from those guardrails. And don't go into bondage anymore.

Question number five: Is it consistent with Christian freedom to perform duties in order to be rewarded for our obedience? Are there conditional blessings in this life? And are there conditional rewards in this life and the next life that are based on your obedience to God's laws? The answer is yes. there are. There are some blessings that will only come to you if you obey him. And all rewards are conditional, all of them are conditional on you doing the works that cause the reward. You have to do them to get rewarded.

Now, the rewards are a very big topic in the New Testament. Probably the best chapter on rewards, I think, is the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew Chapter 6. Jesus teaches us very plainly and in detail about rewards. He says, "Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you'll get no reward from your father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, don't announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues, in the street corners, to be seen by men, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. [Why Jesus?] So that your giving maybe in secret and your father who sees what is done in secret, [what?] will reward you."

"And when you pray, don't announce it, and be on the street corners like the hypocrites. But when you pray go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who's unseen, and your father who sees what is done in secret, [what?] will reward you." And when you fast, don't disfigure your face and say to everyone, 'Hey, I'm fasting, I'm fasting all day, but no, it's good, I'm fine, it's all good.'" Don't let anyone know you're fasting. So that your fasting may be in secret. "And your father who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." That's three times Jesus has told you, how you're going to be rewarded for giving to the needy, and for praying, and for fasting, extend that up to all Christian duties, you will be rewarded for whatever good you do in the Christian life by faith for the glory of God, out of love for others. He will reward you, but you have to do those things. He doesn't give the rewards for nothing, they are conditional. There are no rewards for prayer given to people who didn't pray. There are no rewards for Christian giving, given to people who didn't give. There are no rewards for evangelism to those that didn't evangelize.

The rewards are conditional, and so Jesus then goes beyond, and this is the clearest statement you can find on this, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Let me ask you, you study with me the book of Galatians. Can you store up justification by your works in heaven? Please shake your head no, everybody no, no, we can't do that. Can not earn justification. Can you store up righteousness in standing with God by your good works? No. Can you store up enough points so he'll adopt you as a son or daughter? No, all of those things are given by grace. Then what are you storing up so you will be rich in heaven? Rewards. It's the very thing he is talking about all chapter, rewards. Be rich in good works. Be rich in courageous opportunities to share the gospel. Be rich in missions, rich in prayer, rich in generosity to the poor and needy, rich in acts of service to your brothers and sisters in Christ. Be rich, and on the other side of judgement day, you'll spend eternity enjoying those rewards. But they are conditional. The more you do, the more you'll get. The measure you use is the measure you will receive.

Now here's something that will blow your mind. All Christians in heaven will be perfectly happy but not all Christians will be equally happy. Work on that one. Alright. Your circuit-breakers are tripping and I see it now... I see some smoke coming up from ears. Alright. Our happiness in heaven will be unmixed by any poison at all. It will be pure. Pure happiness, but some people will have smaller cups and others bigger cups. And the size of your cup is dependent on how you live right now. You live... The measure you use is the measure you'll receive. So be generous now and you'll have lots and lots of commendation and praise from your father in heaven. Those things are conditional.

And earthly blessings are also many of them conditional. Some blessings he gives you and you don't deserve it. We don't deserve any of them. All of this is by grace. That's all a sermon for another day. But all of the rewards and blessings are grace but there's some blessings he will only give to people who meet the conditions. Let's take assurance of salvation for example, that's a blessing, to just know, just really know that you're forgiven. But if you're just living in sin as a justified Christian and you're just violating your conscience all the time, God will withhold the blessing of assurance from you, and you won't be sure that you're born again. Conversely, somebody who is sacrificially by the spirit putting sin to death they have a vibrant, a vigorous assurance. Lots of earthly blessings are conditional on your obedience, okay? Lots of verses I'm skipping them. Let's just go on.

And then question six: Does the freedom of a Christian free him from all obedience to all other people? No it doesn't, okay? We are commanded to submit to God-ordained authorities. So just because you're under the law, doesn't mean you don't need to obey the civil government, or that you don't need to obey the TSA at the airport. Try that one out, okay? Go ahead and try it; no don't try it! "Hey I'm free from the law, happy condition and right through." Alright, we'll see how long you're happy okay. They [TSA] will make sure you're not. You're going to be spending a lot of time with them that day. So yes, we must submit to God-ordained authorities. We must submit to the government. We must submit to the President and to the senators, and to the lawmakers, and to the state police, and to people who have the right to command us.

Wives must submit to their husbands as to the Lord. Children must submit to their parents. Okay? These things are true. Church members must submit to their spiritual leaders. Hebrews 13:17, "Obey their authority," that's what it says. So, yes, we must submit. It says very plainly in Romans 13, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authorities, rebelling against what God has instituted and those who do so will bring judgement on themselves." Okay. But, obviously, we don't have to obey our human authorities when they contradict the word of God as it says in Acts Chapter 5, "We must obey God rather than men."

So finally, I just want to take a moment and apply these things. If you came in here as a non believer, you are invited here, you've never been. This is a heavy sermon, mostly meant for those that have been thinking about these things for a long time. But there is something here for you. And what I want to say to you is all of that freedom, I've been talking about, it doesn't describe you right now. If you're not a Christian, you weren't a Christian when you walked in here, you're not a Christian now, you're actually a slave of Satan, you're a slave to sin, you can't help but sin. But here's the good news. Jesus Christ Son of God died on the cross in the place of sinners like you and me to give you hope of eternal life. Trust in him. That's all. And as soon as you trust in him, your invisible chains will fall off, and you will be free, as free as any veteran Christian has been in here who's been a Christian for 50, 60 years. You'll be free immediately. Free from all these things.

And then you can understand these six questions, and the rest of you look at them. You know how to answer them now. Does being free from the law mean that we no longer have to obey it in any form? No, it doesn't mean that. We still have the moral law. Does our being made free by Christ deliver us from all punishments for sin? No, God may still chastise us and punish us when we violate his law.

Is it consistent with Christian freedom to perform duties because Christ has commanded them? Yes, you have entered a kingdom, and there's a king there, and he will command you. But his commands are not burdensome. And he doesn't leave you alone but by the Spirit he enables you to obey them. Can those freed by Christ come into bondage again through sin? No, if that means you're back in Satan's kingdom; but, yes, if you're talking about temporary chains you put on yourself through foolishness, bad doctrine, and willful sin. You can enslave yourself. Cut free. Step out.

Question five: Is it consistent with Christian freedom to perform duties in order to be rewarded for our obedience? Yes, all of God's rewards are conditional given to those who obey. Judgment day is clearly a time in which God will give to each person according to what he has done, and that's by God's law. And finally, does the freedom of a Christian free him from all obedience to other people? No, we must still submit to God-ordained authority.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for these things we've discussed today. I pray that these weighty questions and their weighty answers would rest on our hearts that we would understand what kind of life we may now live by the spirit in order to be maximally fruitful, maximally pleasing to you, and bring great joy to our own hearts in Jesus name. Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Galatians 5:13-15 exploring how Christians can responsibly use their freedom.

Isn't that marvelous? That a week after Easter we still get to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Amen. It's not over when Easter is over, we get to do this every week. We get to celebrate Jesus' resurrection victory. He who was dead, he who was in the tomb, on the third day God raised him from the dead, and He was seen by many witnesses and they proclaimed in Jesus, the Gospel of forgiveness of sins and we have believed that Gospel. And it's my privilege today and I've just been marveling at God's grace to me to get to do this week after week, to get to stand in front of you and proclaim in Jesus the forgiveness of sins. And how awesome is that, that I get to stand in front of you and proclaim to you that if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven, and that you are free.

Now the Apostle Paul got to do that with the Galatians, he got to go to that town, and he got to preach in that region and preach the Gospel. Many of them that heard Paul believed and by the Holy Spirit they repented, and they became followers of Jesus Christ. But after Paul left, some false teachers came in with the false Gospel. And they sought to draw them away from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ and to follow a different Gospel which is no Gospel at all. It was a poisonous mixture of repentance and faith in Christ plus obedience to the laws of Moses, and the doorway into that life of bondage, that life of slavery under the law of Moses was circumcision. And so they were saying, “unless you are circumcised and unless you keep the law of Moses you cannot be saved.” And that makes Jesus recede and get smaller and smaller. And so Paul wrote this incredible epistle of freedom to correct that false doctrine and to heal them from the poison that Satan had tried to inject into their spiritual veins, so that they would know the freedom they have in Christ and that they would celebrate it.

Now, I've been marveling about the truths of this chapter, Galatians 5, a very deep and rich and full chapter. And my mind went to a moment in church history when Martin Luther, the German monk that God was using to bring about reformation and reclamation of the true Gospel in Germany from medieval Catholicism, and from all the false doctrine that had flowed for centuries in Europe, false understanding of the Gospel. God used him for reformation. He wrote a treatise in 1520, entitled The Freedom of a Christian. And he began by asserting two seemingly contradictory ideas, thesis. Number one, listen to this, “A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none.” Number two, “A Christian is a perfectly dutiful slave of all, subject to all.” Now he supported that from one text, 1 Corinthians 9:19. There the Apostle Paul talking about his proclamation ministry and his strategies, he goes from place to place speaking about Jews and Gentiles. He had a certain strategy, he says this in 1 Corinthians 9:19, "For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all."

Well, that's his supporting text for that seemingly contradictory argument he's trying to make. I think you can get those ideas right out of our text today and out of Galatians 5. How is it that we as Christians are perfectly free Lords of all, subject to none? Well, that has to do, dear friends, with the mystery, the glory of justification. When it comes to our salvation from sin, there is no one between you and God. You have Jesus as your mediator and no one else can stand between you and God. You need no other mediator, you don't need any authorities coming in there. You don't need any help from the Pope or from Councils or from priests or any of these things or authority figures that come in, you just need Christ. He alone, the God man is the mediator between you and our Holy God. And by Christ alone can you be freed from your bondage, your true bondage and that is bondage to sin. Jesus said in John 8, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. But if the son sets you free you'll be free indeed."

How many of you could testify like Jessica did earlier? "I am free indeed through Jesus. And I didn't need anyone to come minister that to me that was Jesus. He alone is my mediator between me and God." Are you free, have you been set free? Are you right now as you're listening to me, right now, free from all condemnation, free from all sin? Are you free from Satan's kingdom? Are you free from sin's bondage? Are you free from fear of death? Are you free from all condemnation? Jessica talked about Roman's 8:1. Are you set free now from all condemnation? If you're a Christian you can say, yes! Yes! Yes, a thousand! I'm set free! And that wasn't anything that was mediated to me by some legalistic authority figure coming in and telling me what's what with the law. So I'm free from all of that. Set free forever from these things.

Paul was adamant about that. He actually in some moments in this letter sounds angry about these human authority figures, these legalists that are coming to kind of wrap chains of bondage around the people that he'd seen the gospel set free. And so he argues like a free man in Galatians 1:10, he says, "Am I now trying to win the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man or God. If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." So he says, "I'm perfectly free Lord of all and I'm not subject to any human being." But now, Paul in our text is saying, "Okay, what are we going to do with that freedom?" And what he's saying in our text today is, "You're going to become a slave to everyone you meet." Huh? Scratch your head, question mark. How can that be? How can we be free from every human authority, where no one can come and tell me that I'm not forgiven, no one can get between me and God. And yet here I am, called to become a slave to everyone. That we are to be in a beautiful Christ-like service to others in love.

07:02 S1: It says right there, "Serve one another in love." Putting it even stronger, "Enslave yourselves to other people in love." Because the entire law is summed up in a single command, love your neighbor as yourself. So we come now to understanding the true boundaries of Christian freedom. How do we understand Christian freedom? Most people, when they start to understand the gospel of freedom are tempted to understand it selfishly, tempted to understand it through the flesh. As I said a couple of weeks ago, people, Americans, we tend to think of freedom in terms of the ability to do anything you want to do anytime you want to do it, with no repercussions. A complete severing of any shackles and chains and boundaries, and requirements that could restrict your ability to do whatever you want to do. If you want to go there, you go there, if you want to eat this, you eat it, if you want to jump off a cliff and soar like a bird you can do it. If you want to have this possession, you can have it. If you want to say these words, you can say them. No boundaries, no rules, no restrictions, no regrets.

Is that what freedom is? Is that what we're to do now with our gospel freedom? The Bible has a lot to say about freedom. Galatians 5 is a centerpiece. We've already been told in Galatians 5:1, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. But today, Paul is going to instruct us on what is the proper use of that freedom, what are the boundary lines around that freedom. So look at verse 13 again, we are called to soaring freedom, but that freedom is to please God. Look at verse 13, "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather serve one another in love."

So as I said a couple of weeks ago, just picture freedom in this way, the ability to run, or fly, or swim in whatever area God created that creature to run or swim or fly in. The freedom of an eagle to soar on the thermals, the freedom of a gazelle to run across the tundra, the freedom of dolphins to leap and play in the sea. And the freedom of Christians to delight in God's will for you. That's the essence of Christian freedom. That's what it is. If we are now set free by the gospel, we are set free by the spirit to delight in God's revealed will for you. That's a different kind of definition than what I was citing earlier. Vastly different definition of freedom than that in the minds of people committed to a form of libertarianism. They're marching in the streets with fist in the air, chanting for their rights. Demanding legislation to support and protect their rights, chanting slogans with fists in the air. Those people define freedom as the right to do anything that makes them happy as they define it.

Many times, the rights that they're seeking to defend so vigorously are things the Bible calls evil. Their idea of freedom is self-defined. It's linked to their pleasures, it's linked to their flesh, like in the days of Judges. For it says in Judges 21:25, "In those days, there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes." So that's how people define freedom in our age. It's self-defined. But I think Christian freedom is the power to delight in and to do God's will for you. And that's going to be defined as Paul does in this text by his law. In other words, he is going to bring us back having been set free from the law in one sense, he's going to now bring us back to the law in another sense. We are set free from the law in its power to condemn us and send us to hell. We are set free from the law in its ability to assault and to bind our conscience and to accuse us of wrongdoing. We're set from the minutia of the law and its ability to define a godly life for you in very detailed prescriptions about what you can and can't eat, what you can and can't wear, where you must go three times a year to assemble for worship and all that, set free for those things. Set free from the requirements to circumcise your boy babies on the eighth day, set free from those things.

But that doesn't mean we're done with the law, not at all. Actually, now brought back to the law to understand it. That we are now free to run in the path of God's commands because he has set our hearts free. Psalm 119:32, to delight in what God wills for us. So now we come again to facing, as we have often times in the studying Galatians, the twin dangers of legalism on one side and license on the other. And for the rest of Galatians 5, he's going to be working, I think, primarily on the issue of license. Most of the book has been on the issue of legalism and he has dealt very plainly with that. We are not justified by works of the law but by simple faith in Christ. And so he is against legalism, in verse one he said, "It's for freedom that Christ has set us free, stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." He's talking there about the Judaizers and their enslaving legalistic doctrine. But then in verse 13, he's against license. He says in verse 13, "You my brothers were called to be free but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh."

Tim Keller put it this way, "Don't lose gospel freedom," verse 1, "And don't abuse gospel freedom," verse 13. John MacArthur put it this way talking about legalism and license, he said this, "Someone has pictured legalism and license as two parallel streams that run between heaven and earth. The stream of legalism is clear sparkling and pure because God's law is pure and holy, but its waters run so deep and furiously that no one can enter that stream without being drowned or smashed on the rocks of its unrelenting demands. On the other hand, the stream of license, by contrast, is relatively quiet, still, and shallow, and crossing it seems easy and attractive but its waters are so contaminated with poisons and pollutants that to try to cross it is also certain death. Both streams therefore are uncrossable, both are deadly. One because of impossible moral and spiritual demands, the other because of moral and spiritual filth. But spanning those two deadly streams is the bridge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The only passage there is from earth to heaven, these two streams lead to death because they are man's ways but the Gospel leads to life because it is God's way."

So those are the dangers and I find that image helpful. All right? We have these opposite dangers both of them will destroy our soul, both of them expressions, really, of the flesh, two different expressions of the flesh, but the Gospel calls us to freedom. And we are free. You are free if you're a Christian, and if you're not, I just want to plead with you trust in Christ crucified and resurrected. Put your faith in Jesus the Son of God, he died in the place of sinners to give them a gift of righteousness. Don't leave this place in the invisible spiritual chains that you carried when you walked in here, chains of guilt, condemnation, and fear of death and judgment, but be immediately freed by putting your faith in Christ.

Jesus said, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin" John 8:34. Romans 6:20 says, "We were slaves of sin." We were also slaves to Satan, it says in Ephesians 2, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live. When you follow the ways of this world and of the ruler of the Kingdom of the air, that's Satan, the Spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of the flesh and following its desires and thoughts, and like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath..." and because of that we were under the wrath and curse of God. Romans 2:5 says, "Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant hearts, you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath when His righteous judgement will be revealed."

So we had unseen chains binding us to continue to live like that, the chains of the flesh which were internal lusts and drives that bound us and kept us from living to please God. The chains of Satan's power, unseen influences, unseen clever temptations and flaming arrows that guaranteed that we were going to continue in bondage to him. And the chains of addiction and habits and lusts and the world's influence. This chain, Romans 7:15, "I do not understand what I do, for what I do I do not want to do. And the good I want to do, I do not do." So these invisible chains are now broken in Christ. We are completely free from all compulsion to sin, Amen, hallelujah! You are free from sin by Christ.

Now, Christian freedom is a mysterious mix of already and not yet. We are completely free from sin's authority to command, free from sin's ability to condemn, but we're not free from sin's presence in our flesh. In the indwelling sin, that's there and driving us still to do evil things. Now, sin doesn't have any power to command us, Satan doesn't have any power to command us, says in Roman 6:14, "Sin shall not be your master because you're not under law but under grace." Romans 6:18 says, "You've been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness," but because of the ongoing power of the flesh, we are commanded to live up to our freedom. We have to fight to do it. We have to fight to not be burdened by a yoke of bondage, either in legalism or license. We are called to be free and this is an upward call living more and more like Jesus Christ, serving God and others. Living a more and more joyous powerful heavenly life, living as free from sin as you were at one time, free from righteousness. You used to live free from righteousness. Righteousness seemed to have no claim on you when you were lost. It says in Roman 6:20, "When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness." Now everything has changed, and we are to live as free from sin.

Free like Jesus. Amen? The freest man that ever lived, completely free. Think about the freedom of Jesus. I like this. In John 14, Jesus getting his disciples ready for the events of that night, He's going to be arrested. He's going to be bound up like a criminal. He's going to be condemned and He's going to die on the cross. But I assert, He's a free man all the way through that whole thing, absolutely free. And it's interesting what he says before He's arrested in John 14:30-31, he says to his disciples, "I will not speak with you much longer for the prince of this world is coming." Now don't think of the Roman authorities or Annas, or Caiaphas. Think of Satan. "Satan is coming for me. The Prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me." Think about that. "But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me to do." Do you see that? "Satan has no hold on me, no compulsion on me. He has no power over me. He has no ability to accuse me. I've never sinned and he knows it. He cannot accuse me of any wrongdoing. He has no claim on me, whatsoever. But the reason I'm going to die is I want the world to see what obedience looks like. I want to go to the cross and obey completely everything my Father has told me to do." It's completely free, all the time, at every moment.

And so He offers to you that same freedom. "If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed." You'll be as free as I am. It says in Romans 8:2, through Christ Jesus, "the law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death." 2 Corinthians 3:17, it says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." So we are free in Jesus and we're called on to live as free people, but in order to do that, we have to understand what this freedom doesn't mean and what it does mean.

First of all, Christian freedom does not indulge the flesh. Look at verse 13, "You my brothers were called to be free but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh" or as different translation says, "an opportunity for the flesh." So the first thing you need to know is know that you're free, truly free, free from sin, then don't sin! Don't use this new freedom you have as an opportunity to indulge the flesh. Now, first of all, this is the very thing Paul's opponents were saying that his doctrine was open to, that he's an Antinomian. He's saying the law doesn't mean anything anymore. You don't need to be circumcised. It doesn't matter how you live. Jesus has come to set you free. He's saying, "This is not what we're teaching." He says in Romans 3:8, "Why not say as we are being slanderously reported as saying and that some claim that we say. Let us do evil that good may result." They had got the doctrine wrong. Wherever the true Gospel appears and starts to preach this kind of freedom, immediately people start saying, "Well, then if that's true, you can sin as much as you want and still go to heaven." Ever heard people say that? If that's true that you're forgiven for all your sins, past present and future in an instant by faith, then what's going to stop people from being wicked and immoral? They haven't understood the Gospel. They haven't understood this freedom that Paul is talking about here. Jesus came to save us from sin completely like the angel said to Joseph, "You will give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins."

So what does it mean now? It says, "You, my brothers were called to be free but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh." What do we mean by flesh? We have to face this now full on. Try to understand this word. The Greek word flesh is "sarx." Sometimes that word has to do with just animal flesh, like the flesh of a bull or a goat, something like that, or flesh and bone. Jesus had flesh in His resurrection body. He said, "A spirit doesn't have flesh and bones, as you see I have." So it's the physical stuff you can touch, the stuff of the body. But usually in the New Testament, it has to do with a drive toward sin and an innate drive that we have toward rebellion and sin. The NIV doesn't just translate it into “flesh,” but in those cases every time it says “sinful nature.” It's the drive of our minds and bodies toward habitual rebellion against God.

Now for years, we trained our minds and bodies by yielding to temptations. We are habitual. All of us, all people build up habits. It's why athletes practice free throws over and over and over, so that just have the muscle memory. They don't even think about it. They just do it. So we were with sin. We just had trained ourselves for years in sin. It's habitual rebellion. So there's an inner drive of self-worship, making the most of myself, thinking about ourselves all the time. I don't know if you remember a few years ago, the yellow pages. Do you guys even remember the yellow pages? Some of you do. All right. The rest of you, over the last few years, you see them at the bottom or at the end of peoples’ driveways, getting soaked with rain. Have you seen that?

I felt sorry for the people that did all the ads, and the delivery, and all that, all those people. But I didn't feel sorry enough to bring it in the house. But they had these clever ads about different things or advertisements in the yellow page. Now really funny, there are a lot of funny ones. But I like this one. A room full of really eccentric Hollywood-type people wearing interesting clothes and all that. And they're just going around just doing all this boasting and just talking in this kind of way. Boasting about themselves and all this sort of stuff. And finally this one woman with this elaborate outfit and all that she says, "Well enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about my hat?"

And then the word was vanity cases. I don't know if I even know what a vanity case is but it's just a bunch of egotists that are out there… But that's us. A relentless drive to me-ism. What's making me happy? What makes me feel good? That's the essence of the flesh. And it drives normal bodily desires beyond boundaries that God set up. Eating becomes gluttony. Drinking wine becomes drunkenness. Marital relations becomes adultery and fornication and other sins, sexual sins. So that's the flesh, it drives beyond boundaries. Possession becomes materialism, that kind of thing. Good gifts get abused by the flesh.

Now, how could our freedom then be an opportunity for the flesh? Well the word “opportunity” here, often you could picture it as a base of operations. Think about World War II, think about D-Day Normandy. Okay, June 6, 1944. On June 7, 1944, this beachhead was expanded, the hard one the blood-soaked beach there was used as a base of operations for the Allies to begin their reconquest of France and of all of Europe. And so man and materials and arms and food and supplies were just pouring in now. Pouring in on this beachhead. Well, that's the picture here, don't use this freedom as a beachhead for the flesh to serve its lust. That's what he's saying here. Don't do this.

And this happens when Christians think this way, "It really doesn't matter how I live now that I'm forgiven. It doesn't matter how I live now that I'm definitely going to heaven. I'll be forgiven no matter what I do, I'll go to heaven no matter what. Once saved, always saved. Right? Isn't that what the pastor said? So I can live however I want and I can do whatever I want without being too worried about what will happen after I die." Now this kind of doctrine has been around since the beginning of the church. In 2 Peter chapter 2, Peter the apostle is writing against false teachers but not the legalist type, the license type. It says of them, "They promise their disciples freedom while they themselves are slaves of depravity, for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him." And it says of them, "With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning. They're experts in greed and accursed brood." So they're teaching this. They're openly, in 2 Peter 2, teaching that because of Christ, it doesn't matter what you do with your body, you're still going to heaven. Well that's not true. It's a lie from the pit of hell. It matters very much whether you're fighting for holiness. Very much.

If you are a Christian, you will fight the flesh. Absolutely. That's what's being taught. Now, in our day, you have forms of, kind of, cotton candy Christianity. You see it easily in the media. You can see it on networks and other things. You can see preachers getting up there avoiding controversial topics, saying things that everyone likes, things that everyone can agree on, staying positive, want to be positive. Don't want to be talk about difficult topics, like pornography or other wickedness and sins in our culture. We don't want to discuss these things. We want to stay positive.

Well, in Luke 6:26 it says, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you for that's how they spoke about the false prophets." But what would cause everyone to speak well about a teacher? Well, if he always stays positive people would be tempted to speak positive things about him all the time. False teachers. We have to be willing to address the hard issues of facing issues of holiness and issues of sin and controversial topics and standing in there and speaking words of righteousness into the lives of those who are completely forgiven for sin. And that's the very thing I want to do here. How do we live this out? There's so much worldliness today. So much indulgence of worldly input, from internet, movies, and books and magazines. And Christians go trolling through the sewer system of our culture to try to find some pleasure. And it's deadly dangerous to our souls.

And we're thinking, "You know, God will forgive me, God will protect me. It doesn't matter what I look at on the internet." Well, it does matter. "If your right eye cause you to sin," Jesus said, "gauge it out and throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." Why would he link lust to hell? Because that's what we're talking about here, the deadly dangerous sin. Well, how does the New Testament refute this? Well, Peter refutes it in one verse. 1 Peter 2:16, "Live as free men but do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil. Live as servants of God." So freedom shouldn't be a cloak for evil. Not at all, any more than in Galatians here, it should not be a base of operations for evil. That's not what freedom was meant for, to live however you want. Paul then spends three chapters refuting it in Roman 6-8. Remember, he says at the end of Romans five, "Where sin abounds," what? "grace abounds all the more." If that's not one of the sweetest verses in the bible I don't know what is. Amen. Hallelujah!

I have likened that verse before to this. This is the image I have. I can't shake it, it's just in my head. I need a new one because as a preacher you need new images. But this is the one I have. Grace is like the Pacific Ocean and sin is like a fire. And someone's fire is like a match and someone's like a torch and someone is like a beach bonfire and someone's sin is like the Twin Towers on September 11th. But if you take that match and you put it in the Pacific Ocean it goes out. And you take that torch and you put it in the Pacific Ocean it goes out. And you take that bonfire, you put it in the Pacific Ocean it goes out. You even take the World Trade Center, you put it in the Pacific Ocean, it goes out. God's Grace is greater than all of our sins. And that's an awesome thing, but the next thing he says in Romans 6 is, "What then, shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase, may it never be." So as part of my job as a pastor and discipler is to make you say that with more and more vehemence, even violence, as you go on in your Christian life.

"Shall I go on sinning so that grace may increase, may it never be," that you would be violent about temptations. That you'll be angry about the poison it's trying to bring in your life and say, "I've gotta fight this, it's deadly evil." So Romans 6:11, I've got to count myself dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. "What then shall we," verse 15, "shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace? By no means. You are the servant to the one you actually submit yourself to and obey, whether it's sin which leads to death or to obedience which leads to righteousness and into eternal life."

Then he says, as Jessica said earlier, in Romans 8:1-4, "Therefore, there's now no condemnation," well, for anybody? No, for a specific category of people. Who? Who is there no condemnation for? Well, "There's therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," comma not period comma, "because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do and that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His son in the likeness of the flesh, and so we condemn sin in the flesh in order that," listen to this, "the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live by the flesh but by the spirit."

So if you're living by the flesh, there's condemnation for you because you're not a Christian. That's the logic of Romans 8. It is, read it right through. If you're living by the spirit there's no condemnation for you. And then he says the culmination for me is there Romans 8:13-14. "If you indulge or live according to the flesh, you will die, [that means go to hell] But if by the spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of the body you'll live, [that means go to heaven] Because those who are led by the spirit of God, those are the children of God." You see, it's clear isn't it? Every Christian is at war and that's where we're going in Galatians five, just look at the next verse and verse 16 at the end. There's a war between the spirit and the flesh. We'll talk about it God willing, very soon.

So let me just immediately stop and apply this. How are you using your freedom? Just assess your own life right now. Do you think I'm forgiven and will be cleansed by grace while you look at internet pornography; is that going on for you? Do you think it doesn't matter what books I read, it doesn't matter what novels I read, what romantic novels or different things, it doesn't matter what magazines I look at? It doesn't make any impact on me what movies I watch. I'm not under law. Do you bristle when pastors, like me, meddle in matters of personal lifestyle, thinking that such preaching is really legalistic? Do you think I can skip my quiet time so I can skip church regularly because I don't want to be legalistic in the Christian life, are you thinking like that? Do you think to have a regular time of intercessory prayer or Bible reading is legalistic, that you're going to be disciplined about that? Do you think that for FBC to emphasize the absolute need for personal holiness and the internal journey is legalistic? Do you use your freedom as a cover up for evil? Do you live as though all that matters is that grace is greater than all our sins or is there more truth besides that?

Now, not only are we not to indulge the flesh, we are to serve others in love. Look at verse 13 and following. "You my brothers were called to be free but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another in love." As I've said, Christian freedom is the power to do what is right. To delight in what is right and to do it. That means not only pleasing God, but serving others. To stop being fanatically committed to yourself. Look around you, look around to the body of Christ, look around to the people around you and serve them in love, that's what it says. Christian freedom means serving others in love.

Do you realize that what I've been saying is that you folks, you genuine Christians are infinitely rich? All of your needs are met. You're free from Satan and sin and death and hell? You're free to Christ, and to serve him and you're free to inherit the new heaven and the new earth, the home righteousness. You are wealthy. All your needs are met. So get busy serving others. You don't need anything, you see. That's how it works. Think about Jesus; you remember the night before he was crucified in John 13. He looked around and noticed a bunch of dirty feet, remember that story? And, I think, it's so interesting how in John 13, how John sets up the foot washing. He says, "Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart from the world and having loved his own, he loved them to the end," to the fullest extent then it says, "Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into His hands and that He had come from God and was going back to God." He knew all that.

Well, you can know similar things about yourself. All right? So, "He got up from the supper, laid aside His robe, took a towel, tied it around himself, poured water in a basin, began to wash His disciples' feet drying them with the towel." So I think you Christians should do the same thinking, "I know that I'm a child of God. I know all my sins are forgiven, all my needs are going to be met, everything I need for life is going to be provided for me, I'm going to heaven when I die, that's all secure, what do I do now? Serve others in love, serve."

So Jesus taught this, "You know that," in Matthew 20, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their high officials exercise authority over them not so with you, instead whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many." So just stop for a moment and apply this point. By the power of the spirit, do you understand that we are enabled to forget about ourselves and live for others? Do you understand that? How is your life of service going? How's it going? What's going on in your life? Are you serving others in love? Are you using your freedom to live for other people? Is there a regular pattern of laying down your life in cheerful service to the needs of others? Are you visiting the sick? Are you evangelizing the lost? Are you caring for the elderly? Are you sacrificing for the poor? Are you counseling discouraged people or troubled people? Are you discipling people, building them up in their faith? Are you doing these things?

Young people, let me speak to the young people, are you using that strength and energy that you have, and I admire it more with every passing year it's awesome. Are you using that strength and energy and freedom that you have to serve those that have less strength and energy than you have? Are you using it to help the elderly? Using it help people that are struggling because they can't take care of their houses as much now, maybe a widow? Are you using your time and energy to serve others?

Rich people, okay, please don't anyone slink down at this moment, all you rich people, alright, are you using your money to advance the gospel? Are you using your money for the relief of the poor? Are you using your money to support some of those young and energetic people who want to set themselves apart for ministry and just need money to do it?

Homeowners, is there a regular pattern of hospitality in your life? Can I just stop and say for a moment, I just want to say thank you to all of you that are hosting home fellowships. I want to just say thank you and I would urge all of you that are attending home fellowships but are not hosting home fellowships, to thank your host families tonight. It's a lot of work. They labor for you to serve you. I just want to say thank you. Let me just say big picture, I have never been in a church like FBC that has so much of a heart of self sacrificial service, this is a great church in that regard. I find, I have been blessed for 16 years by the generosity and the prayers, notes of encouragement, ways that you all have loved on me and my family more than I can count. I'm just saying, I'm asking and urging you in the Lord to do so more and more. Let's serve one another in love. I already see this up and running at FBC, let's do it more and more, Amen. And if you're not involved, be involved, serve one another in love.

Paul says in verse 14, Christian freedom fulfills law, "the whole law is fulfilled in this one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" The whole law fulfilled in this one word, that's a mystery. Jesus gave us two commandments, right? First and greatest commandment is love the lord your God with all your hearts soul mind and strength. Second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. Everything hangs on these two, this is the second table of the law, the human aspect. This moral law is still binding on us Christians. Do you know that? We're set free from the law’s condemning power but now we are empowered to love God and to love our neighbor and that fulfills the law. We must obey the law by the power of the spirit. Now, God's law is excellent, isn't it? It's the best possible way to live and that's what I'm saying to you, you want to live the best life? Live the law. Not to forgive you for your sins, not to earn God's smile or favor but because this is the best way you can possibly live.

I like this, Psalm 119:97, "Oh, how I love your law, I meditate on it all day long." Well, Psalm 19, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statues of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and all together righteous. They are more precious than gold, even than much pure gold, they're sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb." so the law gives us these commandments, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal or bear false witness. Paul says in Romans 13, "Love doesn't harm your neighbor, so love is the fulfillment of the law." But we know it goes beyond just not just harming, we are serving one another in love. It's a whole different kind of life.

Finally, Christian freedom does not destroy others, look at verse 15, he says "If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you'll be destroyed by each other." This is really grievous. After Paul left, this beautiful little Christian community, fell apart because of these false teachers. Legalism came in and made them mean. Legalism came in and made them mean. They started judging each other, and being judged, resenting being judged but then feeling superior to others, that's just what the legalism does. It makes communities mean. But it's a problem for everybody. This is human nature. Have you ever heard the expression, "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there?" It's like acting like beasts and that's what this verse says, "If you keep on biting and devouring, ripping flesh, you're going to be destroyed by each other."

Well, when the flesh takes over, what happens in a marriage? This. When the flesh takes over in a parent-child relationship, what happens in that relationship? This happens. If false doctrine, either legalism or license, comes into a church, what starts to happen? This. I've seen it with my own eyes. Those of you who've been here my whole 16 years, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Biting, devouring, acting like animals and it's wickedness.

So Christian freedom is the anecdote to this, Amen. Treat each other not like dog eating dog, but we treat each other like brothers and sisters in Christ who are delighted to spend eternity with each other. That's what the Spirit does. Friends, we've been set free. We've been set free from sin, we're not going to use that freedom to indulge the flesh. We're rather going to serve each other in an increasing pattern of self-sacrifice to one another and we're going to stop acting like animals. We're going to act like holy people who are delighted to be on a journey to heaven together. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the things we've learned today, so much to know and Father I pray that you would teach us the Law now not as a way to justify ourselves from our sins but as a beautiful, the most perfect way to live. Teach us to love one another and serve one another. And Father, I pray that you would be working in the hearts of lost people, unregenerate people within the sound of my voice. Bring them to salvation through Faith in Christ. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a sermon on the Book of Acts. The main subject of the sermon is the history of the Christian church and how it is eternally indebted to Christ.

So in my mind this morning, as I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about the privilege that I have had to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus in many nations around the world, and I've not always been there at Easter, but you know, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus every day. We celebrate it many, many times a day. We rejoice in this resurrection victory. Amen? We celebrate it all the time. So for us, this is just a day to focus on it, but every single day we celebrate, and I've had the privilege geographically, of being all over the world.

And I have been in Japan with our brothers and sisters there, the land of the rising sun, they are the first major nation on earth to celebrate every day and Easter Sunday in particular, and I was at a sunrise service in Japan, isn't that awesome? So we got to begin the relay race of praise and glory and honor, giving thanks to God for the resurrection of his son. And then just like a relay race, I love this, this picture in my mind, as our brothers and sisters in Japan passed the baton on to our brothers and sisters in China and all over that country, in some hidden secret places, in some public places, there are Chinese brothers and sisters praising God right now, for his resurrection victory, for what Jesus accomplished, and they're giving thanks.

And then as it continues to move on, our brothers and sisters in India, a diverse nation, many different places, worshipping and praising God, coming from different castes and with different testimonies, coming to faith in Christ. And then they pass the baton on to our brothers and sisters in Christ in Iran. Think about that, what it would be like to be a Christian in Iran, what it would be like to worship, praising God, but knowing at any moment, the Islamic secret police can break in and stop it and arrest you and interrogate you. But they are there and they're worshipping God and they're praising him, and so the relay race is passed on.

I think about Africa. I've been in Kenya and how awesome it is to worship in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is one of the greatest mission fields of the 20th century, where the gospel exploded in Sub-Saharan Africa, and they're just tens, hundreds of millions of Christians in Africa praising God, and they're worshipping and they're wearing colorful outfits, and they're singing with exuberance, and they're praising God. And then the gospel moves on to Western Europe where you would think it's a burned over district where the Gospel isn't powerful there anymore, and there are many nominal Christians in Italy, in Spain, in France, in England, but there are genuine believers too. There are brothers and sisters in Christ that are assembling and worshipping.

And then it makes a big leap across the Atlantic Ocean. I don't know what's going on in the Azores right now, but I'm sure there are Christians there praising God and now it's our turn. It's our turn to stand up because the sun never sets on the empire of Jesus Christ. Amen? And we get to stand up now and we get to praise God for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we'll pass it on to the other time zones in the US, and California will get it eventually and on it will move. And you know, it's not gonna end when the sun sets finally on the 24 time zones. We're gonna keep worshipping. Amen? We're gonna thank Him forever and ever.

And this is a partial fulfillment of the vision that the Apostle John had on the Island of Patmos. Revelation 7, He saw people from a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe and language, and people and nation standing before the throne in front of the Lamb. And they were saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. To them, it belongs forever and ever, and Salvation belongs to the Lamb who died, who shed His blood to redeem people from every tribe and language and people and nation." We get to celebrate that now, but where did that vast, that diverse, that huge church of Jesus Christ come from? What's the history of that?

And I also have the privilege, not just of missions work and being in all kinds of nations, but my focus and my study, my Christian study was on church history. I get to go back in time and think about brothers and sisters, who are long since deceased now, who have worshipped the same Jesus, they've had the same hope in resurrection, they served in hope, and they died in hope, not receiving the things promised. But they knew that the best was yet to come even as they died, and they are now absent from the body, and they're present with the Lord and celebrating. We go back and we trace back, and Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it's planted, it grows and becomes a tree so vast that the birds of the air can perch in it's branches." And so that is with the Church of Jesus Christ.

Now, this vast tree, this beautiful, fruitful tree, trace back now to a single room. A single room, the upper room there in Jerusalem, where Jesus went and appeared on that first Resurrection Sunday, and he gave evidence of his resurrection to them and he unleashed them to preach the gospel. And the beginning, from that first seed to the growing of that plant of the church of Jesus Christ is told in the book of Acts. And so what I wanna do today is I wanna trace out just the very beginnings of the Church. What I wanna show is how central to that growth was the proclamation of the resurrection. It was central to everything. The preaching that Christ is risen, that death has been conquered, that we have eternal life, was central to the spread of the gospel and how glorious that was. So that's what we're gonna do today.

We don't have a particular passage we're working through, but we're going to begin in the Book of Acts, and we're gonna look at how they preach the resurrection. And my desire is that by feeding, as Joel was talking about feeding on the Word, our faith will be strengthened. And you'll have a stronger vision of the glory of God in the resurrection of Christ, and you'll have a stronger sense of your own assurance of your salvation, and you'll feed on this and you'll be filled with joy, because we have, as Joel mentioned, we have those two infinite journeys in front of us still laying up before us. And that is that we should grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ, and we should become more and more like Christ, conformed to Christ, holier and holier, and that we should take this Gospel and spread it to near neighbors and to distant nations who have never heard his name, the external journey of worldwide evangelism and discipleship.

 So we wanna start in the Book of Acts, and I wanna start with what I call the apostolic job description, and that was to witness to the resurrection.

Now, Jesus in his lifetime, pulled aside 12 of his disciples, his followers, and he called the 12. It says in Mark 3:13-14, “Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve of them---designating them apostles--- that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.”

So there was that proximity in that relationship, and they were seeing what he was doing, how he was ministering and what he was saying. They heard with their own ears. They were the apostles, the 12. Now after the resurrection, he unleashed them as I've said, as witnesses. In John Chapter 20, Jesus, though the doors were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." And they were absolutely overjoyed, they saw His hands and His side. And then again, Jesus said, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me even so, I am sending you." It says in Luke 24:46-48, “He told them, ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’”  

And again, at the beginning of the book of Acts, in Acts 1:8, he said, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” So these apostles were called to be witnesses to Christ, but specifically witnesses of the resurrection. Now, you know that one of the 12, Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and went and hanged himself, and so his position was open. And there in Acts Chapter one, the apostles sought to fill that position. As they were waiting for the promised Holy Spirit, the Apostle Peter said these words in Acts 1:21-22, he said, "It is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us [to Heaven]. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection." You hear that? That's a job description right there, their job was to witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the apostles, and so they filled that position.

Now, throughout the book of Acts, testimony to the Resurrection was central to the growth of the church. I went through the book of Acts and I just identified many, many places, I wouldn't say they're all the places, but many places where they clearly testify to the resurrection of Christ. You've already heard Joel read one of them. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, it says in Acts 2:24, "But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him." So there, at the beginning of the church, on the day of Pentecost, preaching the resurrection. Then in the very next chapter, Peter and John healed a lame beggar and then took an opportunity to preach to the crowd that gathered, when they saw him walking and leaping and praising God and as they came together, Peter preached a tremendous gospel message and then said this in Acts 3:15, "You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this." 

And then again in the next chapter, the guards, it says in Acts 4:2, were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, and proclaiming in Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, you see there, not just that Christ has been raised, but that through him, we also might be raised from the dead, that we might have this gift of resurrection. Then on trial before the council in that same chapter, Acts 4:10, Peter says very boldly, "Then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man [this lame beggar] stands before you healed." In the very next chapter, on trial before the Sanhedrin, Acts 5:30, there they are preaching boldly before this Jewish Sanhedrin, and they said, "The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead--whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree."

Again, boldly proclaiming the resurrection of the dead, then if you go ahead to the end of Acts Chapter 7, there we have the testimony of Stephen. And what an awesome testimony to resurrection, that is. Stephen boldly preaching the Gospel, rejected, aggressively, by the Sanhedrin. Just before he died, he said, "Look… I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." So there's a clear testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his ascension. And then at Cornelius’ house, Peter preached to the first Gentile convert, this godly man, Cornelius brought to faith in Christ. And this is how it happened. Peter's preaching these words, "We are witnesses of everything Jesus did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem." Acts 10:39 and following,” They killed Him by hanging Him on a tree…” Verse 40,”… but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen-- by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”  

So that's central to the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, the resurrection of Jesus. Then if you go ahead to Acts 13:29-33, there the Apostle Paul on his first missionary journey, preaching in the synagogue there at the city in Antioch, said this, this is at verse 29, and following, "When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children by raising up Jesus." 

And then again, if you go ahead to Acts 17:2-3, in Thessalonica, the Apostle Paul, “As his custom was…went into the synagogue, [there in Thessalonica], and on three Sabbath days, [three successive weeks], he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, [verse 3] explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.’ he said.” And then later in that same chapter in Athens, in Acts 17:31, there he is before the philosophers on Mars Hill, the egg heads of Athens, you know, the philosophers, they love to debate and talk about all these ideas. The culmination of his message is Judgment Day and resurrection. Acts 17:31, "For he has set a day, [God has set a day] when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

And then at the end, if you skip ahead to Acts 25:19, there are other references, but just go ahead to the end of the book, Festus was talking about the apostle Paul. And he summarized Christianity at this point in Acts 25:19, talking about the Jews. And it said, “Instead, they [the Jewish leaders] had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.” So that's the center piece of what this Roman procurator was saying about Christianity.

Some disputes about the Jewish religion and about this dead man named Jesus, who they are saying is alive. And then again on trial before Agrippa in Acts 26:22-23, Paul says this, "I'm saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen-- that the Christ would suffer and, [is] as the first to rise from the dead…" Oh just rejoice in that word, "As the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles." He's the first fruits. We're the rest of the harvest. Amen? And so that is the joy. That's why we celebrate. That's why we're happy. Joel was talking about, in effect, talking about chains that had bound him up. Charles Wesley wrote about it in And can It Be. We're imprisoned in chains, and when the gospel comes, it liberates prisoners. Amen? It sets them free. All over the world, this gospel is bearing fruit and growing. All over the world, it's setting prisoners free, and that's why we rejoice because we're not afraid of death anymore. Amen? At least we ought not to be. My desire as I'm preaching is that your faith would grow stronger and stronger and that you will never again fear death, because death is just a doorway into eternal joy. So this is clearly the greatest news that has ever been proclaimed in the history of the world.

Now, where did the power for witnessing to the resurrection come? It came from the Holy Spirit. The witness to the resurrection was constantly opposed as it is today. In every nation on earth, there are enemies of this message, fighting against it, trying to hold it down, trying to suppress the truth and unrighteousness. They're trying to hold back the Gospel. There are enemies everywhere. This world is dominated by Satan and his human puppets, and they're dancing on the end of his satanic strings, and they're in positions of power and authority, and they use those positions of power and authority, whether political authority or academic authority, or authority in industry, in companies they use their police authority, they use their authority to oppose the spread of the gospel, the spread of this message of resurrection. It's been going on from the very beginning. Initially, the Apostles had to face the wrath of the very same people who killed their lord and savior Jesus, the Sanhedrin. 

Peter in particular, had to face his own fears of suffering and dying, the very fears that had made him deny even knowing Jesus. He had to face his fear of death, and in Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested by the High Priest and his associates and they were brought before them on trial, a preliminary inquisition at that point. But in chapter five, the Sanhedrin imprison and beat the apostles. By the time you get to chapter seven, Stephen is martyred, he's stoned to death for his faith. And immediately in the next chapter, a great persecution breaks out against the church in Jerusalem, and the church is scattered, and it continues to get worse and worse. In Acts 12, King Herod joined the persecution of the messengers of the Gospel. He had James the Apostle killed with the sword, and he had Peter imprisoned intending to do the same thing to him. And as the gospel began to spread more and more, the messengers of the resurrection had to face greater and greater enemies.

In Asia Minor, unbelieving Jews consistently organized opposition to the Apostle Paul as he tried to go from place to place. Everywhere he went, they went. They pursued him, they dogged his steps and tried to stop the preaching of the resurrection. And in Philippi, the owners of a slave girl, had Paul and Silas arrested because they lost some money, and so they were there in jail because of the resurrection, the Gospel of the resurrection. In Ephesus, some Gentile idol makers, again, enraged that they were losing money, started to riot and were ready to kill anyone that would testify to the resurrection, so it continued. In Acts 22, Paul stands before his own countrymen there in Jerusalem, and they had already tried to kill him, they had already rioted, and it was only the presence of the Roman police that shut that down. And for the rest of the Book of Acts Paul is under arrest, and therefore to witness to the resurrection took great power and courage and great boldness to witness to the resurrection. And friends, I'm not trying to be a harbinger of dark days, but it's our responsibility to say, “look around you, in our culture, in this country, it's going to get harder and harder to witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” 

The church of Jesus Christ has had a very comfortable congenial relationship with the surrounding culture and with the government up until this point. It's been very unusual in church history. It's not usually so congenial, but those days are coming to an end, and we need to be ready to suffer, to take the message of the resurrection on, just as our brothers and sisters suffered to win the Roman Empire in three centuries, they were willing to die for their faith. And so where did that power come from? Where did that courage come from? Well, you've already heard it. Acts 1:8, "…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

I don't think it's blasphemous to say that the death and resurrection of Jesus alone, the greatness of that message alone, is all that's needed for the spreading of the Gospel. We also need the power of the Holy Spirit, and without the power of the Holy Spirit, we will remain locked in the upper room. Amen? We will not go boldly out in the streets, and so we are as reliant on the Holy Spirit for power to witness, as we are reliant on Jesus for forgiveness of sins to begin with. We are absolutely reliant. We must have the power of the Holy Spirit, or we will not witness. And so look at the boldness of Peter and John in Acts 4, go ahead and flip there and look. It's just one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. They're all my favorite chapter in the Bible, but anyway, I love it because it just shows so clearly the effect of the Holy Spirit on Peter in particular. Do you remember the story? Peter and John had healed the lame beggar and they preached, and then they were arrested for preaching, and the next day in Acts Chapter 4, they have a chance to make their defense. Beginning of Verse 5, it says, "The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law, met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest's family. They had Peter and John brought before them and they began to question them: ‘By what power or what name did you do this?’”

Now, I've said this before, I'll say it again. Pray to God that you get such an easy question like that. You wanna be a witness? Ask God that someone who doesn't believe in Jesus would ask you a question like that. That's awesome. If you can't walk through that wide open barn door, then come back and get some more evangelism training, because we can walk through barn doors like that one. By what power or what name did you do this? But still understand, understand the great temptation to fear, to terror. These were the very same men who had killed Jesus. These were the ones that Peter had just a very short time ago been afraid of, mortally afraid of. And here's the key to everything. We look at verse 8, "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit... " Do you see that? That's the key to everything. “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: ‘Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is, “the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.” Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.’" 

Now, that's the sound of boldness, isn't it? That's the sound of an unashamed testimony to Jesus Christ. And that's the very thing at the end of that chapter that they prayed for. Remember? Peter and John were released, they went back to their own people, they assembled together, and they prayed and they asked God, and they said in Verse 29, "Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness." That's what they prayed for, not, consider their threats to make sure they don't carry them through. They didn't pray for that. They said, "…consider their threats and give us boldness, [oh Lord]. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

In verse 31, "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly." Do you see that? Right there in verse 33, filled with the Holy Spirit, proclaiming the message of the resurrection boldly. Let's ask God to give us the filling of the Holy Spirit, that we may proclaim the message of the resurrection boldly. Look at verse 33, it says there very plainly, "With great power the apostles continued to testify [to what?] to the resurrection..." It's just a summation of the whole Christian message. They testified to the message of the resurrection, and much grace was upon them all. Isn't it amazing how they face the threats of imprisonment and death, not that the threats would go away, but that they would have the boldness to preach the gospel.

We see also the boldness of Stephen in Acts 7. Don't you love that? How afraid was Stephen to die? Not afraid at all. There was no fear. As a matter of fact, amazingly also there was no hatred in him either. No fear. No hatred. I see a man still alive, still on earth, but already in heaven. I mean, the Holy Spirit can do that. It's just almost caught up to the third heaven at that point, being stoned to death, a very violent way to die. But he had reached the end of his very convicting message, preached boldly, and he says in Act 7:54, “When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit [There's the key. The power of the Holy Spirit], looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look’, he said, ‘I see heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ At this they covered their ears, and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.” He was already gone, he was free, and he had no vindictive-ness toward his enemies. He loved them. He prayed just as Jesus did. "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." And then he was gone. 

But it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 55, "Stephen full of the Holy Spirit...” said these things. So all of it linked the resurrection and the Holy Spirit. How does the Holy Spirit give us power and boldness, how? Well, above all things, He illuminates the scriptures to you. You read the scriptures, and they just start to come alive. As Joel was talking about, and it's been beautiful, brother, to see that happening in your life, and it's been a beautiful thing to see it in my life, that as we open up text after text and the Holy Spirit's there and they come alive, or actually they were always alive. We come alive to them. Amen? And we just start to glow with the joy, and we start to glow with the truth, and we start to lose our fear of man and start to lose our fear of death, and we start to become more and more certain, not only that God loves us, but what a marvelous thing that is. And how wonderful it is that the Almighty God of the Universe loves us and has adopted us.

And so the illumination happens, and he fills you with a sense of God's infinite majesty and power and greatness. And He fills you with a deep love for Jesus, and a yearning that he be honored and glorified. The Holy Spirit fills you also with the love for other people and a yearning that others would know the same joy you know, and he frees you from worry about consequences, just like Stephen was completely free from consequences, not worried about that at all. And He strengthens your sense of His presence. He fills you with spiritual power, much like a yacht, and its sails. It's suddenly filled with a gust of wind and starts to move and cut through the water, and so the Holy Spirit fills us and we speak our faith in the resurrection. That's how it happened. And off you go. Off you go, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so they witnessed to the resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit.

They also witnessed to the resurrection by prophecy of scripture. God has given us a lasting testimony of the resurrection in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, through prophecy; in the New Testament through history, and through the Epistles. The New Testament, looking back on the event, the Old Testament looking ahead to the event, and we can learn from the book of Acts how to use prophecies to preach the resurrection. And how awesome is that? Remember how it says in Luke 24, "Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures." That's the Holy Spirit now. The Holy Spirit opens our minds to see Christ in the Old Testament. Christ said there in Luke 24, "This is what is written: That Christ will suffer [and die] and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations…You are witnesses of these things, [based on the scriptures.]” 

And so you heard what Joel read, Acts chapter two, go ahead and turn there and look for a minute, if you would, Act 2:23-32. There Peter shows you how to do it. Do you want evangelism lessons from the master? Go to the apostles in the book of Acts, and there's Peter on the day of Pentecost, filled with the Holy Spirit. And beginning of verse 23, talking about Jesus, "This man [Jesus], was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him…” And here he's quoting Psalm 16. So just go back to Psalm 16. Don't do it now, but there it is, Psalm 16 written a thousand years before Jesus, a thousand years, but not fully understood until the day of Pentecost, I believe. They understood then because Jesus had showed them what to say, so there's Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit. “David said about him: [verse 25] ‘I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence." Now, verse 29, “Brothers,” here's where he applies it. "Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. [Verse 30] But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead…” That's the prophetic gift, "Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned at the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact." 

So that's how to do it, friends. Say, “Okay, David wrote this Psalm a thousand years before Christ, it speaks very specifically about decay, that didn't happen, someone who died and never decayed. David decayed. Who is he talking about? He's talking about Christ, It's a clear prediction of the resurrection of Jesus.” So we see the same thing in Acts 13. Go there for a moment. In Acts 13, Paul’s preaching in Pisidian Antioch. And there he says, "Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that the message of salvation has been sent. [Verse 27,13:27] The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in the tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people."

Now look at verse 32, "We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers, he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm... " So he goes to Psalm 2 there interestingly. "As it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are my Son; [today I have begotten you.]’ The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay is stated in these words: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’ So it has stated elsewhere: ‘You will not let your Holy One see decay.’ So he is combining lots of verses together into a powerful argument. "For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed, but the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay."

So Paul's consistent pattern, if you can see it the Act 17, every synagogue he goes into, he opens up the scriptures and reasons with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that this Jesus is the Christ. And so we prove the resurrection today from the scriptures. That's what we do. People are gonna say to us in this increasingly secular country of ours, this increasingly pluralistic country of ours, they are gonna say, "What makes Christianity different than any other religion?" Fulfilled prophecy, and the person and work of Christ, specifically the resurrection of Christ. That's what makes it different. And we have the responsibility to sharpen our understanding of the word of God, so that we are able to share the Old Testament prophecies so effectively and prove that Christ rose from the dead from that.

Okay. We don't have physical evidence. We can't touch the grave clothes. We can't go into the empty tomb no matter what the tourist agencies in Jerusalem say to you. Alright, I don't know what hole in a rock they're showing there. I just think it would be God's way that none of them really were to tomb. I think it's probably under a condominium right now. I think that's probably where the empty tomb is. That's God's way. He destroys artifacts so that our faith might rest in the Word of God alone. And you will be saved of your sins based on your faith in the Scriptures alone, only by your faith in the scriptures that they testify to Jesus. That's how you'll be saved, and that's why preaching is so powerful and effective, because the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword.

 So, we need to witness also, as they did in the book of Acts, of the implications of the resurrection. I wanna give you three glorious implications quickly. First of all, and this is for all of us, but specifically for our unbelieving guests, non-Christians, because Christ has risen, your sins can be forgiven. How sweet is that? Meditate on that. Because Christ has risen, your sins can be forgiven. Look at Acts 13. You're right there already. Verses 36 through 39, "For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed." Verse 37, "But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you." 

Do you see that? See, the word “Therefore”. Because Christ has risen, I am proclaiming to you the forgiveness of sins. Through him, everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. That's powerful, isn't it? So this is it, because Christ has risen, if you trust in him, your sins, all of them are forgiven. Our sins are many, and they are mighty. They are as many as the hairs on our head, they are as mighty as the Rocky Mountains, because we have sinned against a holy God and against his Ten Commandments, because we have worshipped other gods than him, because we have been idolatrous and worshipped and served created things more than the Creator, because we have not honored his Sabbath, we have not honored our parents, our fathers and mothers or obeyed them because we have had murderous thoughts in our hearts and adulterous thoughts in our hearts, because we've had covetous thoughts in our hearts, because we are liars.

As the scripture says, all people are liars. We have violated God's holy laws, and by the grace of God, through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, all of that toxic waste of our sin was put on him, and he dies in our place, giving us a perfect righteousness that we must have to survive Judgment Day, and he'll give it to you free as a gift. And God testified to the truth of all of this by raising Jesus from the dead. because Christ is raised from the dead, your sins, all of them can be forgiven.

Secondly, since Christ is risen, you can live forever. You can live forever. I love this in Acts 3:15, "You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this." How awesome is that? Jesus is the author of life. Let him write, “Life” on the pages of your book. Amen? Let him write, “Eternal life” across the record of your sins. Amen? Let him testify to you that because he lives, you also will live and you'll live forever. And that because he has a resurrection body, someday you will too, and in that resurrection body, you will live forever. And in that world surrounded by other resurrected people, there'll be no more death. Amen? And no more crying, no more mourning, no more pain. Christ has defeated death, He has taken the stinger out of the Scorpion, and we never need to be afraid again. Amen? He has freed us from fear of death. And as we've already noted, Christ would suffer and is the first to rise from the dead. There's a vast harvest yet to come. Oh, that each one of you, each one of you who hears me right now will be part of that harvest. Amen? That every one of you would be raised into eternal life. 

Third implication, since Christ has risen, we can and must live a holy and righteous life. Because Christ has risen, we can and must live a holy and righteous life. Paul said in Athens, "God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of of this by raising Him from the dead." Someday God is going to judge every person who's sitting and listening to me today. Are you ready for Judgment Day? Are you ready to stand when the court is seated and the books are open and every careless word you've ever spoken are recorded accurately there, and you have to give an account. Are you ready? Are you ready?

And as Paul said, speaking of himself as a Christian, a believer, justified by faith, he said this in Acts 24, "I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. [Therefore] So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man." Because there is life after death, because there actually is something beyond the grave, it is not let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. It is appointed for each one of us to die and after that to face judgment. And for us as Christians, because Christ has risen, we are risen into a whole new kind of life by the power of the Holy Spirit. We should strive always to keep our conscience clear before God and man. Three implications.

And finally, success in winning converts by witnessing to the resurrection. Success. We want success. Amen? We'd like to see a vast harvest of people from every tribe and language and people and nation standing around the throne. I wanna see it with my own eyes. Amen? And you know, some day we will. I'd like to see some foretaste of it though, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you love to see more and more converted? And so there we go to the end of Peter's sermon in Pentecost, Acts chapter 2. It says, "Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day." Isn't that awesome? Wouldn't that be incredible to see 3,000 people converted in one day? Incredible harvest.

And so it is also a harvest by Peter and John. And by the way, it's a progressive harvest, you know Josephus estimated that there was a quarter of a million Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost. Well, many of them would have stayed over 40 days later, for, I mean, at the time of Passover, many would stay 40 days later for Pentecost. So maybe hundreds of thousands there. 3,000 converted. That's actually  numerically, a small number. Absolute number, big number, 3000 people is a lot of people, but statistically a small number, but God wasn't done yet, and so there's more and more people to get converted, more people. Gradual victory. He wanted a 2,000-year victory over Satan. Amen? Day after day after day, winning the elect. And so in Acts chapter Four, the priest and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John and they arrested them. But it says in verse 4, " But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about 5,000." Just keeps growing. By the time we get to Acts 13, the Word of God has been being preached all over Asia. There's no place where they hadn't heard it. Amen? Spreading and spreading.

So what applications can we take from this look of the Book of Acts? Well, first, come to Christ. Come to Christ. I can't see into your souls. I don't know what's happening inside you. I can see the looks on your faces. I can see that some of you are wondering when this message will end. Really soon. Really soon. But some of you also are wondering, "What's gonna happen to me when I die? Am I ready to die? I am a sinner. My sins are numerous. And they are mighty, but I know that I'm not a Christian." What's going on inside your heart? Can I just plead with you? On the basis of this Easter message, repent and believe in Christ, because the scripture says very plainly, if we believe in our heart, if we confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. It's really that simple. You don't have to do anything. Just repent and believe, and you will be saved. Trust in Him.

Now, if you've already done that, like Joel was talking about, it's been years since you did that, now, let the message of the resurrection make you happy today. Just rejoice. Can I just urge all of you, just let your cares and burdens fall off your shoulders. Let those chains down. Just let them fall to the ground. Cast all your burdens on the Lord. Feel the sense of lightness and freedom that you're gonna feel when at last you are drawn out of this world into Heaven. It's coming sooner than you can possibly imagine, so let's be joyful between now and then. Amen? Because I consider Paul said that our present sufferings aren't even worth comparing with the glory that’ll be revealed in us. Let's live like it. Amen? Let's rejoice. At least for today. Amen? I know Monday's coming. I know Monday's coming. I know that. But rejoice in the resurrection. Let it make you joyful. The God who raised Jesus from the dead physically, and who raised you from the dead spiritually, will take care of all lesser problems easily. Let Him do it.

And therefore, be filled with hope. Look forward to the future. Don't dread the future. Look forward to the future. Be filled with hope. And be witnesses of the resurrection. You're not an apostle. None of us are. We're not eyewitnesses to the resurrection, but we have the Scriptures. Amen? And we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, and that is enough. And then finally, pray for FBC, all of us to have power through the Holy Spirit, to be fruitful, evangelistically. That we would even this week, share the Gospel, the news of resurrection.

This is how it's gonna go, tomorrow, you're gonna go to work maybe, and you're gonna have a co-worker, and you're going to initiate the conversation, that's your job as the evangelist to initiate the conversation. And you're gonna go like this, "How was your weekend?" Wink, wink. We all know where we're going on that. "How was your weekend?" I had a weekend too. Anyway, "How was your weekend?" "It was fine." "What did you do?" "Just got some things done on Saturday, whatever." "What did you do yesterday?" "Just relaxed, eased into the day a little bit. It's nice to have some time to sleep in and then, don't know, my wife and I were gardening, so we were working on that and then watch some of the game at night and went to bed." They might have the common courtesy to ask, "What did you do yesterday?" Maybe they won't, but either way, tell them, say, "Well, yesterday, yesterday I went to church and I had the greatest time hearing the greatest news that there has ever been in history." "Oh, what's that?" "Christ is risen." "Well, that's old, isn't it?" "Yeah, but it's still the greatest news that's ever been in history. And it fills me with joy to know that someday, even though I'm gonna die someday, I'll live forever. But what about you? Have you ever thought about that? Are you still thinking about it?” And off you go. Pray that God would make you fruitful. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the opportunity that we've had today to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. We thank you for the glory of this message, and we thank you, O Lord, for all the things we've experienced today. We thank you for all of the children, how beautiful they looked and how filled with joy. O Lord, protect each one of them. I pray that you'd bring each one to repentance in an early faith in Christ. We thank you for all the prayers and the Scripture readings and Joel's testimony and the music, and we thank you for this message and now fill us with joy and set us into this world, to give hope to those who presently have none. In Jesus name, Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 5:6-12, and alerts us to the danger of false teaching and the relationship between works and faith after justification.

I think it was May of 2002. I just asked my wife about this. It was our anniversary and I wanted to do something special. So I drove home and surprised her, I'd gotten Chick-Fil-A, I think. I don't think it was anything that spectacular but it was a surprise and I wanted for us to just have a surprise little meal together. Our home is at place called Little River Lake and it's a pretty place. We'd walk around it a lot and enjoyed being there. We just sat there in some chairs that we had brought and we started to eat when suddenly, some authority figure, I don't know if he was a ranger or a policeman, but somebody came up and started questioning us very closely about what we were doing. Keep in mind, that was May of 2002, just a few months after the 9/11 attacks. And that Little River Lake is a reservoir of drinking water for the City of Durham. I guess my wife and I looked like, maybe bio-terrorists, I'm not sure. But he sensed that there was some danger as we were eating our Chick-Fil-A. I was thinking probable cause might have helped there or something… But I was thinking about that in light of the sermon and the text that I'm about to preach. There was a tremendous zeal on the part of the governing authorities to protect the purity of the drinking water of the city. And there was a concern, a danger that that water would be poisoned and they were concerned to protect the water so that people could be healthy.

I'm about to preach a sermon about the danger of false doctrine. And if there is a danger to drinking water at that time, there's a far greater danger to your souls of false doctrine. And I want you to know that it is part of my ministry, part of my life, to protect this church from false doctrine. That's part of our calling as elders. It's a privilege and a joy. And as we look at this text today, as we see Paul passionate (really passionate!) and I would have to say angry at the false teachers who have come to trouble the churches that he planted. We can learn a very important lesson. All of us can learn an important lesson of the importance of pure doctrine in our souls, not just for the initial moment of justification, but for the race that we have to run after that. We see that in this text. We see Paul displaying his passion for the glory of God in the spiritual health of his church. And we see his hatred for false teaching. My desire, my prayer is that, as you listen to this text and as you try to understand its challenging verses, that there'll be something rising up inside of you that mirrors what Paul was feeling, that you would have a yearning for the health of this church, a desire that our church be healthy spiritually, doctrinally healthy. And that we would be vigilant, ever vigilant, over the mental, the doctrinal life of this church and that we would fight for it.

We're going to walk through this text. We're going to try to understand it, but you have the central idea and application already, and that is that we must be constantly vigilant and on guard against false doctrine. Now, Paul begins in verse 6 with an interesting expression, "Faith working through love." Faith working through love. This is a great transformation, a great change that has happened in redemptive history. I just thanked God in my pastoral prayer for that new covenant. By the new covenant we have access into the presence of God and with that new covenant, comes an end to spiritual, ceremonial laws and regulations that are no longer binding on us. A great change has happened now, and you see that reflected in verse 6, it says, "For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but only faith working through love." Paul's continuing to unfold the themes of this letter.

We understand from context that Paul had planted some churches in Galatia, modern day Turkey. He had been there as a church planner and apostle. He had preached the pure gospel of faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, lived a sinless life in fulfillment of prophecy died on the cross in the place of sinners. He shed his blood so that we would be free from the wrath and judgment and curse of God. He became a curse for us so that we might stand blameless and unafraid and unashamed on judgment day, freed from condemnation. Jesus died for us. If you repent and believe in him, you can be free from condemnation too. You can be free from your sins. You can be forgiven of all of your sins.

If you're not a Christian, if you've been invited here today, what I just said is the most important thing you'll hear in your entire life and the most important thing you'll hear in a sermon, that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the power of God for your salvation. I plead with you, don't leave this place unconverted. Trust in Christ. See with new eyes. See with the eyes of faith, Almighty God, holy, pure, sitting on his throne to judge heaven and earth. And see with new eyes yourself as defiled and sinful and corrupt under the law of God, covetous and lustful and selfish and irritable and lazy, and all of those sins we struggle with. That they are defilements and they are ultimately sins against the holy God, and that you could not save yourself, but God yearned to save you and sent his son. He yearns to give you the kingdom as he said, "Fear not little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." And he yearns to make you eternally joyful with pleasures at God's right hand forever more. If you will just repent and believe in him, you'll have all of this as a free gift. Trust in Christ.

Those of you that have already been justified, maybe even long ago, take that message out into the workplace this week. Alright. Take that message to your acquaintances and your neighbors and people out of college campus and people that you know. Let them know, they need to hear it. Paul planted these Galatian churches with the pure gospel but sometime after he left, some false teachers came in, Jewish people who claimed to be Christians who are honoring Jesus, and said they believed in Jesus and all that. But they were preaching a poisonous gospel, they were poisoning the spiritual water system of the Galatian churches. They were dumping poison in it and the poison was this: it was a combination gospel of faith in Jesus Christ plus the works of the law. Faith in Christ plus obedience of the law of Moses saved your soul. That's how you are justified, how you are made right in the sight of God, and that is a poisonous false teaching.

Now in Galatians chapter 5, Paul trying to finish up and protect the freedom that Christ bought for them with his precious blood shed on the cross. And there in 5:1, it was for freedom that Christ set you free. So stand firm. We need to protect that freedom. It's going to be assaulted by false doctrine. He's talking about that, Christ died to set them free. Free from the law's meticulous commands. Free from the law's power to condemn. But that freedom is fragile and we have to stand firm and defend it against Satan and against Satan's world, but specifically, here against the Judaizers. These Judaizers are false teachers who are trying to mix Jesus and Moses and made a poisonous gospel. You need to stand firm against that. And he had reminded them that submitting to the ritual of circumcision (a spiritual Jewish ritual done on boy babies eight days old, demonstrating a stepping into the Jewish covenant, the old covenant, the mosaic law) made Christ of no value to them. But these Judaizers are saying that the Gentiles had to be circumcised and required them to obey the law of Moses to be saved. They were under obligation to keep the whole law.

Even worse, to accept such a redefinition of the gospel, which is no gospel at all, would mean that Christ was of no value at all. What would happen is, Moses would get bigger and bigger and bigger all the time and Jesus would get smaller and smaller and smaller all the time. Because daily, you'd have to obey that law and you can't keep it. And so Christ would be of no value at all. And they were trying to finish in the flesh and their own effort by law keeping what God had begun by sovereign grace. He's picking right up there. And at the end, he gives them the blessings of the true gospel. Look at verse 5. This is the verse that we finished up with last time. "But by faith, we eagerly await through the spirit the righteousness for which we hope." Wow, that's one of those dense apostle Paul's statements that you can just take a long time to unpack. But the implications of this is that having been justified, there's still a journey to travel. And there's still a righteousness yet to come for us. And that's a practical real righteousness affecting how we think and live all the time. And that journey of sanctification is culminating in glorification in which God will instantaneously finish it, and you'll be as holy and pure as Jesus in every way. And we're hoping for that. Aren't you hoping for that? And I'm yearning for it. That is my hope, that someday I'll be done with sin. Amen! Hallelujah! And I won't be tempted anymore. I will be free last from all of it.

And I have this righteousness, my own righteousness, for which I hope to be just like Jesus. And I hunger and I thirst for that righteousness. But now, it says in verse five, by faith we're eagerly awaiting and I'm confident I'm going to have it. By faith, I know he's going to give it to me as a gift. And through the spirit, I am working my way toward it but I know I'll never perfectly attain it. But I'm yearning to keep the law, the moral law by the spirit. I want to love God with all my heart, love my neighbors as myself. I want to walk and be more and more like Jesus. I know I'll never be perfect in this life, but I know someday I will, by the grace of God. That's a whole different way of living, isn't it? Rather than that legalism that the Judaizers were giving? This brings us to the passage we're looking at today. In verse 6, he says, "for in Christ Jesus…" Now that you're Christian, that's language for now that you've been adopted in Christ, you have come to faith in Christ, now that you're in this whole new realm of existence in the new covenant in Christ Jesus, "neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. "

Now that they are Christians, circumcision is spiritually irrelevant. There may be physical reasons to be circumcised but there are no spiritual reasons. This verse is clearly teaching that. Do you see that? There is no advantage whatsoever to being circumcised and frankly, there's no advantage whatsoever to being uncircumcised. It doesn't matter at all. It's irrelevant. Circumcision as a significant issue with God has become obsolete. That's the word that Book of Hebrews uses, obsolete. The time for that has passed. It's over. What does matter? Well, what does matter is a genuine new creation by the spirit of God. That's what matters. Has your heart been circumcised of wickedness and sin? Have you had the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit? Have you been given a new nature? Has the heart of stone been taken out and the heart of flesh been put inside you? You have a new nature. You now love what God loves and hate what God hates and more and more so as you grow. Do you have a new nature? That's what matters. If you look ahead, he says about the same thing in 6:15. Just look ahead. Maybe you don't have to turn the page or maybe you do, but Galatians 6:15, it says "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is a new creation."  You see that? It's the same teaching.

What counts is a new creation. Now, if you go back to 5:6, the way I put it together is "A new creation resulting in a life of the works of love" that's what's going to happen. The new creation person lives a life of good works, they do. They live lots of good works, they do lots of good works, their works of love done by faith. Now, we come to this issue of faith working through love. Faith working through love and this is a very challenging thing to try to understand, the relationship between faith and works. And many theologians have written many books about it. The NIV and its translation here I think rather unhelpfully tries to smooth things out of a bit by giving us this, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." But I think just leave it simply faith working through love. This sits side by side, faith working.

Alright. And the reason that's so strong is because up to this point, in Galatians, it's been faith or works. They've been actually set at odds against each other. They're somewhat like enemies, and it's easy to misunderstand then how it all works. If you look back at Galatians 2:16 for example, talking about justification, says, "We know that a person is not justified…" Now, that word means forgiven of sins. It means made right in the sight of God, justified. How is a sinner like us made right in God's sight? How can I be made right? How can I be forgiven? Justification is the theological word for that. "Now, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Christ." You see works and faith are set at odds there in the verse. There are alternate ways of being justified, and one of them actually you can't be justified by. "We also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified." Faith and works are pitted almost against each other. There's two different ways of being trying to be justified, by works or by faith. And then he says the same thing in Galatians 3:2 "Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?" Again, works or faith. They're enemies. He does the same thing in many other writings. In Romans 4 he talks about Abraham. What did Abraham discover about this whole justification issue? He said "If in fact Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about but not before God. What does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trust God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited to him as righteousness." There couldn't be a clearer pitting of works versus faith ever than right there in Romans 4. Up to this point, it's been they've been somewhat like enemies. Romans 9:32, it says "The Jews did not pursue righteousness by faith but as if it were based on works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone." Here's the thing. When it comes to the issue of justification, when it comes to the issue of forgiveness of sins, faith and works are opposites. They're just two different ways to live, two different ways to try to be justified before God. I had a witnessing opportunity in the plane yesterday and basically, I heard that same kind of marketplace approach to guilt. I asked a question I like to ask in witnessing, "Do you ever feel guilty?" I think, Carl, you really taught me this. I love this. "Do you ever feel guilty and what do you do with your guilt?" And he said "Well, what I try to do is I understand what I did and I ask forgiveness and I try to do better."

Have you ever heard that? That's what people try to do. That's what it means to be justified by works. Now, those that are really religious learn a lot of laws and try to be justified that way. The opposite is being justified by simple faith in Christ, whom we look as to a savior, and we don't trust in ourselves anymore. And we say “I can't save myself and Jesus is the Savior.” They (faith and works) have been at odds when it comes to justification but once you're justified, everything changes. And once you're justified, now you are commanded to do a whole ream of good works that are commanded in the new testament and in the old. All kinds of laws and rules and regulations that we now need to follow, but not for justification, not for the forgiveness of sins.

Friends, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Not your righteousness, not your works, only trusting in him. I think Ephesians 2:8-10 puts it together better than any other passage that I can find, there's so many good passage that we could look at. You know how it says in the Ephesians 2:8 and following says "For by grace are you saved through faith; and this not from yourselves: It's the gift of God. Not by works, so that no one can boast." There the word saved means justified, I believe, in that context. By grace, we have been justified, forgiven of all of our sins, saved from the wrath of God, by grace through faith and it's just a gift, not by works. Verse 10, "We are his workmanship." Now, he's working on you. "We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus." We're newly created, we've been made new creations to do good works which God set out in advance that we should walk in them. I think that puts it together beautifully, don't you?

We've been justified not by works but by faith. But now, having being justified by faith, we now have a whole lifetime of good works to do. And I feel probably the number one thing I want to do every day is, "Oh God! Help me to do as many of those good works as you have laid out in front of me to walk in them." I want to get them all. I don't want to miss any of them. That's the way we put it together. Justification is by faith alone, by grace alone, not by works. But it inevitably, 100% of the time leads to sanctification, in which the rules change and we are commanded to work hard, work really hard, on growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ and doing good works. Martin Luther put it this way, "we're justified by faith alone but the faith that justifies is never alone." Okay? It's the fruit on the tree. It's not the cause for the tree of forgiveness, but it's the fruit of it. And when you are forgiven, you are adopted, you received the gift of Holy Spirit, you received a new nature, you're going to start doing good works and God's going to love them and they're beautiful things and he wants as many of those good works as you can do but not for the forgiveness of your sins.

That's what he's talking about. Faith working through love. In his introduction to Romans, Luther said that, "Saving faith is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith." It's alive. It's powerful, this faith is. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn't stop to ask if good works ought to be done. Should good works be done? Faith doesn't do that. It just has already done them. It just acts. It just does the good works and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever. Did you hear that? No works, there wasn't any faith. It's the very thing that James says in James 2:26 says, "The body without the spirit is dead. So faith without works is dead." It's dead faith. Alright. In justification, it's faith or works, but in sanctification, it's definitely faith and works. They go together, or faith that produces works. It works out just like Jesus said, "I am the vine and you are the branches. If someone remains in me and I in him will bear be much fruit, apart from me, you can do nothing." We have that life giving sap flowing through us and we produce fruit, produce good works, or Philippians 2:12 and 13, it says, "Therefore my dear friends, as you've always obeyed, not only in my presence but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling."

There is works, alright but he is definitely talking about sanctification there. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose." God makes you willing and then he gives you energy and then you do those good works and that's what he's talking about. Faith working through love, and so it's working through love. That's so beautiful, isn't it? Our minds have been transformed. The carnal mind, the mind of the flesh hated God, hated God's laws, but now we love God and we love God's laws and we yearn to obey them. And that brings us again to the law of God. First and greatest Commandment, "Love the lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength." We are now, through the spirit, able to love God and the second Commandment is like it, "Love your neighbor as yourself." You're going to be obeying the law now. You're law abiding citizens in the kingdom of God but not for justification. That's been settled. It's because that is the sweetest best way to live your life. You can't do better than loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself. It's the best life you can live and God wants you to live it and therefore, it says in Romans 8:4 very plainly, "In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the flesh but according to the spirit."

By the spirit, we keep the law and we live it and so therefore love keeps the law. Love does no harm to its neighbor, love doesn't commit adultery or murder or any of those things. Romans 13, "Love fulfills the law." And that's what Paul's saying here. Now he says you are running a good race. It's a metaphor for the Christian life, that race of sanctification. You are making progress, you are running that race, you're making effort. You were going, it was going well. You're doing good works. He likens then the good Christian life to a distance race, making progress towards the goal. I think tomorrow is the Boston marathon. Right, it's been a year. It's amazing how fast time flies. Isn't that amazing? It's been a year since all of that mayhem and all of that. I used to go down when I was a kid. I lived in Franzheim, it was at the 6 mile mark and I used to go down there and watch these guys. It was pretty disappointing. These are the world class marathoners coming to Boston, this is what I got to see. There is hundreds and hundreds of people there. I am like there, I got a field of vision like this. That was it. It's like watching the Bobsled or the Luge at the Olympics.

What do you see? What was that? There goes Alberto Salazar, that was the big name when I was younger. "There they go. Alright, see you later" I don't know you are supposed to there for the next 25,000 runners that I don't know any of these people. I didn't think so. So I would leave. I was down there for two hours for about two seconds of sports watching. It was free though so that was good. But the marathon is a grueling 26.2 mile race and that Boston Marathon particularly diabolical because they tell you that in the marathon, the race feels half over at the 20 mile mark. You got half the race to go. Those last 6 miles are as hard as the first 20. And right there is this hill system on the Boston Marathon called Heartbreak Hill with the first one big, second one bigger, the third biggest, and there's all these masochistic people standing by the road watching 'em drop like flies. Say, "That's okay, you can get it next year," things like that, giving cups of Gatorade and all that. It's a tough race. And I think it's too far, 26 miles, but they're not going to change it. It's crazy. But, again and again, the New Testament likens the Christian life to a marathon, to a distance race. It's not a sprint. And we are to "run this race with endurance," it says in Hebrews. We're to "lay aside everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles," and we're to run this race with endurance. And Paul says, "You were doing that."

But now he gets to this false doctrine, these false teachers, a persuasive, spreading hindrance, he calls it. Look at verse 7, "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?" This is a powerful image. "You were running well. It was going well. Who did this to you? Who cut in and stopped you?" False teachers said, in effect, jumped into their beautiful race and were tackling them or tying them with shackles, and they couldn't run anymore.

Another sports illustration, you Alabama fans are going to hate me for this one, but I'm going to go ahead. 1954 Cotton Bowl, Rice was leading Alabama 7-6, when Rice running back, Dicky Maegle, broke into the clear and was running down the sidelines, in front of the Alabama bench. When suddenly, out of nowhere, came an Alabama player, Tommy Lewis, without his helmet on, jumped in and laid the guy down with a perfect open field tackle, and then ran back and sat on the bench like nothing had happened. I don't know if that incident replayed back in 1954, but the officials saw it and they awarded this guy a touchdown.

I picture that. The Galatians were running in the clear, and somebody jumped in and tackled them and stopped them, with this legalistic false gospel that's no gospel at all. And he said the false doctrine promoted disobedience. "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?" The gospel is something we obey. This is a command from the king of the universe. The time is at hand. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel. He's commanding us to believe. To believe the true gospel is a command that these people, the false teachers, were causing them to disobey the true gospel. They were keeping them from obeying the truth. And he says it's a kind of persuasion. "That kind of persuasion," he says, "does not come from the one who called you." The way I picture it is that they came to town, nobody knew them, they introduced themselves. They were Jewish Christians, and they were so excited, and they wanted to be part of the church... And then they worm their way in and started preaching their legalistic doctrines. And they started laying out the law of Moses and started talking about circumcision, proving by chapter and verse how everyone had to be circumcised. Probably showing the story about Moses and how his sons weren't circumcised, and how God wanted those boys to be circumcised, and all these. And they're doing all this, and it's very, very persuasive.

Legalists can be intimidating, persuasive people. And you're looking at chapter and verse, and you start to crumble. And they were persuading them to disobey the truth, and it wasn't coming from the one who called them. Now, who's that? That's God. Almighty God had called them into fellowship with Jesus Christ. Almighty God didn't send these people. They were false teachers, like the old false prophets. God didn't send them. God said, "I didn't tell them to come say this. Who gave them the right to come and do this, and trouble my people? They have no right to do this." That didn't come from God. God called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. He didn't send these people. That kind of persuasion didn't come from the one who called you.

Now, false doctrine always seems reasonable. It's got a kind of a reasonableness to it. That's why Satan masquerades as an angel of light. He masquerades as a truth-teller. And some of what he says seems so plausible. And our job in the ministry, in 2 Corinthians 10, is to wage war on the battlefield of words and ideas. We're blowing up false doctrines, blowing up bad words, bad ideas, not people. But we take every thought captive, and we destroy concepts and arguments and pretensions, not people. We blow up the doctrines, and got to fight because this false doctrine spreads poison. Look at verse 9, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." A little leaven leavens the whole lump. It's going to spread. It's already spreading. The idea has caught on little by little. First, you didn't know these people at all. Now, more and more, they worm their way in and they're talking this false poisonous doctrine, and it's spreading in.

And not only that, so it is with circumcision. Don't think it's going to end there. If you allow yourself to be circumcised, oh Galatians, that's just the start. You feel a little guilty. You feel like you're not quite right with God. You need to do a little bit extra, a little bit more, so just go ahead and do the circumcision. It's really hard to imagine doing that, but do it and that'll settle it, right? No, it won't. Circumcision is just a doorway into a whole legalistic lifestyle, a mentality of needing to earn God's smile, needing to earn his favor and his forgiveness by your good works, and it never ends. It's slavery, not sonship. Paul says very plainly, Galatians 2:5, "We did not give in to them for a moment so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you." We were trying to protect the truth of the gospel, so we didn't yield even a little bit. A little leaven leavens a whole lump. We can't let a little bit of false doctrine into this church, not even a little. And he says in Galatians 5:2, "Mark my words, I, Paul, tell you that if you allow yourselves to be circumcised, then Christ will be of no value to you at all." You won't even be thinking about Jesus anymore.

Then he says "These false teachers will pay the penalty." Who are these people? Who are they? Do you get the sense of that? Look again at Verse 7. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? Who did this? I want their names. Tell me who it is, tell me who's saying it. I want names. It's interesting, I am frequently led to decision on names, name dropping, negative name dropping. I usually don't do it but you know how you name people from the pulpit that are teaching false doctrine. And you just have to be careful, have to be careful. There's a good friend of a brother of ours that did a rap song in which he name names. Shai Linne wrote False Teachers, he just goes through on all the prosperity gospel people and then just listen. So and so is a false teacher, so and so is false teacher, so and so is false teacher. In case you didn't know what he's is talking about. There's a time and a place for that, but here Paul is just zeroing in, he says, "I want to know who's doing this, I want to know who's teaching you. Who's giving you this false doctrine. Who," verse 10, "The one who's throwing you at the confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be." He's going to pay the price, he's going to pay the penalty. These people are throwing them into confusion, they're trying to sever... Picture Jesus says "I am the vine you are the branch." Right? And we are these healthy green branches growing and maybe there's some little buds of some grapes that are going to grow and all that. And along comes these false teachers, like shiny steel sheers and they are just sheering you off from Jesus. Sheering them off.

Look at verse 4 of Galatians 5 "You who are trying to be justified by law had been alienated from Christ, you have fallen away from grace." And these false teachers who're trying to avoid the cross, look at verse 11 "Brothers if I'm still preaching circumcision then why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished." They hate the cross, these false teachers. They are trying to avoid the stumbling stone of the cross. And why is that? Well, the offense of the cross is the simple teaching that you can't save yourself. Judaizers went into that. They're saying you can save yourself if you get serious enough. You get serious enough about the law of Moses, you can save yourself. But the message of the cross is you can't save yourself, it's hopeless without Jesus. So you must humble yourself, you must enter through that low narrow gate and stripped of all pride, you must humble yourself on your knees and come to Christ as the Pharisee and the tax collector. The tax collector beat his breast, wouldn't even look up to heaven but said "Be merciful to me, oh God, the sinner." I have nothing to offer.

But they're trying to avoid the offense of the cross and Paul says they're persecuting, persecuting him. There was a time that this very same man that wrote this epistle to the Galatians preached circumcision. He preached the laws of Moses, the supremacy of the Jewish religion. He preached all of that, he preached that you could save yourself by Phariseeism. He preached all of these things. Yeah, that is until he saw the glorified resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus and that ended forever. He would never preach circumcision again. He knew that his salvation had nothing to do with the circumcision. But his commitment to preach the cross and not self-salvation had resulted in a life of massive persecution. He was being persecuted for the cross by both so called believing and unbelieving Jews, both of them zealous for Moses and for a Jewish nationalism.

And they were persecuting Paul. But it already settled that in Galatians 1:10. "Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I was still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." I'm going to preach Christ crucified. Now in this paragraph, I don't know if you sense it, but Paul is angry. Do you sense it? He is very angry. And as a matter of fact, those that are really good at Greek, experts at Greek, say that there's a different style in this paragraph than almost anywhere else that Paul writes. He leaves out connectors, he leaves out transitional statements. He's almost breathless, he's almost panting. You can see him almost red faced, like breathing through his mouth. Because he's so angry at these false teachers and what they've done to his beloved churches.

He speaks of this curse and this warning. In verse 10 he says, "The one who is throwing into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he maybe." Wow, think about what he wrote in another place. 1 Corinthians 3:17 "If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is sacred and you are that temple." This is a very serious issue, this issue of false doctrine. Peter talks about their future in second Peter 2:17, he says "Blackest darkness is reserved for them." Blackest darkness. Not all punishment's equal. I think there are gradations of punishment. All of it's horrible. But some get worse punishment than others and false teachers get blackest darkness reserved for them. Interestingly, 2 Peter 3, Peter's talking about license, libertine preachers, who say that now that Jesus has come you can live however you want, sexual freedom, whatever you want to do. Doesn't matter. Grace, grace, grace. Doesn't matter how you live, you go to Heaven when you die. Doesn't matter. And he says blackest darkness is reserved for them. But now Paul's doing the exact same think against the legalists. The ones that say you have to earn your way with God and you have to earn your forgiveness and all that. The opposite ends both get severely judged by God for destroying the church.

Paul's final word on them is in verse 12. "As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves." Extremely harsh, think about it, it's extremely harsh. Calls them agitators, they're like rebels or insurrectionists. They're stirring up people's freedom. They're rebelling against Christ the King. They're agitators and he says a shocking thing, "If they're arguing for circumcision, I wish they would just emasculate themselves." Some commentators speak in terms of their ability to reproduce spiritually. Might like kind of metaphorically that they would stop being spiritually reproductive. It's clever. I don't know that that's what Paul had in mind. I'm not one to talk about this much, but anyway, I promised the elders I would, and here it is. But the fact is, Paul is very very angry. In any case, I'll tell you what he really wants. What he really wants is them, these false teachers, cut off from any access to the Galatians from now on. He wants them cut off and gone so that they will never trouble his beloved churches again. That's what he wants.

I get the picture like Jesus cleansing the temple. Don't you get that? I mean Jesus was angry at these thieves and robbers who are destroying the glory and the purity of the temple and Paul has that same zeal. Well, beautifully, false doctrine will ultimately fail. Isn't that good news? Isn't it good news to know that the false teachers will not in the end succeed? Praise God for that.

This past week, I was at 'Together for the Gospel' and one of my favorite friends and teacher/preachers is Kevin DeYoung. Now, you have got to listen to Kevin DeYoung's Together for the Gospel message. One of the best I've ever heard on Christ's view of the scripture. But he's also very funny and does a great job communicating. And at one point he just... It resonated with me as a preacher. He said "Do you ever feel when you're going up to the pulpit like you're going up with this tiny little peashooter and you're going against reinforced steel concrete bunkers?" And I do feel that this is it. This is what I'd do to protect the minds and hearts of these flock against all that Satan's doing on legalism or license in your hearts all the time? Just this. Well, isn't it awesome that this enough? The word of God is sufficient. Think about it. The word of God, the 66 books of the bible, is enough to combat every spiritual virus Satan will ever concoct in his hellish laboratory and hurl at the church. This is sufficient to heal us from all of it. All you need is this word of God faithfully clearly taught and you will be protected. You will not fall in for this. You will be able to stand firm in the day of testing.

Verse 10, "I am confident in the Lord you will take no other view." You're not going to follow them. Jesus says in John 10, "I am the good shepherd, my sheep hear my voice. I know them, they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never follow another. No one can snatch them out of my hand. No one can snatch them out of the Father's hand." You will not be lost through false doctrine, but you need to listen to the true doctrine in order to be protected. That's the remedy. You must listen and if you're elect, you will. Sovereign grace is given to the elect to warn them of actual threats to your soul. Jesus in Matthew 24:24-25 said "False Christ and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive even the elect if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time." Yet you see the combination? You know why the elect aren't going to be deceived? Because Jesus has told us ahead of time. And all you have to do is drink in God's word, feed on it and you will be protected from false doctrine.

I think it also points to the role of elders in the church, don't you think? Titus 1:9 says "An elder must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine [and listen] refute those who oppose it." It's our job to be vigilant on the walls of this church doctrinally and keep out the congregation the viruses of false doctrines.

So application. First and foremost, come to Christ. I already preached that at the beginning of this sermon and I preach it again. Trust in Him, the true gospel saves souls. Trust in him and believe in him and have eternal life.

Secondly, understand and delight in the true relationship between faith and works. Your works will never stand to forgive you for your sins. You're never going to, and I mean, and we're always tempted in that direction. Even years into the Christian life, the genuine Christian life. We're still tempted to think when you sinned, I now need to do some good things to make up for it. You know you are. It's tempting in that direction. No no no, go to the cross. Go and receive again the forgiveness and mercy and grace through the blood of Christ. Then resolve to live a new life. Resolve to live an obedient life by the power of the spirit. That's the transformation. Resolve to bring your sinful heart to God and ask him, say "God, would you please take this heart, cold heart of mine, and help me to love you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Change my heart and God would you please empower me to love my neighbor as myself. And God, would you please grant me sexual purity. Please help me to stand firm in the day of testing with the internet. Help me to stand firm and be pure and not give in to temptation. Help me oh Lord, by your spirit to evangelize. Help me to speak the good news of the... I'm so weak but you're strong. God would you please through the spirit enable me to obey your commands to evangelize." That's how we live out this righteous life.

Thirdly, understand Paul's passionate hatred for false doctrine. You should hate it too. Prepare yourself by having a daily quiet time. Saturate your mind with the word of God. Have a daily quiet time. Be thankful for the elders of this church. These are good men, they love the Lord, they love God's word, be thankful for them and pray for their successors. Pray for my successor. If the Lord tarries, if we're still here 25, 30 years from now, pray that whoever's preaching here regularly will be preaching true doctrine. There's no guarantees, friends. Let's be vigilant, and you be zealous for doctrine, as zealous as any of the elders are here, and pray for your own hearts, too, that you be protected, and, finally, run your race with endurance. Amen. Amen. We all get to run our own version of the Boston Marathon and, frankly, it's longer, it's harder, but there's better spectators cheering us on and there is a better crown at the finish line. Jesus himself will award it to you on that final day when you are done with the race of holiness. He will welcome you with his open arms and he will embrace you and take you into heaven. Run this race with endurance, run to the end.

Let's close in prayer. Lord, thank you for the time we've had to look again at the Gospel, to look again at faith, and works, and justification, sanctification, and in this case, Paul so very angry at these false teachers. Help us to be zealous as he was for the holiness of the church and for the growth of the church and for the protection of the church. In Jesus's name, amen.