Ron Dunn Podcast - Lifestyle of The Spirit P2

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Ron Dunn preaches part 2 of his Lifestyle of the Spirit opening message

I want you to open your Bibles tonight to the book of Galatians, chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5, and I want to read first verse 13 and then verses 16 through 25. Galatians chapter 5, beginning with the 13th verse, and then just reading part of that verse, and then skipping down to verse 16, and reading through verse 25. You, my brothers, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. The word there is flesh, and the translations sometimes will render it flesh, which is the Greek word, or they will call it the sinful nature, which is more of an interpretation than a translation.

Verse 16, So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you cannot do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Before long, in less than a month, we'll be celebrating July the 4th, Independence Day, celebrating the winning of our freedom from a foreign power. And that's a wonderful thing and something that we should never forget nor stop being thankful for, our independence, our freedom.

But it is one thing to gain your freedom. It is another thing to maintain it. America has fought more wars and lost more soldiers trying to keep its freedom than it ever did by winning its freedom. Somebody sarcastically said that the price of liberty is paranoia. The old saying is it is vigilance, but he said it is paranoia. Referring to the fact that you need to always be on the watch and fearful that that freedom that has been given to you is not taken away before you're aware of it. And it is not easy to having once gained a freedom to maintain that freedom. The truth of the matter is more effort and diligence is required in maintaining a freedom

than it is in even gaining a freedom. That's true not only politically as a country goes, but that's true as our spiritual life goes. If I were to subtitle the book of Galatians, it would be Set Free and Staying Free. The first three or four chapters talk about the fact that we have been set free. And Paul is trying to establish the fact that we are not saved by the law and we are not subject to the law. That we have been set free and that freedom has been given to us because of the cross of Christ.

And then in chapter 5, he turns to a very practical aspect of this. He says in the first verse, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. And in the remainder of that letter, chapters 5 and 6, Paul is dealing with this idea of standing free. We were saved to be free. That's why Christ saved us. Therefore, we need to act as free men. And in verse 13, as we read a moment ago, though you can always use that freedom in a different way. He said, you, my brothers, were called to be free. That's right, that's our calling. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. You see, there were two enemies that Paul was dealing with when he wrote the book of Galatians. First of all, he was dealing with the legalizers, legalism,

trying, those who were trying to add Moses to Christ, those who were trying to say that Christ is good in as far as he goes, but not only do we need to put faith in Christ, we also need to put our faith in Moses. Not only must we have grace, but we must also observe the law. There's a funny thing about Jesus. It's the only thing I know that you add anything to, you subtract from. Jesus plus anything else equals absolutely nothing. Jesus alone stands sufficient and does not need anything added to him. And if you add anything to him, then you take away everything that he is. And that's what the apostle Paul is establishing. And legalism is the great enemy of grace. It is the great enemy of freedom. There can be that

Judaistic legalism that Paul was dealing with, where they wanted to bring people back under the ceremonial and ritual law of Moses, or there can be that practical legalism that you and I encounter so much today, that religion becomes a rule book, that Christianity becomes a rule book religion, and that our spirituality is determined by what we don't do rather than by what we do. We become a human doing, not a human being, you see. And I grew up in sort of an atmosphere of legalism, as many people did, and it was one of the most difficult things in all the world to break loose from, to realize that your spirituality and standing with God

was not determined by rules and regulations, that we were set free from legalism, and that you do not let somebody else set the tone for your living, that you do not live according to the standards of men and the traditions of men, but you live by your conscience before God as the Holy Spirit directs you. And so Paul is dealing with these two enemies, legalism and license. And that's the one he turns to here in our passage tonight. Sometimes people say, okay, I'm not under the law, and praise God I'm free from all that legalism. Now I can do anything I want. And so they turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. They use grace, they use salvation as an excuse for sinful living. And that's what Paul is

cautioning against in the 13th verse he said don't use your liberty as an occasion for the flesh and we've all been guilty of that at times we say well we are saved by grace baptists especially have been guilty of that we are saved and eternally saved and one saved always saved and i mean after all god's not going to send me to hell for this little, you know, infraction of the law, and so it's no big deal. And there are times that we use grace as a license to sin. And so Paul here is battling and trying to help these Galatians who were very fickle people. These Galatians were not a stable people at all.

They were very, very fickle and unstable in their Christianity. And so Paul is having to deal with them rather harshly. And having dealt with the legalistic view, he comes now to deal with the problem of lasciviousness or license. Now, there's no doubt about it that there is a war going on in the soul of every person. No one in history has ever denied the fact that there is a war within the soul. As far back as Plato, he used to describe man as driving a chariot with two horses, double-harnessed horses, and both of them had different natures. And one had a good nature and the other had an evil nature. And the evil nature was always trying to grab and to direct the good nature away. The evil horse was always trying to drag the good horse

down. And that man was like that charioteer who had to manage both those horses. Even far back as that, he recognized, man recognized, even the pagans recognized that there was a war within the soul. Ovid said, I see the better things and I agree with them, but I choose the worse. Seneca said, man loves and hates his vice at the same time. Paul echoed this same idea in Romans chapter 7. He said, when I would do good, evil lies close at hand. I'm frustrated. He's expressing the frustration there of a man who has been saved by the grace of God

and in his heart, in his inward man, he delights in the law of God. And he says, but I find a law, I find a principle that every time I try to do good, evil is right there close at hand. And the things that I want to do, I don't do. And the things that I don't want to do, those are the things that I do. I have the will to do what is right, but the power is lacking. That's an experience common to all of us, isn't it? There is a warfare going on within our soul.

Every time you set out to do what is right, there's going to be a great dragging influence on you to do what is wrong. And every time you set out to do what is wrong, there is going to be a counter power dragging you to do what is right. Some people call that the conscience. But as to the fact that we war within ourselves, someone has said it's like a civil war raging within the human heart. And I think that is a pretty accurate description. Well, the question comes then,

what is the source of this war within the soul? What is the source? Whence comes this inward battle? Now the ancients used to believe that it was the body, that the body was the source of all evil. They used to speak of the body as a prison of the soul. This is why men like Socrates and some of the other ancients exalted suicide, because they said it is only in dying that we're set free from the fetters of this human body, and then we're able to be pure, and that's the way you purify yourselves. And so

many of the ancients, they believed that the source of this battle and the source of all evil was the body. And that's why there grew up in religion the practice of punishing the body, of lacerating the body, of trying to purge and purify the body by doing harm to yourself, you see. But that is not the Christian view. That is not the New Testament view. The biblical view is that the body in and of itself is not evil, and that the body is not the source of our problems. It becomes the point of expression of those problems. It becomes the display case of that war. But it of itself is not sinful. This human body in and of itself is not sinful. Now, Paul in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 23 gives us

his theology concerning man. And he says that man is composed of three entities, three parts. Now when we mention these, we don't want to individualize them to such an extent that we think that man is three beings, because while he has these three characteristics or these three entities, he is still a unity. He is still a person, one person. But Paul speaks of the body, the soul, and the spirit. Everyone here tonight has a body, a soul, and the spirit. Now the body, soma in the Greek language, that just sort of impressed you that I learned that,

is what you expect it to be, the body. That just sort of impressed you that I learned that. Is what you expect it to be, the body. It's this flesh and blood, muscle and sinew. This is, I mean, this is me, my body. Everybody has a body. Then everyone has a soul. Would you be impressed if I said that was psuche, or psyche in the Greek? We get our word psychology from that. It is the study of life. The soul simply is physical life. It is the life that dwells within the body. It is the principle of life, the principle of living.

Now, every creature has a soul, even animals. Now, we talk about winning souls to Christ, and by that we mean winning people to Christ. Souls in the Bible is oftentimes used to just describe people. We sometimes do that. A ship sank and 300 souls were lost at sea. Well, we're not talking about some, that the bodies weren't lost, that just that life was lost.

And so the New Testament uses soul in a number of different ways like that, just talking about people and persons. But basically, the word soul is life. It's the physical life. It's that which animates the body within us. Then there is a third part, and that is spirit, pneuma, spirit. Now, only man has spirit. It is the presence of the Spirit, or of a spirit,

within the person that sets him apart from the animal kingdom. You could say that we are a part of the animal kingdom, but that would not be the whole truth, and that would not be sufficient. We're more than that, because we have something that no animal has. We have the Spirit. Now, the Spirit is that which controls

everything else, Supposed to. And it is the Spirit which uniquely gives us a relationship to God. God speaks to us through our spirit. We worship God in our spirit. That's why horses and cows don't worship God. They don't have a spirit. The only thing that makes us able to worship God is that He has given us a spirit, you see. And that, as I said, separates us from animals.

You know, a lot of times people, they say, well, you know, was Adam the first man? And maybe they talk about all these prehistoric men and the Peking man and the Neanderthal and all of that. Listen, I want to tell you something. I don't care if they were to dig up a dozen different specimens that look just like Adam, whatever he looked like. You see, it's not that that makes a man a man.

It's not the fact that you walk on two feet and have hands and legs and stuff like this. That's not what makes you a human being. What makes you a human being is that God has given you a spirit, you see. And there may have been other creatures that looked just like Adam out there, but that doesn't mean that they were men. They were human beings. What separates us from the animals is not our size or not our shape or not the form our body takes, but it is the fact that God has given to us a spirit. And that's what we communicate to God

with. That's what lifts us above the level of an animal. That's what powers our mind and our imaginations and our emotions. Now, when man sinned, that spirit died. So man is spiritually dead, which means he can no longer communicate with God, which means now that all of his emotions and all of his power goes into his soul. He begins to live a physical life. This is what Paul meant in 2 Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians, or one of those Corinthians, when he said that the unsaved man, the natural man, doesn't understand the things of God. He is the natural man as opposed to the spiritual man. He lives a dog's life.

His life is soulish, you see. And he thinks and reasons just with physical life, not with spiritual insight, you see. And so we sometimes say that people are soulish in what they believe and in what they say and what they do. And it's possible even for a Christian to become soulish in his religious affections. And that's why I keep harboring a way that you and I must learn to discern between that which is of God and that which is of man. We need to know that which is of the spirit and that which is of the soul. And many a soulish thing, which is religion, appears to be spiritual,

which is Christianity and the worship of the true God. But when man sinned, that spirit died within him. Therefore, he was no longer able to communicate with God correctly, no longer able to worship God as he ought to. It was marred. Now, he still had the desire to worship God as he ought to. It was marred. Now, he still had the desire to worship God. When man fell, that image of God was not totally destroyed,

but it was marred. It was sort of like a bombed out building. You ever watch on the news, you see these buildings in Bosnia, used to be in Beirut and such, and they're bombed out, but they still have enough walls standing that you can tell what they were, but they're no longer functional. And that's the way man's relationship to God is. You can still tell what it is.

The remnants are still there, but it no longer functions properly. And so man has lost the ability to know God and to know Him right and to worship Him correctly. So man is body, soul, and spirit. Now, when man sinned and that spirit, he died spiritually and was cut off from communication with God. Now this is where the flesh or the sinful nature comes in. The flesh is the result of man's sin. The flesh is that part of every human being that has an affinity to sin, and is the deadly enemy of the Spirit of man and the Holy Spirit of God,

the source of this war in the soul that we're talking about, then is not the body, is not the soul, is not the spirit. All of those things can be good and God-given. The source of the war within is the flesh, which is the corruption of the nature that God gave us. And when men sinned, they, as the Bible speaks of the fall, and that sinful nature was born, and therein lies the conflict. You see, Paul describes this in these verses. You notice in verse 17, he says, For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. There is a battle going on in the life of

every believer, and it's the battle between the Holy Spirit of God and the flesh, the lower nature, the sinful nature, the old Adamic nature of man. And when the Spirit of God wants to do something, there is that lower nature, that flesh pulling against him. And when the flesh wants to do something, there is the Spirit of God pulling against him. They're like two fighters in a prize ring, and they're fighting one against the other. They are in constant conflict. So you could say that the believer is a tension-filled unity. There's always tension in the Christian life. I want to tell you something. If you ever lose the tension, there's something wrong somewhere. Because there will always be that tension in life, that tension between growing and not growing, that tension between maturing and remaining immature, that tension between doing what is right and what is wrong, doing

what is selfish and doing what is unselfish. There's always that tension there. Now, what I want to talk to you about, now that's all introduction, by the way. I'm like a 747, it takes a long runway to get me off the ground. What I want to talk to you about tonight is the lifestyle of the flesh. Now the next time we're going to talk about the lifestyle of the Spirit, but tonight we're talking about the lifestyle of the flesh. And Paul goes on in verse 19 and says, Now the works of the flesh are manifest, are obvious. And then he lists, I think some translations will have 17,

but two of those words really aren't in the best Greek manuscripts, and so really there are 15 there, but he mentions 15 things. Now, when anybody surrenders to the flesh, they will head for one or more of these 15 items or something like it. Now notice, first of all, before we get into this, let me just say two or three things about it. First of all, this list, and the list comprises verses 19, 20, and 21. This list is not exhaustive.

Notice in the last part of the verse, 21, he says, I warn you, no, he says, and envy and drunkenness, orgies and the like. In other words, Paul is saying, man, I can't name them all.

There's only God would be able to name all the ways the flesh can manifest itself. Besides, by the time that you get this letter, well, there'll be some new things coming on that I didn't know about.

And by the time it's printed in English in the NIV, well, there'll be a lot of new things. And so he says, I've named these as sort of, as symbolic of all of that, characterized, and then anything else like this. So this list is not exhausting. There is something else that I think is significant.

You'll notice he speaks of the works of the flesh, but he speaks of the fruit of the Spirit. Now what's the difference between works and fruit? Well, works are produced by man, but fruit is produced by God. So he doesn't just say this haphazardly or nonchalantly, he's saying this deliberately, that these activities of the flesh are the works, they are the products. That's what you and I produce. But if we are to have the fruit of the Spirit, which is nothing more than a Christlike character, only God can do that. That's like fruit.

Man cannot produce fruit. Only God can do that. There's another thing that I think we need to point out. The word works, of course, is in the plural, and the word fruit is in the singular. When he comes to describe the fruit of the Spirit, there are nine categories there, or nine virtues there.

He's not saying these are nine different kinds of fruit hanging on one tree, but he said it is one fruit with nine characteristics. Now that is significant. Works in the plural, fruit in the singular. The fruit being in the singular emphasizes the oneness of the work of the Holy Spirit. The works of the flesh indicate the chaos of the works of man. That when the Spirit of God is in control of a life or a church, there is oneness, there is harmony. But when the flesh takes over over it's works of different kinds and scattered and there is chaos

and you'll see that as we go through these now there are four categories that I want to share with you now some will put these into three categories but I choose the four categories it really doesn't make that much difference. It could be three, or it could be four, or it could be six, or it could be none, or just one. But for the practice of breaking it down into a more understandable section,

I have divided it into three, up to four categories. Lifestyle of the flesh. First of all, there is the category of immorality, and then idolatry, and then ill will, and then intemperance. Those four categories. First of all, notice Paul describes the sins of immorality. There are three that he mentions in verse 19.

Sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery. Now the King James has adultery at the beginning of that list and then follows it with fornication. But adultery is not in, as I said, the best Greek manuscripts, and so the modern translations leave it out. And fornication is the word, but it is translated as sexual immorality. It literally means illicit intercourse. Actually, the word originally meant a prostitute.

We get our word pornography from that word, that Greek word fornication. It's pornoneia, and you can see the similarity between that and the word pornography. But it indicates any kind of illicit intercourse, whether it's adultery or fornication or incest or anything like that. You know what amazes me? Paul's writing to Christians, folks. I just want to say this before I forget to say it. Paul's writing to Christians. Now, what is the use of writing to Christians about this? As a matter of fact, if you read Colossians and Romans and Corinthians and Ephesians, you'll find many times Paul is telling Christians to stop committing acts of fornication.

Colossians chapter 3, there he deliberately, the literal translation is, stop doing fornication. And it means to stop doing something that you're doing. Some of these Christians were committing illicit intercourse. Now, why does Paul have so much to say about that? I mean, aren't these people saved? Shouldn't they be saved from all of this?

Well, we have to understand that these people were brought up in a pagan society. Now, see, fornication or pornography or sexual immorality was not considered a sin among the heathen. It wasn't considered a sin. As a matter of fact, much of their worship centered around illicit intercourse. Now, these people were brought up in that kind of environment. I mean, from their youngest years as they were growing up, they were never taught that these things were wrong.

I mean, it was normal, natural part of society. Most of the Romans and most of the Greeks, acts of the Romans used to be pretty pure until they conquered the Greeks, and then the Greeks corrupted them. It's sort of ironic, isn't it, that you conquer a country, and then the country conquers you by corrupting you, you see. And so Rome conquered Greece, and Rome was a very respectable and pure people until they conquered the Greeks, and then the Greeks infected them with their

own corruption. And the Greeks, to them, illicit intercourse, well, they wouldn't use the word illicit at all, but if you were a well-to-do Greek man, you would have your concubines for day-to-day pleasure, and then you would have your mistresses for special occasions, and then you'd have your wife to bear children and clean the house. That was pretty much the way it was. Now, you see, if you're brought up in that environment,

that's implanted in your mind, and it becomes second nature. So someone hears the gospel and they're saved, but that doesn't mean when they're saved, that doesn't mean that all their outlooks and views have changed at the same time. That's why they have to be educated into the Christian life.

That's what the epistles are there for. They're educating the people. So what he's saying is, listen, these things, when he's writing to the Colossians, I think brings it out more because the force of the word is there. Stop committing these things. They were doing them.

Of course, Colossians were young Christians. And Paul is saying, listen, I know that you were brought up in a society and in a culture that looked upon these things as normal and natural, but you've got to understand they are not a part of the Christian life. Chastity was a new word that the Christian faith ushered in to society. And so that's why Paul will have so much to say about immorality to believers. And aren't we right back there today?

Aren't our children growing up by watching television and everything, growing up in a society that does not look upon illicit intercourse as sinful? The nearest thing they've come to it is the fear of AIDS. My dear friends, I want to tell you something. There are greater reasons for not having illicit intercourse other than the risk of AIDS. Most of all, it's a sin against God. But our society is almost right back to where the Greek society was.

So the first thing he mentions is the sexual immorality. Next, he mentions the word impurity. Now, all of these advance on the other. Impurity has the idea of uncleanness. Some translations translate it uncleanness. It is an inner uncleanness. It is a lifestyle that contradicts your own personal morality and your own personal purity. You might say it is the attitude that results from illicit intercourse.

After a while, it just becomes impurity. You become impure in your character, in your thinking. It becomes a part of your nature. Then he mentions debauchery. Now, King James calls it lasciviousness, which is a good word because it rolls off the tongue in such a way. It sounds mean, doesn't it? It's lasciviousness.

That just sounds mean. But it is. Debauchery or lasciviousness is all restraints removed. All restraints removed. A licentious person is a person who is so in love with sin that he no longer cares what God or man thinks. It's the kind of life that shocks the public sense of decency, you see. Now notice how all of these advance on the

other, begins with illicit intercourse, and that brings impurity into the life, and then that cascades into debauchery, lasciviousness, where after a while you become so absorbed and engrossed in that and imprisoned by that, that you don't care what people think anymore, much less God. And all restraints are thrown off to such an extent that it would even shock public decency, if there's any public decency left. Those are sins of immorality. And then Paul turns to the sins of idolatry, and he mentions two.

In verse 20, idolatry and witchcraft. Now, idolatry, you don't have to go, it doesn't take a Greek scholar to know what idolatry is. Idolatry is serving the creature more than the Creator. But what I want you to notice, point out, and you check this out in Romans chapter 1 and Colossians chapter 3 and here,

I want you to notice how Paul always links adultery, fornication, sexual impurity with idolatry. It's interesting. idolatry. It's interesting. Idolatry. Why?

Well, friends, if you're going to live an impure life, if you're going to live a life of debauchery and lasciviousness, you're still a religious being. I mean, you've still got to have some basis upon which to make this life acceptable even to your own benighted conscience. And so what do you do? Well, of course, the first thing I do is get rid of the real God. I mean, listen, God's going to put a cramp in your style, boy, if this is the way

you're going to live. And so you turn the creature into the God. In other words, you serve the flesh. You serve the creature. Whatever to satisfy the creaturely desires.

That's who you serve. Idolatry. Getting rid of the true God. And worshiping, whether you call it God or not. But worshiping anything that will allow you to live the life you want to live. You see, in 2 Peter, it talks about those who deny that the world is coming to an end, those who deny that the Lord's coming again. And it says, these are led about by their own lusts. In other words, they're being led about by their own sinful desires. That's why they choose to

believe. They say, oh, all things will continue as they have been from the beginning. There'll never be any judgment. Why are they saying that? Because they're being led around by their sinful desires. And if you want to live in that sense, if you want to live in that kind of world with all restraint removed and filled to the full your sinful desires, then you've got to get rid of any notion of God or judgment, you see. Psalm 14 says, The fool has said in his heart,

There is no God. The word fool there indicates a moral fool. Most of the time when people deny there is a God, it's not an intellectual problem, it is a spiritual problem. They're not denying God because intellectually they can't accept Him. They're denying God because their heart is evil and God won't fit into their pattern of living. Idolatry. Then witchcraft. Strange idea here. we get our word pharmacy from that word. It's pharmacia. Literally it means drugging.

Does that tell you something? That one of the most difficult things to maintain in life is not the purity of the body, the purity of the mind, but it is the unity of the fellowship. And that the greater danger to the church is not sexual immorality or idolatry, but the greater danger to the church is the breakdown of personal relationships between members. First of all, he starts off with the word hatred, which simply means animosity towards a person. And here again, you're going to find these grow out of the other. Hatred towards a person. It is hostility towards a person.

It is manifesting and holding ill will towards somebody else. Discord comes upon that. And that has the idea of breaking off relationship, of severing a relationship or doing something that would cause the severing of a relationship. You might say that discord is wranglings and arguing among people. It's all of the debating back and forth and the murmuring and the gossiping that grows out of a hostile heart. Here is a person whose heart is filled with animosity or hostility

towards a person or the church itself. And so what do they do all the time? Well, they're all the time murmuring about it, all the time complaining about it, all the time whimpering about it, all the time gossiping about it. That's the idea of discord. The next word is a further indication of that, is the word jealousy. Now, some jealousy is good. God is a jealous God.

Later on we're going to see the word envy. There is no good in envy at all. And so it is a worse word than jealousy. But jealousy here just means an extreme desire, personal desire. You see, personal desire enters into all of these things. Personal desire. Actually, the Greek word is zeals. Not jealousy, but zeals. It is a person who is zealous for something, and so he's out to get whatever it is he's zealous for. Then fits of rage. And these are the explosions of temper. You can see how it would

be that if you were harboring hostility towards somebody and were gossiping about them and you were filled with zeal, zeal to do something about it, that after a while that would explode into wrath, into the outburst of temper. And then selfish ambition. The Greek word literally means office seeking. It has political overtones. It means canvassing for office it's to seek followers seeking your own followers selfish ambition is like like I said it has a political cast to it

now here is a person within the body of Christ within the church who is seeking followers of his own. He's jealous. He's angry. And now he has a selfish ambition. He wants people to follow him. And he tries to get people attached to him. The next word, dissensions, is very close to it. It also has overtones of politics, but it means to cultivate a party spirit.

Literally, it means to cut in two or to divide. Now, a person who is involved in dissensions is trying to divide the fellowship to cut it in two now remember he's seeking followers he's seeking followers he's seeking to attach people to himself now he's trying to divide them from the rest of the fellowship and organize them into

an exclusively elite group within the church. That's basically the idea behind the Word. Now, I don't know of any greater danger in the church than this, and I've seen it happen everywhere. There are those who get upset about something and they begin talking about it and they try to get other people to see their way and they try to divide the fellowship into this group and this group.

And invariably one group looks upon itself as spiritually elite. They become a church within a church, you see. And I've had to deal with this in every church I've ever pastored. That there are certain organizations maybe formed within the church or certain groups within the church or a bunch of people within the church

who have gone to hear this particular speaker or they're following this particular doctrine and so they come back within the church who have gone to hear this particular speaker or they're following this particular doctrine and so they come back within the church and they're trying to get followers and they're office seeking and they're out trying to gain people to follow them. And these people get the idea, well we're more spiritual than the rest of this bunch because they haven't been where we've been and they're not exposed to what we're exposed to. And then there is the next one which follows on it and is very much akin to it, factions. You know, it's interesting.

This word itself literally means a self-chosen opinion. I don't care what the church says. I don't care what the pastor says. I don't care what the pastor says. Now I'm going to tell you something. When I was a pastor, and I wasn't a dictator. I really wasn't. I'm a nice guy.

Always was I. I was a nice guy. Absolutely. You can see that, can't you? I'm a nice guy. But if I found and heard of some Sunday school teacher that was teaching something contrary to the Baptist faith as our church embraced it, or to what I was preaching,

they were done for. That's it. Why? Because that was an opinion that was self-chosen and contrary to the faith, and they were becoming a sect within the church. You see, folks, you must remember something. You're a church member first. I've seen people give more loyalty to a Sunday school class than I have give to the church.

I've seen people give more loyalty to a women's missionary union I have give to the church. I've seen people give more loyalty to a women's missionary union than they give to the church. I've seen people give more loyalty to a youth group than to the church. I remember in one church I pastor, their attitude was, the youth was, it's us against the older folks.

No, it's not. We're the church. I've seen people in the choir give more loyalty and dedication to the choir than they give to the church you are a church member before you're anything else and therein lies your first duty and first

commitment and it is one of the most dangerous elements in a church to divide it if you have this selfish ambition, this dissension, and then these factions within the church. Got a group here that believe one thing,

got a group over here that practices something else. That's chaos. That's chaos. You can't have that and maintain the harmony of the church that's all there is to it you just can't have it well now he turns to the last

aren't you glad this is just about over sins of intemperance, and we'll not need to say much about this. So he does mention envy in that final list, but you know what envy is. There's nothing good in envy. There can be something good in jealousy.

As I said, God is a jealous God. Jealousy can have its good points, but nothing is good in envy. Envy simply means I want what you've got, and I'll do whatever it takes to get it, whether it is possessions or leadership or position. Then he mentions this last one, sins of intemperance, drunkenness and orgies. Drunkenness, well, the Greek is deep drinking. I would never have guessed. Orgies are prolonged parties. What's that thing they have at New Orleans? Yeah, a Mardi yeah I'm already grown that's an orgy an orgy was prolonged parties

where you just drank and drank and drank until sunrise revelings it means to carouse no need to comment on that Paul ends it with these words I warn you as I said before now when he says as I said before

he's telling us this is all elementary stuff, folks. He's writing these Galatians. He said, I've told you this before. And here you are again, sucked into it once more. But I want to tell you again that those who live like this, who practice like this, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now it is important to understand that the word practice or live is a verb that indicates habitual activity, a lifestyle, a habit. You say, do you mean if a man commits adultery or if he is envious

or if he has a selfish ambition, do you mean he's going to hell? No, all of us can fall into these things. But if it becomes the habit of our life, if it is that which marks our life, that which characterizes our life, then that's evidence that you've never been saved. You see, all of us will have these little spiritual burps in which we fall prey to our own flesh and passion. But what is an exception in the life of the believer is a rule in the life of the unbeliever

and so if there is a person whose life is habitually marked and characterized by these things you can pretty well put it down that person has never been born again but the fruit of the spirit and that's what we're going to come to born again. But,

the fruit of the spirit, and that's what we're going to come to next, the lifestyle of the spirit. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church.

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