The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E54 - The Fruit of The Spirit

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

Hey, church family, if you got your Bible, we're going to be in Galatians chapter 5. I'm going to pick it up in verse 13. Now, a little bit of history on the book of Galatians. The Apostle Paul is, he's actually very, very angry. Because what's happened at the Church of Galatia is that they have distorted or perverted the gospel. The gospel is that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, period. but in Galatians what has happened is there's a group of what they called Judaizers that have come in and said not only do you have to believe in Jesus but then

you have to also obey the law and the law they're talking about is the law of circumcision now a lot of us had a church experience that was like like the church in Galatia right that churches preach Jesus but they said but if you really want to be a good Christian then you can't drink smoke or chew or girl with girls who do and so so Paul is irate. Paul is like, if you think the physical act of law obedience saves you, then you have no idea about the gospel. However, what he is not saying is that you can say you love Jesus and just live like hell. That is not what he's saying. So after for five chapters, he makes a case, the case, that the gospel is when Jesus died on the cross, it is finished. And

so we cannot add to what has been finished. But he lets us know that the gospel does not free us to sin. It frees us from sin. And here at 1122, we're a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And I think here in Galatians 5, 13, and following, we see what does it look like to deepen our relationship with Jesus? Okay, we discover our relationship with Jesus at the cross

and we deepen our relationship at the cross. Here's what he says. Four, For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. And by one word, he means one sentence.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So, when you find yourself in a situation and you ask, should I do, then you just simply ask this question. What does love say I should do for my neighbor? And in a world right now that's going crazy, Church of 1122, may we love our neighbor. And loving our neighbor means that we love our neighbor no matter the color of their skin or the color of their uniform that we love our neighbor. Then he goes on to say, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. but I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

What Paul is going to go through in the next few verses here is he's going to talk about how is it that we walk in tune with, in step with, in line with what God saved us to. God saved us from our sins and God is saving us to a newness of life, an abundance of life. like we don't have to continue to do the things we used to do because we're not the people we used to be. The old us is dead. In Galatians 2.20, he's going to say, I am crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And so if Christ lives in me, then how does my manner of living change?

He says, but I say, walk by the spirit and you will no longer gratify the desires of the flesh. And what Paul is going to do in the next bunch of verses is what Puritan reformers and theologians from a couple hundred years ago would call mortification and vivification. Mortification means to kill. Vivification means to bring to life. Jonathan Edwards says either you're killing sin or it's killing you. That we should constantly be on the lookout of not gratifying the desires of the flesh.

and simultaneously we should be doing the things that stoke and stir our affections for the Lord. And then he gives us the list, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Now you remember back in Romans chapter 7, Paul, the same author, says, essentially what is wrong with me. I feel like there is this war going on inside of me. There are things that I don't want to do,

and for whatever reason I can't stop doing them. And then the good things that I want to do, somehow I can't even pull these things off. What a wretched man am I? And here, he says, there is a war. There's desires of the spirit and desires of the flesh, and they are warring at one another within him. there's this old Native American Indian proverb that says there was a there was a man that visited a village

and he went to see the chief and the chief was highly renowned, highly respected, a man of great integrity and great character and there was not one person in all of the village that had anything negative to say about the chief. And so this reporter goes to him and says, help me understand how you got to this in your life. And the chief said, well, inside of me, there is a constant battle. There's a good dog and there's a bad dog. And these two dogs are at war with each other all day, every day in my life. And the reporter asked him, well, which one wins? And the chief said, the one that I feed. This is kind of what Paul is saying here. That inside of us, we've got these desires of the flesh, because we're sinful humans.

And if you're a believer in Jesus, we have these desires of the Spirit, because when you surrender to Jesus, the Spirit of God dwells in you, that you are a son or a daughter of the Most High King, that you have been saved from the penalty of your sin the day you surrendered to Jesus. You are being saved from the power of sin over you right now,

and one day we will be saved from the very presence of sin. And so he says, he says, for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

Now, the works of the flesh are evident, and he's going to list a bunch. Sexual immorality. Let's stop there. The word here in Greek for sexual immorality is porneo. Is that familiar? It's where we get the word pornography.

This word in Greek means any kind of sex, sexual behavior that is outside the covenant of marriage, and that marriage is one man and one woman for one lifetime. And so before he gets into any specifics, which he will, he's saying anything, we have these desires, these lustful desires, and they are of the flesh, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions.

You hear that church? That one of the desires of the flesh, the works of the flesh, is in the house of God, there are dissensions and divisions. Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you, before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. What he means is those who have just given themselves over to the flesh. He's not talking about people that struggle with these things. He's talking about people that are lorded over by these things.

You see, being a Christian is a lordship issue. That Jesus is not only Savior, but he's also Lord, and those two things cannot be dissected or bifurcated. That to claim Jesus is your Lord means this. Jesus, I do what you say, not what I say. Now again, we are not beyond sin. So when we stumble and when we fall, we run back to that same gospel that saved us to begin with. But for anybody that says, God, I don't care what you say, forget you, I do what I want with who I want, when I want, is a declaration that Jesus is not your Lord, that you are your Lord. and so I would implore you to put to death the works of the flesh. Let me just ask you, what are the things in your life that are quenching your relationship

with Jesus? What are the things in your life that are shrinking your heart for the things of God? What are the things in your life that are causing division and dissension with God's people? then you need to do whatever it takes to crush those things in your life. For those of us that live here in Florida, man, you know, you've never won yard of the month accidentally. Nobody has ever just let their yard go, and somehow you just had this beautiful lush landscape at your house.

That's not how it works. You have to go to war against chinch bugs and weeds and all of this kind of stuff. but it's not just enough to kill the bugs and to pull the weeds. You also have to plant some really healthy grass. And the more you get focused on planting really healthy grass, and the more you fertilize it and nourish it, and the more the good grass grows,

the harder and harder and harder, the weeds can grow up amongst them. So on the back end of this, after he says, hey, do not, do not give in to the desire, of the flesh and he lists all these things, he says, but the fruit of the spirit, and he's going to talk about what God is doing in our life. And it's interesting to me that he calls it the fruit, not fruits, but fruit, the fruit of the spirit. So it's not if you do these things, then you have the spirit. It's if the spirit is in you, then these things are produced out of you. You know, like when you go to the grocery store and you go to get some fruit, it's in the produce section.

because it is produced from the plant. There's a difference between produce and things that are manufactured. Things that are manufactured are put together by the hands of man, and they are linked together or mashed together, put together, by our hard work. Produce is produced. Now, it for sure needs gardening and tilling and fertilizing, but only God can make a watermelon grow, and only God can grow a peach,

and only God can grow an apple. Now, we can help create the kind of environments where those fruits flourish. And this is what he's saying. You see, the fruit of the Spirit is this. When the Spirit of God is in you, over time, maybe not overnight, with the right kind of conditions and the right kind of environment and the right kind of gardening and pruning and watering and fertilizing, then God begins to bring out these things,

not idolatry and sorcery and enmity and strutely. but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. So, for you varsity Christians, if you really want to deepen your relationship with the Lord, why don't you look at this list of the fruit of the Spirit? Like, do you have more joy in your life now than you had a few years ago because of your deepening a relationship with Jesus? Is there more peace? Even though our world is not very peaceful right now, do you rest in the reality that peace is found in a person, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, not

circumstances? Or what about patience? Like do your kids get driving you crazy and you were so happy to hear that they got to go back to school? Do you lose your patience on people? You see, you can't just make yourself patient. What you do is you call you. You call you, your relationship with Jesus, you get closer and closer to Jesus, you abide in Him. And as you abide in Him, His Spirit in you produces patience and not the other way around. Well, what about kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control? You see, these are, this is the fruit of the Spirit. And so I would implore you to identify the things in your life that are killing your relationship with Jesus and put those things to death.

And I implore you, what are the things that stir your affections for the Lord? Worship music and attending worship with us, whether it's live or online, studying God's Word. And then what begins to happen is God's work in you begins to get worked out of you. And things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are evidenced in your life. and against such things, there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. You see, it is the cross that deepens our relationship with Him. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

And keeping in step with the Spirit is constantly mortifying the flesh, putting to death the sin that is trying to kill us. and it's vivifying our walk with Jesus. Continuously do the things that stir your walk with Him. And the result of that is the fruit of the Spirit. Let's pray. Jesus, I thank you that you are love and you are joy and you are peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and self-control.

And God, those are not attributes that we are trying to aspire to, but the fruit of the spirit is a result of our relationship with you. So, Spirit of God, would you convict us in this very moment? What are the things that are shrinking our heart for you? Is it social media? And too much time on the computer and too much time in front of our devices? Is it mindless TV watching? Is it gossip?

Is it sexual immorality? God, would you just bring to mind those things that the enemy is trying to use to steal, kill, and destroy everything good and godly that you've put in our life. And God, we thank you for an opportunity that you would meet with us. And Lord, I pray that you would also open our eyes to the things that stir our affections for you, and you would give us the desires to do those things, continue to abide in you. And God, I thank you that when we are faithless, you are faithful. Pray to Jesus' name.

Amen.