Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Walking in the Spirit

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

In a single acorn is not only the entire tree, but all the acorns on that tree and all the acorns on that tree and so on and so forth. It’s all already in that one acorn.  In the same way, a Christian already has the divine nature in them. When we talk about love, joy, peace, and patience, we’re not talking about how to import these into our hearts. No. The Bible says we must grow up into our salvation. So instead of saying, “Oh, I’ll never get there,” the question is: “When are you going to grow up?” We’re looking at this passage on the fruit of the Spirit as a whole. Galatians 5 shows us 1) there are two natures in every Christian, 2) what it means to live in the Spirit, and 3) how we can walk in the Spirit. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 7, 1990. Series: Fruit of the Spirit. Scripture: Galatians 5:16-25. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. If you're a Christian, you know that the journey to become more like Jesus is both a gradual process and an inevitable fact, just like the acorn growing up into an oak tree. Today, Tim Keller is teaching on the fruit of the Spirit or what it looks like to grow to be more like Jesus. Galatians 5 verses 16 through 25. So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 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. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under law. The acts of the sinful nature 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. Let us not become conceited, provoking and

envying one another. This ends the reading of God's word. Now to me, this is one of the most clear and important and crucial passages in the Bible to understand the Christian life. You can't understand the Christian life if you don't understand this. We have here, we've been talking in the evening service about growth and grace, how to grow in supernatural character and maturity. And the last few weeks we've talked about the tools

of growth, we've talked about the tools of growth. We've talked about the fact that you, we talked about tools of Christian growth, and the old timers used to call this, and I still call this the means of grace. The Bible study, prayer, fellowship with other believers, obedience, and handling suffering, and learning from it, learning from suffering.

See, Bible study, prayer, fellowship, obedience to the word and handling suffering with faith and obedience. And we've been talking about growth and grace and how to grow in grace, but now finally, starting this week as an introduction and over the next few weeks, we're going to be looking at the fruit of the Spirit. It's going to be a tremendous series of weeks

because there is nothing more amazing than to dig into what the Bible actually says we can look like. In fact, what the Bible actually says is already in there. When we talk about love and joy and peace and patience, we're not talking about how are we going to import and pull in these foreign objects into our hearts because we have so little love, so little joy,

so little peace, so little patience, and so on. No. The Bible says grow up into your salvation. Have you ever heard people talk about, or have you ever seen a young boy around 13 years old who's five foot six or something like that, but he's got a size 14 feet. Have you ever seen that?

The poor guy is walking around, he's sort of a normal size looking 13 year old, and he's not terribly huge, and he's still maybe got his peach fuzz and his high voice and all that, but he's got these huge feet. And you see him walking around like this, and you say, good night.

What do people say? They say, he'll grow into them. It means that he better grow into them. He's going to be in the circus sideshow. But he always does. Actually, sometimes it's also true that people, youngsters growing up, sometimes show what size they're really going to be by not just their feet, but their hands.

Have you ever noticed that? They have these huge hands and feet. You say it'll grow into them. In other words, they're already big. They're already huge in potential. It's there in their chromosomes. It's there, it's just going to come out. And they'll grow into their feet,

and they'll grow into their hands. What do you think Peter means when he says, in 1 Peter 2, grow into your salvation? That means that the astonishing things that the Bible says should be true of a Christian, in a sense are already true of a Christian. I'm always amazed when I consider that all the trees in the world could have possibly come, maybe they didn't, but could have come from a single acorn, a single seed. You know, all the trees of a particular species, I mean, could come from a single one because in that acorn is not only the entire tree but then all the acorns on that tree and all the acorns on that tree and so on and so forth. It's all there. That one acorn has the potential to populate

not just the entire face of the Earth, but all the planets indefinitely forever. There's infinite potential in an acorn. Do you know that? And there's nothing that will come out of the acorn over the next three billion years that wasn't already in that one acorn. It's all there.

In the same way, you have already got in you the divine nature, you have already got in you the divine nature, you've already got not just the potential but in some very small seed form and yet, inevitably you've got love and joy and peace and patience, it's there. Now, that means instead of saying, I'll never get there the answer is, when are you going to grow up? Don't just say, I'll never get there, I'll never get there. The answer is, and this is what actually is the tragedy

for those of us who just stay at ground zero for so long. It's all in there. It's almost like there's a spiritual Joan Rivers in heaven saying grow up. What's wrong with you? See that you've got this in you and use the means of grace and grow up now Now we've talked about how to grow and so on but now for the next few weeks

We're going to talk about this incredible stuff. That's really in there. What is the love that Christians have the potential to? Experience and to know what is the joy? What is the patience? What is the peace? So we're going to look at that in series, but today tonight, we're going to look at the structure of the whole passage. We're not going to come back to Galatians five every week. I'll take a, you know, I'll take a Bible passage on love and one on joy and so on. But right here, Galatians five, you've got this remarkable overview. In fact, if you've got your modern translations generally, verses 16 to 25 breaks into three parts, three paragraphs. Generally, verses 16 to 25 breaks into three parts, three paragraphs.

The first paragraph says, do not gratify the desires of the flesh or the sinful nature, live by the Spirit, for the Spirit and the flesh were at war with each other. If you're led by the Spirit, you're not under law, so live and walk by the Spirit. Then it tells us in verses 19 to 21, the works of the flesh.

That means if you're living in the flesh, here's the works of the flesh. Then in verses 22 to 25 it says, if you're living in the spirit, here are the fruit of the spirit. So it's real simple. It tells you that you can live in the flesh or live in the spirit.

It shows you what is coming out from the flesh and. It shows you what is coming out from the flesh and it's showing you what is coming out from the spirit. There it is, two natures. Now, a couple words about this. Number one, first of all, and you can look at your handout, this teaches us there's two natures in every Christian, the flesh or the sinful nature and the spirit. Don't forget that the word flesh, when Paul uses

it, sometimes it's different in other places, but generally when Paul uses it, he's not talking about the bod. Not talking about it. It's almost like the word bald. Oh, excuse me. I don't know why I did that when I was thinking of using that word. But you can use the word bald to refer to physical baldness or you can use it to mean a blunt or transparent statement, right? That was a bald statement. It means there's nothing hidden about that. So you can take a word and use it not just

univocally but equivocally. You can use it in two different ways. Even though they have something in common, they're also talking about two different things. When Paul uses the word flesh, he's not talking about the physical, literally the physical. When he says the flesh wars against the spirit, he's not talking about the body wars against the soul.

He is not saying that. Do you think so? And the way you can prove it is look at the works of the flesh. Look at the works of the sinful nature. You've got sexual immorality, ah, that's bodily, right? And maybe impurity and debauchery, and maybe drunkenness, which is a bodily thing and so on.

But what about this? Idolatry, witchcraft. What about this? Jealousy, envy, selfishness. That's got nothing to do with the body. That's got to do with the attitude and the motives of the heart, which just goes to show you, Paul's not talking about the body, he's talking about, when he says the flesh,

he's talking about the bent of the whole person, body, soul and spirit, mind, will and emotions, the inclination that the whole person still has toward a life of rebellion against God. You see, and listen carefully, there's a sense in which when you become a Christian, you don't lose all the struggle, but rather your struggle takes place in a different way. You actually lose the old fight and you develop a new one. You must keep this in mind, before you were a Christian, there was a struggle in your life, you were fighting with God. You didn't know you were fighting with God,

but what you were doing was you were kicking against your true nature. All human beings were built to worship him and center their lives on him, and you centered your lives on lots of other things. And because you centered your lives on lots of other things, you experienced breakdown in your life. To live without God is like trying to pull a wagon

without wheels. It kind of works, but it, you know, it drags and it scrapes and eventually it disintegrates. I mean, it works for a while, but eventually, slowly, as time goes on, you just find there's less and less of a wagon there. You're leaving it all over the place. And to live without God is the same way. You can move, you just find there's less and less of a wagon there, you're leaving it all over the place. And to live without God is the same way.

You can move, you can move forward, but it's not the way you were built. And so you're working against your nature and you feel a fight. When you become a Christian, there's peace with God. And there's a terrific amount of peace. And yet, the minute you become a Christian, into your life, into a heart that used to be

completely united towards selfishness. You know, into a heart that used to be completely united towards selfishness. You know, your entire heart was all against get away from God, get out from under his clammy hands so he can really swing, move out and live for yourself. And your entire heart was united in that direction. Now, into the heart comes this foreign object, you know, sort of from another planet, it comes on in and what it is, it's the principle of holiness. A yearning after God, a yearning for godliness.

Love, joy, peace, patience, all in that seed and it comes on in and it sets up camp and what ends up happening is you have now two parts to your body, to your heart, to your mind, to your will. You actually got two sides to you now. You've got a side that still tends to want to live for yourself, and you've got a side that tends and now desires to live for God. And so there's a new fight that shows up. You're not

fighting with God anymore, actually you're fighting with your old self. That's the reason why J.C. Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool, one of the great Anglican bishops of the 19th century, wrote a great book called Holiness. And one of the chapters in that book is called The Fight. Years later, John White wrote a book called The Fight. It's one of the most well-known and one of the best books on the Christian life. John White wrote a book called The Fight. But years ago, J.C. Ryle had a chapter in there called The Fight, and in it he says, a true Christian is known not only for his inner peace, but also for his inner warfare. It's just a different warfare. The fight has moved to another spot, and the warfare is, what does Paul call it? He says, fight the what kind of fight? Good fight. You see, it's different than the old, the old fight was a bad fight.

The old fight was against God and you had to lose that. The new fight is against your old self and you have to win it. The old fight was a fight that actually brought disintegration the more you fought. The new fight is a fight that if you fight it right, you fight it with the means of grace, inevitably brings strength.

It's sort of like the difference between, you know, there's two ways for you to run yourself down. One is to just run and run around, run from subway car to, you know, say, oh my word, I'm on the wrong side of the platform and I gotta catch the express train. You run down 72 flights of steps for some reason to get from the express to the local train.

You run around, you're late, you run all around, you come back and you're exhausted. You know, that's one kind of exercise. It seems to wear you to the ground. There's the other kind where you go to, you know, to a gym or you go to someplace and you know, you jog or you exercise or you train and either a coach helps you or you know enough about yourself to get yourself in shape and you're done, when you're done with that kind of exercise and that's that's putting yourself through the paces you feel better well I mean you know you're

tired but it strengthens you there's a kind of exercise that strengthens you because it's carefully crafted and there's a kind that actually wears you into the ground the old fight against God wears you down. The new fight, the good fight, should be there and it builds you up. But, but, there are people who sit in the church and there's no fight about their life at all. No fight at all. You don't see that warring and that conflict. And maybe that's true in your case. You know, you're just sort of limping through your Christian life. You're vaguely anxious, vaguely unhappy all the time, but there's no fight. And the reason there's no fight is because, for example,

you want some fight, you want some fight. Promise tonight that every day for the next 30 days, you will spend 30 minutes praying and reading your Bible. Go ahead. Okay, there'll be a lot of fight. You're gonna find yourself, so you go for two or three days and then you won't do it for three or four days and you say, how comes I'd let that happen in my life? It's so out of, you know, just to try to

say, no matter what else changes in my life, I am going to give God 30 minutes a day in which I simply pay attention to Him. You try that and you'll see what a fight it is. Everything in your body, everything in your schedule, everything in the world, the flesh and the devil will come after you to do everything they can to dislodge you, almost as if that must be important. You know, if you're in a battle and you're just sitting here at this outpost and you say, well, I'm not important, and you suddenly find that three quarters of the opposing army is attacking your position, you start to say, maybe there's something important about this position.

If you are doing things right at all, if you're making an effort to grow, if you start looking at your life the way I'm going to suggest, and I give you here in your sheet quite a bit of fodder for this, if you start to do an analysis of your life, and you see that certain of the fruit of the spirit is not there at all, you say, I'm going to do something about that, there's going to be a fight. You see?

Put it another way, when during World War II, there were some nations that stayed neutral. But the minute a nation decided to not be neutral anymore, but to actually say I'm on this side, immediately it would get attacked. By who? The other side. As soon as you decide to say I'm on this side, as soon as you decide to be complete and total

in your allegiance to one side, you immediately make an enemy. There's gotta be a fight. If there's no fight in your life, it's because of a lack of real, all out allegiance to the master. A lack of allout allegiance to the Master, a lack of all-out allegiance to the Master expressed in your efforts to grow, to pray, to use the means of grace,

to begin to minister, to speak to people about Jesus. You want to fight on your hands? Go ahead. Just start to try to do what the Bible says. Jesus says, any person, any person who is ashamed of me before men, I will be ashamed of them before the Father. So that's a fairly strong incentive for you to speak up, identify yourself as a Christian. Go start doing that and watch. You'll have a fight on your hands. The flesh wars against the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh. In any really dynamic Christian, there is a fight going on. First point. Second point. Now, by the way, don't worry, I won't spend as much time on

every one of these or you'll be here forever. It doesn't matter, it's a blowout. So, I think this first part of the verse, the first part of the verse says that I say, live by the spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires against the spirit. Then it says, you are not led by the spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires against the Spirit. Then it says, you are not led by the Spirit, you are not under law. Look carefully at verse 16 and 18. In verse 16, the spirit is opposed to the sinful nature. In verse 18, the spirit is opposed to being under the law.

Now, we suddenly have, I think, a very critical insight into what it means to live in the spirit versus living in the flesh. A lot of people struggle with this stuff about being in the flesh. What the heck does that mean? What does that mean to say I'm living in the flesh? People worry about it a great deal. I think right here you've got something very, very clear. Now, unfortunately, I almost feel a need to, but I won't, recapitulate teaching that I did earlier back in the fall. There is a big difference between living under the law, whether you're a Christian or not. If you're a Christian, it's possible to live tomorrow under the law or under grace. Remember we talked about this?

Quick, very quick recap. The Bible teaches that every one of us is naturally given to work's righteousness. Every human being has some standards. We got them from our parents, we got them from wherever. Standards that we're trying to live up to so that we feel righteous. The word righteous in the Bible tends to mean acceptable. What makes you feel acceptable? When will you come to the place you can accept yourself? When do you get to the place where you feel like other people will accept you?

Every one of us has got standards. Things that we feel like, if I get that, if I achieve that, then I will be acceptable. There's a sense of feeling when you failed in certain areas, defiled. And we talked about this before. Everybody has different idols in their life. Everybody has different standards. You know, and everybody, you know, it's now, you know, a well-known joke around the church, what my idols are, but, you know, I'm struck by them all the time, how different my wife and I are.

The fact is that my wife would like to get people out of her face when they're on top of her and when they're just bothering her, and she will say, look, let me just tell you that you must stop this, this is terrible, what you're doing. And she doesn't mind if somebody's offended, she'll be kind about it, she'll be gentle about it,

she'll be direct about it. If somebody gets, you know, gentle about it, she'll be direct about it. If somebody gets upset and leaves, well, that's a shame, but at least I've stopped them from doing this, and at least we're no longer in this painful situation. I, on the other hand, my idolatry is approval. I don't mind if somebody is bothering me and creating pain as long as they're not unhappy with me. See, we're very, very, very different.

And as a result, what makes me feel acceptable is when I'm pleasing everybody. And people want to psychoanalyze me and say, well, you're the oldest child and of course you're like that. I don't know where it came from. In a way, it doesn't matter. It's logical. The trouble is my wife's the oldest child too. And Kathy, on the other hand, really, that's not the way in which she gets feeling acceptable.

There's other things that she says, if I had that, then I'd really accept myself. We all like that. We all have our own standards of righteousness and we're bound by those things. We feel if we're not reaching them, then we're not worth it. We're not worth anything.

If we're getting them, then we feel great about ourselves. That's being under the law. That's living with a spirit of works righteousness. And what Bible is saying here, that it's perfectly possible for you day in and day out to be living out of works righteousness or living out of consciously reminding yourself that you're completely accepted by God

and loved by Him because of what Jesus has done for you. Marriage is one of the most profound human relationships, but it's one that at times can be difficult and painful. In The Meaning of Marriage, a couple's devotional, Tim and Kathy Keller draw from biblical wisdom and their own experiences to offer a year of devotions for couples. The book is a 365-day devotional that includes stories, daily scriptures, and prayer prompts that will help couples draw closer to God and to each other throughout the year. The meaning of marriage, a couple's devotional, is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel

in Life share the love of Christ with more people. Request your copy today at gospelInLife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, that's the reason why if you take a look at the inventory from verse 19 to 21, you see anybody who's honest sees that there's lots of the works of the flesh going on in your life. Who here is not, doesn't find that jealousy and envy and selfish ambition, at least, if not hatred, discord, orgies, and things like that, at least you see some of these works of the flesh in your life every week if you know yourself at all.

But you also see some of the fruit of the spirit. You see some of it there. You see gentleness and so on and you begin To realize that you this is what we just were saying a Christian is really like a double disk drive computer Very much like it. You got an a drive and a b drive you've got you can operate out of the works righteousness driver you can operate out of grace and the freedom of who you are in Jesus Christ and You can you can you can flip back and forth from those things during a day and find that one of them

will always produce a certain side and one of them will produce another side. It's the job of the Christian to constantly push yourself out of that one drive, out of the spirit drive. And let me give you an example. D, how can a Christian walk in the spirit? Let me be as practical as I possibly can. I put them at the top, normal activity.

And the first one I put is pleasing somebody. Suppose somebody has asked you to do something or you're in a position to please somebody. Or another one would be just striving to do well on a project. On the left, you've got the way that sinful nature can move you to do it. When you're doing it, when you're pushing yourself to do it, the

answer, the question is why? Why? What is driving you to do it? When works righteousness, when the flesh is driving you to do it, it's because down deep you're saying things like this to yourself. For example, the striving to do well in a project is the top little statement and the pleasing a person is the bottom. So for example, you could be saying I must do this because if I succeed, this is what Rocky said, remember, in Rocky 1, if

I can just go 15 rounds with him, I'll know I'm not a bum. And I love that quote and you've heard me use it at least three or four times, because it's so quintessential. It's something we're saying to ourselves all the time. Here's a guy that's spent all his life trying to be a boxer, and basically if he could just go 15 rounds with a champ, then he'd feel like he could look himself in the face, then he'd be acceptable, then he would be righteous.

And please, if you know yourself, you realize that you've got things like that in your own life, right? Now we talked about that. I said I wouldn't recap, but I had to to make sense out of this, okay? Those of you who were here and have heard that again and again and again, forgive me

for that four minute recap. But for those of you who haven't, that's the essence of the gospel. You can operate out of works righteousness right here. Do this because if you succeed, you'll know you're not a bum. Or look over to the other side. You can say, I want to do a great job to please the one who gave me my talents,

and I'm trying to enrich society, he put me on earth to do that. See? Or let me go over to the other side. Go down further. I can love this person because if this person loves me, then I'll know that I'm finally worth something. I'll invest myself in this person because if this person loves me, then I'll know that I'm finally worth something. I'll invest myself in this person because if that person really loves me, then I'll know I've made it.

On the other hand, you can turn over and say, I want to do this because Jesus Christ has filled me up. He has loved me, and as a result of that, I want to please and I want to serve this person. There's two different ways to do it. In fact, just to show you, turn over over to the back and I'll be as candid as I possibly can. I'll give you a case study. There's two ways to preach a sermon. Some of you say, well, so what I don't do

have to do this and but let me show you because I'm just telling you, I try to tell you as much as I can about my own struggles in my profession, you've got a different profession. But every time I come up to speak, I can do this. I can operate out of the flesh drive or I can operate out of the spirit drive. On the one hand, I can be saying to myself, you better preach or people will never come back. Now, I'm not saying that consciously, but at a certain level, it's certainly operating.

People have put a lot of money up for you to come here. People are expecting results. Isn't this awful stuff? I mean, when I say it out loud, and this is one of the things I'll show you in a minute you can do, you feel like an absolute ass. And yet you realize when you say it, you're so embarrassed, you realize that you have been thinking like that. You know, you start to, you can feel yourself blush when you say these things out loud.

Because you realize, oh my word, that's really true. I do say that. How embarrassing. How awful. How unworthy. But you see, a Christian is somebody who can see the worst in him or herself because the gospel has framed your conscience, because you know that you're accepted in him and you can face the worst about yourself because it's not the basis on which God talks to you and deals with you.

So, on the one hand, you can have this minister getting up and saying, you better preach well so that people will come back. So they'll bring friends so that you'll be seen as a successful minister. It's there. It's there. What happens if I operate out of that? What is the fruit? If I was really, now that I'm thinking about it, I should have put another column down. What is the fruit of that? The fruit of it is this. If you end up preaching a sermon that you can tell everybody else things with great, it puffs you up, it creates a pride. I don't know

why I'm telling you this, we might as well know. What happens is you, it makes you proud and you don't find a need to pray the next day. Not only that, you, when people call up from all over the country and they say how many people are coming to your church, you mean you just, you're just dying to have a mask. All kinds of awful things begin to happen, and you tend to get puffed up. In fact, after years and years of it getting puffed up, you find that you can't brook people telling you

what's something different, you wanna do whatever you wanna do in the church, and if people disagree with you that you see it as being questioning of your authority. And then what happens is eventually you find you constantly need strokes, you constantly need people telling you how great you are. And by the way, that's one of the reasons why so many ministers have affairs. Very often it's because, and I've got a good friend, a lady who does counseling, mainly of ministers who are having affairs.

It's almost her entire practice, she's a licensed psychologist. And she says, it's not that their marriages go bad, it's just that the guys need so many strokes, more strokes, more affirmation about their gifts and how great they are than their wives are willing to give them when they find somebody who can. That's the works of the flesh. You say, well, how in the world can all these works of the flesh, sexual immorality and impurity and debauchery, and see, it starts with a selfish ambition

and it goes into everything else, all from operating and preaching a sermon out of this particular motive. You better be good, because then you'll know you're not above. And on the other hand, you can turn over to the other side and you can say, preach well so people will be helped. God will be honored. The truth will be known because frankly, God called you to this job and all you need to

do is please him and whatever the results are, who cares? You've got heaven. You've got God. You've got the Holy Spirit in your heart for crying out loud. That's what it means to walk in the Spirit. Now, why did I tell you that? Unfortunately, because I didn't have as much time to prepare this as I should have. I've been very busy. And if I sat down and said, well, let me think about some illustrations that most of you could relate to, it takes time.

So I immediately threw down something that I could relate to. And I hope you can realize that this is my profession. Do you think being a full-time Christian worker is somehow a holier thing that you don't struggle with the flesh? Of course you do. Don't you see that? Those are two disk drives. Now, let's be real practical How can you walk in the spirit you walk in the spirit? By the way See some of you are visiting for their churches and so on don't say aha now I figured out the minister. Please don't use it this way against anybody else, all right? Please. Use it this way against me. Hold me accountable. Tell me about it.

Remind me. You remember that thing that you shared a year ago and go ahead, but nobody else, please. Now, go back to the front and look near the bottom. How do you walk in the spirit? Let's be as practical as we can be. When you're not prepared, you talk off the cuff and you say all sorts of indiscreet things. How do you walk in the spirit? Number one, please recognize that ordinarily both motives are there at the same time.

Unlike my computer, which you have to operate out of A drive or B drive, right? I don't know if there's any computer as well. There's almost, I'll tell you what, it's almost a little bit like A and B. You put them onto your C drive and then you can pull files up from either. But even that doesn't quite work. What you have to realize is in the Christian both drives are working at once. You've got plenty of people that have a theology that says you're either in the flesh or you're in the spirit. There's plenty of people that say, you've got to have this baptism of the spirit, and when you have the baptism of the spirit, you're out of the flesh, and everything you do will be fruit of the spirit, and you won't have any of the works of the flesh. And I think that's poppycock.

I also think that it's unscriptural. You will see Paul in Romans 7. you know the place where Paul's talking in Romans 7 and he says, the very things that I want not to do, I end up doing, I do the very things I hate. It even says so right here. He's talking to them. He's talking to the Galatians. He says, the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want. He's talking present tense. The fact is that the flesh that you do not do what you want. He's talking present tense. The fact is that the flesh is always tainting what you do. There is no such thing as a perfectly, perfectly, perfectly good deed from God's point of view.

Now God in his mercy receives all the things that we do as good deeds because we're in Christ. Do you understand that? Because we're in Christ, he receives these things. It's very much like when my little boy says, can daddy, can I have 25 cents to buy you a present? If I give him 25 cents, and he comes back and gives me the present, I'd be crazy to think I'm 25 cents of the good, but I like it.

Why? Because of all the motive and so on. In a sense, when we do a good deed, the only good deeds that are there are things that God inspired us to do and helped us to do, and yet in his mercy, he chalks it up for us. Nevertheless, actually, the flesh is always there tainting things because most motives are always operating.

And what it means to walk in the spirit is simply to refine your motives, to recognize the wrong ones, and to support the right ones. It's almost like every deed, every effort has got both going on, and it's your job to try to, as much as possible, beat down the wrong motives, push up the right motives, so that you have this great balance, so that the spirit is always overwhelming the flesh in you. And the fact is, during the day, you can And the fact is during the day you find,

you can come to the end of the day and you can look back and you say, I know which side won today. There's always this warfare going on. It's J.C. Ralph's said. So recognize that ordinarily both are present. Your fear and your anxiety and pride will ordinarily be a good indicator on a given day of a high level of works righteousness and motive present. The best way for you to check out whether or not

you're operating in the flesh is how anxious you are. How anxious you are, how afraid you are. It's the anxiety and the fear that comes by saying, if I don't accomplish this, if I don't get this, if this person rejects me, the anxiety and fear is really the curse of the false God that's still operating in your life. These false gods that you set up in your life years ago bless and curse you. If you're doing what they say, they bless you and say you are

great, you did it, you accomplished it, and if you don't they say you, right, you failure, you, you, I can't believe you. You see, they're cursing you and that's where the anxiety is coming from. So whenever you see a situation where there's lots and lots of that anxiety coming from, that works with righteousness motive is present. Number two, look at what the sinful nature is verbalizing in your heart.

Check it out. Do what I just did. And that is, you know, embarrass yourself by admitting the kind of things that you know are being said down there, the curses that are going on Say father I see how much I want this out of fear my anxiety my anger occurred because I habitually forget your unwavering Love for me and Jesus Christ you have to do that during the day Forgive me and cleanse me from these motives which free me which rise from the habits of my own life repentance is possible as

the spirit makes the word real to us and Then articulate the motives of the spirit nature. Say them to yourself as you go through the activity. Say things like, constantly remind yourself that you're a child of God, that you're not a slave under the law. Say, father I do this for you, not for the success it might bring to me. I am not worried about failure since your recognition is the only one I need. You know, you articulate it. You operate out of that. Now, the fact is, some days it's very hard to do.

Other days, you might be studying the word in the morning. This is one of the reasons why you ought to do it. And a particular passage just penetrates you like a shaft comes into your life. And you say, oh, why didn't I think of that yesterday? Well, I don't know why, but now you got it today. So use it all day. Use it to help you live out of B drive. Use it to let you live out of the spirit. Now, turn over to the back and I just have to show you this because I really don't want it to take you

as long as I usually do. On the back, now, the results of walking this way, fruit of the spirit grow. And over the next number of weeks, what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at the different fruit. The fruit of the spirit are basically just the communicable attributes of God. Let me say this, you know what the communicable attributes are?

Unless you've read some big old theology book, you won't have heard that, but it's a very interesting and great designation that theologians used to take a look at all the characteristics of God. And there would be some that they would divide into two categories. And you would get a chapter on the incommunicable attributes of God and you get a chapter on the communicable attributes of God. And the incommunicable attributes of God were things like omnipresence, that he's everywhere at once. In fact, you want to hear this one? The Bible teaches not just that God is everywhere at once. You've

heard that. But there's a tendency for us to think that he's everywhere at once, sort of the way gas is diffused all through a building. In other words, if you have so many molecules of gas in this little jar, you open the jar and then it goes into the building. But really what happens is it just spreads out. And when we say God is everywhere at once, we mean he's repletebly present. That means he is completely present everywhere. Not just he's diffused by gas, but part of him's here and part of him there. But at every spot, every place, he's completely there. He's omnipresent. He's everywhere. Psalm 139. He's omniscient. He knows everything. And he doesn't just know everything the way a

computer knows all sorts of things. He doesn't say, oh, he knows everything at once. He's, he's, you know, omnip... and he's also omnipotent. That means there's nothing he cannot do. Nothing he cannot do. And the Bible tells us that we'll never be like that. We'll never be everywhere it was. As far as we know, we'll be, you know, we'll be able to get places mighty fast, much faster than the subway when we're in heaven, but we'll have bodies, you know, we have glorified bodies, and we'll be constantly learning. And so we'll never be in that condition. And so what happens is the Bible would say these are the incommunicable attributes of God but the communicable attributes are things like his love and his wisdom

and his power and his graciousness and his beauty. And you know that's beautiful because communicable means you can catch it, right? What's a communicable disease? Something that's contagious. The communicable attributes of God are those parts of God that when you get near him you can catch. If you really love somebody and you live with them, that person is your friend or if that person is your spouse, if you've got a good relationship with them, it's pretty hard to avoid catching what they get. If they come down with a virus, you know, you can do what you want, but if you've got a very good relationship, you're going to get the virus too. Why? Because you see it's communicable and

anything that a person you really love and that you spend a lot of time talking to or you know you know you're married to somebody, you kiss, you hold hands, you know, you're you sleep with them, you're together with them, you're gonna pick up if you have a good relationship, if you spend time with them, what they have. And that's what's an amazing, that's what's so amazing about the Bible. The Bible tells us that there are attributes of God you can catch if you spend the time with them, if you gaze into his eyes, if you're willing to open the word of God and not just say, oh yeah, I know that already, but sit and meditate and let it wash over you.

If you, as John Owen, one of my friends, used to write in the 1600s, a great, great man of God, used to say, if you abase yourself before the majesty of God, if instead of just seeing a passage that talks about His majesty, you say, oh yes, I know that. But instead, you bow before it and you let it wash over you. And you think about His greatness

and you think about His goodness, you look into His eyes, you catch it. don't you see why it's critical to be working to be living in the spirit instead of in the flesh if you're living in the flesh if you're living under law you do good deeds you come to church you read the bible you you know you give to the poor but you're doing it hoping hoping that god will accept you that you'll feel righteous other words, you don't love God for himself. You're not doing these good deeds just out of love for him. You're doing these good deeds because you're trying to get something from God.

When you're walking in the Spirit, all the things you do are simply because you love him. I'm doing this just because I love you. I've already got everything I possibly want from you. When I received Christ as Savior, when I received your salvation, I got everything I possibly want from you when you receive when I received Christ as Savior when I received your salvation I got everything I love you for what you are and I'm just looking at you And I just want to spend time with you And I want to be near you that is the secret of walking in the spirit and developing fruit of the spirit

Get near him There's not a lot of tricks Not a lot of tricks at all and these attributes are the fruit of the spirit. What I would consider, what I would really urge you to do, is take a look. When we study these, we're always going to look at four things. Every week we're going to look at four things. You're going to have four points to every sermon.

We're going to first say, what is the fruit? Then secondly, what's the opposite of the fruit, which is the weed, the weed that you need to get rid of in your life? What's the fruit? What's the opposite of the fruit? What's the counterfeit of the fruit? Something that looks like the fruit, but it's not.

You can have an apple, and then you can have a thorn that gets in the way of the apple. And then you can have a false apple that if you eat it, it's poison. So you have the fruit, you have the weed, the opposite, you have the counterfeit fruit, and you have the attribute of God that you have to catch in order to develop.

See, for example, patience, patience. Where does patience come from? Patience is marvelous. Patience comes from looking at the wisdom of God and his patience with you. Do you know how patient he's been? Do you realize how patient he's been with you? If you know that to the degree you know that you're patient with other people if you know it at the minute somebody else is

Irritating you the irritations gone Because you catch the attribute from God patience is simply catching the attribute looking him in the eyes Living in the spirit. So each week we're going to do that and what I've given you is a summary of what's coming up for the next nine weeks. Love for example is sacrificing your interest for the good of others. The opposite of love is fear, not hatred. The counterfeit of love is selfish affection or you know things like meekness, humility. Humility is self-forgetfulness. The opposite of humility is pride, right? But the counterfeit of humility is shyness, which is just a form of self-centeredness. It's not humility. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to go through these each

week one at a time. But what I would suggest is that you take a look at them this week. Maybe some of you are going to make that incredibly reckless promise because you just want lots of fight in your life to start really getting serious about giving God some focused attention every day. Quality time. It's about time after all. He knit you together in your mother's womb and he died for you and he has come an infinite distance for you, he was bled and he absolutely pulled him,

he was pulled apart on the cross for you, he keeps you alive every single second. How about 30 minutes of focused attention? Would, you know, is that asking too much? And if you start to do that, if you start to do that, start with these. Look down this list, get to know the list, and then first of all, I would suggest

that you choose one or two where you're already growing, one or two where God is really working in your life, and celebrate that And celebrate that. Celebrate that. Say, you know, there's stuff here that I didn't have a year ago. God is working in my life. Praise Him for that. Celebrate that.

But also pick out one or two, or just one, which right now is the weakest thing in your life. You definitely see that you don't have it. And begin to say, Lord, how can I cultivate this? What do I need to do? And start to pray for it. And one of these weeks we'll get to it, and we can give you a few more handles.

So, just remember, live by the Spirit. Do not gratify the sinful desires of the flesh. For the flesh wars against the Spirit. There's a fight, a good fight, in the life of the flesh. For the flesh wars against the Spirit. There's a fight, a good fight, in the life of every believer. Are you fighting the good fight? Let's pray. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Tim Keller. If you have a story of how the gospel has changed your life or how Gospel in Life resources

have encouraged or challenged you, we'd love to hear from you. You can share your story with us by visiting gospelinlife.com slash stories. Today's sermon was recorded in 1990. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.