Happy Mother's Day to the mothers. Sarah and Kristen, this is the
first Mother's Day with baby in arms, right? That's special. So Happy Mother's Day. Alright,
let's go to Galatians chapter 5. I just want to begin in verse 16.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to go back and I'm going to come
up to this point because I want you to make a connection here.
And I'm pretty much just going to read some scriptures and give
some exposition on this. See how far we get. I hope we
can get to the end of chapter 5, but we'll see. Verse 16, he
says, This I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not
fulfill the lusts of the flesh." Now go back with me to Galatians
3. I want you to make a connection here. Now Paul, he'll say something,
he'll write something, and then he'll go and talk about something
he said for two or three pages, and then he'll come back to what
he said, what he addressed. Now look where he started here
in Galatians 3. Verse 1, he said, O foolish Galatians, who hath
bewitched you? He's going to talk about a lust
of the flesh being witchcraft. Rebellion is his witchcraft.
He says here, who hath bewitched you that you shall not obey the
truth? See, they rebelled, they weren't
obeying the truth. What's the truth? Before whose
eyes Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth crucified among you.
He's the truth. Christ is the truth. And Christ,
through the Gospel being preached, had been, the Spirit had given
them such a clear view of Christ by faith that it was just like
Christ was crucified right there in Galatia, right before them.
They saw Him. They saw Him. And He says now,
verse 2, This only would I learn of you. Now did you receive the
Spirit, the Holy Spirit, by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith? The Spirit of God was given to
you, was it by hearing the works of the law preached, or was it
by hearing of Christ's faithfulness preached? How was the Spirit
ministered to you? It was by hearing the gospel
of Christ and His faithfulness. Now look at the next verse. He
says, Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit? Are you
now made perfect by the flesh? Are you now going to go to maturity
by your strength and by your will and by your works and by
you mortifying your flesh, you are going to go to maturity and
grow up that way. You began in the Spirit. Spirit
of God created a new man in you. Spirit of God gave you faith
and repentance and all the fruit of the Spirit. Spirit of God
mortified your flesh, freed you from the dominion of your sin
nature, all through the hearing of the Gospel of Christ. Now
that you've been called to liberty or you've been made perfect,
you're going to be grown up into Christ now by looking at your
flesh and minding the things of the flesh, minding the law,
minding your works, minding what you need to be doing and not
doing, touch not, taste not. That's how you're going to be
matured. Verse 4, Have you suffered so many things in vain, if it
yet be in vain? He therefore, Christ Jesus, that
ministered to you the Spirit and works miracles among you,
He sent the Spirit to you. He worked these miracles. He
created life in you through the Spirit. He's the head of the
church. From Him, all the joints have nourishment ministered from
the head, just like the body, throughout the members of the
body. He ministered the Spirit, and He gave you life, and He
gave you faith, and repentance, and love, and joy, and peace.
He gave it to you. It's fruits of righteousness,
which are by Jesus Christ, the fruit of the Spirit. And He called
you to liberty from bondage. He called you out of the bondage
of the law. He showed you He had redeemed you. He called His
people from the bondage of our sin nature by the Spirit of God
taking dominion. And He produced this fruit in
you. Did He do it by the works of the law? By hearing the works
of the law preached or by hearing of faith? Hearing of His mighty
works. Hearing that He does this work.
Which way did He do it? By hearing what you need to be
doing or hearing what He did? He did it by hearing of Him.
by hearing of what Christ did. Go to Galatians 5 now, verse
7. Now look, He says, He talked about how they began. Now He
says in verse 7, You did run well. You began walking in the
Spirit and you were running well. Who hindered you that you should
not obey the truth? Who beguiled you so that you
went into this witchcraft and stopped obeying the Gospel? This
persuasion didn't come of Christ that called you. It didn't come
of the one who originally sent you the Spirit and called you.
This is leaven, he said. A little leaven leavens a whole
lump. Remember, Paul said over in Colossians
2, he said, men that aren't beholding the head, they don't have this
nourishment ministered, they're puffed up by their carnal knowledge. That's what Levin does. It's
Levin that entered in telling them to mind the things of the
flesh, to mind the law, and to mind the letter of the word,
and mind their works, and mind what they do. And that's minding
the things of the flesh. The carnal mind minds the things
of the flesh. The spiritual mind minds the
things of the spirit. The spirit's been given to us
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. And it's through that message
The Spirit works and strengthens the inward man and makes you
worship and rejoice in Christ and mortify the flesh. He says, I'm trusting here, I
have confidence, verse 10, in you through the Lord that you'll
be none otherwise minded. That He'll make you spiritually
minded. That He'll make you mind the things of the Spirit, mind
the things that are freely given to you of God. Set your affection
on Christ above. Now look at verse 13. For brethren,
you've been called unto liberty. You've begun. You started this
race by the Spirit through the gospel. You were running well
in it. Only use not this liberty for
an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Now brethren, the context and
the subject here haven't changed. You're going to see this as we
go through this whole chapter into the sixth chapter. He's
still dealing with the same subject as he started dealing with in
chapter three, going back to the works of the flesh. What
it was is they were being told now, you've been called to liberty. Now if you want to grow and you
want to grow up, now you need to start minding these things
of the law and that's going to help you grow. That's going to
help you grow up into Christ. Well, the flesh loves that. That's a lust of the flesh. That's
giving a cake. Now we know it's giving occasion
to the flesh if you use this gospel of liberty. as an excuse to sin, as a license
to sin. That's using it for an occasion
to the flesh. But brethren, this thing of now
saying, now we're going to leave Christ, we're going to leave
how we started and we're going to grow by starting to mind the
things of the flesh. I mean, yeah, the things of the
flesh. There's a paradox there. While men think that they're
getting better outwardly, It's actually satisfying the lust
of the flesh, and it puffs up. And that's what had happened
here at Galatia. Paul said that in Colossians
2.23, he said, those things, touch not, taste not, handle
not, they indeed have a show of wisdom in will worship, and
false humility, and neglecting the body. But they don't honor
the Lord. What do they do? They satisfy
the flesh. That's what the flesh lusts after. Anything but Christ. Now, if
any are truly concerned about the law, Paul says, you're really
concerned about the law? You're really concerned about
good works and about growing in grace and knowledge and about
not fulfilling the lust of the flesh? By love, serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled
in one word, even this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
Faith in Christ will fulfill the whole law of God, but this
faith works by love. Constrained how? By the Spirit
of Christ, by Christ in us, by Him really constraining us. Verse 15. But, if you bite and
devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed with
one another, he said, but if you go on giving occasion to
the flesh, that's what they were doing with it. He said, and here's,
this leaven of the Pharisee, it always results into this.
It would turn these believers from the gospel of Christ, from
his works and from what he'd accomplished, and preaching Just
this the letter So many carnal mind can understand do this don't
do that do this don't do that Like preaching the back halves
of the pistols without preaching Christ when you preach them These
letters was all written as one letter if we're gonna preach
Christ Who we used to accuse brother Don and not preaching
practical doctrine you listen to his messages? He preaching
practical doctrine all through his messages But he's not sitting there just
saying, check off this do and this don't and this do and this
don't and this do and this don't. It's Christ that offends men.
Christ and Him crucified and Him getting the glory. But the
paradox is that while they think they're mortifying the sin nature
and doing good work, it's fulfilling the lust of the flesh. It's an
occasion to the flesh. There's only one who's going
to mortify our sin nature. There's only one who can do it.
Only one. The same one who began this work,
the same one who came and laid down his life for his people
and redeemed us from the curse of the law, and has risen, and
all his people have risen in him, who is the head of the church,
who is the shepherd, the pastor, who is God, who sends his gospel
where he will, and speaks through the Spirit of God, and ministers
through the Spirit, and is ministered into the new man. And he strengthens
the new man. And you know, remember how this
happened. He says here, verse 16, let me get to this, verse
16. This I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not
fulfill the lust of the flesh. What's he telling them? Walk
in the Spirit. Walk the way you began with the hearing of faith,
with the hearing of the gospel. Walk depending upon the Spirit
of God. Minding the things of the Spirit,
rather than the things of the flesh. This is what's going to make
a believer mortify the deeds of the flesh. Hear Christ and
how He fulfilled all righteousness for you. Hear Christ and hear
how He's ever present with His people. How we have access to
His throne. We've been given the Spirit,
not the Spirit of bondage to fear, We ought never bring each
other back into bondage and fear. Never! Christ freed us from it
by His blood. We ought never bring each other
into that again. Ever! We ought to minister the
Spirit to one another, minister the Gospel to one another, love
one another. And through this Gospel, you
know what happened? Tell me this didn't happen to you in the first
hour you heard the Gospel. Spirit of God came and you know
what He did? He circumcised you in the heart. He gave you a new
heart. He cut away that sin nature away
and purged your conscience and made you hear the gospel. And
what did He make you do? We are the circumcision which
worship God in the Spirit. We didn't worship God on our
own. We came to a place and read the Bible and went through the
motions, but we never worshipped God. That's not worshipping God.
The Spirit entered in and circumcised our heart. And for the first
time in our life, we worshipped God. The Spirit entered the new man. And what did we do in the new
man? We worshipped God. And then what
happened? The Spirit turned you and set
your affection on Christ and showed you He finished all the
works for His people. He accomplished it. And He set
your affection, your inward man on Christ. And for the first
time, the Spirit did that. And what happened? We rejoiced
in Christ Jesus. For the first time. And while
that was happening, while you were in that place, you know
what else happened? What the Spirit made you do? You lost
all confidence in your flesh whatsoever. That's mortification
of the flesh. That's it. Do we always walk
in the Spirit? No, we don't. We wouldn't be
told this if we did. We're not always walking in the
Spirit. He wouldn't make the qualification in chapter 6 and
say, you which are spiritual. We're not always walking in this
period. The Galatians weren't right now. They weren't. They
had been turned back to mind the things of the flesh. It resulted
in a bunch of bickering and biting and division. That's all it resulted
in. Paul's here telling them, you're
not gonna get unity by more division. Unity's gonna come by everybody
being nobody looking at somebody who's somebody. Stop looking at one another,
look to Christ. See, when you're looking at Christ,
let's say Christ is sitting right there, you're looking at Christ,
you can't look at your brother, your sister, you can't look at
yourself. Mortification means treat your flesh like it's a
dead thing. That's what it is. And it's by
the Spirit that He's going to strengthen us in our inner man,
so that when wicked thoughts come into your mind, Sometimes
right then, He just turns you and you're like, I'm not thinking
about that. And you think on spiritual things.
Speak to one another in hymns and spiritual songs and things
that edify. And He'll lead you into that. But notice this, I want to show
you something here in verse 17. He says, for the flesh lusteth
against the spirit. He said first, he said there
in verse 16, walk in the spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust
of the flesh. That's what happened in the very
first moment that he made you behold Christ. You worshiped
in the spirit, by the spirit, you rejoiced in Christ Jesus
in the spirit, by the spirit. And you didn't fulfill the lust
of your flesh. You didn't even have any confidence in your flesh.
That was a sweet moment, wasn't it? You were set on Christ. You've
experienced it many times, sitting right here. You've experienced
it listening to messages, driving down the road. You've experienced
it just walking, and Him brings something to your mind, and you've
experienced it. But notice verse 17. I want you
to see this. But he's telling us here the
Spirit of God gets the glory for this. God's going to get
the glory for this. Look at verse 17. The flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things you
would. Now before I get to the point, let me just make some
comments on it. The flesh is the sin nature.
That's in every born-again believer. You have a sin nature. What you're
born with from Adam is corrupt, it's sinful, that's all it is.
And it's true that the Holy Spirit of God creates a new man within
that one born of God, a new holy man, a new holy nature in regeneration. So there's a sin nature and there
is a new man. and they lust. That means they
intensely desire. Each of them has an intense desire.
And it's against each other, meaning they're contrary to the
other. In us, in you and me who believe, there's two natures
totally contrary to one another. Our new man, in our new man,
we, me and you who believe, we desire holiness, and hate sin. It was in the new man that the
psalmist said, I hate every false way. And you know what false
way he hated to begin with? This old man that's in me. It
was the same new man that Job said, I've seen the Lord now,
I've heard Him, and I abhor myself. I hate my sin nature. That's actually mortification
of the flesh. That's crucifixion of flesh being
crucified, when the Spirit makes you see these things and see
Him. But these two natures, they're
two armies that oppose each other so that there's a civil war in
you. This new man desires holiness and hates sin, but this old nature
desires intensely nothing but sin and hates holiness. That's in you and me, both of
us. The carnal mind, Paul said, the law of spiritual, I'm carnal
so to understand, that's me and my old man. And he just minds
things of the flesh. There's a new man that just minds
things of the spirit. He says, so you can't do the
things you would. Now let me talk about what he
said in Romans 7. If you want to look there, in
Romans 7, he said, I'm just talking about now, in Romans 7, he was
talking here specifically about the two natures. Now look here
at Romans 7. He says, in verse Verse 21, he says, when
I would do good, I find a law, when I would do good, evil is
always present with me. When I and my new man would do
good, evil is present with me constantly. Alright, verse 22,
I delight in the law of God after the inward man, I do. What's
the law of God? The whole word of God. I delight
in everything. The Ten Commandments, the whole
law, the New Testament, it's God's word. I delight in everything
in it. But I see another principle in
my members. I see it in my hands, I see it
in my eyes, in my ears, in my taste, in my thoughts, in my
walk, I see it in me. It's coming from my sin nature.
And here's what it's doing. It's warring against the law
of my mind. My inward man is focused on Christ,
set on Christ. But this sin nature is warring
violently against my new man. And it's bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members caused by my sin nature. Captive. And when you're taken
captive out of one country into another country, that doesn't
mean you stop being from the country they took you from. It
doesn't mean he stops being a believer. He's still a believer. But it's
taken me captive. Now watch. In our text back there,
he's speaking of the two natures there. There's the I that's the
sinful me. It's all me. And there's the
I that's the new me. It's all me too. The sinful man
enused you and the new man enused you. But in our text, Paul speaks
of the flesh, the sin nature, and the Holy Spirit. He doesn't
talk about the old man and the new man. He talks about the sinful
man and the Holy Spirit. And he is declaring what he declared
at the end of Romans 7. In verse 7.24 he says, O wretched
man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? If this thing's up to me, if
it's up to me, I got a new man. He delights
in the law of God, but I got a sin nature. If it's up to me,
that sin nature takes me captive, and that's where I'm going to be. Amen? That's so. How am I going to be delivered?
from the body of this death. I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's how I'm going to be delivered. He goes on in Romans 8 and he
says the spirit, though your body's dead, the spirit will
quicken you so that we through the spirit mortify the deeds
of the body. Now that's what he's telling
us here in our text. He's saying The Holy Spirit is
going to war against our sin nature. He's going to get the
glory. He's going to get the glory. Like James said, the sin,
He doesn't have to coerce you. He doesn't have to move you.
He doesn't have to do anything to us. That's just all of us
and comes from us. Every sinful thought, every sinful
look, every sinful word, every sinful deed, all of it is straight
from us. We get to take the credit for
it. That's all we get to take the credit for. That's of us.
But if we have any fruit of the Spirit and there's any mortification
of the flesh, God's getting the glory for that. It's the Spirit
that's warring against our sin nature. That's what He's saying.
Why is He saying it that way to the Galatians? Because their
whole problem was, they were being told, you can do this.
You've got liberty now. You can do it now. You can walk
after the Spirit. Paul said, if you do, it's going
to be because the Spirit of God led you. We're not going to get
any glory for this at any point. This ain't a co-effort. He's
going to strengthen, just like He came in and created a new
man and brought you into worship, and you worshipped. You did worship. Your new man worshipped. He didn't
worship for you, you worshipped. But who got the glory for that?
Who still gets the glory for that when we worship? And the same token, if there's
any mortification of the flesh done, he's getting the glory
for it. Because he's the one that made
us do it. The same one that gave us liberty in the beginning,
freed us from the condemnation of law, from the dominion of
our sin nature, Christ Jesus ministering the spirit to us,
he's going to make us do this. He says, so walk in the spirit
and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. You won't even,
you won't even feel this lust of biting and devouring one another
anymore. He's beseeching the Galatians
to continue under the hearing of the faith of Christ works,
hearing Christ's faithfulness instead of, you know the difference
between these messages. You can turn on a message and
hear men just, they preach 20 minutes and don't say a word
about the Lord and what he's accomplished. It's all about
you and what you need to do. All of it's true, it's all in
the word of God, but it ain't the gospel. This is the message that he's
gonna bless us through rather than the 11 of the Pharisee.
He gonna get the glory for it. He gonna get the glory for it. He gives us the spirit of adoption
so that we cry, Abba, Father. And the Spirit even helps us
with our infirmities so we can. Here's how He mortifies our flesh.
He bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God. When you don't have any assurance
and you're full of doubts and your flesh is reigning over you
so that you cannot pick up the book and read it, And the Spirit bears witness
with that new Spirit He's put in you that you're a child of
God, a son of God, adjoiner with Christ. That'll take care of
that doubt. Like a sunbeam coming into your
heart. And you will worship Him, but He gets the glory for doing
it. Well, it's the same in other deeds too. Verse 18, but if you're
led of the Spirit, and this is the point he keeps reiterating
throughout, you're not under the law. We're not talking about
here's something that you're going to go back and do by your
work. He keeps repeating this because
that was the problem he's addressing through this whole epistle. There's
no condemnation because if you're led of the Spirit, you're in
Christ. You're not walking after the flesh, you're walking after
the Spirit. We always live in the Spirit if we're born of God.
but it's by the Spirit that we walk in the Spirit. And we're
usually walking in the Spirit when we don't even know we're
walking in the Spirit. If you think you're walking in
the Spirit and I'm doing a real good job and I'm proud of myself
today because I'm doing good, you're walking in your flesh,
I guarantee it. I guarantee it. You're puffed up full of yeast. That's what he has to keep continually
mortifying. It's the heart, the sin nature
in us is so deceitfully wicked, we don't know it. And He has to keep working this
in us. He's going to show us the works
of the flesh here, verse 19. And this is what He's showing
to us here now. These are the lusts that's in
our sin nature right here. This is what's warring against
our sin nature constantly. Some of these are in thought.
Some of these are in deed. But watch this now. Now the works
of the flesh are manifest. They're manifest. This is what
we're lusting to do constantly. This is what we do in thought.
Sometimes we do it in deed. They all got to be mortified.
They're these, adultery. Christ said looking on a woman
is adultery as well as the act. The thought's got to be mortified
and the act. fornication, sex outside of marriage, uncleanness,
any impure thoughts, gestures, words or deeds that are not pure,
lasciviousness, unbridled sin, without shame. And then he comes
to some religious sins and this is what was included in that
biting and devouring that was going on because they were turned
back to their flesh and they said they were going to make
something happen. Idolatry, trying to take the
place of God. Witchcraft, Paul said you've
been bewitched. Hatred, there's something in the thought.
Enmity, unmerciful hardness, enmity. That's all our signature
is and it wells up. Variance, contentious thoughts,
words, actions. Emulations, that's that bad zeal
Paul spoke of earlier in the fourth chapter. It's the zeal
against a rival, such as the Pharisees against Paul. Wrath,
anger, boiling up, holding on to it, strife, This
is a political strife, putting self forward. Seditions, divisions,
divisions. If you love the baby, you don't
want to split it in half, but if you don't, split her in half,
divisions. Heresies, the word means choice,
choice. Choose whom you'll serve, the
false gods on that side of the Jordan or the false gods on this
side of the Jordan. They're both heresies. The Lord
said, as for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord. The Lord
said that. Envying at someone else being
used or blessed, you being passed by murders, by anger, by the
act, drunkenness. We have liberty in meat and drink,
but we don't have liberty in drunkenness. We can be drunk
in pride. We can be drunk on Babylon's
wine of Babylon's fornication, partly what he's dealing with
the Galatians here looking to themselves, revelings, extravagant
parties, wild parties into the night, and such like. That's not everything. There's
a lot more. Extortion, that's a big thing. Of the witch I tell you before,
as I've told you in time past, that they which do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now if a sinner is not
born of the Spirit of God, this is all a sinner is and all a
sinner can produce. That's it. And he won't inherit
the Kingdom of God. Notice though, it's an inheritance.
He may not do any of these things outwardly and not be born of
God. But the Kingdom of God is an
inheritance freely given by God. So if you don't do these things,
you're not going to inherit the Kingdom simply because you don't
do these things. You inherit the kingdom because
God chose you, Christ redeemed you, the Spirit regenerated you,
and you're born into the kingdom, and you're a child of God. He
gives you a free inheritance. But now if the Spirit of God's
in us, this is what every Spirit of God makes every child know
and confess. We're guilty of every one of
these. Every one of these. Some in thought, some in deed. Some in deed. But he's not going
to allow his child to do what our flesh would do. Sometimes he does that quickly,
sometimes he doesn't do that quickly. But he's going to do
that. He's going to keep his child
looking to Christ and worshiping Christ and living for Christ.
If He has to burn up our dross by fire, and burn up our wood
hay and stubble by fire, He'll do that. He's going to keep us
looking to Christ. He's going to chasten, He's going
to cleanse, He's going to make us repent. But He's going to
get the glory for doing that. He's going to get the glory for
doing that. Now, the fruit. Now you notice those were works.
That's all of us. The wages of sin. We'll get paid
for our works. That's all of us, the flesh.
But this is fruit. This is not of us. This is of
the Spirit. A fruit. It's not fruits. It's
fruit. This is in every new man that
He creates right here. This fruit. The fruit of the
Spirit is love. That's the heading of all these
other fruits is love. Love. Joy. Joy in the Holy Ghost. Joyful in the Holy Ghost. Even
in the midst of your worst suffering, you've got the joy of knowing
I'm His and He's mine. Peace. Peace with God. Blessed are the peacemakers who
want peace. Longsuffering. What do you have
to suffer long with? Offensives, offensive brethren
and offending brethren, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, depending on God, waiting on God, looking to God, meekness,
humility, temperance. He'll broaden your tongue from
saying what you want to say. And against all these, there
is no law. It keeps coming back to this. There's no law against
what the Spirit of God does. We're not in the realm of law
when we're talking about what the Spirit of God is going to
work. We're not even in that realm. We're in the realm of
faith. We're in the realm of the Spirit. We're in the realm
of the constraint of Christ's love working and making us love.
All this is of the Lord. Verse 24, And they that are Christ's,
they have crucified the flesh with the affections in the blood.
Now, we have past tense in the sense that when Christ was crucified,
we were crucified, and our body of sin was destroyed. But this
word, have crucified, is an aorist tense, it's an ongoing thing.
He said there, the flesh wars against the spirit, and the spirit's
warring against the flesh. And this is a continued, ongoing
crucifixion that's taking place. The flesh has many affections
and lusts, it's just constantly on everything. contrary to God. But the Spirit of God takes that
inward man, and Colossians 3 says, set your affection singular on
things above where Christ sits. That's where he puts our affection.
He keeps us minding the things of the Spirit. So it says, verse
25, and that's how the affections and the lusts of flesh are going
to be crucified. The Spirit making you behold Christ, making you
grow in grace and knowledge of Him, And if he puts you through
the river, he'll go through the river with you, you'll make it
out the other side, he'll put you through the fire, he'll bring
you out the other side. It's going to be painful and
hurt and be the worst thing you ever went through. But that's
the purpose of it. To purge everything that don't
look like Christ in your new man. And make you let go of whatever
he would have you let go. So if we live in the Spirit,
there were some now, you know this attitude of biting and devouring
at Galatia. So there are some there, and
when they heard everything Paul said, they never thought of themselves,
they were just thinking about somebody else. That brother over
there, that brother over there, whatever. Because they thought
themselves real spiritual, they thought themselves real strong
in the faith. Paul says, now if you are, here's your chance
to prove it. Let's walk in the Spirit. That means all that middle section
of religious sins that happens in our reaction to sin, I'm going
to have to mortify those if I'm going to walk in spirit. I'm not going to get to glory.
None of us are. Christ is. Let us not be desirous of vainglory. Paul said in Colossians 2, these
men that are puffed up, that's what they are trying to get.
They want vainglory. Let nothing be done through strife
or vainglory. That's what the Pharisees were
wanting. They wanted glory in what they constrained somebody
else to do. Don't let anything be done through strife or vainglory,
but in lowliness of mind, listen to this, that brother that has
offended you, you can esteem him better than yourself. We
really going to need the Spirit of God to do this. We are. Because that goes against everything
in my sin nature. Don't be provoking one another.
We provoke to love and good work. But this thing of trying to do
this thing in our flesh, using scripture like this right
here, not in newness of spirit, but to whatever, for whatever
reason, without pointing to Christ. That that's provoking here is
stirring up the sin nature by biting one another, by accusing
and excusing. And it's just interviewing one
another. So what am I to do? If a man's
overtaken in a fault, brethren, You which are spiritual. Only
you which are spiritual. If a man's not spiritual, if
he's not walking in the spirit, he ain't fit for this. Restore
him in the spirit of meekness. Restore him with what? With Christ.
Restore him with love. Restore him with all the kindness
and love. Consider yourself. Lest you also
be tempted, lest your sin nature break out into this pharisaical
biting and devouring. Bear ye one another's burdens.
How were we saved? Christ Jesus took the sin of
the foulest offenders that hated him, that he was offended by. and bore our burden away. Concerned about not just doing
it in word but in deed? Concerned about honoring the
law? Doesn't God put us in a fix? He flips it on us and says, bear the burden. And then you'll fulfill the law
of Christ. James said, when we judge one
another, we become judges of the law rather than doers of
it. There's just one judge. He's able to save and destroy.
What does he mean? We're judges of the law, not
doers of it. This law of love, this law of
Christ, we judge it not to be fitting for this situation. Instead
of bearing the burden, We're going to bite until we consume.
He says, bear it. Bear it. And that fulfills the
love of Christ. For if a man thinks himself something
when he's nothing, he deceives himself. But let every man prove,
examine, test, and do his own work. I can't do your work, and
you can't do mine. We have to do our own work. Then shall he have rejoicing
in himself alone and not in another. Read on down the page. The Pharisees
were trying to have rejoicing in what they constrained somebody
else to do. Paul said, you examine yourself
and you do this work yourself and your rejoicing will be between
you and Christ, what he's done for you. Because we're going
to have to bear our own burden. We're going to stand before him
ourselves. each of us. Not for another, for ourselves. We said examine ourselves and
do this. That's the spirit, walking in the spirit. It's through this
gospel. All right, brethren. Father,
we thank you for this word. We pray you bless it. Keep us,
keep us looking to Christ. Forgive us our sins. We ask it
in his name. Amen.