well we come back for a fourth time to Galatians chapter five uh... because what i want to do this week is to reinforce and expand on what i said last week scripture is the standard for true doctrine scripture with the holy spirit giving light to rightly divide the word of truth it says that in second timothy chapter two and verse fifteen paul encourages him to study so that he might teach and preach truly, effectively, that he might rightly divide the word of truth. Because so much of what calls itself Christianity, quite frankly, wrongly divides the word of truth, distorts it, makes it say what it doesn't say.

We pray God to guide us as we seek. You know, we're encouraged to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're encouraged, grow in grace and knowledge. We pray God to guide us as we seek to grow in that grace and that knowledge on the way to eternal glory.

What's the issue? What's the issue? The issue is, what is it to be a Christian? What is it to be a believer? What is it to be a genuine disciple and follower of Christ? living in sinful flesh in this fallen world. Right? What is it to be a Christian? Because the fact is, we continue to live in sinful flesh in a fallen world, at the same time as that believer, that one trusting in Christ, seeking to be a disciple and a follower of Christ, has the new spirit, the new man of the Spirit of God within.

Now you might say, you're being a bit repetitious. This is the fourth message from Galatians chapter five. You're being a bit repetitious. You're going to start to wearious with these words. No, I, I feel, I feel like Job when, when Job was being persecuted with his comforters as they were called and, and he knew the gospel and he said this, he said, Oh, that my words, Oh, that my words were graven. with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever. You know when you try to make a mark on something that's pretty hard, you know? If you want to make a mark on a solid surface and you start out and you do it once and then you go back and do it again and then you go back and do it again until you've engraved it, until it's made a groove, until it's there, until it's a permanent mark. This is what Job was saying. I want the truth of gospel grace. to be gone over and over and over until it's made a mark that is indelible.

So at the risk of wearying some, at the risk of wearying some, let's think about what is it to be a Christian. Let's think about these things. A Christian is born a sinner in the flesh, as everybody else. As a baby, flesh begets flesh. A sinner, a Christian is born a sinner. And what does that mean? That by nature, by nature, we're naturally enemies of God. By nature, we're condemned by divine justice to be eternally separated from God and all that is good. We are all in the flesh, descendants of Adam, who fell in the Garden of Eden. And so we're sinful by nature. And it's not that we're sinners because we commit sins. We commit sins because we're sinners. It's the nature that produces the sin.

What does the Scripture say? What is the judgment of Scripture regarding all of us, from the very best of us to the worst? We're all the same. Jeremiah 17 verse 9, the heart, the heart of man, the heart of you and me as we are in the flesh, is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And then it says, the Lord tries the rains. It's the Lord that knows us inside out. Don't think that you get away with it. The Lord knows every detail. The books are being filled up with the deeds that we do every single day. That's the way we are. a deceitful heart, a desperately wicked heart. As God said when he looked down on the world of the days of Noah in Genesis chapter 6, looking down on mankind, and mankind had spread over all the earth, God said of them that every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually. That's what his judgment was. And it was so much so that God swept away in a great worldwide flood all but eight of them, the eight that were in the ark with the life of the animals that was preserved.

God looked on them, and he looks on us today exactly the same, and he sees what it says in Psalm 14, and then in 53, because it repeats it. There is none righteous. No, not one. They're all gone out of the way. Even the best of Christians confess. Who's the best of Christians? Well, you would say the Apostle Paul was a jolly good Christian. Yes, he was. But even he said, Romans 7, 18, in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells no good thing. Oh, what a lovely person, what a lovely... No, in me, in my flesh, there dwells no good thing. And after a life of growth in grace and knowledge of Christ, in his last epistle, 2nd Timothy, what was Paul's assessment of himself? The chief of sinners. The chief of sinners.

There was a wonderful preacher of a couple of hundred years ago, William Huntington. And you know like people like to put letters after their name. Well, he did. S.S. What was that? Sinner Saved. What's the best you can say about yourself? I'm a sinner saved. I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all. You see, You say, well, some people are better than others, and some people do some good things. Oh, flesh can be trained in social acceptability. Flesh can be trained how to be respected by others, but it can never be improved in its basic nature. As we are all born, so we live. We're spiritually dead regarding God. We're spiritually dead regarding the things of eternal life.

But this is the thing, whilst all, without exception, are in exactly the same state, enemies of God, at enmity with God, separated from God, justly condemned for banishment from God to an eternity of hell, God decreed before time began to save a multitude that he loved and he chose. The Father loved and chose a multitude. from every tribe and tongue and kindred, and he chose to save that multitude from just condemnation and to fit them, to make them qualified for his eternal inheritance.

How did he do it? By redemption, by purchase. He purchased their freedom from that state of being separated from God. How did he do that? By his own blood, for God purchased his church with his own blood. How could God, who is spirit, purchase his church with his own blood? He had to become man. He had to become like the children he was saving. He had to be made of the same flesh, yet without sin. As a man, he was legally united. God became man, legally united with his beloved elect. And in time he came, when the fullness of the time was come, as this very epistle says in chapter 4 verse 4, when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law. To do what? To redeem those who are under the law, condemned by the law. that they might be what? That they might receive the adoption as sons. He who knew no sin was made sin for his people, that his people might be made the righteousness of God in him. And being thus made the righteousness of God, as far as the justice and law of God is concerned, they are qualified for eternal inheritance. Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

and then by Holy Spirit quickening in time. Each one of these sinners, born in the flesh, is brought to new life. You must be born again. And they are born again by the Spirit of God.

And how is that new birth evidenced? It's evidenced by repentance for sin. Not just remorse about sin, but repentance. Repentance, rethinking. A fundamental rethinking in the nature. That's what repentance means. It's from pensée, the French, to think. Repentance. turning around in the mind, and he gives the gift of faith to see and to understand something of the things of God to the extent that we experience by knowledge.

Knowledge in the head becomes experience in the heart, and we experience the fact of being saved from our sins. For it was Jesus, whose name was called that, for he shall save his people from their sins, that we believe in, that we follow.

The account, the account of each one of God's elect, because every one of us has an account with the law and the justice of God. And this is the thing I tried to stress last week and I want to stress again, I want to engrave it again. It was and it is settled forever by Christ in his death and his resurrection. When Christ died and rose again for his people, Their account, the people's account with the law and justice of God was settled, was closed for eternity, never to be reopened.

Nobody, who can bring a charge against God's elect? Christ has died, it's done. So what is it to be a Christian living in sinful flesh? Because although that account is cleared, we're still sinful in the flesh. And we still commit sins in the flesh. And we still do that which is against the law and justice and nature of God.

What is it to be a Christian whose account with the justice of God has been settled by Christ? What is it to be that and yet continue living in sinful flesh? The answer is it is to be completely free. from the charge, from the curse of sin. It is to be free from the bondage of what the law required you to do, a tyranny of unattainable righteousness.

And what we read before in Romans chapter 8 and verse 2, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. That's it, we're freed. A Christian remains a sinner until death, But Christ has borne that believer's sin's condemnation in his place. And as Job's testimony said over and over again, I'm trying to engrave this biblical truth indelibly in the hearts of all who hear and believe.

So what's your response? to that solid fact. It's an undeniable fact of Scripture. Wow! Sinners who, by nature of their being, by nature of their opposition to God, by nature of the evil that they commit against the justice of God, sinners, we read, can go to heaven because Christ has settled the account for them. He's done it.

Turn back to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. He's established in Romans chapter five that that is the case. Christ has accomplished his people's redemption. But the first four verses of Romans chapter six, what shall we say then? All right, in response to this, sinners go to heaven, right? Sinners go to heaven because of what Christ has done. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? that grace may abound. It's grace that saved us. It's grace that has brought us from death to life by virtue of what Christ has done. So shall we continue to sin? Because whatever sins we commit, it doesn't make any difference, does it? That standing is closed. That account is settled for all eternity. So why don't we continue to sin? quite like it. Why don't we continue to sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? How shall we

It's not saying how shall we commit any more sins, because believers obviously do commit sins, but how shall we live in a settled state of comfort with the fact that we're sinners any longer? Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

That's why baptism is such a clear picture of going down and being immersed in the water and then coming up out of the water. It's a It doesn't in itself do anything, it doesn't in itself accomplish anything, but it says something. It says, I identify with Christ. I was in him when he died. When he rose, I rose. And it's pictured by that going down into the water and coming up out of the water.

By Christ's death, his people died to sin in him. How shall we live any longer with sin as our driving principle? When Christ died, his people died in him. When he rose from the dead, his people rose, Romans 6, 4, to newness of life, newness of life. The believer has a new life. There is a new man of the Spirit of God within. If he paid for our sins to free us from condemnation, we can't continue to live with sin as our driving, settled principle of life. Is that clear enough? Is it clear enough? I didn't say that believers do not sin. What I said was we cannot continue to live with sin as the driving, settled principle of life.

Does it mean that as Christians we no longer sin? Of course not. What John says in his first epistle, 1 John chapter one and verse eight, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, we believers, and the truth is not in us. Of course we have sin, but we have an advocate with the Father. When we sin, we have an advocate with the Father. Our best efforts in this flesh, our best efforts, all our righteousnesses, Isaiah 64 verse six, are but filthy rags in his sight.

But in every regenerated believer, in every believer that's one in whom the Spirit of God has planted new spiritual life, there is a new principle arising from that new life. As Jesus said to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 verse 6, flesh begets flesh. There's an article in the Bulletin by Clay Curtis that I've put in. Flesh begets flesh, the spirit begets spirit. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. It continues flesh, sinful flesh, but that which is born of the spirit is spirit. There's a new birth, there's a new man inside those that were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

So here's the same question another way. Shall the redemption of Christ make no difference to the lives that he saved people live? Shall our faith in him, in what he has done, not affect our interface with others? Look again at Romans chapter six, Romans chapter six and verse 12. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body. No, it doesn't say get rid of it altogether because you can't, but don't let it reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members. The members are trying and you're pressing against them. Don't yield to them. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead.

Dead in trespasses and sins is how we are in our Adamic nature, our nature as people in the flesh. But you've been made by the Spirit of God alive from the dead, and you're members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you. It won't rule, it won't win. You are not under the law, but you are under grace.

What then? He asks the question again. Shall we sin? Shall we carry on sinning? Shall we willfully continue with it because we keep reassuring ourselves that the account with the justice of God is settled? Shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. No, of course not.

Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. But God, be thanked that ye were the servants of sin. Before you knew Christ, before there was a new man within, planted by the Spirit of God, you were the servants of sin. You couldn't do otherwise than serve sin. But ye have obeyed from the heart. What have you obeyed? You've believed the gospel. You've obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you.

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Okay. James says, doesn't he? James in his epistle says, if our professed faith doesn't produce behavior that is different from unbelievers who know nothing of Christ and his righteousness, it isn't true faith. It isn't. It's the acid test of it. Is it true faith? Does it produce behavior that is different from that of those who do not believe the truth?

So, true faith, does true faith stop the flesh from being sinful and committing sin? No, it doesn't. It cannot. It cannot stop it altogether. But a true Christian has a new man born of God's Spirit. Turn to 1 John and chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3 and verse 9. This is the new man. You know, this is the apostle who in chapter one has said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

Of course, as believers, as the children of God, living in the flesh, of course we have sin and we commit sins. But look what he says in verse nine of chapter three. Whosoever is born of God, the one that is born of God, that new man of the spirit of God, that does not commit sin. For his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.

You see? It makes a difference. Clearly it does. And it points to the fact that as Galatians 5 says, in verse 17, that there is a conflict, that there is a conflict in the believer with the flesh, with its sinful nature, lusting against the Spirit, which is the new man given by the Spirit of God. They're contrary to one another, so that you cannot do the things that you would, and hence we have Romans 7. which says, I try to do this and then something else happens. I try to avoid that, but I still do it. Because that's the nature of the flesh. But if ye be led of the Spirit, you are not under the law. So then, what is the answer? It says there in verse 16 of Galatians 5, This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

The two of The two natures in the believer, the flesh with its sinful lusts, its fleshly lusts, and the spirit, the spirit that yearns after the things of God. Walk in the spirit. Make a choice. Choose you this day whom you will serve. decide, it's within power. God sent down the ages.

Look, David was clearly a man of God, the shepherd boy. David was clearly a man who was totally committed to God and his kingdom and his people. He was totally on the Lord's side. No question, choose you this day whom you will serve. He had chosen the Lord he had a covenant with God he says on his deathbed and it's forever sure and he knows that he's going to eternal glory but there was a night when he looked when he should have been out with his with his armies fighting he was there lounging on his rooftop in the in the warmth and looking down and he saw a beautiful woman and lusted after her and committed adultery with her and then murdered had her husband murdered in order to cover it up you see That night, he made the wrong decision, he made the wrong choice.

But he went on to pay the penalty of that for the rest of his life until his dying day. The two are in conflict, but then walk in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5.16, walk in the Spirit.

If a person is in Christ, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.17, if a person is in Christ, he is a new creation. There's a new person there, a new creation. The new man, what does the new man do that marks him out from the old man? The new man believes God. The new man submits to God's rule. The new man seeks to follow God. His account with divine justice is forever settled. His eternal inheritance is certain. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. All of that is certain on the basis of what God in Christ has accomplished for his people.

But fleshly nature always lusts after sin. And to varying degrees, every day, flesh commits sin. It continues sinful. It never gets any better. As I've said, David committed adultery and murder. for which he paid the consequences for the rest of his life with his conflict with his son Absalom and all sorts of other evil things that happened.

But the prophet Nathan assured him. He assured him that the Lord had put away his sin. He says it in 2 Samuel chapter 12 and verse 13. David, when he had it, pointed out to him that he was the man that had done this wicked thing. The prophet Nathan came to him and told him a parable, if you like, about somebody stealing a poor man's one and only lamb. And David was furious and he said, that man should be put to death. And Nathan said to him, you are the man, David. You are the one that's done this. And David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the Lord also hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. However bad it was, thou shalt not die. But it's not a license to go and do it. Not a license at all.

The new man, that is born of God's Spirit, that man cannot sin, does not sin, born of God's Spirit. That man cleaves to Christ. That man believes his word. That man is the one that experiences what we read at the start in Psalm 23, the Lord being his shepherd. and causing him to lie down in green pastures, and leading him in all the way, and surely goodness and mercy. He obeys his call. He bears the fruit of that Spirit of God.

Just as the natural man breathes air for life, Christians believe Christ. We breathe Christ. We breathe the Spirit of Christ. Without God's Spirit and His fruit, you are dead in sin. It says in Romans 8 that any that does not have, verse 9, you're not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of his. Don't claim to be a Christian who hasn't got the Spirit of God. All Christians have the Spirit of God. That's what makes them a Christian.

The more the believer looks unto Jesus, the more he walks in the Spirit, as it says in verse 16, walk in the Spirit, the more he's drawn away from fleshly lusts. They never go away completely, but their strength diminishes. The more, I might put it like this, the more a man loves his wife, the more he naturally is drawn away from the lust for other women. The more the believer actively cultivates walking in the Spirit, in the Word of God, in doctrine, in prayer, in fellowship with his people, the more the Spirit's fruit is evident, the more fleshly works are suppressed.

I'm not talking about progressive sanctification. The sanctification of the believer is in Christ. Christ is made unto us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Let him glory in the Lord. It's not that. But the more you grow, the less sinful you become. That isn't the case. It's not a case of the more you grow, the less sinful in the flesh you become, because you don't. But the more you are aware of your standing as what? What Happy Jack says. Just a poor sinner and nothing at all. I hope I've made that clear.

So just briefly then, I could elaborate to a great length on each of the fruit of the Spirit that's listed here in Galatians chapter 5. There's much to chew over, but look at it again with me. He gives the works of the flesh and he tells you in verse 21 that they which continue in a settled state of contentedness with the fact that they commit those sins. Surely you know what I mean by that. I'm not saying that you don't sin, but I'm saying like the world lives in a completely happy, contented state. with its sinful actions and its ignorance of God and its violation of the principles of God. He says, they which do such things as a habitual state shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.

Okay then. Christ is the source of this fruit. He is the rootstock. His people in the world are the vine branches growing from that rootstock. and the branches bear fruit. If you have a grapevine, it gets its energy from the ground, from the sap, from the rootstock, from the genetics that's in it, and it goes up through the branches which crawl all over the pergola that you might have bearing it, and it produces bunches of grapes. It produces grapes because it is a grapevine. It's because the branches produce grapes because they're connected to the rootstock. There's an essential connection without which a branch is dead. I saw a quote from Richard Dawkins saying, if there is a God, he said, if there is a God, you know, he was the professor of godlessness at Oxford. He was the professor to teach everybody they didn't need to believe in a God. He wrote the book, The God Delusion.

I saw a quote the other day. from somebody who was on the Lord's side, but saying, look what this man has said. And he said this, if there is a God, and that God happens to be the God of the Bible, he is an appallingly evil being. What blasphemous words, what blasphemous words.

Look what the fruit of God's Spirit is. It's love. It's love. Look at 1 John, chapter 4. 1 John, chapter 4, verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. here in his love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. Verse 16, and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Verse 19, we love him because he first loved us. Verse 20, if a man say I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar, and he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from him, that he who loveth God loveth his brother also.

Love, love, love. Joy is the second one. Joy, the joy of the Lord. Who are the true people of God? They rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Rejoice, what, when things are going well? No, whatever the circumstances, we rejoice. We rejoice, whatever the circumstances. Like that hymn said, it's so good to rest in the fact that nothing can happen without the sovereign will of God, whatever the circumstances.

So Paul and Silas, were beaten with rods at Philippi and they were locked up in the prison and their feet were put in the stocks and in the night it must have been so uncomfortable and they would have been bleeding and sore and painful, but what were they doing? They were singing hymns and praises to God because they knew their eternal destiny was sure.

And peace, peace, an absence of strife is what peace is, but the biggest strife, the biggest conflict that you have as a sinner is your account with the law of God that you've broken, the account with God who is just and your judge. But to have peace in Him, this is the fruit of the Spirit, a calmness. anchored in eternal certainty.

And then all of these other things, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, faith there means faithfulness, reliability, honesty, fruit of the Spirit of God, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Moderation in all things, maintenance of control. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

Yes, I know. We fail all of the time, but the general bent of a believer's life is the fruit of the Spirit. If anybody cannot see those things, then ask God to show it and to show it clearly. Amen.