And then we'll try to pick up
where we left off last week. The Word of God says, This I
say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary
the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that
ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit,
ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness,
revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before,
as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. As referred to
the Spirit, it is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no longer.
And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the
affections and lust. If we live in the Spirit, let
us also walk in the Spirit, and let us not be desirous of vain
glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Father,
Lord, we come now and we just ask that you would be with us
today. We ask, Lord, that you, as we just sung, that your Spirit
would come and would enable us to lift up our praise, to lift
up our worship to you. I pray, Lord, that you would
help me to preach. I pray that you would give understanding
to the brethren that are here to teach them. Lord, we pray
that our message today will extol the wonders of Jesus Christ and
what he has done for us. We thank you for that salvation.
We thank you for the gospel, Lord, that we have before us
to preach, to teach, to love. And Lord, we pray by your grace
to obey. And so we ask, Lord, that you
just fill our minds today with thoughts of Christ. Lord, I pray
today that if there's any here that is yet to be converted,
that is yours. I pray, Lord, that by the gospel,
that they might be drawn to you today and that they might profess
that faith in Christ Jesus and that they might be baptized.
that they might join this local body and that they might be servants
of Christ Jesus as He enables them through His Spirit. And
so, Father, Lord, we just again thank You so much for this day.
We thank You for these brethren that You brought to us today.
And it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Now, brethren, if you remember
last week, for those that was here and for those who wasn't,
I want to try to do a little bit of a recap. We went to Romans chapter 12.
Brother J.C. Fulton, whenever he was here
a couple of weeks ago, he preached on Romans chapter 12 verses 1
and 2. And if you want to turn there
with me, let's just kind of look at a couple of things as I try
to refresh the memory of those who was with us this last week,
but fill in those who were not. Romans chapter 12 verse 1 and
2, If you remember, Brother J.C. preached on these two verses,
and the stress of his message, which I mentioned to the church
was a great segue into what we've been learning in the letter to
the Galatians, is basically in verse 2 of Romans 12, that says,
to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. And if you remember Brother J.C.
in his sermon, he talked about that the only way that we can
present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable and blameless
under the Lord, everything is in verse 1, is by faith. It's by faith that we do these
things. We come to Christ and we look to Christ and what all
He has done, and that is what conforms our mind or transforms The way that we are transformed
and the renewing of our mind comes by thinking upon what Christ
has done for us. And that is perfectly in line,
and it should be, because the Holy Spirit has written all these
letters. And Paul, the one who actually
penned these things, has spoken in both places, not only in Romans,
but also in Galatians and in other places throughout the Scripture.
And so there is going to be no contradictions, right? And we
know that Paul in Romans, and as we looked at last week, we
saw that Paul for 11 chapters has written a doctrinal thesis
upon how God saves His people. How we are justified before a
holy God. and that we have been elected,
that we have been called, that we have been justified, that
we have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. And so he has spent 11
grueling chapters, 11 in-depth chapters, teaching us that salvation
is by Christ alone and not by anything that we do. and that
even our sanctification is by Christ alone and doesn't have
anything to do with what we do. And so he has preached grace
alone through Christ alone. That was Paul's message for 11
chapters. And I grew up, and I probably
mentioned this last week, I don't remember, but I grew up hearing
the first 11 chapters is doctrine, 12 through 16 that Paul wrote
is practical application. This is how we apply that doctrine
to our lives. Now I will say this, I'm not
going to completely disagree with that statement, but I will
disagree with the understanding that I had and at least that
I preach whenever I preach that, and that is the way that we apply
that doctrine that we just heard in the first 11 chapters, is
by yielding ourselves to Christ. By giving ourselves and permitting
Christ to live in us and through us. By yielding our bodies. By
yielding our spirits. By yielding to Him and submitting
to Him and letting God do it. Let God be in charge. Let God
be the Lord of your lives. Well, brethren, that's as far
from the truth as anything. We don't let God do anything.
We don't permit God to do anything. We don't yield ourselves to God. God is in control of everything
in our lives. The Bible says that the heart
of the king is in the Lord's hands and He turns it whithersoever
He wills. And if He does that for the king,
He does that for even those below the king. Okay? So God turns
our hearts. He's the one who is in control
of who we are and what we do, and it's by His power, by His
work, that we are what we are. That's why Paul said, you know,
what has made me different? I am what I am because of what
Christ is doing. Okay? So, as we read in chapter
12, verses 1 and 2, it starts out, it says, I beseech you,
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice. There you go. You've got to yield
yourself to God. That's not what that said. It
said to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service. Now last week I spent
an hour and 45 minutes showing that this cannot mean that we
are to present these bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, being our reasonable service. Because it
would contradict everything that Paul is taught in the first 11
chapters, everything that Paul is taught in Galatians, everything
that Paul is taught in Colossians, everything that Paul is taught
in almost every epistle that he has written. It contradicts
the Word of God. For us to take the meaning of
this is that we take these bodies and the service that we do in
the flesh and present that to Christ. Because, brethren, as
we've seen last week, there's only one sacrifice that's acceptable
to God, and that's Christ's. His body was the only sacrifice
that was acceptable unto God. He is the living sacrifice. He
died for us, as we read in Hebrews, once for all time. So there's
only one sacrifice. We read in Hebrews that by the
blood of bulls and goats, God is not pleased with. And that
was the act of service of the old covenant that God gave for
them. And he wasn't pleased with that.
He wasn't accepting that. It could not take away sins.
It could not cover the conscious. But we learned that there was
a new and better way, which was by the sprinkling of blood. And
by that sprinkling of blood, it clears our consciousness.
And by the work of that living sacrifice, whoever lives to intercede
for us, that living sacrifice, Christ Jesus, stands and says,
my obedience was their obedience. My death was their death. We
were vitally united to Christ whenever he lived, whenever he
died. Therefore, as our substitute,
his life, his death are our life and our death. His resurrection
is our resurrection. And therefore, him being the
living sacrifice is us being the living sacrifice. Him being
the body that the obedience of God was wrought out in, was our
body that the obedience of God. What does it say there? Holy
unto God. It was Him. He was the one who
was holy before God. We know that the Bible says that
there is none holy but God. He's holy. We're not holy. We
are viewed as holy because we are united to Christ Jesus. But
we are not holy. We are never going to be holy
in this lifetime. So he cannot be talking about
us being a living sacrifice because there's only one sacrifice, even
if we could be the sacrifice. Let's just say that. It's not
going to be a living sacrifice because this flesh is dying.
The Bible says that this flesh is continually to die, but the
inner man, that new man, that new creation that's inside of
us, it's renewed every day. It's livened every day. It's
not dying. It's living continually. But
this outer man, it perishes. It continues to waste away. It's
dying. From the minute you're born from
your mother's womb, you begin the dying process. You're dying
from day one until the day that whatever God has chosen for you
to die. And so we cannot be a living sacrifice because everything
done in this flesh is not only flesh that cannot please God,
but it's a dying sacrifice. It is something that cannot live.
It's something that cannot continue. It is something that is temporal.
It is not going to make it past this earthly time realm. It is
not going to make it into eternity. All the works of the flesh are
not going to work. Whenever we come before God and
are judged before God, whenever the Bible says that it is given
unto man once to die and after that to judgment, whenever we
stand before Jesus Christ, the Almighty Judge, and the books
are open, He is not going to look into a book of works that
we have done and say, well done, good faithful servant. You came
to church, you gave your money, you didn't swear, you didn't,
you know, get drunk, you didn't steal, you didn't kill anybody,
you didn't miss the Sabbath. He's not going to open up the
books and start judging us that way, brethren. Now, He's going
to do that with everybody else, the reprobate. But for the child
of grace, whenever the books are opened, He's going to see
that we're written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Therefore, there
was a Lamb slain on our behalf. Therefore, there was someone
who stood in our place. Whenever we are judged, we are
going to be found 100% perfect and holy before God, because
to our account, in the book of God, we are justified, we are
righteous, we are holy, we are sanctified. Whatever the terms
you want to put down in there, we are perfect. But it's not
from what we did in this body that was perfect. It's what Christ
did. So we can't be the living sacrifice.
We can't be holy. And what about this? Acceptable
unto God. Is there anything that you can
do through this flesh that is acceptable unto God? Well, we've
already learned in Galatians that the flesh is not acceptable
to God. We've learned in Romans. The flesh is not acceptable to
God. Paul just spent a heart-wrenching testimony of his own life in
chapter 7 talking about the battle between the flesh and the spirit
and how the flesh absolutely cannot do anything to the very
point where Paul said, Oh wretched man that I am. The one who says that I am the
chief of sinners. So can we do anything to be accepted
of God? Or can we do anything that's
acceptable to God? Absolutely not. We cannot do
anything acceptable. As a matter of fact, as we've
seen last week, Ephesians chapter 1, it says that the only way
that there's anything acceptable about us is the fact that we
have been made acceptable in Christ Jesus. Ephesians chapter
1. We've been made accepted in the
Beloved. It's in Him that we are made
accepted. It's because of His obedience and His death that
we are accepted. So it's not us there. It's not
us. So what does he mean there? We
kind of got to that at the end last week. What does he mean
then? If he means to present our bodies? Well, what Paul is
saying there, if you'll look at verse one, he says, I beseech
you therefore brethren. So we know that he's talking
about the people of God, right? He's not talking about the reprobate.
He's talking about the seed of God, the elect of God, those
chosen before the foundation of the world. those that were
sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Christ Jesus,
united within an eternal, vital union. He's talking about us. But look what he says, I beseech
you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, you present
your bodies. See, that was the key. I didn't
really hone in on that last week, but that's the key to knowing
what he means here in verse 1 and 2. It's by the mercies of God. What are the mercies of God?
Well, Paul just spent, again, 11 chapters talking about the
mercies of being elected, being called, being justified, being
sanctified. But I think more than anything,
he's speaking of the mercies that was promised to David, if
you look in context. Look with me, if you would, at
Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah 55. Let's look at verse 3. Isaiah 55 and verse 3. It says, incline your ear and
come unto me. Here and your soul shall live.
Now, this isn't talking about doing anything that works with
the flesh, right? This is incline your ear. Listen to what I'm
saying. Come unto me. Here and your soul shall live.
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. So he's talking about the sure
mercies of David. Now, again, look in Acts chapter
13. We looked at this last week.
Acts chapter 13. starting in verse 32. Remember,
David was a type of Christ. Acts 13, 32, it says, And we
declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was
made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their
children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also
written in the second song, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee. And as concerning that he raised
him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,
he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of
David. Wherefore he said, Also, in another
song, thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to seek corruption.
For David, after he had served his own generation by the will
of God, fell on sleep and was laid unto his fathers and saw
corruption. But he whom God raised again
saw no corruption. Be it known unto you, therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are
justified from all things from which ye could not be justified
by the law of Moses." So he's talking about the sure mercies
of David. What are the sure mercies of
David? It's the things that he promised
David that he would do for his people. It's the things that
he promised to the people in the covenant. The covenant that
he made was that He would forgive their sins, that He would justify
them based upon the work of Him, of Christ. Right? And so He says
here, and by Him all that believe are justified. Not will be justified. Do you notice that? The Reforms
say you will be justified when you believe. But this is those
who believe are justified from all things. from which he could
not be justified by the law of Moses. So the law of Moses cannot
justify us before God. Once again, we've heard that
a thousand times in our study. So here, if we go back to Romans
12, we see that the mercies of God are the promises that Christ
will do the work on our behalf. promises of the covenant will
be given to us. Is everybody following that? You see what I'm talking about?
So Paul is saying here, that's why he used the word therefore.
If you remember, I spoke about therefore. The therefore is to
tell us that everything that I said beforehand, I want to
bring it down to a point right here. Because of everything that
has happened, all the promises that was given to you, and all
that doctrine that I just preached in 11 chapters, in light of that,
present by the mercies of God, present your bodies as living
sacrifices. Through the mercies of Christ, present. How do we
present ourselves before God? How do we come before God? How
do we show our service to God according to God's Word? Is it
by doing things in the flesh? No. It's by coming to Him and
presenting ourself the way that our head did, the way that our
leader did, the way that our husband did, the way that our
Savior did. He presented Himself, perfect
obedience, perfect death, resurrection, that was presented unto God and
by His blood He sprinkled our hearts We were forgiven of our
sins and our conscience is made clean by the sprinkling of blood.
Our consciences are made clean whenever we have been born from
above, brethren, and by God's mercy and grace, we are converted
from thinking wrongly about righteousness. God brings us into the understanding
that it is by his blood and it is not by our works. His blood
has cleansed us and therefore we have been forgiven of every
sin. So we don't have to work to gain
acceptance. We don't have to keep the law
to gain acceptance before God. Our reasonable act of service
isn't to put this fleshly body to work with a list of things
to do. Our reasonable service is to believe that Jesus Christ
is standing as our living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,
and we're in Him, and therefore, we are just as He is. That's
our reasonable act of service. And you say, well, what about
all these other things that we're told to do? Remember, all these
admonitions of God are things that the Spirit is going to work
in our heart, but they are not the things that we are to do
to gain acceptance with God or to keep acceptance with God.
Again, it's by the mercies of God that we present ourselves
before God. It's by those mercies, not by
our actions. And as I mentioned, we know for
a fact, and I said this at the very beginning last week, I don't
claim to have all this figured out. I don't claim to know all
the Word of God. I'm still learning just like
everybody else is, and I've only been given the life that I've
been given. And sometimes we may not know what something actually
means, but we can know what it doesn't mean. And just like here, we know that
it cannot mean that we are to be a living sacrifice because
we cannot be a sacrifice before God. There's only one sacrifice. We know that we're not holy.
We know that we're not acceptable unto God by the things that we
do. So we know what it's not saying. It's not saying these
things are going to make us acceptable before God because God will not
accept these things in our flesh. He will not accept anything done
by our flesh. Therefore, we are left with only
one course of action, and that's to trust in Christ.
Brethren, that's what it means to renew your mind. Be transformed. He says, be not conformed to
this world. What does he mean by that? What
is being conformed to the world? What is the world doing? The
world is thinking, and you can go to every religion outside
of this type of religion that we preach. Go to any religion,
and I'm even talking about professed Christianity. Go to every religion,
and what is at the center of every religion? That's common in every one of
them. Anybody know? Free will. You look at every
religion, including modern day Christianity, and you find at
the very center of that is I have decided to follow Jesus. I have
decided to follow Buddha. I have decided to follow Allah.
I have decided to follow Hare Krishna or whoever else you want
to put in there. Okay? I have decided to follow Jesus. But not the Jesus of the Bible.
The Jesus that we have made up in our own mind that doesn't
save everybody that he died for. only made salvation possible,
but leaves it into your hands to accept it or reject it. See,
that's the Jesus they have accepted. That's the Jesus that they follow,
who really isn't the Jesus of the Bible. At the heart of every
religion is free will, and at the heart of free will, the reason
that free will is there is so that we can make the choices
to do what God has said and therefore establish a righteousness of
our own. At the heart of the world system
is producing a righteousness of our own. If you remember,
I mentioned to you that that is the nature of Adam. That's
who we are in Adam. We are people who think we can
produce a righteousness of our own, but we can't. God won't
accept any righteousnesses of our own. He will only accept
the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And so we're not to be conformed
to the world in thinking that we can do anything to perform
a righteousness before God. That's what Paul is saying here.
He spent all this time saying salvation is by grace alone in
Christ. By Christ. And we understand that. We live
in that by faith. He's not going to turn right
around and say, now get out there and get busy trying to make yourself
right before God. That is contradictory to all
that the Scriptures teach. So what are we talking about?
We're talking about conform. Don't be conformed to the world
system, which is do it yourself and be good. But we're looking
at being transformed by the renewing of our mind. Transform ourselves
from thinking this way to thinking this way. And how do we do that?
By the renewing of our mind. Thinking upon how we were saved. And by doing so, we prove what
is good and acceptable and perfect. Will of God. Now, turn back to
Galatians and we'll get into what we want to see today. Galatians chapter 5. Now we saw
last week when we were looking through the scriptures that there
is a new and living way as opposed to... You said it last week,
the old and dying way. You have just the opposite. The
old covenant is the old and dying way. The new covenant is the
new and living way. The old covenant has passed away.
The new covenant is here to stay. Now this new and living way is
through the blood of Jesus Christ. We come a different way. There
is a new and living way to live, and it's not by performance.
It's not by the works in the flesh. Now look again at our
passage, verse 16. It says, This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall
not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
the one to the other." Now let's look at this phrase, walk in
the Spirit. We've talked about this already multiple times. All the phrases, walk in the
light, obey the truth, obey the gospel, walking by faith, walking
in the Spirit, all these are talking about the exact same
thing. It's walking in faith. Walking by faith of what Jesus
has done. Looking to His obedience for
our own obedience. Looking at His sacrifice. Looking
to our substitute and not at ourselves. That's what walking
in the Spirit means. And I'm going to show you that
here in just a minute. But it says walk in the Spirit.
It means to trust that we are accepted. Trust that we have kept the work
of Christ by His work. Trust that there's not any acts
that we can do or might be able to do, but it's what He has done. It doesn't even say that we're
to get out there and do things as God works through us. It's
what God has worked in us. It's what God works in you. Not
through you, it's in you. The works of God that He has
ordained for you to walk in are works that He works in you. And
you will walk in them. That's the promise of God, that
you will walk in them. But these walks are spiritual
walks. They're not fleshly walks. They're
spiritual walks. Now look what He says here, because
I want us to understand a couple of things. He says, For the flesh
lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.
Now we already learned that in Romans 7. Paul said that. That
war between the flesh and the Spirit. But look what it says. It says the flesh lusts. That
word lust there means to desire strongly or to covet. So the flesh desires strongly
against the work of the Spirit. And the work of the Spirit strongly
against the flesh. But what does he say? He says
these two are contrary. What does the word contrary mean? Opposite, right? Yeah. Complete opposite. The works
of the flesh are opposite the works of the spirit or the lust
of the spirit. The lust of the flesh, the lust
of the spirit are in complete opposition to each other and
therefore the Holy Spirit of God by Paul is telling us, therefore
since these things are in us, both, and both of these are adamantly
opposed to each other, as I said in Romans 7, therefore there
is this principle. We cannot do what we want to
do. Now does he mean that in the
spirit or in the flesh? That's my question to you. Don't answer that too quick.
Look at our verse there. He says, The flesh lusts against
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary
to one to the other, so that. So the fact that these are contrary
one to the other, that makes it where you cannot do the things
that ye would. Now, there is something in the
flesh that wants to do what it wants to do, right? But there
is something in the spirit that wants to do what it wants to
do, right? But if you notice there, it doesn't delineate between
which one cannot be done. Can we do the works of the flesh? Absolutely we can. Do we do the
works of the spirit? Absolutely we do. So that kind
of asks the question, what does it mean then? If we cannot do
the things that we would, but yet we do things in the flesh
and we do things by the Spirit, what is it talking about there,
brethren? Well, I hope I'm not losing you,
but here's the thing. Because the flesh lusts against
the Spirit, therefore we do things in the flesh and we don't want
to. The Spirit doesn't like the works
of the flesh. Whenever I sin against God, do
I like that? Absolutely I don't. I don't want
to do that. I don't want to sin against God.
I don't want to be unholy. I don't want to be unrighteous.
I don't want to do things that is displeasing to God. And so the Spirit, I want to
do good. I want to do righteousness. I
want to do holiness. I want to do the things That
is always pleasing before God. But because of my flesh, I cannot. Because the flesh is weak and
cannot keep the law of God. So I cannot do the things in
the Spirit that I want to do. But let's look at the other side. The Spirit lusts against the
flesh. So those things in the flesh that come up that I do
want to do, The Spirit is there, and most
cases, most of the time, overrides what the flesh wants to do. Brethren,
listen, if it wasn't for the Spirit of God in us, the flesh
would have full reign and control to do anything that it wants
to do. But God, by His providence and His perfect purpose, has
decreed that sin remain in the child of grace to humble us before
God, to remind us of our need for Him. And therefore, as sin
still remains, God has purpose in that sin and God uses that
sin to chasten His children. And in chastening His children,
they begin to look unto Jesus. They continue to look to Jesus
because every time that sin comes up, the Holy Spirit convicts
us. Every time that sin comes in, our awakened mind knows that
we have sinned against God, and therefore it drives us back to
Christ. So sin, while it is evil, while
sin, it's condemning. Sin and the child of grace is
a tool that God uses. To the reprobate, it's nothing
but condemnation, brethren. But to the child of grace, Sin
is still a tool that God uses to chasten us because He loves
us and to teach us and to grow us in the grace and knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, I would not have even
known what sin was except by the law. God gave me this law,
which He never meant for me to keep and by my nature cannot
keep. He gave me this law. Why? To
drive me into the dust, showing me over and over and over again
my sinfulness. God had a purpose in sin. The
law came in so that sin might abound. God has given us the
law so that we might see we are sinners. And in showing us we're
sinners, can the child of grace who has a mind from heaven understand
that we cannot do or accomplish anything. Therefore, we have
to look to Christ. it keeps us looking to Christ.
And just think about it in your own experience, brethren. Every
time you sin against God, does it not drive you to your knees
to go to Christ, to thank Him for His forgiveness, to thank
Him for His grace, to see that you cannot make it on your own? That's what that does. And so
God has given us the Spirit, and that Spirit in us keeps us
from doing a lot of things that we would, by nature, want to
do and continue to do. But it has caused us to not do
that. So that consternation is there.
The flesh is flesh and it cannot please God. Jesus said that,
John 3. The Spirit is Spirit and is perfect and obeys God. The Spirit does not work on the
flesh or make it better. It's two residing principles
within us. The nature of us, which is an
atom, that's flesh, and that new creation that's above, the
Spirit of God that lives in us. Think of it this way. If the
Spirit works anything in the flesh to make it better, it is
no longer just flesh, right? Let's go back to thinking about
presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, God working in us
and through us. So, God causes us to do these
actions outwardly, that those actions are going to be accepted.
The outward things. Again, I'm talking about the
outward things. Things done in the flesh, by the flesh, through
the flesh. If the Spirit of God comes in
and does something through the flesh, then the flesh is no longer
just flesh. It's a mixture, right? But the
Bible says that which is born of the flesh is flesh. It doesn't become something else.
When we are born of God, the flesh doesn't change. It doesn't
get better. God doesn't regenerate us. Okay? That word regeneration is not
used for being born from above. That's not what that's talking
about. It's talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That is what regeneration was. That's the regeneration that's
found twice in the Word of God. In that context only. When we
are born of God, That is whenever the Holy Spirit is given to us,
that's a new creation. That's a new creature. That's
not something reworked in us. So if the Spirit works anything
in the flesh to make us better, the flesh is no longer flesh,
but it's spiritual, just in part, right? And the Bible says that the body,
whenever it dies, it is what? It is sown a natural body. Not a spiritual body. But if
Jesus comes in and He gives this body here some good to do, the
ability to do good, then it's no longer natural. But it's now
a spirit-filled body. But is that what the Scripture
teaches us? Is this body ever become spiritual? No. 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that
this body is natural and it will only be natural and it will only
produce the things of the natural man. The spiritual body that
is perfect and holy and righteous and is without sin is something
that's waiting for us when this body perishes. Whenever this
body made of dust goes back to the ground from which it was
made, then that new body is given to us that is created righteous,
holy, it's not tainted with sin, and is joined with that perfect
Holy Spirit that is in us that cannot sin, right? So there's
nothing that this flesh can do in this time, in this life, that
is pleasing because any efforts of the Spirit to work something
in this flesh goes contrary to the Word of God because the Word
of God says this flesh is only flesh and it cannot be anything
else but flesh. It can only produce the things of the flesh and therefore
they will not be accepted, neither will the works of the flesh be
accepted. So even if the Spirit works in your flesh, out of your
flesh, so others can see things in the flesh, then that right
there is not something that has made you accepted before God.
Now, it might be actions that we do, it might be stuff that
we do, but that is not the basis and the grounds on acceptance
before God, of keeping, of perseverance before God. That has got nothing
to do with salvation, whether eternal or temporal. If you allow
me that word. It drove clear that the flesh
cannot do anything. The flesh cannot do anything,
brethren. The flesh desires the things of the earth and of time.
The Spirit desires the things of heaven and eternity. Completely
opposite. The flesh desires the elevation
of self. The Spirit desires the elevation
of Christ. And there's where the rub is.
That's where I went back to what we were talking about in Romans
chapter 12. Not being conformed to this world. Being conformed to this world
is elevating self. But being transformed by the
renewing of your mind is to exalt and to lift up Christ instead. The flesh desires elevation of
self. The Spirit desires elevation
of Christ. If we are to elevate Christ,
we are not to look to our own self for righteousness, but look
to Christ alone. That's called faith. The works
of the flesh will always exalt the flesh. The works of the Spirit
will always exalt the works of Christ. So it says here, then
in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. It says, if we live in the Spirit,
let us also walk in the Spirit. Now, what's that tied to? Well,
look back up at verse 18. It says, but if ye be led of
the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Well, what does that mean? Well,
if we are being led by the Spirit, the Bible says that the law is
not of faith, right? So if we're being led by the
Spirit, The Spirit is not going to lead us in the things of death. It's not going to lead us in
the law because the law is not a faith. The Spirit is given
to us to lead us in faith. So, if ye be led of the Spirit,
you're not under the law. You're under grace. If we're
led by the Spirit, we're not out there working for acceptance.
and salvation, sanctification, we're out there living in faith
of what Christ has done. That's being led of the Spirit. Therefore, we're not under the
law. But if you want to sink back and look to your flesh to
produce something, present your bodies a living sacrifice, then
guess what? You're now back under the law.
You're back under the law. Ain't that what Paul told us?
already in this book, that if you desire to do those things,
that you are back under bondage. If you want to go back to the
weak and beggarly elements, you're now going to bring yourself back
under bondage, you're back under the law. You who say you want
to keep the law, do you not know what the law says? The law says
that you've got to keep it perfectly. Every bit of it, not just the
Ten Commandments, but every bit of it. Every bit of it, you've
got to keep it perfectly. You can't do that. You can't.
It's only going to condemn you. Every time you go back to wanting
to do what the law tells you to do, you're subject to have
to keep a whole entire thing, and it's going to condemn you.
It's death. The law is the ministry of death.
So Paul says if we're led in the Spirit, we're not under that.
Now, look at verse 19. I want to make a couple of things
here before we finish up. It says, but if you're led in
the Spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh
are manifest. Now I want you to pay close attention.
There's two words being used here. Verse 19 starts out and
talks about the things of the flesh. And then in verse 22,
we're going to see the things of the Spirit, but it starts
off with two different words. It says, now the works of the
flesh are manifest, which are these. adultery, fornication,
uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
inbeings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of
the witch I tell you before, as I have told you in time past,
that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom
of God. These are the works of the flesh
rather than these are manifest in the nature of Adam. That's
what every one of us are capable of, save for the grace of God
keeping us from doing any of these things. But look, it says
it's the works of the flesh. That's what we do. That's what
we produce. That's what the flesh produces.
If you want to live by the flesh, you're going to be producing
those things. If you think that your acceptance
is going to be through the flesh, that's what these things are
and they will not inherit the kingdom of God. But look at verse
22. It says, but the fruit of the
Spirit. You notice it didn't say the
works of the Spirit. It said the fruits. See, the works of
the flesh are things that we do because that's what naturally
comes out of us. But what happens with the Spirit
is nothing that we can work. It's what's worked in us. A fruit,
and we've talked about this example before, a fruit is something
that comes from the life of the vine and the branch that holds
it there. The life is the life of the vine
and it comes through the branch and it just is produced by the
light that's in the vine. And the only thing that that
branch does is just show forth that fruit. It doesn't work the
fruit. You don't see an apple out there
working itself to shine it up and make it look shiny and red.
Okay? You don't see a banana out there
trying to curve itself and make itself nice and curvy. You don't
see the fruit doing any work because fruit is not work. The work was done by the life
that flowed into it. So the fruit is the outcome of
the work of the life inside upon the inside of the branch. It's not the work of the branch.
It's not anything that the branch does. Matter of fact, whenever
you see these fruits, what is it doing? Most of the time, it's
just barely hanging by something very tiny and small. You don't
even hardly see it. It's almost as if that fruit
is not even connected at all to that tree. It's just hanging
there. It's just dangling there. How
many of y'all eat the stems from an apple? When you pull an apple
off, do you eat that stem? No, because there's nothing good
in there, right? It's just what holds that on to display the
fruit on the tree, or on the vine, or on the plant, whatever
it is that you're looking at, right? The life of Christ is
what is worked on the inside of us so that we, in and of ourselves,
produce a fruit. Not that we work out a fruit.
We don't work this out. And I've heard people say, and
you've probably heard this too, that the fruits of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace. But, you know, I don't have that fruit
yet. I don't have this fruit yet. You know, I'm working on
my temperance. But, you know, I've got love
and I've got joy and I've got peace. Long-suffering, the Lord's
still working on that. You're assuming that the fruit
is something that you work. That the fruit is something that
you produce. But it's not. It's something
that the Spirit produces in you. In you. Therefore we have love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against us there is no law. There is no law because those
are works of the Spirit, not works of the flesh. And the Bible
says if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. If
you're not under the law, then there is no law. to be against
that. So anything that the spirit produces
in us, there is no law saying you can't do that, or that's
not good, or you're condemned for doing that. But anything
that comes out of works of the flesh, the law has every right
to condemn. So you see, what is Paul telling
us here? Why does he even bring these
things up? Why does He bring up the works of the flesh and
the fruit of the Spirit right here? Is it a marching command
for you to quit doing the works of the flesh and start doing
the fruits of the Spirit? No. What's He doing? Why did
He put this in this section about liberty in Christ Jesus? Why
did He put it in this section about being led by the Spirit
and walking in the Spirit? Because we've got to know where
the source is of both of these. The source of the flesh is us. The works of the flesh is us.
The fruits of the Spirit is Him. And if we realize that everything
that is in us is condemnable and everything that's produced
by Him is acceptable, then we quit looking to us and we keep
looking to Him. That's why it's in here. That's
why it's there. This isn't a little segment that
Paul added in so that it would bolster your flesh to get out
and do good. He put it in here to, once again,
drive us to our knees to look unto Jesus, the author and the
finisher of our faith. He's there to prove to us that
the works of the flesh are manifest as things that cannot keep the
law of God. Therefore quit looking and hoping
in and turning to the things of the flesh for your salvation,
for your acceptance, for your continuance in salvation. Because it will never ever turn
out good for you. Look to Jesus. As a matter of
fact, verse 24, They that are Christ have crucified the flesh
with the affections and lusts." We've crucified those things.
We know that the flesh is not going to produce anything. So
therefore, we have died to our self. We have died. Now what does that mean? That
each day I get up and I tell myself, no, you're not going
to do that, Constrain my sin so I can live holy. Is that what
that's talking about? No. What does dying to yourself
mean? It means to die to the understanding
that I can produce righteousness. That's what dying to yourself
means. That's what this means. I have crucified the flesh with
the affections and lust. The lust of the flesh is to produce
righteousness. We, if we are God's children,
crucify the flesh. We put it to death. There is
no notion of righteous keeping for me because I'm just flesh. The only righteousness is what
Christ has done. Brethren, it always comes back
to Christ alone. Christ alone. Christ alone. He's our substitute. Why would
we need a substitute if we could produce this righteousness on
our own? That's why Paul said, if you think that you can do
these things, then Christ has died in vain. Christ is of no
effect for you. Might as well just forget about
the whole thing of the cross because you can produce a righteousness
that's acceptable to God. That's a slap in the face of
God. That's blasphemy to think that God would accept any work
that we do. The preacher, you're just saying
We just live like hell and God's going to accept anything that
we do because of what Christ did. That's not what I said.
That's what people want to think that I said, but that's not what
I said. Because the Bible here says that the love of God constrains
us. The Bible here tells us that the spirit that is in us wars
against and lusts against the flesh so that we cannot do the
things that we want to do. So the flesh is going to be stopped
by the spirit as God purposes. I told you guys this before.
We're going to work every work that God has ordained for us
to work. No more, but no less either. But those works are internal
spiritual works that God has given for us. And that is faith. That is repentance. That is these
that we read right here. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Those are
the things that God is producing in us. Those are the works of
God. And so it says in verse 25, if
we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. So,
if we live in the Spirit, he's saying, if you're a child of
grace and you live in the Spirit, this is how we walk. He's not
giving you a command to start walking that way. He says, let
us also walk in the Spirit. If we live in the Spirit, then
we should be walking in the Spirit. That's the nature of the child
of the Spirit. to walk that way. Let us not
be desirous of vain glory. And that goes right with what
we've seen in the works of the flesh. The works of the flesh
want to produce a righteousness of its own. It wants to, remember
I said a while ago, it wants to exalt itself. Let's not be
desirous of vain glory. Remember when Paul said how good
of a the Pharisee he was? He was the Pharisee of Pharisees.
He was Gamaliel's right-hand man. He kept the law perfectly. He did all these things. I mean,
he was the Jew's perfect child. But what did Paul say whenever
God revealed His Son in him? Whenever God revealed His Son
in Paul, Paul said, all those things that I thought were gains,
I now count as loss. I consider them done. Except
for the glory of Christ. That's what he desires. He didn't
desire to pump himself up anymore. He didn't desire to lift himself
and exalt Paul anymore. He desired to exalt Christ Jesus. And so let us not be desirous
of vain glory. provoking one another, envying
one another. See, whenever you work in the
flesh, you know what we start doing? We start inspecting everyone
else's work. Well, look at me. I do all this.
Brother so-and-so, he's not doing what he ought to do. He should
be doing more. How come every Sunday I do this? How come it's always these groups
of people that does it, but those over there, they're not ever
doing anything? We're always inspecting. Well, it was okay
for Brother So-and-so to go out there and do something. We're always looking at each
other. We're always going to judge each other by each other.
So he says here, let's not provoke one another and envy one another.
Let's look unto Christ. Let's look at Him. All right, does anybody have
a question or a comment? Anything that comes to your mind
you want to read? Writer, it says, works are like
in plural. Plural. But here, when we talk
about the spirit, we say it's the truth. That it has nine characteristics. And that number is Zacharias
4, verse 6. I don't know if you can read
it. What was it, Zacharias? Yes. And verse 6, we have to know
that it's not because we don't do something, just because of
the Spirit. Zechariah 4 and verse 6. It's part B, verse 6. This is
the last one. Not by might, nor by power, but
by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Is that what you're
talking about? Yeah. Yeah, that's actually what I was kind of getting
at a while ago when I said we look at those fruits of the Spirit
and we start saying, well, I'm working on this one and I'm trying
on this one. I'm not too good at this one.
It isn't singular or plural fruits, as my brother said. It's a singular
thing. This is the fruit. Love, joy,
peace, all those things are the characteristic of the Spirit
of God in us. It's not we're working on this
one, we're working on this one, or working on this one, okay? You know, we used to sing that
song, he's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.
Okay? It's really not biblical, he's
still working on me, but he's working on me to grow in the
grace and knowledge of Christ, not to start working on the outward
place. He's not working on me to try to make me more holy,
because I can't be holy. He's working on me to trust in
the One who is holy. I look to Him. Yeah, brother,
that's a good observation there, that the fruit of the Spirit
is singular. Now, I was taught that growing
up, despite what I believed myself, what I believed about that. You
know, something that we worked on, but we were taught Now that's
a singular thing there, it's not a plural. But they all come
together in one package. It's a fruit basket. Not a fruit market. Copyrighted, unregistered trading
market. Put my picture on that and put
it on the internet. All right. Anybody else got a question or
any correction? Alright. Let's bow and have a
little prayer. Father, we thank You today for
Your grace and mercy. Once again, we thank You for
Christ Jesus, who is our all in all. We know that this flesh
will always produce the things of the flesh. But we look to
the finished work of Jesus Christ and we rest in that. And Lord,
I know that there are many who listen and watch They don't grasp
that, and they cannot grasp it because it's spiritually enlightened,
it's spiritually taught. These are not things that are
revealed by flesh and blood, but they're revealed by the Spirit
of God. But Father, we truly are thankful
of the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus, that it truly is
Him, our substitute. and that as we live the rest
of this life, and though He can form our mind by His Word in
teaching us more about Him, Lord, we learn more and more of our
inability, and we cherish more His ability. And so, Father,
I just pray that those that are listening and hearing, especially
those who might have doubts or have trouble with these things,
Lord, I pray that you by your spirit might teach them and you
might bring them into right understanding. Father, I pray that if what I
preach is not of the truth, which I know that I'm prone to be able
to do because of my flesh, Lord, I pray that if it is an error
that you would bring me into correction through your word.
But brethren, we feel here and we know that we cannot say more
about Christ. We cannot say too much about
Christ. I should say. And so Father, we just say that
our hope is in Him and not in our performance. And Lord, we
just pray that even if our lack of performance, quote-unquote, is a sin against God, we know
that even that has been covered by His blood. We do not want
to presume upon that. But Father, that's our only hope,
is to do what we know what we've been taught and we've been taught
of God that we are to look to Jesus, trust in Jesus. Our hope is Jesus. Our life and
our punishment was by Jesus and that he now lives to ever intercede
for us so that there is never any guilt there. No one can lay
any charge against God's elect. So father, I just pray that you
just might help us to continue to cherish the gospel. May it
exalt the Lord Jesus Christ always, and that you might help us to
stay in the faith here at this church. And I pray for these
brethren that are here, Lord, that you be with them as they
leave this place this week, and that you might speak and minister
and testify of what Christ has done through them to the people
that they're around, Lord. May they glorify Christ and honor
Christ in all the things that they say and do. Lord, I just
thank you again And it's in Christ's name that we pray these things.
Amen.