Well, let me have you join me
tonight over once again in the book of Galatians. That's where
we were the other morning. I don't know how many of you
were here to hear the first session that I had with you. I do encourage
you to get a copy of the recording, not because I preached it, but
because it is so critical to understand what we're going to
say tonight, to have the background of what I said the other morning. I'm going to take as my text
tonight Galatians 5 starting in verse 13. And we'll read to
the end of the chapter. Galatians 5 verse 13. The Apostle Paul writes, For
brethren, ye have been called unto liberty. Only use not liberty
for an occasion to the flesh. but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled
in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one
another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill
the lusts of the flesh, For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one
to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.
But if you be led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now
the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, Witchcraft. Hatred. Variance. Emulations. Where am I? Wrath. Wrath. I tell you, it's a long
list, isn't it? And I want you to notice it's
not an all-inclusive list. strife, seditions, heresies,
envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and the like. We could
just go on and on here. Of which I tell you before, as
I have also told you in time past, that they who do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit Love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have
crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. And if
we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let
us not be desirous of vain glory. provoking one another, envying
one another. Well, Paul, this entire letter
has been proving to us the absolute impossibility of justification
before God that is being accepted by God on the basis of our own
good works. On the basis of the works of
the law. As I said the other morning,
he's beat that horse till it's dead. He's come at it from every
direction proving that point. Rather, how is it that we are
justified? It is not through our own production. We are not producers, folks.
We are consumers. We are consumers of the grace
of God, of the work of Jesus Christ on Calvary done for the
sake of sinners. We receive what God has produced
through His Son. We do not produce righteousness. We receive righteousness. We
do not produce life. We receive life. We are, in a
word, Parasites. You say, well, I don't like being
called a parasite. All right. A tick. We had a dog a few years ago,
and that dog would go out in the woods, and he'd come back
with his big, you know, big old fat juicy tick. And my kids just
loved to take those things and pop them. And you know what was
inside that big fat juicy tick is blood. Dog blood. You see, a parasite does not
produce life. It draws life from the life of
another. And that is precisely what we
are. If you are a Christian tonight,
you have received life. You are feeding on the blood
and the flesh of Jesus Christ. Those are His words. We are drawing
our life, our sustenance from Him. All right. Now that's what
Paul has been proving all the way up to this point in the book
of Galatians. But now I come to another question. Now what? All right. I'm now a Christian. I'm now
a believer. I'm now a disciple. And all those
words are interchangeable. They all mean the same thing.
Now what do I do? How do I live? How then shall we then live then? Francis Schaeffer wrote a book
something like that. You get the idea. What now? What
next? I hope that all of you here tonight
understand that Christians are to live godly, righteous, Christ-honoring
lives. Is that true? And if you don't
believe it, lost folks know that much. You say, well, how do they
know that? I don't know, but they know.
You let them catch you or me in some hanky-panky. When they
know you're a Christian and they catch you doing some of the list
of things Paul just mentioned here, they'll be glad to point
out to you that a Christian ought to be living better than that,
right? You call yourself a Christian and you're doing these things.
Even lost men know better than that. I mean, it takes a smart
fellow. It takes a theologian to figure
out how a Christian can do those things and get away with it.
You understand? The average guy knows better than that. But how
do we produce it? And if you're a Christian, I'm
going to be speaking mainly to the saints tonight. You who are
believers in Christ, you who are followers of Christ, you
have put your trust, your faith, your hope in Christ. How do we
do it? Well, you remember I told you
about the Judaizers, those that were coming along behind Paul
here in the Galatian churches trying to put Gentiles under
the law of Moses, and they had their way of doing it. Let's
put them under the law. I mean, Gentiles were renowned
for their licentiousness, for their immorality. I mean, they
lived filthy, godless lives. And so the natural instinct for
a Jew is to say, let's put them under the law of Moses. Let's
make them keep the law. And that will restrain their
sinful behavior. It was the equivalent of saying,
well, OK, let's go to Jesus for our justification. But let's
go to Moses for our sanctification. In other words, to be accepted
by God, let's put our faith in Christ. But in order to live
the life that God wants us to live, we've got to go back under
the law of Moses. Now, Paul has already responded
to that back in chapter 3, verse 3. He says, having begun in the
Spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh? We've put that
in a little different words. Are you going to change horses
in the middle of the stream? Having started out in one manner,
are you now going to reach perfection in the other? And of course the
answer is no. And so Paul here in chapter 5 warns us of two
great dangers as far as our approach to living the Christian life.
The first danger is found in Galatians 5 verse 1. Paul says,
Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ hath made us
free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. And he's talking about the Mosaic
Law. The first danger is what we call legalism, trying to live
a God-honoring life by keeping rules and regulations. The legalist,
you can almost always spot him because a legalist is going to
focus on what he does not do rather than what he does do.
Now, the legalist will tell you there's some things you need
to do, but if you listen to him closely, you'll find that what's
central to his thinking is what you don't do. To be a Christian,
you don't do these things. In fact, Paul over in Colossians
says, touch not, taste not, handle not. And about 90% of my Christian
upbringing in the church where I was raised could be summed
up in those three things, touch not, taste not, handle not. That's the way a legalist thinks.
And a legalist sort of will suck the joy out of a room. I mean, they do. Because you
see, the legalist is absolutely miserable. I think the best example
of where legalism puts you is Martin Luther. I mentioned him
the other day, but as a Roman Catholic monk doing his very
best to somehow please God by his own works. He's absolutely
miserable. You ought to read his writings.
Torturing himself. Because you see, no matter how
much you do, there's always something more you should have done. You
say, well, your heart should have been in it. Well, how do
I know when my heart's in it? How do I know when I've done
enough, and how much is enough anyway? You understand, there's
always something more. And not only am I miserable myself,
but if you're having fun, if you've got a smile on your face,
I'm going to be there to wipe it off, because you ought to
be miserable right along with me. Do you understand? That's the way a legalist thinks. So that's one great danger. In
fact, that was what came up at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts
15, if you know the biblical history of the New Testament.
The question was, do we put these Gentile believers under the law
of Moses? And Peter says, well, I was there
in the house of Cornelius. I saw God give these uncircumcised
Gentiles, non-kosher eating Gentiles, the same gift he gave us. So
why tempt you, God, to put these Gentile believers under the yoke
that neither we nor our fathers could bear? And that's what Paul
is saying here. Don't let anybody put you under
this yoke of bondage. Now, that's the first extreme.
That's the first danger, the first warning. But it's not the
only one. There's another danger at the
other extreme, and we found it in the first verse of our text
here in Galatians 5, verse 13. Brethren, ye have been called
unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. To serve the flesh, which means
more or less to serve yourself. This extreme we call libertinism. We have liberty and we flaunt
our liberty and we use our liberty, our freedom from the law as an
excuse to live however we please and to serve ourselves rather
than to serve Christ. So you have those two extremes
and Paul warns us of both in this one chapter. Now both Paul and the Judaizers
realize something that we ought to realize, that God's purpose
in salvation is not to populate heaven with a bunch of sinners. You do realize that. If he's going to do that, he
might as well just leave us here. Look what one sin in this world
produced. If his purpose is to let sinful
man into his heaven, we're going to wind up with the biggest mess
in heaven as we have here on earth. His purpose is to put
men in heaven who once were sinners, but have now been glorified and
perfected. Freed not only from the guilt
of sin, but the power of sin and the presence of sin. Now, about half of you right
then and there decided you didn't want to go to heaven. Who was it this morning? It was
Darren, you know, talking about guys joking, you know, yeah,
I want to go to heaven, that's where my, or I want to go to
hell, that's where my buddies are, you know, that type of thing.
We have the same ideas about heaven. Heaven's where I'm going
to go and have a big time with the boys. My friend, if you have not a
heart made fit for heaven, you would be absolutely as miserable
as a person can be in heaven. Heaven will be a hell to you
if you do not have a nature now that delights in heaven. We think
somehow we're going to die. We're going to die and suddenly
love nothing more than to spend our time praising god saying
it is great you know there's going to be this we believe in
justification by death i think that's really the what we truly
believe in these days you'd die and suddenly you've got a lot
of floating on a cloud with a heart singing praises of god my friend
at death you don't gain a new nature if you gain a new nature
it's going to be in this life you lose the old nature in death
but you don't gain the new one So God's purpose is to populate
heaven with a holy people. That should be obvious. I'm thinking
of a text over in Titus in chapter 2, somewhere around verse 11. You may want to check me out
on this. Where Paul writes that the grace of God that bring us
salvation teaches us that denying ungodliness and ungodly lusts
that we should live soberly. Hear that? Soberly, righteously,
godly in this present world. You say you're trying to put
us under the law. Paul said grace teaches you that. He didn't say
the law teaches you. Grace, the grace that brings
us salvation, teaches us not to sin but to live a righteous
life. Now the question is how does
grace do that? How does it happen? Well, Paul's
going to make a couple of assumptions. He really doesn't go into this,
but I want you to realize that beneath the surface here, in
between the lines, Paul is assuming some things. Number one, he's
assuming that the people that he's writing this to are new
creatures in Jesus Christ. They have been made new. They
have been the theological term, regenerated. You can read about
it back in the Old Testament, Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel chapter
36. It's something like this, that God is going to write His
laws within, on our hearts. Rather than standing over us,
the laws, you know, I sometimes think even in our courtrooms
where they want to put the laws up on the wall, that rather than
the law of God being imposed from the outside, the law of
God is written on the inside so that there is a delight, a
want to, to please God. My friend, if that's not you,
you're not saved. That's the definition of a Christian.
He wants to serve God because God has given him a new nature,
a new heart. He's put His Spirit in him. He's
given us of His Spirit to cause us to keep His commandments,
do His judgments. You understand that God has done
something within that makes me delight. I'm using the words
of Paul here in Romans 7. I delight in the law of God after
the inward man. I never want to sin again. You say, well, Brother Mark,
I don't want to sin much. And I certainly don't want to
commit these grosser sins. My friend, the definition of
a Christian is that if he could, he'd never sin again. Oh, how
many times I've wished I could take a piece of paper and write
my sins on that piece of paper and burn it and never commit
those things again. How many would join me in that?
You understand what I'm saying? That is the definition of a Christian.
That's the first assumption, that Paul is writing to somebody
who has been regenerated, has the law of God written within,
who delights to please God. There's a second assumption,
and it's not as hidden as the first, that as long as we are
in this life, not only do we have that new nature with us,
but we have an old, fallen nature. He calls here the flesh. The flesh. And notice in verse
17 of our text that the flesh and the Spirit are warring, are
lusting against one another. They're contrary. They're opposite.
They're pulling us in opposite directions. Remember we saw the
conflict between flesh and spirit back there in the burrs of Isaac?
the one born of the Spirit, and Ishmael, the one born of the
flesh, if you were here the other morning. Now that same conflict,
we've got an Isaac and an Ishmael at war within our own hearts,
within our own lives. There is an Isaac, this supernatural
thing that God has produced in us, but there's also an Ishmael,
the old flesh, wanting to have its way. And notice that these
things are opposite the conclusion that he draws in verse 17, so
that you cannot do the things that you would. It results in
an inability to do what I really want to do. And some of you that
are familiar with Romans 7 realize that this is just Paul paraphrasing
what he's already written in Romans chapter 7. the good things
I want to do, I wind up not doing them, and the bad things I don't
want to do, I wind up doing them. That there is something within
me that is keeping me from reaching my goal, what my heart truly
desires. And so these things stand opposite
one to another, and that is my problem. But it's also my solution. It's also the solution that Paul
points out in verse 16. that the flesh and spirit being
opposite one another means that I cannot be under the dominion
of both at the same time. It's sort of like me saying,
I want you to focus all your attention on that window right
over there. Your undivided attention on that window. And at the same
time, I want you to focus your undivided attention on that window
over there. Now, I knew a girl one time, her eyes would let
her do that. But that's another story, okay? If you're like most people, you
can't give two things that are in opposite directions your undivided
attention, can you? And that is what Paul is saying
is that my problem is that as much as I want to be serving
God when I'm under the dominion of the flesh, I am not doing
the things of the Spirit. But the solution that Paul is
pointing us to in verse 16 is when I am under the dominion,
under the rule of the Spirit, I will not be doing the things
of the flesh. Do you see what he's saying?
You can't be doing both at the same time. And so therein lies
the solution. It's simple. It's as easy as
pie. It's right under our nose. Walk
in the Spirit. But what does that mean? That's the solution. That's why
Paul says, do walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. But oh my folks, we've got some weird ideas
when it comes to this business of walking in the spirit. What does it mean? I want you
to realize, and again, this goes back to the other morning, that
in Galatians, Paul has been setting before our eyes two contrary,
two opposite systems of things. You remember Abraham had those
two wives? Sarah and Hagar. And those two
wives represent what? Two covenants. Two covenantal
systems. two ways of doing things. You remember? Well, that's been
going on throughout the book of Galatians, and we don't need
to forget that that's what Paul has been saying. He has pointed
out to us that these two systems have names. One is called law. The other is called gospel. And these two systems also have
mechanisms. I'm straining here for a word,
but that's the best one I can come up with. The mechanics of
the system. How it works. Law works by works. It works by works. Gospel works by faith. Right? You got works and law,
you got faith and gospel, and then there's a power source.
There's a fuel to the mechanics. Law works by the works of the
flesh. Flesh is the fuel. The gospel
operates by faith in the power of the spirit. So you've got
three terms, three terms over here, all related to one another.
Law, works, flesh. You've got three terms over here.
Gospel, faith, spirit. And you can go through, we don't
have time to do it, but if you'd like to read through the book
of Galatians, notice how often those terms, maybe not all three
at a time, but oftentimes two at a time are contrasted one
to the other. So we need to understand that
Paul is not necessarily introducing something brand new here. All
the way through the letter, he's been introducing these two systems
of things. So when he says to you and me
that I would have you walk in the Spirit, we're to understand
that what he means is you are to walk in this gospel system,
operate in that system rather than in this law system. But again, each of them have
a name. law, gospel, they each have a mechanism, works, faith,
and they each have a power source, flesh, spirit. Let me try to
illustrate. Let's think about systems of
transportation. I'm going to do it very simply
because I'm thinking about my first system of transportation. It's called a bicycle. Right? That's the first system
of transportation I ever owned, was a bicycle. A system of transportation
is to get you from point A to point B. All right? That's the system. We call it
a name. We give it a name. Bicycle. Now, how did a bicycle
work? Well, it worked by works. You
can't just sit on a bicycle and go somewhere. What do you do
if you're going to ride a bicycle? You've got to pedal. You've got
to work. and what's the power source of a bicycle? It's me. It's flesh. You notice the only
horsepower, the law, and what I'm illustrating here, you understand,
is the system of law. The system of law is a transportation
system. It's designed to get you from
earth to heaven. The problem is that the only
horsepower it gives you is a stick horse. You remember my story about the
village idiot up in Arkansas? E.W. Johnson used to tell this
story, Bill. He said the village idiot, he, he, he, somebody gave
him a stick horse and he rode to town on it. And he got there and they asked
him, how was his ride? And he said, well, he said, it's
all right, but I'm just about as tired as if I'd walked. You see, that's the problem with
the law. The law points you to you. Wasn't that what we said
the other day? Cursed is he who does not continue
in all things in the book of the law to do them. You've got
to do it. You're the power source. What
do you run on? What's your source of fuel? Well,
it's that bologna sandwich you had for lunch. Now, let me tell
you about another transportation system. When I was a little boy,
I had a bicycle. But oh my, there were a couple
of boys, the Calgo boys, Joe and Mike, a couple of years older
than me. And oh, was I envious of Joe
and Mike, because they didn't have a bicycle. They had motor
scooters. You know those old Vespa-like
motor scooters back in the old days? Oh, I thought, oh, I'd
have died if I could have had a motor scooter. Because you
see, a motor scooter is a transportation system to get you from point
A to point B. But a motor scooter works very
differently from a bicycle, doesn't it? Because the motor scooter
has a motor. It doesn't have pedals. I mean,
you can get on it and pedal all you want, I suppose. You don't
make believe pedals, but you don't have to. What do you do
on a motor scooter? You just sit. You rest. You see, that's faith. That rather
than resting in me and my production, I'm resting in an external power
source. I'm resting in what another has
done. Not what I've done. You see,
it's not all about me anymore. It's all about Jesus. It's what
God's done through Him. That's the motor of this new
system to take me from earth to heaven. And what's it going
to run on? Baloney sandwiches? No, a motor
scooter runs on gasoline. I mean, put a baloney sandwich
in a motor scooter and it's going nowhere. Put gasoline in you
and you're going nowhere. You understand the fuel has to
be that which is appropriate to the system. You understand
what I've described to you here? Using the idea of a bicycle,
it's going to get you from earth to heaven if you just pedal hard
enough, long enough, if you put enough bologna sandwiches in
you. But over here is another kind
of system. It doesn't rely on you. It has
an external power supply production, and it uses a completely different
kind of fuel. And what do I do over here? I
work myself to death. Over here, I just rest. Come unto me, ye that are weary
and heavy laden. That's what our brother preached
to us this morning. And I will give you rest. Now, that doesn't mean there's
no responsibilities riding a motor scooter. And Jesus is pointing
that out. He says, take my yoke upon you. You see, the Christian life is
not yoke-less. There is a yoke, but it's my
yoke. Take my yoke. I'm meek and lowly
of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls, for my yoke
is easy. And my burden is light. It's
like the contrast between riding a motor scooter and a bicycle.
Oh, this is easy compared to that. Now, it doesn't mean you
don't have any responsibility. You ride a motor scooter. You
still got to steer. Right? You got an external power
supply. You got external fuel. It's not your fuel. It's not
your works. But you still got to steer it.
And by the way, friend, in the Christian life, you still going
to have to steer your life. You're not on autopilot. You're going to have to make
some choices. You're going to have to make some decisions.
Paul writes in Romans, yield yourselves, not as instruments
of unrighteousness, but unto God as instruments of righteousness.
You have to choose to do that. I had never met a Christian yet
that didn't. That is an active thing. Just like I've got to
steer the motorcycle, the motor scooter, I've got to steer my
life. It's necessary for me to make
choices. I've got another thing to think
about when I ride a motor scooter. I better keep the tank full. You see, I didn't have to worry
about that over here on the bicycle. As long as I have my bologna
sandwich, I'm all right. But when I ride the motor scooter,
I better make sure there's fuel in the tank. But what's our fuel
over here in this gospel system? It's spirit. Be ye filled with
the Spirit. That's a commandment, by the
way. We didn't say that's just a good idea. That's a commandment.
Be ye filled with the Spirit. You need to keep that gas tank
filled up. On and on we can go. We still
have responsibilities, but my responsibility on a motor scooter
are very different than responsibilities on a bicycle because they are
completely different systems of things. Now, let me say a
word about being filled with the Spirit. In our day and time,
of course, that means frothing at the mouth, barking like a
dog, or speaking in tongues, you know, all this stuff that
goes on. We think of the Spirit of God as some sort of physical
sensation. You know, I can feel the Spirit
moving. Oh, every time I feel the Spirit. An old song we used
to sing. Well, if you can feel it, it's not the Spirit. It may
be the pizza you ate last night, but it's not the Spirit, because
you will not feel the Holy Spirit directly. That's what Jesus was
telling Nicodemus. That the Spirit is like the wind.
Do you see the wind? My son and I were driving from
Wyoming across Nebraska one time. I was going to preach over in
Wisconsin, took him with me, and there was this really high
overpass somewhere around Omaha, Nebraska. And there was a big
sign up there that said, watch for wind. We watched real hard, but we
never saw any. You understand, you don't see
the wind. You look out here and you see
leaves and limbs shaking on the tree and you say, look at that,
the wind's blowing. You know the wind by its effects. You know the Spirit of God by
its effects. Now the Spirit of God produces
emotions, produces experiences, but that's not the Spirit. That's
the result of the Spirit. And how do you detect the Spirit
of God? It's interesting, isn't it, in
Scripture that the Spirit of God is the one that confesses These spirits speak through the
teachers that imbibe them, confesses that Jesus is Lord. In fact, Paul says nobody can
confess Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, he's
not talking about mouthing the words, but he's talking about
teaching the doctrine of the sovereignty, the fact that Jesus
is Lord of lords and King of kings, that it is only the Holy
Spirit that produces that teaching. On the other hand, how do you
know a demonic spirit? You've got your demon detector
out here, you know. Or you say, well, I can tell
the demonic spirit because the hair stands up on the back of
my neck, you know. John will write in 1 John 4 that
the way we know the spirit of Antichrist is by what that spirit
confesses, that Jesus has not come in the flesh. You see, this
Spirit is confessing a Jesus that is not the Jesus of the
Scripture. But notice in both cases, I don't
recognize the Spirit directly. I recognize the Spirit by the
effects that the Spirit produces. And that needs to be kept in
mind. Now this brings us to the heart of the text. And the heart
of the text I'm really going to sort of skim over. It's these
two long lists. The list of the works of the
flesh the list of the fruit of the spirit. I'm just going to
make three relatively for a preacher relatively brief comments about
these two lists and especially contrasting these two lists. I want you to notice first of
all that there is a contrast between the words works plural
and fruit singular. You see, the law has just one
power source. You. The law says, here's what you
do. You do it. In other words, the power source
by which the law works is what Paul calls flesh. The law stirs
up the flesh. The law commands the flesh to
work. Now, let's talk about what flesh
is. It's this self centered thing, this egocentric thing that puts
myself in the center of the universe and that everything is out there
for me, including God. That's His job to forgive me.
It's His job to take me to heaven. Just like it's the cow's job
to give me milk, the chicken's job to give me eggs, God's job
is to forgive me of my sin and take me to glory. I am the center
of my universe. Everything revolves around me,
including you. that you're there for my personal
gratification to exalt me. That's flesh. And the law is
commanding flesh to work. Well, folks, what do you suspect
you're going to get from the flesh? What's the works of the
flesh going to look like? Adultery. Fornication. Uncleanness. You understand? The law is sort of like aggravating,
stirring up the flesh to work, to act, to produce something. And no great surprise then that
what comes out of the works of the flesh is flesh. This kind of stuff. On the other
hand, the gospel doesn't produce works. Isn't it strange that
Paul substitutes not for the word work connected with the
flesh, the word fruit, Connected with the spirit Have you ever
walked by a fruit-bearing tree and listen real hard? Do you
hear that tree grunting? How does a tree produce fruit
Well, it just sort of grows there, doesn't it? You'll notice that
the tree produces fruit because the trees life is not centered
in the fruit. The tree's life is in the root,
not the fruit. In other words, the whole focus
and the attention of the tree is not on the fruit it's producing.
It's on the source of nourishment and life that's coming through
the roots. Well, it's a wonderful picture
of a Christian that the root, the source of my life is Jesus
Christ. It's the gospel message. And as I focus my attention on
what Jesus has done for me, as I draw forth that life from Him
by faith, fruit is automatically produced. The tree doesn't live
by the fruit. It lives by its root, you see. so that's the first observation
the first contrast the second one if you look at this list
of things and you'll notice that the works of the flash or by
and large things you do let's take the first one adultery you
remember the woman caught in the act of adultery there in
john chapter eight right it's what you do but if you look at
the list of the fruit of the spirit with few exceptions these
things don't speak so much of what you do That's what you are. Brother Kent, let's go out tonight
and meet somebody. Let's go commit long-suffering.
Do you understand what I'm saying? You don't do those things. You
are those things. These are attitudes of the heart
that are produced from which then things are done, you understand.
But the fruit of the Spirit basically is what we are, not what we do. The third contrast, and to be
honest, I didn't see this until just recently. And in preaching
through Galatians, it suddenly dawned on me, paying a little
bit more attention to context. You know, always you have to
keep context in you. I'd always thought of the fruit
of the Spirit being generated for me so that I can have a sense
of God's love for me. That I can be at peace with God
and happy in my life. In other words, all about me.
That these qualities are for me. It's for my own personal
piety. I guess that's part of our just
American individualism. That we tend to think of our
spirituality, our spiritual life as, you know, it's just Jesus
and me. I don't really need you. Just all about me and Him. And
it suddenly dawned on me that if I paid a little more attention
to the context, I can see that Paul is saying this isn't about
you. It's about others. I mean, go back to verse 13 where
we started tonight. Brethren, you have been called
unto liberty, but don't use that liberty to serve the flesh, but
by love serve one another. Look at the next one. Verse 14.
All the law is fulfilled in one word. Even in this thou shalt
love thy neighbor. As I said, and then when he says
down here in Galatians 5 and verse 23 that against such the
fruit of the Spirit, there is no law. What is he saying, but
the very law that has been the focus of this whole discussion,
namely the law that you love others. is being fulfilled by
the production of this fruit. And suddenly it dawned on me
the love that he's talking about here is not the fact that I'm
overwhelmed with a sense of God's personal love to me. Oh, that's
wonderful. And I don't minimize that. But
the fruit of the Spirit is to produce love for others. I mean,
what's the point of fruit? There's an Old Testament fable. You know what a fable is? Technically,
a fable is a fictional story inanimate objects come to life
and talk. It's sort of like Finding Nemo,
you know, a Disney production, okay? There's a fable in the
Old Testament. It's in Judges chapter 9, if
you'd like to check me out on this. It's the story of the son
of Gideon. Gideon, you know, was the judge
that God used to deliver Israel And after that deliverance, they
wanted to make him king. He says, no, I'm not going to
be king, neither are my sons going to be king. He had 70 sons,
had a whole bunch of wives, a whole bunch of sons. Well, one, he
had an additional son. He wasn't a full son. He was
the son of a concubine. He was a slave son, you see.
His name was Abimelech, and he decided, I'll be king. So he
gets the men of Shechem, that's where he was from, where he lived,
to back him, and he goes and tries to assassinate all the
sons of Gideon. This is after Gideon has died.
He tries to assassinate all 70 of the remaining sons of Gideon
so he can make himself king. Well, he gets them all except
one, a young boy named Jophon. Jophon sneaks in the night over
to Mount Gerizim, which was a mountain overlooking the village of Shechem,
and he shouts down to the village of Shechem, this story, this
fable. He says, the trees of the forest
said, we want a king. We want somebody to rule over
us. So they went to the olive tree. They say, we want you to
be king. The olive tree says, no, I'm
too busy producing oil, producing fat. You see, olive oil is what
they use to fry their bread. Bake their stuff. In other words,
I'm too busy producing stuff for God and man. They went to
the fig tree. You be king over us. Oh, he says, no, I'm too
busy producing figs. The sweetness that delights man.
They went to the grapevine. You be king over us. Oh, no,
I'm too busy making wine that cheers the heart of God and man.
And lastly, they went to the bramble, the thorn bush. He said,
yeah, I'll be king. And of course, you understand
what Jonathan is saying, that Abimelech, you're like the bramble.
Good for nothing. But notice the fruitfulness of
those other trees. All of them are too busy doing
things for others. And it suddenly dawns, why have
I been so thick-skulled and not seen this? that the fruit of
the Spirit is not given so that I can enjoy it. The fruit tree
doesn't enjoy its fruit. It's producing fruit for others. And so no great surprise then
that through this passage and on down into chapter 6, six times,
six times in this passage we find the phrase, one another.
The focus And the point of fruitfulness is what God is producing in our
lives for others. In chapter 6, verse 1, it's the
spiritual man. I mean, what do you think of
when I say this person is a spiritual person? What comes to your mind?
Oh, they sit around and stare at their navel. They lock themselves
in the prayer cloth. I mean, that's how we define
spirituality, isn't it? Look in chapter 6, verse 1. The
spiritual man is the one who sees the brother who has fallen
into the pit of sin and seeks to restore him. The spiritual
man doesn't look at him like a legalist and say, you know,
only bad people fall into pits. That's how a legalist thinks.
Or he doesn't think like the fellow wallowing in self-pity.
Oh, that's nothing. You ought to see my pit. Or the
gossip who says, give me the details of how you fell in the
pit. I'd like to spread them around. You see, the spiritual
man is all concerned about lifting the... He's not judging his brother.
He's not condemning his brother in a spirit of meekness, knowing
that next time it could be him in the pit and his brother rescuing
him. That he's reaching down to restore
his brother. And that, by the way, is Paul's
definition of a spiritual man in chapter 6, verse 1. He's not a theological egghead. He's not a theological member
of the geek squad. You know, a theological geek.
I'd qualify for that, folks. But when it comes down to practicing
what Paul talks about, and you read on in chapter 6, it's the
man who doesn't think himself to be great. He esteems others
better than himself. The fellow that shares in the
propagation of the gospel. He pays the preacher. He prays
with his money. He invests in the dissemination
of gospel truth. He's a man, in verse 10, who
does good to all men, especially those who are of the household
of faith. Notice how all of this, the context
of it, has to do not with me feeling wonderful. And there's
certainly a place for that. But fruitfulness is not about
that. It's about me being equipped
to serve my brother and my sister. Well, let me try to bring things
to a conclusion tonight. And if I can conclude with the
last verses here of this chapter of our text tonight, they that
are Christ's, Paul writes, have crucified the flesh with the
affections and lusts. He doesn't say they ought to.
They might. They that are Christ's have crucified
The flesh. You say, well, Brother Mark,
you just told us in the beginning that we have the flesh with us
through the rest of our days and we'll never be completely
free of it until we get to glory. I want you to realize that a
man was considered crucified the moment he was nailed to the
cross. But he might not die for days. He may wiggle. He may squirm. He may scream. He may object. But the point is, the man who's
crucified isn't coming down. He's dying. I believe that's
what Paul is saying to us here, that they who are truly Christ's
people, something fundamental has happened in their lives,
in their outlook, in their relationship to sin. For once and for all,
they have crucified the flesh. But it still wiggles, it still
squirms, it still resists, it still fights, and it'll do it
till the day we're in glory. There's an old saying down south
about copperheads. You don't have copperheads up
here? That's what we got in our backyard, copperhead snakes.
You have to keep an eye out for them. The old story is the copperhead
never dies till the sun sets. I don't know about that, but
I do know this. He wiggles, I'm going to eat him again. And that ought to be your attitude
towards the flesh. If he wiggles, I hit him again. It'll be a battle I fight till
I stand with Christ in glory. But something, something fundamentally
has changed. I lived out west in Wyoming for
ten years. We lived out on a ranch. Huge
operation. Working cattle ranch. I wasn't
a cowboy, but I liked to watch them. They had the corrals, the
old Pony Express stables across the road from us back in 1860
when the Pony Express was operating. Wonderful place, like stepping
back in time. I got to watch some of the cow
hens break horses. They would go out to break a
horse. You talk about a battle. You
didn't know whether who was going to survive, the cowboy or the
horse. Somebody is surely going to die. I mean, it was that violent. And when it's all over, That
horse is broke. Now, he might be green broke,
which means that somebody like you and I don't need to be owning,
but the cow hands always from that moment on says that's a
broke horse. Something fundamentally changed
in the nature of the horse. That's what Paul is saying, that
a true Christian, something fundamentally has changed. We call it repentance
in my attitude towards sin. The second point is beware of
hybrids. Hybrids are big news these days.
That's what the Judaizers were trying to do there at Galatia.
They were trying to create a hybrid between law and gospel. between works and faith, between
flesh and spirit. I told you about a bicycle and
a motor scooter. There is such a thing as a moped.
It's a hybrid. You don't have to pedal as hard,
but you still got to pedal, don't you? You can spot the hybrid
because of those pedals. Grace has no pedals. grace as an engine, a motor. And then thirdly, let me leave
you with this illustration. I live in a neighborhood. We
don't have a dog anymore. I heard Jerry Bridges told about
a panel, a Catholic priest, a liberal Protestant minister, and a Jewish
rabbi. And they were being interviewed
by a radio guy. And he asked both of them, when
does life begin? The Catholic priest says, well,
life begins at conception. The liberal Protestant said,
well, life begins at birth. The Jewish rabbi said, life begins
when the kids leave home and the dog dies. I'm right there with the Jewish
rabbi. I've had enough of dogs. Well, we've got dogs in our neighborhood.
And I've noted there's three kinds of dogs. We've got some
neighbors up on the hill that have a couple of dogs, and every
night they've got them on a leash coming down the hill. Those dogs
have law, but no liberty. The moment those dogs try to
go in a direction their owner doesn't want them to, they just
yank them back. They're under the law. They've got no liberty.
Now, we've got another kind of dog in my neighborhood. We've
got an old German Shepherd around the corner. He is the most honored
thing. Gets in the trash at night. Spills
her trash out in the road. Barks at you. He's got liberty,
but no law. But there's a third kind of dog.
The dog that just delights in obeying his master. And whenever
his master says, come, he comes. He may head off in a direction
the Master says he'll, and he comes right there by him. He's
under the law of liberty. You see, he's free from the law,
but there's a voice that he loves that he's not free from. I want
to ask you tonight, which kind of dog are you?