Galatians chapter 5, and this
morning we'll be looking at verse 23 through the end of this chapter,
verse 26. The title of the message is,
A Faithful Walk. A Faithful Walk. The Scripture
says, let's go back up to verse 22, and we'll read all the fruit
of the Spirit. It says, But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace. long-suffering 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. 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. A faithful
walk. Now Paul, having contrasted the
works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, he is now returning
to his former subject that he began in verse 16. Look back up at verse 16. He
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
one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you
would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the
law. Now, the law of God is against
all sin. It's against all sin and it must
only curse everyone who continues not in all things that are written
in the law to do them. Therefore, Paul concludes that
by the deeds of the law, By the actions of the flesh, by the
works of the flesh, shall no flesh, no man, be justified in
the sight of God, because we have all sinned. If it were possible
from this moment forward for us to remain holy and without
sin, we have already sinned. And the law demands death to
the sinner. So there's no hope in the law.
There's no hope by the obedience of the law to be saved. And this
includes anyone who would try to add anything to the person
or the work of Jesus Christ. Anyone who would try to add their
own law or their own merit to His work to be accepted with
God. Go back a couple of pages, look
at Verse 1 of chapter 5. It says, Paul says, "...stand
fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us
free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold,
I, Paul, say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall
profit you nothing. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to the whole law.
Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever you are justified
by the law, you are fallen from grace. Paul said, I don't care
who you are. It doesn't matter who you are.
If you are trying to be justified by the blood of Christ plus something
you have done, Christ shall profit you nothing. This is the danger
of what men today call progressive sanctification. It is a danger
because men, our nature is to lean on the flesh. That is the
human nature. is to lean on something that
we have done. Men believe that they are able
to sanctify themselves and make themselves more holy by their
obedience to the law. That is dangerous. That is deadly. Christ shall profit them nothing. And I don't care who it is. So then, all who believe on Christ,
We believe that Christ is all our salvation. He is the complete
package. He has done everything that is
necessary for the salvation of His people. And not one thing
is to be added of our works or our will, lest we defile His
sacrifice and make it of none effect. The Scripture says that
God hath made Him to be wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. He is all of those things to
us. He is all of those things because
God hath made Him so. God hath made Him all our salvation.
Believer, let us not walk according to the law or the lust of the
flesh. It's our sinful nature that desires
to be accepted based on works. with that is to be utterly cut
off at every instance. Does this happen in the believer? Yes, it does. Many times when
we fall, the first thing we want to do is try to make up for it
in some religious way. Cut that off and trust in Christ. Cut that off and trust in Christ.
That's what it is to walk in the Spirit. Let us walk in the
Spirit. Because it is the Spirit that's
given us this life and faith. To walk in the Spirit, what is
that? It is to continually, daily,
moment by moment, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what it is. To walk in the Spirit is to look
by faith to Christ. Believer, we cannot stop the
flesh from lusting. That's impossible. Paul, matter
of fact, Paul said, walk in the Spirit that you might not fulfill
the lust of the flesh. He's already intimating that,
hey, you're going to have lust of the flesh. So walk in the
Spirit so that you don't do them. So that you don't fulfill them. By looking to Christ, Friends,
we should mortify the deeds of this body. We should kill off
this flesh. Go to Hebrews chapter 12 and
look at this with me real fast. Hebrews chapter 12. I'll tell you what, this is a
wearying task. Constantly, faithfully, steadily
looking to Christ by faith and killing off the flesh is a daily
struggle. Do you get weary? I do. I get weary. That's why Paul
said, be not weary in well-doing, because we do get weary. We do. Look at verse 1, it says, Wherefore,
seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight, And the sin that doth so easily
beset us, let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God. For, consider him that endured such contradiction of
sinners against himself, lest ye be weary and faint in your
minds. Consider Him. When you feel bad, consider Him.
When you feel like that you've come to the end of your rope,
consider Him. Look to Him and see what He has
done. And I'll tell you, our little
sacrifices seem small in comparison to His great offering. Behold,
what debt of sin we owe, we owe to God. How great was our debt of sin. How great. Behold, the Lamb of God, He bore
all the sins in His own body on the tree. And imagine that. One sin. One sin is worthy of
infinite, eternal terror and wrath. One sin! And yet think
of the mountains and mountains of sin that we have committed
just ourselves. How much is that worth? How much
is that worthy of death? And yet Christ bore all of my
sins, not just all of my mountains of sins, but all the sins of
all His people of all time. No one person in hell will ever
suffer as much as Christ. No one. He bore it all. And it's this
love. That constrains us, it's this
love that holds us, that keeps us. The scripture says the love of
Christ constraineth us, the law, not the law, the law does not
constrain us. Matter of fact, the law only
stirs up sin. It only makes us more sinful. But the mercy and love of God
is abundantly shed on us. John said, Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath lavished upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God. Now, I tell you, if we think
a lot of ourselves, that doesn't mean much. But that word, we,
that we Sinners should be called the sons of God. Believer, there is no law against
the attitudes of God's grace that is given us. There's no
law against love. There's no law against joy. There's
no law against peace. There's no law against long suffering
and gentleness and goodness and faith and meekness and temperance.
There's no law against these because they're right. They're
just. They're holy. And God has given
them to us. These are our attitudes given
to us of the spirit. Only a believer has these. Only
a believer has these. We who walk by faith, we have
been given a new creation, a new character that is created after
God in true holiness, and against Him there is no law. Why? Because He's righteous. We're
righteous. We have been made righteous by
the Son of God. Therefore, what law could oppose
us? No law. There is no law to oppose
us, because we have fulfilled all the law's demands in our
Savior. He has done all for us. Just as Adam, when he died and
he sinned, we all sinned in him and died in him. Even so, we
who are believers in Christ, when Christ lived the righteous,
obedient life of God, so did we. Christ is our federal head, has
accomplished our righteousness. And where there is righteousness,
there is no law. And not only has Jesus, by his
obedience, obtained righteousness, by his death he has obtained
our redemption. Isn't it wonderful to think of
the blessed union we have with Christ? What union does your
head have with your body? Well, that's the same union I
have with Christ. Matter of fact, it's closer.
It's closer. Sometimes my body does things
as weird. I don't even know. It shakes
or something. So, you know, my head's not necessarily
in control, but Christ is even closer. We're in more union with
him so that when he died. We died. When he died under the
curse of the law, I died. What more can the law ask? What
more can the law demand but my death? And in Christ, I've already
died. Therefore, there is no law. There
is no law that seeks my hurt. In Romans 11, Paul says, if the
root be holy, the branches are holy. If Christ is holy, I'm
holy. If Christ is righteous, I'm righteous.
If His death satisfied God, so did mine. It was through the law that we
are now dead to the law. You see, God didn't go around
the law. God didn't sweep the law under
the rug. And I'm so glad, because then there would be a chance
that we would come back and justice would prevail. Justice would
find out. But no, God, through the law,
saved us. He justly saved us. When Christ
was crucified for my sin, so was I crucified in Him, yet now
I live. He was my substitute, my federal
head, my God, and my friend. And He died for me that I might
have life. So then, this life that we now
live, we live how? How is it that we are to live
this life that we now have in this body? By faith. Paul said, I am crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, and the life I now live. I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Let me ask us
this. We who are saved with such love
and such grace and such mercy, we who are guilty rebels by nature,
How much then do we owe our God? How much do we owe? If any one sin is an infinite
sin against an infinite God, think of the mountains of sin
that he paid for. And yet we drank sin like water. Sin was so natural to us, we
sin without even knowing we sin. The Scriptures tell us that we
have sinned with both hands. I fought with hands uplifted
high. Mad I ran the sinful race, secure,
without a hiding place. Now, is that something? Thinking
we were secure, thinking we were good enough, and yet God, all
the while, even that while we were yet such sinners, Christ
died. When we had no strength, Christ
died. We owe a debt so infinite and so countless, and yet we
have nothing wherewith to pay. Therefore, we praise God because
Christ has paid it all. Christ has paid it all. Why should
God do such a wonderful, great thing as to save us, to love
us infinitely more than we hated Him? Do you think about that? How much we hated Him? Well,
He infinitely loved us more than we hated Him. Why would God nail the mountains
of sin to His Son on the cross? For one purpose, His own glory. That's the reason. God did it
for His own glory. Should we not then give all we
can for the glory of God? Is that just not reasonable?
Paul said, I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service. Is it not reasonable then to
mortify the deeds of this body? Is that not just reasonable? What do we owe an infinite debt
that Christ has already paid? Every believer then willingly
and gladly, affectionately is subject to the will and glory
of God. I'm so glad that God hath made
me willing in the day of His power. that I willingly, gladly
reject anything of myself and give all the glory to God. That's
a miracle. That's not something we can do
by nature. Friends, to walk in the Spirit
is not a passive thing, but it does require the believer a constant,
steady, continual faith and trust in Christ. That's what it is
to walk in the Spirit. It's a faithful walk. Believing
in Christ. Therefore, we who are crucified
with Christ and risen with Christ daily kill the flesh. Look at verse 24. It says, And
they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections
and lusts. Search your own heart. I know this, that every one of
us have pet sins. Sins that we think are no consequence
to anyone else. Sins we think that might be even
good for others. We are to, with holy hatred for
them, kill them. Kill them. Friends, it's like
holding a viper to your chest. A snake is good for nothing but
to be killed. He's not going to be a pet. And
if you try to make your sins a pet, eventually it's going
to bite. It's going to be painful. The pleasures of sin is like... It's a poison. What sin have
you ever committed that just affected you? I know of none, because I'll
tell you, when I sin privately, I know my attitude changes around
everybody. Let us not be like Ephraim and
Manasseh. If you remember those two tribes,
they were given a plot of land they had to divide, and they
came to Joshua and said, we're too big. This land is too small
for us. And Joshua said, because you're
lazy. That's what it is. Go cut down the trees of the
mountain and you'll have trees. They're your trees. You can use
them and you can have more land. He said, well, that won't be
enough. He said, well, kick out those Canaanites and you'll have
plenty. You see, they had put those Canaanites
to tribute. They had been getting money from
those people to live in that land. And they didn't want to
do what God said. God said, kill them. God said,
get rid of them. But instead, they paid tribute. If you find yourself too weak. To cast out sin. To cut sin off
as you can see it. It's not because you don't have
the power. God said that sin shall not have
dominion over you. And so if we sin, let's not be
like our father and blame God. Well, God, you didn't give me
enough power. No. You just wanted the sin. You
just wanted the sin. This is a daily, constant, steady
walk. May God give us the grace to
continually look to Him and at every opportunity cast off sin
so that we might joyfully walk with Him. I pray that God would
bless this to your hearts. We're dismissed.