Now let's open our Bibles to
the book of Galatians chapter 5. Last week I spoke on the subject
of living and walking in the Spirit. And I'm going to continue
that. I have basically in both these
messages five things about what it is concerning this issue of
living and walking in the Spirit, the Spirit of God. and of course
we're talking about those who are born of the spirit born of
the spirit of god the lord jesus christ said you must be born
again because that which is flesh only produces flesh you can't
you can't be you can't have spiritual life uh... any other way but
through christ by the power of his spirit and that spiritual
life comes from his death he spoke of that quite often that's
why he died and that's why he was buried and that's why he
arose again the third day that we might live that we might live
in him by him in the spirit of god and that's why the first
thing i gave you last week is this the power of walking in
the spirit what is the power do we do it by our own power
do we do it by our own goods well of course not we can't we
can't that's why we need the spirit that's why we need christ
We walk, you know, this living and walking, he talks about this
over here in Galatians chapter 5 and he says in verse 16, this
I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the
lusts, the passions, the desires of the flesh, remaining sin and
selfishness that's within us, even as believers. And now walking
there has to do with our way of life. It has to do with our
conduct, it has to do with our attitude, it has to do with our
goals and our motives, everything about us, everything about the
inner man, what the Bible calls the inner man, which is the spirit
of life within us, born again by the Spirit. So what is the
power of walking in the spirit? It's the power of Christ himself.
Look across over to Galatians 2 and verse 20. Read this last
week. Listen to what Paul writes here
in Galatians 2 and verse 20. I won't elaborate on this much
because I dealt with it last week, but just as a reminder,
look at it. He said, I am crucified with Christ. That means Christ
died as my substitute. When he died, I died. He died
for my sins. He put away my sins. He was made
sin for me, Christ who knew no sin, that I might be made the
righteousness of God in him. He was my sin bearer. He became
guilty because of my guilt charged, imputed to him. And he says,
I'm crucified with Christ. My sins were punished in him.
Nevertheless, I live. That crucifixion is a death,
you see. But he says, I live, yet not I. Now, Paul is not talking
out of both sides of his mouth here, and he's not trying to
confuse us. He's simply saying, I live, but I'm not the source
of this life. It didn't come from me. It wasn't
by my goodness. It wasn't by my power. It wasn't
by my efforts that I have life, spiritual life, eternal life,
salvation. Not I, but Christ liveth in me. How does Christ live in us? By
his spirit and by his word. And he says, in the life which
I now live in the flesh, that is in this physical world, in
this physical body, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
I love the way that's put. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's given me faith to believe, but I don't live even by my own
faith because my faith is not yet perfect. I still have struggles
in the area of faith, how about you? That's why I need to immerse
myself in the word of God and all the means of grace we'll
talk about. But I live by his faith, that is Christ's faithfulness
to do what he was sent and what he said he would do. He came
and he died on the cross to put away my sins. He established
righteousness whereby I stand justified before God. He was
faithful to do all that. And he never winced or he never,
he had the struggles of the infirmities of the flesh, but he didn't have
the inner struggle of sin that we have. So I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So that's
the power of living in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, the power
of Christ. It's not our own. And then the
second thing was the means of walking in the Spirit, the means
of living and walking in the Spirit. God has given His people,
His church, tools, instruments prescribed by God, means by which
we as children, His children, are to walk and to live after
the Spirit and in the Spirit. Now these means do not save us.
Christ is our savior. But they're tools that we are
to use in order to grow in grace and knowledge. And I gave you
five of them. Number one was his word. We may grow spiritually. The gospel and its truth. We
need to be in the word of God, folks. Reading it, studying it,
hearing it preached, meditating upon it. It's our life. It's
our spiritual food. And all of this by the Spirit
of God. We've already talked about that. Reading the Word
without the Spirit of God is like reading a dead letter, isn't
it? It seriously is. But second means is prayer that
we might find grace in time of need. We come boldly to the throne
of grace through Christ. We pray to Him. That doesn't
mean we always get on our knees and profess a formal prayer. We do that. But a spirit of prayer. And then thirdly, public worship.
In fellowship with brethren, we need to identify with the
church. We identify with Christ when
we identify with the church for the church is his bride. He's
the head of the church. He's the heart of the church.
He's the foundation of the church built upon this rock, Christ
Jesus. And then fourthly is the ordinances. Some people call
them sacraments. I don't like that term because
sacraments sort of indicates it has some kind of saving power.
But it's not, there's no, we take baptism, water baptism,
immersion, and taking the Lord's Supper, two ways, two means by
which we identify with Christ and we remember him, we look
to him. And then fifthly, trials that
are sent from the Father to teach us and wean us away from the
world. These trials don't give us faith but they reveal faith
and they make faith stronger because they drive us to Christ.
I've often told you that I never feel good about myself coming
through a trial. But one thing I do is I look
to Christ more and I appreciate Him and value Him even more.
So there's the means, that's the second thing. Thirdly, now
listen to this, here's the liberty of living, walking in and living
in the Spirit. The liberty, Paul mentioned that
back up in verse 18. Look at Galatians 5, 18. This
is what he's talking about, liberty. He says, if you be led of the
Spirit, you're not under the law. Now what that means is this,
if you're led of the Holy Spirit, he doesn't lead you under bondage
of the law. You're not in bondage to the
law. You don't owe a debt to God's law and justice, that's
being paid. Who paid it? Christ did on the cross. Jesus
paid it all. All to him I owe or all the debt
I owe, either one, it's both. Sin had left a crimson stain,
he washed it white as snow. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. He paid my debt in full. The wages of sin that I earned,
which is death, he paid it off. And that's what that means, I'm
no longer in bondage to the law. But now it means something else
too that people usually do not even consider. It means this,
that I owe no obedience to the law of God in order to attain
or maintain salvation. Christ provided all the righteousness
that I need to be eternally accepted, justified before God. It's not
of my works, lest I have reason to boast. It's by God's grace
in Christ. And that grace, Romans 521, reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by us trying to do our best. No, that's not what it says.
It reigns unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And that's
liberty. Look up in verse one of Galatians
five. He says, stand fast therefore
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. You didn't
free yourself from the bondage of sin and the curse of the law. Christ freed you if you're one
of his. And you're to stand firm in that
liberty, immovable, and be not entangled again with the yoke
of bondage. So if we're living and walking in the spirit, you
know what that means? That means we're living in the
freedom and the liberty of Christ. That's what Stan read about in
Romans chapter 6, back over there. You know, it talks about how
we're freed from sin. And then later on here it says
we're made free from sin in verse 18. We have a freedom. We have
a liberty that we didn't have before. What does that mean? It means we're not in bondage.
We're not, listen, we are totally accepted before God in Christ
and cannot be charged in the courts of God's justice with
our sins. That's an amazing thing. That's
why David prayed in Psalm 32, blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity, whose sins are covered. That means
atoned for by the blood paid for. That's why Christ is a,
Propitiation the Bible says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 and
verse 17 that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty
What does that mean for me practically it means this? It means that
I'm not trying to serve God in order to be saved I'm serving
God because I'm already saved by his grace freely and It means
I'm not trying to win my way into God's favor by my works.
I'm looking to Christ who is the complete eternal favor of
God unto me. He's my wisdom, my righteousness.
He's my sanctification, he's my redemption. Why should we
serve God? Because of love and grace and
gratitude. Paul wrote, the love of Christ
constrains me, energizes me, motivates me. And if you have
any other motive other than love and grace and gratitude, I'm
gonna tell you something, you're not living and walking in the
spirit. No, sir. One old writer, I can't remember
which one it was, one of the old Puritans, I guess. I think
they call all the old writers Puritans, they weren't. But one
of the old writers said this, he said, I'll tell you two things
the Holy Spirit will never do. He will never discourage sin. Listen to me now, let me finish
that. He will never discourage sin in the way of threatenings. of punishment and he will never
encourage obedience in the way of legalism or mercenary promises
of reward. It's always a discouragement
to sin because Christ died on the cross to pay my debt. It's
always an encouragement to obedience because of what Christ has freely
given me of himself in salvation. It's grace. It's gratitude. Therefore, here's what it means. It means that whenever we're
engaged in the warfare of the spirit and the flesh, and that's
what Paul's talking about here. How are we going to fight that
warfare? I'll tell you exactly how. By using those means that
drive us to Christ. That's what they're for. You're
not going to stop the desires of the flesh by focusing on those
sins and desires and trying to squelch them. You know what happens
when you do that? You only fuel the fire. You fuel the fire. Our focus in this warfare of
the flesh and the spirit, our focus in the walk and life and
triumph of faith has to be on the grace of God in Christ, our
liberty in Christ. Look over at Galatians 5 and
verse 18 again. But if you be led by the spirit,
you're not under the law, you're not in bondage. Well, what are
we under? We're under grace. We're under
Christ. And that's why the Spirit of
God leads us to find assurance only in Christ as he's promised
in the Word and not from looking within ourselves. You look within
yourself for assurance, you won't find it. You won't have it. And if you do, it's self-righteousness.
In other words, it's kind of like this. Don't focus on the
problem. Focus on the cure. The problem
is me. The cure is Christ. Look unto
him. Now, don't ignore the problem.
Don't act like it isn't there. It's there. But the only cure
is looking to Christ. Well, let me speak a little bit,
fourthly, about the nature of living and walking after the
Spirit. Now, look down at verse 19. Now, in this warfare, Paul
shows us, he shows us two things by inspiration of the Spirit.
He shows us, first of all, the works of the flesh. The works
of the flesh. And then he shows us secondly,
the fruit of the spirit. Now, did you hear that? Did you
notice what he said there? Those words are important. The
works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. There's a distinction
there. One is work, the other one is
fruit. Well, let's look at that. Now,
when he lists here in verse 19, he says, now the works of the
flesh are manifest, they're made known. And here they are, which
are these? And he lists these, adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like of the
witch I tell you before. In other words, this is not a
new message. He says, as I have also told you in time past that
they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Now I want you to notice in that list of the works of the flesh,
there's no distinction between what false religion calls mortal
and venial sins, big and little sins. You all the time hear people
talk about the seven deadly sins. That is not biblical. My friend,
all sin is deadly. The wages of sin, Romans 6, 23
is what? Death. Not just the wages of
some sin. You say, well, aren't there big sins and little sins?
Well, in our eyes there are. And I'll tell you this much,
in our eyes there should be. For example, our Lord made it
clear that hatred in the heart for anybody is equal in God's
sight to murder. But if you hate me, I just assume
you not murder me. Now, that doesn't get you off
the hook with God. If you hate me but don't actually
physically murder me, that doesn't get you off the hook. What that
means is this, there is absolutely no way that you can be saved
by your works. There's no way you can be made
righteous by your works. Why? Because you're a sinner.
I'm a sinner. So this thing about seven deadly
sins, mortal sins, venial sins, this sin, that sin. You see,
what we're dealing with here is a person's relationship with
God. how God saves a sinner. All sin is sin, all sin deserves
death in God's sight. All sin renders sinners totally
impotent to produce the righteousness that God requires to be saved,
to be accepted. And the very proof of that is
this, God sent his son into the world to condemn sin in his flesh. You see, if I could be saved
or made righteous by my works, Christ would not have had to
have come and died on the cross and be buried again and raised
again the third day. If you could be saved by your
works, then he would not have to come. And over there in Galatians
chapter two, you remember in verse 21 there, listen to what
Paul says here. In Galatians 2 and 21, he says,
for I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness
come by the law. Now what does that mean? If righteousness
comes by my efforts to keep the law, then Christ is dead in vain. He didn't have to come. He died
for nothing. But he didn't die for nothing.
He died for his people. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, those who cannot be righteous by their works.
So all sin is sin. And it's vital to understand,
look back here at Galatians 5. It's vital to understand that
all sin equally condemns in God's sight, whether in thought, word,
or deed. In other words, the sin of hatred
in the heart condemns me just as much as physical murder would.
Now hatred in the heart doesn't put me in jail or on death row.
But in God's sight, it still condemns me. All sin leads to
death. All sins don't have the same
consequences in this life. Some sins are worse than others
in the sense that they're worse consequences. For example, just
what I said. Physical murder will put you
in jail for life, or I hope will, or put you on death row, what
it should do. Hatred doesn't do that. But listen to what Paul's
saying here. He divides, you know, some people
like these categories. But let me caution you on this.
I'm gonna read through them again. I want you to see, this is not
a checklist for you. And it's not a checklist for
me. Don't listen and say, well, I
committed that, but I hadn't committed this. No, that's not
what it's about. He divides them up this way.
First of all, they're what we call sensual sins, or some people
just say sexual sins. Look at it, verse 19, adultery.
You know what adultery is, fornication. That comes from the word for
pornography. We have for pornography today,
that's sin. Uncleanness, just exactly what
it says, filthy habits, that kind of thing. Lasciviousness,
that means lewd behavior. Actually, what it really means
is somebody who's just ready, ready to engage in that kind
of behavior. And then he goes to false religious
practices, idolatry. What is idolatry? I'll tell you
what. Let me just, down south, they go quail hunting. And one
of the rules of quail hunting is don't try to kill the whole
covey with one shot. Because if you do, you'll miss
every one of them. But I'm going to kill the whole
covey with one shot right here. In this one, idolatry. You know
what idolatry is? It's any thoughts of God, of
a relationship with God, a right relationship with God, without
Christ. And I've just killed the whole
covey with one shot. Without the true Christ, any
religion without Christ is idolatry. Christ said, I am the way, the
truth, the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me. And
I know people say, well, you're just a narrow-minded bigot. Well,
I'm not a bigot. I might be narrow-minded, but
I'm not a bigot. Because I'll tell you, I'm proving I'm not
a bigot. The reason I believe that is because Christ said it.
I'm just a follower of Christ. It's a narrow way, the scripture
says. But any religion without Christ is idolatry. Any religion
without the blood of Christ, without the righteousness of
Christ, any religion other than the gospel is idolatry, according
to this book now. And I know preachers and people
can say anything they want to, but that is what this book teaches
from Genesis to Revelation. And if you believe there's other
ways, then just admit it. I'm leaving the Bible truth when
I say that. You see what I'm, just admit
it. Idolatry, now witchcraft there is the word that we get
pharmacy from. And witchcraft, and my point
is this, he's talking about false religious practices, he's not
just talking about drug taking and all that, abuse of drugs,
that's included, but it's any superstition that's your religion. So there's false religious practices.
Then he goes thirdly to self-centeredness, hatred. All hatred comes from
love of self. Did you know that? Every bit
of our hatred comes from love of self. That's of the flesh.
Variance, that's rivalry. You know, people rival each other.
That's what that is. Emulations, that's the same as
jealousy. Wrath means temper, angry. Lose
your temper. Strife is selfish ambition. That's what that is. Seditions,
that's people clumping up, you know. I've got my little group,
you're outside. Heresies is divisions. All right,
so those are self-centeredness. Verse 21, envyings. You say,
envyings has to do with self-centered. That has to do with wanting something
somebody else has to the point that you don't care what happens
to them. You know what murders is? All right, then drunkenness. Now here comes sins of intemperance,
drunkenness, and revelings. Revelings, you know, we probably
put it as partying, but what it is, what reveling is, is a
person who doesn't take the things of God and the things of life
seriously. That's what he's talking about.
And he says in such like, so he's not just, he's not just
focusing in on these things and saying this is the only thing,
he says in such like. And then he says, in verse 21,
he says, and I've told you this and told you in time past that
they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
What's he talking about? Well, it's very clear that he's
saying those whose lives are identified and characterized
by this type of behavior, thought, attitude, In other words, their
lives are characterized by these things. They will not inherit
the kingdom of God. Who's he talking about? He's
talking about unbelievers. He's talking about those who are not brought
to repentance. He's talking about those who are not engaged in
the warfare of the flesh and the spirit there. No conviction
of sin. No repentance. No godly sorrow
over sin. No fleeing to Christ. But that's
just them right there. Now, what does this do for us? Well, I'll tell you exactly what
it does. It condemns every one of us as pertaining to the flesh. That's what it does. The law
of God exposes these sins in all of us. Just because we've
not committed them with our hands or our bodies doesn't mean that
we haven't done it in our minds and our hearts. And after we
read this list, we should come to realize that we need a righteousness
we cannot produce. We need the grace of God. We
need mercy. God be merciful to me, the sinner. We need Christ. I need him. Not to look at somebody and say,
you need him. I know you do because you're just like me. I need him.
I know you need him because I need him. And this list levels us
all. There's not a person in this
room today who can look down on anybody as far as a relationship
with God and say, I'm better than you are. And I don't need
Christ like you need. No, sir. That's what that list
is there for. Works of the flesh. But let's
go on. Look at verse 22. Here's the
fruit of the spirit. This is what characterizes a
true believer. And I love the way it's put.
It's called fruit. Because that's what it is. It's bearing fruit.
Christ spoke of it in John 15. He said, I'm the vine. You're
the branches. The branches bear fruit. That's what we do in salvation. We bear fruit. We don't produce
fruit. We bear it. The life is in the
vine. It's in Christ. Over there in
Romans chapter 7, that Brother Stan read part of it. Here he's talking about The woman
who's bound her husband by marriage and the law of marriage says
she's bound to him until he dies. And listen, this is not a treatise
on divorce here. This is talking about the law
and how we're free from the law. Look at verse four of Romans
seven. Look at this. He says, wherefore my brethren,
you also are become dead to the law. Now what does that mean? Well, I'm not under the law.
My debt's paid. I don't owe the law anything
as far as righteousness goes. as far as the debt to God's justice. I'm dead to the law. How did
I get that way? Look at it. By the body of Christ. Not by my efforts to keep the
law, but by what Christ did on the cross. He died. Now he did
that in order that you should be married to another. Married
to Christ. The church is the bride of Christ.
Even him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth
what? Fruit unto God. that we might bear fruit. We
read in Psalm 1, a tree planted by the water who bears fruit,
his leaf will not fade. That's the fruit. That's the
power of the Spirit of God from Christ. And look at verse 5,
he says, for when we were in the flesh, that means when we
were unregenerate, before we were born again. The motions,
the passions of sins which were by the law did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death. Without Christ, all we could
do is produce or bring forth fruit unto death. even at our
best. But now, verse 6, we're delivered
from the law, we're dead to the law, that being dead wherein
we were held, that is in the bondage of the law, we're free
from that, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not
in oldness of the latter. Newness of the spirit, that's
what he's talking about over here in verse 22 of Galatians
5, the fruit of the spirit. Look back at it. And it's not
that true Christians do not still have remaining desires of the
flesh. We do. That's why there's a warfare.
But we also have the fruit of the Spirit. And this is why there
is a warfare of the flesh and the Spirit that drives us to
Christ. Remember, that's how we know it's the warfare of the
flesh and the Spirit. The Spirit always drives us to Christ. And
when a person is born of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit indwells
him, he begins to bear this fruit as evidence of being saved, of
being born again, evidence of the Spirit's indwelling. And
notice it says here in verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit
is. You see the word is? If you remember
anything about your English classes in school, that's a singular
verb. It doesn't say the fruit of the
Spirit are. That's a plural. It's singular. It's not are, it's is. It's all,
what he's talking about is the fruit of the Spirit there, it's
all one. Every believer has this fruit as one. It's not that some
believers have one and others don't. We all have it. But now
listen to me, we don't have the fruit of the Spirit in perfection
now. That's why we have to grow in grace. Grow. And while the
flesh remains, this fruit can still be contaminated. I know
people say that it can't, but it can. That's why even this must be
cleansed by the blood of Christ to be accepted of God. Bible
says we're accepted in the beloved. That includes this. That includes our growth. That
includes our efforts to please God. When we present these things
to our Lord, it's not presented for our salvation. or as our
righteousness. It's presented as service of
love, grace, and gratitude to honor and glorify Him. He starts
off with the gifts and fruit that turns our thoughts towards
God. Look at it, verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love,
Joy and peace. That turns our thoughts towards
God. That's love for God in Christ and love for one another in Christ. That's that divine love that
we don't have before we're born again. It's the fruit of the
Spirit. Binds us together in the truth of Christ. It's not
based on personality. It's not based upon mutual likes
and dislikes in the world. It's not even based on getting
along. It's based upon our relationship with God in Christ, period. Joy, that's we rejoice in the
Lord, our joy in Christ. We have a lot of heartache and
sorrow in this world, but we always have joy in Christ. And
as the psalmist said, this night, this sorrow, this darkness, it
goes on for a moment, but joy cometh in the morning. That's
Christ. Peace, that's peace with God
in Christ and peace within our hearts, that peace that passes
understanding. What is that peace? Well, it's
the assurance of salvation that we have in Christ. That turns
our thoughts towards God. And then we have the fruit that
turns our attention toward each other. He speaks of long suffering. You know what that is? That means
suffering long. Somebody says, how long? as long as it takes. Well, how
long does it take? As long as God deems it so. I
don't know. Some sufferings are short, some
suffering long, longer. I guess the way we ought to say
it is some sufferings are long and some sufferings are longer.
It means putting up with things. That's what it is. Put up with
each other. Put up with each other. That means I've got to
put up with you all. But God help you, it means you
gotta put up with me. Suffering long. And you know
where it comes from? You know why it's the fruit of
the Spirit? Because we always have to be reminded of how much
Christ puts up for me. How much Christ puts up for me.
I'm gonna tell you something. If he wasn't long suffering toward
his children, we'd be in hell today, wouldn't we? And then
he talks about gentleness. Now there's gentleness there.
It can refer to a gentle spirit, not a hard, mean spirit. But it mainly refers to meekness,
which means submission, submission to God's word, submission to
each other in areas of love. This issue of kindness he talks
about up here, enjoy peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. He mentions
goodness, that's good according to God's standard. And then he
talks about those which directly relate to ourselves, faith. He's
talking about faithfulness, being true to Christ. Paul spoke of
that in 2 Corinthians 11 when he told them, he said, I've espoused
you to one husband and that's Christ. And you've been drawn
away from Christ by false preachers. I've espoused you to Christ,
you're to be faithful to him, true to him. Just like you wives
are to be faithful to your husbands and you husbands to your wives,
the church is to be faithful to Christ. faithful to his word,
faithful to one another in the preaching and testimony of this
word. And again, here in verse 23,
he says meekness, that's submission again, temperance, that means
self-control, not creatures of extreme, Creatures who let things
take us away from the means of grace, the worship of God, because
we're so engulfed in it. That means anything. That means
family, it means job, whatever it is. We think of temperance,
we think of somebody who doesn't drink too much. Well, somebody
who doesn't eat too much, that's all included. But we're not to
be engulfed in anything in this world that would take us away
from worshiping God in Christ. If we do, we're intemperate.
Now, all of this is the fruit of the Spirit, and we bear it
by the power of the Spirit in Christ, but we do not bear such
fruit by self-consciously trying to produce the fruit, because
we don't produce it. We bear the fruit of the Spirit
by using the means of grace that God has given us that leads us
to Christ. And I'll tell you what, it's
also real important that we try not to derive our assurance of
salvation from this fruit that we're bearing because all true
fruit of the Spirit will drive us to Christ for assurance. Too
often we're taught to look within to see how we're doing. Think about that. And that's
what false religion teaches. Look within, see how you're doing.
How you doing? Well, I'm doing great. I'm up
here preaching the gospel. No, no sir. This is not my righteousness
before God. Christ is. This is not my holiness
before God. Let me conclude it this way.
Look back at Galatians 5. Here's the fifth thing. The goal
of walking and living after the Spirit. Listen to what he says. He says, and they that are Christ. Now that's a possessive there.
That means they who belong to Christ. have crucified the flesh
with the affections and lust. Now what does that mean, you've
crucified them? That means they're put to death. Think about it. Doesn't mean they're in the process
of dying or waning. Crucified, that's a past tense,
that means they are put to death. And that's a completed action
there. How have we crucified the flesh
with the affections and lust? Does that mean I no longer desire
the things of the flesh? Does that, well, let me tell
you something. If you didn't desire the things of the flesh, you
wouldn't have a warfare. In fact, I pretty much think
I'd be able to spot you just like that. I mean, you'd be floating
above us all. No, you still have those passions. That's why we have, that's why
there's a warfare within. But how have we crucified him?
I'll tell you how. When we come to faith in Christ
and repentance of dead works, we see that sin can no longer
condemn us. That's what it is. There is therefore... Well, let me just show you this.
Look back at Romans 7. Now here's the proof. that the
desires and passions of sin are not dead in our minds, in our
hearts, in our affections, in our will. Verse 24 of Romans
7. Paul writes, O wretched man that
I am! Now who is the wretched man?
Is that a perfect man? It's a man who's perfect in Christ,
but not in himself. He says, Who shall deliver me
from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord, so then I, with the mind I myself serve the law of
God, but with the flesh the law of sin. I have it in my mind
to be like Christ, but remaining sin keeps me from going the full
way. All right? Now, how have I crucified
the lust of the flesh with its affections and lust? Look at
verse 1 of chapter 8. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. That's what it means. Sin can
no longer condemn me. Go back to Galatians 5. Let me
conclude in verse 25. Listen to what he says. He says, if we live in the Spirit,
let us also walk in the Spirit. Use the means of grace. And he
says in verse 26, let us not be desirous of vain glory, lifting
up ourselves, provoking one another, envying one another. That's what
caused division. What's he talking about? The
goal of walking in the Spirit is the goal of being totally,
completely like Christ. Being perfect in myself. You
see, I'm already perfect in Christ, but not in myself yet. That's
my goal. Paul said, I strive after that
goal in Philippians chapter three. I press toward the mark of the
high calling, a high calling of God in Christ Jesus, desiring
to be like him. David said it this way. He said,
I'll be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness. All right.