My goodness. Open your Bibles,
if you would, to Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. We'll
continue our study. We finished looking at the fruit
of the Spirit, which has been wonderful, and we now have been
taught by God, the Holy Spirit, that that fruit is not anything
we can produce, and it's not natural to us. The love spoken
of there is the love of God, shed abroad in our heart. The
joy is the joy that the Father gives us in rejoicing in Christ. The peace comes in and through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the long-suffering, we know
that we're not by nature long-suffering at all. Gentleness, goodness,
faith, all gifts from God. We know that faith is given to
us after we're born again by the Holy Spirit of God. Then
we're granted faith to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
repentance before God. And then meekness and temperance,
which is self-control. Temperance is self-control. All
these things are given to us by God, the Holy Spirit. And
so we're going to continue now, finishing Lord willing, finishing
this chapter. And again, we're almost near
the end of this book. It's been a pleasant journey, hasn't it?
I think we're up to message number 80 on this or something pretty
close to that. And then next again, the next
book will be Philippians, which will go hand in hand with this
as well. It's wonderful to see this fruit that's worked in us
by the Holy Spirit of God, because again, it's not natural to us.
These fruits that are listed here are not natural to us. What's natural to us is the things
that are mentioned before, anger, wrath, all those things which
are the fruit of the flesh, that's absolutely natural to us. And
then now we're going to see In verse 24, let's read verses 22
to 26 to see the context of the verses we'll look at today. Of
course, context is always so important. It says here, but
the fruit of the Spirit, verse 22, is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against
such there is no law. And they that are Christ 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, or envying one another. Again, our last study brought
us down to verse 23. Look at verse 17. The Scripture
declares, for the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh. And these are contrary to one
to another, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Brethren, do you have that problem? I have that problem. We have
a battle with the flesh constantly, don't we? I like to call it the
civil war within the believer. You've heard me say that before,
that we constantly battle our flesh. We constantly battle it
daily. Spurgeon used to say we have
three enemies. We have the world, the flesh,
and the devil. But the worst one is the flesh. Self. Self is the worst enemy. of every
believer in Christ. Oh my. And it says here in verse
17 that these things are contrary to one another. The spirit and
the flesh are constantly battling one another. They're contrary
to one another. So that you cannot do the things
that you would. What would we love to do? We would love to
not sin ever again, right? That's what we'd love. That's
our desire. That's why we can't wait to get
to heaven, because we're gonna see Christ first and foremost,
and we're never gonna sin again. Never. And that's glorious. So we desire not to sin, but
yet we're sinners. My oh my. So, every believer can identify with
the truth contained in those words. But believe it or not, there
are some professing Christians, I've mentioned them to you as
we've gone through this study, who say they've never sinned
again. Well, we know from 1 John that when people say that, they've
made God a liar, and the truth is not in them. Plain and simple. You can identify someone who
says, well, I don't sin anymore at all. I talked to a buddy of
mine across the road, and I'm sitting there with him and my
other buddy, and I said, well, we're sinning all the time. all
the time. And Gary, my brother, he said
to my other brother, Jim, he said, well, Jim, when's the last
time you sinned? And Jim said, well, let's see, I talked to
you earlier this morning, about two hours ago, and I sinned then. And I said, well, you just sinned. You're a liar. Because we're all sinners. Everything
we do is tainted with sin, right? Even our best prayers are tainted
with sin. But praise God, we're saved. And the scripture says this.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us. But if we say that, and that's 1 John 1.8,
and then 1 John 1.10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make
God a liar, and his word is not in us. So Paul's bringing forth
here before us that there's constantly a battle with a believer, between
the flesh and the spirit, constantly. And it will not cease until we
breathe our last breath. When we breathe our last breath,
we're not gonna sin no more. Praise God. We're never going
to sin again, brother. Wouldn't that be wonderful? My
oh my. Absolutely wonderful. My. So if someone says they've never
sinned, then you know that person is lying. And they're calling
God a liar more than anything. And that's even more serious
business, isn't it? The born-again blood-washed believers
saved by grace. Saved by grace. And the only
time again we're stopped sinning is when we see the Lord in glory. We say like Paul, wretched man
that I am. Who can deliver me from this
body of death? Oh my. Every son and daughter
of Adam that comes into this world is born dead in trespasses
and sins. Every one. Every single one. My. When God sends Christ into
our hearts, He gives us a divine nature, doesn't He? We're born
again by the Holy Spirit of God. We're not the same. We were talking
about that yesterday. We're not the same people we
were. We're just not. We've changed. We're new creatures
in Christ. We still have this flesh we battle
though, don't we? And we see, as we grow in grace,
we don't see ourselves getting better. We see ourselves getting worse. But you know what Paul said at
the end of his life, at the end of his ministry? He said, I'm
the chief of sinners. See, the more we're conformed
to the image of Christ by God, the more we see our sinfulness,
and we see His holiness, and He's exalted high and mighty,
and we're bought low into the vest. And all we can do is praise
His mighty name for what He's done for us, saving our eternal
souls. And remember this too, beloved,
in God's sight, clothed in the perfect spotless righteousness
of Christ, God doesn't see us as sinners. He sees us as Christ. He sees Christ. Man, what a comfort
for our souls, right? And so Paul's again bringing
forth, sure, we're gonna have this battle. We will. But if you're in Christ, you're
safe. You're secure. My oh my. By the grace of God,
as we grow in grace, we see ourselves more sinners and we see Christ
more and more holy. And I must confess, and I know
you do too, that I'm just a redeemed, saved sinner. That's all I am. I'm sanctified in Christ. I can't
make myself more holy, but in Christ I'm sanctified. He's all
our sanctification. He's all our redemption. He's
everything for the believer. It all hinges upon Him. Look
at verse 24. And I ask you, do we not have
the same problem that Paul had? Does the flesh not lust against,
or does the Spirit not battle with the flesh, and our flesh
lusts after things that we shouldn't do? Yeah. Amen, brother. Oh my. But look at this. Look at verse
24, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with
the affections and lusts. Note the words that those who are Christ, look
at that, and they that are Christ. Now there's some who are Christ
and there's some who are not Christ. Every born again blood-washed
believer is Christ. We're His. were purchased by
him. He has ownership of us. We're
his servants, his doodahs. We're his slaves, we're bond
slaves for Christ. Willingly. Pour my ear, Lord! Pour my ear, made willing by
God the Holy Spirit. Oh my, now there's many, there's
many of God's sheep who he's redeemed that are still dead
in trespasses and sins. But see, we preach the gospel
and God does the saving, right? And he's just gonna, he gonna
move and save his people, redeem them, regenerate them, just like
he did for us under the preaching of the gospel. And it all happened
under his timing. And by He's predestinated us
unto the adoption of children. And until we receive the Holy
Spirit, we cannot crucify the flesh. See, we can't do what
Paul commands here, we can't do naturally. You must be born
again. Now when you're born again, beloved,
the name of this message is walk, or live and walk in the Spirit.
Because if If we try to do these things
as a natural man, or even just as a religious person, we're
gonna fail every time. But in Christ, and by the power
of God the Holy Spirit, the believer has crucified the flesh and the
affections and the lusts. And who gives us this desire
now to serve Christ? It's the Holy Spirit of God,
amen. He gives us the desire now to love and to serve Christ
Jesus our Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ sent the
Holy Spirit, right? He's the comforter. Scripture
says he won't speak of himself. Who will he speak of, Brother
Jim? He'll speak of Christ, right? Amen. He'll proclaim Christ. He'll reveal to us the things
of Christ. As you've heard me say many times,
this is a hymn book. H-I-M. It's all about Christ.
From Genesis to Revelation, it reveals to us Christ. That's
what it does. He's the one. He's the star of
the play. God's the director and he's the
star. He's the headliner. And all of
us are just characters. in this great story of redemption,
beloved. Oh my. My oh my. And so we, by the grace of God,
have recognized that the old man is our enemy, and by God's
grace we now crucify the flesh daily. With the affections and
the lusts. That is, we kill those sinful
lusts, how? By the Holy Spirit of God. You
know, when those things come upon us, Stop what you're doing and just
pray to Christ. Say, please help me. Help me
to overcome this. And He will. He will. And when we get our minds off
those things and get our minds on Christ, oh, how our heart
will soar with joy, right? You've all heard me. Talk about
this world events. People say, oh, the world's going
crazy. No, everything's happening according
to God's will and purpose. And I have to keep my eye on
the king. Because if I get my eye on what's going on over there
and what's going on over there, Brian, you and I have talked
about it. I'm going to get all shook up. Are you? Let's keep our eyes
on the king. Let's keep our eyes on the Lord.
Right? It's his world. He's sovereign. Oh my. In true, genuine, saving faith,
coupled with the love of God put in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit, motivates us to obedience to the Lord, right? It motivates
us to serve the Lord. And we don't do it for vain glory,
as mentioned in the latter passages. We do it to glorify God. Look
what God's done. Everything I have, any gifts
I have, they all come from him anyways. Any knowledge that I
have, whether it be spiritual or whether it be things in the
world, it all comes from him. Right? I may have studied books
and all that, but he's the one who put all that stuff in front
of me and gave me an understanding of it all, right? My. It's amazing. And we, by the grace of God,
we recognize that the old man is our enemy. And again, by God's
grace, we crucify the flesh. We've declared war on the natural
flesh, haven't we? And the sins of the flesh. And
who will we have to reign over us? Not our flesh. But we desire
Christ to reign over us. He's our King, beloved. And part
of the problem with those wicked rulers, they said, we're not
going to have this man reign over us. See, but God's people
being humbled by the Holy Spirit of God. We've been bought low,
right? And as we talked about, yes,
we still struggle with pride, we still struggle with arrogance,
we still struggle with everything, everything that natural man struggles
with, we still struggle with it. And if somebody says they
don't, they're lying to you. Because we struggle with everything,
but by the grace of God, we have a hope. And we have strength
given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's now the love
of Christ that constrains us from sin. My sin crucified Christ. Oh my, but praise God. He said,
it's finished. He said, it's finished. Redemption's
complete. My, listen to this verse in the
Greek literal Bible, it says, now those of Christ Jesus, so
of Christ, in Christ, have crucified the flesh with its passions and
desires. So the victory over sin, which
the Lord has secured for us, is made actual and operative
in our lives by God the Holy Spirit. Right? Now we don't always experience
victory, sometimes we fall, but that doesn't mean the victory
hasn't been won. Right? Oh my. You know when I get in the most
trouble? When I get my eyes off Christ. Is it so for you? We're all nodding our heads.
It's so true. My, get my eyes on myself, get
my eyes on situations, and oh man I get so messed up so fast
it's not funny. It doesn't take us long to get
worked up about people. We can do that real well, can't
we? But if we keep our eyes on Christ.
I had someone one time, they said to me, a fellow comparing
Christians, all Christians nowadays, I get so tired of hearing this,
Christian nowadays, they're all a mess. I said, well, not God's
church. Maybe profess in Christianity. but not God's true people who
are amidst all over the world. I said, they're fine. He kind
of looked at me like, what? I said, well, if you compare
yourself to me, you're always going to make yourself look good.
But if we compare ourselves to Christ, we're both going to be
in the dust. And we can find fault with anyone.
Even ourselves, right? Probably more so ourselves than
anybody else. Oh my. So God, the Holy Spirit,
he's raised us up from this spiritual darkness that we are in, this
death, and given us eternal life, and given us a desire to live
for him. We've experienced, and it's a miracle, beloved. When
you're born again, it's a miracle of God's grace. That is something
that's wrought by God's power and his power alone. And so we
see here, if we live by the Spirit, that's if we've been made alive
to God, if we're born again, by His almighty power, and by
His presence, will let us walk daily now by His help. Seeking
the Lord's help, always. And I'll tell you what, absolutely
nothing, you've heard me say this probably a thousand times
now, absolutely nothing is too small to bring to the Lord. Nothing. I don't care how tiny it is.
Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful, isn't it, sister?
We can bring anything to them. Anything. Oh, it's wonderful. My, oh, my. But if we try to
win the battle by our own sin or by our own flesh, guess what?
That's what's going to happen to us. It's not by might nor
power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. Oh, my. And think of this. Just as good
nutritious food feeds the body, right? We eat every day, don't
we? Just as good nutritious food
feeds the body every day, so in like manner the preaching
of the gospel. That's why we need a diet of the preaching
of the gospel. That's why we need to keep hearing
Christ crucified. How easy we forget what he's
done for us. But he knows our frame. He knows
we're but dust. And he said, I'll never leave
you nor forsake you. Never, not ever. My oh my. And this is why the Lord said
to Peter, feed my sheep. What do you feed them? Feed them
the gospel. Feed them the good news. Tell me about Christ. Tell me about, you can tell me
over and over and over and over and over again about Christ and
I'll never get tired of hearing about him. I'll tell you why. My oh my. He's so wonderful. So we walk daily under his help,
by his help. And out of the love for the Lord
Jesus Christ and for his saints, God's preachers, what's the charge
to me as one of God's preachers? It's to feed the sheep. And I've got a one-string fiddle,
you've heard me say that, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Spurgeon used to say, when you make a sermon up, Brother Travis,
you know this too, now making messages up, make a beeline for
Christ right away. Find him as soon as possible
and don't leave there. Don't leave there. Oh my. So what does God's, what do God's
preachers declare? Well, we declare that Jesus Christ
is the eternal Son of God. He's our creator. And the gospel's
all about him. It's not about anyone else. It's
all about what he's done, who he was, why he came here, right? Who he was. He's God. He's the
second person in Trinity. He's God, God in eternity. Why'd
he come here? To save his people from their
sins, Matthew 1 21. What did he do? Well, he went
around doing good, but more so he fulfilled the law perfectly
for his people. And then he died and bled in
Calvary's cross to redeem our eternal souls. Oh my. And he was made a curse for us
so that we would never be cursed by the law of God. And the God-man
has risen. He's risen. I declare to you
a finished work. It's already done. There's nothing
for me to do. There's nothing for you to do but look to Christ
by God-given faith. Now these things Paul's speaking
of here, living in the Spirit, And walking in the Spirit will
all follow regeneration. Faith without works is dead,
right? James said. Those works follow. In no way
do they justify because we're only justified in Christ and
by Christ. But these works will follow.
And these are works God's ordained. I was talking to a fellow the
other day and I said, well, God's ordained these good works for the believer.
He said, what do you mean? Well, turn if you would to Ephesians
chapter 2. Right after two very well-known
verses by believers. Let's start in verse 6 of Ephesians
chapter 2. This is shortly after. Let's start in verse 4. So verses
1 The three pictures show us men
dead in trespasses. No way. We're dead men. And in
the Greek, dead there means graveyard dead in the Greek. It says, but
God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he
loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together.
So we're dead. We're graveyard dead. Can't do
nothing. And we're born again by the Holy Spirit of God. Right? Hath quickened us together with
Christ. By grace, ye are saved. Now, there's the first time he
mentions it. See, we humans, we need to hear things more than
once. And here's proof! Oh my! And hath raised us up
together, and made us to sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus. Why? All for God's glory, that
in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For
by grace are you saved, here it is again, for by grace are
you saved through faith and not of yourselves, It's a gift of
God, not of works, that means no works at all by us, lest any
man should boast. Look at this. For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Now,
we've looked in Matthew and we found out that those good works,
we don't even know when we do them. Because the Lord said,
remember to all those people, they said, they said, when did
we do these things, Lord? She said, well, when I was sick
and you came to visit me, when I was thirsty, you gave me, you
did it unto one of mine, you did it unto me. Right? Oh my. But God's ordained us
to these and we don't even know what they are. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. And God's
preachers declare that Jesus Christ, the God-man, he's risen
from the dead. And he's right now seated on
his throne in heaven. He's ruling right now. He's ruling.
He's not up there wringing his hands. He's ruling and reigning
right now. He's in full charge. There's
not a speck of dust that floats in the air without him knowing
it. Isn't that amazing? Oh, it's incredible. Very hairs
of our head are numbered, the scripture says. I can't number
my hairs, can you? He knows them all. That's how
intimately he knows his people. That's how intimately he knows
his sheep. My, and he's the only potentate. There's a fellow in
Rome says he's the potentate, says he's the representative.
Do you know that all the things that he says he represents are
all an attack on the Trinity? Look it up. What he claims to
be. That fellow in Rome. There's
only one potentate. There's only one king. And he sends his spirit to dead sinners to regenerate
us. And we're made alive. And now
we want to serve Christ. Now we've been given faith to
believe on, to cling to. Are you clinging to him? All
the time, right? All the time. Now let's go a
little further here. Boy, I jumped ahead of my notes
here. My oh my. Look at that. I'm already trucking
to verse 26 and we still got 25 to do. If we
live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. So here,
now we Now we desire, this will be quick because it's very much
so like the other verse there. Now we desire to walk in the
ways of Christ. Now we desire to exalt Him in our lives. To give
Him the glory. You know, by flesh we're all
glory seekers. By nature, we're all glory seekers. We want the
attention. We want folks to hear about what we have to say. But
when we become believers, Christ is the most important thing to
us now. And we want Him to receive all
the glory, honor, and praise, don't we? We want to walk in
the Spirit. Oh my, it says there again, let's read that again.
And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the
affections and the lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let
us also walk in the Spirit. Let's walk in the Spirit, in
the power that He gives us. That's why I say when you get
tempted, and we will all the time, and tried, just look to
Christ. Just keep looking to Him. And
the Holy Spirit won't speak of Himself. He's going to point
us to Christ, isn't He? He's going to point us to Christ,
beloved. Now let's look at verse 26. So He's going to bring forth
something here. And remember, always remember
that these words that we're reading, Paul was used by God, the Holy
Spirit, but these words are the true author of the scriptures
is God, the Holy Spirit. He's the true author. Holy men
were moved, right? And wrote these words. But the
true author of the words of God is God, the Holy Spirit. My,
oh, my. Look at this. It says here, let
us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying
one another. We must be on guard at all times
of personal ambition. I would never forget when I first
got here, I think I've told you, I'm going to tell you again,
John Claude telling me before I got here, and when I got here
I just kept this in my mind and it's still in my mind today.
And I think it's the best advice you can give a young preacher.
He said, always remember, Christ gets the preeminence. Always. Always. And that's true for all of us.
No matter what we do within the body of Christ, right? No matter
what our giftings are, always remember that Christ gets the
preeminence. He is the one first and foremost. And we're all servants of Christ.
Not just the preacher. We're all servants. All of us
who are born again are servants of God. Oh my. And what this also speaks about
is being on guard of personal ambition and the desire to sit
in the seats of authority. Every preacher of God that I
know and myself too, we never sought the position we have.
God put us there. I told you I was doing evangelism.
I was quite content doing evangelism for the rest of my life. Going
down the mission and preaching down there and it was wonderful.
And I was quite content. And then God called me to be
a preacher. And now, eight years now, here I am with you all. Isn't that amazing? Praise God. It's amazing. So, and we don't,
none of us, this is the wonderful thing I find with the body. We
don't seek. We don't seek out attention. It's wonderful. We're just a
bunch of sinners gathered together, aren't we? Praising God and worshiping
God. And waiting for his return. My! So we see here that to be desirous
of vainglory is sinful. It's actually sinful. And in
provoking one another and envying one another. I'll never forget,
one of the people who left said to me, I'm so jealous of the
house you live in. And I was like, what are you
talking about? You're jealous of the house I
live in? It's not even my house. It's the church's house. And
I said, and you have your own house, and it's beautiful. I've
been there. What? But, do you see? I'm not naming
no names either. I'm just going to leave it, because
that's not... But I was shocked when I heard that. I really was.
I was shocked. You know, God's provided that,
and we're so thankful. But if God provided us a trailer,
we'd be thankful. Right? Wherever we are, we're
just here to serve the Lord. My! And so, that's being sinful,
vainglory and provoking one another and envying one another is sinful. It's sinful. If the Spirit of
God dwells in us, we'll have a serious desire, a sincere desire,
for Jesus Christ and that He would receive all glory. That
He'd receive all the praise. And it'll be sincere, won't it,
brother? It'll be, we don't want the glory. And you know what
else? God won't share His glory with
anyone else. He says that in Isaiah. He says, I won't share
my glory. Oh my. He's a jealous God. Jealous of his son. That's why
when people say, well you can be saved by baptism or you can
be saved by this or that. God is a jealous God. He sent
his son. He's the only way. There's no
other name as we saw last week under heaven whereby we must
be saved. No other way. My. So if we teach a Sunday school,
if we bring a devotional, if we sing a song, or read a psalm,
or recite a poem, or lead in prayer, or minister to someone's
need, whatever we do in word or deed, let us do it to the
glory of God. Let us do it for His glory, and
His honor, and His praise. And, you know, the word of God
provokes us unto love. under love for one another and
under love for Christ, but it doesn't provoke us to envy or
to seek vainglory. It speaks of those things as
sinful. And this is, the word provoking there means to irritate.
For example, draw attention to ourselves. Draw attention to
ourselves. with an attempt to make others
think we're better or more spiritual. That's irritating. That's irritating. It is, isn't it? We're just a
bunch of sinners on the same ground. Brother Scott Richardson,
man, since you told me, I'll never stop using it. The ground
at the foot of the cross is level. It's level. Oh, and not only
is the Holy Spirit warning us here because it's irritating,
but also because it's a worldly spirit. The world seeks attention. But God's people, we seek to
glorify Christ, don't we? Don't look at me. I'm just a
safe sinner. I'm going to tell you about the one who saved my
soul. I'm going to brag on Christ. We like that, don't we? We want
to hear bragging. Travis is going to get up next
week. He's going to brag on Christ. Man, I can't wait. He just showed
me some of his notes. I'm already looking forward to
coming home and watching the video. My. Oh, it's wonderful. So verse 26 here tells us that
we're not to be guilty of envying one another too. You know, there's
absolutely no room in the kingdom of heaven for an envious or jealous
spirit. There's just no room. There's
no room at all for that. And listen to this. For who maketh
thee to differ from another? Who makes us to differ? I have
two brothers. Who made me to differ from my
two brothers? That I believe on Christ and they don't. Only
God, right? Only God made me to differ. I
didn't make myself to differ. God made me to differ. And then
it goes on to say, and what is thou that thou didst not receive?
Well, I received everything from my king, did you? And then it
says this, why dost thou glory if thou hadst not received it? Why glory in something that we
received? Why glory like we think we didn't
receive it? That is something I did, or something
I learned. Everything I know comes from
Christ. I look back at my life and I didn't know a speck of
things spiritually. And the little we scrape that I now know, I
only know because God revealed it to me. And there's so much more about
it. Do you know that all we know about God is what he's revealed
in his word. That's all. There's so much more about him.
But all the little we know about him is all contained in the word
of God. But there's so much more about him. He's God Almighty.
He's sovereign. He needs no one. He's the Ancient of Days. My,
oh my. What a Savior. What a Redeemer. is Jesus Christ our Lord.