Galatians chapter 5 and verse
16. This I say then, walk in the
spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the
flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the one
to the other. so that ye cannot do the things
that ye would. But if ye be led of the spirit,
ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness,
revelings, and such like. of the which I tell you before,
as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such
things shall not enter, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is
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. If we live in the spirit, let
us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory,
provoking one another, envying one another. Amen, may God bless
to us this reading from his word. The Lord Jesus Christ has given
us many promises in his word, and the promises of our Saviour
are sure and certain and glorious. One of the greatest promises
that the Lord Jesus Christ left to his people was to tell them
that upon his departure from this world, after the crucifixion,
and the resurrection came the ascension of the Saviour into
heaven. But he promised his disciples
that ere he returned into his Father's presence that he would
send a comforter, he would send another, and that God the Holy
Spirit would come and would comfort the disciples, that he would
indwell them, And so here was a promise given to the disciples
that they were to wait and they were to expect the coming of
the Holy Spirit. We learn from the book of the
Acts of the Apostles that that time occurred just a few weeks
later at the time of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost came and
fell upon the apostles, the disciples of the Lord, as they were gathered
together. The promises of Christ are sure
and certain and they will come to pass. In John chapter 14 verse
16 we read these words, I will pray the Father and he shall
give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever. But the Comforter, which is the
Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach
you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever
I have said unto you. And that's verse 26 in the same
passage. And in John 15, when the Comforter
is come, verse 26, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he
shall testify of me. Now you see the loveliness about
the way in which the Trinity is set forth for us here, how
that the Lord Jesus Christ returning into the presence of the Father
would request from the Father that the Holy Spirit be sent
and that he would come and he would gather the disciples together
and that he would lead them into all truth. Testifying of the
Lord Jesus Christ, bringing to remembrance all those things
which the Lord Jesus Christ had taught them during his own ministry
here, that three-year ministry on the earth. Because these apostles
were the ones that in turn were to take that message out, who
were to go into all the world and carry that message of Christ,
enabled and powered by God the Holy Spirit, to go into all the
world and we've seen in the past 2,000 years how that great work
of carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth has been accomplished
from that simple beginning where God the Holy Spirit came to the
disciples. In 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse
20 we read these words, All the promises of God in him are yea,
and in him, amen, unto the glory of God by us. Think about that
for a moment. All the promises of God in him
are yea. That means all the promises of
God in Christ are yes. Has God promised it? Do you need
it? Then the answer's yes. Has God
said that this will come to pass? Then the answer is yes. God will
accomplish everything that he has said. This book is full of
the promises of God. And we can be absolutely sure,
absolutely certain that the glorious promises of God will be fulfilled
and are being fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are in
him. Amen. They are in him complete
because the Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of all the
good, gracious blessings that God sends to his people. And
every blessing comes to us through our blessed Saviour. So the Holy
Spirit came at Pentecost just as the Lord Jesus Christ had
promised. And he comes and he indwells
all believers when they are born again. The promises of God and
the promises of Christ are to all the elect of God, all the
elect of God, be they Jews or be they Gentiles. Be they that
people that were the inheritors of the covenant promises of Abraham,
as far as the nation and the race of Israel was concerned,
or that people who were the true children of promise unto whom
the promises were given within the covenant of God's grace in
Christ. So we read in Galatians 3, verse
14, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through
faith. Our thoughts this evening are
going to be going to the result and the effect of the Holy Spirit's
indwelling of the believer. And I want just to, as it were,
by way of introduction to that thought of the indwelling power
of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life, draw your attention to
the vocabulary, the language, the language that is used by
the writers of Scripture, by the Holy Spirit himself, as the
inspirer of Scripture, in order to describe this work of God
the Holy Spirit in the heart of a believer. He speaks of conversion,
change, renewal, regeneration, Quickening, that is to make something
alive. The quick in the dead, the living
in the dead. Quickening means to make alive. The new birth, born again, a
new creation. These words, this vocabulary
speaks of transformation. It speaks of change, it speaks
of a new beginning, it speaks of old things passing away and
new things coming into existence. And this is the message of the
Gospel, this is the message of the coming of the Holy Spirit
as was promised by Christ, that there would be change, that there
would be a radical alteration in the lives of men and women
because of the coming of Christ and because of the coming of
God the Holy Spirit into their lives at that time of new birth
or new creation. So this is not a reformation.
This is not taking the bits of us that God can use and putting
them together in a new way in order to try and repackage what
was already there. This is God the Holy Spirit. This is the Spirit of Christ
taking that which is old and making it new. To make a new
man. and to make a new woman. And so Ephesians chapter four
is illustrative of this point. And in 24, verse 24 of Ephesians
four, we read the apostle saying, put on the new man. which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness. So here's this reference to the
new man, the work of God the Holy Spirit in the life of an
individual, creating a new man. And then it speaks of some of
the characteristics of this new man, that he is to put on that
which is created of God, righteousness and true holiness. So what characterizes
the new man is righteousness and true holiness, not the holiness which is after
a particular code of conduct or after a particular pattern
of lifestyle. Not the holiness that the Old
Testament Jews or the Pharisees of Paul's day would say, yes,
this makes you holy if you do these things, but a true holiness,
a perfect holiness, a holiness that came from God himself as
God the Holy Spirit indwells. a man and a woman, makes them
anew, makes them alive, and gives them this new heart and life. In Colossians chapter three,
verse 10, we see the same emphasis. Put on the new man, writes Paul
to the Colossians, which is renewed in knowledge after the image
of him that created him. So here we're speaking again
of this new creation. And Paul, the apostle, speaks
elsewhere of the old man and the new man and the various conditions
that apply in Romans 6, verse 6, in Ephesians 4, verse 2, in
Colossians 3, verse 9. And here in Galatians 5, in the
passage that we've read together this evening, we have a very
clear description of these two natures that now exist in every
born-again believer. There's the old man of the flesh. And there's the new man that
has been recreated. A new man that has been quickened,
that has been brought to life. And we discover that these two
natures cohabit. They coexist. They are together
in the experience and in the consciousness of every born again
believer. And I believe that it is important
for us to understand this teaching of the two natures in a believer,
because it will help us to grasp, it will help us to appreciate
some of the conflicts that we feel within our own breasts,
within our own hearts, the contrariness that's part and parcel of our
everyday life. These two natures dwell together
in every born-again person. The old man of the Adamic nature,
that nature which comes through the flesh, through our parentage,
through our lineage, all the way from Adam, that first man
to be created, and his fall and the fallen nature then which
comes to us through that line. And that contains all of the
natural passions, all of the fleshy desires, the pursuit of
self-gratification, what we call the fleshy lusts. And the new
man, the new man that is created in righteousness and true holiness. And these two natures are alive.
and they coexist in us as a fleshy nature and as a spiritual nature. And in Galatians chapter five,
verse 17, we read it a little earlier. It says, therefore,
the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh. And these are contrary, the one
to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Just a few weeks ago, I was glancing
through one of the bulletins that circulates among some of
the Sovereign Grace churches and I noticed a little extract
that had been written. It said by Pastor Todd Nybert
from there in Lexington in Kentucky. And I thought it was very opposite
to the point that we are making here in these particular verses. Let me read it to you. This was
Pastor Nybert. He wrote, I believe Christ is
all my salvation. Yet I look within constantly
for evidences of that salvation. I believe God is sovereign yet
I worry and complain. I believe God is the first cause
of all things, yet I can harbour anger and resentment. I desire to be like Christ, yet
I still have a desire to sin. Why these contradictions? because
I have two natures. The nature of the first birth
and the nature of the second birth. One always believes, one
never believes. One always sins, one never sins. These two natures operate in
my one consciousness. writes Pastor Niebuhr. Hence my cry, Lord, I believe,
help thou my unbelief. An understanding the existence
of these two natures and the way in which they interact one
with the other is key to grasping Paul's message. The works of
the flesh and the fruit of the spirit relate to the believer's
two men. The works of the flesh that he's
speaking about in this passage and the fruit of the spirit relate
to the believer's two men. The flesh rules the old man,
whose Adam nature lusts after those worldly aims and objectives. And the spirit possesses the
new man, but neither of them rest easy with one another. There is a battle, and temptation
hooks into the old man's appetites. Satan knows what the old man
likes, and he sends temptation and he sends trial and he sends
those things which will be satisfying and desirable to the old man
and yet would offend the new man. And so we find that there
is a draw in one direction and a resistance in the other. And
we find ourselves stretched and we find ourselves pulled and
we find ourselves contrary. And we sometimes wonder, how
should this be? Why should this be? and Satan desires to spoil Christ's
work. Satan desires to rob the elect
of spiritual blessings, to undermine our faith, to do despite to the
spirit of grace. And yet the promise of the word
of God to comfort and encourage us is this, Christ's life in
his people delivers us from the dominion of sin. Satan no longer
has rule in the life of a believer and that's why he is so angry. That's why he roars and rants
and endeavours to the best of his ability to make our lives
as difficult as possible. I do most certainly believe that
in that respect at least the believer's life is more complicated
and more difficult than any mere child of Adam. Satan no longer rules in our
hearts because he has been thrown down. Verse 24 of our passage
we read, So let me reassure you who are the Lords, the battle
is already won. That fight is over. Victory is
certain. Christ defeated Satan on the
cross. And in Ephesians 4 verse 8 we
read, And again in Ephesians we're told that we are Christ's
workmanship, God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. So that battle has been won and yet each believer
discovers that in our own personal experience the skirmishes continue. Like the head of a snake that
has been severed The old man can still bite and inject his
venom. There's a handful of noticeables. You know what noticeables are?
Noticeables are things that I want you to notice. There are a handful
of noticeables in these verses that we've read together that
I just want to direct you to and then our time together will
be at an end. But I want you to notice one
of the key phrases that the apostle refers to here. He speaks about
the works of the flesh. The works of the flesh is the
ordinary output of our fallen nature. You don't have to worry
too much about doing the works of the flesh, they just happen.
They're just part and parcel of this body, part and parcel
of our lusts, our heart's desire, pursuing the things that we want
to do, making sure that nobody gets in our way, making sure
that if we can get what we want by one means or another, by fair
means or foul, we'll get there. The works of the flesh. And these
works are the source of sin in our bodies. They are the output
of the natural heart and desires of man. They are the lusts and
the passions of the old nature. And Paul's catalogue of these
works of the flesh from verses 19 to 21 show the seriousness,
show the end of these works. And he says that these works
are manifest. The works of the flesh, verse
19, are manifest, which are these. And then he goes through this
list of sins. And some people might say, well,
I've not committed that sin, or I've not done that sin, or
that's not something that I do. The reality is that to a greater
or lesser extent, we are guilty of all of these things. Whether
it is in the practice of them, or the desire of them, or the
lusting after them, these things are all part and parcel of our
fleshy nature. Manifestation of these, I think,
probably refers to the fact that the reality is that men's consciences
know that these things are wicked, that the law of God clarifying
and illuminating these matters have shown them to be contrary
to the holiness and the perfections of our Creator and that there
is an evident culpability, responsibility that flows to men and women because
of these sins. Basically, they have their own
condemnation. The Lord Jesus Christ said, those
that live by the sword shall die by the sword. Those that
live by adultery shall die by adultery. Those that live by
fornication shall die by fornication. Those that live by these sins
will die by these sins. There is an accountability. There
is a manifestation. And we see that in the world.
People say, give me my freedom. Give me opportunity to do what
I want. Don't restrict me. Lift up your mores, lift up your
customs, lift up your traditions from off of my shoulders and
let me do what I want to do. I'm a free agent. I'm a free
individual. I won't be curtailed by any of
your standards. And what happens? They indulge
themselves. They pursue their desires. They
go after those things that they imagine are going to satisfy
them. And they discover that there
is a sting in the tail. And the very things that they
pursued, imagining that it was going to give them a greater
fulfilment and a greater satisfaction in their lives, are the very
things that bring them down to the grave. There is a manifestation
in these works of the flesh that we see in this world around about
us. Verse 21 says, they which do
such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now you see,
that's the final statement upon the sin of man, the works of
the flesh. Because not only will it take
its toll in this body, it will take its toll in eternity as
well. For there will not be entering
into heaven by those who are directed and led and managed
by the works of the flesh. It's a very solemn statement
and it is the reality for men and women in this life, in this
world, in this day. Here's another noticeable that
I want to draw your attention to. that the law, says the apostle,
pertains to the flesh. Now we've been talking about
this law for a number of weeks and we've been thinking about
specifically the way in which Galatians teaches us about this
law, but the law pertains to the flesh. It pertains to the
works of the flesh. It is given, it was given to
expose the works of the flesh, to rebuke the works of the flesh,
to judge wickedness, such that Paul says, the strength of sin
is the law. It's the law being brought up
against the works of the flesh that exposes the depths and the
severity of God's judgment against these natural inclinations of
the fallen man, the old man. But grace, in contrast to law,
Grace brings peace. Grace brings gospel blessings. It pertains to the spirit. So while there is an old man
and a new man, the old man has to deal with the condemning law
of God. The new man is free from the
law. It hasn't anything to say to
him. The new man is not answerable
to the law. The law has nothing to condemn
in the new man. It has nothing to measure in
the new man. There is nothing to mark. There
is nothing to grade in the new man because there is complete
holiness and righteousness in the new man. There has been a reconciliation. There is the dwelling now of
peace in the new man because grace reigns there. And the Apostle
Paul says that those that are of the Spirit are free from the
law. So we are taught, Galatians 5.18
there, if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. If your sin has been taken away,
if sin is not imputed to you, if you are whole, if you are
cleansed, if you are redeemed, if you are justified, if you
are sanctified, if you are a new creature in Christ Jesus, then
the law has nothing to say to you. It passes over you. Like the death angel in Egypt,
and it seeks such houses where no blood covering is found. The old man. There are so many people in religion
today endeavouring to make the old man better. It seems that
that's what religion is all about, trying to improve. The old man
trying to improve the flesh. The old man cannot be improved. The old man can only be judged
and the law's role is to measure the extent of that judgment and
measure the depth of the condemnation that pertains. The new man does not need to
be improved. The new man is perfect. The new man is holy. The new
man is made in righteousness. So the law has nothing to say
to the new man. And that is where our teaching
of our freedom from the law begins to make sense, to be understood. What Christ has cleansed and
made holy, will never be spoiled, cannot be judged, and is not
condemned. Peter, in 1 Peter 3, verse 4,
calls it the hidden man of the heart. I think we've mentioned
this before. Isn't that a beautiful phrase?
The hidden man of the heart. That's the new man. And he goes
on to say, in that which is not corruptible. The new man is not
corruptible, the hidden man of the heart is not corruptible.
It doesn't matter what we go through, it doesn't matter what
we face, that new man, that new creation is perfect and holy
and he contends against that old nature which coexists with
him in us all. Here's another noticeable the
fruit of the spirit. We've talked about the works
of the flesh. We've spoken about the fact that the law pertains
exclusively to the flesh. So we're now going to talk about
the fruit of the spirit. And I think it's very interesting
the way in which that language there again distinguishes these
two and contrasts them. It's not the work of the flesh
and the work of the spirit. Nor is it the fruit of the flesh
and the fruit of the spirit. It's the work of the flesh because
that emanates from the flesh and it is the fruit of the spirit
because it is derived from the spirit. So there is a distinction
immediately even in the words that the apostle here uses. The
fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love.
It is joy. It is peace. It is long-suffering
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. And the
apostle says it again, against such there is no law. Verses 22 and verse 23. These are perfections of grace. They're gospel blessings that
flow to the children of God. They are divine mercies which
are granted to us They are not our works. They are not natural. They don't emanate from our flesh. but they are the fruit of the
Spirit in us. As the Holy Spirit was sent by
the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Holy Spirit comes and enters
into every born-again believer, as he quickens, as he makes anew,
as he recreates, as he gives us this new man in our souls,
so that new man bears the mark of the Spirit on him, the fruit
of the Spirit. They don't originate in our flesh.
They flow from the indwelling presence of God, the Holy Spirit. And they are evidences of the
grace of God towards us in the new man. And they are present. They must be present. I accept to a varying degree,
but each one is present in every believer. Now, these are the
evidences of the Holy Spirit's indwelling. They are the characteristics
of Christ. And as believers are predestinated
to be conformed of the image to be conformed to the image
of Christ, all these qualities, all this fruit of the Spirit,
these nine different characteristics that are mentioned here in verses
22 and 23, these are characteristics of Christ. And as we are conformed
to the image of Christ, so these qualities are evidenced in us. The fruit follows the Spirit's
presence. To that extent, we have a cause
and an effect. The cause is the Spirit of Christ. The effect is the fruit of the
Spirit in our lives. Now, if you think about that
phrase, cause and effect, If the cause is the spirit, then
it cannot be that the fruit, which is the effect, is the cause
of the spirit coming. Because a cause cannot be the
cause of a cause. It has to be the effect. So it's
not that we have love one to another, which causes the Holy
Spirit to come to us. Rather, the Holy Spirit comes
to us, and the effect of the Holy Spirit in us is that we
have love one to the other, love towards God. The way and the flow of these
things, is such that we see that the effect comes from the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit, God with us. The fruit never makes us
fit for the Spirit's presence. The Spirit doesn't come because
we have love for God. but he comes to create love in
us. He comes to inspire us to love
God. He comes to grow our love for
God. Okay, we've said that there are
nine fruits, as it were. Joy. Does the Holy Spirit come to
us because we have joy? No. We have joy because the Holy
Spirit comes to us. The Holy Spirit comes to create
joy in our hearts. He comes to inspire joy, the
joy of the Lord in our experience. He comes to grow that joy as
we learn more about the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has
done for us. The fruit follows the spirit. The spirit is the cause, the
fruit is the effect. So peace, peace is granted to
us by the Holy Spirit. Long-suffering is the fruit of
the Holy Spirit in our lives. Gentleness comes to us because
the Holy Spirit leads us, teaches us how to deal with one another
as he patterns our life's experience after the Lord Jesus Christ.
And all of these fruits speak to us. They are created, they
are inspired, they are grown after the Spirit comes to us. Now I just want to take a little
aside, as it were, this evening and mention one thing to you
here, which I think is interesting and I think will help you to
understand this in a way that you might find useful if you
are speaking to other people about it. But one of the fruit
of the Spirit is faith. Ah, now this is interesting. You see, because what religionists
say is that when we believe, the Holy Spirit comes into our
lives. But haven't we just established
that the cause generates the effect? Faith is a fruit, so
it's an effect of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Faith does
not precede the coming of the Holy Spirit. Faith is the effect
of the coming of the Holy Spirit and this once again takes us
to the sovereign purpose of God. He sends his Spirit to generate
faith and from that faith we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
But God has the initiative. God is at work in the life of
the sinner before they can even believe in him. It is a spiritual
work that is going on here. All of these things speak to
us of the Spirit's work. Titus 3, verse 5 says, not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but according to
his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost. So we don't make ourselves eligible
for any of these blessings from God by the things that we say
or the things that we do. Rather, God creates all these
fruit in us. They are the portion of the new
man and they are perfected in us. They have no effect on the
old man. except to suppress him and battle
with him and labour against him as he seeks to overthrow them
in the experience of the believer. Here's another noticeable, and
it's an important thing I think, because we've already established
here now that there are effects of the Holy Spirit's presence
in our life. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. These are
things which are characteristic of the presence of the Holy Spirit
in our lives. And there is a temptation for
believers to look for these fruits, these evidences of grace, and take comfort from finding
them in our life's experience. Indeed there is a certain thought
that exists in Christian circles and evangelical circles that
if you can look back in your life and say, do I love more
than I did last year? Have I got more joy in my heart
than I had five years ago? Am I more patient now with the
people around about me than I was when I was first converted? Have
I got greater faith? Am I meeker now than I used to
be? Then that must be the evidence
of God the Holy Spirit in my life and therefore I can look
to that as a ground of the fact that I am saved. that the Lord Jesus Christ has
made me anew. And many people are encouraged
to do that. They're encouraged to look, what? To this fruit. We say, don't
look to your works, but look to this fruit. But I tell you,
there's a danger in this also. We need to look beyond the fruit. We need to look to the source
of the fruit. We need to look to God. We need to look to the promises
of God because I'll tell you this, there will come a day when
that old man will rise up against your new man and give him such
a beating, such a beating, that you'll think I've got no love
at all. Or I've got no joy at all. or I've got no peace at all,
or I've got no patience with those people around about me,
or I have no faith. We are in the throes at the moment
of comforting our sister and their family as they go through
the end stages of life and therefore it is perhaps more stark to us
to think about some of these things. But do you imagine that
you are going to enter into heaven without having to battle with
the old man to do so? Do you think you're going to
be able to pass from this fleshy existence into the eternal realms
without a fight on your hands? And what will the manifestation
of that fight be? Do you think you're going to
get six big burly lads jumping into your house and giving you
a beating? No, that's not how it works.
How it works is, that you're made to doubt your own faith. How it works is that the joy
of the Lord that you thought you had is taken away from you. How it works is that the patience
that you endured your trials and your temptations with over
many years is just lost. and you can't hack it anymore,
and you get annoyed with people, and you get upset, and you can't
read your Bible, and you've no time for prayer, and all of these
things start to come in around about you, and they start to
overwhelm you, and you end up thinking to yourself, have I
got any grounds at all for believing that I'm saved? Now the problem there is that
you've been looking at the wrong things. You've been looking at
the effects and not looking at the cause. So our eyes must be
lifted beyond the effects to see the One who makes the promises,
the One who has done these things for us. This is the fruit of
the Spirit. This is the outworking of the
Spirit, the outworking of the Spirit in the new man. But let
us not lay hold upon these experiences as grounds for our confidence
and assurance. The grounds for our confidence
and assurance is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the
cross. is the efficacy of the blood that was shed, is the promise
that God has given, that he that cometh unto me I will in no wise
cast out, is the fact that he is holy and just and he has found
a substitute for us and one who has stood in our place and he
will be true to his covenant promises to his people. If we
look to ourselves in any way, we will discover that we will
be challenged at that level. But where we look to Christ,
we can have the confidence that even in the midst of all the
trials and all the doubts, those promises will be sure and God
will save his people. Let us look to Christ in all
of these. The Spirit's fruits lead our
thoughts to the Lord Jesus Christ as the source, as the beginning,
as the first cause of all these spiritual blessings. And every
fruit is a mark of grace, and every gospel attribute is because
we are found in Him. but we look beyond the fruit
to the vine upon whom we are grafted and in whom we live. Look at verse 24 of chapter 5. They that are Christ's have crucified
the flesh with the affections and the lusts. It's a good thing
in all of these matters always to go back to the cross and see
that our standing before God is based on those things that
occurred at the cross where the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified
and we were crucified together with him. We walk in the spirit,
but we walk in the spirit looking to Christ, the author and finisher
of our faith. One more noticeable, and that's
us done. Because all these blessings of the new man are the fruit
of Christ in our lives and the spirit of Christ in us, and because
every fruit is derived, every grace, every gift, every glory
is derived from the Lord Jesus Christ, it is he who gives us
these things, There just isn't any place for
pride. There just isn't any place for
provoking one another or for envying one another. There is
no place for that, says the apostle in verse 26 of chapter five.
Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another,
envying one another. Why? What's the point that he's
making here? He's saying, look, This fruit of the Spirit is granted
to us, is given to us by God in our lives. And while our experiences
differ, And while these gifts, for we have them all, we have
them all, they're all, the Lord doesn't give one thing to another
and one thing to another. He gives us them all, they're
all our inheritance. The fruit of the Spirit is all
our inheritance. But he gives it in degrees. We
have all of Christ, we have all of his blessedness. and he is
our head and we are the body. We all need him to live and we
need one another in the various parts and in the various roles
and in the various contributions that we make one to another,
the body of Christ. Now you may feel that you're
not very important in the body of Christ. But there is work
that you alone can do. There is a contribution that
you alone are able to make. Indeed, you have been fitted
specifically and precisely for that task which you alone are
called to fulfil. But not for vain glory. not for
look at me, not for see what I can do, but rather for the
honour of Christ, for the sake of my brothers and sisters, for
all that God has done for me, we seek to honour him with the
works of our hands, with the labours that we bring, with our
praises and our worship. We don't do it for man's praise,
but for the sake of Christ and for the good of his people, we
say, Lord, do this work in my life. Use me, take me, employ
me. And we seek that the Lord will
indeed bring all things to fruition, all things according to his purpose,
achieve all things, employing, wonderfully employing these meagre,
vessels of clay that he has chosen so to bless and fit for purpose. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to our hearts and encourage us to understand some of these noticeables
in this fifth chapter of Galatians. Amen.