This morning we're going to be
in the book of Galatians chapter 5, both hours, if you'd like
to turn there. Galatians 5. This is the fourth August that
we've been here. We've been here three full years
now. And not next week or not this week, but next week is going
to be exactly. September 11th is when we started
worshiping in this building three years ago. And I'm so thankful
for Lord's grace in keeping us throughout this long, and I trust
that he'll continue to do so. And it's amazing, our needs never
change when we come and gather together. Our need is the same.
Our need is His Spirit to be sent and power, and it's His
truth to be given. Otherwise, we're wasting our
time. We're going to be talking this
morning about the flesh and the Spirit quite a bit. And I realized
something, that even though the Lord has ordained preaching,
The preacher is not the one that causes anyone to hear anything.
It's all the Lord that does that work. The preacher takes the
word of God that he gives, the Lord gives, and he declares it.
And the Lord has to be the one to make it effectual. The Lord
has to be the one that makes it accomplish something or it
would accomplish nothing. And that's my hope this morning
is that he would give you ears to hear and he would give me
the mouth to speak it with the heart and the mind to remember
the right words to say. That's my desire. Shortly after coming up here
to be the pastor here, someone came in while I was studying
and they just walked right in like it was a museum. I didn't
know it kind of startled me. I'm like, can I help you? And
they're like, yeah, I just want to look at this old building. It's just nice.
I'm like, okay, well, glad you unlocked the door from then on.
But, um, He said, he said, what does the life of your congregation
look like? He said, his exact words was, what does
their Christian walk look like? How do they walk according to
the commandments of scripture? I said, well, they look like
a bunch of dead dog sinners at the master's table begging for
another crumb. And he was taken back abundantly
by that statement, because that's not what he expected me to say,
I suppose, and perhaps he's never heard that before. But he responded
to me, my Christian walk looks like what's in my heart. And
I said, that's very true. In my mind, I thought that's
very true. Because the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked. And that's where the Phariseeical
mentality, the self-righteous mentality will come from, is
the deceitful heart. And this man certainly was a
Pharisee. He was trying to say, well, I live a better life than
your congregation does, or I live a better life than you. And I
didn't debate with him. I just simply said, well, yeah,
that's how you feel about it. It is what it is. Come and listen
sometime. And of course, he hasn't been back. The self-righteous and legalists
always come from our old man, our human nature. We desire to
have control over spiritual matters. And it's interesting because
the flesh and the spirit, it doesn't work that way. I can't
do something in the flesh to accomplish something in and of
myself, accomplish something spiritual. And you don't hear
that preached often. Men don't talk about that. Men
say you need to do this or you need to do that in order to accomplish
something spiritual or to be saved or in order to be in good
standing with God. But the truth of the matter is,
is there's only one that's in good standing with God and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. So my need is to be found in him. My
need is to have his righteousness. My need is to have his works
that he did in his flesh because he was perfect. And that's the
difference whenever we hear about this gospel and those who run
to the law trying to seek only that which Christ can give. They try to determine justification
by the law. And the law, the scripture says,
no flesh shall be justified by the deeds of the law. It's so
simple, isn't it? So clear. I've seen that man again later
on and he didn't remember me. And I invited him back to church
again and he still hasn't come. But you know, you see people
and you have compassion on them. You feel sorry for them. We don't
stick our nose up in the air and think, well, I've arrived.
I'm better than you are. I know more than you. No, we think,
but for the grace of God, there go I. Or you see a reflection
of yourself, what you used to be to some degree, and you loathe
yourself and think, Lord, thank you for grace, thank you for
saving me, thank you for keeping me. And that's what those experiences
bring. Most of the time I've found the
experiences that you have with nonbelievers is not for the nonbeliever,
it's for you. To teach you to look to Christ,
to realize what he has given you with the new eyes of faith
and the heart to look to him. Let's read this together. Galatians
5, verse 13 through 18 says, For brethren, you have been called
unto liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law
is fulfilled in one word. Even in this, thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. But if you bite and devour one
another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. This I say then, walk in the
Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
to one to another, so that you cannot do the things that you
would. But if you be led of the Spirit, you are not under the
law. Paul is pointing out the specific
lusts of the flesh. And he actually gives us the,
next hour we're gonna hear about the works of the flesh, which
is the same thing. It's the same thing. But Paul's saying to go
after the lusts of the flesh is to remain under the law. And
what I mean by that is to continue to seek justification or righteousness
or sanctification from doing something is just returning to
the law and it's trying to get affirmation of self. It's trying
to look right before God in and of herself. That's an impossibility.
There's only one that the Lord was pleased with. When the Lord
Jesus Christ came to John the Baptist, the scripture says that
the heavens opened and the spirit descended upon the son of God
like a dove and a voice came from heaven that said, this is
my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, hear ye him. He's the
one I'm pleased with. He's the one I'm satisfied with. You and I, God's not satisfied
with you and I. God's satisfied with his son.
And we have to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. To seek justification,
sanctification, and righteousness by what we do is an impossibility. It's not like it's hard to do.
It's not like you can attain to it eventually if you keep
trying and trying. It's an impossibility. It can't happen. It can't happen. And yet so many preach that if
you live this way and you do this, you'll see yourself getting
better and you're standing before God will improve and the Lord
will bless your life more. It's just lies, all of it's lies.
The only way that we can be sanctified, the only way we can be righteous,
and the only way we can be justified is if you're found in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Paul's also stating that if we
go around willingly doing that which God has stated wrong, we're
not in the spirit, we're in the flesh. And all these things that
we're gonna read about second hour, we're actually gonna talk
about the fruit of the spirit second hour, and the Lord's given me
a message for that. But this is a buildup to that message, basically. But
everything in the flesh is contrary to everything in the spirit.
Do we see that? I mean everything. There's nothing
that the flesh loves that the spirit loves, and there's nothing
that the flesh hate that the spirit hates. They're totally opposite. If
the spirit loves it, the flesh hates it. If the flesh loves
it, the spirit hates it. It's just that simple. They're
contrary one to another in every way possible. We're talking daylight
and darkness. What fellowship hath light and
darkness? The scripture says that they don't. As soon as the
light comes on, the darkness must flee. Is that not true?
And it's true with the Lord and his gospel regarding our spirit
and our flesh. Now men take these specific verses
I just read to us, and they make them a work of the flesh, something
we must attain to, something we must do to please God, and
this is not the case. Walking in the Spirit is just
that, walking in the Spirit. You say, well, how can they that
are in the flesh walk in the Spirit? Because the Lord said,
you are not in the flesh, but you're in the Spirit, because
the Spirit of God dwells in you. So what does it mean to walk
in the spirit? That means you're looking to
Christ as all of your righteousness. You're not looking to self. So
if you're looking to Christ, it has to be through eyes of
faith. And that's how the Spirit operates within the regenerated
child of God, is by faith. We look to Christ as all of our
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. We don't look
for it in ourself. We don't look for evidences in ourself, and
we don't look for practical use of the law for ourself to see
our life changing or getting better. We look to Christ in
all things because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Soon as we walk in the flesh,
if we look to this flesh, if we look to this flesh, we're
under the law. This is what Paul is saying.
And this is all goes back to them. They were circumcising
and they were keeping certain feasts and things and he's saying
you do that you're under the whole law, you're guilty of the
whole entire law. And he says, Don't do it. Don't
do it. Men say there's something we
must do to attain good standing with God, something we must do
to please God, and this is not the case. Walking in the Spirit
is walking in the Spirit. It's by faith alone, by faith. Looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we are indeed made to do this, this isn't a decision we make.
You don't get to decide, well, today I'm gonna walk in the Spirit.
It doesn't work that way. It does not work that way. So
how does it work? Well, if you're made to walk
in the Spirit, that means you're made to look to Christ as everything
in your salvation. Every part of it. You get no
glory in it whatsoever. And if the Lord makes you do
that, if the Lord causes you to do that, then you are walking
in the Spirit and You have fulfilled the law. That's the fulfillment
of the law, looking unto Jesus. If we try to do something in
order to please God, then we're under the law. But looking to
Christ is the fulfillment of the law. And I don't think I
told you the title of this. That's what it's titled, fulfillment of the
law, or fulfilling the law. How do I fulfill the law? Well, we don't, first of all,
God does, in the person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
but his people fulfill the law by looking to him. Do we see
that? Because Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness. The lust of the flesh and being
under the law are not the byproduct of being under grace. They're
not the product of being in the Spirit, they are the product
of the flesh. Walking and doing the works of the flesh, that's
the product of unbelief. Walking in the flesh, that's
the product of not looking to Christ. It's not, if you are
in the Lord Jesus Christ, if He has given you His Spirit,
He sees you as walking in the Spirit, no longer in the flesh,
no longer in the flesh. These lust of the flesh and walking
in the flesh, being under the law, that's the product of our
atomic nature. Adam was our father, so to speak,
in the flesh. That's his nature that we've
inherited. And inheriting that nature, that nature will do what
it's bound to do. It's bound to resist God. It's
bound to reject God. It's bound to cry out, we will
not have this man reign over us. It's bound to say, I'm good
enough on my own to attain my own righteousness. Surely there's
something I can do. He goes all the way back to Adam and Eve
in the garden. They sowed fig leaves together after they got
done committing the sin, thinking they would cover up. And the
Lord says, no, I have to be the one to cover you with the lamb, the
blood of the lamb. Then Cain thought, well, I'll
bring the works of my hands and it'll be accepted. The Lord says,
no, you have to have a lamb. You have to have the blood. But
without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. And you
have so many others that kept bringing things unto the Lord
that He didn't accept. He would not accept it. And the
picture of all that is this. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. So who are you looking to? Who
am I looking to? Myself? This Adamic nature that we have? Or are we looking to Christ?
Are we looking to Christ? He is the one that maketh us
to differ. A lot of men and women don't
realize that they're seeking righteousness outside of Christ
by trying to find something in their life that proves that they've
been saved. And in doing so, whether it's intentional or not,
you're not seeking Christ at all. You're seeking self-gratification.
And that's scary because we all were there at one point. If you
had any background in religion, you would be looking around yourself,
seeing what's going on in your life, whether or not God had
his hand upon you, or whether or not you were truly saved or
not, or whether or not this or that. And men put titles on certain
things like progressive sanctification. And they actually do prep, they
call it practical. I can't remember the word now
practical something that like your practical living, biblically
speaking, stuff like that. And it's like, what they're saying
is, is you need to be seen as living a Christian life, you
need to be seen as living a certain way, acting a certain way, doing
a certain way. But what did he just tell us
here? What did he just tell us in his word? He said that, let me find it. For brethren, you
have been, verse 13, for brethren, you have been called into liberty,
only used not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by
love serve one another. If your eyes and your focus is
on the Lord Jesus Christ, he's saying that that's the fulfillment
of the law, and you're going to love your neighbor. Now, that's
not something that we work on, where I say, okay, I need to
really work on loving you more. I need to really try harder to
love you more. That's not a bad idea, but the thing about it
is, is everything God requires, he provides. He puts the love
that he has by grace given us in us. And we just love to think
about this. So we know that the Lord told
Nicodemus, you must be born again. And I want to slow down and make
sure I don't go too quick here. You must be born again. And Nicodemus didn't understand
that. Nicodemus said, how can a man, when he is old, enter
into his mother's womb a second time and be born? And the Lord
said, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is
born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you,
you must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou canst not tell from whether it come or whether it goeth.
So is every one that is born of the Spirit. So the Lord's
people, chosen in the covenant of grace, redeemed on the cross
of Calvary, resurrected in Christ Jesus and justified, they are
called out of darkness into his marvelous light at the appointed
time in this life, in this life. The scripture says they are made
new creatures in Christ Jesus. He also says, we know that we're
the children of God if we have the spirit of God in us. Now,
if any man hath not the spirit of God in them, they are not
the son of God. It's that simple. So the Lord gives his spirit
unto us. We are birthed by that spirit, meaning we are now the
children of God by the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ
on the cross. So we have this Adamic nature. We also have the
nature of the Lord Jesus Christ that is bestowed freely by his
grace because we are a new creature in the Lord Jesus Christ. We've
been born again. Now you say, well, I can't see
that. That's because you're in the flesh and I am too. We can't
see the things that are spiritual of the Lord because they're spiritual. The flesh can't see the things
that are spiritual and the spirit and the flesh are enmity against
each other. They're hostile one to another.
They don't get along. They're opposites. They're total
opposites. When the scripture talks about
the sanctification of the flesh, It's speaking about setting apart,
setting apart the flesh, being a vessel, an earthen vessel.
It's what we're called. That earthen vessel houses the
new man. It houses the spirit. of the
Lord. This is a miraculous mystery
to you and I, because we can't see any of this. But that's what
this earth and vessel was made for is over to the inward parts
to the soul to be born again by God, him indwelling us. Now, how do we live our life
with the new man? It's by faith alone, isn't it?
It's by faith. It's by grace, but it's by faith.
That's the nature of the new man, the new creature, as we
live by faith. Just like Adam had a nature that
was all about sin, all about self-righteousness, or his choices
seemed to make him be wanting to choose self-righteousness
or hide himself. He didn't have any interest in
the things of God. That was the nature that's been
passed down to you and I. Well, now, being born of the
Lord's spirit, The Lord has miraculously given us the ability to look
to him, to believe on him, and full circle back to what I was
saying, to love one another, to love one another. Why? That's
the nature of the new man, to love one another, to love him,
and to love one another. This is, this is amazing, because
you and I answer this question, did you love God before he revealed
himself to you? The answer is no. Didn't know
who he was until you revealed yourself. Did you love your brethren
like you do now before the Lord came to you and made you believe
the truth? The answer is no. Now we don't
look to these things as evidences of our salvation, certainly not.
But this is what Paul's saying is that everything that the spirit
operates in is in the realm of spiritual. It's gonna be by faith
unto love, faith unto love. And we're gonna see next hour
what it's not, what the flesh does. But the glorious part about
it is that's the change that takes place. That's the change
that takes place. We no longer, now don't misunderstand
me. The Lord did not come to save
this flesh. He did not come to change this flesh in any way.
The flesh is going back to dust from whence it came and it's
still sinful. But the good news about it is
the Lord has put away that sin. So he doesn't see it anymore.
As far as he's concerned, we've been made the righteousness of
God in him. And that's the hope of every elect child of God.
To you and I, we are now living what we would call a spiritual
life, but we're also living in the flesh as well. Now, how is
that possible? Well, the Lord said it, and we
just believe it. The Lord said it, and we just
believe it. And whenever it says, they that are in the flesh cannot
please God, what does that mean? Well, that means you're looking
for something on the outside in order to prove or to show
that you have something on the inside, and it's not possible. It's just not possible. This earthen vessel will soon
be a corpse and it houses the spirit of God with the new man, carries the new man inside. And
when God sees his elect, he doesn't see the flesh. You know why?
Because the flesh was crucified with Christ, our substitute.
We were in him. That's what the scripture says.
When he was reconciling us back to God, we were in him. This
is why Paul said this, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I
live yet not I, it is Christ that liveth in me and the life
I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Now this is good
news if you see yourself as a sinner, because everything I've told
you so far, you didn't produce, you didn't acquire, you didn't
merit, you didn't earn. It's freely bestowed by the grace
of God because everything he requires, he has to give. This
is for his people alone. This is what he did in the covenant
of grace and on the cross of Calvary. He saved his people
from their sin, making them the very righteousness of God in
him. And when he sees you and he sees me, he sees the blood.
And what did he say about the blood? He was looking for one
thing in Egypt, wasn't he? One thing. When I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. I'll pass by you. The life we now live in the flesh,
we live by the faith of the Son of God, that's the fulfillment
of the law, looking to Christ, believing on Him as all, not
looking to self, not going about seeking justification, but looking
to Christ, who is our justification. That's the difference, isn't
it? We look to Him by our new man. Scripture says in 2 Corinthians
5, 17, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold,
all things become new. That's so simple, isn't it? All
things have become new. Told Nicodemus, that which is
born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is
spirit. This creature, this creature created in righteousness, created
by the Lord's spirit, has a new nature right now. The nature
of Christ in you, the hope of glory, it's the spirit that births
us, it's his spirit that keeps us, it's his spirit that has
made us have faith to believe the Lord Jesus Christ. Without
that, we would never have believed. We would never have believed. This is why Christ had to die
so that we could be born again. See, the Lord could not birth
us into his family and us be sinful. It couldn't work that
way. We had to be born holy as he is. We had to be born righteous. We had to be born justified.
We had to be born sanctified. This is what Christ had to accomplish
is all of those things on the cross. If that's not accomplished
first, we could have never been born. We could have never been
born because God would have not been just in executing our sin. It had to be punished. The sin
had to be, the payment had to be made. Justice had to be satisfied. That's what the beauty of the
cross is, is that's exactly what the Lord accomplished on it.
When he shed his blood and offered himself up to his father, the
father was pleased and justified his people and gave us everything
that we needed to be exactly what God accepted in the Lord
Jesus Christ, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Did we earn that? Did
we merit that? We weren't even there. How could
you earn something if you're not there? And even if we were,
we'd have been the ones screaming, crucify him, let his blood be
upon us and on our children. We knew that to be true, don't
we? No, we didn't earn it. It's grace, given freely by grace. This is why he had to become
a man. This is why he had to be made sin for us who knew no
sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
This is our reflection. That righteousness is our reflection
of the inward work that the Lord has done, the new creature in
Christ that the Lord has created, the perfect nature that God's
bestowed right now. Having a holy father means we
have the nature of that father. Did you know, I see my children
sometimes, they have, and you hear the same way, You ever see
the flaws in your children? For those of you who don't have
children, I'm sorry. You see your children, you're like, I
wish they wouldn't do that. I used to do that. They're going
to mess up. It's not good. And you go and
tell them, you're like, don't do that. If you do that, it's
not going to work out for you. And they're like, OK. And they
do it anyways, and it don't work out for them. I've lived this. I've
lived this. Why do they do it? They have
my nature. They have my nature. They have my blood. The Lord's
people has his nature, his blood by his spirit. Think about that,
think about that. Having a perfect savior that
satisfied the law and the demands of God means because we were
in him, we have satisfied the law because Christ is the end
of the law. Having our great just God, having
him as our substitute surety means that we've been made justified
freely by his grace. Having the righteousness of God
bestowed upon us means we've been made the very righteousness
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ right now. This isn't futuristic.
Somebody said, what about glorification? Well, we've already been glorified.
We're in Christ seated in the heavenlies right now, but we
just haven't experienced it yet. It's amazing, because I was going
to save this till the end, but I'll talk about this now. My
daughter is in nursing school, and she told me something called
phantom pain. You ever heard about that before?
Phantom pain. We were talking about this yesterday.
I don't know if anybody else knows what that means, so I'm
going to explain. Apparently, there's patients that comes in
there to get help, and they have pain, but they're amputees. So
they're missing an arm. And they're like, my hand is
really hurting me, but there's no hand there. Or my leg is really
hurting me, but there's no leg there. My knee is killing me,
but there's no knee there. Did you know that's exactly what
it's like for the Lord's people dealing with sin right now? It's
not there. It's gone. It's completely been
taken away. Well, how can I feel it? Because
the presence may still be there, but the Lord took it away and
nailed it to his cross. He took it out of the way, nailing
it to his cross. It's gone in his eyes. It's gone. So when we get to glory, It won't
be that we look back on this life and think that this was
reality. We won't look back on this life at all. But this is
not reality. That's reality. This heaven earth will pass away.
Time will be no more. It'll be as if it never existed.
We'll just be in the eternal. This is, you talk about that
in some churches, they'll throw you out because they think you're
crazy. Am I right? But boy, the Lord's people, that's our hope.
That's our rejoicing. We just have phantom sin. That's all it is. Phantom sin. We still feel the effects of
it, but it's gone. It's gone. What a gospel. What
a gospel. By the indwelling of the Lord's
spirit, he continually subdues this flesh. Don't you know how
often We need to be redirected in our minds back to Christ.
We get caught up in the flesh and the things of this life,
this world. And this is a vapor. Our life's a vapor that vanished
at the way of this heaven and earth have vanished away. And what is time
compared to eternity? Even if there's people saying
we're millions and millions of years old, I ain't arguing with
anybody about that stuff. I don't care. Give me Christ. That's
all I care about. The age of the world, that doesn't concern
me. I need him. If I don't have him, what I know
is not gonna help me at all. That being said, Even if it was
that long of a time that was created, what difference does
it make in eternity? Because it never had a beginning
and never had an end. So how small of a blip are you going
to put? It's gone. It doesn't even get
what I'm saying. It's amazing what the Lord has
done in this gospel and creating this world to save his people.
The Lord subdues our flesh and redirects our thoughts back to
Christ by his faith bestowed We believe Him, we believe Him. This is the renewing of the mind
that Scripture talks about. He calls us back to Him. How
often does our mind wonder and we are in the flesh, doing the
things of the flesh, and the Lord reminds us, seek ye my face. First thing that happens when
trouble comes, oftentimes we'll try to do things ourself to fix
it, and we'll end up just like Peter, because now it's too big
and the winds and the waves are boisterous, here I go, I'm gonna
sink. Lord, you're gonna have to save me, because I can't save
myself. That's the spirit coming back to you and saying, seek
his face. Seek the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Cry out to him. This is how the
Lord causes His people to walk in the Spirit. Do we see that?
This is the fulfillment of the law by looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it's good news, because if
God requires us to fulfill the law, He's gonna have to provide
the means necessary to do it. That's exactly what He did by
giving us faith to believe the Lord Jesus Christ. That's exactly
what He did. There is no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus. They're not under the law, they're
under grace. They're under grace. Now let's read this text again. Galatians 5, 13. For brethren,
ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but to by love serve one another. For all the
law is fulfilled in one word, even in this thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. But if you bite and devour one
another, take heed that ye be not consumed of another. "'This
I say then, walk not in the spirit, "'and you shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. "'But the flesh lusteth against
the spirit, "'and the spirit against the flesh. "'And these
are contrary, the one to the other, "'so that you cannot do
the things that you would. "'But if you be led of the spirit,
you are not under the law.'" I remember hearing in false religion
where they used to say, you need to let the spirit have his way.
You need to be led of the spirit more. Anybody else ever heard
that before? Can't let the spirit of God do anything. And they
take that verse, quench not the spirit. And they try to, they,
who has the power over God? Who can, none can stay his hand
and say unto him, what doest thou? He's God. And the spirit
is no different. He's God. It's all the triune
Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ, the father and the spirit. No,
he's saying right here, if you'd be led of the spirit, if he causes
you to seek the face of Christ, If He causes you to beg to Him
for righteousness, knowing that you don't have any, if He causes
you to say, Lord, you're gonna have to be my justification,
you're gonna have to save me all by grace, because I can't
save myself, you're being led of the Spirit, then therefore,
you are not under the law. You're not under the law, you're
under grace. There is no instance where looking to Christ, which
is walking in the Spirit, fulfills the lust of the flesh. And there
is no interest, there is no instance where fulfilling the lust of
the flesh is walking in the spirit. That's what Paul's saying here.
Can't be both. Either you're looking at the flesh and what
you're doing, you're desiring to be noticed by God, you're
desiring to be noticed by man, which is a lot of times that's
covetousness or whatever else. Desiring attention, affirmation.
That if you're doing that, you're not walking in the spirit. See,
the Spirit teaches the Lord's people, look to Christ and live,
not to self, not to the flesh. Scripture says, we've been bought
with a price and are not our own, but his. Paul's saying that
the flesh and the law cannot bring forth fruit unto God in
and of itself. The flesh and the law, the law
can't produce fruit. The law can't bring life. The
law can't bring righteousness. So you do the deeds of the law
in your flesh, there's no fruit, there's no righteousness. That's
what we're gonna hear about the second hour, the fruit of the spirit. If we go to the law thinking
that we're producing fruit, we're fooling ourselves, we're walking
according to the flesh. That's as clear as I can be on
that. The new man by faith bears this
fruit unto the Lord because it's bestowed of the Lord. It tells
us the root is by faith that works in love. It works in love. Did you know that we are not
to ever examine ourself to see if we love each other? We just
love each other. Why? Because it's Christ in you.
The Lord causes us to love one another. Causes us to pray. How
do you love each other? Well, do you do this? Do you
do that? Do you ever pray for anybody that you care for? Might
have done that in false religion, but did it for different reasons,
probably, like myself. We do it asking the Lord to save
those that we care for, have mercy upon them, show them the
truth, because they're blind, they can't see. We pray for each
other in ailments and infirmities. We lift each other up often,
and that's just one instance of things that we do that the
world cannot or does not do. They don't pray selflessly. They
don't say, not my will, but thy will be done. In false religion,
I don't remember praying, not my will, but thy will be done
one time. It was always, this is what I want. Like the Lord
was a grocery store, and I walked in and pulled something off the
shelf in my prayer, and he should give it to me, because I obligated
him. And it's sad. It's so sad how false religion
works. That's walking in the flesh. That's what that is. But
you are not in the flesh, the scripture says, but in the spirit. And I had that verse to turn
to, but I think rather than doing that, let's turn to Romans chapter
six and closing. I just want to read three verses,
but Romans six. Verse 12 says, let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body that you should obey in the lusts
thereof. Neither yield you your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourself
unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have
dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under
grace. Therefore, Brethren, the sin
is gone. The sin is gone. If we're not
under the law, the sin has been taken away. That's the only way
we wouldn't be under the law. You say, well, I still see it.
What does he mean here? Let not sin therefore reign in
your body. Look to Christ. That's what he means. Look to
Christ. Well, should I strive to do this and this? There's
nothing wrong with morality. Having good morals, there's nothing
wrong with that. Just not for righteousness. We never examine
our morals and say, okay, I know that I believe the gospel because
I live this way and I don't live like that person. That's walking
in the flesh. That's the point I'm making. I love what he says here. He
doesn't say, he doesn't say, if you don't do
this, this is going to happen. He said, for sin shall not have
dominion over you. Why? Because you're under grace.
You're not under the law. The Lord is going to make you
walk according to his spirit. He is going to cause you to look
to Christ who fulfilled the law. And in doing so, he says that
the law You're not. But if you be led of the spirit,
you're not under the law. You're not under the law. So why do we still feel sin? Why do we still grieve over our
sin? It's just phantom sin. That's why. Phantom sin. It's not there. It's not there. Let's pray. Father, we ask that
you would take this and bless it to our understanding, all
for your glory. Give us understanding, Lord, we pray. In Christ's name,
amen. Let's take a break.