Let's pray. Father in heaven, give us now years to hear your word. Minds to understand hearts to believe and wills to obey. We not be here only but doers of your word for Jesus sake in his name we pray. Amen. One of the familiar metaphors in the Bible for the Christian life is the tree. You think of the language of an oak of righteousness or the psalm one we are like trees planted by streams of water it's leaf does not wither and the contrast is sometimes with the flowers of the field is beautiful as there or the grass because grass withers quickly and flowers are beautiful and yet they're fleeting and yet we all understand that trees most often are sturdy long lasting and so the image is to be like a tree takes a long time to grow when it does it's not easy to pull down and trees bear fruit that's the point Jesus makes in the sermon on the mount you can recognize false teachers from true teachers by their fruits Matthew 7, 18 a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a disease tree bear good fruit there was a hanging limb from one of our trees a couple of weeks ago and I thought I should probably get a ladder and maybe get up there or get someone who actually knows that they're doing and cut this down it seemed to be dead and was just sort of drooping down and was hanging over things looked a little unsafe but instead I thought it would be a really good idea if I just tried to jump up and just grab onto that branch and just start ganking on it well it turns out that it was dead and it wasn't just dead you know you see this much of the branch he looks like I'm gonna pull that down it turns out that it's you know this massive half of the tree or something that comes pummeling down thankfully did not fall upon my precious little noggin but it turned out it was dead and you can tell when it's dead because it no longer is blooming there's no leaves on it when everything else is green it's not bearing any fruit Jesus says that people will be able to tell what sort of person you are from your life will they taste from your life your conduct your speech your character good fruit or bad that's what Jesus says in Matthew 7 now the imagery that we come to tonight in Galatians is similar but it's a little more layered than that alongside the metaphor of fruit we have in Galatians 6 we'll read it in just a moment the analogy of walking and a contrast between flesh and spirit so any of you who have been faulted before by your teacher your parents your professors for using mixed metaphors in your writing you can look to the apostle Paul as your example he's walking and there's trees bearing fruit and there's flesh and sphere he's piling up all of these metaphors to talk about the Christian life and for Paul and Galatians the contrast is not so much between trees bearing good fruit or bad fruit but between flesh and spirit in other words there is a way the world walks and there is a way the Christian walks and they are different you should look different you should smell different you should taste different when people pull down from your life and take a bite that tastes like love joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleman fatal self control this tastes different that's Paul's instruction for us here in Galatians 6 Galatians 5 rather beginning at verse 16 follow along in your Bible or at home wherever you are on a device verse 16 Galatians chapter 5 but I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do but if you are led by the spirit you are not under the law now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality impurity sensuality idolatry sorcery enmity strife jealousy fits a vanguard rivalries dissensions divisions envy drunkenness orges and things like these I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God but the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self control against such things there is no law and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires if we live by the spirit let us also keep in step with this spirit let us not become conceited provoking one another envying one another tonight we start a summer series in the evening on the fruit of the spirit and the plan is to I will preach the first two sermons so tonight we're going to look at verses 16 through 21 and the next week I will preach through 22 through 26 and then the the rest of the pastors will come in June and July and will preach one by one through each fruit of the spirit it's our plan for the next couple of months here's the context I know we're picking up toward the end of this book which may be familiar to some of you others perhaps not here's where we are in Galatians chapter five Paul is making the argument that the Christian life means liberty look at chapter five verse one for freedom Christ has set us free and through a series of contrast Paul describes the old way of living with the new way of living are you children of Sarah or children of Hagar are you in Egypt or in Canaan are you under the law of Moses or the law of Christ are you sons or are you heirs enslaved with each of those contrast he's trying to say you are a people set free however this liberty should not lead to license look at verse 13 for you were called to freedom brothers that's the good news and this is also good news but it's a guard rail only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh you've heard me say this before biblical liberty is not the freedom to do whatever you want to do it is the freedom to do what you ought to do remember liberty from slavery in Egypt was not just to be free from their task masters which it was but that they might go into the wilderness and they might worship the Lord their God they had been serving against their will Pharaoh and now they could serve in their will fully and freely the Lord their God who sets them free and what the Apostle Paul understands about the Galatians and what the Bible understands about each of us in the human condition is that we have a hard time with freedom now Gibson may have cried out I look just like him my wife says as I imagine her saying that at the end of brave heart when he cries for freedom but the fact is even when we cry for freedom and we get free and we don't always know to do with it I was teaching this past spring an elective course at RTS on the enlightenment you can watch the last ten lectures on YouTube right now they are numbering into the tens of tens of views so far you can add to that but at the end of the enlightenment the 18th century and one of the markers that would set political thinking in two very different directions is of course the French revolution and what you see in the French revolution is it's one thing to manage the overthrow of the government it's quite another than once you've done it to manage to govern yourself perhaps you've seen the movie and I've seen it on TV so I don't know what other parts are in it's watch the TV version but Shawshank Redemption it's about prisoners in this really grim prison in main set in the kind of spans of 30s 40s 50s I think and one of the underlying themes in the movie is what happens when and if you get out can you really live on the other side when you are only used to living in bondage what does freedom feel like look like can you live as free people Paul understands that with Christian freedom there are at least two temptations one temptation is to go back to Egypt we know that when the Israelites were set free it didn't take but a few days before they said let's go back to Egypt they have cucumbers there they have meat pots we understood life it was hard but at least we had food and drink and we knew what to expect so that's one danger you go back to Egypt which in in this case again to sort of mix the metaphors for the Galatians meant going back to the law of Moses not under the law of Moses they're under the moral law the Ten Commandments but but that system of the Mosaic covenant has been superseded and yet there was a certain safety wasn't there and in their freedom they well I don't know about this this is kind of messy with with people without all those laws to tell us exactly what to do and so they want to rush back to the mosaic all that's sort of our identity that's who we are that was one temptation the other temptation Paul understands is to use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh so the opposite not to go back under servitude but to say we're free that means I have liberty to do whatever I want and Paul now in this section in chapter five is making clear that is not what Christian liberty looks like there is a war within the Christian JC Rial said the Christian has two great marks about him his inner peace and his inner warfare are both of those things true of you an inner peace with God peace with your identity in Christ so there's an inner peace but their brothers and sisters must also be an inner warfare because there is spirit and there is flesh and if you do not expect there to be warfare in your heart as a Christian you will be in trouble because what will happen one danger is when you do experience this fight within you think I have temptations and I don't want and I have inclinations and infections and are all these other Christians just going on from glory to glory where I just seem to I've stumbled this week and I'm fighting and I have all sorts of things that I want to do that I don't do and things that I don't do that I want to do is anybody else like this and you think nobody else is fighting so that's a danger if you don't expect that is the Christian life the other danger is just the opposite you'll think that because you are a Christian born again therefore if you feel something or you want something well it must be of the Lord because the spirit of God is within you because you're a child of the king because you're a son or a daughter I remember a friend I had many years ago who was taking Psalm 374 in a really bad interpretation it says wonderfully the Lord will give you the desires of your heart and she was taking it as a kind of promise that if she has these whatever the desires are then they must be laudably and God must give them to her because the Lord gives you the desires of your heart but don't forget what comes before that Psalm 37 verse 4 delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart so that's the desire to delight in the Lord that's the desire that he will give you there is a conflict within you look at verse 17 between flesh and spirit and they are at war against one another they are opposed to each other verse 17 since and do you notice these amazingly staggeringly counter cultural verses look at two of them verse 16 walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh and in the end of the verse 17 the spirit is opposed to the flesh quote to keep you from doing the things you want to do now that may sound all very simple but it is absolutely for critical for the Christian and it is absolutely ridiculed by the world listen there are things you want to do they look good they promise life they seem very natural and the Bible says you should not do them it's a very simple part about Christian maturity and it's amazing how quickly and easily it is forgotten you must not satisfy the desires of your flesh let think about the language there you do not satisfy them gratify them satiate them fulfill them which means you're going to feel hungry at times I mean physically hungry but hungry for sin there there are going to be you will have unfulfilled desires our world thinks that that's ridiculous why do you have desires except to fulfill them and if you have them then surely God gave them to you and he means for you to fulfill them we're missing completely a biblical anthropology that says we are born with original sin and even we're born again no longer slaves to ever increasing wickedness we still have to fight the power of that indwelling sin what the Bible calls the flesh so you and I Christians have desires right now in your life in my life you have desires maybe it's for sex for bitterness for revenge for self-pity for unrighteous anger for slander for ill-gotten power for ill-gotten gain you have desires in your heart that should not be fulfilled no matter how strongly you feel them no matter how good and right they seem to you no matter how much you think it will make you happy or you believe that desire is an expression of the real you or that it's a pleasure you deserve or that that desire is a constituent part of your identity if that desire is of the flesh the spirit is opposed to it and you and I should not do the very thing that we want to do so I just want you to hear this again as a Christian you're a new person you have a new heart you're not a slave to unrighteousness any longer that means you have a renewed will so that you don't have to do the works of the flesh the penalty of sin has been paid for the power of sin has been abolished and yet you and I have not been glorified we are being sanctified we've not finally been glorified so we must fight daily against the power of indwelling sin and that means that is does not equal ought is because you have the presence of a desire in your heart does not by itself mean that you ought to act upon that desire there are things you want to do that you should not do it sounds very simple but if we could pass that on in Christian maturity to our children to the graduates of our school before they move off to each one of us in our own hearts and be reminded of it as we're discussing with others there are things you want to do that you should not do there's a war in you in me between flesh and spirit the Bible calls these things the works of the flesh the Greek word sarks it's the old man old woman sarks is the power of indwelling sin what we are by natural birth who we are apart from Christ that part of us that has yet to be fully conquered what does it look like when you walk according to the flesh where we see this list here and we'll just move through it quickly but notice a couple of things before we encounter the list first of all verse 21 you see this is not an exhaustive list you may say it's quite long enough for me but he says drunkenness orgies verse 21 and things like these so I could keep going Paul says this is but a sample a representative sample of what the works of the flesh are like it's not an exhaustive list and then also notice Paul says perhaps surprisingly to us in verse 19 the works of the flesh are evident you could translate that word manifest or some other translation say obvious it should be clear to the Christian that these attitudes and behaviors are not consistent with life in Christ Paul does not go on a long extensive discourse to prove to the Galatians it should be obvious he thinks no Christian should read through a list like that and say well I'd like to put in a good word for a few of these no it should be evident obvious and we should be able to see even through the world's eyes that is they should be self-evidently wrong even to those who may not know Christ now perhaps some would want to differ with what falls under the category of say sexual immorality or impurity or rivalries or jealousy but if you think about it and maybe if you're here you're watching at home and you're you're not a Christian or you're still wrestling with things and you're not sure what to do with a list like this and they don't seem all that obvious to you that these are works of the flesh will think about it is there any community anywhere that is better off the more people commit sexual immorality is there any community better off where people are given to more drunkenness has it ever been the case that drunkenness, dissensions, impurity, divisions that these things lead to human flourishing would anyone devise a system of government or community or civilization to maximize these things and I think we know and see that's not where we want to move in it's not the neighborhood we want to be a part of it's evident the desires of the flesh may be hidden invisible desires people may not see your desires but the works of the flesh so you got desires in here works coming out their evident people can see them and at least on some level they're playing an obvious manifest there are 15 works of the flesh mentioned here there's no agreed upon way to divvy them up you can look at them in terms of the seventh commandment sexual sin and maybe the second commandment and then maybe the sixth commandment John Stott who's always good at dividing things up looks at them in four categories sex, religion, society, and drink let me dare to improve upon John Stott's categories and call them sex, religion, society, and revelry to the SRSR it's almost illiteration so first set of categories the works of the flesh sex sexual immorality all sexual sins whether public or private all sexual sins that would have been forbidden in the Torah impurity every culture stigmatizes people think stigma is a bad thing but stigmas can serve a good purpose when they stigmatize bad things even as we wrestle with lingering effects of racism and hearts or minds or systems or structures it's nevertheless surely the case that in the past 50 years there is now a tremendous societal stigma on racism that's that's not how you get ahead in the world no virtually no one wants to be that that's a good stigma it used to be that our culture had lots of stigmas on these sexual sins and with that could sometimes come some hard things single mom who feels like there's no second chance for her or life is ruined sometimes the stigmas can be very hard to deal with but sometimes they tell to a community here are our standards and this is not the way we ought to live well we can't rely upon the world to establish the stigmas because by and large the stigma now falls upon those who insist that there still is sexual immorality impurity sensuality all manner of licentiousness which we become very accustomed to in the things that we watch and are amused by and pay money to see and find entertaining we don't even blink and eye I saw a headline yesterday and let me just tell you I did not do a deep dive on this story but I saw a headline that Jennifer Aniston would be auctioning off a nude portrait of herself in order to raise money for coronavirus relief didn't do a deep dive on the story and it was just sort of met with and everyone's pitching in to do their part that that is nothing about the photo the person who's taking the photo the person who's in the photo nothing about what this is about a society or whoever's going to buy the photo just a then that's sort of a fun story and it just goes by like that normal works of the flesh sexual immorality impurity sensuality then we have this category of religion so idolatry idolatry whether in stone and gold or in your heart sorcery the Greek word is pharmacia we get our word pharmacy pharmaceutical and it can in Greek be a reference to drugs or to medicine that would be used to poison people or it came to be used for sorcery because chemicals used in potions or witchcraft you may think that sorcery is hardly the big danger for us today I had Blair Smith recommend a book to me a couple of weeks ago which I've been reading called the myth of disenchantment it's about the myth that says when we entered into modernity we did away with all these things like communing with the dead and spirits and energy forces and this book is arguing actually those things have have marched right along and in fact sometimes some of our very best scientists have been dabbling in all of these sort of spiritualist realms the book opens with the story of Marie Curie Nobel Prize famous scientist who's at a seance trying to communicate with the dead these things are not absent from our world though we don't see them as we once did and then the heart of Paul's list are these eight works of the flesh that manifest in human society and relationships so we're looking at the breakdown of personal relationships between individuals and groups of people and right at the top of the list enmity that is hostility ways of having hardness of hearts to certain people now it's it's difficult to talk about any of these things in the current climate let's you sound insensitive to one side or the other or seem to be just making a moral equivalence of all things so I understand that when we talk about issues of enmity or racial enmity it's it's often more than just personal heart level there's often societal and other structural issues that may be at play but it is not less than personal and isn't it the case what makes us so righteously angry is perhaps a African-American brother or sister saying you can't look at me and assume things assume harsh things hostile things hateful things and maybe you're socialized not to voice them but do you still have them in your heart to think well because of the the music the person listens to or the car that they drive or the hair that they have they are a threat or a danger isn't that some of what we hear crying out don't think that you have me sized up because the worst example of someone who looks like me wasn't it's the pain that if you talk to police officers good honest police officers feel they get to know me don't have enmity toward me thinking that I represent the worst of the examples that you see in the media don't think that about me I know it's it's more complicated than just one-to-one human relationships but it is not less than that there's enmity strife it's the case brothers and sisters that most people in our country we don't know what to do with ourselves if we are not fighting someone and there's loss that have been written on this there is people talk about the right in the left there's actually little that holds together there's not really a coherent political moral philosophy on the right or the left except a blinding hatred often for the other side negative partisanship what galvanizes our side is that we're not that side and so you watch the news with with sort of teams in your head now I have to tell you what the teams are you can probably figure out and you you you root for the other team to be the ones doing the really bad things because then it looks bad on their team and not on your team you're just finding a way for at the end of the day and the end of the 24-hour news cycle to say well our team is not bad like their team strife jealousy I want what you have fits of anger rivalries some translations say selfish ambition interestingly this Greek word was first used by Aristotle with reference to political office some old translations and commentaries will say that political office seeking is the word for selfish ambition now what we know that you don't have to be selfish and ambitious in a wrong way to have political office but for all time it has been one of the hazards of doing so rivalries dissensions factions divisions but I mentioned this morning a zero some morality I can only be for you if I am against them I'm talking about oppressors and victims talking about looking at you as a person as an individual thinking you inhabit some other team and I can't be for that team unless I'm against you and your team envy I don't want you to have what you have I'm suffering and I want you to suffer we see that these are not mere societal issues perhaps they can be addressed with incentives and legislation perhaps they can be restrained by the force of law at the level of the hearts they require a supernatural work of the spirit sex religion society revelry gives two examples drunkenness and orgies think spring break well I actually don't think about it but what you might think of is spring break on beaches across this country that sort of revelry or drunkenness I have learned over the years almost 20 years in past real ministry that drunkenness is one of the least talked about significant sins in the church sort of just in nice looking middle class churches we can think that that's not really a problem and underneath the surface there are quietly lives and marriages ruined destroyed by addiction to alcohol maybe somebody in this room maybe somebody watching this tonight one hand there's a certain stigma so we don't talk about it but in their hand and you don't talk about you don't tell somebody when you're going down that road it is not simply a manifestation of medical proclivities it may be some of that but it is also a work of the flesh to be fought against by the spirit of God Paul could go on he follows with a warning I warn you as I warned you before verse 21 that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God apparently he was in Galatia before and he said something like this and he tells them again will not inherit the kingdom of God that means listen carefully because this is confusing to people because we hear this and we think oh wait a minute can Paul really mean this I'm angry sometimes am I going to hell I'm sometimes envious am I not going to heaven this is where you need good theological categories and understand the difference between indwelling sin and reigning sin the difference between the flesh that your spirit is fighting against you say I hate that I was like that with my children I hate that I flew off the handle I hate that I looked at that why am I doing it Lord help me that's the spirit fighting against the flesh that's a sign that you have the war within you what Paul's talking about is the person who has reigning sin no fight no warfare their lives are irrefutably marked by these works of the spirit and to us he gives a very stern warning if you do not have evidence that you are endowed with the spirit of the king how can you receive the kingdom of the king if this is what your life is marked by without fight without repentance and the spirit of God according to the word of God can give you no assurance that you are a child of God the works of the flesh must be fought against by this spirit so what should we do let me give you just three words and closing one look at yourself say is this me now listen you have permission to say by God's grace it's not me this isn't one of those sermons where everyone should say I guess I'm not a Christian I trust in fact that most of you will look and say by God's grace I do struggle with these temptations but this is not my life day and in day out I hope but you ought to look is this me this mark who I am is this what people if they spend time around me this is the fruit that they taste this is what it tastes like to be around me is rivalry and dissension and enmity and hostility and anger and sensuality look at yourself to look at the ugliness of sin we fight sin with will which we must but we also need to fight sin with aesthetics that as you cannot just fight sin by saying gotta do better stop sinning be of good Christian part of how you fight sin is with beauty because the picture of the Christian with the fruit of the spirit is lovely these words should strike you as ugly nasty you don't want to look like this that's that's why when we dumb down the bible's harsh language about sin we aren't helping anybody weren't and we just speak about weaknesses or even sometimes just speaking about brokenness these are hard these are ugly words because sin is ugly and we ought to see that and say I don't I don't want to look like that you fight the ugliness of sin with the beauty and the loveliness of Christ look at yourself look at the ugliness of sin and look at Christ finally it's his spirit that's in you Christian and his spirit is opposed to these things you notice Paul doesn't even say stop doing the works of the flesh now that may be implied but he's not mainly writing to the Galatians to say stop doing it he's saying you have the spirit of Christ within you that will help you to stop doing it you have Christ in you who is opposed to all of these things that's your identity that's who you are so look to Christ for grace look to Christ for strength look to Christ he is the reward his kingdom is our inheritance for all those who walk by the spirit and put to death the deeds of the flesh and he is reward enough why do you not do the things that you want to do blessed are the pure and hard Jesus says for they shall see God I want to do that but I believe that I want to see God more and I believe that seeing the beauty of Christ is better than the fleeting pleasures of that ugly sin that's what I that's that's the fight of the spirit against the flesh I my flesh wants that but the spirit in me wants Christ and then the Christian the spirit over time will win and Christ will have his victory let's pray father and heaven we give thanks for your word would you strengthen us by it convict us in it bring us near to the cross of Jesus that we might find freedom from the power and the penalty of sin and live there for is your children in Jesus name amen