GALATIANS 5 GRACE ENABLES THE SPIRIT TO WORK IN YOU2019 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Galatians 5 Grace Enables The Spirit To Work In You

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. Galatians chapter 5, continuing to work our way through the book of Galatians.

talking about foundations for Christian living and the specific foundation of grace, the doctrine of grace, which is one of those doctrines that is, you know, very difficult for us to receive, not because it's complicated, but because it's so contrary to our nature. And here in chapter five, we kind of see that, I think, illustrated as we spend some time meditating on it, that it's one of those passages that is awesome and powerful and wonderful, but

but also one that we will kind of wrestle with a little bit in the ongoing, in the day-to-day, and how to live it out and continue to come back to it and walk in it, I think is an area that we all are challenged in. And so we want to be encouraged in the Lord this morning to come back and recenter ourselves around what it looks like. And so we are now in the portion of the book where Paul is really kind of dealing with the application side of the doctrine of grace.

And as the legalists have come in and challenged them to turn to legalism, to turn to the old covenant, Paul has been countering that with the doctrine of grace. But now he's gonna move on into the spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit.

And the work of the Spirit in our lives is a result of the grace of God. And it's what we need more than anything in our lives is the work of the Holy Spirit continually renewing us and ministering to us and transforming us and shaping us. And our lives as Christians begins in the Holy Spirit. We're born again by the Holy Spirit.

And we need to then continue to stay in that place of allowing the Holy Spirit to bring that kind of transformation in our lives by the grace of God. And the transformation that we want to see in our lives is never going to happen by our efforts.

but it's always going to be by the work of the Holy Spirit. Like the Lord told the prophet Zechariah, it's not by might, nor by power, nor by laws, nor by legalism, right? But it's by my spirit, says the Lord. That's how he accomplishes his work, and we don't deserve it, but

He gives his Holy Spirit to us because we believe in him and receive it from him. And so we want to take some time to consider this. We're going to be looking at verses 16 through 26 to finish off the chapter. Let's read through that and then we'll jump into what God has for us. Galatians chapter 5 verse 16 says, I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and

And the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another. So that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that

Verse 22. Verse 23.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another. Here is Paul continues to minister to the Galatians about grace. He focuses in on the work of the Holy Spirit. And I've titled the message this evening, Grace Enables the Spirit to Work in You.

The grace of God, it's God's goodness towards us. It's his forgiveness for us. It is everything that he has in store for us. It comes back to his grace, his goodness, not our efforts, not our performance, but it's based on faith. The fact that Jesus has finished the work upon the cross enables and opens up the opportunity for any of us to receive the full work of God in our lives.

And we have full access to God and we are available for God to do anything that he wants to do. Whether it be, you know, transformation, whether it be spiritual gifts, whether it be some special calling, whatever God wants to do, he can do because he's not limited by us reaching some level. He's reached the level on our behalf. And we stand before God as those who have never sinned by faith in Jesus Christ and

And so the Holy Spirit is enabled to work in you. We dealt with it a little bit earlier in the book of Galatians, but sometimes we kind of get this notion in our mind, well, I have to be holy in order to receive the Holy Spirit.

And so then we pour our attention on the efforts of, you know, being holy. And what Paul is explaining here throughout this passage is that you don't be holy to receive the Holy Spirit. You receive the Holy Spirit for him to transform you, to make you holy, to help you, to be doing that sanctification work in you.

You might remember a couple chapters back, Galatians chapter 3 verse 3, where Paul challenged the Galatians. He said, are you so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? And this is something that we easily fall into. We began in the spirit, believing in Jesus. We're born again. We didn't have to work for it. It wasn't our efforts or performance that accomplished it. It was something we received as the work of God.

And yet after that, many times we fall into the trap and sometimes it's, you know, right away or sometimes it's, you know, after 10 years of walking with the Lord or sometimes it's after 10 minutes of walking with the Lord. And then we get right and we realize I can't be made perfect. The idea of being made perfect is not perfection in the way that we think of it, but mature, complete. We can't be finished. We can't complete the work that God wants to do in us

by our efforts, by our flesh. The work that God wants to do in us, he says he will be faithful to do it. And you know how he will do it?

by the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And so we began in the Spirit, and tonight Paul will challenge us to continue in the Spirit until the end so that God can have that finished work in us that he desires to do. So grace enables the Holy Spirit to work in you. There's four points we'll look at as we work our way through the passage tonight. We're starting out in verses 16 through 18 for point number one, and that is yield to the Spirit step by step.

step. Paul says, I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. There's an interesting thing that happens for us as believers. We love God. We recognize the issue of sin. We want to do away with sin in our lives. The lust of the flesh is something we battle. It's something we, you know, have issues with. We feel the draw towards sinful activities and behaviors. And

And we want to remove those things because we love God. We want to, you know, learn to grow over and past and out of those sinful behaviors and patterns. We want to develop in those areas. And what often happens in our lives is in an attempt to deal with the lust of the flesh,

we start making rules. We start developing what maybe we would call boundaries. And not saying that we shouldn't develop some boundaries, but we also have to be very careful to not then try to finish the work in sanctifying ourselves by our efforts, by our attempts to

to do what's right all the time and to walk uprightly and follow our list of things that we think are important and that we need to follow. Paula here is saying to deal with the lust of the flesh, it's not about works. And I can imagine the Galatians, the legalists coming in, it wasn't immediately like, hey, you're not doing it right. You need to be miserable. Let's give you these set of laws. But

But I would suggest it was probably presented in a way of, hey, you really love God? I mean, don't you want to have a better relationship with God? Don't you want to be set free and not have to deal with those sins that you're struggling with? And that's, oh, yes, yes. Please tell me more. There's some insights to give. And so we want to receive it. And then the legalist saying, here's what you need to do. Apply the system of rules and regulations. Yes.

And Paul is saying, no, here's what you need to do. Walk in the spirit. There is this battle that rages within us, even as believers and even, you know, no matter how long we walk with the Lord, there's this battle that's going to continue. Paul describes the battle a little bit in verse 17. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish.

And so here is this battle that is raging, Paul describes. This flesh lusting against the spirit or warring against the spirit. And the idea there, the wording implies a pushing down. The flesh, your flesh, your sinful nature, its great desire is to put down the spirit.

to reduce the influence and the impact of the Holy Spirit in your life. The flesh wants to put down the spirit and the spirit, its greatest desire, his greatest desire is to put down the flesh and reduce the flesh's impact on your life and influence over your life. And so there are these, you know, two battling against one another, our sinful nature, the Holy Spirit, and they're contrary to one another.

And Paul says, that's why you don't do the things that you wish. Sometimes you want to do what's right and you find a hard time doing that, right? Because the flesh is trying to put down the things that, well, God has called you to and the Holy Spirit has prompted your heart to walk in.

And then sometimes you want to do what's wrong and then you experience the Holy Spirit, you know, working in your life to put down the things of the flesh. And so whatever you wish, whether of God or not of God, you feel this battle, you experience this conflict because they're contrary to one another. Pastor Thomas Constable says this, he says, we experience conflict whether we side with the spirit against the flesh or with the flesh against the spirit.

The things that you please may be good or evil. It's impossible for us to remain neutral. We either follow one or the other. And I think that's a key thing for us to consider. We are involved in war.

And you can't be neutral. You can't just like, you know, try to stick to the middle of the road and, you know, not really go too far to one side or the other. No, you're choosing one or the other. And choosing one is not, you know, hey, if you choose to walk in the flesh, that doesn't mean you have peace. You know, you have all these temptations. You have these things pulling you to the things of the flesh. And you think this is going to be much easier if I just go back to those, you know, practices and those things. I won't have to face this battle.

But there's still the battle because you have the Holy Spirit. You've been born again. And so there is a battle. You experience it. There is this war that's going on and you're not happy. You're miserable in the flesh because you have the Holy Spirit. And as you decide, okay, I'm going to pursue the things of the Lord. I'm going to walk in the Spirit.

Well, then we still have the sinful nature that, well, is a battle that we will continue to face until we enter into eternity. And so as we walk with the Lord and walk in the Spirit, we're also going to experience the battle of the flesh, seeking to pull us away from the things of God and into the things of this world and of our own desires. So Paul describes this battle, but he also tells us how to have victory in it.

How do you have victory when you have this battle going on, when you have this things, you know, pulling within you, the flesh seeking to entice you into the things of sin? How do you have victory? Paul says in verse 16, I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So here's how you have victory. Here's how you overcome. Here's how you find freedom and deliverance

It's not by, well, you need to really be determined. You know what you really need is accountability partner. Get yourself an accountability partner, and then you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, what you really need is to walk in the spirit. And I like this idea of walking in the spirit because walking is, you know, it's something very simple that we do, that we've been doing since we've been very young, and it's one step at a time. You can't walk four steps at a time.

You can only walk one step at a time, right? There's a deliberate pace that's involved. It's a restricting pace. It's each step. And even if you want to transfer that to our day and age where we don't walk to get to places that often, but you do step on the gas and the brake. So there's still the stepping involved, right? That same kind of concept. And I like this picture of walking in the spirit because I think it illustrates for us

The type of relationship with the Holy Spirit that Paul is calling us to, and that is a step-by-step relationship with the Holy Spirit. Not a day-by-day, not a once-in-a-while, not a once-in-a-lifetime, but a step-by-step. That every time we take a step, every time our foot hits the ground, we're to be making a choice to be in the Spirit.

to be yielded to the Holy Spirit. And really it comes down to a choice with both of these, with the flesh or the spirit. It's the choice that I'm making to yield myself to the spirit, to surrender myself to the Holy Spirit, or to surrender myself to the flesh. And we are making that choice over and over and over again, all day, every day with each step that we take.

And Paul says, if we will make the choice to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, not just once, not just once a day, but, you know, I don't know, how many steps do you take a day? Do you do the 10,000 steps a day? 10,000 times a day? Yield yourself to the Spirit. It's not a, you know, sometimes I think we could try to make walking in the Spirit a

works type thing right okay so how do i walk in the spirit and so you know we want some formula okay so here's what you need to do you need to read five chapters and then you need to pray over that and then you need to memorize it and then you know and then you'll be really walking the spirit or you know speak in tongues you know for this amount of time and then then you know and okay so here's the the the ritual to follow and now you're walking in the spirit but

But it's not that. That's not what Paul is calling us to. He's not calling us to something that, you know, one day when you're mature enough, you'll understand what it means to walk in the Spirit. Now, what Paul is describing here is something that any believer can do and any believer can understand. It is to make the choice, call out to God, and surrender ourselves to Him continually, repeatedly.

He goes on in verse 18 to say, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. If you are led by the Spirit. And this word led, it's the idea of like a gentle leading. And the Holy Spirit works in our life in a gentle way. And that's why it comes back to us making the choice to yield ourselves. It's a call to surrender ourselves, to come before God and say,

God, I want you to work in my life. I want you to guide me on the next step. I want you to show me what is your will. I want you to teach me, to lead me, to give me the strength that I need. And it's this voluntarily surrendering ourselves to the Holy Spirit, a gentle leading, like a child leading an animal.

It reminds me of what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 32, where God says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye. But then God goes on to say, do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, and else they will not come near you.

So God says, picture the horse or the mule. Have you ever had a bit and bridle kind of relationship with God where you're just being stubborn and God has to like, I really get it in there and like, come on, let's go. And God says, that's the opposite. Instead, come near to me voluntarily and let me guide you with my eye. Now, if I think about like a gentle guidance, like, can you get more gentle than guiding with the eye?

Right? That's not, you know, a bit in your mouth, but it's God just looking and saying, that's the way. Here's the way to go. Walk in it. It's just, here you are. When we were at Calvary Chapel Leander for the church service, it was in the middle of service and I was teaching and I was controlling the slides from my phone like I usually do. And then the Wi-Fi went down. So I lost my connection to the computer in the back. And they didn't have someone in the sound booth. So I started making eyes at Kim.

And I was looking intently and she's like, why is he mad dogging me? I didn't cause a distraction. But then I looked at the screen. I looked back at her. I looked at the screen. I looked back at her. I'm guiding her with my eye. Like, look where I'm looking. See that? And then she, oh, okay. And she went and she controlled the slides for me, right? That's what I picture when we think about God guiding us with his eye.

It requires a familiarity. It requires a closeness, right? That we know the Lord enough. If I start making those kinds of eyes at Roman, he's like, dude, I'm out of here. I don't know what's going on. Like, this is just weird, right?

But because Kim and I have a close relationship, we're familiar, she's able to interpret and understand, oh, this is what he's trying to say. And in a similar way, we need to keep ourselves in a close relationship with God. We're familiar with him. We know what he desires and likes and doesn't like. And then he can just kind of point the direction and just subtly indicate, gently show us...

the way that he wants us to go. It requires though for us to come willingly, not like the horse or the mule, but to just come and say, God, where do you want me to go? How would you like me to take this next step? What would you want to respond to, you know, this email or this message that has come through? And Paul says, if you will yield yourself in that way, if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law. You're not bound and restricted by the law because God's not going to lead you in ways that are contrary to his word.

God's going to lead you in the things that are good and true and right and beneficial for you and for everyone around you. And so here, Paul encourages us to yield to the Spirit step by step. And it's not something we just do, you know, when we hit this passage once in a while, working our way through the Bible, but it's something that God wants us to do day by day, throughout the day, to just fill our lives and our minds and our hearts with Him and

in a way that we keep coming back to him and yielding ourselves, surrendering ourselves and saying, Lord, you speak to me. What do you want? And that doesn't necessarily mean that you have, you know, an angel appear every step of the way and, you know, give you every detail that you are asking God about. God will also allow you to make decisions, you know, using what he has already taught you and what he has already revealed and

But the key thing is giving God the opportunity. So you may not hear his voice in every instant, but give him opportunity every chance you can to speak to you, to lead you, to guide you, to direct your steps. Paul says, if you walk in the spirit in this way, you will not gratify the lust of the flesh because you'll be seeking after the things of God and he will direct you in the way that you need to go.

Well, moving on to verses 19 through 21, here we get point number two, and that is the spirit delivers you from the works of the flesh. Paul here goes on to list the works of the flesh. He says in verse 19, the works of the flesh are evident, which are, and then he goes on to give us a bunch of examples, 17 examples that follow in these next few verses. So talking about this battle between the Holy Spirit, between the flesh and our lives, and

He says, look, it's not some great mystery. Like, oh man, I really can't tell if I'm walking in the spirit today. I don't really know. How can I know? And you have to really like, you know, be incredibly perceptive and try to figure out, am I in the flesh or not? He says, no, no, the works of the flesh are evident. They're clear. It's abundantly clear when you are walking in the flesh instead of walking in the spirit.

Because what happens in the flesh is all of these things. And again, he gives us 17 examples. Now they're not meant to be, this isn't necessarily a complete list. Because he says at the end in verse 21, and the like. So after listing a bunch of things, he says, and everything else like that. Like the point here is not, and we're not going to like get into, here's what the definition of this word means. We're not going to get into that. Because that's not what Paul is saying.

trying to accomplish. That's not the point that he's making. The point is, these things are obvious. And when you're involved in sinful practices like this, you're walking in the flesh. You're not yielded to the Spirit. You're not walking in the Spirit. You have yielded yourself. You've chosen to let the flesh rule and dominate in your life. And it's a choice that we walk in as opposed to walking in the Holy Spirit.

And so the works of the flesh are evident, he says. So he deals with, he lists some examples of sexual type sins, adultery,

fornication, uncleanness, lewdness. It's kind of like progressively, you know, worse and worse as he's listing these types of sins. And so there's all kinds of immorality that this covers. And so when you're involved in immorality, the works of the flesh, that's evident. It's a manifestation of your choice to yield yourself to the flesh. He goes on to talk about idolatry and sorcery. And so those are sins of worship.

The idea of idolatry is worshiping false gods, whether they be idols that we bow down to or things that we give too much priority and passion in our own hearts and lives. And so as we do that, you know, that is a manifestation, a revelation of our choice to yield ourselves to the flesh.

He talks about our relationships with one another, you know, evidences of our flesh in that, in hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, all of these issues between us, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, all of these things are evidences of the flesh. Revelation. Revelation.

And again, it's not about, okay, so here's this list. So instead of the 10 commandments, you can replace that with the 17 works of the flesh. Write these down, post them on your wall and work really hard to make sure you don't do those every day. That's not what Paul is prescribing here.

He's saying, look, this is evident. These are things that are not of God. And one of the ironic things about legalism is that legalism often will manifest itself in this way that, well, I'm really strict in this area.

But then I have this other area and there's reasons why it's okay for this to be, you know, going on in my life. There's reasons why I think it's okay or there's hidden things perhaps. And so then the legalism is just a pretend. It's just a show in front of everybody else. And Paul is saying, look, you don't have to like sit there and meditate for 20 minutes trying to figure out, am I in the flesh or am I in the spirit? No, the works of the flesh are evident. Just stop and think, are these things of God?

Are these things that God would call you to? Are these things that God would lead you in? And if it's not something God would lead you in, then it's not something that God is leading you into, right? And so it's not a huge mystery that you have to track down and follow. Now, what Paul goes on to say at the end of verse 21 is a bit challenging. He says, I tell you beforehand that

Just as I told you in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So he lists these works of the flesh. He says there's more, but these are just a sample, right? And here's the thing. Here's the concern about these things. He says, look, those who practice those things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And it causes a lot of people to wrestle with, okay, so are you saying, okay, I prayed the sinner's prayer, I've believed in Jesus Christ, but then I struggle in this area. Does that mean, you know, I'm not going to go to heaven? And, you know, there's lots of ways that we could wrestle with that in our minds and imagining all kinds of different contexts or just thinking about our own context, right? And so there is this,

Part that we kind of have to wrestle with for a moment. But here's what Paul is saying. I tell you beforehand, as in time past, those who practice, notice the word practice. So first of all, we can recognize he's not talking about, uh,

individual instances of the flesh in our lives because we will still have failures in our flesh. We will still have issues of sin in our lives and not even necessarily, you know, like it's only limited to just this five minutes. You know, I had this issue of wrath or, you know, this outburst or whatever. Like it's not even like that. But what Paul is describing here is not

or, you know, those kinds of issues, but he's talking about, he's describing a lifestyle. And so you could think about it this way. Those who choose to live a lifestyle of sin, a lifestyle in the flesh, well, Paul says those, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those who pursue the

A life apart from God will receive what they pursue. A life apart from God. Pastor James Boyce, the commentator, puts it this way. He says the tense of the verb, he's talking about practicing, the tense of the verb is the present tense. He says it indicates a habitual continuation in fleshly sins rather than an isolated lapse. And the point is that those who continually practice such sins give evidence of having never received God's spirit.

And so what he's describing there is this idea that, look, if you want to just continue to pursue after sin, you've not received the Holy Spirit. You've not received that because the Holy Spirit is contrary to the flesh and you're going to have a conflict within you. So either you're going to, you know, endure that conflict and sear your conscience against the Holy Spirit, or you've not received the Holy Spirit.

And so that's the pursuit of the flesh that has resulted in your life. Now, there's more that we could wrestle in there, but again, I think I don't want to get too caught up in the details here because it's not the point of what Paul is saying. Paul is saying that in order to have victory over these works of the flesh, it's not that you have to know them back and forth. Make sure you get all the definitions and that's not how you have victory.

And the fear of, I don't know if I'm going to inherit the kingdom of God, that's not going to give you victory. I think we need to kind of rethink victory a little bit. It's the Holy Spirit who delivers you from the works of the flesh. And victory may not be what you imagine. And I think it might help to think about it in maybe like a financial idea or illustration. Let's say I set a goal. I want to save...

$25,000 in, put it, you know, in my savings account. Now I don't have 25,000, right? But that's my goal. I want to get there. So I want to save, you know, and up to 25,000.

And I can work hard and Kim can help me because that's her job. So let's not spend on this. Let's not spend on that. Let's cut back on this. Let's cut back on that. And then we can put money aside and, oh, wow, look, we have $10,000 to make now. Almost there, you know, working towards our goal. And then car breaks down. Oh, there goes $5,000, you know? Like I worked so hard and, oh, I'm all bummed out and I'm discouraged because, oh,

I didn't meet my goal. I didn't get to the $25,000. I got to $10,000, but then we had to spend some. And now it's kind of like I'm starting over. So now, okay, $5,000 in the bank. Okay, let's start working hard again. And let's try to get there. And we get another $10,000 or we get to $15,000. And oh, it's time to put on a new roof. And there goes the whole $15,000. You know, it's like this struggle to get. But I'm disappointed. I'm frustrated because I have this goal. Here's where I want to be, right?

You could look at it another way, and the Lord said to remind us about that a few times, where, wow, God knew in advance that we were going to have to spend $10,000, and, you know, he provided for it in advance. And we were like, all right, I got $10,000. I need it. You know, I want it. You know, it's, and we can look at it from the wrong perspective. Now, I think that illustrates for us, if you'll think about it in a spiritual terms, that

we kind of set the goal of never struggling with this issue. That's the goal. And so then when I struggle with that issue, oh, I'm so disappointed. I'm so frustrated. God probably feels the same way, you know, and there is this, I didn't get to where I wanted. I wanted to be so much further along. I wanted to have, you know, but victory that we have is not going to be perfection in this life.

so what victory do we have here's the victory that we have the victory that we have is access to god no matter what so it's not about whether we reach our objective well i just i wanted to be done with that issue i wanted to never you know have that struggle again i wanted to never have that temptation again i wanted to never deal with you know that weakness again i that was my goal i wanted to reach the 25 000

And now I feel like a failure. I, you know, I'm just messed up because I couldn't meet that goal. God is not expecting of us unrealistic goals, right? He's not, he's calling us to perfection, but he's saying, I'm going to do that work and it's ultimately going to be fulfilled in eternity. Between here and there, he's not demanding perfection because he knows we can't give it. And so instead he gave himself to,

So that he could give us grace. So that we could have access to God even though we don't meet our goals. We still struggle with those things. Victory is not the absence of battle. Victory is not never failing. Victory is walking with God continually even though we fail and struggle and have issues in our lives and in our hearts. This is how the Holy Spirit delivers you from the works of the flesh.

I mean, we hear the testimonies, right? Well, yeah, I came to the Lord and then I never, you know, had that temptation again or I never, I was, boy, I was strongly addicted and, you know, I just said it dominated my life. But then I came to the Lord. I never even wanted to do that ever again. And praise God for those times when he does that. And there are those times that he does that.

we set that as the goal then. So victory is when I never ever, you know, even have a desire to sin. Well, you're not going to have victory then if that's the way you define victory. No, no. Victory is the fact that even though you have those tendencies and those struggles and those fears and those failures, that you can come back and walk in the spirit of

Because it's not about you earning the work of the Holy Spirit. It's not about you earning access to God. It's about you trusting God at his word. And so the Holy Spirit delivers you from the works of the flesh. In the sanctification process, he is growing you out of those things. Probably not in the timeframe that, you know, you would specify, but in God's time, he's doing that. But don't think of, you know, perfection and the lack of struggle as the victory.

No, the deliverance is now because even though you have issues with the flesh, you can go to God and have full access to God and real relationship with God. Well, while that's going on, the Holy Spirit is delivering you, developing in you that deliverance and giving you access to God. Moving on to point number three in verses 22 through 24, here's the next thing the Holy Spirit does. The Spirit produces the character of Jesus in you.

So while he's in the process of delivering you from the flesh, he's also in the process of building within you, establishing in you the character of Jesus Christ. In verse 22, Paul says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law. And so here Paul goes on to say, the Holy Spirit's not gonna lead you into the things of the flesh.

Even though there is issues of flesh and the Spirit is contrary to the flesh, you have this work of the Spirit delivering you from the flesh so that you are not dominated by those things any longer. You used to be and you didn't have a choice before. But now you have a choice and now you can continue to walk with God and walk in the Spirit. Meanwhile, while all that's going on, He is also producing in you fruit.

He's developing in you the character and the nature of Jesus. He's conforming you into the image of Jesus. Pastor David Guzik puts it this way. How can you tell if someone walks in the Spirit? They look a lot like Jesus. Jesus told us that the mission of the Holy Spirit would be to promote and speak of Him. And so as we are walking in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is going to be working in us some transformation.

And making us more like Jesus. Developing in us the character, the qualities, the nature of Jesus. And it's, you know, one of those classic passages we know well, but it's worth considering and remembering. Here he says it's the fruit of the Spirit. We're not talking about spiritual gifts. We're not talking about roles in the body of Christ. We're not talking about those kinds of things. We're talking about the fruit of the Spirit.

What is produced by the Holy Spirit in our lives. And it's in contrast to works, efforts, our, you know, performance. The works of the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit. And you could think of it as something that is grown versus something that is manufactured. And manufactured, you know,

It takes a lot of effort, but farming is easy and it's no problem, right? So it just grows, right? No, of course, farming takes effort. But the actual growth that happens internally to the tree is not something the tree, you know, is struggling and sweating. And it's the natural byproduct of

What happens when the tree receives the nutrients that it needs and the resources that it needs, it naturally produces fruit. Something that is manufactured is works, it's efforts, it's, you know, up to us to organize and put everything together and, you know, line everything up just right. And that's the law. The works of the flesh are tied to the efforts of the flesh that

to approach God, to be right with God, it's that manufactured character of Jesus, but the grown character of Jesus. That is, it's developed in us. And if you think about fruit on a tree, right? Fruit is grown by staying connected to the tree. And it reminds us of what Jesus taught in John chapter 15, of our need to abide in him.

And there in that passage, Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing, right? John chapter 15, he says, abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. You abide in me. Stay plugged in and connected to me. I'll take you back to verse 16 of Galatians 5. I say, then walk in the spirit. Take each step.

over and over come back to, Lord, I surrender myself to you. Lord, I submit myself to you. Lord, I'm looking to you to lead me. Lord, I need your strength to deal with this situation. Lord, I need your wisdom in this conversation. Lord, I want to honor you in this situation. Lord, I, and it's that continual coming back. And if, as we keep ourselves in the vine, plugged into the Lord in a relationship with God, the fruit is produced.

It's not our efforts. It's not our rules. It's not our laws. It's not our regulations. It's not, you know, our performance. It's our relationship, our connection to God. He develops in us character, his qualities, his nature. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And like the works of the flesh, I'm not going to work down and define every detail. There's some cool definitions in here. There's some great meat in there, and I encourage you to do that. But again, it's not really the point. Because the idea is not that, okay, here's the list. Print this out. Post it on your wall. Now really work hard to do all of these things. Don't do these things and do all of these things, and then you're set. That's not the point that Paul is making.

Paul is saying this is what happens when you walk with God, when you walk in the spirit. This is the kind of thing that is going to be produced in you by the Lord. But it's his work producing it, not your efforts.

The commentator Leon Morris says this. He says, Paul is not speaking of a series of fruits that would be shared around so that one believer has one and another, another. Rather, he's referring to a cluster. And I like that picture, a cluster. So that all the qualities are to be manifested in each believer.

So it's not that Richard has love and, you know, Janine has joy and Roman has peace and I have long suffering. And, you know, it's not that we all, no, no, no, it's a cluster. This is the fruits, the character of Jesus. All of these things describe Jesus, you know, and fit in the life of Jesus perfectly, right?

And God is developing that in you as you walk in the Spirit and spend time with Him. And so if you look at this and you go, oh man, I'm lacking in gentleness. You know, I really need to work on that. But you're easily slipping into a works-based relationship. Let's see how well I can perform gentleness, right? And fruit's not grown that way. Fruit is grown by abiding in the vine. And it's appropriate to have these lists and to

have their great measurement tools, their great reminders. That's like the law, right? Was the schoolmaster to lead us to the Lord. This list of the works of the flesh, this list of the fruit of the spirit, these are our great schoolmasters to show us, hey, you're off. Not so that you then double your efforts, so that then you come back to, Lord, I need you. Lord, I need your grace. I need your deliverance. I need your work in my life.

Paul goes on to say in verse 24, and those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Here's the result of our walking in the spirit. It's a crucifixion of the flesh. That is, it doesn't hold the power that it used to have. It has been put to death. It's still alive. That's the hard part, right? We still struggle and we still have battles with the flesh, but we get to choose. We have the opportunity to choose.

To walk in the spirit, to yield ourselves to the spirit, or to yield ourselves to the sinful nature. Your flesh will scream at you and make you feel like you don't have a choice. That's why it's important to remember the flesh has been crucified. It can yell and scream. It doesn't have power, but it can convince you, your flesh, your sinful nature will try to convince you that it does have power and that you're going to die unless you do exactly what it wants you to do.

But if you will believe God at his word and recognize, I don't have to live that way and follow that pattern. I can yield myself to the Lord, yield myself to the Holy Spirit. Then the Holy Spirit will produce in you the character of Jesus. I like what Pastor Warren Wiersbe says about this. He says, people around us are starving for love, joy, peace, and all the other graces of the spirit. We do not bear fruit for our own consumption, but

we bear fruit that others might be fed and helped and that Christ may be glorified. It's an interesting perspective I hadn't really thought about before. We don't bear fruit for our own consumption. Looking at love and joy and peace, like, oh yeah, I want those things, right? And God blesses you with those things for sure. But one of the reasons why God produces that fruit in our lives is not for our benefit, but it's for others around us that they could be fed, that they could be ministered to with love and peace and joy and

that we can have an impact in their lives. And God does this work in us. It comes back to, you know, hey, if God wanted to, he would just, you know, we get saved, we're born again, boom, we're instantly in heaven with the Lord. But he leaves us behind. He leaves us here on earth to develop so that he can produce fruit in us for others to see and partake of and go, oh, wow, that is refreshing to talk to someone who has peace.

It's refreshing to know someone who knows the love of the Lord and demonstrates the love of the Lord, who has self-control. And that makes an impact. And that's part of the reason why the Lord produces the character of Jesus in us.

Well, finishing it up in verse 25 and 26, we get point number four, and that is maintain your walk in the spirit. Verse 25, he says, if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Paul says, if we live in the spirit, it's not really a question. He's saying, since we live in the spirit,

Every believer is born again by the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit. So since we live in the Spirit and we have life in the Spirit, he says, let us walk in the Spirit. Now, notice the difference, right? We're talking about the fruit. It's something that is produced in us. We don't produce it. It's not us. But here he says, let us walk in the Spirit.

And so it illustrates for us the part that we have and the part that God has in this work. The Holy Spirit delivers us from the works of the flesh. The Holy Spirit produces the character of Jesus in us. Our part, again, coming back to walking, it's to take those steps of surrender and yielding ourselves to the Lord. This word walk is actually a different word walk that's found in verse 16. It speaks of keeping in step, right?

So not just taking a step, but if you picture like a marching band and they're all, you know, stepping in unison, that's the idea. And so here what Paul is saying is, look, hey, we're born again of the Holy Spirit. So let's keep in step with the Holy Spirit. And it speaks to me about that maintenance.

You know, there is that walking in the Spirit that happens and we have been born again, but sometimes we're lagging behind and the Holy Spirit is marching forward and, you know, we're like the horse and the mule and we're waiting for the bitten bridle to get us back in gear and back, you know. But the idea here is let's lean into this and seek out the leading of the Holy Spirit and stay in tune with what the Holy Spirit wants to do in our lives. Let's keep in step.

with what God wants to accomplish and the direction God wants to take us in. Again, it illustrates the part that we have and the part that God has. Our job is to keep continually coming back to the Lord and inviting him to work in our lives. One of the, you know, concerns that people have with the doctrine of grace that Paul preaches here in the book of Galatians is,

But if people, you know, believe in this grace and that there's forgiveness, then they're just going to dive into the works of the flesh. I've shared it, you know, many times as we've worked our way through. That's not what grace produces in us. What grace produces in us is a seeking after the things of God. I think Paul illustrates it well in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 23. He says, "'All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.'"

Paul here demonstrates, I'm making the choice to keep in step with the Spirit. I'm walking in the Spirit. All things are lawful. There's grace. But not all things help me draw near to God. Not all things help me walk with God. Not all things build me up. And so I have a forgiveness from Christ. I have, you know, incredible forgiveness from God. But I have a forgiveness from God.

But that doesn't give me license. That doesn't mean I dive into the works of the flesh because, well, I want to seek after the things of God, the things that are helpful, the things that build me up. And so I'm going to choose to keep in step. I'm going to come back to walking in the spirit. Well, he finishes in verse 26 saying, let us not become conceited, provoking one another or envying one another.

And so here you have the let us walk, right? Let us move forward and let us not. And so there's choices that we're making here. And that's what Paul is illustrating. It kind of feeds into, you know, chapter six. And Paul has been talking about the relationships between one another. I think it's interesting to consider in this idea of grace and the one another and the community type effect, right?

Because, as I shared last week, I think another evidence that Paul is giving us here of being away from grace or falling from grace is the way that we relate to one another. And he's showing us, hey, when you're having provoking and envying and you're conceited, that word conceited means you're convinced you're always right. So if you're convinced you're always right, you've fallen from grace. You've made the choice to just indulge your flesh, and that's why you're convinced you're always right.

If you're involved in provoking one another and envying one another, it's an issue of not rules and regulations, but an indication of a manifestation of a disconnect between you and God. And when you are pursuing a relationship with God and you're walking and you're each step, you are seeking out the things of the Lord. You're not going to be convinced you're always right because, hey, spend some time with the Lord and you'll be reminded of

the ways that you're not right, right? Okay, so God does that. And we're not going to be provoking one another because, well, love is the manifestation of the Spirit, right? It's the fruit of the Spirit. There's not going to be this envy of one another that, oh man, I'm just miserable because, you know, you have these things going on and good things happening in your life that

He says, you need to make the choice. Let us not become conceited. Don't be set in I'm right mentality, but keep coming back to the Lord. Keep coming back to a dependence upon a reliance upon the Lord. Maintain your walk in the spirit. And so the grace of God enables the Holy Spirit to work in us. He's the one who does the work of deliverance. He's the one that does the work of producing the nature of God in our lives. That's his part. Our part is

is to yield ourselves to walk with him and the fruit is grown as we abide in the vine. And so I want to encourage you, abide in the vine, take each step. And it's not, you know, some secret, you know, real, you know, once you're mature enough, finally, you'll get the insights. You know, it's, it's very simple. As much as you can every day, go to the Lord, ask him for help, invite him to work, ask him to lead, give yourself to him, surrender yourself to him.

It's about including the Lord in our lives as much as we can with each step and walking with him in that way. Let's pray. Lord, I pray for each one of us. And you know the steps that we take and Lord, the steps that lie ahead of us this week. And I pray that you would help us to walk in the spirit, Lord, that we would take each step looking to you, Lord, and not requiring you to put a bit and bridle upon us, but Lord, that we would be

close to you, desiring to please you, to honor you, Lord, that you would be able to guide us with your eye, that you'd be able to show us step by step. And Lord, I understand, Lord, how often we desire to have, you know, big things take place very quickly in our lives and we set big goals. But Lord, help us to be patient, recognizing that fruit is not produced overnight and

But you are faithful to produce the fruit and to finish the work. And so we can trust you in that. Help us, Lord, not to be so concerned about the performance, Lord, or the goals or the timeframe, but help us to be concerned with coming back to you, spending time with you, getting to know you, seeking out your will and your ways and your plans. Help us, Lord, to walk in your spirit each step, inviting you to empower us, to lead us, to guide us, to deliver us,

and to produce in us your nature. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.