"Walk in the Spirit"
[We are changing the order of worship this week, The Worship team (dressed in black and wear sunglasses for this occasion) will lead one song “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom” and I will start the sermon.]
1) {Tell the story}
a) {Open illustration}
Many of you no doubt will wonder about the changes in the order of the service today. Why is it that we just have one worship song and then going straight into the sermon? Why is it that the worship team today dressed in black and wear sunglasses? As the song expressed, “Where there is the Spirit, there is Freedom” – well, the reason we change the order of the service is because… we have the freedom to do so.
“What is freedom anyway?” Is freedom meant I could do whatever I want (like changing the order of worship as an illustration for freedom)?
b) {Bridge to text} [Galatians background]
In the book of Galatians, Paul was fighting for Christians’ freedom. What happened there was this, after Paul found the church of Galatians, he moved on in his missionary journey, and a few other teachers (called the Judaizers) came and insist that the Galatians must also follow Jewish custom in order for them to be saved. They must be circumcised, they must observe the Sabbath, and they must be on a kosher diet. Today we see the similar thing in certain churches; they insist that unless you join their true church, you won’t be Saved; unless you behave like good Christians, you won’t be saved. Paul spent the first part of Galatians arguing that all those requirements were baloney I because if we can be saved by anything like that, “Christ died for nothing!” {2:21}
The problem is that as soon as we realized that Salvation is not depended on anything we do, our flesh would say, “If we are saved w/out having to do anything, we may as well indulge ourselves. Why do good, why give to the poor, why endure any hardship when there is nothing require us to do so?”[i]
It’s our human nature to flip-flop between two extremes: Law or License, Legalism or Libertinism. So, after securing a freedom from legalism, Paul needed to make sure that the Christians won’t fall into the trap of abusing freedom. He pointed to a higher way, above both of the other two extremes. He said, in regard to freedom and our sinful nature…
c) {Read Scripture}
NIV 13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature... And again in verse 16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
d) {Prayer}
Father God, open our minds and help us understand the freedom you brought us, stir up our hearts and give us the desire to live by your Holy Spirit, and move in our life so we will produce visible fruit of an abundant life in you.
e) {Thesis & Tracking Points}
The message from God for us today is this: that we should walk by the Holy Spirit. Why? So that we can experience fully the freedom God brought for us. How? By practice the freedom God brought like serving one another in love.
The main theme of “Walking by the Spirit” can be easily seen in this passage from verse 16 “live by the Spirit”, verse 18 “led by the Spirit”, verse 25 “live by the Spirit” and again “keep in step with the Spirit”.
2) So, why do we need to walk by the Spirit? We should walk by the Holy Spirit so that we can experience fully the freedom God brought for us.
a) {Text}
We often had wrong idea about freedom, “13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature”
b) {Illustrate and Explain, wrong freedom}
“What is freedom anyway?” Is freedom meant I could do whatever I want (like changing the order of worship as an illustration for freedom)? Probably not, so what would be a good illustration of freedom? Let say you are stationed in Iraq like Long right now and you need to explain to the Iraqi people about what freedom is all about, how would you illustrate it? Is freedom meant that they could buy Playboy at any newsstands in the market? Is freedom meant they could get drugs much easier? Is freedom meant abortions will be performed openly to anyone who demands it, that marriages and divorces can be performed in drive-by mosques, and that guns could be purchased by anyone?[ii]
No way! Proponents of American freedom like president F.D.Roosevelt pointed out that our freedom is the freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear[iii]. Obviously from the examples above, we can see that “True freedom is not the ability to do whatever we want, but the ability to do what we should”
Similarly, Paul also gave contrasting illustrations of what the idea of Christian freedom is like from verse 19 and on. First, the negative illustration: notice that every single item on the list was for me, me, me, all of them were to fulfill my self-centered desires. We can paraphrase Eugene Paterson this way for the 21st century list: “The first area was about sensuality: [sexual immorality is like today’s] repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; [impurity is] a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; [debauchery is the trendy] frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; The second area was about worship: [idolatry is decorative] gods; [witchcraft is contemporary] magic-show religion; The third area was about relationship: [hatred is present-day’s] paranoid loneliness; [discord is everywhere as] cutthroat competition; [jealousy is actually] all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied want; [fits of rage is seen in] a brutal temper; [selfish ambition is fashioned with] an incapacity to love or be loved; [dissensions are the norm in] divided homes and divided lives; [factions are seen in many] small-minded and lopsided pursuits; [envy is] the [fashionable] vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; The fourth area was about excessive habits: [drunkenness is just one of many other modern] uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; [and orgies today are countless] ugly parodies of community” [iv]
Paul ended the list with “and the like” indicating that this list is to be taken as only representative of what more might be said.
Paul used very strong language to conclude this list, he said, “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” They will not attain salvation! That’s a very serious charge! But note that Paul didn’t say, “those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God” but rather “those who live like this”. This is not an issue of offense (David committed adultery and murder yet God still forgive him). No, this is an issue of lifestyle.
For you see, if a person genuinely was born again by the spirit of God, automatically there is a new nature emerged from within that person that will prevent this abusive tendency. It is the same Spirit who convict us of our sin so that we could repent and believe Christ Jesus; that’s the same Spirit who will continue to convict our sins as we commit them after we became a Christian. More importantly: that the Spirit will also enable us to have a new life in Christ, to follow Him in our daily walk.
c) {Illustrate, the right kind of freedom}
This Spirit will produce fruit in our life as verse 22 said, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” What Paul illustrated here is the freedom from sin, the freedom to produce the fruit that normally our sinful human nature wouldn’t produce.
In the movie Matrix (the original one), there was a scene where Morpheus teaching Neo how to jump. They would be able to leap across buildings in a way that no human could have done. Why was that? They realized that once they are in the Matrix, normal human’s limitation to gravity will no longer apply to them. Similarly, since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Genesis 3, our human nature was bended to the inclination to sin.
The gravity of sin weighted on everyone, and all of us can attest that we were slaved to sin in our lives before we met Christ. But now, Jesus came to our lives, and with him there are 3 implications of freedoms: 1) We are free from the penalty of sin because Jesus took that penalty for us on the cross and allow us to enter heaven. 2) We are free from the guilt of sin because we know that God the Father will forgive us. However, many Christians may not realize that 3) We are free from the power of sin because the Holy Spirit who are with us, can enable us to overcome sin in our daily life.[v]
Many of you would say, “Yes, I believe and I know the first and second type of freedom, it’s the 3rd type of freedom that I want to know more. How could I be free of my sinful nature?”
d) {Apply: How can we be free from our sinful nature, and produce fruit of the Spirit?}
Verse 16 said, “Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature”. Note the order here, we live by the Spirit, and then we will not fulfill the desire of our human sinful nature. Usually we got it backward, we thought that we must get rid of the desire of our sinful nature first in-order-to live by the Spirit! The text here didn’t say that! (May be it says so somewhere else, but not here)
This is a promise, that as we “live by the spirit” we will not (the original language emphasized the double strength of “not” here) we will definitely not fulfill the desire of our human nature. So if you are still struggle with […] the answer is “live by the Spirit”; if you are still […], the answer is “live by the Spirit”
3) But what does it mean by “Live by the Spirit”?
The word “live” here literally meant “walk-around.” It meant every conduct in your life and not just one instance. It meant actions and motions. But more important than “live” is the implication “by the spirit”. Like cars powered by gasoline, like servers powered by Netscape; it implied that every movements of our actions should be depended and originated by the Holy Spirit.
a) {Illustration}
There was a lady who got a backyard the size of our church parking lot, with weeds and shrubs everywhere. So she had a gardening friend over. He got rid of the weeds, put in a nice lawn of grass, and said “There you go; this should be great for you. The lawn will take care of all the wild thorns and shrub. It will look great and will be low maintenance. You just need to mow the lawn once a while.” So, she went to the store and bought a lawnmower so that she can mow the lawn every week. After a few weeks, the friend came over for a visit, “now, that’s a nice lawn, you are up-keeping it well.” She nodded, “But it took so much time to take care. Every week it takes me the entire Saturday and Sunday just to mow the lawn. And worse, it is so much hard work, by Monday when I came to work, my back hurts from pushing the lawnmower!” “Strange; it’s not supposed to be that hard!” The friend replied, and offer to examine the lawnmower she bought, “Did you put gas in this hole and pull this cord to start the engine?” “Huh? I didn’t know I have to do that!”
So, similarly when Paul said “Live by the Spirit”, the emphasis is on “by the Spirit” because “Live” alone won’t get us very far. “Live by the Spirit” meant that it is NOT “live by our human effort”; you need to realize that spiritual life is humanly impossible! Still, the Type A personalities among you may get impatient right now and want a straight answer, “OK, fine; it’s humanly impossible for me to push the lawnmower of my life; but where is the hole to put gas in? And what cord do I need to pull to start the ‘Live by the Spirit’ engine?”
I have studied this text backward and forward looking for that key to start the engine; and finally a wise pastor[vi] pointed out to me that: There are no formulas for the spiritual life. Did you notice that in Galatians 5 there are no formulas or methods for living the spiritual life? Paul only commands us to “walk in the Spirit.” Now for a [person] who wants steps and outlines and procedures, this is the most frustrating revelation of all. The spiritual life ultimately cannot be cranked out by following formulas, [in fact, the Judaizers’ teachers wanted the Galatians to follow the Mosaic Law (a form of formulas), which] opposed to “walking in the Spirit.” (This is why Paul emphasized that, “18If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”). Since “walking in the Spirit” is dependence upon God, each Christian’s walk with the Lord is [somewhat] unique because it is personal, [and therefore it is not easy to put into a specific formula].
b) However, The results of the spiritual life are often more evident than the [formula] for it. Notice in Galatians 5 Paul says, “19The acts of the sinful nature are obvious… 22But the fruit of the Spirit is…” It is easy to look at the results of spirituality rather than figure out the [formula] behind it. This is so because of the nature of the Spirit. The results of the spiritual life are manifestations of the Spirit and are called the fruit of the Spirit. Remember in John 3 when Jesus met with Nicodemus and He said that the Spirit of God’s work in men is like the wind? The wind is not visible, but the results which it creates are. The Spirit is not concerned about [being observable and being understandable by us]. Thus the Spirit is evident by His fruits, rather than by His actual, [observable] presence. Consequently, the results of the spiritual life are more evident than the technical reasons. This is why the fruit of the spiritual life is emphasized. [This is why Jesus] said, “By their fruit you shall know them.”
“By their fruit you shall know them” A person who walks by the Spirit will be known by their actions and not necessarily their words. Sometimes we easily impressed by people who say things like, “God told me this”; or “the Holy Spirit move me to do that.” Wow! There is certain sense of mystique about it. I wish God talk to me like that too! But have you heard about the guy who says to a girl, “God told me you are the one for me?” Should she believe that the person was truly “walking by the Spirit”? Or should she answer, “Oh, that could be but God hasn’t tell me about that yet!” By his fruit she shall know him!
c) But that doesn’t mean that a person who “walk by the Spirit” has Godly conducts all the time! In contrast, people who walk by the Spirit are very conscious of their inner conflicts and their imperfections: [Many of us] today do not have a consciousness of the inner warfare described [here]. It is easier to say, “Satan and the demons are at work in the world,” than to say, “The flesh is at work in here! The problem is me!” This is the inner war that Paul describes as the conflict in Galatians 5. Do you remember our study in Romans 7 a few months before where Paul described our flesh struggles constantly with God’s law within ourselves? Paul is saying the same thing here in verse 17, “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (You could not quite do the thing the flesh wanted, and could not perfectly do the things the Spirit want either)”. It is a misconception that Godly people have no struggles, on the contrary, they are even more aware about that than the nominal Christians.
Many of us know Pastor Thach quite well as a Godly person. Yet, when he preached he often speak of the inner struggles with his sinful nature. Most of us, we brushed those comments aside and didn’t even pay attention to it. Not until one of the youth rally in Orange two years ago, Lam brought one of his new Christian friends there to hear him speak. Afterward, Lam’s friend talked to me, and was really concerned for Pastor Thach and for the struggle he had expressed in the message. And I had to assure him that the Pastor is fine. This is what I told him, “You see, God is Holy and we are not, like the light shine in darkness. The closer I get into the light, the more I would be able to see the dirty spot on my shirt. At first, in dim light, only big stains are visible; but under the intense light source, even my smallest speck will be a clear imperfection.” Therefore, it is quite naturally for people who walk closely with God to be aware of every single impulse of their sinful nature.
d) Together with the awareness of their inner conflict, the people who “walk by the Spirit” have a deep grasp of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Paul said in verse 24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” Did Paul say that we “should” or we “must” crucify the sinful nature here? No, he said that we “have crucified the sinful nature” the verb is in perfect past tense, it is saying our sinful nature were dealt with when you accepted and trusted that Jesus died for you on the cross. The sins of our sinful nature had been forgiven. God is considering us righteous just because what had done at the cross. People who “walk by the Spirit” will never be tired of the repetitiveness of communion, of praise, of the same old message of the cross; because it is where we find the grace and love of God.
e) The cross is also the point where our sinful nature flesh was also put to death. Paul didn’t just say that “We have crucified the sinful nature” only, but also “with its passions and desires.” We are free from the pull of our sinful nature! We don’t have to give in and sin no more. I don’t have to give in to sensual lust! You don’t have to worship any other idols like your grades and your career advancement! We don’t have to be self-seeking in our relationship, to always want things done our ways, to be ticked-off and enraged by people, to get stuck in a vicious cycle of uncontrollable addictions. We are free from all that! Yes, there may be times that we fall into temptations, but God’s Grace will be sufficient to forgive and to get us back on our feet. And the reality of freedom from the power of sin, from the lifestyle of sin, from the habit of sin is within reach for each one of us.
f) Paul went on to exhort all of us in the next verse 25, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” What he said is that God had granted us a new life, a freedom from our old sinful human nature, let us keep up with the leading of the Spirit and experience this new freedom from God. All Christians had been set free from the prison of sinful nature. All Christians was given the Holy Spirit to guide them in the new life. Why is it we can see the evidence of the new life in some more than the others? It’s the person who keeps on pursuing God; keep on seeking to please God in every conducts of their lives.
4) So, how do we start walking by the Spirit?
a) As I said before, there is no specific, hard and fast formula. I wish I could say that you start by “performing” daily quiet time everyday. But that’s not what the God’s Word said here. What we need to do is to start obeying God in the areas He is working on your life. To some of you, you need to stop trying to get rid of sins in order to earn a good standing before God. To some others, you need to re-examine to see if your lifestyle really reflecting your new life in Christ or not. But to all of us, we need to keep responding, keep walking, and keep in step with what God’s Spirit is leading us to.
b) Let’s see how Paul wanted the Galatians to respond. He said in verse 13 again, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” Were they a good bunch of loving Christians, and therefore they are now can be on ministry teams and do ministry stuff? Nope, Paul said in verse 15 about their current condition, “15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” (the “if” here is first class condition in Greek that states a condition true to reality) They were not model Christians, but they are called to serve! In this serving environment, conflicts will flare up, personalities will clash, but you know what, the Holy Spirit will also be right there, telling them to do the right thing, to be humble, and (that they don’t have to respond with “the acts of their sinful nature”). The Holy Spirit will lead them to be willing to “serve one another” (as contrast to the easy way out of just serving God), to go against the human nature of self-centeredness of me, me, me. The Holy Spirit will emphasize the aspect of serving “in love” for Jesus taught that “14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ”.
c) As you see, as we begin to walk by the Spirit like the example above, we will produce the fruit of the Spirit, we will experience freedom from our sinful human nature, by keep on saying yes to God and saying no to our sinful nature.
d) Last Wednesday, my mom told me about a new scam she has heard on the radio. Apparently a good looking couple with a kid have been knocking on doors and asking people to let them in the backyard to look for their cat, which was just running in there. While the unsuspected owner takes one parent and the kid to the back, the other parent quickly swiped all valuable away. My son Timmy over heard that conversation right before bath time. And as I was giving him a bath, he asked, “Daddy, why are those people bad?” (I responded “because of their sinful nature”, but I quickly correct it,) “Because they didn’t want to obey God to be good.” “Why didn’t they want to be good?” “Because they disobey God and do bad thing. You see, if we keep on disobey God and doing bad, we will become bad. And what do you think we will be if we keep on obey and doing good? (Remember your song, ‘I keep on seeking, I keep on walking, follow Jesus Christ’?)” Timmy eyes’ lit up, “We will be really, really good!”
About an hour later, his mom came home late from work. Timmy was watching Toon Disney (he loves TV, and we rewarded by let him watch Toon Disney at night if he had been good). “Hey Timmy, mommy is home, why don’t you run down stair and give mommy a kiss and a hug?” “I don’t want to!” His eyes were glued to the TV. “Well Timmy, do you want to keep on obey doing good and become good?” He took some thought then said, “Alright!” and ran down stair to greet his mom.
We are all like Timmy as children of God. We may not understand everything about our sinful nature and the mechanic of walking by the Spirit. But He does guide us, and we could respond to his leading. We live by the Spirit so we can experience the full potential of a Life in God. We can start with the little steps of seeking God, of obeying Him, of practicing the true freedom he granted us, freedom from our own self-centeredness, freedom to grow and produce a fruitful life; a freedom of love from God, obtained by faith in Christ.
Let us pray…
[The rest of the worship choruses will be followed afterward]
1) {Tell the story}
a) {Open illustration}
Many of you no doubt will wonder about the changes in the order of the service today. Why is it that we just have one worship song and then going straight into the sermon? Why is it that the worship team today dressed in black and wear sunglasses? As the song expressed, “Where there is the Spirit, there is Freedom” – well, the reason we change the order of the service is because… we have the freedom to do so.
“What is freedom anyway?” Is freedom meant I could do whatever I want (like changing the order of worship as an illustration for freedom)?
b) {Bridge to text} [Galatians background]
In the book of Galatians, Paul was fighting for Christians’ freedom. What happened there was this, after Paul found the church of Galatians, he moved on in his missionary journey, and a few other teachers (called the Judaizers) came and insist that the Galatians must also follow Jewish custom in order for them to be saved. They must be circumcised, they must observe the Sabbath, and they must be on a kosher diet. Today we see the similar thing in certain churches; they insist that unless you join their true church, you won’t be Saved; unless you behave like good Christians, you won’t be saved. Paul spent the first part of Galatians arguing that all those requirements were baloney I because if we can be saved by anything like that, “Christ died for nothing!” {2:21}
The problem is that as soon as we realized that Salvation is not depended on anything we do, our flesh would say, “If we are saved w/out having to do anything, we may as well indulge ourselves. Why do good, why give to the poor, why endure any hardship when there is nothing require us to do so?”[i]
It’s our human nature to flip-flop between two extremes: Law or License, Legalism or Libertinism. So, after securing a freedom from legalism, Paul needed to make sure that the Christians won’t fall into the trap of abusing freedom. He pointed to a higher way, above both of the other two extremes. He said, in regard to freedom and our sinful nature…
c) {Read Scripture}
NIV 13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature... And again in verse 16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
d) {Prayer}
Father God, open our minds and help us understand the freedom you brought us, stir up our hearts and give us the desire to live by your Holy Spirit, and move in our life so we will produce visible fruit of an abundant life in you.
e) {Thesis & Tracking Points}
The message from God for us today is this: that we should walk by the Holy Spirit. Why? So that we can experience fully the freedom God brought for us. How? By practice the freedom God brought like serving one another in love.
The main theme of “Walking by the Spirit” can be easily seen in this passage from verse 16 “live by the Spirit”, verse 18 “led by the Spirit”, verse 25 “live by the Spirit” and again “keep in step with the Spirit”.
2) So, why do we need to walk by the Spirit? We should walk by the Holy Spirit so that we can experience fully the freedom God brought for us.
a) {Text}
We often had wrong idea about freedom, “13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature”
b) {Illustrate and Explain, wrong freedom}
“What is freedom anyway?” Is freedom meant I could do whatever I want (like changing the order of worship as an illustration for freedom)? Probably not, so what would be a good illustration of freedom? Let say you are stationed in Iraq like Long right now and you need to explain to the Iraqi people about what freedom is all about, how would you illustrate it? Is freedom meant that they could buy Playboy at any newsstands in the market? Is freedom meant they could get drugs much easier? Is freedom meant abortions will be performed openly to anyone who demands it, that marriages and divorces can be performed in drive-by mosques, and that guns could be purchased by anyone?[ii]
No way! Proponents of American freedom like president F.D.Roosevelt pointed out that our freedom is the freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear[iii]. Obviously from the examples above, we can see that “True freedom is not the ability to do whatever we want, but the ability to do what we should”
Similarly, Paul also gave contrasting illustrations of what the idea of Christian freedom is like from verse 19 and on. First, the negative illustration: notice that every single item on the list was for me, me, me, all of them were to fulfill my self-centered desires. We can paraphrase Eugene Paterson this way for the 21st century list: “The first area was about sensuality: [sexual immorality is like today’s] repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; [impurity is] a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; [debauchery is the trendy] frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; The second area was about worship: [idolatry is decorative] gods; [witchcraft is contemporary] magic-show religion; The third area was about relationship: [hatred is present-day’s] paranoid loneliness; [discord is everywhere as] cutthroat competition; [jealousy is actually] all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied want; [fits of rage is seen in] a brutal temper; [selfish ambition is fashioned with] an incapacity to love or be loved; [dissensions are the norm in] divided homes and divided lives; [factions are seen in many] small-minded and lopsided pursuits; [envy is] the [fashionable] vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; The fourth area was about excessive habits: [drunkenness is just one of many other modern] uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; [and orgies today are countless] ugly parodies of community” [iv]
Paul ended the list with “and the like” indicating that this list is to be taken as only representative of what more might be said.
Paul used very strong language to conclude this list, he said, “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” They will not attain salvation! That’s a very serious charge! But note that Paul didn’t say, “those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God” but rather “those who live like this”. This is not an issue of offense (David committed adultery and murder yet God still forgive him). No, this is an issue of lifestyle.
For you see, if a person genuinely was born again by the spirit of God, automatically there is a new nature emerged from within that person that will prevent this abusive tendency. It is the same Spirit who convict us of our sin so that we could repent and believe Christ Jesus; that’s the same Spirit who will continue to convict our sins as we commit them after we became a Christian. More importantly: that the Spirit will also enable us to have a new life in Christ, to follow Him in our daily walk.
c) {Illustrate, the right kind of freedom}
This Spirit will produce fruit in our life as verse 22 said, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” What Paul illustrated here is the freedom from sin, the freedom to produce the fruit that normally our sinful human nature wouldn’t produce.
In the movie Matrix (the original one), there was a scene where Morpheus teaching Neo how to jump. They would be able to leap across buildings in a way that no human could have done. Why was that? They realized that once they are in the Matrix, normal human’s limitation to gravity will no longer apply to them. Similarly, since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Genesis 3, our human nature was bended to the inclination to sin.
The gravity of sin weighted on everyone, and all of us can attest that we were slaved to sin in our lives before we met Christ. But now, Jesus came to our lives, and with him there are 3 implications of freedoms: 1) We are free from the penalty of sin because Jesus took that penalty for us on the cross and allow us to enter heaven. 2) We are free from the guilt of sin because we know that God the Father will forgive us. However, many Christians may not realize that 3) We are free from the power of sin because the Holy Spirit who are with us, can enable us to overcome sin in our daily life.[v]
Many of you would say, “Yes, I believe and I know the first and second type of freedom, it’s the 3rd type of freedom that I want to know more. How could I be free of my sinful nature?”
d) {Apply: How can we be free from our sinful nature, and produce fruit of the Spirit?}
Verse 16 said, “Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature”. Note the order here, we live by the Spirit, and then we will not fulfill the desire of our human sinful nature. Usually we got it backward, we thought that we must get rid of the desire of our sinful nature first in-order-to live by the Spirit! The text here didn’t say that! (May be it says so somewhere else, but not here)
This is a promise, that as we “live by the spirit” we will not (the original language emphasized the double strength of “not” here) we will definitely not fulfill the desire of our human nature. So if you are still struggle with […] the answer is “live by the Spirit”; if you are still […], the answer is “live by the Spirit”
3) But what does it mean by “Live by the Spirit”?
The word “live” here literally meant “walk-around.” It meant every conduct in your life and not just one instance. It meant actions and motions. But more important than “live” is the implication “by the spirit”. Like cars powered by gasoline, like servers powered by Netscape; it implied that every movements of our actions should be depended and originated by the Holy Spirit.
a) {Illustration}
There was a lady who got a backyard the size of our church parking lot, with weeds and shrubs everywhere. So she had a gardening friend over. He got rid of the weeds, put in a nice lawn of grass, and said “There you go; this should be great for you. The lawn will take care of all the wild thorns and shrub. It will look great and will be low maintenance. You just need to mow the lawn once a while.” So, she went to the store and bought a lawnmower so that she can mow the lawn every week. After a few weeks, the friend came over for a visit, “now, that’s a nice lawn, you are up-keeping it well.” She nodded, “But it took so much time to take care. Every week it takes me the entire Saturday and Sunday just to mow the lawn. And worse, it is so much hard work, by Monday when I came to work, my back hurts from pushing the lawnmower!” “Strange; it’s not supposed to be that hard!” The friend replied, and offer to examine the lawnmower she bought, “Did you put gas in this hole and pull this cord to start the engine?” “Huh? I didn’t know I have to do that!”
So, similarly when Paul said “Live by the Spirit”, the emphasis is on “by the Spirit” because “Live” alone won’t get us very far. “Live by the Spirit” meant that it is NOT “live by our human effort”; you need to realize that spiritual life is humanly impossible! Still, the Type A personalities among you may get impatient right now and want a straight answer, “OK, fine; it’s humanly impossible for me to push the lawnmower of my life; but where is the hole to put gas in? And what cord do I need to pull to start the ‘Live by the Spirit’ engine?”
I have studied this text backward and forward looking for that key to start the engine; and finally a wise pastor[vi] pointed out to me that: There are no formulas for the spiritual life. Did you notice that in Galatians 5 there are no formulas or methods for living the spiritual life? Paul only commands us to “walk in the Spirit.” Now for a [person] who wants steps and outlines and procedures, this is the most frustrating revelation of all. The spiritual life ultimately cannot be cranked out by following formulas, [in fact, the Judaizers’ teachers wanted the Galatians to follow the Mosaic Law (a form of formulas), which] opposed to “walking in the Spirit.” (This is why Paul emphasized that, “18If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”). Since “walking in the Spirit” is dependence upon God, each Christian’s walk with the Lord is [somewhat] unique because it is personal, [and therefore it is not easy to put into a specific formula].
b) However, The results of the spiritual life are often more evident than the [formula] for it. Notice in Galatians 5 Paul says, “19The acts of the sinful nature are obvious… 22But the fruit of the Spirit is…” It is easy to look at the results of spirituality rather than figure out the [formula] behind it. This is so because of the nature of the Spirit. The results of the spiritual life are manifestations of the Spirit and are called the fruit of the Spirit. Remember in John 3 when Jesus met with Nicodemus and He said that the Spirit of God’s work in men is like the wind? The wind is not visible, but the results which it creates are. The Spirit is not concerned about [being observable and being understandable by us]. Thus the Spirit is evident by His fruits, rather than by His actual, [observable] presence. Consequently, the results of the spiritual life are more evident than the technical reasons. This is why the fruit of the spiritual life is emphasized. [This is why Jesus] said, “By their fruit you shall know them.”
“By their fruit you shall know them” A person who walks by the Spirit will be known by their actions and not necessarily their words. Sometimes we easily impressed by people who say things like, “God told me this”; or “the Holy Spirit move me to do that.” Wow! There is certain sense of mystique about it. I wish God talk to me like that too! But have you heard about the guy who says to a girl, “God told me you are the one for me?” Should she believe that the person was truly “walking by the Spirit”? Or should she answer, “Oh, that could be but God hasn’t tell me about that yet!” By his fruit she shall know him!
c) But that doesn’t mean that a person who “walk by the Spirit” has Godly conducts all the time! In contrast, people who walk by the Spirit are very conscious of their inner conflicts and their imperfections: [Many of us] today do not have a consciousness of the inner warfare described [here]. It is easier to say, “Satan and the demons are at work in the world,” than to say, “The flesh is at work in here! The problem is me!” This is the inner war that Paul describes as the conflict in Galatians 5. Do you remember our study in Romans 7 a few months before where Paul described our flesh struggles constantly with God’s law within ourselves? Paul is saying the same thing here in verse 17, “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (You could not quite do the thing the flesh wanted, and could not perfectly do the things the Spirit want either)”. It is a misconception that Godly people have no struggles, on the contrary, they are even more aware about that than the nominal Christians.
Many of us know Pastor Thach quite well as a Godly person. Yet, when he preached he often speak of the inner struggles with his sinful nature. Most of us, we brushed those comments aside and didn’t even pay attention to it. Not until one of the youth rally in Orange two years ago, Lam brought one of his new Christian friends there to hear him speak. Afterward, Lam’s friend talked to me, and was really concerned for Pastor Thach and for the struggle he had expressed in the message. And I had to assure him that the Pastor is fine. This is what I told him, “You see, God is Holy and we are not, like the light shine in darkness. The closer I get into the light, the more I would be able to see the dirty spot on my shirt. At first, in dim light, only big stains are visible; but under the intense light source, even my smallest speck will be a clear imperfection.” Therefore, it is quite naturally for people who walk closely with God to be aware of every single impulse of their sinful nature.
d) Together with the awareness of their inner conflict, the people who “walk by the Spirit” have a deep grasp of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Paul said in verse 24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” Did Paul say that we “should” or we “must” crucify the sinful nature here? No, he said that we “have crucified the sinful nature” the verb is in perfect past tense, it is saying our sinful nature were dealt with when you accepted and trusted that Jesus died for you on the cross. The sins of our sinful nature had been forgiven. God is considering us righteous just because what had done at the cross. People who “walk by the Spirit” will never be tired of the repetitiveness of communion, of praise, of the same old message of the cross; because it is where we find the grace and love of God.
e) The cross is also the point where our sinful nature flesh was also put to death. Paul didn’t just say that “We have crucified the sinful nature” only, but also “with its passions and desires.” We are free from the pull of our sinful nature! We don’t have to give in and sin no more. I don’t have to give in to sensual lust! You don’t have to worship any other idols like your grades and your career advancement! We don’t have to be self-seeking in our relationship, to always want things done our ways, to be ticked-off and enraged by people, to get stuck in a vicious cycle of uncontrollable addictions. We are free from all that! Yes, there may be times that we fall into temptations, but God’s Grace will be sufficient to forgive and to get us back on our feet. And the reality of freedom from the power of sin, from the lifestyle of sin, from the habit of sin is within reach for each one of us.
f) Paul went on to exhort all of us in the next verse 25, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” What he said is that God had granted us a new life, a freedom from our old sinful human nature, let us keep up with the leading of the Spirit and experience this new freedom from God. All Christians had been set free from the prison of sinful nature. All Christians was given the Holy Spirit to guide them in the new life. Why is it we can see the evidence of the new life in some more than the others? It’s the person who keeps on pursuing God; keep on seeking to please God in every conducts of their lives.
4) So, how do we start walking by the Spirit?
a) As I said before, there is no specific, hard and fast formula. I wish I could say that you start by “performing” daily quiet time everyday. But that’s not what the God’s Word said here. What we need to do is to start obeying God in the areas He is working on your life. To some of you, you need to stop trying to get rid of sins in order to earn a good standing before God. To some others, you need to re-examine to see if your lifestyle really reflecting your new life in Christ or not. But to all of us, we need to keep responding, keep walking, and keep in step with what God’s Spirit is leading us to.
b) Let’s see how Paul wanted the Galatians to respond. He said in verse 13 again, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” Were they a good bunch of loving Christians, and therefore they are now can be on ministry teams and do ministry stuff? Nope, Paul said in verse 15 about their current condition, “15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” (the “if” here is first class condition in Greek that states a condition true to reality) They were not model Christians, but they are called to serve! In this serving environment, conflicts will flare up, personalities will clash, but you know what, the Holy Spirit will also be right there, telling them to do the right thing, to be humble, and (that they don’t have to respond with “the acts of their sinful nature”). The Holy Spirit will lead them to be willing to “serve one another” (as contrast to the easy way out of just serving God), to go against the human nature of self-centeredness of me, me, me. The Holy Spirit will emphasize the aspect of serving “in love” for Jesus taught that “14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ”.
c) As you see, as we begin to walk by the Spirit like the example above, we will produce the fruit of the Spirit, we will experience freedom from our sinful human nature, by keep on saying yes to God and saying no to our sinful nature.
d) Last Wednesday, my mom told me about a new scam she has heard on the radio. Apparently a good looking couple with a kid have been knocking on doors and asking people to let them in the backyard to look for their cat, which was just running in there. While the unsuspected owner takes one parent and the kid to the back, the other parent quickly swiped all valuable away. My son Timmy over heard that conversation right before bath time. And as I was giving him a bath, he asked, “Daddy, why are those people bad?” (I responded “because of their sinful nature”, but I quickly correct it,) “Because they didn’t want to obey God to be good.” “Why didn’t they want to be good?” “Because they disobey God and do bad thing. You see, if we keep on disobey God and doing bad, we will become bad. And what do you think we will be if we keep on obey and doing good? (Remember your song, ‘I keep on seeking, I keep on walking, follow Jesus Christ’?)” Timmy eyes’ lit up, “We will be really, really good!”
About an hour later, his mom came home late from work. Timmy was watching Toon Disney (he loves TV, and we rewarded by let him watch Toon Disney at night if he had been good). “Hey Timmy, mommy is home, why don’t you run down stair and give mommy a kiss and a hug?” “I don’t want to!” His eyes were glued to the TV. “Well Timmy, do you want to keep on obey doing good and become good?” He took some thought then said, “Alright!” and ran down stair to greet his mom.
We are all like Timmy as children of God. We may not understand everything about our sinful nature and the mechanic of walking by the Spirit. But He does guide us, and we could respond to his leading. We live by the Spirit so we can experience the full potential of a Life in God. We can start with the little steps of seeking God, of obeying Him, of practicing the true freedom he granted us, freedom from our own self-centeredness, freedom to grow and produce a fruitful life; a freedom of love from God, obtained by faith in Christ.
Let us pray…
[The rest of the worship choruses will be followed afterward]
posted by mar13 at
11:33 AM
1 Comments:
[i] Paraphrase Luther
[ii] Was… remember the complaints of some recent visitors came from Vietnam, “Man, you said you live in the country of freedom, yet when you get into a car, they won’t allow you to sit there without being strap down, they won’t let you throw trash out the windows, and worse, if you really need to go number 1, they won’t let you stop along the road to take care of it! Even in the communist country of Vietnam I have more freedom than this!”
[iii] FDR speech to Congress, 1/6/41 as quoted by Wiersbe
[iv] Was…
[start to cut here if no time]
All of these items were to feed the “I, myself and me”, but specifically in 4 areas (see the semicolons there in the NIV translation?):
· The first area was about sensuality: “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery”, the original language for sexual immorality was “porneia”, the root for which we get the word “pornography” today.
· The second area was about worship: “idolatry and witchcraft”. How could these two served the “I, myself and me”, you may ask? First, let’s examine, “Why would anyone worship any idol?” Back then, people worship idol mostly because they want to get something from it: protection from harm, luck in business, or healing from sickness. Now a day people worship idols because like what it have to offer to them: Britney for her voice, Kobe for his talents, or Einstein for his intellect. (I am talking about people who literally live for their idols here, not just mere fan!) “Witchcraft” is even more interesting. The original word here is “pharmakeia”, the root word for our “pharmacy”, and literally means “drug” or “mixer of drug”. Back then, sorcery and witchcraft rituals often involved the use of drug and magical potion which promised to bring comfort and to vanquish problems for the practioner. Today, we still have Psychics and “Spiritual Guides” which promised to bring comfort, and even hard drugs to vanquish problems. Both idol-worship and make-it-quick-magic are just there to serve the “I, myself and me”.
· The third area was about relationship:
· The fourth area was about habitual conducts:
· “and the like” indicating that this list is to be taken as only representative of what more might be said.
[end cut]
[v] Paraphrasing Warren Wiersbe
[vi] In my quest to breakdown the “What do you mean by ‘walk by the Spirit’? Can you tell me exactly what must I do?” I was fortunate to stumble upon Robert Deffinbaugh’s study at http://www.bible.org/docs/nt/books/gal/deffin/gal-16.htm in which he dealt with that question at length. An excerpt here…
(1) The results of the spiritual life are often more evident than the reasons for it. Notice in Galatians 5 Paul says, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, but the fruit of the Spirit is …” It is easy to look at the results of spirituality rather than figure out the reasons behind it. This is so because of the nature of the Spirit. The results of the spiritual life are manifestations of the Spirit and are called the fruit of the Spirit. Remember in John 3 when Jesus met with Nicodemus and He said that the Spirit of God’s work in men is like the wind? The wind is not visible, but the results which it creates are. The Spirit is self-effacing. The Spirit is not concerned about the limelight. Thus the Spirit is evident by His fruits, rather than by His actual, visible presence. Consequently, the results of the spiritual life are more evident than the reasons. This is why the fruit of the spiritual life is emphasized. Hence our Lord said, “By their fruit you shall know them.”
(2) There are no formulas for the spiritual life. Did you notice that in Galatians 5 there are no formulas or methods for living the spiritual life? Paul only commands us to “walk in the Spirit.” Now for a methodist (in the generic sense), for one who is always method orientated, for one who wants steps and outlines and procedures, this is the most frustrating revelation of all. The spiritual life ultimately cannot be cranked out by following formulas, because formulas are antithetically opposed to “walking in the Spirit.” Since “walking in the Spirit” is dependence upon God, each Christian’s walk with the Lord is unique because it is personal. The standards of Scripture are not abrogated by this fact.
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mar13, at 1:49 PM
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