Let's take our Bibles this morning and go to the book of Galatians in chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. We've been looking at the book of Galatians chapter by chapter or at least section by section. And as we've done that, I hope you have gleaned some pretty important truths for your own faith and your own walk with God. This particular book is one that is a little daunting because it goes into some very deep material that sometimes puts us back on our heels. It is always interesting to attend, let's say, a baseball game for a little leaguer. Have you ever seen that where a little boy is up there and he's got a tee and he's swinging and he keeps missing and he swings and he keeps missing? you know, finally, you know, throws the bat and it, you know, goes crazy. Life can be like that sometimes. And when we read our Bibles, you know, it's sort of like that next stage of the little leaguer. He gets up and he gets so many pitches, but after a while they have to start saying, you're out. you're out, and the little boy might go back to his bench all dejected. And I think sometimes when we come to certain passages or certain sections in Scripture, we feel a little overwhelmed. We feel like, I could never understand that. Well, hopefully we've been able to iron out some of those deep recesses of this book to help us to get a little better grasp upon the truths that are in its center, especially, where there's allegory and things like that. But in a word, this particular book is a It's really a fight for clarity about what it means to be saved, what the gospel is, how we need to stay very close to the cross, because that's where we really find our emancipation proclamation. we have the privilege and blessing of being saved by grace. It's awesome. And the reality of being saved by grace is something that is very hard for us to not only at first receive because it seems to be counterintuitive. We think we have to be a good person and God will let us in. But once we get past that little hurdle and we understand that it was because we were so desperately lost that Christ had to pay it all. Once we get past that, then when we get saved and we get on the right path of walking with God, we find ourselves sometimes falling back into our own mindset, our own way. The Bible says there's a way that seems right unto a man, but the end are over the ways of death. There's a lot of things that seem like they should be part of salvation, but they're not a part of salvation. Christ paid it all, and that's what we need to remember. And when you come to the passage that's before us today, he really does try to bring some clarity about what it is that makes it sometimes difficult for us to navigate this Christian experience. Verse 13 of chapter 5 picks up our thought this morning. It says, For brethren, you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one another. Now, when you read that, you need to put your mind back into greater context. Their problem was they wanted to be law keepers. Somewhere along the line, these Judaizers came in and they began to say, you need to keep the law. You need to go back and touch the roots of Christendom, which are founded in Judaism. You need to pick up a little of the Jewishness, pick up the calendar, pick up maybe some of the exercises, and it actually had gotten to the place by the time Paul wrote this letter that many of the men were considering being circumcised, and he actually tells them in no uncertain terms that circumcision avails nothing, or uncircumcision, verse 6, but faith which works by love. So what he's doing is he's trying to let them know, you guys are so completely drawn away from the center of your faith that he is afraid of them back in chapter 4, that he is standing in doubt of them, and that he is really, really travailing over them all over again. Now, with that said, notice this. Verse 13 says, you have been called unto liberty. Now right out of the gate he's going to be talking about the Holy Spirit and walking in the Spirit. And he's actually telling them as a repeat of verse 1, stand fast in the liberty wherewith you have been made free. Here he's saying you've been called unto liberty. Now if you underline the little word unto and put over in your margin on account of, because it's not a word in the Greek that means to be called into liberty. It's a word that means you've been called for the purpose of liberty. God gives us liberty so we really will be free, listen, in front of the world. God wants us to live free lives in front of the world. He wants us to live liberated lives in front of the world. Let your light so shine before men. that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven." Now many times we try to do good works because we just want people to think we're a good person, but for the believer it goes further than that. We've been set free by Christ's sacrifice. Now here we are able to have a purpose in our lives. Do you know the Bible talks about the lost person as being devoted to vanity, emptiness, that which has no substance, really no purpose. You see, when a person is lost and they're living day to day in an ungodly fashion, simply meaning without God in the center of their lives, what ends up happening is they basically waste their entire life. It's empty, it's fruitless, it has no meaning, it's not meaningful, and it has no purpose. A lot of people like to talk about purpose. We like to have purpose. Well, the only place you're going to have real purpose in your life is through Christ. You're called unto liberty. You're called unto it in the sense of upon it. The word literally means upon. You're called upon liberty. You're supposed to be living on that foundation. So we have purpose. Those people who are God's people walking in the Spirit have purpose. We are called upon liberty in verse 13. And he says, "...only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." Now, when he says occasion, that word literally means an outpost. It has the idea of what would happen if you had one battle set in array against another, and they set up a base of operations. He says, don't use this place called liberty, this freedom that you have, as a base of operations for the flesh. Yes, I'm fruity. Yes, there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, so therefore, I'm going to be loose and fast in my life. No. He says, don't use your liberty as an excuse for the flesh to do whatever it wants to do. And what they're doing in their flesh is they're not doing dissipating behaviors. They're saying, now I'm all propped up in Christ. I'm going to start keeping the law. I'm going to start being Jewish. I'm going to start looking like they look. See, there's a continuum here. of legalism to licentiousness. And he's going to talk about that continuum a little bit more deliberately when he talks about the works of the flesh and he's talking about sometimes religious things and sometimes licentious things. But here he's saying, you guys in Galatia do not use your liberty as an outpost or a base of operation for your flesh. Don't think just because Jesus died and that you're forgiven that that means now you need to make the flesh look real good. Very important. Because this is a real easy thing to fall into. It's the, really what we might call the seeds or the moorings of hypocrisy. Because I want people to, you know, I got all the answers so I can just say the right things, but I'm really just trying to make my flesh look good. See? We don't want to make our flesh look good. Listen, we want to make Jesus look good. Isn't that true? You see, there's a difference there. And what they were doing was they were having a problem that was being exploited by the Judaizers. He says in chapter 4 that those Judaizers came in and they affected you, but not for good. And he was talking about how it's good to always be affected in a good thing, but they affect you not for good. They affect you so they can be affected by you. In other words, they get their brownie points in their paradigm by the fact that you've gotten on board with them. You make them look good by following them. There's a lot of nonsensical ministries across the world today, health and wealth and all kinds of signs and wonders kind of things, where they're going to foreign countries and they're saying, we're having these big rallies and they make merchandise of people. And many times it's so obvious that it is a farce, even by the way that they allow certain things to be recorded and put on TV that expose them. But nevertheless, they let it go because they know that the people that are following them will follow them anyway. Why? Because they are affected by them. They are promised that they will be able to be healed. They are promised that they will be able to be rich. That's one thing. Well, for these people, they were promised something. They were promised that when you get these mini goals, okay? Okay, you've had a year calendar now, and you've kept the feast days, and you've kept the Sabbath, and you've kept the new moons, and you've done this, that, and the other, and boy, you're checking off your list. You know, there's something really satisfying about checking off the list. Some of us like to make little lists of things to do. You're a nervous wreck because you've got too many things to do. So you get your list out, and you say, okay, I've got to do this, this, this, and this. By the time you're down with one or two, you're like feeling pretty good again. So it is with your spiritual life. If the devil can sell you on a list, then you say, I check that off, I check that off, I check that off. We're not saved to a list. We're saved to a life. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. We live through Him, see? And for you and me, we don't want to be affected by that which is not from God. God is not in the list. He's in the living. He's everywhere you are. And what he's going to do is he's going to turn the corner here in a minute and he's going to tell us about the Holy Spirit's role in making all this happen. But in verse 13 he says, you're called upon liberty. He wants you to live that life. He wants you to be conspicuous in that life. And he says, don't use your liberty as an occasion or an outpost or a base of operations for the flesh. But, here's the real deal reality of it, but by love serve one another. Serve one another. You know, this goes to a segue for us right into the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. Because really, when you think about this, you have to remember Galatians is a real close cousin to the book of Romans. If you want to put somewhere in your margin there, compare Romans 7 and 8, you're going to get a little feeling of what's going on here. And this is more of a smaller narrative of what's going on in chapter 7 and 8 of Romans. What is it about this serve one another? Where do you hear that? The Bible says in Philippians 2 that Jesus made himself of no reputation, right? Remember that? The Bible says that we are to let this mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God thought it not a thing to be grasped after or held onto to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant. You see, when you're called into Christ and you're called unto liberty, the reason you're called unto liberty is you're set free to serve. You're set free to serve others. Now, all our lifetimes we have been told, you deserve, you deserve, you deserve. Well, if we really got what we deserved, we'd all be lost. Isn't that true? So what we do is when we get our minds around the reality of our existence down here and we lock into the purpose that God created us for, we understand that it is to serve one another. Had there never been a fall, we would be all about one another. We would be all about propping one another and caring about one another, loving one another. You know, Jesus, when he was here, he washed the disciples' feet. He lived with not a place to lay his head. Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. When he was crucified, he only had the garments on his back. And he was willing for that deprivation of lifestyle because he loved. You see, nothing could motivate you to do that but love. You know, you can understand the whole concept of perhaps somebody being on the other side of the earth and in a war zone somewhere that's in your family. And there's a real bad firefight somewhere in an area you're aware of and you're sitting on the edge. You're not getting sleep. You're pouring out the coffee and you're wondering, when's word going to come? How are they doing? Well, we can understand that what motivates a person to stay up, burn the midnight oil and wait for that word is love. We recall when Mark's son, Brian, had gotten hit, and there was times where there was just ringing of hands and wondering how he was going to do. And praise God, he's been blessed to be able to make recovery. He got his hand back, and he's got a family, and he's going good for God. But there was a moment there where it was nothing but ringing of hands. Somebody's hanging in the balance, the little Edie who had her little surgery, the family standing around the sidelines. What I'm saying is, love will make you do things you wouldn't normally do. It'll change the direction of your life. It'll change the gate in your walk because you're going somewhere. You're intentional. I've got to get to my loved one. Well, when we understand, as God understands, we will love. And He says, by love serve one another. He says, let this mind be in you that he became a servant, you become a servant. Let this mind be in you. The Bible says not only let this mind be in you that he made himself of no reputation but took upon himself the form of a servant, but he also humbled himself unto death. even the death of the cross. Now, he's going to talk about, at the end of the chapter here, how that we crucify the flesh. You know, Jesus was not killed, he gave his life. He laid his life down, right? That's part of what we're called to do. Part of service is giving to somebody else at our own expense, in one sense, if you will. It's going to cost us something to love. to give, to give up something to give to somebody else. The Bible says that we need to let this mind be in us, in Philippians 2, that he became a servant. We need to be like that. Romans chapter 8, it says, for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. But they that are of the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. We need to mind the things of the Spirit. What is that? It's Christ. Let this mind, Christ's mind, be in you. And if you let the Holy Spirit live in you and flow in you, you're going to have the minding of Christ. It goes on to say in chapter 8, verse 5 of the book of Romans, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. If you want life and peace, it's found in Christ. If you want purpose, it's found in Christ. Everything else is just details. And what's beautiful about the life that we have in Christ is that godliness has promise of this life and that which is to come. And having the mind of Christ is that which we need to aspire to. When he talks about it in serving one another, Christ took upon himself the form of a servant. It has the idea of a mindedness that we need to embrace, the same mind that Christ had. It says in verse 14 of Galatians 5, for all the law is fulfilled in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So this purpose that we have is really clearly focused. He's actually used the word twice, love. Through love serve one another. Thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself. You see, love is the really fine point here. Christianity is all about freeing us up from our self-absorption and getting our case and condition cared for so we can turn around and love other people. Now, this is where the battle begins in us because we remember what it was like to feed ourselves and soothe ourselves. Nothing like, you know, can I just say, I really like those frappes at McDonald's. I like them. Amen. Amen. We got a couple of amen corner down here. They're good. I like the caramel ones. And I try not to order the large one. Because it really blesses me to eat one and I don't want it to end and it always ends too soon. Now what I'm saying is, is that I know that I really like those. But I also know that if I had one of them on a routine level like I want to, I'd be a lot bigger than I am today. And I'd be a little more lethargic as a result of it. I realize there's consequence. Do you want to know what the real governor of the believer is? It's not commandments. It's consequence. And it's conscience. That's your real governor. If you do something that is of the flesh and you dishonor the Lord, you feel bad about the consequence of that or humiliated by being found out. You see, there's a whole lot of governors in our experience when we really love Him because we don't want to disappoint Him. We want to honor Him. We want to live upon liberty and we don't want to be seen as those who make our liberty an outpost or a base of operations for the flesh. And what I'm saying is the consequence of eating that frappe would be more than I want to embrace. So every now and then I'll treat myself. But, but I know that if I did eat it a lot, I would not be as, I would not be able to fight back what the consequence would be. And so he's telling them, he's telling them in no uncertain terms, love. You're called to this. You're called to liberty. You're called to live upon liberty. You're set free from the bondage and this corruption that is in the world through lusts. He says that we have therefore purpose. The fine focus of your life should be focused on loving other people. Do you know what that means? That means when you see somebody, you say, there you are. I don't care if it's somebody you like or don't. You just make much of them. Why? Because they are created in the image of God. Do you know what the devil does? He hates God. And he hates the image of God. Oh, man, I'll tell you what. We have to be careful about judging people on appearance or by what we want out of them because it's not about us, it's about Christ. We need to love each other. We need to love others. We need to love the lost even because God loved the lost so much He gave His only begotten Son for them. And when we got saved, the Bible says the love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts. So I need to start really looking at them through the gridwork of God's Spirit. When I do that, I make much of other people. I make much of them. If I see somebody who's standing alone, I try to make my way to them. I try to figure out how to be a blessing to them. If I see somebody who's contrary to themselves, I try to be patient with them. My daughter-in-law works in a hospital, and so there are probably times when somebody comes in, they're a little bit out of it, whether over drugs or maybe they've got some pains and they're flailing because they're afraid, and she has to have pity. And it's easy to do that when it's something so obviously wrong that it's not really who they are. Listen, the lost person is not what they're supposed to be. God would that all men come to repentance in the knowledge of the truth. And if they're flailing and they're hurting themselves, the Bible says they oppose themselves in 2 Timothy 2. It says they oppose themselves and we must not strive with them, but be patient with all. And as servants of the Lord, we must not strive, but be apt to teach. All I'm saying is, He's called us to serve through love serve. He's called us to love. Because if you want to keep the law, which was the Galatian problem, they were thinking the law, the law, the law. He says, you want to keep the law? He says, the fulfilling of the law is loving one another. This is a direct echo of chapter 14. in the book of Romans as well. It might be 13, but I think it's 14, where he talks about love being the way that you fulfill the law. The law is fulfilled in this, that you love one another. He goes on to say in verse 15, But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed of one another. Now that almost comes out of the blue. It's almost, you know, sidelines you. It's like, what? We haven't heard any bite and devouring going on in this church yet. But it was inevitable. You know why it was inevitable? It was inevitable because the moment you try to keep the law, you're going to start comparing yourself with how everybody else is doing with keeping the law. You got your list? Oh, check, check, check. How many you got on yours? You ever done a scavenger hunt? It's like, woo-hoo, got a scavenger all over the place. Man, I got this, this, this, and this. We started looking at each other's list. I think I won. Isn't it human nature to compete? You know, you're not in a race against me, and I'm not in a race against you. My adversary is the devil and my adversary is myself. Okay, I'm against me and so is the devil. One of the most remarkable things you ought to note about the book of Galatians is the devil's not even really mentioned. He says, the flesh and the spirit. You want to know what your biggest enemy, your biggest adversary is? It is the flesh that you carry around with you. If you remember in chapter 7 of the book of Romans, he says, that that I want to do, I don't do. That that I don't want to do, that I do. You see, you've got your own problem just inside. I like it when people, you know, I don't like it in a good sense, but it's sort of a facetious way of saying it. I like it when people, you know, they say, oh, the devil got me. No, the devil didn't get you. The Bible says, if you'll resist the devil and submit yourself unto God, he'll flee from you. You see that? Submit yourself unto God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. See, he can't stick around if you don't let him. You submit yourself to God. If the devil's in there, it's because maybe we gave him place. The Bible says, be angry and sin not, neither give place to the devil. So if the devil's beaten up on us, it's possibly because we've given him place and we've not resisted him. No, the bigger enemy is ourself, our flesh. Can you imagine having a fire marshal in a local city and he is the arsonist? He's the guy who goes in and studies all the fires, why all the fires? But he's the arsonist. You know when you have the trouble with the flesh? Sometimes it's because you're betraying yourself. And you maybe are living on the conscious level and not the unconscious level, which basically would be kind of equivalent to the place of the heart. And so you find yourself in the mud puddle, but you've never really been honest with God about the heart of your flesh. You're living up here, you're acting like, no, no, no, no. This is a fine line between your real honesty before God and the reality that you have to struggle with every day. So when he says this, he's telling them, You know, you need to love. Why? Because if you bite and devour one another, which is the outgrowth of your trying to keep your own list and you're trying to be, okay, I've checked that off, I made it to church, I checked that off, I read my Bible, I checked that off, I prayed today, sort of, kind of. If I was honest, I really didn't pray, I just kind of talked in the room. Do you remember the two men went down to the temple to pray and the Bible says one was a Pharisee and one was a Republican, that one wouldn't so much as look up into heaven, he says, God be merciful to me, to the sinner. And Jesus said, but the Pharisee prayed with himself. He prayed with himself. You know, when you're praying with yourself is when you're all up here and you're unwilling to go down here. Say, here I am, God. I'm just a mess. Help me. You know, we need to lay it on the table with Him because He understands. By the way, He already knows. He just needs you to know it. And by bringing it to the light, you begin to see where the turns and the twists are. He says, if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed of one another. This would be a problem naturally from where they've come from. And what you might say is there's like a third party here because he's talked to those who are being solicited and he's talking to those who are the solicitors in some sense in a backhanded way when he's talking about the Judaizers and the Gentiles. But these are people who've gone all the way over to the other side. They're Gentiles who've now been Judaized, if you will. And he says, you've got that biting and devouring going on, that's evidence that you're on the wrong track. If you're feeling like you need to bite and devour other people, that probably is a good clue that you're not walking in the Spirit. He says in verse 16, he says, this I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, when he says that, he's showing us that there is a battle going on. And the battle is within. I remember a minister years ago, and he said it with such a booming, powerful voice, it just stuck with me. He says, the greatest battle of all the ages rages in the bosom of a believer. And he drove it home. Do you know that inside of you, if you're God's child, God lives there. But do you know inside of you, you still carry around an old, fleshly nature? Somebody once put it in the vernacular of two big dogs, you know, the flesh and the spirit. And the one that you feed is going to win the battle that's going on inside of you. You feed the spirit, he's going to have the domination. You feed the flesh, he's going to have the domination. And it can be disorienting, to say the least. As we saw in Romans 8, verse 6, it says, for to be carnally minded is death. So we understand that a believer can even circumvent themselves to a place where they just can despair. He says, if you walk in the Spirit, you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Now, this is very interesting because he says, walk in the Spirit, right? Let your eye fall down to verse 25. He says, if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. So, this is sort of a bookend to the next several verses. He wants you to walk in the Spirit. Now, the word here is different than the one that will follow, but this word means peripetal. It means to walk around, peri, you know, perimeter. Everywhere you go, walk in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit. And that just simply means having the mindedness of Christ. Because the Holy Spirit, when He comes, the Bible says, when the Holy Spirit comes, He will speak of me. He will lead you into truth. He will teach you. Okay? And He will testify of me. And if I'm walking in the Spirit, I'm going to see the world through that prism. And when He says, walk in the Spirit, you know what happens? You displace the walking in the flesh thing. See, if I make a lot of provision for the flesh, which he actually says that. He says, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. If I make provision for the flesh, that takes a lot of time. Right? It takes a lot of time. But what about this spirit? If I'm walking in the spirit, that takes a lot of time too. If I'm serving somebody, if I'm knocking on a door, if I'm giving some food to somebody who's laid up, or if I'm, you know, trying to be a blessing at work and doing double duty to help this person, because I know they've got a lot on their heart or their mind. If I'm loving on my husband or my wife, that takes time. It takes investment. And he says you need to walk in the Spirit. If you're Jesus to your spouse, if you're Jesus to your parents or to your children, if you're Jesus to somebody else, it takes time from you and your selfishness or your self-centeredness or your self-absorption. And you don't have time for that. It's kind of expanded in a very deliberate way in the book of Ephesians where he says, let him who stole What? He's talking to Christian. Yeah, let the guy who was a stealer, let the guy who was a thief before he got saved, let him who stole, steal no more, but let him rather labor, working with his hands, listen to this, that he might be able to give to those who have need. What? I'm a thief? He said, no. He says, you're going to put that off. You're going to lay aside. You're going to walk in the Spirit. You're going to work that you might give. And you'll get a lot more joy out of giving than getting something that you ought not to have had. He talks about, lie not one to another, but speak the truth. You see, it's a displacement. You can't walk in the Spirit and in the flesh at the same time. He says, this I say, walk in the Spirit, verse 16, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, for these are contrary, the one to another, so that you cannot do the things that you would. And what he's telling us is that that I want to do, I don't do. You see that? So notice what I just did there. It says you cannot do the things you want and that doesn't mean you cannot do fleshly things because you may want to do good things. Did you hear what I said? You may want to do good things. Do you want to know why you're not affected sometimes? You don't have the zeal and the joy? It's because there's a battle. It's the spirit and the flesh. Think about it for a second. That that I want to do, Paul said, I don't do. That that I don't want to do, that I do. So again, I'm not doing what I want to do. I'm not behaving like I should. And he talks about how that's a burden so bad that he likens it to a death penalty. He says, I'm living with this burden. that even when I want to do good, I can't do it. Guess what? When you want to do bad, you can't do that either, because you're going to feel bad about it. Because flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And it just means the Spirit stands against the flesh. So even when you're doing evil, the Holy Spirit's convicting you, so you feel like that's not going to be all that enjoyable. And then on the other hand, you've got the flesh coming against the Spirit. And so there's always this battle. So how do you fix that? How do you fix that? Well, he says, walk in the Spirit. You see, when you are walking in the Spirit, in other words, letting this mind be in you, you're focusing on something other than right now. What I'm saying is it's like the runner who's got one mile to go to the end of the line. He's a runner. This is what he does. He's running. He's got one more mile and he is dying inside. Man, his muscles are burning and aching and he's sweating and he's finding himself losing breath. Well, when he realizes he's only got one more mile to go, he just focuses on that. The way you overcome the flesh is by focusing on Christ. Walking in the Spirit, saying, I know what He wants me to do. He wants me to love. I know what He wants me to do. He wants me to serve. I know what He wants me to do. He wants me to let this mind be in me, which was also in Christ Jesus. Do you think it was easy for Jesus to stumble up the hill with that cross on His back after being beaten with a cat and nine tails and spit upon, mocked, scourged, crown of thorns, hit on the head with a reed? The Bible says He, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross. You see that? He was looking at the joy that was set before Him. When He says in this passage that you can't do what you want, The problem that we find ourselves having sometimes, I believe, is that we trust ourselves to make the best choice. Problem is, we don't usually do that. And I know, you know, some of us are just really nice people. But we have to be careful that we don't trust ourselves. Because when we trust ourselves, it's easy to get to doing things. that please ourselves. For instance, I may love so that others will love me, rather than love so that others will see Him, because I am called upon liberty. I'm called to live a conspicuous life, to let my light so shine, to show forth the praises of Him that called me. You see, salvation is not just an addendum to make our lives feel a little bit better. Do you know you really don't fully appreciate your life in Christ until you get home? You won't, because you're going to be struggling along the way. The best way to navigate today is to keep your eyes on the joy that's set before you. This was one of the tragedies of the The joining of the state to the church back in the 300s when Constantine brought everybody in, gave them big hats and gave them thrones and gave them goblets, you know, made of gold and said, here's a throne for you too. It'd be a little less than mine, but you get to have rulership in the kingdom. They gave up their hope because things were pretty good. And that's why today many churches don't teach about the coming of Christ. No, it's too difficult. It's future things. How can we know? I'll tell you how you can know future things. You have to know the whole Bible. Because every time God said something was going to happen, you will find it happened. Except the things that haven't happened yet that he said will happen. So we can say the things he said will happen are going to happen. But you can't know that if you haven't blown yourself back time and time again saying, whoa, look what he did. The beauty of Jehoshaphat marching into a battle that he was told God was going to win and they wouldn't have to lift a finger. So he said, we won't lift a finger, we'll get our trumpets. Guys, everybody get a trumpet. And they sang, praise ye the Lord, and marched right into the midst of a valley where mayhem and murder amongst the enemies of each other. They're just singing. Praise ye the Lord, His mercy endures forever and ever. I'm telling you guys, if we trust ourselves, we're going to stumble ourselves. So he says, walk, peripeteo, everywhere you go, walk around in the Spirit. The Bible says, go ye into all the world, preach the gospel, right? Great commission. That literally is, as you are going, preach the gospel. In everything you do, You think of Noah, who preached with a hammer and a saw for 120 years in the preparing of the ark. He preached with a hammer and a saw. There's a guy on AFR radio who gets on there. He's got like a one-minute spot. He's just got a big gregarious voice. He sounds delightful. I'd love to meet him. He says, Hi, I'm a car guy, and I love to tell people about Jesus. And he would go on every day, he's got a little spot about how he's tried to witness to this person as a car guy. Why? Because sometimes a car guy is easier to listen to than, say, a clergy guy. And he knows that he has a platform and a conduit that others may not have. So what we see is that we do have a purpose. The purpose is loving. The purpose is realized, is experienced when we realize that there is going to be a battle when you try to fulfill this purpose. The battle is going to come from within. It's not going to come from the devil. It's going to come from within. Yeah, the devil will jump on any handle you give him, but he's got nothing on us. The Bible says that God disarmed the principalities and the powers. He defanged and declawed them. He took all of the ordinances and he nailed them to the cross. He took them out of the way, and we are now saved unto liberty. And when we walk in the Spirit, we won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. He says, walk around in the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Verse 17, He says, there's that battle going on. And He says in verse 18, but if you're led of the Spirit, you're not under the law. You're not even looking at the law. You're not looking at it. Who cares about the law? Jesus is awesome. Look what He did for me. I'm going to love somebody. And when they ask me why I'm being nice to them, even though maybe they've bit me somewhere along the line, they're going to get a word about Him because it's not anything I'd do. Because when somebody comes against me with strength, I want to answer with strength. Don't you? Somebody push you, you want to push back. We have to walk in the Spirit and we want what? Fulfill. the lust of the flesh. Now he goes on and he says in verse 19, now the works of the flesh are manifest. Now we have purpose but we also are productive when we walk in the spirit. We just saw the purpose. What's the productivity of the believer? Well, there are two things that have been put on the table, the flesh and the spirit. And the flesh is spoken of as being made up of the works. The works of the flesh are these, plural. Every one of them. Plural. Why? Because each one is an evil in and of itself. It is an insidiousness that will poison and hurt anybody around you. The works of the flesh are these. But the fruit, singular, is one. The fruit of the Spirit is love. But the works are these. You don't even look at works in regard to the Spirit. You see the fruit because we're productive. You produce something. If you look in the mirror, I hope you're thinking, man, I'm producing some more, more things than I used to, because that's the thing of the Christian life. There's always something God's working on, right? We've got these little edges on us, you know. You ever get that fingernail that's just always scratching you, you know, I've got to get that file out, get rid of it. God's looking at us, man, we're a bunch of, you know, scratchy people sometimes. He's got a lot of little edges to rub off, right? Don't touch me out, you know, or if you scratch, you've got to scrape it. What happened to your fingernail? What I'm saying is that the works of the flesh are these. And if you were to categorize them, and you could do this loosely, you could see that the list is made up of three basic categories, the moral, the spiritual, and the personal. Look what he says in verse 19. He says, Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. Now remember, these are Gentiles. This was what they lived for. They were not a group of people who were under Judaism. These were Gentiles. Gentiles lived for the things listed in verse 19, especially because these were the apogee of the fleshly designs they had. All of their religion led them to these things, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and lasciviousness. You see, the lost person, that's the best they can hope for. That's why we're in the mess today that we're in. The world in which we're in today is given to these things in spades. And if you say any one of these things is evil or wrong, you are vilified. How dare you judge somebody? For adultery, It's okay, it's consenting people, they would say. Fornication, well, you got to test drive the car before you commit. That's what the narrative is. Fornication, uncleanness, it's in the same category, we know that. What about lasciviousness? Well, just because I'm on a diet doesn't mean I can't look at the menu. Lasciviousness. You see, just looking and leering, lewdness. Why? Because this is all the flesh can hope for, is self-gratification. The apogee of self-gratification typically will be realized in immorality. That's what they're chasing, the works of the flesh. And these are things people pursue and chase. It says, idolatry, verse 20. So now we've gone from the moral or the immoral to the spiritual, idolatry. You see, we begin to renegotiate who God is. We change His image. Witchcraft, you might put in your margin there, drug use, because the word is pharmakiah. It's the same as sorceries in the book of Revelation, witchcraft. The idea was that they would do potions and incantations in their religious exercises and they would underpin them with some drugs. Here, smoke this and think about this song. That's what we did when I was a kid. smoke this, put these headphones on and listen to Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. For sorceries, you would do drugs and then you would hear the narratives of the evil one. You may not know this, but I heard just yesterday or the day before, it must have been yesterday, that there is a group trying to start Satanist clubs in schools across America in answer to groups like CEF, Child Evangelism Fellowship. They said, well, if they can do that, we should be able to do this. And they want to teach Satanism to children. The Bible is an amazing book. It teaches us that these things are something we can anticipate. Idolatry, witchcraft. And they'll teach the narrative of demonism and Satanism. Hatred, invariance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, and heresies. Strife, seditions, and heresies, the one means electioneering. That was what the Judaizers were doing, saying, pick me, forget about Paul. The idea of seditions is the idea of dividing people. Judaizers were doing that. Heresies, it means, it's the idea of being pummeled, pummeling a city, taking a city in a war. Heresies has that idea. And it has that idea of spirituality. People serve something. They will serve something. They will either serve God or they will serve the devil. Now the thing about the devil is he's got a whole menu of things you can do. You can chase the things in verse 19, and he's tickled with that because then you can tell everybody, I got everything I ever wanted. yet your soul is lean and lonely and miserable because everything behind your back story is debris. You can go for religion. That's all coupled in verse 20. He says, that's not, that's works. You know, these people, they're electioneering, they're all trying to angle, and the hatred comes out of religion. You know, religion is where a lot of persecution has come from, right? Who put Jesus to death? the Jewish religious system, right? They're the ones who said, crucify him. He said, we don't want him. And what I'm saying is, is that we live sometimes subject to those pulls in us. And then finally, in verse 21, he says, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Notice this, these are things that are personal. Some things you're doing against people, some things you're doing against God, and some things you're doing in complicity with others. You know, the first, the moral things, those first things that we mentioned, they're doing things in complicity with somebody else. Fornication and adultery by design means you need to look somebody else in the eye and say, let's do this. When somebody says, let's live together outside of marriage, they're soliciting that other person to do this. That's pretty huge. Remember Cain? Am I my brother's keeper? Yes, you are. You take care of that young girl. You take care of that young man. You protect them. Don't solicit them to fornication, adultery, and so forth. But what about the religious things? Well, we want to go there because we're not affected by where we're at. We're not affected because we're not engaged. I'll tell you what, if you're a soldier, your blood's not pumping until you hear the first bullet go. Now it's like on, man. Okay, adrenaline's up. Check. You want to know what's going to get you affected for Jesus? Witnessing to somebody. Serving somebody. Plowing through a day that's dark and gloomy for you and going and giving somebody a meal or buying groceries for somebody who's shut in. Going to a nursing home. taking a little time when you're really angry and you're ready to throw the mop across the room because you're miserable and stopping and sitting down on a chair and just focusing on Jesus. And the Bible says that we are to be filled with the Spirit singing and making melody in our hearts unto the Lord. It's when you realize that that disposition is of the flesh and I'm going to embrace this disposition, that I'm going to be filled with the Spirit Singing and making melody in my heart unto the Lord Speaking to others Bible says speaking to one another Right, that's another you're gonna be speaking. We're so isolated. We're not even speaking to each other because we don't we get you go to a Restaurant sometimes you look around how many people are on their cell phones not even talking to the person across the table from them being filled with the Spirit means I'm going to speak to them. How are you doing? Then it says, in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, make a melody in your heart of the Lord. Then it says giving thanks, giving thanks, being thankful. Have you ever stopped and counted your blessings? How could we have it? And then the Bible says submitting one to another. So what's that? That's serving, right? Submitting one to another? What I'm saying is this. We have a great deal of tools in our pouch to get us past this battle. If we will, for the joy, for the joy that's like misty over, I see a light. Listen, Jesus is coming, and none of us is getting out of this thing alive. We are on the cusp of the sword right now. We are living at the times that the Bible has proclaimed would come, when men would run to and fro, and that knowledge would increase. And we are living in a time when the Bible says that this book is not to be sealed but to be opened. We are living at the time when He who will come shall come and will not tarry. We need to get this right. How do you overcome the flesh, the deeds of the flesh, the works of the flesh? By walking in the Spirit. Not trying to take it on by sheer brute strength. If you're on a diet and you're saying, I'm not eating any frappes, I know, I'm on a roll. Don't go hang out at McDonald's! Okay? All I'm saying is that you and I need to recognize that we are sometimes our worst enemy, and if we'll just get our eyes focused on the future, it'll help. Find that song that gets you through. He talks about the works of the flesh, and then look at what he says. He says, of the which I tell you, verse 21, all these things, of the which I tell you, before, as I have told you in time past, he says that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, I'm telling you guys, that is a scary passage because this is what disorients the believer sometimes. Because the believer does fall prey to getting a checklist and comparing each other with each other, at the very least. At the worst, there's some of the other stuff they get caught up in. And when they do that, this verse stands over and we're thinking, can't be saved. Can't inherit the kingdom of heaven. The works of the flesh. Hatred. Have you ever had a bitterness that's just been eating you up for a time? Man, you go months. The Bible says, if you don't forgive your brethren, neither will God forgive you. That's in the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, all that says, forgive us our trespasses. If you don't forgive them, He won't. We know those are in there. Why? Because God's got a divine intention. He wants us to have a degree of fear while we're coming along in this thing. But He goes on to say, but the fruit, not fruits, but the fruit, why? Because there are works in the Christian life. But He doesn't even worry about that. He just jumps right to the fruit, because there is no fruit in works of the flesh. You say, where's the works in the believer's life? The Bible says we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus, what? On two good works. So there are works in the believer's life. But that's not the issue. God's not about the works as much as He is about the fruit. You see, if you're serving somebody, you're going to have to learn some patience. You're going to have to be nice. You have to be nice. I don't want to be nice. I know, right? Nice is hard. We're like little gremlins in here, inside of us. We're like Garfield, right? He walks in one day and he's walking across, what happened to you? He says, I was watching the Food Channel. It's brutal. We're all like that. You get right, you get your nose to the bakery window. The fruit of the Spirit. What is it? Love. It's singular. Love. Two ways you can understand that. And what we're looking at is the productivity. We're going to be productive. We're going to have a purpose for the joy, walk in the Spirit. We're going to be productive. We're going to have love. The Bible says the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. Now, I know this is something that's really weird in our day, but I want to say I just don't understand some things in our day, which I think what they do more than anything is they startle me, because I remember years ago, when people got saved, they went to church, and they went to church every time the doors were open. trying to say anything about it. It's just between us and the Lord, individually, right? But if you really love the people of God, you want to be around the people of God. Isn't that true? I mean, this is our family. This is where Christ is made much of. When the rest of the world is dismissing and despising and hating on Jesus, the people in here are going to sing songs of Zion. We're going to say, yeah, there it is. I can breathe now. Let me see, how many of you have ever almost drowned? Anybody? Almost? Isn't that funny? The water is a scary thing. I was a little kid once. I know, it's hard to believe. It was a long time ago. I was in a pool, couldn't swim. And you know how they used to make those pools? They gradually go down. Sometimes they quick gradual, but I got on one. Oh, I was going down. Somebody pulled me back up and I'm like, man, thanks. I was scared. One time my dad threw me in, I told that story before, and I'm looking, I thought I was going to die. But when you get your breath back, Wednesdays, Sunday nights, you know, and it's not about anything other than these are good people. You know, the Bible says, the psalmist speaking, he said, as for your saints, they are the excellent ones. Do you want to know who the excellent ones are? They're God's people. You want to get around God's people. joy, peace, gentleness. Why? Because all of these things proceed from that. There are people who have led their whole lives as selfish individuals, self-absorbed, and when they get to the end of their lives, they have nothing. And that's a brutal ending to have. I remember a dear lady that I had the privilege of leading to the Lord. She came down to the end of her life. And she was really a difficult lady to like because she just had all this crotchetiness about her and bit and a confrontation spirit. She was really giving me a face. But I heard that she had gotten ill and I went to see her in the hospital. And when I went in, she was just all alone. And when I got a chance to talk to her about Jesus, she was... She was receptive, and it wasn't this, oh, I'm afraid I'm going to die, because it really wasn't clear that was where this was going. She was just miserable, realized how lonely she was. And when she was benched for that little bit of time, she trusted Jesus. And she got saved. And I've got to say this, she didn't like me very much before that day. She liked me a bunch after that day. Guys, listen, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring, on the mountains are the feet of them who bring good news. Each of us, we have that calling. We have a purpose. We're productive. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering. If you're dealing with people, you're going to need that. Gentleness, you're going to need that. Goodness, you're going to need that, because they're not even going to listen to you if you're not a good person. In some sense, they have some goodness about you. Faith, oh, you're going to need that. Meekness, that's one of the Beatitudes. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God. That's power under control. Temperance, you know what that is? That's power. That's internal power. Temperance has the idea of self-control, but it literally means to have power to control yourself. And that's why he says in verse 24, he says, and they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh. Do you realize how hard that is? Kind of a tough thing. We've probably all heard about the man who was trapped in some sort of a mountain climbing accident in cold air and he cuts off his leg. He had to cut his leg off and tie it off and tourniquet. He got free. He got out. He lost his leg, but he had to do that. The Bible talks about it, right? Cut off your hand if it bothers you, your eye, pluck it out, cut off your foot, go lame into heaven. See, sometimes we don't get it until we really do get it. that we are our own worst enemy sometimes and we have to crucify the flesh. And in fact, he says in verse 25, if we live in the Spirit, also let us walk in the Spirit. Now, what we're under the heading here is, is we have prospects. Why? What prospects? Well, the prospects that we have are prospects of power. God gives temperance. He gives you the power. How does He give you the power? By virtue of giving you a new day every day that you can say, His mercies are new every morning. I can get up. I can go back. I can say, God, I'm a mess. Help me. And He's just waiting for the Son to come home. And when we come home, we get a hug, a ring, and shoes on our feet, and we get a party. God allows a fatted calf. What I'm saying is that you and I, we have the power because God has taken care of everything. He took into account our idiosyncrasies and our personalities. And there's seven billion people on the earth, and God knows every single one of them. And He knows why they're like they are, why they do what they do, and how it is that they came to be where they are. You and I don't know that. We don't even know ourselves. Isn't that funny? Years later down the road, oh, I know why I do that. I bet it's because, and you think, wow. Well, we need to let all that go and say, you know what, new day, new Christ, new good, all good, new creation, old things are passed away. I'm going with Jesus. I'm looking for the joy, because He said, He said, he that believeth in me, though he die yet shall he live. He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Why? Because the moment you close your eyes in what appears to be death, you open them in life everlasting. Your life everlasting starts now, but it's not till you go on the other side that you're going to see how awesome that is. What we have here is we have the prospects. We have strength. He says this, he says, they that are Christ, verse 24, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. And I told you this was a different word. The other one meant walk around. This one here means to march in order. It means to march triumphantly. It means to march with victory assured in your heart. It's like a battalion of soldiers. That's just walking victory. It reminds me of 2 Corinthians, in verse 14 of chapter 2, where it says, Now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of His knowledge by us in every place. That's 2 Corinthians, chapter 2, in verse 14. What's really neat about that is, is that what he's saying is, is everywhere you go, God goes with you. And when it says, He maketh us to triumph, the word is, the idea is, you once were a prisoner and you were liberated, and now you're walking behind your captain and general, and you're in procession before the world as free. You're not in bondage. He causes us to triumph. That's the kind of walk we're called to, a walk of liberty. You've been called unto liberty, unto freedom. Now walk in the Spirit. What were the prospects? Well, the first one, we'd have power. The second one is that we'll live. The Bible says, he that has the Son has life. The Bible says, he that has not the Son shall not see life. Right? That whoever believes on Christ would not perish but have everlasting life. The Bible says that if we believe in Him and His words, He says, we will not come into condemnation but have passed from death unto life. Right now, life. Life. Ah, it's good to know. The Bible says before we're saved, we've got dead and trespasses and sin. If we live in the Spirit, that means we're saved. He says, then let us walk. See how it works together? Then let us walk in the Spirit. Because this is our reality. And it's not just a reality because we hope it's a reality. It's a reality because Jesus proved it was a reality. when He died on that cross to pay for your sin. He is now just and the justifier of everyone who believes in Him. I believe in Him. Don't look at me. Look at Him. I'm going to mess up the picture because I'm a work in progress and so are you, but look at Him and I want to point to Him. I want to make much of Him. The Bible says we have that power. to crucify the flesh. The Bible says in Romans chapter 8, it says, as many as are led by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh. Here he says we have power, he says we have life, and we have the ability to march nobly in his presence and be really paraded as his trophy. And that's why we're called unto or upon liberty. He says in verse 26, he says, let us not be desirous of vainglory. That was what happens when you try to keep the law. When you try to get somebody to pat you on the back for something you know you don't deserve a pat on the back for. He says, don't go for the empty glory. He says, provoking others, envying others. He says, that's all self-absorption. That's all earthboundness. He says, we need to be a people who crucify the deeds of the flesh. In verse 24, with its affections and its lusts, Can I say this in closing? You know as well as I do that many times young men come along in their lives and they think, you know what? I'm not doing too well in life. I'm going to join the military. Sometimes a judge says, you got a choice, son. You can either go to jail or you can go join the service, right? And when they do that, they may be bemoaning the whole idea. But I don't think there are many who have actually joined the service that once they've been in there have not found that it had more advantages afforded to them than they could have had otherwise. What ends up happening is they go join the service. Sometimes there's a stipend. Hey, we're going to give you so many thousand dollars just for joining. Really? Wow. Yeah, we're going to train you in something. Really? Wow. Yeah, and you know what we're going to do? We're going to deploy you. We're going to get your GED. We're going to deploy you. You're going to be on there. You might liberate a bad place, get some people out of some bad spots. That feels pretty good. But at the very least, they came away feeling ennobled by their commitment to place themselves under discipline. Guys, listen. That is not unlike it is when we signed up with Jesus. He put us in the battalion of the victorious. The Bible says we are more than conquerors through Christ. The Bible says this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. And all I'm saying is, is that when we understand, we're to walk around in the Spirit, and that will give way to walking in line and with dignity. Squared shoulders and honor, valor, and strength that will impact your world. You have that prospect, but you and I have to access it, because God says it's up to us. We can let the flesh win. He's going to say in chapter 6 that, He that soweth to the flesh, in verse 8, shall reap corruption. That's verse 8 of chapter 6. So understand, we don't want that. We need to cultivate the Spirit. They're both in battle. We need to keep our eyes on the joy. Would you bow with me for a moment?