Please do open your Bibles to Paul's letter to the Galatians and chapter 5, Galatians chapter 5. We're going to be looking together at this last section here in chapter 5, beginning at verse 16. And as you're turning there, please do stand for the reading of God's Word. Galatians chapter 5, 16 to 26. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit. The desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you. As I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Thus far, the Word of God. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, please once again pour out a blessing upon us here. Open our ears, soften our hearts, help us to take in your truth. Lord, please remove from our memories anything that is unhelpful or distracting, and let your word dwell richly in us. cause fruit to be evident in our lives, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. Well, this evening we're continuing our studies in this remarkable letter of Paul's to the Galatians. So boys and girls, what is Galatians a book about? Freedom, very good. Yes, freedom. And this is a special kind of freedom, isn't it? It's not just a little bit of freedom, not just a small amount of freedom, not partial freedom, a little bit free, but the rest in captivity. It's not freedom mixed with a bit of tradition or a little bit of law-keeping. No, this is full, glorious freedom. Freedom in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone. Remember Paul says at the beginning of this chapter, for freedom Christ has set us free. Or with freedom Christ has freed us. As we've seen throughout the book, Paul has been hammering away, hasn't he? Tearing down this non-gospel of salvation by works. And he's been setting forth beautifully for us the true gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. But now as we approach the end of the letter, there's a question. Isn't there? If this gospel of free grace that Paul has been so clearly setting out for us, if this is really true, how then should we live? If I'm saved, not through anything that I do, but simply through faith in Jesus Christ completely by Him, if my guilt and sin are washed away by His blood, if the righteousness that He earned with His perfect life is now mine, if His resurrection secured the defeat of sin and Satan and guarantees new life for me, how should I now live? That's the question. And perhaps not surprisingly, Paul's answer in a word is, you ought to live free. You ought to be free. And in our verses this evening, he's going to unpack that for us. And so I want to work our way through these verses, verses 16 to 26, using three headings. First we'll see that we're freed by the Spirit, freed by the Spirit. Then we'll see we're freed from evil, and third, freed to bear fruit. Pretty straightforward outline, I think it just follows through in the text. And so here in our first verse this evening, Paul really gives us the key to living free. We know we're supposed to live free, but how do we do it? Well, Paul tells us. He says, walk. by the Spirit. Walk by the Spirit. Now, if we didn't have the rest of this letter, and perhaps the rest of Paul's letters and the New Testament, then we might be left thinking that Paul is just a little bit like one of these preachers, no doubt all of us have heard, who will say something that sounds incredibly profound, but we're left wondering exactly what that actually means for us. I think I've almost certainly done that myself. You know, someone will say, oh, just rest in Christ. Just let the Spirit lead you. Or as Paul says here, walk by the Spirit. And we think, what on earth does that mean? What is walking by the Spirit? How do we walk by the Spirit? And how does walking by the Spirit bring us real freedom? Well, let's have a look. The word that Paul uses here for walk is a present active imperative. So that means it's something that we are to do and to keep on doing. It's the difference, if you like, between taking a few steps and keeping on walking. And so here Paul is urging us to do this, to keep on walking all the way to glory. It's clearer, I think, in verse 25, if you just look down towards the end of the chapter here. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep step with the Spirit. You get the sense that Paul is telling us here that we're to keep up with the Spirit. But if we read on in our passage, there are a few more verses that shed some light on what this walking with the Spirit, or walking by the Spirit, really is. So look at verse 18. If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law, Paul says. Now he could have said, if you follow the Spirit, You're not under the law. And that would be true. That would be true. But Paul uses the words he does because he wants to bring out something important. There's an emphasis on something here, or rather someone. He's emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit. He's not so much focusing on our following, but rather the Spirit's leading. So boys and girls, I wonder, I don't know if it's so much popular in this part of America, but maybe you've seen a NASCAR race. Have you seen one of those NASCAR races? They seem incredibly boring to me, but I'm told it's very popular. So you have these cars and they race around and around this oval track, which apparently is difficult. And occasionally it's so difficult that they have terrible crashes and there's a big accident and they have to bring out what they call a pace car. So they use this when there's a big crash or they use it at the beginning when they're practicing. And this pace car sets the pace that all the other cars have to follow. But these cars follow in such a way that really each of those individual drivers is in control of his car and it's really his effort. that makes sure that he doesn't overtake the pace car or he doesn't overtake any of the other cars while they're sorting out the big mess up ahead on the track. Now the Holy Spirit's leading or being led by the Holy Spirit is not like that. It's not like a pace car in a NASCAR race. It's more like the way that a train engine leads the rest of the train. You've seen trains before, perhaps you've seen a lovely old steam train, just chewing along, but all the other train cars have to be connected, don't they, to that steam engine at the front, or perhaps it's a more modern train, it's electric or it's diesel or something else. But in order for the train to move along, it has to be connected to the engine at the front. And this is really what being led by the Spirit is like. Being led by the Spirit is being connected to His divine power. And so where He goes, we go. Because we rely on Him entirely. Walking by the Spirit is staying connected to Him. Just like carriages have to be connected to the engine, we must be connected to the Spirit. And so as the great Puritan William Perkins says, then we order our lives according to the direction and motion of the Spirit. Now Paul gives us another image that helps us in verse 22 this time. And he says this, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and so on. Walking by the Spirit then is bearing the fruit of the Spirit. And notice again where Paul's emphasis is. It's the Spirit's fruit. It's the fruit of the Spirit. He's the one who causes this fruit to grow in us. Maybe Paul's remembering those words of Jesus from John 15. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. So walking in the Spirit, we could say, is abiding in the vine. We're to keep ourselves securely united to the living Christ. And so we mustn't cut ourselves off from the leading and the guiding of His Holy Spirit. And believe it or not, there is tremendous comfort in this. Because even our holding on to Christ, even our abiding in the vine, is empowered and enabled and strengthened by God Himself. Precious Saint, God says to you this evening, fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you by my righteous right hand. And so although we may well at times do things that will cut us off from the felt presence and fellowship of God the Spirit, that we may at times let go of Him. He never, ever lets go of us. He will never, ever lose any of His precious ones. Jesus has prayed for you. Holy Father, keep them in your name. Jesus promises you, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. So we can say then, walking by the Spirit is being led by the Spirit, and it is bearing His fruit. And though Paul does emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit in this, and that really is the decisive factor here, he does nonetheless give us a command. We are to walk in the Spirit. Our wills are deeply involved in this. So we must want to be led by the Spirit. We must want to remain connected to Him. The way the carriage is connected to the engine. We must want to abide in the vine. But this is the glory of the gospel of grace. In the gospel of Jesus Christ and through the work of the Holy Spirit, our wills are changed. So we do actually want these things. In Christ, this is what we want. I think that's why Paul makes a sort of passing reference to this in verse 17, where he talks about the flesh keeping us from doing the things that we really want to do. So the ultimate question then is how? How do we walk by the Spirit? When Paul writes to the Colossians in chapter 3 of that letter, Paul calls us to something that I think is very, very similar, almost synonymous. He says this at the beginning of the chapter, And he shows us what that looks like. He gives us really another list of the fruit of the Spirit put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts or love, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another. And then when we get to verse 16, he shows us how we do that. He says these words, listen carefully. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. So what I want to argue this evening is that hearing, letting the Word of Christ dwell in us richly is the same as walking by the Spirit. So how do we walk by the Spirit? Well, we walk by the Spirit by meditating on the promises of God in His Word. letting the Word of God dwell richly in our hearts, by keeping our hearts happy in God, resting on His promises. See, walking in the Spirit is not a joyless, depressing trudge. Remember, joy is the fruit of the Spirit. Walking by the Spirit, then, is the pathway to maximal joy. When we walk by the Spirit, we remember with Paul that we live by faith in someone incredible. We live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Let me just give you four brief proofs of this that we can see just in this letter to the Galatians. So first, look back to verse 6 in this chapter. Verse 6, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. Only faith working through love. Real faith then always produces love. That's what we've seen. Because faith drives out guilt and fear and greed and replaces them with a love for God and an appetite to enjoy His supernatural power. But verse 22 tells us also that love is a fruit of the Spirit. Love is a fruit of the Spirit. So if love is what faith necessarily produces, and love is a fruit of the Spirit, then the way to walk by the Spirit is to have faith. To joyfully trust in the promises of God. Second, go back to verse 5 here in chapter 5. For through the Spirit, By faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. What is the hope of righteousness? Who is the hope of righteousness? It's Jesus. Jesus himself. So how do we wait for Jesus through the Spirit? Paul says, it's by faith. It's by faith. So when we keep the happiness in our hearts stoked with the precious promises of God, that's us walking waiting through the Spirit. Third, go back to chapter 3 and verse 5. Perhaps this is the clearest of them all. Paul writes this, does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? And of course the answer to this rhetorical question is of course faith. It is by hearing with faith. The Spirit does His mighty work in us and through us only by faith. The hearing of faith. We are both justified by faith and sanctified by faith. And so the way to walk by the Spirit and so not gratify the desires of the flesh is to hear the beautiful promises of God and trust in them. delight in them, rest in them, trust those promises enough to continue walking, walking in the power of the promise-keeping God. And then fourth, remember, remember Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." How does Christ live in Paul? By the Spirit. The same way he lives in us. Galatians 4 verse 6, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. 2.20 tells us that the life of the Son is produced in Paul, and of course every believer, by faith. We walk in the Spirit by faith. Day by day we trust the Son. Day by day we cast our cares on God. We're freed from guilt and fear and greed, and we're empowered by the Spirit of the Son Himself. So how do we walk by the Spirit? We stop trying to fill the emptiness of our lives with so many pieces of the world. And instead we put our souls at rest in God. The Spirit Himself does His miraculous work of renewal in our lives when we start meditating on His unspeakably good promises. Day and night, when we rest in the sure word of God. Boys and girls, I wonder if you've heard of a man called George Muller. George Muller. He was an incredible example of a man who was just used wonderfully by God. He cared for over 10,000 orphans. 10,000 children who didn't have a mom or a dad. He opened more than 100 schools, offered a Christian education to more than 120,000 students. And he did all of this, sometimes not even knowing where the next meal was gonna come from. Trusting God completely. He was a man who walked by the Spirit, and he wrote this in his autobiography. I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished. Now what is the food for the inner man? The Word of God. This then is how to walk by the Spirit. Meditate on the precious truths of the Word of God until your heart is happy in God, until you're totally resting in His promises. This is letting the Word of God dwell in you richly. This is the true and everlasting freedom that comes to us by the Spirit. Well now, having seen then that freedom comes as we walk by the Spirit, Paul shows us that we're both freed from a certain way of life and freed to another radically different way. And these ways are utterly opposed to each other. You see there in verse 17, Paul describes really a war that is waging in the soul of every believer. If you want a deeper look at this, you can really read Paul's commentary on that verse in Romans chapter 7. But these two ways are described for us by Paul with two lists, introduced in verses 19 and verse 22. Now this evening, instead of engaging in some hamartiology, which is the study of sin, or describing the fruit of the Spirit individually, though both of those activities are worthwhile, I want us to try and take a step back to have a bigger picture view. Because there can be a danger when thinking about the Christian life in that we resort to a way of thinking, a mentality that might be described as a kind of checklist mentality, especially when we're presented with two lists here. But Christianity is not a 10-step program. Christianity is not a self-help manual. Christianity is far more radical than that, far more effective. than that. Christianity is death and resurrection. Death and new life. So what I want us to notice here this evening is the way that Paul introduces these two different ways of living. The list of these vices He calls works of the flesh, works of the flesh. And the virtues we see here, he calls them fruit of the Spirit. So there's this deliberate contrast between works and fruit. So remember, when Paul says flesh, He doesn't mean just our physical bodies, as if that was the problem. As if our bodies were the root of all of our sin. That's where all our sin comes from. Now if you just look at the list for a second here, you'll see that there are sins that don't come from our bodies. Enmity, strife, jealousy, etc. So what Paul means by flesh here, is that old ego that is reliant on self and doesn't yield to any authority, doesn't depend on any mercy. So why then does he call what this flesh brings forth works? Why does he call it works? And when we first come to this list, we might be tempted to conclude that he calls them works because that conveys effort. And it's in contrast to what he's saying about the work of the Holy Spirit, which is fruit. And that's his work and not our effort. And that's a good contrast. But if you look at the list of these sins here, these vices, There are some that simply don't work that way. So take envy, for example. This is not something that we need to work at, is it? It's not something we really have to try hard to produce. No, it really springs up in us like weeds do on our patios. What about fits of anger? Fits of anger burst out of our flesh like coke does from a shaken up can. So it's not then that these vices all require some kind of effort to produce, nor is it entirely accurate to say that these vices are called works because they are done to earn some sort of a wage, in the way that maybe a self-righteous person might expect a reward for their law-keeping. Strife and anger and jealousy, They're not performed to earn anything, are they? But we are getting, I think, closer to the truth here. We could describe these sinful responses as an emotional attempt to try and settle accounts. Because we didn't get what we thought we were entitled to. So envy's not trying to merit anything, it's not trying to earn anything, but it does spring up from a heart that thinks it deserves more than it's getting. Jealousy itself is not trying to earn a payoff of any kind, but it comes from a heart that expects to be paid