Consider these questions as you dwell in Galatians 5:16-26:

1. How does Paul's delineation between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit challenge believers to reflect on their actions and attitudes? How does this contrast contribute to understanding Christian behavior?

2. What significance does Paul's emphasis on crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires hold in shaping a believer's transformation and growth in faith?

3. How does Paul's exhortation to "keep in step with the Spirit" resonate with the ongoing struggle between adhering to the fleshly desires and seeking to bear spiritual fruit in the Christian journey? How can believers navigate this tension effectively?

Transcript:

We land here at the end of chapter five, and it's starting to feel like maybe that the tone is starting to shift a little bit. There's a little bit more maybe friendliness to the exhortation. Maybe that's not the right word. But you can see here where Paul is really encouraging them to continue to live by faith and live their lives in a particular way. He is encouraging them not to gratify the desires flesh. He says something here that makes a lot of sense for us because the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit. These things that we desire in our sinfulness do not help us as we grow in faith, and they're not the things that God, the Spirit, would want us to do, or is leading us to do. But the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. And as he said, these are opposed to each other. They are opposites. That is important. Because we are in Christ, we should be desiring to do things that the Spirit wants us to do, these things that cause us to live a holy life. Paul does a list here of things that are works of the flesh.

Anytime we come to these lists, I always say that I am greatly humbled by them, because there's a lot of got yous in there. Things that we would never think that we would do or things that we are dramatically opposed to, and we think these are things that don't apply to us. It's real easy to read this list, sexual, morality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry. Yeah, get those idolators and their sorts, then we see strike, jealousy, rivalries, divisions, envy. While we see some of these things on this list as being big deals, there are other things here that we may be brush aside that we don't really worry about with ourselves. But Paul puts all these things in the same list. These are works of the flesh. It's not just idolatry and sexual morality. It is also things like energy. It's important that we read these type of lists and that we are convicted that the Holy Spirit would work in us and convict us of those things, and that we would not get to the point where we think that this call for holiness doesn't apply to us. It always applies to us. The law has its work that it does in us.

It convicts us of our sin. We know that the Spirit is at work in us because we are convicted of our sin. That's the good news. If we hear these things and we feel guilty of them, if we know that we need to change our lives, and we know that the Holy Spirit is at work in us, then what happens? What is the fruit of the Spirit? We see the work for the flesh, but what grows from the work of Spirit within us? We know this list. Maybe you know the song even. I don't know that I know the song, but I've heard my kids sing the song. I know they have sung it at camp. Love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Paul says, Against such things, there is no law. Nobody is going to tell you that you are because you are having brotherly love toward someone else and caring for them, or that you have joy in what God has done in your life, and that you have peace and patience, and that you are your kind. It doesn't tell you that you are doing bad because you have goodness and you are faithful, that you're gentle.

And particularly if you show self-control, self-control is something that is hard. It's something that is not necessarily considered in our day. Our consumer culture doesn't want us to show self-control. It wants us to spend money at a whim or do what we want to do when we want to do self-control, though, is a good thing. And like I said, they're against these things. There is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires, Paul says. In other words, he is saying, If you have faith, if you are in Christ, you have put aside all these other things, these works of the flesh. So out of you should be coming this fruit. Remember, fruit grows. So the seed within us, for lack of a better way of putting it, is this good news of the Gospel, this faith that we have in Christ. We love others because God has first loved us. We have joy because God in Christ has loved us. We have peace with God because Christ has torn down the wall of hostility. We have peace because we know that no matter what happens, we are in Christ.

We have patience because God has been patient with us. God has been kind and good to us. We desire to be faithful to God because He has first been faithful to us. This is the fruit that grows out of this because the works of the flesh with all its passions and his desires, that has been crucified with Christ. That's an important thing that Paul reminds us of over and over, that if we are in Christ, then we are to death all of these things. They have been moved out of the way that our lives are supposed to be, and we are supposed to be desiring to screw the Spirit. Paul says in verse 25, If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. We know how hard this is. We know how difficult it can be. Just when we think we're doing pretty good, we struggle and we stumble. But how we do this is that we remember the grace of God. We remember the Gospel. We constantly strive to be reminded of the love that God has shown to us in Christ. As we live our lives today, may we decide to work for the flesh.

May we desire to bear fruit because of what God has done for us in Christ.