Life in the Spirit

Hey all,
Sorry it took so long to get this posted.  Truth be told I forgot about it until today.


Herb


Sermon Summary:


Are we more controlled by the various laws under which we live or by the Holy Spirit?  Paul challenged the Galatians to yield to the Spirit rather than to the traditions of Judaism which they were being taught by the Judaizers.  He listed the qualities of the Sinful Nature as well as the Fruit of the Spirit.  He concluded the section with a challenge to not become conceited in our faith.


Questions for Reflection:

1. What's you score on the quiz?  Which question did you answer which way?
2. How do you feel about the Law being part of the sinful nature?  How does that make you feel about following the Law rather than the Spirit at points in your life?
3. How does the time you spend with attitudes of the sinful nature compare with the time you spend exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit?  What does that tell you about yourself?  When you pray do you and God talk about this?
4. Are you in danger of becoming conceited because you are further along than some other people you know?

Sermon:  Life in the Spirit

Paul’s main point in the book of Galatians is to point up the difference between living under the direction of the Law and living under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  As I’ve worked through this series and as I’ve read the commentary I’ve been reading on Galatians I’ve been led to wonder how much of my life is directed by a law of some sort and how much is directed by the Spirit.  The writer of the commentary said that he knows of only one person since the Apostle Paul who believed and lived out in his life that reliance on the Holy Spirit was the only thing a believer needed to live a moral and upright life before God.  I thought that maybe I could be the second person he would ever know.  I could write him an email or letter and educate him.  Before I began to look for his email address I thought I should maybe do a little quiz of my life to determine if in fact I was living by the Spirit or by some other law.

Here’s my quiz.  I’d invite you to take the quiz with me and keep score.  You won’t need a pen and paper for this quiz, it’s only got four questions.  You can use one hand to keep track of the Law side and the other hand to keep track of the Spirit side.

Question #1:  You are in the Wal-mart and you see a small item that you think is really nice.  It’s a frivolous little thing and the price seems too much to spend for something that frivolous.  The item is small enough that if you pick it up to look at it you could easily close your hand around it, fake putting it back on the shelf and slip it in your pocket.  I know that none of you would do that.  Question number 1 is: Why would you not do that?  Is it because of the laws in our country against shoplifting and what might happen if you got caught?  Or, is it because of the direction of the Spirit of God in your life?  What’s the first motivator to keep you from stealing?

Question #2.  This question assumes that you have a valid driver’s license.  You are driving down the highway and you are about five minutes late for an appointment in Winnipeg.  You know that if you were to drive at 130 km/h you could get to your appointment on time, maybe even a bit early.  Again, assuming that you decide not to drive 130 km/h, the question is why not?  What keeps you from driving 130 km/h, the high cost of speeding tickets which in this case in Manitoba would be $431.75 or is it the Spirit of God directing you?  What I’m after here again is the first reason that led to your decision.

Question #3.  This question takes us back to school, whether school was last week for many of us or last century, like it was for me.  You are writing a test in school.  You come to a question where you are a little unsure of the answer.  As you are puzzling over the answer you happen to glance to your right and you notice that your neighbor has been quite sloppy in placing guards around his test paper.  This neighbor is also about to finish the page on which the question you’re struggling with is written.  Again, assuming you decide to do the honest thing and not cheat on your test why do you do that?  Is it a fear of the trouble you would get into if you were caught or is it because the Spirit of God directed you?  I’m not after the root cause of your decision, what’s the primary motivator?

Final Question.  At the Fall Membership meeting of Grace Church the Deacon Board brings to the congregation for discussion a request by a baptism candidate to be baptized by immersion.  On what basis would you, assuming you were at the Membership meeting, make your decision?  Would you ask that the constitution be read and based on what our constitution, or the Law of our church says, make your decision?  Would you wait to see what the majority of the people in the discussion say and base your decision on which way the wind is blowing - which is the Law of the Mob?  Would you, in the quietness of your spirit pray and seek direction from the Spirit of God and allow Him to direct your response?

Now, it’s answer time.  Everyone who answered all four questions by saying they would be directed in every situation by the Spirit of God, I want you to raise your hand.  Everyone who answered all four questions by saying that they would  would be directed by the Law in all four situations raise your hand.  Everyone who had a mixture of Law and Spirit raise your hand.  I’m probably three or four out of four Law.  The only one that is a bit of a mix is the question of baptism in church.  I’d probably consult the constitution to see what we’re up against before answering the question.  So I’m probably at least 3 ½ Law in my answers.  I didn’t bother looking for the commentary writer’s address to write him.  What’s that say about my Christian life?

If you have your Bibles with you this morning I would invite you to join me in the book of Galatians chapter 5.  In verse 16 of Galatians 5 Paul said,

¹⁶So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

For Paul this question is way more black and white than it would be for me.  Paul simply says, “If we live our lives directed by the Holy Spirit, we will not, guaranteed, give into the sinful desires of our sinful nature.  Guaranteed.”

If that were me I’d list a bunch of qualifiers and make allowances because I know I can never live completely directed by the Holy Spirit - the quiz proved that.  From the conversations I’ve had with people across the age spectrum of our church, I believe that never changes no matter how old you get or no matter how young you are.  Children are born in sin and they exercise that rebellious nature from an extremely early age.  I’ve visited with godly people on their death bed in old age still struggling with questions of forgiveness and bitterness and anger.  I would argue that we can’t live completely under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  We’re too human.  As Martin Luther said, “Even in baptism the old Adam is a powerfully good swimmer.”

Paul says that if we do live by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  Jesus agrees with Paul.  Jesus said, “You cannot serve two masters.  Either you will hate the one and love the other or you will love the one and hate the other.”  That doesn’t stop us from trying.  We try to walk the line of living by our own moral compass and the law of the land and good business sense and a bit of the guidance of the Holy Spirit mixed in for good measure.  We try to mix it all up and live by that hybrid.  But by the starkness of Paul’s comparison it seems to me that anything that’s not of the Spirit or the leading of the Spirit, is of the sinful nature.  We want that third option but there is no third option.  It’s either Spirit or sinful nature, there is no third option.

Verse 17,

¹⁷For 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.

There is a great battle that we as believers who take our faith seriously will wage for the rest of our lives.  It’s the battle between being controlled by the Holy Spirit or being controlled by our sinful nature.  Those two forces that battle within us struggle to lead us closer to or further away from our relationship with God.

Paul talked about a similar concept in the book of Romans chapter 7 verse 19 where he said,

¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

For many years the Winkler and District Ministerial Association has wrapped up its year of meetings by inviting pastors to meet on the golf course for a round of golf.  This is a very entertaining time.  We enjoy being out there.  Many of us the only time all year that we golf is during that outing.  After my first year out with the guys I thought to myself that what the event needed was a trophy presentation.  What self-respecting tournament doesn’t have a trophy presentation?  This being a group of pastors who meet to golf the presentation would need to have a sort of biblical and theological slant to it.  Then I thought of this verse.  “For the good I want to do I do not keep on doing; no, the evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing.”  That about sums up 15 pastors on a golf course.

We’ve had some memorable winners.  One year a pastor hit his ball over the water hazard on the 9^th hole, over the green and over the boulevard.  It bounced off the street narrowly missed a car in the parking lot and came to rest in the hedge of the apartment building across the street.  One year each of four golfers hit their ball directly into the water on the 9^th hole.  One after the other, like Lemmings off a cliff.  One year a pastor hit the cart shed with his tee shot on hole number one.  He did this with 15 pastors laughing and praying for him at the same time.  One year a pastor hit a tree about the size of my thumb and the ball ended up behind him.  One year, before we gave the award, a pastor landed his approach shot on hole number 18 on the roof of the clubhouse.  This year’s winner fouled a chip shot off his ankle onto the green.  It’s amazing what can all go wrong when you put a golf club in a pastor’s hand.  There are things we pastors have done on the golf course that Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have never dreamed of, even in their worst nightmares.  Just to clarify, by the grace of God, I have never won this award; not that I would not be a deserving recipient.

To me golf illustrates the great battle that wages within each one of us.  I have the best of intentions when I line up a golf shot.  Very rarely do I say, “Well I’ll just flail away and see what happens.”  Usually I have a plan but with shocking regularity I’ll swing the club, hit the ball and watch in complete horror and disbelief at what happens.  How could that have happened?  I meant to do this other thing that would have been good.  Occasionally, because even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time, something goes exactly right when I swing my club at the ball.  That’s part of the attraction of golf - the mystery.  I have no idea what’s going to happen.

It’s the same way in our spiritual lives.  We intend to have the right outcome.  We might even have convinced ourselves that we are following the Spirit by our actions.  But what happens is we think it’s okay to try to take a short cut thinking that if everything goes just right this will be better and it will make it easier down the road.  We don’t quite listen to the Spirit, we don’t really do what God calls us to do.  When it all goes wrong on us, then we pray and we plead that God should make it right and fix this mess we’ve made.  If we didn’t consult God going into this mess, or we ignored the direction of the Holy Spirit in our lives, how obligated is God really to fix our mess?  Not that much but startlingly because He is a God of grace He fixes our messes way more often than we deserve.

The great conflict is within us is to follow the sinful nature or the Spirit of God that lives within every believer.  Our actions show who it is we are following.

In verse 18 Paul said,

¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

The first word of verse 18 is very important.  It introduces a contrast to the previous verses.  In contrast to the battle that wages within each one of us, if we are led by the Spirit we are not under the Law.  The words ‘led’ and ‘under’ are corresponding words.  To be “under” someone or something, in the sense the word is being used here, means to be subject to them or to be directed and governed by them.  Paul is saying that either the Galatians are led by the Spirit or they are led by the Law.  Paul connected the Law to the Sinful Nature which battles against the Spirit.

What that tells me is that the Galatians were being taught, by the Judaizers, that the Law was a product of the Spirit and that if they really were subject to the Spirit they would keep the Law.  Paul is contrasting the two -the Spirit and the Law.  Either we are led by the Spirit or we are under the Law and subject to the sinful nature.

That seems a bit extreme to people like me who so often will follow a Law when making life decisions.  I believe that is what Paul is saying.

Beginning with verse 19 Paul listed the acts of the sinful nature that were most pertinent to the Galatians.  This is not an exhaustive list.  It’s a list that seemed most appropriate for the Galatians to know about.  Verse 19

¹⁹The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;

²⁰idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions

²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.  I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

That’s quite the list isn’t it?  Fifteen things that are signs of the sinful nature at work in our lives.  Let’s just take a few seconds to read that list again to ourselves.  As you read, just check off in your mind how many you’ve been guilty of this past week.  To those of us who take our Christian walk seriously and who actually thought about this exercise and didn’t dismiss it as a silly exercise, those were just a very sobering few seconds, weren’t they?  If we were to be honest before God we can all say, by that list, we have lived by the sinful nature at points this past week.

It’s good news for us if those times when we lived by the things of this list were moments or hours of our lives this past week.  I don’t mean to excuse or minimize those times we were there with those attitudes and actions in our lives; they’re sinful and we need to confess and repent of that sin in our lives.  I’m going to say that we probably didn’t spend the majority of our time demonstrating these attitudes this past week.  Maybe you did.  If you did, you already know you’ve had a tough week and you know the hold that sin has on your life.  If this list is you, I want to tell you that God wants to talk to you about that sin in your life.  He doesn’t want to berate you or mock you nor does He want to pretend it’s not serious.  If you want to change the trajectory of your weeks and of your life, away from this to something that honors God, I want you to know that He wants the same thing for you more badly than you do and He stands willing and ready to help you.  This list of sin is a problem that comes to us no matter what age we are.  We never outgrow the sinful nature and its attempts to ensnare us.

I’m going to hope that most of us didn’t spend the majority of our time in these attitudes.  But I hope we’re bothered by how much time we did spend there.  Paul said that those whose lives can be described by those verses will not inherit the Kingdom of God.  We are not of the same Kingdom as God if these are the predominant characteristics of our lives; no matter how many good causes we support or how many Sundays we spend in church or how often we read our bibles.  If these are the predominant attitudes of our heart, we are not of the Kingdom of God.  Those are not my words and they’re not me being judgmental; those are the words of Scripture speaking God’s truth to those of us who will hear.

Verse 22,

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

²³gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.

Same exercise here folks.  Let’s just take a few seconds to read that list again to ourselves.  As we read, just check off in our minds how much of our lives this week have been characterized by these attributes.  Those times in our lives this past week that were characterized by these attributes those were times when we were living by the Spirit.

I think it’s important to note that Paul calls these the fruit of the Spirit.  Jesus said that the fruit of a person’s life determines what kind of life it is.  He said, “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Mtt. 7:16).  If the fruit of our lives is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control our lives are led by the Spirit.  If the fruit of our lives is envy and hatred and jealousy and fits of rage we are led by the sinful nature.

I look around at people in our city and in our church.  After 11 years here I know some of us and I know some of the people of our city.  I see people who are grumpy and difficult and they make me sad.  I’m not sad just because of the disposition of their lives; I’m sad because they infect those around them.  It’s my observation that it’s very unusual for consistently pessimistic parents to raise optimistic children.  It’s unusual for an envious and divisive boss to have joyful and unified employees.  It’s unusual for people who are given to dissensions and factions to be a united and unifying part of any place where they find themselves - whether that’s church, family or workplace.

Verse 24 Paul finished this section when he said,

²⁴Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.

²⁵Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

²⁶Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Just briefly to bring this to a close.  Paul wanted to make sure the Galatians didn’t miss his point.  His point is that as Christians our call is the live by the Spirit.  Living by the Spirit, in my experience, is not a one time decision.  It’s more like bidding on something at an auction sale.  It’s unusual to be able to buy something at an auction sale with one bid.  Usually we bid and we have to decide to bid again and again.  With each bid it costs us more and more.

Living by the Spirit is a series of decisions that we make every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of the rest of our lives.  With each decision to follow the Spirit there is a cost.  There is no magic formula to living by the Spirit - no three easy steps that we can have done by Tuesday morning before we move on to the next challenge.

The Christian life is hard work and when we represent it as anything other than hard work we misrepresent the life to which God calls us and we lie to those who hear us.  How could a life that was made available to us by Jesus Christ at such extreme cost and as a result of such strong resolve and such herculean effort on His part suddenly be magically easy for us.  If this life was hard for God to live when He was human, it will be hard for us as well.  The Christian life comes to us without a price tag but it costs us our lives.  Living by the Spirit is doggedly day after day deciding to be controlled by the Spirit and deciding to honor God with our lives.  It will cost.

Verse 26 is a wonderful caution for those of us who might be further along the road than some of our brothers and sisters.  Let us not become conceited and think we are better or more important or more loved by God than those who might not be where we are.  When we become conceited about our spiritual position we will begin to produce the acts of the sinful nature; provoking and envying.

Choosing to live by the Spirit cannot be done in a split second decision.  It can’t be done this week.  It’s a matter of picking them and putting them down and just step by step following Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives and submitting our wills to the will of the Holy Spirit who lives within us.  It’s an every day for the rest of our life task.