Latest / Reformed Thinking / The War of the Two Natures: Walking by the Sovereign Spirit over the Desires of the Flesh (Galatians 5:17-25)

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The War of the Two Natures: Walking by the Sovereign Spirit over the Desires of the Flesh (Galatians 5:17-25) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reform thinking. Have you ever wondered why?
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  Why the day you became a Christian, your life actually
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  seemed to get harder. Oh man.
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  Because there was this really pervasive idea out there, you
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  know, that faith is just supposed to bring instant
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  tranquil peace. Like a switch flips.
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  Yeah, you pray a prayer, you believe the Gospel, and suddenly
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  you were supposed to just float above the struggles of the world
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  on this, the serene cloud of spiritual enlightenment.
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  Which is such a massive misconception.
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  It really is, because for most of us, reality is completely
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  different. I mean, it does not feel like
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  finding a quiet garden at all. It feels like stepping onto a
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  violent, chaotic battlefield. It is a total shock to the
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  system. I mean, people anticipate all
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  this relief and instead they find themselves engaged in,
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  quite honestly, the most intense conflict of their entire lives.
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  It catches so many believers off guard.
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  Right. And you look around and you
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  start questioning yourself. You think, if I am truly saved,
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  if I actually have the Holy Spirit, why am I still fighting
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  these really intense internal desires?
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  The old What is wrong with me? Question spot on.
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  Like why do I wake up angry? Why do I struggle with envy?
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  Why is it so incredibly hard to just be good?
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  Yeah, it's exhausting. So today we are going to look
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  closely at the source material that answers those specific
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  questions. We are opening up the Apostle
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  Paul's letter to the Galatians, specifically chapter 5, verses
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  17 through 25. And this specific text is so
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  crucial because Paul is writing to a group of people who were,
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  frankly, completely confused about how to live the Christian
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  life. They were a mess.
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  A total mess. He uses this section of his
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  letter to absolutely dismantle 2 massive errors that were tearing
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  the church apart in the 1st century.
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  And these are the same 2 errors that continue to tear the church
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  apart today. I mean, on one hand you have
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  legalism. OK, let's unpack that.
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  So legalism is this belief that human rules, you know, strict
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  boundary markers and outward behavior modification can
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  actually produce real holiness. Right.
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  It's the idea that if I just check it off boxes, God will be
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  pleased with me. Yes, if I wear the right
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  clothes, say the right things, do the right rituals.
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  It's very visible. Highly visible, and then on the
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  complete opposite end of the spectrum you have antinomianism.
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  The license to sin. Right.
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  It's the idea that grace grants you a free pass since we are
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  saved by grace and not by works. The antinomian looks at that and
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  says, well, it doesn't matter how we live.
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  So they just indulge. Yeah, they indulge the flesh
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  without consequence, but Paul refuses to let either of those
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  errors stand. He presents a third way.
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  And that third way is what we're talking about today, yes.
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  It's a relentless, visceral, internal war between the flesh
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  and the spirit. But to really grasp the weight
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  of this internal war, we have to understand the environment where
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  this letter actually landed, right?
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  Like we have to look at ancient Galatia.
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  We really do. The context is wild.
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  We are talking about the late 40s AD, so this is right before
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  the Jerusalem Council. Paul had planted these churches
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  during his first missionary trip and they were already in a full
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  blown theological crisis. Very early on, right?
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  But the demographic of Galatia is what makes this so
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  fascinating to me. Who were these people?
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  Well, the Galatians were an incredibly unique group in the
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  ancient world. I mean, they were actually
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  Celtic descendants. Like ghouls?
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  Yeah, they were ghouls. Centuries earlier, these Celtic
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  tribes had migrated all the way from Europe.
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  They swept through Greece and eventually settled in Central
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  Asia Minor. Which is modern day Turkey.
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  Right. That on modern day Turkey and
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  culturally they retained a lot of their Celtic characteristics.
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  Which means what exactly? Like in terms of temperament?
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  Well, classical historians describe them as fierce,
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  impulsive warriors. They were known for volatile
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  emotions, really quick tempers and very rapid shifts in
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  loyalty. Oh, which makes perfect sense
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  when you read the actual letter. It does.
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  Because Paul literally says to them, I am astonished that you
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  were so quickly deserting him. Who called you?
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  Yeah, they were notoriously fickle.
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  Just bouncing from one thing to the next.
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  Right. They were culturally wired for
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  sudden passions. And then you have to realize you
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  placed that Celtic temperament into a heavily synchronistic
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  Greco Roman culture. Oh man, a total tinderbox.
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  A total tinderbox. The environment was completely
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  saturated with pedicism. You had all these mystery cults.
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  You had wild festivals honoring deities like Bacchus.
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  The God of wine. Yeah, wine and ecstasy.
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  And then you also had Sibili, the great mother goddess of
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  Anatolia. And if I remember correctly, the
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  worship of Sabella involved some truly extreme ecstatic
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  practices. You're very extreme.
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  Like including self mutilation by her priests?
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  Yes, and on top of that, sensuality, drunkenness and
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  sexual immorality were not just tolerated in the society.
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  They were celebrated. They were literally acts of
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  religious devotion. You went to the temple to engage
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  in prostitution. That was how you honored the
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  gods in that culture. So in the middle of all that
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  chaos, you had various philosophical and religious
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  factions trying to figure out how to curb that rampant
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  sensuality. Because even the pagans knew
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  society would collapse. Right.
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  Even the ancient pagans realized that total anarchy would destroy
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  everything. So you had the Stoics for
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  example. Yes, the Stoics are a great
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  example. The Stoics believed they could
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  restrain wild physical passions by relying entirely on human
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  reason, which they called the Naus.
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  The intellect. Yeah, they relied on rigorous
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  ascetic willpower. They thought if you just
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  disciplined your mind enough, you could conquer your body.
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  Basically white knuckling your way to morality.
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  Spot on. Just sheer grit.
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  And then entering into the Christian churches in Galatia,
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  you had the Judaizers. OK, introduce the Judaizers for
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  us. These were legalistic agitators
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  who had traveled down from Jerusalem.
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  They looked at these Gentile converts who had just come out
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  of this wild Pagan Celtic background and they panicked.
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  They saw the culture and got scared.
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  Totally terrified. So the Judaizers started pushing
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  them to adopt the Mosaic Law. They said you have to be
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  circumcised, you have to follow strict Jewish dietary rules.
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  You have to observe the festival calendar, right?
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  And honestly, their logic probably sounded very persuasive
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  to a brand new convert. Oh, absolutely.
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  Because they were basically saying look at your Pagan past,
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  right? Look at the culture around you.
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  If you do not adopt these strict external boundaries, you are
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  going to drift right back into the Taverns in the temples.
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  That is the perpetual appeal of legalism, isn't it?
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  Yeah, it offers control. It offers a highly visible,
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  manageable system of control. You can measure it, but Paul
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  reacts to the Judaizers with absolute severity.
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  I mean, he pronounces an anathema, A literal curse on
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  them in chapter 1. Why such a severe reaction,
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  though? Because on the surface, someone
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  might argue the Judaizers just wanted people to behave well.
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  They just wanted to stop sin. Well, Paul reacted so severely
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  because the Judaizers misunderstood the entire
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  function of the Mosaic Law in redemptive history.
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  The law was never ever designed to change the human heart.
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  In the biblical framework, Paul explains that the law acted as a
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  pay to go. Goes let's talk about that word
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  pay to go go, because we often translate it as schoolmanter or
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  guardian. But in the Greco Roman world, it
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  had a very specific historical role.
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  It did. It wasn't just a teacher.
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  A pedagogo's was usually a trusted slave in a wealthy
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  household, and his job was not to teach the child mathematics
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  or philosophy. His job was strict moral
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  supervision. He was the enforcer.
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  He was the enforcer. He literally walked the child to
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  school with a stick in his hand. He kept the child out of the
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  brothels and the Taverns. He hemmed the child in.
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  Yes, he hemmed the child in with external boundaries and the
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  constant threat of severe punishment.
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  So applying that to Israel, the law was meant to hemm in
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  national Israel to keep them distinct from the Pagan nations
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  around them through these external ceremonies and the
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  threat of curses. Yes, it was completely
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  preparatory, it pointed out the perfect standard of God's
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  righteousness, and it definitely exposed human sin, but it
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  offered absolutely zero internal capacity to meet those demands.
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  That's a huge point. Right.
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  I mean the pay to go go's could hit you with a stick to stop you
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  from doing something bad, but he could not change your underlying
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  desire to do it. You still wanted to go to the
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  Tavern, you were just scared of the stick.
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  So telling these Galatian believers to go back under the
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  law is a massive regression. It is like a grown adult
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  voluntarily putting themselves back under the supervision of a
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  nanny with a ruler. It is a regression of redemptive
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  history itself. It ignores the New Covenant
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  promises entirely, which are huge.
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  Massive. If you look back at the prophets
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  like Jeremiah chapter 31 and Ezekiel chapter 36, God promised
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  a radical internal change. He didn't promise more rules.
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  No, he did not say I am going to give you more external rules.
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  He said I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and
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  give you a heart of flesh. He promised to write His laws
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  directly on the heart and place His Spirit within His people.
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  So to go backwards to the external schoolmaster is to
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  essentially spit upon the finished work of Jesus Christ.
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  And the tragic thing is you see this dynamic mirrored constantly
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  in modern religious. Cultures.
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  Oh, everywhere. We still have groups acting like
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  modern Judaizers. They rely heavily on external
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  boundary markers. I mean, it might not be
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  circumcision today, but it is strict dress codes or, you know,
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  rules about what kind of media you can consume.
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  Or highly specific behavioral checklists.
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  Yeah. They project this manicured
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  image of holiness to the public, entirely avoiding the internal
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  reality of the heart. And when a religious culture
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  prioritizes an external checklist like that, it creates
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  a very dangerous system. It breeds hypocrisy.
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  It creates an environment where a person can look perfectly
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  compliant on the outside, receiving all the praise of the
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  community while remaining completely corrupt and dead on
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  the inside. I think of it like trying to
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  stop a category 5 hurricane by building a white picket fence.
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  Oh, that's a good analogy. Right, because you can build the
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  fence, you can paint it bright white, you can make sure all the
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  slats are perfectly evenly spaced.
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  It looks incredibly orderly to the neighbors.
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  Very neat and tidy. But when the hurricane of human
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  desire hits, that fence lacks the sheer force necessary to
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  change the weather. The wind is just going to RIP it
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  out of the ground and throw it away.
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  The law is the picket fence. It cannot stop the hurricane.
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  That analogy captures the total futility of legalism, which is
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  why Paul offers a completely different definition of freedom.
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  Let's get into that, because the legalists thought freedom from
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  the law meant total anarchy. Yes, and the modern secular
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  world tends to agree with that. Oh, for sure.
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  The secular definition of autonomy says I am free to
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  indulge whatever desire I have without restriction.
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  No one can tell me what to do. But Paul defines Christian
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  liberty in a radically different way.
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  For Paul, freedom is not the liberty to indulge the carnal
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  nature. No, freedom is actually
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  liberation from sins, tyranny. It is the freedom to love God
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  and to walk in holy conformity to the Savior.
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  That's such a flip from how we normally think about.
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  It it is. The secular world calls
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  indulgence freedom. But Paul recognizes indulgence
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  as just another form of slavery. You are just a slave to your own
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  base appetites. Having established that external
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  rules, you know the picket fences cannot tame the human
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  heart, Paul shifts to his radical alternative.
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  It is not external control. It is an internal supernatural
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  civil war. Yes, let's look at the text
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  itself. Yeah, getting into Galatians 5
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  verses 17 and 18, Paul writes. For the desires of the flesh are
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  against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are
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  against the flesh, For these are opposed to each other to keep
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  you from doing the things you want to do.
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  We really need to clarify the vocabulary here.
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  Definitely, because when modern people hear the word flesh, they
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  immediately think of their physical bodies.
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  That is a very common misunderstanding, and it's often
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  influenced by ancient Gnosticism, which taught that
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  the physical, material world was inherently evil.
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  Right, but that's not biblical. Not at all.
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  Paul's using the Greek term sarks in this specific
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  theological context. Sark's does not mean your
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  physical skin, bones and muscles.
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  Because God created the body. Exactly.
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  The physical body was created by God and is inherently good.
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  Jesus Christ himself took on a physical body.
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  So what does Paul actually mean by the flesh then?
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  He means the fallen human nature inherited from Adam.
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  It is the entire complex of human rebellion against God.
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  The whole system. The whole system, it is the
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  mind, the will, the emotions, all corrupted by sin and bent
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  towards self gratification rather than the glory of God.
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  OK. And on the opposing side of this
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  war, you have the NUMA. Yes, the Numa, the Holy Spirit
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  dwelling inside the believer. And these two are not just like
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  politely disagreeing, they are at war.
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  The text says the flesh has desires against the Spirit and
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  the spirit against the flesh. The Greek verb used there is
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  epithemae. It implies an intense active
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  striving. Like a strong craving.
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  A strong driving desire. Furthermore, Paul says they are
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  opposed to one another. He uses the term anti kite.
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  OK, what does that mean? This is a military term.
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  It describes 2 hostile forces set in battle array against one
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  another. They are lined up on the field,
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  Shields locked, completely ready for combat.
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  Wow. And the grammar is in the
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  present tense, indicating an unceasing, irreconcilable state
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  of hostility. So it's not just a weekend
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  skirmish. No, it is a permanent posture of
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  war that lasts for the entirety of the Christians earthly life.
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  We really need to pause here, because the theological reality
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  of this war changes everything about how we view ourselves.
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  It really does. Because think about this, the
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  unregenerate individual, someone who has not been born again, who
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  has not experienced salvation, is actually a complete peace
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  with the flesh. That is a staggering reality,
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  but it is true the unregenerate person does not experience this
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  specific war. Now they might feel general
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  guilt. They might feel regret over the
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  negative consequences of their actions, like a hangover or a
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  broken relationship. Right.
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  They might have a troubled conscience.
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  But at their core, they're at peace with their fallen nature.
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  They love their sin. They are, as Ephesians says,
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  spiritually dead. Dead men don't fight.
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  Exactly. Conflict only begins at
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  regeneration, when a holy occupant moves into the soul.
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  The Puritan theologian John Owen captured this dynamic so
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  brilliantly. He wrote Be always killing sin,
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  or sin will be killing you. What a quote.
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  He understood that there is no ceasefire in this war.
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  The battle itself is the evidence of spiritual life.
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  Look at verse 18. But if you are led by the
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  Spirit, you are not under the law.
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  Unpack that phrase, led by the Spirit.
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  Being led by the Spirit means being governed by the Gospel.
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  It means you have been completely removed from the laws
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  condemning Covenant of Works. You're out from under the pay to
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  go guys, yes. You are no longer under the
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  strict supervision of the schoolmaster with his stick.
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  You are led by a new internal divine force.
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  This is incredibly comforting. Castorly, I know so many
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  believers who feel intense guilt simply because they experience
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  internal temptation. It's so common.
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  They feel the strong pull of the flesh, anger, lust, pride, and
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  they just assume that because the pull is so strong, they must
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  be failing. Or worse, they assume they must
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  not be true Christians at all. Right.
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  They think if I were really saved, I wouldn't want to do
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  this terrible thing. That is a very heavy burden to
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  carry, but when we understand Paul's theology here, we realize
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  this battle is definitive proof of spiritual life.
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  Because dead men do not fight. Exactly.
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  The unregenerate soul is like a quiet graveyard.
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  There is no struggle there because there is no life.
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  But the regenerate soul is a raging battlefield.
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  The presence of the fight proves the presence of the Spirit.
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  I try to picture regeneration like this.
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  Imagine a house. A new rightful owner purchases
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  the house and moves in. OK, I'm tracking.
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  The house is legally his, the deed is signed, the transaction
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  is complete, and the ownership is settled forever.
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  But there is a destructive, hostile squatter living in the
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  walls who absolutely refuses to hand over the keys or leave the
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  property. That is the flesh.
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  Right. The new owner has the absolute
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  legal right to the house. The squatter has no legal
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  standing whatsoever. None.
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  But the actual physical process of evicting that squatter, room
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  by room, is violent. It is loud.
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  The squatter fights back. He breaks things.
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  He throws a massive tantrum every single time he loses an
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  inch of ground. That is what sanctification
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  feels like. The squatter's presence ensures
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  the House is rarely quiet. But wait, hold on, I have to ask
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  this because it's the natural next thought.
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  Go for it. If the Spirit is literally
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  divine, if he possesses infinite sovereign might over all
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  creation, why doesn't he just obliterate the flesh the second
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  we believe? That is the $1,000,000 question.
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  Why does God let the squatter stay in the house at all?
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  It does not make logical sense to leave an enemy inside the
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  walls when you have the ability to instantly evict him.
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  That is the exact question every believer asks when they are
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  exhausted from the fight. Why didn't God just make us
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  instantly perfect? Right.
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  Why the struggle? The answer lies in God's wisdom
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  regarding how we grow. God has ordained that our
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  holiness grows through active, daily dependence on Him.
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  Think about it. If the squatters were instantly
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  evicted, if you never felt the pull of sin again, what would
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  happen? Well, I mean, I would probably
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  become incredibly self-sufficient.
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  Absolutely. You would have no daily need to
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  rely on the Spirit. You would have no daily
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  necessity to seek His grace and prayer.
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  I just think I was awesome. Right.
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  You would quickly lose the realization of your own inherent
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  weakness. The ongoing battle keeps us
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  humble. It keeps us constantly clinging
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  to the cross of Christ, recognizing that without Him we
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  can do absolutely nothing. So the war actually trains us.
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  The war trains us for spiritual maturity.
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  It produces endurance. OK, so since the flesh fights
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  back so viciously, we need to know what its weapons are.
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  What does the shrapnel look like when this bomb goes off in our
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  lives? It leaves a huge mess.
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  Paul gives us a detailed list of the casualties in verses 19
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  through 21. Let's walk through that text.
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  Paul starts by saying, Now the works of the flesh are evident.
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  The grammar here is vital. It's always the grammar with
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  Paul. It is.
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  The Greek uses the plural noun erga for works.
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  This grammatical choice is deliberate.
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  Works plural. Right.
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  It highlights the fragmented, chaotic and divisive nature of
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  sin. Sin scatters human energy into
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  1000 different contradictory forms of rebellion.
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  Paul breaks down these plural works of the flesh into 4 main
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  categories. The list starts with sexual
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  sins. He mentioned sexual immorality,
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  impurity and sensuality. And the root word there is
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  pornea. Pornea covers all forms of
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  illicit sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage.
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  Given the Pagan background of the Galatians, where a temple
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  prostitution was totally normal, this was a massive, highly
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  visible battleground for them. Then he moves to religious sins.
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  He lists idolatry and sorcery. Sorcery is the translation of
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  the Greek word pharmakeia. Which is where we get the word
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  pharmacy. Right.
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  Yeah, and in that context, it often involved using drugs or
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  potions in occult practices to try and manipulate the spiritual
• 19:26
  realm. The third category is the
• 19:28
  largest, and it is the one that requires our most careful
• 19:31
  attention. These are the relational sins.
• 19:34
  This list is brutal. It is, Paul lists enmity,
• 19:37
  strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions,
• 19:41
  divisions and envy. And he finishes with indulgent
• 19:44
  sins, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
• 19:48
  Paul concludes that devastating list with a very severe warning.
• 19:50
  He says. I warn you, as I warned you
• 19:52
  before, that those who do such things will not inherit the
• 19:55
  Kingdom of. God, we have to look at the verb
• 19:57
  do there, right? Yes, the Greek verb used for do
• 20:02
  is a present active participle prasantes.
• 20:05
  It indicates an ongoing, habitual, settled pattern of
• 20:08
  life. So he is not talking about a
• 20:10
  believer who stumbles into sin, feels terrible, repents and
• 20:14
  fights against it. No, not a momentary stumble.
• 20:16
  He is talking about someone who basically sets up camp in the
• 20:20
  junkyard and lives there comfortably.
• 20:21
  Correct. No fight, just surrender.
• 20:23
  I really want to focus on those relational sins though.
• 20:27
  Enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, rivalries, divisions.
• 20:32
  It's a convicting list. It's completely fascinating me
• 20:35
  because Paul places these respectable church splitting
• 20:38
  behaviors on the exact same legal level as Pagan sorcery and
• 20:41
  gross sexual immorality. Yes, this list utterly destroys
• 20:46
  antinomianism. A settled, unrepentant pattern
• 20:49
  of relational strife proves a heart is devoid of regenerating
• 20:52
  grace, regardless of whatever theological knowledge a person
• 20:55
  claims to have. We have a terrible habit in the
• 20:57
  modern Church of creating artificial hierarchies of.
• 21:00
  Sins. Absolutely.
• 21:00
  We rank them. We look at the sexual sins and
• 21:03
  the indulgent sins, and we say those are the really bad ones.
• 21:05
  Those will get you excommunicated.
• 21:07
  But Paul lists enmity and strife right next to idolatry.
• 21:12
  Just look at the conservative religious landscape today.
• 21:15
  You can find massive organizations and online
• 21:18
  communities that loudly condemn sexual sins and drunkenness.
• 21:22
  Very loudly. They pride themselves on their
• 21:24
  moral purity in those specific areas, but simultaneously they
• 21:29
  cultivate intense tribalism. They engage in malicious online
• 21:32
  feuds. They harbor deep jealousies.
• 21:35
  And they split churches over minor rivalries.
• 21:38
  Yes, and they do it all under the guise of defending the
• 21:40
  truth. The flesh is incredibly
• 21:42
  deceptive. It can wear religious clothing
• 21:44
  very comfortably. That is a scary thought.
• 21:47
  A congregation might boast of its strict morality regarding
• 21:50
  the indulgent sins, yet remain completely oblivious to the fact
• 21:53
  that their jealousy, their rivalries and their dissensions
• 21:56
  expose them as operating entirely in the flesh.
• 21:59
  You can be a moral Pharisee and still be completely dominated by
• 22:02
  the Sarks. But why is that?
• 22:04
  Why is it so easy for us to spot the indulgent works of the flesh
• 22:09
  in a Tavern? Like we see the drunkenness, we
• 22:11
  see the chaos, and we immediately identified as sin,
• 22:14
  but we completely missed the relational works of the flesh
• 22:17
  sitting in the front row of a Sunday morning service.
• 22:19
  Because the indulgence sins offend our human sense of social
• 22:22
  order and propriety. Right, they're messy.
• 22:25
  A Tavern brawl is chaotic. It disrupts society.
• 22:28
  But relational sins like envy or a factional spirit can easily be
• 22:33
  masqueraded as theological zeal or taking the moral high ground.
• 22:37
  We rebrand them. We totally rebrand them.
• 22:39
  We excuse our own fits of anger by labeling them righteous
• 22:42
  indignation. We justify our divisions by
• 22:45
  saying we are just separating from compromise.
• 22:47
  We blind ourselves to the reality that a divisive,
• 22:50
  arrogant spirit is just as much a product of fallen Adam as an
• 22:54
  orgy. Truth must be defended
• 22:56
  absolutely, but it cannot be defended using the weapons of
• 22:59
  the flesh. When I look at that plural word
• 23:01
  works, the erga, I picture a massive overgrown junkyard.
• 23:05
  I like that image. Just piles of disparate, rusted
• 23:09
  and broken machine parts scattered everywhere.
• 23:11
  None of them work together. You can't take a rusted steering
• 23:14
  wheel from one pile and a cracked engine block from
• 23:17
  another and build a functioning vehicle.
• 23:19
  It's just scrap. They just sit there, jagged and
• 23:21
  dangerous, and they cause severe injury to anyone who tries to
• 23:25
  handle them. That is what a life dominated by
• 23:28
  the flesh looks like. It is a junkyard of broken
• 23:31
  relationships and scattered energy.
• 23:33
  That is a highly accurate reflection of the plural nature
• 23:35
  of sin. It is disorganized decay.
• 23:38
  It breaks things apart. But Paul does not leave the
• 23:41
  Galatians in the junkyard. Thankfully, having exposed the
• 23:44
  absolute ruin of the flesh, he pivots to reveal what the Holy
• 23:47
  Spirit produces. Which brings us to verses 22 and
• 23:49
  23. But the fruit of the Spirit is
• 23:51
  Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
• 23:56
  faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
• 23:58
  Against such things there is no law.
• 24:00
  We really have to notice the grammatical pivot here.
• 24:03
  From plural to singular. Yes.
• 24:05
  Paul shifts from the plural works to the singular noun
• 24:07
  carpose, which means fruit. He deliberately avoids using the
• 24:11
  plural fruits. But he lists 9 distinct virtues.
• 24:15
  Lovejoy. Peace, patience, which is
• 24:19
  sometimes translated as long-suffering, kindness,
• 24:22
  goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control or
• 24:26
  temperance. The use of the singular carpos
• 24:29
  is magnificent. It completely contrasts this
• 24:32
  unified organic harvest with the Greco Roman virtue ethics of the
• 24:37
  day. Like the philosopher's exactly.
• 24:39
  Think about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
• 24:42
  Pagan philosophy viewed virtues as isolated human achievements
• 24:46
  built through intense habit and practice.
• 24:48
  OK, so a piece meal approach. Right.
• 24:50
  You could be a very courageous soldier on the battlefield but
• 24:53
  lack temperance when you came home.
• 24:55
  You could work on your patients on Tuesdays and work on your
• 24:57
  kindness on Thursdays. Like collecting different merit
• 25:00
  badges. That's a great way to put it.
• 25:02
  But Paul presents the fruit of the Spirit as a singular,
• 25:04
  indivisible cluster. It is produced entirely by a
• 25:08
  sovereign divine source you cannot manufacture.
• 25:11
  It it's organic. An apple tree does not struggle
• 25:13
  and strain to produce apples. It produces apples because of
• 25:16
  its nature. We see believers treat these
• 25:19
  graces like a buffet line all the time.
• 25:21
  Constantly, people will excuse their total lack of gentleness
• 25:24
  by claiming they are just naturally bold for the truth.
• 25:28
  Or they dismissed their lack of self-control by claiming they
• 25:31
  are just extremely joyful and expressive personalities.
• 25:34
  Pick and choose. Yeah, they grab the apple of joy
• 25:37
  and leave the orange of self-control sitting on the
• 25:39
  table. But the text does not allow for
• 25:40
  that. The fruit is 1.
• 25:42
  If we look at how this plays out in redemptive history, we see
• 25:46
  Jesus Christ acting as the second Adam, the federal head of
• 25:49
  his people. Meaning he represented us, yes.
• 25:52
  During his earthly obedience, Jesus perfectly manifested this
• 25:57
  unified fruit. The moral law of God demanded
• 26:00
  perfect character. Fallen humanity could only
• 26:03
  produce the junkyard. But Jesus took on human flesh,
• 26:06
  lived under the Law, and perfectly fulfilled its
• 26:09
  righteous demands. Every single virtue listed in
• 26:12
  Galatians 5 was perfectly displayed in his life,
• 26:15
  simultaneously and in perfect proportion.
• 26:17
  Let me ask a practical question about that proportion.
• 26:19
  Though. It sounds beautiful to have all
• 26:21
  nine virtues operating at once, but humanly speaking, how is it
• 26:26
  possible to be perfectly gentle while also being perfectly
• 26:29
  faithful to the truth? That's the tension, right?
• 26:31
  Because sometimes the truth offends people.
• 26:34
  Sometimes faithfulness requires confrontation.
• 26:37
  How can you confront someone gently?
• 26:39
  Humanly speaking, relying on our own willpower, it is impossible
• 26:43
  to balance those perfectly, which is precisely Paul's
• 26:46
  argument against the Judaizers. You can't just will yourself
• 26:49
  into it. Only the indwelling spirit can
• 26:51
  produce a faithfulness to the truth that is simultaneously
• 26:54
  wrapped in genuine gentleness. Left to ourselves, we naturally
• 26:58
  swing to extremes. One way or the other.
• 27:00
  We offer the truth with harsh, fleshly anger, battering people
• 27:04
  over the head with our theology. Or we swing the other way and we
• 27:07
  offer a false kindness by compromising the truth so we
• 27:10
  don't offend anyone. You want to be nice.
• 27:11
  Right. But the Holy Spirit harmonizes
• 27:13
  them. He produces a love that rejoices
• 27:16
  in the truth. So instead of thinking of these
• 27:18
  virtues as apples and oranges in a basket where you can pick up
• 27:21
  the apple and leave the orange behind, we should probably think
• 27:24
  of the fruit of the Spirit as a single flawless diamond.
• 27:28
  I love that image. The diamond has 9 distinct
• 27:31
  facets. Every facet catches the light
• 27:34
  differently depending on the angle.
• 27:35
  Sometimes you see the flash of patience.
• 27:37
  Sometimes you see the deep color of love.
• 27:39
  But it's all one stone. It is all one solid stone.
• 27:43
  You cannot separate the facets from the diamond, and every
• 27:46
  single facet reflects the exact character of Christ.
• 27:49
  The diamond is a superb way to visualize the singular carpose.
• 27:53
  The Spirit's objective is not just to make you a nicer person.
• 27:56
  His objective is to reproduce the whole character of Christ in
• 28:00
  you. Knowing that we cannot produce
• 28:02
  this diamond through sheer willpower and knowing the law
• 28:05
  cannot force it out of us, how do we actually live this out on
• 28:08
  a daily basis? That's the practical
• 28:10
  application. We have the war, we have the
• 28:12
  junkyard, we have the diamond. How do we fight?
• 28:15
  That takes us to verses 24 and 24.
• 28:17
  Paul gives us both the definitive theological reality
• 28:20
  and the practical daily command, verse 24 says.
• 28:23
  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh
• 28:26
  with its passions and desires. The verb for crucified there is
• 28:30
  esterosan. Yes, it is in the aorist active
• 28:34
  indicative tense. This signifies a completed past
• 28:38
  historical transactions. So it's already done.
• 28:40
  Paul is not giving a command here.
• 28:42
  He is not saying go out today and try to crucify your flesh.
• 28:45
  He is making a declaration of something that has already
• 28:47
  occurred in the past. That is a huge distinction.
• 28:50
  It changes everything. This is the doctrine of federal
• 28:52
  representation. The believers old nature was
• 28:55
  legally and decisively executed at Calvary.
• 28:57
  When Christ died, we died. When Jesus hung on the cross as
• 29:00
  our substitute, the ruling regime of our old fallen nature
• 29:04
  was broken. We mortify sin today strictly
• 29:07
  because we are living out the legal reality of our Co
• 29:09
  crucifixion with Jesus. We fight from victory.
• 29:12
  We fight from a position of absolute victory.
• 29:15
  We are not fighting hoping to win the war.
• 29:17
  The war has been won by the Son of God.
• 29:19
  And because that past event is true, Paul gives the command in
• 29:23
  verse 25. If we live by the Spirit, let us
• 29:26
  also keep in step with the Spirit.
• 29:28
  He changes his vocabulary here earlier in chapter 5 when he
• 29:32
  talked about walking in the Spirit.
• 29:33
  He is the common Greek word for walking around or conducting
• 29:36
  one's life. Berta Pateo.
• 29:38
  But here in verse 25 he switches to a highly specific military
• 29:42
  term, Stoichio. Stoichio means to stand in a
• 29:46
  straight line, to March in rank, or to keep cadence under the
• 29:50
  orders of a commander. Like an army column.
• 29:52
  Exactly. It means conforming your daily
• 29:55
  life strictly to the objective truth of Scripture.
• 29:58
  It is not a chaotic, wandering walk through the woods.
• 30:00
  It is a disciplined, intentional March.
• 30:03
  This military March, this Stoichio, stands in direct
• 30:06
  opposition to a lot of modern church movements.
• 30:09
  Let's look at pragmatism, for instance.
• 30:10
  It's a very common issue today. Pragmatism relies heavily on
• 30:13
  fleshly marketing strategies, secular corporate structures, or
• 30:17
  worldly entertainment to attract massive crowds and grow
• 30:19
  churches. The leadership looks at what
• 30:21
  works in the business world and just applies it to the church.
• 30:25
  The problem is that you cannot organize the flesh into
• 30:27
  producing the fruit of the Spirit.
• 30:29
  You can use smoke machines and slick marketing to gather a
• 30:32
  crowd, but pragmatism only produces unregenerate consumers.
• 30:36
  It doesn't make soldiers. It does not produce soldiers
• 30:39
  marching in rank. Another movement that fails the
• 30:41
  test of Stuico is mysticism. Mysticism seeks ecstatic
• 30:46
  utterances, subjective feelings, or private, unverified
• 30:50
  prophecies. Chasing an experience?
• 30:52
  People chase spiritual highs, elevating their own internal
• 30:55
  experiences over objective moral holiness.
• 30:58
  But the March of Stuy Keo demands we align our steps with
• 31:01
  the objective truth of the Word of God.
• 31:04
  The Spirit wrote the Scriptures and He will never lead a
• 31:07
  believer to March out of step with His own Word.
• 31:09
  In Reformed theology we have a specific term for this ongoing
• 31:13
  daily discipline of marching in rank.
• 31:15
  We call it vivification. Yes, it is the quickening of the
• 31:18
  new life. Mortification is killing the
• 31:20
  sin, and vivification is living unto righteousness.
• 31:23
  But how do we practically do that?
• 31:25
  Vivification requires utilizing what we call the ordinary means
• 31:28
  of grace. And those ordinary means of
• 31:30
  grace are the tools God has provided to maintain that
• 31:33
  military cadence. What are they?
• 31:36
  Hearing the Word of God preached, reading the Scriptures
• 31:39
  daily, engaging in earnest prayer, and participating in the
• 31:43
  sacraments. Baptism in the Lord's Supper.
• 31:45
  It sounds almost too simple, doesn't it?
• 31:47
  It does to our flesh. People are always looking for a
• 31:50
  shortcut to Holiness. They want a new technique, a
• 31:53
  three day conference, or an emotional alter call that will
• 31:57
  just fix their struggles permanently.
• 31:59
  Human nature despises the ordinary.
• 32:01
  Yeah, but the March requires the steady, ordinary rhythm of
• 32:04
  submitting your mind to the Word and relying on the spirit day by
• 32:08
  day, year after year. No shortcuts.
• 32:10
  There are no shortcuts in a March.
• 32:11
  You just keep putting 1 foot in front of the other, staying in
• 32:14
  line with the soldier next to you and listening to the
• 32:16
  commander. I think about verse 24, the
• 32:18
  crucifixion of the flesh like VE Day in World War 2.
• 32:21
  Victory in Europe? Yeah, VE Day in 1945 when that
• 32:25
  document was signed, the ruling regime of the enemy was
• 32:28
  definitively broken. The surrender was absolute.
• 32:32
  The victory was legally secured and recognized globally.
• 32:35
  The war, in a legal and structural sense, was over.
• 32:38
  But the fighting did not stop the very next second.
• 32:40
  Right. The soldiers on the ground still
• 32:42
  had to March to the countryside, and there were still enemy
• 32:45
  snipers hiding in the clock towers in the forests.
• 32:48
  Dangerous. Holdouts.
• 32:49
  Those snipers were completely cut off from their command
• 32:52
  structure. They had no supply lines.
• 32:54
  They had no legal right to hold territory, right?
• 32:56
  But they still had weapons, and they were still incredibly
• 32:59
  dangerous. That is verse 25.
• 33:01
  The regime of the flesh is dead, but the snipers of old desires
• 33:05
  are still taking shots at us. The VE Day reality captures both
• 33:08
  the objective triumph of the cross and the localized ongoing
• 33:12
  danger of our remaining sin. It's attention the.
• 33:15
  Snipers in the trees cannot win the war.
• 33:18
  The victory is sealed, but they can cause massive damage to your
• 33:21
  life, your family, and your church if you stop marching in
• 33:24
  rank, take off your armor, and start wandering around
• 33:26
  carelessly in the woods. How does a Christian practically
• 33:29
  distinguish between an authentic leading of the Spirit to March
• 33:33
  in rank and their own internal emotional impulses?
• 33:36
  Because sometimes my own emotions, my own desires feel
• 33:39
  very loud. They can feel very spiritual.
• 33:41
  The distinction always lies in the objective standard of
• 33:44
  Scripture. Emotional impulses are erratic.
• 33:47
  They're all over the place. They fluctuate based on your
• 33:49
  circumstances, your level of fatigue, your diet, or your
• 33:53
  biological state. The Holy Spirit does not
• 33:55
  fluctuate. He is consistent.
• 33:57
  He produces the 9 facets of the diamond we discussed.
• 34:00
  If an internal impulse makes you abrasive, divisive, arrogant, or
• 34:04
  causes you to sow discord among brothers, it is the flesh.
• 34:07
  Even if it feels right. It does not matter how
• 34:10
  theologically accurate or spiritual the impulse feels.
• 34:14
  The fruit of the Spirit is not division.
• 34:16
  If, however, an impulse draws you toward self sacrificing
• 34:20
  love, patience under trial, and a quiet conformity to Christ's
• 34:24
  commands, it is the Spirit. The Spirit always leads toward
• 34:27
  the character of the sun. Let's pull all these threads
• 34:29
  together. Sanctification is not a peaceful
• 34:33
  retreat into a quiet garden where nothing ever bothers you
• 34:36
  again. Definitely not.
• 34:37
  Nor is it achieved by exhausting yourself with external
• 34:40
  legalistic checklists and picket fences.
• 34:42
  It is a fierce, loud, ongoing civil war inside your own soul,
• 34:48
  but it is fought from the secure, unshakable position of
• 34:51
  Christ's finished victory at the cross.
• 34:53
  Amen. And as you March in rank, using
• 34:56
  the ordinary means of grace, that war produces A unified,
• 34:59
  singular harvest of Christ's character in your life.
• 35:02
  This reality presents a challenging thought for you to
• 35:04
  Mull over as you go about your day.
• 35:06
  What's that? If the Holy Spirit's primary
• 35:08
  objective is to reproduce the flawless character of Christ in
• 35:11
  your life, what specific, respectable relational sin is
• 35:15
  currently breaking your rank? That's a piercing question.
• 35:18
  Perhaps it is a hidden rivalry at your church.
• 35:20
  Maybe it is a subtle, gnawing envy at someone else's success.
• 35:23
  Or maybe it is a persistent tendency to engage in harsh
• 35:27
  online strife disguised as defending the truth.
• 35:30
  Whatever that sniper is, how does taking that specific hidden
• 35:34
  sin back to the cross alter your March tomorrow?
• 35:37
  The diagnostic landscape of the human heart might be murky, but
• 35:40
  the diamond of the Spirit's fruit is unmistakably clear.
• 35:44
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into the source
• 35:46
  material. We invite you to keep examining
• 35:48
  your own March, always keeping in step with the commander of
• 35:51
  your salvation.