How It Shapes Our Character

So we're nearly there. We are heading towards the end of our series on Galatians, and it's just so fitting. God is so good. He has ordained so many things for this time that we have together, and it's great that even in Jason's prayer that he was praying against sin in our lives, sin ruling in our lives, but also that we may turn our attention and our affections towards Jesus Christ. This morning, obviously, as I said before, I've come to the end of the school each week. It's always a time of reflection.

It's always a time of, yeah, sober thinking regarding the world in which we live, the world really that sort of you see as exposure that the world has to sin, but also the contrast of a Christian community trying to love and serve people that really deserve to be loved and to be served. It's been another week of drama at Schoolies. And for me again, I've just seen the slavery and the bondage that a life of rebellion against God has. If you were to ask many of the schoolies that were here at schoolies at surface, many of them would be saying that they were having the time of their life.

But behind this thinly veiled excitement and noise, we still deal with thoughts of suicide. Still deal with friendships that are completely and utterly destroyed in this week. We still deal with infighting and decisions that change the course of a person's life. You may have heard of this young boy that was king hit a few nights ago. The person that was apprehended for that is going to have a criminal record for the rest of his life.

The police commissioner, or I think the head of school, he said that this man's career options, his future has been affected for his entire life because of this one decision that he made. As I was reflecting on this, I came across a boy who this week had thoughts of committing suicide in the Islander, which was my hotel for this week. So on Thursday night, and Thursday night is always one of the hardest weeks. It's always one of the busiest for the Red Frogs to deal with. This young boy was upset.

He was crying uncontrollably. And then when we came there and we asked him what was happening, what was the reason for his being upset, he shared with us that he was a Seventh day Adventist. He came from a background of Seventh day Adventist. And he was wracked by guilt of what he had been doing that week and what had led up to that moment. He saw and heard some other Red Frogs share their testimonies, their faith with this young man, and he felt so bad in that moment that he wanted to end it.

He wanted to finish living. Why is it that the alcohol, the drugs, the sex, the parties lead to death rather than lead to life? When everything about it is fun and is supposedly happy. Why does it lead to heartbreak? Why does it lead to depression?

When everything in our society says that it is the opposite, it should lead to good things. And why is it that Christianity brings hope into these circumstances? I've said it before, why are the Christians the most popular people on the Gold Coast in this week? Why does everyone want to party with us? You see, in normal life, the religion of this world, which is motivated by morality, is actually fear based.

It uses guilt and it uses shame to get what it wants. In the gospel, exemplified by 800 Christians volunteering at school this week, the motivation, however, is a dynamic not of fear or of guilt, but of love. And we see that. We saw it last week where Paul talks about what Paul talks about in Galatians 5:6. That faith is expressing itself through love.

This morning, Paul spells out just how we grow in a character of love through this new dynamic, which is grace. If you have your Bibles with you, let's read Galatians 5:16-25. A very well-known passage, I'm sure you've read and you know of. Galatians 5, life by the Spirit.

Paul begins: so I say, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For 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. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious.

Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and 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. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. So far our reading. There's a lot of things that are said here, a huge couple of lists that are mentioned here. But what we see in essence here are two natures at work in the Christian life.

The sinful nature and the nature of the Spirit. At any point in our life, we live by one and we don't gratify the other. We live by one and we don't gratify the other. We will gratify either the Spirit and not the sinful nature or we will gratify the sinful nature and not the Spirit. The sinful nature that's translated here in the NIV comes from the Greek word sarx, s a r x, sarx.

In some of the older translations, your King James Version, it is translated as flesh, as flesh. Now flesh in the New Testament doesn't refer to our physical nature, our physical flesh and bone sort of stuff. It's the sin-desiring aspect of ourselves as opposed to the God-desiring aspect. The sarx is the sinful heart. It's a part of our hearts which is not yet renewed by the Spirit.

Verse 17 says that contrary to the sinful nature is the Spirit. At first look, it may seem that this is a battle between something that is inside us and outside of us. So in other words, our sinful nature which is in us and the Spirit which is outside of us. But if we listen to what Paul talks of here, Paul is talking about something of each of these natures creating within us a character or qualities within us. It talks about desires that each of these natures produce.

So it's clear that the conflict takes place within us. This is an internal thing. It's an internal struggle. It's most accurate to think of the Spirit as referring to the renewed Christian heart, a heart that is made new by the Holy Spirit.

Our sinful nature at one point was ruling alone and unopposed. It was running amok before we became Christians. Now the Spirit has entered supernaturally when we became Christians and has begun a renewal in us. It has begun a renewal in us so that we become or we are formed into a new nature. In Ephesians 4:24, Paul refers to this sarx, this flesh versus Spirit conflict as competition between the old self and the new self.

And again, the King James talks about it: the old man versus the new man. It's a conflict. Now what is the nature of this conflict? Verse 17 says that it's a battle between desires. It's the desire of the flesh.

It's the desire of the Spirit. Now again, that word, you have to really zoom in on it and understand what it means. That term again in Greek refers to something more towards not simply a longing, but it's an over-desiring. It's an inordinate desire, something that is abnormal. It's an all-controlling longing or drive.

And this is important for us to realise because you see the problem of our heart is not so much desire for bad things. It's the over-desire for good things that God has given us. When something becomes our God, even a good thing, it creates an over-desire. When we over-desire something, it becomes our functional God. It becomes our functional saviour, the theologians call it.

Sin creates in us: we must have this, we must have that. And so we lose sight of God. We lose sight of the one who rightfully deserves that place of worship in our lives.

Do you know that even our guilt and our shame may become gods to us? Guilt in and of itself is not a bad thing. It tells us like a nerve in a hand that, ouch, that's the wrong thing to be doing. We shouldn't be doing this. But should our attention be consumed by guilt or shame, we take our eyes off God and we place them on ourselves again.

On how far far we fall short. And so commonly in even in our Christian circles, this obsession can be veiled behind spiritual talk. It may seem that this person is really holy and desiring to be close to God, but really, it's just an attention or worship of our sin rather than on the Saviour. As funny as that sounds, Paul literally states in verse 17 that the flesh over-desires against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.

Now interestingly, the Bible doesn't say that the Spirit over-desires anything. It doesn't use that word in relation to the Spirit. But it does insinuate that the Spirit has a drive and has passions and has a longing and creates a longing. So what is it that the Spirit inside of us longs for? Well, in John, when Jesus teaches on the Holy Spirit and really gives a very thorough understanding of pneumatology, the understanding or the theology of the Spirit, Jesus says that the ultimate goal of the Spirit is to glorify me, Jesus said.

It's to glorify Jesus Christ. So while the flesh, the sinful nature, glorifies and yearns for all kinds of created things, whether that be sex or money or power, the Spirit glorifies and yearns for Jesus Christ. The Spirit longs to conform us into the image of Jesus. And that is what a reborn Christian wants. That's what a reborn Christian desires and longs for: to be perfectly like what Jesus is.

The spirit and the flesh are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want. That's what Paul says. The Spirit and the sinful nature are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want. You might remember a parallel passage in Romans 7:22-23. But Paul says that in my inner being, I delight in God's law, yet I find another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind.

The sinful nature continues to generate competing desires which we experience and give into. The sinful nature, that old self, continues to generate desires and we fall into that. But as Christians, these are not our deepest desires and our deepest goals. For a Christian, we truly, truly want a new way to live. We truly want Spirit-renewed hearts.

And therefore, we have this conflict. In verses 19 to 21, Paul lists what we fall into, what the sinful nature desires. So it's useful for us to have a look at these things. Notice, however, that not all of them are actions. They're not simply behavioural things.

Some of these are attitudes. There are three words in verse 19 having to do with the works of the flesh in the area of sexuality. You think that today we are hammered by this? Two thousand years ago, it was no different. Sexual immorality, Paul starts, is sexual intercourse between unmarried people.

Impurity is unnatural sexual practices and relationships. Debauchery, uncontrolled sexuality. So I guess impurity can talk of homosexuality in that as well. And then debauchery is just promiscuity. So those first three are to do with sex and the area of sexuality.

Verse 20 then lists two words having to do with the area of religion. Interestingly enough, idolatry and witchcraft. Because idolatry is paired here with witchcraft, it's not referring to that religion we've been talking about the last few weeks of a works-based sort of understanding of earning salvation through God. This is really talking about pagan religious practices. This is talking about the occult.

This is talking about astrology and those sort of things. Finally, verses 20 to 21 comes to eight words that describe how the flesh destroys relationships. Four of these are destructive attitudes. Firstly, selfish ambition, he says. This is namely competitiveness and a self-seeking motive.

Second one, envy is coveting or desiring what others have. Jealousy is the zeal and the energy that comes from a hungry ego. Jealousy is coming as the energy that comes from a hungry ego. And then lastly, hatred, meaning hostility and an adversarial attitude. And then the last four words describe the results of these attitudes in the context of relationships.

So firstly, once you do these four things: ambition, selfishness, jealousy or hatred, the result of these is this. Firstly, discord. Being argumentative and seeking fights. Secondly, fits of rage, outbursts of rage, of anger. Thirdly, dissensions, divisions between people.

And then lastly, factions, permanent parties and warring groups. Now these are really interesting things because in our day and age, individualism is promoting that having a different opinion to someone else is okay. It's healthy. It's normal. But four of these fruits of sin is talking about disunity, discord, dissensions, hostility, factions.

And then finally, there are two words that refer to substance abuse: drunkenness and orgies. And again, these two words are linked. Orgies are not sex orgies, but drinking orgies. One of the works of the flesh, in other words, is addiction to pleasure-creating substances and behaviour. And obviously, in light of Schoolies, it's pretty poignant.

Now, this is a huge list that Paul just wants to put across. And after all of this, Paul says and has a very stark, stern warning for those who live like this. Verse 21 says people who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. These are the things, and the desires of a heart that reveals a person is unsaved. It's the habitual practice of indulging in these things that show who the person's functional God is.

The schoolies who go out and hammer themselves every night, it shows that their God is their pleasure. Their God is substance abuse. Schoolies is a spiritual event. But now Paul moves on to the desires of the Spirit, which he calls the fruit of the Spirit. And people may ask, why use this word fruit?

I mean, we're talking about spiritual things here. Why use this term? Well, Paul always chooses his metaphors or his images very carefully. He always chooses them very carefully, and this time is no exception. And Tim Keller in his commentary really highlights some really interesting things about the idea or the usage of the word fruit here.

Firstly, Keller says, like fruit, Christian growth is gradual. As gradual as a turnip or a potato. With the growth of fruit, you never see it happening. You never can stand there and see the apple grow. You only realise when it's fully mature that wow, I've got an apple here.

In a Christian's life, you might realise wow, a couple of years ago, I would never have been so patient or so self-controlled as I was in this situation. The fruit has been growing gradually and unnoticed until this moment. Secondly, the growth of the Spirit's fruit is inevitable. There will be growth. There will be growth.

If someone has the Spirit in them, they will grow. Just like the weed I talked about last week, remember that? The weed that grew through the crack in the pavement. If you didn't know how things grow, if you didn't know the strength of a little seed, you would have put all your money on the pavement to win. But that seed must grow and will grow.

The fruit of the Spirit will burst through. It's inevitable. Now that is so encouraging, isn't it? When we stress and when we feel guilty and we think that our sinful nature is concrete-like. It is, it's all over the place.

But the Holy Spirit, Paul says, will help us to conquer. The Holy Spirit will help us to conquer. The fruit, His fruit, will grow in us. It is inevitable. Thirdly, the fruit of the Spirit has roots.

The fruit of the Spirit is not simply about external traits or characteristics. We might think that. We might think love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness is what it is about, but it's not. Just like you can tie an apple on a dead tree, which doesn't prove that the tree is alive. So you may produce fruit of the Spirit like love or joy based upon perhaps your character rather than the work of the Holy Spirit in you.

It may not prove in fact that the life of the Spirit is in you. The apple doesn't give life. The apple is a sign that the tree is alive. Lastly, the fruit of the Spirit's growth is symmetrical. It's very interesting that Paul doesn't use the plural fruits when he talks about the fruit of the Spirit, but it's the singular.

All of these characteristics form the fruit. He doesn't use the term fruits to describe all the characteristics here. The real characteristics of a Christian is growing together into one fruit. You don't get one part of the fruit of the Spirit without all the other parts growing as well. So there's a unity in the development of the fruit.

So moving on from that, what are the characteristics of the fruit? The first thing that Paul lists here is love. Love is the characteristic to serve a person for their good and for their intrinsic value, not for what that person brings to you. Married people will testify to this. Love is a characteristic to serve a person for their good and not for what that person brings to you.

If you love God, then you serve God for His intrinsic worth and not for what He brings to you. Because if you worship God for what He brings to you, you're serving yourself. The same goes for people in our lives. If we love people for who they are and their intrinsic value rather than what they bring to us, that is true love. Secondly, joy.

Joy is the delight in God for the sheer beauty and worth of who He is. Joy is not happiness. Happiness is circumstantial. Happiness comes from a nice day at the beach. Joy exists in all situations.

Joy is not contingent upon our circumstances. It's the delight in God for the sheer beauty and worth of who He is. Thirdly, peace. Peace is a confidence and a rest in the wisdom and the control of God over our lives, rather than a rest in the control of our lives and what we have in our lives.

It replaces anxiety and worry. Fourthly, patience. Patience is the ability to face trouble without blowing up or hitting out. Its opposite, if you want to talk of it that way, is resentment to God and others. The opposite of patience is resentment.

Next, kindness is the ability to serve others practically in a way which makes me vulnerable. It comes from a place of deep security. Its opposite, the opposite of kindness is envy, which leaves me unable to rejoice in another person's joy. Goodness is closest to the word integrity for us. It means that you are the same person in every situation rather than being a phoney or a hypocrite.

This is to be steadfast and truly reliable, to be true to your word. Faithfulness is the opposite of being a friend or a nice person only in good times or to be a Christian when you are blessed or when you are in trouble. That is what faithfulness is. Gentleness is humility and self-forgetfulness. It's the opposite of being superior or self-absorbed.

And then lastly, self-control is the ability to pursue the important over the urgent. Self-control is the ability to say no when you know it's a no and yes when you know it's a yes. That's what self-control is. I feel I have to explain these things because we can sometimes think we understand what it is. But it's important for us to really reflect on each one of these.

So the next question is, how do we grow the fruit of the Spirit? Or how do we grow in it? Paul immediately gives us the answer. He says it comes from belonging to Jesus Christ. Because we belong to Jesus, we have crucified the sinful nature of our lives with its passions, with its inordinate over-desires.

Crucifying the sinful nature is really the dismantling of idols in our lives. That is what it is. It's dismantling, breaking them down. It's about strangling sin at the motivational level rather than setting new goals at the behavioural level. Does that make sense?

Cutting it off at its roots rather than trying to change it up here. In other words, we have to ask ourselves not just what we do wrong, but why we do it wrong. We disobey God in order to get something we feel we must have. We disobey God in order to get something we feel we must have. Whether that be sexual promiscuity or fantasy, whether that be greed or envy, it's about the over-desires of our hearts.

Why must we have it? Why must we have it? Because it's a way in which we keep the law of being good enough, of pleasing ourselves or others. Crucifying the sinful nature is to say, Lord, my heart thinks that I must have this in my life. Otherwise, I have no value.

Otherwise, I have no enjoyment. That's what my heart thinks, but it's a fake saviour, Lord. I want to remember to love you. I want to remember what I mean to you. I want to remember that I am complete in Christ.

By Your Spirit, I will reflect on Your love in me until this thing that I struggle with loses its power over my soul. I will reflect on You so much that I strangle this desire out of my life. That is what it means to crucify this sinful nature. Paul then finally writes in verse 25, since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Now, this is all about action, isn't it?

It's all about process. It's a positive process because it talks of life. It's an ongoing process because it talks of walking, of living, of breathing. But it's also more than a simple obedience. If the role of the Spirit is to glorify Christ, if the role of the Spirit is to bring glory to Jesus, we keep in step with the Spirit when we can bring glory to Jesus through our lives.

It also shows that while we must continually strive to crucify our sinful natures, we are already living by the Spirit. Paul doesn't put a question mark next to since you live by the Spirit. You live by the Spirit, he says. Now walk in step with the Spirit. In the Greek, again, we've got the translation since you live by the Spirit.

In the Greek, he uses the verb which means to walk. Since you walk by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit. And in my imagination, I see an army on parade walking or marching. And you know how they all march at the same rhythm, same pace? That is what the Spirit is doing.

He's setting that rhythm, and everyone else is keeping in step with that. That's the idea, and it's a play on words that Paul uses here. We're already in the parade, he says. Our sin hasn't disqualified us, but in order to be effective, to truly bring glory to Christ, we must stay in the rhythm of grace. We must worship Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit, adoring Him until our hearts find Him more beautiful than the object we feel we must have.

As we do that, we will put to death our old nature and we will create more room for the fruit in our hearts. As we find that fruit growing, we'll realise that we are changing more and more into the people we long to be. That's the mark of a Christian. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness.

You are so good to us, and it astounds us. Lord, we experience grace, your grace on a day-to-day basis. We thank you, Lord, for the fact that we can look back on events in our past, and we can look to how we are now and realise, wow, I'm so different than I used to be. I would not have acted or reacted in this way ten years ago, five years ago. Thank you, Lord, that you are gradually transforming us into the image of Christ.

For some of us, that is a very fresh process. For others of us, that maturing and that growth has taken place, and I thank you for the beautiful old saints in our church who exemplify this. But I pray that we will not fall out of rhythm with the grace you have given us. Spirit, help us. Help us to keep in step with you.

Lord, this morning we commit ourselves to that process. Lord, whatever is honourable, whatever is good, let us reflect on that. That is our desire. But thank you, Lord, that we also realise that because we have this longing in us to be better, to have greater love, to be more kind, to have more joy in our lives, because we realise we are falling short of some of those things, we also realise that we have changed motives. We don't desire sexual immorality anymore, Lord.

We don't desire impurity. We don't desire dissensions and factions. We don't desire idolatry in our lives, Lord. Those things are at war within us. Those things are difficult in our lives, but Lord, we ask that those things may be strangled out of our lives.

Empower us, Spirit, to do that. We will focus and we will draw our look upon you more and more, Lord. We thank you for your grace. Help us to be better understanders of that grace. We ask this in the empowering of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.