The Fight Within

This morning, I want to look at something that as a pastor, I'm often confronted with in those conversations that we sometimes have with people when things get deep. When we're past the coffee and the cake and how are you and how's the family going, when conversations get deep, one of the things that often comes up is the dissatisfaction we as Christians have with our walk with God. People feel guilty about where they are and yet have this desire to walk a life closer or more in line with the will of God. Brendan prayed just as I got up here, just before.

He prayed for our fight against sin, to leave it behind and to pursue more and more the life that God wants for us. So my question this morning to you is how do we do that? How do we do that? Where does that desire even to pray for that come from? So we're going to look at that a little bit more, and I want to ask as we start, do you experience at this stage that frustration between where you want to be as a Christian, as a disciple of Jesus, and today where you actually find yourself in the reality of your week, the reality of your life?

Do you sense this morning that frustration? We're going to read from Galatians 5, a passage that many of us will probably be familiar with and will know well, a passage concerning the fruit of the spirit. And we're going to read from verse 16 through to verse 25. It's a passage that explains what is going on in the heart and the mind of every single Christian. This is not just Paul.

This is not just the church of the Galatian Province. This is what wages in the heart and the mind of every Christian everywhere, whether they are a pastor, whether they are an elder, whether they are a Sunday school teacher, or whether they are a visitor this morning, today for the first time. Paul says, and we will see it soon, that there are two natures in every Christian. Two natures. Paul explains there is a spiritual and a sinful nature.

Let's have a read of what he has to say about these things from verse 16 in chapter 5. Paul says, but I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another or envying one another. So far our reading. Paul is saying that at one point, at any point, a Christian or a non-Christian, any one human being will live between these two natures.

We live either by the sinful nature or we live by the spirit-led nature. We will either gratify the spirit or we will gratify the sinful nature. Now sinful nature here is translated as the flesh in the ESV translation that we have. In the NIV, the one that we used to use, it was translated as the sinful nature. But this sinful nature or this flesh in the New Testament doesn't refer to how we often think of flesh as a physical thing, like our physical bodies, flesh and bone.

Rather, it's referring to the sin-desiring aspect of the human heart as opposed to the God-desiring aspect. The Greek is sarx, that's the Greek word for it, and it refers to humanity's sinful heart. And for the Christian, the flesh, which is still obviously a part of our makeup, is the part of us which is not yet renewed by the work of the spirit. In other words, as Christians, we live this in-between life at the moment.

A life that has been touched by the life-giving nature of God. We have started drinking the living water that's rejuvenating our hearts, and yet there is still the old part of us. There is still the old self that lingers. Verse 17 says that it is contrary to the spirit, this nature. At one time, our sinful nature was there and it ruled unopposed.

We had no say over it. We had no power or control over it as much as we thought we did. When Christians say that Christ came into their lives, then it actually means when we say Jesus came into my life, it actually means it is the spirit that has entered my life supernaturally. It is the spirit that has come into my life and has started to renew this old self into a new nature. Ephesians 4, Paul talks about this flesh versus spirit conflict as the competition between an old self, an old man, and a new man.

But there is this conflict, and Paul is addressing it here. Verse 17 says it is a battle between the desires of the spirit and the flesh. Now the word here desire, the desires of the flesh, is also a specific word which means a little bit more than the word to want. The word here is actually referring to an over-desire, an obsession, an inordinate desire for something. It is an all-controlling longing, this desire.

Now you see, the main problem of the human condition, our hearts, is not so much that we desire necessarily bad things, but we over-desire all things apart from God. We desire everything that is either good or bad opposed to God. And in us, sin is creating this feeling that we must have something at the expense of God. We must have something at the expense of God. Now what is it that the spirit longs for?

What is it that the spirit desires for us to have? Well, we'll get there soon, but ultimately, Jesus introduced this in the Gospel of John. He says, this is what the spirit will do for the Christian. The spirit will create in us a longing for Christ to have Him glorified in our hearts and lives. That is the big thing that the Holy Spirit will do in the Christian, to glorify Jesus Christ.

And the second thing is to remind us, to remind our hearts of who Jesus is and what He has taught. These are the two things that the Holy Spirit does. And so this is for every one of us a real moment of testing. One way to know if you are a Christian, if you doubt, one way to know if you are a Christian is to ask, do I long to be like Christ? Do I long to live a life like Him?

It doesn't matter necessarily if you are doing it very well. But do I long for Christ? Do I long to live this life for Him? But we find in Galatians 5 that the Holy Spirit and the flesh are in conflict with one another. Inside of us, even as Christians, the sinful nature continues to generate competing desires that wage war against us, which we occasionally give into.

But ultimately, these things Paul is saying contradict with the longing, the deep deep longing of our hearts to glorify Christ and to live like Him. And so if you are a true Christian this morning, you will most truly want to live with this spirit-renewed heart and its desires. So what is Paul then referring to here? What is this sinful nature and what it does in our hearts? Well, verses 19 through to 21 gives us this massively long list.

It really forms the bulk of this passage, a huge list. Acts of the sinful nature he calls them. But before we deal with them, and I think we will deal with every single one of them, do you notice who Paul is writing this list to? He's giving it to the church. He's writing it to other Christians.

Why is Paul writing this to the church, to Christians? Because Christians struggle. Christians struggle. Unfortunately, so often when we come to these sort of passages, we just read over these things that Paul mentions. We see, oh, this is a whole bunch of bad things.

Alright, generally avoid these things and pursue these things, but Paul is giving these things as a test to the heart. Paul is giving this as a way for us to be challenged by these things, to think about these things. So we're going to pause and we are going to think about them a little bit today. Paul begins with three words in verse 19.

Three ideas here that are linked to the idea of sexuality. Sexual immorality, he says, which is basically any sexual intercourse outside the only God-ordained framework for it, is marriage. That is what sexual immorality is. Then he moves on, secondly, to impurity, which is the unnatural sexual practices that goes on. And we could probably put that in the category today of homosexuality and so on.

And it is this unnatural desire to skew what sex is. And then it comes to the third aspect to do with the area of sexuality, and he says and he calls it sensuality, which is also translated as debauchery, is uncontrollable desire and obsession with sex. It is the worship of it, and it is probably, I would say, our greatest idol in our day and age. The worship of it. And so we see the first category Paul is dealing with here is the sinful nature in regards to the area of sexuality.

And as with everything, Paul is saying this was created as good by God to be enjoyed and to find great joy in it, but our natures have corrupted it and have turned it against us and have made it something that we will struggle against. Our natures will seek to break down the healthy parameters of it. The person we may we should be sharing it with, we remove. When and how you may engage in it and how you may experience its joys. This is the opposite, Paul says, of what the Holy Spirit wants of you, and He is writing it to the church.

So for me to ignore and to think that this is not a reality in our church, that Christians don't wrestle with this or struggle with this, is ignorant of me. This is for the church to be reminded of. Then verse 20, Paul lists another two marks of this nature and it has to do with the area of false religion, of idolatry and sorcery, the area of spirituality. Because idolatry is paired here with sorcery, it's probably referring to the very specific area of cultish or the occult and its practices. So this is the idea of worshipping spirits or ancestors and those sort of things that were probably happening at this time.

It is very much a religious practice that stands against the Christian faith. Today, we would list things like horoscopes or Ouija board or tarot card reading or those sort of things in this category. And again, the amount of Christians I know that engage in this and in some way try to fit it in to their world view of how God works is incredible. People will say to me the stars or the planets align because God created them to align in that way and therefore I will become wealthy today or I will have good fortune. God created it, but it works in such a way to bless me.

Paul is saying that is not what the spirit desires for us either. Get away from these things, Paul says. Then in verses 20 and 21, we come to a collection of eight words and this is the biggest collection and it talks about the destruction or the damage to relationships, personal, interpersonal relationships. And there are two categories here. There's four destructive attitudes and four destructive actions.

Now firstly, the attitudes. There is enmity, Paul says, namely a competitiveness with a self-seeking motive. The NIV translates it as selfish ambition. It is to win at all costs. It's the attitude of the heart that will crush those around you in order to get out on top.

Secondly, strife, meaning mean-spirited hostility, an adversarial attitude towards others. To be mean. Thirdly, jealousy, which comes from a ravenously hungry ego, a desire that comes from the ego. And then coveting or envy, desiring what God has not given you. These are all internal attitudes and over-desires of the heart that will destroy and seek to destroy people around you.

Then Paul lists another four words which describe the results of this internal motives. So those were the feelings and these are the actions now. He says rivalry. Rivalry, being argumentative, actively seeking fights, actively seeking disunity. Fits of anger, uncontrollable rage that explodes over.

Dissension, intentional divisiveness that separates people, and then divisions, building warring groups against one another. Now again these words can just flow over us, but when we start thinking about it, is there divisions in my workplace? Are there moments where I side with one coworker against the other? Or me against the boss? Are there moments where anger just builds up and explodes in such a scary, surprising way that I scare myself a little bit?

And are there areas of my life where I will seek to come out on top against someone else? Selfish ambition or jealousy. Social media, how much doesn't that fuel envy and coveting and jealousy? And then Paul finishes with two more words and it refers to the abuse of substance. What?

Drunkenness and orgies. And they're linked again. Orgies here is not sexual, but it is drinking and eating orgies. The likes of the Romans did. The overeating, overindulging to the point where they would throw up and eat again.

It is eating and drinking in huge excess, and the heart of these two words is the idea that the flesh is drawn to the addiction of pleasure-inducing substances. In this time, it was food and alcohol, but I think we can rightly put in cigarettes, we could put marijuana, we could put any sort of drug, and the addiction to food here as well. It is gluttony in its fullest sense that Paul is talking about here. And again, I would say one of our biggest struggles in Australia. It is good for us to think about these things.

And what I would like us to do this week is to go through this list again and really reflect on which area the Lord may be pointing out to you as an area of struggle. But now having listed all these marks of corruption, the bible gives this stark warning to everyone who is like this. Verse 21, it says, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. They will not inherit the kingdom. Everyone who lives in this way will not inherit the kingdom of God.

These are the people whose heart's desires are to be the enemies of God. These things will be the things that people would rather die for than give up. These are the type of things that consume people all around us. And like I said, you only need to have an Instagram account to see how these things play out in our world today. You only need to turn on prime time TV and you can pretty much tick off every single one of these areas that Paul has listed.

Sexual immorality, the abuse of food and alcohol, envy and jealousy, self-absorbed ambition, hatred, hostility. The problem is instead of grieving that we are in this state, the human heart calls it good television. The sinful nature calls it entertainment and drama. We swallow it up and we call it exciting. We follow them on social media and we call them idols.

But that is what they are, true idols of the heart. And what Paul says here and it pierces through all the rubbish, He says, these things are the desires of the heart that shows a person is doomed to hell. It is the habitual obsession with these things that show who the person's functional god is. And Paul says it is not the God of the Bible. So what is the hope for us?

What is the hope for humanity? What can shake us out of this trance that we are caught in? Well, we know the Bible says that our parents, Adam and Eve, fell into this mess by eating a fruit. And Paul says there is a fruit that will also rescue us from this. Paul calls it the fruit of the spirit.

And he lists some qualities that, again, for us, they just roll off the tongue. They are carried along with Sunday school songs that we learned when we were kids. Love, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness. Two-dimensional on paper but a mile deep in reality. And they stand, Paul says, in direct contrast to the fruit of the flesh.

So what are these characteristics of the fruit of the spirit? Well, the first one he says is love, and that is the characteristic to serve a person for their good, for their intrinsic value and not for what they bring to you. That is the essence of this love, this Christian love, to serve them for who they are intrinsically and nothing to do with what they will add to you. It is the same love that we as Christians will have for God when we serve God for His intrinsic worth and not for what He will give you. The second thing is joy, and that is the delight to delight in the majesty of who God is and the sheer beauty of what He has done for you.

This is the joy. To delight in the majesty of God and the sheer good things, the beauty of what He has done for us. Therefore, joy is not the same as happiness because happiness is tied to our circumstances and joy can last in any circumstance because God doesn't change. Peace, confidence to rest in the wisdom and the control of God rather than on your control.

This sensation, this peace replaces anxiety and worry. To have confidence in the wisdom and the control of God. Patience is the ability to face trouble without blowing up or hitting out. This stands in direct contrast to fits of rage. It is the ability to face trouble without blowing up or hitting out.

It is opposite to the resentment we may have to God, ourselves or others. Kindness is the ability to serve others practically in a way which makes me vulnerable. Kindness is therefore linked to generosity. It comes from a place of deep security. It is the opposite of envy which leaves me unable to rejoice in another person's joy.

When I see someone driving past who is wealthier than me, I can say, thank you Lord for giving him or her that. Envy says, God, why don't I have that? Goodness is closest to the word for integrity which is being the same person in every situation rather than being a phoney or a hypocrite. It is being the same person day in day out. Faithfulness is to be steadfast and truly reliable.

To be true to your word, it is the opposite of being a friend only in good times or a Christian when you are blessed or when you are in trouble. Faithfulness is to be steadfast and reliable. Two more, gentleness is humility and self-forgetfulness. It is the opposite of being superior, of being self-absorbed or self-righteous. Gentleness is the opposite of self-righteousness.

And then self-control, which is the ability to pursue the important things over the urgent. It is the ability to say no when you know it is meant to be a no, or to say yes when you know it is meant to be a yes. That is what self-control is. Now that is a lot to take in. There's a lot of things that Paul lists here and that's why I think we should go and think about these things in this week.

Lots of labels, lots of words, but I want us to try and remember these things as much as we can. But the most important for us to remember today is why does Paul use the word fruit for these things? Why does Paul use the word fruit when he describes the Christian's life in the Holy Spirit? If you know Paul, then you know that Paul doesn't use a metaphor just willy-nilly. There is some deep thinking that has gone behind it, and I think there is absolutely a clear reason why Paul uses the word fruit to describe the characteristics or the qualities that God is bringing out in the Christian's life. Tim Keller helpfully in his commentary on Galatians gives some insights onto why the term fruit of the Holy Spirit is used.

And that is because Christian growth, firstly, like a fruit, is gradual. Christian growth is gradual. I don't know if you have ever tried to grow a veggie patch. I have. And I know you, John and Taya here and a few others have had their own little veggie patches out there. There is this weird thing that happens when you try and grow your own fruit or vegetables.

You don't realise that the fruit is nearly ripe or nearly ready to be picked until really late. Like, unless you really go out and look under every little leaf and so on, just all of a sudden, there's a whole bunch of tomatoes on your tomato plant. There's a whole collection of bananas on the banana tree. It surprises you, this growth, but it is slow and steady. And there's something I think of this in what the Holy Spirit develops in the Christian life.

The ones who have given their hearts over to God, they might realise just at one point, wow. How I reacted in this situation is very different to how I would have reacted five years ago. That the patience that I've had in this frustrating situation is incredibly different to how I would have been a few years ago. All of a sudden, you realise something is different and the work of the spirit to transform our lives is like that, slow and steady. Secondly, the growth of the Christian is inevitable.

There will be growth. Just like a plant that is rooted in good soil with plenty of water, if someone has the spirit in them, the fruit will grow. There is an incredible power in the growing potential of a plant, isn't there? Who has never walked around and seen a weed growing out of a big slab of concrete? A little spindly little thing coming out of a crack somewhere, somehow.

I mean, who knows how this little seed got there or whatever. And out of this immovable slab of concrete, this little bit of life is coming through. Through this genetically and God-ordained DNA of that little seed, it must and it will grow when the opportunity arises and it will grow irresistibly. The fruit of the spirit is inevitable in a true Christian's life. It may not always feel like it, but this is our encouragement this morning.

We may think our sinful natures are concrete slab-like. Not in any way possible to be cracked and broken up and changed and just carried away. A slab of immovable odds that stand against us. But the Holy Spirit's power is promised to us to conquer any obstacle that this fruit needs to bear. Thirdly, a fruit has roots.

And so Christian growth is also deep-rooted. It has an origin much deeper than that, than merely external traits or characteristics. Who has ever seen a dead tree bearing living fruit? It doesn't exist. An apple tree cannot be an apple tree if it is dead and we tie live apples to it.

Only a fruit that is coming from a living deep-rooted tree or plant is genuine, is true. And it's the same with the life of the spirit inside of us. The fruit doesn't give life. The fruit are a sign that the tree is alive. A non-believer therefore may act patiently from time to time, but inside they are still dead in their sin.

So Christian growth is rooted in the life of the spirit. And then finally, the fruit of the spirit's growth is simultaneous. The Greek word for fruit here is interestingly singular. It's not the fruits of the spirit is love, joy, peace. The fruit, the one fruit that the holy spirit bears in us is all of these things, love, joy, peace.

And so what it's saying here is that all these different values that are listed by Paul here all make up this one fruit of the spirit. And Paul is saying that these redeemed values of a Christian's growth comes up together as one fruit. You don't get one part of the fruit of the spirit, say peace, growing without all the other parts growing with it as well. Somehow, in some way, they are all interconnected to one another, these aspects. And so what I really want to communicate this morning and what I want to ask you this morning is do you know this to be true for you? Can you identify these things?

The gradual growth, the rootedness in your faith, the surprising power, the inevitability of this growth in us. How do you know that this is true for you? How do you know that you can have the power to move from the darkness of that sin into the beauty of love, the beauty of joy, the beauty of peace? Well, Paul says it here as well. It comes ultimately from belonging to Jesus Christ.

Paul says it in verse 24, those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires, and we live by the spirit. It's because a Christian has decided to belong to Jesus and thereby have given the power of sin, have taken it and have crucified it with Christ on that cross, have died to it, have given up that power and all its desires for it. Crucifying this sinful nature is really about strangling sin at the motivational level rather than setting goals at the behavioural level. In other words, as we read these words, we have to ask ourselves not just what we do wrong. We ask ourselves why we do wrong.

We disobey God in order to get something we feel we must have. Whether that is sexual promiscuity or fantasy, whether that is greed or envy, it's about the over-desires of our hearts. And we have to ask why do we pursue these things? And it is because it's a way in which we satisfy ourselves and act in some functional way as our own God. But ultimately, crucifying the sinful nature, which every Christian does, is to say, Lord, my heart thinks that I must have this or this or this in my life.

Otherwise, I have no value. Otherwise, I have no joy. Otherwise, I have no pleasure. But Lord, it is a fake saviour, I realise. And Lord, I want to remember you.

And I want to remember what I mean to you, that I am complete because of the work that you have done for me on the cross. That is where you healed me. That is where you made me new. That is where you promised me to receive life. By your spirit, Lord, I will reflect on your love until this thing inside me loses its power over my soul.

That is what it means to crucify these desires. Then Paul finishes off in verse 25 and he says, since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit, and this is the way forward and this is how we finish this morning. It's an ongoing process. It's an ongoing process, and it's more than simple obedience. If the role of the spirit is to glorify Christ and to remind us of Him, we keep in step with the spirit by remembering Christ and bringing glory to Him through our lives.

But the thing we need to remember is that this is a process as gradual as it is. It is a process to crucify these sinful natures. And notice Paul says that a Christian already walks by the spirit. As you walk by the spirit, Paul says, not if, but as, now keep in step with him. And the vision here that Paul is painting is like an army marches one step at a time in unison.

The Holy Spirit is setting the pace and we are to walk in His rhythm, the rhythm of His grace as He develops us, as He challenges us, as He brings sermons like this across our path to make us think and recalibrate again and again. We must worship Christ. And we will with the help of the Holy Spirit. And we will adore Him until our hearts find Him more beautiful, more worthy, more desirous than the deepest desires we feel we must have. As we do that, waiting and working towards developing the fruit of the spirit in us, we will put to death that old nature and we will make room for the spirit and His fruit to be developed in us.

And as we find that fruit growing, we will realise we are changing and we are growing more and more into the people we actually long to be. It's a great vision. It is a great goal, but the work of the spirit is living and active in us. Let's pray. Oh God, there is often so much frustration in ourselves, in our shortcomings.

Forgive us for when these frustrations become all-consuming and rob you of your glory and the truth of the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, a complete atoning sacrifice for our sins. You desire, you deserve and are worthy of far more praise than what we give you when we wait around in our guilt and our shame. But Father, we do hate these things in our lives. And Lord, we do desire to have them dead in us. We don't want to be angry.

We don't want to be selfish. We don't want to be obsessed with lust. We don't desire wealth and status. We are sorry for causing and being the object of so much hate. We are truly repentant for factions and divisions that we cause in our own church.

We are sorry that we hurt those who love us. Lord, these things are true and they are real. And we feel their weight and we feel the pain of it. And we know, Lord, that we want to be so far from it. We know that we want to be where you are, to live how you lived.

We know we want the fullness of love and joy and peace and kindness and gentleness and self-control. And so, Lord, we confess our inability to change ourselves. We confess our powerlessness in many ways. But we look with uplifted, upturned eyes to the one who can change us, to the one who has promised to change us. And so, Lord, we pray that you will give life to these roots that we may bear living fruit, fruit of righteousness.

That we will be like trees planted along shores flowing with living water. Oh God, my open house, this church of yours, be known as a church filled with people that are filled with the holy spirit. And may our lives reflect the worship, the glory, the honour that is due to you. You deserve all of it, Lord. Change us.

You have the permission to change us to get us there. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.