Continuing our series there, and we are beginning in verse 16 today. Now if you've been with us for this series and you maybe missed the last week or two prior to that, I would really encourage you to go back and listen to those messages. There's some really helpful transitional material there as Paul works his way from establishing the Gospel as it pertains to justification and then turning his attention to the implications of the Gospel that those who are justified by faith Those who by grace have been reborn and regenerated through the work of the Holy Spirit will now begin to grow in holiness. And so that's where he's taking us as we close out the book. And so last week we saw how Paul talked about where the Mosaic law was done away with, there is now the law of Christ that exists for believers. And the call in the law of Christ is to love. To love and to serve one another and to recognize that those large moral norms that cover all of society find their fulfillment in the law of Christ and loving one another. And now he begins and continues that thought as he considers specifically what does that look like in more detail.
So look with me in Galatians 5:16. "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. The list goes on. 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 walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.
Would you bow your heads with me? Lord, we want to reflect Jesus. I want to reflect Jesus. I want to be transformed into the image of my Savior. And I want the people of Providence to look like Jesus. We as a people want to reflect you. We want to, we want to be made into the image and likeness of the one who is preeminent above all creation, above all things, the firstborn of all creation. And Lord, the promise that you've established for us in your word in the book of Galatians is that the gospel is your free gift granted by grace. The gospel is what gives us the hope of eternal life, gives us the hope of salvation, promises us the forgiveness of sins. But it's that same gospel, Lord, that we see now this morning that also empowers our growth in holiness, our sanctification, ensures our sanctification. And so, Lord, I ask that you would help us to turn our minds there, not losing sight of the nature of grace, of the nature of justification in Your Gospel, but now seeing clearly and cherishing clearly the implications of Your Gospel and the implications of grace. So would You help us, Lord? Help us to do that this morning for Your glory and our joy. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Well, as I said, we're continuing in Galatians, and as we see, we're continuing that turn by Paul. And here's the turn: that those who have been justified by faith, those who know and understand the way that the Gospel justifies, not by works of the law, not by seeking to be holy, that's not how you find favor with God. It's through faith. That those people justified in that manner will also inevitably be sanctified by that same Gospel. Does that make sense? Those who were justified by the Gospel through faith, through the power of grace, will also be sanctified by the Gospel and by the power of grace. Now there's details to tease out with that that we're going to look at this morning, but that's kind of the face of what we're looking at. The Gospel— remember in Galatians 1-4? The Gospel declares that in Christ believers are holy, which is just a way of saying the Gospel says that in Christ, all those who have trusted in Christ have received Christ's righteousness. Right? They're declared holy. And now Paul makes the connection that every single person who's been declared holy in Christ because of their union with Christ will also be made holy. It's not just going to be that you're declared righteous. God, through grace, will be at work to make you righteous. Through the same grace, through the same faith, but now also calling upon us. To fight. That's what we see this morning.
Sanctification is that process of Christians growing into Christlikeness. Literally, in Galatians 5 language, walking by the Spirit of Christ. That's what sanctification looks like. It's rooted in the gospel and it grows from the gospel. There's a positional standing before God. There's a sense where if you read and you actually did a word search in the New Testament for the word sanctified or sanctification, those sorts of words, what you would come up with is declarations, you know, believers called saints. Talking about the fact that people have already been sanctified. And what this is referring to is that positional sense that in Christ, God sees His people as holy. So there's a positional sanctification that you already are holy in God's eyes because you are in Jesus. Union with Christ entails. That's only one side of the coin of sanctification. That's the side tied in with justification. The other side is that because of justification, God will begin to not just see you as holy, but create holiness in you. That's what we're going to look at this morning: the progressive nature of sanctification. So, although we're quite literally holy in Christ, We also know that we battle with sin, right? The flesh still exists. The flesh is still there. We've looked at that last week. Well, now we want to look at how do we win that battle? How do we find victory? How do we see growth in those areas?
So here's our quest this morning. Here's the question that we want to answer. How does the justifying grace of the gospel empower holiness? How does the nature of grace that works to justify someone, to bring them to faith, also work to empower holiness? We can be careful, we need to be careful to separate justification from sanctification. Justification was a one-time thing, but it's a one-time thing that has implications that carry over into the rest of Christian living. So how does the grace that creates faith, how does that same grace express faith that walks in the Spirit of holiness? Does that make sense? So with that in mind, Galatians 5:16-25 lays out for us, I think, 3 keys to answer that question.
6 · Introduces the first key to gospel-empowered holiness: crucifying the flesh
How does the Gospel empower holiness? Well, first, it shows us that we crucify the flesh. Remember, Paul describes us, describes the average Christian as a saint who sins. He refers to us as saints in letters, but he also recognizes there's still sin going on. Let's just recognize the wonderful truth that in Christ, all believers have been freed from the dominion and tyranny of sin. The slavery and bondage of sin is gone. Slavery no longer rules over a believer. I think Romans 7 is a description of a believer, but that sense of battle in Romans 7 doesn't mean that we should have this sense that a believer still lives completely enslaved to sin. There's a fight, but the enslavement is over. But there is still a fight. That sin still exists. So there's this paradox, this paradox of saints who sin.
7 · Expounds Galatians 5:17 on the internal war between flesh and Spirit, making the text immediately applicable to the congregation's lived experience that very morning
Well, in verse 17, read again what it says. "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 that you want to do. Now, does that struggle sound familiar to anyone this morning? If you're honest with yourself, you might have felt it already this morning. Maybe the kids weren't getting ready for church fast enough. Maybe it was your spouse. Maybe it was something you're battling with yourself internally and you see that and you snap, right? That battle, your flesh at war with your spirit.
8 · Deepens the exposition by identifying the two combatants in the internal war: the indwelling Holy Spirit and the sinful flesh inherited from Adam
Well, that war rages on in all of us, and it's a war that keeps us from loving and keeps us from serving. It tempts us to envy, it tempts us towards anger, it tempts us towards impurity. Why is the battle so difficult? Why does it seem so constant? Well, in part, the battle is difficult because it's internal. It's not something you're battling out there, it's something that is inside of you. That flesh that Paul talks about, that's not somebody else's flesh, as much as we'd like to maybe assume it's someone else's flesh or point to someone else's flesh. That flesh is our own flesh. And so the difficulty is myself that I'm struggling against. There's a civil war raging on in our own members. Let's consider helpfully, I think, for a moment who those two foes are. On the one hand, you have the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who is ours through union with Christ. That is the Holy Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Christ that indwells us. The Spirit of God inhabits us and is a part of us as temples of God. So all believers have the Spirit. On the other side, though, is the flesh. And if you remember, we talked about the flesh in the last couple weeks. It's that part of us that's our sinful, corrupted nature. It's the part that's inherited from Adam. It's the old man that's seeking to lead us back into corruption.
9 · Uses Puritan imagery to dramatize the treachery of the flesh and expounds the stakes of the battle: those who habitually give themselves to the flesh will not inherit eternal life
Listen to how one Puritan framed the evil of our flesh: "The flesh is the womb where all sin is conceived and formed, and the anvil upon which all is wrought; the false Judas that betrays us; the secret enemy within that is ready on all occasions." to open the gates to the besiegers. Why is the battle so difficult? Because the enemy is already inside the gates and he is longing to further corruption. That's why it's so difficult, that's why it seems so hard at times. It's a war between our regenerate nature in the spirit and our sinful nature in the flesh. It used to be before we were Christians that the sinful nature in the flesh had free rein. It was the ruler of all of us. Now in Christ, the regenerate nature of the Spirit has free rein and should be the ruler of all of us, but the flesh still exists in corners and pockets of resistance. So there's a battle being fought in our very hearts and minds and souls and wills every second of every day. The experience of everyday life makes this battle seem almost hopeless at times. Just listen to how Paul phrases the temptation. He calls it the desires of the flesh twice. The desires of the flesh. The flesh with its passions and desires in verse 24. Well, that word desires literally means lusts. The flesh is lusting after sin. That corrupt part of our nature desires rebellion, desires to lead us into temptation, to lead us into disobedience. It wants to turn our minds towards impure thoughts, and without Christ, we will go towards those rebellious places. It's a battle for life and death. Paul puts it in verse 21, referencing the works of the flesh: I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those who live in the flesh, those who consistently, frequently, habitually give themselves over to the desires of the flesh, will not know eternal life. It's a sobering thing.
10 · Asserts the only path to victory: no negotiation with the flesh, only crucifixion
It kind of leads you to a sobering question. I don't want that to be me. I don't want that to happen to me. So how do I win that battle? How do I win that war? Well, you don't win it by just trying to seek a peace treaty with your flesh. You can have these little areas over here and the Spirit can have these over here and I'll give the Spirit more and I'll just give the— The flesh laughs. That's a dangerous thing to do. You win this by crucifying the flesh. By putting it to death.
11 · Grounds the call to crucify the flesh in Galatians 5:24 and amplifies it with extensive quotation from John Owen on the necessity of daily, relentless mortification of sin
Verse 24 says, "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its lusts after sin and rebellion. You've probably read and heard this before, but it's worth remembering. Repeating. I love how John Owen puts this. The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life. So the vigor and power, the level of your joy in Christ, the level to which you enjoy and anticipate the kingdom of heaven that is to come, you could say, all of that depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh. Do you mortify? Owen asks, "Do you make it your daily work?" Be always at it while you live. Cease not a day from this work. Be killing sin, Owen writes, or it will be killing you. Sin does not only still abide in us, but is still acting, still laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh. When sin lets us alone, we may let sin alone. But as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be most vigorous at all times and in all conditions. Even when there is least suspicion, sin is always acting, always conceiving, always seducing and tempting. There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on, and it will be so whilst we live in this world.
12 · Draws out the implications of the perfect tense in verse 24 ('have crucified') to establish that progressive sanctification is grounded in positional sanctification already accomplished in Christ
That puts it pretty starkly and pretty bluntly. You don't go into the battle with sin quietly. You don't go into it assuming it's just gonna take one big rush If I fight really hard for a week, then I can take a month off. That's not the nature of our flesh, right? And we experience that. That's the stakes. We crucify the flesh. We engage in preemptive strikes against sin before it can strike at us. Holiness won't save you. You don't get saved by being holy. That's what Paul's established in the first part of Galatians. Works of righteousness don't save you because the nature of your flesh is that even your supposed works of righteousness aren't holy enough to save you. However, if you are saved by the grace of the gospel, you will fight tooth and nail to grow holy. You'll kill for it. That's the nature of the battle. There's a serial killer inside all our bodies that we're called to mortify, to take the fight to. Fighting sin isn't a choice. To kill sin and crucify sin, we must get to the point of saying that for the sake of fellowship with Christ, for the sake of knowing communion with God, for the sake of enjoying and being satisfied in deeply on all who Christ is and all that Christ has given me through union with Him and in the Spirit, the habitual Dung heap of my sin that I carry along with me every day has got to go. And by go, I mean I've got to kill it. So for the sake of fellowship with Christ, all of this junk that I drag around with me has to be gone. That's what the nature of the battle looks like. Did you catch the tense of the verb in verse 24? How does Paul talk about this nature? Having already been crucified. You have already crucified the flesh, he says. It's something that's already happened. The hope for our future holiness is found in the established reality of what the Gospel has already done. Remember, sanctification can mean you're sanctified. You've been declared holy in Christ. And sanctification can mean you need to become more holy and look like Christ. And what Paul is saying here is, This whole pursuit of becoming more holy and looking more like Jesus, being conformed to the image of Christ, our hope for that happening is because we've already been declared holy like Christ. God won't declare someone holy like Christ apart from His grace and apart from faith. And He assures if He declares you holy in Christ, if He imparts grace and faith comes to life, then He will guarantee that that person who He views with the holiness of Christ He will also, through His grace, conform to the image of Christ. God doesn't want us to remain saints who sin. That's where hope comes from. I love how J.I. Packer puts it: "The sin that indwells the believer was killed in principle on the cross. Christ's death will in time be its death." That's hope.
13 · Brings in Romans 6:6, 11-12 as a cross-reference to show that right belief (considering yourself dead to sin) must precede right action (fighting sin)
Paul puts it in Romans. Romans 6:11-12. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, in order that we could mortify sin, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies to make you obey its passions. Now there is a huge thing happening in verse 11 and 12. In verse 6, Paul says the old self has been crucified. It's been mortified in the death of Christ, and the purpose of that was that the enslavement of sin, sin's tyranny and dominion and right to rule you is gone. And in verse 12, Paul says, so don't let sin reign in your body. Don't let sin make you obey its passions and its lusts. Kill sin. Fight sin. Battle for holiness. But first, before you can kill, before you can battle, before you can fight, he says this in verse 11: You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. You must get your head wrapped around the fact that in your union with Christ, Christ, sin's enslavement is already gone. In your union with Christ, all the power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work and available to you to eradicate sin. And if you don't believe that first, you'll be going into this battle with a gun and no bullets. You've got to believe rightly And when you believe rightly, you then still got to fight. That's what Paul is calling us to.
14 · Direct pastoral charge to the congregation to crucify the flesh because they have already crucified it in Christ
So, saints of providence, your old self was crucified with Christ. Your flesh has been brought to nothing. You are no longer enslaved to sin because of Jesus. So because of Jesus, crucify the flesh because you've already crucified the flesh in Jesus. Mortify sin, root it out, destroy it, because that dominion has already been shattered.
15 · Analogy of a mortally wounded but still dangerous dragon to illustrate that sin, though defeated in principle, remains dangerous and requires active mortification
You can think of it maybe, I don't know, it seems like you always make illustrations of sin that have to do with snakes and dragons, right? There's a garden-ish thing that has to do with that, but if you thought of sin as a dragon, the dragon's dead. It's got a mortal wound, but that baby can still still breathe fire. So knowing a dragon has a mortal wound, you don't stand within range of the flames and get passive, do you? No, you get out of the dragon's way. You continue the work of hastening the death of that dragon, and that's what mortification is about.
16 · Pivots from the analogy to concrete application by asking listeners to identify their own besetting sins
Let's get a little more practical. None of us probably have fire-breathing dragons waiting for us at home. Literally. Got some movies with them that my son would watch, but no literal ones. What are our besetting sins? What are those strongholds, those little corners of our lives that the flesh refuses to give up? What are the places where the flesh is most successful in leading us into sin?
17 · Reads the vice list from Galatians 5:19-21 and emphasizes the eschatological stakes: habitual practice of these works excludes from the kingdom of God
Listen to verses 19-21 where Paul lays out the string of temptations of the flesh. "Now the works of the flesh are evident." So this is the list of things, these works of the flesh, that if you do them habitually, you won't enter into paradise. You won't enter into heaven. You won't have the Kingdom of God. You won't know face-to-face fellowship with Jesus for all eternity. "Sexual immorality and impurity and sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, things like these. We can get creative. And things like these.
18 · Categorizes the vice list into three types: sexual immorality, false worship, and social sins
Now if you look at that list, it really breaks down into 3 categories. The flesh works out in 3 categories, and what Paul is pointing to here. The first is a category of just sexual immorality. The way that the lusts of the flesh literally lead us into lusts of the flesh. There's also a category of false worship, an inclination to worship and make idols out of things created and not the Creator. You see that in idolatry and sorcery and those sorts of things. And then there's a whole category of social sins, of sins committed against others, against unity, against wholeness and peace and love that's supposed to mark the body of Christ.
19 · Steps out of the exposition to shepherd the congregation away from focusing on sensational sins and toward the 'ordinary' sins that hit closer to home
And I think what's helpful about teasing out the 3 categories is it gives you a helpful sense of knowing where am I most tempted. And we've all got those places within those categories. And I think the temptation when we first read a list like that is our eyes immediately just sort of drift toward the sensational sins, right? Our eyes tend to drift towards the really scandalous ones and say, "Yeah, lusts of the flesh. Yeah, idolatry, sexual immorality. Those are bad. Drunkenness." Jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions. Are you a divisive person? That list hits a whole lot more closely to home when we wipe away the veneer of the sensational that allows us to keep it at arm's length and that allows us to apply the list to our neighbor rather than to ourselves.
20 · Clarifies the relationship between habitual sin and salvation: not that holiness earns salvation, but that genuine possession of the Spirit necessarily produces grief over sin and leads to repentance
If these are a regular pattern in someone's life, you don't inherit eternal life, Paul Paul says. Not because we earn salvation, but because to be in Christ is to have the Spirit, and to walk in these things habitually is to be grieved by the Spirit and led to sorrow and repentance.
21 · Multi-layered application: (1) spend time with the vice list to identify your besetting sin; (2) pray for its death; (3) pray scripture that exposes the evil of that sin; (4) pray scripture that shows the grace in Christ and the opposite fruit of the Spirit; (5) pray in community
You need to spend time with that list. It's significant. You need to think through that list and think, where do I need to fight? Where do I need to battle? Where do I need to mortify? And then you need to take action. And you need to get lethal. And the first thing you can do is to pray. J.I. Packer, sort of an expert on the Puritans and Owen, writes this in terms of mortification: "The activity by which the Christian directly secures the mortification of his sin is prayer." Put your sin in the category that hits closest to home that Paul lays out there in the crosshairs and then begin praying today and tomorrow and going on for its death. Pray scriptures that remind you of the evil nature of that sin. If there's a sin that's listed in there, there's other scriptures listed other places in the Bible that will show you why that sin is evil, because your sin that besets you wants to convince you it's really not that bad. No, no, those sins in that category, those are bad. A little jealousy? That's not that bad, is it? Your sin wants you to think that way. One person in the universe gets to be jealous: God. He gets to be jealous for himself, jealous for his own name, for his own glory. The rest of us, we're created, and so when we get jealous, it means I'm pretending that I should be like God. I'm pretending I should be God. It's right for me to be jealous because I should be worshiped like God. So is jealousy evil? Yeah, jealousy's evil. Is jealousy sin? Yeah. And is that sin against God? You better believe the sin of jealousy is against God. Find those scriptures that help you to see the evil nature of a besetting sin and then pray over those scriptures. Pray them into your heart. Pray conviction into your soul and then go to scriptures that remind you of the grace of that are afforded to you in Christ, scriptures that talk about the inverse of those sins, that talk about the fruits of the Spirit, and pray hard that God would grant you repentance, that God would grant you transformation, that instead of jealousy, you would see the flip side, that instead of pride, you would see the flip side, that instead of lust, you'd see the flip side, and pray and find those areas and pray hard and get others around you to pray with you and pray in community. Pray for conviction, pray for repentance. And then repent in prayer. Pray with your spouse. Pray with your parents if you're a young person. Pray with your children if you have them. Find members of your care group and friends, believers you trust that you can pray with. Whatever your besetting sin is, crucify the flesh by being proactive in prayer. Take up the offensive through prayer. Through God's Word, through confession, through accountability, and pray that you would make progress.
22 · Major structural transition from the first main point (crucify the flesh) to the second main point (cultivate fruit)
So if you want to grow in holiness, be killing sin or it will be killing you. Crucify the flesh. But also cultivate fruit. Sanctification requires more than just crucifying. It also requires cultivation. That's only one portion of what Paul's referring to here. The second way saints grow in holiness, the second way that the nature of the gospel's grace empowers people from being declared to be holy to being declared righteous like Christ and actually made righteous like Christ is that in addition to crucifying the flesh, they also cultivate fruit.
23 · Expounds Galatians 5:16-18 to establish that the Spirit has desires that must be nurtured
Galatians 5:16-18, "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. You don't just crucify. It's not just enough to come against the flesh. You've got to cultivate the nature of the Spirit within you. And the Spirit has desires. And so if we truly desire to grow in holiness, we have to nurture those desires. We have to cultivate— an agrarian image there— the fruit of the Spirit.
24 · Expounds the fruit of the Spirit list and shows that Paul's 'but' places the two lists in necessary juxtaposition
Verses 22 to 23: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It's not an exhaustive list. There's other places in the New Testament that would add things to that. It all falls under the banner and the auspices of the law of Christ to love, to love your neighbor as yourself, to serve your neighbor. But Paul's doing more than just listing righteous activities that Christians should seek to put on. Notice how he starts verse 22. He uses the conjunction "but." He's placing two lists, the lusts of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit, in juxtaposition. He's placing them against each other. He's showing you with the two lists the ways that these two possible ways of living These two possible ways of orienting your desires are against each other. And he's saying there's no neutral ground in the battle for holiness. It's not enough just to concentrate on crucifying the flesh. Maybe you've got a really serious killer instinct. And so you say, "I'm just a mortifier. That's how I'm going to grow in holiness. I just love to go around crucifying and mortifying. The cultivating, you know, that seems a little more, you know, passive, you know, it seems a little more effeminate to me. I want to kill! And the other person says, you know, I'm a lover, not a hater. I love my garden. Scott wants to cultivate fruit of the Spirit. He just loves to see things blossom and grow in season. Paul doesn't give us that option. These two are intimately tied to each other. To effectively root out sin, to mortify it, You've got to nurture and cultivate the fruit of the Spirit. To best grow in godliness, you've also got to be wary of the sin that is tempting you, that's tempting to gain a foothold. Paul's not giving you the option, choose one or the other, whatever's most akin to your personality, whatever's most like sort of who you are. No, he's saying if you want to walk by the Spirit, if you want to grow in holiness, you must be active in both truth in both crucifying and cultivating.
25 · Hypothetical scenario of a marital argument to illustrate that repentance (crucifying) must be followed by cultivating the opposite virtue (love, patience, grace) or the same sin will recur
If you root out an evil affection, but you take no effort to replace that with a godly one, another evil affection will simply take its place. Our hearts were made, we were hardwired for desires. We were hardwired to have passions. We have affections, things within our souls that want to rejoice in things, that want to celebrate things, that want to take pleasure in things. Whether or not those desires and affections are Spirit-filled or sinful is directly linked to how intentional we are to both crucify and cultivate. Use the illustration having an argument with your wife, maybe. You have the argument. Maybe if it's a "good argument," or if you're doing well in the argument, mid-argument you realize, "I'm acting foolishly. I'm acting sinfully. I'm acting pridefully. I'm acting in anger," whatever it would be. And mid-argument you begin praying, "Lord, help me to stop. Help me to fight." Maybe you pause mid-argument and you actually pray with your wife. Maybe it's not as good an argument. Argument, a more typical argument. And it's post-argument, and conviction begins to settle in. I need to repent. I need to reconcile. It's not enough just to go and say, "Honey, I was prideful, and I was angry, and would you forgive me?" It's helpful to smooth over and reconcile what's happened, You now need to go and cultivate love and patience and grace so that the next time you're in a similar situation, the same response doesn't spill over. It's the cultivating of love and grace and patience that allows you to grow in holiness so that in the next time when that situation, whatever it is, happens, you're not going to respond in the same way. The crucifying and the cultivating go hand in hand.
26 · Establishes the anthropological principle that human beings are driven by desires and affections, and whichever set of desires is stronger will determine the direction of life
Paul understands the intricacies of the human nature, namely that man is driven by desires and passions. Whether unbeliever or believer, the desires and affections of the heart will impel the direction of your life. Whoever you are, whether you're in Christ or not in Christ, the desires, passions, the things that you love, the things that you have affection for, things that your heart is set on, those things will serve as a compass for the direction of your life. And if the lusts for sin are stronger, then we veer towards the pleasures of the flesh. But if the desires of the Spirit are stronger, we will put the lusts of the flesh to death. That begs the question: what makes our affections for love and joy and peace and patience, that string of fruits of the Spirit, stronger than our lusts for sexual immorality and impurity and sensuality and envy and drunkenness and that list? How do you strengthen the right desires, cultivate them, and weaken and mortify the others?
27 · Answers the prior question: holiness itself has intrinsic life and goodness, but the deepest motivation is not mere moralism but Christ—the Spirit's greatest desire is that we see Christ, know Christ, treasure Christ, and be transformed into His image for His glory
Well, there is something to be said for just the nature of holiness itself. People can make the mistake of seeming to say that holiness and that list of fruits of the Spirit in and of itself isn't enough to motivate and cultivate those affections. And that's not true, and that's not biblical. There is more life to be had in the list of fruits of the Spirit than there is life to be had in gratifying the desires and lusts of the flesh. These aren't morally neutral things that God just divides into separate categories and just sort of capriciously says, "Do these, don't do these." He's loving and gracious and kind and generous, and He says, "Don't do these because there's death and there's not life there." Do these because they are good and they reflect my perfect holy character. There's life to be had in holiness. There's life to be had in moral living. To a degree. To a degree. But there's also something more. There's something deeper. As C.S. Lewis would put it, there's something further up. And further in. What is the deepest, most flesh-crucifying desire of the Spirit? It's that we might inherit the kingdom and with it, the King. It's that our progression in holiness would transform us from one degree of glory to another into the very image of God, into the glory of Jesus Christ. That we might see Him and know Him and treasure Him more fully. Passion for moral behavior can't fully kill your lust for sin. It does to a degree. The Scriptures talk about that. But that's not the Spirit's greatest desire. The Spirit's desire is for love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness to hold sway in our hearts, because those things reflect our longing to see Christ, our unquenchable desire to be like Christ, and our insatiable passion to see Christ glorified through His people becoming what they are, through saints being transformed into the image of their Savior. That's what the Spirit wants to do. The Spirit longs to glorify Christ, and He can glorify Christ here at Providence by transforming this people in this room to look like Christ.
28 · Major structural transition introducing the third and final main point: walking by the Spirit
So how do saints grow in holiness? They crucify the flesh, they cultivate fruit, all the while walking by the Spirit. The third piece of our text, the third fundamental way we grow in holiness, the third implication of the gospel, the third implication of being justified and knowing the full favor of God the Father through grace by faith in Jesus Christ, the implication of that being we will grow to look like Christ, and we will grow to look like Christ by crucifying, by cultivating, and walking by the Spirit.
29 · The longest single unit of exposition in the sermon
You know how Paul ends— begins and ends this entire discussion, verses 16 and 25. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. If we live by the Spirit, if the fruit of the Spirit is with us, let us also walk by the Spirit. Foundational to our very ability to crucify the flesh and to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit is recognizing you walk by the Spirit. Now, those two lists, the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, if they're not combined with this simple phrase, it really leaves you in a hopeless situation. You got a lot of killing to do. You got a lot of cultivating to do. And how do you have the power to do it? You don't get to go out to a garden that's filled with black earth. You got to go out to clay and make something grow. You got a plastic sword. You got to go up against the dragon. That's hopeless. There's a little bit of a sense here listening to those first two points of just thinking, "Yes! How?" And that's where walking by the Spirit is helpful. Who can kill all that sin left to themselves? Who can pursue all that righteousness in their own strength? In the face of such a calling, Christians often fall into one of two errors. The first says, "God commanded it!" So I had better just pull myself up by my bootstraps and live morally. If God commanded it, then I have to do it, and I've just got to try really hard. And legalism becomes a real temptation to cloud the gospel in that response. You either become a judgmental person or a perpetually guilt-stricken person because you're always falling short. Because none of us possesses sufficient strength in ourselves to eradicate and cultivate all of those things. The second error says this: "There's no way I can ever do this. I can't pull myself up by my bootstraps." Then goes and proceeds to wash his hands of the situation. "I can't do it. I don't have the possibility, so just let go and let God." If He's commanded it, He'll make it happen. I believe in Jesus, so I just trust that at various points throughout my week, I'm going to get zapped with holiness. There are going to be special spots on I-35 that I'll get zapped if I drive on. This person absolves themself of responsibility for sanctification. And consequently puts forward little effort and makes little real progress in growth. Growing to look like Christ. Here a person loses sight of the gospel and grows lazy and licentious. The gospel becomes cheap grace. Knowing these two temptations, Paul cuts a road for us right down the middle. To see this, let's unpack the phrase itself: "walk by the Spirit." There's two things implicitly involved. First, You have to walk. Very plainly, Paul is saying to us, if you want to grow in holiness, you're going to have to walk. You're going to have to do something. You're going to have to work. There's no shortcuts to becoming like Jesus. You are going to enter into a battle, a civil war that grips your very heart. So you'd better be ready to expend yourself a little bit. We live in a really cool time right now. I don't know if you're very aware of what's going on. In the broader scope of certain corners of Christianity right now, but there is really a sense of gospel resurgence going on. There's ministries and coalitions like the Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel, and people recognizing and treasuring together the nature of the gospel and saying these things need to be preserved and they need to be protected, and if our generation doesn't protect them, the next generation will forget them. And by God's grace, through the course of the history of the church, He has raised up generations and movements of the Spirit like this consistently throughout church history. But a caution: don't fall off the horse that then thinks in being all pro-gospel, you have no sense of the hard work of holiness. Having a sense of the hard work of holiness can be an extremely pro-Gospel stance. The Bible is really about the hard work of holiness with the foundation priorly laid of the nature of the Gospel. You don't lay that foundation and you've got moralism and legalism and a whole lot of guilt and a whole lot of headaches. But let's not make the mistake of thinking all we have to do is lay the foundation and make no effort towards holiness. So walk, expend ourselves. But lest we feel overwhelmed, Paul quickly adds how that walking is carried out: by the Spirit. Paul knows, just as anyone in this room, how impossible this battle would be if it was carried out only in human strength. And so This is what is helpful to consider what Jerry Bridges calls dependent effort. Paul lived and walked and fought every day not in his own power, but by faith in the shed blood of Christ whereby he had crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
30 · Distinguishes regeneration (monergistic, God's work alone) from sanctification (synergistic, cooperative)
And by saying, "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit," Paul helps us to see the connection and the difference between regeneration and sanctification. Does that make sense? If you live by the Spirit, in other words, if the Spirit has caused you to be born again, if you know the life of conversion that the Spirit gives, if you have new life, let us also walk. Regeneration is a momentary, monergistic act of quickening the spiritually dead. As such, it is God's work alone. Sanctification, or walking by the Spirit, is in one sense synergistic. It's an ongoing cooperative process in which regenerate persons alive to God and freed from sin's dominion are required to exert themselves in sustained obedience. God's method of sanctification is neither activism—pull yourself up by your bootstraps, self-reliant activity—nor apathy—God-reliant passivity—but God-dependent effort.
31 · Expounds the contrast between being under the law (enslavement) and being led by the Spirit (sweet yielding)
We still have desires of the flesh waging war in our members. The flesh still exerts its influence. No longer the influence of slavery, but influence nonetheless. But if we walk and are led by the Spirit, we're not under the law. To be under the law is to be under sin, to be under a curse. But if you're under the Spirit, then you walk by the Spirit. You yield to the Spirit. Rather than the enslavement and domination and bondage of the law, you know the sweet yielding and submission to the Spirit. You march in step with the Spirit, and in so doing, there's hope to overcome the flesh. This isn't saying you're going to be perfect. It's not saying you're going to attain perfection in 2 weeks if you follow this course of thought. But we should experience consistent victory. We're not stumbling through life as Christians in a constant state of defeat. I think sometimes we think that's the way a normal Christian life really is. It's just a whole lot of setbacks and occasional steps forward. Walking by the Spirit is a whole lot of steps forward with the occasional setback. If we're as righteous as we think we are, God wouldn't have had to bless us with sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit.
32 · Demystifies 'walking by the Spirit' by defining it in concrete, practical terms: moment-by-moment dependence on God, crying out for help, praying for strength, calling others for accountability
Walking in the Spirit is not a mystical thing. I don't want to throw this term out there and just like, "Ooh, what did you do today?" "I walked by the Spirit." "What'd that look like?" "Well, I was by the pool and I kind of let my feet dangle in the water and felt very spiritual." That's not what I'm saying. It's not this mystical, ethereal thing that's floating up in the atmosphere. It's a one-step-at-a-time trusting in the Spirit and crying out and praying for God's help. Help me crucify. Help me cultivate within the application and ebb and flow of everyday life. The need for help becomes pretty quickly apparent as soon as you wake up in the morning, right? Walking by the Spirit is just, "Okay, Lord, there's the first opportunity. Help. Help. Give me Your Word. Help me think of passages. Help me think of tools to battle. Help, Lord. Oh yeah, I should call that person. Hey, Joe, I'm struggling. Can you pray for me? Can you give me some wisdom and some help?"
33 · Synthesizes the entire sermon: good works are the effect, not the cause, of justification
Good works, the fruit of holiness, are the effect of justification, not the cause. You don't get to be with Jesus because you did a bunch of holy things and God looked at you favorably. But they are the effect of knowing Jesus by faith. And it helps us. It's the means to the end of becoming like Jesus. Good works, activities of holiness, are done in faith. They're done by the Spirit's power with our dependent effort, and they're done for the glory of God and for our joy. And seeing how that joy is tied in with holiness is massive. The kingdom of heaven is at stake. Holy rollers, to use a pejorative term, those pursuing hard after holiness should also be the most happy. If you're pursuing hard after holiness and you're not happy, you might have forgotten the gospel along the way in your pursuit of holiness. I've used this quote before, but it's worth reading again. By Horatius Bonar, he said, thinking in terms of what motivates walking by the Spirit, what motivates the pursuit of holiness, The love of God to us and our love to Him work together for producing holiness. The gospel is what he's saying. Terror accomplishes no real obedience. Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness. No gloomy uncertainty as to God's favor can subdue one lust or correct our crookedness of will. But the free pardon of the cross uproots sin. And withers all its branches. Only the certainty of love, forgiving love, can do this. Free and warm reception into the divine favor is the strongest of all motives in leading a man to seek conformity to him who has thus freely forgiven him all his trespasses. And just as it motivates that, if you know that, you will long for your own joy and the glory of Christ to pursue holiness.
34 · Closing prayer asking God to arm the congregation to crucify and cultivate through the power of the Spirit and the help of the body of Christ
Would you pray with me? Lord, I pray that you would use your word through the power of your Spirit to arm us today. That we would leave here ready to crucify, that we would leave here equipped to cultivate. And Lord, help us to see the gift and the benefit of the body of Christ in that task. Lord, you have granted us the power of the Spirit, that we don't have to do it in our own strength, but you've also granted us the body of Christ specifically for the purpose of helping us to grow together. And so, Lord, would you help us to crucify and to cultivate and to walk by the Spirit in God-dependent effort that we might know more of Jesus, that our joy might be more complete, that our satisfaction more full. Would you help us to do it together? Help us in cultivating the fruit of the Spirit to see those around us who need more assistance, who need more encouragement, who need more grace. And would You help us as we grow in walking by the Spirit to more quickly confess when we need help, to humble ourselves and ask a gracious brother and sister, "Would you pray with me? Would you point me? Would you lead me to the Spirit who can empower me?" Lord, would you do all those things for our joy and the glory of Jesus? Amen.