Walking by the Spirit, Part 3

Galatians 5:22-25

Continuing in our series tonight in the book of Galatians, I draw your attention to Chapter 5 again.  And to continuing thoughts in our study of walking by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit.  Now we have been looking at verse 16-25, Galatians 5:16-25.  Now as we have seen, and this really amounts to part three in that particular study, but as we have seen in our study, the only way that the Christian life can be lived successfully is walking by the Spirit.  The Christian cannot walk independent of the Holy Spirit.  He cannot generate his own energy, his own resource, but success in the Christian is directly related to the Spirit walk.

There are three reasons, just beginningly tonight.  Why walking by the Spirit is the only way to fulfill God's plan for the Christian.  Three reasons, number one, because of the impossible standard that God requires.  And by that, I mean this, God's standard for the believer is so high, in fact, to simplify it all, Jesus put it this way, "Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect."  The standard is so high, that there is no way humanly speaking that a Christian could ever meet the standard.  So because of the impossible nature of God's standard.  The only way that it could ever be fulfilled is when we walk by the Spirit.  For example, just to show you a few scriptures, John 13, and don't follow in your Bible.  Just write them down if you want them, John 13:34.  "A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you."  Now does that sound slightly impossible? 

In John 15, verse 12, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you."  He repeats it again.  In Ephesians Chapter 4, verse 30, "And grieve not the Spirit of God by whom you are sealed unto the day of redemption, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you will all malice.  Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."  And again the standard is you are to be what Jesus was.  You are to forgive like God forgives.

In Chapter 5 of Ephesians in verse 20 it says "You're to give thanks always for all things."  Again, an impossible standard, just from the standpoint of our humanness.  And as we saw last time and that's just an illustration, and you can go on and on and on with verses, but as we saw last time, the Christian is to walk and we looked through all the features of the walk in the New Testament.  He is to walk in humility, in purity, in contentedness, in faith, in good works, in newness, in separation, in love, in light, in wisdom, in truth, and all of these things are in enjoined upon the Christian.

In fact, in 1 John 2:6, it simply puts it all in perhaps the most obvious and yet impossible terms, "He that saith he abideth in Him are also to walk as He walked."  You're to be like Christ.  You say it's an impossible standard.  Yes, it is.  And that's precisely why the believer to accomplish the Christian life must walk by the Spirit, because it is impossible on his own.  And as we read last time in 2 Corinthians 6:16, God says, "I will dwell in them and walk in them."  That's the key.  It is God who dwells in the believer, who walks in the believer.  There's the power.  There's the energy.  There's the resource.  There's the accomplishment and our task is to walk by the Spirit to align ourselves with the footsteps of the living God in our lives.

Walking by the Spirit then is important because of the impossible standard which God has set.  It is only attainable by God Himself.  And so God Himself lives in you attaining that standard and as you walk in Him, it's fulfilled in you.  Second reason that we should walk in the Spirit is because of the formidable foe that we have.  We could never possibly fight Satan in our own strength could we?  We can't do it.  There is no way that humanly speaking we can handle Satan.  Now it's interesting I think to keep in mind that the battle going on in the universe isn't between Satan and Christians.  It's between Satan and God.  We just get in the middle of it.  In fact, Satan is actively against God and it's when somebody becomes a partaker, as Peter put it, a partaker of the divine nature.  When you get saved, it says you become a partaker of the divine nature that automatically you put yourself in the middle of the battle.  But Satan's battle is against God and it has to be at that level that he is handled.  You see?

You can't handle him, and I can't either.  That's why at the end of the book of Ephesians, very simply Paul says this in Chapter 6, verse 10.  "Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of," what, "His might."  Can't do it on your own.  And the reason is because we wrestle not against flesh and blood.  So you're flesh and blood, you can't handle an enemy that is principality, power, rulers of the darkness, and spiritual wickedness and high places and all of those angelic beings are out of your realm of combat.  So you have to be strong in the Lord.

Now it is true that in James, you say what about James?  Let's see, I think it's 4:7 where it says, "Resist the devil."  Can't we do that?  Yes, but you know what it says before that?  It says, "submit yourselves to God and resist the devil."  You've got to have both there.  You know even Michael the super angel, Michael was super angel, champion angel, warrior angel, the greatest fighting angel.  It says this in Jude verse 9.  "Even Michael, when contending with the devil, dared not bring a railing accusation but said the Lord rebuke you."  Even Michael who was at the very level of Satan as an angel didn't bring a rebuke against Satan personally.  He said the Lord rebuke you.

Now, it is clear to us then that because of the formidable enemy that we face, we cannot fight in our own strength.  In His strength yes, 1 John 4:4, "Greater is He that is in you than he that is," what, "in the world."  It's nice to know that God's strength is as available as right here because he lives in me and dwells in me.

Third reason that we must walk by the Spirit is because of the power of the sinful flesh.  We are all victimized by our own flesh.  And you see, for example, Romans 7, here's a good man.  A good believing man, the apostle Paul, and he's even good enough to love the law of God.  In fact, he makes the statement that I love the law of God.  "I delight in the law of God."  Verse 22 or Romans 7, but in verse 18, "I know that in me, in my flesh dwells no good thing for to will is present with me.  I have all the right desires, but how to perform that which is good I find not."  Why?  Verse 23, "I see another law in my members warring and it brings me into captivity to the law of sin oh wretched man that I am."

You see, he's saying I can't subdue my flesh.  The only way the flesh will ever be subdued becomes simply clear to us as we read the statement of the Galatians Chapter 5, verse 16.  Remember it?  What does it say?  This, "Walk by means of the Spirit and you shall not," what, "fulfill the lusts of the flesh."  The only way you can ever conquer the flesh is to walk by means of the Spirit.  You can't handle the flesh in your own strength.  That's what Paul is saying in Romans Chapter 7.

That's what he's saying Galatians to the Judaisers who are saying you've got to keep the law and grit your teeth and grunt and groan and try to be obedient and try to subdue the flesh.  And he says, you can't do it in your own strength.  So because of God's impossible standard, because of our formidable foe and because of our hopelessly sinful flesh, we must walk by the Spirit.  Now we saw in our last study together that walking by the Spirit being filled with the Spirit, letting the word of Christ dwell in you richly putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, being Christ conscious is all the same thing.

It's having your mind saturated and dominated by the things of the Spirit of God and the person of Jesus Christ.  So this is basic to the Christ life.  There's nothing more basic than this.  Now I gave you four points and I'll run by them quickly and then we'll get to the one we're going to look at tonight.  First of all was the command.  The command was in verse 16.  We just read it.  "This I say then, walk by means of the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh."  Now he means here you're daily style of living, your lifestyle, your daily conduct should be walking by the Spirit.  It means to be led into all things under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

Now the Lord Jesus Christ is again a perfect example of this in Matthew Chapter 12, just to pinpoint one particular passage in which this becomes clear.  Matthew 12:24, "The Pharisees heard it.  They said this fellow doesn't cast out demons, but by Beelzebub the prince of demons."  Jesus casts out demons, so they said He does it by Satan.  Well, after a little discussion there, finally, verse 28 He says, "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come unto you."  And here Jesus infers that His power is the power of the Holy Spirit.  That He is, now watch this, that in Jesus' incarnation when He became man, it says in Philippians He emptied Himself.  Of what did He empty Himself?  He emptied Himself of the prerogatives or the right to exercise the things that were His in terms of deity.  He didn't empty Himself of deity or He wouldn't have been the God man, right?

But He released the prerogatives to use those things and He sublimated Himself to the will of the Father through the power of the Spirit.  And so when they said you do things by Satan, He didn't say you've blasphemed me, He said, what?  You've blasphemed the Holy Spirit, because it was the Spirit of God doing the works through Christ.  Christ yielded His life in His incarnation to the will of the Father expressed through the power of the Spirit.  And I think in measure He did that as a perfect illustration to us of what it is to be controlled by the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit worked through Him.

Anything less than this is anarchy in the household of God.  In your life as a Christian, anything less than walking by the Spirit is personal private anarchy, rebellion.  Jesus Himself said, "Not my will but thine be done,"  Luke 22:42.  In Hebrews Chapter 10, there's a couple of verses that perhaps again will illustrate the submissiveness of Jesus Christ, which stands for us as an example.  "Wherefore," verse 5 says, Hebrews 10, "when he cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me, in burnt offering and sacrifices for sin thou hast no pleasure.  Then said I, lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will oh God."

Now that was what Christ came to do and that's basically what the Spirit filled life is all about.  John 8:29, Jesus said, "I do always those things that please Him."  Paul said as he shared tonight that the verse which seems to captivate his own thinking is the one that says in whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.

Now that's the pattern and it's illustrated to us graphically by Jesus Christ.  The command, allow the Spirit of God to control your life and yield to His control.  We've covered that.  Secondly, to the command was the conflict and in Galatians 5:17 and 18, we saw the conflict.  The command sounds simple enough, but it isn't because of the conflict, right?  As soon as you start to walk by the Spirit, wham, you get belted by the adversary.  That's verse 17, "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit."  You see as soon as you start walking in the Spirit, you're old flesh is going to stick up it's ugly head and start yelling back at the Spirit and you've got a fight.  And the Spirit against the flesh, these are contrary the one to the other so that you can't do the things that you would.

It becomes difficult because there's a battle that you're all of a sudden embroiled in.  Verse 18, "But if you be led by the Spirit, you're not under the law."  No longer under the presence, the power, the penalty of the external law, even though the battle is on, even though you may lose an occasional struggle, you still are not subject to the penalties and the powers of the law.  Judaisers are trying to pull these Christians back under the law.  That's no way to conquer the flesh.  That'll never work.  The conflict is there.  The only solution, walk in the Spirit.

So the command and the conflict, thirdly, and we'll dwell some measure on this point tonight is the contrast.  The contrast, verses 19 to 23.  Now here he shows each lifestyle.  What happens when a person lives in the flesh and what happens when a person walks by the Spirit?  Boy, I mean, they're opposites, aren't they?  Life under law is lived in the flesh, self-effort.  And the results of it?  Read them, verses 19-21. 

"Fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, wrath, factions, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and the like."  That's what happens under self-effort.  When you try to reform the flesh on your own.  You can't do it.  The works of the flesh, they're listed there.  And in case you want another list, there's one in Romans 1, verse 29.  "Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents without understanding covenant breakers without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful."

You say who's that?  Who's that?  That's everybody, verse 28, who didn't like to retain God in their knowledge and God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not normal.  Which are not normal in the sense of seemly or sensible.  The works of the flesh are listed again for us.  2 Corinthians Chapter 12, verse 20.  "I fear, lest, when I come I shall find you such as I would and that I shall be found unto you such as you would not, lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strife, backbiting, whispering, conceit, disorders.  And lest, when I come again my God will humble me among you and that I shall bewail many who have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed."

There's the same list basically.  These are the things that spring out of the flesh.  And you can take that same flesh.  Now watch, you say well, that's a guy who lives his whole life, you know, in a gutter, reading crummy books and thinking dirty thoughts.  I mean, that's not normal nice guy who checks into the office in his grey flannel.  That's a normal nice guy, yes.  Those are the deeds of the flesh, whether it's atheistic or theistic.  Whether it's religious or irreligious, that's what the flesh produces.  I don't care who you are.  You say, but I don't do that.  Well, it doesn't necessarily always result it in deed.  Sometime it never gets passed your brain. 

You know, this is doing what comes naturally.  Watson, Thomas Watson, an old puritan said, and I quote from him, "A counterfeit of sanctification is restraining grace.  When men forebear vice," that is they hold back from vice, "though they do not hate it, this may be the sinners motto.  Fain I would dare I not.  The dog has a mind to lust, but conscience stands as an angel with a flaming sword and affrights.  They have a mind to revenge, but the fear of hell is a curb to check them.  There's no change of heart.  Sin is curbed, it is not cured.  A lion may be in chains, but he is a lion still."

There are some people who mask the vices even in the mask of religion, but they're there.  Four categories of them.  We told you sex, religion, human relations, and relations to objects.  What about people who do those things?  Look at verse 21.  He says "of which I forewarn you," this is a warning, "as I have also told you in time past that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."  Now this is characterization of unsaved people.  But Paul is saying look, this is all the flesh can do.  Why would you want to go back and live in the flesh.  Live under the law, try to keep the law in your own strength.  All you can produce is that kind of stuff and that's characteristic of the unsaved not the saved.

You're saying to these Christians, don't be legalistic, don't put yourselves under law.  You're only going to be cranking out the stuff that the unsaved do.  Now you say, well now, we talked about this last time, and several people asked me questions so I'll stay with the point just briefly.  They said does this say that if a Christian ever does these things he can't go to heaven.  It says as I have told you in time past, "they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

Now if you take that as a simple English statement, bang, paragraph that's it, it sounds like if you ever did those things you're finished.  But if you look carefully at the Greek you see the word do, the word do is as I told you prosso, it means to practice.  It is a present durative action, speaks of habitual practice.  Those who habitually do these things will not inherit the kingdom.  It does not say those who infrequently and out of the ordinary times happen to do those things.  No, those two are habitual in these things.  That's a characterization of the ungodly.  And the term kingdom of God has reference to the completeness of salvation.

The word of God, and I'll say what I said last time, the word of God bases it's estimation of a person's character, not on his infrequent, out of the ordinary action, but on his habitual action.  And if you habitually do those things, if that was in errous, you see the Greek can do things the English can't.  In the Greek there are two possible kinds of action, which is what tense really means.  There is point action, boom, bang and it's over.  There is durative action, linear action.  And the Greek can express precisely what is being said.  If this was in errous and it said in an errous tense as I have told you in time pass they who did errest these things or do errest, that would be it.  Once you did it, boom, you're doomed.  But God doesn't make mistake with grammar.  And it's right in the right tense.  They who habitually practice these things.

Now this is not saying that if a Christian ever does these things he's damned.  No.  I mean, let's face it.  John said this in 1 John, "My little children sin not."  That's good John.  And in the next breath he said, "But if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."  So he knew we were going to do it.  Let me show you some other passages to support this concept.

1 Corinthians 6:9, turn to them with me if you will.  1 Corinthians 6:9, now watch this, "Know ye not that the," what's the next word, "unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God."  Now who gets left out of the kingdom?  The unrighteous.  You know who that is?  Is there anything such thing as an unrighteous Christian?  Not in a positional sense.  The righteousness of Christ has been given to us.  You read it, it's in Romans 3.  We're not unrighteous.  We may do sinful deeds, but the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us.

Here he's talking about unrighteous.  Do you know as a Christian you're as righteous as Christ before God because you stand right covered by Christ's righteousness.  That's what salvation is.  So he's talking about unsaved.  These shall not inherit the kingdom.  "Be not deceived."  Don't kid yourself.  "Neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God."  Now again you say well I know some people who did those.  No, he's talking about unrighteous people.  People who do not have the righteousness of Christ granted to them.

Verse 11, "And such," what's the next verb, "were some of you, but you are washed.  You are sanctified.  You are justified."  Want to hear something interesting?  Some of those washed sanctified, justified Christians who used to be like that were still doing some of those things.  Have you read 1 Corinthians lately?  They were doing most of those things.  But he still says such were some of you.  And his point is cut it out.  It doesn't belong in your new life, you see?  It has no place.  Yeah, you can go back to 1 Corinthians 5 and you can find fornication and adultery and the whole thing right there and he's...that's still some of the such were some of you folks.

His appeal is, you're different.  That's not your lifestyle anymore.  Don't do those things.  They're foreign and they're out of the ordinary.  They have no place.  Let me show you another one.  Ephesians 5:5, "For this you know," Ephesians 5:5.  "For this you know that no fornicator nor unclean person," that's pretty general and yet it's fairly specific, "nor covetous man who's an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."  Hmmm, you say is that talking about some Christians who do those things?  You can't get into the kingdom?  You lose your salvation, verse 6, let's find out.

"Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God on the sons of disobedience."  Is he talking about sons of God or sons of disobedience?  Sons of disobedience.  If you're a Christian are you a son of disobedience?  You're a son of whom?  Of God.  Sure, "walk in love," verse 2, verse 1, "as dear," what, "children."  You're sons of God, not sons of disobedience.  Not children of wrath like Ephesians 2.  No, no, he's talking about unbelievers here, whose life is characterized by these things.

Now, I'm not trying to say well you Christians can go out and do these things once in a while and you're okay.  That's a different issue.  I'm just trying to support the fact that the passage is talking about unbelievers, not Christians who happen to do these sins.  Let me show you another one.  Colossians 3, and I want you to understand this and since some of you did ask questions we want to cover it.  Colossians 3, verse 5, "Mortify." or kill, "your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil desire, covetousne