Christian Virtues - Overview

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.

Notice that the list of the works of the flesh, it's a much longer list than the fruit of the Spirit.

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, envying one another.

In this series, we're going to be exhorted to pursue all these different virtues in different ways. The foundation of this growth that we experience as Christians is the fruit of the spirit working in us. It's not something we can work up in our own strength. As we learn to walk by the spirit, we are transformed by the spirit. The whole framework of Galatians is laid out in chapter 3, where Paul says,

having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

As we look at these virtues week by week, let's not expect that we're going to be able to obtain these from our own work. We can only obtain these from the work of our spirit. Let's look at some general applications in our remaining time. I hear from Galatians 5 about how we can depend on the spirit. First, avoid sin. Right, that sounds like our work, but ultimately we are called to avoid sin. Look what it says in verses 16 and 17.

If you walk by the spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

And there's this picture of the flesh and the spirit being at war.

Desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and 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.

Unfortunately, in our fleshly nature, we want to sin, and we seek after sin. And the Spirit is there to fight against that, what we want to do, and lead us to what we ought to do as we have been transformed. And so, depending on the Spirit to enable you to fight sin, doesn't mean that you act foolishly and show no common sense and walk into sinful situations and say, oh, spirit, I trust in you. You're going to protect me from this when you've placed yourself in harm's way, right? So if you knowingly go to a place where they're going to be exhibiting sexual material Right? You're not walking with the Spirit, which would lead you away from that. You're going in in your fleshly desires to see something like that and saying words like, well, I can do this because the Spirit's going to protect me. is setting aside the work of the Spirit rather than trusting it to enable you. There are some people who can drink in moderation and not be drunk, and that's okay. The Bible talks about drunkenness as a sin. There are others who can't take that first drink without continuing and taking another and another and another, leading always to drunkenness. And so should a person like that put themselves in a situation where they know there's going to be a lot of drinking and that they know that someone is going to be asking them repeatedly about taking a drink? No, because again, the spirit should lead your desires away from that and to protect you from that. I think all of us struggle with anger and patience. There's a reason patience is one of the fruit of the spirit. Are there certain things that make you angry? If you start a political conversation with somebody online, is that going to lead you to shaking your fist at the sky and writing terrible words in response? Well, don't put yourself in that situation. If you know That is a weakness that you have. Placing yourself in that situation is not a matter of trusting the Spirit, it's a matter of fighting the Spirit and pushing against the way the Spirit is drawing you. So first of all, avoid sin. Second, we want to learn from the consequences of our sinful behavior. you are gonna fall into sin, and there will be repercussions. Even if you are forgiven, that doesn't mean that negative things don't happen. If you are angry with your spouse and yell and scream and tear them down, there will be repercussions for that, even if your spouse forgives you, even if God forgives you, you have damaged that relationship. And so you need to lean in to the Spirit's conviction. If you are one of God's people, and the Spirit is in you, when you sin like that, the Spirit is going to convict you of that, and you're going to recognize that sin in yourself. And you need to lean into that, acknowledge that conviction of sin, and repent. You don't want to get yourself in a situation where you are repeatedly doing the same sin over and over again, and you excuse it, and you ignore that conviction of sin and say, well, that wasn't as bad as the last time, so this time it's okay. Well, I did that, but she did that to me, and that was worse. You need to bear the full weight of your sin each time you fall into it and feel what the Spirit is telling you so that instead of having a seared conscience that starts ignoring the sin in your life, the Spirit calls you away from that sin and calls you to walk in holiness. Ultimately, it is key that you thirdly trust not in yourself, but in the spirit. You will fail, but the spirit won't. You will fail, but the spirit won't. And part of that is the way that even as you fail in one part of your life and fall into sin, the Spirit is working on another area in your life. Sin is connected. Note in Galatians here that these nine virtues are the fruit singular of the Spirit, not the fruits of the Spirit, like they're each individual and distinct and some people have some fruit and some people have other fruit. It's one fruit, and the fruit of the Spirit is all of these things. They are connected, and we're supposed to have all of them. If you're struggling with patience, you're likely also having issues with kindness, right? Because if you're impatient, you're likely not to be gentle and not to be kind and not to be loving and not to be joyful. If you're struggling with love, if your heart is filled with bitterness and hate, well, you're really going to have a difficult time finding joy and peace. And so you need, again, to not trust in yourself, because all these things are going to come together and fight against you. And you need to trust that the spirit is going to be working in all these things, working together, so that as you improve in one area, the spirit is going to convict you in another area, right? I think most of us usually think of, all right, I'm pretty good, but I got these two big sins. And if I could just take care of these two big sins, I'd have everything worked out. Instead, what happens is if by the grace of God, the Spirit enables you to make great progress on one of those big sins, you're going to scrape that aside and you're going to see, well, wait a minute. Now I see, now that I'm more holy than I was before, God is showing me I've got this fault in this other area that I need to work on. It is a never-ending process, this side of glory. There's always going to be more sin that you need to deal with, with the grace of the Spirit. And that is, the next point is that sanctification is progressive. Holiness is progressive. It would be amazing if the way God chose to do things was he regenerates our heart, he saves us, he justifies us. We're Christians and immediately we're transformed into perfect Christ-likeness. That's not the way he chose to do it. We continue to live on this earth and we'll continue to struggle with sin throughout our entire lives. And God has promised that by the Spirit we will become increasingly holy. We will be more and more sanctified, more and more like Christ, but we're never going to get there on this side of eternity. That's a great thing to keep us motivated to know that the sin that we're trying to set aside here on earth is nothingness. We think it is so desirable, right? Paul tells the Galatians, you desire these things in the flesh. But the Spirit tells us that these are fleeting and these are unimportant. And what's important is what we have ahead of us in eternity. in perfection, in pure holiness. And the more and more we are able to grow in that here on earth, the more we get a foretaste of that glory to come. We're reminded here in Galatians 5 that we are not under the law, it says in verse 18. That is a reminder that when we do fail, It does not mean that we have been separated from the grace of God, but instead the Spirit can continue to enable us and pick us back up and start again in our pursuit of holiness and sanctification. Finally, tonight we must always remember and meditate on the completed work of Christ. We see in verse 24, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

We were told in verse 21, warns twice,

I warn you, as I've warned you before, that those who do such things,

who do this list of things that the flesh desire, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now maybe not all of us have done all of the things on that list, but all of us have done some of the things on that list. And so what hope do we have if those who have done those things have no inheritance in the kingdom of God? The only hope we have is Christ Jesus. He died on the cross taking our sin upon himself, taking the punishment we deserved crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires. And that's the basis on which the Spirit is working. Christ has done away with it and the Spirit is working to keep it out of our lives. Believers, You need to depend on the work that Christ has done for you at the cross in order to be able to be more holy, to enjoy the fruit of the spirit, to live out these virtues, not because you want to be a better person, but because you want to be like Christ. You want a foretaste of that holiness to come. Likewise, for unbelievers, I go back to Paul's warning. You can't inherit the kingdom of God if you do these things and continue in these things. And the only hope that you have to escape those things is in Christ Jesus. Unless Christ is in your life to reconcile you with the God you have rebelled against, to free you from your sin and enable you by the Spirit, you have nothing. And so if there are any unbelievers here tonight, I pray that you would talk to someone around you about how you can know this freedom in Christ and this freedom from sin that comes from Christ, not just ultimately, but also increasingly here on earth. Let's pray. Father, you are so good to us. You are most gracious and most loving to send your son to die for us, that the sin that eats us up, the sin that we've had from birth, the sinful actions that we continue day by day to perform in rebellion against you, that even in the face of all of that, you sent your very son to die for us. You sent your spirit to regenerate our hearts and to make us new creations. Father, we pray that as we study through the nine virtues listed in Galatians 5 over the next weeks, that our hearts would be drawn to love you more. that we would want to do these things as commanded in your scripture, not as a way to gain your approval, but as a way to show how you have changed us, how we have been made yours. And Father, we pray that as enabled by the spirit, we display more and more the fruit of the spirit that those around us would know and notice and see and wonder what makes these people different. And that we would be able to point to you for all that we have. We pray all this in the name of Jesus, amen.