Please turn your Bibles over to Galatians 5, verse 13-26. And I think it's three weeks ago, two weeks ago, I started the first half. Sorry that we had an intermission. And I'm doing the second half of the sermon, where the first half, I talked about how the book of Galatians is going to teach us that we're free.

By being Christians in Christ, we are freed people. But that freedom means to be in the kingdom of God. That freedom means to be in the spirit of Christ. So, here in Galatians, Apostle Paul is going to exhort us, exhort the churches to walk in that spirit. I'm going to start reading from verse 13-26, and then we'll study verse 16 and down.

"For you were called to freedom, brethren. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh. But through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. Of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not enter, 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. Now 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 boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. Amen. Now, I gave you the context again that Apostle Paul is making a strong admonition here. You're free. And as free individuals, you should live in that freedom. The wholeness of that freedom. And he makes that into a challenge as, "Then live in the Spirit." Walk in the Spirit.

Be in tune with the Spirit. And then he says later, "Keep your step with the Spirit." And I want to remind us that by context, why he's giving such a strong admonition is because the Galatians were in danger where they first received the truth, and then false teaching came in where somebody said, "No, you need circumcision too to be holy.

You need washing of hands. You need observance of festivals. You need to eat a certain diet." And all of a sudden, the legalism that existed prior to the Gospel of Christ now started to come in as a means by which these individuals would gain greater holiness or a greater relationship with God.

And so, if you turn just a page over back to chapter 3, verse 3, it just summarizes the whole of the problem that the Galatians were facing. And Galatians 3, verse 3 basically says, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" And he asks that question in that sarcastic, absurd, "You began your spiritual life by the Spirit of God." And what I mean by that is, every single one of us in here who is a genuine Christian, you have a spiritual existence that was created not by you, but by the Spirit of God.

And we can go down the list here. What was it that initially caused you to have faith? It was the Spirit of God. And so essentially, Apostle Paul is questioning, "What is going to be the thing that causes you to grow in the faith and have faith now, to maintain that faith?" The Spirit.

What caused us to respond to truth? Initially, when we heard the truth, rather than saying, "Ah, stop judging me," but rather to like it, to respond to it appropriately, what caused that in our lives? It was the Spirit. What caused us to repent and have contrition of heart? It was the Spirit.

What caused us to submit? What caused us to desire to be in Christ, to obey, to listen, to be in fellowship? What caused all of that? It was the Spirit of God. Now, I am not saying that there is no part on our end in terms of our energy, our actions, or anything like that.

What I'm saying is, what caused that initially to happen is the Spirit. I am placing all credit on the Spirit. I am placing a confidence on what the Spirit can do in you, and I am placing confidence on what the Spirit can do in me. And what's more, what the Spirit has already done.

And why do we say this? It's because, do we have a problem? Do we share in the kind of problem like they did, where perhaps, although we are Christian, we keep turning to things that is not of the Spirit? We keep turning to things that is actually not the person of the Spirit.

Him who abides in us. He who abides in us, He who continues to teach us, and I can go down the list of the things by which the Spirit benefits us. Let me help you a little bit. The Spirit is the one who continues to help us have an intimate relationship with God.

The Spirit is the one who actually searches the mind of God and continues to reveal that mind to us. The Spirit is the one who then is actually giving light for us to see the truth of the Scripture. The Spirit is the one moving in us so that we are strengthened in the inner man.

The Spirit is the one who teaches us, "This is who you should be like, the Lord Jesus Christ." The Spirit shines Christ to us. He is the one who convicts us what is of the devil and what is of the Lord. Who convicts us what is good and what is bad.

The Spirit is the one who ministers to us, the paraclete who helps us. He comforts us like no one else can. He is the one who intercedes for us. It is a He who is powerful and it is He who has brought to you life. And then He is embedded in you, sealing you, guaranteeing you to the end.

But do we have a problem where sometimes we turn to other things? We have issues in our lives where we are sad, we are hurt, we are dejected, we are disappointed. And where do we turn? Where do we turn? Typically things that will immediately satisfy, typically things where we think there are answers.

Sometimes we even turn to non-Christian counselors. "Help me with my spiritual struggle." And I wonder if He, the Spirit, is saying, "Did you forget about me?" Here is an interesting thing. Go in your Bibles please to Jeremiah 2 and we will read from verse 11 down to verse 13.

Jeremiah 2 from verse 11 to 13. I want to highlight this dilemma that we as Christians, after having began our life in Christ, oftentimes turn to something different. Turn perhaps not just to something different, something entirely insufficient. And then we will see how God speaks of it in Jeremiah as Jeremiah's prophet speaking God's perspective and commentary on what has happened.

He says this, What are the two evils? First, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water. Brothers and sisters, right now I am highlighting the benefits, the joys, the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This ministry of the Holy Spirit given to us is what I talked about the last time we were here, talking about the freedom that we have.

The freedom that we have framed in another way is our membership into a new country. It is the kingdom of God. And just like a refugee in current times is running away perhaps from an oppressive country, is running away perhaps from things that are just like slavery, and wanting to go to a kingdom that has privileges, that has securities, and that has benefits, we are in the kingdom of God in the Spirit of Christ receiving all the benefits of the Holy Spirit.

And Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John mentioned many times, "I want to give you life. He who comes and drinks of me, you're going to have rivers of life." And He says, "Because I'm going to send you the Spirit. And the Spirit is going to be such a benefit to you that it's better that I go." Remember that?

So why is it that we have such a huge confusion? Why is it that many times we don't go to the Spirit? And my admonition for the entire sermon is going to be, "Learn what it is to go to the Spirit and continue going to Him. For that is the essence of our existence.

We are spiritual beings. And we need to continue then in walking with the Spirit." So number one, let's take a look at verse 16. Let's take a look at verse 16. And it says here, "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh." Wow!

What an awesome, amazing verse. He essentially gives you a solution to the problem that every single one of you and I have. Our battle against our flesh, sinful desires, sinful tendencies and habits. He says not, "Hey, take up your knife and go fight." He doesn't say, "Here's the tactic and strategy." He says, "Walk in the Spirit, and you are not going to give yourself to that fleshly desire." And the thing about it is, that simple challenge to walk by the Spirit is reiterated in verse 25.

And in the ESV translation, it says, "Keep in step with the Spirit." That is a more literal rendition of that. You can generally just say, "Hey, walk." But what is that? It's just to take one step and another step. You need to keep in pace with Him. You need to follow those tracks and keep on cue in that marching order, so to speak.

Okay, so what does that mean? What does that mean? Now I'm going to be honest. I think a lot of people, and for me too, a while back, in early stages of Christianity, if you were to tell me, "You need to be in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit." I'd say, "That's right." What does that mean?

You know, like, "Be in the Spirit." I don't know what else to say about that, really. And actually, a lot of people think that. You've heard the pendulum swing of, like, you've got to work hard to be sanctified, and then you've got to be like, "You can't. You've got to let God." So that perspective is kind of like, "Well, I'm waiting for the Spirit to fill me, to maybe, like, knock me off my feet, blow my mind, and then stuff, like, happens." Some people think that way.

But I don't think that's what he's talking about, and I don't think we need to confuse what walking in the Spirit and walking after not a force but a person, we don't need to confuse what that is. Why? I have heard recently that a good portion of our church members, they go to these gyms, you know, 24-hour fitness or LA fitness, and then they take classes.

And more recently, there's been this trend, and a bunch of groups of people, and to tell you honestly, it sounds like a lot of fun, but they're doing this Brazilian dance class called Zumba. And it's pretty funny, and it's not just girls. There's, like, a bunch of guys from church doing it, too.

And I'm pretty sure, you know, it's a lot of fun, you know, being together, exercising, and it's not just, like, a bunch of dudes lifting weights, but it's, like, fun choreographed stuff. But typically, the way that class works is there's an instructor, right? There's an instructor that you have to, what?

Follow. Is that hard? Well, sometimes, if you go to the classes with guys who are uncoordinated, you're like, "It is so hard for them," you know? Well, a lot of times, it's just not that hard. I mean, in the sense that this-- there's only two things that could really go wrong.

One, you're not paying attention, okay? You're, like, too distracted by the guy who can't bend his body, and he's just not--there's no dexterity in him, he's not fluid, and he just can't do this. You're just all distracted because you just keep looking at him. Or maybe you're looking at a cute girl, or there's all these mirrors and stuff, so you're looking at yourself.

You're looking at something different, so you're not paying attention to the instructor. Walking in the Spirit means you're paying attention to the Spirits leading in your life. I am talking about the Spirit like a person. Earlier I mentioned, He is teaching us, He is guiding us, He is empowering us.

He's going to take the Word of God and be like, "See?" That's what He's doing constantly. You need to pay attention. So, yes, the Scriptures tell us, "Fill your mind with the Word. Let the Word of God dwell richly in you," right? The book of Proverbs, huge chunks of it, "Pay attention, give ear, listen, heed this thing, listen up," all this kind of stuff.

So many parts of Scripture is, "Pay attention." That's what the Scripture is telling us. Listen to the Word of God and pay attention to it closely. Otherwise, what? You can't walk in the Spirit. It's just that simple. But secondly, obviously, when you're in that classroom, yes, you might be looking, but you might just be looking.

You're not practicing. And the thing about it is, with choreography, there is time. There are linked motions. And so, obviously, if you're not practicing one thing, you're not going to get the next thing because one fluid motion leads to another. And if you're not in the practice, you can't follow.

You can't do the step, right? Likewise, you know what the Scripture says? That people in godliness discern what's right and wrong by practice. That when you are at home, and let's say-- Sometimes I have these convictions. I go home, I'm pretty tired, and the kids want to play or something, and my temptation is, "I want a veg." I'm just being honest with you.

I love my kids, love my wife, count it the blessings upon blessings to have a family, but there are days when I want a veg. You feel me, right? And then I get this little voice in the back of my head. It's like, "They haven't seen you all day.

You should spend some time with them." And then I have a decision to make. I've got a decision to make. Is that hard to confess? Is that hard to notice what it means to walk in the Spirit versus my flesh? It's not that confusing. It's not that confusing. And Apostle Paul, I think, therefore just tells us, "Walk in the Spirit." And he's not dissecting what that all means because he, I think, automatically knows if you are a Christian and you have the Spirit of God who is an active living person doing all of that spiritual ministry to you, you should understand what it means when he says, "Walk in the Spirit." If you really have no idea what that means, then we have deeper issues, right?

If you have no idea what it means to heed the Spirit versus your flesh, we have deeper issues than what's at hand. But Apostle Paul is saying that. Let the Word just deeply and frequently saturate your thoughts so that the Spirit of God will use those words. And through prayer and communion, you are in tune with Him.

And then when those moments come where you have the conviction, the Spirit coming up within you, then your actions are now derived from what? Someone cornering you saying, "You better do it or I'm going to spank you." Like, is that what's happening? No. You have the Spirit of God saying, "This is good.

Golly, this is in the form of Christ." And you are yielding to that. That is spiritual fruit. That's what we want. And that's actually what I trust. I trust that the Spirit of God is powerful. And the Spirit of God will produce that in you. Now, as we think about this a little bit, I want to encourage you.

That as we think about this a little bit, the Spirit of God in this struggle that I'm trying to say is already victorious. Right? The Spirit of God is not going to lose to sin. The Spirit of God is not sitting there having a battle saying, "Oh my goodness, this is yin and yang, 50/50 chance." Scripture tells us that the Spirit of God is in us and He is greater than the world.

The Spirit of Christ is in us. He's already overcome. Now we need to walk in that. Does that make sense? And so I want to just encourage you guys. If right now I'm saying, "Hey, walk in the Spirit," and you're thinking like, "Dude, man, that is way harder than you make it seem." I get that.

But let me be an encouragement to you and say, God's designed for us. It's not normally supposed to be failure after failure and disappointment after disappointment. And we're just getting bruised and beating at every corner. What actually should be the normative is that, yes, we are sometimes bruised, and yes, sometimes we do fail, but there is a progression of greater and steady walking with the Spirit in success.

That should be the norm. Amen? Now I want to bring us to this point. We're saying, "Walk in the Spirit," but Apostle Paul is going to highlight why that is so important. And it is something that is obvious to us, but something that we need to reiterate. So point two--the first point was just simply walk in the Spirit.

Point two is you are in an intense battle. Okay? You are in an intense battle. In verse 17, he says, What is he talking about there? He says there is such a conflict, not so much that there is a yin and yang, but that the flesh is hostile to anything spiritual.

That's how I read that passage, because he says the flesh is trying to prevent you. The flesh is actively trying to stumble you. The flesh is trying to prevent you from doing what is godly. That's what that passage says. And so what I would like to say is that's the nature of the beast.

Okay? Let me repeat that. That's the nature of the beast. The flesh is hostile. And if you turn over your Bibles to Romans 7, Apostle Paul in another book explains that pretty thoroughly. Okay? Romans 7. I wish I had the time to read you the entire chapter and chapter 8, but I'm going to highlight for you some things here.

So go to Romans 7, starting from verse 5. Okay? Starting from verse 5. And in Romans 7, it says, "For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions were aroused by the law." Do you see that? He says, "So while you're in the flesh." Now, is he talking about pre-salvation or after salvation?

I have my personal opinion about this, and I'm going to present just a little bit, but it applies to both. You are, if you're a Christian, a redeemed soul living in fallen flesh yet to be glorified. You're in the flesh. If you're not a Christian, you are absolutely in the flesh with no struggle.

The flesh is just overpowering everything. And you will indulge all of your desires, and you will have no control, no power, because the Spirit's ministry is not in you. And he says that when this flesh, with all of its sinful passion, is exposed to the law, what will happen?

It will be aroused. You see that? And so he says that this sin and the sinful passions which are aroused were at work in the members of your body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we will serve the newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

So through context, my personal take is chapter 7 is all about pre-salvation. Let me move forward, though. Take a look at this, verse 7. "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.' But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind." Jump to verse 11.

"For sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it it killed me." Take a look at 13. "Therefore did that which was good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather, it was sin!" You see this point? The law in and of itself is not going to be banished.

And so all these free grace people who are like, "Every law is bad," wrong! Jesus himself said, "The law is to be fulfilled, not jettisoned." But when sin comes, the nature of the beast comes out, and he goes, "Arrgh!" If you imagine, I had a dog one time. I was not a good trainer.

I was a high school student when I had my last dog, and every time I opened the door, it's gone. And then me and my brother would go chasing it down, and then we have to corner the thing. And then once we corner the thing, what do you think the dog is going to do?

He starts backing up, trying to go this way or that way, and then we come over and grab him, and he goes, "Arrgh!" That's sin. (Laughter) Guys, I'm trying to make a serious point here. When the law, although it is spiritual, comes to a sinner who has unrepentant sin in his heart, that sin is going to be aroused, and that sin is going to take chance and opportunity and rear itself, and that is the fruit of the flesh.

Does that make sense? And that is sometimes what happens. And so he says there is this battle that the flesh is in opposition to the Spirit, and you need to be aware that the flesh is not just kind of like, "Oh, sometimes I fall." It's not just like, "Everybody does it." It is hostile to you and trying to overtake you.

And so you see how the apostle says it's so important for you to walk in the Spirit because you have this enemy causing you to be an enemy of God. And we have to be cognizant of that. And that flesh, that flesh, we realize it's not just like base sexual desire.

It's not just the stuff of impulse. That flesh, so to speak, is comprising of all the depraved perspective of the world, all the systematic things that we believe. It's even in our depraved emotions. It's in our depraved expectations. And yes, it's also in our depraved desires and passions. These things cannot control us, but rather the Scripture says we need to put them to death.

We need to put them to death and we need to fight them. If you take a look, come back to Galatians, and take a look at verse 24, Apostle Paul says in verse 24 that, "Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Okay?

These are not things for you to keep around. These are things that you need to crucify. In that verse, it says that those who will belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions. Who is doing the crucifying? In the Gospel, we know that God is the one who crucified sin, meaning He took care of sin.

It says in Colossians that He took the certificate of debt, all that is against you, He nailed it to the cross. That is God's work. Amen. Praise God. But then He says, when you walk in the Spirit, those who are in Christ and truly Christian will take your sins and you will continue to place it there and keep it there and you will not have pity on your sin.

You are not going to have remorse over you letting go of your sin. You are not going to look back on your sin with fondness, but you are going to kill it, because crucified means kill. Right? And that is what we need to engage in. We need to have a resolute, decisive repentance that kills sin.

I have been in the last several days and the last several weeks thinking much about what it means to be truly godly. I have been thinking very deeply about what it means to be truly spiritual, truly holy, right? Like a true man of God. And the fact of the matter is, if an individual deals with sin and is half-hearted, is permissive of sin, is unrelenting of sin, that individual's godliness is going to shoot down the toilet and we will all of a sudden realize, maybe, the Spirit of God is not there.

Because in the next verses, what we see is a depiction of it. So the next portion is verse 19 through 21, and I am going to call it "The Works of the Flesh." And to set it up, you guys have seen boxing matches and MMA matches? There is always that guy with a really cool voice, "Ladies and gentlemen!" And he says, "In the blue corner, weighing in at 170!" That is my weight.

"Weighing in!" "Is the flesh of Mark Lim!" And then on the other side is going to be the Spirit, the person who is walking in the Spirit. And he is going to depict the two as, "This is a battle, and here I want you to see what this individual is." And so let's read it.

He says in verse 19, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry and 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." What we are going to do is, there is no way I am going to tackle every single one of those characteristics of the flesh.

And I am not going to because I want to be honest. Just like for a true Christian, it should not be such a confusing thing. What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? To a true Christian, it should not be such a confusing thing. What does it mean to be envious?

I do not know. You know. Every time you look at somebody and be like, "I wish I had that." You know exactly what it is. We know it when we see it in our kids. When one kid is like, "How come he has the bigger toy? How come he has the thing?" You have one.

He is like, "I do not care. I want that one." Envy. Most of these we already know. We do not have to dissect them to really know. But we are going to go through them to get a depiction. Because Apostle Paul kind of puts them in categories for us.

He puts them in categories for us. The first is the passions. Sensuality. He says sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality. Lumping them together. It is all passion behavior, lustful behavior, sexual behavior. Some of these you guys are well aware of. Probably you guys have heard that there is this term, "pornea." But that term, what you realize is that it is a perversion.

Truthfully speaking, we live in a quite perverse generation. We really do. Things that are supposed to be deemed completely adulterous, completely sexual immoral. People have perverted everything that God has deemed right and appropriate for a marriage relationship between a husband and a wife. Then people have just dramatized all sorts of nasty sexual perversions and then put them up on movies for people to see.

That word for impurity, it literally means unclean. Like an infection oozing with pus. That is what you would call. That is what this generation again struggles with. Now, the reason why I am going into the definitions of some of these things is because I want you to keep thinking.

This is produced by what? Where is this stemming from? If I am saying all the generations like this, well, the generation is like this, but also I know that many in the church wrestle with sexual perversion. Whether it be premarital sex, whether it be pornography, there are perversions of sexual sins in the church.

I am not going to be naive about that. But Apostle Paul is saying this is evident of what? It is your flesh. You know it is an inside job. But many people in the church today start pointing to outside stuff. It is because my work is so hard. It is because I cannot handle this.

It is because... and then when they go to secular counselors, it is because of the way your parents treated you when you were young. Really? It is because of the way your father treated you. It is because of suppressed this and that anxiety and this. No. We have to recognize that the Bible is teaching these perversions at its root come from our flesh.

It comes from our sinful state. What is more, Apostle Paul points out that there are idolatries and sorceries. In my mind, these are all stuff of the man-made religion. This is the stuff where I want to dictate what I want to have as my paradigm for my life. That is why I get to say that my God is this guy that I can make.

I can put him right here. My God is this guy who is going to give me this. My God is this guy who is going to give me that. That is idolatry at its core. Sorcery is the same thing in the sense that the Greek... I am not going to say all the Greek terms and stuff, but we get the derivative of pharmacy, pharmaceutical.

Essentially, all he is talking about is drugs that sedate you, drugs that make you feel a certain way. That is essentially idolatry. That is what all idolatry amounts to. I go to this and worship this, things feel better, good. Then that is your pagan religion at core. I go do my religious thing, I feel good, feel sedated, I am out encouraged.

That is man-made religion. Then here are the things that come up where he lists a bunch of stuff as the things of the flesh. He says these are evident of the flesh, clear indicators that your flesh is reigning. He says there is enmity, there is strife, there is jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, and envy.

Here is a moment for us to really check our hearts. My wife is right there, so I have to be honest. Am I sometimes hostile? Yes. Enmity means hostile. She is like, "Hey, could you do this?" "You know what, Tara, I might not want to." Sometimes she wants to encourage me with something, and I come off like, "OK, sure." There is that kind of hostility where it is passive aggressive.

There is other kinds of hostility. "What? You got something to say to me? You want to fight? Let's go!" There is that kind of hostility. We do not really do that at home. I am just saying, if you have that kind of mentality, you are a hostile person. Please do not chalk that up to, "Well, that is what people need, that is how I am, that is my personality." No, that is flesh.

Why are you willing to fight with your brother? That does not make any sense for a man with the Spirit. What is more, he talks about strife, which is just discord, jealousy, you know. It is in the Ten Commandments. People have struggled with this all their lives. Just recently I read a little Shakespeare book for my kid, King Richard III, where in fits of jealousy, the man is murderous.

I leaned over to my son and said, "The book of James talks about that. You want stuff, you do not have it, you get jealous and you kill people. That is what it is." That is what that is. Fits of anger, where you have temper tantrums, where you want to get your way because, and then you do not get it, so what you do is you get angry so that you end up getting it.

Rivalries, where you try to one-up each other. You try to compare, compete. You try to outdo one another. Dissensions, divisions, and envy, and that list. I know it goes on because he says, "And there is more." But let us do a heart check. Because if you are an angry person, I know that overcoming anger is hard.

Sometimes trying to say, "Okay, I am just going to put it to death," that one is truly easier said than done. The reason why I say I know that is because I am not actually an angry person, but I am a prideful person. I know how difficult it is for a prideful person to try to overcome his pride.

Because ingrained in pride is the element of self-preservation. Ingrained in pride is, "Me, I want to appear." It is self-exaltation. It is self-preservation. It is the advancement of self. Trying to overcome it is incredibly difficult. Why do I bring that up? It is because if you feel like rather than you having a hold on your sin, you feel like your sin has a hold on you, then let this be a challenge to you.

We have to recognize that it is not just something I am going to wrestle with the rest of my life. It is flesh. I have to be that serious, that devoted to addressing that sin. Then I have to be that devoted to walking in the Spirit in that sin, against that sin.

Does that make sense? What I mean by that, for example, is there were times, yes, like as a young man, I can be open with you. Have you ever struggled with lust? "Pastor Mark struggled with lust?" Yes, I have. As a matter of fact, when I was in college, everybody knew, "Hey, this guy, he has got potential, but that is a big sore spot in his life." I just confess that to you guys.

I am going to tell you honestly, I was so broken by that stuff. When I saw that sin in me, I cried. I cried and I broke and I sat at the back of the church, feeling it, like, "Man, I am not worthy to be here." If any of you guys have any broken relationships, or you guys have past, a history in that, you guys know exactly what I mean.

But then when it came to the sin of arrogance, I just kept speaking it. If somebody said it, I was like, "I know it is there. Tell me something new." It is like, "What? Do I dare deem one sin greater than the other? Do I dare think that because I have one element of my flesh in check and the other, it is just okay?" No.

And that is what I mean by, when I think of godliness, I think of Jesus' admonition, "If you want to be my disciples, you must deny yourself and carry the cross and then follow me." But then that idea of denying myself is then contained when I look at all of these fleshly sins.

Because what is common among these is, the individual who desires to overcome this must deny all of himself. And so the godly man understands the extent of Christ's call. When he says, "Deny yourself," it does not mean just your money, it does not mean just one facet of yourself.

When he says, "Deny yourself," it goes much deeper and much further than we presume. And then the godly person who is truly godly will understand the necessity to do so, that he must kill and he must carry his cross and kill his sin, and then he must follow the footsteps of Christ.

That's a godly man who understands the depth of that. So that's the working of the flesh that we see, and what it does is just reveal something. And what does it reveal? And that was the end of his list, which he said, "Just like I forewarned you, I told you about this, that such a person who practices such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." I find a need for us to be sobered by that statement.

Because truth be told, do we have thoughts? Do we have fantasies that are sinful? Do we have temptations and inclinations in our hearts that are sinful? Yes. What Apostle Paul is talking about is, there are those individuals who have it, but because of the spirit that is restrained and that is overcome and they're victorious.

And then there are those individuals where that produces action. There's a conduct based upon that sinful thought, attitude, and belief, and then once that conduct is habitual, now you have a character, and what it reveals is you are not Christian. You are not saved, and you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Is Apostle Paul being too harsh? No, he is not. Turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 7. Again, this is a passage that's probably quoted a lot, to sober people up. And I don't want to just necessarily beat a dead horse, so to speak, but we need reminders of this to continue to keep us sober.

And in it, in Matthew chapter 7 verse 15, Jesus himself said, "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes and figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" Earlier in the list of sins of the flesh, the fruits of the flesh, he mentions drunkenness and orgies, and that is lawlessness.

Lawlessness, that's debauchery, that's dissipation, it's lawlessness. And he says, "You workers of lawlessness, go away because I never knew you." So what does Jesus say? Throughout history, from Judaism to Christianity, those ravenous wolves who came into the church, they didn't come out like, "I'm a wolf." They always came out like, "I'm a messenger of God doing God's work." So is that a danger for the church?

Absolutely. Is that a danger for me? Yes. And I need to make sure that I understand what the Scripture says, that habitual pattern will only prove me to be an enemy of God. So I have to kill it at the root where it begins in my attitude, perspective, and belief.

There's another passage I want to just simply read for you for the sake of time. It comes from 1 John 3, verse 4 through 10, and it says, "Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness." Sin, essentially, is lawlessness. And then he says, "You know that he appeared in order to take away sin, and in him there is no sin.

So no one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him." That's Scripture. That's Apostle John, the apostle of love, telling us that he who makes a practice, who makes a pattern, who has over a long period of time habitually done all the things that we talked about, whether it's hostility, strife, jealousy, idolatry, sorcery, or whether it's all the sensualities, that person is not Christian.

That's what he's saying. And he says, "Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous." He's righteous. "Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God." Again, I just want to make clear, that does not mean you're going to be perfect. But that means that when you are confronted with sin and there is temptation, if you say, "I can't help but do it," you're not Christian.

And what's more, if afterwards you're not able to see that what you did is a sin, then you're not Christian. But the genuine Christian is going to say, "Although maybe before I failed, I have the Lord Jesus Christ and his Spirit whom he sent to teach me between godliness and ungodliness, and the Scripture says in Titus 2 that we have been taught to say no, and that is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

And we have to make sure that that voice, "No," is clear and that we continue to heed it and walk in it. Amen? And that's what we're talking about today. And so by contrast, in the boxing battle, it says, "Here in this corner is this fleshly man, and ultimately by pattern he is not Christian." But on the flip side, there is a man who is filled with the Spirit, and this is the way he describes him.

Coming down to Galatians 22, "But," here's the contrast, "but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law." Amen. How beautiful are the fruits of the Spirit. How beautiful is this list. And I want to name something to you.

This is different from a gift of the Spirit. This is the fruit of the Spirit. Let me repeat that. This is a fruit of the Spirit, not just simply a gift of the Spirit. And what difference does that make? The difference that it makes is this. The Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 12 and all the way to chapter 14 repeatedly that the gifts of the Spirit are varied and in different degree.

The Lord gives to you according to His measure. But the fruit of the Spirit is what He does to you and produces by the simple nature that is in you. So what does that mean? That this list is not, "Oh, man, when I get disciple and I get to degree number 3 on the Christian level, after 5 years of learning and being under the tutelage of this disciple and that disciple, I'm going to start being gentle and kind." No.

This is what norm of every Christian should be. That is what God is saying. This is the fruit of the Spirit. When the Spirit is in you, at least to some growing degree, this should be apparent in you. So that when someone looks at you, they shouldn't be thinking, "Is that guy Christian, man?" No.

The person who is looking at you should be like, "Dang, for sure he's Christian." Why? "Because I see the fruit." Right? This is what should be the norm of every Christian. And I'm going to be honest. This is like--the Book of Galatians, I did my personal devotion through it, so that's why I'm preaching it.

And I sat there, and I was really convicted. Again, because of my pride, some of those things, I'm like, "Pretty good. I feel like I'm a pretty patient guy." I can sit and listen to people who are long-winded. I can sit and endure through discomfort. If someone's in my way when I'm driving, I don't just blow, but I can just kind of wait.

But some of the other stuff, I mean, man, I really excused myself there. I didn't really holistically think about this. But you know what's really crazy about this list? If you look at the word "fruit" and you look at the verb "is," it's singular. God sees this as a fruit.

All of it together, holistically in you. So God is not desiring some lopsided Christian who says, "Well, I'm good at this. I can teach pretty good and wax really eloquently, but I can't do this stuff, but that's okay because this is me." No. God desires for you to have a holistic growth that every single one of these spiritual fruits that's listed here, everything from the love, where you should have such a care, that you're willing not to simply to--in contrast to the lust, where in lust we just want.

We just want stuff. We just want to be satisfied. We just want experience. We just want to be satiated and stuff. Love is giving. I give you my affection. I give you my care. I give you my attention. I give you everything. I give you what's best for you.

That's love. And by doing that, I'm happy, I'm content, and I feel all my affections for you. That's love. We should have that. We should have joy. I'm going to be 100% honest. I feel like, strangely, we live in a very privileged world, but people are really sad. You know what I mean?

A lot of people who are just not happy. They're just disappointed. They're kind of like dragging their knuckles. And some of them are even--many Christians these days experience depression. Many experience this overwhelming cloud. But we are to have a kind of joy where, yes, we're going to feel pain in this life.

That's for sure. We're going to feel sorrow. That's for sure. But he says you have this treasure. You have, you know, banked in you, deposited in you, this spirit that you can turn to for that comfort and joy that is independent of the many painful experiences you have in your life.

And all the situations that could thwart you and kind of trip you up, you have this treasure in you, right? That's the way we need to look at it. We have a kind of peace where, again, it's not the kind of peace where you go to a nice, peaceful lake, you throw your fishing pole in there, and it's like, man, life is good.

That is not peace. But we have a kind of peace where even if we're in pain or suffering, that we can have peace. We can have patience. There should be kindness in us. There should be goodness in us. There can be gentleness in us. That we are so controlled by the Spirit of God that even our tone and way we say things, that we care so much about other people and we're so loving that the way I'm doing things, I'm considered, is this going to hurt you even if I think you need it?

I am even careful of how I give it to you, right? That should be the kind of marks of the fruit of the Spirit because that is the characteristic of our God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And these are the things that should be wrought in us. That should be wrought in us.

By wrapping up a kind of bit here, it says in verse 25 through 26 as a way of summary, "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." Again, keep in step with the Spirit. And then verse 26, "Let us not become boastful, challenging, and envying of one another." As I was studying this passage, I asked this question, "Why is verse 26 where it is?" Shouldn't verse 26 be over by verse 21 with the rest of the relational problems?

I want to say two things about this. Number one is that in your life, you're going to probably hit several things that are common pitfalls for every Christian. And we know these to be the common pitfall for most. One of arrogance and pride, right? One of conceit, as some of your translations would say.

You're just conceited. And I want to talk about that a little bit because I bet you, because Apostle Paul is talking to a church who has made a living, or so far has made a system by which they're able to measure their spirituality by their external self-righteousness, perhaps there is a guy, like Jesus was talking about in Luke 18, where some Pharisee is saying, "Yeah, preach it.

Preach it to those sinners." But thank God I'm not like them. Right? When the pastor is saying, "Maybe you're not Christian." Like, "Oh yeah, that one guy, maybe he's not." If you're thinking that, you're conceited. And you, just like that guy who's in the class, but he's so busy looking at somebody else, "Ha ha, look how much that he sucks." He is shipwrecking or he is ruining his experience because he's not following the instructor either.

And many a people in Jesus' time, in the time of the apostles, and time today do that too because of their conceit and arrogance, they don't think this message is for them. But rather, they can name all the tons of people where this message needs to be heard. "Preach this, you know.

When were you the last time I dealt with this guy?" You're conceited. What's more, he says, don't be challenging one another. Don't have this kind of animosity and rivalry with one another. I'm going to tell you probably, the greatest source of pain is going to be from your flesh, and within that category of your flesh, do you remember which one was the biggest?

Your personal relationships. Your personal relationship is where you're going to feel the most pain. Your personal relationship is where you're going to feel the most trouble, the hurdles that you need to overcome. And Apostle Paul says, walk in the Spirit and do not be challenging towards one another. And what's more, in terms of your desires, keep them in check.

He says, do not envy one another. He says, don't be conceited. Don't provoke one another. Don't constantly be inviting that combat. And lastly, he says, do not envy. Do not look on your brothers and sisters with, "I wish I was that. You have it so good. Why do you have it so easy?

Gosh, you spoiled little..." Sometimes we do that. We just constantly look at each other. And I think that's... Actually, I just recently read this book called "When People Are Big and God Is Small." And it talks about the common pitfall of people. "Oh, you know, that guy is being so love, but what about me?" People are way too big, you know?

"How come no one is reaching out to this and no one is reaching out to that?" People are way too big. Now, by way of wrapping up, I want to give you this encouragement from Ephesians. I'm just going to read it for us. It says, "Therefore, do not become partakers with them.

For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible." I'm going to tell you this. We, in 21st century, in Christendom, we have become really good at hiding things in the dark, especially the stuff of our flesh.

But Scripture is absolutely clear, and I believe it. Everything you do eventually comes to light. I don't actually ever care if people talk about the stuff I do, because you know what I say? It's going to be known anyway. Anything that is private knowledge, it's actually going to become public knowledge.

I don't doubt that at all. But that then gives me more impetus. That even the stuff that I do in private, if it is fleshly, I must deal with it. As a child of the light, I must walk in the light, for this pleases our God. Amen? Let's pray.

Father, we want to thank you so much for your grace to us. Lord, we thank you, God, that in your grace, you have given us your Spirit, so that it would continue to resonate in our minds and in our hearts what is right, true, and godly. Father God, we thank you so much for that.

And Lord, we trust that the work of the Spirit is powerful, and that the Spirit is capable to produce the fruits that you have spoken of in Scripture. Only God, help us not to stand in the way and be resilient, but God, help us to be truly repentant, broken, and moldable.

I pray, God, that we would be able to see transformation in our lives through the work of the Spirit. And Lord, would you continue to do that in your grace, patience, and kindness to us. In Christ's name we pray, amen.