Growth

Exhausting Lies

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19When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21 (NLT)

 

The “old me” is hanging around. It seeks to rule me and is in conflict with the “new me” created by the Spirit of God. Paul gives us a short list evidencing the old nature, but he admits the list is not exhaustive.

However, it must be said, the old nature is exhausting! That’s the surprising and enslaving feature of the old nature. Sin wears us out. And all the while it keeps feeding us the lie that we are “really living” or will be really living when we follow the desires of our sinful nature.

This kind of life truly keeps us from inheriting and enjoying the freedom and joy of the Kingdom of God made ours through faith in Jesus. Jesus says, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Consuming Community

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14For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. 16But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh…

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

 

How is your family (organizational) culture today?

Fussy? Filled with fights?

Does jealousy lurk just below the surface?

Do your structures promote pride and leverage selfish ambition?

Community that consumes is common.

 

Such dysfunction abounds when fear, shame, and guilt have their way among us.

 

In Christ Jesus we have been given another way.

 

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatian churches, is concerned. He knows what happens when we our old nature runs into the old nature of another person. Unchecked by the Spirit of God, the old natures rises up and shows its conceit, its ungodly joy at provocation, and its festering envy over another’s good fortune. This kind of community is the kind that devours people and spits them out. Its always looking for the top of the pile. Its a consuming community.

The community that consumes has nothing to do with the Spirit of God and the fruit that is borne of a community surrendered to Jesus. Spiritual leadership in Jesus’ name will yearn for and create the environments that seek maturity that displays Jesus’ love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Then we will catch glorious glimpses of The Communing Community of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

The Forgotten Context

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6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love….

13For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another….

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

26Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

 

Have you memorized Galatians 5:22?

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

 

We would do well to be very familiar with all of Chapter 5.

 

The Apostle Paul is in a debate regarding change dynamics. How are people who follow Jesus going to change? How will this new community of Jews and Gentiles gathered in the name of Jesus Christ embody the character of God. To be crass: One group is asking, “When will pagans start being good?” This group is arguing for conformity to the Law and to the community and cultural standards of the Jews.

 

Paul argues for a spiritual dynamism empowered by the Holy Spirit given to all those who receive forgiveness of sin through faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

The Gospel-shaped community vision: faith, freedom, fruit.

Faith in Jesus working through love.

Freedom to serve one another through love.

Fruit borne of the Spirit’s dynamic work in our lives.

 

The Fruit of the Spirit is a vision of Gospel-shaped community. Life in Jesus’ community is the forgotten context for The Fruit of the Spirit.

 

The Moment

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1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

Psalm 42:1-2

 

The moment when you have been still enough in the wild to see a deer quench its thirst in the waters of a stream.

 

The moment when you have been still enough to drink deeply from the stream of God’s Presence.

Its How We Live.

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5Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? 7Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Galatians 3:5-9

 

 

Start by faith.

Live by faith.

Finish by faith.

 

Faith is the means by which we enter into God’s blessings.

Its the way Abraham entered in.

Its the way we enter in.

 

So we enter into friendship with God just as Abraham did, on the basis of what God has done, is doing, and says He will do.

 

Faith is active trust.

 

The object of our faith is personal and real, most dramatically revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. He gives us HIs Spirit when we enter in “by faith” in the Gospel we have heard.

 

We can say with Paul, “…the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

 

Joy is ours in this grace by faith in the finished work of Jesus at the Cross. Peter notes that faith does not require “seeing as believing.” He writes,

 

8Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.  1 Peter 1:8-9

 

John describes this faith as a reliance on the love of God shown to us through Jesus Christ. So our faith has its reasons.

 

15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  1 John 4:15-16

 

The writer of Hebrews notes that “without faith, its impossible to please God.” Hebrews 11:6

 

By faith. This is the way God has called you to live.