I think I left my notes on the
printer.
No, that's OK.
No, no, not that printer, my printer at
home.
Oh, good.
So here we go.
It was only an improvement of this.
Right.
So welcome to scrambled eggs.
Yeah.
Here we go.
Last week, as you know, if you were
here, I sort of cast my dog in
a bad light.
If you weren't here, I was out the
other morning.
It was it was last Saturday and last
Sunday morning, actually.
I let my dog out back and, you
know, we have a square foot garden back
there.
And and I was wondering why my pepper
plants weren't looking so good.
And so I just happened to catch him
doing this on my pepper plants.
I mean, I love spicy food, you know,
and it's like they're dead now.
I mean, it's just it just took that
last shot to do them in.
But today I want to repent for making
you dislike my dog, perhaps, because now I
can't share those peppers with you.
I don't think anyone would want them.
But my dog serves another purpose.
And that is when it's five five thirty
in the morning.
He makes sure that we get up in
the heat of the morning and we take
him out for a walk.
And so Liz and I have been getting
up while it's been so crazy hot over
the summer and we've been walking our dog.
And Nick has become really I don't think
he's an inexpensive personal trainer, but nonetheless, he's
our personal trainer.
We've been taking these beautiful walks through Roanoke
back and forth.
We've been hiking here and there's hills that
we can navigate.
And it calms him down because he's an
Aussie border collie and he's got a lot
of energy, even though he's about four years
old.
He's pretty mellow for that breed.
But, you know, it just kind of calms
him down and everything's good because he's walking
together in his community and his family.
Right.
And anybody like walking, hiking?
Yeah, I do, too.
I just love it.
I've always loved it.
And we used to spend a lot of
time up in Yosemite National Park in the
days when we were in California.
But everywhere we go, I'm not a big
runner.
I used to run 10 miles a day
when I was in college, but I can't
do that anymore.
My back is just it will not let
me do that.
But walking is is a very therapeutic.
And I like I like to walk with
other people.
And that's what today's passage is starting out
with today.
It's not talking about walking alone.
It's talking about walking in community.
Walking in community.
So often we read even this part of
Galatians as sort of an individual psycho spiritual
experience that's going on inside of me, flesh
and spirit and all of that.
And it ends up, you know, by the
time you read this, you need a psychiatrist
sometimes because you're internalizing what wasn't meant to
be completely internalized at all.
From Paul's perspective.
Paul's talking about something very big and cosmic
that affects us psychologically and spiritually for sure,
but it doesn't begin there.
It begins in the big story of God.
And so he begins with a command.
We've been talking throughout this book about being
set free from the law of Sinai in
order to be justified by faith in Jesus
Christ.
One of the benefits of that is receiving
new commands.
Like Jesus said, I will give you a
new commandment.
Right.
Love one another as I have loved you.
That's harder than anything in the law.
Right.
It's harder than keeping kosher.
It may not be harder if I had
to get circumcised right now, but I don't
remember it.
So it's not even harder than that.
And of course, circumcision is one of those
issues that Paul is dealing with to be
justified by the law.
You need to get circumcised, even though you've
gone through baptism, which we're going to celebrate
today.
The Judaizers are these people were coming in,
telling the Galatian Christians that they needed more
than faith in Jesus Christ.
They needed circumcision and they need to come
back and observe much of the law, if
not all of it.
And that's debatable whether you there's three elements
of the law or if it's all of
the law.
But Paul says it doesn't matter because if
you submit to the law, you better obey
all of it.
We've been set free from the slavery of
something that was designed to be temporary until
the coming of Jesus Christ.
And so the law in Sinai, scripture says
we've not come to Mount Sinai, but we've
come to Zion.
We've come to Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the
city of God, where thousands upon thousands of
angels are worshiping around the throne.
And thousands upon thousands and saints and martyrs
and apostles have gone before us and there
before the throne, not embodied, but in spirit
awaiting the resurrection of their bodies.
But yes, absent from this body, present with
the Lord awaiting the resurrection and redemption of
the body.
So going to heaven right now is an
incomplete state until we're all raised at the
same time as one body.
There's one body, right, the body of Christ
and the resurrection will prove that because we
shall all be raised, not individually, we shall
all be raised at the same time at
the sound of the trumpet, the prophetic call,
wake up, you know, wake up, you who
have fallen asleep.
Christ has risen and now Christ is our
judge.
And judgment in Jesus is it can be
the most awesome thing, you know, when you
read about judgment in the Psalms, the fields
clap their hands and the trees clap their
hands because the judgment of God is good
and righteous and loving and compassionate.
I want to be in the hands of
the faithful, righteous judge on that day because
he will be just to us, he will
be just.
Paul is giving this command to walk by
the spirit.
Now, you've got a translation there, the one
that I printed, it says live, it's literally
walk.
We're walking.
It's an image of life in this world,
walking through this present evil age.
We're on a journey.
In the spirit of Jesus Christ, walk or
live by the spirit, and then there's a
promise and I don't want to point this
out because this is new RSV.
Richard Hayes would say, I love the new
RSV, but he gets it wrong right here.
It turns it in this first line, it
turns it into two commands.
Get this live by the spirit, I say,
and here's another command, do not gratify the
desires of the flesh.
It should be translated as the NIV translates
it.
NIV gets this one right.
Walk or live by the spirit and you
will not gratify or fulfill or complete the
desires of the flesh.
Live in the spirit and here's the promise,
you won't gratify the desire, singular, not plural
here, it's singular in degree, the desire of
the flesh.
Of course, we're talking about the third person
of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the one
that we're going to mention today in the
Great Commission, Jesus said, go into all the
world and make disciples and baptize them in
the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit.
That's the spirit that he's talking about today.
Walk and live by the Holy Spirit, which
came to you, Galatians, and to you, St.
Adian's, in your baptism, right?
You receive the spirit in the waters of
baptism.
And we're going to do two things today,
we're going to baptize and we're going to
chrismate and we're going to lay hands and
we're going to say, come, Holy Spirit, and
empower Elijah for works of service.
It's going to be beautiful.
And I love it because we're going to
be carrying out the two sacraments that Jesus
actually instituted today, baptism and communion, which is
beautiful.
This is going through the Red Sea and
this is eating the manna in the wilderness
until Jesus returns.
Can you make it without the manna?
No, no, no.
Can you produce it yourself?
No, no, no.
Can you store it up?
No, no, no.
Give us this day our.
Our daily bread, it went rancid the next
day, so that's what this gospel thing is
is building up to that Paul's talking about,
and he's saying that if you live by
the spirit, you will not gratify the desire
of the flesh.
OK, flesh, what is flesh?
What is he talking about?
The word is sarcasm, the Greek, and he's
talking about it's used so many different ways
it's used for the physical body.
But that's not what Paul is talking about.
Right.
The desires of the body.
The body's engaged in some of this, but
the body is not the issue.
The flesh is a macro term.
It's a big phrase that Paul is using.
It describes life under the reign of sin
and death.
Living in the flesh, you'll see this throughout
Paul's letters in Romans eight, if we're in
the flesh, we cannot please God.
That doesn't mean if I'm in my body,
I cannot please God if we are in
the flesh, if we are in old creation.
You see, because if all of those who
are in Christ are in new creation, see,
the problem is that we're living in the
midst of two ages.
We're living in the midst of this present
evil age with the invasion of the Holy
Spirit representing and yeah, representing and empowering the
limited fashion of the kingdom of God that
we're all getting a down payment and a
foretaste of to the Holy Spirit's a down
payment.
It's not the full thing.
The Holy Spirit is the promise given to
Abraham.
The Holy Spirit is who animates us as
Christians.
The Holy Spirit is who we receive, the
spirit of Jesus Christ.
I am always with you, even until the
end of the world.
No, even until the end of the age.
It's not the end of the world, it's
not cosmos there, it's the end of the
age.
Jesus is coming back to inaugurate his kingdom
and put an end to this present evil
eon age.
And I'm getting that from Galatians one, we've
been rescued from this present evil age, doesn't
feel like it all the time, does it?
We read about the works of the flesh.
All of that is a mirror image of
this old creation, sexual brokenness and, you know,
and all of that, all of the list
there, it's relational brokenness, I would say.
It's not just sexual brokenness.
You know, we turn it into sexual brokenness
when we translate desire, lust.
Many of your translations will say, if you
walk in the spirit, you will not fulfill
the lust of the flesh.
And boy, do we get that wrong when
we go in that direction.
Desire of the flesh is something so much
bigger and more insidious than just disordered affections
in the sexual realm.
Oh, yes, it absolutely touches it, but it's
much bigger than that.
It's much bigger than that.
You will not gratify the lust.
I don't like that.
It's the desire singular of the flesh for
what the flesh desires, this fallen creation, you
know, where impulses inside of us and there's
these voices that tempt us and there's external
media that feeds this fallenness in the world
and it seeks to like gravity, just pull
us down, pull us down and oppress us
and to still kill and destroy us.
But what this big idea of flesh describes,
this fallen cosmos where creation is groaning, get
it over with creation saying, please, Jesus, return
Maranatha for what the flesh desires.
You can get in touch with that, right?
You've been there, what the flesh desires is
opposed.
Here's a war going on, is opposed to
the spirit.
Now, this is not just this war inside
you psychologically and spiritually, oh, the flesh and
the spirit inside me, no, this is a
cosmic battle of flesh, fallen creation and Jesus
new creation, right?
This is much bigger than we've read it
because we're Americans, we like to individualize everything.
Wow, this is all plural, this is all
community, this is all about walking together, not
as individuals, but as a community.
Yeah.
Oh, man, forgive me, I feel extremely passionate
about this passage, it's just, you know, when
I was reading this last night, I had
to go.
Literally, I had to like, I had to
like tense my arms and go, God, this
is amazing, you know, but I didn't say
it out loud, I was just going.
What the flesh desires, it's an opposition to
what the spirit desires.
What the spirit desires, what on earth is
he talking about?
The spirit has desire.
Well, I'd like to know that for what
the flesh desires is opposed to what the
spirit desires.
All we're talking about today is what the
spirit desires, what the spirit desires.
These are opposed to each other to prevent
you from doing what you want.
You see, there is that sense that without
the spirit, we are turned in on ourselves.
Without the Holy Spirit animating us, we look
this way.
But as the spirit of God comes in,
we begin to look this way.
We cast our eyes upon the harvest and
upon community and how to serve one another
through love, which was last week's sermon, right?
How to serve one another through love, how
to build community, because what was happening here
is that false teachers had come in and
they were biting and devouring one another.
Those are reciprocal pronouns.
One another.
They're just going at it.
You ever had that?
You know, families do this.
Friends do this.
Politics does this.
Education does this.
This is where it's going.
It's just like you're biting and devouring.
It's an animalistic image of a piece of
meat and someone's contending over it.
You're biting and devouring one another.
If you don't stop it, you'll be consumed
by one another, Paul said.
That's not the community I want to be
a part of.
That's not the church we're planting.
That's yucky, as my little granddaughter would say.
Yucky.
But here's the alternative.
Verse 18.
But if you are led by the spirit.
You're not under the slavery of the law.
He goes on to describe in this big
chunk between verses 19 and 21, this is
a chunk.
Of what old creation produces, what fallen creation
is in slavery to.
And this is what Jesus has come to
rescue us from, OK, with that in mind,
with that bigger picture.
This is just not some little problem inside
of you.
This is cosmic in nature.
This is huge.
Now, the works of the flesh are obvious
and it has a big effect on churches
and groups and nations and politics right on
down the line, because it's fueled by principalities
and powers, demonic forces feeding this fornication, impurity,
licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery.
And then look at this here, parenthetically, here's
community stuff, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions,
factions, envy.
Got to have more than one person for
that to be going on.
Drunkenness, carousing and things like these.
This is not an exhaustive list.
Oh, just for instance, Paul, this is what
it looks like to live in old creation.
And he says Galatians baptized in water and
receiving the Holy Spirit.
I'm going to warn you.
This is a warning to baptize Christians, he's
saying, as I've warned you before, those who
do such things will not inherit the kingdom
of God.
Now we're talking about the age to come.
The kingdom of God, which is actually coming
down incrementally on Earth as it is in
heaven.
But as you read Revelation and through the
books of Revelation, where you see the throne
room and the saints and the angels, that's
the kingdom of God, you guys.
That's where Jesus is reigning supreme.
And our inheritance is at stake if we
choose to live under the domination and slavery
of flesh.
Of this fallen creation where the reign of
sin and death is in effect.
He's saying that you don't have to live
here.
I'm warning you, you will lose your inheritance
that he's been talking about through Abraham.
This is inheritance language.
Sons and daughters of God, that's our inheritance.
Life in the sun.
I'm warning you, but by contrast, I want
to show you, Paul is saying, what new
creation looks like.
I want to show you your marching orders.
I want to show you how God is
restoring the fallen and broken image of God
into the restored image.
This is the restoration of the image of
the divine within us.
And it begins with the fruit singular, the
fruit singular of the spirit, the spirit of
Christ.
Love.
Now, I've heard others execute this where if
it's singular, there's only one fruit and it's
love and these are the manifestations of it.
You can go that way.
I mean, I think you have to toss
a coin.
I think it's fruit singular talking about all
of these qualities being integrated, inseparable.
This is what the spirit's like.
This is what the image of Jesus Christ
is like.
And this is what is being restored to
us as a gift.
I want to tell you, this is a
gift.
It's not something that you will cultivate by
getting out your shovel and digging and digging
and digging until you become loving.
The harder you try to become loving without
the Holy Spirit.
The more burned out and disillusioned you'll get.
You ever tried to love, you know what
it feels like.
I mean, I run up against that all
the time and I have to go back
to the Holy Spirit.
I need you, you know, because I'm trying
to love here and I'm not doing a
good job of it.
That's just flesh.
Now, flesh is not.
I would say NIV says your sinful nature.
That's a terrible translation.
That's an interpretation, not a translation.
As I said, flesh is beyond your sinful
brokenness.
Flesh is cosmic.
Flesh was happening in the garden.
So he's talking about two trees, right?
The flesh.
That's the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil.
That's where the flesh was birthed.
In fact, the fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil is.
Flesh.
Fallen.
Ness, void of communion with God, driven east
of Eden, out of the garden.
Until the coming one, the seed, the promise,
King of David comes and is anointed by
the Holy Spirit, goes through the waters of
baptism as if he's going through the Red
Sea for us and into the desert for
40 days as if he's enacting Moses in
Sinai and the children of Israel in the
desert for 40 years.
It's all symbolic because this is the new
Moses.
This is the new Joshua that's enacting the
old covenant and fulfilling it to a T
so that we might rest in union with
him.
He did it for us.
This is the new Exodus community, then, by
contrast, the fruit of the spirit.
What is what does the church look like?
What does the kingdom look like?
Love and joy and peace, patience and kindness
and generosity and faithfulness.
That's the same word translated faith throughout the
book.
We're saved by the faithfulness of Christ, his
faithfulness.
We put our trust in his faithfulness and
so faithfulness and gentleness.
And then here it is, self-control, restraint.
There's restraint in the spirit, right, the spirit,
just because we're not under the law of
Sinai anymore and that we're in Christ, we
have been given the gift of self-control,
restraint.
And let me say this, too, this is
a big tree and it's communal.
And so it takes a community to exhibit
all of this together and to experience it
all together, love and joy and peace and
patience.
I need to get around sister patience today
because I'm wearing thin, right, that kind of
thing, that's community.
I need to be around your brother kindness
today or I need I need somebody to
encourage me in faithfulness today because this person
is living that out right now.
It's how it works.
It's reciprocal.
One another.
This is the reason this is the alternative
to biting and devouring one another, but it's
to receive the gift of the fruit that
hangs on the tree of life.
Here's the other tree, the tree of life.
You can eat of all the trees in
the garden, the tree of life is right
in the middle, but don't eat of this
tree over here, it's a tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
This is the tree of life.
There is no law against such things and
to those who belong to Christ Jesus, isn't
that beautiful?
Just take a moment and breathe in and
say, thank you, I belong to Christ Jesus.
And there's nothing I could have done to
accomplish that.
I belong to Christ Jesus.
It's all his doing, it's a gift, the
gift of belonging is what people are so
thirsty for.
People want to belong, that's why we have
gangs in the urban core.
It's a twisted belonging.
It's a disordered belonging, and those who belong
to Christ Jesus have what, say it with
me, crucified the flesh.
Paul says, I've been crucified to the world
and the world unto me, he's talking about
this big idea of cosmic brokenness.
And it takes Jesus, the cosmic Christ.
Because he fills all things, brothers and sisters,
in the resurrection, I'm trying to sound New
Age here.
Cosmic is our word, it's a Greek word
in the New Testament.
OK, so I don't care who uses it,
it's our language.
And we have a cosmic Jesus who fills
the universe.
No, you belong to him.
And ultimately, in the incarnation, you belong to
him before you believe he owns all of
us, before we ever know about him, because
we were chosen in Christ before the foundations
of the world.
And so we've got this little thing called
belong, believe, behave.
And if we mess that up, we'll go
right back into legalism, because some churches say
in order to belong here, you must behave,
behave first, then believe and then belong.
You'll be all you're one of us.
That's not gospel.
That is not gospel.
That's law.
That's legalism.
So, Michael, are you saying that what he
hates always last?
Yeah.
So you've got to play with those first
to leave and belong.
Most of us have been taught that is
evangelicals.
You have to believe and then belong.
And I'm here to tell you that Jesus
has already gathered you up before you believe.
And then you're believing sets that free.
You begin to enjoy.
The salvation that he's wrought for you, belong,
believe.
And then he'll start working on your behavior.
Ask me how I know he's still working
on it.
He's still working on me, he's still working
on you, are you still working out your
salvation with fear and trembling?
For it's God who is at work in
you, both the will and to do according
to his good pleasure.
Now, I know some of you are going
like, I don't like that, believe thing, wrestle
with it.
If you belong to Christ Jesus and have
crucified the flesh with its passions, if we
live by the spirit, let us also be
guided by the spirit.
Let us not become conceited, competing against one
another.
Envying one another, see this this concern for
community, this concern for relational unity.
Let us not become conceited, competing against one
another, envying one another.
In fact, last week's sermon ended with through
love become slaves of one another, serve one
another through love.
And lean into the power of the Holy
Spirit so that the tree of life can
just begin to grow all of this amazing
fruit in our community, which it's already here,
and just let it continue to grow and
mature and spread out and fill the land.
As the psalm said this morning, it took
root and it filled the land.
Jesus is the vine that will fill the
land in the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.