Grace From Galatians (15 Of 19)

Illus: There's a man trying to cross the street. As he steps off the curb, a car comes screaming around the corner and heads straight for him. The man walks faster, trying to hurry across the street, but the car changes lanes and is still coming at him.

So the guy turns around to go back, but the car changes lanes again and is still coming at him. By now, the car is so close and the man so scared that he just freezes and stops in the middle of the road. The car gets real close, then swerves at the last possible moment and screeches to a halt right next him.

The driver rolls down the window. The driver is a squirrel. The squirrel says to the man, "See, it's not as easy as it looks, is it?"

Every day we walk in a world that is filled with sin. It is not easy to walk in the Spirit. The opposite of walking in the FLESH is walking in the SPIRIT.

In this passage of Scripture Paul has a great deal to say about:

• Our choice to WALK IN THE SPIRIT

• Our choice to WALK IN THE FLESH

Let me show you three things about this in this passage of scripture. We are going to deal with all the verses in this passage, but not in the order they are given to us. For example, let us first look at:

I. THE PROBLEM OF THE FLESH

Look at verses 19-21, we read, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Something we often fail to teach about the works of the flesh is that the flesh in itself is not sinful.

There are cults who teach that the flesh is filthy and they believe that to please God:

• We have to cut our flesh

• We have to abuse our flesh in different ways

I want to say again, there is nothing sinful within this flesh, this human body is a gift from God for God’s use. There are some who feel this flesh is sinful and must be despised and abused.

But if they would think about it, they would know this is a mistake. For example, did you know you have the same body after you were converted that you had before?

• Conversion does not put new flesh upon the old spirit but a new Spirit within the old flesh

• Conversion does not propose to bring new flesh to the old mind, but a new mind to the old flesh

Victory is not gained by despising the flesh, but by receiving the divine nature to subdue and have dominion over the person, not by the taking away of the sinful flesh, but by the sending in of the sinless Spirit to conquer and condemn sin in the flesh.

• The Scripture does not say, “Let this flesh be upon you which was also upon Christ,” but it does say, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Phil. 2:5.

• The Scripture does not say, “Be transformed by the renewing of your flesh,” but it does say, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Rom. 12:2. We shall be translated by the renewing of our flesh, but we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

The Lord Jesus took the same flesh and blood, the same human nature that we have, and lived a sinless life within it.

The Bible tells us that at conversion, this human body becomes the temple of God.

Look at 1 Cor. 3:16-17, we read, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”

Because this body becomes the temple of God at conversion, we as Christians should do everything we can to keep it pure.

• We are not told to cleanse ourselves from the flesh

• But notice, we are told we are to cleanse ourselves from the “Lust of the flesh.”

The lust of the flesh dwells within the heart of mankind. This is why the Bible says, in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

There is so much wickedness in the heart of man, it is beyond man’s ability to understand it.