1. The days are getting longer, the temperature slowly warming up. We can see and feel that soon it will be spring.
2. One of things I used to enjoy doing in late spring, is looking at the beautiful gardens people have. Last year remember handing out brochures for VBS. I admired well-landscaped yards, rich, luscious lawns and gardens full of beautiful flowers.
3. I could tell those who spent much time in making their property attractive.
4. But every so often I came to a property that stood out like a sore thumb - a yard that had no bushes and trees or if they hade not been trimmed for years. The gardens had no flowers, the grass was uncut and covered with dandelions and other weeds.
5. People in these houses were not interested in landscaping or maintaining their gardens or perhaps they were simply too busy.
6. When we look at someone’s yard or garden, we can tell something about the person who owns the house.
7. So also, when people look at us, the way we behave, at our attitudes and actions, at our personalities, they can also tell something about who owns or controls us.
8. Also, it is hard when you live beside someone who lets their property get run down - had neighbour like that beside first house we owned. I wished city would pass a law that they have to look after yard, but unless the place is a total disaster, the owner has the freedom of deciding whether his yard is nice or not.
9. In a similar way, we as Christians have been given freedom - we are not forced to live a certain way but we have freedom to choose how to live.
10. This evening we consider how well our lives are landscaped, how we are to and can use our freedom to choose, to show to self and others that we are children of God.
Teaching
1. Paul is writing to the Christians in Galatia. These people are dealing with an important issue - whether or not non-Jewish converts should be circumcised or not. Paul says they do not need to be. (Gal 5:6)
a. In Gal 5:1 Paul had told them that they had been set free from the law. This is good news because no one, none of us, could ever live up to its demands.
b. In our passage Paul tells us how we are to respond to this freedom we have. (Gal 5:13)
c. This is a choice that each of us as Christians make every day.
2. In some ways life might be easier when we are not a Christian, when we are still in bondage to sin. Then there are no decisions or choices to be made. That is why some people commit another crime as soon as they get out of jail. So they can return to the safe, well-defined confines of a prison cell - no thinking required - they are conditioned to live a certain way. - eg. Maslov’s - stimuli-response theory.
3. We are free - no longer automatically conditioned to sin. We are free to not sin and free from having the law hang over us, telling us you better obey or else.
5. There are 3 ways to respond to this freedom.
a. 1st is to feel free to do whatever want because the law cannot convict him - sin all week without feeling guilty and then on Sunday go to church and show that we do have faith in Jesus Christ since that is all that matters - so they think. Life is simple - there are no struggles at all. Simply follow natural inclinations or as Paul says - indulges in the sinful nature
b. 2nd - is to become a legalist, to prove faith is real they must follow law to the letter. But somehow they always fall short and so they sense no certain, ultimate triumph - so always struggling with whether you are really a believer or not.
c. 3rd way - is the ways of a true believer. We experience a conflict - a deep conflict in his heart, continually battling against sin. But we have assurance of salvation, the victory Christ attained for us on cross. We see we fall short of living as Christ wants him to and so are continually struggling.
6. Which of these three describes you?
7. As a Christian, there is a strong battle going on within us between two powerful forces - between the sinful nature and the Spirit.
a. Sinful nature is old nature, that which controls us before we rec’d Christ and Holy Spirit. Still seeks to draw us from Christ. It is our natural self apart from Christ. (Gal 5:17)
8. Can you relate to this - what sins do you struggle with? Even as a child want to obey but not listen to parents.
9. We must not see ourselves as passive victims of this battle of these 2 forces within us. We have a role in this conflict and we need to be aware of what our role is. Easy to see sinful nature as Satan or as a force that is alien to us - that comes into us from outside of us, as one that does not belong in us.
a. But as said already - it represents who we are without Christ - and so we are responsible for the sinful nature in us.
b. This sinful nature not only cause us to sin but thru sin leads to division and strife in church. (Gal 5:15)
10. Do you really believe there is a battle waging within you? How can we tell? In how we conduct our lives. While ago we learned from Mat 7:15-21. You can tell if prophets or anyone if true by their fruit. This scares me and should scare all of us.
a. You and I should look at the fruit we have produced in past week - lost your temper?, felt jealous?
b. Does this mean we will be cut down and thrown into the fire? - or as Paul warns in vs. 21 that we will not inherit the kingdom of God?
c. If we honestly look at self - we can see that we bear both good and bad fruit - both the acts of the sinful nature and the fruit of the Spirit.
11. Paul gives us examples of each of these
12. Gal 5:19-21 - acts of the sinful nature.
a. Include sexual sins - immorality, impurity and debauchery which means having no restraint in sex, food or drink, being ready for any pleasure. Most of us may be able to say that we do not have any problems with these sin.
b. But what about idolatry - is there anything in our lives which we worship as much as or more than God? or that we worship at all?
c. Next item refers to a major problem we have today - when Paul mentions witchcraft he means the use of drugs which sorcerers used for magical purposes. But what also falls into this category is horoscopes and psychics - again this may apply to none or very few of us.
d. But now the list starts hitting a little closer to home. Acts of the sinful nature include hatred and quarreling, discord or wrangling, jealousy or the desire to be as well of as another person.
e. Fits of rage or outbursts of anger.
f. Selfish ambition - looking out for ourselves even if getting ahead hurts another person.
g. Dissensions, factions into parties or cliques. Do we have these - in church, in youth groups, amongst children? Do we refuse to associate with certain people because they are not one of us, they are different?
h. Envy or the desire to deprive someone else of what they have and we do not.
13. I would not be very wrong to say that all if not most of us have seen these works of the flesh operating in our lives this very week.
14. Paul then lists the fruit of the Spirit. We are going to spend the next few Sunday evenings looking at each item in this list, but for today we consider some things about the fruit in general.
15. There seems to be a grammatical error. Fruit is singular and yet 9 things are listed - should it not say fruits? No, the Greek shows the singular.
a. Some say that is because the fruit of the Spirit is love and that the other 8 items are simply ways in which love is manifest. (Gal 5:14)
b. I agree that love is most important but I think that singular is used for another reason - these traits are integrated like a diamond with many facets or a cluster of grapes with many grapes.
c. And by showing the singular it shows that all believers are to have all of these items, unlike the gifts. Not - I have love and you have kindness.
16. Another important point is that works refer to what we do or accomplish. But fruit is not something we do - we cannot bear fruit on our own. And so while we display both the works of the flesh and the fruit, we know that fruit comes only from Holy Spirit.
17. The big question for us is how can we appropriate more of power or fruit of Holy Spirit in us. Answer given in Gal 5:16,18,24-25.
18. To be able to claim victory in the struggle, we first have to ask ourselves 2 questions "Do I belong to Christ?" and "Am I led by the Spirit?"
19. All who have received Christ as Lord and Saviour belong to him.
20. Yet in Gal 5:21 Paul said that those who live like this - by works of the sinful nature - will not inherit the kingdom of God.
21. This means not that we sin but that this sin is a way of life. It is one thing to be jealous once in a while - another thing to base our lives and all we do on jealousy. If we have received Christ, we are no longer ruled by sin. Instead we are led by the Spirit
22. We do live by the Spirit, but like a child in a store with father or mother, we see toys etc. and get diverted and do not keep in step with the Him. If we live by the Spirit we must keep in step with the Spirit - we actively seek to be step with Him.
23. How do we do that? Find answer in Pss 1. To not associate with those who continuously sin but to delight in law, in word. (John 15:4)
24. Focus on Christ and abide in Him.
25. In coming weeks look at what it means to bear fruit and show fruit of Holy Spirit in us. May we seek to be controlled in these areas and in all of life by the Holy Spirit.
