The Hope of Righteousness

To watch the sermon The Fruit of the Holy Spirit: The Hope of Righteousness

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That's a little weak, but I know sometimes in this rooms the sound does you you got to try a little harder in this room Because of the acoustics so good morning That's better.

All right.

It's good to see you guys It's been a couple weeks since I've been able to be here with you and I'm looking forward to a diving Into this new study on the fruit of the Spirit.

I hope you're excited about it.

I'm excited about it Because I like learning new things and every time I study the scripture even things that I've studied before God teaches me new things and when God teaches me new things, it's because God's got new adventures for me in Discipleship and growing in him.

Have you ever heard the phrase we can do this the easy way or the hard way?

How many have ever been in that situation where you had to make that choice?

Yeah, it's not always so fun sometimes That's the way I feel when Chris gives me an assignment for preaching and the topic that's going to be We began our series on the gifts of the Spirit and I knew it was the the series on the gifts The spirit was going to be a challenge Why because many of you who are here on a regular basis and those of you who?

Well, hello Thank you That's called the strobe effect But many of you who are joining us online are from many many varied backgrounds and expressions of the body of Christ and have come with many different views on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and you've been impacted by good experiences and also some bad experiences and so I knew that when we Dove into that topic.

I needed to make sure that we studied the context of what led Paul To that topic on the gifts of the Spirit now today We're going to talk about the fruit of the Spirit and you may be thinking Oh, well, this is much easier than the gifts of the Spirit.

I mean the fruit of the Spirit is only love joy.

Peace patience I mean how controversial how difficult can it be to do that topic?

well The easy way would be for me to just jump into the nine gifts Which is kind or the nine fruits, which is kind of what everybody expected me to do with the gifts and I didn't do it.

Why?

because if you know me, I just can't skip the context and By the time we get to Paul's teaching on the gifts of the Spirit We get there after about 11 chapters of Paul kind of laying out the flesh spirit battle and the carnality That has gripped the Corinthian believers in spite of the fact that he has blessed them with literally every spiritual gift and so the controversy is literally what sets the context and So you think well, man, I just thought the fruit of the Spirit was just this nice pleasant, you know Sunday school Thing we can talk about but he doesn't get to that topic Until he tells you the reason why that topic is so important Before we study what they are We have to understand why they exist and in that will decide we'll discover How they literally can change the way I do life.

Will you pray with me?

Abba father I come to you, but shim Yeshua hamashiach in the name of Jesus the Messiah the Christ the Anointed One The one who ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on high received the gift of the Holy Spirit From the father has poured it forth into our lives Father we're here today because we want to know what that means what he does within us and How we can be more faithful disciples by submitting our lives and our hearts to you To grow your fruit and your presence and your righteousness within us So Lord, I pray today that you would give us discerning hearts and open minds to receive that Which is from your word and not from me, but from you We will be careful to give you all the glory and all God's children said Amen, so let's just dive in Today my the title of my messages the are the fruits of righteousness When we began our study of the gifts of the Spirit I started with the gifts of righteousness and the reason for that is Because of the context of the problem that was going on in Corinth, which I want to remind you about The Corinthian believers had been given every possible Spiritual gift and manifestation of the Spirit to help them overcome their carnality and you have to have some compassion for these people Corinth is a port city.

It is literally It's where all the best vessels come in from all over the world It is just ranked with sexual immorality and idolatry prostitution serving the men coming in from the ships and many of the believers who were who many of the believers had been a part of that system and So the Lord was very gracious to pour out as Paul says virtually every spiritual gift to help them because Paul was beginning to realize that that carnality was beginning to corrupt the body of Christ and Paul knew a very much how dangerous that could be.

How did he know that?

Because Paul was a Pharisee Paul was a Jewish rabbi Paul knew the spiritual condition of what was going on within Judaism in Jerusalem you had four dominant groups the Pharisees the Sadducees the Essenes and the zealots and Judaism was literally imploding on itself Add to this you had the narcissistic behavior and interpretation of the Pharisees The Pharisees who had sat themselves in the seat of Moses were giving incorrect holocaust incorrect Interpretation about how to walk out the Torah along with their incorrect interpretation.

They were manifesting Hypocrisy, they didn't even do the things they were putting on other people to do the result of this was and was an implosive divisiveness that didn't multiply division and really Century or sometime later when it came time to give a reason for the destruction of the second temple That was the reason they gave this this hatred this divisiveness that ruined their community and ultimately resulted in the destruction of the second temple and Paul didn't want that to happen in the Corinthian Church And he doesn't want that to happen in our church or anywhere else because as the body of Christ We are the temple of the Holy Spirit Yet we run the risk of making the mistake of giving into that flesh driven life that Carnality and when we do that one of the ways you know, what's happening Indivisiveness Disputes Factions It's obvious The gifts of righteousness By the time he gets to those in Corinthians were given for the sake of the body For the building up of the temple of the Holy Spirit Christ Church Paul wrote to get their focus off of serving themselves and raise their sights to a life of doing selfless Righteousness for somebody else because honestly the only way to get out of yourself is to start serving somebody else They're the only way to stop being selfish is to stop being selfish There's no magic cure for it.

You've just got to get out and do it and get involved in somebody else's life But before Paul wrote first Corinthians to a people living in that coastal city of Greece He wrote a letter not to a city but to a region in Asia Minor called Galatia The letter would be circulated among the communities and cities where Paul had first established churches on his first missionary journey to those churches Paul wrote either shortly before or shortly after The Council in Jerusalem of the Apostles had met to determine Whether or not Gentiles had to be circumcised.

We'll come back to that here in a little bit Paul writes this letter to reinforce what will eventually become the holocaust ruling of the Apostles the fruits of righteousness that Paul describes in Galatians 5 are the evidence of a person's right relationship with God not physical circumcision and That's what makes this topic so incredibly significant and incredibly important How many of you want to know and walk in?

In a true sense of knowing you are a child of God.

You are a son of God You are a daughter of God.

You are a spirit-filled person.

How many want to know that?

Not as many as I thought You don't have a bunch of hand razors, it's okay.

I don't judge you a little bit maybe Yeah, we want to know that So, how do we know check the fruit Check the fruit if the fruit is there then the spirit is there if the fruit isn't there well then I'm not gonna say the spirits not there, but there may be a misunderstanding of how we let the spirit manifest and grow his presence in our lives So Why does Paul describe these?

Manifestations of the Holy Spirit in our life as fruits before we dive into what Paul wrote in Galatians 1 I want you to go with me to Romans 6 and when I say go with me if I don't care if it's on your Telephone or on your lap.

I really want we're gonna do a Bible study today We're gonna look at two different sections of Scripture We're gonna start in Romans 6 and then we're gonna go to Galatians 5 And so we're gonna be reading these verses and now we're gonna make some comments about them Romans chapter 6 verses 12 through 14 now understand this book this letter was written long after the Galatian letter But notice you'll recognize the consistency of what Paul says on these topics beginning in verse 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body So that you obey its lust and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as Instruments of righteousness to God for sin shall not be your master For you are not under law but under grace Now notice that Paul is framing a previous way of life with a new way of life Now sometimes people don't want to accept that we when we went through the the book of Hebrews, you know There's this constant juxtaposition between an old covenant and a new covenant and some people just don't want to accept the fact that you can't Juxtapose the new with the old or the old with the new if there is no new and there is no old the the juxtaposition tells you that there is Something that is different.

There's a way of life that's different So Paul continues with the question.

How can we live in Romans 6?

He he asked at the beginning if we died with Christ Remember Romans 6 starts with the whole being baptized into his death the likeness of his death the likeness of his resurrection And he asked the question if we've died to sin in Christ, how can we continue in it any longer?

But then Paul makes a statement that believers have been wrestling with for generations And and we are still doing it today for you are not under law, but under grace The easy way would it be to avoid this You understand my dilemma that would have been oh, let's just talk about love Let's just let's just talk about joy But that's not the context of why we get to those This is the context of why we get to those Whatever Paul means by this He sees our death with Christ and in Christ as one having not only changed our relationship With sin, but also in some way it has changed our relationship With the law the Torah the instructions of God's righteousness Something has changed It's not a bad thing But something has changed he also continues his consistent use of the the imagery of slavery or Servitude as a means of making this juxtaposition between what was and what is Now I wish let's just be honest.

I wish there had been another way he could have done this All right Because Slavery is just an uncomfortable topic period In our own nation, it brings up on very uncomfortable painful memories of our own past and our origins It brings up painful Images of people who who have been who have suffered under that But it's not something that's from the past Because right now there are more people in slavery There are probably more people in slavery right now in the world in which we're living in right now Then even when the slavery of Africans was going on in the United States Sex trafficking literal slavery So I wish slavery would go away but it hasn't I Wish there was a more comfortable way to talk about this But it's the one he chooses and It's really quite effective in spite of it being uncomfortable We will see him do the same things in Galatians and before we get defensive Please know there's a very good reason why he uses this imagery Paul immediately anticipates in Romans 6 a ludicrous Ludicrous conclusion to what he has just penned and rebuts it before we even have a moment to think about it Verse 15 what then shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace God forbid may it never be So if your mind went there you should have read one more verse Does not being under the law mean you can now do the things the law identified as sin Well, no All God's people said well, duh No So not being under the law doesn't change the definition of sin and it doesn't change the definition of Unrighteousness, which is sinfulness driven by selfishness.

That's unrighteousness Paul is talking to us about a relationship Verse 16.

He says do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience?

You are slaves of the one of the one of whom you obey either of sin resulting in death or of Obedience resulting in righteousness Paul says there's two types of servitude one that leads to death and one that leads to life and It all depends on who you present yourself to be a slave to now that kind of gives us a hint of the indentured servitude that he's talking about All right.

This isn't just the willful.

This isn't the the captured slavery image although it can apply there to Verse 17, but thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin you became obedient From the heart would you people please just repeat those three words with me from the heart from the heart?

Underline it in your mind do whatever your little Apple let you do We became obedient from the heart to that form of instruction To which you were committed and having been freed from sin.

You became slaves of Righteousness Now did you notice what he said?

We became obedient from the heart There there's something about this new connection to righteousness That is not foisted upon us.

It is it is not obligatory to us.

It is something we choose from the heart to attach ourselves to We're talking about a relationship What else is the heart about?

Now, why is this important?

Because it points to the change that was always coming when obedience was to shift from obligation to love Not now don't misunderstand me Israel was called to love the Lord their God with all their heart their soul their mind and their truth Or their spirit, but there is something that happens at the coming of Jesus that's so Dramatically affects us in the heart That we have a different kind of attachment to the pursuit of righteousness We're gonna try to explore what that is Listen to what he says verse 19 He says I'm speaking in human terms Because of the weakness of your flesh for just as you presented your members your body parts as slaves to impurity into lawlessness Resulting in further lawlessness.

So now present your members as slaves to righteousness Resulting in sanctification for when you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness Now Paul tells us hey, I'm speaking in human terms.

What does that mean?

He's using a terminology They'll understand and what is that terminology?

What is that context?

slavery Uncomfortable but known It was a part of the whole Roman economy the whole world functioned with Whether it was in Asia Minor or Rome wherever it was Slavery was a reality and The people understood it He's using this terminology they understand and the terminology that they understand is what it means to be indentured or bound over to another and Required to do something that is not necessarily their will to do They do it because they must do it not because they want to do it from their heart They have no choice because here it comes They are under Authority Are you with me?

They are under authority Of someone else They are under obligation because they have to not because they chose to Slavery was so prevalent prevalent in the ancient world that it was an easy understandable way to juxtapose a life of servitude to a life of freedom so when Paul starts talking in the context of Slavery to sin and and the law being something we felt like we were in slaves to guys.

Can we just all grow up?

He's Paul is never not once in the scripture does he demean the Torah he's helping us understand a relationship To how we pursued righteousness here Versus how we now pursue righteousness here He's using a common frame of reference Which is uncomfortable But it makes the point if you can't get past that You will simply ignore what he says about the law That's the bottom line.

You'll simply ignore it because you're emotionally triggered and not listening With the Spirit he's not demeaning the law Verse 20 he says for when you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness.

That's kind of funny You know when you're a kid freedom You know, oh, I'm a kid.

They'll forgive me You know, I mean there's a certain level of freedom you have when you're just sinning Because you're enslaved to sin and righteousness doesn't get in the way You know I'm talking about Remember when it was really easy to sin before you knew Jesus And then it got uncomfortable.

I Think it's funny Because it's true we're just like, you know, just going out there sowing our oats doing our thing we don't care Until suddenly we come smacked up to face with righteousness.

Oh Now it doesn't feel so fun anymore Now it doesn't feel so free anymore Verse 21 therefore what benefit who were getting to the big reveal here?

What benefit?

Were you then deriving from the things of which you were now ashamed for the outcome of those things is death But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification and the outcome eternal life, oh That biblical translators would just translate the stinking words.

I Say that out loud.

Hmm Sorry, it kind of slipped out What am I talking about?

Here's the big reveal The big reveal that helps us build to our topic of the fruits of righteousness The fruit of the Holy Spirit in both of those verses the word the New American translation version translate benefit is actually the Greek word for fruit and If you've ever celebrated Passover and gone through the 15 steps of the Haggadah You already know what that word is It comes when we take the the the parsley and we dip it.

Does anybody remember what the name of that section is?

carpas That's the word that Paul uses fruit We dip the carpas twice We dip the fruit of the land twice to remember what our gift of freedom and Our gift of freedom from what?

slavery Oh That Jewish thing we do the Passover That just slips in one little Greek word on us That's completely relevant to what we're studying freedom Because the fruit of the Spirit is About freedom Paul asked what fruit did you derive?

From the life of slavery to sin, what was your benefit?

What was the fruit?

Well, the fruit was death verse 22 Here we go juxtaposition, but now What's the juxtaposition there was then and now there's Now you can say it out loud.

It's okay There's then and then there's Thank you but now having been freed from sin and Enslaved to God.

I got to stop right here Enslaved to God.

Oh Now we're just doing it because of an angry no, he's using an illustration grow up It's just an imagery is God an evil taskmaster No, yeah now you better start talking you sit there and don't answer that you're not don't go outside until you repent No Does that what it means to be enslaved?

No, he's using a cultural illustration Something we understand about what it means to be under obligation or submission to You can tell I'm a little irritated By people who take these things to ludicrous degrees because when we do We miss the power of the imagery that Paul is using But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God you derive your fruit carpas Resulting in sanctification and the outcome is eternal life We now since we have been freed from sin and are now in servitude to God We now have a new fruit a new benefit a new result of our righteousness The first is sanctification the transforming work of the Holy Spirit who doesn't just give us the rules of righteousness but begins to actually change us and Rebirth within us a hunger for righteousness.

The benefit is not just knowing what sins I'm not supposed to commit It is the birthing of a renewed appetite for righteousness within me.

It's not about changing my behavior It's about changing me.

I Don't need more rules We didn't do well when we just had one Come on Really I don't know what made him think 613 would fix that but you know But I'll tell you what it did do it exposed just how much problem I have with sin It exposed just how much my willful flesh the minute you tell me Do this my flesh says no Don't do this.

My flesh says alrighty.

I Don't need a new rule.

I need a new me I Need a then But I need a new now And that's the Holy Spirit and That's the role the Holy Spirit the fruits of the Holy Spirit These are not this love joy.

P this this is not going to be a behavior modification course Shame on you for not loving as much as you should love How helpful was that?

I?

Establish a rule that you must love.

What does your flesh say?

No, I Encounter love By the presence of the rule of kakodesh the presence of the God of love within me and I'm in relationship with him and That starts changing me Sanctification which leads to eternal life not just a future hope but a present reality My eternal life begins when death no longer has control of my destiny Because it's no longer in charge of me and it no longer has a charge against me Death only has authority in my life because of sin if I've been freed from sin It no longer has mastery or ownership or authority over me It is no longer my master and neither is death.

I have been set free Carposs And that's the result that's the end game of the fruit of the Holy Spirit within us It shouldn't surprise us should it that God turns this whole thing around With fruit Well, duh, that's how this whole thing got started I Mean we messed it up with fruit God says I'm gonna fix it with fruit We messed it up at a living tree God says I'm gonna fix it with a death tree Where you can come and dine on the fruit of my righteousness I Love God's Word Not just what it says but how he says it Two trees and fruit, how do we mess this up now to Galatians 5 We're gonna do the very same thing with the first part of this chapter as we've done with Paul's letter in Romans Let me begin in verse 1.

It was for freedom that Christ has set us free Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery.

Oh Paul, please find a different illustration Nope He's gonna do the one that works Behold I Paul say to you that if you receive circumcision Messiah will be of no benefit to you and I testify again to Every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation To keep the whole law Did you see how I use the word under there?

under obligation and I testify again to Every man who receives circumcision that he's under obligation to keep the whole law You have been severed from Messiah you who are seeking to be justified by the law You have fallen from grace for we through the Spirit by faith are waiting For and there it is the hope of righteousness Now we know why Paul was using the slavery servitude terminology as I said it was not to demean the Torah But to explain the relationship To help us understand how the relationship changes from slavery to freedom from slave to son and That's what makes the conflict context essential to our understanding the conflict context in this case and Again, this was way before Paul ever wrote Romans is that Jewish believers were demanding that Gentile men be circumcised To have right and covenantal standing with God now We already know the next ten Peter had gone to the house of Cornelius We saw that six men from the circumcision had had witnessed the the Holy Spirit circumcising the heart of Cornelius and his household and pouring out the Holy Spirit and gifting but In the course of the gospel going into the regions of Asia Minor the further you get away from Jerusalem The less that reality is known So when did this letter get written?

well, some say it was before the council in Jerusalem and the reason they say that is that This letter was likely the thing that helped raise the issue To make the necessity of the Jerusalem Council come to pass meaning Paul writes this letter Makes these bold statements about circumcision and the Apostles haven't even talked about it yet.

That's that's one view of this Other people believe no, he wrote this after the council And those who hold this view see it as affirming the council's decision But he doesn't really cite it He doesn't usually he doesn't actually cite reference to it and some people say well because he didn't cite reference to it That means he that it had to have been written, you know, maybe before the council, but let's be honest about Paul Paul didn't get his gospel from the Apostles.

Did he?

Paul makes it clear that the gospel he preached to the nations was the gospel he received from Jesus himself He didn't need the permission of the Apostles to preach that gospel So this is just a point of information for you Some commentaries will say before some commentaries will say after what we do know is that this is the conflict context This is what the body of Christ the early church was dealing with So, why is it the conflict context Because it raises the issue of who is doing the work of sanctification and where it's being accomplished Let me just sidebar for a minute for these people that were you know Paul's pretty rough on him in Galatians and and he was there and he has the right to do that But let's remember let's have a little grace for these Jewish people who have their entire lives Believed this is the way to have right standing with God.

Let me ask you a question when you came to Messiah Did you have to work some things out with your old way of life?

Was there some struggle with maybe some friendships that you didn't necessarily want to lose but In the context of walking out faithfulness to him Those relationships started feeling really uncomfortable Was that easy?

How easy do you think it was for the Jewish people to suddenly Have something as sacred and holy to them as circumcision suddenly being said Suddenly being said they don't have to do that Now Paul never said to the Jews you need to stop doing that.

He just said you can't tell them as men They have to do that.

I Have grace for these people But eventually they have to be called out For what they're what they're doing why because it goes to that issue of how am I being sanctified?

How am I being saved is it by the hands of men in the flesh of men or is it by the work of the Holy?

Spirit in my heart Is it the shedding of my blood that sets me right with God or is it the shedding of Messiah's blood?

That sets me right the issue had to come up.

It had to be dealt with and The reason Paul gets so amped about it is that he's tired of people telling Gentile men You're not right with God unless you let me do something to you in your flesh when the Holy Spirit has already done something supernatural in their heart I'm gonna go with that for multiple reasons.

That's better Paul tells them that if they accept the yoke of circumcision Christ will be of no benefit to them And this is this word here This is why I know that Paul uses the word car pass very very specifically because that's not the word he uses here There's a generic word for benefit if that's the one is using here in the other times he's drawing our mind to the fruit of the Spirit Paul says the problem with accepting circumcision is that you then obligate you then put these men under obligation to keeping the whole Torah Did that save you?

No What did it do it inflamed your flesh You ask well would that be so bad It's not the way the father wants to move us from slavery to sonship And by the way when you left first grade and by the time you got to high school and you strange people who took classes called trigonometry and Algebra and all those crazy things One plus one still equal to there, right?

What you had learned the fabric the foundation of what you learned was still in place It's just that the father wants to move us from slavery to sonship the Torah can can teach what us and what not to Do what to do and what not to do, but it doesn't intrinsically Internally change me.

It doesn't fix or restore the fallen appetite.

It doesn't replace the yetzerah.

I Don't want another law I want to be different I Want to go I don't want to go back to Sinai as Chris says I want to go back to Eden I want to go back to that place that God created me where my default wasn't no my default was of course Trust I Don't want to live in a world I don't want to live in a body that every time I hear God calling me son to do something and I want to go That direction my flesh wants to drag me the other way I Don't want another law I Want freedom from that and the father has a way to do it He doesn't leave us to battle alone and That is not what the father wants for his children.

He doesn't want obedience to be obligatory an act of slavery Required by an unwanted master.

He wants obedience that comes from faith expressing itself through love Listen again to verse 5 4 and I'm gonna I'm gonna amplify it for we We now as opposed to we then through the Spirit The gift of righteousness given to the Messiah by God to be poured out as our inheritance as sons not slaves by faith like Abraham before he was circumcised are waiting for the hope of righteousness Eternal life We must understand when the subject of circumcision is brought up It's in the context of sonship and inheritance But Paul is about to say something shocking and amazing but usually completely misunderstood in verse 6.

He says for in Christ G in for in Christ in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love now This is one of those places where you can misread this verse and put the wrong Emphasis on the wrong place and come up with the wrong interpretation He didn't say circumcision means nothing He didn't say uncircumcision means nothing He said in Christ Circumcision or uncircumcision mean nothing Where in Christ?

So he's not telling Jews to stop circumcising their sons and he's not telling Gentiles to start Circumcising their men he's saying in Christ.

It is not the power that changes you and actually that's what the word means in the verse It's not the power of change But faith working through love if you ignore where circumcision doesn't mean anything you'll miss the point It doesn't mean anything in Christ And the reason I amplified that verse was to remind you that Abraham's faith was credited as righteousness Before he was circumcised He received the gift of the promise the change of his name all these things So that he could be the father of us all Because in Christ because of my faith in the promise of the Son like Abraham in Christ I am identified as a son and an heir of the promise.

It isn't determined by my flesh It's determined by his flesh Come on.

I Mean, aren't you glad?

I The older you get the more unique your relationship with your own flesh becomes I Used to have to do something athletic or heroic to hurt myself Now I just get out of bed My relationship with my flesh is changing My eternity isn't determined by my flesh John 1 12 but as many as received him to vote to them He gave the right to become the children of God even to those who believe in his name Giving us the right to become children of God was always The intent so this statement is amazing faith working through love This is the definition of what a disciple looks like faith again Like Abraham's working anytime you see that working remember the context in which it's it's originally given When Jesus is teaching the Sermon on the Mount and we're talking about works righteousness and you're talking about the misinterpretations of the Pharisees And how they taught people to work out righteousness but what what works is he talking about when Paul uses that word in his mind works means the doing of righteousness and Paul is saying there's a different way that we're going to work righteousness There's a different source from which our righteousness is going to come it's going to come from the faith like unto Abraham working through Love by the Holy Spirit When we think of the word love we think of an emotion that the Hebrew mindset would immediately go to the word Hesed grace Meaning loving-kindness the Holy Spirit gives us gifts of grace to do the works of righteousness He also lovingly gives us the fruit of the Spirit to transform us because it's not just about Doing it's about being Be ye transformed It By the gifts of the Spirit I do righteousness for others by the fruit of the Spirit I am literally being changed my appetite One piece of fruit changed gave me an appetite for sin So, what do you think the fruit of the Spirit is going to give me If I partake It's gonna birth a hunger for righteousness This is important stuff, isn't it?

Because it changes Just for me personally just coming to understand the real context of righteousness is giving charity And the thing that we're called to do is to manifest the love of God the way God Manifested his love to us by giving that's changed.

I mean Tanya can tell you it has changed the way we live Verse 13 for you are called to freedom brethren Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh but through love serve one another Get out of yourself Paul is so consistent about this verse 14 for the whole law is Fulfilled in one word in the statement.

You shall love the Lord or you shall love your neighbor as yourself Did you notice how he phrases that sentence?

There's one word in that commandment that frames the whole law.

What is that word?

love He says for the whole law is fulfilled in one word in the statement you shall love your neighbor as yourself What's the one word love?

What is what is love a manifestation of God's righteousness Verse 15, but if you bite and devour one another take care or you will be consumed by one another If we don't partake of the fruit of righteousness guess what we start munching on Each other We turn communion into consumption I'm gonna I'm gonna find my significance by chewing on yours That's what the flesh will do Why does he insert this here because like the Corinthian Church He knew that they would experience sometime in the future The churches in Galatia were already beginning to experience the negative impact of living in the flesh and people telling them That to have right standing with God you've got to do these things in the flesh instead of submitting and becoming under the flesh becoming under the spirit Verse 16, but I say walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh Every time you hear the word walk you have to know That this first century Jewish rabbi is thinking of the holocaust The interpretation of how do you walk out the instructions of righteousness?

guys All right Paul is teaching us a new holocaust How to walk out and in righteousness, how do we do it?

Submit to the Holy Spirit Pursue him verse 16 But I say walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desire of 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 you please but if you are led by the spirit here it is You're not under the law It doesn't mean the laws lessons have gone away It means the Lord has moved you from slavery to sonship He uses the illustration in chapter 4 of Galatians, which we don't have time to go into To talk about how the law was a tutor put in place by the father and he literally says Until the time the father has set To bring you out To live as a son the father sets that time verses 19 through 21 set up the juxtaposition That we will begin to explore next week.

Now the works of the flesh are evident immorality impurity sensuality idolatry sorcery enmities strife jealousy outbursts of anger disputes dissensions factions envying drunkenness carousing and things like these of Which I warn you just as I have warned for warned you that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God But the fruit of the Spirit The the transformation that's happening within us Not because of us but because of him is Love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control Against such things there is no law Worship team you can come back Now those who belong to Messiah Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires If we live by the Spirit Let us walk by the Spirit You see the father set a time to send the Son to redeem those Who had been held captive in sin and What God did for Israel physically in the Exodus from Egypt he is trying to do for us internally in our own bondage You say well Brent, but he but he but he gave the law and that was supposed to help us it did But it inflamed the flesh In fact, the Paul says in Romans that because of the law sin increase you like wait That's not the way it's supposed to work.

But that's the way it did work Why?

Because my flesh Hasn't been changed You see when the Spirit comes into us When we call on the name of the Lord when we're immersed into Jesus when we died a sin when we covenantally find Ourselves as the sons of Abraham by faith trusting in the promised Son and we rise to walk in the new life What is that new life?

The same life that was in Genesis when God breathed the breath of life within us and We became nephesh.

Hi.

Ah We became living beings My friends the study of the fruit of the Spirit Is not about behavior modification It's about Holy Spirit sanctification It's not about well, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna try to love more and I'm gonna try to be more patient Yeah, see how that works.

Oh, you're right It's not about me me me what I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do it's what I'm going to submit and Seek the Holy Spirit to do in my life, and I would remind you of this one thing in conclusion That in first Corinthians chapter 14 when Paul tells us to earnestly Desire the gifts of the Spirit He uses the same word that Jesus uses or is used in Matthew to tell what Jesus said That that same word about how the enemies of us will pursue us to overtake us to take charge Of us and he says to you and I that we are to pursue the gifts of the Holy Spirit We are to pursue life in the Spirit.

We are to aggressively press in but think about our origin story How much time has been wasted while we try to figure out what the holocaust is of how to pronounce his name?

Or what is the right day or what is the right holiday or this what?

amazing waste of time Have we spent?

Pursuing the right interpretation of that while we've done nothing to pursue to Overtake to be filled with the ultimate gift of life The thing that moves us from slavery to freedom from being a slave to a son And I'm going to tell you right now as I close This series on the fruit of the Spirit will be utterly worthless to you If you don't walk out of here and put your running shoes on and start running after Jesus and Start pressing into the Spirit It's not about you trying harder It's about you Coming under His grace You see the difference is that was a rule This is a relationship And I don't have to fight by myself anymore That voice doesn't get to be the only voice anymore I Get to be in relationship I get to be in communion with the Spirit of righteousness and I'm going to tell you right now a church a congregation of people who actually begin to Consume the Holy Spirit to receive the fruit of the Spirit to a lot.

You know, it's gonna happen.

We're gonna stop consuming each other and Start being a force of real righteousness in this world Will you let these thoughts?

simmer mature Resonate in your heart and mind as we stand and worship You (gentle music)