You have your bibles. Will you turn with me the book of Galatians, chapter five. I'm going to finish out chapter five today, start on chapter six for the next 454, weeks, as we draw this study on freedom to a close of freedom that we have found in Christ. When Christ died on the cross, when we profess him to be our Savior for the forgiveness of sin, we receive freedom. And Paul has written a lengthy letter to the church of Galatia, reprimanding them for being let it led astray by false teachers, Judaizers, who have come in and told them that, yeah, you can still have Jesus, but you've gotta be sure and keep the law too. That's not freedom, and that's the case that Paul is making. And so as we open up Galatians, five verses, 16 through 26 this morning, we're going to see that Paul takes it all a step further and tells them that you're supposed to be led by the Spirit and not by the law. And he's going to show them how to be led by the Spirit and to get rid of the law the fleshly works. So will you stand with me as we honor God by the reading of His Holy Word. Galatians, five verses, 16 through 26 and Paul writes, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of your flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing things you want to do. But if you were led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impure, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, But the fruit of the Spirit is this, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control against such there is no law, and those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another, Father, that is the cry of our heart, that our spirit will be in step with your Spirit, and the works of the flesh will be cast by the wayside. As we focus on what is fruitful and abiding in you. We ask you to be present and to speak to our hearts during this time, for it's in Christ's name. I pray Amen, you may be seated. Well, the big idea that I have for you this morning is simple and it's understandable, especially those of you like the Campbells who work really hard in their garden and provide lots of vegetables for you. If you want something to grow, you have to feed it. And you feed vegetables, you feed garden with water, you tend to it, you take care of it. If you have a child, you want her or him to grow, you have to feed her. And if you've got a child like ours, it's a bottomless pit, and you have to take out a second mortgage on your home just to feed them. But if you want something to grow, you have to feed it. Whatever you feed will grow. Okay, whatever you feed is going to grow in verse 16 of this chapter we opened up, Paul makes the statement that we need to walk by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of our flesh. That's hard. That's really hard, because at every angle Satan is going to throw at you, what he knows is your weakest thing, and so you're going to be tempted to give into the flesh. You're going to be tempted to go by the wayside. But Paul says walk by the Spirit. What he's referring to here is being under the the Spirit's direction and empowerment, the Holy Spirit is never going to lead a person into sin that is against everything of God. He could never, he never conducts him to to people, to self, indulge or in excess of anything. The Holy Spirit is not going to do that. God's not going to. Do that, and because if you're walking with the Spirit, you will have the power you need to not gratify, to not give in to sinful desires and urges that will come your way. You see here the word flesh that's used a couple different times throughout this passage. The word flesh here refers to part of the human nature that causes us to put our own selfish ambitions, our own selfish needs, ahead of everything else. We're all about number one, and society preaches that you do what's best for you. You look out for number one. You succeed. You do things, and there's nothing wrong with succeeding. And do it. But when you do it on the altar of trampling on other people and trampling against what the Holy Spirit has laid out, you are living by the flesh, which is a sinful thing. In verse 17, he says, the desires of the flesh are against the spirit. And then he throws a little reversal in there, and he says, the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. What do I mean by that? The desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, and the flesh is against the desires of the spirit? Well, have you ever played a game of tug of war? Anybody ever played tug of war? I really wanted to get a rope up here and bring some of the children up here and some of the deacons, but I don't want to file another insurance claim for livelihood. Okay, imagine the spirit as the team dedicated to pulling toward the goal of goodness, the goal of peace, self control, while, while the other team, the flesh, represents this opposing team pulling toward desires like selfishness and indulgence. And in this scenario, what you see is one team pulling this away and another team pulling harder this away. And what it does is it frustrates the efforts of the opposing team. It aggravates the other team that maybe they're not making as much progress as they can, and this team over here, well, we can do a lot better if you just worked harder, if you did what you're supposed to do. Similar, similarly, the Holy Spirit empowers us, as believers, as individuals, to resist and to overcome the struggle between living according to the spirit and succumbing to the desires of the flesh. That these desires can be persistent and they're a difficult battle. And you know this first hand, because you face them every single day, every moment that you turn around, it seems like you're facing another battle of the flesh that is contrary to the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you something. The worst enemy you will ever have is not Satan. It's not lawmakers who don't do what they're supposed to and don't have biblical values. It's not your boss. Your worst enemy is yourself. The worst enemy that you can have is yourself and and Augustine, the philosopher he he said it this way. He used to pray, Lord, deliver me from that evil man myself. You see all the fire that the devil can bring from hell, all the fire that he could bring from hell could do us little harm if we did not have so much fuel in our nature, we do an okay job fighting, recognizing things in this world that are that are our enemies, But we often times forget to be continually on our Watchtower against the enemy of enemies within our own hearts. It's easy to say, oh, yeah, we don't need to go to this place on the internet. We don't need to go to this place in Jackson. We don't need to, you know, do be associated with these kind of people, it's easy to recognize these external factors, but the enemy of enemies is in your own heart, and Satan knows that, and he's going to use it against you. You see, we're constantly pulled about by by two different forces. We're, we're dragged downward by the flesh, and we're we're pulled upward by the Spirit. But these two will never agree. They will never go hand in hand. So what is the solution? Well, Paul says, in verse 18, he says, if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And. So the spirit and the law, they represent this mutually exclusive ways of living. You either live by the Spirit or you live by the law. It's not going to harmonize. Once again, oil and water don't mix. So the these mutually ways, exclusive ways of living, there's two of them. Either people live according to the flesh by satisfying the flesh desires, which is only temporary. By the way, you ever notice that the desires of the flesh when you finally give in to that sin, it's temporary. You get a moment of gratification, a moment of relief, but then it comes right back, probably even stronger than before, making it even harder. So you either live according to the flesh by satisfying those desires, or you live according to the Spirit of God in a manner that reflects his character. The Spirit never begins. That never brings the soul into bondage. The Spirit sets the soul free. The terrors the fears that come from slavery to sin are not of works. Are not the work of the Spirit of God, the work of Satan. The terrors and fears of the slavery of sin are from Satan himself, but the Spirit will never bring you into bondage. He sets you free. Now we get to, kind of the the meat, the substance of these verses, the the works of the flesh and and the fruit of the Spirit. And so in in verses 1920 and 21 Paul gives this lengthy list of works of the flesh. And so one thing you need to know is, this is not an exhaustive list, because the last one that he says on there and things like these. So if you're if you're going to Scripture and you're saying, Okay, well, that's not in Paul's list, I can do that. You're wrong. You're mistaken. If it's against the Spirit, you run the other direction, he says in verse 19, Now the works of the flesh are evident. Oh, that's a key word there. Don't pass that word over. Do you know what the word evident means in the original Greek When? When this letter was pinned, when Paul wrote the word evident in its Greek form. Do you know what he meant to communicate with people that it's evident, it's plain, It's as clear as water, plain as day. And so Paul uses Paul gives us in verses 1516, he gives us the works of the flesh, and we can group these together in in four classes of sins. You're going to see em on the screen and on your listening guy there. These are quickly four classes of sin that we get from these 15 or 16 different works. You got sins of lust, sins of idolatry, sins of witchcraft. We'll lump those in together, sins of the temper, who I stepped on my toes, and sins of appetite, and we'll break these apart quickly. Here, number one, the we'll go by Paul's list here, to some extent, but the first sin of the flesh, work of the flesh that he gives is sexual immorality. And this is, this is any kind of sensual indulgence, whatever it may be, a lustful glance, a cherishing, the cherishing of of an unclean desire that you have, the telling of an off color joke with your buddies or friends. All of this is condemned, as well as the obvious adultery, sex outside of marriage, it's condemned. There's nothing right about it. There's nothing good, there's nothing wholesome that can come from any of this. The second one he lists is impurity. This is what you do in secret. This is what you do when no one else is looking. The thoughts that you have, things that nobody else sees. Except for God, it's fully known to him, fleshly thoughts, fleshly words, fleshly acts. The third thing he lists is, is sensuality, and this is the the outward uncleanliness that the world often prefer, preferences, practices I can't even read my own writing so that what does this include? This includes conversation that excites passions, all the songs that suggest lewdness, all gestures and thoughts that lead up to sinful gratification, all the works that people call art that are nasty and disturbing contrary to modesty, these are all condemned. Now, let me tell you something. We've got a few teenagers in here. We got other people in here that likes to listen to music and stuff, but if you listen to music that refers to women as the B word, you're out of line, dude, because that woman was created in the image of God. Sensuality is a downfall. Baby steps lead to massive steps. The videos that you watch bring you down, turn you away from the spirit, put yourself in check. What are you listening to? What are you watching? What are these things that you're allowing to excite your passions, and I'm guilty of it too. It's easy to thumb through Tiktok and hear some vulgar language and everything and not think of anything, not think anything of it. Because, you know what, if I'm watching something and my little girl walks in, I think twice about it, then what does that say? That's sinful. Then you listen idolatry we we know that idolatry is to bow down before anything that is not God, right? Bible makes that clear. Yet multitudes are committing this great, this great sin, day after day after day, even Christians the idolatry of loving ourselves, idolatry of loving our wife, more than God, loving our husband, our children, our father, mother, sister, brother. Loving things more than God is idolatry. It's not wrong for me to love Heidi. It's not wrong for Heidi to love me and for me to love Jim Ruth and Emily, but if I love them more than God, that's sinful. It's idolatry. And he says, sorcery. We don't we don't see much of that around here. You go down to New Orleans, there's a lot of it sorcery. But by by, this is intended that all real or pretend communion with evil spirits or with the dead, these psychic readers, tarot card readers, things like that. That's all works of the flesh, necromancy, spiritualism, everything of the kind are absolutely sinful to all who desire. And he says, will not enter the kingdom of God. And you got enmity. This begins with the selfish esteem of your own self. You see, certain people enjoy disliking anyone who is not in their own little click. You're different from me, not going to like you. They often times turn up their nose to people who are not good enough for them, who dress different, smell different, don't have as much money. Live in a different neighborhood. It's all this prominent in Madison. You are not the one of us, so we're not going to have anything to do with you. Some good people in Madison. But money will cause you to look at people through a totally different lens, and sometimes this will lead to bullying and being hostile to work toward others as well, and you got strife. If you give way to a controversial Spirit, you are fostering disagreements. You're filled with hatred, you're filled with envy, so that you cannot bear to know that others prosper more than you. You desire to drag them down to your level if you give way to burst of passion or indulge and and bite back biting, that's strife. Number eight, jealousy. We all know what this is in every form. Jealousy is a work of the flesh. It is a crew. It is as cruel as the grave itself. Maybe you experience jealousy when someone is praised and and you're not. Are you? You feel defeated and when you see someone else succeed. Jealousy is a venomous thing that seems like a red Wasp number nine. This will step on my toes, fits of anger. You know that this is, this is the fury of angry passion and all madness that comes out, that comes of it. Some people will say, Oh, he's just got a quick temper. Let me ask you this, are you? Are you a Christian? Christians can't have a quick temper, and if you do, you gotta, you gotta fix it. I'd have to work on mine. I have a quick temper, and I pray that you'll never see that, because I pray that the guard, the Lord, will guard me no but sometimes it'll come out at home. It's not fair to her. It's not fair to my girl. US, I have to change my heart when it comes to that. So if you're a Christian, and you say, yes, you have a duty to master this evil force. You have an obligation to master this evil force, or it will ruin you, because at any moment, any angry spirit might come out and make you say and do things which you can't, which will cause you a lifetime of sorrow. You can't take it out. You can't take it back. You ever try to put toothpaste back in a tube? It's hard. Same thing with your word. Same thing with your anger. Number 10, rivalries, the continual love of of heated disagreements that produce strife. Think social media. Don't think football. Football can get to that extreme. But, I mean, we all know that. You know, Baylor is better than LSU, even though LSU beat them, they cheated. I'm sure somehow that's a good fun rival. But there are rivalries that Pierce to the heart that that people just thrive on these heated disagreements. You see it come out in social media all the time. Number 11 dissension as far as the church is concerned, not necessarily this church. Praise the Lord. I haven't seen it here yet. Hope I never do. But a lot of times in church life, this sinfulness shows itself as an opposition to all sorts of authority or law. Any kind of action in the church is to be by this person protested because it is official, and when someone is put in charge of making a decision, there are the sinners all in the church who object to that person, because these the sinners desire to have the preeminence and not to be second to anyone. We've all known people like that, especially in church life. Let's not have dissension, divisions. These are result of people specifically in the church, promoting themselves. And the wording here that Paul uses with the Galatians is, you know, insisting these type of people are insisting that other people follow them and not the Lord. So let's not have any divisions envy, it's not merely the desire. Envy is not merely the desire to necessarily elevate yourself at someone else's expense. Rather, when you think of envy, in this case, it involves holding on to grudges and a strong longing for what someone else possesses. You may hear someone say something along the lines of, I wish I had what they have. It's not fair that they get all the attention and success. See, you've you've taken covetness. Thou shalt not covet what your neighbor has. You've taken it to the next level, and you're mad at them because they have it. That's envy. That's envy number 14, drunkenness. It's not merely that you may drink in excess, yeah, Imma tell you what. I will be honest with you, I've had this conversation a long time. I hate alcohol, wine, beer, liquor. Hate it. That's a strong word, but I've seen it tear so many families apart. And the Bible does not say that there's anything wrong with drinking alcohol. Yeah, you can justify your drinking by that statement there. Bible does not say that. But who are you leading astray? You're either leading yourself astray, your spouse astray, your children astray are people that you're trying to share the gospel with because you've elevated the necessity to drink a beer above gospel conversations and who God has called you to be. Yes, drunkenness is a sin because the Bible says it, but leading people astray because of whatever drunkenness, gluttony, all of these things in excess, gambling, sinful. So he may say drunkenness here, but you can fill in the blank with the others, as he says at the end of this. This these verses. So let me tell you what parents grandparents, do what you want to, but don't be surprised when you're constantly preaching to your children, grandchildren that they don't need to drink. First of all, it's sin to drink if you're not 21 years old, because the Bible says, Obey the law of the land, and the law is 21 years old. So there, there, if you're underage, that's the sin there. But parents and grandparents, do not be afraid. Do not be surprised. Sorry, when your children you. Turn 21 or even before, and they start doing what mommy and daddy and grandma and grandpa do. Because you see, when a child has to reach past the Bud Light to grab the gallon of milk or apple juice, what is that communicating to them Do as I say, not as I do. So. Put it down. Put it down. What you do is your own business, but nothing good has ever come from alcohol. And I will point to numerous families, even personal family members that have lost it all, and even people who have lost their lives because of alcohol. It's not worth it. It's a sin of the flesh. And then he says last and things like this. This list is always too long to be completed. We we could stay here all day. But the ones who practice all of these things, all who commit any of these sins in in the long black catalog, or are giving in to the flesh and not the spirit. And when a when a man gives into the flesh, when a woman gives into the flesh, what will the harvest be? Back to our big idea, if you want something to grow, feed it, when you feed the sins of the flesh, it is going to grow and grow and grow and grow the one who sows his own flesh, Galatians, 68 we'll get to a week. The one who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption, the sin that you thought was sweet as honey will turn as bitter as vinegar. To you, there are many men and women in this world who have lived in sin until it has become its own punishment. And if it's not so in this world, it will be so in the world to come. Either your sin will punish you in this world or it will punish you in the world to come, because Paul shares the ramifications of practicing these sins of the flesh. In the second part of verse 21 he says, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Let's take it. Let's take a test. Okay? The test is, is when you get home sometime this next week, read over that list of sins of the flesh. Read over it, ask yourself the question, Am I guilty of such things? And if so, don't. Don't suppose that just merely cleaning up your life will save you, or that any kind of religious ritual or ceremony will save you. You have to be delivered from these works of the flesh, these lusts of the flesh, or you cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You see, there is only one man by whose name you can be delivered today, and his name is not yours. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the only one that can deliver you from this. Is it going to be easy? No, but is it going to be worth it? Absolutely. You're going to have to work on it. When you have been delivered by him, you can begin to see a different type of catalog in your life, you no longer live by this black catalog of the sins of the flesh, but you live by the list that contrast the works of the flesh, what Paul refers to as the fruit of the Spirit. And so likewise, this list is not exhaustive, but it is represent, representative of who we should be as believed believers. These traits describe the desires and the characteristic that God cultivates in believers through his living presence. They are who God is and who we should be as well, and on your listening guide on the screen there, quickly, they are love. Now, let me tell you something about love. Love is the stimulant of every other grace and virtue. When you have love, it's going to just flow smoothly out of there, because all of these are are easy. Once you establish love. Number two, will lump joy and peace together. Those, those who have these have the Lord in his boat saying to the wind and the waves, Peace, be still. Patience. Number three, patience given by God to suffer long and. To endure much. Many of you have been through the ringer. I can't imagine being dealt the hand that you've been dealt. I mean, I look out across this audience and it breaks my heart to know what you're going through, personally and with your family members and having to do all of that. But let me tell you, God has put you in a situation to be that therefore that person, are those people because you have the patience that God has given you to endure, much to suffer, long. Number four, kindness is just consideration for others. Good grief, we could use more of that in the world today. Goodness, don't think about holiness when you think of goodness, because we can, we can, we can boast often times, but rather what people see and admire people. Look at you. He's good man. I admire that about him. Faithfulness is reliability. Mean what you say and say what you mean, church, anything else is a lie, and that's a sin. Be faithful. Gentleness. Don't be hard, don't be stern. Don't be severe. Don't be quick tempered. You see the the opposites of of all of these, the works of the flesh, right? And lastly, self control. Self control keeps every passion under control. In verse 23 after Paul list, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, he says, against these there are no such law. You can't make a law on these items. Dictators have tried. They can't when, when the life of believer expresses these qualities right here, there's no need for a law. There's no need for it. Those who live by the Spirit verse 16 produce fruit reflecting the character of God, and that the law could not reflect in verse 24 he says, and and those who belong to Christ, Jesus have been crucified, who have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, listen church through faith, through faith. Believers participate in Christ's death, Christ's resurrection, leaving behind their orientation towards selfish desires. Leave it behind. A crucified Christ is the leader of a crucified people. You want Christ to be your leader? Crucify yourself alongside of him. Let it never be forgotten that the grand reason, the supreme reason, for which we lay hold of Christ, is the death of sin. That's why we accept Jesus as our Savior, so we can say goodbye to sin forever. If you believed in Christ so that you might escape the penalty of hell, you have a poor idea of why Jesus Christ came to this world in the first place. He is proclaimed to be a Savior who shall Matthew 121, save His people from their sins, not to rescue people from hell, save you from your sins. This is the object of his mission. True. He comes to give pardon, but he never gives pardon without repentance. He comes to justify, but he doesn't justify without sanctifying, making holy, making pure. Paul says in verse 25 if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. It's not enough to claim to have a new life in Christ by the power of the Spirit. That's not enough. You claim whatever you want to but believers, we've got to continually follow the spirit in the way that we live, while also resisting the flesh. And in verse 26 he says, Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. So back to some more works of the flesh, as believers don't do that. Do not be conceited. Do not provoke one another, do not envy one another. These actions represent a failure to submit and live by the Spirit. Whenever a man is proud and blustering and vainglorious, he is sure to provoke somebody or others, and then they are so provoked that they fall into sin. If one Christian does a little more than his fellow Christian members, they begin to find. Fault with him. Question is motive. Why is he doing that? If one is blessed with greater success than others, How frequently does that success become belittled and spoken of slightingly? The spirit of envy is more or less in all of us, no doubt, but though perhaps we are not letting it show just now, it only needs a suitable opportunity for it to make a grand appearance. But if each one of us would strive to see who could love the most, and each one of us were willing to take the lowest position and humble ourselves, then this evil world would never be known again. As I close this morning, Galatians 522, that we read speaks of fruit like, what? What's the connection with fruit and love, joy, peace, patience? The fruit comes only from a rooted abiding. It only comes from staying. It only comes from lasting a long time. It only comes from enduring. You can't think of this kind of fruit by never being attached or being apart from a local body of believers. Can't do it. Can't do it on your own. Because as I read and I reflect on the fruit of the Spirit that we've talked about today. I sure do take comfort from the hint and and conclude that God intends to abide in our souls as a tree abides in the soil when fruit is born by it. You see Jesus said, I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit abide. Those who abide in Me will produce much fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. When we are rooted in the vine, we abide in the vine. Jesus says, you will produce much fruit. He says, apart from me, you can do nothing. So was it for you? 2025, Bible, reading plan, getting in the word, memorizing Scripture. It's an excellent way to abide in Christ, so that we can begin to exhibit these fruits of the Spirit and fight against the works of the flesh. But you have to make a conscientious effort to do that. And my prayer for you is that, as believers, you will do that. But if you're not a believer, Jesus said, Abide in me. I am the Way, the Truth and Life. No one comes to the Father except by me, except by abiding in me, make him the Lord of your life, so that you can produce fruit and not flesh. Father, God, we thank you for sending your son Jesus to save us. May we abide in Him and love one another.