"Freedom to walk by the Spirit"

Reading today is Galatians, chapter 5, verse 13 to 26. This is on page 1172 of the of the church vitals. Galatians 5. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather, sir, 1 another humbly in love.

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this 1 command, love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out, watch out, or you be destroyed by each other. So I say live by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want.

But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious, ****** immorality, impurity, and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of god. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentle us and self control. Against such things, there is no law.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceded provoking and envying each other. Well, it is, great to be here, to see, hope in full swing. It's really good.

We pray for you every week, and, it's just sort of a joy to see this. Actually, the first time I ever preached in this area, which was 1 of my first preaches ever was in this place. It must have been 19 83 or something like that. If anyone could can anyone remember 19 83? You can't, didn't you?

And we did plant a church here, from from a from, Hook evangelical church, but it didn't last. So there's an encouragement to you. Yeah, no, there were all kinds of reasons, but, that this was the first, and I even remember the sermon, which was on psalm 20 22. So anyway, great. Let's have a look at this passage together.

I want us to think about Christian Freedom. And in order to do that, I wanna take you to a park in in in chess in, anyway. And I guess it would be the same as any park, you know, if you down the road and and you watch dog walkers. I want us to think about dog walkers and dogs, because it seems to me there are 4 types certainly in my, in, in church field, near where I live in Chestington. Here's the 4 types of dog.

Dog number 1, we're gonna call spike. Okay. Dog number 1 is spike. And, he's not allowed off the off the lead. He's got a muzzle on.

He's got, you know, sort of leather all around him to to to to pull him back. And, all kinds of things. He's desperately desperately pulling away from his master, his owner, constantly. He struggles, he strains. He's coughing and choking.

And the owner's saying, come back. Come back. Come back. And sometimes even hits him on the head, with a bit of the leash. That's dog number 1, spike.

Got him? You ever see that dog walker? Yeah? You get them in chessington anyway. Dog number 2, is is called Buster.

He's basically spiked, but he's off a leash. He's totally out of control. He runs at great speed around the park. He's biting other dogs when he sees other dogs. He's eating anything and everything that he can see.

He jumps up with his muddy paws on on walkers around the park. The owner shouts and calls. Pasta. Pasta. Pasta.

Come here. Totally ignores him. That's dog number 2. Dog number 3 is called Max. Now this dog is not on a lead, but, and he doesn't go, running away biting other dogs or eating anything that he can see.

He walks very obediently by the side of the owner. In fact, he loves the owner greatly because he's constantly looking up into the owner's face to see what the owner's gonna do. Is he gonna throw the ball? Is he, you know, surely just carry on walking next to him? He he wants to do what the mask wants him to do, and he's constantly looking.

That's dog number 3. Dog number 4, I don't know whether you'll get them around here, but you just, definitely, definitely did, get it around my way. Is that me? Or nope. Get it, get it around my waist called Benjie.

It was my neighbor's dog. It's dead now. But this is a weird type of dog because it didn't go for a walk. The owner just carried it. And it was so lazy.

Then put it down, and it went to wee, and then put it down, it did a poo, and then picked it up. And it just it would wag its tail, if you went up to look at it, but it it it just didn't walk. Now the question I want to ask you is which dog represents the Christian life? Which dog represents the Christian life? Now we'll work our way through that in a minute, but in Galatians, 1 of the big themes that Paul is preaching and wants us to know is freedom, Christian freedom, and it's a very, very important subject to him, Christian freedom.

He's told us that we're in Christ. He's told us that we've been forgiven all our sins. We're free from the guilt of sin. He's told us that, because of that, we're free from the pagan I dollars, but we're also free and he emphasizes this in Galatians from all of the rules and the religious rules of the Jewish tradition and faith. We're not under those laws anymore.

We're not under that religion anymore. And people had come into the church and started saying, no, we need a bit more religion. We need a bit more rules. We need to go back to the to the old rules. Of the Jewish faith, and he's saying that they're liars and they're false teachers.

We're free from those things, he's saying. Now it's that this point in the, the reading that we have, the the letter, forces us to ask, okay, what does freedom look like then? What does this freedom look like. We're free. We're free in Christ, but what does it actually really look like?

And the answer is we're free to walk. We're free to walk in the spirit. So look at verse 16, of Galatians 5. So I say live. Actually, that is the word walk.

That should be translated walk. Okay. And it is quite important, right, actually. So I say walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. So Paul's talking now about the Holy Spirit.

We're thinking about Christian freedom. The Christian life is not a matter of imposing outward rules or religious rituals. It's a matter of being renewed in the spirit, born in the spirit, and walking in the spirit. Look at verse 25. So since we live, and that is the word live, So since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit.

Since we've been that word live is really since we've been born again by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit verse 16 because we are alive verse 25 in the spirit, let's walk in the spirit, not gratifying the desires of sinful nature. So freedom is when we are alive in the spirit of god, and walk like god. Walk with god. Keep in step with god. Keep in step with the Holy Spirit.

When we say no to the sinful nature, and the wrong things that we you're in our lives, and yes to god. The Christian life is pictured as freedom. So we're not dog number 1. So spike. We're not that.

That is not a definition of a Christian, although some people think it is. We're not mastered by a leash. We're not mastered by having to submit We're not mastered by rules or religious rituals that just pull us. You see, the thing about spike, the dog, his desires haven't changed. His desires are to are to run away.

But it's just the leash that pulls him back. He's not he's never changed in his nature. We're not buster the dog that just runs around doing dog nature. There's no leash now. There's no religious lease or anything that holds him back.

He's just run he smells smell way off he goes. Caesar rabbit. Come on. He's going for it. Sees a squirrel.

He's just running for it. It sees some stinking stuff to eat, and he's he's gobbling it down before the owner can get there. Busters ruled by his old nature. Act actually so is spike, but he's just pulled back by the leaf. We're not Benjie with no desire in us at all.

We're just passive. We just don't do anything. We're just like, yeah, whatever. Let the owner carry me around. It'll take me for a wee and feed me.

The Christian life is freedom in walking. In walking, in keeping in step with the master, not real by outward laws, but our nature is sorry. Alright. It's nothing to do with me. Our nature got worked you up there, didn't it?

Our nature is, is is is alive in Christ. So we wanna be like Max. We wanna be like the third dog, Max, who's off the leash but is ruled by a greater things. Now let's get this let's get this right. Max is a dog.

Yeah. Ma max walking to his master still smells the rabbit, still sees the the the wrong food. His dog design bears are stirred. Well, I'm not saying they're not, but he's got a greater vision. He's got a greater master.

He wants to serve his master, but there are times when he sees the rabbit and smells the rabbit. And everything in his dog nature and his dog nose is getting it all, and he's ready to go. He's ready to run. He's in fact starting to run. But he's captivated by the master who says max max.

No. No. No. So with that illustration in mind, let's really get into this passage. And I want us to take that illustration, but let's get into this passage.

And the first thing I want to note in this passage is that there is a conflict. The situation for the Christian is warfare, and it always is warfare in this world. So look at verse 16. So I say walk, that's what the word should be. So I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature for the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.

They are in flipped with each other so that you do not do what you want. And then verse 25, since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step of the spirit. There's a conflict here. Every christian is in warfare. If you're not, it's very unlikely you're a Christian.

There's conflict here. There's 2 natures here. There's check mister Doctor. Jackal and mister Hyde, or there's max the dog who loves his owner, but he still got a dog nature in him that spells the rabbit. That is the Christian life.

We have so much like Max. When you become a Christian, you enter a warfare. Someone comes into your life that wasn't there before, and this produces conflict. Look at verse 26. 25 or, yeah, 26.

Since we live sorry. 25, isn't it? I can't see my own notes. Since we live by the spirit, live us keep in step with the spirit, and then verse 17 again, for the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the spirit. We're we're we're in conflict.

Now this is a vital important thing to grasp. If your going to live the normal Christian life because this is the normal Christian life. Sometimes we say things like, oh, it's just such a battle. Yes. Such a battle.

Sometimes it's hard to I don't know whether I'm a Christian because such a battle. If you're battling, you probably are a Christian. That's the normal Christian life. We've been forgiven. Absolutely.

We've been cleansed of of of the sin by the spirit of god coming into our lives or the payment, of sin has been paid for by the lord Jesus Christ. We are god's children, but sin still remains. We have this double nature, sin still remains and dwells in us. The penalty has been paid for, but the presence of sin is still with us. We're for given people, and yet we now have this battle that goes on.

The spirit is in us, and it's made us battle. If you're not struggling, it's probably because you know that the it in you. If the spirit is in you, you're going to struggle. And so don't be discouraged if you say, do you know what? Christian life is such a battle.

Yes. Yes. You're 2 natures of fighting with each other. So the fact that battle is going on in your soul should encourage us. We are in conflict.

There's conflict going on. We're in warfare. Now notice where the conflict rages, in what realm it rages. Just notice that. Look at verse 16 again.

So I say walk by the spirit and you'll not gratify the desires. Of a sinful nature for 17. For the sinful nature does, nature desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature they are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want. So a sign of being indwelt by the spirit is not that you don't have bad desires. You do, but that you war with those desires.

That's the sign. I hope you're getting that. Walk by the spirit, close to the master, desire him. So that that's the question. Where's your desires?

Where are you gonna fall? Where are you gonna go? He got Max the dog, master here. He desires to love his master. But his nose has gone wet, and he smells a rabbit, and he desires is that?

That the conflict is in the desire. Where are you going to go? Max the dog off the lead. There he is, walking around Churchfield. He sees squirrel, or he sees another dog that he's never liked.

And it's intense. The smell is intense. All is muscles. Tighten up. His tail goes up.

His eyes are on the squirrel, and he starts to run. And the owner says, Max, Max. No. And he's brought back to who he is. He's Max.

He's owned by the owner, and he denies his dog nature. I'm walking down the high street as a 67 year old man. And in my sin, I see a girl dressed in a way that Justice is very attractive. Shortster, it. My sinful nature calls out to me.

Imagine. Hang around. Wait. Wait for the wind to blow the dress up. The design to run from my master is incredibly strong, as strong now at 67 as it was when I was a teenager.

It's so strong to imagine and to take it further, and suddenly I hear my name. Pushing. Pushing Pete. Jesus died for you. You've sinful person after all these years of following the lord Jesus Christ, and still you're tempted by your old nature to pull away from him.

All of these done for you. And still, your nose is wet and you desire to run from him. But remember, he died for people like you. The grace of god is on you even now now. You're a Christian.

You belong to the master, and I stop and look up at him with gratitude and desire to please him. And the fruit of the spirit of love grows in me a little bit more. Love instead of lust. Do you know that? The next day, so same conflict.

Same conflict. Well, here I am. I'm listening to how successful another pastor is, but breath of pressure. Oh, really enjoy going to, to hope it's breath of fresh air, you know. Or he comes and preaches, oh, breath of fresh air.

Yeah. Anyway, I'm listening to the success of another pastor, and my desire is to run from the master. Enjoy see. Isn't it? Self ambition?

I want success. And as I'm moving into that, and bitterness and jealousy, and don't people understand why would you speak like that? And then my name's Christian Christian. Pete. Pete.

Back. You couldn't be more loved. Why are you jealous? You're utterly secure in my love. Why would ever be jealous?

Jesus died for me. A sinful person after all these years of following him and still there's that jealousy that I'm drawn to and my nose goes wet to. And my muscles crave to be jealous and put other people down. Then the whole scene reminds me that I'm still loved by Christ, and he loves even me. And the grace of god is even on me, and I look with him with gratitude and desire to please him, and the fruit of joy just grows a little bit more instead of jealousy.

For the next the same thing happens. The conflict. See the conflict, but here's my second point, the contrast. See the contrast, verse 19. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious, ****** immorality, impurity debauchery, witchcraft hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, or and the like.

And I want you as I and I warn you as I did before that those who lived like this will not inherit the kingdom of god, but the fruit of the spirit is love joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things, there is no law. You see the contrast? Food of the sinful nature and the fruit of the spirit. You couldn't get more contrasting, did you?

Or have a look at verses 13 and then verse 15. You'll see the contrast again. You, my brothers, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather serve 1 another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command, love your neighbors yourself, verse 15. If you keep on biting and dev houring each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other, love for 1 another, devouring 1 another.

There's the contrast. It's a massive contrast of which 1 do you wanna live in? Actually, when when we when I first came into this area and not long after we I first pre preached here, the church always with. We bought a double decker bus, and the idea was to go to, the night clubs because Kingston was really big on night clubs in those days over the yin thing. And particularly to go to night clubs, but also we did it in the day.

We kitchened the double decker bus out with, coffee, and stuff. And the first, flaw we had and the the first time we used it, we had big illustrations, and it was of the fruit of the spirit and the sinful nature fruit. And it was a really good evangelistic way of talking to people. I haven't done this for ages, but I really think it's quite good. The sinful nature, all those things up, list of them, then the fruit of the spirit.

And because bloke's, would come out of the nightclub and they've had some drinks. They're quite good when they've had a few drinks. If they had too many, it's too much, but if they've had a few blokes, British blokes tend to sort of be a little more emotional. They open up more. And I have to say on many occasions in the center of Kingston, you would say which 1 do you want to live under?

Which 1 would you like to live? I never heard heard anyone saying, I I want to have ****** immorality, impurity debaucher debauchery, idolatry witchcraft. They all said, that would be amazing to have love joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Everybody wanted to live like that. The contrast is so clear, isn't it?

That's what we really on, but we go for this in our stupid nature, sinful nature. So there's a massive contrast here, but there's another contrast between these 2 things as well. 1 is the sinful nature. It's now natural for us, the other is the fruit of the spirit. It's not natural for us.

It's spiritual. 1 is our ego, our self reliant science, are delight in ourselves, are delight in having no authority over over me, but myself, are independence of everything, even mercy. 1 is me craving, what whatever I crave, I go off after, self generated love, and the other is generated by the Holy Spirit in genesis chapter 1, it says that everything reproduces after it's kind. After it's kind. The sinful nature just reproduces.

It's if you just if without the spirit of god, you're just gonna come out with these simple things. You might be able to restrain yourself with the leash of religion sometimes, but largely, your heart hasn't changed. There's bitterness growing, jealousy, growing. Decentions growing. You see it in the words of people can't help it, can they?

But then there's the fruit of the spirit who reproduce fruit in you. Now this isn't human effort. This is the fruit of the spirit. We need the spirit in us. This is why in verse 18, there's that amazing sentence where it says, we're led by the spirit.

If you're led by the spirit, where does the spirit lead us? He leads us to conflict. The spirit lee led Jesus into the wilderness to battle with Satan. The spirit leads us into conflict because it's back to the conflict where I see my sin and my need for Jesus, and that repentance happens, and I grow, like I was trying to show you in those illustrations. The conflict is essential for the for the fruit to grow.

Does that make sense? And then just to to get this before move on is that it's the sp it's the spirits will is growing fruit. And fruit takes time to grow. This isn't cuppa soup. The the the this isn't, you know, instant noodles where you just pour hot water on leave for 1 minute and there's your dinner.

This is fruit. It grows. It takes time. It's not instant noodles. And it takes time for us to grow and mature as Christians.

And it's meant to take time. You know, when a young broach comes in and he's become a Christian, don't expect him to be mature. Love him, care for him, help him grow. Put manure around him. Yeah.

But help him grow. And notice this. It's not fruits of the spirit. It's fruit All of these are important. It's not gifts of the spirit.

Don't have clever your god doesn't care about how all of us in our world, we care about clever. We've gotta go to the best schools. By the way, I think this is the best school that I anyway, I'll I'll tell you that, I'll tell you that story afterwards. But, you gotta go to the best schools, you know, we've gotta be fighting fit. We're all about fitness.

We're all about what we eat. We're all about how fat we are or how thin we are. All of our interest is in that stuff, isn't it? God couldn't care a toss for that. Well, interesting is not your gifts and your abilities, but it's in the fruit of the spirit.

So you've got the conflict, you've got the contrast. Now this is really important. So please bear with me the context. We have the fruit of the spirit, and we've seen the context's spiritual battle, but there's a bigger and a wider context that I want you to see, and this is important for us as a church. The fruit the spirit, the context of all of this, as I say, is conflict, but the wider com context is the church, is Christian Fellowship.

The message that we've been looking at comes right in the middle of the section between chapter 5 verse 13 and chapter 6 verse 10. It starts in chapter 5 verse 13 and it ends in chapter 6 verse 10. And if we go to understand the stuff in the middle, it's worth looking at the beginning and the end so we understand the middle. Now look at the beginning of this section then. Verse 13, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature rather serve 1 another in love.

What are you gonna do with your freedom? Don't use it to indulge yourself health. Horrible and horribly easy to do, rather use your freedom to serve. Yeah? That's the beginning.

Look at the end of this section, 6, verse 10. Therefore, as we have opportune city, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers. You do good. You show love to the believers, to the church, to the family and then outside. And everything that goes on in between is what this is about.

The church, Christian fell the fruit of the spirit is relational. We're not talking here just the individual Christian growing fruit. This is the church This is hope church. Are you growing in love and joy and peace and patience as a church? So in.

Now, if if you're a disease in the barrel, you're going to cause all the fruit to go rotten, if you're not careful. So if you said, well, I'm an patient person. I just can't stand what's going on here. Well, you you need to be really careful. Really careful.

Because as a church, it's the fruit of the spirit, growing in love. And and that fruit is on display to the world. So that when the world comes into the church, they say this is different. They love 1 another. There's a joy there.

I can't put my finger on. They're patient with each other. I mean, they've got some really odd people in that church. You know, we we sent them away from us. We did try to clear it out it.

But there's some odd people that would think the way they love those odd people. There's patience with each other that and and it's just a self control. You that there's there's people that say things and and and I see these people just they're controlling their anger or their their immediate desire to run after the rabbit and eat it or their immediate desire to show their tea eat and kill the other dog. So this is in the context of church in growing the fruit of the spirit. Last point.

Are you ready? I don't know what my timing is. I don't care at our church, but you would clearly do. Fourth point, change, change. We've already seen change in the sense that the the the the fruit grows through the battle with desires.

But I want us just to think about the walk here and how walking changes us. The fruit of the spirit is really, as far as I can see, a description of the lord Jesus Christ. He is the fruit of the spirit. And, that's what the spirit does. He wants to point us to follow Jesus.

Yeah. He's all he's shy. He's the shy member of of the trinity, as as they, they often say. He wants us to walk his way. He wants us to be like Max to be taken over with the master so that we control our sinful desires.

Spurgence is brilliant on this. He's brilliant on everything. He says, I looked to the cross and the dove flew in. I looked to the dove any flew away. Now the dove is the Holy Spirit.

So if you want the dove to fly in, if you want the dove to be in your life, you look to the cross, you look to Jesus. That's what he's saying. But when you looking at the Holy Spirit, he'll fly away. And I love that. You know, in other words, if the spirit takes over more than Christ.

And so we gotta keep looking at the lord Jesus Christ, who is the perfect 1, who has as the spirit who was perfectly loving, joyful, and gentle, and self controlled, who was patient. We looked to the lord Jesus Christ. We to him. And as we look to him, we'll grow like him and walk with him, but walk. Walking means this, and here's my last challenge to you as a church.

Walking means going so somewhere. It means starting out at 1 place and ending up at another. That's what walking is, isn't it? Walking in the spirit is exactly the same. It means movement.

It means not being content with where you are. It means stepping forward. And as you walk forward, you see things clearer in the future that we're out to focus because you were distant away from them. Keep walking. Keep putting away childish things.

Don't be a benjy. Don't be someone that won't walk and just thinks I'll be married. Now don't be that. Keep walking. But this is specifically talking about the church, not just individuals.

As a church, keep walking, walk out and pray for people. That's fantastic. Walk, keep growing. Don't be stagnant. We all know of churches, don't we?

They started out fantastic. And then they're just stagnant. They're just dull. They're just boring. There's no life.

They never got any more vision They've only got the vision that they had when they started out. There's never a bigger vision. They're never trying new things out. They're just stagnant. We're to walk in the spur it as as we grow the fruit of the spirit.

You see that? And as we walk, as we try new things out, as we change. Yeah? Not of theology, but as we change as we look to Christ the master as he takes us out into ventures. I mean, you know, you're all excited because that's what's happened here as a new church.

Brilliant. But keep that up. Don't lose that. And that takes energy. That takes getting out of the sofa and putting 1 foot in front of the other, and walking.

And it always takes energy, doesn't it? But it's the energy of the spirit as we keep in step with him, and then the fruit grows. And and we're less selfish and less taken up with this world other than that we want to reach it. So here's that little passage there. A we're in a battle.

Let's keep going. And sometimes we're in a battle. Some of us are binges. Aren't we? We're natural binges.

Just wanna be carried around, left on the sofa. If given the bone. And, you know, we can't even be bothered to run after a rabbit. Don't be like that. Hit up and walk and as a church walk.

I love and you've probably heard it. John Newton's little thing. John Newton wrote amazing grace, slave trader, became a Christian, came past of a church. I'm not what I want to be, I'm not what I should be. I'm not what I 1 day will be in heaven, but thank god.

I'm not what I once was. It's so good, isn't it? And so as a church, such. That's what we wanna be. Yeah.

And not what I once was. Let's pray. Father god, help us to deny the sinful nature and to look to you and to walk in the spirit, the great master, those beautiful aspect of that fruit that we would revell in the lord Jesus Christ who is that long to grow individually and as a church like him. In Jesus' name, we pray.