Sunday morning — Galatians 5

0:00 Turn if you would to Galatians chapter five. And just in case some of you are wondering, this is a different sweater than the one I wore yesterday. I had a beloved brother say to me in the kitchen, he said, The least you could have done is brought a different sweater to wear today. And I said, Actually, it is a different sweater. I could point out all the nuances of how different it is, but I won't bore you with those details, since you do not care.

0:41 But thank you so much for inviting us to participate in the marriage conference, to be here yesterday, and to also be here again today. I'd like to start with Galatians chapter five. We're gonna read through the entire chapter, and then I'll have some maybe introductory summary marks about some of the things that we talked about today, which will lead us then into the passage. So Galatians chapter five, beginning in verse one. Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

1:28 Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised, that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ. You who attempt to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. For we through the spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

1:59 For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

2:22 I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will have no other mind, but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment whoever he is. And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off. For you, brethren, have been called to liberty.

2:51 Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. Verse 16, I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

3:32 But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident, are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such, there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

4:39 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Let's ask the Lord to bless the reading of his word. Our Father in heaven, we do just wanna give you thanks this morning for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to thank you for the truth and the reality of the gospel, that we, by Paul's writing here, by you through the Holy Spirit given to him, are able to stand in freedom in Christ.

5:23 We are not bound to the flesh. We are not bound to the law. We're only bound to Christ. And Father, we just thank you for the reality of that gospel. And if there's anybody here this morning, Father, that does not know that truth, has not yet trusted in Christ, we pray that today might be the day that they see the reality of who Jesus Christ is.

5:50 And Father, for those of us who do know Christ, help us to learn what you would have for us. From your word this morning, we pray. In the Lord Jesus' name, amen. So for those that were not here yesterday for the marriage conference, a quick summary of what we went through is intimacy in marriage. And first we started talking about the fact that we were actually created in the image of God in spirit, soul, and body in order to have intimacy with God, that that would be his desire for us.

7:14 So we talked about the spiritual intimacy, connecting with our spouse in particular when it comes to spiritual things. So we talked about praying together, talking about the word of God together, worshiping together, going to church together, worshiping God even in the home together, where you're able to not worship in the same way that maybe we do when we come together corporately in a local church, but worshiping and saying and acknowledging the things that we see that God has done in our lives and to realize it. We talked about serving together or serving encouraging our spouses to be serving in the way that God has distinctly, uniquely gifted them to serve, both husband and wife. That we break apart some of these maybe preconceived ideas and roles of what things should or should not be and say, We want to serve you. I want you to be the woman or the man that God has declared you to be and gifted you to be.

8:16 Then we moved into emotional intimacy, a topic that honestly receives a whole lot of attention these days. We hear all about emotional distress that people go through at different points and how real that is for every single one of us. Some of us are willing and able to communicate those things and others are not so good at communicating those things. But the reality is God has made us to be beings with emotion and therefore this is part of our makeup, who we are, and we need to learn how to communicate effectively those emotions to one another and how to live within our own emotions appropriately. And then lastly, and I won't dive into the details of the last session this morning, but physical intimacy.

9:05 Just being able to enjoy what God has given us. And as we talked about last night, just to say it this way, the church really should be the ones that are talking about sex and physical intimacy in a way that is God honoring and glorifying. We should be the front runners for what this should look like and not let the world be the ones to taint it and make it look bad. That should be us doing it in a way that would honor and glorify God because it is of God. It was a gift of God and we should be thankful and enjoy it.

9:41 The one thing I'll add to physical intimacy that I did not talk about specifically last night that I would love to just encourage you in. So you've heard of the five love languages, most of you. Without diving into all of them, one of them is physical touch. Oftentimes men will say, Yep, that's mine, physical touch. But honestly, let's think about physical touch and physical intimacy even in the marital relationship.

10:12 It's not just about the act of sex, but it really is about the physical touch, like holding hands, putting your arm around the other person, or putting your arm through the arm of your spouse. And as it relates to other relationships, even that there's opportunity for physical touch that's appropriate, that's not inappropriate, to let people know you just care about them. You come up and you put your hand on their shoulder. You just ask how you're doing. You don't be afraid to maybe give a hug, though you should ask for permission and not just go and wrap yourself around somebody.

10:53 One of my favorite things, we're sitting in a meeting at the assembly and Shona will oftentimes put her arm into my arm. That means a ton to me. Like, I so appreciate that. It's her way of saying, I'm here. I'm with you.

11:08 We're one. Put her hand on my back and rub my back, and then if I even itch, I say, Okay, scratch there. A little this way, a little up, a little down. So I would encourage physical touch, meaning literally just holding your hand, holding each other's hand, putting your arm around each other and saying, I'm with you. I love you.

12:15 Not what I learned, right? Past tense, oh, I've learned and now I've got it together. No, it's a continuous process of ever being transformed, of ever changing and being taught by the Lord. But this area of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is one of the things for the last couple of years the Lord's really been impressing on my heart. I wanna start just with a bit of an overview on the book of Galatians to have an understanding of what leads us to Galatians five:one.

12:47 The issue that the Galatians were encountering is after Paul had already been about his missionary journeys and he had gone and presented the gospel of Jesus Christ to them and they got saved, they professed to know Christ, the Judaizers came Christians had come in and they started declaring that not only did you have to have faith in Christ, but you also needed to keep the law. In other words, you had to become a Jew and also then a Christian. Now you can imagine from the Jews perspective why they might think that. God is the one that had always communicated to us. Everything from God came through us.

13:28 We were the chosen people of God. We had our father Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You can't just come into this without first going through that. I mean you can really understand why they might have that perspective to say this is, I mean in some ways it's, you have two children and one child you give the candy bar to and the other child you say, Well, you need to clean your room before I give you the candy bar. And the one child says, Well, that's completely unfair.

13:57 That one just got the candy bar. Why did they not have to do anything to get the candy bar? Well, lo and behold, parents can do whatever they want, number one. Number two, maybe that child's bedroom was already clean and that's why they got the candy bar. But we can look at it and say, well, that's completely unfair.

14:15 And maybe that's exactly how these Jewish Christians were feeling. You have to go through this. To have a full appreciation for who God is, you need to go through this. So the Judaizers were coming in and telling the Galatians, after they believed in Christ, no, you need to go back, you need to be circumcised, you need to do the law, you need to do these things in order to be truly fully saved. And one of the things as Paul goes through Galatians, and I've always loved the book of Galatians, especially chapter three.

14:44 I mean, it used to be especially chapter three. Now it's especially chapter five, and that'll come out here in a little bit. But I loved Galatians chapter three, number one, because of the heart of passion and the way that Paul would communicate. Number two, because it really unveiled if you're not familiar with Galatians chapter three, I encourage you to go back and read it it really unveils the Old Testament to help you understand the New Testament and the Gospel. Like to understand the promise to Abraham and the Mosaic Law and why this was here and then this came in afterward.

15:21 It really opens your eyes to a lot of these things. So I've loved the book of Galatians, and in Galatians chapter three, he starts with this, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Let me ask you this one question, very rhetorical question. Did you receive the Spirit by the hearing of faith or by the works of the law? Right.

15:43 It becomes very evident as not only just in the tone in which Paul wrote it, but then as he starts to unveil it, it's so eye opening that he's trying to address this very issue that that which you have received before, now somebody is coming in and trying to tell you something different. I love how he says that in chapter five, whoever it is he that told you these things. Like he knows who's telling them, not individuals, but he knows the group of people that are coming in and trying to take them away from it. So everything leading up to chapter five in verse one ultimately comes down to Paul reminding them that your salvation is by faith alone in the person and the work of Jesus Christ. It is not being justified by the works of the law.

16:34 He says that over and over again in the first four chapters of the book of Galatians. You cannot be justified by the works of the law. You can only be justified by faith in Jesus Christ. That becomes completely evident again in Galatians chapter three, even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness, so you having believed in Jesus Christ, it is accounted to you as righteousness. Now, my old view of the book of Galatians is very much that Galatians is a good defense against the law, the Jewish law, the Mosaic law.

17:18 And it's true, it was. He was trying to point that out because of what they were hearing from the Judaizers. But sadly today, I think we can stay in that spot and think that Paul was only writing concerning the law of the Old Testament. Sadly, today, I think we make an awful lot of laws for ourselves in the church. Does that make sense?

18:12 Is this just the law of the Old Testament, or are you trying to tell me something different? Not just me, but all of us through the book of Galatians, through what Paul was writing here. If I'm to stand fast in the freedom that I have in Christ, what does that mean to me today? Simply that I don't need to be circumcised? Is that what that means?

18:38 Or simply that I don't need to follow the 10 Commandments? Well, then what is my life going to look like? And quite frankly, how could I possibly do it? Does that thought ever cross your mind? Let me paint the picture this way and see if this can resonate a little bit more with you.

18:59 Let me ask this question first. Do you have laws to yourself? What you are and are not allowed to do. To be a good Christian, I cannot do this, this, this, and this. I should do this, this, this, and this.

19:16 And you've got your little checklist. Yes? Like you guys are a non responsive group. So we put these little checklists together and sometimes that can be helpful. Don't get me wrong.

19:31 And I'll come back to that maybe in a little bit. But then we take these checklists that we are convinced that this is the definition of what a Christian should not do and what a definition of what a Christian should do. Right? Completely logical. It makes complete sense.

19:47 Our whole life comes down to checklists. That's the Adamic nature that we're under. Like that's how we are created in the garden is we have this idea of a checklist. Adam and Eve, Adam and the woman had a checklist. You can eat of every tree in the garden.

20:04 You have complete freedom except you cannot eat of this one tree. What did they do? They ate of the one tree. Now, of course, that's because the serpent came in and enticed them to do so. So they transgressed and they broke the law.

20:19 But they did the one thing, one thing, one checkbox, and they did it. Because the law brings not only a knowledge of sin, but the law also entices us to sin. You know that, young people, right? Mom and dad say, Don't do this. What do you want to do?

20:39 I want to do that. We used to watch Will when he was little, so he was probably... I don't even know how old. Three, two, three. He was probably just learning to stand up, and he's going to grab a plant on the table, on the coffee table, end table.

20:54 Will, stop. He stops. And then he's looking, and he's waiting to watch you turn away so that he can go back again. As soon as you say no, it's going to entice to want to do that. That is the very nature in man after the fall, not in how God created us in His image, but because of the effect of the fall.

21:19 That is our very nature to do so. Why did the Jews like the law? The Judaizers liked the law. The Jews in the Old Testament liked the law because it was clear. Do this, Don't do that.

21:33 I can follow the checkboxes, and I'm going to get there. And I believe in Galatians five, when he's saying, Stand fast in the freedom, you're free from the law, from all of these checkboxes. You're free in order to pursue Christ. Now, are there things that we should and should not be doing as Christians? There's definitively some things we should not be doing.

21:56 We talked about the issue of pornography last night. We should not be entertaining that in our minds and in our hearts. That should not be there. We should not commit adultery against our spouse. There are lots of things according to God's holy design that we should not be doing.

22:13 But the question is, how do we do it? How do we do it? We have no power within ourselves in order to be able to do it or not do it. The very nature of us in Adam is to fall. I believe that what the Lord is trying to teach through Paul's writing here to the Galatians is you cannot do it.

22:43 Not only does the works of the law not justify you, but the works of the law cannot sanctify you. You're not going to be able to do this on your own. What I've given to you in order to be able to do those things or not do those things is I've given you the Spirit of God, the one who comes to dwell in you. So no longer do you need to operate according to some sort of checklist and saying, Okay, don't do this, do this. I mean, I don't know about you, but when you start thinking through these checklists, where do you end up?

23:27 What's that, Denzel? Defeated. Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed and defeated. I cannot do this and therefore what happens?

23:35 We just give up. I mean people will leave the church, will leave the relationship with God simply because they're like, I cannot do this anymore. I'm giving up. It's too hard. I believe by the spirit of God in this book, he's saying, yeah, you cannot do it.

23:56 I have given you the spirit of God in order for you to be able to do it, not because of you, but because of Christ in you. Galatians two twenty, For I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. I still have this life on this earth, but not I. Christ lives in me.

24:17 And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. This is the promise that we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is not what the Jews had in the Old Testament. This morning we were listening to all of the purification as our brother Andy was bringing out in the Lord's Supper. How they were not purified, so they could not do it according to the right timeline because they had to do so much to be able to do it.

24:45 We oftentimes think about the laws as it relates to the Old Testament, and we think about the 10 Commandments. We don't think about the amount of effort and time that it went in just to crucify the sacrifice, purify themselves, have all the priests making sure that they're pure, being able to prepare the sacrifice for the offering to be made. Could you imagine if that was our experience still today? So Hebrews, the writer to the Hebrews would talk about that and say the priests stand at daily ministering. But Jesus Christ who offered himself one time, has forever sat at the right hand of the Father.

25:22 He sits down. The priest in the Old Testament stood daily. This one, the Lord Jesus, when he offered himself, who did not need a sacrifice for his own sin, offered himself for the sin of others, was able to then sit down. And that's the gospel. Sit.

25:43 Sit down. So stand fast in the freedom that you have in Christ. These rules that we can put ourselves under, that we can actually burden ourselves with, that can weigh us down, make us feel defeated, can ultimately drive us right out the door. And we wonder why the church these days so often is losing people. And sometimes it's easy for us to say, Well, they're just apostate.

26:23 Good riddance. That's not the life that we want for Christians. For those who have trusted in Christ. We want people to be able to walk in freedom. To know that what you have in Christ gives you great liberty and freedom.

27:08 You can't just pick and choose. You can't just say, Okay, well, I'll be circumcised, but I don't have to do this or I don't have to do that. Mean, think about the New Testament. The Lord Jesus just completely wiped away, blew away all the laws. They weren't allowed to eat the dirty animals, and what God has said in the book of Acts, He said, What God has declared to be clean, you don't declare to be unclean.

27:28 Speaking of the Gentiles, but also looking at the animals as the example of that. We eat things that they weren't allowed to eat in the Old Testament. We mix our fabrics, and they weren't allowed to do that in the Old Testament. We walk in freedom in some things, but in other things we do not. If you want to walk according to the law, realize you become a debtor to do the whole law.

27:48 As soon you realize that, then you realize, okay, there's no way I can do that. Some people try to. There are communities of Christians throughout the world that will try to do that. They won't mix their fabrics. They'll do all kinds of things associated with the Old Testament law and trying to operate according to that.

28:14 And the reality is the heart is still desperately wicked and deceitful, leading you astray. So Paul warns of that. Then he goes on to warn and he says, But let not liberty give an occasion or an opportunity to the flesh in verse 13. So you extreme and say, Okay, I have freedom in Christ. Therefore, I can just do whatever I want.

28:40 So Paul is giving you a very balanced argument as he walks through this. Yes, you have freedom in Christ. Stand fast in the freedom that you have because understand if you try to operate according to the law, you become a debtor to do the whole thing. But now here's my warning. He says, Don't let liberty give an opportunity for the flesh.

28:59 Don't think you can just go about and do whatever you want now because you're in freedom. But then the natural question is, okay, but how can I do it? If that's true, then how do I live the life that you're now living in me? What do I do? Verse 16.

29:23 Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Ain't that wonderful? And when I say that, please hear what I'm saying. Like to learn to walk in the spirit is difficult, and I'm going to come back to that in just a few moments. But the reality of here's the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ, just like the reality of everything God had intended in Genesis chapter one being finalized in Revelation chapter 21 is seen in the beauty and the simplicity of the fact that you are justified by Christ dying on cross alone for you.

30:06 That you place your trust in Him and you will be saved. And now to live a life? Simply walk in the Spirit. How do you live a Christian life? Walk in the spirit.

30:20 You no longer have to sit there and think about the checklist. Well, is what you do to live a Christian life. You've to read your Bible. You've to make sure that you're praying every day. You've got to be kind to people.

30:29 You've got to make sure you're at least not doing the 10 Commandments. And don't forget loving one another, because if we don't love and we bite and devour, that's bad too. Oh man. How do you live the Christian life? You walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

30:51 The simplicity of a life in Christ is so wonderful and beautiful. For me, one of the things that the Lord's been teaching me in all of this is it comes down to when I do sin, when I do see weaknesses, failures in the flesh, I've come to realize that my biggest issue is not that I did this, that, or the other thing, or didn't do this, this, or the other thing. It simply is I did not submit myself to the Spirit of God. For example, if I can just use pornography again as an example, if I were to fail in that area, then I would be saying, It's not because I did that, it's because I did not submit to the Spirit of God because He would not lead me in that area. If I was unkind to my wife, it's not that I'm being unkind.

31:52 Yes, you are. That's wrong, not good. But the reason you were unkind is because you were not submitting yourself to the Spirit of God because the Spirit of God would not lead you to be unkind to your wife or to your husband or to your neighbor or to your coworker or to somebody else in the body of Christ here at the church. The Spirit of God would not do those things. So therefore, if you do them, it's simply because you did not submit to the Spirit of God.

32:16 There's freedom in that. Right? Because I no longer, even as we say one John one:nine, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And we will use the word confession as we understand it to be is to agree with God. So we agree with God and we'll tell people when you confess your sins, be detailed, be specific, say to God this is the area of sin.

32:40 And I'm not really taking away from that. Hear me out. I think there's some help to that. But ultimately my sin, my failure in whatever way that is, is I did not submit to the Spirit of God. Because had I walked in the Spirit, I would not have fulfilled the lust of the flesh.

33:26 But now when I look at Galatians chapter five, I say, Man, Paul's writing to the Christians. The Christians, if we're not walking in the Spirit, we will fulfill the lusts of the flesh, and the lusts of the flesh or the works of the flesh are detailed out. Can Christians commit adultery and fornication and lie and have selfish ambitions? Is that a yes? Right?

34:03 Like every single one of those things, you've probably know somebody or maybe even experienced some of those things yourself. It doesn't take away the fact that you've been justified by faith, but the reality is your life is operating according to the flesh, not according to the spirit. And that's true of us, all of us. And even if you want to take some of the biggest ones away, adultery and fornication, because we don't want to talk about those things, about idolatry? Selfish ambition, outbursts of wrath.

34:49 Selfish ambitions can be seen in a lot of ways and not seen in a lot of ways. You know what I'm saying? The passive aggressive sort of behavior on the outside looks good, but the behavior underneath it would be of the flesh, not of the spirit. I trust you hear what I'm saying, right? This is to the Christians.

35:10 You could be operating according to the flesh if you're not walking in the Spirit. But the fruit of the Spirit, the beauty, the wonder that what God could produce in us by Christ dwelling in us, by the Spirit of God coming to fill us, for us willingly submitting Spirit of God and walking in the Spirit, letting him be the one that controls and rules our behavior, will produce the fruit. You have works of the flesh, multiple. You have the fruit, a singular fruit that would have multiple manifestations. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

36:08 All of these things, the nine fruit of the spirit, nine manifestations of the single fruit, the result of the seed of Christ dwelling in you, will become the natural product of walking in the Spirit. If you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. You will therefore, evidenced by the fruit of the Spirit. Oftentimes people will look at this passage and think, Okay, I've heard people say this, like in some sort of teaching way, say, If we're not experiencing enough love, joy, peace, long suffering, etc, then we should look at that and figure out what we need to do to better experience these things. What does that sound like to you?

36:58 Another A checklist. We love our checklist. We really do. How many of you have like a to do list app? Right?

37:11 And they're good for practical things. For our walk with the Lord, not good. Not good. No freedom. It's no longer I literally just need to focus my heart and my mind and attention on submitting to the Spirit of God, then these things will very naturally be seen in our life.

37:37 If we sit there and we think about marriages, the marital relationship, the emotional intimacy issues, emotional connectedness, the barriers that come in, so much of that really comes down to selfishness. We only see things from our perspective. We have no idea how the other person is viewing this. I told you I said this last night, right? I never realized how selfish I was.

38:06 I only thought I was right. How many of us can relate to that? Am I the only one? Like, I wasn't being selfish. I'm just right.

38:15 You're just not seeing it yet. Rather than coming to the realization that I don't even see things properly myself. We are so central. We are so self centered focused. And when I say that, I don't mean that we're always trying to feed ourselves.

38:31 I mean, literally, we just can't see beyond ourselves. Our experience is literally this, right? You guys are all looking at me. I have no idea what you see. All I know is what I see.

38:44 All I know is what my own experience is. When we submit to the Spirit of God, then we can start to learn what this looks like: gentleness, goodness, kindness, self control, that we won't have outbursts of wrath, we won't have adultery and fornication. In the works of the flesh, I didn't say this, but you break them down, there's like the spiritual, the sexual, actually it starts with the sexual and then it goes to the spiritual and then maybe the social, if you want to give them three, different groupings. The first one being adultery and sexual, and then the second group starts with idolatry and spiritual, and the third group, social, starts with hatred. If you broke them up into those three ways, you come to realize that the first one listed for all three adultery, idolatry, and hatred ultimately are the same thing: misplaced affection.

39:47 What is adultery? Adultery is misplacing my affection that should only be for my spouse by putting my affection somewhere else on someone other than my spouse. That's adultery. Idolatry, misplaced affection, that which only God deserves, I've put it on something else. That could be my job, that could be my social status, my sport, my family, fill in the blank of what might be idolatrous to you that you put in place above your relationship with God and who God is.

40:25 Hatred is really no affection, the absence of affection. The end of verse 23, when I go back to the fruit of the Spirit, the end of verse 23, the fruit of the Spirit says these nine things, and that says, Against such there is no law. There is no law, even as Paul would write earlier in the book of Galatians in chapter three, again, wonderful he's so sarcastic, which is probably why I like Galatians chapter three. He's like, If there were a law that could have produced righteousness, surely God would have given it. In other words, there was never a law that could have created this righteousness within us.

41:14 Now he's coming back and he's saying, when it comes to the fruit of the spirit, there is no law against this. There is nothing that is going to prevent this from happening. But we cannot do it of our own power and our own strength. It's only by the work of the Holy Spirit of God. In verse 24, Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires.

41:36 Now please hear me when I say this. This is an ongoing process for all of us. Crucifying the flesh, putting to death the deeds of the flesh, the works of the flesh, the things in us. It's not something that was just done and gone and we never have to worry about it again, or at least not in my experience. If you've had that experience, praise the Lord.

41:55 I don't know of many people that have had that experience. I have completely put to death the flesh, and I have no issues whatsoever. That just can't happen. If you are that person, you can let me know after. And I love verse 25 because again, he says, If we live in the Spirit, in other words, if the life that we have is in the Spirit, a summary verse of all of what he's saying in Galatians five, If the life that we have is in the Spirit, then walk in the Spirit.

43:03 I think we oftentimes look at God through the lens of the Old Testament, the Law, rather than looking at the Law through the lens of the New Testament, through who God is now and what He intended. What did God intend from the very beginning in creation? Well, He intended unity, relationship, fellowship with mankind. This is what He's after. As I mentioned yesterday, you see it throughout Scripture that this is what God is going to.

43:32 As Christians we so want to move back and take the law, and yeah, not the Old Testament law, but the idea of law that if we do this thing, this will please God and this won't please God. And we come up to this definition. There's only one thing in Scripture that I've been able to see really that says this pleases God. Do you know what that is? Faith.

44:00 Without faith, Hebrews chapter 11 and verse six, it is impossible to please God. Therefore, the contrast must be true. With faith, it's possible to please God. A life of faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us is now dwelling in us, given the Holy Spirit of God to indwell us. If I can just take one more minute.

44:28 Ephesians one. This was the eye open. You don't even have to turn there. I'm going to do my best to give you a high level description. I always saw Ephesians one as very positional.

44:37 This is all that we have in Christ, accepted in the beloved, redeemed by the blood, forgiven of sins, adopted as sons, spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise in verse 14, 15. No, 13. 13, 14. We have been sealed, everything that we have in God.

45:06 Starting in verse 15, Paul writes to the Ephesians in Ephesians chapter one. He says, I have not ceased to pray for you, or I have prayed, but now I pray for you that you would be spiritually enlightened, having the darkness of your understanding. All of these things. In other words, there was something more. And then finally he gets to that you might know the power that raised Jesus from the dead who's living in you.

45:29 And this is a bad quotation, but that's the idea, that there is more. It's not just positional of what we have, but He's given us the Spirit of God. The power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in us. The only way for us to find victory, success, fruit, is by us submitting to the Spirit of God. A month ago or so, a couple months ago, a brother was in one Peter one where Peter was writing and he's saying, reminding us of the Old Testament passage, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

46:04 And he was talking about how we need to be holy because God is holy and He has called us to be holy, and that is definitively true. He asked me what I thought about it afterward, and I said, The problem when we start saying things like that, it just sounds like law again. I got to be holy like God was holy in the Old Testament. I got to go back to that. He said, only thing you're missing is by what power are we able to be holy?

46:33 Not by us. Only by the Spirit of God in us. My encouragement to you, to me, what the Lord's been teaching me is simply this: let's learn to walk with the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, to let Him be the one that rules and guides and controls all that we do. Then when we think about spiritual, emotional, and physical intimacy in our marriages, I'll tell you, if we learn to walk in the Spirit, all of those other things will become a natural byproduct of us walking in the Spirit. Let's pray.

47:10 Our loving God and Father, we do thank you again for the wonder and the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That we are not justified, declared right by the things that we can do, either in obedience to the law or in anything that we can do even to offer a sacrifice of sorts, but by simply the finished work of the Lord Jesus on the cross at Calvary. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Father, we thank you that we can know salvation. If there again is anybody here this morning that has yet to have trusted in Christ, they don't know freedom in Christ for forgiveness of sin, we pray that they would come to the reality of that truth.

47:54 And Father, for those of us as Christians, we pray that you would help us to learn to walk in the Spirit, that we would be filled with the Spirit, that we would allow ourselves to be controlled by the Spirit and not by our own flesh and our own strength and the things we can do and not do. Father, we want to live a life that's pleasing to you, but we want to do so in the way that you've prescribed, by faith. By faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. By faith in the work of the spirit of God in us. So help us, Father, learn these things.

48:26 We pray in the Lord Jesus' name. Amen.