I. People Who Exude the Spirit 00:00
Every baptism, I want to challenge us to take a moment and remember what it means that we are a part of the family of God. Today we’re going to talk about not a lesson that we read today, not the Gospel that we read today, but what it means to be a part of the family of God, what baptism signifies in our life. So as we begin this morning, why don’t we just bow our heads and pray.
Lord Jesus, I just ask that you would speak your words to your people. I pray that you would guide my thoughts, that they would be pleasing to you, my words, that they’d be pleasing to you. And I pray that as we dive into the word that you’ve given us, your Scripture, the chains that we carry would be broken. Lord, I pray that there would be freedom in this place. And I pray that even as we look at the ways that we are called to live, we would be empowered by your Spirit to do so. In Jesus’ name, amen.
There are some people I’ve met in my life who are different than others. There are some people who, when I have a conversation with them, there’s something different about them, and not in a bad way; there’s something different in a good way. There are a few particular individuals I’ve met who, if they invited me to go clean the latrines down at a public porta-potty, I would join them, because they were there. And you might be thinking of a celebrity or somebody with a lot of power, a CEO. That’s not the type of person I’m talking about. I’m talking about people who, when you encounter them, you know that they have Christ within them. It just shines forth in the way that they engage with you. You might be able to think of people like that. Maybe people like that have intimidated you. Maybe people like that have made you feel bad about yourself, because you think, “Man, they’re so great. What’s up with me?”
I know I’ve felt those things as well. But I also know that as I got to know these individuals, who I hold up as standards to look up to, I’ve more and more felt loved, more and more felt built up and encouraged. And it’s not that they were going out of their way to tell me how great I am, how good-looking I am, although those things I’m sure are true. It’s that they were exuding the Spirit of God. They just lived their life in such a way that you could tell that they loved Jesus, and because they love Jesus, you could tell that they loved you. When I think of how I want to grow up, I think I want to be like those people. And I’ll give up a secret: some of them are in this room. Some people who, when I talk to them, man, they just encourage me to think differently, live differently. They make me feel like God really is moving in our lives.
But more than me wanting to grow up to be like them, I think the best thing I can say about them is that I want my children to grow up to be like them. And that’s part of what baptism is about, because that thing, that mysterious difference in those people, began when they were welcomed into the kingdom of God. That seed that we plant in baptism is the seed that can grow into a person who, no matter what they’re doing, is exuding the Spirit of God, representing Christ on earth. And you know what? Each one of us has the same Spirit in us as all those people that I look up to. When we sang that song today, “Set me ablaze,” we said something along the lines of “the same Spirit, the same power is living in me.” There’s a reason that’s so powerful. It’s because not only is it the same Spirit that’s in those individuals, it’s the same Spirit that’s in our Lord Jesus Christ, the same Spirit that was in Paul, that inspired him to write the words that would change the world in Christianity. And all of that is living in us.
So when I hear words in our culture like, “Well, Christians are just the same as anybody else. They have the same problems, they act the same, they sound the same, they go do the same things,” I know that there’s something wrong, if that’s the way we present ourselves to the world. If we present ourselves to the world in a way that they think, “Well, Christianity can’t be true, because they’re just as messed up as all of us,” then I know there’s something that people are missing. If you look at your own life and you think, “What’s the difference between me and my neighbor?”, then maybe there’s a place that you can grow. Maybe there’s a place where God wants to inspire you to be different, to live differently.
II. Walk by the Spirit 04:20
We’re going to look through Galatians chapter 5, verses 16 to 26. This is the classic contrast between the flesh and the Spirit, the way of living in the world and the way of living as a Christian. It’s the fruit of the Spirit. You’ve heard the words often, but I hope today, as we go through them, that you will be inspired and not condemned, that you’ll be convicted and invited to enter into the fruit that is your inheritance as a son or daughter of God, and not guilty and ashamed. I hope that as we look through these things, we will think of all the ways that God wants to manifest himself in our life and bring the kingdom of God in our life. Trust me, when I read the list, you’re all going to want these things. So we’ll start with that. Keep these in mind as we talk through these Scriptures: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5.22–23).
Okay, I feel convicted already, and I just read a list of words. I don’t measure up. But let’s talk about not just the fact that it’s easy to feel convicted; let’s talk about how to press into these characteristics that God wants to grow in us. We’re going to start a little bit before that, in verse 16:
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 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 the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Gal 5.16–18
That’s a lot of words, right? The desires of the flesh versus the desires of the Spirit. And maybe in your mind you hear that and you go, “Well, that’s just a bunch of Christian gobbledygook. It doesn’t make any sense.” So there’s the Spirit, and it’s warring with the flesh. But does that mean that eating a nice meal is a bad thing? Does that mean that gratifying the flesh by getting a massage… basically, does that mean that our material concerns are insignificant? Absolutely not.
We lose some of the language here of what’s going on. When he talks about the flesh and the Spirit, he’s talking about your place of motivation and control. He’s not talking about the things that you’re doing, because the Spirit calls us to do things here on earth, embodied, to live on earth in the flesh in a way that’s different. When he talks about the flesh, he’s talking about the old man, the man who was ruled by lust and passion, not the man who was ruled instead by the Spirit of God. We feel this tension. As Paul said, “I do the things I don’t want to do, and I don’t do the things I want to do” (Rom 7.15–19). If you don’t resonate with that, then I don’t know who you are, because I struggle with that. There are things that I know I want to do, and I just can’t do them. That’s what he’s trying to talk about here: there seems to be this war within us, to want to be a certain way and to not be that way.
III. Not Under the Law 08:36
And then he throws out this random idea: “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” But if you’ve read the whole letter, it’s not random at all, because what he’s talking about here is this church of Galatia. We don’t have to go deep into this, but I want to mention what’s going on here. You had the people who accepted Jesus who were trying to bring the Jewish tradition into Christianity, which basically meant they were telling these new Christians, “If you believe in Jesus, you’ll be saved.” And they go, “Okay, I believe.” And they go, “Okay, let’s schedule the surgery for Monday, because you’re going to get circumcised.” It’s an awful pitch for a new religion. And it’s not at all what God wanted to do. Not because circumcision was bad; under the covenant God invited them into that, et cetera, et cetera. There are still people to this day who get circumcised for medical reasons. It’s a thing. But the reason that God was against this particular movement in the church was that what they were really trying to do was to bring bondage to the law of sin and death. They were trying to create a religion based on the works you do that will get you to salvation. They were putting a checklist that you had to check off in order to get there.
And the reason Paul is emphasizing this idea, “If you’re led by the Spirit, you’re not under the law,” is that we were actually saved for freedom’s sake. Christianity is not like other religions, in the sense that every other religion will give you a list of things to follow in order to achieve your salvation. Christianity says, “You’re in, if you accept Jesus Christ.” And the whole process of transformation, everything we’re talking about today, is so that you can taste and see the goodness of God. You already are bought with a price. You already are welcomed into his kingdom when you accept Jesus Christ. Everything that we talk about today is not a basis for salvation. It’s not a basis for welcome into the kingdom. It’s a basis for helping you experience and live out the promise you’ve already been given.
IV. The Works of the Flesh 10:55
All right, we’re going to talk about the most fun part of this sermon, which is the list of vices. We all love hearing about all the sins that we might be struggling with. So we’re going to get through this, and it’s not going to be a Sunday school lesson, it’s not going to be a lecture. But let’s read this, and I’ll have a couple of things to say about it that I hope will change the way that we think about these things. He’s saying, “Walk by the Spirit, not by the flesh.” Now he’s going to tell you what that means:
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 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. Gal 5.19–21
Okay. Now it sounds like I’m contradicting myself, because I just gave you a list of things that, if you do them, you don’t inherit the kingdom of God. And I told you before that your entrance into the kingdom of God is bought and paid for. So what is Paul saying here? Well, there’s this great tension throughout the Scriptures. First, our salvation is a free gift of grace. Even these babies who are being baptized today are welcomed into that without even accepting it for themselves. There’s a special thing that happens in baptism, where the parents say, “We dedicate this baby to the kingdom of God.” We enter them into the sacrament where they die and are raised to newness of life with Jesus, and they don’t have to do a thing to be welcomed into the kingdom of God. That is the beauty of Christianity.
But when Paul says that people who practice this list of awful things, this list of things that we struggle with ourselves, won’t inherit the kingdom of God, what he’s saying is that they could even be standing in the kingdom of God and they wouldn’t see it, because they’d be blinded by this list. I’m calling them vices today, because when we talk about these things, we often think, “This is our list: don’t do this, don’t disobey your parents, don’t murder, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t cause rivalries, dissensions, divisions.” And while that is what he’s saying, “Don’t do those things,” what he’s really saying is that all of those things are a lie. He’s not saying, “Don’t do them, because I want you to be the good Christian person, and I want to put this law on you.” What he’s saying is that when you follow these things, you might think that you’re looking for the freedom to choose; that’s the lie that they present. But really, even though they’re tempting, even though they might feel good, you’re choosing between life and death. When you look through these, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, they’re all various forms of slavery.
And what I want to pull out of this is not a list of the ways that you aren’t measuring up, because I can pick my envy: boom, I’ve struggled with that. Divisions: I’ve struggled with that. Strife. You can look at your list and you can start thinking of all the things you’ve struggled with, and I don’t want to make it about that today. I want to make it about this: if you think that any of these things is benefiting you, then you’ve bought the lie. The truth is that they’re leading you into slavery.
V. The Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand 14:13
I could go on and on, but I want to move on to the idea embedded in here, which is that although there’s a tension in Scripture between the free gift of grace and this idea of transformation and repentance and the call to change your life, I think we can think differently about this today. When you think about the fact that Jesus has died on the cross, that he has paid the price for us to enter the kingdom of God, and then you think about the call over and over again in the New Testament to repent of sin and to turn to God and to be transformed, what I want you to think about is the fact that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It’s right here. We’re often so cynical when we look at our surroundings. We feel hopeless. We feel far from the peace and the grace and the promises of God. And when Paul’s warning people not to fall into these vices, what he’s saying is, “Clear your eyes. Open your eyes. Get away from these vices. Embrace the fruit of the Spirit.” The kingdom of God is right here. It’s all around you, it’s in front of you, it’s within you. So let’s look at what that does when we turn away from the vices and we walk with the Spirit. Let’s look at the fruit of the Spirit here:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Gal 5.22–23
This is what we want. We want to have the fruit of the Spirit in our life. This is the transformation we’re talking about. So I’m going to go through some of these, but I want to point out one element of the fruit of the Spirit that we often miss. We think of it as though it’s the fruits of the Spirit, as though these are all various things that we have to master, that we have to have the discipline to display, the discipline to conquer: love, joy, peace, faithfulness. But really it’s the fruit of the Spirit, and there’s a promise embedded within Christianity that if you walk with him, he will bring that to pass. It’s like an apple tree. If you plant an apple tree, do you tell the apple tree every day, “Hey, work really hard. I want you to produce apples”? No, you don’t. You water the tree and you watch it grow, and it will produce apples. When you are in the kingdom of God, when you’re a Christian, when you’re walking with the Spirit, you will produce the fruit of the Spirit.
So some of what I want to tell you today is that the striving, the fighting, the trying to work out our salvation, can sometimes be a burden that we put on ourselves, when God’s just saying, “Walk with me and let me bring the fruit.” When it talks about the fruit of the Spirit, these are things that will happen if you trust him and you walk with him. You will become more gentle, patient, loving, joyful.
VI. Love 17:39
Now let’s talk about some of the ways that we can embrace these fruits. When we talk about love, I think we all know that the root of every one of these fruits is love. The idea that came to me when I was thinking about this is about my children. I am more joyful, patient, kind, good, sometimes more peaceful… but I can maintain more peace, more faithfulness, more gentleness with my children than with anybody else on the planet. Why is it that we can be more kind and good to our children, more patient with our children, than with anybody else? Because love breeds all of those things. There’s something about your children, for those of you who are parents: you love them so much that it brings out the best in you.
Now, I’m not saying that automatically, once you’re a parent, you’re going to be so great and perfect. Obviously we all have places to grow. I’ve lost self-control, I’ve lost patience, I’ve lost peace in our household with our children. But what I want you to understand is that if you grow in love towards one another, you will exhibit the rest of these fruits. So if there’s anything you want to grow in, grow in loving one another. And that’s hard, because you have to actually see somebody, accept them, and then want their benefit. And you know what? If you’ve met me, you might have had difficulty loving me, because I’m not that great, really. You pull back the layers, you can find a million reasons to think I’m annoying, obnoxious, prideful, whatever you want to say. I have the list. There’s a reason why we struggle to love one another: because we are, well, all those things. Just think of the person you like the least, and realize that somebody probably thinks of you similarly. We are not that amazing. Now, God would love to make us that amazing. But the point of what I’m trying to say is that we have to see others and love them, and it helps if you remember that you’re not so easy to love either. Our wives help us men remember that we’re not that easy to love. She’s really good at reminding me of that. No, she’s really awesome. But there’s a thing: when you get close to somebody, you see deeply, and you have to love deeply. That’s the call. And then that will bring out the rest of the fruits in your interactions with them.
VII. Joy and Peace 20:01
And then we talk about joy, and I have one question for joy: have you ever been tired, ever in your life? Of course we have. And maybe this last year more often than any other year. I don’t know; it’s been hard. I’ve been tired this past year. I’m an extrovert, and they’re telling me I can’t hang out with people. That’s awful. I can’t stand it. But there’s something even deeper in our culture, where there’s been this blanket, this oppression, where even the normal things that you do have been harder to do. Maybe you’ve been able to break through that, and thank God for you. I hope that we all can. But we should acknowledge the fact that it’s been an exhausting year.
When you’re talking about joy, I want you to think about how tired you are, because you know what it says: “The joy of the Lord is my strength” (Neh 8.10). I was just reading a psychology thing; there are these tests, and they link joy with energy, with strength, with the ability to go on. Can you think of a time when you were joyful, and then think of a time when you’re tired? They’re almost polar opposites. It’s very rare that you’ll find yourself feeling a lot of joy and exhaustion at the same time. Of course it does happen, but the point is that when we have the joy of the Lord, we have enough strength that even in our moments of weakness and exhaustion, we can persevere.
One example of that, and we’ll move on. The opposite of joy, when I think of it, is Scrooge. Even his name, Ebenezer Scrooge, conjures up this miserable image of awful greed and miserliness. He was not joyful, because he was a slave to idolatry. The opposite of joy is idolatry, in my mind, because when you serve something that you think is going to give you satisfaction and it doesn’t, it can ruin your life. But if you see the goodness of God in your life, then you will have joy. And the example of that is Tiny Tim. There was no reason why Tiny Tim should have more joy than Ebenezer Scrooge. If you remember the story, Ebenezer Scrooge had all the power, all the money, everything that we think should satisfy, and Tiny Tim was a sickly, poor individual on his way to dying, and his family had nothing. And yet he’s the one thanking God for every little blessing, seeing the goodness of God in everyone he encounters. He’s the one that holds out hope for Ebenezer Scrooge.
I want you to think about joy as something that energizes you, and I want you to find that joy by looking for the goodness of God in your life. Thankfulness continues to multiply our joy. So when you have love towards people, you will start to exhibit these fruits. When you have joy, you will have the energy to persevere. And when you have peace… we’ll read:
15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Col 3.15
There are connections here between thankfulness and joy and peace. But I want you to just put this in there: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” Peace is all about not submitting to anxiety and stress. It’s bringing that anxiety and stress before God, giving it to him, and letting the peace of Christ rule in their place. So if you’re loving, you’re joyful, you’re full of peace, that starts to describe these people that I’m talking about, those people that I mentioned in the beginning, who I look up to, who I want to be like.
VIII. Patience, Kindness and Goodness 23:36
And then patience, of course, is our favorite. My one example of patience has to be my mom, Mia Harris. You know she’s a remarkably patient woman. But I will tell you that we learn in the Scriptures that patience comes through tribulations and trials. So really, Mom’s patient because I was awful. So that’s good, right? She experienced the tribulation of her life in raising me, and now she’s the most patient woman I know. You’re welcome. But there’s also a sense in which patience is our least favorite. In fact, they warn you not to pray for patience, because how is God going to give it to you? He’s going to try your patience. He’s going to grow it in you through suffering and difficulty. When he says, “I rejoice in my tribulations, my trials, because I know it will produce endurance,” patience (Rom 5.3), I want you to think about that when you hit these difficult places: what is God growing in me? Think about how that could change your perspective, rather than “Woe is me, this is awful, why is this happening to me?” It doesn’t make the hard thing go away, but it can give you the perspective that can help you get through it.
Kindness and goodness. I just want to mention two things here. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” That’s an awesome quote. I think about it all the time, because you never know what’s going on in somebody’s life, so it’s worth it to be kind to them. And then, on the other side, this is not Ned Flanders kindness. This is not the mother who allows her 28-year-old son to live with her, pays all his bills, and complains that he’s not growing up. There’s a kindness, a goodness towards people, that’s actually wrong. It’s not actually kindness and goodness. I’m not going to go deep into that, but I want you to think about the fact that kindness is about seeing people for who they are and treating them with their good in mind. It’s hard enough to just open your eyes and see people, but then you also have to engage the Holy Spirit, that love in your heart, to seek their good.
IX. Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control 26:55
Faithfulness. If there is one secret to Christianity, it is this: never give up. The victory’s already won. Don’t give up.
And then gentleness. We’re told to speak the truth in love (Ephes 4.15). Gentleness is not about what you do; it’s about how you’re doing it. You can see it as you build this out: I know people who are like this, who are loving, joyful, peaceful. They’re gentle, they’re kind, they’re good.
And lastly, of course, the gold standard: self-control. If love is the root from which all these fruit grow, self-control is the branch that holds them up. Because if you don’t have self-control, then as soon as that guy cuts you off on the freeway, your gentleness goes out the window. Your kindness, your goodness is gone. If you don’t have self-control, then as soon as that temptation comes up again, whatever that is in your life, all of these things, the love, the joy, the peace, go out the window. So what is self-control about? It’s about submitting your control to God. It’s not about self-mastery. There are a lot of gurus out there who will teach you how to master yourself. But underneath it all, although it’s important to have discipline, self-control is about submitting to God.
Maybe there’s one of these vices that we looked at that is your thing: “I’m good. I love people, I do all these good things.” But you hold on to that one thing: “I’m impatient. I lose my temper sometimes.” And that’s your excuse. You’ve made that a part of your identity. I want to invite you today to walk in greater freedom, and to know that your identity is not in your vices. Your identity is the apple tree that’s going to bring forth apples. Your identity is the tree of the Spirit that’s going to bring forth the spiritual fruit. You’re a part of the body of Christ. And so if you lack self-control, look for what you’re serving that isn’t God.
X. Remember Your Baptism 28:10
Now, when we look at baptism, and I’ll wrap up here: what are we doing in baptism? We are taking those things of the flesh, the vices we talked about, and we are crucifying them with Christ, and we are being raised into new life with him, into the life that is Spirit-led, Spirit-filled, and brings forth the fruit of the Spirit. As we do this, I invite you, as I did at the beginning, to remember your own baptismal covenant. There is something that happened when you were baptized, but it didn’t stop there. Every time we do a baptism, I invite you to think about what God has done in your life and to press into the promises of baptism, which are that your flesh has been crucified with Christ and that you have been invited into new life. You yourself can be the joyful, peaceful, patient, faithful, gentle, good person that you look up to, the one who exudes self-control, who shares the Spirit with those you encounter. And it’s not just about you. More and more I realize it’s about everyone around you: your wife, your kids, your family, your community. Imagine people who exude the fruit of the Spirit. That’s part of what we’re doing today when we invite these babies into the sacrament of baptism. Remember your own baptism, and live in the fruit of the Spirit.
Let’s pray.
Lord, I just thank you for this opportunity to share your word. I thank you that we can take a time out of our week where we remember our own baptism and where we welcome people into your kingdom and into our family. I pray that you would bind our hearts together this morning as we look upon these two who are being baptized, and that as we say the words where we promise to help bring them up in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, Lord, you would actually make that come to pass in our hearts, that we would be the type of church where children are raised who are living in freedom and who are exuding the gifts of the Spirit. In your name, amen.