Sermon: The Works of the Flesh

Please join me in prayer as we are about to approach the word of God. Heavenly Father, we pray this evening to be guided by your word. We approach your scripture eager for heavenly food that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Tune our hearts to hear the voice of the shepherd, the only one who can restore our soul and enlighten us to his truth. We pray all these things in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. Please open your bibles and turn with me to the book of Galatians. Uh, there's gonna be a slight detour from the bulletin so we will not be in verse 17. Uh, rather we will start in verse 19 and go through verse 21. The good news though, if you are using a pew Bible, it is still on the same page as your bulletin page 9 75 and there will be three points from our text tonight. First, we will think through the truth that God means what he says.

Secondly, we will give thanks that we are no longer controlled and lastly we will observe the beauty of the kingdom. But to begin, I think it will be helpful to do a slight recap from Pastor Kevin's sermon from last Sunday evening, uh, on what is meant by the works of the flesh. Not because the word flesh has some hidden mystical meaning or because it's couched in some hidden knowledge that would easily contradict the first point tonight, as we will soon find out.

But rather because the word flesh is used in many ways throughout holy scripture, it is the flesh that is opposed to the spirit. The flesh is a fallen desire contrary to the desires that you now have in Christ. It is the flesh that belongs to the old creation. It is the flesh that belongs to the old you. With that being said, here are now the words of god com from Galatians chapter five verses 19 through 21. Now the works of the flesh are evident,

sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warned you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Amen. Our first point, God means what he says. So our passage begins with this statement by Paul. Now the works of the flesh are evident and then he

goes on to list them. The Christian standard Bible will say that the works of the flesh are obvious. So Paul is saying in the simplest way here, the works of the flesh, they are observable. Look no further. Here they are. You do not have to guess what is meant by the works of the flesh. Just like good works are obvious, think of the most humble and sa uh, self-sacrificial brother or sister that you know. Uh, it may be a friend,

maybe a neighbor who serves at the city rescue mission or is constantly volunteering their time at the Humane Society. And when explaining that person to someone else, you would say that their works of charity are evident. You do not need to guess. Good works are evident. Good works are obvious and in the same way works of the flesh are evident. God through the apostolic writings states what is obvious and yet it is the natural heart of fallen man to try and poke holes

in the meaning. So for example, in our passage here, some will come to it and they say sexual immorality. It's actually narrow in scope and it only refers to these ancient Greek relationships between an adult man and a young boy. It's only referring to power structures. Nothing else fits of anger that's brushed under the rug because well most anger is righteous or so the argument goes drunkenness is only if you act in ways while drunk

and does not have to do with your state of mind. This is all foolishness. The most important things of scripture are all made clear and there are mysteries no doubt and there are things that are obscure. But God has made the message of the Bible quite obvious sin consequences and its remedy to quote Luther from his historic work, the bondage of the will, all the things therefore contained and the scriptures are made manifest,

although some places from the words not being understood are yet obscure, but to know that all things in the scriptures are set in the clearest light and then because a few words are obscure to report that the things are obscure, as Luther could only say it's absurd and it's impious, God indeed means what he says in the holy scripture and it is a dangerous grotesque practice to twist what he has made obvious or to distort what he has plainly stated.

So Ayn Rand, the author of the book, Atlas Shrugged, says about language that it is the exclusive domain and it is the tool of concepts. Every word we use is a symbol that denotes a concept. George Orwell in his famous book, 1984, speaks of a totalitarian society where war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, an infamous opposer of the Christian faith, when speaking about pressure in the scientific community to avoid the terms male

and female says, I'm not going to be told by some teenage version of Mrs. Grundy which words am I native language, I may or may not use a ran how to objectivism that the end of man is his own happiness, eat, drink and be merry for your own sake and that this alone is the purpose of man. Oral was an agnostic and Dawkins believes that a personal God is not just a bad thing, but that a personal God is a delusion. And yet all three of these thinkers owe to the broad

statement that words matter. That words carry meaning and words indeed carry meaning, convey ideas and are not to be definitionally changed based on societal whims, nor is is wise for us to anize the place are modern ideas or definitions of words and phrases on the past generations and therefore attempt to rewrite history. It is in many ways unwise and it can often be outright dangerous. Godless authors and thinkers, they recognize this danger.

But sadly we've seen this confusion over words that takes root in our own lives. We've seen it in people we love. We've seen it even in some churches that we've been part of,

churches that we've loved, where people have been led astray, they've been twisted and it breaks our heart. Now, I do wanna make some qualifications here. I am not disregarding that it takes the work of the Holy Spirit for the words of the scripture to be alive to the reader. And what I mean is that there is the necessity of the illumination of the spirit for us to have the proper reception of it and to transform our lives.

And when I use the word obvious or when we use the word evident, I'm not making the case that we shouldn't grow. In our skills of interpreting scripture, we dig into historical context of passages. We learn the original languages if possible, we require it of those who hold the office teaching outer. We look at the ways in which Paul writes differently than Peter and all of that is healthy and all of that is good. And indeed it is a matter of biblical literacy to know the

scriptures. But another truth in all of this is that knowledge does puff up. You see this repeated in the Proverbs knowledge, which is not to reflect God's glory in our thoughts and in our deeds. It just produces a prideful disposition. But just reflect, think of yourself and how often if we were being honest is so-called knowledge of the text just used to try and misconstrue or avoid the difficulties of the word and what it demands of you.

After all society around us encourages us to do that very thing, to disregard the demands of God's word, especially with the works of the flesh. Society may not be opposed to the verses in scripture which speaks of love and their knowledge of it, but the works of the flesh, those are difficult, difficult words. They wanna redefine these works as natural, healthy, loving and it's a frightening thing to be caught in an environment

where you are the minority thought where you're put in this position to go against the grain and often the grain being spoken of by your loved ones, by friends.

So here's our application for our first point. We wanna stand with Paul and we wanna call sin. Sin. The works of the flesh are the works of the flesh. These works are part of the old man being in Adam and these works they will lead to destruction. The quote Thomas Aquinas, the greatest kindness one can render to any man consists of him leading him from error to truth. We must be committed to bowing our knee to what our king has proclaimed in his

word. It is his declaration after all and take his message which is saturated with loving truth to the uttermost we must stand with God, stand with his word and cause sin, sin, but especially when we see sin in ourselves, which leads us into our second point, we give thanks that we are no longer controlled. So our text today, it's closely paralleled in First Corinthians six. Uh, there are good reasons to believe that Galatians was the earliest

letter written by Paul. His writing of Galatians was during his first missionary journey 80 46 or so, acts 13 to 14 in first Corinthians was written during his third missionary journey. So during the mid fifties ad and while we read from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, you can hear almost the exact same language as from his letter to the Galatians and that makes sense. It says, if Paul is thinking back to his advice a decade before and he's

drawing from his words of exhortation, he's drawing from his years of discipleship and he's building on it nonetheless, listen to what Paul says in one Corinthians chapter six, verse nine through 10 is what he says, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor adult nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards,

nor revivals nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Pretty close to our passage here in Galatians, but let's go further. Paul continues in verse 11, in one Corinthians six and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God key in here and such were some of you. It is implied here that you used to produce works of the flesh,

but now you produce works of the spirit. Dear Christian, you may have been practicing the works of your flesh, but that is no longer who you are. It no longer defines you. It is no longer your identity. You have been washed. And praise the Lord for that. Don't let a day go by without thinking of this truth. Let's take a few minutes here though and own in on one phrase found in both First Corinthians and Galatians here,

those who practice such things. So when the snow melts and uh, if my wallet is full, I greatly enjoy golfing. Uh, I may be even so bold to tell some of you that I love to golf to demonstrate this. I've upgraded from wearing a t-shirt to a polo the past couple years. Uh, one year I'll even make my way to wearing acceptable golf polos, maybe me even buy a visor. And although I appreciate golfing and although I might even dare

to say I love it, I am not a golfer. I don't practice golf, no trainers, no lessons, uh, limited range time and if I'm being honest, the the range time I'm finding are farm fields where you can just hit the ball out. I'm still on the hunt to break a hundred true fact. And then recently I broke my arm. So that's not going to happen anytime soon anyways.

Some of you need to hear that you may struggle and this struggle at times with the flesh, with the old nature, with the old man, it feels overwhelming, but your struggle is not necessarily a practice.

Hear me clearly. This is not to excuse our sins. Our text is clear that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. It's also one of the last things we read in the book of Revelation. Those on the outside and those on the inside, it is a real warning,

a warning to those who practice a warning to those who practice. Because we haven't finished the race because we're not yet made perfect in righteousness, glorification, we will struggle until we put off this flesh. Once sin for all certain sins may be the pain in your side more than others and it just feels like they're never leaving you

tonight. Your brother, your sister, you can once again hear that the struggle may feel overwhelming, but does does not mean that you are practicing. It is not necessarily a practice. Every one of us, every single one of us can look at this text single Galatians and identify or recognize a struggle, a battle or a temptation. I'm sure that's been going on throughout the sermon. Nonetheless, we must be careful even when we do use the term sin struggle.

You may have been in a situation where a friend speaks of their sin struggle for years. And again, that's not a bad thing, but they don't do anything about it. We must insist that struggle means that you are fighting. And when talking about struggling, you're talking about a fight. If you are a parent, you knows what it means. When another parent says their kid is struggling to sleep, it's much closer to a U F C match than speaking words of comfort.

And let's be clear here, the parent is struggling, the child is not there in rebellion, joyfully your sin struggle must be the target of mortification. And by mortifying, we love to say this in church, right? But by mortifying we mean kill. It is the target that we are seeking to suffocate, to bring into submission to ensure that it no longer lives in us. We could spend all night speaking to what that practically looks like.

We have a lot of works we could go over and although I do not find that to be necessary, an example should help us get the point across. So one of the works of the flesh is drunkenness. So what does the struggle with drunkenness look like? I think we can all probably imagine what a practice of drunkenness looks like. But what about a struggle? Struggle looks like faith in action and yes, removing bottles from the home. And no, this is not mere legalism.

We put the bottles away, but the Holy Spirit is producing something better in us. The works of the flesh, yes, making us drunkards but the Holy Spirit renews us. The spirit renews us by his works. The spirit renews us in patience and joy that when you cope with lives problems, you do not have to go to the battle, but you can run to the Father. And this is warfare. It's a struggle, it's a battle and it's warfare. And warfare is only for the Christian.

Cy Sproul wrote in his book Hard Sayings When speaking of killing one sins, the warfare that he, he being Paul talking about is not characteristic of the unconverted person. The unconverted person is carnal all together. That's all the person is flesh. That person does not have the Holy Spirit, does not have any impulse to real righteousness and has no driving desire to please Christ or to please God. All that comes with conversion In a real sense,

our lives do not become complicated until we are converted. Those are good wor words. A good reminder. Now you may have caught on and heard that I keep saying not necessarily when it comes to your sin struggle as a practice. However, there's a flip side to the coin. Your sin struggle may very well be beyond a struggle and it may be a practice for the Christian listening you need to wrestle with. If you are practicing the works of the flesh,

what fruit are you bearing? If you find yourself practicing the works of the flesh, you should be concerned. But this concern is not to remain idle but leads when turning to Christ and awe that Christ produces at the same time the fruit in our lives. They are a helpful diagnostic tool. But no, the fruit is never the grounds of our assurance. Nevertheless, walking with Christ does include our participation, the pick up our cross daily.

The call to be a disciple of Christ is denying yourself, denying ourselves to the Christian such or some of you the same. Cause for any of you listening right now who's not a Christian, you may have been practicing the works of the flesh your entire life, but you do not feel fulfilled. You feel empty. You know something is missing. Mamie, you were like the famous church theologian, Augustan of Hippo who wrote that. But my sin was this,

that I look for pleasure, beauty, in truth, not in him, but in myself and his other creatures. And the search led me to pain, it led me to confusion. It led me to error. Is that you tonight? If

so, here are the good news of the gospel, which is calling you to flee from the dominion of darkness and come into the light found only in Jesus.

The words from God tonight, not always easy, it's a difficult text and it's okay to admit that it is a pointed text and a necessary text to speak into our society, which is increasingly flattening the meaning of sin, twisting sin practices into moments of celebration. But no Galatians five is not an easy message to preach.

Yet as a rose from concrete, there is always true beauty in God's word, which leads us into our final point. We are to observe the beauty of the kingdom. Our passage ends with Paul writing. Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God. It's now it's vibrant. Kingdom is breathtaking, but there will be a day and the kingdom will be consummated. The king Jesus is returning for his bride and the earth

will not only be upgraded, but it will be magnificently renewed and the works of the flesh will be nowhere found in this kingdom. Nowhere there will be no immorality, no hatred, no envy towards your brother or sister, no anger, which tears apart families. No false worship. The kingdom consummated will be utter perfection. Dear Christian, you cannot even fathom to imagine what God has in store for his saints. The immense beauty, the colors and sounds,

the rivers and creatures. Awe in a state of wonder. And no doubt you'll be reunited with your loved ones in the faith. And maybe you are like this one pastor who says they just can't wait to spend the first hundred years talking to Martin Luther and then the next hundred move on to their next theologian. And so down the line for all eternity and all these are great, albeit maybe some more than the oth others, and I'll leave that for you to decide.

And yet the best part is we will be worshiping for our Lord and we will be with him forever. Our sin struggles no longer weighing down on our weary souls. A pretty good side benefit.

What's the takeaway here? There is a kingdom worth living for now. We were to be salt and light through our words, sharing scripture and the hope found in Christ our deeds in serving one another and our neighbors. But let me challenge you. Let me challenge you to think more about heaven

as there is a kingdom worth living for now, there is also a future of hope. As Richard Baxter wrote in his wonderful book, the Saints Everlasting Rest. We are to have heavenly meditation again, heavenly meditation. Baxter makes a convincing argument in his books that Christians, all of us in this room that we don't think about eternity enough to you.

Baxter goes on to say that this heavenly meditation, it will fill our souls with perpetual joy. How wonderful. And it should an eternal home where there's no more battle within with the works of the flesh and there's no battle or effects within, without the battle is done, the war is over and oh, what a joy. The works of the flesh are antithetical to the renewal of the whole man found in Christ Jesus. God says to you today that the blessed man, that the Christian,

the one who is walking in the truth of the gospel, cannot be a practitioner of the fleshly works. His word to you is clear. Here is what the works of the flesh are. Here is what they look like and the perfectly just penalty for those things. Separation from God. It is a real warning. This is not a hypothetical, but the redemptive story of the gospel says that those who practice such works such were some of you and redemption says,

but now you are a new creation. The old has been made new. The darkness is now shrouded in heavenly light and that very light pours out from within. Nonetheless, it doesn't mean that our Christian lives are always easy. Doesn't mean life is always peachy and no, that is not a profound statement by any means. You've all heard it said a million times, you might have said it today with your families, our post Genesis three post fall lives

are filled with struggles. Our lives are filled with temptation. Our lives are filled with difficulties

and often it's because of this battle with the works of the flesh. And yes, we are to fight to mortify or cure our sin. As John Owen famously stated, be killing sin or sin will be killing you, but we will never be glorified in our present lives. Our glorification, the final removal of sin from the life of God's saints will be the eternal state. The kingdom is here and growing, but is also not yet. There will be a day when yet will become now

and it will be glorious. It will be perfect. We will be forever rejoicing before the throne of our king Jesus. And the works of the flesh will be no more. What a great king we have. What a great king. Let us pray.

Father, we thank you for the clarity of your word. You do not keep us in the darkness as to what it means when we are called to mortify the works of the flesh. This struggle is difficult, it's painful, it's exhausting. But we thank you God that you give us the strength. It is through the Holy Spirit that we bear fruit and are caught out from darkness and not because of our own doing. We look forward to the day when the works of the flesh are no more

on that day when Christ returns, may the grace of the Lord Jesus truly be with us all. Amen. Amen.