Behavior Manifests Our Heart Condition

Transcript

GR 2107
12/10/2017
Behavior Manifests Our Heart Condition
Galatians 5:19; Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We’re in the Book of Galatians together in chapter 5. The Book of Galatians is a very basic and foundational book because it’s dealing with the issue of the gospel and the importance of being clear on what the gospel is. If we’re not clear on that, what are we left with? What do we have and that’s Paul’s concern. We’ve noted in many ways it has similarities to the Book of Romans which is a much larger letter but covers some of the same issues. We think of the Book of Romans as an unfolding of the gospel and that is happening with a focus on correcting the error. The problem in the churches of Galatia that Paul established on his first missionary journey and then would visit again was that teachers had come in following his ministry. Judaizers we call them, Jews who professed to be believers in Christ, were telling the Galatians that their salvation was not complete. It was fine that they had believed in Christ and that was important. That’s the subtlety, as we noted in Acts chapter 15, with the issues at the Council of Jerusalem. You also need to keep the Law, and when you believe in Christ, plus you commit yourself to submitting to the Mosaic Law and obeying it, then you have a complete salvation. Now you can begin to develop in holiness and godliness.

Paul is saying that is not true. In fact, that is not the gospel at all. Even when you add the Mosaic Law, which God had given on Mount Sinai to the nation Israel, it never was given as a way of salvation. Now, with the coming of Christ, the purpose of the Mosaic Law in preparing the way for the coming of Christ for the nation Israel had served its purpose, so these kinds of corruptions are constantly at work. Sometimes the devil is directly denying the truth of the gospel and sometimes he comes in more subtly as Paul told the Corinthians, as an angel of light and his servants come as angels of light, so they bring portions of truth mixed with error and when you do that, you have corrupted the gospel.

So we’re in Galatians chapter 5 and Paul had stated very clearly in verse 4, you have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. There’s no mixture! When you mix law with grace, the Mosaic Law here with grace, you’ve corrupted grace, you no longer have grace. Grace is no longer grace. You’ve put human efforts mixed in so it becomes a matter of human effort. It’s either God’s grace or it’s man’s works and that’s the battle here. Chapter 5 opened up, “it was for freedom that Christ set us free.” So His challenge to the Galatians is maintain your freedom, keep standing firm, don’t be drawn in to a yoke of slavery to the Law. That would not only be for Jews who had been set free in Christ but these are primarily Gentile churches and Paul’s message is the Law is not for us in Christ and if you go back to the Law verse 2 and submit yourself to circumcision then Christ doesn’t benefit you.

Again this black and white which is so offensive to people and sometimes we as believers get concerned, we don’t want to be viewed too narrow, viewed as self-righteous. We have to maintain the truth of the Scriptures! We need to be careful we don’t make our opinions part of Scripture, but what God has said, is not to be compromised. So he’s talking about the freedom we have in Christ provided by the Spirit. Down to verse 13. “You were called to freedom, brethren” and there’s a warning here, don’t turn your freedom into an occasion for the flesh. We were set free from the power and control of sin and so on but that doesn’t mean now we’re free to do what we want. We are free; we are not obligated to the Mosaic Law. That doesn’t mean we are lawless, that doesn’t mean we are free to do what we want. Our freedom now is to serve. We serve God and we manifest that in our serving one another, putting others before ourselves, and being used of God in their lives.

Then the warning, verse 15, “If you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” Too bad these kinds of warnings have to be repeated again and again in letters to the churches in the New Testament, because part of the work of the devil is to divide us against ourselves. Pretty soon, he’s concerned the Galatians don’t settle in to what will tear the church apart and that has the potential if this error in doctrine infiltrates. Verses 16 to 25 where we have been focusing our attention, and we’ve done verses 16 through 18. The focus is on the Holy Spirit. What he is saying is there are two controlling powers, there is the flesh, the old man, the old nature and there is the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is mentioned seven times in verses 16 to 25. The focus here, to recognize the work of the Spirit in our lives in verses 16 to 18. I want to review what we did; it’s been a little, while since we were here. He made at least six points.

1. We must live our lives under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
Verse 16, “I say, walk by the Spirit,” that’s the point. When you walk by the Spirit, you are walking under the control of the Spirit; you are walking according to His will as He leads. Down in verse 18, he’ll talk about being “led by the Spirit.” You’re, led by the Spirit, you see it’s coming from within, the Spirit of God now dwells within us, individually. You know the awesomeness of that, the third Person of the Triune God, personally dwells within you, as a believer, so we are to walk by the Spirit and that denotes that word, “walk” as we have talked about numerous times, denotes the pattern of our life. It’s the day-by-day pattern of our life to live under the direction and control of the Spirit, so we’re to live our lives under the direction, under the control of the Holy Spirit.

2. Those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit will not be controlled by sin. That’s the last part of verse 16, “walk by the Spirit” and that means “you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” You see those inner, controlling powers, what we were apart from the work of the Spirit of God in our lives. The sinful center, the power has been broken but it does not cease to exist, so the way to not sin is to walk under the control of the Spirit. When you walk under the control of the Spirit, you won’t be controlled by sin, so the flesh is what we are apart from God’s work of grace in our lives and the Spirit is a result of the work of God’s grace. The flesh, the old man, the old nature, all referring to the same thing, it’s that inner working that is at work in controlling us. We’ll say more about that shortly.

3. The flesh and the Spirit are in continual opposition. The first part of verse 17, “the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh;” these are in opposition to one another within. The power of sin, the old man, is a reference we’ve looked at in Romans chapter 6. His power has been broken but he hasn’t ceased to exist, just like the authority of Satan over our life as a believer has been broken, but he hasn’t ceased to exist. He would like to reassert his influence. The old man, the sin nature pushes again to assert its influence in our lives, so the flesh and the Spirit are in continual opposition.

4. You cannot do the will of God in the flesh. (v. 4) So that you may not do the things that you please, that you wish. We’ll look in a moment into Romans again to remind ourselves. You can’t please God in the flesh that’s why; the unbeliever never does anything that pleases God, in the ultimate sense. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, Paul writes in Romans. We’ll turn back there in a moment.

5. Believers are led by the Spirit. (v. 18) “If you are led by the Spirit” and you see if you’re not, there’s a problem. Do you have the Spirit? There have been times, when I’ve had occasion to talk to people who have been dealing with sin in an area of their life and they’ll say, I just can’t stop. Then, I have to back up and say, are you truly a believer in Jesus Christ? Have you been saved? Yes, of course I have. Well, then stop lying, don’t say you can’t stop because you can. Believers are led by the Spirit and the Spirit never leads us into sin. Now sometimes I don’t want the Spirit to lead. I don’t want to do what He would lead me to do. Why? There’s a certain pleasure in sin that’s attractive and when I move to allow the old man to assert himself, you know, he gets his foot in the door. Then he wants to push the door open more, and assert his influence more, and at times we feel like we’ve gotten trapped, and sometimes we get so entangled we begin to wonder whether we’re saved or we’re not saved. We have to come back to the word here and make sure things are clear. Believers are those who are led by the Spirit, and then . . .

6. Believers are not under the Law. If you’re led by the Spirit, you’re not under the Law, that’s it! Not that the Law doesn’t have a purpose, the Law, the Mosaic Law he’s talking about here, are part of the Scriptures but we are not under the authority of the Mosaic Law. We learn from the Mosaic Law. There are things we learn as we do from all Scripture because all Scripture is God breathed and profitable. We learn something of God’s desire for holiness, God’s own holy character and things that are contrary to His will and that but we’re not under the authority of the Mosaic Law. It’s a contrast here so we don’t need the Law to control our behavior. Again, this is where we disagree with some, particularly in Reformed Theology, who think believers today have to have the Law or they are antinomian, they’re anti-law. No, we are not under the Mosaic Law because we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us. There is a radical change that has taken place. Remember Jesus told His disciples, the Spirit of God is with you but He will be in you and now He is in us to be the controlling power in our lives.

Come back to Romans chapters 7 and 8 just for a moment. In these chapters, Paul is dealing with similar issues that we’re talking about and in Romans 7. He uses an analogy of marriage and so on, then verse 4. “Therefore, my brethren, you were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.” While we were in the flesh, you see the same terminology, point, the sinful passions, aroused by the Law. The problem with the Mosaic Law, it did not contain within itself the power to keep it, so it could require you to be perfectly holy. The problem was you’re a sinful being and so all it did was say, “don’t do this” and all of a sudden, the thought’s in my mind.

Hem, yeah don’t do that, don’t do that. Sort of like--we joke about our kids, when you tell them not to do something. All of a sudden somehow, there’s an attraction to doing it. There’s something in us as fallen beings, so what the Law did was tell you what God did not want you to do and all of a sudden that stirred sin, the flesh within you and you said, that’s just really what I want to do. All of a sudden, I seem to feel drawn to that, so that was the flaw in the Law. There’s nothing wrong with the Law. Down in verse 12, the Law is holy, the commandment is holy, and righteous and good, the problem is sin within me, so that’s the contrast he’s drawing. Verse 14. “The Law is spiritual; I am of the flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” It’s sin that is in me, that is controlling me, that is moving me. I understand that point.

Keep your finger in Romans 7 and come back to Mark, chapter 7. I was going to do this a little later but we’ll pick it up here because the same thing going on here and you might want to leave a piece of paper, your bulletin, your 11th finger in Romans 8 because we’re going to go someplace else too but in Mark chapter 7 Jesus is making the same point. They thought by external things they could be defiled and so on and Jesus makes the point beginning in verses 14 and following of Mark 7. It’s not things you take into your mouth that defile you it’s things that come out of your heart. Then you see in verse 21. “For within, out of the heart of men,” and the heart there is referring to that inner part of us, “proceed evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride foolishness. All these things proceed from within and defile the man,” so you see it’s not a matter of externals here.

The externals just reflect what is in our heart like the improper speech; slander is one he mentions here. Well Jesus said, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” so these sinful actions are just a reflection of our heart, so come back to Jeremiah a verse that I often quote to you, Jeremiah chapter 17. You can leave go of Mark 7. Jeremiah 17 verse 9. “The heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick; who can understand it?” You see the condition of what we are at the center of our being, which moves us, which controls us, which directs us; it’s corrupted at heart, at the center of what we are. It manifests itself, as Jesus said, in certain kinds of sinful behavior but the real problem is within and our heart is so deceitful, so desperately sick, defiled and corrupted by sin, who can understand it? Only the Lord. “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind,” and you’ll note in the margin of your bible that it’s literally the kidneys in Hebrew because it gets to what you are within you. You know the heart, the kidneys, the old man, the old nature; this is what is at the center of our being, which is driving us, moving us. I test that inner resource.

You and I don’t even know the depths of depravity resident in our inner being as a fallen creature but God knows and that’s why the person who is not redeemed can never please God. He tries to alter his behavior, tries to conform his conduct but God’s looking at the heart, He’s testing the inner and what He sees is something desperately defiled, corrupted, so the behavior never is done with the proper motive, the proper intention. The bible talks about God judging the motives of the heart so even our best behavior doesn’t come out of a desire to please and honor the one true and living God because if it did we would respond in bowing to Him, submitting and receiving by faith, His salvation.

So that’s where we sometimes have to be careful as believers. We look and say; well I think they’re good people. I think they have good intentions. We have to be careful with that. I can’t judge their motives, so if we become moved, and then think well I, don’t think they would be lost. Look what they do but keep in mind what God is looking at, He’s looking at the heart. Until He changes that and makes us new within, there’s nothing done that pleases Him. Okay, come back to Romans chapters 7 and 8. I didn’t leave my finger there so wait for me. Romans 7, Paul talks about the fact that it’s sin, verse 20 of Romans 7. “I’m doing the very thing I do not want, and no longer am I doing it but sin, which dwells in me. I find the principal, this ruling principal, law; that evil is present in me.” Even the unbeliever, when he decides he wants to do good, finds himself under the control of sin.

You come down into chapter 8. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” The problem with the Mosaic Law was, it could only condemn me for my sin, that’s why you go to the Book of Leviticus and you start out with this whole series of offerings. Why? Because the Law is presupposing you’re a failure. The Mosaic Law is given to sinful people who constantly need sacrifice before they can be acceptable to God, which was to prepare them for the ultimate sacrifice but we have the Spirit of life in Christ who has brought now that inner cleansing. Old Testament saints, true believers, were cleansed by God, not by keeping the Law, but by believing in Him and they just expressed their faith by their obedience.

Similar to what we do now as believers in that sense but the Law could never redeem them. It was a Law of sin and death. The soul that sins it shall die and then you bring this animal sacrifice and say, here, the animal is taking my place. He’s dying in my place but “the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin.” God was graciously forgiving them on the basis of the sacrifice that He would provide, in the Person of His Son, because they believed in Him and that He would forgive them when they put their trust in Him. So you come down in chapter 8 and down in verse 7, verse 6 “the mind set on the flesh is death. The mind set on the Spirit is life and peace because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; it does not subject itself to the law of God.” It is not able to do so.

No one ever kept the Law perfectly except Christ but no one is ever saved by keeping the Law because they all failed and part of keeping the Law was to offer the prescribed sacrifice and then once every year the high priest had to go in and offer a special sacrifice. It’s just ongoing, so verse 8. Do you have it underlined in your bible? “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Well I say I know good people. I do too, I know people that are dear people humanly speaking. I say, well they have many good things but you know what? When you sit down and explain the gospel to those dear, “good people” you find out at heart there’s not a readiness to bow before the living God. They’re not ready to say you’re right I am a wretched sinner deserving of an eternal hell. Oh, the grace of God that would provide His Son to die for me, I’m going to trust Him, so…. No wait. Wait I’m not interested in that. It reveals the heart and that’s where God’s looking. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

However, verse 9 “you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you,” so now we have an issue, and it’s resolved here, but “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he doesn’t belong to Him.” The Spirit of God dwells in us and we dwell in the Spirit that is the motivating power for the Christian life. It comes from within. It is a divine enablement. It doesn’t mean we don’t have commands and instructions in the New Testament to guide us. Some of them are the same as the Old Testament but the enabling power and the desire to carry those out comes from the Spirit. Apart from that, there are no abilities, so you’re not in the flesh but in the Spirit if the Spirit of God dwells in you and if the Spirit of God doesn’t dwell in you, you don’t belong to Christ.

That’s why I say, if someone comes and says, I’m involved in this sinful conduct and I just can’t stop and I say, wait, are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Yes, I’ve trusted Him, I’ve settled that. Then don’t sit here and tell me a lie. What do you mean? You said you can’t stop. Now the bible says you’ve been set free from the control of sin. Let’s be honest, if you’ve truly trusted Christ and yet you’re involved in sin that seems to have control of you—you know why you don’t stop, you don’t want to stop. The desire for the sin is great but if that is controlling your life to such a degree, you need to stop and consider, maybe you’re right; maybe you can’t stop because you’ve never truly trusted Christ.

We want to do away with building excuses that might lead us to hell. I mean if sin is controlling your life and you’re living for your sin what would make you think you’re saved. That doesn’t mean we as believers don’t get into sin and sometimes, a particular sin seems to get its hold on us. I’ve shared with you the Puritans called it “bosom sin” those sins we seem to love, and don’t want to get very far away from, in case we want to indulge in them but they have a way of entangling us, beginning to control us. If they’re not dealt with, they begin to put our life into turmoil and I begin to wonder, am I really saved. Why am I living for this sin, so the point of Romans 8:9, similar to where we are and when the Spirit is in you, then ultimately He’ll bring about the completion of our salvation as Paul goes on.

Down in verse 13, verses 12 and 13 in chapter 8 before we go back to Galatians. “Brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you’re living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you’re putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” This is where we are going in Galatians chapter 5, this kind of division. Those who are being led by the Spirit, who dwells in them, are the sons of God. Those who are being led by the flesh do not belong to God. So come back to Galatians chapter 5.

Do you know how richly blessed we are in our day to have a competed Scripture? Paul writes the letter to the Galatian churches but they weren’t blessed with the rest of Scripture to have in their possession. In this period of time, they couldn’t even have—the Old Testament was complete but you know you just didn’t have your own copy to take it home, reread it. They didn’t have all the letters of the New Testament written and put together for them. How much greater is our blessing to have a completed word of God.

Let’s come back to Galatians chapter 5, so what he is going to do--we had verse 18, “if you are led by the Spirit,” remember we talked about it, we just read led by the Spirit in Romans 8. You are not under the Law, so anybody who wants to say, oh yes you’re under the Law for sanctification, oh, you are under the moral aspect of the Law but not the ceremonial aspect of the Law. Wait a minute; my bible says if you’re led by the Spirit, you’re not under the Law. That doesn’t mean you’re lawless, there is the law of Christ. We have commandments given to us but the enabling power for that comes from the indwelling Spirit. Now we’re living to be pleasing to Him, so now what he is going to do is remind these Galatians of the difference.

How does being controlled by the flesh manifest itself? How does being controlled or led by the Spirit manifest itself, so we have in verse 19, “now the deeds of the flesh are evident” and here are some examples. Then he’ll say verse 22, “but the fruit of the Spirit is” this, so you see there are manifestations of what is controlling you that’s why we look at evidence. A person will say, Oh you can’t judge me. No, but God can and you know He said, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, so if your mouth is filled with slander, and lying, and things that mark the flesh that’s an indication of the condition of a heart. That’s why Jesus could say you’ll be judged by your words. Why, because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, so our conduct is involved because the Spirit of God—I means it seems like it shouldn’t have to be said because the Spirit of God doesn’t direct us and move us into sin. That’s not His leadership, so the deeds of the flesh are what he is going to talk about and what we have here is a list and I wrote down, one commentator listed 18 different references to such lists in the New Testament.

We read just one of them in Mark chapter 7 when “out of the heart proceed all these kind of evil things.” There are 18 of those kind of lists. This is the second one in Galatians. We’re not going to go through all 18 but if you’ll compare them, you’ll see not every one is the same. What these are, are samplings and it would be worthwhile for you to sit down and work through those lists and examine yourselves, because often what we do is pick and choose what in these lists might be true of someone else and those are the serious sins because then we excuse ourselves. Nobody’s perfect, so my sin is not as bad as their sin and quite frankly I have had believers from this church that tried to tell me, well I never sinned like that, which means what? Sounds like a Pharisee to me. “I thank you Lord that I’m not a sinner like”--so all of us slide into this and sometimes when we’ve been believers for some time we become a little bit self-righteous.

We don’t see ourselves. I never did those really bad things. Well maybe in God’s grace and His work but here your heart was no better than anybody else’s and it’s not to this day; it’s the cleansing work of Christ. That makes the difference. So we have a list, I’m just going to look, maybe at one list with you, maybe two, I never know but Romans chapter 1 because it’s one of the very familiar ones. They’re all familiar to you but Romans chapter 1 is somewhat extensive and I want to make some comments about this one.

It talks about the gospel, verse 16 of Romans 1. You see the context. This is why moral reformation is so contrary to the gospel because like He says in verse 16 of Romans 1, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” The only solution is the gospel. It’s God’s power for salvation so that’s why—it doesn’t mean we’re not happier when there is less sin being openly practiced but wouldn’t want to leave people with the impression that some of the sins in the list the Pharisees wouldn’t have thought of doing. Paul didn’t indulge in some of the sins that would have been there and he looked down his nose at the Gentiles who practiced them but when God’s gospel impacted his life, then what does he say about himself? I was the chief of sinners. You couldn’t get any worse than I am. Here’s the man who thought he was all right, so it’s the gospel.

Then you have “the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” This is the basic character of fallen human beings. They suppress the truth and there’s the manifestation of the truth even in creation, which is enough revelation to condemn everyone but not enough revelation to save. You need the special revelation of God’s word but “they’re without excuse” at the end of verse 20. “They knew God, they don’t honor Him as God, so they become empty in their speculations their foolish heart is darkened.” This is the condition of fallen man. They don’t know anything. They are in ignorance. They are going about spiritually darkened, spiritually blind. Empty speculations, they profess to be wise, they became fools and that doesn’t mean they give up worshiping but they end up worshiping the creation not the Creator and they come up with their own ideas about God, their own religion and then they worship in that. Well they’re worshipping the creation. They devised it, not God.

“God gave them over,” the result of man’s sin and the desires now of his heart, of the flesh, of his old nature, of what he is. His only nature until he’s redeemed. God gives them over. He doesn’t cause them to sin but part of the judgment of God is man is turned over to do what he really wants to do. God gave them over and they invested their hearts to impurity so their bodies would be dishonored. “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. God gave them over to degrading passions.” He doesn’t cause it, but to the control of the sin that enslaves them and that repeated verse 24. “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurities.” Verse 26 “God gave them over to degrading passions.” Verse 28 “God gave them over to a depraved mind.” This is what man wants and as we see, it manifests itself and you, come down to a list, and in the example he gave before he just gives one of those lists, was homosexual type practices. I just want to mention this since it’s become such an open issue today.

A number of years ago I clipped an article out of the paper and it’s not written by a believer but the person was making the point. First, they start out, we just want tolerance, we can practice what we want, you practice what you want but now they want affirmation and we see that. If you speak against this kind of practice, you’re guilty of hate speech. Can you go to the university, stand up and speak, “this is what the bible says, about homosexual practices, about lesbian gay rights, transgender all their words?” Well that’s hate speech. We don’t tolerate that here and they have rules against it. What does that mean? You can’t have another opinion? We want to support these people. We want to affirm them. We want them to feel welcome.

There’s an article I shared with you before, it’s recent but just to remind you. They sometimes want to talk about science. You know the world thinks it has an authority and science authority. They deny Genesis because science doesn’t support it, at least their view of science. I disagree with that. When it comes to something like sexual activity and homosexuality, transgendered people as they call them. I thought it was interesting. This was a study by John Hopkins University School of Public Health and School of Medicine. It seriously challenges the myth perpetuated by the LGBT, lesbian, gay community and its advocates that people with diverse sexual orientation and transgender confusion are born that way.

This coming from John Hopkins School of Medicine. I mean that’s a rather reputable place. The study included research by Paul McHugh. He’s an MD, the former Chief of Psychiatry at John Hopkins Hospital and Lawrence Mayer MD and Epidemiologist, also trained as a psychiatrist. Dr. McHugh is considered within his field arguably the most important figure in American Psychiatry in the last 50 years and these two doctors along with some colleagues drafted a monograph on subjects related to sexual orientation and identity and then listen.

Some of those involved in the study, some of the doctors who joined with them in this study did not want their names mentioned for fear of retaliation from the LGBT community. According to Dr. Mayer, “Some feared reprisals from their own universities for engaging such controversial topics regardless of the report’s content. A sad statement about academic freedom,” end of quote. Now you know, here--don’t you want to know what science and research by reputable scholars in the field have done? No, and if you do that your reputation here will be damaged in the university and there will probably be reprisals. The claim and this is a quote from one of the doctors in their report, the claim that is settled now that the issue as quote “born that way” end quote or quote, “You’re fixed (or its immutable) there is no evidence from the science that those things are correct.”

I’m jumping through the article for time, so far science points away from the LGBT claims of innate sexual orientation and identity. Then there is an extensive, this is a multi-page summary, he summarized findings of their study and under part 3 of the summary, the hypotheses that gender identity is an innate fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex. In other words, that you’re born and here’s what he gives: that a person might be a man, trapped in a woman’s body, or that a woman trapped in a man’s body is not supported by scientific evidence.

But you know what? Universities don’t want—we’re not interested in that kind of scientific evidence and if you bring it up here, your career here is probably doomed, the hypotheses that gender identity is an innate fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex. You note, now I was reading a movement in some places, you should not put on a birth certificate what the biological sex is because that’s not yet settled, so it’s just a baby, you just put on there “a baby” but you don’t put a female or a male because you don’t know.

Their argument is, “science doesn’t support” that and I’ve shared with you another article that appeared by another professor at another school that said, “I’ll tell you what you are; male or female just let me look at the chromosome pattern. When you’re born a female will have this one, a male will have this one. When you die, you’ll have the same one you were born with. It doesn’t matter what surgery you have, what drug you take, how you alter your appearance but you’ll note this idea that you’re different on the inside, it doesn’t matter your sexual biological condition. That’s not supported by scientific evidence!”

Go down to the university and see if you can talk about these things and not get a reaction. Hate speech, no its scientific evidence. No, it’s hate speech. According to a recent estimate, about 0.6 percent of U.S. adults identify as a gender that does not correspond to their biological sex. We hear so much about this in the news, it’s promoted by the courts, it’s taught in the schools, 99.4 percent of people agree that their sexual identity corresponds to their biological sex but the half percent approximately that say “No” become the dominate influence. It’s amazing! All of that simply to say--I mention this because we sometimes as believers feel, well, you know, what about people that are born this way?

The bible’s always right. Now that doesn’t mean there’s not variation, not every man is going to be a lineman on a football team. Not every female is going to….you know, there’s variation but a male is a male and a female is a female. While we’re on this, since you’re so interested come back to Genesis chapter 1. I’ve been gone for a few weeks, I’ve been reading. You have to let me let it out, you know, some of this starts with believers, we’ve Bibles that are gender neutral now. They didn’t get that from the bible. They decided that our culture is not accepting of gender specific language so we’re changing this. I was engaged in a discussion about this with a man who’s written a couple of books that I’m very familiar with, over gender. I said, you’ve just changed—well it’s not.

Look at Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule,” so you come down to verse 27. “God created man” and incidentally the Hebrew word for man is “Adam,” so the first man will be named Adam, which means man. “He created man in His own image, in the image of God He created Him,” now note this, “male and female He created them” so we talk about mankind and the whole realm of mankind and we use men and we say, that’s the generic use, it includes man and woman. They say not acceptable.

It started with God. We will create man in Our image, and we will create him as male and female so who started out using man as the inclusive terminology? God did and He uses it that way through the bible but now we have to have gender neutral bibles because—well how much of the bible are we going to change to make it acceptable to people who don’t like what the bible says. We say well our culture doesn’t use it that way. Well this is transcultural. This is before He created anybody, here’s the way it’s going to be, so these things begin to infiltrate among believers and they think, well we’re just, you know, adapting; we’re not really changing. You’re changing and I talked to this person, I said, it says man! I know but God really means everybody. Well, let’s say God said what He meant, I understand sometimes when the bible says man He means everyone, and sometimes we’ll use the word, everyone.

I’m not going to change the bible for that, so this whole thing begins to move and now there’ an acceptance, we know--well now some of our Christian schools, they don’t want to be against people who may have a different sexual orientation and then you know, churches shouldn’t speak and where are we going to go with hate speech? Where are you going to be allowed to be? I have a booklet that was given out to schoolteachers and this goes back 20 years. I couldn’t pull it out of my file before I came. I forgot to check earlier and it was instructing teachers how to begin to prepare children from early ages in our school system to be more accepting of these things. It goes on so sinful behavior.

All right, come back to Galatians 5. Did you remember we’re studying Galatians 5? We mentioned this because when we start with the deeds of the flesh we start with immorality, impurity and sensuality and again, as I mentioned, there are many lists like this. This list won’t be complete. “The deeds of the flesh” He said “are evident” in verse 19 they are manifest, they are seen so what we see is not the flesh. The flesh is not tangible, the old nature, the heart as God talks about it as Christ talked about it.

Out of the heart proceeds all of these kinds of sinful—he’s not talking about our physical heart but we use that reference. I said it really was the kidneys. What He is certainly talking about is, it comes from our inner being; the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. It’s not that organ pumping; this is something non-physical but controlling and powerful that motivates our behavior. What we see is the manifestation of the flesh in sinful conduct.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t sin so even we as believers need to be careful. When I sin I’m not being led by the Spirit. I mean when I tell a lie, it’s not the Spirit moving me because God cannot lie, for example. God is holy so I want to be honest and clear here for myself, for us. The deeds of the flesh, the works of the flesh, what the flesh produces coming out of that desperately wicked heart, sinful sick heart, are evident, manifest and these are those kinds of things. It doesn’t mean every sinner does all these things but these are the kinds of thing and that’s why, if you look through all 18 of these lists they won’t all have the same thing but these give you the kind of activity.

These are all things that are contrary to God’s character and God’s will for His people. So immorality, let me just say, you can break this list down. Next time I’ll put a possible break down of the lists since we’re just going to do the first three and may not do very far but there are different ways to break it down. Some just say it’s just a list without any breakdown but the first three I think refer to sensual passions, sexual activity, immorality, impurity, sensuality. Immorality is porneia; we’re familiar with that word we get into words like pornography. It’s a broad word, it includes sexual immorality of all kinds.

Interesting if you do some reading even commentaries, that will talk about and quote from writings of New Testament times, you get an idea; our days aren’t much different from the days of Rome. For example, in New Testament time’s immorality was viewed as acceptable as long as you didn’t overdo it and that’s rather subjective. Some of you are familiar with the name Seneca. Seneca was a Roman statesman and philosopher; he was a contemporary of the Apostle Paul. Seneca died in 65 A.D., Paul dies around 68 A.D. so that time period. Here’s what Seneca wrote, “Chastity is simply a proof of ugliness.” In other words, if your being chast you must be ugly because nobody who is not ugly would be moral. I mean that’s a philosopher of the day, a Roman statesman. You get the idea.

One writer gave a list of quotes from different writers of New Testament times, you know unbelievers, writers of the time like Seneca and the flagrant immorality of the time and then he concluded with this. It is to be noted that all the evidence, which we have adduced for the unspeakable sexual immorality of the world contemporary with New Testament times, comes not from Christian writers but from pagans who were disgusted with themselves, so they’re right about all their gross practices and they even find themselves revolted by it. It shows you something of the time of the day and then this commentator summarizes and says it has been said that, “chastity was the one completely new virtue, which Christianity introduced in the pagan world and the flesh hasn’t changed.”

We are a world—look at how open we’ve become. It is everywhere and our courts approve it, now we have marriage between a man and a man and a woman and a woman, the courts have validated that as marriage and we say where does, this stop? Then the world pulls itself up and says, look what’s going on in some of these things, men taking advantage of women, and then women taking advantage of – and you know we have all this approval. It’s hate speech if you speak out against this kind of moral insanity. The world hasn’t changed!

This is to be acceptable it’s normal, you know and if you don’t-- so that’s the condition of the day. Verse 13 remember for believers, “you were called to freedom, brethren; do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, impurity and sensuality.” Well, we’ll pick up with this and look through the rest of the list. Be careful, you know however you break it down. As we’ll see, the moral sins start out and we as believers, at least some believers still are hanging onto the wrongness and sinfulness of that, but you know what gets the most attention in this list?

Out of the 15 things listed, eight of them have to do with interpersonal things, as we will see, like strife and jealously, bursts of anger and disputes, dissensions and factions, so we just see, these sins all come from the same place they all reveal the same thing. If they’re being practiced by an unbeliever, they show his true condition. If a believer is indulging in them, it shows the flesh is at work in the believer. We can thank God and we should never cease to thank God for his grace that has brought us forgiveness.

That’s why Paul told Titus, you remind them that they were just like those unbelievers but they say, “oh, those unbelievers and that sin! I just don’t want to be around them.” Paul told Titus in chapter 3 you remind them, they were just like them. My heart is no different from the worst, it’s, the grace of God, we are what we are. As Paul said, “by the grace of God I am what I am.” What a powerful salvation that sets us free and cleanses us so that, we are accepted by a holy God.

Let’s pray together: Thank You Lord for the riches of Your word that unfolds the riches of Your salvation. Lord easy for us who have been believers for some time to become lax. Lord sadly even to become somewhat self-righteous, seeing ourselves as less sinful than others and Lord less appreciative of the power of Your grace that continues to cleanse us that keeps on cleansing us as Your word tells us. Where would we be if it weren’t for that salvation that not only saved us, but also keeps on cleansing us and someday will bring us to perfection in the glory of Your presence? May we live in light of that we pray in Christ’s name? Amen















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