What We Are Apart From the Spirit

Transcript

GR 2108
01/21/2018
What We Are Apart from the Spirit
Galatians 5:19-21
Gil Rugh

We are in the book of Galatians together, Galatians chapter 5. The subject matter of the book of Galatians couldn’t be any more important. It is the Gospel and being clear on that Gospel. What is the Gospel? What must we do to be saved? “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”

It is the variations brought in to corrupt the simplicity and beauty of that message that Paul has to deal with and the particular issue that keeps coming up in various places in New Testament letters is how does the Mosaic Law fit in to all of this? It is hard for people to grasp and accept it is by faith in Christ. The Mosaic Law served its purpose. It was to be a preparation for the nation Israel for the coming of their Messiah but with the coming of Christ and the finality of His sacrifice, the Mosaic Law was brought to completion, fulfillment. That doesn’t mean we don’t learn from the Mosaic Law. It doesn’t mean we still don’t want to study it. It reveals the character of God but we don’t live under its binding authority as law. We recognize it as part of Scripture. It is the inspired Word of God.

Sometimes people have a hard time sorting that out. It is not intended for our salvation. It never was. It is not intended for our sanctification. When we are in chapter 5, Paul is talking about the matter of sanctification as a result of our justification. “We have been set free in Christ” the chapter opened up. “But keep standing firm” in verse 1. “Don’t be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” When these false teachers didn’t win on the basis of you need to keep the Law plus believe in Christ for salvation they say “Well believing in Christ brings you salvation but to live your life now you must submit yourself to the law.” And that is a common view today. It continues to be promoted not only by reformed theologians and teachers but by others. We are not under the law as a way of life. That is what Paul is talking about. You “can’t be justified by the law” in verse 4. If you try to do that you have fallen from the grace way of salvation. You are trying to earn salvation.

But, we go on now to live our new life by faith and it is faith working through love. Verse 7: “You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” This all ties together. We have to be clear on what it means, that Christ has died to pay the penalty for our sin and through faith in Him we are not only forgiven, we are given new life and the power and enablement to live a new life not by conforming to an external set of laws but submitting to the internal controlling Holy Spirit.

So he continues down to verse 13. “You were called to freedom, brethren. Only don’t turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh but through love serve one another.”

You know keeping on track as believers is an ongoing work and challenge. We want to swing from one side and then over correct to the other. I think sometime we read about a serious accident on the interstate. They say they ran off on one side of the road and they overcorrected and they end up running off the other side and having a disastrous crash. Sometimes that seems to be the way we go. We want to correct an error and so we overcorrect thinking we will really be sure that we don’t go off that side and we end up running off the other side. So freedom in Christ and oh, now I am not under the Mosaic Law. Now I can do whatever I desire. No. Freedom is not to serve myself. Freedom now, as the Spirit controls me, will be to serve others in the love that the Spirit is producing.

We have two controlling factors we talked about in our previous study; the flesh, the old person. Now when we come to trust Christ the power and authority of the flesh, the old man is broken. We are set free just as the authority of the devil over us is broken. We are set free but that doesn’t mean that the devil never wants to assert influence in our lives to try to reassert control. That is the way it is with the old person, the old man, the flesh, the old nature. It will assert itself.

So we have to be careful, verse 16: “Walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” The problem and the danger is, read verse 12: “I wish those who are troubling you would mutilate themselves, cut themselves off. The law is fulfilled in the commandment to love but” (verse 15) “if you bite and devour one another take care you are not consumed by one another.” If you are not functioning in the love that the Spirit produces which gives you a desire to serve the other person, do what is best for them but are caught up in the works of the flesh as we are going to see you end up tearing one another apart.

Obviously that is not God’s intention. He brought us into a relationship of oneness with Himself and with one another. We have fellowship with God and with one another. We love God and we love each other, so this controlling principle now within. It is not a law without. And there is a conflict. Verse 17: “The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, the Spirit against the flesh.” They are in opposition to one another and we looked at that brought up in the book of Romans as well. “But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.”

The solution to dealing with sin is not, well, let’s impose the law. It is to recognize the provision of the Spirit and submit to Him. And if that quote is not working in your life then maybe the Spirit is not there. That becomes the concern and Paul is going to emphasize that.

We have been set free. The Spirit indwells us. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation,” a new creature. “The old things have passed away, new things have come.” We have become partakers of the divine nature. Our bodies are now a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

So we are to be led by the Spirit. That means you are not under the law. But it also means you are not free to live a selfish life and use your freedom improperly. So that is what we are going to talk about.

Now he is going to just give us examples so we can see the manifestation. When you are being controlled by the flesh, the old man, what you are apart from the Spirit of God at work in your life and then he will give evidence of the Spirit when He is in control of your life.

So we started looking at the deeds of the flesh. The deeds of the flesh, they are evident. They are manifest. They are clearly seen. We can’t see into the inner person but we can see the reflection of what is in the inner person, the manifestation or what Jesus said as we talked about in a previous study, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

So what we say is revealing what is in our heart. What we are doing is revealing what is in our heart, what is controlling us and so here it is clear, it is evident. If these things characterize your life, you are being controlled by the flesh. It is not the Spirit of God working. It is the flesh which never pleases God. “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” And when believers allow the old person, the old man to manifest itself, they are not pleasing God.

So they are evident, they are manifest. Then we have this list and we noted there a number of these kinds of lists in the New Testament. Some break it down. Some say it is just a random list. I have put together a sample list, a break down. It is not original with me. I stole it from somebody but here is a way to break down these 15 qualities in Galatians. And every list is a little different but it is the same in the kinds of things. So we could break down these 15 things before we proceed to look at them. We started to look.

But the first three qualify as sensual passions, immorality, impurity, sensuality. We will talk more in detail about the individual but we want to categorize them. These first three would fit in that realm, sensual passions.

Second there will be false religious activity. You have idolatry and sorcery. So we could categorize them if we want to put these in some kind of categories. These are false religious activities, idolatry, sorcery, you see that.

The third area is conflicts among people and there are eight things here. You know you can look at these lists in a variety of ways. Sometimes we say well the most serious sins are the ones he begins with, these sensual passions. Then other commentators note perhaps the greater emphasis is on the conflicts among people because that is where he puts the greatest emphasis; enmities, envy, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissentions, factions, envying, these kinds of things that relate to not functioning as God would have us function in our relationships with one another and that is Paul’s concern. Verse 15: “If you bite and devour one another take care that you are not consumed by one another.” You tear each other apart. In the one, animal world, one trying to devour the other and they end up destroying each. Terrible that he has to tell the church that churches in Galatia, be careful that doesn’t happen to you.

So there are eight of those. If you want to put that in that kind of category, conflicts among people and then the fourth is with what some would call intemperate excesses, drunkenness, carousing. This is just one way you might break this list down. Others think there is not any intention to break it down but this is an example.

The thing we want to take note of as each of these things are manifestations of the flesh, we want to be careful. You know the Jews that Paul has to deal with and these Judaizers and Paul classified himself as one of these self-righteous Pharisees before his conversion. We tend to look at the seriousness of other people’s sins and minimize the seriousness of our own. So we want to be careful that we don’t pick out and say, “Well, I think the immorality is the great sin. But you know jealousy, everybody gets jealous so that’s not the same thing. I am not perfect but I never sinned like that. The Pharisees prayer, ‘I thank you Lord that I am not a sinner like this Gentile.’” It is easy to slide into that and all of us believers can easily do that.

We look at what the world is doing and we say, “It is just repulsive. How can they do this?” And we ought to have that attitude but by the same token we ought not to have any less of a revulsion with sin when it is practiced by us.

So no matter which of these 15 in the list we are looking at when we go to the other list and there are some other sins each a manifestation of the same thing. The Spirit of God is not controlling us and producing the character of God to be manifest in us. We are manifesting what we were apart from the Spirit of God.

Okay, let’s look through these. We looked at immorality and still by and large believers agree that morality and these impurities, sensualities are sin. Now there is a weakening of that because as the world becomes more open in its practice of certain sins the church begins to get uncomfortable with calling sin, “sin.” And we look for ways to adjust. So now we find that we have evangelical homosexuals. Some of our evangelical schools, campuses even have associations, organizations of homosexuals. They have alumni of these schools.

I have read some of this to you on other occasions. We begin to become more tolerant and accepting among believers as this is acceptable behavior among believers. None of these things are acceptable among believers. Once you begin to accept certain sin you can’t isolate sin. You know it’s like a disease that gets in the body. You say well it is only in this spot but it doesn’t stay there. That is the problem. Once you allow the flesh to assert itself it wants to assert itself more. So one of these will lead to another, lead to another so I don’t find in my life that I can say, “Well, I only consistently practice one sin so I can allow myself one.”

You know it is like, well I don’t want to give a personal example but I bought a bag of jelly beans yesterday. Well my philosophy on a bag of jelly beans is, don’t spread it out. Sit down and eat the whole thing until you are sick and get it over with because you can only absorb so much sugar you know. If I eat a little bit every day then I will be spreading it out.

Sometimes we view our sin like that. Well, you know, if I just do the one but sin is not like that. It is more like the diseases that affect our body. Once it is trying to reassert control and once you let sin, the flesh, slip its foot in the door then it wants to push the door open a little wider and a little wider and we know as believers what that can be like. How did I get into this mess? I just didn’t decide to jump into it. It seems like it jus, you know, I look back and say, “How?”

I used the example of Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress on his journey. He got off the track and it was just a little and he could see where he should be and it just sort of … but somewhere along the line he got so far off the track he couldn’t remember how to get back on the track. It is sort of like the flesh.

So we had immorality and we talked about that one, pornea and it is a broad word; all kinds of sexual immorality. We looked at some Scripture on that. Impurity would be a related word. In the Old Testament it would have referred to that ceremonial defilement that came that you know you touched the dead body or things like that, you were defiled. You had to experience cleansing.

So in the New Testament it is used to refer to sexual and moral impurity and sometimes it is connected to the previous word, immorality or pornea. They are defiling kinds of moral sins that make us unclean.

Sensuality and this is a strong word, eselgeia is the Greek word. Sort of ugly in its sound. It is sometimes translated debauchery or licentiousness. And here is what one Greek commentator said about this Greek word, “It indicates a love of sin so reckless and so audacious that a man has ceased to care what God or man thinks of his actions.” And we have seen some manifestations of that become public. It’s become public in a broad way. People aren’t ashamed of their sin and if fact in some ways they are proud. They are paraded and in some areas we have seen individuals go so far that even the world has become disgusted with the sin.

Three characteristics this same Greek commentator gives of this word. “It is a wanton and undisciplined action. It is the action of a man who is at the mercy of his passions, his impulses, his emotions. Secondly, it has respect neither for the persons or the rights of anyone else. Violent, insolent, abusive, audacious. Any thought or sympathy for the feelings of others has ceased to exist. Thirdly, it is completely indifferent to public opinion and public decency. This person may well begin to do this wrong in secret and want to hide it from the view of others.” Then you come to a stage where there is no longer shame and you don’t care what other people think or see. Israel came to this.

Come to Jeremiah, back to Jeremiah, chapter 6. You know these things are not new and sin is not new in the way it goes and you can see over time as the barriers break down restricting sin and it becomes more openly acceptable people are ready to dive in and practice it. This has happened in the nation Israel which was to be the nation God selected to manifest His work, His person in His people. Jeremiah chapter 6, verse 15: “Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all. They did not even know how to blush.” I mean this is where Israel has come. There is no shame about it anymore. It becomes acceptable. They didn’t even know how to blush.

You have the same thing over in chapter 8 of Jeremiah and you will note verse 9. “The wise men are put to shame. They are dismayed and caught. Behold they have rejected the Word of the Lord and what kind of wisdom do they have?” Verse 11: “They heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially saying ‘peace, peace but there is no peace.’ Were they ashamed because of the abominations they had done? They certainly were not ashamed. They did not know how to blush.” That is a picture of Israel. That is this word translated ‘sensuality,’ eselgeia. You know they have moved beyond any sense of shame or embarrassment over their sin. They are just willing to put it all out there. Israel had come to that. We won’t go there.

Come back to Galatians but let me read you Isaiah chapter 3, verse 9: “The expression of their faces bears witness against them. They display their sin like Sodom. They do not even conceal it.” This is the picture that had come to Israel. They are like Sodom. People of Sodom knocking on the door of the visitors to the city wanting them to come out so they can have sexual…..I mean what is this? Look around, people ashamed? They parade it. They want rights. This is acceptable. Of course you can do this. There is no shame anymore. You keep moving.

We have to be careful as believers we don’t get hardened toward sin. I say toward sin in an encompassing way because, like I say, it is easy to be repulsed by someone else’s sin. We have to be careful that my own self-righteousness is just not as repulsive as the sin I see in someone because what God sees is a heart that is acting in rebellion against Him. The manifestation of that rebellion varies from person to person perhaps but here you have where sin ultimately leads to no shame.

I ought to take you to Romans 1. Go back to Romans 1. We have been here. We were here in a previous study because this is another one of those lists, after talking about impurity and sexual sin, he came down and gave a list of all kinds of sin, evidences of a depraved mind in verses 29, 30, 31 and it is good for us to read these things to be reminded of the variety there is. Then you will note verse 32: “Although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death they not only do the same but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” We see that going on in our society. We pass laws to approve it. In fact it becomes unacceptable to speak against it, to reveal it as sin, to expose it; that is where the world goes. Now in this we have to be careful that we don’t begin to adjust to these things.

Come back to Galatians chapter 5. There is a hardening affect to sin. In Romans 6 Paul warns about this to believers in a fuller way even than he has talked about here in Galatians. We have to be careful because sin enslaves. We talk in the world “addictions.” Everything is an addiction. The Bible says, “Sin enslaves a person.” Sin wants to take control again even in a believers life and that is a danger of sin. That is why Paul says you can’t go back to sin because sin wants to enslave you and you have a new master. We are slaves of God and of righteousness, not of sin and Satan and death.

So here we have these that we categorized first as sensual sins. Then we move to in Galatians 5, false kinds of religious activity, idolatry and this is devotion to something other than the true God, someone or something other than the true God. We are going to come to this is our study in Revelation chapter 13 where we will see the worship of the antichrist established in the last half of the tribulation.

In Romans 1 where we looked, and we won’t go back there, we looked at this in our previous study but they “worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.” So that devotion that belongs to God is now given to the creation. This is not a matter of being religious and not religious because the devil is a very, very religious being. What did he want from Christ? “If you will fall down and worship me.” What he’s going to do with the antichrist, have the world worship him.

What did Paul write to the Corinthians about the danger of idolatry? It is the worship of demons. So that is idolatry. And it is often associated with immorality as it was in Romans 1, as it is here. It is connected. You know these things, they become intertwined. You know idolatry, devoting myself to something or someone other than the true and living God, giving him the devotion of my heart. Colossians chapter 3, verse 5 said that greed is idolatry. Why? Greed is being consumed with a devotion to things, desire for them, finding my pleasure in them. Something other than God has become the ultimate focus of my desire, my worship like John tells us in his first epistle, “Love not the world nor the things in the world.” We have the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.” This is not part of what we are as new creatures in Christ.

Martin Luther, used so greatly of God and in battle with religion, said this: “The best religion, the most fervent devotion without Christ is plain idolatry.” Every religion which worships God in ignorance or neglect of His Word and will is idolatry. We have to be careful. Sometimes we say, “Well at least they go to church, at least.” Well if they are going to a Bible believing church where they will hear the Gospel that is. I am glad to hear even though there may be unbelievers where they are going where they will hear the truth but the fact that they go to a church that doesn’t believe and preach the truth is not something positive. It is something negative.

You know we sometimes admire the devotion of people in their false religion. Well they are devoted to the devil. They “always do his will because they are of their father the devil.” That is not admirable. We want to be careful of what we say here because we don’t want people to think we are the only ones right. We are! Not we in just this local church but we who believe the truth of the Bible. God’s people are the only ones who are correct, who believe the truth of His Word and submit themselves to it in faith. Is that not correct. When you begin to try to mellow out and come across as you know we are not so bad. We are not so opinionated. Now wait a minute. We are not here to make friends with the world, those who are friends with the world are at enmity with God. That doesn’t mean we are out just to offend people. We want to be gracious and kind and understanding but that does not mean giving any idea that their religion is well, you go to church, you go to mass, you go to the synagogue. I am glad to hear that. No, I am saddened to hear that. I have had people I’ve talked to say, “I don’t go to church.” And I’ve shared sometimes, “I’m glad to hear that because you know going to church and being religious can be the worst thing that happens to a person because that can cause them to think that because they are religious God is pleased with them.

We want to be careful. We want to be honest. It is devotion to something other than the true and living God and I as a believer have to be careful because the world allures and wants my devotion, wants my heart. I don’t want to be involved. That is why he is telling them here what they have to be careful of. He had to tell the Corinthians be careful of idolatry. It is the worship of demons.

Sorcery, pharmakeia, you can hear our English word we have carried from this word, pharmacy, pharmaceutical. It means drug. It is the word for drug. So it came to be used of sorcery and witchcraft because often sorcerers and that use drugs. This is not so uncommon even today. People think they have a religious experience when they get high on this drug or that drug. They do have a religious experience except that it is not a Biblically religious experience. It is not a relationship or experience with the true and living God, so sorcery.

We agree, yes, these false religions, we put those like immorality, those are sins we would say they are more the big ones. But interesting now he is going to list eight sins as we have looked at that have to do with relationships, conflicts among people. I am not saying these are more serious because he lists more but he does give you know when you put over half of the list of 15 is focused on these kinds of sins.

I want to say something. After 50 years in the ministry there has been more damage done by these sins in the church of Jesus Christ than any others that I have observed because these somehow they fly under the radar as we would say. And they are not viewed on the same level as the really bad sins and they end up doing what verse 15 says, “You bite and devour one another” and churches get destroyed and torn apart. Then another division, another conflict and we get down here. So these are serious sins. I am not saying they are more serious than the others we have looked at but we want to be careful we don’t make them less serious than they really are.

Enmities, it means hostility, hatred. It is the opposite of love. We look at synonyms and we look at antonyms. Well the opposite of this word would be love. It involves hostility in your heart because remember all this comes out of the heart. Jesus said, remember we looked at Mark 7: “It is out of the heart that all these sins proceed.” And it manifests itself in action. When this is the condition of the heart pretty soon we deal with that other person as an enemy.

You are in Galatians, back up to chapter 4, verse 16. Paul uses a form of this word when he asked the Galatians. “So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” Has the truth stirred that kind of response in your heart? Not produced by the Spirit. I don’t like that. Even we as believers sometimes don’t like the truth when it is hitting us where we are. And we as believers can get offended when we are confronted. Let’s point out and thus we find reasons to not like that person, enmity, dealing with others as enemies.

Strife – and this goes together. The word means strife, discord, quarrelling, wrangling, contentions. Used by Paul on a number of occasions, only by Paul is the New Testament. All nine of the uses of this word are by Paul. The sad thing is a number of the uses reflect condition in churches that Paul writes to. We will wait and look at this word because it is often connected to the next word, jealousy. This word carries the idea of intense feelings or desires. Now sometimes it can be used in a good sense, zeal, the word is zealous and we get zealous from the word. You can be zealous for something good. You can be zealous for something that is not good. Passionate about something good, passionate about something that is not good. It can be used in a good or bad. Here the idea is jealousy or envy and it can be connected.

Come back to I Corinthians chapter 3. You know when you think of a church that has conflicts, controversy, division, the church at Corinth. It is not limited to the church at Corinth because we are talking about the churches of Galatia and there are problems there but in I Corinthians chapter 3 you note how Paul starts out: “I brethren could not speak to you as spiritual men but as men of flesh.” I have to address you like you didn’t have the Spirit and you are like infants in Christ and at that immature state too. There are things that yet haven’t been dealt with. It is like you are a little baby. Fine. A baby but you have to outgrow it. The problem is the Corinthians weren’t growing. You can’t handle the solid food of the Word because of your immature state. You are still fleshly. That is what he is saying. The flesh is still manifesting itself, asserting control in your life. Note, “Since there is jealousy and strife among you.” There’s our two words, strife and jealousy. They are among the Corinthians that Paul talked about.

Come back to chapter 1, verse 4. “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ. That in everything you were enriched in Him.” Great things to say but you are not in great condition. So we would say it is an evangelical Bible believing church. But it isn’t making the progress it should be making.

Somewhat the similar problem with the Galatians. “Have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” Here are the Galatians. I can’t even get into the solid meat of the Word because you can’t handle it. Because you know what happens when we are in the flesh? We just can’t deal with the Word. We don’t concentrate on the Word. We don’t take in the Word and submit ourselves to it so that the Spirit can use it to work in our heart. We are taken up with the flesh. It is grating on me. The enmity that I am feeling toward this person or that person and it just hinders my ability to take in the truth. You know it is like a baby that’s growth is not progressing because something is inhibiting its ability to absorb the good food. That is what the flesh does.

You know the devil doesn’t give up because we trusted Christ, experience the power of His salvation. Now he wants to what? Turn the church into a mess. That is what is happening at the church in Corinth. They are not standing together against the world. They are busy battling one another. Are you not still fleshly? Now wait a minute. We are not to be fleshly anymore but you are. There is jealousy, strife so we want to be careful. How are we doing? Oh well we are a mature church. We study the book of the Revelation. We are not like those other churches we do get into the serious stuff. We are just fleshly if there is jealousy and strife going on. “You are walking like mere men.” That is what he is saying. You are walking like people who don’t have the Spirit. You know this used to be a supernatural power in work in us but if I am manifesting these kinds of characteristics in my life I am walking like a person who doesn’t have the Spirit of God, just like a mere man, like any person does. They are fleshly. They don’t have the Spirit. This is the way they conduct themselves.

I mean look at what is going on in our own country. We can’t even run the government, why? Everybody is at everybody. Everybody is – churches get like that and all of a sudden everything grinds down because we are busy about tearing each other apart. There is strife and jealousy. Well, I don’t think I am jealous. I just am passionate about my dislike of them. Well, that is not a good passion, envy, these kinds of things.

Come over to 2 Corinthians and then we have to move on. There are many of these places we could go and you are familiar with some of them. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 20 “I am afraid” now Paul’s second letter he is planning on coming and “I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you not to be what I wish and you won’t be happy with me.” Why? “Perhaps there will be strife, jealousy” and here we are, right up at the top, “angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossips, arrogance, disturbances.”

I see this going on in the world. This is going on in secular politics but the church? Strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, wait a minute. I thought you said God had brought His salvation to the Corinthians back in your first letter. Yes, but they weren’t making any progress. And we get concerned. There will be immorality, sensuality. I mean you just can’t…... once you get these things going everything begins and the flesh begins to assert itself and the world looks and says, “Boy, I’m glad I am not part of that church. That is what they are like there. Yes, they’ve got another battle going on.” Some battles are necessary when we have to do it but certain things we ought not to be battling over. We ought not to be tearing one another apart.

Come back to Galatians 5, “Outbursts of anger.” This is tumos, tumoi, a person that loses their temper. You know we have various excuses for this. We send our little school kids now they need to have anger management training. Well we got that when I was a kid too. My Dad knew how to manage my anger and it hurt, it was unpleasant. He didn’t know his belt was just for holding up his pants. It was connected to taking down my pants and what? But now we excuse this and so we excuse it. Well, I can’t help it. They did this and I lost my temper. It is their fault. It is their fault and the kids just don’t do it, we do it; so these outbursts of anger, losing temper.

In a previous ministry I sat in on a board meeting. Some stuff came and there was a man on my board and he had white hair like me. As this meeting went on, his face got redder and redder and redder. He looked like a tomato. I am sitting here. I wouldn’t have said it because he might have choked me. I thought “His head is going to explode.” He couldn’t contain the anger that was building, “Outbursts of anger, disputes.”

And the basic idea of this word translated ‘disputes’ is selfishness. It’s related to factions and disputes because the root of those is selfishness. The more I think about me, the more problems I have with you. The more I am absorbed with me, the more conflict I have with you because you are not absorbed with me. Selfishness is divisive. That is just the way it is. So disputes here. This was listed in that list in 2 Corinthians 2:20 and some of the others. It is listed in Philippians. These conflicts, disagreements come because we are selfish. Remember we are to be serving one another through love, Galatians 3:13. “Through love serve one another.” Well we will get to the fruit of the Spirit and love produced by the Spirit is unselfish. So selfishness, we are never done battling with it.

At times you know you have to stop and think, tell yourself. This is nothing but selfishness. Let’s be honest with yourself. I say, “Gil, this is just selfish thinking.” I get irritated. Why are you irritated? Well, they should have known better. They shouldn’t have done that. Maybe I ought to think about them and what can I do for them.

Dissentions, the next word, dissentions. The only other use of this word is in Romans 16:17: “Now I urge you brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissentions and hindrances contrary to the teaching. Turn about away from them.” It means disunity, dissentions, divisions. That is a manifestation of the flesh.

You know most of the conflicts we have in the church are not doctrinal. Most of it is not denying the trinity, not in our church. It becomes over other things, personal things, personal issues, disagreements over personal things. We can disagree on those. I could have a ham sandwich and you could choose not to. We don’t have to divide over that. We are not going to agree over every decision but when we decide that we are going to take that on ourselves and quite frankly as I have shared with you before, I ask people, “You are upset about this?” “Just what does this decision have to do with you?” “What do you have to change in your life because of the decision that was made there?” “What do you have to stop doing or start doing because of the decision you are upset about?” Well, that’s not it. Well then I say, “It doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it?” Then why are you so upset? Well you need to stop and think. Why does it bother me so much? Why am I so upset about this? Just what does this have to do with me personally? What do I have to do now that I don’t think is Biblical. What do I have to stop doing now that I think I should do Biblically? Most of these come up, they involve people that have nothing to do with and it results in dissentions. Now if it somebody promoting false teaching, false doctrine we have to deal with that.

As far as I can tell the doctrine of this church has not really changed since I came. We clarified some of the doctrine but it is basically the same doctrine I have been preaching. We have been through Revelation several times. My basic view of Revelation hasn’t changed. I was a premillennial, pretribulation, dispensationalist when I came. We have continued as a church. Our doctrine, our doctrinal statement, it is the same. We have had many divisions. Now if someone is attacking that doctrine, disagreeing. but those are the rare ones. Most of them become personal things, dissentions.

Factions, we get the word heresy from it. In fact we just transliterated it over into English from Greek. It means to be making a choice and a heresy is a faction as we use it of being unbiblical in your doctrine. It’s choosing something that is not Biblical but these are factions, different schools of thought.

There were factions in the Corinthian church. We won’t go there. Let me read it to you. Paul writes in I Corinthians 11. “For in the first place when you come together as a church I hear that divisions,” we get the English word schisms from the word division he uses there, “exist among you and in part I believe it for there must also be factions.” And there is our word, those kinds of divisions among you. Now note. Why would there be those? “In order that those who are approved.” It is a testing time. “They become evident among you.” So these things come and as the devil asserts his power and influence as the flesh, there is a division that takes place and we need to be careful we pass the test that I am faithful and remain Biblical and true to the Word. We’ve got to be careful of false teachers, 2 Peter 2 says that he will introduce destructive heresies. We can’t become tolerant of that and we are to reject the factious man, one who is causing division after a first and second warning.

Envying, that is close in meaning to jealousy. You know it’s a begrudging spirit and sometimes we are not happy. Someone else is doing well and we find reasons to think that is not good, especially if we are going through trouble or they are doing well and we are not. They have what we don’t have. We want to be careful.

The last two on the list, just to mention them, drunkenness and carousing. The Bible doesn’t forbid drinking. So we don’t have a stand on that what we call social drinking. If you choose to have a glass of wine, a beer, that’s up to you. I choose not to. That doesn’t mean you can’t. That doesn’t mean I think negatively of you if you don’t. It is a matter of freedom but drunkenness is a manifestation of the flesh. We call them alcoholics today and it is probably because they have a defective gene. The Bible says it is because of the flesh, drunkenness.

Certain sins will be more appealing. You have to be careful. You know someone may be able to have a glass of wine with their meal and it is fine. Someone else all of a sudden I like this and pretty soon they are overdoing it. I have to be sensitive. Certain sins I may be more vulnerable to than others. So I want to build a greater distance between me and those sins. I don’t want to provide opportunity for the flesh in any way but you know a bottle of beer sits on the table. It doesn’t temp me a bit. Someone else might say, put a bag of jellybeans there, I will have to finish it off.

So drunkenness, carousing, that is often associated with drunkenness because you lose control of yourself. You know isn’t it interesting how we have this going on now. We have people and often it is taken advantage of when they get drunk and you know one thing leads to another and you put drunks together in a room the Old Testament tells us when they come out of their drunkenness they won’t know what went on. So you don’t want to get into that state, the carousing. We often think of this, the campus you know young people come, going to live on campus, going to go to college now I am free from the restraints. So we have fraternities and like that and they have drunkenness and then they have partying and then it – one thing leads to another. And this is not a complete list.

The end of verse 21: “Things like this.” So this is just a sampling and “those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” They are not truly saved. That doesn’t mean any believer is vulnerable and can do some of this.

Back in chapter 2 we saw Peter in verse 14 of chapter 2 and Barnabas. They were not straight forward about the truth of the Gospel and had to be rebuked. Any of us can stumble but that word practice, a present participle. If any of these things or a number of them become the characteristic of your life, you begin to – why would I say I am a believer? And I have asked people. This has been my practice, why would you say you are a believer? Oh I know I trusted Christ when I was 12. Now wait a minute. The conduct of your life and your practice has given no evidence. In fact it is just the opposite. We will look more at that as we move to the fruit of the Spirit in our next study.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for Your Word and Lord Your Word is sharp. It pierces to our inner recesses and Lord You know us as we are and Your Spirit reveals what we are with the light of Your Word and even as believers, Lord, even as we sit here and go through the Word together, as we examine ourselves in light of the Word Lord may we be honest with any inconsistencies that should not be there, anything that we have tolerated or are tolerating in our lives that shouldn’t be there regardless of the excuses that we have built up, the way we have explained it to ourselves. Lord thank You for the power of Your salvation that sets us free. May we have a ready, willing spirit to put to death the works of the flesh and live in the power of the Spirit we pray in Christ’s name, amen.