Transformed By The Spirit
INTRODUCTION
Series Set up
Today we’re continuing our sermon series called Pillars and Values and it covers the things that King’s Cross is founded on and the things that we will champion as a community of faith.
5 Values (on screen).
Last week we started to cover our second value, which is “FORMATION”. And by formation we simply mean, “becoming more like Jesus”.
We’re going to stay on this topic for another week because last week we learned that we are to be people rooted in God’s Word and that God’s Word guides us in becoming more like Jesus.
But is knowing God’s word enough to make us like Jesus? Like if we just gain more knowledge and try really hard to obey God’s word, will we become more like Jesus?
Tension
I want to make it clear that we are a community that is committed to God’s word. But I also want to make it clear that if we stop there, our formation to Jesus will fall short.
I don’t know where you are in your walk with Jesus, but whether you’ve been a Christian for a day or for a year or a decade, you might have experienced the reality that as hard as you try to follow Jesus, there are parts of you that still feel unchanged. It can feel impossible to be like Jesus.
There are still desires and thoughts and actions that are contrary to the way of Jesus that you feel will never change in your life.
And the way that many of us have been taught to tackle that is by being told to read your bible more. “Learn more truth” and this will make you more like Jesus.
But that’s so frustrating, isn’t it? Because many of us have read God’s word and have tried desperately to be obedient to Jesus. It just feels like you fail more than you succeed. No matter how many spiritual disciplines you engage in, no matter how much you pray or how much you read your Bible, it feels like you’re becoming less like Jesus, not more like Him. Anyone? Just me?
Examples
Like, some of you have read all the passages that talk about anger and yet no matter how many times you recite those verses you still blow up on your spouse or your kids. You’ve read all the passages about sexual purity and even though you’ve memorized those verses you feel like you can’t help watch porn or try to find a partner for the night on a dating app. Some of you have gotten texts like, “Hey I know you’re struggling with anxiety right now and I just want to send you this bible verse: Philippians 4v6- Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Thanks Becky, all my anxiety just left. No.
When we adopt the mentality that all the Christian walk is, is reading your bible and putting it into practice, what we’re saying is that it is up to us to become more like Jesus. CLIP
Let me tell you right out the gate that this will frustrate your relationship with Jesus because you’ll realize very soon how incapable you are of making yourself like Jesus.
Is it good for us to be rooted in God’s Word? Yes. Is God’s word powerful? Yes. Can God’s word change us? Yes!
The problem isn’t God’s word. The problem is us. In of ourselves, we are incapable and powerless to obey God’s word and to bring the transformation we long for in our walk with Jesus.
Present question
So if we can’t make ourselves like Jesus, who can make us like Jesus?
EXPOSITION
Passage Set Up
This is what Paul is getting at in this morning’s passage in Galatians.
Paul is writing to a group of Christians in the city of Galatia because some false teachers have come into the Galatian church and have begun to convince them that they can live by works. That they are saved by works and can become more like Jesus by their works and ultimately, that they can maintain their status as a child of God by works.
They’re believing the same thing we’re tempted to believe. That by trying hard enough and being obedient enough, they can have the life of Jesus.
What Paul does is he tries to help them see how incapable they are to bring change into their lives.
Let’s start in Galatians 5v16-18
The War Between the Spirit and Our Flesh (v16-18)
Explanation
Read v16-18
Paul is describing a battle that occurs every day in the life of the Christian. Within all Christians, there is a daily war between your flesh and the Spirit.
Three questions need to be answered here
What does Paul mean by “flesh”?
Flesh = The flesh is our human nature that is tainted by sin and death. Our desires, our thoughts, our actions, our passions, all the things that we would consider makes us human is all tainted by sin and death. The thing about sin and death is that it turns us from God and this is baked into our nature as humans.
This is why you struggle to follow Jesus and to become like Him. Because you have an enemy built into your very nature that doesn’t want you to become like Jesus.
Personally for me it’s living out of my insecurities instead of the truth that I am God’s beloved child. What Paul ultimately means here is that the flesh is anything that keeps us from Jesus and living in His ways.
What does Paul mean by the Spirit?
Paul here is talking about the Holy Spirit. This is the third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is given to every person who places their faith in Jesus for salvation and calls Jesus Lord and Savior (Ephesians 1v13).
The Holy Spirit is a person. It’s not the force or some or Christian power field. The Holy Spirit is God and the scriptures tell us that the Holy Spirit dwells fully in Christians and is permanently taking residence inside of you.
Why are they at war with one another?
V17 says that the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit are contrary to one another.
The desire of the Spirit directs you to God because what the Spirit desires is for you to become like Jesus (Romans 8v5-7).
The desires of the flesh are tied to sin which means that the desires of the flesh direct you away from God and instead focus on making you less like Jesus (Ephesians 2v2-3)
Why are they against one another? Because one is heaven sent to make you like Jesus and one is hell bent on making you less like Jesus. CLIP
The war that is happening in you everyday is the war between you becoming like Christ and you becoming less like Christ.
Do you see why there is this frustration in your walk with Jesus? You want to become more like Him, but your flesh, the patterns of your old life, want to drag you back like a bad ex-boyfriend or girlfriend.
Knowing that to be true Paul says in v16 that if you’re a disciple of Jesus, live by the Spirit = live a life that is empowered and controlled by the Spirit. That we are to be surrendered to the Holy Spirit because He desires for us to become more like Jesus. The Spirit is the One that drags you back when you’re thinking about going back to your old ways.
It’s like “hey I’m thinking about calling my ex, what do you think?” The Spirit slaps you, takes the phone, chucks it and stays outside your door because the Spirit knows that going back to your old life is useless.
The more you walk with the Spirit, the less you walk in the patterns of your old life. But let me make this clear, this is not based on your effort, it’s based on the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.
In order for you to live by the Spirit you need the presence of the Spirit.
Paul writes this text so that we would understand that we can live either surrendered to the Spirit or surrendered to the flesh, but not both.
Bridge the Text
So why do we try and do both? We try to live surrendered to both. This type of life hurts the witness of the church.
Isn’t it a little weird that people struggle to know who the Christian is or isn’t. Like people genuinely don’t see the difference between people who say they’re a Christian and people who aren’t a Christian. Based on what Paul wrote here, there should be a stark difference between the life the Christian lives and the life the non-believer lives. Because they’re contrary to one another.
The reason why the church looks so similar to the world is because there are so many of us that do not live by the Spirit. We don’t surrender and listen to the promptings of the Spirit. We don’t ask for the power of the Spirit. We depend on ourselves and live by our flesh. When you do this, you miss out on the joy of your salvation and even miss out on your ability to witness to a world who is desperate for the things that Jesus offers through the Holy Spirit.
“The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation. And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit. But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural. The church cannot help but be different, and the world cannot help but notice.” – Francis Chan. “The Forgotten God"
Transition: King’s Cross, will you live in the Spirit, or will you live in the flesh? And this is what Paul asks in the remaining verses.
Life in the Flesh (v19-21)
Explanation
In this section, Paul describes various “acts of the flesh”. These are activities that people engage in when they are surrendered to the flesh. This list is not exhaustive, but it gives a snapshot into the life of a person who runs his or her life independent of the Holy Spirit. This is a vision of life in the flesh.
Remember, the desires of the flesh are to make you less like Jesus so these acts that Paul mention here are all acts that lead you away from being like Jesus.
Paul breaks this list into three categories
V19- Acts against our bodies: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery
The best way to summarize this is, “I can have sex with whomever I want, whenever I want, however I want. People exist for my pleasure”.
That last part might tick some of you off, but if you engage regularly in casual sex with one or many partners, are you really thinking about their best interest. Do you care about what their life looks like? Do you care about their fears and dreams? Do you care about where they are in life? No! what you care about is your sexual climax. That reduces a person to a sex toy.
This list also includes things like pornography. We act like pornography has no harm, but it does. Not only does porn fuel the sex trafficking industry, but it ruins your own soul because you start to see people as objects of pleasure instead of people worthy of love and respect.
V20- Acts against God: idolatry and witchcraft
Idolatry is the act of giving your whole life allegiance to anyone that isn’t God and witchcraft is the act of trying to find power outside of the Holy and pure power of God.
V21a- Acts against others/biblical community: hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
All the things listed kill community because it’s all centered on whether or not you are happy with people.
Why does Paul make this list? Part of it is so that the Galatians would know, how destructive these practices are. That’s why the Puritan pastor, John Owen says that if we are not killing sin, the acts of the flesh, then sin will be killing us.
This is why at the end of v21, Paul gives a warning that those who integrate these practices into their lives do not inherit the kingdom of God. What does that mean?
What Paul is saying here is that when we choose to live in the flesh and surrender to the patterns and desires of our life before Jesus, we bring death upon ourselves and to those around us because the opposite of the kingdom of God is the kingdom of death.
What Paul wants us to see is that living in the flesh will produce a life of death.
Bridge the Text
For those who are here and aren’t followers of Jesus, I can understand why hearing this may sound like nonsense, but I invite you to think about the world around us. The list that we just read, does our world not sound exactly like this? The culprit is not bad people. The culprit is all people. All people are complicit in bringing about this kind of world into existence. No matter how good of a person you think you are, left to yourself, you bring death upon the world. How do I know this?
When we act out of jealousy in our work place, when we use others for our gain because of selfish ambition, when we write hateful words on social media about politicians who are made in the image of God, when we manifest using chakra or stones and call upon demonic spirits and power, when we yell at our spouses or children out of deep anger, all of these acts deny the sacredness of human lives and deny the reverence of God.
We’ve all hurt someone and have felt the pain of how our selfishness hurts others but we’ve also have been the recipients of pain and suffering from others, even the “good people” in our lives. It doesn’t matter how good of a person anyone thinks they are, outside of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, we all bring death into the world. CLIP
And it is for this same reason why we cannot make ourselves more like Jesus. Trying to become like Jesus in our own strength and power, by works of the flesh, will never work because it is not in our nature to be like Jesus. Its nature is to lead us towards death.
This is what frustrates our walk with Jesus. We try to follow Jesus and live like Him in the power of our flesh, but we forget that our flesh wants to keep us from Jesus. They’re opposed to one another.
None of us have it in us to make ourselves like Jesus.
Transition: As Paul gives us this wake up call, he finishes this passage by focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit.
Life in the Spirit
Explanation
Read v22-23.
Here, Paul is contrasting the work of the flesh with the work of the Holy Spirit. We know this because Paul uses the imagery of fruit. For fruit to bear, someone must till the soil, plant the seed, water the seed, and generally provide all the conditions for the fruit to bear. That’s work. So if this is the fruit of the Spirit, who is at work here? The Spirit.
V22-23
What is the fruit of the Spirit?
The fruit of the Spirit is the life of Jesus.
The 9 things that are on this list are the character traits of Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of all of these things, and He always acts in these ways.
But also, notice, it’s not the fruits of the Spirit, it’s the fruit of the Spirit. Meaning there is one singular thing that is being produced by the Spirit and that singular thing is the life of Jesus.
Wouldn’t you want these things to be markers of your life? Paul is saying that if you want the life of Jesus, the Holy Spirit can produce it in you.
And if you remember, the Holy Spirit resides in all Christians, that means that if you are a disciple of Jesus, this life is accessible to you! How exciting!
Or did you not know that you can be a person of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control?
I hope what I’m about to say sets some people free today.
Some of you have been a byproduct of a broken home where all you saw was dad beat mom and the language that was spoken in the home was anger and rage.
Some of you have been used and abused, emotionally, sexually, physically, and mentally.
Some of you have been battling deep bouts of depression and anxiety for as long as you can remember
Some of you can’t remember the last time you didn’t feel chained down by your addiction or addictions
What Paul is saying here is that in spite of every single broken moment that you’ve lived through and every single human act of death that was thrust upon you, the Holy Spirit can make you like Jesus. He can make you into a person of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
And the Spirit is good enough and powerful enough to hold you together as He makes you more like Jesus. This is a promise for the broken, not the perfect. CLIP
This is what Paul meant when he wrote in 2 Corinthians 5v17 that if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The Spirit is the One who makes that a reality. The Spirit brings great and powerful renewal into your life by producing the life of Jesus in you.
But not only is the Spirit making you like Jesus, He’s working on getting all the gunky flesh out of you.
Read V24
He’s saying to the Galatians, “You think that your flesh and sin and death have power over you because it shows up and works against you. But you have to remember that Jesus has crucified all of your sin and your death. It’s currently dying a slow death and it yells out to you trying to convince you Jesus will never get rid of it, but you have to remember this image. It’s as good as dead on the cross.”
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15v55, mocking sin and death: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here’s what you need to understand, the One who applies Jesus’ victory to you is the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit both produces the life of Jesus in you and kills the life of death in you.
The Holy Spirit works to get heaven in you and hell out of you. To get Jesus in you and get death out of you. To get the Spirit in you and get the flesh out of you.
“There is no such thing as a Christian life apart from the Holy Spirit; it is utterly impossible. It is He alone who can make us Christian and keep us in that condition.” – Martyn Lloyd Jones
This is why Paul ends with v25. He finishes the way he started. Live by the Spirit. CLIP
The point is this: Life in the Spirit produces the life of Christ in you.
Bridge the Text
If you want to have and experience the life of Jesus, Paul is saying that we need to depend on the Spirit. To live by the Spirit. To walk with the Spirit.
Talking about this might make you feel uncomfortable because you’re like “I thought we’re supposed to be dependent on Jesus only. That’s true. But part of maturing in our walk with Jesus is learning that the way that Jesus works in our lives is through the Holy Spirit. To be a healthier and more vibrant church, we need to have a healthy view on the work of the Holy Spirit
The Christian life is not a life that is produced nor sustained by human effort. This life is a supernatural work carried out by the work of the Holy Spirit
The Spirit is working actively in your life to make you like Jesus.
But I think sometimes we don’t believe this or forget this because we expect that transformation, becoming more like Jesus, is to be instant.
Let me tell you, that just because you don’t have instant transformation doesn’t mean the Spirit isn’t working in your life. Your confidence must be in the Spirit’s promise here to make you like Jesus
But I also want you to consider that perhaps the lack of change in your life with Jesus stems from a refusal to live close and surrendered to the Spirit.
The real question before us, is will we live close and dependent on the Spirit? CLIP
When is the last time you asked the Holy Spirit to fill you, to guide you, to empower you, to embolden you, and to lead you? We need to daily ask the Holy Spirit for a fresh deposit of His power and presence in our lives.
Transition statement: There needs to be a recognition and acceptance here in this community that we need the Holy Spirit to operate in our lives and we need to surrender ourselves to the Spirit so that we can be more like Jesus.
PRESENT MAIN IDEA
Paul has been incredibly helpful in allowing us to see that we can’t depend on ourselves and that we don’t need to depend on ourselves to be more like Jesus. Our formation to Jesus is tied to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. To answer our original question, “who can make me more like Jesus?” What’s the answer church? The Holy Spirit.
Main Idea: The Holy Spirit is committed to producing the life of Jesus in you.
GOSPEL TRANSFORMATION
What this means for us as a church is that we are to be dependent on the spirit. This is what it means to be a word and spirit church. CUE LOGO
We are people rooted in God’s word but we are transformed by the Spirit. Made more like Jesus not by trying harder, but by the consistent presence and work of the Spirit in our lives.
Often, I read the list that is fruit of the Spirit and I’m always like, “Haven’t I done enough for there to be evidence of this in my life?”. I’m going to be honest; I often burden myself with an earning and achieving mindset. I act like Jesus is holding out on me because I haven’t done enough. This is not the Gospel of Jesus.
Jesus does not wait to give us the good life. Jesus is the good life and His life is good and Jesus wants us to share in His life so He draws near to us and pours His life onto us through the Holy Spirit.
Out in the world, you are responsible for producing the good life. The world says that your life is only as good as you make it, but Jesus says that I have come to make your life not only good, but new. The way that Jesus does this is by the work and power of the Holy Spirit.
What this means for you is that we don’t have to spend our lives trying to bring about the good life on our own.
If you’re here and you’re not a follower of Jesus, perhaps you’re here today and you’re exhausted of trying to produce the good life on your own. Maybe you’re exhausted or aimless. Maybe you’re living under the weight of trying to always make yourself better.
Here’s the invitation that Jesus has for you this morning: surrender your life to Jesus and place your faith in Him for salvation from death and sin and He will give you His life and through the Spirit, He will make you a person of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.
If you’re here and you are a follower of Jesus but you’re similarly exhausted by the weight of trying to make yourself like Jesus, that you can find rest today in the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit wants you to be like Jesus and has the power to transform you to be like Jesus and actively works to make you more like Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit.
CONCLUSION/APPLYING THE MAIN IDEA
As we come to a close this morning, I want to invite us as a church to cultivate the practice of living by the Spirit.
Practical ways to live by the Spirit
Daily pray to be filled with the Spirit
While Christians have the permanent dwelling of the Spirit in their lives, Eph 5v18 teaches us that we are to be continuously filled with the Spirit. This means that we need a fresh filling of the Spirit every day so that we would be led and empowered by the Spirit to live like Jesus. Let’s ask for that.
Invite the Holy Spirit in your prayers
Ask the Spirit to help make you more aware. At King’s Cross you might hear our leaders say, “come Holy Spirit”. This isn’t because we think He’s absent, but instead it’s because we want to become more aware of His presence and see where He is at work. If we are to walk by the Spirit, that means that the Spirit wants you to walk with Him.
Respond quickly to the Spirit’s promptings
Sometimes this is a nudge you feel internally. Maybe you feel a prompting to pray for someone, to share the Gospel, to pray for someone’s healing, perhaps you’ve received a word from God to share in a person’s life. The Spirit is often speaking, we just need to be obedienet
We need to practice this and be okay with getting it wrong. Sometimes it’s the Spirit and sometimes it’s the taco meat from last night, but we’re cultivating reliance on the Spirit and that takes practice.
Read God’s Word
We need to train ourselves to know what the voice of the Spirit sounds like. The best and really only way is through the reading of God’s word. If the voice that gives you prompting or direction sounds like shame or condemnation, that is not the voice of the Spirit, that’s most likely your flesh. The voice of the spirit will always match the voice of Jesus and His voice is full of grace and conviction
Pray in Community
God speaks to all His people through the Holy Spirit and when you can’t hear Him or struggle to understand, you can lean on your biblical community to help you discern the voice of the Spirit.
King’s Cross, may we be a community that is surrendered to the Holy Spirit and be a people marked by the life of Jesus. Let’s pray.
SPIRITUAL FORMATION PRACTICE (POST SERMON)
Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5v18.
Non- believer, if you want the life of Jesus, the good life, surrender your life to Jesus today.
Pray for healing from trauma that has produced obstacles in experiencing the fruit of the Spirit.
