Setting The Theme: Galatians 5

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Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the Biblebreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Galatians chapter 5. And the title today is The Fruit of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Holy Spirit. A couple years ago, I was going out to this guy's house and he had some apple trees. And he had just got through planting them about a year or two before, and he was expecting some fruit to come out. And I had no idea what I was looking at. I would have even known it was an apple tree without him telling me. And I never forget, I asked him this question. I was like, how do you know if the tree is healthy or not? And he's like, well, I won't, I won't really know until I see how the apples turn out. And I started thinking about that, and I was like, well, yeah, like the fruit on the tree, the apple, is a byproduct of a healthy tree. And it's a byproduct of the owner taking care of the tree. And that's how you know is it the fruit turns out? Well, we're going to look at the fruit of the spirit as a little bit of a different thing today and see if maybe it will bring some clarity, maybe bring some hope to all of us as well. We get into that in just a moment. But if you don't mind, I'd love for you to, if you enjoy what we're doing here, to like, share, and subscribe to this YouTube channel. We are getting so close to being over a thousand subscribers. Thank you so much for doing that. But about half of us who watch this are subscribers. So make sure you subscribe to these videos. Also, if you like what we're doing, make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help us get the word out. And where we all gather together is at the Facebook group, the Bible Breakdown Discussion Group on Facebook. And man, the more we dig, the more we find. And we love doing life together with you over there. Well, if you have your Bibles, you want to open them up with me to Galatians chapter 5. Can I tell you that when I, when I was younger, I didn't understand exactly what the fruit of the Spirit was for? I had this idea that the fruit of the Spirit was something that God gave you. Like you just were given these different fruits of the Spirit. And so I would ask all the time for God to give me the fruit of the Spirit. It wasn't until I started reading the context, which we're going to read today about the nine fruit, fruits of the Spirit, that I started to realize that you don't, you aren't given fruit. Fruit is grown in you. And we're going to talk about that idea that a healthy tree, the byproduct of a healthy tree, is that it produces good fruit. And so a way of saying this is the byproduct of a healthy relationship with God is the fruit that it produces. And we're going to look at what the fruit of the spirit looks like and the fruit of corruption or the flesh or the fruit of death looks like. And then we're going to ask the question what kind of fruit is growing in our life? Well, let's read this together and see what God's Word will tell us in Galatians chapter 5, verse 1. And it says this So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure you stay free and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law. Listen, I, Paul, tell you this: if you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be no benefit to you. I say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, then you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. For if you're trying to make yourself right with God by keeping the law, then you have been cut off from Christ and you have fallen away from God's grace. In other words, he's saying, if you are trying to be perfect in order to get to God, like I don't need I don't need Jesus, I don't need salvation from him, I'm gonna get to God myself. He's like, good luck with that. You're gonna have to be perfect. And let's not even get to the fact that you've already not been perfect, but you're gonna have to be if you're gonna get there. He's like, then Christ is not gonna help you because you're not gonna be perfect. But he says this in verse 5 but we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness of God that he has promised to us. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit of being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love. And which, by the way, the mark of obeying the law was that people were circumcised. So he's saying that being perfect and not being a per not being perfect is not how you get saved. It is about receiving Christ and letting him wash away all of our sins. Verse 7, you were running the race so well. Who held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn't God, for he is the one who is calling you to freedom. These false teachers is like a little, wait, this false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads throughout the whole batch of dough. I am trusting the Lord to keep you from believing these false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who has been confusing you. Dear brothers and sisters, if I were still preaching that you must be circumcised, as circumcised, as some say I do, why am I still being persecuted? For if I no longer am preaching salvation through the cross of Christ, no one would be offended. I just wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves. This pause for a second. So what Paul is apparently being accused of is he is being accused of preaching that they must live all of the law in order to be saved. Maybe that's how they were getting everybody to listen. Well, Paul's saying this too. Paul's saying, I'm not saying this. And he's saying, by the way, what kind of person wants to come over here and circumcise you? Do you know what circumcision is? And he's saying, you know what? I wish that those jokers would just circumcise themselves. That's a really nice Bible way of saying something very inappropriate. But he's just mad and fed up with these people causing division. And so he's like, I had enough. Let them go circumcise themselves. So if you ever get mad at somebody again, I'm gonna tell you what I don't want you to do, you know, in Jesus' name. But let's keep moving. But Paul, he ain't messing around because he realizes the freedom of these people have been taken away by all this silliness. Verse 13, for you now have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but you don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, you use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in one command: love your neighbor as yourself. But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out, beware of destroying one another. Now pause. There's the balance that some of you have been looking for so far in this. You're like, well, wait a minute. If I'm saved by grace through faith, then why don't I just do whatever I want? And he's like, no, no, no, no. We have freedom not so that we can sin. We have freedom so that we don't have to sin. We're no longer a victim of our emotions and our impulses and our passions. We now serve Christ. And so now we can use all of our effort to serve one another. And he's saying that's how you fulfill the law. If you think about it, you look at the big ten, the ten commandments. The first five teach us how to relate to God, the second five teach us how to relate to one another. And so if you do the very best you can to serve God, do the very best you can to serve one another, you're gonna get most of the way there. And the Holy Spirit will empower you to actually do the things that you think. And so he's saying, we don't use our freedom to sin, we use our freedom to say, now we are not any longer controlled by our sin. Verse 14, he says this, or 16. He says, So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants. And the spirit gives us the desires that are opposite of what our sinful nature desires. And these two forces are constantly fighting each other so that you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are no longer under obligation to the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear. Sexual immorality, that's any type of sexual activity outside of the heterosexual union of a husband and wife. That means anything of the LGBTQ variety, pornography, shacking up with someone, adultery, fornication, all of that stuff is sexual brokenness, and that is a result of a sinful nature. Impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, divisions, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. So in other words, what he's saying is there's a difference between struggling with sin and celebrating sin. He's saying if you are struggling with these sins, then that's what forgiveness is all about. But if you're celebrating these sins, then you're not really saved. You will not inherit the kingdom of God. Because when you give your life to Christ, you're no longer living as a victim and celebrating your sinful lust. Now you are striving after the kingdom of God because the Holy Spirit has done a work in your life. But this is the difference. The Holy Spirit, verse 22, but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed their passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and have crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one another. So other words, what Paul is saying is that we are not now free to sin, we are now free from sin. And that doesn't mean we're going to be perfect. He says there is a constant battle going on inside of us to live according to the spirit or to live according to the flesh. We have to decide which one that we are going to do and then move in that direction. It reminds me of a story I heard one time that there was this Indian tribe out on the reservation, and it was an older gentleman, an Indian grandfather and a grandson. And they were talking back and forth one day, and the grandfather said, Grandson, I need you to know that I have two wolves on the inside of me. One is angry and nasty and vengeful, and only wants what it wants, and it wants to destroy everything around it, and is vicious and violent. The other wolf is full of goodness and kindness, wants what's good for others, and wants to celebrate the lives of others. And they're constantly battling on the inside of me, and I don't always know which one's gonna win. Well, the grandson looked at the grandfather and he said, Grandfather, how can how do you know which one's gonna win? And the grandfather looked down at his grandson and he said, Whichever one I feed the most. That's a great lesson for all of us. You know, maybe you would say, Pastor, I don't I don't want to live with sexual immorality and impurity and lustful pleasures and idolatry and sorcery and hostility and quarreling, jealousy, outburst, all the things. I don't want to be like that. But I find myself doing that all the time. I want to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I want those things. And I find myself not getting them. I think the answer for both of us would be, well, what are you feeding? Which one are you feeding the most? Because the fruit of the Spirit is the byproduct of a healthy relationship with God. Can I make you a promise? If you never read God's word, if you never spend time with God talking to Him, we call it prayer, if you never spend time around God's family and go to church and not just attend and sit and walk away, but you become part of the family of God, you you know, you get involved, if you never give of your finances, in other words, a way of submitting even your finances to the goodness of God, honoring God with your tithes, your offerings, if you don't, you know, serve somebody else, if you don't do those things, you're not constantly feeding your spirit the goodness of God, you don't spend time in worship, all that kind of thing. If you don't do those things, I'll make you a guarantee. If you don't do those things, you will not experience the fruit of the spirit. You will not have as much of the love of God, the joy, the peace, the patience. You need peace. You need the peace of God in your life right now. Are you feeding your spirit? Are you feeding your relationship with God? Or are you experiencing right now problems with sexual immorality? Pornography, lustful thoughts, lustful desires? Are you struggling to control that aspect of your life? Are you struggling with hostility, arguing constantly, feeling jealous of one another, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition? Are you constantly having to be ahead? Are you constantly having to be number one? Envy. Do you struggle celebrating the successes of others? If so, what are you feeding? Are you feeding into that? Are you feeding into the culture that says you've got to be first or you're last? Whatever you're feeding is what's going to win. And whatever is being produced in your life is the byproduct of the healthiest relationship in your life. And so I want to encourage you to focus on your relationship with God. Can I tell you I've learned the hard way that when people come to me and they say, Pastor, I want to get better at this, that, and the other, one of the first things I say is, What's your devotional life look like? Are you reading your Bible every day? Are you praying every day? Are you spending time in a Christian community? Because that's not the only answer. There's other answers, but that one's gonna help. Because you're gonna start depositing into the healthiest relationship that you're ever gonna have, the most important relationship you're ever gonna have, that's with God. And then the fruit of that relationship, the byproduct, is going to be what our souls truly crave. Do you ever realize that? Why do people want more money? Why do people want a better home? Why do people want a better car? Why do people want good kids? Why do people want a good marriage? Why do people want this, that, and why do they want you know why? Because the people say, well, I want no, no, no. You get further and further, further. You know what they want? They want to feel loved by others. They want to have a joy on the inside, they want to have a peace of a security that everything's gonna be okay. They want to have more patience, be able to be at rest in their soul. They want to give and receive kindness, they want the goodness of those things. They want people to be faithful to them and they want to be more faithful. They want to have gentleness, that's strength under control. They don't want to be given to they want you know what those are? Those are the nine fruits of the Spirit. Everything our soul truly craves are the things that we can only truly find in God alone. And God is eager to give them to us. But these these fruits are the byproduct of a healthy relationship with God. So my question is, what are you feeding the most? And if you're feeding all of those selfish, sinful, deathly desires, it's time to make a course correction and start feeding your relationship with God. And out of that byproduct, you'll find more peace, more love, more joy, more gentleness, more kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, all the things our souls truly crave. Let's pray together. God, thank you so much. You're for us and not against us. Thankful, God, that you tell us the truth in your word because you want to expose the lies of the enemy so we can find true peace in you. I pray today that that will be what we'll find is that the more we dig into you, the more joy and peace we find. Let that be the truth for us today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And don't forget, God's Word says in Galatians chapter two, we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. Jesus is looking for a relationship, not a contract. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow as we finish up with Galatians chapter six.