Galatians 5.22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Now look at the next words there, against such there is no law. So we're going to talk this morning a little bit about where this fruit comes from, what God's intention is for His means for producing this fruit of love and joy and peace and so forth, summarized I think by this word love, agape love, in our lives consistently for His glory and for a witness in this world. 

This is the most instructive passage in our study of the book of Galatians this morning and Paul spent the bulk of the letter thus far beating back the false doctrine of the Judaizers of life by the law. You remember the false gospel of faith plus works that they were preaching was troubling the believers, was confusing them concerning the law as a way to live the Christian life. So Paul's made clear that justification is by grace through faith in Jesus alone and sanctification, Paul says, the life that I now live is by grace through faith in Jesus alone as well. 

In our text this morning we're going to see some practical applications of this truth. He makes some powerful statements here concerning who we are in Christ and how we should live. He says we are not in the flesh. He says we are not under the law. Therefore we should not bear fruit that is consistent with the flesh but rather we should walk by the Spirit and bear the fruits of the Spirit in consistency with who we now are in Christ. That's the basic message and it's a message that is consistent throughout the New Testament concerning who we are and how we should live as a result of our salvation of our new birth of the life of Christ in us as we walk by faith. 

Let's look at verse 16, Galatians 5 verse 16. Here's the main command of the passage, he says, I say then, walk in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 

And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. So Paul's saying here, we live by the Spirit, believers live by the Spirit, what's the command then? Then walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. 

I've given you five points on your outline, first, we want to define the flesh, second, led by the Spirit, third, not under law, fourth, fruit, and fifth, walk in the Spirit. 

Well Paul begins with the words, I say then. This phrase links us back to what he said in the verses before, and I want you to look back at chapter 5, verse 5. Paul says, for we, through the Spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. And you'll remember when we studied that, we saw that righteousness, holy living comes by faith, by grace through faith. So we wait for the hope of righteousness by faith, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love. 

Now look at verse 13 also in chapter 5. For you, brethren, have been called to liberty, only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Righteousness, holiness in the life of the believer is by the power of the Holy Spirit through faith. We walk by faith, and it is the Holy Spirit that empowers us, that produces the fruit of love in our lives. The law, circumcision, is useless as a means to holiness, to righteous fruit. We live by the Spirit, we live by the life of Christ in us. 

And as we see throughout the Scripture, the main thing, the summary thing, the command of the new covenant, the law of Christ, is love. And love, as we see in verse 22 of our text, is the fruit of the Spirit, not the law. All of the law is fulfilled in this one word, love, but love is not the fruit of the law. The fruit of the law, because of indwelling sin, is death, is condemnation, is wrath, as we've looked at so many times, but the fruit of the Spirit is love. 

So what we see again and again and again as we study the whole of the New Testament is that love is the command. And the means to this fruit is walking in the Spirit, by faith, as the power that raised Jesus from the dead works in us to bear this fruit of love. 

So first, let's look at the command. I just want you to listen to several verses, I'm going to read several verses, you don't need to follow along in your Bibles, but just listen. John 13, 34, Jesus says, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. John 15, 12, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. John 15, 17, these things I command you, that you love one another. Romans 13, 8, owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. First Thess 4, 9, but concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. First Peter 1, 22, he says, since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit and sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. First John 3, 11, for this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that you should love one another. And 1 John 3, 23, and this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another. And John goes on in those epistles, beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 

If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us. And in 2 John 1, 5, he says, and now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. 

Well, clearly the command of the new covenant is to believe Jesus and to love one another. And we see several texts that tell us the whole law is fulfilled in this one command. In other words, as believers in Jesus Christ in this new covenant time, we no longer live by any external list or standard or law, but rather we have an inside power, the Holy Spirit living in us, constraining us, empowering us, imparting strength to our inner man, producing the fruit of love through us. 

And love does no harm. There's no such law, there's no law against such things. We do not need the law because God has designed and created a much better way to produce fruit through us, to convict us of sin, to guide us into all truth, to empower us to live for Him. And that is the Spirit of God living in us as we walk by faith. 

You know, I really don't like to go to the city. I'd much rather never go to, I don't even like to go to Manaqua, especially in the summer. I'm not a fan of lots of people, traffic, shopping, and all that stress that goes with being in the city. So if it was up to me, I'd stay in the woods, work on the farm, enjoy the peace and quiet. 

But Friday, my wife and I drove to Minneapolis, one of the worst places to drive, in my opinion. They have these crazy off and on ramps that come together, and I've studied this in physics. And two things cannot exist in the same place at the same time, yet the other night we come off the off ramp, and there's like three of us packed in there and then three packed here, and they've got to get off here, and we have to get off this way. And I told my wife, I think I have this figured out. The chief engineer for the state of Minnesota owns a chain of body shops. 

We fought our way through the traffic, we went to the shopping center, we ate out, we did the whole city thing. Now why would I do that? What was I thinking? What would compel me to torture myself in such a manner? And the answer is love. Because my oldest daughter Caitlin lives there, and my grandkids live there, and it is love that compels me to go and endure that big city and all that goes with it, because I love my daughter and I love those littles she has, and I want to see them and spend time with them. No law would get me there, no bribe would get me there. I would stay in the woods. But love compels me, love constrains me. 

And my relationship with Jesus is much more compelling because He died for me. He saved me from sin and death and hell and from the wrath of God for my sins, purely by His grace. I deserved wrath, but God loved me so much that He sent His only Son to die in my place to pay for my sins, to give me new life through regeneration, and He has come to live in me and keep me by His power until the great day when He comes to take me to live with Him forever in the Father's house. He loved me so much that He died for me, and now that love, the love of Christ, compels me to live for Him. 

This is a much more powerful motive than any external force could ever be. Men and women die around the world and have since Christ for faith in Him because of their love for Jesus. We gladly, with great heart's desire, choose to live for Him because He died for us. The internal motivation of love is so much better. It's so much greater than the outer force of law. 

So we see that the command is love, agape, self-sacrificial love, as Jesus demonstrated at the cross. We are to serve one another through love. 

Well, next we see that the means is the Spirit, the power of the Spirit of God living in us as we walk by faith. I want you to turn to Romans 7, 4. I'm just going to keep pounding these texts so that it'll stick in our heads. Romans 7, 4, Paul says he's given the marriage illustration and that a woman is bound by the law of marriage until her husband dies. 

And if he dies, she is released from the law of marriage. And he says in verse 4, therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ that you may be married to another, to Him who was raised from the dead in order that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. 

Now look down to Romans 8, 2. Paul picks this back up in Romans 8, 1. In verse 2 he says, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 

In our text this morning, Paul contrasts the Spirit and the flesh. And this is so important that we understand this. What does the term flesh, sarx, in the Greek mean? Well, it can mean just what it says in its neutral sense. The flesh is the physical body. Jesus uses the term this way in Luke 24, 39, He says, behold, my hands and my feet, that it is I myself, handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. In John 1, 14 it says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, signifying His humanity. In Acts 2, 31 it says, He foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This means that His body, His physical body, meat and bones did not rot in the ground. 

Most often the term flesh is used of the physical body or to signify humanity. The word carnal is from the same root word and it can also refer to something of the earth or related to the flesh in a neutral way. In 1 Corinthians 9, 11 it says, if we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your carnal or material things? The word material is the same word translated carnal throughout the scriptures. It means food, clothes, money, material things needed for the flesh. 

So most often the term sarx or the variations of this word are used in a neutral sense referring directly to the body or to the things of this world pertaining to the body, the needs thereof or of humanity in general. But there's also a negative aspect to this word flesh and in its negative sense flesh means, listen now, the body controlled by indwelling sin. 

Now this is vital for us to understand as a meaning a definition of the word flesh in its negative sense. Turn over to Romans 6 6, Romans chapter 6 at verse 6. Paul says, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 

This verse is crucial to our understanding. I want you to look closely at it. First we see the phrase our old man. It doesn't refer to our husband, okay? In the context and flow from chapter 5, we see that the old man is the man in Adam, born with indwelling sin, dominated and controlled by that indwelling sin. So that this man is dead and trespasses and sins, unable to please God, unable to love as death reigns in his mortal body and the fruit that he manifests is the fruit of the flesh, just like we just looked at in Romans 7 5, when we were in the flesh, okay? 

But there's a great news in Romans 6 6, the old man was crucified with Jesus. When I, in Adam, died, when I believed Jesus, I died with him. So that, don't you love, you know we're working on this how to study your Bible and several people, don't you just love those words? So that. I died, why? So that the body of sin, now this is our next important term, the body of sin, what is this? It's a physical body controlled by indwelling sin. 

That's why he says the body of sin. So why were we crucified with Christ? Why did that old man die? So that the body controlled by sin, the body of sin, might be done away with, or you could translate that rendered powerless. That we should no longer be slaves of sin. In other words, God nailed us to that cross with Jesus, he buried us in the grave with Jesus, and raised us from the dead to a new life with Jesus, new creations, new men in Christ, for the express purpose that this physical body would no longer be controlled and dominated by indwelling sin. Paul is teaching us the truth of our regeneration in Romans 6, that we died to sin, to the law, that we're new men in Christ, alive from the dead, that sin no longer has dominion over us because our old man was crucified with Christ. 

Now look at his application in verse 12 of chapter 6. In verse 12 he says, therefore, based on all these truths, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members, how would you present your members? What are the members of your body? Your tongue, your eyes, your hands, your mouth, right? Your mind. Don't present your members, your instruments, as instruments or weapons that word means, of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God, for sin shall not have dominion over you. Why? For you are not under law, but under grace. 

You see, sin should no longer reign in your mortal body because you died to sin. It no longer has power over us, but sin is still there. It didn't die, it still lives in us, we died. I was thinking about this the other day when I put my dairy cow in with some of my beef cows. I know you've had this experience as well. They're all in their winter corral now, they're all in an outdoor pen and have access to the barn, but I have a dry dairy cow named Frida, she's gonna have a calf around Christmas time. So I put her in there with the beef cows, and the beef cows started beating her up a little bit, pushing her around, and this is typical for a few minutes when you put the cows together, but I was watching and it went on for quite a while. 

And if the mean old heifers, or beefers, would go over to this side of the pen, then Frida would go over to this side of the pen. And then poor old Frida would would go back and forth and round and round, and they chased her around, and everywhere they went she tried to get away from them, and they kind of pinned her up in the corner, and they're pushing her, and she slipped on the ice and fell, and they were pushing her across the ground, and I had to go in there and get her out. But I thought about this in relation to the sin beast that lives in all of us. In Genesis, God said to Cain, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is to rule over you. Sin is like a beast, and it dominates and controls us, like those beef cows dictating every move that Frida made. She couldn't get away. 

They bullied her, they pushed her around, and caused her to run to and fro, and they controlled every move she made. But think of it this way. What if Frida dropped dead? Maybe she had a heart attack and just died right there on the spot. Then old Anne, our lead beef cow, she'd have no power over Frida. It wouldn't matter if she pushed her with her head or nosed her body a bit. Frida'd have nothing to fear. She's dead. No longer could Anne and her friends cause her to fear, cause her to run from corner to corner, because Frida is dead. 

This is what Paul is saying happened to us. We died. Sin is still there. Sin still lives in us, but it has no power over us. It no longer dominates and controls our every move, because we died. And now the key is to take that truth that God has told us, that He has promised us is true in Christ, and to reckon it. That word logizomai, logic is in there, right? He wants you to count up all these facts, to reckon it, to count it to be true, to choose to believe it, moment by moment, walking by faith, one day at a time. The word reckons in the present tense, ongoing action. 

Pastor Krenz used to say it's like spiritual breathing. You don't just get up in the morning, take one big breath. You need to constantly in your mind be renewing to that truth and reckoning it to be so. Breathing by the power of the Spirit that now lives in us, we are to be continually presenting the members of our physical body as weapons of righteousness, not of sin. 

So go back to Galatians and look at Paul's words again in light of these truths, Galatians 5 16. He says, I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 

The flesh, as Paul uses it here, is this physical body controlled by indwelling sin, as we saw in Romans 6 6. Paul says, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. There's a battle in the Christian life. The sin that dwells in us still desires to control this physical body in order to produce the fruit of the flesh to reign over us. But the fact is, we died. The fact is, we are no longer in the flesh. We are no longer sinners. Did you catch that? We are no longer in the flesh, and we are no longer sinners. 

In Romans 7 6, Paul says, when we were in the flesh. What does that mean? Past tense, something that was. It's not now. When we were. In Romans 5 8, Paul says, when we were sinners. When we were. My friends, the battle is not between two natures in you. You're not a sinner. You're a new man in Christ, and you died to sin. Yes, sin still lives in you, but that's not who you are. It's not what you want. The battle is to believe God. The battle is to know His truth of who we are, and to reckon it to be so. To choose to believe Him that you died to sin, that you are no longer who you were, that we have been made free from the law of sin and death, and now we are new men with new spirits, and the Holy Spirit, the very life and power of Jesus Christ, the Creator God of the universe, living in us. 

This is what it means to walk by faith. This is what it means to trust and believe what God says is true, and depend on His power to produce the fruit of righteousness out through our lives, through our members, our physical bodies. 

It is possible, though, to live like who we were, to yield to that sin in us, to reject what God says and choose to believe our emotions and our feelings, our experiences, or the wisdom of this world, and to submit ourselves to that sin that is still in us, to walk according to the flesh. Sin desires to rule over us, and if we don't take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, that is to let the Word of God, the truth, rule over the lies, if we choose to go back to the law, notice this now, Paul ties the law to the flesh, as he so often does. If you are led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. Conversely, if you are led by the flesh, you're under the law. 

Romans 7, 5, when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death, the fruit of the flesh. My friends, if we attempt to go back to the law, to live by the law, by our own power, then we will see that that sin that lives in us is aroused by the law and works in our members to bear the fruit of the flesh. 

Paul contrasts the fruit of the flesh, that which was consistent with who we were in Adam, the way the rest of the Gentiles walked, he says in Ephesians 4, and he says we should no longer walk this way. Why? Because we put off that old man. That old man was crucified. We've put on the new man, and now what? We're being renewed in the spirit of our minds. 

So we should no longer have the fruit of the flesh in our lives because we do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. This is a truth. The believer does not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Go back to Romans 8, and I want you, as I read these words and you follow along, I want you to look for commands. Okay, everybody got that? We're gonna look for commands. As I read, you follow along, what is Paul telling you to do? 

Okay, Romans 8, 2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. On account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. 

Who can find a command in there? There's no command. Did you see any? He's not giving commands, He's simply stating the truth. The believer does not walk according to the flesh, is not in the flesh, but is in the Spirit. Verse 9 says, if you're not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, and then He says if anyone does not have the Spirit, what? He's not His. He's not a believer. If you're a believer, you have the Spirit. If you have the Spirit, you're not in the flesh. This is the truth about you. If you believe Jesus, you are in the Spirit, not in the flesh. 

And after Paul contrasts the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, look at what he says in verse 24 of our text back in Galatians 5, verse 24, and those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 

If you are in Christ by faith, then you have been crucified. That old man died, died to sin and to law and to death. The flesh with its passions and desires have been crucified, and now you are in the Spirit and not in the flesh. So all these things being true, what shall we do? How should we then live, we might say? 

If we live in the Spirit, if we are new men, if our old man is dead and we are new creations in Christ, if we live in the Spirit, if this is our nature, if this is who we are because of the grace of Christ, work that God has done in us, then we must also walk in the Spirit. We must walk in the Spirit. We've defined the flesh, we've seen that we are led by the Spirit, that we are not under the law. We know the fruit of the flesh, we know that. We know the fruit of the Spirit. Now we know that we live in the Spirit, so what does it mean to walk in the Spirit? 

When Ephesians 5, Paul describes it this way, being filled with the Spirit. And he contrasts this with being filled with wine, with drunkenness. Do not be drunk with wine, but be being filled with the Holy Spirit. How do you know someone is filled with wine? Has any man here ever been drunk? Some of you are liars. How do you know if someone is filled with wine? They slur their words, they wobble when they walk, they're belligerent, they're incoherent, because the wine in them is controlling their outward actions. 

Paul says this is what it means to be filled with the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, that is, to have the Holy Spirit control our outward actions, to dictate the fruit exhibited through the members of this body. I think a parallel to walking in the Spirit is found in Colossians 3.16. In verse 14, Paul says, "'Above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching, admonishing, 100 psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.'" 

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. This is synonymous with walking in the Spirit. In John 17, Jesus said, "'Sanctify them by your truth, your Word is truth.'" In Romans 12, Paul says, "'We are to continually be renewing our minds,' how? By the truth, by the Word of God. To let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly is synonymous with walking in the Spirit." 

And we notice in that Colossians passage, Paul emphasizes being thankful. By the grace of God, by the Word of God, we continually renew our minds and we depend on Him and His life and power to produce the fruit of righteousness, and we are thankful. Because it's God's grace and His power that accomplishes all these things. 

The fruit of the Spirit is love. It's by His power and by Jesus' life in us. We see this in Ephesians 3.14, you guys know that passage. Just a tremendous passage, this linking of these purpose clauses. He said He's praying for them and He says that God would grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man and Christ would dwell in your hearts through faith. 

We'd be rooted and grounded in love and able to comprehend the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that we'd be filled with all the fullness of God. And it says He is the one who's able. He's the one who's able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever ask or think to bring Him glory. 

Paul expresses here what it means to walk in the Spirit by faith. He says it's God's intent to impart strength to our inner man, how? By His Holy Spirit. This is our resource, my brothers, my sisters in Christ. Our resource, listen to this, is God's riches in glory. God's riches in glory and His Spirit living in us, strengthening us, and that's not all. 

As the Holy Spirit strengthens our inner man, Jesus lives in us. He's settled down and at home in us as we walk by faith so that He can be fully functional living His life in and through us. As we walk by faith, as we walk in the Spirit, He works through us to produce fruit. John 15, without me you can do nothing. I like what He says there, you abide in me and you will bear much fruit and so you will be my disciples. 

Why will I be His disciple? So that I might bear much fruit. Notice that the law is nowhere here. All these verses we look at, all these passages about teaching us how the fruit of love comes in our life don't mention the law. It's not the way to righteousness. No external standard, no power of my own, not by my strength or my wisdom or my thoughts or my power, it's by God's grace through faith alone. 

It's by choosing to believe what God says is true, to renew my mind to His Word each day and every day and think His thoughts and put away my doubts and my fears and my wisdom. It's by trusting Him, believing Him and His promise, His life, His power in me. The life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. 

Paul says, walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. You live in the Spirit, now walk in the Spirit. Be who you are, my friend, not by the law, not by your power, not by trying harder, but by the Spirit, by faith, walking, abiding, trusting, believing, looking unto Jesus as we run this race. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank You for the great truths of Paul here in Galatians and the great positive truth here that the fruit of the Spirit is love. Thank You that the Holy Spirit lives in us and empowers us and strengthens our inner man. Thank You that You teach us to trust You in so many ways in this life. We want that, Lord. We want to just believe You and trust You. We want to set our mind on things above and remember what's important and live for You because You died for us and we love You because You first loved us. Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Your mercy and Your love. Thank You for Jesus. In His name we pray, amen.