No Neutral Corner
Galatians 5:16-18

Galatians 5
¹⁶But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
¹⁷For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.  
¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

As I read these verses I think to myself, “Knowledge is power.” I think about that as it relates to a mechanic. If someone who doesn’t have much of a clue about mechanical things gets in the car, turns the key, and it starts and goes, all is well. Let there be a funny sound, let there be a grinding noise, a failure to start, what do you do? You call the mechanic, who has knowledge, and knowledge is power. The mechanic can diagnose the problem. He understands the working of the machine so knows what could be wrong and what has to be done to fix it.

Most people are not mechanics. Most people are content to get into the car, turn the key, and go. The mechanic’s knowledge and understanding gives him a certain amount of leverage over the situation. May I suggest that the more the layperson knows about his or her vehicle, the better off they are. The more we understand what makes that thing go and how it happens, the better off we are.

 It’s that way as well when it comes to the Christian life. We say, “I gave my heart to Jesus and all of a sudden my life is different.” Marvelous. But in this fallen world we will be assaulted with various issues, challenges, obstacles that come our way and for us knowledge is power, too. The more we understand what has happened now that we are Christians, the more we understand the mechanics of the faith, the more we grow.

 It will lead to our appreciating our God, our applying His wisdom to our lives, and our knowing His blessing and His victory in this life and in the next. When we were studying through the book of Genesis at Christmastime, we ended up in Genesis 49. Genesis 49:10 talked about how the scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes. We talked about how it is that this Jesus who was foretold in the earliest chapters of Genesis and how the notion of the Messiah was developed as time went by. Ultimately, at the end of history, He, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, will wrap it all up in one tremendous victory and then He will reign forever and ever and those who are His will reign with Him.

 That’s victory on a large scale, but we need to understand that that victory will be preceded by millions and millions of little victories in the lives of the people, you and me, who will populate that kingdom. That same Spirit of God who will orchestrate the cataclysmic victory is the Spirit of God who works in us, who gives us victory as well, individually, incrementally, as we move through life, He continues to work and make us more like Jesus all the time. How does that happen?

 In Galatians, Paul is saying if you want to wallow in the mire of defeat, try to keep the rules to get to Heaven. If you want defeat, frustration, insecurity, just try to keep the rules to get to Heaven. On the other hand, you want victory, peace, joy, to look like Jesus from the inside out, to know you’re going to Heaven when you die, do you want that settled assurance that comes with a relationship with God that is growing, then live by faith, not by keeping rules.

 What he’s saying is that superiority of the way of Jesus has it all over the other avenue of working your way. In the rest of the book of Galatians, he’s going to talk about how the gospel and the life it brings is absolutely superior. He’s introducing us to the Holy Spirit and the difference the Holy Spirit makes and the superiority of the Spirit. He’ll go on and say, “You want the works of the flesh. He gives us a list of fifteen things, beginning in verse 19, against which there are laws, because they are bad. That’s where the flesh will go.

 On the other hand, do you want the Holy Spirit’s life? He doesn’t call that works, he calls it fruit and gives us a wonderful list of blessed truth and says there is no law against this. This is how it looks when Jesus does it.

 What we’re getting this morning in these three verses would be considered foundational. It will help us to understand how this works. The reason that you and I have victory in a spiritual sense is because of the Holy Spirit. Period. This is where these verses take us.

The believer has the Holy Spirit (5:16)

Think about that. If you have put all your trust in Jesus and you trust His work on the Cross and that alone to get you to Heaven, the Bible says the Holy Spirit lives in you. That is huge! That means He is eternal, holy, perfect, righteous. That means He is representing the character of God in you and me. He lives in us. We wouldn’t be Christians if the Holy Spirit of God had not prevailed and made us alive spiritually and came to indwell us. The believer has the Holy Spirit. He is a literal, spiritual presence. It is real that He lives in us.

Paul, the apostle, has already told us in Galatians 2:20, “I’ve been crucified with Christ. I’m related to Christ now. Nevertheless I live but not just me. Christ lives in me.” He’s put his finger on an interesting, good dilemma in our lives. We live and He lives in us. He says the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in Him.

In Ezekiel 36, this is exactly what the prophet foresaw when God promised “I will put My Spirit in you.” That’s literal language. He’s there if we’ve trusted Jesus. We need to reckon on that.

Ephesians 4:30, reference is made to the Holy Spirit of God by whom we are “sealed” until the day of redemption. The word is down payment. He is there in us for the duration, indicating that God means business about saving us. He puts His Spirit in us as His seal, His guarantee that this is for real and forever. That’s good news. We don’t have to go by hearsay or maybe. He puts His Spirit in us. That is very nearly beyond our comprehension.

I Corinthians 3:16 says

 ¹⁶Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

 The Spirit of God lives in our bodies, our physical selves. At some point we need to draw the line and understand we can’t put our finger on exactly how it works because we’re talking about spiritual matters which are, in a tangible sense, unseen. But that it works is both biblical and undeniable.

 Consider this. Remember knowledge is power. This is what happens in a person who is a Christian. We are left with two natures. One of them is what the Bible calls the old man. That individual, that inner me that looks out through the windows of my eyes (we might call it soul), which is given to self-awareness, and not only self-awareness, which identifies us as a human being, but beyond that, to self love.

 The old man, also called the natural man, really is sold out to himself or to herself. Even those who talk about self-esteem issues are doing so out of a desire for self. That is natural, automatic, and absolutely universal in the human experience. We just love ourselves. Further, it’s all we know. Now we may have God awareness at this point, but we don’t have God love. If I’m left only with me in the natural state before I’m converted and come to know Jesus, if I’m left only with me, my relationship with God is all about me. A spiritual person in the natural state is drawn only to what God can do for that person because in ourselves we are all about ourselves and that alone. We love self-satisfaction, gratification. That’s who we are. That’s who everybody is.

 Keep in mind because that’s our entire sum total of life experience, it’s all we know. Regardless of how far along in life we go with self, once Jesus comes in and His real presence by the Holy Spirit is a factor in that inner life, we then have two natures. One of them is conditioned a certain way. One of them has been in love with self for quite some time and now we have to deal with yet another, that is, the very literal presence of the Spirit of God. That creates a certain amount of conflict.

 We have also a new man. We have the old man, love with self, then here comes the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes in and makes us alive spiritually. The Bible uses “quickens” or makes alive our spirit. It is that God-awareness part of us that was previously dead. The Spirit steps in and makes it alive. It isn’t just God-awareness though. Anybody can be God-aware. Romans chapter 1 points that out. But the Spirit of God makes alive in us that capacity which we actually have to be drawn to God, to want Him, to worship Him, to bow to Him, to know Him. That’s the other nature with which we live within our own one body.

 If we are a Christian, we have then the capacity to know and honor and love and serve God, not just be aware of Him, but want Him. At the same time, the old self is still pretty much in love with “me.” And there they sit, one and the other.

 When Paul introduces himself, he’s reflecting his testimony. He remembers the old days when it was all about him. He remembers his conversion. He remembers now his life since. He says, “Now listen to me. I know what I’m talking about. You know I know what I’m talking about.”

 Galatians 5
¹⁶But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

These people in Galatia, the ones he’s writing to, want to go back to keeping the rules because people are telling them if they don’t have these rules, don’t keep these rules, your life is going to unravel. You’re going to be miserable, rotten sinners because you don’t keep the rules.

Paul is saying, “You want to keep the rules? Just walk in the Spirit and you won’t have to worry about those rules.” He’s calling them to life on a higher plane. It’s interesting how he works the language. He says, “As you are walking in the Spirit.” He’s talking about a life style that is developed over time. Walking in the Spirit, he says, choice by choice. You won’t fulfill the desires of the flesh.

The desires of the flesh are that natural pull we have to gratify self at every legitimate opportunity. A lot of that just comes down as sin. Paul is saying, “No, if you’re walking in the Spirit, you’re going to make choices that are governed by the Spirit of God within. You won’t fulfill those desires of the flesh that used to characterize your life. You’ll be walking around making choices. We do it all the time every day. The flesh says one thing: envy, greed, lust, gluttony, avarice, whatever. God’s Word by His Spirit says, “love, peace, joy, give, serve,” and we choose. Choices that we make all the time.

Two natures, one person, one choice. Brothers and sisters, you are one person packing around two natures. That helps us understand the Christian life. Two natures, one person, one will. Now if you say, “My old man prevailed and I stole.” If you are arrested and convicted and sentenced, your old man is going to jail. You’re going with him because there is one will for each person, regardless of which nature is tugging or pulling or emerging.

In this life we cannot get rid of the sin nature. It’s here to stay. It can be overcome, it can be diminished, but it can’t be gotten rid of. I remember once visiting in a particular church where they believed you could get rid of the sin nature. A little kid about 18 months old was playing one day,. His mother made the remark, “One of these days we’re going to have to take care of that sin nature of yours.” They believed that you could eradicate the sin nature.

We went to one of our teachers at Bible college and said, “What is this about eradicating the sin nature? The preacher says you can get rid of your sin nature.” It can’t happen. You can redefine what sin is, perhaps. But you can’t get rid of the old person until you’re in the ground.

There’s a struggle. Our will leads us to choose either the old way or the new. Choices lead to behavior. Behavior becomes habit. Habit turns into character. Our challenge is to yield to the Spirit and choose accordingly. Over time, God will change us from the inside out by the working of His Spirit in accordance with His Word.

The believer’s two natures are always in conflict (5:17)

 Remember, the one nature loves to serve self and the other loves to serve God. I love the song, “Refiner’s fire, my heart’s one desire is to be holy.” Sometimes I can sing that better than other times. I want to be. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Because there’s a tug and a pull that sometimes makes me feel like my heart’s one desire is to please myself, not to be holy.

 Be careful when we sing. Realize that a lot of songs are prayers and I would imagine God is listening to them as though they were. I want my heart’s one desire to be holy. It’s moving in that direction as God works on me over time. I would bet it’s true with you too.

 Galatians 5:17
¹⁷For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.    

These are enemies, opposed to one another. They’re butting heads with one another. Not only are they different; they’re against one another. Very strong words. They don’t get along with one another, and they won’t. One is devoted to self and the other is devoted to God. One is given to the creature, me, and the other to the “creator who is blessed forever. Amen.”  -- in the words of the apostle Paul.

 They are not only different, they are opposed. I love the simplistic way the apostle puts that. “I’d love to have that. I’d love to do that.” You can’t, because the Holy Spirit is saying “no.” Or the Holy Spirit is saying this, and the flesh is saying that. Paul is saying, “Count on tension in your life.” Count on it. It’s part of being a new creature in a fallen world.

 It goes with the territory of the faith. There are those who would maintain that if you will just come to Jesus and give Him your heart your whole life will be peaches and cream. I don’t know where they came from. Because if you’ve been a Christian, in adult life particularly, suddenly there are tensions you didn’t have before. What used to seem just fine is now, “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing that.” What used to be evidently a waste of time, now I want to do. I’m introduced now to tensions I didn’t have before.

 Fundamental truth is that the flesh will speak for self and the Spirit will speak for God. Flesh is the old man, the creature. God’s Spirit has quickened the new man from the creator. I think about this in light of the saints of old, particularly David. Remember David’s sin with Bathsheba? We can just see this whole thing playing out as David is on the rooftop while his army is away at war. He looks across the way and sees Bathsheba in the bathtub. Suddenly David has a choice to make. He knows what God has said about marriage and he knows what God wants him to do. He understands God’s design that it is for his best, but the old man is saying, “She’s ok. And not only that. It’s not just that you’re a man and she’s a woman and her husband is away. But you’re the king!”

 He knew that God had anointed him and made him king. He knew that he was only king by God’s good grace. But he yielded to lust and pride and then he lied and connived and manipulated and took what he wanted. He not only paid the price; many others paid the price for his sin. We read about it in the 51^st Psalm and the 32^nd Psalm, how miserable he was, how his bones were like wax and how he is wetting the bed with his tears ever night.

 The old David would say, “Go get her, king.” And the Spirit of God is saying. “Don’t.” But he yielded to the old and he paid for it and was miserable. We can just see that play out -- God’s design on the one hand versus the wrong object of satisfaction on the other. It led to trouble and turmoil and serious consequences.

 Let me share with you a word of good news. This conflict, this tension between the two natures, gets more lopsided as we grow. That’s good. But there’s a key to it. As we grow as Christians, this sense of conflict, while it never completely goes away, it becomes more lopsided as we renew our minds first of all. If you have lived long enough life to pollute your mind, to fill your gray matter with the wrong grooves and the wrong stuff, that has to be deal with.

 Paul says be transformed, changed, grow, by the renewing of your mind. That’s why we are in the Bible and get the Bible in us. That’s why we meditate on Scripture and read Scripture and hear Scripture and proclaim Scripture. It’s God’s truth, it’s eternal truth and over time it will work a change in our minds, a change that desperately needs to happen. If we are not in the Bible as Christians on a regular basis, we are in for a longer, harder tussle. We are hurting ourselves as well as the reputation of the One who saved us. We have to be people who get into the Bible and get the Bible into us so that we become renewed, then the choices become easier to make.

 We need to renew our minds, and secondly, we need to serve. We need to get out of ourselves. We need to put ourselves deliberately into positions of service for two reasons. One is to get my focus off me. I have lived years loving me and putting me first and stroking me. God is saying no, I’ll handle you. You serve others. Jesus said the Son of man didn’t come to be served, but to serve. He said you, as My followers aren’t greater than I am. Getting ourselves into the service of other people gets our focus off ourselves, and that’s a healthy thing. “Oh, woe is me.” Get out of you and serve somebody who has a need you can meet and you’ll be amazed at how therapeutic that is for that whining old “me.”

 The second thing it does is to cause us to increase in faith. When we put ourselves in an unfamiliar situation of service, we have to trust God because that’s not our world. We see God provide the resources, the strength, the interest, the time, the energy, and the fruit. We see Him work when we step outside of ourselves, a patently biblical notion.

 The conflict will become lopsided as we renew our minds and as we serve. If you’re happy with conflict, if you love tug and pull and misery, don’t. But if you like to see it diminish over time, get in the Book and get into the kingdom work.

The believer is not under the Law (5:18)

¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

This does not mean that the Law is not relevant or that the Law doesn’t matter. When I say Law, I put a capital ‘L’ and I think Ten Commandments. You’re not under the Law. That doesn’t mean the Ten Commandments aren’t valid. It doesn’t mean now it’s ok to go out and do all the stuff that the Ten Commandments say don’t do. It does mean that life is now lived on a higher plane than thinking we have to keep rules in order to get right with God. Keeping rules won’t make us right with God.

Someone who is under the Law thinks, “I have to do this or else God won’t like me. I have to do this to be right with God.” That’s what it means to be under the Law. Paul says you’re not under the Law if you are led by the Spirit of God. Being led by the Spirit of God is not some weird, ethereal, mystical thing where I sit around and wait for the Spirit of God to steer me.

Let’s talk in terms of dogs. The dog who is not trained has been running doing whatever he or she wants to do. If you put that dog on a leash, you have your hands full. Those of you who have been there understand how that works. Led by the Spirit of God suggests more the image of the critter who is on a leash and following right along in step, stopping when you stop, sitting when you stay. Led by the Spirit of God means we are on the leash and we are doing as the Spirit would dictate that we do according to God’s word.

If we are believers and have committed our way to Him, we’re not under the Law any more. You don’t have to stop and think, “I have to keep these rules or God won’t like me.” “Oh, my, I broke one. Now what do I do? God must be mad at me.” Under the Law is not a good thing, but it does have a certain appeal to the flesh because when we do keep a rule we think we’re pretty good, we’re ok.

The Law and the flesh are not good for each other. The believer not being under Law means that life is now lived on the higher ground of relationship with God. If we are Christians, that means we have a new relationship with an eternal God. Keeping the Law is religion. Rules, rules, rules. We need to understand this a little bit better. We are led by the Spirit in submission to the Spirit. The Spirit, who lives in us, is a Person.

The Bible says don’t grieve the Spirit. He’s a Person. Don’t quench the Spirit. He’s a Person with a will, with intellect, with emotions. Be in a relationship with God. That is living at a much high plane than simply slavishly trying to keep some rules we hope will get us right with the God of Heaven.

Under Law has strong influence over the flesh but no longer for the believer. This is what it means: “You’re no longer under Law,” Paul says. In other words, you no longer have to give yourselves to slavish works. You no longer have to live with confusion. “Did I do that right?” Confusion or fear. “What if I still go to hell? I tried and tried and worked and worked and kept and kept and I’m still not sure.”

We don’t any longer need to compare ourselves with others. Because we’re so focused on ourselves and our behavior it’s natural for us to look around and see how everybody else is doing. That is devastating and harmful and totally unproductive. We don’t have to do that any more. You’re not under Law, no need to compare with others. No room now for pride and factions based on your performance. No artificial boundaries of moral or spiritual status.