Walking in the Spirit: Faithfulness: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Galatians 5:13-26 [+/-]Galatians 5:13-26 [13]For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. [14]For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." [15]But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. [16]But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. [17]For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. [18]But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. [19]Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, [20]idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, [21]envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. [22]But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23]gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. [24]And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. [25]If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. [26]Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (ESV)

Paul had he lived in our day and in our country would have loved this time of year.  The bowl season has just ended and the Super Bowl is just ahead.  The NBA is in full swing and March Madness is coming fast.  Spring training is just around the corner and the PGA Tour has arrived on the west coast.  And the World Cup is just in front of us.  Paul loved sports.  Read his letter and he uses the sports of his day as tools for teaching truth.  He says for example that he does not run without a goal and does not just punch the air but he disciplines himself to bring himself under control so that what he preaches to others he lives out in his life so as to be a bridge and not become a barrier (1 Corinthians 9:25-26 [+/-]1 Corinthians 9:25-26 [25]Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. [26]So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. (ESV)
).  Or when he gets near the end of his life and wants to describe his journey he uses image from the world of running and fighting:  I have finished the race and fought the good fight.  And here at the pivot point in this passage that is pointing us to how we are to live lives controlled by the Spirit he makes a statement and raises the question:  you were running well; who hindered you?  The word for hindered comes right out of the world of racing in which it was not abnormal for someone to cut in front of another to slow them down just enough to get them off stride and to impede their progress.  Paul is asking these believers:  who did that to you?  That is why your life is not filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit; that is why you are struggling so much; that is why you are so downcast and depressed and not jubilant with joy.  And I want to ask you again this morning at the beginning of this sermon:  who is hindering you?  Here is a promise:  the more committed you are to Jesus as Lord of your life in every way the more certain it is that Satan will place people in your life whose role is to throw you off stride; they don’t mind you being a person of faith, they just don’t want that dimension of your life to dominate all that you are and all that you do.  And the extent to which we listen to their voice is the extent to which we cannot hear His and thus lose the sense of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

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