Sermon Outline

The Flesh Galatians 5.13

Introduction

Galatians is a letter explaining the true Gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ. In chapter 1 Paul explains his personal call to the apostolic ministry, and the personal revelation of the Gospel to him. In chapter 2 he tells how the Gospel was affirmed by the other apostles and how he rebuked Peter for not following it. In chapters 3 and 4 the Gospel of grace (a gift) and faith (not law keeping) is explained. In chapter 5.1-12, Paul appeals to the Galatian Churches not to return to the Law for righteousness but to walk in the freedom of faith.

If I am free from the Law then what guides my behavior? Can I do whatever I feel like doing? Romans 6.1

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Flesh in the New Testament

1) Physical Body. 1 Corinthians 15.39; Galatians 2.20

2) Humanity. In general, Galatians 2.16; Human origin, Galatians 4.23,29; Human perspective, 2 Corinthians 5.16, 10.1-4; Human effort, Galatians 3.3

3) Unbelievers. “In the flesh” is a description of all of humanity under the control of sin in need of salvation in Jesus Christ. Romans 7.5; 7.14; 7.18; 8.1-9

4) Residual sin in the believer. Romans 8.10-11

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Conclusion

If you are “in the flesh” you need salvation in Jesus Christ.

If you are a believer you need to walk in the Spirit so you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5.16

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Sermon

The Flesh Galatians 5.13

-In this letter to the churches of Galatia, Paul is teaching the believers about the true Gospel of Jesus Christ that has delivered them from sin. …Gospel simply means “good news”. …In the first chapter Paul tells them how God had personally called him to be an apostle of this good news message of deliverance from sin. …Most of you have read about Paul’s dramatic encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. …He also tells them how God directly revealed this good-news-message to him and that it was not a message taught to him by men. …Paul was God’s man with God’s message. …His authority.

-In chapter two Paul tells them how this Gospel was affirmed by the apostles in Jerusalem when he presented it to them, and how he once rebuked Peter for failing to live up to the truth of the Gospel when he hypocritically started to practice the OT food laws and separated himself from the Gentile believers in the church of Antioch.

-Then in chapters three and four Paul explained to the Galatian believers that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of grace that is received by faith. …The Gospel is a message of grace because God forgives sin and gives a person the Holy Spirit as a gift and not as a reward for human effort. …The Gospel is received by faith because it is based on the promise of God and not the OT Law. …God gives His Spirit and eternal life to those who put their faith in Jesus Christ. …God will not give His Spirit and eternal life to those who try to be good enough to earn their way to heaven, and who put faith in themselves or a religious system.

-In chapter 5 Paul warns the Galatian churches about the false teachers who taught them that they needed to keep the Jewish Law to be righteous before God. …The Galatian believers were in danger of rejecting the true Gospel of Jesus Christ which teaches righteousness and forgiveness of sins by grace and faith and not by keeping the Jewish Law or any law. …Paul taught the Galatian believers that in response to their faith God had declared them righteous in Jesus Christ and that they were no longer required to keep the Jewish Law to be righteous before God. …In Christ they were free from the Law and all its demands and its condemnation. …They were fully and completely accepted by God in Jesus Christ without the Law. …This is the teaching of justification by faith alone.

-So we come to verse 13 of chapter 5. …This verse presumes an important question which Paul answers with a combination of command and warning. …The question could go something like this. …“If I am free from the law as the Gospel teaches then what is to guide my behavior?” …“Does my freedom in Christ from God’s law mean that I can do whatever I feel like doing and still be fully and completely accepted by God?”

-When I went off to the University of Waterloo at the age of 19 I was free. …I was living on my own for the first time and had no one to tell me what to do and I did as I pleased. …I had coke and ice cream for breakfast and stayed up late at night. ..Within two months I ended up in the hospital with severally swelled knees and spent a couple of weeks recovering. …When you are given freedom, who guides your behavior, and when you are free from the law how do you know how to live?

-A right understanding of the Gospel and the teaching of Justification by faith will bring up that kind of question because the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of grace and faith, teaches that when I put my faith in Christ for forgiveness of sins, I am also made fully and completely and forever righteous before God, whether I live in sin or live a holy life. …As a Christian I am truly free from all restraints of God’s Law as well as the condemnation of the law.

-In Romans 6.1, after teaching about Justification by faith, Paul assumes that someone who understands the true Gospel of grace and faith in Jesus Christ would ask this question. …“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” …This invisible man is asking, “if I am free from the Law in Christ, as Justification teaches, then what prevents me from continuing to live in sin?” …“By continuing in sin I am proving the greatness of God’s saving grace.” …“I have left the way of legalism, trying to keep a whole list of rules and regulations, so now what keeps me from living in sin without any rules?” …That is where Paul has come to in this letter to the Galatians in his argument against keeping the law to try and be righteous before a Holy God.

-Paul says, “yes you are called to be free, but one thing you cannot do is use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature”. …The reality is that when God saves us He puts His Holy Spirit into us and that changes the desires of our heart and the direction of our life. …It is the Holy Spirit of God and the Word of God which is to guide our behavior as a Christian.

-The Christian soon discovers that with the indwelling Holy Spirit comes a struggle between the Spirit in the believer and the flesh in the believer. …The struggle with the power of sin that continues to indwell the believer is what this second part of Galatians chapter 5 is about. …Before we look at the struggle between the Spirit and the flesh we need to understand the Biblical term flesh, and that is what we will spend the rest of this morning trying to understand. …This morning we will only examine how the word flesh is used in the NT and next week we will look more specifically at flesh in the Christian.

-The Bible uses the word “flesh” in four ways. …The first two ways that we will talk about have no sinful implications. …The last two very clearly describe the result of sin that has completely infected the human race.

1) To describe the physical body: Flesh describes the meat on bones of animals and fish and people. …1 Corinthians 15.39. …Flesh also describes the body as a whole. …Galatians 2.20 “body”=flesh.

2) To describe humanity:

a) Flesh describes humanity in general. …Galatians 2.16 “one”=flesh=Human being.

b) Flesh describes human origin. …Galatians 4.23, 29 “in the ordinary way”=according to flesh. …Romans 1.3, Jesus was born “according to flesh”.

c) Flesh describes a human perspective. 2 Corinthians 5.16 “a worldly point of view”=according to flesh 2X. …2 Corinthians 10.1-4 “by the standards of this world”=according to flesh. v3-4 “in flesh walking but not according to flesh we war, for the weapons of our warfare not fleshly but powerful through God”.

d) Flesh describes human effort. …Galatians 3.3 “human effort”=flesh.

-In these first two uses of the word “flesh” there is no connection of flesh with sin. …Flesh is a descriptive word for the physical body and by extension humanity in general, human origin, human perspective, and human effort.

-Even though the word flesh does not have any connection with sin in these uses, flesh often implies weakness, the temporary, a limited perspective, and lack of spiritual power. …Flesh is frail, imperfect, and limited in understanding. …What a person needs is to add the Holy Spirit to frail humanity, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ ” (John 3.6-7) …Paul also teaches us that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1 Corinthians 15.50) …So all of mankind needs to add a Spirit dimension to their humanity.

-Paul takes the word “flesh” and adds a negative, sinful connection to it which becomes very important in his teaching on Sanctification, the process of becoming holy people.

3) To describe unbelievers: Flesh describes all of mankind under the complete control of sin. …When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, an evil power so pervasive, so deceptive, so consuming, a power stronger than the Devil, a power second only in power to God, came to reside in mankind, and this power is called sin. …Every single child born into this world inherits the guilt of sin and the moral corruption of sin.

-If you are not a Christian this morning then you are under the control of sin and you are guilty before God and morally corrupt before God.

–In the flesh is a term that describes the unbeliever, a person who is separated from God, and completely under the control of sin. …Flesh describes mankind in his fallen condition, dead in sin and separated from God.

–Romans 7.5: “sinful nature” is the NIV translation for “flesh”. …For now I am going to use the word “flesh”. …Literally verse 5 says, “For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins through the law operated in our members to bear fruit to death”. …Paul is describing a time before his conversion when he did not know God and describes himself as being “in the flesh”. …Paul’s description of himself apart from Christ is “in the flesh”. …Paul saw himself as under the complete control of sin and called this condition “in the flesh”.

-When Paul was “in the flesh” the passions of sins controlled his body and produced the fruit of death. …Paul was a righteous Pharisee and was dedicated to worship God and good works, yet he called these works the fruit of death. …It is not a person’s actions that God looks at but their heart, and in Paul’s case when he was “in the flesh”, all that he did was considered the fruit of death in relation to God because it came from the flesh, the sin controlled man.

-The most moral man in the world who is not a Christian is “in the flesh”. …The acts of the flesh might be “sexual immorality, and hatred, and envy and drunkenness”, but gentlemen, and religious leaders and church goers, and responsible citizens are just as much in the flesh as the obvious sinner if the Holy Spirit does not live in them. …Remember the Pharisees and priests in the time of Jesus. …All who are not believers are slaves to sin and “in the flesh”.

–Romans 7.14: …“Unspiritual” is “fleshy”. …Literally, “For we know that the law spiritual is; but I am fleshy, having been sold under sin.” …To be in the flesh is to be under the control of sin, sold as a slave to sin.

–Romans 7.18. …This is not the struggle of a Christian, but the anguished cry of a man who is in the flesh and who realizes that a change needs to take place in his life, but who also realizes the complete control of sin over his life. …This man does not have the Spirit of God in him and so is powerless as a slave to sin. …He is still in the flesh and controlled by the flesh. …Flesh describes an unbeliever, who is completely under the control of sin and who is powerless to free himself from the power of sin. …Apart from Christ and the Holy Spirit there is no freedom from sin.

–Romans 8.1-4: …Verses 1-2 makes it clear that in Christ we are free from the law which supports sin and condemns us to death. …This is Justification. …Verses 3-4 tell us that the Law is powerless to help us when we are in the flesh because we are sold out to sin, controlled by sin, powerless to free ourselves from sin. …But God did what the law could not do by sending His Son in likeness of flesh. …Jesus was not in the flesh, under the complete control of sin as we flesh people were, but He took our sin upon Himself and paid the penalty for our sin, so that we might be declared righteous before a Holy God. …In Christ we fulfill the righteous requirements of the law and become Spirit controlled people and no longer flesh controlled people.

–Romans 8.5-8: …Now notice the contrast between flesh people and believers with the Holy Spirit. …The flesh is hostile to the true God of the Bible who is Holy and Sovereign, and demands that all men and women call upon Jesus Christ and the work of the cross for salvation. …Those controlled by the flesh can never please God and do not belong to God. …Only those who have the Holy Spirit belong to God.

–Romans 8.9: …Literally, “But you are not in flesh but in Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone has not Spirit of Christ, this one is not of Him”. …Those in the flesh do not belong to Christ. …Only those who have the Spirit of God belong to Christ because they are no longer in the flesh.

4) To describe the residual sin that continues to live in the believer.

–Romans 8.10-11: …Even in Christ the body is dead because of sin. …The body still has the flesh trying to control it and lead it to sin. …The body will have this flesh component at work in it until the resurrection when our salvation is complete. …Your spirit is completely alive to God, your mind (soul) is being transformed on a daily basis, but your body will not be made new until the resurrection. …The fact that your body is dying is proof that sin continues to indwell the body. (Romans 8.23: 2 Corinthians 4.16-18)

-Nowhere in the NT does it tell us that the flesh is no longer part of the believer’s life. …The controlling power of the flesh is taken away by the cross of Christ but the pull of sin is still strong in the believer’s life. …Apart from the Spirit of God at work in the believer, the believer would continue to live as a person controlled by the flesh and some Christians do. …1 Corinthians 3.1-3 “worldly”=flesh like.

-If you are in the flesh you are in need of salvation and are hostile to God, refuse to submit to God, and cannot please God.

-If you are a Christian the flesh is a constant plague on you that reminds you of the need to walk in the Spirit.

MEDITATIONS FOR THE WEEK

[Take some daily quiet time alone with God]

Monday: Read Romans 7.25. The flesh (sinful nature in NIV) will always be a slave to sin and salvation does not change that. Take time to praise God for salvation and for His Spirit to live not in flesh but in Spirit.

Tuesday: Think about Romans 8.9. Literally “you are not in flesh but in Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Take time to thank God for new life in the Spirit.

Wednesday: Read Ephesians 2.1-3. We all at one time lived to gratify the desires of the flesh. Take time to worship God for the “But” in verse 4.

Thursday: Meditate on Galatians 6.7-10. Are you feeding the flesh or the Spirit day by day? Take time to thank God that you have the privilege of knowing God and then honor Him by sowing to please the Spirit.

Friday: Think about 2 Peter 2.17-22. We need to guard against all appeals to the flesh which continues to reside in our body. Take time to worship God for His Word and for the Holy Spirit within you.

If I firmly believed, as millions say they do, that the knowledge and practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another, then religion would mean to me everything. I would cast away earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as follies, and earthly thoughts and feelings as vanity. Religion would be my first waking thought, and my last image before sleep sank me into unconsciousness. I should labor in its cause alone. I would take thought for the morrow of eternity alone. I would esteem one soul gained for heaven worth a life of suffering. Earthly consequences would never stay my hand, or seal my lips. Earth, its joys and its griefs, would occupy no moment of my thoughts. I would strive to look upon Eternity alone, and on the immortal souls around me, soon to be everlastingly happy or everlastingly miserable. I would go forth to the world and preach to it in season and out of season, and my text would be, WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN IF HE GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD AND LOSE HIS OWN SOUL?

–Written by an atheist and used by God to motivate C. T. Studd to all-out dedication to Christ.