Why does trying to be a better person never seem to work the way you hope?

Most of us have tried to do the right thing and failed. Not once or twice. Repeatedly, in the same areas, in ways that are genuinely embarrassing when you think about them honestly. You know what you should do. You even want to do it sometimes. And then something else happens instead.

If that sounds familiar, you are in the right place. Because that tension is exactly what the Apostle Paul is talking about in Galatians 5:13-26, and it is what we are digging into in this week's message at Neighborhood Church as we begin a new series on the fruit of the Spirit.

Freedom is not a free pass

Paul has spent the first several chapters of Galatians making the case that salvation comes through trusting Jesus alone, not through following a set of religious rules. But here in chapter 5 he makes an important clarification: just because you are free from the law does not mean it does not matter how you live.

He says, “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. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:13-14).

Here is the interesting thing about rules. When you start adding them to your life as a way to keep yourself in line, you very quickly have to start policing everyone around you too. Think about when someone you know is on a diet. Suddenly every meal together becomes a negotiation. Every piece of cake on the table is a personal offense. When we embrace a rule-based approach to holiness, we end up “biting and devouring each other”, which is exactly the phrase Paul uses (Galatians 5:15). We nitpick, criticize, and judge until we have consumed the very people we were supposed to love.

The solution is not more rules. The solution is something entirely different.

The flesh and the Spirit are not equal opponents

Paul describes two opposing forces at work: the flesh and the Spirit. And it is worth getting clear on what the flesh actually means, because it is not just your physical body.

The flesh is a set of impulses and assumptions that align with the broken, sin-corrupted world. When you were born, you were born into a world that was already broken. And you absorbed all kinds of broken assumptions, some from your family, some from your culture, some from your own experiences. Those worldly patterns of thinking and wanting, the ones that pull you toward what is harmful, that is what Paul means by “the flesh.”

Notice this though: Paul does not say the flesh and the Spirit are equal but opposing forces, like a yin and yang where you just hope the right side wins today. He says, “walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). The Spirit is stronger than the flesh. They are not equal parties.

One writer put it this way: “the Spirit is not a resource that can help us in our battle. Rather, we have been drafted to fight in the Spirit's battle, to fall in line with the Spirit as a commander.” (David A. deSilva)

That completely flips the script. We tend to approach the Holy Spirit the way we approach a power-up in a video game: God, will you give me a boost so I can win this fight? But what Paul is describing is more like the Spirit saying: I am already winning. Are you going to fight with me?

The works of the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit

Paul gets practical. He gives two lists. The first is what grows when we surrender to the flesh: things like sexual immorality, anger, rivalry, jealousy, division, envy (Galatians 5:19-21). When you look at that list as a whole, one thing stands out. These things are all decidedly anti-relational. Every single one of them causes harm to relationships, whether with God or with other people.

Then there is the second list. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Notice Paul calls it fruit, singular. It is one fruit with many facets. All of these qualities belong together, and they all grow from the same source: surrender to the Spirit's leading.

Here is what this is NOT: a to-do list. Paul is not saying, go be more patient. He is saying these are the symptoms of a surrendered life. If you want to know whether you are walking with the Spirit, look at what fruit is growing. What results do you see?

And here is the part that is hardest to believe: Paul says “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). The flesh is already dead. It only has power when we surrender to it. The voices are loud, but loud is not the same as strong.

So what does love actually mean?

Paul wraps this whole passage around one word: love. It opens in verse 13 with love your neighbor and it lands in the fruit of the Spirit list with love as the first thing named.

To understand what that love looks like, 1 Corinthians 13 gives the clearest picture we have. Paul wrote that passage not primarily for weddings, though it gets read at a lot of them, but for ordinary people living in an ordinary church community, figuring out how to get along with each other.

In the first three verses he says you can be the most gifted, most faithful, most generous person in any room. But if what you are doing is not coming from love, it is worth nothing. There is no significant spiritual achievement that can truly be celebrated without a loving attitude.

So what is love? Here is a definition worth sitting with: love is the continual decision to loyally act in someone else's best interests, regardless of the cost or the return. If you are doing loving things in order to get something back, that is not love. That is manipulation. If you love someone right up until it costs you something, you were not actually loving them.

“Love is patient and kind. It does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Read that list slowly and ask: what would my closest relationships look like if this love was my primary operating system?

Here is your homework this week

We grow in love as we walk with God's Spirit. That is the big idea. Not as we try harder, not as we add more rules, not as we guilt ourselves into better behavior. As we walk with the Spirit and surrender to his leading.

So here is a simple thing to do this week. Take those verses from 1 Corinthians 13 and write them down. But everywhere it says love, write Jesus instead.

Jesus is patient and kind.

Jesus does not envy or boast.

Jesus is not arrogant or rude.

Jesus does not insist on his own way.

Read it through. Sit with it. Pray through it.

And then surrender to the Spirit that loves you exactly like that. Agree with him that the desires of the flesh have already been crucified. Ask him to grow in you the fruit that only he can grow.

If you have never trusted Jesus before, that is the starting point. Not the rules, not the performance, just trust. And if you have been trusting your own strength to fight battles that are already won, today is a good day to stop and let the Spirit lead.

We would love to walk through this with you at Neighborhood Church in Ocala. Send us a message, we would be so glad to hear from you. Text 352-236-2211 or email ocala@weareneighborhood.church.

Editor note: This blog summary was generated from a sermon transcript processed by AI and reviewed by a human editor. It is provided for convenience and engagement but may not fully reflect all of the original sermon emphases or explanation. The original writing and delivery of the sermon were done without the input of AI. Please refer to the full message and more importantly the Scripture for complete context and teaching.