Why does doing the right thing feel like a constant battle you keep losing?
WATCH
Fruit of the Root, from June 7, 2026
“We grow in love as we walk with God’s Spirit.”
Galatians 5 & 1 Corinthians 13 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon teaches that believers grow in love—the loyal, selfless choice to act in others’ best interests—as they walk with and surrender to God’s Spirit, rather than by adding more rules to their faith. Pastor Michael explains that the “flesh” is the broken, sinful influence of the world, already crucified in Christ, and that Christians are drafted into the Spirit’s stronger, victorious battle, where love fulfills the whole law.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What do we believe is the strongest influence in our world?
💬 What works of our flesh do we consider excusable?
💬 How does trusting God’s definition of love reshape our relationships?
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Well, hey, good morning, church.
I grew up as a chicken nugget kid. Y' all know what I mean? Chicken nugget kid. Have you met a chicken nugget kid? Have you been a chicken nugget kid?
Okay, some of you have not. So what? Chicken nugget kid is a kid. It does not matter where you go, doesn't matter what kind of restaurant it is. It doesn't matter what, like, price range, bracket kind of restaurant it is.
They're just always going to order chicken nuggets, right? It doesn't. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Like, they could be.
The thing is crazy, as an adult now, I see this happen sometimes, and I'm like, those are like. Those are like the Walmart freezer nuggies that got microwaved. And I just paid $20 for a plate of five, like, nuggets that I could have bought a whole bag of for, you know, 10. Like, I don't know. Anyway, so I grew up, like, as a chicken nugget kid, I didn't eat salad.
Did not believe in salad. Green is against the law. Did not do fruits. I would eat steak. If dad likes to sometimes cook Delmonico's, I could do chicken with barbecue sauce on the side.
Like, if we were doing baked chicken or something like that, I could do that. But chicken nuggets, was it. Ramen noodles and chicken nuggets, that was all I needed for most of my growing up. I didn't know that there was anything else. If you are or have been or you are raising a chicken nugget kid, let me tell you what happened in my life.
I met a girl.
I met a girl and her family, Lord bless them, they did this thing that I had never really known was a thing where they cook. And I've heard the term from scratch, but never understood what it meant. Do you know that what it means to cook something from scratch is you start with just a bunch of ingredients? Ingredients, yes. And then you combine the ingredients and the ingredients become food.
I thought food was just whatever you pull out of the freezer and put in the microwave like that. Like chicken nuggets. Like, what do you do to prepare chicken nuggets? Actually, there's a lot that goes into chicken nugget preparation if you're going to cook them from scratch. I had no idea.
It was a whole new world. And so if I wanted to survive, like this girl, I liked her. I. I wanted to go over to her house and all of her family. Like, they just. They are used to this kind of eating.
And so, like, I've got to sit at the table with her dad, who doesn't say anything, like, doesn't speak, just very quiet. And if the only thing he says to you at dinner is, do you want more peas? You just say, yes, and you eat whatever he's. Because I don't know if he's going to, like, I don't know. So I started.
I started going to this girl's house and started eating with her family, and then I just started having to eat stuff. Right. And have you ever, like, had been required in a situation where you're socially obligated to eat whatever it is that you don't want and all you're working on is trying to control what your face.
I gotta get this. I gotta pretend like I like it. And the thing is, it doesn't matter. Like, today I would laugh at myself, like, watching myself eat peas, because I like peas, and peas are good. And when you cook peas, right, they taste delicious, right?
All right. Some of us, not every, we all, hey, Jesus welcomes all of us. We're all in our season of sanctification. Like, I would laugh at myself now because I, like many of the things that I like, turn my. My nose up at as a kid because I just.
It was good food. I just wasn't exposed to it, right? Or it's not that I wasn't exposed to it. It sounds like my parents didn't try. Like, I just refused to cooperate up until I was motivated to impress a girl.
Right. And sometimes that's how it happens. So if you are raising a chicken nugget kid, there's hope, but maybe it's not like, like uniform, whatever. So I tell you all of that story to say, like, there can be good things that when we first approach them, we turn our nose up at. There are things that we can look at and somebody can say, oh, this is good, or this is good for you.
And they show it to you, and you, like, taste and see, and you're like, this is not good. This is uncomfortable. This is unusual. The texture is just, ah, I don't like it. And it's not that it's necessarily, in and of itself a bad substance.
Peas are not poison.
But it's that we just, like. It's not our taste. It's not something that we're familiar with. It's not something that we have yet learned to enjoy. Can we concede that?
All right. We've not yet learned to enjoy them. So at neighborhood meal, we are Having a pee, a pea buffet, all different varieties of peas. Just kidding. That's why they don't let me cook around here.
Lord help us. Let's pray.
I'm gonna ask you to pray with us. We've been looking at Galatians, and we're gonna open up a section, start a brand new series. So if you haven't been with us, it's a good place to jump in. A brand new series. But we're talking about those fruits or, or those things that are good for us, that maybe at first blush we're like, I don't know, I really need that.
That's probably not as good as everybody says it is, right? So let's pause and let's pray. It's our habit as neighborhood church to pray the disciples prayer. And this isn't like a magic spell or anything. It's just like Jesus said, this is how you ought to pray.
And it's easier if we all kind of use the same words. So as we're praying, I'm going to ask you to take a breath and kind of think about the words that you're saying. And don't just recite them, but express them from you, whoever you are, to God, he wants to hear from you today. And so let's take a deep breath together.
And let's pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. Would you navigate with me to Galatians, chapter five? And we're going to pick up in some verses that Pastor Ryan read last week, But I want to pick up kind of where we're going now.
When we open up the Bible, we're kind of opening up a library. There's a number of different books, a number of different letters that are in what we call the Bible. And this one is called, called Galatians because it was written to a number of different churches that are in a region of ancient Rome called Galatia. And so Paul is somebody who has started these churches. He came through and traveled around the region and preached the gospel of Jesus.
And people trusted that gospel, they believed that gospel, and they started gathering together to talk about Jesus. And that's what a church is. A church is a group of people together that are on the mission of Jesus working out the love of Jesus in their community. So as he moves on and as he travels on, he leaves. And this community or some of these communities in this region have become begin to be influenced by somebody who says, it's great that you have Jesus, but Jesus by himself, like, trusting Jesus is not enough.
You actually have all these other rules and obligations that if you follow them, they're going to help you be the kind of person that, like, Jesus is going to accept. And so you need to, like, trust Jesus, but also earn his acceptance by following these kind of rules and things like that. And these are people who are like, okay, like, probably that's helpful. I'm not good by myself, so maybe if I add some rules, I'll be a better person. And Paul, as he's writing this letter, is really, really upset.
It's not about, like, adding the rules to make Jesus better. It's about, like, trusting more and more in Jesus. And that's what he's been talking about through this whole thing. And so we're going to pick up in Galatians in chapter five. I'm going to start reading in verse 13.
So as he says, as he's kind of explaining don't, or he's explaining, you don't need to add these rules. He says, you've been set free from these rules. Don't then return to them and make yourself a slave to them. So, so it says in verse 13, for you were called to freedom, brothers, you're free. 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. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 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. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
I'll pause there. We'll continue reading. We'll finish out the rest of those verses this morning. But let me just pause there. He says, you were called to freedom.
You were set free. When you put your faith in Jesus, he sets you free from having to follow the laws or the rules, the rules that you formerly went by, like those things you're set free from. He says, but just because you're set free doesn't mean that you should just do whatever it is that you want. Now, he says, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. That's how the whole law is fulfilled.
He says, verse 16. But I say, walk by the spirit and you'll not gratify the desires of the flesh. So in this passage, as we kind of look at it, there are two opposing forces that are at war in this. You've got A, the spirit and you've got B, the flesh, the spirit. What does it say in verse 17?
For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit. The desires of the spirit are against the flesh. These are opposed to each other. You've got two things in conflict, the spirit and the flesh. He says, don't take your freedom and use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh to take over.
Don't. Don't trust in your ability to, like, be good enough. He says, in fact, well, I'm getting. I'm getting kind of ordered. Both the flesh and the spirit are in conflict.
But get this real quick, because I think sometimes we start to get mushy and we've heard a lot of different things and we're like, what are we actually talking about? Listen, you've got the spirit and you've got the flesh, and neither of those things is you. You are not the flesh and you are not the spirit of God. Neither of those things is you. You are you, and you've got the spirit and the flesh who are opposed to one another.
He says the desires of. In verse 17, the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. These are opposed to. To each other to keep. What's the word?
You from doing the things that you want to do. So you've got spirit and flesh, and you are somewhere in the middle. You are the battleground of what's going on here. You are not your flesh and you are not the spirit of God. I don't know that is helpful to me to, like, know that it's like.
Like I am not the one who is necessarily, like, in charge of all of this. Your flesh is not just your body. Like, that's. I think the first thing I go to is like, oh, my flesh is weak. My knees hurt.
My feet have been bothering me for months now, and I need, like, gel insoles or something. I don't know. Like, my flesh is at, like. Obviously my flesh is weak because my body hurts. But your flesh is not your body.
He's not trying to set up this dualism where like everything that's material, everything that's made out of stuff, your body is evil and then everything that's made out of spirit is good. He's not saying that those are two like completely separate words. He's saying your body is part of you, but you is not your flesh. So what is the flesh? The flesh is a set of impulses and assumptions which align with the prevailing influence of the sin corrupted world.
So how many of us know the world is broken? Yeah, so the world is broken. It wasn't made broken, it was made good. But the world that we inhabit now is broken. And there's a set of assumptions and there's a set of impulses, there's a default way that the world works that is broken.
And we, when we're born into a broken world, we actually adopt all of those broken influences and assumptions. Some of them came from your family, some of them came from where you went to school, some of them even came from your busted church where you grew up. Like we get all of these things that any thought or idea or impulse or attitude that's aligned with the brokenness in the world is actually like the flesh as an influence. The flesh is not you. The those thoughts, ideas, impulses are not necessarily you, but they are an influence that you may choose to listen to.
In fact, you not only may choose to listen to the flesh and that influence, you want to listen to that influence. What does he say? The desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. These are opposed to each other. Why?
To keep you from doing the things you want to do. So given the choice, we need the spirit and the flesh to be in opposition to one another because given the choice, you would choose the flesh to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But verse 18. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. So remember as, as Paul's kind of writing, these are people who probably thought that by adding a bunch of extra rules to Jesus that they were, they were a little bit safer, they were safer from themselves.
They weren't necessarily like lusting after all these passions. These were people who like felt like they were in control and they needed these rules to kind of box them in. But he's saying here that adding law to, to Jesus spirit does nothing to combat our desire for what is wrong.
The problem isn't that you've got good and evil. The problem is that you want to do evil. Like, left to your own devices, apart from the grace of God, you want to do things that are bad. And adding rules to your desire to want to do something bad doesn't make the desires go away.
Your wanter wants what it wants.
Law. And following the law and adding those rules. Like, if we're like, okay, I know that I want bad things, but I shouldn't do bad things, and I don't want those bad things. So let me add a bunch of rules to make sure that I never do the bad things that I really want to do. Do you want to know where it says that that ends up?
You end up in interpersonal conflict over that. In fact, when you start to do that, you actually start to destroy other people. He says, and I'm going to go back up. You're 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. But if you're not doing that, if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you're not consumed by one another. He's going to come back to this idea, like, later on in verse 26, too. He says, when you add rules to Jesus, not only does it make Jesus any better, it actually puts you in conflict with the other people who are trying to follow Jesus, like, adding that kind of stuff.
Because here's the thing. When you add rules, when you add rules, you must become the police for everybody else.
You don't know that.
How many of us know when our friend is on a diet.
As soon as you go and eat with him? Because if you have added additional rules to your life, you want everybody around you to know what rules you're doing, and they kind of want you to help me out here. Like, I can't eat chocolate today. And so you putting that cake out at lunchtime is just not fair, right?
When we embrace, like, I need these rules to keep me safe, we then have to police everybody around us to make sure that they are following the same rules that are supposed to keep me safe. And I'm trying to stay safe. I'm trying to stay on the light line, and we're trying to do what's right. And in the end, what we end up doing is destroying other people. We bite and devour and nitpick other people to death.
Michael, that's very extreme. Have y' all been to church? Like, have you been in a place where we are. Like, I think what we're Trying to do here is good. We want to follow Jesus.
Oftentimes we need some temporary rules to help us keep in step. But sometimes we can get so fixated on the thing that Jesus is trying to do in me and that we turn around and start to beat people with the thing that Jesus is trying to do in me instead of letting them meet us where we're at.
Freedom from sin should lead us to love others. That's what he says in verses 13 and 14. The whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You want to do all the rules, then love your neighbor.
Be a good neighbor. Neighborhood, church. That would be a good name for a church. Probably.
The goal of the law was to get us to love our neighbor as ourself.
And the solution to our desire for sin is surrendering to the Spirit's leading. Like, the problem is not that. Like the problem is not that there is sin in the world. The problem is that I want to do the sin that is in the world. And the solution to my desires is to surrender to the desires of the Spirit.
To say, spirit, you want things that are better for me, and I'm just going to let you do those things in me. And the example that he gives here and later on is love. And so the big idea for this morning is that we grow in love as we walk with God's spirit. Like as we walk with God's spirit, as we stay in step with God and his will and his desire and his work in the world. If we are walking in step with him, we are going to grow in love.
We grow in love as we walk with God's spirit. Here's the deal. I like to think about dualism. I actually am very influenced by this idea of dualism, that you've got the flesh and you've got the spirit, and these are at war with one another. And then I like to internalize all of that and say that this is all happening in me and I'm the one that's broken and I can't do anything right.
And I have all those voices in my head. And I tend to think that these are like equal but opposing forces. I picture the yin yang, right? You've got dark and light, and they're at war with one another and who's going to win? But that's not the picture of the conflict that he's articulating here.
He does not say the flesh and the spirit are opposed to one another. And you just, you better hope the Spirit wins. You better Pray that maybe God can overcome the desires of the flesh because. Because it's a tough battle for him.
What did it say? Verse 16. But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And verse 18. But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.
The Spirit is stronger than the influence of the flesh. They are not equal parties. The Spirit of God is greater than the fleshly influences in the world.
And surrender to the Spirit makes the flesh powerless.
You want to know why I tell you that this morning?
Because I needed to be reminded myself.
Think about, like your daily operation. Think about how you listen to the news. Think about, like, your approach when you're walking into the workspace. What do you actually believe is the strongest influence in our world?
Because most days I'm pretty sure the shadows are winning and the darkness is overcoming. And what God says is the darkness is passing away, the true light is already shining. And that if I walk by the Spirit, I'll not gratify the desires of the flesh, that the spirit is stronger than the flesh. The problem then is who do I surrender to? Who do I say?
You get to have your way today.
Fascinating. It's why we read from 2nd Peter. May the grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, our Lord, his divine power. Jesus, divine power has granted, has granted completely, already, has given you all things, not some things, not a couple things. All things his divine power has granted to us, all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.
So that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature. So that through them you may partake, communicate with, be inhabited by the divine nature. That's not you. Having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires, I tend to think like that flesh voice is so loud, it's so natural. It's the thing that I impulsively want to follow.
And so I assume that it's stronger, but it's just louder. The strength and the meekness of God stands to the side and says, I have provided everything. And I in the middle go, you haven't provided anything. Hear them loud, hear them yelling, hear them screaming. Hear that desire flaming up in me.
And he's like, I have provided everything. Will you surrender and let me? Will you let me? Will you let me? And most days I say, I Think, I got this.
I'm going to go to war. I'm going to fight this out. He's like, I have provided all things that pertain to life and godliness so that you might become partakers of the divine nature.
The law should have grown in us a dependence on the Spirit of God. But instead we twisted it and warped it to think that we could depend on ourselves.
One commentator I have come to respect a lot. His name is David da Silva. He writes this, which just completely flips everything that I want to think. He says, the Spirit is not a resource that can help us in our battle. 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.
Instead of saying, like God, will you help me with this fight? Will you help me with this fight? The Spirit says, I am overcoming? Are you going to fight with me? Are you going to be on my team?
Or are you going to be on the other team?
I'm not only inviting you, I'm drafting you into the winning army, if you will come. Will you come? Will you surrender? Will you give up this fight in your own strength and your own ability?
We tend to think that we want to make use of the Holy Spirit. I want the Holy Spirit to empower me so that I can do something profitable. When in fact, what we ought to do is just give up and let the Holy Spirit use us for his purpose.
Because we grow in love as we walk with God's spirit.
Well, Michael, that's kind of up in the clouds. Like, I hear what you're saying. Maybe that could be profitable. Like, can you give me some? Give me something tangible?
Can you give me something I can, like, sink my teeth into?
Let's read some more verses. I can give you some examples of what we do under the influence of the flesh or under the influence of the Spirit. Let's read starting in verse 19. Excuse me. Galatians 5.
19. Now, the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 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, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another now.
So he says, all right, you want to. That's all up in the air. You want some practical things. You want some tangible things. You want something you can see, taste, touch.
This is it. Like, he gives this list of contrasting fruit. He's got the fruit that is the fruit of the flesh. When we surrender to the desires of the flesh, that these are the things that are produced. And he's got a list that when we surrender to the desires of the spirit, these other things get produced.
These are the results either of walking in the flesh or walking in the spirit. So I say that, like, as a result, because oftentimes when I come to these things, I'm like, oh, oh, this is a list of do's and don'ts. He's not giving you a list of do's and don'ts. He's giving you a list of the symptoms and telling you that the problem is your surrender to the sinful desire. The solution is to trust Jesus.
But these are the ways. How do I know if I'm trusting Jesus? Well, what's showing up in your life? What do you see here?
I want to read the list again, but I feel kind of yucky saying it, don't I? You guys don't want to hear it. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, like.
Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies. And things like these. Like, we look at that fruit and some of those things we go, oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that. Yeah, yeah, that's bad. That's bad.
That's definitely fruit of the flesh. Like, that's bad. We should avoid that. That's not. We don't want that growing in life.
And some of the things we're just like, isn't that just the Internet? Isn't that just the comments section? Isn't that just like my wall? They don't do walls anymore. What is it on Facebook now?
Isn't that just my feed?
I'm old. Sorry.
The works of the flesh. I think if you kind of look at the whole list together and you're like, okay, how do I describe what this is? The works of the flesh are decidedly anti. Relational.
Did I do that? I think I'm missing a slide.
I missed a slime. I did. So if you're looking for the blanks, the works of the flesh are decidedly anti relational. I was going to say antisocial, but I think that's something different. Like antisocial is like, I don't want to talk to anybody.
And sometimes that's healthy. Sometimes we just need to get away. But anti relational is like anything that we do that is harming relationships with other people. Like, I mean, where does the church get off talking about sexual immorality? Like how do they get to say, how do they get to define what is immoral or what's moral or what's immoral?
Well, the question is what causes relational harm? Do we really think that like serially sleeping with different people every night of the week isn't causing emotional or relational harm? Do we, do we really think that if we embrace our sexual temptations like that we're going to be satisfied? Has anybody, has anybody ever come to the bottom of that barrel? We cause harm to others and we cause harm to ourself when we don't follow what it is or when we are living out of the desires of the flesh, when we're just letting the flesh take over.
Logically, yes, love is love. In reality, using others to gratify my own lustful desires is not love, whether they consent or not. And I say that and we're in June. And so people are like, oh yeah, tell the homosexuals. It's true of heterosexuals too.
Like regardless of what sexuality you're talking about, like using other people for your own sexual desires is the antithesis, the opposite of what it is that Jesus wants to grow in us.
Sexual immortality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery. The thing that's interesting about this word sorcery that's kind of hidden in the English translation is that it's related to using substances in order to using mind altering substances in order to have a divine experience. Like I want, I really just want to feel, I really want to feel connected. I really want to feel like I'm on my A game. And so I'm going to use these mind altering substances.
Like that's what they classified as sorcery. Anger fighting, ceding, dissensions, maintaining divisions, holding grudges. All of these things are all on the same list.
I ran across a guy named G.K. chesterton. He was a writer in the UK and in 1909 he said, Men do not differ much about what things they will call evil. So everybody's pretty much on the same page about what they'll call evil. Men do not differ much about what things they will call Evils, they differ enormously about what evils are excusable.
And so it's here in the text. I'm not picking on anybody. I'm just asking, what works of the flesh do we consider excusable?
We can look at a list like that and we can get real uncomfortable, whether it's a sexual immorality or whether it's rivalry, whether it's ceding dissension and enjoying watching people fight, just enjoying the drama of it. Like all of those things are on the same list. What works of our flesh do we consider excusable? And let me just tell you again, the solution is not to just stop and create new rules. The solution is to say, oh, that is coming from my surrender to this fleshly influence.
And instead I ought to surrender my life to Jesus and his desires. Because we grow in love and in relationship. When we walk with God's spirit, we. Good. Cool.
Here's some good stuff. The fruit of the Spirit. When we're walking in step and surrendering to the desires of the spirit, the fruit of the spirit, what he grows is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness, gentleness, self control.
It's interesting. The fruit is singular. It is the fruit of the spirit. There's only one fruit, but the fruit has all of these facets. Like, I mean, you talk about an orange, an orange is an orange.
It's not really that complicated. Oh, I googled like the parts of an orange, and it's pretty complicated. You can dissect that whole thing. There's parts and labels for everything. There's stuff that I even realized, different parts of the peel and different layers and things like that.
But all of those things hold together is the fruit that we call an orange. He says the fruit of the spirit, like the parts of it are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, generalist self control. Against such things, there is no law. Against such things, there is no law. There's another thing that blew my mind this week is that neither of these lists is complete.
It's not exhaustive. He hasn't listed off everything that the Spirit grows, and he hasn't listed off everything that the flesh grows. In both of these instances, there are things like this.
But trusting Jesus is trusting that the flesh and its desires have already been crucified. Did you see that in verse 24, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Trusting Jesus is trusting that the flesh and its desires have already been crucified and no longer exert any Meaningful influence.
I can believe a lot of things, but I think that's probably the hardest thing for me to believe that I've said this morning. The flesh is crucified. Where are all these voices coming from? Where's all that temptation coming from? Where does all that desire to do wrong come?
If it's already dead, why is it yelling so loud? Why is it so much easier for me to just listen to those voices when I also have the word of God calling out to me? But it's there. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. It's dead.
It only has power when we surrender to it. So surrender to the leading of the spirit. And where does the spirit grow? First thing is love, which is where he starts here. But it's also where we started back in verse 13.
You were called to freedom, brothers, or do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled. With one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The peel that wraps all this is serving others and loving others, by the way that we serve. Sorry I didn't get your permission to use your picture, but here we are. I was looking for pictures of people serving, and Kim came up.
So what is love? And this is really how the rest of this sermon series is going to go. So I've done a lot of verses in order to kind of introduce the series and to introduce this idea. But most of what we're going to do over the next couple of weeks is camp out and spend a significant amount of time looking at each of these aspects of the fruit of the spirit. And so what I'm supposed to be doing today is talking to you guys about love.
But I didn't feel like I could just tell you about what love was without also telling you about what the works of the flesh were, because the two things are there next to each other, and both of them, like, are. Yeah, so I did what I did. All right, so what I'd like for us to do, and I'm just going to ask you to flip, let's look at the book of First Corinthians and chapter 13, and I'm going to have to navigate there, too, because I didn't plan ahead and put a bookmark here, but First Corinthians, chapter 13 is on page 1108. If you're using the blue Bible. That's what I'm using here.
They're kind of tucked under the chairs. 1108. First Corinthians, chapter 13. And this is as concise and clear a definition of love as shows up anywhere in the Bible. You'll often hear this passage read or preached in a marriage ceremony, and that's an appropriate application.
But I would just ask you to consider before I read that the picture of love that he's articulating is not in a marriage context. He's talking about in the relationship between church people. Says, this is how the gifts of the Spirit operate together. This is how we love one another as members of Christ in a church body. And I just wonder what kind of church we'd be if we were defined by Jesus love.
So first Corinthians, chapter 13. I'm going to read through verse seven. Says, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind. Love 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. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
So what is love? It's interesting to me that as he's talking about love in the context of how we love one another as like fellow members in a church, he says, hey, by the way, all that showy stuff that gets the most attention. If you do all of that showy stuff without any love, then you're just wasting your time. There is no significant spiritual achievement that can truly be celebrated without a loving attitude. Period.
Best preacher in the world. If he doesn't love you, it doesn't matter. The person who has the most faith and that when they pray, stuff happens. If they're praying in faith but not in love, then they're just wasting their time. There is no significant spiritual achievement that can truly be celebrated without also a loving attitude.
Why is that? You could do all kinds of great things that are worth celebrating. I agree. Except that we grow in love as we walk with God's spirit. We can do things that are impressive to other people, that when God sees our heart, sees that we are actually doing them to build ourselves up and he says, if you do anything in the name of Jesus without the love of Jesus, you are preaching a false gospel.
Verses 1 through 3 It's almost as if like, the whole law could be fulfilled by like, saying like, love your neighbor as yourself, hypothetically. Love is loyal selflessness. There's lots of words, lots of ways, and this is the thing that I keep coming back to for how I phrase the definition of Biblical love. Love is a loyal selflessness. It is the continual decision to loyally act in someone else's best interests, regardless of the cost or the return.
Love is the decision to loyally act in someone else's best interest, regardless of the cost or the return. If I'm loving you and doing loving things to you in order to get you to do things that I want, I have not been loving to you. I am manipulating you. If I love you up until the point where it's going to cost me something, then I have not loved you even up to that point.
Love is loyal selflessness. It's an action. You want to know what love looks like? Read the book. Go back to the beginning and notice all of the times where the people of God have turned away from God, and God continues to act in the in their best interest and continues to give them encouragement and continues to invite them back into a right relationship with them, and continues to remind them of all of the good things that they've forgotten and continues to love them and love them and love them and love them even as they are murdering his son.
Love listens well to understand what the other person is saying rather than just being fixated on ourself. Love listens well. Love is slow to anger and willfully defers to the preferences and the needs of the other person.
I put in parentheses joyfully. I'm not sure if it's joyful, but willfully defers to the preferences and needs of the other person.
Love is respectful in all of its responses.
Love is compassionate and it is long suffering. It takes a long time to love someone. Well, What if that's true?
What if that definition of love is like real?
What if when God says God is love, that this is the love that he's talking about? How does trusting God's definition of love reshape my relationship?
Patient and kind, not envious, doesn't boast, not arrogant, not rude, not insisting on its own way, not irritable, resentful, does not rejoice at wrongdoing, rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all Things. If that's what love is, how does that reshape how I relate to other people? How does that reshape how I love God?
You mean if I really love God, I'm not going to resent him for all the things that I don't think he's done right? You mean if I really love God, then I'm going to be. Be patient and wait for his timing? You mean if I love God, I'm gonna rejoice when he tells me things that are true?
How does trusting God's definition of love reshape our relationships? How does it reshape our relationships with our neighbors? Like friends, family, like you can talk about marriage, relationship, but like in the context he's talking about church.
Not rude, not insisting on its own way. How do I love people well, when clearly I have the right way to do all the things.
Let me give you some homework. Because we grow in love as we walk with God's spirit. I'm going to ask you to send some time with this chapter this week.
And as you do, maybe write it down, maybe just read it. But it's helpful for me to write things down. Just copy these verses down and everywhere it says love, put Jesus name. 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, is not irritable or resentful. Jesus doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
And as you sit with that, as you pray through that, as you write that down, surrender to the Spirit that loves you like that.
Agree with him when he says that all of the desires of the flesh have already been crucified.
Say, Lord, I don't know how I'm going to believe that, but I'm going to trust you to do it because you are patient and kind. You love me perfectly and ask that he would grow you in love as you walk with his spirit. Let's pray.
Lord, there's just a lot, a lot here, a lot that I've touched on, a lot going on in our world and in our hearts. And Jesus, I thank you that I don't have to know it all, but you do. And Lord, not only do you know it all, but you know the best way to shepherd your people through it. And so Jesus, I pray that you would help our hearts and our minds to give attention to the things that are going to be most profitable to how we follow you, Lord. I know that left to my own devices, I'll just.
I'll get fixated on something that's not even the point in order to avoid the thing that yout're asking me to deal with. And so, Jesus, I pray that yout would be working in us to absorb your word, to receive youe message, God, where your Word has been clearly proclaimed. I pray that it would not, we'd not be able to shake it.
Where we've so surrendered to the flesh that we think that we are the flesh, God, I pray that yout would renew our identity in youn, God, where we are so overwhelmed by those voices that are screaming, Father, that yout would assure us that those things have been crucified as we trust yout.
And Jesus, if there's somebody who's hearing my voice that doesn't trust you, that hasn't surrendered to you, Lord, I pray that today would be the day that they do that.
Mystery of mysteries that you would save sinners.
And the greatest conundrum is that you would save me.
So, Jesus, I pray that you show yourself strong, that you would extend your mercy, that your spirit would draw those who are far from you to you, and that they would surrender, that they would trust you even in ways they don't understand.
It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
LINKS
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
