03/14/10
Living Out The Gospel
Summary:
To follow the lead of the Holy Spirit simply means learning to hear the voice of God, and do what He says. So, when he moves…we move. When he leads, we follow. When he calls, we go. When he nudges, we respond. When he convicts, we repent. When he asks, we give.
Welcome – It is great to be with you. So, this is the 5th and final week of this series today, but not really.
(Next week, I think we’re going to come back to Galatians 6…and I’m going to do something that we’ve never really done at Harbor. I’ll be giving a sort of ‘state of the union’ Harbor address…and we’ll be talking about where we are as a church, and where God is leading us, and what it’s going to take for us to get there.) So, I’m looking forward to that…
But, for today…let’s go to Galatians, chapter 5…
For the last four weeks, we have discovered that the overarching message of Galatians (which is echoed throughout Scripture) is that God’s heart…his good plan for you and me is that we would live free and full lives…In the same way that a ball was designed to bounce, we were designed by God to be free…free to know and love Him…free to enjoy and love those that he places in our lives…free to delight in His good creation…free to explore and invest in this world with our unique passions and abilities…free to dream, free to hope…and when we live in that way, God is both glorified and delighted…
Paul comes to chapters 5-6 and in what is the crescendo of his letter, Paul describes what this life of freedom looks like and how we might embrace it, so that the freedom that God offers to us becomes not simply a compelling or captivating idea, but something that we can actually experience…a way of life.
Galatians 5:13-15
Paul says…you’ve been called to live in freedom…here’s how...
Galatians 5:16-18 (Flesh vs. Spirit)
Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives…Why is this important?
Illustration – UFC/WWF Brawl going on in your life…If you belong to Jesus Christ, the Bible says that there is an endless brawl/conflict/smack down that is happening in you, deep beneath the surface of your life…
Paul describes it as a battle between our sinful nature and the Spirit of God who lives inside of us…
Paul described it this way in Romans 7…I see the good, and I want to do what’s right…but I don’t do it. Or…I see what’s not good, and I want to stay away from it, but I do it anyway. Ever been there?
Here’s how it plays out…
· I want to forgive, but bitterness is right there with me…
· I want to love…to be kind…but anger and rage are inside of me…
· I want to have peace…but anxiety and fear are there…
· I want to walk in purity, but lustful thoughts plague my mind…
· I want to live a generous life, but greed and materialism are still rooted deep in me…
Ever been there?
This sinful nature is the inward disposition that you and I have to go our own way…remnants of our life before Christ changed us…
And, while the Spirit of God lives inside of everyone who belongs to Jesus Christ, the sinful nature continues to woo and coo and call us back to that old way of living.
But, Paul says, the Spirit is giving us a whole new set of desires. Now we desire to know the love of God and love Him back…we want to walk with Jesus in faith…We deeply desire to live the life that He’s called us to.
Paul says…these two forces are constantly battling each other…
So, Paul goes on to describe the different outcomes that occur when we follow the sinful nature and go our own way, versus the life that is cultivated in us when we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit…
5:19-21 (The Message)
· Sexual sin – (Porneia – Pornography – Sex outside of God’s design)
· Idolatry – Worshipping anything other than God
· Social sins…(like hostility, quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, envy, division)…are things that separate us from each other. Because of sin, relationships die…marriages die…churches die…friendships die. When our passions and desires are hooked up to the flesh, they cause relational havoc.
· Addictions – An addiction is simply a God-given desire that gets hi-jacked by sin…and becomes so strong, that it masters us...It’s not that we have a drink, but that we become drunkards…Not that we spend money, but that we become absorbed with consumption, and get swallowed by debt and greed. It’s not that we eat, but that we become gluttons…not that we have conversations, but that we become gossips. It’s not that we have sex, but that an unhealthy appetite for sex develops that begins to consume and drive a person’s thoughts and behavior…
5:22-23 (The Message)
As followers of Jesus, we see the life that God designed us for, the life that He calls us to…and we dream of what it would be like to see this actually begin to take root, and become a reality in our lives.
Often times, here’s what happens. We see the gap between the person that I am right now and the person God designed me to be, and wants me to become…and we think that we are supposed to bridge that gap by trying harder.
We think to ourselves, if I’m going to get from point A to point B…I have to have a plan. Have to have a quiet time, and get up before the sun comes up even though it makes me terribly grumpy. After all, if something is painful and un-enjoyable, it must be spiritual, right? I need to fast, I need to quit going to movies or listening to music…I need to take a vow, make a resolution, get serious, get in a Bible study, find a mentor, start new spiritual disciplines. All to help me get from here to there.
Many of you have been in churches like this? Do this, attend this, start this, try this, stop that, quit those, implement and follow these rules and you’ll be a good Christian.
Many of us have been down this road…
We try hard to live the life God calls us to…yet in spite of our best efforts, we don’t achieve the marks that we were aiming for…so we eventually give up. The thought crosses our mind, ‘If I’m going to sin, I’m just going to sin.’ So, we sin and feel guilty about it. So we pick up our Bible, come back to church, and resolve to try harder…we try again, but somewhere along the way we begin to think that we’re never going to make progress, so we fall back tired and frustrated…frustrated at God for making the whole process so dang hard, and frustrated at people who we seem to be doing better at it than we are.
Hear me today…If this is where you are today…this never ending cycle of fatigue and frustration and feeling of failure is not what God has called you to. He has called you to freedom…
Question – how do we get out of this cul-de-sac? Once we come to God by grace…how do we continue to live in and walk in His grace? How do we allow God to cultivate His life in us?
Galatians 5:16, 24-26 (The Spirit)
The Spirit of God is in you guiding, giving God-ordained desires, directing, producing, and leading. God calls us to do one thing in response…to follow (surrender)…
Illustration – GPS – Have you ever driven with a GPS Navigational Device? The beauty of a GPS system is that it speaks to you…and it speaks in a variety of languages and accents; male voice, female voice…whatever you prefer. I prefer British accents because people who talk with a British accent always sound smarter.
When you’re following a GPS system, you don’t even have to look at the screen…you can simply listen to the person’s voice and follow the commands…
Now, just because it talks at you doesn’t mean you have to do what it says. How many of you have been there? The British man says to go right, and you think, ‘no…left.’ So, you go with your instinct, only to be reminded once again that people with British accents have a greater directional awareness than you.
At then end of the day, if you want to fully benefit from the GPS, you must surrender your will, your limited knowledge, to the guidance of the British man who is connected to a satellite that is orbiting 20,000 kilometers over the earth.
To follow the lead of the Holy Spirit simply means learning to hear the voice of God, and do what He says. So, when he moves…we move. When he leads, we follow. When he calls, we go. When he nudges, we respond. When he convicts, we repent. When he asks, we give.
As a follower Jesus, I will mess up a lot…and I never outgrow my need for his grace or power working in me. It’s not about our perfection…It’s about the posture of our heart.
Jesus often spoke in parables to describe the person who follows God’s leading...
John 15:4-5, 9-10; Jesus says… “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”
Think about a vineyard…how does the fruit grow? The vines draw up the nutrients from the ground and transport them to each of the branches that, with time, develop fruit. Can fruit grow if the branch is not connected to the vine?
Your life in Christ is a God-ordained, God-sustained process. God is not a principle for you or me to follow…he’s a Person for us to know.
As we draw near to Jesus…grow in our understanding of His love for us, and learn to trust Him, Jesus nourishes us, and cultivates His life in us…
Jesus told another parable to describe how God brings about transformation in our lives…
In Luke 8:15, we read… “And the seeds that fell on the good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who hear God’s Word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest.”
In this parable, Jesus reveals an essential ingredient to our growing in the freedom of God’s grace…
We follow the leading of the Holy Spirit when we hear God’s Word…we cling to it (meaning that we trust it…we base our lives on it), and we patiently wait for God to produce his life in us.
Illustration – Imagine if I were to take a pack of seeds, dump them into a pot of soil…water them, put the pot out in the sun…then go back the next day expecting to find fruit…and when I don’t find fruit, I become frustrated by the lack of progress after a day, and resort to shaking the plant and say, ‘grow seeds…grow.’ Then, when the plant doesn’t respond, I throw it off the deck and curse the stupid thing for not producing fruit more efficiently. Foolish.
In our on-demand society, we have a hard time waiting for anything…If we were honest, most of us would admit that we’re rather impatient people.
Many of us spent years walking away and apart from God, and we want him to transform our lives yesterday.
Fortunately for us, Jesus doesn’t cater to our culture. He invites us to a new way of living…he calls us to a life-long, eternal journey with Himself.
Colossians 2:6-7 says – “And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”
How do we let our roots grow down deep into Jesus? We patiently listen to the voice of God…surrender to the leadership of Jesus…we obey His Word…when he convicts, we repent of sin and move with Him…
Galatians 5:25 – (Every area of our lives!)
We have an incredible ability to bifurcate our lives…
To say to Jesus…
· Jesus, you can have this part…I’ll keep these parts…
· Jesus, you can have Sundays…I’ll keep my allegiance M-F
· Jesus, you can have my problems…I’ll hold on to my heart.
· Jesus, you can have my lip service…but I’ll hold on to the reins of my time, and my energy and my money.
· You take my marriage, but I’ll decide where my eyes go, and what I fill my mind with…
· I’ll keep my sexuality, my temper, my mouth, my grudges…
But everything else Jesus, it’s yours…except for when I need it.
Later in chapter 6, Paul says… “Don’t be misled – you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy the sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.” 6:7-8
God sees our lives…If we think for a minute that we can keep hidden behind closed doors the areas of our lives that still reek of the sinful nature, we’re not fooling anyone, we’re simply fools.
Would be like us going to our garden, planting something for a day or two, pulling it up, replanting it…pulling it up…again and again, expecting fruit to grow…Foolish…
Jesus says…let your roots grow down deep into me…So we trust and lean on Jesus…because we believe that the life He offers us is better than anything we can produce apart from Him.
We have discovered in these five weeks, that the beauty of the Gospel is that Jesus calls us to come into the open…as we are…and to surrender our hearts and lives to Him.
Jesus invites us to exchange a life of rules and regulations and heavy burdens for the life of freedom that He designed us for.
He calls us to stop trying to earn what Jesus has already freely given us…Himself.
Close
As we come to the end of these five weeks, one question stands out in my mind.
Have you surrendered your whole life to Jesus?
When I say that, the legalist in you and me will go to the list and think to ourselves, ‘Dang, I need to try harder.’ I’m not asking, ‘are you perfect…’ I’m asking, are you trusting Jesus with your life, or are you going through the motions?
For some of us in here today…especially if you’ve been around the church for a while...it’s possible that you trust Jesus as your Savior…the One who has forgiven your past, present, and future sin, making you right with God…Do you also trust Him as your Lord? Are you following Him, trusting that He has your best at heart?
For others…at some point during this series, you’ve realized that you’re not walking with God in the life of freedom…you’re trying to earn God’s favor…trying to get him to approve of you by observing rules, living a disciplined life, and being a good person. Maybe you’re here this morning out of guilt, hoping that your attendance will earn God’s approval. That’s a dead-end road that will lead you nowhere.
Today…you can exchange that way of living for freedom by being honest with Jesus, repenting of sin, and asking Jesus to take the lead in your life.
Maybe you’ve heard the Gospel for the first time in this series…the Good News that God saves you, not for who you are, but because of what Jesus has done for you…He went to a cross…died a criminal’s death…was raised from the dead, so that you and I can come back to God. That’s good News.
Maybe you believe that, but you don’t know how to respond. You can begin simply by confessing to Jesus that He is the Son of God who gave His life for you. Confess to Him that you’ve spent your life walking on your own apart from Him. Ask for His forgiveness and grace, and surrender your life to Him.
As we close…I’m going to lead us in a prayer of surrender…I’m going to invite you to take the posture that is most fitting for you…if you want to kneel, kneel…
