Passage: Galatians 5:16-18

The Big Idea

There’s a spiritual war inside every believer: flesh against Spirit. We can’t win it with our own effort or resources. But there’s a third option between license to sin and life under the law: grace, the life of the Spirit. Walk by the Spirit, step by step, in humble dependence on Jesus, and you won’t carry out the desires of the flesh.

The Third Option

The walk available in the Holy Spirit is the liberty of life in the Spirit.
Walking in the Spirit isn’t optional. It’s a necessity.
There’s a spiritual war within us, flesh versus Spirit, and you can’t win it with your own effort. But there is a way to walk in victory.
We aren’t lawless; grace isn’t a license to sin. And we aren’t under the Law; that’s legalism. There’s a third option: grace.

Walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16)

Walk by the Spirit, and you won’t carry out the desires of the flesh.

The only way to keep from fulfilling the desires of the flesh is to walk by the Spirit.
It’s a step-by-step process, all the way to heaven.
We face every issue of life, one by one, in humble dependence on Jesus Christ and His resources.
This is the heart of Christian living.
And here’s our hope: we will walk in victory if we walk by the Spirit.

“The desires of the flesh” are humanity’s ungodly or uncontrolled desires. Food, for example, is a normal desire, but it can become sinful when it’s out of control.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak

Jesus told His disciples to watch and pray so they wouldn’t enter into temptation, because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41).

There’s a lot more involved than just willingness.
When you’re born again, you’re willing. But the flesh, your human ability to follow through, is weak. So what do we do?
Watch and pray.
Walk by the Spirit.
It’s all, “Lord, I need You!”

A textile mill had a sign posted: “When your thread becomes tangled, call the foreman.” A young woman new on the job got her thread tangled and thought, “I’ll just straighten this out myself.” She tried, but it only got worse. Finally she called the foreman. “I did the best I could,” she said. He replied, “No, you didn’t. To do your best, you should have called me.”

Jesus said that what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6).

What comes from the Spirit is life. The flesh brings death and disappointment.
What did we really expect? That we’d eventually figure out this whole righteousness-and-sin thing with our human ingenuity?

Paul says we all once lived in the desires of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like everyone else (Ephesians 2:3).

That’s how the life of the flesh is described. The very nature of our fleshly effort is failure and rebellion, which leads to wrath.
“The mind” is our natural way of thinking: “How can I figure this out?”

Everything in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life, isn’t from the Father but from the world (1 John 2:16).

The world says if it feels good, looks good or pumps you up, go for it. But its only purpose is to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10).
Jesus says the opposite: deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me (Luke 9:23). Only one option.

Paul admits that he knows nothing good lives in him, that is, in his flesh. He has the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out (Romans 7:18).

That’s the life I could produce from my own resources.
We can’t find the resources to do good in ourselves. But they can be given to us, because He is good, and He gives us Himself. That’s living by the Spirit: the Lord coming to live in your life.
Many people think it’s just about wanting to do what’s right. But it isn’t just about the will. It’s about spiritual resources to do what’s right.

If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live (Romans 8:13).

Your spiritual vitality after you’re born again depends on which resources you draw from.
We have a place to go every day to find what we need, and that place is a Person.
You’ll get worn out, condemned, discouraged and broken when you don’t call on His name and His provision.
By the Spirit, take your dependence on your own ability to the cross. Say no to self.
“But I can’t figure it out!” Exactly right! We don’t try to figure it out. We just come to Him and ask for His help, His Spirit, the Helper.
This is life or death for every Christian.

The Battle Within (Galatians 5:17)

The flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit what is against the flesh. They’re opposed to each other, so you don’t do what you want.

Why don’t we do what we want to do? Because flesh and Spirit are battling.
What usually happens is we try to fight that battle with our own effort, instead of humbly depending on the Holy Spirit.
We are the source of the problem, not the source of the solution.

Paul describes this battle in Romans 7:19-25:

The good he wants to do, he doesn’t do. The evil he doesn’t want to do, he keeps doing.
If he does what he doesn’t want to do, it’s no longer he who does it, but sin living in him.
He delights in God’s law in his inner being, but sees another law at work in his body, waging war against his mind and making him a prisoner of sin.

We still have the same humanity, the same body and the same sinful flesh we had before we were saved. The greatest mistake in the Christian life is underestimating how much we need the Lord every day.

Then Paul cries out: what a wretched man he is! Who will rescue him from this body of death? Then the answer: thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:24-25)!

When we try to do right in our own resources, we end up captive to sin.
The remedy is trusting Jesus Christ, and finding new life in Him. The answer is the same as the day you first believed.
It’s a humble cry for a Deliverer: “What a wretched man I am!” Who will deliver? Jesus will!
“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ!” He’s a complete Deliverer.

Led by the Spirit (Galatians 5:18)

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

We don’t relate to God by our fleshly performance. But when we try to earn His acceptance by a performance standard, we put ourselves back under the Law, and the Law starts its tutoring all over again.
We end up walking in failure, condemnation or striving.
But when we’re led by the Spirit, the result is fruit!

You died to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you could belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, so that we would bear fruit for God. When we were in the flesh, sinful passions aroused by the Law were at work in us, bearing fruit for death. But now we’ve been released from the Law, having died to what held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code (Romans 7:4-6).

Not our striving, best intentions, but the new power and life of the Holy Spirit. Jesus.

Though we live in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 10:3).

That’s the battle: flesh or Spirit. Us or God. Try or trust. Faking a relationship with God, or having a real one.

The Path Between

Jesus said it’s the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words He speaks are spirit and life (John 6:63).

The works of the flesh are the enemy. They’re the result of us being us.
But interacting with Jesus, and humbly believing His words, brings spirit and life into our lives.

Next, Paul will list the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21). Neither license nor legalism ever brings us peace. One ditch is on the right; the other is on the left.

Grace and the Spirit are the road in the middle. Just follow Jesus down the narrow path. Pray to Him and trust Him. Call on His name and wait on Him. Be a spiritual person, filled with the Spirit, humbly depending on His resources and gifts.

Grace Takeaway

You can’t win the war within by trying harder, and you don’t have to. Grace isn’t a license to sin, and it isn’t a new law. It’s the Spirit. When your thread gets tangled, call on Him. Walk with Him step by step, depend on His resources instead of yours, and He will produce His fruit in you.

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Not a License, Not a Law. It’s the Spirit.