Galatians 3:2-3
"Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
We are separated from sin by the Spirit. And since that is true, are we now trying to achieve perfection by our own self justification? Through pragmatic reasoning? And are we now self-sanctifying ourselves through our social justice engineering, charitable works, charismania, and spiritualism?
What do we know?
As long as we don't grieve The Spirit he's helping us to grow spiritually by means of His ministry. He convicts our conscience, inspires our spirit, and edifies our minds. He's in the business of reforming our hearts. He teaches us about all our self hewn cisterns of black dark wicked waters. And He reveals the true source of living water that springs from the Lord. Living water that bursts our cisterns and overflows with wisdom and holiness.
That's what we know!
God promised us this new living water when he told us He will put His heart and His Spirit within us.
Ezekiel 36:26-27
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules."
We walk in that new heart experience, not carrying out the desires of the flesh. Convicted of our sin and renewed in our purpose. We have His Spirit living within us. But possessing him within us is not the same as walking with him.
Ephesians 5:1-3
"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints."
Galatians 5:16
"Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."
So, here's the reality:
We're living in a war going on inside us. The Spirit lives within us but the flesh remains also. And this is why we must walk "in the Spirit" and take control over our own desires. Our flesh is always busy trying to conform to our culture and society. Our flesh is intertwined in that manipulative self-centered clinic of what we call the human condition. And more and more Christian people are loosing this battle. But it's nothing new.
Romans 7:5
"For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death."
We are actually driven into sin by our own knowledge of sin because our flesh controls our passions. It's the age old paradigm, the knowledge of good and evil. But for some reason, the knowledge of good doesn't seem to prevent us from participating in the evil. It's really kind of strange, if you think about it, why is it that knowing about evil causes us to commit evil, but then shouldn't knowing about good cause us to do good?
But we don't know good do we? Not really good.
Romans 7:14-15
"For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."
We don't even understand our own flesh. We live in it and are redeemed from it, but evil is still present within us. It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We all want to be Jekyll, but for some reason we keep on being Hyde. We all have a demon inside.
Romans 7:18
"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out."
The flesh is still there. It hasn't left us. We haven't magically cast it off, or at least set it aside. Nothing is accomplished by our many repentances, or our pathetic indulgences, or our meaningless contrition's. No amount of prayer has evacuated our flesh from our souls. Even walking in The Spirit, our flesh walks with us, it is our own innate presence of sin. Our sin lives close at hand as the apostle Paul has said. It lives within our bodies.
Romans 7:21-23
"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members."
James 1:14-15
"...Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed BY HIS OWN DESIRE. Then desire when it has conceived GIVES BIRTH TO SIN, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."
Therefore, any good we do we do because God's spirit is doing it from within us. For good only comes from God. All good things come from heaven above. And our flesh is at war with the Spirit and God's goodness. Our flesh is doing what it can to resist the good, and overcome it with evil. It's an actual war going on inside us. The Spirit is there fighting, shaping us, and building up resistance to temptation. The Spirit is protecting and producing Spiritual fruit within us from the inside out. Religion attempts to produce fruit externally. It tries to clean up the external things with external devices.
Making Application:
I see this battle from the perspective of what I call the war of the "Coms".
COMmunication
COMpromise
COMpensation
Here's how it works.
The Spirit is within us. He's "COMmunicating" with our soul, and trying to purify our thoughts. Likewise our flesh is "COMmunicating" to us messages of envy, greed, sloth, avarice, jealousy, lust, murder, and wickedness. All this is going on within our self. The fruit that either influencer produces is determined by our willingness to capitulate to one or the other. So the first "COM" is the communication we receive and take to heart. The voice we listen to.
First we hear a flesh message. The flesh speaks about flesh things. And the whole list is right there in God's word.
Galatians 5:19-21
"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."
These are the messages, the COMmunications, that are being offered to you daily from your heart and mind. Your spirit is being bombarded by these things constantly. Even the slightest hint of anything can trigger one or more of them. All your senses are working for the flesh. You smell something that triggers a desire. You see something that triggers another desire. You hear something that causes you to want more. And you touch that thing that you know you should never touch, and your flesh has what it wants from you. It has you. It’s in control of you. It owns you.
At this point, you still haven't got a choice. Left to its own the flesh will do what the flesh will do. The war begins when the Spirit starts speaking.
So while all this flesh-speak is going on, the Holy Spirit is also speaking to your heart and mind. So, the Spirit is COMmunicating His Word to you about the things that motivate you. He's trying to help you conquer the flesh by focusing on doing different things in different ways.
Galatians 5:22-24
"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 passions and desires."
So if we walk "in the Spirit", led by the Spirit, we are NOT led by the law of the flesh. We are no longer under the external influence of the law but led by the internal influence and power of the Holy Spirit. We are now producing His fruit for His purposes and His glory. When we are regenerated by the Spirit He sets us free from the external forces and enables our hearts and minds to resist the influences of the flesh.
BUT!
We will fail.
We're not perfected yet. Our flesh is extremely strong and our will is weak. And so we now see the next "COM".
COMpromise.
The flesh finds ways to turns our thoughts against us. It causes us to figure out compromises for the things we are supposed to be resisting. We cannot be perfected by our own human strength, and the flesh knows this. But the flesh convinces us that we can make concessions. Give a little take. Take a little liberty. Liberate our rights. Assume our rights allow us to do some portion of wickedness in order to accomplish some other goal that we've convinced ourselves is ultimately good. If I do this little thing over here, that will enable me to do this other thing over there. And we convince ourselves that God's either not watching or is OK with this little bit of a compromise.
And this brings us to the next "COM".
"COMpensation".
So, if we are living in the life of the Spirit and hoping to produce spiritual fruit, we are thinking about that in terms of compensation to some degree or another. The flesh is very clever, and will convince us that the little compromises we just made will produce compensations that God will approve of.
Here's what God thinks about that:
Galatians 5:25-26
"If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another."
God thinks we shouldn't be thinking that we are all that. That we are capable of tricking the flesh into doing good when it doesn't want to do good. God says we shouldn't be that conceited. He's saying we're not as good as we think we are. And if you're compromising the Spirit for some imagined compensation that will ultimately generate good things, you're fooling yourself.
Romans 8:5
"For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit."
God knows that you cannot temp your flesh and come away bearing fruit for the Spirit. You cannot compromise and make it out compensated with Spiritual fruit. The only communication you should be receiving is the Spirit. No compromises.
Romans 8:6
"For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace."
There is no middle ground. You're not going to defeat sin with more sin. You're not going to defeat the law with the law. You can't wash away filth with filthiness.
Romans 8:7-8
"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
The flesh is ALWAYS trying to subdue you. It is on a conquest to conquer your soul. It is not a trustworthy adversary. You cannot treat with it. It WILL NOT keep its word.
If you try you are trying to fool yourself.
Galatians 6:7-8
"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life."
You cannot trick the flesh into submission. It can only be suppressed and resisted against by you. And sanctification is FROM GOD alone. You can't sanctify yourself. Your church can't sanctify you. Your external beliefs and practices cannot sanctify you. Only the Holy Spirit at work within you can sanctify your soul. You, left to your own devises, will quench the Spirit. Only by submission to Him can you hope to know God and walk in peace with Him.
Only by communicating with Him, by compromising your desires and instead walking with the Spirit, can you follow Him into being fruitful and receiving His compensation which is the full fruit of the Spirit. Full of Him. Walking in the Spirit with Him. Confident in Him. Praying with Him. Worshipping with Him. And being sanctified by Him.
Only in Him is there any hope for you in the war for your soul.
Galatians 5:17
"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."
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.