Date: 12-Sep-2024
Name: Nelson Chibwe
Topic: FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT - THE BATTLE WITHIN
Content:
FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT – THE BATTLE WITHIN
A. Introduction
o Galatians 5: 22 - 23 – “But the Spirit produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law that says these things are wrong.
B. The flesh and the spirit in Conflict
· We are in a raging battle. It’s not a battle between opposing armies fought with tanks and missiles. And yet the war is relentless and real, its victims are countless – including you and I. This battle is humanity’s internal war with sin. The battle between good and evil.
· This battle goes on all the time, in fact, it goes on often when we are not prepared to face it or realise that it’s happening.
· There are two central figures in this battle – Contender #1 = Our defiant nature (“the flesh”) and Contender #2 = The indwelling Holy Spirit.
C. It is our nature
· We have lived with this evil nature all our lives. This problem goes back to the beginning of life – Adam and Eve in the garden – and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were warned not to eat it and if they did, they would surely die – they ate it anyway and now death was introduced along with the presence of sin – which brought evil into life.
· Through one man, Adam sin entered the world and death through sin – Romans 5:12 (“12 Sin came into the world because of what one man did, and with sin came death. This is why everyone must die—because everyone sinned.”).
· We are all born in iniquity – Psalm 51:5 (“I was brought into this world in sin. In sin my mother gave birth to me.”). Psalm 58:3 (“From birth, evil people turn away from God; they wander off and tell lies as soon as they are born”).
D. There is hope – a new birth
· The good news is, with the new birth, when Christ comes into our lives, he brings with him an internal power that curbs the evil nature. And that power is the Holy Spirit.
· Having said that, it isn’t automatic. Just because the Holy Spirit is in a person does not mean that the person is exempt from walking in my canal state. The battle still rages on.
· That is why, one can be a Christian and still act out in ways that are just like a lost person.
· We need to yield to the Holy Spirit and trust him to control our evil bents. We must do that every day, from one day to the next.
· Whilst we long to do what is good, we cannot do it by ourselves. Good intentions themselves are not good enough – even Paul struggled with this. In Romans 7, Paul says, the good that I would do, I do not do and the evil that I don’t want to do, I find myself constantly doing. Then he ends the chapter with the wretched man that I am. Why does he call himself wretched, because he cannot curb this evil nature on his own? He throws his hands up at the end of the chapter saying, is there any hope, can I get any way to conquer this? And then the next chapter he introduces the work of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8.
· Even when we go back to Galatians 5 – in verse 16, we are presented with a solution – 16 So I tell you: Live by following the Spirit. Then you will not do what your sinful selves want.
E. We have a choice
· There is a battle, and we have a choice. A choice that we should make for ourselves.
· Let’s choose the Holy Spirit to guide our lives.
· So, when I find myself tempted to look with lust, I turn the lust over to the Spirit of God and he curbs the lust. He stops the desire, he alters the direction of my thinking so that my thought is purified rather than becoming more contaminated. That can only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit. I don’t have that kind of power in myself – if I don’t daily engage and activate the Spirit, I am at the mercy of my flesh and when my flesh rears its ugly head, I will yield.
· Even though I don’t want to, it will happen. I have no power to stop it. The only way to gain the power is through the fruit of the Spirit that is produced by the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Prayer Points: