Galatians 5:19-21

Perhaps the greatest challenge God has given us, in this life, is sanctification.  “I want to be more like Jesus.  I want to live my life for Jesus.  I want to exist in Jesus.  But how do I do it?  What is the process of sanctification? How can I be transformed into Jesus?”  Don’t you want that too?  Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to be anywhere near as holy as Jesus?  Wouldn’t it be a life-long dream to be a part of community of people who are holy?

Through Christ/Faith I have experienced salvation.  I know I will spend eternity with Jesus in the next life.  Salvation is the greatest gift God has ever offered; amen?  But it is not the only gift he offers.  Just like salvation is not earned, neither is sanctification. God has provided us with the opportunity for sanctification.  He offers us sanctification in this life.  That is quite the challenge we face as we study the third section of the letter to the Galatians.  We have already discovered three ways God has given us to experience sanctification.

1) The Sanctifying Community.  Instead of doing it on my own, which I might point out is really hard, he gave us the community of faith, called the church, to be a cauldron of sanctification.  As we rub up against each other, as we model his servant’s love to each other, as we hold each other accountable to God’s expectations, we are shaped to be more like Jesus!  Our goal should be to create and cherish this sanctifying community. 

2) Holding Hands with the Spirit.  We walk with the Spirit.  We are led by the Spirit.  We stay in step with the Spirit.  Like a kid walking with his dad; isn’t that a fun thing to watch? The kid is reaching up and holding hands and taking two steps to his dad’s one, is the picture we have ourselves as we attempt to match steps with the Spirit.  In relying and asking and following the Spirit we experience sanctification.

3) Know Your Enemy. This third answer is best expressed by Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  The third way to sanctification is, knowing our own passions, knowing our own temptations, knowing the feelings which give rise to sin.  Last week, we invented the NSWS; the Nuclear Sin Warning System.  We use the sin list of Galatians 5:19-21 as an early warning system that the Sarx is on his way to eat our lunch.  When we feel the stir of passions the alarm bells go off and we trigger our defense; relying on the Spirit, asking for the Spirit and following His guidance.  We change the picture in our minds from Sarx to being sheep with the shepherd/Spirit or the kid with his dad. 

This morning I want to go into greater detail with the 15 Acts of the Sarx.  This is not so much going to be a sermon as an internal evaluation.  There are lots of tools out there where you can answer a series of questions and find out that you are an extrovert intellectual bingo player.  This sermon is going to be like that.  We are going to take Paul’s passion’s test to see where the Sarx often attacks us. 

I am going to go quickly through the 15 works of the Sarx and you are going to evaluate your life. First, a couple of observations:
1) The purpose of this test is not for blame. You are only evaluating you; no saying, “Well you know They need this one.” 
2) The purpose of this test is not for shame.  Because you have Christ/Faith you are forgiven.   This test is not putting you on trial to determine your worthiness as a Christian.  That would actually be counter-productive.  Only God is judge. 
3) But the purpose is so you can begin to recognize where the Sarx attacks and how you can more effectively use the NSWS.  If we know the enemy and how it attacks us more clearly, perhaps we can learn to more quickly, rely, ask, and follow the Spirit and thus experience sanctification. 
4) Last week we discovered that the 15 can be divided into two lists.  Paul uses the poetic A-B-A format.  A, is the attacks without and B, the attacks within.  Let’s first look at the A list of 7 works of the Sarx from without: 

Without:

1) SEXUAL IMMORALITY: Porneia: is a broad word which includes all forms of immoral and sexual acts including: pre-marital sex, adultery, abnormal sex, all kinds of sexual vice, and sexual unfaithfulness.  God invented sex to be within the bounds of marriage and it is good.  But outside of the commitments of marriage it is a destructive and harmful thing.  To understate the obvious, our culture is obsessed with sex and glorifies it all over the place.  Living in our world we must be aware of the dangers and the constant sexual pressure all around us.  So, you are looking at… you, not blaming or shaming, but asking where and how and to what degree does the Sarx attack you sexually?

2) IMPURITY: akatharisia: This means moral impurity. It is usually associated with porneia, so it carries with it the pollution that comes from sexual sins. It is what separates us from God.  It carries with it the Old Testament sense of being unclean.  I suspect in our culture it is pornography and the whole realm of the dirty and the devaluing of others as objects of lust.  Paul is saying the work of the Sarx is to make us dirty.  Where and how often does the Sarx attack you with lustful feelings?

3) DEBAUCHERY: aslgeia: There seems to be a progression from sexual immorality, to impurity, which ultimately ends up in this overwhelming debauchery.  Sin is addictive and progressive. That is one of the reasons sin is sin because it leads us in paths of unrighteousness.  There is no stop to a life given over to sexual immorality.  It never stops even after it ends up in debauchery. The warning here is addictions.  We must be careful not to be addicted to anything that leads us down this path which completely takes over a person and ruins that person’s life.  Debauchery is a love of sin that stops caring what God or anyone thinks.  It glorifies wrong.  The end of the sexual immoral life is debauchery. 

4) IDOLATRY: eidololatria: This is the worship of idols, whether real statue-kind of idols, or the worship of political or ethical ideas rather than God, to the giving of one’s devotion to something other than God.  It is having anything from money to hobbies, to work, to sports to relationships, to politics to anything that comes before your pure and complete worship of God.  Look inward and ask, honestly, is there anything you would not give up for your service of God?  What comes between you and your God?  With which idols does the Sarx tempt you? 

5) WITCHCRAFT: pharmakeia: Notice the Greek word.  What does this sound like? Pharmacy. There is a connection. Part of sorcery was the use of drugs. This includes attempts to connect to the spirits, astrology, palm reading, séances; the use of anything to manipulate reality.  Our culture’s obsession with drugs, and the associated glorification of evil, is in the same category of witchcraft.  We may never be tempted to really be a witch, but what are we tempted to use to avoid the way things really are?     

(Skip to the bottom of the list to catch the rest of the without acts.)

14) DRUNKENNESS: methai: This word is plural, which makes it mean more than having a drink of alcohol. Methai is more about bouts of drunkenness.  It is becoming obsessed with alcohol. It is hard for me to understand this one.  But, there is a whole culture which glorifies getting drunk, getting wasted, being slammed out of ones skull for days.  This is a culture we must not be a part of.  Does the Sarx tempt us with alcohol? 

15) ORGIES: komoi: This is the uncontrolled indulgence of pleasure. Literally, this is lying around indulging and feeding the lusts of the flesh.  There is a lifestyle that is only interested in doing more and more of whatever a person wants.  It is the uncontrolled abandonment of whatever impulse a person has.  We must learn to say no.  We must learn to get out of ourselves.  We are called to be more than self-serving.

These are the acts of Sarx which pressures us from without.  Certainly, we must constantly have our NSWS on high alert not to be drawn into a culture that advocates, “If it feels good, do it!”   That is the recipe for a disastrous life. It is the opposite of sanctification. Our community must not give into the selfishness of a world gone wild. 

Within:
Now lets turn our attention to the acts of the Sarx which are on the inside:

6) HATRED echthra: It means being hostile, and hard to get along with; trouble making.   I would say hateful.  There is never any excuse for being hateful to anyone, much less anyone within the community of faith.  Right or wrong, mistakes or not, we must never be hateful to each other.  We should never talk to each other with that tone of voice which says. “You are of no value.  You are worthy of my distain. You are an idiot.”  Hatefulness is a work of the Sarx that threatens the sanctifying power of the community.  When does the Sarx tempt you to use that condescending tone of voice? 

7) DISCORD: eris: Any strife, contention, fighting, struggling, quarreling, dissension and wrangling. It means that a man fights against another person in order to get something he wants.  Surely, we should advocate our beliefs and even our opinions about what we believe to be right or best.  But we must work to keep these disagreements, loving and respectful and focused upon what is best, not out to get our way or else.  Do you have to win arguments at all cost?  When are you tempted to cause discord? 

8) JEALOUSY zeloi: Jealousy wants what someone else has. When do we want to be someone else?  When do we want someone else’s attention?  When do we see others doing more good than we do, and resent it?  Being jealous of who others are or what they have, is a killer.  And it leads to #9. 

9) FITS OF RAGE thumoi: This describes a violent explosive temper, anger, and reaction which comes from "boiling" emotions. This is the anger which cuts others to the core and damages relationships. This is the uncontrolled lashing out with the purpose of hurting the other.  We must speak to each other, in the church, in our families, in our marriages, with gentleness and care.  The feelings of anger which lead to these destructive outbursts must be brought to the Spirit quickly.  There is no place for fits of rage in our body!  This may be the most dangerous of the Sarx tools, because it is so hard to control.  

10) SELFISH AMBITIONS eritheia: This is that desire for self-seeking, the craving of position, power, attention for selfish ends. It has to be in control of those around them.  It is a lack of trust that anyone else has a valuable opinion.  Everyone else must to it my way, or it’s the highway.  It is the arrogance that believes they are always right and has the right to force their way on everyone else.  The Sarx makes us believe we have to be right. 

11) DISSENSIONS dichostasiai: This means division, rebellion, standing against others, and splitting off from others.  It is the dividing of the body.  Once again we are working through a progression. Hatefulness which causes hard feelings which causes jealousy which justifies fits of rage and demands of having it my way which causes rifts between each other and then number 12.

12) FACTIONS hairesis: The lines have been drawn.  The sides have been chosen.  The battle enjoined. The creation of factions is a terrible sin.  It causes the body to loose its sanctifying power and ends up with number 13.

13) ENVY pthonoi: This word goes beyond jealousy. It is the spirit, that not only wants what it wants, but it wants to hurt those on the other side.  It is not satisfied with even winning. Envy moves us to want to get revenge.  It despises them and wants to return the hurt. It is all over, but the crying, when envy lives in a community. 

Then Paul adds AND THE LIKE saying the list is not exhaustive, but rather representative.  It should be used to help to be able to see the nature of what we must avoid in the challenge for sanctification. 

Paul ends the paragraph with one of the scariest warnings ever.

Galatians 5:19-21 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Not only do we loose our sanctifying community, but if we go down the road of the Sarx, we can loose our salvation. Unsanctifying communities can end up loosing it all.  

I want to end the sermon with a ray of hope.  This has been a rough sermon; necessary, but rough.  I want to give you a glimpse of next week and the 9 weeks after that and the purpose of the Table of Reliance.  The antidote for the works of the Sarx is… the fruit of the Spirit.  Each of the 8 within works of the Sarx is controlled by one of the fruit of the Spirit.  It is amazing how they line up and the power the Spirit has to war against the Sarx.  There is a war going on, don’t be mistaken, but it is a war we can win. Amen? 

One of the greatest challenges we face is to create and cherish the sanctifying community.  But paradoxically, we don’t have to DO IT; the Spirit does it within us.  Our role is to rely, ask, and follow him and that will be what we focus on for the next 10 weeks. 

Los Alamos Church of Christ
August 30, 2009