We'll be looking at the very last part of Galatians 5. May the Lord add it to us. We know many things come from God. And so we could go around the room and create a list of those things that come down from God. In fact, Paul, in our passage, gives us a list of his own of those things that come from God. In verses 22 and 23, you see the fruit of the Spirit. These are the things that come from God. God is the one that does this in a believer, and they're listed out in our passage. And so there are many things that come from God, and we have a sampling of that, a taste of that in our passage. But on the other hand, there are some things that come from man. And we're well aware of that as well. And in our passage, Paul lists those things in verses 19, 20, and 21. And if you count through that passage, you see that there are some 17 things that come from man. These are antithetical, they're the opposite of God, they come from man. And this morning we wanna look at one of them. Now we have been created, why? God is intentional. God is not just off the cuff and doing things on a whim. But we have been created to worship God. That's the fundamental thing. The chief end of man is to worship God. And when you think about that, he sent his son and he gave the gospel. And so he saves us to worship Him as well, so that we have creation and new creation for the same purpose, the worship of God. And isn't that what the church is all about? We exist as a body of believers. The church is in this world as a people of worship. That is the fundamental thing. Yes, it loves its neighbor. Yes, it does good works. Yes, it serves. But the fundamental thing is that we offer the sacrifices of praise and worship to God, as Peter says. We are a worshiping people. And isn't that why missions exist? Missions exist because worship doesn't. And so we go out and evangelize and people go across the world with the gospel and they do that to establish worship in places where worship does not exist. And so the church and missions exist for the worship of God. And this is the ultimate thing. Worship is ultimate because God is ultimate. There was never a time, there will never be a time where God is not worthy of worship. And so worship is the thing that happens now every day, it happens into eternity, that we do it now, we've been saved for that purpose, and when we enter into eternity, when we cross over into heaven, we will be greeted with a worshiping community in heaven. And we will worship forever and ever because God is worthy and that's why we've been created and saved. It's the one thing that will continue. Now, if you switch gears, there are many sins, aren't there? You have 17 of them in our passage. There are many sins, and we know that. But the fundamental sin is what? Well, if we've been created and redeemed for worship, then the fundamental thing is to fail to worship God. It's the fundamental sin. And when we don't worship God, we are susceptible to put our worship on other things that are not God. Did you get that? The fundamental sin is to fail to worship God, and when we don't worship God, we become susceptible, we become open to worshiping something other than God. We could call it a misplaced worship. Now, what's that call when we misplace our worship? What's that called when we put our worship on something else other than God, who alone is worthy? And you actually see that in verse 20. You see the word idolatry. Idolatry is the opposite of why we've been created and redeemed. It leads to the opposite of worshiping God. It leads to misplaced worship. And so idolatry is tied to the fundamental sin because in idolatry we're worshiping something when only God is worthy to be worshiped. This is a fundamental sin. And what's evident is that certain kinds of worship are not the product of heaven, but they're the product of the flesh. Most people would think that worship is a good thing, it's a positive thing. Most people would say, oh, as long as you're sincere, as long as you worship something, you're okay with me. But actually, Though most people think worship is a good thing, if you were to open up the human heart, what you would see in our passage is inside of sinful hearts that we have is a misplaced worship that deep down inside you will find in the sins of men, you will find the sin of a misplaced worship. And in verse 26, Paul warns against that. He warns against all these sins, and he warns against misplaced worship. He warns against false religion. He warns against idolatry, a misplaced worship, putting worship on something when it doesn't belong. He warns against it in verse 21. And this is relevant. What Paul says in our passage about idolatry is relevant to us because do you know, besides Christian denominations, there are some 600 distinct religions in the United States? Hundreds of them. And Paul warns against them in verse 26. He warns against misplaced worship. But not just in temples, not just in houses of faith, houses of worship, not just in creeds and religions that we have across the United States, but brothers and sisters, you know that our culture is filled with any number of idols. Not just a statue, but power, elections, philosophies, entertainment, pleasure, money, education, fame, holidays, time off, better jobs, being noticed. All of these things tempt us. All of these can come from our own flesh, from the cesspool within. We are tempted to have misplaced worship, to put our worship on other things. And I remind you of what Paul, or what the Lord says in John 4.24. Remember God is seeking, isn't he? He is actively, especially on the Lord's day, God is seeking true worshipers. And what will he find in this church? What would he find in you? Jesus specifically says that the Father is seeking true worshipers, and what we need for true worship. How can we know that God will find us to be true worshipers? Well, we worship God truly, and we are pleasing and accepted to God in Christ. So that fundamentally, when God is seeking worshipers, it can never happen apart from Jesus Christ. In Christ, by faith with Christ, he has done everything necessary to make us agreeable to God. He has washed away our sins. He has clothed us with his righteousness. And in Jesus Christ, we are accepted by God. And so when God looks down, he wants to see us in Christ. And he wants to see us following his word. God has regulated our beliefs. He has regulated our understanding. He has regulated our actions. He has regulated us by His Word, and we need to follow that Word. And as God speaks down with His Word, so we want to speak up in prayer. We want to speak up to Him in prayer. And then finally, the way that we can be found by God as true worshipers is in Christ, by the word, by prayer, and in verse 16, by walking in the spirit. By walking in those things that are consistent with the spirit. And so with that, let's give ourselves to the reading of Galatians 5 and verse 16. I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. These are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against these things there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Amen. And let's pray. Father, we do pause and we do ask that you would help us now, that you would bless the preaching, that you would bless us to be recipients, responders, that you would bless us with fertile hearts, that your word would be planted in us. Lord, that you would bring increase, that we would understand, and that we would believe and be doers, and we pray that you would bless us now. Guide us by your Holy Spirit, and lead us to grace and truth. And it's in Jesus that we pray. Amen. Back when I was a kid, I remember watching TV wrestling. I'm sure some of you used to do that. what they call pro wrestling, and as a kid I loved it. These are the days of Hulk Hogan, we all know that name. But I remember in the late 1980s, early 1990s, I was around 12 years old, and a wrestler came on the scene for just a short amount of time. And this wrestler was so big, he was so tall, he was so strong, he was so tough. And actually when he would get hit by other guys and when he would be hit with chairs, he wouldn't respond. He would just kind of smile at the other guys. And I remember being so impressed by this man. His wrestling name was Zeus. Now that's a name that we recognize because Zeus is a well-known historic god of the ancient world. He is a god of the Greeks and the Romans. And so I want to put the wrestler aside for a second. The name Zeus That God, the name Zeus, refers to the sky. It's literally what his name means. And to the Greeks and the Romans, Zeus was above the earth. In fact, Zeus' realm was the sky. He trafficked and operated in the sky. We could call him the Lord of Heaven. And in his hand was something that's from the sky. In his hand, his symbol was the thunderbolt. And he had the power of the thunderbolt. He had the power to bring forth storms. And Zeus is known as the supreme God. There are many gods out there to the Greeks and the Romans, but Zeus is the supreme God. He reigns on top of Mount Olympus in Greece. And whenever the other gods were around, when Zeus was there, they would actually stand up in respect to Zeus, and they would actually call him father. They would defer to him. And this is Zeus. And it's interesting because when Paul goes to Athens in Acts 17, when he went to that Greek city, he didn't really notice the politics, he didn't really notice the arts, he didn't really notice the culture. But it says there in Acts 17 that when Paul went to Athens, he could tell that they were very religious. He could see it all around him that they were a worship town. And there's no doubt that when Paul was walking through the marketplace of Athens, that he would see the worship of Zeus. And Paul in Acts 17, he's gonna preach against Zeus, and he's gonna preach the true and living God, and he's gonna call those Greeks to repentance in Jesus Christ. But if you were to go across the pond, if you will, if you were to go from Athens some 500 miles eastward across the Aegean Sea, you would land in an area called Galatia. The Galatians were just a few hundred miles from Athens and these Galatians were well aware of Zeus. You may recall in Acts 14 when Paul is on his first missionary journey with Barnabas. They travel and they go to this very region. They go to the Galatian people. And there in Galatia, Paul and Barnabas are ministering, and there's a man there. And the Bible says that this man has no strength. Particularly, he has no strength in his feet. And the Bible says that he was born that way, that he never walked a day in his life. He was disabled. And there, Paul is preaching, and even though this man had a physical affliction, he was listening to Paul, and Paul is preaching, and the Bible says that Paul saw that man's faith. I find that interesting because you can see, you can tell a person's faith by looking at their face when the word is being preached. And it was evident to Paul, the way this man was responding, that the man had faith in what Paul was saying, faith in the gospel. And when Paul saw his faith, he said to the man, stand. Now, that's an audacious claim for somebody that's never taken a step in his life. And Paul says, stand. And the Bible says that he leaped and began to walk. Well, this didn't happen in a vacuum. And all the Galatians were there. And they started rallying and celebrating. And they were just blown away that this man could actually do something that he hasn't done in his whole life, no physical therapy, no surgeries, no medicine, no smoke and mirrors, right in plain sight in front of so many people, this man could finally walk. And the people were amazed, and they responded, the gods have come down. Paul and Barnabas are the gods incarnated. And they called Paul Hermes. Hermes was the Greek god of messages, and they called him Hermes because he was the preacher. And they looked at Barnabas, and they called him Zeus, the chief god. And in that area, the Bible says, in Galatia, there was a temple to Zeus. And the priests from the temple of Zeus, they came out to Paul and Barnabas and they tried to offer sacrifices. They tried to give sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas. And when Paul and Barnabas saw this, they said, no, they started ripping their clothes and saying, no, we are men just like you. And Paul said, turn from your vain idols and serve the true and living God who made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in it. Turn from your useless gods. And the Bible says that Paul and Barnabas could scarcely hold back their idol worship, could scarcely hold back their Zeus worship. And isn't that true, that we could scarcely hold back the idol worship, the misplaced worship that's all around us today? We could scarcely, scarcely stop it. But not just out in the world, isn't it true that as they had a hard time holding back the idol worship in Galatia, isn't it true that we would have a hard time holding back the idol worship in our own hearts, in our own flesh? Now, these Galatians that Paul is writing to, they remember Acts 14. They remember that episode when Paul was there. And Paul seems to allude to that in Galatians 4, 8, and 9. Paul says that you once served gods, and those gods are not gods, but now you have come to know God, or rather, God has come to know you. And Paul alludes to what happened in their past, and they all remember that. And here in Galatians 5, Paul is calling them to walk with the true and living God. He's calling them to walk. In verse 16, when you see Paul saying, walk in the spirit, more than once he says it in our passage. This is a statement of fellowshipping and communing with God. Because he's the living God, because he's the true God, you can know him. and he can know you. And walking in the spirit is to have communion and fellowship with God. And how do we do that? It's not rocket science. There's no mysticism in any of this. How do we walk with God? Well, how do you walk with people? By communication, by interaction. And we walk with God because he has given his word. We walk with God because he has given prayer. We walk with God because he has given the church. Where is God this morning? He's in his temple. And what is his temple? It's his people. God has a habitation with us, Paul says to the Corinthians and to the Ephesians. He has a habitation with his collected church. And so to walk with God is to be in church where God is. And to walk with God is 1 John 1. Remember, it says there that if we walk in the light, then we have fellowship because he is in the light. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship together. Dear Saints, we know the factories like DuPont. We've seen commercials. We've seen that as you go south, you can see it right off the highway. We know companies like 3M. We know these huge industrial plants, these huge factories, and they make things for us, household items like tape, Teflon, Styrofoam. You've heard all those things, and they come from these companies. And we would probably say that these companies do a lot of good. But actually, Calvin referred to not the factories that are all around us, but the factory that's within us. So you have something in you that works and produces things. And if you look at our list here in verses 19 through 21, the factory within works and produces not really good things, but bad things. But Calvin specifically said that the human heart is an idol-making factory. Do you have to be argued into believing that? The Bible teaches such, your experience teaches such. You just crank out idolatry, all kinds of misplaced worship. That just like a factory would take raw material and make finished products, so our hearts can take anything and turn it into an idol. Now you look at our passage and there is a contrast, an obvious contrast between the spirit and the flesh. And particularly here, the spirit will help us to have a rightful placement of worship. The Spirit of God will help us to worship God, but the flesh will lead us to misplaced worship. The flesh will lead us to, verse 20, idolatry. So that's the contrast. By the Spirit, we become true worshipers. By the flesh, we become false worshipers of anything. And what is idolatry? Various ways that we could put it, but idolatry is whatever I love above God. It's whatever I trust above God. Idolatry is when I seek from things what only God can give. That's idolatry. How often do we do that? We seek from things comfort, security, strength, feel good, joy. But idolatry is when we seek from things that which only God can give. And that's what Paul is talking about here in verse 20, this misplaced worship. Now, in our, you have a list, verses 19, 20, and 21, some 17 things, but when you look at verse 20, you see idolatry. Notice the placement, notice the location of the word idolatry. It's right there in verse 20, and it's right after those three words that we talked about last week. It's right after sexual immorality, uncleanness, and lewdness. And it's not by accident that right after that, Paul brings up idolatry. Doesn't that make sense? Can't you see an obvious connection? That when he talks about the sins of promiscuity, right after that, following the heels, is this word idolatry. Because isn't it interesting, isn't it easy to misplace our worship and make an idol out of the bodies and appearances and pleasures of other people? And isn't it possible to make an idol out of the body and pleasure and appearance of your own body? And so, it makes a lot of sense that after talking about promiscuity, he would bring up idolatry because that area of promiscuity is an idol. We have no problem making promiscuity into an idol. And really, when he talks about idolatry here, It's a reminder of the first commandment. Paul, all over Galatians, refers to the law. And the first law there, you remember, God opens up his list and he says, you shall have no other gods before my face. You shall have no other gods before my presence. And so basically what he is saying there, just like a husband would say to his wife, you shall have no other men before me. So God is saying, you shall have no other gods before me. It makes total sense. And then the second law is exactly this. In the second law, he says, you shall not make graven carved images. You shall not make images of God. You shall not have idolatry. Now it's interesting because that's found in Exodus 20. God gives his law to Israel in Exodus 20, and several chapters later, about two months later, you have the most famous act of idolatry in history. From the giving of the law, two months later, what do the Israelites do? Well, there they are, and Moses in Exodus 32, he goes up into the mountain of God for 40 days, over a month. And he's there, and God is writing his law on those stony tablets for Moses to take down to the people. And Moses is gone in the presence of God for 40 days. And the people, all the Israelites, they get impatient. They look at the watch, they look at the calendar. and they see that Moses has been gone and they wonder about him and they wonder, did he die? Did he abandon us? What happened to Moses? They got very impatient. And so they turn to their next in line, they turn to the second in command and they go to Aaron, the priest, and they go to Aaron and said, come make us gods. We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses, come and make us gods. And what did Aaron do? He buckled. Aaron said, come and bring me all the gold. And so they melted down the gold and Aaron fashioned the gold into a golden calf. And the golden calf was there because it was a symbol of strength and it was a symbol of sacrifice and they made it into a symbol of Yahweh, their God. And they said, this is the one, this golden calf is the one that has led us through the wilderness, led us out of Egypt. This is our God. And we have to be careful here because what happened with these Israelites? They got discontent. Do you struggle with discontentment? They got discontent because they largely had an invisible God, and they wanted a visible God. They struggled over having an invisible God. They were discontent with living by word, by living by faith, living by prayer, living by obedience. They were struggling with all of these intangible, invisible things. And so they wanted to make their religion visible. Dear ones, If you're thinking, you can struggle with the same thing. You know, Pastor, all these years, Sunday after Sunday, day after day, the grind of the election, the grind of day to day, nine to five, Monday through Friday, the grind, it's just so wearying. We can become discontent with our invisible God that wants us to live by faith and live by word and live by obedience and live by prayer. We can be so discontent with that and start to seek after making Him visible and making Him to images and pictures. And so let's have a picture of God and let's have all these relics and these physical things to be reminded of God. Let's make our Christianity physical And we even have to be careful about crosses becoming idols. Do you know that you and I, we might struggle in our weakness with our invisible God and our invisible Christianity, but do you know God has given us visible elements of our Christianity? Next week when we come to this table, that is the word made visible. That's your Christianity becoming visible. The invisible gospel is being made visible in the bread and in the juice. And when we have baptism, that is the visible word, that is the truth of the word being expressed visibly to us. And so God says, do not have images and idols, do not make things as physical reminders of me, because I've already given you reminders. It's baptism. It's communion. But actually, do you know why we are not allowed to make idols? For one, you could never accurately represent God in anything you make. So don't try. Whatever you would make would offend him. It would fall short. But do you know why God does not allow for us to make images of him? Because he has already given an image of him. It's called humanity. We are in the image and likeness of God. You can't make an image of God because he already has provided it in humanity. And in what ways do we image forth? In what ways are we like God? To look at a man, you can learn about God because God has made us in his image in these ways. He has made us to be. He has made us to be with minds that think. He has given us a will to decide. He has made us to rule and to lead and to serve, to be active. And he has given us the capacity for relationship. God is a relational God and he built you with that capacity. These are all the ways that we're in the likeness of God, but actually, fundamentally, the way that we're in the likeness of God is you remember in Genesis that God drew man out of the dust of the ground and what did he do? He breathed into it the breath of life and man became a living soul. The way that we are like Him is that He is the true and living God, and He made us to be living with relational capacities, with the ability to lead, with the ability to think and decide, and in all of these ways, we are like Him. You cannot make an image of God because He has already done it, and unless you are gonna create something out of nothing and make it better than man, You sin in making images. And actually, even more fundamentally than that, because remember, there was one who is the exact image. You remember, there is one that is in the express image, the exact representation of God, and that is Jesus Christ. And so, when you and I search around for relics and idols and we make other things, so that our invisible God becomes visible to us. God says, I already have given my image. It's in that perfect man, Jesus Christ. And if you want religion to become visible, look to Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. And so as Moses, after a month, is up in the mountain, he comes down and he hears noise. The Jews have all this noise and he's wondering, what is that? And he's talking with Joshua, what's the noise in the camp? It sounds like a battle. It sounds like a war. It sounds like victory. It sounds like defeat. And Moses says, no, it sounds like a party. They're partying. And the word that's used there is that they have revelry, which is a word that shows up here. They're partying, and the implication there is when Moses goes down and sees all these people, that they're guilty of sexual immorality. They had just made the golden calf. Moses had been away for a month. He comes back to them, and he sees the revelry of their promiscuity. And what we realize there is, think about it, they had a false god, and in that false god, the golden calf, there is no power to keep from evil. There's no power to be holy. In that false god was the power to sin. Whenever we have a misplaced worship, we are left to the power of our flesh, we are left to the power of this world, we are left to the power of sin. And when they had this false god, they were left to the power of sin. And Paul says here, the only power to keep from sin, the only power available to us to live holy is right here in verse 16. It's by the Spirit. It's by walking in the Spirit. Because He's the true and living God, we can live in the power of holiness from Him. Anything short of Him, there is no power. And that's what the Hebrews are teaching us. And just think about it. In Exodus 32 with the golden calf, you think about that. For two months, these people have been so blessed, privileged beyond expression. These very people are the ones that saw those 10 plagues. They're the very people that saw the Red Sea and went through the Red Sea. They're the very people that saw the cloud and the fire leading them. They're the same people that heard Moses preach and pray and serve them. They were given the leadership of Moses. God performed miracles through Moses. God did all of these things. These people saw the shaking of the mountain when God was present. A mountain was quaking at the presence of God, and these people had all of this in the last two months. They had all of this privilege, and yet within two months, what do they do? They commit idolatry. Now if they could have incredible privilege and still commit adultery, what about the incredible privilege that we all have in this room? And I'm not even talking about being an American, how privileged we are, but we know the Bible. We know the truth. We know the cross and the resurrection. We know that Jesus is coming again. We have the Holy Spirit. And brothers and sisters, every time we come into this room, we are encountering privilege after privilege that God gives to us. And as they still committed idolatry, guess what can happen in any church? Being privileged, we can still have a misplaced worship. That's for real. And what happened with those Jews is that they began by the spiritual things. They began by the spirit. They had Moses and promises and the exodus deliverance. They had all of these spiritual things and they resorted to the flesh. They made a golden calf. And this is what Paul says in Galatians 3. He says, you Galatians, you started by the Spirit. Paul was there. He was preaching. They were performing miracles. They were receiving all of these privileges. They had Paul with them. And they began by the Spirit. And he says, you began your Christianity by the Spirit. Why would you then resort to the strength of your flesh? No, brothers and sisters, you can start this week off here in spiritual things and by tomorrow be resorting to your flesh and the arm of flesh is gonna fail you. In fact, what does the flesh ultimately do? It gives you no power for holiness, it gives you the power to sin. And so, as we would close for now, Think of David in Psalm 86, and many of you from prayer meeting remember this. Psalm 86, David says, among the gods, there is none like you, nor are there any works like your works. You alone are God. Does that describe you? Among the pleasures, the idolatry of the land, among the gods, among all the things that are around us that could tempt us and sway us to misplace our worship, can you say with David, among the gods, there's none like you. There are no works like your works. You alone are God and you alone are my God. Does that describe you? Because that's what it is to be a Christian. To be a Christian is, there's no other God, there's no other gospel. And that's what Paul's writing about in this whole book. There's no other God and there's no other gospel. To be a Christian is to say with David, you, oh Lord, are what I want. You, oh Lord, is what I, you, oh Lord, is what I need. That's what it is to be a Christian. And you know what? Among the gods that are all around us to say that God is our God, that's not a work of the flesh. If you deep down inside, you have weaknesses and you struggle with your impulses and you have temptations and you sin just like I do constantly, But brothers and sisters, if deep down, if your testimony is, God is my God, Jesus is my hope, my faith is in Him, He has my heart, He has my future, He has my joy, if that is your testimony, that's not the work of the flesh, that is the work of the Spirit. Only the Spirit does that in a man. Only the Spirit releases you from the power of a misplaced worship. And so do you know how 1 John 5, 21 ends the book? John says so many things for five chapters, but he ends the book by saying, little children, keep yourselves from idols. How do you do that? By having a superior joy in God alone. If God satisfies you, you'll never look anywhere else. And that is a work of the Spirit. God bless it to us through Jesus Christ. Amen.