About a year ago in World Magazine, you can only see a part of this, so it's not very easy to see the entire thing. In World Magazine about a year ago, they highlighted a book written by a lady, a woman named Anne Voskamp. Have any of you heard of Anne? Not very well known. She's from Canada. This is her website I want to show to you. She's a farmer's wife and lives in the outback of Canada, where she writes for the glory of the Lord. She wrote a book called A Thousand Gifts. I would encourage you, men or women, this is a tremendous book on gratitude. She wrote a book on Thanksgiving. In this book, she really relates how the great personal trauma and trial, she learned to be grateful to the Lord. It's an excellent read. It's called A Thousand Gifts. Her whole ministry, this website is called A Holy Experience, but her whole ministry is focused around cultivating gratitude in daily life. I just wanted to put it up there because I try to every once in a while commend to you good books. This is a good one that is a new one. And so I want to commend it to you. I want to read to you from Psalm 136 for just a minute, and then we're going to take a second and just give you an opportunity to express gratitude to the Lord for something in your life, something the Lord has done for you that you just want to express gratitude back to him in the presence of the saints here this morning. But let's just focus our thoughts on Psalm 136. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the God of gods for his mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the Lord of Lords for his mercy endures forever to him who alone does great wonders for his mercy endures forever. You see a repeated phrase there. If we read the entire psalm, every verse in this psalm ends for his mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the Lord. He is a merciful God. He is a God of covenant loyalty who is merciful to his people and that mercy endures forever. Would you take your Bibles and turn with me to Galatians chapter five, Galatians chapter five this morning, we're continuing our study in Galatians. I've been attempting to study through the book verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and So it seems like over the last month, there's been a lot of interruptions in what we've been doing in Galatians. So rather than bringing a specific Thanksgiving thanksgiving sermon today, I wanted to go back to the book of Galatians. We will try to make some applications back into the subject of Thanksgiving, but we're going to be looking in Galatians, chapter five, verse 16 to 26. I believe Lord willing, we'll take next week and the following week to finish chapter five. And then we probably will take a break for several weeks there for Christmas, and then we'll come back and finish chapter six in the new year. Don't want to lose the continuity there, but of course, with Christmas, it's important we remind ourselves of the birth of Christ and all of the truths that are taught in the scripture concerning his incarnation. We're looking at Galatians chapter 5, verse 16 to 26. We're talking about the enemy within the gates. We're talking about the enemy within us. And we're discussing that epic civil war that rages within every one of us. not only the unbeliever who does not have the Spirit of God and yet has the vestige of the image of God imprinted on his heart, and so he still longs to do good, and yet he finds within himself the inability to do so, and yet even for the believer, when the Spirit takes up residence within us, he does not eradicate from us the old nature. To be sure, by the cross of Christ and the power of the gospel, the power of sin is broken. And yet we have within us the ability to yield to it. And so we continue to struggle. Now, I want us to look in Galatians chapter 5, and we're going to read verse 16 through the end of the chapter, and then we're going to look to the Lord in a word of prayer. Paul says to us, 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, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you do not do the things that you would desire to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident and they are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries and the like. Of which I have told you beforehand, just as I also told you in times 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, and against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. If we live in the Spirit, Let us walk in the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Would you join me in a word of prayer? Fathers, we come before your word this morning, we are thankful for the teaching that is in these verses. We thank you for the victory that is promised us by walking in the spirit, by being led by the spirit, by communing in your word with the triune God, the maker of heaven and earth and the redeemer of our souls. And father, we thank you for your word that you've given to us. We thank you for your spirit who guides us. And father, we pray that he would guide us this morning into all truth, truth not only of ourselves, but truth concerning your word, that father, we might apply it diligently and faithfully. Father, open our eyes that we may see wondrous things in your word. In Jesus name, Amen. I want us to see this morning, and this is going back about a month ago because it's been about a month. since we were in Galatians chapter five. And so we're going to do a little bit of a review this morning that we might remind ourselves of where we've been. But essentially, as we have read these verses, I want to remind us this morning that victory in the Christian life, victory for the Christian. Your ability over the last week to live a life that was glorifying to God, free from sin, holy and loving the way God desires it. Victory in the Christian life is directly proportionate to the believer doing two things. And those two things are in these verses this morning. They are given to us all through the text, and essentially they are these. It is walking in the Spirit or being led by the Spirit. If you look back over your life in the last week, Could you characterize your life as having been filled with the Spirit of God? Were you walking in the Spirit? Or were you walking in the flesh? Were you led by the Spirit? Or were you led by your flesh? Victory in the Christian life – I want to drive this home to us – is directly proportionate to those things. Are we walking in the Spirit? Are we led by the Spirit? When I think of being led by the Spirit, it reminds me of the book of Exodus, when it tells us that the children of Israel were in the wilderness, and they were on their way to the promised land, that God directed their path, and He did so with a pillar of fire at night and a cloud during the day. And whenever God desired them to move, that fire or that cloud, the Shekinah glory of God, preceded them in their journey. But the truth of the New Testament is we do not look for outward signs of the presence of God to direct us. We now submit to the inner moving of the Shekinah glory of God as He dwells within us. And so we are to be walking in the Spirit and led by the Spirit. A month ago, when we looked at this, we talked about walking in the Spirit. We characterized it as three things. First of all, it is following His directions for daily living. That involves obedience to the word of God. Picking up his word and reading it and seeing what does he say to us, and it is following his directions for daily living. Secondly, it involves fellowshipping with him in our daily duties. We are to be communing with the living God. We are to be worshipping Him, not only here on Sundays, but all through the week. We are to be fellowshipping with Him in our daily duties. That is a part of walking in the Spirit. And then we are to be filled with His power, that we might have victory over sin, and we may be bold in our witness for Him. And so this is what it means to walk in the Spirit when we think of it biblically. Secondly, we also talked about being led by the Spirit. And we used three words to kind of summarize the New Testament teaching on being led by the Spirit. Number one, there needs to be a consecration. Remember what Paul tells us under the Holy Spirit in Romans chapter 12 verse 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. We are to be consecrated, surrendered unto God. If we are going to be led by the Spirit, he is not going to lead us if we are in rebellion to his voice. Secondly, there is a consultation. If I'm wondering what God would have me to do, I should read his word. I should consult the owner's manual. For about a month, I've been struggling to get the ignition out of a blazer or plow truck. Finally, yesterday, we read the directions. Now, that's my story in life many times. Consult the owner's manual, right? There was just a little clip that wouldn't release it. I couldn't find it. I tried everything in my own power and my own wisdom. Couldn't see it. Tyler found the owner's manual. There it is. Consult. Consult the Word of God. Secondly, we should consult with others who have walked this way before us. That is why the Scripture said, in the multitude of counselors, there is safety. consultation, circumstantial evidences as we look at what God is doing in our life. This is what it means to be walking in the spirit and to be led by the spirit. Now, I'm going to throw one more ministry of the Holy Spirit into the mix this morning. That is tied to these two, but it is not mentioned here, but it is in Romans chapter eight. If you want to, you can turn to Romans chapter 8. You don't have to because I'm going to put up a screen and I'm going to put the verses there. But in Romans chapter 8, we have essentially the Holy Spirit chapter in the Bible. What does it mean to be walking in the Spirit? What does it mean to be led by the Spirit? And in that context, The Spirit of God gives to us another ministry of the Spirit of God that He is doing in our life. And I want to draw our attention to this this morning, that we might be edified by this concept. The witness of the Spirit. The witness of the Spirit. This is an important ministry of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with His leading and our walking in Him. I'm going to put these verses, I want you to notice what it says. He says, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. You can't say I am a child of God and yet I don't have the Spirit of God. You see what he says in that verse? As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. If you are a son of God, a child of God, then you have the Spirit of God residing within you. Notice what he says. Same thing as we studied already in Galatians chapter 4, almost a verbatim quote, you did not receive a spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received a spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. Aramaic, Abba, term of endearment, Father, speaking of this relationship that the Spirit of God pours out within our heart when we are adopted by the Spirit into the family of God by the blood of Christ through our faith. Now notice what he says in verse 16. The Spirit Himself bears witness with us, within us, internally to us that we are children of God. You know, many times we discuss as Christians the concept of assurance of faith, assurance of salvation. To some degree, this is a subjective experience that we are talking about, something that happens to us individually in response to our faith. And it is the work of the spirit of God whereby he witnesses within us that we ourselves are born again. This is the internal assurance to the believer of his adoption into Christ. You know, any time when the Word of God is preached, there are people who are in the crowd who are lost and on their way to hell. And there are people in the crowd who, if you ask them, do you know you're saved? They would say, yes, I know I'm saved. You say, how do you know you're saved? They would say, because I know I'm saved, because I've trusted in Christ. And they have an assurance in their heart that they're saved. And then I imagine in a crowd like this this morning, somewhere in this mix, there is about a third of this crowd. who believes they're saved, who has placed faith in Christ, and yet they struggle with an assurance. They struggle with whether or not it is really theirs. They're not doubting whether the gospel is true. Maybe you're here this morning and you find yourself in that boat. You're not really doubting whether the Bible is true. You're not doubting whether or not the gospel is true. You are just struggling with your own life, whether or not you have your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Now, what I want to draw your attention to this morning is no person can give you that assurance. No person can. If you're going to have an assurance of salvation, you must do business with God and God alone. You have to meet Him in the quiet place, in the private place of the prayer closet and do business with the Holy God of the universe and find that assurance when the Spirit of God finally, in answer to your faith and your working through this, witnesses with your spirit. that you are a child of God. This is an important experience that God would take us through. It is an experiential concept. Let me show you another verse. 1 John 5, verse 11. This is the witness. See that? This is the witness that the Holy Spirit gives us. God has given to us eternal life. This life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know. God wants us to know that we have eternal life, and He does so through this witness, this witness of the Spirit of God within us. Now, when we think of this witness, this ministry of the Spirit, I want us to think about the reality that this is when the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and He makes a direct application to the heart of the sinner. You're sitting in church. You've been reading your Bible. You're struggling in prayer. You want to go to heaven when you die. You've heard all the words. You know they're true. And then finally an answer to prayer. And the pouring forth of your heart in faith, the Spirit of God imparts to you a conscious reality that the cross is sufficient for your sin. To forgive it. And this produces within us joy. It imparts to us the joy of the Spirit of God. We also see in these texts that it imparts to us a new intimacy in prayer. And it imparts to us a yearning and a groaning after holiness. And this is why the fruit of the Spirit and the flesh eradicates from us these works. Now, there are two parallel concepts I want to draw our attention to when we think of experience. You know, I want us to realize Christianity is not dead orthodoxy. Being a Christian. And trusting in Christ, there is the reality of a living revelation whereby we have doctrine that is given to us. But that doctrine is not meant just to titillate our thinking. It is meant to transform our life, that we would have a relationship with God. Now, when we think of the experience of the Christian life, there are two things that I want to think about. There's always two extremes. we tend to go to. Sometimes we've seen experiential religion and we've seen it as being shallow. We've maybe seen it in excess and we think, I don't want anything to do with that. And we go over here and we make it kind of dry and dull. Or sometimes we go the other way and we tend to go to extremes. Now, when we think of experience, let's look at two things. We think of the experience of walking with Christ. A guy named Sir Robert Anderson wrote some tremendous books on the Christian life and he said this in one of them. To make the experience of one the standard of faith for all is one of the greatest errors and snares of the Christian life. Essentially what he's saying there is this. When you give your testimony and you share how Christ brought you to the cross and brought you to repentance and changed your life We sometimes think that he's going to do that very same thing for everyone. You know, he may do it a little bit different for someone else. To make the experience of one the standard of faith for everyone is an error. But on the other hand, and this is what I want us to really draw our attention to this morning, the reality, the fact that there are counterfeit spiritual experiences that should never deter us from seeking for genuine ones. We should experience God. And the reality that there are counterfeit spiritual experiences should not serve as a deterrent from us seeking after God that we may know Him. Now, as I was thinking of this this week, I thought about the crying need of the church today. When we think of the church in America, we think of the church in the world in this day and age, and we think about where we are in human history. What is the crying need of the church today? I was blessed this past weekend by having Mike Riddle here. I hope you were as well. Laura, you mentioned that in your giving thanks to the Lord this morning. I was blessed by the messages that Mike Riddle drew our attention to. He reminded us again of the burnout rate in Christianity in the churches in America. And we sometimes ask, what is it that we need? What is it that would change everything? And so we look for these little approaches to motivating people, or we look for a new methodology. But the reality of the truth is simply this. The crying need of the church today is for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God. Because without that, nothing will happen. It's all just words. The crying need of the church today is that the Spirit of God would revive the church. I'm reminded of the words in Habakkuk 3. Habakkuk is at a time when the nation of Israel is beginning to experience the judgment of God by the Babylonian Empire. And he prays to God and he says, O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. Make it known in wrath. Remember mercy. O Lord, revive thy work. When I grew up, I went to church all my life, to a great Baptist church, but it was kind of a product of the times and the methodologies of the times. And I remember as a kid many times in the spring and in the fall, they would schedule a revival meeting. Did you know you can't schedule a revival? You can schedule a preaching service You can schedule special meetings. We can schedule prayer. But we cannot schedule the work of God. What the church needs today, more than at any time in human history, is that God would send a revival. What would happen if he did? How would we recognize it? Do you remember back in the 90s in Brownsville, Florida and up in Canada as well? It was the Toronto revival. They called it the laughing revival. And people were even barking like dogs. Is that revival? What would happen if the Spirit of God truly sent revival? I think we see it in Galatians chapter 5. Two things would happen. Number one, the flesh would be diminished. The power of the flesh in the life of the believer would be broken. And we would not be living in the works of the flesh. And then secondly, his fruit would be evidenced. We would see those two things. The flesh and the work of the flesh would be diminished. And the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, would grow, would be evidenced. And that's where we're going over the next couple of weeks. The flesh being broken and the fruit of the Spirit being evidenced. This is the evidence to us of the Lord's working. Now, let's think of two words here. The flesh being diminished. That sounds to me like a word that is used many times in the Scripture, and it is the word, we would be more holy. We would be more holy. 1 Peter 1. Be ye holy, for I am holy. If the flesh is being diminished in my life and I am being set free from its influence, that is going to produce in me a yearning to be holy. Secondly, what is the fruit of the Spirit? The fruit of the Spirit is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Now that's a singular fruit. We're going to look at this when we get to it. It's a singular fruit that is produced by the Spirit of God. It is the fruit of love. And it is evidenced in our life by all these other things. It looks like being long-suffering with my neighbor. Like having joy in my life. And so I want us to think about this. If the Spirit of God is really filling my life, the flesh will be diminished and I will be becoming increasingly holy. And if the flesh is being diminished in my life and the fruit of the spirit is being evidenced, then I will be increasingly governed by love. So let's think of those two words for a minute, holy and love. You know what happens so many times in Christianity today? We think of them as polar opposites. We put holiness over here, we put love over here, and we say they're kind of polar opposites. But think about the reality here, my friend. If I am really filled with the Spirit, what is going to happen to me? The person who is the most holy will be the most loving. Is that not true? You say, demonstrate it to me. God is holy. And God is love. Is God, is anyone in the universe more holy than God? No. Is anybody in the universe more loving than God? No. God is the combination of those two realities. He is holy and He is love, and He combines them in His person in one. And I want us to see that if we are walking in the Spirit, He will produce within us His character. We will be holy, but we will also be loved. These two things will be ours. So we've been talking about the flesh. What is it? What is the flesh? It is the part of our being that was inherited from Adam in the fall. It is the part of our being that is allured by sin. And it conspires against us. It is the enemy within the gates. Now, you know, as well as I know, this is real quickly this morning, there are three enemies of the believer. This is all through the New Testament, isn't it? This life is not a playground. It is a battleground. If you make it a playground, then you will be a casualty in it. It is a war. Three enemies of the believer. Let's look at them quickly. Number one is the flesh. It is the internal foe. It is our worst enemy. We deal with it every day. Jesus says in Mark chapter 7, all these things. He's talking about the struggles that we read of in Galatians chapter 5. He almost writes them verbatim in Mark chapter 7 when he is talking about cleanliness and being clean or unclean. And he says all these things come from within and they defile the man. And so we have an internal foe. We have an internal enemy. We also have an external enemy. We call him the devil and the demonic host. This is the angelic host that followed Satan in his rebellion against God when Satan said, I will be like the Most High. I will ascend onto the throne of God and God cast him forth from heaven. And so there is the devil and the demonic host. In 1 Peter chapter 5, we are told to resist the devil and he will flee from us. He is our enemy. The thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. But Jesus said, I am come that you might have life and you might have it abundantly in me. So there is the devil and the demonic host. And then thirdly, we see in the scripture, there is the world system. In James chapter 4, there are many places we could go to talk about the world system, and we won't take a lot of time with that this morning, but the world system is that system of values and beliefs that are in direct opposition to the Lordship of Christ. And we are told in James chapter 4 verse 4, you adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? These are the enemies of the believer. Now, I want to make a quick contrast when we think of the flesh. Jesus had no flesh. He was flesh and blood. He had a body, but he had no sinful nature. That is why, by the way, the virgin birth is important. The virgin birth of Christ secured the ability for the God of the ages to come into the world without inheriting from Adam a sinful nature. So the virgin birth is very important. So Jesus Christ had no flesh. He did not inherit from Adam a sinful nature. You know, Jesus is in heaven today making intercession for the saints, isn't he? He walked on this earth. He dealt with sinful people. Do you know that Jesus Christ was never around a prostitute and was allured to have an immoral relationship with her? He didn't. Did you know that God sees all sin? everything that happens in any given moment, and every thought we think that is sinful, He sees it all. Did you know He is not in any way allured by it? He is disgusted by it. That doesn't mean He's disgusted by sinful people in that sense, because He loves the sinner, doesn't He? Even though He hates the sin. But God is not allured by sin. He can see it all, and rather than having something within Him saying, Oh, I'd like to do that, He keeps it on him left, because he has a holy hatred for it. Now, think about ourselves. I don't care who they are. The most righteous person you can imagine. You put them under the right provocation and in the right situation and any sin that anyone has committed through all the annals of human history, they could become guilty of. Why? Because there is within us by our sin nature, something that says, even when we stand against sin and we say, I don't want to do that, there is something that is within us crying out. Oh, I'd love to do that. Have you ever noticed that? Let's be honest. Let's be honest with ourselves. This is the flesh. It's interesting to think. Jesus sits with us on the couch in the evening. He watches with us what we watch. Is He disgusted by it? He walks with you, teenager, in the halls at school. He goes with you. He listens in with us in our earbuds, and He knows the playlist in our iPod. Let's never forget that there is a power in popular culture to allure and to steal our heart. There is an enemy that is embedded within us that would destroy our lives. It conspires with the enemy without, and we must be continually on our guard. I want to draw your attention to chapter 6 for a minute, because this tells us where all this is going when Paul finally summarizes it. In Galatians chapter 6, he says, don't be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man plants, that he will reap. For the one who plants to his flesh will from the flesh reap destruction, decay, corruption. The flesh is powerful. The flesh works. We see that in Galatians, chapter five, verse 20, and we're not going to go through this list in depth this morning, but beginning in verse 20 or excuse me, in verse 19, we see the works of the flesh and they are evident. They come to light. What you're thinking in your mind eventually comes out. They are evident. These are plural. There are many manifestations of the flesh. And he even tells us at the end of it, it's almost like the Holy Spirit is saying to us, if I left anything out of the list, let's just say and the like. Anything like these things, he's making it comprehensive, he's saying here's a list of things, but there's a whole lot more things that are like these things. These are the works of the flesh and then there's the fruit of the Spirit. So we have plural works of the flesh. We have a singular fruit of the Spirit. It is like a diamond with many facets. It is a singular fruit that is produced in us by the Spirit of God. Now, one thing that I want to draw our attention to when we think of this word and we think of the concept of the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is not produced in us by us just passively doing nothing. The fruit of the Spirit is not produced by passivity on our part, but rather by keen Spirit-directed activity. Let me put it to you this way. There's another passage I would draw our attention to. We won't go there this morning, but in 2 Peter chapter 1, we have a very similar list of character traits of being filled with the Spirit. But there he says, and you, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue. and knowledge and temperance. He says, or go out and with everything that is in you, you give all diligence to add within your faith. So the spirit of God does not produce this fruit when we just simply passively say, do something to me, God. He expects us to apply diligence in our obedience. So our role is to walk in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to make use of God's Word in the daily battles of life, and then the Spirit produces in us His fruit. Now, let's take a minute and then we'll close in a few minutes and talk this morning about the works of the flesh. Never easy to talk about, is it? Been on the range? riding looking for cattle and come over a crest and you kind of catch the blast up downwind of some critter that's died. You ride around the bend and maybe you find in the stream or under a tree an animal that's died. And there's maggots and slip in its hair and it stinks. We're disgusted by it. That's these verses. It's like maggots and stench. But my friend, it's us. This is the picture of the human condition. Every one of us. And that is the first point I want to make as we look at this list for a few moments this morning. These things. are in every one of us. Some of you have a little baby. They're in that baby. These things are in us as adults. We dress up. We look nice. But these sins would lurk within us and would be our undoing. The Scripture says to us clearly, my friend, Let any man who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." Now, I am not saying here that everyone who is in this room is guilty of these overt actions. But I am saying that every one of us who is in this room, even those who are believers, could be guilty of doing anything in this list? You say, no way. I say, yes way. Under the right provocation and given the right situation, any one of us could be guilty of any sin. Now he says here, that those who practice these things cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Those whose lives are characterized by the continual living in these things, it is an evidence to us that they are not born again. But that does not mean that these works could not arise from within us, and that we must not be continually on our guard. Interesting. book that came out in October. I don't want to take a lot of time to deal with this book this morning, but it's called The Cross in the Closet. A guy named Timothy Cusack wrote the book. He was raised in a fundamental Christian home and decided he wanted to know what it would be like to live like a homosexual for a year to see what they go through and how the church treats them. Interesting book. Those who practice these things cannot inherit the kingdom of God. He came away from that having been changed by that experience. Not for the better. But for the worse. So now he calls his Christian friends who are married homosexuals. Christians. Is that compatible? No. But could someone fall into that sin who is a Christian? Yes. But by the grace of God, they will repent and come out of it. You see, we have to be so careful as Christians that we never think of ourselves as above anything that is in this list. Now, secondly, when we think of the works of the flesh, there are four different types of sins that are in this list. Notice what they say, and we're going to come back to him next week, that we might smell the stench of these sins even deeper. But he says here, the works of the flesh are evident, and they are these. They are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness. Those would be the first category. They all refer to sexual type sins. We'll look at those terms individually, that we might understand what he's saying about them next week. In the list also, he deals with false worship. He says there is idolatry and there is sorcery. That is a Greek word, pharmakeia. You can hear the word pharmacy there. And it was the use in the ancient world of utilizing kind of a drug induced trance to try to commune with the gods. So that's the work of the flesh. I mean, they do it as false worship. So there's false worship, that is the work of the flesh. Idolatry, the substitution of a visual image of God in the worship of God. He says it has nothing to do with that. And so idolatry and sorcery. Then there are selfishnesses in relationships. Oh, this gets to us a little closer to home. Envy, selfishness, selfish ambition. Things that we dress up and make a little bit better and look a little nicer, they are kind of the respectable sins of the church. And then there's addictive behaviors, things like drunkenness and the outgrowth of that which is the partying or the revelry that goes with it. And so here we have the works of the flesh delineated for us, broken out that we may understand how these things come about from within our nature. And he says here, I told you these things that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. There are other places that the scripture bears this out. First Corinthians, chapter six. But he tells us in such were some of you, but you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified. We also see this in first John, chapter three. Those who practice these things cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And so this is a list of the works of the flesh. to the works of the flesh are lurking in every one of us. And then we see here kind of a delineation of them. And then as we conclude, I want us to go briefly that we may think of a transition that happens. And I want us to go to Romans chapter one. You see, these things that are on the screen are lurking within the heart of every individual. And they become kind of isolated sins of individuals. And all of these sins are always present in people. But the reality is there are cultures that are in the world where these evil things are called evil and they are punished and they are not rewarded and they are sought to be distanced from the culture. In one sense, you would say they are kept in the closet. But then there is a transition that happens when these sins, these things we call the works of the flesh, are brought out of the closet, so to speak, and they are paraded in the culture, and that which God calls evil is then called good, and that which God calls good is called evil. And I want us to think this morning, when we think of these works of the flesh, and we think of the reality in the scripture, that when a culture becomes saturated and then characterized by the expression of these sins, that culture or that people are then ripe for God's judgment. In other words, when these works are paraded and glorified and glamorized, that culture is well nigh unto cursing. And this is what we see in Romans chapter 1. I want to just draw your attention. This is a long section. We don't have time to go through it this morning, but it tells us, beginning in verse 18, right after talking about the power of the gospel, he says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth because they love their unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God has been manifest within them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen. Do you remember Mike Riddle speaking about that? They are understood by the things that have been made. Even these two things are known intrinsically to the human heart, the eternal power and the Godhead, and that renders us without an excuse. And then he says, Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God. Boy, that's the United States of America. Christian culture, Christian country, so to speak, quote unquote, who knew God and yet did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful. Boy, look at the starting point of all of this degeneracy. Neither were they thankful to Him. But they became futile in their thinking. Their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image." Here we're talking about idolatry. Made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up to their uncleanness. This is a word that is in Galatians chapter 5. Speaking of sexual sin. It is the result of the sin. It renders us unclean. And so God gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their heart, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. Those who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and they worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. And for this reason, here again it reiterates that God gave them up. to their vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving within themselves, in their own bodies, the penalty of the error which was due them. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, He says. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God third time gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with unrighteousness. sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers. They are backbiters. They are haters of God. They are violent. They are proud. They are boasters, inventors of evil things. They are disobedient to parents. They are undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. All these works of the flesh, who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do these things, but they approve of those who practice. You see, when a culture becomes saturated and characterized by the expressions of these sins and calls what God calls evil, good, That culture is well nigh unto burn. And the starting point of it all is they were not thankful. We're not thankful to the God who had made them, who had created them and justly demands from us our worship of him. And so let's close in the word of prayer. Father, we thank you for your word, which you have given to us. And Father, how it displays to us the rot that is within us. Father, I pray for that young person who may be in our midst today who has been saturating their mind with evil thoughts, thinking that because no one could see what they were thinking, it would be OK. And they forget that the works of the flesh will become evident. and ultimately destroy them. I pray for that young person that You would lead them by Your goodness unto repentance. I pray for us as adults, Father, that we would not allow the sins of the flesh to have dominion over us, but that we would walk in the Spirit, we would be led by the Spirit, and Your Spirit would witness within us by Your Word that, Father, You would break the power of cancelled sin You would set the captive free. Father, I know that in a crowd like this on this morning, there are people here who are struggling with addictive behaviors. Father, there are people here who are struggling in their thought lives. There are people here who are struggling with selfishness. There are people here who are struggling with interpersonal relationships. There are people here who are struggling with sexual immorality. That Father, as we close this morning, Your Spirit would do a work in their heart. They would find victory at the cross. In Jesus' name, Amen.