January 18, 2026 | The Roots of the Spirit
The Roots of the Spirit | Galatians Part 17
Galatians 5:22–25
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.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. (ESV)
In The Roots of the Spirit, Jed Gillis shows that Paul’s “fruit of the Spirit” is not a simple good list to copy with more effort. It is what grows out of a deeper change that the Spirit brings in a believer, as the gospel turns self-reliant people into people who rest in God’s undeserved favor. Because it is “fruit” (singular), the virtues belong together, and growth is gradual yet real, with Spirit-produced change showing up over time. As he walks through love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, he traces each one back to a heart that feels safe in God’s grace rather than needing to protect itself. He closes by pressing verse 24 down to the root: the “flesh” is a core commitment to self, and belonging to Christ means crucifying that self-trust and learning to keep in step with the Spirit day by day.
Transcript of The Roots of the Spirit | Galatians Part 17
Jed Gillis: Galatians chapter five, and we're going to pick up where we left off last week in verse 22.
The Roots of the Spirit
Jed Gillis: Before we get started, before we read that though, I wanna start by clarifying something. If you are one of those people who looks at sermon titles on the bulletin, maybe you are, maybe you're not, or one of those people who looks at emails, the the title of this teaching is The Roots of the Spirit.
Now I know the fruit of the spirit is what we normally say, and that could sound weird. So I wanna start off by saying I'm not suggesting that there is somehow a beginning or a root in that sense of the Holy Spirit. Rather, what I wanna do with that phrase is I want to stretch the way we think about Paul's figurative language.
When he says the fruit of the spirit, he doesn't mean a literal apple. He's using figurative language. So I want us to stretch that image a little bit and say, well, how does the spirit produce that fruit in you? If we expand our thinking on this, it's not like we have a tree of our life and it's just a totally normal, sinful, selfish life, and God comes and like sticks an apple on the outside of it. That's not how the fruit of the spirit is produced.
Rather, it's that God, by His grace through his spirit, he transforms us internally. In other words, when I say the roots of the spirit, I don't mean roots that produce the spirit. I mean, what the spirit does in your life. That is, in a sense, the roots of the plant that comes out in love and joy and peace, and patience and kindness and goodness, and gentleness and self-control. What is it that God's spirit does so that when believers produce by God's grace, by his spirit, actions that are the fruit of the spirit. When love comes out, what did God do inside of that believer to change them so that love comes out?
I think if we don't think this way, here's what the danger. We see a list of works of the flesh in verse 19, 20 21, and then we see a list of fruit of the spirit in verse 22 and 23, and we basically read them as bad list, good list. Try really hard not to do these things. Try hard to do these things and we don't have really anywhere else to go. And we find over and over that I fail to be loving and joyful and peaceful and patient certainly like I should. And so we're left coming back to, I guess I gotta just try harder.
And I would suggest that to think that way is to only, is to stay at the level of external actions. Paul relentlessly pushes you beneath the external actions.
The Competing Desires of the Flesh and Spirit
Jed Gillis: So let's pick up his argument. If I could summarize briefly from 16. Paul says, walk by the spirit intentionally and consistently pursue the desires that come from the spirit of God. He says, you'll feel desires of the flesh and desires of the spirit fighting against one another. You'll feel the competing desires that flow from self-reliance or self-trust battling against desires that flow from the spirit, trusting God.
He says going into 19 through 20, he says that these self-trust, self-reliant desires of the flesh, they produce certain kinds of things within us. Fighting, envy, irritability, divisions, betrayal, and unfaithfulness, or numbing addiction. He says that's what works of the flesh are. If you follow after the self-reliant, self-trust desires, that battle within you, that's the kind of things that come out of it.
And so then the question is if that's what comes from the desires of the flesh. What comes from the desires of the spirit? What flows out of, instead of following the desires of the flesh, following the desires of the spirit? And the truth is that the gospel of Jesus Christ turns self exalting, self-reliant, and insecure people into people who rest in the fact that God is for them in a way they could never earn. And there's fruit from that change.
Reading Galatians 5:22-25
Jed Gillis: So let's read verse 22. Paul says, 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. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit.
Fruit not Fruits
Jed Gillis: So this is probably, if you've been in church for a long time, this is a very familiar passage to you. That's wonderful. In some ways, we can come to it and we can hear it, and we can hear not just what you get at first glance, but decades worth of thinking about the fruit of the spirit.
The challenge is sometimes it's hard to really think on what is there. So this morning. I want you to think with me about such a familiar phrase, the fruit of the spirit.
Let's just start with what we can learn from that phrase alone. The fact that he calls it the fruit. First off, it's singular. Many of you have noted this before. It's not fruits of the spirit. It is the fruit of the spirit. When he talked about the works of the flesh, those were plural. Here he says the fruit of the spirit.
That, there's a few things I think we can get from that. One is there are many, many ways to be self-reliant. There are many ways to follow the desires of the flesh. You can look like the drug addict on the streets. You can look like the person who's really well put together and self-righteous about it. You can look like the really, uh, kind person who says, I'm gonna give to others, and it looks really good on the outside. You can look like the person who selfishly hoards. But all of those things can be dependent on self and can be not the fruit of the spirit.
There are many different ways to live a self-reliant life, but there's one pattern of living in the spirit. There's one fruit. There's no context where somebody says, I really am living in the spirit, growing in maturity, but I'm not one of those loving kind of spirit people like I've got all the rest of it, but not love. He doesn't give it to you that way. He says there's one fruit. It's singular.
I find this to be one of the most convicting truths of the passage, and we get it right at the very beginning. That means that no matter how patient I feel like I am. If I then sit here and say there's some other element of this fruit that are like, oh, I don't want that one. I wanna be patient, but don't gimme the self-control one, then the patience I'm pursuing is not really coming from the spirit.
Sometimes people may be naturally your, your personality, you may be more patient, you may at least appear more patient. But if you sit here and say, I don't want faithfulness. Then I would suggest there may be somebody who actually looks less patient than you, but their patience is coming about as a result of the spirit truly working in them. Whereas my patience might be just my personality.
There's a single pattern of life characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, every one of these fruits. So it's the fruit of the spirit.
Growth is Gradual
Jed Gillis: Another thing from that picture, fruit is gradual. If you've ever had a garden or a fruit tree, you know how it works. If I have an apple tree here one day and the next day you see an apple, you don't expect it to be this big right away, do you? You know how it works. Fruit starts small.
Maybe you sit there and go, I really, I, I'm trying to grow in love. I think God is making me a more loving and joyful person, but I am not as loving and joyful as I ought to be. That's okay. Fruit of the spirit grows. It's gradual. The question is not, do I have all the love I ought to have? It's is the spirit producing love within me at all.
Fruit is Inevitable
Jed Gillis: So fruit, it's singular, it's gradual. It's also inevitable. Now I realize you can have a diseased, unhealthy plant that doesn't produce fruit. Correct, agreed. I don't, I'm not using it that way. I'm saying there's no such thing as a healthy apple tree that never produces apples. That's not how it works. We know that instantly from the picture.
And the same thing is true here. There is no such thing as a healthy believer, relying on the spirit of God, who never produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Healthy plants, produce fruit. That's part of the picture when he says the fruit of the spirit.
It Comes from the Spirit of God
Jed Gillis: We could keep going and talk about other things we could observe, but I'll give one more on that phrase specifically, and that is, it comes from the spirit of God.
It's not just fruit. He says Fruit of the spirit.
So in Galatians, where he's used, where he is talked about the spirit really was chapter three. He said, when you receive God's word of grace with faith. How you received the spirit. You heard and believed, and you received the spirit. That's how it started from the very beginning.
So the spirit starts salvation and chapter four, the spirit within you reminds you that God is for you, even in your distress. So your cry in distress is Abba Father. When there's difficulties, you don't go, I don't know. Maybe God's for me. I'm not really sure. Maybe not. Maybe I'll try to earn it. No, the spirit works within us so that we say even when we failed, even when we feel the weight of our sin, we cry because the spirit of God is within us crying this for us: Abba Father,
I was thinking about that phrase. Built into that is the idea that I'm coming to a father who's, for me, he loves me, and if I'm honest, many times I can come to God and instead of Abba Father, it's more like maybe Father.
It's easy to feel like that. God, I'd really, if you wanna gimme something good, I'd really like it. I'd like you to care for me. But, but maybe 'cause I did some pretty bad stuff over here. No, the spirit of God isn't just producing ""maybe Father."" The Spirit of God cries ""Abba, Father.""
So from Galatians, here's where I'd go with it. The fruit of the spirit means God's spirit working within you to convince you of God's great grace to you that you can go to him and cry, Abba. Father. If you truly believe God is for you in a way that you did not earn and could not earn, then Galatians three says, the Holy Spirit is with you. And what this text tells you is that reality will produce fruit. There are results from believing that truth.
A Look at the Fruit
Jed Gillis: Say, well. How does that work? How exactly do these things come about from the truth of the gospel? Well, we're gonna look at the actual fruit listed, which many of you could have quoted. We're gonna look at these, and there are many, many sermons, many devotionals, many articles that define them and describe them and apply them and tell you about their opposites and tell you about all these different things.
This morning is not everything you could ever need to know about the fruit of the spirit. It's all available out there. You can find plenty of resources. If you want to know some, I can tell you some good ones. But this morning I want us to focus on one particular truth throughout as we look at these nine Fruit of the Spirit.
Paul drives you to grace through all of Galatians. God is for you in a way that you could not earn and you don't have to earn. What I want you to consider as you think about the fruit of the spirit this morning is that if you don't rest in the truth of God's grace, you will not really produce this fruit. If you don't rest in God's fully undeserved favor towards you, then true love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, all of those things are not going to be found in your life. Every one of these things comes directly from the Gospel of grace through Jesus. That's my claim. Now, I invite you as we go through to consider whether that's so.
Love
Jed Gillis: So let's start with love. People have tried to define love a million different ways. Here's the way I'll refer to it. It's, it's a, a desire and a posture towards the good of another that ignores risk to yourself. Or we could say you desire the good of another even if you have to sacrifice to try to get it.
That means if your deepest concern. Is your own safety, you will not love like that. Because to love someone, to act in love towards someone is to take some level of risk. You don't need me. In fact, you don't even really need scripture. You could just go listen to love songs for a while and they'll tell you that. To love someone is to risk. You reach love towards someone, they may not return it. You give of yourself for someone they may not appreciate it. Love is is a posture to want the good of another that says my safety is not the highest concern.
Didn't Jesus model this for us? He took the cross willingly. He took the pain and the agony and the betrayal. And scripture says greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend. You see, that's not self-protective. That's knowing that I will be hurt.
So. I won't do this for every fruit, but I want to take a minute and say, well, what's the counterfeit of love? We could call it selfish affection. So you treat someone well because of how they treat you back, or you treat someone well because of how it makes you feel about yourself. You go, I'm a really loving husband, and at the core of that, you really feel good about the fact that you're a loving husband and that's why you're actually doing it. That's a counterfeit love that's not coming from the spirit of God. That's dependent on self, that's protecting self, and that's ultimately exalting myself. That's a counterfeit, but it's not the real thing.
So I will ask this about every fruit. How does that connect to resting in grace? Well, if you don't rest in God's favor towards you, then you have to try to find something to keep you safe, which means there's always a self-protective limit to your love. Apart from the gospel, apart from grace.
I don't mean that you say, I just go into love and I don't care if people can run completely over me. I'm just seeking to get hurt in love. No, I'm not. I'm not suggesting that. But I am suggesting that true love is capable of risk in a way that self-centeredness is not. The only way you'll pursue that kind of love is if, if your soul rests in the love of God for you, so that you say, if this person does not appreciate my love and does not respond like I want them to, my soul is still safe. It is well with my soul.
Joy
Jed Gillis: How about joy? Say what is it? It's an experience of gladness that's centered in God, not your circumstances.
And so what's its counterfeit? You go, just flip that. It's an experience of gladness or excitement that depends on your circumstances and not God. It can look like joy on the outside, but the kind of joy we're talking about here is not just, I feel happy when everything goes well. It's the kind of joy that can say I rejoice and sing when I'm like Paul or Silas in prison for proclaiming the gospel. That's the kind of joy we really are looking at. It's an experience of gladness that says, my joy, my desires and loves are built on God, not circumstances.
That doesn't mean your circumstances are irrelevant. We all enjoy good circumstances. That's okay. That's not sinful. What's sinful would be to make your circumstances the absolute foundation of all of your joy. Enjoy God's good gifts, but enjoy them as gifts from the giver, not as the thing that makes your soul truly safe.
We could ask what's the opposite of joy, and we could say sadness, but I think really probably a more accurate opposite is something like hopelessness or despair. Some of you. Maybe are there, certainly have been there where you'd say, here's joy, that's what I want. And maybe at times you felt sadness, but you were still feeling something. Sometimes we go, I don't feel a thing. There's no point.
I think that's really the opposite of this kind of joy, and the thing is that self-reliance and self focus will fill you with hopelessness and despair and meaninglessness faster than anything else because you'll soon find that you can't deliver happiness for yourself. You fall short.
But true joy is available. It's found by going to the grace of God to go, God, I know what you said you enjoy. The desires of the spirit are what we're supposed to pursue. After all, I know what you said you enjoy. So I find meaning and joy not in the circumstances that I create, not in my performance, but in the fact that God loves me.
If we go back to rest in the fact that God is for me in a way that I could not earn the spirit of God works within us, so that we cry out Abba Father and rest in the undeserved favor of God, it creates joy. It creates an experience of gladness that can transcend your circumstances.
Peace
Jed Gillis: How about peace? What is it? There was a commentator who had a really long definition. This is a shortened version of it. He said, the unbothered attitude and the harmony that comes from confidence and rest in the wisdom and control of God rather than your own wisdom and control. The kind of rest and harmony with others that comes from saying God's wisdom and his control is perfect and my wisdom and my control is not worth trusting.
The opposite of peace internally would be anxiety, worry. Externally, the way it comes out, instead of peace with one another, we have anger towards others. We're irritable.
So how is it connected to resting in God's grace? Well, in order for your soul to truly rest in God's wisdom and control. You need to know God is for you. It doesn't do me any good to say God has all the wisdom in the world and he's in control and he's got it all taken care of, if I think he's against me. If I think he just tolerates me, I can say He's wise and in controllable, but what good is that for me?
We have to rest in the truth that God is for us. We have to say that I have grace, undeserved favor towards God. And that's not just something that like tax onto my life. It transforms my life because when I rest in God's grace and say He's for me, then I can go rest in his wisdom and control and say, that is for my good.
I wanna make sure you understand. The connection I'm trying to make with the fruit of the spirit today. I am not saying that you choose to follow the gospel and that gives you an eternal salvation with God in heaven. And then in the meantime, here's a list of good things. Here's a list of bad things. Try not to do the bad ones. Try to do the good ones. I am not saying that.
What I am saying is that if you genuinely know the grace of God, you soak in that and it actually transforms you at the deepest levels. It's not that you then go and say, I try really hard to be peaceful. It's that that reality changes you.
If you genuinely believe that an omnipotent, all wise God is actually for you and delights in you, you will still fear the feel the desires of the flesh. You will still feel the battle. You'll feel the temptation that says, I'm kind of worried about this, but the reality of grace will produce peace. Which means that the best thing you can do is not sit here and try to whack your anxiety away and sit here and try to build up peace. It's to go back to the truth of the gospel, to the grace of God in Jesus.
We can do this with all these fruits. You go to patience. What is it? It's the ability to face trouble or difficulty, especially the wrongs of others without blowing up at them or attacking.
That means its opposite is resentment, bitterness, irritability. And it's connected to resting in God's grace because if you, if your soul is genuinely safe in the wise and loving favor of God, then you can believe that all things, even the wrongs of others, worked together for good.
We have that example. Think of Joseph in the Old Testament. His soul rested in God and what he had done, so he looked at his brothers and he was patient towards them in a way, many of us would say, I don't know if I would've been that patient. Why? Because he knew what he told them. Later, you did these things and you meant it for evil, but I can be patient because God meant it for good. His soul rested in the grace of God towards him, and that produced an action of patience.
Again, there's battle. I am sure I say, I'm sure. I'm fairly sure. I certainly hope so. I hope that Joseph had some struggles on that. I hope there were days that Joseph was like, I don't really want to be that patient. I hope that 'cause it gives me hope for me. But Joseph rested in the grace of God towards him.
Kindness
Jed Gillis: Kindness. We could define it as practical goodness towards others, like a practical way to show goodness to them to do good for others.
The counterfeit of that would be manipulative good works. So you do kind, it looks, it looks good, right? You do kind things, but you're really doing them in order to either congratulate yourself or to get something from someone else or to say, see God, you gotta bless me now 'cause I did good things. It's manipulative good works rather than truly based on resting in God's grace.
You see that's the only thing that can save us from being manipulative. If I think my soul is not safe, unless I earn favor with God, then of course I'm gonna think of the good things I do as earning favor. What I have to do to make it true kindness, not manipulative goodness, but kindness is to say, my soul is completely safe in the grace of God. Now my God loves practical goodness. How can I do that for somebody else?
Goodness
Jed Gillis: We can talk about the word goodness, which sounds similar to the way I define kindness. I think there's a little bit of a different sense It it's, yes, goodness, something that's worthy of approval. Would be a way to define goodness, but there's a, a little bit of another nuance in this word, the idea of integrity. Like it's worthy of approval in part because it's not fake, it's not hypocritical. So we could describe one commentator, describe goodness as being the same person in every situation. And I would add being praiseworthy in those situations.
So we could have a counterfeit of that too. Sometimes we say, I'm gonna be really, really truthful. I've gotta say whatever comes to my mind and we speak the truth, but we don't necessarily speak the truth in love. That can look like see, I'm just being consistent. I'm being the same in every situation.
Being the same in every situation isn't a virtue if who I am isn't good. So instead of that counterfeit, I'm gonna just speak truth. I'm gonna be completely consistent, whether it's loving or not. What really saying is goodness is consistent, non hypocritical, not fake, not phony, but being genuine in love for others.
These fruits all connect together in case you didn't get that figured out yet, which is why when we say the fruit of the spirit, we say you have to grow in all of them. Like there's no way you can say I'm, I'm really growing in love and joy and peace and patience, but I put that face on at church, and at home I'm just an absolute wretch and I don't care. That's not really growing in the fruit of the spirit. That's just putting a mask on.
So how's it connected to resting in grace? if you say, goodness, this kind of consistency, if God shows me totally undeserved favor, then I don't have to be phony or hypocritical. I don't have to put on a better face. I can say, I blew it. I sinned here. I can do that, and my soul is safe because I wasn't earning favor or safety by doing the right thing all along anyway. I have to go back to the grace of God, and the more I rest in the grace of God, the more I can say my soul is safe enough for me to be consistent in goodness.
Faithfulness
Jed Gillis: Faithfulness. It's being reliable or true to your word. Again, if my soul rests in God's grace, then I don't need to promise more than I can do in order to gain favor with somebody. That's one of the reasons we aren't faithful, right? You overcommit yourself to all these different things and then you realize, oh, I can't actually do them all.
But why did we do it in the first place? Well, I want people to think well of me. There's a need in my soul. I want God to approve of me. So I've gotta make sure I do more and more and more and more. Well, if I rest in the grace of God, then I'm not driven to overcommit, to the point that now I can't be faithful. I don't change what I promised because I go, I've gotta try to measure up somewhere else.
I say my soul is safe in the favor of God, and because of that, I can pursue trustworthy, reliable faithfulness.
Gentleness
Jed Gillis: Gentleness. As with all of these fruit, there's, there's complexity with gentleness. There's, there's an outer action we think of, which is where you, you don't harm people even if they're vulnerable, right? You think about when you pick up a small baby, you should be gentle, right? We all understand that. You pick up a baby and you're gentle. You don't harm the baby. That's the point. The baby is vulnerable. If you're playing football on Sunday, you're not as gentle with the linemen across from you, but he's not that vulnerable either.
Gentleness is this sense, I'm not, the outer action is, I'm not going to harm even the vulnerable. But from the inner attitude and the way this word is used, it comes from a sense of of humility. Like the idea that I'm not overly impressed by my own importance. I'm going, I can be gentle here. I don't have to look strong.
My humility should drive my gentleness, not only physically, but if you go into a context where there's a discussion and you think, I don't agree with that person. Well, how do you communicate that? Well, if we're gentle, you say, I don't have to fight and make sure everybody sees that I'm right. But that takes humility, doesn't it?
Something has to drive that gentleness. And when we get afraid, somebody's gonna think, I'm not a good fill in the blank. I'm not a good worker, I'm not a good parent, I'm not a good dad or mom, I'm not a good brother or son. Doesn't matter. Somebody's gonna think I'm not good enough in this area. Isn't that often when we lose our gentleness? I've gotta make sure they know what I'm really about, what I'm really like.
What's underneath that? I'm not resting in the grace of God. I'm not resting in the fact that my approval was won on the cross through Jesus. Instead, I'm going, I've gotta make sure people see this and when they don't see it, I can't afford to be gentle anymore. See when we rest in the grace of God. It produces gentle, loving actions.
Self Control
Jed Gillis: The last one's self-control, the ability to take I impulses that feel like they come from within you and to control that. The opposite would be impulsive, uncontrolled behavior.
The counterfeit, and here's the one that gets really hard for us. That's when I just say, my willpower will stop this bad action. And that's based on my pride and my need to control it.
But see, here's the thing. When we talk about self-control, I'm actually not that interested in the self-control impulses where you go, here's a bar of chocolate, and I shouldn't eat it, but I did. Those are real, and we have real battles around that kind of stuff. Honestly, those aren't the impulses that whip us around as much as we think.
The ones that we actually get whipped around by are when I feel like I have to control something or I'm afraid, or I'm angry. Those are the impulses. Like we can work on the chocolate, but usually that's way up here on the top of the tree and there's a lot of stuff underneath those kinds of things.
So when we talk about self-control, I mean you have impulses within you where you think, I need to control that. I'm afraid what'll happen if this situation happens. I'm angry. All these kinds of impulses.
But why do we feel out of control there? Because we have something that we think I've got to have that. Think about some, an area where you'd say, I need more self-control, whatever it is, doesn't really matter. You've probably tried to stop doing whatever that thing is. You've probably tried a lot of times.
So my question for you is why do you keep running back? Why is it hard to stop? Maybe because you say, well, it feels really good, whatever the thing is. The chocolate tastes really good.
But what drives you there where part of you says, I shouldn't, but I'm gonna do it anyway, and I can't stop. There's something deep within us that we say, I have to have this satisfaction, or I have to have this control, or I have to have whatever it is.
So if instead our souls can truly rest in the grace of God, it's not that you won't feel the desires, 'cause the desires of the flesh which war against the desires of the spirit, but they lose some of their power. You don't have to follow them because of what he says in the next verse, 24. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
The Flesh is Crucified
Jed Gillis: If you belong to Jesus Christ, if you rest in the grace of, as he says at the beginning of this book, the one who gave himself to deliver you. To give you freedom. If you rest in that, then you have crucified the flesh with his desires.
First, I want you to notice he separates the flesh and the flesh's desires. Don't trust me on that. Look at the text. He says, you have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Paul is relentlessly pushing you below the external actions in this chapter. He is not talking about here's a list of good actions and a list of bad ones. Try to do the good ones. No, he is driving you much deeper than that.
He doesn't even let you only think about the desires that drive you. Notice he takes one step further. You've crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. The desires are there and they battle against the desires of the spirit. But there's something more fundamental than just the desires.
If you have the desire to put someone down in a rivalry to envy, like he described earlier in, in verses 20 and 21. That desire is not in itself the flesh. Paul doesn't talk about it that way. He talks about it as that is a desire of the flesh.
What Is the Flesh?
Jed Gillis: So what is the flesh like? Paul, just take me all the way to the core of this and let's talk about what it actually is. The flesh is the core commitment to self above everything else. The flesh is this self-reliant, self-justifying self exalting posture at the very core, not just of Galatians Chapter five. At the very core of Christianity is are you committed to relying on yourself or are you committed to trusting on Jesus? That's the most fundamental distinction we can make as believers.
In other words, Paul is saying, you can truly belong to Jesus, but there is a cost to belong to Jesus. The cost to belonging to Jesus is to turn from trusting in self.
That's not really much of a cost though, if you know what Jesus said, because Jesus said, whoever wants to save his life will lose it. Whoever would lose their life would find it. He says, you can try to trust yourself to protect yourself, to make sure you control everything you can. Try that and you'll find you'll lose your life. But if you turn from that to trust fully in the grace of God through Jesus Christ, you find life. Yes, it feels like a cost. Yes, it feels like death. He says, take up your cross and follow me. But what you find is life.
When he says that those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh, they've taken this self-trust and self-reliant core motivator at the bottom of all the actions at the bottom of the desires. They've taken that flesh and they've said, I trust Jesus, and that flesh goes on the cross.
The Picture of Crucifixion
Jed Gillis: We could do a whole sermon on this, but I won't. What do we learn from crucifixion? They've crucified the flesh. Crucifixion means death. It feels like death to not trust yourself.
Crucifixion was public. People are going to see you and they will at times think you're crazy because you don't protect yourself and trust yourself like everybody else around you. It's public.
Crucifixion was shameful. There are times you should look at the sinful fleshly desires in your life and say, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and that's exactly what I did yesterday. And you say, yes, that's why it goes on the cross.
Crucifixion was vicious. The core desire to trust yourself, to rely on yourself does not go gently into that dark night. It will take battle. It will require you to, Paul says in Romans eight, put to death the deeds of the body. Kill it.
So Paul here with all of this metaphor that we could expand, he says, look. If you belong to Christ, you've taken that self trusts and you've crucified it on the cross with him, don't take it back down. Don't try to save it. Don't try to bring it back to life. Don't go to the flesh and say, would you like be my advisor in case God doesn't work out? Paul says, you put it on the cross. Leave it there. If you can trust Jesus and not self with your eternal life, then you can trust him to care for your soul right now.
Paul says, if we live by the spirit, if the spirit has genuinely transformed you at the root of who you are, so that instead of trusting in self, trusting in my performance, you say, I heard the gospel of grace, and the spirit opens my eyes to it, and I trust Jesus alone. If God's done that, so you live by the spirit, then keep in step with the spirit. Don't walk as if you have all the insecurities and fears and the feelings of never being enough that you have when you trust yourself. Don't walk like that. Paul is telling you underneath all the actions, there's a war of desires. Self-reliance, God reliance, but underneath that, there's a more foundational difference, and that is a fundamental commitment to yourself or to Jesus.
At the very core of Christianity is this difference. We use different terms for it. Self-trust or trust in God. Self-justification or justification by grace through faith. All the works you could possibly do or all that Jesus has done. Flesh or spirit. That is the core of Christianity. That's what makes Christianity different from every other religion in the world. That's not a popular message in our culture, but it's true. Christianity does not tell you do all these things so that you can be right with God and your life can be good. It doesn't. It says they're done. Trust it and find rest For your soul. It says Jesus on the cross said it is finished.
That means brothers and sisters, the battle for purity in your mind isn't simply a battle to click or not click. It's a battle of your desires. But deeper than that, it's a battle of the core commitment of your soul. Will you look for safety for your soul in the undeserved favor of Jesus? Or will you try to manipulate the safety of your soul through pleasure, through numbing yourself? Which one?
That means the battle of anxiety in your heart isn't simply about how you can distract yourself from the worries or how much you can control your life, or how much you can succeed. It's a battle of your soul. Will you rest in the grace of God or will you try to keep yourself safe and trust yourself in your performance?
We could do this for every sin. And I would stand here today and say, if you feel like I've failed over and over and over again, I know me too. I wish I could tell you that I rest in the grace of God like this every day, and that every action and every thought is full of love and joy and peace, and. That'd be a lie.
But I can tell you that God's word says the truth of the gospel for you is the only way to produce this fruit in your life. And I can tell you that God's word says if you walk by the spirit, if you look to the grace of God and you rest your soul in that, you will not take the desires of the flesh to their ugly end, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. You will see God's spirit working within you and transforming you, and true love, and true joy, and true peace, and all the rest is possible. It's possible now.
And one day we'll see him as he is. And what you'll know then isn't just that Jesus is beautiful and resplendent in his glory. It isn't just that he's powerful. It isn't just that he's king and he's wise. It's that Jesus is the lamb who is s slain for you and God's favor is on you. And that's why we won't sin in heaven, because we will genuinely know him as we are known. We will know His grace in a way that changes all of us.
So I invite you this morning, take a moment th before Jesus. Ask him to take the truth of his grace of his undeserved favor to you and to press it deeper and deeper into your soul. Ask him to help you to trust Christ and not self and to produce his fruit in you.