Living Inside Out
10/07/2007 - The Conflict Within
Conflict. Who here likes conflict? Not me. I find conflict threatening and uncomfortable and my tendency, to be honest, is to run from conflict. I don't like conflict, although I do know that conflict handled well is often the doorway to growth and opportunity.
The dictionary defines conflict as "a hostile encounter, a fight, a battle, a war between incompatible or opposing needs, drives, wishes or demands." One day we're going to live in a peaceful world where there is no more conflict, but until that day comes conflict is a very real part of the world we live in right now.
We see it on a global scale. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The unending war in Iraq. The horrific genocide in Darfur. And it sickens us. And we wonder why can't we all just get along?
We see it at work. Last week, Scott Lidbeck told us how he left the mission where he had served for 32 years over a conflict in leadership styles. It was a painful process to go through and leaves deep wounds, but now God seems to be providing a door of opportunity for Scott and his family with a new assignment pastoring the church where he grew up out in Washington.
We see it at school. Right now we're trying to help our ten year-old daughter handle the conflict that goes on with friends and classmates. At it's not easy. The school bus and the playground can be nasty places where a lot of hurtful things get said.
We see it in homes and in marriages and it breaks our hearts every time. We see it in our home and our marriage and it can cause distance between the people we love the most.
Sometimes conflict takes extreme forms. This week Jennifer met with a woman in our home who lost her daughter and her granddaughter to a chilling act of domestic violence. It was horrible. And unfortunately she's not the only one. Jennifer meets women all the time in her volunteer work at the Laurel House who have been the victims of domestic abuse.
Conflict. It's all around us. But not only is it all around us. Conflict is inside us too. In fact, it's the conflict brewing inside us that causes the conflict all around us. There's a battle, there's a war that goes on inside each and every one of us and if we give in to the wrong side we just become part of the problem with this world and not part of the solution.
G. K. Chesterton was a well known British author in the early 1900's who was known for his humor and his wit. And at one point the New York Times asked him and a group of other famous authors to write an essay on the theme "What's Wrong with the World?" And Chesterton's essay took the form of a letter in which he wrote,
Dear Sirs,
What's wrong with the world? I am.
Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton
He understood that the conflict is within. The line between good and evil runs through the center of our own hearts. Jesus understood it too when he said in Mark 7:20-23, What comes out of you is what defiles you. 21For from within, out of your hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and defile you.
The apostle Paul, who wrote most of our New Testament, understood it as well. He puts it like this in Galatians 5:16-18, So I say to you, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
This morning we begin a brand new series called Living Inside Outwith a teaching I've called "The Conflict Within." It's a series that's going to show us what it means to live life energized by the Holy Spirit, to live out the life that God has placed inside each one of us who is connected to Jesus Christ. And we've learned that being connected to Jesus begins when we believe that he is who he claimed to be, the Messiah, God's Son, our Savior.
The inspiration for this series comes from the words of Jesus himself who said in John 15:5, I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.
We talk a lot around here about making a difference in this world, being a blessing to this world, glorifying God, bringing a little bit of heaven to this earth, living fruitful lives. It all sounds so good, but the truth is that we can't do any of it unless we choose to release the life of God's Spirit that lives inside us. Jesus said, Apart from me you can do nothing.
This life that God has given us, this life that's dying to come out of us is described in the Bible in lots of different ways. And one of those ways is as fruit, the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. And that's going to be our text for this series. So if you have a Bible meet me at Galatians 5:22-23.
In Galatians 5:22 we read, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Nine fruits of the Spirit, nine virtues that the Holy Spirit is longing to produce in our lives. And each week we're going to unpack one of these pieces of fruit and take a bite out of it to see how we can live it out everyday.
How do we make a difference in this world? How do we fall in line behind Jesus and help advance his kingdom? By offering others a religion to follow? No. By handing them a statement of things to believe? No. By posting rules and rituals to keep? No. We make a difference in this world by offering others life, the life that Jesus has given us. That's what Jesus came to offer when he said in John 10:10, I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full. A big part of what it means to be "saved," is to be rescued from a meaningless, self-absorbed, self-destructive, me centered life and to be given a new life, life to the full.
In this letter that Paul wrote to the churches in the region of Galatia, which is in modern day Turkey, he's defending the gospel, the good news about Jesus, against his critics who were saying, "Believing in Jesus is fine, but it's not enough to please God. You have to keep the Jewish law as well. And if you're a man you need to be circumcised. You have to become Jewish and keep all the feasts and festivals, observe all the sacrifices, all the dietary laws, the dress code, the Ten Commandments, plus the 604 other do's and don'ts that God gave to Moses. That's what it takes to please God. Here's the list. Just do it!"
And so these young churches in Galatia were getting confused. And when word got back to Paul about this false gospel he flipped out. Remember Paul was Jewish and had grown up with all that rigorous religious structure and had even excelled in keeping it, but when he met Christ he was set free from it all. And so he fires off this letter and says, "No way! We don't please God by keeping rules and rituals. Jesus came to set us free from all that!"
Look at Galatians 5:1, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. 2Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value at all. 3Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from grace. 5But by faith we eagerly await though the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.
And here it is, The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
We enter into a relationship with God through faith alone in Christ alone believing that he is the Son of God who has paid the price for our sin on the cross. We don't work our way in, or buy our way in, or bargain our way in. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
And once we're in that relationship with God, once we're connected to the vine, we stay connected by faith. We don't all of a sudden start living by a list of rules and do's and don'ts. You're not going to find a list of do's and don'ts in this church. Instead, what you're going to find is constant encouragement to express your faith in Jesus through love because that's what will make a difference in this world. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
This week I met with a woman who was very concerned about the choices that her son had made recently. And she had good reason to be concerned because he made some choices that not only will greatly complicate his life, but have the potential to be destructive to him and to others involved. And as she talked and I listened we grieved together, but we also agreed that we needed to love her son through this whatever that would look like. And at that moment we weren't sure. But we prayed that God would show us what it would be like. Because at the end of the day the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Right now some of you have your backs up against the wall with stress in your marriage, in your home, with your children, with co-workers, with ex-spouses and you feel this conflict with in. There's a part of you that wants to power up and fight back, maybe a big part of you. But there's another part of you, actually the Holy Spirit inside you, that's whispering, "What does love look like in this situation? Choose the way of love."
And sometimes love speaks firm. Paul has some strong things to say to those who are perverting the gospel. Look at Galatians 1:8-9,But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let that person be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let that person be eternally condemned!
Strong stuff! And to those who were teaching that men needed to be circumcised to follow Jesus he says in Galatians 5:12, As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate or castrate themselves!
Sometimes love must be tough. But there's this conflict going on inside us, this battle within between the sinful nature and the Spirit of God that Paul describes in Galatians 5:16-18, So I say to you, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
And how do we know if we're being led by the Spirit or if we're under the control of the sinful nature in our relationships with others? Look at verse 19, The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
That's a description of the kind of life that Jesus came to save us from. As Christ followers we don't have to live that way any more. Those are all expressions of the kind of life that leads to our own destruction. That kind of life doesn't advance the kingdom of God. It undermines the kingdom of God. A life lived under the control of the sinful nature is death really. It's part of the problem and not part of the solution. It is what's wrong with this world. And I hate when I see it in myself. It's disgusting.
But the good news is we don't have to live that way! We've been set free from bondage to that sinful nature. We have God's life pulsating inside of us and he wants us to live inside out. And when we do, this is what we get.
Look at verse 20, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
When we live by the Spirit we get a quality of life that reflects Christ to this world. And it doesn't come from self help or rehabbing the sinful nature that lives inside us. That can't be upgraded or improved. It will always be evil. We can't negotiate with it, reeducate it, rehabilitate it, or reform it. The only thing we can do is crucify it and that happens when we choose to live by the Spirit of God, to live inside out.
And we do that, Paul says, when we stay in step or in tune with the Spirit. We listen to the Spirit's song because it's always playing in our soul. We pay attention to his promptings and obey his leadings. Sometimes they sound like this …
"You need to call this person today and see how they're doing. You need to pray about this situation that you've been obsessing over. You've been working too hard, you need some time with your family. You need to apologize to your kids for being harsh with them. You need to wait on God a little longer before you make this decision. You need to take a risk right now and step out and serve in this situation. You need to pull back because you're doing too much right now. You need some time alone with me."
The Spirit is leading us all the time if we're paying attention. And he does a much better job than rules and regulations could ever do. And he's always going to be leading us to love because at the end of the day the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. That's how we make a difference in this world.
And next week we're going to talk about love which is the first fruit of the Spirit. But right now we're going to come to the table, the Lord's Table that illustrates God's love to us because it speaks of the atoning sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross.
I love how the apostle John puts it in 1 John 4:7-10, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.