FLESHLY BEHAVIOR

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In chapter five of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, as you will find in some of his other letters as well, the Apostle spends time covering the two driving spiritual factors that dictate the way people live.

On one hand, there are people who have accepted Jesus as Savior and received the Holy Spirit as a result. This Holy Spirit was the One that Jesus promised would be sent by God to help lead His people after He brought His Son home to the heavens and indeed the Holy Spirit still is the driving force that leads believers to live life in holiness and righteousness. The results of the work of the Spirit are behavioral fruits that bless others, fruits that we will look at in tomorrow’s message.

But today, we see the scriptures are covering the other power that controls what people do, the power of the flesh. As we have seen elsewhere in this chapter, the Greek word for flesh is spax and this translates to a person’s sinful nature. So anytime we are seeing flesh used in Galatians 5, we need to substitute sinful acts and in today’s passage, Paul lists some of them.

I say some because certainly the list isn’t all inclusive by any means. Rather, it is tailored to the sins that Paul knew existed in the Galatian church. This is what we do when we write a letter, right? We personalize it to the person or people we are writing to.

Look again at the sins Paul associated with the church members of Galatia:

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. Vv. 19=21

Note here that the first three transgressions and a single one that follows mentioned are sexual in nature. When you see the flesh mentioned in the scriptures, you can almost always expect that sexual immorality and or impurity will be a part of the discussion. Debauchery is added here which simply means allowing one’s sexual desires to be excessive and, in many cases, it can become an obsession or addiction. And when you get a group of sexually charged people together, orgies can happen.

Next we find idolatry and witchcraft which were occurring within the body of believers in Galatia. Both are anti-God behaviors at their core, behaviors that turn to other things or forces for aid. It’s an act that reeks of disrespect toward the Maker and Master of all Creation and therein is its sinful nature. When one truly knows God, there’s no need to worship anything or anyone else. Neither is there a need to conjure up spells to achieve what you need. You just center your life’s attention and heart’s affection on the Lord who can do all things for nothing is impossible with Him (Luke 1:37).

After this, we find acts that serve to infiltrate and destroy relationships, whether individual or collective. God calls His people to be united and love as He loves. Hatred and fits of rage, discord, jealousy, selfishness, dissension and division, and envy all work against God’s expectations whether individually or partnered together. The sinful nature will always pull a person away from the place the Lord wants them to be. You can always count on this.

Finally, we see drunkenness mentioned here. Let me say that the Bible doesn’t speak against the use of alcohol, even though many people abstain from it as I have for my whole life. Wine was regularly served at meals in the scriptures. Jesus turned water into wine which was in turn served at a wedding banquet where His mother was present (John 2:1-11). Jesus took wine at His final Passover meal with His disciples and used it to symbolize the blood he would soon shed to cleanse the sins of all mankind (Luke 22:27-28). If alcohol was forbidden, surely our Savior would not have been part and parcel in using it Himself.

You see, it’s not the consumption of alcohol that the Bible condemns but rather the abuse of alcohol intake. We aren’t to drink to excess to the place where we are drunk. The scriptures are clear about this as we see in just this three verses passage as drunkenness is included under the sinful nature.

Why is drunkenness included here?

I think the answer comes in what happens when a person gets drunk. For in that state, they are impaired to the point where they no longer can control their impulses and this can often result in extremely sinful behavior, behavior a person would never have engaged in while they were sober.

God expects that we be in control of ourselves and better yet that we would allow His Holy Spirit to control everything we do, all thoughts and words and actions. For if we commit to this, to the leading of the Spirit, we can leave behind all fleshly behavior and instead bear the fruits of the Spirit by the way we live, something we will look at in the next message.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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