Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Every year, I come to the people of Mosaic with a burden the Lord has placed on my heart. I reflect on the year behind and the year ahead, spend some time in focused prayer for our church and our city and then I start asking the Lord: What would you have us begin our year with?
As I prayed and reflected this year it was clear to me quickly where God was moving my heart, I wanted to focus on our life together as a church.
Over the last two years we have experienced countless threats and disruptions to our life together. If we are not careful, it could become easy to mirror the fragmented, slanderous, and hostile culture of the world around us.
Truthfully, I believe the great enemy, Satan, is at our door looking to devour and divide us. We live in a culture where it is tempting to succumb to this attack. And our hearts still carry the brokenness of sin in a way that makes us susceptible to this kind of evil.
A people who practice love in a world of hate, who embody peace in a world of anger, who embrace joy in a world of apathy, who cultivate patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, even when it’s costly.
Galatians 5:16-25 says:
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
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. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
Every day we engage in a daily battle. It’s not a battle of flesh and blood, but between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit.
The desires of the flesh are appealing because we still carry broken desires in our hearts because of the impact of sin, the many temptations of the world, and the ongoing work of Satan to undermine and attack the people of God.
Every. Single. Day.
I can feel them creeping around the edges of my life and I can see them lurking in our church family and in our community. The desires of the flesh are destructive and alluring and they are creating massive collateral damage to our lives and in our community.
The volume of these desires of the flesh is turned up and amplified through the following:
And it just so happens that the last two years we have found ourselves exhausted, isolated, and subject to a new kind of ever-present form of digital gluttony. Filling our minds and hearts with fear and foolishness.
But there is good news: The Spirit grants new desires.
In Christ, we are given a new heart and new desires by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. This is what the fruits of the Spirit are: the outworking of the desires of the Spirit in a world filled with the desires of the flesh.
Love. Joy. Peace.
Patience. Kindness. Goodness.
Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.
The fruit of the Spirit is a summary of the form of the Christian’s character. It doesn’t say everything, but it says what is essential. The fruits of the Spirit are produced in our lives by God’s grace and they are cultivated by us in obedience and worship.
The work of living out our resolution: To be a people marked by the fruit of the Spirit.
A people who practice love in a world of hate, who embody peace in a world of anger, who embrace joy in a world of apathy, who cultivate patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control even when it’s costly.
This work will involve both uprooting and replanting.
Working to uproot the desires of the flesh, the way of the world, to the snares of the enemy and to replant the desires of the Spirit.
This is a spiritual work. It can only be done by dependency on the Holy Spirit.
Thomas Chalmers said , “The love of the world cannot be expunged by a mere demonstration of the world’s worthlessness. But it must be supplanted by the love of that which is more worthy than itself.”
We need what Chalmers called the “expulsive power of a new affection.”
Here is a way I want us to consider relying on the Spirit this year and putting to death the flesh: Spontaneous prayer for each other.
How often do we listen to each other acknowledge sorrow, sadness, hope, desire, fear, or anxiety and then just move on with our day?
Here is my challenge for us: Let’s be people for whom it is normal to stop and say: “Thank you for sharing this with me. Can I pray for you right now?”
What does this resolution mean for us as a church family?
I want to draw our attention to three temptations facing us right now and three opportunities we have in the midst of them.
Three temptations facing us right now to give into the desires of the flesh.
Reacting is characterized by being quick to speak, slow to listen, and expressing certainty about everything and curiosity about nothing. Responding is characterized by being slow to speak, quick to listen, certain about certain things, curious about everything else.
Urgency is the life that is lived being busy with superficial things. Fervency is the life lived being busy with formational things.
We are in danger of conformity. Conformity is allowing our witness to be compromised by where and when we live. But in the midst of all these threats, we have three unique opportunities:
By pursuing goodness, faithfulness, and self control we have the opportunity to be a contrast community.
We have to embrace that we are now living as an alien community here. We are going to look stranger and stranger among our neighbors.
By pursuing gentleness, patience, peace, and kindness we have the opportunity to be a persuasive community. We can be a refuge from the division and hostility of the world.
By pursuing love and joy we have the opportunity to be a content community.
We can embody a kind of non-circumstantial joy.
What would it look like for you to make a commitment to memorize the fruit of the Spirit? To remind one another of these values as a church family throughout the year?
If we aren’t resolved to look more and more like Christ, we will inevitably look more and more like the world.
Let us be resolved: To be a people marked by the fruit of the Spirit.
A people who practice love in a world of hate, who embody peace in a world of anger, who embrace joy in a world of apathy, who cultivate patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control even when it’s costly.
May we embody this fruit in our lives, may we give them as gifts to each other, and may we practice this way of living, however counter cultural it may be, in the life of our town.
