Sermon: Pentecost 4 - Galatians 5.16-22, June 21, 2026
Scripture: Galatians 5.16-22
Preacher: Ryan Slifka
Sermon: Pentecost 4
God, Holy Spirit, come to us, come among us;
come as the wind, and cleanse;
come as the fire, and burn;
come as the dew, and refresh:
convict, convert, and consecrate
many hearts and lives
to our great good and your greater glory. Amen.
We’re continuing this morning in our sermon series on Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia. These churches that Paul helped form have, in his mind, abandoned his original message for those of false teachers.
Like Paul, they believe in Jesus, that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah who has died on a cross and been raised from the dead to set the world right. But in addition to that, these teachers insist that in order to be a part of God’s people, to be set right with God, everyone—including non-Jews—must keep the Law of Moses. They’ve gotta follow the way of life set out for God’s people in the Torah—the first five books of the Bible. Including the law that the whole letter more or less orbits around—circumcision.
This is a huge departure from Paul’s teaching, which is that Jesus has set in motion a whole new world and a whole new age. One where becoming part of God’s people, and being set right with God is accomplished not by keeping the law, but by faith. By trusting in Jesus Christ. In turning back to the law, Paul says, they are turning their backs on freedom, and returning to a form of spiritual slavery.
Now, up until this point, things have been a little—shall we say—abstract. It’s been about ideas. So far—other than telling people to not get circumcised—Paul has more or less steered clear of the practical. Like, what does the Christian life look like on the ground?
Here Paul does just that. He answers this question with two lists: what he calls the “works of the flesh,” on one hand, and the “fruits of the Spirit” on the other. “Live by the Spirit,” Paul says. “Live by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh.” The works of the flesh. And the gifts of the Spirit. They are in contradiction.
Let’s start with the “works of the flesh.” What the Christian life should not look like. These are, in Paul’s words, “obvious”:
“Fornication”—he starts with sex, of course. “Impurity,” and then “Licentiousness.” Then there’s “idolatry” and “sorcery.” Enmities, strife, jealousy and anger. Then there’s “quarrels,” “dissensions,” and “factions. And finally, “envy, drunkenness, and carousing.” All of these, the theologian Richard Hays calls “community-compromising activities.” Things that not only hurt us, but they wound others. And set us against each other.
These are the “works of the flesh.” What the Christian life shouldn’t look like on the ground. Quite a laundry list. Or dirty laundry list you could say.
Now, this is in contrast to what the Christian life should look like: “fruit of the Spirit.”
They start with love. Not just a romantic feeling, but a servant-like regard for another person. The kind of love that is willing to die so someone else can live. One that Paul begins with, says one New Testament scholar, because love is “the source from which all the rest flow.” God is love, after all.
Then there’s joy. Peace, and another P—patience. To see people the way God sees them and give them a wide berth, instead of exploding in anger at them.
Then we have a pair—kindness and goodness. Being polite at the store, sure. But moreso the form of enemy-love that Jesus describes in the beatitudes. What we often call grace.
Then we have faithfulness. Being faithful. Being loyal, trustworthy, dependable to our neighbours. Not a flake. And gentleness. Not the opposite of strength—it’s having strength, but not using it to crush other people when we have the opportunity. Humility. Tenderness.
And finally, self-control. Not just to seek out what we need in life, but to break the bank to get what we want. But to sacrifice what we want. For the sake of others.
That’s all nine fruit of the Spirit. This is what the Christian life is supposed to look like. The opposite of the works of the flesh.
Now clearly, this means that we should refrain from the works of the flesh, and get on them fruits of the Spirit. Drop the bad stuff and embrace the good stuff. Right? Right.
But it’s not so easy. It’s never so easy.
We’ve been conditioned by western society to hear something like “the desires of the flesh,” and think it’s just an example of Christian prudery. Of course Christians are against perfectly natural enjoyable things—especially sex—because they think that spiritual things are good, and flesh, that human bodies are evil. Flesh opposed to spirit.
Asides from that being a heresy related to something called Gnosticism, it’s not what Paul means by the “desires of the flesh.” One commentary describes “flesh” as “not just sexual impulses, but all self-seeking human desires apart from God.” Or another, “the sphere of autonomous humanity, conceived as standing in opposition to God.” The flesh is an internal selfishness. One within us that is opposed to God’s good purposes for our lives and creation.
What it means is that there is something wrong with us at the deepest fundamental level. It’s deeper than psychology and biology even. It’s a mystery, one we traditionally call “Original Sin.” Paul says in another letter to the Romans, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… for I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.”
Like, our fundamental human problem isn’t just doing the wrong thing. Because if it were the case, we would do it. No. It’s deeper than that. There is a selfishness at work in us. This is what Paul means by “works of the flesh.” The flesh has us put ourselves at the centre of the world and, like a gravitational force, makes us inclined towards using and wounding others, rather than serving them ala Jesus. One that makes us totally unable, as Paul says, to “inherit the kingdom of God.”
It’s not so easy. If it was, I’d be totally loving, joyous, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and exercise rigorously every day due to my incredible self-control. No, it’s not easy at all to turn in the bad for the good.
So what we supposed to do?
Well, the starting point, is by seeing the good as something that we don’t actually do at all. At least not in the first place. And all this centres on that image that Paul uses of “fruit.”
The late Jurgen Moltmann says it better than I could. “What is important,” he says.
“What is important is the contrast between ‘the works of the flesh’ there and ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ here. Works are made, but a fruit grows. We cannot ‘make’ the fruit of the Spirit, nor can we learn it. We have to wait expectantly for it, and let is grow, as fruits ripen on a tree. What becomes real and visible in our lives as ‘the fruit of the Holy Spirit’ doesn’t come from us. It comes from the Spriit in us and through us.
Everything good in us is the ‘fruit’ of grace.”[i]
Everything good in us is the fruit of grace. Jesus uses another similar image when he says, “I am the vine, you are the branches,” and “with me you will bear much fruit… without me you are nothing.” All that good stuff Paul’s talking about, of course it’s not easy. But it’s also not something we, do. But it’s the outcome of God growing in us. God at work in our lives. Making us new.
And how do we get these fruits to grow? The answer is nothing. Nothing!
Well, not exactly nothing. There is one thing we can do. Which is die. Die. Or to put it another way, recognize just how dead we already are.
“Those belong to Christ Jesus,” Paul says. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” And now they live by the Spirit.
Paul uses the image of Jesus’ crucifixion to describe what we’re to do to get that fruit-a-growin’. Christian spirituality is kinda weird in this sense. Because it’s not about climbing a staircase to heaven, goodness, or success. It’s not about discovering our power within, or finding the right techniques or practices that will make us more virtuous.
It’s more like letting ourselves fall into an open grave and be covered with dirt. It’s about being truthful about our lives. It’s about being honest that we are prisoners to the works of the flesh. That we can’t save ourselves, but we’re dead, and in need of resurrection, by the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
The great novelist G.K. Chesterton once said, “a saint is someone who knows he’s a sinner.” That’s what the Christian life is—daily dying to sin, and rising to new life… knowing that on the other side is eternal life. We always begin with the fact that we are not who we should be. And somehow, that’s when the fruit of the Spirit’s given space to grow. It’s like a forest fire burning up all the beetle kill so new, fresh green shoots can grow. Another word for this is “repentance.”
Now, to be clear, for some of us, this new life might come on quickly. Folks who’ve had an experience with the Spirit that instantly changed us, say an instant burden of hatred, or addiction being lifted. It totally happens.
But it’s not the only way it happens. Or even the way it usually happens. For some of us, maybe even most of us, the fruit takes a lot longer to ripen. It’s like the poet, Mary Karr, who once said that after years of being a Christian, she realized one day she only wants to kill some of the people shoving past her on the subway in the morning.[ii] It may be salmon-berry sized. But a fruit of the Spirit nonetheless.
This past cycle of the Way, our adult faith formation process, our Elders received an application to finish the process—baptism or baptismal renewal at the Easter Vigil. I won’t say who it was. But let’s just say this application was unique. Because when asked what difference The Way made, they wrote these words: “I find I’m actually starting to give a crap about people.” Except they didn’t say “crap,” they said the other, less polite word. One of our Elders said they found it “rather refreshing.”
Not exactly “I saw Jesus in a sudden flash of light and am a new person,” I know. But it does sound like fruit. The surprise green branch on a tree that seemed only grey and leaf-less. Not made, or earned, but a gift from the Source of all gifts—the first gift, the gift of love. Love for our neighbours that we never had before. The fruit of grace growing in us. One that makes us new, not in our time. But in God’s time.
Which is, dear friends, a great relief. Why? Because it means that the Christian life isn’t just doing our darndest to be good, and our best not to be bad. We’re free from the burden of all that exhausting and impossible moralism.
What it is, is so much more than that. It’s about knowing just how dead we are. Dead in body, dead and spirit, prisoners of our anger, our hidden drives and resentments, the works of the flesh. While—more importantly—knowing we have a God who specializes in resurrection. A God who we can turn to—again and again—in joyous expectation of grace. Fruit-bearing grace that changes us. Reshaping us, day by day by his Spirit, into the patient, kind, and loving image of Christ.
I offer this to you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[i] Jurgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life, trans. Margaret Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1997), 53.
[ii] Quoted in William McDavid, Ethan Richardson, David Zahl, Law and Gospel: a Theology for Sinners (and Saints), (Charlottesville: Mockingbird Ministries, 2015), 66.