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Rules, hypocrisy, conflict—those are the words people most often reach for when they describe the church, and if we’re honest, we’ve sometimes given them reason to. Galatians 5 doesn’t flinch from that indictment; it sets the works of the flesh against a vision of the church so different, so beautiful, that it could only come from one source.
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
Patrick contrasts the world’s view of the church (rules, hypocrisy, conflict) with God’s view (fruit of the Spirit). Which of these three characterizations have you personally witnessed or experienced in a church setting, and how did it affect your faith?
Paul argues that the Pharisees’ approach of rule-keeping to achieve righteousness is fundamentally flawed. How do modern churches sometimes fall into the same trap, and what’s the difference between having standards and pursuing self-righteousness through rule-keeping?
The sermon emphasizes that true love in the church requires the work of the Holy Spirit, not just human effort. What does it look like practically when a church community is actually empowered by the Spirit versus when it’s merely trying hard to be loving?
The casaba melon illustration pictures fruit naturally growing when the soil is already seeded—how does that image change your understanding of spiritual transformation in your own life and in the church, and what might “tilling the soil” look like practically?
In Galatians 6:1–2, Paul calls believers to restore those caught in sin “in a spirit of gentleness” and to “bear one another’s burdens.” How can a church balance accountability and correction with genuine love and humility, especially when conflict has already damaged relationships?
How might pursuing the true character of the church—Spirit-enabled love—shape our prayers and support for church plants in college towns and rural communities that need healthy gospel communities?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
Well, it is my honor and great pleasure to introduce Patrick Weston to you. So, I have to tell you… You guys should probably wait until after… No, no, that’s quite appropriate. Let’s make sure, yeah. So, Pat has been bouncing ideas off of me of talking about this church plant since it, before it ever was announced. And the reason for that, going back, Pat and I, well, we’ve known each other for, what, 14 years now, at least. Yeah, basically. Maybe longer. And we’ve been through some trials by fire together, including at a time that we were both working on preparing to be ordained, we suddenly found ourselves where all the pastors at the church we were serving at left. Not as far as I know because of either of us, but it was a very, very interesting time. But it was just such a blessing getting to serve with Pat. He has been such an encouragement to me over the years, and his friendship just meant so much to me. And so, ever since this church plant started to come into existence, I knew that someday I wanted to make sure that Pat came and shared God’s Word from his pulpit. He’s actually planting a church up in Kirksville, Missouri, and he just shared with me some exciting news about they’ve started a Bible study up there as part of that. I’m going to not spoil that and let you share some more. But really exciting. So he’s going to share more about that as part of his message, and I’m going to encourage all of us, let’s be praying for him, because it’s so important that we have healthy churches in our college communities and our rural communities. And he gets to serve both there in Kirksville. What a blessing Kirksville has in having Pat and Jeanne up there. So, anyway, I’m going to get out of the way so you can preach God’s Word, but welcome, Pat.
Thanks, brother.
All right. As Tim just said, you know, you guys have given me a much more gracious welcome than I probably deserve. But my name is Patrick Weston. My wife is over there, Jeanne. And we are in Kirksville planting a church. The sort of working name of our church plant is True Community Fellowship. And as a church planter, by the way, if you have your Bibles in front of you, open them up to Galatians chapter five, and we’re going to just kind of be bouncing through Galatians five a little bit. But as a church planter, I get to talk with a lot of people, whether they want to or not. I hunt them down and talk to them. And as I speak to people, I have a lot of opportunity to interact with their view of the church.
And it’s interesting to hear how much the world’s view of the church differs from God’s view of the church, God’s plan for the church that he outlines for us in his Word. And so the world perceives the character of the church that differs from us, and how we even perceive ourselves often differs from what God has said. And so this evening, I’d like to talk to you about these sort of two views of the church, the world’s view of the church, and God’s view of the church is given to us in Scripture, and how these are addressed and kind of walked through in Galatians and in much of the writing of Paul, but really sort of coalesces in Galatians chapter five. And so I’m going to ask if you would please stand and join me for the reading of God’s Word. As the apostle Paul here contrasts the work of the flesh, those whose lives are directed and characterized by fleshly desires, even within the church, because remember Paul is writing to the Galatian churches, and contrast that with the fruit of the Spirit, the character of the church that walks by the Holy Spirit of God. And so this is what Paul writes in Galatians chapter five, verses 16 through 25. This is a familiar passage for you, but I think it’ll, it’s impactful as well.
Paul writes, 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 have 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, and 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. Would you pray with me?
O holy and gracious God, as we come before your word this evening, Lord, would you bring it to life by the ministry of your Holy Spirit. Illuminate our hearts and our minds and even, Lord, transform our lives by your word and by the ministry of the Holy Spirit in us as your church. Lord, that the way we love one another, that the character of our church would be a beautiful, fragrant blessing to you, the Lord our God. And so, Lord, work in us now that by your word we might truly live out your calling for your church. And so, Lord, we pray this in the great name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Amen. You may be seated.
The world’s view of the church, what Paul would call in these passages, the fleshly view, as I talk with other people, I often hear the church characterized in three ways. Rules, hypocrisy, and conflict. Maybe as you even look back at your own experience with the church, you can understand how people would come to these conclusions about the church. Maybe you even feel the same about the church tonight. Maybe as our introduction cites, we’re going to talk a little bit about tonight. Maybe as our introduction said, maybe you have a problem loving the church.
Well, Paul talks to us tonight about that. And so, let’s look at these verses and see what the Lord, through the Apostle Paul, has to say about these different views. And then we’ll move into what the Lord has to say about his view of the church. All right, so let’s talk about rules. We think about sort of the church as this organization that comes together, and we all sort of have our own, we have our own sort of set of rules that we live by. It’s almost like the pirate’s code, you know. And we see the church with this set of rules, and we use these rules to make ourselves look better. We use these church, these rules to make ourselves appear righteous in our own eyes, in the eyes of others. Sometimes we’re even so audacious to pretend that we can make ourselves look righteous before a truly righteous God. And we use our rules to condemn the culture around us, because we, the culture doesn’t live according to our rules. And it’s easier for us to make ourselves look better, if we tear others down.
That was the approach of the Pharisees in the first century. The Pharisees that just opposed Paul so stridently. But Paul spends the bulk of this book, Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, he spends the bulk of this book showing the foolishness of seeking to make ourselves righteous by rule keeping, by setting up our own set of rules, and then thinking that we can keep them and make ourselves righteous by it. The great question in the early church was this, is the grace of God available to Gentiles? That’s the major question that was being discussed in the first ecumenical council, the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. Is the grace of God available to Gentiles, or is it only for the Jews? Only, in other words, was it the physical descendants of Abraham that sort of set the limits of who could participate in the grace of God? Did the Gentiles have to first be circumcised and agree to keep the whole law, especially the pharisaical law, in order to be considered the people of God? In order to participate in the grace of God. Paul says, not only is the grace of God available to Gentiles by faith in Christ, without their conversion to Judaism, without their circumcision, at least a physical circumcision, we’re circumcised, our hearts are circumcised, but that the rules by which the Pharisees pursued righteousness could never make them righteous, because that’s not what the law of God was given for in the first place.
So Paul writes this in chapter two, verses 15 and 16, he says this, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, so that we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one, no one will be justified.
Paul goes on and says this in chapter three, verses seven through nine, he says, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
You see, Paul is reminding that the Galatian churches and us today of Genesis 12, Genesis 14, when the Lord makes his covenant with Abraham, and he was counted as righteous because of his faith in the Lord, because he trusted the Lord. So that it is the spiritual descendants of Abraham, those of faith who are righteous, not the physical descendants of Abraham, who are the true sons of Abraham, who are the true people of God. So not those who are attempting to make themselves righteous by rule keeping, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Paul then sums up this whole argument against the Galatians who were succumbing to the pressure of the Judaizers and were going to enter back into the Jewish law and be circumcised and enter under the burden of the law as a means of their righteousness, as if they could be more righteous than they were in Christ.
And Paul says this in chapter five, he wraps up this whole argument, says, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. So that it was the, maybe we can see why the Pharisees hated Paul so much, because he was tearing down their self-righteousness and they hated him for it. He’s destroying their self-righteousness and he’s destroying our self-righteousness. For sometimes we really want to make it about our own rules and we can keep them as if that would make us righteous before a truly righteous God. But the character of the true church is not rules and rule keeping. Neither are we to then live according to whatever whim we have. The question is, shouldn’t the faith that we have in Christ, shouldn’t it, shouldn’t that faith impact how we live? Even though we’re not, we’re not made righteous by our rules, shouldn’t faith transform us? Absolutely. Paul says, absolutely, yes. The faith we profess with our mouths and the faith we profess with our lives must agree. When it doesn’t, that’s hypocrisy.
The Greek word for hypocrite in the New Testament is hypocritos. It was the term, it’s an interesting term because it was the term for stage actors. There were companies and groups of actors that would travel through ancient, you know, the ancient Greco-Roman world and they would set up a stage in some city and they would set up a stage in the city and the actors would perform, generally outside. But there generally weren’t enough actors to play all the parts. There were more characters in the play than there were actors to portray them. So what they did was they would hold up masks in front of their face. And when they wanted to change characters, they would just change masks. And so the hypocrites came to be known as someone who was what we would say two-faced. In other words, somebody that was untrustworthy. In fact, in the ancient Greco-Roman world, hypocrites were not allowed to run for public office. Or serve any public office because they were seen as untrustworthy.
That’s how some people see the church. And the fact is that some people have experienced the church. They see people act one way on Sunday morning, say all the right things, but the rest of the week they live as if the faith that they profess on Sunday morning meant nothing. They’re people, and sometimes I should say we, are people with two faces. A Sunday morning face and a rest of the week face.
But notice what Paul says at the end of verse six. Look there again. He, well, I don’t know if you have it up there, but that’s okay. The end of verse six, he says, Paul says what counts is not just the verbal confession of faith, but a lived out faith. At the end of verse six, he says, but only faith working through love.
And Paul went on to make this explicit. Verse 13, he says, for you were called to freedom, brothers, only do not let your freedom, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. Paul calls us to deny the hypocrisy of the flesh. We must not manipulate the faith, distort the faith that we profess in our freedom in Christ and allow that to be distorted to as an excuse for sin, as an excuse for self-service, to promote ourselves and make much of ourselves in the church. Instead, Paul calls the church to live out our faith and serve one another in love, thinking more highly of others than we do of ourselves.
The character of the true church is not one of hypocrisy. It’s not one of rule keeping, it’s not one of hypocrisy, and it’s also not one of conflict. Not the true church, it’s not one of conflict. I talk with people who’ve been involved in churches and have witnessed, you know, infighting, power struggles, divisions, even slander among the brothers and sisters in the church. And so many people see that and they say, if that’s what the church is, then I don’t want to have anything to do with it. And in all honesty, if that’s what the church really was, I don’t think I’d want to have anything to do with it either.
Shouldn’t the church be different than this? The answer again, I ask a lot of hypothetical questions. The answer is always yes. Yes, in Jesus. All right. The church should be such a beautiful fellowship in love with one another that it displays the character of our triune God in how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love one another. So that when the elect see the love of the church, they want, they long for what we have in Christ.
So Paul goes on to say this, verses 14 and 15 of chapter five says, But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. You ever think about that statement? If you bite and devour one another, you are not consumed by one another. You ever think about that statement? If you bite and devour one another, you are not consumed. Watch out that you don’t consume one another. Just think about it, every time I read that verse, I cringe at the degree of conflict that must have been in this early church, in the early churches in Galatia.
And it’s interesting to me that if you look at the works of the flesh, that the biggest chunk of those works of the flesh have to do with our fellowship, with how we live together, with our relationship with one another. Down in, starting in verse 20, Paul says, and I’m going to skip over the first few, he says, now the works of the flesh are evident, and I’ll skip a few, but then he says, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy. Eight of the works of the flesh are committed, Paul says, are descriptive of how we distort how we are to live as the body of Christ and the people of God. If we live according to the flesh, if we fight, and bite, and devour one another, not only will we destroy the church, but Paul says, we will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Not really even as an act of judgment, but because by the way we live, we demonstrate that we’re not really a part of the true church, the true church that’s transformed by the Holy Spirit at work in us.
The character of the church is not rule keeping to make ourselves righteous, it’s not hypocrisy where we say one thing, profess one thing, and live out another, it’s not conflict where we tear one another down to make much of ourselves.
So the question then is, why is it that the world thinks of the church in these ways? Well, partly because the world thinks in worldly terms, in fleshly terms, in human terms, the world thinks of the church as just another human endeavor. So in their minds, of course, the church would have these characteristics that are characteristic of any human endeavor. It’s sort of normal, but second, let’s be honest, that there is ample evidence, plenty of evidence that as the world observes the church, there’s plenty of evidence to say that frankly, we have deserved some of these characterizations. Because there’s plenty of churches and Christians that live as if we are simply fleshly. And they conduct themselves as purely human endeavors that really are characterized by rule keeping and hypocrisy and conflict. Not significantly different than the empty worship of the Pharisees in the first century, or even frankly from the pagan worship that these Gentile Christians came out of.
So for an outside observer, it’s understandable that they may conclude that these are the characteristics of the church. But they are not the true church, because the true church is not a purely human endeavor. It is not fleshly. The true church is characterized by something so very different, something beautiful, something that can only come by the work of the Holy Spirit in us. That’s why Paul calls the churches in Galatia and us to not walk according to the flesh, but walk by the Spirit. Verse 13, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not grab the flesh. And you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. That’s right. Thank you, brother.
You see, the Lord has something so much greater in mind for his church. The true character of the true church is the fruit of the Spirit. The characteristics of the church that are then lived out by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit at work in the body of Christ. But we know it, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law. While those who live by the works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God, those who walk by the Spirit have nothing, nothing to condemn us.
Paul’s been emphasizing throughout this chapter that the true character of the true church is love. Now, I don’t want to diminish any of the other aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. And I also don’t want to go through the, you know, my Greek interpretation of why I think it all boils down to love. We can save that for another time. But think about how many times Paul has encouraged the churches in Galatia to practice love. It says again, verse six, chapter five, but in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Verse 13 again, for you were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. And thereby, as Jesus gave the commandment in John 13, to love one another and thereby show ourselves to be his disciples. And in verse 14, he says, Paul writes that the whole law is fulfilled in one beautiful word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law is fulfilled in love.
All right. Now, if you’re like me, and I would assume that some of you are kind of like me, you get to this point and you say, okay, I’m called to love. I get that. I’ve hit that part hard enough, right? That we’re called to love as the people of God. We’re just thinking, all I need to do is love the church. Love the church. How do I do that?
Let me give you the secret to how we love one another. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. The secret that makes the true church, the true church, the fruit of the spirit is that those who walk by the spirit do so because the Lord is working in us as his people. And if the Holy Spirit is working in his church, he will bear fruit in our lives. It’s characteristic of who we are. Let me give you just a quick little story. All right. Every once in a while, when you’re as a preacher, you’re going along and you’re hitting stuff hard and got to give people a mental break for a second. Let me tell you a little story that I think helps illustrate this work of the Holy Spirit in the church. When Jeanne and I first moved out to Troy, we bought a house, five acres. We had some horses, all that stuff. But one of the first things we did is we planted a little garden, a very little garden. And we planted some easy stuff, some tomatoes and zucchini, you know, stuff that we just planted and let it grow. Right? But that’s not what grew or not the major thing that grew. What grew in our little garden was casaba melons, dozens of casaba melons. And Jeannie and the kids, they ate one and I ate like 40 of them over the next two weeks. Literally, you know, because I’m cheap and I can’t let stuff go to waste. What’s that? Oh, a casaba melon, a casaba melon is sort of like if you took a cantaloupe and a honeydew. It’s sweeter than a cantaloupe, but it’s not green like a honeydew. It sort of tastes more like a honeydew. It’s kind of halfway between a honeydew and a cantaloupe. All right. Yes, it’s a fruit. All right. So then the question is, why did casaba melons grow in our little garden? Because there were seeds in the soil. It was already there just waiting to pop forth. And so when I tilled up the soil and I planted our garden, it couldn’t help but to burst forth casaba melons.
My friends, the church is kind of the garden of the Holy Spirit. If the soil of the churches is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, we cannot help but to burst forth the fruit of the Spirit. We are called to pursue love over and over and over again in scripture. But the only way this pursuit can be fruitful is if the Holy Spirit enables it. If the Holy Spirit is at work in his church, and by the way, he is, then his church will be characterized by love.
Now, when we hear the word love, I think of the fact that I’ve heard love, the word love described as probably the most misused word in the English language. And so I’m not speaking about the love that our culture says that we are to have. The culture says that if we love, then others must affirm and even celebrate anything that we do, think, believe, no matter whether it’s good or not. Whether it glorifies God or not, but that is not the kind of love that I’m talking about. So I just want to hit on a couple of things right here at the beginning of chapter six to wrap it up. I’m talking about a Holy Spirit enabled love among us who are brothers and sisters in Christ. And Paul gives us some tangible examples, application of true love in chapter six. Verse one, he says, Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. We are called to gently restore those who are caught up in sin and draw them back in gentleness as an act of love. Not with the goal of retribution, but with the goal of restoration. Paul goes on and says this, he says in verse two, Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself, but let each one test his own work and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor for each will have to bear his own burden. There’s a lot there, but just boil it down to this. In love, we are to bear one another’s burdens. In humility, seeking one another’s good above our own. In other words, through love, serve one another.
Love is what the Lord has called the church to, because it’s simply the actual character of the true church. It’s what I long for, for our church plant, True Community Fellowship, and it’s what I long for, for Little Hills Church as well. That we would, even as far apart as we are, that we would jointly love one another. That the fruit of the Spirit might characterize our fellowship as a fragrant and beautiful offering to the Lord. That we might work out our faith serving one another in love.
Let me finish with these words from the Apostle John, 1 John 4, 7 to 13. He puts it so well. He says, Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us. That God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this, we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit.
My friends, would you pray with me? Oh, holy, gracious, loving, just God, we do give you thanks and praise, Lord, for your kindness to us, for pouring out your Holy Spirit upon us and, Lord, really and actually enabling us to love you and to love one another. And so, Lord, would you make that true in us even now that we might truly love? We might serve one another in love. That we might bear one another’s burdens in love. For your glory, Lord, and in Jesus’ great and wonderful name, we pray, amen.
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