For the Church’s Good

When we turned into Galatians 5 a couple weeks ago, Pastor David Mathis mentioned that the letter takes on more of a community focus. Paul moves from explaining the gospel to talking about how the church lives together because of the gospel. 

Paul is talking to the church corporately, addressing things the whole church must do together, but I want you to notice a little bit of a different angle in verses 16–26 — the passage for Sunday’s sermon. 

Admittedly, what I’d like to share here is actually cut from the sermon. It was getting too long, and since this part is less directly in the text itself, well, here you go: 

In verses 16 and following, Paul is still talking to the whole church, like he was in verse 15 when he says “But if you bite and devour one another …” You can imagine Paul saying that line to a crowded room: Hey, y’all in here, if y’all bite and devour one another … We can imagine that exhortation as something the entire room receives together. Hey, we shouldn’t do that.

An Individual Struggle

So in verse 16 Paul is still talking to the crowded room, to the whole church corporately, but he’s not talking about a corporate struggle. He’s talking about an individual struggle.

He describes the struggle in verse 17:

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.

Paul is saying this “you” to the entire church, but it’s a “you” as in “all of you individuals.” This struggle between the Spirit and the flesh is a struggle for everyone in the church, but it’s a struggle in each individual member.

The Holy Spirit in Us

I realize this is obvious, but to be super clear: the Holy Spirit in our church is in the individual members of our church. 

The Holy Spirit isn’t attached to our building. When we’re not there, the Spirit’s not there. And when we are there, the Spirit doesn’t generically hover over us, but the Spirit actually indwells each of us who belong to Jesus. The Spirit fills each of us as individuals together.

This means that the battle against your flesh is a battle you fight by the Holy Spirit in you.

Individuals Together

The church corporately cannot fight an individual church member’s sin. Now we hold one another accountable; and we bear one another’s burdens; and we exhort and encourage one another, but we each have our own fight against our flesh, individually, together. And when we as individuals walk by the Spirit, it means good for the whole church.’

That’s the point. There is a holy interdependence here: The church corporately is edified when its individual members walk in the Spirit, not the flesh; and the individual members are encouraged and exhorted to walk in the Spirit by edified church corporately. 

We walk in the Spirit as individuals, together, for the church’s corporate good. And that walking, of course, is on the road of love. See you Sunday.