When I look at Galatians 5,
listen to these words:
"You, my brothers, were called to be free.
But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature;
rather serve one another in love.
The entire law is summarized by a single command:
'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
If you keep on biting and devouring each other,
watch out or you will be destroyed by each other."
Now, what you have here is Paul describing
two very different relational lifestyles for us,
marriage lifestyles.
First is the lifestyle of the kingdom of self,
characterized by Paul with these words:
"Indulging the sinful nature."
Now, think with me. Help me here.
What does it mean to indulge?
Can you give me other words for indulge?
You can talk; it's legal.
When you indulge something, what are you doing?
Spoil.
Satisfy.
Feed.
Great words.
But the word I tend to like the most is the word "feed".
If I'm at the local Chinese buffet,
which is my first mistake,
and I'm indulging my appetite,
you know that I'm not having one plate.
37 plates later, I'm telling myself
that there's still more Asian delicacies
that I need to savor.
See, indulging the sinful nature
is going wherever that leads you.
Now, think with me.
If the DNA of sin is selfishness,
indulging the sinful nature is indulging your selfishness.
It's going where it leads you.
Now, hear this.
Because sin is still inside of all of us,
we're going to think things that we shouldn't think,
we're going to desire things that we shouldn't desire,
we're going to feel dangerous emotions.
If you want to destroy your marriage,
go wherever your thoughts lead you,
go wherever your desires lead you,
go wherever your emotions lead you.
See, the fact of the matter is
there are moments when you must not indulge those emotions,
you must not verbalize those thoughts,
you must not go where your desires lead you.
Hear this principle.
A good marriage is a good marriage
because people in that marriage say no,
but not no to one another,
no to themselves.
I will not speak these thoughts
because they're destructive.
I will not indulge these emotions
because they'll create harm.
I will not follow this pathway of desire.
Now you say, "How do I do that?"
Well, God knew that your need was so great
that it was not enough to forgive you.
He's literally unzipped you and got inside of you
by His Holy Spirit.
So the powerful spirit of God now lives inside of you.
Now, to Him who is able to do exceedingly more
than anything we could ask or imagine
according to His power that is at work where?
Within us.
So I now have been given
the power of the Spirit of God, divine power,
to say no to those emotions,
to say no to those desires,
to say no to those thoughts,
and go in a much better direction.
Let me ask you the question,
where last week in your marriage
did you need to say no to you and you didn't?
You let emotions carry you away.
You expressed thoughts that you shouldn't have expressed
that the other person shouldn't have heard.
You gave way to selfish desires.
See, a good marriage is a good marriage
because people in that marriage say no.
Now, what's the cast of the relationship,
the style of the relationship of the kingdom of self?
Well, it's manipulation.
I don't mean high-handed, I know I'm manipulating you.
It means this:
Because what I really want is my way, my feelings,
my needs, my thoughts, my desires,
what I'm trying to do is
by some means manipulate you into service of my kingdom
because when you serve my kingdom,
when you give me what I want,
I'm a happy camper and I treat you nicely.