Freedom-Week 5

Galatians 5:13–14 NIV

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Here is where Paul starts to shift gears. It sounds like, if we spent 5 1/2 chapters saying, “what you’re doing isn’t getting you any closer!”, then NATURALLY the next conclusion is to say - so who cares what we do! We can’t LOSE standing with God, so go nuts. Sin away.

Galatians 5:13-14 “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.””

As much as we’re called to be free -

Our Freedom is STILL not about us

And that’s crazy.

When we desire to ‘work’ our way to God, God puts up a stop sign and says, this isn’t about your efforts. This isn’t about you. It’s about me.

But then when we embrace our freedom, and try to use it as an excuse to do whatever we want whenever we want - God puts up his stop sign again.

We think freedom means ‘we do whatever we want whenever we want.’

Complete lack of rules or expectations, and a blank slate to do absolutely whatever you want whenever you want to whoever you want. That’s not freedom - that’s anarchy.

But the point here isn’t ‘doing what I desire’. I

The point is doing what the Spirit desires

If we don’t stand by our power - then we don’t move by our power. If we’re here because of what God did, then when we go out, we go into what God is doing.

Galatians 5:16–18 NIV

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Paul literally says, because the Spirit and the flesh are at war - you shouldn’t go with ‘I’m gonna do whatever I want’.

And this works both ways - we shouldn’t go willy nill and be all, ‘I can do whatever I want!’

But at the same time, that also means, our first instinct to say ‘THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE TO DO AND HOW WE HAVE TO DO IT’ isn’t right either.

Paul gives two basic categories here - the acts of the flesh, and the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:19–23 NIV

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

And there’s a lot to say about those items there. But I think the most important thing to highlight is this. The acts of the flesh are what WE do - the fruit of the Spirt is what the Spirit does through us.

Acts of the flesh are what WE do. Fruit of the Spirit is what the Spirit does.

Even that word play of acts vs fruit. Paul does it again in another letter - he says

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The fruit of the Spirit - they’re guidelines as to how we can know that we’re on the right track. How we can know that the Spirit is actually working in us.

It’s not about ‘doing the right things’. It’s about taking a deep look at our character and saying, ‘Am I growing in love? Joy? Peace? Am I practicing self control? Am I gentle?

All of these questions are exactly the same as asking, Do i have the Spirit?

Have you ever thought about it like that? Whenever someone or something takes our joy away - we blame that person. We shame that person. If a situation rocks the boat, and we lose peace. It’s all about how that thing was wrong, and God’s against it.

But what if, what if a lack of joy is a sign that we’re not relying on the Spirit as much as we were before? That something in US changed? That, regardless of whether the outside circumstance was actually bad or merely just inconvenient to us - that us losing this fruit is always a sign directly to us?

And paul goes on to say,

There’s no law against these fruit of the Spirit

We’re worried so much about doing the wrong thing. About making a choice and then learning, oh no, wait - God was against that, we messed up.

Paul says, these things - there’s no law against them. You won’t find a situation where you choose to embrace joy rather than something else and God goes, ‘oh, hold on a second there. Wrong move. Get out.’

In our efforts to make sure we never do anything wrong, we downplay a giant list of things Paul gives us that he literally follows up with ‘DO THESE THINGS AND YOU WON’T BE DOING ANYTHING WRONG’.

One of my favourite nerd shows is doctor who. At one point, two of the doctors are trapped in a room behind a door. And they work out this giant plan using time travel mechanics to try and break the door, it seems really smart. But then somebody else walks into the room. They go ‘how did you do that?’ and she goes ‘well…the door was unlocked.’.

God literally gives us this wide open door, and we’re trying to find ways to break it down. He says, if you want to live a life free of worrying about earning your way here, just focus on love, joy, peace, patience (etc). And we’re too busy saying, ya, but I’ve gotta break my way through and prove that i’m good enough, or that I know enough, or that I’m doing enough of the right things.

And i’ll tell you why. Beacuse deep down, there’s a scenario that we’re trying to avoid. The one where we’re secretly the bad guy. That we messed up so bad, and we were so off, that one day, we just wake up and go, wow, i’m totally lost. So we work hard, and scrub ourselves, to try and make sure there’s no dirt left. So we can be sure we’re clean.

BUT

You don’t just work out the bad nature - you crucify it

Galatians 5:24 NIV

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

All the things we try to accomplish by our own efforts and our own rules. Deep down, it’s to make sure that we’re breaking those bad parts of ourselves and feeding the good parts.

SIDEBAR - The problem is, we can’t create life by using death. Whenever a church splits, or two believers part ways because of a disagreement on something - whenever we drive someone away because we think we’re right and they’re not - we think we’re creating life. But dissension and factions - they’re on the list of acts of the flesh. Love and peace and kindness is under the Spirit.

Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

We will never be able to see the power of the Spirit if we refuse to prioritize the fruit of the Spirit.

Because the fruit of the Spirit isn’t just a happy sounding list

it’s a powerful spiritual weapon. This isn’t the sunday school answer to some simple question - this is the real deal.

Paul says -

The fruit of the spirit is one of the primary ways that we crucify the flesh

Where the acts of the flesh are self-centered, the fruit of the spirit is selfless and others focused.

Where the flesh is about pleasure and personal reward, the spirit is about sacrifice.

Where the flesh is about getting what WE’RE owed, the Spirit is about giving away to all.

I think we massively disrespect the work of the Spirit in our lives by keeping this list just as a catchy song. These things are sharp knives to help surgically remove the worst parts of ourselves. And even better - they’re clear indicators that the Spirit IS working inside of us.

This is literally the two biggest things we work towards as believers. Getting better in our hearts, and knowing that God is there. And it’s all right here.

So if these things are so important, how do we keep on top of the fruit of the spirit?

We need to keep in step with the Spirit

Galatians 5:25 NIV

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

STORY - Driving to youth camp, getting absolutely ridden by another car full of youth. Because of my wifi hotspot.

The Spirit is power. But it’s not a battery - it’s a lightning bolt. It’s not a water bottle - it’s a spring. We need to be RIGHT THERE with it. It’s not something we stick in a bottle or a bag and take it somewhere else other than where the Spirit is.

Paul says, since we have been given life by the spirit - let’s keep in step with him.

So how do we do that?

Pray regularly. How on earth can we know what the Spirit is telling us if we won’t listen.

Read regularly. God’s already answered a bunch of our questions in the Bible - pick something and try it!

Connect regularly. We’re not supposed to do this on our own. Connect with other believers - for prayer, and bible reading. Join a small group.

Serve regularly. Jesus himself came to serve, even though we should be serving him. When we practice service - God moves us faster and farther.