Life By The Spirit
Freedom of the Gospel • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Today will the last of our look at the book of Galatians for a month or so. I could not have planned a better passage with which to pause on.
We’ve titled this message series, the big idea of Galatians, as “Freedom of the Gospel”. What does it mean to be free? Well, it depends on what you are free from.
And that’s really the overarching theme of this book. Freedom in Christ is a freedom that many don’t think they need. Just like Aaron said last week, the nation of Israel was free from their Egyptian slave masters, but in that freedom they wanted to go back to slavery.
The churches in Galatia had been set free from slavery to the law and yet they continued to want to go back to it. Up to this point in this letter, Paul has been hammering those who are turning back to the law as a means of their salvation, a means of their getting things right with God, but the law’s best function is not to tell us how to live, but that living up to the law in our own strength and ideas is impossible.
It is the law that is the first half of the Gospel - it tells us we are not good enough and that we deserve hell. That brings us to the the second half of the Gospel that is the saving work of Jesus who fulfilled the law for us.
Up to this point, Paul has really pointed out the impossibility of living life by the Law. A life lived by the law will result in constant failure and is no way to live.
This isn’t just about circumcision as it was in Paul’s day. This is about anyone who would take this Word and attempt to make a list of do’s and don’ts. I see this most often when people ask whether this behavior or that is ok by the Bible. What you are really asking is how close to the line can I get before crossing over it?
The problem with this kind of thinking is that you can, by logic and reading decide what is right and wrong. If there is something you really want to do, something you really feel like it should be right, you will find a way to justify yourself in that action. Yes, use God’s Word to educate you on right and wrong, but don’t use it to satisfy your carnal desires.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Let’s read the entire passage and then step through it...
13 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. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 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. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 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.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Paul has been talking about how the churches in Galatia were turning back to Life by the Law and then Paul here shows us the futility of Life ruled by flesh, but then the solution and the point of freedom of the Gospel, that is Life ruled by the Spirit.
Let’s look closer at the first few verses...
13 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. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
Paul pivots from those who are turning back to law to an argument that Paul felt the need to address. It an argument that goes like this. If I am free from the law, and I have grace, I can do whatever I want. That is no Gospel at all. That is trading slavery to the law for slavery to sin.
Instead, our freedom is to be used in serving others in love. This, friends, was the whole point of the law. The law encompasses all kinds of ways to love one another and to love God, but instead of acting out of love, people have acted out of obligation to the law and were forsaking love that was the heart of it.
Instead of using the freedom from the law to serve each other in love, some engaged in serving their own personal interests. Paul says when we have that perspective, we will destroy one another. It’s interesting...self preservation and self focus results in the destruction of all, where serving others with no regard for self results in a thriving community.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 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. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Paul writes about this struggle in other places...one that comes to mind is Romans 7....Looks what he says.
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
That describes walking in the flesh. When you hear flesh, it’s not talking about you physical body, it’s talking about the sin nature in all of us. A nature that we’ve inherited and a nature that we’ve engaged with in our own selfish desires.
Just in case you think that Paul is saying in Romans that this life is futile and that there is no hope...here is what he also said in that same chapter...
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
The hope we have in not continuing gratifying our flesh is to live life by the Spirit!
Let’s go back to Galatians...he has a few more things to say about the acts of the flesh
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 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.
I like to read that list fast, that way I can feel pretty good about how I’m doing. I really just like to get to the good stuff in verse 22, but that would do ourselves a disservice as we would not grieve over this kind of behavior, so let me read that list again...
I would be hard pressed to find anyone who is completely free from all of these, but I am most concerned for those who are living like this. Somehow we’ve allowed some of these to be not talked about within the church. We’ve allowed some to be in our midst while living like this without saying something.
I have even heard it said that the elders might even be ok with someone living like this. Let me say right now, with no equivocation - if you are living like this it is not ok. When we as elders become aware of anyone living like this, we will speak to it. Not because we are legalistic or we are trying to shame and make people follow laws...no we will speak to it because we are concerned for your soul.
Look what the end of verse 21 says. Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. When we are saved by the gospel message, when we have given our life to Jesus, when we proclaim Jesus as LORD and savior, we are submitting ourselves to a new life in Christ. Will there still be some Romans 7:15-21 struggle...absolutely, but there will also be a Romans 7:6 evidence in our life as well...let me read that to you again.
6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Church, Paul was concerned for the souls of the Galatians. We should in the same way be concerned for the souls of one another here at Crossroads.
If we come to you and challenge you on something from this list, please know that we are doing so out of love, out of care for your soul.
We’ve talked about about a life ruled by the law, a life ruled by the flesh, let’s read about a life ruled by the Spirit...
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
There is so much here. When we pick this series back up in a month, I think we are going to spend a few weeks on these verses, but for now, I want to encourage you...
I have a beautiful oak tree in my back yard. I know it’s oak by the shape of the leaves and by the acorns that fall from it when the wind blows or the squirrels chew off the branches.
No only is a tree identified by the fruit it has on it, it is also identified by what falls off the tree when the wind blows and the branches break.
It’s really easy pretending to be another fruit tree when sun is shining and the weather is nice, but when the storm comes, the true nature of the fruit will be revealed. It’s harder to have joy and peace when you’re sick. It’s hard to be kind and good when your boss is being a jerk and the work is piling up. It’s really, really hard to be gentle and self controlled when someone cuts you off in traffic.
The fruit that often comes out in those situations is the fruit of Thorsten, the fruit of you. It is when we are guided by the Spirit, when we are in step with the Spirit that the fruit of the Spirit in us gets shaken loose, and not our own fleshly fruit.
