Galatians 5:13-26
Notes
Transcript
Galatians 5:13-26
Galatians 5:13-26
So we are going to pick up on what Mike was talking about last week, in that we have to understand Freedom if we are going to understand Paul’s argument here
Paul is going to show us that there is two ways to use our freedom, but we can’t have any discussion about how we use a freedom we don’t understand
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. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
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 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, 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.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
So we have to remind ourselves what this freedom is before we can talk about how we should live in light of it
Freedom that is purchased by Christ is not the common understanding of freedom
Bruce Ware
“Freedom is not what our culture tells us it is. Freedom is not my deciding, from the urges and longing of my sinful nature, to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it, with whom I want to do it. According to the Bible, that is bondage, not freedom. Rather, true freedom is living as Jesus lived, for he is the freest human being who ever lived. So what is freedom? Amazingly, Jesus’ answer is this: Freedom is submitting—submitting fully to the will of God, to the words of God, and to the work that God calls us to do.”
Remember in verse 1, Paul writes that they should not return to the yoke of slavery
What is a yoke?
A yoke is a device that tied two animals together.
Straight bar, two loops of rope or wood
So what were the Galatians submitting to being tied to?
The guilt of their sin!
Paul argues with them and says that Christ has separated you from that guilt of sin, Christ has made you free
You are no longer attached to your sin, you aren’t bound to it, you aren’t a slave to it anymore
Paul says you are like the oxen who has been set free, but then decides to go back and lock himself back in the yoke again!
Don’t go back to the yoke! Be free!
But what does it mean to be free? How do we live in this freedom?
Verse 13
“Don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh”
“through love serve on another”
Now if we are free from the Law, why is Paul telling us what to do and not do?
I thought we were done with that (It gets worse)
Verse 14
“For the whole law is fulfilled in one word”
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”
WHOA WHOA WHOA
I thought we were done with the law!
You mean we still have to fulfill the law?
Well Yes/No
Illustration
Illustration
Let’s go back to our picture of the ox and the yoke
You don’t yoke oxen together to just walk around aimlessly
Typically, you yoke them together for them to pull a plow
So you tie them together, and they walk up and down the rows, up and down
So we are one ox
We are tied to our sin, which is the other ox. (Problem: Dead)
We are tied to this dead ox by our guilt, that is our yoke
And the field, or the rows, those are the works of the law
So what does that law do? It reveals that you are tied to the dead ox, that you are tied to your sin
Because as you try to walk, as you try to live out the law, you are dragging this massive dead weight
And you can feel it pulling on you, this heavy dead weighted burden
And so you struggle, and you struggle
But you can’t get anywhere, you can’t live out the law
Because your dead sin is still tied to you by this yoke of guilt
But Paul says that because of the death of Christ
You have been released from this yoke
You no longer have to drag around this dead weight. You no longer have to carry your sin
Continue
Continue
So now that you are free, what are you to do?
Some of you are saying, well, I’m going somewhere that they don’t use oxen for farming, thats what I’m doing!
But the reality is that there is only one thing to do, which is to keep walking
But now, there’s nothing to drag. It is just a walk.
You see, we are free to fulfill the law, because the law does not condemn us.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Instead of being what points out our inability to move the dead ox
The works of the law are now what show us how we can be more like Jesus
Remember, the law was never the problem. The law is good because God is good.
Through the Law, God has revealed His nature to us
Before Christ, The law was an external pressure, caused by guilt and sin
But as believers in Christ Jesus, the law is a internal reality
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Sometimes in talking about faith and works, we can forget that we are talking about how we are to be justified. How we are saved.
And when we forget that, we tend to think there is no work for a Christian to do
And Paul shows us here, that isn’t true
We are still to work at fulfilling the law
Not to earn acceptance, but because we already have it
“If my work is tied to my guilt to my sin, I am in bondage”
“But if I am free from the guilt of my sin, my work is a result of that freedom”
And Paul is going to show for the rest of this chapter, that we can use our freedom rightly or wrongly
Dichotomy
Dichotomy
In 13-15, Paul sets up this dichotomy
“Don’t use your freedom as opportunity for the flesh”
“through love serve one another”
“Bite and devour one another”
And starting in verse 16, He continues that dichotomy by comparing the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit
And the first thing we see, is that it is either or
Verse 16
“Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh”
By doing one, you are necessarily not doing the other
why is that the case?
Verse 17
“The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh”
Now wait a minute
In your little farm picture back there, you said we had been released from guilt and sin
So why am I still dealing with two different desires?
Tony Merida
To understand Freedom, think about it like this: as believers, we are freed objectively (technically, legally) from the guilt of sin, but we struggle to be free subjectively (experientially, daily) from the grip of sin.
And when we don’t understand this, we can start to see things wrongly
There are some who would tell you that when you become a believer, you shouldn’t have those sinful desires anymore
Paul here says NO! Those desires are still there, but if you are a believer, walking by the Spirit, you won’t GRATIFY those desires anymore.
I always cringe when I hear somebody say
“I just don’t have any desire for any man but my husband or any woman but my wife”
Thats a lie!
That’s why you guard your eyes, that’s why you guard your heart!
Because without the discipline and safeguards, that desire still would overtake you
And its so dangerous to miss this
Because the minute you think that desire doesn’t exist, you are wide open for it to attack you
Because you don’t have the necessary protections in place
Casting Crowns has a song called “Slow Fade”
And one of the lines says
“Be careful if you think you stand, you just might be sinking”
And it’s easy for us to limit this to sexual desire, but as we will see, Paul has a whole list of desires of the flesh, and many of them are more dangerous because they fly under the radar.
Lets move on and look at verse 18
“But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law”
This goes back to what we have already talked about, that as a believer in Jesus Christ, through the Spirit, God has written the Law on our hearts, so that the law is internal, and not external
But notice what He says
“If you are LED by the Spirit”
Paul emphasizes that this is a work of God
He does not say “If you follow the Spirit”
John Piper has a beautiful illustration of this
He says that the Spirit is not like the pace car of the Daytona 500, but rather is like a locomotive on a train.
The Spirit is leading us along in our sanctification
Now, how do we know the difference? Between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit?
Well, Paul lays the outworking of both desires for us
Remember, he is showing us the dichotomy here These desires are contrary to each other
He starts out with the works of the flesh
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 warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Now wait a minute. I thought you said that we still have these desires. But this says that if we do these things, we won’t inherit the kingdom of God
Paul writes similarly to the Corinthians
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
He says such WERE some of you
But now what? They had been washed, sanctified, justified in the same of Jesus by the Spirit
He’s continuing this dichotomy
You used to do these things, but now you have the Spirit, you are being led by the Spirit. And those things are contrary to a life that is led by the Spirit.
So then what does a life that is led by the Spirit look like?
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Notice that Paul describes these two lists differently
He calls the first group the WORKS of the flesh
The second group is the FRUIT of the Spirit
Dr Tony Evans points out
Works are something that you do, motivated by your flesh. But fruit is something that is produced through you by the Spirit as you respond to His urging
So as we give in to the desires of the flesh, we will do the things listed in verses 19-21
But also notice, the list is not exhaustive
He says “and things like these”
So if your favorite sin isn’t listed here, you aren’t off the hook
But lets take a quick look at them and how they are contrary to the Fruit of the Spirit
I’m going to break them down into 4 groups
First is Sexual
Paul uses three different words that cover sexual sin
The first, translated Sexual immorality, is a general use word that refers to sexual outside of marriage.
The second, translated impurity, refers to unnatural sexual practices and relationships
And the final one, translated sensuality, refers to uncontrolled sexual desire
All of these are contrary to love and self control
Second is Idolatry
The first work of the flesh mentioned here is straightforward. Idolatry
People commit idolatry when they look to something other than God to give them what only God can give them.
The Second is sorcery
Sorcery involves trying to manipulate circumstances or dark powers to bring about a desired goal instead of trusting in the Lord
Both of these are contrary to peace, patience and faithfulness
Third is Relational
Out of 15 works of the flesh, relational sins are by far the biggest category with 8
And they are also most likely for us to let them fly under the radar.
First we have emnity, or hatred. This is the root of all conflict
Then we have strife, or to have a contentious temper
Jealousy, which is far more rampant than we want to admit
Fits of anger, this is sin, not a personality trait. The word refers to uncontrolled anger
Rivalries or selfish ambitions. We all know someone that would harm us if it meant a promotion
Dissentions, or divisive people. Refers back to verse 15 and the biting and devouring one another
Divisions, which are the result of divisive people
And Envy, which is close to Jealousy, but refers to someone who is not satisfied with God’s gifts and does not like to see others succeed
None of these things are loving, instead they are self serving
Neither do they produce joy, peace, patience or any of the other fruits of the Spirit
We may think of them as minor issues, but here in Paul’s list, they are double the amount as sexual sin, and quadruple the amount of idolatry
Fourth is Indulgence
We have drunkeness, which is pretty straightforward
And the ESV says Orgies. And by that, it isn’t referring to sexual orgies, but drunken orgies. A better translation is carousing, or wild partying.
Again, we see these are in opposition to self control.
Verse 24
Paul says that those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
As we have already seen, Paul is not teaching that we don’t have these desires. He shows that we are not yoked to them anymore
Through the Spirit, we have the power to reject these desires, and instead be filled with the Spirit.
And he says in verse 25, If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep step with the Spirit.
That is a military idea
If you have ever seen a military unit march, or even maybe a marching band, you see that they are all perfectly in line. Or at least the good ones are.
That’s because of what we call “Dress Right Dress”
And what what means is that you position yourself to be lined up with the man on your right
That way there is one standard. Everyone is even with the person on their right, and everyone is going to be in the same place
Conclusion
Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen, our freedom in Christ doesn’t give us the ability to walk all over the parade field
It gives us the ability to be led by the Spirit, as we are conformed into step with Christ
The author of Hebrews wrote
Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith
Jesus is that one we are looking at, Jesus is the one we cling to, and Jesus is the one who has freed us to be like Him.
So let me ask you this morning, are you walking by the Spirit, or are you following the desires of the flesh?
Is you life marked by immorality, anger, division, drunkenness, or jealousy?
Or are you clinging to Jesus, and seeing the fruit of the Spirit grow in your life?
Some of you may not like what you see if you look honestly at your life
Some of you might not want to admit what you see because you will feel like a failure to Christ
Ive got good news for you this morning
Christians aren’t those who don’t have bad desires
Christians are those who are at war with those desires
Jesus is the same as He always has been.
Repent and return to the one who took the guilt of that sin away
Walk by the Spirit anew
If you are a child of God, you are free. Free to seek the Lord and walk with Him daily
Draw close to the Lord, and He will be near to you.