Beating The Flesh Part 1

Galatians 5:13–18 ESV

13 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. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 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. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

It seems like Paul has kind of turned a corner here.

Last Sunday, we talked about legalism.

We have been talking about the futility of our efforts to be right with God based on what we do.

And now, suddenly there is this section that really hones in on interpersonal relationships

And walking by the Spirit, or in agreement with the Spirit

It seems like he has turned a corner, or shifted to a new topic

But he really hasn’t.

Because actually, The subject of legalism and interpersonal relationships is closely related.

Why?

Because the real issue at hand is carnality. or fleshlyness

If you go to the store and by Chili con carne, it literally means chili with flesh

Sounds appetizing?

I know that we are all very aware of the battle that we fight with our flesh which desires things that are contrary to what the Holy Spirit wants

Legalism comes from wanting things my way. Or someone else wanting things his way. It’s us trying to construct our Christianity in a way that makes sense to our fleshly understanding or that is comfortable to us. That’s carnality. The flesh taking control

And relationship struggles come because I want things my way. Again, carnality. The flesh taking control.

I think what Paul is revealing to us is that the real issue which drives legalism and that produces problems in our relationships is

CARNALITY

The real problem is that we have a body of flesh that wants and desires things that are contrary to the Spirit and we need to know how to win that battle.

Understand your calling

In our battle against the flesh, we need to understand our calling

Verse 13 says that you have been called to freedom

My question for you this morning is, do you understand your calling?

Young people, and many times, older people think about their calling. What are they called to do in life?

What is God calling me to do with my life?

These are important questions, and we don’t always know the specifics of what God is leading us to do with our lives

Job

Marriage, etc.

But if we are struggling with understanding what our calling is in earthly things, I would suggest that you go to Scripture and find out what God calls us to

1 Peter says a lot about what we are called to.

1:15—called to a holy conduct

2:9—called out of darkness into light

2:21—called to suffer just as Christ suffered and gave us His example

3:9—called to bless those who revile us.

And then here in Galatians 5:13. We have been called to freedom!

This word “calling” referrs to a summons, an invitation, or to name something

It is the same word used when Jesus called His disciples to follow him

It has the sense of being summoned by the King to something great.

Imagine living in a Kingdom and one day a messenger arrives at your door with a scroll embossed with the King’s seal.

And inside it says, “You have been summoned to appear before His majesty the King”

Paul says here in Gal. 5:13 that we as Believers in Jesus have received a summons.

And that summons is to freedom! We have been called to freedom!

Why is this summons so important? Why do you even need to be called to freedom?

Isn’t freedom instinctual? Don’t we just naturally long for freedom?

Well, it might be. But why, then, do we constantly find ourselves enslaved by things? in bondage to things?

Why are we constantly beset by addictions and bad habits?

Why do we find ourselves so often plagued by legalism, whether from the expectations of others, or the expectations that we put on ourselves?

Why do we so often find our hearts bound by bitterness and anger?

Why do some people find themselves in bad marriage after bad marriage, abusive relationship after abusive relationship?

It’s because at the root of all these things, again, is carnality. It’s the battle against the desires of the flesh

And Paul reminds his readers, “You have been called to be free.

And that brings us to the second thing that we have to understand in our war against the flesh

Understand what Freedom is

This calling to freedom is great news,

For those of us who have been born in, and live in, the land of the free and the home of the brave, this call to freedom has a nice ring to the ears.

Our senses are pounded by messages of “being free”

Our troops are honored for “protecting our freedoms”

We march on the streets to proclaim our freedom to make our own choices.

We are born and grow up with this idea that freedom is the most important thing

We just came through a time (and maybe are still there) during COVID when we felt our freedoms were under attack

They can’t make me wear a mask!

They can’t make me get poked with a needle!

I’m free to make my own choices!

Our country was born on the idea of breaking free from tyranny and fighting to stay free!

And we are not immune from this idea in the church. As followers of Jesus Christ, this is still our idea of freedom sometimes. I am free to do my own thing!

Church can’t make me do anything that I don’t want to do!

We get very defensive about what we perceive as the church stepping on my freedoms

But this isn’t just an American church thing. It’s a human thing. It was doubtless a problem in the Galatian church.

Because Paul, immediately after proclaiming the call to freedom, quickly puts the brakes on anyone thinking that freedom means I can live any way that I want.

You gotta nip it, Andy!

Paul nips this thing in the bud

By revealing what Freedom really is. It’s not freedom from anyone telling you how to live. It’s not freedom to do whatever you please and still have God be OK with you.

It’s actually quite the opposite

It is the freedom to serve. It is the freedom to love!

Literally, it is the freedom to be a slave to people!

In my words, I would say, “Don’t use your freedom as a way to get whatever you want. Instead, use your freedom to become a slave to the Body of Christ.”

And we say, “Hold on, that doesn’t make sense”. Freedom? Slavery? Servanthood?

Actually, it makes a lot of sense.

Paul is talking about the freedom to live like our master lived.

This Galatians passage goes hand in hand with Philippians 2 where Paul presents Jesus as laying aside His earthly glory and splendor, and taking upon himself the form of a servant, becoming obedient.

And Jesus, himself said, “The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and give His life as a ransom for many.”

The point that Paul is driving home here in Galatians is that our freedom in Christ is the freedom from bondage to the flesh which frees us up to serve Christ’s body, the Church

As Americans, we think our whole life is wrapped up in being free.

But the American version of freedom is doing what I want to do

Living how I want to live.

My Rights! to us, that is freedom.

Paul also has this discussion with the Corinthian church.

in chapters 6 and 10, it says this:

“All things are lawful” (this is in quotation marks in the ESV like Paul is addressing statements made by people)

Paul doesn’t deny this. Instead he says,: Yes, but not all things are helpful

“All things are lawful”

Yes, but not all things build up

But as Believers, our whole life should be wrapped up in being servants to each other. Being slaves to each other.

But what keeps us from doing that? From being servants to each other?

The flesh. Our sinful desires

in short, bondage to sin!

Listen to what Paul says about this in Romans 7:5-6 “5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”

Jesus came to proclaim liberty to the captives. Those who find themselves enslaved, bound by sin.

And now He calls us to Freedom. You have been summoned, invited to be free from sin. From carnality. from serving the flesh

And in that freedom, you are to live as you were meant to live. That is, in service to each other.

Paul says, if you want to talk about what the law demands of you, ok, let’s talk about it.

the Law is summed up in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (vs. 14)

But what happens so much instead? The flesh takes over. And as churches, as Believers in Jesus, we bite and devour and consume one another.

I read a lot of articles about what is happening in churches around the country, and it is heartbreaking.

Scandals,

Divisions

Sexual abuse

Lawsuits! You would not believe that amount of lawsuits that are happening.

Pastors and leaders beings sued

Even pastors and leaders suing their people.

Churches literally being consumed and devoured by folks who don’t understand that they have a calling

And that calling is to live in freedom

And that freedom is to be slaves to each other.

Ah, there is so much to say about this. It is so important that Believers struggle to understand this.

Another tool to beating the flesh is learning how to walk by the Spirit

Understand how to walk in the Spirit. Vs. 17

And in vs. 25 “keep in step with the Spirit”

Why is this such an important concept?

Because, as Paul explains, If you are walking in the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh

Why? Because the desires of the flesh are directly opposed to the desires of the Spirit.

The desires of the flesh are pulling you one way while, in the Spirit, you are walking in the opposite direction

In aviation, we learned about the four forces of flight: Lift, gravity, thrust, and drag

Lift has to always overcome weight, or gravity, if the airplane is to gain altitude, “break the surly bonds of earth”

The greater the weight, the greater the lift that must be generated by the wing

And thrust has to always overcome drag by a very high margin if the airplane is to accelerate to flying speed.

And the greater the speed, the greater the drag, and the greater the thrust needed to keep it at that speed.

Just as the four forces of flight are directly opposed to each other, so are the desires of the flesh directly opposed to what the Spirit wants.

Just as an airplane overcomes the pull of gravity by generating life, so, as Believers, we begin to defeat the pull of the flesh by learning how to walk in the Spirit

And this is a life-long journey. A life long process of being taught what it means to live life in the Spirit.

We call it progressive sanctification. Meaning that little by little God chips away at the things in our hearts and lives, helping us to rely more on him

Even in our walk in the Spirit, we struggle against sin. It is not a one and done deal, but it is an every day battle.

In an airplane, the struggle against gravity is constant. As soon as the engine quits, or the wings stop generating lift, gravity will again begin to win the battle, that airplane will contact the ground in some way or another. if power is not restored or the wings don’t begin to generate enough lift

As Christians, as believers, our walk in the Spirit must be constant, mindful, purposeful

Paul says it like this. “Keep in step with the Spirit.”

Keeping in step with someone takes concentration. It takes intentional effort. Paying close attention to what the other person is doing.

I love watching on youtube, in cockpit video of the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds areal demonstration teams flying

they fly with their wingtips 18 inches from the other airplanes.

Each pilot flies with his eyes fixed on the airplane beside him.

And the last airplane flies with his eyes fixed on the team leader.

and they fly “in step”. They fly as a unit.

only the top pilots in the Air Force and the Navy are chosen to do this, and it takes the utmost in discipline and training

It takes the most careful attention. Because one wrong twitch of the control stick could have catastrophic results

Now, one pilot can make a mistake, get their timing wrong, or not fly their maneuver to the exact precision that they had planned to

But do you know what? The pilots don’t have time or energy to fight about it. They don’t have the time or the energy to argue about it

Why? Because they are consumed with walking in step with each other!

My question for us is, “What is consuming your time and energy?”

Folks, our churches are so full of arguing and everyone clamoring to be heard, church splits, lawsuites, etc.

Why? Because people are not walking in step with the Spirit.

Instead, we are too busy thinking about how that person over the bugs me

We spend too much time worried

In short, maybe we have too much time on our hands.

Do you think that if we were concentrated on keeping in Step with the Spirit, moving when He moves, turning when He turns, stopping when He stops

Do you think that if we endeavored to identify and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and strained our ears listening to Him

Do you think that if we busied ourselves in doing what He wants us to do and valuing what He values that

Do you think that if we were busier (if you want to use that word) with the things of the Spirit

That the number of churches and congregations that devour themselves would diminish?

I think it would

Anyway, folks this is a serious battle that we are in. The war against sin and the flesh.

Are you winning it? Are you fighting it well?

Do you know that you have a high calling on your life?

Do you understand that Freedom means serving each other

Are you keeping in step with the Spirit?