sermon20220612 The Fruit of the Spirit
There is a song we sing entitled “Come Thou Fount by Robert Robinson.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
It is a wonderful hymn. In the last stanza are these words:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
After this song was written, someone looked at it and said, “That is not my experience—I’ll change that.” So in some hymnbooks we find these words:
Prone to worship, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to love the God I serve.
Which is true? Well, both are true. I have a nature that is prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love. There are times when this old nature of mine wants to wander away from the Lord! Have you had this experience? Also I have a new nature that is prone to worship the Lord. There are times when I am riding along alone in my car, and I just cry out to Him, “Oh, Lord, how wonderful You are! I love You and worship You.” That is the expression of my new nature; my old nature never gets around to praising Him or loving Him. Every believer has an old and a new nature.
There are folk who say, “Well, I can’t tell whether I am walking in the Spirit or not.” Don’t kid yourself about this. You can know. Paul has spelled it out here so that you cannot miss it.
The name Galatia is derived from the barbaric Gauls, or Celts, who settled in Asia Minor after several centuries of plundering the Greek and Roman empires. Under Roman rule, the original region of Galatia was made part of a larger province by the same name in central Asia Minor (modern Turkey) that encompassed an area some 250 miles north to south and up to 175 miles from east to west.
In Paul’s day the name Galatia was used for the original smaller region as well as the province. On the first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas established four churches in the southern part of the province, in the cities of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:14–14:23),
While in Galatia, Paul nearly lost his life, having been stoned and left for dead by antagonistic Jewish leaders who followed him from Antioch and Iconium to Lystra (Acts 14:19–20). After establishing a church in Derbe, Paul and Barnabas revisited the other three cities, “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith” (14:22). On his second journey Paul visited the Galatian churches with Silas, “delivering the decrees, which had been decided upon by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem, for them to observe. So the churches were being strengthened in the faith, and were increasing in number daily” (Acts 16:1–5).
Paul had special concern for the believers of Galatia and was gravely distressed about the doctrinal dangers that threatened them. The Jewish leaders who stoned Paul at Lystra no doubt continued to intimidate and persecute Jewish converts in Galatia. They were implacable enemies of the gospel and were used by Satan to sow confusion and discord in those and many other infant churches.
An even greater danger, however, were Jews who had made a superficial profession of Christ but turned back to Judaism and sought to make Christianity an extension of their traditional system of works righteousness. Like the false teachers about whom Paul warned the Ephesian elders, the Judaizers arose from within the church itself, “speaking perverse things” and trying “to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:30).
The Judaizers were causing great confusion in the churches and were seriously distorting “the gospel of Christ” (Gal. 1:8). They taught that Gentiles must become Jews by circumcision before they could become Christians and that all Christians, Jewish and Gentile alike, were righteous before God only if they remained bound under the Mosaic laws, regulations, and ceremonies (see 2:3–5, 11–14; 3:3–5; 4:8–11, 21–31; 5:1–4; 6:12–13). This danger had probably threatened the churches even while Paul was in Galatia, and it doubtlessly intensified after he left. “As we have said before, so I say again now,” the apostle reminded believers there, “if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9; cf. vv. 6–8).
In addition to teaching the necessity of being circumcised and of keeping the Mosaic law, the false teachers also attacked Paul personally, seeking to undercut his authority and thereby his doctrine. Consequently, he was careful to reaffirm his apostolic credentials. He begins the letter by referring to himself as “an apostle (not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father)” (1:1). Throughout the first two chapters he continues to affirm his divine authority as an apostle of Jesus Christ, equal in every way to the Twelve, including Peter (see 1:12, 15–17; 2:2, 7–9).
The theme of Galatians, and a central theme of the entire New Testament, is that true freedom comes only through Jesus Christ. In this letter Paul deals with spiritual freedom on two fronts. The first front (chaps. 3–4) is that of salvation, through which Christ sets a person free from bondage to sin and the law. As the apostle declares in the book of Romans, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (8:2). Paul’s second front in Galatians (chaps. 5–6) is that of sanctification, the freedom God gives His children to live out lives of faithfulness and genuine righteousness, free from sin’s control and legalistic bondage.