Christ Church, 27 June 2004, 10am
Galatians 5:1;13-26
We come this morning to the third of our mini-series on Galatians.
Two weeks ago we thought about 'Living for God'. Philip led our thoughts on how the Jews had got it all wrong, and that we are put right with God, not by keeping every detail of the Law, but it's all though grace, it's all through faith. Only this way can we be right with God; only this way can we have access to him.
The Jews really thought they were living for God and that they were doing it by law-keeping, but Paul is saying here in Galatians we can never live for God by the Law. That way we only become a slave to the Law. The promise of God, the promise of grace came before the Law. It's Christ who frees us to live for God, and this is simply a matter of grace and of faith.
Then last week Fred led our thoughts about being God's children, his sons and daughters, and how can anyone who truly understands a father-child relationship ever imagine that God wants to relate to us through law. The blessing are ours, and received not by earning them but by faith. Grace and faith have been the dominant themes. We receive our adoption into God's family and in doing so we are feed from the slavery and tyrrany of the law.
The big thing that Paul has been saying is that only a change within, only a change worked by God in our hearts can free a person to live for God; to live a righteous life; a life that is pleasing to God, and a life in which we are accepted by God.
In chapter five of Galatians, from which our reading is taken this morning, Paul goes on to talk about our freedom in Christ, and that it is only in Christ that we are free; free from the law to which we were formerly enslaved and imprisoned. God looks on those who believe, those who have put their faith in Jesus- as Fred reminded us last week, as righteous, for he looks not at us, at all the sin and filth in our lives, but looks at the perfect righteousness of Jesus.
Paul begins chapter 5 by saying It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. And how fitting would one of Paul's big 'therefore's' have been here (Therefore, since it is for freedom that Christ has set us free...), for Paul is now going on to spell out what it mean to be free in Christ; set free by Christ.
This first verse of chapter five has been called 'Galatians' key verse'. It sums up what has gone before and then turns us into a new perspective, a new follow-up and aspect of our Christian freedom.
For the Jews, for the legalistic person today, the heart of religion is keeping the law, and is thus a burden- ’the yoke of the law‘. But to his contemporaries, burdened by the yoke of the law and its slavery, Jesus said Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.(Matt 11:28-29)
Paul is here showing that not the law and its burden is central to God's revelation, but that Jesus has died to set us free from sin and from the law, which merely makes us aware of sin. That's all that law\can do. The question to which Paul is going to turn us in chapter five is: Is is a freedom FROM or a freedom FOR? First, of course, it has to be a freedom from. A freedom from the yoke of the law; from the slavery of the law and the slavery of sin, from which the law can never set us free. But- when we're free, for what do we use that freedom? Yes, paul is saying, don't go back to the old slavery. But he is saying law has no place in the Christian life. In fact that he says in chapter five.
In verse 18: we are not under law
In verse 23:
against such things there is no law.What Paul is at pains here to say is that that freedom is not a freedom to do what we like or want.
To move from verse 1 to verse 13 (as our reading does) Paul says
You, my brothers, have been freed. Do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, but rather serve one another in love. This really is the heart of freeom. It is not a freedom to 'indulge our sinful nature'. The word 'indulge' really implies that we would use that sinful nature as a base of operations. No! Our freedom in Christ is NOT to live as our human nature desires; what our human nature tells us; not to live just according to what "I want".It's a freedom to launch out on a completely new way of life; a life of love and service. As one commentator (Lawrence Richards) put itThe person who says, "I'm saved now, so I can do what I want" is to have misunderstood Christian freedom, as a freedom for actions whish he or she knows are wrong". The person who says "I'm saved now, so I can love God and others, is the one who has understood the nature of his or her freedom in Christ".
Paul then goes on to say
The law is summed up in the command "Love you neighbour as yourself" Now for the legalistic person who aims at personal righteousness that poses an immediate problem. Like the rich young man in the gospels, we can say "I never commit adultery"; "I never steal", but loving my neighbour as myself- that's something different. We all know, if we're honest with ourselves that it doesn't lie within our grasp to do this; certainly to do it consistently. It's too all-embracing! It's only as we are recipients of God's grace in Christ, and Paul will be saying who live by the Spirit can we live in that true Christian freedom; that true Christian love.For the Christian there are two ways to base life. There's only one truly Christian way, but two options lie before us. We are faced with a choice, a choice daily; maybe more than daily. Its whether we are going to live according to our old sinful nature, and its desires or to live by the Spirit.
Paul sees a constant conflict going on. He describes it much more fully if you read through chapters seven and eight of Romans. In Romans seven, he says that the 'I' (the sinful nature’) can't do anything. He says, and i read from Romans 7
I am unspiritual, sold as as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.....what a wretched man I am Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.And i chapter 8 Paul says it is God's Spirit who has set him free from the law of sin and death. It is that choice to live according to the Spirit which is the key to Christian freedom and a life which is pleasing to God.
The trouble with trying to base our lives on our human nature is that that nature can NEVER be truly free. It might seem to be freedom, but its a life of slavery to self. If we try to 'live for Christ' according to out human nature, inevitably we're going to fall into sin.
Paul says in verse 19
the acts of the sinful nature are obvious, and these acts will be found in our lives so long as we try to base our lives on our human nature, upon that nature with which we're born and doesn't go away just because we're Christian. It's too possible to live in that way. The other things is that, humanly, we live according ot law. In that way we reject grace and cut ourselves off from Christ. Righteousness and human nature do not belong together.Paul goes on to outline those things which we will do if we live by that human nature, and let's remind ourselves of what Paul says
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: impurity, debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambiiton, dissensions, factions envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like then: I tell you, as I did before, that those who do these things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Now. let's not get the wrong end of the stick here. The Greek grammar makes it clear that Paul is not talking about occasional lapses into sin, but lives which show such characteristics on a regular basis. The inference is that if this is your habitual way of living then you have to query any claim to be truly Christian. For this sort of life will have no share of the inheritance in Christ.As long as we live in this world we will face the constant conflict of which way of life we'll follow; between our sinful nature (or the 'flesh') and the Spirit. It's flesh versus Spirit. And Scripture reminds us the Devil is there to lure us into fleshly living. Peter in his epistle says
Be self-controlled and alert. Your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in your faith. When Paul warns the Ephesians about their warfare with the Devil he says: Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand.As long as we continue to walk that tightrope between flesh and spirit, then life continues to be a conflict, and there's no real experience of freedom. Paul is now going to say in Galatians 5 that the only true way of freedom; the only true way of Christian freedom is to live according to the Spirit. Daily we must submit to God and ask to be filled with his Spirit: "Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me". And in verse 18,
If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the lawAnd in verse 22 we come to the fruit of the Spirit. There's a big contrast. In describing the sinful nature (or flesh), Paul lists its deeds. But from the Spirit come not just acts but a whole new character. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Gentleness. Meekness. Self-Control. The Spirit produces a transformation from within. Fruit is not something we do: it's something which grows. No amount of struggle, trying or effort can produce fruit. The fruit grow insofar as the Spirit controls our lives. Then, the fruit of the Spirit IS. There's not a whole range of different fruit, some of which will grow in us and some not. The fruit is a package. It's the lot; all these lovely characteristics. The Spirit will produce love in us. Remember back to verse 14;
The law is summed up in the command "Love you neighbour as yourself"
As the Spirit lives in us and changes us, love will grow (as part of the fruit) and we will by our spiritual nature fulfil that summed-up law. We can't make ourselves love. It's not in our human nature, not the sort of love the Bible speaks about. We don't work ourselves up to it or try to be more loving. We let the Spirit produce his fruit, and as Paul says
Against such things there is no law. The man controlled by the Spirit of God is the man who is truly free, and that freedom is only in Christ, living in submission to the Holy Spirit of God.Here is true freedom indeed- as Cranmer’s collect puts it: “whose service is perfect freedom” For the struggle lies further back in that choice between ’flesh’ and ’Spirit’. It lies in full submission; in allowing God’s Spirit to full access to every part of our lives and wills. That freedom has no external constraints. It’s nothing anyone can take from us.
It's that simple. Humanly impossible- but with God all is possible. The Christian knows himself or herself to be
right with God
child of God
by God's Spirit- free