Walk in Your Blood Bought Freedom: Walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:12-26)
Give some thought to the history of the world and you’ll realize that it is not people that are satisfied with their slavery that put up a fight. It is people that are dissatisfied with their subjugation. And it is much the same in the Christian life.
The Christian life is often described in terms of warfare in the Bible, not peace. There is a war being waged within. It is a war against Satan and demons. It is a war against sin. And it is a war against yourself.
Don’t mistake the message of free grace for a life of ease. For it is anything but that. It is a life of continuous struggle. Living in freedom means living in struggle. Living in bondage to sin means not doing anything. Living in bondage to sin means following the desires of the flesh wherever it will take you.
But you are called to freedom. And that looks like daily warfare. Forget any notion you had of a life of ease and realize that you have been freed from sin and death. And because you are free, you are at war.
You Are Free: Go Love Your Brothers And Sisters In Christ (Galatians 5:13-15)
As a Christian, you have freedom from the Law. You also have freedom from sin. And you have forgiveness full and free. Now, don’t use it to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Rather than serving yourself, serve one another.
Paul then goes to Jesus’s words and says “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. A neighbor is anyone that is in need that I am capable of helping. We learn this from Jesus’s parable. Jesus answered the question, “Who is my neighbor?” with a parable. And this parable taught that our neighbor is anyone in need. And Paul does emphasize helping brothers and sisters in Christ in this passage. The point is easy to ascertain. You are not to be self-serving. You are to love and serve one another. You are not to serve the desires of the flesh. You are to serve one another.
Your freedom doesn’t mean that you are allowed to go forth and mistreat people. Your freedom means that you are now able to go forth and love your brothers and sisters in Christ. It also means that you are to go forth and love those in need.
Do you ever wonder how a person becomes a self-centered and hateful individual?
It’s pretty easy really. It’s much easier than being kind to other people.
All you have to do is seek your own fulfillment. And eventually you will feel like that’s what everyone owes you.
As Christians, we are given freedom from sin and unrighteousness, not so that we can spend it in self-indulgence. We are given this freedom, so that we can spend it in loving and caring for one another.
Next week we are going to talk about this further, because Paul puts this idea down and then picks it up again in the next chapter.
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:1-2 ESV)
Freedom from sin and freedom from the Law does not mean that I should spend my time in self-serving leisure. It means that I should spend it on my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Last week I noted that Martin Luther had a real problem with monasteries. He was a monk, then he kicked off the Protestant Reformation with the 95 Theses on October 31, 1517.
He pointed out what we see here. We are declared right with God by faith and not by our own works. Therefore, we don’t look at our good works as something to do for God. We do good works for the good of others. Locking ourselves away from the world and avoiding helping others is not what we are called to do. We are called to do good for one another.
And sometimes this means getting involved in things that we didn’t think about. Sometimes it means dropping everything to help those in need. Sometimes it means being very inconvenienced. But, as Christians, we are called to help one another. We are called to use this blood bought freedom to help those in our midst.
You Are Free And You Are At War (Galatians 5:16-18)
Paul then states that the people of Galatia are not to gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). There are sinful desires that we are not supposed to entertain. We are not to gratify them at all. We are to avoid them like the plague.
And the reason for this is simple. There is a struggle between the Spirit within us and the flesh (Galatians 5:17). There is a massive struggle that goes on within us and the two are diametrically opposed to each other. If you spend your time gratifying the lusts of the flesh then you are going to be working in opposition to the Spirit of God that is within you.
Being a Christian means that you are in the middle of a struggle.
You are in the middle of a struggle between following the Holy Spirit and following the fleshly desires. And this is how we are supposed to look at it.
When God saves us, He changes us. He transforms us.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV)
That doesn’t mean that we are now living the easy life. It doesn’t mean that we are holy and righteous now and always. It means that God has miraculously transformed us and we long to walk in righteousness. But there is this flesh to contend with. We have fleshly desires constantly seeking to pull us back into bondage.
We rebelled against God. We are a fallen species. And God could have rejected us forever. But He chose to give us redemption. We were born rebellious. And God chose to bring us to Himself. And He did so through the finished work of His Son. God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a perfect life on our behalf. He died on the cross and paid the punishment for our sins. And He rose from the grave and accomplished our right standing with God. I can be in God’s family because of what Jesus did for me.
When we are redeemed, we are changed. And now we contend with the flesh for the rest of our lives.
A comedian once said, “A dead fish floats down stream. It takes a live fish to swim upstream.” He wasn’t a fine upstanding gentleman, but he got this correct. To swim upstream is a struggle. It’s easy to float along and not contend with the flesh.
But when you’re alive, when Christ has redeemed you, then you are going to struggle.
Do we all fight against sin and temptation? Absolutely.
This war against the flesh is not easy. Sometimes you gain mastery for a little while, and then realize that you have fallen right back down on your face again. It’s a warfare that will last as long as we live. And it is a warfare that is to be fervent. There is to be a type of violence that we do to ourselves to walk in the Spirit.
In Hebrews we read,
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Hebrews 12:3-4 ESV)
Look to Jesus who saved you. Look to Jesus who shed His blood for you. And don’t think that this fight against sin is going to be something that is easy. You are going to war with yourself.
Why do you think Jesus used such violent language about avoiding sin?
“”You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:27-30 ESV)
You are called to war against illicit desires. You are called to fight with all your might to subdue the desires of the flesh.
And you are called to fight with all your might in this war between flesh and spirit.
You Are Free: Walk In Freedom By The Spirit (Galatians 5:19-23)
Paul then states what the works of the flesh are. And it is quite a list.
- Sexual Immorality– πορνεία (porneia)—it is a broad term for any sort of immoral sexual behavior—adultery, fornication, lust, would fall into this category, we get our word pornography from this word. And pornography itself would fall into this category.
- Impurity—lustful behaviors, pornography would also fall into this category.
- Sensuality—unbridled lust, not just sexually—lust for any sort of pleasure
- Idolatry
- Sorcery
- Enmity—hostility
- Strife—contentiousness and a desire to fight
- Jealousy
- Fits of anger
- Rivalries—putting oneself forward, like “electioneering” campaigning for yourself or your faction at the expense of others.
- Dissensions—dividing people, causing divisions
- Divisions—choosing and dividing people
- Envy
- Drunkenness
- Orgies
- Things like these—meaning, this list is not exhaustive.
Those people that do these things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Now, the Greek word here is one of continuing action. That is, a person is living in these sins.
I know that cameras and video cameras are becoming a thing of the past, but I think that this is still helpful. A camera catches moments and a video camera catches a long span of time. In a snapshot, a picture could be captured of me sinning. If I said something that I shouldn’t say and that moment was captured in time, then it would look like I’m a pretty bad guy. But if a video camera followed me around throughout the day then it would, hopefully reveal something quite different.
A person that is not striving, that is living in sin the rest of their life, is not part of the Kingdom of God. A person that has decided to go with the flow and live in sin for the rest of their life is not part of the Kingdom of God. They have not been transformed.
The person that has been transformed by the power of God exhibits the fruits of the Spirit in their life. Fruit of something is the product of it. And those who have the Holy Spirit will have this list, and not the other, characterize their life.
- Love
- Joy–gladness
- Peace—harmony in your life and harmony with others.
- Patience—longsuffering—willing to suffer long and difficult trials—willing to suffer hard and difficult people.
- Kindness
- Goodness—uprightness of heart, similar to kindness, this is good actions toward others.
- Faithfulness—conviction of the truth, firmness in the truth
- Gentleness
- Self-control
Notice what Paul is saying here. He is letting us know, in two distinct lists, what is the fruit of the Spirit and what is the fruit of the flesh.
The Christian is made new and given the gift of the Holy Spirit. And these things are characteristic of those people that walk in the Spirit.
On the flipside, the list of sinful behaviors are characteristic of those that walk in the flesh.
This is not about whether you have done these things once or twice. It’s about your style of life. What are the things that characterize your life?
Is your life characterized by the fruits of the flesh? Or is it characterized by the fruits of the Spirit?
If You Are Free, Then You Have Crucified The Flesh (Galatians 5:24)
We are rebels by nature and deserving of death. But God did not leave us in that state. God sent His Son to live a perfect life for us and die for us. He accomplished our cleansing and our righteousness. And He rose from the grave and accomplished our justification.
Our response to that is repentance and faith.
Repentance is a change of mind. And that leads to a change in action. We turn from ruling our own lives and turn to Christ. We put to death the flesh and follow Jesus.
Faith is trust in Christ. The person that has faith has knowledge of this salvation, believes it is true, and trusts in Jesus.
They have put to death following their flesh and have trusted in Christ. And the imagery of this is found in our baptism.
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:1-14 ESV)
The Christian is no longer enslaved to sin and death. They have been given new life in Jesus Christ.
We are united to Christ and the body of sin has been “brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” And that is the imagery of your baptism. When you were plunged under the water, it was a symbol of your death. You are united with Christ. So we remember His death and our own cleansing from sin. But it is also a picture of your death to sin. It is a picture of your repentance and the change that God has wrought in your heart.
You have died to sin. You are no longer enslaved to sin and death.
Because that is true, we are not to live in unrighteousness. We are to present ourselves to God as workers of righteousness.
This is all because of the freedom that God purchased for us in Jesus Christ.
Keep In Step With The Spirit (Galatians 5:25-26)
This is a constant work. It is a constant struggle. It is a battle to keep in step with the Spirit.
Our struggle is not one that ends in this life. It is a constant struggle. And the minute you think that you have it all conquered, it comes roaring back.
How many times have you fought against a sin only to see it reappear in your life months or even years later? How many times did you think that you had calmed down only to find a fit of anger well up in you months later? How many times did you think that you had that porn habit under control only to find yourself in the middle of it one day.
Keep in step with the Spirit is not a command that is accomplished with a little effort once in a while. It demands vigilance and work with great care. This war demands daily vigilance.
In many ways, this command to keep in step with the Spirit is the Christian life. It is the call that we all have upon our lives from this day forward.
Conclusion
Somewhere along the line, we forgot the difficulty of living the Christian life. We forgotten the great battle that we are to wage against our flesh every day. We have forgotten that we are to make great efforts to keep in step with the Spirit. We have forgotten that God has done a miracle to make us desire to follow Him.
R. Dwain Minor