Freedom!

 

Text: Galatians 5:13-25

Focus: The Spirit

Function: Helping people see the power of God in their lives

¹³For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another. ¹⁴For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

¹⁶Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. ¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, ²⁰idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, ²¹envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²²By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. ²⁴And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Good morning to the beloved of God!

I have a lot of feeling about this passage and there is a lot to unwrap.

It encompasses two of my favorite preaching themes, Love and the Power of the Spirit and it talks about how they are controlling us so that we can honor Christ with our lives.

In John 3, When Jesus teaches Nicodemus about being born again, he also contrasts the flesh and the spirit like our passage does. This passage seems to explain the concept of what it means for us to be new creatures, born from above by the Spirit of God.

John 3:⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Believers are those who are born from above, or born of the Spirit or born again. The concept here is that when the Spirit of God comes into a life, it will cause that person to be more loving, kind and thoughtful of others. It will cause them to love others so much that they consider their duty to love as if, as the passage says, they are slaves to love.

“Slaves to love” is a good way for us to live lives of passive resistance in days when evil reigns the kingdoms of men.

So Paul talks about how the Spirit comes to fruition in our lives and overflows in positive ways in contrast to the worldly values and negative ways that he lists here in the passage.

I believe that Paul might be trying to explain what Jesus meant when Jesus said what is born of flesh cannot obtain the peace and love that the Spirit brings to our lives.

When Jesus said the Spirit is like the wind blowing and we cannot track it, I believe he is speaking of the mystery of the filling of the Spirit in the lives of the believer.

My theology states that God created everything and therefore God is in everything and permeates everything and therefore, everyone.

I believe every single person has access to the Spirit in the form of a conscience according to Romans 1. God speaks to everyone in nature and through random acts of kindness, especially those perpetrated by believers.

But there is a difference with those who call themselves believers in the way the Spirit resides.

Throughout the book of Acts, and the Old Testament, we read different times when the the faithful were mysteriously filled with the Spirit and accomplished extraordinary feats.

And he calls us as believers to be filled with the Spirit.

It is a mystery as to how the Spirit fills us. But I seem to notice that for me it has to do with our attitude of surrender to God in our lives.

When we are baptized, we symbolize this new life that Jesus speaks. We are washed clean by the water and under the water, we surrender to Christ’s will for our lives.

Baptism represents that choice to surrender to Christ.

And when we surrender to Christ, we live by faith in the promises of God for us. We have the power and freedom to love.

We live believing that when we decide to go against the spirit of this world and show mercy, even when it costs us something, God will continue to lead us into more and more of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Now he gives a brief warning to believers in the passage for them to not fall back into the pattern and values of this world and to continue to walk in love.

The warning doesn’t come with implied judgment, but it is a call to allow the Spirit to have control over our reactions.

So, Paul is contrasting being born again with worldly values. There is value to the statement: Born again. It represents a fresh start to a new way of living.

And Paul explains the differences between living by the flesh and living by the Spirit in the passage when he gives us the lists of either living in the flesh or walking in the power of the Spirit.

He is writing this to us, the Church, because it might be possible for us to backslide from living lives of love to living lives for ourselves.

But again, the passage is not a negative warning full of judgment, but an explanation of the positive effects of the Spirit in our lives.

The spirit of the world, the flesh, is the pattern of revenge and retribution instead of love. He implies that before our commitment to Christ, we were slaves to hate and now we are free to love and experience the power of the Spirit.

Free to experience the power to love is a deliberate phrase.

The passage we are studying starts out with the fact that we are called to freedom.

Freedom to love others unconditionally because God has our backs when we walk in love.

Freedom to love because we are now new people allowing the Spirit of God to change us into loving people.

We are truly free in Christ.