10th Sunday after Pentecost
August 8, 2004
Galatians 5:13-26

^5:13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. ¹⁴The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbour as yourself." ¹⁵If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

¹⁶So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. ¹⁷For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

¹⁹The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. ²⁵Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (NIV).

The Exercise of Christian Freedom.

  Paul makes a very simple point in our Epistle reading: don’t abuse your Christian freedom. Christian freedom is not a life of self-indulgence because one is justified by faith. Rather it is a life controlled by the Spirit of God, conformed to God’s will, yet free from the obligations and threats of law.

  Perhaps we can better understand the issue at hand by considering a similar situation that we run into every day. How should we behave when we are faced with a law that no one is going to enforce? Should we just ignore the law or obey it? For example, last month we vacationed in Ohio over the 4th of July weekend. Now on the 4th of July, everyone wants to set off fireworks. However, the law forbids almost anything besides sparklers. Yet, everyone knows that the police do not enforce the law. That would be virtually impossible.

  How then should a person act in a situation in which a law is not enforced? Should one obey the law or indulge one’s desire knowing that there will be no bad consequence? In Ohio, many people indulge their desire! There are places that sell fireworks to the public and evern advertise them on the radio because, although the fireworks are illegal to use, you can still buy and sell them. So on the 4th you are surrounded by people setting off all manner of fireworks with complete disregard for the law. They are exercising their freedom from the law.

  Surely you know of many other laws that are rarely enforced like jay-walking or not parking in the fire zone in front of the store or bank. They all present us with the issue of how we act when we are free from the threat of a law. Will we obey the intent of the law or indulge ourselves and get away with something?

  That is the issue that Paul is discussing in this part of his letter to the Galatians. Since we are justified by grace through faith in Christ, keeping the law is out of the question. We cannot keep any law and so merit a righteous standing before God. That is a terrible blow to our flesh as Paul calls it, our sinful nature. Our proud flesh wants to do something to earn God’s approval and deserve its salvation. So with that possibility cut off, our flesh reacts in a different way.

  Once it realises that it is free from the law it once tried to keep the flesh says, "Aha! I’m free from the law of God. Now I can do whatever I like because I’m saved by faith not by works!" The flesh does with the will of God exactly what it does with the man-made laws concerning fireworks or no-parking zones. It thinks that the law no longer applies and so it is free to do as it pleases. So Paul writes, You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.

  You see, there is a battle between the flesh and the Spirit. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. It’s the same as Jesus said to his disciples in Gethsemane: Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body [i.e., flesh] is weak. Mark 14:38. When faced with the new situation of Christian freedom, the flesh and the Spirit go down two different, mutually exclusive paths. Like straddling a razor-wire fence, you can’t do it, at least not for long! You can’t both set off fireworks and not. You can’t both park in the no parking zone and not. You either obey or disobey, but you can’t do both.

  In some cases, we might ask what difference it makes. If I set off fireworks and the police do nothing, so what? If I park in the no-parking zone for a few minutes and don’t get a ticket, again so what? We could debate the consequences of such civil disobedience. But we can’t debate the consequences of disobeying God’s law. The Word is very clear. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

  That is a list of the sort of things the flesh or sinful nature does when it thinks it’s free from God’s law. It is led only by its desires and goes into every kind of evil behaviour. Non Christians who have dismissed the whole idea of a Creator have freed themselves from God’s law. Well, at least they think so. They think it right to indulge their every animal impulse as long as they don’t hurt anyone else or get caught. There is nothing in Paul’s list that people today don’t do. In fact, it is a rather conservative list.

  Christians too often fall into such behaviours. They too think they are free from the constraints of God’s law but for a different reason. They are justified by grace through faith in Christ apart from any obedience to the law. They reason therefore that it no longer really matters what they do as long as they don’t hurt others. That, they figure, is "loving one’s neighbour as oneself!" However, even if we don’t practice witchcraft or partake in orgies, other things like immorality, jealousy, selfish ambition and drunkenness always hurt others. Thus the very stern warning, I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

  This is a serious warning goes to believers! To the Corinthians Paul wrote, You yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6:8-10.

  Jesus said to his disciples, Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:19-20.

  Clearly freedom from the obligation to earn one’s salvation, freedom from the condemnation of the law does not mean that one is without law, lawless! But the flesh, the sinful nature, is so corrupt that it twists everything and deceives us. It thinks that anything goes. If we listen to the flesh and follow its desires, we will be cut off from Christ. Good deeds of the flesh will not get us into the Kingdom of God, but evil deeds of the flesh can certainly exclude us.

  What then are we to do? So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Live by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. What is that? It is the life of the new person that lives in a state of trust and dependence on Christ. To live by the Spirit is to forget about relating to God by good and bad deeds, but rather to relate to God through faith in Christ. This effectively eliminates the flesh, the old nature from the picture. We can note two aspects of living by the Spirit in this text.

  First Paul says, If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. And, The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Law was given to expose sin and pronounce judgment on all who sin. Our flesh knows it is sinful and under the condemnation of the law. So the law produces hostility, anger and fear both toward God and other people. If we could just get out from under the law we would be fine. In Christ we have! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.

  Jesus took care of the law's accusations against us and its call for justice. He also took care of our sinful nature. God considers Jesus' death our death. As far as God is concerned, our flesh with all its passions and desires was crucified with Christ on Calvary. The fact that we were not present in person makes no difference. God lives beyond the confines of time and space. For him we were there. The demands of the law have been met because anyone who has died has been freed [justified] from sin. Romans 6:7. Thus we are out from under the law, the thing that provokes the flesh!

  In place of that crucified flesh, God gave us his Spirit when we were baptised. The Spirit of Christ has no sin. The law makes no accusation against the Spirit of God nor does the Spirit struggle to meet the standard of God’s will. It is already perfect. Therefore there is no hostility or conflict of any kind. There is peace with God because the law that makes the flesh want to justify itself and which causes the flesh to do the very things that the law forbids is out of the picture. We give up the battle! We do not relate to God through the law and our flesh. Rather we relate to God though Christ and his Spirit.

  Luther had to learn to give up that battle. In his commentary on Galatians, he wrote, "I remember how Doctor Staupitz used to say to me: 'I have promised God a thousand times that I would become a better man, but I never kept my promise. From now on I am not going to make any more vows. Experience has taught me that I cannot keep them. Unless God is merciful to me for Christ's sake and grants unto me a blessed departure, I shall not be able to stand before Him.' His was a God-pleasing despair. No true believer trusts in his own righteousness, but says with David, 'Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.' (Ps. 143:2) Again, 'If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?' (Ps. 130:3.)."

  There is a second aspect of living by the Spirit. Paul says, Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. How do we keep in step with the Spirit? How does the Spirit enable us to overcome the evil desires of the flesh? How does the Spirit enable us to do God’s will? By keeping us focused on Christ!

  The Holy Spirit always focuses our attention on Jesus and his word. In other words, the Spirit focuses us not on the set of negative prohibitions, "You shall not . . .," but on Christ who lived and died for us. He sets before us not the stone tablets Moses brought down from the mountain, but God in the flesh, on the cross, risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of God. That doesn’t accuse us and require anything from us. It proclaims Christ to us. It promises us new life now and eternal life to come. When that is what you see, the flesh and its desires fade away.

  In clear, simple terms, the Spirit works in us through the word of God and especially the Gospel. He does not come to us through some special meditation or a long fast. He does not come to us by endless chanting of a mantra in front of a table of candles. He does not come to us through some sort of communion with nature. He comes to us and works in us through the word of Christ. That is how he makes us holy. He causes us to see and imitate Christ.

  It's like Luther says on the Third Article in his Large Catechism. "Just as the Son obtains dominion by purchasing us through his birth, death, and resurrection, etc., so the Holy Spirit effects our sanctification through the following: the communion of saints or Christian church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. In other words, he first leads us into his holy community, placing us upon the bosom of the church, where he preaches to us and brings us to Christ." You see then the great importance of the Church and your participation in the Body of Christ. There you see Christ! There the Holy Spirit directs you!

  When we let the Spirit focus us on Christ and his righteousness, when the law and the flesh are out of the picture, we do what comes natural to the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit appear. One man noted, "A vine does not produce grapes by Act of Parliament; they are the fruit of the vine's own life; so the conduct which conforms to the standard of the Kingdom is not produced by any demand, not even God's, but it is the fruit of that divine nature which God gives as the result of what he has done in and by Christ." (S. H. Hooke, quoted by F. F. Bruce, Epistle to the Galatians, p. 255.)

  So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. There is true Christian freedom. There is the power to be what God would have us be in this life. We are free from the condemnation of the law and enabled by the Spirit to serve one another in love.