Free by Spirit Galatians 5:13-18
Last week we looked at passages from Paul’s letter to Ephesus. As I was working on that I had a thought that kept coming back to me. We read the Gospels, study the life and parables of Jesus. We look to the Old Testament stories to see how they point to Jesus. But I have found that people in general shy away from Paul’s letters.
Some feel they were written to ancient churches and have no relation to our modern church. Some think they are complicated and hard to understand. These letters may have been written over 2000 years ago but people are people and in many ways we think and act in the same way they did in Paul’s day. The problems in those ancient churches are the same as the problems in our churches.
As we read the letters we can see Paul in many ways takes the parables of Jesus with their hidden meanings and clears up and focuses the meaning for those who accept and follow Jesus. Paul accomplishes this by being direct with the Gentile converts and at the same time using scripture to talk with the Jewish converts.
In Galatians chapter four Paul uses Hagar and Sarah from Genesis to explain the two covenants with God; the covenant of the Law and the covenant of grace by faith. Now Paul is using chapter 5 to show what life with Christ is like for us.
The old covenant was all about rules; only by keeping the rules, doing only what was allowed did one have any chance of entering heaven.
Verse 13, “You my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.”
We are called, called by whom? Galatians 4:9, “But now that you know God – or rather are known by God…” We are called by God to come into his family. 2000 years ago Paul and the other disciples were the means God used to offer his invitation. Today we are the messengers of God’s invitation. But I also think God uses a multitude of ways to get his message across; television, radio, internet all are used by God. It is true you need to listen with a discerning heart for not all messages are sent by God; the deceiver uses the same vehicles.
People claiming to be from God who use their platform to lead people astray is not new to our generation. Earlier in Galatians Paul is reprimanding Cephas. Cephas is claiming to preach the grace of Christ yet demands converts to follow Jewish customs in order to be saved.
We can see people using God as a way to gain prominence or people changing the teaching of Christ to fit their own agenda were around since Christianity was new. I try to guard myself from these two things always; I know that this is not about me it is about your relationship with Christ. All of us in order to protect ourselves must turn to the Holy Spirit for God the Spirit is the one who calls us. John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit…will teach you all things…”
“You my brothers and sisters were called to be free.” Free from what? Free from the Law? In a way yes but this needs explaining. We must still try our best to keep the law; not steal, murder, but none of us can keep it perfectly all the time. When I’m tired or frustrated I can still get angry with little or no cause. I am free because even as I fail God forgives me and I don’t need to work in order to get in his good graces again.
But this is not the only thing we are free from. We are free from the food restrictions given in the Old Testament. In the Book of Acts Peter is staying with the Gentile Cornelius. Peter is hungry but refuses to eat until God talks to him in a dream saying in Acts 10:15, “What God has made clean, do not call unclean.”
This goes beyond food for later in Acts 10:28 Peter tells Cornelius, “God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.” This is precisely why I believe it is not for us to judge because someone belongs to a different faith or is LGBT. I may never know if God is working in someone and it is not for me to claim God is not.
This is exactly what the Pharisees were doing with the prostitute and the adulteress in scripture, and as we see these two women went to heaven while the Pharisees did not. It is my firm belief that all Christians must guard against trying to decide who can and who cannot be restored by God.
Matthew 23:13, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter…” All Christians must take this warning seriously. By using God to keep people out of heaven we only keep ourselves out.
We are free from being defiled or made unclean by outside events. In ancient Israel if you were bleeding you were un-holy. If you were diseased or touched a dead animal you were defiled. Each would take ritualistic cleansing.
Mark 7:15 records Jesus saying, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” I shared a meal with Muslim friends to end a Ramadan fast; this did not make me un-holy. I have a friend I’ve known over 50 years, she’s a member of the LGBT community; this does not separate me from God. The prejudice, judgment, the discrimination; this is what makes us separate from God. How we treat others demonstrates our true nature toward God.
We are free from beholding to another to gain access to God. You don’t have to make sacrifices to gain forgiveness. You don’t have to come to me to confess your mistakes and to ask God’s forgiveness. Jesus is the sacrifice. God removed the curtain between himself and us, you can talk directly to him.
Faith in Christ has freed us but Paul tells us “…do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.” If I do wrong yes God forgives me but that doesn’t mean we have the right to go and seek out what we know is wrong. A simple example; if I walk out of the store without paying for something, God forgives me; but I should not be looking for opportunities to steal.
Verse 17, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for they are opposed to one another.” Remember those cartoons with a devil sitting on one shoulder and an angel on the other; I see this the same way. What are you going to listen to, the spirit or the flesh?
1 Corinthians 10:23, “All things are available to you, but not all things are good for you.” You can go to a party on Friday night but if it causes you to ignore your obligations then it is not helpful. You can have a drink with dinner, ff you get drunk it’s not honoring to God. I can eat McDonald’s every day but it’s not good for my heart or my waist line. God isn’t putting restrictions on us, he’s asking us to put restrictions on ourselves.
“Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” I am free, everything I need I have; God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, a future in heaven. In our world today with so much available in an instant it can be hard to see how absolutely wonderful God’s grace is in our lives.
We saw last week that we are to honor our families and part of that is taking care of them, physically as well as spiritually. So I work, but amassing and hording money or possessions, that’s living by the flesh. Using the surplus God gives to help others, that’s living by the Spirit.
I look at my life and think I don’t have a lot; Bill Gates, Elon Musk, they have a lot. I’m a pastor; I don’t have a lot. There are pastors who have 20 or 30 thousand people listen to them each week, they live in million dollar homes. By living in the Spirit I am free from all that. I have a home, maybe it’s just a mobile home but it serves my needs. I have enough to eat, actually my doctor says I’m eating too much.
By living in the Spirit I see what I have but I also look beyond it. I see there are people living in shacks in the mountains of Equator. I see there are people who earn in a year what I earn in a week. I see families shattered by war or poverty, living in tents in refugee camps with nothing waiting for someone to give them food for the day or they will go hungry.
Living in the Spirit means I can see the children in Africa or South America or Asia. Children who are dying of diseases our children don’t have to worry about. Children to whom the food I throw away would be a feast.
Living in the spirit is not turning our backs; it is acting because God gave us the means too. Act because God freed us so we can. I know we all can’t give thousands or even hundreds of dollars but we all can act when we can, where we can and how we can.
We live here, we are blessed by it. But sometimes that blessing blinds us to God’s grace and Spirit. Those who live in poverty in the mountains of South America, in the African bush, in the tents of the refugee camps; those who have literally nothing, they can see the grace and spirit of God because they know what it’s like to totally rely on and trust God. We need to honor them by seeing them by never forgetting them, and by living by the Spirit of God.
Ultimately God frees us to live our lives, how you do so is up to you; by the flesh or by the spirit.
Amen