Good morning, brethren. Let's
turn in our Bibles to Galatians chapter 5. Paul says in verse 13, For brethren, you have been called
unto liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law
is fulfilled in one word, even this, thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. But if you bite and devour one
another, take heed that you be not consumed of another. This I say then, Walk in the
Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. I want
to speak on the subject of liberty to love. Liberty to love. Paul begins there and he says,
for brethren, brethren. This is addressed to brothers
and sisters in Christ. It's addressed to us who were
one in the family of God. We are in one body and each are
members one of another. Christ is our head. Brothers
and sisters in the family of God. Brethren. Now Paul's purpose
in this whole epistle is to encourage the brethren to unity. To encourage them to bear one
another's burden and restore one another and to be brothers
and sisters in Christ. That's the purpose. That's the
purpose. So he says here to us in verse
13, after reminding us that we're brethren, He says, you've been
called unto liberty. You've been called to liberty. You know, the Spirit of God has
called us. He's called us. He called us
from death to life. From death to life. From death
to eternal life. He called us from unbelief to
faith in Christ. He gets all the glory for this.
You've been called unto liberty. Liberty, God has made us to know
in our new heart that we're complete in Christ. Complete in Christ. He's made us to know we're righteous
in Christ. He made you to know that the
law says of you who know him, you that are in him, you that
are brothers and sisters in Christ, the law says of us, perfect. That's what it says
of us in Christ. Perfect. Perfect obedience. Perfect righteousness. From a
perfectly holy heart. That's what the law says of us
in Christ. The law shall never condemn us. And liberty is freedom from the
dominion of our sin nature. In that the Spirit has come and
given us a new heart so that we now believe Christ. He's given
us faith. We now believe Christ. Believe
this word that we're complete. By the Spirit now we're walking
by faith. We're walking through this life
looking to Christ. Trusting Christ. And by the Spirit,
He's promised us. We still have a sin nature. But
He's promised us our sin nature is not going to have dominion
over us. It's not going to have dominion so as to make us fall
away in apostasy, unbelief. That's one sin a child of God
will never commit by the Spirit of God. He'll never fall away
from Christ. And He's made you to know that
He will, though we can't do what we would because of our sin nature. He's going to make us know we
can't do what we would because of the Spirit of God either.
Can't do what our sin nature would. The fullness of what our
sin nature would do. And that's liberty. That's liberty. It's a liberty that takes that
yoke off of you to know I'm not condemned. And it's liberty
to know this. The Holy God, the Holy God, accepts us in the Beloved. Accepts
us, gives us welcome access to come to Him in His Holy of Holies,
not in a spirit of bondage and fear, but as children to cry,
Abba Father, to the Holy God. And liberty to come to Him To
find grace we need. Never-ending grace we need to
help us in every situation, every trial, every need. That liberty, brethren, that's
the greatest peace that can be given. That's the greatest way
to have communion with God in His Son. And know we accept it. That's the greatest peace there
is. It's the greatest peace there is. It's a conscious peace. He's done this in our conscience.
He made us to know it's so. And because you're under grace, he's promised
us, sin's not going to have dominion over you anymore in any way. Now, he says verse 13, but now
look at this, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. What does he mean by that? Well,
he means we're never to use liberty as an excuse to fulfill the lusts
of our flesh. We're never to use our liberty
to excuse sinful behavior. That's not at all what the Spirit
of God teaches us and that's not what is the heart in the
child of God. That's not the new man. Christ
didn't lay down his life and shed his precious blood and suffer
the wrath of God to save us from sin and give us this liberty
for us to live in sin. He didn't do that. That's not
why he saved us. The whole purpose of God's electing
grace, the whole purpose of Christ's redeeming grace, the whole purpose
of the Spirit of God's regenerating grace, is to give His child liberty
from sin, not liberty to sin. Romans 5.20, if you want to look
there, Paul, I believe it was, I can't remember who said it,
Newton or Bunyan, said, you know, people try to hedge the gospel
and preach it in such a way so they can never be accused of
preaching this gospel as giving men a license to sin. And he
said the result is they end up making it, putting it so much
in the hands of men that they would never be accused of that.
And he said, but if you preach the gospel right, as Paul did,
you are going to be accused of preaching the gospel as being
licentious or saying that you're teaching men that they have a
license to sin. And he said, better to preach
the truth as it is in this word and be accused of that than to
hedge it so that men think that it's in their hands. That's not
what we're saying, but we're also saying this gospel does
not give us a license to sin. That's what the big word licentiousness,
some of you may not know, but that just means not using this
liberty as a license to sin. Look here, this is what Paul
addresses this. He says in Romans 5.20, the law
entered that the offense might abound. That's why the law came,
to show us we're guilty sinners. Show us how abundantly we sinned
in Adam and how full of sin we are. And he says that the offense
might abound, but where sin abounded grace did much more about. That is, sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might or shall grace reign through righteousness
unto eternal life, and all of this is by Jesus Christ our Lord. It's grace in Him, it's righteousness
by Him, the reigning is by Him, the reigning in His people is
by Him, this is all by Him. What shall we say then? This
is the thought, well if grace abounded, because my sin abounded,
what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Let's just continue in sin, that
way grace will just keep abounding. God forbid. God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to
sin, live any longer therein? And here's something else about
this thing of liberty. We're not to exercise liberty.
We have liberty in meat and drink and the kingdom of God is not
meat and drink. It's righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Spirit. But if that liberty, exercising that liberty offends
a brother, we're not to do it. We're not to give occasion to
the flesh if it means offending a brother. Paul said we not only
sin against the brother, he said we sinned against Christ. That's
serious business. Well, what's the direct opposite
of using liberty as an occasion to the flesh? What's the direct
opposite of it? Look here, Galatians 13. But, That tells you this is the direct
opposite of giving occasion to the flesh. But, by love, serve
one another. By love, be a servant to your
brethren. By love, minister to one another. For all the law is fulfilled
in one word. All the law, you take all the
law, there's just one word and it fulfills the whole law. Here
it is. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. If we have the love
of God in our heart, and you think about this, what's that
say? If I have the love of God in my heart, I don't have to
have a letter, the Ten Commandments, I don't have to be constantly
going to the Ten Commandments. to tell me not to have another
God besides the true and living God. I don't have to have the
letter reminding me of that constantly. And I don't go to it saying,
well, I better do this or I'm going to be condemned if I don't
keep this. If you have love for Him, you
don't want another God. You want Him. You want to worship
Him. If I have love in my heart, I
don't need a letter telling me to remember the Sabbath. Why? Because Christ is my Sabbath.
He's my rest. I believe in Him. I trust Him.
And you know what that makes me want to do? That makes me
want to come to where His people are gathered together and hear
His gospel preached and hear Him exalted and hear Him declared
as being the Sabbath in whom we have rest. And it not only
makes me want to worship Him on one day, it makes me want
to worship Him on every day. And it not only makes me want
to take the burdens off of my brethren, off of, for his resting
on a day, it makes me want to take the legal burden off of
them. I want to take, I want to, I want to, I want to take
every burden off of them. I want to be gracious. I want
to be merciful. I want to be forgiven. Why? Because we have
rest in Christ. I want them back in that rest
because everything else is hard bondage. If we have love in our
heart, we don't need a letter telling us not to covet our neighbor's
things. Why? Because you want to do good
for your neighbor. What if he's an enemy? That word
neighbor includes brother or one that's not a brother. It
includes one that's a friend, one that's an enemy. That word
agape is the word that is not a condition. That's how God loved
us. There wasn't a condition on it.
And I know men will say there's no such thing as unconditional
love. But here's the point. How are
you going to love your enemy if you put a condition on it?
Aren't you thankful God didn't love us that way? He says, now
based on any good or evil in us, He loved us freely. That's
what He's telling us. You don't have to condone the
neighbor's sin, and you're not justifying him in his sin, but
you can still love him, do good for him, try to take the burden
off of him, try to bring him to hear the gospel, try to, because
why? You want to see him saved. And if we love one another, I
don't have to have a letter to make me do that, put me under
bondage to do that. It's in my heart to do that. Well, what about murdering somebody? I don't want to murder. I mean,
before God gave me a love of my heart, I didn't want to murder
somebody, but it didn't make me righteous. But with the love
of God in my heart, I not only don't want to murder somebody
physically, I don't want to murder the character. This love makes you, it makes
you want to do good for people, makes you want to help people,
don't make you want to hurt people. Verse 14, and I don't want to give occasion
to my flesh to sin against my Redeemer, to sin against my brethren. Sin's not an isolated thing,
brethren. This is the thing about sin.
Sin's hurting. It's hurting us personally, the
one that does the sinning. It's hurt, it's sin against the
Redeemer. It's going to affect us in our communion with the
Lord until He corrects us. It's going to affect my brethren.
It's going to affect my neighbor. It's going to affect our whole
society. It's never isolated. It's always multiple offenses
taking place in sin. Whether anybody knows about it
or not. So if we have love, you don't
want to do that. You don't want to do that. This is the law that makes you
not want to do that. It's the law of love. Look, all
the laws fulfilled in one word, even this, thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. How are we given this love? Where's
this love come from? We certainly don't, we're not
born with it. We got a nature in us, even as born again believers,
we got a nature in us that is your direct opposite. It's enmity. How are we going to have this
love? Where does this love come from? The Holy Spirit turns us
to behold Christ's great love for us. This is how He creates
a new man. He turns you and sets you on
Christ to really truly behold with saving faith how Christ
loved His people. You look to Christ and here's
what you see. He says, Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. He says, by love, serve one another. By love, serve one another. And
we're all so proud. We're all so proud. Pride is
what... You remember when the Lord said
that middle wall of partition, He's taken it down. That middle
wall of petitions is the law. That was the enmity, he said,
that separated the Jew from the Gentile. How was it enmity? It was enmity because that's
all that was in the Jew's heart. And in pride, he thought he was
keeping that law and he thought he was better than his brother.
And this is the thing. When we get in our flesh, we
build that wall back up. Like Paul said earlier in Galatians,
he said, we build up the things we destroy. We build it back
what we destroyed when we believed on Christ. So we got to see how's
that wall taken down. How's that pride going to be
subdued in me to make me serve my brother? Well, the Lord in
the first hour, he does this and we have to continually be
turned and set on him to behold it. This is why we come here
to the gospel. And here's what he does. Through his word, through
his gospel, he turns you to see Christ. And here's what you see.
You see one who is equal with God. You see the Son of God,
Jesus Christ, equal with God. Equal with God the Father. He
is God the Son. One with the Father. He said,
if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And what did he do? He came down and he took flesh. Made himself of no reputation.
That means there was a total absence of pride. Don't you hate
pride? That's my number one enemy. He
had an absence of it. None of it. And he took the form
of a servant. That means he took the position
of a servant. He didn't come to be served,
he didn't come in pomp, and he didn't come with his armada of
escorts. He came as a lowly servant. To do what? To obey this law
for us that we couldn't obey. And he did that, serving us,
bearing with us, forbearing us, being on suffering with us. And
he obeyed the law in perfect love for his people. Loving God
and His brethren perfectly, even to the death of the shameful,
sorrowful, painful cross. Took the form of a servant. And
now the Spirit of God has made us to see that by what He did,
The whole law of God has been fulfilled for His people by His
perfect love. That's why He is the Lord our
Righteousness. Perfect love has fulfilled the
law for us. That's why we have this liberty.
And when Christ is formed in us, first time that He's really
formed in us and we behold Him and then throughout the rest
of the days when we need to be strengthened inwardly to mortify
our flesh and to love our brethren and to keep walking by faith
rather than sight and rather by law, every, we need this constantly. We wouldn't have this warning
not to give occasion to the flesh if we weren't very capable and
do it. Every admonition we have in the
scriptures is because we need it. Repeatedly. And so he comes
and what he does is when he turns you and he sets your affection
on Christ. Have you noticed that when we
look down here and it says they that are Christ have crucified
the flesh with the affections plural and the lust plural. That's
an ongoing. In Christ we have. It's done.
That's an ongoing, constant thing that's happening, is we're constantly
crucifying our flesh by the spirit, by this warfare that's constantly
going on between the flesh and the spirit. He's constantly conforming
us to the image of Christ. But you notice there it says,
the lusts of our flesh have affections, plural. And then you go to Colossians
3 and he says, The spiritual man is going to mind the things
of the spirit. How are we going to do that?
The spirit turns you and your inner man has one mind, one affection,
just one for one object. He says, set your affection,
singular, on Christ above. That's where your life is headed.
And the Spirit leads us and He does it. He takes this gospel,
He takes His word, He brings word, scriptures to your heart,
and He sets your affection on Christ. And when He does that,
the love of Christ fills your heart. The love of Christ fills
your heart. That's the strength. That's the power and the wisdom
and the only ability we have that strengthens us inwardly
so that through the Spirit we can put down this sinful flesh. That's the only, that's it. It's
His love for us. His love for us. And we hear
Him say this to us. Listen to what He said. John
15, 12. He said, this is my commandment. Christ says this to us in our
heart. This is my commandment. That ye love one another as I
have loved you. Greater love hath no man than
this, a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends
if you do whatsoever I command you. Whatsoever? He said all
things whatsoever you would that men should do
to you, do ye even so to them. That's the Law and the Prophets.
That's what our text means. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. Christ put that in simple terms
for us. He said all things whatsoever you would that men should do
to you, do ye even so to them. That's the Law and the Prophets.
That's what Christ did for us. He did for us what He'd have
us do to Him. He laid down His life for us.
And He'd have us lay down our life for Him. And lay down our
life for our brethren. Now, think about the context,
and I don't want to leave the context because it's so important
because as we go through this, Paul has dealt with, both are
occasion to the flesh, legalism and licentiousness. Both are
just given occasion to the flesh. And both those were happening
at Galatia. And so there was contention there.
There was division there. And there was some trouble. They were offending and they
were being offended. And so the Spirit moved Paul
to write this. He gives us what the opposite
of loving one another is. This is what's going to happen if they go on giving occasion
to the flesh. Here it is, verse 15. If you bite and devour one another,
take heed that you be not consumed one of another. I expect Paul, when he read that,
or the Spirit gave him the word to write that, I expect he remembered the bitter
contention he had with Barnabas and how they parted ways, his
brother, his beloved Barnabas, who he loved. And I'm sure he
was humbled greatly. And that's how the Spirit's gonna
deal with us. If we read this scripture right,
if we go to it with the right motive, and we stand up and preach
in the right spirit, and we read the scripture in the right spirit,
the Lord's gonna first reprove His servant and humble us and
say, you're the man. But he's going to also point
us to Christ and remind us, your sin's forgiven. And he's going
to, by that, make you put away biting and devouring. Because
that's the only way unity's going to be restored. Now in their
sin nature, you know this, it's easy to love when you're being
loved. But think about it like this.
Here they are, there's some contention going on. A lot of contention. Offended, hurt, betrayed, and
making their brethren feel the same way. Everybody thinking
they're doing the right thing, and really it's all just giving
occasion to the flesh. How are we going to be safe from
that? Maybe one way. the Lord, grace. But here's what
we think. Tell me if this is not so. What I'm trying to do here is
I'm trying to just put in our experience as believers what
happens. Paul's over here talking about
the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit lusts against
the flesh and so you can't do what you would. How is it that
the spirit actually helps us to do our sin nature so that
we love one another and serve one another. How does that actually
happen? Tell me if this is not your experience. This is my experience.
Something like this. In our sin nature, let's just
keep it on the Galatians. So I'm at church at Galatia.
In their sin nature, they heard Paul's words like this. They
read this epistle, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
They heard it. They said, yes, my brother should
be loving me like he loves himself. He is not loving me like he loves
himself. Well, that's not what it said.
It doesn't say that. It says, I'm
to be loving my brother as I would want my brother to love me. It
doesn't tell me that my brother should be loving me. Because
remember, this is that agape love that if I'm waiting on a
condition in my brother, I'd be waiting a long time. If God
had been waiting on a condition in us, we wouldn't have ever
been saved. When He came to us and made us
come and ask for mercy, you know what? He'd already given us mercy.
He'd already forgiven us. So that's what He's saying. But
the Spirit, how's He going to save us from that? How is He
going to make us willing to walk in the Spirit? He says there
later, if you're led of the Spirit. If we're going to walk in the
Spirit, it's because we're led of the Spirit. So how is He going
to make us walk in the Spirit? How is He going to do that? It's
an inward work that goes something like this. Here's how it goes.
Take one Galatian. He hears it. He says, Now that
brother, he's always been faithful to me. He's always done what's
right. He's loved me. He's been faithful
to the Lord. I'm going to love him exactly
like I want to be loved. And the Spirit of God brings
Either through the gospel, or you reading the scripture, or
you just driving down the road, and he puts the Spirit in your
heart, and he says, yes, for a righteous man, some would die. Yes, love him like you would
love yourself. And you think a lot, wow, and
you think about this other brother, well, he's faithful, but he sinned. But he, for the most part, he's
been faithful. He did a lot for me. And David had done a lot
for his brethren, and he's faithful. And the scripture comes to you
by the Spirit, and he says, yes, for a good man some would even
dare to die. So yes, love him just like you'd
love yourself. And then we think of the one
who really offended us. Say, now, I just don't know about
this. And the Spirit of God says, Christ says, I commended my love
for you. And that while you were a sinner,
I died for you. And then we have this wrestling,
you know, we're going to justify ourselves. Well, but now that's
when I was dead in sins. This is a professing believer. The Spirit brings you to mind
and says, and the Spirit brings the scripture to you, but it's
Christ speaking in your heart. And he says, remember the night when I was about to go to the
cross and had my disciples. Those were believers. They were
believers. But now the Lord hadn't been
to the cross yet. He hadn't put their sin away. He's their surety. In Him, they're complete, but
He hadn't been to the cross. And He's all-knowing. He knew
every sin in their heart. Every sin in their heart. Every evil, wicked thought in
their heart. Right then, He knew them. And
all backwards and forwards, He knew them all. He knew Peter
was going to deny him three times, curse and leave his profession
and go back to his boats and stay there if the Lord had left
him there. He knew Thomas, even after he's
come back from the cross, Thomas is going to doubt him and say,
I won't believe you unless I put my fingers in your wounds. He
knows every bit of their sin that they're going to commit
to the end of their life. And He knows this. He's about
to go to the cross and bear it. He's about to bear the wrath
and justice of God for their sin. And die for their sin. And the Spirit
makes you think and He says, and what I did was, I took off
my outer garment. I laid my glory aside. The glory I was due, I laid it
aside. And I bowed down to my disciples'
feet and I took the place. When they'd walk in a house and
a servant would come up and wash their feet immediately because
they were traveling in sandals and they were dirty and their
feet were dirty. And when that person would come up and wash
their feet, they were greeting the master of the house and talking
to one another and nobody even paid any attention to that person
at their feet. He was nobody. That's where Christ, that's the
place He took. And He washed their feet. Now
you think about that. Their feet's dirty. He washed
them. All the dirt got under their
toenails, got between their toes, got behind their heels, under
their foot, everywhere. I bet their feet ain't never
been washed that clean by anybody. Christ didn't do nothing half
way. And the Lord brings it to your
heart and He says, He says into your heart, He speaks into your
heart and He says, You call me Master, you call me Lord. You say you're saved by me and
I'm all your hope. You say, well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master,
have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's
feet, for I've given you an example that you should do as I've done
to you. What is He teaching us? That
when we walk through this world, we are constantly defiling ourselves. We are constantly defiling our
hands, and our feet, and our eyes, and our hearts, and our
whole set. We are constantly defiling ourselves
with our sin. And He is continually cleansing
us so that we can keep worshipping Him and approaching Him. And
He says, now, if I'm your Lord and I've done this for you, you
do it for one another. When your brothers sin, do it
for them. Wash their feet. And when He
says this to you, and you've been sitting here, I've been
sitting here trying to justify not loving my brother. Immediately,
His love comes into your heart with such power that your old man can't stand
in that light. He can't stand in that love. And he's put down. That's when he sets your affections
singularly on Christ. Now where am I going to find
this Word when I need it? Where am I going to find it? Going to go here to this Word
Not to find a reason to justify not loving my brother. To find
Christ so I can have this love and power in my heart that gives
me the ability to love my brother. I'm going to come hear the gospel
where I hear this priest. This is the things he's going
to use to speak into your heart and keep doing this. And this
is what Paul is saying right here, when he says, by love serve
one another. He's saying, verse 16, this I
say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill that
lust of the flesh. That's what He's saying. Be looking
to Christ. Be looking to Christ. The moment
the flesh rises up, flee to Christ. Flee to His Word. Flee to His
Gospel. Look to Him. And this whole process
I'm talking about, you're going to end up knowing, and we're
going to always end up knowing, He led me. He led me. He did
it. But that's going to make us,
by love, want to serve our brethren like we want to be loved. All
right. Our Lord, we thank you for this
word. We thank you that you loved us like you would
be loved. Thankful you didn't love us like things that we call love, thankful
that you loved us freely, sacrificially, to the end, that you never stop,
that you everlastingly love us. Lord, fill our heart with this
love and make us truly serve each other and make us, make us, Lord, Make us love and make us love each other to you. And Lord, if you make us do that
here with each other, pray that you would do that For others that aren't here, use us to do that. Don't let us bite. Don't let
us devour. Make us love, Lord. We ask you.
Thank you for today. Thank you for this word. Thank
you for all your mercies. Thank you for your love. In Christ's
name we pray. Amen.