If you will take your Bibles
and turn me Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. This morning we'll be looking
at verses 13 and 14. Galatians chapter 5 verses 13
and 14. The title of the message this
morning, the liberty from sin the liberty from sin I Had a
different title of the message because I thought that I'd probably
get to verse 14 But I really don't think I'm going to get
there this morning. I There's a lot to cover here and we may
have to save that for next week. So The liberty from sin, let's
read this together for brethren ye 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 in this, thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. The first thing that I see here
in this text is that we who are believers in Christ are called
to liberty from our sins. Here the Apostle Paul reveals
to us the result of this liberty. We who are believers in Christ
are free. We are set free from the bondage
of the law. We are set free from sin for
the express manifestation and purpose of this, that we love
one another. That we love one another. We
love God and we love each other. Now, liberty belongs to every
sinner who is saved by grace. Every sinner who is saved through
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has liberty and is free from
the law of sin and death. What does the law demand of us?
It demands perfection. And none of us can provide perfection. God doesn't ask us to do our
best. He doesn't ask us to be the best
that we can be. God demands of each one of us
to be holy and perfect. Well, friends, that is the kiss
of death to every one of us. Because we have all sinned, we
have all come short of the glory of God. You have, and I have. We have missed the mark. God doesn't ask for us to hit
around the mark or just, you know, if you're playing darts,
you want to hit the bullseye. Well, God doesn't ask you to
hit the numbers around. You must hit the bullseye. You
must be perfect. And the law then, which is good,
becomes death. There's nothing wrong with the
law, is there? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart." Now, is that wrong? Is that bad? Is that evil? Or
is that just what we should do? You know it and I know it. We
should do it. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Is that bad? People
are speaking out so much and adamant against Christianity.
What's so bad about those things? Nothing. They're mad because
they can't do it. They're mad at God because they
can't obey it and they don't want to. You see, the law is sin and death,
but we have been freed from the law. The law can no more demand
from us because we have the righteousness of God by Jesus Christ. Jesus has taken the righteousness
of God and given it to us who believe. So what can the law
do? If you're obedient and you're
righteous, what can the law demand of us? The law can demand nothing. But
we are never, we as believers in Christ are never to use this
grace that we've been given, this liberty that we have been
given, we should never use it as an occasion to sin. The believer in Christ, this
is true, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Isn't
that great? Christ is the end of the law. He's finished it. That's beautiful to me. That's
wonderful to me. That I am no longer under the
bondage of the law, but I am under grace. But this grace and
liberty is not antinomianism. That's a big word for meaning
lawlessness. A man who is opposed to law. We're not opposed to law, are
we? We're not opposed to God's holiness
and righteousness. We're not opposed to it at all.
We're not lawless people. Liberty in Christ is regeneration. It's a new life. Whereas once
we loved sin, now then we have the new life that hates sin,
that loathes our sin, condemns ourselves and justifies God. God is just in everything He
does, isn't He? He's right. There's nothing wrong that God
does, ever. I take God's side against myself. Do you take God's side against
yourself? Obviously we do. Yes, God's right, always. And we were dead in sin, but
now we are alive unto God. That's what the Scriptures tell
us. If you're a believer in Christ, you are alive. unto God. Are you alive this morning? Not
that you're breathing, not that you're sucking in oxygen, not
that your mind's working. Are you alive on the inside? Do you have a heart for the gospel? Do you have a love for Christ? This is liberty to be set free
from sin, from the desire of sin. But we're not free from
all law. What does that mean? We are no
longer under the law of sin and death, but we are under the law
of Christ. Go over to chapter 6 and look
at verse 2. See what Paul says. Bear ye one
another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. The law of Christ. We who are
believers are under the yoke of Christ. When Jesus said to
those people who are under the law, He said, you that are burdened
by the law, you that are heavy laden, come to me and I'll give
you rest. Take my what? Yoke. What's a yoke? It's a thing that
holds cattle. It's a thing that bears the burden
of the plow behind them. You put a team of horses together
and you put a wagon behind them, they are pulling the load. That's
what a yoke is. And Jesus said, the yoke of the
law is too heavy. You can't bear it. But my yoke
is easy and my burden is light. You see, we've switched yokes.
We've not become yokeless. We've not become lawless. We've
switched masters. We've not become our own masters.
We have switched masters. We are no longer servants of
sin, but servants of righteousness. And we love righteousness. We are servants no longer of
sin, but servants of Christ. We love his perfect law of liberty. We love his perfect law of liberty. And we have liberty not only
to be a hearer of the word, but a doer of the word. I'll tell
you what, if a man was laying dead on this table, How do you know he's dead? He's not doing anything. He's not breathing. He's not
moving. He's not going anywhere. He's
dead. Now, you can confess, you can
say, well, this guy's alive. I still believe that this guy's
alive. You can believe that all you
want to. But he's not doing anything. He's dead. And you can say, well,
this man, he seems to be a Christian. But I'll tell you what, if he's
not doing the Word, if he's just a hearer and not a doer, he's
dead. He's dead. James tells us that faith without
works is dead. It's a vain faith. It's a feeble
attempt to say I'm a Christian when you are not and have no
affection for the gospel of Christ. I like when someone said this,
someone said, well, preacher, I was with you in spirit and
the preacher said, well, I can't preach to a spirit. As some folks say, though, I'm
with you in spirit. Where do they go? What do they
do? What's more important? What's this world about? What
are you here for? What do you love? Because whatever
you love, that's what you'll do. You can't disguise it. You can't hide it. Whatever's
in your heart will come out. Whatever it is, whatever you
love most. If you love this law of liberty,
you'll do this law of liberty, which is what? Love. one another as I have loved you." That's
what our Lord said. This is the liberty we have to
love God now. We didn't have that liberty before,
did we? We were in bondage and could not love God. Now we can
love God. Now we can serve God. Whereas
once we were dead, now we're alive. We have power given to
us by the Holy Spirit. We have life. And life does something. Life does something. But this is a warning to us.
Look at this in our text. For brethren. Very simply, that's believers. Christ is our elder brother.
He's not ashamed to call us brethren who believe in Christ. Isn't
that great? That Christ is not ashamed. Man, I'm ashamed of
me most of the time. I should be ashamed of me all
of the time. But He's not ashamed of me. He calls me His brethren. And I'm His brethren. And you
who believe, you're my brethren because you're His brethren.
And we're brethren. We're brethren. He's not talking
to legalists. He's not talking to workmongers. He's talking to believers in
Christ. And this is a warning for us.
Though we've been set at liberty, we're not to use liberty as an
excuse to sin. He said, use not your liberty
for an occasion to the flesh. When I say Christ has set us
at liberty from sin, there are two distinct things that we know
about this liberty. First of all, we know this, that
the old man is still here. We still have sin present. We know that. You don't have
to tell me that. I do know that. We all understand this, but when
we are saved from sin, we have been given a new nature. New nature. We have been given
a nature that is holy and perfect. One that's created of God and
cannot be tarnished. It cannot be tempted. It cannot
be moved from righteousness. That's an amazing thing. That
God created something in us that wasn't there before. a new nature. But because we have this old
nature still within us. We are always prone to take advantage
of grace. We are always prone to take advantage
of his liberty. The accusation of the legalist
is that we don't believe in law. And that we who preach grace
will lead people to licentiousness. Go to Jude chapter 4. Go to Jude
chapter 4. Excuse me. I'm sorry, Jude verse 4. There's
no chapter 4 in Jude. Verse 4. For there are certain
men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this
condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. Again, that means wantonness
or sin. and denying the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ. There are some men who come in
saying, well, I'm saved by grace. Therefore, I can sin all I want
to and not be cast off. They say, well, God saved me
by grace. He chose me. He redeemed me.
He called me. He keeps me. So then, you know,
I can really do what I want to and everything will be alright. If you mean by want to, you want
to sin, that's lasciviousness. That's wantonness. That's claiming grace when you've
not experienced grace. Many people embrace the doctrines
of grace so they can continue in sin. But what did Paul say
about that in Romans 6? He said, what shall we say then?
Shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid. God forbid that we
should sin that grace may abound. Grace abounds above sin. It reigns over our sin. Praise
God for that. But that is not to be used as
an occasion to do what we in the flesh, in the old nature,
want to do. When our sin abounded to our bondage, grace
abounded to our liberty from sin, never to sin. We are not given liberty. Anywhere
in Scripture, can you find one place where God allows sin, where
God makes an excuse for sin? You won't find it. God never
makes an excuse for sin, never. He never gives the believer an
excuse to sin. Well, pastor, don't you know
that all we are is sin and all I am is sin? Well, surely, you
know, God understands. If you've experienced grace,
all that sin that you do is not what you want to do. You want to do righteous. Excuse
me. Give one of these cough drops. So anyone who knows the gospel is saved from the power of sin
and the penalty of sin. We are saved from the penalty
of sin by the atonement of Christ, by His perfect obedience, by
His perfect sacrifice. But we are also saved from the
power of sin. The power of sin. Sin reigned
in our hearts so that we could do nothing else. But now, everyone
who is saved by grace has the experience of the power of sin,
power over sin in them. We are given life by the Spirit
of God. Christ saved us from the penalty
of sin when He died on the cross. But this was an experience. We
didn't have power over sin until the Holy Spirit came inside and
gave us life. And now that we have life, we
have power over sin. We have been given liberty to
live soberly, righteously. Godly in this present world go
to Titus. I want to show you this Titus
chapter 2 Titus chapter 2 look at verse 11 For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness
and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly."
When? When we get to heaven. Is that
when we're to live righteously, soberly, vigilantly, faithfully
unto Christ? Is that when we live perfectly? Is when we go to heaven? No.
We strive for these things now. We long for these things now.
We don't wait. That's what grace teaches. Grace always teaches us to live
after Christ. Grace can only teach us and grace
can only keep us from sin. Now, this power that we have
to overcome sin is not in our flesh. It's in the power of the
Spirit that dwells in us. You know, you can chain yourself
to your room. You can lock the doors. You can
bolt them. You can keep away from everyone
else and become a hermit. But that will not keep you from
sin. That will give you no power to
overcome sin. Only by the Spirit of God can
we live soberly, righteously, and godly now. But we are to. That's what Christ commands us
to do. And we should do it. We should. It should be our life
to do this. Not as a matter of bondage, but
as a matter of love. You see, I don't want to serve
Christ because I have to. I want to serve Christ because
I want to. I love him. Because he first loved me. I serve him. Because he first
served for me. He came to be my Savior. And He is worthy of my faithfulness. He's worthy. And we who are believers are
led by the Spirit of God. Therefore, we should examine
ourselves. Are we using grace as an excuse
for sin? Are we living after our desires
of our flesh or the desires of Christ? Because liberty never says anything
about living after seeing that's not liberty. Being at liberty
means we love and serve Christ in everything we do. I pray that
God would bless us to your hearts this morning, free from the power
of seeing God bless you.