All right, Galatians chapter
five, life, liberty, and love. Now, as we've been studying here,
the Apostle Paul, by the Holy Spirit, has been continually
encouraging these Galatian believers, those who profess to believe
in Christ, to avoid the false gospels of legalism, law preaching
concerning salvation and how God saves sinners. It's all of
grace. It's all based on the righteousness
of Christ freely imputed, received by God-given faith. None of it
is conditioned on us in any way. Christ fulfilled all conditions.
And anyone who would introduce any amount or any degree of obedience
as to attaining or maintaining salvation is denying the gospel.
But that doesn't deny the fact and the reality of true obedience
that comes from life, liberty, and love. And that's why I entitled
the message today, Life, Liberty, and Love. Look at verse 13 of
Galatians 5. He says, For brethren, and so
he's addressing brothers and sisters in Christ, believers,
you have been called unto liberty. This liberty is the freedom that
justified sinners have as justified persons. And that freedom, that's
a justification. That is, we're not guilty before
God. In God's court of justice, we're
not guilty. took our guilt and died for that
guilt on the cross. That's what it means when he
was made sin. Our sins imputed, charged to
him. And he's given us his righteousness
so that we stand before God totally, completely, 100% righteous in
Christ. And that's a freedom. Whenever
I talk about freedom and liberty, I always like to go back to Romans
6 and 7. You know over there in Romans
6 and verse 7, he says, for he that is dead is freed from sin. That means dead to the law. That
means the law cannot condemn us. And then freed there in Romans
6, 7 means justified from sin. It means we're not guilty. It
means we're cleansed of all our sin by the blood of Jesus Christ.
It means we're righteous. And then over in Romans 6 and
verse 18, or we'll read verse 17, Romans 6, 17, he says, God,
we think that you were the servants of sin, and a servant of sin
there is an unregenerate person, an unbeliever, one who hasn't
been born again by the Spirit. And that's what we were, we're
all born that way, born spiritually dead in bondage to sin and darkness
and deception. He says, but you've obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you, that's
believing in Christ. That's the Holy Spirit bringing
a sinner in the power of God to believe in Christ, to trust
Christ for all salvation. And he says in verse 18 of Romans
6, being then made free from sin. Now the word free there
is not justified. Over in Romans 6, 7, it's justified.
That's the legal liberty that we have being exonerated, being
set free, being not guilty, being righteous before God. But over
in verse 18, when it says being then made free from sin, that's
being liberated. That's the new birth. That's
when we're liberated from that state of unbelief. We believe
now. That's being liberated from the
darkness and deception of Satan. You remember in second Corinthians
four and verse three, it talks about if our gospel be hid, it's
hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world have
blinded the minds of them which believe not. Well, that's us
before the new birth. That's all of us before God brings
us to that liberation where he sets us free under the light
of the gospel. He says, you became servants
of righteousness. So life, liberty, and love, spiritual
life through Christ brings liberation. And then liberation brings service. And Paul talks about that in
Romans 7, but here he's talking about it in Galatians 5. Romans
7, he talks about walking in the spirit, walking in newness
of life in Romans 8 too. So he says in verse 13, for brethren,
you have been called unto liberty. We're free. We're not in bondage
anymore. Just like the Hebrew children
were freed from Egypt by the power of God, we've been freed
from the Egypt of sin in that sense. Now we're not free in
the sense that we're no longer sinners because we are sinners.
Sinners saved by the grace of God. But we're free from condemnation. We're free from being totally
deceived by our own pride and self-righteousness in the darkness
of deception. We're free from that. And a lot
of things we don't know yet. We grow in grace and knowledge.
But we know this, that God is just to justify us based on the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that our salvation
is totally, totally by his sovereign grace in Christ. That's what
we know. And so he says in verse 13, only use not liberty for
an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Our
Christian liberty, and that's what he's talking about, does
not inspire or make way for the sins of the flesh. And that's
what he's talking about, the flesh there. Sometimes when the
Bible uses the word flesh, it just means our physical bodies.
But here it means the sins and the corruption and the contamination
of sin that expresses itself through the flesh. And that word
occasion, he says, only use not liberty for an occasion. The
word occasion, you know what it is? It's a military term.
And it's used, it means a base of operation. You know, when
you have military maneuvers in a war, preparing for war, they
have a base of operation from which they guide the whole army. And that's what this means. And
it's appropriate here because Paul is going to later be talking
about a warfare. When he talks about the warfare
of the flesh and the spirit, that is, the warfare between
the desires of the flesh and the Holy Spirit who gives us
desires unto God. And it says that, and he's gonna
be talking about how we who are truly saved by grace should be
engaged in that warfare against the flesh. And there's a warfare
within. Some blame sin on our liberty. You know, people will say, well,
you know, if my obedience Or if my trying to fight sin doesn't
save me, then why do it at all? And of course we know that's
the product of ignorance and deception and selfishness and
pride and unbelief, you see. But Paul is showing here is that
true Christian liberty is a base of operation not to make a way
for sin, not to give in to it, not to lay down for it, but it's
a base of operation to fight it. Now, we're finally free to
obey God, that's what he's saying. Before we weren't, before the
Holy Spirit brought us to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
we might have tried to fight what we saw as sin, but we did
it in a sinful way. We did it with thinking that
salvation was in some ways, some degree, by our works. We did
it in self-righteousness, in religious pride. But now, having
been liberated, having been freed by the grace of God, now we have
a proper base of operation to fight sin, to war against the
flesh. And that base of operation is
our standing in Christ. We're free, we're justified,
we're cleansed from all, our sins cannot condemn us anymore.
Our sins, listen, we have righteous, we're not fighting this fight
in order to establish a righteousness of our own, we're fighting this
fight because Christ is our righteousness. And that's a proper base of operation.
Our motivation is the grace of God. Our motivation is love for
Christ and love for one another. It's not self-pride and self-will. And so look at verse 14. Here's
the proof of what I'm talking about. He says, well, he said,
but by love serve one another. In other words, we're to be servants
of each other by love. Now that love there is that godly
love that is unearned and undeserved. That agape love, you know that
term. And he says in verse 14, for
all the law is fulfilled in one word even in this thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself. Now this is the goal of that
true Christian liberty. You see the goal of Christian
liberty is not to sin more. The goal of Christianity is to
love God perfectly and love our neighbors ourselves. That's the
perfection of love. Now, we cannot and do not reach
that perfection in this life because of the remaining sinful
flesh. Paul describes that in Romans
7. He describes it here. He talks
about it in Galatians 5, the flesh lusting against the spirit
and the spirit against the flesh. And he says, you cannot do the
things that you would. And we'll talk about that later.
But that's the whole issue, you see. Our goal is to be the perfection
of love that fulfills the law, the law of God. Now, the law
of God being summed up in the two commandments. Love God perfectly,
love your neighbor as yourself. Love God with all your heart,
soul. That's our goal. And that's what we're to be striving
for. Now again, not to be saved. Our efforts to love God and to
love one another do not save us. If we say that, if we say
that it does, that's salvation by works. That's a bad base of
operation. It's like the fellow said, well,
do you think you love your neighbor as yourself? And he said, I can't
afford not to, because he thought his salvation was conditioned
on that. Remember the rich young man that approached, what good
thing must I do to inherit eternal life, to have eternal life? And
Christ said, well, keep the commandments. And he said, well, I've done
that from my youth up. He said, well, let's put it to the test.
Let's test that statement. And of course, if he come to
find out that he didn't, he didn't love his neighbor as himself.
None of us do. And that's why we have to be
freed. That's why we need salvation by grace. But this is the goal
that we're to strive for. This is the mark of the high
calling, the prize. We don't earn our salvation.
But we know salvation is earned for us by Christ who loved us
unconditionally. And when the Holy Spirit sheds
that abroad within our hearts, our mind, affections, and will,
that's what inspires us. And listen, it's even a warfare
to even keep that in mind, isn't it? It's a warfare for us to
even keep that in mind. So we're to strive for this perfection
of love as we fight the warfare of the flesh and the spirit.
And our striving towards that goal is not in order to be saved
or not trying to establish a righteousness before God by which to be justified,
but because we've been blessed by God's grace in these all the
things of salvation through Christ. Now look at verse 15. He says,
but if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be
not consumed one another. Now, that biting and devouring
is a metaphor that describes striving in a hurtful way, friction
that comes from a proud and self-righteous spirit. It's a bad attitude towards
one another. I'll tell you something, that's
what legalism fosters. Legalism and bondage fosters
division because of pride. because legalism teaches you
to think of yourself as better than others, more highly than
you ought to think. And he says, be careful not to
let such attitudes and behaviors to go unchecked and unrepentant
of so as to totally destroy each other. Now we know that God's
true children Those who are chosen of God, redeemed by the blood
of Christ, called by the Holy Spirit, can never be totally
destroyed under condemnation and eternal death. We know that.
But we can be hurt. And people can wound our consciences
and try to kill our spirit. We know that. And he says don't
do that. Be careful, he says. Take heed,
listen, that you be not concerned. And the whole thing is love one
another. That's what he's saying. And that doesn't mean that we
like everything about each other. That doesn't mean we always socialize
with each other. All those things that people,
you know, kind of have along with that, that's not what it
means. It means this, I'll tell you, listen, this is Hebrews
10. This is where it comes to, and it's all based upon this
base of operations. of what we are in Christ by the
grace of God. This is what I, remember in Hebrews
10 he says, for by one offering he hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. He says that we have access,
boldness, and that word boldness there in Hebrews 10, when he
says we have boldness to enter the holiest, that word boldness
means liberty. That's what we're talking, we have liberty to enter
into the holiest, that is the very presence of God, by the
blood of Jesus Christ. So there's the base of operation
now, all right? Then he comes down in Hebrews
10, listen to this, verse 23. He says, let us hold fast the
profession of our faith without wavering. Well, what is the profession
of our faith? Well, he just said it. For by
one offering he hath perfected, Christ hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. That's what we profess to believe,
that our salvation, our justification before God, our security unto
final glory is all by Jesus Christ and based on his righteousness
alone. Our access into the holiest of all, when we come to God,
listen, when we come to God to worship, like we're doing this
morning, when we come to God in prayer, I want to pray to
God. Does God hear my prayers? Does
God accept me? When we seek to obey God and
praise him, all these things, what is our base of operation?
What is our ground of salvation? What is our motive? We have access
by the blood of Jesus Christ. That's his righteousness. Same
thing. So there's our base of operation.
That's what we profess to believe. That's our profession of faith.
Now hold fast to that. Just like he said in verse 1
of chapter 5 of Galatians, stand fast in the liberty. Don't be
moved away from that liberty. Don't be moved away from that
look to Christ. And he says, for he is faithful
that promised. It's all because God is faithful. Salvation is not based on my
faithfulness to him, it's based on his faithfulness. And then
verse 24, he says, let us consider one another to provoke, there's
a provocation, unto love and to good works, not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but
exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the
day approaching. So there's the issue. And then
look at verse 16 of Galatians 5. He says, this I say then,
walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Now we're going to be talking more and more about this in lessons
to come. But walk in the Spirit. That
is, walk as we are filled with the Holy Spirit. as we are made
alive spiritually by the Holy Spirit, walk as we're inspired
by the Holy Spirit, as we're motivated and energized by the
Holy Spirit. Now, if we're walking in the
Spirit, we have to know what the Spirit does and all those
things. And we know this, first of all, there's a conviction
of sin unto repentance. and a continual godly sorrow
over sin. The Holy Spirit never inspires
us to give occasion to the flesh. Now, if we give occasion to the
flesh, that's something that we have to deal with and something
we'll do, but it's not the Spirit that inspires that, that's us,
that's old self, isn't it? And then the Holy Spirit inspires
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for all salvation. The Holy Spirit
will never, if you're walking in the Spirit, you're always
looking to Christ for all salvation, for all forgiveness, for all
righteousness, for all eternal life, for all glory. If you look
anywhere else for any of those blessings of salvation, you're
not walking in the Spirit, you're walking in the flesh. You see,
the spirit will keep your eyes on Christ. And that's why we
can't, that's one of the reasons we can't leave Christ. If we're
walking in the spirit, we have a desire to please God and honor
Christ in our lives. Now, yeah, we have sinful desires
to please self. I do, you do too. But that's
the warfare, isn't it? If we're walking in the spirit,
we have a love for one another and the truth of the gospel.
And that inspires a loyalty. If we're walking in the spirit,
we're fighting the warfare of the flesh and the spirit, knowing
that our sins cannot condemn us, and knowing that we're already
as righteous as we'll ever be in Christ Jesus for our justification
before God. And we'll talk more about that.
But look here, he says, if you walk in the spirit, verse 16,
you shall not fulfill, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Now, even though we're still sinners and we still sin and
we cannot reach the perfection of righteousness, if we walk
in the spirit, we won't go the full way of the lust of the flesh.
You know what the full way of the lust of the flesh is? James
talked about it in James chapter one. And it's death. It's eternal death. Now, we're
gonna die physically, but we're not dead spiritually. and we're
not gonna be dead eternally. The full way of the lust of the
flesh is to totally abandon Christ and his truth and the principles
of love and grace in him. And if you're saved by the grace
of God, you can't do that. You can't get away from it. You
may stray for a little while, but God's gonna bring his people
back. He will not let us go. And all who walk in the Spirit
do so by the grace of God in Christ. It's not by our power
and it's not by our goodness, it's the power of His grace within.
Remember what Paul wrote over in Galatians 2 in verse 19 when
he said, For I through the law am dead to the law that I might
live unto God. Well, this living unto God is
walking in the spirit, and he says, I'm crucified with Christ.
There's the basis of operation. There's the ground of salvation.
I'm already crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. There's
the blessing of spiritual life. Yet not I, I'm not the source
of it or the power of it, but Christ liveth in me, and the
life which I now live in the flesh, in this physical body,
I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me. So it's all, you know, it's amazing
to me how you'll look at passages like this and you'll see different
phrases and they all mean the same thing. It's just a different
way of stating the glory of what we have in Christ. Look at verse
17 of Galatians 5. He says, for the flesh lusteth
against the spirit. Now that's the Holy Spirit. and
the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one
to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.
The sinful flesh, which we, even as believers, still have within
us, causes us to still have powerful desires against the spirit. In other words, it's so powerful,
it's called lust. That's what lust is. Lust is
not just sexual lust, that's included, but it's any unlawful,
any sinful desire that we have. And we still have. But God the
Holy Spirit, whom we as believers have within us, he dwells within
us, causes us to have powerful desires against the flesh. And he says these are contrary.
They're opposed. They're not, listen, they're
not in league. We have a warfare within. I have a God-given, Holy
Spirit-wrought desire to honor Christ in all things and to obey
him. But I also still have within
me sinful desires to please myself. Now, I'm gonna talk more about
this in the next lesson. But here's where people come
across, you know, with what we call the two natures controversy. Does a believer have two natures? And a lot of the problem that
exists over that controversy is nothing more than semantics
and words. What do you mean by natures?
That kind of thing. Two natures. Some say two personalities. You all have heard what we call
the black dog and the white dog analogy. You've got a black dog,
that's sin. You've got the white dog, that's
holiness. Which one's going to win the
battle? Which one you feed the most? That kind of thing. I think the basis of that philosophy
came from the American Indian. I know it didn't come from the
Bible. But here's the point. whatever
you call it, don't go too far. Now, you know, I mean, and it's
a real controversy. I had, listen, when I was pastor
up in Ashland, I had people leave the church over this thing. That's
how serious it became to them. And here's where they came to. It's almost like they said, well,
a believer is like two different people inside. There's the perfect me, and then
there's the sinful me. And one fellow described it to
me like this, and here's where he went with it. He said, when
we're born again, God the Holy Spirit creates within us a divine
nature that cannot sin and cannot be contaminated. Now my friend,
that is not biblical. First of all, and the passage
that they would go from on that is 2 Peter 1, 4, where it says
that we who believe the promises of God become partakers of the
divine nature. And they say, well, that means
that we have a divine nature created within us that cannot
sin. Well, here's the problem with
that. First of all, that passage doesn't teach that, 2 Peter 1, 4. That
word partakers is fellowship. That's what it means. It's the
same word that John used in 1 John 1. We have fellowship with the
Father and the Son. And what he's simply saying there
is that when God the Holy Spirit brings us to believe the promises
of God's grace in Christ, we're brought into fellowship with
the divine nature. Now, what is the divine nature?
Well, that's God. That's the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. You see, when the Holy Spirit
brought you and me to believe the gospel, the promises of grace,
we were brought into a personal relationship, a participation,
a fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
through Christ. That's what he's teaching there.
The second problem with that kind of thinking that says we
have a divine nature created within us If it's divine, my
friend, it cannot be created. Divinity has no beginning and
no end. You see, we believe in God who
is divine by his nature. By nature divine, he's not created,
he's the great I am. And thirdly, That, boy you think
about what a slippery slope you get on when you talk about having
a divine, now we have the Holy Spirit within us and he's divine,
but he didn't change us into anything divine. That would be
like going the way of the Mormons, say we become little gods. And
that's not the way it is. Now, we have, when the Holy Spirit,
when we're born again, he gives us, he indwells us, and he gives
us a new spirit from the divine, life from Christ. We have spiritual
life. We're changed in a miraculous
way. And that change evidences itself
in all kinds of ways. First of all, faith in Christ
and conviction of sin and belief in Him. When you go to passages
like you said, well, we have two different natures, it depends
on what you mean by the word natures. I don't like the terminology
two natures. I don't back down on that. But I don't necessarily write
a person off who says, well, we have two, until I find out
what they mean by it. But if you're talking about we
have two desires, yeah, we have desires to honor Christ, we have
desires to feed self, we have desires to obey him, we have
desires to disobey, all kinds of things we could go into. And
I'll talk more about that next time. But here's the point, look
at verse 17 again. He says that you have the Holy
Spirit and then you have the flesh. And he says you cannot
do the things that you would. You cannot do the things that
you would. This applies to both the flesh and the spirit. The
sinful flesh cannot go the full way into sin and depravity because
of the presence of the Holy Spirit. And then we cannot go the full
way into perfection of righteousness because of the presence of the
flesh. You remember Paul said in Romans 7, he said, I wanna
do good, but I don't even know how to do it. That's something,
isn't it? But we'll get back to that. Look
at verse 18 and we'll close with this. Verse 18. He says, but if you be led of
the Spirit, you're not under the law. To be led of the Spirit
is to be led to faith in Christ. The assurance of God's grace
in him. To be led of the Spirit is to
be led to Obey Him and honor Him. Again, not to be saved,
not to establish our own righteousness, but because we have those blessings.
And therefore we who are led of the Spirit were not under
the law. What does that mean? It means we're not condemned.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
It means we have no obligation to God's law in order to attain
or maintain salvation. Now we have an obligation of
love and gratitude. And that's the motive that comes
from our base of operations, which is grace. But we have righteousness
that answers the law's demands and requirements. Christ Jesus
is the Lord, our righteousness. And by this truth, God the Holy
Spirit sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts and motivates
us and inspires us to love and obey and to love one another.
All right.