GALATIANS 5:13-17

1. GALATIANS 5:13-17 Delivered at College Hill church of Christ Leyte Christian College Campus, Tagpuro, Tacloban City Sunday, August 29, 2010

2. Galatians 5:13-17 • 13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

3. Galatians 5:13-17 • 15 But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another. 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.

4. Galatians 5:13-17 • 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would.

5. OUTLINE • CALLING • SERVING • FULFILLING • WALKING

6. First, what is YOUR CALLING? • “For you were called to freedom, brethren”, 5:13a. • This means freedom from the ordinances of the law. What law? • The law that requires us to offer sacrifices of bulls and goats and sheep every year. • The law that requires us to make a trip to Jerusalem in observance of it every year. • This means freedom from expensive Jewish rites and ceremonies, and from burdensome commandments and ordinances.

7. The Galatians had been taught by false teachers to be subject to that law again. • Paul said no! They were now free from that law! • Cf. Gal. 4:9-11.

8. Galatians 4:9-11 • “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.”

9. The meaning of Galatians 4:9-11 is, that Paul wished the false teachers removed because true Christians had been called Unto liberty, and these false teachers were abridging and destroying that liberty. • True Christians were not in subjection to the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments. • They were free; free from the servitude of sin, and free from subjection to expensive and burdensome rites and customs.

10. “They were to remember this as a great and settled principle: and so vital a truth was this, and so important that it should be maintained, and so great the evil of forgetting it, that Paul says he earnestly wishes that all who would reduce them to that state of servitude were cut off from the Christian church” (Barnes' Notes on the New Testament).

11. Today there are no bondmen or bondwomen in Christ Jesus! • We have been called to be free! • Cf. Gal. 3:26-28.

12. Galatians 3:26-28 • “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” • What does this freedom mean to you?

13. Some illustrations • It means freedom from debts and financial burdens. Why? • Because someone paid your home mortgage! • Because someone paid your motorcycle mortgage! • Because someone paid for your children’s education! • Because someone paid for your wife’s eye operations!

14. To a student, to be exempted from the final exam is freedom from exam worries! • To a little boy, fatherly support is freedom from hunger and want! • To Christians, the coming of Jesus means freedom from fear! 2000 years ago, Jesus came here to set men free! Now you need not be afraid of the future!

15. Second, YOUR SERVING • “Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another”, 5:13b. • Opportunity, Gr. aphorme, “a starting point” for doing a thing, “an occasion.” • The meaning is, Don’t think of that freedom as an occasion allowing you to indulge in your fleshly desires or to further your corrupt passions.

16. Christians are called to liberty, but it is not liberty to fulfill their fleshly wants. • It is not freedom from virtuous restraints from God’s eternal principles, nor it is freedom from the necessary restraints of virtue. • Rather it is liberty from serving sin, because from now on you are free from sin. • It is freedom from expensive and burdensome religious rites and ceremonies. • It is freedom that allows you to keep doing good.

17. “But by love be slaves to one another.” • The meaning is that by the proper manifestation of love one to another, we must strive to promote each other's welfare. • Doing this act is not be inconsistent with the freedom of the gospel brings. • “When there is love, duty is pleasant, and offices of kindness are agreeable” (Barnes Notes on the NT).

18. “Paul does not consider them as freed from all law and all restraint; but they are to be governed by the law of love” (Barnes Notes on the NT). • “They were not to feel that they were so free that they might lawfully give indulgence to the desires of the flesh, but they were to regard themselves as under the law to love one another; and thus they would fulfill the law of Christian freedom” (Barnes' Notes on the New Testament).

19. Hear the story of Fernando, who supported his friend Ferdinand’s family until his friend was released from prison ten years after. He had six mouths to feed from his friend’s family, plus seven of his own! This true love! • But hear the story of Fermin, who also supported three of his friend Doro’s family when Doro went to prison for killing an American. Fermin was single. When Doro came back from prison, he would not take back his wife Dora, because Dora had become Fermin’s wife! This is not love but sexual opportunism!

20. Christians are to serve one another like slaves. This means you serve him or her and he or she serves you too. • The manner of serving is that of pleasing one’s master. • Avoid displeasing one another. • Repay each other’s kindness.

21. Thirdly, YOUR FULFILLING • "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." • That is, by fulfilling the law of love, you are expressing through your action the substance of the whole law. That loving action you do embraces and comprises all intents and purposes of the law.

22. The apostle, of course, here alludes to the law in regard to our duty to our fellow-men, since that was the point which he particularly emphasizes. • He is saying that the law of love would counteract all the evil workings of the flesh; and, if this law were fulfilled, all our duty to others would be discharged.

23. If you love your neighbor, you would not sleep with his wife, for this will hurt him and his marriage. • You will not steal his property for this will leave him and his children destitute. • You will not gossip about him for this will destroy his reputation. • You will not force him to give, and anathematize him if he does not. • Masarap pa rin ang kapeng kusang ibinigay, kaysa kapeng sadyang piniga mula sa wallet!

24. “But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another,” 5:15. • “But if ye bite. The word here used δακνω means, properly, to bite, to sting; and here seems to be used in the sense of contending and striving--a metaphor not improbably taken from dogs and wild beasts” (Barnes' Notes on the New Testament). • We bite one another by gossiping about each other. If we do so, we are like dogs!

25. “And devour one another. As wild beasts do. The sense is, "if you contend with each other;" and the reference is, probably, to the strifes which would arise between the two parties in the churches-the Jewish and the Gentile converts” (Barnes' Notes on the New Testament). • If we contend with each other, we are devouring one another like wild beasts do!

26. “Take heed that ye be not consumed, etc. As wild beasts contend sometimes until both are slain. Thus the idea is, in their contentions they would destroy the spirituality and happiness of each other; their characters would be ruined, and the church be overthrown. The readiest way to destroy the spirituality of a church, and to annihilate the influence of religion, is to excite a spirit of contention” (Barnes' Notes on the New Testament).

27. Have you seen two dogs fight until they killed each other? • Our gossips and arguments too will consume us! • Gossiping and libeling, slandering and backbiting, murmuring and grumbling, and not being content are also sins!

28. Serve one another as slaves. • Hear the story of Friend A and Friend B. Both were walking in a forest, arguing. Suddenly Friend A picked up a stone and slapped B on the head. B just looked at his friend, wiped his bloodied face, and wrote his friend’s sins on the sand. • They kept on walking. Then A fell into a quagmire and shouted for help. B held out his hand and slowly pulled his friend over. • Friend A sat down, scraped the mud on his face and asked: “Why are you doing all this?”

29. B said: “I wrote your sin on the sand because I know the winds will blow it away. If I wrote it on stone, I might often remember it. Some years ago I stabbed a man and as he lay dying there he wrote my sin on the pool of his blood. And before he breathed his last, he hugged me.” • B paused for a moment: “I pardoned your little sin because someone pardoned me for my big sin.”

30. Lastly, YOUR WALKING • “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh” , 5:16. • “Walk. The Christian life is often represented as a journey; and the word walk, in the Scripture, is often equivalent to live” (Barnes' Notes on the New Testament).

31. What does walking in the Spirit mean? • This means living under the influences of the Holy Spirit as delineated in the Bible. • This means admitting those influences fully into your hearts. • This means not resisting him, but yielding to all his suggestions as found in the Word of God.

32. If a man would yield his heart to those influences, he would be able to overcome all his evil propensities. • If he resists that Spirit, he is overcome by the corrupt passions of his nature. • “Never was a better, safer, or a more easy rule given to overcome our corrupt and sensual desires than that here furnished” by Paul in Galatians! (Barnes' Notes on the New Testament).

33. What the Holy Spirit would produce, Paul states in Galatians 5:22,23. • “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”

34. CONCLUSION • Your calling. • Remember that you have been called to be free. • Don’t be slaves to the law, to the doctrines of men, to the rites and ordinances that replace that of God’s law, God’s doctrine, God’s ordinance.

35. Your serving. • Christians are to serve one another as they also serve God. Serving here means becoming a slave. • We are to honor and please one another. Let us avoid displeasing one another. • There is no master among us; only Jesus is our Master. In every which way we please one another, we also please Jesus.

36. Your fulfilling. • By loving one another, and becoming slaves to one another, we are fulfilling the true intents of the law. • We fulfill that law when we offer even a glass of water to the man who is thirsty or a piece of bread to the hungry boy.

37. Illustration • There was that little boy I saw at Avenida Veteranos in Tacloban City early one morning one month ago. His two hands were outstretched, his arms so thin like he had not eaten for many days. “Where is your father?” I asked. • “He went to Manila.” “Looking for a job?” I ventured. • “No, he left my mother.” • “I won’t give you money,” I said. “What I have is enough for my gasoline.” • “Just one piece of bread.” His eyes were focused on the Dunkins I had just bought. • “Thank you so much, Sir.” His voice was weak but the two donuts I gave him vanished in a wink. He was really hungry!

38. Your walking. • Our walking should be characterized by one who is being led by the Spirit. • Our acts must express the spirituality created in our souls and minds by the Spirit who lives in us. • We walk by faith and not by sight. We walk by thinking about the rewards we will receive from God in the future, not the benefits we will reap from men today.

39. FINISHED AND DONE!