Free to Serve

gal 5:13-15 Free to Serve

GALATIANS IS THE GOSPEL

In case you haven’t noticed, the book of Galatians is about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and there is no news greater. You may recall our brief survey of the gospel in which we noted that the gospel is good news and contained within it a message of moving from slavery to freedom.

GOSPEL IN HISTORY

Gospel or good news had been preached throughout history. Moses preached a gospel to Israel of Old that God would redeem them from slavery in Egypt while destroying wicked Egypt and the Promised Land awaited them as they went from slavery to freedom as the result of God’s work on their behalf. Isaiah preached good news to the Jews who would be in Babylonian captivity that God would destroy Babylon and rescue his people from that bondage and bring them into freedom. And in the first century Jesus preached not only A gospel, but THE Gospel, the ultimate good news of moving from slavery to freedom. That movement from slavery to freedom for the Jews was a movement from the OC to the NC, from a covenant of slavery to a covenant of freedom.

PAUL’S MESSAGE IS SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

This is the message that Paul defends in his letter to the Galatians. He spent several chapters developing the doctrine that the Law was a covenant of slavery and from that doctrine he derives his exhortations to the Galatians. The exhortation begins at the beginning of chapter 5:1 it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Today we will camp out in Gal 5:13-15 (turn there now in your bibles). There we will see that Paul picks this idea back up and expands upon it. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

ISN’T THAT SCARY? DOESN’T LAW SECURE ORDER & MORALITY?

Freedom from slavery as a general idea sounds great, but freedom from the law sounds scary. After all, isn’t the Law designed to establish order and morality? People who know and understand the depravity of man will certainly be concerned with what may come of a community apart from the law. Doesn’t that freedom lead to anarchy, chaos and sin? How will we maintain order and peace and morality apart from the Law? How will we prevent anarchy, chaos and sin? Wasn’t this the purpose of the Law – to establish order and morality?

Before we jump into the text, let’s consider a few problems with the Law as a means of establishing and maintaining order and morality, since that is the general thought.

• It didn’t create a moral heart, but stirred up the desire to transgress (Rom 7).
• Law keeps order by way of fear of consequences. It worked through coercion. Eye for an eye. So the motives of men to obey were purely selfish.
• It is preferable for people to act by their own volition, for people do something because they want to not because they have to. Consider this in your own life:
  • Do you want your wife to be physically intimate with you because it’s her moral obligation, her wifely duty and she has to or because she wants to?
  • Do you want your children to honor you because they have to as a moral obligation or because they truly esteem you and want to honor you?
  • Do you want your friends to call you and spend time with you because they have to as a friend is obligated or because they want to?

So the general thought is that the Law will establish order and morality, but as we have seen, the law falls short of doing this effectively for a few reasons. It operated on fear and coercion, and it often produced rebellion.

So the argument in favor of the law as a means of establishing order and morality is dismantled at the outset. So the Law wasn’t really effective in establishing order and morality…

BUT THE QUESTION REMAINS: “IF WE ARE NOT UNDER LAW, HOW DO WE LIVE? And what will establish order and morality?

Paul touched on it briefly in v6 faith expressing itself through love.

Here he goes farther and fleshes it out even more. Read with me in Gal 5:13-15 ¹³ You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. ¹⁴ For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

Let’s draw out the meaning and application of this text.

¹³ You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. 

CALLED TO BE FREE?!?!?!

It’s easy to see how an immediate response to freedom is I can do whatever I want. Which is great. But the problem with that is what is going to keep people from using that freedom to murder, steal, and cheat one another? The natural thought is: the Law accomplished that; if you take away the Law you take away order and morality, right? That is the problem Paul will deal with in this text.

He begins by exhorting them; You were called to be free, BUT: Do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh!

THE FLESH. What does Paul mean by the flesh? We have talked about this concept of flesh all throughout Paul’s letter. This is a complex term that has multiple meanings which are always driven by the context.

• Human effort/striving
  • law works for righteousness
  • Gal 3:3 after beginning with the spirit are you now finishing in the flesh?
• That which is natural
  • As opposed to supernatural
  • For example the birth of Ishmael
• Pertaining to selfishness/sinful (trying to satisfy self through sin)

We must be careful not to only attribute flesh to sin (but rather to the broader scope including also human effort – the natural man). They all go hand in hand, but in this verse (5:13) Paul uses it to refer to the 3^rd – trying to satisfy self through sin.

SEEKING SELF SATISFACTION

• I want money because I want stuff, so I will cheat on taxes and rip people off.
• I want sexual satisfaction so I will commit fornication, look at pornography, and gratify myself.
• I want people to think highly of me so I will gossip about this other person so I can look better than him. I will slander this person to make me look better.
• I don’t like how I’m not the most popular person, I am jealous of that person who is.
• I want what they have so I covet their possessions.

Notice the “I” factor in all of that. I want, I desire, it’s about me.

Paul says don’t go that route. Don’t use your freedom for the “I factor.” Don’t use your freedom to sin and to walk in selfishness. Do not use your freedom for the flesh. RATHER, serve one another in love. These are interesting words. Essentially Paul is saying 2 things:

• Don’t use freedom to serve self, but use freedom to serve others.
• In fact, use your freedom to do the work of a slave.
  • The work of a slave is to serve others.
  • You are not bound by a law that makes you a slave.
  • You are in a position to serve others not because you have to, but because you want to.

The so-called problem that freedom will lead to sin rooted in selfishness is not even a problem because the freedom we have in Christ should actually lead to a selflessness rooted in love.

Christians aren’t free to sin, but free to serve.

¹⁴ For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Now Paul’s entire discussion in Galatians is: believers, you are not under the Law of Moses. But even the Law of Moses itself is summed up in one command: love your neighbor as yourself. You’re not under that Law, but if you were, it is summed up in a word: love.

• The Law said do not murder. You don’t want your neighbor to murder you, don’t kill others. Love your neighbor as yourself.
• The Law said do not commit adultery. You don’t want your neighbor sleep with your wife, don’t sleep with his. Love your neighbor as yourself.
• The Law said do not steal. You don’t want your neighbor to steal from you, so don’t steal from your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself.

So everything that one desires from the law – order and morality – is actually accomplished by following one simple principle: love your neighbor as yourself.

Paul says the same thing in Romans. Remember Romans is a great commentary on Galatians.

Rom 13:8-10  ⁸ Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”^[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”^{[b] 10} Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

So again, the entire discussion revolves around the Law; Paul has said, believers, you are not under the Law. But if you are concerned that a lack of Law will result in the lack of morality, have no fear: the exhortation to love will produce a morality far greater than the Law ever could have produced and even the Law itself is summed up by this exhortation to love.

Paul now says:

¹⁵ If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

This idea of biting and devouring each other goes hand in hand with the idea of the flesh. It is the natural way of beasts in the natural world.

I believe this biting and devouring and destruction correlates to both aspects of the flesh – the religious works righteousness aspect as well as the seeking of self satisfaction.

How does this relate to Paul’s discussion about the Law? Well, if the works of the Law (aka works of the flesh) were being introduced as a means of righteousness, consider the natural result: Comparing how righteous one is to another.

• I followed this command and that command.
• Oh, you’re eating that? You’re not as righteous as me.
• Oh, you didn’t observe the Sabbath? I did.
• And guess what else I did. Did you do that?

There is a natural tendency to look down upon others and elevate self in pride based on works of the flesh – there is a sense of biting and devouring one another.

I have hurt people I love in this room through my own self-righteous legalism.

• You drink alcohol? I don’t.
• You watch that on TV? I don’t.
• You listen to secular music? I don’t.

There is no place for that in the body of Christ. But that is the natural tendency of a works-based righteousness. That is the result of works of the flesh: comparing yourself with others, looking down on them and being puffed up with pride – biting and devouring one another, destroying one another.

But, if the works-based righteousness is set aside and the community says with one voice, “We are not righteous based on what we do but based on what Christ did” there is an attitude of grace and mercy and humility toward others. This is the kind of attitude that builds up the Body of Christ rather than destroying it.

So in regards to religious righteousness, based on works of the flesh, the result is biting and devouring and destroying by way of comparison and pride.

But the same holds true in regards to seeking self satisfaction by way of works of the flesh.

Examples:

• I don’t care if they don’t have enough money to eat this month, I’m using my money to eat more than enough and desert and then get this shiny thing I’ve been wanting.
  • This attitude leads to destroying one another by neglect.
  • But serving one another in love is seeking to care for the needs of others and offering to help provide food for the one who has less.
• CRACK. (freedom to indulge the flesh) If I want to feel real good and I smoke crack, I may end up doing things I regret while high, hurting others. I may end up a crack-head that needs another crack fix and steal from my own people to pay for my addiction – biting and devouring others.
• KING DAVID. We see an example of this in the Scriptures with King David, who was supposed to be off at war. He already wasn’t doing what he should have been doing. Then he sees Bathsheba bathing on the roof. And instead of going inside to one of his own wives he sends for Bathsheba the wife of Uriah the Hittite. I don’t care if this is his wife. I want her. Oops. She’s pregnant. Send for him. Have another drink Uriah and go home to your wife. Oh, he won’t go for that. Put him on the frontline and when the battle is fiercest, pull back and let him be devoured by the sword. So we see in David’s actions a seeking of self satisfaction by way of the flesh. In this he was “biting and devouring” his neighbor Uriah the Hittite AND DESTROYED HIM.
  • David’s mentality was “How can I satisfy self?” without regards for his neighbor.
  • However, if David’s mentality was “how can I serve others in love?” he never would have sent for Bathsheba, he probably would have been off at war.

So, again, works of the flesh can lead to a sense of biting and devouring one another:

• works of the flesh in a religious context in seeking righteousness by works resulting in comparison and pride.
• works of the flesh in a seeking self satisfaction sense resulting in the destruction of others’ well being.

In either context the solution is: rather than using our freedom to satisfy the flesh, serve one another in love. Rather than having a mentality of how can I satisfy self, a believer should have the attitude of how can I serve others in love?

Christians are free. Not free to sin, but free to serve.

We are all seeking meaning, purpose and self satisfaction. Ironically, that is not gained through human effort, it is not gained through natural means, but supernatural means. It is not gained by living according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

ILLUSTRATION

Let me illustrate this with something I experienced this past week. My daughter Ellie is 16 months old. We had hot dogs for dinner and the tongs were still out. She was playing with them trying to open them.

These tongs are spring loaded and they have a clip that keeps them closed. If you move the clip near the bottom, the ends spring open quite easily. But if the clip is near the top, they remain closed.

Well the clip was near the top and Ellie was trying and trying to pry it open. Ellie is a child. She isn’t mature. From her perspective, if she wants to separate the tips, she must pry them open. So she tried harder and harder to pry them open. No matter how hard she tried in her own human strength and according to natural means in and of herself, she could not attain her goal. But her father did something for her that seemed entirely unnatural (one might say supernatural); I squeezed the tips together, letting the clip slide down to the pivot point. Then the tips sprung open without any effort from her and her goal was accomplished with no human effort whatsoever, in fact that which she did which was natural to her worked against her. That which seemed to go against her goal actually accomplished her goal.

I think this illustrates our point well. Humans have a goal of righteousness. It seems natural to humans to work for this righteousness. So humans perform works of the flesh in attempts to be righteous before God. However this is like trying to pry the tongs open with the clip in place. No matter how hard we try in the flesh, we can’t be righteous before God. However, a status of righteousness actually comes when we allow our heavenly Father to do a supernatural work on our behalf that seems totally unnatural to us. It is when we trust in the work of Jesus Christ that we have righteousness. This is like Ellie letting her Father squeeze the tips to move the clip so that the tongs spring open, the open tongs representing a state of justification.

Humans also seek meaning, purpose and self – satisfaction. The same illustration can be used. The prying of tong tips with human effort can be compared to seeking self satisfaction by works of the flesh – natural means. After all, if I want to be happy, I need to do what will make me happy and that is being wealthy and having stuff and being esteemed in the eyes of others and if I need to step on heads to climb the corporate ladder and cheat others and slander others to get there, by golly that’s what I’ll do. That’s natural; that’s the flesh. If I want these tongs open I better pry them. They’re not coming open I’ll pry harder. However, the tongs don’t open by self effort. They open by relying on the work that the father does, outside of the child’s work. In the same way, meaning and purpose and self satisfaction is not found through works of the flesh, but by relying on the work of the father. Though it seems to natural man that I must strive for satisfaction through my own works and self effort, that actually gets man in trouble and harms his neighbor. Meaning and purpose are found in Christ. True satisfaction of the soul is found in Christ – faith in Christ – faith expressing itself through love – serving one another in love. I will find that I am truly satisfied when I use my freedom not for the flesh, not to seek to satisfy self, but when I seek to serve others in love.

We are free from the Law – So let us find our righteousness not in works of the Law, but in Christ. And let’s not use our freedom to indulge the flesh, but to do the work of a slave, serving one another in love.

It sounds bizarre, like squeezing the tongs to open them, doing the very opposite of what we would naturally tend to do, but it is not the natural way of life that we are called to in Christ, but the supernatural way of the Spirit.

The Christian life is not about serving self in sin, but serving others in love.

Yes we are free, not free to sin, but free to serve.