The Liberty of Love

Galatians chapter 5, beginning at verse 11 and concluding with verse 26. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, that is, the law, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross ceased.

I would they were even cut off who trouble you. 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 this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, wrath, factions, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and the like. Of which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.

Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Paul is continuing to apply the doctrines of grace. In chapter 5, the first ten verses, he begins this practical section and explains to us what you lose if you go back under law.

You lose your liberty, and you lose your spiritual wealth, and you lose your progress and direction, and you lose your good spiritual influence. In verses 11-26, the Apostle Paul gives the emphasis to the Holy Spirit several times in the book of Galatians. Actually, fourteen times in Galatians the Holy Spirit is mentioned, seven of them in the passage I just read.

The Holy Spirit now enters the scene because it is through the Holy Spirit that grace is practiced in our lives. Flesh, law. Spirit, grace.

What is Paul talking about in verses 11-26? As I read these verses, you noticed the emphasis on one another. Verse 13, serve one another. Verse 15, if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another.

Verse 26, let's not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Wherever there is legalism, there is biting, devouring, consuming, provoking, and envying. We have the idea that when a group of Christians starts to live under certain laws, there is going to be unity and spirituality.

Just the opposite is true. Just the opposite. Because whenever we say we are going to live by certain rules, then the old flesh goes to work.

Because the strength of sin is the law. I didn't say that, Paul said that over in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. The strength of sin is the law.

We have the idea that when you pass a law, you are going to take strength away from sin. But our nature is not like that. The old nature is such that when you say no, it says oh.

When you say don't, the old nature says do. And sin gets its strength from the law. That's why in legalistic fellowships, where they compare each other with each other, where they criticize those who are not a part of their fellowship, where they are judgmental, before long they start biting each other and cutting each other and devouring each other and there's a split and there are fights.

I've been a pastor now for over a quarter of a century. It's been my privilege to preach in hundreds and hundreds of churches across this country and to be in contact with many, many pastors and to preach to many different groups. And I can state to you from my experience, limited as it may be, that when you move into law you don't solve problems, you create them.

The only way to have a happy church is grace. The only way to have a happy Christian is grace. The only way to have a happy home is grace.

A friend of mine was telling me one day about a friend of his. So this was secondhand. He said to me, you know, this friend of mine has raised two of the most marvelous Christian girls I've ever met.

They are just wonderful girls. They have never created problems for the home. They're serving the Lord.

And said, my friend, one day I asked the father and mother, how in the world did you raise these girls? They weren't sheltered. They didn't go to a special school. They went to a public school with all the problems that can be there.

How did you do it? And the mother and father said this, you know, God saved us by grace and God raised us by grace. And so we decided when God gave us our daughters that we could raise them by grace. And he said, that's what we've done.

And this is what God has done. It doesn't mean they didn't have rules in their home. It meant that they enforced the rules by grace.

And Paul is telling us here that the only way for us to get along with one another, to minister to one another, is through grace. And this means the Holy Spirit. And the emphasis here is on the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Paul is giving to us here three marvelous ministries of the Holy Spirit. And my friend, if we could go home tonight and just let the Holy Spirit of God perform these three ministries in our lives, what a difference it would make. Now what are these ministries? Well, verses 11 to 15, the Holy Spirit helps us to fulfill God's law.

That's 11 through 15. In 16 through 21, the Holy Spirit enables us to overcome the flesh. And in the next section, 22 through 26, the Holy Spirit enables us to produce Christian character.

The law cannot do any of these. The law cannot give you the power to fulfill the law. All it can do is condemn you.

The law cannot help you overcome the flesh. The law cannot produce Christian character. But the Holy Spirit can.

The difference is this. When God gave the law, he said, Moses, here are two tables of stone. Take them down.

Show them to the Jewish nation. Moses got down there, and you remember what he discovered? They had already broken the law. They were dancing naked around a golden calf and having a big orgy.

As for this man Moses, we don't know what happened to him. Make us a god. And so Moses took these tables of law, and he broke them.

And he went back up on top of the mountain to meet God, because rightfully God could have spoken the word and destroyed the whole nation. In fact, he was willing to do that. God said to Moses, Moses, let me destroy them, and I'll take you and start a whole new nation.

What a temptation for Moses. He said, oh no, you made a promise to Abraham. You can't do that.

God said, all right, I won't destroy them, but they're going to pay for their sin. And God gave him the second tables of the law. Now these law tables were external.

Moses couldn't take these down and put them into the hearts of the people. They were external. All law is external.

Law cannot get inside of you. The Holy Spirit is inside of you, if you're saved. And the Holy Spirit of God writes God's law upon our hearts.

If I were teaching in a Bible school or seminary, preparing men to preach, I would require every one of them to give me a detailed exegesis of 2 Corinthians chapter 3. No man has a right to preach very long who doesn't understand 2 Corinthians chapter 3, where he contrasts law and the Holy Spirit. And he tells us the law was external and temporary and fading away. But God's grace is eternal and permanent.

And the glory gets brighter and brighter as the Holy Spirit of God writes the word upon our hearts. Some of you young men who are here are going to go out and pastor someday. I covet for you that calling.

And you're going to get into a church where things need to be changed. And your first temptation is going to be to pass some rules. I got news for you, it won't work.

It won't work. You'll just start a fight. The solution is get on your knees and pray and ask the Holy Spirit and then preach the word and as the Spirit of God takes the word of God and gets it into people's hearts, things start to change.

A whole new atmosphere moves in. A whole new appetite comes in and God begins to do something. You can't do that by law.

Let's take the first ministry of the Holy Spirit, verses 11 through 15. The Holy Spirit of God enables us to fulfill God's law. Now first he explains our calling.

Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty. You haven't been called to law. That's why Paul said, I'm not preaching the law.

Well, if I were preaching the law, these Judaizers wouldn't be persecuting me like they are. I'm not preaching law. I'm preaching liberty in grace.

We have been called to liberty, not called to law. He said this back in chapter 5, verse 1, stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ hath made us free. He said the same thing back in Romans chapter 8, and by the way, Romans chapter 8 parallels Galatians 5 so beautifully.

Romans chapter 8, verse 2, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. The very presence of the Holy Spirit in your life is evidence that you're not under law. Can you imagine the law of God telling the Holy Spirit what to do? The Holy Spirit needs no law.

So we have been called to liberty. Oh, I wish Christians would live like that. I just wish that people would wake up in the morning and realize that they're free from the law, oh happy condition, that God's not dealing with them on the basis of law.

God's dealing with us on the basis of grace, that God is not sitting waiting for us to step on a crack in the sidewalk. God is dealing with us on the beautiful basis of the cross of Jesus Christ, which is grace. Now someone at this point says, oh, but pastor, people will abuse that.

That's why Paul, after explaining our calling, issues a caution here in verse 13, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. Oh, he says you've been called to liberty, but this is the liberty of maturity. Now, you give a child liberty and he'll end up in bondage.

That's what the prodigal son discovered, though he was old enough to carry money and go off to a far country, wasn't very mature. And he took his liberty and said, boy, I'm so glad my father can't tell me what to do anymore and my big brother can't snarl at me anymore. I'm going to go out and have a good time.

And he had liberty, but his liberty was used as license and became bondage. That's always what happens. I don't do much youth ministry anymore, but back when I did, I would often chat with kids who would say something like this.

I can hardly wait till I get away from home and live the way I please. And I'd say to them, well, my friend, I hope that never happens. What do you mean? The worst bondage in the world is to live the way you please.

Don't you want something better than that, live the way God is pleased? So he issues a caution here that liberty is not licensed. Now, why does he do this? There are people who don't understand the grace of God. You're in Galatians.

Just turn back to 1 Peter, if you will, please. 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 12, by Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly. Good.

What did you write about, Peter? Exhorting and testify that this is the true grace of God in which he stands. Now, if there is a true grace, there must be a false grace that doesn't come from God. Everything that we have from God, Satan counterfeits and ruins.

Peter is saying here, I've told you about God's true grace. Beware of a false grace. Now, what is that false grace? Well, you're back near the book of Jude.

So find it right before the book of Revelation. Jude has something to say about this. There is a false grace.

Verse four of Jude, for there are certain men crept in unawares, creeps. Now, Peter talked about them. 2 Peter chapter 2, Peter said there are going to be men are going to creep in who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, dirty appetites.

They said, oh, but you're saved by grace. You can live the way you please. And Peter says and Jude says and Paul says that is a lie.

Paul talks about that in Philippians three. The book of Philippians has as its theme Christian joy. Some 17 or 18 times in Philippians, he talks about joy and rejoicing.

But in chapter three, he weeps. And you know what he weeps over? He said, I've told you, and I'm going to tell you again, those who are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose God is their belly, who mind earthly things. Who's he talking about? People say, hey, I'm saved by grace.

I can live the way I please. So he cautions us here and says, when you really understand grace, it doesn't give you license. It gives you liberty.

Now he goes on in chapter five of Galatians to state a commandment. What is that commandment? By love, serve one another. Why does God give us liberty to serve one another? God doesn't give us liberty to serve ourselves.

That's selfishness. God gives us liberty to serve one another. When I'm in pastor's conferences, often we get into the discussion of privileges and responsibilities.

I thank God for the privileges I have as a pastor. But if I use these privileges for myself, I'm not very mature. You can always tell a person's maturity by what he does not with responsibility.

What's he do with privileges? A fellow has the privilege of setting his own schedule. He doesn't have to answer to anybody about his schedule. What's he do with it? That shows what he is.

How often a father and a mother will get some extra time or some extra money in their first thought is not themselves, it's the kids. That's maturity. So, Paul issues a commandment here.

He states a commandment, by love, serve one another. Now, why love? Because in verse 14, love fulfills the law. If everybody in the city of Chicago had Christian love in their hearts, we wouldn't need courts or laws or policemen.

Let me tell you why you Christians don't go around breaking into cars. You don't want to. You just don't want to.

You couldn't conceive of doing that. My car has been broken into twice over in Lincoln Park. In spite of whatever damage is done to an automobile, you feel sorry for the person who did it.

Why does he have to do a thing like that? One of the biggest rackets in Chicago is for people to get the newspaper and see who died and when the funeral is, and then break into the house. Can you conceive of that? Here's a dear lady in sorrow, and she goes to her husband's funeral, and while she's gone, somebody breaks into her house. You see, you and I don't do things like that because we have love in our heart.

Love is the fulfillment of the law. Because you love your family, you care for them. Because you love your fellow man, you do your job.

You don't go speeding down the wrong side of the street. You don't come up the exit instead of the entrance on the expressway. Why do we obey the law? Because we have love.

Love for the Lord and love for our neighbor. That's why love is the greatest commandment. Now, love fulfills the law.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, but lack of love exploits my neighbor. Verse 15, if ye bite and devour one another, fighting, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. You see, the legalist, the person who doesn't live by love, who lives by legalism, always is comparing himself with other people, and they end up fighting over who's the most spiritual.

When a person is walking in the Holy Spirit, he doesn't worry about who's the most spiritual. He just wants to become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the Holy Spirit enables us to fulfill God's law.

God doesn't have to come to us every morning and say, thou shalt, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt. The Holy Spirit of God writes the law of God upon our hearts. And Romans chapter 8 says, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

That's the first ministry. He enables us to fulfill God's law. Now, his second ministry, quickly, verses 16 through 21, and I'm going to drop into there verse 24, the Holy Spirit enables us to overcome the flesh.

There is a conflict going on. He tells us about it here. If you walk in the Spirit, you shall not fulfill the desire of the flesh.

The flesh doesn't mean the body. The desires of the body can be very normal. Your body gets hungry because you need food.

If you don't eat, you'll starve to death. Your body is tired. You need rest.

If you don't sleep, you become very irritable and you could die. He's not talking about the body. He's talking about our human nature, the nature of man, which is flesh.

When God looks down upon us, God sees flesh. Now, when you were saved, God added a whole new nature to you. The Holy Spirit of God came in with a new nature.

Now, I have a war going on. He talked about this back in chapter 4 when he talked about Ishmael and Isaac. Isaac is a picture of the believer, the new nature, because Isaac was born by the power of God through promise.

Ishmael is a picture of the old nature because Ishmael was born by the power of the flesh, not according to promise. And when Isaac came on the scene, Ishmael began to fight. Now, it wasn't immediately when Isaac came on the scene.

It was when Isaac was weaned, when Isaac had reached a stage of maturity. Then the old flesh began to go to work on him. When I was unsaved and had but one nature, I did wrong things but didn't have the battle I had after I got saved.

When the Holy Spirit came into my life and gave me a new nature, gave you a new nature, a battle began. So there's a conflict. The Holy Spirit is desiring against the flesh, and the flesh is desiring against the Spirit.

And these are like two armies in the trenches. This is entrenchment, and they're fighting against each other so that you cannot do anything you want to do. That's Romans 7. Paul says, that which I would do, I don't do, and that which I shouldn't do, I do.

Oh, everybody here tonight who's saved has said, God helping me this next year, I will not do thus and so. It lasts how long? A week? Two weeks? And you do it. And you say, well, this Christian life doesn't work.

I'm just through with it. Or, God helping me this year, I will do this. We don't do it.

There's a law in our members, says Romans 7. It goes like this. When you determine by yourself you're going to do something, you won't do it. When you're not going to do it, you'll do it.

It's summarized here in verse 17. So there's a conflict. You just can't do what you want to do.

And we shouldn't sit back and say, well, Lord, I'm a failure. I'm a flop. What we ought to do is move in to the next section.

There's also a conquest. There can be victory. Verse 18, but if ye be led by the Spirit, and my Greek instructor tells me that that little verb led is in the middle voice, which means willingly led.

If you are willingly being led by the Spirit, which is the same as walking in the Spirit in verse 16, then you're not under the law. We're either under law or life. The law cannot give life, and the law cannot control life, and the law cannot change life, and the law cannot discipline life, but life can.

Say, what are you talking about? Take any form of life. Maybe you have houseplants. I can't grow anything.

I'm sorry. I can't even grow hair. When we were in first grade, we studied about wheat farmers, and when they gave every one of us a little plastic cup and with some dirt and some wheat.

Mine never grew. If passing first grade had depended upon growing that wheat, I'd still be sitting there. But suppose you have houseplants at home, and they aren't doing so well, and so you get a book about houseplants.

Maybe you get a copy of I Never Met a Houseplant I Didn't Like. There is a book by that title. And so you stand there in front of your houseplants, your African violets.

You say, listen. You're supposed to talk to your flowers, you know. Listen.

Here's what you're supposed to be like. And so you read the description of what the flower is supposed to be like to the flower. What good does it do? You do that too much, the men in the white coats will come.

No law can change life. Here's a little baby in the crib, and the baby doesn't grow like it's supposed to grow. So mother gets Dr. Spock off the shelf.

Hey, kid, listen. Here's the way you're supposed to be. You aren't there.

What difference? He can't do anything about it. Law is external, and law does not have the power to change anything. But the Holy Spirit is the spirit of life.

Now, how do you help the baby become what he ought to be? You feed him, and you love him, and you clothe him, and you bathe him, and you nourish him, and you protect him, and he grows. How do you help the plants? You nurture them. You put them in the light.

You allow the nutrition to get in. How does a Christian grow? By passing laws? Well, we're going to make you spiritual. Here's a whole book of laws.

Oh, no. You feed him, and the Holy Spirit takes the Word of God, and he grows. You love him.

You cleanse him. You encourage him. You get him into a creative fellowship that doesn't beat him over the head, and he grows.

And so, there is a conquest. What is this conquest? Well, number one, walk in the Spirit. Number two, verse 24, let the Holy Spirit kill the desires of the old nature, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, affections, the thing you love, lusts, the things you desire.

If you love it, you'll get it. What you love in your heart, what I love in my heart, I'll eventually do. If a person loves that which is dirty, he'll get dirt.

If he loves that which is worldly, he'll get into the world. What does the Holy Spirit do? He creates a new affection, a new appetite. It's a battle.

It's a battle to the very gates of heaven, but it's a battle we can win with the help of the Holy Spirit. He's not talking here about the external law. He's talking about the internal life, and the life of the Spirit within us helps us to overcome the flesh.

How do you overcome these awful things that are listed here? The Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit never wants committed adultery or fornication or uncleanness. Holy Spirit is not guilty of idolatry or hatred or enmity.

Now these things here will come with legalism. I've watched it. I've seen the insides of some of these groups that say we're more spiritual than anybody else.

They're fighting each other, biting each other, devouring each other, and doing other things too that don't hit the headlines. The Holy Spirit of God enables us to overcome the flesh. Praise the Lord for that.

Now the third ministry of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables us to produce Christian character. This is the positive.

If you overcome the flesh but don't produce Christian character, you have the negative without the positive. But here's the positive. Well, what does the Holy Spirit do? He produces fruit.

The contrast is between works in verse 19 and fruit in verse 22. Works do not demand life. Works do not demand life.

My car works. It's not alive. When I was a student at seminary, and I used to come down to the loop to catch my train home, I sometimes had an hour or two, and I'd visit the bookstores.

Or if I had the money, I'd go down to a little restaurant that I guess no longer exists. I think it's gone now. The Mayflower Shop.

Remember the Mayflower Shop down the loop? They had a donut-making machine right in the window. And you could go in and get donuts and coffee or donuts and cocoa or something. I used to stand there and watch that donut machine work.

It was working, but it was dead. There are machines down at Commonwealth Edison, Inland Steel, Youngstown. They work, but they're dead.

There's not a machine in the world that can produce living fruit. Works comes from the death, the flesh. Fruit comes from life.

The Holy Spirit produces fruit, which is Christian character. Some of you are music students. Some of you are gifted musically.

I would encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to give you some good new songs about Christian character. Try to find a song. This is one of the best hymn books in the world, but try to find a song that deals with the fruit of the Spirit.

Patience, self-control. We don't write about those things. They aren't interesting to us.

They aren't needful to us. Oh, but they are. The third ministry of the Holy Spirit of God is to produce fruit.

Fruit comes from life. Fruit has to be cultivated. Dear friend, you get saved on Sunday.

You're not going to be wholly sanctified and living a great, godly life by Tuesday. Some of you have been saved two or three years, and you come and say, oh, pastor, I'm a failure. How long have you been saved? Three years.

How well were you doing when you'd been born and living for three years? It takes time to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit. You have to be in the light, walking in the light, the nourishment of the Word of God, the seed of the Word of God. And this fruit comes gradually and beautifully, and Christian character is produced.

I had a phone call last night from one of our young men who is away from Chicago now studying for the ministry. And we were talking about the Holy Spirit and some of the problems people have. And I said this to him, I said, you know, when the tongues of fire came down upon the apostles at Pentecost, Peter couldn't see that over his head.

He could see it over Matthew's head. He couldn't see it over his own head. There are too many Christians always looking around saying, how spiritual am I? You can't see as the fruit comes.

Other people can see it. And by the way, you don't produce fruit for you to eat the fruit. Other people come and eat the fruit.

They're all distraught. And they say, I'm going to go see him because when I talk to him, there's always some peace. I'm discouraged.

He'll give me some joy. I've got a problem. She'll help me to be faithful.

You see, we produce the fruit for other people to eat. He's talking about Christian character, the influence of Christian character. And all of this comes from love.

That's why love is first. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Why love? Because love's the fulfillment of the law.

We won't do it tonight, but you do it sometime. You take these fruit of the Spirit here and you compare them with 1 Corinthians 13. You'll find every one of them in 1 Corinthians 13.

Love suffers long and is kind. Love envieth not, love vaunteth not itself. Where there's love, there's going to be joy.

And where there's love and joy, there's going to be peace. And one fruit leads to the next fruit. And this fruit grows out of a life in the Holy Spirit.

As we walk in the Spirit, as we walk in the light, the fruit is produced. And dear friends, this is the most important thing in the Christian life. This is more important than speaking in tongues.

He's talking here about character. He's talking about getting along with one another. You'd have no problem having as a roommate someone who had love and joy and peace and gentleness.

You'd have no problem working on a committee with someone who has self-control, patience. You'd have no trouble living in a home with a man or a woman, husband, wife, who has these characteristics. You know why there's trouble in homes and committees and churches? Because there's not enough fruit being born.

We're trying to depend upon the works of the flesh, and it doesn't work. It kills. So Paul is saying it's either the law or the Spirit.

You put yourself under law, you'll never keep the law. You'll never overcome the flesh. It'll make it worse.

You'll never produce the fruit of the Spirit. You may have a brittle, artificial, manufactured kind of religious piety. The Pharisees had that.

But if anybody gets close to you, it breaks. No, my friend, if we want to have the fulfilling of the law in love, it's the Holy Spirit. If we want to have the overcoming of the flesh with life, it's the Holy Spirit.

If we want to have the growth in Christian character, it's the Holy Spirit. And then we start living for one another, one another, feeding one another, encouraging one another, loving one another, respecting one another, edifying one another, washing one another's feet. And you know, when you have that kind of a fellowship, you don't need laws.

You don't need legalism. Moses can stay on the mountain. We have the law of God in love written in our hearts.

And that's what makes the difference. They have that tonight. Oh, my friend, let the Holy Spirit have His way.

If you've never been saved, you come and receive Jesus Christ and let the Holy Spirit come into your heart and take hold of your life and change you. And Christian friend, turn away from the things of the flesh and the world. Get into the things of the Spirit.

Let the Holy Spirit of God take the Word of God and nurture you and produce the fruit. It's a wonderful way to live, to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. We give thanks, Father, for the Holy Spirit.

We're thankful that He lives within us and He can work in us and through us. And, oh, we do want to fulfill the law, not in a fearsome way, not in a way that is slavery, but in a beautiful way of liberty, walking in love. We do, Father, want to overcome the flesh.

Thank you that the Holy Spirit of life is also the Holy Spirit of death. And through the Spirit of God, we can put to death the deeds of the flesh. We do, oh, Lord, want to produce fruit.

We don't want to be empty, barren. We want to be fruitful. And may our lives be marked by love and joy and peace and all these beautiful fruit of the Spirit.

To the glory of Jesus Christ, that we might be able to get along with one another and love one another and serve one another and not be so selfish as only to be wrapped up in ourselves. We ask of you, Jesus. Amen.