Author: missionspaul

The acts of the sinful nature and the fruit of the Spirit seem to battle all our lives. How do we do this? Maybe that is the question the Galatians are asking also.

It is worth reminding ourselves that 5:14 is the crucial text in this letter, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’.

“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” (Galatians 5 v 19-26)

This last verse is key. That’s what Paul is focusing on. The church. How we relate to one another.

Perhaps the false teachers are boasting about what’s not there, they are conceited and are offering some social status to the Galatians if they follow them. Paul calls it out. Provoking is in the area of feeling superior to one another, one upmanship. Paul calls it out. Envying of each other’s position or title or achievements again Paul calls it out.

There’s no place for this in the church or any group within the church. We have to be better than the world.

That’s the focus for the acts v the fruit.

Now you might disagree with this because you may have been brought up on rules and been taught a God of rules and maybe you are right. But I am finding that my life with Christ calls me not to focus on other people’s interpretation of rules for living. My life with Christ calls me not to focus on being what others want me to be, holy, blameless and a good man but to be who He has made and continues to make me. I have found my life with Christ is about Him and not me. I feel free in that.

Paul says we belong to the One who is all in all; we have been crucified, past tense; and thirdly we keep in step with the Spirit, we are in alignment with Him. That’s how we respond. That’s how we battle the acts v the fruit. Jesus Christ is everything and at every moment of our life; we have become dead to those things that take us away from Christ and the Spirit is now our guide through this life we live.

The Message says of what Paul said on Colossians 3 v11, “Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.”

The Message helps.

Everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ. Isn’t that amazing?! Isn’t that the most important thing to centre our thoughts on?!

So?

• As you have died with Christ, hidden and raised with Him, you are not where you think you are at times. You are above your circumstances. Stay there.
• There is a way of life you used to live, don’t be tempted to go back there.
• Don’t pretend to be someone you are not anymore.
• Everything now is about Christ, let your life remain so.
• Ask the Spirit to guide you today.

So instead of trying and failing to please God we have stepped into a whole new way of life.

Jesus Christ was born under the law of God, lived under the law and died by the law becoming a curse of sin and death. (Galatians 4) The cross of Christ has been placed on top of the law of God. Our attempts of trying to be good are filtered through the death of Christ. We have died in Christ and we have been made righteous. The evidence is not our achievement but Christ’s.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” (Galatians 5 v 22-26)

We allow the Spirit the freedom to move in our lives, to breathe, grow and bear fruit.

We focus on being and the Spirit focuses on the doing.

The result is that the Spirit declares the righteousness of God in our lives in a greater way than all of our trying.

We are released to serve by simply being. Come Holy Spirit!

Some things don’t need to be mentioned. They are obvious. 

“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21

Sexual sins, v19, worshipping sins, v20 and sins against people v20-21; they hurt and they are harmful.

In this context Paul isn’t simply coming up with his own list of sins not to do. This is certainly not a new Torah for us all to attempt in order to be acceptable to God. Rather as he has instructed us to walk with the Spirit he now shows us what life would be like if we don’t. It is only a life with the Spirit that will keep us and others from such unhappiness. And it is only the Spirit life that will take us into the kingdom. This is not the other world, heaven, our eternity, but this is now. Paul is desiring a new creation, a new community where people don’t hurt one another and where we don’t live for ourselves but we love God and love others. 

Some grab this list and use it as a checklist. Some look at the sins and order them to how they think some are worse than others. “Envy surely isn’t as bad as drunkenness and orgies” and “selfish ambition isn’t as bad as witchcraft” that’s what is thought. Yet Paul doesn’t do that. He simply puts them in the same list. They’re all bad. The point is not a checklist. If it was then it’s not complete for “… and the like” leaves us wondering what else is on his mind. The point is that without the Spirit’s help we will all fall into these sins. Without walking with the Spirit we will all walk down this path of sins, no matter if we are Christian or not. 

There are just some days when in the battle between trying in your own strength and living in the realm of the Spirit you just feel you’re not doing too well. There are just some days when you just may not feel worthy to be called God’s child. You can’t identify anything that warrants or qualifies you for this amazing position. So once again … welcome Holy Spirit! Where would we be without Him?!

Today are you going to try and be the best Christian you can ever be? Why? You know you will fail! Why try and be what you already are? Why try to do what He has already done for you? Whatever part of the godly lifestyle you set your aim on it will only show you how far short you have failed to keep that standard. The Torah was never meant to be a means of salvation but always to establish guilt for sin. So why try to become free through effort to keep what we will never be able to keep? Why become enslaved again by trying? Why say we have tried when Jesus has died for our freedom? Don’t set yourself up to fail. Live in the freedom He has won for you.

As we move into this passage where sins and fruit are mentioned it is important to understand the above. This is not about the Spirit v flesh; this is about the Spirit v the Torah attempts for approval, such as circumcision. That is the context and in ours it is the same. We might not be battling against those who say we should be circumcised but we are battling against those who say we should be like this and that to be accepted by God.

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” (Galatians 5 v 16-18)

If you are walking in the Spirit, living by the Spirit, you will find that the flesh life (the desire to try and find approval from God by your lifestyle) will not get a hearing! So as we read these verses this is not a command ‘do not gratify’ that’s not what it says. Paul is stating a fact. Live by the Spirit, walk with the Spirit and you will live, death will not come near you.

The Torah in Deuteronomy is set in the context of those 2 perimeters of life and death. Everyone wants life, we all want to become all that we can become in God, no one wants death.

Walking with the Spirit brings life and holds back, pushes back the temptation to try to accomplish the Torah for acceptance (and the further lists that man have created) which leads to death because we will continually fail, we will never ever succeed.

We therefore today call on the Spirit again so that we walk with Him.

Sermons on freedom and legalism often can be heard in this way: “point 1 …we are free from legalism …. Point 2 … now here’s a list of things not to do as a Christian.” It seems it is hard to totally kill off legalism! We just sugar coat it up a bit to try and make it look different.

This is important as we begin to read into a final section of the letter where Paul speaks of our discipleship to Christ and how to live our lives in the freedom He has given us.

“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. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Galatians 5:13-15

In contrast to the legalists we are free. But it is so much more than that.

In contrast to those who perform FOR ACCEPTANCE from God we are free.

That is the key. FOR ACCEPTANCE.

This is not about the list. There are good things on the list. There are things that are not good to do and there are things that are very good to do. But it is the attitude behind those things and the reason for those things that is important. 

Generally speaking there are two ways we try to live. We try to be the best Christian around and keep all the rules we have been given or we don’t bother with any of the rules of living and we live for ourselves. This is where Paul begins.

Freedom is not for yourself. In fact Paul is clear that actually it is not about you but about others. “You, my brothers and sisters” brings us to recognise that we are family, there are others here not just me. Don’t let your freedom be about you, don’t “indulge” you, but “serve one another humbly in love.” Here it is, “the entire law” not just circumcision laws or other aspects of the Torah, but the entirety, love other people.

If every dispute and every division that has ever been created by Christians went through the filter of just 2 things then there actually would be no hurt from disunity ever. Of course you know what it is, the royal law. (Mark 12:28-31) The Royal law is to love the only one God alone and to make a commitment that you will demonstrate your love for Him by your love for others. This is the foundation that the list of behaviours sits on. It is not for approval but a demonstration of our love for God.

The vertical relationship is expressed in the horizontal relationship. You cannot separate your worship of God and how you relate to others.

Nothing is greater than the commands to love. All the other great things we can do in life are secondary.

Whatever you long for, long for it for your neighbour. Whatever you seek then also give.

Let love for yourself be first transformed and fulfilled in the One who gives life abundantly and who satisfies the heart, soul and mind. Then from this place love others with the same love that transformed your self-love. This is the freedom we have been given.

“I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. 11 Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5 v 10-12)

We use hyperbole all the time.

We could eat a horse we are that hungry. Has anyone tried to do that?

Today I have a million things to do. Have we actually counted?

My bags weigh a tonne. Did we weigh them?

I am spinning plates. Do we actually do that?

I could sleep forever. Is that death?

Exaggerated statements.

Gouge out the eye if you are lusting. Remember who said that?

And today, here is my favourite, ‘chop it off’. Look at verse 12 again.

Go on a search engine and read through articles on the word Galli or Cybele. You will see that the Roman goddess Cybele, the mother of all the gods, was well-known at the time of Paul’s generation. Her priests were called ‘galli’ and they devoted themselves to Cybele by castrating themselves and wearing the clothes and jewellery of Roman women. Interestingly the word can also mean Galatians!

So when Paul says he wishes that these false teachers would do more than remove the foreskin everyone is aware of his exaggerated use set in the context of their Roman world.

It was a strong use of vocabulary. It was shocking. But it was very clever. 

Paul used shocking words because:-

a) the work and words of the false teachers was shocking; 

b) cutting off the reproduction organs means there will not be another generation rising up with this disturbing message that performance leads to acceptance by God.

c) no matter how much we work at trying to get the approval of God, whether we make the cut of the foreskin or we cut more, we can never do enough to earn the love of God because we already are loved; 

d) the violation of the body mirrors the violation of the Holy Spirit in our lives. 

e) to cut off means they will be cut off from the church (Deuteronomy 23:1) and that’s where they should be.

Maybe Paul wasn’t exaggerating. Maybe he wasn’t using hyperbole. Maybe he was really serious. If so it only reveals exactly how important the cross of Christ and the power of the gospel was to him.

 

“I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. ¹¹ Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. ¹² As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5 v 10-12)

How does he know? How is he so sure that these people will in the end not turn their back on the gospel and follow the false teachers who are insisting on circumcision and adherence to the Torah? He is confident they won’t. This isn’t the first time.

Romans 8:38. How has he become convinced that nothing will separate us from God’s love?

Romans 14:14. How has he become convinced that people need time and freedom to journey at their own pace with God?

Romans 15:14. He is convinced they are full of goodness, again how?

Phil 2:24. He is confident he will visit but where does that confidence come from?

The answer to all of this is his relationship with Jesus. It is his prayer life with Jesus. We have read earlier in Galatians 1:11-12, “I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” In that place Paul received a conviction, a confidence and a persuasion from the Spirit that the Galatians will not buckle and give way to the false teachers but that they will hold to the grace of the gospel.

That’s one of the ways Paul is convinced. The other is clearly his commitment to studying the Old Testament. We have already seen how this letter is heavily influenced by Isaiah 44-66 and the major story of the Bible that of Abraham and Sarah, in fact there are 14 clear references lifted from the Old Testament Scriptures.

But perhaps one more thing to ponder. This confidence doesn’t mean he sits back and does nothing. In fact this confidence ‘in the Lord’ means that God will do this through Paul’s writing to them. God is going to use Paul so that the Galatians, ‘will take no other view’. That’s how Paul knows stuff!

He knows what the Lord is going to do because he has been talking to Him about it and he has been reading his Bible! He also knows what he can do in this situation, he can write and he knows that is the way God is going to do this work amongst His people.

How did Paul know stuff? Through prayer, the Scriptures and his availability to be used by the Lord. Nothing has changed. It is still a wonderful method to life.

I think you must be a hermit if you have got through life without knowing a lie has been told about you. It can be the most traumatic time for you. When someone is speaking lies about you or when they believe things about you that are not true it can send you into real anxiety. These next verses reveal that Paul knew that lies were being spoken about him.

^“I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. ¹¹ Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. ¹² As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5 v 10-12)

We don’t know if Paul knew the person who was spreading the lies. But it is interesting that though he knows of the false teachers that actually there is one particular person where the lies originate from. There is usually the one person fuelling the lies. Maybe they are not known by anyone but the lie can be traced back to that person. Paul has heard the lie. Incredulously it is that he is preaching circumcision as the need for Christians to prove their salvation. It hurts when the lie is sitting close to the truth but is 100% not the truth.

Paul is not far from the Lord. It is the only way through the lies to stay close to Him who knew also this experience of being lied to. In Luke 23 the lies about Jesus were that he was subverting their nation, opposing payments of taxes to Caesar, claiming to be the Messiah and stirring up the people all over Judea by his teaching.  Again the lie is sitting close to the truth but it isn’t the truth. You can see elements that are true but they are packaged in lies. Distorting the truth. Misrepresenting the accuracy of the situation. It is what the father of lies specialises in. All that needs to happen is to convince others to see just a glimpse of the accusation and then the lie has worked.

Here is what I have come to believe:

• What is spoken against you is not as established as it may look.
• What is spoken to you about someone else is not the evidence of the reality.
• The lie against you can lead you into the destiny God has for you, it can become a servant.
• It takes wisdom to dissect a lie.
• It takes courage to walk through a lie.

I have found the above 5 statements of great comfort to me.

How does Paul handle this lie?

• He has evidence for the truth. There are times when you cannot go round your world trying to rectify the lies that have been spoken. It is then that to copy Jesus is what you must do and be silent, let the liars have their day. There are moments when what you say is not as important as what is being said about you. Resist all attempts to defend yourself. You have nothing to hide. Your attitude becomes, “Let the liars speak. I serve the ‘I am the Way, the TRUTH and the Life’.” But if you are given the opportunity which Paul has then take it to set out the truth clearly. I’ve got proof. That’s what Paul says. He points to the fact that he has evidence that he can show them of his persecution for holding to a non-performance salvation message! If he was teaching circumcision as a need then why is he also being persecuted for teaching the opposite? A convincing argument!
• Secondly and soberly, hand the person over. Hand the liar to the Lord for they will pay the price for such maliciousness. There’s nothing more to say about that. It’s a dangerous thing to mirror the devil.

Finally, you can get past this lie. That’s what you must hold on to. You walk in the light and you serve the TRUTH. He has you. He is not anxious about the lie being told about you. I hope that brings comfort to someone today.

You can start the race but never complete it. Why? Somewhere along life’s path you can begin to disbelieve what you had been taught. Something or someone can get in the way and get you to run differently or even stop completely.

Ever been cut up? Driving your car and someone overtakes you and then swerves back into your lane and you have to slam on the brakes? You know the feeling!

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” (Galatians 5 v 7-9)

The biggest crash of the Olympics 2024 came in the first of two men’s 5,000 heats when Britain’s George Mills and France’s Hugo Hay traded elbows, triggering a pileup involving Mills and three others who came crashing down like dominoes. There was a lot of angry voices!

The Apostle wants to know what has happened to these people who were doing so well. He uses the analogy of a race of which is familiar to him. In Acts 20: 24 “ I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

Paul was born for the gospel of Jesus. He ate, slept, breathed and talked all the time of the gospel of Jesus. His every waking moment was spent thinking about the impact of the gospel of Jesus. When he went to sleep he dreamt of the gospel of Jesus. He was consumed with the gospel of Jesus.His only aim in life was the gospel of Jesus. Nothing mattered, no other interests or concerns even for his own life because his only want and need was the gospel of Jesus. He cannot understand why anyone would want to go back to a lifestyle of works when the gospel has been understood by them.

He says to the Galatians the person who has misled you is not Christ. This is not the gospel, He goes further and says that now they’re wandering away from the gospel, it is like yeast, the influence will spread and who knows where they will end up.

The Suffering Church do not have the luxury of leadership conferences and worship-fests. They don’t have the shelves of books and the access to the latest ideology. They only have the gospel.

I think of one of our Pastors who works in a desert and who walks 20km every day in extraordinary temperatures with a book of drawings that illustrate the bible stories (a book that when I saw it was falling apart!), he does it because he considers his life worth nothing to him compared to being a gospel worker. He has nothing. He doesn’t have qualifications. He has no transport. He has very few possessions. In the eyes of the world and even the Western Christian world he is nothing. But this beautiful man would agree with that opinion. He has become nothing for the gospel. But this amazing gospel-carrier is richer, more experienced and effective than many. 

When the gospel consumes us then nothing else really matters. It is the gospel of Jesus and He becomes all in all. We keep to it. We run this race. We don’t allow any elbowing to knock us off course. If people cut us up we adjust and we keep going. Our eyes are on what Christ has done. We run the race!

Let me tell you a love story from a not very successful preacher who married the love of his life. He had high hopes for this new chapter. They would share everything together. They would dream together, walk hand in hand into their future they would build together. But it wasn’t long before his loved one began to break his heart. She chose another man to be with. In fact she chose not just one. Were the children she bore his? He couldn’t be certain. But he turned from being a struggling preacher to a broken-hearted father, a betrayed husband and an embarrassed Pastor. But it got worse for him. His wife was taken by the men she cavorted with. Was this God’s judgment on her? Was it God’s mercy on him? More questions raged in his mind until he was left with one conviction. He had to go and get her. He had to buy her back from the slavery she had got herself into. He had to redeem her.

Their names? Hosea and Gomer. A story of undying love. A picture of God and His people.

God loved us though we were unfaithful. God loved us though we wandered away. God rescued us when we got ourselves into trouble. God redeemed us when we found ourselves trapped. God loved us when we stopped loving Him. God’s undying love.

The Apostle has grasped this. He has immersed himself into the death of Christ. He knows love flows not from performance. But it flows from faith in the death of Christ, God’s act of love. 

“For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5 v 5-6)

Faith for righteousness and faith expressed through love.

Nothing else matters. It is all of no value. What does count is faith in the righteousness that will be fully realised when we meet God and faith which can be seen now in the way we love. This love is not a performance in order to gain. Rather it spills out of our faith in Christ who was God’s greatest example of love. 

The word is Agape. The pinnacle and the foundation of everything. Without it nothing makes sense. This is not a feeling towards the person you are loving but it is a strong commitment that will not let go until that person understands, receives and prospers from the purpose of your love. It is the highest form, of sacrificial commitment love. The cross is how God demonstrated Agape to the world. 

This agape is the highest form of love. It is the agape that God has for us and the expectation that we should have for each other. We love each other how God loves us. It isn’t easy. People can be difficult. However agape isn’t based on what we get back in return. We show kindness, speak kindness, respond kindly, we agape every person we come into contact with. Why? Because He first showed agape to us and it flows out of our faith in Him.

We need to keep on being blown away by Jesus’ love for us.For then this faith will be expressed not by a performance to gain or be approved but it will copy God’s act towards us, that being love.