Galatians 5

Today we're going to be studying Galatians chapter 5 in our women's Bible study called Finding Grace, and we have finally gotten to the dessert part of our Bible study. We have had the first course, which we called Finding Grace, the middle section, which we called Understanding Grace, and now we have gotten to this final great part that we call Living in Grace. If I could choose just one phrase from chapter 4 to lead us into chapter 5, I would choose verse 29, and the phrase that says, born according to the Spirit. Because above all things, we need to focus on the Spirit in our Christian lives, and this is Paul's focus in these two chapters. Eleven times he's going to talk in chapters 5 and 6 about the Spirit. The Spirit of God is the key for us to finding grace and to living in grace. So a couple questions to lead us into this chapter. One question is, what does it mean to be led by the Spirit? And how am I led by the Spirit? We've been looking at contrasts throughout this Bible study, and the most common contrast that we've looked at has been law and faith. The most important contrast, I think, is flesh and spirit, and the contrast that lead us into chapter 5 has been slavery and freedom. So I hope you drew a little sunrise over the words free and freedom, and you drew little chains over the word slavery and circumcision, because that's the context of this letter. And certainly those symbols could also be used over the words spirit, a sunrise over spirit and chains over flesh. Let's get started with verse 1 of chapter 5.

Now we're not going to linger for a long time on those verses because by nature our study is designed that we need to get through the entire chapter today. I just want to say that my husband spent 45 minutes on verses 1 and 2. So if you want to delve more into what it means that Christ will be of no advantage to you, go to our website and listen to Galatians. But what I want us to focus on are the phrases, stand firm, do not submit again, and fallen away from grace. And let's start with that last one. What does it mean to fall away from grace? I'm going to put our chart up from last week that we used, that we built this chart, and this is where we ended last week. This is the exact chart that we ended up with that shows us the two columns under the Old Testament, or the Old Covenant, and the New. And I want to put it back into your mind, and then I want to give you a simplified version of this chart. It's a little bit less robust, but I think it will help us just handle the words we're looking at. And you can see that to fall away from the side with grace and with the Spirit means to fall toward the side that's born out of the flesh, and ultimately, the law. You can't stand in both columns at one time. So the question is, how do we stand firm in the column of grace? And I want to give us two tips on this. The first one is this, to understand that by nature, I am a doer. This is how I am born. I am born into a demanding world, and it causes me to naturally lean toward performance, to lean toward that side. If I understand that I have a natural bent toward this, it might help me protect that weakness. It might help me understand that a little bit more. And tip number two is to ask God to make me a rester, one who rests. Faith leads to rest, and rest leads to joy and peace. I want to show you a quote from one of my favorite authors to quote from, Andrew Murray, a Scottish preacher, and he said faith always rests in what another will do for me. Faith ceases to seek help in itself, but it rests in the sufficiency of the All-Sufficient One. And you can see where he's headed there because that's capitalized, the All-Sufficient One is Christ himself. Here's what the Lord said to Paul as he told it to the Corinthians. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. So our goal in life is to become experienced at resting. Are you become experienced at resting in the All-Sufficient One? Well, let's move on to the next verses. Verse seven goes like this.

Okay, so in those verses, we see twin P words, persuasion and persecution, and I want to handle those words a little bit, because they are both directed from people who are standing firm on the column of law toward people who are standing firm, trying to stand firm, in the column of grace, okay? Let's look at persuasion first. Here persuasion is used in a damaging context. People in the left column trying to persuade those in the column of grace, and Paul likens it to the experience of a leavening agent. Probably everyone listening to this has at least once in your life baked bread, and you add a leavening agent to the dough, and the intention isn't for it to stay in just one little corner of the dough. By nature, while you are kneading it is to work its way all through the dough, and that is the illustration that Paul gives. The result of this is this uniform hindrance in obeying the truth. What is the truth? The truth is that we can rest in what Jesus has done, is that we can rest in the all-sufficient one, but people will be persuading us away from that. Let's look at the word persecution. This also stems from those in the legal or the flesh column. Last week, we didn't really deal with this verse very well, but in Galatians 4.29, there was this analogy of Ishmael and Isaac, and we were reminded of the ancient persuasion. Let me read this for you, Galatians 4.29, but just as at that time, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. So while we are trying to stand firm in the column of grace, we should expect that persuasion will come from those who are in the column of the law, in slavery to the law. And what is the motivation there? I don't know, probably a lot of different things. I think one piece of motivation is to impress us with their knowledge and their understanding of what it is that God requires of us for a relationship. Maybe like Paul had said a few times before, there is a jealousy at play. Those people that have an external relationship with God, there's a jealousy at play toward those that have that warm family relationship. We should also expect the Persecution will come from those who are in that column of law, because the passage tells us it's always been this way, and it will always be this way. People of true faith will always be persecuted, because, as Paul's phrase was here, the offense of the cross. What is the offense of the cross? Well, the cross is offensive to us, because the cross teaches us that only Jesus can make us right with God. There's nothing we can possibly do to make ourselves right with God. It is only what Jesus did on the cross that can make us acceptable, and that is offensive. Paul also talked about here, it seems that there were those that were saying, trying to use his preaching to corroborate the fact that circumcision was necessary, and saying that Paul was teaching this too. Well, he wasn't, and he said, you know, how could I have been? Because then why would I still be persecuted? Because that would have appealed to the flesh, that would not have been offensive. Well, I want to add a third P word to lead us into the next section, and that is positive influence, okay? If we stand firm in the column of grace, we have the privilege and the advantage of being a positive influence, not only of others in that column, but also of those that are in the column of the law. Let's go on to look at verse 13 here.

So our freedom leads us to positively influence other people through love. Two interesting observations I see here. One observation is that from our grace-filled position, we have the opportunity to influence others through love. Fascinating thing is, that is fulfilling the law. Through our love and actions, we actually fulfill the law. Here's how this works. We are not made acceptable to God because we obey the law. But you know what? Once we're made acceptable to God, he gives us the want to. We want to obey the law and we actually do. Then we actually do it. And that is an example that he shows there. The other thing from these verses is that when people rely on external and formal guidelines, relationships get snippy. And that's what Paul is alluding to here. Imagine what the relationships must have been like in the church in Galatia for him to say, you guys, watch out that you don't bite each other to the point that you devour each other. Spiritual cannibalism. Because you're watching over each other so much and biting and nipping. Have you ever noticed the fact that whenever methods or rules are enforced from the outside, that's how relationships get. We become watchdogs over each other, wardens over each other. Okay, now we talked about in this Bible study that law, rules, guidance, a schoolmaster, it is good. It is for the child. It is for those who are less mature. So listen, we do this in our homes. This is how we teach our kids. We make rules. We used to have this book I made into coloring sheets, 21 rules of the house. And everybody took their turn having a coloring sheet. And the first rule was we love Jesus Christ. There was rules like when we have something nice to share, we share it. Laws are good for the little ones. But everybody who's raised kids knows exactly what siblings do with that. That's not how mom taught us how to sweep. That's not how you're supposed to hold your pencil. It just comes naturally. Siblings will bite and bicker over each other by they didn't follow the rules right. Now we can handle that with a four and a six year old. Okay, we handle it, we manage it. But that is not what we wanna see with grownups. We don't wanna see that in the church. We don't, that is done. In the church, we are free to love one another, not keep our eagle eye on one another. So we are free to trust that the Holy Spirit will guide each of us into those godly characteristics. And we don't have to be the watchdogs or the wardens in that situation. There comes a time in almost everybody's life when they become interested in spiritual things for one reason or another. It's happening right now. People are interested. They have spiritual questions on their mind. And when they begin to investigate and press through and find out, look for answers, what will they find? Will they find somebody that tells them how Christians are supposed to uphold all God's holy convocations? Or will they find churches with rules of, this is the don't do list and this is the you're supposed to do list? Will they find us biting and devouring one another? Or will they find the grace of God, the rest, the freedom? So those are important things for us just to think about. What will people find when they look into our life? Which leads us to the second part of this lesson. As we keep going, we are finally gonna fully realize this living in grace section. All of Galatians has been leading up to this point. This is the high point here. How do we live in grace? And just a spoiler alert, it's all about an internal relationship and nothing about an external relationship. God has always wanted with his kids an internal relationship. When he first gave the law, wrote it on tablets of stone, cold, external law. And then he told his prophets, not always gonna be this way. The day will come when I will write that on their hearts. It will be inside of them and they will know me through this. And of course he was talking about the coming of his spirit that would live inside of us. So everything about our Christian life, everything about our Christian life hinges on the Holy Spirit. Let's read verse 16.

This is another way of saying that the flesh and the spirit are in opposite columns. Paul is about to share with us here in the next verses what a life yielded to the spirit will look like and what a life yielded to the flesh will look like. I should have said those the other way around because the flesh comes first. But now we got to be careful because if we're not careful going into these, we're going to look at what's about to come and say, okay, good, I got two lists here. These are all the bad things, don't do these things. And these are all the good things, do these things. But that's not what our Bible study is about. We've been building up this whole point to say, no, it's not about rules and guidelines and lists. What we're about to read is this is the result of a life that is yielded either to the flesh or the spirit. Look at verse 19.

Now we read a list like that and we can be tempted to think, you know what, I haven't been drunk or been in an affair or practiced witchcraft or been in an orgy or flown into a rage for a long time, so I think I'm pretty good. You know, my life's going pretty good. Or we look at this list and we say, all right, keep that in my pocket. These are all the things I need to stay away from. That is not what this is here for. The key is verse 16. Look at it again. But I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So I want us to consider two phrases to help us get a picture for this. The two phrases are walk by the spirit, that's in verse 16, and yielded to the spirit. That's not in the Bible, or that's not in this passage, it's my version of it, yielding to the spirit. And you'll see in a minute why we're gonna say that. So first, walk by the spirit. You know, I feel like I'm the queen of silly illustrations. And so here we go, I'm just gonna use one, okay? We've got littles in our family again and you always wanna introduce. them to the zoo. It's such a fun experience when you have little kids. And when we go to the zoo, you know, some paths lead to the giraffes, some paths lead to the monkey house. At the Boise Zoo, if you walk on the path that leads to the Asian animals, the tigers and the pandas, you will never run across the penguins. You'll never see them because they're not on that path. You have to actually cross a bridge. You have to leave the path where the tigers are, cross over a bridge in order to find the penguins. In the same way, the works of the flesh that we just read about, they don't pop up out of nowhere. We don't go along happily married, and then suddenly one day fall into an affair. A bridge was crossed at some point. Permission was given to indulge the sinful nature. All kinds of little small ways that we give permission to indulge the sinful nature. In that example, maybe we stopped and we talked for much longer than our conscience told us we should have with another married man. Or maybe we were watching a movie with way more sexual immorality than we knew was right. And those are just these little steps, these little bridges that we crossed. We're never given over to drunkenness unless we drink. So there's a tip. If you never drink, you'll never be drunk. Permission has to be given. We don't suddenly fly into a rage out of nowhere unless we've given ourselves permission to cross a bridge and bent our anger about something, maybe at home or with our children. So just like at the zoo, when we are walking on the path to see the Asian animals, the penguins do not pop up out of nowhere into our path. Not to demonize the penguins, but in my illustration, that's the point. You know, we had to have made a decision to stop walking on the path to see the tigers, cross the bridge in order to get to the penguins. The point is, our lives are made up of hundreds and thousands of small moments and small decisions that all lead us somewhere. Each time we give ourselves permission to cross a bridge, we indulge the sinful nature in some way. We give it power. And the next day it wants it again, and probably more, until it is in charge, until we have yielded to it. I like the phrase, yielding to the spirit. And I have another silly illustration for that, yielding to the spirit. I guess I just like the word yield. You know, in our town we have lots of four-way intersections. Some of them have stop signs, but a lot of them are uncontrolled intersections. And there's rules that go with this. There's traffic rules to know. And a few years ago, we were with some of our grandkids and asked if they knew the rules. And one of them said, yeah, you come up to the intersection, you look at the other person, and you wave. Somebody waves the other one through, which actually is true in our town. I think that that's how it goes. But there's something about that that I really like in this context, to think about two cars coming to an intersection, my sinful nature, and the Spirit of God, and me looking at that other car, and smiling, and waving it through, and say, I yield, you go, and I'll follow. You go first. That just helps me. Perhaps there's somebody listening that it will help you too. But yielding to the Spirit of God leads us into abundant life. Jesus said, I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly. How do we find abundant life? It comes from yielding to the Spirit of God, or walking in the Spirit, staying in step with the Spirit, as we'll read here just in a moment. And this is where it leads us. Look at verse 22.

When someone walks in the Spirit, yields to the Spirit, is Spirit-led, this is the result that we would expect. These godly characteristics grow in us as we humbly trust in God to do them in us and not in ourselves. It is a God-confidence rather than a self-confidence to try to produce this. We pointed out in our study guide that this isn't man-made. The man-made things are the works of the flesh, but the God-made characteristics are the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit, by nature, grows during a season toward harvest. It is a cumulative thing. God must produce this fruit in us. I want to show you how Paul said this to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 3, 5, and 6. This points to our God-sufficiency. He says, look, not that we're sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. And there we have two more contrasts. The letter is a list. This is how y'all are supposed to act, and that leads to death. But the Spirit is rest in the knowledge that God is sufficient to do this in me, and it leads to life. I love that. Okay, let's finish up with the last three verses, and then I'm going to ask a question. Verse 24.

Okay, so those three phrases—crucified the flesh, live by the Spirit, and keep in step by the Spirit—what does it mean to live by the Spirit? What does it mean to be Spirit-led? I think sometimes we think about a Spirit-led woman as someone who is praying over every item at the grocery store. Should I buy good seed bread, or should I buy great seed bread? You know, or someone who never plans their afternoon because God might tell them to go to the nursing home and sing hymns to the old ladies there. Or someone who always has a word from God for you when they see you. And none of those things are bad, but we think of being Spirit-led as something so much more ethereal than what it really is. The point of being Spirit-led is having this sincere relationship with God, where we keep on the same path with Him. And where there's a choice, we yield to Him. We wave Him first and say, we might be going different directions. You go first and I'll follow. Maybe that is what it looks like, actually, to crucify the flesh here. I want to just end with Romans 8, 5 through 6. I pulled this out of the NIV because we've been using the word flesh, but I really do like how the NIV always replaces it with sinful nature. So it says, those who live according to the sinful nature, they have their minds set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. What does it mean for you today to listen, to have your mind set on what the Spirit wants? Are you listening? Are you asking? I have to say this week, this has meant a lot to me. And the Bible should always do that for us. It doesn't matter how many years we have been walking with the Lord. The Bible should always renew our resolve in some way. My resolve this week is, Lord, where are you leading? What is it to look like? What is my day to look like? You're in charge. You're in the lead. I'm falling in line, keeping in step with the Spirit. The Spirit of God is the most important part of our spiritual life. It is the most important part of our entire life. And that's why this starts the pinnacle of Galatians. Live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Father God, I pray for all who are studying this and for myself included. Lord, help us add layer upon layer to this, that you would show us what it means in my life to be led by the Spirit, to put you in charge, to stay on the path with you, Lord. And Lord, bring us that gentle conviction so that we understand too what it looks like when we've given ourselves permission to cross the bridge, when we give ourselves permission to indulge the sinful nature in some small way that we realize leads to another small way and another way, until we have finally reached the point that we don't want to get to. So Lord, teach us, train us, we just love you so much, and I pray that you would help us all gather again next week for the end of our lives. In Jesus' name, amen.