Sermon Transcript
What are you longing for? Your list of things that you’re longing for, maybe it’s you’re longing for something to happen in your family, you’re longing for something to happen in your marriage, you’re longing for something to happen in your business, you’re longing for good things to come, you’re longing for the Giants to sign a free agent, you’re longing for the 49ers to actually win a game, you’re longing for something. And you’ve brought those longings with you into this room. And I wonder where on that list that longing for Jesus to come back fits. That song is just incredible.
It reminds us that we were not made for this world, that we were made for something greater, that you and I were made for eternity, that this world is not all there is. And if this world is all there is, we have no hope. So we long and we wait and we hope for Jesus to come back. He’s already come, Emmanuel, God with us, but we long for him to come back. I hope that that’s your longing.
If it’s not your longing, ask God for it to be your longing so that we would long for that. Bible says it’s sort of like labor pains, that we, we long, we wait for the consummation of all the things that God has been doing throughout history when all people, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God. Well, we’re continuing in our series in the book of Galatians, and I invite you to turn there if you have a Bible or an app or something to Galatians 5. We’ve been calling this series that we’ve been doing in the book of Galatians Free, and I’ve been thinking a lot about freedom recently, specifically from the parenting angle. I have 3 high schoolers, as many of you know, and with high schoolers comes greater freedom, and it comes greater independence.
And no matter how old your children are, there’s this sort of tension that you have as a parent, right? That as your kids get older, you expect there to be greater independence. And if you just— if your perspective as a parent is to just hover over your kids’ life and is to keep them from being free so that you can just sort of protect them, that’s not going to do them well as they get older. You have to gradually take your hand off and allow them to experience freedom. And I think that that’s awesome.
And so as my kids drive, as my kids get their first jobs, as my kids look at going to college, as my kids have greater and greater freedom— last night they were up till, you know, midnight or whatever at some, uh, like one of the youth group activities, and I went to bed, and I just knew that they were going to come in at some point. I don’t even think about it anymore. Because I know that they’ll be good and that they will make wise choices. But here’s the deal with that freedom. I’m reminded of when I was a teenager, and I didn’t always make the best of choices with my freedom.
They have jobs. Well, I had a job. I did not use my freedom all that well. I was a bagger, a sacker at a grocery store, and I had a blast, and I used my freedom. I probably abused My freedom.
I was not the greatest of drivers when I was 16 and 17 years of age. I’m still not a great driver. I’m slow as a driver. I’m cautious. But I was not a responsible driver when I was a teenager.
And so, as a parent, I look at my kids and I’m like, freedom, that’s awesome. Oh, no. What does freedom even mean? And this idea of independence. And you don’t have to wait till they’re teenagers, parents.
Some of you, again, have little ones. And when they’re transitioning from 2 to 3 to 4 and all the way through school, there’s this gradual sense of, oh no, this independence. We can use our freedom, but we can also abuse our freedom. And that’s kind of where Paul is taking us here in the book of Galatians. We’ve been looking at the fact that we are free.
We’re free from, from the pressure and the frustration of having to obey this law that we can’t possibly obey. We can’t follow all of the things that the Bible tells us to do in our own strength, but we’re free from the condemnation that comes from that. We’re free from the penalty of sin. We’re free from the guilt of sin. We’re free from the power of sin.
We are free. So why don’t I feel very free? Or am I using my freedom in the right way? For instance, in our world, you ask the average person on the street, what is freedom? Well, freedom means I can do whatever I want.
Is that true? Can I treat somebody however I want? Is that the right use of my freedom? Can I take away freedom from somebody else? Is that the right use of my freedom?
Christians do this too. I am free. Jesus has died for me. He lives in my life so I can sin. I’m free to do whatever I want because I know that he can forgive me and he will forgive me because that’s who God is.
Sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card. Is that freedom? How are we supposed to use our freedom? We’re looking at Galatians 5, starting in verse 13. Paul has some great things to share with us, not just in general about freedom, but specifically as Christ followers.
And in fact, that’s his target audience here, as he says in verse 13, you, my brothers and sisters. The fact that he uses that phrase, brothers and sisters, says, I’m writing to you, church. I’m not writing to people out there in the world who don’t care about God or who are not following Jesus. This is a different type of a message for somebody who follows Jesus. If you’re a Christ follower, he’s saying, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.
You’re free from the guilt of sin, the penalty of sin, the power of sin. You’re free, but don’t use your freedom, or don’t abuse your freedom, by indulging the flesh.
You may want to take a pen or something and highlight that word flesh, circle it, underline it, because it shows up several times here. Rather, instead of using the flesh or indulging the flesh, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. Verse 16: So I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
There’s that word again. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is contrary to the flesh. They’re in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want. Or some translations say, you do not do what you want. Skip down to verse 19.
The acts of the flesh are obvious, they’re evident: 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. There’s a word in there that I want to bring forth here today because it’s going to contrast with what Pastor Dave is going to talk about next week. He’s talking about the spirit next week. I’m talking about the flesh this week.
Isn’t that exciting? What a great way to welcome in the holiday season by talking about the flesh. All right, Merry Christmas, everybody. And who better to talk about the flesh than me? Because I know the flesh really, really well.
I know my sinful nature really, really well. The word specifically that’s here that Paul uses is a Greek term, sarx, S-A-R-X. There are different terms for flesh in the New Testament, but specifically here, he’s not talking about our skin and bones. He’s not talking about the Word became flesh and lived among us, took on physical body. He’s not talking about Hey, you’re my flesh and blood, he’s talking about your fallen human nature.
He’s saying your flesh is your fallen human nature. It’s your natural tendency to sin. Anybody ever learn how to sin? Anybody go to a class to learn how to sin? Anybody major in sin at college?
Graduate with honors in sin? Nobody taught you how to do that. Where does that come from? Well, we inherited it. We inherited it from the Garden of Eden.
And it’s been passed down to us. And so we can say this, that with your fallen human nature, my fallen human nature, our tendency to sin. While we are biologically alive, we are spiritually dead from birth.
That sounds pretty morbid. Biologically alive, spiritually dead? Absolutely. Until you get a new nature, because this old nature by itself is corrupt, it’s contaminated, it’s diseased, it’s overcome by sin. And it’s not the flesh’s fault.
That’s just what the flesh does. It wants what it wants. It has natural human desires, and so the fact that it wants something evil, the fact that it wants something that’s fallen and sinful, is what the flesh does.
But whenever you decide to follow Jesus, the moment that that commitment happens is the moment that God gives you a new nature. That’s why He says you must be born again. Okay, I need a new nature. This fallen human nature is not pleasing to God. So I need a new nature.
I need the Holy Spirit to come inside of me. But guess what? When that flesh is now accompanied by the Spirit, this new nature, I don’t lose my flesh. I don’t lose my fallen nature. I don’t lose my human tendency to sin.
I don’t lose those desires. Jesus didn’t come into my life and kill those desires. That’d be great if he did. So what we’ve got is I am now subject until my death to this tug-of-war between not doing what I want to do, not doing the things I should do, and I’m torn. I’m going back and forth.
There’s this flesh that lives inside of me. It’s like a home that’s been infested by termites. Anybody ever have a termite issue? You know that, well, we can paint the walls, we can lay down new carpet, we can put some new furniture out there, but unless the structural problem is addressed, Nothing’s going to change. And this flesh just keeps hanging around.
I can’t get rid of it. You can’t get rid of it. We just have to live with it. But that doesn’t mean we have to do what it says. That doesn’t mean we have to indulge it, we have to gratify it.
So right now, sitting here today, you are amongst family here. You all have a flesh. I have a flesh. Welcome to the family. This is our fallen human nature that we have here.
Now, do we just leave it at that? There was a Chinese military strategist in the 6th century BC named Sun Tzu. Some of you know the name. He wrote the book The Art of War. Many people have read The Art of War, and there are business leaders who’ve read The Art of War and politicians who’ve read The Art of War and world leaders who’ve gleaned these great insights from The Art of War.
And essentially what Sun Tzu said is, you got to know your enemy. You don’t just run out into the battlefield without a plan. You got to know what the enemy is planning to do. You have to know how the enemy will respond, how they decide, how they make actions and react to whatever it is that you do. Otherwise, you’re going to be defeated.
You’re going to be on the defensive. You’re going to be surprised. And so we have this enemy, our flesh, and we have to know our enemy. And so Paul gives us some things that I would say help us to understand our enemy a little bit better, and then I want to talk about how to combat The enemy. The first word that I would use to describe the enemy based on the passage that we saw here is that our flesh, our enemy, is adversarial.
The flesh is adversarial. That means that there’s this conflict within us. He says in verse 17, the flesh wants what is contrary to the Spirit, the Spirit wants what is contrary to the flesh. Well, I didn’t have that problem until I became a Christ follower. I didn’t have the Holy Spirit inside of me.
I didn’t have that turmoil. Now I have that turmoil. I have this tug-of-war that’s going on inside of me. So my flesh wants what is contrary to the Holy Spirit, and in my flesh is no good thing. So when I want something evil that is contrary to what the Spirit wants, there should be no surprise there.
And if you don’t have that inner turmoil, that’s a problem, because it either means that you are so accustomed to your flesh calling the shots and doing whatever your flesh wants to do Or it means you’re lost. You haven’t been saved. You don’t have a relationship with Jesus, and you don’t have the Holy Spirit inside of you knocking on the door of your heart. I talked to a gentleman after our first service who said, I really struggle. The things I want to do, I don’t do.
The things I don’t do, I should do. He sounded a lot like the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7, where Paul says that exact same thing. And I said, the fact that you feel that way is good news, because it means the Holy Spirit is inside of you. If you didn’t feel that, if you didn’t have conviction over sin, If you didn’t feel bad for doing the wrong things, if you felt good about doing the wrong things, that’s a problem.
But that’s what our flesh does. And so there’s this adversarial relationship now that exists. The flesh is adversarial. It’s also oppressive. It’s oppressive.
You see that there in verse 13 where he says, you were called to freedom. Don’t use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Meaning, when I indulge my flesh, when I gratify my flesh, I am no longer free. Yes, I’m free in terms of what Jesus has done for me. It doesn’t change that.
But I’m back under bondage again. I’m obeying my flesh. That’s not what I was called to do. That’s not what I was made to do. And the flesh is an oppressive taskmaster that just enslaves us.
In verse 17, he says, you do not do whatever you want. You do not do what you want. Well, I want to please God. I’d like to please God. I really, really do.
And yet my flesh keeps me from doing that. Why? Because it’s oppressive. It enslaves me. It entraps me.
On top of that, it’s greedy. The flesh is so greedy. It uses the terminology here in Galatians about indulging the flesh and gratifying the flesh. It means that it needs to be fed. We have 2 cats at our home.
If you’ve ever been to our home, one is orange and one is black. The orange one’s named Buster. For Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants. You get it, the orange. And he’s a normal-looking cat.
And then we have the black cat, Nitro, and he’s all black, and he looks nothing like this cat. And in fact, my son CJ calls him Mr. Chubbs because he looks like a bowling ball. We take him to PetSmart and he doesn’t look like this cat. They’re brothers. You wouldn’t know it though just by looking at them.
And so we’ve tried different diet plans, we’ve tried distributing the food in different ways, it doesn’t matter. Because Nitro comes and he just eats what he’s going to eat, and then he pushes Buster to the side and he’s going to keep on eating. That’s what Nitro does. And so we take him to PetSmart and they say, he has a weight problem. We’re like, hello, yes, we know this.
We, we can’t do anything. That’s what Nitro does. Our flesh is greedy. Our flesh is just like that. Our flesh wants what it wants.
And it desires what it desires because that’s what it does. We inherited it that way. And so we continue to feed it, and we give in to that. We don’t have to feed it, but we do. We love to feed our flesh.
I want more. I want more sin. I want more of that. I want more of that. I want more of that.
I’d love more of that. And so I gratify, indulge my sinful nature, and it’s going to continue to cry out until it’s satisfied. But guess what? It’s never satisfied. That’s what the flesh does.
The flesh is also self-evident. Self-evident. Verses 19 through 21, Paul comes up with this long list of things that are deeds of the flesh. And we— it’s helpful to take this long list and to sort of break it down into different categories like some commentators have done. So I’ve put them into 3 categories.
We have the deeds of the flesh that are more sexual in nature, and then you have these religious sort of deeds of the flesh, and then you have these relational or social sort of deeds of the flesh. And this helps us to kind of put these in different categories here. You have the sexual sins that he talks about there in verse 19, sexual immorality. Last year, Pastor Dan did a great message in 1 Thessalonians talking about sexual immorality and how we’re to flee sexual immorality. It’s this all-encompassing term that covers anything outside of marriage.
So that includes adultery. You have somebody who’s married to this person, but then they have sex with this person over here. You have fornication that’s included in that— sex between 2 people who are not married. You have all manner of things. And it’s not just physical sexual immorality too.
This can include our thought life as well. The word for sexual immorality there, the term, is specifically the term from which we get our term pornography. So all of that fits under that category. And it’s not just a vice that somebody has, it’s not just a bad habit. Paul’s saying this is because of your flesh.
Impurity, the opposite of purity, it’s unclean thinking, unclean motives of the heart. Specifically, the word that he uses there is used in other places to describe pus that flows and oozes from an unclean wound. That’s gross. Well, that’s sort of what he’s talking about here, this impure thought, this impure stuff that’s in our heart. It’s disgusting.
It’s part of the flesh. Debauchery is just sort of unrestrained sexuality. There’s no restraint whatsoever. I think about a horse that’s unbridled, that just sort of runs free. That’s debauchery when it comes to our sexuality.
But then he also talks about these religious sins, idolatry. Which you can be an idolater. I can be an idolater. Even if you’re a Christ follower, an idol is anything that takes the place of God in your heart, in your life, anything that takes priority over him. You say, well, I don’t bow down and worship at an idol.
Well, what is it that gets your time? What is it that gets your attention? Where do you put your money? If it’s anything other than God in terms of that being your first priority, then that’s an idol. Even now you’re saying that’s it.
Part of the flesh. Witchcraft, which another term in some of the translations is sorcery, it actually comes from a Greek term pharmakeia, which is where we get our term pharmacy. So when he’s talking about sorcery or witchcraft, he’s talking about specifically the use of drugs that magicians would use back in the 1st century to acquire their desired results. They would bypass God’s power in order to achieve some sort of other dark depraved, fallen result. And we still do this now through Ouija boards and fortune tellers and psychics and crystals and mediums and all of these— astrology, horoscopes.
All of these things fit under this category because you are using something illegitimate to accomplish your desires. You are bypassing God. You’re dabbling in something we should not, and it’s part of the flesh. And then he has this long list of social sins, which really, if you think about them, all of them destroy relationships. These other ones destroy me.
These things destroy others in terms of hatred and discord. Discord is part of dissensions and factions. You have these groups of people. The Holy Spirit comes to bring unity and to help us to love each other and to get along. So anything other than that, whenever we can’t get along, is a deed of the flesh.
What about fits of rage? Anybody here have an uncontrolled temper where it’s just sort of unrestrained and it just comes out? That’s not just a personality thing. Hey, I was just made that way. Sorry.
We can’t just excuse that. He’s saying, no, that’s a deed of the flesh. Any selfish ambition, anytime I put myself above you, anytime I love myself more than I love you, anytime I look out for myself more than I look out for you, that’s a deed of the flesh. Envy and drunkenness and orgies, which is again sort of part of the debauchery. The point is not Hey, do these things and then don’t do these things.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. That’s why he says at the end of these things, he says, and the like, meaning that there are many, many other things that we could list here. The point is, is that these things are self-evident. He says that these things are obvious. You don’t have to try hard to wonder whether or not you’re living in the flesh or living by the Spirit of God.
All you have to do is look at the fruit of your life. Are you doing any of these things? Am I doing any of these things? It shows in the fruit that we have. Next week, we’re going to look at the fruit of the Spirit in the next several verses, and that’s far more positive than this.
But the point is, is that if these things are evident in our life, it means that we’re living in the flesh. We’re walking according to the flesh. And we’re not to do that because it takes away our freedom. And the other thing I notice whenever I see this list— and I’m just speaking for myself, I’m sure that this doesn’t apply to any of you— this stuff comes really, really easy to me. You know, I don’t have to work hard to indulge my flesh.
I don’t have to try really, really hard to be angry. All you have to do is bug me in some way, and then I just naturally get angry. It just comes out. I don’t have to try hard to be envious. Just show me a bunch of things that I want but that I don’t have and you have, I’m naturally envious.
This is really, really easy for me. The deeds of the flesh are just like that. It comes so natural and so normal to us. All of these things And as I look at this, I think about a conversation I had a couple weeks ago with somebody who’s really struggling with his faith right now, and he’s tired of these kind of lists. He’s a Christ follower, but he’s tired of these kind of lists, because so many times you go to church, and you hear a message like this, which is saying, Christians are people who do good things, and then they don’t do bad things.
So here’s some things not to do. You bad person, you. And it’s not that God’s interested in us following this long list of things, going, okay, check, I didn’t show hatred to anybody today, check. I didn’t sow discord among anybody. I wasn’t selfish in any way, which, by the way, all those things are a lie.
We live in the flesh all the time because it’s not just overt, it’s inside of us. But the fact is, these things are evident in our lives.
But the reason why God wants us to avoid the flesh is not because he wants to give us a long list of dos and don’ts. He wants us to not live according to the flesh because that’s not what we were made for. He made us for relationship with Him. He made us to experience freedom, and we’re not living in freedom. Just as I don’t want to take away freedom from my kids unless they abuse it in some way— like, the reason why I set those boundaries, the reason why I lay those expectations out there, is so that when they fall, we can still have relationship with each other.
I want to protect them. I want to provide for them. That’s, that’s how God is. None of these things represent who God is. He wants us to become more like Jesus.
None of these things help me to become more like Jesus. That’s why he puts these things in here. So in addition to those 4 descriptors that we have there, I want to add one more that I see there in verse 15 and then also verse 21. It’s the adjective destructive. Our flesh is so destructive.
You see it there in verse 15 where he talks about biting and devouring each other and watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. He’s talking about almost like People acting like animals. Whenever we bite and fight with each other, that’s a sign of the flesh. It should not be that way. We’re living according to our flesh, and it just takes one person walking according to their old fallen nature to have discord and disunity.
It happens in churches. Whenever it happens, it’s because of the flesh. But it’s also destructive because you may have noticed there at the end of verse 21, he says those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God, meaning our eternal destiny. Excuse me. Our eternal future, our eternal destiny is at stake here when it comes to the flesh.
Now, does this mean that if I commit any of these deeds of the flesh, if I’m selfish, if I’m greedy, if I’m prideful, that that means I will not be in heaven one day? That’s not what that means. He specifically uses a phrase here that describes a life of habit, a life of unrepentance. See, when I screw up as a Christ follower, I should feel I should feel convicted about that. I should ask for forgiveness, and I should repent and return to the Heavenly Father.
If we don’t do that, that’s what He’s talking about. If we live and we can sin and live any old way we want, perpetually just continually indulging our flesh and gratifying our flesh, He’s saying that’s the problem. You will not inherit the Kingdom of God. You will not spend eternity with Jesus. You will not have that eternal life.
You are not right with God. And that’s a problem. So what do we do with our flesh, this destructive, greedy, self-evident flesh in our lives? Do we try to rehabilitate it in some way? Well, we live in a world, obviously, that you can turn on the TV or listen to a podcast that can give you some good tips on how to be a better person.
Not sure that’s going to take care of your flesh. In fact, I’m positive it won’t. You can read a self-help book, you can watch Oprah, She loves talking about this kind of stuff. Is that going to really deal with your fallen human nature? My fallen human nature?
Is that really going to rehabilitate things? See, the fact is, is that all the difficulties we have in life come from the flesh. All of them.
Every wrong word, every wrong action, every wrong attitude, every wrong motive, every wrong perspective is all because of the flesh. The reason why there are And fear, by the way, is part of the flesh. We don’t think of it in those terms, especially, like, we don’t lump it together with sexual immorality, but fear is part of the flesh. The reason why there’s fear is because of our flesh. The reason why there’s sexual immorality is because of the flesh.
The reason why there’s divorce, the reason why there’s affairs, the reason why there’s adultery, the reason why there’s brokenness, the reason why there’s discord, the reason why people who are not Christ followers, many of them don’t want to become Christ followers, is because of the flesh, and the flesh that they see even in us who are Christ followers. We are messed up, and just reading a self-help book isn’t going to change it. We need God’s Word. We need his Spirit in our life. And so I want to point out 3 things that I see here in these verses that help us to fight against the flesh and move in the direction of not indulging our flesh anymore.
And the one— first one is really summed up in the word remember. Remember your calling. Verse 13, he says, you were called to be free. And he’s reminding us of that. He had said it back in verse 1, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
So now he’s saying, you, my brothers, were called to be free. When we remember what we were made to do, it changes everything. It doesn’t mean that I no longer want to indulge my flesh. It just means that’s not what I was made to do.
Many of you know that our 3 kids are all adopted, and so From an early age, we’ve tried to ingrain in them their identity, that nothing they do can change how we love them and are part of their lives, and they’re part of our lives. And when they’re confident in that calling, they will live in the freedom of that. When they don’t experience that freedom, they begin to kind of question their relationship with us and wonder how they stand with us. That’s just human nature. That’s not what they were called to do.
They were called to be adopted in our family. We were called to adopt And every parent and child deals with this kind of identity issue. What were you made to do? What were you called to do? What was I made and called to do?
To be free and to live in that freedom. And because we were called to be free, he says, don’t use your flesh. Don’t gratify your flesh. When I remember my calling and that I belong to Jesus, I’m less likely to indulge my flesh. I’m more likely to resist it.
There’s a second way for us, I think, that he talks about here, and we’re going to talk way, way, way, way, way more about this next week. I’m just touching on this, so afterwards you may come up to me and say, hey, Steve, that second point that you shared, you didn’t talk about that enough. Well, Pastor Dave’s going to talk about it much, much more next week. I just want to touch on it. Verse 16, you fight your flesh by walking by the Spirit.
Walking by the Spirit. You walk by the Spirit, you will not indulge your flesh. You will not gratify your flesh. You will not seek to feed it when you walk by the Spirit. What does this mean?
Well, I am either at one time walking by the Spirit or I’m walking according to the flesh. I can’t simultaneously do both. I’m either living for one or the other. I’m either gratifying one or gratifying the other. Either indulging one or indulging the other.
We’re to walk by the Spirit. Now, I can’t do this if I don’t have the Holy Spirit in me. This is why I say, I know the Holy Spirit is in me, so God, fill me with your Holy Spirit. Because when he fills me with his Spirit, I no longer walk according to my power or my perspective. I walk according to his power and his perspective.
I walk— I now have the ability to resist sin because I have his Spirit inside of me. And you, if you have the Holy Spirit inside of you because you’re a Christ follower, you too can walk by the Spirit. Again, I’m just touching on that. Pastor Dave, come back next week because Pastor Dave is going to show us how to walk by the Spirit. But I want to bring that out.
But the point I want to just focus a little bit more on, and I want to make sure that we highlight verse 13. We fight against our flesh when we serve one another humbly in love. We serve one another humbly in love. You see, all of the deeds of the flesh are selfishly motivated. They’re about what I want.
For instance, sexual immorality. If I commit sexual immorality, am I doing that for somebody else? No, I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it because that’s what I want. There’s no love there.
There’s no service there. There’s no humility there. It’s just simply, no, this is what I want. And you see the results of the flesh, following the flesh. It destroys not only me, it destroys other people.
And so these are consequential things we’re talking about here. But if I love another person, all of a sudden my focus isn’t on me, my focus is on them, and I stop thinking about how to feed my flesh. I start thinking about how to serve them humbly in love. So where is your focus? Where are you putting your energy?
Is it on serving yourself, or is it in serving others? When you serve others humbly in love, that’s the fulfillment of the law right there. I don’t have to remember all 600-plus Old Testament laws. I don’t. I just need to remember one, love.
Because when I love my neighbor as myself, I won’t do these other things. Well, where does that love come from? Well, again, Pastor Dave will talk about that more next week. That’s one of the fruit of the Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is inside of you, he produces love.
He produces love organically, supernaturally in your life. So we need him in our life. And when it says to serve there, by the way, I also want to point out that the The Greek word that is used there for serve is the word slave, which is interesting if you think about it. He’s saying, be a slave to one another. Well, that’s weird because just a few verses earlier in verse 1 he said, don’t be a slave, and now he’s saying, hey, you’re free to be a slave.
What is he saying? I’m no longer free to do whatever I want. I’m no longer bound by the law. I’m not to go back to legalism. But I am free to be a slave to others, to serve them.
And the pattern for that is in Jesus himself. In the original tense and language there, it says, through the love— uses the definite article the— through the love, serve one another. Well, what is the love? The love is Jesus’ love that he demonstrated for us. Who had more freedom than Jesus when he came to the earth and walked on the earth?
Seriously, God in the flesh. He could do whatever he wanted to, and yet he chose to use his freedom to serve others. He did not come to be served, but to serve. So the question is, are you serving yourself, or are you serving others? When we serve others and put our focus on them, we will not indulge the flesh.
And in fact, one of the evidences that you have been born again, that you are a child of God, is that you love others. You have the freedom to do whatever you want, but you are choosing to serve and to be a slave of another person, to serve them and to focus on them. That, to me, is the evidence of the Holy Spirit being at work inside of you. So this week, where’s your focus? As we talk about longing again, are you longing to become more like Jesus, or are you satisfied with just living in the flesh and living a defeated life?
Are you satisfied with pleasing God some of the time and then not pleasing Him at other times? The challenge for you and I is to say, Holy Spirit, fill me up. And so control me so that I walk according to your Spirit. Get my mind and my heart not on things of this earth, but on things above. This is why we need to be in God’s Word, so that we can renew our minds with truth.
And remember that we were called to be free. So live in that freedom. Serve one another humbly in love. Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we just confess before you that we are people of flesh. We are people with corrupt, diseased human nature, and we fall short of your greatness and of your standard, and that the wages of that sin of our flesh is death. But we thank you that you make it possible for anyone here And anyone who calls upon you to be made right with you and to not have to live according to the flesh, but that they can live according to the Spirit. We rejoice in that.
Father, I pray that we would remember Jesus and that we would remember his example, who used his freedom to serve others, that we would use our freedom this week to serve others humbly in love. May we walk by your Spirit, and may you continually make us more like you. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
