Galatians 5:13-26- What To Use Your Freedom For
What then are we to do with our freedom? Paul gives a shocking answer to that question in v13. ‘Through love serve one another’. The freedom that we have in Christ isn’t a freedom to do whatever we like. We have been set free to serve one another. The world’s idea of freedom isn’t sacrificial love for one another! But this is true freedom. It will be one of the marks of true followers of Jesus Christ.
In v22 Paul contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. These fruit are above all a description of Jesus Christ. So if you want to know what love is like, look at Jesus. If you want to know what joy is like, what peace is like, what patience is like, and so on — look at him. He was filled with the Holy Spirit beyond measure, and so the fruit of the Spirit is first and foremost seen in him. The primary fruit of the Spirit is love. Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian, said that whenever we see love in a list of virtues in the Bible, the other virtues are all just expressions of that love. Patience is an expression of love when you’re being aggravated to be impatient. Kindness is an expression of love in practical ways to someone in need. Faithfulness is an expression of love in a situation where someone is trusting you to do something.
In v14, Paul says ‘the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. We’re more used to Jesus’ summary of the law, which says it’s about loving God AND loving our neighbour. So why does Paul only include loving our neighbour? Well partly it’s because he takes the loving God bit for granted. If we don’t love God, we won’t know how to love our neighbour. But it’s also because our love for God will be seen in how we love our neighbour. So what is love? It’s the lifestyle that puts self to death. The attitude which says: It would be easier to do one thing — but I’m going to do the other instead. And the more we walk by the Spirit, the more natural it becomes. And so in v25, keeping in step with the Spirit is being conformed to him, living how he wants us to live. How do we know what that looks like? Not by feelings, but by God’s word.
What false teaching tries to do is take our eyes off Jesus: Take our eyes off him as our hope for Heaven, and look at ourselves instead. And take our eyes of him as a guide for living, and do what’s right in our own eyes instead. What Paul is doing here is ultimately pointing us back to Jesus.
Questions
- Whom do the fruits of the Spirit describe?
- How do we know how to walk by the Spirit?
Prayer Points
- Pray that we would walk by the Spirit.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.