Live
by the Spirit
(based
on Galatians 5:13-26)
When we read passages from the epistles or from
the letters to the early churches, it is extremely important to understand the
context that these letters were written.
Each letter was written to a specific church regarding specific actions
or reactions to the message of the gospel.
This passage in Galatians is similar, but we can get a general
understanding of what the author was trying to tell his readers from the
passage itself.
You were called to freedom. What exactly does that mean? It means that you don’t really need a long
list of do’s and don’ts, a list of rules and laws like the entire books of
Leviticus and Deuteronomy and even parts of Exodus in the Old Testament that
write down the long list of rules and regulations in order to live well and to
live in right relationship to God and others.
If you have spent any time reading the New Testament, spent time in
church listening to the sermons, if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Savior, you’d know by now what’s important to God.
It’s a pretty short list. Last week, we capsulized it in one of the
gospel accounts. The long list of rules
and regulations boils down to two things; Love the Lord your God with all your
heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. That’s it.
And that’s what the author in
Galatians is trying to get across. Be
free to live in this way. That does not
mean that you are free to do anything you want.
It does not mean that there aren’t any rules or any limitations. There are.
But the difference is this: if we lived only by a set of rules, without
a clear understanding of the foundation of those rules, we become a slave or we
become burdened and shackled by the rules themselves.
For example, the law says that you
should drive no faster than 15 miles an hour in a school zone, when the lights
are flashing or between certain hours.
Why is it 15 miles an hour? Where
does the school zone end, where does it begin?
What are those specific hours? As
a society that needs to have laws that everyone abides by, we’ve had to become
very specific and it’s extremely difficult and burdensome to know every law and
the rationality behind each one.
However, what is behind the purpose of this
particular law? The purpose is to keep
children safe, so that they are not injured by a reckless driver, so that they
can cross the street without fear of getting hit. So that the drivers are even more vigilant in
watching out for children who might suddenly race into the street to retrieve a
ball or a hat that blew away without thinking about traffic.
Now, if we know and understand the underlying
principle of the laws for traffic violations in school zones and if every
single person actually took that principle to heart we could probably do away
with the laws themselves because then everyone would be looking out very
carefully to keep children safe – we’d want to drive very slowly when children
are around, we’d be extra careful during times when we know school was about to
begin, throughout the day and when school was ending. Each and every one of us would take special
precautions to obey all those laws, without there actually being a law. That’s the freedom the author is talking
about here. When the understanding of
the law, when the principle of the law is written on our hearts it gives us a
lot more freedom, because it’s already part of who we are. It’s part of our mind, our abilities, our
spirit and soul. We don’t have to think
about specific laws and whether or not we’re breaking them. We just live freely, obeying the law of our
hearts because it is written there.
Wouldn’t it be great if that was the way our
society worked?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that was the way
life worked?
Yes, I know….That’s a dream world, a utopia
we’ve never seen or been a part of.
Perhaps especially not now. But,
that’s the world that the author of Galatians wants us to dream about, to be a
part of, to make happen, to begin to experience by living - that - way.
The author wants us to live by the Spirit. How do we live by the Spirit? Here, the author uses the concept of fruit to
help explain. A tree that has been
infested with some kind of disease is not going to produce very good fruit.
Many years ago – close to 30 years now, there
was a peach tree outside my back door.
When I first moved into the house, there were many peaches on the tree,
the second year I noticed that the peaches didn’t quite taste as good as I had
remembered them from the previous year and there weren’t nearly as many. The third year, it produced hardly any fruit
at all. That fourth spring I was
determined to figure out what was going on with it as I’d never had a peach
tree before and perhaps I needed to trim it, to move it, put some fertilizer
down. I was studying the tree that late
spring and trying to figure out what to do, when I leaned down to look around
the base of the tree. As I did, I used
the tree to support myself, pushing slightly against it, when suddenly the
whole tree just fell over.
It had a boor which had eaten away the inside
of it and had weakened its roots. A good
tree would have continued to produce wonderfully tasty fruit for many years.
The author uses this concept to explain the way
of the Spirit. The good fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. “Against
such things there is no law”, the author of Galatians says. Why, because there doesn’t need to be. You are free to live in this way. It is written on your heart to behalf, act,
think, and obey all that flows from that kind of life.
The fruit or the results that flow from that
kind of living break us entirely free from law.
Love – this is the desire to be other-centered
rather than self-centered. The desire to
help, bless, do for, care for others. It
is not based on what you will get out of it, but simply how it will help
another person.
Joy – this is a happiness that is not dependent
on circumstances. A happiness that flows
from knowing you can trust God to help you with any struggle, any
situation. So, it doesn’t matter what
gets thrown at you. God’s got it and you
can rely on that knowledge.
Peace – this is a sense of well-being that is
also independent on current circumstances.
A sense of well-being that overwhelms you in the midst of
hardships. Joy comes at the beginning
and ending of those hardships, while peace gets you through it.
Patience – taking time to think through
situations before responding, to put up with inconveniences, quick to forgive
violations against you, giving people second and third chances without utterly
giving up on them too quickly, giving others time as well as opportunity to
improve their own behavior and actions, slow to dismiss others for their
inadequacies.
Kindness – being gracious, considerate,
thoughtful about the needs or desires of others.
Goodness – similar to love, but doing something
beneficial for others, to give to them something that will elevate them, uplift
them. Goodness is more proactive and
purposeful than love. It is based on
what it right and true. Goodness lifts
us all up.
Faithfulness – being reliable and loyal to God,
to others, to yourself. So that your yes
means yes and your no means no. That
your promises and vows are kept.
Gentleness – a mildness towards others, one
that cooperates with the will of God.
This should be confused with weakness.
Gentleness is being assertive, but not aggressive.
Self-control – to not be easily overcome by
temptation, wrong desires and the ability to know what is right and the ability
to control ourselves without an outside person, entity or law having to do
it. The ability to control our own
language, anger, temper, habits, impulses, behaviors, eating, drinking, and
spending.
These are the fruits of the Spirit and the
results of living by the Spirit. If
these good qualities are in your life and are increasing, you are living by the
Spirit. If they are not, or if you
struggle with them, it simply might mean that you need a bit more fertilizer,
(to spend time with God – some time reading and studying God’s word), perhaps
you might need a good healthy trimming – cutting off those bad influences in
your life, finding more positive friendships, relationships, ending a bad
habit.
What a world we’d live in with we could show
the rest of the world how.
Thanks be to God.
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