Freed to Be Servants

Galatians 5:13-15  

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  ¹⁴ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  ¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

·         Imagine if you were a criminal and you had been found guilty of all manner of crimes. You had murdered and stolen from the government. You had been convicted of serial assault and battery against countless victims, you had broken every law in the books and committed every kind of evil and heinous crime against the authorities and your fellow man.

·         Imagine you are in prison serving back to back life sentences for all of your crimes with no hope of getting out ever.

·         You fought for your privileges and your status in prison.

·         Then imagine that someone comes and says that they will take your place and take all of the punishment you deserve so that you can go free.

·         And the judge presiding over your case decides to let this person come and take your place.

·         So, you get out of jail and you are free. But not only that, the judge comes and finds you and takes you into his household and lets you live with him.

·         And he promises to give you everything you need.

·         And as you are looking at the family pictures in your home, you see the picture of the man who took your place and you realize that this is the judge’s son.

·         The judge’s son took your punishment so you could go free – he earned your freedom. And the judge came and sought you out to be a part of his family.

·         But then, imagine that despite the free love that you had been given, you began to abuse and hurt the judge’s family – your family. You turned back to your old lifestyle once again.

·         It would be wrong. And it wouldn’t make sense – because this was your family now. You were called to freedom but living this way was living as if you were not free.

 

·         Although most of us have not done hard time – we were all guilty of every kind of evil desire.

·         We have all had murderous intents of hatred in our hearts.

·         We have all stolen glory from God and sought glory for ourselves.

·         We have abused others in our words and deeds.

·         In our hearts, we have broken every one of God’s laws. We have failed to love God – we have put other gods before Him.

·         And yet, He sent His own Son to come and take our place but not only was Jesus here on earth doing hard time in our place – Jesus came and took the death penalty for us.

·         Now, God has called to us to freedom. He has made us His own and made us members of His own family, his own household. He has promised to give us all that we need to live for Him.

·         So, the apostle Paul in this letter, with the exceedingly good news of God’s rescue mission of us by His grace in mind says to the Galatians who were tempted to turn back to trusting in their keeping of the law, he says don’t turn back to legalism, enslaving yourself once more.

·         So then it may seem strange why all of a sudden, in these verses in Galatians, he is now saying effectively – you are called to freedom but be careful in your freedom.

·         But I think the reason he warns them is so that they don’t fall into the equally dangerous pit of thinking that because they have been set free in Christ by the marvelous grace of God, that they can now live as they want.

·         Instead, Paul knows that evidence of having true life in the Spirit will be seen in service to others

·         So, he spends most of Galatians calling them to leave legalism behind because they are called to freedom in Christ – but he is aware as a wise pastor, that they will face the temptation to indulgence in their flesh so he reminds them of their freedom but then he gives it context.

·         And the main idea of these verses seems to be that

Main Idea:“believers in Christ are free from the law but freedom is truly expressed through love, serving others”

·         And this kind of love because of how we have been set free in love, protects us from both legalism and also living for ourselves as if we had no moral obligations.

·         Paul says,

 

“For you were called to freedom, brothers”

·         And the first point we need to see is that in Christ, we are free from the law

 

1.       In Christ, we are free from the law.

·         The church in Galatia was being greatly disturbed by the Judaizers who said that they had to keep the law.

·         But the Galatians were not called to be worried about whether or not they were keeping the Old Covenant laws.

·         God didn’t call them to be concerned about earning his favor or worry about whether they were able to perfectly keep His laws, God has called them to freedom!

·         They were free from having to keep the laws and they were free from having to subject themselves to circumcision to be a part of God’s people.

·         They had already been called to be God’s people by God’s grace – nothing they did could add to this and nothing they didn’t do could take away from this call of God to freedom.

·         And for both them and all today who place their faith in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation, we no longer are burdened by having to try to be right with God based on our obedience.

·         Along with the Galatians, we had been set free from the curse of the law through what Jesus has done for us in completely satisfying all the demands of the law on the Cross.

·         We are called to a joy-filled freedom as God’s people now.

·         We were called to freedom from being enslaved to the law and freedom from the just penalty of the law that all who are enslaved to the law must one day bear.

·         We were called to freedom from enslavement to the desires of the flesh – the sin nature that remains - and we are no longer slaves to sin

·         We were called to freedom from having to measure up and be good enough on our own to be accepted by God.

·         We are called to freedom from punishment for our sins

·         We are called to freedom to love God and live for Him, where once we were enslaved to living for our own desires

·         But the kind of freedom we are called to is not a fleshly, worldly freedom, so Paul warns them and us and says,

 

“Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh,”

·         The desires of the flesh – the old sin nature – still remains and we are tempted to think that we are free to sin but this is not freedom at all.

·         I like the way R.C. Sproul put it when he said,

 

“To give into corrupt desires is not liberation, for we can be overpowered by transgression when we make no attempt to stand against it.” – R.C Sproul

 

·         We can be tempted to think that because there is grace and because God has forgiven us, we can just live as we want but that is not the gospel message.

·         Sproul goes on to say,

 

“Throughout history, believers have often not emphasized the freedom we have in Christ (Gal. 5:1). Instead, many have defined the Christian life according to a list of dos and don’ts, largely in an effort to prevent people from perverting God’s grace into a license for sin. Legalism, however, does not solve this problem, and there will likely always be people, until Jesus returns, who mistakenly think that because they are in Christ they can sin with impunity, for even the apostles had to deal with such individuals (Rom. 6:15; 2 Peter 2:19).

Only a right understanding of Christian freedom prevents licentiousness. True freedom is not the freedom to do anything and, paradoxically, real liberty only comes through slavery to God in Christ (Rom. 6:22). Those who indulge the flesh, which is the presence of sin that remains with us until death, are not free; rather, they are given over to serve the flesh, which is a cruel master.” – R.C Sproul

 

·         We have not been called to a freedom to do anything and to indulge the selfish desires of the flesh.

·         If we give ourselves over to sin, we are giving ourselves over to slavery once again.

·         We are called to something greater – we are not called to a petty, small freedom, but we are called to an expansive freedom that enables us to love God and love others and not gratify the desires of the flesh

·         This is true freedom!

·         We are free in regards to loving God but we are called to use our freedom to serve others

·         And the second idea that we are meant to get in this passage is that

 

2.       True freedom is expressed in lovingly serving others.

 

“but through love serve one another.”

·         Instead of using your freedom as an opportunity to serve yourself, use your freedom to serve one another

·         The word for serve one another can also be translated as slavery – or being a bond-servant to others.

·         That is a radical idea isn’t it?

·         What these verses are saying is that now we have been called to freedom – now we can love God and live for Him and the way that we freely love God is through lovingly giving ourselves away as we serve one another

·         Just like God freed His people Israel from slavery in Egypt so that they could serve Him, we have been set free to serve

·         Now we’ve been given liberty and His redemption frees us up to serve others gladly because of His call to freedom.

·         We aren’t to serve one another through love in order to earn any favor or gain any merit with God but in worship of God precisely because He has made us free.

·         But we are tempted to use our freedom as an excuse to gratify our desires.

·         Using your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh doesn’t just harm you – it is unloving to others as well.

·         Our freedom is directed by our call to love one another

·         So true freedom in Christ will not be self indulgent and self-focused – it will seek to be free to love others, to serve others and to live for the good of others

·         So often, conflict arises in our lives when we are focused on ourselves and on our own freedoms to do something.

·         The love of ourselves gives birth to all kinds of greed, neglect and contempt of others. It breeds cruelty and deceit and violence.

·         Loving ourselves and failing to love others is what causes impatience and a desire to be better than others but putting others down and it fuels a desire for revenge.

·         All kinds of conflict and arguments, offense and hurt comes about because at our core, we are being selfish and not loving God and others, but loving ourselves in the name of Christian liberty.

·         But this kind of selfish living is not freeing, it is actually enslaving and it will also cause conflicts.

·         But what if you were looking to serve one another – if your motive was not self serving in your speech, what would that look like?

·         If you desired to serve the person who was weaker than you and was more strict in their convictions, what would that look like for you?

·         If your conscience is weaker in an area, what would it look like to pursue someone else in the church who is stronger in the same area with the goal of serving them?

·         Let me ask you another question – what would it look like to lovingly serve someone who you don’t prefer being around or who you may have a past history of difficulty with?

·         Is there anyone in the church that you need to use the freedom you have in Christ to serve them?

·         Is there anyone you have had conflict with or who rubs you the wrong way?

·         How is God calling you to serve them and how is God calling them to love them like you love yourself?

·         Contrary to being burdened with having to keep the law, as we love others, in freedom, the whole law is fulfilled.

 

¹⁴ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

·         We could never do the law – we could never earn our own justification but as a result of our justification before God, we fulfill the law as we are now enabled to love others through the enabling of the Spirit

·         And this Spirit-enabled love is meant to guide us in our relationships with other people and especially other people in the church

·         This isn’t a command to love ourselves – our self-love is being assumed here.

·         The majority of the time, when I get angry with my spouse, it is because I didn’t get my way or I didn’t get treated the way I wanted, or I didn’t get what I thought I deserved.

·         When you boil it down, my preoccupation with myself and not loving my spouse or others as myself is the biggest reason for most of the conflicts and problems I have with other people.

·         Now, it isn’t the source of All conflicts either. There are some times that we find ourselves the victim of someone else’s sin or selfishness committed against us.

·         But if we are striving to obey Jesus command to love your neighbor as yourself, then how we react when others sin against us will be greatly changed.

·         How we respond when someone else is selfish or inconsiderate or unkind or even is downright mean to us would look different if we were loving them like we love ourselves.

·         Let me ask you – the last time you had a conflict with someone else – whether you think you were right or not, was your response to love them as you love yourself?

·         Do you give others the benefit of the doubt like you want people to give you?

·         Do you not assume their motives, just like you don’t want anyone to assume yours?

·         Are you quick to believe the best about someone else and forgive them when they ask, like you want to be believed and forgiven?

·         Do you listen like you want to be listened to?

·         I had someone help me with this the other night when we were getting together with them for fellowship as  couples and I was asking for their thoughts on something.

·         At one point in the conversation, the other guy said, I don’t feel like you’re hearing me and after I asked what I was doing to give that impression, it became clear that I was interrupting him and not waiting for him to finish talking before I disagreed.

·         Loving someone else like yourself looks like listening to hear other people’s concerns like you’d want to be listened to.

·         Loving someone else like you love yourself means we listen to understand and not just to respond and argue with what someone else is saying.

·         Youth - what does it look like to love someone who you think is un-cool or someone you think is too cool, or maybe someone you think is weird or awkward?

·         Really though, this doesn’t just apply to youth though does it, whether you are younger or older, if you were weird or un-cool or you thought you were too cool or you were awkward or shy or an introvert or an extrovert or whatever combination in between, how would you want to be treated?

·         If you were an artist or musician or an engineer or lawyer, how would you want to be treated?

·         So often, we can be unloving and offend each other because we are just selfish and ignore each other or because we don’t take an interest in someone else and what they like.

·         But loving your neighbor like yourself looks like making serving one another a higher priority than what you can get out of a relationship.

·         Ultimately, this kind of love has a cost – it requires some dying to ourselves

·         And it requires that we put the interests of others first.

·         It isn’t always convenient and it will likely mean going out of our way for someone else.

·         This kind of love isn’t easy and apart from the grace of God at work in our lives, it isn’t possible.

·         But, here is the good news – we can love like this, because we have been called to freedom.

·         We’ve been called – we have been divinely called by God and when God called us to Himself, He made us brand new. He has accepted us because of the suffering of Jesus in our place.

·         He has given us a new nature and a new heart and new desires to love Him and live for Him.

·         He has freed us to be able to love each other like this now. But we need to not submit ourselves to the old sin nature – to the desires of the flesh to be self-indulgent.

·         Even the fear of man is actually selfish, self-interested and unloving to others because it seeks our own good – our own reputation, our own good.

·         We have freedom in Christ but not freedom to quarrel and fight and to enter into dissention.

And the third thing I think we need to see is that true love doesn’t bite!

 

3.       True Love doesn’t bite

·         So Paul says,

 

¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

·         The church in Galatia most likely had disputes amongst its members. They probably had strongly different views on how to live in a manner that pleased God. It is quite possible that they allowed their preferences to separate them.

·         They were probably engaged in slandering.

·         And we are familiar with that today too aren’t we?

·         “Those people who wear suits and dresses are legalistic!”

·         “Those people who wear shorts and ripped up jeans are licentious and don’t honor God”

·         “Those people who smoke cigars when they get together are sinners!”

·         “Those people who think that drinking is wrong are up-tight!”

·         Andy Naselli served us well two weeks ago when he taught on Romans 14-15 about areas where some have weak consciences and believe that Christians can’t drink or dance and can be tempted to legalism and heresy

·         And he also helped us see from scripture where those with strong consciences can look down on people with weak consciences and condemn them

·         Both those with weak consciences – those who are stricter and those with strong consciences – those who are aware of their freedoms in Christ can be prone to biting one another with their words.

·         Last week, Aaron Campbell served us from Ephesians as he helped us see what corrupting communication looks like and how to edify each other with our words.

·         Paul is saying freedom in Christ doesn’t set you free now to criticize and to hate each other.

·         When most of my kids were younger, at some point in time we had to deal with biting.

·         Most of them quickly learned that biting another person wasn’t ok and some serious consequences helped to reinforce this for them.

·         We expect little kids to be tempted to bite if they don’t know what to do and they are trying to defend themselves or if they want someone who is bigger to stop doing something to them.

·         It is an understandable response to use whatever weapon you have to defend yourself – but it doesn’t make it ok.

·         A while back, we really had to deal with him because one Sunday, he bit about 6 kids in an hour. This is a problem.

·         When a kid is little, it is understandable and it isn’t surprising – but it isn’t ok. So we correct and seek to actively change this bad behavior

·         But imagine if adults regularly bit each other when they got angry – it would be socially unacceptable and you would rightly think that something was wrong with a guy if he was a serial biter of the other adults in his men’s group.  It also may cause some hard feelings.

·         Imagine if whenever we felt threatened or didn’t get our way if we just bit each other on a regular basis. That would be very strange wouldn’t it?  it would be wrong. People would advocate for anti-biting laws right?

·         But we do that with the way we treat each other don’t we.

·         The word for bite that is used brings up the idea of an animal bite – maybe a snake biting someone or a ravenous beast taking a bite

·         In the ancient middle east there used to be savage, half-wild dogs that would scavenge and devour trash in dumps outside the city.

·         When I visited Israel, there were wild cats in Tel Aviv that hung around the outskirts of the outdoor restaurants and if you dropped food, they would come and gulp down whatever fell

·         And the word for devour brings to mind this metaphor.

·         As bad as it sounds, our words can be biting and they can take a chunk out of someone.

·         Our speech can be consuming and damage someone else. It can even devour their motivation, discouraging someone else to the bone

·         And Paul says, don’t relate this way

·         Don’t be biting in the way you relate to each other.

·         Watch out so that you don’t consume each other

·         It is a graphic and brutal image

·         And when we bite each other with our words instead of through love serving them, we can have this mistaken idea that it makes us better.

·         But what it reveals is that we forget that we are members of the same body.

·         Imagine if you bit your finger off because it offended you?

·         And if you bit each member of your own body because it didn’t do what you wanted or it made a mistake or inconvenienced you, it would be twisted wouldn’t it?

·         It would be nutty to bite your own body!

·         But we forget, that we are members of the same body of Jesus Christ.

 

John Calvin in his commentary on these verses said,

“Would that we always remembered, when the devil tempts us to disputes, that the disagreement of members of within the Church can lead to nothing but the ruin and consumption of the whole body. How unhappy, how mad it is, that we who are members of the same body should voluntarily conspire together for mutual destruction!”

 

·         We can forget that we need each other

·         We can forget that it is precisely the differences and the uniqueness of the function of different people in the body that we need for the body to be whole.

·         We need to hear through those who are ears

·         We need to see through those who are eyes

·         We need to feel through those who are hands

·         We need to go through those who are feet

·         That is why Paul warns us and says be careful so that you are not consumed by one another.

·         It is exactly the opposite of loving one another and seeking to serve each other.

·         We were called to freedom brothers and sisters!

·         What a great gospel call we have been given.

·         God has called us out of darkness.

·         He has called us to be His people who were once not called His people.

·         He has called us to freedom in Him.

·         We have been called to come into His household and He has promised to supply all of our needs in Him. He has given us the most sweet and unimaginable freedom from enslavement to the law, freedom from enslavement to ourselves and He has placed us in a body – when we were languishing out on our own, disconnected.

·         We have been called to freedom and in light of the freedom we have been called to, we are not to use our freedom in Him to indulge ourselves and so become slaves to sin again  but instead we are to through love serve one another.

·         Submission to our own selfish desires is a terrible kind of deceptive enslavement – it is true bondage – it is a poison that will kill our love for God

·         But serving one another through love acts as an antidote and it actually enables us to be more free from our selfish, sinful flesh.

·         We evidence our freedom in God’s grace when we don’t get angry when we disagree with each other.

·         I love the way that Tom Schreiner puts it, when he says,

“If we shout and yell, to win arguments, we are not secure in the gospel. We have to prove we are right. But if we live by grace, we can firmly state the truth... and leave the results to God.”

 

·         Serving others through love enables us to grow in being more like Christ

·         It helps us truly be free from our self-centered sin nature.

·         This is the kind of kingdom living that makes one whole.

·         This is the kind of community that we are called to.

·         This is the kind of people God has called us to be

·         And we now have the freedom to be who He has called us to be because of the Holy Spirit at work within us, to make us more like Him.

·         So husbands, ask yourselves, how can I use my freedom in Christ to serve my wife and help her be more like Jesus.

·         youth – ask yourself how you can serve your sibling or your parents and your classmates or your friends to help them learn about God and be more like Jesus. Especially as we are coming into the summertime – don’t use your freedom as an opportunity to gratify your own desires.

·         Let me challenge you if you are out of school for the summer – use your freedom as an opportunity to serve someone else through love. don’t waste your summer on yourself. Don’t just play all summer long and miss an opportunity to really grow in your freedom from selfishness

·         Singles – how can you use your season of life to encourage and build up others.

·         Church – we need to be cautioned against biting and devouring each other in gossip and slander and judgmental attitudes and speech.

·         Church we are in the middle of an excellent series on conflict resolution.

·         Use this time to grow in learning to serve each other in resolving conflict.

·         Get into each other’s lives and ask hard questions.

·         Ask heart-oriented questions to loving serve and care for each other

·         If you see someone else in conflict, lovingly come alongside them and serve them.

·         All of us need to ask ourselves, how can I serve someone else in this body? How can I ensure that we are built up in love? What can I do with my life that will be for the good of others and not for the good of myself alone?

·         “believers in Christ are free from the law but freedom is truly expressed through love, serving others”

·         This is what it means to be truly free. And it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.