Galatians 5:13-26            Remaining Free           Feb 14, 2010

   In an important speech to Congress on Jan. 6, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt shared his vision of the world he hoped to see when World War II was someday over.  Roosevelt envisioned four basic freedoms enjoyed by all people—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from poverty, and freedom from fear.  Our world has made steps of progress in these areas since that day in 1941, but our world still needs another type of freedom.  It is the greatest freedom of all.  Humanity needs to be set free from its own sinful and selfish nature.  We each need to be set free from ourselves.

     Today is our last message from Paul’s letter to the Galatians.  We seen for many weeks now how Paul has argued for the freedom and liberty which is found in Christ.  In his own past, Saul was a virtual terrorist seeking to bind his fellow Jews under a strict interpretation of the Law and violently keeping outsiders out.  But Saul in his visionary experience on the Road to Damascus became a new man.  He was set free from his old self.  And what set him free was love.     

      Paul has spoken of freedom throughout this letter but now in 5:13-15, he steps back to ponder the real nature of freedom.  Freedom is a sharp two sided sword that can cut through the ropes that bind us but which can also cut us to the bone.  Throughout all of history, men and women have longed for freedom, and yet, when we have freedom, we often do not know what to do with it.  Paul wants to think deeply about this reality.   Paul is not talking of any cheap freedom to do whatever we want to do.  Instead, he is talking about a true freedom to become all God has made us to become.  Freedom is a highly abused and misunderstood word.   Cheap Freedom seems to be following whatever thought or feeling that crosses your mind at any given moment.  Paul says in verse 15 that kind of cheap freedom consumes us.  It has led millions of Americans into slavery.  The slavery of addictions of every kind.  That kind of Cheap Freedom is the cause of so many lost hopes and dreams. 

Lindsey Lohan is one of many young Hollywood stars consumed by Cheap Freedom.  She was a successful child actress at age 12 in the 1998 Disney Movie, “The Parent Trap.”  Between 2003 and 2005, her career skyrocketed with three hit movies.  It seemed like a great future ahead.  But the Cheap Freedom to do whatever you want enslaved her.  By 2007, she had two DUI and a cocaine arrest.  She was dropped from two movies in 2007 due to her unreliability and due to insurance problems.  Since then, she has struggled to make a comeback but has found limited success. 

We could tell a hundred stories like that.  I could tell you some stories from my own life and I bet you could tell me some from your life.  Times when we have abused our freedom and our selfish actions have come back to bite us.  But True Freedom in God leads you to the best life you can have.  That Freedom is built not on myself but on love says verse 14.  What kind of freedom is love?

A man was leaving work on Thursday and said to his friend, “I have a free day off tomorrow. I am going to fix my daughter’s bike that has a flat tire and I am going to help my son work on a school project.”  His friend just laughed.  “That does not sound like a free day off to me.  It doesn’t sound very exciting.”  “The man replied, “It’s exciting of you love your kids.” 

The amazing thing about love is that it takes the place of all the laws that God ever gave.  Paul says in verse 14 that “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” fulfills all the rules we will ever need.  Love also takes the place of self and fulfills myself.  When we are filled with Love from God, then we are free to live the best life we can live.

How does this happen?  Paul says in verse 16 that it happens as we “walk by the Spirit.”  There are at least fourteen references to the Holy Spirit in the six short chapters of Galatians.  You see, when we begin to live in relationship with God, the Holy Spirit of God comes to walk with us.  One of the great mistakes too many people make about the spiritual life is thinking that it is about obeying all the right rules.  Listen.  The spiritual life means to be filled with the Spirit of God, to walk by the Spirit of God, and to be empowered to live and do and be what God has purposed you to live and do and be.  The good things that come into your life are not of your own work, sweat, and tears.  The good things in your life are from God.

     I want you to notice a deep contrast between verses 19 and 22.  The Bible says that the “Works of the flesh are….   But the Bible says the “Fruit of the Spirit are…..”    Do you see the difference?  My works are what I try to do on my own power.  It is my work.  It is my doing.  And it eventually collapses into failure.  I have known successful men who have built business empires all on their own power.  They seem on top of the world.  Psalm 73 gives this complaint.  “I was envious of the arrogant and when I saw the wealth of the wicked.  They have no pains…They are troubled…People praise them…Until I went into the sanctuary of God.  Then I saw their end.  God has set them on slippery places.  They fall to ruin and are destroyed in a moment.”  Listen.  You cannot build a life on your own work and on your own power.  It may succeed for a while but it is a slippery path and you will fall.

        But the “Fruit of the Spirit….”  You see, you do not make fruit grow.  It just grows.  Oh, you need to plant the seeds.  You need to provide some water and fertilizer.  And in your spiritual life you need to be in worship, singing God’s praises, partaking of His Holy Communion, praying, reading the Word, all these things, but the fruit will grow on its own in its own good time.  Fruit is not my work.  Fruit is the work of God in my life.  And Fruit will last forever. 

You know, work can happen in a factory.  Work can be done by machines and computers.  But fruit can only come from living organisms.  Fruit is about life.  The life that has been truly set free.  Not cheap freedom sold like cheap goods on a Hollywood market.  No.  Real Freedom that is bought at a high price by the love of God.  That freedom brings the fruit of a life worth living.  A life that is the best it can be.   

    You know, Galatians has been a hard study in many ways.  To really grasp how far this man Saul/Paul traveled.  From a violent man who hated people different from himself to a man who risked all to love all people.  From a man who tried to build his life on his own works and ideas to a man who was now crucified with Christ.   From a man who never followed Jesus as one of his twelve disciples but instead tried to kill them to a man who became the leading voice of the disciples, who led the other twelve into making the message of Jesus a world-wide message.  What a journey.  And if this man Saul could become this man Paul, then what is holding you back?  You and I can make this same journey.  Not under our own power and work.  Not by following the right rules.  Not by any Cheap Freedom of the self.  This journey is by faith in Christ and by the filling of the Spirit.  We can each discover what Paul discovered—Freedom in Christ.  Freedom to be what God purposes you to be.  Amen.