Grab a Bible and find Galatians 5.
I love stand-up comedians. I’m fascinated by them. A good stand-up comic can sell out a stadium. People will pay hundreds of dollars to listen to them talk for hours. They’re entertaining. And who couldn’t use more laughter? But if you pay attention, most comics aren’t just telling jokes. They’re saying something. Many of them are masters at lacing their performances with a message. This might sound strange. I think stand-up comics are the pastors of a secular age.
One of my favorite comics is Rick Gervais. If we ever met, I can’t help but think we’d be friends. And yet, there’s much where we don’t see eye-to-eye. He is a thoroughgoing skeptic and committed atheist. One of his agendas isn’t just to get people to laugh but to laugh off their belief in God. One of the ways that he does that is by assaulting the absurd relationship of freedom and desire within a religious framework.
This is a dialogue from his Netflix show, After Life. He plays the part of Tony.
Kath: If you don't believe in heaven and hell and all that, why don't you just go around raping and murdering as much as you want?
Tony: I do.
Kath: What?
Tony: I do go around raping and murdering as much as I want, which is not at all.
The message is that if you need religious belief not to do morally corrupt things, you are a morally corrupt human being. Not even Jesus would argue with that. I don’t think he comes anywhere close to offering a meaningful critique of belief in God. Many leading historians, like Tom Holland, and many atheist philosophers, like Thomas Nagel, say that the humanist moral values that Ricky Gervais takes for granted actually owe their existence to Christianity.
Rick Gervais falls woefully short of critiquing belief in God, but he does a masterful job of critiquing a religious approach to life. While every religion and religious approach are different, they all have a set of rules intended to restrain morally corrupt desires and behavior. Here’s my question.
QUESTION: If you have morally corrupt desires but never act on them, are you free?
What do you think?
This is the genius of his comedy. If you have morally corrupt desires and you are using religious rules to keep them under control, you’re shackled to two sets of chains. You’re enslaved to your own moral brokenness, and you’re enslaved to religion. Believe it or not, what Jesus would say to Rick Gervais is that he wants people to be free from both.
It should be pointed out that Ricky Gervais’ comedy lacks courageous honesty. He fails to acknowledge that all people are crippled with morally broken desires and patterns of behavior. Where exactly are we to find freedom from that? As we read through the rest of Galatians 5, remember that all of this in the context of freedom.
GALTIANS 5:13-26 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, 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. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: 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. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
GALTIANS 5:13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
Do you remember this from last week? This is the freedom of being we have in Jesus.
We are only free when what we Ought to do, what we are Able to do, and what we Want to do intersect. Remove any one of these and you will find yourself with an existence that is something less than freedom. In fact, you will be stuck in slavery.
- Ought to: You’ll be a slave to your appetites
- Able to: You’ll be a slave to your weakness
- Want to: You’ll be a slave to misery (joylessness)
Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “God cares more about your holiness than your happiness.” I hate that. I think it’s a stupid saying that should never be repeated in churches. If you’re not happy about being holy, guess what?! You’re not holy! I agree with the late pastor Tim Keller. Joy and happiness are the same thing. It’s not freedom unless our wants (desires and affections) are being transformed to come into alignment the way of life that Jesus gave his life to give us.
That is the good and liberating bit of the gospel. Jesus doesn’t simply restrain our morally broken parts of us, he heals, renews and transforms them so that we enjoy and find happiness in his way.
Let’s continue to press into what this freedom is that we have in Jesus. This freedom of being includes freedom FROM and freedom TO. In Jesus, we are free from…
FREE FROM:
- Power of sin
- Penalty of sin
The penalty of sin is death, that is being cut off from God. In Christ, we are free from that. Our bodies will give out, but we will never be cut off from God. The assurance of heaven is a profound comfort. And yet, we still experience the consequences of our sins. If you lie, you will lose trust. If you gossip, you will break relationships and unity. We are free from the penalty of sin. There are still consequences for sins.
- Guilt
- Shame
- Fear
- Law
I want to connect the dots between this [Law] and this [Live out status of holy.]. The major case that Paul is trying to make is that holiness does not come by keeping the law. That is a status that we can never achieve, we can only receive it by faith in Jesus. He is holy and he gives that status to all who trust in him.
FREE TO:
- Live out our status of holy
- Love God
- Love all people
I want to ask you to think about and purposefully interrogate the factors that shape your view of freedom. Let’s start with this question.
QUESTION: Will our vision of freedom be primarily formed by our national citizenship or by our citizenship in Christ’s Kingdom?
- The Bill of Rights frees us to share our Jesus frees us to share our hearts.
We should have immense gratitude for freedom of speech. It’s right to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we can have this freedom. It is good. And yet, the freedom that Jesus gives transcends even that.
- The Bill of Rights frees us to serve up our Jesus frees us to serve each other.
- The Bill of Rights frees us to subject others to our Jesus frees us to submit ourselves to the well-being of one another.
I have every expectation that what I’m going to say next will sound ridiculous to some of us. If you aren’t able to place yourself beneath the needs and well-being of someone else, yielding to them as more important than yourself—you don’t know freedom. In the Kingdom of Jesus, all believers submit themselves to the well-being of all other believers.
GALTIANS 5:14 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.
I want to keep drilling down on the relationship between our freedom and our words?
We ABUSE freedom whenever our MOUTHS are open, but our HEARTS are closed.
The danger of an open mouth but a closed mind is being a fool. That’s bad enough. The danger of an open mouth but a closed heart is worse. That is being cruel and mean. An open mouth with a closed heart is treason against the Kingdom of Jesus. An open mouth and closed heart will only wound others and unravel the unity of a church. If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
I’m sure there are ways that we can bite and devour each other apart from our words. Yet, a continuing theme throughout the New Testament is that we tend to be too free with our mouths.
There is a purpose for the freedom that we’ve been given. That purpose is to love each other, which means to serve the well-being of each other. If you’ve been tracking with us during this series you’ve heard me say that we have to learn how to do conflict in a direct and healthy way. There are times that we must confront, times we must say something that is hard for the other person to hear. And when we do that, because we are free people in Jesus, we must and we can do so in love and in grace, with empathy. Anything else is anti-gospel.
But whenever we defend words that leave teeth marks on someone else because we feel free to say them, that’s an indication that we don’t understand our freedom. Whenever we refuse to repent, apologize, and do our best to make right the words that leave bite marks on someone else, that’s an indictment on how we handle the freedom that Jesus gave his life to give us.
So, what do we do?
GALTIANS 5:16-18 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Here’s a quick recap of what it means to live by means the Spirit vs. living by means of the flesh.
SPIRIT: We follow the way of Jesus, fully relying on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
FLESH: We follow rules, not the way of Jesus, through self-reliance and reputation management.
What’ we’re going to do now is look at the results, the outcomes of these two ways of living.
WORKS OF THE FLESH:
- Sexual Immorality
- Impurity
- Debauchery
- Idolatry
- Witchcraft
- Hatred
- Discord
- Jealousy
- Fits of Rage
- Selfish Ambition
- Dissensions
- Factions
- Envy
- Drunkenness
- Orgies
FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT:
- Love
- Joy
- Peace
- Forbearance
- Kindness
- Goodness
- Faithfulness
- Gentleness
- Self-control
Before going any further, let’s be clear about what this isn’t.
Paul’s not creating a list of things that describe people who don’t go to church vs. people who do go to church. It’s not that. It’s this.
Why does Paul write out this list? We should expect these outcomes if we live by means of the flesh. In Galatians, who was living by means of the flesh? People in the churches. The whole point of this list is that we should expect these outcomes in churches and from church people whenever we live by the flesh instead of means of the Spirit.
I wish what I’m going to say next wasn’t true, but it is. I’ve seen every single item on this list [FLESH] expressed in Christian community. It’s heartbreaking, but that’s what we should expect when people opt to live by self-reliance instead of fully depending on the presence and power of the Holy Spirt.
This is why there are sexual scandals in churches. This is why some of us have church hurts. [Pointing to FLESH] This is the way of religion. And there’s no power in it. No transformation. Why do followers of Jesus get stuck in sin and can’t find their way out? It’s not because Christianity works for some people but not for them. That happens every time someone lives by rules and self-reliance, not understanding that freedom and life that is truly life is found over here [Point to SPIRIT].
Why is it that online pornography usage is highest in highly religious communities? Because religion represses sin in public, but only Jesus transforms from the inside out. What I’m saying might be disruptive for some of us. And you might even be wondering, “Rick, are you sure? This list describes church people. Even witchcraft?” Yes!
I’ll give you an example. Maybe you’ve read this in the news. Paula White has emerged to prominence, in part because she is the head of the White House Office of Faith. She recently taught that by observing Passover this month, you can unlock seven spiritual blessings, and that was conveniently packed with purchasing a crystal cross and other Jesus junk. I don’t know how to tell the difference between that and witchcraft.
What’s required to live over here [SPIRIT] and not here [FLESH]? There’s something subtle, yet profound in how Paul presented these two ways of living.
This side is described as works. That means I can take credit for it. You can take credit for it. We can make this happen. We can bring about these outcomes. And we don’t need any help. We have all that is required, within ourselves, to make this side a reality.
But this side is described as fruit. And it’s not our fruit. It’s the fruit of the Spirit. What’s the significance of that? We can’t take credit for it. We aren’t even responsible for it. We can’t make this list become a reality in us.
What can we do? We can participate in their development through faith. We can disrupt their development by opting for rules and self-reliance.
We CAN’T grow on our own. God WON’T grow us on his own.
This will only happen by his power. He alone can do it. And yet, he doesn’t want to and won’t produce them on his own. We join in by trusting and that trust is expressed through obedience that can be summed up in one word: love.
I learned this from the late Tim Keller. This list is not instant. This fruit, this list is just a description of Jesus’s character—it develops gradually. It cannot be rushed. There isn’t a microwave setting for your soul. You can’t rush your spiritual formation. You can rush corruption. You can’t rush your formation. Trust him. Trust the process.
If you are a farmer or gardener, you know this; the process is working long before you can see it. It starts down deep. You only see the evidence of it, well after the process began. Our role in this development of the fruit of the Spirit is to be receptive. This is a mystical process that I don’t believe can be fully described. It is the supernatural, personal work of God in the life of an individual who trusts him. What we can do is describe our end of it.
- First, we repent. This is the essence of the word repent: change your mind. We turn from how we used to think, and we now want to sync our thinking with how Jesus thinks.
- That means taking on Jesus's yoke, embracing and following his teaching. You need to know the Gospels and the New Testament.
- Be with him. This is 100% about relationship. There is a difference between being at church and being with Jesus. If that isn’t clear, I invite you to join a Practicing the Way class.
- Don’t just be in present in Chrisitan community and don’t just be in the crowd. Be close, be messy, and be unguarded in Christian community.
- If there is a sin you’re struggling with, I’ll use pornography as an example. By all means, put up guardrails and external boundaries. But this isn’t about behavior modification. It’s about relationship. As your relationship grows. As practice the way of Jesus, fully relying on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit—you will see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control blossom in your life.
Do you know why this is so urgent. It is for our own good and freedom. But even that is too small. There is much at stake. I want to share something with you that I learned form Warren Wiersbe.
We must remember that this fruit is produced to be eaten, not to be admired and put on display. People around us are starving for love, joy, peace, and all the other graces of the Spirit. When they find them in our lives, they know that we have something they lack. We do not bear fruit for our own consumption; we bear fruit that others might be fed and helped, and that Christ might be glorified. –Warren Wiersbe
Are we beginning to see it? Is it yet settling in our bones?
SERIES THESIS: The only thing that COUNTS is FAITH expressing itself through LOVE.
COMMUNION.