Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Picture this: One quiet morning as Jesus was teaching His disciples, a crowd of Pharisees show up with a woman and tell Jesus, “This woman has been caught in adultery, and according to the law of Moses, she should be stoned, what do you say?” Quietly, Jesus kneels down beside her and starts to scribble something in the sand.

Was he finishing the teaching he was interrupted from?

Who knows?

The angry leaders pressed Jesus for an answer to their question.

They wanted to know what he though on the matter of a person caught in sin, after all, this woman was caught in the act of being intimately with someone that was not her husband, and this sin had to be dealt with.

Jesus looks at the crowd that was already locked and loaded ready to stone this woman and he says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” and he returns to writing on the ground.

One by one the leaders drop their stones and walk away perhaps feeling a sense of defeat until there were only two people left: Jesus and this horribly sinful woman.

Slowly, Jesus stands up and asks the woman, “Where are your accusers?

Has no one condemned you?” Possibly looking shocked, she responds, “No one.”

Jesus then tells the woman, “you’re free, go and do as you please.

There are no consequences for you actions, you have been freed to do whatever you like from here on out and there will be no consequences to your actions.”

While that is not how that story ends, this is what Paul is encouraging the believers in Galatia to stay away from.

What Jesus actually told the woman was, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”

This is the true freedom that Paul is getting at with his letter to the Galatians.

There is a fine line that Christians walk.

We walk line line that struggles with the human nature to do what feels good, and the Godly nature that goes against everything that human nature is for.

The struggle is real for everyone, and sometimes harder for others than for some.

Paul preached grace.

That unmerited favor of God that we as human beings didn’t deserve.

After he left Galatia to continue his ministry, he had a group of people come behind him saying that in order to “prove” you were saved, you had to abide by a set of rules and regulations found in the law.

Once Paul heard about this, he writes a letter to the churches he helped establish to correct their errant ways.

In the first two chapters, Paul establishes his authority as an apostle to speak on these matters, and in the middle two chapters, he establishes a biblical basis for his argument of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, and in the last two chapters, he helps the churches put the teachings into practical application.

In the first part of chapter five, Paul asserts that Jesus act of dying on the cross and bearing our sin (the curse) for us and standing in front of God’s judgment set us free from the slavery brought on by sin and adherence to a set of rules and regulations, and in our passage this morning, Paul will present a stark contrast of what it means to “Walk the Walk” of a Christian.

Our freedom in Christ is not “fire” insurance

Paul preached grace alone by faith in Christ alone.

The Judaizers found that unacceptable because their mentality was that if a person lived without rules, there would be no restraint in the life of the Christian.

Paul calls the Christians that are in Galatia in verse 13 to not use their freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

He states that their freedom is not license to just do what they want and God’s grace will cover it all.

The word for flesh here means “sinful humanity” and not referring to human flesh and bone.

Our freedom that we have is freedom with a purpose.

There are two extremes that Paul is presenting here.

The first extreme is the extreme of legalism.

The Judaizers were preaching faith plus works, and the other extreme is the extreme of license to do as you please.

This is not case with the freedom of the Christian.

The freedom we have manifests itself in self-sacrifice.

The freedom we have takes us from self-centered service to serving others in love.

The word he uses for love here is the same word that is used in when referring to God’s love to the sinful world.

John Stott says this about the word flesh: “The ‘flesh’ in the language of the apostle Paul is not what clothes our bony skeleton, but our fallen human nature,…which is twisted with self-centeredness and therefore prone to sin.”

Paul is warning the reader against a person’s natural proclivity to migrate toward things of a sinful nature and not using grace as a “get of hell free card.”

Paul then goes on to say in verse 14 that the whole law is summed up in “love your neighbor as yourself.”

He quotes .

This is the same verse that Jesus used when the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was when he quoted the Shema from and says that the second is just as great as the first, and that all of the law of Moses could be wrapped up into loving God and loving others.

James called it the “Royal Law”:

James

John also places a strong emphasis on this vital fact in his letter:

1 John

Paul also reiterates this fact in His letter to the Romans:

Romans

As Christians, we walk a fine line of being free to do whatever we want according to our human nature and binding ourselves to a set of rules and regulations and thus withdrawing from society completely to living in the liberty that we have in Jesus Christ to act in obedience to love others as God has shown His love to us.

License leads to animosity

In verse 15, Paul presents a stern warning against license in freedom that if we steer away from the law of God’s love, that it will lead back to self-centeredness and we, as Christians, will basically tear each other apart and leave nothing but picked over bones.

Taking license in the freedom we have in Jesus will lead to a split in the body of the church.

It causes two camps to form: Once camp says do or don’t do, and one camp says you can do whatever you want and there are no consequences to the actions of a person, and then the real battle begins.

Life in the Spirit is a conflict

Paul begins this next section in verse 16 by saying, “walk in the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

The command here is to “keep on walking in the spirit.”

This is a continuous action by the believer, and it is an intentional action that we must take care to make sure that is what we are doing.

He then goes on to explain that the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and vice versa.

Paul was quite familiar with this concept when he wrote to the Romans.

There is a natural opposition to the Spirit and the flesh.

This is what makes the Gospel counter-intuitive.

Humans are hardwired a particular way because sin entered into this world, and it is self oriented.

Paul then shares two lists.

The first list is not “all-inclusive” because at the end of the list in 21 he says, “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

He lays out the character qualities of a person living in the flesh (according to the sinful human nature) and those that live by the spirit, and there are a couple of things to not here:

The works of the flesh can be divided into four areas: 1. Sexual oriented sin, 2. Religious sin, 3. Social sin, 4. Personal sin.

These areas can cover a wide rage of things, but the most important thing to note is that Paul finishes the list with the phrase, “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Sexual oriented sin, 2. Religious sin, 3. Social sin, 4. Personal sin

So does that mean a person that has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior will lose their salvation?

Absolutely not!

What Paul is saying here, and in some translations, the phrase is rendered, “those who PRACTICE such things...” That means that when we accept Christ into our lives, there will be a noticeable change in the life of a believer.

A person that willfully continues in any lifestyle contrary to what God has laid out for them, more than likely is not a true Christian.

Paul is talking about a person that refuses to leave the old, sinful life behind.

He is not talking about the person that struggles with fits of anger, or the person that falls into addictions, or the person that struggles with misplaced priorities in this life that allows things like work to take precedence over worship or family time.

Even the most mature Christian will fall into sinful patterns in their life in some way, shape, or form.

When we accept Christ into our lives, there comes with it a change, and that change is manifest in the next list that Paul presents as the “fruit of the Spirit.”

Religious sin, 3. Social sin, 4. Personal sin

Notice that Paul uses the singular word “fruit” as opposed to the plural.

This is not gifts that the Spirit gives us as the body has need.

Gifts can change, whereas the fruit of the Spirit does not, and if we also notice, the fruit of the Spirit are manifest in attitudinal changes and not in physical actions.

It is those attitudinal changes that will then manifest themselves in outward actions toward others.

Which goes back to the idea in verse 13 that if we are truly walking in the Spirit, that attitudinal change will manifest itself in service toward others in love as opposed to the self-oriented nature of the works of the flesh.

I personally believe that it is safe to say that a person that says they are a Christian, and exhibit not a single aspect of the fruit of the Spirit should check their relationship with God and see how it lines up.

That doesn’t mean this is a checklist to determine if you’re really saved or not, because of we sat here and ran down the works of the flesh to determine if we are saved or not, I think it would be a safe bet that each of us in this room would be guilty of some sexual, religious, social or personal sin if we really truly take the time to reflect on that list and what it entails.

If we continue to make that intentional effort to continue walking in the Spirit, our priorities and focus change, and that is how we can overcome the trials of life and are able to steer clear of the works (deeds) of the flesh.

Paul closes out this section by answering the question of “How?”

That would be the natural question that follows all of this.

we see the list of the works of the flesh and compare them to the fruit of the Spirit and then ask the questions, “How can I live like that?”

The one simple answer is, “Live in Christ.”

Paul wrote earlier in

Paul reiterates this point here in verse 24 by saying, “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

What he means by that is that once we accept Christ in our lives, we are no longer living for our old, sinful self, but we are living for a completely different reason.

we are living for Jesus, and we are letting Jesus live through us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

When we get baptized, we are publicly saying we have died to the old life by being submerged under the water, and we are being resurrected to new life in Jesus Christ.

Once we ask Jesus into our lives, we are turning over control of our lives to Him so that He can live through us.

We die to the old life, the sinful life, that doesn’t mean that the struggles will go away, but that we have a helper in the form of the Holy Spirit that helps is renew our minds daily in order to live for Christ.

Walking in the Spirit prevents conceit

Paul ends this section with an IF/THEN proposition.

He says, “if we live by the Spirit, (then) let us also keep in step with the Spirit.