Sermon Tone Analysis

Freed to be Free #14

Galatians 5:16-26

Living by the Spirit

 

Henry Blackaby, Pastor, Seminarian, Teacher, Author of “Experiencing God” syas that when it comes to the Christian walk, we don’t have an action problem, or even a sin problem, we have a love problem.

Because Jesus says,

/John 14:15,21 (NIV) \\ 15 //“If you love me, you will obey what I command.//

\\ 21 //Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.

He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”/

G.G.

Findlay wrote, “love is the Guard of Christian freedom.

The Holy Spirit is its guide.

The law withheld liberty and yet did not give purity.

But the spirit of love and sonship bestows the liberty of the sons of God.”

 

Being controlled by love casts out evil on one side and stills the hand or tongue that would do harm.

But it doesn’t just necessarily happen.

In sports and other activities there is what is called muscle memory.

When you hit a golf ball there are so many things that must be right at the same time.

/Knees bent, feet shoulder width apart, maintain flex in the knees, keep the spine angle correct, bend at the waist, lean back like you are about to see.

Keep the swing on plane.

Keep your left arm straight, your head down, push the club back, turn your shoulders, cock your wrists, pull it down, turn around you left leg as you straighten it up, turn your back to the target then your belly to the target, extend your arm and hands down the target line.

Release your hands, finish high, hold your finish, finishing around your left leg./ 

<Bring someone up to hit a shot>

If you think about all of these things during the swing you are in DEEP TROUBLE

<Hit a shot>

And I know because I frequently get in trouble

 

Hitting a baseball is similar.

Research says that it takes a certain time to see the ball.

It takes a certain time to decide if you want to hit the ball.

It takes more time to get the signal from brain to arms to hands to hips if you want to hit it.

And then the time it takes to actually swing.

Add all of that time together and it takes longer to do all of that than the time it takes the ball to leave the pitcher’s hand and cross the plate.

The only way to hit a golf ball well, or a baseball well is for the most of that process to be handled by muscle memory.

So no thinking actually takes place.

That means you have to train your body and brain to what is necessary without thought getting in the way.

See the Ball, Hit the Ball.

Take Dead Aim.

Too much thought gets in the way of success.

I think it was Bobby Jones, a great golfer in the ½ half of the 20th century, who said/, “if I’m thinking about 3 things I will struggle, if I think about 2 things I might break par, if I think about only one thing, I might win.”   /

In order to be successful all the tension of thinking has to be released into automatic movement.

And it’s not just about trying real hard.

Bobby Jones also said, /“some people think they are concentrating, when they are merely worrying” /

Hank Aaron, the great home run hitter said, /“it took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball, I did that in one afternoon on the golf course.”/

Well the point of all this is that muscle memory doesn’t just happen.

It is learned.

It takes putting those muscles in the right position over and over to get the right results without thinking but just doing.

The same is true of our spiritual lives.

The law of love is not a natural impulse.

It is Divine Inspiration followed by Human Surrender.

I have to have the Spirit in me and I have to surrender to him.

I have to be surrendering over and over by choice to get to the place where the surrender comes without thinking.

Love for God must become the driving force for loving others

Love for the Spirit of God will cause obedience and surrender to him

Because after all

 

/Love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God for God is Love/ (1 John 4:7,8)

 

READ 5:15-26

 

/So, I say … Live by the Spirit/

 

Don’t you see that Paul has been laying out our options in this book.

You can live by the law if you WANT to, but you ultimately can’t fulfill it.

You can’t be more righteous so why not live according to Grace and Love and find fulfillment?

We can get caught up in the judgmental nature of legalism, but we won’t get ahead by putting someone down or keeping them under our thumb.

But instead love fulfills the law.

Live by the flesh

or

Live by the Spirit

Live according to the Flesh

or

Live according to the Spirit

 

Now, it should be pointed out that “living by the Spirit” doesn’t mean you remove yourself and walk a different track.

You don’t go off into a Spiritual bubble or a monastery or something

Living by the Spirit doesn’t mean you necessarily change your address, it means you are still in the same neighborhood, still on the same track called life, but your propulsion, guide, and goal are the Holy Spirit of God.

He empowers us and governs us.

And following his will is our chief end.

Three things

Living by the Spirit is our Enforcer, Enabler, and End

Living by the Spirit is our Governor, Giver, and Goal

 

So, let’s jump in to our exposition

 

Living by the Spirit is our Enforcer and Governor so we have

 

1.

Power to Choose to say “No” to the Flesh

 

The Holy Spirit enables and governs us when we live according to him

We have two natures as followers of Christ.

  A.

We have Two Natures at War

    1.

Before you came to Christ, and if you have yet to give yourself to him, you had~/have only ONE Nature, a Sinful nature.

You did what your nature dictated.

But when we receive Christ and are crucified with him spiritually, and born again you have a new nature.

We become participants in the divine nature according to 2 Peter 1:3. 

    2.

But part of the struggle of this fallen world is that we still have the old nature within.

Paul describes this struggle

/Romans 7:22-23 (NIV) \\ 22 //For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;// //23 //but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members./

Waging war against my mind, making me a prisoner again … I don’t have to be there, but when I surrender to it, I’m back in that cell, though it’s unlocked

 

Peter understood the struggle

/1 Peter 2:11-12 (NIV) \\ 11 //Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.//

//12 //Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us./

“Live such good lives” obviously it is easier said than done, but it IS Possible

 

Paul spoke of it in Romans 6:12/ “Do not LET sin REIGN in your mortal body …”/

 

Live by the Spirit is what he is saying

Live according to, enabled by, propelled by the Spirit

 

    3.

Those two natures are at work and they are diametrically opposed to one another.

4.

The one you feed will be the strongest and win the Battle

Remember Isaac and Ishmael ultimately couldn’t live together.