Against Such There is no Law - Joel Schrock

Good morning. I also want to greet you in Jesus'

name this morning. Welcome everyone here. I think the harvest

is has or is kind of flashing by pretty quickly,

so I imagine this sit will start getting thin and

out here before too long. But welcome here today. I

appreciated that that devotions, those thoughts. I think it was

a good introduction in many ways to what we're talking

about today. Also, Dan brought up a question in the

Sunday School. Been enjoying that and Troy's kind of introduction

to that question about liberty. We'll discuss some of that today,

but this morning, I would like to continue with I

guess a subject or a theme that I've been loosely

following and other things don't pop up for the last

oh maybe since spring, and I'd like to continue to

explore the work of the Holy Spirit in the believers,

and you know, what does that mean and what does

it look like? And so for those of you that

weren't here, and for those of us that were and

forgot just as introduction, going to just do really, I'm

going to try to keep it a really short review

of a couple of things that I think are just

good background for what we're talking about today. The title

today is against such there is no law and this

we're going to look at Glatians five. You can turn

there if you want to, and this conversation is going

to We're going to cover a few things before we

get to This is most you know where the fruit

of the Spirit is listed. But as a little background

to who the Holy Spirit is to start with, I

believe the scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit is the

third part of the Trinity, all completely God. Each each

part is one and as one God, so alongside the

Father and the Son. And I believe we see that

throughout the Bible. It's really hot. It's like there's there's

specific maybe functions, but it's really difficult to separate. But

a couple examples I'll bring up here quickly, and that

is in Genesis. I believe in the very beginning we

see God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

working together in a near inseparable way. But I believe

they're all listed in the first three verses of Genesis.

God created the fought. We would say the Father, it's

elohem is the word there created the world. In verse one,

it says verse two the Spirit of God moved upon

the face of the waters, and verse three and beyond

the world was spoken into existence by the word of God.

And if you look in John one, the Word of

God there is pretty clearly Jesus and so and so

we see the three working closely together as one in

the creation. We see when Jesus was bapi by John

the Baptist, we see the three there in one place,

Jesus being baptized, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove,

and the Father speaking from heaven saying, this is my

beloved son. And when Jesus was giving instructions to his

disciples before he ascended, he instructed them, as they go

out and preach and teach, to baptize. And he didn't

list to baptize in the name of any people or

in the name of any of any wonderful beings like

angels or cherubims or anything like that. It's in the

name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

A word that's used for the Holy Spirit often is

and I'm not going to defend the pronunciation, but paraclitose,

and this is translated it's intercessor advocate, comforter helper. One

example that I would have read before is John fourteen,

verse sixteen. And I will pray the Father. This is

Jesus speaking, So you see all three here again. I

will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter,

another intercessor helper, advocate, that he may abide with you forever.

Then we see Jesus talking in Luke to his disciples

before his ascension Luke twenty four, verse forty nine, and behold,

I send the promise of my Father upon you. In

other places, that promise is kind of spelled out to

be the Holy Spirit, and then he gives some instructions

to his disciples. Now there's many more words, many more

verses we could look at, but this is a quick review.

So this is kind of the transition from who the

Holy Spirit it is to how we receive the Holy Spirit?

Who is the Promise, which I think is a real comfort.

So that's a real comfort to us. So how do

we receive that promise from the Father. There's verses to

go with these, but I'm just going to review kind

of some of the points that we looked at. I

believe the last message I preached, and that is we

hear and believe we repent and be baptized, and we ask, now,

I'd like to look at the next at least another question,

and that is what does it look like when we're

filled with the Holy Spirit? What does a spirit filled

Christian look like? And we could ask the question, you know,

if someone were filled with the Holy Spirit, what would

the fruit of that person's life look like? Well, it

turns out there is a list, and it's in Glatians five,

and we can look at it, and probably most of

us have a pretty good idea what most of those

words are. All right, But I guess the question is

do we really know and understand? And is that who

we are? Is that do we follow? And fruit? Fruit

grows in different places. But I envisions fruit as being

on a tree, and so I think, you know, are

we a tree that's growing? Are we allowing ourselves a

good tree to be pruned back sometimes and then produce

even more fruit? Do our roots go down and spread

out in search of the water, the living water, the

word of God? And do our branches and our leaves

grow and reach out to the sunshine of God's grace?

Are we a tree in God's garden? And do we

produce the fruit of the spirit. You know, when God

observes his garden, let's say, orchard, what does he see?

Does he see barren trees? Does he see small, withered

up or rotten fruit? Does he see wormy or buggy fruit?

You know it look kind of good and then you

know you open it up and there's a worm crawling

through the middle of it. Or does God see a

beautiful tree with ripe, plump, juicy fruit branches hanging down.

We have a tree right now, an apple tree. Its

branches are hanging down, but apparently it's roots aren't doing

exactly what they're supposed to do, and it just tipped over.

So I'm not sure we're going to do with that now.

I'd like to make a distinction here between the fruit

of the spirit and the gifts of the spirit, and

that's a whole other topic. But the gifts of the

spirit seem to be more given on an individual basis,

a little bit like it's not the gift of the spirits,

it's gifts. There seem to be multiple gifts. I think,

I think, and again, any of this I'm open to

correction and instruction. But the fruit of the spirit does

not seem to be individual fruits on different trees, like

I would have you know, apples here, pairs there, you know,

oranges there. But rather it seems to be descriptors for

the fruit of abiding in the Holy Spirit. The fruit

of the Spirit should be evident for every believer. You know,

in a good apple, you think about that, a good

apple could be described as bright, crisp, crunchy, sweet, beautiful,

and delicious, and these are all descriptors of one beautiful fruit.

Now in Glatians, a little bit of context. Paul is

writing to the Glatians, obviously, and there's a little bit

of disagreement about who exactly he's writing to here is

South Glatians and North Glatians them, but sort of them?

And when it was was it after his first visit

second visit. But what seems to be the case is

that after Paul visited the Galatians and taught them, and

it seems like there was at least a group of

them that readily received the word that some Judaizers, maybe

from Jerusalem, it's thought, came through and taught that, you know,

in order to really be saved, you have to follow

the law, taught circumcision, taught specific things like that, and

it seems that the Galatians may have embraced some of

these teachings just as readily as they embraced Paul's teachings

when he came through the first time. So Paul lays

out a lot of contexts, including you know, why he

has the authority of an apostle and so forth, gives

some history, but a lot of Galatians talks a lot

about law and liberty, flesh and spirit. Those are some

some heavy topics through Glatians. Here in chapter five, which

we'll be looking at part of part of chapter five,

it's talking about the liberty in Christ. Now, I'd like

to walk through parts of this chapter before we get

to kind of fruit. The fruit of the spirit is

in the end of the chapter, but I think that

walking through some of this chapter before we get there's helpful.

It's helpful context. So I'm going to start with Glatians five,

verse one and familiar verse. We probably all at least

kind of know this verse. Stand fast therefore in the

liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not

entangled again with the yoke of bondage. This verse is

kind of one of those like like it has kind

of almost this sing song and it's been put to

music and you can just kind of roll through it

and like, what's it same? Well, therefore, you know, I

think Paul's referring back to chapter four there talking about

the bond and the free women. But he starts out

chapter five here by saying stand fast. Now, how do

you stand fast in freedom? Right? Isn't freedom to sort

of free? But he says stand fast? And I believe

this means that we don't accidentally stumble across freedom in Christ,

like this is something to hold firmly onto. Stand fast.

There's a certain amount of effort that it takes to

stay in this place of liberty. And it's the liberty

wherewith Christ has made us free. Notice, it doesn't just

say stand fast in liberty, you know. If so, you

could make an argument that we're just free to do

what we choose because of liberty. Right, give me liberty,

give me death, you know. And the irony here is

that of liberty and bondage, is that it takes no

effort to become bound or to stay in bondage, but

it takes a lot of effort to be free. For example,

when you see a drunk man tipped over on the

side of a street. You say, well, the man had

some freedom, didn't he. You know, he was free as

long as money allowed to buy as much alcohol as

he wanted. Right, But is that man living in freedom

or in bondage? I would argue that his freedom in

drinking whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, however he wanted,

and however much he wanted, has bound him in the

chains of alcohol and addiction. When you see a man

who has overcome his addictions, he's sober, he's holding down

a job, he has a beautiful family. Is this man

under liberty or bondage? Like? Is he is he at liberty?

Is he free because he you know, he's not drinking,

he's not running around on his wife. You know that?

Is that liberty or bondage? This man is standing fast

in liberty. He is unchained from the bondage that held

him down. But it's no accident that he got there.

Takes effort, And I think we can all see as

we look at those examples, who is free and who

is bound and which takes more effort. And notice that

this liberty, again is a specific liberty. It is the

liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. This is not

does not say stand fast and the liberty to do

whatever you want to do, the liberty to stand fast?

And is this liberty that wherewith Christ has made us free.

That's that's the description here. If we tried to free ourselves,

we may get tangled up in the bondage that so

easily held us down. And so this verse verse one

here of chapter five, I believe, just a great introduction

to law and liberty, flesh and spirit. Now, there are

many interesting things in Glatians five we could talk about.

There's you know, he talks about running well. You know

you did run well? And who did hinder you? You

know who's out there messing up the road in front

of you making it tough? Who is that? And there's

a little eleven eleven of the whole lump, and there's

talk about the law and circumcision, all these things. But

we're going to jump to verse thirteen, and I'm going

to read now Glatians five, verses thirteen through eighteen, and

we jumping again. He's talking about liberty again in verse thirteen.

For brethren, ye have been called into liberty, only use

not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. But by

love serve one another. For all the laws fulfilled in

this one word, even this, thou shalt love thy neighbor

as thyself. But if you bite and devour one another,

take heed that you be not consumed one of another.

This I say, then walk in the spirit, and ye

shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the

flesh stiff against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

And these are contrary the one to the other, so

that you cannot do the things ye would. But if

ye be led of the spirit, you're not under the law.

So back to verse thirteen. Here, that liberty that we

discussed in verse one comes up again in verse thirteen,

and Paul here is addressing brethren. All right, so these

are people, These are men and women who apparently have repented,

have their sins forgiven at the cross of Jesus Christ,

and are trying to live a life of holiness. Brethren,

We ye have and I could I think we you

could say we have been called unto liberty. We have

been called to stand fast and live a life of

liberty in Christ. Believe that's what he's saying there, This

liberty because he knows the Galatians are human, We're human.

Comes with a warning, do not misuse and abuse liberty

to indulge the flesh, all right, use not liberty for

an occasion to the flesh, but of this conjunction. But

you know, contrary to instead of that, don't indulge a flesh,

but serve one another in love. And another example I

thought about here in relationship in relation to liberty and bondage,

you know, especially as it has to do with with relationships,

and that's marriage. You know, how many of us have

heard know someone or heard of someone. It's like a

fourth wife, children kind of scattered through through the country,

different places. Maybe now he's given up on marriage at

all and just living with a mistress. You know, there's

a trail of tears, heartache, mistrust and guilt here and

many other things, all right. You know, you may have

just seen headlines recently about a millionaire and you know

there's a CEO and and I think it was his

hr lady got caught on camera at a concert. Boom,

blew up, you know, blew up all sorts of I

imagine there were issues before, right, but a lot there's

certainly were issues. Then, you know, does that sound like freedom?

Does that sound like liberty? You know, just kind of

do what you want and let things fall where they lie.

Or what about the man or woman? But what about

the man that gets married and loves his wife and

is faithful to her, cherishes her, has a family with her,

lives a life of beauty, and leaves a trail of love, joy, peace,

and wonderful memories. Now, is this man in bondage? You know,

the laws says he is, right, Like there's a document

somewhere that says this man and woman or or husband

and wife forever right, there's vows that were taken. But

is this man in bondage? Or is he in liberty?

Is he living a life of liberty? Is this man

living a life of liberty in his relationship with his

best friend on earth and spouse? I think I think

that's the case, this whole thing of bondage your liberty,

Verses fourteen and fifteen. Verse fourteen. Paul continues on here

in this theme of love, and you know, there's this

question of the law, and Paul says, it looks to

me like Paul says, if you really want to follow

the law, it is summed up. He says, in one word,

one thought, one command, the greatest command, love your neighbor

as yourself. So do not indulge the flesh, but do

live in service to others. I believe that Luther took

Glatians too far and the whole conversation of liberty here,

but he did have something interesting to say about loving

your neighbor that I thought i'd read in this context here.

If you want to know how you ought to love

your neighbor, ask yourself how much you love yourself? And

you know we can. I'll just point out here we

can sometimes be kind of down on ourselves, Like you know,

I don't really love myself all that much, right, We

can talk ourselves down and feel bad about ourselves. But

if keep reading, if you were to get in trouble

or danger, you would be glad to have the love

and help of all men. You do not need any

book of instructions to teach you how to love your neighbor.

All you have to do is look into your own heart,

and it will tell you how you ought to love

your neighbor as yourself. Verse fifteen is a contrast to

loving others as yourself and Paul Warren's here about biting

and devouring one another. And this could be done in

a variety of ways, but it's always destructive, self destructive,

both both to the individual and to the group. You know,

have you has anybody here ever put a group of innocent, beautiful,

innocent looking tadpoles into like a little goldfish bowl or something.

We do that, Well, I did when I was young.

What do you think happened? Well, they kept disappearing and

I never saw what was going on. Finally I was

left with one big, fat tadpole and these things would

bite and devour each other until there was one left.

And you know, that's totally destructive, decimated the group, and

there's no future for that individual, all right. And that's

a really really stark contrast to verse fourteen, where you

love people around you as yourself, where you give help

to the people around you just like you would like

to receive help. Real start contrast now verses sixteen to eighteen.

Not going to comment just a little bit here, not

too much, but I didn't want to point out that

verse sixteen says walk in the spirit. Another version, English

version says walk by the spirit. And this is a

little bit different than verse twenty five, where it says

walk in the spirit. Both verses and the King James

say walk in the spirit. But we'll get to that

a little bit later. But the instruction here is to

walk in the spirit, and the result will be if

we see here walk in the spirit, and says conjunction.

And if you walk in the spirit, and ye shall

not fulfill the loss of the flesh. So walk in

the spirit, and the result will be not gratifying the flesh. Okay,

I like what someone had to say. I think Boyce

had to say here about this. You know, it's easy

to think of ditches like, Okay, over here is legalism,

and we don't want to be legalistic, and over here

is just license to do anything you want. We don't. Really,

that's probably not a great answer. So if you just

sort of keep in the middle of the road, maybe

that's about right, somewhere between legalism and license. Here's what

he had to say about about that. I thought it

was interesting. Life by the Spirit is neither legalism nor license,

nor a middle way between them. It's not any of those.

It is a life of faith and love that is

above all of these false ways. So it's not just

taking a middle road. It is something else above that

we see in verse seventeen, that the desires of the

flesh and the spirit are at complete