Unlocking True Freedom: The Role of the Holy Spirit

G'day. Thanks for joining the Heights Church podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Goldstone

Road, Cornsville Heights, Sydney, Australia.

The reading this morning comes from the book of Galatians in chapter 5,

starting at verse 16 and going through to verse 26.

So Galatians 5.

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.

You know, you and I might sometimes wonder what the chief difference is between

Christianity and other faiths.

And, well, obviously, the answer is the place of Jesus. That's central.

And yet, something more basic than that.

If I can be forgiven a generalization, but other faiths generally focus on us

climbing up to God, trying to reach God.

God's up there, we're down here. We try to clamber up a ladder of merit to reach that God.

Christianity is different. God has come down the ladder to us.

God, in the person of Jesus, has visited us and has said, you don't need to

climb up a ladder of merit.

I've come down. I've got merit in the person of Jesus.

I have got 100% perfection because that's the pass mark for entry into heaven, remember?

You might be 99% good. Sorry, you're going to miss out.

The only way is to trust in the 100% goodness of Jesus. And that's the difference with Christianity.

Christianity says Jesus has done that. You don't need to climb up a ladder of merits.

Later on, we'll see. Yes, it doesn't matter how you live. Of course it does.

But that's not the way you get right with God.

And that's been the theme of Galatians that Marcus emphasized over the last few weeks.

How we get right with God is not through trying to obey all the rules and regulations.

But rather, how we get right with God is by believing we can't accept those

rules and regulations, we can't keep all those rules and regulations,

and we must rely on the perfect character of Jesus.

So that's what the heart is of Paul's letter to the region of Galatians.

But Galatians teaches us that while none of those traditional rules-based stuff

will get you're right with God, it also teaches that we do have a certain way to live.

Now, back in the days of the Old Testament, the law was there. The law wasn't bad.

The Ten Commandments, for example, aren't bad.

It's just that they couldn't do the job of getting you right with God.

You couldn't climb up that ladder perfectly to get to God.

The law was there as sort of a safeguard against ungodly living,

but it could never get you right with God.

And thoughtful Jews in the Old Testament days flung themselves on God's mercy.

They didn't know the shape of that mercy, which was to be Jesus,

but they trusted that God was merciful and so trusted in him to show mercy,

even though they didn't know the details of it.

But in Paul's day, when he wrote this letter to the churches in the region of

Galatia, in Paul's day, there were some Jewish leaders who were rules-based,

who said, no, no, no, you've got to climb up that ladder. You've got to keep that rule.

You've got to do that ritual in order to get right with God.

And that's why Paul is attacking that point of view.

So Paul is describing a right and wrong way of being acceptable to God,

but he spends much time on the subject of freedom.

Now, freedom's already been considered

in this series, but freedom can be understood rightly and wrongly.

The very first human beings got the notion of freedom all wrong.

They figured that being free was being independent of God.

God said, don't pluck the fruit from that tree. He could have just as easily

said, don't cross that river or don't climb that wall. Who cares? It's an ancient story.

But the problem is that the people said, no, we don't want to go God's way.

We don't want to be dictated to by God.

We want to be independent. And they mistakenly thought that that independence

would bring freedom. And of course, it didn't.

All it did was to keep them enslaved to their own egos, their own ambitions, their own desires.

See, ditching God's purpose for us to attain some sort of illusory freedom.

It's been like a ship without a rudder or a compass.

That ship is free. No, no rudder, no compass. But it's free to drift.

It's free to be tossed around in any storm that comes. It's free to be shipwrecked.

That's what freedom, that's what independence of God is like.

Quite a contrast to real freedom because true freedom is not the freedom to do as we please.

It's the freedom to be the people that God our maker has made us to be.

That's the keynote of freedom.

You see, we're free to become our best selves.

We're free to make our worlds a better place to live in. We're free to be generous and kind.

That's real freedom. And freedom does not come from cutting off our ties with God.

That's independence. And if you want a definition of sin, it really is a declaration

of independence from God.

I don't want God to dictate to me. I want to do things my way. That's sin.

And it's not freedom.

But this leads to a question of just how you and I live out this life of freedom.

How do we come in practice what we are in principle?

How do we resist this tug of egocentricity that pushes us in one selfish way

when in fact God wants us to live another way?

Why is it that we so often give in to the pressure to live our own way,

to declare our independence from God as the first human beings did?

Well, the key to those questions is the Holy Spirit.

And it seems as the church as a whole struggles with the place of God's Spirit.

In some quarters he's neglected, and he's seen to be simply an adjunct to the Bible.

In some traditions he's not even mentioned much at all.

But in other situations he becomes dominant.

He becomes the star attraction. But in fact, neither of those situations is the right one.

A potted definition of the Holy Spirit is that He is God's empowering presence

in our lives, enabling us to best relate to Him and to others,

empowering us to do what He calls us to do.

If you try to live a Christian life without the Holy Spirit,

it's futile. It's a waste of time.

Now, it's important to note that the Holy Spirit is a person.

He's not an impersonal force.

And I'm not going to get into the details of the Trinity, the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit, how they are related to one another, how they connect.

You have a pastor, Mark, and I've always believed it is the pastor's job to

sort out those issues with you, not an occasional preacher. So talk to Mark sometime.

He's available 24-7 to talk about that, to talk about the Holy Trinity.

No, but seriously, it is a complex situation. But I just want to stress the Holy Spirit is a person.

It's also important to note that all who belong to God through Jesus have the Holy Spirit.

He's not given to a privileged few. As some of you will know,

I've been very much involved in the charismatic renewal movement within the

Anglican Church, and some of the extremes of that tended to say, oh, well,

the Holy Spirit's given to you, or you've got a bit of the Holy Spirit when

you get saved, but you've got to get a whole lot more later on.

You can't subdivide a person.

You can't chop him up. You can't have a quarter of the Holy Spirit.

You've got all of him or none of him.

So the Holy Spirit is a common possession of the people of God.

Now, we'll say a little bit more about that a bit later on.

But the Holy Spirit doesn't draw attention to himself.

He points to the Father.

The Holy Spirit's not saying, look at me, I'm the star attraction of the Trinity.

I'm the exciting bit of the Trinity. No, he's not. He points towards the Father and the Son.

He's sometimes associated with great displays of miracle, working power,

and so on, and I've seen and witnessed some of that.

But at the same time, he's also associated with the mundane,

seeming drudgery of everyday Christian living.

The Holy Spirit can be with you in the mundane times and the very exciting times.

He's the one who redirects our steps so that we go Jesus' way,

not our own way. He's the one who gives us a new mindset rather than the old sinful mindset.

He's the one who develops in us certain characteristics and life paths that

are described as the fruit of the Spirit.

Now, I'm not going to explore this in any detail, but let me just read to you

a paraphrase from Eugene Peterson's wonderful paraphrase called The Message.

And it's just a paraphrase of this section about the fruit of the Spirit.

It's obvious he says

what kind of life develops out of trying to get your

own way all the time repetitive loveless

cheap sex a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage frenzied and

joyless grabs for happiness trinket gods magic show religion paranoid loneliness

cutthroat competition all consuming yet never satisfied wants a brutal temper

an impotence to love or be loved,

divided homes and divided lives, small-minded and lopsided pursuits,

the vicious habit of depersonalising everyone in a rival, uncontrolled and uncontrollable

addictions, ugly parages of community.

That's without the fruit of the Spirit. And then he says, But what happens when we live God's way?

He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard.

Things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity.

We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the

heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.

We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way

in life, and able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about. It only gets in the way.

So that gives you a summary of what the sort of spirit-led life might be like,

and what life might be like if you were not led by the spirit.

But I need to clarify a few things there, otherwise I think we risk misunderstanding.

One is, it's not that if Paul is saying that those who don't follow Jesus and

thus have his spirit are bound to live in that way that Eugene Peterson paraphrases in that text.

You see, many outside of Christ do much good and are wonderful characters.

It saddens me to hear sometimes Christians suggesting that, well,

it's only if you've got the Holy Spirit in your Christians that you can do any good. What rubbish.

People do good all the time without being Christians.

There are lots of good people out there who aren't Christians.

My father was a better man than I would ever be.

He wasn't a Christian, or at least he wasn't until his deathbed.

Who knows what happened then?

But you see, many outside of Christ don't plunge themselves into the depths

that have been described.

We're not saying that everyone outside of Christ lives a wicked life.

We can't say that. That's not true. That is simply untrue.

And we can explain this, I think, through what is called common grace.

And this term describes the reality that God is somehow at work in His world,

allowing people to do good without

them necessarily recognizing that it's through the work of His Spirit.

People who are outside of Christ do not possess the Holy Spirit in the same

way, but through the common grace of God, His Spirit enables good to be done.

Whenever you are seeing a genuinely good and kind and generous thing done,

attribute it to God's Spirit.

The person doing those acts might not do that, and doing those acts does not

earn that person salvation, But it's an expression of the fact that through

the common grace of God, the Holy Spirit is at work.

It's hard for us to grasp, but at least it's one way to account for the good

that non-Christians undeniably do.

And it avoids us making black and white judgments.

Oh, people who come to church are good and people who don't come to church are

bad. What rubbish! That's not true, you know that.

You see, some people outside the Christian family do all those bad things. No risk about that.

Just in passing, there's a few people inside the church who do those bad things too.

But there's others outside who express this common grace, who do good through

the Spirit of God, even though they don't acknowledge Him, and make the world a better place.

Good works are not confined to Christians.

If I, as I have done occasionally, have had to go to hospital to undergo some

surgery or procedure, I don't have to say to whoever is preparing me to say,

are you a born-again Christian and do you have the Holy Spirit?

No, I want to say, are you competent in what you are doing? And are you going to bold bill me?

That's just another question. But you see, good works are not confined to Christians.

And yet Christians are to do good works.

In order for us to earn God's favour, we need to take hold of God's special

grace, which is dependence upon the mercy offered by Jesus.

And another important clarification, just because we struggle to display this

fruit doesn't mean that we are not in God's family.

See, Paul does say, and it's very disturbing as he says this,

he says, hey, hey, if you don't live a spirit-led life, you're in trouble.

Have you got the spirit? He seems to be saying.

If you are led by the Spirit, you will display all these fruit of the Spirit

and you won't indulge in any wrong living.

Well, that's not true. I've been around Christian churches for a lot of years,

and that's not true. Not true in my life.

So, there is this internal struggle that Paul, in fact, does, in fact, talk about.

He says, there's a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit.

In other words, there's a battle being fought. Yes, we know the war's been won.

We know Jesus has won ultimate victory. We know we're headed for eternal life.

But in the meantime, there is this battle going on with our lives.

Just because we have the Holy Spirit doesn't mean the battle ceases.

In fact, having the Holy Spirit might, in fact, intensify your sense of sinfulness and disobedience.

I remember, if I can remember rightly, many years ago, a woman in the church

that I was associated with became a Christian.

It was lovely, but I think she ended up almost in tears on our doorstep once,

saying, ever since I've become a Christian, I've been sinning a whole lot more.

And yeah, of course, she was under conviction.

Once upon a time, she was not battling. But now, there's another force within

her, there's another influence within her in the person of the Holy Spirit,

and that sets up the battle, that sets up the combat.

So when Paul says in verse 21 that if we live in a certain way,

we won't have eternal life, we

need to be careful not to turn this into a condemnation of our struggle.

Are you struggling to live a Spirit-led life? Well, I hope you're struggling.

I hope I'm not the only one who is.

Of course we struggle because we're in a now and not yet world.

We have the Holy Spirit, but at the same time, we are battling the evil one.

Even Jesus did that when he was on earth.

So Paul is not dismissing our struggle. He's admitted that we do struggle.

He is rather talking about those who simply go on living a certain way without

any remorse, without any effort to go his way.

Many years ago, when I was having one of my regular doubts about whether I'm

a Christian or not and whether I should just give the whole thing up,

some wise person, I don't even forget who it was, some wise person said to me

when I was lamenting how much I was struggling to live a spirit-led life,

said, well, that's actually a sign of spiritual health.

It's when you give up the struggle that you've got a problem.

So if you are struggling to live the Christian life, well then, join the club.

Because that is the tension that is set up when you receive the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes in and says, Right, I'm going to turn you towards Jesus.

But sometimes, if the Spirit directs us on the right path, we fall off that path.

The fact that we don't always live out the fruit of the Spirit is an indication

that we live in a now and not yet world.

We live in a world where perfection is not here.

Don't ever, ever, ever succumb to a perfectionist mentality in your Christian living.

You'll be impossible to live with, and you will be always frustrated.

I'm not saying you should be complacent, But simply, simply recognize the fact

that as long as you are struggling,

as long as you are battling and recognizing you're in a battle.

You're spiritually healthy.

Are you comfortable? Absolutely not. But who said Christian living was ever

going to be comfortable?

No, you are still healthy as long as you are struggling.

The time that I have to worry is not that the struggle is intensified or I seem

to be taking three steps forward and four steps back at times. That's not the problem.

The problem arises for me and for you is if you give up on all that,

just say, ah, who cares? Let's go the other way.

I sometimes come across Christians who say to me, I don't think I'm a Christian

anymore because I'm struggling so much against the evil one and struggling to live a spirit-led life.

Well, no, that almost assures me you are a Christian because it's the Holy Spirit

in you who actually sets up that combat, that battle, that conflict.

So the time to worry is not when we struggle to obey, but when we give up the

struggle and surrender to our own strength.

Why is the struggle so great? Why doesn't the Holy Spirit just come in and simply

flush away all that would keep us from following Jesus?

Well, elsewhere in the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is described as a down payment

or the first fruits of our salvation.

And without going into all the technicalities of that, it simply means that

the Holy Spirit has come to remind us to give a taste of the future perfect

salvation we will have in the new heavens and the new earth.

But at this stage, he's only the first installment.

He's not the whole deal. We sometimes chain or quench the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes, yes, if you have embraced Jesus as getting you right with God,

you have the Holy Spirit. No doubt about that.

Just saying, why aren't I living a more Spirit-led life? is because all of us,

to some extent, chain or quench the Spirit.

We domesticate him, we tame him, we keep him in a little corner of our lives

and say, you stay there, Holy Spirit, because I'm living my life the way I want.

I'm living the sort of Christianity I desire.

So you just stay there. We don't let him free to create holy havoc in our lives.

It's great if we did, but it's also uncomfortable because as the old saying

goes, the Holy Spirit has been sent to comfort the disturbed,

but also to disturb the comfortable.

That's what the Holy Spirit does. And if you ever say, if you ever invite the

Holy Spirit to come and be free in your life, to run free in your life.

Be prepared for some surprises. Be prepared for some changes.

Because he is the one who tries to break through this inbuilt egocentricity

we have that ever since our independence was declared from God in the first human beings,

he is the one who shatters that and urges us to move in a different direction.

But we only stubbornly do so.

So it is good to pray for a fresh release of the Holy Spirit in your life.

It is good to do that because you're praying that you will be more increasingly

following Jesus, that your mindset,

your philosophy of life, your worldview will have changed.

It is good to pray such a prayer to release the Holy Spirit,

to set him free, to let him out of his cage, to unlock the padlock, open the door,

and to say, Holy Spirit, roam through my life so that I may be more in practice

what I already am in principle, that is, someone who belongs to Jesus and who follows Jesus.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to live as the people of God, the people that God made us to be.

And who knows how close we are to attaining that degree of humanity,

to be the person that God made you to be. That's the Holy Spirit's job.

Not to set you free to just simply live as you like, but for you to become the

person he's made you to be.

We can do that, not by hard work or routine rituals.

We can set the spirit free and so discover in ourselves true freedom. Let's pray about that.

Father, we do boldly pray that your Holy Spirit would be set free in our lives.

Oh, Lord, we're not simply praying for a shivery feeling in our spine or some

emotional outburst, although who knows, that can happen.

But, Lord, we don't want to dictate to you how your Spirit will move in us.

All we want to do is to pray that your Holy Spirit will be set free in our lives

so that we become the people you made us to be and not simply people who do our own thing.

And Lord, in our struggle, in our imperfections and in our frustrations,

remind us that we have the Holy Spirit. We belong to you.

And the only ones who enter heaven in the end are those who struggle and yet

are helplessly dependent on the mercy of Jesus.

So, Father, we invite your Holy Spirit,

into our Christian community here to do what he wants to do so that we become

the people you want us to be.