Spiritual Liberty Gal. 5:13-26 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

In spiritual liberty you are not under the law [Gal 5:18].  Instead, you are led of the Spirit and he will never lead you contrary to the law.  He will lead you toward love [Gal 5:22; Matt 22:35-40] and away from lust [Gal 5:16-17].  It wasn’t the law that drove Jesus to the cross, it was love.  The fruit of our salvation is not conformity to the law, but conformity to Jesus.  He is God and God is love.  That’s how people are supposed to know that we are the Lord’s disciples [Jn 13:35].

When you love someone you do nothing to hurt them and everything to please them.  You serve them [Gal 5:13].  And there is no law that can make that happen.  Legislation is a notch down from love.  You do things under the law because you have to not because you love to.  Under the law you must do right.  In the Spirit you want to do right.

The Spirit leads you away from the works of the flesh.  These works come from sin within [Mk 7:21-23; Rom 7:10-21].  They are manifest, in time, where you can see them.  These works are conceived by lust [Gal 5:16], contrary to the Spirit [Gal 5:17] and magnified by the law [Gal 5:18].  They are not controlled by law.

Spiritual liberty is not a license to do the works of the flesh.  The works of the flesh are in three Categories:

The Flesh

 Adultery – adultery takes place in thought and act [Matt 5:28].

• Fornication – fornication is the act, even when married [Matt 19:9]
• Uncleanness – immorality, iniquity, wickedness, filth
• Lasciviousness – unrestrained lust, inordinate affection and homosexuality, 2 Cor 12:21
• Drunkenness – too much to drink, the drunkenness is in the wine, not in the quantity you drink [Eph 5:18; Prov 20:1].
• Revellings – bashes, parties, dances, i.e. Mardi Gras, 1 Pet 4:3-4

The Eyes

• Idolatry – idols and covetousness, [Acts 17:23; Col 3:5].
• Witchcraft – employing sorcery, exercise of supernatural powers, rebellion and stubbornness [1 Sam 15:23].
• Emulations – striving by imitation, attempts to equal others in accomplishment or quality, peer pressure
• Envying – painful resentment of an advantage enjoyed by another accompanied by desire to possess the same advantage

Pride

• Hatred – Prov 10:12, discord, state of being in disagreement, Matt 10:35-36
• Wrath – rage expressed vehemently and accompanied by bitterness, Prov 27:3
• Strife – fight, quarrel, state of distrust or enmity, often bitter, Prov 15:18
• Sedition – resistance to lawful authority, tumults, rebellion, Barabbas, Lk 23:25
• Heresies – opinions and doctrines contrary to the truth, contrast Acts 24:14
• Murderers – killings, 1 Jn 3:14-15

Results of living according to the works of the flesh: a person who walks after the flesh won’t inherit the kingdom of God.  When he gives in to the flesh down here, he receives his “reward” down here (like the prodigal son).  He is still a son of God but, since he spent up his inheritance on riotous living, he will not receive an inheritance.