1093. Christian Liberty pt. 2

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series entitled, Walking in the Spirit, which is a study of Galatians chapter 5. Through this study, we'll see how believers can have freedom in Christ as they walk with him each day.

If you would like to follow along in the study booklet, you can get one on Kindle or you can order a printed copy from the website thedailyplatform.com. Let's listen to today's message where Steve will walk us through the second message on Christian liberty from Galatians chapter 5. Let me ask you to please take your Bibles this morning and turn with me to the book of Galatians, Galatians chapter 5 this morning. Now we come to really part two of the message. And that's actually found in the following statement of Galatians 5 and verse 13.

And of course, my desire this morning is to really be really clear the best that I can. I've probably had more angst about this sermon than anyone that I've preached, than any sermon I've preached so far because I want you to make sure that you don't get Christian liberty wrong, that you understand it clearly. And so let's notice what Paul says in verse 13 when he gives an admonition. He says, for brethren, you've been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in 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 you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Paul is giving a warning right after he states our liberty.

And what is that warning? He says do not use your liberty as an occasion to the flesh. Now what does this mean? It means he's addressing a problem that had arisen in the churches of Galatia. And it actually was a conflict throughout all the churches and that was a misunderstanding and a misapplication of Christian liberty in one's lifestyle. And that problem wasn't just 2,000 years ago, but that problem exists to the very hour that we're living in. So what is the problem? The problem is Christian liberty being misused.

What does he say? Only use not your liberty as an occasion to the flesh. What does he mean by an occasion to the flesh? Well the word occasion means a starting point. Or you could say a foothold. Or if you like a military term, a base of operations. Those of you that have been in the military understand this little three letter word, FOB, F-O-B. It means Ford Operating Base.

And when our United States Army for example went into Afghanistan, they set up a FOB, they set up a base of operation and out of that they could run tactical operations. So it's like gaining a foothold and then moving forward. And here's Paul's warning. He says don't allow your sin nature to misuse your liberty as a starting point to satisfy your own self-centered desires. Don't let your flesh deceive you. That's the warning. And taking Christian liberty and using it as a means to satisfy your own self-centered desires.

So the question then we have to ask is, well how do we do that? How can a believer misuse Christian liberty? That's the warning of verse 13. And I want you to see three ways in which we can misuse this liberty. How we can use our liberty as an occasion for the flesh. First of all, we can misuse our Christian liberty when we think of liberty in the terms of our own personal selfish desires.

Notice what Paul says. He says, but by love serve one another. That is when liberty is properly understood, what does it lead us to do? It leads us not to live for ourselves, but it leads us to live for others. For the end or the purpose of Christian liberty is not selfishness, but it is love. Living to meet the needs of others. However, if my concept of Christian liberty focuses on my right to please myself, then it's clear it's not being God driven, it's being flesh driven.

Let me say it this way. When my first thought about my liberties are my rights, then you can conclude I'm wrong. And what happens if a Christian in Christian liberty is being driven by his own selfish desires? My rights, the way I want to live, my freedoms, to do what I want to do.

What's the end result of that? The end result of that is always a loose lifestyle. Or even so far as a licentious lifestyle. So that I view Christian freedom from the standpoint of being a libertarian. Living however I want to live. Listen to this statement by John Calvin. He warned about the man who wanted to extend Christian liberty to include everything. Without any exceptions. So that nothing may hinder him or prevent him from having a good time. These frantic people without any distinction abolish all law, saying that there's no longer necessary to keep the law since we have been set free from it.

Let me just put it this way in practical terms. If you think of Christian liberty and then you start asking yourself questions like this, is a Christian free to drink alcohol? If that's the first thing that comes to your mind, then like, hello? You're not thinking right. Because liberty is not the freedom to live for myself. Liberty is the freedom to live for others.

It's not about you. It's about the freedom that sets us free from our own selfishness that now we are free to serve and love one another. So he says don't let your liberty to be used as an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another.

But then there's a second way in which we can, we can abuse or misuse Christian liberty. And secondly, it is when I teach and practice that the believer has no responsibility to the law now that he has been freed from it. It is the teaching and the belief and the practice that the believer no longer has a responsibility to the law.

Notice what he says, but by love serve one another for or for this reason. All the law is fulfilled in one word, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now, some believers take the statement that we are no longer under the law to mean that the law is no longer a part of the believer's life.

But that is not what Paul is saying. What he is actually saying is Christian liberty fulfills the law through love. What's the greatest commandment? Love God and love others. And when we have liberty right, then we don't rebel against the law, we happily live under the law to fulfill the ultimate law, which is the law of love. Now let me do something right here if you don't mind. I'm sure you don't mind because you don't have any choice, but you don't mind.

Let me, let me connect if I could this morning, I think that will help you. The relationship of the Holy Spirit to the law. And when we talk about law, we're not talking about primarily the Mosaic law or the, the laws that God gave the Jewish people on Mount Sinai, where they had to live under a sacrificial system in priesthoods and eating certain foods in certain religious days. We're talking about the moral law of God that reflects the moral, moral law of God or the moral character of God. And so I want to connect the Holy Spirit to the law so you'll have a right understanding. Let me first of all say this, that the Spirit of God creates within the heart of it, of the believer, a desire to keep the law.

And when does He do that? The moment you're saved. Let me read to you Ezekiel 36 verses 26 and 27. It says, a new heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you.

What is He talking about? He's talking about the new birth. He's talking about the new covenant, our salvation through faith in Christ. Verse 27, He says, I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them. God changes your heart so that your heart is no longer rebellious against the law. Do you know human nature actually hates the law?

Do you realize that? For example, when somebody says to you, you can't, something inside of me says can too. Maybe you don't remember this, but when you were a little two year old crawling across the floor and you were headed to the electrical socket so you could stick your finger in it and become a light bulb and your mother looked at you and said no, no, no.

And you looked at her with your little two year old wicked mind and you thought yes, yes, yes. When you see a sign on the door that says warning, do not enter. What do you want to do?

You want to enter. What does that tell me? It tells me that your heart is just wicked.

You're stubborn, you're selfish, it's all about you. But when you get saved, what does He do? He changes your hard heart and He puts within you His Spirit and what does the Spirit do?

It works inside of you to where you want to obey the law of God. Then let me say secondly, Paul states in the book of Galatians three times that God has put His Spirit within us at salvation. Look at Galatians three and verse two. He says this, only would I learn of you received you the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. How did you get the Holy Spirit in your life?

Because you obeyed the law or because you believed in Christ? Obviously the answer is by faith in Christ. Look at Galatians three fourteen, that the blessing of Abraham, that's the Abrahamic covenant, might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.

What is the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant? It is the coming of Jesus Christ and salvation through Him. Now notice what Paul says, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. That is, when you believed in Jesus Christ, you also received the Holy Spirit, the new birth, the new life at the exact same time. Look at Galatians four and verse six, and because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father.

What does that mean? It means that the moment that you're saved, the Holy Spirit comes with inside of you and actually makes real your relationship to God. So that now you have a love for God and a heart for God because He has changed your heart from the inside out.

So, what is the Spirit doing inside of you? Obviously, His goal is to make you like Jesus Christ. But a part of that is actually changing you where you desire to conform your life to the standard of God's laws. Romans eight, verses three and four. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Now watch this, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

What is He saying? When a man is walking after the Spirit, he is desiring to walk in obedience to God's laws. So there is no conflict, folks, with the Holy Spirit and the law of God. And what is the ultimate and highest law that we would love one another? So Christian liberty fulfills the law through love. However, and it happens and it happens with many of you, that we can be easily deceived by our flesh to think incorrectly about the law.

How should we think about the law? The law, first of all, reflects what God is like. If you want to know what God is like, look at the law.

God is a moral being. The law reflects what Christ is like. The Bible says that Jesus Christ was made of a woman made under the law.

That is, He was a Jew living under the law and He obeyed and He kept the laws perfectly. So there's no conflict with the law in God, no conflict with the law in Christ. But the law also reveals what we are like. The Bible says by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law is like a mirror.

You look into the mirror and you see what you look like. That's what the law does. When we study the Ten Commandments, the Ten Commandments never makes me feel good. It makes me feel bad. Why? Because it reveals the sinfulness of my own heart. So is there a problem with the law, yes or no?

The answer is no. The law is actually good. Well, what's bad? I am. Who's carnal? Not the law. The law is spiritual. I am the one who is sold under sin.

Now, when you get saved, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, but your sinful nature, your flesh is not removed. Therefore, there is going to come a mental and really spiritual emotional conflict in your heart between the flesh and the law. And I abuse my Christian liberty when it becomes a means of release from the moral restraints of the law. My flesh is so twisted that it develops a bad attitude about the law.

Let me be honest. I have heard some terrible sermons recently about the law and the relationship to the Christians. So they take the law and throw it under the bus, leaving us without any restraints.

Do you know what that's been called historically? It's been called antinomianism, literally anti against nomos the law. It has been a curse on the church where Christian people throw away the law, flaunt their own liberties. They say the law is no longer a voice of God to speak to us. It no longer is a basis for moral training. It is no longer God's standards for human living. It no longer has relevance to us. Now that we are in Christ, the law has no reference to us.

And I think what Paul is saying here is this, that we are abusing Christian liberty when our freedom from the law means that the law no longer has any restraints over our life. And we're living in that day to day. And you need to be wise about this.

You need to understand this. That leaves me to my third point and that is this. When is the law, when is Christian liberty abusing or misusing the law? And the third way we know this is found in what Paul says in verse 15. Notice what he says, but if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. The third way we know that the law is being misused is when there is strife among believers over our Christian liberties.

Let me ask you a question. Do you think we have a problem with that today? But if you bite and devour, what is he, what is Paul concerned about? He's concerned about the inevitable destruction of the churches through Christian cannibalism. Through Christians devouring one another. Think about it.

Here's the churches of Galatia. They are filled with legalists and libertarians in the same church. Now let me ask you a question. Do you think they might have conflict? Do you think they may be arguing with each other?

Do you think they may be turning on one another? A number of years ago, I was preaching in Kenya, Africa. We took a couple of days off to go out to one of the game preserves called the Maasai Mara.

Beautiful place. And we were riding around in a Land Rover and we came up on a pack of wild lions, a pride of lions. Twenty-one female lions who had just killed and were in the process of devouring an impala. That's not a car by the way. When we came up on that impala, you couldn't find it. Leg over here, head over here, body parts over here.

I mean it was ripped to shreds. And here was Paul's concern that the church would be torn apart because a misuse of Christian liberty. Where do wars and fightings come from among us?

Do they not come from the lusts that war in our own members? And when there is fighting and argumentation and conflict and devouring over our own personal rights, then we know something's not right. So Paul is desperately concerned that when the doctrine of justification by faith is taught and we are freed from the law as a means of salvation, that the doctrine of sanctification by faith is also clearly understood. That we are not free from the moral restraints of the law, but in reality the Holy Spirit works those desires to keep the law within our own heart. So that leads me this morning to this question then, what is the proper use of Christian liberty? And that really brings us to verse 16. And notice what Paul says, this I say then. Or, here's my point. Here's my advice.

Here's how it all works. Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. What is he saying? Walking in the Spirit is the only way for Christian liberty to work. Becoming a responsible Christian who is walking in sensitive obedience to the sanctifying work of the Spirit is the only way for Christian liberty to work. Because it's the only way to deal with your flesh. It's an amazing statement when he says walk in the Spirit. He says you're not going to bring to fulfillment those lustful wrong desires of your flesh.

And the way Paul wrote it was amazing. He uses a double negative. Walk in the Spirit and you shall know not, you shall know no, fulfill the lusts of the flesh. It is dogmatic.

It is emphatic. It's an amazing statement. That if you are being controlled by the Holy Spirit, you are not being controlled by the flesh.

Why? Because the two natures are mutual opposites. If you turn to the left, you cannot turn to the right.

If you turn to the right, you cannot turn to the left. What should be the focal point of the Christian? It is a passionate obedience to walk in the Spirit. Christian living is kind of like driving down a highway in Louisiana. You ever been through Louisiana? You don't want to get off the highway. Now if you're in Iowa, it doesn't matter. Because if you get off the highway, you're going to end up in a cornfield. Flat, just corn. But Louisiana is different.

Why? Because it swamps. On the right is a ditch. On the left is a ditch. If you don't stay on the road, you're going to end up in a swamp.

You're going to bog down. And that's the way Christian liberty works. If you go to one extreme or the other, libertarianism, legalism, by the way, both of them are self-centered. It's still about you. Still about what you do.

And you're going to end up in a ditch. But the Christian highway of Christian liberty is a life that is being controlled by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you. The Spirit of God is working in you, enabling you, changing you. And what Paul is saying is walking in the Spirit is the only way to live the Christian life and nothing else is going to work.

Do you get that this morning? Do you realize this? If you do not seek to obey Paul's command to walk in the Spirit, nothing else in your life is going to work.

It's all going to end up on self-effort and you're going to go to one extreme or the other. So as we conclude this morning, what then is Christian liberty? It's not only freedom from the law as a means of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, but Christian liberty is freedom from the lusts of your own flesh, your own sin nature through the Spirit of God, the ministry of the indwelling Spirit that lives inside of you. I am so glad as a young Christian that I was taught the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that He lives inside of me. He has given to me His Word and my passion and my desire is to seek to walk in obedience to the promptings and the working of the Spirit of God in my life.

The Spirit of God will never lead you to violate God's laws. He will never lead you to live a self-centered life. He will never lead you to ask the perpetual questions of everything that I can do for myself.

He will lead you to live for and serve and love other people. May God help us this year to experience that freedom that comes through the Spirit of God enabling us to overcome our flesh. Father, thank you for your Word. We love it and we praise you for it. In Jesus' name, amen.

God bless you. I'm Steve Pettit, President of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. During these challenging times, I'd like to invite you to take a virtual visit to BJU tailored to your individual interests. Through live video, you'll tour campus with a student ambassador, chat with a faculty member in a field you're interested in, and get your questions answered from an admission counselor.

For more information, email WelcomeCenter at bju.edu or call 864-241-1624. You've been listening to a sermon from the study series in Galatians Chapter 5 by Dr. Steve Pettit, President of Bob Jones University. For more information on Dr. Pettit's series, visit our website, TheDailyPlatform.com, where you can get a copy of Steve's study booklet entitled Walking in the Spirit. A Kindle version is also available. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform.