For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been talking about moving forward. It’s appropriate, as we enter the new year to look back on past successes and memorable moments, but as Paul said, when it comes to the bad stuff, it’s best to forget what is behind and press on toward what is ahead.
Last week I talked about redeeming or making the most of our time. Today, I’d like to take a look at another way in which to make the best of our time as we move forward along our Christian walk, and that’s how we walk.
If you have your Bible, you can turn with me to Galatians 5, and we’ll read verses 13-18. Many of you are probably familiar with the passage that immediately follows this, and we’ll take a brief look at that, but I want to focus a little more on what precedes that familiar passage and what Paul says to introduce that familiar passage.
So Galatians 5:13-18.
As you’re turning there, you’re probably familiar with the Genesis song, “I can’t dance.” I’ve heard that song for the past 30 years and never really paid much attention to the lyrics. I looked up the lyrics, and they’re pretty odd and bland. I kind of thought the lyrics would be a bit more amusing, but they’re not. But one thing I think we can remember from them is the chorus that says:
I can’t dance, I can’t talk, Only thing about me is the way I walk
That’s me. Oddly enough, God called me to a ministry where I talk. But still, I can’t dance, I can’t talk, and well, my walk isn’t anything spectacular. But I guess so long as my walk is in the Spirit, I’m okay.
And that’s what I would like to talk to you about today, walking in the Spirit. So let’s go to our set of verses and see what it says.
Scripture: Galatians 5:13-18
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. 16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 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. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
So, you’ll see that Paul is instructing his listeners to do two things that go together. Love one another and walk by the Spirit. Both of those things, if you add them up––walking by the Spirit plus loving one another equals living a Godly lifestyle.
Let’s take a look at that first part again. Verse 13 says, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”
Sometimes Paul talks in riddles. Remember The Chosen, where the disciples talk about Jesus speaking in riddles? Paul does that, too, sometimes. Peter even says that in one of his epistles. What is Paul talking about here? What freedom? Do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. What does that mean?
Well, if we go to the beginning of this chapter, we read, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
Notice, he says, “again.” So before we were in Christ, we were in slavery, but since we have come to Christ, we became free from slavery to sin and slavery to the law. Then Paul goes on about circumcision. He says in verse 6, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
So what he’s saying in our set of verses is that we are no longer under the law of Moses. We are free from that law because now we are under Christ. But he’s also saying, do not let yourselves swing wholly in the other direction because of this freedom. There is still a thing called sin, and we must not swing so far in our freedom that we indulge our sinful desires. The law is on one side of the spectrum; sinful desires are on the other.
I’ve seen this, where people break free from legalism, and they swing the pendulum completely in the other direction; it’s as if they can’t figure out a middle ground. They’re wholly on the side of legalism; then they swing wholly on the side of permissiveness.
Paul warns us of this here again he says, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh.”
In other words, if you’ve been let out of jail, don’t use this opportunity to commit more crimes. Use your freedom to make the most of your newfound life and use it to do good, not evil. And this ties in with what we’ve been saying lately, forgetting what is past and pressing on toward the goal. And what is the goal that Paul is talking about? Christian maturity. You can’t press on toward maturity if you’re going back to living in your old ways, whether it be legalism or sin––even newfound sin that you indulge in because, hey––I’m free from that legalism, so I can do X, Y and Z because everyone else does it, so why can’t I?
But sometimes we forget that we’re not supposed to care what “everyone else” is doing. Our eyes should be set like flint toward that goal.
Bibleprinciples.org says, “To walk in God’s will, Jesus Christ must always be the central focus in our lives.”
I mentioned an old song by Genesis a few minutes ago. But this passage reminds me of an even older song by Steven Curtis Chapman. It’s called “Weak Days” (W-E-A-K)
It says:
I gotta keep my eyes on Jesus
Through the weak days;
In a world where we really don’t belong,
I’ve discovered if I keep my eyes on Jesus
Through the weak days,
Then even on the weak days He’ll make me strong.
And that’s based on the scripture where Jesus tells his disciples that, “the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Gotquestions.org says,
The demands, desires, and fears of human nature can pull us way off track. Satan has set up the world to appeal to the weaknesses of the flesh: lust, greed, gluttony, and other sins are directly related to the demands of the body…
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. All believers know the struggle. But when we watch and pray—when we remain spiritually alert and appeal to God for help—we can find strength in the time of need.
Paul goes on to talk about the law that we should obey, the law of love. He says, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
I’m sure many of you know ‘the golden rule’ comes from The Bible. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus says, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.“
If we go a few chapters to Matthew 22, we read something similar:
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
When you go back and read the Law of Moses, you can really sum up all of those laws in those two commands.
So Paul calls us to freedom from the law, but to not use that as an excuse to sin. We are still called to love God and to love one another.
In our set of verses, Galatians 5:15-16, Paul says, “If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
So Paul gives us the charge not to be bound by the law but to serve one another in love. How do we do that? By walking in the Spirit.
Then, verses 17 and 18 say, “17 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. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
So in other words, our Christian life, our Christian duty, should not be fixated on obeying the law as much as it is to live by the Spirit. Only by the Spirit can we have the ability to obey God’s commands. Only by the Spirit can we truly have the ability to want to obey God’s commands. Our human nature is opposite of God’s commands. Our human nature is to obey our fleshly desires, which is contrary to the Spirit.
Moving on, verse 18 says, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” In other words, once you start living by the Spirit, you find that your heart and mind naturally starts to become different; your desires and emotions are different because you’re living by a new Spirit of God, not your old self.
Instead of obeying religionism or legalism, you find that the Christian life starts to come step by step more naturally from the Spirit of God living inside of you rather than just trying your best to obey a bunch of commands from The Bible or do what the pastor says. You begin to find there is a more natural desire and ability to do what is right in God’s sight rather than just blind obedience to laws we can’t keep. And this turns into a life based on a relationship with God rather than a life of fear and strict obedience and nothing more.
Enduring Word Commentary says a lot about this, I’ll try to keep it brief:
The antidote to the flesh is not found in the law, but in the Spirit – and if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. You don’t need to be, because you fulfill the will of God through the inner influence of the Holy Spirit instead of the outer influence of the law of God.
i. This effectively “writes” the law of God on our hearts, inside of us. This is the great work of the New Covenant, promised in the Old Testament: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (Jeremiah 31:33).
ii. The inner influence is far more effective than the outer influence. Kenneth Wuest said, “The mistake that is made so often is that the Mosaic law is substituted for the restraint of the Holy Spirit, and with disastrous results… A policeman on the street corner is a far more efficient deterrent of law-breaking than any number of city ordinances placarded for public notice.” (Wuest)
To walk in the Spirit means three things:
To walk in the Spirit first means that the Holy Spirit lives in you. Second, it means to be open and sensitive to the influence of the Holy Spirit. Third, it means to pattern your life after the influence of the Holy Spirit.
James Boice, in his commentary, says,
“Life by the Spirit is neither legalism nor license – nor a middle way between them. It is a life of faith and love that is above all of these false ways.” (Boice)
Paul then goes on in the rest of the chapter to give examples of what it means to live in the flesh as opposed to The Fruit of the Spirit. And I said that I would briefly look at “that familiar passage”––the passage on The Fruit of the Spirit. What is the fruit of the Spirit? Notice it doesn’t say ‘fruits’ it says ‘fruit.’ This is the singular thing that our lives should look like if we are living by the Spirit.
Verses 22-25 say:
But the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Notice how Paul ends that. Again, he gives us the charge to keep in step with the Spirit. This isn’t about legalism; it’s about a relationship with God. Keeping in step with Him. Again, pressing on toward the prize. And what is the prize? Christian maturity.
One more long quote from Gotquestions.org as we close:
The key to maturity is consistency, perseverance in doing those things we know will bring us closer to God. These practices are referred to as the spiritual disciplines and include things such as Bible reading/study, prayer, fellowship, service, and stewardship. No matter how hard we might work on those things, however, none of this is possible without the enabling of the Holy Spirit within us. Galatians 5:16 tells us that we’re to “walk by the Spirit.” The Greek word used here for “walk” actually means “to walk with a purpose in view.”
Later in the same chapter, Paul tells us again that we’re to “walk by the Spirit.” Here, the word translated “walk” has the idea of taking things “step by step, one step at a time.” It is learning to walk under the instruction of another—the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit means we walk under the Spirit’s control. As we submit more and more to the Spirit’s control, we will also see an increase in the fruit of the Spirit in our lives (Galatians 5:22–23). This is characteristic of spiritual maturity.
So I want to end today by encouraging you to walk by the Spirit. Not to be bound by legalism or religiousness but by a natural relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. Let us keep on keeping on in our daily, step-by-step walk and make the most of our time.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Joe from Pixabay
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