Sep 20 – Isaiah 47, Isaiah 48, Isaiah 49:1-7 Galatians 5:7-26 Psalm 109:1-20

Gal 5:7-9

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

A few who disobey can ruin everything. A few who wander can take everything off track. If Paul hadn’t have tackled the church in Galatia their false teaching would have caused huge problems throughout the churches beyond that region. As it happened – his letter would circulate and challenge those false teachings.

A little bit of law – ruins grace. We must not accept it creeping in.

We need to ensure it doesn’t happen in church and we must make sure we don’t let it happen in our lives. When we start to apply law to our lives, it can get our entire walk off track. It effects our entire thinking and steals our joy. That’s just what happened in Galatia.

Stick close to the gospel. Rely on the good news of the Gospel of Jesus every day. By grace you have been saved – not of your own doing – but His.

Gal 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Lets talk about freedom for a moment. What is freedom? Is it a right? When we are free does that mean we are free from everything?

Galatians here is talking about us using our freedom – but using it not to satisfy the flesh but to serve each other. So straight away – we see that freedom not only comes with a restriction but also a purpose.

For some, they use the word free or describe themselves as liberated, but in reality are bound up in all kinds of things in the name of their freedom.

As Peter says “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.”

The world looks free. And you may meet many people who see themselves as such… but it’s not free and neither are they.

The freedom promised by the world is actually just an offer to become a slave of corruption.

There may be things in your life that you’ve become bound up in that you got involved with in the name of your freedom.

What is it that Jesus came to set us free from? It’s those very things that bind us up when we follow the false promise of freedom that leads to captivity… He came to set us free from the sin that has ensnared us, trapped us… 

A fish, because it absorbs oxygen from water rather than air, is only free if it is restricted and limited to water.

If we put it out on the grass, its freedom to move and even live is not enhanced, but destroyed. The fish dies if we do not honour the reality of its nature.

And that’s the trouble with the way that the world is today. People cry for freedom, but it’s freedoms that do not honour the reality of our nature.

We express freedoms in ways that our bodies and natures were not made for and we harm ourselves.

We are fish crying freedom whist gasping in the grass. 

People are not free – they are destroying themselves with what they claim to be freedom.

They say they are free and liberated. But they are fish on the grass. 

We are free – but we realise the reality that we live in the environment we were made for. In a relationship with God, who cannot abide sin.  

Freedom doesn’t mean the freedom to sin – but freedom FROM sin. Don’t use freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.