Good morning. Open to Galatians chapter five, please. Galatians chapter five, verses thirteen to fifteen today. For you, brethren, have been called to liberty. Only do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. Now, today's the fourth of July, and it's just by coincidence that the word liberty is here, and you could even make a political speech out of this, I'm sure. You could talk about liberty and, uh, and the bondage it had to people, verse one of chapter five, be not entangled in the yoke of bondage. You could certainly talk about what the lack of liberty had caused people, but you could also talk about how it's been abused, and, uh, in our society, about the need to love one another and understand what liberty does. You could make a political speech of it, and I'm not going to, but you could use a lot of principles from this for politics, I'm sure. But we're talking here about this morning about liberty, that is Christian liberty from the law. By law, again, we mean the law of Moses. That includes the Ten Commandments, the ceremonial law, and the civil law. They are, they are a law, they are one. And it's freedom from the law of trying to have God accept us on the basis of our character and our works. It's freedom from the bondage that that sort of law brings. So we're talking about, uh, the liberty that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, up to this point, Paul has been most, for the most part, quite theological, going into different arguments about the law and what it could do and what it could not do, and about grace and the work of Christ and misunderstandings. Now, from now on in this book, it become intensely practical. Almost everything he's going to say from now to the end of the book is very practical in application of our liberty, and so it's important to understand that. Paul, um, as a theologian, was always interested in the practical. He was always interested in, in how to live it out. Um, to him, theology was useless if it couldn't be lived out, and that's a fact. It must be lived, all of it, even the depth of any systematic theology, even something that seems deeply profound. If you sit and think about it for a while, it has a practical work in our lives. The most profound questions of theology can be boiled down to some very simple practical truths. Now, the scriptures teach us that we can be different. You look in the scriptures, even the Old Testament, we see people, and we see people who walked with God and knew God, and we see teachings, and we understand the scriptures say we can be different. They do not just stress religion. They do not just stress obedience. The scriptures talk about new life. And that is one of the messages of the scriptures. In Christ, we're taught that we're new creation. If any man, any woman be in Christ, they are a new creation. And the scriptures talk about this life. They do not teach we can be perfect. Nowhere do they teach we can be perfect. But they, they do hold up the hope that we can experience new life and inward life. And they always lay that out to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Um, this portion in Galatians five then, is going to teach us something about this kind of life, life in the spirit. It's a transition period. It's an introduction to what is happening, and it still has some references to the other section. Now, Paul has hinted about some things in this book. For example, in chapter four, verse nineteen, he says, my little children, for whom I labor and birth again until Christ is formed in you. He doesn't explain anything right here, he just mentions this statement. But Christ is formed in you. He's talking about inner life. He mentions this before. And, uh, in chapter three, verses two and three, he says, only this what I learned from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Lord, by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? He talks about the Holy Spirit, and again, right here in those portions in chapter three, there's no explanation about the Holy Spirit. He doesn't take time to go in any detail, but he says that they had the Holy Spirit, and an experience was in their life, they changed. Now, when we get into this in a couple of sessions, you're going to see he talks about the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit and walk in the Spirit, but he mentions these things earlier in the book. And in chapter two verse twenty, the well-known verse, I'm crucified with Christ. Notice what he says in twenty, I've been two twenty, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. All along this book, in small ways, even while he's talking about the law, he mentions certain little things without explanations at the time that tell us that Paul is focusing on inner life, real life. Christ in me, Christ be formed in you, the life I now live in the flesh, live in the flesh I live, I'm by the faith of the Son of God. So he mentioned this, and it's very important to see it, that all along Paul has been mentioning in little ways that faith in Jesus Christ had done something for them, and that new life began in their, in, uh, because of their faith. Now, he says right here in chapter five thirteen, you have been called to liberty. In chapter one of verse five, he says, stand fast in the liberty which Christ has made you free, and do not be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. So the liberty we're talking about here, he's talking about spiritual liberty. He's talking about, um, not being entangled in the yoke again, the bondage that the law gives. And he's talking about being free from that, and he's made some statements before to tell us that following the law could not release the work of the Spirit in our lives. And again, he doesn't make much explanation. He ma- he makes a statement, the explanation comes later. Like, for example, go to chapter 3. In chapter three, verse two, he said, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, by the hearing of faith? Observance of the law will not bring the promise of the Holy Spirit to your life. That's what he said right here. Observance of the law doesn't bring the work of the Holy Spirit to you. And then in chapter three five, he makes another statement. Let's read that. Therefore, he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the Lord, by the hearing of faith? Um, the law is not the key to the restraining power of God that is supplied to us. Though the spirit that is supplied to us does not come through the law. It comes by faith. And the spirit that is supplied to us, obviously, is some kind of power that God supplies, but notice he says, not by the law. He's made some statements before that are very interesting, and they whet our appetite to know, well, how is this going to work out? How can I practice it? And that's what we'll get in weeks to come. How does this work out? But he's mentioned it to us before. Chapter three ten. For as many as are the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them. The law means perfection or judgment. As we get into this next section, he's going to talk about the fact that even in the born-again believer, there's something called the flesh, and we cannot be perfect, not in this world. But the Lord demands perfection. Chapter three, verse eleven, But that no one is justified by the works of the law in the sight of God, for the just shall live by faith. We cannot be made right before God by the law. By right, we're talking about having a right standing with the holy God. We cannot be made right. So that's the yoke of bondage he's talking about in five one. Stand in your liberty. Do not be again involved in the yoke of bondage. Now here he, in chapter five verse thirteen, he gets in this and he says, we've been called to liberty. So the liberty is defined here, liberty from trying to have God accept me on the basis of my performance. I do not have to obey those works of the Mosaic law because, first of all, they cannot supply the Spirit, they cannot supply what I need every day, they condemn, they curse, and they do not make me right with God. So we understand the liberty here is something, uh, that is dealing with this subject of being free from the law and being free from its curse, being free from its penalty. Now, here in verse thirteen of chapter five, you've been called to liberty. In chapter one, verse six, he talked about being called, um, in the grace of Christ. God makes an invitation to the world, and he's calling us through the work of his son. That's a calling you can respond to, and this calling is in the grace of his son, his unmerited favor and his love. And in chapter, um, five one, he mentions this. We are to stand fast in this, the, uh, free from the yoke of bond. So we've been called, and now he says, stand fast and be, um, for the liberty you've been called. You've been called into freedom by the grace of Christ. And we are to stand fast in that. What a calling it is. What's God saying to the world today? Sure, the world's got a lot of problems, and it, and the problems are terrible. I'm, I'm sure you read this morning's Milwaukee Journal. On Sunday mornings, I get up early to finish my sermon, but I always take a scan real quickly when I'm having my coffee, and on the front page it's saying today, did you read this? People are more unhappy today than any gender group in this century. What? Life in America isn't good to people. What? You read all of that. Who's taking these polls? Two years ago, they told us people didn't care about morality as long as we had our pockets full of money. But this one says everybody's concerned. We've got more computers and cell phones than any, and people think life is worse in America than it's ever been. Read it. I didn't read in detail, but I was scanning it, and I wanted to, but I had to finish this baby, see? And you can tell by the way I'm talking this morning, it's probably not quite finished, eh? But read it when you get home. So, anyway, he mentions here we've been called to this liberty. God invites the world to come to him through the grace of Christ. And it's a calling, an invitation to the grace of Christ. And it's not a calling to obey the law. Now he said, so you've been called to liberty. It's a call, a consistent call. We've been invited in with the effects that we are constantly enjoying liberty. So, um, we are free from the law. And, and it's interesting here that what Paul's emphasizing in his book is the work of the Spirit. He did not give his converts a new set of rules to live by. Now you're going to find in here, as we get in here, he's got all of the sins, envy, murder, drunkenness, and they're all there, but he's going to tell us that the victory over those is some new superior controlling power called the Holy Spirit in a new life. And boy, when we get in that, may- maybe a little fireworks. You can see I'm, I like this sort of stuff. But I'll tell you why. Because it damages more churches than immorality. It damages more churches than things like that. And you've heard me say it before. Why? Because when somebody's caught in immorality, it's very easy to discipline them. But when somebody walks around spiritually superior with their Bible under their arm, you try, you try to help them, not quench the spirit, and that's tough work. That's why I'm so interested in this work of the Holy Spirit. Anyway, God called us, and and of course, let's talk about this liberty. What is this liberty? Well, if you're a sailor and you've been on sea for six months and you get to a port and the captain says you've got liberty, you know what that means? The old stereotype of a drunken sailor. Well, that's not the liberty we're talking about, you say. But what does this liberty mean? Well, let me let me give you a few little insights, and I may get straight over here, because as I put this together, I found myself enjoying it. Not, not my sermon with the thoughts. First of all, we've been lifted out of the bondage of the law, and think what this means. We're free from the guilt of sin. Think about that. And I was reading Hebrews ten this morning at the Lord's Supper here, reading to myself that the constant repetition of sacrifices every year proved to people that the consciousness of their guilt of sin was not dealt with. But when Christ once for all died, and God said, your sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Say, the consciousness of the guilt, not that you're not conscious of sin, but the guilt. We are free from the guilt of sin before a holy God. Judgment has been met in the person of Christ. And of course, we're free from the penalty of sin. Sin demanded justice. That's what the world doesn't understand today. They think it demands just making sure the economies are right. Sin demands and breaking law means justice. There's some justice with God too. God's not playing with the world like nutty putty. Oh, let me see, this is the nineties. okay, I'll, I'll, I'll remold morality. Oh, that was the eighties. and this is, I say, turn of the century. God's not playing with nutty putty or silly door, whatever you call it, or play door, whatever, silly putty. We're justified, and we're not under the penalty of sin. Now think about that. To be free from the penalty of sin and the guilt of sin means that even if I sin today as a child of God, it is not an issue of my eternal relationship with Jesus Christ. It's an issue of being related to my Heavenly Father. And Bill McDonald has excellent, excellent writings about this called, uh, Free from the, uh, Parental Forgiveness and Judicial Forgiveness, which is very interesting. Free from the penalty of sin. Here's a Psalm one twenty three, in a red, uh, red book. He was wounded for our transgressions. He bore our sins in his body on the tree. And for our guilt he gave us peace, and from our bondage gave release, and with his stripes were healed. That's what grace means. Grace means also being free from the power of sin. And when I say power, and we're going to define this in a week, I'm not saying from the presence of sin, because we still have something that he'll talk about here called the flesh. But Romans six says sin will no longer have dominion, and dominion means ruling over you like a tyrant. So Paul realizes that the grace of God frees us, but there's more. Let- let's go into some of these things that I scribbled down here. Just think I'm accepted by God the Father. There's no more trying to have God accept me on the basis of performance. Isn't it nice I can call him Father today? I'm born in a heavenly relationship, but I don't have to go butter him up, and I'm accepted, not on the basis of performance. And you who follow as Christian disciples, it's not performance, it's grace. Learn it. Service is by grace, not by performance. Think this, there's no more worry about failure. His grace will renew me. His grace will urge me on, and that's true. There's no more worry about failure, and I'll fail, but when I fail, it's a entirely new thing. His grace picks me up and urges me on and pushes me forward. His grace encourages me. I've used this definition when I spoke at Emmaus Bible College a number of years ago, and I think half of the half, more than half of the faculty, I think most of the faculty thought, well, what a definition he's giving our students. But the kids loved it, and I wasn't speaking to the faculty anyway because they're all smarter than me. I told the kids, grace is a fresh start every day. I like that. It's a fresh start every day. Get up and live for. It is, um, having a daily living hope. Before it was self-centered. Am I accepted? Do you love me? Am I doing enough? Will I go to heaven? Will I go here? Will I have to wait? How am I doing? Now it's a living hope. I am his and he is mine. It's a living hope. See? And when I go through the valley of the shadow of death, and I fear too, I don't fear what's on the other side, but I fear if I go to nursing homes and watch people die, I fear that I will go through a long, long, prolonged valley of shadow of death, and I don't look forward to that. But I have living hope. See, heaven is ours. Peter talks about an inheritance reserved in heaven for you who are kept, and it's imperishable, can't be tarnished, taxed away, rusted away, or broken down. Isn't it wonderful? That's what grace does. The law never did that. Have fun with this. I'm having fun with it, see. And if anytime you want to stop blinking at me and say amen, you can say that too, all right? All right? I'm sorry. Yeah. Heaven, and and there's a new joy in the Lord. Where's the joy under the law? There's no joy. There's no joy under the law. There's a new joy, joy in the Lord, and that joy means when I'm doing well or I'm not doing well, when things are good or when things are bad, when I'm healthy, when I'm sick, when I'm poor, when I'm rich. Joy. The law never gave joy. Think of this, a new confidence in prayer. I was reading in Hebrews this morning, um, entering into the presence of God with boldness by the blood of Jesus Christ. Boldness. We're wimps. We go to prayer, Father, you know I love you. I'm not everything I should be, and and you know that I'm not always right in my life, and and I and I know, but you know, I still come to you. Go in with boldness. Just plunge right in. Oh, I'm not abusing grace, but learn how to do it. Lord, I'm yours, and you've claimed me, and I bring this need before you, and I need your help. And I need your grace. There's a new confidence prayer. You know how the legalist prays? Well, some of you did it. You said your rosaries and you said this, and... There's no confidence. So there's a new confidence of prayer. I love this, and you may not like this phrase, but we are at ease with God. You ever think of that? Ease. I like that. We're at ease with God. I get up in the morning and go about my business, say, Lord, today I feel dead inside. I talk that way to him, honestly. I feel dead inside, and I have to work on that sermon, and I feel just like a, a fifty-eight-year-old man. And to me, that's old because I've never been fifty-eight before, say. And Lord, I just have to sit down and I have to study for this thing, and these people here at Wauwatosa or Sheboygan or at that conference are waiting for me, and I've got about as much enthusiasm this morning as a snail. But I open your word and I ask you to teach me. Say, ease with God. Ease. I love it. Peace I give unto you, he says, not as the world gives. And this freedom is freedom to forget the self-centered religion of works. Now, I believe in works, obviously. Works at an expression, but the freedom to forget the self-centered religion of work. If God loves us this way, then the love of Christ will constrain us and move us on to wonderful things. That's liberty to me. And I suppose I could have just taken and made this list longer, but think about it. And as I think about it, it throws my s- my old cold heart. Now, Paul is a a practical concern then. Here's what he's asking the Galatians. He's asking them first, first of all, to overthrow the threat of legalism. Overthrow the threat of the legalists who've come in. But number two is to face another foe, here called the flesh, and to realize that God is able to meet our needs. So he said, brethren, you have been called to liberty. Do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh. Well, there's always the wrong use of liberty. But you see, grace, if the grace of God is not what it is, then it could not be abused. The fact that it's so perfectly free means it's open to abuse. So don't do away with the grace of God because some people can abuse it. Grace is free and it's flowing, and I love this. Liberty is not license, and you and I know that. There's danger in abusing Christian liberty. Now, there, there were two groups Paul was contending with. Let me give you a little background. First of all, the Judaizers, as we've talked before, the, the ones with the Jewish background who still weren't convinced about this. And these people were re- accustomed to regarding the law as the only controlling factor that stands in the way of self-indulgence. In other words, they saw the law as the only way to keep me from, from living for self and indulging in the things of the flesh. So they saw the law as a necessary fence to keep them from in self-indulgent. To them, Paul's teaching was dangerous. You're loosening all restraints. And when you loose all restraints, people will go crazy. And Paul understood the possibility of that. Romans chapter six, shall we continue with sin that grace may abound? But Paul said, God forbid. And he says, how could we even think of that who've been released from the bondage of law and given the Holy Spirit? But you see, he's dealing with that crowd of people, and Paul answers those people in Romans six, seven, and eight. So what Paul is going to show in Galatians, and this is important, kind of an introduction to what we'll do when I speak the next time here, August second— is Paul shows that the believers come out from under the control of the law that, that had the law had to them to a, a superior control, the work of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ in our lives. So we have come out from under that to a far more superior control, and certainly the Holy Spirit is far more effective in restraining power. Why? Because the Holy Spirit give desire and power where the law could not do that. Romans eight, two, three, and four, what the law was not able to do because it was weak in the flesh, God sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled. Now notice, didn't say the law, but the right kind of living of the law will be fulfilled in them who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. And we need to, to, to allow this to sink in. Now, the other group Paul is dealing with, and remember, Paul's no fool. He knew the pagan word well. He was educated in the religious world. He was educated in the pagan world. He would be today just a very, uh, intellectual person with a broad base of knowledge and experience. He's no fool. He's acquainted with the pagan world, and he knew that there were people in the pagan world who were not accustomed to any ethical or moral restraints at all. That sounds more like our society today, doesn't it? People are not accustomed to any ethical or moral restraints at all. So he knew there was this group of people, and he understood that this group of people might take this grace to indulge. Hey, I'm, I'm saved and my sins are forgiven. I can go out and do anything I want. But I've read that in books, but I've never heard anybody tell me that yet, quite in those terms. So, this teaching of liberty might mean to them that there's nothing that stands in their way of unrestrained indulgence. So we had two groups of people to deal with. Those who said the law is the only controlling factor for the right lifestyle, and they don't understand that liberty has discipline. So you have these two groups of people, and Paul is dealing with both of them very well. And of course, liberty always means we need more light. So when we're born again, we receive a, a, a new nature. We receive the Holy Spirit, and the controlling power of sin may be broken. The Bible says generally we, we hate what we once loved. We hate the sin. We, we hate what we once loved. And, uh, we love what is both right, and we, we find new desires for things, and we, we watch God do marvelous things in our lives. Kenneth Weese translates this verse in the, from the Greek saying, do not turn your liberty into a base of operations for the evil nature. Now, the basis of operations, I understand, is actually military word, just the way you would have this is a military group establishing a beachhead. A springboard, as we might say. Don't use this, this opportunity to establish a beachhead for the flesh. So there's something he says here that's interesting. He says there is a current enemy we have called the flesh. So we're not perfect people. Let's define this a little bit. Now we'll get on in the weeks to come into this area about the works of the flesh, but let's define it. The word flesh is used eighteen times in this book, but it's used a little differently. Generally, it all has the same meaning. For example, look in chapter one, verse chapter Chapter one verse sixteen, and it says, to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles. It did not immediately confer with flesh and blood. Well, that must be human beings, humanity. Flesh and flesh means they're somebody who's alive, a person. Um, chapter, um, two, verse sixteen. Knowing Knowing that that I'm a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, but for, by, for by the works of the law, no flesh. No, he's just talking about flesh, humanity, people in general. And then one illustration, there's more, but one of them is, um, the word flesh also just means a physical body. Chapter four, verse thirteen: For you know that because of physical infirmity I preached the gospel to you at first, and that my trial, which was in my flesh, not the physical body. So it's used for humanity, it's used for the physical body in four thirteen and fourteen, six twelve, in chapter two twenty where he says, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but not I, but Christ liveth in me in the life I now live in the flesh. That's the physical realm. Say, so the flesh is humanity, flesh is body, or the life I now live in the flesh, the life I now live as a human being. But there's another use of the word flesh, and you and I know what it is. Something more intangible, something different, something that talks about our moral nature, something that is part of, of what we are. Paul uses the term, and I'm going to give you something a little technical here, and then we'll define it. The name uses the term for the name of the force or tendency in man's nature, which gravitates away from God towards sin. The NIV in this chapter says the sinful human nature. So that's what Paul's talking about here, not the human body, because we live in a human body, but he's talking about something immaterial in this body, something that moves away from God, something that moves us away, and the NIV calls it the sinful human nature, humanity's bent towards sin, sin, the fallen nature, the sin in Adam. That's what he means here by the flesh. So, um, the freedom then that we have in Christ does not eliminate the flesh. Now, it will eliminate the manifestations of the flesh, drunkenness and murders and these, but it doesn't eliminate the flesh. I'm not going to go further into this, but I want you to see he's introducing them like he's done many times in this book, to something else he will cover in detail. But he does say this thing, the flesh lives. So it doesn't mean elimination of flesh. It continues to urge us to indulge, um, ourselves rather than pursue true principles of freedom, but we will not give it a springboard, a base of operation, a place for it to, to spring off and to service like a military base. So our fallen nature does rebel against God, and we discover after we become Christians that this thing is still there. And sometimes we get surprised, and we get bent out of shape, and we get off in tangents, and we get off in false doctrines. Right? Because somebody comes along and says, you know, you can be perfectly free from that sin, but even the feelings of that sin. So we start looking for perfection, and we get off, and we get into trouble. And after a while, we know that teaching's a lie, but instead of saying it's a lie, we go back to the world. Simply say, I can't make it, but actually the teaching's a lie. So it's important to grasp this. Our fallen nature rebels against God. But now I want you to notice something here, he said. Um, so do not use it as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Now, isn't this great? We're free from the law. We have liberty. We should not allow this liberty to be a springboard to fully indulging the flesh, but we should, in love, serve one another. This is quite interesting, isn't it? Freedom to serve one another is freedom at its deepest level, and I wish we would learn this in America. There, we're for individual rights in America, sure, but what we're doing is vulcanizing everybody. This group against that, that, that. I think sometimes it's done on purpose, to rip us apart. So the only people we love and care for are a little group. I don't care what you are, what group you are, but this true liberty in the spirit frees us to love. And this is important, is it? The marvelous grace of the Lord Jesus Christ free me from my self-centered preoccupation of gaining God's favor actually frees me to serve other people. And this is an important point, I think, that we have to understand. I remember how this happened to me. Now, the details are a little sketchy, but I remember after being saved and, uh, beginning to think thoughts I had never thought before. I remember standing behind my machine at Ellis Chalmers, working on these tractor parts and, and, and thinking things I had never thought. And I remember standing there one day, and I don't know all the details, but just for the first time in my life, thinking a thought I never thought about before, and it was this, Lord, what do you want me to do? I never thought that before. It was, Lord, what do I do? How do I do? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna say? And all of a sudden, for the first time, I thought, Lord, what do you want me to do? And gradually to me, the thoughts began to come that he might be actually able to use me and do something with me. And it began, began to come, and it, it took a long time for me to understand where that came from. It came because I was free. I knew my sins were forgiven. I belonged to him. I wasn't worried about what he thought about me every waking moment. And so I was free to start thinking of other people. Legalism is self-centered. Me, myself, and I. It's self-centered. And it's a fact. So he says, rather than use your liberty as a springboard for the flesh, use your liberty to serve one another. And this is service at its deepest. So I, I remember, I just began to think, Lord, what do you want me to do? How do you want to use me? And I began to realize I was asking him this question without the slightest worry about how he was going to take care of me. This took a while for me to understand too. Without the slightest worry about how he was going to take care of me. There was just something that said he's committed to me. See? And grace is a big commitment. He's committed. And over a period of time, these thoughts began to come, and the next thing you know, I'm standing in South America thinking, what's a jellyfish wimp with a mind of probably as as big as a turtle doing out in the middle of this jungle, trying to win Indians of another culture to the Lord? You've got to be nuts. No? It's his grace, you see. And while I may have worried about the food, or being bitten by snakes, or being chomped by an alligator, I never worried that God was going to leave me alone and abandon me because of grace. And you see, that's what it does. It frees me up to serve, and I begin to realize I'm not worried about myself. I'm not worried how he's going to take care of me. He, he committed himself to me. And so I love this, and this is what happens. Um, so I began to realize that service was not to gain anything from God, but to please him. And let me remind you who go into full-time service, if you go into full-time service with the idea of getting something for God, forget it. You're going to be a pain in the neck to everybody around you. See? Because you're always going to be nagging them and needling them. You think I'm... I'm not being a wise guy. When you go in there to gain from God, well, I got to be blessed, I got to be, I got to be used, and I'm not being used enough because this guy's in my way, see? That's not service, that's to gain. See? And maybe God says, listen, I'm going to put you on that corner over there, and I want you to dig in and serve me with full joy, and I'm not going to take you any farther to any other level. That's why I want you. Forget numbers, forget this, forget that, and love me and serve people. So the service is not to gain anything. That's what legalistic service does, to gain. But let's move on here. The next thing is, okay, he says, uh, for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now, this is quoted in Leviticus nineteen eighteen. Sorry, we don't have time to read it. Leviticus nineteen eighteen. And then Christ quoted in Matthew chapter twenty two where the Pharisees asked him, what is the most important law? He said, well, it's this. Um, he said, love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and the second greatest is love your neighbor as yourself. Now, Paul isn't taking him back to the law. He isn't saying you got to go back to the law. He is, he, what he's really saying is that the self-righteous legalists use all of their strength on these picky details of the law, but weighty matters as love don't enter their minds. And he's not saying go back to the law. He is not asking them to go back. He is saying this, and this is something I want to read. He is showing that what the law demanded but could not produce is the very thing that results from the exercise of Christian liberty. See, the law demanded love the neighbor as yourself and love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, your mind, but all it was was self-den. How am I doing, Lord? How am I doing? Is it okay? Am I doing all right? See, see, see. But now, so what Paul is saying, if you take all of the law that our Lord talked about, and you boil it down to what he says, and that was in the Old Testament. They were to love one another. You go back to the time when Christ lived, and you realize they didn't love one another. You didn't wash your hands right. She didn't pray right. She didn't give enough money right. She wasted an ointment washing his feet. What about this? What about that? So it's important to understand this matter. And so Paul is not saying go back to the law. Service for others, mutual love, see, mutual love develops very naturally in the life of a person who understands grace. It develops very naturally because it gets you out of yourself. People, we need to get out of ourselves. I'm not talking about discipleship. I'm not talking about doing things. I'm not talking about being out past. I'm not talking about that at all, but I'm talking about the freedom that we have to do these things and not be worried all the time. So Paul isn't taking him back to the law. Um, and Paul knows that people who have been given their freedom often squandered it. So he says, love your neighbor as yourself. He goes from serving one another to mutual love. And that's the way grace works. It works marvelously. So the freedom is to live as persons in love with God, and not a license to grab and to push, but to love other people. Our Lord even in, what was his liberty? I looked this verse up last night. What is the thing that gave the Lord the greatest sense in his walk? My meat and my drink is to do the will of him who sent me. My meat and drink simply says, eating and drinking the very basics of life. That's what my life is. The nourishment of my soul is to do the will of the God who have sent me. Now, one more verse. We don't have to talk much about this verse, but you can see how it's in the context. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. Biting may be the bite of a snake, but see what he's saying? Legalism does this, and you begin to consume one another like vultures picking bones apart. And so Paul is going back. Be free in grace. Do not use grace as a springboard to just go out and self-indulge. Use it rather to, to love one another and to serve one another. But if you continue to bite and devour one another, you're going to end up being consumed, like buzzards sitting over a, a dead body, cadaver, picking it apart. So this is important. What does this legalist do? This, this legalistic spirit comes. It comes in and causes the battleground. Let me give you a few things, and we're finished. One of the things it does is cause bitter disputes. Romans fourteen one: Receive one another, but not to dispute over doubtful things. It causes dissension in the church. We become spiritually impoverished. All of our energy is used to fight something or fight someone, or to keep it in perspective that they don't rip it apart, and it misuses good energy. It does injury to the character and usefulness of people. You know why? Because we judge one. He can't be a spiritual man. Nah, because, you know, he's not. I don't think he's spiritual. Hey. And we begin to be harsh and cruel with one another. And that cruelty comes out a lot in our circles. You read some of Bill McDonald's material, and we hold Bill McDonald up as being, right now, as being the best among us, the most knowledgeable. We look to him as an authority. Read some of his material, what he says, the things he said that divide some of our churches, and you might say, oh, and he's got them on a list of things that do. So it does injury to the character and usefulness of people. It also tends to scatter and destroy the church. There's no victory for either party, and that's often true. Big church I, the place I attended in the South got blown apart in the early nineties, late eighties, early nineties. So a group stayed, and then these two groups were often formed, and then these two groups split, and they went that way, and then this one group ceased to exist, and they scattered to all four wings, and this group is still going on, a little handful, and one or two are coming back through the back door, trying to say, I'd like to come back, and you, it scattered everybody. Meanwhile, the main assembly lost its testimony in the community. And folks, it wasn't about morality. It wasn't about the deity of Christ. It wasn't about the inspiration of scripture. It wasn't about salvation by faith, by grace alone. It was methodology, people getting in each other's cases, fighting it out. And the old worker, Vernon Schleet, died with a broken heart in that one area. He was a happy man, but he died. How in the world could that happen? Well, it happened. And by the way, I know the details, and it wasn't Vernon, it was outsiders. It was outsiders who came in and did it. But it destroys and scatters. So he says, be careful that you do not bite and devour one another. Now let's, let me end with a quote from Bill McDonald, and we're free to go out in the hot sun. Here's what Bill McDonald says. This is the direct quote. He says, legalism invariably leads to quarreling. Apparently it had done so in Galatia. How strange. Here are people who wanted to be under the law that requires them to love their neighbors, yet the reverse happened. They had been backbiting and devouring one another. Their behavior springs from the flesh to which the law gave a place and on which it acts. And by the way, it does because it says in Romans seven, doesn't it? That says when Paul, as an unsaved person, received the law, sometimes it even created a greater rebellion. Wet paint, don't touch. Oh, macros, it's wet, say. Say, just don't touch. The law has a way of doing that also. But listen to Bill McDonald's quote, it's important. Here are people who wanted to be under the law that requires them to love their neighbors, yet the reverse happened. And why? Because while the law required them to love their neighbors, they only saw their neighbors on the basis of legalism, not on grace. Now, on August second, we're going to move into this whole thing of walk in the spirit and that deeds of the flesh, but this is an introduction, and I hope, I hope it will give you, give you joy. Free from the law, see? Free from the law, free from its curse and its bondage and penalty, free to pray today, free to love him, free to get out of bed tomorrow morning if I feel cruddy, and go about his work with a sense of his love for me, and just, Lord, here's my heart, just do it this week. Just do it. And the knowledge that when I'm out serving him, I don't have to count noses or numbers or how I'm doing, just serve him. And if people are saved, they're saved, and if people are changed, they're changed, and if there's a period of time when it doesn't happen, keep loving him, because it's just a returning love to him. But legalism bites and devours one another. You know I talk about this a lot, and perhaps I overdo it, and I think sometimes I do, but in all my years in the experience of Christian work, uh, it's saddened the way churches have been destroyed through it. Father, thank you for your mercy and love to us. What liberty we have, and how can we even imagine that you could free us from the bondage of law, and that that would give us permission to go out and do anything we want? For the first time in our lives, we're free to love you without thinking of ourselves. We're free to, to honor you without worrying about ourselves. We're free to serve you. We're free to pray. For the first time in our lives, we're free before you. How in the world could that lead us to sin? The love of Christ constrains us and hems us in and allows us to love you back. Father, as always, I pray for anybody here who is still caught up in works and pleasing you and getting your attention and hoping you will accept him or her. I pray you'll just break their heart today and stop, and that they will come to your son and begin to experience new thoughts and a release that they never experienced before, and then watch your heart explode with the fireworks of joy. Thank you for your love and mercy to us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.