The Zone Gathering

For the next several weeks Bible Drill Wednesday will focus on the fruit of the Holy Spirit. As believers (and certainly as leaders), we are called to live Spirit-filled lives, submitting to His authority and allowing Him to grow godly fruit which manifests itself in the world.

Today let’s take a brief look at Galatians 5:16-26 and discover who the Holy Spirit is and why we are called to be led by Him.

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, 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 sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

What I love about Paul’s style of writing is that while he exhorts us to live a Spirit-filled life and indicates the fruit we should be developing, he does so in conjunction with defining what a Spirit-filled life is not. In this life, we are always going to be in a constant tug-of-war between our sinful nature which desires self-gratification and pleasure, and living righteously under the guidance and authority of the Holy Spirit.

Background of Galatians

In order to understand the passage we just examined, it is useful to understand a bit about the church in Galatia and the reasons for Paul’s epistle. Paul and Barnabas established four churches in the Roman province of Galatia (modern-day Turkey) during their first missionary journey, sometime around A.D. 45-48. The four cities where these churches were settled were Antioch, Lystra, Derbe, and Iconium (Acts 13-14). Paul’s work in these cities was successful, and many people, mostly Gentiles, had enthusiastically accepted Christ.

Unfortunately, some time after Paul left Galatia certain Jewish teachers (known as Judaizers) began insisting that Gentiles could not be Christians without keeping the law of Moses, namely, by being circumcised. The Galatians were easily swayed and accepted their teaching, and history demonstrates an increase in circumcision among these gentile Christians. When Paul learned what was going on, he wrote the church at Galatia to explain to them that circumcision, while it had been a necessary part of the Jewish life, was not part of the gospel of Christ and did not have any impact on a person’s salvation. As he does in so many of his writings, Paul emphasizes that man is justified by faith in Jesus Christ, nothing less and nothing more.

The book of Galatians encourages believers to find freedom in Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit and to not become enslaved to the law. In his sermon this past weekend on the “gray elephant of legalism” in the church, Pastor Mark hit on the difficulty we encounter by taking gray areas and making them black-and-white. I think that is what was happening in Galatia – the Judaizers emphasized a need for the Gentiles to be circumcised and led them to believe they were somehow less-than-saved if they didn’t adopt this Jewish rite. Paul is quick to chastise the Galatian Christians for so easily disregarding Christ’s gospel in favor of the teachings of the Judaizers.

Christianity is not about bondage to rigid set of “do’s and don’ts,” but about the freedom that comes from submitting to Jesus Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us. In writing Galatians, Paul encourages the church to forget about trying to base salvation on human works rather than on the gracious mercy of Jesus Christ. Halley’s Bible Handbook discusses the theme of Galatians in this way: “Christ saves us – we do not save ourselves. It is the difference between freedom and slavery. But freedom in Christ does not mean license to continue in sin. Paul never fails to lay special stress on that. Those who follow the desires of their sinful nature cannot be saved (5:19-21), but those who seek the Lord will receive the fruits of the Spirit (5:22-23).”

Challenge

For the next several weeks, we are going to examine the fruit of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) and discover how and why we should be developing these fruits in our lives. As we prepare to undertake this journey, I urge you to prayerfully read through the book of Galatians and ask the Holy Spirit to begin to speak His words of freedom into your soul. This is what life is all about, folks.

*If you would like to explore the works and person of the Holy Spirit during the fall semester, there are several small groups which would be a great place to start. Please consult your Discipleship Atlas or email your Zone Leader for more details.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 8:39 am and is filed under Bible Drills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.