Bible Guys Classics: Galatians 5

Well, today we're going to look at how the apostle Paul like he man says I have the power. We're talking about freedom and Christ and bearing much fruit. He's Chris, I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. Okay, Chris. Yeah. So of all the segments we've done yes over the last few weeks, by far, the biggest response was the segment that we did what made Chris Mad this week? People loved it. You have big opinions, big feelings, big emotions. You respond to things in big ways, and so people just really enjoy hearing and they resonate. They resonate with last time you talked about somebody leaving a shopping car. Yeah, it was the top. Ye. Yeah, everybody's passionate about that time. Oh, you're particularly passionate about everything. And so then this this is we love what made Chris mad this week? So I'm gonna ask you the same question, Chris and just Enlightness. What made Chris mad this week? Well, it actually happened today. Yeah. On the way here. Okay, So on the way here, I'm driving and I'm in the right lane and there was a car in front of me that didn't pull up, and yet all he had to do was inch up about I'm not even kidding, like six inches, and then I would be able to move to the right and go into the empty turning lane. Yes, so I could turn right right, But instead he makes me wait, or she whoever it was made me wait, Actually it was it was it was a she. I looked. I looked. I looked a him when I passed him, but. With a mean look, just to say, like, like seriously, because here's what happens. We pull up to the red light, and this person has almost almost an entire car lank, an entire carling. So it wasn't as if like, hey, let me get a little closer to this bumper. Which, by the way, I'm not against people who say I don't want to get too close to this car. Listen, you have the prerogative to leave an entire car length every time you stop read light. That's just be considerate. It's not the issue like, however you want to stay far back, That's not the issue. The issue is this. Here's here, here's here's a clue for people. Okay, driving is a communal thing. It is you have to consider other people. It's not about you, there's other people, everybody together. It's a thing that we all do together. There's kind of unspoken rules. It's a dance. Yes, right, it's a dance. So so here I'm thinking to myself and I almost want to use the word never, but but let's. Just say go ahead, just go ahead. We love the passion, okay, never? Okay, Well, then I will say this. I will. I would never be in a turning lane and see the guy behind me super close to me without thinking to myself, oh, I need to inch op six inches, especially since I'm actually turned that way, but my whole front of my car is turned that way, where it's pretty obvious that if I'm going to go just around him, I write, tires going to go over the bumper. Right, But this guy or girl, it was a girl, she decides. I hesitan say girl because it doesn't matter, right, but I know who it was. It was a girl. So she decides to look in the mirror see me, and not to pull up. And let me just tell you something. Man, I got so infuriated, so I had to sit through this entire light when I didn't have to. Okay, and so listen, just consider this, just be just. Be considerate drivers out there. People. It doesn't take a lot of effort. It doesn't. Just be aware of what's around you. Put your carts away, yes, and pay attention to the turn lanes and make enough room for. People, and be nice to the waitress and be nice. Oh that's right, because you said that, yes, yeah, okay, well just be kind. Well, Chris, I think most of us resonate with with that. I do think it's funny that you were rate up on our bumper. What were you going to intimidate her into moving forward? I was trying to send the message because I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. So benefit of the doubt is she's just dominant, doesn't She's not being inconsiderate. It could be right, she's just a person's answering text whatever. But when you look up in your rearview mirror and you see somebody is pulled to the right and his in the corner of his cars at your bumper, and you know there's a turning land on the right hand side, and all you have to do is move up six inches, she knew. She just decided, you know what, He's not going to intimidate me to move up six inches. Wow. So she's a strong woman girl. It made Chris mad this week? Yeah, okay, actually that's what made Chris mad this week? Today? Today, we should change his segment. What made Chris mad today? What made Chris mad this morning? We could do that every day. What made Chris? We start filming at nine a m. So I'm not sure there'll be too. I'm sure. So that's great, man. Hey, I think everybody agrees with me. I do. Hey, you know what, comment? Please comment about your driving frustrations and put them in or email us at info at bible guys dot com, because I think that can you know, driving responsibility and being aware. Yeah, it's something that we all. Need to Yeah. So I realized that driving is a community thing and a dance thing. In Cairo, Egypt, everybody's honking be beat beat, beat, beep, and I'm thinking why and nobody is honking because they're mad. It's like it's they're they're like geese, just saying I'm here, I'm here, I'm on your right, I'm on your left. Just dbbbt beep and everybody just kind of moving through like this. Same same in India. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, same thing. And even though India is horrific in terms of people and traffic and everything else, and there's no rules, there's no right. The people aren't horrible, it's just there's so many people. I was about to say, it's like the safest and most pleasant, even though it's so frustrating in terms of the quantity of people. It's everybody is super polite. They let everybody in, and I'm thinking, well, this is amazing. Nobody's mad, right, Although I was in one cab ribe one time and in the course of one mile, we hit another cab, we hit a bicyclist, and we hit a pedestrian. Oh and our cab just kept yelling out the window. We never stopped, so we're only doing like fifteen miles an hour. But you know how it is. You get in there and there's just NonStop, just bumper to bumper traffic. But we hit another cab, a guy on a bicycle, and a pedestrian and we never stopped, just yelled. He just yelled at people. So he might be the only angry cab driver in Cairo. But wow, it's crazy. Maybe India is better. Yeah. Anyways, we said all that to say bad drivers make Chris mad today. Yes, that's it. Okay, well good, let's move on. We're going to we're coming close to wrapping up Galatians. Galatians is kind of like James. It's a short little book. He gets right to the point, he goes right after it. Yesterday is his main theological argument, right of comparing or making it clear that the promise of Abraham was not a law. The promise of Abraham as a savior. That's the whole idea behind Isaac. Isaac represented the sun that was going to be sacrificed, right, all those things. So he ties the whole argument into the promise of Abraham was the fact that a Messiah was coming and that we can be free from the law by faith. Then now we're getting into the practical application of it, the everyday thing. These are the things that for you and me in particular, we're not maybe struggling with Judaizers coming in trying to get us to become Jews before we become Christians, although we do sometimes struggle with trying to apply old religious norms and old religious rules and forms into our Christianity. Now this becomes the very practical application of how to live it out. The freedom that we have in Christ. So freedom in Christ, living by the power of the Spirit. For the Spirit that's right. So here we go. We're just going to read this chapter chapter five. So so Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free and don't get tied up again in slavery law. Listen, I Paul tell you this. If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I'll say it again. If you're trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation and the whole law Moses. For if you're trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you've been caught off from Christ. You've fallen away from God's grace. But we who live by the Spirit eagerly want to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love. You are running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn't God, for he's the one who called you to freedom. This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough. I'm trusting the Lord to keep you from believing false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who's been confusing you. Dear brothers and sisters. If I were still preaching that you must be circumis size as some say I do, why am I still being persecuted. If I were no longer preaching salvations through the Cross of Christ, no one be offended. I just wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves. Oh that's rough statement. For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out, beware of destroying one another. So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants, and the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you're not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you're not under obligation to the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the result are very clear. Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again as I had before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. There is no law against these things. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified him there, since we are living by the spirit, let us also follow the spirits leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one another. Yeah, there it is. Yeah. So he finishes his argument, and then he says, here's what it looks like to really live in freedom and walk in the spirit. He says, you walk in the spirit, you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. You know, I know that, I know that I'm sort of jumping right to the end there. But let me talk about this sort of statement where he says, anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. It's a strong statement. It's a strong statement because if not careful, you could misconstrue that and say, oh, so then you can do bad things and therefore not go to heaven because of them. Right. So it appears on the surface that this is a statement about works gets you to heaven. Right, which is exactly the opposite of what he's trying to say. It is it is, But I think I think what he's obviously because here's what happens when when a verse is written this way. What you have to do is It's this is why it's so important to take the context right, the context around it, and not only that, but also to measure it versus every other promise and truth that is given in the scripture. Because if this were true and taken by itself, just you know, this one verse quoted, you know, and not given in context, you could make it to say that if you're a person who has wild parties and who gets drunk, you're going to hell. You can totally make it to say that, right. But yet it's interesting because Paul's message is quite literally the opposite. So if you take Galatians chapter one all the way through Galatians chapter six, the message is clearly the opposite, over and over and over again. Not that you know, these things are good things, That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about getting to heaven. Yeah right, how good deeds cannot get you to heaven and bad deeds cannot keep you from heaven. That's the message. So what Paul is saying here clearly is he's talking about a person who never comes to God, a person who has their life sweat away and they spend their entire life living this way. Meaning they're the people who don't, you know, see the truth. They're the people who don't ever come to God or accept the truth of the Gospel of Christ. He's talking in generalities because otherwise you're forced to believe that you know your works can send you out. So sin does lead to death, and all of us, even those are Christians, our bodies will die. So what he's doing here is he's talking about the lusts of the flesh versus the fruit of the spirit. So the lust of the flesh will always lead to death. And there's condemnation in that right judgment in that the judgment is physical death. So all of those things, none of those things are good. All of them are the results of our sinful nature, all of them. So he's not endorsing saying, now that you've got grace, go ahead with all your sexual improprieties or immoralities or impurities or idolatry or sorcery or coraling or parties. He's not saying it's okay now that you have grace. Sure it's still going to lead to the destruction of your life. It'll ruin your life. And he said, those are the lifestyles of people who are far from God, right, So don't live that life. People that are far from God, those that are under the judgment of God live those lives. And why would you let your flesh do the same. So he's there, he said, Instead this battle, this physical battle versus the spiritual battle, those two things are butting heads and fighting. So he says, but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit. And you know, by the way, the law can kind of be thought of as a factory. It just keeps turning out a certain product. But fruit cannot be turned out of a factory. Fruit has to be nurtured over time. And it's real life. It's not just some plastic product. It's real life. And so he says, the fruit of the spirit is love and joy and peace and pat and kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. When you and I think of the very best of humanity, that list covers it. Yeah, when we think of the worst of humanity, the other list covers it. Me at my best is when I'm walking in the spirit. Me at my worst is when I'm living in the flesh. So he says, there's no law against those things. So he said, since we are living in the Spirit. Let us follow the spirits leading in every way. What he's saying is, let's walk in the spirit. There's another phrase in here where he says verse sixteen, So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. So your sinful nature will lead to death and destruction every time, it'll ruin your life. But if you walk in the spirit, then you won't give into those cravings because the Holy Spirit's producing a different kind of fruit in it. For sure, that's what he's saying. Yeah, and in my opinion. Well I'm just talking about that one phrase. Yeah, those will not inherit. The Kingdom of God sounds sometimes. He uses that statement multiple times. Right, it sounds like what you're saying, that's not a statement about getting into heaven. No, right, that's what you're saying. So you're saying, the Kingdom of God can be the Kingdom of God on earth, meaning blessings, the movement of God, right of God. I think what he's saying here the way that it's translated into English versus the way that he's actually saying it in Greek. I think what he's personally I think what he's saying there is that's the lifestyle of the people who are not getting into heaven, right, So why would you live that life? That's what he's saying. Yeah, well, it's interesting because my life application study Bible says those who ignore such sins or refuse to deal with them reveal that they have not received the gift of the spirit that leads to a transformed life, which is what I was saying earlier, which is he's referring to that type of person because you can tell that a person does not know Jesus because of what's coming out of them. It's not the fruits of the Spirit, it's this right. So in other words, I'm addressing it because I've heard this statement before. I remember being at a kid's camp and we partner with another church, and this guy was quoting Fruits of the Spirit, and he was actually saying, if you don't live these things out and you live poorly, you're going to go to hell. And he was actually using this verse to support that. And the statement that he clung to was if you do these things, you'll not inherit the Kingdom of God. Right, In other words, you're not going to have it. The Bible's really clear. Yeah, I've seen, which is taking out the whole rest of the book. The whole restalation is out of context. It's taking everything out of contact. He does use that phrase with various lists in Corinthians and in other passages where he does say these kinds of people are not the kind of people that are going to inherit the kingdom of God. And then he always pushes you to grace in faith. Right, so if you're relying on the law. Earlier it says that if you're lying on the law, then you have to keep the whole law and you can never break it. The Book of James says that if you've broken any part of the law, you've broken the whole law. It's like breaking a glass window. You break a part of the window, the whole window has spirit placed. It's not like, oh, I just broke that little corner. So you know you mentioned the ten Commandments the other day, well, as long as I get a passing grade. That's a false statement in a misunderstanding of the law. What he's saying is if you're trying to earn your way to heaven by the law, you can't have one error in your entire life. And Paul, who is trying to be at the beginning of this book, he gives his credibility, saying, I was a fabulous pharisee. I lived a holier life than anybody reading this, as far as just not breaking any of the laws. And I was desperate because I was still a sinner, right. And so the only hope that any of us have for salvation is by faith in Christ. Now, if we really have the Holy Spirit, it's going to be less and less wild parties, less and less drunkenness, less and less right. The stronger the spirit gets in our life, the weaker the flesh gets in our life. The weaker the spirit is in our life, the stronger the flesh is in our life. This is the battle he talks about in Romans eight, that the things I want to do I don't do. The things I don't want to do, I do. And you know he's battling this is kind of the same thing. So he says, feed the spirit. And you know, we've told that story before, and it's been many times. You know, the man who has the two dogs, the white dog and the black dog, and sometimes they'll fight over food, and the other guy goes, well, which one wins? And he said, whichever one I feed the most? And that concept is true. Which one wins in my life, the spirit of the flesh, whichever one I'm feeding the most. This is why having daily devotions, spending a little bit of time every day in God's word, you're feeding the spirit. For a few minutes. Now the Holy Spirit has something to bring back up in your mind again. Can we pivot just a moment. Yeah, how do you feel about him saying I wish they'd cut themselves off Earlier he says they're cursed with the word anathema means I wish they'd go to hell. So he says, these people who are teaching you these wicked things, trying to add to the law, they're altering the gospel. And this one he said, I wish they'd mutilate themselves, like they're trying to get you to mutilate yourself. And he's literally saying King James says, castraight themselves. And then the other one he says, they're saying you're going to hell. I wish they'd go to hell. They're cursed, right, Yeah, those are some really strong statements about his concern about those perverting the Gospel. Yeah, I think that it makes me question, Like I remember one time I went to my pastor when I was in high school, and I said, should we hate the devil? I said that should we hate the devil? And he said, why are you asking such a question? I said, because the Bible says not to hate, right, And so if the Bible says not to hate, shouldn't we show compassion? Because after all, because I'm a movie guy, right, every criminal could be redeemed. Darth Vader picks up the emperor and throws him down, right, and nobody ever thought he would do that, Right. What is this saying about him not to hate? Well, it says the opposite. It says love should love one another, forgive your enemies, right, That's what I'm saying. And so so it's like it's like, if the Bible tells us love, why shouldn't we have compassion on you know, the Darth Vaders of the world, and the ultimate Darth Vader would be, of course the devil. And then my pastor is like, yeah, I understand what you're saying, but yeah, we should pretty much hate evil. And he says we should detest evil, and he started quoting all the things about about evil and darkness, and how the Bible is pretty clear that we should run, we should not have compassion toward, we should not have empathy or sympathy toward things that are downright evil. We should we should rebuke all of those things in the name of Jesus Christ. So I take it that Paul's statement here is not just like I'm mad at these people they should be cursed. It's more like, do they understand that they're they're committing the atrocity of trying to lead people away from the truth of Jesus Christ, which is in the category of anti God, anti truth. And so he makes a strong statement here, your love for truth should be so great, yes, that. Anything that's the enemy of truth is your enemy, right right, And so so it's not about the person I In Psalm chapter was one hundred and one, maybe one hundred and three hundred and three. Verse one, David says, I will set no wicked thing before myne eyes. I hate the work of those who turned away or turn aside. It's not going to stick to me. So I can hate those things that work against the truth and goodness without hating the person. Right, you can hate the evil, you can hate the thing. But you know, in today's culture where what you do is your identity, people are offended by that. But that's it's what you do is not your identity, and that's just a false concept. So in this situation, what Paula is saying is I love the truth so much that I wish God would do whatever it took to get these people out of the way because they're perverting truth. Yeah, right, and by the way, and that that's that's not an unreasonable or unbiblical view, and. Only that, But think about it this way. So paul is saying strong words against somebody who's bad, but Jesus turns around and uses the same terminology against somebody who's good, because because it's not about the person, to your point, it's about how how much we should love truth in the word of God. So Jesus says an unbelievably controversial statement and says, if you're not willing to hate your father and mother, right, then you can't follow me. And so once again he's attaching this word to to something. In this case, it's good. It's like I love my mom, So why are you telling me to hate my mom? And it's not that Jesus is meaning that we should hate moms. It is that our love for Jesus should be so strong that everything else should look like hate in comparison. Right, right, It's it's the love is so huge and so great that it seems to make minimize everything else, to the point where people will, how come you don't love me that way? Yeah, it feels like you hate me. And by the way, that's because to my point about this exact passage, it's because you take everything that Jesus says in context with each other. Right, So, just because that one simple verse says that exact phrase, people say, well, wait a minute, Jesus is saying this. No, no, no, no, no. You have to take the context and which Jesus is explaining this. He's talking about giving up your life, taking up your cross, following me, you know, because if you if you, if you deny yourself, you're you know, you can't gain life unless you do. So, it's not a mistake that that idea is in the same passage of the battle between the Holy Spirit in our lives and our flesh. Right, So we should hate the first list in our lives, and we should love the second list. Love and joy and peace and gentleness kind of self control. Right, that should be it? That our love for the for the work of the Holy Sparent in life is so great that it pushes away everything else. So I think that's where we should wrap up today. Yeah, me too, and we will see you next time on the Daily Bibble guys. Mhm h