Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Danger of Adding to the Gospel | New Testament | Galatians 5

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

What's the true meaning of the fruit of the spirit? In today's episode, Jensen explores the danger of turning these fruits into a checklist and striving to earn God's favor through works salvation. Instead, she takes a look at the entire book of Galatians to better understand how Paul is calling you to see the fruit of the spirit in light of the gospel of grace. Dive into Galatians 5 to discover the true meaning of freedom in Christ. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Galatians 5

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. As I've been studying Glacians 5, I've had one song stuck in my head the entire time. I won't sing it for you, but the lyrics go, the fruit of the spirit's not an orange. No, the fruit of the spirit's not an orange. If you want to be an orange, you might as well hear it. You can't be the fruit of the spirit.

Because the fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It's a classic church camp song from my childhood. Maybe you learned it too. If you grew up in the church or have been part of the church for a while now, I'd guess that even without the song, you'd know the fruits of the spirit by heart. Galatians 5 is famous for them. But hopefully, if you've been reading along with us, you saw when you read Galatians 5 that the fruit of the spirit is only a small part of this chapter, an important but small part. And when we merely focus on these fruits of the spirit, I think we can slightly miss the point. You see, oftentimes in my life, I've seen this list of attributes as a checklist, things that I need to master,

things I need to be in order to prove that I'm a Christian. If I'm a Christian, then I need to make sure that I'm working on being loving and joyful and peaceful and patient and kind and good and faithful and gentle and have self-control. Now, of course, as Christians, we are called to live lives that produce these fruits. But without the context of the entire book of Galatians, I easily find myself tiptoeing the line of trying to earn God's favor by producing the fruit of the spirit, of falling into a works salvation, the very thing Paul is speaking out against throughout Galatians. And so, when we walk through Galatians 5 as a whole like we will today, I hope you'll see that reading these verses in light of the whole chapter will help us

better understand how Paul is calling us to see the fruit of the spirit. So let's dive in. Verse one, 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. So Paul is literally saying to the Galatians that they have been set free for freedom. It seems a little repetitive, but he's reminding them that Jesus broke the yoke of slavery to the law, to their sinful desires, and they are now able to live their lives in that freedom. But he knows that there's a danger of falling back into slavery, so he wants to warn them to stand firm. Now what are they standing firm against? Verse two. Mark my words, I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no

value to you at all. Again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from grace. Stand firm is what Paul says. He says stand firm against the temptation to add to your salvation. See, Paul isn't saying that it's wrong to be circumcised. He's saying it's wrong to believe that you have to be circumcised in order to be a part of the Christian faith. See, Christ has already set you free. So he's saying, don't try to add on other obligations in order to be saved. These Galatians were being led astray to require Christians to be circumcised in order to be a part of the faith. They were adding works to their salvation and falling back into slavery.

But Paul says that to do this, to add obligations, alienates you. from Christ. Adding to the gospel is a dangerous game. Verse 5. For through the spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. So why is it dangerous to add to the gospel? Well, because we have been set free. We've been set free from the obligations of the law. It is only faith in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross that can save us. When we try to add to this, we only make ourselves guilty because none of us can stand righteous before the law, none of us but Jesus. He lived the righteous life so that we could stand

one day before the throne of God and be counted as righteous alongside him. We have faith and faith alone that Jesus has justified us as righteous before a holy God. Nothing else can save us. Now, you might be thinking, well, if I am free now to live in freedom, does that mean I can do whatever I want? Like, I have faith in Jesus. I'm saved. It's not works that's going to save me, so now I can just live my life?

Well, it's a fair question. In our 21st century world, freedom means being free to live your life how you want to live it, with no one else's opinions or beliefs getting in your way. That's true freedom to our world. but listen to how Paul talks about what that freedom from Christ looks like. Verse 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. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. 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 for the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh they are in conflict with one another so that you are not to do whatever you want but if you were led by the spirit you are not under the law we were called to freedom but that freedom does not look anything like the freedom of self-fulfillment we cling so tightly to nowadays see christ's free us so that we can walk and live by the spirit and not live under the penalty of the law. You see, our hearts, our flesh, our instincts apart from the spirit will desire to indulge

the flesh, to seek after things that are not for our good, and that cause us to be found guilty under the perfect law of God. But Christ has set us free from the penalty of the law and given us the gift of the spirit so that we can be free to live in the way he created. humans to live, to serve one another humbly, to love our neighbor as ourselves. And as Paul tells us in verse 22, to live lives that produce the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Doing these things doesn't earn us a place of righteousness before God. Note having faith in Christ Jesus and His power to save us from our brokenness enables us through the spirit to live a life that is full of these things,

because that's the kind of life we were created to live. See, apart from Christ, we have no hope to be these things. Our flesh pulls us towards slavery to our sin. Paul tells us in verse 19 that the acts of the flesh, sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, hatred, jealousy, drunkenness, discord, and so many more, keep us from the kingdom of God. Not because we have to be good to work to earn our salvation, but because the kingdom of God is full of his spirit. It is full of goodness. It has no place for those things. We are set free not to indulge our flesh, but to live in the freedom of the spirit. Versus 24 and 25 tell us this. Those who belong to Christ Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit. Our flesh, our passions and desires that are contrary to the way God created us to live must be put to death. They are at odds with the spirit, at odds with the way God created humanity to flourish. If we say that we have put our faith in Jesus Christ, that we have a confident hope to one day stand before the throne of God, and be counted as righteous, that one day we will live in His kingdom for all of eternity, then our lives will be marked by the Spirit and not the flesh.

Not because we're trying to earn our place in the kingdom of God, but because it is what we desire most. We will humbly serve those around us because our God, Jesus, humbled himself to become a man, to serve His creation, and to die. We love our neighbor as ourselves because God loved us, first because Jesus spent his life caring for his neighbors and sacrificing his own comfort to fulfill their needs. We have joy in life because we know that no matter our circumstances, no matter what is happening, we have access to the king of kings and he has made a way for us to live with him forever. We have peace, gentleness, and self-control because we follow a God who turned the other cheek, who knew that winning an argument was not always the best way to love those around him. Our security

is in the work of Christ alone. We love the people around us because we know that they are beloved children of God, created in his image, made for more than what this world has to offer. Through the love we show, we pray that they might too see the goodness of God. See, living in the spirit, living by our confident hope and faith in Jesus Christ, will produce these fruits in our life. Jesus has set us free for freedom. Live into that freedom today. Live in step with a spirit. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help encourage you in the middle of the work week and bring you deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.