(00:00) Thanks Sean it may be a new series but we're still in the same book as we've been for the last couple of months uh Paul wrote a letter to a group of Christians that lived in a place called Galatia or a region called Galatia which is modern-day turkey and if you could sum the whole of that letter to those people it would be summed up in one word freedom Freedom now the problem is a Scotsman when you hear the word Freedom thanks to Mel Gibson you only think of one thing freedom but it's not that sort of
(00:35) Freedom that we're talking about today you see Jesus had come into these people's lives but some people from outside want to enforce a whole load of rules and regulations and laws on to these people if you were a Christian Jesus is okay but you needed all these other rules that you had to follow that made a difference in your life and uh Paul is saying this is not true we live in a place where we follow Jesus we have got Grace in our life the Christian life is not about following rules and regulations but God's Grace has come
(01:12) into our lives we've been set free from all that stuff and we can live in a different way and he moves through to Galatians and we call it chapter five it wouldn't have been that in the original but chapter 5 life and then he starts to move on to speaking to his listeners to say how they should live in the middle of this Freedom with this Freedom that they had been granted or given how should we live in with that freedom in our lives and we've called it Supernatural living now I don't know

(01:48) what comes to your mind when you think of the Bible and church and Supernatural living maybe you think of all the Miracles that Jesus did yes maybe you think about was a prophecy healing Miracles all the really cool stuff that goes on yes well I don't believe that that is Supernatural living I believe that they are gifts of the holy spirit that come through us to other people so it's not about living it's been a conduit for the gift that somebody else needs yes so God using you in the gifts of the Spirit is not a mark
(02:28) of Christ's character and spiritual life on your on your whole life and character and but when I read the fruits of the spirit or the fruit of the spirit that I read of when that Paul's talking to about the Galatians I see that as a way of life of character that's something that we live out every single day and I thought why think why that's so important and to have spiritual fuelled development of christ-like character in our lives is an important thing yes and so we're going to talk a little bit
(03:04) over this next few weeks about what that Spirit-filled character looks like I'm going to read first of all in Galatians 5 13. it says for you were called to Freedom siblings or brothers and sisters don't use the freedom as an opportunity for the flesh like that we did a whole series on that a little while ago the flesh is that thing inside you that what's in its own way and hasn't been submitted fully to God yet and uh tempts us to be something slightly different so we've got this freedom
(03:44) but he said don't use this Freedom as an opportunity just to live for yourself but through love serve one another now that's interesting to me because he's telling these people that they are free we've been given freedom from all this stuff and only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for yourself but through love serve one another now this is interesting the word served there that's translated serve in the Greek word it is 'Doulos' and that's often translated slave so can you see the sort of
(04:30) thing that Paul was trying to do here he's saying you've got freedom but you've got to become a slave it's bizarre to me freedom become a slave well who would who would want to become a slave who's got freedom any hands up there but the point where you become a slave is through love you see gentlemen when you met that young girl that was going to become your wife you fell in love with her yes and so you will do anything she wants or make it maybe not maybe not but if she just nags you all
(05:15) the time you feel like a slave yes but when you're serving out of love it gives you fulfilment yes and you see where so that's how we become a slave so through that love working within us we're not going to use this freedom to help ourselves and please ourselves but we're going to use this freedom to become a slave to serve other people through love for one another the whole law is filled up in this one word here's how you know that Paul was a preacher because he says the whole law is filled up in one word and
(05:55) then he uses seven words instead of one word you shall love your neighbour as yourself and Jeme in a few minutes is going to talk about that particular verse I'll say no more on that but if you bite and devour one another watch out that you are not consumed by one another so he's saying use this whole freedom of your God to serve each other it goes on to say I I say walk around in the spirit and you will not complete the fleshes or your own sinful desires walk around in the spirit you know if the holy spirit is in you
(06:40) I can trust if you're walking around in the hospital I can trust the Holy Spirit to speak to you and change your life if I don't believe the holy spirit is in you then I try I would have to try and control you and tell you what to do that's called legalism so when all the rules come from the outside we're and you somebody's trying to tell you how to live all the time it's because they don't believe the holy spirit is in you because of the holy spirit is in you he's going to do a far better job than I
(07:10) will ever do so my role as a pastor is not to condemn or make you feel condemned or feel worthless because we're not quite living up to the place where we think we could live up to or you're not living to that rule or the next rule my role is to help you to walk around in the spirit and to trust the spirit to work in your life to change you from the inside out for the flesh desires are against the spirit's desire and the spirit against the flesh these things oppose one another you know here's the
(07:42) battle going on in their life sometimes isn't it is ourselves are we going to live for ourselves we're going to live for God you ever feel in that place where you feel like there's a battle going on so these things oppose one another whether what so whatever you want these things you don't do Paul says that in another part of scripture as well he says us things I want to do and I don't end up doing them and there's other things I don't want to do and I end up you ever felt like that
(08:13) I don't want to go mad at the kids today I don't want to go mad and you're like you're over breakfast and you're like steaming already and that battle is going on within us and Paul recognises it and we shouldn't ignore it or we shouldn't feel condemned because it's there but we can walk around in the spirit and uh in the scripture there you'll find and I haven't got time to read it all Galatians 5 you'll find a list of the works of the flesh sexual immorality fits of anger all the
(08:49) different things and it's not a complete list of the works of the flesh okay and but as you look at the list you will find there'll be some things that you think oh that's a bit in my life and there'll be other things you think oh I'm not bothered by that and you know when we are not bothered by a sin sometimes we can be very Con condemnatory on people who are bothered by that sin but there's other sins that are not as bad that we're bothered by but they're not quite as bad as them other ones
(09:23) and we can sort of put up with them in our lives I was reading through this list this week in a different translation and one of the things that popped out to me was rivalries that's a work of the flesh to be right and rival with somebody else but another translated translation put it status seeking to be status-seeking but you know I mean I don't know if you're like me but I like to have a better status sometimes you know I mean I got my bronze status through ba bronze anyway and you
(09:56) know but when when I  used to work with Mark to do a concert up in Alton Towers every year and we had a backstage area it wasn't in any grade it was just a big Marquee but in there there was some food and you know I mean I've got no friends nobody ever rings me on the phone it just never happens and suddenly because I was in control of the VIP passes for the backstage area leading up to the event my phone was ringing off the hook hello Billy I haven't seen you for a while it's good to see you oh by the way could I have a
(10:28) VIP pass and there was something about me that also liked the status of being able to say no I was in control so I had so we're all troubled by some of these things that we see there and there's a battle going on but the thing that the spirit develops in us is called fruit of love Joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness or loyalty gentleness self-control there's no such thing there's no law against these things you know the one thing I want to tell you is that these are not just natural giftings
(11:14) I mean some of you are better than others at being patient yeah yes I mean my wife is so patient that's probably because I've been in MK for a long time I am totally impatient you know that little saying was it uh something where British Carrick Keep Calm and Carry On you're trying to tell a Scotsman to keep calm I mean it just doesn't work and so these are not natural giftings these are these are something that God is building into our lives that supersede any natural gifting they're gradual they grow fruit grows over time
(11:56) yes we're always looking for a shortcut I mean Christians we're addicted to events and being Zapped by the Holy Spirit suddenly we're going to be different than we were yesterday we're looking for deliverance we're looking for breakthrough it's all words to say I don't I don't want to be here I want to be there but I don't want to go through the process of being here to get to there I just want God to do it for me now he can do it but I also believe he wants to take us through a process of changing this and
(12:29) changing our character and working with us and creating that character within us it's a gradual thing but it's inevitable when the Holy Spirit is working within you it's inevitable that this fruit will grow it won't just disappear it happens internally it's not pushed in from the outside and I believe that God is not growing in ourselves one fruit he's growing all the fruit in all the lives all the time how does he do that what is our part in this well I believe that Paul gives us so many great examples in a few verses
(13:06) of what our role in seeing the spirit grow fruit in our lives verse 16 and be up behind me walking in the spirit being led by the spirit if we live in the spirit keep in step with the spirit you get you get the gist to be with the spirit it's not going off by ourselves trying to be more patient and failing it's saying God I need you in my life and I'm going to walk you remember watching the Queen's funeral and the pool in the carriage and all them sailors or whatever they were and they're walking down the street
(13:42) and the whole thing is going like you remember okay maybe just me but the whole thing was like oh in time like hundreds and hundreds of people walking in step and I believe that that's what though we  need to do with the holy spirit so if we're out of step with the Holy Spirit we look fix it like start and look where he's going and be led by the spirit it's not about what we can do ourselves it's what the Holy Spirit does within us and he will grow as we submit ourselves to him and as we are walking by the
(14:15) spirit led by the spirit live by the spirit keep in step with the spirit we will bear the Fruit of the Spirit as I come towards a close sometimes the chapter divisions in the Bible that we've got nowadays aren't helpful because that you stop reading the chapter five and you read chapter six as though it's separate but in the original it was all just one letter and so I believe that chapter six is talking so much about chapter five and Paul goes on to say he says and chapter 6 verse 7 and 8. he says Hey when you're
(14:58) thinking about all this stuff and the fruit of the spirit being grown up in your life don't be deceived God is Not mocked for whatever one sows he will also reap and the one who sows to his own flesh and his own desires and what he wants himself will reap corruption but the one who sows to the spirit being led by the spirit Walking In step with his spirit being led by the spirit the one who sows there will from the spirit reap eternal life so the spirit wants to do an incredible walk in your life but it's up to you where you sow and you
(15:42) put your time and your effort and your opportunity for you for God to walk in your life it depends where you sow your life you've got a choice as to what you can do and you know the law of the farm is something that I believe is about growing fruit in your life it's not the law of the crime I've got two laws in my life one of them is the law of the cram and the other one is the law of the farm you see when I was at school in college I wanted to pass exams I thought the object of being in education was to pass
(16:21) exams I got it wrong it was to learn you with me and so all the time that I was given for private study when I was a Bible College every evening from six o'clock to nine o'clock was Private study this opportunity to get the Bible out read God's word study think about what the lecturers had said and prepare and study so that you were learning for future life well I missed the point and when we're supposed to be doing private study I was hanging out with my mates not doing private study but then what
(16:52) happened the exam came around anybody ever been here the exams here and I haven't really studied enough so the night before I get all the books out and I spent till five o'clock in the morning reading everything I could cramming it all into my head so the exam started at nine o'clock I would put it all done in paper and pass the by the skin of my teeth but I forgot it all I hadn't learned a thing I had passed the exam but I hadn't learned a thing That's the Law of the Cram. The law of
(17:24) the farm is you tend the ground you sow some seed in the right place you water it you tend it you get the weeds out you wait God works and fruit is grown in our lives that's what we're about not the cram not passing an exam not ticking a box but letting the fruit of God's spirit grow in our life amen I'm gonna now ask Jeme to come and share please give her a warm welcome that was great to see you give her some encouragement thank you Jeme