FREEDOM IN CHRIST: LIVING FREE

Sermon Notes, July 3, 2016

Rev. Garry McGlinchy

Pastor Garry continued his freedom sermon series with “Freedom in Christ: Living Free.”  The scripture basis was Galatians 5: 13-26.  Verse 13 says “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.”  How do we live free?  By the way we serve others, and by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We live free in the way we serve others. (v. 13-15)  Paul does a great job distinguishing between freedom to sin and freedom to serve.  Freedom to sin is no freedom at all!  In fact, sin enslaves us; it chains us to Satan and to our own sinful nature.  As followers of Christ we should not be slaves to sin—we should be in the habit of turning over our sin to God as soon as it is revealed to us.  Because we have true freedom in Christ we are free to do right and glorify God through loving service to others.  When a believer loses the motivation to love they often become critical of others.   We stop looking for good in people and see only the faults of everyone around us.  Jesus gave us two commands: Love God, and love each other. (Matthew 22:37-40)  Don’t think that just loving God will do it.  Or that just helping our neighbor will; we need to do both!  Everything we do should be done out of love—not gossip, not retaliation.  One of the best ways to show the love of Christ is through our loving service to those around us.

We live free by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (v. 16-18)  To get into the habit of serving all with love, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us.  This involves active listening, and the readiness to obey His word.  We need the sensitivity to discern between our own selfish desires and the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  We need to live every day controlled and guided by the  Holy Spirit; then we will have the confidence of knowing that the WORDS of Christ will be on our hearts, the LOVE of Christ will drive our actions, and the POWER of Christ will control our selfish desires.

If we allow the Holy Spirit to truly guide us we will be transformed from a life enslaved by our sinful nature into a life producing spiritual fruit.  It is through the Holy Spirit that the character of Christ is produced in us.  We call this the Fruit of the Spirit. (v. 22-23)  They are the by-products of Christ’s authority in our lives; we cannot obtain these fruit without His help.  If we want the Fruit of the Spirit to grow in us we must join our lives with His. (John 15: 4 & 5)  We must move from the formalities of Christianity—simply knowing who God is.  We must LOVE Him, REMEMBER Him, and INVITE Him.  This will lead us to fulfill all the intended purposes of Gods Law: to Love God and to Love others.

In order to truly accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior and to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we must relinquish all of our sins to Him—for good! The obvious sins and the subtle “under-the-radar” sins.  For some this happens instantaneously; others take longer to truly relinquish our sins over to God.  Just because we give all of our sins over to God does not mean that we won’t see traces of those sins throughout our lives.  We still have the capacity to sin, but with the power of the Holy Spirit, we don’t have to fall back into the slavery of our sins.  We need to daily draw on the power of the Holy Spirit in order to maintain the freedom we have in Christ.  We need the Holy Spirit to live the life we are called to.