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Free to Serve: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

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  You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast First
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  Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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  On our podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
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  to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
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  what God is doing in US and in our community.
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  The sermon you're about to listen to comes from our summer
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  2025 sermon series, Life together.
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  In this series, we're. Looking at what the New
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  Testament has to. Say about how we live together
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  in Christian community. You can find more information
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  about our church at fumccolleagueswith.org.
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  Thanks for listening this. Morning Scripture personal
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  favorite comes from Galatians chapter 5 starting verse 13.
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  For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and
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  sisters. But don't use your freedom to
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  satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to
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  serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed
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  up in this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself.
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  But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch
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  out. Beware of destroying one
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  another. So I say, let the Holy Spirit
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  guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what
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  your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do
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  evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants.
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  And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what
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  the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly
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  fighting each other. So you are not free to carry out
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  your good intentions, but when you are directed by the Spirit,
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  you are not under obligation to the Law of Moses.
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  When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results
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  are very clear. Sexual immorality, impurity,
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  lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling,
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  jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension,
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  division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties and other sins like
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  these. Let me tell you again as I have
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  before, that anyone living the sort of life will not inherit
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  the Kingdom of God, but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of
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  fruit in our lives. Lovejoy, peace, patience,
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  kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
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  self-control. There is no law against these
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  things. Those who belong to Christ Jesus
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  have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature
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  to His cross and crucified them there.
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  Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the
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  spirits leading in every part of our lives.
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  Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be
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  jealous of one another. This is the Word of God for the
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  people of God. Thanks be to God.
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  Well, I've read a quick story this week that got me thinking.
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  And in this story, there were two chefs, 2 chefs, working in
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  the kitchen of a restaurant one night.
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  And late in the evening, as they were approaching the end of the
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  dinner service, both of the chefs went to fetch an orange
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  for the dish that they were preparing.
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  As they arrived in the area where the produce and stuff was
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  being stored, they realized they were both going for the very
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  last orange in the kitchen, right?
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  So they they began to argue over who should get the last Argent.
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  Who deserved to have the last Argent?
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  They declared that that their dish would be ruined if they
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  didn't have that orange. Their customers would be
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  disappointed that it would look bad for the restaurant.
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  And after going on like this for for quite some time, they they
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  realized that they had to get on with their cooking.
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  So they decided to cut the orange in half, neither of them
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  getting what they really wanted or needed, which was a whole
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  orange. The problem was that both of
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  these chefs were insistent on their own perspective, right?
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  They they could only see the situation as one in which there
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  was inevitably a winner and a loser, right?
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  Although they eventually reached a point where where they agreed
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  to some kind of a compromise, it wasn't a compromise in which
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  both parties won. Neither of them got what they
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  really wanted and in the end, everyone lost, right?
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  Both of the chefs who needed a whole orange for their recipe.
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  The customers who ordered the dishes but knew nothing of the
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  sudden orange shortage in the kitchen, however.
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  However, if these two chefs had been willing to get even just a
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  little bit curious, if they had been open to shifting their own
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  perspective even slightly in order to see things from the
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  others vantage point, they these chefs, they would have quickly
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  realized that while one chef needed the zester, the peel of a
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  whole orange to flavour a cake, the other chef needed the the
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  juice of 1 orange in order to make a sauce.
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  But because they stubbornly insisted on on only seeing
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  things their own way, they both lost out when a solution existed
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  that would have allowed both of them to succeed in the
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  evangelical wing of the church. And, and let me just pause there
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  for a moment, because I think if you watch the news or read the
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  newspapers or see things online, I think evangelical has become
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  something of a negative word in our day and age, right, due to
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  its association with a politically minded religious
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  right. But historically, the word
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  evangelical had nothing to do with politics, right?
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  In the 1970s, a British theologian and history historian
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  by the name of DW Bebington, he defined evangelicalism by
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  referencing 4 central commitments #1A high view of the
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  authority of Scripture. Evangelicals hold a high view of
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  the authority of Scripture. Second, an understanding of the
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  centrality of Jesus's death and resurrection for human
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  atonement. A belief #3A belief that people
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  need to make a conscious turn away from their old life and a
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  turn to Jesus. And finally, an insistence that
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  faith in Jesus is actively expressed.
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  It's actively lived out in efforts towards evangelism and
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  missions. Right.
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  Those are the four things. Nothing to do with with politics
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  on either side of the aisle. And and we should be careful not
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  to give up on words that have a profound meaning but have been
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  Co opted into other narratives. So it's still OK to to be
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  evangelical, right, Though that's what we mean when we say
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  evangelical. Anyway, in the evangelical wing
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  of the church, we've tended to hold one position where I think
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  we would benefit from a shift in perspective like those two
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  chefs. So here is that position that we
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  hold when we talk about freedom and the freedom that we have in
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  Christ. We tend to be focused on what
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  we've been set free from, right? We emphasize the way that Jesus
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  has set us free from the consequences of sin through
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  taking our place, receiving the punishment that we deserve.
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  We emphasize the way that Jesus set us free from the wages of
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  sin, which is death, right along with an eternal future in hell.
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  That's where we tend to focus and it's not wrong.
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  It's definitely true there. There are clear themes all
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  through the library of Scripture that talk about that, like the
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  the Exodus, which was in and of it's a deliverance from slavery
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  and oppression, right? It's a major motif that defines
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  much of the story of scripture. Or take even the the idea of
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  exile and return. What we're freed from is a key
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  part of that message, but it doesn't go far enough, right?
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  We, we need to know what we've been freed from, but we also
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  need to know what we've been freed for, right?
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  Not just what we've been freed from, but what we've been freed
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  for. We, we need a perspective shift
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  that to see. We need a perspective shift to
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  see that we've been freed from all of those things, but we've
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  also been set free for some things.
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  As Paul wrote a little earlier in Galatians Chapter 5, he said
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  it is for freedom that Christ set you free.
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  Christ has set us free so that we can live for him, so we can
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  walk in fellowship and union with him and and to represent
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  his character to the world, pointing people to Jesus.
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  So I want to take a look this morning at the teaching text
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  that Jeremy just read for us. And I want to look at how Paul
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  describes this shift, how he works it out and, and what it
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  means for us today as we seek to be a church that does life
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  together, right? We do life together.
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  Paul's been writing throughout the book of Galatians, right?
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  We're picking up here in chapter 5, verse 13.
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  That means there's a whole lot that's come before where we are
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  right now. But he's been writing throughout
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  the book of Galatians about how because of what God had done
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  through Jesus's death and his resurrection, it was no longer
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  necessary to become part of the Jewish faith in order to follow
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  Jesus, right? You see, there were, there were
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  those who had come to believe in Jesus who came from a Jewish
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  faith, right? That's what we see all through
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  the Gospels is people coming to follow Jesus from within the
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  Jewish faith primarily. And those people who did they,
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  they saw a strong line of continuity between what God was
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  doing through the Jewish people, right?
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  We just have to read the Old Testament to see that
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  continuity, though, between what God was doing there and what God
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  was doing in and through Jesus, who they saw as the Jewish
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  Messiah, right? The anointed one who was going
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  to come and set them free. So, so these Jewish believers,
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  they were insisting that everyone who came to faith in
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  Jesus also had to become a Jew, right?
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  They had to be circumcised and they had to follow the dietary
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  laws and the the ceremonial laws and all these things.
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  However, Paul in the early church quickly realized and
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  began to teach that that because Jesus's sacrifice fulfilled the
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  requirements of the Old Testament law, it was no longer
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  necessary for Gentiles to convert to Judaism in order to
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  be able to follow Jesus, to be part of the church.
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  Right? And so much of Galatians is
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  about that new reality, the freedom that we have as
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  believers in Christ from our old ways of living, but also from
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  that old law and trying to earn God's approval through it.
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  But Paul also wanted to warn the church that that that freedom
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  that we've been given, that that freedom we experience because
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  we're in Christ. We can't abuse that freedom and
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  the grace we've received, right? So picking up here in verse 13,
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  that's exactly what Paul is talking about.
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  He says we've been called to freedom, but that doesn't mean
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  that we're now just free to live however we want to live just
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  because we've been forgiven, right?
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  Living in our freedom in Christ means that our freedom then
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  takes on the character of Christ, which is we see all
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  through the Gospels is a sacrificial love, right?
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  It's it's a care and concern. It's a love that's willing to
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  stoop and serve, love that'll wash feet even.
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  This, Paul says, is what it truly means to love your
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  neighbor, which is what God had commanded his people to do back
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  in the Mosaic Law. But it's also the second-half of
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  what Jesus says. It's the most important
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  commandment, right? He told him to love the Lord
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  your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love
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  your neighbor as yourself. So as Christians, we are free
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  from all those details of the law, but we're not free from the
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  spirit of the law, right? God gave the the believers in
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  the Old Testament all those laws to help them see how they were
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  called to live what God wanted for them.
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  We're not free from that reality, even if we're free from
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  the details. We can't love our neighbors as
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  ourselves, Paul says, if we're constantly tearing them down
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  because love builds up. And then Paul moves into a
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  discussion of the division right between living according to our
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  sinful nature, which we all inherit from our first parents,
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  whose disobedience welcomes sin into the world and and corrupted
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  the good that God had created in US.
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  And in contrast, our lives, when we follow that sinful nature
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  with what our lives are are supposed to look like when we
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  follow the Spirit of God, Paul describes it as a battle, right,
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  where where these two forces are warring within us for control.
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  And then this is where the distinction between what we've
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  been freed from and what we've been freed for really gets
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  worked out. Paul describes our our lives
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  before Jesus, right? Lives lived to please the
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  desires of our sinful natures. And he uses some pretty strong
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  language, right? Those lives, he said, look like,
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  and this isn't necessarily everyone, it's not a
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  one-size-fits-all, but you can probably find yourself somewhere
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  in here. He said those lives look like
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  sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry,
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  sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger,
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  selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness,
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  wild parties and other sins like these.
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  Any questions? Did he leave anything out?
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  Well, just in case he did, note that he said.
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  And other sins like these. So even if yours isn't in there,
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  it still counts, right? This is a list of examples, not
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  an exhaustive list, but the gospel.
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  But the gospel. The good news is that we've been
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  set free from all of that because Jesus has redeemed us,
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  right? He's bought us back.
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  We're no longer do We have to live as slaves to sin because
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  sin is no longer our master that we must obey.
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  Jesus can set us free, not just from the consequences or the
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  punishment of our sins on the cross.
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  And then Jesus is rising again. He broke the power of sin in our
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  lives, right? It's it's no longer automatic
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  that we will continue to live according to this old way of
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  life. Indeed, if we follow Jesus, if
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  we say we follow Jesus, we cannot continue to live in those
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  ways, right? And in line with with this
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  freedom from these things. Paul then begins to describe
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  what we are now free for. He talks about the fruit that
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  the Spirit produces in our lives, this new way of living
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  that's possible for us because Jesus died and rose for us, and
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  the Spirit now dwells in each of us and in us together
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  corporately. It looks like love and joy and
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  peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness
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  and gentleness and self-control. I want to note here when we talk
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  about the fruit of the Spirit, this isn't a nice tray of cut
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  fruit, right, Where you can pick and choose those things that you
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  like. Oh, strawberries, yes.
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  Mango, yes, honeydew, pass, right?
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  Paul isn't describing the fruits plural of the Spirit, as if
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  they're distinct, separate kinds of fruit.
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  Paul's describing what the the He's describing the kind of
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  nature that the Holy Spirit produces in our lives as we
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  follow him and as we learn to yield more and more of ourselves
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  and the control of our lives to him.
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  He wants to produce all of that in US.
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  If we belong to Christ, we can no longer be controlled by the
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  attitudes and behaviors that marked our sinful nature.
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  Right. And this is where it gets tricky
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  because didn't Paul just say a couple verses ago that the
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  sinful nature's at war with the Holy Spirit of God within us and
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  and they're constantly fighting? Well, yeah, he did.
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  He did. So we have to acknowledge that,
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  but he also, he goes on to develop that idea and he says
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  that if we belong to Jesus, that broken, fallen, sinful nature
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  that's been nailed to the cross with Christ, with Jesus, it's
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  been put to death. So now we can live according to
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  the Spirit. We've been freed from the power
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  of sin in our lives, and we've been freed for the Spirit to
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  lead us and guide us. Don't miss this, friends.
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  The Spirit of God in you is more powerful than your sinful
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  nature. Did you hear that?
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  The Spirit of God within you is more powerful than your sinful
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  nature, your fallenness, and your brokenness.
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  Don't get the final word. You can live in the power of the
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  Holy Spirit, the power that can form you into a person of
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  Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
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  faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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  Right? But you've got to choose.
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  You've, you've got to choose. You've got to surrender to the
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  leading of the Spirit in your life.
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  You've got to submit to the lordship of Jesus as the master
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  of your life. You've got to choose to follow
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  the way of Jesus. We don't just come and ask for
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  forgiveness and then keep go on living our lives.
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  That's not how it works. You've got to choose to turn
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  away from your old life. You've got to choose to crucify,
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  to to nail to the cross those desires within you that are
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  contrary to God's design and desire for you, for us.
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  You've got to got to let God clear out all of that from
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  within you to make space for Him to produce fruit in your lives.
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  You've got to choose. It's, it's wild to think about,
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  but God's not going to force you.
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  He invites you, He makes it possible for you, but he's not
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  going to force you to cooperate with his grace.
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  He's not going to force you to to cooperate with the work he
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  wants to do within your heart and your life.
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  But the invitation's there, the power is there, the presence is
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  there, and you can't say you follow Jesus and continue to
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  indulge in those sinful desires within you.
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  Doesn't mean you're not going to be tempted anymore.
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  Doesn't mean you're not going to continue to struggle with some
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  things. It doesn't mean that you're no
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  longer able to sin, but it means that it's possible to not give
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  in when you're tempted. It's possible to experience
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  victory in your life. It's possible to live a life
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  empowered by the Holy Spirit that pleases and honors God.
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  It's possible for God to form his character and His nature in
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  you because you're no longer a slave to sin.
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  You've been set free to learn to love, to learn to serve, to
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  learn to give yourself away just like Jesus did for you.
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  This might be new to you. You might have grown up in a
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  church that never taught you that, or that you might have
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  grown up in a church that taught you that you can only ever be a
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  Sinner who's been saved by grace, which is true, but it's
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  only half the gospel, right? You you might have met Jesus
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  somewhere along the way and come to believe that the best you can
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  hope for is this back and forth struggle with the sin that had
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  this grip on you. But at least we've got a God who
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  who will forgive us as long as we can fast, right?
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  And again, that's not wrong, but it's not the fullness of the
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  gospel. So this morning he might be
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  speaking to your heart about some things.
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  You might need to come and meet with Jesus this morning, either
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  for the first time or or maybe for some multiple time.
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  You might need to ask Jesus to help you crucify those passions
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  and desires of the sinful nature, to put them to death so
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  that you can live in the freedom for which Christ has set you
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  free, a freedom to live empowered and LED by the Holy
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  Spirit. You might need to come and and
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  surrender yourselves to Jesus, submit to his leadership, his
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  lordship in your life, because you know you've been forgiven.
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  But you're tired of trying to live with a foot in each canoe,
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  right? What happens when you live with
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  a foot in each canoe? You end up wet.
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  Jesus told us that we can't serve 2 masters, and he offers
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  you the choice of who you'll serve.
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  Will you serve your old life, your sinful nature, the ways of
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  this world? Or will you choose life in
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  Christ? That's the offer.
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  He wants to give you life. That is truly life.
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  I'm going to pray. We're going to close the
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  service. And wherever you are with all of
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  this, you're invited to encounter Jesus this morning, to
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  take up His offer for life. That is truly life.
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  Let me pray for us, Jesus. We come to you today.
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  This morning. We're grateful that you were
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  willing to come and sacrifice yourself so that we could be
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  forgiven, so we could be set free from the sin and death to
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  which we were held in bondage. God, thank you for setting us
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  free from those things. But also thank you, God, for
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  setting us free for a life with you, a life that looks like you,
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  a life in this world empowered by your spirit, a life of love
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  and joy and peace and all those other things.
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  God, we want you to form that fruit in us.
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  We want you to form that kind of life in us.
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  We want to truly live. We don't want to just go about
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  our lives. And in this constant tension of
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  of a foot in each canoe, wanting to serve Jesus, continuing to
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  struggle with these sins that have a grip on us, you've come
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  so that we could have abundant life.
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  Would you help us? Would you help us put those
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  things to death in our own lives?
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  You've already taken them upon you on the cross.
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  Would you help us appropriate that in our own lives?
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  Would you apply that reality to us?
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  Would you help us live in freedom?
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  We give you ourselves this morning.
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  Would you come and speak to us? Jesus, we pray this in your name
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  and for your sake. Amen.