Keep in Step with the Spirit: True Freedom - Galatians 5

Commentary

Let me finish with a little story about two trees. There are two trees. One is high on a mountain side. Starkly beautiful, blown and shaped by the wind in the way that it happens. Clinging tenaciously to the rocky soil, but offering scant shelter to any passing birds that come by and bearing very little fruit and that which it bears is small and bitter.

The second tree is in a walled garden. It is sheltered from the winds and placed in the full warmth of the sun. It puts down deep roots into good soil and a gardener comes and prunes it regularly in order to allow it to bear abundant fruit in season which offers and sustains a rich array of life. Now, my question is, which of those trees is free? Isn’t that an interesting question? Which of those trees is free? And I think I am going to be arguing that second tree is actually what freedom looks like. The first tree is the sort of romantic western ideal of freedom. But actually what freedom is the freedom to be what you were created to be.

To live a life which bears good fruit. Which is rich in its relationships, which is a blessing to others. That is what freedom in Christ looks like. The freedom to be what you were created to be. And so I would like to suggest to you that this is the way of life and of freedom. Verse 13 -do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, but rather serve one another in love.

We are made for freedom. It makes our hearts sing but beware of the lazy freedom that leads us down roads that ultimately ensnare us once more and leave us isolated and alone. We need to choose, day by day, how to use our freedom, choosing to keep in step with the spirit, to find our way to the source of life and love and joy. To find our way to God.

The only place where our true freedom is found and walking in the way of liberty, the way of love, the way of Christ. Amen.