Introduction

Freedom in Christ stands at the heart of Revd. Mark Fletcher’s exploration of Galatians 5:13-25, as he challenges both worldly notions of unrestricted liberty and religious legalism. Through the parable of the prodigal son and personal reflection, he reveals how true freedom comes not from indulgence or rule-keeping, but from walking in step with the Spirit, bearing fruit that brings life and blessing to others.

What does freedom mean to you? I think we’re all different, but for me it is undoubtedly an open road, an undiscovered country, a lack of demands on me and the opportunity to do what I want, and it’s almost a spiritual thing. It’s something that makes my soul sing. It is that sense that anything is possible, that there are no limits, and I think that kind of freedom is precious.

I think it’s hardwired into us. But it may also be the defining virtue of the modern world. Now, Christianity is often painted as the opposite of freedom. It is seen as something oppressive, something that holds us back that we need to liberate ourselves from. How strange it is then—did you hear in our reading—that in this epistle to the Galatians, probably the earliest Christian text that we have from about 48 AD, that Paul the Apostle should say, “Brothers and sisters, you were called to be free.”

Isn’t that interesting? Christianity, it seems, is actually about freedom. The Bible seems to suggest that we are hardwired for it. We are created for it. From the very beginning, God made us for freedom and respects our freedoms in astonishing ways, even when we make the wrong choices. The problem is not that God wants to limit our freedom, but that the ways that we’ve chosen, the misuse of our freedom, has mired and enslaved us. And in Christ, he has set about liberating us from a mess of our own making. Verse one of Galatians chapter five says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

Do you remember the story of the prodigal son? Almost certainly the best known of Jesus’ stories. And it is the story of a young man who chose freedom from his home and his father’s house and his responsibilities. And he set off to find himself, and he took his inheritance with him. And at first, I think it must have been amazing. It must have felt like real freedom.

But you know how the story ends up. Ultimately he finds himself impoverished, probably addicted, in a mess of his own making and alone. His choices led him to disaster. And I think it’s fair to say that the story of the prodigal son is in many ways a metaphor for the human race. That is our story. And so my question this evening is: what does real freedom look like?

What does the freedom that the Bible is talking about look like? How do we find it? How do we get there? I think if there’s a film which has had more influence on me than anything else, it was the 1977 release of a hugely influential movie called Star Wars. You may have heard of it. And in it, there’s a wise old man called Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he gives advice to the young Jedi, Luke Skywalker. And he says, “You know what? Stop thinking about it. Trust your feelings.” That’s what he says. That’s how he is supposed to become a Jedi. Trust your feelings. And as I’ve got older, I am less sure that is actually great advice.

I am not sure that our feelings actually are as trustworthy a guide as we sometimes think that they are. Not for a moment saying that they’re not important. They are very important, but they’re a little bit like a child. They should not be deciding what you have for dinner every day. I think part of the problem that we have is a kind of naivety about the human condition.

We are far more complex than we realize, and our inclinations are not always good. There’s a sort of conflict within us. And doing what you feel like is really not a very wise way to navigate through life. Paul puts it this way in verse 17: “The flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.” Do you see, there is that conflict within us, and we need to navigate that wisely. We need to take it seriously.

An illustration we’ve used before is that to be human is to be like a shopping trolley with a wonky wheel. That if you leave it to its own devices, it will not run in a straight line. It will almost certainly crash into the supermarket shelves. To be given freedom is to be given a great responsibility. Verse 13, Paul writes, “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge the sinful nature.”

As with the prodigal, there are choices that we make which have the appearance of freedom, but ultimately enslave us. Choices which might feel free at the outset, but in time turn us in on ourselves and snare us in destructive behavior. The consequences of the choice to indulge ourself, to serve only ourself, is that we become more selfish, more isolated, more bitter. And I feel like much of this is being played out in our world right now. You don’t need to look very far to see that happening.

Paul is fairly unflinching in his description of the consequence of a world turning its own way, turning its back on God. He says, verse 19, “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like.”

Now, much of that is obvious, but I’d just like to pick up on a few of the less obvious ones of those. Take envy, for example. I feel like so much of our world, so much of what we aspire to in life, in fact, so much of our economy is actually based on envy. It’s a desire to keep up with what others have, of wanting more and more and never really being satisfied with what you have. And that can very easily become a destructive pattern of never having enough, of over-consumption, of waste, of never being satisfied and of being jealous of other people.

Or another example, take factions. Factions is very specifically allowing ourselves to be polarized, to be divided and tricked into hating others for someone else’s, probably political, gain. Or rage, fits of rage. I sometimes worry that the force which dominates our politics in the Western world is a barely suppressed rage and anger that eats us up and alienates us from each other. It is toxic and addictive. These things are destructive. Somebody once said, “We are what we repeatedly do.”

And if these are the things which mark our lives, these are the people that we become. There is a better way. But what that doesn’t necessarily mean is stricter rules and a clearer morality. There seems to be one of those kind of knee-jerk reactions happening in society at the moment. A sort of a desire to return to more traditional values, and that’s probably better than the first thing.

But I think that Jesus would warn against it. There’s always a real danger in society that the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. And if what we end up swinging back to is judgmentalism, exclusion and self-righteousness, well remember Jesus had even harsher warnings about those sort of people. It becomes a new method of robbing people of their freedom.

What I’m saying is this: Just as Jesus was crucified between two thieves, so there are two thieves which will rob you of your freedom in Christ. One of those is licentiousness and rebellion and doing whatever you want, and it might feel like freedom, but it is not. It will ensnare you. But the other is legalism and rule-keeping. And it might look better, but it is no less likely to rob you and others of your freedom.

No, the best way, the right way is neither of those but is here in verse 25: “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” What we are offered is not rules, it is not rebellion, it is relationship. Remember, just as Jesus called his disciples and said, “Follow me”—literally, walk in my footsteps, see how I live, do what I do, listen to my teaching, travel with me, work alongside me, eat with me—so the Spirit of God, which Jesus has put in our hearts, says the same thing. Live by the Spirit in relationship with God.

You don’t get rules and regulation, you get relationship. It’s about loving God and loving people. I remember years ago I was on one of my road trips. I was somewhere in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and I’d been traveling with friends and they’d gone home and I had a few days to myself. And I had everything that I wanted.

I had the open road. I had freedom. I had no demands on my time and I had lots of new country to explore. And it was a strange experience because I wasn’t really very happy. I was unsettled and it wasn’t working for me in the way that I thought that it should have done. And I wrestled with it for some time, until I eventually picked up my Bible and sat down and did the thing that I normally do when I’m at home at work. And that is to start the day in the presence of God with morning prayer. And it’s transformative because the presence of God, the work of His Spirit in me, His word, all of those things liberate me.

To be able to see the beauty of creation, to enjoy the simple blessings of each day, to be free to simply accept the day as the gift that it is. It was a real milestone moment for me. There was a tendency before that for me to only do my morning prayers when it was work time, and then I was on holiday. And I realized it wasn’t something that I should do just for a duty, but it’s because that’s where freedom was found. That’s where life is found. And I’ve taken that with me ever since.

And I think that choice to keep in step with the Spirit is one which bears fruit. Verse 22: “The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.”

And so that theme of keeping in step with the Spirit, that theme of the fruit of that in our lives is going to be our theme over the coming weeks. I think I’m gonna enjoy reflecting on those different virtues, those different fruits of the Spirit, and what it looks like for us to bear those in our lives.

Let me finish with a little story about two trees. There are two trees. One is high on a mountainside. 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, 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.